In opposite: human skull is less protected than monkey skulls: the human brain will grove after birth because the bones did not merged yet. But the monkey skull is already completely locked at birth, no further development will occure. Thus a human skull was/is an easier target. This vulnerability could be a disadvantage in the beginning but soon developing a bigger brain became an advantage, We can see in nature that vultures and other praying birds hunt weak/sick animals. Probably they did it with humans too and as I recall there were similar report from wars that birds prayed wounded humans still living but unable to defend themselves.
The question could be how many of these weakened human (child) were already dead but imho a seriously weakened person was in that times practically dead anyway. Attack from any animal bird or not just would speed up the process. There were a lot of animals that prayed humans when an opportunity was given. Even today hypopotamus, crocodile, tiger etc. are taking humans.
Actually this news should not been such a big news except for urbans never entering the "jungle out there".
Companies has the possibility to buy a name or just use it and sending lawyers. Internet Explorer, Alta Vista are just two I recall, but I've read about many before. I money we trust - or at least money makes the rules.
But an open source project has no money to buy a catchy name. Most catchy names are already copyrighted by some company anyway.
Of course K* and G* for KDE/Gnome are really stupid.
Sometimes a short name is the best like unix command ls, rm, mv. You will use them so often that you can't see other meaning of it in other context.
I lived half of my life in a different country than I was born in and I learned it easily because I already learned some English and German so a Scandinavian language was something in between.
I made tapes with ca. 40 words each day and let it roll when cleaning, cooking etc. I played them all over except those early lessons that I could by heart already.
I went to the library and borrowed some books for children or with easy stile - librarians can be helpful. I was already married so I could not test learning fron a native:-> but I'm sure it is a good solution theoretically. In the study circle I learned Swedish there was a guy who lived with a Swedish girl. She corrected his homework still there was less spelling errors in my work than his/hers. On the other side I always made and still makes more grammatical errors.
Lately I found Rosetta Stone a very advanced program with a graphical presentation of pronounciation. I never made it into the green field in Brittish English or American English but my wife could make it in ca. 10 minutes:) And she really sounded like a Brittish lady to me:-) This feature may be almos as good as a Spanish Girlfriend. There's both Hispanic Spanish and Castellano Spanish to choose. I suggest buying or borrowing it in the library. It is really worth to use.
Congratulations to learning an other aspect of life!
"Slashdot is a real pain." I didn't wrote that. Just Slashdot needs a makover badly. Digg too. Internet is a perfect medium for collaborative ranking/recomendation systems still no-one makes those applications in full scale just small experiences.
"I've been banned frequenlty from posting my views simply because my view as a republican supporter is not the flavor here on Slashdot." Well, IMHO left-wing has a stong voice on Slashdot:-)
On the other side I'm from Europe and as I understand only tje most extreme leftist here are hear USA democrats >:-> >/FLAMEWAR>
In a collaborative rankin/recommendation system with a personal flavouring a la friend's and friend of a friend's modifier maybe we missed each other:)
Merry Xmas to you and any other slashdotters reading this!
I think collaborating ranking/recommendation systems are well suited for the Internet. Using a PGP-like authentication news and encyclopaedia would increase in value. Surely the valuations of an era would reflect in the ranking but there is no "objectivity" anyway. Using a combination of generic ranking with a personal flavour you could see only those items you are interested in - and the people you think of as valuable contributors.
"MS is a business - they have no reason to share, they exist to enhance *their* shareholder value" And exactly that was the problem of the guy you replied to in an arrogant way. MS is just taking never ever giving back. and of course this is the way companies are working. And that is the reason why this company-centris way of life sucks.
"If you're looking for sharing, go look at a Church or a charity" Have you heared of Open Source lately?
"Most Wikipedia contributors have such pages." IMHO another stupid feature of Wikipedia. Just like Jim making himself sound better than he is. A collaborative rating system would be much more democratic than this anarchy were the loudest wins.
