well, yes. when you get certified for a particular distro, you're going to get informed about *that* distro and no other. fortunately, for most human beings, learning one thing does not outright prevent them from learning other things.
Re:Percy Schmeiser in his own words
on
Open Source Life?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
yeah, okay, i was feeling pretty sympathetic, giving this guy the benefit of the doubt until:
Another clause: You're not allowed to show this letter to anyone and you're not allowed to tell anyone that you've received this letter from Monsanto or what Monsanto has done to you. So, a total suppression of farmers rights, freedom of speech and expression. (about the extortion letters)
yeah, this might be something written in the letter but everyone with two brains to rub together knows that extortion is illegal and a clause in a letter does not make it a legally binding document, except in the case where it says that the information is confidential and patented. last i checked, threats did not fall into that category.
and he might have been a farmer for many years, but i took biology. i can name a number of dominant genes which haven't taken over the world.
as a female software engineer, i would argue that the title is not gender biased. the phrase in use is man month, not person period or woman week or anything else. people use the words man or mankind to refer to both genders all the time. it doesn't make them sexist, as long as you don't imply that a woman-month would be anything different.
i don't often believe in you, but i'll make an exception in this case.
please don't let necroponte build a media lab of the world. i mean, look, india was smart. they shut theirs down. you know, because media lab india didn't *do* anything. ireland has not caught on yet, and the united states, well, we started the damn thing.
the world should not be full of cat toys that think, and refridgerators that share your leftovers. and the governments of the world should not be putting tax dollars to create such things.
apparently computers are also a huge source of greenhouse gas. if you're feeling environmentally friendly, check this out:
http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=19604 28
not really. you can always log in to another computer.
my guess is that these devices will be carried around by users everywhere they go, because, after all, it's their phone. if that's the case, they won't be able to be authenticated to a network all of the time, meaning that they'll probably be highly personalized with something like the SIM chips you find in cell phones.
everybody these days wants a cell phone - fax machine - dot matrix printer that will make them a frappachino (sp?). sure, there are people who recognize that having a single point of failure sucks. (oh, no, your battery died. no more frappachino or cell phone or dot matrix printing until you can plug the sucker back in.) but there are a lot more who don't want to carry the fax, the cell phone, and the frappachino-maker.
this won't go corporate, because enough people at major companies will realize the whole single point of failure thing, and that they'll lose a lot of money waiting for workers' supermegagadget to come back from the shop, but i definitely think there's a market for small devices that do everything.
i absolutely agree with you. this reminds me of a situation which is currently in place here in boston. they have decided to start randomly IDing people when they take the T. clearly, knowing who is on the T at a given time doesn't prevent or deter that person from bringing a bomb on board. however, it gives some people a false sense of security. that's exactly what this would be: a false sense of security and, as an earlier poster mentioned, a bunch of valid email addresses in a nice little list for a spammer from china. oh, and of course, a waste of taxpayer money.
i don't think this is a likely scenario unless another major catastrophe of the 9-11 flavor occurs (which is a possibility). a lawmaker would have a hard time pitching this idea without pissing a lot of people off and i think the only way it would make it through congress would be if people were so concerned for their safety that they thought tracking everyone's movements was the only way to go.
now it's true that people are notoriously bad about keeping their electronic transmissions private, but i believe that to be a very different scenario to the one where the government tracks your movements. the latter is much more obviously big brother to the average internet user who thinks that everything they send is private.
perhaps your last comment about the microwave is the best reason not to be worried about RFID. granted, you can't stick your tires in there . . .
to address your other point, though, about being informed: it can go both ways. look for example at the organic foods market. consumers are uninformed about what goes into their food so they say, 'aha! i want to know exactly what's in my food and i want to be able to pronounce it!' thus a whole new aisle at the grocery store appears. same thing applies here. companies can advertise 'absolutely NO electronics in our clothes, just pure hemp.' and the crowd goes wild!
i have seen that, but perhaps i haven't clearly explained my point. if there is a market, that is, if people care, someone will produce tires that don't have RFID tags in them. if enough people care, nobody will put RFID tags in them. i would be surprised if not enough people found it worth it to them to pay $5 more for that privacy that someone would rise to fill that niche. that's the wonderful thing about a somewhat free market economy.
