This latest action is really just grade inflation in disguise. The truth is, everybody expects A and B grades now; in essence, that everyone in the class should be above average, as if we all lived in some Garrison Keillor-esque world. "A" doesn't mean anything anymore. It's not good enough because now you have to have a 5.0 GPA on a 4.0 scale. It's stupid.
I think letter grades should be done away with entirely, and a numeric scale used instead, normalized to the maximum credit possible. A letter grade ends up being too subjective and thus prone to manipulation, inflation, or ambiguity in interpretation. A number that is guaranteed to fall between 0 and 100, for example, fixes some of these issues--at least, until educators start messing around with giving "extra credit."
Surely you must be aware that the iPad concept actually predates the iPhone, as has been stated by Jobs himself.
Furthermore, the interface differences between a mobile phone and a mobile tablet is not quite as great as the difference between a desktop and a tablet. That is the implication of the statement you quoted. Every company leverages existing assets to create new ones. It's just that MS is particularly horrible at it.
The problem with your non sequitur argument is that it is neither supported by evidence nor logic. My claim is not a statement to the effect that a company should wait until a product is perfect to release it. That is a false dichotomy.
You see, the evidence clearly shows that the iPad is capable of having a front-facing camera. It is capable of a higher resolution screen. The iPhone 4 proves this, being that it is only a few months newer. Should the iPad have the same camera or the same resolution screen? No, but that's not my point.
Similar evidence has arisen when we saw the most recent iPod Touch--even to the extent that physical space was reserved for a camera but it was not included. Furthermore, it is logical and economically sound for Apple to hold back on certain features. It doesn't behoove them to show their hand early.
The burden of proof is not on me to prove that Apple deliberately holds back certain features in order to (1) maintain consistent product classes across its various lines and (2) prevent cannibalization of sales--something that EVERY company tries to avoid--but rather, it is on you to prove that Apple puts all the technology they can in every product they make at the time they make it, because their own product history shows they do not.
Even assuming that your claim that "[MS] started the smartphone market" is true, you incorrectly imply that being the pioneer of a particular market should somehow say something about the present status of that pioneer's products in that market. It clearly does not.
If anything, what Microsoft's relatively long history of handheld mobile device development has revealed is that they have consistently and repeatedly squandered each opportunity to develop breakthrough products with a sense of refinement and attention to the user experience. Quite the opposite--they try to shoehorn existing paradigms (and therefore existing software and interfaces) into new hardware because they suffer from such a pervasive degree of corporate mismanagement, unwillingness to take design risks, and complete lack of imagination, that the contrast in Apple vs. MS approaches might well be considered the quintessential object lesson in product development. Indeed, the fact that MS has been developing such devices for so long and yet have so little to show for it, makes their blatant incompetence all the more inexcusable.
MS is not lacking in the essential capability (both financial and technological) to develop good products. What they lack is the proper management, and that starts from the top of the organizational hierarchy, not the bottom. As long as MS is run by spoiled MBAs who are just riding the gravy train and waste their time with corporate politics, the company is doomed to mediocrity.
And as for the consumer, all one has to do is look at (1) the lack of any real innovation--no real competitor to the iPad and the fact that any such future device will be perceived as a follower to be measured against that standard; and (2) the fact that MS killed the Kin so quickly after its announcement, to realize that this kind of half-assed proclamation means absolutely nothing, and that you would be a fool to buy into the idea of a MS tablet. And the dumbest part of it all is that THE iPad ISN'T EVEN ALL THAT AMAZING. It's a nice, polished product, but true to Apple strategy, it could be SO MUCH MORE yet it is not because they're going to improve it incrementally to maximize sales. Next year's iPad will look like the iPhone 4 and have Facetime, but they obviously didn't put it in the iPad because it would have cannibalized the 4's sales. MS in theory could have outdone the iPad. In fact, they still could. But does anyone really honestly think that they will, given their abysmal track record?
The problem with the claim that non-married heterosexual couples are discriminated against because they are not offered the same tax breaks as married couples is that they CAN be legally married (whereas same-sex couples cannot gain federal legal marriage status no matter what they do). They simply choose NOT to, for whatever reason; but there are also gay couples who choose to maintain separate legal statuses.
The claim of discrimination under US federal law due to different treatment of opposite-sex couples and same-sex couples is a valid one because among those couples of either orientation that wish to enter into a binding legal partnership with all its rights and responsibilities, only the former is permitted to do so. However, the claim of discrimination because married opposite-sex couples get certain legal rights that unmarried opposite-sex couples do not is a fallacy, because the latter group HAS the option of filing for legal recognition. They need only apply. But they often don't, because a legally married status is not without its responsibilities and liabilities. If you divorce later on, then alimony is a possibility, for example. So to say that unmarried couples are discriminated against because they can't have the same benefits of married couples is a very distorted understanding of what marriage as a legal construct entails.
People seem to be under the misapprehension that being legally married is all about benefits, when it's really about becoming unified as a legal entity. Yes, the benefits are significant--they obviously must be, since so many couples do it. However, the preponderance of advantages does not change the fact that the consequences of that unification in the eyes of the law is a double-edged sword.
