No, you are wrong. MP3 is in fact a part of the "popular lexicon" as you say, but it definitely does not refer in general to digital music, at least not in conversation between any even moderately intelligent individuals. MP3 clearly specifies a single file format that is distinct from others. An "mp3 player" cannot automatically play any digital music in general, and it would be ridiculous to say that it can.
You're right that NOW in the FIRST/SECOND WORLD no one is "selected against" because they don't have 20/20 vision. "Advanced" human society does in fact mitigate against evolution in the traditional sense.
If you'll permit me a silly metaphor, Microsoft has created the software-scape America, while Linux still lives in Africa, more or less.
Notice how professional sports are largely dominated by people of relatively recent African descent, now that they can freely mix with those of European descent?
(Just fyi, I am not just talking out my ass... check the studies; certain Olympic events are clearly won over and over by competitors from country-sized regions in Africa (regardless of nation they compete for), indicating that people from these regions are naturally better specialized to these events.)
I don't know whether the parent was supposed to be funny, but I must say: I learned A LOT from Reading Rainbow.
I'm amazed how often I'm discussing something with someone, and come up with some interesting/applicable knowledge, then wonder: how did I know that. As often as not: READING RAINBOW.
Reading Rainbow is AWESOME. BEST SHOW EVER. MORE CAPITAL LETTERS.
Maybe as Linux's share grows we'll see Quicktime for Linux, but that's not going to happen in the near future.
I'm sure this has been discussed, but I haven't heard about it at all, really, so I'll bring it up: with Apple porting stuff to BSD-derived MacOSX, how hard would it really be (for Apple, presumably,) to create a "Cocoa" (or whatever) compatibility layer and just make stuff like quicktime work in linux? Seems like a good deal of the hard work has already been done...
Different stories are shown, but not based on any "number or comments" reason. Logged-in users get a dynamically generated front page that shows relatively up-to-date info on comments, etc.
Not logged-in slashdot.org/ requests (which is the majority or page views, IIRC) get a static page that is updated every half hour.
So if a story just showed up for a logged-in user, it might not appear for a not logged-in user for up to 30 minutes, depending on when in the cycle of static page creation the story was added.
I don't know about anyone else, but I use and like Slackware (8.0) and don't think I've ever used either of these things that are no longer being maintained by whats-his-name. I like slackware for a number of reasons, and in fact wrote up an article about it a while ago, when I was tired... I never went through and cleaned it up, but you can read my take on distributions at this address:
Is there a game similar to the "game" in Ender's Game? It seems like that would be fun, at least as far as actual battles as opposed to war planning go. It might be fun to be able to either be the high commander, communicating with your AI or human teammake subcommanders, or a subcommander with more direct control over fighters. In fact, why not even make it possible to play as an actual fighter (or whatever) pilot? I think enough people would want to try different roles and develop specialties, it could probably get fairly realistic if it was found to be technically feasible to do. (Good voice communication would be desirable, as well as good interfaces, graphics, and AI.)
Will this author be pleased when every man, woman, and child on this planet has felt terror and pain, rather than have the audacity to desire a free and happy life?
First, that isn't what the author is saying. Second, you seem to be equating "a free and happy life" with "middle-to-upper-class life in America". The problem with that is if that the world cannot support its entire population living like Americans. That's why the majority of the world lives in squalor, working to support the upper classes in the Americas and Europe, primarily. If resources were distributed equally, everyone would be living very humble lives. There would not be room for fast food at McDonald's, and gas that sells for such ridiculously low prices as, well, anything under $3 a gallon. Check gas prices in the rest of the world. Surely you accept that the US is doing SOMETHING to get a good spankin' deal on oil. So a lot of the world witnesses terror and pain, on a REGULAR BASIS. Pissed off 'cause it happened to YOU? If, as I expect, the goal of these terrible acts was to act as a wake up call to America, they have succeeded brilliantly. That doesn't make it right, but that also doesn't mean that an editorialist who points out the fact in practically dancing in the streets or whatever ridiculous language was used earlier.
I wasn't sure where to post this, but this was the first post that showed up mentioning airport security. I've heard a lot of people mention airport security on the news, blaming them for having lax standards, not searching things properly, etc.
WHAT THE FUCK SHOULD THEY BE SEARCHING FOR???
People don't seem to understand how this thing worked. I'm no expert, but as I understand it:
There were NO bombs added to the planes. Just gas tanks.
There were NO guns onboard.
Now, I can't claim to know for sure that there were no guns or bombs, but nothing has indicated the presence of bombs, and the one phone call from inside one of the hijacked planes indicated that the hijackers were using "knife-like" weapons. People seem to forget that under ranges like those in an airplane, a knife will kill you just as much as a gun. Further, knives definitely DO NOT have to be made of any kind of metal.
