I think many countries have a harvest festival; that goes back a lot further than America has even existed. Japan's Thanksgiving is on November 23, but they just view it as another day off. They celebrate small fall festivals per locality during September and October, which usually involve pulling around a large danjiri float, dancing, and making a general ruckus. It's very entertaining.
Except that no two viruses are created equal. Just because you survived the bubonic plague (several centuries ago) does not guarantee you'll have the right physiology to fight a completely unrelated disease.
Considering that the US was settled largely by Europeans, you'd think there'd be a high chance of European-descended AIDS-immune cases there as well.
All fine and good, except that nowhere do they say they have proof that Dr. Hwang lied or that the eggs really came from a co-worker. Just because it's reported doesn't make it true. People usually need facts to back it up first.
Except that, since most of the world is on Intel or AMD via Windows, Apple doesn't have to worry about losing the desktop market to a Microsoft suddenly gone PPC. You now have the two biggest consumer OSes on the same chip. IBM can make all the fast chips it wants; end users won't care. To your average Joe, it's like being upset that you can't have your very own supercomputer at home when all they really need is web and email.
Re:My karma can stand it
on
Homer Becomes Omar
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Hate to break it to you, but Japanese swear words are incredibly weak. For one thing, they don't have any cultural roots in Christianity, they don't vilify sex, and they don't have euphemistic expressions to substitute for what swear words they do have. A first-grader could get away with saying "chikushou" (which literally translates to, "beast,") and not get in trouble (mine often do.) The Japanese think it matters more on how you say it (or even more importantly, who you say it to) than what you say. I find it incredibly disappointing to swear in Japanese. What I don't get is this overpowering urge the translators feel to ramp up the language for English audiences. What does that say about our expectations? If you want to get some serious swearing done, stick to English, or even better, German.
Actually, wrong on all three counts. The challenge now is coming up with feasible fabrication processes to produce the carbon-nanotube-based cable in sufficient lengths to work.
The following argument is from the point of view of an artist, and acknowledges that the current distribution system represented by the RIAA is screwed up and benefiting nobody.
If you want something so much that you want a copy of it, then it has value to you. Therefore, you should be willing to pay for it. You are not being denied something necessary for your well-being, like food, water, or air; you are taking something that does nothing more than entertain you, which makes it a luxury. People pay for luxuries, plain and simple. (People also pay for food and water, but those are physical items and therefore much easier to quantify.)
Back in the day, when the only way things were to be had was by actually buying a physical copy of it, it seemed pretty clear-cut; you stole the object, you committed theft. Just because the internet makes it easy for you to copy something without removing the original doesn't mean that you haven't stolen, it just makes it easier for you to morally justify something you know is wrong. If *everybody* downloaded music for free, then there would be no financial reward for making music, the music industry would collapse, and your source of free entertainment would disappear. Stealing music doesn't just mean you're depriving the artist of their profits (assuming that the RIAA gives them any), it also means that you're stealing from the people who actually went out and paid for their own copy. Your mooching is disrespectul to other consumers as well as the content creators, because we're footing the bill to indulge your habit. That doesn't just make you a thief; it makes you an ass, too.
I just spent the last two years producing an independent movie. I have poured thousands of dollars into it, and I and those I work with have spent a lot of time and money in making it a reality. We will be skipping the middle man and distributing the movie ourselves. One CD-sized version will be release for free via Bittorrent, while another, higher-quality version will be available for purchase on DVD. While we will encourage people to share the free version with whomever they choose (free press is good), anybody who decides that, for whatever reason, sharing the DVD version for free is okay is wrong. Since there is no MPAA-type distribution pigopoly to muck things up, the person you're stealing from is pretty clear: the artist. We put a hell of a lot of effort into our work. Relationships suffered; savings was spent; long, sleepless nights of filming and editing ensued. Electronic or not, if you *want* the DVD version, then pay for it. Otherwise, you don't really need it that badly, do you?
Ironically, I have just taken in my barely-out-of-warranty Panasonic camcorder for a CCD failure due to high humidity, AND I live in Japan. Considering that this is the fourth time this camera has been in and the service thus far has ben craptastic (up to and including outright lying about a successful repair), I'm willing to bet they don't pick up the tab.
What essentials should image-editing apps focus on, then? Since Photoshop is *the* professional tool of choice, you're making a big statement. I'd be interested to hear the arguments to back it up.
Because people get offended when you race over national parks. Plus, nobody wants a bunch of craters and soot covering their stunning land features.
