I am a messy individual at times. I can leave junk strewn around and know where everything is exactly. However, this seems to incur some computational or cognitive load... I think it is probably a copout to avoid thinking about other things. Anyway, if I make my environment clear and uncluttered, screen too, then I am more relaxed and can think more clearly.
I should also say something here about Network Admins and the need to sacrifice chickens to the God of Problem Solving but it is probably obvious to all.
What I found interesting about many of these original works was not the final product as such, but rather the reasoning towards it. What is usually missing when you read a text is the detailed reasoning leading up to the idea, what the alternatives were, why were they discarded. We usually only get a brief overview of the issues, so when we read the original we see more clearly how a great mind approached an unsolved problem. That I think is the real value of such works. They cover so much more than the final path.
We interrupt the current developer religious war to redirect to another developer religious war. (pushing message number onto stack for return from call)
OK. That's too harsh. But true if that is all you do. I would regard HTML coding as a minor but essential tool in the skillset of various people (including all developers).
I mean. Should I say: I do C, I do C++, I do python, I do Java, I do UML etc... bit lame to just pick one out. But if I only did one I'd be worried.
Someone please mod up. I also saw this from the inside in my pre-IT days. It is pretty much bang on the money. And although I never liked unions or monopolies... after seeing this I came to dislike privatisation even more. I saw a culture of quality turn into "let's pretend we are all capitalists now, so no more quality just profit." I kid you not. Then they brought out the 'razor gangs' to cut staff and increase workloads... except of course the people who chose to leave were the most talented, not the deadwood as management expected. Big surprise. I use Telstra because I need a Telstra line to connect to my ISP (Internode) not because I like them... as for the competition, Optus - fucktards... kept on getting my name wrong, thought someone else was living at my address... private enterprise is so wonderful. I was surprised to find that in many of these ex-government companies there are many highly talented, hard working and deeply committed people... I always thought they were stabbed in the back.
Yes Dyson is a bright guy. I really admire his scientific creativity. But you know, that doesn't make him right.
The funny thing about most of the 'skeptics' is that they aren't really skeptics at all. They don't look at the real science and the real evidence. They choose a side based on a political or philosophical view. Well, you know the universe doesn't give a shit about that... and it doesn't care if the food regions collapse and there is massive starvation. Perhaps you imagine that your imaginary friend in the sky will come and help or that the aliens will arrive and we will all be ok. Me... I worry for my children and I wont accept this namby pamby anti-intellectual cop out if their lives and future are at risk.
Sorry but this is pseudo scientific mumbo jumbo. Hieroglyphs have been readable for about 180 years now. No mystery at all. Just google for hieroglyphs or Champollion or Rosetta Stone.
Completely reasonable suggestion. Labor is traditionally against this kind of thing, but in the last generation the party has developed this attitude of "oh no we're not that rigid left wing bunch anymore we can be as pro-business or pro-[some right wing idea] as our opponents". They got into trouble at the last couple of elections because of that attitude and now finally grew some balls and decided to act as if they weren't a bunch of yes-men. So the current behaviour seems quite retro. Conroy fucking the idea up would be more in line with current goals.
Alligators in Florida! Crocodiles in Africa, Asia, Australia.
I guess there is some association here with "sharks with lasers". Though here in oz I know which one I rather swim near if I had to. From most to least dangerous (relative) I'd say: Crocodiles, box jelly and then sharks. Sharks eat people more by accident, box jellies just bump into you by accident... crocs will hunt you if they see you and pursue by water or land.
... and yet the world is tracking nicely along the Limits To Growth model predictions. Have you actually read Limits? Seriously. Limits as I recall shows everything getting better through the 20th century as long as you ignore things like the ecosystem. Then in the mid 21st, pollution and resource depletion start hitting hard. I am surprised the model tracks so well considering their assumptions.
As for limiting growth etc, well growth works fine until you hit... the limits. You know that is the title! When resource depletion starts... no amount of capital (which you will quickly find suddenly becomes worthless) will matter.
So this was "Limits To Growth" or was it the later eco movement? Be precise. Because there are plenty of graphs of the Meadows simulations that made up Limits which show problems arising in the 21st century.
Oil running out in 1997. This would probably be the peak oil estimate originally made by Hubbard. More precise data shows the peak around now. Me, I dunno... not a geologist. But a decade is not a big error margin. Are we at peak? Probably wont be able to tell for another 5 years... you have to go over it to know it was there. However, this is not Limits To Growth.
