For those interested: The four parts of the ISO/IEC 9945:2002 standard will be published on the 15:th of December. But then again, those interested would probably already have seen this on the Austin group mailing list
Hmmmm... I wonder why my submission of this thing was rejected and why it still showed up the next day as submitted by "An anonymous reader". I'm not anonymous.
Microsoft Claimed it 'will recognize all your handwriting unless you can't read it yourself.'
<joke>
That's easy; take your handwritten notes and open up notepad (or maybe Emacs or Vi), then proceed to type your handwritten notes into the editor. The editor will recognize all your handwriting unless you can't read it yourself.
Did you notice that the images in the top left corner of the article web pages were the one and the same on all five pages, just cropped and scaled a bit?
Does anyone else have better images of this thing?
Without being insulting, I'd just like to ask, what's the point of putting further effort into the Hurd, rather than concentrating on advancing Linux and or the BSDs?
Why should it have anything to do with Linux and BSD?
In 1994 I had a list of quite a number of words and short phrases like "WAN WAN", "kuk", "ann" etc., but I can't find it anymore on my systems, and web searches won't help. The list I had was fetched off the internet somewhere and was written backwards and ROT13'ed.
It would be good to have when starting up my next company or when I come to name my kids, just to avoid blunders. I suppose it would be good as a source for inspiration when choosing new passwords as well.
It's actually quite interesting to note that in the historical Babylon, the tower of Babel was supposedly built by individuals with hubris. They wanted their invention, the tower, to reach to heaven. That's why their god made them all speak in different languages, so that their work would be interrupted (just FYI, in Swedish, the word "babbel" means "nonsense talk").
That's why I find it strange that translation devices (HW or SW) are called babel-this and babel-that. It would be better to call them debabel-this or debabel-that instead.
Another interesting parallel is that between the tower of Babel and this project of DARPA. Both tries to achieve fairly unreachable goals, and you've got to have a fair amount of hubris to think you're able to carry them through. A general purpose translation device is not an easy thing to construct, especially when considering the number of dialects spoken in each language. Also, languages are ever-developing and the meaning of a sentence depend on more than just context.
I bet lots of people had allergies hundreds of years ago [...]
Sure they had, about 1% of them in 1906, but that doesn't explain the increase in allergies today (15%-20%). The fact is that as our living environment gets cleaner and cleaner, the more fragile we become. Some 100 years ago, virtually everyone were able to pat a dog or a cat or breath freely in the spring. Today, one in three suffers from some kind of allergy. According to this report, asthma is something that 20% of Europeans suffers from (including myself).
So, yeah, it's good we're clean, but too much of a good thing is bad.
Overuse of anti-bacterial products is strongly linked to increased over-sensitivity and allergy to dust, pollen and animals etc.
Live in an anti-bacterial environment for a few years and you'll find that you can't spend much time outside anymore, due to the pollen, car exhausts and parfume/aftershave.
Since people started to move into cities, got higher standards of living, and a much cleaner living area, the number of cases of over-sensitivity to all these things (animals etc.) has rocketed sky high.
I'm not sure it has anything to do with the immune system, as pollen or animal hair or aftershave are not viruses or bacteria.
But, the book itself was monochrome, and its primary interface was text-- not even color text at that.
Ah, you didn't buy the one with the cognital interface? The version of the books that I read had a very nice interface which enabled me to somehow view the scenes from the book within my head while reading it.
I was quite amazed and I still haven't figured out how they did it...
The problem of generating truly random numbers has always been the weak point of one-time pads. As soon as there is an algorithm for doing something, e.g. generate random numbers, you can reverse engineer it (maybe that's what I should have written in my first message). Yes, I know it takes seven million years, or whatever, to do it, but it is do-able. And some smart kid will reduce the time to twenty minutes within 10 years.
An agent in the field can't carry a quantum computer. Not yet anyway. And when she/he can, it will probably be possible to jam them anyway, as with radio transmissions. Or some other science breakthough will deem their crypto unusable or unsafe.
