You're smarter than that... What you said is true but that doesn't mean 50% of the voters will be below average IQ. By IQs very nature, a subset will have exactly 100 scores.
You don't actually understand how a bell curve or the IQ test works, do you? And you want to be the arbiter of votes...
There will be more people at *exactly* 100. Thus it is impossible (or highly unlikely) that they'll be 50% of the vote. I take it that you'll not be voting then? You'll be willfully giving up your vote so that the smart people can decide what's right for you?
My business was headquartered there. NC is awesome and full of smart and good people. Every area seems to have a percentage of stupid people and I've spent some time trying to figure out how it is they manage to end up clustered together.
No, really, I've devoted too much time to trying to figure this out. I've concluded it's mostly harmless and probably best that they're off in concentrations. I don't know *how* they end up in those concentrations with movement being as easy as it is but I assume the smart ones move away or just stick around to be virtual gods among men.
Back home, in Maine, we've got "Avon" which is home of the "Happy Valley Wave." The family tree "ain't naught but a two-by-four, ayuh." There's Destin, Florida (not far from my next destination) where they somehow manage to attract tourists and yet are also the home of The Backup device which is a hanger for your shotgun on the side of your bed.
Dark Matter is whatever it is that is causing the effect. It is a generic term, a placeholder. No matter what it turns out to be, even if the SM is wrong, it still exists and is still Dark Matter. Unless I'm missing something...
I warned you about this years ago when "drone" operators started acting like idiots because the price barrier made idiots able to be drone operators. I even gave you a few suggestions as to how to help avoid this. I even offered to help and I am not a drone operator. I offered to help because I hate draconian regulation harming hobbyists.
But no... I was modded down and you told me that you'd do what you want. This is just the beginning. The offer to help still sort of stands but I'm fast approaching a point where I won't have time to help.
Yup. That's why I'm thinking that it's something I should probably work on and something that I should relearn. I'm in a position where I can take advantage of the situation and I can accept the risks. I'm at less risk than others and I'm more able to defend myself. To be honest, this is kind of a burden that I should be taking.
So, I'm going to have to consider myself as starting anew, from scratch, and will have to go on from there. I'm picking PHP back up as a project. I used to be fairly fluent in C and could muddle my way through C++ with the help of USENET. I know/knew some PERL and some of my PERL is still out there being insecure and horrifically complex to this very day. Hell, even my PHP code, some of it, is still out there - some dropped and others still picked up and maintained.
Consider this a blank state... I can setup a development environment but it's going to need to be done on Linux. I have a web option and I have a self-hosted option. Then I have languages - where should I begin anew? Should I go back to pounding out bad C and relearn that? C++ seems to be a solid choice. I bought a bunch of Python learning material recently. I haven't *really* picked it up and dug into it. Should I go web and just use it as a socket connector where they have their own signed certs and share them as they see fit maybe?
Hmm... This could be fun and I'll be settling in, hopefully, Florida for a little while this week. I've only got laptops with me but I can connect to home just fine. There are a couple of older desktops (maybe two or three years old) at the house in Florida so there's that or I can just buy a couple more workstation-class machines and see what comes of it.
No, no... Some random AC on Slashdot is right and the article is wrong. They might be experts in their field but, damn it, AC read the first three paragraphs in a Wikipedia article. They might have even edited an article once. Sure, it was about My Little Pony but they're officially a Wikipedia Editor and eminently more qualified than these so-called-experts could ever hope to be.
In all fairness, there are a few topics where I'd trust *some* of the Slashdot posters more than I'd trust the journalists who were posting articles. Science, multiple schools, was an area where this was once true. Not that Slashdot was ever once "good" or anything but I dare say that I no longer am as inclined to rely on the ACs as I used to be.
I don't recall the last article that had a thread with posters actually with domain knowledge pointing out the flaws. We get off-the-cuff, half-baked, opinions stated as facts and agreed on because they use authoritative sounding verbiage. Everything is now a conspiracy. Every science article is now wrong and the threads are populated by people who are not only certain of this they'll tell you why they're wrong.
No, Slashdot was never good but, I might have a faulty memory, it was certainly better. Well, sometimes... Just recently, I clicked a poster's link in his signature. It took me way back to a thread I'd forgotten about. The thread was about Virtual Machines - specifically VMware. The comments were, mostly; "I'll just reboot." "It's impossible." "It will never catch on." "$300? Yeah, I'll just keep using DOS, thanks!"
However, inside that thread, were a few people saying, "Imagine the possibilities!" They were then browbeaten into conforming and the general consensus was that the idea was horrible and it would be the end of computers as we know it.
On second thought, no... I am remembering a past that wasn't there. Slashdot's much the same as it ever was. Keep on keeping on and let's hope it never changes. Or, more accurately perhaps, shine on you crazy diamond. I can't wait for the next thread about DNA. I'm going to postulate that it's all a hoax.
