> Geek girls are incapable of being loving and considerate, and unloving and inconsiderate geek guys have to avoid that.
I think you're right to call Rob on this generalization, but at the same time I think he's right to suggest that the Geek Girl of your Dreams may not exist. There's no need to say that this is only true for inconsiderate geek guys - the fact is that there are more computer geek guys than girls, so if you are only willing to go out with geek girls, you're seriously damaging your odds. I don't see any need to read this statement with the subtext you've given it.
> The ideal woman is one who selflessly meets your every needs.
Obviously this is an unattainable standard, and I doubt Rob's SO actually qualifies. However, I think that for a relationship to work, both people need to selflessly serve each other, and since everybody's needs are different, it's entirely possible that you may find someone like this. OTOH, you may be better off trying to meet her halfway. And, again, I think you've read a subtext into Rob's message that he didn't intend.
> The proper role for the woman is that of handservant, who considers running your bathwater to be part of a "mutually beneficial" relationship.
There is no proper role for a woman or man. The only quality that you could assign to such a role is that the woman or man in question should be happy in it, and the roles we are happy in are all different. And again, this is not the way I read Rob's intentions.
> One way to evaluate a woman is to take off her clothes and makeup.
Well, but it is, isn't it? You may not think that it's a fair way to evaluate a woman, but it's a way. If the woman of your dreams doesn't enjoy seeing you naked, she's not going to try, and the same is true for you. It's tremendously unfortunate that human beings can't just meet mind-to-mind, but it's true. The good news is that one person's yuck is another's yum.
> In bars, the females that are unattainable are called "women" while the ones that you are supposed to go after are called "girls".
This is pretty tired, don't you think?
> If a woman finds you unattractive, dump her as quickly as possible.
As opposed to what? If she doesn't find you attractive, what are you supposed to do, get cosmetic surgery? I think this is good advice.
> Grown breasts are worth waiting for.
What, they're not? Is it not valid for a guy to find breasts attractive? This is silly, in both senses - it's silly to be down on guys for liking breasts, and it's also silly to wait for them to grow. Further, it's not the point. The point is: be nice to people. Don't assume that because you find someone unattractive now, it's okay to treat them badly. I think this is good advice.
> Be nice to geeky looking girls, just in case they grow up and look good.
How about, "be nice to everybody, because it feels good, and maybe you'll get some benefit from it as well?"
> In spite of all of the above, imperfections are to be overlooked.
Given that nobody we know is perfect, I think you have to say that this is true. Either that, or you need to embark on a program of changing your world into a place where there are only perfect people, which is not really what Rob's trying to help you do here.
> All women are looking for a man to fill the empty void in their lives.
I think Rob pretty clearly didn't say this. He said "some are, and some aren't, and you shouldn't be looking for the ones who aren't, because you won't get anywhere with them." And indeed, women who are looking for you to "fill a void in their lives" are probably going to make you miserable. But there are women who know what they want, include "having a man who pleases me" as one of the things they want, are willing to go out and find such a man, and will be pleased when they do. Why is this a problem?
> If you're not having any success, find someone like Roblimo, considers himself an expert at picking up chix and is ready to dispense a handful of advice because he has a pleasant and apparently subservient wife who meets his needs.
It seems to me that Rob was giving some advice in a brotherly way that he intended to be of help. While his advice does reflect his own values, with which you apparently don't agree, it was nonetheless well-intentioned, and I think if you read it with that in mind it can also be helpful. So why beat him up about it? I don't get it!
Sounds bizarre, so he must be a schmuck.
on
Time Doesn't Exist
·
· Score: 1
This seems to be the gist of what you're saying, anyway. Every single tenet of modern science was first proposed by somebody who was considered a crackpot. This fellow claims to have modeled this problem and come up with consistent results. Instead of attacking his credentials, which seem reasonably legitimate to me, shouldn't you actually look at the modeling he did and see if you can poke a hole in it? A critique that is not based on science doesn't make sense here - do you want so badly for him to be wrong that you feel you must try to debunk him even if you reasoning is not sound?