As for shooting the view of the race from a high altitude, the relative motion would still be very slow. You still wouldn't get any sense of motion unless the rockets were flying very, very low and the balloon itself was relatively close.
You're referring to a system which advocates the elimination of a ruling class and equal distribution of wealth? Yeah, that's so anti-freedom. The only flaw in the theory is that it requires human beings to participate, who are notoriously self-serving, which tends to gum up the works.
I went about it all wrong, then. I gave up a secure, salaried job to go teach in Japan and see the world. My girlfriend likes me for who I am, and we have been having sex several times a week for four years. When I have kids, if they don't hug me because they love me, then they'll at least fear me because I'll indoctrinate them to believe that I brought them into this world specifically to be my personal slaves. What can I say? It worked on me.
My parents were poor, made us do chores, punished us strictly but fairly, the upshot of which is that we grew up pretty darn happy and wanting for nothing. Since they don't have a big hang-up with money or personal possessions, we were quite capable of selling our house, moving onto a sailboat, and living in the Bahamas for a couple of years. The only thing that stopped us from going around the world was that they insisted on bringing my little brother and littlest sister into the world. I can't complain; they were good additions.
The best part is, Pluto will continue to be Pluto regardless of what the IAU (I Am Uptight?) decides. It was there before us, and will continue after we've been long forgotten.
Good question. However, the idea of growth and reproduction are that they are instigated by the organism itself, not by external factors. Also, crystals don't evolve or adapt; they either are or they aren't, based on certain specific environmental conditions. Otherwise, we'd have to classify snowflakes as life, too.
I don't think that the ability to store information is a hallmark of life. I think you're referring to genetic codes, etc., but extraterrestrial life wouldn't necessarily be DNA or RNA-based. Life merely has to be able to produce a copy of itself.
A quick trip to dictionary.com yielded this answer:
"The property or quality that distinguishes living organisms from dead organisms and inanimate matter, manifested in functions such as metabolism, growth, reproduction, and response to stimuli or adaptation to the environment originating from within the organism."
There are some pretty standard requirements; the rock doesn't respond to stimuli, doesn't gorw, doesn't reproduce and doesn't evolve over time. Standard geological phenomena such as erosion don't count.
There seems to be an unspoken rule about teaching a foreign language: teach it as if the person is never going to actually go to the country in question. There's nothing like actually living there. It's not only the implied meanings that get you, it's the damn mimetic words (gitaigo.)
Japanese is incredibly colloquial amongst close friends and family members, and that's not counting dialects (they actually have an Aibo especially programmed to understand the Osaka dialect.) However, the standard responses you've listed pretty much describe your average responses in polite conversation, so the robot should be set.
Version numbers are perhaps some of the most abused numbers on the planet, so I wouldn't use that as a measuring stick to criticize a company. Many open source projects abuse version numbers the other way around, by keeping things at 0.x.x ad infinitum for several years as if keeping something in beta was an excuse to have bugs. Version numbers are subjective, and if all companies applied the same logic, there wouldn't be a single 1.0 release in the world to this day.
Apple didn't really start lagging in the OS department until version 7, at which point they started scrambling to start modernizing. Apple is guilty on resting on its laurels with the Mac OS for several years, but they got away with it because nobody else was producing anything better, or at least not on a competitive level. These days happen to coincide with the period of time when Steve Jobs was absent from the company. People may not like him, but he is the driving force behind Apple being the company it is.
I'm an American who has lived in Germany and now lives in Japan, and I can tell you, Americans have it the worst of any country on earth as far as vacation time goes. The problem is, our expectations of work ethic is extreme in the wrong direction. The minute somebody says they want a vacation, everyone else instantly thinks that person is lazy. Why? Why should we spend our lives working all the damn time? There's nothing noble about it. It's been proven time and time again that people who are forced to work long hours spend a large majority of those just goofing around. If you put someone at work for 10 hours a day, they will be no more productive (and possibly less) than somebody working 6-hour days, and less happy to boot.
The United States is the only country without a federal law stipulating a minimum guaranteed number of holidays per year. The Japanese actually get more vacation time than Americans(ten days guaranteed, at least another week or so in national holidays.) The solution is to scale back work hours, increase vacation, and encourage people to get the same amount of work done in less time.
Slashdot Mirror
I think many countries have a harvest festival; that goes back a lot further than America has even existed. Japan's Thanksgiving is on November 23, but they just view it as another day off. They celebrate small fall festivals per locality during September and October, which usually involve pulling around a large danjiri float, dancing, and making a general ruckus. It's very entertaining.
