> Why not just tell them to read the damn rules themselves?
Well, looking at four random but highly regarded games from my shelves (Age of Steam, Puerto Rico, Amun-Re, and Funkenschlag), the english rules average a bit over eight 8"x11" sides each. This is a bit much for three other players to read in turn before a game when the explanation could be done in parallel.
>Actually, the manufacture of the solar panels has a high cost to the enviornment -
>many toxins, heat problems, and the overall yield is fairly low,
>especially compared to how efficient a nuclear plant is.
I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your main point here, but solar power doesn't need to be done through photovoltaic panels; concentrated solar power looks a lot happier for the environment, unless there's something bad that happens in manufacturing the mirrors.
(quoted text has been reformatted but is otherwise unchanged)
>Small Gods is probably the best starting point that U.S. readers are likely to find, anyway. SG was >the first novel published after the series's current U.S. publisher took over from Roc. Anything older >seems to be out of print here, or only available as an import. Maybe the Good Omens movie will stir up >enough interest in Pratchett to get the entire series back in print.
Actually, it looks like Colour of Magic is already being reprinted here; on Amazon, there is a version due out in March 2000. Maybe more will follow...
>Cheap access is something that needs to happen, but it doesn't have to be like this, does it? Has >anybody considered starting ISP cooperatives, or community supported internet access? Something >that's cheap, accessable, uncensored, and with *no* strings attached?
Braintree, MA has a community-owned broadband provider. The rates are 35$/month, which from what I've seen elsewhere in this discussion seems reasonably cheap; the connection speed is good enough that I don't miss college ethernet, and I've had better uptime experiences with it than with Worldnet or Flashnet; and there seems to be no spam, and as far as I can tell no censorship (there may be some newsgroups missing, but one would think the alt.binaries tree would be first to go, and there's a *lot* of stuff there.) So it isn't impossible.:)
>How about: > >1 E2-E4 D7-D6 >2 D1-E2 C8-G4 >3 E2-E3 B8-C6 >4 A2-A3 C6-D4 >5 A3-A4 D4-C2++ > >Any problems with this one? The above spoiler >does not work as white fails to move out of check >at one point.
I believe that a knight must actually take a rook, which invalidates this answer...
>Here, at California U of PA, we all just password our MP3 directories, but almost everyone has the same password, therefore, you can still trade MP3's, but it's >secure.
Don't be too confident. This is what was being done by many of the people disconnected at CMU.
>Where from that article did you get that the students' computers were being searched? The article clearly states that CMU "randomly checked >the public portions of 250 students' computer accounts". In no case, however, were system admins "illegally" searching through private >computers.
And, if you had read the previous comments, you would have realized that the article was wrong. All of the CMU students here (including myself) have pointed this out. ALL of the searched computers were private - I'm not sure where the article writers got the idea that 'student accounts' were checked.
The "illegality" issue is that Computing Services attempted to break people's passwords. This is a violation of the CMU Computing Ethics code, if nothing else.
>They didn't search the student's home computers. >They searched the public storage area that was allocated from the university's network. >They can do whatever they want with their property.
Ummm, no. This was done to the student's personal computers, in their dorm rooms - our accounts on the school computers weren't touched. It had NOTHING to do with the public storage area allocated from the university's network.
The reason many of the students are upset about this is not because they were caught with mp3s (well, except the people who were disconnected for LEGAL mp3s), but because Computing Services here has a policy that anything not SPECIFICALLY marked public is private. Someone got in trouble a while ago for providing a search engine, because he hadn't explicitly gotten everyone's permission to look in their unpassworded directories... to have Computing Services blatantly break their own privacy policy by not only doing this, but actually trying passwords, is the problem.
>The whole point of terminator seeds is to prevent cross-polination. One of the big problems with GM foods is that once they are out there, >you can't get them back (as they will cross-polinate with normal crops), and with pesticide-resistant GM versions of grains you could end up >with superweeds. So, terminator seeds are good, as the adult plants won't be able to cross-polinate natural organic produce. That way, >people who choose to eat natural, organic, non-Frankenstein foods, can do so safe in the knowledge that their food hasn't been >cross-polinated with some untested genetically modified food that may cause severe allergic reactions in some people.
