There are laptop comparison websites around... the one I like best is http://pricespy.co.nz/category.php?k=353 but of course it depends on your location. Try searching for "laptop comparison" if you want such a meta-search for products.
But the EU likes to push hard against Companies (US based or not) that have a European competitor. Such as the case against Intel, the fact that the European company of AMD is one of their biggest competitors had nothing to do with it? Or Nokia vs. Apple and Samsung.
Just admit it, Europe is just as corrupt as the rest of the first world. Once you admit it, then you can start spotting it, and fixing it.
Please agree to my point of view, because I don't want to search for facts or change my opinion. It would depress me if there was a nicer place in the world than where I live.
Probably just the usual EU regulators' shakedown of a wealthy US corporation. Last time it was Microsoft's turn in the barrel, now it's Google's. I imagine Apple is next.
They are pretty much shit outta cash over there, in case you haven't picked up a copy of The Economist lately.
Also I doubt that the EU does significantly worse than the US, economy wise. Much is being talked. I'd still say the average person is better off in the EU.
This Note will explore these difficulties, such as the government works issue, potential fair use or fair dealing defenses, as well as various non-legal obstacles to success, eventually reaching the conclusion that prosecuting WikiLeaks internationally for copyright violations is potentially more viable than any of the methods of criminal prosecution heretofore explored publicly by government attorneys and legal scholars.
Or, you can just not bring the case to court and hold people indefinitely without prosecution for several years. Then they don't have anything to defend against. A debtors' prison if you will.
The EU works like this: ministers from all countries come together and decide on certain directives -- a description of how the laws of all countries should behave. Then they make a contract on behalf of their country with each other to adjust the laws of their country to adhere to this standard. The contracts say that you have a certain time for implementation, and whoever doesn't implement the law is being fined (there is a chain of measures, which you can also appeal to).
Since Greece agreed to the contract, they have to implement it.
With the (expensive) data retention directive -- which has been ruled unjustified in some countries already -- countries have a chance to make a good case to the EU for rejecting it. But then the directive has to be overruled and the contracts have to be cancelled in some way -- ideally without anyone losing face.
When the ministers agree a directive would be a good idea to implement, and then when it's time to implement the consensus is that the directive is a bad idea, the blame has to go somewhere. Usually the ministers make themselves small in the country, and everyone blames the EU for imposing bad laws on the innocent countries -- disregarding that the countries agreed to the very same law and made a specific contract with each other.
a world without software patents would be 'open slather for anybody who can just go faster than the next person.'
I am not sure what an 'open slather' is, but it wasn't that long ago in the US that there were NO software patents. Is this what the software market was like back then? Was there more or less innovation compared to now? I am interested if anyone knows of a useful comparison, especially after the ridiculous Microsoft v. Motorola case
As if madness ruled everywhere outside the US where there are NO software patents.
The term is "search engine Filter Bubble" -- see the nice introduction at http://dontbubble.us/ (admittedly focussed on avoiding personalisation). If you use a meta search engine that doesn't collect personal information, such as DuckDuckGo.com, you can escape that problem.
Exposure to TV/Computers is dangerous for kids because synapses develop incorrectly: Because of the incorrect audio/video synchronisation and the lack of feedback -- as opposed to real objects where feedback is immediate -- poor connections form. And those can not be corrected later anymore. This is well known to neuroscientists, and by large horizontal studies (average TV usage 5.5 hours per day), it has been shown that there is a very strong correlation between TV usage (hours per day) during childhood and intelligence, success, social life, obesity, health, etc.. The point is that the content does not matter, and even a little causes this form of brain damage.
I would not let my kids near TVs or computers until grown (they may watch at their friends place, that's social), and I recommend you have your parents come over to play with your kid, and give it toys/animals/people to play and interact with. Unfortunately, people are lazy and prefer to have the TV/screen babysitter.
I really don't get the math argument. All physics is also reducible to math, and when you look at things like wave functions, it seems that we're at the point where we are close to saying that universe itself is basically just math. Reality itself is a "general-purpose machine"!
