Humans have been doing genetic engineering for many thousands of years. 15,000 years ago, humans started genetically engineering wolves. In those years of genetic engineering, they made a Chihuahua and Shih-Tzu from wolves. Later, humans started genetically engineering grasses, and the result was eventually civilization.
Massive difference. That "engineering" was based on crossbreeding phenotypes, not genotypes. Modern genetic "engineering", is based on crossbreeding of genotypes, whos phenotypes are not even able to crossbreed. Moreover, the phenotypes created are not even subject to rigorous study before being chucked out to pasture, in a process more akin to introducing rabbits to australia than breeding two types of pig.
A process which takes the best of the natural world and the best of our scientific processes and gives natural selection a helping hand.
As if there is a human being in the entire world qualified enough to do that. Am I'm not talking about "playing god" here. I mean there is no-one on earth with enough competance to relieably predict the long term effects of introducing a gene into an enviornment. The world is a complex, chaotic system. We can't even predict the long term motion of a homogeneous fluid. Is there anyone who can seriously stand up with a straight face and tell us that long term, GM crops are safe? Oh yes, marketers.
The reality is, the GM engineers are basically running things by the seat of their pants. They splice genes in and out of organisms with only the vaguest idea of the outcomes on the individual phenotype, let alone its ecosystem. It's trial and error, with little in the way of a predictive theory; and they know it. Of course, those who object are being worry wart luddite pinko treehuggers.
You want the reality of genetic engineering. Read Jurassic park. Not the movie, the book. It basically, and accurately describes how no matter how hard you try to engineer organisms, chaos theory will screw you over. Biological engineers does not exist; they would never get certified. Any geneticist making claims about minimal long term effects is either a liar, or just ignorent. In either case, outside of their lab, their expertise is less than that of the farmers they sell to.
Given the level of hatred (quite justifiably) directed against kiddie porn users, I imagine a lot of people targeted would buckle.
The level of hatred isn't really justified, considering that the crimes of rapists, murderers and slave owners(they exist), are far, far worse. People never seem to get to the same level of arousal unless pedophilia is involved in some way. It's not even that major of an issue, despite its oversell by the media.
It's the 21st century's Two Minute Hate, so we can all wax apoplectic at those evil, evil men, and gladly offer up our free society to do so.
I have discovered a truely marvelous demonstration of the Poincaré conjecture that this blog is too narrow to contain.
Replace "blog" with "pre-print" and you've just about hit the nail on the head. Perelman's "proof" was an outline, and one so terse it took four years to fill in all the details. Quite frankly I don't think he should have been offerred a medal at all, but such is the state of modern mathematics.
It's still an attempt at market manipulation, and the SEC should come down on anybody who does this like the fist of an angry god.
As soon as most investors find out about this scam, it will become legal almost overnight. Remember futures? Used to be regarded as decidedly dodgy. Nowadays they're a mainstream market force. Say hello to the new future(s); Spam!
You know what the problem with this "What is a Planet?" debate. There is no metric. It is the case, and always has been, that whether or not something is a "planet" is a matter of almost complete subjectivity. There is still no objective, measurable and testable model under which an object can be said to be a planet.
In programming terms, the function: bool Is_Planet( Astronomical_Object* foo );
, does not yet exist. Well, under some proposals, it would have existed in the following form: bool Is_Planet( Astronomical_Object* foo ){
Great. Let's have a big round of applause of the boys at the IAU. Seriously, an eight year old could have come up with this. "Well, it's kinda round!". What if it's elliptical? What if it's a cylinder? Elliptical cylinder? What about Dyson Sphere's? Ringworld's? What if it has bumps? Depressions? Great big crater holes? Gentlemen What about the Death Star?
500+ years of modern astronomy and still no definition for a planet. Is this professionalism? Look at the difference in comparision to other scientific fields. The SI units give precise, unambiguous definitions of every observable quantity in the universe. Can we get something similar in astronomy please?
OK, I'm ranting, but here's somthing that astronomers can really chew over. Is their definition of a planet falisfiable? If not, are they really scientists, or just stargazers?
Blame it on what we call "false cognates". "Apologia", the portuguese word, translate s into "incitement", but the similarity between the words "apologia" and "apology" is just plain irresistible.