However, the Terminator patent allows for the gene that prevents live seeds from being 'blocked' until the seeds are chemically treated - at that point, the next generation's seeds are supposed to be nonviable. (This approach makes it much easier for Monsanto to grow seeds to sell). However, if a few seeds out of the bunch are not correctly treated, then these plants which have been genetically modified to survive better AND have a death-gene hidden away could cross-pollinate with natural organic produce - spreading the terminator gene much wider than just the Monsanto crops. If the gene were somehow triggered by the environment at this point, the result would be famine - the doomsday scenario.
>Actually, this is all much ado about nothing. For >the last 40 or 50 years almost all crops have >been grown with hybrid (crossbred) seeds. The >result is that they don't "breed true" anyway - >you can't save seeds and replant the next year, >because the resulting plants will not have the >same characteristics as the hybrid plant. You >already can't sell the resulting seeds because >nobody would want them, as the quality and >productivity would not be the same as the >commercial hybrids. The real risk (hopefully >unlikely) is that if civilization collapsed, and >hybrid seeds were no longer available, we mostly >don't have the seed stock for self-sustaining >agriculture anymore. (but see organizations like >http://www.seedsavers.org/).
This is not entirely correct - it does not apply to certain crops, such as wheat, rice, soybean, and cotton. Since one of Monsanto's best-known products is the Roundup Ready soybeans (which are genetically engineered to be used with a certain pesticide), Monsanto certainly has a commercial interest in actually using this technology.
>Think about this in terms of the presidential >race a few years ago. All of the republicans (who >hate democrats, of cours), would have voted like >so: > 2. George Bush > 1. Ross Perot > 0. Bill clinton. >They would have put clinton last because he's a >democrat. Conversly, any democrat would have >voted like this: > 2. Bill Clinton > 1. Ross Perot > 0. Bill Clinton. >As you can see, this would have given each >candidate an equal number of votes. > >Factoring in the number of people who voted for >Ross Perot first, this actually would have >allowed him to win the race.
I'm going to assume that you're refering here to the method from this post:
>When it comes to counting, all the first >("primary") choices are added up. The candidate >with the least primary votes is removed from the >count and all their votes are given to their >voters second preferences. This is repeated until >someone has >50% of the vote.
If this is correct, you have badly misinterpreted the workings of this system. The only way that people who voted primarily for Bush or Clinton would have their secondary votes (for Perot) counted is if Perot beat one of them in the election. Let's look at that election, using your ballots and assuming that 20% voted for Perot, 40% for Bush, and 40% for Clinton: Perot had the lowest vote total, and is therefore eliminated from the election; the people who cast their primary votes for him now have their secondary votes counted instead. This *DOES* mean that the Perot voters actually decide the election. However, I don't see a problem with that in this case; the rest of the country is evenly divided. And if Perot DID beat one of the candidates, and his voters prefer Perot to the other candidate (who, remember, does not have 50% of the popular vote) that strongly, I don't see a problem with having Perot win the election.
Actually, this seems like an excellent system if only because it encourages third-party voting by removing the "Go ahead - throw your vote away!" aspect of the first-past-the-post system. If the hypothetical election above (with primary votes reflecting preferences) took place in a first-past-the-post system, the election would be decided by people who prefer Perot voting AGAINST their preference - whether the Democrat-Perot voters or the Republican-Perot voters are more willing to settle for a candidate who is not their first choice. Under this system, voters can express their true preferences without the possibility of their votes becoming worthless.
>The other day somebody was mumbling about Zephyr , an Athena messaging system. I have no idea whether it's suitable, because I've never >used it. But I've never used these consumer-based things either. Somebody might want to evaluate it.
Zephyr is used extensively at Carnegie Mellon University. I find it both powerful and easy to use, and I'm not even very experienced with UNIX; from a user perspective, it seems like it could be an adequate replacement. I'll let someone more experienced/knowledgable comment on the implementation side.
>The courts seem to agree that the Constitution applies to public schools.
This does seem like a reasonable decision, given that (IIRC) the federal government also requires children up to the age of 16 to be schooled, and the only option for many people is the public school system. When Congress holds the 'gun' of police enforcement to people's heads forcing children to go to school, it seems reasonable to make those schools meet the restrictions applied to Congress.
