That record of the email wouldn't be admissible in court. The chain of custody would be broken, and there's no telling what the offline, backed up computer did to it before saving it. I could just make up a bunch of emails I got from you that were "deleted everywhere else".
Better examples of places that have no good reason to ask for it are your cell phone provider, electric company, cable company, etc. Yes, in some states, they can't require it and can force you to pay a deposit instead
My electric company demanded my SSN and STILL required a deposit. Why? Because I have "no credit history". Yeah, damn me for saving my money instead of going into debt. Who the **** do I think I am, staying out of debt? That's un-American!
What is up with treating people who stay out of debt as bad risks?
"Try to help"? Here is examples of them "trying to help":
-blatantly ignoring what I said in the first post (like about how I tried to install multiple times and verified the install CD was burned correctly)
-asking things obviously irrelevant to GRUB error 25 (like what version of Windows) and then pretending like not giving them that information makes it impossible for them to give advice on how to fix the boot loader
-despite what you say, they DID claim I was in error to fail to take precautions I could not possibly have known to take (I "should have known to" download a Live CD, "test install" it on a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT COMPUTER, not trust its suggestion that install GRUB, have my Windows CD ready, and so on -- yes, they actually recommend finding MS software before installing Ubuntu. UBUNTU!)
-they didn't answer direction questions, like those here:
When I tried to install Ubuntu (some of you may recall my relentless griping about that), that's what it essentially was -- pop in CD and follow some basic instructions. That part, I handled great. But oops - I was stupid enough to follow its instructions to install GRUB, which crashed on boot-up due to an an error (error 25, hard drive read error, too bad the hard drive was and still is working perfectly fine). And, oopsy-daisy, that locked me out of both OS's.
(Bad Ubuntu joke -- why do Ubuntu users recommend you have the Windows CD ready when installing Ubuntu? Because when it really has to work, they trust a reliable operating system.)
I would be tickled pink if I were using Ubuntu today, but I can't because of minor errors like this. And the only support I got in the forums was, "you idiot, why didn't you [perform precaution mentioned nowhere in the install instructions]". If they could just Q/A the install process, they would probably get a lot more users. I doubt I'm the only one turned away like this.
But just a teeny tiny bit. People who claim innovation has ended because "we've invented everything already" are inevitably wrong, because future knowledge cannot be predicted (or it would be present knowledge). However, we do need to keep in mind that people solve the easiest, most beneficial technological problems first. So you necessarily see a progression where it takes more investment to achieve "wow" technological breakthroughs. (I hear a lot of PhD students on Slashdot talk about how $PHYSICS_GREAT's dissertation was ~15 pages, while theirs is 150. This is an example of the above effect.)
We *may* have passed the point where one person working alone can come up with great ideas, but even that is far from certain. So yeah, this is just another necessarily false prediction, but it's true innovation keeps getting harder.
The credit card companies and banks, whose lax security fuels billions of dollars of losses and ruined lives through identity theft, will emerge unscathed.
And they probably won't even change their policies.
There is some serious saturation going on. Originally, there was no internet availability, yet people who wanted it. Now, that number is a lot smaller. You can only involve so many people. I mean, what would we have to do to keep the doomsayers calm? Double the number of blogs again?
This is great, just great. Any attempt to debunk the cult-like aura around Shakespeare's work means I must have been molested by an English prof. Wow, I must have really struck a nerve.
Doesn't it amaze you at all that, basically, no one gives a fuck about this "culture" you revere? Who really enjoy's Shakespeare's work today? More or less than the number of people who have played GTA? But aha! You found your escape hatch -- anything remotely based on Shakespeare counts as cultural endurance. Plot about lovers whose parents hate each other? SHAKESPEARE! Plot about revenge of a father's murder? SHAKESPEARE! Plot about killing more people to hide an earlier murder? SHAKESPEARE! Dumbed down plot in a movie featuring DiCaprio and Danes? SHAKESPEARE! Okay, I grant when you claim credit for everything remotely similar to your work, you won't be suprised at your level of influence. (That's how the patent mess got to where it is today.) But please, don't claim that Shakespeare's works are read today by the masses for any "literary merit". To get them involved, you need a dumbed down plot.
