"Francis [...] said religion can never be used to justify violence."
He doesn't say the killings were okay. He just says that people shouldn't mock other's religion. Which, first of all, makes sense since he is the fucking pope and secondly it may be good for his P.R. with the muslem community. If the other church leaders/imams/whatever are denouncing the satirical cartoons, what impression would Francis give by saying "oh well, no problem for me because I am far more forgiving than the Muslems". Sometimes one has to side a bit with the "competition" in order not to piss them off.
The elephant in the room is that Islam is fundamentally and irreconcilably offensive to Christians because they say Jesus was not the son of God. There is nothing more blasphemous than denying this fundamental tenant of Christianity.
No, the elephant in the room is that some muslems have a greater tendency than other religions to impose their beliefs onto others and telling them how to behave. Buddhist don't care what you do. Hindus only care about what other Hindus do. Jews aren't interested in the rest of the world because they are the "chosen people". Chinese -whatever religion they adhere to- typically also don't care too much for other people's behaviour. Some -and I am not saying this is a majority- muslems interfere with other people's business. This is significantly more annoying than their ideas about Jesus. Besides: why would Christians care about what Muslems think? According to that logic, they should be furious at the Jews, because those were the ones who crucified Jesus in the first place, yet no-one seems to care.
I have a feeling that the politcos have a secret pact with the terrorists, or whoever is/are behind the terrorist movement, just so that they can get a terrorist or two carrying out a really despicable terrorist act, in the middle of a major Western city, something that generates MAXIMUM IMPACT, and the sheeples be of course be scared shitless
Occam would disagree. It is far more likely that some egomaniac fuck wants to immortalise himself by attacking a cartoon magazine, on his own. Your conspiracy theory, while not impossible, seems much less likely and unneeded. At least, if I was "in control", I would prefer other, more reliable methods. Or just wait. Terrorist attacks have been happening regularly, so why stage on of your own?
When I am laying on my death bed and someone says "you did all these useless things -- you could have directed your talent towards really useful stuff and made lots of money", I will honestly be able to say "They were not useless; they made me happy. And that is what gave my life meaning."
That is indeed the most important and hope I will be able to say the same (though probalbly I'll have regrets). Everyone should do as they please, and usefullness in itself is not a good measure of activity. That being said, I somewhat understand the original poster who was modded troll: why not do something -possibly equally useless- in the real world instead of this minecraft thing? Instead of simulating the Tour de France on a home-trainer, why not go out and cycle? Both are equally useful or useless, but one has more appeal than the other.
Back in the day, floppies were amazing [...] they basically worked and retained data very reliably.
Not by today's standards they didn't. Anything remotely important, I would put on at least two floppies. I still need to experience the first USB stick failure.
(Okay, okay, USB sticks may fail too, I know, but not nearly as often as floppies).
Nevertheless, I would expect that the chances of fucking up vinyl are lower, just because the intended audience is different than for CDs. Is that a valid assumption?
For lack of mod points I'll answer, because I agree with this post and don't think it is fair to label this troll. (In the below "you" refers to the critics)
1) if you appreciate a creative work, why not pay for it? Buy the DVD, buy the CD, buy whatever medium and you can view or listen as many times as you want. If you don't want to pay, you don't get to see the result of the creative process. If you don't want to pay, why would the creator of Pulp fiction let you to see the movie? What obligation does he have in the world to allow you to see it? I never understood, and most likely never will understand this typical/. logic of piracy vs theft etc. Thanks for sharing the fruits of YOUR labour through open software, but please allow other creative people to differ.
2) Why should an author's heirs not be entitled to the fruits of the labour of their ancestors? Why should they be entitled to his house, savings, but not future profits? Why would it be that, because coincidentally, someone dies, you get to see the movie for free? Why would you rank higher than the creator's children? Let's hope Stephen King dies just after writing a masterpiece, because now we are entitled to read it for free. What sense does that make???
A agree. How is this different from making "bomb" jokes at the airport. Everyone knows "bomb"-jokes are not taken lightly by serucity personnel. Same holds for using such stupid SSID. I *also* know this does no actual harm and, most likely, real terrorists would not use this name etc, but broadcasting such an SSID in an airport is just not a very smart thing to do because it can be expected to trigger security folks. Note that I am not defending them, just saying that their reaction is not completely unpredicatable. If you value such a joke more than your time, go ahead, but I don't.
