You can successfully convince a majority of these billions of people that it is in their own best interest to give up their own ability to decide what to read or say.
The chinese people didn't give anything up because they've never had that ability in the first place.
Actually, I was pretty impressed that they managed to push through their one-child policy as well -- that had to be a hell of a tough sell.
Sell? It's not like the people had a choice. China has a very stringent central government. Pretty effective for Large projects. For instance, forcibly moving 1.5 million people is pretty damn easy since they have no rights.
Currently, my main project is writing control software for a packaging machine for medication. Since reliability is more important than raw performance, we're using C# and it works perfectly.
However, for some parts we do use Z80 microcontrollers with good ole' C and Assembler as languages. Can't live without C in an embedded world.
aww the common misconception. Most zombies (obviously each persons vision is different but still), have very basic brain functions. These are "Must feed" and "Must survive". Now you put the two together and you get a rabid dog in human form.
I have 2modpoints left, and I'm in bad mood. So I wanted to mod insightful a comment like: "microsoft sucks!" but there was no comment like that. What's up with you guys?
Simple. There is one thing slashdotters hate even more than Microsoft, and that's karma whoring.
One might say that Microsoft is primarily responsible for the entire spyware issue (although I suspect Firefox's track record would be worse, albeit better than IE, if it were as popular). But MS AntiSpyware is a fine piece of software, however. It's easy to use and does its work better than many of its competitors.
Re:Europe's most powerful supercomputer
on
Software Telescope
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I believe the most powerful supercomputer in Europe is in Spain rather than the Netherlands as mentioned on th BBC website.
You are right, according to this list the Barcelona Supercomputer is slightly faster. This hurts my dutch pride.
I didn't buy HL2. (Don't Run Windows) but the fact that I made the choice not to really doesn't matter. It was the fact that the majority of computer using consumers who will buy freedom destroying software did so.
Freedom Destroying Software? I've heard Half-life 3 will eat babies.
But seriously... Why on earth do you think you have the god-given right to free software. I do agree that in some cases free software will be beneficial to both its users and its developers. But that choice is up to the developers. If a developer chooses to charge for their software, it's their right. And if they choose to validate the software using an online authentication scheme, they'd better make sure that a) the game is worth the $50 I have to shell out for it and b) the authentication scheme works flawlessly. This holds true for Half-life 2 and the Battlefield series. And it's not freedom destroying, no, it's a business model. If you don't like it, buy someone elses software or develop your own. But quit whining about software destroying your freedom.
For some reason your comment is moderated 'troll', probably because you had the filthy guts of uttering the Forbidden Word 'Visual C++'.
However, your question is prefectly valid. Automatic buffer overflow protection only covers the straightforward buffer overflow problems, i.e. array index overflows. In the case of more complex pointer arithmetic, where most of these problems occur, automatic protection is not possible (at least not without losing the option of pointer arithmetic).
I really liked 'The Power of Nightmares', a BBC documentary about the perceived threat of terrorism.
Oh by the way, on average 60 people are struck by lightning each year in the UK but only 3 die. So the chances of dying on the hands of terrorists is slightly larger than the chances of being killed by lightning;)
Assuming your figures are correct; of those 215 how many died of natural causes? It's a very different thing to be afraid of a bomb than it is to be afraid of old age.
While I agree that media coverage in the UK is a little excessive, this is a significant development in the on-going saga of the 'War on Terror' that's been shaping the military and diplomatic landscape of the world since 2001. It's by no means a "non-event".
Of course such a terrible loss of human life can hardly be considered a non-event. But the grandparent poster does have a very valid point.
The real damage from these terrorist attacks are not the damaged metro trains and the direct loss of life, but the spiral of events these attacks trigger.
Yesterday, the entire city centre of Birmingham, GB's second largest city, was evacuated. Security efforts like the one described in this article are hugely expensive and unforunately not particularly effective. This is where the real costs are. Not the attacks, but fear of more attacks and that's how terrorism works.
One might argue that economic costs are not as bad as the loss of lives. But the money spent on prevention could also be spent protecting lives elsewhere, and probably with greater efficacy.
I'm not too disappointed with the windows only tax program. What irritates me is when I try to choose Australian as my language in software installers, only to have my desktop displayed in leederhosen.
I think you are confusing Australia, the country/continent that brought you Foster beer with Austria, the country that brought you Hitler and Wiener schnapps.
Dude, he suggesting spreading bibles as an alternative. Surely the Lord would be of great help to his faithful servant in any of the situations you just named.