Either way, physics is also discovered, not invented - which also goes for applied physics, i.e. engineering. And, most certainly, you can take pretty much any physical invention, and model it on a computer - at which point it really is pure math.
Why, then, are hardware patents okay, but software patents are not? (in general, not the typical patents of today like "one click" or swipe-to-unlock).
There was a case recently that made it quite explicit that you can not patent a natural law, only an application (machine) that uses the laws of physics in a specific way.
If you used to have a 56kbit modem, and now you have a 10Mbit connection, that's going up by a factor of 200. A classic html page was maybe 5kB (no images), so now it should be allowed to be 1MB large. If you had a few of images then, that would account for a youtube video now.
I find it quite interesting to compare this to other historic debates such as
- whether the universe has always existed or came into existence (steady-state vs big bang)
- whether the milky way is the only galaxy
- whether earth is the center / only place with life
- whether humans are different in any distinctive way compared to (other) animals
The common theme is "can something come from nothing" and "is this place special". Some resistance in the debates comes from "it has always been like this". There seems to be some attractive simplicity to the idea that things never change and that there is only one of something.
The world seems to be consistently contradict our intuition on that principle.
Bug bounties are kind of a prisoners dilemma: If you discover a bug, you can sell A) it to malicious companies and make some money on the black market or B) admit the bug to the company. Since you discovered the bug, it is likely that someone else will also discover the bug. Only if both choose A, both win, but if the other chooses B, you loose all your profits on the black market. The expectation value of A,A is BlackProfit, the expectation value of B,A is BountyProfit. Lets say players choose taking the bounty with probability p. If more than 2 parties are involved, the probability no player choosing the bounty is (1-p)^n. The expectation value of that choice is BlackProfit*(1-p)^n. As long as that is smaller than BountyProfit, you win.
For instance, lets say you can make a billion dollars(!) on the black market, and have very corrupt hackers, so only 1 in 100000 chooses the bounty. If you have 1 million players, you need to offer 45400 dollar. If you have a population of ethical hackers, say 1 in 100 chooses the bounty (it's easier and quicker), you only need 1000 players to offer a bounty below 45000 dollars.
if people test security on Android and report it to Google, and someone will watch the Android codebase for bugs, security fixes will come to Linux for free. Since recently the Android and Linux re-merged again, this doesn't seem too far-fetched.
Yes, all through the world everybody is well-fed and not malnourished by being vegetarians. Now, if you believe that, go to India. The real difference between between a vegan and a normal omnivore human, is that the omnivore (with a simple balanced diet) will provide the best for the infant. The vegan must work hard at it to get a balanced diet.
Thousands of years ago, this would have been true (which is what TFA is about). Today in modern countries you won't have trouble getting all nutrients and providing a balanced diet. Even if you decide not to eat meat, kill lives and contribute to the economical catastrophe keeping livestock is.
Vegans are more likely to care about their diets, so they have that advantage. Contrary to 1 in 3 babies in the US being born adipose.
Dark matter is the name of the problem, not the solution.
It may not be particles, but the universe is very well described by the cold dark matter particle model (plus dark energy).
So dark matter is a filler. Much like religion.
Dark matter is the mismatch between observation and prediction in e.g. galaxy rotation curves. It looks as if there is additional matter there that doesn't radiate. "As if" is the key word here. What it actually is, is not explained by that name.
If you had x$ at the start of the month, and now you have x/3$, and you know where x/3$ went, but not the last third, you can call that "unknown expenses". Same thing.
Slashdot Mirror
There are laptop comparison websites around ... the one I like best is http://pricespy.co.nz/category.php?k=353 but of course it depends on your location. Try searching for "laptop comparison" if you want such a meta-search for products.
for the staff in charge of security? (Since there was damage to multiple computer systems, not just unavailability)
elinks has mouse and javascript support. Just saying.
But the EU likes to push hard against Companies (US based or not) that have a European competitor. Such as the case against Intel, the fact that the European company of AMD is one of their biggest competitors had nothing to do with it? Or Nokia vs. Apple and Samsung.
Just admit it, Europe is just as corrupt as the rest of the first world. Once you admit it, then you can start spotting it, and fixing it.
