What, you can't even put your name behind your comments? God, I hate ACs.
Now, in response, nowhere did I say that people "suffered." I only stated that people were "affected," which could be in good or bad ways. You have some grudge against "suffering" veterans? Maybe you shouldn't read so much of your own biases into my comment.
All I was saying was that the people of that era can be considered "vererans" of the war. I include everyone who was affected, including the military, including the women, including the children, including the migrant farm workers who got better jobs. They're all veterans and that makes the statement, "like most of his generation, is a veteran of the second world war," not flat out wrong. Yes, it's a bit broader definition than we might be used to. Live with it.
This is a silly statement. Anyone who lived through the era can be considered a veteran of the War. Its effects were so far reaching that you had almost had to live on the Moon not to feel anything from the experience, even if they weren't personal. Going into combat was just one of the many ways in which people's lives were affected and even those countries that weren't directly involved in the war were affected.
The only thing I've ever wanted for free from the internet (and have received!) is INFORMATION. Free tickets, free games, free coupons, free toys, free this, free that.... It's all hogwash and doesn't describe the REAL reason for having the internet, which is the free flow of information. SO, in my estimation the Internet is becoming MORE free than ever with increasing amounts of shared knowledge. The New York times is looking at the internet from the mentality of a consumer. They should really be looking at it from the mentality of an academic...
There was a story on this very same thing on NPR this morning, talking about how customer support had gone down the tubes, mostly related to the tech surge of the '90s. (At least, that's what I think it was about as I sat in bed in a semi-conscious state trying to will my body to get up and shut off the clock-radio...)
Anyway, they were talking about how the advent of more technology in the customer service sector (automated response, dial-through prompts, hold please, hold please, hold please) as well as the strong job market (I could get a dollar more and hour at the shop down the street) has caused training to go out the window and that most of the live people on the end of the line are not fully qualified for handling the questions thrown at them. Not because they're stupid people, but because they just don't have the information they need to do the job.
The interesting thing is that, with the recent economic downturn, we could get better service, because employees will be more likely to stay on board and not jump ship every six months, providing for more qualified service representatives. It also might cause businesses to realize that personal service does matter in holding on to your customers and they'll be working hard at providing this in order to stay alive in the shaky economy.
1) The reason spell checkers give you so many reasons is because the english language has hundreds of thousands of words. With regard to Napster, they are given a list of band names from the record company. This list is a LOT smaller than the dictionary.
2) You guys are all wrong thinking that Napster needs to test the file names. PSHAW! They just need to test the search criteria. And frankly, if someone uses Napster and searches for Metallica, they are going to type "Metallica" into the search criteria. They want to get positive results, and even if they typed "Mitalica" or "Midalika" or "Metttttallllliiiccccka" the Soundex algorithm would be able to block that out.
Napster is feigning ignorance on the belief that they'll be able to get around a judge who doesn't have knowledge of the real capabilities of software.
If you can think it, you can write software to do it.
Yeah, but software developers are people too, and therefore the software they write can adapt just as fast as the people who try and get around it. What do you think Virus protection software does???
They obviously haven't heard of Soundex (note: there are more algorithms than just this one). It would allow them to handle a large portion of those spelling variations. Not to diss Napster, but they seem to be feigning ignorance. If they had any software developers of merit on their team, they'd be able to handle these problems easily.
What I don't have a problem with, and other Christians may disagree with me on this, is generating a new organ from an existing one. Take tissue from a heart and generate a new heart from it. Cool. So long as we do it without conceiving a clone.
Hmmm, can't think of any possible way to do this without going through the natural development stages. I suppose you could do it using the embryo of an animal, but that's not very nice either. It's much better to just develop a mechanical one, IMO.
Because there's a statute of limitations on when you can apply for a patent. Most items that are prior art fall outside of that time frame. Plus, not to mention the fact that most people who find prior art are mainly trying to keep ANY patent on the idea from happening.
1) Sell your website to a large corporation.
2) Buy a few hot cars to impress the chix with.
3) Sit back and let the site run itself.
It's a scam, I know, but it's been done before and should probably work again.
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Re:Systems from the middle ages
on
First Arcology?
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· Score: 1
Sorry bud, but the reason they lost the satellite was because two parties were using different systems of measurement. It wasn't because one party was using feet instead of meters. It was because both parties didn't communicate very well about what they were both supposed to use.
Now, with regards to this Arcology shindig, perhaps rather than creating some colossus to increase the living space of one big city (and boost the already inflated Chinese pride), why not spread out the business sector into other areas of China and spread out the population that way? In addition, this would probably also help spread better living conditions to the rest of China, where so many of its citizens live in poverty and destitute conditions. It's a great technological idea, but is it a great social one?
Why the fuck are humans so God damn intent on killing one another? What stupid ass part of our psyche makes us want to hurt another one of our own species?
Stories like this make me want to go out and kill those asshole scientists who think up shit like this. Oh, damn it, now there I go.
Yeah, it was an annoying little piece of shit, but hey, I'm sure the developer had a great time writing the thing.
What I wonder is, did he ever write any little quirks into the thing, like say, if you asked it how to create a table in MS Word and it popped up and said, "Fuck off, asshole! Can't you see I'm busy? God damnit, I get NO respect around her!" and then minimized itself in a huff (I wonder how something would look minimizing itself in a "huff"). Now, that would be a great Word plugin...
Hey! Slashdot Admins, or whatever you call yourselves. Can we please have better titles for the news stories??? Please? When I first read this one, I thought MasterCard was threatening the Usenet newsgroup. No, they're threatening some dude. Stop confusing me and make sure the titles actually reflect the facts of the story. Thanks!
