You raise a valid point. Not to start a holy jihad here, but these are the types of actions that make people leery of jewish people, particularly jewish people in positions of power. If jewish people want to foster better relations they'll have to do better than this.
For some reason Catholocism doesn't appear to have the cache or reverance that judaism does. I would wager that some of that has to do with the locaust drama of the week that broadcast networks often serve up.
This project is doomed to hell. I will tell you why if you listen intently.
The Boob Factor.
That's right. The Boob Factor hasn't been addressed. None of these meta-langauges or intermediate langauges have addressed this important topic.
What is the Boob Factor, you ask? Quite simply, the Boob Factor is you, it is us. We are the Boobs.
Meta-languages or intermediate langauges, we will assume, work on well known grammatical and linguistic rules. In order to function correctly, these rules must be adhered to flawlessly.
Let us examine the following statement:
I like red meet.
You the reader have been blessed to have a couple of ounces of grey matter resting on your more than likely underdeveloped shoulders. You have the ability to infer the offending Boob's meaning in this sentence. Do you place faith in a meta-langauge or intermediate langauge to do the same? I don't think so. The Boob Factor has reared its ugly little head.
We should all sit back and wait until God has reversed his Babel of Confusion mayhem that he inflicted upon us in a drunken stupor. We can then all go back to speaking tongues in the master language of Sumerian. Oh, the joy for that day.
If you run Universal Networking Language through their coder-decoder thing, it comes out as "Colossal waste of resources and money". In other words, Microsoft.
Can men ever truly be alone in a world with women? If they're not right there nagging the hell out of you they've impanted some neuro-device in your brain that makes it feel as though they are there.
Women, on the flip side, can make a hell of an omelete.
I've been reading/. for several months and I've noticed an overwhelming sentiment in the community that regards John Katz as an ineffectual, boring hack of a writer who has perhaps overstayed his fifteen minutes of fame. I'm not overly familiar with Katz' writings outside of the pieces presented here on/. so I had nothing to measure him against. I wasn't quite sure how he gained the enmity of the majority of the community.
I now understand.
Katz attemtps to gauge America's "freedom" based on three controversial people and the debate that ensued from their controversial actions. He clumsily attempts to equate "blockheaded" debate as infringements upon freedom. I guess in Katz' world we are all free to speak our minds in a utopian vacuum where we sit and either nod or shake our heads in agreement or disagreement. I'd like to be the first to welcome Katz to the real world. Whether America is freer than any other countries is perhaps debatable. If we are to equate freedom with civil debate, then I question whether anyone is truly free.
This commentary from Katz has the feel of a being hastily slapped together and culled from several Junior High School term papers laying around somewhere in Katz' attic. If Katz has free rein to peddle essays of dubious quality he will only furthern harden the community against him.
However, let's look at my initialcomment and its context. I was in no way attacking Roblimo, or/. I was merely making an observation, which you've just validated with your populist arguments. I understand that there is a generally larger interest in stories such as the one this thread addresses, and that the editors of/. understand this and select their stories with a broad audience in mind.
However, merely commenting on the fact that more people seem to respond to such posts on/. shouldn't be taken by you as a put down, it is merely an observation, which I suspect is shared by others wiser than myself:)
Hmm...I guess in an odd way we do agree on something. I don't think I was offended by your initial observation, though. Annoyed is probably a better word. I'm put off by haughty, elitist intellectualism and I took your observation in that vein. Perhaps I jumped the gun.
I have certainly enjoyed hearing your views however. You are obviously cut from a different cloth than a good majority of our/. brethren. I haven't enjoyed a good debate in quite a while, and based on your comments, I have yet to actually debate at all in this thread:)
I see all the/. patent law experts are up late tonight. Relax people. Regardless of whether you think this patent is apocryphal in nature, Amazon is playing by the rules that were in place long before Bezos ever laid his first virtual brick. The sad fact is technology companies are forced to play this silly game because of all the Microsoft's of the world who do engage in the art of securing patents for the sole purpose of creating exclusionary, propietary technology. The jury is still out on Amazon.