Oi! Wow! I just did an ego-search and boy was that embarrassing...
I found some posts from November 1992, three months after getting my very first UNIX account!! (I must remember to make a note about that, it's soon to be ten years since, so some celebration is in order). I believe I asked for Calvin & Hobbes graphics in rec.arts.comics.misc. And later, I asked for a scanned copy of the Einstürzende Neubauten logo, hmmm, in the wrong group.
Two years later, the WWW started forming. I wasn't very impressed. You could actually have sort of a map of the thing in your head. It was so small, only a couple of hundred places to go, and not very well connected. Mosaic was the thing to use. It didn't use a cache so it was painfully slow. Everyone put their "hotlists" on the web (things hasn't changed very much, have they?).
The World Wide Web Worm! Does anyone remember that one? That was the first search engine that I came across.
Then everything exploded, the web expanded even more and many places went commercial. Later everybody merged and went bankrupt. Now it just stinks.
Q: Talk about the relationship between ends and
means. Let's say you have a noble goal. You want to bring perpetrators of horrendous terrorist crimes to justice. What about the means to reach those
ends?
A: Suppose you want to bring a president
of the U.S. to justice. They're guilty of horrendous terrorist acts.
There's a way to do it. In fact, there are precedents. Nicaragua in the
1980s was subjected to violent assault by the U.S. Tens of thousands of people
died. The country was substantially destroyed, it may never recover. The
effects on the country are much more severe even than the tragedies in New York
the other day. They didn't respond by setting off bombs in Washington.
They went to the World Court, which issued a judgment in their favor condemning
the U.S. for what it called "unlawful use of force," which means
international terrorism, ordering the U.S. to desist and pay substantial reparations. The U.S. dismissed the court judgment with contempt, responding
with an immediate escalation of the attack. So Nicaragua then went to the
Security Council, which passed a resolution calling on states to observe
international law. The U.S. vetoed it. They went to the General Assembly, where
they got a similar resolution that passed near-unanimously, which the U.S. and Israel opposed two years in a row (joined once by El Salvador). That's
the way a state should proceed. If Nicaragua had been powerful enough, it could
have set up another criminal court. Those are the measures the U.S. could
pursue, and nobody's going to block it. That's what they're
being asked to do by people throughout the region, including their allies.
Remember, the governments in the Middle East and North Africa, like the
terrorist Algerian government, which is one of the most vicious of all, would
be happy to join the U.S. in opposing terrorist networks which are attacking
them. They're the prime targets. But they have been asking for some
evidence, and they want to do it in a framework of at least minimal commitment
to international law. The Egyptian position is complex. They're part of
the primary system that organized the bin Laden network. They were the first victims of it when Sadat was assassinated. They've been major victims of
it since. They'd like to crush it, but they say, only after some evidence
is presented about who's involved and within the framework of the UN
Charter, under the aegis of the Security Council. That's a way to proceed.
America my be considered by you to be 'corporate' or 'evil', but it dosen't have vassel states. Check your dictionary.
How do you define imperialism? Do you include cultural imperialism, economic imperialism, and/or strategic imperialism, or do you want to restrict it to colonialism? Is it something that has to include overseas actions, or does the U.S. actions in South America count?
Whats wrong with the Kenyans. Is knowlege too difficult for them? I think not. Kenya just needs some help with their democracy and education.
It's kind of differenty, isn't it? (And I thought you meant Kenya, the country, not its citizens). Kenya has nothing very much to offer the western countries. It's sad, but most developed countries are just not interested in Africa at all, it's not a reliable market. Post-war Germany and post-war Japan on the other hand, promised much more. And what's more, their geographical location made them more interesting and reliable. If anyone was interested in getting the poor African states back on their feet, they should write off their debts.
Oh, and another interesting thought: Democracy, funny word, eh? There's no real definition of it, or at least no agreement on any of the definitions that exists. And why is democracy always considered to be a good thing? Is it because it gives people the ultimate freedom of choise? Why should every country be a democracy? Is America a democracy? Can you tell a state to be democratic?
