You're quite right about the sayings of Jesus. They make a lot more sense if you take his statements as pertaining to that which Jesus represents in all of us. He speaks always in ways that benefit those who utilize him within their own psychology. His words and actions connect him to deeper archetypes in our psyche. I'm always impressed by the discipline of Jesus - or at least those who recorded his legend - in that he never forgets that as far as others are concerned he only exists as a mental symbol.
Buddhism impresses me more, of course, because it's so much more complete, straightforward, scientific, and doesn't generally kowtow to the superstitions of tribal people. In fact, it is only through studying Buddhism that I came to fully appreciate the teachings and sometimes obscure symbolism of Jesus. Those who worship Jesus as the Only Son of God may never understand, but the New Testament is basically a remedial primer in self-realization, whereas Buddhism is the master course.
I think it's presumptuous to say that intelligence is purely a function of genetics. There are plenty of fairly average or below average individuals who give birth to exceptional children. There is a lot of cultural influence that determines how a person's innate intelligence is used, or under-used.
I would speculate that African-American children born in the inner-city, for example, where the life-expectancy for black males is very low, must have exceptional adaptive skills in order to survive, even more to thrive. Such hell-holes are breeding some of the most potentially brilliant humans we can imagine, but the culture, and the imaginations of such children are stunted by the realities and potentials of life in those places.
Likewise, there is a lot of intelligence involved in surviving in your typical middle-American Fundamentalist cultures, where everyone is encouraged to distrust everyone else, and where communal instincts are subordinated to an authoritarian culture. However, because the individuals living in these cultures focus their minds on illogical, reactive emotions, and group cohesion is valued over individuality, the expression of their innate intelligence becomes stunted, or diverted into religious piety and sports-fandom.
Obviously my examples are weak, but I'm sure the point is made. Intelligence which is expressed in the ways we Slashdotters might recognize - through analytical linguistic methods - is not the only kind of intelligence - nor in fact is it necessarily the most desirable. And I would even go so far as to say that linguistic expression is only the tip of a very large iceberg as far as human intelligence is concerned. If anything, the various delusions and fantasies we concoct in order to tolerate our existence are universally increasing our intelligence across the board.
Seriously, how much does the US really care about accuracy? Consider that in the "war on their terrorism" since 9-11 we no longer use intelligent surgical methodologies to apprehend and prosecute those who seek to harm us. Instead we use "shock and awe" with impunity against everyone and anyone who happens to be in the strike zone.
Our attack against Afghanistan killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians in the first weeks of bombing. Many more were injured, blinded, and maimed. And who gives a fuck? It was cost-effective.
Likewise, we've imprisoned thousands of "enemy combatants" without levying any charges and withhold all due process, and we know that likely a majority of them were simply handed over for those nice juicy ransoms we offered for Al Qaidas. And hundreds of these un-charged suspects have been beaten to death in our custody. And who gives a fuck? After all, you and me are just fine. I got a beer, got the computer, and a whole new TV season is right around the corner. Life is good!
Not only can't we hit the target, lately we can't even hit the right country. (Must be something in my eye... Ah, there it is, a giant plank of lies stuck in there.)
Now you'd think that when you're attacking a country like Iraq purely to fulfill the elite agenda of hawkish industrialists - especially when you know there is no ethical justification - you'd make some effort not to harm too many civilians. But no, we kill tens of thousands of civilians there too, and then through plain old inaction, willful ignorance, and ineptitude we allow a hundred thousand more to die - mostly children, just like the prior sanctions. And isn't it nice, nobody cares! Apparently it's cost-effective to be indiscriminate and to close your eyes to the collateral damage.
And then consider the use of depleted uranium for its singular density and ability to bore through inches of plate steel. Neato! We value those properties, and don't care a fig for the long-term collateral effects to those kooky ululating foreign civilians and our own soldiers alike. We really don't give a flying fuck about the negatives, because we can just pretend they don't exist.
I would love to believe that non-lethals are the future, and that we really do care about collateral damage, but I know better. The system favors sloppy non-surgical strikes, and there is no sense of accountability in this divided and conquered post-postmodern world where We The People can just pretend it away, and our "authority" figures encourage us to do so.
And here come the bunker buster nukes! You think they're just making them for fun? Indeed, we will use them, and do even more collateral damage.
Really, collateral damage is practically a tradition with the USA. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were just the first rush of the drug. We love killing innocent people in our shocking and awful campaigns. It makes our collective nut-sack tingle - especially when we get away with it.
Well, consider at least why it's annoying. I know it annoys me to hear this phrase used improperly. And basically it's because I know the person using it is simply using it for the sake of its stylistic merits, probably without ever having seen its proper usage. No person would ever naturally reach for the phrase "begs the question" when "brings up" or "raises" or "implies" or "gives rise to" - or hell, "makes you wonder" - are all more natural turns of phrase.
In my brain it always (raises the question as to|makes me wonder) whether the person heard the phrase used properly and is now repeating it in the improper way, or if they're just using the phrase because they think it sounds smart, in which case they sound twice as silly. You get my inferestimication?
But oh well. I just saw an episode of The X-Files in which Sculley uses the improper form of the phrase, so I guess if she uses it this way then it must be cool.
