Wow! This is the most useful slashdot post I ever read. Period. I am going to print it out and distribute to my CS 101 class. Absolutely brilliant. Thank you.
You can get a PS/2 connector from any other dead keyboard. Then you'd cut both cords and then strip and twist together each one of the 5 (I think) wires together... You would have to use a bit of electrical isolation tape around each twisted wire.
This completes the "circle" in some way, but long time ago an assembly worker who was too lazy started twisting-on wires instead of soldering. He did it to save time. But statistics showed that what he produced had lower rate of failure than the soldered stuff. Maybe you should have considered twisting wires of this IBM keyboard and the connector?
Wow. That's the stupidest thinking I've ever heard. Even though I tend to think that people lable things as "stupid" out of their ignorance, in this case it is absolutely deserved. What makes us humans different from animals is that we invent tools. So when better tools are available for doing our job, denying access to them is intentionally hindering work progress. How is that not "stupid"? What happened to "the right tool for the job" approach?
I just discovered this little gadget and let me tell you, it is the most transparent X Server on Windows I've seen. It just gives you a full-screen-with-windows-border X server that contains a desktop ran by your remote Unix machine. Short of having to do direct hardware configurations you won't see any difference between it and having an actual Solaris/Linux desktop. I hope I sound like a mouth-piece for the company because I am not. I am just glad there is a solution out there now that is this simple and yet this transparent. Rather than try to marry an X server to Windows Explorer, they just gave it a one big window. Brilliant yet simple. Try it. I bet it will get rid of all your headaches.
let's play it all by memory. Seriosly, do we really have a choice? The more densely we pack the information that more of a chance it has for corruption. The "CD" mentioned by the article has effectively 700 minutes of music of the same quality as the 60 minute tape.
You can be both a "thief" and a victim of "theft". I am not saying that YouTube is engaging in theft. I am simply saying that the fact that Viacom is engaging in behavior more egregeous than the one of which it is accusing YouTube does not in any way change the fact of whether or not YouTube is stealing or even harming Viacom. Just so we are clear, harming someone who is harming someone else is still harmful and unlawful.
Actually, that's not the case. To give an analogy, say you are working on optimization of some process involved in database storage. Could you explain what that means to your mother (assuming your mother does not have a technical background)? You couldn't say anything beyond vagueries like "making faster" or "making more efficient". Well, on that level, Lie groups describe continuous symmetries (like rotations of a sphere). To get to a level even a little bit deeper would take a 1 semester undergraduate course just to learn what is going on. Sometimes specilization creates escoteric fields. That's just how it is. Math is "universal" because all the math that you are used to seeing was developed 200+ years ago, so it is the root of all knowledge that we now call mathematics. So as every laymen who knows some abc's, you want to think that the specilized knowledge in the subject is not outside of your grasp. Well, again, try explaining to your mother the finer points of what you do. And again (again) realize that specilized knowledge in a discipline does not make the knowledge useless -- it markes the discipline as a professional (rather than hobbyist) endeavor.
I am afraid we'll have to agree to disagree. We have a fundamental difference of opinion on what is human. More precisely, what is a human. To clarify a purely philosophical point, objective truth (while it does exist) is undiscoverable. This is a direct corollary of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Aristotle also made an argument to that effect as well (there is always a smaller scale on which you cannot look yet). But that is trully off the point. I cannot address all the points that you bring up, since that would make this argument my full time job. So I'll pick at it a bit. If that's trolling, so be it. You speak in theoretical terms of how people should act and I speak about how people do act. I happen to be very familiar with the former Soviet Union (my family is originally from there). You speak in theoretical terms of how people should act and I speak about how people do act. I have a concrete example in mind of what happens when anonymity is given legitimacy. Anonymity in the former Soviet Union did not promote public discourse. It gave ability to smear people and to legitimize smear campaigns of the descenters. That is that is what it did at first. After a while it became a standard revange tactic for spouses who were cheated on, disgruntled co-workers, etc. It got so bad that the popular vernacular and later the popular culture invented its own word for anymous letters. The word became synonymoous with a smear. No opinion stated anonymously was ever taken seroiusly. Anyone who wished to enter the public discourse had to courageoulsy stand against the tide of criticism. Lastly, not having to reveal ones identity gives a certain lightness to what one has to say. I certainly don't feel obligated not to troll because my identity on slashdot is anonymous. So before you say that if anonymity were to become the norm, society would not change for the worse, first imagine it. Imagine real world brick-and-mortar business engaging in smear campaigns againt competition because they can do it anonymously. Imagine all competing entities doing that.... Politicians, jealous lovers, businesses. Of course, then you'd pretty much imagine what is going on today on the internet. But imagine if it happened in real life, where the barrier of entry is much lower than knowing how to use a computer. Where the responsibility for knowing when speech should not be taken seriously lies on the shoulders of the people of lowest 50 percentile of intelligence as well as the highest. I am not saying people should be protected from speech because they can't handle it. I am just saying that they should know who is making the statement. Knowing who makes the statement is one of the basic human devices for evaluating its legitamacy. Without it, all that's left is the media through which the statement is transmitted. So well decorated lies will take shape of the truth for a large portion of the population.... possibly for the majority.
