It is not just about information, but about anything. This is called “capitalism” and it amounts to producing a whole lot as fast as possible then fixing mistakes over time.
Wow, so a lot of replies and a whole lot of condescending with a dash of missing the point. Before I start, I apologize for being so acidic. First, I am not claiming that Lance somehow started or caused the crowd congestion at the race. I just stated I saw a video, with him, riding through a dense crowd to exemplify the situation. Second, at the risk of committing an argumentive fallacy, I will say that I race, I am sponsored, I ride a really expensive bike in a pack of expensive bikes on a daily basis. I also used to ride mountain bikes regularly. That out of the way, as some of the more astute posters have already commented, road bike brakes are not designed to bring you to a complete stop from high speeds (especially when certain “exotic” materials are used in your wheel rim construction). Period, end of story. There is no debate. To get condescending for a moment, you proud owners of bikes equipped with Sora component groups may experience something different because the weekend rider expects his or her bike to stop on a dime (lock the wheels like your old Huffy coaster brakes used to). When you ride in a pack, you find that locking your wheels, making them into skis, and sliding towards the outside as you turn your $100 tires set into “hotdogs” is a lousy experience. Oh, and then you wreck because you were eratic.
But increased irrelevance. I am sure I am not alone in noticing that Slashdot stories are fewer in number and of substantially less interest these days. Most of the articles are pointless product releases and a great many others make us yawn. Very few actually present worth giving some attention. I suspect this is due to other sites like Digg and Reddit serving as more effective news aggregators. Anyone else care to share any observations (aside from “Slashdot is dying” trolls)?
Why is it that people think correcting mistakes is somehow a bad thing?
That is one thing that bugs me about Le Tour.
on
High Tech Tour de France
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· Score: 3, Informative
I love Le Tour, but the spectators are fucking retards. I remember watching a video (cannot find it now) where Lance was coming through the home stretch and the crowd was parting as he approached, not more than a meter in front of him. (Then getting in the way of other riders, causing them to have to slow or swerve.) Imagine biking as fast as you can through a dense crowd of dense people, just hoping that nobody trips or does something else stupid. And for those not in the know, brakes on road bikes are not what you expect. Almost exactly the opposite of mountain bike brakes, they are not intended to stop you, just trim your speed. If you face an obstacle your only real option is to go around it. Also, you never just stop flat-out in a pack unless you want to become a third wheel for the guys behind you.
I have had enough of this “the electricity has got to come from somewhere” canned, red-herring argument against electric cars. It should not be hard to understand why replacing several hundred million gasoline engines with a significantly fewer number of power plants, coal or otherwise, is a benefit. Power plants, aside from being highly specialized for the task of generating power and open to fuels with more energy per volume than gasoline, have a major benefit in their economies of scale. Let me summarize this another way.
Power plants use more efficient and effective mechanisms of producing usable energy from fuels than gasoline engines.
The emissions of a power plant versus a comparable number of engines (in terms of power output) will be lower.
It is easier to introduce new technologies into a fewer number of power plants than into a huge number of vehicles (which typically cannot be significantly modified).
Transporting fuel to fewer power plants is cheaper and requires less infrastructure than shipping fuel to a huge number of widely distributed gas stations.
The supply of electricity may be easily supplemented by any number of sources such as solar.
Anyone care to educate me as to why the opposite of any of this is the realistic case? (Or add more?)
Raistlin is a subtle, quiet-spoken, calm, cold and calculating character. Kiefer could not be more different. Based on his antics in 24 and other roles, he does everything over-the-top. His gestures and voice are always exaggerated and phoney. As silly as it may seem, Sir Ian McKellen, speaking softly might do it (I honestly do not mean to type-cast him, but the man is could be perfectly suited for this). (And damn, there is another actor I am thinking of who would be just as good, but I cannot remember the name at the moment.)
The deficiency and depravity of most of these civilizations highlight my point.
