"Yes, that is all well and good for you, but you're sane....despite the conviction that you can detect insanity in others"
I spy an ironic strawman.
"but it took a crazy Guttenberg to get people out from under the Church's thumb."
And do you know the title of the first books that came off his presses? Dispite your conviction that Guttenberg was crazy, much of the demise of Church influence over everyday life in the west has occured during my lifetime (no, I am not 500yrs old).
"I'd like to see a source on the caveman statement"
Then do some reseach, you might find there is more to history than second millenium cathedrals and Guttenberg.
"I would argue that it is the freaks of nature that advance society, opposed to people "working together.""
So WW2 was won by the elephant man rather than an alliance of competitor states against a common enemy?
BTW: One must be very selective when dinning on dog meat. The prisoner/gaurd thing still requires the prioner/gaurd to cooperate with their own TRIBE.
"Maybe you've got some metaphysical touchy-feely answer as to what the purpose of life is"
Can't speak for the GP but I do, and coincidently it's the same as yours...
"...it's achieving as much as I possibly can today, and improving as much as I possibly can tomorrow."
Not surprising since most people like apple pie, but before I subscribe to your newsletter could you please tell me more about what you want to "achive" and "improve".
Whether you like it or not, it IS a dog-eat-dog world out there.
Cave men were known to regularly look after the weak, old and injured members of the tribe. Since then countless humans have given their lives over the last 10 millenia to build and defend their families, towns, states and civilisation(s), the existance and extent of which directly contradicts the notion that the "dog eat dog" senario is the dominant state of human interaction.
Sure we still behave as a bunch of feudal states, and individuals will always compete and often cheat. However the whole reason we have managed to get this far as a species is that millions of individuals got together and co-operated to "achieve and improve" things far beyond the imagination of any individual - an obvious example being the system that allows me to post this little "glass is half full" rant.
Rabbits are not the only major introduced pests. We also have: cats, dogs, foxes, goats, donkeys, pigs, horses, water buffalo, cane toads, and more fucking camels than Saudia Arabia.
The 'farther' of comuter science Alan Turing was hounded by the authorities in the 50's because of his sexual preferences. This happened despite his invalubale contribution to defeating Hitler.
You need only take a cursory look at the "war on drugs" to see that nothing changes except the target behaviour that is defined as "mentally ill".
I'm sure the discoverer will want to conserve this rare species by breeding it up and selling the offspring into the not insignifigant number of gardners here who love these things.
It may technically have been 'eating' the rat but there is no way that it actually caught the rat. It's much more likely that the rat was injured from a recent encounter with a predator and simply died while trying to hide itself inside the pitcher.
I agree with you, I don't think the observatory is a waste of time but I do think that they are arguing about fairies and pinheads with this particular result.
Yes, IIRC OS2 was a joint venture between MS & IBM. MS pulled out of the deal and tried to kill OS2 with NT, it worked well for MS except for the ATM niche.
I agree and you only need to look at the size of the US prison population to obtain hard numbers for your assertions. It's got a long way to go before it reaches Stalinistic proportions but "the land of the free" has by far more prisoners and executions per head of population than any other western nation.
"In this age of climate change hysteria, if you did research that ended up suggested otherwise would you like to have it out there with your name on it? i'd rather have frank and honest EPA employee's and not be able to read their findings then being able to read a bunch of 1/2 truths that they were forced to self censor to protect their jobs and reputations"
In other words "YOU can't handle the truth", and if YOU found the 'truth', YOU would be too frightened to speak it to power for fear of reprisals. To YOU the "star chamber" method is vastly superior to the scientific method.
Jim has a better track record than you. From the wiki link...
"In 1981 Hansen and a team of scientists at Goddard had reached the conclusion that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would lead to global warming sooner than previously predicted. While other climatoligists had already predicted that a trend would be apparent by 2020, Hansen predicted, in a paper published in Science, that the change was already occurring and that there would record high temperatures as early as 1990. He also predicted that it would be difficult to convince politicians and the public to react."
"Not sure if that translates to better prediction though."
Computer climate/weather models use finite element analysis. If they get enough data to improve the resolution of the models, and enough computing power to make use of the better resolution, then yes the predictions should improve.
