I know MS isn't particularly liked around these parts, but how exactly do you conclude that these people will be less happy at MS than at Apple?
This is retail we are talking about. Sales people tend to be extremely flexible as to the product they try to sell. Its not like they actually have to use the products they sell.
You realize of course that GPS is a passive service - there is not back communication to the satellite. So how do the parent get to know where the watch (and presumably their kid) is located? Well, through cell phone network. So yes, coverage is an issue.
Judging by the success of almost every recent 3D movie in the US, I would say there are here to say.
When "Jaws" came out in 3D long ago (longer than I care to admit), it was just like this. Then, over time, the novelty wore off, people realized that about 20% of them can't see stereo to begin with, another 10% got simulator sickness from the mismatch of depth cues (projection size, parallax, and focus all compete for representing a different depth), and the rest of the audience got annoyed at having to wear glasses. 2-3 years later we were back to 2D movies.
I am taking bets that it'll go the same way this time around...
There is no standard for specifying speed ratings, but if you know where to look, most you'll find for most helmets statements like "not recommended for speeds above X". What it really should say is "not recommended if your top speed is >X or consistently below something like X/2". OK, I am making up the factor 1/2, but basically the hard foam of a racing helmet is just overkill for slow speeds. If you take a low-speed helmet, you will feel the padding is much softer than that of a high racing helmet. This is exactly what you were mentioning.
I do bike commuting in the city, lots of long distance and adventure touring, a bit of real offroading, and maybe once or twice a year a track day. I have 4 helmets for the 4 different occasions, and I don't think this is a bad investment at all.
The big argument against modern helmets is that they are actually designed to provide protection against unrealistically strong blows. A firmer foam will protect against heavier blows, but won't compress as much when subjected to a lighter strike. The more the helmet compresses, the slower the head inside the helmet can decelerate, reducing the forces the brain is subjected to.
Well, that is what speed ratings are for. If you you go offroading, where you are likely to have a reasonable number of smaller falls, you should buy a soft padding helmet, and not a hard one that was designed to keep you alive during a 200 MPH crash on track day. The problem is, a lot of people think a higher speed rating is better, no matter what. That simply ain't so.
Playing around with configurations is a great learning experience for hobbyists. For everybody else, it distracts form what they really want to achieve, and distractions cost time and money.
I don't see how that follows. Even if there is no copyright, you still wouldn't have the source code unless the proprietary vendors published it. Also, abolition of copyright would almost certainly be countered by making all software license-only, with explicit NDA-style contracts you'd have to sign to get access (on top of mechanisms like DRM).
There is always a tension between different freedoms. Most people realize this, and strive for a reasonable balance. Zealots like RMS emphasize one right at the expense of all others.
Personally, I think a creator's right to decide what parts of his creations he wants to reveal, and at what terms, trumps somebody else's right to know how exactly how he created (in fact I think the latter is barely a "right" at all, even if it may be desirable under some circumstances). Do you think you have a (moral or legal) right to the Coke recipe just because Coca Cola offers the final product for sale? No? Then you don't have a "right" to the source code of computer software either. You DO have the right to decide for yourself if you want to use software for which the source isn't available to you, but you DO NOT have the right to compel others to tell you something they don't want to. Freedom of speech in particular includes the right to not speak at all.
Right, so now I am an MS troll. For you reference, my two desktop machines are Linux, and my laptop is a Mac. I do have a Win 98 netbook, mostly because Apple doesn't build anything that small, and Linux sucks on laptops (yeah, I've tried, but we can have that discussion elsewhere).
It doesn't bother me that RMS has his own opinion, just as it doesn't bother me that born again christians have their opinions. What DOES bother me is when either of them are striving to extend their political influence, because in either case it is clear that this will result in a loss of freedom to everyone else (*). That is the time to stand up and oppose them.
