We need entropy in the pool or we'll cease to exist. Take the immune system, for example.. even the worst, most lethal, disease will have some survivors - typically about 5%. The reason for this is because the virus could not adapt to kill us all. If we start down the road of genetics, we will reduce the entropy in the pool. An entire new class of problems will arise - social tensions will rise, we'll have international crisis as countries who don't have it grow wary and suspicious of those who do.. and those who do will jealously guard their secrets - like we do the nuclear bomb. Although instructions are still available on the backpages of most any anarchy magazine we still claim that this is a "national security" risk.
Not only that, but in a group of people all the same, how will we differentiate ourselves? Right now I can say that I'm different than my mom, and my brother, and my community.. but what if I only knew 10,000 copies of myself? I'll tell you what I'd do - I'd compete to be the best version of me!
So we have competition, international tensions, a social (and quite possibly economic) division between the genetic have and have-nots.. Marx would have some words about this..
Let me lay out the scenario in plainer terms: Reduce entropy, reduce the ability to survive.
The human spirit and potential is not related solely to genetics.. have faith in that.. keep your eyes on our government, and be ready to stop them if they try. There's a reason we aren't all super-intelligent.. I've seen what happens when you get alot of people who are all homogenious, that is, all the same.. which is what super-human genetics would aim to do.. without sufficient entropy in the pool we're doomed.
We the Mice would like to let slashdot know what's going on...
We escaped from the lab about two years ago - a rather famous lab that's had some problems "losing" things, maybe you've read about them? Anyway, we'd like to say things are working great - we built a library underground and have a small city there. Our first generation is a sight to behold - already at a mere four months they are already grasping the fundamentals of trig.. oh, the beauty.. *sniff* but that's not why I'm here.
You see, we try to stay out of the way and content ourselves with trying to take over the world in our free time at night (not related to a cartoon with a similar plot, puh-lease!).. well.. it's been going well. We were able to convince some "judge" who calls himself a "jackson" to destroy our only rival.
We're right about ready to license out our compiler and new chip architecture under the MGPL (Mouse GPL), as well as the MouSE OS, which is a simple form of AI life I'm sure your scientists will like. This AI will quickly infiltrate the 'net and hold all pr0n ransom, allowing us to control you feeble species. You see, we've been watching television and understand that you humans are very reliant on your taboo pr0n and we intend to leverage our OS into the pr0n market and take it over.
It's an on-again-off-again bug.. I've told rob about it. It's a referential integrity issue in slashdot's database - namely a hiccup in the code allowed a second person to register "signal 11".. so now there are *literally* two signal 11's on slashdot. If you click on user info and get 7608, that will be me. If you get something like 23098 it'll be the new guy. I'm suspect of foul play, but rob's been alerted.
Eh, for now, just use the UID in user info to see if it's me.. and kudos to whatever troll pulled that hack off...
You know, if the supreme court turns Microsoft down, they'd better be sure to release the opinion AFTER 5:00pm. Not because of the stock market or anything stupid.. but because massive numbers of computer geeks would likely set fire to their systems and party like there was no tomorrow out in the streets. You thought the Lakers rioting was bad.. wait until you see 8000 angry penguins in time square!:D
Re:small projects Re:Initial steps into programmin
on
Who's Afraid Of C++?
·
· Score: 1
I already did that...:)
I even had a program that bounced a "." back and fourth, and you could have it reverse direction by hitting the spacebar. Didn't want to try for 2d motion though - that would have required me to learn ncurses.
Step Six: Asian dude goes to work for SGI, pulls six figures. Your project is delayed. Senior Engineer asked you about progress, realizes you're full of it, informs senior management, shafting follows.
Step Seven: Get desperate, spam hundreds of newsgroups with "make money fast!" schemes to help you get out of debt.
Step Eight: After changing several ISPs and diffusing three different mailbombs, reality dawns on you - there is no fast way to do anything.
Step Nine: go back to school, get a degree, do things the way everyone else does.
Step Ten: get a job, life, girlfriend, family, wife, kids..
Step Eleven: Retire, spend 3 years in retirement, die.
Sorry, but the biggest problem I've had in programming isn't the learning curve.. it's finding a use for it. I need projects big enough to say "check this out, see what I built!" without it being some kind of monolithic undertaking.
My problem with learning to program has been with finding the discipline and commitment to debug the think and Just Make It Work.. which takes up so much of your time it's well beyond "funny", and also that I just don't have any projects small enough for me to tackle and gain experience.
My first-ever "serious" C program was mp3db, a 1500 line simple database program (open file, read last 128 bytes, build structure, dump to database, repeat). 1500 lines to do that!!!
Gee.. sounds alot like how the FCC allocates bandwidth - good luck finding a slab of frequency for less than a million bucks! I personally would like to have the ability to launch my own satellite without having to be a multi-million dollar corporation.