Exactly what deficiencies or depravities are possessed in these societies that are not evident in western culture today? Let me pick on America. We torture people, violate rights without due process, and engage in empire-building wars. All these things, might I remind you, are at the behest of or at least supported by an Administration headed by an evangelical Christian. If these are allowed by Judeo-Christian values, spare me. My values finds these things repulsive.
Secularists like yourself see the law and concepts of freedom as self-evident. They are not. Judeo-Christian values inspire secular law, they do not create it.
Why? Because you say so? By secularist logic you should harm noone. period, and that is hardly inspired by the Christian bible. It is self-evident if you engage in just a little bit of observation and reasoning. I wish no harm to come upon myself, ergo, I should not inflict any harm upon those I identify to be like me (other humans). It is very simple. Aside from that, secularism asserts freedom from religion and that decisions should be based on fact, not superstition. Christianity contrasts this in that it asserts you have no freedom from religion (anything else is will get you damned) and that the Bible, being “absolute truth,” is the only guide to decision making. Your claim (which you have yet to substantiate) that this is the origin of secular society is like claiming you make a pigment lighter by adding black.
It is ironic you call Bill Clinton a fool for supporting social programs when Christianity purports to have a central tentant of generosity to those less fortunate. Instead, one trait I commonly find amongst Christians is they are extremely greedy. They are aghast at any of their money being given to the impovished. Nevermind that the fundamental reason we form societies is to improve the lives of everyone in the group. The mutual benefit of all participants is the very reason we come together and build cities, states, and nations.
Judeo-Christian ideas are a vital component of western secular law. In that sense religion has contributed much. Your secular liberal ideas did not just spring into being.
It would behoove you to better understand the roots of our civilization and liberalism (in particular, note its origins and the concept of sovereignty of the individual). You will find they pre-date Judeo-Christian culture. I would further comment that Christianity and similar religions have goals which stand precisely opposite to those of western civilization. We prefer democracy in which the power and purpose of the individual is encouraged and protected. In Christianity, you have an eternal ”king” who is the sole decision maker in not only every aspect of each individual life, but the lives of all humanity. This king then appoints a hierarchial order of clergy whom hold great authority over the masses. The former of these is freedom and the latter is absolute tyranny.
and then they should vote for the conservative candidate.
In modern American politics, conservatives appear to be of the “new” variety. I surely hope that nobody with any sense would vote for any politician coming from a neo-conservative platform as these people are, if you have been paying attention for the past six years, hell-bent on tearing-down American principles that have taken centuries to build. This includes everything from Women's Rights to civil liberties. Absolutely not. Instead, vote for moderates and centrists who abide by the provisions in the Constitution and recognize the value of our Bill of Rights.
I had no idea there was a beta. Of course it is not available from their web site (or at least, I could not find it), but VersionTracker seems to know about it. Is that correct?
The Clinton Administration, not known for its religious fundementalism, killed the Supercollider to divert funds to social programs.
Taking your claim at face value, I would respond by stating that he was or they were fools for doing so. Instead, they ought to have revoked tax exempt status for religious organizations (which contribute nothing to human progress and have not done so for thousands of years) and used that revenue to fund science.
Thank you for pointing this out so we can remind ourselves that partisan politics are silly and politicians are deeply fallible. And for that very reason, each and every person ought to be concerned about the doings of their government so that they become educated about and engaged in its proper function.
If this is a troll, masterfully executed and I salute you.
If not, then you have some fairly bizarre notions. I think it is not, so allow me to make some comments.
You knock “religious fundamentalists.”
Certainly the desired intent.
What happens if 80% of the world is right, and that God does exist? Are you prepared to roast in hell?
Alright, 80% of the world population is theistic. Seems right. But in addition to many divisions of belief, what has been believed has changed for all recorded human history. Religion that has fallen out of fashion is regarded today as silly nonsense. We do not revile people because they reject Zeus or do not call pharaoh a god. We have evolved improved sensibilities about the natural world and society. It may take a thousand years, but we will one day laugh at all the religions of today the same way we now laugh at river gods and fire spirits.
If you believe in God, and God doesn't exist, then you've lost what?