The dictionary here give the portugese translations of:
incitement as "incitamento, estímulo, incentivo".
apology as "desculpa; defesa; justificação"
vindication as "prova, defesa, justificativa"
defense as "defesa; proteção"
justify as "justificar, demonstrar a inocência de alguém, provar uma teoria ou idéia; justificar (tipografia: ajustar o tamanho das linhas)"
Based on this, I would guess that Apoligia means something akin to "to justify/vindicate/defend" and your original "apology to crime" means "to vindicate or justify or defend a crime", and does not mean "to incite a crime", as in various anti-hate speech laws. Rather, I strongly suspect it means that it is a crime in Brazil to say certain things, if those statements are sympathetic to perpetrators of certain crimes.
I don't speak portugese, but I do call bullshit when someone who can use the phrase "false cognates" mixes up the words for "incite" and "apologise".
Pro-life people are generally against cloning. I don't understand the objection if no embryo is destroyed, but it does bring up some difficult issues regarding souls.
Souls are a made up concept. They were created by people as a kind of adult pacifier, to stop people fretting that once they die they will entierely cease to exist. Utterly. The thought is so unsettling that people latch onto a complete fantasy to comfort and reassure themselves. Namely and intangible, unobservable, immaterial "thing" that is your "life essence", and it will go on after you die.
It's the same kind of denial as people who believe that all parallel lines never intersect of that the universe is "fair". Delve deep enough and only your own doublethink can convince you that either of these facts is absolute. Emotion is physical, memory is physical, thought is physical. There is no magic force, and if there was, eternity means floating around as an unthinking blob with no memory forever.
Oh wait! Silly me. I can't prove souls "don't" exist. Just ignore all the above and return to your regular viewing.
You (and most people outside Brasil) doesn't know what "incitement" means in this context.
Apparently it means "apology".
(lol, you guys will not forgive me for the misplaced "apology",
It just seemed a little odd that someone with enough command of english to use correctly; "popular enough", "dubious", "endorsing", "perpetrator" and "subpoena", could mix up the words "incitement" and "apology". lol
As it is based on the concept "Communities" (similar to groups on yahoo groups), a lot of groups with dubious/illegal subjects popped up, groups endorsing racism, neo-nazi propaganda, child abuse and other illegal activities, crimes were planned and the results posted and commented in some of thoses threads...... Orkut has became a place where crime (or apology to crime, as it is also illegal in Brasil) has became a major problem and police and the justice system are having to deal with it adequatedly.
Pedophiles and racists are chatting online. Read my lips. Big Fucking Deal. In a free society, people should be entitled both to their views, and to discuss those views with like minded individuals. The majority of society happens to find these views highly offensive. Tough Shit. Liberty isn't as selective as most mobs. I refuse to sacrafice society on the altar of public outrage because a few sickos are typing objectionable content. "Apology to crime". What kind of a fucking country is Brazil anyway!?
To those who would cry; "Oh but these groups are inherantly evil and morally wrong!", let me tell you something about "inherant" evil and morality. There are countries in the world where clitorectomies are not only considered legal, but morally correct. In fact, a grown woman with a clitoris is considered inherantly immoral. You might scoff at the notions of "primitive" societies, but let it first be noted that the US has highest circumcision rate in the developed world. You'll find plenty of people with "inherantly's" on both sides of that debate.
Morals change. Oh boy do they change. Racism, pedophilia, facism were once not only legal, but moral as well. They were regarded as virtues in many societies at one point in time or another. You want the sad truth. Morals change with the tides. I'll trust in what's legal long before I trust in what's "moral".
Left to the media and the mob, our society would embrace old status quos just as quickly as it would condenm them. Right now the media is making money from outrage against child porn. Give it a few decades and they'll be calling for "tweenage" weddings to be legalised, or for segregation to be reestablished. Will you want to listen to them then? Do you think the legligatures and companies should be so quick to kow-tow?
So fuck moral outrage. It's like a fashion fad. Google knows this. They respect peoples rights, even if they abhor their actions. And so should everyone. If you don't like it, then move to a totalitarian state. Or Brazil, where my above "apology to crime" is in fact illegal.
So normally I sit down with a goal, I think about how to go about implementing it, I bang out the code, and then I have a few minutes of downtime (sometimes more) while the damn thing compiles.
