>>I went into my local hospital with a broken arm on a busy afternoon, was seen straight away and was on my way home within a couple of hours.
What concerns me is that you mention getting there, being "seen" (which only means that they perceived the photons bouncing off your corpus), and were home in a couple of hours.
At no point do you indicate that you actually got the arm fixed.
>>Now it could be argued that that all this stuff SHOULD be built in to the OS, and it should, but Microsoft pretty much created the market for virus writer and spyware due to their shitty software design and incompetence for the last decade.
Now, it could be argued that the first computer viruses were for Macs. But that would pretty much kill your political rant, wouldn't it?
I also pay state sales tax on chairs, which I use to sit on to watch TV...but I think that's stretching the proposition past the breaking point, so bleh to your fourth bullet.
Likewise, on your third bullet point, since we cannot break down the application to which the specific monies are applied once aggregated, I hereby declare that all my tax money in support of the PTO goes strictly to supporting copyright management for printed works, and the couple of educational CD-ROMs I authored.
I don't buy products that are advertised on television. Well, not on purpose, anyway. There's so much advertised and I don't see any of it.
Patent fees paid to holders aren't a tax because they're not managed under regulations published by the Internal Revenue Service. Taxes are collected by the government for government expenditures; patent licenses are paid to the individuals holding the patents, not the government. Calling them a tax is mere equivocation. So, without further ado, bleh on that point as well.
If you play Everquest, City of Heroes, Asheron's Call, or any of the other myriad MMORPGs, you don't need television.
Consider further: [I]Three's Company[/I] in high-def is still, well, [I]Three's Company[/I]. There are very few offerings--even on cable and satellite--outside of sports that aren't utter crap, and your mileage may vary on the exclusion of sports from that.
1) The "shaky cam" thing. I realize it's an artistic choice. Well, I don't know much about art, but I know what I like.
2) Whenever the episode turns into "Baltar's Head." Okay, we get it. The blonde chick is along for the ride, Baltar has a tag-along in his brain, and only he can see it. When Disney did this sort of thing it was called "Pete's Rabbit." When James Stewart did it, it was called "Harvey." Been there.
I can accept the scientific and engineering faux pas because I don't expect TV script writers to be Nobel Laureate physicists and chemists. That's not to say that I won't do the odd head-slap-and-groan on something, but hey, that's not what the show is about.
Now if I can just figure out what the show is about....
The problem has been, and will continue to be, the various morons and dipwads with nothing better to do than create the exploits and hacks you're talking about. If everyone on slashdot spent as much time trying to ferret out these numbskulls and put a boot up their collective asses as they spend pontificating in their usual pompous, overbearing, and misspelled manner--the damned problem would be solved.
Well, you really need to fix that scripting bug in your startup page. I just spent two minutes doing nothing but saying to the debugger than I didn't want to debug line 35 where menuitem1.thediv isn't an object in the what.php page. Also that "object required" in line 20 thing is kind of annoying.
I think the ability to fully debug a website before targeting thousands of potential visitors to it might delineate the difference between a novice and a pro. But that's just me--your mileage may vary.
Point of order: if Macs or even Linux desktops (*shudder*) were the dominant connection mechanism to the Internet, then that's where the bulk of the malware would be aimed. If Linux desktops (*hork* *ghack* *hurl*) ever become the dominant environment, then someone somewhere will be asking "Why does Linux suck?" on Slashdot about five times weekly. All that's really necessary is for alternative commodity-priced and consumer-ready platforms to reach a critical mass. Then they become interesting to the virus, Trojan, and adware/spyware crowd.
The first viruses were aimed at Macs, lest we forget the lessons of history.
And it's not that any given platform sucks, sucks harder, or doesn't suck. What sucks is that people exist with nothing better to do than write these little cyber-gremlins in the first place. Put the blame where it belongs, Cowboy.
Less than halfway through I got bored and stopped reading it.
I think what bothered me the most was the use of the Marxist vocabulary. Proles? Bourgeois? This adherence to a discredited, incoherent, and largely irrational socio-economic theory is a complete turn-off for me. It's so 1848.
Making them real objects does solve the problem, because when you do, you find that there's no paradox. That's the crux of the issue.
Zeno's entire argument is absurd, because it doesn't represent physical reality. If one builds an argument that says Achilles can't pass the Tortoise, but in physical experiment Achilles actually passes the Tortoise, then the argument is incorrect, and generally of no further interest.
That we can construct a gedanken experiment that proves that you can't go anywhere (Zeno's Paradox of the Race Course) merely proves that we're especially good at constructing bad gedanken experiments. (There are so many more ways to be wrong than to be right, naturally.) We invented phlogiston as explanation for energy transfer, too, didn't we? I don't see anyone defending that lately. (And there was that whole fire-breathing dragon thing, too....)
The fact is, the whole thing is contrived, because the distances, velocities, times frames, and the head start are made up to produce the result Zeno wanted. It works for any fraction:
Achilles runs 10 times faster than the Tortoise, and the Tortoise has a 9/10 distance head start. Achilles runs 3 times as fast as the Tortoise, etc.