If a fringe group of people have a fanatical devotion to World of Warcraft, they're just weirdos. But if it's Shakespeare, hey, that's evidence of greatness. It just blows my mind. Oh, and I love that bit about "presenting his ideas" well. I mean, what is that? 90% of the population doesn't even understand it the first time through. That comment sounds eerily similar to the "oh, he speaks so well" compliment people always reserve for the mentally challenged.
Shakespeare is great because he's endured so long. He's endured so long because he's great.
You can learn a lot when you read someone's posts. They may have perspective or knowledge you haven't yet become privy to. That's one of the things I like about this site, you can really learn from a wide variety of people things you would otherwise never come across! It's great, it really is. Long story short, you should read people's posts -- especially before responding!
Why do I bring this up? Because you quite obviously didn't read my post. I didn't dispute that there are useful categorizations that put Shakespeare's English in the same category as what people speak today, i.e., that we and he spoke "modern English". The whole point of my posts was to criticize the hyperbole going on when people try to express this or similar ideas. The GGP said that 90% is "identical" to what we speak today. Yet it's not. And it's important that we critically evaluate such statements before they become "true" by force of repitition.
If you don't appreciate Shakespeare, that's your problem (and I'm sorry for you!). But they're fundamentally different entities. Both have their merits, but to compare them is pretty absurd.
So in other words, you agree with me that Ebert's comments (comparing them) are off base.
But as long as we're feeling sorry for each other, I'm sorry you wasted all that time getting acquainted with what is fundamentally a clique phenomenon that the overwhelming majority of normal people don't care much for (if you got them to comment on the matter off the record, of course).
Shakespeare wrote in modern English. About 90% of his English is identical to what we speak today.
Uh........... no. You're just reciting the ivory tower story that gets repeated over and over until it's finally accepted as common knowledge. Think about this claim for once. "identical" to what we speak today? REALLY? Could we lay off the hyperbole? "identical" would imply mutual comprehensibility. Now, can you imagine the average person following a few lines from Shakespeare without guidance, let alone talking like that today? The article you linked is correct that many of the *words* are used, but all that glitters is not reductionism. Every Shakespeare text I remember using is dotted with little footnotes "oh, that term meant something else back then". If you have to study even the most basic line to figure out what it means, it's not "identical to what we speak today".
I've known a lot of people who, despite not knowing German, correctly guessed that "Der Feind meines Feindes ist mein Freund" means "the foe of my foe is my friend". Does that mean German is "identical to what we speak today"? I've also seen a questionaire given to schoolchildren that read exactly as follows: "Agree or disagree: 'The evil that men do lives after them. The good is [often buried] with their bones.'" Yet, people still say "oft interred", don't they? They don't? Fuck.
Shakespeare wrote in English. But please, for the love of God, stop parroting that his English was "identical to what we speak today".
Let's not kid ourselves here. The people who genuinely enjoy a by-the-book Shakespearean play (not a new "interpretation" or "variation", the real McCoy), irrespective of any historical or cultural reverence don't crack 1% of the population. Not even a half percent, probably. How many people at your workplace would voluntarily spend their own time reading Shakespeare? How many people even understand more than half the lines?
Genuine devotion to Shakespeare is confined to small circles who perpetuate him for its own sake, rather than because of a genuine passion for it. That's why theatres that perform his works always require large donations from wealthy people or governments to stay remotely afloat.
I doubt their persistence has anything whatsoever to do with speaking to the "human condition". In the broad sense of the term, anyone can, and many have spoken to the human condition without having their works perpetuated by fanatical followers.
Don't take my word for it -- how much of *your* own time did you voluntarily devote to the work of Shakespeare in the past, say, 12 months? And remember, you're at the very, very, very, very high end.
I think it's kind of like wine tasting. No one really can tell a good one from a bad, not in a blind taste test. You become a wine aficionado for the social benefits, not because of a refined palate.
would be played 500 years from now, like the works of Shakespeare are enjoyed today?
