"If it shows up under your name you own it," he said, "and you better understand that people look for that stuff."
Which is entirely the problem. I don't have a MySpace page, but my real name (and variations of initials thereof) shows up on MySpace. A negligent, or perhaps merely aggressive, prosecutor might use the unsavory content - posted by others, under a false name - against me should I ever be charged with a crime.
The problem, as I see it, is the public at large is not necessarily aware that anyone can register anyone else's name on a social networking site. Take my online identity, for example. Though I don't think there's anyone at./ who would mistake me for the Microsoft billionaire, I'm not so sure about the public at large. (In fact, I chose the moniker to suggest that I was the opposite of Gates, but I'm not sure that's apparent). Many of these people choose "normal" sounding first and last names for their online identity, oblivious to the fact that there are likely many people in the world with the same name in meatspace.
The reason why laptops and desktops don't have instant-on is because nobody cares. Vista users expect a PC to take 15 minutes to boot; when it doesn't, they think something is wrong.
Instant on for laptops is as simple as suspend... Granted, it's crap shoot as to whether any particular laptop and OS combination will get it right, but it is possible in theory. It's even easier with desktops - the thing is plugged into the wall - drawing a few milliamps to keep the RAM refreshed is a trivial exercise in EE.
Sure, memristor RAM could be nice, but even with the security issues of regular RAM (whose contents can be retrieved seconds or even hours after powerdown if it's cold enough), I'm not sure I'd like having something that couldn't be erased by simply removing the battery. Encryption keys are sensitive things, you know.
whose employment agreement precludes them from working on open source projects?
I work for a fairly large company, and my employer at least allows me to work on OS projects, *with their approval*. The approval process is rather cumbersome, which keeps everyone except the most die-hard supporters from doing it.
For people like me, I'd have to show them code I created back in school, or when I worked for an employer which didn't have such a restrictive employment agreement.
It seems to me that games fall in line more with the "pursuit of happiness" than freedom of speech. If you get people to accept the pursuit of happiness as a fundamental right, then you get freedom to do much more than granted by the mere freedom of speech.
The way things are going, the value of your dollar is going to plummet rapidly in the upcoming years, and I haven't seen any indication that either candidate is going to do anything about it.
Puns aside, I really don't see much difference between McCain and Obama; both seem to do what's politically expedient, which happens to be supporting the status quo.
I turned 35 earlier this year, so I can run for President this year. I'm wondering if I should.
While I can understand why we should not censor what someone else creates, a game doesn't really qualify as speech. Sure, it might make a political point, but no one buys video games because of the political angle. If they did, the hottest games on the market would be titles like: "Run for Senator 2008," and "Executive Power: Iran Nuclear Diplomacy," and "Capitol Gang: Election 2008".
Games are meant for fun, not political statements. Instead of trying to cast game censorship into the mold of free speech rights, we would do better simply to establish the rational basis for freedom of creativity, and the "pursuit of happiness". It is less dishonest and has a greater overall positive impact on those with a freedom-vs-security mindset.
They've been issued for far longer than Blackberries and haven't spurned lawsuits so far.
Basically, it's not a question of the technology: if you have hourly employees working unreported time, you're asking for trouble. The labor laws are fairly clear in this matter. Whether it's on a Blackberry, laptop, or otherwise is beside the point.
But let's not forget that employers can simply reclassify their hourly employees as salaried and get as much unpaid overtime as they want. And that's perfectly legal, Blackberry or not. This question is more a matter of your employer's semantic classification of your job than whether or not you get paid for your overtime.
One of the big issues with allowing open-source development is that it *could* contain otherwise patentable algorithms. If I implement a patentable idea in some OS project, my employer could lose the rights to the revenue that would have otherwise been gained. While I understand that most here think patents are evil, many corporations see nothing wrong with a revenue model based in part on licensing their patents to others. In fact, some would rather license another company's patent than spend the R and D money to develop a workaround. Corporations often think in a "How much to bring this product to market" mindset and could care less who gets paid as long as the costs are reasonable.
