This troll would be a lot funnier if the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button for a Google search of the name "Linus" didn't take you DIRECTLY to Linus Torvalds' home page.
Hm. What I THINK they're referring to there is something that was a precursor to the codex, and a lot earlier than Caesar. (Notebooks made by taking a single papyrus sheet and folding it up; basically, something analogous to what you'd get if you took an 11x17 and folded it into eight parts.) Another precursor was the Roman wax board.
The codex - flat book bound on one side with "leaves" - wasn't in use in C. Iulius Caesar's time. It was invented sometime between the 2nd and 4th centuries AD; Caesar as everyone knows died in 44 BCE.
I assume you were trying to post these paragraphs:
For example, the UNIX operating systems contain files called "header" files. Header files are repositories of common definitions and declarations. If a programmer knows that an operating system contains a certain header file, then the programmer can simply refer to the header file and avoid reproducing all of the definitions and declarations. Of course, such a program can only run with an operating system having the proper header files. Therefore, Defendants have included 32V's header files in Net2 as a matter of necessity, to insure that the many programs written for UNIX-like systems will be compatible with Net2.
Another type of overlap identified by Professor Carson is overlap in code instructions. Code instructions embody and implement the programmer's solution to a programming problem ~ a solution that directly determines how well or how poorly the program runs. Professor Carson has found several sections of instructions that BSDI appears to have copied from 32V. Again, BSDI argues that these instructions are widespread and well-documented, and that their structure is substantially dictated by the need to preserve compatibility with other programs (Joint Decl. at 53-61.)
The final type of overlap identified by Professor Carson is "comment" overlap. All computer programs contain short explanatory comments annotating the code in which they are embedded. The function of these comments is simply to inform programmers of the purpose and operation of particular sections of code. Comments have no role whatsoever in software performance.
In summary, Professor Carson has examined the traits shared by Net2, BSD/386, and 32V, and detected a common lineage. Defendants argue that virtually all of these traits reflect publicly available code, copied comments, or overlap dictated by compatibility with industry standards. Professor Carson disagrees, and has allegedly identified at least some overlapping files that are irrelevant to program interfacing. (Carson Reply Aff. at 6(d), 8-15.)
Declines in military power often lag declines in innovation, though. By the time the Ottoman Turks (a later group than the Seljuk Turks) came on the scene in 1289, Saladin was almost 100 years dead, there had been no effective Caliphate since before Saladin, and the cities of Iraq had been devastated by the Mongol invasions. Even so, the Ottomans spread like wildfire until the conquest of Constantinople in 1453; after that their conquests dragged for quite a long time before they were stopped at Vienna in 1683, and repulsed in the 18th century.
As a scientifically active culture, the Islamic world really began to fall behind around the time of the invention of the printing press (which was banned for use with Turkish and Arabic in the Ottoman Empire until 1729). China was damaged by the Mongol invasions, but it was really the Ming isolationism that caused them to fall behind as a scientifically active culture.
300 years ago is 1703. Europe was not a third world country in 1703. Innovation restarted in Europe in the 14th century in Italy. It started to decline in the Muslim world in the 15th century with Turkish hegemony (has nothing to do with the Turks as a culture, but might be related to the Sultanate as a political/social system; see Bernard Lewis). In China, it started to decline with the otherthrow of the Yuan (aka the Mongols) and the rise of the Ming.
Nope. Use of a symbol to represent the mathematical concept of nothing/null goes back thousands of years. Use of decimal places, on the other hand (which is what historians are usually talking about when they speak of the "invention of 0") goes back to the Hindus. See http://www.andrews.edu/~calkins/math/biograph/bioz ero.htm for more details.
Why not just put G5 with bluetooth keys and mouse, airport extreme, and Apple Cinema Display 20 in. monitor; laser pointer, Canon digital camera, iPod, and thumbdrive. Makes the list shorter (if more expensive). The G5s come with a DVD burner, gigabit networking standard.
