Most nerds enjoy using their brains without distortion. Less common here - but also prevalent - are we computer and science geeks that abhor inaccuracy; I want my perception of my surroundings to be as close to reality as possible, so I've never had the urge to do drugs. So, yes, it's obvious that drugs should be legal unless you are putting others in danger (a la DUI), but most of us don't care. I don't think that's a blind spot in news for nerds; I think it's a blind spot of druggies that because they primarily associate with druggies they have a distorted view of how prevalent they are. This story made it because it's an interesting use of technology. I'm content that we don't get many war on drugs stories.
2%(<400k out of 18 million) is not a large percentage. And most cuban americans identify as republican, so a democratic presidential candidate talking about ending the embargo would certainly not be political suicide. Then again, if a candidate is weighing the choice of losing a few thousand votes vs not gaining any, it's pretty clear what they'll choose.:)
Well, I've run mysql for a decade with no data loss and I've frequented the #mysql irc channel on freenode for many years and have never encountered someone with problems of data loss. So there is some anecdotal evidence to counter your silly "lose your data" FUD.:)
(And I am just talking about professional high transaction systems, not personal servers.)
I was noticing the same thing about a lot of.uk authors becoming so predominant in the upper echelons of good sci-fi writing.
There is plenty of room up there, though, thankfully. Some American counter-examples are Dan Simmons, Vernor Vinge, David Brin and Orson Scott Card.:)
... company is obviously designed to move people to buy the product that gives them more income.
This sounds just like the FUD that microsoft guy made by "admitting" that XP has problems in the hopes that people will move to vista. I think it's best to simply ignore the marketing people. There are no "instabilities" in the stable community version above and beyond the normal cycle of bugs and bugfixes you see in any software.
You've really never heard of redundancy for a reason? e.g. the space shuttle's multiple computer systems or a Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks? Anyway, it's obviously just a minor annoyance. I've noticed people do it in e-mail, too. (At least, the non-programmers do, so I guess it has something to do with personality types.)
We need a comment preference that lets us subtract something from a score if they type their name again in the comment.;) (Because it indicates they are oblivious to pointless redundancy wasting everyone's brain cycles/time) You people do realize there is already an entire line telling us who the comment is from, right?
It's not an obsession; it just happened to be the one of the many distinguishing traits of the species that was used to name it. The summary calling homo habilis the "tool users" and homo erectus the "upright humans" is because that is what the latin names of the species translate or allude to.
"Recent studies of the spatula tipped setae on gecko footpads demonstrates that the attractive forces that hold geckos to surfaces are van der Waals interactions between the finely divided setae (almost 500,000 Setae on each foot, and each of these tipped with between 100 and 1,000 spatulae) and the surfaces themselves." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gecko#_note-0http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/06/01/208205
I see the increased value put on lives as a good sign that humanity is maturing. 50 years ago, the US military would have simply fire-bombed/napalmed places like Fallujah where civilian contractors were being killed and things were getting nasty. Instead they tried making truces, allowing humanitarian aid in, let tens of thousands of civilians leave, etc. 50 years ago, torture really was torture. I see it as a good sign that nowadays the world is upset about humiliating photos. We still have a way to go, but we are improving.
As shaitaind said, "money and connections":
Mary Maxwell Gates (July 5, 1929-June 9, 1994) served 18 years (1975-1993) on the University of Washington board of regents. She was the first female president of King County's United Way, the first woman to chair the national United Way's executive committee where she served most notably with IBM's CEO, John Akers, and the first woman on the First Interstate Bank of Washington's board of directors. Mary's son Bill Gates is the co-founder of Microsoft http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Maxwell_Gates Emphasis mine.
The other advantage is that the electric company typically has several of those different power sources with varying efficiency and they only have to use the least efficient/most polluting of their menagerie when they hit peak demand at the height of summer.
Good thing people can't easily tell you used the wrong word when you say it instead of type it.:)
"your" is not the same thing as "you are" or "you're";) (only mentioning it since you made the same mistake in another post further down here so I suspect it isn't just a typo and the number of people that erroneously think that "your" really does mean the same thing as "you are" is increasing at a scary rate I'm trying to slow.:)
To a large extent, kids these days are seriously lacking critical thinking skills. You want proof? Well, lets just watch the replies to this post and see how this gets moderated. The critical thinking problem lies elsewhere than "kids these days" if you think replies to and moderation of your post prove your hypothesis.;)
Do some research on the Flynn Effect.