When your boss finds out that this downtime could be better spent dividing the code into smaller files to reduce compile time, you're going to be fired.
Why did you post that in reply to the parent's facetious post? I'm seeing more and more of this on Slashdot and it's a serious annoyance. The mod system isn't terrible and if your post is good enough it will get modded up. However if your post is a mediorce one piggybacked on a funny first post, that will get modded up in preference to a potentially better one below.
Couldn't you have just started a new thread instead of piggybacking on the funny post? People read those you know.
I had mental imagery of Gordon Freeman's legs when they finally removed the HEV suit. Picture some kind of jellylike mass with floating splinters of bone. We're talking more than six million dollars here.
This new one had all the pain killing power, so they tried it on a number of the lab personnel and it didn't give any of them withdrawal symptoms....
b) There is a small fraction of the population that doesn't get hooked on morphine and its derivatives. And it happened that all the people in the lab they tried it on were members of that subset - a statistically unlikely occurrence.
Which is statistically more unlikely: A lab full of people immune to morphine addiction, or a lab full of people prepared to give answers unfavourable to their employer?
Is there a single slashdotter who is in any way surprised by this? Is there anyone so naive as to believe that private companies are the best guardians of your privacy? Even the most rapid laissez faire capitalist would hesitate before declaring your valuable data safe from explotation at the hands of the private sector.
Your data is worth money. Marketers are willing to buy it. Hence, companies will be willing and eager to sell it. They don't care. They're private companies, beholden to no one except their shareholders.
If you would like to give your explicit approval to this buy buying such a game, or tacit approval by buying any other EA game, then do so. That is your right. Just don't complain when your playing habits are vomited all over the net like so many AOL search results.
Re:Running over with car not 2000 pounds of pressu
on
Flash Drives Go To Work
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Running the drive over with a car is at most going to be only 20-40 psi(pounds per square inche), the tire pressure.
No kidding. I once saw a puppy get rolled over by a jeep/SUV thing.
This pup was, unbeknowst to me, following me down the road. By the time I heard it, we were a considerable distance from its home. So I began to walk back, as the pup would not take a hint. After a few metres, I heard the sound of the oncoming jeep. So did the pup. He wasn't too bright, and, spooked and leashless, panicked and began tearing down the road as fast as possible, towards home and away from the jeep.
He just kept running, and the jeep just kept coming. The pup was zigzagging back and forth all over the single lane country road. The jeep continued onwards, straight and steady, not altering its course in the slightest. The driver must have been a grade-A asshole. Anyway, as I watched, the jeep finally caught up with the puppy. He was right in the middle of the road, but at the last second dived right just in time to be firmly rolled over the the jeeps right front tire. The jeep continued on its way, without altering speed.
As I watched, transfixed, the pup rolled to its feet, staggering and wobbling, its neck craned rather sickenly to its right, head pointing upwards. It let out these awful drawn yelps, over and over, its eyes looking right at me, head still craned upwards. It slowly began to stagger back towards me, neck still crooked, looking like the living dead.
Anyway, after a few seconds, it stopped yelping, turned its head back into a normal position, and padded back over to me, tail a little droopy, but wagging. I must have gawped at it for about ten minutes, fully expecting it to suddenly and theatrically resume its death agonies and loudly expire. It just sniffed at the ground.
Taking that dog back to its owner to tell them their puppy had just been run over was one of the most surreal expieriences of my life. True story.
Math is cool, but goddamn, the way it's taught is awful and jackasses like this reviewer and the joker who wrote the book he's reviewing are a prime reason why.
Because there are two types of mathematics practiced in the world today. Mathematics that follows the scientific method, and mathematics that does not follow the scientific method. The latter is regarded as a more laudable endevour.
Mathematics that follows the scientific method is the kind most geeks are familiar with, and which most engineers and physicists use. Under this type, basic properties are defined from the ground up, with examples, and theorems and proofs are given more concrete relations to basic numbers and geometry. In this reigieme, mathematics is, like the other sciences, an exploration, examination and classification of the universe, albiet in the case of mathematics a more abstract portion of the universe. Here mathematics is by default falsifable, as all our properties and theorems can be subjected to direct experiment by means of calculation of basic numbers and geometric measurements.
