Liking the benefits of an open standard doesnt help that most of us have hundreds of mp3 files that need to be supported by whatever device we choose.
Oh no! My ogg-playing device won't play all my mp3s! Eh? I think the only device in the history of the universe not to play mp3s was that ridiculous ATRAC thing that Sony came out with.
While Michael Crichton did graduate from Harvard medical school he is not and never has been licensed to practice medicine. His writing career had started to to take off while he was still a student and he only finished school at the urging of the Dean.
And nowadays he's about as scientific as "Dr" Deepak Chopra.
I haven't had mod points for a very long time, so I've forgotten a few of the categories. But I think the problem comes from the lack of good alternatives. There is no "unfunny", "uninteresting", "obvious", "ignorant" and so on. People want to choose a negative mod for your post and only have one or two to choose from.
Please note I am not implying you fall into any of those categories. I didn't go up to read your parent post, so I'm only addressing your point here, not whether you received valid moderations. For all I know, they maybe were flame bait!:-)
I know this is irrelevant and does not demean your point in any way, but I thought I'd mention it anyway: You can't take photos of the Sistine Chapel. I was there a couple of months ago and the place is run more like a prison than an art gallery.
You're not allowed to talk in the chapel (art appreciation is obviously a lone endeavor). You are not only not allowed flash photography, you're not allowed anything with a lens pointed at the ceiling. And considering it is a ceiling most of the works are obscured in darkness. Using a zoom lens would have been really useful: you're just in danger of being "escorted from the premises" by an guard with a stick up his arse. The ceiling is so far up that you hurt your neck looking at it - but naturally sitting or lying on the floor is verboten, because that would only allow you to view the majesty of the piece.
The guard shouts out every 15 seconds "silence! ssh! no talking!" and so on. He is obviously the loudest thing in the room by a long way. The room was packed when I was there and it was obvious from looking at the people in the crowd that every single person was seething was hatred for this authoritarian wanker.
Designs and registered designs are different entities from copyright. They are different categories again. I think the full set in the intellectual property field is:
Copyright
Patent
Trademark
Design
Registered design
It's feasible that "moral rights" could be added to that list too.
The reason that Microsoft is so successful is in no small part to their innovations. Regardless of whether or not they created the ideas, by far the most difficult part is putting them into practice.
Wow, that's incredible. Microsoft is "successful [due to their] innovations [...] whether or not they created the ideas". Just think how much less work innovation takes if you don't need to think up your own ideas! Why, I might innovate the wheel this afternoon, if I can be bothered.
Truly it is an exciting new realm of discovery that awaits us.
You're missing the point. He's not saying that the species is worse off for having physically flawed individuals. He's simply pointing out that the human race is no longer improving through natural selection.
The human race - and this goes for all other species - was never "improving" since evolution is not a directed process. It merely changes. Take your teleological reasoning and wheesht.
As a specimen, ignoring our education and technology, are the humans of today any better off than we were ten thousand years ago? Almost certainly not. Survival of the species has shifted from genetic legacies to a technological legacy, which is not part of the definition of natural selection.
The definition of natural selection asks nothing of our physical fitness or ability to live to the age of 93 without suffering cancer or dementia. It is purely about passing on genetic material to the next generation. If a mutation arose which conferred almost certain death on a person past the age of 25 but at the same time upped that person's sex drive and ability to procreate beyond normal human capacity, that person's genes would be selected for. Even though by their mid 20s they would be suffering from a fine selection of cancers, diabetes, epilepsy and anything else you can think of.
Natural selection is not a directed process. Evolution is not a ladder.
If you studied philosophy you would know that the sentence "studying X is worth if you love it" is a tautology.
I disagree. I love sausages. Studying sausages would entail learning how they are made. Studying how sausages are made is said to put you off them for life. Hence, not necessarily true.
You hit the nail there. When I was a kid I used to love reading the Amiga magazines for all the weird stuff in the tutorial pages in the back. The stuff I had no hope of understanding and/or couldn't finance exploring (not having a genlock or hard drive or second floppy drive or whatever else). When I visit my in-laws' house I read his Mac magazines — they generally have some interesting tutorials on Photoshop and the like, which I try to apply to The GIMP.
But it's been years since I even felt the urge to read a Wintel-oriented magazine. Back when I was running '95 or '98 they all seemed to be about using Word or Excel. Around the time of ME they all seemed focussed on games and swish graphics.
So why is String theory regarded as the pretender to the throne? What's so special about general relativity (about from being a smidgen easier to understand)? Is it just because it was first?