You underestimate the universal driving urge to find lunch and have sex. Even particles have urges, man.
If both probes take an image at the exact same moment, wouldn't the result be a stereo still image? Doesn't seem all that hard.
Except that no two viruses are created equal. Just because you survived the bubonic plague (several centuries ago) does not guarantee you'll have the right physiology to fight a completely unrelated disease.
Considering that the US was settled largely by Europeans, you'd think there'd be a high chance of European-descended AIDS-immune cases there as well.
All fine and good, except that nowhere do they say they have proof that Dr. Hwang lied or that the eggs really came from a co-worker. Just because it's reported doesn't make it true. People usually need facts to back it up first.
Except that, since most of the world is on Intel or AMD via Windows, Apple doesn't have to worry about losing the desktop market to a Microsoft suddenly gone PPC. You now have the two biggest consumer OSes on the same chip. IBM can make all the fast chips it wants; end users won't care. To your average Joe, it's like being upset that you can't have your very own supercomputer at home when all they really need is web and email.
Hate to break it to you, but Japanese swear words are incredibly weak. For one thing, they don't have any cultural roots in Christianity, they don't vilify sex, and they don't have euphemistic expressions to substitute for what swear words they do have. A first-grader could get away with saying "chikushou" (which literally translates to, "beast,") and not get in trouble (mine often do.) The Japanese think it matters more on how you say it (or even more importantly, who you say it to) than what you say. I find it incredibly disappointing to swear in Japanese. What I don't get is this overpowering urge the translators feel to ramp up the language for English audiences. What does that say about our expectations? If you want to get some serious swearing done, stick to English, or even better, German.
Now if only they'd come up with "one that I can safely put on my parents' machine in place of Windows" and I'd be happy.
Actually, wrong on all three counts. The challenge now is coming up with feasible fabrication processes to produce the carbon-nanotube-based cable in sufficient lengths to work.
The following argument is from the point of view of an artist, and acknowledges that the current distribution system represented by the RIAA is screwed up and benefiting nobody.
If you want something so much that you want a copy of it, then it has value to you. Therefore, you should be willing to pay for it. You are not being denied something necessary for your well-being, like food, water, or air; you are taking something that does nothing more than entertain you, which makes it a luxury. People pay for luxuries, plain and simple. (People also pay for food and water, but those are physical items and therefore much easier to quantify.)
Back in the day, when the only way things were to be had was by actually buying a physical copy of it, it seemed pretty clear-cut; you stole the object, you committed theft. Just because the internet makes it easy for you to copy something without removing the original doesn't mean that you haven't stolen, it just makes it easier for you to morally justify something you know is wrong. If *everybody* downloaded music for free, then there would be no financial reward for making music, the music industry would collapse, and your source of free entertainment would disappear. Stealing music doesn't just mean you're depriving the artist of their profits (assuming that the RIAA gives them any), it also means that you're stealing from the people who actually went out and paid for their own copy. Your mooching is disrespectul to other consumers as well as the content creators, because we're footing the bill to indulge your habit. That doesn't just make you a thief; it makes you an ass, too.
I just spent the last two years producing an independent movie. I have poured thousands of dollars into it, and I and those I work with have spent a lot of time and money in making it a reality. We will be skipping the middle man and distributing the movie ourselves. One CD-sized version will be release for free via Bittorrent, while another, higher-quality version will be available for purchase on DVD. While we will encourage people to share the free version with whomever they choose (free press is good), anybody who decides that, for whatever reason, sharing the DVD version for free is okay is wrong. Since there is no MPAA-type distribution pigopoly to muck things up, the person you're stealing from is pretty clear: the artist. We put a hell of a lot of effort into our work. Relationships suffered; savings was spent; long, sleepless nights of filming and editing ensued. Electronic or not, if you *want* the DVD version, then pay for it. Otherwise, you don't really need it that badly, do you?
Ironically, I have just taken in my barely-out-of-warranty Panasonic camcorder for a CCD failure due to high humidity, AND I live in Japan. Considering that this is the fourth time this camera has been in and the service thus far has ben craptastic (up to and including outright lying about a successful repair), I'm willing to bet they don't pick up the tab.
What essentials should image-editing apps focus on, then? Since Photoshop is *the* professional tool of choice, you're making a big statement. I'd be interested to hear the arguments to back it up.
Because people get offended when you race over national parks. Plus, nobody wants a bunch of craters and soot covering their stunning land features.
