First I orient them in a generally inverted position, suspended by one ankle over the edge of the observation deck. Then, when I begin to actually believe their frenzied promises to RTFM, I re-orient them to a feet-down, head-up position and send them on their way. Help desk calls are down 87%, possibly due to the unfortunate slippage rate amongst those who fail to convince me that they will in fact RTFM.
--
phunctor
"mmmm, crack!"
The Stalinist wing of the Democrats doesn't care at all about being *re*-elected. They look forward to bringing to the US the political process they exported with such success in the past: "One man, one vote, once". Perhaps they should make common cause with the Republican theocrats... except for cosmetic details they're not so dissimilar.
1 ? 2 ? 3 PROFIT! 4 It's your money now. Spend it according to your own values. If ignoring those who seek to highjack control of it is too tedious, there's always polonium-210.
"There will never be any kind of investigation of the things which scream out to be investigating. Not while those involved still live. Too many from both sides of the house would be implicated in so many things that nobody dares overturning any rocks. So I'm sure our friend Mr. Waxman will somehow make a lot of money for himself from this self-serving gig, but he'll never investigate anybody worthy of investigation. Why would he bother?"
I can do no better than quote St. Carl: "Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence".
Oh well. People who use the phrase "Bush regime" clearly have no idea what "legitimate[1]" means. Why should they get the number of syllabubs right when they try to spell it?
-- phunctor [1] "as determined by law". For extra credit, who is the legitimate (that _word_ again!) arbiter of legal disputes, bovine.org or SCOTUS? [2] here goes the ol' karmaroonie, sacrificed on the altar of diversity. Of everything except opinion.
Sadly, we have been trained[1] by our media to accept not-quite-libellous fuddery as conclusive refutation of unpopular claims. To be sure, the suspicion of possibly ignoble motivations should inform our level of skepticism about arguable claims; but that skepticism is just that. By all means look hard for fraud and bias if you don't like the conclusions; just don't assume it.
-- phunctor
[1] Some say that media friendly to the concept of a large controlling State conspire together to bring about such a political scene. There's no real way to be sure, but after all, where there's smoke there's fire. Ooh, rhetorical onomatapoeia!
be simulated with a series of conditional numeric operations."
You did say it was impossible. You didn't say anything about a new paradigm. Why you'd want to lie about your own publicly visible words totally escapes me.
Still, in case there's a there here: Are you claiming there is a class of problems, such as simulating a thinking human brain, that cannot be executed by a Turing machine? That is an extraordinary claim, and needs extraordinary evidence. Cite?
The IBM 1620 I first worked on had an add time of about 600 microseconds. This here Pentium, about 400 picoseconds. That's 1.5e6 speedup, but hey, who's counting?
The 640K DOS limit made me laugh out loud when it was first announced - because I'd watched the PDP11 evolve increasingly hairier address space extensions. But to get it you had to have been watching for quite a while already. Apple got it, went with the 68K.
-- phunctor the karmically challenged bringing you senile musings, well, forever
If the human brain is made of matter, and matter obeys the laws of physics, what part of the physics of a human brain thinking can't be simulated? Your "proof by confident assertion" does not stand up. Don't feel bad, there's an extensive literature of distinguished philosophers attempting to make the same case.
Prior to Wohler's synthesis of urea, NH2-CO-NH2, from ammonium isocyanate, NH4+CNO-, there was a belief that "organic" matter had a mysterious "elan vital" which distinguished it from "inorganic matter". Wohler's synthesis demonstrated the uselessness of these categories.
Still, the idea won't die. It comes back, full of _healthy_ _natural_ _goodness_, again and again. Its persistence is itself a phenomenon worthy of ponderation. My best guess is that culturally we really haven't reconciled ourselves in our heart of hearts to the Earth not being the center of the Universe, and all the rest of the primal superstition.
Well, it would be relatively simple to achieve youer goal of everyone having what you enjoy. At least partially. You could give one other person a half of everything you have, or two other people a third each... But I sense that this is not the plan you have in mind.
One of the reasons I revere RMS is that he's the only honest socialist known to science. He gives away his _own_ work product.
...I'd suggest that whatever sexual activity takes place between consenting adults (or solo, given that this is Slashdot) is their own business...
I'd suggest that the people of Ireland have just as much right as the folks in Niue to determine what's acceptable in _their_ TLD.
Being civilized in a connected world involves realizing that many of the things that are self-evident to oneself are offensive to others, and that neither of you is right.
The thought that 42nd St. (NY NY) standards of free speech might be imposed on their culture scares much of the world as much as imposition of sharia would scare most of us.
I for one welcome our new Islamic overlords, and I have directions for them to where the pathetically undefended families of these pacifist dregs are cowering in abject fear of the invaders.
... Java was invented mostly to get around the memory safety problems of C and C++...
It was invented as an attempt to break Microsoft's hegemony. If it could be a good language too, that was OK.
--
phunctor
Remember the "square/cube" law on why elephants have disproportionately thicker legs than spiders? Impact and g-forces that would rip up a titanium laptop case, nanotubes would serenely ignore.
"Contrary to Slashdot's belief, the stupid have the same rights and moral status as the intelligent."
Therefore competition is immoral. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."
Hey! Wait a minute... Sorry, it's been tried. Doesn't work.
Slashdot Mirror
First I orient them in a generally inverted position, suspended by one ankle over the edge of the observation deck. Then, when I begin to actually believe their frenzied promises to RTFM, I re-orient them to a feet-down, head-up position and send them on their way. Help desk calls are down 87%, possibly due to the unfortunate slippage rate amongst those who fail to convince me that they will in fact RTFM. -- phunctor "mmmm, crack!"
