If they can build it, we can build it and zap them with it:)
But seriously, I wasn't suggesting that it isn't possible to produce an effective home-made taser, merely that this particular project isn't quite as nasty as some commercial products out there.
You bring up a good point! IANA Engineer, but I did get some (very basic!) training on these working in the security industry. Tasers work by delivering a longer jolt than a simple capacitor can produce. IIRC there is also a longer-range version of these devices that fires a small dart and deploys a wire behind it, which is then used to again deliver a much longer shock than is possible through home-made methods. Good for zapping friends/cow-orkers etc tho.
jridley also correctly states that running fast would be a prerequisite for using one of these things. Personally, I'd rather an ASP baton or almost anything over these devices in a crisis!
So we unleash wave after wave of Chinese Needle snakes!
Don't forget the lovely possums that your charming Aussie neighbours gave you, too. I hear they are everywhere in NZ too.
Rabbits have been pretty damaging here too, but I'd say that bird and plant species have had the worst impact. Starlings, Indian Mynahs and pigeons, and weeds like blackberries and so on.
I very much agree with your conlusion that introducing new species to an ecology is usually a very foolish thing to do.
Sorry, my marketroid jargon just isn't up to scratch. Where I said 'customers' I should have said 'customer base' or something like that. By using lawsuits against anyone who might buy your product, you're automatically generating bad press and pissing off those people who may have wanted to buy your product. You make a valid objection, which the replies below have already mentioned.
I don't seem to recall admitting that at all. I think you may have simply made it up to support your argument. I use windows 2000 as well, and I consider that to be fairly unusable too, but less so.
Also, I don't recall mentioning Gnome in my previous argument. As it happens, I do consider Gnome to be a vast improvement over the windows UI, especially XP. I think KDE also has distinct advantages. But, and this is a big but, many of the advantages of the Linux desktops are geared towards people who want to customize every last detail of their work environment, which many windows users (in my experience) don't generally care about.
But, while we're expressing wild, flamebait-type accusations, how about this list:
Stability: even my fully patched windows 2000 box goes down at least 2 or 3 times a week. Particularly if Java is involved.
Multiple workspaces: come on, you need a third-party program just to get this essential feature.
Registration: I like to be able to change my hardware and not phone Bill every time.
I could go on, but can't be bothered. I suspect you are a troll or flamebait merchant anyway.
India also produced Siddartha Gautama, AKA Buddha. It's obviously not a hot weather thing, also Australians (and I am one) do often tend to violence and stupidity when it gets hot. But perhaps that's just inbuilt.
I'm not telling anyone "no more astronomy". And yes, I did RTFA. I don't recall reducing anyone to the level of animals and was merely suggesting that it's generally a better idea to spend one's time trying to help others in a more meaningful way, before you twisted my words against me.
I'm a linguist who spends a fair bit of time thinking about these sorts of things (I have a cat, of course!), and I just wanted to say that your post was very well-written and raises a few questions that I enjoy thinking about.
Your first point, that we haven't ever needed to communicate with dolphins and vice versa is a very good one that many professional linguists really don't get. Communication only comes about when it is an advantage to both parties.
One thing that is important here I think is to clearly distinguish communication from language. Most animal species can and do communicate with each other (and in some cases, with humans), ranging in complexity from ants to chimpanzees, but it is yet to be proven that any animals use language in any ways outside of a purely functional manner. Humans use language in so many ways - as a functional, communicative tool, as a system of recording facts, as a social construct for building groups of humans... I could go on. I don't think there are all that many documented cases of animals showing these kinds of behaviours.
But, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence! I personally have a feeling that cats do understand what humans say very, very well. Down to the word level. I'm not sure what their syntax is like (i.e. whether they can interpret meaning above the word level, as phrases or sentences) but Aristotle, my cat, picks up on quite a lot of phrases, such as 'vet', 'bad cat', 'good cat' and all those mundane things, including the name of every kind of food he likes. I also have a bilingual friend whose cats understand his English and Spanish very well. Of course, all this isn't very scientific, but there are reasons to suspect that cats do understand us very well. They have been hanging around us for a long, long time... perhaps since the dawn of farming techniques and granary construction, 2000 bce or earlier. You could even say we have a symbiotic relationship with cats, i.e. a mutually beneficial relationship. They eat the mice, birds and insects that come after our food, which is good for everyone. Except when they hunt the neighbours pigeons, stupid things. (Pigeons, not cats!)
I think there's still a lot we don't know about this kind of thing, but I'm always looking into it!
I'm not trying to offend anyone here, so I will be very careful with my words. This is just my opinion, but I think that deliberately setting out to encourage others to join your system of beliefs is not a good or responsible thing to do. Simply in the act of proffering a particular belief system on others, you are necessarily advocating that point of view. It is your opinion. The way that many Christian Churches have acted in the past has been to enshrine their doctrine in myth and ritual, and to withhold the fact that Christianity was a point of view, not the point of view.
