I agree with your original post, but I disagree with this one. I would say that a Geek and a Nerd are both likely to debate some extremely trivial point that the rest of the population wouldn't. In a sense, this isn't what separates geeks from nerds, but what separates geeks and nerds from regular folk. The difference between geeks and nerds, I'd say, is that a geek might only get self-righteous when discussing points of fact (and even then, they might not), while a nerd will get self-righteous even in matters of opinion.
So far, nobody here is insulting anyone else's opinions. People are treating them like opinions, not divine fact. Everybody seems mellow, and there isn't a feeling of competition as much as discussion. That's pretty geeky to me.
In a sense, nerds are like unconscious trolls: they provoke fights through their assumption that people who disagree are idiots, and the accompanying harsh invective. The difference is that trolls do it on purpose, while nerds do it because their people skills are just that fucked up.
Of course, you may disagree with me, but as long as you're polite, I won't peg you as a nerd.
Well stated, and agreed. If one has foreknowledge that a site is weak and easily crumbled, I believe it's immoral to intentionally down it, but the flip side is that I don't think it's peoples' responsibilities to investigate the hosting platform, firewall configurations, etc. of a place they wish to link to.
Link assuming the best, unless you know otherwise.
Don't let the bastards grind you down. It's in the nature of forums that if anyone has a misfortune, at least half the people in the forum will blame the person affected. Just shrug them off. It's the other people who generally have something valuable to say.
However, I still find it to be somewhat immoral to intentionally take someone down for not doing their research, the same way I find it immoral to rob someone's house because they left it unlocked. Sure, they were stupid, sure, they have no right to complain, but that doesn't make it moral all of a sudden to do so.
In a sense, that's the core of morality: morality is only an issue when something can be done, but shouldn't (or the awkward corollary "doesn't have to be done, but should"). If it can't be done in the first place, the fact that it's impossible puts a stop to things before morality is even involved.
We're not discussing the right to complain, we're discussing morality. FsG seems to be of the opinion that there is no moral issue in intentionally bringing down a weak site, because it was their fault that it was weak. If we're talking virus spreading or other weaknesses that harm other people as well, I'd be tempted to agree, but that's not the argument being presented.
Everything else you're saying, I agree with. If you want a reliable server, you can pick a strong web hosting company. However, just because someone hasn't done it doesn't mean that there's no moral issue in crushing their site, any more than the idea that there is no moral issue in stealing someone's stuff because they didn't lock the door to their house.
No, but in the atmosphere the parent seemed to imply, corporations could afford to pay someone to harden their websites, while amateur frog enthusiasts or other random interesting folk probably couldn't afford the time.
So only the technologically elite should be allowed to put up websites?
Well, that knocks about 90% of the internet off the globe, leaving a bunch of corporate sites and a few sites of hardware reviews and Beowulf clusters. How fun...
I use the Sharp SH53, which should be pretty cheap now, as it's been out for over six months. It really depends if you're going to go with: AU, DoCoMo, or Vodafone. I can give plenty of opinions on Vodafone phones, but nothing about AU or DoCoMo except "avoid Sony phones, they break".
I don't know of it being used for police brutality, but there isn't quite as much of that here as there is in North America (don't get me wrong, it exists, but not as much). But I do know of cameras being used to take pictures of crimes in progress and used later on, not as proof, but in determining the perpetrator to assist in investigation.
"i don't know what universe you're posting from, but when ever i take my laptop out, it get a bunch of attention that i can't stand having. can't people just leave me along to post to./?!"
Rereading this, I feel compelled to make an amendment: I don't need that nonsense, but I do want and use it. It's like my home computer, my television, my air conditioner, and my stereo. Not "necessary" per se, but often and happily used. Just wanted to point that out before I got the inevitable responses.