I say let same-sex couples marry. They have just as much right to make each other absolutely miserable as straight couples do.
Danger/Sidekick was a thriving platform long before MS bought it and ran it into the ground. Under the right management, it could have been THE dominant mobile device for the 15-25yo market. Problem is, neither Danger nor MS anticipated the impact of the iPhone. They had a good thing going--the Hiptop has been around since 2002; the platform was innovative and mature. The first iPhone came out, sans 3G, in 2007, and the App Store didn't even exist until mid-2008, a few months after MS acquired Danger. There was PLENTY of time to adapt and compete. And it didn't happen.
Then MS mismanagement caused the server failure and data loss in late 2009 that basically killed what little was left of the Sidekick. The real story here is not that MS got taken--it's that they not only failed to capitalize on their acquisition, but they actively fucked up what assets they acquired. They basically let the Sidekick wither on the vine by diverting resources to develop "Project Pink," which is--wait for it--the Kin. Worked out really well, didn't it?
MS *has no mobile strategy.* NONE. They are flailing desperately, and this latest debacle has only proven to the consumer that MS mobile products are NOT to be trusted. As a consumer, what does hearing this news tell you? MS might as well post a gigantic banner saying, "if you buy our phones today, don't count on them being supported tomorrow." Windows Phone is next to die.
People like to make fun of Steve Jobs and his "reality distortion field." I think the real RDF is around Ballmer, who has surrounded himself with lackeys and yes-men, executives who are in it for the money. There is this pervasive belief that MS can compete in any tech market by way of throwing money at every situation--that they can succeed simply because they are MS. Those tactics may have worked a decade ago, but times have changed.
Frankly, I'm more concerned that you'd name a boy "Ba."
In all seriousness, though, your reasoning is flawed because observing the event "Ba + Bb" is equivalent to observing "Bb + Ba" under the conditions of the problem, whereas "Ba + Ga" and "Ga + Ba" represent distinct events. To help you understand why, suppose I have a penny and a nickel, both of which are fair. I flip both coins but I don't show you the outcome. At this point, you know that there are four equally likely outcomes (P,N) = (H,H), (H,T), (T,H), (T,T). Now suppose I tell you that at least one of the two coins has landed heads. You can eliminate only the last outcome (T,T). The other three remain equally likely. Reversing the ordering does not create any new outcomes in the event space because (P,N) completely and uniquely specifies the outcome.
Same goes for Windows, Office, Adobe, etc etc etc. But you still have to activate it each time you reinstall. And even worse you tie your copy of CS2 to your battle.net account.
The day I need a battle.net account to run Adobe Creative Suite 2 is the day I get nothing done with Photoshop.
Ever since Google News debuted, I've been trying to figure out a way to block Murdoch's evil media empire content from being shown, just so that I don't accidentally click on any of his links. I'm very glad to see that he's going to do it for me.
Oh, and speaking of the police, why didn't the person who took the iPhone from the bar simply inform the police that he found a lost phone, or give it to the bar owner? Why did he SELL it? Do you think that is a lawful thing to do?
I don't know about you, but if I ever find lost property, the last thing I'd ever do is try to fence it. So, what did you say about Apple using the police to intimidate?
I don't know what kind of weird legal parallel universe you live in, but a trade secret does not cease being a trade secret when someone else steals it.
The article only describes the lost opportunity that Apple had in reclaiming the lost iPhone PRIOR to Gizmodo purchasing it. It does not describe Gizmodo's failure to return the iPhone to Apple KNOWING it was their property. The fact that they dismantled the phone and published its internal design components and then waited for Apple legal to send them a request to return the device does not mean Gizmodo made any effort to return the device to the owner.
That Gizmodo then uses Apple's secrecy as an argument against them is not only disingenuous--it is a deliberate and convenient ploy to deflect attention from the fact that Gizmodo themselves became responsible for not exposing Apple's trade secrets and returning the device to them once they purchased it, and failed to do so. Where is the article telling their readers how they refused to open the device and their calls to someone other than a support tech?
That's what it comes down to, really. Your First Amendment rights do not trump knowingly engaging in or abetting unlawful activity. Otherwise, you would have the media encouraging people to do illegal things, just so they could have their fifteen minutes of fame, then the "reporters" can protect them as confidential sources. Even if Gizmodo can make the case that they are journalists and deserve the protection of their sources, the problem is that they admitted they knowingly paid money to procure trade secrets. Would there have been any doubt about the legality of such an action had, say, Microsoft or Google bid on the phone instead of Gizmodo? Do you think a single one of their lawyers would have actually thought such a thing might be a good idea?
Journalism used to be about uncovering truth. It doesn't mean journalists are magically immune from the law and are protected from indictment and prosecution should their methods of uncovering the truth involve illegal activities, such as knowingly purchasing stolen property. No reasonable person can believe that the person who originally obtained the phone made the appropriate effort to return it to Apple. And Gizmodo dismantled the phone, presumably to confirm it was made by Apple, and published that information once it was discovered that was the case. But the fact that they knew the name of the engineer who lost the phone, and knew he was an Apple employee, means they should not have needed to dismantle the phone in the first place to confirm its provenance.
