Thanks. When I was young, I was born in 1957, there was actually a group of people who were scared of "the big brain." The worried about things like automation taking over their jobs, taking over their lives, and making choices for them. This was not just a recurring theme in science fiction of that era but there were several television shows that touched on it and even a few non-science fiction works. Well, not traditional, era-specific, or hard science fiction works...
I remember one show, I think it was a movie, where there were a couple of office ladies who worked in accounting. They were losing their jobs due to computers taking over the industry. At several points, they demonstrated fear and felt that one would be taking over the entire world in some not-too-distant future. I seem to recall that being a UNIVAC in that movie and that the computer did get mad and throw paper around.
The thing is, it wasn't *quite* science fiction, at least not in feel. It was more of a standard work of fiction, just a run of the mill quasi-chick flick and it happened to contain a computer. That's one of them that I recall.
I don't have any specific fears other than the obvious - that additional automation will likely, at least for some period of time, result in the loss of jobs for certain classes of people. That's pretty much a given and there are lots of ways to deal with it as a society. I'll make no predictions as to how that may go - I'm not qualified to opine.
Thanks again. I appreciated the insight and the answer(s). Unlike some, perhaps many, of the folks here - I'm comfortable saying that there's stuff that I don't know and that I will never know it unless I ask. I try to not be "wrong" so I often ask questions. I'd have loved to get something like this into traffic modeling. I can only speculate that there are projects, on-going and some advanced, where machine learning is being done on large data sets and then used to fine-tune the models and algorithms. How, I do not know the specifics nor would I admit it if I did. There are still plenty of friends in both the industry and my old company.
Knowing a little about you and what you've publicly disclosed, well... Umm... It'd be ironic if, when you gave your lecture, you got it wrong.
I'm assuming that you're not going to get it wrong. There are, on the other hand, lots of people who chime in to claim, "That's not irony!" Even though it is irony. Oddly, I'm not sure that's ironic. Having a desire to learn and improve my writing skills has led me to actually read the dictionary and some additional information about the definition of ironic.
A cardiologist that eats poorly, doesn't maintain good health, and dies of a coronary probably isn't ironic. If they'd done everything they could to ensure a healthy heart and then died earlier then expected and of a coronary would be ironic.
Opening up a coconut and finding a frog inside is not ironic. It's just weird.
The song... Hmm... I forget all the lyrics (or most of them) but rain on your wedding day is not ironic. However, if she had had some history of weddings and they all went off without a hitch and then said that this next one wouldn't be canceled because... Wait, what? I'm wasting too much time here.;-)
That and the kids just got home. They said they were coming back with a surprise and they had taken my g/f with them - they're going "shopping" (or went). So, yeah, I was gonna write a novella but I'll skip it and say, "So... This lecture, please?" I'd be most interested in reading it. With any luck, I'll learn something new.
Not everything must, or should, be done for an "economic purpose." Some things, like pure theoretical physics research or even space and space related things, should and can be done without the need for it to be an economical purpose. In this case, there's a quasi-economic purpose. Mostly, by outsourcing launches to SpaceX, we may end up with less expensive launches and the, perhaps, see economic purposes or even just scientific purposes.
Frankly, it's still being paid for by the government and the government will still be paying for their launches for many years to come. This money is, of course, injected into the various local economies but that's not the purpose. The important thing is that we're going to spend the money anyhow so I'd rather we spent the money on this than spending it to blow up little brown people. Hell, I'd rather they spend all this money on studying the three-toed sloth than spend it on bombing little brown me.
But, then again, some of us have priorities that are different than others. I'm rather fond of wealth accumulation but not at the expense of all else. I'm quite pleased to say that I've accumulated a few dollars but not at the expense of all else. Spending what I spent on this Christmas and, soon, New Years Eve has very little (none, really) economic purpose but I got to have a great time with my two kids. How much is that worth?
How much is it worth if this research ends up enabling us to save the species, avert disaster, do pure research that develops into future technology, or even if it just makes a few people giggle like little schoolgirls and be happy that we're able to attach people to a giant bomb and launch them with such precision that they remain in a state of perpetual falling for long periods of time? No, I'm okay with that. In fact, I'm more than okay with that. I'm ecstatic and probably over-optimistic and that's okay too.
As an aside: It's usually those who pay the least taxes that complain the loudest about taxes. It's usually the people who have accomplished the least who complain about others accomplishing things. It's usually the insecure who want people to conform to their ideals. It's usually those least likely to accept new information and change their views who complain about worry themselves sick because others are doing things that they can't appreciate. I dunno which class(es) you belong to but I'm probably correct in guessing that you fit one of those categories. Perhaps some honest introspection, objectivity, and a healthy dose of reasoning will help you with that? I dunno - I am not a psychiatrist.
Pretty much. I don't know where I'd heard this but, in the original thread discussing this, I made mention of this same thing. In that thread, I mentioned that they'd be testing it, checking for wear, tearing it down in a non-totally-destructive fashion, and rebuilding it so that they could put it on display at their HQ or, perhaps, in a museum.
I don't know where it was that I'd heard this but I think it was someone from SpaceX - probably not Musk personally, in an online news blurb video or maybe some small article. Unfortunately, I am unable to find the original link, video, comment, or whatever. I appear to have not linked to it in my comment from that thread. Perhaps it wasn't official at that point? Otherwise, yeah, we kind of already knew this was what was going to happen.
Hell, it wasn't even a presumption that this is what would happen to it. It was something that someone, in official capacity, had said. A quick look at the original thread has some people who also indicated that they'd heard such, a bit later in the thread, and they did not link to the source either.:/
At any rate, now's a fine time to congratulate them again! I'm still a little boy in my pajamas watching the original moon landing - or similar feeling, when I watch this video or even think about the implications. It has been a long time since we've had any real exciting news concerning launch and reentry vehicles, mechanisms, or tech. This? This is awesome! It makes my inner child want to stay up all night to semi-dream about being an astronaut.
I wonder if they'll take a 58 year old man, in great health somehow, up? I'll even quit smoking cigars for the duration. I guess they've got a "holy shit" button for the folks in the top (or when they have folks in it). I'd take those risks. Hmm... How much does it actually cost to get a 58 year old, 172 pound, reasonably healthy man into space as a tourist? I've never really looked into it but I just might be able to shake out the couch and pay a reasonable price for it.
Heh... Maybe I can get a Slashdot sticker and stick it on the ISS? Hell, I'd be happy with just a few orbits around the planet. It'd be even more wonderful if I could bring a camera and live stream it back to planet Earth. I mean, I've got a passport that is stamped to show that I've stomped all over the place. Hell, at least one country gave me a sticker once - it is in my passport. China maybe? Japan? India? I forget. At any rate, I've never once been in a position to say, "Back on Earth" in a meaningful fashion. I guess I could say it when I'm in an airplane but that's not the same.
At any rate, it'd be fantastic to be able to say, "Okay, I've been to space - at least LEO. What next?" It'd be excellent to look down at the planet and see it as it exists in all it's fat glory. Sure, I can download pictures and video. Yes, I can probably even go ride in the Vomit Comet and experience a slightly prolonged sense of weightlessness. But no, I can't say that I've been to space. I'd like to be able to say that.