I just think that religion is something that must be spread through people being shown the true possibilities in terms of belief systems that are available to them, rather than having ideas thrust at you by parents or Clerics.
Just my 2 cents, feel free to disagree! That is your right, just as this opinion is mine.
I think that the parent is flamebait inasmuch as it encourages flames (thank goodness all the Christians are in bed) but I belive it still makes a very valid point: surely the Vatican should spend more time thinking about how to truly help the people on this planet rather than speculating about people (in its loosest sense!) much further away!
This really seems to resonate with the attitude of the Catholic Church in the Fifteenth Century. "We have learned from our brave adventurers and scientists that people, or what we would roughly call people, exist on a place unbelievably far away. Let's convert them!" And the rest is rather unpleasant history.
I don't think that's flippant at all... it is pretty much the same kind of volume discount used everywhere else. I just think that regular napster customers might be a little annoyed about the apparent arbitrariness of the pricing system of what is essentially an intangible product. Sure, there is something being transferred here, but it's not like in wholesale/retail markup for example, where the discount actually reflects the decreased overheads in terms of packaging, handling and the like. It's probably splitting hairs, but i think it's a little different in application.
As *some* Australians might say, "same shit, different bucket".
They've gone a long way, from being one of the trailblazers in filesharing, to a co-opted bully doing business through the RIAA sue-your-own-customers model.
It sounds like the admission of their discounted price is not going to please their subscribers either. Whoever they are. Anyone around here use it? I don't think they can really compete, to be honest. But I will continue to watch the online music wars with interest.
Personally, I don't see it as conflicting that I fall into all of those groups. I would rate myself as pretty fanatical about linux, but I also use win2k and BSD on the side.
I do think you're right about the makeup of/. posters in particular. As for readers and AC-only types, who knows? They might all be windows zealots here for a laugh. Like the people (trolls?) around at the moment with MCSE, Well Respect VBScripting Guru etc. in their sigs.
I would generally describing windows as an inoperating system, particularly win98. In that case I believe the statement is true, and that Microsoft is indeed very pro-IOS.
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It's always been a lose-lose situation. That's why it provides so much entertainment!
If they can build it, we can build it and zap them with it :)
But seriously, I wasn't suggesting that it isn't possible to produce an effective home-made taser, merely that this particular project isn't quite as nasty as some commercial products out there.
You bring up a good point! IANA Engineer, but I did get some (very basic!) training on these working in the security industry. Tasers work by delivering a longer jolt than a simple capacitor can produce. IIRC there is also a longer-range version of these devices that fires a small dart and deploys a wire behind it, which is then used to again deliver a much longer shock than is possible through home-made methods. Good for zapping friends/cow-orkers etc tho.
jridley also correctly states that running fast would be a prerequisite for using one of these things. Personally, I'd rather an ASP baton or almost anything over these devices in a crisis!
Cattle prods aren't illigal then? I will have to keep that in mind.
of today that, and they won't believe you.
No, not a word!
Slightly OT, but this incident involving stupidity and airport security that happened yesterday may be familiar to some Australian readers.
It would be more fun, too, I suspect. I can find more fun things to do in emacs than on that entire system. What were they thinking?
The first thing I do when asked to fix a friend's XP box is to suggest that they install 2000 pro before I even touch it :)
I don't mind the general appearance of office to be honest. As far as I'm concernced if the interface doesn't annoy me, it's doing its job.
So we unleash wave after wave of Chinese Needle snakes!
Don't forget the lovely possums that your charming Aussie neighbours gave you, too. I hear they are everywhere in NZ too.
Rabbits have been pretty damaging here too, but I'd say that bird and plant species have had the worst impact. Starlings, Indian Mynahs and pigeons, and weeds like blackberries and so on.
I very much agree with your conlusion that introducing new species to an ecology is usually a very foolish thing to do.
Sorry, my marketroid jargon just isn't up to scratch. Where I said 'customers' I should have said 'customer base' or something like that. By using lawsuits against anyone who might buy your product, you're automatically generating bad press and pissing off those people who may have wanted to buy your product. You make a valid objection, which the replies below have already mentioned.
So the end justifies the means. That's just swell, I guess you can wipe away all that massacre and genocide with good intentions then!
I don't seem to recall admitting that at all. I think you may have simply made it up to support your argument. I use windows 2000 as well, and I consider that to be fairly unusable too, but less so.
Also, I don't recall mentioning Gnome in my previous argument. As it happens, I do consider Gnome to be a vast improvement over the windows UI, especially XP. I think KDE also has distinct advantages. But, and this is a big but, many of the advantages of the Linux desktops are geared towards people who want to customize every last detail of their work environment, which many windows users (in my experience) don't generally care about.
But, while we're expressing wild, flamebait-type accusations, how about this list:
India also produced Siddartha Gautama, AKA Buddha. It's obviously not a hot weather thing, also Australians (and I am one) do often tend to violence and stupidity when it gets hot. But perhaps that's just inbuilt.
