Fine. Then back up your claim that America is not as free as other countries by giving me specific examples of how other countries are better.
Even though the United States may have somewhat annoying laws that inhibit some personal freedoms, it's much, much easier to cause change within the system to reverse bad laws without excessive violence and political turmoil. This sytem is like a pendulum. It's going to swing back and forth and sometimes things will go your way and sometimes they won't. Sometimes the swings will be big and sometimes they'll be small. But the result is that we continue to gradually move to a point of stasis and stability where everyone's interests are given equal weight. But along the road, we sometimes have bigger voices crying foul about certain things in our society. But 5-10 years down the line, a new vocal majority will take power and things will progress along a different route. Or maybe not. But the fact remains that individuals still have the power to move the system. And add to that the fact that this country is the world leader in technological innovation (as well as other things) and I feel I have a pretty good deal. It may not be Utopia, but every day that I walk out of my door, I thank heaven that I have the freedoms to live my life as I choose and that if something gets in my way, I have the freedom to fight it.
Want to have a fire in your yard to burn some brush?
Depends on your locale. There are plenty of places where you can do this. If you live in the country though, especially like, uh, Kentucky or something, this is normal hick activity. Most of the time, in the more populated areas of the country, where things like, say HEALTH, matter, all you have to do is put the brush on the street and they'll take it away for you and burn it somewhere else.
Want to take your dog for a walk off the leash?
Again, there are plenty of places where you can do this. You live in the wrong place.
Want to have a pool without a fence around it?
true, but a minor inconvenience. This is just from the tendency of Americans to sue everything and everyone that moves. Not really related to governments or corporations taking away personal freedoms. It's more about we the people shooting ourselves in the foot. Most people like having fences around pools anyway for privacy.
Want to tell a risque joke in the office without being fired?
You just work at the wrong place.
Want to start a small business and hire the best people for the job?
This is called social justice. It's a little thing we have here in America because a bunch of dumbasses way back when decided that it would be nice to order people other around and make them do work without paying them for it, as well as chaining them up, dragging them around, whipping them, and a little bit of whoring to boot. Because of this little thing they did, we need to nurse and heal the wounds of our society. Now, over in Europe, where most everyone in each country is pretty much the same ethnically, this is not an issue. But here in America, where many people have been brought together from all parts of the world, there are special concerns and issues that need to be addressed and one way we've found to address past wrongs is to make special amends to those who are historically underpriveleged and need a little boost to help them out. Does Britain not care about such things? Oh right, South Africa...
It's not really that the VC idea needs to be rethought, it just needs to continue on it's evolutionary progress...
The capabilities of the current infrastructure only allow us to do the simple things, like chatting, using messageboards, or simple online gaming like cards. Yes, there are instances where more can be accomplished, where audio and video come into play, but it's very limited and the number of people using those are small. But it is progressing. People want more and better communication, just like they want more and better information, it's just that not everyone has the access to those capabilities and the system can't handle anymore people than it currently does anyway. In 10-15 yrs, we'll get to a point where online meetings can replace those in real life, and that is where things are headed. It's just not ready yet. We don't need to rethink anything. We just need to have patience with the evolution of the systems.
Until then, we'll continue to augment our online communities with face-to-face RL meetings
1) GCC/G++ - Free
2) Perl is very nice, but as far as big business systems are concerned, it just doesn't cut the cake. It's harder (but not impossible) to design and build well-structured, easily understood, big software projects with Perl. Definitely great for web/shell scripts, though. Plenty of arguments for and against out there, of course.
3) Try LISP if you're interested in AI programming. I myself think it's best to keep the programming language separate from it's intended use, but sometimes it is nice to have something geared one specific way or another.
4) When you get out of high school and learn what's it's like to live in the real world of software engineering, you'll discover that the business world revolves around money and time. Those are the two MOST important things in business. Sure it would be nice to spend 2 years designing the company's new product line, but in 6 months, the company will be bankrupt if you don't get something out the door by then. Therefore, if you prefer to create quality software, either find a company who's intent it is to make software, not money (i.e., they already have enough funding to last for 3 years - not a very common occurrence) or stay in graduate school for the rest of your life.
Last thing, cause I just have to get this off my chest. Flame away if you really feel like it will accomplish something. Why the hell are we asking questions of some 15 year old?. And why the fuck do I see so many "me too" 15 year olds posting about how great they are and how they do this and that and how they're a brainchild too, and "I want attention, look at me!" like a bunch of whiny little kids. Like I care. Do they think they're special or something? Like countless generations before them haven't been through the same exact situations and haven't said the same exact things before?
Despite the popular belief that shrinks are of no use to anyone, I'd seriously suggest you go see one. You'll find that a psychiatrist will help you get through some of these issues and help you find the answers you seem to be looking for.
