Let's not get ahead of ourselves now. Before we do this alien thing, why not try to see if we can solve this problem here on Earth first? (I watched way too much MythBusters).
For example, I am Chinese. And pretend I don't know a single English word and the alphabet, write something and make me understand. Anything at all. It can be a hello of some sort even. Not easy isn't it. How about trying it on some isolated tribes? Remember, no interaction, no eye contact, nothing. Pure pencil on paper.
Easy. We have lots of common frames of reference. For example, the desire to greet, communicate, and say goodbye at the end of a conversation (you didn't say you were an autistic chinese person, but they would be a better example of an alien). I assume you're not excluding pictures? That would make it easy to communicate with almost any non-blind person.
That's a point that has been nearly ignored in science fiction. Except for Robert Forward's "Dragon Egg" I don't remember any story where the aliens' minds operated on a significantly different time scale from ours.
As much as I am loathe to compliment it, Star Control 3's Xchaggers were an example of this, although it was poorly done; the player seemed to speak with one being, but they explained that a new speaker replaced the old one every minute as a new dynasty rose and fell.
Not really, and the judges seem to actually be thinking of the conversations as private but non privileged conversations (unlike with your lawyer or your priest). Which is what they are.
Their argument for the taxation of breast milk makes sense... baby formula is taxed, and if a mother opts to breast feed she is affecting commerce in lost sales of baby formula.
Yes, kidding. But the decision from the case that exploded the power of that interstate commerce clause uses the same logic. If prostitution were legal commerce, masterbation would be taxed as interstate commerce, even if you never crossed state lines to do it.
It is legal in Nevada. All it takes is one other state to make it legal and you'll have the interstate commerce necessary to ruin the Internet porn industry.
At one point or another, the common man needs to set up a state that works for his interests. Eventually working Americans will grow tired of working to enrich others while they suffer from illiteracy
It takes a really uncommon American to suffer from illiteracy these days. And just so we're clear, I'm talking about the kind of illiteracy where you have to "make your mark" on a legal document that you have a third party read to you, not the kind where you just aren't "well-read" or are so mentally deficient that you're not allowed to enter into a contract anyway.
Have you never DMed or played under one that did quid pro quo trades in game? "Get me a coke for that 15xp you need to get to next level." "Whoever does X, I will give Y." There are plenty of instances where a DM can be a leader or use their position as one of authority. It's just like Farmville. Do this and I will give you this imaginary reward in this imaginary world. But don't think for a second that just because it is imaginary, that it isn't valued. As a DM I've gotten some pretty sweet RL rewards from players for those imaginary rewards.
The fact that the rich are still rich or richer and the poor are even poorer.
Poorer than what? Poorer than the poor a decade ago? Poorer than the richest king just two hundred years ago? A lot of the "poor" in the US today have cell phones, heat, food, television, access to computers, education, free libraries, some have their own transportation, and for those who don't, transportation costs are reasonably low for purchasing bus fare.
The D.M. should appear to be impartial, aloof, merely telling players the consequences... while gently maneuvering the players in order to keep the game running smoothly.
I hate DMs like that. "I already have an idea of what I want your characters to do, and no matter what you want, I'll ruin it because otherwise you'll ruin my finely crafted story that took me months to write down, complete with [N]PC dialogue". Meh. Create a world, populate it with people, monsters, and a few villains, and see what happens. If I want to spend a year making a magic item while the fighter spends a year training new hirelings in combat techniques, and the cleric spends a year in devotions, don't have the main villain attack our town a month into the down-time with an army of giants unless he was planning to anyway. Say "time passes" and tell us about all the boring stuff that barely happened, whetting our appetites for adventure instead of dragging us kicking and screaming to defeat the ancient evil because apparently only we can.
I just realized; almost every network printer out there uses telnet for remote configuration. Maybe there was a new vulnerability found on a specific type of printer that allows forwarding of the printed pages back to the script kiddies?
Tunnelling is a fabulous suggestion, but it's not intuitively obvious (I figure it out when I need it, and retain the info just long enough to get the shell script working). If you can provide the incantation, that would be very helpful.
Yeah, this is a problem. I can set up a tunnel easily because I do it every day, but explaining to my users how to use an ssh tunnel to connect to a firewalled port that their nonsecure webapp runs on is brutal. I send them an email explaining it, then do it for them, then resend them the email explaining it because they deleted the email. Show them that yes, the webapp is now pretending to be on localhost port foo now, so use the browser to access port foo. Rinse, repeat.
Would you kill someone for that?...I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore...I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it,...No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out. Is this wrong? I stopped wearing my What Would Jesus -- band -- Do, and I've lost all sense of right and wrong now. I used to be able to say, "Yeah, I'd kill Michael Moore," and then I'd see the little band: What Would Jesus Do? And then I'd realize, "Oh, you wouldn't kill Michael Moore. Or at least you wouldn't choke him to death." And you know, well, I'm not sure.
-Beck
I'm surprised you left the whole quote. With the context of the last couple sentences, it's pretty obvious he's setting up a hypothetical scenario and pointing out the silliness of using the WWJD bracelets as a replacement for a conscience.