If you make enough noise about it, get enough people behind you, then one of the politicians will surely claim that they have a plan and will be enacting legislation to prevent this evil asteroid menace from happening - if only you elect them. All you have to do is make enough noise and get enough people to join in the clamor with you. One of the politicians will, almost certainly, claim that they have a solution.
I imagine there's a bit more nuance to it. Life finds a way. Sure, you *may* get a "burst of evolution" when specialization is required because you may end up with more unique mutations being viable. How viable are those in the long-term? Then, at the other end of the spectrum, if there's a diverse group to seed the the now vacant positions then it's likely that you'll see a "burst of evolution" at those points as well. It might even be that those bursts are greater in population numbers but with less variation.
At least that's what I'm thinking. It's seems difficult to really state, with any authority, what will happen and even stating what has happened is not a complete picture and is subject to change. One of the things I find fascinating is how much information and views have changed. (We did not even suspect that birds came from dinosaurs when I was a child but we did study evolution.) What's been most amazing about that is how little we now know that we don't know. A good example is how so many things keep turning out to be much older than we expected.
So, I think we'll find it's more nuanced and there's a whole hell of a lot of other data points to consider before we can make an authoritative statement about which, what, why, or when these bursts of evolution happened. We can probably narrow down on or two traits fairly well, for some areas, and maybe even three of them in various groupings. For some, we might even get all four.
Ah well... I am not a biologist or anything. I do watch a bunch of documentaries and read a lot. I could easily be mistaken. It does seem likely that circumstances will matter a great deal. Life finds a way but it really does seem to matter what the environment is like. They've found life in rocks, in ice, and at ocean depths that would crush almost anything on the planet. So, in closing, I dare say it's a bit more complex than can be summed up with a generic statement.:/
You link to something not even remotely related and then parrot a pithy saying at the end that also has no bearing on the conversation at hand. Insanity isn't curable, that we know of, but there's help available. Yes, Monsanto has done some evil things. Yes, they're probably still doing evil things. No, they're not intentionally poisoning a supply line for a restaurant.
The quizzical thing is that you seem to think that I've some moral outrage or righteous indignation. No, that would apply to the GGP post where they indicated that they were outraged and indignant. I'm at the opposite end, apathetic and mildly curious about the mental state of the poster. The insanity behind the people who think there's a giant conspiracy everywhere is just astounding.
I do know why scientists believe they do it, however. See, it's an ego thing. It's usually people with lower-than usual self-esteem and below-average IQs that believe in conspiracy theories. They do this because it makes them feel better. It makes them feel smart. See, they're "in the know." They're the wise, the people able to see between the lines, and everyone else is too stupid to get it. It's about inferiority and lack of intelligence that makes them believe these things. It's quite the opposite of what they think others are seeing.
It was an interesting paper. I enjoyed reading it but I still find the actual mental process confusing. I'm just not able to grasp what it's like to feel that poorly about oneself and I'd hate to be at that level of intellect. It would be like being able to read but unable to understand, or so I imagine.
There are bad people doing bad things but, odds are, it's not some giant corporation that's worried about a trivial fast food franchise and their trendy foods. They're not a threat, even if they do catch on. If Monsanto can make money selling organics (and they probably do) then they're going to do that instead. They're not worried about GMO being less popular with some because they are already in the market and the market's not going anywhere.
Why do I explain all of this? Well, because you might be the original AC and you might be in need of help. Think carefully about what I've said. I'm a fairly reputable person with a fairly decent group of contacts - some of whom are here on this very sight. I'm not some sort of Monsanto "shill" nor do I own any stock in their company (to the best of my knowledge). I have nothing to gain from posting this. I have nothing to lose from your mad ravings.
I do, however, have a vested interest in being a catalyst for change. If this post makes you examine the thought pattern you're using and realize that you're trying to make the extraordinary ordinary then I've done my job and that will make me feel better about who I am and it will, maybe, help you see that the answer isn't usually the most complex one that you can come up with even if it makes you feel good or feel like you've posted something intelligent.
It matters to me because I care. I care about my fellow humans. I want to help them think logically when I can. I want them to do smart things and accomplish great things. I want them to be happy, free, and thinking. If I can help that, even just a little bit, then I get the chance to think that I might have improved the world just a little bit. Seriously, someone's shitting on the food. There's no conspiracy here unless you've got some evidence. Agent Orange is not evidence.
It might seem like I'm being a pedant but that's not my goal. My goal is to learn something so, if I'm wrong, please do correct me (preferably with a whip, chains, and sexual gratification at the end).
Isn't there no such thing as a "VPN protocol?" Isn't VPN just what is created using any one of a few different protocols like PPTP, L2TP, and a couple others that I can't think of at the moment? Can't, with some work and however badly, VPN be done over quite a few protocols?
