Yeah, but honestly, everybody ignores the standard bodies on this issue. Does your computer have 512 megabytes of ram or 537 mb? It's very rare that anybody refers to a memory measurement based on a power of 10, and it's obviously going to be pretty unanimously misinterpreted if printed that way on product labeling.
the search and rescue team was telling everyone that Fossett wasn't getting special treatment, that anyone lost in the desert would get the same treatment.
Well, they evidently lied. Wait, let me rephrase that: They were obviously lying.
Right. I would support billing the widow for costs that were above and beyond the normal costs associated with search and rescue. If they wouldn't spend more than $50,000 searching for a peon like you or me, have the difference be considered an upgrade to the 'deluxe rescue package.'
Thanks for the excellent summary. It's a pretty straightforward idea, but I think a lot of poster here are misunderstanding it.
Another possibility that your wording excluded (perhaps inadvertently) is that the filter might be between the origin of life and the origin of intelligent life... or multicellular life. Either of those steps might be very unlikely; we don't really have any way of knowing. Perhaps the galaxy is teeming with the equivalent of blue-green algae.
...not with the verdict, necessarily. The jury heard more evidence in more detail then I did, and more than any of you did.
I'm disappointed in the majority of slashdotters who are are convinced he's innocent. Do you realize that is really stupid? Why is a group of people who are so rational about technology, say, or science, willing to believe something they just can flat out not know?
He might have been guilty, he might have been innocent. The devil lies in the details, which the jury knows better than you.
Obviously it's out of some feeling of kinship with the guy, but, you know, that is a really poor reason. I swear; the reasoning here is about on par with somebody convinced that vaccinations cause autism.
Maybe Google does something like this already, but I was thinking...
Can't they tune their image search by matching what results for particular terms are clicked? Presumably, the images people click on are more apt to be accurately described by the search terms originally entered, so that's like a constant 'free' image classification going on constantly.
For instance, if I put in "green field", I might get a bunch of images, and click on one that shows a grassy prairie. That image could be tagged with the keywords 'green' and 'field', probably weighted so that it takes multiple taggings to influence search results.
That and the fact that Python and Ruby are a lot more high level languages than Java. Java is just a crippled C++ with garbage collection and running on top of a virtual machine. It's nothing exciting.
Pardon my ignorance (I've never played with either Java OR virtual machines...) but has anybody ever created some sort of platform where each C++ app runs in its own VM? Wouldn't that give you nearly full c++ performance, while also giving nearly Java's security and memory protection?
The parent post will be the best answer in the thread. PC games are sadly, sadly, lacking in multiplayer games (as in, multiple players in the same room). But there are enough classic super nintendo and sega games to keep you entertained for years.
I'm just wondering why, genetically speaking, it should feel so good to hear about justice being served? Justice, fairness, reciprocity, selflessness: these things naturally feel good to most people, while their opposites usually feel bad, even when they have absolutely nothing to do with us.
I think you have to go to another level of abstraction. Humans need a rational universe, or else we have no control. We've evolved to believe in cause and effect, and many universal laws of physics are practically instinctual (such as ballistics). The emergent ability to be rational in a seemingly rational universe is the greatest survival trait we've acquired.
Because of that, when we see things that just don't make sense, we feel uneasy. This can range from simple perceptual stuff, such as an optical illusion or a shadow that doesn't seem to belong, to advanced psychological and philosophical matters. Why did she laugh at that? or why does he do worse work but gets paid more? These aren't just illogical, they are illogical in an upsetting way that feels a bit like the world isn't making sense right now. Seeing a woman attacked for a common sense statement is a bit like tossing a ball and seeing it veer to the left. It mucks with our sense of the world, and trying to make sense of the world is what humans do. Having a sensible resolution like this reaffirms that we do have a chance at understanding the world, and maybe someday getting laid.
Chaos != Free Will. You said yourself (basically) that it will react in a certain way, given certain input.
In what way does this differ from humans? Now, I don't think climate has free will, because I think that requires some form of self-awareness... but everything, even our minds, is simply responding to inputs in accordance to physical laws. You can't make avoiding causality a condition for free will. That's magic.
Doom 3 was a great 'meh' because it didn't "appeal is to twitch-kids who enjoy playing hyper-modded versions for mowing down hundreds of sprites on the screen at a time without the distraction of a real z-axis the likes you'd get in a Serious Sam game."