If you are in a car heading for a brick wall and you know that even if you brake you will still hit it, would you then say "well since we're going to hit it anyway we don't need to brake at all"?
Limits to Growth wasn't bullshit. Its predictions are pretty much coming to pass, and pretty much on time. There is a myth that they predicted all apocalyptic shit in the 20th century. I remember when Limits came out.... its predictions were aimed squarely at the early to mid 21st century.
To most people science and technology are equivalent to magic. If you say it can happen and have some cool effects then they will believe it. If you actually know the stuff... well you are a minority and the director doesn't care about you (us).
I have for some time wondered how you would preserve at low cost something like an encyclopaedia. I occurs to me that one possibility after you have your airtight container is to just before you seal it you drop into it some dehumidifying crystals and, paradoxically, a moist pad of soft steel wool. The steel wool will rapidly oxidise removing a lot of O2, the crystals will mop up the excess H2O vapour. Or just flood the container with N2, though my original motivation is being able to do this with stuff that may not be readily available. Even so many of the components may drift out of spec just due to temperature over 50 years. Ideally it should be buried in Antarctica, but seeing how that is likely to be a bit too far. Place it underground, but isolated from ground water. Usual stuff.
Or perhaps humans didn't really invent Cylons. And the Cylons are under control of 'someone else'. This is actually admitted (they don't know who programmed them or why). Who programmed the whole Final Five stuff and the taboos in the first place? Humans? Doubt it. There is obviously another group manipulating the Cylons and Humans for their / its own purposes. Well that's how I read it, the writers can make up their own stuff of course.
Cowboy Neal is nobody more than a drug runner for the Bilderberger Group who plan to control all the intelligence in the world with their Slashdot drug.
I see, it's all so clear now. It is actually Cowboy Neal Stephenson, and he is peddling Slash Crash to the tech community resulting in a reverse technological singularity.
Slashdot Mirror
I am a messy individual at times. I can leave junk strewn around and know where everything is exactly. However, this seems to incur some computational or cognitive load ... I think it is probably a copout to avoid thinking about other things. Anyway, if I make my environment clear and uncluttered, screen too, then I am more relaxed and can think more clearly.
I should also say something here about Network Admins and the need to sacrifice chickens to the God of Problem Solving but it is probably obvious to all.
Wooohooo! Excellent post. Very clever, well done.
What I found interesting about many of these original works was not the final product as such, but rather the reasoning towards it. What is usually missing when you read a text is the detailed reasoning leading up to the idea, what the alternatives were, why were they discarded. We usually only get a brief overview of the issues, so when we read the original we see more clearly how a great mind approached an unsolved problem. That I think is the real value of such works. They cover so much more than the final path.
Very nice.
Your evilness is impressive. Get back to me when you build your Secret Lair. Though I fear, that you really should have patented this notion ...
We interrupt the current developer religious war to redirect to another developer religious war. (pushing message number onto stack for return from call)
OK. That's too harsh. But true if that is all you do. I would regard HTML coding as a minor but essential tool in the skillset of various people (including all developers).
I mean. Should I say: I do C, I do C++, I do python, I do Java, I do UML etc ... bit lame to just pick one out. But if I only did one I'd be worried.
Someone please mod up. I also saw this from the inside in my pre-IT days. It is pretty much bang on the money. And although I never liked unions or monopolies ... after seeing this I came to dislike privatisation even more. I saw a culture of quality turn into "let's pretend we are all capitalists now, so no more quality just profit." I kid you not. Then they brought out the 'razor gangs' to cut staff and increase workloads ... except of course the people who chose to leave were the most talented, not the deadwood as management expected. Big surprise. I use Telstra because I need a Telstra line to connect to my ISP (Internode) not because I like them ... as for the competition, Optus - fucktards ... kept on getting my name wrong, thought someone else was living at my address ... private enterprise is so wonderful. I was surprised to find that in many of these ex-government companies there are many highly talented, hard working and deeply committed people ... I always thought they were stabbed in the back.
OK. Rant over.
Yes Dyson is a bright guy. I really admire his scientific creativity. But you know, that doesn't make him right.
The funny thing about most of the 'skeptics' is that they aren't really skeptics at all. They don't look at the real science and the real evidence. They choose a side based on a political or philosophical view. Well, you know the universe doesn't give a shit about that ... and it doesn't care if the food regions collapse and there is massive starvation. Perhaps you imagine that your imaginary friend in the sky will come and help or that the aliens will arrive and we will all be ok. Me ... I worry for my children and I wont accept this namby pamby anti-intellectual cop out if their lives and future are at risk.