Are Shakespeare's works seriously "enjoyed" today? How many people who have to study his works today in school enjoy doing it vs. playing GTA? And what's the deal with the "500 year standard", it's circular and self-fulfilling. We read/view performances of Shakespeare 500 years later, because they're so great, as evidenced by how people still read/view it 500 years later! Go us!
How many people, as a fraction of the population, go to Shakespeare plays *purely* for the joy of seeing it, irrespective of the buzz behind them? How will that compare to the fraction who plays Rockstar games 500 years from now?
In my field, ten percent is everything. If I could increase performance by ten percent, I'd get a 100% bonus for the year. My servers need to handle so much data and are always backlogged (and adding more on is exensive!) Don't trivialize ten percent.
Another overrated modding for a post of mine that hadn't previously been rated, courtesy of my Slashdot nemeses. Can't you guys think of anything original?
That's a horrible definition. *All* chemical processes "exploit phenomena and structures that can only occur at the nanometer scale" because the processes happen at the molecular level! But I guess that's the point, isn't it? The broader the scope of "nanotechnology", the easier it is to get funded. The broader the definition of "terrorist", the easier it is to get support for your policies. The broader the definition of "technology", the easier it is to get people to buy the latest Microsoft bells and whistles.
Slashdot Mirror
The Postal Service sometimes takes longer to deliver messages than email.
That record of the email wouldn't be admissible in court. The chain of custody would be broken, and there's no telling what the offline, backed up computer did to it before saving it. I could just make up a bunch of emails I got from you that were "deleted everywhere else".
Better examples of places that have no good reason to ask for it are your cell phone provider, electric company, cable company, etc. Yes, in some states, they can't require it and can force you to pay a deposit instead
My electric company demanded my SSN and STILL required a deposit. Why? Because I have "no credit history". Yeah, damn me for saving my money instead of going into debt. Who the **** do I think I am, staying out of debt? That's un-American!
What is up with treating people who stay out of debt as bad risks?
Check my history. Check my freaks list. People mod me down because they hate me, not necessarily because it was warranted.
"Try to help"? Here is examples of them "trying to help":
o st690130
t count=5
-blatantly ignoring what I said in the first post (like about how I tried to install multiple times and verified the install CD was burned correctly)
-asking things obviously irrelevant to GRUB error 25 (like what version of Windows) and then pretending like not giving them that information makes it impossible for them to give advice on how to fix the boot loader
-despite what you say, they DID claim I was in error to fail to take precautions I could not possibly have known to take (I "should have known to" download a Live CD, "test install" it on a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT COMPUTER, not trust its suggestion that install GRUB, have my Windows CD ready, and so on -- yes, they actually recommend finding MS software before installing Ubuntu. UBUNTU!)
-they didn't answer direction questions, like those here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=690130#p
and here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=686369&pos
Plus, they deleted many of my posts, the ones more critical of their OS and attitudes.
When Linux users actually *see what it's like* from a newcomer's perspectives, maybe they'll "get it".
When I tried to install Ubuntu (some of you may recall my relentless griping about that), that's what it essentially was -- pop in CD and follow some basic instructions. That part, I handled great. But oops - I was stupid enough to follow its instructions to install GRUB, which crashed on boot-up due to an an error (error 25, hard drive read error, too bad the hard drive was and still is working perfectly fine). And, oopsy-daisy, that locked me out of both OS's.
(Bad Ubuntu joke -- why do Ubuntu users recommend you have the Windows CD ready when installing Ubuntu? Because when it really has to work, they trust a reliable operating system.)
I would be tickled pink if I were using Ubuntu today, but I can't because of minor errors like this. And the only support I got in the forums was, "you idiot, why didn't you [perform precaution mentioned nowhere in the install instructions]". If they could just Q/A the install process, they would probably get a lot more users. I doubt I'm the only one turned away like this.
But just a teeny tiny bit. People who claim innovation has ended because "we've invented everything already" are inevitably wrong, because future knowledge cannot be predicted (or it would be present knowledge). However, we do need to keep in mind that people solve the easiest, most beneficial technological problems first. So you necessarily see a progression where it takes more investment to achieve "wow" technological breakthroughs. (I hear a lot of PhD students on Slashdot talk about how $PHYSICS_GREAT's dissertation was ~15 pages, while theirs is 150. This is an example of the above effect.)