Please agree to my point of view, because I don't want to search for facts or change my opinion. It would depress me if there was a nicer place in the world than where I live.
Probably just the usual EU regulators' shakedown of a wealthy US corporation. Last time it was Microsoft's turn in the barrel, now it's Google's. I imagine Apple is next.
They are pretty much shit outta cash over there, in case you haven't picked up a copy of The Economist lately.
EU has anti-trust as much as the US and China. If you want to do business in the EU, you have to abide to the laws as any other company. And the big American companies get looked at just as often as European ones.
We've had that discussion here: http://apple.slashdot.org/story/12/04/02/123207/apple-is-forced-by-eu-to-give-2-years-warranty-on-all-its-products
Also I doubt that the EU does significantly worse than the US, economy wise. Much is being talked. I'd still say the average person is better off in the EU.
Maybe the Ultra-Orthodox Jews can team up with the Iranians in building their own internet.
Or, you can just not bring the case to court and hold people indefinitely without prosecution for several years. Then they don't have anything to defend against. A debtors' prison if you will.
The EU works like this: ministers from all countries come together and decide on certain directives -- a description of how the laws of all countries should behave. Then they make a contract on behalf of their country with each other to adjust the laws of their country to adhere to this standard.
The contracts say that you have a certain time for implementation, and whoever doesn't implement the law is being fined (there is a chain of measures, which you can also appeal to).
Since Greece agreed to the contract, they have to implement it.
With the (expensive) data retention directive -- which has been ruled unjustified in some countries already -- countries have a chance to make a good case to the EU for rejecting it. But then the directive has to be overruled and the contracts have to be cancelled in some way -- ideally without anyone losing face.
When the ministers agree a directive would be a good idea to implement, and then when it's time to implement the consensus is that the directive is a bad idea, the blame has to go somewhere. Usually the ministers make themselves small in the country, and everyone blames the EU for imposing bad laws on the innocent countries -- disregarding that the countries agreed to the very same law and made a specific contract with each other.
I am not sure what an 'open slather' is, but it wasn't that long ago in the US that there were NO software patents. Is this what the software market was like back then? Was there more or less innovation compared to now? I am interested if anyone knows of a useful comparison, especially after the ridiculous Microsoft v. Motorola case
As if madness ruled everywhere outside the US where there are NO software patents.
The term is "search engine Filter Bubble" -- see the nice introduction at http://dontbubble.us/ (admittedly focussed on avoiding personalisation).
If you use a meta search engine that doesn't collect personal information, such as DuckDuckGo.com, you can escape that problem.
Exposure to TV/Computers is dangerous for kids because synapses develop incorrectly: Because of the incorrect audio/video synchronisation and the lack of feedback -- as opposed to real objects where feedback is immediate -- poor connections form. And those can not be corrected later anymore.
This is well known to neuroscientists, and by large horizontal studies (average TV usage 5.5 hours per day), it has been shown that there is a very strong correlation between TV usage (hours per day) during childhood and intelligence, success, social life, obesity, health, etc.. The point is that the content does not matter, and even a little causes this form of brain damage.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPQ4C5RdUr4 (Neuroscientist Prof. Dr.Dr. Spitzer, talk in German) (I'd like to have a english talk by a scientist on the topic)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-david-perlmutter-md/television-and-the-develo_b_786934.html
http://www.brainy-child.com/article/tvonbrain.shtml
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090601182830.htm
http://www.livestrong.com/article/226572-the-impact-of-television-on-early-childhood-brain-development/
I would not let my kids near TVs or computers until grown (they may watch at their friends place, that's social), and I recommend you have your parents come over to play with your kid, and give it toys/animals/people to play and interact with. Unfortunately, people are lazy and prefer to have the TV/screen babysitter.
and why is the robot shooting for your balls? I think it's trying to stop you from breeding ;)
I really don't get the math argument. All physics is also reducible to math, and when you look at things like wave functions, it seems that we're at the point where we are close to saying that universe itself is basically just math. Reality itself is a "general-purpose machine"!