Perhaps a lifetime. Instead of engaging myself with the task of improving the human race, I have wasted it chasing after an invisible man in the sky. One might as well spend a life believing in Santa Clause or the Tooth Fairy.
A little time hanging out with nice people who have high morals?
I am an atheist and I too have morals. I know I should not commit violence against people because I would not want others to commit violence against me. I know I should not steal or cheat for the same reason. It is purely logical for me to follow certain principles and adhere to morals, without some supernatural entity threatening me with punishment. It is logical because I have a survival instinct which makes me avoid injury. Also, human beings are social creatures since society increases our chances of survival. Harming others harms the group, thus diminishing our prosperity. In my opinion, these are much better reasons to live morally than threats of eternal fire and brimstone. Morals do not come from religion and they never have. Furthermore, not all religious people have “high morals,” such as those whom use their religion to write moral blank checks which they cash to commit acts of rape and cold-blooded murder.
Or you could go back to whining and complaining about the world
But do you not see that critism is the only way to progress! I “complain” because I care. I see faults and I want to understand those faults such that they can be corrected. That is akin to the scientific method which seeks to disprove claims so that only those which are true become establish facts. And then they are questioned again and again. Critism is the crucible of knowledge and it is an ever-tempering force. If we resort to patting each other on the back, proclaiming to one another of how righteous and great we are, we will go nowhere.
[L]aying on the couch living off government welfare, eating cheesy poofs bought with government food stamps, drinking malt liquor and fortified wine, having abortions, and beating your 4th wife's stepchildren until they can't function in society, and then whine about the poor state of our education system, and then whine about the lack of taxes paid by the rich people.
Whew. Where to begin. Thank you for your concern, but I am well-employed. I prefer natural food to cheesy poofs, but I must admit I enjoy a fine glass of wine and even, dare I mention, a nice dry, gin martini from time to time. Such are lifes little pleasures. I personally have had no abortions given that I am a male, ho
Religious fundamentalists complaining that we do not need to spend billions of dollars figuring out what happened at the so-called “Big Bang” (God created the universe, afterall) and that those funds would be better spent on more ambitious projects that would help save America from immorality and godlessness.
It appears you were thinking about the data URI scheme. Unfortunately, and very much like modern CSS standards, the only browser to not support it is the one with the greatest market share.
Why not a list of programs you control? Why does some third party have to decide? Your secretary example demonstrates the need for this, as your OS vendor might decide (and rightfully so) that HL2 is a valid program which can be run. So really, it has to be up to your needs otherwise it is pointless. Furthermore, we already have software which can be used to implement this.
It would be nice if the system had a setting where you could transparently specify a redundancy factor in sacrifice of capasity. For example, I could set a ratio of 1:3 where each bit is stored on three separate disks. This ratio could increase to the number of disks in the system. And of course, little red lights appear on failed disks, at which point you simply swap it out and everything operates as if nothing happened (duH). Sure, we have a degree of this already, but managing redundant arrays is still a very manual process and when we start talking about tens or soon hundreds of terabytes, increased automation becomes a necessity.
Re:al Quaeda, witches, devil-worshippers and gangs
on
Gangs on the Internet
·
· Score: 1
What do they have in common? No more and no less than the police officer in TFA stated: They are unique subcultures with unique slang, argot, terminology, etc... Understanding the same takes time and effort.
(Though the usual Slashdot handwaving panic mongers have spent no time trying to read and understand what TFA said - instead (and as usual) jumping to conclusions about what they think he said and meant.)
When one lists things together, one often implies an association. In this case, it certainly is not intended to show contrast. I know that in the mind of an average American, the terms “witch” and “devil-worshipper” have negative connotations. As does, of course, the other two. However, in reality, the former pair in this case are absolutely benign and pose no detrement to society. The disapproval is purely subjective and almost always misinformed. And if you do the research, you find that al Quaeda is a fantasy, one that was created by a government witness in early 2001 in a trial against extremists. This term is only a modern replacement for the Evil Soviet Empire. Now, as for gangs.
