That's why I love the system over here - you don't pay for individual lectures and you register about two to four into the semester. That allows you to sit in a couple interesting-sounding courses and kick the duds out of your schedule without ever registering for them.
<ramble>
Mind you, this is Bremen, Germany and the students are still up in arms over the concept of having to pay a tuition. (Previously, you paid about 170 Euros for administrative fees, a semester-long ticket for the area etc. Now all students who aren't local residents are supposed to pay a 500 Euro tuition on top of that; however, they can't currently force anyone to pay because the distinction between residents and non-residents is currently being challenged at the Federal Constitutional Court, which is roughly the German Supreme Court.)
The tuition-less deal is actually pretty good; those 170 Euros not only buy you cheap prices in the cafeteria, if you travel much the semester ticket is also a real money saver, as it equals free access to all public transportation in the VBN and VEJ networks (which cover all of Bremen and a good chunk of Lower Saxony) as well as free 2nd class rides on certain railroad lines. In fact, you can freely travel between Bremen, Hannover, Hamburg and all towns serviced by the connecting lines at your leisure. Oh yeah, of course the semester ticket is valid until the next semester starts, completely ignoring things like holidays that technically aren't part of the semester. The deal is so good that I know people who re-immatriculate every semester even though they have a job and (almost) never attend any courses.
Of course, the 500 Euro tuition makes the deal a lot less sweet...
</ramble>
It's not like I want to... But 90% of all hobbyist web developers do. Unless the medium is easy to work with and supports the latest in interactive bling bling, they're not going to use it, whether it's called PDF or XHTML.
What's wrong with a PDF? It's got exactly what you seem to want -- total control over your layout. It also supports hyperlinks. Safari certainly renders PDFs inline as if they were somewhat retarded web pages. I'm not sure why you think it's just for printing.
There's still the little issue where MSIE's support for XHTML goes just far enough to make it equivalent to HTML 4.01. Imagine if people wrote XHTML 2 like they write HTML 4 today. MSIE wouldn't choke, it would just run everything through the tag soup parser and be happy. Many users wouldn't make sure their code validates or even passes as well-formed, because IE doesn't complain. All other browsers would also use the tag soup parser on XHTML in order to cope with the new, broken web.
Let's face it, unless all major players agree to play by its rules, XHTML just isn't a viable HTML replacement. And Microsoft doesn't give a shit about XHTML. So either IE's market share is marginalized or Microsoft suddenly develops respect for the XHTML standard or XHTML just won't take off.
Don't forget to put something on the "other" volume that looks like you'd like it hidden, but is completely useless. Giving a password to an empty volume probably won't help at all.
Hmm... I've always wondered how the opposite of MAD would look like. MAD works by having very strong weapons against which thre are no defense - but what if someone came up with a very strong defense which no known weapon can penetrate? How would global politics look?
I think encryption is like that, on a small scale. It's easy for modern home computers to use 256-bit encryption, which is pretty much impenetrable through brute force; everone becomes infeasible to attack from that angle. As a result, the attacks go to other areas - the attacker tries to get hold of the key or maybe set up conditions under which the search space can be reduced. But directly breaking into a properly encrypted transmission remains unfeasible.
Actually, an Asimovian robot would make a pretty good dom, as well. Well, if you either leave the SM out of BDSM (leaving BD and DS) or have a first law that allows the infliction of non-severe pain and possibly light bruising. At least as an intermediary dom, an Asimovian robot could work quite well.
It does exist, it just defied description. One can certainly be happy. I have been known to be happy on occasion; it's not unheard of. However, to actually describe what the various states of emotion I lump together under the umbrella term of "happiness" mean, is extremely difficult at least.
It's a bit like life - we can explain part of it in one special form. However, we can not conclusively describe what "life" actually means. Still, it does certainly exist.
Great, now the CIA can lace water supplies from orbit.
Come to think of it, the CIA switching their evil drugging regime from hallucinogenics to date rape drugs does strike me as somewhat disturbing. Excuse me while I'm off to buy a tin foil-enhanced chastity belt.
Also, don't forget the epic German shrt movie "Staplerfahrer Klaus" ("Forklift Driver Klaus"). YouTube has a subtitled version for your viewing convenience.
Interesingly, even though meant as a parody of workplace safety training videos, the movie is actually used as one by certain companies... The points it makes are valid and it does get them across.
