Sunnier? Down here it's rained more or less constantly for the past 30 days, with maybe two or three days of sunshine mixed in. And it's supposed to keep raining all week. Bah. At least it's stayed cool enough that the humidity hasn't sucked.
I second this-- I have a computer that I built back in late 01-02 that's 2.26 GHz that's chugging right along. Does just about any kind of processing a business or home would need and since I didn't skimp on the graphics card it even handles Compiz with ease. Nice case on it, running Ubuntu, and people think it's almost brand-new instead of ancient. Granted, I have had more computers since then but the point remains that old hardware isn't necessarily junk.
This won't be necessarily be a problem with me as I just bought a new Asus motherboard that has a backup BIOS! I don't know if this is a shameless plug or not as I don't work for Asus but the board is an ASUS M3A78 Pro... now that I look online(I don't have the manual with me) I don't see the feature but I'm 99% sure I saw it. Call it 100% but I don't have the manual. I did think it was relevant to the article so I figured I'd mention it.
No kidding. For what it's worth I really enjoyed my Bellsouth account and have been worried about the quality of service I'd get from AT&T ever since it switched over... didn't we break up that company for a reason??
While focusing on the tracking applications of the GPS is an important issue, where does it stop? With a reasonable update time, one could be under surveillance for, say, drug trafficking or any other suspicion of infraction of law that would be cause for this attachment... and if/when it became time to see the judge you could also rack up a considerable amount in fines from speeding tickets, failure to yield to a stop sign, (depending on how well things are known) running a red light, or probably a few other traffic infractions. After all, if it's used for evidence as to where you've been and they consider it reliable, then if you calculate that the car was speeding based on the coordinates, you've just gotten evidence for a ticket. And how often do people speed? I see this being a very, very bad precedent to set for our society.
Always worked for me, but then again I was playing Alpha Centauri and I was the University taking out the Believers... I didn't have any problems with the Believers but they always attacked me. Somehow I felt then as I do now that it was a pretty accurate model of real life.
The way I see this, as a college student who grew up around computers and had one in the house by 94(or thereabouts, I was kinda young then), is that by now there's really no need to re-invent the wheel-- programming is quite (not difficult, but somewhat frustrating at times) enough as it is, and since we've had a while to understand software modularity, it's not shallowness, it's putting components together to make a different part. Somewhat like the difference between a Ford Model T that is hand-assembled versus a custom kit car built entirely from other components. *shrug* Maybe I'm in the wrong field, but I like using components that "just work" and putting them to use in different ways, and as long as a library exists to do it, why not use it?
Eh? Ever heard of the natural nuclear reactors at Oklo? http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=98 for more information. Maybe less concentrated by nature now, as we don't see any of those presently, but it was indeed concentrated at one point.
Verbal POST is overrated. I used it for about a week before I got tired of it telling me the system POSTed successfully, now booting from operating system. It used the system speaker, of course. Very irritating. Not to mention tinny. Indeed amusing at first, but useful, I'm not so sure.
I, actually, make it a general point to say please and thank you to those who serve me in restaurants, cashiers, and what have you. It's not exactly a conscious thing, but I do it often enough that I notice it more when I don't say please and thank you than when I do. Having been raised in the South by older parents, I feel that this is more of their way of life and I try to live by it.// end personal anecdote, because we all know that anecdotes are simply statistical anomalies:)
Great joke understanding, by the by. "Sores" sounds very similar to "source". It's a jab at open source, since sores are generally considered unclean or possibly diseased.
It's not redundant, actually. Iran has missiles, and this was a space missile that was successfully launched... into space. As opposed to launching and then blowing up downrange. Sorry, I'm not used to being pedantic but I'm in a sort of mood like that today.
Well, fortunately for that, we have a heuristic for determining whether someone is spraying a wall with Lysol or spraying it with graffiti. It is a simple one, whereby a surface is considered defaced if and only if the following conditions are true: an object, moving against a section, leaves a single color or group of colors behind, which is still visible after the object which initiated such colorings left the screen.
*bows* Thank you, I'll take my Ph. D. in AI design now.
Because we're not god. God made dirt, we make computers. And cars. And everything else that makes life such a convenience today rather than before the Enlightenment.
Heh, oops. I guess I don't get out much. Come to think of it, I kinda can recall seeing a part of that movie... but I'm not a movie-watching guy. I really don't care about physical reincarnation as being able to reside in digital systems, like in Neuromancer. The digital systems may just live a little longer, and are definately easier to rebuild and copy.
