I don't get this tendency for people to think that if someone produces popular science books, they must be an intellectual lightweight who can't make real contributions to the field.
I, on the contrary think that it is _those_ scientists who can communicate science to the general population the ones who really are worth their salt. Because they are the ones who *really* understand the subject they are describing and who also are able to transfer such knowledge to other people.
Come on, that specific joke was funny... (with all due respect and my apollogies to Prof. Hawkins) the image of the Prof. flying in the air after being thrown by a monkey made me laugh.
One of the reason why I have not used The GIMP is because it is kind of a beast to startup and also because I find it "difficult" to find out how to do things with it.
Because of that, since some time I downloaded and used Paint.NET program (free as in beer) which may not be as feature rich as Photoshop but it can do everything I need. *If* you are on Windows you might find it useful. OTOH, it is one app that I really would like to see ported to Linux via the MONO framework.
Well, they apparently don't make zombies or raving monsters,
One of the issues of Genetically Modified products is that at the end you will only have one variety of X product (for example, one variety of corn). The theory behind it might not seem bad, as in theory such variety will be a strong one and easy to grow and whatnot.
The problem arises when some new disease develops for such product (like the coconut palm disease that caught southamerica about 15 years ago, including Mexico, I know because my dad's ranch lost almost all the production of coconut), then you will have that all of your super-duper variety of corn will be unusable or become extint.
In that sense, if you get some kind of "worm which attacks human brain" (like Pork tapeworm) then you may indeed end with plenty of zombie-like people...
Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to admit that GIMP has some interface quirks and problems around and about.
The issue is that, what for you are "some interface quirks", for real world designers are completely craptacular design decisions. I am not a designer (I am faaaaar from that) but I have worked with real designers and everyone of them who tested the Gimp agreed that the interface was so clumsy and unnatural...
The question is, are YOU a real designer? if not, then your opinion is just another open source advocate/zealot apologist.
Everytime someone posts some question on slashdot there is inevitably some idiot who will answer to "goolge it" or "source forge it" or whatever similar.
I am sure the original poster did know about goolge and maybe he even did look in there before posting here but the idea of asking in slashdot is to see what the opinions of other people with *knowledge* (supposedly) are. For me as a slashdot reader is quite interesting, because the discussion usually brings several alternatives and answers which are up to date (instead of web pages that someties are outdated) and even some comments which are worthy.
Plenty of times I have recurred to an ask slashdot that I had seen before to look at what people *in the know* are using, instead of just looking at the advertisements thrown by each of the avaialble products (either Free or non Free).
So if the only advise you are going to give is to "google it", just shut up and go to troll to the next slashdot story. You are only polluting an otherwise interesting conversation.
I am currently on the 50Mbps trial, but most places get 20Mbps. The contention is fairly high so it seems to max out at about 14-6mbps at the quietest times.
50Mbps which gets down to 2Mbps after you use it for 10 minutes?...
I hate the UK Virgin service... unfortuantely it is the only option for cable internet
Just FYI - whilst Virgin have the cable market in the UK sewn up, we're lucky enough to not have a situation whereby ISPs are limited to any particular area.
Yeah? you tell me what other internet cable provider is available in UK Northwest? I used to be with NTL but they got bought by Virgin. The other option is paying for a BT line (which I do not use) and any of the ADSL providers.
So, the reality is not that good for cable internet users.
The reason you find skepticism in any industry for the capabilities of a colored person is because of the bang-up job the so-called 'civil rights leaders' have done yelling and screaming about how minorities cannot achieve anything without assistance.
Shit, as opposed to an Uncolored Person? WTf, all those word games to try to refer to the specific popluation desendants from African immigrations are so lame.
I am sure there are plenty of Gonzalez and Lopez game develoers and yet you do not see that kind of characterization about desendants of hispanic immigrants (they even get the USA Treasurer position!).
You "Irish Americans" really should get over your African desendants fixation!.
Exactly. More african-americans are poor, and video games are a very cheap form of entertainment. Also, poor people have less educational opportunities.
Oh shit... we Latinos are less than poor =o(
In Mexico, having a game console and buying games is quite expensive. Paying $5,500 MX for an xbox is not something every father can do. Therefore arcades are still a bit popular or shops where people can pay for 1 or 2 hour to play a console. If black people (are we [latins] brown?) in the USA consider playing consoles cheap then I am really jealous about you:).