Come to think about it... In the movies, the sand people always hit and the stormtroopers always missed (at least with hand-held blasters). Old Ben certainly had a peculiar way of seeing things.
How about someone with a disorder, though? Would he end up on the list? Some people have no control over themselves when they commit a crime and while most of them are intitutionalized, some can live a normal live if medicated and thus serve a regular sentence. Granted, it's a corner case, but I always feel queasy when part of someone's crime record is published. It makes that person very vulnerable, even to attacks they don't deserve.
The problem is that you can't let the concernde parents see this list without letting the concerned gun-toting lunatics see it. While the list might be good when you see it, it becomes less so when Billy Hicks reads it as a list to local hunting targets. And the chance of someone making a very bad decision is higher for an emotionally charged crime such as this.
I don't have a better alternative off the bat, but this list does pose a very real threat to the safety of everyone on it - whether justified or not, as seen in this case.
The only way we can protect ourselves and our families[...]
...with a gun? The problem here is that there's a lot of wackos out there who don't think twice about killing someone in a child molester DB. By publishing someone in such a DB you're effectively ending his life: He can't go anywhere without everyone pointing at him - and without fearing for his life.
If you want to make sure that child molesters don't get near children anymore, lock them up for life instead of submitting them to a particularly humiliating form of mob "justice". Lifelong imprisonment would be more humane (and yes, even child molesters deserve to be treated as human beings).
I wonder how his tombstone reads. If I had been in his situation I'd have 8 or 10 of them right next to each other along my grave. But then, that's just my sense of humor.
Heh, that is pretty funny, in fact. Don't forget that they have to include a detiled description of what he was wearing at his funeral and "I wonder XYZ was here. He understands women".
You do know that book 12 will be the last one? Everything after that will be potential prequels and sidestory bits; the main series will be concluded in the 12th book. RJ has stated that fact several times and Sanderson has stated so himself, in this very article discussion.
Doesn't make a difference to me; I'm German and the German release gets split into three to four sub-books. That's a good thing, actually, because that way I don't have to wait for all of it to be translated.
Yeah, I should read the original, but after having invested a lot of shelf space and money in the German version so far I'm going to read the German ending, as well. Also, I'm not the only person in the family who reads Jordan.
I sure hope it fits my "Moiraine, Lanfear and Asmodean chilling out on a beach in a parellel universe, laughing about the people who still haven't realized the *elfinn are animatronic puppets" theory.
For some reason my theory is seen as unlikely by other fans of the series.
I think Jordan's strong point lies in the way he fleshes out his world. The WoT series appeals to me because it gives me detailed, dynamic world that adheres to certain rules. Seeing the characters interact with these rules and the state of the world makes it interesting. It's one interconnected whole, which is much more than you get with most novels/series.
Sure, Jordan sometimes writes repetitively. Sure, some characters keep reiterating their motivations (although one might interpret this as them being focused). Sure, the characters tend to come to the dumbest possible conclusions and the adhere to them as if they were holy scripture - as seen when Rand cleaned Saidin and all Aes Sedai concluded this must be a weapon of the Forsaken, even though such a slow weapon would be downright stupid. Sure, many readers don't care about what Elayne thinks of Birgitte's chioce in clothing and the latest fashiond trend it has sparked.
But even though the writing has obvious flaws I love the Wheel of Time series, because the world is so very detailed; that makes it immersive to me. Even though many characters are somewhat two-dimensional, they are believable (the real world has plenty of two-dimensional people, as well). I guess it's a matter of taste. I like the overdetailed world of WoT, even though most of its inhabitants' thoughts could be algorithmically predicted in P-time.
Let's not forget the "Rand cleans Saidin" equivalent:
Book 17:
Chapter 1: Hansel and Gretel's father cuts down a tree.
Chapter 2: The evil stepmother turns toward the lugging site and wonders about what kind of diabolical weapon could have made such a noise.
Chapter 2: The witch turns toward the lugging site and wonders about what kind of diabolical weapon could have made such a noise.
Chapter 3: Hansel turns toward the lugging site and wonders about what kind of diabolical weapon could have made such a noise.
Chapter 4: Gretel turns toward the lugging site and wonders about what kind of diabolical weapon could have made such a noise.
