After a society's founding and golden age, some people attempt to amass power and control the rest through force. Eventually this control pisses off a large enough number of the populace that civil war results. It has eventually happened to every single emergence of civilization since time began -- assuming they were not conquered midway through the process.
I don't think this is quite the foolproof theory you claim it to be. I live in Britain and there were several attempts by rival nobles (in the old days) to take over the throne. Later on we had a civil war, but nothing really came of it. Hundreds of years later, we have two/three serious political parties and a bunch of pressure group ones, but nothing really changes any more than it does in the US. We still have a system thrown together by reform after incremental reform. We have no real basis for how our system works other than either a belief that the Queen is there by the grace of God - which I think fewer people believe now than ever before - or through precedent, which is quoted more often these days.;-)
It's perfectly possible for the ruling/political class in a society to continually not quite do enough on a given day to entice the wider populace to rise up. IMO, this can be continued pretty much in perpetuity. Hey, maybe that explains our "mustn't grumble" attitude over here.
Absolutely... I used ConnectFree for quite a while back in the day.
I also seem to remember them claiming that they owned the 0845 lines and rented them out to other ISPs (including Freeserve) to provide their services.
Hey,
I'm sure this is gonna get modded flamebait, but what the heck...
I don't consider myself a geek / nerd / whatever but I do enjoy reading slashdot. I'm into linux, i have a CS degree and I enjoy Star Trek. That doesn't make me a geek though, I just have those interests.
IMO, being a geek isn't defined by what you know or do, it's defined by what you don't do. All the people I know who I'd call geeks lack basic social skills. That's the defining thing for me. A lot of my friends call themselves geeks just because they're into computers or run SETI@home or something like that but they can go to a bar and have a fun conversation and enjoy all sorts of other things too (Friends, football etc) which don't set them apart from the norm (whatever that is).
I don't really think that many of the people on/. are really geeks, they just adopted the term cos that's what they think computer-liking-SciFi fans are called. It doesn't have to be this way.
So, flamebait over... I think we (people who like tech stuff but still have social lives too) should reject the term geek. It's completely NORMAL to like these things and be "intellectually curious". Let's not make ourselves look like some weird section of society that most people don't belong to. It's only going to scare more people off [star trek, linux etc] and contribute to further dumbing down of society.
Does anyone agree?
Pete.
This isn't a personal dig as it applies to pretty much everybody these days, but with all due respect the government of China really isn't very communist. Neither was the Soviet Union's or North Korea.
It's a side issue to the debate here, but read Marx and then tell me that it's part of a communist system of government to censor blogs (or have public executions, or systematically starve whole regions etc etc).
These types of governments may try to convince their people that they're living in a communist paradise where everyone's enlightened and equal, but let's not fall for the idea in the west too.
You should learn. It seems tough, but learning it will teach you real skills, you'll be able to really use computers, rather than blundering through them. And if you're unwilling to learn, you'll probably be happier with...
Slashdot Mirror
The online music store you used to make the point that you *can* by ogg/vorbis files online is called allofmp3.com??
Sorry, but that made me chuckle... :-)
I don't think this is quite the foolproof theory you claim it to be. I live in Britain and there were several attempts by rival nobles (in the old days) to take over the throne. Later on we had a civil war, but nothing really came of it. Hundreds of years later, we have two/three serious political parties and a bunch of pressure group ones, but nothing really changes any more than it does in the US. We still have a system thrown together by reform after incremental reform. We have no real basis for how our system works other than either a belief that the Queen is there by the grace of God - which I think fewer people believe now than ever before - or through precedent, which is quoted more often these days. ;-)
It's perfectly possible for the ruling/political class in a society to continually not quite do enough on a given day to entice the wider populace to rise up. IMO, this can be continued pretty much in perpetuity. Hey, maybe that explains our "mustn't grumble" attitude over here.
Pete.
Absolutely... I used ConnectFree for quite a while back in the day. I also seem to remember them claiming that they owned the 0845 lines and rented them out to other ISPs (including Freeserve) to provide their services.
Slashdot readers use mice? 8-0 Lynx, Vi, Bash!!! Grr....
Hey, I'm sure this is gonna get modded flamebait, but what the heck... I don't consider myself a geek / nerd / whatever but I do enjoy reading slashdot. I'm into linux, i have a CS degree and I enjoy Star Trek. That doesn't make me a geek though, I just have those interests. IMO, being a geek isn't defined by what you know or do, it's defined by what you don't do. All the people I know who I'd call geeks lack basic social skills. That's the defining thing for me. A lot of my friends call themselves geeks just because they're into computers or run SETI@home or something like that but they can go to a bar and have a fun conversation and enjoy all sorts of other things too (Friends, football etc) which don't set them apart from the norm (whatever that is). I don't really think that many of the people on /. are really geeks, they just adopted the term cos that's what they think computer-liking-SciFi fans are called. It doesn't have to be this way.
So, flamebait over... I think we (people who like tech stuff but still have social lives too) should reject the term geek. It's completely NORMAL to like these things and be "intellectually curious". Let's not make ourselves look like some weird section of society that most people don't belong to. It's only going to scare more people off [star trek, linux etc] and contribute to further dumbing down of society.
Does anyone agree?
Pete.
why is the missing link always in the last place you look?
This isn't a personal dig as it applies to pretty much everybody these days, but with all due respect the government of China really isn't very communist. Neither was the Soviet Union's or North Korea. It's a side issue to the debate here, but read Marx and then tell me that it's part of a communist system of government to censor blogs (or have public executions, or systematically starve whole regions etc etc). These types of governments may try to convince their people that they're living in a communist paradise where everyone's enlightened and equal, but let's not fall for the idea in the west too.