Re:Hard to defend a logical morality?
on
Google vs. Evil
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· Score: 2
Okay, can you point to sociological studies which prove that societies with high rates of killing have less ability to advance? No? Then your morality isn't so logical after all. In fact, I seem to recall the Nazis producing some unbelievable technological advances, not to mention lifting their economy from a deep depression, and I hope that you don't consider them moral.
On the other hand, the porn industry is notoriously exploitative. The system is designed, much like in prostitution, to get the girls hooked on drugs, so that they have no choice but to continue working. Without people working to keep them down, perhaps some would be able to make a productive contribution to society, so by your "logical" morality, it would not be unreasonable to consider porn immoral.
It'd be much cheaper just to add more heads. Spinning the heads would cause all sorts of problems with vibrations, and require exceptionally large motors. On the other hand, just add a second read head and a nice large buffer, and you can get 104x speeds at the same spin
Explorers and socializers can just play different characters on different servers. 10 servers, 10 total characters at any given time. As for "imposers," I doubt death will be any more permanent in SWG than in any other MMORPG
Re:What about the other ones?
on
Google's new toys
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
No, I think beta testing means exactly what it implies, the software is not release quality yet. At the moment, they probably don't feel like the sorting algorithm they use is "fair," and so they're still finetuning it. Clearly, this can be a lengthy process, which is why they let people use it while they're still working on it. All they're saying by "beta" is that it's not good enough to stake their reputation on, so if you use it, be aware that they think it's not up to the same standard as the rest of their work yet.
Of course, this helped the Russians early in the space race. If we'd sent a man up, and the rocket had exploded, we'd look bad in front of the international community. If a Russian rocket exploded, they could just say "oh, that was an unmanned test." So, the reduced risk from failure, combined with some technical advantages, gave a tremendous early advantage. Then, of course, they started sending engineers to Siberia, while we were able to take advantage of our vastly superior economy to fund Apollo. Oh well.
Actually, this is something I wonder about: why do people on p2p services seem so eager to have you download their porn? The titles are always things like the above (Best ____ ever! Super hot!). It just doesn't make any sense. Do these people just want you to tie up their bandwidth?
That would be "originally," and "movie." Virtually all previews use music from other sources, because the scores for most movies aren't finished until shortly before release. Besides which previews these days have almost a "music video" style to them to hold people's interest, and the film scores sometimes don't work well with that style. I though that it fit quite well with the visuals, though it depressed the hell out of me. And then I saw the Ring. Jesus, talk about a fun evening.
I forgot to mention that what they believe is a mechanical calculator was an ancient greek artifact. That was really the whole point. Jesus, I don't even have the "coffee" excuse.
Actually, I recall reading an article once about the discovery of what appeared to be a mechanical calculator. Not quite an x86 processor, but given that they had not harnessed electricity, still pretty impressive.
Then you can set yours to "fuck off, I don't want to meet people." Then maybe fewer people would bother you. See, you get benefits, too. I mean, really, isn't the wedding ring kind of the most primitive version of this, by indicating that you're not available for dating? I don't see this as the primary use for wireless computers, but it certainly would be a neat feature.
Okay, well I'm guessing the turboprop was an exceptionally low capacity plane, so that may be different. The advantage of boarding at the end is that there is no line, so as you say, you can time when you go up to the gate for a time when there is someone being searched.
Um, an $8000 car woudn't have a cassette/cd player, power steering, power brakes, abs brakes, or automatic transmission, either. The seatbelt and airbags would be present as they're required by law. Regardless though, there's no way you're telling me that a car designed with only the 1948 feature set is going to cost any less than the 1948 cost of $1000. So we're still talking about a change from 100 pens for a car to 50,000.
Have a look at this. Down near the bottom, there are two successive entries, the first about a car, the second about pens. The car in the picture is described as the cheapest American-made car, and cost $1000. The line below that, dated a year later states that the price of ballpoint pens just fell from $9 to $1. So, at the earlier price point, for the price of just slightly more than 100 pens, you could have yourself a new car! Today, of course, you can't get a new car for less than $8,000, but you can have yourself 100 Bics for, what, $2? It really is a striking illustration of how inflation is merely an average, prices on individual items increase or decrease at vastly different rates.
