The internet is an abstract idea that only exists as when the sum of all of the networks is greater than the individual parts. Networks can and is meant to be scaled up or down. A country-wide firewall is not damage. Filtering, which you can think of is a firewall that looks at content rather than connection, is not damage. Damage is when one node disappears off the network. You can still route around that. But there's no "around" when a country-wide firewall disallows connections to be made with servers outside of the country, or when filtering is applied to an entire nation, especially an island nation like Australia.
The saying you're looking for is, better locks only results in better lockpicks.
That having been said, who didn't see this coming?
No, where there is a void in power, there will always be an entity to fill it. Do you really think corporations will regulate themselves? Do you really think people are capable of regulating themselves? A power vacuum creates a shortcut for the ambitious to become powerful. So if the government does not govern, then the corporations will, or an unofficial dictator will. If you wish to govern yourself but not be governed by others, then society is not the place for you.
What we need is a government that serves the people. Since the government is of other people, the only way that will happen is if the government fears the populace. This means we need a vigilant, educated, and strong populace. But it's hard to fear a populace that's too busy watching the latest episode of American Idol to notice their freedoms slipping away one by one, much less do anything about it.
This is a problem with most FOSS projects. GIMP anybody? WINE (not as bad, but still)? Silly, humorous names are amusing to the geek, but only that. It might work for small unix programs that will be bundled with better-sounding products anyway. But give a product a stupid name, and people will treat it like a stupid product, and won't give it a second thought.
The name is usually a person's first impression for software. A good name will stay in somebody's head. A bad name will be dismissed, and the person will not so much as think of it again. And even if the name comes with an explanation, it's quite useless to just recall the purpose of the product but be left scratching as to what the name should be.
Divx and Xvid are good names ('vid'--short for 'video'--spelt backwards with X at the end and 'divx' backwards, respectively). Ogg, Vorbis, and Theora are not. Oh, BTW, the presence of an 'X' making things much more marketable may be a running gag in some circles, but it's very true. It has to do with 'X' connoctations--extreme, express, expert, experienced, extra, excellence. 'I' might be the new buzzletter, while 'E' is the washed out one (you'll automatically get outdated connoctations if you start a product with 'E'), but 'X' has been around for decades and is still going strong.
Of course, putting in the 'X' has to be tasteful. Puns ("X-Treme", "Aerobix", etc.) tend to scream of trying too hard, and leaving it alone ("X-windows", "Code-X") sounds forced.
Anyway, a name doesn't need 'X' to be good, but it does need to be good for the masses to be conscious of it. And a lot of FOSS projects are missing exactly that.
Yeah, but it wouldn't be the same. It'd be a copy of the statue, but the materials would be different. In fact, even if you started with the same material, and had a laser or something do the copying and carving, you still wouldn't get the same product. Rocks have impurities, and the great artists know how to work with those impurities. And, it is practically impossible for two slabs have the exact same impurities.
Does it matter whether they're a democracy? Iran is a soverign nation. Their nation, their problem. Or does the United States have some kind of intellectual property claim to "democracy?"
- Beige Only. You can pick any color, as long as it is beige. Why did it take so bloody long to offer any other color then beige? Critical mass?
It took Steve Jobs returning to Apple after having been kicked out previously. The iMac was probably the first line of computers to have colors other than beige and black. You really need to thank Jobs for making people realize that it's nice to have a PC that looks decent.
As well, normal people started using PC's, or perhaps PC's suddenly catered to normal people. While the technically inclined are purely interested in utility, normal people tend to factor in looks as well as utility.
There's nothing wrong with faith per se, except when it interferes with observable reality. But it's not faith because it's recognized as one of many possibilities and has a probability attached to it.
What you're seeing is that this possibility is the most probable, which is why it is favored over the other myriad of possibilities. But when some new data comes along, this idea may be strengthened or weakened, and it may eventually lose its favored status to another possibility. Sometimes, but relatively rarely, a possibility is so probable that it becomes generally irrefutable (but the minutae are usually still in the works), in which case, it becomes theorem a.k.a. fact.
Of course, even facts can be changed with new data. "Refined" is probably the correct term. Facts don't get turned upside down, but they may get marginalized, or slotted into a larger, more general fact, or pieces may be replaced with better ideas. For example, gravity being the 4th fundamental force is a fact, but the mechanism behind gravity isn't understood. So some data may come along to explain gravity, or to turn gravity into one of the other 3 fundamental forces, or to make gravity only a small part of a much larger 4th fundamental force. But since no such data exists as of now, gravity remains as it is.