Go back and play it. It's fun, it's fast, and having 30 monsters on screen at once, combined with the wonderful lack of cut-screens, make it a refreshing change from modern shooters.
One point that is often forgotten when discussing the OGL and D20 license is that game rules cannot be copyrighted. You are free to create a new game using essentially a ripoff of the d20 rules. What you are not allowed to do is use their particular expression of the rules. That means you can't copy and paste text, you can't use names, settings, unique creative elements, and so forth.
My understanding is that the WOTC gaming licenses give you some extra rights (for instance, you could use their skill and magic descriptions verbatim), but takes away others (you are given certain restrictions, such as requiring use of the D20 logo). I'm not criticizing WOTC, just saying that using their licenses are not the only way to write compatible rules and expansions.
Yeah, the GP is irrational. But, in his defense, it's much more worrisome to have a child with a dangerous condition than it is to have that dangerous condition yourself. Parental freakouts are understandable, although not always sensible.
The world is a much safer place than it was when I was a kid.
I try to get this point across to people all the time and they think I'm either crazy or naive. In all sorts of ways, the world is better now than in the past. Sure, not everything is, but the majority of items that impact individuals is immensely better. Health, Crime, War... all much better. Terrorism is petty compared to cold war nuclear brinkmanship.
Part of the reason for ISO standards is so a product can be deemed standards compliant. Is it ISO itself that determines whether an individual product complies to the standard?
I'm curious, because I've heard that no product, including Microsoft's, currently follows the OOXML standard... and I wonder if there's a chance they never will? I suspect it may not be possible.
Or are Microsoft products going to be rubberstamped for the approval process as well, even if their implementation is buggy?
You mean actual free speech protections or do you mean pretty words written on a document that the government flat out ignores at whim? The US certainly has plenty of the latter.
An example of either would be good.
The difference being it's much easier to remedy a wrongful life imprisonment by releasing the person, while it's impossible to give someone's life back once you've executed them.
And it's impossible to give them a life back once they've wrongfully spent 50 years behind bars, which is arguably much worse than receiving the death penalty.
--We certainly have the best (though I'd like it to still be better) rights record on freedom of speech.
More jingoism.
Bull. What country has stronger free speech protections?
--Then again, you're probably one of those people who thinks capital punishment (e.g. the death penalty) for the brutal rape and murder of children is a "violation of human rights."
Nope. I think it's a violation of human rights because it's not only been shown that there were and still are numerous innocent people on death row but that innocent people have been put to death. I find it rather inhumane that one could support a system that has been proven to execute innocent people.
Reasonable people disagree. This idea that the death penalty would be fine if we could just insure ABSOLUTELY INFALLIBLE JUSTICE is ridiculous, both because it is impossible, and because it is never required for any other human endeavor. What about people who live their entire life in prison, then die, although they're innocent? It has happened, far more often than mistaken application of the death penalty. Should we ban life imprisonment?
I agree, beliefs alone don't make you a terrorist. It requires acts of violence against civilians. (Or plotting, or knowingly assisting, etc...) This should be judged on an individual level. And in cases of domestic terrorism, I certainly support full and fair trials (international terrorism is trickier). But when we do confirm that somebody was, indeed, a terrorist in the strict sense... well, part of the reason the courts exist, helping us separate the innocent from the guilty, is so that we can then go on to wipe the guilty ones off the face of the Earth without any reservations.
Odd, I feel somewhat ruthless today. Maybe I'm channeling Heinlein.
If it wasn't clear to you that governments love to use "terrorism" to demonize inconvenient political, social, or economic movements, you really haven't been paying attention. This has been going for as long as there have been governments.
You're absolutely right; but I've seen many posters in this thread go too far in rejecting that idea. Some of the groups labeled as 'terrorist' are vile, evil, and deserve to be wiped off the Earth. Weakening the definition to include all enemy factions is harmful not just because it demonizes undeserving groups, it softens criticism of groups deserving that name.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, but honestly, everybody ignores the standard bodies on this issue. Does your computer have 512 megabytes of ram or 537 mb? It's very rare that anybody refers to a memory measurement based on a power of 10, and it's obviously going to be pretty unanimously misinterpreted if printed that way on product labeling.