I think all first year computer science / programming / engineering students should be introduced to this and learn how to write programs for this environment first before moving on to modern systems. True power is being able to write useful stuff with only 64kb of ram and 1mhz of processor, and have it run in an acceptable time frame, and taking those skills and scaling up today's multi-core/ multi-gigahertz/multi-gigabyte address spaces.
While I agree, I wonder if this is actually true. To what extend does knowledge about efficient coding on an 8 bit machine with limited memory teach us anything about programming these heftier CPUs? Maybe the only people that should really have chewed the bits are the writers of compilers. For all others it might not matter so much how the compiler and the OS handle memory allocations and the like, and it may be more useful to focus on the program structure instead of the implementation on the CPU.
Why not? Apart from the idea that lip reading may complement speech recognition and make it more reliable. Also it may be more useful in a loud environment, which is frequently the case when machines are around, btw. Or in cases where speaking up loud to a computer is not appreciated, such as in office environments. And if all of this would not be enough, note the title of this website: news for nerds. You want a machine to lipread because it CAN (maybe).
Could sophisticated military tanks and anti-aircraft missiles given or sold to countries like Iraq be equipped with a way to disable them if they're compromised, without opening them up to hacking by an enemy?
A tank with a kill switch?
On topic: who would buy such a device that can be disabled by others? And even if it is made for the "domestic" market: why be at risk that someone else hacks into your own stuff and disables it? The solution to this problem wasn't technical, but political.
Even if I were to never even look at a single line of the source, the fact that it's availble to others adds value for me. I can go download a patch someone else wrote that fixes a bug MS hasn't bothered to fix. [...]
I am also in favour of Open source myself and get your point. However, after the OpenSSL bug, my belief in this "someone else" has significantly lowered. If too many people rely on "someone else" fixing a problem in his/her spare time you are worse off than when people are paid to fix closed source software. If the problem is important ($$$) enough, it wil be fixed.
While this looks like an interesting and cheap device to populate empty PCBs, it is only a small part of the total sulution. The PCB has to be made, solder paste added (maybe this device could be extended to do so), and most importantly: heated. Of all these steps, the pick-and-place may be the least enjoyable, but also the one that _could_ be done manualy, if needed. Still, if this device saves two days of manual labor, it already pays itself.
With all due respect: why is this modded insightful instead of the funny it was probably aimed at? Especially because the device can be destroyed by means currently available, such as the volcalo mentioned above. And simpler means too.
All of what you say is true, except for your assumption that "there actually ISN'T that much demand" (citation?) and your condescendence on the people in want of a keyboard. I used to be very happy with my Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro which was actually smaller be it a but thicker than most phones of its day. It could be small exactly because it had a separate keyboard and none of the screen had to be sacrificed for a virtual keyboard. This "more expensive" phone was sold for €200 at a time when iPhones were in the +€500 region. If the Applefolks are prepared to shell out such amounts for some fancy looks, why wouldnt keyboard lovers do so for a real feature? There need not be hundreds of models, just one Samsung, one LG would do. But apparently not.
No discussion on one point, though: the slide keyboard made it more vulnerable and eventually it broke down on me, after intensive use. On the other hand: its 512 MB internal memory was also becoming a hurdle, so one year later I would have needed to replace it anyway.
They can understand how a toilet is cleaned, how a sale is made, how a 1099 is filled out, how a fire drill works, how a sandwich is put together, how oil is changed, etc... but Coding might as well be a dark art.
Disclaimer: I am in hardware myself and may completely miss the point here. However, our software/firmware folks do agile programming involving dividing programming problems into pieces which are assigned to programmers, followed-up on large whiteboards and being daily discussed in "scrum meetings" etc. (I may be confusing some concepts here but that is of less importance). The point being that your statement, that programming is some sort of unique dark-art-which-cannot-be-measured-by-managers, appears untrue to me and, honestly, rather pedantic. What these guys are doing is quite measurable. Maybe not by a silly measure like "lines of code", but by the measure of number of problems being solved, having a complexity that apparently everyone of them agrees on.