To make a short story long...
When I was a kid, I saw the first landing on the moon. I stayed up late to watch it, as I recall. Either the next day or the next weekend, we went to Woolworth's (maybe) or K-Mart? It might have even been some store called "Ames." Buggered if I know but I do remember getting a pair of astronaut pajamas. They had those plastic covered feet things and I'd slide across the hardwood floors - in my head it was some sort of fancy balance training for my future career as an astronaut. (Things were a bit more simple then. Or they seemed to be more simple because I was still a child.)
Seeing SpaceX stick the landing, damned near close to center, and understanding the maths involved - yeah, I felt like that kid, in his pajamas, sliding across the hardwood floor, while dreaming about being an astronaut and spending time in space. I seem to recall that I wanted to yo-yo, blow bubbles, and pop a water balloon in space. I was excited to see a vi
That and did the person in your contrived example imprison anyone or did they just say that they'd like to? If they said that they liked to, did they show any sign of acting on their thoughts? If they showed any sign then how far had their preparations come - was there any specific behavior that would make a reasonable person conclude that they were likely to act on it?
(Yes, this is marginally a continuation of the last conversation.)
Again, I don't have the answers. I'm not sure where the line needs to be drawn. As this is a private company with private property and their use is not mandated by law, I'm not concerned with it though I'm free to criticize it. Though, honestly, I've not really been critical of it. Used properly, it's a good policy. Or course, that's the conclusion I come to about most things - including speech. The line is, for me and at present, where the thoughts or expression of thoughts turns into action - and not a moment before. At least that's what I believe, until I'm given reason to think something better.
Alas, David does not know everything.;-) I don't even pretend to.
I'd submit that it is an affliction. It's even a curable affliction. It's sometimes an easily curable affliction but it often needs an acknowledgement of the problem, a willingness to get beyond ones ego, critical thinking, objectivity, and effort. It surely may need more than those few things that I mentioned but I refuse to be a pessimist tonight.
There are so many people who are hell bent on retaining their views, regardless of the evidence against them, that it's like a contest to see who can stick with the most absurd conclusions the longest. We call politicians who change their minds based on new information things like "wishy washy." We call someone who wants to collect facts and make an informed decision names like "indecisive." We call a change in strategy a "sign of failure." We call those who admit that they do not have the answers "stupid." We call those who seek the answers "ignorant."
Basically, the older I get the more convinced I become that humans are much like dumb herd beasts only blessed by the fact that they somehow managed to acquire opposable thumbs. That we've made it this far is nothing short of miraculous. We're panicky, ignorant, fearful, frightful, impulsive, and more. In short, humans kind of suck. I'm glad I'm not one of them!
So, about that comma thing... While you're looking up the appropriate educational pamphlets to give to them, you might want to actually take a minute to look under the "C" section for "Capitalization." If you're going to throw stones then you should probably do it from someone else's house if your own house is made of glass. Err... Or, perhaps, something to that effect.
While I agree with your thought, that's not ever going to happen. It may happen on the internet but that's unlikely to happen. You can, right now, get free hosting (without ads), a free TLD, and publish as much as you want so long as you obey the host's AUP. You can, with some effort, even find some pretty lenient hosts. However, eventually, you might want to say things that nobody wants to provide services for so you'll have to pay for that - just like you'll have to pay for the paper to make a sandwich board to wear on your downtown parade.
Even then, should you be unable to say it on the 'net, you'll still be able to find public spaces in which to speak for the foreseeable future. In fact, if those spaces run out then you've got far more pressing issues than speech. From a conversation a couple of days ago - I know of two comments that have been deleted on this site and only two. If you've got something to say then say it instead of screaming about rights you don't appear prepared to actually understand or use.
Here, I'll go first: I hate purple people more than any other people. They should all be exterminated and gassed like the Nazi's did with the Jews. Purple people are the scum of the Earth and need to die. If I could get my hands on the throat of a purple person - I'd kill them twice and then fuck their corpse. The second time I killed them, I'd make their mother watch. Then I'd club their mother to death with their crotchfruit's femur.
See? I bet they don't even delete that. If you don't make use of your liberties you end up losing them. So, if you've got something to say - just say it.
Now, you know I generally agree with you but - at this point, you're just looking silly. I believe I'm actually paraphrasing you...
"Yes, but I'm free to criticize their decision." (That might even be verbatim.)
I suspect that the vast majority of people here, those who are complaining, know that they can go elsewhere. I'd even wager that a large majority of that group do not actively use Twitter.
That said, umm... I think this thread's express purpose is "whinging and whining about it on Slashdot." It's what we do and kind of the point of the comments section, especially when the subject is Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, Oracle, Microsoft, Windows, Linux, Microsoft, politics, religion, science, Microsoft, or most any other subject.
Sure, we sometimes have meaningful discourse and educational comments but I presume they're entirely by accident. I've seen you enjoy a good bitch-fest here and not gone to the company to register your complaints instead of laying them out here in the thread. I'm just as guilty. Hell, it doesn't even have to be a/topical/ thread.
Absolutely. It's actually a little something that I miss about my old company. I am biased but I like to say that I built the greatest traffic simulation game of all time. It lacked graphics (though we* did add that eventually but it was on smaller data sets, limited in scope, and very compute cycle expensive). It was great having that much horsepower to play with.
I had a whole server room full of clustered blade servers with giant blinking switches and pretty lights. I had disk arrays that were mind blowing. An example might be, we were working with almost a TB of collected data, to model with, in the very late 1990s. It was awesome! I literally can't imagine what it would be like today. I sold in 2007 and the sale was finalized in very early 2008.
Today? Today we'd be able to model the chaos that is a human so much better. We'd be able to throw at, account for, utilize, anticipate, optimize for, so many new variables that just weren't possible and then, today, we could lay down real satellite imagery and actually visualize it in 3D! As I left, and this is still rather proprietary so pardon my lack of details, we were modeling store interiors (pedestrian traffic modeling is a thing) in 3D as well as using our own lab, live collected metrics, and positioning ourselves to optimize for very specific behavior characteristics that would appeal to a greater subset of people. (You don't think they set up malls and stores that way by chance, do you?)
I'd *love* to see what AI could do in that situation. I'd love to see it and I'd love to work on it but, alas, I never will.** However, I agree with your assertion. I've had big iron and thrown it at complex problems and it is exciting. I'm a mathematician and just happened to end up in the industry because that's where my thesis was. My advisor put me in touch with the Mass. DOT folks and the rest is, shall we say, history.
That said - if you don't mind my picking your brain, what do you expect to come from this? How do you think it will be used? What repercussions do you fear, if any? -- only really important bit in this jumble of text.;-)
* I say we but that's very subjective. See, I am not a programmer. I programmed because I had to. I hired professionals who were much more adept than I. I learned a lot from them but, with some time, I also learned to get out of their way, give them the tools they asked for (not what a vendor recommends), and give them clear goals. I have trouble making a stick figure. In short, I did not make anything of the sort but we, the company, added graphics.
