The world is not a random set of causeless phenomena but a system of overlapping groups of editable, comprehensible events.
This is an excellent quote, and illustrates why geeks turned to computers: They are complex groups of editable, comprehensible events. We grok them, and other people don't. In the past, we would have been engineers or scientists, and some of us still are.
Who will they remember, 400 years from now? Well, who do we remember from 400 years ago? Galileo, Newton, Kepler, Cassini etc. We don't remember the actors, or most of the politicians. Geeks are the ones who push things forward, and while we don't remember all of them, we interact with their inventions on a daily basis. While the angel-whores, pig-throwers, and edgy-boys get the spotlight, geeks will be remembered throughout history.
I find the "mark of the beast" thing highly unlikely. Fingerprints are compatible with the current paper-based communication, and are easily read, indexed, and searched by computer. I recently bought a car, and it would have been great if I could use UV ink to put fingerprints on documents instead of getting writers cramp initialing and signing things. When the docs are scanned, using UV light, the fingerprints can show up, and can't be faked.
And, therefore, if the ramblings of a psychotic that, in your belief, foretell the return of a man nailed to a tree 2000 years ago are true, then everyone is condemned, since they all have fingerprints.
And don't bother trying to save my soul, the correct answer is Mormon.:D
Sorry, I meant to make only part of it bold, to show that it is not and has never been my opinion. I am of the opposite ideology, make sure the bottom x% have sufficient resources to survive. Sorry for the confusion. Damn you submit button!
To make things user friendly, you have to make them more robust. Linux is already robust, so it's not an issue. The only disadvantage is that you'd have to secure the system against its users and the outside world. Look at Mac OS X: Most of the users don't even know about the Terminal, or that they're using a Corvette to drive the kids to school, so to speak. (FreeBSD in home computing, that is.) I think it would be a good model for Linux. People like shiny things, and I don't think there are enough of those in Linux.
WRONG. If you were to exile all 'rich' people in American to other countries we'd all be much worse off. People aren't poor because rich people are 'exploiting' them.
Stop foisting blame upon others and take responsibility, and maybe a few economics classes while you're at it.
Yes, the poor are poor because their lazy asses don't want to be rich. It's not that they can't get ahead and get nice things, they're just lazy and stupid.
Typical neanderthalic capitalist thinking. For every Rockefeller and Carnegie there are tens of millions that die from easily preventable disease and malnutrition. Everyone can't work hard and become rich, because there's only so much to go around. By making sure the bottom x% have sufficient resources to survive, everyone benefits.
Well, except for those who value human life less than money.
There are plenty of folks -- many right here on Slashdot -- who wouldn't blink an eye before volunteering for a one-way mission to a truly uncharted frontier.
This is getting really, really dull. A few/.ers spew some FUD about how it's dangerous or expensive or 'a pipe dream' and then I gotta come in and lay out the truth for them to not believe again.
While it is indisputable that the technology that is required to travel to Mars and establish a rudimentary colony around the hull of the space craft and any transported plants and animals exists and can be taken to Mars (at great cost), it is highly doubtful that they would be able to bring themselves back from the red planet.
All the materials exist on Mars to make fuel and oxygen and even a spacecraft for the return trip. Between the water in the soil and the CO2 in the atmosphere, it would take very simple and well-known chemical reactions to turn them into methane for fuel and oxygen to breathe.
Plants can be transported as seeds and planted in Martian soil (with some fertilizer, probably from the crew) or in hydroponics. In pressurized greenhouses with CO2 gas in them, they'll grow like gangbusters, providing more than enough food. Animals can be brought later (starting with tilapia, a readily farmed fish). But it should be stated that until there is a good farmacological ecosystem, we shouldn't think of bringing things like cattle; they're just too expensive to grow.
The cost of taking the fuel for the return trip would be absolutely astronomical considering the extensive modifications necessary to ensure that the fuel does not leak over the course of the three year mission.
Then don't take the fuel! Make it there. Do you think Lewis and Clark brought all the food and firewood they were going to need? Of course not; that would have made the mission prohibitivly expensive.
Besides all that, should we really be sending living organisms to a virtually uncontaminated environment so soon? We have just discovered real evidence of flowing water once existing on the planet, and this in turn could lead to evidence of fossilized microbes and other lifeforms that we would threaten with destruction if we were to introduce Earth microbes that the Martian microbes could not fight.