What are you bitching about? So it's not a brand new observation. I liked his comment. It was no revelation, just a rather straightforward analysis. And he did have the decency to correct his own mistake. Your comment would have had some merit if this guy received several hundred dollars for his comment but he didn't. He got 6 lousy karma points.
Some might say bitching about moderation is a karma whoring strategy... Then again, some might even argue that bitching about people who bitch about moderation is a karma whoring stra...
So it is more like "social mainstream opinion" and has nothing to do with skills as someone not wanting to e.g. talk about the weather are clearly capable of doing so if they wanted.
First of all, for some people it's surprisingly difficult to do just that. Social phobiae, anxiety disorders and similar disorders are surprisingly common, especially in the geek-population. For peopl e with one of these conditions, smalltalk is difficult and something rather avoided.
Secondly, The 'skill' is not just being able to have an information-sparse conversation about the weather. Smalltalk is the grease of social conduct. The simple fact that most people do prefer some talking about the weather, the Michael Jackson case or some lame movie before easing into more serious matters makes not wanting or being able to do just that a disadvantage in social conduct.
I never really bought the "social skills" bunk. I think chitchat and small talk is useless and stupid so I usually don't engage in it. Does this mean I don't have "social skills"?
My answer would be 'yes', sorry.
Maybe you think chitchat is stupid but fact of the matter is that most people don't think so. Social skills aren't about you, they're about how you interact with the rest of the world. And since a lot of people do care about chitchat, not engaging in it could easily be perceived as a lack of social skills.
Slashdot Mirror
You can successfully convince a majority of these billions of people that it is in their own best interest to give up their own ability to decide what to read or say.
The chinese people didn't give anything up because they've never had that ability in the first place.
Actually, I was pretty impressed that they managed to push through their one-child policy as well -- that had to be a hell of a tough sell.
Sell? It's not like the people had a choice. China has a very stringent central government. Pretty effective for Large projects. For instance, forcibly moving 1.5 million people is pretty damn easy since they have no rights.
Currently, my main project is writing control software for a packaging machine for medication. Since reliability is more important than raw performance, we're using C# and it works perfectly.
However, for some parts we do use Z80 microcontrollers with good ole' C and Assembler as languages. Can't live without C in an embedded world.
Solar power isn't renewable. The sun will run out of power eventually. It'll take a few billion years, but it will happen.
So for us mere humans, with a mere lifespan of 1/10 millionth of the sun, you could kinda say that is pretty damn near inexhaustable.
aww the common misconception. Most zombies (obviously each persons vision is different but still), have very basic brain functions. These are "Must feed" and "Must survive". Now you put the two together and you get a rabid dog in human form.
So why did 'must mate' get lost on the way?
One of the real reasons Doom3 never took off is because I needed to buy a new computer to use it. And so did everyone else.
The same holds (even more) true for BattleField 2, which literally doesn't run on 2 year old hardware. Yet, it's very successful.
With so much footage, in case of another explosion at least they will be able to compile a cool Matrix shot of the event.
So tell me, what really is wrong with C#?
Penicillin is a fine medicine, but its makers don't go around spreading syphilis
That's not a valid comparison. It's more like the makers of penicillin supplying leaky condoms.
I have 2modpoints left, and I'm in bad mood. So I wanted to mod insightful a comment like: "microsoft sucks!" but there was no comment like that. What's up with you guys?
Simple. There is one thing slashdotters hate even more than Microsoft, and that's karma whoring.
Please take off your tin foil hats, guys!
One might say that Microsoft is primarily responsible for the entire spyware issue (although I suspect Firefox's track record would be worse, albeit better than IE, if it were as popular). But MS AntiSpyware is a fine piece of software, however. It's easy to use and does its work better than many of its competitors.
I believe the most powerful supercomputer in Europe is in Spain rather than the Netherlands as mentioned on th BBC website.
You are right, according to this list the Barcelona Supercomputer is slightly faster. This hurts my dutch pride.
It might be 80s technology but it was definitely a first and a workhorse.
With the recent cuts in the space budget (except for military programs), 80s tech is actually cutting edge.
I didn't buy HL2. (Don't Run Windows) but the fact that I made the choice not to really doesn't matter. It was the fact that the majority of computer using consumers who will buy freedom destroying software did so.
Freedom Destroying Software? I've heard Half-life 3 will eat babies.