Primary boot loaders are where the first stage of the boot loader is installed on the MBR (per the previous description). Secondary boot loaders are where the first stage of the boot loader is installed onto a bootable partition.
Primary boot loaders are where? Secondary boot loaders are where?
The author's usage of "where" here is very odd. I had to read these sentences several times to figure out that the author wasn't telling me that both of these loaders are where the first stage of the boot loader is installed.
I would definitely have preferred something human-readable like "Primary boot loaders have the first stage of the boot loader installed on the MBR...."
There's something to be said for the fact that Windows versus Linux has any relevance now at all. I think 2005 may be the year in which the tipping point finally goes towards Linux.
Could this effect explain the serial criminal's fixation on violent and/or erotic imagery of various taboo varieties. The blindness induced by a momentary image in a saccading mind would be magnified in a fixated sort of mind which holds onto such images for long periods. The whole Marquis de Sade thing is predicated on the ritual use of emotionally affective... devices... to transcend the primary senses.
It would seem to point to a quality of selective attention, that when we attend to internal echoing imagery we are blind to our external senses, and we may get lost in dreams for long periods... days or months.
That's what I'm saying to every small developer out there too.
My game engine is built on SDL/OpenGL and it's going to stay that way. I can write and test my application on Mac OS X and be reasonably sure it will run just fine on Linux, Windows, and any other platform that SDL and OpenGL supports. That's smart from my perspective as a developer. It opens up the world of all future consoles without any extra effort on my part.
So from my perspective it comes down to this: Will my game run as well on Windows as it does on other platforms? And if it doesn't run as well then I can only blame Microsoft for half-assing their OpenGL implementation and complicating their system by insistence on a long-in-the-tooth API.
Frankly, I think they should work it the other way around. Support OpenGL as the preferred API and make Direct3D translate to OpenGL. Then begin phasing out Direct3D in favor of OpenGL and get on board with the rest of the industry, which finds Direct3D to be just another annoying imposition promulgated by a fat monopolistic behemoth.
Apple was smart enough to give up QuickDraw 3D when it became obvious that OpenGL was the heir apparent. Microsoft needs to learn from its peers and get in line with the rest of the industry.
I just released my first shareware application for Mac OS X, with the hope and belief that an increased market-base, programs like GarageBand (with which it interoperates), an increased interest in home-made music, and a vast broadband internet would help drive sales to amazing heights. When I first marketed the Mac OS 7/8/9 version of the same title the internet was far smaller and far slower and MIDI equipment was a bit more expensive. Whereas the previous version was released as honor-ware, I released this one with save disabled.
(Stairways Shareware did a study that demonstrated that crippled shareware outsells "honor-ware" by a margin of 5 to 1, so I decided to limit the software this time.)
However my experience so far has not proved to me that I can make a living off this particular piece of software. In fact, as I peruse sites like VersionTracker, Softpedia, and MacUpdate I see that the kinds of things people download are surprisingly different than I would expect, or maybe there are more technically-oriented people browsing whose sites than your average Mac user. If you peek through the MacUpdate list, where you can see right up front what's being downloaded, the most popular downloads by far are utilities and internet clients. Most games don't get downloaded as often as you'd think, and programs like mine - ostensibly for music composition and to help guitarists find fingerings and chord names and scale relationships - get even fewer.
I think the key to my program's success is going to be to publicize it in places where Mac users who dabble in GarageBand and software synthesizers hang out. Also, I think it will gain a lot more attention once I get it localized for France, Germany, and Japan. Beyond buying ads in the appropriate places, I think shareware like mine depends on word-of-mouth to gain momentum. So although the sales have so far been disappointing, they could theoretically increase exponentially.
To put some numbers on it, I sold only around 70 or 80 copies of the previous Classic Mac OS version in the three years when I was still updating it. The current version, by contrast, sold 6 copies in the first three days of its initial beta release, but has sold none since then, even though I did one more beta release. According to my previous experiences, each time I release a new version it *should* a little attention and *should* generate a few sales. But again, other strategies might yield better results. Sooner or later it'll be on the MacAddict Disc and other shareware collections, and I'm crossing my fingers that people will then try it out more.
To break even on my effort - or at least to get my rent paid so I can keep making shareware all the time - I need to sell at least 20 copies a month, and so far I don't get the impression that it's going to happen. However, this is only one title and admittedly it's a bit of a niche player.
I've also written an open source (GPL) Wacom Tablet driver (TabletMagic) to support the tablet models that Wacom abandoned on Mac OS X. Ironically, although I don't charge for this software I've actually made more money from donations through SourceForge than my music software has made in shareware fees. For the next major update I think I might move to a shareware model, because all sorts of people appreciate being able to use their Wacoms again, so it's not just niche.
Meanwhile I'm also partnering with a game designer to make a couple of space shoot-em-ups with strategic elements using SDL. These at least will be built for Mac, Windows, and Linux, so they will have a far wider audience. But again, games really depend on publicity. Games certainly have a wider appeal than either music software or obscure drivers, but again they are nothing compared to utilities, and if they have any depth, they take far longer to program and test than almost any other type of software.
Heh, so maybe the lesson is, I should switch to utilities...?
