Just because a number is nonrepeating and infinite does not mean it contains every possible sequence of numbers.
What you say is true.
However, pi goes beyond that. It is conjectured (as far as I know, not yet proven) to be a "normal number", which means that it does contain every possible (finite) sequence of integers.
One is that you picked up on the fact that the parent poster inexplicably switched his style of sarcasm - the "Outlook" and "FrontPage" examples were ones which would follow from the idea of choosing names that make sense, but which weren't true, while on the other hand the "Start button" example is true but wouldn't follow from that idea, and decided to comment on this in an indirect way.
The other is that you just failed to grasp that there was any sarcasm at all before posting a smartass reply. Given that this is Slashdot, I find this more likely.
Compare this to mathematics. Why would anyone need to know how to prove the Pythagorean theorem? It was already proven thousands of years ago! Stuck in the past indeed...
Well, assuming that you are referring to using Napster/Morpheus/Kazaa for violating copyright (I will not use the loaded word "piracy"), no, it can't be justified. It's illegal.
Consider it civil disobedience, until there comes a time when consumers can buy content which respects their rights for a fair price.
Even the other poster isn't correcting you enough - the absolutely brilliant music for Chrono Trigger and Xenogears was done by Yasunori Mitsuda. Uematsu only does Final Fantasy.
Re:Uematsu is the John Williams of videogames
on
Project Majestic Mix
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· Score: 2
You know, you're really right there.
This makes me wonder why Square hangs on to Uematsu for their Final Fantasy games, while in their other games (Chrono Trigger/Cross, Xenogears, and now Xenosaga) Yasunori Mitsuda puts out much better music - music which generally you can listen to on its own, without needing to think "this is from a video game."
Although, having listened to Xenosaga, many of the tracks sound disappointingly like Uematsu: loud, dramatic, and tuneless, with little appeal unless they're in the background of something. I suspect this is the result of having him do another game with 24 tracks of music in a span of time when he could come up with 4 or 5 inspired tunes. Perhaps they use Uematsu for Final Fantasy because he can churn out music and keep up with the pace at which they release the games.
Re:What is GIMP missing?
on
Penguin2Apple
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· Score: 3, Insightful
GIMP is missing the nice interface.
I realize you can do anything (except CMYK, which people make too much of a big deal out of) in the GIMP that you can do in Photoshop, but generally you can do it quicker and more smoothly in Photoshop because its interface works so well.
One example of this is the layer effects: in Photoshop, you can give a layer a drop shadow, and that shadow will update as you add to the layer. In GIMP you have to run a separate plugin that creates a drop shadow, and if you change the layer you have to delete the shadow and create it again.
I'm wondering if there can ever be a truly useful 3D browser, at least on an ordinary computer monitor.
Monitors are 2D. Thus, showing windows, icons, and text in 2D is the optimal use of space. Observe that in a 2D interface, you can read size 8 text with no problem at all. In the 3D interface, the text is generally much larger, but since the vast majority of it is rotated into the background it's harder to read.
In 2D you can arrange lots of icons in a grid. In this 3D interface you can only see a few icons at a time, and even so they end up on top of each other (the front of the platter vs. the back).
Re:Why did it take so many posts?
on
Abusing the GPL?
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· Score: 2
If you're the same AC, you've trolled this before.
The point of the GPL is that it has the same force as copyright yet the opposite effect. If copyright were limited to 7 years, there wouldn't be as much of a need for the GPL, so there would be no problem with the fact that the GPLed code would have a limited duration.
Open-source coders would get proprietary code after 7 years; proprietary coders would get open-source code after 7 years. Where does the "shooting yourself in the foot" come in?
(Incidentally, I think 7 years is too short. 14 years with one optional renewal, as it once was, is reasonable.)
Regulating spam is one of the "dirty dozen" of tech legislation? Spam is an obvious undesired drain on the Internet, which is usually based on trespass and fraud (abusing open relays and forging headers). Spam is not protected speech.
Granted, the measures to attempt to control spam that the government has passed have been watered-down, useless pieces of tripe, like the law saying that every spam must provide a "remove" address. How helpful. But I'd hardly consider these bills the most "destructive pieces of technology legislation". Save that for the DMCA.