Maybe you shouldn't have torn up the model-release contract though. As you know, once something goes online, it's probably going to stay in the internets for perpetuality. If some blog drags the picture up, and the mom sues the other blog, and everything somehow lands on your lap, well, it'd be useful to have that contract.
Why do you think superhero fees are so expensive? It's because they only get real work once or twice a decade. The rest of the time, they're relegated to saving frightened cats and laying their capes down for old ladies.
I think he's just being humble, but the manner in which he does it is quite remarkable. He's not saying everybody is smart. He's saying that everybody has something they excel at, and that just because somebody isn't an astrophysicist at 11 or won't be a scientist at all doesn't mean that person isn't a genius in some other way. And it's a very meaningful recognition that everybody's abilities and hence their specialties are and will be different. There's nothing wrong with humility, there's nothing wrong with a bit of idealism, and there's nothing wrong with some realistic encouragement.
There is, however, something very wrong with writing off that most people are just plain stupid. That's just narrowminded thinking. That may be true for adults, as they are set in their ways. But kids are of unlimited potential, and there really is no telling what they can contribute to society until they grow up. To insist otherwise is not only incorrect, but does children a grave injustice, and only exacerbates the education problem.
Policy advisors would benefit from actually doing research with responsible paedophiles
Nobody's going to do that. It would mean the end of their political career, if word ever got out that they were associating with self-admitted pedophiles. Not to mention finding such interviewees who would be willing to come out of the closet won't be easy either.
A lot of human psychology centers around being able to affirm oneself and one's own existence through others. A person who identifies himself or herself by his or her interests will try to affirm himself or herself through others with the same interests. And everybody identifies themselves by certain interests at every point in life, even if those interests change over time. So if a person who's into extremism watches extreme acts (or simulations thereof), that person is able to affirm his or her existence through knowing that there's somebody else with similar interests in the same extreme, especially enough to make a movie, whether real or imaginary, of it. I think we'd all prefer these things to be simulations, reenactments, hollywood magic, instead of somebody's home video of it actually happening. But without such things, such people cannot affirm their own existence, and thus their psyche tears, if you will accept the crude term. The person will try to reconcile the matter, fill the void, as a protective measure before going insane. The result is the person acting on those interests. In the case where the interests are extreme, it is not something beneficial to society. So the simulations of certain extreme behaviors is beneficial. However, certain presonalities can lead to addiction, so it's always a good idea for these people to moderate their own consumption.
Professional competition, for example, is illustrative of this psychological phenomenon. People who watch sports competitions are often very into playing the same sports at some point in time, but may be somehow unable to do so or are unskilled at doing so. So they watch the professionals, who are able to perform amazing feats they can only dream of doing. But in watching such professionals accomplish those feats, it satisfies their own innate desire to do so, brought upon by their interest in the activity. This allows them to not attempt such feats and concentrate their energies on other activities. And professional athletes whose self-definition is grounded in their ability to compete in their sport of choice, affirm themselves by competing with others of their level or better. Take away their sports, and they lose their identity (look to the behaviors of retirees for a good idea of what happens).
On a related note, Buddhist teachings take the opposite direction, embracing the no-self as the solution.
What would you expect to happen to a country where the populace can't comprehend anything more than us versus them, and who aren't willing or interested in trying? When there are more people voting in American Idol than in the presidential elections, you know there's something deathly wrong with society.
To be fair, most members of this "counterculture" you speak of are either in jail for drug offenses, or too high to care. The rare few who are lucid are going through the hypocrite phase where they become vehement objectors to the behaviors that they once thrived under.
Maybe people should be encouraged to take a probability and statistics course in high school.
Wouldn't matter. People are psychologically wired to take risks based upon a cost-ideal outcome benefit analysis.
Society wouldn't be anywhere if people always calculated their risks. We are here because some idiot got lucky despite a thousand or a million other idiots dying under the same situation. In one case, that idiot is none other than Benjamin Franklin.
I think you've confused New York with Boston. Rule of thumb is, don't signal, just find your opening* and swerve in. If the guy behind you hits you, well, he obviously wasn't paying attention.
* The size of a typical opening varies from a quarter of your car's length to its length and half again.
It's the 20th anniversary of a certain event. I had expected something fairly flashy to originate from the online communities. You can think of this a moment of silence, if you'd like.
Slashdot Mirror
It's a perfectly legitimate excuse if your ultimate goal is to commit suicide.
The internet is an abstract idea that only exists as when the sum of all of the networks is greater than the individual parts. Networks can and is meant to be scaled up or down. A country-wide firewall is not damage. Filtering, which you can think of is a firewall that looks at content rather than connection, is not damage. Damage is when one node disappears off the network. You can still route around that. But there's no "around" when a country-wide firewall disallows connections to be made with servers outside of the country, or when filtering is applied to an entire nation, especially an island nation like Australia.