How hard would it have been for Gizmodo to call up Apple and ask "hey, did you lose a phone?" As much as I personally would have been interested in news about an iPhone 4G, even I'm not that incompetent. Then again, everyone knows such a device has been under development. They've released a new model every year around the same time. Just freaking wait and be patient like everyone else. It's just a PHONE for fuck's sake.
Gizmodo = fucked. And deservedly so, for doing something so obviously stupid and illegal, then bragging about it.
Comparing film versus a digital sensor is a bit like comparing the output of a color laser printer against a color LCD display. The printer is capable of much higher resolution--typical values range from 600 to 2400 dpi. Even the highest pixel density LCD displays are no better than about 150 ppi. So in theory, you could send a command to the printer to print line pairs at half the maximum dpi value, whereas the LCD cannot achieve anything remotely as fine.
But the key difference is that the printer is a 4-color process that achieves gradations through the use of halftoning, whereas the display is composed of RGB subpixels that are each individually capable of hundreds of variations in intensity. A parallel principle applies to film vs. CMOS/CCD sensors. Therefore, the absolute resolution advantage of film does not necessarily translate into superior imaging performance--lp/mm is not the sole metric by which an image is judged. Real-world imaging does not consist of photographing idealized targets; objects have tones and hues.
If there were only 204 members, two thirds would require exactly 136 "yes" votes. So adding two more members obviously requires at least one more "yes" vote to exceed the required number of votes to pass. In other words, if 136 yes votes are needed with 204 total members, then more than 136 are needed with 206 members.
This, my friends, is why the American educational system is so poor. The politicians don't want their constituents to be more intelligent than themselves, for fear of having their incompetence exposed.
The author explains that the reason why they didn't change the developer agreement to explicitly ban Flash is because up until now, Adobe hadn't forced the issue and made it equally explicit that they were going to keep pushing for full support of Flash on Apple devices, no matter what.
For me, the most pertinent aspect of the article is this:
If Adobe actually wants to persuade Apple to support Flash on iPhone (either as a plugin or compiled to native apps), I know how they can do it. They can get an awesome, high performance, Flash environment working on Android, and get a bunch of great Flash apps running on Android phones. As much as Apple wants to control iPhone, I am willing to bet they want to beat Android more. Currently Adobe is asking Apple to put Adobe in a position where they wield influence over Apple, in exchange for the promise of apps in the future, apps that Apple thinks will be low quality. That is a bad deal. On the other hand, if Adobe proved the apps were high quality by deploying them on competitor's platform, and was offering a library of existing high quality apps that neutralized another competitor's advantage, then there is enough value that Apple probably could be influenced.
This insight is very, very telling. It really strikes at the core of what the whole Adobe-Apple dispute over Flash support is all about. It all comes down to the fact that Adobe has never worked in good faith to demonstrate Flash's value. They have been relying on the fact that it is the de facto interactive media environment on the web, and have done very little to prove its worth by making it better, current, and relevant. And Apple has no patience for that kind of attitude, not when it comes to their desire to have as much control over the quality of their products as possible. And especially not when they've been burned by Adobe in the past over Photoshop.
You would think that if Adobe had the talent and capability to make quality tools, that they would have just gone that route in the first place. But they didn't.
Making statements on Japanese culture based on Iron Chef is only slightly less ridiculous than basing it based on Dragonball Z.
You mean to tell me the Japanese don't secretly have monkey tails coiled up underneath their clothes, and that Sony is not a front for their quest for magical orbs?
You haven't specified what kind of degree, and therefore, what kind of coursework is required. Moreover, even the same level of coursework taught at different institutions can vary widely in difficulty. "Undergraduate calculus" at, say, Caltech is nothing like "undergraduate calculus" two blocks away at Pasadena City College. The same goes for statistics.
If your intention is to obtain a degree, the best starting point is to figure out which text(s) are being used in those courses that are required for that degree. This will give you some idea of the scope and level of difficulty to expect. Otherwise, you could end up studying a great deal of ancillary information. Such things may be good to know, but will not contribute to your stated goal.
Regarding your plan to dive right in, I appreciate and understand your enthusiasm but I also think it is misguided and potentially counterproductive. You could very easily make it much more difficult for you to obtain your credits by not reviewing basics beforehand. Mathematics is not a subject that is easily cherry-picked, nor is it amenable to rote learning. It is more like a vast edifice, a tower whose foundations support increasingly complex and abstract concepts. Furthermore, it is a topic which is best learned through actual understanding. For instance, if you understand what integration actually means, rather than viewing it as a mechanical operation on a function, you will find it easier to interpret other concepts that employ integration, such as the calculation of moment-generating functions of continuous probability distributions.
