Not bullshit but it isn't limited to governments either. Organizations in general grow by default, if only through currency inflation. It's worse for governments because there's pressure from the outside to take care of something and pressure from the inside because a politician wants to achieve something and has to negotiate with another.
Another theory out there is that it doesn't matter what you do with your Android phone. Or what you do with your Chrome browser.
What are the potential threats to Google’s castle? Basically, any product that stands between the user and Google and has the potential to distract the choice of search destination is a threat.
Let's say A makes a dominant desktop-OS with browser: support a competing browser, create your own browser, offer a plug-in to use in manufacturer A's browser. Manufacturer B makes a popular gadget, offer the software for a similar gadget under conditions that other gadget makers find irresistible.
I say that it doesn't matter if you use Chrome to visit Bing. What matters IMHO is that Microsoft and Apple can't dictate anymore which search & ads you'll use even though they had/have the power to dictate which browser you used or to say that Flash isn't going to run on a device.
One problem with your assessment, ObsessiveMathsFreak, the majority of those big telcos are also ISP's, so they to would be set to the same standards.
Making it even more difficult is that telcos see the usage of their mobile services change significantly from calls and SMS's to data usage, effectively changing them into ISP's. In The Netherlands we've gotten 'net neutrality' legislation because of the telcos. The problem is that they don't want to be seen as ISP's (in their smart phone business) but prefer to continue to charge for separate items (like a Skype conversation or a bundle with certain apps) and also would like content deliverers (say Youtube and Facebook) to pay.
The outcry from the telcos is there of course, just like the outcry of a few ISP's which offered filtered internet on religious grounds. But so was the outcry of consumers and politicians when we found out that telcos were using DPI and we now find out they collectively start offering expensive data-based subscriptions.
What you're looking for is some balance between the power of telcos and ISP's on one side and the freedom of customers on the other. If that's skewed I think it makes sense to try to assess the amount of competition in the market. If that's too low, regulation certainly is an option.
Not quite that simple. There are a couple of games in the top ten with low review scores but are from popular franchises - Tron and Star Wars.
To me that's still simple: many people want to play $Star_wars_game regardless of the score.
You're right though: we don't see a relatively small title in the top 10 because of its high rating and the top 10 isn't ordered by rating (better score, more downloads). The highest rated game (Mass Effect 2) didn't make it in the top 10.
The authors mention something about the moment to start tracking piracy for a given title, with some attention to the difficulties of determining that moment. The authors also mention that they see widely varying torrent activity per title. The authors claim to see a correlation between torrent-activity/-peers and review score. However, I can't find anything in their report (only skimmed the text) about if something is seen when availability as torrent is noticed and the moment review data becomes available. That would make the conclusion more solid imho: if a title would be available for some time and show a considerable spike in sharing right after a highly positive review is published but not when it gets a medium score.
Most friends of mine from Chile tend to think of themselves as 'American' after Chilean. Some are even insulted when I use 'American' to refer to people from the USA exclusively.
Btw, the majority of Chileans from German decent in Chile arrived well before WW2, I imagine it's the same for Argentina but those wouldn't make your example more interesting.
it's not inherently anymore secure in that respect
It isn't and it even introduces a single point of maximum vulnerability (1. crack the repo, 2. ???, 3. profit!). However, compared to having to hunt for programs on-line it is inherently more secure. You might take your programs from download.cnet but all they do is run a virus scanner. A recent article about 'open source' software being bundled with malware makes me glad I can do apt-get install with less worry.
He seems to be focused on Apple products as user/cracker/hacker. In his world a 'repository' just isn't called a "repository" even if that's what he means most likely.
His same investment applied to founding a college of programming and computer science would ensure his goals for the next century at least.
Looking at his background and his desire to make things better for fellow humans, the most sensible thing he can do imho is to support a free (beer & speech) OS and office suite.
They think of the Shuttle orbiter and its massive fuel tank and rocket boosters
In the early '80s (1983?), space shuttle Enterprise made a visit to Europe on the back of a 747. I was around 10 at the time and went with my parents to the beach where it flew along the coast of The Netherlands. Although I clearly remember the shuttle's first space flight from tv, it's the image of the shuttle on the jumbo what's made the biggest impression on me.
However, the Saturn V rocket is the symbol of spaceflight to me, because of Apollo 11 of course but also because the shuttle looks so much like a plane.
Why is this an item? That distro has been around for a while (at least a year). I never actually used the software but it came in handy as a counter argument for "Linux isn't secure" trolling.
