This is definitely one of the most common misconceptions I hear about evolution. How did a monkey evolve into a human? A *single* monkey did not evolve into anything, it was a monkey. Has any human recently evolved into a star-child? Individuals of a species do not evolve. Evolution is a function of a population over many, many generations. It is the natural selection of traits that promote survival given the current habitat/climate/whatever. More successful traits become more prominent, especially when they lead one individual to
1) Live Longer
2) Have more offspring
The offspring have these traits, and the cycle continues.
Talking about the "evolution of the individual" is like talking about how it is possible to make a chain with one link.
As someone who has done research in memory wear leveling, I can assure you that these technologies have a place. There are significant design trade-offs that must be considered for any application. Power, area, speed/latency, and maximum amount of write-erase cycles all come into play. One of the head researchers in emerging memory technologies at Penn State has an interesting presentation here on the roles of these memory technologies (yes, I realized it is hosted at Oregon State, and he is from PSU, oh well...): http://web.engr.oregonstate.edu/~sllu/xie.pdf
I will say this. Labview is great for a quick-and-dirty setup or small application. If you need to do anything more complicated, you will find that the entire development environment is incredibly lacking and highly tedious, and there is no meaningful literature on application design in Labview (90% of Labview books are "hurf-a-durf you connect one box to another and it does things, think outside the c++ box man").
As someone who writes VHDL, Verilog, C++, and Matlab on a daily basis, I understand both control flow and data flow programming, Labview is some perverted amalgamation of the two. It lures you in under the guise that you will not need to learn any GUI programming, and then screws you over in anything more than the basics. For example, in a data flow paradigm, pointers have no meaning, as all data is by value. Nearly every complex data type is handled with pointers, and "magical pointer functions" which make life hell, as they do not fit into the paradigm. So then they add "classes", which is a way for them to say that they somehow trump C++ and Java. Upon reading the fine print, one discovers that the class system is similarly FUBAR'd. Then there's the issue of inserting something into code. In a text based language, hit enter, and begin typing. In labview, delete a shit-ton of wires, drag and drop portions of the diagram, put in new bright colored squares, connect even more wires, make everything look readable (see: drag 'n drop ad nausium).
But, if you need a quick and dirty state machine to control something, and you don't mind a polling architecture, I can implement that in about a day...
Yes, all of these things are interesting and innovative ideas, but in and of themselves, they are not products that should be patentable. Take the following examples:
An english teacher marks up a term paper with red pen. Is this infringing on microsoft's red squiggle? I'm fairly certain that red pens have been used far longer.
I arrange all the tools on my desk in a line, pencil/pen cup, phone, coffee mug, parts directory, etc. Is this infringing on the "toolbar" or "ribbon"?
In conclusion, an idea is not necessarily a product.
I feel that it is important to report market information that I have assembled.
Based on a survey of the people I'm living with, Ubuntu has a 25% market share of the laptop market.
None of my friends own an iPhone, so I assure you that it is a dead market space, MMOs fall into the same category.
On average, there is only one care for six people with driver's licenses.
Wii has 100% of the market share.
All teenage girls love anime and The Lion King.
In terms of popularity, 4 out of 5 of my roommates wanted a joint memorial for Billy Mays and Michael Jackson.
Everyone I know hates MySpace. I mean everyone. Its a really stupid facebook. The only people who use it are retarded. Surveys report that people are more willing to twitter than use MySpace, which is quite shocking considering previous reports.
All of these reports are held to the highest standards of statistical accuracy and truthfulness. It has the statistical rigour usual to all of my reports.
The only successful DRM comes from hardware makers (read: Apple) who balance the power to govern sales without extortion prices and without runaway piracy, because their interests are aligned with both consumers and intellectual property content producers.
Are you telling me that Apple's prices are reasonable? Their products cost 50% to 200% more than the market competition. They definitely are extorting people with DRM. The majority of people who use apple products don't even know that they are being controlled by DRM (think: iPod). All they know, is that, if they try to use another brand (of hardware), it just won't work.