Mathematics that does not follow the scientific method is somewhat different. Instead of exploring the properties of basic numbers and geometry, proponents of this method instead propose structures that may or may not exist, defining them through axioms and other definitions. Examples are few and far between as the objects in question may or may not exist "in the real world", and even if they do exist, any concrete example would neccesarily restrict itself to only one minute subset of all possible manifestations of the object.
Here, mathematics is not falsifiable, as experiments to test the validity of properties are pointless, because the axioms restrict the objects we consider to only those with certain properties. Experiments to test the validity of theorems are also largely impossible or unfeasable, as most of the objects under consideration have never been constructed or explored, and indeed there is no guarantee that anyone can ever be able to construct them. In general, falsifiabilty is only really guaranteed when mathematics can be ultimately reduced to basic elements which we candirectly observe and manipulate, such as real numbers, finite sets, etc. Much of modern mathematics is not confined to this domain.
A lot of mathematicians would be in serious disagreement with me here. They would insist that their theorems are falisfiable, or even object that falsifiability is a nonsense concept in mathematics as everything is by definition true. I remain unconvinced of the validity of such world views, especially in the realm of science.
As someone who has read a lot of advanced mathematics, I can safely say that the standard of proof in modern mathematics is now very low. Most modern proofs essentially amount to proof by intimidation which most if not all readers must simply accept as an axiom. I recall recent stories about the "uncertainty" in many modern mathematical proofs. Apparently, the proofs were "unverifiable" by the academic referres assigned to validate them. To me, it sounded like the authors hadn't actually "proved" anything at all. But such is the state of modern mathematics.
I'd like to think that what I do is science. I really would. I endevour to make my proofs clear and above all repeatable, but I'm really just fighting the tide. Most advanced mathematics is a kind of pseudoscience. Undeservedly so, but that's the way it is.
There's a lot of comments already, in addition to the article quote, to the effect that Oblivion was boring and uninteresting. To them I say; Sorry guys, you didn't get it.
Lets face the facts. A lot, a lot, of people bought Oblivion for its graphics and little else. They wanted an RPG spoonfed to them like so many Saturday morning cartoons, complete with detailed plot expositions and explanations even a six year old could follow.
Oblivion isn't like that. It's an old school dungeon adventure RPG. The presentation of the backstory, world and plot most closely resembles GR Martin's masterpiece, A Song Of Ice And Fire. Like that series, Oblivion will not in some hackneyed and vulgar fashion, simply explain every aspect of the game to you. Rather, through subtle references and occasional books or conversations, the structure of Tamriel, its customs, laws, religion, creation and history, are slowly revealed to the player. This gives the setting a depth that simply could not be achieved by allowing narrative spoonfeeding to break the illusion of immersion.
As to the gameplay, any RPG fan will love it. It has both variety and depth, and of course near total freedom. I played the game for 160 hours before finishing the main quest. I'm still playing it. The craftsmanship that has gone into this game is simply unparalled. The sheer amount of quests, dungeons, characters, items, abilities, classes, terrain, etc boggles the mind. The game has been buffed till the sheen shines.
And these aren't just slapped together to make up the numbers. Oh no. Almost every quest is an engaging and entertaining narrative. Ask anyone who has played the Dark Brotherhood mission with the house guests. When you listen to the tale of the drunken old Nord, confessing how he is reliving the loss of his own daughter after the death of the young dark Elf woman, as you see him go from gregarious to suddenly serious and realise that the guests needent even have been killed in this order, and you needent even be speaking to him, you begin to see the level of sheer effort that has gone into this game.
Oblivion isn't just a pretty face. I should know. I play it on the lowest graphics settings with Oldblivion. It's not about the looks. It's about the gameplay. And Oblivion has it by the bucketload. I'm off now for a moonlight run oe'er the mountainside, to find new dungeons and shirnes. This never gets old.
Time to wake up. Audio on Linux is just as bad as gaming.
For starters, can you actually play the audio files everyones else takes for granted. No major distro supports mp3s by default. Just install it yourself!!!! Joy. Yeah, this is what I went to Linux for, the convienice of dependancy hell.
