[the] predicament is widespread across Africa, says Ghanaian Guido Sohne, "There are not enough projects available to work on to employ the available talent..."
Same problem in America: not enough projects to employ the available talent.
Q. What's your take on the long-term impact of the SCO lawsuits? What changes - positive and negative - do you see it producing for Linux and the open source community?
A. I'm assuming that thanks to the BayStar callback that this lawsuit is nearly dead. Of course SCO, could sue their own financial backers and prolong this further, but it feels like we're seeing the beginning of the end.
Whoa -- now there's a thought -- SCO turning litigious against their former backers. Cannibalism among the cannibals....
market research indicates that, except for pop-ups, people really don't mind ads.
Furthermore, market research* indicates that people really don't mind anal probes.
-kgj
*Market research conducted by Kang and Kodos. All test subjects consented voluntarily to mind-control ray and anal probe. No human species were exterminated during this course of this research. Earth void where prohibited.
You knew that one of these days record companies would "get it" and find a way to sell their wares over the internet. Now I await them finding a way to do it without charging money.
Better yet, the record company should pay YOU (yes, in Soviet Russia, etc. etc.) to listen.
Example:
You download the latest hit from Britney Spears. (I'll repeat: "you download", not me.)
About halfway through the song, there's an ad for Pepsi... followed by the rest of the song.
Pepsi pays you a nickel (or whatever) for actually listening to the damned thing.
Another trait of geeks is obsessive hairsplitting. I mean my god, man.
Who cares about the obsessive hairsplitting? The important thing is the successful karma whoring.
-kgj
Military Potential of D&D
on
D&D Is 30
·
· Score: 5, Funny
It was even a cult at a Wisconsin naval base. "At one time every nuclear submarine had a D&D group," says Arneson.
- from the article
Nuclear submarines? D&D groups?
My God... do you think the Commander-in-Chief knows about this?
-kgj
Logic, Logic -- Who's Got the Logic?
on
D&D Is 30
·
· Score: 3, Funny
For those who have not seen the Beeb article, Dungeons and Dragons is 30 years old.
Even for those who have *not* seen the Beeb article, Dungeons and Dragons is 30 years old. My state of having seen the article or not has nothing to do with the content of the article.
Sorry to nitpick, but dammit -- illogical writing leads to fuzzy thinking, which results in irrational behavior. And God knows we could use more rational behavior.
Politicians are at a loss to know what to do in the face of a world rapidly being transformed by technology, and international communication and commerce; but, in an effort at being seen as "doing something about the problems of today's world" are rushing to pass laws, the consequences of which can neither be foreseen nor easily undone.
And we're the ones who are going to have to live with it.
I agree with you.
But I want to point out that politicians are also citizens, subject to the laws they pass.
Yes, there are exceptions -- the High and Mighty can sometimes evade the law.
But I assume that the majority of politicians have to live with their own laws.
The phrase "we're the ones who are going to have to live with it" should reasonably include most politicians as "us".
All the Snowcrash quotes left out the best part about the armor: "A bullet will bounce off its arachno-fiber weave like a wren hitting a patio door." Probably not applicable, but damn I love that line... I'm still laughing about it years later.
But wait -- there's more! -- the really best part of the Snow Crash quote is:
"... but excess perspiration will waft through it like a breeze through a freshly napalmed forest."
Stephenson may have his faults, but he's got the gift for cool similes.
I'm no librarian, but I don't mind so much that my library segregates the scifi.
I don't mind segregating SF as such -- a lot of books belong in an SF section. What bugs me is when a book that isn't really SF, or that properly belongs to a much wider category than SF, gets filed away in the SF ghetto.
Actually, I've never read anything by Zelzany, but I had to pick a scifi author with a Z name to make my point that the Fiction stacks were too long.
I recommend Zelazny's Lord of Light -- an outstanding novel. Nine Princes in Amber is pretty good, too.
Cryptonomicon is not very science fiction-y. It's more Tom Clancy than SF--I mean these are computer scientists and all, but they aren't neutronic worms living on the surface of a star. And I just know the librarians are going to toss Quicksilver over there once it's off the "New" shelf. This book is historical fiction-- albeit about nerds, but it's "HF" none the less.
I've found that my local librarians are responsive -- indeed, grateful -- when I tell that a book published as "science fiction" is actually a solid work of historical fiction. (I'm thinking here of the novel "Byzantium", which isn't SF in the least -- fine historical fiction, and nothing but.)