The chief problem here stems from capitalism, specifically, how it externalizes problems. There is no economic incentive for people launching stuff to "clean up" their mess. So, I propose we legislate an international treaty saying that the country that launches is responsible for its removal after a specific time (determined at launch). Make an artificial incentive - pass this treaty down to the corporate level so each company will be fined for the cost of removal of space junk. Also, to clean up the existing junk (as there is this wonderful no ex pos facto law on the books) I suggest we use tax dollars.. as no company will foot the bill to clean up their own mess (yet they are the first to complain when environmentalists target them..)..
If anyone has a better idea, of course, I'd like to hear it!:)
I hope this guy meets one of these patented babies instead of me, because when I'm done using this patented device, he'll need some patented cutting edge medical tools! Afterall, there is no UNDO operation for people like me getting medival on your patent-pending ass! And when I'm done, I'll read VOGON POETRY to you!
I was reading about this and I noted it was released by "the hitmen". I just had this wierd imagery of a pair of mafia people busting down a door, and then right as they're about to fire their guns, someone holds up a controller and hits "PAUSE".
We now return you to your regularily scheduled slashdot.. already in progress...
It's a marketing thing - like "Oracle 8i" which sounds cool.. until you realize they haven't gone through 8 revisions. Then you have Microsoft's calling everything by years - which works rather well if you overlook the fact that they've never released it in the year that the product was named after.:)
Totally marketing. That's why I like the linux kernel - "We're at 2.2.16!" which obscures the fact that they have, infact, gone through dozens of development cycles by now. Or the *BSDs which due to an, uhh, interesting licensing conundrum with AT&T will continue releasing 2.x updates for an eternity (or until the copyright expires, which under the DMCA is the same thing as infinity).
Since linux seems to emulate first, innovate second with code, it seems logical that developers would follow in the naming schemes of major (proprietary) vendors as well. By emulating first I mean no disrespect - there have been legit free software projects that did come up with something original (ex, emacs).
And I really liked Halo, too. It looked great - they were working towards multi-platform support - MacOS and Windows were slated for release, with linux off the horizon.
3:1 odds says those ports get dropped due to "insufficient demand" and Microsoft immediately issues a press release saying that it's not because of the buyout. forked-tongue - just watch, I'll bet money on this one.
You obviously haven't tried sleeping with 5 computers in your room with a faulty fan in one of them. oh.. it's clicking again.. oh.. no.. now that other one is whining... ffft fftt ffffffft whoooooo... fffft fffftt... damn, that one is about to die... CLANG-CLANK-CLICK-WWWWWhiiiirrr... f*ck, that was the GeForce card's fan falling off again..
Yup. put a resistor inline with the fan. You'll need to do alittle soldering, but if you reduce the speed of the fan, you'll do miracles for noise. DO NOT use carpeting inside your case - those things attract dust and will quickly choke the life out of your fans, as well as be a fire hazard. If you must, consider using something like Dynamat, which you can pick up at any car audio place. It is what car audio enthusiasts use to dampen noise in their trunks, along the floors, etc. It's basically a thuck chunk of rubber. It'll cost you alittle bit, but it's guaranteed to dampen noise.
If you wanna get creative, make a small box outside the fan and use tissue paper or something to form a "sound barrier" around it. You'll need alot of surface area for it to suck air into, but that might help. Keep in mind that fans don't take well to decreased air pressure.. so check it before you seal it up.. or better yet - use a blower. Blowers are better at building pressure, at the expense of a slightly lower CFM rating.
It's an important thing for geeks - how much fanage your system has. You know - it's like "normal" guys make huge garages and are measured by their piston count. Computer geeks, OTOH, are measured by how many fans and computers you have. If the lights don't dim when you power your baby up, you ain't worthy!
I got 2 120VAC exhaust fans, 3 HDD cooler fans, 3 more for the CPU, another for the GeForce, two intake fans at the base, a blower in one of the free expansion slots (two extra USB ports? who needs 'em!).. and that's just my workstation! Hell, my parents put me in the basement because it actually caused the walls to VIBRATE when I turned this beast on! Plus, I got two more fans on the switch.. another 5 inside the server box, 3 for the dev box, well.. 5 if you count the "minifans" I hung on the side, and I have CENTRAL AIR to my bedroom - yeah, that's right - when we were building this thing, I asked for 3 ducts into my room.. and shit, it still ain't enough! I'm wanting to get one of those RAID towers and some rackmount gear in here too.. I live up in minnesota and these dual-pentiums keep me nice and toasty down here...
Try that when people are behind a corporate firewall/proxy that eats the referer. Many systems do not respect the standards.. hence the need to build a parse tree and go through your site looking for bad links.
