Slashdot Mirror

Oh please, that's quite possibly the lamest excuse in this day and age. 2006 called, they want their lame Micro$haft excuses back. A 1080p Roku box runs $99 these days. The 720p model is even cheaper. Want more utility out of your box? Try a used Wii, Xbox 360, PS3, Mac Mini... or just repurpose an old PC as an HTPC. Anything built in 2008 will run 1080p just fine (mine does). A good number of TVs and Blu-Ray players ($60) have netflix/pandora support built in.
 
Get over yourself, and look in to getting that penguin tattoo removed from your ass.

Here is the book you want:

The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time

I hope you enjoy it - the Lacks did far more research on the Galapagos Finches than Darwin ever could have!

They had IFR before WWII. Jimmy Doolittle made the first blind take off, flight, and landing back in 1929 https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Jimmy_Doolittle#Instrument_flight here is a brief history of the airway system that started around the same time http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Government_Role/navigation/POL13.htm

I have been an EAA member since 1978 and soloed in a 2-33 glider at 16 many years ago. I have been involved in aviation for a very long time and I have never heard a single reference to nuclear aircraft or submarines in reference to IFR flight. What documentary was this? I am asking for some hard reference because it makes no sense. The ocean is very large and the total number of submarines has always been pretty small compared to aircraft. You never have 100 subs coming into port on any single day. Not even during WWII. I doubt that you would even have 10 in a day. Before nuclear subs subs spent most of their time on the surface anyway. The would transit to and from their patrol areas on the surface because they had to use diesels to move any real distance at speed and they where actually more trackable on sonar when snorkeling than on the surface because more of the sound would get transmitted to the water.

Since the first nuclear submarine was not launched until 1954-55 It is far more probable that submarine operating procedures where influenced by IFR rules. And in now real way where they influenced by the single test aircraft with a nuclear reactor. Oh and as to aviation documentaries they are often terrible sources of information. You have no idea how many times I have seen crap on the Military channel or History channel that makes me want to beat people.

So again do you have any references? Some documentary isn't one and I can find no reference to what you are saying in any history of IFR fight I have access to. A lot of aviation practices have been derived form maritime practices but your suggestion that IFR rules where put into place because of the low outward visibility of nuclear bombers that where never built and submarines doesn't make a lot of sense and I can not find any supporting documentation.
Now in an interesting aviation to submarine cross over when the US built the first teardrop shaped sub named the Albacore which lead to the Skipjack class of really fast nuclear subs the navy used bimps to train the helmsmen. It was so maneuverable that it was much more like a blimp than any ship. Reference http://www.amazon.com/U-S-Submarines-Since-1945-Illustrated/dp/1557502609

Book, actually.

Read some Karl Popper, then add in a dash of Thomas Kuhn and a soupcon of Stephen Toulmin for good measure. The post-modernist take on all of this starts with Lakatos and Musgrave.

Then go read some Feyerabend...

Read some Karl Popper, then add in a dash of Thomas Kuhn and a soupcon of Stephen Toulmin for good measure. The post-modernist take on all of this starts with Lakatos and Musgrave.

Then go read some Feyerabend...

Read some Karl Popper, then add in a dash of Thomas Kuhn and a soupcon of Stephen Toulmin for good measure. The post-modernist take on all of this starts with Lakatos and Musgrave.

Read some Karl Popper, then add in a dash of Thomas Kuhn and a soupcon of Stephen Toulmin for good measure. The post-modernist take on all of this starts with Lakatos and Musgrave.

This must be the inverse to Clay Shirky's rule that as soon as an organization is set up (or in this case: about to be destroyed), the goal for which the organization began shifts to second priority, and the new primary goal is the preservation/perpetuation of the organization.

From here(s):
http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_on_institutions_versus_collaboration.html
http://www.amazon.com/Here-Comes-Everybody-Organizing-Organizations/dp/1594201536

If Amazon ran a meat market, I'm pretty sure I'd buy meat at Amazon.

Have you considered Tuscan Whole Milk, 1 Gallon, 128 fl oz? It gets rave reviews! It's a kind of human milkiness, a great party beverage, and it has been known to save lives. Nearly everyone agrees, Tuscan Whole Milk, 1 Gallon, 128 fl oz is well worth the fifty bucks.

While you're at it, consider tossing a Three Wolf Moon shirt in your shopping cart.