There certainly are limits on our understanding, and recognizing these limits is key to doing useful work with what we do understand.
There are provably correct truths, and I used mathematics as a simple example. Because we know how to calculate pi - in the absolute truth kind of way - we can use this constant as a building block to a greater understanding of the universe. If the value of pi was widely believed to depend on the opinion of the engineer in question, we'd have never put men on the Moon.
While it is important to recognize the limits of our understanding, it is equally important to seek definitive, objective understanding upon which we can build further understanding. There has been a trend of late away from actual understanding and instead toward mere "I feel" statements - which, while true - do not provide any objective, rational moral framework upon which public policy can be discussed. Instead, our legal system devolves into little more than an expression of the opinions of those in power. For one to say, "I don't think my opinion is any better than anyone elses'" is an invitation to having someone else's opinion become law.
I say these things because, as a Christian, my beliefs are routinely scrutinized. I cannot simply defend my position with a mere, "Because the Bible says so..." if the hearer doesn't even understand the concept of who God is, or why anyone would pay attention to Him. If I didn't believe my positions were the absolute truth, and indeed, if they weren't, I'd be a fool to hold them. Thus, I have to be careful about what I believe and the positions I hold because of the potential for misleading others of lesser mental acuity. And, because I'm careful about what I believe, and understand why I believe what I do, I'm able to make a much better argument for my position than some others.
As an example of the above, consider that many slashdotters will whine when porn is curtailed, but not many can actually refute the arguments against porn (cheapening sex, personal dignity, etc...). Hence, porn continues on the shady side of the law because geeks can't actually field a convincing, objective, rational argument in its favor. Without any absolute truth, or reference upon which to frame the debate, it comes down to what people feel, and the people in power aren't particularly inclined to care about the feelings of those not in power.
The problem with telecommuting is that your job is basically dependent on the quality of the IT staff to a much higher degree. My employer tries to do telecommuting, but somewhere between cost cutting in IT, draconian security restrictions, and a dodgy network connection, it fails to be useful for getting real work done.
We've been looking to move out of our high cost of living area for quite some time, but the rising cost of gas has put that on hold. I would like to buy a house - and can afford one on the edge of the suburbs, but alas, any saving in mortgage payments would be consumed by the cost of fuel. Even though I'm just a fifteen minute commute from work, I spend nearly fifty dollars a week getting there and back.
So yeah, it might bring some manufacturing jobs back home. But those of us who have become used to working in the city and commuting out from the cheaper communities are finding themselves in quite a bind. I can't afford a house in my current area, and I can't afford the gas to drive from the places where I can afford a house.
I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that I'm going to have to wait another 5 to 10 years for the next housing market crash before I'll be able to move into a house. When my Dad was my age, the loan on his (our) house was up - and he was a factory worker. Today, I make almost four times what he did, and can't even afford a three bedroom house. So much for the American Dream.
Consider, for example, that mathematical truths are provable.
Where would the world be, if mathematics was based on mere opinion?
I think the problem is that your beliefs are expected to be based on absolute truth; if you aren't sure something is true, why would you believe it? Such an attitude suggests that one jumps to conclusions before evaluating all of the data.
It seems that when someone says something along the lines of, "My opinion isn't any better than anyone else's..." they're usually correct. In fact, because of the scant chance that their opinion is exactly as valuable as everyone else's, their opinion is probably the least valuable in their peer group. You see, if they don't have good reason for asserting the superiority of their position, it's usually because they haven't bothered to subject their own opinions to rigorous analysis. They probably haven't thought of the objections to their beliefs and explained them in an intellectually honest manner.
If you love truth, you will seek it out. You won't assert that you're correct - unless you really are - because you'd hate to mislead anyone yourself. If you love truth, your arguments will rest on their merits alone, and you seek something that's universally applicable.