also, not a lawyer, but i'm pretty sure that you can't get a speeding ticket (most places) if a cop doesn't actually pull you over. i seem to recall some program where a city (nyc?) enlisted students to augment the police force in giving speeding tickets, but it wouldn't fly.
also also, there are other ways to get around than cars.
i don't understand the big fear of lack of privacy due to RFID tags. capitalism just takes care of it. if enough people don't want their location known, there will be a market for clothing, etc that does not have RFID tags embedded in it. the government's never going to say (knock on wood) that all clothes or shoes or whatever must have RFID tags, so it's really not something to worry about.
what i meant to say was that it's wrong (imho) in the sense that it implies that we consider less human-like graphics to be more human-like than the ones that are more accurate.
Actually I think this similarities make the differences more noticable.
that's a good point. in response i would say that if you're trying to play the *exact* same musical note twice (a better analogy, i think, considering that we're trying to imitate exactly the appearance of humans), you're more likely to notice the quarter octave difference than the half-note.
i think my main issue with the article is that it claims that we think of animations/robots that are less human-looking as more human, when there is no evidence to support that idea. perhaps it is true that we generally find the less human-like things less creepy, but we certainly don't think they're more human. (imho.)
exactly. they even say that eyes and mouths don't move correctly when the characters speak. the article is very self-contradictory in the sense that it continues to claim that as graphics get more humanlike, they get more creepy, but the creepiness is due to the differences, not the similarities.
but really, are very realistic paintings of people creepy? (and paintings as realistic as photographs *do* exist) no! why? because they're *realistic*.
oh, and the author thinks his roomba is cute because it acts sort of like a *pet*. a very stupid and clean pet, but a pet, not a human.
Look at my posting history for this topic; being a sysadmin is about more than just keeping stuff from breaking -- even if software never crashed, sysadmins would be needed, because system administration is all about the management of computer resources.
again, excuse my ignorance but is this enough to warrant having a full-time position devoted to it? or several? i still think that, if nothing else, it seems as though the need for sysadmins will decrease over time.
of course we'll still need sysadmins. systems will always need people to keep them from crashing, and management sure as hell won't know what to do.
what will change, i believe, is the status that sysadmins now hold. i believe that they will either become part of the company in a larger sense (that is, as an engineer or tech with sysadmin on the side) or that they will become like car mechanics, someone you call in when things break.
call me naive, but i do think that systems will get more stable. i mean, even windows is much more stable than it used to be. and, if this is the case, system crashes will be less frequent, as will software/hardware upgrades, and emerging technologies will become easier to install. thus, the need for a full-time sysadmin will decrease, even with emerging technology.
of course, i'm talking out of my ass. i've never been a sysadmin, so feel free to correct anything that i've said that is totally wrong or anything (which i'm sure is plenty) that i've forgotten about what a sysadmin does.
Slashdot Mirror
well, yes. when you get certified for a particular distro, you're going to get informed about *that* distro and no other. fortunately, for most human beings, learning one thing does not outright prevent them from learning other things.
Another clause: You're not allowed to show this letter to anyone and you're not allowed to tell anyone that you've received this letter from Monsanto or what Monsanto has done to you. So, a total suppression of farmers rights, freedom of speech and expression. (about the extortion letters)
yeah, this might be something written in the letter but everyone with two brains to rub together knows that extortion is illegal and a clause in a letter does not make it a legally binding document, except in the case where it says that the information is confidential and patented. last i checked, threats did not fall into that category.
and he might have been a farmer for many years, but i took biology. i can name a number of dominant genes which haven't taken over the world.
just like we should not publish our source code because then hackers will find exploits, right?
or maybe i just didn't realize you were kidding. there are plenty of people who don't joke about these things. :)
as a female software engineer, i would argue that the title is not gender biased. the phrase in use is man month, not person period or woman week or anything else. people use the words man or mankind to refer to both genders all the time. it doesn't make them sexist, as long as you don't imply that a woman-month would be anything different.
i don't often believe in you, but i'll make an exception in this case.
please don't let necroponte build a media lab of the world. i mean, look, india was smart. they shut theirs down. you know, because media lab india didn't *do* anything. ireland has not caught on yet, and the united states, well, we started the damn thing.
the world should not be full of cat toys that think, and refridgerators that share your leftovers. and the governments of the world should not be putting tax dollars to create such things.