After getting severly lambasted for his previous flippant response to this hack, this Pankaj Chowdry character has the nerve to serve up more obfuscating, deflecting drivel.
Once again he talks about the Linux server needing 21 patches for the RedHat 6.0 release which had been out for only a couple of months. Is he for real? Is this some kind of excuse for not doing his job and performing an adequate security check on the box?
He goes on to say...there is no central repository for testing or approving patches to the Linux system. My god this man is a boob. "The Linux system" in question here is RedHat, specifically version 6.0. Redhat lists the errata for each version that they release, complete with cross-referenced bugs and resolution comments. How is this any different than accepting a Service Pack from Microsoft (which Pankaj conveniently forgets to acknowledge were applied to the NT box by, guess who...Microsoft) ? Did Pankaj retest each of the bug fixes included in the Service Packs. I would suspect that he didn't. Yet, all of a sudden Pankaj wants to be Super Administrator and retest each of the bug fixes that Redhat has already certified.
Pankaj then goes on to disparage the autorpm utility because no administrators in their right minds would use this sort of utility because they would have no idea what was being installed on their server.
I would like to request that Pankaj release his testing methodology used to verify what was included on Microsoft's Service Packs and whether they a) fixed everything that was broken and b) did not introduce new avenues of exploitation into his system
I don't understand how this person was able to get this past his boss. But then I forget that his boss is John Taschek who has lost any ounce of credibility that he ever had in his handling of this any other "independent" comparisions of Microsoft and Linux products.
Keep up the good work Zdnet and Ziff-Davis. Just keep it up.
As expected, whenever a self proclaimed intellectual is nettled, the response is often predictable. What started out as a question about who defines what is substantive has turned into an exercise in rambling, intellectual foreplay that has touched on morality, sophistry, relativism, semiotics, etc. If you're not an intellectual, at the very least you know how to converse in their overbearing , masturbatory, venacular.
Parboiling your response down to its essence, we're left with this premise:
You believe that my relativistic analysis of the word substantive is 1) intellectually shallow and 2) morally repugnant
I'll respond to the first issue because I don't have enough time to compose a decent response to the second issue, nor do I think it's "relative":) to this thread.
You see it's all about meaning. Yes, language is an artificial system, but it serves a purpose, which is to facilitate communication through creating commonalties of understanding. An exchange of ideas can either be poor, as in lacking in (intellectual) substance, or rich, as in (intellectually) substantive.
You'll notice that I've paraphrased your statement because if we are to be intellectually honest, that is what you really meant to say.
To pull a cliched page out of your book, let's examine the classical meaning of the word substance:
essential nature
a fundamental or characteristic part or quality
practical importance
Based upon your rhetoric, it's fair to assume that you lend more weight to the second accepted definition, equating quality as intellectual fodder. I think the problem manifests itself in that you also believe that I defined substance in the same way, at least in our conversation thread. That is where you are incorrect.
My questioning of who defines what is substantive was contextually based on my defining substance as is listed in the third definition, thereby prompting me to use an equally cliched metaphor, which you so astutely picked up on:) to try and get my point across based upon my definition of substance. The only complexity inherent in this involves the ambigous nature of my use of the word which you used as a platform for your intellectual musings.
If you will indulge me and assume that quantity of responses to any two particular forums indicates a level of practical import, let us examine the following syllogism:
forum A has 15 responses forum B has 200 response forum B is more substantive than forum A
Irrespective of the quality of the content expressed in either forum, I merely hinted that if the majority of the/. community participated in the MTV forum, it was more practically useful than the Bruce Sterling forum. To you, life may be nothing more than an intellectual pursuit where everything is judged by how mentally stimulated you are by an activity, object or person. You apparently equate quality with serious thinking (hallmark of an intellectual, right?). That is of course your wont. There are people, on the other hand, who deal with more practical matters. You know, pursuing things that make them laugh, cry, empathize, etc. They can find these things worthwhile even if it doesn't make them think! Can you imagine the nerve?
