Einstein was able to think abstract thoughts because he was born into an environment that allowed him to do so. If he had been raised "in the jungle without a bunch of stupid people around to take up the slack and focus on the environment", he would have thought about better ways of killing lions (and other large felines, as there actually aren't too many lions living in the jungle) instead of coming up with E=mc^2. Obviously survival was important to him - he left Germany to come to the United States before the Nazis came to power - and the fact that he did not have to exercise his prodigious intellect in avoiding becoming meat is only an accident of fate.
And why is that in Linux you can't click Next, Next, Next, and have basic functionality? Seriously - most people consider watching old episodes of Roseanne a better use of their time than trying to figure out how to get a new app to compile on their Linux box.
On Linux you need that knowledge upfront. You start with./configure;make; make install. That's when you find that you need a specific compiler to get the app running. Oh, and an extra set of libraries. And a specific kernel release.. And... and...
"Adn... and... and..." is the problem. This shit should Just Work - at least to about the same level it does on Windows - and I should be able to get back to my own projects, whether that's writing a driver for a new model of WiFi card or watching old episodes of Roseanne. The fact that it doesn't is a serious failure of the open source model. (Or perhaps just a failure of the particular open source community around Linux.)
Many of these kids are from low income families where education is not exactly an emphasis.
There's your problem. Offer a tax break (or (additional) welfare benefits, if necessary) to parents who are able to include a dependent's report card showing good grades and you'll suddenly see education become a priority for those families.
I don't think you can have a free market teacher system - you'd have to pay too many teachers to teach the same thing - but I think that a free market, third party grading system is a good idea.
Qualcomm makes CDMA chipsets that they sell to other manufacturers. My LG cellphone came with a sticker that said "Qualcomm 3G CDMA" on it. I imagine that they sell to others as well.
AKAImBatman - who posted above - is right. The correct thing to do, in this situation, is to get informed. Even if you don't have time to get in informed on all the candidates/issues, get informed on one or two of them. Then go vote. There's no law saying that you have to vote in every race (or on every issue).
Well, Irregular Webcomic has all future predictions covered, with a joke about a razor with infinity+1 blades. I'm at work, but the link should be this one.
If you believe what you just said, you're not only not a rocket scientist, but you have no idea how orbital mechanics works.
While it's not impossible to put something in space in such a way that it always stays over a single point on the planet, there are very limited number orbits in which this can be achieved, and they are all directly above the equator.
The problem with this is that I don't want my music organized as "Artist/Album/Song.mp3". I want it organized as "Artist - Song.mp3", *UNLESS* I have the complete album, in which case I want it to be in a folder called "Full Albums" as "Artist - Album/TrackNumber - Artist - Song.mp3". I'm not really familiar with iTunes (I installed it and used an early version of JHymn to purchase some tracks and convert them to MP3 without the need to burn a CD), but I don't recall seeing any such option. The reason that the "Artist/Album/Song.mp3" method doesn't work for me is that 1) I play music through WinAmp, not iTunes; and 2) I have a number of songs in my collection that are the only song from that artist (or from that particular album) that I have. It's rather annoying to have to drill through artist and album folders to get to a single song instead of being able to load up a playlist with a bunch of songs from a single spot in the filesystem.
One thing that I have noticed: It's easy to tell a computer what to do. The hard part of programming is figuring out what the hell the computer should be doing. This leads me into the part of what I want to say that's relevan to the conversation here:
Sadly, usually the users aren't really sure what they want. Or if they are, they have great difficulty in describing it. And their standards of usability are usually "It should be easy to get it to do what I want."
I would like to point out the irony of attempting to use fans for cooling on a lunar mission.
(Hint: Lunar = hard vacuum = no air for the fans to move. Of course, for a *Mars* mission, it would work slightly better - but not much, because Martian air is quite thin.)
Fourth Amendment: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Violated, in spirit if not in letter, by warantless wiretaps by the US government.
Fifth Amendment: No person shall be held to answer for any capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Sixth Amendment: In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.
Both the Fifth and Sixth Amendments are violated by the holding of uncharged "terrorist" suspects at Guantamo Bay.
Do not attempt to justify any of these actions by the government as something that "will only be used against foreign terrorist." At any time, the government can brand YOU as a terrorist, and do these things to you. And you had better like it, comrade.