Orders Google to remove from the Google.be and Google.com sites, more specifically from the "cached" links on "Google Web" and from the "Google News" service, all the articles, photographs and graphic representations from the Belgian publishers of the French and German speaking daily newspapers, represented by Copiepresse, and from the authors in respect of whom SAJ and Assucopie can prove to have been legally authorized, under penalty of a fine for non-performance of €25,000.00 per day of delay, save in respect of the daily newspaper L'Echo in terms of the "Google News" service only.
The demands and the ruling write in great detail about News, cache and the general search index, I don't find it convincing that Google removed all the links to those papers from anything but New and cache. IANAL of course.
It is great but it's a drawing program. The other suggestion, Scribus, seems more fitting to me.
Though, (bangs the drum) some extended graphics capabilities in an office application would be cool, perhaps an office app with 'advanced' plugin support could offer many innovative features and allow devs and users all sorts of opportunities (including the desired).
Makes me think of Calligra, formerly known as KOffice, but I'm not sure in what direction I'd want to look for extended graphical capabilities. Creating nice graphs based on spreadsheet or database data is enough I think. Does Krita qualify as an office-app?
However, i believe, network enabled, collaborative document editing would have much user interest (a la Google Docs), as evidenced by the popularity of wikis.
Drupal has such a collaborative modules afaik (it used to, at least). I mean, rather than looking at an office-suite I'd look at how I'd want to collaborate, so a CMS or version control system might be interesting alternatives.
And, partly, i was just repulsed by the idea that the office suite paradigm was somehow finished and there could never be any room for innovation or improvement. And, so i just tried to think up a couple of possible arbitrary examples to the contrary.
Why not mention 'the ribbon' as an example of both innovation and room for improvement?;-)
The reporter, as noted in another comment, stated that Rebekah Brooks knew full well what was going on. His "exposé" may be lacking when held up against heavyweight investigative journalism, but I don't think it's to be sniffed at.
His "exposé" is from this year, the accusations are much older; the PI and the royal editor of NotW already served a sentence in 2007 for example. Nothing so much against Hugh Grant or his investigation but I don't see him as the man who exposed everything.
saying "they more or less got away with [it]" is a little disingenuous. Firstly, it's not over. Secondly, there's been an ongoing investigation into the phone-hacking charges and these things take time. Now, barring a criminal conviction, you're right, I suspect Rebekah Brooks will keep her job at News International but ask the 100s of employees of the NotW if they feel like they've "gotten away with it".
What I meant was that I'm surprised earlier revelations about the 'phone-hacking' didn't lead to the folding of the tabloid but that the Milly Dowler voice mail tapping did have this effect. It's true that we're still learning about the extent of the case but it's been large for years, including royal aides and politicians as victims. Straw and camel's perhaps.
I was expecting Python to resemble LISP with a different syntax, but it's looking a lot messier than even Common LISP, and of course a lot of the moving parts are hidden in the large number of pre-written modules that come with Python.
I don't know why you expected that but I fail to see how whitespace looks messier than parentheses. The hidden moving parts come with a high level language, it's not supposed to be as basic as C or C++. The downside is that not needing to understand the low level operation can lead to not being able to understand the low level.
Unfortunately, there's no shortage of beginner books for Python but resources for intermediate/advanced programmers are harder to find imho. One is essentially forced to study code written by (hopefully) better programmers.
But other than that glossy screen really is better. The colors come out a lot nicer and more vibrant. So if you aren't like me who enjoys laying down at the pool watching beautiful thai ladyboys and drinking some beer while getting work done, just get a glossy screen. It's much better and nicer to look at.
Don't get too distracted by those ladyboys. Just because colors appear "nicer" doesn't make them "better". Quick test: move your head up and down and see if the colors stay the same.
I also know someone with spina bifida who would benefit from this, if it were possible. Of course, reading about the physical condition and special circumstances of the research volunteer (having feeling below the injury) suggests that this may not be possible.
I'm not particularly optimistic either, spina bifida can come with very heavy damage. However, I read more and more about repairs on the nerve system, artificial components and improvements in the signal reception. Maybe it can be fixed in a decade or two.
Slashdot Mirror
Not bullshit but it isn't limited to governments either. Organizations in general grow by default, if only through currency inflation. It's worse for governments because there's pressure from the outside to take care of something and pressure from the inside because a politician wants to achieve something and has to negotiate with another.
Another theory out there is that it doesn't matter what you do with your Android phone. Or what you do with your Chrome browser.
What are the potential threats to Google’s castle? Basically, any product that stands between the user and Google and has the potential to distract the choice of search destination is a threat.