Good point. Mine is on vibration most of the time, but in winter, due to thick clothing, I can't feel it sometimes. Which reminds me of the other thing that I really like about custom ring-tones: I can set different ring-tones for different people. This comes in handy where I'm just busy enough not to answer all calls, but not so busy as to miss certain calls. For example, if I'm taking a nap and my phone starts ringing, I'll know to get up and answer it if it's from my translation agency, but that I can ignore it and go back to sleep if it's a friend calling. When I'm at work, I can know if it's my superior calling, or just my GF ringing about something. Since I have my answering machine on the phone set to pick up after about 5 seconds, it doesn't keep ringing and ringing, so letting it ring without answering doesn't bother the people around me (it would take about 5 seconds to answer the phone anyway, so the two are effectively the same). Also, I have different ring tones set for mail and for phone calls, so I'll know if I have to check the phone right away or if I can check it later at leisure.
What I use it for very probably may not suit other people's needs, but I was just addressing the question of who uses this stuff. So far, I've used it to:
Take notes (most recently, I was looking at a shelf for my kitchen, and needed to take the measurements, price, etc. Instead of writing it all down, I took a picture).
Take a picture of every person whose number I put in my phone. I am absolutely horrible with names, and in my last phone I'd say that maybe 20% of the people in my phonelist I had no idea who they were, but was hesitant to delete them in case one day I'd think, "Oh, THAT'S who Taro is! Damn, I should've kept the number!". Now, whenever someone calls, their name and picture shows on the screen, so I know who is who. Also helps to separate "Taro #1" from "Taro #2" for people whose last names I don't know.
Take pictures of anything that would be a pain in the butt to describe to people. For instance, talking to my girlfriend and saying "yesterday, I saw this really cool looking poster in a store window. It was, like, an abstract blue and green thing with like these spikey things coming out...well, it was really cool. I guess you'd have to have seen it yourself". Now, if I see something cool, funny, etc., I can just snap a picture and send it.
Personalizing mails. For example, if I get a mail that makes no sense, I could send a "WTF?!" response, but instead I'll just make a WTF face, take a picture, and send it. Much more personal than just words.
My phone can take both screen-sized pictures, to send to other phones, and full size (1024 x 768) photos, which I can transfer to my computer through the SD card in the phone. This comes in handy on those days where I see something really beautiful (a sunset, a festival, etc.) that I wasn't expecting, and therefore wasn't carrying my normal digital camera around for.
Like I said, these are the ways I use it. You may find them incredibly retarded, but it doesn't change the fact that I (and most of my friends) get a lot of mileage out of these features.
And really, the ability to have a person's face appear when they call is an absolute lifesaver for me (as well as to browse through my phone numbers with a face displayed next to the name). I don't use my cellphone for work, at all, so necessarily most of my uses will be casual. Still, that feature alone has made my phone amazingly more useful.
As for web browsing, games, etc.:
First, I live in Tokyo. That means no car. Public transportation only. Having a game you can play with one hand on your cell-phone is incredibly convenient for crowded train commutes. Other than that, honestly, I don't use java much.
The web browsing is incredibly useful, but, ironically, not for browsing the open internet. Instead, there's a site I use several times a week that will tell you the quickest train route between where you are and where you're going, what stations to change at, what time the trains leave, when you will get there, etc. Without this site, again, I would be pretty much screwed.
Hmm...then it would appear that America as a whole has that problem. My guess is that you just have to give it a few years. Living in Japan, having a cell phone is about as cool as having a home phone or having a computer. Apparently, in America it's still like the olden days where somebody using a laptop was seen as "showing off". That will wear off with time, though.
I'm just imagining a crowded shopping area in Tokyo in an alternate universe without personalized ringtones: 50 people reaching for their phone every time someone gets a call. That would be hell...
I do, my girlfriend does, some of my work colleagues do, and judging from the longing looks I keep seeing him make when we walk by an electronics shop, my best friend does.
Go to any dollar shop, any airport shop, or any convenience store to find a plain jane calculator. What you may be missing is that, as the expensive models get cheaper, the cheaper models move out of the electronics shops and move into budget retailing locations.
Maybe that's true in whatever godforsaken primitive village you live in where cell-phones have anything to do with being cool. In the rest of the damn world, where cell phones are a tool, and no cooler or less cool than watches or shoes, ring-tones are used to distinguish between phones.