No no no no! Did you even look at the link that you posted? Nerdcore HIP-HOP is rap (and other forms of music that fall under the "hip-hop" umbrella, but with geeky themes). "Code Monkey" is nerdcore, but it's nerdcore soft rock, not nerdcore hip-hop.
Generally speaking, any description with a -core suffix needs to be modifying something. For example, hardcore rap is a far different thing from hardcore punk - but they're definitely both hardcore. And hardcore land luge racing is also hardcore.
You forget the Continental Congress, the United States Army (or whatever it was called during the Revolutionary War), the Congress that allowed DHS to be set up and funded, and of course the American agencies that trained Osama and crew during the Cold War.
C and C++ let you define (and overload existing) operators. Hide that code by obfuscating it in a header or a #define, and === will work just fine and dandy.
Well, except for the part about tearing her hair out. That's assault, and is a criminal matter, for which Mr. Smith can be arrested and thrown in jail for a long time.
Up until he got to the "waggles his junk at" bit, everything that had been done would have perfectly legal (although in very bad taste) in the United States.
However, the assault part is definitely illegal, and I would consult a lawyer on the issue of discrimination in who Mr. Smith leases to, as it at best a legal gray area (but almost certainly illegal).
The submitter is using "anti-Homeland Security" as a way of testing the intelligence of Slashdot users. See, this technology is (quite transparently) for digital restrictions enforcement*, which the general population of Slashdot is against. However, the general population of Slashdot is also against the invasions of privacy perpetrated (or attempted to be perpetrated) on US citizens by various agencies with "Homeland Security" agencies**; so the submitter is attempting to skew the conversation (and perhaps eventually general zeitgeist of Slashdot) in the direction of "encryption is good because it's hard to spy on us" and hoping we don't notice that a) it's (probably, haven't RTFA yet) not a publicly available algorithm that real cryptographic experts can examine for weaknesses and b) that we're not in control of what gets encrypted and what doesn't.
Hopefully all of you figured all that out before reading this comment.
--Ender
* Stolen from someone else's sig: "The key to stopping Digital Restrictions Enforcement is to stop calling it DRM." Or maybe it was some other phrase that could have been acronimized to "CRAP".
** A while back, I looked for actual references about the *federal* Department of Homeland Security pulling these stunts. All reports were either hoaxes (Mao's Little Red Book incident), or local agencies with similar names.
Given that virtually all US ATMs are now only dispensing 20 dollar bills, why is there even an option to enter numbers with odd digits in the tens place? Why not just have a Pong/Arknoid style controller for incrementing and decrementing the amount to be dispensed?
(The above was sarcasm. I realize the problems inherent in installing moving parts in places they are exposed to the elements.) The real reason for having to enter the decimal at all is they used the same routine for taking input to the "dispense cash" routine (which has a resolution of $20) and the "deposit" routine (which *requires* a resolution of 1 cent). I can kind of understand why early ATMs might have done it this way, but modern ATMs certainly have enough space to store seperate input routines for each of these functions.
Why do I have no mod points when I finally come across a comment worth modding up?
MOD PARENT UP!
Windows 2000 was the last upgrade to Windows where there was a compelling reason to upgrade, at least for me. And that was only to be able to run as an account without adminstrative priviledges and still have decent DirectX support for playing games.
There's also a cost associated with deciding on contractors and vendors in the first place; then on hammering out the details of the deal(s) with those companies. I wouldn't be surprised if a large portion of that quoted cost was paying the salaries of the people who are decision makers and negotiators.
Include GPS on the device. Have named locations linked to GPS coordinates. Increase the amount of time before the appointment that the alarm goes off with the distance from the appointment's location. Problem solved!
The biggest difficulty in the first two parts is fitting a GPS device into a watch that's also a PC. The third part is tricky and will probably need to be able to vary somewhat to handle individual difference in travel speed and preferences.
Programs that don't give you options on where to install them (Mozilla Suite didn't, IIRC); programs that install things to C:\Program Files\something even if you tell them to install elsewhere (Microsoft Office *will* install things to C:\Program Files\Common Files, even if you tell it to install to D:\MSOffice); and the biggest barrier of all, sheer laziness.
