I didn't notice the article mentioned anything but a one-way transfer of US currency into There's virtual currency. I spent a little time consulting at There (ah, the boom years) and can vouch for the fact that they are very aware of the problems of inflation creating bugs, people's nostalgic attachment to virtual items without compounding these issues by allowing two-way currency conversions. I am sure they are already considering how to handle the inevitable complaint that the server "ate my widget and you owe me $3.55" under the current one-way dollars to ThereBucks conversion.
Doubt that Einstein had a learning disorder
on
Einstein Unveiled
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· Score: 2, Interesting
It's been bothering me the last year the degree to which Einstein is posthumously being labeled as having dome learning disorder. I saw that because the evidence in favor tends to be either anecdotal (and contradictory) or taken out of context.
Last month there was a pretty decent article about the problems with attempting to diagnose dead celebrities with medical/learning problems:
"Something that can't be proved is taken very blithely as fact," said Marlin Thomas, an expert in learning disabilities at Iona College who published an analysis of the claim about Einstein. Thomas became curious when he saw the diagnosis showcased on T-shirts, Web sites, ads and even brochures from the American Academy of Pediatrics."
Unfortunately, the article in question doesn't seem to be available on the internet, but here is the reference:
Thomas, Marlin. "Albert Einstein and LD: An Evaluation of the Evidence." Journal of Learning Disabilities No. 2, Vol. 33 (March 1, 2000): 149.
The conclusion? Well, the author pretty tightly defines "Learning Disability" within the realm of the Diagnostics and Statistics Manual IV(defining mental disorders) and US law (IDEA 1997) so he concludes that "Due to the paucity of evidence supporting the claim that Einstein had a learning disability, and due to the abundance of evidence disputing such a claim, the claim should be withdrawn until convincing evidence supports it."
I used to work for Logitech Tech Support in the good ol' days and they bought Dexxa sometime in 1992(?). The internals were generally the same (same design, same firmware) and the designs came from Logitech, but the actual manufacturing, materials and packaging were all low cost.
They were branded differently, but Logitech support in Fremont had to handle Dexxa calls. An example of the kinds of problems we encountered is Dexxa used a cheap plastic for the mouse body that allowed light to shine in. This flooded the optical sensors inside the mouse and would cause it to stop working in bright light. The fix? Add a new manufacturing step that spraypainted the inside of the body.
Anyhoo- looks like Logitech still owns them. I can't find financial reports stating such, but Dexxa's Terms of Use mention: "Dexxa International. 6505 Kaiser Drive, Fremont, CA 94555". Which has been the same address for Logitech USA for nearly 15 years.
Uh, Someone else may have mentioned this, but at several places on mp3licensing.com, it points out that this is not intended to end users. It seems most clear in the End User FAQ:
Do you license mp3/mp3PRO software to end users? No. We license mp3/mp3PRO software and patents to developers and manufacturers of software applications and hardware devices.
Note: No license is needed for private, non-commercial activities (e.g., home-entertainment, receiving broadcasts and creating a personal music library), not generating revenue or other consideration of any kind or for entities with an annual gross revenue less than US$ 100 000.00.
It doesn't seem like they are asking the consumer for anything.
This article reminded me of a stack of papers passed around my dorm about 10 years ago about the slowing of the speed of light by an Australian astronomer named Barry Setterfield.
Someone of a Creationism bent took his original paper and proceeded to extrapolate into the past and determined that at some point the speed of light was so fast, Carbon-14 decayed so fast, it would seem like millions or even billions of years given the current speed of light. And therefore, ipso facto, Evolution is wrong and Creationism is right. I still have it somewhere with my college memorabillia, probably with all the Young Republicans for Freedom propaganda I snagged off their table in the student union.
"It is impossible that old prejudices and hostilities should longer exist, while such an instrument has been created for the exchange of thought between all the nations of the earth."
Talking about the Internet? Ah, no. It is a quote about the 1858 transatlantic telegraph cable. I picked this up 6 months ago from an Economist article titled, "What the Internet cannot do". Had only Katz read it too, we might have been spared his lament.
"Knowledge of history is the precondition of political intelligence. Without history, a society shares no common memory of where it has been[or] what it core values are."
- 'National Standards for United States History' as reprinted in _Time_, Nov. 7, 1994
As soon as I saw this, I remembered about some experiments I had been told about. The magic phrase is "kinesthetic illusion induced by tendon vibration". Basically, by vibrating the tendons, it can create the illusion that the limb is moving into a different position. What I heard about was vibrating the Achilles tendon causes people to lean forward because it makes it seem the position of the feet is pushing them backwards. I think this might be a solution for countering the rocking of the boat.