"And there is still no info about mouse and keyboard support, in my hubmble opinion, the best way to play FPSs, RTSs, navigate menus, etc."
Wait...a mouse, I can understand, but a keyboard?? Why would you want a non-analogue control like a keyboard to play games?? To enter text, I can understand, but to run, walk, creep, or have any control over your movement...A keyboard would be hell!
A left hand console controller and right hand mouse combo would be nice.
True, and I may have overstated my point in response to the popular "Innovation = Good" view. Reflecting on things, I would say that lack of innovation is not in itself bad, but as people get more and more used to games, and play more, fun levels may go down unless innovation occurs, in which case innovation will become necessary for fun. Case in point: I loved Pitfall when I was a kid. I've played it since, and it is incredibly boring. One could say that innovation since then is what makes the game less fun, but I'd posit that even if there were no innovation since the old Atari days, I'd still find it boring. The same old thing can get boring, and innovation can get one out of that rut. However, lack of innovation does not in itself make a game less good. If someone dislikes a game like Halo because of the repetitive levels, etc., that makes sense, but if the only argument against it is that it is not innovative, the argument is weak.
In addition to making stale game scenes more fun, innovation can also be the icing on the cake. For example, as fun as Halo was for me, some innovation could have made it that much better.
So innovation can be the catalyst to discovering new types of fun. It can be the mover that gets a non-fun repetitive game scene out of its rut. It can also be icing, giving a good game a little spice (I think graphics improvements fall in this category. Quake was great fun. Graphic innovations on the same game style have provided an edge on top of that, making it fun + pretty).
Juuuuust far enough away that halfway to getting to the supermarket I decide I want to listen to a different type of music than when I left the house...Plus another 6 meters.
Slashdot Mirror
"I thought it was because they don't use soap?
No, that would be Hippies..."
I thought that was goa trancers.
I agree with your original post, but I disagree with this one. I would say that a Geek and a Nerd are both likely to debate some extremely trivial point that the rest of the population wouldn't. In a sense, this isn't what separates geeks from nerds, but what separates geeks and nerds from regular folk. The difference between geeks and nerds, I'd say, is that a geek might only get self-righteous when discussing points of fact (and even then, they might not), while a nerd will get self-righteous even in matters of opinion.
So far, nobody here is insulting anyone else's opinions. People are treating them like opinions, not divine fact. Everybody seems mellow, and there isn't a feeling of competition as much as discussion. That's pretty geeky to me.
In a sense, nerds are like unconscious trolls: they provoke fights through their assumption that people who disagree are idiots, and the accompanying harsh invective. The difference is that trolls do it on purpose, while nerds do it because their people skills are just that fucked up.
Of course, you may disagree with me, but as long as you're polite, I won't peg you as a nerd.
"Will non techies ever "get it" that they don't want anything advertised by a pop-up or spam?"
Nothing to add; I just wanted to say that I absolutely loved the phrasing of this sentence.
Well stated, and agreed. If one has foreknowledge that a site is weak and easily crumbled, I believe it's immoral to intentionally down it, but the flip side is that I don't think it's peoples' responsibilities to investigate the hosting platform, firewall configurations, etc. of a place they wish to link to.
Link assuming the best, unless you know otherwise.
Don't let the bastards grind you down. It's in the nature of forums that if anyone has a misfortune, at least half the people in the forum will blame the person affected. Just shrug them off. It's the other people who generally have something valuable to say.
So there's nothing immoral in taking advantage of amateurs? Scary world, that one.
Ok, I agree with you much more now.
However, I still find it to be somewhat immoral to intentionally take someone down for not doing their research, the same way I find it immoral to rob someone's house because they left it unlocked. Sure, they were stupid, sure, they have no right to complain, but that doesn't make it moral all of a sudden to do so.
In a sense, that's the core of morality: morality is only an issue when something can be done, but shouldn't (or the awkward corollary "doesn't have to be done, but should"). If it can't be done in the first place, the fact that it's impossible puts a stop to things before morality is even involved.