I am not from the US but I first heard of Jim Hansen in the 80's, IMHO he is one of the great minds of the 20th century and has shown the required balls to publicly 'speak truth to power' on several occasions to both sides of US politics.
A public servant who really does serve the public, what will they think of next?
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions". - !Samuel Johnson.
In a commercial setting your 'cleanup' is indeed unacceptable if it made it into the source repository. Writing the code is but a small part of successfull software development. If people fuck with that small part without consideration or knowledge of it's downstream conequences then they are just creating unproductive (ie: unprofitable) work for everyone else.
If that sounds like your boss then think of it this way - would/should Linus blindly accept a similar cleanup of the Linux kernel?
Having said that, yelling at well meaning people (by email or otherwise) is also not part of successfull software development.
Creationists exist in Australia but the few nuts in suits promoting it to others are from the US.
The overwhelming majoity of Australian creationists are poorly educated and have zero influence/resources, they are often too busy coping with life to bother with either religion or science.
It was a different story when I was growing up in the 60's-70's, back then there were many debates about teaching evolution at schools, giving Aborigines the vote, the pill, women in kitchens, the morality of rock and roll, no-fault divorce, etc.
BTW: One of these debates in the mid 70's was between private and universal health cover, IMHO the US are allowing ideology and greed to triumph over pragmatisim and compassion in that area.
...either smite them with bankruptcy or send a saviour to the auction, their accountant has been weighing their sins and thinks a press release might help./ducks
Slashdot Mirror
"Yes, that is all well and good for you, but you're sane....despite the conviction that you can detect insanity in others"
I spy an ironic strawman.
"but it took a crazy Guttenberg to get people out from under the Church's thumb."
And do you know the title of the first books that came off his presses? Dispite your conviction that Guttenberg was crazy, much of the demise of Church influence over everyday life in the west has occured during my lifetime (no, I am not 500yrs old).
"I'd like to see a source on the caveman statement"
Then do some reseach, you might find there is more to history than second millenium cathedrals and Guttenberg.
"I would argue that it is the freaks of nature that advance society, opposed to people "working together.""
So WW2 was won by the elephant man rather than an alliance of competitor states against a common enemy?
BTW: One must be very selective when dinning on dog meat. The prisoner/gaurd thing still requires the prioner/gaurd to cooperate with their own TRIBE.
I don't agree with the OP, nor do I agree with the Gordon Geko world view of the post I replied to. Both are myopic.
"Maybe you've got some metaphysical touchy-feely answer as to what the purpose of life is"
Can't speak for the GP but I do, and coincidently it's the same as yours...
"...it's achieving as much as I possibly can today, and improving as much as I possibly can tomorrow."
Not surprising since most people like apple pie, but before I subscribe to your newsletter could you please tell me more about what you want to "achive" and "improve".
Whether you like it or not, it IS a dog-eat-dog world out there.
Cave men were known to regularly look after the weak, old and injured members of the tribe. Since then countless humans have given their lives over the last 10 millenia to build and defend their families, towns, states and civilisation(s), the existance and extent of which directly contradicts the notion that the "dog eat dog" senario is the dominant state of human interaction.
Sure we still behave as a bunch of feudal states, and individuals will always compete and often cheat. However the whole reason we have managed to get this far as a species is that millions of individuals got together and co-operated to "achieve and improve" things far beyond the imagination of any individual - an obvious example being the system that allows me to post this little "glass is half full" rant.
"Oh, and the whole thing hinges on futuristic radios that don't work."
The radios are healing themselves! Try dimming the lights and rubbing some lavender oil on their antennas you insesitive clod!
"(implantation of tiny seed sized radioactive bits into the prostate that kills the cancer)"
Note to self: Invest in rubber glove industry.
Rabbits are not the only major introduced pests. We also have: cats, dogs, foxes, goats, donkeys, pigs, horses, water buffalo, cane toads, and more fucking camels than Saudia Arabia.
A pertinent example, from the UK this time.
The 'farther' of comuter science Alan Turing was hounded by the authorities in the 50's because of his sexual preferences. This happened despite his invalubale contribution to defeating Hitler.
You need only take a cursory look at the "war on drugs" to see that nothing changes except the target behaviour that is defined as "mentally ill".
