Words simply cannot express my hatred of this city and its inhabitants.
Yet you used over 400 of them trying to do just that.
Words aren't so bad, but maybe they are not for you. You could try communicating with watercolours. Or using tones, like a dolphin. There are no dolphins in Ottawa, which is another valid proof of how dumb the city is.
In 2001, the economy tanked and I came back here, moved back in with my parents, and then went back to school.
Your parents, living in Ottawa, must be dumb. But at least they made space for you in the basement, thereby ensuring your full qualification for a Slashdot VIP membership.
Flash is REALLY useful. As a developer, I hate Flash. As a user, I skip sites that require Flash and at most tolerate Flash in a couple of specific cases: for viewing the occasional sport or BBC documentary on Google Video and Youtube.
If the BBC would use a free format instead of the Redmondian WMV or the outright damnable Real, I wouldn't need Flash at all.
I would much prefer to watch this video content in the format of my choice ~outside~ of a browser in the application of my choice.
So mod up good trolls, and mod down garbage like the post I answered to. Every so often while reading Slashdot (because such are the habits of a pathetic being who feels the need to belong somewhere, even if it's just to a Web site with a wretched tagging mechanism and a prominent editor who chose as his nickname part of the name of his favourite posh restaurant), I come across someone whose post makes me laugh, cry, sing, and want to make endless savage love to Angelina Jolie (well, alright, the latter is a constant with me), and I'm carried deliriously upon the current of the post's wit and perspicacity right up until the final sentence (verily, the final syllable!) where all my hopes and dreams are shattered like a nerd's eyeglasses in gym class because the poster makes a terrible grammatical blunder.
Ultranova, Sir (for I assume you are brother to Aldo), do you not realize that on Slashdot, no one can hear anything else you say and all good points in your argumentation are nullified if you dare (by exhibitionist caprice or merely obstinate refusal to try the Preview button before submitting the text) to use an intransitive verb as a transitive?
Do you not understand, you who are so cyranic in your punticilious destruction of the vulgar dullard on whom you have bestowed a little notoriety (but much more than he deserves, the sorry quarter-wit lickspittle avenger of the RIAA), that there is no bulbous, spike-haired and blackhead-peppered nose as terrifying in its marrow-curdling ghastly effect as a lapse in orthography or verbal orthomorphism on Slashdot?
Please make fun of him again. And this time, NO MISTAKES.
Yes, that can be said. However, what can not be said is that this time is "normal" or "average" for the Earth. Nor can one say "This is the warmest winter ever!". Nor can one say that the change is not normal.
We can say that it is fully wrong to dismiss climate research because the planet is 4 billion years old. This was your initial argument.
If we can form an accurate notion of the climate and its changes in the period during human development, we certainly ~can~ say whether an event has precedent. We certainly ~can~ therefore identify some anomalies as being most unusual, even abnormal and inhospitable to the present biosphere.
If your objection is the strict notion of "normality", then sure, what's normal depends on your statistical sample. Asteroid strikes are "normal" and frequent and only some are certainly devastating to the a given "generation" of the biosphere.
Getting killed by an asteroid strike is one thing. Poisoning your own food and then eating it is suicide. You can do nothing about the former, but you may not want to do the latter. Suicide is not "normal", although it does happen.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Would mass extinction be a bad thing? Such things do happen. In the Malthusian perspective (yours), being stupid and being unlucky come to the same thing. If we may be responsible for something bad and we can take action to avert a crisis, we should try to do so. That is what brains are for, Sir.
5) Pollution can not be reduced significantly without significantly reducing the use of industrial equipment.
This is not rigourous logic. Many people are working on technology to disprove this very assertion. In of itself, the reduction of petrol-powered combustion engines in major cities would make a significant difference.
Your argument is that our data are statistically insignificant. Your general position, I assume, is that people should be rational and not panic. I agree with the latter but the former is a flawed argument.
Much of the planet's 4 billion years has been spent in a slow process of stabilization. Complex life is relatively recent (and therefore, you would say, "statistically insignificant"). Human existence is even less statistically significant among all life. However, the conditions for human life have been favourable during this "statistically insignificant" period. So it ~is~ a reasonable inquiry to analyze this period and conclude that something is changing in what we can prove has been relatively constant for us and other creatures.
