In general, I agree with you. (The problem is made even worse by the fact that Acrobat Reader takes two or three minutes just to load.)
However, these are not just the text. They are scans of the original documents. The average/. reader may not care at all, and it would be nice to have a text-only repository (check Groklaw within a day or so; they posted the story earlier and were downloading them for review and evaluation) but for legal purposes, it's important to show the original document and not just the text.
Re:Ouch for card counters...
on
RFID Casino Chips
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· Score: 3, Informative
Sigh. A "right" has a specific meaning. Not to put too fine a point on it, but it doesn't mean that you CAN do something, it means no one can interfere with you doing it. Card counting isn't illegal but if the casino kicks you out for doing it, you have no recourse. You can't sue the casion for interfering with your right to card count.
Re:Ouch for card counters...
on
RFID Casino Chips
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Even if that's true, which I'm not at all certain of, I don't see it as an issue. You have no right to card counting.
In fact, I don't see this as an issue at all. The casino already knows how many chips I buy, they can keep track of how many I win, and I cash them in before I leave.
The real issue with RFIDs is that they can be used to track people over time, and for purposes much different than their announced use. I'd have absolutely no problem with Wal-Mart (or whoever) using RFIDs to track inventory if they were somehow turned off when I purchased the merchandise, somewhat like the magnetic devices that are currently used for anti-theft measures.
After posting, I figured someone would come back with a crack about negative altitude (being below sea level) as being negative height. Never even thought of six feet under, though.
Again quoting from Wolfram, which I consider a reasonably authoritative source:
There are several statistical quantities called means, e.g., arithmetic-geometric mean, geometric mean, harmonic mean, quadratic mean, root-mean-square.
The quantity commonly referred to as "the" mean is the arithmetic mean, also called the average.
In the absence of further specification, in particular in a conversation involving average bandwidth usage, I think it's clear that "mean" indicates arithmetic mean.
Huh? A great many things are described by Gaussian distributions which have no values less than zero. A Gaussian distribution is simply a normal distribution or a bell curve. See here.
Quoting from the site: Normal distributions have many convenient properties, so random variates with unknown distributions are often assumed to be normal, especially in physics and astronomy. Although this can be a dangerous assumption, it is often a good approximation due to a surprising result known as the central limit theorem. This theorem states that the mean of any set of variates with any distribution having a finite mean and variance tends to the normal distribution. Many common attributes such as test scores, height, etc., follow roughly normal distributions, with few members at the high and low ends and many in the middle.
Depending on the test, it might be possible to have a negative test score. However, I'm quite certain it isn't possible to have negative height!
No, they generally mean "mean," not median. However, they generally assume a Gaussian distribution. Under a Gaussian distribution, the mean may or may not be the same as the median, but there are generally the same number of people above and below average. It's highly doubtful that the districution of bandwidth usage is Gaussian.
Well, the depth and insight of your reply leaves me a bit speechless but I'll try to formulate a reply.
Islam has many senior leaders. It may not have a formal organization with a single senior leader, as does the Roman Catholic Church, but there are definitely clerics whom a great many Islamic followers listen to. A few of them have come out with strong anti-terrorism statements. Others have come out with strong pro-terrorism statements. Many more have taken no stand at all. In an issue like this, to refuse to take strong opposition is to implicitly support the cause. Until and unless the majority of Islamic leaders firmly and unequivocally renounce terrorism and those who support it, Islam as a whole will be guilty of supporting terrorism even if individual followers oppose it.
Islam as an organized religion is defined by it's senior leadership. And much of its senior leadership either explicitly or implicitly supports terrorism.
You're absolutely correct that Christianity has been equally culpable during parts of its history. During the Inquisition and the Crusades, Christianity as an organization was an evil force, just as Islam as an organization is currently an evil force.
That doesn't necessarily mean that the teachings of Christianity or Islam are evil, nor that all who seek to follow those teachings are evil. But if you want people to stop calling Islam evil, then take back your organization from the fundamentalists. Otherwise, accept that the gestalt that is Islam has been perverted.