Earth microbes are so different from Mars microbes there would be almost no way for them to survive outside of the spacecraft. It would be like trying to infect a human being with the chemosynthetic bacteria from the bottom of the ocean; the habitats are too different for them to survive. You don't see people disinfecting the submersibles that travel down there, do you?
More study is needed, as is more thought on the impact of colonizing Mars. We will no doubt go there eventually and it may become our home away from home, but sending up a bunch of Russians to tromp around what may be a life-rich planet (under the surface) seems like a mission of putting the cart before the horse.
The goal of exploring Mars should be to colonize it. There is little threat to Martian microbes (should they exist) from Earth organisms, and if we are going to terraform it, that could take 500 years, more than enough time to study the microbes, who will adapt.
YOu have no idea how many times I've thought of this. If everyone did what they were supposed to for one day, revenues would drop so much their heads would spin.
Maybe if he actually tried to make something of his life or contribute to society I could give a shit.
He is contributing to society, numbnuts. He's finding security holes and then telling the companies about them. He's helping people. Just because he's not getting paid for it doesn't make him some sort of bum. It makes him generous and caring. Sure, it was illegal to do it without permission, but he's not giving hackers a bad name. If anything, he's helping to improve the view many people have of hackers. He's helping increase security instead of using it for his own gain.
Why is it that people who don't want a big house or a huge SUV are characterized as crazy people? I admire him for living in DC on two dollars a day. That takes talent, creativity, and guts. He is, like the wired interview said, kind of a wandering samurai or shaolin: He doesn't care for worldly possessions, only to learn and know as much as possible. I think that kind of attitude should be encouraged.
Of course, if by "contribute to society" you mean consume as much as possible while giving your money to faceless, heartless corporations, then I guess he's not contributing.
The less time people spend in the car, the more they spend doing productive things. Speeding keeps people from spending valuable hours in their cars, not earning or spending any money. It's good for the economy!
The problem isn't that a few people speed, it's that everyone speeds, all the time. When you drive the speed limit, people honk and bitch and, rarely, shoot at you. People feel the need to go fast because their cars are grossly overpowered, for the most part, and they're either in a hurry or already late and the traffic system is already overloaded, meaning any chance you have to speed should be taken because you'll be sitting in traffic otherwise.
And I'd just like to remind everyone, nobody speeds on public rail, except where they're supposed to.
The hydrofoil anchor system means it's light enough for a small (ish) boat to pull up, hoist it out of the water, and make the necessary repairs or replace it.
From the picture it doesn't look like the wings do anything other than push down. Which is good. You'll notice the propeller looking thingie in the middle of the structure. I'd imagine this produces the power.
What's the advantage? You don't have to excavate at depth to make the thing stay put, just lower it into the water, and let the water hold it down. Why not just use weights? I don't know, I didn't design the thing.
This, combined with the new fuel systems (Uranium contained in balls of graphite that self-regulate) make nuclear power extremely safe and more environmentally benign than coal or oil power. While it is not as benign as wind or solar, it is an excellent solution for areas where these are not viable, such as Europe (where land prices dictate a maximum MW/m^2 output) or the extreme north or south (where outdoor equipment breaks down easily and little sunlight is available for a lot of the year).
Anti-nukeys fail to look at facts, and they've got people jumping at the idea that anything (including the plant at my desk) could be radioactive.
Let's see:
-Wake up early
-Go outside in the cold/heat
-Run in a big circle for an hour whilst being chased by dogs, run down by idiots in cars, getting stinky and sweaty, and ridding myself of any motivation to do anything had when I was dragged from sleep kicking and screaming by my fiance/alarm clock
-Go to work in an 80 degree office building (cause the goddamn secretaries are always cold) and expect to get anything done through the haze of exhaustion/sleep deprivation, not to mention my smell driving my coworkers away?
I don't think so.
I never got the point of running, and I don't think I ever will. Gimme a way to type while getting a cardio workout and I might lose a few pounds
Of all the rebuttals, this one is the best. It's not about whose book is right, or who's going to hell ("I believe the correct answer was Mormon"), it's about who is nice and good. I don't really care what people believe so long as they
Don't bother trying to make me believe the same thing, no matter how much your book says I'm going to suffer
Be nice to other people, including your elders, your children, and future generations.
Slashdot Mirror
The world is not a random set of causeless phenomena but a system of overlapping groups of editable, comprehensible events.
This is an excellent quote, and illustrates why geeks turned to computers: They are complex groups of editable, comprehensible events. We grok them, and other people don't. In the past, we would have been engineers or scientists, and some of us still are.