I am, by no means, an expert. I do have VPN enabled in a few different ways. I use a VPN to connect to my servers at home. I then use those servers, I offload, store, compute as needed, etc, and I connect to them through the VPN but using VNC at that end. Then, to add complexity to the mix, I also use VPN out of that box. I am currently using a VPN to connect to my servers using VNC which host a desktop instance. That desktop is connected to a VPN. I'm browsing Slashdot using that computer, through that VPN, using VNC, through a VPN which is being used on this connection.
Err... Why? Umm... I want to have a full-blown desktop and VNC was the easiest way for me to get this configured in a hurry and would be stable so that I could connect to it while using a hotel's wireless. It gets worse. I often have a VM running on that home server, which may or may not have VNC enabled, which may or may not be also connected to a VPN, and it's turtles all the way down. Seriously, I just wanted to be able to use the wifi securely while also having access to my home servers. So, they're configured to only allow certain IP addresses to access certain machines and they all use authentication schemes. I then tack on the new outbound VPN just 'cause it's already set up and I might as well.
It's actually worked out pretty well so far. I've been on the road since September.
Anyhow, to finally come back around to the rest of my question... Is there some sort of VPN protocol that I'm unaware of that I might have wanted to look into? I could have just used SSH, I guess, and tunneled through it but I wanted to access my desktop in a nice GUI fashion. I actually do almost everything through the home computers and the two laptops that I brought with me are basically not much more than dumb terminals. I'm now up to four laptops with me but two of them, ostensibly, belong to the missus though one is due to be retired but does hold some sentimental value for reasons too long to discuss here, well, at this point in time.
I am stealing that. LOL Thanks! Slashdot has now given me two, literally, out-loud laughs today. I am grateful or overtired, perhaps both.
"You're demonstrating that you're an idiot. Stop it or at least have the decency to show shame and hide your ignorance and learn something." That's how I interpreted it.
Okay, so it's overtired but that was still a brilliant reply and I shall be stealing it at some point. I'll send you a nickel every time I use it.
You are probably explaining it to someone who lacks the initiative or, perhaps, capacity to understand the intricacies beyond the idea that they're afraid and want others to give up their liberties to help lessen that fear. They're gripped with fear and their method of "flight" means taking the objects away that bad people use to cause harm.
Many of us elect to open-carry. More than once, without intending to, I've gone into my credit union while open carrying. Once, and only once, a group of us went into the same credit union all strapped up and carrying hunting rifles. (For those unfamiliar with a hunting rifle, your bullet proof vest isn't going to do you a damned bit of good unless it has the ceramic plates and it still might not help.) We not only didn't harm anyone but we didn't threaten anyone or even rob the place.
I do admit, they looked at us a bit funny but we got some cash out - it was nearing noon on a Saturday and we'd just stomped out of the woods after hiking and hunting our way into town. I've concealed carried into a credit union all sorts of times. They have no idea and, well, I sit on the board so it's not a problem. It's a tiny town with few people and I live outside of even that town, in an unincorporated township. They all have firearms. We've got kids with firearms and they don't always have adult supervision.
And yet, it still works. We've very few accidents and even fewer crimes involving a shooting or even a firearm being used. (Theft of firearms is a bit of a crime and that will skew the "firearm crime" numbers a bit for those who aren't aware of what they actually entail.) We're generally polite but I don't think that's because someone might be armed. It might be why we don't escalate into violence but I don't think it is what makes us polite. We're just neighborly and actually know each other so we give a shit about each other. I imagine that the firearms might stop some of the impoliteness from escalating.;-)
I don't really like either of them but I have this strange thing for Hillary Clinton and Martha Stewart. I've explained it, at length, before. I'd bang them both, at the same time, during Christmas dinner, on the kitchen table, on national television. I don't even find them attractive, really. I don't know what the process is but I've had this going on since the early 1990s. No, I don't understand and I haven't asked a psychiatrist about it.:/
The first, and probably only, out loud laugh that Slashdot has given me all day. I don't know who they are but I assume they're a pretty actress. Either way, it made me chuckle loud enough for the missus to notice and wonder what was so amusing.
I don't watch a lot of movies or television but I watch some documentaries - quite a few of those. Anyhow, on the movie front, there's a method actor who was in Master and Commander whom I'm told goes quite a ways to get into character. He did, for the movie mentioned, learn to actually captain a ship, play a violin, and spent like a year (or some period of time) getting into character by staying in that character as preparation for the role.
He's done other works but, as I said, I can't think of any at the moment. I'm also too lazy to... Oh, Russel Crowe maybe? He might be the guy? I'm sure he's in other things that I've watched but I don't really remember the names of actors and movies all that well. Books are the same, shortly after I've read them they escape my memory until I reread them. I may even forget the title of a book while I'm reading it. Something clicks if I'm doing something scholarly, an effort to learn, and then I retain it but if I'm reading or watching it's a bit different.