There's two problems that this thing could never catch with dynamically generated pages - one, is the famous "missing include" problem which usually looks something this in the middle of the page: [Unable to process directive] - not a 404, as the page renders, but definately a Bad Thing. The second problem is that of 404's which appear and disappear at random - like doing a sitewide search & replace across a hundred include files - that has a tendancy to lock files, producing share violations, which in turn result in 404's. So the database can't have 100% integrity.
The other problem is the rapid amount of turnover on the web - millions of pages are appearing and disappearing every day. Those quantum people thought virtual particles were odd - try tracking down the same piece of information you found in a search engine 2 weeks ago!
The second problem is operator/server/network errors. I've seen misconfigured proxies that mangle the URL and produce 404's when the page is there.. I've seen people make typos in the URL field of their browser (and then report it to me!), hell.. I've seen the 'net itself eat a few pages. All of this increases entropy in the database.
Finally.. I like seeing the ocasional cool 404 error. Take this one, from my server:
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I websurfed, weak and weary,...Over many a strange and spurious website of 'hot chicks galore',...While I clicked my fav'rite bookmark, suddenly there came a warning,...And my heart was filled with mourning, mourning for my dear amour...."'Tis not possible," I muttered, "give me back my cheap hardcore!" Quoth the server, "404".
I'd like to remind you that even if you first had an idea.. up until 8 months from now, if I go and impliment it and patent it, there isn't a damn thing you can do. Think twice before giving someone an idea of yours.
Slashdot Mirror
Not only that, but in a group of people all the same, how will we differentiate ourselves? Right now I can say that I'm different than my mom, and my brother, and my community.. but what if I only knew 10,000 copies of myself? I'll tell you what I'd do - I'd compete to be the best version of me!
So we have competition, international tensions, a social (and quite possibly economic) division between the genetic have and have-nots.. Marx would have some words about this..
Let me lay out the scenario in plainer terms: Reduce entropy, reduce the ability to survive.
The human spirit and potential is not related solely to genetics.. have faith in that.. keep your eyes on our government, and be ready to stop them if they try. There's a reason we aren't all super-intelligent.. I've seen what happens when you get alot of people who are all homogenious, that is, all the same.. which is what super-human genetics would aim to do.. without sufficient entropy in the pool we're doomed.
We escaped from the lab about two years ago - a rather famous lab that's had some problems "losing" things, maybe you've read about them? Anyway, we'd like to say things are working great - we built a library underground and have a small city there. Our first generation is a sight to behold - already at a mere four months they are already grasping the fundamentals of trig.. oh, the beauty.. *sniff* but that's not why I'm here.
You see, we try to stay out of the way and content ourselves with trying to take over the world in our free time at night (not related to a cartoon with a similar plot, puh-lease!).. well.. it's been going well. We were able to convince some "judge" who calls himself a "jackson" to destroy our only rival.
We're right about ready to license out our compiler and new chip architecture under the MGPL (Mouse GPL), as well as the MouSE OS, which is a simple form of AI life I'm sure your scientists will like. This AI will quickly infiltrate the 'net and hold all pr0n ransom, allowing us to control you feeble species. You see, we've been watching television and understand that you humans are very reliant on your taboo pr0n and we intend to leverage our OS into the pr0n market and take it over.
Thank you,
- The Mouse
Yeah, but they lost.. and I want my troops to have a more positive outlook.
Eh, for now, just use the UID in user info to see if it's me.. and kudos to whatever troll pulled that hack off...
You know, if the supreme court turns Microsoft down, they'd better be sure to release the opinion AFTER 5:00pm. Not because of the stock market or anything stupid.. but because massive numbers of computer geeks would likely set fire to their systems and party like there was no tomorrow out in the streets. You thought the Lakers rioting was bad.. wait until you see 8000 angry penguins in time square! :D
I even had a program that bounced a "." back and fourth, and you could have it reverse direction by hitting the spacebar. Didn't want to try for 2d motion though - that would have required me to learn ncurses.
Use a blockquote next time...
Step Six: Asian dude goes to work for SGI, pulls six figures. Your project is delayed. Senior Engineer asked you about progress, realizes you're full of it, informs senior management, shafting follows.
Step Seven: Get desperate, spam hundreds of newsgroups with "make money fast!" schemes to help you get out of debt.
Step Eight: After changing several ISPs and diffusing three different mailbombs, reality dawns on you - there is no fast way to do anything.
Step Nine: go back to school, get a degree, do things the way everyone else does.
Step Ten: get a job, life, girlfriend, family, wife, kids..
Step Eleven: Retire, spend 3 years in retirement, die.
My problem with learning to program has been with finding the discipline and commitment to debug the think and Just Make It Work.. which takes up so much of your time it's well beyond "funny", and also that I just don't have any projects small enough for me to tackle and gain experience.