This article is what has made me certain that I am not a Libertarian.
Though I think it's also a good topic for an ad, realize that the parent poster didn't come up with the whole shattering telescreen thing. That was an allusion to Apple's 1984 ad.
I saw it in a style guide somewhere, but let me give an example. What if an ATM (you are correct that there is no need for clarification here) said "Please provide your PIN"? It would cause some confusion and make people have to reread the sentence a few times, even if they knew what PIN stood for. What if it was displayed in an all-caps font: "PLEASE PROVIDE YOUR PIN"?
People who are unfamiliar with ATMs might not even instantly realize what a PIN was, yet as long as it's described as a number they'd realize it was that four-digit thingy the bank gave them.
And anyway, acronyms contain meaning, not words. Not many people know what LASER stands for, but that doesn't matter because it has become a noun in its own right. The acronym refers to a process - Light Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation - yet it's perfectly acceptable to say "laser beam" without considering that if you were to attempt to expand 'LASER' in place you would have some clunky wording. If every acronym had to be expandable in place, you'd have to say something like "a beam from LASER". Along the same lines, you would "put on some SCUBA", and might have to say "He's diagnosed with the HIV".
Would you prefer that every time you read an acronym, you were expected to know exactly what it stood for so you would know its grammatical function in the sentence?
GAIM = GTK AOL Instant Messenger = GIMP ToolKit America OnLine Instant Messenger = GNU Image Manipulation Program ToolKit America OnLine Instant Messenger = GNU's Not Unix Image Manipulation Program ToolKit America OnLine Instant Messenger.
This reminds me of something. Supposedly, there was a newspaper ad once which said "Saturday is Goodsexchange Day!"
Searching for this on Google gives the newspaper reference, as well as an unfortunate organization that had it as two separate words but needed to give themselves a URL, and a banner ad service called "goodsExchange", which is a bit less prone to misinterpretation.
Despite that everyone loves to appear smart by joking about this, it's good style to duplicate the last word of an acronym to provide context. This is especially true when the acronym is an existing word like 'pin'.
You mean your position? It's called "extremism". Most Libertarians I know of are capable of being reasonable.
I am not a *winner*. I was abused as a child
Poor you. Does being abused have anything to do with your argument?
So let's say that I come up to you and you have 500 dollars and i'm broke. So I should be allowed to take your money from you so that I can eat?
So let's say I suddenly decide to turn macroeconomics into microeconomics via a really lousy analogy. Does that mean I have a good point?
I never said that! I said that they don't deserve the money that I WORKED FOR! It's MINE!... It's my PROPERTY! PRIVATE PROPERTY!
Funny. Most people get over this phase at about the age of six.
Try reading the constitution and the bill of rights!
Okay. The Constitution contains the 17th amendment, which allows the government to collect income taxes. The Bill of Rights says nothing about taxes. How does that help your point?
Yeah what ever, mod me down for telling it like it is. Mod me down for disagreeing with me.. what ever..
If someone has modded you down, then I disagree with that moderator. You are, after all, contributing to the discussion. But that doesn't mean that your contribution isn't a simpleminded and selfish opinion.
I don't see how focus-follows-mouse would be possible when the menubar is at the top of the screen. If any window was behind the one you're in, you'd lose the focus before you got to the menubar.
Don't give up on science. Give up on the pseudo-science that is crammed into nearly every "health study".
As a senior in high school, I'm required to take a horrible Health class. There, we are inundated with statistics which only indicate correlations (such as having more friends and living longer), and they go on to treat it as causation by saying "So, if you make more friends, you'll increase your life expectancy!"
Funny that the same school that spends four years making sure we understand the scientific method goes on to destroy it in the last year.
Slashdot Mirror
I will think of it as the "Created By Disney Technology-Paralyzing Act" so that I can remember the acronym.
Um, what?
"I see in your future... roast beef. On rye. Alas, I foresee no horseradish sauce."
Just because a number is nonrepeating and infinite does not mean it contains every possible sequence of numbers.
