My favorite feature of NS 4.7 nowadays is how it disappears--not crashes, DISAPPEARS COMPLETELY WITHOUT A TRACE-- 2 or 3 clicks into any project I'm trying to test.:|
I think the point was that we mistake words for truth. 99.99999999% (not an exact figure) of language in the world symbolizes something you can touch, see, feel, hear, perceive as a human being. So when the other.000000001% (not an exact figure) of language in the world symbolizes the by-products of the human intellect, such as the concepts of "God" and the "big bang," some of us ascribe truth to them, and others assume that it's worth it to try and prove one or the other. But we weren't "there," and can't know. The fact is, we're "here" "now". Explain THAT.;) Maybe every unmeasurable freezeframe moment of time is a big bang.
I really like what you've said here, and personally I'm glad that people can still be "rationally thoughtful." I think the real issue, though, is that this is really an afront to Science in the macroscopic, global, Endeavors of Humankind sense. I think Science by its very nature is Open-Minded to Scientific things (the Kansas Board was arguing open-mindedness as a disguise for Religious dogma). Religion is Open-Minded about Religious things.
IF we could ever really somehow know the Ultimate Truth, then and only then could the need to distinguish between the two disappear.
Until then, prevailing Scientific theories should absolutely be taught to children in school, and religious theories should absolutely be taught to children in church (or private school). Period. IMHO, it's a mistake to try and force-feed Religion's concept of "theory," which is actually faith, to Science, in which theory is a guess that won't be fact until it's proven. They are mutually exclusive, period.
At a crucial time, the interoperability among Microsoft's office suite was its biggest asset. It was a huge driver for the adoption of the MS standard within corporations (plus the OS monopoly didn't hurt). Essentially, up until relatively recently (in corporate time), this type of interoperability has been enough.
Now, it is slowly beginning to dawn on corporations that the interoperability of enterprise-wide information systems is way more important than the interoperability of a crappy Office suite running on people's desktops. That is why the adoption of open standards is becoming crucial and, I would guess, inevitable in the long-run.
Recruitment agents are dirty brainless scum. Of course they will prefer Word, because they are robots who have not one clue even that different formats exist. Their brains are filled with buzzwords about which they haven't the slightest notion what they mean.
It always surprises me, and I take it as a sign that I'm no longer a young man, that people (especially if they're in IT) take the attitude that "things will never change." I remember starting WordPerfect from a command prompt. I remember the company I was in using Lotus AmiPro, and how quickly and easily they switched over to Word once the head office started doing stuff in Word.
IMHO, there's always the balance of what's truly better with what is accepted as a corporate standard. We shouldn't forget that the interoperability of the MS Office suite was a huge boon for MS. Now, interoperability among not just an office suite, but enterprise-wide information systems, is important; as corporations realize this, they will begin to realize what this push for open standards is all about.
"Vital"? If I'm not mistaken, we have lived for thousands of years without cell phone service. If you are that far out in the middle of nowhere, the ambulance probably won't get there in time anyway, if you or a passenger are injured *that* badly. Is soft and fuzzy to think your phone will get you out of a jam, but it ain't gonna bring you back from the dead.
Many liberals have been accused of being out of touch with "how things really are." I would merely suggest that we have documentation of how thing are supposed to be (the Constitution), and things like this as proof that they are not that way. However we got here, we're certainly not going to benefit with this "it's just the way things are" sentiment.
This "keep your checkbook closed" thing is attrocious. By definition, in a "democracy," every single person is involved in politics, regardless of their wealth or ability to contribute to a campaign. Stop making excuses for the "way things are."
I take issue with the notion that it doesn't scale well. On the contrary, the Constitution is a quite simple document that leaves the bulk of the work to the states' governments. That is why when the feds do anything abusive with their perceived power, such as punish supporters of a particular party, it is completely disgusting and unconstitutional.
"It"--meaning the federal government-- is not supposed to "scale up," but rather remain a small entity to settle disputes among the states and protect our borders.
1. If we want to present a "united front," why not a front that shows the strength of democracy (which we are pushing throughout the globe), which is not only not threatened by the other colors in the political spectrum, but also dependent on it.
2. Are we attempting to be global "leaders" by dominating the entire world, or by fostering "global cooperation"? It would seem to me that the domination approach is quite aggressive and certainly not what I, as a citizen, think is a good idea.
I'm not sure how you've arrived at your defensive point of view about television, but I think there is something to what the parent is saying. It's not that TV is inherantly evil or anything like that, but the amount of time people spend watching TV *is* absolutely detremental.
It's difficult for many people to grasp the notion that there is something *besides tv* that they can use to fill the cracks of time in their lives. None of the comparisons you've made (art vs. bar, reading vs. tv, government and 802.11b) take into account the dominance that television has in a great majority of "civilized" peoples' lives.