The reason why people believe that morality is relative is because they often don't understand what morality is. Or, they have no framework on which to evaluate moral decisions because they lack an understanding of what humans are - their dignity, their purpose, their meaning in the grand scheme of things, etc...
And imagine where we'd be today if mathematics was a matter of opinion. Making sure something is absolutely true is an absolute requirement to building a foundation for further advances, regardless of discipline.
If you aren't sure it's true, you might as well not have an opinion, because, at best, your opinion is little more than an observation. Perhaps it describes how you feel, but it doesn't give anyone else a philosophical foundation upon which to discover further truth.
Now, I'm not saying that such things are not worth saying, but rather that the person who believes in truth and diligently seeks same often adds more to the discussion than one who doesn't.
I am not arrogant enough to believe that my set of morals is the one absolute true way...
Not to troll, but just to make you aware of something:
If you don't believe your own beliefs are the one absolute true way, why would anyone else believe your beliefs?
How could you convince anyone to believe as you do when even you are unsure of their truth?
Your statement seems to imply that you are at least somewhat comfortable with not knowing the truth regarding morality. With such an attitude, it is rather unlikely that you would ever stumble upon the one true way, and even if you did, how would you recognize it?
It is not arrogant to suggest that you know the one true way, if indeed that is the case. In fact, if you are an intellectual, and can discover the truths of the Universe regarding all things, morality included, it is false humility to suggest otherwise. Unlike science, where additional data may disprove a hypothesis, morality is absolute, and provable. Merely lacking the intellectual framework and experience necessary to objectively discover moral truths does not mean that such truths do not exist, or is unknowable.
I can rework parts that I think need reworking, without any change control forms or paperwork.
I can create in my own particular way, at my own particular pace. I don't have to release or publish anything until it's ready.
I don't have to bother (much) with issues like licensing compliance or chasing down deadbeat payers, or filing stupid lawsuits because someone is sharing my stuff over P2P.
I'm free to pursue projects that aren't commercially viable; I can do the kind of creativity that will never be seen in the world of commercial writing.
I can sate the urge to create without sacrificing my heart and soul to the whims of a corporation.
Okay, on the bad side...
I'm not sure how many people are using my code, or reading my works, or if anyone even cares. I could be a really bad writer and wouldn't know the difference...
Because I have no professional obligation to release code, I don't release most of it. I have quite a few projects which are perpetually almost ready.
I'm spending a substantial amount of time for which I won't ever reap a dividend. Could I do something more productive with this time? Perhaps. But then I'd still have to find some way to sate my creative instincts, so it might end up a net wash.
There are things which I just can't work on because of my agreement with my employer. Working for a large corporation means that almost anything technical, which has the ability to change the world for the better, would fall under my employment agreement. Sure, I could probably post beer recipes (yes, I do brew...), but the work I've been doing with this FPGA kit is probably covered in part, if not completely, by my employment agreement. Because of the general wording of the agreement, and my desire to continue working there, I generally do not publish anything which could be construed as belonging to my employer in any way. So I typically can't publish anything related to my areas of most proficiency.
Okay, *now* scientists can claim evolution is science, now that they've seen it in the lab. However, prior to this, evolution was just a theory, and quite possibly, a religious belief to the science-faithful.
All of you who believed in evolution prior to this belong in the same camp with the religious wingnuts: you both believed in something which hadn't been proven at the time.
But some of you, myself included, were waiting for proof of evolution before we believed it to be true. It's not that I doubted, but rather, believe that in the interests of science, and the scientific method, it is generally best to avoid believing something until proof exists. Those of you who believed before proof did so on faith alone, which - surprise! - gives you more in common with the creationists than you would like to admit.
This is how science is supposed to work, folks. Faith has no place in science - leave that for religion. Does it surprise anyone that arguments about tenets of faith go nowhere? Instead, concentrate on what can be proven.
This man's problems were caused not by ID theft, but by suspicion of crime. It would be no different if someone seeking revenge reported him on an "anonymous tipline".