Hm. But WRT quantum mechanics, we *do* observe the wave nature of particles in some cases - e.g., in the case of diffraction of a laser beam. In this case, the wave does not collapse - we can observe it.
You seem to be ascribing to the observer some seperateness from the system being observed, which has never made sense to me. His explanation actually permits the observer to be part of the system, which makes more sense. Really, he is calling into question what the "you" is to which you refer in the above response. If you think of the "you" itself as indeterminate, then I think your claim that he is having you do an integral flies out the window - what he is saying is that "you" is not what you think "you" is, and that's why you have a perception of time.
What I'm trying to figure out in asking you to elucidate is whether you have some intuitive feeling that the author has made a mistake, or whether you have a clear indication that you can point to, and some facts to back it up. If the latter is true, I'd very much like to understand your reasoning. If all you are doing is rejecting the idea of an indeterminate "you", I don't think this counts as a rebuttal, nor have you proven that what the author has said is silly.
I read the article, and found it interesting. Your criticism of it didn't connect for me - what you say makes sense, but I don't see how it connects to the article. I think I may not know some fundamental thing that you assumed when you wrote this comment.
Can you try to say more about your reasoning and how it connects to the article?
What they're talking about is that you queue an I/O, and you get a notification when it completes. I.e, instead of calling write and expecting a result, you call something like write that sets a semaphore, and semaphore is released when the bits are actually on disk and the filesystem metadata reflects that. In classic Unix, you really can't do this - write just stuffs the bits in the buffer, and only blocks if there's no buffer space, so a return from write doesn't mean the data is on disk. You can call fsync, but then you have to wait. You can wait in a thread, but this gets ugly if you're doing a lot of transactions at once - you start filling up your process table. The same is true on read - you can't really doselect on a disk file, for example - it'll always say ready, even though it isn't, and even if you hacked select to say "yes, there's data in the readahead buffer," there's no way to ask how much, or to say "do you have the 4096 bytes starting at location 131072 yet?"
This is a really nice feature, and is something for which I believe there is a Posix spec. Unfortunately, neither Linux nor NetBSD currently implement it. Database vendors in particular consider this to be A Big Deal. The ISC DHCP server has this problem, because it can't grant an address to a DHCP client until it's sure the record of the grant is on disk, which has to be done with fsync. This is probably our biggest bottleneck.:'(
Oh, come on! In the context, I can only assume you mean crackers. If so, this is a rather grandiose claim. It may indeed be that some kids who were crackers in high school may now be contributing greatly to the economy, but I don't think it's true that had they chosen a different path, they would not have been able to make this contribution.
I was actually expelled from high school for cracking the academic computer. I cracked the academic computer because I had pretty much exhausted the learning that I could do on it without cracking security (or so I thought). I became involved in the Free Software movement largely as a result of this - I don't think any student should see cracking as the only remaining productive use for their creative energy once they feel they exhausted the possibilities provided by their local environment. In joining the Free Software movement, and doing my best to provide cool stuff for fledgling hackers to hack on, I feel that I am providing an alternate creative path.
What the DOJ is doing is kind of silly, but I don't think it's wrong. They would be better advised to approach students constructively, instead of just propogandizing. Of course, propogandizing is arguably cheaper...
I think you're right. The Shattered Chain was probably the defining book of the Darkover series for me. BTW, have people read The Survivors? This is completely unrelated, but another of my favorite pieces of her fiction.
This review is needlessly cynical. Yes, the world is a harsh, difficult place. But the very naivite of which you accuse him is what led him to bull through the resistance to his ideas and demonstrate them in action. Don't be too sure that this naivite is a weakness, even now. And why so quick to post a bad review that will almost certainly cost this book readers who might well have appreciated it if you hadn't discouraged them from trying?
