I personally believe that _anything_ that helps us get off this planet is basically a good thing. I don't just believe this because of the eggs in one basket argument, though that is an important reason for humanity to not just live on Earth. The main argument in my eyes is that the faster we get into space, the faster I (or my son/daughter, or their son/daughter, etc) am going to get a spaceship.
Also, it's a big dead rock in space now. Geologically it's pretty useful. Militarily it's an imperative to control it so that someone else doesn't. It _will_ be of strategic importance in the future.
Mining the moon for minerals is _not_ raping it. Firstly, you're using the word rape badly (rape requires ability to consent, unless you look to some archaic texts). The moon cannot give consent. It's a rock. It cannot be raped. Secondly, why on earth would mining the moon be considered bad in the first place? I mean, as you said, it's just a big old rock.
yeah pretty worthless, I've bought $1000 worth of drive from them, but that's after jan 1 2006. Even if if it was before that, I would have to file 10 seperate claims for ~$5 each. Meanwhile the cocksucking trial lawyers get a cool 1.8mibillion in cash.
I'm curious - if you think that in the long term it'll generally have better quality articles than those on wikipedia, after a year, it should definitely have at least a few. Are there any?
I'm not denigrating Citizendium or attempting to here, just asking if if there are really better entries there.
Did you even read any of the other comments? These two are not in any way affiliated with the ODF specification. They're just a couple of guys who may or may not have been paid off. Even if they have not been paid by MS, they're nobodies in terms of ODF.
Governments are currently demanding change, within departments, to open document formats. That is where the change is coming. When you can only send a document in an open format to governments, rather than proprietary formats, people will have to start using open formats. And that will cut into Microsoft's monopoly, slowly, but surely. Of course many will continue to use MS products, because of inertia, and some genuinely do prefer them. However, Microsoft will not have the artificial leverage over the document format it does now, it'll be closer to an even playing field.
You wouldn't steal a handbag. You wouldn't steal a car. You wouldn't steal a baby. You wouldn't shoot a policeman... and then steal his helmet. You wouldn't go to the toilet in his helmet... and then send it to the policeman's grieving widow... and then steal it again! Downloading films is stealing. If you do it, you will face the consequences.
Quit trolling and add something to the discussion. Not everyone here loves pirating movies, music and games. I personally buy lots of games, some movies, and listen to the radio and old music I bought. I also am not a huge fan of the Wii, either.
Slashdot does not, despite what you may believe, consist purely of moronic fucktards trying to get everything they can for free as quickly as possible. Though admittedly snide bastards are on the increase.
Erm... what world do you live on? No, it's not illegal, anywhere. Even here in the UK where we have some weird data protection act implications (which are beneficial in loads of ways), recording IPs is fine, since the IP is not necessarily tied to a specific person. Where on earth did you get the idea that your IP is somehow private?
This is a God of the gaps argument. The only religious people I respect now are those who do not try to explain with God. God is not, and never will be a decent explanation for anything. What I'm really saying is that I have more respect for those who claim to have just found God rather than those who needed an explanation for everything and found it in dogma.
The resulting photo is 150000 dpi, not the scan from what I understand. And yes, I agree it is a stupid way to phrase it. The scanning technology is more important.
I just watched the video - there was no one on the video who I would definitely call an asshole. Some of them didn't know their ass from the innards of a PC, though. One test they set - dead RAM - is difficult to diagnose if you don't have the right tools (which admittedly they should). Most of the "techs" on the video just didn't know a huge amount. Those that did they attempted to slate for charging over web prices for on the spot RAM. That was what really annoyed me (especially since the prices weren't hugely inflated) - Of course you're not going to get web prices when someone comes out and fixes it for you. You think plumbers and electricians charge the same prices they bought stuff for?
Anyway, I'm not surprised by this video at all, and not depressed by it. I always knew that lots of techs sent out by big companies to consumers were less knowledgeable than they should be. Calling them assholes is unjust.... they just took a job they're not really qualified enough in.
If I heard correctly, out of 10, 3 didn't fix the RAM problem and didn't charge, 3 fixed the problem, and 4 charged for time and didn't fix the problem. That's about as good as I expected it to be from major companies.