Fujitsu bought Habitat in 1989 and ran it in Japan for years. In 1994, they contracted Randy and Chip to update the technology and released WorldsAway in 1995 in the US and in 1997, it became Habitat II in Japan. Snow Crash was required reading of the WorldsAway team members (life was hard then).
As an aside, "True Names" by Vernor Vinge is another good virtual world story (if it makes it back in print ever) and predates Snow Crash by ten years.
Slashdot Mirror
Funny this, they are available at Al Lowe's own site.
I didn't notice the article mentioned anything but a one-way transfer of US currency into There's virtual currency. I spent a little time consulting at There (ah, the boom years) and can vouch for the fact that they are very aware of the problems of inflation creating bugs, people's nostalgic attachment to virtual items without compounding these issues by allowing two-way currency conversions. I am sure they are already considering how to handle the inevitable complaint that the server "ate my widget and you owe me $3.55" under the current one-way dollars to ThereBucks conversion.
Last month there was a pretty decent article about the problems with attempting to diagnose dead celebrities with medical/learning problems:
The famous dead yield only murky diagnoses
Unfortunately, the article in question doesn't seem to be available on the internet, but here is the reference:
Thomas, Marlin. "Albert Einstein and LD: An Evaluation of the Evidence." Journal of Learning Disabilities No. 2, Vol. 33 (March 1, 2000): 149.
The conclusion? Well, the author pretty tightly defines "Learning Disability" within the realm of the Diagnostics and Statistics Manual IV(defining mental disorders) and US law (IDEA 1997) so he concludes that "Due to the paucity of evidence supporting the claim that Einstein had a learning disability, and due to the abundance of evidence disputing such a claim, the claim should be withdrawn until convincing evidence supports it."
I used to work for Logitech Tech Support in the good ol' days and they bought Dexxa sometime in 1992(?). The internals were generally the same (same design, same firmware) and the designs came from Logitech, but the actual manufacturing, materials and packaging were all low cost.
They were branded differently, but Logitech support in Fremont had to handle Dexxa calls. An example of the kinds of problems we encountered is Dexxa used a cheap plastic for the mouse body that allowed light to shine in. This flooded the optical sensors inside the mouse and would cause it to stop working in bright light. The fix? Add a new manufacturing step that spraypainted the inside of the body.
Anyhoo- looks like Logitech still owns them. I can't find financial reports stating such, but Dexxa's Terms of Use mention: "Dexxa International. 6505 Kaiser Drive, Fremont, CA 94555". Which has been the same address for Logitech USA for nearly 15 years.
This article reminded me of a stack of papers passed around my dorm about 10 years ago about the slowing of the speed of light by an Australian astronomer named Barry Setterfield.
Someone of a Creationism bent took his original paper and proceeded to extrapolate into the past and determined that at some point the speed of light was so fast, Carbon-14 decayed so fast, it would seem like millions or even billions of years given the current speed of light. And therefore, ipso facto, Evolution is wrong and Creationism is right. I still have it somewhere with my college memorabillia, probably with all the Young Republicans for Freedom propaganda I snagged off their table in the student union.
Here's more about the implication of changing constants (Their words, not mine) and a short version here.
Amen, Peter. I have a quote along those lines:
"It is impossible that old prejudices and hostilities should longer exist, while such an instrument has been created for the exchange of thought between all the nations of the earth."
Talking about the Internet? Ah, no. It is a quote about the 1858 transatlantic telegraph cable. I picked this up 6 months ago from an Economist article titled, "What the Internet cannot do". Had only Katz read it too, we might have been spared his lament.
"Knowledge of history is the precondition of political intelligence. Without history, a society shares no common memory of where it has been[or] what it core values are."
- 'National Standards for United States History' as reprinted in _Time_, Nov. 7, 1994
As soon as I saw this, I remembered about some experiments I had been told about. The magic phrase is "kinesthetic illusion induced by tendon vibration". Basically, by vibrating the tendons, it can create the illusion that the limb is moving into a different position. What I heard about was vibrating the Achilles tendon causes people to lean forward because it makes it seem the position of the feet is pushing them backwards. I think this might be a solution for countering the rocking of the boat.
I found an abstract describing the effect here:
Ant agonist motor responses correlate with kinesthetic illusions induced by tendon vibration
Fujitsu bought Habitat in 1989 and ran it in Japan for years. In 1994, they contracted Randy and Chip to update the technology and released WorldsAway in 1995 in the US and in 1997, it became Habitat II in Japan. Snow Crash was required reading of the WorldsAway team members (life was hard then).
As an aside, "True Names" by Vernor Vinge is another good virtual world story (if it makes it back in print ever) and predates Snow Crash by ten years.
-Scott