I'm only half-joking. I can recall several friends of mine who left the magnet high school they were attending to come to the same "normal" high school as me. Their reason? 3:1 guy to girl ratio.
As a member of the Triangle fraternity, a social fraternity of engineers and scientists, it saddens me to see a great deal of very talented potential engineer types leave the field due to them not wanting to be single-minded robots. The types of people we want in our brotherhood -- the same types of people who would WANT to join a fraternity in the first place -- are diminishing. I fear our fields may come to be totally overrun by the types of engineers who embody all the negative stereotypes.
Two things. 1) BMPs can actually make use of RLE compression (which is still fairly human-readable but only if you know how it works). 2) They're rendered upside-down. So when the aliens of the future try to figure out what humans looked like, they're wonder why pictures of us show us all standing on our heads.
An interesting drawback to digitalization
on
The Digital Dark Age
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Reminds me of a discussion I once got into about analog vs. digital storage. Some of the people on the analog side argued that the myth of digital media being everlasting is false -- which it is. Digital media, on their own, should be seen as temporary storage. The true virtue of digital media isn't even the media itself -- it's the content. Content is what can be copied over and over again with no degradation.
Like oral traditions, the chain of copying needs to remain unbroken for any information to truly last forever, outliving "mere mortal" media. As long as P2P networks continue to exist, I can die happily knowing that the sum of mankind's knowledge will be floating around there somewhere... even if it is buried under millions of terabytes worth of lesbian porn.;P
I skimmed the user comments but this one at the very bottom leered out at me: "Microsoft has changed the world. At this point, the fact that they have such a large percentage of the market is a good thing. It has also guaranteed that English will be the language of the world for many generations to come."
Translation: "It's because of Microsoft that neither I nor my decscendents for the next 12 generations will have to acknowledge the world outside the little bubble that is Decatur, Georgia."
Damn politicians thought they could just roll over the games industry eh?
Ohhh, that's what they think. In a bold stroke of irony, the developers of the next Katamari Damacy game will feature a level consisting entirely of anti-game politicians, lobbyist soccer moms, and parents who can't be bothered to be parents. Although this would normally not present much of a challenge, the game has added a new feature: for every one of these colorful characters you roll over, an proportional amount of bullshit is generated, slowing down your katamari's progress.
I always try to RTFA immediately after RTFSP (Reading The Fucking Slashdot Post), usually before RTFC (Reading The Fucking Comments), and certainly before MAFR (Making A Fucking Reply).:)
Why can we not come to a common ground and have the law enforce the MPAA ratings system? Treat movies like cigarettes, liquor, porn, and video games: make it illegal to let a minor into an R-rated movie alone.
If that doesn't get a rise out of somebody, try imposing a rating system on books, enforce THAT, and then we'll really see the feathers fly!
People, I'm not trying to say our government is out to get us, but if anyone wants to take away our freedom of expression, let's just say they're not going to do it all at once. They're going to do it piecemeal, slowly and very insidiously.
I agree that communities should get involved, the same way in which friends of an alcoholic might hold an intervention to get him to clean up his act.
However, I cannot support a government playing mother hen, *especially* not when other similar industries are not getting the same kind of legislation.
But why does this have to turn into yet another round of Sue Somebody(TM), much less the governor? Even if I were to sue somebody, I'd sue the state legislature first, or better yet, the special interest groups that started the bill in the first place.
So what would a language above knocking look like? Would it force you to use exactly the sort of syntax that the author thought "looked" the best, right down to the indentation/bracketing style?
I've seen beautiful but bloated Perl, and efficient but ugly Perl, and all shades in between. It's just a matter of compromise, and I for one like being able to choose where in the spectrum I want my code to fit.
If it looks like an emoticon, your Perl is probably syntactically correct.;)
See DeCSS decrypt! Decrypt, DeCSS, decrypt!
on
Brute Force
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· Score: 1
Maybe the author will follow up with a dozen-page illustrated children's book about how CSS was cracked.
Re:Access to what documentation exactly?
on
Microsoft Sues EU
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· Score: 1
That isn't the issue. Microsoft is forking over material related to their protocols, and they're not allowing the recipients to redistribute the material. Be it code or protocol docs, it's the same problem. And from the sound of the article, an NDA is exactly what Microsoft is using to keep competitors' mouths shut.
It's interesting because, on the surface, Microsoft appears to be actually loosening up a bit about its fistful of secrets. "Why don't we set down some general rules about who can see our code, and let the courts decide on a case-by-case basis?"
It almost had me fooled, too. Then I remembered that Microsoft, with its army of lawyers, would surely turn any lawsuit with a small F/OSS group into a circus. It seems MS doesn't even have to push through its agenda these days, all it has to do is agree to looser terms and then throw money at it to tighten it further.