I say that, for the poor, TV is only one step removed from a bad drug habit. It is a means of escape from every day life that tells people how to act and what to think. I find it sad that low-income people think nothing of shelling out $70/month for cable tv instead of providing decent food and clothing for their children.
Also, I take issue with your "tv as educator" argument. There's an enormous difference between being able to *think* and having trivial facts spewed at you in an entertaining manner. Unless someone is going to be a marine biologist, for instance, I fail to see how knowing about the symbiotic relationships among various sea organisms is helpful to an otherwise underproductive and impoverished lifestyle.
Television in and of itself, as a medium for entertainment, is fine. But I could not possibly agree more that the poor, and probably everybody, would benefit by getting off their butts and actually experiencing the real world. While it's still here.
Ideally, corporations and special interests certainly should not be the ones influencing elections; but the reality is that they do, to an uncomfortably high degree. That is why this particular issue is worth saying something about.
The crux of anti-corporate sentiment is that the bottom line should not be championed over humanity. In this case, the bottom line is definitely being championed over humanity since by making discrimination against gays explicitly illegal, the camel's nose is under the tent for opening up benefits and who knows what else to same-sex couples.
So in this case, the Slashdotter anti-M$ sentiment is clearly not hypocrisy. M$'s giving in to the religious right sets a precident for other corporations. That precident is, among other things, that riding this current tide of nationality and pandering to Christian morality is what's best for business; to hell with humanity. Surely any other large company that does this deserves the same level of scrutiny.
Although the issue of the girl's age is not irrelevant, I think the main issue is the AOL Monitor's abuse of authority. What he did was creepy because without his position of authority, there would absolutely be no socially acceptable reason for him to even be in there chatting with "children" in the "chidren's" chat room.
I'd also like to point out (albeit a bit off-topic) that in the political realm, we're all so polarized over certain issues that most of us fail to realize that politicians notoriously abuse their authority, but are often able to pull hot-button issues out of their asses in order to capitalize on our short attention spans. For example, Bill Clinton was able to successfully convince many people that the "dignity of the presidency" was far more important than the integrity of the president himself. His actions were "none of our business." Bush uses the authority that God gave him as an excuse to blow up other countries and install a pro-business government. Questioning his methodology is the quivalent of being a terrorist.
>>Faith, on the other hand, as a construct of human thought, can be judged as good or bad.
I'm not particularly religious per se, but I'm a Unitarian Universalist. Just a disclaimer.
I take issue with seperating the idea of faith from science, or even the mere suggestion that science is NOT a product of human thought just like any concept of god. After all, science is hypothesis and proof. It is the human imagination, kicked off by some kind of human perception, that forms hypotheses. To be able to repeatedly prove something in science doesn't answer anything about the universe as a whole. Neither does attaching a meaning to the results.
Why? Because the more complicated the inter-relationships among the sciences and their bodies of knowledge become, the fewer people who will effectively be able to wrap a plausible explanation around the findings. So meaningfully being able to scientifically prove something will eventually be impossible, at least without blowing up the universe and creating a brand new big bang, but then how the hell would you document the result of that??;)
IMHO, the human imagination will always ask the next question and form the next hypothesis, to an eventual infinite and unprovable degree. It's really a pet peave of mine to see science folk so nastily rebuff religious folk on the mere notion of how faith is "not respectable." What's not respectable is the human behavior surrounding any belief system that is designed to protect that belief system at all costs. We are all ignorant to some degree.
<i>>>which is really all that that ammendment was supposed to protect</i>
<p>...And you came to this conclusion how?? What about case law having to do with libel or slander and burden of truth? Is it really a "political" opinion to point out that, for example, your mayor smokes crack? or that your married president can't keep his hands off of young girls? Is the personal integrity of those who lead our society important?</p>
Ha! Who's going to pay $80/month for television? Everyone.
Who's going to pay $30/month for a wireless telephone? Everyone.
Who's going to pay subscription fees to connect to gaming networks? Who's going to pay $30/month for broadband access?
I'm more concerned with the trend of having to pay to hear honest to goodness free speech. That seems to be more of an attraction than "commercial free," a concept that companies haven't been shy about deserting once they hook their audience.
This is a long-winded way of calling this policy out as TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION, a concept familiar to young historians everywhere as a major issue that certain colonies had with a certain imperial empire.
It tends to refute the theory that product placement will take over some day when there's nothing watchable to place the products in; the ads ARE the entertainment.
Slashdot Mirror
>> they'll bore the paints off you
They sound like interesting parties to me!
My favorite feature of NS 4.7 nowadays is how it disappears--not crashes, DISAPPEARS COMPLETELY WITHOUT A TRACE-- 2 or 3 clicks into any project I'm trying to test. :|
This new "AJAX" thing reminds me of why I eventually gave up and started listing "JavaScript" and "DHTML" seperately on my resume.