First of all, given the number of people flying, yes, of course some people are going to end up as statistical anomolies. Also, people have a tendancy to remember annoying events. Try actually writing down each time you get searched when boarding the plane, and see if it is actually 80%. Finally, if it bothers you, try waiting until the plane is about to close the doors before boarding. It's just as confortable to wait in the airport as on the plane, and they don't delay departures to search the last few people who board.
Okay, first a question: What does "greatest modern president this country has ever had" mean? The qualifier "modern" seems at odds with the "ever had" bit. Regardless, I disagree with you, I think FDR did tremendous harm with his policies. FDR knew little about economics, and latched on to Keynesian economics because it was in vogue at the time, and gave hope to the American people. Economies have a tendancy to right themselves, so no one can ever say for certain if FDR legthened or shortened the Great Depression, but my personal belief is that he lengthened it. As for WWII, there is evidence that FDR knew about the Japanese plan to attack Pearl Harbor and deliberately witheld that information to involve America in the war. Granted, that is controversial. What is not controversial is that he kept retained all authority until he died. As the war in Europe moved toward a conclusion, FDR's declining faculties rendered him unable to perceive the threat posed by the USSR. Had FDR delegated his authority as he became incompetent, the US could driven all the way to Berlin, denying the Soviets a larger portion of Germany.
Anyway, returning to our original point, he should have stepped down, not because of whether or not he was a good president, but because stepping down after two terms is the right thing to do. George Washington was also tremendously popular, and the fledgling United States was fearful of many threats. However, he stepped down, precisely because he realized that it is dangerous, in a democracy, for any one person to hold onto power for too long. People start becoming loyal to the leader, rather than to the system as a whole. America's tradition of not letting one leader stay in power for too long is one of the major reasons that America's government is now over 200 years old. In contrast, the French currently run by the Fifth Republic, and the Germans are on the Fourth Reich. Happily, FDR seems to have done no lasting damage (probably because he died relatively soon), and Congress has ensured that no one would ever abuse his popularity like that again.
Would this be the Roosevelt that forbade private citizens from owning gold, and put Japanese-Americans in concentration camps? Not to mention the fact that he was the first (and now only) president to violate the tradition of stepping down after two terms, to aviod creating a massive cult of personality. FDR actively sought this, and indeed he switched running mates every four years, because he didn't want anyone under him to get too powerful or well known.
Or are you talking about Teddy? If the latter, I don't really remember him doing anything to promote freedom, except perhaps his whole trust busting thing.
Well, is that really an issue of genetic compatibility, or physical problems? A male great dane just isn't going to fit in a female chihuahua, and a female great dane is going to be too tall for a chihuahua to really climb up on top of, you know? I mean, you take a 4'10" asian girl, and pair her up with a 7'6" black basketball player, you're probably going to have some similar problems, though the size differential is still not as large (and genital size is not as highly correletated to height in humans as it is to dogs).
Because our idiot leaders don't have totalitarian control. Sure, you may not like Bush, but at least he doesn't tell you what websites you can visit, or what TV shows you can watch.
Are you fucking joking me? China can and does arrest its citizens for viewing and posting "inappropriate" material on the Internet. See the report on Amnesty International. In fact, as an example, if the US were as bad as China, you'd risk imprisonment for the very slashdot post you just made.
There's some disagreement in economic theory as to whether advertisements help free market competition or not. The argument that they do not is, as you say, that they are essentially propaganda.
The argument that they do goes something like this. No matter how good the ad, if someone buys a product on the strength of an advertisement, but it turns out to be crap, the person won't buy it again. Therefore, advertising crap products will result in little return, because people will only buy products once. Advertising good products, on the other hand, will build up repeat business, and should have a much higher return. Therefore, in a rational, efficient market, the products most heavily advertised will be the best. The ads will help to improve efficiency by making the public aware of superior products. Companies which spend money advertising inferior products will likely go out of business. (note on the above: "inferior" refers not to quality, but to the quality:price ratio)
That is probably a bit of an oversimplification. This is not a field of economics I have studied in detail, just a quick overview I read in my intro class.
Who is a member of the class, and what are they suing for? According to the website:
The class action Complaint was brought on behalf of all persons residing in the United States who have... encountered an advertising banner [from Bonzi].
The Complaint asks [for] punitive damages against Bonzi in the amount of $500 per class member, as well as compensatory damages in the amount of $5.00 per deceptive advertising banner issued by Bonzi.