Sure, we can delve into the philisophical and semantical nature of the meaning of the word substance, which lends itself to a richer task than dealing with the definition. That would make for an interesting exercise as well. But I think I'm primarily more interested in dealing with the practical content of the question, admittedly a less noble intellectual endeavor.
As an aside, I'm sure that as an intellectual versed in etymology you'll recognize that semantical is derived from the same root Greek words which gave the world semiotic, you know the whole sign, signifier, signed routine ! Unlike you, I don't think it's necessary to further inflate my ego and give a disseration on the meaning of the word and it's significance in the field of logic and philosophy. I'll leave that for you as an exercise.
I noticed that you didn't quote some of my other comments, particulary the one regarding the nature of your personality. I believe I used variants of the words intransigence and pedantic. I am aware that it is unfair to make characterizations based on a few comments but after reading more from your latest comment
drowned out by the bleating of sycophants whose posts were artificially elevated by equally fawning moderators.
I don't feel particularly shallow for having done so.
I truly hope that you are channeling your intellectual gifts so that the rest of the world benefits. Intellectual pursuit, while lonely by its nature (not many people capable of providing sufficient stimuli), can be worthwhile if the pursuer is capable of creating. I find that most of the great intellectuals of history have paid less attention to the intellectual capacity (deficiency) of others (at least those "beneath" them), but instead concentrated on doing.
As expected, whenever a self proclaimed intellectual is nettled, the response is often predictable. What started out as a question about who defines what is substantive has turned into an exercise in rambling, intellectual foreplay that has touched on morality, sophistry, relativism, Semiotics, etc. If you're not an intellectual, at the very least you know how to converse in their overbearing , masturbatory, venacular.
Parboiling your response down to its essence, we're left with this premise:
You believe that my "relativistic" analysis of the word substantive is 1) intellectually shallow and 2) morally repugnant
I'll respond to the first issue because I don't have enough time to compose a decent response to the second issue, nor do I think it's "relative":) to this thread.
You see it's all about meaning. Yes, language is an artificial system, but it serves a purpose, which is to facilitate communication through creating commonalties of understanding. An exchange of ideas can either be poor, as in lacking in (intellectual) substance, or rich, as in (intellectually) substantive.
You'll notice that I've paraphrased your statement because if we are to be intellectually honest, that is what you really meant to say.
To pull a cliched page out of your book, let's examine the classical meaning of the word substance:
essential nature
a fundamental or characteristic part or quality
practical importance
We'll assume that much you lend more weight to the second accepted definition, equating quality as intellectual fodder. That is perfectly fine, as you are an individual and you have enjoy that liberty in the "morally bankrupt" USA(L ?) I think the problem manifests itself in that you also believe that I defined substance in the same way, at least in our conversation thread. That is where you are incorrect.
To you, life may be nothing more than an intellectual pursuit where everything is judged by how mentally stimulated you are by an activity, object or person. In others, you equate quality with serious thinking (hallmark of an intellectual, right?). Once again, that is your wont.
My questioning of who defines what is substantive was contextually based on my defining substance as is listed in the third definition, thereby prompting me to use an equally cliched metaphor, which you so astutely picked up on:) In other words:
If forum A has 15 responses and If forum B has 200 responses
(irrespective of "quality" of content)
which forum is more important, practically speaking?
Sure, we can delve into the philisophical and semantical nature of the question. That would make for an interesting exercise as well. But I think I'm primarily more interested in dealing with the practical content of the question, admittedly a less noble intellectual gander
If any site forces you to use this Password stuff, boycott the hell out of them and let them know you won't be held captive by the monster from Redmond.
I think I'll wait until smart card technology becomes more prevalent so that I can swipe my card when I want to make a purchase. There is no way in hell that I will relinquish purchasing power to Microsoft. Sheese, I don't even want to touch any of their crappy products.