Let's say A makes a dominant desktop-OS with browser: support a competing browser, create your own browser, offer a plug-in to use in manufacturer A's browser. Manufacturer B makes a popular gadget, offer the software for a similar gadget under conditions that other gadget makers find irresistible.
I say that it doesn't matter if you use Chrome to visit Bing. What matters IMHO is that Microsoft and Apple can't dictate anymore which search & ads you'll use even though they had/have the power to dictate which browser you used or to say that Flash isn't going to run on a device.
One problem with your assessment, ObsessiveMathsFreak, the majority of those big telcos are also ISP's, so they to would be set to the same standards.
Making it even more difficult is that telcos see the usage of their mobile services change significantly from calls and SMS's to data usage, effectively changing them into ISP's. In The Netherlands we've gotten 'net neutrality' legislation because of the telcos. The problem is that they don't want to be seen as ISP's (in their smart phone business) but prefer to continue to charge for separate items (like a Skype conversation or a bundle with certain apps) and also would like content deliverers (say Youtube and Facebook) to pay.
The outcry from the telcos is there of course, just like the outcry of a few ISP's which offered filtered internet on religious grounds. But so was the outcry of consumers and politicians when we found out that telcos were using DPI and we now find out they collectively start offering expensive data-based subscriptions.
What you're looking for is some balance between the power of telcos and ISP's on one side and the freedom of customers on the other. If that's skewed I think it makes sense to try to assess the amount of competition in the market. If that's too low, regulation certainly is an option.
Not quite that simple. There are a couple of games in the top ten with low review scores but are from popular franchises - Tron and Star Wars.
To me that's still simple: many people want to play $Star_wars_game regardless of the score.
You're right though: we don't see a relatively small title in the top 10 because of its high rating and the top 10 isn't ordered by rating (better score, more downloads). The highest rated game (Mass Effect 2) didn't make it in the top 10.
The authors mention something about the moment to start tracking piracy for a given title, with some attention to the difficulties of determining that moment. The authors also mention that they see widely varying torrent activity per title. The authors claim to see a correlation between torrent-activity/-peers and review score. However, I can't find anything in their report (only skimmed the text) about if something is seen when availability as torrent is noticed and the moment review data becomes available. That would make the conclusion more solid imho: if a title would be available for some time and show a considerable spike in sharing right after a highly positive review is published but not when it gets a medium score.
Most friends of mine from Chile tend to think of themselves as 'American' after Chilean. Some are even insulted when I use 'American' to refer to people from the USA exclusively.
Btw, the majority of Chileans from German decent in Chile arrived well before WW2, I imagine it's the same for Argentina but those wouldn't make your example more interesting.
it's not inherently anymore secure in that respect
It isn't and it even introduces a single point of maximum vulnerability (1. crack the repo, 2. ???, 3. profit!). However, compared to having to hunt for programs on-line it is inherently more secure. You might take your programs from download.cnet but all they do is run a virus scanner. A recent article about 'open source' software being bundled with malware makes me glad I can do apt-get install with less worry.
He seems to be focused on Apple products as user/cracker/hacker. In his world a 'repository' just isn't called a "repository" even if that's what he means most likely.
UASC: Unexplained Appearance on a Sonar Scan
His same investment applied to founding a college of programming and computer science would ensure his goals for the next century at least.
Looking at his background and his desire to make things better for fellow humans, the most sensible thing he can do imho is to support a free (beer & speech) OS and office suite.
you need better teachers.
This is an important aspect of Finnish education and they're consistently at the top of education comparisons by the OECD.
They think of the Shuttle orbiter and its massive fuel tank and rocket boosters
In the early '80s (1983?), space shuttle Enterprise made a visit to Europe on the back of a 747. I was around 10 at the time and went with my parents to the beach where it flew along the coast of The Netherlands. Although I clearly remember the shuttle's first space flight from tv, it's the image of the shuttle on the jumbo what's made the biggest impression on me.
However, the Saturn V rocket is the symbol of spaceflight to me, because of Apollo 11 of course but also because the shuttle looks so much like a plane.
Why is this an item? That distro has been around for a while (at least a year). I never actually used the software but it came in handy as a counter argument for "Linux isn't secure" trolling.
If you read the link pointing to the actual judge's order.
Do you mean the link from the summary? From 2006?
I have a different link (PDF, p. 48 & 49, bold by me ):
Orders Google to remove from the Google.be and Google.com sites, more specifically from the "cached" links on "Google Web" and from the "Google News" service, all the articles, photographs and graphic representations from the Belgian publishers of the French and German speaking daily newspapers, represented by Copiepresse, and from the authors in respect of whom SAJ and Assucopie can prove to have been legally authorized, under penalty of a fine for non-performance of €25,000.00 per day of delay, save in respect of the daily newspaper L'Echo in terms of the "Google News" service only.