Is Microsoft saying, in effect, that if Beijing ever decides to crack down on democratic movements Microsoft will be happy to provide dictionaries and spellcheckers with the proscribed thoughtcrimes removed? Boy they really have learned a lot about lobbying since the antitrust trial.
Last I heard China was working on their own operating system to supplant those of the West, so Microsoft might be wasting their time.
In an upstairs room in Blackpool By the side of a northern sea The army had my father And my mother was having me
Military Madness was killing my country Solitary Sadness comes over me After the school was over and I moved To the other side I found a different country but I never Lost my pride
Military Madness was killing the country Solitary sadness creeps over me
And after the wars are over And the body count is finally filed I hope that The Man discovers What's driving the people wild
Military madness is killing your country So much sadness, between you and me War, War, War, War, War, War
When you're using a hex viewer to look at memory on a little-endian system you can't just parse four bytes in a row and say "aha, I see FF123456!" No, you have to read "563412FF" and swap it in your head. When I'm required to do extra work in order to interpret something I call it "less right" than a system in which you don't. And notice that each byte's bits are externally represented in big-endian order, and also the nybbles are in big-endian order, but the bytes are in little-endian order. It's a bloody Rubik's cube to decipher, so thank Crom for debuggers!
This is why I will forever stand by my use of the words "wrong order" in reference to little-endianness.
So a better analogy might be, schizophrenics wear me out because I have to decipher everything they say.
I completely understand Steve Jobs' point about moving to Intel. IBM has had little success exploiting the massive "room for growth" they vociferously touted with the announcement of the G5. I have a G5 Dual 2.5GHz machine, and it never ceases to bug me that a machine with such a "low" clock speed requires liquid cooling and a half-dozen fans to spin up every time I start compiling code.
As a programmer since the Z80 and 6502 days I'm a little perturbed by this move, but really just for aesthetic reasons. The reason I could never abide the x86 architecture is that in its original incarnation it seemed so brain-dead and backwards. With its backwards endianness, funky limited-use registers, paged memory, and bolted on extensions it always seemed like a kludge on top of another kludge.
When I discovered the 680x0 architecture (through the Amiga) I was very pleased. The bits were in the right order, the registers were all general-use, and there were plenty of them, and they seemed to be more interested in energy efficiency.
While Intel was building processors that required giant heat-sinks and fans to dissipate all the waste heat I was glad that Apple was seeking out processors that pushed efficiency and low energy consumption.
Maybe this is a misconception, but I thought that at some point the ancient x86 instruction set and registers were "set aside" in favor of a more modern RISC-style processor core, and the old x86 stuff is supported as a kind of pass-through layer on top of that. I understand that's the case with AMD's Athlon, anyhow.
So what I'm hoping is that any new computers based on the Intel architecture will eschew the legacy cruft and compile only the core instruction set. Then perhaps they can drop the pass-through x86 layer and get even more power for the price.
How much have I got wrong in my thinking on this matter?
I'm genuinely worried about the next 25 years and energy. I'm far more worried about this than the "terrorist threat.".... it will affect many more people than any suicidal maniac possibly could, even with NBC weapons.
LOL. I just find it a little funny, because our government alone has killed many more millions than anyone they encourage the bleating masses to call "terrorist." And yet people still worry about a "suicidal maniac." I think we capitalist maniacs are already winning the "contest of terror"!
I particularly like the Feynman 6 easy pieces lecture series, Noam Chomsky, and especially Alan Watts. Are they podcasts? Not necessarily, but I get them off Acquisition (e.g., Limewire) and put them on my iPod.
You wrote: "The government went to war with the best information it had available - they weren't lying. The information was no good. Unfortunately, this wasn't known at the time."
And to fix the broken intelligence they're going to increase funding and revamp all the outdated technologies and get things up to a modern level... eventually. But most importantly they're going to increase the funding.
That's their "punishment" for "fucking up." Do you really not get how this whole game works?
Bush and Company wanted to go to war with Iraq. There was no trusted evidence of any imminent threat. It was well-established that Iraq had no WMD. They were actively scrubbing the few munitions that were on the edge of permissible under the sanctions. There was no justifiable reason to occupy Iraq.
But they sold it to the American public with the help of a media system which repeats whatever its told and focuses its debate only on irrelevant details rather than probing into real matters. A media system which has been found by the Florida court to be under no legal obligation to tell the truth, regardless of public interest.
When the media no longer functions, then honest, reasonable people can easily be manipulated by telling them they are under threat. I believe people have been acting honestly and with genuine concern in their voting Bush back into office. However, I believe they did so with half of their brains tied behind their backs, because the media distorted everything so badly in favor of its corporate interests.
You really gotta wake up, dude. Deliberate propagandist bullshit is going down in modern-day America right now, and you can't even see it for what it is. The powerful are doing all they can to preserve their ass, and if it means getting people worked up into a religious fervor to keep them distracted then they don't give a damn.
Let me ask you this: Do you think that people who are interested only in power and have no sense of universal brotherhood would have any qualms about pretending to be Christian to accomplish their aims? Do you believe that people can fool themselves into believing they're being righteous, when they're simply serving themselves? Do you know what makes up a person's sense-of-identity, and how that sense-of-identity can be a convenient lever for manipulation?
You really need to get off your ass and look into this stuff. Seriously.