We're not discussing the right to complain, we're discussing morality. FsG seems to be of the opinion that there is no moral issue in intentionally bringing down a weak site, because it was their fault that it was weak. If we're talking virus spreading or other weaknesses that harm other people as well, I'd be tempted to agree, but that's not the argument being presented.
Everything else you're saying, I agree with. If you want a reliable server, you can pick a strong web hosting company. However, just because someone hasn't done it doesn't mean that there's no moral issue in crushing their site, any more than the idea that there is no moral issue in stealing someone's stuff because they didn't lock the door to their house.
No, but in the atmosphere the parent seemed to imply, corporations could afford to pay someone to harden their websites, while amateur frog enthusiasts or other random interesting folk probably couldn't afford the time.
So only the technologically elite should be allowed to put up websites? Well, that knocks about 90% of the internet off the globe, leaving a bunch of corporate sites and a few sites of hardware reviews and Beowulf clusters. How fun...
I use the Sharp SH53, which should be pretty cheap now, as it's been out for over six months. It really depends if you're going to go with: AU, DoCoMo, or Vodafone. I can give plenty of opinions on Vodafone phones, but nothing about AU or DoCoMo except "avoid Sony phones, they break".
I don't know of it being used for police brutality, but there isn't quite as much of that here as there is in North America (don't get me wrong, it exists, but not as much). But I do know of cameras being used to take pictures of crimes in progress and used later on, not as proof, but in determining the perpetrator to assist in investigation.
"i don't know what universe you're posting from, but when ever i take my laptop out, it get a bunch of attention that i can't stand having. can't people just leave me along to post to ./?!"
The universe of Japan.
Ok, time for a blatant troll:
Perhaps if Americans were less conformist, and more individualistic, like the Japanese, this wouldn't be a problem ^_^
Rereading this, I feel compelled to make an amendment: I don't need that nonsense, but I do want and use it. It's like my home computer, my television, my air conditioner, and my stereo. Not "necessary" per se, but often and happily used. Just wanted to point that out before I got the inevitable responses.
It's the Zeno's paradox delay process.
And it's patented, so don't think of using it yourself.
Good point. Mine is on vibration most of the time, but in winter, due to thick clothing, I can't feel it sometimes. Which reminds me of the other thing that I really like about custom ring-tones: I can set different ring-tones for different people. This comes in handy where I'm just busy enough not to answer all calls, but not so busy as to miss certain calls. For example, if I'm taking a nap and my phone starts ringing, I'll know to get up and answer it if it's from my translation agency, but that I can ignore it and go back to sleep if it's a friend calling. When I'm at work, I can know if it's my superior calling, or just my GF ringing about something. Since I have my answering machine on the phone set to pick up after about 5 seconds, it doesn't keep ringing and ringing, so letting it ring without answering doesn't bother the people around me (it would take about 5 seconds to answer the phone anyway, so the two are effectively the same). Also, I have different ring tones set for mail and for phone calls, so I'll know if I have to check the phone right away or if I can check it later at leisure.
- Take notes (most recently, I was looking at a shelf for my kitchen, and needed to take the measurements, price, etc. Instead of writing it all down, I took a picture).
- Take a picture of every person whose number I put in my phone. I am absolutely horrible with names, and in my last phone I'd say that maybe 20% of the people in my phonelist I had no idea who they were, but was hesitant to delete them in case one day I'd think, "Oh, THAT'S who Taro is! Damn, I should've kept the number!". Now, whenever someone calls, their name and picture shows on the screen, so I know who is who. Also helps to separate "Taro #1" from "Taro #2" for people whose last names I don't know.
- Take pictures of anything that would be a pain in the butt to describe to people. For instance, talking to my girlfriend and saying "yesterday, I saw this really cool looking poster in a store window. It was, like, an abstract blue and green thing with like these spikey things coming out...well, it was really cool. I guess you'd have to have seen it yourself". Now, if I see something cool, funny, etc., I can just snap a picture and send it.
- Personalizing mails. For example, if I get a mail that makes no sense, I could send a "WTF?!" response, but instead I'll just make a WTF face, take a picture, and send it. Much more personal than just words.