Slashdot Mirror
Silly marketdroids - there never WAS an Enterprise class. They'd get more money if they called it "Constitution class" or "Galaxy class".
o/~ I was gonna pay my rent, but then I got high^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H played too much Civ IV o/~
That's why the guys are leaving. ;)
I'm only half-joking. I can recall several friends of mine who left the magnet high school they were attending to come to the same "normal" high school as me. Their reason? 3:1 guy to girl ratio.
As a member of the Triangle fraternity, a social fraternity of engineers and scientists, it saddens me to see a great deal of very talented potential engineer types leave the field due to them not wanting to be single-minded robots. The types of people we want in our brotherhood -- the same types of people who would WANT to join a fraternity in the first place -- are diminishing. I fear our fields may come to be totally overrun by the types of engineers who embody all the negative stereotypes.
Two things.
1) BMPs can actually make use of RLE compression (which is still fairly human-readable but only if you know how it works).
2) They're rendered upside-down. So when the aliens of the future try to figure out what humans looked like, they're wonder why pictures of us show us all standing on our heads.
Reminds me of a discussion I once got into about analog vs. digital storage. Some of the people on the analog side argued that the myth of digital media being everlasting is false -- which it is. Digital media, on their own, should be seen as temporary storage. The true virtue of digital media isn't even the media itself -- it's the content. Content is what can be copied over and over again with no degradation.
;P
Like oral traditions, the chain of copying needs to remain unbroken for any information to truly last forever, outliving "mere mortal" media. As long as P2P networks continue to exist, I can die happily knowing that the sum of mankind's knowledge will be floating around there somewhere... even if it is buried under millions of terabytes worth of lesbian porn.
I skimmed the user comments but this one at the very bottom leered out at me:
"Microsoft has changed the world. At this point, the fact that they have such a large percentage of the market is a good thing. It has also guaranteed that English will be the language of the world for many generations to come."
Translation:
"It's because of Microsoft that neither I nor my decscendents for the next 12 generations will have to acknowledge the world outside the little bubble that is Decatur, Georgia."
At least it appears that way. They say getting /.ed is the first time your server really gets tested.
Or maybe they ran the software on their own server and it deleted their pirated copy of IIS.
You need to calm down. Here, have a cool glass of Dihydrogen Monoxide.
Ohhh, that's what they think. In a bold stroke of irony, the developers of the next Katamari Damacy game will feature a level consisting entirely of anti-game politicians, lobbyist soccer moms, and parents who can't be bothered to be parents. Although this would normally not present much of a challenge, the game has added a new feature: for every one of these colorful characters you roll over, an proportional amount of bullshit is generated, slowing down your katamari's progress.
I always try to RTFA immediately after RTFSP (Reading The Fucking Slashdot Post), usually before RTFC (Reading The Fucking Comments), and certainly before MAFR (Making A Fucking Reply). :)
Why can we not come to a common ground and have the law enforce the MPAA ratings system? Treat movies like cigarettes, liquor, porn, and video games: make it illegal to let a minor into an R-rated movie alone.
If that doesn't get a rise out of somebody, try imposing a rating system on books, enforce THAT, and then we'll really see the feathers fly!
People, I'm not trying to say our government is out to get us, but if anyone wants to take away our freedom of expression, let's just say they're not going to do it all at once. They're going to do it piecemeal, slowly and very insidiously.
I agree that communities should get involved, the same way in which friends of an alcoholic might hold an intervention to get him to clean up his act. However, I cannot support a government playing mother hen, *especially* not when other similar industries are not getting the same kind of legislation.
But why does this have to turn into yet another round of Sue Somebody(TM), much less the governor? Even if I were to sue somebody, I'd sue the state legislature first, or better yet, the special interest groups that started the bill in the first place.
So what would a language above knocking look like? Would it force you to use exactly the sort of syntax that the author thought "looked" the best, right down to the indentation/bracketing style?
I've seen beautiful but bloated Perl, and efficient but ugly Perl, and all shades in between. It's just a matter of compromise, and I for one like being able to choose where in the spectrum I want my code to fit.
If it looks like an emoticon, your Perl is probably syntactically correct. ;)
Maybe the author will follow up with a dozen-page illustrated children's book about how CSS was cracked.
That isn't the issue. Microsoft is forking over material related to their protocols, and they're not allowing the recipients to redistribute the material. Be it code or protocol docs, it's the same problem. And from the sound of the article, an NDA is exactly what Microsoft is using to keep competitors' mouths shut.
It's interesting because, on the surface, Microsoft appears to be actually loosening up a bit about its fistful of secrets. "Why don't we set down some general rules about who can see our code, and let the courts decide on a case-by-case basis?"
/. post. :)
It almost had me fooled, too. Then I remembered that Microsoft, with its army of lawyers, would surely turn any lawsuit with a small F/OSS group into a circus. It seems MS doesn't even have to push through its agenda these days, all it has to do is agree to looser terms and then throw money at it to tighten it further.
Oh, and first