We *may* have passed the point where one person working alone can come up with great ideas, but even that is far from certain. So yeah, this is just another necessarily false prediction, but it's true innovation keeps getting harder.
LOL! You use full-service gas stations? Where do you live, Oregon? Aren't you guys EVER going to repeal that ridiculous law?
The credit card companies and banks, whose lax security fuels billions of dollars of losses and ruined lives through identity theft, will emerge unscathed.
And they probably won't even change their policies.
There is some serious saturation going on. Originally, there was no internet availability, yet people who wanted it. Now, that number is a lot smaller. You can only involve so many people. I mean, what would we have to do to keep the doomsayers calm? Double the number of blogs again?
This is great, just great. Any attempt to debunk the cult-like aura around Shakespeare's work means I must have been molested by an English prof. Wow, I must have really struck a nerve.
Doesn't it amaze you at all that, basically, no one gives a fuck about this "culture" you revere? Who really enjoy's Shakespeare's work today? More or less than the number of people who have played GTA? But aha! You found your escape hatch -- anything remotely based on Shakespeare counts as cultural endurance. Plot about lovers whose parents hate each other? SHAKESPEARE! Plot about revenge of a father's murder? SHAKESPEARE! Plot about killing more people to hide an earlier murder? SHAKESPEARE! Dumbed down plot in a movie featuring DiCaprio and Danes? SHAKESPEARE! Okay, I grant when you claim credit for everything remotely similar to your work, you won't be suprised at your level of influence. (That's how the patent mess got to where it is today.) But please, don't claim that Shakespeare's works are read today by the masses for any "literary merit". To get them involved, you need a dumbed down plot.
If a fringe group of people have a fanatical devotion to World of Warcraft, they're just weirdos. But if it's Shakespeare, hey, that's evidence of greatness. It just blows my mind. Oh, and I love that bit about "presenting his ideas" well. I mean, what is that? 90% of the population doesn't even understand it the first time through. That comment sounds eerily similar to the "oh, he speaks so well" compliment people always reserve for the mentally challenged.
Shakespeare is great because he's endured so long. He's endured so long because he's great.
You can learn a lot when you read someone's posts. They may have perspective or knowledge you haven't yet become privy to. That's one of the things I like about this site, you can really learn from a wide variety of people things you would otherwise never come across! It's great, it really is. Long story short, you should read people's posts -- especially before responding!
Why do I bring this up? Because you quite obviously didn't read my post. I didn't dispute that there are useful categorizations that put Shakespeare's English in the same category as what people speak today, i.e., that we and he spoke "modern English". The whole point of my posts was to criticize the hyperbole going on when people try to express this or similar ideas. The GGP said that 90% is "identical" to what we speak today. Yet it's not. And it's important that we critically evaluate such statements before they become "true" by force of repitition.
Yeah, some things
are really hard to
follow like the way
you put line breaks
in for no reason.
If you don't appreciate Shakespeare, that's your problem (and I'm sorry for you!). But they're fundamentally different entities. Both have their merits, but to compare them is pretty absurd.
So in other words, you agree with me that Ebert's comments (comparing them) are off base.
But as long as we're feeling sorry for each other, I'm sorry you wasted all that time getting acquainted with what is fundamentally a clique phenomenon that the overwhelming majority of normal people don't care much for (if you got them to comment on the matter off the record, of course).
Shakespeare wrote in modern English. About 90% of his English is identical to what we speak today.
Uh........... no. You're just reciting the ivory tower story that gets repeated over and over until it's finally accepted as common knowledge. Think about this claim for once. "identical" to what we speak today? REALLY? Could we lay off the hyperbole? "identical" would imply mutual comprehensibility. Now, can you imagine the average person following a few lines from Shakespeare without guidance, let alone talking like that today? The article you linked is correct that many of the *words* are used, but all that glitters is not reductionism. Every Shakespeare text I remember using is dotted with little footnotes "oh, that term meant something else back then". If you have to study even the most basic line to figure out what it means, it's not "identical to what we speak today".