I'm not telling anyone "no more astronomy". And yes, I did RTFA. I don't recall reducing anyone to the level of animals and was merely suggesting that it's generally a better idea to spend one's time trying to help others in a more meaningful way, before you twisted my words against me.
I'm a linguist who spends a fair bit of time thinking about these sorts of things (I have a cat, of course!), and I just wanted to say that your post was very well-written and raises a few questions that I enjoy thinking about.
Your first point, that we haven't ever needed to communicate with dolphins and vice versa is a very good one that many professional linguists really don't get. Communication only comes about when it is an advantage to both parties.
One thing that is important here I think is to clearly distinguish communication from language. Most animal species can and do communicate with each other (and in some cases, with humans), ranging in complexity from ants to chimpanzees, but it is yet to be proven that any animals use language in any ways outside of a purely functional manner. Humans use language in so many ways - as a functional, communicative tool, as a system of recording facts, as a social construct for building groups of humans... I could go on. I don't think there are all that many documented cases of animals showing these kinds of behaviours.
But, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence! I personally have a feeling that cats do understand what humans say very, very well. Down to the word level. I'm not sure what their syntax is like (i.e. whether they can interpret meaning above the word level, as phrases or sentences) but Aristotle, my cat, picks up on quite a lot of phrases, such as 'vet', 'bad cat', 'good cat' and all those mundane things, including the name of every kind of food he likes. I also have a bilingual friend whose cats understand his English and Spanish very well. Of course, all this isn't very scientific, but there are reasons to suspect that cats do understand us very well. They have been hanging around us for a long, long time... perhaps since the dawn of farming techniques and granary construction, 2000 bce or earlier. You could even say we have a symbiotic relationship with cats, i.e. a mutually beneficial relationship. They eat the mice, birds and insects that come after our food, which is good for everyone. Except when they hunt the neighbours pigeons, stupid things. (Pigeons, not cats!)
I think there's still a lot we don't know about this kind of thing, but I'm always looking into it!
Of course I use "people" in an enormously broad sense here, roughly: 'animate things that can think and communicate with us'.
I suspect even that suggestion would have sent you to an early grave. At least people aren't quite that superstitious any more.
I'm not trying to offend anyone here, so I will be very careful with my words. This is just my opinion, but I think that deliberately setting out to encourage others to join your system of beliefs is not a good or responsible thing to do. Simply in the act of proffering a particular belief system on others, you are necessarily advocating that point of view. It is your opinion. The way that many Christian Churches have acted in the past has been to enshrine their doctrine in myth and ritual, and to withhold the fact that Christianity was a point of view, not the point of view.
I just think that religion is something that must be spread through people being shown the true possibilities in terms of belief systems that are available to them, rather than having ideas thrust at you by parents or Clerics.
Just my 2 cents, feel free to disagree! That is your right, just as this opinion is mine.
"If only he had joined a mainstream religion, like Oprahism or Voodoo!"
I think that the parent is flamebait inasmuch as it encourages flames (thank goodness all the Christians are in bed) but I belive it still makes a very valid point: surely the Vatican should spend more time thinking about how to truly help the people on this planet rather than speculating about people (in its loosest sense!) much further away!
This really seems to resonate with the attitude of the Catholic Church in the Fifteenth Century. "We have learned from our brave adventurers and scientists that people, or what we would roughly call people, exist on a place unbelievably far away. Let's convert them!" And the rest is rather unpleasant history.
I believe the correct term is crapflood.
I don't think that's flippant at all... it is pretty much the same kind of volume discount used everywhere else. I just think that regular napster customers might be a little annoyed about the apparent arbitrariness of the pricing system of what is essentially an intangible product. Sure, there is something being transferred here, but it's not like in wholesale/retail markup for example, where the discount actually reflects the decreased overheads in terms of packaging, handling and the like. It's probably splitting hairs, but i think it's a little different in application.
As *some* Australians might say, "same shit, different bucket".
They've gone a long way, from being one of the trailblazers in filesharing, to a co-opted bully doing business through the RIAA sue-your-own-customers model.
It sounds like the admission of their discounted price is not going to please their subscribers either. Whoever they are. Anyone around here use it? I don't think they can really compete, to be honest. But I will continue to watch the online music wars with interest.
That wouldn't be hard, IMHO. I haven't used a mac for years and years though, and I just can't afford one at the moment. I would if I could though!
Personally, I don't see it as conflicting that I fall into all of those groups. I would rate myself as pretty fanatical about linux, but I also use win2k and BSD on the side.
I do think you're right about the makeup of /. posters in particular. As for readers and AC-only types, who knows? They might all be windows zealots here for a laugh. Like the people (trolls?) around at the moment with MCSE, Well Respect VBScripting Guru etc. in their sigs.
I would generally describing windows as an inoperating system, particularly win98. In that case I believe the statement is true, and that Microsoft is indeed very pro-IOS.