BTW, I have always found the "African American" name stupid, with that same line of reasoning, the whiteies that live in the USA now should be called "Irish Americans" or "German Americans". etc... and I would be called "Spanish Mexican". If you want to profile by skin color, then yeah, some of them are "black", the same way chinnese are "yellow" (at least that is the characterization we in Mexico give to them) and some of us (Mexicans) are brown (or "color caca"... no offense intended). But I think in the case of the African desentands living in the USA, it has been a loooong time since they became as integrated to society as the Irish desendants or the British desendants.
Wow, plenty of reaction from anonymous cowards I got here... This was an interesting snippet:
The truth is, the reason the middle east is in such shambles is because culturally, people from that part of the world are very complacent about the status quo.
Talking about status quo, isn't that the same status quo that is making people in the USA fear the "communists" attempts to have national health programs?
People prefer to stay the way they are, we discuss it quite a lot here in slashdot talking about "John Doe" and how they keep watching TV doing nothing about X or Y.
Do not missunderstand me, I do not condone the actions of the Chinnese government or of Hussein. However, I just do not think it is fine for any country to invade a country because they have "weapons of mass destruction" ignoring all the international treaties and organizations. Do not fool yourself. The USA is there because of the oil.
There is a terribly dangerous Island which is closer to the USA and who had a horrible dictator who is against the freedom of the USA. Why didn't they attacked it?... well, I guess the government did not find salsa and the guagua as worthy as the oil in the middle east (and because the USA government would never fight a war near its territory;-) invade Mexico? never!)
So while you sit around with a bunch of professional student bemoaning the status quo, the Americans and British are trying to fix things.
Yeah, fix those things, remove the WMD and overthrow the tyran... it is just that, there were no WMD and there were a lot of other possible ways to "fix" those things without going to war.
And people wonder why they see USAnians as the enemy?, you are the ones attacking (as a country, as opposed to as some religious freaks) and invading other countries.
Ultimately, what business has the USA and the UK in fixing another countries problems? what about Finland invading the USa to overthrow the corrupt government they have there? I am sure they wont like it uh? but hey, corruption is blatant in the USA and the people there do not like it!!! the UN should join and invade the USA, overthrow the current government and put in its place a new reformed real democracy.
Still, I agree -- running as admin is dangerous; Linux and Unix had a great approach from their beginnings.
Haha, did you tried to use sound in Linux about 5 years ago? it was either run the app as root or run it without sound... It was not from the beginning, usability has come a loooooong way in Linux.
I recently went to a dinner with some friends (from Syria, Egypt, China, Lebanon and Iran). There were no people from the USA in the table (only British and Mexicans), all of us PhD students, R.As or Professors at my university.
One of the conversation themes that arised was the invasion of the USA on Iraq and the overthrowing of Saddam Hussein. I found very interesting the point of view of this people that come from the Middle East and some of them (having just started their PhDs) were in their respective countries when the USA invasion started.
So, the main consense was that the USA was unlawfuly invaded Iraq and fought his president. That they have been there illegaly all this time killing inoccent people trying to enforce the laws of their country in some other place. Some of them agreed that although Iraq had poltical problems, it was something that should had been fixed by themseleves or by means other than being invaded by a foreign militar force.
So basically, as someone other said, the Kool aid that a lot of people in the USA and other western countries is drinking is pretty dense. It is funny that what people know is what their government let them know (the same for a lot of issues in China, I have a chinnese friend who is active in politics and he has shown me how western media makes inadequate use of photos to present missinformation).
The truth is that, if the USA pulled out of Iraq there would be some issues, but these are some issues that the independent country of Iraq would have to resolve. No country (and that includes the USA) has any right to invade another country.
Not to mention his book on Physics (real physics, very easy to follow) and his review of the Bible (a historic view of the old and new testament) among others.
I really enjoyed a book of him that I found in used books store. I do not remember now the name of the book now but it was something like "Asimov on Mathematics" and it contained a bunch of articles written by him discussing several mathematics issues such as large numbers, small numbers, the decimals in PI, etc. Really good stuff.
Oh, and I think it was in that same book that he have some comments about Star Wars films. I think it was quite neat to read him commenting about it.
I had a similar problem with paypal, but IMHO the PayPal protection did work. I (stupidly I know) bought a £168 concert ticket for my girlfriend (she *really* wanted to see The Killers in a one date-UK concert they were giving at the time). I told her we could buy tickets via ebay (maybe expensive but...)
