Re:This is actually my HOPE for the future
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Oh get a grip and lighten up - geez.
Re:This is actually my HOPE for the future
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· Score: 2, Funny
Yet another inept car analogy I see.
I would have picked a running marathon analogy, but figured more people here have driven or been in a car than would get the reference to exercise.
Re:This is actually my HOPE for the future
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I'd have to disagree. Beyond the normal rules of the road, there isn't any cooperation between the drivers.
I'd say the same thing about a bunch of programmers working independantly in their own basements. They know the goal and rules of development otherwise they wouldn't be there. They only communicate occasionally when needed. It's not like they are all in a room actively discussing the problem and way forward like normal human beings.
Same thing with drivers. They all know where they are going otherwise they wouldn't be on the road. They know the rules of the road, then perform the occasional communication in the form of turn signals, car horns and hand gestures.
I stand by the analogy. And online cooperation is not being social.
Re:This is actually my HOPE for the future
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The mere fact that geeks regularly cooperate on a massive scale (i'd hazard the only people who cooperate on a larger scale are organised religions) illustrates that we do not lack the social skills necessary for our society.
That is no more social than someone alone in their car on a highway surrounded by thousands of other people alone in their cars. They are all doing the same thing, and they are technically doing it together and cooperatively, but it is by no means social.
Re:This is actually my HOPE for the future
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Maybe companies should understand that secure encryption is impossible when you have several thousand geeks running around with a computer, no social skills, and way too much idle time on their hands.
Almost three quarters of them are Catholic which do not have funademtalist beliefs (the catholic church has publicly embraced evolution)
I don't know if "embraced" is the right word. It tolerates it, mostly: "The Teaching Authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, insofar as it inquiries into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter." - Pope Pius XII
Hmm... haven't seen that quote..
How about
"Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth" - (Catechism of the Catholic Church 159)
or
"no real disagreement can exist between the theologian and the scientist provided each keeps within his own limits" - Pope Leo XIII
or
"Methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things the of the faith derive from the same God" - (CCC 159)
In my experience Windows is nearly a complete disaster.
Have a convertible tablet - great machine, loaded with every gadget you can think of, and I use them all. When it works it works great. However, occasionally, it refuses to hibernate or shutdown when commanded, applications freeze for no reason, sometimes it will not boot, and sometimes the entire system completely locks up. Not enough to chuck it out, but often enough to be really annoying. Unfortunately, I have to use Windows because the workplace demands it.
I hate a machine that I cannot trust to work reliably when I need it to.
Just take solace in that the creationist sect is a tiny, tiny majority of the worldwide Christians - probably much less than 1%. Arguably they shouldn't even be called Christians since their beliefs are so different than the rest of the religion.
I wish it were so. Fundamentalist Christians represent about 35% of the voting US population (approx 70% of those who voted for Bush) according to many researchers, and the disparate birth rates will only serve to increase that proportion
Yes the US is a strange anomoly - I don't know what it is with the culture that promotes such backward ideas. That's why the US is such a laughing stock when it comes to the world stage in religion - fundies are generally viewed as uneducated rednecks.
But worldwide, there are over 2 billion Christians. Almost three quarters of them are Catholic which do not have funademtalist beliefs (the catholic church has publicly embraced evolution), and the next several major Christian denominations are also non-creationist. I get annoyed when as a Christian I get lumped in with these creationist crazies when they are just a small (but annoyingly vocal) minority, and their beliefs do not represent Cristianity as a whole.
Basically the fundamentalist creationist God is a magic God that does illogical things to try and trick you into going to hell.
There is no point in arguing with a group of people who gives counter arguments along the lines of 'you couldn't possibly understand the great wisdom of God', or 'God can do anything'. No amount of logic can change the mind of such people.
Just take solace in that the creationist sect is a tiny, tiny majority of the worldwide Christians - probably much less than 1%. Arguably they shouldn't even be called Christians since their beliefs are so different than the rest of the religion.
I still don't understand what makes algorithms and software OBVIOUSLY not patentable.
Because on their own they are simply not useful (patent law specifies that an invention be useful). Software on its own cannot do anything, it is just an algorithm or bunch of text. IT doesn't do anything. It is only useful when it is actually added to something else (like hardware).
So you can patent software if it constitutes a required and necessary part of an overall invention, and that invention passes the usefullness test, but software on its own cannot be patented.