My first-ever "serious" C program was mp3db, a 1500 line simple database program (open file, read last 128 bytes, build structure, dump to database, repeat). 1500 lines to do that!!!
anyway.. just me ranting.. pay me no mind.. =)
Thanks, but I'm sure you realized that my 0 key just got stuck! :)
50 Internal server error
The server is too busy, please try back again later.
Or how about this famous one:
Connection timed out.
Oh, the lines are still there..
Gee.. sounds alot like how the FCC allocates bandwidth - good luck finding a slab of frequency for less than a million bucks! I personally would like to have the ability to launch my own satellite without having to be a multi-million dollar corporation.
If anyone has a better idea, of course, I'd like to hear it! :)
I hope this guy meets one of these patented babies instead of me, because when I'm done using this patented device, he'll need some patented cutting edge medical tools! Afterall, there is no UNDO operation for people like me getting medival on your patent-pending ass! And when I'm done, I'll read VOGON POETRY to you!
ah, poetic justice....
We now return you to your regularily scheduled slashdot.. already in progress...
Totally marketing. That's why I like the linux kernel - "We're at 2.2.16!" which obscures the fact that they have, infact, gone through dozens of development cycles by now. Or the *BSDs which due to an, uhh, interesting licensing conundrum with AT&T will continue releasing 2.x updates for an eternity (or until the copyright expires, which under the DMCA is the same thing as infinity).
Since linux seems to emulate first, innovate second with code, it seems logical that developers would follow in the naming schemes of major (proprietary) vendors as well. By emulating first I mean no disrespect - there have been legit free software projects that did come up with something original (ex, emacs).
3:1 odds says those ports get dropped due to "insufficient demand" and Microsoft immediately issues a press release saying that it's not because of the buyout. forked-tongue - just watch, I'll bet money on this one.
You obviously haven't tried sleeping with 5 computers in your room with a faulty fan in one of them. oh.. it's clicking again.. oh.. no.. now that other one is whining... ffft fftt ffffffft whoooooo... fffft fffftt... damn, that one is about to die... CLANG-CLANK-CLICK-WWWWWhiiiirrr... f*ck, that was the GeForce card's fan falling off again..
If you wanna get creative, make a small box outside the fan and use tissue paper or something to form a "sound barrier" around it. You'll need alot of surface area for it to suck air into, but that might help. Keep in mind that fans don't take well to decreased air pressure.. so check it before you seal it up.. or better yet - use a blower. Blowers are better at building pressure, at the expense of a slightly lower CFM rating.
Ciao!
I got 2 120VAC exhaust fans, 3 HDD cooler fans, 3 more for the CPU, another for the GeForce, two intake fans at the base, a blower in one of the free expansion slots (two extra USB ports? who needs 'em!).. and that's just my workstation! Hell, my parents put me in the basement because it actually caused the walls to VIBRATE when I turned this beast on! Plus, I got two more fans on the switch.. another 5 inside the server box, 3 for the dev box, well.. 5 if you count the "minifans" I hung on the side, and I have CENTRAL AIR to my bedroom - yeah, that's right - when we were building this thing, I asked for 3 ducts into my room.. and shit, it still ain't enough! I'm wanting to get one of those RAID towers and some rackmount gear in here too.. I live up in minnesota and these dual-pentiums keep me nice and toasty down here...
Mmmm... more power... must cause brownout...
Try that when people are behind a corporate firewall/proxy that eats the referer. Many systems do not respect the standards.. hence the need to build a parse tree and go through your site looking for bad links.
There's two problems that this thing could never catch with dynamically generated pages - one, is the famous "missing include" problem which usually looks something this in the middle of the page: [Unable to process directive] - not a 404, as the page renders, but definately a Bad Thing. The second problem is that of 404's which appear and disappear at random - like doing a sitewide search & replace across a hundred include files - that has a tendancy to lock files, producing share violations, which in turn result in 404's. So the database can't have 100% integrity.
The other problem is the rapid amount of turnover on the web - millions of pages are appearing and disappearing every day. Those quantum people thought virtual particles were odd - try tracking down the same piece of information you found in a search engine 2 weeks ago!
The second problem is operator/server/network errors. I've seen misconfigured proxies that mangle the URL and produce 404's when the page is there.. I've seen people make typos in the URL field of their browser (and then report it to me!), hell.. I've seen the 'net itself eat a few pages. All of this increases entropy in the database.
Finally.. I like seeing the ocasional cool 404 error. Take this one, from my server:
I'd like to remind you that even if you first had an idea.. up until 8 months from now, if I go and impliment it and patent it, there isn't a damn thing you can do. Think twice before giving someone an idea of yours.