Martian organisms might be revived too - if there are any.
Anything might happen, but don't you think it a very earthocentric attitude to assume that Martian life will do better if we just make things a bit more like they are on Earth? I mean, martian life might just be more adapted to, you know, living on Mars.
"There will undoubtedly be gainsayers... but I put them in the same box as the flat-Earthers and the people who believe smoking doesn't cause cancer," said Professor Sir John Lawton, former chief executive of the UK's Natural Environment Research Council.
so far humans have adapted remarkably well to changing climactic conditions. In fact, humans sans any real technology have managed to survive several much more radical climate changes - and without their numbers being endangered in any real way.
The Easter Islanders, whose competing clan leaders built giant stone statues in order to display their prestige and to symbolize their connection with the gods, cut every last tree in their delicate environment to use in erecting these eerie monuments. Hence the people lost their source of raw materials for building canoes, which were essential for fishing. Meanwhile bird species were driven into extinction, crop yields fell, and the human population declined, so that by the time Captain Cook arrived in 1774 the remaining Easter Islanders, who had long since resorted to cannibalism, were, in Cook's words, "small, lean, timid, and miserable."
You don't know that, either way. You have zip in empirical evidence to indicate that "we're fucked", however you define it.
We don't know for sure that we're fucked. But consider this analogy: There is a gun pointed at your head. It might be loaded. Are you going to take drastic steps to remove it, or are you going to play russian roulette on the grounds that "we don't know for sure that it's loaded".
A company is within their rights to not allow criticism of the merchandise that they carry to be shown on their own premises. Even if it is annoying not to allow it (e.g. I go to Amazon intending to buy a book on C# programming, or a digital camera and I look through the reviews to see which one suits my needs best - reviews that are not just happy happy advertising praise drivel are a great help here) they are within their rights to conduct their business in any substandard or backward manner that they choose.
However this is different - the company is claiming to accept reviews, both positive and negative, and then editing out the negative ones to make it look like the only comments are positive. That is a deceptive practice, and it is unethical, if not illegal. If you as consumers stand for this, you'll deserve what you get as a result.
Oh, for fuck's sake... You're talking to a country full of people that shop at Wal-Mart and voted in George Bush.
Yup. I didn't say that it was guaranteed to work. Just giving the reason behind it.
You think anybody really gives a flying fuck about browser standards?
Erm, that was the take-home message of the article. That this windows guru guy, Paul Thurrot, has started to do just that. Publically.
I suggest that you calm down and stop swearing. Does idealism and attempts at collective action really upset you that much?
The W3C is completely irrelevant. If the W3C has no way to enforce their "standards", then they are essentially just another group making their own arbitary standards that have no meaning, whatsoever in the real world
Well, clearly it isn't irrelevant to Paul Thurrot.
We see comments like this on Slashdot all the time - "just write to the standard, and ignore Internet Explorer".... Why is it so hard for these folks to grok that you just can't do that with a browser that still has ~ 90% market share?
If they'd gotten the last completely new install system right a few years ago, they wouldn't need that. For a software developer it's so far beyond horrid it's not funny - I've seen it do things like decide to auto-reboot your pc when you copy files, or uninstall the whole application because an executable file has changed (as they tend to do when you recompile).
Except of course that "almost all the other browsers" aren't standards compliant, either.
But at least the other browser vendors chase standards more consistently than IE does. You don't need to genius or to achieve perfection immediately in order to get there, you just good test cases and continual bug fixing.
After years of inactivity, it looks as if IE is about to put on one heck of spurt though. Reading the article, they are talking about "ramping up" the team, and are well aware that they will not catch up to Firefox's level in IE 7.0. I have a nasty suspicion that after IE 7.0, they won't stop or slow down, but will speed up. It's what MS does: crush the opponent.
And this is not bad news, the browser-using public wins. Web developers will be happier too.
I was at that talk, and what they were demoing about was a device with 400-500GB of storage, that recorded 2 weeks of TV off around 7-8 channels *, so just the major ones, not all of them. You can store for longer if you're willing to exclude certain categories of program (e.g. no sport).