Indeed, the CEO doesn't know the exact details of how this works, but neither does he personally count the number of cleaned toilets.
Slashdot Mirror
He doesn't say the killings were okay. He just says that people shouldn't mock other's religion. Which, first of all, makes sense since he is the fucking pope and secondly it may be good for his P.R. with the muslem community. If the other church leaders/imams/whatever are denouncing the satirical cartoons, what impression would Francis give by saying "oh well, no problem for me because I am far more forgiving than the Muslems". Sometimes one has to side a bit with the "competition" in order not to piss them off.
The elephant in the room is that Islam is fundamentally and irreconcilably offensive to Christians because they say Jesus was not the son of God. There is nothing more blasphemous than denying this fundamental tenant of Christianity.
No, the elephant in the room is that some muslems have a greater tendency than other religions to impose their beliefs onto others and telling them how to behave. Buddhist don't care what you do. Hindus only care about what other Hindus do. Jews aren't interested in the rest of the world because they are the "chosen people". Chinese -whatever religion they adhere to- typically also don't care too much for other people's behaviour. Some -and I am not saying this is a majority- muslems interfere with other people's business. This is significantly more annoying than their ideas about Jesus. Besides: why would Christians care about what Muslems think? According to that logic, they should be furious at the Jews, because those were the ones who crucified Jesus in the first place, yet no-one seems to care.
They can start by reading my family doctor's notes.
What has ./ become of? Gone are the days when grits (preferably hot) was something Nathelie Portman should be covered in...
Without a sense of self preservation it won't 'feel' a need to defend itself.
I cannot agree with that, Dave.
I have a feeling that the politcos have a secret pact with the terrorists, or whoever is/are behind the terrorist movement, just so that they can get a terrorist or two carrying out a really despicable terrorist act, in the middle of a major Western city, something that generates MAXIMUM IMPACT, and the sheeples be of course be scared shitless
Occam would disagree. It is far more likely that some egomaniac fuck wants to immortalise himself by attacking a cartoon magazine, on his own. Your conspiracy theory, while not impossible, seems much less likely and unneeded. At least, if I was "in control", I would prefer other, more reliable methods. Or just wait. Terrorist attacks have been happening regularly, so why stage on of your own?
When I am laying on my death bed and someone says "you did all these useless things -- you could have directed your talent towards really useful stuff and made lots of money", I will honestly be able to say "They were not useless; they made me happy. And that is what gave my life meaning."
That is indeed the most important and hope I will be able to say the same (though probalbly I'll have regrets). Everyone should do as they please, and usefullness in itself is not a good measure of activity. That being said, I somewhat understand the original poster who was modded troll: why not do something -possibly equally useless- in the real world instead of this minecraft thing? Instead of simulating the Tour de France on a home-trainer, why not go out and cycle? Both are equally useful or useless, but one has more appeal than the other.
Back in the day, floppies were amazing [...] they basically worked and retained data very reliably.
Not by today's standards they didn't. Anything remotely important, I would put on at least two floppies. I still need to experience the first USB stick failure.
(Okay, okay, USB sticks may fail too, I know, but not nearly as often as floppies).
Nevertheless, I would expect that the chances of fucking up vinyl are lower, just because the intended audience is different than for CDs. Is that a valid assumption?
Apparently coming from one too lazy to read the article, because it is explained in the first paragraph...
(In the below "you" refers to the critics)
1) if you appreciate a creative work, why not pay for it? Buy the DVD, buy the CD, buy whatever medium and you can view or listen as many times as you want. If you don't want to pay, you don't get to see the result of the creative process. If you don't want to pay, why would the creator of Pulp fiction let you to see the movie? What obligation does he have in the world to allow you to see it? I never understood, and most likely never will understand this typical /. logic of piracy vs theft etc. Thanks for sharing the fruits of YOUR labour through open software, but please allow other creative people to differ.
2) Why should an author's heirs not be entitled to the fruits of the labour of their ancestors? Why should they be entitled to his house, savings, but not future profits? Why would it be that, because coincidentally, someone dies, you get to see the movie for free? Why would you rank higher than the creator's children? Let's hope Stephen King dies just after writing a masterpiece, because now we are entitled to read it for free. What sense does that make???
