In all fairness, the environmental studies are sometimes interesting, as the EIS's sometimes talk about how a highway or train would impact some bizarro kind of sheep nobody knows about, and have some nice transportation simulations. The LV/LA traffic distribution is going to be significantly modified by a high-speed maglev train between the two cities, and the traffic analysis (required to measure the total emissions of the "no build" option, as well as the reduced highway emissions of the "build" option) is detailed enough to burn through several million dollars. Both metro areas have significant obstacles in their analysis: The LA transportation network is massive, and contains one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States; the LV area is the fastest growing metropolitan area in the nation, and since these studies have to model traffic levels as they would occur on 2030, the growth model used by the consultants is critical to the accuracy of the study.
The most pronounced difference between English (a.k.a. slow) and Viennese Waltzes are in speed. English has 28-30 mpm (measures per minute), while Viennese has 58-60 mpm, per IDSF tempo regulations.
I'm not really sure what Neanderthal modded this down, but I'm foregoing use of my mod points to say that you are dead-on. In the college scene, many of the leaders are men in technical majors (engineering, computer science, material science, etc.) and there is a perennial shortage of leaders. So yes, nerds *are* actually fought over by cute girls. And the dedicated girls have this tendency to want to know how to lead, so that they can teach their friends to dance as well.
Additionally, ballroom dancing is actually quite popular in nerdy schools. One of the largest dance competitions in the U.S. is held at MIT (yes, that MIT), and if our school could afford to go there, we would...
Admittedly it'd be nice to play Quake without being told to STFU. Please. Shut the hell up.
(Yes, that's supposed to be humor, but these days, you never know...)
This should be from the "Old News" department...
on
Six Degrees of Wikipedia
·
· Score: 2, Informative
This article talks about a tool that was first available to Wikipedians in 2004. Heck, there's an entire page to try to find long chains at Wikipedia:Six degrees of Wikipedia, and it even mentions a chain of seven articles...
Wrong. Go to any dance class in your local college or university--if there's any held there, chances are that the vast majority of men taking the classes are engineers. I know because I'm taking one, and because my dance professor used to be a chemical engineer...
And if my memory serves me correctly, the biggest component of Wikimedia's expenses are bandwidth and server purchases, both to replace dying boxes and to catch up with the ~ 35 Gbit/s demand seen these days. (Well, it was 35 Gbit/s the last time I saw that number. It wouldn't surprise me if it were all the way up in the neighborhood of 40 Gbit/s during peak hours.)
More of a social concern about having too many articles; monitoring articles takes time, and having articles on topics that they consider worthless, but that still need to be monitored, causes the amount of eyes watching each article to decrease. This allows, in theory, more vandalism to sneak by, and decreases the average quality of Wikipedia articles, or so I've heard
That's why you funnel resources to organizations that are already doing this, like the EFF's Patent Busting project, which I linked above. Economies of scale and all that.
But even if the numbers are made up (which they are), that still doesn't change my point - people decide how much reliability (or anything else) they need, and then they purchase based on those needs. Businesses may require high-reliability connections, but most households, regardless of their income, do not require always-on connectivity, even for landlines. 99.999% Internet connectivity is not required in the middle of the night while people are sleeping. The market for reliability exists, it is just not as broad as you make it to be.
Damn, and I just used my mod points... people need to start realizing that the best way to argue against a patent is not by saying "but so-and-so did this", but to tell the USPTO (or find somebody who will tell them) that "so-and-so did this"...
That being said, there is a market for 99.999. Upper-middle class and higher would pay for it. Um, no. The thing that got the upper class to where they got is either a) dumb luck or b) an ability to distinguish which costs are unnecessary and avoiding them. A savvy spender doesn't give a damn whether the cell will not get a signal for 50 minutes during the year, instead of five minutes, if the costs he will incur are double. A savvy spender determines what he needs and then finds the most cost-effective solution that will fit his needs.
I do realize that; it was more of a sarcastic remark about the absurd prices of diamonds. Unfortunately, even if there were a larger amount of diamonds due to synthetic manufacture, the price of diamonds wouldn't fall, as there would still be a premium on "natural" stones, even if they are chemically, physically, and gemologically identical (or superior) due to consumer expectations. Demand would still remain high (for the reasons you mentioned above, plus the fact that girls like them...
Does anybody know what that update does? The 10.5.2 upgrade has some detail on the Apple site, but the Leopard Graphics Update is conspicuously devoid of information.
I don't want to start another license war in fucking licenses, but well, if you are going to go that way, go with the grammatically-coherent DWTFYWWI license:
DWTFYWWI LICENSE
Version 1, January 2006
Copyright (C) 2006 Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason
Preamble
The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the DWTFYWWI or Do Whatever The Fuck You Want With It license is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change the software--to make sure the software is free for all its users.
DWTFYWWI LICENSE
TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION 0. The author grants everyone permission to do whatever the fuck they want with the software, whatever the fuck that may be.
You even get a statement of principles with this one!
Slashdot Mirror
1:27.
Well, these studies are required by the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970.