"Then again, I'm sure attacking me makes more sense to you than attacking my points" *shakes head on the ignorance of people*
Well, it shows that the Slashdot moderation system should be retired. Digg on other hand is missing a ranking system on comments. Using friends as a increase ranking level you can trim the ranking system in your flavour. A mix of these two: ranking both submissions and comments by a generic and a personal level would be optimal. Orson Scott Card had a vision of it long ago in Ender's Game.
so I read slashdot for the comments and Digg for the articles:-> If I did not had a job and family I probably would code that ultimate forum.:^)
"But oh wait, you mean they ought to give it to you for free while you can make money out of it? Nice one, there."
Well, actually MS is making money by every 3rd party application: the more applications the more dominating OS = more buyers for their products. Of course MS has never heard of sharing.
BTW I see in the header of your comment that you're using Wikipedia as a free advertisement and homepage fo yourself. Nice one there. Really Cheap! *shakes head*
"The actual ruling was that it could not be taught in a science class. It said nothing about theology or sociology." Exactly. "I find the anti religion sentiment that's been becoming more pervasive more than a little disturbing." I think it just the usual flamewaring attitude to blow thing out of proportion. It was for provocating more comments only just like in any tabloid newspaper.
Banning religion in the USA??? Where no one dares to state he/she is an atheist face to face being afraid of retailation. Indeed, I'm from Europe, and I visited the USA several times before and talked to some immigrated Europeans. They warned me never ever tell I'm an atheist - better to be a jew or muslim whatever but you MUST believe in something. I doubted and tested it - and indeed, the next question was are you a commie, aren't you? And treated like a smelly alcoholist.
"Because some people have been murdered in the name of religion, religion should be abolished? " Well, it's rather interesting that when it's about high moral it's true Christian. But when it's about inkvisition, discrimination by Church that is just bad human behaviour.
You state that there's a God, well, show me! Prove it! I can take it - but not you. If you state that you're an alien observator disguised to a human being most people will laugh at you and probably you too. Or you state that you're owning 100 billions i Switzerland but you want me to believe it just by saying so. Why do you expect me to accept that just the parts of Bible you want are valid, all the other parts talking about direct intervention by God are allegoric symbols?
The problem is that most people even today have not the slightest understanding of the universe. No humanity do not develope. Stanislaw Lem a great SciFi writer wrote in Summae Technologiae that people think that humanity is just like a jung man in his 20-es he makes misstakes but will improve in time. Well humanity is just like an old alcholist who was saved to life again by doctors and he promises that tomorrow he will be sober and he will live a healthy life. But already in the evenenig he's drunk again. From shamanism to polytheism to monotheism was the way to defend from an overall existing concrete divine existens to a more subtle gallery of gods to an abstract, surrealistic god that by current definition could not be proven.
I'm sick of relatives who start halleluja when their dearest has been rescued thanks to the hard effort of rescue workers or hospital personal but they praise God instead thanking those people who did the job in many cases risking their own health. They take medication but states that that was their fiath in God and prayers was resulted in God's intervention to save them. That is the most arrogant theism.
Of course not at all religious people are such jerks but all too many:-(
Being atheist is not just another belief as you state but the realisation that God is just Santa Clause - an imagination of the humans brain.
The problem is today that Companies are ruling by lobbying and they never ever cared about humans and they use archievments in sciences to enrich the owners, nothing more. This way destroying this planet big time in a never before experienced global way and religion is just another way to deny the problem and set faith inot god hoping that God will save humanity or at least His own believers in the Heaven at least.
About moral: I do not need an invisible supervisor with a carot in one hand and a whip in the other the be tolerant, listen to and try to help others. I have empaty by all myself alone. You want me to accept your untestable doctrines in the name of tolerance but it do not work in the other way?
"In a recent episode of the NBC series Medium, writers had to work the movie Memoirs of a Geisha into the dialogue three times because of a deal the network made with Sony earlier in the season."
Poor SONY they have to insert advertisement all over. My suggestion: When selling a SONY product you have to tell it to 3 persons and if they sing a paper for you that they got it you will have a 1% rebate for the next SONY purchase within a month!
"Oh, my god! It's full of ads"
I started my life with televison a few hours a day without ads. Now there's tele all the day but the usefull information is the same at best. I can barely whatch the news and a few pop-sci programs. Even programs about nature have product placements with "the best survival thingies" now...