Chompsky doesen't offer solutions because 1) I suspect that he doesent have any. 2) offering solutions would take time away from blaming America for everybody elese problems.
So why is it bad to point out errors? If there were easy solutions, why hasn't anyone implemented them yet? Being the only superpower, the U.S. has to be able to take some verbal opposition. Especially from its own citizens.
If everybody is so pissed off at America, then explain why everybody wants to immigrate here. Emplain why, as an American, people treat very kindly when I travel aborad. They may not treat you well when you travel - but I digress.
I wasn't talking about U.S. citizens, I was talking about the U.S. Of course you're treated well when you go abroad, you're a guest.
On some things yes. His point of view worth cosidering, espically his thoughs on linguistics, but I place Chomsky with the likes of Ann Ryand and Jesus Christ. Their viewpoints are educated and interesting, but their followers tend not be able to think for themselves.
Interesting. I wonder why you don't put any PR companies up there?... or any educated presidents?
I suspect that Chomskys views would change if he traveled more and wasen't so Ameri-centric.
Where did you get the idea that he wasn't travelling? He's travelling all over the world to give lectures. Of course he's U.S.-centric, U.S. foreign policy is what he's interested in and what he talks about. That's why he travels all over the world.
Okay, help me out: What POSSIBLE profit could be taken by keeping Afghanistan/Rwanda/Honduras/etc. poor? If any of those places have any real oil or other resources, they're sure keeping it hidden pretty well.
Afghanistan has, AFAIK, no resources, but they pipeline a lot of gas and oil over their land.
"U.S. interest in Afghanistan is stability with at
least minimally competent government." (ref) Here, competent government means a government that can't inspire the Gulf countries to oppose U.S.A. or cut off their oil supply.
Honduras and Rwanda don't have any resources either. You don't profit from keeping them poor, you avoid loosing, just as in the case of Afghanistan, Iraq, Nicaragua etc.
If you discount Russia, there hasent been an impeialist power in twenty years.
I think the correct term for that statement is bullshit.
Russia hasn't even shown the least spark of imperialism since the fall of the union. I know it's a bit hard to accept to you, but the world's only imperialistic state today is U.S.A.
Japan had, just like Germany, the knowledge of how to build big industries. That helped both Germany and Japan back on their feets after WWII. On top of that, Germany were restricted in what kind of industries they were allowed to build, so naturally they built their country instead of their army. I'm not sure about the situation in Japan, but I assume that it was similar. The U.S. also had no interest in repressing either Germany or Japan, they provided innovations and intelligence. Your comparison is not fair.
Want a good life for masses? Stop picking on people who are sucessfull and start emulating any good ideas they might have. Mr.Chompsky is a smart man, but did you ever notice that all he does is point out problems.
Exactly what is wrong with pointing out the probelms. You know, ignoring them won't make them go away. Covering them up won't make everyone happy. By pointing to them and by discussing the probelms we might get to terms with them and maybe even learn something.
He hardly ever offers any solutions.
It's not his job to offer solutions. What he does is to educate the public.
Instead, he's the same broken record, playing the "Blame America First" anthem over and over. It's a shame, A good mind is a terrible thing to waste.
And don't you think he's right? Don't you think there's a reason that EVERYONE is more or less miffed and irritated about the way U.S.A. is behaving? When a country is worth a third of the world, they have a lot of responsibility and a lot to loose. When you behave as you do, no wonder the other two thirds gets annoyed.
For every poor country that's opressed due to imperialists, there are ten that are opressing themselves better that any outside country could dream of.
Slashdot Mirror
The C. Elegans genome may be browsed here...
For those interested: The four parts of the ISO/IEC 9945:2002 standard will be published on the 15:th of December. But then again, those interested would probably already have seen this on the Austin group mailing list
Hmmmm... I wonder why my submission of this thing was rejected and why it still showed up the next day as submitted by "An anonymous reader". I'm not anonymous.
That's easy; take your handwritten notes and open up notepad (or maybe Emacs or Vi), then proceed to type your handwritten notes into the editor. The editor will recognize all your handwriting unless you can't read it yourself.
