I'm not talking about doing away with moderation, far from it. What I was talking about was removing the Offtopic selection from the list.
I guess that's really a solution though, people without a sense of humor would just moderate another way. So maybe what I'm saying is all moderators should be required to have a sense of humor. (just kidding, if I needed to say it)
The moderation of this post to Offtopic shows that the Offtopic choice should be removed from the moderation list. Offtopic is a totally subjective choice and I can say that during the many many times I've been a moderator I've never used it. This post is not Offtopic, it should be marked Funny as it was clearly meant to be.
As someone who did construction for a couple of years, I can tell you that while you might think there are maps that can tell you where lines are, they are almost always wrong. I've seen clearly marked lines on a map that were more than 10 feet from where they were supposed to be when you get in the ground and start digging. If the original diggers used flags to mark the lines, that makes it a little easier but even then it's like looking for a needle in a haystack but the needle has a string around it. A little better but not much.
Nobody is forcing anybody to use any new tech. If you learn to use the technology, instead of letting it use you, you'll always be much better off. If you choose to use your PDA a lot, like I do, then that's fine. Not using it is also fine, but seems a great waste of money. I have a cellphone/pager but I also have voicemail and the understanding that I'm not going to drop everything and respond to every page or call. I don't own a laptop because like you, I don't see the need, but I do own a Palm so if I choose to check the weather or movie times or area codes while I'm out, I can. I think that the solution to the information overload everybody is always talking about is discipline in using technology, not less technology.
Also, who decided that '4 sticks of butter' was a acceptable unit of measurement? As long as we're making stuff up, I drove about the length of 5 million gummi worms to work today. What the hell?
Wow, I haven't heard the name Raphael Quinet for a long long time. I used DEU for a ton of DOOM maps back in the day. I'm pretty sure I still have the zip file I downloaded off a BBS in San Diego, before I knew what the hell FTP was and the only exposure I had to the net was a Usenet feed that I could access through the UCSD library. Jeez, it's a big trip down geek memory lane today.
When people talk about being able to get Web access on their home landline phones and on the supersmall cellphone screens I cringe. I think what people need to realize is that when I want to get the weather, I do not want everything weather.com has to offer. I do not want ads (duh) or massive graphics, or links to movies or something like that. I want the weather info on a page that I can download quickly and look at easily. I want a Slashdot headlines and links to stories, not all the other stuff (however nice it may be:)). For "the web" to be truly useful on handheld devices we need to get information pages, not webpages as we know them now.
I really appreciate your comments but I have no idea why you posted them in response to my post. Nowhere in my post did I disparage people with Asperger's syndrome in any way, nor did I go to great lengths to say I wasn't like some geeks who have Asperger's. I agree with you that people in certain groups have a tendency to want to be excluded from any and all categorizations that they don't feel fit them. I was trying to convey my feeling that by saying there is some sort of possible root cause to being a geek, there are some who try hard to "fix" that cause. Just as parents now seem to think that medicating away any sign of hyper-activity is good parenting, we could see a possible anti-Asperger's pill being perscribed to parents who see what they percieve as "geeky" qualities in their children. I agree with everything you said in your post, I did not mean to cause offense.
Also, if someone proved Asperger's was the root cause of "geeky" qualities I'd have to say I didn't exactly fit the profiles I've seen but I'd take the diagnosis and go on with my life.
The article didn't seem like it was so much "promoting" autism/Asperger's syndrome, it was more promoting being original and explaining Asperger's syndrome. I think promoting originality is always the best course but I can see the media pushing Asperger's syndrome on the populace as the "cause" of geekiness, like being a geek is some sort of abnormality. The end of the article talked about not looking to cure geek kids but looking at the rate at which drugs are being prescribed to "cure" supposedly hyper-active kids nowadays, I can see this happening.
I'd much rather see XML with CSS used as a cross-platform standard in the future but this seems like a good idea as a crutch for older browsers and pages. I'm working on a project to use Perl's XML parser to strip all the extra stuff out of pages like Amazon.com for my own use on my Palm so I don't have to download all the extraneous stuff. If Amazon and other sites used XML and CSS, this task would be much, much, much easier. I hope this thing works though, I've seen some ugly HTML out there and it wouldn't do it mangle it even more.