Have a look at Galactic Civilizations, I and II - Granted, on the higher levels the computer does cheat (production etc bonuses), but many people still cannot beat them on the non-cheating levels. I'm far from saying the AI is unbeatable, but it is pretty good. I personally can win on non-cheating levels most of the time, but I get my arse handed to me quite often too. I do have some very flawed strategies though, that I continue to use because I enjoy the game more. The most obvious of these is that I'm a builder, and I can't bear to see anything I've nurtured to a decent level lost, so I defend each and every colony fully. This is most definitely a poor strategy to use all the time, but I enjoy the game more using it.
One other advantage people have over the computer is save/reload. It's become so ubiquitous it's almost an integral part of modern games. That's why save points on consoles are put just before dangerous fights.
My doctor does this too. Only last week I went in for an ingrowing toenail, and he set me on fire. I couldn't feel the pain of my toenail at all after that! Brilliant!
That was basically my point. The example I gave shows that. Species A does regularly breed with B, B does with C, C does with D, and D does with E. However, A does not regularly breed with E. Do you see what I'm getting at here? This could be extended to language too. Person A and B can communicate using the same language, as can B and C, C and D, and D and E. However person A cannot communicate with person E.
I guess what I'm saying is that being able to communicate _cannot_ define a language, because of chains like this. In a simple three person chain, if person A can communicate with B, and B with C, but A cannot with C, with B using the same language all the time, it screws up the communication definition of language. This is because you'd have to define person A and person C's languages as separate because they can't communicate. However, you'd also have to define them as the same simultaneously, because of person B's communication with both.
I know its OT, but your definition of a species does not work. Look at Ring Species for example. From that article:
A classic example of ring species is the Larus gulls circumpolar species "ring". The range of these gulls forms a ring around the North Pole. The Herring Gull, which lives primarily in Great Britain, can hybridize with the American Herring Gull (living in North America), which can also interbreed with the Vega or East Siberian Herring Gull, the western subspecies of which, Birula's Gull, can hybridize with Heuglin's gull, which in turn can interbreed with the Siberian Lesser Black-backed Gull (all four of these live across the north of Siberia). The last is the eastern representative of the Lesser Black-backed Gulls back in north-western Europe, including Great Britain. However, the Lesser Black-backed Gulls and Herring Gull are sufficiently different that they do not normally interbreed
Better to have military service as a prerequisite for citizenship, because then, at least, the citizens would have to have shown themselves willing put themselves at the service of the country
Wow, what a good idea. You've got to prove that you're willing to be killed for the government of the land you live on. I mean, you can't prove your citizenship by any other means, right?
Then I'm part of the problem. As I said before, I've not given Microsoft a cent since my 2k purchase, so I'm not sure how I'm a snowflake. I'm not a fan of MS.
I'm also not absolutely sure you know how monopolies work when unrestricted - they will destroy any competition, fast. People power does not work. I wish you could prove me wrong.
The only way to curtail a monopoly is government intervention.
I was basically responding to your sensationalism in the original post - "You're going to die because you're not prepared!" sentiments. I don't know you, but you seem to be expressing that kind of view.
If the global shit does ever hit the fan, there will still probably be _loads_ of people. Claiming that hunter gatherer techniques are the way to protect yourself is stupid. If there are still a large number of people still around (ie more than a couple of million), hunter gatherer techniques would essentially be useless - There are too many people and too few resources. Farming took us out of the stone age for a reason. Farmers, and those who protect farmers, would be our salvation, not hunters.
I'm happy to be ignorant of a hell of a lot of stuff. Everyone _must_ be happy to be ignorant of a lot of stuff. You can't learn everything.
Why not then use the best of both worlds? Have the OS on the flash, and have everything else, including the swap file on a separate hard drive. After all, 640Gb should be enough for any OS.
As a home desktop system, XP has very very few advantages over 2000. All it is is basically a different skin. I realise it has other benefits, like better memory management, and rollout features, but to be honest they're not relevant to users generally. Microsoft could have done _nothing_ over the past 7 years or so, and they'd have a decent operating system. They are both good operating systems, and anyone who claims otherwise probably hasn't used them.