Alright, I read the article. Sounds like the Supreme Court got it wrong. They said that ability to speak anonymously is necessary for some forms of political expression. But why should any form of political expression be encouraged? Why should the ability to say whatever and to not have to face the consequences be granted? This promotes smear. Certain facts might be embarassing to say, sure. But isn't embarrasment itself one of the checks that we have for ourselves on what is acceptable in a civil society? And isn't the point of the social contract of the law that we give up certain freedoms (such as to intrude into lives of others uninvited) in order to keep a free civil society. A free contry does not mean a country that practices anarchy. Freedoms must be checked by corresponding responsibilities or practicing those freedoms will necessarily intrude on the freedoms of others.
As to the point that lack of anonymity might silence criticism for fear of retribution, I would say "I should hope so." Saying what is unpopular should require courage. Having the ability to say the truth when the truth is unpopular is how one knows that he lives in a society where his freedom of speech is protected. When overwhelming opinion accepted by a society is wrong and one knows it, it should take courage to say it out loud or it will be whispered in anonymity but will never be said. The truth should have the loud voice of the person standing behind it. Anonymity relegates it to the rank of rumors. It hides truth from the public discourse by making it just another anonymous opinion.
They all wrote under the system where one could have been be punished for what one had said. Once the right of the freedom of speech is guaranteed, the responsibility that keeps it in check is the responsibility to stand behind what one has said.
Freedom of speech is not a freedom say anything anonymously. As a matter of fact, it is reasonable to demand that whoever speaks identifies themselves. Otherwise, freedom to say anything becomes a freedom to lie. As long as one stands behind what one has to say, one should be allowed to say anything (with the usual exception to incitement to do harm). But anonymity takes away the responsibility for one's words.
I have no problem with legitemate criticism. It's the personal attacks which boil down to "you must not understand a simple concept xyz just because you are disagreeing with me" that set me off. When you put a person on defensive, don't expect to be graciously thanked. If you believe an argument with which you are presented is faulty, point out the fault and move on.
Yes, that's exactly what it is. You got me. I hang around slashdot because I don't understand what zero-sum-game is. I, further, don't understand economic activity is. Because you happen to want to define it in such a way that ANY transfer of property qualifies. Well, it isn't. I will define economic activity as people transacting. Exchange of money based on mostly random circumstance (like loosing your wallet and someone else finding it) is not an economic activity. Resources are not exchange for the purpose of acquiring something of value equal (to you) to the resources given up. No sum-total growth can occur. When you build a factory or a railroad (or any productive company), you create more resources than were put in. This does not happen with purely-chance gambling (stock market is something else, but whatever). And since the only part of the gambling that IS economic activity is the services provided by the casinos, casinos based on other territories (not US) should not subject to the US law.
Gambling is a zero sum game. Why should IRS get any part of the pot in the first place? When taxing economic activity (production and ownership of property) the theory goes that the government protects it and facilitates it so it has the right to collect fees on it. But why should the government get any part of transfer of money based on chance? Nothing is put into the economy through this activity, so no government assistance is required to maintain it. I say, it's actually better to have them offshore and hiding... this puts back a certain level of fairness into the taxation system.
This smells like zero-to-lawsuit in less than.1 second. It would mean that residents of the states that don't adapt DHS' guidelines would be discriminated against in Fed Gov employment as well as interstate travel. First of these is probably unconstitutional and the second of these is definately unconstitutional.
Well, if you want to forgo the middlment, then you might as well get rid of people in the process and give the power to the churches and the media... They are the ones that control the message that influences most votes.
Down with corporate governments! All power to the peoples local assemblies!
Local assemblies? Is that the same as "Soviets"? I am sure "all power to the Soviets" will do really well in Estonia. FYI, "soviet" is Russian for "advisory committee"... which were composed of... you guessed it... members elected by local assemblies.
I showed how to calculate it in my post titled "clarification:competition, compe...". I wrote it because I got tired of all the people claiming that Canada and Australia have a lower pop. density than the US. Basically, you divide the population living in some higher percentile of densely populated centers by the population living in some lower percentage (of lower populated centers).
Slashdot Mirror
Wow! This is the most useful slashdot post I ever read. Period. I am going to print it out and distribute to my CS 101 class. Absolutely brilliant. Thank you.