The function of lungs is to exchange gasses (oxygen and carbon dioxide) between blood and the surrounding air. The function of a fish's gas bladder is to control the buouyancy of the fish. They have absolutely nothing to do with each other in function, purpose or structure.
While the fish's gas bladder does control buoyancy, it also functions as the exchange of gasses to and from the blood. This is the same basic function as lungs.
Gills perform the function of lungs in fishes, but are quite dissimilar from lungs in basic structure.
Gills do not perform the function of lungs. Gills extract the oxygen from the water and passes it to the gas bladder for exchange with the blood. The gills also pass carbon dioxide out to the surrounding water. Gills would be most similar to our mouth and nose for air exchange, not the lungs.
(Most) Fish don't have lungs. Plants, molds and bacteria don't have any of these features. Your claim is false.
Not true. Vertebrates have lungs. Fish have gas bladders. They perform similar functions and evolution wise share a common ancestry.
Plants, mold and bacteria, while yes are life, are not the type of intelligent life I was referring to. Lets narrow it down to vertebrate animals - all similar, especially at the embryo stage.
I can't understand people who think that to find life on other planets we have to look for conditions similar to Earth. All of the hubbub over liquid water seems so silly to me. We have *no idea* what life on other planets might be like.
Sure we do. God said he made us in his image. Therefore life everywhere should be similar.
Look at an image of human vs chicken embryo - they are visually identical. All (well most) life of this planet has the same basic feature set - segmented brain, two eyes, head, neck, four limbs, lungs, etc.. With life as diverse as what you find on this planet all having the basic same feature set, it'd be likely that life elsewhere would also be similar at this basic level.
why can't Christ just be incarnated somewhere in the middle of the universe and die and rise again there for the whole universe's sins, rather than at 30 AD in Jerusalem, Earth
Because that would require knowledge of and communication with that somewhere in the middle of the universe. In 30AD, they still thought the earth WAS the sole entity in the universe and everything revolved around it.
Basically you cant introduce too much truth to the masses at once since they will never believe it.
Bring a 'caveman' of even tens of thousands of years ago into the present, and educate him for a couple of years, and he would be indistinguishable from a great many people alive today.
We don't evolve that fast.....
I'm not talking about evolution, I'm talking about body of knowledge. And read more carefully - I never said it was a caveman of tens of thousands of years ago - I mentioned two examples of two people from different eras.
Someone from those eras would look at our technology with wonder and amazement. But yes the person from a thousand years ago could probably be taught given time.
Also, if you look at the failure rate of technology over time you will find that it reduces as time progresses and the technology is improved. That applies to every form of technology.
Yes the technology gets better, but no matter how good the technology gets there will still be stupid people that will manage to smack it into something, which was the point I made that you seemingly missed.
will never believe that an advanced race can travel all the way across the inconceivable distance between stars, and be dumb enough to crash.
Bring a caveman (or even someone from as recent as a thousand years ago or so) to our society, and they may think the same thing about us and our ability to make advanced technology like planes and cars. Basically every form of transportation we've ever created we've managed to smash into something or each other on a regular basis.
A bad UI often indicates a bad code base, and vice versa. If a programmer wants to fix a bad UI or fix a performance problem, then you should probably listen to him.
Depends.. If the existing code meets the needs and requirements of the users, then I don't care how bad the UI is or what the performance problem is. He shouldn't touch it. If the bad UI is causing problems or the performance problems are causing the users to complain, then sure, thats justification for fixing it. But if you can't show there is a need to fix it then don't.
the big systems we piggy-back on for our data feeds are some of the scariest most atrocious beasts you will ever work with. Most are based off 10 year old code that has been built as one hacked-in-patch after another, and seem to work in-spite of themselves rather than because of it.
This is the attitude that as a project lead drives me crazy. I can't stand it when I start a project that is supposed to be based on exisitng *working* *tested* code, and the software developer says 'this is crap I need three guys and 6 more months of schedule to rewrite it'. The reason is invariably because the new developer doesn't like the style or the architecture of the old software, despite it working properly and being tested to meet requirements.
Thats the 'I can do it better with my eyes closed' primadonna attitude that drives software projects over cost, over schedule and into a never-ending development project.