If someone can maybe explain in terms of sets that would be extra helpful.
So how is that any different from intelligent design? If you can't test it, it isn't science.
But you can't test Intelligent Design by design, so to speak. Everything comes down to the classic response A Big Boy Did It And Ran Away (and yes, I am a Brookmyre fan!).
I don't know for certain, but I'm supposing that quantum physics and string theory make the same predictions about everyday life, in the same way that quantum and classical physics can be reconciled in most circumstances. But for certain cases the error margin between observation and classical prediction becomes too great. So where does non-string physics begin to stray from reality --- and can it be observed by current technology?
Strangely enough you wouldn't be able to make that claim about Gaelic though: the accepted way of talking about someone who knows that language is "having the Gaelic":
Do you have the Gaelic?
He has the Gaelic
How many people have the Gaelic in the whole of Scotland?
There should really be a Dvorak section (or whatever they're called) so I can explicitly turn it off in the preferences and never have to read about this idiot's whole-year-late opinions. Has he discovered MySpace yet? Jeez, what a twat.
In order to get to a university class only one thing is required — get the grades at school. Preferably in maths related subjects. I don't know about you, but most of the maths teachers (and all the good ones) at my school were women. The women took the top classes (including last two years) and the one men took the reprobates classes.
At school there are no geeks. I would have been right in there if there were, but alas there was nothing really geeky about it. The girls were under far greater expectation of succeeding than the boys; and conversely if any boys did well it was far worse for them in reputation than it was for girls. Conscientiousness and hard work was expected of girls; immaturity was expected of the boys. I think this is true for all of the UK — that's the culture here, as terrible as it may seem. The trends in university entrance rates reflect this: the number of women entering uni is much greater.
But that's not to suggest that I think the disparity between numbers of men and women in IT is not a problem. I just think the above interpretation doesn't follow from the facts. I know my girlfriend blames careers advice at her school for being sucky. They would only suggest medicine as a career path (because both her parents were medics). The wider field of biology and all of its excitement was not mentioned. I can imagine that would happen to plenty of other women who were otherwise excellent at maths or physics but didn't know what to do with themselves.
Slashdot Mirror
For a technology site there are an awful lot of neo-luddites around here.
Liking the benefits of an open standard doesnt help that most of us have hundreds of mp3 files that need to be supported by whatever device we choose. Oh no! My ogg-playing device won't play all my mp3s! Eh? I think the only device in the history of the universe not to play mp3s was that ridiculous ATRAC thing that Sony came out with.
Well, have you ever tried splitting one?
Last time I took a knife to an atom the damn thing blew up in my face! Got a nice head on my beer though....
I don't gedit.
I think it more likely that sourceforge is a list of projects. It may even be an infinite list. So you should probably iterate over the list lazily.
Yeah, but you win kudos in Santa's list for the Clerks II reference! :-)
No.
The swords are blunt, the stunt men are trained swordsmen.
Why would they need to pretend?
When was the last time you saw a hand-to-hand fight scene where the opponents were swinging past each other?
And nowadays he's about as scientific as "Dr" Deepak Chopra.
I haven't had mod points for a very long time, so I've forgotten a few of the categories. But I think the problem comes from the lack of good alternatives. There is no "unfunny", "uninteresting", "obvious", "ignorant" and so on. People want to choose a negative mod for your post and only have one or two to choose from.
Please note I am not implying you fall into any of those categories. I didn't go up to read your parent post, so I'm only addressing your point here, not whether you received valid moderations. For all I know, they maybe were flame bait! :-)
I know this is irrelevant and does not demean your point in any way, but I thought I'd mention it anyway: You can't take photos of the Sistine Chapel. I was there a couple of months ago and the place is run more like a prison than an art gallery.
You're not allowed to talk in the chapel (art appreciation is obviously a lone endeavor). You are not only not allowed flash photography, you're not allowed anything with a lens pointed at the ceiling. And considering it is a ceiling most of the works are obscured in darkness. Using a zoom lens would have been really useful: you're just in danger of being "escorted from the premises" by an guard with a stick up his arse. The ceiling is so far up that you hurt your neck looking at it - but naturally sitting or lying on the floor is verboten, because that would only allow you to view the majesty of the piece.
The guard shouts out every 15 seconds "silence! ssh! no talking!" and so on. He is obviously the loudest thing in the room by a long way. The room was packed when I was there and it was obvious from looking at the people in the crowd that every single person was seething was hatred for this authoritarian wanker.