The fact that Al Franken and Jon Stewart are the best brokers and deconstructors of information that we have in the American media is a side-benefit of the observational power that makes a comedian successful. In case you're not familiar with the role and meaning of the "court jester" I suggest you read a play called "King Lear" and see a film named "Ridicule" as a primer. To sum up, the jester is valuable to keep the king's ego in check and prevent him from getting too full of himself. Also to observe details of the kind which a person in the role of head of state might not consider relevant. We need more of these jesters.
To keep abreast of the constant stream of distortions (of all kinds) that plague our corporate media system you should frequently visit http://www.mediamatters.org/ - a media watchdog organization formed by David Brock, a former inside player in the propaganda-sphere.
Good luck in your quest to become a more informed citizen. It's not easy. But by turning off your television news and following up on the media-prescribed issues-of-the-day rather than simply picking a side you will soon begin to see the sun through the clouds.
"she claims she waited because it's been "a very confusing and painful time for her," according to her lawyer"
Yep, welcome to adolescence, kid. And that feeling will come back again and again if you're one of the lucky ones. And you'll keep getting over it if you're paying attention and not just trying to suppress it. The choice is yours. (But of course the "culture" in America for the most part merely instructs us as to who can get away with what against whom....)
My prediction: This case will - at the most - end up with a minor injunction against AOL, and maybe some reparations to the parents, but I doubt it. The parents should be the ones suing, actually, and the case could very well be thrown out on that technicality.
What I want to know is, if this guy was some kind of predator then where are the dozens of other young girls he solicited? Oh, there weren't any? Hmm... Frankly, he sounds like a normal, healthy young man who reasonably considered his job at AOL to be a drag and decided that since his job was a soul-killing, stultifying dead end he felt compelled to transcend it and engage himself in a more natural mode. Namely, conversation and flirtation.
So you might fault him for being unprofessional, but frankly even that's a stretch in this here organic reality. A person in his early twenties is still learning and exploring and should not be expected to manifest the standards of corporate perfection at all times. A person at that age needs experience, challenge, adventure, interpersonal interaction, and is not constituted to spend endless hours in an internet chat-room.
Maybe someday we'll all evolve to adhere to a corporate model of conduct, but somehow I doubt it. The days of overspecialization are numbered.
I've been using computers for 27 years now, and for just as many years I have been faced with self-described luddites (cyberphobes) who fear that if they learn the first thing about a computer it will somehow taint them forever. Mercifully, a few of them actually aren't computer owners, so they're harmless. But the people that really annoy me are my friends who are deeply interested in music or graphic arts, and yet resist every bit of knowledge about Illustrator, Digital Performer, etc. -- even though these tools will forever be essential to their future prospects in the 21st century!
There isn't much you can do for such folks, except to keep showing them the same things over and over again, and get them to compensate you for your time doing their jobs for them, and gently cajole them for being lazy and irrational.
Their cyberphobic condition isn't without precedent. Such folks are dyed-in-the-wool "I don't know computers" people as much as others are dyed-in-the-wool "dittoheads." Their whole identity concept is strongly attached to having a certain attitude towards computers, as with others it is essential to be alpha-macho in their worldly attitudes. Such types are unlikely to change regardless of any rationale someone like me (a self-professed eco-geek) could provide that it is to their benefit to learn some computer skills, to learn some empathy skills, or to view things ecologically/systematically.
Can enlightened geeks do anything more to comfort such resistant souls? In my case, I try to avoid any and all "geek speak" whenever possible. I also try to say only one little thing at a time rather than rattle off a paragraph. When I need to use a geek term I always explain the meaning first, and I follow their actual usage patterns giving them cues and gently providing the rationale of the process:
"See, when you go to save your picture the computer asks you to choose a location. If the computer didn't ask then it wouldn't know where to put it or what you wanted to name it. And this is also meant to help you. Since you chose how to save it, it will be a little easier to remember where you put it. And see, when you go to the Finder/Explorer there's your file! Isn't that cool?"
It is essential that their time with me as a tutor be an experience of discovery, without pushing them to absorb too much, and without showing any impatience. When they don't get a concept, I will try to get a sense of how "low-level" their misunderstanding is. Perhaps they don't understand that there is a spinning magnetic disk in the box. Perhaps they don't know what a "hierarchy" is. You'd be amazed how few people understand and can visualize structured information, or who can think in terms of breaking things down into smaller steps.
Such deficiencies are inculcated somewhat by our carbon-copy educational system, and in the kinds of work most people are required to do nowadays. Complex problem-solving abilities - especially those skills connected to subconscious visualization - although innate - must be practiced and nurtured to become consciously available. By taking people through my own thinking processes, with sensitivity to their own terms, I find I am far more successful transmitting information to inexperienced users.
I do sometimes get impatient, but I do my best to quell it and just fall back to remedial topics. People will sense if you are becoming impatient and their minds will become distracted by discomfort over that instead of being open to the lesson. There are some who will simply resist any and all tutoring, and the best you can do for these folks is to show them where the door is, and where to get some manuals if they decide to apply themselves. Give them some helpful handouts and send them on their way.