For those who are not as tech-savvy, not working = broken (and will never use again)
Also, do you think that Apple's DRM has helped cut music piracy? I assume/. readers are smart enough to figure this one out.
*announcer voice*... WITH GRAVEDIGGER (ooh) and BIGFOOT. KIDS SEATS ONLY FIVE DOLLARS (adults ten). SPONSORED BY THE BUDWEISER GIRLS. SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY! WE'LL SELL YOU THE WHOLE SEAT, BUT YOU'LL ONLY NEED THE EDGE! *fast leagal talk* fubbada fubbada fubbada sorry no CODs...
Here's a simple solution. Software manufacturers get 15-25 years after they officially cut their product. After that, its all fair game (just like any other protected work - only a shorter life cycle). If a software company is still relying on code that's 25+ years old, there is something wrong here. Odds are that, computers that originally ran that code no longer exist. Even then, software manufactures should not be able to hold on to copyrights forever. The copyright system was initially designed to give entrepreneurs a TEMPORARY monopoly, not an indefinite one (thus promoting market development, etc...).
I could always be wrong, but I did not think that this was meant to be interpreted as pure criticism. Card's lack of real supporting facts and use of exaggeration suggest another purpose. All this with the comically harsh tone points to satire. Do you really think that he (Card) is serious when he claims that Rowling ripped off of his book? I may be over interpreting, but it seems to reflect the state of all lawsuits today, be it in industry or the publishing world. Everyone wants to claim that they invented, and currently hold the patents and copyrights to the wheel. These same people will try to sue everyone else who attempt to create something remotely similar. Claims and resultant lawsuits such as infringing on the aforementioned "wheel" by walking, because legs are a "mode of transportation from point A to point B" are becoming the norm.
Now, I'm undecided on the merits of this specific lawsuit, but I'm hesitant to side with Rowling. How have any of the authors of the great classics ever been compensated for derivative works? Take for example Bloom's translation of Plato, probably one of the most well known (I'll acknowledge that the Lexicon is not as scholarly). Bloom made profits from the direct retelling of some one else's work. For another example, consider the blatant ripoff of Cervantes' Don Quixote by Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda (For those who are unfamiliar, Fernandez published a sequel to part I of Don Quixote, claiming to be Cervantes himself). This was great press for Cervantes, who actually made more when he published the real part II of Don Quixote.
Both of these situations apply to Rowling. Derivative works will always exist. I tend to agree that derivatives do not detract from the true value of the original. Also, official sequels and spin-offs tend to dwarf any second party content in terms of popularity/profit. From a business perspective, this lawsuit serves no real purpose. Rowling could stamp her name on a book that was just her notes for harry potter, photocopied at staples, and make large sums of money from her fan base. If Rowling wanted to make more money, she could continue to produce "The continuing adventures of Harry Potter" ad infinitum.
Finally as for Rowling's literary merits, I personally call her work "Eye Candy", fun to read, but not very substantive. I'll take a myriad of other authors over her any day.
It really pisses me off that they expect me to pay a couple bucks per game when I own the original cartridges.
besides, NES has just as many eclectic controllers as the Wii (so why upgrade?): ROB, stomp pad, power glove, arcade pad, "wireless" IR controller adapter, touchpad controller...and we can't forget the zapper...
If you wanna do crypto or anything else with the NSA, you should check out the NSA Stokes program, among several other scholarship programs they offer (most are full tuition for the length of your degree). Just be prepared to go through the security screening process.
I assure you that the polygraph is *FUN*. I know from experience....
The Thought Police only arrest those devious perpetrators of thoughtcrime. Therefore you have nothing to worry about. Those guilty of thoughtcrime will be rehabilitated in room 101.
Doubleplusgood duckspeaking:
* WAR IS PEACE
* FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
* IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
A responsible teacher would have taught her effective birth control techniques as well as pleasurable sex techniques.
