I know you're busy because I've seen how many posts you're making, but if you want me to understand that reply, I'm going to have to ask you to provide a few additional words at least. You're too cryptic for me.
An interesting comment, but note that the Morlocks were the smart ones in control and the Eloi were ultimately the pretty, vacant types. Your analogy doesn't fit perfectly, but if it did, it would be the other way around.
Anyway, I can offer a simple cause for Science not being "popular" (whether this cause is deliberate or not, I'll leave open): science doesn't receive much reward. You look at what gets the hero's share in modern Western society - celebrity, fashion, football, whatever. People are frequently motivated by what gets them adulation or appears as if it might. They therefore desire to be like those people that get such adulation, not like those that don't. It's really, very, very simple. If society sees a celebration of people for their scientific ability, then you will get people wanting to be scientists. If its not celebrated, you will get fewer.
I notice that about a third of the way through you got tired of typing "Linux Community" as a line prefix and started using just "Them" instead. Sorry - you just don't have the stubborn persistence to be one of us Linux types.;)
I went through five CDs trying to get Ubuntu to install. I verified them with hashes, re-downloaded despite that, I allowed them to perform their CD check at the start (they passed). They kept falling over in the same place with a message telling me that a perl-something package was corrupt. That was 9.04 but I'd had the same problem with a previous version. It occurred with both Server and Desktop versions. I ended up using the Alternative Install CD which also failed, but left me with enough of a system I could build the rest myself. It was only stubborness that kept me going. I've ripped it out since and installed Gentoo (and the "upgrade" time on that leaves Windows in its dust, when you choose to compile KDE4 yourself). Ubuntu is an African word meaning "Debian Scares Me". It has a great supporting community which is nice, but you might be better off with Debian (or Gentoo if you love watching stuff compile)
If there is a difference in IQ tests between different races (and if you manage to genuinely isolate cultural factors from your testing, then I'm gobsmacked), then it's a very small difference, or else it would be obvious to us. And if the difference is that small then it's (a) going to overwhelmed in pretty much all instances by more significant factors such as upbringing, amount of free time, etc. and (b) worthless to base generalized behaviour on. Besides, everyone is shagging each other so in a century's time, it will all even out anyway.
That's a very amiable response to a post where I was getting a bit emphatic about my points. Regarding dependency on nasty dictatorships for uranium... well Australia isn't my favorite government in the World, but you're right it doesn't qualify as a dictatorship.;) So in answer to your question in the first paragraph, no nuclear power doesn't depend on nasty dictatorships. Jokes about Australia aside, a second major supplier of uranium is Canada and the USA itself has decent uranium reserves, though it's not got much of a mining industry (USA's uranium ore is lower-quality apparently, not meaning that it isn't useful, but meaning that other countries simply produce it more cheaply for now). Anyway, the USA comes in somewhere around fifth for estimated uranium reserves world-wide. If you're just talking old-fashioned nuclear power stations then I think the USA's reserves alone would keep it going for a hundred years or more even at its current, power-squandering inefficient rate. But when you start bringing in fast-breeder reactors, we're looking at over a thousand years or more. That gives us more time to work on large-scale renewables and improving society's energy efficiency. So whatever the debate about other aspects of nuclear power, I'm reasonably confident in stating that fuel can't be used as a counter-argument against it.
But anyway, onto the meat of your post. No, I'm not interested in playing the citation game either. Perhaps neither of us want to go out and look for quotes that support what we have assumed in an attempt to "prove" we're right.;) I don't have time to start a career in the nuclear industry, but some of my brief reading partly supports what you say (about environmental costs of initial builds) but looks like it overall supports my point of view (that the overall impact of nuclear is lower). At least as far as fossil-fuels are concerned. If you are comparing with renewables such as solar, wind or tidal power, then these come in far ahead of nuclear power as would be expected. If you are arguing in favor of solar power in place of nuclear, then you'll find no argument from me as far as you are able to provide solar power to me. But if you can't provide me enough power from renwables, then I want the shortfall made up in nuclear power until you can, thankyouverymuch. If you can persuade me that you can meet all my needs from renewables (and I am persuadable on this), then okay - though my current estimation is that such a day is not imminent. But I think you're very unlikely to persuade me that we should be building coal-powered stations instead of nuclear. Nuclear is simply the far more environmentally-friendly option.