The Stalinist wing of the Democrats doesn't care at all about being *re*-elected. They look forward to bringing to the US the political process they exported with such success in the past: "One man, one vote, once". Perhaps they should make common cause with the Republican theocrats... except for cosmetic details they're not so dissimilar.
--
phunctor
1 ?
2 ?
3 PROFIT!
4 It's your money now. Spend it according to your own values. If ignoring those who seek to highjack control of it is too tedious, there's always polonium-210.
--
phunctor
"There will never be any kind of investigation of the things which scream out to be investigating. Not while those involved still live. Too many from both sides of the house would be implicated in so many things that nobody dares overturning any rocks. So I'm sure our friend Mr. Waxman will somehow make a lot of money for himself from this self-serving gig, but he'll never investigate anybody worthy of investigation. Why would he bother?"
I can do no better than quote St. Carl: "Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence".
I wanna legimite sannitch!
Oh well. People who use the phrase "Bush regime" clearly have no idea what "legitimate[1]" means. Why should they get the number of syllabubs right when they try to spell it?
--
phunctor
[1] "as determined by law". For extra credit, who is the legitimate (that _word_ again!) arbiter of legal disputes, bovine.org or SCOTUS?
[2] here goes the ol' karmaroonie, sacrificed on the altar of diversity. Of everything except opinion.
Sadly, we have been trained[1] by our media to accept not-quite-libellous fuddery as conclusive refutation of unpopular claims. To be sure, the suspicion of possibly ignoble motivations should inform our level of skepticism about arguable claims; but that skepticism is just that. By all means look hard for fraud and bias if you don't like the conclusions; just don't assume it.
--
phunctor
[1] Some say that media friendly to the concept of a large controlling State conspire together to bring about such a political scene. There's no real way to be sure, but after all, where there's smoke there's fire. Ooh, rhetorical onomatapoeia!
"'" does NOT mean "Look out! An "s" is approaching!". Hone'st. -- phunctor
be simulated with a series of conditional numeric operations."
You did say it was impossible. You didn't say anything about a new paradigm. Why you'd want to lie about your own publicly visible words totally escapes me.
Still, in case there's a there here: Are you claiming there is a class of problems, such as simulating a thinking human brain, that cannot be executed by a Turing machine? That is an extraordinary claim, and needs extraordinary evidence. Cite?
--
phunctor
"here's a shovel, keep digging"
I've been surfing that exponential for 40 years.
The IBM 1620 I first worked on had an add time of about 600 microseconds. This here Pentium, about 400 picoseconds. That's 1.5e6 speedup, but hey, who's counting?
The 640K DOS limit made me laugh out loud when it was first announced - because I'd watched the PDP11 evolve increasingly hairier address space extensions. But to get it you had to have been watching for quite a while already. Apple got it, went with the 68K.
--
phunctor the karmically challenged
bringing you senile musings, well, forever
If the human brain is made of matter, and matter obeys the laws of physics, what part of the physics of a human brain thinking can't be simulated? Your "proof by confident assertion" does not stand up. Don't feel bad, there's an extensive literature of distinguished philosophers attempting to make the same case.
Prior to Wohler's synthesis of urea, NH2-CO-NH2, from ammonium isocyanate, NH4+CNO-, there was a belief that "organic" matter had a mysterious "elan vital" which distinguished it from "inorganic matter". Wohler's synthesis demonstrated the uselessness of these categories.
Still, the idea won't die. It comes back, full of _healthy_ _natural_ _goodness_, again and again. Its persistence is itself a phenomenon worthy of ponderation. My best guess is that culturally we really haven't reconciled ourselves in our heart of hearts to the Earth not being the center of the Universe, and all the rest of the primal superstition.
Well, it would be relatively simple to achieve youer goal of everyone having what you enjoy. At least partially. You could give one other person a half of everything you have, or two other people a third each... But I sense that this is not the plan you have in mind. One of the reasons I revere RMS is that he's the only honest socialist known to science. He gives away his _own_ work product.
...I'd suggest that whatever sexual activity takes place between consenting adults (or solo, given that this is Slashdot) is their own business...
I'd suggest that the people of Ireland have just as much right as the folks in Niue to determine what's acceptable in _their_ TLD.
Being civilized in a connected world involves realizing that many of the things that are self-evident to oneself are offensive to others, and that neither of you is right.
The thought that 42nd St. (NY NY) standards of free speech might be imposed on their culture scares much of the world as much as imposition of sharia would scare most of us.
--
call me phunctor
I don't think that word means what you think it means.
I for one welcome our new Islamic overlords, and I have directions for them to where the pathetically undefended families of these pacifist dregs are cowering in abject fear of the invaders.
Israeli intelligence has come up with some interesting applications for cellphones. Is that wireless enough?
... Java was invented mostly to get around the memory safety problems of C and C++ ...
It was invented as an attempt to break Microsoft's hegemony. If it could be a good language too, that was OK.
--
phunctor
Remember the "square/cube" law on why elephants have disproportionately thicker legs than spiders? Impact and g-forces that would rip up a titanium laptop case, nanotubes would serenely ignore.
Further commmentors on the revolver might want to refresh their memory of the sayings of Hermann Goering.
Shouting "FIRE!" also works well for rape, car-jacking, and treason.
Say, who _IS_ John Galt, anyway?
"Contrary to Slashdot's belief, the stupid have the same rights and moral status as the intelligent."
Therefore competition is immoral. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."
Hey! Wait a minute... Sorry, it's been tried. Doesn't work.
Maybe ol' man Harriman?