I stand corrected (I read/heard the quotes somewhere, checked the exact wording etc online, and I guess I cut-and-pasted from a site with a mistake in it !!)
I love these old quotes that sound like they were made recently, but in fact are very old. These are my favourites:
> Although they posses enough, and more than enough, still they yearn for more. (Ovid (English Poet, 43 BC - 17 AD))
> I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on the frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words. When I was a boy, we were taught to be discrete and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise and impatient of restraint. (Hesiod 800 - 720 BC)
> The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority, they show disrespect to their elders.... They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and are tyrants over their teachers. ((allegedly) Socrates ca. 390 BC)
> In the U.S. you don't issue an arrest warrant simply to question someone, do you
My first guess would be that something was lost in the translation.
Secondly any translation is made more difficult by the French having an investigation oriented legal system and not an (Anglo-Saxon ?) adversarial system.
Rule #1 of all testing: The purpose of testing is not to prove that the code works: the purpose of testing is to *try to break* the program. (A good tester is Evil: extremes of values, try to get it to divide by 0 etc.)
> If you are a kernel developer, then you can just make your kernel intercept some other key combination.
I am not and sysrq or kernel expert but: AFAIK the kernel does not get the sysrq directly. The request goes straight to the BIOS, and then, on a configured Linux kernel, comes back up to a kernel routine. So if the usual X and/or kernel k/b handler lock up you can still have a key that reacts. I think.
> At the moment in the UK, subscription to the BBC is compulsory, as a condition of being able to have a TV. It is a license fee, not a subscription: the money goes into the government funds, and then some (all/more/less: I am not sure) goes out to the BBC etc.
> And if you watch TV without subscribing, you will be hauled before a magistrate, fined, and maybe imprisoned. Actually you will be fined for *owning* the equipment, even if you never switch it on ! (which of course makes prosecution easier !!)
- the only reference is a blog - AFAIK SWIFT is but one method of *inter* bank, *international* transfer so "Unlimited Access To Banking Data" of the title is a gross exaggeration (what, here on/. I am shocked) - given that there are other methods of funds transfer (IBAN, Tipinet?) SWIFT will die a quick death if this comes about
> Dr. Paul Jackson, a particle physicist working on the LHC's Atlas experiment, says there's no chance of black holes wiping us out, and that the time travel speculation is bunkum. He is 100% convinced that they will find the Higgs boson.
Maybe it is me, but when I hear someone say "no chance of..." or "100% convinced that they will find..." they sound more like a politician than a scientist. I thought the latter should have an open mind until proof was presented ?
>...how can Mininova not be liable for any copyright infringing links, but still be ordered to remove the links?
A few guesses: because they do not have the money/lawyers/energy to continue the fight, or they do not want the personal risk of being hit by a massive fine or because they have had a good run and know that alternatives will popup anyway...
> Everyone knows that lossless codecs like FLAC produce better sounding music than lossy codecs like MP3. Well that's the theory anyway. The reality is that most of us can't tell the difference between MP3 and FLAC.
I think you have described the whole purpose of MP3 !! (i.e. for most of the people, most of the time it is good enough, however the file is much smaller !)
> Is cultural sensitivity becoming an overly played card in the gaming world? Not too long ago, Wolfenstein was recalled in Germany for containing Nazi symbols.
My knowledge of German law/history is hazy, but Nazi symbols are illegal in Germany (and Austria ?) under the constitution except in certain cases. (And the constitution was initiated and signed off by the Allies.)
i.e. it was not "cultural sensitivity", but illegality that affected Wolfenstein.
> How are they getting funding? As recently as yesterday I was reading about how it was pretty much an orphaned project because no one wanted to buy what was already available for free (albeit less reliably).
I can not remember the full story, but the industry funding arguments dragged along for years, and in the end the EU took over funding of the project (it was too high profile to fail !!).
My experience with *inexperienced* users always shows one thing that no Desktop GUI seems to have addressed/solved yet: the User who does not care whether the program they want is already running or not, they just want to use it. At the moment you look to see in one area if, say, you have a web browser already running and if not then you start one. This is one step too many. The User should just have one button to press per app and then the GUI decides whether to simple bring an existing app window to the front, or start the app for the first time. (Some programs play well with multiple startups, others do not.)
Slashdot Mirror
3D desktop, 3D graphics, now 3D web. None of it is 3D, it is all *pseudo* 3D.
(Call me back when it is real 3D: i.e. when moving your head revealed more information round the side.)
(Bah, humbug ?)
> Just as everyone benefits from an educated and healthy society.
To quote Gandi: "I think it would be a good idea."
What is "HomePNY" ? Is it the same as HomePlug Powerline which would be my suggestion (to not answer your question !!).
> When a company offers insurance on a product where they will replace it for any reason,
Because insurance companies *never* offer policies like that: usually only *accidental* damage is covered, no deliberate.
Opening windows in space: tag this what-could-possibly-go-wrong !
Can I also tag this story "what-could-possibly-go-wrong" ?
> Socrates died 400/399 BC.
