Re:About that plot arc reversal
on
Ringworld's Children
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Yeah, the reason for 'reversal' was rather weak - given that the doc could have been reprogrammed. Fear of the puppeteer disconnecting the doc? Then again, why was the puppeteer still needed in the first place?
I mean, after Niven declared the protectors to be so much driven by their instincts, it sounds rather implausible for one to leave his freshly-smelled descendant on its own (protected by 'luck') when the opposite numbers were already aware of his existence. Needing time to prepare, yes - but that? kind of an extreme case of finding a problem and letting others solve it, I'd say.
Also, given the presumed existence of a human protector in charge somewhere back home, even the course of action you're suggesting looks shakey. Although I'd rather be more inclined to call that one a bluff - after all, a protector destroys his descendants' ennemies - and that didn't happen to the Kzinti. Hard to keep the story consistent with that line.
Probably to standardize on a (small) subset of Deb that can be kept simple. The better question would be, if Deb releases a new stable (yeah, I know, before Duke Nukem Forever, yada-yada), how will this distro fare?
Also, if anyone would care to explain the broad "accompanied by certifications" statement - do these guys hope for some sponsorship in getting official certs?
Anyway, I was wondering about the rules on this playground: How would you pull a stunt like that without losing face?
Contrary to the impression left by all the Linux/BSD/GNU etc. zealots, releasing the code under a BSD or GPL license means there is no real OS war going on between say Linux (with or without GNU) and *BSD. The BSD license for the network stack pretty much says "here's our code - feel free to use it, find mistakes, improve on it, etc." If other operating systems (open or not) decide to ad[ao]pt it, this would be a recognition of its quality. There's no losing face in paying a compliment to someone for good code. Of course, if one has a better idea/technology/etc. for doing the same job, one does one's own implementation.
However, childish types will only see a 'my OS is bigger than your OS' face for this.
He seems quite wrong, seeing as the Bible is littered with examples of the "true" religion fighting off false gods (both the Old Testament and the Apocalypse) Add the whole Middle Ages tradition of witch burning and the Inquisition that dealt with non-Christian heretics and the later "saving" of the barbarians in the colonies by converting them to serve "the true God" (more precisely His European representatives)
Heck, even Christianity itself is not one religion - with the first split (eastern/Roman) being so brutal that the two sides outright excomunicated each other, which lasted until very recently.
If you want to see religious freedom, I guess a better place to look would be east Asia, seeing as they actually allowed various religious "flavors" to coexist for a long time. In Europe, religion was an instrument of control, thus incompatible with "freedom" until quite late - we were the cultural barbarians from this perspective, until a larger exposure to non-Christianity (no, Judaism doesn't really count) started to occur in the 19th century.
So what happens if I 'see it pop up out of seemingly nowhere' and I don't agree to its EULA? Does it remove itself and install back the previous version or can I sue MS for the lost functionality of my computer? (assuming no 'accept' = no player)
I wonder... for an article that practically begs for Nigerian scam jokes, how many will be modded as redundant? Mind you, the submission itself could probably compete successfully for a +5 Funny, so no complaints here:-)
You can't exactly switch from Gnome to Windows or OSX while staying with the same OS, can you? The point is choice for the same OS. Otherwise, with one major UI per OS you're stuck with it.
Yeah, you can switch to one of the 'minor' UIs in Linux, but the functionality for which you picked the 'major' one won't be there so you'll be losing something too.
Also, corporate adoption can play a big role in inflating one's (collective or not) head. Funny that this kind of 'we know best' decisions never happen when someone is playing catch-up in one area or another, but start cropping up as soon as one is perceived as the only or dominant alternative in that particular area. That's not to say all these decisions are bad, but some of them are bound to be.
The distance is actually smaller than 70 to 0 - both cars will be braking so assuming an equal deceleration you'll only have a (hopefully) small relative speed that has been picked up before the second car started braking; add to this the distance for accelerating to and decelerating from that relative speed in the car's reference frame. The total time however will be for a 70 to 0 brake.
Somehow the prospect of Novell controlling both Ximian and Trolltech looks... weird. Although maybe less so if they were to do something on the lines of:
1. buy TT 2. release QT/X under LGPL instead of GPL to make it more attractive to developers/remove licensing fud. 3. Extend KDE/QT with full Mono bindings and start promoting them heavily.
That would presumably make efficient use of all their new aquisitions - as it is now, they have this confusing image about the future direction of the SuSe desktop. Plus, it might actually steal the ball from MS with managed desktop apps.
You're right about the 5200 performance, but the price range is wrong - you can get it for ~$60. Good enough for some people, I guess (say you need a cheap DX9 gpu to tinker with).
This would be another perfect example to whack the European Commission's collective head with - how would they like it if this UK company obtained an injunction against WindowsUpdate using a bogus software patent?