So when the teacher is either teaching or testing the latter of these two, how does it not result in a lawsuit.
btw, I went to a catholic school........haha.......
The fact of the matter, is, that it is not easy to understand for many people.
The majority of science (social sciences included), mathematics, CS, engineering, etc. involves large amounts of abstract thinking. Thinking of objects not just as individuals, but as members of a system (where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, i.e. "emergent properties") can be difficult for some to grasp. Now, considering the audience of slashdot, one would assume almost everyone here is able to process and reason through these abstractions.
Now, just think of all those people who never really understood algebra ("How do I find x? oh, its right here..."); those who claim "evolution is only a theory" and "there is no proof for evolution" pander to this type of individual. It might be the crappy science education in the U.S. I think that what's more necessary is to have national standards for education, rather than allowing the local yokels in the backwoods decide what to teach. This way people (who are easily convinced or don't understand) won't be as easily tricked by the "evolution does not exist" types.
You can't hear the difference at 256kps lossy versus lossless, so why waste you're life converting your already lossess music archive from CD form to harddrive form?
I agree, for certain styles of music: rock, metal, jazz, anything loud with a simple sound.
But, you, my friend, have never listened to classical, or opera in lossy format. It stands out like a sore thumb. The crystal sound that comes from many instruments (especially strings and any moderately high/low tones), including voice, becomes what I like to call, "pixelated", and filled with artifacts.
But you do need high end Bose equipment and gold
plated Monster cables to really bring out the warmer and fuller mid-range and the increased bass response.
Translation: You have to spend the most money possible because obviously, the most expensive thing has to be the best.
Slashdot Mirror
This is definitely one of the most common misconceptions I hear about evolution. How did a monkey evolve into a human? A *single* monkey did not evolve into anything, it was a monkey. Has any human recently evolved into a star-child? Individuals of a species do not evolve. Evolution is a function of a population over many, many generations. It is the natural selection of traits that promote survival given the current habitat/climate/whatever. More successful traits become more prominent, especially when they lead one individual to
1) Live Longer
2) Have more offspring
The offspring have these traits, and the cycle continues.
Talking about the "evolution of the individual" is like talking about how it is possible to make a chain with one link.
As someone who has done research in memory wear leveling, I can assure you that these technologies have a place. There are significant design trade-offs that must be considered for any application. Power, area, speed/latency, and maximum amount of write-erase cycles all come into play. One of the head researchers in emerging memory technologies at Penn State has an interesting presentation here on the roles of these memory technologies (yes, I realized it is hosted at Oregon State, and he is from PSU, oh well...): http://web.engr.oregonstate.edu/~sllu/xie.pdf
Astronomers have already come up with something. It's called galaxy zoo.
http://www.galaxyzoo.org/
As an added bonus, you get to look at some neat deep space photography.
I will say this. Labview is great for a quick-and-dirty setup or small application. If you need to do anything more complicated, you will find that the entire development environment is incredibly lacking and highly tedious, and there is no meaningful literature on application design in Labview (90% of Labview books are "hurf-a-durf you connect one box to another and it does things, think outside the c++ box man").
As someone who writes VHDL, Verilog, C++, and Matlab on a daily basis, I understand both control flow and data flow programming, Labview is some perverted amalgamation of the two. It lures you in under the guise that you will not need to learn any GUI programming, and then screws you over in anything more than the basics. For example, in a data flow paradigm, pointers have no meaning, as all data is by value. Nearly every complex data type is handled with pointers, and "magical pointer functions" which make life hell, as they do not fit into the paradigm. So then they add "classes", which is a way for them to say that they somehow trump C++ and Java. Upon reading the fine print, one discovers that the class system is similarly FUBAR'd. Then there's the issue of inserting something into code. In a text based language, hit enter, and begin typing. In labview, delete a shit-ton of wires, drag and drop portions of the diagram, put in new bright colored squares, connect even more wires, make everything look readable (see: drag 'n drop ad nausium).