Anyhow, to the point! The point is, he's actually a really good actor from what I've seen. He is his character and is pretty deep. I think I may have actually seen a documentary specifically about him? It might just have been about method actors, I don't really recall. They say that Depp is as good (I think that's his name - does a lot of Burton's work) but I don't really agree. Depp's a fine actor and all but he just doesn't seem as 'in character' as Crowe. Depp is a little of Depp in any of the roles that I'm familiar with (I admit that's few) but Crowe is not Crowe in every role.
Oddly, Tony Robinson (name?) seems to be a good actor. I've seen him in a few things beyond his archeology series and he's pretty good. It took me a minute to pick him out of Hogswatch and that was knowing that he was in the movie. It wasn't really makeup, he was just in character.
You should probably take my opinions on actors and movies with a grain of salt. I'm certainly not a huge fan and don't really spend much time learning their names or anything about them. Some of it sticks but that's purely incidental and not intentional. The two leads in Seven Years in Tibet were pretty good. The work done in the movie about the Boston gangster and police detective was a good movie, I've forgotten the name. Hmm... Meet Joe Black was pretty good. Those are a few that I can think of where the actors were pretty well steeped in their roles and, now that you mention it, that might be why I liked them.
I am, of course, open to suggestions. I'll be headed to Florida this week (finally getting out of D.C.) so I should be able to have time to watch a few good flicks shortly.
They're the same people who need safe spaces, need to disarm the populace, need to have equal outcomes, need to take away liberties for the sake of freedom, need to control how you speak, need to control how you think, need to know what you're doing, need to ensure that you're doing things the way they feel they need to be done, need to tell you what to eat, need to tell you what to put in your body, need to tell you who to worship, and need to tell you that you're doing it wrong.
They are cowards. They hold back others by instilling fear in the masses. They make accusations and use shame and browbeating to get their way. They're spoiled, petulant, children. They don't want you to take risks because you might succeed and that scares them. They don't want you to succeed. Your success is, to them, their failing. It's cowardice and low self-esteem, through and through.
That we do... My Ph.D is in Applied Mathematics and I truly stood on the shoulders of giants. There were many, many brilliant people not just before me but, by grace of luck, around me. Traffic is a fickle thing, we humans aren't that bright. One of the reasons I am skeptical about the speed with which we'll get fully autonomous vehicles is because of my familiarity with traffic. There are many things that people do not consider, the biggest one of which is privacy.
However, 'tis late and I've not slept much. I'm working on a project (a bet with a friend) so I've been busy coding a site and, probably, will work on that some more. Otherwise, it's me... I'd be happy to type a novella concerning traffic modeling but I've typed them all before and can think of nothing new to add. Not all traffic engineering is done with the goal of increasing efficiency or throughput. If you look into pedestrian traffic, specifically in areas such as retail environments, the goal is to direct, pace, and keep it orderly.
Even with vehicular traffic, there's a lot of psychology that goes into it. There are so many elements, so many variables... It'd take, well, a life's work to describe it in detail. I did have, at one time, the absolute greatest traffic sim game on the planet (I'm biased) but it did lack much in the way of graphics. Well, it had graphics later but it sure didn't start that way. I can't even begin to imagine the compute cycles that we'd have needed in order to add graphics back then. By the late 1990s we had disk arrays that enabled us to work with data sets that were nearing the 1 TB mark. There's a whole lot of fun involved.;-)
That's right. It's absolutely terrible there. The crime is outrageous. It is, by every definition, a dystopia and you shouldn't even visit. There's nothing to see, nothing to do, and they let people run around with firearms! You should definitely never go there.
I think I was 12. I was born in 1957, at the end of it. I got astronaut pajamas a few days later and was very happy with them. They had feet and I could slide across the hardwood floor at supersonic speeds, or slightly faster. I, too, was going to be an astronaut some day. I was going to go to the moon and figure out the age of the craters. I wrote a letter to Buzz Aldrin and I got back a pack of information and a stamped signature and I joined some sort of club (I forget the name).
I never did make it to the moon. I didn't even make it to space. I guess, in theory, I could go now if I *really* wanted to spend that much money on it. I've not looked into it directly but I recall an article or two about a few people that have paid their own way into space. I seem to recall that it was a bit expensive. I feel it would just be a letdown. It'd be like having your favorite book turned into a movie. There's some chance that it will be good but probably not as good as you hoped, no matter how perfect it could have been.
I should be on my way to living on Mars by now. I should be able to vacation on the moon. I should be able to take a year and orbit the Sun in the opposite direction. Alas, I'm in D.C. and probably heading to Florida tomorrow. I might wait until mid-week but, damn it, it's not nearly as nice as the moon would be in my imagination.
Slashdot Mirror
and if the people's will was to jump off a bridge, no one should them they are stupid for doing that too?
Yet you imply you're intelligent...
You're smarter than that... What you said is true but that doesn't mean 50% of the voters will be below average IQ. By IQs very nature, a subset will have exactly 100 scores.