For an example, I'm currently running 2k. I've not reinstalled since I installed on this machine about 5 years ago. Yes, my system has 5 years of crap in the registry, and that same 5 year old system was playing Oblivion earlier today. I've never tried uptime tests, but I've kept it up for over a month in the past without problems (it was a DHCP server for my house, along with being my main computer). I've been hit with malware twice - Once a trojan that was relatively easy to kill, and once some obscure spyware trojan rootkit that was a PITA to get rid of.
My point is that 2k is a stable and decent system - people are not angry at MS because of their operating systems generally (though standard security is a problem), they are angry because of their lack of open standards, and their ruthless destruction of the competition. I'm angry at them for that - I hate microsoft for their business practices. But I don't hate them for their operating systems.
I'm sorry... whenever I hear this kind of comment I think of a wonderful practical joke. What you do is you turn off the water and electricity and get the media to say that this is the end of the world as we know it.
Everyone like you would rush to the streams and start trying to spear fish. I would _love_ to see 100 people like you trying to spear fish in the same stretch of stream... it'd make my life.
Needless to say the leccy and water would be put back on... we'd see how long you survive out there with each other:)
Anyone who is a games player basically must buy Windows. It is possible to be a games player using other operating systems, but you need to be vaguely technically adept and accept that a large proportion of games released will simply not work with your OS. If you don't need games, or Windows specific applications, then Windows is completely unnecessary. Try explaining that to people though...
It's all very well being self righteous, but it isn't practical for the vast majority of people. Perhaps you don't have a need for knowledge of Microsoft products, but some people do, and it pays their bills. I'm one of them, to some degree.
I'm currently in the situation in which I've got an old version of windows 2000 (which incidently is a great MS product) on my computer, and I'm just about to upgrade to new hardware. I'm planning on my primary working environment to be Linux (not sure which distro yet... possibly Slackware), but I might buy Vista basic OEM for nothing else but to play games. Sue me if I'm part of the problem - I've paid absolutely 0 to Microsoft in 7 years (technically I've never paid money to microsoft, I got my win2k from my father).
People are selfish and have their own agendas, and my buying or not buying Vista will not affect the world at large. What does affect the world at large are the tie-ins between the major companies to screw the small time players.
Open standards and getting rid of standard OEM installation are what will destroy the MS monopoly, not individuals who know about their choices choosing.
Why did the RIAA target people who could defend themselves? i.e. the inocent
I dunno... cos they're idiots?
When I originally read this, I assumed you were implying those who the RIAA were suing were idiots. And to be honest, that's true to some extent. The RIAA are not going to go after anyone rich, famous, or talented because they won't win. Or they might win, but the rich, famous, or talented person will start campaigning against them. They deliberately go after the disadvantaged because they can't fight back.
Slashdot Mirror
I personally believe that _anything_ that helps us get off this planet is basically a good thing. I don't just believe this because of the eggs in one basket argument, though that is an important reason for humanity to not just live on Earth. The main argument in my eyes is that the faster we get into space, the faster I (or my son/daughter, or their son/daughter, etc) am going to get a spaceship.
Also, it's a big dead rock in space now. Geologically it's pretty useful. Militarily it's an imperative to control it so that someone else doesn't. It _will_ be of strategic importance in the future.
Mining the moon for minerals is _not_ raping it. Firstly, you're using the word rape badly (rape requires ability to consent, unless you look to some archaic texts). The moon cannot give consent. It's a rock. It cannot be raped. Secondly, why on earth would mining the moon be considered bad in the first place? I mean, as you said, it's just a big old rock.
Don't exaggerate, there, I fixed that for you.
I'm curious - if you think that in the long term it'll generally have better quality articles than those on wikipedia, after a year, it should definitely have at least a few. Are there any?
I'm not denigrating Citizendium or attempting to here, just asking if if there are really better entries there.
Did you even read any of the other comments? These two are not in any way affiliated with the ODF specification. They're just a couple of guys who may or may not have been paid off. Even if they have not been paid by MS, they're nobodies in terms of ODF.
Governments are currently demanding change, within departments, to open document formats. That is where the change is coming. When you can only send a document in an open format to governments, rather than proprietary formats, people will have to start using open formats. And that will cut into Microsoft's monopoly, slowly, but surely. Of course many will continue to use MS products, because of inertia, and some genuinely do prefer them. However, Microsoft will not have the artificial leverage over the document format it does now, it'll be closer to an even playing field.