Choice is usually a good thing. It isn't ALWAYS a good thing. And it generally isn't a good thing to have to make choices when you don't have the knowledge to make an informed decision, when you don't understand the implications of the choice you're having to make, or you don't know which choice to make to achieve the results you wish.
Skins are popular with a certain sub-set of computer users, primarily young people who have grown up with computers. I'd wager that most, where most is greater than 50%, of computer users have never used a skin and don't know what one is.
Really? I noticed you didn't post any links. How about doing that now? If there's all this evidence, put your money where your mouth is and point it out for us.
Giving consumers the option of purchasing a single song, and a song of their choice - not one the studio has decided to release as a single, is one of the most profound changes in the music business that has ever occurred. How does this not serve the customer? The only thing you've mentioned is price. This is a new service, and I fully expect price to come down. The only other possible issue I can think of is DRM, and that's quite a thorny issue. I don't see the studios abandoning DRM any time soon, even if it's arguable that they should do so. If you're waiting for someone to sell songs with no DRM, you may have a long wait. The best we can hope for is a combination of their getting a tad bit smarter and consumer hacks like the one Jon-DVD just came out with to allow iTunes to be played under Linux.
Re:We know other life exists
on
Lonely Planets
·
· Score: 1
This is getting quite funny. Calculation is not solution? Exactly how do you define calculation, then? I define it, in this context, as plugging numbers into an equation and generating a solution.
And I'll remind you that my post was in response to this question: Have you ever calculated the actual odds of life?
Yes, many different people have plugged many different variables into the equation, and come up with many different solutions. We have no way of knowing which, if any of them, are close to being correct.
So, if you're maintaining that my statement was bullshit, then you must believe that it is possible to calculate the actual odds. Not a wild guess, but the actual, correct odds. However, since the Drake equation is just a thought device, that obviously can't be the method of doing it. So please tell us, how do we do that?
Re:We know other life exists
on
Lonely Planets
·
· Score: 1
Drake may have said the equation was a thought device, but the scientific establishment failed to grasp that. From your posts, it appears you do (or at least did) as well:
AKAImBatman - Have you ever calculated the actual odds of life?
Me - No, and neither have you or anyone else. There are simply too many variables that we have no way to quantify.
You - Bullshit. Ever heard of the Drake Equation?
You didn't quote the Drake equation as a thought experiment. You quoted it explicitly to refute my claim that it was impossible to calculate the odds in any meaningful way. When you were greeted by a chorus of replies that the Drake equation was essentially meaningless, you back tracked and claimed it was only a thought device. Lurkers needn't take my word for it. The posts are there anyone to review.
However, since you're claiming it's only a thought device, I take it you now agree with my original statement? You know, the one you called "bullshit?"
I can handle my posts being rebutted, I was just replying in a smart ass way to your smart ass statement.
I thanked you for posting support for my statement. You told me "Fuck you." I'll leave it to everyone else to judge our words for themselves.
Studies have shown that video games directly influence behavior.
Yes, video games directly influence behavior. They increase physical reflexes and hone problem solving skills. However, if you meant to say that violent video games cause or increase violent actions in those who play them, well then, no, studies haven't established that. Some studies have indicated a link; others have indicated no link. It's certainly not a proven conclusion.
It's also rather telling that in the last ten years, since video games (and expecially realistic video games) have become common, the data shows a steady decline in violent crimes and particularly violent crime among children. Despite the news sensationalism, there is really very little violence in schools (where "violence" indicates something more serious than a fist fight because one guy looked at another's girl friend.) Despite all the violence and sex in movies, on TV, and in video games, youth violence and teen pregnancies are at the lowest they've been since the '60s when the increase started.
Re:We know other life exists
on
Lonely Planets
·
· Score: 1
I'm not sure where you got this information but about 99.9999% of the scientists on this planet will argue with you on this. Unless blocked the signal will keep going. This is a common misconception based on people thinking of radio stations on earth. They don't think about curvature of the earth. The 6 amp battery on the rover is sending us pictures from 10 million miles away. That's running on battery & is a far cry from our 100,000W radio towers.