thanks, peace out,
i have a very good reason: they make me look ugly and pale. or maybe that's my monitor tan . . .
apologies
apparently computers are also a huge source of greenhouse gas. if you're feeling environmentally friendly, check this out: http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=19604 28
when i first read the title i thought 'what's an article about dog food doing on /.?'
i think he is confused. by soul he means tabs.
my guess is that these devices will be carried around by users everywhere they go, because, after all, it's their phone. if that's the case, they won't be able to be authenticated to a network all of the time, meaning that they'll probably be highly personalized with something like the SIM chips you find in cell phones.
this won't go corporate, because enough people at major companies will realize the whole single point of failure thing, and that they'll lose a lot of money waiting for workers' supermegagadget to come back from the shop, but i definitely think there's a market for small devices that do everything.
i absolutely agree with you. this reminds me of a situation which is currently in place here in boston. they have decided to start randomly IDing people when they take the T. clearly, knowing who is on the T at a given time doesn't prevent or deter that person from bringing a bomb on board. however, it gives some people a false sense of security. that's exactly what this would be: a false sense of security and, as an earlier poster mentioned, a bunch of valid email addresses in a nice little list for a spammer from china. oh, and of course, a waste of taxpayer money.
so yahoo gets paid. i want to get paid for the time i spent sifting through my inbox and hunting down spam filters.
now it's true that people are notoriously bad about keeping their electronic transmissions private, but i believe that to be a very different scenario to the one where the government tracks your movements. the latter is much more obviously big brother to the average internet user who thinks that everything they send is private.
to address your other point, though, about being informed: it can go both ways. look for example at the organic foods market. consumers are uninformed about what goes into their food so they say, 'aha! i want to know exactly what's in my food and i want to be able to pronounce it!' thus a whole new aisle at the grocery store appears. same thing applies here. companies can advertise 'absolutely NO electronics in our clothes, just pure hemp.' and the crowd goes wild!
also, not a lawyer, but i'm pretty sure that you can't get a speeding ticket (most places) if a cop doesn't actually pull you over. i seem to recall some program where a city (nyc?) enlisted students to augment the police force in giving speeding tickets, but it wouldn't fly.
also also, there are other ways to get around than cars.
i don't understand the big fear of lack of privacy due to RFID tags. capitalism just takes care of it. if enough people don't want their location known, there will be a market for clothing, etc that does not have RFID tags embedded in it. the government's never going to say (knock on wood) that all clothes or shoes or whatever must have RFID tags, so it's really not something to worry about.
i am the drexler. i speak for the nanobots.
what i meant to say was that it's wrong (imho) in the sense that it implies that we consider less human-like graphics to be more human-like than the ones that are more accurate.
that's a good point. in response i would say that if you're trying to play the *exact* same musical note twice (a better analogy, i think, considering that we're trying to imitate exactly the appearance of humans), you're more likely to notice the quarter octave difference than the half-note.
i think my main issue with the article is that it claims that we think of animations/robots that are less human-looking as more human, when there is no evidence to support that idea. perhaps it is true that we generally find the less human-like things less creepy, but we certainly don't think they're more human. (imho.)
but really, are very realistic paintings of people creepy? (and paintings as realistic as photographs *do* exist) no! why? because they're *realistic*.
oh, and the author thinks his roomba is cute because it acts sort of like a *pet*. a very stupid and clean pet, but a pet, not a human.
again, excuse my ignorance but is this enough to warrant having a full-time position devoted to it? or several? i still think that, if nothing else, it seems as though the need for sysadmins will decrease over time.
what will change, i believe, is the status that sysadmins now hold. i believe that they will either become part of the company in a larger sense (that is, as an engineer or tech with sysadmin on the side) or that they will become like car mechanics, someone you call in when things break.
call me naive, but i do think that systems will get more stable. i mean, even windows is much more stable than it used to be. and, if this is the case, system crashes will be less frequent, as will software/hardware upgrades, and emerging technologies will become easier to install. thus, the need for a full-time sysadmin will decrease, even with emerging technology.
of course, i'm talking out of my ass. i've never been a sysadmin, so feel free to correct anything that i've said that is totally wrong or anything (which i'm sure is plenty) that i've forgotten about what a sysadmin does.