Steve Ballmer is the kind of guy that makes comedians lose their jobs. After he talks, there's basically no room to mock him, nothing funny or idiotic left to say, no better snarky riposte than what he just said. The comedic absurdity is built in. He mocks himself. He does it all, from soup to nuts. He's just that kind of guy.
The best explanation is most likely not going to consist of anyone's favorite personal or political bullshit. Most likely it is due to better nutrition, much lower childhood morbidity and mortality, antibiotics, vaccines, the elimination of lead in paints, indoor plumbing, potable water, etc. Not very exciting, but these are things that have radically transformed human society within the past century and a half.
The 21st century will soon begin in earnest. All you young'uns would be well advised to review world history between about 1907 and 1946 or so. This kind of technology will make us all live in interesting times indeed.
And to keep kids out of Mom's hair while she performs her motherly duties. And to keep as many kids off the streets as possible during business hours. And to make sure at least half or (best case) two thirds of them or so end up gainfully employed during most of their adult lives.
because they are focused on helping those students most likely to be left behind.
Wrong. Schools focus on the kids roughly within the first standard deviation limits on the normal curve, not because they care but because they are usually a one-size-fits-all solution. People above or below the first standard deviation or so are too different to work well under those circumstances, so they start falling out of the system. Ironic that someone felt the need to link to the No Child Left Behind Act wikipedia entry. That law was an exemplary piece of parent con job, government pork for companies that provide utterly worthless metrics that in no credible way have improved education, and I challenge everyone to refute that in a credible, empirically, and extensively documented fashion. To the contrary, "teaching to the test" has become synonymous with "education" in the US. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but we will pay a steep price for that in the not too distant future.
Aside from the excess of detail in the story that will doubtlessly be stale within a year, my main criticism is that this sounds like 1950s sci fi, just updated with more recent technology. The implicit obsession with everything being done by machines at the expense of human labor is a ludicrous Jetsons-era fantasy. A robotic waiter at a local lunch joint? That would imply large-scale displacement of unskilled labor, therefore widespread unemployment, therefore social disruption, and therefore the protagonist would not likely have such a a sappy, empty-headed, indolent, and comfortable lifestyle, especially given that he is in marketing. Minor nods to global warming and water shortages notwithstanding, this story is unable to suspend disbelief and conjure up a credible scenario.
This obsession with roboticizing everything and eliminating human labor and human contact at every turn is creepy and disturbing, let alone self-destructive.
If it's true that his first choice for a phone call when facing potential imminent death was to a gaming forum, well, you have to at least scratch your head.
Liberty is indeed the freedom to do as we please, as long as we abide by the law. It is not limited by "act as we aught," which necessarily implies some set of arbitrary extra-legal rules.
I know, I know, you like meat, maybe even a lot. I get it, I'm not trying to convince you of some wacky dogma or spiritual doctrine. But based strictly on the economics of meat production, and its disastrous ecological effects, not to mention the fact that you probably don't need much meat in your diet, might you consider eating meat only a couple of times a week? If everyone in the U.S. did that, there would be far less animal waste, far less consumption of potable water, significant overall health improvements, and attractive cost savings for consumers. BTW, by meat I mean any kind of animal tissue, not just beef or pork. Just to spell it out, that would include fish, poultry, venison, animal flesh of any kind, and maybe eggs.
Please enforce a 12 month moratorium on copying anything, absolutely anything, from Windows 8 that is not already in common usage. Do not under any circumstances tolerate or condone Windows 8 penis envy.
I saw it done in grad school, in Mexico. It definitely looked like it required serious ninja lab skills. On a grander scale, automating such tricky and delicate maneuvers will revolutionize all of the sciences. The great 20th century scientific techniques will be subsumed to an invisible stratum hidden inside machines. 21st century scientists will use those as building blocks and tools. They will each be standing on the shoulders of several generations of scientists. Unbelievably scary, unbelievably cool.
1) Almost nobody on/. knows about or will ever see this technique practiced
2) BTW, it is done in vitro or in instrumented animal models, not in your head. At least not with any reasonable expectation of safety in the hands of "the masses."
3) At the moment there are essentially no practical applications of patch clamping "for the masses"
If I am mistaken, then boy are we in deep shit now.