ABS (Advanced Bullshit aka FUD). SONY is SONY. Some examples: SONY went to court against a small restaurant named "Sony's Place". The owner had the nickname "Sony" so she thought it's _her_ nickname. Nope she was have to change name _and_ pay for "damages".
SONY is a prominent member of *IAA.
SONY uses DRM on music CDs prohibiting fair use.
SONY encrypted the raw photo files just as Nikon did so you do not own your own pictures in raw format. SONY is a bully. I have already one Panasonic (VHS), a JVC (8mm) and a SONY (D8) camcoder. Due to their arrogance the next one definitely won't be a SONY camcoder when flashmemory-camcoders will be a bit less expensive.
At last but not least: SONY is the head - if you call it SONY Music, SONY-BMG or whatever it is still SONY. They're taking the money so they must take the shit too anyway. The latest XCP incident was not the first and not the last example of SONY's treatment of consumers as criminals.
I suggest look for other resources when buying anything: your wallet is your only way to vote for better alternatives!
Hardcore SF has of course nothing to do with pr0n. Some authors sometimes write SF that is on the far-end to space opera. They try to write mostly in line with scientific values and heroes with realistic features. My list in alphabetic order: Asimov, Isaac: I, Robot (Fundation series a space opera) Brin, David: Glory Season, Startide Rising (even some of his other novels) Brown, Fredric: What Mad Universe Brunner, John: Shacokwave Rider, CAtch a Falling Star (more) Card, O.C.: Ender's Game (some others too) Cherryh, C.J.: Downbelow Station, Rider at the Gate (more - less HCFS, more fantasy, but very good, exevt a few fantasy with ludditistic features) Clarke, A.C.: RAMS-series (and many others) Clemens, Hal: The Essential 3 volumes (quality HCFS!) Franke, Herbert W.: Orchid Cage Godwin, Parke: Waiting for the Galactic Bus Heinlein: Star Beast (his best novel, the rest is too much space opera imho) LeGuin, Ursula K.: Earthsea Quartett, Roccanon's Planet (and many others, some SF, some fantasy but the personalities are real) Lee, Tanith: Unicorn series (and many other both SF and fantasy) Lem, Stanislaw: Pirx-series, Fiasco, Cyberiada (and more - my favourite) McIntyre, Vonda, N.: Dreamsnake Pratchett, Terry: Bromeliad-, Johnny-, and Discworld-series Russel, Eric Frank: Next of Kin, Wasp (He is fun!) Sheckley, Robert: Dimension of Miracles Simak, Clifford D: Special Delivery, City, Cemetery World Stableford, Brian: Hooded Swan-, Daedalus-, Genesys-series, Journey to the Center (Less known author but one of the best!) Vance. Jack: Tschai-, Dying Earth-series (almost space opera, but still very good) Varley, John: Titan-series (a bit more for teens than pre-teens) White, James: Sector General-series (another fine HCFS writer!) White, T.H.: Sword in the Stone, Book of Merlyn, Once and Future King (historic fantasy full of fun)
Personally I sort Anne McCaffrey and Marion Z. Bradley space opera authors for girls - and I don't like Barbie-stories at all. No real personalities, easy to see the end etc. They are popular now, but imho without any real content, just boooring.
I was have to exclude e.g. Michael Moorcock's "Dancers at the End of Time" trilogy and Fred Saberhagen's Berserk series, Jack Vance "Demon Princes" and Stanislav Lem's "Return from the Stars" Vonda N. McInyte's "Starfarers"-series because this listing is a recommendation for (pre-)teens boys and girls. - Imho girls should be treated just as well as boys to became equals to boys.
"...it's a bit naive to suggest (like that poster did) that the media are making a fuss over nothing." Still, imho it is hugely blown up out of proportions, like the enormous "losses" of the BSA/RIAA/MPAA industries anywhere in the world.
The "labour price" dumping of capitalist (industri leaders) by using cheap labor in dictatorships like China is a much worse problem, but it is not an issue for those who are tho opinion leaders.
Not really, as I know (firts hand) the pirated CDs in Europe are made i Russia, distributed from the former Yugoslavia. In Bosnia and Montenegro they started to produce local copies too. The hatred agains all kind of "yello" people is rather intensive, Pearl Harbour made a long-lasting (false) pretext for that.