Look at that picture of him in TFA. You'd think with his billions of dollars Bill Gates would be able to afford a decent-looking haircut...
make your own country better.
we're quite happy being mediocre, thanks.
I think the point was that we mistake words for truth. 99.99999999% (not an exact figure) of language in the world symbolizes something you can touch, see, feel, hear, perceive as a human being. So when the other .000000001% (not an exact figure) of language in the world symbolizes the by-products of the human intellect, such as the concepts of "God" and the "big bang," some of us ascribe truth to them, and others assume that it's worth it to try and prove one or the other. But we weren't "there," and can't know. The fact is, we're "here" "now". Explain THAT. ;) Maybe every unmeasurable freezeframe moment of time is a big bang.
I really like what you've said here, and personally I'm glad that people can still be "rationally thoughtful." I think the real issue, though, is that this is really an afront to Science in the macroscopic, global, Endeavors of Humankind sense. I think Science by its very nature is Open-Minded to Scientific things (the Kansas Board was arguing open-mindedness as a disguise for Religious dogma). Religion is Open-Minded about Religious things.
IF we could ever really somehow know the Ultimate Truth, then and only then could the need to distinguish between the two disappear.
Until then, prevailing Scientific theories should absolutely be taught to children in school, and religious theories should absolutely be taught to children in church (or private school). Period. IMHO, it's a mistake to try and force-feed Religion's concept of "theory," which is actually faith, to Science, in which theory is a guess that won't be fact until it's proven. They are mutually exclusive, period.
At a crucial time, the interoperability among Microsoft's office suite was its biggest asset. It was a huge driver for the adoption of the MS standard within corporations (plus the OS monopoly didn't hurt). Essentially, up until relatively recently (in corporate time), this type of interoperability has been enough.
Now, it is slowly beginning to dawn on corporations that the interoperability of enterprise-wide information systems is way more important than the interoperability of a crappy Office suite running on people's desktops. That is why the adoption of open standards is becoming crucial and, I would guess, inevitable in the long-run.
Recruitment agents are dirty brainless scum. Of course they will prefer Word, because they are robots who have not one clue even that different formats exist. Their brains are filled with buzzwords about which they haven't the slightest notion what they mean.
It always surprises me, and I take it as a sign that I'm no longer a young man, that people (especially if they're in IT) take the attitude that "things will never change." I remember starting WordPerfect from a command prompt. I remember the company I was in using Lotus AmiPro, and how quickly and easily they switched over to Word once the head office started doing stuff in Word.
IMHO, there's always the balance of what's truly better with what is accepted as a corporate standard. We shouldn't forget that the interoperability of the MS Office suite was a huge boon for MS. Now, interoperability among not just an office suite, but enterprise-wide information systems, is important; as corporations realize this, they will begin to realize what this push for open standards is all about.
That is why Word will have to adapt or die.
"Vital"? If I'm not mistaken, we have lived for thousands of years without cell phone service. If you are that far out in the middle of nowhere, the ambulance probably won't get there in time anyway, if you or a passenger are injured *that* badly. Is soft and fuzzy to think your phone will get you out of a jam, but it ain't gonna bring you back from the dead.
Ha, isn't it great to be a slave to something sold directly to your sense of fear?
So you're equating the importance of Cell Phones with ENERGY?? That, my friend, is ludicrous.
I totally agree. Many insane rich people have left their cushy lives due to their uncontrollable sociopathic urge to eat garbage and freeze to death.
Many liberals have been accused of being out of touch with "how things really are." I would merely suggest that we have documentation of how thing are supposed to be (the Constitution), and things like this as proof that they are not that way. However we got here, we're certainly not going to benefit with this "it's just the way things are" sentiment.
This "keep your checkbook closed" thing is attrocious. By definition, in a "democracy," every single person is involved in politics, regardless of their wealth or ability to contribute to a campaign. Stop making excuses for the "way things are."
I take issue with the notion that it doesn't scale well. On the contrary, the Constitution is a quite simple document that leaves the bulk of the work to the states' governments. That is why when the feds do anything abusive with their perceived power, such as punish supporters of a particular party, it is completely disgusting and unconstitutional.
"It"--meaning the federal government-- is not supposed to "scale up," but rather remain a small entity to settle disputes among the states and protect our borders.
1. If we want to present a "united front," why not a front that shows the strength of democracy (which we are pushing throughout the globe), which is not only not threatened by the other colors in the political spectrum, but also dependent on it.
2. Are we attempting to be global "leaders" by dominating the entire world, or by fostering "global cooperation"? It would seem to me that the domination approach is quite aggressive and certainly not what I, as a citizen, think is a good idea.
I'm not sure how you've arrived at your defensive point of view about television, but I think there is something to what the parent is saying. It's not that TV is inherantly evil or anything like that, but the amount of time people spend watching TV *is* absolutely detremental.