But that's not the only thing to consider. We're both agreed that nuclear plants can only work with huge government subsidy, so the question is one of opportunity cost: if the government has to pay to build our coal alternatives, should we be putting that money into tech that won't be online for a decade?
We're not quite eye-to-eye on this, actually. Firstly, a caveat: you're talking from a US point of view. I'm European. In some countries, France for example, Nuclear power is the more economical model with or without government subsidies. The USA is a giant block of coal (slight exaggeration) but not all countries are. Okay - that out of the way, let's also clear up exactly what we mean by subsidies here. That money is primarily going into R&D. I actually approve of governments spending money on research (isn't it usually bemoaned by Slashdot that governments don't do this?). Of course we want the benefits of this to come to society, but I think that they are. I'd far rather a country ran itself on nuclear power than on coal. And as pointed out, fossil fuels are subsidised by the government (arguably more so) because the negative effects of it aren't solely bourne by private industry but by environmental and health support by the government.
Fine. But I don't have the money to file a lawsuit in the US, especially against Microsoft. Who has those sort of resources that isn't commercial, and if you are commercial, what's your justification to your shareholders to pursue an action against someone that isn't a competitor to you? The only parties other than commercial rivals that can do this are either (a) class action by members of the public (a slow and lengthy process to build this sort of momentum, though you can consider the FSF speaking out against it to be along those lines) or (b) the Government. I wouldn't hold out hope for (b).
Yep. You can dislike someone who tells you that 2+2 = 4, but you shouldn't let that make you argue that the answer's 5. How the Hell Google got this past the courts, I have no idea.
I made no reference to "sheeple" in my post, nor was I bemoaning anyone's tendency to follow what others say without thinking (though to be sure that is a problem). I was plainly bemoaning the tendency for a vocal or over-exposed minority to pretend to represent the whole - the way that Greenpeace do for environmentalists for example.
As to the rest of your point - it's nothing I talked about in my post, but I'll address it anyway. You say that Nuclear power wont solve our CO2 problems "now". There are a few flaws with this reasoning. Firstly, you address nuclear power solely in terms of CO2. Bear in mind that it also frees a country from dependency on nasty dictatorships. It is also, while not sustainable, something that runs on a fuel that is obtainable and in no danger of running out anytime soon. In environmental terms, it also puts out less radiation per joule than coal apparently and certainly it has a lesser impact on air quality. As to the CO2 put out in building one, I'm not an expert on that so I can't argue against it, but I don't consider you to have argued for it until you actually produce some figures. Just saying that their contribution to world CO2 is a "significant spike" seems a bit unlikely to me, so I'd like to see some evidence. Another flaw in your reasoning is in giving "they wont solve our CO2 problem" as an argument against them. The question is whether they help solve it. They put out less CO2 than a coal factory, I'm pretty sure of that.
Your argument that it is not ignorance and fear that holds back nuclear power, but cost effectiveness, is partly right. Fear and ignorance does hold and has held back nuclear power. But the cost effectiveness, is because there is a very cheap coal power (at least in the US and some other countries). And coal power is very destructive to the environment. You can't on one hand argue against nuclear power for being environmentally damaging whilst on the other hand argue against it for not being cost effective compared to something even more environmentally damaging. Unless you either, for some reason, think a coal-powered station is less damaging to the environment per joule than nuclear (I disagree based on the current evidence) or if you are deliberately trying to find arguments against nuclear power regardless of whether they conflict with each other or not.