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You're quite right about the sayings of Jesus. They make a lot more sense if you take his statements as pertaining to that which Jesus represents in all of us. He speaks always in ways that benefit those who utilize him within their own psychology. His words and actions connect him to deeper archetypes in our psyche. I'm always impressed by the discipline of Jesus - or at least those who recorded his legend - in that he never forgets that as far as others are concerned he only exists as a mental symbol.
Buddhism impresses me more, of course, because it's so much more complete, straightforward, scientific, and doesn't generally kowtow to the superstitions of tribal people. In fact, it is only through studying Buddhism that I came to fully appreciate the teachings and sometimes obscure symbolism of Jesus. Those who worship Jesus as the Only Son of God may never understand, but the New Testament is basically a remedial primer in self-realization, whereas Buddhism is the master course.
I think it's presumptuous to say that intelligence is purely a function of genetics. There are plenty of fairly average or below average individuals who give birth to exceptional children. There is a lot of cultural influence that determines how a person's innate intelligence is used, or under-used.
I would speculate that African-American children born in the inner-city, for example, where the life-expectancy for black males is very low, must have exceptional adaptive skills in order to survive, even more to thrive. Such hell-holes are breeding some of the most potentially brilliant humans we can imagine, but the culture, and the imaginations of such children are stunted by the realities and potentials of life in those places.
Likewise, there is a lot of intelligence involved in surviving in your typical middle-American Fundamentalist cultures, where everyone is encouraged to distrust everyone else, and where communal instincts are subordinated to an authoritarian culture. However, because the individuals living in these cultures focus their minds on illogical, reactive emotions, and group cohesion is valued over individuality, the expression of their innate intelligence becomes stunted, or diverted into religious piety and sports-fandom.
Obviously my examples are weak, but I'm sure the point is made. Intelligence which is expressed in the ways we Slashdotters might recognize - through analytical linguistic methods - is not the only kind of intelligence - nor in fact is it necessarily the most desirable. And I would even go so far as to say that linguistic expression is only the tip of a very large iceberg as far as human intelligence is concerned. If anything, the various delusions and fantasies we concoct in order to tolerate our existence are universally increasing our intelligence across the board.
Seriously, how much does the US really care about accuracy? Consider that in the "war on their terrorism" since 9-11 we no longer use intelligent surgical methodologies to apprehend and prosecute those who seek to harm us. Instead we use "shock and awe" with impunity against everyone and anyone who happens to be in the strike zone.
Our attack against Afghanistan killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians in the first weeks of bombing. Many more were injured, blinded, and maimed. And who gives a fuck? It was cost-effective.
Likewise, we've imprisoned thousands of "enemy combatants" without levying any charges and withhold all due process, and we know that likely a majority of them were simply handed over for those nice juicy ransoms we offered for Al Qaidas. And hundreds of these un-charged suspects have been beaten to death in our custody. And who gives a fuck? After all, you and me are just fine. I got a beer, got the computer, and a whole new TV season is right around the corner. Life is good!
Not only can't we hit the target, lately we can't even hit the right country. (Must be something in my eye... Ah, there it is, a giant plank of lies stuck in there.)
Now you'd think that when you're attacking a country like Iraq purely to fulfill the elite agenda of hawkish industrialists - especially when you know there is no ethical justification - you'd make some effort not to harm too many civilians. But no, we kill tens of thousands of civilians there too, and then through plain old inaction, willful ignorance, and ineptitude we allow a hundred thousand more to die - mostly children, just like the prior sanctions. And isn't it nice, nobody cares! Apparently it's cost-effective to be indiscriminate and to close your eyes to the collateral damage.
And then consider the use of depleted uranium for its singular density and ability to bore through inches of plate steel. Neato! We value those properties, and don't care a fig for the long-term collateral effects to those kooky ululating foreign civilians and our own soldiers alike. We really don't give a flying fuck about the negatives, because we can just pretend they don't exist.
I would love to believe that non-lethals are the future, and that we really do care about collateral damage, but I know better. The system favors sloppy non-surgical strikes, and there is no sense of accountability in this divided and conquered post-postmodern world where We The People can just pretend it away, and our "authority" figures encourage us to do so.
And here come the bunker buster nukes! You think they're just making them for fun? Indeed, we will use them, and do even more collateral damage.
Really, collateral damage is practically a tradition with the USA. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were just the first rush of the drug. We love killing innocent people in our shocking and awful campaigns. It makes our collective nut-sack tingle - especially when we get away with it.
Do I exaggerate?
Well, consider at least why it's annoying. I know it annoys me to hear this phrase used improperly. And basically it's because I know the person using it is simply using it for the sake of its stylistic merits, probably without ever having seen its proper usage. No person would ever naturally reach for the phrase "begs the question" when "brings up" or "raises" or "implies" or "gives rise to" - or hell, "makes you wonder" - are all more natural turns of phrase.
In my brain it always (raises the question as to|makes me wonder) whether the person heard the phrase used properly and is now repeating it in the improper way, or if they're just using the phrase because they think it sounds smart, in which case they sound twice as silly. You get my inferestimication?
But oh well. I just saw an episode of The X-Files in which Sculley uses the improper form of the phrase, so I guess if she uses it this way then it must be cool.
Frankly, I could care less.
Primary boot loaders are where the first stage of the boot loader is installed on the MBR (per the previous description). Secondary boot loaders are where the first stage of the boot loader is installed onto a bootable partition.