Well, I gotta say, lots of luck. $500 for every Internet user in America, plus $5 for every ad impression? Certainly it'd teach these jerks a lesson, but it doesn't really seem very likely. That'd be something like $100 billion. The tobacco companies, one of the biggest lawsuits ever, only paid three times that amount, and that was spread among several companies. No way a judge is awarding this.
What are you asking? Would I pay $300 for an outpost on Mars? Sure, probably. Would I pay NASA $300, and force every other American to do the same, because they promise me an outpost on Mars? Not a chance.
I think the point is that by using open standards, we can make everything work together. You're right, it would be easier to have an organizer wall fixture than a talking table, but why are we choosing one or the other? If you need those medication reminders, why not have your organizer communicate with your table (or more likely, your stereo system)? Or when you wake up in the morning, how about having your shades raise 15 minutes before wakeup, to ease the transition a little?
I'm not saying all of these are necessarily good ideas, but once we build the capabilities, there will be bright people who will come up with good uses. The palmtop seemed like a doomed idea (see Newton) until Palm finally built a device that people found useful. I imagine the "wired home" will be much the same way, just a geek toy until some bright, enterprising soul makes it work.
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On the other hand, the porn industry is notoriously exploitative. The system is designed, much like in prostitution, to get the girls hooked on drugs, so that they have no choice but to continue working. Without people working to keep them down, perhaps some would be able to make a productive contribution to society, so by your "logical" morality, it would not be unreasonable to consider porn immoral.
It'd be much cheaper just to add more heads. Spinning the heads would cause all sorts of problems with vibrations, and require exceptionally large motors. On the other hand, just add a second read head and a nice large buffer, and you can get 104x speeds at the same spin
Explorers and socializers can just play different characters on different servers. 10 servers, 10 total characters at any given time. As for "imposers," I doubt death will be any more permanent in SWG than in any other MMORPG
No, I think beta testing means exactly what it implies, the software is not release quality yet. At the moment, they probably don't feel like the sorting algorithm they use is "fair," and so they're still finetuning it. Clearly, this can be a lengthy process, which is why they let people use it while they're still working on it. All they're saying by "beta" is that it's not good enough to stake their reputation on, so if you use it, be aware that they think it's not up to the same standard as the rest of their work yet.
Of course, this helped the Russians early in the space race. If we'd sent a man up, and the rocket had exploded, we'd look bad in front of the international community. If a Russian rocket exploded, they could just say "oh, that was an unmanned test." So, the reduced risk from failure, combined with some technical advantages, gave a tremendous early advantage. Then, of course, they started sending engineers to Siberia, while we were able to take advantage of our vastly superior economy to fund Apollo. Oh well.
Actually, this is something I wonder about: why do people on p2p services seem so eager to have you download their porn? The titles are always things like the above (Best ____ ever! Super hot!). It just doesn't make any sense. Do these people just want you to tie up their bandwidth?
That would be "originally," and "movie." Virtually all previews use music from other sources, because the scores for most movies aren't finished until shortly before release. Besides which previews these days have almost a "music video" style to them to hold people's interest, and the film scores sometimes don't work well with that style. I though that it fit quite well with the visuals, though it depressed the hell out of me. And then I saw the Ring. Jesus, talk about a fun evening.
I forgot to mention that what they believe is a mechanical calculator was an ancient greek artifact. That was really the whole point. Jesus, I don't even have the "coffee" excuse.
Actually, I recall reading an article once about the discovery of what appeared to be a mechanical calculator. Not quite an x86 processor, but given that they had not harnessed electricity, still pretty impressive.
Then you can set yours to "fuck off, I don't want to meet people." Then maybe fewer people would bother you. See, you get benefits, too. I mean, really, isn't the wedding ring kind of the most primitive version of this, by indicating that you're not available for dating? I don't see this as the primary use for wireless computers, but it certainly would be a neat feature.
Okay, well I'm guessing the turboprop was an exceptionally low capacity plane, so that may be different. The advantage of boarding at the end is that there is no line, so as you say, you can time when you go up to the gate for a time when there is someone being searched.
Um, an $8000 car woudn't have a cassette/cd player, power steering, power brakes, abs brakes, or automatic transmission, either. The seatbelt and airbags would be present as they're required by law. Regardless though, there's no way you're telling me that a car designed with only the 1948 feature set is going to cost any less than the 1948 cost of $1000. So we're still talking about a change from 100 pens for a car to 50,000.