Street gangs are niether few nor scattered—but the handwavers and head-in-the-sand types prefer to believe their fantasies over reality.
Read my statement carefully. I said “threat to society,” which differs from threat to you or your community. Gangs depend utterly on our society for their survival, and their goal is not to bring that society down. (I challenge you to find a gang banger who has the goal of overthrowing our govnernment and destroying our culture.) If you are wondering why, consider laws banning the use of recreational drugs. Outlawing goods the general population demands always brings rise to illicit trade, such as with prohibition and mafias. Our socieity simultaneously outlaws drugs, enforces the ban, then demands those very same drugs. It is this schizophrenic behavior that contributes directly to the formation of gangs, as the presence of a sufficiently large demand produces a supply. When you look at it this way, you find that gangs thrive on the current state of society and would certainly have no interest in posing a threat to it.
Slashdot Mirror
“It's like letting the terrorists win!”
It is not just about information, but about anything. This is called “capitalism” and it amounts to producing a whole lot as fast as possible then fixing mistakes over time.
Wow, so a lot of replies and a whole lot of condescending with a dash of missing the point. Before I start, I apologize for being so acidic. First, I am not claiming that Lance somehow started or caused the crowd congestion at the race. I just stated I saw a video, with him, riding through a dense crowd to exemplify the situation. Second, at the risk of committing an argumentive fallacy, I will say that I race, I am sponsored, I ride a really expensive bike in a pack of expensive bikes on a daily basis. I also used to ride mountain bikes regularly. That out of the way, as some of the more astute posters have already commented, road bike brakes are not designed to bring you to a complete stop from high speeds (especially when certain “exotic” materials are used in your wheel rim construction). Period, end of story. There is no debate. To get condescending for a moment, you proud owners of bikes equipped with Sora component groups may experience something different because the weekend rider expects his or her bike to stop on a dime (lock the wheels like your old Huffy coaster brakes used to). When you ride in a pack, you find that locking your wheels, making them into skis, and sliding towards the outside as you turn your $100 tires set into “hotdogs” is a lousy experience. Oh, and then you wreck because you were eratic.
But increased irrelevance. I am sure I am not alone in noticing that Slashdot stories are fewer in number and of substantially less interest these days. Most of the articles are pointless product releases and a great many others make us yawn. Very few actually present worth giving some attention. I suspect this is due to other sites like Digg and Reddit serving as more effective news aggregators. Anyone else care to share any observations (aside from “Slashdot is dying” trolls)?
They will be announced in a new line-up of MacBook Pros.
Why is it that people think correcting mistakes is somehow a bad thing?
I love Le Tour, but the spectators are fucking retards. I remember watching a video (cannot find it now) where Lance was coming through the home stretch and the crowd was parting as he approached, not more than a meter in front of him. (Then getting in the way of other riders, causing them to have to slow or swerve.) Imagine biking as fast as you can through a dense crowd of dense people, just hoping that nobody trips or does something else stupid. And for those not in the know, brakes on road bikes are not what you expect. Almost exactly the opposite of mountain bike brakes, they are not intended to stop you, just trim your speed. If you face an obstacle your only real option is to go around it. Also, you never just stop flat-out in a pack unless you want to become a third wheel for the guys behind you.
Would any ladies in the Slashdot community care to comment on other applications of this robotic snake?
I have had enough of this “the electricity has got to come from somewhere” canned, red-herring argument against electric cars. It should not be hard to understand why replacing several hundred million gasoline engines with a significantly fewer number of power plants, coal or otherwise, is a benefit. Power plants, aside from being highly specialized for the task of generating power and open to fuels with more energy per volume than gasoline, have a major benefit in their economies of scale. Let me summarize this another way.
Anyone care to educate me as to why the opposite of any of this is the realistic case? (Or add more?)
They're tubes, damnit, and yes, we would not want them to get full.