The demands and the ruling write in great detail about News, cache and the general search index, I don't find it convincing that Google removed all the links to those papers from anything but New and cache. IANAL of course.
Like say, a skilled phisher / social engineer?
Well the guy who found the flaw is still wondering why they haven't contacted him.
Cheers, Inkscape looks great.
It is great but it's a drawing program. The other suggestion, Scribus, seems more fitting to me.
Though, (bangs the drum) some extended graphics capabilities in an office application would be cool, perhaps an office app with 'advanced' plugin support could offer many innovative features and allow devs and users all sorts of opportunities (including the desired).
Makes me think of Calligra, formerly known as KOffice, but I'm not sure in what direction I'd want to look for extended graphical capabilities. Creating nice graphs based on spreadsheet or database data is enough I think. Does Krita qualify as an office-app?
However, i believe, network enabled, collaborative document editing would have much user interest (a la Google Docs), as evidenced by the popularity of wikis.
Drupal has such a collaborative modules afaik (it used to, at least). I mean, rather than looking at an office-suite I'd look at how I'd want to collaborate, so a CMS or version control system might be interesting alternatives.
And, partly, i was just repulsed by the idea that the office suite paradigm was somehow finished and there could never be any room for innovation or improvement. And, so i just tried to think up a couple of possible arbitrary examples to the contrary.
Why not mention 'the ribbon' as an example of both innovation and room for improvement? ;-)
The reporter, as noted in another comment, stated that Rebekah Brooks knew full well what was going on. His "exposé" may be lacking when held up against heavyweight investigative journalism, but I don't think it's to be sniffed at.
His "exposé" is from this year, the accusations are much older; the PI and the royal editor of NotW already served a sentence in 2007 for example. Nothing so much against Hugh Grant or his investigation but I don't see him as the man who exposed everything.
saying "they more or less got away with [it]" is a little disingenuous. Firstly, it's not over. Secondly, there's been an ongoing investigation into the phone-hacking charges and these things take time. Now, barring a criminal conviction, you're right, I suspect Rebekah Brooks will keep her job at News International but ask the 100s of employees of the NotW if they feel like they've "gotten away with it".
What I meant was that I'm surprised earlier revelations about the 'phone-hacking' didn't lead to the folding of the tabloid but that the Milly Dowler voice mail tapping did have this effect. It's true that we're still learning about the extent of the case but it's been large for years, including royal aides and politicians as victims. Straw and camel's perhaps.
Hugh Grant 'exposed' the hacking. Well, in his world he did.
I'm mostly surprised that they more or less got away with tapping into nearly every one's voice-mail but only now did it become a fatal problem.
I was expecting Python to resemble LISP with a different syntax, but it's looking a lot messier than even Common LISP, and of course a lot of the moving parts are hidden in the large number of pre-written modules that come with Python.
I don't know why you expected that but I fail to see how whitespace looks messier than parentheses. The hidden moving parts come with a high level language, it's not supposed to be as basic as C or C++. The downside is that not needing to understand the low level operation can lead to not being able to understand the low level.
Unfortunately, there's no shortage of beginner books for Python but resources for intermediate/advanced programmers are harder to find imho. One is essentially forced to study code written by (hopefully) better programmers.
It happens with autofocus: on the tall grass in the foreground, not on the interesting animal a bit further.
Light can use a lensing to travel around obstructions. On earth for example in fata morganas.
Do you seriously think that in the age of bitcoin ...
I think there's a whole bunch of people with cheap GPU's out there in the age of Bitcoin.
But other than that glossy screen really is better. The colors come out a lot nicer and more vibrant. So if you aren't like me who enjoys laying down at the pool watching beautiful thai ladyboys and drinking some beer while getting work done, just get a glossy screen. It's much better and nicer to look at.
Don't get too distracted by those ladyboys. Just because colors appear "nicer" doesn't make them "better". Quick test: move your head up and down and see if the colors stay the same.
I also know someone with spina bifida who would benefit from this, if it were possible. Of course, reading about the physical condition and special circumstances of the research volunteer (having feeling below the injury) suggests that this may not be possible.
I'm not particularly optimistic either, spina bifida can come with very heavy damage. However, I read more and more about repairs on the nerve system, artificial components and improvements in the signal reception. Maybe it can be fixed in a decade or two.
Remind me not to hire you when I want to build a Mars Climate Orbiter.
the length of this computer screen
One area where imperial comes back to haunt us metric-users.
According to Daniel Domscheit-Berg the validation wasn't that thorough.