When I was living in California, I used Blue Cross, which was fairly reasonable (~$130/month, and I was about 33 at the time).
Here in New York, insurance is a *lot* more expensive. I'm currently getting coverage through the National Writers Union at $277/month.
Others have pointed out that IEEE has insurance - so does the ACM, and if you're a hacker with a degree or have been in the field for a while, it's easy to join and includes some other useful bennies as well.
Slashdot Mirror
> Geek girls are incapable of being loving and considerate, and unloving and inconsiderate geek guys have to avoid that.
I think you're right to call Rob on this generalization, but at the same time I think he's right to suggest that the Geek Girl of your Dreams may not exist. There's no need to say that this is only true for inconsiderate geek guys - the fact is that there are more computer geek guys than girls, so if you are only willing to go out with geek girls, you're seriously damaging your odds. I don't see any need to read this statement with the subtext you've given it.
> The ideal woman is one who selflessly meets your every needs.
Obviously this is an unattainable standard, and I doubt Rob's SO actually qualifies. However, I think that for a relationship to work, both people need to selflessly serve each other, and since everybody's needs are different, it's entirely possible that you may find someone like this. OTOH, you may be better off trying to meet her halfway. And, again, I think you've read a subtext into Rob's message that he didn't intend.
> The proper role for the woman is that of handservant, who considers running your bathwater to be part of a "mutually beneficial" relationship.
There is no proper role for a woman or man. The only quality that you could assign to such a role is that the woman or man in question should be happy in it, and the roles we are happy in are all different. And again, this is not the way I read Rob's intentions.
> One way to evaluate a woman is to take off her clothes and makeup.
Well, but it is, isn't it? You may not think that it's a fair way to evaluate a woman, but it's a way. If the woman of your dreams doesn't enjoy seeing you naked, she's not going to try, and the same is true for you. It's tremendously unfortunate that human beings can't just meet mind-to-mind, but it's true. The good news is that one person's yuck is another's yum.
> In bars, the females that are unattainable are called "women" while the ones that you are supposed to go after are called "girls".
This is pretty tired, don't you think?
> If a woman finds you unattractive, dump her as quickly as possible.
As opposed to what? If she doesn't find you attractive, what are you supposed to do, get cosmetic surgery? I think this is good advice.
> Grown breasts are worth waiting for.
What, they're not? Is it not valid for a guy to find breasts attractive? This is silly, in both senses - it's silly to be down on guys for liking breasts, and it's also silly to wait for them to grow. Further, it's not the point. The point is: be nice to people. Don't assume that because you find someone unattractive now, it's okay to treat them badly. I think this is good advice.
> Be nice to geeky looking girls, just in case they grow up and look good.
How about, "be nice to everybody, because it feels good, and maybe you'll get some benefit from it as well?"
> In spite of all of the above, imperfections are to be overlooked.
Given that nobody we know is perfect, I think you have to say that this is true. Either that, or you need to embark on a program of changing your world into a place where there are only perfect people, which is not really what Rob's trying to help you do here.
> All women are looking for a man to fill the empty void in their lives.
I think Rob pretty clearly didn't say this. He said "some are, and some aren't, and you shouldn't be looking for the ones who aren't, because you won't get anywhere with them." And indeed, women who are looking for you to "fill a void in their lives" are probably going to make you miserable. But there are women who know what they want, include "having a man who pleases me" as one of the things they want, are willing to go out and find such a man, and will be pleased when they do. Why is this a problem?
> If you're not having any success, find someone like Roblimo, considers himself an expert at picking up chix and is ready to dispense a handful of advice because he has a pleasant and apparently subservient wife who meets his needs.
It seems to me that Rob was giving some advice in a brotherly way that he intended to be of help. While his advice does reflect his own values, with which you apparently don't agree, it was nonetheless well-intentioned, and I think if you read it with that in mind it can also be helpful. So why beat him up about it? I don't get it!