But, if you need a quick and dirty state machine to control something, and you don't mind a polling architecture, I can implement that in about a day...
Yes, all of these things are interesting and innovative ideas, but in and of themselves, they are not products that should be patentable. Take the following examples:
An english teacher marks up a term paper with red pen. Is this infringing on microsoft's red squiggle? I'm fairly certain that red pens have been used far longer.
I arrange all the tools on my desk in a line, pencil/pen cup, phone, coffee mug, parts directory, etc. Is this infringing on the "toolbar" or "ribbon"?
In conclusion, an idea is not necessarily a product.
Your packing crate incident wouldn't have anything to do with this?
http://www.icanhasmotivation.com/40-lb-box-of-rape-you-know-you-want-to-open-it/
dear /.
I feel that it is important to report market information that I have assembled.
Based on a survey of the people I'm living with, Ubuntu has a 25% market share of the laptop market.
None of my friends own an iPhone, so I assure you that it is a dead market space, MMOs fall into the same category.
On average, there is only one care for six people with driver's licenses.
Wii has 100% of the market share.
All teenage girls love anime and The Lion King.
In terms of popularity, 4 out of 5 of my roommates wanted a joint memorial for Billy Mays and Michael Jackson.
Everyone I know hates MySpace. I mean everyone. Its a really stupid facebook. The only people who use it are retarded. Surveys report that people are more willing to twitter than use MySpace, which is quite shocking considering previous reports.
All of these reports are held to the highest standards of statistical accuracy and truthfulness. It has the statistical rigour usual to all of my reports.
no, Mr. Jobs, I expect you to die...
A friend of mine just launched a company to develop such a device. He's well on his way. The current team is assembling at Penn State.
http://www.mashavu.com/index.html
Are you telling me that Apple's prices are reasonable? Their products cost 50% to 200% more than the market competition. They definitely are extorting people with DRM. The majority of people who use apple products don't even know that they are being controlled by DRM (think: iPod). All they know, is that, if they try to use another brand (of hardware), it just won't work.
/. readers are smart enough to figure this one out.
For those who are not as tech-savvy, not working = broken (and will never use again)
Also, do you think that Apple's DRM has helped cut music piracy? I assume
You must be crazy...
...crazy like a fox!
lol @ herbalife.
Woman on commercial: Last week I made five thousand dollars
Me: She knew NYC mayor Spitzer?
*announcer voice*... WITH GRAVEDIGGER (ooh) and BIGFOOT. KIDS SEATS ONLY FIVE DOLLARS (adults ten). SPONSORED BY THE BUDWEISER GIRLS. SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY! WE'LL SELL YOU THE WHOLE SEAT, BUT YOU'LL ONLY NEED THE EDGE! *fast leagal talk* fubbada fubbada fubbada sorry no CODs...
Here's a simple solution. Software manufacturers get 15-25 years after they officially cut their product. After that, its all fair game (just like any other protected work - only a shorter life cycle). If a software company is still relying on code that's 25+ years old, there is something wrong here. Odds are that, computers that originally ran that code no longer exist. Even then, software manufactures should not be able to hold on to copyrights forever. The copyright system was initially designed to give entrepreneurs a TEMPORARY monopoly, not an indefinite one (thus promoting market development, etc...).
WE ARE...
I could always be wrong, but I did not think that this was meant to be interpreted as pure criticism. Card's lack of real supporting facts and use of exaggeration suggest another purpose. All this with the comically harsh tone points to satire. Do you really think that he (Card) is serious when he claims that Rowling ripped off of his book? I may be over interpreting, but it seems to reflect the state of all lawsuits today, be it in industry or the publishing world. Everyone wants to claim that they invented, and currently hold the patents and copyrights to the wheel. These same people will try to sue everyone else who attempt to create something remotely similar. Claims and resultant lawsuits such as infringing on the aforementioned "wheel" by walking, because legs are a "mode of transportation from point A to point B" are becoming the norm.