I'm sure the discoverer will want to conserve this rare species by breeding it up and selling the offspring into the not insignifigant number of gardners here who love these things.
It may technically have been 'eating' the rat but there is no way that it actually caught the rat. It's much more likely that the rat was injured from a recent encounter with a predator and simply died while trying to hide itself inside the pitcher.
I agree with you, I don't think the observatory is a waste of time but I do think that they are arguing about fairies and pinheads with this particular result.
"As a result, this study really doesn't tell us very much at all."
TFA proposes a third explaination, ie: the burst was not in Andromeda, it was from a galaxy, far, far, away.
Yes, IIRC OS2 was a joint venture between MS & IBM. MS pulled out of the deal and tried to kill OS2 with NT, it worked well for MS except for the ATM niche.
"everyone was blaming global warming for the melting of the icecaps..."
...when really it was...what? - An Antartic volcano melting the Artic sea ice?
I agree and you only need to look at the size of the US prison population to obtain hard numbers for your assertions. It's got a long way to go before it reaches Stalinistic proportions but "the land of the free" has by far more prisoners and executions per head of population than any other western nation.
If you are looking for an enraged response to satify some perverse personality flaw then your out of luck, I'm all out of troll food today.
"In this age of climate change hysteria, if you did research that ended up suggested otherwise would you like to have it out there with your name on it? i'd rather have frank and honest EPA employee's and not be able to read their findings then being able to read a bunch of 1/2 truths that they were forced to self censor to protect their jobs and reputations"
In other words "YOU can't handle the truth", and if YOU found the 'truth', YOU would be too frightened to speak it to power for fear of reprisals. To YOU the "star chamber" method is vastly superior to the scientific method.
Oh I see, "facts" come from editorials in US newspapers whilst "political whores" publish in the journal science.
Jim has a better track record than you. From the wiki link...
"In 1981 Hansen and a team of scientists at Goddard had reached the conclusion that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would lead to global warming sooner than previously predicted. While other climatoligists had already predicted that a trend would be apparent by 2020, Hansen predicted, in a paper published in Science, that the change was already occurring and that there would record high temperatures as early as 1990. He also predicted that it would be difficult to convince politicians and the public to react. "
"Not sure if that translates to better prediction though."
Computer climate/weather models use finite element analysis. If they get enough data to improve the resolution of the models, and enough computing power to make use of the better resolution, then yes the predictions should improve.
Disclaimer:IANAMeterologist
I am not from the US but I first heard of Jim Hansen in the 80's, IMHO he is one of the great minds of the 20th century and has shown the required balls to publicly 'speak truth to power' on several occasions to both sides of US politics.
A public servant who really does serve the public, what will they think of next?
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions". - !Samuel Johnson.
In a commercial setting your 'cleanup' is indeed unacceptable if it made it into the source repository. Writing the code is but a small part of successfull software development. If people fuck with that small part without consideration or knowledge of it's downstream conequences then they are just creating unproductive (ie: unprofitable) work for everyone else.
If that sounds like your boss then think of it this way - would/should Linus blindly accept a similar cleanup of the Linux kernel?
Having said that, yelling at well meaning people (by email or otherwise) is also not part of successfull software development.
Heh, not only do the mods not recognise the topic, they also can't tell the difference between a troll and flamebait.
"We have self consciousness, and are not slaves to our instincts as lifeforms with lower intelligence are."
This is bullshit, many territorial pack animals act exactly like soldiers. Fighting when dumped in a war zone is human instinct.
But I agree it's a waste of time, if fear had a smell we would all know what it smelt like.
Creationists exist in Australia but the few nuts in suits promoting it to others are from the US.
The overwhelming majoity of Australian creationists are poorly educated and have zero influence/resources, they are often too busy coping with life to bother with either religion or science.
It was a different story when I was growing up in the 60's-70's, back then there were many debates about teaching evolution at schools, giving Aborigines the vote, the pill, women in kitchens, the morality of rock and roll, no-fault divorce, etc.
BTW: One of these debates in the mid 70's was between private and universal health cover, IMHO the US are allowing ideology and greed to triumph over pragmatisim and compassion in that area.
...either smite them with bankruptcy or send a saviour to the auction, their accountant has been weighing their sins and thinks a press release might help. /ducks