Form factor, solid construction, ease of use. That extra.6 in. on the back isn't fixed by the.5 inches short. Haven't looked at the Rio's sound quality.
For formats, beyond mp3, one really only will find a use for a few formats:
MP4/AAC (non-drmed version)
AIFF
WAV
and one DRMed format with wide support (AAC DRM or WMA).
I'll give you Ogg Vorbis and FLAC, too, because they're free (and FLAC is lossless).
Myself, I'd rather spend the exra $50 for my iPod and try to get Apple to add Ogg Vorbis and FLAC support than switch to the Rio Karma.
As I said in another subthread, yes, Hemingway before Pynchon; I think (personally) that Pynchon is a better writer than Hemingway (blasphemer that I am), and so am giving Hemingway less credit than he deserves, and Pynchon more credit.
I think PKD's influence really hasn't really been felt *yet*. I don't know whether one can see direct *influence* by PKD on Amis' *Time's Arrow*, because the idea of time running in the reverse direction is an obvious satirical theme. *Despair* was published in I think '66; was *A Scanner Darkly* published in '75, or earlier? When Harris's *Fatherland* came out, noone mentioned MITHT.
The Hollywood fixation probably won't matter until a really solid respectful film is made of one of Dick's masterpieces; right now, PKD's just being mined for story scenarios and more rarely for atmosphere. *Imposter* is too superficial, *Screamers* too cheap (and I'm not talking about the budget); I haven't been able to force myself to watch *Minority Report*, but Cruise is hardly the actor to play a Dickean protagonist. Even *Blade Runner* lacks the trademark PKD neuroticism, though it catches the surrealism; casting Harrison Ford was a little better than Arnold Schwarzaneggar, but until someone casts Kevin Spacey as Garson Poole, Hollywood's PKD will never come close to the character of the original. PKD's characters are never Hollywood heroes.
Not sure about misogynistic. My understanding (from a friend who was a young woman when she met him a few times in a social setting) was that he was rather a skirt-chaser. Of course, the one is not exactly incompatible with the other. I suppose I'd go with chauvinistic.
Good post. I preferred Star Maker to Last and First Men. The opening of Last and First Men reminded also reminded me quite a bit of Wells' The Shape of Things to Come. (I suppose one could argue that Wells was the most influential SF writer of the 20th century, if it weren't for the fact that his most influential SF books (but not his most influential overall books) were written before 1902.
possibly the most influential American writer of the 20th century.
No. The most influential American writer of the 20th century was probably ole Ez (Ezra Pound), another socred believer, and a treasonous bastard, who nevertheless dramatically affected the literature of the US and Europe from 1914 on, influencing Yeats, Eliot, Joyce, Frost, Williams, cummings, and pretty much every writer listed in your common literature anthologies after 1925. Next most influential American? Maybe Pynchon. You may not realize the influence they had on the way you understand books, but they did have a significant influence.
Heinlein was a great pulp SF writer, but his influence on SF, or literature and culture in general, was only slightly greater than Asimov's or Clarke's. Given the "harder" science of Clarke's work, I'd argue that he had more influence on the future scientists and engineers of the world than Heinlein. Rand had more influence on politics (to our undying regret), and Hubbard, well, his influence for the worse is pretty easy to see, isn't it? The person who really dominated SF in the 40s and 50s was John W. Campbell, the editor of Astounding/Analog who developed Asimov, Heinlein, de Camp, van Vogt, and many other famoust SF writers.
The most influential 20th c. SF *writer* might be Capek, who's important for more than just R.U.R. - he was an important figure in pre-WWII Czech (and European) cultural politics. I'd argue that the best SF writers who've gone were Herbert and Dick, with Heinlein and Asimov not that far behind, and that the best who are still around are Lem and Vinge. Heinlein is fun, and has a lot to say, but he has two major weaknesses: he's self-indulgent and repetitive.