Suppose we set up that Achilles runs 10 times faster than the Tortoise, and the Tortoise only has a 1/20 distance head start? Well...Achilles gets to the goal ahead of the Tortoise no matter how finely you slice it. After two (constant) time units, Achilles is ahead of the Tortoise, no matter what kind of hand-waving you throw--er, wave--at it.
The thing is (and it's a thing of which Zeno was unaware) is that space isn't infinitely divisible. There is a smallest unit of distance, the Planck Length, and any motion must consist of integral multiples of that. (Likewise you can't divide time indefinitely; the Planck Time defines the lower boundary.)
The only reason Zeno's argument appears to work at all is because he keeps shaving off the distances involved. (One could construct the same argument by constantly reducing the intervals of time measure as well.) That's cheating, plain and simple. Using a constant time frame, the results are entirely different, and represent reality.
One can have sophistry, or one can have science. As presented by Lynds and any number of other proponents, Zeno's Paradox of the Race Course is an exercise in philosophy, not science.
We might, however, choose to promote it as an actual physical theory of motion. The ultimate success of a physical theory is measured by how well its predictions match empirical measurements. I submit that the constant time-frame theory (Newton) represents reality; the constantly-reducing time-frame (Zeno) theory does not. [I'm leaving out General Relativity in both cases; don't quibble on that basis.] Zeno's Paradox of the Race course, taken as a physical theory of motion, is unsuccessful.
If it does not define motion, then it cannot be true; if it cannot be true, then there's no paradox, ipso facto.
I think it's hilarious that Lynds is trying to resolve Zeno's Paradox, because it's not a paradox. It's based on an absurd premise--that both Achilles and the Tortoise are both geometric points.
Consider:
Achilles covers 1/2 the distance to the Tortoise in the first instant, then 1/2 the distance again in the next instant, and so on.
Of course, at some point, the distance required to overtake the Tortoise is physically smaller than Achilles himself, so he's done the job, game over. Ditto for the "you can't go anywhere, because first you have to travel half the distance, etc." shibboleth.
Zeno's Paradox and The Arrow are just word games designed to amuse and confuse, but they don't have any real-world application.
The whole thing is, in the words of David Gerrold (describing Star Trek's energy barrier at the edge of the Galaxy), "like trying to bisect a sneeze." It can't be done, and even if you could do it, there's no point to doing it in the first place.
I wouldn't place much stock in what John Wheeler thinks is interesting, either. From what I've seen, he's pretty much of a crank from the get-go, advance-degreed or not.
Slashdot Mirror
What concerns me is that you mention getting there, being "seen" (which only means that they perceived the photons bouncing off your corpus), and were home in a couple of hours.
At no point do you indicate that you actually got the arm fixed.
>>Now it could be argued that that all this stuff SHOULD be built in to the OS, and it should, but Microsoft pretty much created the market for virus writer and spyware due to their shitty software design and incompetence for the last decade. Now, it could be argued that the first computer viruses were for Macs. But that would pretty much kill your political rant, wouldn't it?
Likewise, on your third bullet point, since we cannot break down the application to which the specific monies are applied once aggregated, I hereby declare that all my tax money in support of the PTO goes strictly to supporting copyright management for printed works, and the couple of educational CD-ROMs I authored.
I don't buy products that are advertised on television. Well, not on purpose, anyway. There's so much advertised and I don't see any of it.
Patent fees paid to holders aren't a tax because they're not managed under regulations published by the Internal Revenue Service. Taxes are collected by the government for government expenditures; patent licenses are paid to the individuals holding the patents, not the government. Calling them a tax is mere equivocation. So, without further ado, bleh on that point as well.
The reason is, of course, that this is one story where no one is going to ask: "...but will it boot Linux?"
Unless you're making some kind of post-modern, ironic comment that I don't follow.
Which could be happening.
I don' need no steeekin' license!
I'm in the United States!
One of these days I'm going to learn not to mix HTML markup and UBBCode in a single posting.
Consider further: [I]Three's Company[/I] in high-def is still, well, [I]Three's Company[/I]. There are very few offerings--even on cable and satellite--outside of sports that aren't utter crap, and your mileage may vary on the exclusion of sports from that.
"Oh no--they're taking my crap away!"
Bleh.
WTHWIT? I meant "Pete's Dragon."
Rabbit. Rabbit?
Gotta stop my son from watching all those "Winnie the Pooh" videos over and over and over....
2) Whenever the episode turns into "Baltar's Head." Okay, we get it. The blonde chick is along for the ride, Baltar has a tag-along in his brain, and only he can see it. When Disney did this sort of thing it was called "Pete's Rabbit." When James Stewart did it, it was called "Harvey." Been there.
I can accept the scientific and engineering faux pas because I don't expect TV script writers to be Nobel Laureate physicists and chemists. That's not to say that I won't do the odd head-slap-and-groan on something, but hey, that's not what the show is about.
Now if I can just figure out what the show is about....
What the hell kind of perspective is that?