[Same-sex marriage] is probably the biggest issue that will impact our state and our nation in the last, at least, thirty years. I am not understating that.
-Bachmann
I can see how this flies in the face of some people's personal beliefs, but it's not evil by any stretch of the imagination.
Beck's show is most prerecorded video of various Elite persons *in their own words* admitting they want a revolution. Or to raise gas taxes. Or to impose carbon taxes ("electricity prices will necessarily skyrocket").
The very fact that Glenn Beck airs such crazy outbursts of "other people" shows his tacit support of such things. They are being the messenger to get the message heard.
We should not be hearing these messages.
Soros, Gore, Obama. That's who GP's paraphrased quotes were from. I agree, we should not be hearing those messages, especially not from them.
Who wants to sign on to a webpage and be shown pictures of dead friends and ex-girlfriends with it suggesting you be friends?
The ex-girlfriends I'm okay with (they usually try to friend right away), but the dead-friends thing is creepy. I wish a friend of mine would stop maintaining her sister's memorial page...
And you just added him to your Facebook "web of trust", so now everyone you know will also add him as a friend. A ton of people I went to highschool with friended a fake person on Facebook, and when I asked them about it, they said they did it because others apparently knew "her". It's just like pgp/gnupg's web of trust, except people don't check at all. There are several people who never defriended "her" after I pointed out this person was lying every step of the way.
(2) This new interface sucks. First my classic, text-only settings have disappeared which slows donw loading a LOT. Second the Menus and "reply" buttons do not appear on Mozilla Seamonkey or Opera. I have to set the "mask as internet explorer" flag to trick slashdot into believing Mozilla/Opera are IE. Bogus.
http://slashdot.org/users.pl?op=editcomm should help a little. You only get this link of javascript is turned off (and turning javascript off doesn't seem to help the D2 CPU hogging, BTW).
Slashdot Mirror
Let's not get ahead of ourselves now. Before we do this alien thing, why not try to see if we can solve this problem here on Earth first? (I watched way too much MythBusters). For example, I am Chinese. And pretend I don't know a single English word and the alphabet, write something and make me understand. Anything at all. It can be a hello of some sort even. Not easy isn't it. How about trying it on some isolated tribes? Remember, no interaction, no eye contact, nothing. Pure pencil on paper.
Easy. We have lots of common frames of reference. For example, the desire to greet, communicate, and say goodbye at the end of a conversation (you didn't say you were an autistic chinese person, but they would be a better example of an alien). I assume you're not excluding pictures? That would make it easy to communicate with almost any non-blind person.
That's a point that has been nearly ignored in science fiction. Except for Robert Forward's "Dragon Egg" I don't remember any story where the aliens' minds operated on a significantly different time scale from ours.
As much as I am loathe to compliment it, Star Control 3's Xchaggers were an example of this, although it was poorly done; the player seemed to speak with one being, but they explained that a new speaker replaced the old one every minute as a new dynasty rose and fell.
I propose 140 characters. Just remember that "@E" might be an emoticon in their language.
Or every browser's version of HTML in the 90's
Not really, and the judges seem to actually be thinking of the conversations as private but non privileged conversations (unlike with your lawyer or your priest). Which is what they are.
Their argument for the taxation of breast milk makes sense... baby formula is taxed, and if a mother opts to breast feed she is affecting commerce in lost sales of baby formula. Yes, kidding. But the decision from the case that exploded the power of that interstate commerce clause uses the same logic. If prostitution were legal commerce, masterbation would be taxed as interstate commerce, even if you never crossed state lines to do it.
It is legal in Nevada. All it takes is one other state to make it legal and you'll have the interstate commerce necessary to ruin the Internet porn industry.
At one point or another, the common man needs to set up a state that works for his interests. Eventually working Americans will grow tired of working to enrich others while they suffer from illiteracy
It takes a really uncommon American to suffer from illiteracy these days. And just so we're clear, I'm talking about the kind of illiteracy where you have to "make your mark" on a legal document that you have a third party read to you, not the kind where you just aren't "well-read" or are so mentally deficient that you're not allowed to enter into a contract anyway.
Gangs create gangs. And they certainly aren't running around screaming "lightning bolt"
You've never watched Reno 911 have you? Our law enforcement officers have to deal with anachronistic ruffians shouting "lightning bolt" regularly.
I see they were playing a historical Imperial Roman era game.
Have you never DMed or played under one that did quid pro quo trades in game? "Get me a coke for that 15xp you need to get to next level." "Whoever does X, I will give Y." There are plenty of instances where a DM can be a leader or use their position as one of authority. It's just like Farmville. Do this and I will give you this imaginary reward in this imaginary world. But don't think for a second that just because it is imaginary, that it isn't valued. As a DM I've gotten some pretty sweet RL rewards from players for those imaginary rewards.
You're that female DM from the Chick Tracts aren't you?! How could you do that to Marcie?
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.ASP
The fact that the rich are still rich or richer and the poor are even poorer.