You don't actually understand how a bell curve or the IQ test works, do you? And you want to be the arbiter of votes...
There will be more people at *exactly* 100. Thus it is impossible (or highly unlikely) that they'll be 50% of the vote. I take it that you'll not be voting then? You'll be willfully giving up your vote so that the smart people can decide what's right for you?
My business was headquartered there. NC is awesome and full of smart and good people. Every area seems to have a percentage of stupid people and I've spent some time trying to figure out how it is they manage to end up clustered together.
No, really, I've devoted too much time to trying to figure this out. I've concluded it's mostly harmless and probably best that they're off in concentrations. I don't know *how* they end up in those concentrations with movement being as easy as it is but I assume the smart ones move away or just stick around to be virtual gods among men.
Back home, in Maine, we've got "Avon" which is home of the "Happy Valley Wave." The family tree "ain't naught but a two-by-four, ayuh." There's Destin, Florida (not far from my next destination) where they somehow manage to attract tourists and yet are also the home of The Backup device which is a hanger for your shotgun on the side of your bed.
I think "mostly harmless" is apt.
A combination of both, depending on where you are and if using a loose definition of English.
Dark Matter is whatever it is that is causing the effect. It is a generic term, a placeholder. No matter what it turns out to be, even if the SM is wrong, it still exists and is still Dark Matter. Unless I'm missing something...
I warned you about this years ago when "drone" operators started acting like idiots because the price barrier made idiots able to be drone operators. I even gave you a few suggestions as to how to help avoid this. I even offered to help and I am not a drone operator. I offered to help because I hate draconian regulation harming hobbyists.
But no... I was modded down and you told me that you'd do what you want. This is just the beginning. The offer to help still sort of stands but I'm fast approaching a point where I won't have time to help.
Imma get that. ;-)
Yup. That's why I'm thinking that it's something I should probably work on and something that I should relearn. I'm in a position where I can take advantage of the situation and I can accept the risks. I'm at less risk than others and I'm more able to defend myself. To be honest, this is kind of a burden that I should be taking.
So, I'm going to have to consider myself as starting anew, from scratch, and will have to go on from there. I'm picking PHP back up as a project. I used to be fairly fluent in C and could muddle my way through C++ with the help of USENET. I know/knew some PERL and some of my PERL is still out there being insecure and horrifically complex to this very day. Hell, even my PHP code, some of it, is still out there - some dropped and others still picked up and maintained.
Consider this a blank state... I can setup a development environment but it's going to need to be done on Linux. I have a web option and I have a self-hosted option. Then I have languages - where should I begin anew? Should I go back to pounding out bad C and relearn that? C++ seems to be a solid choice. I bought a bunch of Python learning material recently. I haven't *really* picked it up and dug into it. Should I go web and just use it as a socket connector where they have their own signed certs and share them as they see fit maybe?
Hmm... This could be fun and I'll be settling in, hopefully, Florida for a little while this week. I've only got laptops with me but I can connect to home just fine. There are a couple of older desktops (maybe two or three years old) at the house in Florida so there's that or I can just buy a couple more workstation-class machines and see what comes of it.
Maybe I need an AskSlashdot question. ;-)
No, no... Some random AC on Slashdot is right and the article is wrong. They might be experts in their field but, damn it, AC read the first three paragraphs in a Wikipedia article. They might have even edited an article once. Sure, it was about My Little Pony but they're officially a Wikipedia Editor and eminently more qualified than these so-called-experts could ever hope to be.
In all fairness, there are a few topics where I'd trust *some* of the Slashdot posters more than I'd trust the journalists who were posting articles. Science, multiple schools, was an area where this was once true. Not that Slashdot was ever once "good" or anything but I dare say that I no longer am as inclined to rely on the ACs as I used to be.
I don't recall the last article that had a thread with posters actually with domain knowledge pointing out the flaws. We get off-the-cuff, half-baked, opinions stated as facts and agreed on because they use authoritative sounding verbiage. Everything is now a conspiracy. Every science article is now wrong and the threads are populated by people who are not only certain of this they'll tell you why they're wrong.
No, Slashdot was never good but, I might have a faulty memory, it was certainly better. Well, sometimes... Just recently, I clicked a poster's link in his signature. It took me way back to a thread I'd forgotten about. The thread was about Virtual Machines - specifically VMware. The comments were, mostly; "I'll just reboot." "It's impossible." "It will never catch on." "$300? Yeah, I'll just keep using DOS, thanks!"
However, inside that thread, were a few people saying, "Imagine the possibilities!" They were then browbeaten into conforming and the general consensus was that the idea was horrible and it would be the end of computers as we know it.
On second thought, no... I am remembering a past that wasn't there. Slashdot's much the same as it ever was. Keep on keeping on and let's hope it never changes. Or, more accurately perhaps, shine on you crazy diamond. I can't wait for the next thread about DNA. I'm going to postulate that it's all a hoax.