You wouldn't steal a handbag. You wouldn't steal a car. You wouldn't steal a baby. You wouldn't shoot a policeman... and then steal his helmet. You wouldn't go to the toilet in his helmet... and then send it to the policeman's grieving widow... and then steal it again! Downloading films is stealing. If you do it, you will face the consequences.
Quit trolling and add something to the discussion. Not everyone here loves pirating movies, music and games. I personally buy lots of games, some movies, and listen to the radio and old music I bought. I also am not a huge fan of the Wii, either.
Slashdot does not, despite what you may believe, consist purely of moronic fucktards trying to get everything they can for free as quickly as possible. Though admittedly snide bastards are on the increase.
Erm... what world do you live on? No, it's not illegal, anywhere. Even here in the UK where we have some weird data protection act implications (which are beneficial in loads of ways), recording IPs is fine, since the IP is not necessarily tied to a specific person. Where on earth did you get the idea that your IP is somehow private?
If this was a joke, whoooosh for me
This is a God of the gaps argument. The only religious people I respect now are those who do not try to explain with God. God is not, and never will be a decent explanation for anything. What I'm really saying is that I have more respect for those who claim to have just found God rather than those who needed an explanation for everything and found it in dogma.
The resulting photo is 150000 dpi, not the scan from what I understand. And yes, I agree it is a stupid way to phrase it. The scanning technology is more important.
I just watched the video - there was no one on the video who I would definitely call an asshole. Some of them didn't know their ass from the innards of a PC, though. One test they set - dead RAM - is difficult to diagnose if you don't have the right tools (which admittedly they should). Most of the "techs" on the video just didn't know a huge amount. Those that did they attempted to slate for charging over web prices for on the spot RAM. That was what really annoyed me (especially since the prices weren't hugely inflated) - Of course you're not going to get web prices when someone comes out and fixes it for you. You think plumbers and electricians charge the same prices they bought stuff for?
Anyway, I'm not surprised by this video at all, and not depressed by it. I always knew that lots of techs sent out by big companies to consumers were less knowledgeable than they should be. Calling them assholes is unjust.... they just took a job they're not really qualified enough in.
If I heard correctly, out of 10, 3 didn't fix the RAM problem and didn't charge, 3 fixed the problem, and 4 charged for time and didn't fix the problem. That's about as good as I expected it to be from major companies.
Have a look at Galactic Civilizations, I and II - Granted, on the higher levels the computer does cheat (production etc bonuses), but many people still cannot beat them on the non-cheating levels. I'm far from saying the AI is unbeatable, but it is pretty good. I personally can win on non-cheating levels most of the time, but I get my arse handed to me quite often too. I do have some very flawed strategies though, that I continue to use because I enjoy the game more. The most obvious of these is that I'm a builder, and I can't bear to see anything I've nurtured to a decent level lost, so I defend each and every colony fully. This is most definitely a poor strategy to use all the time, but I enjoy the game more using it.
One other advantage people have over the computer is save/reload. It's become so ubiquitous it's almost an integral part of modern games. That's why save points on consoles are put just before dangerous fights.
My doctor does this too. Only last week I went in for an ingrowing toenail, and he set me on fire. I couldn't feel the pain of my toenail at all after that! Brilliant!
That was basically my point. The example I gave shows that. Species A does regularly breed with B, B does with C, C does with D, and D does with E. However, A does not regularly breed with E. Do you see what I'm getting at here? This could be extended to language too. Person A and B can communicate using the same language, as can B and C, C and D, and D and E. However person A cannot communicate with person E.
I guess what I'm saying is that being able to communicate _cannot_ define a language, because of chains like this. In a simple three person chain, if person A can communicate with B, and B with C, but A cannot with C, with B using the same language all the time, it screws up the communication definition of language. This is because you'd have to define person A and person C's languages as separate because they can't communicate. However, you'd also have to define them as the same simultaneously, because of person B's communication with both.
I know its OT, but your definition of a species does not work. Look at Ring Species for example. From that article :
Better to have military service as a prerequisite for citizenship, because then, at least, the citizens would have to have shown themselves willing put themselves at the service of the country
Wow, what a good idea. You've got to prove that you're willing to be killed for the government of the land you live on. I mean, you can't prove your citizenship by any other means, right?