This is exactly my philosophy about technology. I am undoubtedly one of the most "wired" people out of all the people I know but I do not feel half as hurried as most of my friends. I have a cell phone, a pager, a fax machine, a Palm, three computers in my house, cable, and am constantly on the lookout for new "cool" tech to add to my life but I use the tech, I do not let it use me. I take advantage of voice mail to allow to have conversations with people without being interrupted by the phone ringing. My phone is also my pager so I don't have 2 stupid devices on my belt. The Palm and the cell phone allow me to do things while out and about so I'm not tied to always being at home.
I can go out and do more things in life because I only let the technology do for me what I want it to do. As long as people feel this need to always be connected to the phone, the web, or email they will be tied to the phone, the web and email. If you realize that just because you have a cell phone that does not mean that everybody and their monkey should be able to get a hold of you at any time of the day or night, you will be much better off. Having technology should not mean that you must use it, it should mean that you have the choice whether to use it or not.
I love people who back up their rantings with facts or even opinions they believe to be facts. You make such a good case here it's hard to refute. And to think that you do it under the cover of anonymity to boot. You sir/madam, are a scholar for the ages.
I'm sorry, do I know you? Are you familiar with my personal political affiliation? If not, I'd appreciate you pointing your baseless accusation gun someplace else.
It doesn't take a genius (or a Democrat) to see that this is just meaningless pandering, not meaningless Republican pandering. As long as people are locked into ant-like conformity with a party label, no meaningful discussion is possible. I'll knock anybody who does stupid stuff, not just people who happen to have the same party affiliation as I do (I'm an independent anyway so it doesn't really matter).
I disagree, as I am what could be called a liberal leaning libertarian and I am offended by this crap. It only takes intelligence to see through this stuff, not a label or party affiliation pinned on your arm.
A politician who is willing to submit absolutely meaningless legislation during an election cycle! Finally, somebody who has the cajones to pander to the public in such a blatant and intelligence insulting fashion.
But seriously, this bill has zero chance of passing and if anybody sees it as anything but a cynical attempt to get some extra column inches out of two popular issues, the net and taxes, they need some help.
I just read about these "weather futures" this morning myself. Apparently if a power company, for example, buys a future betting on cold weather this winter so more people will buy electricity. If the winter is mild so they lose money on less people buying electricity, the company that sold the future pays the power company so they don't lose as much money in total. It sounded a bit like insurance against the weather. I could be a bit wrong in the details though.
Your experiences should show you that are reasons for learning about things like this. When people understand the actual reasons behind events, they don't make up reasons like has been after Columbine. If people were able to understand who these boys were and why they did what they did, the public would be less inclined to jump all over geeks, goths, weirdos, etc, etc.
There are millions of people who dress "weird", listen to "devil music", are Muslim (to throw in another overly stereotyped group), that do not act the same as others seemingly like them who hurt people. Ignorance breeds fear, as the old saying says, and the only way to combat ignorance is to learn. Maybe if you took the 10 minutes to read the article, you could teach somebody something, instead of just shutting your self off from the world because you've been treated bad.
I think splitting the OS groups from the App groups would be very helpful, as long as there was someone paying attention so they don't just join together again under some sort of fake agreement between two seperate companies. Splitting them would force the OS firm to do what is best for the OS firm, not what is best for MS. For example, if MSOS wanted to build browser functionality into Windows, the logical thing would be to build hooks into the OS that any browser could hook into and perform that same functionality. As it was with MS and IE, the OS group had zero incentive to let any other browser perform that functionality so they hooked the MS browser into the MS OS. Despite the "we're not bundling" cry by MS, that's exactly what happened, to the detriment of consumers. That's just one example, there are many more (such as the fact that Office changes Windows dll files that you can be sure the Wordperfect people don't have access to). You're right in saying there would be 2 huge semi-monopolies but at least they would be on somewhat even footing with the rest of the industry.
This seems like a decision made to make the testing process go smoother. Keeping track of a bunch of beta testers is much easier than trying to sort through tons of "It's not working." type bug reports from millions of users. Keeping the pool small lets them get more specific info about bugs and get back to people who have valid reports. If they try to actually release the distro under this license, there will be hell to pay, until then let them test their software.
These patents were from 1996 to 1999, and Netscape has been around longer than that. In today's retarded patent environment, it seems an unscrupulous company could patent an idea they saw another company invent and then sue them for infringment because the inventing company didn't patent the idea. Most of the lawsuits wouldn't go all the way but a lot of companies would just settle rather than deal with the hassle. I know the 'prior art' thing is supposed to deal with this but I have no faith in the USPTO to actually think their way through this trouble.