If there is one thing that CS schools need to teach their students is to NOT TOUCH EXISTING TESTED WORKING CODE. Doesn't matter if it's ugly, to big, in the 'wrong' language, or even completely uncommented. If it meets requirements, DONT TOUCH IT!!! I had one developer who spent close to a week going through all the existing code and converting the tabs into three character spaces because he said it was ugly. This was on code he had no business modifying. I threw him off the program as fast as I could.
Uh, yeah. Try that with a person of color or female, and see how fast your ass gets sued. Great idea, that.
99% of the time people who make comments like this are just bitter about their own failings, and are covering up their own incompetence with excuses why they can't do their job properly.
Writing asinine comments online deriding one of the most important advances in journalism since the selectric? The advent of net not only breaks the monopoly of the **aa cartels, but it also breaks the monopoly of the news conglomerates. So who the fuck are you or the French govt to be telling everyone what is or isn't journalism? and who is or isn't a journalist.
Since I've now been published on Slashdot and have been read by thousands of people, I'm now a professional journalist. Don't tell me how to do my job..
If I change my oil I may not be a mechanic, but if I change a 1000 peoples oil I sure am some kind of automotive professional....
No, you are a guy that knows how to change oil - thats a long way from a professional.
If someone gives information to 1000's regarding a current event or incident they are indeed journalists.
No they wrote about an event. If a guy stands up in a downtown busy city intersection and yells out a speech, is he a public speaker? No, he's a moron on a street corner.
Do you think the first journalist worked for CNN? It was probably some guy with access to a printing press that wanted to disseminate information or express himself... Sounds a lot like the internet doesn't it?
Sure, and the first pilots just hopped into a plane and took off without training. Try that now with a 747 passenger jet and see how many passengers would call that same untrained guy a 'pilot'.
The US is a huge net exporter of copyrighted materials. Of course they're going to put the screws to other countries to tighten up copyright laws. Welcome to the real world.
Ok, let's make a deal. Canada will tighten up its copyright laws if the US tightens up its lax gun control laws and stops the tide of illegal handguns from crossing the border into Canada. Last time I checked I dont think a copyright violation killed any US citizens.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh get a grip and lighten up - geez.
I would have picked a running marathon analogy, but figured more people here have driven or been in a car than would get the reference to exercise.
I'd say the same thing about a bunch of programmers working independantly in their own basements. They know the goal and rules of development otherwise they wouldn't be there. They only communicate occasionally when needed. It's not like they are all in a room actively discussing the problem and way forward like normal human beings.
Same thing with drivers. They all know where they are going otherwise they wouldn't be on the road. They know the rules of the road, then perform the occasional communication in the form of turn signals, car horns and hand gestures.
I stand by the analogy. And online cooperation is not being social.
Maybe companies should understand that secure encryption is impossible when you have several thousand geeks running around with a computer, no social skills, and way too much idle time on their hands.
Hmm... haven't seen that quote..
How about
"Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth" - (Catechism of the Catholic Church 159)or
"no real disagreement can exist between the theologian and the scientist provided each keeps within his own limits" - Pope Leo XIIIor
"Methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things the of the faith derive from the same God" - (CCC 159)In my experience Windows is nearly a complete disaster.
Have a convertible tablet - great machine, loaded with every gadget you can think of, and I use them all. When it works it works great. However, occasionally, it refuses to hibernate or shutdown when commanded, applications freeze for no reason, sometimes it will not boot, and sometimes the entire system completely locks up. Not enough to chuck it out, but often enough to be really annoying. Unfortunately, I have to use Windows because the workplace demands it.
I hate a machine that I cannot trust to work reliably when I need it to.
Yes the US is a strange anomoly - I don't know what it is with the culture that promotes such backward ideas. That's why the US is such a laughing stock when it comes to the world stage in religion - fundies are generally viewed as uneducated rednecks.
But worldwide, there are over 2 billion Christians. Almost three quarters of them are Catholic which do not have funademtalist beliefs (the catholic church has publicly embraced evolution), and the next several major Christian denominations are also non-creationist. I get annoyed when as a Christian I get lumped in with these creationist crazies when they are just a small (but annoyingly vocal) minority, and their beliefs do not represent Cristianity as a whole.
Basically the fundamentalist creationist God is a magic God that does illogical things to try and trick you into going to hell.
There is no point in arguing with a group of people who gives counter arguments along the lines of 'you couldn't possibly understand the great wisdom of God', or 'God can do anything'. No amount of logic can change the mind of such people.
