Lamarck is one of those guys who's name is generally synonymous with bad science (he's about as villified as Darwin is deified). I'm actually a bit (pleasantly) surprised that someone would invest the time into this sort of study.
That being said, the article is rather short in one important area: a suggested mechanism for this sort of inheritance. Without that, it's bound to be mired in controversy for some time.
Probably for it's (much) bigger screen and (slightly) lower price.
I have an iPod touch, and I use it mainly for web browsing and other apps. I can't even find my headphones, because it's been so long since I've used them.
IF they can keep the price of this thing at around $200, it might be a very viable alternative for those of us who want to compute rather than listen.
This is a problem I've given my grade 12 computing class in the past. The quality of code in the linked file is pretty comparable to what I've seen submitted.
Seriously, the IsLeapYear() function is 13 lines long, and is no more readable than, say,
Umm, I think you're a bit out of date. Brushed metal is gone from Mac OS X 10.5, replaced with the "Leopard-style" windows with the gray gradient and continuous toolbar.
And, that very page, back in the day, said when you should use brushed metal vs. aqua windows. Although the page isn't there (and their robots.txt prevents Wayback Machine from archiving it), the text is quoted on the following:
Well, until recently Inkscape didn't work very nicely with PDF files, which is one of the main things I do in Illustrator. The Mac (X11) version doesn't deal nicely with my fonts. I'd rather not dip into X11 if at all possible.
And, I've been using Illustrator since about version 2 or 3, so I'm pretty comfortable with the way it works. That's important to me when I only pull it out once in a while.
(Of course, the fact that I use Photoshop quite a lot more, so I got it in a bundle, helps too!)
Well, if my net connection goes down, I'll wait until it's back on - remembering that I only need these apps once in a blue moon. It's a price I'm willing (not) to pay, if I can avoid paying $300 up front for a piece of software I'm going to use 3 times this year.
If they close up shop, I'm going to need a long-term replacement anyways. My experience has been that unsupported software (especially the kind of bloatware I'm talking about) usually survives comfortably for about 1 more operating system release, then it's time to get something new anyways.
Software-as-a-service has existed in the past, before TPM chips. While I'm sure Microsoft would probably, in fact, tie in to TPM, it doesn't necessarily have to be that way. I think the argument about TPM, while important, is somewhat tangential to this particular idea.
Hmm. On the other hand, I just shelled out several hundred dollars for Adobe Illustrator, a program I need only for a few hours a year (but when I need it, I REALLY need it). If I had the option to pay an hourly rate OR purchase it outright, I'd have chosen the metering. Actually, a lot of apps are the same for me - including all of Microsoft Office. I use alternative word processors, spreadsheets, and presentation packages (or just do it in my text editor / LaTeX), but every now and then I do need to use Word or Excel.
Again, given that there will be alternatives that are not metered, a pay-for-use model for some of these monolithic, massively-priced apps might not be a bad thing.
Right. I am a grad student at a Canadian university, and our research ethics board won't even approve any research that uses US-based survey websites for data collection, whether sensitive in nature or totally innocuous.
Perhaps, but Darwinism tends to "speed up" in smaller, less diverse populations Small, yes... but do you have an example of where "less diverse" speeds up natural selection?
Oh, so you don't really understand Darwinism. Unless you get heart disease or have a stroke before you hit sexual maturity, this is irrelevant. For almost everyone--even the obese--health complications don't get extreme enough to kill you with a high statistical probability until you're well past your sexual prime, and getting there is all that Darwinism cares about. Actually, that's not quite right. Just so long as the heart attack or stroke happens WHILE he's able to reproduce, it DOES affect his "fitness". For females, anything that kills them before menopause is relevant. For males, fertility lasts significantly longer. Granted, the later in life heart attack or stroke occur, the less the effect is, but it should be statistically significant over a large enough population.
Nope. You'd have 100% of the people required to take the testing who have taken it, plus a bunch of others who just took it for fun. You might even have a bunch of others that is equal in size to 5% of the "required" group. But it's still not the same has having 105% of a group who have done something - that extra 5% still ain't in the group!
It's not just you. Most of us who pay the levy feel the same way! Incidentally, the iPod levy was overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada a couple of years ago, but the CPCC (Canadian Private Copyright Collective) is currently in the process of trying to ram through another levy, this time covering iPods and flash cards for your camera as well (http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2112/125/).
Extortion sure does sound like the right word for these "pre-litigation letters".
Makes me glad I'm Canadian. We just have to pay a ridiculous levy on our iPods and CD-Rs because we're bound to use them to pirate music.
Nonsense. I would have been much more pissed if Apple had suddenly dropped 10.5 on us without having a proper beta for a couple of months first. The current builds are apparently missing a bunch of functionality that'll be in the final version. Assuming the rumoured WWDC beta has it all there, I'll want to fiddle with that before release to make sure my apps work are going to work as intended.
The only reason I'm disappointed is because I really want 10.5 for myself. Nothing to do with development! From the development angle, I'm much happier this way.