Who will they remember, 400 years from now? Well, who do we remember from 400 years ago? Galileo, Newton, Kepler, Cassini etc. We don't remember the actors, or most of the politicians. Geeks are the ones who push things forward, and while we don't remember all of them, we interact with their inventions on a daily basis. While the angel-whores, pig-throwers, and edgy-boys get the spotlight, geeks will be remembered throughout history.
I find the "mark of the beast" thing highly unlikely. Fingerprints are compatible with the current paper-based communication, and are easily read, indexed, and searched by computer. I recently bought a car, and it would have been great if I could use UV ink to put fingerprints on documents instead of getting writers cramp initialing and signing things. When the docs are scanned, using UV light, the fingerprints can show up, and can't be faked.
:D
And, therefore, if the ramblings of a psychotic that, in your belief, foretell the return of a man nailed to a tree 2000 years ago are true, then everyone is condemned, since they all have fingerprints.
And don't bother trying to save my soul, the correct answer is Mormon.
Sorry, I meant to make only part of it bold, to show that it is not and has never been my opinion. I am of the opposite ideology, make sure the bottom x% have sufficient resources to survive. Sorry for the confusion. Damn you submit button!
To make things user friendly, you have to make them more robust. Linux is already robust, so it's not an issue. The only disadvantage is that you'd have to secure the system against its users and the outside world. Look at Mac OS X: Most of the users don't even know about the Terminal, or that they're using a Corvette to drive the kids to school, so to speak. (FreeBSD in home computing, that is.) I think it would be a good model for Linux. People like shiny things, and I don't think there are enough of those in Linux.
The rich in this country will be lucky if they aren't killed, cooked, and eaten before it's done.
"There's only one thing they're very good for."
WRONG. If you were to exile all 'rich' people in American to other countries we'd all be much worse off. People aren't poor because rich people are 'exploiting' them. Stop foisting blame upon others and take responsibility, and maybe a few economics classes while you're at it.
Yes, the poor are poor because their lazy asses don't want to be rich. It's not that they can't get ahead and get nice things, they're just lazy and stupid.
Typical neanderthalic capitalist thinking. For every Rockefeller and Carnegie there are tens of millions that die from easily preventable disease and malnutrition. Everyone can't work hard and become rich, because there's only so much to go around. By making sure the bottom x% have sufficient resources to survive, everyone benefits.
Well, except for those who value human life less than money.
There are plenty of folks -- many right here on Slashdot -- who wouldn't blink an eye before volunteering for a one-way mission to a truly uncharted frontier.
>raises hand< Ooo ooo ooo!! Pick me!!!
Sounds great! The indies will be cheaper, and more of their songs will get out, till they get bought by the RIAA!
This is getting really, really dull. A few /.ers spew some FUD about how it's dangerous or expensive or 'a pipe dream' and then I gotta come in and lay out the truth for them to not believe again.
While it is indisputable that the technology that is required to travel to Mars and establish a rudimentary colony around the hull of the space craft and any transported plants and animals exists and can be taken to Mars (at great cost), it is highly doubtful that they would be able to bring themselves back from the red planet.
All the materials exist on Mars to make fuel and oxygen and even a spacecraft for the return trip. Between the water in the soil and the CO2 in the atmosphere, it would take very simple and well-known chemical reactions to turn them into methane for fuel and oxygen to breathe.
Plants can be transported as seeds and planted in Martian soil (with some fertilizer, probably from the crew) or in hydroponics. In pressurized greenhouses with CO2 gas in them, they'll grow like gangbusters, providing more than enough food. Animals can be brought later (starting with tilapia, a readily farmed fish). But it should be stated that until there is a good farmacological ecosystem, we shouldn't think of bringing things like cattle; they're just too expensive to grow.
The cost of taking the fuel for the return trip would be absolutely astronomical considering the extensive modifications necessary to ensure that the fuel does not leak over the course of the three year mission.
Then don't take the fuel! Make it there. Do you think Lewis and Clark brought all the food and firewood they were going to need? Of course not; that would have made the mission prohibitivly expensive.
Besides all that, should we really be sending living organisms to a virtually uncontaminated environment so soon? We have just discovered real evidence of flowing water once existing on the planet, and this in turn could lead to evidence of fossilized microbes and other lifeforms that we would threaten with destruction if we were to introduce Earth microbes that the Martian microbes could not fight.