Primary boot loaders are where?
Secondary boot loaders are where?
The author's usage of "where" here is very odd. I had to read these sentences several times to figure out that the author wasn't telling me that both of these loaders are where the first stage of the boot loader is installed.
I would definitely have preferred something human-readable like "Primary boot loaders have the first stage of the boot loader installed on the MBR...."
Writers: Don't use "where" this way... please!
Grammar police - over and out.
There's something to be said for the fact that Windows versus Linux has any relevance now at all. I think 2005 may be the year in which the tipping point finally goes towards Linux.
Could this effect explain the serial criminal's fixation on violent and/or erotic imagery of various taboo varieties. The blindness induced by a momentary image in a saccading mind would be magnified in a fixated sort of mind which holds onto such images for long periods. The whole Marquis de Sade thing is predicated on the ritual use of emotionally affective ... devices ... to transcend the primary senses.
It would seem to point to a quality of selective attention, that when we attend to internal echoing imagery we are blind to our external senses, and we may get lost in dreams for long periods... days or months.
.
That's what I'm saying to every small developer out there too.
My game engine is built on SDL/OpenGL and it's going to stay that way. I can write and test my application on Mac OS X and be reasonably sure it will run just fine on Linux, Windows, and any other platform that SDL and OpenGL supports. That's smart from my perspective as a developer. It opens up the world of all future consoles without any extra effort on my part.
So from my perspective it comes down to this: Will my game run as well on Windows as it does on other platforms? And if it doesn't run as well then I can only blame Microsoft for half-assing their OpenGL implementation and complicating their system by insistence on a long-in-the-tooth API.
Frankly, I think they should work it the other way around. Support OpenGL as the preferred API and make Direct3D translate to OpenGL. Then begin phasing out Direct3D in favor of OpenGL and get on board with the rest of the industry, which finds Direct3D to be just another annoying imposition promulgated by a fat monopolistic behemoth.
Apple was smart enough to give up QuickDraw 3D when it became obvious that OpenGL was the heir apparent. Microsoft needs to learn from its peers and get in line with the rest of the industry.
.
Wait, I thought China pretty much owns the US economy at this point!
At this point the only fitting name is...
LongTooth!
Oops, it's Softpedia that kindly displays number of downloads on the front page, not MacUpdate as I stated.
I just released my first shareware application for Mac OS X, with the hope and belief that an increased market-base, programs like GarageBand (with which it interoperates), an increased interest in home-made music, and a vast broadband internet would help drive sales to amazing heights. When I first marketed the Mac OS 7/8/9 version of the same title the internet was far smaller and far slower and MIDI equipment was a bit more expensive. Whereas the previous version was released as honor-ware, I released this one with save disabled.
(Stairways Shareware did a study that demonstrated that crippled shareware outsells "honor-ware" by a margin of 5 to 1, so I decided to limit the software this time.)
However my experience so far has not proved to me that I can make a living off this particular piece of software. In fact, as I peruse sites like VersionTracker, Softpedia, and MacUpdate I see that the kinds of things people download are surprisingly different than I would expect, or maybe there are more technically-oriented people browsing whose sites than your average Mac user. If you peek through the MacUpdate list, where you can see right up front what's being downloaded, the most popular downloads by far are utilities and internet clients. Most games don't get downloaded as often as you'd think, and programs like mine - ostensibly for music composition and to help guitarists find fingerings and chord names and scale relationships - get even fewer.
I think the key to my program's success is going to be to publicize it in places where Mac users who dabble in GarageBand and software synthesizers hang out. Also, I think it will gain a lot more attention once I get it localized for France, Germany, and Japan. Beyond buying ads in the appropriate places, I think shareware like mine depends on word-of-mouth to gain momentum. So although the sales have so far been disappointing, they could theoretically increase exponentially.
To put some numbers on it, I sold only around 70 or 80 copies of the previous Classic Mac OS version in the three years when I was still updating it. The current version, by contrast, sold 6 copies in the first three days of its initial beta release, but has sold none since then, even though I did one more beta release. According to my previous experiences, each time I release a new version it *should* a little attention and *should* generate a few sales. But again, other strategies might yield better results. Sooner or later it'll be on the MacAddict Disc and other shareware collections, and I'm crossing my fingers that people will then try it out more.
To break even on my effort - or at least to get my rent paid so I can keep making shareware all the time - I need to sell at least 20 copies a month, and so far I don't get the impression that it's going to happen. However, this is only one title and admittedly it's a bit of a niche player.
I've also written an open source (GPL) Wacom Tablet driver (TabletMagic) to support the tablet models that Wacom abandoned on Mac OS X. Ironically, although I don't charge for this software I've actually made more money from donations through SourceForge than my music software has made in shareware fees. For the next major update I think I might move to a shareware model, because all sorts of people appreciate being able to use their Wacoms again, so it's not just niche.
Meanwhile I'm also partnering with a game designer to make a couple of space shoot-em-ups with strategic elements using SDL. These at least will be built for Mac, Windows, and Linux, so they will have a far wider audience. But again, games really depend on publicity. Games certainly have a wider appeal than either music software or obscure drivers, but again they are nothing compared to utilities, and if they have any depth, they take far longer to program and test than almost any other type of software.