So your crew of terrorists, not being stupid and having had time to think this out, does not do stupid things like attempting to smuggle in guns or bombs. They carry normal luggage, have believable stories, etc. They carry a knife (let's say it's ceramic, it could be anything. hell, they don't even really need knives) concealed on their person, say strapped to the inside of their thigh.
So what are you going to do? Metal detectors aren't enough... you can't really expect to get away with x-raying every passenger, or frisking every passenger; and even if you did it wouldn't be enough to stop anyone with half a brain. So what do you do? Strip search everyone? Plus anal probes? No matter how tough security is, you can get a weapon in if you really need to.
Not that you really need to. A couple tough guys could easily take out a crew with their bare hands. So what do you do now? Run background checks on everyone? Not enough. Only allow close personal friends of the pilots to fly? Still NOT ENOUGH.
The point that it took me a while to make is that you can't realistically blame airport security for this. As IMHO is often the case, the problem can't be satisfactorily solved through restrictions and regulations.
I just read the FIN brochure! I used to think that all Microsoft people were big up-tight losers, but you guys actually have a sense of humor after all...
It's just ingenious, really. A "voluntary MS propaganda network"! Hilarious! You guys must have too much free time...
Actually though, the brochure could pose a problem if people don't take it right... what if someone thinks you're serious! Won't they feel dumb when they find out you were just poking fun at the stupid American populace...
How do we know that NASA gives us the whole deal? How hard would it be for NASA to arbitrarily decide that something (I don't know what, they haven't told me.) was too 'sensitive' or whatever, for common consumption. Would it be feasible for them to, say, announce that they had just 'lost' a major project out in space somewhere, and turn it around as a reason to get more funding too?
Maybe I'm just paranoid, but it wouldn't be the first time government (and associated agencies) have hidden information from the public.
The difference between this and 'sharing' your neighbors (TV) cable is that you aren't paying for your neighbors cable. You can't use his cable, even if you take your TV outside and plug it into his cable box.
These students pay fees for network access. Quote: "he and other students regularly take their own computers downstairs and connect to the ethernet with 20-foot cables." The students were allowed to access the network. The $24/semester fee is clearly NOT for access, then. It is for the convenience of having a jack installed in your room. These students installed their own 'jack' and merely obtained what they had already paid for. Unless the cable violates some building code, there is nothing wrong with what they did.
The guy who had the laptop was an 'intelligence' officer/operative/whatever. (Not a particularly good one, I'm guessing.) He would have been PRETTY conspicuous with a pair of handcuffs connecting him to his luggage. It's probably a good idea to NOT handcuff yourself to things if you want to blend into the background and gather top-secret information on Ireland while typing it into your laptop...
Say I'm a poker player. And I've got about a trillion dollars in winnings. Now the government is trying to break up my game. I'm going to try to leave the table ASAP.
I think he's trying to make himself impossible to touch, but I think he'll do it in stages. First he drops his CEOship. A year from now he decides MS doesn't need him anymore and retires to Guatemala or something.
And then, BAM! DoJ slams down on MS. But Billy Boy left the business.
I don't think Bill even cares about the future of MS. I'll bet he's selling off shares as we speak, quietly.
Bill Gates may be worth a trillion dollars some day. Of course, I feel it's important to point out to America's young people: If Bill had not dropped out of college, he'd have a chance at being worth two trillion dollars.
So, is he trying to be funny for funny's sake or consciously mocking education. No one can possibly think that Gates' education had anything to do with his monetary success. The courts are finally bringing out the truth: that Gates built his empire on underhanded business practices instead of sound products. I think Gore's statement makes him seem quite shallow, or misguided at best.
Question: does Microsoft make campaign contributions? (I'm not sure about regulations on such things, etc.) Might be interesting.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know if anyone else has actually used Libranet, but I have. I actually PAID FOR a 1.9.1 cd, and installed it on my computer.
It was THE WORST distribution I had even used. Maybe apt-get is good in stock debian, but it worked for shit in Libranet.
Just thought I'd let you know.
Any tech-related site looks dirty when rendered in any browser in windows.
I'd just as soon not immediately refuse to believe this just because "I'm such a clever guy and I know all the physics and you don't you silly clod."
I WANT TO BELIEVE!!! (This would be great for my space craft...)
But... look at this picture: http://www.jasker.com/image/machine1.jpg
To me, it looks like a little toy shot like a special-effect model so that it looks bigger... am I wrong?
Assuming "random" data is the hardest to compress, as I think it probably is, can this possibly be true?
The following thought experiment:
So now you've got a DVD movie that fits on a floppy disk. I don't buy it. (Not that I wouldn't, if it were actually possible.)
How can this be reasonable at all?
"nice automated ripper that pulls track info and builds the ID3 and all just from dropping a CD in the tray?"
