I'm picturing a dramatic final scene in a movie, in which the hero appears to be shot and killed, but then gets up and reveals what saved him: The PB&J sandwich in his front pocket, which his true love had made for him that morning.
Well, of course they just solved the equations without thinking more deeply. That's how final exams work. If Thorne wants his students to think creatively, he shouldn't grade them on their ability to churn through a problem set in a limited time frame.
And [now] with me really being the guy who's here every day running the place, I must be the champion of innovation.'
Seriously. When I read this, I swore I felt a great disturbance, as if millions of stockholders suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
The biggest advantage of this will be for those creating cracked versions of Vista. I predict that someone will figure out how to create a Vista install DVD ISO with any desired installed programs, changed settings, etc., by using this new Image Install. Then the race will be on to create the ULTIMATE Vista ISO. It will remove all the extra junk, kill the copy protection, tweak the settings, and come with Firefox, Photoshop, the latest video codecs, DVD ripping/copying software, etc. all installed and ready to go. This will result in a much nicer version of Vista than what you can pay Microsoft to give you.
I meant no offense towards you, and I apologize for implying that you should simply overcome your dyslexia. I didn't mean to communicate that, but I can see now how it sounded that way. It seems to me that you have done very well with communicating clearly in our discussion, so I wasn't directing that comment at you personally.
I enjoy language. I enjoy thinking about it, dissecting it, and attempting to use it well. I see that many people today don't care for language, and can be extremely lazy and thoughtless in how they present their thoughts. This is especially true in internet forums.
I have grown impatient about this and I tend to disregard people who write as if they can't be bothered to make their words presentable before carelessly spewing them out. In most cases, it really is carelessness, but as you've pointed out there are exceptions, and so there is always the risk of misjudging. This risk is insignificant when I'm scanning through 30 pages of slashdot comments, because I'm probably just wasting time anyway. If we met in person or we were having a longer interaction (such as this discussion), then I would be much more careful about judging, and your intelligence would easily shine through any grammatical nitpicks I might have. It certainly has done so today.
I will seek to learn from this and to be less quick to judge. Thanks for an enjoyable discussion!
I am more inclined to consider and respect the opinions of someone who is able to express their views consisely and eloquently. I don't believe that this is merely a superficial preference. A well worded and well structured argument typically reflects the application of intelligence and careful reasoning, so I will judge such writing to be more worthy of my attention.
The quality of a person's ideas provides a way to judge him as a thinker. The presentation of those ideas - structure, grammar, spelling - is the only way to judge the person as a rhetor. I am defining a rhetor as an eloquent communicator.
These two abilities (to think and to communicate) can be considered as two separate axes. It is possible to be be high on either axis and low on the other, as in the example of Einstein. However, there is generally a strong correlation between the two. A poorly written opinion must overcome two obstacles in order to be heard: First, the impression that the author is careless or foolish, and second, the higher level of mental work required to decipher the author's intended meaning. Anyone wishing to be heard would be wise not to create such obstacles.
Incidentally, I find this discussion vastly more interesting than robotic snakes.
Perhaps you should have considered the links provided by the original poster before launching on your rant. Teach limited himself to talking about extrinsic ethos, which is how a communicator establishes credibility apart from the content of his argument. Your rebuttal basically amounts to saying that the internal logic of an argument is also important. That is known as intrinsic logos, and it was never denied.
Clearly Einstein was worthy of our attention regardless of how poor his grammar may have been. Yet if he was here today as one pseudonymous Slashdot poster among thousands, his ability to make his quality thoughts stand out would be hampered by his limited communication skills. This is simply a reality of the medium, though one would hope that the quality of his ideas would overcome this limitation.
So the main point here is not that poorly written comments are worthless, but rather that realistically such comments must overcome their stylistic weaknesses in order to be heard.
That must be why Yahoo evaluated all their options and went to PHP in 2002. Perhaps they hadn't heard of those other languages?
I've used Java, ASP, Perl, and PHP. All I want to use now is PHP. It's the best for quick-and-dirty programs to get things done, and yet I can also do solid, OO, templated, well-structured projects when that is desired. PHP also has some of the best free public libraries available. (Perl may have more, but Perl is too much of a headache to use.)
Amen! Google is AWFUL about basic web standards. You'd think they never heard of them. Considering some of the philosophies they espouse, you'd think they could devote some tiny effort towards embracing these standards.
How long would it take a good Perl developer to proxy the Google search page, and to produce validating results which look identical in all the major browsers? Probably less than a day. Of course, Google would need to take more time to optimize it, but they've had years to do this. Get with it dagnabit!