We probably can't integrate the SF ghetto with general fiction on a large scale, but making a case-by-case arguments for outstanding books can get results.
If you look at the unequal distribution of wealth as a problem (which I do), then the good news is that poor countries will get richer, as will the uber-rich that now have to pay their workforce less.
I agree. You're already modded +5, and anyway I have no mod points at present, but I want to say "right on" to your post.
Gold doesn't have to have an inherent value to it by virtue of its usefulness, in fact, the whole point is that gold really doesn't. There are some industrial uses for it, but those are relatively few and comprise a small percentage of global usage.
Gold isn't particularly useful today, in an industrial sense. But in the ancient world, it was very useful as a readily-workable metal that never corroded. We may not be accustomed to thinking of jewelry as "useful", but as status symbols, gold jewelry had no equal among the ancients. Even today, gold retains this luster of status: we still speak of "the gold standard" when defining anything as the best of its kind.
All elements have what we call "crustal abundance". However, that does not mean that you can profitably (key word here) extract aluminum or gold or whatever you're mining for unless natural processes have concentrated the element many times higher than crustal abundance. There is, for example, gold found in the human body. But, like seawater, the relative amounts are so small that there is currently no profitable mining/extraction method.
Thanks for the informative post -- good info.
Regarding my grandfather's observation that "gold is where you find it", I believe his main point (as a rockhound, imparting rockhound-wisdom to his grandson) was "always keep your eyes open, you never know when and where you'll find gold". With gold, this philosophy is relatively useful, because of the widespread distribution of gold -- as opposed to the many other minerals which are found in a small number of locations. He was speaking of gold that a guy might just notice and pick up a flake or two, not necessarily a deposit with economic potential.
In regard to your observation there is "currently no profitable mining/extraction method" for getting gold out of the human body... just wait: homo sapiens is the most resourceful -- and rapacious -- species on the planet. If man's inhumanity to man can be made to turn a profit, it surely will, alas.
the reality is... [gold] is not uncommon at all, why go through a complicated refining process to extract grams when the same amount of extraction energy would be better put to extracting tonnes
It's true that gold is not uncommon. My grandfather, a rockhound, used to observe that gold is very widely distributed around the world. He'd say: "Where is gold? Gold is where you find it."
What makes this plant-based reclamation process valuable is that it allows people who own low-grade deposits (e.g. mine tailings) to recover the gold. Say I'm a mine owner, and I've dug up all the gold on my land. I'm in the gold-mining business, but now my business will die, for lack of gold. Sure there's more gold in the world -- but can I afford to buy another mine? If not, I can at least use phyto-remediation to extract some gold from my otherwise useless mine tailings.
Besides, the main point of phyto-remediation to remove toxic metals from the environment. The process may not generate enough gold excite the envy of Croesus, but it does pay for the toxic-metal cleanup
Bonhoeffer (and the rest of the Confessional Church, Bonhoffer's and Niemöller's answer to Hitler's paganistic Reich Church) was harassed long before he joined the plot.
When the harrassment began, that's when he had something to hide. Probably earlier -- an intelligent man, he would have sensed and feared Nazi malice from the beginning.
Similarly, Fred Hampton must have known the score -- must ust have witnessed firsthand how The Power uses finks, provocateurs, spooks, thugs. Hampton was in a war zone; he took sides; he was no fool. All of this gave him plenty to hide.
So my real defense is, it was four in the morning and, synchronized with the clock, I was working on beer number four.
No need to defend. Overall, your original post was the most powerful human-rights manifesto that I've ever seen on SlashDot. Keep up the good work.
Slashdot Mirror
a well rounded glimpse into the way the ancient Greeks lived, saw the world, and in fact into the whole of Greek experience.
...
If you, like me, enjoy this kind of thing, see also
Plutarch: biographies of Theseus, Pericles, Alexander, etc. Very warm, personable studies.
Herodotus: "Inquiries". (Usually titled, incorrectly, "The Persian War".) Great fun to read -- lots of cool stories mixed with tall tales.
Mary Renault: "The Mask of Apollo" and other novels. Renault is one of the best historical novelists ever. Both entertaining and informative.
-kgj
[the] predicament is widespread across Africa, says Ghanaian Guido Sohne, "There are not enough projects available to work on to employ the available talent..."
Same problem in America: not enough projects to employ the available talent.
-kgj
-kgj
market research indicates that, except for pop-ups, people really don't mind ads.
Furthermore, market research* indicates that people really don't mind anal probes.