Raistlin is a subtle, quiet-spoken, calm, cold and calculating character. Kiefer could not be more different. Based on his antics in 24 and other roles, he does everything over-the-top. His gestures and voice are always exaggerated and phoney. As silly as it may seem, Sir Ian McKellen, speaking softly might do it (I honestly do not mean to type-cast him, but the man is could be perfectly suited for this). (And damn, there is another actor I am thinking of who would be just as good, but I cannot remember the name at the moment.)
Exactly what deficiencies or depravities are possessed in these societies that are not evident in western culture today? Let me pick on America. We torture people, violate rights without due process, and engage in empire-building wars. All these things, might I remind you, are at the behest of or at least supported by an Administration headed by an evangelical Christian. If these are allowed by Judeo-Christian values, spare me. My values finds these things repulsive.
Why? Because you say so? By secularist logic you should harm noone. period, and that is hardly inspired by the Christian bible. It is self-evident if you engage in just a little bit of observation and reasoning. I wish no harm to come upon myself, ergo, I should not inflict any harm upon those I identify to be like me (other humans). It is very simple. Aside from that, secularism asserts freedom from religion and that decisions should be based on fact, not superstition. Christianity contrasts this in that it asserts you have no freedom from religion (anything else is will get you damned) and that the Bible, being “absolute truth,” is the only guide to decision making. Your claim (which you have yet to substantiate) that this is the origin of secular society is like claiming you make a pigment lighter by adding black.
It is ironic you call Bill Clinton a fool for supporting social programs when Christianity purports to have a central tentant of generosity to those less fortunate. Instead, one trait I commonly find amongst Christians is they are extremely greedy. They are aghast at any of their money being given to the impovished. Nevermind that the fundamental reason we form societies is to improve the lives of everyone in the group. The mutual benefit of all participants is the very reason we come together and build cities, states, and nations.
It would behoove you to better understand the roots of our civilization and liberalism (in particular, note its origins and the concept of sovereignty of the individual). You will find they pre-date Judeo-Christian culture. I would further comment that Christianity and similar religions have goals which stand precisely opposite to those of western civilization. We prefer democracy in which the power and purpose of the individual is encouraged and protected. In Christianity, you have an eternal ”king” who is the sole decision maker in not only every aspect of each individual life, but the lives of all humanity. This king then appoints a hierarchial order of clergy whom hold great authority over the masses. The former of these is freedom and the latter is absolute tyranny.
In modern American politics, conservatives appear to be of the “new” variety. I surely hope that nobody with any sense would vote for any politician coming from a neo-conservative platform as these people are, if you have been paying attention for the past six years, hell-bent on tearing-down American principles that have taken centuries to build. This includes everything from Women's Rights to civil liberties. Absolutely not. Instead, vote for moderates and centrists who abide by the provisions in the Constitution and recognize the value of our Bill of Rights.
I had no idea there was a beta. Of course it is not available from their web site (or at least, I could not find it), but VersionTracker seems to know about it. Is that correct?
Not to mention weird connectivity issues last night with the horribly archaic Y!M for OS X.
My comment appears to have stirred up some activity.
Taking your claim at face value, I would respond by stating that he was or they were fools for doing so. Instead, they ought to have revoked tax exempt status for religious organizations (which contribute nothing to human progress and have not done so for thousands of years) and used that revenue to fund science.
Thank you for pointing this out so we can remind ourselves that partisan politics are silly and politicians are deeply fallible. And for that very reason, each and every person ought to be concerned about the doings of their government so that they become educated about and engaged in its proper function.
If this is a troll, masterfully executed and I salute you.
If not, then you have some fairly bizarre notions. I think it is not, so allow me to make some comments.
Certainly the desired intent.
Alright, 80% of the world population is theistic. Seems right. But in addition to many divisions of belief, what has been believed has changed for all recorded human history. Religion that has fallen out of fashion is regarded today as silly nonsense. We do not revile people because they reject Zeus or do not call pharaoh a god. We have evolved improved sensibilities about the natural world and society. It may take a thousand years, but we will one day laugh at all the religions of today the same way we now laugh at river gods and fire spirits.
