" I think simply having Linux would make yourself (at least for now) immune."
And given that in circumstances like this, the powers-that-be like to ban things that might make it difficult for them... like, oh I don't know, Linux for example?
I was under the impression that the fireball from an atmospheric nuclear detonation came from the hard X-rays causing photons to be emitted and reabsorbed by the air?
Disney are welcome to release their movies in a format which I can't play.
In fact I'd encourage them to; that way I won't watch one of their crap movies by accident.
I hope they release all of the 'touchstone' movies like that too; I've been caught out by this before, where I rented a movie only to find that it was, in fact, Disney crap (Pirates of the Carribean comes to mind: if I'd known that was touchstone I'd never have bothered).
And of course, what happens when you have a room full of people all talking is that the overall volume level slowly rises as they try to compensate for not being able to hear themselves by talking louder... and louder... and louder... until everyone in the entire cube farm is screaming at the tops of their voices at their computers.
But the malware producers are in business, and in business its not enough to generate revenue; you have to constantly increase the rate at which you generate revenue.
Comparing this with a disease organism... well your typical business would be like ebola; it *will* kill the host eventually through exponential consumption of resources (ie killing cells or installing malware).
But that doesn't necessarily mean that it 'sounds wrong relative to a set of rules'. It could mean 'sounds counterintuitive'.
I came to this conclusion after many very animated conversations with a Japanese friend who had *extremely* bad English.
I found myself listening to him and making perfect sense out of what he was saying, and then realising that the utterances which came out of his mouth had more-or-less no connection with what the grammar of the English language is supposed to be.
I didn't understand him through a rule-based grammar; I understood by intuiting his meaning from a wide variety of things; context, bodylanguage etc.
When two people have a conversation, there is a LOT going on. Linguists refer to this sort of thing as 'metalinguistic' and it tends to get written off as cruft.
Linguistics has no way to cope with things like tone, intensity, amplitude and so forth (except when they are phonemic as in tonal languages).
Yet in my experience, these factors are even more important than the order in which words are spoken, for example.
In flowing conversation, people say things, change their minds and say them again, say words out of order and all sorts of wierd and whacky things.
Yet it makes sense, more or less. People cope with free flowing speech very well. Even with free flowing writing (to an extent; James Joyce Ulyses (sp?) comes to mind).
Its only in (what were once) extraordinary situations (like talking to someone you can't see or can't hear properly) that the 'rules of grammar' become important.
Today, this sort of communication is more common hence it has become more important to us to develop 'rules of grammar'.
But I believe that speech is independent of grammar and that grammar is a relatively modern invention.
"Newsflash 2: People who speak English as a second language are often better at correct grammar then native English-speakers."
Actually, that might be because native speakers of a language actually understand their *spoken* language at an intuitive level, whereas grammar and punctuation are, IMO, artifacts of education and written language; spoken language has *no* punctuation and (I believe) no grammar.
Therefore, people who receive a formal education in a language pick up the formalised rules intended to make it possible to write down what is, after all, primarily a verbal phenomenon.
ESL students are likely to do better at this than native speakers because by the time you get to school you will have picked up the intuitive and non-rule-bound understanding that makes spoken language possible and flexible.
(I've studied linguistics at university, only to stage 2 so I am not 100% ignorant. I just happen to disagree with such luminaries as Chomsky).
"Yes, an ancient, alien artifact, pregnant with long-dormant, world-ravaging evil, which will no doubt unleash terrible plague and death and destruction the world over, consuming the entire human race in an unimaginable apocalypse"
You mean like George W Bush^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HOsama Bin Laden?
Slashdot Mirror
Scientists and teachers in the UK should make their way to a government approved de-education center.
Indeed, the UK has effectively banned all knowledge.
I'd agree so long as you don't count emacs as a GUI...
;)
Or just reformat your drive and install Linux... you might expect a visit from the boys in blue, and I don't mean IBM.
Seriously, if they can't snoop Linux too, they have a problem and the authorities just love making their problem *your* problem.
"I vaguely remember there's a country where it is illegal to obstruct surveillance by way of encryption."
The UK, I believe?
Where its illegal to 'possess any information which might be useful to a terrorist'
" I think simply having Linux would make yourself (at least for now) immune."
And given that in circumstances like this, the powers-that-be like to ban things that might make it difficult for them... like, oh I don't know, Linux for example?
I was under the impression that the fireball from an atmospheric nuclear detonation came from the hard X-rays causing photons to be emitted and reabsorbed by the air?
A fireball? In an airless environment?
There sure must be a lot of oxygen in that nuke...
Disney are welcome to release their movies in a format which I can't play.
In fact I'd encourage them to; that way I won't watch one of their crap movies by accident.
I hope they release all of the 'touchstone' movies like that too; I've been caught out by this before, where I rented a movie only to find that it was, in fact, Disney crap (Pirates of the Carribean comes to mind: if I'd known that was touchstone I'd never have bothered).
And of course, what happens when you have a room full of people all talking is that the overall volume level slowly rises as they try to compensate for not being able to hear themselves by talking louder... and louder... and louder... until everyone in the entire cube farm is screaming at the tops of their voices at their computers.