Poorer than what? Poorer than the poor a decade ago? Poorer than the richest king just two hundred years ago? A lot of the "poor" in the US today have cell phones, heat, food, television, access to computers, education, free libraries, some have their own transportation, and for those who don't, transportation costs are reasonably low for purchasing bus fare.
The D.M. should appear to be impartial, aloof, merely telling players the consequences ... while gently maneuvering the players in order to keep the game running smoothly.
I hate DMs like that. "I already have an idea of what I want your characters to do, and no matter what you want, I'll ruin it because otherwise you'll ruin my finely crafted story that took me months to write down, complete with [N]PC dialogue". Meh. Create a world, populate it with people, monsters, and a few villains, and see what happens. If I want to spend a year making a magic item while the fighter spends a year training new hirelings in combat techniques, and the cleric spends a year in devotions, don't have the main villain attack our town a month into the down-time with an army of giants unless he was planning to anyway. Say "time passes" and tell us about all the boring stuff that barely happened, whetting our appetites for adventure instead of dragging us kicking and screaming to defeat the ancient evil because apparently only we can.
I just realized; almost every network printer out there uses telnet for remote configuration. Maybe there was a new vulnerability found on a specific type of printer that allows forwarding of the printed pages back to the script kiddies?
Tunnelling is a fabulous suggestion, but it's not intuitively obvious (I figure it out when I need it, and retain the info just long enough to get the shell script working). If you can provide the incantation, that would be very helpful.
Yeah, this is a problem. I can set up a tunnel easily because I do it every day, but explaining to my users how to use an ssh tunnel to connect to a firewalled port that their nonsecure webapp runs on is brutal. I send them an email explaining it, then do it for them, then resend them the email explaining it because they deleted the email. Show them that yes, the webapp is now pretending to be on localhost port foo now, so use the browser to access port foo. Rinse, repeat.
Maybe oracle released a new version of solaris with a vulnerable telnetd on by default again?
Would you kill someone for that?...I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore...I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it,...No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out. Is this wrong? I stopped wearing my What Would Jesus -- band -- Do, and I've lost all sense of right and wrong now. I used to be able to say, "Yeah, I'd kill Michael Moore," and then I'd see the little band: What Would Jesus Do? And then I'd realize, "Oh, you wouldn't kill Michael Moore. Or at least you wouldn't choke him to death." And you know, well, I'm not sure.
-Beck
I'm surprised you left the whole quote. With the context of the last couple sentences, it's pretty obvious he's setting up a hypothetical scenario and pointing out the silliness of using the WWJD bracelets as a replacement for a conscience.
[Same-sex marriage] is probably the biggest issue that will impact our state and our nation in the last, at least, thirty years. I am not understating that.
-Bachmann
I can see how this flies in the face of some people's personal beliefs, but it's not evil by any stretch of the imagination.
Beck's show is most prerecorded video of various Elite persons *in their own words* admitting they want a revolution. Or to raise gas taxes. Or to impose carbon taxes ("electricity prices will necessarily skyrocket").
The very fact that Glenn Beck airs such crazy outbursts of "other people" shows his tacit support of such things. They are being the messenger to get the message heard.
We should not be hearing these messages.
Soros, Gore, Obama. That's who GP's paraphrased quotes were from. I agree, we should not be hearing those messages, especially not from them.
Who wants to sign on to a webpage and be shown pictures of dead friends and ex-girlfriends with it suggesting you be friends?
The ex-girlfriends I'm okay with (they usually try to friend right away), but the dead-friends thing is creepy. I wish a friend of mine would stop maintaining her sister's memorial page...
http://slashdot.org/users.pl?op=editcomm
And you just added him to your Facebook "web of trust", so now everyone you know will also add him as a friend. A ton of people I went to highschool with friended a fake person on Facebook, and when I asked them about it, they said they did it because others apparently knew "her". It's just like pgp/gnupg's web of trust, except people don't check at all. There are several people who never defriended "her" after I pointed out this person was lying every step of the way.
(2) This new interface sucks. First my classic, text-only settings have disappeared which slows donw loading a LOT. Second the Menus and "reply" buttons do not appear on Mozilla Seamonkey or Opera. I have to set the "mask as internet explorer" flag to trick slashdot into believing Mozilla/Opera are IE. Bogus.
http://slashdot.org/users.pl?op=editcomm should help a little. You only get this link of javascript is turned off (and turning javascript off doesn't seem to help the D2 CPU hogging, BTW).
No patches required. Just revert. All parent posters are correct. This looks worse. This performs worse. This should have been detected in testing.
The new /. still sucks big time. Yeah. Mod me offtopic, why dontcha.
More likely redundant since everyone knows it already.
Incorrect. I tried noscript and turning off javascript/java/flash. Only returning to "classic discussion" fixed the CPU hog.
Thanks, Slashdot, I think I will.
Slow Down Cowboy!
Slashdot requires you to wait between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment.
Oh, you. I remember you. What is it, 5 minutes between posts? Still better than not being able to read anything.