After I bought the ticket, the scamer waited until about 4 days before the concert to send them something to me. And the only thing he sent was an envelop with a note saying "I hope You enjoy it, Vicky" in a double envelope (sticked with tape).
After receiving that I made a complaint in Paypal and went to inform my bank and the local police department. I wrote everything in the paypal complaint page and after some time they returned my money.
Bah, FWIW ISPs in the UK are complete rubbish. Take for example Virgin, which bought Telewest, NTL and surely will buy all the other cable providers. When I was in NTL, the service was so-so, but now that Virgin took over, the idiots cap your speed after you download more than a very small amount (350MB IRC) in one hour.
I am suscribed to the cheapest package (which costs £18 per month, none less) and can't imagine the anger of guys paying for the more expensive offers and then finding they can only download 350 MB per hour before being limited to 50Kbps download...
But the real problem is that of the power of corporations against the simple guy. A similar type of abuse happens with airlines like Ryanair or Easyjet. Just try to get a refund for your ticket, and according to their policies they will only refund the tax... but guess what? if you actually contact them for the tax (it does not matter if it is about £150 ) they will say that the "administration fees" are higher than the tax they would return to you and hence they won't give you anything.
Well, not really. It is just a personal hallucination which I think would be nice. If Apple buys AMD then they will have the complete hardware sollution for the Macs. Not that I really care because I do not use apple products but it is just something that occurred to me... actually I do not know what I am saying so I will just shut up and press preview/post.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't get this tendency for people to think that if someone produces popular science books, they must be an intellectual lightweight who can't make real contributions to the field.
I, on the contrary think that it is _those_ scientists who can communicate science to the general population the ones who really are worth their salt. Because they are the ones who *really* understand the subject they are describing and who also are able to transfer such knowledge to other people.
Come on, that specific joke was funny... (with all due respect and my apollogies to Prof. Hawkins) the image of the Prof. flying in the air after being thrown by a monkey made me laugh.
Why don't they simply use LaTex formula notation? it is _the_ notation used by mathematicians.
It happens, however you should be using MSN search engine.
:P
Ohh, you meant when googling for "linux pos" using MSN search engine?
wtf is wrong with my accent? the é in touché is displayed as Ãf©
touché, not only that, but also the avaialble products
:)
Offence not taken
I have a dual monitor setup and I want my picture to fill all of monitor 1 while my tools sit on monitor 2.
Wow, you must have a kick ass table and right arm with a lot of space for moving your mouse right and forth each time you edit an image!
One of the reason why I have not used The GIMP is because it is kind of a beast to startup and also because I find it "difficult" to find out how to do things with it.
Because of that, since some time I downloaded and used Paint.NET program (free as in beer) which may not be as feature rich as Photoshop but it can do everything I need. *If* you are on Windows you might find it useful. OTOH, it is one app that I really would like to see ported to Linux via the MONO framework.
Well, they apparently don't make zombies or raving monsters,
One of the issues of Genetically Modified products is that at the end you will only have one variety of X product (for example, one variety of corn). The theory behind it might not seem bad, as in theory such variety will be a strong one and easy to grow and whatnot.
The problem arises when some new disease develops for such product (like the coconut palm disease that caught southamerica about 15 years ago, including Mexico, I know because my dad's ranch lost almost all the production of coconut), then you will have that all of your super-duper variety of corn will be unusable or become extint.
In that sense, if you get some kind of "worm which attacks human brain" (like Pork tapeworm) then you may indeed end with plenty of zombie-like people...
Monsanto truly is among the most evil group of people this planet has ever seen. Truly.
Agreed. I am not anty GM food and usually do not care about the organic origin of food but AFAIK Monsanto are really really evil.
Corporativism/Capitalism at its best.
Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to admit that GIMP has some interface quirks and problems around and about.
The issue is that, what for you are "some interface quirks", for real world designers are completely craptacular design decisions. I am not a designer (I am faaaaar from that) but I have worked with real designers and everyone of them who tested the Gimp agreed that the interface was so clumsy and unnatural...
The question is, are YOU a real designer? if not, then your opinion is just another open source advocate/zealot apologist.
Everytime someone posts some question on slashdot there is inevitably some idiot who will answer to "goolge it" or "source forge it" or whatever similar.