Heh, so maybe the lesson is, I should switch to utilities...?
Is Microsoft saying, in effect, that if Beijing ever decides to crack down on democratic movements Microsoft will be happy to provide dictionaries and spellcheckers with the proscribed thoughtcrimes removed? Boy they really have learned a lot about lobbying since the antitrust trial.
Last I heard China was working on their own operating system to supplant those of the West, so Microsoft might be wasting their time.
I used to be a big fan of the case section. Now I'll have to remember to case the fan section.
Military Madness
In an upstairs room in Blackpool
By the side of a northern sea
The army had my father
And my mother was having me
Military Madness was killing my country
Solitary Sadness comes over me
After the school was over and I moved
To the other side
I found a different country but I never
Lost my pride
Military Madness was killing the country
Solitary sadness creeps over me
And after the wars are over
And the body count is finally filed
I hope that The Man discovers
What's driving the people wild
Military madness is killing your country
So much sadness, between you and me
War, War, War, War, War, War
- Graham Nash
When you're using a hex viewer to look at memory on a little-endian system you can't just parse four bytes in a row and say "aha, I see FF123456!" No, you have to read "563412FF" and swap it in your head. When I'm required to do extra work in order to interpret something I call it "less right" than a system in which you don't. And notice that each byte's bits are externally represented in big-endian order, and also the nybbles are in big-endian order, but the bytes are in little-endian order. It's a bloody Rubik's cube to decipher, so thank Crom for debuggers!
This is why I will forever stand by my use of the words "wrong order" in reference to little-endianness.
So a better analogy might be, schizophrenics wear me out because I have to decipher everything they say.
I completely understand Steve Jobs' point about moving to Intel. IBM has had little success exploiting the massive "room for growth" they vociferously touted with the announcement of the G5. I have a G5 Dual 2.5GHz machine, and it never ceases to bug me that a machine with such a "low" clock speed requires liquid cooling and a half-dozen fans to spin up every time I start compiling code.
As a programmer since the Z80 and 6502 days I'm a little perturbed by this move, but really just for aesthetic reasons. The reason I could never abide the x86 architecture is that in its original incarnation it seemed so brain-dead and backwards. With its backwards endianness, funky limited-use registers, paged memory, and bolted on extensions it always seemed like a kludge on top of another kludge.
When I discovered the 680x0 architecture (through the Amiga) I was very pleased. The bits were in the right order, the registers were all general-use, and there were plenty of them, and they seemed to be more interested in energy efficiency.
While Intel was building processors that required giant heat-sinks and fans to dissipate all the waste heat I was glad that Apple was seeking out processors that pushed efficiency and low energy consumption.
Maybe this is a misconception, but I thought that at some point the ancient x86 instruction set and registers were "set aside" in favor of a more modern RISC-style processor core, and the old x86 stuff is supported as a kind of pass-through layer on top of that. I understand that's the case with AMD's Athlon, anyhow.
So what I'm hoping is that any new computers based on the Intel architecture will eschew the legacy cruft and compile only the core instruction set. Then perhaps they can drop the pass-through x86 layer and get even more power for the price.
How much have I got wrong in my thinking on this matter?
LOL. I just find it a little funny, because our government alone has killed many more millions than anyone they encourage the bleating masses to call "terrorist." And yet people still worry about a "suicidal maniac." I think we capitalist maniacs are already winning the "contest of terror"!
I particularly like the Feynman 6 easy pieces lecture series, Noam Chomsky, and especially Alan Watts. Are they podcasts? Not necessarily, but I get them off Acquisition (e.g., Limewire) and put them on my iPod.
You wrote: "The government went to war with the best information it had available - they weren't lying. The information was no good. Unfortunately, this wasn't known at the time."
And to fix the broken intelligence they're going to increase funding and revamp all the outdated technologies and get things up to a modern level... eventually. But most importantly they're going to increase the funding.
That's their "punishment" for "fucking up." Do you really not get how this whole game works?
Bush and Company wanted to go to war with Iraq. There was no trusted evidence of any imminent threat. It was well-established that Iraq had no WMD. They were actively scrubbing the few munitions that were on the edge of permissible under the sanctions. There was no justifiable reason to occupy Iraq.
But they sold it to the American public with the help of a media system which repeats whatever its told and focuses its debate only on irrelevant details rather than probing into real matters. A media system which has been found by the Florida court to be under no legal obligation to tell the truth, regardless of public interest.
When the media no longer functions, then honest, reasonable people can easily be manipulated by telling them they are under threat. I believe people have been acting honestly and with genuine concern in their voting Bush back into office. However, I believe they did so with half of their brains tied behind their backs, because the media distorted everything so badly in favor of its corporate interests.
You really gotta wake up, dude. Deliberate propagandist bullshit is going down in modern-day America right now, and you can't even see it for what it is. The powerful are doing all they can to preserve their ass, and if it means getting people worked up into a religious fervor to keep them distracted then they don't give a damn.
Let me ask you this: Do you think that people who are interested only in power and have no sense of universal brotherhood would have any qualms about pretending to be Christian to accomplish their aims? Do you believe that people can fool themselves into believing they're being righteous, when they're simply serving themselves? Do you know what makes up a person's sense-of-identity, and how that sense-of-identity can be a convenient lever for manipulation?