I find the dictionary a useful reference, perhaps you should pick one up.
I usually find the hard print references lacking so I usually jump online. Kinda makes picking one up a bit difficult, but I'll take your helpful hint metaphorically.
I gather that my preceeding comment went over your head, as you appear to be a literalist lacking in the ability to read between the lines. Let me spell it out for you so that it's easier for you to digest since metaphors don't seem to be your bag:
What you consider substantive, the next person may consider trivial. It's all relative to one's own beliefs and way of thinking. If you are so inclined to believe that there is one codifying way to determine whether something is substantive or not, I would wager that your intransigence and pedantry (you'll probably appreciate those words since you're a poseur word jockey) preclude you from truly being able to look at the whole picture. Closed minded indivuals, regardless of the merits of their arguments, are usally ignored. Don't make that mistake my friend.
And, oh by the way, I do not watch TV, therefore I would hardly be the person to gauge whether MTV is substantive or not, for myself. I do read SF voraciously, but I do not personally consider Bruce Sterling "major", as you put it. You see, I don't let others make that determination for me. I have the feeling that you do, on the other hand. If you believe you are an intellectual because you find participating in a Bruce Sterling ask-athon stimulating, I have a Nobel Prize to sell you.
MTV has become as relevant as yesterday's slashdot feed. They have become a tool of corporate exploitation that exists to cram the coffers of its corporate pimps by using it's only commodity -- you knuckleheaded youth.
Quit your whining because most of you will be watching. I cut my tether to cable tv a long time and have never looked back. I prefer to pack my grey matter with things that I care about, not what Madison ave tells me to care about.
Re:And yet look at the response it's generated...
on
MTV Profiles "Hackers"
·
· Score: 1
Who defines what's substantive? In other words, if a post doesn't generate response, is it really a post...
Say what you will about ESR, but the man pulls no punches. I agree with him; Nikolai Bezroukov's critique of CatB was presented as a scholarly examination yet he failed to employ basic scholarly techniques. Granted, there is nothing wrong with disagreeing with ESR but make sure you do your homework before making it available to the world.
I love that quote by Poe, by the way. It's often overused but in this case it's fitting.
mr, sushi likes to play Devil's Advocate, usually when there isn't any room for contentious argument. He probably got to a regional final on the debating team and thinks it is his duty to argue for no apparent reason. That's ok, though. There will be people to smack him down when needed.
I'm not particularly a fan of Bruce Sterling. However, since he has such a huge following, I thought I would read his anwsers to the submitted questions anyway to see what his thought processes were in response to real live people. Once again, I didn't come away overly impressed with the content he served up. But then again, that could be just me; I'm not really a big fan of William Gibson either(I do like his short stories). I am fully aware that making the preceeding statement is tantamount to committing heresy in this forum so I am prepared for flamage.
While Sterling didn't impress me, I did come away impressed with the actual concept of Slashdot arranging interviews based on questions solicited from the community. Most of the questions were well thought out and went beyond the typical clueless interviewer spiel that we see so often. While I am always impressed with the Slashdot crew , I doubt whether they alone could have presented a series of questions as diverse.
I think more impressive than the range of questions that were presented is the fact that this type of interview, I believe, is much more amenable to the interviewee, thus granting us more opportunity to hear from the people making waves out there. How many times have we read an interview where the interviewer was either not prepared or just not qualified to conduct the interview? Subjects of interviews percieve these as affronts to their time as well as their intelligence.
Slashdot is fast becoming recognized as a community inhabited by a diverse range of techno-geeks, writers, scientists, etc., all of whom have something to contribute. I'm sure that when someone is presented with the opportunity to be interviewed by Slashdot, they realize they will have a challenging interview presented to them and that they will present themselves to a target audience that I suspect they respect as much as it respects them.
It appears that this concept of community participation is catching on. The groudbreaking (IMO) decision on the part of the editors of Jane's Intelligence Review to base an article from the comments/questions of the slashdot community shows that this humble little place where we dwell is fast becoming a force in our lives.