On some level, it's possible to "get by" with simply learning the mechanics of computation and symbolic manipulation. That is pretty much what calculus is (as opposed to analysis). But if you want to make it as easy as possible on yourself, at the very least I advise you quickly review nearly everything at the high-school level, from algebra to trigonometry. Then take a more detailed look at the AP Calculus curriculum; any gaps in knowledge should be readily apparent and immediately addressed before continuing further. From there, you should compare against the aforementioned college coursework and texts.
Success in learning mathematics is not so much about the details of what you know as it is about how to think analytically and abstractly.
Why is this the first example of the concentration of nanoparticles showing a correlation with the initial dose? To me it seems obvious that this would happen, so I'm curious as to what normally prevents this.
The dose-response characteristics of a substance carries important information about its pharmacokinetics, such as how rapidly it is metabolized and excreted. It is NOT obvious that increasing dose always results in increased concentration in the targeted tissue(s), just as it is the case in chemical reactions in which increasing the proportion of one reagent may not necessarily increase the yield. For example, increasing dosage may also increase hepatic clearance. What the researchers demonstrated basically boils down to this: the nanoparticles' activity is highly specific to the tumor cells and does not get "broken down" or excreted proportionally higher as the dose increases. Such characteristics are highly desirable.
Parent post should be modded Insightful or Informative because seriously folks, it's so right on the money that I can't even begin to tell you all the ways in which it is true.
It's not racism, either. I'm Chinese myself and I can tell you first-hand that the above is exactly why China is well on their way toward dominating the global economy. The rest of the world is too busy worrying about pissing them off because they're so greedy to compete in such a huge market, desperate for what scraps the government throws them. China is a trap--the modern-day economic equivalent of the Opium Wars, only this time the tables are turned.
Invoking God is the religious equivalent to dividing by zero in mathematics. By claiming that an omniscient, omnipotent, everlasting deity is the reason why everything is the way it is, nothing is truly falsifiable and anything can be made to be true. It's pointless to try to convince someone that their faith is illogical, because the very act of belief is not rational.
Clearly, you are not an actuary or even remotely close to one. What you describe is what many misguided consumers of insurance contracts believe is the mechanism of insurance pricing.
Insurance is very tightly regulated. All rate filings must be approved by the appropriate state regulators, and there are standardized procedures in place to calculate rates. It is also a very competitive industry. If what you claim were actually true, it would be trivial for a competitor to offer a lower rate for the same risk, in essence outpricing others in the market. Insurance is one of the easiest products for consumers to switch vendors--you can simply shop around for a lower price and cancel your existing policy once you find a better deal. You can't really do that for a tangible product--if you've used your PS3 and decide you don't like it, you have to find someone else to sell it to (and usually at a lower price) if you want a Wii instead.
The size of a book of business can help or hinder the cost to the insureds in that book. A large book enables the insurer to obtain more credible data, and may permit more sophisticated pricing structures. The insurer is then able to segment the book more precisely, and more accurately determine the extent of the risk. This in turn permits the underwriters to establish better selection criteria, further reducing the premium on policyholders with the lowest risk. However, a large book can be problematic if the rating structure is flawed--the impact of an unprofitable book can go so far as to risk the insurer's solvency. Furthermore, smaller or more specialized insurers often have less overhead and loss adjustment expenses, which enables more competitive pricing.
One of the biggest problems of insurance is that too many people think like you, and not enough people actually understand the insurance mechanism. Nobody likes to pay for insurance until they actually need it. Too few people actually read their policy and the contract provisions. Too many are selfish bastards who think that as long as they get theirs, everyone else can screw themselves, which is why fraud is so rampant. Too many insureds think their policy is a catch-all and operate under the assumption that they can be less vigilant now that losses are on the insurer's dime, which is why auto accidents are so common and premiums are so high. Risk pooling is great only until everybody gets it in their heads that they can rely on someone else to bail out their bad behavior.
A properly-run insurance company has no vested interest in denying legitimate claims on the basis of retaining profit. Why? Because (1) if the product is priced correctly, then the provision to pay has already been made; (2) loss adjustment expenses can easily exceed the claim amount; (3) the reputation of the insurer as a good-faith actor is damaged; (4) reinsurance exists for catastrophic claims; (5) the insurer risks complaints to the DOI, which can result in extremely costly investigations and possible revocation of the insurer's right to issue policies in that state; and (6) greater than expected losses are factored into the actuarial calculations, resulting in higher rate need.
Why should he be apologetic? Because most people who are prescribed Oxycontin do use it as directed, and don't become addicted to it. And if you do develop an addiction, you wouldn't be so colossally stupid as to try to hide it and refuse treatment to wean you off it. Otherwise you run the risk of...wait for it...other medical problems. Get it now? Oh, poor Rushie, he's in so much pain. Too bad it's because he's too fucking fat, rich, and self-entitled. He stepped into his own shit and he has nobody else to blame for it but himself.
Slashdot Mirror
Mod parent up.
This latest action is really just grade inflation in disguise. The truth is, everybody expects A and B grades now; in essence, that everyone in the class should be above average, as if we all lived in some Garrison Keillor-esque world. "A" doesn't mean anything anymore. It's not good enough because now you have to have a 5.0 GPA on a 4.0 scale. It's stupid.