Either way, physics is also discovered, not invented - which also goes for applied physics, i.e. engineering. And, most certainly, you can take pretty much any physical invention, and model it on a computer - at which point it really is pure math.
Why, then, are hardware patents okay, but software patents are not? (in general, not the typical patents of today like "one click" or swipe-to-unlock).
There was a case recently that made it quite explicit that you can not patent a natural law, only an application (machine) that uses the laws of physics in a specific way.
If you used to have a 56kbit modem, and now you have a 10Mbit connection, that's going up by a factor of 200. A classic html page was maybe 5kB (no images), so now it should be allowed to be 1MB large. If you had a few of images then, that would account for a youtube video now.
Is that reductio ad ridiculum or is this so childish that people didn't even bother coming up with a Latin phrase for it?
reductio ad absurdum is what you're looking for.
I find it quite interesting to compare this to other historic debates such as
- whether the universe has always existed or came into existence (steady-state vs big bang)
- whether the milky way is the only galaxy
- whether earth is the center / only place with life
- whether humans are different in any distinctive way compared to (other) animals
The common theme is "can something come from nothing" and "is this place special". Some resistance in the debates comes from "it has always been like this". There seems to be some attractive simplicity to the idea that things never change and that there is only one of something.
The world seems to be consistently contradict our intuition on that principle.
Bah, just redirect a couple of comets. Large ones contain a couple hundred km^3 of water.
1000km^3 distributed on 335,258,000 km^2 raises the ocean by 3mm.
Bug bounties are kind of a prisoners dilemma: If you discover a bug, you can sell A) it to malicious companies and make some money on the black market or B) admit the bug to the company.
Since you discovered the bug, it is likely that someone else will also discover the bug. Only if both choose A, both win, but if the other chooses B, you loose all your profits on the black market.
The expectation value of A,A is BlackProfit, the expectation value of B,A is BountyProfit. Lets say players choose taking the bounty with probability p. If more than 2 parties are involved, the probability no player choosing the bounty is (1-p)^n. The expectation value of that choice is BlackProfit*(1-p)^n. As long as that is smaller than BountyProfit, you win.
For instance, lets say you can make a billion dollars(!) on the black market, and have very corrupt hackers, so only 1 in 100000 chooses the bounty. If you have 1 million players, you need to offer 45400 dollar.
If you have a population of ethical hackers, say 1 in 100 chooses the bounty (it's easier and quicker), you only need 1000 players to offer a bounty below 45000 dollars.
if people test security on Android and report it to Google, and someone will watch the Android codebase for bugs, security fixes will come to Linux for free. Since recently the Android and Linux re-merged again, this doesn't seem too far-fetched.
Yes, all through the world everybody is well-fed and not malnourished by being vegetarians. Now, if you believe that, go to India.
The real difference between between a vegan and a normal omnivore human, is that the omnivore (with a simple balanced diet) will provide the best for the infant. The vegan must work hard at it to get a balanced diet.
Thousands of years ago, this would have been true (which is what TFA is about). Today in modern countries you won't have trouble getting all nutrients and providing a balanced diet. Even if you decide not to eat meat, kill lives and contribute to the economical catastrophe keeping livestock is.
Vegans are more likely to care about their diets, so they have that advantage. Contrary to 1 in 3 babies in the US being born adipose.
And the more a person "needs" GPG/PGP, the more resistant they are to using it. Sad but true.
GPG/PGP doesn't provide anonymity.
Dark matter is the name of the problem, not the solution.
It may not be particles, but the universe is very well described by the cold dark matter particle model (plus dark energy).
So dark matter is a filler. Much like religion.
Dark matter is the mismatch between observation and prediction in e.g. galaxy rotation curves. It looks as if there is additional matter there that doesn't radiate. "As if" is the key word here. What it actually is, is not explained by that name.
If you had x$ at the start of the month, and now you have x/3$, and you know where x/3$ went, but not the last third, you can call that "unknown expenses". Same thing.
Dark matter is the name of the problem, not the solution.
It may not be particles, but the universe is very well described by the cold dark matter particle model (plus dark energy).
You should have ended your post with viable alternatives.
ex falso quodlibet