I've known a lot of people who, despite not knowing German, correctly guessed that "Der Feind meines Feindes ist mein Freund" means "the foe of my foe is my friend". Does that mean German is "identical to what we speak today"? I've also seen a questionaire given to schoolchildren that read exactly as follows: "Agree or disagree: 'The evil that men do lives after them. The good is [often buried] with their bones.'" Yet, people still say "oft interred", don't they? They don't? Fuck.
Shakespeare wrote in English. But please, for the love of God, stop parroting that his English was "identical to what we speak today".
Let's not kid ourselves here. The people who genuinely enjoy a by-the-book Shakespearean play (not a new "interpretation" or "variation", the real McCoy), irrespective of any historical or cultural reverence don't crack 1% of the population. Not even a half percent, probably. How many people at your workplace would voluntarily spend their own time reading Shakespeare? How many people even understand more than half the lines?
Genuine devotion to Shakespeare is confined to small circles who perpetuate him for its own sake, rather than because of a genuine passion for it. That's why theatres that perform his works always require large donations from wealthy people or governments to stay remotely afloat.
I doubt their persistence has anything whatsoever to do with speaking to the "human condition". In the broad sense of the term, anyone can, and many have spoken to the human condition without having their works perpetuated by fanatical followers.
Don't take my word for it -- how much of *your* own time did you voluntarily devote to the work of Shakespeare in the past, say, 12 months? And remember, you're at the very, very, very, very high end.
I think it's kind of like wine tasting. No one really can tell a good one from a bad, not in a blind taste test. You become a wine aficionado for the social benefits, not because of a refined palate.
would be played 500 years from now, like the works of Shakespeare are enjoyed today?
Are Shakespeare's works seriously "enjoyed" today? How many people who have to study his works today in school enjoy doing it vs. playing GTA? And what's the deal with the "500 year standard", it's circular and self-fulfilling. We read/view performances of Shakespeare 500 years later, because they're so great, as evidenced by how people still read/view it 500 years later! Go us!
How many people, as a fraction of the population, go to Shakespeare plays *purely* for the joy of seeing it, irrespective of the buzz behind them? How will that compare to the fraction who plays Rockstar games 500 years from now?
(And it's more like 400, but whatever.)
How is that possible? Word processing takes 30 megs of RAM, minimum. Access the internet? That'll be a 100, plus maybe 50 megs of storage space.
Wait, you mean there was a time when word processing didn't require that much computational power? I'll be damned!
Yes. Go learn marginal analysis.
And they don't have the resources to decrease the server load from over 100% (it's over 100% since you said you're backlogged) ?
Yes, getting more servers for our particular application is extremely expesive, with the security precautions that have to be taken.
What happens when a server dies? It just gets worse?
You betcha.
Also, are you counting the time in your overhead in that "time saving" 10%?
Yes.
Would you get your 100% bonus if you now had to spend 20% of your time on this 10% speed increase?
Hell yeah, that 10% gain will do a lot more good than I can do with 20% of my time!
In my field, ten percent is everything. If I could increase performance by ten percent, I'd get a 100% bonus for the year. My servers need to handle so much data and are always backlogged (and adding more on is exensive!) Don't trivialize ten percent.
Another overrated modding for a post of mine that hadn't previously been rated, courtesy of my Slashdot nemeses. Can't you guys think of anything original?
Wait, let me guess: -1 Offtopic, right?
You guys are so predictable it's not even funny.
Havine one unbalanced weight is "obvious", but adding a second is patent-worthy?
*burying face in palms*
John Nash faked his schizophrenia. Which is easy because there's no objective test for it.
That's a horrible definition. *All* chemical processes "exploit phenomena and structures that can only occur at the nanometer scale" because the processes happen at the molecular level! But I guess that's the point, isn't it? The broader the scope of "nanotechnology", the easier it is to get funded. The broader the definition of "terrorist", the easier it is to get support for your policies. The broader the definition of "technology", the easier it is to get people to buy the latest Microsoft bells and whistles.
Well how the **** else are they supposed to get publicity and funding if they just call it "chemistry"?