I think letter grades should be done away with entirely, and a numeric scale used instead, normalized to the maximum credit possible. A letter grade ends up being too subjective and thus prone to manipulation, inflation, or ambiguity in interpretation. A number that is guaranteed to fall between 0 and 100, for example, fixes some of these issues--at least, until educators start messing around with giving "extra credit."
Surely you must be aware that the iPad concept actually predates the iPhone, as has been stated by Jobs himself.
Furthermore, the interface differences between a mobile phone and a mobile tablet is not quite as great as the difference between a desktop and a tablet. That is the implication of the statement you quoted. Every company leverages existing assets to create new ones. It's just that MS is particularly horrible at it.
The problem with your non sequitur argument is that it is neither supported by evidence nor logic. My claim is not a statement to the effect that a company should wait until a product is perfect to release it. That is a false dichotomy.
You see, the evidence clearly shows that the iPad is capable of having a front-facing camera. It is capable of a higher resolution screen. The iPhone 4 proves this, being that it is only a few months newer. Should the iPad have the same camera or the same resolution screen? No, but that's not my point.
Similar evidence has arisen when we saw the most recent iPod Touch--even to the extent that physical space was reserved for a camera but it was not included. Furthermore, it is logical and economically sound for Apple to hold back on certain features. It doesn't behoove them to show their hand early.
The burden of proof is not on me to prove that Apple deliberately holds back certain features in order to (1) maintain consistent product classes across its various lines and (2) prevent cannibalization of sales--something that EVERY company tries to avoid--but rather, it is on you to prove that Apple puts all the technology they can in every product they make at the time they make it, because their own product history shows they do not.
Even assuming that your claim that "[MS] started the smartphone market" is true, you incorrectly imply that being the pioneer of a particular market should somehow say something about the present status of that pioneer's products in that market. It clearly does not.
If anything, what Microsoft's relatively long history of handheld mobile device development has revealed is that they have consistently and repeatedly squandered each opportunity to develop breakthrough products with a sense of refinement and attention to the user experience. Quite the opposite--they try to shoehorn existing paradigms (and therefore existing software and interfaces) into new hardware because they suffer from such a pervasive degree of corporate mismanagement, unwillingness to take design risks, and complete lack of imagination, that the contrast in Apple vs. MS approaches might well be considered the quintessential object lesson in product development. Indeed, the fact that MS has been developing such devices for so long and yet have so little to show for it, makes their blatant incompetence all the more inexcusable.
MS is not lacking in the essential capability (both financial and technological) to develop good products. What they lack is the proper management, and that starts from the top of the organizational hierarchy, not the bottom. As long as MS is run by spoiled MBAs who are just riding the gravy train and waste their time with corporate politics, the company is doomed to mediocrity.
And as for the consumer, all one has to do is look at (1) the lack of any real innovation--no real competitor to the iPad and the fact that any such future device will be perceived as a follower to be measured against that standard; and (2) the fact that MS killed the Kin so quickly after its announcement, to realize that this kind of half-assed proclamation means absolutely nothing, and that you would be a fool to buy into the idea of a MS tablet. And the dumbest part of it all is that THE iPad ISN'T EVEN ALL THAT AMAZING. It's a nice, polished product, but true to Apple strategy, it could be SO MUCH MORE yet it is not because they're going to improve it incrementally to maximize sales. Next year's iPad will look like the iPhone 4 and have Facetime, but they obviously didn't put it in the iPad because it would have cannibalized the 4's sales. MS in theory could have outdone the iPad. In fact, they still could. But does anyone really honestly think that they will, given their abysmal track record?
The problem with the claim that non-married heterosexual couples are discriminated against because they are not offered the same tax breaks as married couples is that they CAN be legally married (whereas same-sex couples cannot gain federal legal marriage status no matter what they do). They simply choose NOT to, for whatever reason; but there are also gay couples who choose to maintain separate legal statuses.
The claim of discrimination under US federal law due to different treatment of opposite-sex couples and same-sex couples is a valid one because among those couples of either orientation that wish to enter into a binding legal partnership with all its rights and responsibilities, only the former is permitted to do so. However, the claim of discrimination because married opposite-sex couples get certain legal rights that unmarried opposite-sex couples do not is a fallacy, because the latter group HAS the option of filing for legal recognition. They need only apply. But they often don't, because a legally married status is not without its responsibilities and liabilities. If you divorce later on, then alimony is a possibility, for example. So to say that unmarried couples are discriminated against because they can't have the same benefits of married couples is a very distorted understanding of what marriage as a legal construct entails.
People seem to be under the misapprehension that being legally married is all about benefits, when it's really about becoming unified as a legal entity. Yes, the benefits are significant--they obviously must be, since so many couples do it. However, the preponderance of advantages does not change the fact that the consequences of that unification in the eyes of the law is a double-edged sword.
I say let same-sex couples marry. They have just as much right to make each other absolutely miserable as straight couples do.