The real problem, as I see it, is that even though one may legally be innocent until proven guilty, when it comes to dealing with the public at large, the accused is presumed guilty until proven innocent, and sometimes even afterward.
Mr. Bruce's problems were caused by the society in which he lives, not the ID theft.
Will weigh 15 pounds, and have a 21" LCD. But you won't be able to play HD movies unless you buy the Media Package - which will require a special version of Vista and add another pound for the hardware security module.
Will have a battery life of about 45 minutes.
Will have a 2 TB hard drive, half of which will be consumed by Windows.
Will take 15 minutes to boot.
Will have a 1 GHz processor with 16 cores, only one of which will be enabled while on battery power.
You know, people just don't get it. If I'm buying a desktop, yes, I want all of the bells and whistles and don't care how heavy or how much power it uses. But when I buy a laptop, I'm not buying a mobile desktop. I want something that's light and easily portable. I want something with a keyboard that's usable, not merely "painted on" as an afterthought; tactile feedback matters. I want something which can be opened in economy class on an airline - the last corporate laptop I had was so big that this was impossible - I used my Palm instead. And I want something that can be used for hours on end without a recharge.
Standard NTSC television is 720 x 480, with a psuedo frame rate of 60 fps.
It's a little more complicated than that - basically, half the lines on the screen are drawn 60 times per second, so you get 30 actual frames per second, but with the visual impression that it occurs much faster. A gaming console rendering 30 fps could see minor action improvements if it rendered at 60, but nowadays, the difference is hardly noticeable.
With the persistence of vision about 1/20th of a second, there isn't much gained in the difference between 30 and 60 frames per second; the resolution of the frame and accuracy of rendering (realistic fire and smoke, anyone?) probably has a greater impact on the perception of reality.
I think, though, that consoles have the advantage that for the size of the display, televisions are still much cheaper than monitors. Having a sub-millimeter dot pitch doesn't matter much when the action is too fast to notice anyway.
At the risk of trolling, who cares? Microsoft has been doing this sort of thing since Windows 3.1.
By now, I think people have figured out the proprietary software game. You pay for gloss, for the "privelege" of upgrading every few years. People who run Windows by choice do so because they want to have the latest thing. They don't care how well it works; they don't care if it's slow, or needs constant updating, or has umpteen million security holes.
It's what everybody is using. Period. And that's reason enough to use it.
You know, we could go on a rant about other operating systems that are more secure, run faster, have better legacy support, more features and options, etc...
But it doesn't matter. The kind of people who run XP by choice don't care that Microsoft is going to discontinue support. When that happens, they'll just shell out another few hundred for a brand new PC. Why? Because it's new, and therefore better.
It doesn't matter. Nobody cares. Linux will still be around for those of us who actually care about the quality of the software we run. And Apple will still, gladly, cater to those who are fed up with being abused by their technology vendor. And no one will care - not Microsoft, not Apple fanboys, not Linux zealots, and least of all, Windows users. They've become so accustomed to computers as slow, unreliable, and insecure, that honestly, they won't notice any difference.
Because Vista is new, and therefore more advanced....
The fact that Sequoia will not allow their machines to be independently reviewed and audited is reason enough to disqualify them from public service.
Period.
No other reason is needed; Democracy is too valuable to submit itself to secret ballots or election systems. Given the sensitive and profound role of the voting machine, no voting machine maker has any right to the secrecy of its designs or workings. The right of the public to be ruled by the leaders of their choosing trumps any supposed trade secret rights the voting machine maker might have.
I would posit that anyone who believes otherwise is quite possibly a traitor. In spite of what you might have read, the greatest threat this nation faces is not terrorism or drugs, but rather, the loss of our fundamental rights, made possible by the loss of real democracy. Sequoia, whether they realize it or not, is part of the problem, not the solution.
You know, the interesting thing is that the Bible doesn't say that the Earth is 6,000 years old.