Sorry to be harsh, but that's how I see it. You're against government support for nuclear power. Yet you're happy for them to subsidize coal by bearing the environmental cost of coal.
I re-read my post and realised it might have been taken to mean I thought you were at fault. I was actually in agreement with your original point. Just wanted to make that clear. I also think that rant-time should be officially recognised as it's a necessary measure to prevent the slaughtering of evil corporate masters. Personally, speaking.
Nuclear research should be embraced by environmentalists, unfortunately most of them have been raised on the dangers of nukes, and not the reality of them.
You can classify those "environmentalists" along with "Christians" who favor killing people with different beliefs, computer programmers that revel in being "geeks" and any other over-exposed and unrepresentative subsets that embarras everyone else. Many environmentalists are pro-nuclear (properly done). You just don't find us in organizations like Greenpeace because those organizations well, don't represent our beliefs.
It's scary how people just don't think - it's as if, you choose a point-of-view and then go along with everyone else who claims the same point-of-view. If you care about the environment, you reject nuclear because greenpeace does - even though the reasons for their doing so haven't been true for a very long time.
Many of us who call ourselves environmentalists have been sick to the back teeth of Greenpeace for a long time now. Go hassle whalers, fine - I'm good with that. But please ditch the anti-nuclear technophobia if you're going to pretend to speak on behalf of environmentalists.
Love is just a chemical reaction in your brain, anyway. It's not magical, or sacred, or even very special.
Are you joking? You don't find that process incredible? What's a good piece of music? Just waves transmitted through the air? What's the DNA? Just arrangements of atoms? The Princess Bride? Just a sequence of words? Or perhaps I should ask you whether a wood is just a bunch of trees. You seriously need to re-consider what the word "just" means.
I'd ask you what your criteria for judging something's value is as "natural drugs to make you feel like it's way more than it is" implies how you feel about something is not a valid method of assessing how important something is to you. Except that the natural alternative criteria is intellectual analysis and I don't think you've intellectually considered the perpetuation of the species via the incredibly complex yet elegant combination and multiplication of the DNA of separate organisms into new growing and developing organisms if you dismiss it as 'nothing very special'.
And incidentally, you're not talking about "love". Your example actually defines "lust".
You should think more about what you're describing. The whole process ROCKS!
I don't know if there were any actual ties to Kafka's work, acknowledged or otherwise, but there are strong parallels. And by a strange co-incidence, I like both. Number 6's struggle against the literally anonymous powers of The Village and the determination to assert his identity in an environment determined not to acknowledge it, the incomprehensibility of the rules and customs of the people in the Village (yet often with a hint of unknown purpose) and finally the way individuals can be replaced yet maintain continuity (for example, Number 2 is sometimes replaced by someone else, yet everyone behaves as if he's always been that person) - yes, very kafkaesque.
Incidentally, it's that last issue about how Number 2 changes, that is one of the alarm bells ringing about the remake.
What about the episode where the computer exploded because number six simply asked it "why"? I have the series on tape; PBS rebroadcast it a decade or two ago, and some of the effects and props are cheesy indeed. Not as bad as some on STOS, I'll admit.
Good catch. In that case, I'll grant you that some aspects of it could stand improvement for a modern audience. As I said, it's possible to do a good remake of The Prisoner. I just think that given the overall timelessness of its surreal events and setting, it's less of a problem for modern audiences and that, for some of the reasons I gave, I fear this wont be a good remake. I wont mind being proven wrong and would chose that over being proven right.
Your reminiscences make me want to go and re-watch the whole thing. I have a fond memory of him drinking to the bottom of the glass and finding, written on tiny letters at the bottom, "you have just been poisoned". James Bond would never have survived that scene in Casino Royale if he hadn't watched The Prisoner as a kid.;)
Even worse - if you make it to the end of the comic, you see the last seen is him holding his smartphone with the caption below of "sponsored by..." whichever phone company it was. Palm, I think.