A method for distributing information to a plurality of uncoordinated user stations each of which is configured for communications with a multiplicity of independently-operated servers via a non-proprietary network...
yeah, it's called ftp (rfc959, 1985). Talk about ridiculous - hey, we invented automating ftp with scripting! g1v3 us m3g/\ m0n13z!
Vatican? *shudders* Heavens, better not! If you were to get excomunicated and condemned to Hell forever for violating (ah! the sinner!) a patent, you'd be looking nostalgically back at the kindness of SCO's litigation model... for all eternity
On the other hand, that could make outsourcing to India skyrocket.
Assuming the positronic brain has a few billion of these
Given that typical electron densities can be in the range of 10^20+, 10^9 positrons can safely considered noise - as in 'not nearly enough to form a signal, let alone be used for processing information'.
That aside, I doubt Asimov himself had much of an idea about how it was supposed to work. One would not want to mix matter and antimatter anyway, unless it's meant as an energy source ^_^
wow, impressive amount of quotes:-) I do hope you didn't copy them by hand.
Ignoring for the time being that 'best known for' does not imply 'creator of'... your argument is not entirely correct either. It actually shows that more than one person contributed to the theories, which should come as no surprise.
For GR, you would be really hard pressed to prove that Einstein blatantly copied Hilbert's equations. Assuming, for a bit of reductio ad absurdum, that he did - publishing them without much understanding (Einstein's mathematical ability was quite below Hilbert's and the GR equations are not exactly something you just come up with) is not really believable. Moreso since Hilbert never claimed paternity for them (from your very Nobel link). It looks more likely that they exchanged notes in a late stage, which doesn't sound all that incredible in scientific research. Hilbert wasn't the only mathematician who corresponded with Einstein either, so what does this prove?
As to the point about Poincaré, far from me to deny his contribution to the mathematical foundation of the special relativity - it would be utterly silly. However, a geometrical theory does not a physical theory make, although it can be a large part of it. Also, your choice of quotes might not be the most eloquent, as they mostly extend work previously started by Lorentz (it's rather funny, the first 2 quotes are rather a philosoplical critique that, by 1902, was already rather clear, while the 1905 one is based on a paper of Lorentz's from 1904, presenting the said transformations). Anyway, correct me if I'm wrong (as it's late and I can't seem to find online links quickly enough), but by Lorentz's own admission, the mathematical part was a rather ad hoc explanation, without much physical backing in terms of 'why' at the time.
So maybe you wanted to say that the theories of relativity was developed by more people than Einstein, which should be obvious. Or maybe you wanted to argue that history was twisted and in reality Einstein just plagiarized left and right. At this point, it's not quite clear to me. Anyway, to use a distorted quote, a genius is like a guide who comes to you as you stumble through the mountains and shows you the way as if he just came back from there. And afterwards all the pieces fall into place.
There was a random mugging incident near the campus here not too long ago that occurred close enough to a Uni building that the guys actually got on the security camera. They posted the (low-res) pic in the campus-wide advisory. You know what? it was useless. In the night, two black (and that's from the victim's description, for all the camera showed they might have had black masks) guys in nondescript light-colored clothes - the b&w images showed mostly the clothes, as that's what the camera was exposing for. Trying to make something of the shapes (let aside faces) was futile - using this pic as evidence for anything would have been laughing stock.
So how are these going to protect people from muggers again? Especially since you need to trade off viewing angle for resolution - and any camera with a hi-res sensor in a mugger-prone area is more likely to get stolen than not anyway.
You're only half-right. Expanding won't help, as his argument is that the terms rearrange to form the other series, which is 'almost' correct.
The problem, as already pointed out, is rearranging. In this case it's done by playing with differences of divergent subseries - and that's the fallacy in his argument. Thus, while x1=x2/2 is correct (true for any finite subsum), x1=x2 is not (where x1 is the {1/(2k+1)-1/(2k+2)} sum, x2 is the {1/(2k+1)-1/(4k+2)-1/(4k+4)} one)
If it doesn't contain any data that can be used to endanger national security, WHY is it classified?
That would be due to the fact that stupid information propagates faster (less content, thus smaller mass), so it's vital to keep it in check. Now that you read this classified explanation, please do not leave your current premises - you will be contacted shortly with a choice of being moved to a secure location or a quick and painless death.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, the reason for 'reversal' was rather weak - given that the doc could have been reprogrammed. Fear of the puppeteer disconnecting the doc? Then again, why was the puppeteer still needed in the first place?
I mean, after Niven declared the protectors to be so much driven by their instincts, it sounds rather implausible for one to leave his freshly-smelled descendant on its own (protected by 'luck') when the opposite numbers were already aware of his existence. Needing time to prepare, yes - but that? kind of an extreme case of finding a problem and letting others solve it, I'd say.