In all fairness, the environmental studies are sometimes interesting, as the EIS's sometimes talk about how a highway or train would impact some bizarro kind of sheep nobody knows about, and have some nice transportation simulations. The LV/LA traffic distribution is going to be significantly modified by a high-speed maglev train between the two cities, and the traffic analysis (required to measure the total emissions of the "no build" option, as well as the reduced highway emissions of the "build" option) is detailed enough to burn through several million dollars. Both metro areas have significant obstacles in their analysis: The LA transportation network is massive, and contains one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States; the LV area is the fastest growing metropolitan area in the nation, and since these studies have to model traffic levels as they would occur on 2030, the growth model used by the consultants is critical to the accuracy of the study.
The most pronounced difference between English (a.k.a. slow) and Viennese Waltzes are in speed. English has 28-30 mpm (measures per minute), while Viennese has 58-60 mpm, per IDSF tempo regulations.
I'm not really sure what Neanderthal modded this down, but I'm foregoing use of my mod points to say that you are dead-on. In the college scene, many of the leaders are men in technical majors (engineering, computer science, material science, etc.) and there is a perennial shortage of leaders. So yes, nerds *are* actually fought over by cute girls. And the dedicated girls have this tendency to want to know how to lead, so that they can teach their friends to dance as well.
Additionally, ballroom dancing is actually quite popular in nerdy schools. One of the largest dance competitions in the U.S. is held at MIT (yes, that MIT), and if our school could afford to go there, we would...
(Yes, that's supposed to be humor, but these days, you never know...)
This article talks about a tool that was first available to Wikipedians in 2004. Heck, there's an entire page to try to find long chains at Wikipedia:Six degrees of Wikipedia, and it even mentions a chain of seven articles...
Wrong. Go to any dance class in your local college or university--if there's any held there, chances are that the vast majority of men taking the classes are engineers. I know because I'm taking one, and because my dance professor used to be a chemical engineer...
The only problem there is that you would be watching your money evaporate inside the safe, due to inflation's effect on the value of a dollar.
But he's gone in a few months... starting now would be a waste of time. They can always put him on trial after he leaves office. :)
While I get your point, he is actually right. "Infinite" is the key here.
For the record: Mitch Kapor is one of the members of the Wikimedia Advisory Board.
About peer-to-peer: No.
And if my memory serves me correctly, the biggest component of Wikimedia's expenses are bandwidth and server purchases, both to replace dying boxes and to catch up with the ~ 35 Gbit/s demand seen these days. (Well, it was 35 Gbit/s the last time I saw that number. It wouldn't surprise me if it were all the way up in the neighborhood of 40 Gbit/s during peak hours.)
More of a social concern about having too many articles; monitoring articles takes time, and having articles on topics that they consider worthless, but that still need to be monitored, causes the amount of eyes watching each article to decrease. This allows, in theory, more vandalism to sneak by, and decreases the average quality of Wikipedia articles, or so I've heard
You may want to read the Deletionism page on Metawiki for more info.
OK, but then, what do you do with non-blatant advertising? And what is blatant, and what is not blatant? How do you define it?
If it were that easy, these arguments about whether to delete or retain something would not exist, and AFD would not be the hellhole it currently is.
That's why you funnel resources to organizations that are already doing this, like the EFF's Patent Busting project, which I linked above. Economies of scale and all that.
But even if the numbers are made up (which they are), that still doesn't change my point - people decide how much reliability (or anything else) they need, and then they purchase based on those needs. Businesses may require high-reliability connections, but most households, regardless of their income, do not require always-on connectivity, even for landlines. 99.999% Internet connectivity is not required in the middle of the night while people are sleeping. The market for reliability exists, it is just not as broad as you make it to be.
Damn, and I just used my mod points... people need to start realizing that the best way to argue against a patent is not by saying "but so-and-so did this", but to tell the USPTO (or find somebody who will tell them) that "so-and-so did this"...
Heh. I read "AIAA" and I thought you were talking about the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, which is indeed sort of an Air Industry Association of America...
I do realize that; it was more of a sarcastic remark about the absurd prices of diamonds. Unfortunately, even if there were a larger amount of diamonds due to synthetic manufacture, the price of diamonds wouldn't fall, as there would still be a premium on "natural" stones, even if they are chemically, physically, and gemologically identical (or superior) due to consumer expectations. Demand would still remain high (for the reasons you mentioned above, plus the fact that girls like them...
Turn it into diamond... and then, all of a sudden, engagement rings become a lot cheaper.
For those who are wondering what the parent is talking about when he mentions the nursing home cat: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19959718/
Does anybody know what that update does? The 10.5.2 upgrade has some detail on the Apple site, but the Leopard Graphics Update is conspicuously devoid of information.
I don't want to start another license war in fucking licenses, but well, if you are going to go that way, go with the grammatically-coherent DWTFYWWI license:
DWTFYWWI LICENSE
Version 1, January 2006
Copyright (C) 2006 Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason
Preamble
The licenses for most software are designed to take away your
freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the DWTFYWWI or Do
Whatever The Fuck You Want With It license is intended to guarantee
your freedom to share and change the software--to make sure the
software is free for all its users.
DWTFYWWI LICENSE
TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
0. The author grants everyone permission to do whatever the fuck they
want with the software, whatever the fuck that may be.
You even get a statement of principles with this one!