** I'm pretty much covered by a life-time non-compete that I knowingly, willfully, perhaps eagerly signed. Being a person who's a little fond of doing what I say I'll do, well... That means I'll never work in the industry again. I have been called back in (at consultant wages even) and helped out a couple of times but it has been years since then and I'm not sure that I could do it again - it's difficult to leave every time. In theory, I can go back to work for the new parent company. However, they've got stuff like 'human resource departments,' badges, security, a dress code, and they probably won't let me sleep in the office any more. But there's no way that I could work for another company and not end up using what is now their property - namely Intellectual Property that they've bought and paid for. I simply could not distance myself well enough and that would be dishonest of me and I'm kind of fond of being able to say that I haven't done so.
Not quite, as far as I know, and I'm only a fake historian. (I'm not a historian at all - I just have a fascination with it and really love to learn about it, it's something I geek out on once in a while.) That said, I don't know of any specific quotes that quite match what you seem to be hoping for but I believe he made some quotes about Stalin being too aggressive with his own population. Unfortunately, as is often the case and why I am not a historian, I am unable to cite that - I seem to recall it from a documentary about the Rise of the Third Reich (maybe the Fall). It could easily have been one of any of the hundreds that I've seen about him.
While I browsed that page, I stopped and pondered when I reached these two:
‘The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force.’ ‘The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged to one category.’
What I pondered and how I thought they might be applicable are two things I'll leave to the exercise of the reader.
I knew better than to open this thread but... Alas, I'm bored, the missus is out with my kids buying me something with my money and that means I'm stuck with you guys. Or, alternatively, you're stuck with me. Whichever way you want to look at it.
I'm reminded of a few things but one of the more interesting was GitHub and their Code of Conduct. They, for one - and you can find many examples, asserted that they would not be taking action when "reverse" racism or harassment occurred. The reason given was that those who were in a position of privilege could not be harmed.
Yes the claim was, the person in a position of privilege could not be harmed. That is more or less verbatim from the discussion thread after the uproar and, for better or worse, GitHub backed down from this and I'm not sure if they've gone ahead and implemented a CoC or not. There were a variety of other issues and justifications given, I'm far to lazy to find/quote them all. There was an enlightening thread, here on this site, concerning the change.
I seem to recall someone (probably not an official representative) claiming that it was being done in the name of social justice. (I don't believe they mentioned the warrior aspect but they were pretty proud of themselves - it reminded me of a child with a loaded diaper in fact.) I've since pondered this, probably more often than was necessary, and I just don't understand how they can reach those conclusions, enact those policies, or somehow claim superiority, logic, reason, or higher morals than others. They then make derogatory statements about the folks who postulated that this might not be actual justice or social or even moral. Just questioning it appears to mean, to them at least, that you're a sexist, a racist, homophobic, transphobic, daft, white, angry, losing your privilege, and more. (Key: I'm none of those things - not even white.)
Yet they wear this badge with pride... It's like (instead of a 'sarge' thing) wearing something that looks like a dunce cap and being proud when someone points out that you've got a traffic cone on your head. I just don't understand. I've been told, I've approached this topic with others in the past, that I'm a bad person for being an egalitarian. Even though I employed nearly as many men as I did in a very heavy tech oriented business, I'm somehow bad for not caring what's between their legs but - if I do care, I'm bad for that too. I just give a shit what's in your head and how well you can convert it to work.
I spent eight years enlisted in the Marines and had the misfortune of seeing combat where I was required to lay down suppressive fire. That was the entirety of my combat experience and the duration was about 25 minutes but it felt like it lasted for hours. There are sights, sounds, and feelings that I'll never be able to explain to you - I simply don't know how. You poke your head out from behind cover and duck back in.
You screw up enough courage to do it again and then you move your rifle into position. Maybe you touch off a few rounds, are you ready to take a life? Isn't there another way? This is fucking stupid! But you do it. You sure as fuck don't do it for Mom, Dad, or Fingerfuck Mary back home and you don't even like apple pie. Hell, you barely do it for the ideal of freedom and justice. Mostly you do it because that's your brother next to you, he's got a hole in his arm, and he's crying for his mother but still shooting back.
No, son... I fought for social justice. These folks are just Puritans with a different set of values. They are not warriors. They are not fighting for justice. I'm not even sure that they're social.
*sighs* I should know better than to read these threads. I dare say, both sides of this have a few lunatics with a history of bad behavior.
However, no... The idea that they're warriors is laughable. The justice is unbelievable. The social is debatable. If these folks are your warriors and they are the best sent to represent you on a field of battle then, well... You might want to call up the reserves soon. The tide's already changing and the pendulum swings both ways. Start it swinging at your own peril as the backlash can be damaging.
I usually don't say a whole lot in these threads. I read them and maybe joke with a couple of people who know me, or my online me, well enough to know that I don't really give a shit what's between your legs, who you love, what race you are, and the likes.
That said, I've noticed a trend...
You talk about taking responsibility for your own life and that's noble. How about the many others, on the same side that you appear to be on, who are doing the exact opposite? They're not, quite explicitly, taking responsibility for their own life. I've noticed that it's always someone else's fault. It's always the fault of someone else because they didn't get a job, promoted, or the likes.
Then, when someone does offer criticism, well, there's still no responsibility. They didn't screw up - the person who's calling them on it is a racist, a sexist, a troll, a hateful person, or any one of a number of things.
Let's keep going with this, shall we?
The next thing is, well, pretty soon those same people are taking responsibility for other people's lives. If they don't like someone's behavior they try to silence them, they try to defund them, they try to get them fired, they try to take away their livelihood, and more.
There's no justice here. Wearing that badge, today, and claiming it stands for justice is like wearing the priest's collar and to stand for safe claiming care. They're as much about justice as the Klan was.
You call it taking responsibility. I call it blaming other people for your incompetence. I call it shirking responsibility and refusing accountability.
That said, there are some who are actually interested in a fair and equal society. Their names are besmirched by your antics and usurpation of the ideal. Your rhetoric and tactics are tiresome and harmful. History will look back on you, and your ilk, and you will be judged harshly.
Yeah - I screwed that up. I had meant to say something along the lines of "technically not public information" and then go on with how it was fairly easy for someone to still get the information if they knew your SSN and whatnot. Thanks for pointing that out.
Export the key as a.reg before editing it. Save it with a name that you can remember or something that's detailed. The file date and time will tell you the rest. Backup the registry before you edit it. Keep good, multiple, backups of said registry.
How very true. I had, and I know this sounds bizarre, a Windows ME box that came and was built specifically for Windows ME. It was (and I jest not) stable. I regularly had several months of uptime and only rebooted because I'd needed to. It ran an OpenNap server *and* hub for a long while. It even served as a file server later in life - while still running the OpenNap server and hub.
That one specific combination of hardware and drivers, and the declination of the moon during its first power cycle, made for a system that was quite good for its time. Hardware developed and maintained for a specific system is really quite a good thing to have. See Apple for a good example of this.