Also, given the presumed existence of a human protector in charge somewhere back home, even the course of action you're suggesting looks shakey. Although I'd rather be more inclined to call that one a bluff - after all, a protector destroys his descendants' ennemies - and that didn't happen to the Kzinti. Hard to keep the story consistent with that line.
Probably to standardize on a (small) subset of Deb that can be kept simple. The better question would be, if Deb releases a new stable (yeah, I know, before Duke Nukem Forever, yada-yada), how will this distro fare?
Also, if anyone would care to explain the broad "accompanied by certifications" statement - do these guys hope for some sponsorship in getting official certs?
First, that's not new by any definition.
Second, these Kodak cameras have larger sensors (although in this particular case larger != better quality).
Finally, there are such things as digital backs for larger format cameras. Check this one out.
Canon is nice, but it's not an end-all-be-all in photography.
Anyway, I was wondering about the rules on this playground: How would you pull a stunt like that without losing face?
Contrary to the impression left by all the Linux/BSD/GNU etc. zealots, releasing the code under a BSD or GPL license means there is no real OS war going on between say Linux (with or without GNU) and *BSD. The BSD license for the network stack pretty much says "here's our code - feel free to use it, find mistakes, improve on it, etc." If other operating systems (open or not) decide to ad[ao]pt it, this would be a recognition of its quality. There's no losing face in paying a compliment to someone for good code. Of course, if one has a better idea/technology/etc. for doing the same job, one does one's own implementation.
However, childish types will only see a 'my OS is bigger than your OS' face for this.
He seems quite wrong, seeing as the Bible is littered with examples of the "true" religion fighting off false gods (both the Old Testament and the Apocalypse) Add the whole Middle Ages tradition of witch burning and the Inquisition that dealt with non-Christian heretics and the later "saving" of the barbarians in the colonies by converting them to serve "the true God" (more precisely His European representatives)
Heck, even Christianity itself is not one religion - with the first split (eastern/Roman) being so brutal that the two sides outright excomunicated each other, which lasted until very recently.
If you want to see religious freedom, I guess a better place to look would be east Asia, seeing as they actually allowed various religious "flavors" to coexist for a long time. In Europe, religion was an instrument of control, thus incompatible with "freedom" until quite late - we were the cultural barbarians from this perspective, until a larger exposure to non-Christianity (no, Judaism doesn't really count) started to occur in the 19th century.
So what happens if I 'see it pop up out of seemingly nowhere' and I don't agree to its EULA? Does it remove itself and install back the previous version or can I sue MS for the lost functionality of my computer? (assuming no 'accept' = no player)
I wonder ... for an article that practically begs for Nigerian scam jokes, how many will be modded as redundant? Mind you, the submission itself could probably compete successfully for a +5 Funny, so no complaints here :-)
Use verse elements with no margins and padding. Make them children of stanza elements that do have margins.
You can't exactly switch from Gnome to Windows or OSX while staying with the same OS, can you? The point is choice for the same OS. Otherwise, with one major UI per OS you're stuck with it.
Yeah, you can switch to one of the 'minor' UIs in Linux, but the functionality for which you picked the 'major' one won't be there so you'll be losing something too.
Also, corporate adoption can play a big role in inflating one's (collective or not) head. Funny that this kind of 'we know best' decisions never happen when someone is playing catch-up in one area or another, but start cropping up as soon as one is perceived as the only or dominant alternative in that particular area. That's not to say all these decisions are bad, but some of them are bound to be.
The distance is actually smaller than 70 to 0 - both cars will be braking so assuming an equal deceleration you'll only have a (hopefully) small relative speed that has been picked up before the second car started braking; add to this the distance for accelerating to and decelerating from that relative speed in the car's reference frame. The total time however will be for a 70 to 0 brake.
Kant isn't going anywhere soon ... he's been dead for quite a while now. you should be able to catch up with him at your leisure ^_^
Somehow the prospect of Novell controlling both Ximian and Trolltech looks ... weird. Although maybe less so if they were to do something on the lines of:
1. buy TT
2. release QT/X under LGPL instead of GPL to make it more attractive to developers/remove licensing fud.
3. Extend KDE/QT with full Mono bindings and start promoting them heavily.
That would presumably make efficient use of all their new aquisitions - as it is now, they have this confusing image about the future direction of the SuSe desktop. Plus, it might actually steal the ball from MS with managed desktop apps.
True, but for too many things XSL would be overkill. CSS is simple and fits a specific purpose quite well.
You're right about the 5200 performance, but the price range is wrong - you can get it for ~$60. Good enough for some people, I guess (say you need a cheap DX9 gpu to tinker with).
Wasn't ATI's 'high precision' ARB2 path 24bit as opposed to NVidia's 32bit?
This would be another perfect example to whack the European Commission's collective head with - how would they like it if this UK company obtained an injunction against WindowsUpdate using a bogus software patent?