I admire your impulse to jump in with this, but as you can easily see it is pointless. Most of these folks can't see beyond the end of their noses. They can't generalize the consequences of ignoring the law, nor do they even appear to understand the original purpose of patents, copyrights, and trademarks. They don't understand that the laws have been frequently altered to allow abuse, and can at least in principle be altered to roll back the abuse potential. They are faux libertarians enamored with their own brain farts.
bad news for fans of UK shows that aren't available for purchase anywhere
So evidently many of you folks believe this is reason enough to pirate the content. If a patent isn't available for licensing by its owner, and thus not "available for purchase anywhere," is that also reason enough to pirate the patent? What about violating GPL, since it isn't "available for purchase anywhere," either? I'm talking about the enforcement of prevailing law, not anyone's philosophical issues with intellectual property.
When money talks, people stop listening to anything else. "people who think that any such notion is somehow impinging on their freedums" are like children throwing tantrums for things they want badly without a care in the world whether they really need them or not or whether it is even in their medium or long term interest to have them at all.
I applaud your post. If I had mod points, they'd be yours. Iranian nukes? Only an idiot can believe that they would attack Israel with a nuke, directly or by proxy. It would clearly and categorically mean a clean and robust regime-extinction event for them. It is the War-For-Profit machine in its myriad guises trying to get traction, nothing more.
Iran is a minor supporter of terrorism compared to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Emirates, who have been supporting American-killing terrorists for decades. Why so little public discussion about it? Because they are business partners with the American 1%. There is no better way to cover your ass, and practically no crime that can't be swept under the rug.
Lamentably, you make a valid point. Let's hope hordes of smart Iranian women get educated here in the U.S. and stay to create wealth here rather than in their homeland. Somebody has to fund Social Security when I retire.
Slashdot Mirror
Steve Ballmer is the kind of guy that makes comedians lose their jobs. After he talks, there's basically no room to mock him, nothing funny or idiotic left to say, no better snarky riposte than what he just said. The comedic absurdity is built in. He mocks himself. He does it all, from soup to nuts. He's just that kind of guy.
Why he's still there, though, is baffling.
The best explanation is most likely not going to consist of anyone's favorite personal or political bullshit. Most likely it is due to better nutrition, much lower childhood morbidity and mortality, antibiotics, vaccines, the elimination of lead in paints, indoor plumbing, potable water, etc. Not very exciting, but these are things that have radically transformed human society within the past century and a half.
The 21st century will soon begin in earnest. All you young'uns would be well advised to review world history between about 1907 and 1946 or so. This kind of technology will make us all live in interesting times indeed.
And the Mouse will sic its most powerful dog on them.
And to keep kids out of Mom's hair while she performs her motherly duties. And to keep as many kids off the streets as possible during business hours. And to make sure at least half or (best case) two thirds of them or so end up gainfully employed during most of their adult lives.
because they are focused on helping those students most likely to be left behind.
Wrong. Schools focus on the kids roughly within the first standard deviation limits on the normal curve, not because they care but because they are usually a one-size-fits-all solution. People above or below the first standard deviation or so are too different to work well under those circumstances, so they start falling out of the system. Ironic that someone felt the need to link to the No Child Left Behind Act wikipedia entry. That law was an exemplary piece of parent con job, government pork for companies that provide utterly worthless metrics that in no credible way have improved education, and I challenge everyone to refute that in a credible, empirically, and extensively documented fashion. To the contrary, "teaching to the test" has become synonymous with "education" in the US. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but we will pay a steep price for that in the not too distant future.
Hey, you have to stick with your core competencies.
Aside from the excess of detail in the story that will doubtlessly be stale within a year, my main criticism is that this sounds like 1950s sci fi, just updated with more recent technology. The implicit obsession with everything being done by machines at the expense of human labor is a ludicrous Jetsons-era fantasy. A robotic waiter at a local lunch joint? That would imply large-scale displacement of unskilled labor, therefore widespread unemployment, therefore social disruption, and therefore the protagonist would not likely have such a a sappy, empty-headed, indolent, and comfortable lifestyle, especially given that he is in marketing. Minor nods to global warming and water shortages notwithstanding, this story is unable to suspend disbelief and conjure up a credible scenario.