Taking the hook: Robert Heinlein was a science fiction writer who wrote a large number of books, most famously Starship Troopers and Stranger in a Strange Land. He was a libertarian who infused his books with political and social theory. His "Future History" stories 1939-1950 ("If This Goes On", "Methuselah's Children," "The Man Who Sold The Moon," etc.) trace the development of American and world culture from the aftermath of the "Crazy Years" (basically the sixties on steroids) through the early interplanetary age to a short-lived totalitarian theocracy and into a an age of world government, near-immortality, and interstellar flight.
The other famous novels (not really in the Future History series) are The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Job.
Heinlein had a good reputation as a guy who tried to help out struggling SF writers (one example: PKD) in trouble.
His book is on the front page of slashdot because SF is one of the core elements of what slashdot considers to be nerdism.
By the way, on social credit: one major proponent of social credit was the poet Ezra Pound, who ended up following that line of thought unfortunately into support for the Mussolini regime, treasonous radio broadcasts during WWII, and a long stay in St. Elizabeth's mental hospital outside DC to avoid a conviction on treason charges. Not the direction Heinlein went in, obviously, but an interesting comparandum.
You missed premise 3, which was that SCO is not a "government" (or to use terms with which you will be more comfortable, a "civil authority") and there is recourse to civil authority available in one's opposition to their actions.
Slashdot Mirror
This troll would be a lot funnier if the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button for a Google search of the name "Linus" didn't take you DIRECTLY to Linus Torvalds' home page.
Hm. What I THINK they're referring to there is something that was a precursor to the codex, and a lot earlier than Caesar. (Notebooks made by taking a single papyrus sheet and folding it up; basically, something analogous to what you'd get if you took an 11x17 and folded it into eight parts.) Another precursor was the Roman wax board.
Anyway, it was witty. I'm just a pedantic jerk.
The codex - flat book bound on one side with "leaves" - wasn't in use in C. Iulius Caesar's time. It was invented sometime between the 2nd and 4th centuries AD; Caesar as everyone knows died in 44 BCE.
Next, they'll be asserting ownership over stdio.h and Hello,World.
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
printf("Hello, Darl\n");
return (0);
}
Hey, did I just violate a SCO license?
I assume you were trying to post these paragraphs:
For example, the UNIX operating systems contain files
called "header" files. Header files are repositories of common
definitions and declarations. If a programmer knows that an
operating system contains a certain header file, then the
programmer can simply refer to the header file and avoid
reproducing all of the definitions and declarations. Of course,
such a program can only run with an operating system having the
proper header files. Therefore, Defendants have included 32V's
header files in Net2 as a matter of necessity, to insure that the
many programs written for UNIX-like systems will be compatible with
Net2.
Another type of overlap identified by Professor Carson is
overlap in code instructions. Code instructions embody and
implement the programmer's solution to a programming problem ~ a
solution that directly determines how well or how poorly the
program runs. Professor Carson has found several sections of
instructions that BSDI appears to have copied from 32V. Again,
BSDI argues that these instructions are widespread and
well-documented, and that their structure is substantially dictated
by the need to preserve compatibility with other programs (Joint
Decl. at 53-61.)
The final type of overlap identified by Professor Carson
is "comment" overlap. All computer programs contain short
explanatory comments annotating the code in which they are
embedded. The function of these comments is simply to inform
programmers of the purpose and operation of particular sections of
code. Comments have no role whatsoever in software performance.
In summary, Professor Carson has examined the traits
shared by Net2, BSD/386, and 32V, and detected a common lineage.
Defendants argue that virtually all of these traits reflect
publicly available code, copied comments, or overlap dictated by
compatibility with industry standards. Professor Carson disagrees,
and has allegedly identified at least some overlapping files that
are irrelevant to program interfacing. (Carson Reply Aff. at
6(d), 8-15.)
A contract is an agreement with enumeration.
I think you meant "remuneration" there.
Nope, 3 BC is the equivalent of -2. You see, the years work like this:
3 BC -2
2 BC -1
1 BC 0
AD 1 +1
AD 2 +2
AD 3 +3
AD 4 +4
Notice, no 0 BC or AD 0 (thus no Panic in the Year Zero).