If "Number Two" is the usual euphemism for a shit, then possibly so. Aside from personal dislike for casting Ian McKellan in everything, there are so many things that can go wrong here, it'll be a miracle if it's anywhere near as good as the original series. Heaven help us if they try to dumb it down or make it more accessible. A lot of remakes are really worthwhile (okay, some remakes) bringing it up to date for a modern audience and shaving off some of the things that would alienate people today (wobbly sets or very bad special effects) or doing away with some of the limitations that had to be bourne in the old days (such as some prudish attitudes). But The Prisoner doesn't fall into any of those categories as far as I can see. It's also a shame that Number 2 is the same every episode as the way he changed sometimes illustrated the lack of personal importance. Number 2 was an identity that, if a particular person were performing it badly as happened, could mysteriously be replaced by someone else. Individuality didn't matter - continuity did.
It's quite possible to do a good remake of The Prisoner. It's even possible to do a good remake of The Prisoner that is different to the original. I will try to assess the new version on its own merits. But I see two big reasons why it probably wont be. The first and biggest is that the modern entertainment industry usually gets greedy and aims for every demographic at once. People with tastes on the ends of the bell curve, usually suffer. The Prisoner appealed to a surprisingly large number of people given how esoteric it was, but it was nonetheless clearly not trying to be all things to all people. From what I read, it was a struggle to get it approved and made even then. I can well see it being watered down and modified to try and bring in a lot of people who wouldn't be expected to like it otherwise. And when that happens, you tend to get a muddle that fails to completely please anyone. To put it more graphically, some people like chocolate, some people like cheese, some people enjoy both, but nobody likes cheese in their chocolate.
The second reason is that I doubt the remakers will have the balls to finish the series with Patrick McGoohan's grand fuck you to understanding that made the finale so appealing to me.
Anyway, that was quite a rant, but I (along with a lot of others) really like the original and it's still out there for anyone who wants to see it. It seems a little off to me that the moment Patrick McGoohan passes away, they start remaking the series. Still, makes circle around one eye with thumb and forefinger, be seeing you.;)
But what if Yahoo patent having the search box at the top, and Microsoft patent having it at the left-hand side. All we'd need then is for some company to patent a design with a search box on the right and there's nowhere for anyone else to go.
Okay, that's a slightly exaggerated example to make a point, but not by much. Don't just think about the impact of Google doing this on one design, think about whether other parties (or Google themselves again) patent other designs as well, and start eating up the most logical ways to do things.
Except for the "wah!" there's truth to what you say. Well, excluding the "give me death" part as well. In fact, let's just concentrate on the middle bit.
It would be nice to see some greater increase in speed. There are reasons to have that. But in the meantime, I will accept code properly written to utilise multiple cores as a substitute.
But its the people in the SUV that will be killed . So be happy
Not if it hits a cyclist or a pedestrian. I know those are rarer in the USA, but here in Europe, people are driving around in SUVS and when they hit someone on a bike, or an adult or a child - all of which are also more likely to happen in a SUV due to the height - then the chances of that person being killed are much higher than with a normal car.
Slashdot Mirror
I know you're busy because I've seen how many posts you're making, but if you want me to understand that reply, I'm going to have to ask you to provide a few additional words at least. You're too cryptic for me.
An interesting comment, but note that the Morlocks were the smart ones in control and the Eloi were ultimately the pretty, vacant types. Your analogy doesn't fit perfectly, but if it did, it would be the other way around.
Anyway, I can offer a simple cause for Science not being "popular" (whether this cause is deliberate or not, I'll leave open): science doesn't receive much reward. You look at what gets the hero's share in modern Western society - celebrity, fashion, football, whatever. People are frequently motivated by what gets them adulation or appears as if it might. They therefore desire to be like those people that get such adulation, not like those that don't. It's really, very, very simple. If society sees a celebration of people for their scientific ability, then you will get people wanting to be scientists. If its not celebrated, you will get fewer.