In fact, the majority of Jews - from whom the scripture came - do not believe it is 6,000 years old.
Nor do the 2 billion Catholics in the world.
Nor do the nearly 1 billion (maybe more) Muslims in the world.
Yet they all believe in the books of Moses.
The belief that the Earth was formed in 4,004 B.C. is held only by a small, minority sect of protestants who insist on interpreting the Bible literally. Problem is, that a literal interpretation of the Bible doesn't support this theory - there are gaps in the genealogies which make arriving at an exact date impossible. In fact, you can't even get a ballpark figure using literal interpretation, because the books weren't written as an historical or scientific reference. So things get left out that you would need to know to determine even the approximate dates.
Suppose, for an instant, that you are God, telling Moses how you created the world:
God: In one femtosecond, I created all the matter in the Universe.
Moses: What's a femto-second? How many days is that?
God: It's a, wait, oh, nevermind... Let me rephrase that: I spoke and created the Universe on the first day...
It's not false, but it's not precise either. However, it is as precise as could be written down at the time, because the concept of a femto-second wouldn't become widely known for another 40 centuries.
No matter what the topic, you can find people who will read their particular biases into anything. You can find the same behavior among the Da Vinci code believers who think somehow that, in spite of the book being fiction, the Catholic Church is "hiding the real truth". Kind of like the 9/11 and JFK conspiracy theorists.
I'm not sure why people like to trot out the 6,000 year old theory every time someone mentions the age of the Universe. Perhaps it is because they're seeking an opportunity to tar the faiths of the world with the brush of ignorance. Perhaps their ignorance of religion allows them to believe that all believers think this way. Regardless, it is getting a little old, and quite frankly, pedantic.
Slashdot Mirror
"If it shows up under your name you own it," he said, "and you better understand that people look for that stuff."
Which is entirely the problem. I don't have a MySpace page, but my real name (and variations of initials thereof) shows up on MySpace. A negligent, or perhaps merely aggressive, prosecutor might use the unsavory content - posted by others, under a false name - against me should I ever be charged with a crime.
The problem, as I see it, is the public at large is not necessarily aware that anyone can register anyone else's name on a social networking site. Take my online identity, for example. Though I don't think there's anyone at ./ who would mistake me for the Microsoft billionaire, I'm not so sure about the public at large. (In fact, I chose the moniker to suggest that I was the opposite of Gates, but I'm not sure that's apparent). Many of these people choose "normal" sounding first and last names for their online identity, oblivious to the fact that there are likely many people in the world with the same name in meatspace.
I was called a heretic for suggesting that "Google does not know all..."
Guess I owe some folks an apology...
Really, did anyone not see this coming? The company advertised that they read your email.
Has had instant-on for years.
The reason why laptops and desktops don't have instant-on is because nobody cares. Vista users expect a PC to take 15 minutes to boot; when it doesn't, they think something is wrong.
Instant on for laptops is as simple as suspend... Granted, it's crap shoot as to whether any particular laptop and OS combination will get it right, but it is possible in theory. It's even easier with desktops - the thing is plugged into the wall - drawing a few milliamps to keep the RAM refreshed is a trivial exercise in EE.
Sure, memristor RAM could be nice, but even with the security issues of regular RAM (whose contents can be retrieved seconds or even hours after powerdown if it's cold enough), I'm not sure I'd like having something that couldn't be erased by simply removing the battery. Encryption keys are sensitive things, you know.
whose employment agreement precludes them from working on open source projects?
I work for a fairly large company, and my employer at least allows me to work on OS projects, *with their approval*. The approval process is rather cumbersome, which keeps everyone except the most die-hard supporters from doing it.
For people like me, I'd have to show them code I created back in school, or when I worked for an employer which didn't have such a restrictive employment agreement.
It seems to me that games fall in line more with the "pursuit of happiness" than freedom of speech. If you get people to accept the pursuit of happiness as a fundamental right, then you get freedom to do much more than granted by the mere freedom of speech.