Slashdot Mirror
Einstein was able to think abstract thoughts because he was born into an environment that allowed him to do so. If he had been raised "in the jungle without a bunch of stupid people around to take up the slack and focus on the environment", he would have thought about better ways of killing lions (and other large felines, as there actually aren't too many lions living in the jungle) instead of coming up with E=mc^2. Obviously survival was important to him - he left Germany to come to the United States before the Nazis came to power - and the fact that he did not have to exercise his prodigious intellect in avoiding becoming meat is only an accident of fate.
--Ender
There's your problem. Offer a tax break (or (additional) welfare benefits, if necessary) to parents who are able to include a dependent's report card showing good grades and you'll suddenly see education become a priority for those families.
I don't think you can have a free market teacher system - you'd have to pay too many teachers to teach the same thing - but I think that a free market, third party grading system is a good idea.
Qualcomm makes CDMA chipsets that they sell to other manufacturers. My LG cellphone came with a sticker that said "Qualcomm 3G CDMA" on it. I imagine that they sell to others as well.
AKAImBatman - who posted above - is right. The correct thing to do, in this situation, is to get informed. Even if you don't have time to get in informed on all the candidates/issues, get informed on one or two of them. Then go vote. There's no law saying that you have to vote in every race (or on every issue).
Dammit. Should have used preview. I'm at work, so I can't check. Stupid work. Stupid me, at the end of the day, for that matter.
Well, Irregular Webcomic has all future predictions covered, with a joke about a razor with infinity+1 blades. I'm at work, but the link should be this one.
If you believe what you just said, you're not only not a rocket scientist, but you have no idea how orbital mechanics works.
While it's not impossible to put something in space in such a way that it always stays over a single point on the planet, there are very limited number orbits in which this can be achieved, and they are all directly above the equator.
The problem with this is that I don't want my music organized as "Artist/Album/Song.mp3". I want it organized as "Artist - Song.mp3", *UNLESS* I have the complete album, in which case I want it to be in a folder called "Full Albums" as "Artist - Album/TrackNumber - Artist - Song.mp3". I'm not really familiar with iTunes (I installed it and used an early version of JHymn to purchase some tracks and convert them to MP3 without the need to burn a CD), but I don't recall seeing any such option. The reason that the "Artist/Album/Song.mp3" method doesn't work for me is that 1) I play music through WinAmp, not iTunes; and 2) I have a number of songs in my collection that are the only song from that artist (or from that particular album) that I have. It's rather annoying to have to drill through artist and album folders to get to a single song instead of being able to load up a playlist with a bunch of songs from a single spot in the filesystem.
--Ender
One thing that I have noticed: It's easy to tell a computer what to do. The hard part of programming is figuring out what the hell the computer should be doing. This leads me into the part of what I want to say that's relevan to the conversation here:
Sadly, usually the users aren't really sure what they want. Or if they are, they have great difficulty in describing it. And their standards of usability are usually "It should be easy to get it to do what I want."
You see the problem?
I would like to point out the irony of attempting to use fans for cooling on a lunar mission.
(Hint: Lunar = hard vacuum = no air for the fans to move. Of course, for a *Mars* mission, it would work slightly better - but not much, because Martian air is quite thin.)
Yes.
Fourth Amendment: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Violated, in spirit if not in letter, by warantless wiretaps by the US government.
Fifth Amendment: No person shall be held to answer for any capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Sixth Amendment: In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.
Both the Fifth and Sixth Amendments are violated by the holding of uncharged "terrorist" suspects at Guantamo Bay.
Do not attempt to justify any of these actions by the government as something that "will only be used against foreign terrorist." At any time, the government can brand YOU as a terrorist, and do these things to you. And you had better like it, comrade.
No no no no! Did you even look at the link that you posted? Nerdcore HIP-HOP is rap (and other forms of music that fall under the "hip-hop" umbrella, but with geeky themes). "Code Monkey" is nerdcore, but it's nerdcore soft rock, not nerdcore hip-hop.
Generally speaking, any description with a -core suffix needs to be modifying something. For example, hardcore rap is a far different thing from hardcore punk - but they're definitely both hardcore. And hardcore land luge racing is also hardcore.