I notice that about a third of the way through you got tired of typing "Linux Community" as a line prefix and started using just "Them" instead. Sorry - you just don't have the stubborn persistence to be one of us Linux types.
I went through five CDs trying to get Ubuntu to install. I verified them with hashes, re-downloaded despite that, I allowed them to perform their CD check at the start (they passed). They kept falling over in the same place with a message telling me that a perl-something package was corrupt. That was 9.04 but I'd had the same problem with a previous version. It occurred with both Server and Desktop versions. I ended up using the Alternative Install CD which also failed, but left me with enough of a system I could build the rest myself. It was only stubborness that kept me going. I've ripped it out since and installed Gentoo (and the "upgrade" time on that leaves Windows in its dust, when you choose to compile KDE4 yourself). Ubuntu is an African word meaning "Debian Scares Me". It has a great supporting community which is nice, but you might be better off with Debian (or Gentoo if you love watching stuff compile)
If there is a difference in IQ tests between different races (and if you manage to genuinely isolate cultural factors from your testing, then I'm gobsmacked), then it's a very small difference, or else it would be obvious to us. And if the difference is that small then it's (a) going to overwhelmed in pretty much all instances by more significant factors such as upbringing, amount of free time, etc. and (b) worthless to base generalized behaviour on. Besides, everyone is shagging each other so in a century's time, it will all even out anyway.
That's a very amiable response to a post where I was getting a bit emphatic about my points. Regarding dependency on nasty dictatorships for uranium... well Australia isn't my favorite government in the World, but you're right it doesn't qualify as a dictatorship.
But anyway, onto the meat of your post. No, I'm not interested in playing the citation game either. Perhaps neither of us want to go out and look for quotes that support what we have assumed in an attempt to "prove" we're right.
We're not quite eye-to-eye on this, actually. Firstly, a caveat: you're talking from a US point of view. I'm European. In some countries, France for example, Nuclear power is the more economical model with or without government subsidies. The USA is a giant block of coal (slight exaggeration) but not all countries are. Okay - that out of the way, let's also clear up exactly what we mean by subsidies here. That money is primarily going into R&D. I actually approve of governments spending money on research (isn't it usually bemoaned by Slashdot that governments don't do this?). Of course we want the benefits of this to come to society, but I think that they are. I'd far rather a country ran itself on nuclear power than on coal. And as pointed out, fossil fuels are subsidised by the government (arguably more so) because the negative effects of it aren't solely bourne by private industry but by environmental and health support by the government.
Now you're arguing som
Perhaps we're about to witness the shocking origin of... The Grue!
Fine. But I don't have the money to file a lawsuit in the US, especially against Microsoft. Who has those sort of resources that isn't commercial, and if you are commercial, what's your justification to your shareholders to pursue an action against someone that isn't a competitor to you? The only parties other than commercial rivals that can do this are either (a) class action by members of the public (a slow and lengthy process to build this sort of momentum, though you can consider the FSF speaking out against it to be along those lines) or (b) the Government. I wouldn't hold out hope for (b).
Yep. You can dislike someone who tells you that 2+2 = 4, but you shouldn't let that make you argue that the answer's 5. How the Hell Google got this past the courts, I have no idea.
I made no reference to "sheeple" in my post, nor was I bemoaning anyone's tendency to follow what others say without thinking (though to be sure that is a problem). I was plainly bemoaning the tendency for a vocal or over-exposed minority to pretend to represent the whole - the way that Greenpeace do for environmentalists for example.
As to the rest of your point - it's nothing I talked about in my post, but I'll address it anyway. You say that Nuclear power wont solve our CO2 problems "now". There are a few flaws with this reasoning. Firstly, you address nuclear power solely in terms of CO2. Bear in mind that it also frees a country from dependency on nasty dictatorships. It is also, while not sustainable, something that runs on a fuel that is obtainable and in no danger of running out anytime soon. In environmental terms, it also puts out less radiation per joule than coal apparently and certainly it has a lesser impact on air quality. As to the CO2 put out in building one, I'm not an expert on that so I can't argue against it, but I don't consider you to have argued for it until you actually produce some figures. Just saying that their contribution to world CO2 is a "significant spike" seems a bit unlikely to me, so I'd like to see some evidence. Another flaw in your reasoning is in giving "they wont solve our CO2 problem" as an argument against them. The question is whether they help solve it. They put out less CO2 than a coal factory, I'm pretty sure of that.