If you make enough noise about it, get enough people behind you, then one of the politicians will surely claim that they have a plan and will be enacting legislation to prevent this evil asteroid menace from happening - if only you elect them. All you have to do is make enough noise and get enough people to join in the clamor with you. One of the politicians will, almost certainly, claim that they have a solution.
To the Twitter accounts!
I imagine there's a bit more nuance to it. Life finds a way. Sure, you *may* get a "burst of evolution" when specialization is required because you may end up with more unique mutations being viable. How viable are those in the long-term? Then, at the other end of the spectrum, if there's a diverse group to seed the the now vacant positions then it's likely that you'll see a "burst of evolution" at those points as well. It might even be that those bursts are greater in population numbers but with less variation.
At least that's what I'm thinking. It's seems difficult to really state, with any authority, what will happen and even stating what has happened is not a complete picture and is subject to change. One of the things I find fascinating is how much information and views have changed. (We did not even suspect that birds came from dinosaurs when I was a child but we did study evolution.) What's been most amazing about that is how little we now know that we don't know. A good example is how so many things keep turning out to be much older than we expected.
So, I think we'll find it's more nuanced and there's a whole hell of a lot of other data points to consider before we can make an authoritative statement about which, what, why, or when these bursts of evolution happened. We can probably narrow down on or two traits fairly well, for some areas, and maybe even three of them in various groupings. For some, we might even get all four.
Ah well... I am not a biologist or anything. I do watch a bunch of documentaries and read a lot. I could easily be mistaken. It does seem likely that circumstances will matter a great deal. Life finds a way but it really does seem to matter what the environment is like. They've found life in rocks, in ice, and at ocean depths that would crush almost anything on the planet. So, in closing, I dare say it's a bit more complex than can be summed up with a generic statement. :/
You link to something not even remotely related and then parrot a pithy saying at the end that also has no bearing on the conversation at hand. Insanity isn't curable, that we know of, but there's help available. Yes, Monsanto has done some evil things. Yes, they're probably still doing evil things. No, they're not intentionally poisoning a supply line for a restaurant.
The quizzical thing is that you seem to think that I've some moral outrage or righteous indignation. No, that would apply to the GGP post where they indicated that they were outraged and indignant. I'm at the opposite end, apathetic and mildly curious about the mental state of the poster. The insanity behind the people who think there's a giant conspiracy everywhere is just astounding.
I do know why scientists believe they do it, however. See, it's an ego thing. It's usually people with lower-than usual self-esteem and below-average IQs that believe in conspiracy theories. They do this because it makes them feel better. It makes them feel smart. See, they're "in the know." They're the wise, the people able to see between the lines, and everyone else is too stupid to get it. It's about inferiority and lack of intelligence that makes them believe these things. It's quite the opposite of what they think others are seeing.
It was an interesting paper. I enjoyed reading it but I still find the actual mental process confusing. I'm just not able to grasp what it's like to feel that poorly about oneself and I'd hate to be at that level of intellect. It would be like being able to read but unable to understand, or so I imagine.
There are bad people doing bad things but, odds are, it's not some giant corporation that's worried about a trivial fast food franchise and their trendy foods. They're not a threat, even if they do catch on. If Monsanto can make money selling organics (and they probably do) then they're going to do that instead. They're not worried about GMO being less popular with some because they are already in the market and the market's not going anywhere.
Why do I explain all of this? Well, because you might be the original AC and you might be in need of help. Think carefully about what I've said. I'm a fairly reputable person with a fairly decent group of contacts - some of whom are here on this very sight. I'm not some sort of Monsanto "shill" nor do I own any stock in their company (to the best of my knowledge). I have nothing to gain from posting this. I have nothing to lose from your mad ravings.
I do, however, have a vested interest in being a catalyst for change. If this post makes you examine the thought pattern you're using and realize that you're trying to make the extraordinary ordinary then I've done my job and that will make me feel better about who I am and it will, maybe, help you see that the answer isn't usually the most complex one that you can come up with even if it makes you feel good or feel like you've posted something intelligent.
It matters to me because I care. I care about my fellow humans. I want to help them think logically when I can. I want them to do smart things and accomplish great things. I want them to be happy, free, and thinking. If I can help that, even just a little bit, then I get the chance to think that I might have improved the world just a little bit. Seriously, someone's shitting on the food. There's no conspiracy here unless you've got some evidence. Agent Orange is not evidence.
It might seem like I'm being a pedant but that's not my goal. My goal is to learn something so, if I'm wrong, please do correct me (preferably with a whip, chains, and sexual gratification at the end).
Isn't there no such thing as a "VPN protocol?" Isn't VPN just what is created using any one of a few different protocols like PPTP, L2TP, and a couple others that I can't think of at the moment? Can't, with some work and however badly, VPN be done over quite a few protocols?