Probably "picky" or "choosy" would have been better. What I ment was that shady types won't hesitate and will use any opportunity to grab some value from anyone. Threats, lies, spam, nigerian bussiness, whatever a conmen can missuse (s)he will use it without hesitation.
I did not compared the time-stamps on digg and on slashdot to see which was first, but I prefere Slashot. I do not agree with the moderation system on Slashdot but there's an easy way to improve it for your taste: pick those members who adds good comment in your opinion and add to your friend list. Add +2 point to them and +1 to their friends. Voila' you have a personalised moderation:) It works for me just fine!
A reform of moderating on Slashdot would be good, but imho the personalised moderation by frien modifier is almost better:)
On the other side the BBC had a picture of him. Maybe I start practicing the dart game...
I reminds me one day I walked into my workplace and told that the guy who stole my bike was found and my bike was still intact. And at last he got 3 months in jail! - !!!??? - Well, he has 23 other bikes and some narcotics too:)
Naturally criminals aren't kinky: thay take what the opportunity will give.
"He sought compensation but has apparently been told there is no case to answer because there was no fault with the testing procedure."
Well, well, he was trying to milk the medical system and he was turned down.
"He has told the papers he would do anything he could to help find a cure."
I suppose he wants a hight price for every milliliter of blood or any tissue sample. I think he is looking for the highest bidder. He's a typical example of the homo capitalisticus.
In his place I would offer samples for free but with the GPL: every result that is coming from those samples must be published openly and for free. I'm rather sure tha the medical research centres prefere to pay him and keep the result for themself.
Probably I was not clear: a better word instead of position is orientation. There are special puzzles out there with other than colours: using numbers, letter, photos. Those are harder to solve because you have to _orient_ (:position) the edge-squares to the central square in only one way.
If you still doubt, I suggest grab a cube, mark all sides with letters or numbers and you will see.
Not really: Japanese, French and American stated that they have the Cube, but only Rubik's was a working toy. E.g.: the Japanese had no documentation about how the invention came, the French had a drawing with stings attaches cubes and the American just did not work and never made into a working unit. So even if they were not cheating (that is mostly possible because the Magic Cube was produced before patenting and the American and the Japanese patents are newer the the Hungarian) they could not create a working unit and support it with a documented development process.
Rubik's greatest invention on the Cube was that inside the Cube there's a sphere so the construction can turn around on the 3 axes easily. He had - and only Rubik had - documented, working predecessors like the rubber string solution that didn't last long.
There were some fun incidents on the road, eg. when the Hungarian manufacturer could not produce enough units they bought a lot from Taiwan or Hong-Kong but they were bad quality even if there was a "Made in Hungary" on them:-)
I remember very well because I could not manage to buy one but the radio, TV and newspapers were soon full of it:-) When I got one, people on the bus/metro asked me to borrow or buy for 10x the shop price when I was trying to solve it by myself:-) At work my boss stopped supervising us when I lent it to him:-) I still remember the ache in my arms and fingers...
I know a Mathematician who got an early example and she was the very 1st person who looked at the cube on 3 sides, turned the cube to verify that she thought it's positions then hided the cube behind her back and could complete it without seenig it until finished. I was very impressed:) She showed me that solving the cube is not reversing it to the original positions, "only" making the squares on all sides of the same colour. You can verify it if you write a letter or number on every square of the same colour in the same position, scramble it and solve the puzzle. you will see that the numbers/letters are in wrong position. Btw. she wrote the 1st program in Fortran that solved the puzzle just a few months later.
Interesting... Some details wich Os and programs are you using? (I've got some tips earlier but the choices are changing), Especially interested in good noise reduction. I have just a few meters of vinyl awaiting transformation:)
More on-topic: I have an iAudio with 2 GB flash memory and a file server with all my CDs and DVDs transferred to. Ogg is nice!:-)
Slashdot Mirror
In opposite: human skull is less protected than monkey skulls: the human brain will grove after birth because the bones did not merged yet. But the monkey skull is already completely locked at birth, no further development will occure. Thus a human skull was/is an easier target.