I can't believe that this is Slashdot and nobody has mentioned the possibilities of this system. Imagine a world where you could be "resurrected" from the sum total of your digital information. Who's to say that your you-ness can't be completely emulated by a future computer? We already have this capability-- our own brains. So what if, at the time of your physical death, we could grab the state of our minds and upload it to a computer and continue our existence digitally? I think that would be an incredibly awesome thing, and it may become possible at the singularity, should it occur. I would do it, I know. Sure, there are problems with that, but at the same time it would be incredibly cool to interact with real virtual people. Surely, with the total capacity of the Internet, even today, we could even store a person today if we had the technology to simulate it. Such a digital entity would be rather slow to communicate with at present speeds, but technology only improves with time.
It's something to think about, anyway, with net positive benefits rather than Slashdot cynacism.
Not trying to be a tinfoil hat-wearer, but did anyone else think of Deus Ex, where robots were patrolling the grounds looking for terrorists to kill? With a robotic army, it would be much harder for armed revolution to take place, as the ruling party could simply activate the robots against people and not worry about losing their own, valuable loyalists. I realize that these are remote controlled, which is why the ruling class wouldn't have to expend their loyal troops against people. Anyway, I don't really have a problem with those robots, so I should end this rant now.
Okay, you asked for words that today's youth can understand. Here you go.
McCarthyism terrorism = new McCarthyism();
Parameters are optional, but accept strings like "Iraq", "Muslim", "Arab", and things of that nature. However, when the code was written it was not designed with good OOP. It should now read:
Terrorism mcCarthyism = new Terrorism(); with parameters suited for that era. It's all the same, folks.
Seagate? I've never used them. I've had a Quantum Firebrand or whatever as my first drive ever, still using it somewhat. Ever since then I've been a WD fan. I've got a 45, two 80s, and a 30, all from WD. The 45 I've had for about 3 or 4 years, and the others aren't exactly new either. I haven't seen any reason not to use WD, and I'll keep using them until I have a problem with them.
What? It didn't work for DVDs? I've bought a lot more DVDs than CDs, just because I felt like I was getting more for my money. And it was mostly because the DVDs were cheaper than the CDs I wanted.
Slashdot Mirror
Sunnier? Down here it's rained more or less constantly for the past 30 days, with maybe two or three days of sunshine mixed in. And it's supposed to keep raining all week. Bah. At least it's stayed cool enough that the humidity hasn't sucked.
I second this-- I have a computer that I built back in late 01-02 that's 2.26 GHz that's chugging right along. Does just about any kind of processing a business or home would need and since I didn't skimp on the graphics card it even handles Compiz with ease. Nice case on it, running Ubuntu, and people think it's almost brand-new instead of ancient. Granted, I have had more computers since then but the point remains that old hardware isn't necessarily junk.
This won't be necessarily be a problem with me as I just bought a new Asus motherboard that has a backup BIOS! I don't know if this is a shameless plug or not as I don't work for Asus but the board is an ASUS M3A78 Pro... now that I look online(I don't have the manual with me) I don't see the feature but I'm 99% sure I saw it. Call it 100% but I don't have the manual. I did think it was relevant to the article so I figured I'd mention it.
Is there anything it can't do?
Damn right you owe apologies to DNA, they invented the aerosol deodorant first, not personal. Bah.
No kidding. For what it's worth I really enjoyed my Bellsouth account and have been worried about the quality of service I'd get from AT&T ever since it switched over... didn't we break up that company for a reason??
While focusing on the tracking applications of the GPS is an important issue, where does it stop? With a reasonable update time, one could be under surveillance for, say, drug trafficking or any other suspicion of infraction of law that would be cause for this attachment... and if/when it became time to see the judge you could also rack up a considerable amount in fines from speeding tickets, failure to yield to a stop sign, (depending on how well things are known) running a red light, or probably a few other traffic infractions. After all, if it's used for evidence as to where you've been and they consider it reliable, then if you calculate that the car was speeding based on the coordinates, you've just gotten evidence for a ticket. And how often do people speed? I see this being a very, very bad precedent to set for our society.
Always worked for me, but then again I was playing Alpha Centauri and I was the University taking out the Believers... I didn't have any problems with the Believers but they always attacked me. Somehow I felt then as I do now that it was a pretty accurate model of real life.
The way I see this, as a college student who grew up around computers and had one in the house by 94(or thereabouts, I was kinda young then), is that by now there's really no need to re-invent the wheel-- programming is quite (not difficult, but somewhat frustrating at times) enough as it is, and since we've had a while to understand software modularity, it's not shallowness, it's putting components together to make a different part. Somewhat like the difference between a Ford Model T that is hand-assembled versus a custom kit car built entirely from other components. *shrug* Maybe I'm in the wrong field, but I like using components that "just work" and putting them to use in different ways, and as long as a library exists to do it, why not use it?