I just finished Clay Christensen's book 'The Innovator's Dilemma' and I think that book has some implications for the 3com/Palm deal. The book talks about disruptive technologies coming into an industry and killing established firms because they can't wrap their minds around the new uses of the tech. I think the Palm is a definate distruptive technology and as we can already see, the technology was pretty much floundering in 3com's corporate structure. By spinning off Palm into a company that must fend for itself and can do so without the "establishment" at 3com butting in, they are saving the Palm I think. A small company can sell less volume into new markets (such as handhelds for collge students or cops or doctors) that are uninteresting financially to the larger company and they can still make a profit. One of Christensen's things in the book is that companies that want to take advantage of a distruptive technology must form a smaller company the size of the market for that tech so it can explore smaller markets without having to find markets of a size that would impress the much larger parent company. If 3com leaves Palm Computing alone and let them innovate, I think it would be very healthy for them.
With your book being released under the Open Publication License, I was wondering how responsive New Riders seems to the idea of actually publishing updated versions of the book instead of just updating the publicly available version? It's a great book by the way, very valuable to GNOME/GTK coding newbies like myself. Thanks.
My guess is that they want to keep tabs on what's happening with the testers, not just get flooded with email from 10000 different people with "It doesn't work" type bug reports that are pretty much useless in the testing procedures. Keeping the pool of testers somewhat small at first allows you to keep in touch with them and make sure their problems are being dealt with.
and free stuff. Really though, I get at least one conference invitation a week and I pretty much have to throw them all away because of the $500++ prices involved. I know a lot of geeks make a lot of money but most of us have to travel to and from the conference, plus hotel, rental car or gas, and food. It becomes a hell of an expense to attend something I could get a lot out of and I usually end up not going. One day I'll be able to talk my boss into sending me on the company's dime but not anytime soon I'm afraid.
I don't think 'holographic' is quite the correct word but I've heard about this too. It's in use is various forms around many office buildings and home I've seen. Frank Lloyd Wright even built something similar to this into a building of his (though I can't remember the name off the top of my head) quite a long time ago. It does give a very natural light but the fibers are really expensive, too much so for most office buildings since most workers have no problem with floresent (sp?) lights.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not talking about doing away with moderation, far from it. What I was talking about was removing the Offtopic selection from the list.
I guess that's really a solution though, people without a sense of humor would just moderate another way. So maybe what I'm saying is all moderators should be required to have a sense of humor. (just kidding, if I needed to say it)
The moderation of this post to Offtopic shows that the Offtopic choice should be removed from the moderation list. Offtopic is a totally subjective choice and I can say that during the many many times I've been a moderator I've never used it. This post is not Offtopic, it should be marked Funny as it was clearly meant to be.
As someone who did construction for a couple of years, I can tell you that while you might think there are maps that can tell you where lines are, they are almost always wrong. I've seen clearly marked lines on a map that were more than 10 feet from where they were supposed to be when you get in the ground and start digging. If the original diggers used flags to mark the lines, that makes it a little easier but even then it's like looking for a needle in a haystack but the needle has a string around it. A little better but not much.
Nobody is forcing anybody to use any new tech. If you learn to use the technology, instead of letting it use you, you'll always be much better off. If you choose to use your PDA a lot, like I do, then that's fine. Not using it is also fine, but seems a great waste of money. I have a cellphone/pager but I also have voicemail and the understanding that I'm not going to drop everything and respond to every page or call. I don't own a laptop because like you, I don't see the need, but I do own a Palm so if I choose to check the weather or movie times or area codes while I'm out, I can. I think that the solution to the information overload everybody is always talking about is discipline in using technology, not less technology.
Also, who decided that '4 sticks of butter' was a acceptable unit of measurement? As long as we're making stuff up, I drove about the length of 5 million gummi worms to work today. What the hell?
Wow, I haven't heard the name Raphael Quinet for a long long time. I used DEU for a ton of DOOM maps back in the day. I'm pretty sure I still have the zip file I downloaded off a BBS in San Diego, before I knew what the hell FTP was and the only exposure I had to the net was a Usenet feed that I could access through the UCSD library. Jeez, it's a big trip down geek memory lane today.
When people talk about being able to get Web access on their home landline phones and on the supersmall cellphone screens I cringe. I think what people need to realize is that when I want to get the weather, I do not want everything weather.com has to offer. I do not want ads (duh) or massive graphics, or links to movies or something like that. I want the weather info on a page that I can download quickly and look at easily. I want a Slashdot headlines and links to stories, not all the other stuff (however nice it may be :)). For "the web" to be truly useful on handheld devices we need to get information pages, not webpages as we know them now.
