Back in the '70s and '80s I worked at many sites where mainframe ops used to clear tonnes of fanfold paper every day. This is why we had separate printer rooms: a bank of 6 or 8 barrel-printers belting out 132 columns of text at 1800 lines/minute created sacksful of dust.
Most of that rubbish was never read in any depth - it was physically impossible to do so before it became out of date, so most of that paper went straight to the shredders, which often shared space with the printers that created the stuff in the first place. I used to have fantasies about lining up the shredders directly behind the printers to save everybody the trouble of distributing the printouts.
"They give birth astride a grave, the light gleams an instant, then its night once more."
-- "Waiting for Godot" by Samuel Beckett
(The connection between office papers and the quote is not mine; I heard it as a paraphrase somewhere.)
"There you go again, blaming on your printers the faults of your business processes".
"I understand the music, I understand the movies, I even see how comic books can tell us things. But there are full professors in this place who read nothing but cereal boxes."
I have a friend who went to Canada to have laser corrective surgery done on her eyes back in the early 90's, because there were no reasonable choices for this procedure available here in the US (well at least within a reasonable distance in Pennsylvania).
I was completely baffled by her story, because I was brainwashed to believe that socialized medicine necessarily lags behind when it comes to new medical technology and procedures.
I would argue that "functionally disabling this portion of the brain" is analogous to mental discipline.
I would also argue that being able to do this, allows humans to engage in actions based on long-term goals. Unless you're capable of making a connection between abstract meaning and a series of short-term unrelated activities, you may not be able to build Cathedrals, henges, Mayan pyramids, great works of art, (and war machines?).
The temporal lobe is in control of 'meaning', it is the part of your brain that recognizes objects for their significance.
The idea is that they were seeing meaning and importance in everything down to individual blades of grass. One of his patients refused any support since he believed he was a prophet and that it was his link to god. (I since have read that many prophets historically have been epileptics such as Ezekiel and Mohamed).
Great poets and other artists have always seen radical importance (or sometimes radical unimportance) in everything "down to individual blades of grass". William Blake for one:
To see a world in a grain of sand / And a heaven in a wild flower, / Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, / And eternity in an hour.
I agree, there's something incredibly fishy about the way the patent was written. It seems as if the writer was TRYING to be absurdly funny. I was seriously choking back laughter.
Yeah, sure why not. Doesn't cost me nothing.
I love how everyone here is superimposing estimated hours to completion on this project, and none of you has even seen the source code, or even the most minimal level of documentation regarding this payroll system.
My vanity search had a similar problem. The text of a portion of my website was found, but the actual URL was to discoverchannel, which has absolutely no relation to my website.
Too bad. Sounds like their public-relations/ media campaign jumped the gun.
Reagarding your statement: "Nothing in the book supports or suggests discrimination", I totally agree. I was trying to address the misperception that the book's theory implies or affirms discrimination against women, since they are statistically less likely to be technically/scientifically inclined.
My bad.
I found it pretty fascinating, and the author himself was concerned about publishing the book in the face of cultural/political resistance against this type of theory. I find the theory pretty persuasive, and I don't think it necessarily precludes women from science/engineering. In fact, my experience working with competent women in the the software world, was that they were generally respected and had congenial relations with their male coworkers.
At the risk of sounding flamey, I kind of feel like general population of women (at least in this country) do not encourage other women to go into math/science/engineering. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that a lot of women are significantly intimidated by other women who DO have an aptitude (and in my mind, more importantly, inclination) for "systems-building", as put forth in Simon Baron Cohen's theory.
For the record, almost every woman I've dated in my life, has had at least some fundamental interest in what I do for work, despite not really being able to 100% grasp my somewhat rambling explanations. The notion that men are from mars, and women from venus, is pretty simplistic and overall, a pretty useless idea.
As much as election politics are important, I think people forget that the most important decisions that we make in our lives are the ones we make on a day-to-day basis. Some of the worst corruption we see regularly is right in front of our eyes. Our bosses, our friends, our co-workers (and our enemies), as well as ourselves, will make many ethically questionable decisions in our lives. Elections and campaign controversies (which I admit to getting caught up in) are a sort of public catharsis that allows us to deny our own inaction and mistakes we make in civic life.
There was also something called the Whiskey Rebellion in the wee infancy of the country.
Dubya (former general George Washington) sent federal troops (to I believe, western Pennsylvania?) to put down the rebellion that was in response to a whiskey tax just after the successful birth of the nation.
I also smoke in my car. It's the only thing that keeps me from putting my fist through the window when I'm in traffic.
If I had wifi in the car, I might smoke less!
I'm an Obama supporter, but I have to say, the whole McCain health concern is IMHO completely irrelevant. Let's take it a bit further. What if he had polio? Then, consider the fact that we're in a war/occupation type situation. It would be really bad for the country, if our president had such a serious medical condition while we were at war, right?
Slashdot Mirror
That's sign of a great OO programmer! If your code base is not super-metaphorical, you're clearly not using enough design patterns.
"They give birth astride a grave, the light gleams an instant, then its night once more." -- "Waiting for Godot" by Samuel Beckett
(The connection between office papers and the quote is not mine; I heard it as a paraphrase somewhere.)
"There you go again, blaming on your printers the faults of your business processes".