It is really amazing to sit back and watch how Roblimo, Hemos and the others are changing the way things are done. Keep up the good work fellas.
Slashdot Mirror
You raise a valid point. Not to start a holy jihad here, but these are the types of actions that make people leery of jewish people, particularly jewish people in positions of power.
If jewish people want to foster better relations they'll have to do better than this.
For some reason Catholocism doesn't appear to have the cache or reverance that judaism does. I would wager that some of that has to do with the locaust drama of the week that broadcast networks often serve up.
How ironic that some lame slashdotter can label a man, whom many have acknowledged (even his detractors) to be a visionary force, as "myopic".
I guess listening to this kind of drivel is the price of admission here.
This project is doomed to hell. I will tell you why if you listen intently.
The Boob Factor.
That's right. The Boob Factor hasn't been addressed. None of these meta-langauges or intermediate langauges have addressed this important topic.
What is the Boob Factor, you ask? Quite simply, the Boob Factor is you, it is us. We are the Boobs.
Meta-languages or intermediate langauges, we will assume, work on well known grammatical and linguistic rules. In order to function correctly, these rules must be adhered to flawlessly.
Let us examine the following statement:
I like red meet.
You the reader have been blessed to have a couple of ounces of grey matter resting on your more than likely underdeveloped shoulders. You have the ability to infer the offending Boob's meaning in this sentence. Do you place faith in a meta-langauge or intermediate langauge to do the same? I don't think so. The Boob Factor has reared its ugly little head.
We should all sit back and wait until God has reversed his Babel of Confusion mayhem that he inflicted upon us in a drunken stupor. We can then all go back to speaking tongues in the master language of Sumerian. Oh, the joy for that day.
If you run Universal Networking Language through their coder-decoder thing, it comes out as "Colossal waste of resources and money". In other words, Microsoft.
Well, how do they connive to impress their girlfriends then? Or should I say girlfriend-girlfriend?
But can you make a frittata? That's the true test that delineates real chefs from the short order cooks.
To paraphrase a certain jheri-curled hitman from my favorite movie of all time (Pulp Fiction), I am the fucking frittata master.
Can you donate your pancreas to science when you pass on?
speaking of defying physics...Why don't young girls fart?
They have to wait until they get married to acquire an asshole.
Can men ever truly be alone in a world with women? If they're not right there nagging the hell out of you they've impanted some neuro-device in your brain that makes it feel as though they are there.
Women, on the flip side, can make a hell of an omelete.
I've been reading /. for several months and I've noticed an overwhelming sentiment in the community that regards John Katz as an ineffectual, boring hack of a writer who has perhaps overstayed his fifteen minutes of fame. I'm not overly familiar with Katz' writings outside of the pieces presented here on /. so I had nothing to measure him against. I wasn't quite sure how he gained the enmity of the majority of the community.
I now understand.
Katz attemtps to gauge America's "freedom" based on three controversial people and the debate that ensued from their controversial actions. He clumsily attempts to equate "blockheaded" debate as infringements upon freedom. I guess in Katz' world we are all free to speak our minds in a utopian vacuum where we sit and either nod or shake our heads in agreement or disagreement. I'd like to be the first to welcome Katz to the real world. Whether America is freer than any other countries is perhaps debatable. If we are to equate freedom with civil debate, then I question whether anyone is truly free.
This commentary from Katz has the feel of a being hastily slapped together and culled from several Junior High School term papers laying around somewhere in Katz' attic. If Katz has free rein to peddle essays of dubious quality he will only furthern harden the community against him.
However, let's look at my initialcomment and its context. I was in no way attacking Roblimo, or /. I was merely making an observation, which you've just validated with your populist arguments. I understand that there is a generally larger interest in stories such as the one this thread addresses, and that the editors of /. understand this and select their stories with a broad audience in mind.