I want the whole dollar.
The way things are going, the value of your dollar is going to plummet rapidly in the upcoming years, and I haven't seen any indication that either candidate is going to do anything about it.
Puns aside, I really don't see much difference between McCain and Obama; both seem to do what's politically expedient, which happens to be supporting the status quo.
I turned 35 earlier this year, so I can run for President this year. I'm wondering if I should.
While I can understand why we should not censor what someone else creates, a game doesn't really qualify as speech. Sure, it might make a political point, but no one buys video games because of the political angle. If they did, the hottest games on the market would be titles like: "Run for Senator 2008," and "Executive Power: Iran Nuclear Diplomacy," and "Capitol Gang: Election 2008".
Games are meant for fun, not political statements. Instead of trying to cast game censorship into the mold of free speech rights, we would do better simply to establish the rational basis for freedom of creativity, and the "pursuit of happiness". It is less dishonest and has a greater overall positive impact on those with a freedom-vs-security mindset.
They've been issued for far longer than Blackberries and haven't spurned lawsuits so far.
Basically, it's not a question of the technology: if you have hourly employees working unreported time, you're asking for trouble. The labor laws are fairly clear in this matter. Whether it's on a Blackberry, laptop, or otherwise is beside the point.
But let's not forget that employers can simply reclassify their hourly employees as salaried and get as much unpaid overtime as they want. And that's perfectly legal, Blackberry or not. This question is more a matter of your employer's semantic classification of your job than whether or not you get paid for your overtime.
I figure its about an hour bike commute, one way. Shaving nearly a full day of extra hours is worth the $50. But I'm not happy about it.
That, and the wife wants me to be able to come home on a 15 minute notice.
One of the big issues with allowing open-source development is that it *could* contain otherwise patentable algorithms. If I implement a patentable idea in some OS project, my employer could lose the rights to the revenue that would have otherwise been gained. While I understand that most here think patents are evil, many corporations see nothing wrong with a revenue model based in part on licensing their patents to others. In fact, some would rather license another company's patent than spend the R and D money to develop a workaround. Corporations often think in a "How much to bring this product to market" mindset and could care less who gets paid as long as the costs are reasonable.
The problem with telecommuting is that your job is basically dependent on the quality of the IT staff to a much higher degree. My employer tries to do telecommuting, but somewhere between cost cutting in IT, draconian security restrictions, and a dodgy network connection, it fails to be useful for getting real work done.
We've been looking to move out of our high cost of living area for quite some time, but the rising cost of gas has put that on hold. I would like to buy a house - and can afford one on the edge of the suburbs, but alas, any saving in mortgage payments would be consumed by the cost of fuel. Even though I'm just a fifteen minute commute from work, I spend nearly fifty dollars a week getting there and back.
So yeah, it might bring some manufacturing jobs back home. But those of us who have become used to working in the city and commuting out from the cheaper communities are finding themselves in quite a bind. I can't afford a house in my current area, and I can't afford the gas to drive from the places where I can afford a house.
I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that I'm going to have to wait another 5 to 10 years for the next housing market crash before I'll be able to move into a house. When my Dad was my age, the loan on his (our) house was up - and he was a factory worker. Today, I make almost four times what he did, and can't even afford a three bedroom house. So much for the American Dream.
Consider, for example, that mathematical truths are provable.
Where would the world be, if mathematics was based on mere opinion?
I think the problem is that your beliefs are expected to be based on absolute truth; if you aren't sure something is true, why would you believe it? Such an attitude suggests that one jumps to conclusions before evaluating all of the data.
It seems that when someone says something along the lines of, "My opinion isn't any better than anyone else's..." they're usually correct. In fact, because of the scant chance that their opinion is exactly as valuable as everyone else's, their opinion is probably the least valuable in their peer group. You see, if they don't have good reason for asserting the superiority of their position, it's usually because they haven't bothered to subject their own opinions to rigorous analysis. They probably haven't thought of the objections to their beliefs and explained them in an intellectually honest manner.