Since I doubt that you breathe car exhaust and eat plastics, I assume you understand the threat to the environment and biodiversity that 6-8-10 billion humans represent, that the collapse of the food chain is no fantasy, and that man-made pollutants have permeated the biosphere.
There are several points of interdependency between living things and climate. We are affecting both in ways that must be evident to people who give themselves the trouble to think, observe, and read. It is reasonable to conclude that human activity is at least a significant contributing factor in any remarkable change, because our impact on the environment has been significant.
There are planetary processes that we cannot control. But we are affecting things that affect planetary processes.
There have been successful small software projects and successful large software projects. Good software ~can be made~ and ~is made~. Sometimes it's because of a tremendous individual effort. Sometimes it's a tremendous group effort.
Good software can be made. But building good teams and protecting them is very difficult in a world of self-consolidating middle-managers, overpromoted beancounters and confused Senile Management. This is where everything goes to hell in a handbasket.
Oh yes, then there are the consultants.
Most companies need to be protected from their internal incompetence, power struggles, and misplaced faith. It's really no surprise that on average, the modern dysorganization is a disaster at making good software.
There are a few exceptions. In general, good things come from small organizations or ones that have a clear authority and are guided by a few people who understand how to manage, how to inspire, how to plan, how to delegate, and how to code.
I'd like to continue this discussion but I have to prepare a Powerpoint presentation.
I'm sure you know that the signal-to-noise ratio here is better than on most other sites. Many Slashdot folks are knowledgeable, witty, and armed for debate.
For inveterate poopyheads, there's Digg and hundreds of PHPBB installations.
Is there fatigue over these sites, or just ennui, due to their fundamental lack of any content
It's the fundamental lack of ~intelligent~ content that makes me not care about any of it. Any intelligent comment on Digg or Youtube is like a tree falling in a forest somewhere. The Usenet was exclusive at one time and still has interesting specialty discussions. The WWW has proven that millions of people who can afford Internet access have nothing to say and has become worse than Tee-Vee. The latter is an amoral corporate economic force exploiting willing sponges, but at least the writing is sometimes good.
if YOU were an alien, with this fantastic technology to fly hundreds of light years to visit another planet with life on it, would you just fly by some stuff then go home
I can't say. But as a time-traveller, I will stay until I find an IBM 5100 computer.
A horrible manager is in that position because the company doesn't care about the employees. Leave a bad manager as soon as you can for your own sake, but recognize that there is something wrong with the management who keep him or her in that role.
These problems will not go away. Software engineers will always make mistakes and malevolent people will always want your private data. The Web is "open" by design and therefore open to exploits.
With the Web browser becoming an application portal, users need to understand that doing transactions that involve their personal data must be separate from general Web browsing.
You can switch off cookie permission and Javascript but this limits the functionality of many sites. I think the best solution is to use two different browsers, one for personal transactions, the other for wandering the Web.
In usability testing, engineers developing the Skype Sybian found that female users always forgot what they were going to say and only about 10% of male users were interested in trying the product.
You're living in the 1990s if you're not thinking about virtualizing your WebOSs. I can't wait until Intel's Stockton CPU, which will enable multibooting WebOS environments running virtualized Javascript kernels.
Squirts Ballboy recently talked to analysts about upcoming service packs for Windohs Vistula. "You can't talk about WebOS technology without mentioning the best-of-breed MS Internet Exposer," he said. "Internet Exposer 7 (service pack 4) will be the best browser for running all the payload-based applications that are the foundation of the modern software ecosphere."
"OpenOffice sucks because it does not have my critical feature! Until it does, I'm sticking with Ami Pro!"
"OpenOffice sucks because of a serious bug that those commie hippies haven't fixed yet! At least when I file a bug with Microsot, they get right on it! Sometimes, they will even patch the bug 10 times. THAT, my friends, is professional service!"
"OO sucks because it doesn't appeal to my aesthetic values at all! I'm going back to EMACS for all my office needs!"
"The curse word 'Java' appears somewhere in the installation! I want to be free, I'm going back to Microsot Woid!"
"OO sucks because it takes so long to compile! How in the world do those Windohs users find the patience?!"
"OO is grotesquely bloated! I installed it and it used more than 0.02% of my hard disk, forcing me to move some crucial porn and tunes to my NAS box!"