A method for distributing information to a plurality of uncoordinated user stations each of which is configured for communications with a multiplicity of independently-operated servers via a non-proprietary network...
yeah, it's called ftp (rfc959, 1985). Talk about ridiculous - hey, we invented automating ftp with scripting! g1v3 us m3g/\ m0n13z!
actually no, since PE is actually COFF.
And "Portable" is MS speech for you can carry it around on a CD (or in a laptop).
Vatican? *shudders* Heavens, better not! If you were to get excomunicated and condemned to Hell forever for violating (ah! the sinner!) a patent, you'd be looking nostalgically back at the kindness of SCO's litigation model ... for all eternity
On the other hand, that could make outsourcing to India skyrocket.
Assuming the positronic brain has a few billion of these
Given that typical electron densities can be in the range of 10^20+, 10^9 positrons can safely considered noise - as in 'not nearly enough to form a signal, let alone be used for processing information'.
That aside, I doubt Asimov himself had much of an idea about how it was supposed to work. One would not want to mix matter and antimatter anyway, unless it's meant as an energy source ^_^
wow, impressive amount of quotes :-) I do hope you didn't copy them by hand.
... your argument is not entirely correct either. It actually shows that more than one person contributed to the theories, which should come as no surprise.
Ignoring for the time being that 'best known for' does not imply 'creator of'
For GR, you would be really hard pressed to prove that Einstein blatantly copied Hilbert's equations. Assuming, for a bit of reductio ad absurdum, that he did - publishing them without much understanding (Einstein's mathematical ability was quite below Hilbert's and the GR equations are not exactly something you just come up with) is not really believable. Moreso since Hilbert never claimed paternity for them (from your very Nobel link). It looks more likely that they exchanged notes in a late stage, which doesn't sound all that incredible in scientific research. Hilbert wasn't the only mathematician who corresponded with Einstein either, so what does this prove?
As to the point about Poincaré, far from me to deny his contribution to the mathematical foundation of the special relativity - it would be utterly silly. However, a geometrical theory does not a physical theory make, although it can be a large part of it. Also, your choice of quotes might not be the most eloquent, as they mostly extend work previously started by Lorentz (it's rather funny, the first 2 quotes are rather a philosoplical critique that, by 1902, was already rather clear, while the 1905 one is based on a paper of Lorentz's from 1904, presenting the said transformations). Anyway, correct me if I'm wrong (as it's late and I can't seem to find online links quickly enough), but by Lorentz's own admission, the mathematical part was a rather ad hoc explanation, without much physical backing in terms of 'why' at the time.
So maybe you wanted to say that the theories of relativity was developed by more people than Einstein, which should be obvious. Or maybe you wanted to argue that history was twisted and in reality Einstein just plagiarized left and right. At this point, it's not quite clear to me. Anyway, to use a distorted quote, a genius is like a guide who comes to you as you stumble through the mountains and shows you the way as if he just came back from there. And afterwards all the pieces fall into place.
There was a random mugging incident near the campus here not too long ago that occurred close enough to a Uni building that the guys actually got on the security camera. They posted the (low-res) pic in the campus-wide advisory. You know what? it was useless. In the night, two black (and that's from the victim's description, for all the camera showed they might have had black masks) guys in nondescript light-colored clothes - the b&w images showed mostly the clothes, as that's what the camera was exposing for. Trying to make something of the shapes (let aside faces) was futile - using this pic as evidence for anything would have been laughing stock.
So how are these going to protect people from muggers again? Especially since you need to trade off viewing angle for resolution - and any camera with a hi-res sensor in a mugger-prone area is more likely to get stolen than not anyway.
Funny you didn't get modded informative yet. I would however make the argument stronger by changing your example to something more obvious, like
1+2+3-2 +4+5+6-3 +7+8+9-4 +...
vs.
1 +2-2 +3-3 +...
Moving divergent subseries around is a nicer trick than plain division by zero though, I'll give him that ^_^
You're only half-right. Expanding won't help, as his argument is that the terms rearrange to form the other series, which is 'almost' correct.
The problem, as already pointed out, is rearranging. In this case it's done by playing with differences of divergent subseries - and that's the fallacy in his argument. Thus, while x1=x2/2 is correct (true for any finite subsum), x1=x2 is not (where x1 is the {1/(2k+1)-1/(2k+2)} sum, x2 is the {1/(2k+1)-1/(4k+2)-1/(4k+4)} one)
If it doesn't contain any data that can be used to endanger national security, WHY is it classified?
That would be due to the fact that stupid information propagates faster (less content, thus smaller mass), so it's vital to keep it in check. Now that you read this classified explanation, please do not leave your current premises - you will be contacted shortly with a choice of being moved to a secure location or a quick and painless death.
Security team,
Sandia Labs.