(*) As Enderandrew has succinctly said about RMS in this thread (http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1314321&cid=28811105): "He demands 100% compliance with his growing list of restrictions, or you aren't free. Freedom is not a list of restrictions. In reality, he wants to remove rights, give you a list of restrictions, and do so to protect the interests of developers, protecting their code from being stolen."
That statement is dead on as far as I am concerned.
I'm pretty sure Stallman's GPL'ed software isn't forced on the user of virtually all new computers like Gates.
He doesn't have the power to do so, but his explicitly stated goal is for people to only use "Free" software, where "Free" refers to his own twisted definition.
That works, but only if you have exact, pixel-to-pixel correspondence between the photos. It won't work if you just grab 2 photos from flicker that both show the Eiffel tower, and you wonder which one is "better".
Luckly, there is a simple way to do it: use jpegtran to extract the quantization table form each image. Pick the one with the smaller values. This can easily be scripted.
Caveat: this will not work if the images have been decoded and re-coded multiple times.
Right, because all possible home countries in the middle east are beacons of enlightenment and tolerance, where no innocent person from a religious or ethnic minority would ever be tortured or killed./rolls eyes/
...Even browsers that support it officially only support subsets of it.
Exactly. The root cause is that "lightweight" and "SVG" are mutually exclusive. SVG is an incredibly complex standard, and implementing it to spec is going to take incredibly complex code.
Business taxes should be the first to go, because businesses don't pay taxes. Their customers do.
This statement ignores the basic fact that business tax is local (i.e. by a local company, paid to a local government), while customers are global (for the big companies anyhow). So, if you can get companies to settle in you local area and make them pay taxes there, it is actually a good way to effectively get people elsewhere to pay for your local infrastructure.
As usual, the reality is a bot more complicated than a one sentence soundbite.
Sadly, it didn't take long for me to run into this image while using acquine in random browsing mode. It got 4 out of 5. So there you have it: goatse is art!
Except that most TV series (don't know specifically about Star Trek) aren't shot on film at all. The older series originals would be on Betacam video tape.
Actually, for a projector you want more than even a 7000 lumen light source. That is because an RGB LCD panel is only about 10% or less transmissive in "white" state, so your 7000 lumen light source gives you only around 500-700 lumen as a projector. Most commercial projectors these days are 2000 lumen or higher.
Why do you assume I blame the Chinese for any of this? In fact I think they have a right to strive for a world-political influence proportional to their size and population, which they had centuries ago, but haven't had recently.
The reason I singled out the US is that China owns a fair percentage of the US, but not nearly as much of any other G8 country. Countries like Canada had a balance budget until very recently. Other countries like France, Germany, Japan, and Italy, export more than they import, so the mutual ownership of resources is balanced or even skewed in their favor. Russia has its oil and doesn't need anybody. In the G8, that leaves the US and possibly the UK as countries that are most likely to be in trouble.
Interesting. I'd like to hear your impression of how well this worked. Did a lot of students have trouble running the VM? Were there any complaints about the size of the downloads/uploads for the VM?
You are right about MAD at some level, but not for the reason you think.
The reason why the Chinese have to be careful is that, by wiping out the US economy, they would pretty much ensure that their biggest market collapses, so their own economic growth would be severely affected.
By comparison, spending excess money is easy. They could invest it in other economies, or just ramp up their own R&D or military development, thus boosting their own job market & economy.
The Chinese economy is not self-sustaining at the moment - they are very much dependent on an export market (primarily the US, but also Europe to some degree). However, they are taking huge steps towards economic independence, and in a decade or two, the situation will have changed drastically. That is the day the US should dread.
To completely and utterly destroy the US economy, all they need to do is not buy NEW government bonds. How do you think the US deficit is financed, exactly?
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder what Linus would say now if the microkernel debate with Tennenbaum came up again...
I know MS isn't particularly liked around these parts, but how exactly do you conclude that these people will be less happy at MS than at Apple?