We also know exactly where the signal is coming from and what frequency it is on. Suppose you take a receiver and, without looking up the location or frequency, you start scanning for that signal. How long do you think it'll take you to find it?
Certainly, our radio signals are now reaching other stars. But they're tiny fluctuations in an overwhelming sea of noise that blankets the universe. This is exactly what SETI@home is trying to do - seperate any alien signals from the noise of the universe. It's an incredibly difficult problem, which is why SETI is harnessing thousands of computers to provide millions of hours of computation on it.
Even if the price is the exact same, being able to purchase by tune is still a major win for the consumer. Even my favorite artists have tunes that I don't particularly care for. They're not necessarily "just filler," or bad songs but they don't appeal to me. There are other artists that I'm not really a fan of but I like one or two songs. The bottom line is that this puts choice in the hands of the consumer, and consumer choice is a good thing.
Re:We know other life exists
on
Lonely Planets
·
· Score: 1
Microbial life in space would be a big boon if actually shown to be from outer-space. The problem is that the microbes that exist in our Solar System are probably all from earth.
And you're basing this on what exhaustive scientific analysis? You're claiming to know the source of microbial life that we have yet to find! You're making wild guesses based on what you think likely but with no supporting evidence. That isn't how science is done.
Re:We know other life exists
on
Lonely Planets
·
· Score: 1
Really? Perhaps you can tell me exactly when and how we determined that there is no life on, say, Saturn?
Re:We know other life exists
on
Lonely Planets
·
· Score: 1
They may not have originated with you, but you posted them here, and indicated that you bought into them.
And, by the way, if you can't handle your posts being rebutted, perhaps you should either find another way to spend your time or think through what you're saying more carefully next time.
Re:We know other life exists
on
Lonely Planets
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
You can rephrase if you like. The fact simply remains that we have no idea how common planets are, how wide the habitability zone is, what conditions favor life, what conditions allow life, what type of life is possible, or any of a host of other things we need to know before we can make any reasonably accurate estimation on the possibility of life. We're just guessing.
A common point that bolsters those calculations is the fact that no other life has been discovered in our Solar System to date.
Just out of curiosity, what percentage of the Solar System other than earth would you say we've explored? Wouldn't you agree that it would be reasonable to insist that we check out, oh, at least a millionth of one percent before we declare that there is no other life in the Solar System?
Re:We know other life exists
on
Lonely Planets
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Yes, I'm familiar with it. I posted this link to a speech by Michael Chrichton in an earlier post. He says it better than I can:
The problem (...with the Drake equation...), of course, is that none of the terms can be known, and most cannot even be estimated. The only way to work the equation is to fill in with guesses. And guesses-just so we're clear-are merely expressions of prejudice. Nor can there be "informed guesses." If you need to state how many planets with life choose to communicate, there is simply no way to make an informed guess. It's simply prejudice.
As a result, the Drake equation can have any value from "billions and billions" to zero. An expression that can mean anything means nothing. Speaking precisely, the Drake equation is literally meaningless, and has nothing to do with science.
Look at your post. fi can be anywhere from 0 to 100%. At the risk of seeming hubristic, I'll quote myself: There are simply too many variables that we have no way to quantify. The simple answer is that we don't know, we have no way of knowing (now or in the reasonably near future), and any claims to the contrary are sheer speculation. The Drake equation and your sheer speculations on what the values may be not only do not disprove my statement, they're excelling evidence in support of it. Thanks for posting.
Re:Take care of your own planet!
on
Lonely Planets
·
· Score: 1
It's reasonable, though not certain, that we won't have space travel in the next 100 years. But that's distinctly different from saying that humanity will never have it. (It's possible that our grandchildren may see it because their lifespan may be significantly longer than ours.)
It's all too easy to assume that we know where the future is headed until we realize that one of the significant problems of 100 years ago was the increasing numbers of horses and how to deal with all of their manure in larger cities.
Re:Take care of your own planet!
on
Lonely Planets
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I don't think its reasonable to presume that humans will never see these sights first hand. We have no way of knowing what life will be like in a hundred or a thousand years. Look at how much your life is different from someone who was your age in 1904. We simply don't know what technology will accomplish. Any presumptions we make are merest speculations with no evidence to support them.