This seems to be the gist of what you're saying, anyway. Every single tenet of modern science was first proposed by somebody who was considered a crackpot. This fellow claims to have modeled this problem and come up with consistent results. Instead of attacking his credentials, which seem reasonably legitimate to me, shouldn't you actually look at the modeling he did and see if you can poke a hole in it? A critique that is not based on science doesn't make sense here - do you want so badly for him to be wrong that you feel you must try to debunk him even if you reasoning is not sound?
You seem to be ascribing to the observer some seperateness from the system being observed, which has never made sense to me. His explanation actually permits the observer to be part of the system, which makes more sense. Really, he is calling into question what the "you" is to which you refer in the above response. If you think of the "you" itself as indeterminate, then I think your claim that he is having you do an integral flies out the window - what he is saying is that "you" is not what you think "you" is, and that's why you have a perception of time.
What I'm trying to figure out in asking you to elucidate is whether you have some intuitive feeling that the author has made a mistake, or whether you have a clear indication that you can point to, and some facts to back it up. If the latter is true, I'd very much like to understand your reasoning. If all you are doing is rejecting the idea of an indeterminate "you", I don't think this counts as a rebuttal, nor have you proven that what the author has said is silly.
Can you try to say more about your reasoning and how it connects to the article?
What they're talking about is that you queue an I/O, and you get a notification when it completes. I.e, instead of calling write and expecting a result, you call something like write that sets a semaphore, and semaphore is released when the bits are actually on disk and the filesystem metadata reflects that. In classic Unix, you really can't do this - write just stuffs the bits in the buffer, and only blocks if there's no buffer space, so a return from write doesn't mean the data is on disk. You can call fsync, but then you have to wait. You can wait in a thread, but this gets ugly if you're doing a lot of transactions at once - you start filling up your process table. The same is true on read - you can't really doselect on a disk file, for example - it'll always say ready, even though it isn't, and even if you hacked select to say "yes, there's data in the readahead buffer," there's no way to ask how much, or to say "do you have the 4096 bytes starting at location 131072 yet?"
This is a really nice feature, and is something for which I believe there is a Posix spec. Unfortunately, neither Linux nor NetBSD currently implement it. Database vendors in particular consider this to be A Big Deal. The ISC DHCP server has this problem, because it can't grant an address to a DHCP client until it's sure the record of the grant is on disk, which has to be done with fsync. This is probably our biggest bottleneck. :'(
I was actually expelled from high school for cracking the academic computer. I cracked the academic computer because I had pretty much exhausted the learning that I could do on it without cracking security (or so I thought). I became involved in the Free Software movement largely as a result of this - I don't think any student should see cracking as the only remaining productive use for their creative energy once they feel they exhausted the possibilities provided by their local environment. In joining the Free Software movement, and doing my best to provide cool stuff for fledgling hackers to hack on, I feel that I am providing an alternate creative path.
What the DOJ is doing is kind of silly, but I don't think it's wrong. They would be better advised to approach students constructively, instead of just propogandizing. Of course, propogandizing is arguably cheaper...
Sigh.
I think you're right. The Shattered Chain was probably the defining book of the Darkover series for me. BTW, have people read The Survivors? This is completely unrelated, but another of my favorite pieces of her fiction.
That's all. No big deal.
This review is needlessly cynical. Yes, the world is a harsh, difficult place. But the very naivite of which you accuse him is what led him to bull through the resistance to his ideas and demonstrate them in action. Don't be too sure that this naivite is a weakness, even now. And why so quick to post a bad review that will almost certainly cost this book readers who might well have appreciated it if you hadn't discouraged them from trying?
When I was living in California, I used Blue Cross, which was fairly reasonable (~$130/month, and I was about 33 at the time).
Here in New York, insurance is a *lot* more expensive. I'm currently getting coverage through the National Writers Union at $277/month.
Others have pointed out that IEEE has insurance - so does the ACM, and if you're a hacker with a degree or have been in the field for a while, it's easy to join and includes some other useful bennies as well.