What you say is true.
However, pi goes beyond that. It is conjectured (as far as I know, not yet proven) to be a "normal number", which means that it does contain every possible (finite) sequence of integers.
This is Knuth you're talking about. He probably totals his checks in complex numbers.
Hmm. There's two possibilities here.
One is that you picked up on the fact that the parent poster inexplicably switched his style of sarcasm - the "Outlook" and "FrontPage" examples were ones which would follow from the idea of choosing names that make sense, but which weren't true, while on the other hand the "Start button" example is true but wouldn't follow from that idea, and decided to comment on this in an indirect way.
The other is that you just failed to grasp that there was any sarcasm at all before posting a smartass reply. Given that this is Slashdot, I find this more likely.
They'll let you complete a PhD with that stance?
Compare this to mathematics. Why would anyone need to know how to prove the Pythagorean theorem? It was already proven thousands of years ago! Stuck in the past indeed...
Well, assuming that you are referring to using Napster/Morpheus/Kazaa for violating copyright (I will not use the loaded word "piracy"), no, it can't be justified. It's illegal.
Consider it civil disobedience, until there comes a time when consumers can buy content which respects their rights for a fair price.
is there a non-free program that does this?
Microsoft Word.
It doesn't do it all that well, from what I've seen, but it does it. It's called "AutoSummarize".
Even the other poster isn't correcting you enough - the absolutely brilliant music for Chrono Trigger and Xenogears was done by Yasunori Mitsuda. Uematsu only does Final Fantasy.
You know, you're really right there.
This makes me wonder why Square hangs on to Uematsu for their Final Fantasy games, while in their other games (Chrono Trigger/Cross, Xenogears, and now Xenosaga) Yasunori Mitsuda puts out much better music - music which generally you can listen to on its own, without needing to think "this is from a video game."
Although, having listened to Xenosaga, many of the tracks sound disappointingly like Uematsu: loud, dramatic, and tuneless, with little appeal unless they're in the background of something. I suspect this is the result of having him do another game with 24 tracks of music in a span of time when he could come up with 4 or 5 inspired tunes. Perhaps they use Uematsu for Final Fantasy because he can churn out music and keep up with the pace at which they release the games.
GIMP is missing the nice interface.
I realize you can do anything (except CMYK, which people make too much of a big deal out of) in the GIMP that you can do in Photoshop, but generally you can do it quicker and more smoothly in Photoshop because its interface works so well.
One example of this is the layer effects: in Photoshop, you can give a layer a drop shadow, and that shadow will update as you add to the layer. In GIMP you have to run a separate plugin that creates a drop shadow, and if you change the layer you have to delete the shadow and create it again.
I'm wondering if there can ever be a truly useful 3D browser, at least on an ordinary computer monitor.
Monitors are 2D. Thus, showing windows, icons, and text in 2D is the optimal use of space. Observe that in a 2D interface, you can read size 8 text with no problem at all. In the 3D interface, the text is generally much larger, but since the vast majority of it is rotated into the background it's harder to read.
In 2D you can arrange lots of icons in a grid. In this 3D interface you can only see a few icons at a time, and even so they end up on top of each other (the front of the platter vs. the back).
If you're the same AC, you've trolled this before.
The point of the GPL is that it has the same force as copyright yet the opposite effect. If copyright were limited to 7 years, there wouldn't be as much of a need for the GPL, so there would be no problem with the fact that the GPLed code would have a limited duration.
Open-source coders would get proprietary code after 7 years; proprietary coders would get open-source code after 7 years. Where does the "shooting yourself in the foot" come in?
(Incidentally, I think 7 years is too short. 14 years with one optional renewal, as it once was, is reasonable.)
Regulating spam is one of the "dirty dozen" of tech legislation? Spam is an obvious undesired drain on the Internet, which is usually based on trespass and fraud (abusing open relays and forging headers). Spam is not protected speech.
Granted, the measures to attempt to control spam that the government has passed have been watered-down, useless pieces of tripe, like the law saying that every spam must provide a "remove" address. How helpful. But I'd hardly consider these bills the most "destructive pieces of technology legislation". Save that for the DMCA.