I am, by no means, an expert. I do have VPN enabled in a few different ways. I use a VPN to connect to my servers at home. I then use those servers, I offload, store, compute as needed, etc, and I connect to them through the VPN but using VNC at that end. Then, to add complexity to the mix, I also use VPN out of that box. I am currently using a VPN to connect to my servers using VNC which host a desktop instance. That desktop is connected to a VPN. I'm browsing Slashdot using that computer, through that VPN, using VNC, through a VPN which is being used on this connection.
Err... Why? Umm... I want to have a full-blown desktop and VNC was the easiest way for me to get this configured in a hurry and would be stable so that I could connect to it while using a hotel's wireless. It gets worse. I often have a VM running on that home server, which may or may not have VNC enabled, which may or may not be also connected to a VPN, and it's turtles all the way down. Seriously, I just wanted to be able to use the wifi securely while also having access to my home servers. So, they're configured to only allow certain IP addresses to access certain machines and they all use authentication schemes. I then tack on the new outbound VPN just 'cause it's already set up and I might as well.
It's actually worked out pretty well so far. I've been on the road since September.
Anyhow, to finally come back around to the rest of my question... Is there some sort of VPN protocol that I'm unaware of that I might have wanted to look into? I could have just used SSH, I guess, and tunneled through it but I wanted to access my desktop in a nice GUI fashion. I actually do almost everything through the home computers and the two laptops that I brought with me are basically not much more than dumb terminals. I'm now up to four laptops with me but two of them, ostensibly, belong to the missus though one is due to be retired but does hold some sentimental value for reasons too long to discuss here, well, at this point in time.
You stop now or start posting as A.C.
I am stealing that. LOL Thanks! Slashdot has now given me two, literally, out-loud laughs today. I am grateful or overtired, perhaps both.
"You're demonstrating that you're an idiot. Stop it or at least have the decency to show shame and hide your ignorance and learn something." That's how I interpreted it.
Okay, so it's overtired but that was still a brilliant reply and I shall be stealing it at some point. I'll send you a nickel every time I use it.
You are probably explaining it to someone who lacks the initiative or, perhaps, capacity to understand the intricacies beyond the idea that they're afraid and want others to give up their liberties to help lessen that fear. They're gripped with fear and their method of "flight" means taking the objects away that bad people use to cause harm.
Many of us elect to open-carry. More than once, without intending to, I've gone into my credit union while open carrying. Once, and only once, a group of us went into the same credit union all strapped up and carrying hunting rifles. (For those unfamiliar with a hunting rifle, your bullet proof vest isn't going to do you a damned bit of good unless it has the ceramic plates and it still might not help.) We not only didn't harm anyone but we didn't threaten anyone or even rob the place.
I do admit, they looked at us a bit funny but we got some cash out - it was nearing noon on a Saturday and we'd just stomped out of the woods after hiking and hunting our way into town. I've concealed carried into a credit union all sorts of times. They have no idea and, well, I sit on the board so it's not a problem. It's a tiny town with few people and I live outside of even that town, in an unincorporated township. They all have firearms. We've got kids with firearms and they don't always have adult supervision.
And yet, it still works. We've very few accidents and even fewer crimes involving a shooting or even a firearm being used. (Theft of firearms is a bit of a crime and that will skew the "firearm crime" numbers a bit for those who aren't aware of what they actually entail.) We're generally polite but I don't think that's because someone might be armed. It might be why we don't escalate into violence but I don't think it is what makes us polite. We're just neighborly and actually know each other so we give a shit about each other. I imagine that the firearms might stop some of the impoliteness from escalating. ;-)
I don't really like either of them but I have this strange thing for Hillary Clinton and Martha Stewart. I've explained it, at length, before. I'd bang them both, at the same time, during Christmas dinner, on the kitchen table, on national television. I don't even find them attractive, really. I don't know what the process is but I've had this going on since the early 1990s. No, I don't understand and I haven't asked a psychiatrist about it. :/
The first, and probably only, out loud laugh that Slashdot has given me all day. I don't know who they are but I assume they're a pretty actress. Either way, it made me chuckle loud enough for the missus to notice and wonder what was so amusing.
Am I missing something or are you saying the same thing they said?
I don't watch a lot of movies or television but I watch some documentaries - quite a few of those. Anyhow, on the movie front, there's a method actor who was in Master and Commander whom I'm told goes quite a ways to get into character. He did, for the movie mentioned, learn to actually captain a ship, play a violin, and spent like a year (or some period of time) getting into character by staying in that character as preparation for the role.
He's done other works but, as I said, I can't think of any at the moment. I'm also too lazy to... Oh, Russel Crowe maybe? He might be the guy? I'm sure he's in other things that I've watched but I don't really remember the names of actors and movies all that well. Books are the same, shortly after I've read them they escape my memory until I reread them. I may even forget the title of a book while I'm reading it. Something clicks if I'm doing something scholarly, an effort to learn, and then I retain it but if I'm reading or watching it's a bit different.