</joke>Did you notice that the images in the top left corner of the article web pages were the one and the same on all five pages, just cropped and scaled a bit?
Does anyone else have better images of this thing?
Why should it have anything to do with Linux and BSD?
Yet another pointy haired boss device.
Now I can tell my PHB it's ok for me to use Python for development at work. It's certified, with a logo even. That's all he needs to know.
Perl was ok a long time ago, it has had that dot-com domain name for a while now. I didn't even have to argue to be able to use it.
Seriously, is this certification anything else than a PHB pacifier?
Does anyone have a list of words to avoid?
In 1994 I had a list of quite a number of words and short phrases like "WAN WAN", "kuk", "ann" etc., but I can't find it anymore on my systems, and web searches won't help. The list I had was fetched off the internet somewhere and was written backwards and ROT13'ed.
It would be good to have when starting up my next company or when I come to name my kids, just to avoid blunders. I suppose it would be good as a source for inspiration when choosing new passwords as well.
It's actually quite interesting to note that in the historical Babylon, the tower of Babel was supposedly built by individuals with hubris. They wanted their invention, the tower, to reach to heaven. That's why their god made them all speak in different languages, so that their work would be interrupted (just FYI, in Swedish, the word "babbel" means "nonsense talk").
That's why I find it strange that translation devices (HW or SW) are called babel-this and babel-that. It would be better to call them debabel-this or debabel-that instead.
Another interesting parallel is that between the tower of Babel and this project of DARPA. Both tries to achieve fairly unreachable goals, and you've got to have a fair amount of hubris to think you're able to carry them through. A general purpose translation device is not an easy thing to construct, especially when considering the number of dialects spoken in each language. Also, languages are ever-developing and the meaning of a sentence depend on more than just context.
Sure they had, about 1% of them in 1906, but that doesn't explain the increase in allergies today (15%-20%). The fact is that as our living environment gets cleaner and cleaner, the more fragile we become. Some 100 years ago, virtually everyone were able to pat a dog or a cat or breath freely in the spring. Today, one in three suffers from some kind of allergy. According to this report, asthma is something that 20% of Europeans suffers from (including myself).
So, yeah, it's good we're clean, but too much of a good thing is bad.
Overuse of anti-bacterial products is strongly linked to increased over-sensitivity and allergy to dust, pollen and animals etc.
Live in an anti-bacterial environment for a few years and you'll find that you can't spend much time outside anymore, due to the pollen, car exhausts and parfume/aftershave.
Since people started to move into cities, got higher standards of living, and a much cleaner living area, the number of cases of over-sensitivity to all these things (animals etc.) has rocketed sky high.
I'm not sure it has anything to do with the immune system, as pollen or animal hair or aftershave are not viruses or bacteria.
Ah, you didn't buy the one with the cognital interface? The version of the books that I read had a very nice interface which enabled me to somehow view the scenes from the book within my head while reading it.
I was quite amazed and I still haven't figured out how they did it...
The problem of generating truly random numbers has always been the weak point of one-time pads. As soon as there is an algorithm for doing something, e.g. generate random numbers, you can reverse engineer it (maybe that's what I should have written in my first message). Yes, I know it takes seven million years, or whatever, to do it, but it is do-able. And some smart kid will reduce the time to twenty minutes within 10 years. An agent in the field can't carry a quantum computer. Not yet anyway. And when she/he can, it will probably be possible to jam them anyway, as with radio transmissions. Or some other science breakthough will deem their crypto unusable or unsafe.
If a human constructed it, a human can deconstruct it. That goes for everything, always.
Oi! Wow! I just did an ego-search and boy was that embarrassing...
I found some posts from November 1992, three months after getting my very first UNIX account!! (I must remember to make a note about that, it's soon to be ten years since, so some celebration is in order). I believe I asked for Calvin & Hobbes graphics in rec.arts.comics.misc. And later, I asked for a scanned copy of the Einstürzende Neubauten logo, hmmm, in the wrong group.