Just take solace in that the creationist sect is a tiny, tiny majority of the worldwide Christians - probably much less than 1%. Arguably they shouldn't even be called Christians since their beliefs are so different than the rest of the religion.
Because on their own they are simply not useful (patent law specifies that an invention be useful). Software on its own cannot do anything, it is just an algorithm or bunch of text. IT doesn't do anything. It is only useful when it is actually added to something else (like hardware).
So you can patent software if it constitutes a required and necessary part of an overall invention, and that invention passes the usefullness test, but software on its own cannot be patented.
At least that's how it is here in Canada.
You're the ignorant one, with your continued denial of basic anatomy and evolution.
Since you are quoting Wiki, why dont you elighten yourself and read the Origins sections of the entry on Lungs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lung
While the fish's gas bladder does control buoyancy, it also functions as the exchange of gasses to and from the blood. This is the same basic function as lungs.
Gills do not perform the function of lungs. Gills extract the oxygen from the water and passes it to the gas bladder for exchange with the blood. The gills also pass carbon dioxide out to the surrounding water. Gills would be most similar to our mouth and nose for air exchange, not the lungs.Not true. Vertebrates have lungs. Fish have gas bladders. They perform similar functions and evolution wise share a common ancestry.
Plants, mold and bacteria, while yes are life, are not the type of intelligent life I was referring to. Lets narrow it down to vertebrate animals - all similar, especially at the embryo stage.
Sure we do. God said he made us in his image. Therefore life everywhere should be similar.
Look at an image of human vs chicken embryo - they are visually identical. All (well most) life of this planet has the same basic feature set - segmented brain, two eyes, head, neck, four limbs, lungs, etc.. With life as diverse as what you find on this planet all having the basic same feature set, it'd be likely that life elsewhere would also be similar at this basic level.
Because that would require knowledge of and communication with that somewhere in the middle of the universe. In 30AD, they still thought the earth WAS the sole entity in the universe and everything revolved around it.
Basically you cant introduce too much truth to the masses at once since they will never believe it.
How about turning off your computer and getting a real life? No corporation can track you if you aren't spending 16 hours a day online.
I'm not talking about evolution, I'm talking about body of knowledge. And read more carefully - I never said it was a caveman of tens of thousands of years ago - I mentioned two examples of two people from different eras.
Someone from those eras would look at our technology with wonder and amazement. But yes the person from a thousand years ago could probably be taught given time.
Yes the technology gets better, but no matter how good the technology gets there will still be stupid people that will manage to smack it into something, which was the point I made that you seemingly missed.
Bring a caveman (or even someone from as recent as a thousand years ago or so) to our society, and they may think the same thing about us and our ability to make advanced technology like planes and cars. Basically every form of transportation we've ever created we've managed to smash into something or each other on a regular basis.
Depends.. If the existing code meets the needs and requirements of the users, then I don't care how bad the UI is or what the performance problem is. He shouldn't touch it. If the bad UI is causing problems or the performance problems are causing the users to complain, then sure, thats justification for fixing it. But if you can't show there is a need to fix it then don't.
This is the attitude that as a project lead drives me crazy. I can't stand it when I start a project that is supposed to be based on exisitng *working* *tested* code, and the software developer says 'this is crap I need three guys and 6 more months of schedule to rewrite it'. The reason is invariably because the new developer doesn't like the style or the architecture of the old software, despite it working properly and being tested to meet requirements.
Thats the 'I can do it better with my eyes closed' primadonna attitude that drives software projects over cost, over schedule and into a never-ending development project.
If there is one thing that CS schools need to teach their students is to NOT TOUCH EXISTING TESTED WORKING CODE. Doesn't matter if it's ugly, to big, in the 'wrong' language, or even completely uncommented. If it meets requirements, DONT TOUCH IT!!! I had one developer who spent close to a week going through all the existing code and converting the tabs into three character spaces because he said it was ugly. This was on code he had no business modifying. I threw him off the program as fast as I could.
99% of the time people who make comments like this are just bitter about their own failings, and are covering up their own incompetence with excuses why they can't do their job properly.
Since I've now been published on Slashdot and have been read by thousands of people, I'm now a professional journalist. Don't tell me how to do my job..
Yes we are all in this together .... So why not repeal your stupid DMCA laws and stop trying to ram them down everyone elses throat?