Anyhow, to the point! The point is, he's actually a really good actor from what I've seen. He is his character and is pretty deep. I think I may have actually seen a documentary specifically about him? It might just have been about method actors, I don't really recall. They say that Depp is as good (I think that's his name - does a lot of Burton's work) but I don't really agree. Depp's a fine actor and all but he just doesn't seem as 'in character' as Crowe. Depp is a little of Depp in any of the roles that I'm familiar with (I admit that's few) but Crowe is not Crowe in every role.
Oddly, Tony Robinson (name?) seems to be a good actor. I've seen him in a few things beyond his archeology series and he's pretty good. It took me a minute to pick him out of Hogswatch and that was knowing that he was in the movie. It wasn't really makeup, he was just in character.
You should probably take my opinions on actors and movies with a grain of salt. I'm certainly not a huge fan and don't really spend much time learning their names or anything about them. Some of it sticks but that's purely incidental and not intentional. The two leads in Seven Years in Tibet were pretty good. The work done in the movie about the Boston gangster and police detective was a good movie, I've forgotten the name. Hmm... Meet Joe Black was pretty good. Those are a few that I can think of where the actors were pretty well steeped in their roles and, now that you mention it, that might be why I liked them.
I am, of course, open to suggestions. I'll be headed to Florida this week (finally getting out of D.C.) so I should be able to have time to watch a few good flicks shortly.
They're the same people who need safe spaces, need to disarm the populace, need to have equal outcomes, need to take away liberties for the sake of freedom, need to control how you speak, need to control how you think, need to know what you're doing, need to ensure that you're doing things the way they feel they need to be done, need to tell you what to eat, need to tell you what to put in your body, need to tell you who to worship, and need to tell you that you're doing it wrong.
They are cowards. They hold back others by instilling fear in the masses. They make accusations and use shame and browbeating to get their way. They're spoiled, petulant, children. They don't want you to take risks because you might succeed and that scares them. They don't want you to succeed. Your success is, to them, their failing. It's cowardice and low self-esteem, through and through.
You are correct. I think. And you might be?
That we do... My Ph.D is in Applied Mathematics and I truly stood on the shoulders of giants. There were many, many brilliant people not just before me but, by grace of luck, around me. Traffic is a fickle thing, we humans aren't that bright. One of the reasons I am skeptical about the speed with which we'll get fully autonomous vehicles is because of my familiarity with traffic. There are many things that people do not consider, the biggest one of which is privacy.
However, 'tis late and I've not slept much. I'm working on a project (a bet with a friend) so I've been busy coding a site and, probably, will work on that some more. Otherwise, it's me... I'd be happy to type a novella concerning traffic modeling but I've typed them all before and can think of nothing new to add. Not all traffic engineering is done with the goal of increasing efficiency or throughput. If you look into pedestrian traffic, specifically in areas such as retail environments, the goal is to direct, pace, and keep it orderly.
Even with vehicular traffic, there's a lot of psychology that goes into it. There are so many elements, so many variables... It'd take, well, a life's work to describe it in detail. I did have, at one time, the absolute greatest traffic sim game on the planet (I'm biased) but it did lack much in the way of graphics. Well, it had graphics later but it sure didn't start that way. I can't even begin to imagine the compute cycles that we'd have needed in order to add graphics back then. By the late 1990s we had disk arrays that enabled us to work with data sets that were nearing the 1 TB mark. There's a whole lot of fun involved. ;-)
That's right. It's absolutely terrible there. The crime is outrageous. It is, by every definition, a dystopia and you shouldn't even visit. There's nothing to see, nothing to do, and they let people run around with firearms! You should definitely never go there.
I think I was 12. I was born in 1957, at the end of it. I got astronaut pajamas a few days later and was very happy with them. They had feet and I could slide across the hardwood floor at supersonic speeds, or slightly faster. I, too, was going to be an astronaut some day. I was going to go to the moon and figure out the age of the craters. I wrote a letter to Buzz Aldrin and I got back a pack of information and a stamped signature and I joined some sort of club (I forget the name).
I never did make it to the moon. I didn't even make it to space. I guess, in theory, I could go now if I *really* wanted to spend that much money on it. I've not looked into it directly but I recall an article or two about a few people that have paid their own way into space. I seem to recall that it was a bit expensive. I feel it would just be a letdown. It'd be like having your favorite book turned into a movie. There's some chance that it will be good but probably not as good as you hoped, no matter how perfect it could have been.
I should be on my way to living on Mars by now. I should be able to vacation on the moon. I should be able to take a year and orbit the Sun in the opposite direction. Alas, I'm in D.C. and probably heading to Florida tomorrow. I might wait until mid-week but, damn it, it's not nearly as nice as the moon would be in my imagination.