This was using an inexpensive freeeview digital card, so only the free-to-air channels like BBC1, BBC2 etc, the "25 on digital terrestrial" would be captured.
* If the numbers are wrong it's my fault - I didn't take notes.
The purpose of using Free Software is to be FREE from corporations/individuals that wants to tell you what you can do with your computer and what you can't
Corporations also like free software, for much the same reasons.
and that doesn't even account for whether or not the process is genuinely random, or whether there was some kind of direction involved.
Of course there was direction involved: Natural selection.
Computers still don't have any real capacity for dealing with novelty...the best any GA I've ever heard of has been able to do is widen the category of knowledge that a given expert system can have, and make the boundaries of said category *look* more fuzzy and organic...but in reality, it's smoke and mirrors.
Have you studied the way that the human brain works much? It seems that that we do not have boundless capacity to deal with novelty, and that we use a toolbox of "smoke and mirrors" tricks which evolved for specific purposes rather than a general purpose mechanism.
Assuming it's possible for strong AI to exist at all, (and again, I have grave doubts)
The question is: is it possible in principle to construct, using only ordinary matter and energy, a thing that is intelligent in the same way that a human being is?
Logically, the answer can only be yes - consider exhibit A, a human being, which is made only of matter and energy.
mea culpa is what you are supposed to say when you were in the wrong. So that could also read "That's where we've admitted our mistake. We are fixing that."
It appears that the closed window button (The ' X ', found in the title bar of each application window) has moved 15 pixels to the left.
Yup. This a a radical new version of windows. Microsft is really taking it to the edge with this release! I mean... 15 whole pixels!! And making more use of the transparency features that they've had for some years now. Will innovation never cease?
Slashdot Mirror
Martian organisms might be revived too - if there are any.
Anything might happen, but don't you think it a very earthocentric attitude to assume that Martian life will do better if we just make things a bit more like they are on Earth? I mean, martian life might just be more adapted to, you know, living on Mars.
Incorrect
Except of course, when they didn't.
You don't know that, either way. You have zip in empirical evidence to indicate that "we're fucked", however you define it.
We don't know for sure that we're fucked. But consider this analogy: There is a gun pointed at your head. It might be loaded. Are you going to take drastic steps to remove it, or are you going to play russian roulette on the grounds that "we don't know for sure that it's loaded".
The question of if it's natural (a hard-to-define category at the best of times) is less important than the question of if it's dangerous to us.
At the least it's a climate change which should not be denied, and change always has consequences, both positive and negative.
Several. iRiver make some. But the Cowon Iaudio x5 is the latest and greatest.
Where's pascal.net and cobol.net?
Pascal.Net is here and Cobol.net is here. Too damn easy.
So what you're saying is that normally hydrogen burns without oxygen? Are you joking or just very ignorant?
A company is within their rights to not allow criticism of the merchandise that they carry to be shown on their own premises. Even if it is annoying not to allow it (e.g. I go to Amazon intending to buy a book on C# programming, or a digital camera and I look through the reviews to see which one suits my needs best - reviews that are not just happy happy advertising praise drivel are a great help here) they are within their rights to conduct their business in any substandard or backward manner that they choose.
However this is different - the company is claiming to accept reviews, both positive and negative, and then editing out the negative ones to make it look like the only comments are positive. That is a deceptive practice, and it is unethical, if not illegal. If you as consumers stand for this, you'll deserve what you get as a result.
Oh, for fuck's sake... You're talking to a country full of people that shop at Wal-Mart and voted in George Bush.
Yup. I didn't say that it was guaranteed to work. Just giving the reason behind it.
You think anybody really gives a flying fuck about browser standards?
Erm, that was the take-home message of the article. That this windows guru guy, Paul Thurrot, has started to do just that. Publically.
I suggest that you calm down and stop swearing. Does idealism and attempts at collective action really upset you that much?
The W3C is completely irrelevant. If the W3C has no way to enforce their "standards", then they are essentially just another group making their own arbitary standards that have no meaning, whatsoever in the real world
Well, clearly it isn't irrelevant to Paul Thurrot.