Some little 15 year old aint gonna help you out here. Just like you, this kid probably doesn't know all the things that make him a loner and probably hasn't thought about it much, either.
What it seems to me, is that the government is showing us that they are really serious about beefing up the security of computer systems in the U.S. This, I think, is why the NSA is doing this project. They are looking out for the future security of the U.S. as a nation, by making the tools available, sharing the knowledge they've gained, and asking for community feedback, all in order to create secure systems around the country, in the interest of national security, stable financial markets, stable power grids, safe airways, etc.
They are, in effect, doing what they are meant to be doing: protecting the citizens of the U.S., but in an open manner that takes advantage of a larger community of contributors.
I don't think Quake is the best application to demonstrate "motion blur" with, because it's really not appropriate. How often do you walk down the street and see the people moving around you as "blurred" - I mean, maybe if you're on drugs or something.
Yeah, this looks cool and there are probably some good applications for it, but is it necessary?
The advances in computer graphics are, in my view, meant to bring the computer world closer and closer to the ability to accurately display what one sees in the real world, while allowing you the freedom to create false realities. So, having motion blur does not seem to me to be that big of an addition, since it is rarely seen in the real world.
You really only see true motion blur when items are on your peripheral vision or are moving *extremely* fast. A guy jogging in front of you is not going to produce a blur. The bullet aimed at your head might, though.
So, I guess it's great that there are now better tools to produce this effect, but it's up to the developers to use it effectively and not to overdue it or use it in an inappropriate place.
Now hold on there. Putting a bunch of crappy applications on the system to solve the "nothing runs on it" problem doesn't help. The point of the article was that there is too much useless stuff on the distros. Why the hell do I need 5 text editors?
If some people are saying "Too few!" and some people are saying "Too many!" that doesn't mean they are the same people.
Of course, screenshots of your application are only feasible if it has a visual footprint.
But, it's probably still a good idea to have some sort of visual representation of you application, because a picture is worth a thousand, million, billion words (billions and billions). If your application doesn't have a UI, it still might be nice to show flow-diagrams, graphs, etc. to help the users/developers gain a better understanding for how the application runs.
It will help during the development phase in shortening the learning curve in understanding the application and getting up to speed on the object/functionality of the code pieces. It will also help in the "selling/marketing" phase by providing easy to understand representations of the application so that the user evaluating it can quickly discover whether it fulfills his or her needs.
(Irony: the Secretary of Culture who wrote this bill is also on record speaking against software patents.)
Why is this irony??? These are completely separate issues.
If someone does not have the exact same views as those on./, then there must be irony involved? Cannot a person have the same viewpoint as you on one issue and a different view on another?
Oh, hey, look at me. I read Slashdot. I was a fucking child prodigy, or like to think I was. In actuality, I'm a cocky bastard who thinks I'm smarter than anyone else and that's why I get beat up at school. When I was in 2nd grade, I went to the local Junior college to take math and now I sit behind a computer screen and program computer code for a living. Holy shit, did I waste my talents.
Teach the kid art. Teach the kid music. Teack the kid literature. Teach the kid history. Teach the kid how to think about the world in views other than his/her own and how to think beyond the borders of "I'm smart. I'm a prodigy. I'm better than you." And by no means should you direct the kid only into computers. If the kid wants to learn to program, that great. Let him/her do that. But make sure it isn't the only thing. The best thing you can do for this kid is to expose him/her to a broad base of interests.
And damn it, don't prop the kid up making him/her think he/she is more special than anyone else. Let the kid find his/her talents naturally and develop them, but don't fill the kid's head with visions of grandeur.
The one fucking think I hate about Slashdot is all the damn hubris!
I don't want someone to be "Mr. Used Car Salesman." Those aren't the type of leadership abilities I'm talking about. I'm more interested in the "effective communication" types of things, which means that you need to be able to squarely face off against your "rivals" in the sales and marketing departments. I'm talking about team leaders being able to display poise and confidence and being able to communicate their issues up front and honestly, rather than just letting others take control.
All I'm saying is that IT people need to develop some skills to make sure that they are heard in their environments. They don't need to kiss people's butts. They just need to be able to talk to them and to have the courage to stand up for their ideals. Oftentimes, IT people would rather not do that, and we end up with people who don't know what they're talking about making the decisions.
Update, 1 hr, 1 minute later: Found the documentation. Realized I'm a complete idiot and that I should check the facts to my stories before posting them. Update, 1 hr, 1 minute, 3 seconds later: CmdrTaco whacked me upside the head for being a dumbass. Update, 1 hr, 5 minutes later: Katz sent me a 20-page essay on how kids that are read to by their parents using handheld e-books are the "future thinkers of America, with good listening abilities and critical thinking skills that far outpace their counterparts in the non-tech-thinking-read-from-a-regular-paperbound-b ook-they-take-the-powerful-sensory-presence-and-pa rticipatory-formats-of-digital-media-for-granted part of society, and why can't Adobe realize this, those dumb corporate luddites." I deleted it immediately. Update, 1 hr, 5 minutes, 10 seconds later: Went and got a beer and then sat down to wait for some more news to come in so I could post it to the Slashdot site immediately without even caring about the legitimacy of the content.