This is, of course, quite aside from the other reasons that the First Amendment would apply. After all, think about it - do you really *want* your state government to establish a theocracy? If you don't allow the First Amendment to propagate downwards, that's exactly what can happen.
>I agree. Who ever said anything about the PA? There have been cases of kids being sent home for silently praying on their own. This is >what I have trouble with.
I doubt you'll find a single advocate of religious freedom who doesn't also have trouble with this; an event like this is just as contradictory to the idea of freedom of religion as supporting a particular religion in public prayer. What advocates of religious freedom *do* have a problem with is the position taken by many Christians that the teacher should lead the class in Christian prayer, or that the Ten Commandments of Christianity should be officially posted by a public school while those of other religions are not. There is a *big* difference between these proposals and silently praying on one's own.
>So, if I think that my seven year old is mature >enough to take my car down to the liquor store >and get Dad a nice bottle of single-malt Scotch, >that no one should be able to stop me. I mean >damnit, it is my kid, and if I think a 7 year old >is mature enough to drive a car and buy liquor,
If a seven-year-old can pass a driving test, there is no reason other than the completely arbitrary standard the government has set not to allow that seven-year-old to drive legally. Do you really believe that something magical happens when you turn 16 that suddenly makes you capable of driving? The same holds true for alcohol... do you really think that (for example, since this is the only one I've seen personally) the French parents who allow their children to drink wine are doing something wrong?
As a practical matter, most seven-year-olds would not be able to pass a driving test. But there is nothing wrong in principle with allowing people who have proven that they can drive to drive without a totally arbitrary age standard.
>it is nobody's business but mine, right? Never >mind that it is the law or anything. Hmm.. maybe >I think a 3 year old should have the right to >vote....
Based on recent event, the three-year-olds seem at least as intelligent as the people they could elect.
Slashdot Mirror
> Why not just tell them to read the damn rules themselves?
Well, looking at four random but highly regarded games from my shelves (Age of Steam, Puerto Rico, Amun-Re, and Funkenschlag), the english rules average a bit over eight 8"x11" sides each. This is a bit much for three other players to read in turn before a game when the explanation could be done in parallel.
>Actually, the manufacture of the solar panels has a high cost to the enviornment -
>many toxins, heat problems, and the overall yield is fairly low,
>especially compared to how efficient a nuclear plant is.
I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your main point here, but solar power doesn't need to be done through photovoltaic panels; concentrated solar power looks a lot happier for the environment, unless there's something bad that happens in manufacturing the mirrors.
(quoted text has been reformatted but is otherwise unchanged)
>Small Gods is probably the best starting point that U.S. readers are likely to find, anyway. SG was
>the first novel published after the series's current U.S. publisher took over from Roc. Anything older
>seems to be out of print here, or only available as an import. Maybe the Good Omens movie will stir up
>enough interest in Pratchett to get the entire series back in print.
Actually, it looks like Colour of Magic is already being reprinted here; on Amazon, there is a version due out in March 2000. Maybe more will follow...
>Cheap access is something that needs to happen, but it doesn't have to be like this, does it? Has >anybody considered starting ISP cooperatives, or community supported internet access? Something >that's cheap, accessable, uncensored, and with *no* strings attached?
:)
Braintree, MA has a community-owned broadband provider. The rates are 35$/month, which from what I've seen elsewhere in this discussion seems reasonably cheap; the connection speed is good enough that I don't miss college ethernet, and I've had better uptime experiences with it than with Worldnet or Flashnet; and there seems to be no spam, and as far as I can tell no censorship (there may be some newsgroups missing, but one would think the alt.binaries tree would be first to go, and there's a *lot* of stuff there.) So it isn't impossible.
>How about:
>
>1 E2-E4 D7-D6
>2 D1-E2 C8-G4
>3 E2-E3 B8-C6
>4 A2-A3 C6-D4
>5 A3-A4 D4-C2++
>
>Any problems with this one? The above spoiler >does not work as white fails to move out of check >at one point.
I believe that a knight must actually take a rook, which invalidates this answer...
>1. e2-e4 | g7-g6
>
>2. g1-e2 | g8-f6
>
>3. e2-f4 | h8-g8
>
>4. f4-h5 | g8-g7
>
>5. h5xg7+++
>
>(mate)
Sorry, this doesn't work - black's black bishop
takes the knight.