Earth microbes are so different from Mars microbes there would be almost no way for them to survive outside of the spacecraft. It would be like trying to infect a human being with the chemosynthetic bacteria from the bottom of the ocean; the habitats are too different for them to survive. You don't see people disinfecting the submersibles that travel down there, do you?
More study is needed, as is more thought on the impact of colonizing Mars. We will no doubt go there eventually and it may become our home away from home, but sending up a bunch of Russians to tromp around what may be a life-rich planet (under the surface) seems like a mission of putting the cart before the horse.
The goal of exploring Mars should be to colonize it. There is little threat to Martian microbes (should they exist) from Earth organisms, and if we are going to terraform it, that could take 500 years, more than enough time to study the microbes, who will adapt.
YOu have no idea how many times I've thought of this. If everyone did what they were supposed to for one day, revenues would drop so much their heads would spin.
I give a shit, actually.
Maybe if he actually tried to make something of his life or contribute to society I could give a shit.
He is contributing to society, numbnuts. He's finding security holes and then telling the companies about them. He's helping people. Just because he's not getting paid for it doesn't make him some sort of bum. It makes him generous and caring. Sure, it was illegal to do it without permission, but he's not giving hackers a bad name. If anything, he's helping to improve the view many people have of hackers. He's helping increase security instead of using it for his own gain.
Why is it that people who don't want a big house or a huge SUV are characterized as crazy people? I admire him for living in DC on two dollars a day. That takes talent, creativity, and guts. He is, like the wired interview said, kind of a wandering samurai or shaolin: He doesn't care for worldly possessions, only to learn and know as much as possible. I think that kind of attitude should be encouraged.
Of course, if by "contribute to society" you mean consume as much as possible while giving your money to faceless, heartless corporations, then I guess he's not contributing.
The less time people spend in the car, the more they spend doing productive things. Speeding keeps people from spending valuable hours in their cars, not earning or spending any money. It's good for the economy!
The problem isn't that a few people speed, it's that everyone speeds, all the time. When you drive the speed limit, people honk and bitch and, rarely, shoot at you. People feel the need to go fast because their cars are grossly overpowered, for the most part, and they're either in a hurry or already late and the traffic system is already overloaded, meaning any chance you have to speed should be taken because you'll be sitting in traffic otherwise.
And I'd just like to remind everyone, nobody speeds on public rail, except where they're supposed to.
The hydrofoil anchor system means it's light enough for a small (ish) boat to pull up, hoist it out of the water, and make the necessary repairs or replace it.
From the picture it doesn't look like the wings do anything other than push down. Which is good. You'll notice the propeller looking thingie in the middle of the structure. I'd imagine this produces the power.
What's the advantage? You don't have to excavate at depth to make the thing stay put, just lower it into the water, and let the water hold it down. Why not just use weights? I don't know, I didn't design the thing.
This, combined with the new fuel systems (Uranium contained in balls of graphite that self-regulate) make nuclear power extremely safe and more environmentally benign than coal or oil power. While it is not as benign as wind or solar, it is an excellent solution for areas where these are not viable, such as Europe (where land prices dictate a maximum MW/m^2 output) or the extreme north or south (where outdoor equipment breaks down easily and little sunlight is available for a lot of the year).
Anti-nukeys fail to look at facts, and they've got people jumping at the idea that anything (including the plant at my desk) could be radioactive.
If one chip breaks, the whole machine is useless! That's exactly what I want in a computer.
Yeah, that would make it easier to visualize.
If the earth got hit with its clone at 1 m/s, the fireball would be below the horizon.
Electronics + water = Unhappy slashdotter.
An FM radio isn't likely to skip either, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't rather have my iPod.
Let's see:
-Wake up early
-Go outside in the cold/heat
-Run in a big circle for an hour whilst being chased by dogs, run down by idiots in cars, getting stinky and sweaty, and ridding myself of any motivation to do anything had when I was dragged from sleep kicking and screaming by my fiance/alarm clock
-Go to work in an 80 degree office building (cause the goddamn secretaries are always cold) and expect to get anything done through the haze of exhaustion/sleep deprivation, not to mention my smell driving my coworkers away?
I don't think so.
I never got the point of running, and I don't think I ever will. Gimme a way to type while getting a cardio workout and I might lose a few pounds
You're not from 'round here, are ya?
Evidence: My fiance always says I moved her shit when she did it and forgot where she put it.
class me { static universe; }
Yep, predefined.