I really appreciate your comments but I have no idea why you posted them in response to my post. Nowhere in my post did I disparage people with Asperger's syndrome in any way, nor did I go to great lengths to say I wasn't like some geeks who have Asperger's. I agree with you that people in certain groups have a tendency to want to be excluded from any and all categorizations that they don't feel fit them. I was trying to convey my feeling that by saying there is some sort of possible root cause to being a geek, there are some who try hard to "fix" that cause. Just as parents now seem to think that medicating away any sign of hyper-activity is good parenting, we could see a possible anti-Asperger's pill being perscribed to parents who see what they percieve as "geeky" qualities in their children. I agree with everything you said in your post, I did not mean to cause offense.
Also, if someone proved Asperger's was the root cause of "geeky" qualities I'd have to say I didn't exactly fit the profiles I've seen but I'd take the diagnosis and go on with my life.
The article didn't seem like it was so much "promoting" autism/Asperger's syndrome, it was more promoting being original and explaining Asperger's syndrome. I think promoting originality is always the best course but I can see the media pushing Asperger's syndrome on the populace as the "cause" of geekiness, like being a geek is some sort of abnormality. The end of the article talked about not looking to cure geek kids but looking at the rate at which drugs are being prescribed to "cure" supposedly hyper-active kids nowadays, I can see this happening.
I'd much rather see XML with CSS used as a cross-platform standard in the future but this seems like a good idea as a crutch for older browsers and pages. I'm working on a project to use Perl's XML parser to strip all the extra stuff out of pages like Amazon.com for my own use on my Palm so I don't have to download all the extraneous stuff. If Amazon and other sites used XML and CSS, this task would be much, much, much easier. I hope this thing works though, I've seen some ugly HTML out there and it wouldn't do it mangle it even more.
This is exactly my philosophy about technology. I am undoubtedly one of the most "wired" people out of all the people I know but I do not feel half as hurried as most of my friends. I have a cell phone, a pager, a fax machine, a Palm, three computers in my house, cable, and am constantly on the lookout for new "cool" tech to add to my life but I use the tech, I do not let it use me. I take advantage of voice mail to allow to have conversations with people without being interrupted by the phone ringing. My phone is also my pager so I don't have 2 stupid devices on my belt. The Palm and the cell phone allow me to do things while out and about so I'm not tied to always being at home.
I can go out and do more things in life because I only let the technology do for me what I want it to do. As long as people feel this need to always be connected to the phone, the web, or email they will be tied to the phone, the web and email. If you realize that just because you have a cell phone that does not mean that everybody and their monkey should be able to get a hold of you at any time of the day or night, you will be much better off. Having technology should not mean that you must use it, it should mean that you have the choice whether to use it or not.
I love people who back up their rantings with facts or even opinions they believe to be facts. You make such a good case here it's hard to refute. And to think that you do it under the cover of anonymity to boot. You sir/madam, are a scholar for the ages.
I'm sorry, do I know you? Are you familiar with my personal political affiliation? If not, I'd appreciate you pointing your baseless accusation gun someplace else.
It doesn't take a genius (or a Democrat) to see that this is just meaningless pandering, not meaningless Republican pandering. As long as people are locked into ant-like conformity with a party label, no meaningful discussion is possible. I'll knock anybody who does stupid stuff, not just people who happen to have the same party affiliation as I do (I'm an independent anyway so it doesn't really matter).
I disagree, as I am what could be called a liberal leaning libertarian and I am offended by this crap. It only takes intelligence to see through this stuff, not a label or party affiliation pinned on your arm.
A politician who is willing to submit absolutely meaningless legislation during an election cycle! Finally, somebody who has the cajones to pander to the public in such a blatant and intelligence insulting fashion.
But seriously, this bill has zero chance of passing and if anybody sees it as anything but a cynical attempt to get some extra column inches out of two popular issues, the net and taxes, they need some help.
I just read about these "weather futures" this morning myself. Apparently if a power company, for example, buys a future betting on cold weather this winter so more people will buy electricity. If the winter is mild so they lose money on less people buying electricity, the company that sold the future pays the power company so they don't lose as much money in total. It sounded a bit like insurance against the weather. I could be a bit wrong in the details though.
And yes, it's pretty bizarre.