Chapter 5: The axe manufacturer turns toward the lugging site and wonders about what kind of diabolical weapon could have made such a noise.
Chapter 6: Robert Jordan turns toward the lugging site and wonders about what kind of diabolical weapon could have made such a noise.
Slashdot Mirror
That's why I love the system over here - you don't pay for individual lectures and you register about two to four into the semester. That allows you to sit in a couple interesting-sounding courses and kick the duds out of your schedule without ever registering for them.
<ramble>
Mind you, this is Bremen, Germany and the students are still up in arms over the concept of having to pay a tuition. (Previously, you paid about 170 Euros for administrative fees, a semester-long ticket for the area etc. Now all students who aren't local residents are supposed to pay a 500 Euro tuition on top of that; however, they can't currently force anyone to pay because the distinction between residents and non-residents is currently being challenged at the Federal Constitutional Court, which is roughly the German Supreme Court.)
The tuition-less deal is actually pretty good; those 170 Euros not only buy you cheap prices in the cafeteria, if you travel much the semester ticket is also a real money saver, as it equals free access to all public transportation in the VBN and VEJ networks (which cover all of Bremen and a good chunk of Lower Saxony) as well as free 2nd class rides on certain railroad lines. In fact, you can freely travel between Bremen, Hannover, Hamburg and all towns serviced by the connecting lines at your leisure. Oh yeah, of course the semester ticket is valid until the next semester starts, completely ignoring things like holidays that technically aren't part of the semester. The deal is so good that I know people who re-immatriculate every semester even though they have a job and (almost) never attend any courses.
Of course, the 500 Euro tuition makes the deal a lot less sweet...
</ramble>
It's not like I want to... But 90% of all hobbyist web developers do. Unless the medium is easy to work with and supports the latest in interactive bling bling, they're not going to use it, whether it's called PDF or XHTML.
There's still the little issue where MSIE's support for XHTML goes just far enough to make it equivalent to HTML 4.01. Imagine if people wrote XHTML 2 like they write HTML 4 today. MSIE wouldn't choke, it would just run everything through the tag soup parser and be happy. Many users wouldn't make sure their code validates or even passes as well-formed, because IE doesn't complain. All other browsers would also use the tag soup parser on XHTML in order to cope with the new, broken web.
Let's face it, unless all major players agree to play by its rules, XHTML just isn't a viable HTML replacement. And Microsoft doesn't give a shit about XHTML. So either IE's market share is marginalized or Microsoft suddenly develops respect for the XHTML standard or XHTML just won't take off.
"Ideot"?
I heard that they plan on putting "database-like filesystem" on the "Great New Features" list for Windows 7. And Windows 8. And Windows 9...
Don't forget to put something on the "other" volume that looks like you'd like it hidden, but is completely useless. Giving a password to an empty volume probably won't help at all.
Hmm... I've always wondered how the opposite of MAD would look like. MAD works by having very strong weapons against which thre are no defense - but what if someone came up with a very strong defense which no known weapon can penetrate? How would global politics look?
I think encryption is like that, on a small scale. It's easy for modern home computers to use 256-bit encryption, which is pretty much impenetrable through brute force; everone becomes infeasible to attack from that angle. As a result, the attacks go to other areas - the attacker tries to get hold of the key or maybe set up conditions under which the search space can be reduced. But directly breaking into a properly encrypted transmission remains unfeasible.
Interesting.
Actually, an Asimovian robot would make a pretty good dom, as well. Well, if you either leave the SM out of BDSM (leaving BD and DS) or have a first law that allows the infliction of non-severe pain and possibly light bruising. At least as an intermediary dom, an Asimovian robot could work quite well.
It does exist, it just defied description. One can certainly be happy. I have been known to be happy on occasion; it's not unheard of. However, to actually describe what the various states of emotion I lump together under the umbrella term of "happiness" mean, is extremely difficult at least.
It's a bit like life - we can explain part of it in one special form. However, we can not conclusively describe what "life" actually means. Still, it does certainly exist.
Great, now the CIA can lace water supplies from orbit.
Come to think of it, the CIA switching their evil drugging regime from hallucinogenics to date rape drugs does strike me as somewhat disturbing. Excuse me while I'm off to buy a tin foil-enhanced chastity belt.