This vulnerability could be a disadvantage in the beginning but soon developing a bigger brain became an advantage,
We can see in nature that vultures and other praying birds hunt weak/sick animals. Probably they did it with humans too and as I recall there were similar report from wars that birds prayed wounded humans still living but unable to defend themselves.
The question could be how many of these weakened human (child) were already dead but imho a seriously weakened person was in that times practically dead anyway. Attack from any animal bird or not just would speed up the process. There were a lot of animals that prayed humans when an opportunity was given. Even today hypopotamus, crocodile, tiger etc. are taking humans.
Actually this news should not been such a big news except for urbans never entering the "jungle out there".
"Digg for the headlines. Slashdot for the commentary."
:)
It's a dupe!
Companies has the possibility to buy a name or just use it and sending lawyers. Internet Explorer, Alta Vista are just two I recall, but I've read about many before.
I money we trust - or at least money makes the rules.
But an open source project has no money to buy a catchy name.
Most catchy names are already copyrighted by some company anyway.
Of course K* and G* for KDE/Gnome are really stupid.
Sometimes a short name is the best like unix command ls, rm, mv. You will use them so often that you can't see other meaning of it in other context.
Just my 2 cents.
I lived half of my life in a different country than I was born in and I learned it easily because I already learned some English and German so a Scandinavian language was something in between.
:-> but I'm sure it is a good solution theoretically. In the study circle I learned Swedish there was a guy who lived with a Swedish girl. She corrected his homework still there was less spelling errors in my work than his/hers. On the other side I always made and still makes more grammatical errors.
:) And she really sounded like a Brittish lady to me :-) This feature may be almos as good as a Spanish Girlfriend.
I made tapes with ca. 40 words each day and let it roll when cleaning, cooking etc.
I played them all over except those early lessons that I could by heart already.
I went to the library and borrowed some books for children or with easy stile - librarians can be helpful.
I was already married so I could not test learning fron a native
Lately I found Rosetta Stone a very advanced program with a graphical presentation of pronounciation. I never made it into the green field in Brittish English or American English but my wife could make it in ca. 10 minutes
There's both Hispanic Spanish and Castellano Spanish to choose.
I suggest buying or borrowing it in the library. It is really worth to use.
Congratulations to learning an other aspect of life!
"Slashdot is a real pain."
:-)
:)
I didn't wrote that. Just Slashdot needs a makover badly.
Digg too.
Internet is a perfect medium for collaborative ranking/recomendation systems still no-one makes those applications in full scale just small experiences.
"I've been banned frequenlty from posting my views simply because my view as a republican supporter is not the flavor here on Slashdot."
Well, IMHO left-wing has a stong voice on Slashdot
On the other side I'm from Europe and as I understand only tje most extreme leftist here are hear USA democrats >:-> >/FLAMEWAR>
In a collaborative rankin/recommendation system with a personal flavouring a la friend's and friend of a friend's modifier maybe we missed each other
Merry Xmas to you and any other slashdotters reading this!
Pick your favourite :-)
I think collaborating ranking/recommendation systems are well suited for the Internet.
Using a PGP-like authentication news and encyclopaedia would increase in value.
Surely the valuations of an era would reflect in the ranking but there is no "objectivity" anyway.
Using a combination of generic ranking with a personal flavour you could see only those items you are interested in - and the people you think of as valuable contributors.
Sorry, this is going a bit Off-topic:
"MS is a business - they have no reason to share, they exist to enhance *their* shareholder value"
And exactly that was the problem of the guy you replied to in an arrogant way. MS is just taking never ever giving back. and of course this is the way companies are working.
And that is the reason why this company-centris way of life sucks.
"If you're looking for sharing, go look at a Church or a charity"
Have you heared of Open Source lately?
"Most Wikipedia contributors have such pages."
IMHO another stupid feature of Wikipedia. Just like Jim making himself sound better than he is. A collaborative rating system would be much more democratic than this anarchy were the loudest wins.
"Then again, I'm sure attacking me makes more sense to you than attacking my points"
*shakes head on the ignorance of people*
Well, it shows that the Slashdot moderation system should be retired.
:-> :^)
Digg on other hand is missing a ranking system on comments.
Using friends as a increase ranking level you can trim the ranking system in your flavour.