Sorry, but they don't need some stupid ass joke to add to their brand name. Whoever doesn't already know the brand name MasterCard is living in a fucking cave and sure as hell isn't reading sick (but funny) parodies on the web.
Sorry, your logic doesn't work, but I too would love to see some VISA parodies like you talk about.
Deliberately hurting others in order to further your own goals is bad. Fair competition, where everyone has the opportunity to create success, is good.
Ted Turner is a powerful individual because of his corporations. In most people's eyes, he is synonymous with a corporation. He is no longer an individual. But, that doesn't mean he's evil, like you say. In fact, he does a lot of good.
I believe that most people view corporations as evil because what may have started out as a dream to better one's self - start a business and bring in the bucks - eventually turns into pushing down others to further one's goals. Making it on one's own is good. Hurting others in order to do so is bad. That's where I think the distinction lies, to answer your last question.
But if people start passing too many free copies of the Shadowmarch story around and we get to the point where it doesn't pay for itself any more, then I'll have to stop doing it, and nobody (me included) will get to find out where it's going.
What's everyone's predictions on how this is going to turn out? Even with all the multimedia, pictures, etc. that Tad is going to include along with the story text, do you think people are actually going to pay for it?
The future belongs to those who can tell machines how to manipulate data, or other machines, or people. Pretty soon everyone else will be flipping burgers.
hehe... Nope, even the machines will be flipping the burgers...;-)
Slashdot Mirror
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Now, in response, nowhere did I say that people "suffered." I only stated that people were "affected," which could be in good or bad ways. You have some grudge against "suffering" veterans? Maybe you shouldn't read so much of your own biases into my comment.
All I was saying was that the people of that era can be considered "vererans" of the war. I include everyone who was affected, including the military, including the women, including the children, including the migrant farm workers who got better jobs. They're all veterans and that makes the statement, "like most of his generation, is a veteran of the second world war," not flat out wrong. Yes, it's a bit broader definition than we might be used to. Live with it.
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This sounds like you're installing the latest patch for your Linux/Windows software. Dear God what have we come to...
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Anyway, they were talking about how the advent of more technology in the customer service sector (automated response, dial-through prompts, hold please, hold please, hold please) as well as the strong job market (I could get a dollar more and hour at the shop down the street) has caused training to go out the window and that most of the live people on the end of the line are not fully qualified for handling the questions thrown at them. Not because they're stupid people, but because they just don't have the information they need to do the job.
The interesting thing is that, with the recent economic downturn, we could get better service, because employees will be more likely to stay on board and not jump ship every six months, providing for more qualified service representatives. It also might cause businesses to realize that personal service does matter in holding on to your customers and they'll be working hard at providing this in order to stay alive in the shaky economy.
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Analysis: 4 people obviously have no sense of humor.
I can't even believe you guys wasted your moderation points on this...
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2) You guys are all wrong thinking that Napster needs to test the file names. PSHAW! They just need to test the search criteria. And frankly, if someone uses Napster and searches for Metallica, they are going to type "Metallica" into the search criteria. They want to get positive results, and even if they typed "Mitalica" or "Midalika" or "Metttttallllliiiccccka" the Soundex algorithm would be able to block that out.
Napster is feigning ignorance on the belief that they'll be able to get around a judge who doesn't have knowledge of the real capabilities of software.
If you can think it, you can write software to do it.
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Hmmm, can't think of any possible way to do this without going through the natural development stages. I suppose you could do it using the embryo of an animal, but that's not very nice either. It's much better to just develop a mechanical one, IMO.
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1) Sell your website to a large corporation.
2) Buy a few hot cars to impress the chix with.
3) Sit back and let the site run itself.
It's a scam, I know, but it's been done before and should probably work again.
--
Now, with regards to this Arcology shindig, perhaps rather than creating some colossus to increase the living space of one big city (and boost the already inflated Chinese pride), why not spread out the business sector into other areas of China and spread out the population that way? In addition, this would probably also help spread better living conditions to the rest of China, where so many of its citizens live in poverty and destitute conditions. It's a great technological idea, but is it a great social one?
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2001-04-19:09:53:27 - Human Life Fails (Chinese at fault. U.S. refuses to apologize for failure)
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Stories like this make me want to go out and kill those asshole scientists who think up shit like this. Oh, damn it, now there I go.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck...
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What I wonder is, did he ever write any little quirks into the thing, like say, if you asked it how to create a table in MS Word and it popped up and said, "Fuck off, asshole! Can't you see I'm busy? God damnit, I get NO respect around her!" and then minimized itself in a huff (I wonder how something would look minimizing itself in a "huff"). Now, that would be a great Word plugin...
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Hey! Slashdot Admins, or whatever you call yourselves. Can we please have better titles for the news stories??? Please? When I first read this one, I thought MasterCard was threatening the Usenet newsgroup. No, they're threatening some dude. Stop confusing me and make sure the titles actually reflect the facts of the story. Thanks!
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Sorry, your logic doesn't work, but I too would love to see some VISA parodies like you talk about.
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Deliberately hurting others in order to further your own goals is bad. Fair competition, where everyone has the opportunity to create success, is good.
I'm sure you can see the distinction.
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I believe that most people view corporations as evil because what may have started out as a dream to better one's self - start a business and bring in the bucks - eventually turns into pushing down others to further one's goals. Making it on one's own is good. Hurting others in order to do so is bad. That's where I think the distinction lies, to answer your last question.
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What's everyone's predictions on how this is going to turn out? Even with all the multimedia, pictures, etc. that Tad is going to include along with the story text, do you think people are actually going to pay for it?
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hehe... Nope, even the machines will be flipping the burgers... ;-)
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