I am sure the original poster did know about goolge and maybe he even did look in there before posting here but the idea of asking in slashdot is to see what the opinions of other people with *knowledge* (supposedly) are. For me as a slashdot reader is quite interesting, because the discussion usually brings several alternatives and answers which are up to date (instead of web pages that someties are outdated) and even some comments which are worthy.
Plenty of times I have recurred to an ask slashdot that I had seen before to look at what people *in the know* are using, instead of just looking at the advertisements thrown by each of the avaialble products (either Free or non Free).
So if the only advise you are going to give is to "google it", just shut up and go to troll to the next slashdot story. You are only polluting an otherwise interesting conversation.
I am currently on the 50Mbps trial, but most places get 20Mbps. The contention is fairly high so it seems to max out at about 14-6mbps at the quietest times.
...
50Mbps which gets down to 2Mbps after you use it for 10 minutes?
I hate the UK Virgin service... unfortuantely it is the only option for cable internet
Just FYI - whilst Virgin have the cable market in the UK sewn up, we're lucky enough to not have a situation whereby ISPs are limited to any particular area.
Yeah? you tell me what other internet cable provider is available in UK Northwest? I used to be with NTL but they got bought by Virgin. The other option is paying for a BT line (which I do not use) and any of the ADSL providers.
So, the reality is not that good for cable internet users.
The reason you find skepticism in any industry for the capabilities of a colored person is because of the bang-up job the so-called 'civil rights leaders' have done yelling and screaming about how minorities cannot achieve anything without assistance.
Shit, as opposed to an Uncolored Person? WTf, all those word games to try to refer to the specific popluation desendants from African immigrations are so lame.
I am sure there are plenty of Gonzalez and Lopez game develoers and yet you do not see that kind of characterization about desendants of hispanic immigrants (they even get the USA Treasurer position!).
You "Irish Americans" really should get over your African desendants fixation!.
Exactly. More african-americans are poor, and video games are a very cheap form of entertainment. Also, poor people have less educational opportunities.
:).
Oh shit... we Latinos are less than poor =o(
In Mexico, having a game console and buying games is quite expensive. Paying $5,500 MX for an xbox is not something every father can do. Therefore arcades are still a bit popular or shops where people can pay for 1 or 2 hour to play a console. If black people (are we [latins] brown?) in the USA consider playing consoles cheap then I am really jealous about you
BTW, I have always found the "African American" name stupid, with that same line of reasoning, the whiteies that live in the USA now should be called "Irish Americans" or "German Americans". etc... and I would be called "Spanish Mexican". If you want to profile by skin color, then yeah, some of them are "black", the same way chinnese are "yellow" (at least that is the characterization we in Mexico give to them) and some of us (Mexicans) are brown (or "color caca"... no offense intended). But I think in the case of the African desentands living in the USA, it has been a loooong time since they became as integrated to society as the Irish desendants or the British desendants.
Wow, plenty of reaction from anonymous cowards I got here... This was an interesting snippet:
;-) invade Mexico? never!)
:)
The truth is, the reason the middle east is in such shambles is because culturally, people from that part of the world are very complacent about the status quo.
Talking about status quo, isn't that the same status quo that is making people in the USA fear the "communists" attempts to have national health programs?
People prefer to stay the way they are, we discuss it quite a lot here in slashdot talking about "John Doe" and how they keep watching TV doing nothing about X or Y.
Do not missunderstand me, I do not condone the actions of the Chinnese government or of Hussein. However, I just do not think it is fine for any country to invade a country because they have "weapons of mass destruction" ignoring all the international treaties and organizations. Do not fool yourself. The USA is there because of the oil.
There is a terribly dangerous Island which is closer to the USA and who had a horrible dictator who is against the freedom of the USA. Why didn't they attacked it?... well, I guess the government did not find salsa and the guagua as worthy as the oil in the middle east (and because the USA government would never fight a war near its territory
So while you sit around with a bunch of professional student bemoaning the status quo, the Americans and British are trying to fix things.
Yeah, fix those things, remove the WMD and overthrow the tyran... it is just that, there were no WMD and there were a lot of other possible ways to "fix" those things without going to war.
And people wonder why they see USAnians as the enemy?, you are the ones attacking (as a country, as opposed to as some religious freaks) and invading other countries.
Ultimately, what business has the USA and the UK in fixing another countries problems? what about Finland invading the USa to overthrow the corrupt government they have there? I am sure they wont like it uh? but hey, corruption is blatant in the USA and the people there do not like it!!! the UN should join and invade the USA, overthrow the current government and put in its place a new reformed real democracy.
oh well... it is a nice way to spend my weekend
Still, I agree -- running as admin is dangerous; Linux and Unix had a great approach from their beginnings.