A mix of these two: ranking both submissions and comments by a generic and a personal level would be optimal. Orson Scott Card had a vision of it long ago in Ender's Game.
so I read slashdot for the comments and Digg for the articles
If I did not had a job and family I probably would code that ultimate forum.
"But oh wait, you mean they ought to give it to you for free while you can make money out of it? Nice one, there."
Well, actually MS is making money by every 3rd party application: the more applications the more dominating OS = more buyers for their products.
Of course MS has never heard of sharing.
BTW I see in the header of your comment that you're using Wikipedia as a free advertisement and homepage fo yourself.
Nice one there. Really Cheap!
*shakes head*
"The actual ruling was that it could not be taught in a science class. It said nothing about theology or sociology."
Exactly.
"I find the anti religion sentiment that's been becoming more pervasive more than a little disturbing."
I think it just the usual flamewaring attitude to blow thing out of proportion. It was for provocating more comments only just like in any tabloid newspaper.
Banning religion in the USA??? Where no one dares to state he/she is an atheist face to face being afraid of retailation.
Indeed, I'm from Europe, and I visited the USA several times before and talked to some immigrated Europeans. They warned me never ever tell I'm an atheist - better to be a jew or muslim whatever but you MUST believe in something. I doubted and tested it - and indeed, the next question was are you a commie, aren't you? And treated like a smelly alcoholist.
"Because some people have been murdered in the name of religion, religion should be abolished? "
:-(
Well, it's rather interesting that when it's about high moral it's true Christian. But when it's about inkvisition, discrimination by Church that is just bad human behaviour.
You state that there's a God, well, show me! Prove it! I can take it - but not you. If you state that you're an alien observator disguised to a human being most people will laugh at you and probably you too. Or you state that you're owning 100 billions i Switzerland but you want me to believe it just by saying so.
Why do you expect me to accept that just the parts of Bible you want are valid, all the other parts talking about direct intervention by God are allegoric symbols?
The problem is that most people even today have not the slightest understanding of the universe. No humanity do not develope.
Stanislaw Lem a great SciFi writer wrote in Summae Technologiae that people think that humanity is just like a jung man in his 20-es he makes misstakes but will improve in time. Well humanity is just like an old alcholist who was saved to life again by doctors and he promises that tomorrow he will be sober and he will live a healthy life.
But already in the evenenig he's drunk again.
From shamanism to polytheism to monotheism was the way to defend from an overall existing concrete divine existens to a more subtle gallery of gods to an abstract, surrealistic god that by current definition could not be proven.
I'm sick of relatives who start halleluja when their dearest has been rescued thanks to the hard effort of rescue workers or hospital personal but they praise God instead thanking those people who did the job in many cases risking their own health.
They take medication but states that that was their fiath in God and prayers was resulted in God's intervention to save them. That is the most arrogant theism.
Of course not at all religious people are such jerks but all too many
Being atheist is not just another belief as you state but the realisation that God is just Santa Clause - an imagination of the humans brain.
The problem is today that Companies are ruling by lobbying and they never ever cared about humans and they use archievments in sciences to enrich the owners, nothing more.
This way destroying this planet big time in a never before experienced global way and religion is just another way to deny the problem and set faith inot god hoping that God will save humanity or at least His own believers in the Heaven at least.
About moral: I do not need an invisible supervisor with a carot in one hand and a whip in the other the be tolerant, listen to and try to help others. I have empaty by all myself alone.
You want me to accept your untestable doctrines in the name of tolerance but it do not work in the other way?
"In a recent episode of the NBC series Medium, writers had to work the movie Memoirs of a Geisha into the dialogue three times because of a deal the network made with Sony earlier in the season."
Poor SONY they have to insert advertisement all over.
My suggestion: When selling a SONY product you have to tell it to 3 persons and if they sing a paper for you that they got it you will have a 1% rebate for the next SONY purchase within a month!
"Oh, my god! It's full of ads"
I started my life with televison a few hours a day without ads. Now there's tele all the day but the usefull information is the same at best.
I can barely whatch the news and a few pop-sci programs. Even programs about nature have product placements with "the best survival thingies" now...
ABS (Advanced Bullshit aka FUD).