/. shouldn't be taken by you as a put down, it is merely an observation, which I suspect is shared by others wiser than myself :)
/. brethren. I haven't enjoyed a good debate in quite a while, and based on your comments, I have yet to actually debate at all in this thread :)
However, merely commenting on the fact that more people seem to respond to such posts on
Hmm...I guess in an odd way we do agree on something. I don't think I was offended by your initial observation, though. Annoyed is probably a better word. I'm put off by haughty, elitist intellectualism and I took your observation in that vein. Perhaps I jumped the gun.
I have certainly enjoyed hearing your views however. You are obviously cut from a different cloth than a good majority of our
I see all the /. patent law experts are up late tonight. Relax people. Regardless of whether you think this patent is apocryphal in nature, Amazon is playing by the rules that were in place long before Bezos ever laid his first virtual brick. The sad fact is technology companies are forced to play this silly game because of all the Microsoft's of the world who do engage in the art of securing patents for the sole purpose of creating exclusionary, propietary technology. The jury is still out on Amazon.
After getting severly lambasted for his previous flippant response to this hack, this Pankaj Chowdry character has the nerve to serve up more obfuscating, deflecting drivel.
...there is no central repository for testing or approving patches to the Linux system. My god this man is a boob. "The Linux system" in question here is RedHat, specifically version 6.0. Redhat lists the errata for each version that they release, complete with cross-referenced bugs and resolution comments. How is this any different than accepting a Service Pack from Microsoft (which Pankaj conveniently forgets to acknowledge were applied to the NT box by, guess who...Microsoft) ? Did Pankaj retest each of the bug fixes included in the Service Packs. I would suspect that he didn't. Yet, all of a sudden Pankaj wants to be Super Administrator and retest each of the bug fixes that Redhat has already certified.
Once again he talks about the Linux server needing 21 patches for the RedHat 6.0 release which had been out for only a couple of months. Is he for real? Is this some kind of excuse for not doing his job and performing an adequate security check on the box?
He goes on to say
Pankaj then goes on to disparage the autorpm utility because no administrators in their right minds would use this sort of utility because they would have no idea what was being installed on their server.
I would like to request that Pankaj release his testing methodology used to verify what was included on Microsoft's Service Packs and whether they a) fixed everything that was broken and b) did not introduce new avenues of exploitation into his system
I don't understand how this person was able to get this past his boss. But then I forget that his boss is John Taschek who has lost any ounce of credibility that he ever had in his handling of this any other "independent" comparisions of Microsoft and Linux products.
Keep up the good work Zdnet and Ziff-Davis. Just keep it up.
Parboiling your response down to its essence, we're left with this premise:
You believe that my relativistic analysis of the word substantive is 1) intellectually shallow and 2) morally repugnant
I'll respond to the first issue because I don't have enough time to compose a decent response to the second issue, nor do I think it's "relative"
You see it's all about meaning. Yes, language is an artificial system, but it serves a purpose, which is to facilitate communication through creating commonalties of understanding. An exchange of ideas can either be poor, as in lacking in (intellectual) substance, or rich, as in (intellectually) substantive.
You'll notice that I've paraphrased your statement because if we are to be intellectually honest, that is what you really meant to say.
To pull a cliched page out of your book, let's examine the classical meaning of the word substance:
Based upon your rhetoric, it's fair to assume that you lend more weight to the second accepted definition, equating quality as intellectual fodder. I think the problem manifests itself in that you also believe that I defined substance in the same way, at least in our conversation thread. That is where you are incorrect.
My questioning of who defines what is substantive was contextually based on my defining substance as is listed in the third definition, thereby prompting me to use an equally cliched metaphor, which you so astutely picked up on
If you will indulge me and assume that quantity of responses to any two particular forums indicates a level of practical import, let us examine the following syllogism:
forum A has 15 responses
forum B has 200 response
forum B is more substantive than forum A
Irrespective of the quality of the content expressed in either forum, I merely hinted that if the majority of the
Sure, we can delve into the philisophical and semantical nature of the meaning of the word substance, which lends itself to a richer task than dealing with the definition. That would make for an interesting exercise as well. But I think I'm primarily more interested in dealing with the practical content of the question, admittedly a less noble intellectual endeavor.