Your argument that it is not ignorance and fear that holds back nuclear power, but cost effectiveness, is partly right. Fear and ignorance does hold and has held back nuclear power. But the cost effectiveness, is because there is a very cheap coal power (at least in the US and some other countries). And coal power is very destructive to the environment. You can't on one hand argue against nuclear power for being environmentally damaging whilst on the other hand argue against it for not being cost effective compared to something even more environmentally damaging. Unless you either, for some reason, think a coal-powered station is less damaging to the environment per joule than nuclear (I disagree based on the current evidence) or if you are deliberately trying to find arguments against nuclear power regardless of whether they conflict with each other or not.
Sorry to be harsh, but that's how I see it. You're against government support for nuclear power. Yet you're happy for them to subsidize coal by bearing the environmental cost of coal.
I re-read my post and realised it might have been taken to mean I thought you were at fault. I was actually in agreement with your original point. Just wanted to make that clear. I also think that rant-time should be officially recognised as it's a necessary measure to prevent the slaughtering of evil corporate masters. Personally, speaking.
H.
You can classify those "environmentalists" along with "Christians" who favor killing people with different beliefs, computer programmers that revel in being "geeks" and any other over-exposed and unrepresentative subsets that embarras everyone else. Many environmentalists are pro-nuclear (properly done). You just don't find us in organizations like Greenpeace because those organizations well, don't represent our beliefs.
Many of us who call ourselves environmentalists have been sick to the back teeth of Greenpeace for a long time now. Go hassle whalers, fine - I'm good with that. But please ditch the anti-nuclear technophobia if you're going to pretend to speak on behalf of environmentalists.
Heh! Wrong sci-fi series.
Are you joking? You don't find that process incredible? What's a good piece of music? Just waves transmitted through the air? What's the DNA? Just arrangements of atoms? The Princess Bride? Just a sequence of words? Or perhaps I should ask you whether a wood is just a bunch of trees. You seriously need to re-consider what the word "just" means.
I'd ask you what your criteria for judging something's value is as "natural drugs to make you feel like it's way more than it is" implies how you feel about something is not a valid method of assessing how important something is to you. Except that the natural alternative criteria is intellectual analysis and I don't think you've intellectually considered the perpetuation of the species via the incredibly complex yet elegant combination and multiplication of the DNA of separate organisms into new growing and developing organisms if you dismiss it as 'nothing very special'.
And incidentally, you're not talking about "love". Your example actually defines "lust".
You should think more about what you're describing. The whole process ROCKS!
Regards,
H.
I don't know if there were any actual ties to Kafka's work, acknowledged or otherwise, but there are strong parallels. And by a strange co-incidence, I like both. Number 6's struggle against the literally anonymous powers of The Village and the determination to assert his identity in an environment determined not to acknowledge it, the incomprehensibility of the rules and customs of the people in the Village (yet often with a hint of unknown purpose) and finally the way individuals can be replaced yet maintain continuity (for example, Number 2 is sometimes replaced by someone else, yet everyone behaves as if he's always been that person) - yes, very kafkaesque.
Incidentally, it's that last issue about how Number 2 changes, that is one of the alarm bells ringing about the remake.
Be seeing you,
H.
Good catch. In that case, I'll grant you that some aspects of it could stand improvement for a modern audience. As I said, it's possible to do a good remake of The Prisoner. I just think that given the overall timelessness of its surreal events and setting, it's less of a problem for modern audiences and that, for some of the reasons I gave, I fear this wont be a good remake. I wont mind being proven wrong and would chose that over being proven right.