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Lamarck is one of those guys who's name is generally synonymous with bad science (he's about as villified as Darwin is deified). I'm actually a bit (pleasantly) surprised that someone would invest the time into this sort of study.
That being said, the article is rather short in one important area: a suggested mechanism for this sort of inheritance. Without that, it's bound to be mired in controversy for some time.
Probably for it's (much) bigger screen and (slightly) lower price.
I have an iPod touch, and I use it mainly for web browsing and other apps. I can't even find my headphones, because it's been so long since I've used them.
IF they can keep the price of this thing at around $200, it might be a very viable alternative for those of us who want to compute rather than listen.
Oh, but make sure you don't stick your new talking GPS to your windshield. That's illegal in California too... :)
This is a problem I've given my grade 12 computing class in the past. The quality of code in the linked file is pretty comparable to what I've seen submitted.
Seriously, the IsLeapYear() function is 13 lines long, and is no more readable than, say,
int IsLeapYear(int Year) {
return (((Year % 4) == 0) && (((Year % 100) > 0) || ((Year % 400) == 0)));
}
It looks to me like the ConvertDays() function was written by the same (amateurish) coder. Other bits of the source aren't nearly so bad.
Umm, I think you're a bit out of date. Brushed metal is gone from Mac OS X 10.5, replaced with the "Leopard-style" windows with the gray gradient and continuous toolbar.
For your reference:
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/userexperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/XHIGWindows/chapter_18_section_3.html
And, that very page, back in the day, said when you should use brushed metal vs. aqua windows. Although the page isn't there (and their robots.txt prevents Wayback Machine from archiving it), the text is quoted on the following:
http://daringfireball.net/2004/10/brushedmetal
So, on the contrary, Apple was pretty darn clear about when you should use which type of window.
Well, until recently Inkscape didn't work very nicely with PDF files, which is one of the main things I do in Illustrator. The Mac (X11) version doesn't deal nicely with my fonts. I'd rather not dip into X11 if at all possible.
And, I've been using Illustrator since about version 2 or 3, so I'm pretty comfortable with the way it works. That's important to me when I only pull it out once in a while.
(Of course, the fact that I use Photoshop quite a lot more, so I got it in a bundle, helps too!)
Well, if my net connection goes down, I'll wait until it's back on - remembering that I only need these apps once in a blue moon. It's a price I'm willing (not) to pay, if I can avoid paying $300 up front for a piece of software I'm going to use 3 times this year.
If they close up shop, I'm going to need a long-term replacement anyways. My experience has been that unsupported software (especially the kind of bloatware I'm talking about) usually survives comfortably for about 1 more operating system release, then it's time to get something new anyways.
Software-as-a-service has existed in the past, before TPM chips. While I'm sure Microsoft would probably, in fact, tie in to TPM, it doesn't necessarily have to be that way. I think the argument about TPM, while important, is somewhat tangential to this particular idea.
Hmm. On the other hand, I just shelled out several hundred dollars for Adobe Illustrator, a program I need only for a few hours a year (but when I need it, I REALLY need it). If I had the option to pay an hourly rate OR purchase it outright, I'd have chosen the metering. Actually, a lot of apps are the same for me - including all of Microsoft Office. I use alternative word processors, spreadsheets, and presentation packages (or just do it in my text editor / LaTeX), but every now and then I do need to use Word or Excel.
Again, given that there will be alternatives that are not metered, a pay-for-use model for some of these monolithic, massively-priced apps might not be a bad thing.
They've just posted a message on their blog saying they've gone to a closed beta. Apparently they weren't expecting to be slashdotted! :)
Right. I am a grad student at a Canadian university, and our research ethics board won't even approve any research that uses US-based survey websites for data collection, whether sensitive in nature or totally innocuous.
Or the computers are donated and ancient, and can't run XP or Vista...
But the Mercer Report, on the other hand, is definitely worth claiming!
Nope. You'd have 100% of the people required to take the testing who have taken it, plus a bunch of others who just took it for fun. You might even have a bunch of others that is equal in size to 5% of the "required" group. But it's still not the same has having 105% of a group who have done something - that extra 5% still ain't in the group!
It's not just you. Most of us who pay the levy feel the same way! Incidentally, the iPod levy was overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada a couple of years ago, but the CPCC (Canadian Private Copyright Collective) is currently in the process of trying to ram through another levy, this time covering iPods and flash cards for your camera as well (http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2112/125/ ).
Extortion sure does sound like the right word for these "pre-litigation letters". Makes me glad I'm Canadian. We just have to pay a ridiculous levy on our iPods and CD-Rs because we're bound to use them to pirate music.
Umm, no. 409 / 259,723 = 0.001574 (no units). Expressed as a percent: 0.001574 * 100% ~ 0.16%
Nonsense. I would have been much more pissed if Apple had suddenly dropped 10.5 on us without having a proper beta for a couple of months first. The current builds are apparently missing a bunch of functionality that'll be in the final version. Assuming the rumoured WWDC beta has it all there, I'll want to fiddle with that before release to make sure my apps work are going to work as intended. The only reason I'm disappointed is because I really want 10.5 for myself. Nothing to do with development! From the development angle, I'm much happier this way.