Your experiences should show you that are reasons for learning about things like this. When people understand the actual reasons behind events, they don't make up reasons like has been after Columbine. If people were able to understand who these boys were and why they did what they did, the public would be less inclined to jump all over geeks, goths, weirdos, etc, etc.
There are millions of people who dress "weird", listen to "devil music", are Muslim (to throw in another overly stereotyped group), that do not act the same as others seemingly like them who hurt people. Ignorance breeds fear, as the old saying says, and the only way to combat ignorance is to learn. Maybe if you took the 10 minutes to read the article, you could teach somebody something, instead of just shutting your self off from the world because you've been treated bad.
I think splitting the OS groups from the App groups would be very helpful, as long as there was someone paying attention so they don't just join together again under some sort of fake agreement between two seperate companies. Splitting them would force the OS firm to do what is best for the OS firm, not what is best for MS. For example, if MSOS wanted to build browser functionality into Windows, the logical thing would be to build hooks into the OS that any browser could hook into and perform that same functionality. As it was with MS and IE, the OS group had zero incentive to let any other browser perform that functionality so they hooked the MS browser into the MS OS. Despite the "we're not bundling" cry by MS, that's exactly what happened, to the detriment of consumers. That's just one example, there are many more (such as the fact that Office changes Windows dll files that you can be sure the Wordperfect people don't have access to). You're right in saying there would be 2 huge semi-monopolies but at least they would be on somewhat even footing with the rest of the industry.
This seems like a decision made to make the testing process go smoother. Keeping track of a bunch of beta testers is much easier than trying to sort through tons of "It's not working." type bug reports from millions of users. Keeping the pool small lets them get more specific info about bugs and get back to people who have valid reports. If they try to actually release the distro under this license, there will be hell to pay, until then let them test their software.
These patents were from 1996 to 1999, and Netscape has been around longer than that. In today's retarded patent environment, it seems an unscrupulous company could patent an idea they saw another company invent and then sue them for infringment because the inventing company didn't patent the idea. Most of the lawsuits wouldn't go all the way but a lot of companies would just settle rather than deal with the hassle. I know the 'prior art' thing is supposed to deal with this but I have no faith in the USPTO to actually think their way through this trouble.
I just finished Clay Christensen's book 'The Innovator's Dilemma' and I think that book has some implications for the 3com/Palm deal. The book talks about disruptive technologies coming into an industry and killing established firms because they can't wrap their minds around the new uses of the tech. I think the Palm is a definate distruptive technology and as we can already see, the technology was pretty much floundering in 3com's corporate structure. By spinning off Palm into a company that must fend for itself and can do so without the "establishment" at 3com butting in, they are saving the Palm I think. A small company can sell less volume into new markets (such as handhelds for collge students or cops or doctors) that are uninteresting financially to the larger company and they can still make a profit. One of Christensen's things in the book is that companies that want to take advantage of a distruptive technology must form a smaller company the size of the market for that tech so it can explore smaller markets without having to find markets of a size that would impress the much larger parent company. If 3com leaves Palm Computing alone and let them innovate, I think it would be very healthy for them.
With your book being released under the Open Publication License, I was wondering how responsive New Riders seems to the idea of actually publishing updated versions of the book instead of just updating the publicly available version?
It's a great book by the way, very valuable to GNOME/GTK coding newbies like myself. Thanks.
My guess is that they want to keep tabs on what's happening with the testers, not just get flooded with email from 10000 different people with "It doesn't work" type bug reports that are pretty much useless in the testing procedures. Keeping the pool of testers somewhat small at first allows you to keep in touch with them and make sure their problems are being dealt with.
and free stuff.
Really though, I get at least one conference invitation a week and I pretty much have to throw them all away because of the $500++ prices involved. I know a lot of geeks make a lot of money but most of us have to travel to and from the conference, plus hotel, rental car or gas, and food. It becomes a hell of an expense to attend something I could get a lot out of and I usually end up not going. One day I'll be able to talk my boss into sending me on the company's dime but not anytime soon I'm afraid.
I don't think 'holographic' is quite the correct word but I've heard about this too. It's in use is various forms around many office buildings and home I've seen. Frank Lloyd Wright even built something similar to this into a building of his (though I can't remember the name off the top of my head) quite a long time ago. It does give a very natural light but the fibers are really expensive, too much so for most office buildings since most workers have no problem with floresent (sp?) lights.
The difference is that I know that's not the best application of Linux around so I feel little need to "defend" it.