Danger/Sidekick was a thriving platform long before MS bought it and ran it into the ground. Under the right management, it could have been THE dominant mobile device for the 15-25yo market. Problem is, neither Danger nor MS anticipated the impact of the iPhone. They had a good thing going--the Hiptop has been around since 2002; the platform was innovative and mature. The first iPhone came out, sans 3G, in 2007, and the App Store didn't even exist until mid-2008, a few months after MS acquired Danger. There was PLENTY of time to adapt and compete. And it didn't happen.
Then MS mismanagement caused the server failure and data loss in late 2009 that basically killed what little was left of the Sidekick. The real story here is not that MS got taken--it's that they not only failed to capitalize on their acquisition, but they actively fucked up what assets they acquired. They basically let the Sidekick wither on the vine by diverting resources to develop "Project Pink," which is--wait for it--the Kin. Worked out really well, didn't it?
MS *has no mobile strategy.* NONE. They are flailing desperately, and this latest debacle has only proven to the consumer that MS mobile products are NOT to be trusted. As a consumer, what does hearing this news tell you? MS might as well post a gigantic banner saying, "if you buy our phones today, don't count on them being supported tomorrow." Windows Phone is next to die.
People like to make fun of Steve Jobs and his "reality distortion field." I think the real RDF is around Ballmer, who has surrounded himself with lackeys and yes-men, executives who are in it for the money. There is this pervasive belief that MS can compete in any tech market by way of throwing money at every situation--that they can succeed simply because they are MS. Those tactics may have worked a decade ago, but times have changed.
Frankly, I'm more concerned that you'd name a boy "Ba."
In all seriousness, though, your reasoning is flawed because observing the event "Ba + Bb" is equivalent to observing "Bb + Ba" under the conditions of the problem, whereas "Ba + Ga" and "Ga + Ba" represent distinct events. To help you understand why, suppose I have a penny and a nickel, both of which are fair. I flip both coins but I don't show you the outcome. At this point, you know that there are four equally likely outcomes (P,N) = (H,H), (H,T), (T,H), (T,T). Now suppose I tell you that at least one of the two coins has landed heads. You can eliminate only the last outcome (T,T). The other three remain equally likely. Reversing the ordering does not create any new outcomes in the event space because (P,N) completely and uniquely specifies the outcome.
1. Multiple colors via a pen carousel and switching mechanism.
2. Support for plotting in addition to line-by-line output.
3. Halftone dithering.
Same goes for Windows, Office, Adobe, etc etc etc. But you still have to activate it each time you reinstall. And even worse you tie your copy of CS2 to your battle.net account.
The day I need a battle.net account to run Adobe Creative Suite 2 is the day I get nothing done with Photoshop.
Ever since Google News debuted, I've been trying to figure out a way to block Murdoch's evil media empire content from being shown, just so that I don't accidentally click on any of his links. I'm very glad to see that he's going to do it for me.
Oh, and speaking of the police, why didn't the person who took the iPhone from the bar simply inform the police that he found a lost phone, or give it to the bar owner? Why did he SELL it? Do you think that is a lawful thing to do?
I don't know about you, but if I ever find lost property, the last thing I'd ever do is try to fence it. So, what did you say about Apple using the police to intimidate?
I don't know what kind of weird legal parallel universe you live in, but a trade secret does not cease being a trade secret when someone else steals it.
You misunderstand.
The article only describes the lost opportunity that Apple had in reclaiming the lost iPhone PRIOR to Gizmodo purchasing it. It does not describe Gizmodo's failure to return the iPhone to Apple KNOWING it was their property. The fact that they dismantled the phone and published its internal design components and then waited for Apple legal to send them a request to return the device does not mean Gizmodo made any effort to return the device to the owner.
That Gizmodo then uses Apple's secrecy as an argument against them is not only disingenuous--it is a deliberate and convenient ploy to deflect attention from the fact that Gizmodo themselves became responsible for not exposing Apple's trade secrets and returning the device to them once they purchased it, and failed to do so. Where is the article telling their readers how they refused to open the device and their calls to someone other than a support tech?
That's what it comes down to, really. Your First Amendment rights do not trump knowingly engaging in or abetting unlawful activity. Otherwise, you would have the media encouraging people to do illegal things, just so they could have their fifteen minutes of fame, then the "reporters" can protect them as confidential sources. Even if Gizmodo can make the case that they are journalists and deserve the protection of their sources, the problem is that they admitted they knowingly paid money to procure trade secrets. Would there have been any doubt about the legality of such an action had, say, Microsoft or Google bid on the phone instead of Gizmodo? Do you think a single one of their lawyers would have actually thought such a thing might be a good idea?
Journalism used to be about uncovering truth. It doesn't mean journalists are magically immune from the law and are protected from indictment and prosecution should their methods of uncovering the truth involve illegal activities, such as knowingly purchasing stolen property. No reasonable person can believe that the person who originally obtained the phone made the appropriate effort to return it to Apple. And Gizmodo dismantled the phone, presumably to confirm it was made by Apple, and published that information once it was discovered that was the case. But the fact that they knew the name of the engineer who lost the phone, and knew he was an Apple employee, means they should not have needed to dismantle the phone in the first place to confirm its provenance.