Which might just put you in the OP's category of "people who don't care about the remake". I mean, if you think about it. ;)
Your reminiscences make me want to go and re-watch the whole thing. I have a fond memory of him drinking to the bottom of the glass and finding, written on tiny letters at the bottom, "you have just been poisoned". James Bond would never have survived that scene in Casino Royale if he hadn't watched The Prisoner as a kid.
Even worse - if you make it to the end of the comic, you see the last seen is him holding his smartphone with the caption below of "sponsored by..." whichever phone company it was. Palm, I think.
If "Number Two" is the usual euphemism for a shit, then possibly so. Aside from personal dislike for casting Ian McKellan in everything, there are so many things that can go wrong here, it'll be a miracle if it's anywhere near as good as the original series. Heaven help us if they try to dumb it down or make it more accessible. A lot of remakes are really worthwhile (okay, some remakes) bringing it up to date for a modern audience and shaving off some of the things that would alienate people today (wobbly sets or very bad special effects) or doing away with some of the limitations that had to be bourne in the old days (such as some prudish attitudes). But The Prisoner doesn't fall into any of those categories as far as I can see. It's also a shame that Number 2 is the same every episode as the way he changed sometimes illustrated the lack of personal importance. Number 2 was an identity that, if a particular person were performing it badly as happened, could mysteriously be replaced by someone else. Individuality didn't matter - continuity did.
It's quite possible to do a good remake of The Prisoner. It's even possible to do a good remake of The Prisoner that is different to the original. I will try to assess the new version on its own merits. But I see two big reasons why it probably wont be. The first and biggest is that the modern entertainment industry usually gets greedy and aims for every demographic at once. People with tastes on the ends of the bell curve, usually suffer. The Prisoner appealed to a surprisingly large number of people given how esoteric it was, but it was nonetheless clearly not trying to be all things to all people. From what I read, it was a struggle to get it approved and made even then. I can well see it being watered down and modified to try and bring in a lot of people who wouldn't be expected to like it otherwise. And when that happens, you tend to get a muddle that fails to completely please anyone. To put it more graphically, some people like chocolate, some people like cheese, some people enjoy both, but nobody likes cheese in their chocolate.
The second reason is that I doubt the remakers will have the balls to finish the series with Patrick McGoohan's grand fuck you to understanding that made the finale so appealing to me.
Anyway, that was quite a rant, but I (along with a lot of others) really like the original and it's still out there for anyone who wants to see it. It seems a little off to me that the moment Patrick McGoohan passes away, they start remaking the series. Still, makes circle around one eye with thumb and forefinger, be seeing you.
But what if Yahoo patent having the search box at the top, and Microsoft patent having it at the left-hand side. All we'd need then is for some company to patent a design with a search box on the right and there's nowhere for anyone else to go.
Okay, that's a slightly exaggerated example to make a point, but not by much. Don't just think about the impact of Google doing this on one design, think about whether other parties (or Google themselves again) patent other designs as well, and start eating up the most logical ways to do things.
Three little Slashdot trolls are we,
Raised in a place that's basement-ey,
Filled to the brim with mockery,
Three little Slashdot trolls.
Everything is a source of fun
Nobody's safe, for we care for none
Your outrage is a joke that's just begun
Three little Slashdot trolls.
Except for the "wah!" there's truth to what you say. Well, excluding the "give me death" part as well. In fact, let's just concentrate on the middle bit.
It would be nice to see some greater increase in speed. There are reasons to have that. But in the meantime, I will accept code properly written to utilise multiple cores as a substitute.
Not if it hits a cyclist or a pedestrian. I know those are rarer in the USA, but here in Europe, people are driving around in SUVS and when they hit someone on a bike, or an adult or a child - all of which are also more likely to happen in a SUV due to the height - then the chances of that person being killed are much higher than with a normal car.