I stand corrected (I read/heard the quotes somewhere, checked the exact wording etc online, and I guess I cut-and-pasted from a site with a mistake in it !!)
I love these old quotes that sound like they were made recently, but in fact are very old.
These are my favourites:
> Although they posses enough, and more than enough, still they yearn for more.
(Ovid (English Poet, 43 BC - 17 AD))
> I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on
the frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless
beyond words. When I was a boy, we were taught to be discrete and
respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise and
impatient of restraint.
(Hesiod 800 - 720 BC)
> The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for
authority, they show disrespect to their elders.... They no longer rise
when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter
before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and
are tyrants over their teachers.
((allegedly) Socrates ca. 390 BC)
> In the U.S. you don't issue an arrest warrant simply to question someone, do you
My first guess would be that something was lost in the translation.
Secondly any translation is made more difficult by the French having an investigation oriented legal system and not an (Anglo-Saxon ?) adversarial system.
> Advanced Social Skills For Humanoid Robots ... ...
>
> team of robotics researchers
That story should be tagged "what-could-possibly-go-wrong" ;-)
Rule #1 of all testing: The purpose of testing is not to prove that the code works: the purpose of testing is to *try to break* the program.
(A good tester is Evil: extremes of values, try to get it to divide by 0 etc.)
Great film, bit IIRC it all ended badly when the computers malfunctioned in Dark Star
If it is not transparent then I am not interested :-)
> Wish you could start your car via your cell phone ...
No, but I often wish I could *stop* other peoples cars, as they 'drive' (sleep ?) their way near my daily cycle commute route.
> If those NVidia drivers don't support hardware accelerated 3D, then I really don't understand the point.
IIRC kernel video mode setting will be available with nouveau: for a silky smooth boot experience :-)
> If you are a kernel developer, then you can just make your kernel intercept some other key combination.
I am not and sysrq or kernel expert but: AFAIK the kernel does not get the sysrq directly. The request goes straight to the BIOS, and then, on a configured Linux kernel, comes back up to a kernel routine. So if the usual X and/or kernel k/b handler lock up you can still have a key that reacts. I think.
Couple of minor points:
> At the moment in the UK, subscription to the BBC is compulsory, as a condition of being able to have a TV.
It is a license fee, not a subscription: the money goes into the government funds, and then some (all/more/less: I am not sure) goes out to the BBC etc.
> And if you watch TV without subscribing, you will be hauled before a magistrate, fined, and maybe imprisoned.
Actually you will be fined for *owning* the equipment, even if you never switch it on ! (which of course makes prosecution easier !!)
I am not a banker (IANAB or W?) but:
- the only reference is a blog /. I am shocked)
- AFAIK SWIFT is but one method of *inter* bank, *international* transfer so "Unlimited Access To Banking Data" of the title is a gross exaggeration (what, here on
- given that there are other methods of funds transfer (IBAN, Tipinet?) SWIFT will die a quick death if this comes about
> Dr. Paul Jackson, a particle physicist working on the LHC's Atlas experiment, says there's no chance of black holes wiping us out, and that the time travel speculation is bunkum. He is 100% convinced that they will find the Higgs boson.
Maybe it is me, but when I hear someone say "no chance of..." or "100% convinced that they will find..." they sound more like a politician than a scientist. I thought the latter should have an open mind until proof was presented ?
> ...how can Mininova not be liable for any copyright infringing links, but still be ordered to remove the links?
A few guesses: because they do not have the money/lawyers/energy to continue the fight, or they do not want the personal risk of being hit by a massive fine or because they have had a good run and know that alternatives will popup anyway ...
> Everyone knows that lossless codecs like FLAC produce better sounding music than lossy codecs like MP3. Well that's the theory anyway. The reality is that most of us can't tell the difference between MP3 and FLAC.
I think you have described the whole purpose of MP3 !!
(i.e. for most of the people, most of the time it is good enough, however the file is much smaller !)
> Is cultural sensitivity becoming an overly played card in the gaming world? Not too long ago, Wolfenstein was recalled in Germany for containing Nazi symbols.
My knowledge of German law/history is hazy, but Nazi symbols are illegal in Germany (and Austria ?) under the constitution except in certain cases. (And the constitution was initiated and signed off by the Allies.)
i.e. it was not "cultural sensitivity", but illegality that affected Wolfenstein.
> How are they getting funding? As recently as yesterday I was reading about how it was pretty much an orphaned project because no one wanted to buy what was already available for free (albeit less reliably).
I can not remember the full story, but the industry funding arguments dragged along for years, and in the end the EU took over funding of the project (it was too high profile to fail !!).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_(satellite_navigation)
My experience with *inexperienced* users always shows one thing that no Desktop GUI seems to have addressed/solved yet: the User who does not care whether the program they want is already running or not, they just want to use it. At the moment you look to see in one area if, say, you have a web browser already running and if not then you start one. This is one step too many. The User should just have one button to press per app and then the GUI decides whether to simple bring an existing app window to the front, or start the app for the first time. (Some programs play well with multiple startups, others do not.)
Good point, but the password does not have to be space delimited in the block: it could be "iJoh sae2" (with or without the space).