Haha, did you tried to use sound in Linux about 5 years ago? it was either run the app as root or run it without sound... It was not from the beginning, usability has come a loooooong way in Linux.
I recently went to a dinner with some friends (from Syria, Egypt, China, Lebanon and Iran). There were no people from the USA in the table (only British and Mexicans), all of us PhD students, R.As or Professors at my university.
One of the conversation themes that arised was the invasion of the USA on Iraq and the overthrowing of Saddam Hussein. I found very interesting the point of view of this people that come from the Middle East and some of them (having just started their PhDs) were in their respective countries when the USA invasion started.
So, the main consense was that the USA was unlawfuly invaded Iraq and fought his president. That they have been there illegaly all this time killing inoccent people trying to enforce the laws of their country in some other place. Some of them agreed that although Iraq had poltical problems, it was something that should had been fixed by themseleves or by means other than being invaded by a foreign militar force.
So basically, as someone other said, the Kool aid that a lot of people in the USA and other western countries is drinking is pretty dense. It is funny that what people know is what their government let them know (the same for a lot of issues in China, I have a chinnese friend who is active in politics and he has shown me how western media makes inadequate use of photos to present missinformation).
The truth is that, if the USA pulled out of Iraq there would be some issues, but these are some issues that the independent country of Iraq would have to resolve. No country (and that includes the USA) has any right to invade another country.
Asimov is smarter than you give him credit for. :)
Not to mention his book on Physics (real physics, very easy to follow) and his review of the Bible (a historic view of the old and new testament) among others.
I really enjoyed a book of him that I found in used books store. I do not remember now the name of the book now but it was something like "Asimov on Mathematics" and it contained a bunch of articles written by him discussing several mathematics issues such as large numbers, small numbers, the decimals in PI, etc. Really good stuff.
Oh, and I think it was in that same book that he have some comments about Star Wars films. I think it was quite neat to read him commenting about it.
I had a similar problem with paypal, but IMHO the PayPal protection did work. I (stupidly I know) bought a £168 concert ticket for my girlfriend (she *really* wanted to see The Killers in a one date-UK concert they were giving at the time). I told her we could buy tickets via ebay (maybe expensive but...)
After I bought the ticket, the scamer waited until about 4 days before the concert to send them something to me. And the only thing he sent was an envelop with a note saying "I hope You enjoy it, Vicky" in a double envelope (sticked with tape).
After receiving that I made a complaint in Paypal and went to inform my bank and the local police department. I wrote everything in the paypal complaint page and after some time they returned my money.
So, IMHO, the PayPal protection does work.
Bah, FWIW ISPs in the UK are complete rubbish. Take for example Virgin, which bought Telewest, NTL and surely will buy all the other cable providers. When I was in NTL, the service was so-so, but now that Virgin took over, the idiots cap your speed after you download more than a very small amount (350MB IRC) in one hour.
I am suscribed to the cheapest package (which costs £18 per month, none less) and can't imagine the anger of guys paying for the more expensive offers and then finding they can only download 350 MB per hour before being limited to 50Kbps download...
But the real problem is that of the power of corporations against the simple guy. A similar type of abuse happens with airlines like Ryanair or Easyjet. Just try to get a refund for your ticket, and according to their policies they will only refund the tax... but guess what? if you actually contact them for the tax (it does not matter if it is about £150 ) they will say that the "administration fees" are higher than the tax they would return to you and hence they won't give you anything.
Oh well, the wonders of capitalism.
Well, not really. It is just a personal hallucination which I think would be nice. If Apple buys AMD then they will have the complete hardware sollution for the Macs. Not that I really care because I do not use apple products but it is just something that occurred to me... actually I do not know what I am saying so I will just shut up and press preview/post.
Nothing like a Microsoft-braned trampoline and "Always Microsoft" wall paint in the house ;-)
THat would be sweet.
From bash.org
HOW THE FUCK CAN YOU TELL THAT I'M 13 BY LOOKING AT WHAT I'M WRITEING??????????????????????
stupid lameness filterstupid lameness filterstupid lameness filterstupid lameness filter stupid lameness filter Filter error: Please use fewer 'junk' characters. Filter error: Please use fewer 'junk' characters.