-kgj
*Market research conducted by Kang and Kodos. All test subjects consented voluntarily to mind-control ray and anal probe. No human species were exterminated during this course of this research. Earth void where prohibited.
I thought the latest hit from Britney Spears _was_ an ad for Pepsi?
Her breasts are the real ad for Pepsi.
See also: The Mystery of Britney Spears' Breasts.
-kgj
You knew that one of these days record companies would "get it" and find a way to sell their wares over the internet. Now I await them finding a way to do it without charging money.
... followed by the rest of the song.
Better yet, the record company should pay YOU (yes, in Soviet Russia, etc. etc.) to listen.
Example:
You download the latest hit from Britney Spears. (I'll repeat: "you download", not me.)
About halfway through the song, there's an ad for Pepsi
Pepsi pays you a nickel (or whatever) for actually listening to the damned thing.
"4. PROFIT -- !!!"
-kgj
[atheist or agnostic]... About 14%
From the above link I see that:
67% of the world's population are doomed to spend their afterlife in the Christian hell.
78% of the world's population are doomed to spend their afterlife in the Islamic hell.
97% of the world's population are doomed to spend their afterlife in the "Other" hell.
-kgj
I'll be heading an exciting expedition into the bogs of Ireland to search for the little people.
Bring along many a bottle o' good Irish whiskey, this will encourage the little people to show themselves.
-kgj
I can't imagine they had much else to do while at a naval base in Wisconsin.
Wisconsin borders on both Lake Michigan and Lake Superior -- both of which are connected to the Atlantic Ocean.
Duluth-Superior is the most-inland seaport in the world. (Duluth is in Minnesota; neighboring Superior is in Wisconsin.)
-kgj
Another trait of geeks is obsessive hairsplitting. I mean my god, man.
Who cares about the obsessive hairsplitting? The important thing is the successful karma whoring.
-kgj
It was even a cult at a Wisconsin naval base. "At one time every nuclear submarine had a D&D group," says Arneson.
... do you think the Commander-in-Chief knows about this?
- from the article
Nuclear submarines? D&D groups?
My God
-kgj
For those who have not seen the Beeb article, Dungeons and Dragons is 30 years old.
Even for those who have *not* seen the Beeb article, Dungeons and Dragons is 30 years old. My state of having seen the article or not has nothing to do with the content of the article.
Sorry to nitpick, but dammit -- illogical writing leads to fuzzy thinking, which results in irrational behavior. And God knows we could use more rational behavior.
-kgj
Politicians are at a loss to know what to do in the face of a world rapidly being transformed by technology, and international communication and commerce; but, in an effort at being seen as "doing something about the problems of today's world" are rushing to pass laws, the consequences of which can neither be foreseen nor easily undone.
And we're the ones who are going to have to live with it.
I agree with you.
But I want to point out that politicians are also citizens, subject to the laws they pass.
Yes, there are exceptions -- the High and Mighty can sometimes evade the law.
But I assume that the majority of politicians have to live with their own laws.
The phrase "we're the ones who are going to have to live with it" should reasonably include most politicians as "us".
-kgj
Drake would copy DVDs if he were here today...and wasn't he knighted or some bullshit?
Indeed: Francis Drake was knighted on April 4, 1581 by Queen Elizabeth.
See wikipedia for details.
-kgj
The world is full of rich scummy lawyers suing everyone for anything.
It's tempting to say:
Those rich scummy lawyers are not distributed evenly. A disproportionate number of them live in America, the Land of Litigation.
However, according to this article, it's just not true.
-kgj
All the Snowcrash quotes left out the best part about the armor: "A bullet will bounce off its arachno-fiber weave like a wren hitting a patio door." Probably not applicable, but damn I love that line... I'm still laughing about it years later.
... but excess perspiration will waft through it like a breeze through a freshly napalmed forest."
But wait -- there's more! -- the really best part of the Snow Crash quote is:
"
Stephenson may have his faults, but he's got the gift for cool similes.
-kgj
What I've been saying for a while now is we need ...
Good summary. I like it so much, I've posted it to my blog.
-kgj
Also, Google isn't the government.
Ah, but this is a great premise for a novel -- by, say, Neal Stephenson and/or Bruce Sterling. (Or for that matter, the ghost of Philip K. Dick.)
-kgj
I'm no librarian, but I don't mind so much that my library segregates the scifi.
I don't mind segregating SF as such -- a lot of books belong in an SF section. What bugs me is when a book that isn't really SF, or that properly belongs to a much wider category than SF, gets filed away in the SF ghetto.
