What about making a game out of it?
Avoid the Moron, it should be called.
Post lookouts for him; then, when he arrives, make sure there's nobody within 10 metres from him.
When he approaches a stand, everyone clears; who cannot clear, hides.
Hell, put up "Closed due to moron proximity" signs on stands when he approaches.
Yes, it looks like a nice thing to have... but not at that price.
Actually, I'm just about to order a good old IBM-Model-M-like buckling spring keyboard from Unicomp... And it seems I'll have to order a blank one at that, because no-one had ever requested a Croatian keyboard from them before.
But really... the first thing I wondered when I saw the Optimus concept was "how would it feel to type on that thing?"
Most of the time you don't bother looking at the keyboard; it just takes your eyes from what you're doing.
But if you type a lot, the feel of the keyboard is of utmost importance.
My guess is - for the specs have not been announced yet - that it'll be a scissor-switch keyboard, which I guess is OK, but far from optimum for such an expensive keyboard.
I know a guy with about a thousand movies on various CDs and DVDs. Whole serials as well.
Funnily enough, he hasn't even seen most of them once. Between his college, job, dancing, girlfriend, DND, common websurfing, computer games and - once in a while - sleep, he really hasn't had the time.
His case may be a bit in the extreme, but the point is: you won't buy the original film for many more reasons than mere convenience of just keeping the file after watching it. Chances are, you'll never be watching it again.
First of all, more often than not, the movie is crap.
Second, it may be good or at least enjoyable, but have low replay value.
What you're paying for, actually, when buying the DVD, is the one viewing just after the purchase and the possibility of another one or maybe a bit more in some unforseen future.
On the one hand, this is why video rentals exist; on the other, they are not always that convenient, and the DVD you're after may well be out.
And then there are the commercials.
You know, those that you don't want to watch once, let alone over and over and over again. Especially since you'd already paid for the bloody thing.
Which is why you can't skip them.
Unless a friendly pirate or FSM follower removes them for you.
And even with - in places - absolutely rampant piracy, the movie industry is making loads of money.
I don't see them hurting. I don't see them suffering. I see them making in a day more than I make in a year.
And I see that the rich get richer...
(Popular legend holds that the first legislators to set traffic law had never driven, and often came up with some hilarious laws...for example, that cars must be preceded by a flag man.)
Well, what I've heard about this story is that the law came into being after a motorcar spooked the Queen's horses. The man waving a red flag ensured that the horses were not spooked (though I fail to see how) and limited the speed of the car to aman's pace.
But if you want to see a real mess of dialects and languages, with terminology that's equally messed up, look at Chinese. It's really odd to hear the media talk about the "Chinese language", which would be a lot like the "European language".
Well, it's the media. They never get anything right.
When I hear "Chinese language", I merely assume "Cantonese". In linguistics classes, it's always "Chinese languages" or "Sino-Tibetan languages".
It's too bad that we didn't invent recording equipment 10,000 years ago. Or, if you prefer the really far-out "theories", we did, but the recordings were lost, maybe in the Flood or when the big library in Alexandria was burned.
Nah. They weren't lost. it's just that we don't yet have the technology to understand them. Hell, we don't even know we have any preserved.
OK, so the American government does know. But Tesla died before he was able to devise a way to power them. And now the project's at a standstill.
Which is just as well. Because it seems the Egyptians also had their version of the DMCA and DRM and whatnot, so decrypting those records would bring on the curse.
But Estonian isn't close to Russian at all. Estonian isn't even an Indo-European language.
Where did I ever state such nonsensethat you should refute it?
I was talking about loan words, of which there are quite a few.
I'm taking an introductory Estonian course this year, and my lecturer, a great Finnish guy, specializes in the influence of Germanic and Slavic languages on Finnish and Estonian; some of the first things he taught us were the most common loan words in Estonian.
And if you want first-hand accounts for language/dialect confusion, seek no more: I'm a native speaker of Croatian, which is still very often called Serbo-Croatian in international circles (especially Anglo-American ones). To over-simplify, Croatian language is considered to have three dialects: Kaykavian, Chakavian and Shtokavian (English spelling both to bypass Slashdot's garbage filter and to ensure you can actually pronounce them), and the Croatian standard is based on the Shtokavian dialect.
however, these three dialects are actually languages; not only by the criterion of mutual understanding (for Slavic languages have a dialect continuum), but also by the criterion of different grammars (Kaykavian only has six cases, while Shtokavian has seven, for instance; their morphologies also differ).