If Amazon ran a meat market, I'm pretty sure I'd buy meat at Amazon.

Have you considered Tuscan Whole Milk, 1 Gallon, 128 fl oz? It gets rave reviews! It's a kind of human milkiness, a great party beverage, and it has been known to save lives. Nearly everyone agrees, Tuscan Whole Milk, 1 Gallon, 128 fl oz is well worth the fifty bucks.

While you're at it, consider tossing a Three Wolf Moon shirt in your shopping cart.

He's also a Perl guru, and has the chutzpah to stop using capitals, even for official publications.

Reminds me of the intro to a talk once. "My name is Chromatic. You can call me Chromatic."

Also reminds me of Robby, the only academic one-name I've ever heard of.

-- coppit (whose nick is easily traceable to his real name)

Do they charge for time, or storage and bandwidth?

All of the above. Processor time is ridiculously cheap nowadays though (e.g., Amazon EC2 rates vary from cents to dollars per hour for the range from modest virtual machines to virtual compute clusters with serious horsepower).

I can say I personally went through this. Once I realized what was happening (not going out as much anymore, gaining weight/getting out of shape, neglecting my family, etc) I ended up shedding a lot of these things over the course of about a year. First cable tv went (hell, I only watched 3 channels most of the time and quitting would save me money), then WoW (again, would save me money, and was getting stale).

However, these weren't my biggest addictions in the slightest, but I wasn't quite ready to give up on facebook and similar social networking things. It didn't seem like much at the time. Afterall, I was still being "social" and wasn't becoming reclusive. It was essentially a substitute for hanging out with real people in real life. And besides - a lot of us got together on Fridays for movie night. Thing was - even during these movie nights I'd still be checking facebook despite everyone close to me was right in front of me.

The straw that broke the camel's back was over a benign status I posted: "Aww snap, time for daddy day care!" as my wife was going out with some friends and it was going to be one of my first times watching our baby daughter solo. Two women somehow took offense to this comment and proceeded to man-bash like crazy, nevermind that I'm actually sticking around and being a father. It boiled down to one woman basically calling her husband worthless and both of them saying I was a shitty father ("It's not daycare, it's PARENTING!"). And I know, I know - I should know better than to get riled up over trolling - but these are people I know in real life - straight up being offensive. The only person who could have came to my rescue was my wife. She sees all this when she gets home and is like "wtf is wrong with those bitches?" I reply "well, do something!". I needed help. I was getting attacked by two angry hens!

She replies "LOL" in the facebook thread.

I fucking LOST it.

I counted on the one person who could get me out of this mess - save my name on the internets - and she didn't pull through. How dare she? ...

The next morning I felt like such a goddamned tool once I put all this into perspective. I came to the conclusion that I was far too invested in things like facebook and virtual people that I promptly initiated the processes for deleting most of my online identity.

Around the same time I was reading a book (How Pleasure Works by Paul Bloom) that really forces you to think about how you put value into the things around you. So I had to ask "does x add value to my life?" As a result, here I am still on slashdot, still have my cellphone, but I'm outside damned near everyday, starting getting back into playing hockey and taking it more seriously, seeing more of family, and in way better shape than I was.

Overall, I'm much happier and feel like I've gained a much higher quality of life. I'd say anyone thinking about the same - go for it and never look back.

Does it control anything besides XBMC/media pl

From one of the articles:
"The Nyxboard Hybrid supports IR to function as a universal remote for your TV and includes an RF adapter for operating your home theater device without line-of-sight."

For a while I've been looking forward to getting this http://www.amazon.com/Portable-Wireless-Keyboard-Rechargeable-Notebooks/dp/B003UE52ME/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1298676916&sr=1-2

For half of the price,

When it launched just over a year ago, it was going for $90 ...

you get a keyboard+touchpad combo in a very compact package, and it has a backlight which I admit to needing most of the time. It's even more stylish, so while I agree that a dedicated remote layout is a good idea, the price, and the availability of very good alternatives make me doubt it will have that much success.

You weren't clear on the subject of your last sentence, but I currently have a cheap (15 GBP) RF remote for XBMC, and 4 other IR remotes (amp, TV, DVD/HDD player/recorder, Satellite receiver). While I can use the amplifier's remote for most of the functions on the TV and DVD player, I still need at least the DVD player's remote for some features (switching between HDD and DVD etc.), the bluetooth-only solution won't help me, and neither will a Logitech Harmony (currently), but the Nyxboard Hybrid remote for XBMC etc. may just ...