And if you thought mp3 support was hell, wait till you browse network shares brimloaded with the fruits of iTunes' labour. AAC and m4a files almost completely dominate collections ripped using the latest versions of iTunes. You want to install support for m4a by yourself? Word to the wise; set aside a weekend. Preferably a long one.
And as to the so called "Jukebox" apps like Amarok and Rhythmbox, dear gods trust me when I say you are better off with xmms and bash scripts. They crash. A Lot. Not only that but they rely almost completely on id3 tags, which sucks if your music collection happens to be anything other than ripped from personal CDs or very good quality rips.
You want to know what Amarok did to me? I decided to add the windows network share music folder to its collection. What did Amarok do? It found every playlist file and helpfully changed all the nice neat relative paths to absolute paths. Yes, that's right! Every single playlist files has entries that begin with/mnt. You should have been there when the rest of my family found out. Joyful memories. Thank you Amarok, you've really shown me the superiority of Linux music players!
If you want music on Linux, I'd recommend something like iTunes or Winamp over WINE or a VM, because the native apps aren't done cooking yet.
His ex-lover used her media & political connection to go on live TV to accuse my uncle of being a murderer, land grabber, gangster, etc........You see my uncle is a lawyer....
Wow. You have to get up early in the morning to be that stupid.
Slashdot Mirror
Massive difference. That "engineering" was based on crossbreeding phenotypes, not genotypes. Modern genetic "engineering", is based on crossbreeding of genotypes, whos phenotypes are not even able to crossbreed. Moreover, the phenotypes created are not even subject to rigorous study before being chucked out to pasture, in a process more akin to introducing rabbits to australia than breeding two types of pig.
As if there is a human being in the entire world qualified enough to do that. Am I'm not talking about "playing god" here. I mean there is no-one on earth with enough competance to relieably predict the long term effects of introducing a gene into an enviornment. The world is a complex, chaotic system. We can't even predict the long term motion of a homogeneous fluid. Is there anyone who can seriously stand up with a straight face and tell us that long term, GM crops are safe? Oh yes, marketers.
The reality is, the GM engineers are basically running things by the seat of their pants. They splice genes in and out of organisms with only the vaguest idea of the outcomes on the individual phenotype, let alone its ecosystem. It's trial and error, with little in the way of a predictive theory; and they know it. Of course, those who object are being worry wart luddite pinko treehuggers.
You want the reality of genetic engineering. Read Jurassic park. Not the movie, the book. It basically, and accurately describes how no matter how hard you try to engineer organisms, chaos theory will screw you over. Biological engineers does not exist; they would never get certified. Any geneticist making claims about minimal long term effects is either a liar, or just ignorent. In either case, outside of their lab, their expertise is less than that of the farmers they sell to.
The level of hatred isn't really justified, considering that the crimes of rapists, murderers and slave owners(they exist), are far, far worse. People never seem to get to the same level of arousal unless pedophilia is involved in some way. It's not even that major of an issue, despite its oversell by the media.
It's the 21st century's Two Minute Hate, so we can all wax apoplectic at those evil, evil men, and gladly offer up our free society to do so.
s/China/USA/g
Speaking of which, what exactly is the machine calculating right now? Oak Ridge's tax return?
Replace "blog" with "pre-print" and you've just about hit the nail on the head. Perelman's "proof" was an outline, and one so terse it took four years to fill in all the details. Quite frankly I don't think he should have been offerred a medal at all, but such is the state of modern mathematics.
In today's world, that will go down even worse than bringing a laptop to bed.
As soon as most investors find out about this scam, it will become legal almost overnight. Remember futures? Used to be regarded as decidedly dodgy. Nowadays they're a mainstream market force. Say hello to the new future(s); Spam!
You know what the problem with this "What is a Planet?" debate. There is no metric. It is the case, and always has been, that whether or not something is a "planet" is a matter of almost complete subjectivity. There is still no objective, measurable and testable model under which an object can be said to be a planet.
In programming terms, the function:
bool Is_Planet( Astronomical_Object* foo );
, does not yet exist. Well, under some proposals, it would have existed in the following form:
bool Is_Planet( Astronomical_Object* foo ){
return (Is_Kinda_Big(foo) && Is_Kinda_Spherical(foo));
}
Great. Let's have a big round of applause of the boys at the IAU. Seriously, an eight year old could have come up with this. "Well, it's kinda round!". What if it's elliptical? What if it's a cylinder? Elliptical cylinder? What about Dyson Sphere's? Ringworld's? What if it has bumps? Depressions? Great big crater holes? Gentlemen What about the Death Star?