Also, don't forget the epic German shrt movie "Staplerfahrer Klaus" ("Forklift Driver Klaus"). YouTube has a subtitled version for your viewing convenience.
Interesingly, even though meant as a parody of workplace safety training videos, the movie is actually used as one by certain companies... The points it makes are valid and it does get them across.
Come to think about it... In the movies, the sand people always hit and the stormtroopers always missed (at least with hand-held blasters). Old Ben certainly had a peculiar way of seeing things.
How about someone with a disorder, though? Would he end up on the list? Some people have no control over themselves when they commit a crime and while most of them are intitutionalized, some can live a normal live if medicated and thus serve a regular sentence. Granted, it's a corner case, but I always feel queasy when part of someone's crime record is published. It makes that person very vulnerable, even to attacks they don't deserve.
The problem is that you can't let the concernde parents see this list without letting the concerned gun-toting lunatics see it. While the list might be good when you see it, it becomes less so when Billy Hicks reads it as a list to local hunting targets. And the chance of someone making a very bad decision is higher for an emotionally charged crime such as this.
I don't have a better alternative off the bat, but this list does pose a very real threat to the safety of everyone on it - whether justified or not, as seen in this case.
If you want to make sure that child molesters don't get near children anymore, lock them up for life instead of submitting them to a particularly humiliating form of mob "justice". Lifelong imprisonment would be more humane (and yes, even child molesters deserve to be treated as human beings).
Even though that was immensely funny, if RJ's widow would read your post she'd be so pulling her braid over it...
You do know that book 12 will be the last one? Everything after that will be potential prequels and sidestory bits; the main series will be concluded in the 12th book. RJ has stated that fact several times and Sanderson has stated so himself, in this very article discussion.
Doesn't make a difference to me; I'm German and the German release gets split into three to four sub-books. That's a good thing, actually, because that way I don't have to wait for all of it to be translated.
Yeah, I should read the original, but after having invested a lot of shelf space and money in the German version so far I'm going to read the German ending, as well. Also, I'm not the only person in the family who reads Jordan.
I sure hope it fits my "Moiraine, Lanfear and Asmodean chilling out on a beach in a parellel universe, laughing about the people who still haven't realized the *elfinn are animatronic puppets" theory.
For some reason my theory is seen as unlikely by other fans of the series.
Hello? Fantasy author. You don't become a good fantasy author if you're entirely sane. Sane people are boring.
I think Jordan's strong point lies in the way he fleshes out his world. The WoT series appeals to me because it gives me detailed, dynamic world that adheres to certain rules. Seeing the characters interact with these rules and the state of the world makes it interesting. It's one interconnected whole, which is much more than you get with most novels/series.
Sure, Jordan sometimes writes repetitively. Sure, some characters keep reiterating their motivations (although one might interpret this as them being focused). Sure, the characters tend to come to the dumbest possible conclusions and the adhere to them as if they were holy scripture - as seen when Rand cleaned Saidin and all Aes Sedai concluded this must be a weapon of the Forsaken, even though such a slow weapon would be downright stupid. Sure, many readers don't care about what Elayne thinks of Birgitte's chioce in clothing and the latest fashiond trend it has sparked.
But even though the writing has obvious flaws I love the Wheel of Time series, because the world is so very detailed; that makes it immersive to me. Even though many characters are somewhat two-dimensional, they are believable (the real world has plenty of two-dimensional people, as well). I guess it's a matter of taste. I like the overdetailed world of WoT, even though most of its inhabitants' thoughts could be algorithmically predicted in P-time.
Let's not forget the "Rand cleans Saidin" equivalent:
Book 17:
Chapter 1: Hansel and Gretel's father cuts down a tree.
Chapter 2: The evil stepmother turns toward the lugging site and wonders about what kind of diabolical weapon could have made such a noise.
Chapter 2: The witch turns toward the lugging site and wonders about what kind of diabolical weapon could have made such a noise.
Chapter 3: Hansel turns toward the lugging site and wonders about what kind of diabolical weapon could have made such a noise.
Chapter 4: Gretel turns toward the lugging site and wonders about what kind of diabolical weapon could have made such a noise.
Chapter 5: The axe manufacturer turns toward the lugging site and wonders about what kind of diabolical weapon could have made such a noise.
Chapter 6: Robert Jordan turns toward the lugging site and wonders about what kind of diabolical weapon could have made such a noise.