How hard would it have been for Gizmodo to call up Apple and ask "hey, did you lose a phone?" As much as I personally would have been interested in news about an iPhone 4G, even I'm not that incompetent. Then again, everyone knows such a device has been under development. They've released a new model every year around the same time. Just freaking wait and be patient like everyone else. It's just a PHONE for fuck's sake.
Gizmodo = fucked. And deservedly so, for doing something so obviously stupid and illegal, then bragging about it.
Comparing film versus a digital sensor is a bit like comparing the output of a color laser printer against a color LCD display. The printer is capable of much higher resolution--typical values range from 600 to 2400 dpi. Even the highest pixel density LCD displays are no better than about 150 ppi. So in theory, you could send a command to the printer to print line pairs at half the maximum dpi value, whereas the LCD cannot achieve anything remotely as fine.
But the key difference is that the printer is a 4-color process that achieves gradations through the use of halftoning, whereas the display is composed of RGB subpixels that are each individually capable of hundreds of variations in intensity. A parallel principle applies to film vs. CMOS/CCD sensors. Therefore, the absolute resolution advantage of film does not necessarily translate into superior imaging performance--lp/mm is not the sole metric by which an image is judged. Real-world imaging does not consist of photographing idealized targets; objects have tones and hues.
If there were only 204 members, two thirds would require exactly 136 "yes" votes. So adding two more members obviously requires at least one more "yes" vote to exceed the required number of votes to pass. In other words, if 136 yes votes are needed with 204 total members, then more than 136 are needed with 206 members.
This, my friends, is why the American educational system is so poor. The politicians don't want their constituents to be more intelligent than themselves, for fear of having their incompetence exposed.
You didn't read the article carefully enough.
The author explains that the reason why they didn't change the developer agreement to explicitly ban Flash is because up until now, Adobe hadn't forced the issue and made it equally explicit that they were going to keep pushing for full support of Flash on Apple devices, no matter what.
For me, the most pertinent aspect of the article is this:
If Adobe actually wants to persuade Apple to support Flash on iPhone (either as a plugin or compiled to native apps), I know how they can do it. They can get an awesome, high performance, Flash environment working on Android, and get a bunch of great Flash apps running on Android phones. As much as Apple wants to control iPhone, I am willing to bet they want to beat Android more. Currently Adobe is asking Apple to put Adobe in a position where they wield influence over Apple, in exchange for the promise of apps in the future, apps that Apple thinks will be low quality. That is a bad deal. On the other hand, if Adobe proved the apps were high quality by deploying them on competitor's platform, and was offering a library of existing high quality apps that neutralized another competitor's advantage, then there is enough value that Apple probably could be influenced.
This insight is very, very telling. It really strikes at the core of what the whole Adobe-Apple dispute over Flash support is all about. It all comes down to the fact that Adobe has never worked in good faith to demonstrate Flash's value. They have been relying on the fact that it is the de facto interactive media environment on the web, and have done very little to prove its worth by making it better, current, and relevant. And Apple has no patience for that kind of attitude, not when it comes to their desire to have as much control over the quality of their products as possible. And especially not when they've been burned by Adobe in the past over Photoshop.
You would think that if Adobe had the talent and capability to make quality tools, that they would have just gone that route in the first place. But they didn't.
Apple is wrong, but Adobe is even more wrong.
Making statements on Japanese culture based on Iron Chef is only slightly less ridiculous than basing it based on Dragonball Z.
You mean to tell me the Japanese don't secretly have monkey tails coiled up underneath their clothes, and that Sony is not a front for their quest for magical orbs?
You haven't specified what kind of degree, and therefore, what kind of coursework is required. Moreover, even the same level of coursework taught at different institutions can vary widely in difficulty. "Undergraduate calculus" at, say, Caltech is nothing like "undergraduate calculus" two blocks away at Pasadena City College. The same goes for statistics.
If your intention is to obtain a degree, the best starting point is to figure out which text(s) are being used in those courses that are required for that degree. This will give you some idea of the scope and level of difficulty to expect. Otherwise, you could end up studying a great deal of ancillary information. Such things may be good to know, but will not contribute to your stated goal.
Regarding your plan to dive right in, I appreciate and understand your enthusiasm but I also think it is misguided and potentially counterproductive. You could very easily make it much more difficult for you to obtain your credits by not reviewing basics beforehand. Mathematics is not a subject that is easily cherry-picked, nor is it amenable to rote learning. It is more like a vast edifice, a tower whose foundations support increasingly complex and abstract concepts. Furthermore, it is a topic which is best learned through actual understanding. For instance, if you understand what integration actually means, rather than viewing it as a mechanical operation on a function, you will find it easier to interpret other concepts that employ integration, such as the calculation of moment-generating functions of continuous probability distributions.