I'm a big fan of grip, which can do this if you want it to. Frontends whatever encoder you want to use (oggenc, lame if you must, whatever).
http://nostatic.org/grip/
No, you are wrong. MP3 is in fact a part of the "popular lexicon" as you say, but it definitely does not refer in general to digital music, at least not in conversation between any even moderately intelligent individuals. MP3 clearly specifies a single file format that is distinct from others. An "mp3 player" cannot automatically play any digital music in general, and it would be ridiculous to say that it can.
You're right that NOW in the FIRST/SECOND WORLD no one is "selected against" because they don't have 20/20 vision. "Advanced" human society does in fact mitigate against evolution in the traditional sense.
If you'll permit me a silly metaphor, Microsoft has created the software-scape America, while Linux still lives in Africa, more or less.
Notice how professional sports are largely dominated by people of relatively recent African descent, now that they can freely mix with those of European descent?
(Just fyi, I am not just talking out my ass... check the studies; certain Olympic events are clearly won over and over by competitors from country-sized regions in Africa (regardless of nation they compete for), indicating that people from these regions are naturally better specialized to these events.)
I don't know whether the parent was supposed to be funny, but I must say: I learned A LOT from Reading Rainbow.
I'm amazed how often I'm discussing something with someone, and come up with some interesting/applicable knowledge, then wonder: how did I know that. As often as not: READING RAINBOW.
Reading Rainbow is AWESOME. BEST SHOW EVER. MORE CAPITAL LETTERS.
Maybe as Linux's share grows we'll see Quicktime for Linux, but that's not going to happen in the near future.
I'm sure this has been discussed, but I haven't heard about it at all, really, so I'll bring it up: with Apple porting stuff to BSD-derived MacOSX, how hard would it really be (for Apple, presumably,) to create a "Cocoa" (or whatever) compatibility layer and just make stuff like quicktime work in linux? Seems like a good deal of the hard work has already been done...
Note: I submit this with full understanding that it will neccessarily be voted down, and apologize for forcing you to 'waste' your vote.
With that said;
YOU STUPID FUCKER!!!
AFAIK {
Different stories are shown, but not based on any "number or comments" reason. Logged-in users get a dynamically generated front page that shows relatively up-to-date info on comments, etc.
Not logged-in slashdot.org/ requests (which is the majority or page views, IIRC) get a static page that is updated every half hour.
So if a story just showed up for a logged-in user, it might not appear for a not logged-in user for up to 30 minutes, depending on when in the cycle of static page creation the story was added.
}
I don't know about anyone else, but I use and like Slackware (8.0) and don't think I've ever used either of these things that are no longer being maintained by whats-his-name. I like slackware for a number of reasons, and in fact wrote up an article about it a while ago, when I was tired... I never went through and cleaned it up, but you can read my take on distributions at this address:
http://aaron.penjar.net/distributions.html
BSD = Berkeley Software Distribution
(or) Berkely Standard Distribution
(or) Berkeley Science Department
But as far as I can tell, BSD has never stood for MIT anything. BSD comes from Berkely.
Is there a game similar to the "game" in Ender's Game? It seems like that would be fun, at least as far as actual battles as opposed to war planning go. It might be fun to be able to either be the high commander, communicating with your AI or human teammake subcommanders, or a subcommander with more direct control over fighters. In fact, why not even make it possible to play as an actual fighter (or whatever) pilot? I think enough people would want to try different roles and develop specialties, it could probably get fairly realistic if it was found to be technically feasible to do. (Good voice communication would be desirable, as well as good interfaces, graphics, and AI.)
Anyway, that's what I thought of when I saw this.
Will this author be pleased when every man, woman, and child on this planet has felt terror and pain, rather than have the audacity to desire a free and happy life?
First, that isn't what the author is saying. Second, you seem to be equating "a free and happy life" with "middle-to-upper-class life in America". The problem with that is if that the world cannot support its entire population living like Americans. That's why the majority of the world lives in squalor, working to support the upper classes in the Americas and Europe, primarily. If resources were distributed equally, everyone would be living very humble lives. There would not be room for fast food at McDonald's, and gas that sells for such ridiculously low prices as, well, anything under $3 a gallon. Check gas prices in the rest of the world. Surely you accept that the US is doing SOMETHING to get a good spankin' deal on oil. So a lot of the world witnesses terror and pain, on a REGULAR BASIS. Pissed off 'cause it happened to YOU? If, as I expect, the goal of these terrible acts was to act as a wake up call to America, they have succeeded brilliantly. That doesn't make it right, but that also doesn't mean that an editorialist who points out the fact in practically dancing in the streets or whatever ridiculous language was used earlier.
I wasn't sure where to post this, but this was the first post that showed up mentioning airport security. I've heard a lot of people mention airport security on the news, blaming them for having lax standards, not searching things properly, etc.