This is retail we are talking about. Sales people tend to be extremely flexible as to the product they try to sell. Its not like they actually have to use the products they sell.
You realize of course that GPS is a passive service - there is not back communication to the satellite. So how do the parent get to know where the watch (and presumably their kid) is located? Well, through cell phone network. So yes, coverage is an issue.
Judging by the success of almost every recent 3D movie in the US, I would say there are here to say.
When "Jaws" came out in 3D long ago (longer than I care to admit), it was just like this. Then, over time, the novelty wore off, people realized that about 20% of them can't see stereo to begin with, another 10% got simulator sickness from the mismatch of depth cues (projection size, parallax, and focus all compete for representing a different depth), and the rest of the audience got annoyed at having to wear glasses. 2-3 years later we were back to 2D movies.
I am taking bets that it'll go the same way this time around...
There is no standard for specifying speed ratings, but if you know where to look, most you'll find for most helmets statements like "not recommended for speeds above X". What it really should say is "not recommended if your top speed is >X or consistently below something like X/2". OK, I am making up the factor 1/2, but basically the hard foam of a racing helmet is just overkill for slow speeds. If you take a low-speed helmet, you will feel the padding is much softer than that of a high racing helmet. This is exactly what you were mentioning.
I do bike commuting in the city, lots of long distance and adventure touring, a bit of real offroading, and maybe once or twice a year a track day. I have 4 helmets for the 4 different occasions, and I don't think this is a bad investment at all.
The big argument against modern helmets is that they are actually designed to provide protection against unrealistically strong blows. A firmer foam will protect against heavier blows, but won't compress as much when subjected to a lighter strike. The more the helmet compresses, the slower the head inside the helmet can decelerate, reducing the forces the brain is subjected to.
Well, that is what speed ratings are for. If you you go offroading, where you are likely to have a reasonable number of smaller falls, you should buy a soft padding helmet, and not a hard one that was designed to keep you alive during a 200 MPH crash on track day. The problem is, a lot of people think a higher speed rating is better, no matter what. That simply ain't so.
Agree with the rest of your post, though.
That style of bike is called a Penny-farthing.
I've head of geese laying golden eggs, but penny-farting? That is a whole new level! ;-)
He is a lawyer. His time is everything BUT free.
Playing around with configurations is a great learning experience for hobbyists. For everybody else, it distracts form what they really want to achieve, and distractions cost time and money.
I don't see how that follows. Even if there is no copyright, you still wouldn't have the source code unless the proprietary vendors published it. Also, abolition of copyright would almost certainly be countered by making all software license-only, with explicit NDA-style contracts you'd have to sign to get access (on top of mechanisms like DRM).
There is always a tension between different freedoms. Most people realize this, and strive for a reasonable balance. Zealots like RMS emphasize one right at the expense of all others.
Personally, I think a creator's right to decide what parts of his creations he wants to reveal, and at what terms, trumps somebody else's right to know how exactly how he created (in fact I think the latter is barely a "right" at all, even if it may be desirable under some circumstances). Do you think you have a (moral or legal) right to the Coke recipe just because Coca Cola offers the final product for sale? No? Then you don't have a "right" to the source code of computer software either. You DO have the right to decide for yourself if you want to use software for which the source isn't available to you, but you DO NOT have the right to compel others to tell you something they don't want to. Freedom of speech in particular includes the right to not speak at all.
Right, so now I am an MS troll. For you reference, my two desktop machines are Linux, and my laptop is a Mac. I do have a Win 98 netbook, mostly because Apple doesn't build anything that small, and Linux sucks on laptops (yeah, I've tried, but we can have that discussion elsewhere).
It doesn't bother me that RMS has his own opinion, just as it doesn't bother me that born again christians have their opinions. What DOES bother me is when either of them are striving to extend their political influence, because in either case it is clear that this will result in a loss of freedom to everyone else (*). That is the time to stand up and oppose them.