Or maybe your statement was just a "clever" attempt to limit critical responses and manipulate the moderators which didn't work on me?;)
Nuclear is about the only source (okay, geothermal, too) that isn't a form of solar energy
Tidal power, too.:) It comes from the rotational energy of earth and orbit of the moon. Actually, solar energy *is* nuclear since stars are big fusion reactors.:)
heh, I forgot all about linking to my company in my sig. I must have added it many years ago and as I mentioned, I disabled display of sigs. But that's why we have the option to filter the real sigs out, because they are for off topic stuff. Putting advertisement - however benign - into the actual content where it can't be filtered is the trend that worries me. BTW, in case you were unaware of it, there exists http://jobs.slashdot.org/ to post wanted ads.
Thank you for the informative post. I have mod points, but I couldn't in good conscious bump you up to 5 when you add a headhunting link to your post in the guise of a signature. (I have display of.sigs disabled, which is why I am sure it is not your signature.) I know it's borderline - which is why I couldn't in good conscious give a negative mod, either - but if we start accepting sly stuff like this without comment it just moves the borderline more into the spammy side of the net.
Have you retrieved your free credit report mandated by federal law, lately?
They also turned that into a money making scheme for themselves with all these "upsales" and the concept that the credit report does not include your credit rating number unless you pay them for it. I wonder if they didn't sponsor the idea to pass that law themselves.:)
<sfx origin="Pitr's keyboard" "tap tap"> <voice origin="Mike" "I swear you must think you're some kind of god."> <sfx origin="Pitr's keyboard" "tappy tappy"> <voice origin="Pitr" "God, root, what is difference?"> --User Friendly
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Most nerds enjoy using their brains without distortion. Less common here - but also prevalent - are we computer and science geeks that abhor inaccuracy; I want my perception of my surroundings to be as close to reality as possible, so I've never had the urge to do drugs.
So, yes, it's obvious that drugs should be legal unless you are putting others in danger (a la DUI), but most of us don't care. I don't think that's a blind spot in news for nerds; I think it's a blind spot of druggies that because they primarily associate with druggies they have a distorted view of how prevalent they are. This story made it because it's an interesting use of technology. I'm content that we don't get many war on drugs stories.
It's true, actually. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_(disease)
2%(<400k out of 18 million) is not a large percentage. And most cuban americans identify as republican, so a democratic presidential candidate talking about ending the embargo would certainly not be political suicide. Then again, if a candidate is weighing the choice of losing a few thousand votes vs not gaining any, it's pretty clear what they'll choose. :)
Well, I've run mysql for a decade with no data loss and I've frequented the #mysql irc channel on freenode for many years and have never encountered someone with problems of data loss. So there is some anecdotal evidence to counter your silly "lose your data" FUD. :)
(And I am just talking about professional high transaction systems, not personal servers.)
I was noticing the same thing about a lot of .uk authors becoming so predominant in the upper echelons of good sci-fi writing.
There is plenty of room up there, though, thankfully. Some American counter-examples are Dan Simmons, Vernor Vinge, David Brin and Orson Scott Card. :)
... company is obviously designed to move people to buy the product that gives them more income.
This sounds just like the FUD that microsoft guy made by "admitting" that XP has problems in the hopes that people will move to vista.
I think it's best to simply ignore the marketing people. There are no "instabilities" in the stable community version above and beyond the normal cycle of bugs and bugfixes you see in any software.
You've really never heard of redundancy for a reason? e.g. the space shuttle's multiple computer systems or a Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks?
Anyway, it's obviously just a minor annoyance. I've noticed people do it in e-mail, too. (At least, the non-programmers do, so I guess it has something to do with personality types.)
We need a comment preference that lets us subtract something from a score if they type their name again in the comment. ;) (Because it indicates they are oblivious to pointless redundancy wasting everyone's brain cycles/time)
You people do realize there is already an entire line telling us who the comment is from, right?