The saying you're looking for is, better locks only results in better lockpicks.
That having been said, who didn't see this coming?
California: the state where everybody is trying to stand on clouds.
You also have the point the gun at someone. It's hard to shoot someone when there's nobody else around, unless you're shooting yourself.
No, where there is a void in power, there will always be an entity to fill it. Do you really think corporations will regulate themselves? Do you really think people are capable of regulating themselves? A power vacuum creates a shortcut for the ambitious to become powerful. So if the government does not govern, then the corporations will, or an unofficial dictator will. If you wish to govern yourself but not be governed by others, then society is not the place for you.
What we need is a government that serves the people. Since the government is of other people, the only way that will happen is if the government fears the populace. This means we need a vigilant, educated, and strong populace. But it's hard to fear a populace that's too busy watching the latest episode of American Idol to notice their freedoms slipping away one by one, much less do anything about it.
This is a problem with most FOSS projects. GIMP anybody? WINE (not as bad, but still)? Silly, humorous names are amusing to the geek, but only that. It might work for small unix programs that will be bundled with better-sounding products anyway. But give a product a stupid name, and people will treat it like a stupid product, and won't give it a second thought.
The name is usually a person's first impression for software. A good name will stay in somebody's head. A bad name will be dismissed, and the person will not so much as think of it again. And even if the name comes with an explanation, it's quite useless to just recall the purpose of the product but be left scratching as to what the name should be.
Divx and Xvid are good names ('vid'--short for 'video'--spelt backwards with X at the end and 'divx' backwards, respectively). Ogg, Vorbis, and Theora are not. Oh, BTW, the presence of an 'X' making things much more marketable may be a running gag in some circles, but it's very true. It has to do with 'X' connoctations--extreme, express, expert, experienced, extra, excellence. 'I' might be the new buzzletter, while 'E' is the washed out one (you'll automatically get outdated connoctations if you start a product with 'E'), but 'X' has been around for decades and is still going strong.
Of course, putting in the 'X' has to be tasteful. Puns ("X-Treme", "Aerobix", etc.) tend to scream of trying too hard, and leaving it alone ("X-windows", "Code-X") sounds forced.
Anyway, a name doesn't need 'X' to be good, but it does need to be good for the masses to be conscious of it. And a lot of FOSS projects are missing exactly that.
Yeah, but it wouldn't be the same. It'd be a copy of the statue, but the materials would be different. In fact, even if you started with the same material, and had a laser or something do the copying and carving, you still wouldn't get the same product. Rocks have impurities, and the great artists know how to work with those impurities. And, it is practically impossible for two slabs have the exact same impurities.
"Be sure to take these pills with lots of water and maybe a cracker or two, they're really powerful and give some people a bit of nausea."
And you might also notice an increase in urination frequency.
Does it matter whether they're a democracy? Iran is a soverign nation. Their nation, their problem. Or does the United States have some kind of intellectual property claim to "democracy?"
GP isn't so much proposing a line item veto, as a line item vote. Veto powers apply to the executive, but GP is talking about the legislative process.
GP wants legislators to be able to vote on specific parts of a bill, and only the parts that pass would continue to the next step in the process.
- Beige Only. You can pick any color, as long as it is beige. Why did it take so bloody long to offer any other color then beige? Critical mass?
It took Steve Jobs returning to Apple after having been kicked out previously. The iMac was probably the first line of computers to have colors other than beige and black. You really need to thank Jobs for making people realize that it's nice to have a PC that looks decent.
As well, normal people started using PC's, or perhaps PC's suddenly catered to normal people. While the technically inclined are purely interested in utility, normal people tend to factor in looks as well as utility.
There's nothing wrong with faith per se, except when it interferes with observable reality. But it's not faith because it's recognized as one of many possibilities and has a probability attached to it.
What you're seeing is that this possibility is the most probable, which is why it is favored over the other myriad of possibilities. But when some new data comes along, this idea may be strengthened or weakened, and it may eventually lose its favored status to another possibility. Sometimes, but relatively rarely, a possibility is so probable that it becomes generally irrefutable (but the minutae are usually still in the works), in which case, it becomes theorem a.k.a. fact.
Of course, even facts can be changed with new data. "Refined" is probably the correct term. Facts don't get turned upside down, but they may get marginalized, or slotted into a larger, more general fact, or pieces may be replaced with better ideas. For example, gravity being the 4th fundamental force is a fact, but the mechanism behind gravity isn't understood. So some data may come along to explain gravity, or to turn gravity into one of the other 3 fundamental forces, or to make gravity only a small part of a much larger 4th fundamental force. But since no such data exists as of now, gravity remains as it is.