This obsession with roboticizing everything and eliminating human labor and human contact at every turn is creepy and disturbing, let alone self-destructive.
No, he's an embarrassment to all of us in full view of the planet.
The left wing is almost entirely absent from mainstream US politics. There's only Center Right, and Extreme Right. There is no Left in the discussion.
If it's true that his first choice for a phone call when facing potential imminent death was to a gaming forum, well, you have to at least scratch your head.
Liberty is indeed the freedom to do as we please, as long as we abide by the law. It is not limited by "act as we aught," which necessarily implies some set of arbitrary extra-legal rules.
I second the motion.
... just stop eating meat.
I know, I know, you like meat, maybe even a lot. I get it, I'm not trying to convince you of some wacky dogma or spiritual doctrine. But based strictly on the economics of meat production, and its disastrous ecological effects, not to mention the fact that you probably don't need much meat in your diet, might you consider eating meat only a couple of times a week? If everyone in the U.S. did that, there would be far less animal waste, far less consumption of potable water, significant overall health improvements, and attractive cost savings for consumers. BTW, by meat I mean any kind of animal tissue, not just beef or pork. Just to spell it out, that would include fish, poultry, venison, animal flesh of any kind, and maybe eggs.
Certainly it would include bacon.
Please enforce a 12 month moratorium on copying anything, absolutely anything, from Windows 8 that is not already in common usage. Do not under any circumstances tolerate or condone Windows 8 penis envy.
This cloud== distributed computing. Everyone else? Not so much.
I saw it done in grad school, in Mexico. It definitely looked like it required serious ninja lab skills. On a grander scale, automating such tricky and delicate maneuvers will revolutionize all of the sciences. The great 20th century scientific techniques will be subsumed to an invisible stratum hidden inside machines. 21st century scientists will use those as building blocks and tools. They will each be standing on the shoulders of several generations of scientists. Unbelievably scary, unbelievably cool.
Patch-Clamping To the Masses
1) Almost nobody on /. knows about or will ever see this technique practiced
2) BTW, it is done in vitro or in instrumented animal models, not in your head. At least not with any reasonable expectation of safety in the hands of "the masses."
3) At the moment there are essentially no practical applications of patch clamping "for the masses"
If I am mistaken, then boy are we in deep shit now.
I admire your impulse to jump in with this, but as you can easily see it is pointless. Most of these folks can't see beyond the end of their noses. They can't generalize the consequences of ignoring the law, nor do they even appear to understand the original purpose of patents, copyrights, and trademarks. They don't understand that the laws have been frequently altered to allow abuse, and can at least in principle be altered to roll back the abuse potential. They are faux libertarians enamored with their own brain farts.
bad news for fans of UK shows that aren't available for purchase anywhere
So evidently many of you folks believe this is reason enough to pirate the content. If a patent isn't available for licensing by its owner, and thus not "available for purchase anywhere," is that also reason enough to pirate the patent? What about violating GPL, since it isn't "available for purchase anywhere," either? I'm talking about the enforcement of prevailing law, not anyone's philosophical issues with intellectual property.
When money talks, people stop listening to anything else. "people who think that any such notion is somehow impinging on their freedums" are like children throwing tantrums for things they want badly without a care in the world whether they really need them or not or whether it is even in their medium or long term interest to have them at all.
I applaud your post. If I had mod points, they'd be yours. Iranian nukes? Only an idiot can believe that they would attack Israel with a nuke, directly or by proxy. It would clearly and categorically mean a clean and robust regime-extinction event for them. It is the War-For-Profit machine in its myriad guises trying to get traction, nothing more.
Iran is a minor supporter of terrorism compared to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Emirates, who have been supporting American-killing terrorists for decades. Why so little public discussion about it? Because they are business partners with the American 1%. There is no better way to cover your ass, and practically no crime that can't be swept under the rug.
Lamentably, you make a valid point. Let's hope hordes of smart Iranian women get educated here in the U.S. and stay to create wealth here rather than in their homeland. Somebody has to fund Social Security when I retire.
Oh the moronity!
Oh they have a clue allright. They also have a clue about what lawyers, judges, and juries know about atoms, molecules, bonds, and gene sequences.