It's difficult for many people to grasp the notion that there is something *besides tv* that they can use to fill the cracks of time in their lives. None of the comparisons you've made (art vs. bar, reading vs. tv, government and 802.11b) take into account the dominance that television has in a great majority of "civilized" peoples' lives.
I say that, for the poor, TV is only one step removed from a bad drug habit. It is a means of escape from every day life that tells people how to act and what to think. I find it sad that low-income people think nothing of shelling out $70/month for cable tv instead of providing decent food and clothing for their children.
Also, I take issue with your "tv as educator" argument. There's an enormous difference between being able to *think* and having trivial facts spewed at you in an entertaining manner. Unless someone is going to be a marine biologist, for instance, I fail to see how knowing about the symbiotic relationships among various sea organisms is helpful to an otherwise underproductive and impoverished lifestyle.
Television in and of itself, as a medium for entertainment, is fine. But I could not possibly agree more that the poor, and probably everybody, would benefit by getting off their butts and actually experiencing the real world. While it's still here.
Ideally, corporations and special interests certainly should not be the ones influencing elections; but the reality is that they do, to an uncomfortably high degree. That is why this particular issue is worth saying something about.
The crux of anti-corporate sentiment is that the bottom line should not be championed over humanity. In this case, the bottom line is definitely being championed over humanity since by making discrimination against gays explicitly illegal, the camel's nose is under the tent for opening up benefits and who knows what else to same-sex couples.
So in this case, the Slashdotter anti-M$ sentiment is clearly not hypocrisy. M$'s giving in to the religious right sets a precident for other corporations. That precident is, among other things, that riding this current tide of nationality and pandering to Christian morality is what's best for business; to hell with humanity. Surely any other large company that does this deserves the same level of scrutiny.
Although the issue of the girl's age is not irrelevant, I think the main issue is the AOL Monitor's abuse of authority. What he did was creepy because without his position of authority, there would absolutely be no socially acceptable reason for him to even be in there chatting with "children" in the "chidren's" chat room.
I'd also like to point out (albeit a bit off-topic) that in the political realm, we're all so polarized over certain issues that most of us fail to realize that politicians notoriously abuse their authority, but are often able to pull hot-button issues out of their asses in order to capitalize on our short attention spans. For example, Bill Clinton was able to successfully convince many people that the "dignity of the presidency" was far more important than the integrity of the president himself. His actions were "none of our business." Bush uses the authority that God gave him as an excuse to blow up other countries and install a pro-business government. Questioning his methodology is the quivalent of being a terrorist.
The concept of "integrity" is all but dead.
>>Faith, on the other hand, as a construct of human thought, can be judged as good or bad.
;)
I'm not particularly religious per se, but I'm a Unitarian Universalist. Just a disclaimer.
I take issue with seperating the idea of faith from science, or even the mere suggestion that science is NOT a product of human thought just like any concept of god. After all, science is hypothesis and proof. It is the human imagination, kicked off by some kind of human perception, that forms hypotheses. To be able to repeatedly prove something in science doesn't answer anything about the universe as a whole. Neither does attaching a meaning to the results.
Why? Because the more complicated the inter-relationships among the sciences and their bodies of knowledge become, the fewer people who will effectively be able to wrap a plausible explanation around the findings. So meaningfully being able to scientifically prove something will eventually be impossible, at least without blowing up the universe and creating a brand new big bang, but then how the hell would you document the result of that??
IMHO, the human imagination will always ask the next question and form the next hypothesis, to an eventual infinite and unprovable degree. It's really a pet peave of mine to see science folk so nastily rebuff religious folk on the mere notion of how faith is "not respectable." What's not respectable is the human behavior surrounding any belief system that is designed to protect that belief system at all costs. We are all ignorant to some degree.
<i>>>which is really all that that ammendment was supposed to protect</i>
<p>...And you came to this conclusion how?? What about case law having to do with libel or slander and burden of truth? Is it really a "political" opinion to point out that, for example, your mayor smokes crack? or that your married president can't keep his hands off of young girls? Is the personal integrity of those who lead our society important?</p>
Ha! Who's going to pay $80/month for television? Everyone.
Who's going to pay $30/month for a wireless telephone? Everyone.
Who's going to pay subscription fees to connect to gaming networks? Who's going to pay $30/month for broadband access?
I'm more concerned with the trend of having to pay to hear honest to goodness free speech. That seems to be more of an attraction than "commercial free," a concept that companies haven't been shy about deserting once they hook their audience.
Michael Moore
This is a long-winded way of calling this policy out as TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION, a concept familiar to young historians everywhere as a major issue that certain colonies had with a certain imperial empire.
It tends to refute the theory that product placement will take over some day when there's nothing watchable to place the products in; the ads ARE the entertainment.