Actually, according the the FTC, the merged company would have to "... give the non-affiliated ISPs an opportunity to opt in to the same rates and terms secured by AOL in the cable company agreement."
Does Mr. Katz ever read the responses to his articles? Methinks not. I assumed that writers liked to develop their writing skills and logical reasoning from the impact they have on the readers of their articles/stories/poems. But in his case, I think that assumption is wrong.
...not that I read all of it. I get the jist, though.
If you had read the rest of the article like a good little boy/girl/whatever, you would have noticed that the author was not really opposed to advocacy. He was talking about the problems with the way people do it. He by no means wants to abolish it.
Using your example, the author was not advocating a language. He was talking about strong typing semantics. But the listener assumed he was advocating something and then responded by advocating back to him. Therefore, what we have here is an advocater making an ignorant advocation, thereby causing the speaker to write an article complaining about the methodology of advocation. He didn't say it was bad in and of itself, just the way in which it is done.
So, anyway, lesson to be learned is that you become more informed about topics when you read the whole thing.
Slashdot Mirror
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Even though the United States may have somewhat annoying laws that inhibit some personal freedoms, it's much, much easier to cause change within the system to reverse bad laws without excessive violence and political turmoil. This sytem is like a pendulum. It's going to swing back and forth and sometimes things will go your way and sometimes they won't. Sometimes the swings will be big and sometimes they'll be small. But the result is that we continue to gradually move to a point of stasis and stability where everyone's interests are given equal weight. But along the road, we sometimes have bigger voices crying foul about certain things in our society. But 5-10 years down the line, a new vocal majority will take power and things will progress along a different route. Or maybe not. But the fact remains that individuals still have the power to move the system. And add to that the fact that this country is the world leader in technological innovation (as well as other things) and I feel I have a pretty good deal. It may not be Utopia, but every day that I walk out of my door, I thank heaven that I have the freedoms to live my life as I choose and that if something gets in my way, I have the freedom to fight it.
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Depends on your locale. There are plenty of places where you can do this. If you live in the country though, especially like, uh, Kentucky or something, this is normal hick activity. Most of the time, in the more populated areas of the country, where things like, say HEALTH, matter, all you have to do is put the brush on the street and they'll take it away for you and burn it somewhere else.
Want to take your dog for a walk off the leash?
Again, there are plenty of places where you can do this. You live in the wrong place.
Want to have a pool without a fence around it?
true, but a minor inconvenience. This is just from the tendency of Americans to sue everything and everyone that moves. Not really related to governments or corporations taking away personal freedoms. It's more about we the people shooting ourselves in the foot. Most people like having fences around pools anyway for privacy.
Want to tell a risque joke in the office without being fired?
You just work at the wrong place.
Want to start a small business and hire the best people for the job?
This is called social justice. It's a little thing we have here in America because a bunch of dumbasses way back when decided that it would be nice to order people other around and make them do work without paying them for it, as well as chaining them up, dragging them around, whipping them, and a little bit of whoring to boot. Because of this little thing they did, we need to nurse and heal the wounds of our society. Now, over in Europe, where most everyone in each country is pretty much the same ethnically, this is not an issue. But here in America, where many people have been brought together from all parts of the world, there are special concerns and issues that need to be addressed and one way we've found to address past wrongs is to make special amends to those who are historically underpriveleged and need a little boost to help them out. Does Britain not care about such things? Oh right, South Africa...
That's 5. Keep counting.
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The capabilities of the current infrastructure only allow us to do the simple things, like chatting, using messageboards, or simple online gaming like cards. Yes, there are instances where more can be accomplished, where audio and video come into play, but it's very limited and the number of people using those are small. But it is progressing. People want more and better communication, just like they want more and better information, it's just that not everyone has the access to those capabilities and the system can't handle anymore people than it currently does anyway. In 10-15 yrs, we'll get to a point where online meetings can replace those in real life, and that is where things are headed. It's just not ready yet. We don't need to rethink anything. We just need to have patience with the evolution of the systems.
Until then, we'll continue to augment our online communities with face-to-face RL meetings
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2) Perl is very nice, but as far as big business systems are concerned, it just doesn't cut the cake. It's harder (but not impossible) to design and build well-structured, easily understood, big software projects with Perl. Definitely great for web/shell scripts, though. Plenty of arguments for and against out there, of course.