SONY is SONY. Some examples:
SONY went to court against a small restaurant named "Sony's Place". The owner had the nickname "Sony" so she thought it's _her_ nickname. Nope she was have to change name _and_ pay for "damages".
SONY is a prominent member of *IAA.
SONY uses DRM on music CDs prohibiting fair use.
SONY encrypted the raw photo files just as Nikon did so you do not own your own pictures in raw format.
SONY is a bully. I have already one Panasonic (VHS), a JVC (8mm) and a SONY (D8) camcoder. Due to their arrogance the next one definitely won't be a SONY camcoder when flashmemory-camcoders will be a bit less expensive.
At last but not least:
SONY is the head - if you call it SONY Music, SONY-BMG or whatever it is still SONY. They're taking the money so they must take the shit too anyway.
The latest XCP incident was not the first and not the last example of SONY's treatment of consumers as criminals.
I suggest look for other resources when buying anything: your wallet is your only way to vote for better alternatives!
Hardcore SF has of course nothing to do with pr0n.
Some authors sometimes write SF that is on the far-end to space opera.
They try to write mostly in line with scientific values and heroes with realistic features.
My list in alphabetic order:
Asimov, Isaac: I, Robot (Fundation series a space opera)
Brin, David: Glory Season, Startide Rising (even some of his other novels)
Brown, Fredric: What Mad Universe
Brunner, John: Shacokwave Rider, CAtch a Falling Star (more)
Card, O.C.: Ender's Game (some others too)
Cherryh, C.J.: Downbelow Station, Rider at the Gate (more - less HCFS, more fantasy, but very good, exevt a few fantasy with ludditistic features)
Clarke, A.C.: RAMS-series (and many others)
Clemens, Hal: The Essential 3 volumes (quality HCFS!)
Franke, Herbert W.: Orchid Cage
Godwin, Parke: Waiting for the Galactic Bus
Heinlein: Star Beast (his best novel, the rest is too much space opera imho)
LeGuin, Ursula K.: Earthsea Quartett, Roccanon's Planet (and many others, some SF, some fantasy but the personalities are real)
Lee, Tanith: Unicorn series (and many other both SF and fantasy)
Lem, Stanislaw: Pirx-series, Fiasco, Cyberiada (and more - my favourite)
McIntyre, Vonda, N.: Dreamsnake
Pratchett, Terry: Bromeliad-, Johnny-, and Discworld-series
Russel, Eric Frank: Next of Kin, Wasp (He is fun!)
Sheckley, Robert: Dimension of Miracles
Simak, Clifford D: Special Delivery, City, Cemetery World
Stableford, Brian: Hooded Swan-, Daedalus-, Genesys-series, Journey to the Center (Less known author but one of the best!)
Vance. Jack: Tschai-, Dying Earth-series (almost space opera, but still very good)
Varley, John: Titan-series (a bit more for teens than pre-teens)
White, James: Sector General-series (another fine HCFS writer!)
White, T.H.: Sword in the Stone, Book of Merlyn, Once and Future King (historic fantasy full of fun)
Personally I sort Anne McCaffrey and Marion Z. Bradley space opera authors for girls - and I don't like Barbie-stories at all. No real personalities, easy to see the end etc. They are popular now, but imho without any real content, just boooring.
I was have to exclude e.g. Michael Moorcock's "Dancers at the End of Time" trilogy and Fred Saberhagen's Berserk series, Jack Vance "Demon Princes" and Stanislav Lem's "Return from the Stars" Vonda N. McInyte's "Starfarers"-series because this listing is a recommendation for (pre-)teens boys and girls. - Imho girls should be treated just as well as boys to became equals to boys.
Have fun!
"...it's a bit naive to suggest (like that poster did) that the media are making a fuss over nothing."
Still, imho it is hugely blown up out of proportions, like the enormous "losses" of the BSA/RIAA/MPAA industries anywhere in the world.
The "labour price" dumping of capitalist (industri leaders) by using cheap labor in dictatorships like China is a much worse problem, but it is not an issue for those who are tho opinion leaders.
Not really, as I know (firts hand) the pirated CDs in Europe are made i Russia, distributed from the former Yugoslavia. In Bosnia and Montenegro they started to produce local copies too.
The hatred agains all kind of "yello" people is rather intensive, Pearl Harbour made a long-lasting (false) pretext for that.