Re:We know other life exists
on
Lonely Planets
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Have you ever calculated the actual odds of life?
No, and neither have you or anyone else. There are simply too many variables that we have no way to quantify. The simple answer is that we don't know, we have no way of knowing (now or in the reasonably near future), and any claims to the contrary are sheer speculation.
Slashdot Mirror
In general, I agree with you. (The problem is made even worse by the fact that Acrobat Reader takes two or three minutes just to load.)
/. reader may not care at all, and it would be nice to have a text-only repository (check Groklaw within a day or so; they posted the story earlier and were downloading them for review and evaluation) but for legal purposes, it's important to show the original document and not just the text.
However, these are not just the text. They are scans of the original documents. The average
Sigh. A "right" has a specific meaning. Not to put too fine a point on it, but it doesn't mean that you CAN do something, it means no one can interfere with you doing it. Card counting isn't illegal but if the casino kicks you out for doing it, you have no recourse. You can't sue the casion for interfering with your right to card count.
Even if that's true, which I'm not at all certain of, I don't see it as an issue. You have no right to card counting.
In fact, I don't see this as an issue at all. The casino already knows how many chips I buy, they can keep track of how many I win, and I cash them in before I leave.
The real issue with RFIDs is that they can be used to track people over time, and for purposes much different than their announced use. I'd have absolutely no problem with Wal-Mart (or whoever) using RFIDs to track inventory if they were somehow turned off when I purchased the merchandise, somewhat like the magnetic devices that are currently used for anti-theft measures.
After posting, I figured someone would come back with a crack about negative altitude (being below sea level) as being negative height. Never even thought of six feet under, though.
Again quoting from Wolfram, which I consider a reasonably authoritative source:
There are several statistical quantities called means, e.g., arithmetic-geometric mean, geometric mean, harmonic mean, quadratic mean, root-mean-square.
The quantity commonly referred to as "the" mean is the arithmetic mean, also called the average.
In the absence of further specification, in particular in a conversation involving average bandwidth usage, I think it's clear that "mean" indicates arithmetic mean.
Huh? A great many things are described by Gaussian distributions which have no values less than zero.
A Gaussian distribution is simply a normal distribution or a bell curve. See here.
Quoting from the site: Normal distributions have many convenient properties, so random variates with unknown distributions are often assumed to be normal, especially in physics and astronomy. Although this can be a dangerous assumption, it is often a good approximation due to a surprising result known as the central limit theorem. This theorem states that the mean of any set of variates with any distribution having a finite mean and variance tends to the normal distribution. Many common attributes such as test scores, height, etc., follow roughly normal distributions, with few members at the high and low ends and many in the middle.
Depending on the test, it might be possible to have a negative test score. However, I'm quite certain it isn't possible to have negative height!
No, they generally mean "mean," not median. However, they generally assume a Gaussian distribution. Under a Gaussian distribution, the mean may or may not be the same as the median, but there are generally the same number of people above and below average. It's highly doubtful that the districution of bandwidth usage is Gaussian.
Well, the depth and insight of your reply leaves me a bit speechless but I'll try to formulate a reply.
Islam has many senior leaders. It may not have a formal organization with a single senior leader, as does the Roman Catholic Church, but there are definitely clerics whom a great many Islamic followers listen to. A few of them have come out with strong anti-terrorism statements. Others have come out with strong pro-terrorism statements. Many more have taken no stand at all. In an issue like this, to refuse to take strong opposition is to implicitly support the cause. Until and unless the majority of Islamic leaders firmly and unequivocally renounce terrorism and those who support it, Islam as a whole will be guilty of supporting terrorism even if individual followers oppose it.
Islam as an organized religion is defined by it's senior leadership. And much of its senior leadership either explicitly or implicitly supports terrorism.
You're absolutely correct that Christianity has been equally culpable during parts of its history. During the Inquisition and the Crusades, Christianity as an organization was an evil force, just as Islam as an organization is currently an evil force.