We just need more details on how programmable the IR portion is.

... and 7 years later, a new breed of octopus will be discovered, one that lives exclusively on meals ordered from Amazon.

I have to retract that. A quick search turned up http://askville.amazon.com/operating-system-Wii-run/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=371492 which is what I based my comment on. More diligent searching seems to indicate that it is proprietary. My apologies.

And that statement was from Nintendo? If not, why should I have to correct anything when you have no actual proof.

I thought you might be willing and able to help with some accurate information. The link I found was http://askville.amazon.com/operating-system-Wii-run/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=371492 which stated "Wii uses a proprietary form of Linux kernel." However, I have done some more research and the best guess so far seems to be (entering "wii operating system", Google responds...) "Best guess for Wii Operating System is Nintendo Wii Mentioned on at least 5 websites including gameboy-advance.net, ehow.com and answers.com"

They charge hourly.

http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/#pricing

Amazon. It's making a comeback.

Piracy is just the new socially acceptable temper tantrum..

I agree with most of what you said, given the current state of our media outlets. But I don't think this is some 'new' tantrum. The internet and streaming content has been around for quite a while now, yet content producers are intentionally not keeping up with the times.

Of course copyright holders have the right to control how copies of their product are released. The problem is when you combine that right with the broken IP laws in the US. Take blade runner for example. A 29 year old movie that you still can't find online except in one form on netflix. The zune market place on xbox doesn't even have the 4 year old final cut. And heck, even the physical disc, 4 years later, is 14 dollars amazon. I know it is the copyright holder's right, but the IP laws allowing copyright to be basically forever is crap, and everyone knows it.

For me, it isn't about cost so much as convenience. Magazine producers know full well that putting their magazines right at the checkout line pays off. Why 20 year+ old content isn't available instantly, even for cost, is frankly baffling for people that have grown up with the internet. It isn't a new tantrum, it is the new reality, and producers, like always, will drag their feet making the change.

Except that Adobe has always offered reduced-price Educational versions of their products:

Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Premium Student & Teacher Edition
List Price: $1,899.00 Price: $399.99 & this item ships for FREE You Save: $1,499.01 (79%)

http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Creative-Premium-Student-Teacher/dp/B003D8XE4K/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1302030554&sr=8-3

William

I know what you are trying to say, but just think about it for a second: "prevention of war" by going to war? And you said that with a straight face? (Well, typed it, anyway).

If you really think dropping bombs on people is the best way to prevent war, then I humbly suggest you read Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson.

For a while I've been looking forward to getting this http://www.amazon.com/Portable-Wireless-Keyboard-Rechargeable-Notebooks/dp/B003UE52ME/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1298676916&sr=1-2

For half of the price, you get a keyboard+touchpad combo in a very compact package, and it has a backlight which I admit to needing most of the time. It's even more stylish, so while I agree that a dedicated remote layout is a good idea, the price, and the availability of very good alternatives make me doubt it will have that much success.

Well, I sort of have to read between the lines in your answer but it sounds like you are confirming that you can just stick a SIM into any unlocked phone. You then piled a whole bunch of conditions onto the circumstances under which you would purchase such a thing (only in your home town, only if you can try it hands on, only with a return policy that meets your criteria of "good" ...). I suspect whatever I suggest you will trump up a reason why it wouldn't be acceptable to you, but just to show how easy it is here's a nice unlocked phone that you can buy today if you want.

AT&T uses the same standard UMTS bands as many regions in the world (most of europe), you can easily find phones that will give you 3G. You certainly don't have be stuck on EDGE (although you do have to be stuck on AT&T, which people might argue is similar :-) ).

I agree 100% with your point about digital copies being preferable, but as long as we're still buying media on discs, this may be the best $17 I have ever spent:

http://www.amazon.com/SkipDr-Manual-Disc-Repair-System/dp/B0015ACUKC/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1301969120&sr=8-3

Observational studies like the CEEB report mentioned in the article suffer from the problem of self-selection. If we could conduct a pure experimental study, we'd assign students randomly to a "treatment" group, who then take Algebra II, and a "control" group, who do not. Because the assignments are randomized, any observed differences in performance between the groups can be assigned to taking Algebra II.