500+ years of modern astronomy and still no definition for a planet. Is this professionalism? Look at the difference in comparision to other scientific fields. The SI units give precise, unambiguous definitions of every observable quantity in the universe. Can we get something similar in astronomy please?
OK, I'm ranting, but here's somthing that astronomers can really chew over. Is their definition of a planet falisfiable? If not, are they really scientists, or just stargazers?
"Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake."
Google translates:
The dictionary here give the portugese translations of:
Based on this, I would guess that Apoligia means something akin to "to justify/vindicate/defend" and your original "apology to crime" means "to vindicate or justify or defend a crime", and does not mean "to incite a crime", as in various anti-hate speech laws. Rather, I strongly suspect it means that it is a crime in Brazil to say certain things, if those statements are sympathetic to perpetrators of certain crimes.
I don't speak portugese, but I do call bullshit when someone who can use the phrase "false cognates" mixes up the words for "incite" and "apologise".
Souls are a made up concept. They were created by people as a kind of adult pacifier, to stop people fretting that once they die they will entierely cease to exist. Utterly. The thought is so unsettling that people latch onto a complete fantasy to comfort and reassure themselves. Namely and intangible, unobservable, immaterial "thing" that is your "life essence", and it will go on after you die.
It's the same kind of denial as people who believe that all parallel lines never intersect of that the universe is "fair". Delve deep enough and only your own doublethink can convince you that either of these facts is absolute. Emotion is physical, memory is physical, thought is physical. There is no magic force, and if there was, eternity means floating around as an unthinking blob with no memory forever.
Oh wait! Silly me. I can't prove souls "don't" exist. Just ignore all the above and return to your regular viewing.
Apparently it means "apology".
It just seemed a little odd that someone with enough command of english to use correctly; "popular enough", "dubious", "endorsing", "perpetrator" and "subpoena", could mix up the words "incitement" and "apology". lol
Ah! An intellectual.
Pedophiles and racists are chatting online. Read my lips. Big Fucking Deal. In a free society, people should be entitled both to their views, and to discuss those views with like minded individuals. The majority of society happens to find these views highly offensive. Tough Shit. Liberty isn't as selective as most mobs. I refuse to sacrafice society on the altar of public outrage because a few sickos are typing objectionable content. "Apology to crime". What kind of a fucking country is Brazil anyway!?
To those who would cry; "Oh but these groups are inherantly evil and morally wrong!", let me tell you something about "inherant" evil and morality. There are countries in the world where clitorectomies are not only considered legal, but morally correct. In fact, a grown woman with a clitoris is considered inherantly immoral. You might scoff at the notions of "primitive" societies, but let it first be noted that the US has highest circumcision rate in the developed world. You'll find plenty of people with "inherantly's" on both sides of that debate.
Morals change. Oh boy do they change. Racism, pedophilia, facism were once not only legal, but moral as well. They were regarded as virtues in many societies at one point in time or another. You want the sad truth. Morals change with the tides. I'll trust in what's legal long before I trust in what's "moral".
Left to the media and the mob, our society would embrace old status quos just as quickly as it would condenm them. Right now the media is making money from outrage against child porn. Give it a few decades and they'll be calling for "tweenage" weddings to be legalised, or for segregation to be reestablished. Will you want to listen to them then? Do you think the legligatures and companies should be so quick to kow-tow?
So fuck moral outrage. It's like a fashion fad. Google knows this. They respect peoples rights, even if they abhor their actions. And so should everyone. If you don't like it, then move to a totalitarian state. Or Brazil, where my above "apology to crime" is in fact illegal.
When your boss finds out that this downtime could be better spent dividing the code into smaller files to reduce compile time, you're going to be fired.
Why did you post that in reply to the parent's facetious post? I'm seeing more and more of this on Slashdot and it's a serious annoyance. The mod system isn't terrible and if your post is good enough it will get modded up. However if your post is a mediorce one piggybacked on a funny first post, that will get modded up in preference to a potentially better one below.