You can get a PS/2 connector from any other dead keyboard. Then you'd cut both cords and then strip and twist together each one of the 5 (I think) wires together... You would have to use a bit of electrical isolation tape around each twisted wire.
This completes the "circle" in some way, but long time ago an assembly worker who was too lazy started twisting-on wires instead of soldering. He did it to save time. But statistics showed that what he produced had lower rate of failure than the soldered stuff. Maybe you should have considered twisting wires of this IBM keyboard and the connector?
Wow. That's the stupidest thinking I've ever heard. Even though I tend to think that people lable things as "stupid" out of their ignorance, in this case it is absolutely deserved. What makes us humans different from animals is that we invent tools. So when better tools are available for doing our job, denying access to them is intentionally hindering work progress. How is that not "stupid"? What happened to "the right tool for the job" approach?
I just discovered this little gadget and let me tell you, it is the most transparent X Server on Windows I've seen. It just gives you a full-screen-with-windows-border X server that contains a desktop ran by your remote Unix machine. Short of having to do direct hardware configurations you won't see any difference between it and having an actual Solaris/Linux desktop. I hope I sound like a mouth-piece for the company because I am not. I am just glad there is a solution out there now that is this simple and yet this transparent. Rather than try to marry an X server to Windows Explorer, they just gave it a one big window. Brilliant yet simple. Try it. I bet it will get rid of all your headaches.
let's play it all by memory. Seriosly, do we really have a choice? The more densely we pack the information that more of a chance it has for corruption. The "CD" mentioned by the article has effectively 700 minutes of music of the same quality as the 60 minute tape.
You can be both a "thief" and a victim of "theft". I am not saying that YouTube is engaging in theft. I am simply saying that the fact that Viacom is engaging in behavior more egregeous than the one of which it is accusing YouTube does not in any way change the fact of whether or not YouTube is stealing or even harming Viacom. Just so we are clear, harming someone who is harming someone else is still harmful and unlawful.
grandmother?
Actually, that's not the case. To give an analogy, say you are working on optimization of some process involved in database storage. Could you explain what that means to your mother (assuming your mother does not have a technical background)? You couldn't say anything beyond vagueries like "making faster" or "making more efficient". Well, on that level, Lie groups describe continuous symmetries (like rotations of a sphere). To get to a level even a little bit deeper would take a 1 semester undergraduate course just to learn what is going on. Sometimes specilization creates escoteric fields. That's just how it is. Math is "universal" because all the math that you are used to seeing was developed 200+ years ago, so it is the root of all knowledge that we now call mathematics. So as every laymen who knows some abc's, you want to think that the specilized knowledge in the subject is not outside of your grasp. Well, again, try explaining to your mother the finer points of what you do. And again (again) realize that specilized knowledge in a discipline does not make the knowledge useless -- it markes the discipline as a professional (rather than hobbyist) endeavor.
I am afraid we'll have to agree to disagree. We have a fundamental difference of opinion on what is human. More precisely, what is a human. To clarify a purely philosophical point, objective truth (while it does exist) is undiscoverable. This is a direct corollary of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Aristotle also made an argument to that effect as well (there is always a smaller scale on which you cannot look yet). But that is trully off the point. I cannot address all the points that you bring up, since that would make this argument my full time job. So I'll pick at it a bit. If that's trolling, so be it. You speak in theoretical terms of how people should act and I speak about how people do act. I happen to be very familiar with the former Soviet Union (my family is originally from there). You speak in theoretical terms of how people should act and I speak about how people do act. I have a concrete example in mind of what happens when anonymity is given legitimacy. Anonymity in the former Soviet Union did not promote public discourse. It gave ability to smear people and to legitimize smear campaigns of the descenters. That is that is what it did at first. After a while it became a standard revange tactic for spouses who were cheated on, disgruntled co-workers, etc. It got so bad that the popular vernacular and later the popular culture invented its own word for anymous letters. The word became synonymoous with a smear. No opinion stated anonymously was ever taken seroiusly. Anyone who wished to enter the public discourse had to courageoulsy stand against the tide of criticism. Lastly, not having to reveal ones identity gives a certain lightness to what one has to say. I certainly don't feel obligated not to troll because my identity on slashdot is anonymous. So before you say that if anonymity were to become the norm, society would not change for the worse, first imagine it. Imagine real world brick-and-mortar business engaging in smear campaigns againt competition because they can do it anonymously. Imagine all competing entities doing that.... Politicians, jealous lovers, businesses. Of course, then you'd pretty much imagine what is going on today on the internet. But imagine if it happened in real life, where the barrier of entry is much lower than knowing how to use a computer. Where the responsibility for knowing when speech should not be taken seriously lies on the shoulders of the people of lowest 50 percentile of intelligence as well as the highest. I am not saying people should be protected from speech because they can't handle it. I am just saying that they should know who is making the statement. Knowing who makes the statement is one of the basic human devices for evaluating its legitamacy. Without it, all that's left is the media through which the statement is transmitted. So well decorated lies will take shape of the truth for a large portion of the population.... possibly for the majority.