Nope, English is not my 1st language.
Probably "picky" or "choosy" would have been better.
What I ment was that shady types won't hesitate and will use any opportunity to grab some value from anyone. Threats, lies, spam, nigerian bussiness, whatever a conmen can missuse (s)he will use it without hesitation.
I did not compared the time-stamps on digg and on slashdot to see which was first, but I prefere Slashot. I do not agree with the moderation system on Slashdot but there's an easy way to improve it for your taste: pick those members who adds good comment in your opinion and add to your friend list. :)
:)
Add +2 point to them and +1 to their friends.
Voila' you have a personalised moderation
It works for me just fine!
A reform of moderating on Slashdot would be good, but imho the personalised moderation by frien modifier is almost better
On the other side the BBC had a picture of him. Maybe I start practicing the dart game...
:)
I reminds me one day I walked into my workplace and told that the guy who stole my bike was found and my bike was still intact. And at last he got 3 months in jail!
- !!!???
- Well, he has 23 other bikes and some narcotics too
Naturally criminals aren't kinky: thay take what the opportunity will give.
'Vindictive' UK spammer jailed for six yearsl ed/
http://www.theregister.com/2005/11/17/spammer_jai
Good news!
"He sought compensation but has apparently been told there is no case to answer because there was no fault with the testing procedure."
Well, well, he was trying to milk the medical system and he was turned down.
"He has told the papers he would do anything he could to help find a cure."
I suppose he wants a hight price for every milliliter of blood or any tissue sample. I think he is looking for the highest bidder.
He's a typical example of the homo capitalisticus.
In his place I would offer samples for free but with the GPL: every result that is coming from those samples must be published openly and for free.
I'm rather sure tha the medical research centres prefere to pay him and keep the result for themself.
At last someone is waking up in the USA after BBC embracing new technology.
The more competition the better!
Probably I was not clear: a better word instead of position is orientation.
There are special puzzles out there with other than colours: using numbers, letter, photos. Those are harder to solve because you have to _orient_ (:position) the edge-squares to the central square in only one way.
If you still doubt, I suggest grab a cube, mark all sides with letters or numbers and you will see.
Not really: Japanese, French and American stated that they have the Cube, but only Rubik's was a working toy. E.g.: the Japanese had no documentation about how the invention came, the French had a drawing with stings attaches cubes and the American just did not work and never made into a working unit.
:-)
:-) When I got one, people on the bus/metro asked me to borrow or buy for 10x the shop price when I was trying to solve it by myself :-) :-)
:)
So even if they were not cheating (that is mostly possible because the Magic Cube was produced before patenting and the American and the Japanese patents are newer the the Hungarian) they could not create a working unit and support it with a documented development process.
Rubik's greatest invention on the Cube was that inside the Cube there's a sphere so the construction can turn around on the 3 axes easily.
He had - and only Rubik had - documented, working predecessors like the rubber string solution that didn't last long.
There were some fun incidents on the road, eg. when the Hungarian manufacturer could not produce enough units they bought a lot from Taiwan or Hong-Kong but they were bad quality even if there was a "Made in Hungary" on them
I remember very well because I could not manage to buy one but the radio, TV and newspapers were soon full of it
At work my boss stopped supervising us when I lent it to him
I still remember the ache in my arms and fingers...
I know a Mathematician who got an early example and she was the very 1st person who looked at the cube on 3 sides, turned the cube to verify that she thought it's positions then hided the cube behind her back and could complete it without seenig it until finished. I was very impressed
She showed me that solving the cube is not reversing it to the original positions, "only" making the squares on all sides of the same colour.
You can verify it if you write a letter or number on every square of the same colour in the same position, scramble it and solve the puzzle. you will see that the numbers/letters are in wrong position.
Btw. she wrote the 1st program in Fortran that solved the puzzle just a few months later.
Interesting... Some details wich Os and programs are you using? (I've got some tips earlier but the choices are changing), Especially interested in good noise reduction. I have just a few meters of vinyl awaiting transformation :)
:-)
More on-topic:
I have an iAudio with 2 GB flash memory and a file server with all my CDs and DVDs transferred to. Ogg is nice!