Slashdot Mirror
"In the next 10 years, I, William Gates III, will fail to find an appealing hairstyle."
"Microprocessors will get even faster in the next few years, making today's versions of Windows usable."
"Steve Ballmer will go bald."
"My famous book, 'The Road Ahead', will enter a third edition in which the Zune will be predicted."
Yet you used over 400 of them trying to do just that.
Words aren't so bad, but maybe they are not for you. You could try communicating with watercolours. Or using tones, like a dolphin. There are no dolphins in Ottawa, which is another valid proof of how dumb the city is.
Your parents, living in Ottawa, must be dumb. But at least they made space for you in the basement, thereby ensuring your full qualification for a Slashdot VIP membership.
If the BBC would use a free format instead of the Redmondian WMV or the outright damnable Real, I wouldn't need Flash at all.
I would much prefer to watch this video content in the format of my choice ~outside~ of a browser in the application of my choice.
Ultranova, Sir (for I assume you are brother to Aldo), do you not realize that on Slashdot, no one can hear anything else you say and all good points in your argumentation are nullified if you dare (by exhibitionist caprice or merely obstinate refusal to try the Preview button before submitting the text) to use an intransitive verb as a transitive?
Do you not understand, you who are so cyranic in your punticilious destruction of the vulgar dullard on whom you have bestowed a little notoriety (but much more than he deserves, the sorry quarter-wit lickspittle avenger of the RIAA), that there is no bulbous, spike-haired and blackhead-peppered nose as terrifying in its marrow-curdling ghastly effect as a lapse in orthography or verbal orthomorphism on Slashdot?
Please make fun of him again. And this time, NO MISTAKES.
1 The software industry makes money by forcing regular upgrades, locking in its customers and delivering poor products.
2 Self-consolidating IT managers who lack competence and do no research buy the poor products.
3 Low pay cultivates the worst attitudes for staff assigned to support the poor products.
4 Lack of training for people who have to use the poor products causes them to call the Help Desk for help with the poor products.
Repeat as many times as necessary to populate this imaginary world with a lexicon of derogatory terms.
If you can't figure out how to do it, try defragging your monitor, Luser!
We can say that it is fully wrong to dismiss climate research because the planet is 4 billion years old. This was your initial argument.
If we can form an accurate notion of the climate and its changes in the period during human development, we certainly ~can~ say whether an event has precedent. We certainly ~can~ therefore identify some anomalies as being most unusual, even abnormal and inhospitable to the present biosphere.
If your objection is the strict notion of "normality", then sure, what's normal depends on your statistical sample. Asteroid strikes are "normal" and frequent and only some are certainly devastating to the a given "generation" of the biosphere.
Getting killed by an asteroid strike is one thing. Poisoning your own food and then eating it is suicide. You can do nothing about the former, but you may not want to do the latter. Suicide is not "normal", although it does happen.
Would mass extinction be a bad thing? Such things do happen. In the Malthusian perspective (yours), being stupid and being unlucky come to the same thing. If we may be responsible for something bad and we can take action to avert a crisis, we should try to do so. That is what brains are for, Sir.
Your argument is that our data are statistically insignificant. Your general position, I assume, is that people should be rational and not panic. I agree with the latter but the former is a flawed argument.
Much of the planet's 4 billion years has been spent in a slow process of stabilization. Complex life is relatively recent (and therefore, you would say, "statistically insignificant"). Human existence is even less statistically significant among all life. However, the conditions for human life have been favourable during this "statistically insignificant" period. So it ~is~ a reasonable inquiry to analyze this period and conclude that something is changing in what we can prove has been relatively constant for us and other creatures.
Since I doubt that you breathe car exhaust and eat plastics, I assume you understand the threat to the environment and biodiversity that 6-8-10 billion humans represent, that the collapse of the food chain is no fantasy, and that man-made pollutants have permeated the biosphere.
There are several points of interdependency between living things and climate. We are affecting both in ways that must be evident to people who give themselves the trouble to think, observe, and read. It is reasonable to conclude that human activity is at least a significant contributing factor in any remarkable change, because our impact on the environment has been significant.
There are planetary processes that we cannot control. But we are affecting things that affect planetary processes.