In reality, students select themselves into the treatment and control groups. This won't matter if the factor(s) that distinguish these two groups are uncorrelated with the measured outcomes. In this case, though, it's very likely that future success in life may have something to do with things like intelligence and determination, which are also likely to influence the decision to take Algebra II.

Anyone who wants to understand these issues should read Campbell & Stanley's Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Research. Though the book is nearly fifty years old, it still remains a clear and cogent explanation of inferential problems in most social research. The original is out of print, but an updated version is at Amazon.

By the way, the comments by report's author in TFA show the researchers are well aware of this problem.

I just thought it was common knowledge and didn't realize that people were closing their eyes and yelling blaspheme on things this obvious.

Anyways, try reading The Race Between Education and Technology. And before you point it out as if it's an automatic disqualification because they are rabib neocon fascists republicans kill your dog and kick your baby conservative who wrote the book, Claudia Goldin, and Lawrence F. Katz Are actually somewhat on the more liberal side. And yes, Katz is the same Katz that was the economic adviser to Clinton before he got his ass waxed in the mid-term elections.

And yes, they claim other factors were included then just the creation of the DOE. So even if you want to put all the weight on that, the best you can say is that the DOE has done little more about furthering education then slowing the increase in drop out rate and helped stagnate test scores since 1980 while other countries caught up and surpassed the US. Hardly a shining example of an effective government program.

My point still stands. The problem with the DOE is not funding, it's how it's currently implemented.

MMM can be complemented with "Peopleware": another management-must-read (that they never do).

Prerequisite: the team must be equipped with powertools to cut through the red tape.

Ladies and Gentleman: May I suggest this little beauty? I'd suggest a pack of 'demolition blades' to go along with it. Qualifies for free shipping! What's not to like?

Not sure if theres some joke here I missed or something, but I can go to amazon right now and buy 450 grams (aka 1 lb) of aspirin (the drug itself, not just the binders) for around $30, including shipping.

So no, its not $2000/lb.

http://www.amazon.com/Einsteins-Bridge-John-Cramer/dp/0380788314

Here's your new for today.

Easy, buy these books. The Making of the Atomic Bomb and the follow up The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb

He goes into amazing detail about the history of how they did it, and along the way describes in excruciating detail the physics behind them and exactly how they are constructed. The end result will be that you know how to make a nuclear weapon.

The major problem is then finding the several billion dollars and several tons of uranium ore needed to do it and not get caught.

Easy, buy these books. The Making of the Atomic Bomb and the follow up The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb

He goes into amazing detail about the history of how they did it, and along the way describes in excruciating detail the physics behind them and exactly how they are constructed. The end result will be that you know how to make a nuclear weapon.

The major problem is then finding the several billion dollars and several tons of uranium ore needed to do it and not get caught.

Hmmm, I'm now reading a nice book named "1491" (see http://www.amazon.com/1491-Revelations-Americas-Before-Columbus/dp/1400032059/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8). It has quite a few interesting bits of information about the Clovis precedence being challenged more and more, with some sites that seem to be older being located in the South America; if only one of these recent findings will become generally accepted, it will be enough to discard the Northern Passage theory of Siberia migration during the last ice age (which anyway sounds incredibly well timed to ring true).

I'm surprised you didn't mention Sum Of All Fears - not the movie (which almost completely missed the point) but the book, which goes into a fair amount of detail as to the exact amount of work it would take to manufacture not just a fission bomb (a la the bombings in Japan) but a two-stage thermonuclear fusion bomb. Even back then (and this was written in 1992) it would have been well within the reach of a moderately wealthy industrialist. ...

FWIW Tom Clancy (the author of Sum of All Fears) worked with actual nuclear weapons experts to make sure the details and procedures he depicted in the book were wrong. He wanted the book to sound correct but not actually be correct. You could say something similar for much of what appears in his techno thriller fiction books, sounds correct but is really quite heavy with artistic license.

I'm surprised you didn't mention Sum Of All Fears - not the movie (which almost completely missed the point) but the book, which goes into a fair amount of detail as to the exact amount of work it would take to manufacture not just a fission bomb (a la the bombings in Japan) but a two-stage thermonuclear fusion bomb. Even back then (and this was written in 1992) it would have been well within the reach of a moderately wealthy industrialist. By now, I bet you could print yourself the shaped charge and other components for a kiloton-range fission bomb using a Thing-o-matic. Assuming you had 6.2kg of plutonium (available from N. Korea for a few cases of fine cognac) and the right contacts to get hold of the RDX (the TNT is easy enough to make yourself) you could probably build it for under $20k.