If you love truth, you will seek it out. You won't assert that you're correct - unless you really are - because you'd hate to mislead anyone yourself. If you love truth, your arguments will rest on their merits alone, and you seek something that's universally applicable.
The reason why people believe that morality is relative is because they often don't understand what morality is. Or, they have no framework on which to evaluate moral decisions because they lack an understanding of what humans are - their dignity, their purpose, their meaning in the grand scheme of things, etc...
And imagine where we'd be today if mathematics was a matter of opinion. Making sure something is absolutely true is an absolute requirement to building a foundation for further advances, regardless of discipline.
If you aren't sure it's true, you might as well not have an opinion, because, at best, your opinion is little more than an observation. Perhaps it describes how you feel, but it doesn't give anyone else a philosophical foundation upon which to discover further truth.
Now, I'm not saying that such things are not worth saying, but rather that the person who believes in truth and diligently seeks same often adds more to the discussion than one who doesn't.
Of course!
I am not arrogant enough to believe that my set of morals is the one absolute true way...
Not to troll, but just to make you aware of something:
I can't believe this stuff still gets repeated.
It gets repeated because this particular tidbit of misinformation happened to make it into a very popular undergrad chemistry textbook:
College Chemistry with Qualitative Analysis, Sixth Edition, Nebergall, Holtzclaw, Robinson. p743, section 27.12
It didn't take much of a stretch, no pun intended, for the explanation of thickening of the bottom of cathedral windows to include this little tidbit.
Okay, on the bad side...
Okay, *now* scientists can claim evolution is science, now that they've seen it in the lab. However, prior to this, evolution was just a theory, and quite possibly, a religious belief to the science-faithful.
All of you who believed in evolution prior to this belong in the same camp with the religious wingnuts: you both believed in something which hadn't been proven at the time.
But some of you, myself included, were waiting for proof of evolution before we believed it to be true. It's not that I doubted, but rather, believe that in the interests of science, and the scientific method, it is generally best to avoid believing something until proof exists. Those of you who believed before proof did so on faith alone, which - surprise! - gives you more in common with the creationists than you would like to admit.
This is how science is supposed to work, folks. Faith has no place in science - leave that for religion. Does it surprise anyone that arguments about tenets of faith go nowhere? Instead, concentrate on what can be proven.
This man's problems were caused not by ID theft, but by suspicion of crime. It would be no different if someone seeking revenge reported him on an "anonymous tipline".
The real problem, as I see it, is that even though one may legally be innocent until proven guilty, when it comes to dealing with the public at large, the accused is presumed guilty until proven innocent, and sometimes even afterward.
Mr. Bruce's problems were caused by the society in which he lives, not the ID theft.
Is that the laptop of the future:
You know, people just don't get it. If I'm buying a desktop, yes, I want all of the bells and whistles and don't care how heavy or how much power it uses. But when I buy a laptop, I'm not buying a mobile desktop. I want something that's light and easily portable. I want something with a keyboard that's usable, not merely "painted on" as an afterthought; tactile feedback matters. I want something which can be opened in economy class on an airline - the last corporate laptop I had was so big that this was impossible - I used my Palm instead. And I want something that can be used for hours on end without a recharge.
Yes, technically NTSC has 525 scan lines... but not all are visible on the screen. Hence, 720 x 480 is a good approximation.
Standard NTSC television is 720 x 480, with a psuedo frame rate of 60 fps.
It's a little more complicated than that - basically, half the lines on the screen are drawn 60 times per second, so you get 30 actual frames per second, but with the visual impression that it occurs much faster. A gaming console rendering 30 fps could see minor action improvements if it rendered at 60, but nowadays, the difference is hardly noticeable.
With the persistence of vision about 1/20th of a second, there isn't much gained in the difference between 30 and 60 frames per second; the resolution of the frame and accuracy of rendering (realistic fire and smoke, anyone?) probably has a greater impact on the perception of reality.