>Here, at California U of PA, we all just password our MP3 directories, but almost everyone has the same password, therefore, you can still trade MP3's, but it's
>secure.
Don't be too confident. This is what was being done by many of the people disconnected at CMU.
>Where from that article did you get that the students' computers were being searched? The article clearly states that CMU "randomly checked
>the public portions of 250 students' computer accounts". In no case, however, were system admins "illegally" searching through private
>computers.
And, if you had read the previous comments, you would have realized that the article was wrong.
All of the CMU students here (including myself) have pointed this out.
ALL of the searched computers were private - I'm not sure where the article writers got
the idea that 'student accounts' were checked.
The "illegality" issue is that Computing Services attempted to break people's passwords.
This is a violation of the CMU Computing Ethics code, if nothing else.
>They didn't search the student's home computers.
>They searched the public storage area that was allocated from the university's network.
>They can do whatever they want with their property.
Ummm, no. This was done to the student's personal
computers, in their dorm rooms - our accounts on
the school computers weren't touched. It had
NOTHING to do with the public storage area allocated
from the university's network.
Actually, many of the shares *were* passworded.
The reason many of the students are upset about
this is not because they were caught with mp3s
(well, except the people who were disconnected for
LEGAL mp3s), but because Computing Services here
has a policy that anything not SPECIFICALLY marked
public is private. Someone got in trouble a while
ago for providing a search engine, because he
hadn't explicitly gotten everyone's permission to
look in their unpassworded directories... to have
Computing Services blatantly break their own
privacy policy by not only doing this, but
actually trying passwords, is the problem.
>The whole point of terminator seeds is to prevent cross-polination. One of the big problems with GM foods is that once they are out there,
>you can't get them back (as they will cross-polinate with normal crops), and with pesticide-resistant GM versions of grains you could end up >with superweeds. So, terminator seeds are good, as the adult plants won't be able to cross-polinate natural organic produce. That way,
>people who choose to eat natural, organic, non-Frankenstein foods, can do so safe in the knowledge that their food hasn't been
>cross-polinated with some untested genetically modified food that may cause severe allergic reactions in some people.
However, the Terminator patent allows for the gene that prevents live seeds from being 'blocked' until the seeds are chemically treated - at that point, the next generation's seeds are supposed to be nonviable. (This approach makes it much easier for Monsanto to grow seeds to sell). However, if a few seeds out of the bunch are not correctly treated, then these plants which have been genetically modified to survive better AND have a death-gene hidden away could cross-pollinate with natural organic produce - spreading the terminator gene much wider than just the Monsanto crops. If the gene were somehow triggered by the environment at this point, the result would be famine - the doomsday scenario.
>Actually, this is all much ado about nothing. For
>the last 40 or 50 years almost all crops have
>been grown with hybrid (crossbred) seeds. The
>result is that they don't "breed true" anyway -
>you can't save seeds and replant the next year,
>because the resulting plants will not have the
>same characteristics as the hybrid plant. You
>already can't sell the resulting seeds because
>nobody would want them, as the quality and
>productivity would not be the same as the
>commercial hybrids. The real risk (hopefully
>unlikely) is that if civilization collapsed, and
>hybrid seeds were no longer available, we mostly >don't have the seed stock for self-sustaining
>agriculture anymore. (but see organizations like
>http://www.seedsavers.org/).
This is not entirely correct - it does not apply to certain crops, such as wheat, rice, soybean, and cotton. Since one of Monsanto's best-known products is the Roundup Ready soybeans (which are genetically engineered to be used with a certain pesticide), Monsanto certainly has a commercial interest in actually using this technology.
>Think about this in terms of the presidential
>race a few years ago. All of the republicans (who
>hate democrats, of cours), would have voted like
>so:
> 2. George Bush
> 1. Ross Perot
> 0. Bill clinton.
>They would have put clinton last because he's a
>democrat. Conversly, any democrat would have
>voted like this:
> 2. Bill Clinton
> 1. Ross Perot
> 0. Bill Clinton.
>As you can see, this would have given each
>candidate an equal number of votes.
>
>Factoring in the number of people who voted for
>Ross Perot first, this actually would have
>allowed him to win the race.