The problem arises because the Serbian standard is also based on a dialect of the Shtokavian language; a very similar yet different one. And even though the grammars of the two used to be made compatible, the two languages are now pretty different from each other - not only on the lexical level, but also on the syntactic and even (a bit) on the morphological level.
That's why I stick to the political definition of a language (it is a distinct language if that's what the speakers feel), and when confronted with borderline cases, I stick to language systems and complexes.
P.S. There are some very convincing arguments for the Nostratic theory (the -m, -s, -t paradigm, for one); it is difficult to find much more proof than that because certain things change way too much in time. However, I don't do comparative linguistics any more than I absolutely need to, so don't ask me for details; I enjoy listening to that stuff, but can't be bothered to learn hard, solid facts.
Each individual spammer lives in a country and is governed by the laws of that country.
And since I've read several stories on/. so far about some or other citizen of another country being extradited to the USA after breaking an American law in his own country, maybe the US could start prosecuting spammers all over the world and finally do something useful with their "Global Policeman" policy.
You think the general public is going to start encrypting everything suddenly because of this?
If by this you mean these new regulations, then no, the general public will not start encrypting everything.
They will eventually realize that unencrypted traffic is like sending postcards instead of letters and like yelling in a town square instead of making a phonecall (though I remember seeing people using a phone in a town square, yelling so loudly I thought they didn't really need the phone in the first place. But I digress.)
If no sooner, then when governments and their agencies start abusing their self-awarded authority to wiretap in such a manner that even the general public wouldn't swallow that. And while I agree that the general public can swallow quite a lot, the gagging point is almost quantum in nature - one moment, there is not a sign of it anywhere; the other, it punches you in the face.
Yeah, I found out about it later in the topic... already re-installed on both my machines, the only downside is that I lost the custom smilies I'd made...
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, you just gave me an idea...
What about making a game out of it?
Avoid the Moron, it should be called.
Post lookouts for him; then, when he arrives, make sure there's nobody within 10 metres from him.
When he approaches a stand, everyone clears; who cannot clear, hides.
Hell, put up "Closed due to moron proximity" signs on stands when he approaches.
And make sure it's all recorded.
Yes, it looks like a nice thing to have... but not at that price.
Actually, I'm just about to order a good old IBM-Model-M-like buckling spring keyboard from Unicomp... And it seems I'll have to order a blank one at that, because no-one had ever requested a Croatian keyboard from them before.
But really... the first thing I wondered when I saw the Optimus concept was "how would it feel to type on that thing?"
Most of the time you don't bother looking at the keyboard; it just takes your eyes from what you're doing.
But if you type a lot, the feel of the keyboard is of utmost importance.
My guess is - for the specs have not been announced yet - that it'll be a scissor-switch keyboard, which I guess is OK, but far from optimum for such an expensive keyboard.
Actually, it's even worse.
Linux would then be a proved Communist OS.
As such, it would be un-American, un-democratic and therefore obviously a tool of the terrorists.
Therefore, only terrorists use Linux.
And Slashdot, as a site more or less advocating Linux, will be shut down for terrorist activity.
I wish I had mod points now...
I know a guy with about a thousand movies on various CDs and DVDs. Whole serials as well.
Funnily enough, he hasn't even seen most of them once. Between his college, job, dancing, girlfriend, DND, common websurfing, computer games and - once in a while - sleep, he really hasn't had the time.
His case may be a bit in the extreme, but the point is: you won't buy the original film for many more reasons than mere convenience of just keeping the file after watching it. Chances are, you'll never be watching it again.
First of all, more often than not, the movie is crap.
Second, it may be good or at least enjoyable, but have low replay value.
What you're paying for, actually, when buying the DVD, is the one viewing just after the purchase and the possibility of another one or maybe a bit more in some unforseen future.
On the one hand, this is why video rentals exist; on the other, they are not always that convenient, and the DVD you're after may well be out.
And then there are the commercials.
You know, those that you don't want to watch once, let alone over and over and over again. Especially since you'd already paid for the bloody thing.
Which is why you can't skip them.
Unless a friendly pirate or FSM follower removes them for you.
And even with - in places - absolutely rampant piracy, the movie industry is making loads of money.
I don't see them hurting. I don't see them suffering. I see them making in a day more than I make in a year.
And I see that the rich get richer...
Well, you were doing it in your own back yard, not everywhere in the world...
It's Pavlov.
Does it ring a bell?
Well, what I've heard about this story is that the law came into being after a motorcar spooked the Queen's horses. The man waving a red flag ensured that the horses were not spooked (though I fail to see how) and limited the speed of the car to aman's pace.
It's still hilarious, i.e. moronic.
Well, it's the media. They never get anything right.