- My phone can take both screen-sized pictures, to send to other phones, and full size (1024 x 768) photos, which I can transfer to my computer through the SD card in the phone. This comes in handy on those days where I see something really beautiful (a sunset, a festival, etc.) that I wasn't expecting, and therefore wasn't carrying my normal digital camera around for.
Like I said, these are the ways I use it. You may find them incredibly retarded, but it doesn't change the fact that I (and most of my friends) get a lot of mileage out of these features.And really, the ability to have a person's face appear when they call is an absolute lifesaver for me (as well as to browse through my phone numbers with a face displayed next to the name). I don't use my cellphone for work, at all, so necessarily most of my uses will be casual. Still, that feature alone has made my phone amazingly more useful.
As for web browsing, games, etc.:
First, I live in Tokyo. That means no car. Public transportation only. Having a game you can play with one hand on your cell-phone is incredibly convenient for crowded train commutes. Other than that, honestly, I don't use java much.
The web browsing is incredibly useful, but, ironically, not for browsing the open internet. Instead, there's a site I use several times a week that will tell you the quickest train route between where you are and where you're going, what stations to change at, what time the trains leave, when you will get there, etc. Without this site, again, I would be pretty much screwed.
Hmm...then it would appear that America as a whole has that problem. My guess is that you just have to give it a few years. Living in Japan, having a cell phone is about as cool as having a home phone or having a computer. Apparently, in America it's still like the olden days where somebody using a laptop was seen as "showing off". That will wear off with time, though.
I'm just imagining a crowded shopping area in Tokyo in an alternate universe without personalized ringtones: 50 people reaching for their phone every time someone gets a call. That would be hell...
"Who needs all that nonsense?"
I do, my girlfriend does, some of my work colleagues do, and judging from the longing looks I keep seeing him make when we walk by an electronics shop, my best friend does.
Go to any dollar shop, any airport shop, or any convenience store to find a plain jane calculator. What you may be missing is that, as the expensive models get cheaper, the cheaper models move out of the electronics shops and move into budget retailing locations.
Maybe that's true in whatever godforsaken primitive village you live in where cell-phones have anything to do with being cool. In the rest of the damn world, where cell phones are a tool, and no cooler or less cool than watches or shoes, ring-tones are used to distinguish between phones.
"And there is still no info about mouse and keyboard support, in my hubmble opinion, the best way to play FPSs, RTSs, navigate menus, etc."
Wait...a mouse, I can understand, but a keyboard?? Why would you want a non-analogue control like a keyboard to play games?? To enter text, I can understand, but to run, walk, creep, or have any control over your movement...A keyboard would be hell!
A left hand console controller and right hand mouse combo would be nice.
True, and I may have overstated my point in response to the popular "Innovation = Good" view. Reflecting on things, I would say that lack of innovation is not in itself bad, but as people get more and more used to games, and play more, fun levels may go down unless innovation occurs, in which case innovation will become necessary for fun. Case in point: I loved Pitfall when I was a kid. I've played it since, and it is incredibly boring. One could say that innovation since then is what makes the game less fun, but I'd posit that even if there were no innovation since the old Atari days, I'd still find it boring. The same old thing can get boring, and innovation can get one out of that rut. However, lack of innovation does not in itself make a game less good. If someone dislikes a game like Halo because of the repetitive levels, etc., that makes sense, but if the only argument against it is that it is not innovative, the argument is weak.
In addition to making stale game scenes more fun, innovation can also be the icing on the cake. For example, as fun as Halo was for me, some innovation could have made it that much better.
So innovation can be the catalyst to discovering new types of fun. It can be the mover that gets a non-fun repetitive game scene out of its rut. It can also be icing, giving a good game a little spice (I think graphics improvements fall in this category. Quake was great fun. Graphic innovations on the same game style have provided an edge on top of that, making it fun + pretty).
Juuuuust far enough away that halfway to getting to the supermarket I decide I want to listen to a different type of music than when I left the house...Plus another 6 meters.