There have been successful small software projects and successful large software projects. Good software ~can be made~ and ~is made~. Sometimes it's because of a tremendous individual effort. Sometimes it's a tremendous group effort.
Good software can be made. But building good teams and protecting them is very difficult in a world of self-consolidating middle-managers, overpromoted beancounters and confused Senile Management. This is where everything goes to hell in a handbasket.
Oh yes, then there are the consultants.
Most companies need to be protected from their internal incompetence, power struggles, and misplaced faith. It's really no surprise that on average, the modern dysorganization is a disaster at making good software.
There are a few exceptions. In general, good things come from small organizations or ones that have a clear authority and are guided by a few people who understand how to manage, how to inspire, how to plan, how to delegate, and how to code.
I'd like to continue this discussion but I have to prepare a Powerpoint presentation.
I'm sure you know that the signal-to-noise ratio here is better than on most other sites. Many Slashdot folks are knowledgeable, witty, and armed for debate.
For inveterate poopyheads, there's Digg and hundreds of PHPBB installations.
It's the fundamental lack of ~intelligent~ content that makes me not care about any of it. Any intelligent comment on Digg or Youtube is like a tree falling in a forest somewhere. The Usenet was exclusive at one time and still has interesting specialty discussions. The WWW has proven that millions of people who can afford Internet access have nothing to say and has become worse than Tee-Vee. The latter is an amoral corporate economic force exploiting willing sponges, but at least the writing is sometimes good.
I can't say. But as a time-traveller, I will stay until I find an IBM 5100 computer.
A horrible manager is in that position because the company doesn't care about the employees. Leave a bad manager as soon as you can for your own sake, but recognize that there is something wrong with the management who keep him or her in that role.
Anything that keeps Lucas from writing scripts deserves our support.
These problems will not go away. Software engineers will always make mistakes and malevolent people will always want your private data. The Web is "open" by design and therefore open to exploits.
With the Web browser becoming an application portal, users need to understand that doing transactions that involve their personal data must be separate from general Web browsing.
You can switch off cookie permission and Javascript but this limits the functionality of many sites. I think the best solution is to use two different browsers, one for personal transactions, the other for wandering the Web.
At least you're maintaining good posture while you're stunting your growth.
With just one round-house kick, Technological Jesus can stagger Chuck Norris.
Those are respectable consumption figures too. LCD monitors larger than 19" are hogs but anything 19" or less has no good excuse for being wasteful.
Your LCD monitor: "90W".
Do you know that Philips makes some of the most efficient LCD monitors? I have a 19" model that consumes 34W of power.
In usability testing, engineers developing the Skype Sybian found that female users always forgot what they were going to say and only about 10% of male users were interested in trying the product.
You're living in the 1990s if you're not thinking about virtualizing your WebOSs. I can't wait until Intel's Stockton CPU, which will enable multibooting WebOS environments running virtualized Javascript kernels.
Squirts Ballboy recently talked to analysts about upcoming service packs for Windohs Vistula. "You can't talk about WebOS technology without mentioning the best-of-breed MS Internet Exposer," he said. "Internet Exposer 7 (service pack 4) will be the best browser for running all the payload-based applications that are the foundation of the modern software ecosphere."
I tripled the size of my Body Area Network using the Twinkie Expansion Method so I could have enough bandwidth to access my whole personal Data Cloud.
Now my bed is made of Bendable Concrete and my girlfriend has left me, complaining about my Plasma Arc Gasification.
Now who is going to mend my Printed Solar Panel shirts?
Because maybe one of those extinct species was good at statistics.
"OpenOffice sucks because it does not have my critical feature! Until it does, I'm sticking with Ami Pro!"
"OpenOffice sucks because of a serious bug that those commie hippies haven't fixed yet! At least when I file a bug with Microsot, they get right on it! Sometimes, they will even patch the bug 10 times. THAT, my friends, is professional service!"
"OO sucks because it doesn't appeal to my aesthetic values at all! I'm going back to EMACS for all my office needs!"
"The curse word 'Java' appears somewhere in the installation! I want to be free, I'm going back to Microsot Woid!"
"OO sucks because it takes so long to compile! How in the world do those Windohs users find the patience?!"
"OO is grotesquely bloated! I installed it and it used more than 0.02% of my hard disk, forcing me to move some crucial porn and tunes to my NAS box!"