That doesn't necessarily mean that the teachings of Christianity or Islam are evil, nor that all who seek to follow those teachings are evil. But if you want people to stop calling Islam evil, then take back your organization from the fundamentalists. Otherwise, accept that the gestalt that is Islam has been perverted.
Choice is usually a good thing. It isn't ALWAYS a good thing. And it generally isn't a good thing to have to make choices when you don't have the knowledge to make an informed decision, when you don't understand the implications of the choice you're having to make, or you don't know which choice to make to achieve the results you wish.
Skins are popular with a certain sub-set of computer users, primarily young people who have grown up with computers. I'd wager that most, where most is greater than 50%, of computer users have never used a skin and don't know what one is.
Really? I noticed you didn't post any links. How about doing that now? If there's all this evidence, put your money where your mouth is and point it out for us.
Giving consumers the option of purchasing a single song, and a song of their choice - not one the studio has decided to release as a single, is one of the most profound changes in the music business that has ever occurred. How does this not serve the customer? The only thing you've mentioned is price. This is a new service, and I fully expect price to come down. The only other possible issue I can think of is DRM, and that's quite a thorny issue. I don't see the studios abandoning DRM any time soon, even if it's arguable that they should do so. If you're waiting for someone to sell songs with no DRM, you may have a long wait. The best we can hope for is a combination of their getting a tad bit smarter and consumer hacks like the one Jon-DVD just came out with to allow iTunes to be played under Linux.
This is getting quite funny. Calculation is not solution? Exactly how do you define calculation, then? I define it, in this context, as plugging numbers into an equation and generating a solution.
And I'll remind you that my post was in response to this question: Have you ever calculated the actual odds of life?
Yes, many different people have plugged many different variables into the equation, and come up with many different solutions. We have no way of knowing which, if any of them, are close to being correct.
So, if you're maintaining that my statement was bullshit, then you must believe that it is possible to calculate the actual odds. Not a wild guess, but the actual, correct odds. However, since the Drake equation is just a thought device, that obviously can't be the method of doing it. So please tell us, how do we do that?
Drake may have said the equation was a thought device, but the scientific establishment failed to grasp that. From your posts, it appears you do (or at least did) as well:
AKAImBatman - Have you ever calculated the actual odds of life?
Me - No, and neither have you or anyone else. There are simply too many variables that we have no way to quantify.
You - Bullshit. Ever heard of the Drake Equation?
You didn't quote the Drake equation as a thought experiment. You quoted it explicitly to refute my claim that it was impossible to calculate the odds in any meaningful way. When you were greeted by a chorus of replies that the Drake equation was essentially meaningless, you back tracked and claimed it was only a thought device. Lurkers needn't take my word for it. The posts are there anyone to review.
However, since you're claiming it's only a thought device, I take it you now agree with my original statement? You know, the one you called "bullshit?"
I can handle my posts being rebutted, I was just replying in a smart ass way to your smart ass statement.
I thanked you for posting support for my statement. You told me "Fuck you." I'll leave it to everyone else to judge our words for themselves.
Studies have shown that video games directly influence behavior.
Yes, video games directly influence behavior. They increase physical reflexes and hone problem solving skills. However, if you meant to say that violent video games cause or increase violent actions in those who play them, well then, no, studies haven't established that. Some studies have indicated a link; others have indicated no link. It's certainly not a proven conclusion.
It's also rather telling that in the last ten years, since video games (and expecially realistic video games) have become common, the data shows a steady decline in violent crimes and particularly violent crime among children. Despite the news sensationalism, there is really very little violence in schools (where "violence" indicates something more serious than a fist fight because one guy looked at another's girl friend.) Despite all the violence and sex in movies, on TV, and in video games, youth violence and teen pregnancies are at the lowest they've been since the '60s when the increase started.
I'm not sure where you got this information but about 99.9999% of the scientists on this planet will argue with you on this. Unless blocked the signal will keep going. This is a common misconception based on people thinking of radio stations on earth. They don't think about curvature of the earth. The 6 amp battery on the rover is sending us pictures from 10 million miles away. That's running on battery & is a far cry from our 100,000W radio towers.