$600 - PS3 (this is the price I've seen published most places)
$140 - 2 new games (at the predicted new prices)
$120 - 3 Controllers (bringing my total to 4, duh)
$70 - Pizza and beer (or a third game... but this is more essential)
$70 - Sales Tax
Total: $1000!
In other news, I'd like to announce that I'm putting $20 per week away in anticipation of meeting my goal of affording a PS3 at launch. There has been speculation about low yield (ok, so I already spent $10 of this week's money at Taco Bell.) But I'm hoping to be able to ramp up production in time to meet my goal of $1000 (PS3, a couple games, 4 controllers.) I'm sure my boss will understand and give me that raise!
If I had any say over the Gates foundation, I would direct huge sums toward the permanent mass reduction or elimination of the mosquito. I would justify it as a way to stall the spread of malaria and west nile, but deep down I'd really just want to kill the fuckers.
As a buyer, I hate sniping because I have two options:
1. Don't snipe, and feel like a sucker for not playing the game correctly. 2. Snipe, but have to adjust my schedule to be on eBay at an exact time, and risk forgetting about it and losing my chance to bid.
What I'd like is:
3. To enter my bid early but schedule it to be actually placed 2 seconds before the auction ends.
If the buyers really are the most important part of eBay, then they should add this option.
I'd read the FAQ's on their website. They say that however mush data you have, they will back it up. However, they also reserve the right to cut off abusers. I suspect that to be an abuser, you would need to be using the service to distribute files to others, but I can't say for sure.
They do limit your uploads to 0.5G per day once you've uploaded 50G. So, that last 950G will take you over 5 years in theory. But they do state that they plan to offer a power uploader account which removes this restriction.
Personally, I've uploaded over 60G now and I have yet to see them throttle my speed down. I'm averaging 2G per day.
I'm surprised that there is no mention of Carbonite. In terms of $/GB it blows everything else away. I've been using it for a little over a month now, and here's my findings:
Pros
$5/month for virtually unlimited storage. Seriously!
Works without much thought on your part required.
Doesn't overwhelm internet connection
Cons
Requires Windows.
A bit too automated. The geek in you will want for options.
Initial backup can take a long time.
Carbonite does a slow-trickle upload of my chosen files and directories when the computer isn't in use. I've uploaded over 50GB in about 4 weeks. I still keep local backups of everything, but it's great to have an offsite option for so cheap.
Wait... if the moderation system is bad, then that comment was valuable, and should have been modded up. But it WAS modded up, so the moderation system must be good, which means the comment was not valuable, which means...
Slashdot Mirror
Will the studios ever come up with something new, instead of churning out just another movie remake?
Well, of course they just solved the equations without thinking more deeply. That's how final exams work. If Thorne wants his students to think creatively, he shouldn't grade them on their ability to churn through a problem set in a limited time frame.
Seriously. When I read this, I swore I felt a great disturbance, as if millions of stockholders suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
The biggest advantage of this will be for those creating cracked versions of Vista. I predict that someone will figure out how to create a Vista install DVD ISO with any desired installed programs, changed settings, etc., by using this new Image Install. Then the race will be on to create the ULTIMATE Vista ISO. It will remove all the extra junk, kill the copy protection, tweak the settings, and come with Firefox, Photoshop, the latest video codecs, DVD ripping/copying software, etc. all installed and ready to go. This will result in a much nicer version of Vista than what you can pay Microsoft to give you.
You refute my tautology? :)
I meant no offense towards you, and I apologize for implying that you should simply overcome your dyslexia. I didn't mean to communicate that, but I can see now how it sounded that way. It seems to me that you have done very well with communicating clearly in our discussion, so I wasn't directing that comment at you personally.
I enjoy language. I enjoy thinking about it, dissecting it, and attempting to use it well. I see that many people today don't care for language, and can be extremely lazy and thoughtless in how they present their thoughts. This is especially true in internet forums.
I have grown impatient about this and I tend to disregard people who write as if they can't be bothered to make their words presentable before carelessly spewing them out. In most cases, it really is carelessness, but as you've pointed out there are exceptions, and so there is always the risk of misjudging. This risk is insignificant when I'm scanning through 30 pages of slashdot comments, because I'm probably just wasting time anyway. If we met in person or we were having a longer interaction (such as this discussion), then I would be much more careful about judging, and your intelligence would easily shine through any grammatical nitpicks I might have. It certainly has done so today.
I will seek to learn from this and to be less quick to judge. Thanks for an enjoyable discussion!
I am more inclined to consider and respect the opinions of someone who is able to express their views consisely and eloquently. I don't believe that this is merely a superficial preference. A well worded and well structured argument typically reflects the application of intelligence and careful reasoning, so I will judge such writing to be more worthy of my attention.