Couldn't you have just started a new thread instead of piggybacking on the funny post? People read those you know.
I had mental imagery of Gordon Freeman's legs when they finally removed the HEV suit. Picture some kind of jellylike mass with floating splinters of bone. We're talking more than six million dollars here.
Which is statistically more unlikely: A lab full of people immune to morphine addiction, or a lab full of people prepared to give answers unfavourable to their employer?
Is there a single slashdotter who is in any way surprised by this? Is there anyone so naive as to believe that private companies are the best guardians of your privacy? Even the most rapid laissez faire capitalist would hesitate before declaring your valuable data safe from explotation at the hands of the private sector.
Your data is worth money. Marketers are willing to buy it. Hence, companies will be willing and eager to sell it. They don't care. They're private companies, beholden to no one except their shareholders.
If you would like to give your explicit approval to this buy buying such a game, or tacit approval by buying any other EA game, then do so. That is your right. Just don't complain when your playing habits are vomited all over the net like so many AOL search results.
No kidding. I once saw a puppy get rolled over by a jeep/SUV thing.
This pup was, unbeknowst to me, following me down the road. By the time I heard it, we were a considerable distance from its home. So I began to walk back, as the pup would not take a hint. After a few metres, I heard the sound of the oncoming jeep. So did the pup. He wasn't too bright, and, spooked and leashless, panicked and began tearing down the road as fast as possible, towards home and away from the jeep.
He just kept running, and the jeep just kept coming. The pup was zigzagging back and forth all over the single lane country road. The jeep continued onwards, straight and steady, not altering its course in the slightest. The driver must have been a grade-A asshole. Anyway, as I watched, the jeep finally caught up with the puppy. He was right in the middle of the road, but at the last second dived right just in time to be firmly rolled over the the jeeps right front tire. The jeep continued on its way, without altering speed.
As I watched, transfixed, the pup rolled to its feet, staggering and wobbling, its neck craned rather sickenly to its right, head pointing upwards. It let out these awful drawn yelps, over and over, its eyes looking right at me, head still craned upwards. It slowly began to stagger back towards me, neck still crooked, looking like the living dead.
Anyway, after a few seconds, it stopped yelping, turned its head back into a normal position, and padded back over to me, tail a little droopy, but wagging. I must have gawped at it for about ten minutes, fully expecting it to suddenly and theatrically resume its death agonies and loudly expire. It just sniffed at the ground.
Taking that dog back to its owner to tell them their puppy had just been run over was one of the most surreal expieriences of my life. True story.
Because there are two types of mathematics practiced in the world today. Mathematics that follows the scientific method, and mathematics that does not follow the scientific method. The latter is regarded as a more laudable endevour.
Mathematics that follows the scientific method is the kind most geeks are familiar with, and which most engineers and physicists use. Under this type, basic properties are defined from the ground up, with examples, and theorems and proofs are given more concrete relations to basic numbers and geometry. In this reigieme, mathematics is, like the other sciences, an exploration, examination and classification of the universe, albiet in the case of mathematics a more abstract portion of the universe. Here mathematics is by default falsifable, as all our properties and theorems can be subjected to direct experiment by means of calculation of basic numbers and geometric measurements.
Mathematics that does not follow the scientific method is somewhat different. Instead of exploring the properties of basic numbers and geometry, proponents of this method instead propose structures that may or may not exist, defining them through axioms and other definitions. Examples are few and far between as the objects in question may or may not exist "in the real world", and even if they do exist, any concrete example would neccesarily restrict itself to only one minute subset of all possible manifestations of the object.
Here, mathematics is not falsifiable, as experiments to test the validity of properties are pointless, because the axioms restrict the objects we consider to only those with certain properties. Experiments to test the validity of theorems are also largely impossible or unfeasable, as most of the objects under consideration have never been constructed or explored, and indeed there is no guarantee that anyone can ever be able to construct them. In general, falsifiabilty is only really guaranteed when mathematics can be ultimately reduced to basic elements which we candirectly observe and manipulate, such as real numbers, finite sets, etc. Much of modern mathematics is not confined to this domain.