I'm not even sure that/. is majority Linux users any more. I'm not entirely sure what happened. Oddly, when it was majority Linux users - I was still using Unix at work (mostly) and Windows at home. Recently, I got tired of having Linux on a partition and never bothering to boot to it to do much more than poke around or update so I got rid of all my Windows installed, let my MSDN lapse, and am just using Linux. Now they've all gone to Windows 7 or 10.
The fickle hands of fate have weaved their skein and a reading of the the loom has determined that I am destined to remain a minority. Well, not quite the minority you are. You use PC-BSD. I've found a few other Lubuntu/LXDE users here. Actually, I should like to see Slashdot's user data and find out what percentage are actually using what OS.
I am but one person and I know this. The presence of games, or lack thereof, is of no importance to me when selecting an operating system. Linux is not, nor will it ever be, the best choice for everyone. I don't really think that's actually the goal any more.
I don't think anyone really cares if there's Linux on every desktop. I know I don't. If you can't play the games you want to play with Linux then you have other choices in either games or operating systems.
Not every car is made for me. Not every flavor of ice cream is meant for me. Not every article of clothing is meant for me. I'm okay with that.
I use Linux on the desktop because I like it and it works for me. To me, it matters not one iota what you prefer but I do hope you made the choice to use what works best for you and what best helps you accomplish your goals. If you're expecting the perfect solution then you're probably going to be disappointed. Compromises will probably need to be made - if you have high expectations.
If the developers aren't going to port the games to Linux then use whatever they do develop for. Alternatively, don't play the games.
That said: 1. I don't actually have any bugs that I know of - nothing that effects me, at any rate. There are probably some in there but buggered if I can find 'em. 2. It's good that they have that choice, I guess. It's not for me but I'm not offended that some people choose that. Choice is good. 3. Sure, don't use it. It may mean you don't get games. Again, you have a choice. I'd stop playing, but that's me.
I dunno... It works for me and I'm content with it. Sometimes stuff breaks but that's not the fault of the system - that's squarely on my shoulders. I usually know what I did to break it and I'm fairly adept at fixing it. That has been my choice. I'm pretty happy with that choice.
Yeah, that's how I read it. However, I spent about an hour catching up and reading a few other things before I felt like I had enough information to actually opine in this thread. I've also had personal interactions with Ian and have found him insightful and intelligent. We never met in person - our communication was via email.
My reading is that it was an attempt to open the dialogue and things went steadily downhill from there. Well, things were already going downhill at that point. As mentioned above, I'm partially black and not even remotely offended by the word in the way that it was used. Then again, I'm not actually offended by words - only deeds. Words don't offend me one bit, how they're said may.
Unfortunately, this will be maligned to make all sorts of conclusive statements, probably none of which were the intended statement, and nothing will change. It looked to be a cry for notice - that the police are abusive authoritarians with far more power than they should have. It looked to be an attempt to say, "I'm not even a nigger, it happened to me!" Could it have been better said? I don't know - would it have carried the weight?
That said, hopefully more and more people will start to get the opportunity to notice. We've got someone up thread who's claiming black people can't be racists, they even claim they can't have institutionalized racism. We've got people claiming that the account was hacked. We've got people thinking that the guy's a racist and are hell bent on social justice. We've got others who are saying that it's about time the stupid fuck learned that niggers were evil. So, I'm pretty sure nothing will happen and that nothing good will come of this.
No, Black people can have institutionalized racism. Just not in your location. By the way, as I've said before and my hair indicates, I'm part black. If you don't believe that black people can effect institutionalized racism then I'd encourage you to step out of your bubble and visit somewhere that has black people as the majority. South Africa would be a great place to get some experience, perhaps Nigeria, Somalia, Ghana, or Senegal will help you understand it.
The willful, it can be nothing less, ignorance expressed by some people just astonishes me. Any *people* can be racist, in congregation or individually. They don't even have to be in power to be racist. There's a dictionary available for free and online. I'd suggest using Oxford or M-W. There's a whole host of history and current events reading to be had - you can select your site(s) as you wish but I'd suggest a broad source to ensure you get a better picture as everyone is biased.
To think that there are no areas with institutionalized racism that elevates black people is absolutely silly. I'm not sure if you're a troll or just haven't actually stepped outside of your bubble so I'm trying, really hard, to give you the benefit of doubt. We'll see, should you choose to respond.
That said; Does anyone know if there's something to be done to help his family in their time of sorrow? I'm not sure that it is needed but I can toss a few bucks at them.
On a personal note; I did not find his usage of the word "nigger" to be offensive. It looked, to me, as if it was intended to shock people into noticing that even white people can be subjected to abuses by authorities and that there's no reason to believe you're immune because you are not black. If anything, and this is just from a few prior contacts, I'd expect that he's purposely doing so in order to bring attention to the matter.
And, in closing, it's disappointing to see the moralizing by the feelings police on the subject of suicide. You have a right to life, the opposite is also be true. One should be able to do so in a dignified manner and not need to resort to methods that may not succeed and may leave one severely handicapped. Because one should have a right to end their own life, I strongly support something known as PAS (Physician Assisted Suicide). Not allowing people to control their life is the ultimate reduction of liberty. Had policies been in place to allow one to peacefully go with minimal pain and with respect then, perhaps, this sort of thing could have gone much better.
I'd have laughed my ass off if an employee was skipping down the hallway. I'd have laughed even harder if we had a client in the building. Hell, at one point we had absolutely no pressing work and were going to be doing very little for a few days. We went out and played in the park and the following day we went to a museum. We'd already been paid and there was nothing we could do until [redacted] got off their ass and got the data to us. We were still pretty small then and could get away with it.
We had D&D nights. We went to the movies together. We went to each other's kid's plays and concerts. We went to weddings, funerals, even to one of those whatever it's called that Jewish girls go through instead of boys things. When we had team changes they'd often break out into groups and go off and do something out of the office - while on the clock even. So long as the work got done it was all good. The doors were open 24/7 if you wanted to work. You could work from home but that was kind of difficult to do back then and later kind of hard as there was a lot of proprietary data on the system.
If you skipped to the bathroom - you just might get someone to skip along with you. Hell, sometimes we'd have a group of people break out into song. Albeit not when there were clients in the building (that I know of). I kind of miss the place but, well, I'm in Florida and invited half of Slashdot to come to my NYE party so I don't miss it that much.
These days, the non-parent company has assigned parking, badges, security, a human resources department, time clocks, and a dress code. I am to understand that they still try to keep some of the mentality the same but it's difficult. They don't have things like company picnics but they do have things like team building retreats and shit like that. Of course they've got like 3x the number of people working there now and two of the offices have been closed...
I was not an occifer but I spent a long time at OCS in Quantico. You learn a lot about posture. How you carry yourself is one of the greatest impressions you can make - even if the other person isn't consciously noticing it. You can add to that tone of voice, inflection, facial expressions, quality and fit of clothing, hygiene, and hair styles. They all factor into how people opine about you (even if they shouldn't). This factors into your success and failure - regardless of validity.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks. When I was young, I was born in 1957, there was actually a group of people who were scared of "the big brain." The worried about things like automation taking over their jobs, taking over their lives, and making choices for them. This was not just a recurring theme in science fiction of that era but there were several television shows that touched on it and even a few non-science fiction works. Well, not traditional, era-specific, or hard science fiction works...