We also know exactly where the signal is coming from and what frequency it is on. Suppose you take a receiver and, without looking up the location or frequency, you start scanning for that signal. How long do you think it'll take you to find it?
Certainly, our radio signals are now reaching other stars. But they're tiny fluctuations in an overwhelming sea of noise that blankets the universe. This is exactly what SETI@home is trying to do - seperate any alien signals from the noise of the universe. It's an incredibly difficult problem, which is why SETI is harnessing thousands of computers to provide millions of hours of computation on it.
Even if the price is the exact same, being able to purchase by tune is still a major win for the consumer. Even my favorite artists have tunes that I don't particularly care for. They're not necessarily "just filler," or bad songs but they don't appeal to me. There are other artists that I'm not really a fan of but I like one or two songs. The bottom line is that this puts choice in the hands of the consumer, and consumer choice is a good thing.
Microbial life in space would be a big boon if actually shown to be from outer-space. The problem is that the microbes that exist in our Solar System are probably all from earth.
And you're basing this on what exhaustive scientific analysis? You're claiming to know the source of microbial life that we have yet to find! You're making wild guesses based on what you think likely but with no supporting evidence. That isn't how science is done.
Really? Perhaps you can tell me exactly when and how we determined that there is no life on, say, Saturn?
They may not have originated with you, but you posted them here, and indicated that you bought into them.
And, by the way, if you can't handle your posts being rebutted, perhaps you should either find another way to spend your time or think through what you're saying more carefully next time.
You can rephrase if you like. The fact simply remains that we have no idea how common planets are, how wide the habitability zone is, what conditions favor life, what conditions allow life, what type of life is possible, or any of a host of other things we need to know before we can make any reasonably accurate estimation on the possibility of life. We're just guessing.
A common point that bolsters those calculations is the fact that no other life has been discovered in our Solar System to date.
Just out of curiosity, what percentage of the Solar System other than earth would you say we've explored? Wouldn't you agree that it would be reasonable to insist that we check out, oh, at least a millionth of one percent before we declare that there is no other life in the Solar System?
Yes, I'm familiar with it. I posted this link to a speech by Michael Chrichton in an earlier post. He says it better than I can:
The problem (...with the Drake equation...), of course, is that none of the terms can be known, and most cannot even be estimated. The only way to work the equation is to fill in with guesses. And guesses-just so we're clear-are merely expressions of prejudice. Nor can there be "informed guesses." If you need to state how many planets with life choose to communicate, there is simply no way to make an informed guess. It's simply prejudice.
As a result, the Drake equation can have any value from "billions and billions" to zero. An expression that can mean anything means nothing. Speaking precisely, the Drake equation is literally meaningless, and has nothing to do with science.
Look at your post. fi can be anywhere from 0 to 100%. At the risk of seeming hubristic, I'll quote myself: There are simply too many variables that we have no way to quantify. The simple answer is that we don't know, we have no way of knowing (now or in the reasonably near future), and any claims to the contrary are sheer speculation. The Drake equation and your sheer speculations on what the values may be not only do not disprove my statement, they're excelling evidence in support of it. Thanks for posting.
It's reasonable, though not certain, that we won't have space travel in the next 100 years. But that's distinctly different from saying that humanity will never have it. (It's possible that our grandchildren may see it because their lifespan may be significantly longer than ours.)
It's all too easy to assume that we know where the future is headed until we realize that one of the significant problems of 100 years ago was the increasing numbers of horses and how to deal with all of their manure in larger cities.
I don't think its reasonable to presume that humans will never see these sights first hand. We have no way of knowing what life will be like in a hundred or a thousand years. Look at how much your life is different from someone who was your age in 1904. We simply don't know what technology will accomplish. Any presumptions we make are merest speculations with no evidence to support them.
Have you ever calculated the actual odds of life?
No, and neither have you or anyone else. There are simply too many variables that we have no way to quantify. The simple answer is that we don't know, we have no way of knowing (now or in the reasonably near future), and any claims to the contrary are sheer speculation.