Might make for a good sitcom scene...
"Hey, maybe you could base it on perl!"
Actually, I thought that sample looked more like a mix of APL and COBOL...
because of the way we are educated, we tend to see rules everywhere, even in the so-called 'laws' of physics.
But there are no rules in nature; only heuristics.
Our brains are not automata, in the sense of 'finite state automata' or 'turing machines'.
In fact, our brains seem remarkably bad at even simulating automata and to be able to do so requires extensive training and discipline.
There are other ways that language comprehension can work than rule-based systems.
"Their model worked - and it wasn't lying, it was just business."
Of course, that is half true; it is lying and it is business. Where marketting is concerned, the two go hand in hand.
"For all we know it could simply be a scam, and have nothing to do with telemarketing."
I just don't believe that you could have typed that with a straight face.
telemarketing *is* a scam.
But the malware producers are in business, and in business its not enough to generate revenue; you have to constantly increase the rate at which you generate revenue.
Comparing this with a disease organism... well your typical business would be like ebola; it *will* kill the host eventually through exponential consumption of resources (ie killing cells or installing malware).
Well I believe that there is only (A)
Sure, they can identify when it sounds wrong.
:)
But that doesn't necessarily mean that it 'sounds wrong relative to a set of rules'. It could mean 'sounds counterintuitive'.
I came to this conclusion after many very animated conversations with a Japanese friend who had *extremely* bad English.
I found myself listening to him and making perfect sense out of what he was saying, and then realising that the utterances which came out of his mouth had more-or-less no connection with what the grammar of the English language is supposed to be.
I didn't understand him through a rule-based grammar; I understood by intuiting his meaning from a wide variety of things; context, bodylanguage etc.
When two people have a conversation, there is a LOT going on. Linguists refer to this sort of thing as 'metalinguistic' and it tends to get written off as cruft.
Linguistics has no way to cope with things like tone, intensity, amplitude and so forth (except when they are phonemic as in tonal languages).
Yet in my experience, these factors are even more important than the order in which words are spoken, for example.
In flowing conversation, people say things, change their minds and say them again, say words out of order and all sorts of wierd and whacky things.
Yet it makes sense, more or less. People cope with free flowing speech very well. Even with free flowing writing (to an extent; James Joyce Ulyses (sp?) comes to mind).
Its only in (what were once) extraordinary situations (like talking to someone you can't see or can't hear properly) that the 'rules of grammar' become important.
Today, this sort of communication is more common hence it has become more important to us to develop 'rules of grammar'.
But I believe that speech is independent of grammar and that grammar is a relatively modern invention.
Thats a start, anyway
"Newsflash 2: People who speak English as a second language are often better at correct grammar then native English-speakers."
Actually, that might be because native speakers of a language actually understand their *spoken* language at an intuitive level, whereas grammar and punctuation are, IMO, artifacts of education and written language; spoken language has *no* punctuation and (I believe) no grammar.
Therefore, people who receive a formal education in a language pick up the formalised rules intended to make it possible to write down what is, after all, primarily a verbal phenomenon.
ESL students are likely to do better at this than native speakers because by the time you get to school you will have picked up the intuitive and non-rule-bound understanding that makes spoken language possible and flexible.
(I've studied linguistics at university, only to stage 2 so I am not 100% ignorant. I just happen to disagree with such luminaries as Chomsky).
I remember reading somewhere (probably /.) that had Intel not stolen technologies from AMD, the 486 would have required raised-floor cooling systems.
red and blue marbles?
Nah, I say use the old black bean/white bean system and execute the one that gets the black bean.
Tell them that if they used COBOL then the legislators could do the whole thing themselves and they wouldn't need you.
;)
Let them do that for a year and then they will pay you quadruple to rewrite it to be easier to maintain.
"Yes, an ancient, alien artifact, pregnant with long-dormant, world-ravaging evil, which will no doubt unleash terrible plague and death and destruction the world over, consuming the entire human race in an unimaginable apocalypse"
You mean like George W Bush^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HOsama Bin Laden?
" The problem is I didnt design the *%@!#$ system, the legislature did"
Software designed by legislators? I pity you and everyone involved in the project (apart from the legislators).
Yeah great idea, but the wiki at which point in time?
By the time he gets to answer the question, the wiki entry might have been updated...
You'd have to take a dump of the wikis database when the show starts and call that it.
"Exactly. CD encyclopedias are as dead as the ones made from pulp."
I don't agree. There is still a need for off-line, static sources of information.
What happens with on-line encyclopedias is something like this...
Fred: 'Hey, did you know ???'
Joe: 'There is no way thats true'
Fred: 'It is, look I will prove it in this online encyclopedia where I looked it up the other day'.
Joe: 'Tell you what, lets bet $20 on it'
Fred (having read this just yesterday in the fabulous online encyclopedia thats continuouslyu kept up to date): 'Your on!'
[looks up online encyclopedia only to find that the entry for has been updated. Fred loses $20. Joe is having a laugh at Freds expense]
There is a place for 'fixed' knowledge.