I remember one show, I think it was a movie, where there were a couple of office ladies who worked in accounting. They were losing their jobs due to computers taking over the industry. At several points, they demonstrated fear and felt that one would be taking over the entire world in some not-too-distant future. I seem to recall that being a UNIVAC in that movie and that the computer did get mad and throw paper around.
The thing is, it wasn't *quite* science fiction, at least not in feel. It was more of a standard work of fiction, just a run of the mill quasi-chick flick and it happened to contain a computer. That's one of them that I recall.
I don't have any specific fears other than the obvious - that additional automation will likely, at least for some period of time, result in the loss of jobs for certain classes of people. That's pretty much a given and there are lots of ways to deal with it as a society. I'll make no predictions as to how that may go - I'm not qualified to opine.
Thanks again. I appreciated the insight and the answer(s). Unlike some, perhaps many, of the folks here - I'm comfortable saying that there's stuff that I don't know and that I will never know it unless I ask. I try to not be "wrong" so I often ask questions. I'd have loved to get something like this into traffic modeling. I can only speculate that there are projects, on-going and some advanced, where machine learning is being done on large data sets and then used to fine-tune the models and algorithms. How, I do not know the specifics nor would I admit it if I did. There are still plenty of friends in both the industry and my old company.
Knowing a little about you and what you've publicly disclosed, well... Umm... It'd be ironic if, when you gave your lecture, you got it wrong.
I'm assuming that you're not going to get it wrong. There are, on the other hand, lots of people who chime in to claim, "That's not irony!" Even though it is irony. Oddly, I'm not sure that's ironic. Having a desire to learn and improve my writing skills has led me to actually read the dictionary and some additional information about the definition of ironic.
A cardiologist that eats poorly, doesn't maintain good health, and dies of a coronary probably isn't ironic. If they'd done everything they could to ensure a healthy heart and then died earlier then expected and of a coronary would be ironic.
Opening up a coconut and finding a frog inside is not ironic. It's just weird.
The song... Hmm... I forget all the lyrics (or most of them) but rain on your wedding day is not ironic. However, if she had had some history of weddings and they all went off without a hitch and then said that this next one wouldn't be canceled because... Wait, what? I'm wasting too much time here. ;-)
That and the kids just got home. They said they were coming back with a surprise and they had taken my g/f with them - they're going "shopping" (or went). So, yeah, I was gonna write a novella but I'll skip it and say, "So... This lecture, please?" I'd be most interested in reading it. With any luck, I'll learn something new.
Not everything must, or should, be done for an "economic purpose." Some things, like pure theoretical physics research or even space and space related things, should and can be done without the need for it to be an economical purpose. In this case, there's a quasi-economic purpose. Mostly, by outsourcing launches to SpaceX, we may end up with less expensive launches and the, perhaps, see economic purposes or even just scientific purposes.
Frankly, it's still being paid for by the government and the government will still be paying for their launches for many years to come. This money is, of course, injected into the various local economies but that's not the purpose. The important thing is that we're going to spend the money anyhow so I'd rather we spent the money on this than spending it to blow up little brown people. Hell, I'd rather they spend all this money on studying the three-toed sloth than spend it on bombing little brown me.
But, then again, some of us have priorities that are different than others. I'm rather fond of wealth accumulation but not at the expense of all else. I'm quite pleased to say that I've accumulated a few dollars but not at the expense of all else. Spending what I spent on this Christmas and, soon, New Years Eve has very little (none, really) economic purpose but I got to have a great time with my two kids. How much is that worth?
How much is it worth if this research ends up enabling us to save the species, avert disaster, do pure research that develops into future technology, or even if it just makes a few people giggle like little schoolgirls and be happy that we're able to attach people to a giant bomb and launch them with such precision that they remain in a state of perpetual falling for long periods of time? No, I'm okay with that. In fact, I'm more than okay with that. I'm ecstatic and probably over-optimistic and that's okay too.
As an aside: It's usually those who pay the least taxes that complain the loudest about taxes. It's usually the people who have accomplished the least who complain about others accomplishing things. It's usually the insecure who want people to conform to their ideals. It's usually those least likely to accept new information and change their views who complain about worry themselves sick because others are doing things that they can't appreciate. I dunno which class(es) you belong to but I'm probably correct in guessing that you fit one of those categories. Perhaps some honest introspection, objectivity, and a healthy dose of reasoning will help you with that? I dunno - I am not a psychiatrist.
Pretty much. I don't know where I'd heard this but, in the original thread discussing this, I made mention of this same thing. In that thread, I mentioned that they'd be testing it, checking for wear, tearing it down in a non-totally-destructive fashion, and rebuilding it so that they could put it on display at their HQ or, perhaps, in a museum.
I don't know where it was that I'd heard this but I think it was someone from SpaceX - probably not Musk personally, in an online news blurb video or maybe some small article. Unfortunately, I am unable to find the original link, video, comment, or whatever. I appear to have not linked to it in my comment from that thread. Perhaps it wasn't official at that point? Otherwise, yeah, we kind of already knew this was what was going to happen.
Hell, it wasn't even a presumption that this is what would happen to it. It was something that someone, in official capacity, had said. A quick look at the original thread has some people who also indicated that they'd heard such, a bit later in the thread, and they did not link to the source either. :/
At any rate, now's a fine time to congratulate them again! I'm still a little boy in my pajamas watching the original moon landing - or similar feeling, when I watch this video or even think about the implications. It has been a long time since we've had any real exciting news concerning launch and reentry vehicles, mechanisms, or tech. This? This is awesome! It makes my inner child want to stay up all night to semi-dream about being an astronaut.
I wonder if they'll take a 58 year old man, in great health somehow, up? I'll even quit smoking cigars for the duration. I guess they've got a "holy shit" button for the folks in the top (or when they have folks in it). I'd take those risks. Hmm... How much does it actually cost to get a 58 year old, 172 pound, reasonably healthy man into space as a tourist? I've never really looked into it but I just might be able to shake out the couch and pay a reasonable price for it.
Heh... Maybe I can get a Slashdot sticker and stick it on the ISS? Hell, I'd be happy with just a few orbits around the planet. It'd be even more wonderful if I could bring a camera and live stream it back to planet Earth. I mean, I've got a passport that is stamped to show that I've stomped all over the place. Hell, at least one country gave me a sticker once - it is in my passport. China maybe? Japan? India? I forget. At any rate, I've never once been in a position to say, "Back on Earth" in a meaningful fashion. I guess I could say it when I'm in an airplane but that's not the same.
At any rate, it'd be fantastic to be able to say, "Okay, I've been to space - at least LEO. What next?" It'd be excellent to look down at the planet and see it as it exists in all it's fat glory. Sure, I can download pictures and video. Yes, I can probably even go ride in the Vomit Comet and experience a slightly prolonged sense of weightlessness. But no, I can't say that I've been to space. I'd like to be able to say that.
To make a short story long...
