all of it either continued to be used or was preserved and reused later.
That is simply untrue. Some select parts were preserved, if you're lucky and look only for the things you already know were preserved. To take one example: of all the official communications between the imperial administration and provincial governments, which certainly amounted to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of letters and other communications over the course of centuries, the grand total of what survives is two communiques. Two. To take a second example, our knowledge of the division of powers between different branches of the republican government is extremely sketchy in some very important areas. To take a third example, very little is known about Roman technological developments or literary works after about 100 CE.
Sure, you can change the goalposts and say, "Well, all the influential and important things survived"; but that's just a tautology (something can't be influential if it doesn't survive, therefore of course anything that does not survive is also not influential).
The Middle Age didn't use to be called "dark" because it was a decline -- though undoubtedly in some respects it was -- but because surviving information about it is even sketchier than surviving information about the Roman period. (There's still a lot, in both cases, to be sure.) The same goes for other "dark" ages in human history, such as the Greek "dark" age, which likewise used to be called "dark" not because it was a decline but because information is sketchier for the period 1200-800 BCE than for the periods on either side.
Yes, except for "pop-up balloon", which is a bit alarming. Sounds like the XP low battery alert more than anything -- brings out Pavlovian reactions in me that I didn't realise I had...
Pretty much the same way they do everywhere else in the world: when they get to university and find that their examiners there aren't bound by astonishingly ill-conceived regulations handed down by the NZQA.
When I used to teach at universities in the UK (not minor ones, by the way) I found that about 30-40% of first-year undergraduates were essentially illiterate, that is, unable to construct a single coherent sentence in writing, completely unable to comprehend what they were "reading". (The "30-40%" is an average over two universities, by the way.) Part of the job was to lower that percentage by the time they graduated (so they all ended up getting a BA in basic reading and writing skills). Here in NZ the percentage is lower, but still worrying. So, now the NZQA has decided in its infinite wisdom that even more of the basic essentials of education are going to be devolved onto the shoulders of university teachers, and it's going to get worse. I'd lke to say that as long as we're still better off than the Brits, I'm not going to worry too much,:-) but that would be negligent. Even so there's not a hell of a lot anyone can do.
... you may laugh (go on, I know you want to) but I managed to have fun with NWN1 on a 2001 Toshiba Satellite laptop with 256 MB RAM, 48 MB shared graphics memory, and no hardware acceleration, at 800x600, with almost everything turned down. It even survived the siege scenario in HotU. I think I'd cough up hairballs if I tried that now, mind you.
... To summarise: it is a well-known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.
To summarise the summary: anyone capable of getting themselves made President should by no means be allowed to do the job.
To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem.
I was astonished to hear about that. I can imagine no more ineffective way of managing paper ballots than mechanical means which can easily fail - as indeed they did. Well, perhaps using Diebold machines. What's wrong with using felt markers to tick a box? That's what we use where I live, and there's no ambiguity. If voters mess up their ballots, they pretty much have to do so either intentionally or out of genuine incompetence (either of which is perfectly sufficient grounds to regard a ballot as messed up, as far as I'm concerned).
Ditto for New Zealand, where the satellite maps on Google Maps/Earth are excellent, those on Virtual Earth farcically bad. To be fair, Virtual Earth has much better road-maps.
Oh, and here's a fun thing in Virtual Earth: the world has edges. If you start at the New Zealand mainland and try to scroll eastward to the Chatham Islands... you can't. The world stops at about 180 degrees east (I'm not sure if it is exactly 180 degrees, as I can't find a way of checking longitude and latitude, which is a bit crap): there is no more planet Earth beyond that point. Not even a sign saying "Here be dragons".
Other fun things: when I click on the "kilometres" button to change to metric, the scale stays in miles. When I set a marker in aerial or hybrid view and ask to "zoom to street level", I routinely get the "no satellite shots at this scale" logo and nothing else -- they don't think to check first? How short-sighted is that?
Does anyone want the U.S. and other foreign troops to stay in Iraq?
A difficult question. On the one hand: you're the ones that made the mess; you are certainly responsible for cleaning up a catastrophe that you've caused. On the other hand: I don't think much of your ability to clean it up. So the only possible answer is: whichever is best for the people of Iraq. They certainly shouldn't be made to pay for your crimes.
It probably didn't say it because it's old news. It was covered in Slashdot back in September. The earliest I can find for Microsoft actually making this clear is in this interview with J Allard. Actually they don't make it all that clear; the interviewee does his best to avoid giving any sound-bites. Excerpt:
And I think that's how these two strategies complement each other. The PlaysForSure is still a program we're going to invest in, we still have a lot of partners there, and for a class of consumers who that want to have a hand-crafted media media experience and maximize their choice, we have an answer. There's another class of consumers that just want to get digital media, and they just want to be able to go to one store and have it all just plain, dead simple, and don't want to know what a codec is.