That is science.
Maybe you shouldn't have torn up the model-release contract though. As you know, once something goes online, it's probably going to stay in the internets for perpetuality. If some blog drags the picture up, and the mom sues the other blog, and everything somehow lands on your lap, well, it'd be useful to have that contract.
As opposed to super-sized astronomers finding supernovas?
Mouthfuls.
Why do you think superhero fees are so expensive? It's because they only get real work once or twice a decade. The rest of the time, they're relegated to saving frightened cats and laying their capes down for old ladies.
I think he's just being humble, but the manner in which he does it is quite remarkable. He's not saying everybody is smart. He's saying that everybody has something they excel at, and that just because somebody isn't an astrophysicist at 11 or won't be a scientist at all doesn't mean that person isn't a genius in some other way. And it's a very meaningful recognition that everybody's abilities and hence their specialties are and will be different. There's nothing wrong with humility, there's nothing wrong with a bit of idealism, and there's nothing wrong with some realistic encouragement.
There is, however, something very wrong with writing off that most people are just plain stupid. That's just narrowminded thinking. That may be true for adults, as they are set in their ways. But kids are of unlimited potential, and there really is no telling what they can contribute to society until they grow up. To insist otherwise is not only incorrect, but does children a grave injustice, and only exacerbates the education problem.
Policy advisors would benefit from actually doing research with responsible paedophiles
Nobody's going to do that. It would mean the end of their political career, if word ever got out that they were associating with self-admitted pedophiles. Not to mention finding such interviewees who would be willing to come out of the closet won't be easy either.
A lot of human psychology centers around being able to affirm oneself and one's own existence through others. A person who identifies himself or herself by his or her interests will try to affirm himself or herself through others with the same interests. And everybody identifies themselves by certain interests at every point in life, even if those interests change over time. So if a person who's into extremism watches extreme acts (or simulations thereof), that person is able to affirm his or her existence through knowing that there's somebody else with similar interests in the same extreme, especially enough to make a movie, whether real or imaginary, of it. I think we'd all prefer these things to be simulations, reenactments, hollywood magic, instead of somebody's home video of it actually happening. But without such things, such people cannot affirm their own existence, and thus their psyche tears, if you will accept the crude term. The person will try to reconcile the matter, fill the void, as a protective measure before going insane. The result is the person acting on those interests. In the case where the interests are extreme, it is not something beneficial to society. So the simulations of certain extreme behaviors is beneficial. However, certain presonalities can lead to addiction, so it's always a good idea for these people to moderate their own consumption.
Professional competition, for example, is illustrative of this psychological phenomenon. People who watch sports competitions are often very into playing the same sports at some point in time, but may be somehow unable to do so or are unskilled at doing so. So they watch the professionals, who are able to perform amazing feats they can only dream of doing. But in watching such professionals accomplish those feats, it satisfies their own innate desire to do so, brought upon by their interest in the activity. This allows them to not attempt such feats and concentrate their energies on other activities. And professional athletes whose self-definition is grounded in their ability to compete in their sport of choice, affirm themselves by competing with others of their level or better. Take away their sports, and they lose their identity (look to the behaviors of retirees for a good idea of what happens).
On a related note, Buddhist teachings take the opposite direction, embracing the no-self as the solution.
What would you expect to happen to a country where the populace can't comprehend anything more than us versus them, and who aren't willing or interested in trying? When there are more people voting in American Idol than in the presidential elections, you know there's something deathly wrong with society.
To be fair, most members of this "counterculture" you speak of are either in jail for drug offenses, or too high to care. The rare few who are lucid are going through the hypocrite phase where they become vehement objectors to the behaviors that they once thrived under.
Maybe people should be encouraged to take a probability and statistics course in high school.
Wouldn't matter. People are psychologically wired to take risks based upon a cost-ideal outcome benefit analysis.
Society wouldn't be anywhere if people always calculated their risks. We are here because some idiot got lucky despite a thousand or a million other idiots dying under the same situation. In one case, that idiot is none other than Benjamin Franklin.
Well, the going down part could've happened on Dec 31st, 11:59, and the actual crash could've happened on Jan 1st, 12:00.
I think you've confused New York with Boston. Rule of thumb is, don't signal, just find your opening* and swerve in. If the guy behind you hits you, well, he obviously wasn't paying attention.
* The size of a typical opening varies from a quarter of your car's length to its length and half again.
It's the 20th anniversary of a certain event. I had expected something fairly flashy to originate from the online communities. You can think of this a moment of silence, if you'd like.