When I was a kid, I saw the first landing on the moon. I stayed up late to watch it, as I recall. Either the next day or the next weekend, we went to Woolworth's (maybe) or K-Mart? It might have even been some store called "Ames." Buggered if I know but I do remember getting a pair of astronaut pajamas. They had those plastic covered feet things and I'd slide across the hardwood floors - in my head it was some sort of fancy balance training for my future career as an astronaut. (Things were a bit more simple then. Or they seemed to be more simple because I was still a child.)
Seeing SpaceX stick the landing, damned near close to center, and understanding the maths involved - yeah, I felt like that kid, in his pajamas, sliding across the hardwood floor, while dreaming about being an astronaut and spending time in space. I seem to recall that I wanted to yo-yo, blow bubbles, and pop a water balloon in space. I was excited to see a vi
Well, one's a crime? ;-)
That and did the person in your contrived example imprison anyone or did they just say that they'd like to? If they said that they liked to, did they show any sign of acting on their thoughts? If they showed any sign then how far had their preparations come - was there any specific behavior that would make a reasonable person conclude that they were likely to act on it?
(Yes, this is marginally a continuation of the last conversation.)
Again, I don't have the answers. I'm not sure where the line needs to be drawn. As this is a private company with private property and their use is not mandated by law, I'm not concerned with it though I'm free to criticize it. Though, honestly, I've not really been critical of it. Used properly, it's a good policy. Or course, that's the conclusion I come to about most things - including speech. The line is, for me and at present, where the thoughts or expression of thoughts turns into action - and not a moment before. At least that's what I believe, until I'm given reason to think something better.
Alas, David does not know everything. ;-) I don't even pretend to.
I'd submit that it is an affliction. It's even a curable affliction. It's sometimes an easily curable affliction but it often needs an acknowledgement of the problem, a willingness to get beyond ones ego, critical thinking, objectivity, and effort. It surely may need more than those few things that I mentioned but I refuse to be a pessimist tonight.
There are so many people who are hell bent on retaining their views, regardless of the evidence against them, that it's like a contest to see who can stick with the most absurd conclusions the longest. We call politicians who change their minds based on new information things like "wishy washy." We call someone who wants to collect facts and make an informed decision names like "indecisive." We call a change in strategy a "sign of failure." We call those who admit that they do not have the answers "stupid." We call those who seek the answers "ignorant."
Basically, the older I get the more convinced I become that humans are much like dumb herd beasts only blessed by the fact that they somehow managed to acquire opposable thumbs. That we've made it this far is nothing short of miraculous. We're panicky, ignorant, fearful, frightful, impulsive, and more. In short, humans kind of suck. I'm glad I'm not one of them!
So, about that comma thing... While you're looking up the appropriate educational pamphlets to give to them, you might want to actually take a minute to look under the "C" section for "Capitalization." If you're going to throw stones then you should probably do it from someone else's house if your own house is made of glass. Err... Or, perhaps, something to that effect.
While I agree with your thought, that's not ever going to happen. It may happen on the internet but that's unlikely to happen. You can, right now, get free hosting (without ads), a free TLD, and publish as much as you want so long as you obey the host's AUP. You can, with some effort, even find some pretty lenient hosts. However, eventually, you might want to say things that nobody wants to provide services for so you'll have to pay for that - just like you'll have to pay for the paper to make a sandwich board to wear on your downtown parade.
Even then, should you be unable to say it on the 'net, you'll still be able to find public spaces in which to speak for the foreseeable future. In fact, if those spaces run out then you've got far more pressing issues than speech. From a conversation a couple of days ago - I know of two comments that have been deleted on this site and only two. If you've got something to say then say it instead of screaming about rights you don't appear prepared to actually understand or use.
Here, I'll go first:
I hate purple people more than any other people. They should all be exterminated and gassed like the Nazi's did with the Jews. Purple people are the scum of the Earth and need to die. If I could get my hands on the throat of a purple person - I'd kill them twice and then fuck their corpse. The second time I killed them, I'd make their mother watch. Then I'd club their mother to death with their crotchfruit's femur.
See? I bet they don't even delete that. If you don't make use of your liberties you end up losing them. So, if you've got something to say - just say it.
Now, you know I generally agree with you but - at this point, you're just looking silly. I believe I'm actually paraphrasing you...
"Yes, but I'm free to criticize their decision." (That might even be verbatim.)
I suspect that the vast majority of people here, those who are complaining, know that they can go elsewhere. I'd even wager that a large majority of that group do not actively use Twitter.
That said, umm... I think this thread's express purpose is "whinging and whining about it on Slashdot." It's what we do and kind of the point of the comments section, especially when the subject is Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, Oracle, Microsoft, Windows, Linux, Microsoft, politics, religion, science, Microsoft, or most any other subject.
Sure, we sometimes have meaningful discourse and educational comments but I presume they're entirely by accident. I've seen you enjoy a good bitch-fest here and not gone to the company to register your complaints instead of laying them out here in the thread. I'm just as guilty. Hell, it doesn't even have to be a /topical/ thread.
Absolutely. It's actually a little something that I miss about my old company. I am biased but I like to say that I built the greatest traffic simulation game of all time. It lacked graphics (though we* did add that eventually but it was on smaller data sets, limited in scope, and very compute cycle expensive). It was great having that much horsepower to play with.
I had a whole server room full of clustered blade servers with giant blinking switches and pretty lights. I had disk arrays that were mind blowing. An example might be, we were working with almost a TB of collected data, to model with, in the very late 1990s. It was awesome! I literally can't imagine what it would be like today. I sold in 2007 and the sale was finalized in very early 2008.
Today? Today we'd be able to model the chaos that is a human so much better. We'd be able to throw at, account for, utilize, anticipate, optimize for, so many new variables that just weren't possible and then, today, we could lay down real satellite imagery and actually visualize it in 3D! As I left, and this is still rather proprietary so pardon my lack of details, we were modeling store interiors (pedestrian traffic modeling is a thing) in 3D as well as using our own lab, live collected metrics, and positioning ourselves to optimize for very specific behavior characteristics that would appeal to a greater subset of people. (You don't think they set up malls and stores that way by chance, do you?)
I'd *love* to see what AI could do in that situation. I'd love to see it and I'd love to work on it but, alas, I never will.** However, I agree with your assertion. I've had big iron and thrown it at complex problems and it is exciting. I'm a mathematician and just happened to end up in the industry because that's where my thesis was. My advisor put me in touch with the Mass. DOT folks and the rest is, shall we say, history.
That said - if you don't mind my picking your brain, what do you expect to come from this? How do you think it will be used? What repercussions do you fear, if any? -- only really important bit in this jumble of text. ;-)
* I say we but that's very subjective. See, I am not a programmer. I programmed because I had to. I hired professionals who were much more adept than I. I learned a lot from them but, with some time, I also learned to get out of their way, give them the tools they asked for (not what a vendor recommends), and give them clear goals. I have trouble making a stick figure. In short, I did not make anything of the sort but we, the company, added graphics.