You can get it on Amazon though: ;)
http://www.amazon.com/Harcos-Labratory-Nuclear-Uranium-Yellowcake/dp/B00380OEV0
http://www.amazon.com/Harcos-Labratory-Nuclear-Energy-Plutonium/dp/B00380MGJC

You can get it on Amazon though: ;)
http://www.amazon.com/Harcos-Labratory-Nuclear-Uranium-Yellowcake/dp/B00380OEV0
http://www.amazon.com/Harcos-Labratory-Nuclear-Energy-Plutonium/dp/B00380MGJC

Got some good reviews on Amazon. He self-published and apparently delivers the spiral-bound gems hand signed. I'm thinking the MIB will be visiting him shortly, but if not, it means whatever is in his book is probably not noteworthy.

Just in Case: How to be Self-Sufficient when the Unexpected Happens

http://www.amazon.com/Just-Case-Self-Sufficient-Unexpected-Happens/dp/1603420355/

I would be extremely surprised if Could Drive did de-duplication like that. Cloud Drive is built on S3; S3 is not designed to do de-duplication (as a cursory examination of the S3 product page will tell you).

I would be extremely surprised if Could Drive did de-duplication like that. Cloud Drive is built on S3; S3 is not designed to do de-duplication (as a cursory examination of the S3 product page will tell you).

Do I need a license to stream MP3s from system RAM to the MP3 player?

Outside the US, that depends on your country's provisions for fair use (one area in which the US seems relatively enlightened). In the UK, if you ripped a CD then you've infringed even before you get round to streaming (although that's never enforced - but if you bring a third party into the process, who knows?)

However, the question is, if you let Amazon stream your files, is it still personal use (bear in mind, Amazon are not ar charity, so they'll have a cunning plan to make some money out of it somehow)? For instance, this snippit from the Amazon Cloud T&C recently turned up on Groklaw:

5.2 Our Right to Access Your Files. You give us the right to access, retain, use and disclose your account information and Your Files...

Do you think you have the right to sub-license your Lady Gaga collection to Amazon?

Disclaimer - I'm not saying that it should be stopped. Who knows, maybe Amazon will force copyright laws to be updated to sensibly cover technologies invented since the player piano?

For a ~century long history of the pattern of innovation vs. consolidation in media and communications, see Tim Wu's "The Master Switch", 2010.

AT&T started as a "benevolent monopoly", and only became virulently anti-competitive when challenged in the 70's, until finally broken up by the feds.

The resurrected AT&T has all the anti-competition monopolist tendencies, complete with revolving door government lobbyists to write laws for them - and none of the civic duty, for-the-common-good impulses institutionally prescribed by Theodore Vail.



"The Master Switch" http://www.amazon.com/Master-Switch-Information-Empires-Borzoi/dp/0307269930
Tim Wu's Homepage http://timwu.org/

Fark yeah they will:

http://www.amazon.com/cloudplayer

But then, I logged in and you only get 5GB of storage for free. Seriously? You can de-dupe on the Amazon S3 backend and just charge a flat fee for unlimited music? How many unique MP3s can possible be out there?

Waiting for Google Music.

To be fair, it's 50Gb space at $50 a year. See their plans. A buck a gig doesn't sound too bad to me.

To sample some of the book, check out the Safari Books page. Test-Driven Javascript Development is available in many open formats with watermarks or from Amazon.com.

That Safari link is especially useful if you're on the fence about getting this title, you can view some of the book there. Also, I'm not seeing my score (9/10), publisher information, number of pages (475) or ISBN or any of that.

I watched the video, and it reminds me a lot of the Tim bird: http://www.amazon.com/Schylling-NTN-Tim-Bird/dp/B000ELORZO.

Not to take away from what they've done, but it really does seem to fly like Tim. So basically the Tim toy with an electric motor instead of a wound up rubber band, and maybe remote control to help steer. Ok, granted it looks like the head moves but I wasn't blown away.

Still its pretty cool, but I didn't see them do anything awesome. How about gliding? Seems pretty basic to me, flap, flap flap, glide like a real bird.