WHAT THE FUCK SHOULD THEY BE SEARCHING FOR???
People don't seem to understand how this thing worked. I'm no expert, but as I understand it:
Now, I can't claim to know for sure that there were no guns or bombs, but nothing has indicated the presence of bombs, and the one phone call from inside one of the hijacked planes indicated that the hijackers were using "knife-like" weapons. People seem to forget that under ranges like those in an airplane, a knife will kill you just as much as a gun. Further, knives definitely DO NOT have to be made of any kind of metal.
So your crew of terrorists, not being stupid and having had time to think this out, does not do stupid things like attempting to smuggle in guns or bombs. They carry normal luggage, have believable stories, etc. They carry a knife (let's say it's ceramic, it could be anything. hell, they don't even really need knives) concealed on their person, say strapped to the inside of their thigh.
So what are you going to do? Metal detectors aren't enough... you can't really expect to get away with x-raying every passenger, or frisking every passenger; and even if you did it wouldn't be enough to stop anyone with half a brain. So what do you do? Strip search everyone? Plus anal probes? No matter how tough security is, you can get a weapon in if you really need to.
Not that you really need to. A couple tough guys could easily take out a crew with their bare hands. So what do you do now? Run background checks on everyone? Not enough. Only allow close personal friends of the pilots to fly? Still NOT ENOUGH.
The point that it took me a while to make is that you can't realistically blame airport security for this. As IMHO is often the case, the problem can't be satisfactorily solved through restrictions and regulations.
I just read the FIN brochure! I used to think that all Microsoft people were big up-tight losers, but you guys actually have a sense of humor after all...
It's just ingenious, really. A "voluntary MS propaganda network"! Hilarious! You guys must have too much free time...
Actually though, the brochure could pose a problem if people don't take it right... what if someone thinks you're serious! Won't they feel dumb when they find out you were just poking fun at the stupid American populace...
Overall, though, very funny stuff.
Screw you guys.
How do we know that NASA gives us the whole deal? How hard would it be for NASA to arbitrarily decide that something (I don't know what, they haven't told me.) was too 'sensitive' or whatever, for common consumption. Would it be feasible for them to, say, announce that they had just 'lost' a major project out in space somewhere, and turn it around as a reason to get more funding too?
Maybe I'm just paranoid, but it wouldn't be the first time government (and associated agencies) have hidden information from the public.
The difference between this and 'sharing' your neighbors (TV) cable is that you aren't paying for your neighbors cable. You can't use his cable, even if you take your TV outside and plug it into his cable box.
These students pay fees for network access. Quote: "he and other students regularly take their own computers downstairs and connect to the ethernet with 20-foot cables." The students were allowed to access the network. The $24/semester fee is clearly NOT for access, then. It is for the convenience of having a jack installed in your room. These students installed their own 'jack' and merely obtained what they had already paid for. Unless the cable violates some building code, there is nothing wrong with what they did.
I don't think slashdot is whining about this. I think, for myself, at least, this is pretty funny.
The students pay the technology fee.
In one room they are allowed to hook up their personal computers and use the network.
In another room they are not.
This is a non-issue. The administration should be feeling pretty sheepish about the whole thing, in my opinion.
The guy who had the laptop was an 'intelligence' officer/operative/whatever. (Not a particularly good one, I'm guessing.) He would have been PRETTY conspicuous with a pair of handcuffs connecting him to his luggage. It's probably a good idea to NOT handcuff yourself to things if you want to blend into the background and gather top-secret information on Ireland while typing it into your laptop...
Say I'm a poker player. And I've got about a trillion dollars in winnings. Now the government is trying to break up my game. I'm going to try to leave the table ASAP.
I think he's trying to make himself impossible to touch, but I think he'll do it in stages. First he drops his CEOship. A year from now he decides MS doesn't need him anymore and retires to Guatemala or something.
And then, BAM! DoJ slams down on MS. But Billy Boy left the business.
I don't think Bill even cares about the future of MS. I'll bet he's selling off shares as we speak, quietly.
Just for your information, you can play Starcraft on Linux with wine. It is a little buggy, but it does work.
I nominate Hemos for The Hemos Award.
Bill Gates may be worth a trillion dollars some
day. Of course, I feel it's important to point out
to America's young people: If Bill had not dropped
out of college, he'd have a chance at being worth
two trillion dollars.
So, is he trying to be funny for funny's sake or consciously mocking education. No one can possibly think that Gates' education had anything to do with his monetary success. The courts are finally bringing out the truth: that Gates built his empire on underhanded business practices instead of sound products. I think Gore's statement makes him seem quite shallow, or misguided at best.
Question: does Microsoft make campaign contributions? (I'm not sure about regulations on such things, etc.) Might be interesting.