Now, I'm undecided on the merits of this specific lawsuit, but I'm hesitant to side with Rowling. How have any of the authors of the great classics ever been compensated for derivative works? Take for example Bloom's translation of Plato, probably one of the most well known (I'll acknowledge that the Lexicon is not as scholarly). Bloom made profits from the direct retelling of some one else's work. For another example, consider the blatant ripoff of Cervantes' Don Quixote by Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda (For those who are unfamiliar, Fernandez published a sequel to part I of Don Quixote, claiming to be Cervantes himself). This was great press for Cervantes, who actually made more when he published the real part II of Don Quixote.
Both of these situations apply to Rowling. Derivative works will always exist. I tend to agree that derivatives do not detract from the true value of the original. Also, official sequels and spin-offs tend to dwarf any second party content in terms of popularity/profit. From a business perspective, this lawsuit serves no real purpose. Rowling could stamp her name on a book that was just her notes for harry potter, photocopied at staples, and make large sums of money from her fan base. If Rowling wanted to make more money, she could continue to produce "The continuing adventures of Harry Potter" ad infinitum.
Finally as for Rowling's literary merits, I personally call her work "Eye Candy", fun to read, but not very substantive. I'll take a myriad of other authors over her any day.
It really pisses me off that they expect me to pay a couple bucks per game when I own the original cartridges. besides, NES has just as many eclectic controllers as the Wii (so why upgrade?): ROB, stomp pad, power glove, arcade pad, "wireless" IR controller adapter, touchpad controller...and we can't forget the zapper...
If you wanna do crypto or anything else with the NSA, you should check out the NSA Stokes program, among several other scholarship programs they offer (most are full tuition for the length of your degree). Just be prepared to go through the security screening process. I assure you that the polygraph is *FUN*. I know from experience....
The Thought Police only arrest those devious perpetrators of thoughtcrime. Therefore you have nothing to worry about. Those guilty of thoughtcrime will be rehabilitated in room 101.
Doubleplusgood duckspeaking:
* WAR IS PEACE
* FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
* IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
And now for something completely different: Big brother comedy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYQKDqjCEBQ
Ever talk to Mr. A. Square from Flatland?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland
Done already:
http://www.creationmuseum.org/
Mind you, that t-rex was a vegetarian, and children had them as pets. The animatronics must prove it...
don't start me on xenu, you godless heathens. Monkies evolved from the bible!
So when the teacher is either teaching or testing the latter of these two, how does it not result in a lawsuit.
btw, I went to a catholic school........haha.......
The fact of the matter, is, that it is not easy to understand for many people.
The majority of science (social sciences included), mathematics, CS, engineering, etc. involves large amounts of abstract thinking. Thinking of objects not just as individuals, but as members of a system (where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, i.e. "emergent properties") can be difficult for some to grasp. Now, considering the audience of slashdot, one would assume almost everyone here is able to process and reason through these abstractions.
Now, just think of all those people who never really understood algebra ("How do I find x? oh, its right here..."); those who claim "evolution is only a theory" and "there is no proof for evolution" pander to this type of individual. It might be the crappy science education in the U.S. I think that what's more necessary is to have national standards for education, rather than allowing the local yokels in the backwoods decide what to teach. This way people (who are easily convinced or don't understand) won't be as easily tricked by the "evolution does not exist" types.
The Internet - Serious Business
I agree, for certain styles of music: rock, metal, jazz, anything loud with a simple sound.
But, you, my friend, have never listened to classical, or opera in lossy format. It stands out like a sore thumb. The crystal sound that comes from many instruments (especially strings and any moderately high/low tones), including voice, becomes what I like to call, "pixelated", and filled with artifacts.
Translation: You have to spend the most money possible because obviously, the most expensive thing has to be the best.