Printing both clearly would be fine, though.
the search and rescue team was telling everyone that Fossett wasn't getting special treatment, that anyone lost in the desert would get the same treatment.
Well, they evidently lied. Wait, let me rephrase that: They were obviously lying.
Right. I would support billing the widow for costs that were above and beyond the normal costs associated with search and rescue. If they wouldn't spend more than $50,000 searching for a peon like you or me, have the difference be considered an upgrade to the 'deluxe rescue package.'
Thanks for the excellent summary. It's a pretty straightforward idea, but I think a lot of poster here are misunderstanding it.
Another possibility that your wording excluded (perhaps inadvertently) is that the filter might be between the origin of life and the origin of intelligent life... or multicellular life. Either of those steps might be very unlikely; we don't really have any way of knowing. Perhaps the galaxy is teeming with the equivalent of blue-green algae.
A bill of responsibilities would have only one entry:
1) Respect other's rights.
Do you technically not need a law degree to pass the bar exam? I'm just curious.
...not with the verdict, necessarily. The jury heard more evidence in more detail then I did, and more than any of you did.
I'm disappointed in the majority of slashdotters who are are convinced he's innocent. Do you realize that is really stupid? Why is a group of people who are so rational about technology, say, or science, willing to believe something they just can flat out not know?
He might have been guilty, he might have been innocent. The devil lies in the details, which the jury knows better than you.
Obviously it's out of some feeling of kinship with the guy, but, you know, that is a really poor reason. I swear; the reasoning here is about on par with somebody convinced that vaccinations cause autism.
Maybe Google does something like this already, but I was thinking...
Can't they tune their image search by matching what results for particular terms are clicked? Presumably, the images people click on are more apt to be accurately described by the search terms originally entered, so that's like a constant 'free' image classification going on constantly.
For instance, if I put in "green field", I might get a bunch of images, and click on one that shows a grassy prairie. That image could be tagged with the keywords 'green' and 'field', probably weighted so that it takes multiple taggings to influence search results.
That and the fact that Python and Ruby are a lot more high level languages than Java. Java is just a crippled C++ with garbage collection and running on top of a virtual machine. It's nothing exciting.
Pardon my ignorance (I've never played with either Java OR virtual machines...) but has anybody ever created some sort of platform where each C++ app runs in its own VM? Wouldn't that give you nearly full c++ performance, while also giving nearly Java's security and memory protection?
I would get whiplash if I expressed that strong of a self-contradiction so clearly and in so few words...
...buying ATI put AMD in a very good position (other than that whole "no money to spend on anything" problem).
Funny, that's the same thing that happens when I buy ATI...
Or maybe Varcher75 is just trying to take credit for an anonymous coward's post.
The parent post will be the best answer in the thread. PC games are sadly, sadly, lacking in multiplayer games (as in, multiple players in the same room). But there are enough classic super nintendo and sega games to keep you entertained for years.
I'm just wondering why, genetically speaking, it should feel so good to hear about justice being served? Justice, fairness, reciprocity, selflessness: these things naturally feel good to most people, while their opposites usually feel bad, even when they have absolutely nothing to do with us.
/Whoops, did I say that last bit?
I think you have to go to another level of abstraction. Humans need a rational universe, or else we have no control. We've evolved to believe in cause and effect, and many universal laws of physics are practically instinctual (such as ballistics). The emergent ability to be rational in a seemingly rational universe is the greatest survival trait we've acquired.
Because of that, when we see things that just don't make sense, we feel uneasy. This can range from simple perceptual stuff, such as an optical illusion or a shadow that doesn't seem to belong, to advanced psychological and philosophical matters. Why did she laugh at that? or why does he do worse work but gets paid more? These aren't just illogical, they are illogical in an upsetting way that feels a bit like the world isn't making sense right now. Seeing a woman attacked for a common sense statement is a bit like tossing a ball and seeing it veer to the left. It mucks with our sense of the world, and trying to make sense of the world is what humans do. Having a sensible resolution like this reaffirms that we do have a chance at understanding the world, and maybe someday getting laid.
Chaos != Free Will. You said yourself (basically) that it will react in a certain way, given certain input.
In what way does this differ from humans? Now, I don't think climate has free will, because I think that requires some form of self-awareness... but everything, even our minds, is simply responding to inputs in accordance to physical laws. You can't make avoiding causality a condition for free will. That's magic.