As for shooting the view of the race from a high altitude, the relative motion would still be very slow. You still wouldn't get any sense of motion unless the rockets were flying very, very low and the balloon itself was relatively close.
To bad Whedon's a socialist. Weird.
You're referring to a system which advocates the elimination of a ruling class and equal distribution of wealth? Yeah, that's so anti-freedom. The only flaw in the theory is that it requires human beings to participate, who are notoriously self-serving, which tends to gum up the works.
I went about it all wrong, then. I gave up a secure, salaried job to go teach in Japan and see the world. My girlfriend likes me for who I am, and we have been having sex several times a week for four years. When I have kids, if they don't hug me because they love me, then they'll at least fear me because I'll indoctrinate them to believe that I brought them into this world specifically to be my personal slaves. What can I say? It worked on me.
My parents were poor, made us do chores, punished us strictly but fairly, the upshot of which is that we grew up pretty darn happy and wanting for nothing. Since they don't have a big hang-up with money or personal possessions, we were quite capable of selling our house, moving onto a sailboat, and living in the Bahamas for a couple of years. The only thing that stopped us from going around the world was that they insisted on bringing my little brother and littlest sister into the world. I can't complain; they were good additions.
The best part is, Pluto will continue to be Pluto regardless of what the IAU (I Am Uptight?) decides. It was there before us, and will continue after we've been long forgotten.
Good question. However, the idea of growth and reproduction are that they are instigated by the organism itself, not by external factors. Also, crystals don't evolve or adapt; they either are or they aren't, based on certain specific environmental conditions. Otherwise, we'd have to classify snowflakes as life, too.
I don't think that the ability to store information is a hallmark of life. I think you're referring to genetic codes, etc., but extraterrestrial life wouldn't necessarily be DNA or RNA-based. Life merely has to be able to produce a copy of itself.
A quick trip to dictionary.com yielded this answer:
"The property or quality that distinguishes living organisms from dead organisms and inanimate matter, manifested in functions such as metabolism, growth, reproduction, and response to stimuli or adaptation to the environment originating from within the organism."
There are some pretty standard requirements; the rock doesn't respond to stimuli, doesn't gorw, doesn't reproduce and doesn't evolve over time. Standard geological phenomena such as erosion don't count.
Hey, Janne, seeing as we're both in Osaka, feel free to drop me a line sometime. Slashdot will let me know. :)
There seems to be an unspoken rule about teaching a foreign language: teach it as if the person is never going to actually go to the country in question. There's nothing like actually living there. It's not only the implied meanings that get you, it's the damn mimetic words (gitaigo.)
Japanese is incredibly colloquial amongst close friends and family members, and that's not counting dialects (they actually have an Aibo especially programmed to understand the Osaka dialect.) However, the standard responses you've listed pretty much describe your average responses in polite conversation, so the robot should be set.
Version numbers are perhaps some of the most abused numbers on the planet, so I wouldn't use that as a measuring stick to criticize a company. Many open source projects abuse version numbers the other way around, by keeping things at 0.x.x ad infinitum for several years as if keeping something in beta was an excuse to have bugs. Version numbers are subjective, and if all companies applied the same logic, there wouldn't be a single 1.0 release in the world to this day.
Apple didn't really start lagging in the OS department until version 7, at which point they started scrambling to start modernizing. Apple is guilty on resting on its laurels with the Mac OS for several years, but they got away with it because nobody else was producing anything better, or at least not on a competitive level. These days happen to coincide with the period of time when Steve Jobs was absent from the company. People may not like him, but he is the driving force behind Apple being the company it is.
Because if I lose my hand I want it replaced, not improved upon by a nanobot blob. I *like* how my hands work.
I'm an American who has lived in Germany and now lives in Japan, and I can tell you, Americans have it the worst of any country on earth as far as vacation time goes. The problem is, our expectations of work ethic is extreme in the wrong direction. The minute somebody says they want a vacation, everyone else instantly thinks that person is lazy. Why? Why should we spend our lives working all the damn time? There's nothing noble about it. It's been proven time and time again that people who are forced to work long hours spend a large majority of those just goofing around. If you put someone at work for 10 hours a day, they will be no more productive (and possibly less) than somebody working 6-hour days, and less happy to boot.
The United States is the only country without a federal law stipulating a minimum guaranteed number of holidays per year. The Japanese actually get more vacation time than Americans(ten days guaranteed, at least another week or so in national holidays.) The solution is to scale back work hours, increase vacation, and encourage people to get the same amount of work done in less time.