The fiction gets even worse! Game reviewers are typicalle die-hard gamers, known for not having sex -let alone with other people.
A agree. How is this different from making "bomb" jokes at the airport. Everyone knows "bomb"-jokes are not taken lightly by serucity personnel. Same holds for using such stupid SSID. I *also* know this does no actual harm and, most likely, real terrorists would not use this name etc, but broadcasting such an SSID in an airport is just not a very smart thing to do because it can be expected to trigger security folks. Note that I am not defending them, just saying that their reaction is not completely unpredicatable. If you value such a joke more than your time, go ahead, but I don't.
Yes, with ROT13. (Twice, to be safer).
Wish I could joint, but only have tails.
Apparently not, otherwise it would be eating us.
I think all first year computer science / programming / engineering students should be introduced to this and learn how to write programs for this environment first before moving on to modern systems. True power is being able to write useful stuff with only 64kb of ram and 1mhz of processor, and have it run in an acceptable time frame, and taking those skills and scaling up today's multi-core/ multi-gigahertz/multi-gigabyte address spaces.
While I agree, I wonder if this is actually true. To what extend does knowledge about efficient coding on an 8 bit machine with limited memory teach us anything about programming these heftier CPUs? Maybe the only people that should really have chewed the bits are the writers of compilers. For all others it might not matter so much how the compiler and the OS handle memory allocations and the like, and it may be more useful to focus on the program structure instead of the implementation on the CPU.
Why not? Apart from the idea that lip reading may complement speech recognition and make it more reliable. Also it may be more useful in a loud environment, which is frequently the case when machines are around, btw. Or in cases where speaking up loud to a computer is not appreciated, such as in office environments. And if all of this would not be enough, note the title of this website: news for nerds. You want a machine to lipread because it CAN (maybe).
Could sophisticated military tanks and anti-aircraft missiles given or sold to countries like Iraq be equipped with a way to disable them if they're compromised, without opening them up to hacking by an enemy?
A tank with a kill switch?
On topic: who would buy such a device that can be disabled by others? And even if it is made for the "domestic" market: why be at risk that someone else hacks into your own stuff and disables it? The solution to this problem wasn't technical, but political.
Even if I were to never even look at a single line of the source, the fact that it's availble to others adds value for me. I can go download a patch someone else wrote that fixes a bug MS hasn't bothered to fix. [...]
I am also in favour of Open source myself and get your point. However, after the OpenSSL bug, my belief in this "someone else" has significantly lowered. If too many people rely on "someone else" fixing a problem in his/her spare time you are worse off than when people are paid to fix closed source software. If the problem is important ($$$) enough, it wil be fixed.
While this looks like an interesting and cheap device to populate empty PCBs, it is only a small part of the total sulution. The PCB has to be made, solder paste added (maybe this device could be extended to do so), and most importantly: heated. Of all these steps, the pick-and-place may be the least enjoyable, but also the one that _could_ be done manualy, if needed. Still, if this device saves two days of manual labor, it already pays itself.
With all due respect: why is this modded insightful instead of the funny it was probably aimed at? Especially because the device can be destroyed by means currently available, such as the volcalo mentioned above. And simpler means too.
No discussion on one point, though: the slide keyboard made it more vulnerable and eventually it broke down on me, after intensive use. On the other hand: its 512 MB internal memory was also becoming a hurdle, so one year later I would have needed to replace it anyway.
DIY
They can understand how a toilet is cleaned, how a sale is made, how a 1099 is filled out, how a fire drill works, how a sandwich is put together, how oil is changed, etc... but Coding might as well be a dark art.
Disclaimer: I am in hardware myself and may completely miss the point here. However, our software/firmware folks do agile programming involving dividing programming problems into pieces which are assigned to programmers, followed-up on large whiteboards and being daily discussed in "scrum meetings" etc. (I may be confusing some concepts here but that is of less importance). The point being that your statement, that programming is some sort of unique dark-art-which-cannot-be-measured-by-managers, appears untrue to me and, honestly, rather pedantic. What these guys are doing is quite measurable. Maybe not by a silly measure like "lines of code", but by the measure of number of problems being solved, having a complexity that apparently everyone of them agrees on.
Indeed, the CEO doesn't know the exact details of how this works, but neither does he personally count the number of cleaned toilets.