3) Try LISP if you're interested in AI programming. I myself think it's best to keep the programming language separate from it's intended use, but sometimes it is nice to have something geared one specific way or another.
4) When you get out of high school and learn what's it's like to live in the real world of software engineering, you'll discover that the business world revolves around money and time. Those are the two MOST important things in business. Sure it would be nice to spend 2 years designing the company's new product line, but in 6 months, the company will be bankrupt if you don't get something out the door by then. Therefore, if you prefer to create quality software, either find a company who's intent it is to make software, not money (i.e., they already have enough funding to last for 3 years - not a very common occurrence) or stay in graduate school for the rest of your life.
Last thing, cause I just have to get this off my chest. Flame away if you really feel like it will accomplish something. Why the hell are we asking questions of some 15 year old?. And why the fuck do I see so many "me too" 15 year olds posting about how great they are and how they do this and that and how they're a brainchild too, and "I want attention, look at me!" like a bunch of whiny little kids. Like I care. Do they think they're special or something? Like countless generations before them haven't been through the same exact situations and haven't said the same exact things before?
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Anything new under the sun to talk about?
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Despite the popular belief that shrinks are of no use to anyone, I'd seriously suggest you go see one. You'll find that a psychiatrist will help you get through some of these issues and help you find the answers you seem to be looking for.
Some little 15 year old aint gonna help you out here. Just like you, this kid probably doesn't know all the things that make him a loner and probably hasn't thought about it much, either.
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Anything that might be of interest to geeks and the like is welcome here on ole' ./
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They are, in effect, doing what they are meant to be doing: protecting the citizens of the U.S., but in an open manner that takes advantage of a larger community of contributors.
This is a "Good Thing" (TM)
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Yeah, this looks cool and there are probably some good applications for it, but is it necessary?
The advances in computer graphics are, in my view, meant to bring the computer world closer and closer to the ability to accurately display what one sees in the real world, while allowing you the freedom to create false realities. So, having motion blur does not seem to me to be that big of an addition, since it is rarely seen in the real world.
You really only see true motion blur when items are on your peripheral vision or are moving *extremely* fast. A guy jogging in front of you is not going to produce a blur. The bullet aimed at your head might, though.
So, I guess it's great that there are now better tools to produce this effect, but it's up to the developers to use it effectively and not to overdue it or use it in an inappropriate place.
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Lean and mean, baby. Come on! Bring it to me...
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If some people are saying "Too few!" and some people are saying "Too many!" that doesn't mean they are the same people.
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Daddy, me scared. This man be crazy. He be fscked up in the head...
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But, it's probably still a good idea to have some sort of visual representation of you application, because a picture is worth a thousand, million, billion words (billions and billions). If your application doesn't have a UI, it still might be nice to show flow-diagrams, graphs, etc. to help the users/developers gain a better understanding for how the application runs.
It will help during the development phase in shortening the learning curve in understanding the application and getting up to speed on the object/functionality of the code pieces. It will also help in the "selling/marketing" phase by providing easy to understand representations of the application so that the user evaluating it can quickly discover whether it fulfills his or her needs.
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Why is this irony??? These are completely separate issues.
If someone does not have the exact same views as those on ./, then there must be irony involved? Cannot a person have the same viewpoint as you on one issue and a different view on another?
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Teach the kid art. Teach the kid music. Teack the kid literature. Teach the kid history. Teach the kid how to think about the world in views other than his/her own and how to think beyond the borders of "I'm smart. I'm a prodigy. I'm better than you." And by no means should you direct the kid only into computers. If the kid wants to learn to program, that great. Let him/her do that. But make sure it isn't the only thing. The best thing you can do for this kid is to expose him/her to a broad base of interests.
And damn it, don't prop the kid up making him/her think he/she is more special than anyone else. Let the kid find his/her talents naturally and develop them, but don't fill the kid's head with visions of grandeur.
The one fucking think I hate about Slashdot is all the damn hubris!
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All I'm saying is that IT people need to develop some skills to make sure that they are heard in their environments. They don't need to kiss people's butts. They just need to be able to talk to them and to have the courage to stand up for their ideals. Oftentimes, IT people would rather not do that, and we end up with people who don't know what they're talking about making the decisions.
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If you had read the rest of the article like a good little boy/girl/whatever, you would have noticed that the author was not really opposed to advocacy. He was talking about the problems with the way people do it. He by no means wants to abolish it.
Using your example, the author was not advocating a language. He was talking about strong typing semantics. But the listener assumed he was advocating something and then responded by advocating back to him. Therefore, what we have here is an advocater making an ignorant advocation, thereby causing the speaker to write an article complaining about the methodology of advocation. He didn't say it was bad in and of itself, just the way in which it is done.
So, anyway, lesson to be learned is that you become more informed about topics when you read the whole thing.
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