This article is what has made me certain that I am not a Libertarian.
Though I think it's also a good topic for an ad, realize that the parent poster didn't come up with the whole shattering telescreen thing. That was an allusion to Apple's 1984 ad.
I saw it in a style guide somewhere, but let me give an example. What if an ATM (you are correct that there is no need for clarification here) said "Please provide your PIN"? It would cause some confusion and make people have to reread the sentence a few times, even if they knew what PIN stood for. What if it was displayed in an all-caps font: "PLEASE PROVIDE YOUR PIN"?
People who are unfamiliar with ATMs might not even instantly realize what a PIN was, yet as long as it's described as a number they'd realize it was that four-digit thingy the bank gave them.
And anyway, acronyms contain meaning, not words. Not many people know what LASER stands for, but that doesn't matter because it has become a noun in its own right. The acronym refers to a process - Light Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation - yet it's perfectly acceptable to say "laser beam" without considering that if you were to attempt to expand 'LASER' in place you would have some clunky wording. If every acronym had to be expandable in place, you'd have to say something like "a beam from LASER". Along the same lines, you would "put on some SCUBA", and might have to say "He's diagnosed with the HIV".
Would you prefer that every time you read an acronym, you were expected to know exactly what it stood for so you would know its grammatical function in the sentence?
Try GAIM.
GAIM = GTK AOL Instant Messenger = GIMP ToolKit America OnLine Instant Messenger = GNU Image Manipulation Program ToolKit America OnLine Instant Messenger = GNU's Not Unix Image Manipulation Program ToolKit America OnLine Instant Messenger.
This reminds me of something. Supposedly, there was a newspaper ad once which said "Saturday is Goodsexchange Day!"
Searching for this on Google gives the newspaper reference, as well as an unfortunate organization that had it as two separate words but needed to give themselves a URL, and a banner ad service called "goodsExchange", which is a bit less prone to misinterpretation.
Despite that everyone loves to appear smart by joking about this, it's good style to duplicate the last word of an acronym to provide context. This is especially true when the acronym is an existing word like 'pin'.
It's called LIBERTARIANISM.
... It's my PROPERTY! PRIVATE PROPERTY!
You mean your position? It's called "extremism". Most Libertarians I know of are capable of being reasonable.
I am not a *winner*. I was abused as a child
Poor you. Does being abused have anything to do with your argument?
So let's say that I come up to you and you have 500 dollars and i'm broke. So I should be allowed to take your money from you so that I can eat?
So let's say I suddenly decide to turn macroeconomics into microeconomics via a really lousy analogy. Does that mean I have a good point?
I never said that! I said that they don't deserve the money that I WORKED FOR! It's MINE!
Funny. Most people get over this phase at about the age of six.
Try reading the constitution and the bill of rights!
Okay. The Constitution contains the 17th amendment, which allows the government to collect income taxes. The Bill of Rights says nothing about taxes. How does that help your point?
Yeah what ever, mod me down for telling it like it is. Mod me down for disagreeing with me.. what ever..
If someone has modded you down, then I disagree with that moderator. You are, after all, contributing to the discussion. But that doesn't mean that your contribution isn't a simpleminded and selfish opinion.
I don't see how focus-follows-mouse would be possible when the menubar is at the top of the screen. If any window was behind the one you're in, you'd lose the focus before you got to the menubar.
The brain can not recall every stimulus it has ever encountered. It uses some very lossy compression. People don't often remember an event perfectly.
I really hope that was a troll.
Don't give up on science. Give up on the pseudo-science that is crammed into nearly every "health study".
As a senior in high school, I'm required to take a horrible Health class. There, we are inundated with statistics which only indicate correlations (such as having more friends and living longer), and they go on to treat it as causation by saying "So, if you make more friends, you'll increase your life expectancy!"
Funny that the same school that spends four years making sure we understand the scientific method goes on to destroy it in the last year.
Not just that... without his backslash, the spinning ASCII progress indicator |/-\ could only wobble sadly back and forth.