** I'm pretty much covered by a life-time non-compete that I knowingly, willfully, perhaps eagerly signed. Being a person who's a little fond of doing what I say I'll do, well... That means I'll never work in the industry again. I have been called back in (at consultant wages even) and helped out a couple of times but it has been years since then and I'm not sure that I could do it again - it's difficult to leave every time. In theory, I can go back to work for the new parent company. However, they've got stuff like 'human resource departments,' badges, security, a dress code, and they probably won't let me sleep in the office any more. But there's no way that I could work for another company and not end up using what is now their property - namely Intellectual Property that they've bought and paid for. I simply could not distance myself well enough and that would be dishonest of me and I'm kind of fond of being able to say that I haven't done so.
Not quite, as far as I know, and I'm only a fake historian. (I'm not a historian at all - I just have a fascination with it and really love to learn about it, it's something I geek out on once in a while.) That said, I don't know of any specific quotes that quite match what you seem to be hoping for but I believe he made some quotes about Stalin being too aggressive with his own population. Unfortunately, as is often the case and why I am not a historian, I am unable to cite that - I seem to recall it from a documentary about the Rise of the Third Reich (maybe the Fall). It could easily have been one of any of the hundreds that I've seen about him.
So, I'll give you this instead:
http://www.hitler.co.uk/hitler...
While I browsed that page, I stopped and pondered when I reached these two:
‘The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force.’
‘The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged to one category.’
What I pondered and how I thought they might be applicable are two things I'll leave to the exercise of the reader.
I knew better than to open this thread but... Alas, I'm bored, the missus is out with my kids buying me something with my money and that means I'm stuck with you guys. Or, alternatively, you're stuck with me. Whichever way you want to look at it.
I'm reminded of a few things but one of the more interesting was GitHub and their Code of Conduct. They, for one - and you can find many examples, asserted that they would not be taking action when "reverse" racism or harassment occurred. The reason given was that those who were in a position of privilege could not be harmed.
Yes the claim was, the person in a position of privilege could not be harmed. That is more or less verbatim from the discussion thread after the uproar and, for better or worse, GitHub backed down from this and I'm not sure if they've gone ahead and implemented a CoC or not. There were a variety of other issues and justifications given, I'm far to lazy to find/quote them all. There was an enlightening thread, here on this site, concerning the change.
I seem to recall someone (probably not an official representative) claiming that it was being done in the name of social justice. (I don't believe they mentioned the warrior aspect but they were pretty proud of themselves - it reminded me of a child with a loaded diaper in fact.) I've since pondered this, probably more often than was necessary, and I just don't understand how they can reach those conclusions, enact those policies, or somehow claim superiority, logic, reason, or higher morals than others. They then make derogatory statements about the folks who postulated that this might not be actual justice or social or even moral. Just questioning it appears to mean, to them at least, that you're a sexist, a racist, homophobic, transphobic, daft, white, angry, losing your privilege, and more. (Key: I'm none of those things - not even white.)
Yet they wear this badge with pride... It's like (instead of a 'sarge' thing) wearing something that looks like a dunce cap and being proud when someone points out that you've got a traffic cone on your head. I just don't understand. I've been told, I've approached this topic with others in the past, that I'm a bad person for being an egalitarian. Even though I employed nearly as many men as I did in a very heavy tech oriented business, I'm somehow bad for not caring what's between their legs but - if I do care, I'm bad for that too. I just give a shit what's in your head and how well you can convert it to work.
But I am a monster...
I spent eight years enlisted in the Marines and had the misfortune of seeing combat where I was required to lay down suppressive fire. That was the entirety of my combat experience and the duration was about 25 minutes but it felt like it lasted for hours. There are sights, sounds, and feelings that I'll never be able to explain to you - I simply don't know how. You poke your head out from behind cover and duck back in.
You screw up enough courage to do it again and then you move your rifle into position. Maybe you touch off a few rounds, are you ready to take a life? Isn't there another way? This is fucking stupid! But you do it. You sure as fuck don't do it for Mom, Dad, or Fingerfuck Mary back home and you don't even like apple pie. Hell, you barely do it for the ideal of freedom and justice. Mostly you do it because that's your brother next to you, he's got a hole in his arm, and he's crying for his mother but still shooting back.
No, son... I fought for social justice. These folks are just Puritans with a different set of values. They are not warriors. They are not fighting for justice. I'm not even sure that they're social.
*sighs* I should know better than to read these threads. I dare say, both sides of this have a few lunatics with a history of bad behavior.
However, no... The idea that they're warriors is laughable. The justice is unbelievable. The social is debatable. If these folks are your warriors and they are the best sent to represent you on a field of battle then, well... You might want to call up the reserves soon. The tide's already changing and the pendulum swings both ways. Start it swinging at your own peril as the backlash can be damaging.
I usually don't say a whole lot in these threads. I read them and maybe joke with a couple of people who know me, or my online me, well enough to know that I don't really give a shit what's between your legs, who you love, what race you are, and the likes.
That said, I've noticed a trend...
You talk about taking responsibility for your own life and that's noble. How about the many others, on the same side that you appear to be on, who are doing the exact opposite? They're not, quite explicitly, taking responsibility for their own life. I've noticed that it's always someone else's fault. It's always the fault of someone else because they didn't get a job, promoted, or the likes.
Then, when someone does offer criticism, well, there's still no responsibility. They didn't screw up - the person who's calling them on it is a racist, a sexist, a troll, a hateful person, or any one of a number of things.
Let's keep going with this, shall we?
The next thing is, well, pretty soon those same people are taking responsibility for other people's lives. If they don't like someone's behavior they try to silence them, they try to defund them, they try to get them fired, they try to take away their livelihood, and more.
There's no justice here. Wearing that badge, today, and claiming it stands for justice is like wearing the priest's collar and to stand for safe claiming care. They're as much about justice as the Klan was.
You call it taking responsibility. I call it blaming other people for your incompetence. I call it shirking responsibility and refusing accountability.
That said, there are some who are actually interested in a fair and equal society. Their names are besmirched by your antics and usurpation of the ideal. Your rhetoric and tactics are tiresome and harmful. History will look back on you, and your ilk, and you will be judged harshly.
Machine translation butchers the hell out of that:
Hate easily a collective or a particular person, and hate you rather be alone or collectively?
I'm otherwise entirely unfamiliar with it. Do you have a paraphrase or more enlightening translation for me?
Yeah - I screwed that up. I had meant to say something along the lines of "technically not public information" and then go on with how it was fairly easy for someone to still get the information if they knew your SSN and whatnot. Thanks for pointing that out.
Export the key as a .reg before editing it. Save it with a name that you can remember or something that's detailed. The file date and time will tell you the rest. Backup the registry before you edit it. Keep good, multiple, backups of said registry.
It's not the same but the end result is the same.
And no, I'm sending this from Lubuntu.
Like you make a daily inspection and will notice the hardware keyloggers that one can buy for very little money.
How very true. I had, and I know this sounds bizarre, a Windows ME box that came and was built specifically for Windows ME. It was (and I jest not) stable. I regularly had several months of uptime and only rebooted because I'd needed to. It ran an OpenNap server *and* hub for a long while. It even served as a file server later in life - while still running the OpenNap server and hub.
That one specific combination of hardware and drivers, and the declination of the moon during its first power cycle, made for a system that was quite good for its time. Hardware developed and maintained for a specific system is really quite a good thing to have. See Apple for a good example of this.