The Arabs didn't live in Babylon at the time you're talking about. They showed up in the 7th century AD.
Declines in military power often lag declines in innovation, though. By the time the Ottoman Turks (a later group than the Seljuk Turks) came on the scene in 1289, Saladin was almost 100 years dead, there had been no effective Caliphate since before Saladin, and the cities of Iraq had been devastated by the Mongol invasions. Even so, the Ottomans spread like wildfire until the conquest of Constantinople in 1453; after that their conquests dragged for quite a long time before they were stopped at Vienna in 1683, and repulsed in the 18th century.
As a scientifically active culture, the Islamic world really began to fall behind around the time of the invention of the printing press (which was banned for use with Turkish and Arabic in the Ottoman Empire until 1729). China was damaged by the Mongol invasions, but it was really the Ming isolationism that caused them to fall behind as a scientifically active culture.
300 years ago is 1703. Europe was not a third world country in 1703. Innovation restarted in Europe in the 14th century in Italy. It started to decline in the Muslim world in the 15th century with Turkish hegemony (has nothing to do with the Turks as a culture, but might be related to the Sultanate as a political/social system; see Bernard Lewis). In China, it started to decline with the otherthrow of the Yuan (aka the Mongols) and the rise of the Ming.
Nope. Use of a symbol to represent the mathematical concept of nothing/null goes back thousands of years. Use of decimal places, on the other hand (which is what historians are usually talking about when they speak of the "invention of 0") goes back to the Hindus. See http://www.andrews.edu/~calkins/math/biograph/bioz ero.htm for more details.
Because it's not much more than half the price of the 23. Gotta cut somewhere.
Why not just put G5 with bluetooth keys and mouse, airport extreme, and Apple Cinema Display 20 in. monitor; laser pointer, Canon digital camera, iPod, and thumbdrive. Makes the list shorter (if more expensive). The G5s come with a DVD burner, gigabit networking standard.
Form factor, solid construction, ease of use. That extra .6 in. on the back isn't fixed by the .5 inches short. Haven't looked at the Rio's sound quality.
For formats, beyond mp3, one really only will find a use for a few formats:
MP4/AAC (non-drmed version)
AIFF
WAV
and one DRMed format with wide support (AAC DRM or WMA).
I'll give you Ogg Vorbis and FLAC, too, because they're free (and FLAC is lossless).
Myself, I'd rather spend the exra $50 for my iPod and try to get Apple to add Ogg Vorbis and FLAC support than switch to the Rio Karma.
The really scary one (also due to gravitational effects, and not merely a coincidence) is Venus - the day is 3/2 an earth year.
You've been there too long when you start using the local calendar.
Sure there is. RedHat 6.2 with Lynx. No problems.
Oh, you want a GRAPHICAL browser? Sorry, my mistake. You're probably best off with Mosaic, then.
As I said in another subthread, yes, Hemingway before Pynchon; I think (personally) that Pynchon is a better writer than Hemingway (blasphemer that I am), and so am giving Hemingway less credit than he deserves, and Pynchon more credit.
I think PKD's influence really hasn't really been felt *yet*. I don't know whether one can see direct *influence* by PKD on Amis' *Time's Arrow*, because the idea of time running in the reverse direction is an obvious satirical theme. *Despair* was published in I think '66; was *A Scanner Darkly* published in '75, or earlier? When Harris's *Fatherland* came out, noone mentioned MITHT.
The Hollywood fixation probably won't matter until a really solid respectful film is made of one of Dick's masterpieces; right now, PKD's just being mined for story scenarios and more rarely for atmosphere. *Imposter* is too superficial, *Screamers* too cheap (and I'm not talking about the budget); I haven't been able to force myself to watch *Minority Report*, but Cruise is hardly the actor to play a Dickean protagonist. Even *Blade Runner* lacks the trademark PKD neuroticism, though it catches the surrealism; casting Harrison Ford was a little better than Arnold Schwarzaneggar, but until someone casts Kevin Spacey as Garson Poole, Hollywood's PKD will never come close to the character of the original. PKD's characters are never Hollywood heroes.