Actually, I've never read anything by Zelzany, but I had to pick a scifi author with a Z name to make my point that the Fiction stacks were too long.
I recommend Zelazny's Lord of Light -- an outstanding novel. Nine Princes in Amber is pretty good, too.
-kgj
Cryptonomicon is not very science fiction-y. It's more Tom Clancy than SF--I mean these are computer scientists and all, but they aren't neutronic worms living on the surface of a star. And I just know the librarians are going to toss Quicksilver over there once it's off the "New" shelf. This book is historical fiction-- albeit about nerds, but it's "HF" none the less.
I've found that my local librarians are responsive -- indeed, grateful -- when I tell that a book published as "science fiction" is actually a solid work of historical fiction. (I'm thinking here of the novel "Byzantium", which isn't SF in the least -- fine historical fiction, and nothing but.)
We probably can't integrate the SF ghetto with general fiction on a large scale, but making a case-by-case arguments for outstanding books can get results.
-kgj
If you look at the unequal distribution of wealth as a problem (which I do), then the good news is that poor countries will get richer, as will the uber-rich that now have to pay their workforce less.
I agree. You're already modded +5, and anyway I have no mod points at present, but I want to say "right on" to your post.
-kgj
Gold doesn't have to have an inherent value to it by virtue of its usefulness, in fact, the whole point is that gold really doesn't. There are some industrial uses for it, but those are relatively few and comprise a small percentage of global usage.
Gold isn't particularly useful today, in an industrial sense. But in the ancient world, it was very useful as a readily-workable metal that never corroded. We may not be accustomed to thinking of jewelry as "useful", but as status symbols, gold jewelry had no equal among the ancients. Even today, gold retains this luster of status: we still speak of "the gold standard" when defining anything as the best of its kind.
-kgj
All elements have what we call "crustal abundance". However, that does not mean that you can profitably (key word here) extract aluminum or gold or whatever you're mining for unless natural processes have concentrated the element many times higher than crustal abundance. There is, for example, gold found in the human body. But, like seawater, the relative amounts are so small that there is currently no profitable mining/extraction method.
... just wait: homo sapiens is the most resourceful -- and rapacious -- species on the planet. If man's inhumanity to man can be made to turn a profit, it surely will, alas.
Thanks for the informative post -- good info.
Regarding my grandfather's observation that "gold is where you find it", I believe his main point (as a rockhound, imparting rockhound-wisdom to his grandson) was "always keep your eyes open, you never know when and where you'll find gold". With gold, this philosophy is relatively useful, because of the widespread distribution of gold -- as opposed to the many other minerals which are found in a small number of locations. He was speaking of gold that a guy might just notice and pick up a flake or two, not necessarily a deposit with economic potential.
In regard to your observation there is "currently no profitable mining/extraction method" for getting gold out of the human body
-kgj
the reality is ... [gold] is not uncommon at all, why go through a complicated refining process to extract grams when the same amount of extraction energy would be better put to extracting tonnes
It's true that gold is not uncommon. My grandfather, a rockhound, used to observe that gold is very widely distributed around the world. He'd say: "Where is gold? Gold is where you find it."
What makes this plant-based reclamation process valuable is that it allows people who own low-grade deposits (e.g. mine tailings) to recover the gold. Say I'm a mine owner, and I've dug up all the gold on my land. I'm in the gold-mining business, but now my business will die, for lack of gold. Sure there's more gold in the world -- but can I afford to buy another mine? If not, I can at least use phyto-remediation to extract some gold from my otherwise useless mine tailings.
Besides, the main point of phyto-remediation to remove toxic metals from the environment. The process may not generate enough gold excite the envy of Croesus, but it does pay for the toxic-metal cleanup
-kgj
Bonhoeffer (and the rest of the Confessional Church, Bonhoffer's and Niemöller's answer to Hitler's paganistic Reich Church) was harassed long before he joined the plot.
When the harrassment began, that's when he had something to hide. Probably earlier -- an intelligent man, he would have sensed and feared Nazi malice from the beginning.
Similarly, Fred Hampton must have known the score -- must ust have witnessed firsthand how The Power uses finks, provocateurs, spooks, thugs. Hampton was in a war zone; he took sides; he was no fool. All of this gave him plenty to hide.
So my real defense is, it was four in the morning and, synchronized with the clock, I was working on beer number four.
No need to defend. Overall, your original post was the most powerful human-rights manifesto that I've ever seen on SlashDot. Keep up the good work.
-kgj