The quality of a person's ideas provides a way to judge him as a thinker. The presentation of those ideas - structure, grammar, spelling - is the only way to judge the person as a rhetor. I am defining a rhetor as an eloquent communicator.
These two abilities (to think and to communicate) can be considered as two separate axes. It is possible to be be high on either axis and low on the other, as in the example of Einstein. However, there is generally a strong correlation between the two. A poorly written opinion must overcome two obstacles in order to be heard: First, the impression that the author is careless or foolish, and second, the higher level of mental work required to decipher the author's intended meaning. Anyone wishing to be heard would be wise not to create such obstacles.
Incidentally, I find this discussion vastly more interesting than robotic snakes.
Perhaps you should have considered the links provided by the original poster before launching on your rant. Teach limited himself to talking about extrinsic ethos, which is how a communicator establishes credibility apart from the content of his argument. Your rebuttal basically amounts to saying that the internal logic of an argument is also important. That is known as intrinsic logos, and it was never denied.
Clearly Einstein was worthy of our attention regardless of how poor his grammar may have been. Yet if he was here today as one pseudonymous Slashdot poster among thousands, his ability to make his quality thoughts stand out would be hampered by his limited communication skills. This is simply a reality of the medium, though one would hope that the quality of his ideas would overcome this limitation.
So the main point here is not that poorly written comments are worthless, but rather that realistically such comments must overcome their stylistic weaknesses in order to be heard.
That must be why Yahoo evaluated all their options and went to PHP in 2002. Perhaps they hadn't heard of those other languages? I've used Java, ASP, Perl, and PHP. All I want to use now is PHP. It's the best for quick-and-dirty programs to get things done, and yet I can also do solid, OO, templated, well-structured projects when that is desired. PHP also has some of the best free public libraries available. (Perl may have more, but Perl is too much of a headache to use.)
Amen! Google is AWFUL about basic web standards. You'd think they never heard of them. Considering some of the philosophies they espouse, you'd think they could devote some tiny effort towards embracing these standards.
How long would it take a good Perl developer to proxy the Google search page, and to produce validating results which look identical in all the major browsers? Probably less than a day. Of course, Google would need to take more time to optimize it, but they've had years to do this. Get with it dagnabit!
$600 - PS3 (this is the price I've seen published most places) $140 - 2 new games (at the predicted new prices) $120 - 3 Controllers (bringing my total to 4, duh) $70 - Pizza and beer (or a third game... but this is more essential) $70 - Sales Tax Total: $1000!
Neat, only 6 downsides!
In other news, I'd like to announce that I'm putting $20 per week away in anticipation of meeting my goal of affording a PS3 at launch. There has been speculation about low yield (ok, so I already spent $10 of this week's money at Taco Bell.) But I'm hoping to be able to ramp up production in time to meet my goal of $1000 (PS3, a couple games, 4 controllers.) I'm sure my boss will understand and give me that raise!
Wait, HD DVD and BluRay aren't cracked yet? They've been out for weeks... Come on, you lazy hackers!
If I had any say over the Gates foundation, I would direct huge sums toward the permanent mass reduction or elimination of the mosquito. I would justify it as a way to stall the spread of malaria and west nile, but deep down I'd really just want to kill the fuckers.
Well, the guy who spellz like he's 13 would know!
As a buyer, I hate sniping because I have two options:
1. Don't snipe, and feel like a sucker for not playing the game correctly.
2. Snipe, but have to adjust my schedule to be on eBay at an exact time, and risk forgetting about it and losing my chance to bid.
What I'd like is:
3. To enter my bid early but schedule it to be actually placed 2 seconds before the auction ends.
If the buyers really are the most important part of eBay, then they should add this option.
I'd read the FAQ's on their website. They say that however mush data you have, they will back it up. However, they also reserve the right to cut off abusers. I suspect that to be an abuser, you would need to be using the service to distribute files to others, but I can't say for sure.
They do limit your uploads to 0.5G per day once you've uploaded 50G. So, that last 950G will take you over 5 years in theory. But they do state that they plan to offer a power uploader account which removes this restriction.
Personally, I've uploaded over 60G now and I have yet to see them throttle my speed down. I'm averaging 2G per day.
Pros
Cons
Carbonite does a slow-trickle upload of my chosen files and directories when the computer isn't in use. I've uploaded over 50GB in about 4 weeks. I still keep local backups of everything, but it's great to have an offsite option for so cheap.
Wait... if the moderation system is bad, then that comment was valuable, and should have been modded up. But it WAS modded up, so the moderation system must be good, which means the comment was not valuable, which means...
Arrrrgh! Paradox!