A lot of mathematicians would be in serious disagreement with me here. They would insist that their theorems are falisfiable, or even object that falsifiability is a nonsense concept in mathematics as everything is by definition true. I remain unconvinced of the validity of such world views, especially in the realm of science.
As someone who has read a lot of advanced mathematics, I can safely say that the standard of proof in modern mathematics is now very low. Most modern proofs essentially amount to proof by intimidation which most if not all readers must simply accept as an axiom. I recall recent stories about the "uncertainty" in many modern mathematical proofs. Apparently, the proofs were "unverifiable" by the academic referres assigned to validate them. To me, it sounded like the authors hadn't actually "proved" anything at all. But such is the state of modern mathematics.
I'd like to think that what I do is science. I really would. I endevour to make my proofs clear and above all repeatable, but I'm really just fighting the tide. Most advanced mathematics is a kind of pseudoscience. Undeservedly so, but that's the way it is.
There's a lot of comments already, in addition to the article quote, to the effect that Oblivion was boring and uninteresting. To them I say; Sorry guys, you didn't get it.
Lets face the facts. A lot, a lot, of people bought Oblivion for its graphics and little else. They wanted an RPG spoonfed to them like so many Saturday morning cartoons, complete with detailed plot expositions and explanations even a six year old could follow.
Oblivion isn't like that. It's an old school dungeon adventure RPG. The presentation of the backstory, world and plot most closely resembles GR Martin's masterpiece, A Song Of Ice And Fire. Like that series, Oblivion will not in some hackneyed and vulgar fashion, simply explain every aspect of the game to you. Rather, through subtle references and occasional books or conversations, the structure of Tamriel, its customs, laws, religion, creation and history, are slowly revealed to the player. This gives the setting a depth that simply could not be achieved by allowing narrative spoonfeeding to break the illusion of immersion.
As to the gameplay, any RPG fan will love it. It has both variety and depth, and of course near total freedom. I played the game for 160 hours before finishing the main quest. I'm still playing it. The craftsmanship that has gone into this game is simply unparalled. The sheer amount of quests, dungeons, characters, items, abilities, classes, terrain, etc boggles the mind. The game has been buffed till the sheen shines.
And these aren't just slapped together to make up the numbers. Oh no. Almost every quest is an engaging and entertaining narrative. Ask anyone who has played the Dark Brotherhood mission with the house guests. When you listen to the tale of the drunken old Nord, confessing how he is reliving the loss of his own daughter after the death of the young dark Elf woman, as you see him go from gregarious to suddenly serious and realise that the guests needent even have been killed in this order, and you needent even be speaking to him, you begin to see the level of sheer effort that has gone into this game.
Oblivion isn't just a pretty face. I should know. I play it on the lowest graphics settings with Oldblivion. It's not about the looks. It's about the gameplay. And Oblivion has it by the bucketload. I'm off now for a moonlight run oe'er the mountainside, to find new dungeons and shirnes. This never gets old.
Time to wake up. Audio on Linux is just as bad as gaming.
/mnt. You should have been there when the rest of my family found out. Joyful memories. Thank you Amarok, you've really shown me the superiority of Linux music players!
For starters, can you actually play the audio files everyones else takes for granted. No major distro supports mp3s by default. Just install it yourself!!!! Joy. Yeah, this is what I went to Linux for, the convienice of dependancy hell.
And if you thought mp3 support was hell, wait till you browse network shares brimloaded with the fruits of iTunes' labour. AAC and m4a files almost completely dominate collections ripped using the latest versions of iTunes. You want to install support for m4a by yourself? Word to the wise; set aside a weekend. Preferably a long one.
And as to the so called "Jukebox" apps like Amarok and Rhythmbox, dear gods trust me when I say you are better off with xmms and bash scripts. They crash. A Lot. Not only that but they rely almost completely on id3 tags, which sucks if your music collection happens to be anything other than ripped from personal CDs or very good quality rips.
You want to know what Amarok did to me? I decided to add the windows network share music folder to its collection. What did Amarok do? It found every playlist file and helpfully changed all the nice neat relative paths to absolute paths. Yes, that's right! Every single playlist files has entries that begin with
If you want music on Linux, I'd recommend something like iTunes or Winamp over WINE or a VM, because the native apps aren't done cooking yet.
Wow. You have to get up early in the morning to be that stupid.