But seriously... Why on earth do you think you have the god-given right to free software. I do agree that in some cases free software will be beneficial to both its users and its developers. But that choice is up to the developers. If a developer chooses to charge for their software, it's their right. And if they choose to validate the software using an online authentication scheme, they'd better make sure that a) the game is worth the $50 I have to shell out for it and b) the authentication scheme works flawlessly. This holds true for Half-life 2 and the Battlefield series. And it's not freedom destroying, no, it's a business model. If you don't like it, buy someone elses software or develop your own. But quit whining about software destroying your freedom.
Actually we just sell fosters to the rest of the world, nobody here drinks it. We drink good beer.
I guess you're talking about Heineken, or - even better - Grolsch?
So get over it, "Da Fokka", and all you other insecure OSS fanboys, too.
Actually, I agree with the first part of your post, I use VS.NET 2005 and I love it.
Here is a pointer that will help you understand the first part of my post.
Actually, 'forbidden term' would be more appropriate. My bad.
For some reason your comment is moderated 'troll', probably because you had the filthy guts of uttering the Forbidden Word 'Visual C++'.
However, your question is prefectly valid. Automatic buffer overflow protection only covers the straightforward buffer overflow problems, i.e. array index overflows. In the case of more complex pointer arithmetic, where most of these problems occur, automatic protection is not possible (at least not without losing the option of pointer arithmetic).
I really liked 'The Power of Nightmares', a BBC documentary about the perceived threat of terrorism.
Oh by the way, on average 60 people are struck by lightning each year in the UK but only 3 die. So the chances of dying on the hands of terrorists is slightly larger than the chances of being killed by lightning ;)
Assuming your figures are correct; of those 215 how many died of natural causes? It's a very different thing to be afraid of a bomb than it is to be afraid of old age.
While I agree that media coverage in the UK is a little excessive, this is a significant development in the on-going saga of the 'War on Terror' that's been shaping the military and diplomatic landscape of the world since 2001. It's by no means a "non-event".
Of course such a terrible loss of human life can hardly be considered a non-event. But the grandparent poster does have a very valid point.
The real damage from these terrorist attacks are not the damaged metro trains and the direct loss of life, but the spiral of events these attacks trigger.
Yesterday, the entire city centre of Birmingham, GB's second largest city, was evacuated. Security efforts like the one described in this article are hugely expensive and unforunately not particularly effective. This is where the real costs are. Not the attacks, but fear of more attacks and that's how terrorism works.
One might argue that economic costs are not as bad as the loss of lives. But the money spent on prevention could also be spent protecting lives elsewhere, and probably with greater efficacy.
Silly Walks Director: Yes, I see, tha-tha-that's it, is it?
Silly Walks Applicant: Ah, well, yes, that's it.
Silly Walks Director: Yes, yes, yes. It's not particularly silly, is it?
Silly Walks Applicant: Well, ah-ah...
Silly Walks Director: I mean, the left leg isn't silly at all and the right leg merely does a four dare O'Brian half turn every alternate step.
Silly Walks Applicant: Yes, but I feel with a federal grant I could make it a lot more silly.
I'm not too disappointed with the windows only tax program. What irritates me is when I try to choose Australian as my language in software installers, only to have my desktop displayed in leederhosen.
I think you are confusing Australia, the country/continent that brought you Foster beer with Austria, the country that brought you Hitler and Wiener schnapps.
Dude, he suggesting spreading bibles as an alternative. Surely the Lord would be of great help to his faithful servant in any of the situations you just named.
Taxes are for heathens.
What the hell, I've got karma to burn...
What are you bitching about? So it's not a brand new observation. I liked his comment. It was no revelation, just a rather straightforward analysis. And he did have the decency to correct his own mistake. Your comment would have had some merit if this guy received several hundred dollars for his comment but he didn't. He got 6 lousy karma points.
Some might say bitching about moderation is a karma whoring strategy... Then again, some might even argue that bitching about people who bitch about moderation is a karma whoring stra...
Whatever.
First of all, for some people it's surprisingly difficult to do just that. Social phobiae, anxiety disorders and similar disorders are surprisingly common, especially in the geek-population. For peopl e with one of these conditions, smalltalk is difficult and something rather avoided.
Secondly, The 'skill' is not just being able to have an information-sparse conversation about the weather. Smalltalk is the grease of social conduct. The simple fact that most people do prefer some talking about the weather, the Michael Jackson case or some lame movie before easing into more serious matters makes not wanting or being able to do just that a disadvantage in social conduct.
My answer would be 'yes', sorry.
Maybe you think chitchat is stupid but fact of the matter is that most people don't think so. Social skills aren't about you, they're about how you interact with the rest of the world. And since a lot of people do care about chitchat, not engaging in it could easily be perceived as a lack of social skills.