Then I'm part of the problem. As I said before, I've not given Microsoft a cent since my 2k purchase, so I'm not sure how I'm a snowflake. I'm not a fan of MS.
I'm also not absolutely sure you know how monopolies work when unrestricted - they will destroy any competition, fast. People power does not work. I wish you could prove me wrong.
The only way to curtail a monopoly is government intervention.
I was basically responding to your sensationalism in the original post - "You're going to die because you're not prepared!" sentiments. I don't know you, but you seem to be expressing that kind of view.
If the global shit does ever hit the fan, there will still probably be _loads_ of people. Claiming that hunter gatherer techniques are the way to protect yourself is stupid. If there are still a large number of people still around (ie more than a couple of million), hunter gatherer techniques would essentially be useless - There are too many people and too few resources. Farming took us out of the stone age for a reason. Farmers, and those who protect farmers, would be our salvation, not hunters.
I'm happy to be ignorant of a hell of a lot of stuff. Everyone _must_ be happy to be ignorant of a lot of stuff. You can't learn everything.
Why not then use the best of both worlds? Have the OS on the flash, and have everything else, including the swap file on a separate hard drive. After all, 640Gb should be enough for any OS.
As a home desktop system, XP has very very few advantages over 2000. All it is is basically a different skin. I realise it has other benefits, like better memory management, and rollout features, but to be honest they're not relevant to users generally. Microsoft could have done _nothing_ over the past 7 years or so, and they'd have a decent operating system. They are both good operating systems, and anyone who claims otherwise probably hasn't used them.
For an example, I'm currently running 2k. I've not reinstalled since I installed on this machine about 5 years ago. Yes, my system has 5 years of crap in the registry, and that same 5 year old system was playing Oblivion earlier today. I've never tried uptime tests, but I've kept it up for over a month in the past without problems (it was a DHCP server for my house, along with being my main computer). I've been hit with malware twice - Once a trojan that was relatively easy to kill, and once some obscure spyware trojan rootkit that was a PITA to get rid of.
My point is that 2k is a stable and decent system - people are not angry at MS because of their operating systems generally (though standard security is a problem), they are angry because of their lack of open standards, and their ruthless destruction of the competition. I'm angry at them for that - I hate microsoft for their business practices. But I don't hate them for their operating systems.
Damn that was funny - I missed that in the GP post
I'm sorry... whenever I hear this kind of comment I think of a wonderful practical joke. What you do is you turn off the water and electricity and get the media to say that this is the end of the world as we know it.
Everyone like you would rush to the streams and start trying to spear fish. I would _love_ to see 100 people like you trying to spear fish in the same stretch of stream... it'd make my life.
Needless to say the leccy and water would be put back on... we'd see how long you survive out there with each other :)
Anyone who is a games player basically must buy Windows. It is possible to be a games player using other operating systems, but you need to be vaguely technically adept and accept that a large proportion of games released will simply not work with your OS. If you don't need games, or Windows specific applications, then Windows is completely unnecessary. Try explaining that to people though...
It's all very well being self righteous, but it isn't practical for the vast majority of people. Perhaps you don't have a need for knowledge of Microsoft products, but some people do, and it pays their bills. I'm one of them, to some degree.
I'm currently in the situation in which I've got an old version of windows 2000 (which incidently is a great MS product) on my computer, and I'm just about to upgrade to new hardware. I'm planning on my primary working environment to be Linux (not sure which distro yet... possibly Slackware), but I might buy Vista basic OEM for nothing else but to play games. Sue me if I'm part of the problem - I've paid absolutely 0 to Microsoft in 7 years (technically I've never paid money to microsoft, I got my win2k from my father).
People are selfish and have their own agendas, and my buying or not buying Vista will not affect the world at large. What does affect the world at large are the tie-ins between the major companies to screw the small time players.
Open standards and getting rid of standard OEM installation are what will destroy the MS monopoly, not individuals who know about their choices choosing.
Why did the RIAA target people who could defend themselves? i.e. the inocent
I dunno... cos they're idiots?
When I originally read this, I assumed you were implying those who the RIAA were suing were idiots. And to be honest, that's true to some extent. The RIAA are not going to go after anyone rich, famous, or talented because they won't win. Or they might win, but the rich, famous, or talented person will start campaigning against them. They deliberately go after the disadvantaged because they can't fight back.