Wasn't that the point of PlaysForSure?
Well, it's like asking a question about Windows -- and the point of Windows was to bring personal computing to the world -- some people are going to pick their PCs, they're going to pick their monitor, they're going to pick their printer, they're going to pick their graphics card, and combine the things that they've chosen. Other people just a want a system that's end-to-end...
When PlaysForSure was introduced, the premise was, we make it simple so that you don't have to worry about whether your player works with the music you're purchasing...
That continues to be the premise for devices that are branded in that category.
Articles that have been there for a long time, that have been edited by a big number of editors, from different IP addresses, at a regular pace over long periods of time should be receive a mod up.
And the opposite: articles that were edited by a few authors, from a few or a single IP address, in a short period of time should be added an automatic warning when displayed.
Articles that are being edited regularly from lots of different IP addresses are most likely being heavily vandalised; while those in the second group you mention are more likely to be articles on relatively difficult topics which only a handful of experts are capable of editing.
Hm, imagine a scenario. I'm an upper-level undergraduate writing a paper on the Trojan War. Now, really, I need to cite some sources on the ongoing work on deciphering the Luwian and Hittite languages that were spoken in what is now Turkey in the Bronze Age. These are two of the four most important languages of that period in Near Eastern and Mediterranean studies, and essential to my topic. Now, should I cite the journal articles, which are all in languages that I can't read (let's suppose I'm an upper-level undergraduate whose German isn't very good) and in journals that aren't in any libraries in my country; or should I cite an encyclopaedia article written in English by one of the world's foremost experts (who has access to information that is more up-to-date than in any journal articles anyway)?
It's not hard to construct other scenarios. (Of course, the encyclopaedia in this scenario couldn't be Wikipedia, as Wikipedia policy prohibits the kind of article I describe.)
Um, the Wikimedia software has all of these things already, albeit not graphical. (Take a look at an article's history someday and check out the "diff" and "compare selected versions" links/buttons. Also, discussion pages have their own history.)
There is most certainly versioning for Wikipedia articles. You can also create linkes to particular versions for citation purposes.
.... unless the article gets deleted (whether because some admin happened that day to feel it was "non-notable", or thought it was overly negative about a living person, or just was in a bad mood).
It looks like there's a trend for cities to name public transport smartcards after seafood -- I'm thinking of the Hong Kong Octopus card, for example. Anyone know where this trend started coming from?
Slashdot Mirror
The music is, the words aren't.
Try Microsoft's Virtual Earth - that world has edges.
That is simply untrue. Some select parts were preserved, if you're lucky and look only for the things you already know were preserved. To take one example: of all the official communications between the imperial administration and provincial governments, which certainly amounted to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of letters and other communications over the course of centuries, the grand total of what survives is two communiques. Two. To take a second example, our knowledge of the division of powers between different branches of the republican government is extremely sketchy in some very important areas. To take a third example, very little is known about Roman technological developments or literary works after about 100 CE.
Sure, you can change the goalposts and say, "Well, all the influential and important things survived"; but that's just a tautology (something can't be influential if it doesn't survive, therefore of course anything that does not survive is also not influential).
The Middle Age didn't use to be called "dark" because it was a decline -- though undoubtedly in some respects it was -- but because surviving information about it is even sketchier than surviving information about the Roman period. (There's still a lot, in both cases, to be sure.) The same goes for other "dark" ages in human history, such as the Greek "dark" age, which likewise used to be called "dark" not because it was a decline but because information is sketchier for the period 1200-800 BCE than for the periods on either side.
I generally call this "fiction".
Yes, except for "pop-up balloon", which is a bit alarming. Sounds like the XP low battery alert more than anything -- brings out Pavlovian reactions in me that I didn't realise I had ...
Pretty much the same way they do everywhere else in the world: when they get to university and find that their examiners there aren't bound by astonishingly ill-conceived regulations handed down by the NZQA.
When I used to teach at universities in the UK (not minor ones, by the way) I found that about 30-40% of first-year undergraduates were essentially illiterate, that is, unable to construct a single coherent sentence in writing, completely unable to comprehend what they were "reading". (The "30-40%" is an average over two universities, by the way.) Part of the job was to lower that percentage by the time they graduated (so they all ended up getting a BA in basic reading and writing skills). Here in NZ the percentage is lower, but still worrying. So, now the NZQA has decided in its infinite wisdom that even more of the basic essentials of education are going to be devolved onto the shoulders of university teachers, and it's going to get worse. I'd lke to say that as long as we're still better off than the Brits, I'm not going to worry too much, :-) but that would be negligent. Even so there's not a hell of a lot anyone can do.