As you can guess it really spoiled my day.
Designs and registered designs are different entities from copyright. They are different categories again. I think the full set in the intellectual property field is:
It's feasible that "moral rights" could be added to that list too.
Wow, that's incredible. Microsoft is "successful [due to their] innovations [...] whether or not they created the ideas". Just think how much less work innovation takes if you don't need to think up your own ideas! Why, I might innovate the wheel this afternoon, if I can be bothered.
Truly it is an exciting new realm of discovery that awaits us.
The human race - and this goes for all other species - was never "improving" since evolution is not a directed process. It merely changes. Take your teleological reasoning and wheesht.
The definition of natural selection asks nothing of our physical fitness or ability to live to the age of 93 without suffering cancer or dementia. It is purely about passing on genetic material to the next generation. If a mutation arose which conferred almost certain death on a person past the age of 25 but at the same time upped that person's sex drive and ability to procreate beyond normal human capacity, that person's genes would be selected for. Even though by their mid 20s they would be suffering from a fine selection of cancers, diabetes, epilepsy and anything else you can think of.
Natural selection is not a directed process. Evolution is not a ladder.
It seems humour is rarer than good grammar around here...
I disagree. I love sausages. Studying sausages would entail learning how they are made. Studying how sausages are made is said to put you off them for life. Hence, not necessarily true.
You hit the nail there. When I was a kid I used to love reading the Amiga magazines for all the weird stuff in the tutorial pages in the back. The stuff I had no hope of understanding and/or couldn't finance exploring (not having a genlock or hard drive or second floppy drive or whatever else). When I visit my in-laws' house I read his Mac magazines — they generally have some interesting tutorials on Photoshop and the like, which I try to apply to The GIMP.
But it's been years since I even felt the urge to read a Wintel-oriented magazine. Back when I was running '95 or '98 they all seemed to be about using Word or Excel. Around the time of ME they all seemed focussed on games and swish graphics.
Have they got interesting yet?
Excellent! :)
So why is String theory regarded as the pretender to the throne? What's so special about general relativity (about from being a smidgen easier to understand)? Is it just because it was first?
If someone can maybe explain in terms of sets that would be extra helpful.
But you can't test Intelligent Design by design, so to speak. Everything comes down to the classic response A Big Boy Did It And Ran Away (and yes, I am a Brookmyre fan!).
I don't know for certain, but I'm supposing that quantum physics and string theory make the same predictions about everyday life, in the same way that quantum and classical physics can be reconciled in most circumstances. But for certain cases the error margin between observation and classical prediction becomes too great. So where does non-string physics begin to stray from reality --- and can it be observed by current technology?
Strangely enough you wouldn't be able to make that claim about Gaelic though: the accepted way of talking about someone who knows that language is "having the Gaelic":
There should really be a Dvorak section (or whatever they're called) so I can explicitly turn it off in the preferences and never have to read about this idiot's whole-year-late opinions. Has he discovered MySpace yet? Jeez, what a twat.
In order to get to a university class only one thing is required — get the grades at school. Preferably in maths related subjects. I don't know about you, but most of the maths teachers (and all the good ones) at my school were women. The women took the top classes (including last two years) and the one men took the reprobates classes.
At school there are no geeks. I would have been right in there if there were, but alas there was nothing really geeky about it. The girls were under far greater expectation of succeeding than the boys; and conversely if any boys did well it was far worse for them in reputation than it was for girls. Conscientiousness and hard work was expected of girls; immaturity was expected of the boys. I think this is true for all of the UK — that's the culture here, as terrible as it may seem. The trends in university entrance rates reflect this: the number of women entering uni is much greater.
But that's not to suggest that I think the disparity between numbers of men and women in IT is not a problem. I just think the above interpretation doesn't follow from the facts. I know my girlfriend blames careers advice at her school for being sucky. They would only suggest medicine as a career path (because both her parents were medics). The wider field of biology and all of its excitement was not mentioned. I can imagine that would happen to plenty of other women who were otherwise excellent at maths or physics but didn't know what to do with themselves.
It's the upgrade to man. Less terse, so presumably a bit like info but hopefully a good deal easier to use. I always get lost using info.
Reminds me of the Roald Dahl short story about the ant-eater who ate someone's aunt because their accent rendered the two words the same.
I can't remember what the story was called.
Shit, I meant ontogenetic depth. Oops. :)
The same units as for ontological depth, by strange coincidence.