We see comments like this on Slashdot all the time - "just write to the standard, and ignore Internet Explorer". ... Why is it so hard for these folks to grok that you just can't do that with a browser that still has ~ 90% market share?
Because if everyone did that, it wouldn't.
Call it idealism, call it collective action...
Wasn't the reason that NASA went to a shuttle was for reuse?
Yes. It was supposed to same money. It didn't.
To me, this "new" design looks like the apollo capsules.
Me to. So?
What is there for reuse and how will they reuse it?
Not much, and they won't.
And then there is landing....
See also: Apollo.
You could have RTFA.
Completely new install system.
If they'd gotten the last completely new install system right a few years ago, they wouldn't need that. For a software developer it's so far beyond horrid it's not funny - I've seen it do things like decide to auto-reboot your pc when you copy files, or uninstall the whole application because an executable file has changed (as they tend to do when you recompile).
plan to crush the competition
*try* to crush the competition. That's what I meant to say.
Except of course that "almost all the other browsers" aren't standards compliant, either.
But at least the other browser vendors chase standards more consistently than IE does. You don't need to genius or to achieve perfection immediately in order to get there, you just good test cases and continual bug fixing.
After years of inactivity, it looks as if IE is about to put on one heck of spurt though. Reading the article, they are talking about "ramping up" the team, and are well aware that they will not catch up to Firefox's level in IE 7.0. I have a nasty suspicion that after IE 7.0, they won't stop or slow down, but will speed up. It's what MS does: crush the opponent.
And this is not bad news, the browser-using public wins. Web developers will be happier too.
You'd have to translate them into English first. Nothing's obvious when written as 10 pages of legalese.
Why would anyone, after clearly being informed NOT to talk about this information, talk about this information ?
Do you do everything that you're told without exercising your own judgement? Go jump off a cliff.
I was at that talk, and what they were demoing about was a device with 400-500GB of storage, that recorded 2 weeks of TV off around 7-8 channels *, so just the major ones, not all of them. You can store for longer if you're willing to exclude certain categories of program (e.g. no sport).
This was using an inexpensive freeeview digital card, so only the free-to-air channels like BBC1, BBC2 etc, the "25 on digital terrestrial" would be captured.
* If the numbers are wrong it's my fault - I didn't take notes.
The purpose of using Free Software is to be FREE from corporations/individuals that wants to tell you what you can do with your computer and what you can't
Corporations also like free software, for much the same reasons.
An old proverb comes to mind: Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig
and that doesn't even account for whether or not the process is genuinely random, or whether there was some kind of direction involved.
Of course there was direction involved: Natural selection.
Computers still don't have any real capacity for dealing with novelty...the best any GA I've ever heard of has been able to do is widen the category of knowledge that a given expert system can have, and make the boundaries of said category *look* more fuzzy and organic...but in reality, it's smoke and mirrors.
Have you studied the way that the human brain works much? It seems that that we do not have boundless capacity to deal with novelty, and that we use a toolbox of "smoke and mirrors" tricks which evolved for specific purposes rather than a general purpose mechanism.
Assuming it's possible for strong AI to exist at all, (and again, I have grave doubts)
The question is: is it possible in principle to construct, using only ordinary matter and energy, a thing that is intelligent in the same way that a human being is?
Logically, the answer can only be yes - consider exhibit A, a human being, which is made only of matter and energy.
What is your grave doubt?
mea culpa is what you are supposed to say when you were in the wrong. So that could also read "That's where we've admitted our mistake. We are fixing that."
What's wrong about it?
The usual way to make hydrogen is to take a proton, add an electron, and allow to cool while stirring with other proton-electron pairs to form H2.
Is there another way?
It appears that the closed window button (The ' X ', found in the title bar of each application window) has moved 15 pixels to the left.
... 15 whole pixels!! And making more use of the transparency features that they've had for some years now. Will innovation never cease?
Yup. This a a radical new version of windows. Microsft is really taking it to the edge with this release! I mean