[I'm surprised no one else has thought of this yet...]
It's going to have rechargable lithium ion batteries, right? So, it's be a LiBerry.
I think that uses up my quota of bad punniness for the day.
--Ender
You forget the Continental Congress, the United States Army (or whatever it was called during the Revolutionary War), the Congress that allowed DHS to be set up and funded, and of course the American agencies that trained Osama and crew during the Cold War.
Credit where credit is due, after all.
--Ender
C and C++ let you define (and overload existing) operators. Hide that code by obfuscating it in a header or a #define, and === will work just fine and dandy.
Well, except for the part about tearing her hair out. That's assault, and is a criminal matter, for which Mr. Smith can be arrested and thrown in jail for a long time.
Up until he got to the "waggles his junk at" bit, everything that had been done would have perfectly legal (although in very bad taste) in the United States.
However, the assault part is definitely illegal, and I would consult a lawyer on the issue of discrimination in who Mr. Smith leases to, as it at best a legal gray area (but almost certainly illegal).
The submitter is using "anti-Homeland Security" as a way of testing the intelligence of Slashdot users. See, this technology is (quite transparently) for digital restrictions enforcement*, which the general population of Slashdot is against. However, the general population of Slashdot is also against the invasions of privacy perpetrated (or attempted to be perpetrated) on US citizens by various agencies with "Homeland Security" agencies**; so the submitter is attempting to skew the conversation (and perhaps eventually general zeitgeist of Slashdot) in the direction of "encryption is good because it's hard to spy on us" and hoping we don't notice that a) it's (probably, haven't RTFA yet) not a publicly available algorithm that real cryptographic experts can examine for weaknesses and b) that we're not in control of what gets encrypted and what doesn't.
Hopefully all of you figured all that out before reading this comment.
--Ender
* Stolen from someone else's sig: "The key to stopping Digital Restrictions Enforcement is to stop calling it DRM." Or maybe it was some other phrase that could have been acronimized to "CRAP".
** A while back, I looked for actual references about the *federal* Department of Homeland Security pulling these stunts. All reports were either hoaxes (Mao's Little Red Book incident), or local agencies with similar names.
Given that virtually all US ATMs are now only dispensing 20 dollar bills, why is there even an option to enter numbers with odd digits in the tens place? Why not just have a Pong/Arknoid style controller for incrementing and decrementing the amount to be dispensed?
(The above was sarcasm. I realize the problems inherent in installing moving parts in places they are exposed to the elements.) The real reason for having to enter the decimal at all is they used the same routine for taking input to the "dispense cash" routine (which has a resolution of $20) and the "deposit" routine (which *requires* a resolution of 1 cent). I can kind of understand why early ATMs might have done it this way, but modern ATMs certainly have enough space to store seperate input routines for each of these functions.
I have three moderator points left. I just checked - still no option to moderate a comment as "-1, Huh?"
Why do I have no mod points when I finally come across a comment worth modding up?
MOD PARENT UP!
Windows 2000 was the last upgrade to Windows where there was a compelling reason to upgrade, at least for me. And that was only to be able to run as an account without adminstrative priviledges and still have decent DirectX support for playing games.
There's also a cost associated with deciding on contractors and vendors in the first place; then on hammering out the details of the deal(s) with those companies. I wouldn't be surprised if a large portion of that quoted cost was paying the salaries of the people who are decision makers and negotiators.
--Ender
Include GPS on the device. Have named locations linked to GPS coordinates. Increase the amount of time before the appointment that the alarm goes off with the distance from the appointment's location. Problem solved!
The biggest difficulty in the first two parts is fitting a GPS device into a watch that's also a PC. The third part is tricky and will probably need to be able to vary somewhat to handle individual difference in travel speed and preferences.
Programs that don't give you options on where to install them (Mozilla Suite didn't, IIRC); programs that install things to C:\Program Files\something even if you tell them to install elsewhere (Microsoft Office *will* install things to C:\Program Files\Common Files, even if you tell it to install to D:\MSOffice); and the biggest barrier of all, sheer laziness.
Sounds like you want the Vulcan FlipStart PC (runs Windows XP, may be vaporware) or the Sharp Zaurus SL-C3000 (runs Linux on an ARM CPU, shipping now).