I'm going to assume that you're refering here to
the method from this post:
>When it comes to counting, all the first
>("primary") choices are added up. The candidate
>with the least primary votes is removed from the
>count and all their votes are given to their
>voters second preferences. This is repeated until
>someone has >50% of the vote.
If this is correct, you have badly
misinterpreted the workings of this system.
The only way that people who voted primarily for
Bush or Clinton would have their secondary votes
(for Perot) counted is if Perot beat one of them
in the election. Let's look at that election,
using your ballots and assuming that 20% voted for
Perot, 40% for Bush, and 40% for Clinton:
Perot had the lowest vote total, and is therefore
eliminated from the election; the people who cast
their primary votes for him now have their
secondary votes counted instead. This *DOES*
mean that the Perot voters actually decide the
election. However, I don't see a problem with
that in this case; the rest of the country is
evenly divided. And if Perot DID beat one of the
candidates, and his voters prefer Perot to the
other candidate (who, remember, does not have 50%
of the popular vote) that strongly, I don't see
a problem with having Perot win the election.
Actually, this seems like an excellent system if
only because it encourages third-party voting by
removing the "Go ahead - throw your vote away!"
aspect of the first-past-the-post system. If
the hypothetical election above (with primary
votes reflecting preferences) took place in a
first-past-the-post system, the election would be
decided by people who prefer Perot voting AGAINST
their preference - whether the Democrat-Perot
voters or the Republican-Perot voters are more willing to settle for a candidate who is not
their first choice. Under this system, voters
can express their true preferences without
the possibility of their votes becoming worthless.
>The other day somebody was mumbling about Zephyr , an Athena messaging system. I have no idea whether it's suitable, because I've never
>used it. But I've never used these consumer-based things either. Somebody might want to evaluate it.
Zephyr is used extensively at Carnegie Mellon University. I find it both powerful and easy to use, and I'm not even very experienced with UNIX; from a user perspective, it seems like it could be an adequate replacement. I'll let someone more experienced/knowledgable comment on the implementation side.
>The courts seem to agree that the Constitution applies to public schools.
This does seem like a reasonable decision, given that (IIRC) the federal government also requires children up to the age of 16 to be schooled, and the only option for many people is the public school system. When Congress holds the 'gun' of police enforcement to people's heads forcing children to go to school, it seems reasonable to make those schools meet the restrictions applied to Congress.
This is, of course, quite aside from the other reasons that the First Amendment would apply. After all, think about it - do you really *want* your state government to establish a theocracy? If you don't allow the First Amendment to propagate downwards, that's exactly what can happen.
>I agree. Who ever said anything about the PA? There have been cases of kids being sent home for silently praying on their own. This is
>what I have trouble with.
I doubt you'll find a single advocate of religious freedom who doesn't also have trouble with this; an event like this is just as contradictory to the idea of freedom of religion as supporting a particular religion in public prayer. What advocates of religious freedom *do* have a problem with is the position taken by many Christians that the teacher should lead the class in Christian prayer, or that the Ten Commandments of Christianity should be officially posted by a public school while those of other religions are not. There is a *big* difference between these proposals and silently praying on one's own.
>So, if I think that my seven year old is mature
>enough to take my car down to the liquor store
>and get Dad a nice bottle of single-malt Scotch,
>that no one should be able to stop me. I mean
>damnit, it is my kid, and if I think a 7 year old
>is mature enough to drive a car and buy liquor,
If a seven-year-old can pass a driving test, there is no reason other than the completely arbitrary standard the government has set not to allow that seven-year-old to drive legally. Do you really believe that something magical happens when you turn 16 that suddenly makes you capable of driving? The same holds true for alcohol... do you really think that (for example, since this is the only one I've seen personally) the French parents who allow their children to drink wine are doing something wrong?
As a practical matter, most seven-year-olds would not be able to pass a driving test. But there is nothing wrong in principle with allowing people who have proven that they can drive to drive without a totally arbitrary age standard.
>it is nobody's business but mine, right? Never
>mind that it is the law or anything. Hmm.. maybe
>I think a 3 year old should have the right to
>vote....
Based on recent event, the three-year-olds seem at least as intelligent as the people they could elect.