Well, AP is already reporting on GOP legislators trying to make the link:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hOvd2ZHpLgAEKjwU87acksA24EDQD9F8SEUO0
Didn't take long for them to start posturing on behalf of the family-values contingent.
"I understand the music, I understand the movies, I even see how comic books can tell us things. But there are full professors in this place who read nothing but cereal boxes."
Delillo, White Noise
I have a friend who went to Canada to have laser corrective surgery done on her eyes back in the early 90's, because there were no reasonable choices for this procedure available here in the US (well at least within a reasonable distance in Pennsylvania).
I was completely baffled by her story, because I was brainwashed to believe that socialized medicine necessarily lags behind when it comes to new medical technology and procedures.
Any machine where you can install the ImageMagick library should have the utilities you need to strip that info.
I would argue that "functionally disabling this portion of the brain" is analogous to mental discipline.
;)
I would also argue that being able to do this, allows humans to engage in actions based on long-term goals. Unless you're capable of making a connection between abstract meaning and a series of short-term unrelated activities, you may not be able to build Cathedrals, henges, Mayan pyramids, great works of art, (and war machines?).
Answering how/why though, is above my paygrade.
The temporal lobe is in control of 'meaning', it is the part of your brain that recognizes objects for their significance.
The idea is that they were seeing meaning and importance in everything down to individual blades of grass. One of his patients refused any support since he believed he was a prophet and that it was his link to god. (I since have read that many prophets historically have been epileptics such as Ezekiel and Mohamed).
Great poets and other artists have always seen radical importance (or sometimes radical unimportance) in everything "down to individual blades of grass". William Blake for one:
To see a world in a grain of sand / And a heaven in a wild flower, / Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, / And eternity in an hour.
Does anyone else find it comical that the alleged patent troll's company name is "Implicit"?
Amen. You just nailed some really important points there.
"Just rastify him by about 15% or so"
I agree, there's something incredibly fishy about the way the patent was written. It seems as if the writer was TRYING to be absurdly funny. I was seriously choking back laughter.
"A plague on both your houses" is the correct line (from Romeo and Juliet)
"Do you bite your thumb at me?"
Seems like it would be a lot cheaper to just go to a used book store and buy $100 worth of used science-fiction novels.
Yeah, sure why not. Doesn't cost me nothing. I love how everyone here is superimposing estimated hours to completion on this project, and none of you has even seen the source code, or even the most minimal level of documentation regarding this payroll system.
I am reading and crying simultaneously.
My vanity search had a similar problem. The text of a portion of my website was found, but the actual URL was to discoverchannel, which has absolutely no relation to my website.
Too bad. Sounds like their public-relations/ media campaign jumped the gun.
White males tend to be the worst whiners.
Do you have any statistical evidence to back up this claim?
;)
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
You're right. That was poorly written on my part.
Reagarding your statement: "Nothing in the book supports or suggests discrimination", I totally agree. I was trying to address the misperception that the book's theory implies or affirms discrimination against women, since they are statistically less likely to be technically/scientifically inclined. My bad.
There's an interesting book, written by Simon Baron Cohen, about male and female cognitive behvior, and it's relation to autism/Asperger's-syndrom
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Essential-Difference-Women-Extreme-Science/dp/0713996714
I found it pretty fascinating, and the author himself was concerned about publishing the book in the face of cultural/political resistance against this type of theory. I find the theory pretty persuasive, and I don't think it necessarily precludes women from science/engineering. In fact, my experience working with competent women in the the software world, was that they were generally respected and had congenial relations with their male coworkers.
At the risk of sounding flamey, I kind of feel like general population of women (at least in this country) do not encourage other women to go into math/science/engineering. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that a lot of women are significantly intimidated by other women who DO have an aptitude (and in my mind, more importantly, inclination) for "systems-building", as put forth in Simon Baron Cohen's theory.
For the record, almost every woman I've dated in my life, has had at least some fundamental interest in what I do for work, despite not really being able to 100% grasp my somewhat rambling explanations. The notion that men are from mars, and women from venus, is pretty simplistic and overall, a pretty useless idea.
Hey Thanks!
I "strenuously" concur with your point.
As much as election politics are important, I think people forget that the most important decisions that we make in our lives are the ones we make on a day-to-day basis. Some of the worst corruption we see regularly is right in front of our eyes. Our bosses, our friends, our co-workers (and our enemies), as well as ourselves, will make many ethically questionable decisions in our lives. Elections and campaign controversies (which I admit to getting caught up in) are a sort of public catharsis that allows us to deny our own inaction and mistakes we make in civic life.
There was also something called the Whiskey Rebellion in the wee infancy of the country.
Dubya (former general George Washington) sent federal troops (to I believe, western Pennsylvania?) to put down the rebellion that was in response to a whiskey tax just after the successful birth of the nation.
I also smoke in my car. It's the only thing that keeps me from putting my fist through the window when I'm in traffic. If I had wifi in the car, I might smoke less!
[glares at old man shuffling past with a walker]
I'm an Obama supporter, but I have to say, the whole McCain health concern is IMHO completely irrelevant. Let's take it a bit further. What if he had polio? Then, consider the fact that we're in a war/occupation type situation. It would be really bad for the country, if our president had such a serious medical condition while we were at war, right?