As an aside, I'm sure that as an intellectual versed in etymology you'll recognize that semantical is derived from the same root Greek words which gave the world semiotic, you know the whole sign, signifier, signed routine ! Unlike you, I don't think it's necessary to further inflate my ego and give a disseration on the meaning of the word and it's significance in the field of logic and philosophy. I'll leave that for you as an exercise.
I noticed that you didn't quote some of my other comments, particulary the one regarding the nature of your personality. I believe I used variants of the words intransigence and pedantic. I am aware that it is unfair to make characterizations based on a few comments but after reading more from your latest comment
drowned out by the bleating of sycophants whose posts were artificially elevated by equally fawning moderators.
I don't feel particularly shallow for having done so.
I truly hope that you are channeling your intellectual gifts so that the rest of the world benefits. Intellectual pursuit, while lonely by its nature (not many people capable of providing sufficient stimuli), can be worthwhile if the pursuer is capable of creating. I find that most of the great intellectuals of history have paid less attention to the intellectual capacity (deficiency) of others (at least those "beneath" them), but instead concentrated on doing.
Parboiling your response down to its essence, we're left with this premise:
You believe that my "relativistic" analysis of the word substantive is 1) intellectually shallow and 2) morally repugnant
I'll respond to the first issue because I don't have enough time to compose a decent response to the second issue, nor do I think it's "relative"
You see it's all about meaning. Yes, language is an artificial system, but it serves a purpose, which is to facilitate communication through creating commonalties of understanding. An exchange of ideas can either be poor, as in lacking in (intellectual) substance, or rich, as in (intellectually) substantive.
You'll notice that I've paraphrased your statement because if we are to be intellectually honest, that is what you really meant to say.
To pull a cliched page out of your book, let's examine the classical meaning of the word substance:
We'll assume that much you lend more weight to the second accepted definition, equating quality as intellectual fodder. That is perfectly fine, as you are an individual and you have enjoy that liberty in the "morally bankrupt" USA(L ?) I think the problem manifests itself in that you also believe that I defined substance in the same way, at least in our conversation thread. That is where you are incorrect.
To you, life may be nothing more than an intellectual pursuit where everything is judged by how mentally stimulated you are by an activity, object or person. In others, you equate quality with serious thinking (hallmark of an intellectual, right?). Once again, that is your wont.
My questioning of who defines what is substantive was contextually based on my defining substance as is listed in the third definition, thereby prompting me to use an equally cliched metaphor, which you so astutely picked up on
If forum A has 15 responses and
If forum B has 200 responses
(irrespective of "quality" of content)
which forum is more important, practically speaking?
Sure, we can delve into the philisophical and semantical nature of the question. That would make for an interesting exercise as well. But I think I'm primarily more interested in dealing with the practical content of the question, admittedly a less noble intellectual gander
If any site forces you to use this Password stuff, boycott the hell out of them and let them know you won't be held captive by the monster from Redmond.
I think I'll wait until smart card technology becomes more prevalent so that I can swipe my card when I want to make a purchase. There is no way in hell that I will relinquish purchasing power to Microsoft. Sheese, I don't even want to touch any of their crappy products.
If we ASK them for it and they don't GIVE it to us, then someone should sue their PANTS off.
Sooner or later the legal validity of the GPL will have to be tested in a courtoom or two. I'm wondering if these idiots will be the first test case.
Hey Bruce, if does violate the GPL, what can anyone do about it? Who would be the appropiate person to initiate legal proceedings?
I find the dictionary a useful reference, perhaps you should pick one up.
I usually find the hard print references lacking so I usually jump online. Kinda makes picking one up a bit difficult, but I'll take your helpful hint metaphorically.