OK, rant over.
no one can read the damn Hieroglyphs any more
Sorry but this is pseudo scientific mumbo jumbo. Hieroglyphs have been readable for about 180 years now. No mystery at all. Just google for hieroglyphs or Champollion or Rosetta Stone.
You get used to it pretty quickly. After awhile Fahrenheit is just obsolete. Been there, done that.
Our aircon system here uses tenths of a degree Celsius.
Completely reasonable suggestion. Labor is traditionally against this kind of thing, but in the last generation the party has developed this attitude of "oh no we're not that rigid left wing bunch anymore we can be as pro-business or pro-[some right wing idea] as our opponents". They got into trouble at the last couple of elections because of that attitude and now finally grew some balls and decided to act as if they weren't a bunch of yes-men. So the current behaviour seems quite retro. Conroy fucking the idea up would be more in line with current goals.
OK. Rant over.
Alligators in Florida! Crocodiles in Africa, Asia, Australia.
I guess there is some association here with "sharks with lasers". Though here in oz I know which one I rather swim near if I had to. From most to least dangerous (relative) I'd say: Crocodiles, box jelly and then sharks. Sharks eat people more by accident, box jellies just bump into you by accident ... crocs will hunt you if they see you and pursue by water or land.
... and yet the world is tracking nicely along the Limits To Growth model predictions. Have you actually read Limits? Seriously. Limits as I recall shows everything getting better through the 20th century as long as you ignore things like the ecosystem. Then in the mid 21st, pollution and resource depletion start hitting hard. I am surprised the model tracks so well considering their assumptions.
As for limiting growth etc, well growth works fine until you hit ... the limits. You know that is the title! When resource depletion starts ... no amount of capital (which you will quickly find suddenly becomes worthless) will matter.
So this was "Limits To Growth" or was it the later eco movement? Be precise. Because there are plenty of graphs of the Meadows simulations that made up Limits which show problems arising in the 21st century.
Oil running out in 1997. This would probably be the peak oil estimate originally made by Hubbard. More precise data shows the peak around now. Me, I dunno ... not a geologist. But a decade is not a big error margin. Are we at peak? Probably wont be able to tell for another 5 years ... you have to go over it to know it was there. However, this is not Limits To Growth.
Being slashdot we need a car analogy.
If you are in a car heading for a brick wall and you know that even if you brake you will still hit it, would you then say "well since we're going to hit it anyway we don't need to brake at all"?
Limits to Growth wasn't bullshit. Its predictions are pretty much coming to pass, and pretty much on time. There is a myth that they predicted all apocalyptic shit in the 20th century. I remember when Limits came out .... its predictions were aimed squarely at the early to mid 21st century.
To most people science and technology are equivalent to magic. If you say it can happen and have some cool effects then they will believe it. If you actually know the stuff ... well you are a minority and the director doesn't care about you (us).
Well it is doable. Though it is the 'scenic route' to solving the problem. Any puns or double meanings are only in your head ... as they always are.
I have for some time wondered how you would preserve at low cost something like an encyclopaedia. I occurs to me that one possibility after you have your airtight container is to just before you seal it you drop into it some dehumidifying crystals and, paradoxically, a moist pad of soft steel wool. The steel wool will rapidly oxidise removing a lot of O2, the crystals will mop up the excess H2O vapour. Or just flood the container with N2, though my original motivation is being able to do this with stuff that may not be readily available. Even so many of the components may drift out of spec just due to temperature over 50 years. Ideally it should be buried in Antarctica, but seeing how that is likely to be a bit too far. Place it underground, but isolated from ground water. Usual stuff.
Or perhaps humans didn't really invent Cylons. And the Cylons are under control of 'someone else'. This is actually admitted (they don't know who programmed them or why). Who programmed the whole Final Five stuff and the taboos in the first place? Humans? Doubt it. There is obviously another group manipulating the Cylons and Humans for their / its own purposes. Well that's how I read it, the writers can make up their own stuff of course.
I want to know the following:
Cowboy Neal is nobody more than a drug runner for the Bilderberger Group who plan to control all the intelligence in the world with their Slashdot drug.
I see, it's all so clear now. It is actually Cowboy Neal Stephenson, and he is peddling Slash Crash to the tech community resulting in a reverse technological singularity.
and an onslaught of startups with no purpose or plan to make money
Is it just me or does this sound like the 2000 bubble all over again?
Astrophysicists call everything other than Hydrogen and Helium as 'Metals'. There may be reasons to be suspicious but this is not one of them.