(I'd love to see Ruediger Vogler in a PKD film.)
Good point. Personally, I think Hemingway is (slightly) overrated, and can't abide Faulkner, so I have blind spots on both writers.
Not sure about misogynistic. My understanding (from a friend who was a young woman when she met him a few times in a social setting) was that he was rather a skirt-chaser. Of course, the one is not exactly incompatible with the other. I suppose I'd go with chauvinistic.
I always remember Valis' answer about the cat.
Damn straight. There ARE two kinds of cats in the world... Though I have to admit that ultimately I think MITHC is his masterpiece.
Unteleported Man is a deeply underappreciated book.
Good post. I preferred Star Maker to Last and First Men. The opening of Last and First Men reminded also reminded me quite a bit of Wells' The Shape of Things to Come. (I suppose one could argue that Wells was the most influential SF writer of the 20th century, if it weren't for the fact that his most influential SF books (but not his most influential overall books) were written before 1902.
possibly the most influential American writer of the 20th century.
No. The most influential American writer of the 20th century was probably ole Ez (Ezra Pound), another socred believer, and a treasonous bastard, who nevertheless dramatically affected the literature of the US and Europe from 1914 on, influencing Yeats, Eliot, Joyce, Frost, Williams, cummings, and pretty much every writer listed in your common literature anthologies after 1925. Next most influential American? Maybe Pynchon. You may not realize the influence they had on the way you understand books, but they did have a significant influence.
Heinlein was a great pulp SF writer, but his influence on SF, or literature and culture in general, was only slightly greater than Asimov's or Clarke's. Given the "harder" science of Clarke's work, I'd argue that he had more influence on the future scientists and engineers of the world than Heinlein. Rand had more influence on politics (to our undying regret), and Hubbard, well, his influence for the worse is pretty easy to see, isn't it? The person who really dominated SF in the 40s and 50s was John W. Campbell, the editor of Astounding/Analog who developed Asimov, Heinlein, de Camp, van Vogt, and many other famoust SF writers.
The most influential 20th c. SF *writer* might be Capek, who's important for more than just R.U.R. - he was an important figure in pre-WWII Czech (and European) cultural politics. I'd argue that the best SF writers who've gone were Herbert and Dick, with Heinlein and Asimov not that far behind, and that the best who are still around are Lem and Vinge. Heinlein is fun, and has a lot to say, but he has two major weaknesses: he's self-indulgent and repetitive.
Please tell me you're trolling.
Taking the hook: Robert Heinlein was a science fiction writer who wrote a large number of books, most famously Starship Troopers and Stranger in a Strange Land. He was a libertarian who infused his books with political and social theory. His "Future History" stories 1939-1950 ("If This Goes On", "Methuselah's Children," "The Man Who Sold The Moon," etc.) trace the development of American and world culture from the aftermath of the "Crazy Years" (basically the sixties on steroids) through the early interplanetary age to a short-lived totalitarian theocracy and into a an age of world government, near-immortality, and interstellar flight.
The other famous novels (not really in the Future History series) are The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Job.
Heinlein had a good reputation as a guy who tried to help out struggling SF writers (one example: PKD) in trouble.
His book is on the front page of slashdot because SF is one of the core elements of what slashdot considers to be nerdism.
By the way, on social credit: one major proponent of social credit was the poet Ezra Pound, who ended up following that line of thought unfortunately into support for the Mussolini regime, treasonous radio broadcasts during WWII, and a long stay in St. Elizabeth's mental hospital outside DC to avoid a conviction on treason charges. Not the direction Heinlein went in, obviously, but an interesting comparandum.
You missed premise 3, which was that SCO is not a "government" (or to use terms with which you will be more comfortable, a "civil authority") and there is recourse to civil authority available in one's opposition to their actions.