When I hear "Chinese language", I merely assume "Cantonese". In linguistics classes, it's always "Chinese languages" or "Sino-Tibetan languages".
Nah. They weren't lost. it's just that we don't yet have the technology to understand them. Hell, we don't even know we have any preserved.
OK, so the American government does know. But Tesla died before he was able to devise a way to power them. And now the project's at a standstill.
Which is just as well. Because it seems the Egyptians also had their version of the DMCA and DRM and whatnot, so decrypting those records would bring on the curse.
They had some real IP protection back then.
Where did I ever state such nonsensethat you should refute it?
I was talking about loan words, of which there are quite a few.
I'm taking an introductory Estonian course this year, and my lecturer, a great Finnish guy, specializes in the influence of Germanic and Slavic languages on Finnish and Estonian; some of the first things he taught us were the most common loan words in Estonian.
And if you want first-hand accounts for language/dialect confusion, seek no more: I'm a native speaker of Croatian, which is still very often called Serbo-Croatian in international circles (especially Anglo-American ones). To over-simplify, Croatian language is considered to have three dialects: Kaykavian, Chakavian and Shtokavian (English spelling both to bypass Slashdot's garbage filter and to ensure you can actually pronounce them), and the Croatian standard is based on the Shtokavian dialect.
however, these three dialects are actually languages; not only by the criterion of mutual understanding (for Slavic languages have a dialect continuum), but also by the criterion of different grammars (Kaykavian only has six cases, while Shtokavian has seven, for instance; their morphologies also differ).
The problem arises because the Serbian standard is also based on a dialect of the Shtokavian language; a very similar yet different one. And even though the grammars of the two used to be made compatible, the two languages are now pretty different from each other - not only on the lexical level, but also on the syntactic and even (a bit) on the morphological level.
That's why I stick to the political definition of a language (it is a distinct language if that's what the speakers feel), and when confronted with borderline cases, I stick to language systems and complexes.
P.S. There are some very convincing arguments for the Nostratic theory (the -m, -s, -t paradigm, for one); it is difficult to find much more proof than that because certain things change way too much in time. However, I don't do comparative linguistics any more than I absolutely need to, so don't ask me for details; I enjoy listening to that stuff, but can't be bothered to learn hard, solid facts.
It's one of the most visible (easily readable) combinations.
On the other hand, if DirectX 10 is as good as some people tell me, Open Source community will still have to play catch-up...
Personally, I can't wait for really good open source drivers. Somehow it gives me a feeling somebody, somewhere is actually working on them.
And since I've read several stories on /. so far about some or other citizen of another country being extradited to the USA after breaking an American law in his own country, maybe the US could start prosecuting spammers all over the world and finally do something useful with their "Global Policeman" policy.
If by this you mean these new regulations, then no, the general public will not start encrypting everything.
They will eventually realize that unencrypted traffic is like sending postcards instead of letters and like yelling in a town square instead of making a phonecall (though I remember seeing people using a phone in a town square, yelling so loudly I thought they didn't really need the phone in the first place. But I digress.)
If no sooner, then when governments and their agencies start abusing their self-awarded authority to wiretap in such a manner that even the general public wouldn't swallow that. And while I agree that the general public can swallow quite a lot, the gagging point is almost quantum in nature - one moment, there is not a sign of it anywhere; the other, it punches you in the face.
There you go, people... your government is just making you use really strong encryption. Always.
In other words, it'll be good for you.
/me ducks
Yup... Estonian is a more innovative language; Finnish is quite archaic.
Estonian also has more loan words from both Slavic and Germanic languages.
Anyway, it seems that's why it's easier for Estonians to understand Finnish than vice versa.
Not green.
Green-blooded.
Actually, I seem to recall that someone tried to run some Windows viruses in Wine.
Alas, Wine is not yet fully compatible with Windows, and it showed.
Yeah, I found out about it later in the topic... already re-installed on both my machines, the only downside is that I lost the custom smilies I'd made...
Knowing our universe, they might all be good.
If that is the case, even the data sent through /dev/null has already destroyed some of their civilization; sending someone would just finish the job.
So, as long as I stick to GAIM, I'm safe?
Fine by me...
Panopticon is actually a bit older.
I always did wonder why Douglas Adams used base 13...
Actually, I'm not American and I don't like what I see it's turning into.
And even if I'm capable of making the very same comment, it doesn't mean I don't know it would be flamebait.
And since I don't want this to turn into another flamewar on American politics or somesuch crap, I'm shutting up now.
If it were possible to rate topics like individual posts, I'd be torn between Insightful, Flamebait and Troll.