Perhaps a lifetime. Instead of engaging myself with the task of improving the human race, I have wasted it chasing after an invisible man in the sky. One might as well spend a life believing in Santa Clause or the Tooth Fairy.
I am an atheist and I too have morals. I know I should not commit violence against people because I would not want others to commit violence against me. I know I should not steal or cheat for the same reason. It is purely logical for me to follow certain principles and adhere to morals, without some supernatural entity threatening me with punishment. It is logical because I have a survival instinct which makes me avoid injury. Also, human beings are social creatures since society increases our chances of survival. Harming others harms the group, thus diminishing our prosperity. In my opinion, these are much better reasons to live morally than threats of eternal fire and brimstone. Morals do not come from religion and they never have. Furthermore, not all religious people have “high morals,” such as those whom use their religion to write moral blank checks which they cash to commit acts of rape and cold-blooded murder.
But do you not see that critism is the only way to progress! I “complain” because I care. I see faults and I want to understand those faults such that they can be corrected. That is akin to the scientific method which seeks to disprove claims so that only those which are true become establish facts. And then they are questioned again and again. Critism is the crucible of knowledge and it is an ever-tempering force. If we resort to patting each other on the back, proclaiming to one another of how righteous and great we are, we will go nowhere.
Whew. Where to begin. Thank you for your concern, but I am well-employed. I prefer natural food to cheesy poofs, but I must admit I enjoy a fine glass of wine and even, dare I mention, a nice dry, gin martini from time to time. Such are lifes little pleasures. I personally have had no abortions given that I am a male, ho
Religious fundamentalists complaining that we do not need to spend billions of dollars figuring out what happened at the so-called “Big Bang” (God created the universe, afterall) and that those funds would be better spent on more ambitious projects that would help save America from immorality and godlessness.
(No, actually, it didn't.)
Sure it would.
It appears you were thinking about the data URI scheme. Unfortunately, and very much like modern CSS standards, the only browser to not support it is the one with the greatest market share.
Why not a list of programs you control? Why does some third party have to decide? Your secretary example demonstrates the need for this, as your OS vendor might decide (and rightfully so) that HL2 is a valid program which can be run. So really, it has to be up to your needs otherwise it is pointless. Furthermore, we already have software which can be used to implement this.
It would be nice if the system had a setting where you could transparently specify a redundancy factor in sacrifice of capasity. For example, I could set a ratio of 1:3 where each bit is stored on three separate disks. This ratio could increase to the number of disks in the system. And of course, little red lights appear on failed disks, at which point you simply swap it out and everything operates as if nothing happened (duH). Sure, we have a degree of this already, but managing redundant arrays is still a very manual process and when we start talking about tens or soon hundreds of terabytes, increased automation becomes a necessity.
When one lists things together, one often implies an association. In this case, it certainly is not intended to show contrast. I know that in the mind of an average American, the terms “witch” and “devil-worshipper” have negative connotations. As does, of course, the other two. However, in reality, the former pair in this case are absolutely benign and pose no detrement to society. The disapproval is purely subjective and almost always misinformed. And if you do the research, you find that al Quaeda is a fantasy, one that was created by a government witness in early 2001 in a trial against extremists. This term is only a modern replacement for the Evil Soviet Empire. Now, as for gangs.
Read my statement carefully. I said “threat to society,” which differs from threat to you or your community. Gangs depend utterly on our society for their survival, and their goal is not to bring that society down. (I challenge you to find a gang banger who has the goal of overthrowing our govnernment and destroying our culture.) If you are wondering why, consider laws banning the use of recreational drugs. Outlawing goods the general population demands always brings rise to illicit trade, such as with prohibition and mafias. Our socieity simultaneously outlaws drugs, enforces the ban, then demands those very same drugs. It is this schizophrenic behavior that contributes directly to the formation of gangs, as the presence of a sufficiently large demand produces a supply. When you look at it this way, you find that gangs thrive on the current state of society and would certainly have no interest in posing a threat to it.