On some level, it's possible to "get by" with simply learning the mechanics of computation and symbolic manipulation. That is pretty much what calculus is (as opposed to analysis). But if you want to make it as easy as possible on yourself, at the very least I advise you quickly review nearly everything at the high-school level, from algebra to trigonometry. Then take a more detailed look at the AP Calculus curriculum; any gaps in knowledge should be readily apparent and immediately addressed before continuing further. From there, you should compare against the aforementioned college coursework and texts.
Success in learning mathematics is not so much about the details of what you know as it is about how to think analytically and abstractly.
Why is this the first example of the concentration of nanoparticles showing a correlation with the initial dose? To me it seems obvious that this would happen, so I'm curious as to what normally prevents this.
The dose-response characteristics of a substance carries important information about its pharmacokinetics, such as how rapidly it is metabolized and excreted. It is NOT obvious that increasing dose always results in increased concentration in the targeted tissue(s), just as it is the case in chemical reactions in which increasing the proportion of one reagent may not necessarily increase the yield. For example, increasing dosage may also increase hepatic clearance. What the researchers demonstrated basically boils down to this: the nanoparticles' activity is highly specific to the tumor cells and does not get "broken down" or excreted proportionally higher as the dose increases. Such characteristics are highly desirable.
Parent post should be modded Insightful or Informative because seriously folks, it's so right on the money that I can't even begin to tell you all the ways in which it is true.
It's not racism, either. I'm Chinese myself and I can tell you first-hand that the above is exactly why China is well on their way toward dominating the global economy. The rest of the world is too busy worrying about pissing them off because they're so greedy to compete in such a huge market, desperate for what scraps the government throws them. China is a trap--the modern-day economic equivalent of the Opium Wars, only this time the tables are turned.
Invoking God is the religious equivalent to dividing by zero in mathematics. By claiming that an omniscient, omnipotent, everlasting deity is the reason why everything is the way it is, nothing is truly falsifiable and anything can be made to be true. It's pointless to try to convince someone that their faith is illogical, because the very act of belief is not rational.
"WoooHOOO, man, that is one awesome typeface, YEAH!!!"
Or maybe you meant something else?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiqua
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antigua
Clearly, you are not an actuary or even remotely close to one. What you describe is what many misguided consumers of insurance contracts believe is the mechanism of insurance pricing.
Insurance is very tightly regulated. All rate filings must be approved by the appropriate state regulators, and there are standardized procedures in place to calculate rates. It is also a very competitive industry. If what you claim were actually true, it would be trivial for a competitor to offer a lower rate for the same risk, in essence outpricing others in the market. Insurance is one of the easiest products for consumers to switch vendors--you can simply shop around for a lower price and cancel your existing policy once you find a better deal. You can't really do that for a tangible product--if you've used your PS3 and decide you don't like it, you have to find someone else to sell it to (and usually at a lower price) if you want a Wii instead.
The size of a book of business can help or hinder the cost to the insureds in that book. A large book enables the insurer to obtain more credible data, and may permit more sophisticated pricing structures. The insurer is then able to segment the book more precisely, and more accurately determine the extent of the risk. This in turn permits the underwriters to establish better selection criteria, further reducing the premium on policyholders with the lowest risk. However, a large book can be problematic if the rating structure is flawed--the impact of an unprofitable book can go so far as to risk the insurer's solvency. Furthermore, smaller or more specialized insurers often have less overhead and loss adjustment expenses, which enables more competitive pricing.
One of the biggest problems of insurance is that too many people think like you, and not enough people actually understand the insurance mechanism. Nobody likes to pay for insurance until they actually need it. Too few people actually read their policy and the contract provisions. Too many are selfish bastards who think that as long as they get theirs, everyone else can screw themselves, which is why fraud is so rampant. Too many insureds think their policy is a catch-all and operate under the assumption that they can be less vigilant now that losses are on the insurer's dime, which is why auto accidents are so common and premiums are so high. Risk pooling is great only until everybody gets it in their heads that they can rely on someone else to bail out their bad behavior.
A properly-run insurance company has no vested interest in denying legitimate claims on the basis of retaining profit. Why? Because (1) if the product is priced correctly, then the provision to pay has already been made; (2) loss adjustment expenses can easily exceed the claim amount; (3) the reputation of the insurer as a good-faith actor is damaged; (4) reinsurance exists for catastrophic claims; (5) the insurer risks complaints to the DOI, which can result in extremely costly investigations and possible revocation of the insurer's right to issue policies in that state; and (6) greater than expected losses are factored into the actuarial calculations, resulting in higher rate need.
Why should he be apologetic? Because most people who are prescribed Oxycontin do use it as directed, and don't become addicted to it. And if you do develop an addiction, you wouldn't be so colossally stupid as to try to hide it and refuse treatment to wean you off it. Otherwise you run the risk of...wait for it...other medical problems. Get it now? Oh, poor Rushie, he's in so much pain. Too bad it's because he's too fucking fat, rich, and self-entitled. He stepped into his own shit and he has nobody else to blame for it but himself.