It's not an obsession; it just happened to be the one of the many distinguishing traits of the species that was used to name it. The summary calling homo habilis the "tool users" and homo erectus the "upright humans" is because that is what the latin names of the species translate or allude to.
I submitted this story in 2004 :) http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/02/2 0/1346246
Too bad I used a crummy source, though. The link to the original story is dead.
Anyone else read that as, Steven Swain from the London Metropolitan Police States? ;)
I see the increased value put on lives as a good sign that humanity is maturing. 50 years ago, the US military would have simply fire-bombed/napalmed places like Fallujah where civilian contractors were being killed and things were getting nasty. Instead they tried making truces, allowing humanitarian aid in, let tens of thousands of civilians leave, etc. 50 years ago, torture really was torture. I see it as a good sign that nowadays the world is upset about humiliating photos. We still have a way to go, but we are improving.
it's better to ask for forgiveness than for permission.
It's not "better", it is *easier*.
Mary Maxwell Gates (July 5, 1929-June 9, 1994) served 18 years (1975-1993) on the University of Washington board of regents. She was the first female president of King County's United Way, the first woman to chair the national United Way's executive committee where she served most notably with IBM's CEO, John Akers, and the first woman on the First Interstate Bank of Washington's board of directors. Mary's son Bill Gates is the co-founder of Microsoft http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Maxwell_Gates Emphasis mine.
The other advantage is that the electric company typically has several of those different power sources with varying efficiency and they only have to use the least efficient/most polluting of their menagerie when they hit peak demand at the height of summer.
Good thing people can't easily tell you used the wrong word when you say it instead of type it. :) ;) :)
"your" is not the same thing as "you are" or "you're"
(only mentioning it since you made the same mistake in another post further down here so I suspect it isn't just a typo and the number of people that erroneously think that "your" really does mean the same thing as "you are" is increasing at a scary rate I'm trying to slow.
Assuming the use of Alanis-irony was continuing the joke, I love humorous coincidenses.
It's a bit odd to call it a mere rumor when the Navy themselves have a website about the program. :) http://www.spawar.navy.mil/sandiego/technology/mam mals/index.html
m al_Program
I also recall news stories about dolphins used to clear mines from the Persian Gulf several years ago.
Ah, wikipedia to the rescue, lots of solid references listed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_dolphins
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Navy_Marine_Mam
The critical thinking problem lies elsewhere than "kids these days" if you think replies to and moderation of your post prove your hypothesis.
Do some research on the Flynn Effect.
Or maybe your statement was just a "clever" attempt to limit critical responses and manipulate the moderators which didn't work on me?
Nuclear is about the only source (okay, geothermal, too) that isn't a form of solar energy
:) It comes from the rotational energy of earth and orbit of the moon. :)
Tidal power, too.
Actually, solar energy *is* nuclear since stars are big fusion reactors.
heh, I forgot all about linking to my company in my sig. I must have added it many years ago and as I mentioned, I disabled display of sigs. But that's why we have the option to filter the real sigs out, because they are for off topic stuff. Putting advertisement - however benign - into the actual content where it can't be filtered is the trend that worries me.
BTW, in case you were unaware of it, there exists http://jobs.slashdot.org/ to post wanted ads.
Thank you for the informative post. I have mod points, but I couldn't in good conscious bump you up to 5 when you add a headhunting link to your post in the guise of a signature. (I have display of .sigs disabled, which is why I am sure it is not your signature.) I know it's borderline - which is why I couldn't in good conscious give a negative mod, either - but if we start accepting sly stuff like this without comment it just moves the borderline more into the spammy side of the net.
Have you retrieved your free credit report mandated by federal law, lately? :)
They also turned that into a money making scheme for themselves with all these "upsales" and the concept that the credit report does not include your credit rating number unless you pay them for it. I wonder if they didn't sponsor the idea to pass that law themselves.
You took out the Russian accent. :)
<sfx origin="Pitr's keyboard" "tap tap">
<voice origin="Mike" "I swear you must think you're some kind of god.">
<sfx origin="Pitr's keyboard" "tappy tappy">
<voice origin="Pitr" "God, root, what is difference?">
--User Friendly