You really need to get off your ass and look into this stuff. Seriously.
The fact that Al Franken and Jon Stewart are the best brokers and deconstructors of information that we have in the American media is a side-benefit of the observational power that makes a comedian successful. In case you're not familiar with the role and meaning of the "court jester" I suggest you read a play called "King Lear" and see a film named "Ridicule" as a primer. To sum up, the jester is valuable to keep the king's ego in check and prevent him from getting too full of himself. Also to observe details of the kind which a person in the role of head of state might not consider relevant. We need more of these jesters.
To keep abreast of the constant stream of distortions (of all kinds) that plague our corporate media system you should frequently visit http://www.mediamatters.org/ - a media watchdog organization formed by David Brock, a former inside player in the propaganda-sphere.
Good luck in your quest to become a more informed citizen. It's not easy. But by turning off your television news and following up on the media-prescribed issues-of-the-day rather than simply picking a side you will soon begin to see the sun through the clouds.
I believe this is the definitive solution to the problem.
"she claims she waited because it's been "a very confusing and painful time for her," according to her lawyer"
Yep, welcome to adolescence, kid. And that feeling will come back again and again if you're one of the lucky ones. And you'll keep getting over it if you're paying attention and not just trying to suppress it. The choice is yours. (But of course the "culture" in America for the most part merely instructs us as to who can get away with what against whom....)
My prediction: This case will - at the most - end up with a minor injunction against AOL, and maybe some reparations to the parents, but I doubt it. The parents should be the ones suing, actually, and the case could very well be thrown out on that technicality.
What I want to know is, if this guy was some kind of predator then where are the dozens of other young girls he solicited? Oh, there weren't any? Hmm... Frankly, he sounds like a normal, healthy young man who reasonably considered his job at AOL to be a drag and decided that since his job was a soul-killing, stultifying dead end he felt compelled to transcend it and engage himself in a more natural mode. Namely, conversation and flirtation.
So you might fault him for being unprofessional, but frankly even that's a stretch in this here organic reality. A person in his early twenties is still learning and exploring and should not be expected to manifest the standards of corporate perfection at all times. A person at that age needs experience, challenge, adventure, interpersonal interaction, and is not constituted to spend endless hours in an internet chat-room.
Maybe someday we'll all evolve to adhere to a corporate model of conduct, but somehow I doubt it. The days of overspecialization are numbered.
Will it run Linux?
I've been using computers for 27 years now, and for just as many years I have been faced with self-described luddites (cyberphobes) who fear that if they learn the first thing about a computer it will somehow taint them forever. Mercifully, a few of them actually aren't computer owners, so they're harmless. But the people that really annoy me are my friends who are deeply interested in music or graphic arts, and yet resist every bit of knowledge about Illustrator, Digital Performer, etc. -- even though these tools will forever be essential to their future prospects in the 21st century!
There isn't much you can do for such folks, except to keep showing them the same things over and over again, and get them to compensate you for your time doing their jobs for them, and gently cajole them for being lazy and irrational.
Their cyberphobic condition isn't without precedent. Such folks are dyed-in-the-wool "I don't know computers" people as much as others are dyed-in-the-wool "dittoheads." Their whole identity concept is strongly attached to having a certain attitude towards computers, as with others it is essential to be alpha-macho in their worldly attitudes. Such types are unlikely to change regardless of any rationale someone like me (a self-professed eco-geek) could provide that it is to their benefit to learn some computer skills, to learn some empathy skills, or to view things ecologically/systematically.
Can enlightened geeks do anything more to comfort such resistant souls? In my case, I try to avoid any and all "geek speak" whenever possible. I also try to say only one little thing at a time rather than rattle off a paragraph. When I need to use a geek term I always explain the meaning first, and I follow their actual usage patterns giving them cues and gently providing the rationale of the process:
"See, when you go to save your picture the computer asks you to choose a location. If the computer didn't ask then it wouldn't know where to put it or what you wanted to name it. And this is also meant to help you. Since you chose how to save it, it will be a little easier to remember where you put it. And see, when you go to the Finder/Explorer there's your file! Isn't that cool?"
It is essential that their time with me as a tutor be an experience of discovery, without pushing them to absorb too much, and without showing any impatience. When they don't get a concept, I will try to get a sense of how "low-level" their misunderstanding is. Perhaps they don't understand that there is a spinning magnetic disk in the box. Perhaps they don't know what a "hierarchy" is. You'd be amazed how few people understand and can visualize structured information, or who can think in terms of breaking things down into smaller steps.
Such deficiencies are inculcated somewhat by our carbon-copy educational system, and in the kinds of work most people are required to do nowadays. Complex problem-solving abilities - especially those skills connected to subconscious visualization - although innate - must be practiced and nurtured to become consciously available. By taking people through my own thinking processes, with sensitivity to their own terms, I find I am far more successful transmitting information to inexperienced users.
I do sometimes get impatient, but I do my best to quell it and just fall back to remedial topics. People will sense if you are becoming impatient and their minds will become distracted by discomfort over that instead of being open to the lesson. There are some who will simply resist any and all tutoring, and the best you can do for these folks is to show them where the door is, and where to get some manuals if they decide to apply themselves. Give them some helpful handouts and send them on their way.