Two years later, the WWW started forming. I wasn't very impressed. You could actually have sort of a map of the thing in your head. It was so small, only a couple of hundred places to go, and not very well connected. Mosaic was the thing to use. It didn't use a cache so it was painfully slow. Everyone put their "hotlists" on the web (things hasn't changed very much, have they?).
The World Wide Web Worm! Does anyone remember that one? That was the first search engine that I came across.
Then everything exploded, the web expanded even more and many places went commercial. Later everybody merged and went bankrupt. Now it just stinks.
This is from an interview with Noam Chomsky. It answers the question "What was he supposed to do?".
How do you define imperialism? Do you include cultural imperialism, economic imperialism, and/or strategic imperialism, or do you want to restrict it to colonialism? Is it something that has to include overseas actions, or does the U.S. actions in South America count?
It's kind of differenty, isn't it? (And I thought you meant Kenya, the country, not its citizens). Kenya has nothing very much to offer the western countries. It's sad, but most developed countries are just not interested in Africa at all, it's not a reliable market. Post-war Germany and post-war Japan on the other hand, promised much more. And what's more, their geographical location made them more interesting and reliable. If anyone was interested in getting the poor African states back on their feet, they should write off their debts.
Oh, and another interesting thought: Democracy, funny word, eh? There's no real definition of it, or at least no agreement on any of the definitions that exists. And why is democracy always considered to be a good thing? Is it because it gives people the ultimate freedom of choise? Why should every country be a democracy? Is America a democracy? Can you tell a state to be democratic?
So why is it bad to point out errors? If there were easy solutions, why hasn't anyone implemented them yet? Being the only superpower, the U.S. has to be able to take some verbal opposition. Especially from its own citizens.
I wasn't talking about U.S. citizens, I was talking about the U.S. Of course you're treated well when you go abroad, you're a guest.
Interesting. I wonder why you don't put any PR companies up there? ... or any educated presidents?
Where did you get the idea that he wasn't travelling? He's travelling all over the world to give lectures. Of course he's U.S.-centric, U.S. foreign policy is what he's interested in and what he talks about. That's why he travels all over the world.
Well, the do have a robots.txt file... The last time I accessed it, the first line read "everyone go away".
It was for a Consultants' Conference in Frankfurt. See The Register.
You will also find the song lyrics is in that article.
I particulary like the line
Geesh
Afghanistan has, AFAIK, no resources, but they pipeline a lot of gas and oil over their land.
"U.S. interest in Afghanistan is stability with at least minimally competent government." (ref) Here, competent government means a government that can't inspire the Gulf countries to oppose U.S.A. or cut off their oil supply.
Honduras and Rwanda don't have any resources either. You don't profit from keeping them poor, you avoid loosing, just as in the case of Afghanistan, Iraq, Nicaragua etc.
I think the correct term for that statement is bullshit.
Russia hasn't even shown the least spark of imperialism since the fall of the union. I know it's a bit hard to accept to you, but the world's only imperialistic state today is U.S.A.
Japan had, just like Germany, the knowledge of how to build big industries. That helped both Germany and Japan back on their feets after WWII. On top of that, Germany were restricted in what kind of industries they were allowed to build, so naturally they built their country instead of their army. I'm not sure about the situation in Japan, but I assume that it was similar. The U.S. also had no interest in repressing either Germany or Japan, they provided innovations and intelligence. Your comparison is not fair.
Exactly what is wrong with pointing out the probelms. You know, ignoring them won't make them go away. Covering them up won't make everyone happy. By pointing to them and by discussing the probelms we might get to terms with them and maybe even learn something.
It's not his job to offer solutions. What he does is to educate the public.
And don't you think he's right? Don't you think there's a reason that EVERYONE is more or less miffed and irritated about the way U.S.A. is behaving? When a country is worth a third of the world, they have a lot of responsibility and a lot to loose. When you behave as you do, no wonder the other two thirds gets annoyed.
The same to you. Sorry.
Oh, could you please supply me with a valid reference. I will be much pleased to read it.
Do you really believe that?