Thank you AC because I've been trying to remember(without searching, of course) what that short story was called!
Eh? Ever heard of the natural nuclear reactors at Oklo? http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=98 for more information. Maybe less concentrated by nature now, as we don't see any of those presently, but it was indeed concentrated at one point.
Verbal POST is overrated. I used it for about a week before I got tired of it telling me the system POSTed successfully, now booting from operating system. It used the system speaker, of course. Very irritating. Not to mention tinny. Indeed amusing at first, but useful, I'm not so sure.
That was your own fault, you shouldn't have observed them, assuming that I gave you existence to consider this idea.
I, actually, make it a general point to say please and thank you to those who serve me in restaurants, cashiers, and what have you. It's not exactly a conscious thing, but I do it often enough that I notice it more when I don't say please and thank you than when I do. Having been raised in the South by older parents, I feel that this is more of their way of life and I try to live by it. // end personal anecdote, because we all know that anecdotes are simply statistical anomalies :)
Great joke understanding, by the by. "Sores" sounds very similar to "source". It's a jab at open source, since sores are generally considered unclean or possibly diseased.
It's not redundant, actually. Iran has missiles, and this was a space missile that was successfully launched... into space. As opposed to launching and then blowing up downrange. Sorry, I'm not used to being pedantic but I'm in a sort of mood like that today.
Well, fortunately for that, we have a heuristic for determining whether someone is spraying a wall with Lysol or spraying it with graffiti. It is a simple one, whereby a surface is considered defaced if and only if the following conditions are true: an object, moving against a section, leaves a single color or group of colors behind, which is still visible after the object which initiated such colorings left the screen.
*bows* Thank you, I'll take my Ph. D. in AI design now.
Oh, he's executing the office of presidency, all right. It all depends on your definition of execution.
:)
CAPTCHA: Soviet
Now I'm scared
Because we're not god. God made dirt, we make computers. And cars. And everything else that makes life such a convenience today rather than before the Enlightenment.
Heh, oops. I guess I don't get out much. Come to think of it, I kinda can recall seeing a part of that movie... but I'm not a movie-watching guy. I really don't care about physical reincarnation as being able to reside in digital systems, like in Neuromancer. The digital systems may just live a little longer, and are definately easier to rebuild and copy.
I can't believe that this is Slashdot and nobody has mentioned the possibilities of this system. Imagine a world where you could be "resurrected" from the sum total of your digital information. Who's to say that your you-ness can't be completely emulated by a future computer? We already have this capability-- our own brains. So what if, at the time of your physical death, we could grab the state of our minds and upload it to a computer and continue our existence digitally? I think that would be an incredibly awesome thing, and it may become possible at the singularity, should it occur. I would do it, I know. Sure, there are problems with that, but at the same time it would be incredibly cool to interact with real virtual people. Surely, with the total capacity of the Internet, even today, we could even store a person today if we had the technology to simulate it. Such a digital entity would be rather slow to communicate with at present speeds, but technology only improves with time.
It's something to think about, anyway, with net positive benefits rather than Slashdot cynacism.
Not trying to be a tinfoil hat-wearer, but did anyone else think of Deus Ex, where robots were patrolling the grounds looking for terrorists to kill? With a robotic army, it would be much harder for armed revolution to take place, as the ruling party could simply activate the robots against people and not worry about losing their own, valuable loyalists. I realize that these are remote controlled, which is why the ruling class wouldn't have to expend their loyal troops against people. Anyway, I don't really have a problem with those robots, so I should end this rant now.
Okay, you asked for words that today's youth can understand. Here you go.
McCarthyism terrorism = new McCarthyism();
Parameters are optional, but accept strings like "Iraq", "Muslim", "Arab", and things of that nature. However, when the code was written it was not designed with good OOP. It should now read:
Terrorism mcCarthyism = new Terrorism(); with parameters suited for that era. It's all the same, folks.
Seagate? I've never used them. I've had a Quantum Firebrand or whatever as my first drive ever, still using it somewhat. Ever since then I've been a WD fan. I've got a 45, two 80s, and a 30, all from WD. The 45 I've had for about 3 or 4 years, and the others aren't exactly new either. I haven't seen any reason not to use WD, and I'll keep using them until I have a problem with them.
What? It didn't work for DVDs? I've bought a lot more DVDs than CDs, just because I felt like I was getting more for my money. And it was mostly because the DVDs were cheaper than the CDs I wanted.