Have a look at this. Down near the bottom, there are two successive entries, the first about a car, the second about pens. The car in the picture is described as the cheapest American-made car, and cost $1000. The line below that, dated a year later states that the price of ballpoint pens just fell from $9 to $1. So, at the earlier price point, for the price of just slightly more than 100 pens, you could have yourself a new car! Today, of course, you can't get a new car for less than $8,000, but you can have yourself 100 Bics for, what, $2? It really is a striking illustration of how inflation is merely an average, prices on individual items increase or decrease at vastly different rates.
Yes, this is why the government mandated asbestos in baby pajamas for a while. Oops.
First of all, given the number of people flying, yes, of course some people are going to end up as statistical anomolies. Also, people have a tendancy to remember annoying events. Try actually writing down each time you get searched when boarding the plane, and see if it is actually 80%. Finally, if it bothers you, try waiting until the plane is about to close the doors before boarding. It's just as confortable to wait in the airport as on the plane, and they don't delay departures to search the last few people who board.
Anyway, returning to our original point, he should have stepped down, not because of whether or not he was a good president, but because stepping down after two terms is the right thing to do. George Washington was also tremendously popular, and the fledgling United States was fearful of many threats. However, he stepped down, precisely because he realized that it is dangerous, in a democracy, for any one person to hold onto power for too long. People start becoming loyal to the leader, rather than to the system as a whole. America's tradition of not letting one leader stay in power for too long is one of the major reasons that America's government is now over 200 years old. In contrast, the French currently run by the Fifth Republic, and the Germans are on the Fourth Reich. Happily, FDR seems to have done no lasting damage (probably because he died relatively soon), and Congress has ensured that no one would ever abuse his popularity like that again.
Or are you talking about Teddy? If the latter, I don't really remember him doing anything to promote freedom, except perhaps his whole trust busting thing.
Well, is that really an issue of genetic compatibility, or physical problems? A male great dane just isn't going to fit in a female chihuahua, and a female great dane is going to be too tall for a chihuahua to really climb up on top of, you know? I mean, you take a 4'10" asian girl, and pair her up with a 7'6" black basketball player, you're probably going to have some similar problems, though the size differential is still not as large (and genital size is not as highly correletated to height in humans as it is to dogs).
Because our idiot leaders don't have totalitarian control. Sure, you may not like Bush, but at least he doesn't tell you what websites you can visit, or what TV shows you can watch.
Are you fucking joking me? China can and does arrest its citizens for viewing and posting "inappropriate" material on the Internet. See the report on Amnesty International. In fact, as an example, if the US were as bad as China, you'd risk imprisonment for the very slashdot post you just made.
Sure, that makes sense, especially given than many Chinese companies are owned by the government, especially the PLA.
The argument that they do goes something like this. No matter how good the ad, if someone buys a product on the strength of an advertisement, but it turns out to be crap, the person won't buy it again. Therefore, advertising crap products will result in little return, because people will only buy products once. Advertising good products, on the other hand, will build up repeat business, and should have a much higher return. Therefore, in a rational, efficient market, the products most heavily advertised will be the best. The ads will help to improve efficiency by making the public aware of superior products. Companies which spend money advertising inferior products will likely go out of business. (note on the above: "inferior" refers not to quality, but to the quality:price ratio)
That is probably a bit of an oversimplification. This is not a field of economics I have studied in detail, just a quick overview I read in my intro class.
The class action Complaint was brought on behalf of all persons residing in the United States who have... encountered an advertising banner [from Bonzi].
The Complaint asks [for] punitive damages against Bonzi in the amount of $500 per class member, as well as compensatory damages in the amount of $5.00 per deceptive advertising banner issued by Bonzi.
Well, I gotta say, lots of luck. $500 for every Internet user in America, plus $5 for every ad impression? Certainly it'd teach these jerks a lesson, but it doesn't really seem very likely. That'd be something like $100 billion. The tobacco companies, one of the biggest lawsuits ever, only paid three times that amount, and that was spread among several companies. No way a judge is awarding this.
What are you asking? Would I pay $300 for an outpost on Mars? Sure, probably. Would I pay NASA $300, and force every other American to do the same, because they promise me an outpost on Mars? Not a chance.
I'm not saying all of these are necessarily good ideas, but once we build the capabilities, there will be bright people who will come up with good uses. The palmtop seemed like a doomed idea (see Newton) until Palm finally built a device that people found useful. I imagine the "wired home" will be much the same way, just a geek toy until some bright, enterprising soul makes it work.