I think, though, that consoles have the advantage that for the size of the display, televisions are still much cheaper than monitors. Having a sub-millimeter dot pitch doesn't matter much when the action is too fast to notice anyway.
At the risk of trolling, who cares? Microsoft has been doing this sort of thing since Windows 3.1.
By now, I think people have figured out the proprietary software game. You pay for gloss, for the "privelege" of upgrading every few years. People who run Windows by choice do so because they want to have the latest thing. They don't care how well it works; they don't care if it's slow, or needs constant updating, or has umpteen million security holes.
It's what everybody is using. Period. And that's reason enough to use it.
You know, we could go on a rant about other operating systems that are more secure, run faster, have better legacy support, more features and options, etc...
But it doesn't matter. The kind of people who run XP by choice don't care that Microsoft is going to discontinue support. When that happens, they'll just shell out another few hundred for a brand new PC. Why? Because it's new, and therefore better.
It doesn't matter. Nobody cares. Linux will still be around for those of us who actually care about the quality of the software we run. And Apple will still, gladly, cater to those who are fed up with being abused by their technology vendor. And no one will care - not Microsoft, not Apple fanboys, not Linux zealots, and least of all, Windows users. They've become so accustomed to computers as slow, unreliable, and insecure, that honestly, they won't notice any difference.
Because Vista is new, and therefore more advanced....
The fact that Sequoia will not allow their machines to be independently reviewed and audited is reason enough to disqualify them from public service.
Period.
No other reason is needed; Democracy is too valuable to submit itself to secret ballots or election systems. Given the sensitive and profound role of the voting machine, no voting machine maker has any right to the secrecy of its designs or workings. The right of the public to be ruled by the leaders of their choosing trumps any supposed trade secret rights the voting machine maker might have.
I would posit that anyone who believes otherwise is quite possibly a traitor. In spite of what you might have read, the greatest threat this nation faces is not terrorism or drugs, but rather, the loss of our fundamental rights, made possible by the loss of real democracy. Sequoia, whether they realize it or not, is part of the problem, not the solution.
You know, the interesting thing is that the Bible doesn't say that the Earth is 6,000 years old.
In fact, the majority of Jews - from whom the scripture came - do not believe it is 6,000 years old.
Nor do the 2 billion Catholics in the world.
Nor do the nearly 1 billion (maybe more) Muslims in the world.
Yet they all believe in the books of Moses.
The belief that the Earth was formed in 4,004 B.C. is held only by a small, minority sect of protestants who insist on interpreting the Bible literally. Problem is, that a literal interpretation of the Bible doesn't support this theory - there are gaps in the genealogies which make arriving at an exact date impossible. In fact, you can't even get a ballpark figure using literal interpretation, because the books weren't written as an historical or scientific reference. So things get left out that you would need to know to determine even the approximate dates.
Suppose, for an instant, that you are God, telling Moses how you created the world:
God: In one femtosecond, I created all the matter in the Universe.
Moses: What's a femto-second? How many days is that?
God: It's a, wait, oh, nevermind... Let me rephrase that: I spoke and created the Universe on the first day...
It's not false, but it's not precise either. However, it is as precise as could be written down at the time, because the concept of a femto-second wouldn't become widely known for another 40 centuries.
No matter what the topic, you can find people who will read their particular biases into anything. You can find the same behavior among the Da Vinci code believers who think somehow that, in spite of the book being fiction, the Catholic Church is "hiding the real truth". Kind of like the 9/11 and JFK conspiracy theorists.
I'm not sure why people like to trot out the 6,000 year old theory every time someone mentions the age of the Universe. Perhaps it is because they're seeking an opportunity to tar the faiths of the world with the brush of ignorance. Perhaps their ignorance of religion allows them to believe that all believers think this way. Regardless, it is getting a little old, and quite frankly, pedantic.