I'm not even sure that /. is majority Linux users any more. I'm not entirely sure what happened. Oddly, when it was majority Linux users - I was still using Unix at work (mostly) and Windows at home. Recently, I got tired of having Linux on a partition and never bothering to boot to it to do much more than poke around or update so I got rid of all my Windows installed, let my MSDN lapse, and am just using Linux. Now they've all gone to Windows 7 or 10.
The fickle hands of fate have weaved their skein and a reading of the the loom has determined that I am destined to remain a minority. Well, not quite the minority you are. You use PC-BSD. I've found a few other Lubuntu/LXDE users here. Actually, I should like to see Slashdot's user data and find out what percentage are actually using what OS.
I am but one person and I know this. The presence of games, or lack thereof, is of no importance to me when selecting an operating system. Linux is not, nor will it ever be, the best choice for everyone. I don't really think that's actually the goal any more.
I don't think anyone really cares if there's Linux on every desktop. I know I don't. If you can't play the games you want to play with Linux then you have other choices in either games or operating systems.
Not every car is made for me. Not every flavor of ice cream is meant for me. Not every article of clothing is meant for me. I'm okay with that.
I use Linux on the desktop because I like it and it works for me. To me, it matters not one iota what you prefer but I do hope you made the choice to use what works best for you and what best helps you accomplish your goals. If you're expecting the perfect solution then you're probably going to be disappointed. Compromises will probably need to be made - if you have high expectations.
If the developers aren't going to port the games to Linux then use whatever they do develop for. Alternatively, don't play the games.
That said:
1. I don't actually have any bugs that I know of - nothing that effects me, at any rate. There are probably some in there but buggered if I can find 'em.
2. It's good that they have that choice, I guess. It's not for me but I'm not offended that some people choose that. Choice is good.
3. Sure, don't use it. It may mean you don't get games. Again, you have a choice. I'd stop playing, but that's me.
I dunno... It works for me and I'm content with it. Sometimes stuff breaks but that's not the fault of the system - that's squarely on my shoulders. I usually know what I did to break it and I'm fairly adept at fixing it. That has been my choice. I'm pretty happy with that choice.
Yeah, that's how I read it. However, I spent about an hour catching up and reading a few other things before I felt like I had enough information to actually opine in this thread. I've also had personal interactions with Ian and have found him insightful and intelligent. We never met in person - our communication was via email.
My reading is that it was an attempt to open the dialogue and things went steadily downhill from there. Well, things were already going downhill at that point. As mentioned above, I'm partially black and not even remotely offended by the word in the way that it was used. Then again, I'm not actually offended by words - only deeds. Words don't offend me one bit, how they're said may.
Unfortunately, this will be maligned to make all sorts of conclusive statements, probably none of which were the intended statement, and nothing will change. It looked to be a cry for notice - that the police are abusive authoritarians with far more power than they should have. It looked to be an attempt to say, "I'm not even a nigger, it happened to me!" Could it have been better said? I don't know - would it have carried the weight?
That said, hopefully more and more people will start to get the opportunity to notice. We've got someone up thread who's claiming black people can't be racists, they even claim they can't have institutionalized racism. We've got people claiming that the account was hacked. We've got people thinking that the guy's a racist and are hell bent on social justice. We've got others who are saying that it's about time the stupid fuck learned that niggers were evil. So, I'm pretty sure nothing will happen and that nothing good will come of this.
It's unfortunate. It is what it is.
No, Black people can have institutionalized racism. Just not in your location. By the way, as I've said before and my hair indicates, I'm part black. If you don't believe that black people can effect institutionalized racism then I'd encourage you to step out of your bubble and visit somewhere that has black people as the majority. South Africa would be a great place to get some experience, perhaps Nigeria, Somalia, Ghana, or Senegal will help you understand it.
The willful, it can be nothing less, ignorance expressed by some people just astonishes me. Any *people* can be racist, in congregation or individually. They don't even have to be in power to be racist. There's a dictionary available for free and online. I'd suggest using Oxford or M-W. There's a whole host of history and current events reading to be had - you can select your site(s) as you wish but I'd suggest a broad source to ensure you get a better picture as everyone is biased.
To think that there are no areas with institutionalized racism that elevates black people is absolutely silly. I'm not sure if you're a troll or just haven't actually stepped outside of your bubble so I'm trying, really hard, to give you the benefit of doubt. We'll see, should you choose to respond.
That said; Does anyone know if there's something to be done to help his family in their time of sorrow? I'm not sure that it is needed but I can toss a few bucks at them.
On a personal note; I did not find his usage of the word "nigger" to be offensive. It looked, to me, as if it was intended to shock people into noticing that even white people can be subjected to abuses by authorities and that there's no reason to believe you're immune because you are not black. If anything, and this is just from a few prior contacts, I'd expect that he's purposely doing so in order to bring attention to the matter.
And, in closing, it's disappointing to see the moralizing by the feelings police on the subject of suicide. You have a right to life, the opposite is also be true. One should be able to do so in a dignified manner and not need to resort to methods that may not succeed and may leave one severely handicapped. Because one should have a right to end their own life, I strongly support something known as PAS (Physician Assisted Suicide). Not allowing people to control their life is the ultimate reduction of liberty. Had policies been in place to allow one to peacefully go with minimal pain and with respect then, perhaps, this sort of thing could have gone much better.
I'd have laughed my ass off if an employee was skipping down the hallway. I'd have laughed even harder if we had a client in the building. Hell, at one point we had absolutely no pressing work and were going to be doing very little for a few days. We went out and played in the park and the following day we went to a museum. We'd already been paid and there was nothing we could do until [redacted] got off their ass and got the data to us. We were still pretty small then and could get away with it.
We had D&D nights. We went to the movies together. We went to each other's kid's plays and concerts. We went to weddings, funerals, even to one of those whatever it's called that Jewish girls go through instead of boys things. When we had team changes they'd often break out into groups and go off and do something out of the office - while on the clock even. So long as the work got done it was all good. The doors were open 24/7 if you wanted to work. You could work from home but that was kind of difficult to do back then and later kind of hard as there was a lot of proprietary data on the system.
If you skipped to the bathroom - you just might get someone to skip along with you. Hell, sometimes we'd have a group of people break out into song. Albeit not when there were clients in the building (that I know of). I kind of miss the place but, well, I'm in Florida and invited half of Slashdot to come to my NYE party so I don't miss it that much.
These days, the non-parent company has assigned parking, badges, security, a human resources department, time clocks, and a dress code. I am to understand that they still try to keep some of the mentality the same but it's difficult. They don't have things like company picnics but they do have things like team building retreats and shit like that. Of course they've got like 3x the number of people working there now and two of the offices have been closed...
I was not an occifer but I spent a long time at OCS in Quantico. You learn a lot about posture. How you carry yourself is one of the greatest impressions you can make - even if the other person isn't consciously noticing it. You can add to that tone of voice, inflection, facial expressions, quality and fit of clothing, hygiene, and hair styles. They all factor into how people opine about you (even if they shouldn't). This factors into your success and failure - regardless of validity.