Next: Warner Brothers sues Viacom for stealing the copyrighted "ONE BILLION DOLLARS" line.
Alright, I read the article. Sounds like the Supreme Court got it wrong. They said that ability to speak anonymously is necessary for some forms of political expression. But why should any form of political expression be encouraged? Why should the ability to say whatever and to not have to face the consequences be granted? This promotes smear. Certain facts might be embarassing to say, sure. But isn't embarrasment itself one of the checks that we have for ourselves on what is acceptable in a civil society? And isn't the point of the social contract of the law that we give up certain freedoms (such as to intrude into lives of others uninvited) in order to keep a free civil society. A free contry does not mean a country that practices anarchy. Freedoms must be checked by corresponding responsibilities or practicing those freedoms will necessarily intrude on the freedoms of others.
As to the point that lack of anonymity might silence criticism for fear of retribution, I would say "I should hope so." Saying what is unpopular should require courage. Having the ability to say the truth when the truth is unpopular is how one knows that he lives in a society where his freedom of speech is protected. When overwhelming opinion accepted by a society is wrong and one knows it, it should take courage to say it out loud or it will be whispered in anonymity but will never be said. The truth should have the loud voice of the person standing behind it. Anonymity relegates it to the rank of rumors. It hides truth from the public discourse by making it just another anonymous opinion.
They all wrote under the system where one could have been be punished for what one had said. Once the right of the freedom of speech is guaranteed, the responsibility that keeps it in check is the responsibility to stand behind what one has said.
Freedom of speech is not a freedom say anything anonymously. As a matter of fact, it is reasonable to demand that whoever speaks identifies themselves. Otherwise, freedom to say anything becomes a freedom to lie. As long as one stands behind what one has to say, one should be allowed to say anything (with the usual exception to incitement to do harm). But anonymity takes away the responsibility for one's words.
I have no problem with legitemate criticism. It's the personal attacks which boil down to "you must not understand a simple concept xyz just because you are disagreeing with me" that set me off. When you put a person on defensive, don't expect to be graciously thanked. If you believe an argument with which you are presented is faulty, point out the fault and move on.
Yes, that's exactly what it is. You got me. I hang around slashdot because I don't understand what zero-sum-game is. I, further, don't understand economic activity is. Because you happen to want to define it in such a way that ANY transfer of property qualifies. Well, it isn't. I will define economic activity as people transacting. Exchange of money based on mostly random circumstance (like loosing your wallet and someone else finding it) is not an economic activity. Resources are not exchange for the purpose of acquiring something of value equal (to you) to the resources given up. No sum-total growth can occur. When you build a factory or a railroad (or any productive company), you create more resources than were put in. This does not happen with purely-chance gambling (stock market is something else, but whatever). And since the only part of the gambling that IS economic activity is the services provided by the casinos, casinos based on other territories (not US) should not subject to the US law.
Gambling is a zero sum game. Why should IRS get any part of the pot in the first place? When taxing economic activity (production and ownership of property) the theory goes that the government protects it and facilitates it so it has the right to collect fees on it. But why should the government get any part of transfer of money based on chance? Nothing is put into the economy through this activity, so no government assistance is required to maintain it. I say, it's actually better to have them offshore and hiding... this puts back a certain level of fairness into the taxation system.
I am familiar with the reference. Fermat was a lawyer by training and a judge by profession. Hence the reference.
This smells like zero-to-lawsuit in less than .1 second. It would mean that residents of the states that don't adapt DHS' guidelines would be discriminated against in Fed Gov employment as well as interstate travel. First of these is probably unconstitutional and the second of these is definately unconstitutional.
Wouldn't this sig be more appropriate in a law forum rather than slashdot?
Well, if you want to forgo the middlment, then you might as well get rid of people in the process and give the power to the churches and the media... They are the ones that control the message that influences most votes.
Local assemblies? Is that the same as "Soviets"? I am sure "all power to the Soviets" will do really well in Estonia. FYI, "soviet" is Russian for "advisory committee"... which were composed of... you guessed it... members elected by local assemblies.
Microsoft? There are people who use MSN for searching? Name two.
I showed how to calculate it in my post titled "clarification:competition, compe...". I wrote it because I got tired of all the people claiming that Canada and Australia have a lower pop. density than the US. Basically, you divide the population living in some higher percentile of densely populated centers by the population living in some lower percentage (of lower populated centers).
it's not less centralized it is lesser population density. those are not the same.