I gather that my preceeding comment went over your head, as you appear to be a literalist lacking in the ability to read between the lines. Let me spell it out for you so that it's easier for you to digest since metaphors don't seem to be your bag:
What you consider substantive, the next person may consider trivial. It's all relative to one's own beliefs and way of thinking. If you are so inclined to believe that there is one codifying way to determine whether something is substantive or not, I would wager that your intransigence and pedantry (you'll probably appreciate those words since you're a poseur word jockey) preclude you from truly being able to look at the whole picture. Closed minded indivuals, regardless of the merits of their arguments, are usally ignored. Don't make that mistake my friend.
And, oh by the way, I do not watch TV, therefore I would hardly be the person to gauge whether MTV is substantive or not, for myself. I do read SF voraciously, but I do not personally consider Bruce Sterling "major", as you put it. You see, I don't let others make that determination for me. I have the feeling that you do, on the other hand. If you believe you are an intellectual because you find participating in a Bruce Sterling ask-athon stimulating, I have a Nobel Prize to sell you.
MTV has become as relevant as yesterday's slashdot feed. They have become a tool of corporate exploitation that exists to cram the coffers of its corporate pimps by using it's only commodity -- you knuckleheaded youth.
Quit your whining because most of you will be watching. I cut my tether to cable tv a long time and have never looked back. I prefer to pack my grey matter with things that I care about, not what Madison ave tells me to care about.
Who defines what's substantive? In other words, if a post doesn't generate response, is it really a post...
Say what you will about ESR, but the man pulls no punches. I agree with him; Nikolai Bezroukov's critique of CatB was presented as a scholarly examination yet he failed to employ basic scholarly techniques. Granted, there is nothing wrong with disagreeing with ESR but make sure you do your homework before making it available to the world.
I love that quote by Poe, by the way. It's often overused but in this case it's fitting.
mr, sushi likes to play Devil's Advocate, usually when there isn't any room for contentious argument. He probably got to a regional final on the debating team and thinks it is his duty to argue for no apparent reason. That's ok, though. There will be people to smack him down when needed.
Out of all the blowhards on /., you probably bore me the most.
Have fun refuting that. Excuse me while I got sit in a corner.
Hi all,
I'm not particularly a fan of Bruce Sterling. However, since he has such a huge following, I thought I would read his anwsers to the submitted questions anyway to see what his thought processes were in response to real live people. Once again, I didn't come away overly impressed with the content he served up. But then again, that could be just me; I'm not really a big fan of William Gibson either(I do like his short stories). I am fully aware that making the preceeding statement is tantamount to committing heresy in this forum so I am prepared for flamage.
While Sterling didn't impress me, I did come away impressed with the actual concept of Slashdot arranging interviews based on questions solicited from the community. Most of the questions were well thought out and went beyond the typical clueless interviewer spiel that we see so often. While I am always impressed with the Slashdot crew , I doubt whether they alone could have presented a series of questions as diverse.
I think more impressive than the range of questions that were presented is the fact that this type of interview, I believe, is much more amenable to the interviewee, thus granting us more opportunity to hear from the people making waves out there. How many times have we read an interview where the interviewer was either not prepared or just not qualified to conduct the interview? Subjects of interviews percieve these as affronts to their time as well as their intelligence.
Slashdot is fast becoming recognized as a community inhabited by a diverse range of techno-geeks, writers, scientists, etc., all of whom have something to contribute. I'm sure that when someone is presented with the opportunity to be interviewed by Slashdot, they realize they will have a challenging interview presented to them and that they will present themselves to a target audience that I suspect they respect as much as it respects them.
It appears that this concept of community participation is catching on. The groudbreaking (IMO) decision on the part of the editors of Jane's Intelligence Review to base an article from the comments/questions of the slashdot community shows that this humble little place where we dwell is fast becoming a force in our lives.
It is really amazing to sit back and watch how Roblimo, Hemos and the others are changing the way things are done. Keep up the good work fellas.