(*) As Enderandrew has succinctly said about RMS in this thread (http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1314321&cid=28811105): "He demands 100% compliance with his growing list of restrictions, or you aren't free. Freedom is not a list of restrictions. In reality, he wants to remove rights, give you a list of restrictions, and do so to protect the interests of developers, protecting their code from being stolen."
That statement is dead on as far as I am concerned.
That is a pretty big "if" right there.
I'm pretty sure Stallman's GPL'ed software isn't forced on the user of virtually all new computers like Gates.
He doesn't have the power to do so, but his explicitly stated goal is for people to only use "Free" software, where "Free" refers to his own twisted definition.
That works, but only if you have exact, pixel-to-pixel correspondence between the photos. It won't work if you just grab 2 photos from flicker that both show the Eiffel tower, and you wonder which one is "better".
Luckly, there is a simple way to do it: use jpegtran to extract the quantization table form each image. Pick the one with the smaller values. This can easily be scripted.
Caveat: this will not work if the images have been decoded and re-coded multiple times.
Right, because all possible home countries in the middle east are beacons of enlightenment and tolerance, where no innocent person from a religious or ethnic minority would ever be tortured or killed. /rolls eyes/
...Even browsers that support it officially only support subsets of it.
Exactly. The root cause is that "lightweight" and "SVG" are mutually exclusive. SVG is an incredibly complex standard, and implementing it to spec is going to take incredibly complex code.
Business taxes should be the first to go, because businesses don't pay taxes. Their customers do.
This statement ignores the basic fact that business tax is local (i.e. by a local company, paid to a local government), while customers are global (for the big companies anyhow). So, if you can get companies to settle in you local area and make them pay taxes there, it is actually a good way to effectively get people elsewhere to pay for your local infrastructure.
As usual, the reality is a bot more complicated than a one sentence soundbite.
Huh? I saw it at 4/5 stars on Acquine.
Sadly, it didn't take long for me to run into this image while using acquine in random browsing mode. It got 4 out of 5. So there you have it: goatse is art!
No, I am not making this up, either.
Except that most TV series (don't know specifically about Star Trek) aren't shot on film at all. The older series originals would be on Betacam video tape.
Actually, for a projector you want more than even a 7000 lumen light source. That is because an RGB LCD panel is only about 10% or less transmissive in "white" state, so your 7000 lumen light source gives you only around 500-700 lumen as a projector. Most commercial projectors these days are 2000 lumen or higher.
Why do you assume I blame the Chinese for any of this? In fact I think they have a right to strive for a world-political influence proportional to their size and population, which they had centuries ago, but haven't had recently.
The reason I singled out the US is that China owns a fair percentage of the US, but not nearly as much of any other G8 country. Countries like Canada had a balance budget until very recently. Other countries like France, Germany, Japan, and Italy, export more than they import, so the mutual ownership of resources is balanced or even skewed in their favor. Russia has its oil and doesn't need anybody. In the G8, that leaves the US and possibly the UK as countries that are most likely to be in trouble.
Interesting. I'd like to hear your impression of how well this worked. Did a lot of students have trouble running the VM? Were there any complaints about the size of the downloads/uploads for the VM?
Thx.
You are right about MAD at some level, but not for the reason you think.
The reason why the Chinese have to be careful is that, by wiping out the US economy, they would pretty much ensure that their biggest market collapses, so their own economic growth would be severely affected.
By comparison, spending excess money is easy. They could invest it in other economies, or just ramp up their own R&D or military development, thus boosting their own job market & economy.
The Chinese economy is not self-sustaining at the moment - they are very much dependent on an export market (primarily the US, but also Europe to some degree). However, they are taking huge steps towards economic independence, and in a decade or two, the situation will have changed drastically. That is the day the US should dread.
To completely and utterly destroy the US economy, all they need to do is not buy NEW government bonds. How do you think the US deficit is financed, exactly?