The problem has been, and will continue to be, the various morons and dipwads with nothing better to do than create the exploits and hacks you're talking about. If everyone on slashdot spent as much time trying to ferret out these numbskulls and put a boot up their collective asses as they spend pontificating in their usual pompous, overbearing, and misspelled manner--the damned problem would be solved.
But noooo....
Well, you really need to fix that scripting bug in your startup page. I just spent two minutes doing nothing but saying to the debugger than I didn't want to debug line 35 where menuitem1.thediv isn't an object in the what.php page. Also that "object required" in line 20 thing is kind of annoying. I think the ability to fully debug a website before targeting thousands of potential visitors to it might delineate the difference between a novice and a pro. But that's just me--your mileage may vary.
Point of order: if Macs or even Linux desktops (*shudder*) were the dominant connection mechanism to the Internet, then that's where the bulk of the malware would be aimed. If Linux desktops (*hork* *ghack* *hurl*) ever become the dominant environment, then someone somewhere will be asking "Why does Linux suck?" on Slashdot about five times weekly. All that's really necessary is for alternative commodity-priced and consumer-ready platforms to reach a critical mass. Then they become interesting to the virus, Trojan, and adware/spyware crowd. The first viruses were aimed at Macs, lest we forget the lessons of history. And it's not that any given platform sucks, sucks harder, or doesn't suck. What sucks is that people exist with nothing better to do than write these little cyber-gremlins in the first place. Put the blame where it belongs, Cowboy.
I think what bothered me the most was the use of the Marxist vocabulary. Proles? Bourgeois? This adherence to a discredited, incoherent, and largely irrational socio-economic theory is a complete turn-off for me. It's so 1848.
Zeno's entire argument is absurd, because it doesn't represent physical reality. If one builds an argument that says Achilles can't pass the Tortoise, but in physical experiment Achilles actually passes the Tortoise, then the argument is incorrect, and generally of no further interest.
That we can construct a gedanken experiment that proves that you can't go anywhere (Zeno's Paradox of the Race Course) merely proves that we're especially good at constructing bad gedanken experiments. (There are so many more ways to be wrong than to be right, naturally.) We invented phlogiston as explanation for energy transfer, too, didn't we? I don't see anyone defending that lately. (And there was that whole fire-breathing dragon thing, too....)
The fact is, the whole thing is contrived, because the distances, velocities, times frames, and the head start are made up to produce the result Zeno wanted. It works for any fraction:
Achilles runs 10 times faster than the Tortoise, and the Tortoise has a 9/10 distance head start. Achilles runs 3 times as fast as the Tortoise, etc.
Suppose we set up that Achilles runs 10 times faster than the Tortoise, and the Tortoise only has a 1/20 distance head start? Well...Achilles gets to the goal ahead of the Tortoise no matter how finely you slice it. After two (constant) time units, Achilles is ahead of the Tortoise, no matter what kind of hand-waving you throw--er, wave--at it.
The thing is (and it's a thing of which Zeno was unaware) is that space isn't infinitely divisible. There is a smallest unit of distance, the Planck Length, and any motion must consist of integral multiples of that. (Likewise you can't divide time indefinitely; the Planck Time defines the lower boundary.)
The only reason Zeno's argument appears to work at all is because he keeps shaving off the distances involved. (One could construct the same argument by constantly reducing the intervals of time measure as well.) That's cheating, plain and simple. Using a constant time frame, the results are entirely different, and represent reality.
One can have sophistry, or one can have science. As presented by Lynds and any number of other proponents, Zeno's Paradox of the Race Course is an exercise in philosophy, not science. We might, however, choose to promote it as an actual physical theory of motion. The ultimate success of a physical theory is measured by how well its predictions match empirical measurements. I submit that the constant time-frame theory (Newton) represents reality; the constantly-reducing time-frame (Zeno) theory does not. [I'm leaving out General Relativity in both cases; don't quibble on that basis.] Zeno's Paradox of the Race course, taken as a physical theory of motion, is unsuccessful.
If it does not define motion, then it cannot be true; if it cannot be true, then there's no paradox, ipso facto.
I think it's hilarious that Lynds is trying to resolve Zeno's Paradox, because it's not a paradox. It's based on an absurd premise--that both Achilles and the Tortoise are both geometric points. Consider: Achilles covers 1/2 the distance to the Tortoise in the first instant, then 1/2 the distance again in the next instant, and so on. Of course, at some point, the distance required to overtake the Tortoise is physically smaller than Achilles himself, so he's done the job, game over. Ditto for the "you can't go anywhere, because first you have to travel half the distance, etc." shibboleth. Zeno's Paradox and The Arrow are just word games designed to amuse and confuse, but they don't have any real-world application. The whole thing is, in the words of David Gerrold (describing Star Trek's energy barrier at the edge of the Galaxy), "like trying to bisect a sneeze." It can't be done, and even if you could do it, there's no point to doing it in the first place. I wouldn't place much stock in what John Wheeler thinks is interesting, either. From what I've seen, he's pretty much of a crank from the get-go, advance-degreed or not.