Doom 3 was a great 'meh' because it didn't "appeal is to twitch-kids who enjoy playing hyper-modded versions for mowing down hundreds of sprites on the screen at a time without the distraction of a real z-axis the likes you'd get in a Serious Sam game."
Go back and play it. It's fun, it's fast, and having 30 monsters on screen at once, combined with the wonderful lack of cut-screens, make it a refreshing change from modern shooters.
One point that is often forgotten when discussing the OGL and D20 license is that game rules cannot be copyrighted. You are free to create a new game using essentially a ripoff of the d20 rules. What you are not allowed to do is use their particular expression of the rules. That means you can't copy and paste text, you can't use names, settings, unique creative elements, and so forth.
My understanding is that the WOTC gaming licenses give you some extra rights (for instance, you could use their skill and magic descriptions verbatim), but takes away others (you are given certain restrictions, such as requiring use of the D20 logo). I'm not criticizing WOTC, just saying that using their licenses are not the only way to write compatible rules and expansions.
Yeah, the GP is irrational. But, in his defense, it's much more worrisome to have a child with a dangerous condition than it is to have that dangerous condition yourself. Parental freakouts are understandable, although not always sensible.
The world is a much safer place than it was when I was a kid.
I try to get this point across to people all the time and they think I'm either crazy or naive. In all sorts of ways, the world is better now than in the past. Sure, not everything is, but the majority of items that impact individuals is immensely better. Health, Crime, War... all much better. Terrorism is petty compared to cold war nuclear brinkmanship.
Part of the reason for ISO standards is so a product can be deemed standards compliant. Is it ISO itself that determines whether an individual product complies to the standard?
I'm curious, because I've heard that no product, including Microsoft's, currently follows the OOXML standard... and I wonder if there's a chance they never will? I suspect it may not be possible.
Or are Microsoft products going to be rubberstamped for the approval process as well, even if their implementation is buggy?
You mean actual free speech protections or do you mean pretty words written on a document that the government flat out ignores at whim? The US certainly has plenty of the latter.
An example of either would be good.
The difference being it's much easier to remedy a wrongful life imprisonment by releasing the person, while it's impossible to give someone's life back once you've executed them. And it's impossible to give them a life back once they've wrongfully spent 50 years behind bars, which is arguably much worse than receiving the death penalty.
--We certainly have the best (though I'd like it to still be better) rights record on freedom of speech.
More jingoism.
Bull. What country has stronger free speech protections?
--Then again, you're probably one of those people who thinks capital punishment (e.g. the death penalty) for the brutal rape and murder of children is a "violation of human rights."
Nope. I think it's a violation of human rights because it's not only been shown that there were and still are numerous innocent people on death row but that innocent people have been put to death. I find it rather inhumane that one could support a system that has been proven to execute innocent people.
Reasonable people disagree. This idea that the death penalty would be fine if we could just insure ABSOLUTELY INFALLIBLE JUSTICE is ridiculous, both because it is impossible, and because it is never required for any other human endeavor. What about people who live their entire life in prison, then die, although they're innocent? It has happened, far more often than mistaken application of the death penalty. Should we ban life imprisonment?
Actions should be punished, not beliefs.
I agree, beliefs alone don't make you a terrorist. It requires acts of violence against civilians. (Or plotting, or knowingly assisting, etc...) This should be judged on an individual level. And in cases of domestic terrorism, I certainly support full and fair trials (international terrorism is trickier). But when we do confirm that somebody was, indeed, a terrorist in the strict sense... well, part of the reason the courts exist, helping us separate the innocent from the guilty, is so that we can then go on to wipe the guilty ones off the face of the Earth without any reservations. Odd, I feel somewhat ruthless today. Maybe I'm channeling Heinlein.
That's the most legitimate reason to censor blog comments. Why, was there some rude comment you really wanted to post?
I've never read his blog, by the way.
If it wasn't clear to you that governments love to use "terrorism" to demonize inconvenient political, social, or economic movements, you really haven't been paying attention. This has been going for as long as there have been governments.
You're absolutely right; but I've seen many posters in this thread go too far in rejecting that idea. Some of the groups labeled as 'terrorist' are vile, evil, and deserve to be wiped off the Earth. Weakening the definition to include all enemy factions is harmful not just because it demonizes undeserving groups, it softens criticism of groups deserving that name.