sweh

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• Commented on Crib Sheet: Iron Sunrise
  Potentially off-topic, but kinda related... You've written a fair but about "how you got here", why you've written stuff, why you won't write stuff. If I look around, I see books from the 40s and 50s (e.g. Asimov's "Foundation") still...
• Commented on Admin notice: server crash
  "server went tech" I don't know what that means (typo?) but it sounds like it belongs in the "alienation" thread :-)...
• Commented on New Guest Blogger: Linda Nagata
  @net.root - what URL are you using for the feed? The data isn't in the index.xml file at all: $ wget -q http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/index.xml $ grep What.are.words.worth index.xml <title>What are words worth?</title> $ grep Sperr index.xml $ So we can see...
• Commented on New Guest Blogger: Linda Nagata
  Charlie: suggestion on the site. Can the XML feed (as read by Livejournal - eg http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/index.xml ) also include the author of the posting? Now you have a lot of wonderful guest bloggers, it'd be nice to have the feed...
• Commented on Things publishers can't do (yet)
  "That recent USSC verdict merely reasserts the first sale doctrine." Is that all it "merely" does, though? In this case the action involved buying books abroad and bringing them into the country solely for the purpose of reselling them; there...
• Commented on Things publishers can't do (yet)
  Do you think the recent US Supreme Court decision on "grey imports" will have any impact? ( http://www.scotusblog.com/2013/03/opinion-analysis-justices-reject-publishers-claims-in-gray-market-copyright-case/ ). Could this open the door to a company such as Amazon buying UK editions and selling them in the US, for...
• Commented on Dragged kicking and screaming into the 19th century
  "His new title will be Pope Emeritus." Will he be called "Your not-quite-as-holy-as-you-once-were-ness" ?...
• Commented on The Anthropic Stupidity Hypothesis
  My answer to the first question is along similar lines, and with similar outward appearances... we are _all_ stupid. We have so much information, so much knowledge, that one person can not know it all. We specialise. We go deep...
• Commented on The ticking clock, stopped
  Will there be implicit societal pressure to take the drug? ("if you don't take it then you're committing slow suicide" type of thing). I could easily see that happening. Your question, in various forms, has been around a long time...
• Commented on National Talk About Something Else Day
  Greg @51 "I understand that you also desperately need extra sub-Hudson tubes" You are so wrong, that you're not even in the right county. My commute issues have nothing to do with Hudson tunnels. But don't let reality get in...
• Commented on National Talk About Something Else Day
  (PS: as an Englishman living in New Jersey, I don't get to vote either... just pay the taxes. No taxation without representation, right? Right?! Oh.... )...
• Commented on National Talk About Something Else Day
  I'm trying to work out how to get to work. Sandy has left rail infrastructure in New Jersey and a complete shambles. Finally some trains are going to my destination station... but not on my rail line. So I could...
• Commented on Brief interruption
  what do you say to a famous author?. 'What do you want to drink?' Easy :-)...
• Commented on FAQ: spam
  "(your computer doesn't magically change IP addresses between requesting a page and submitting a form, right?)." Unfortunately, yes, it might. If the user is behind a bunch of load-balanced proxy servers then the second request may go through a different...
• Commented on The one that got away
  I don't _regret_ it, but I also failed to go up WTC. I was in Manhattan in January 2001; the Monday was a holiday so my girlfriend and I did some touristy stuff (I was actually there for work), but...
• Commented on More news from our Martian Invaders
  Umm, no. I've never heard any OWS person talk about "killing" anyone. It sounds more like your acquaintances who have the hate on, more than anything else....
• Commented on More news from our Martian Invaders
  As a sarcastic bastard, I have a big problem... This was the OWS statement from October 5th (from http://current.com/shows/countdown/videos/special-comment-keith-reads-first-collective-statement-of-occupy-wall-street# at around 2:30) "As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice we must not lose sight...
• Commented on Evil social networks
  CallerID doesn't do the job for me 'cos the ringing phone is, in itself, an interruption. I have to get up, check the callerID, determine if I want to answer it, listen to the message being recorded... I need a...
• Commented on Evil social networks
  "POTS-over-landline is in danger of becoming unusable in the not-too-distant future without, at a minimum, a decent voicemail system with spam filtering" Ah hah ahahahahahhhh. Already there. I finally cancelled my landline a couple of weeks back. 75% of the...
• Commented on Design changes
  Darn it; this blog doesn't like "cite" as a tag... Ugh. What I meant to write was I did manage to procure a wench on Usenet in late 1994, so its uses were not entirely lacking even that late. However...
• Commented on Design changes
  I did manage to procure a wench on Usenet in late 1994, so its uses were not entirely lacking even that late. However I've not needed another one, so I can't say whether it is still appropriate for that purpose....
• Commented on Design changes
  Executive summary: No to nested comments Rationale #1: Technical As an old time usenetter, yourself, you correctly identified that the client does threading. An important aspect that's frequently missed, though, is that the client also keeps state of what messages...
• Commented on 9/11
  Where was I? 75 Wall Street, about 1/2 mile away on foot (shorter as crow flies)....
• Commented on The Wrong Trousers
  I try to travel "light", especially when commuting or going out. So right pocket: wallet (credit cards, insurance cards, ID etc etc) handkerchief cash (coins and notes) left pocket: keys (in leather key-holder) Travel cards/building passes etc in a small...
• Commented on More on books
  I don't think _any_ new book I've read in the past decade is "most important". I just don't classify things in that manner ("favourite movie?" don't have one; "favourite book?" nope; "most important?" in what aspect...). I find it a...
• Commented on Brief absence
  "Whacky theology" - hee :-) Great term!...
• Commented on Thought experiment
  "In the absence of such a gadget, the SETI transmission doesn't immediately change anything. But if it comes with instructions for building some kind of spooky instantaneous communicator, then all sorts of stuff happens." Even if it's just one-way communication,...
• Commented on Thought experiment
  James Blish's "Cities In Flight" books dealt a little with this concept (although, of course, they had the fantastical spindizzy field, allowing interstellar travel). In this universe, anti-agathic drugs stop aging toxins from accumulating and so you become long lived....
• Commented on Three arguments against the singularity
  I find it funny that the conversation has got this far, but no one has even mentioned Greg Egan's "Permutation City". In this he plays around a lot with some of the concepts of "uploaded" individuals and how consciousness can...
• Commented on Three arguments against the singularity
  "What we're going to see is increasingly solicitous machines defining our environment" There are many Douglas Adams/Hitch-Hikers Guide jokes about this, from "Your Plastic Pal Who's Fun To Be With", through the "Share And Enjoy" song and, particularly, with Arthur's...