Apologies, I hadn't tried any of them personally. That is a bit of a bummer.
DirectX 10 requires Vista, which comes with five trillion kinds of DRM built in. Isn't that enough?
... you may laugh (go on, I know you want to) but I managed to have fun with NWN1 on a 2001 Toshiba Satellite laptop with 256 MB RAM, 48 MB shared graphics memory, and no hardware acceleration, at 800x600, with almost everything turned down. It even survived the siege scenario in HotU. I think I'd cough up hairballs if I tried that now, mind you.
The Rumsfeld death toll is still an order of magnitude short of the Kissinger death toll.
Some moderators are very gullible. Or can't read. I'm not sure which. I did think your comment was funny, though.
There are plenty of Windows drivers for reiser and ext available. Just Google them.
Apt quote for the day:
-- D. Adams
I was astonished to hear about that. I can imagine no more ineffective way of managing paper ballots than mechanical means which can easily fail - as indeed they did. Well, perhaps using Diebold machines. What's wrong with using felt markers to tick a box? That's what we use where I live, and there's no ambiguity. If voters mess up their ballots, they pretty much have to do so either intentionally or out of genuine incompetence (either of which is perfectly sufficient grounds to regard a ballot as messed up, as far as I'm concerned).
Ditto for New Zealand, where the satellite maps on Google Maps/Earth are excellent, those on Virtual Earth farcically bad. To be fair, Virtual Earth has much better road-maps.
Oh, and here's a fun thing in Virtual Earth: the world has edges. If you start at the New Zealand mainland and try to scroll eastward to the Chatham Islands ... you can't. The world stops at about 180 degrees east (I'm not sure if it is exactly 180 degrees, as I can't find a way of checking longitude and latitude, which is a bit crap): there is no more planet Earth beyond that point. Not even a sign saying "Here be dragons".
Other fun things: when I click on the "kilometres" button to change to metric, the scale stays in miles. When I set a marker in aerial or hybrid view and ask to "zoom to street level", I routinely get the "no satellite shots at this scale" logo and nothing else -- they don't think to check first? How short-sighted is that?
A difficult question. On the one hand: you're the ones that made the mess; you are certainly responsible for cleaning up a catastrophe that you've caused. On the other hand: I don't think much of your ability to clean it up. So the only possible answer is: whichever is best for the people of Iraq. They certainly shouldn't be made to pay for your crimes.
That's because it's old news. See this post that I posted above, this /. article from September, and this interview with J Allard, Microsoft Corporate Vice President.
It probably didn't say it because it's old news. It was covered in Slashdot back in September. The earliest I can find for Microsoft actually making this clear is in this interview with J Allard. Actually they don't make it all that clear; the interviewee does his best to avoid giving any sound-bites. Excerpt:
Articles that are being edited regularly from lots of different IP addresses are most likely being heavily vandalised; while those in the second group you mention are more likely to be articles on relatively difficult topics which only a handful of experts are capable of editing.
Hm, imagine a scenario. I'm an upper-level undergraduate writing a paper on the Trojan War. Now, really, I need to cite some sources on the ongoing work on deciphering the Luwian and Hittite languages that were spoken in what is now Turkey in the Bronze Age. These are two of the four most important languages of that period in Near Eastern and Mediterranean studies, and essential to my topic. Now, should I cite the journal articles, which are all in languages that I can't read (let's suppose I'm an upper-level undergraduate whose German isn't very good) and in journals that aren't in any libraries in my country; or should I cite an encyclopaedia article written in English by one of the world's foremost experts (who has access to information that is more up-to-date than in any journal articles anyway)?
It's not hard to construct other scenarios. (Of course, the encyclopaedia in this scenario couldn't be Wikipedia, as Wikipedia policy prohibits the kind of article I describe.)
Shame we can't look at the article itself, isn't it? As it is, we have to take the viewpoints expressed in the discussion on trust ...
Um, the Wikimedia software has all of these things already, albeit not graphical. (Take a look at an article's history someday and check out the "diff" and "compare selected versions" links/buttons. Also, discussion pages have their own history.)
.... unless the article gets deleted (whether because some admin happened that day to feel it was "non-notable", or thought it was overly negative about a living person, or just was in a bad mood).
Heard of deleted articles? They don't have an edit history.
It looks like there's a trend for cities to name public transport smartcards after seafood -- I'm thinking of the Hong Kong Octopus card, for example. Anyone know where this trend started coming from?