I would say most likely this is a combination of confirmation bias and the fact that they do in fact track what you are buying.
You only remember when you see the coupon around your wife's period, even though you are probably seeing them all the time.
I never claimed they don't track what you are buying, simply that they are not going to extrapolate enough from their data to be able to advertise lipitor based on how much beef you eat. This is a much bigger stretch than advertising hygiene products because you buy other, similar hygiene products, which I'm sure they regularly do.
It is true that isn't illegal, just non-compliant. Which I don't think is a major point in this case since it is still something the merchant cannot do.
I'm sorry that the poster didn't have the time or inclination to look anything up, but without any sources or credentials one has no reason whatsoever to believe anything being written anonymously on the internet. Anyone can easily claim they are an authority on any subject.
Considering how much mail I get at my house belonging to previous tenants I don't think you can assume that all (or even most) people have their mail forwarded. Also, how much junk mail have you gotten with "Address Service Requested" on it? I don't think I have ever seen that, as there is a charge. See here.
You are being a little silly here. When you sign up for the card, they get your address so they can sell it to junk mailers. They do not, however, know your current address if you have moved since getting the card (and I'm sure many people have).
Storing your credit card numbers when you use them via a magnetic swipe is actually illegal, see here for example. So, supermarkets actually cannot store your credit card information.
And finally, the reason the supermarket wants your purchase information is to do analysis of demographics and to better optimize their business. They are not doing the sort of data mining that would allow them to sell you lipitor based on how much beef you eat. You have absolutely no evidence to back up that assertion.
Despite the title, what this article is actually referring to is smartphone sales. That does not include iPods or iPads.
What I find interesting is that despite essentially doubling their iPhone sales since the middle of 2010, Apple is now already a distant second to Android in terms of sales and smartphone market share. This situation is especially remarkable when you consider where Android was 2 or even 1 year ago.
There is no requirement that something be written about in an academic source to be included in wikipedia. Any reputable source will generally do, including newspapers and magazines in most cases.
Any game that had a substantial influence shaping the development of gaming is worthy of inclusion. That doesn't mean that it won't be difficult to find good sources to back up the argument that it was in fact influential.
That's interesting. Most of the non-geek people I know who still have iPhones are planning to switch to Android when their contract is up. I also know a number of people who have already switched and are much happier than they were with the iPhone. There is a whole family of non-geeks I know who have switched directly from the iPhone to the HTC Incredible and are loving it.
As an Android end user, I must say I haven't experienced the "endemic" reliability issues you are talking about. I think your sentiment that Android is "years and year behind the iPhone" is years and years out of date.
There are several advantages if you think about it. One important property of hex tilings is that as you make the hex grid finer and finer, the distance between two arbitrary points on the grid approaches our standard (Euclidean) distance measure. Square tiles do not have this property. (Think moving diagonally; no matter how fine the grid is it is always faster to move diagonally than horizontally or vertically.
Another advantage is in combat; forming defensive or offensive lines will work better as the distance between a tile and any adjacent tile is always the same. In the context of Civ, this also makes a lot more sense for things like the city radius.
The summary says it will be "bathing the cosmos with infrared light". What is this supposed to mean? The spacecraft will be detecting light, but will not be emitting it in any substantial quantity. In fact, WISE will be emitting very little infrared light at all (even for a spacecraft), as it is being kept cool for the next 10 months or so with an onboard supply of solid hydrogen.
However, in this situation, that doesn't apply. There is no reason you cannot collect very close to 100% of the energy from braking using your regenerative braking system. There will of course be some loss due to efficiency in the air resistance and rolling resistance. Also, current regenerative braking technology doesn't apply enough force at slow speeds to stop the car in a reasonable manner, and so is quite inefficient at slow speeds. There is nothing fundamental preventing it from being much more efficient, however.
The article claims Ramji has improved relations between Microsoft and open source people? Since when have relations between Microsoft and open source been anything but negative? We read stories on here almost every day about some new point of conflict.
I do agree with you to some extent. However, a lot of the time you spent "bored out of your mind" was probably still production, whether you realize it or not. Sitting down to memorize multiplication tables is not in any way fun and does require quite a bit of discipline for the vast majority of children. It is still a very important thing to learn and it sounds like this "unschooling" would not deliver this sort of learning. If you actually sit down and think about it there are a great many things you learned at a young age which are like multiplication tables in this respect.
Sorry, I can see how one could easily read what I wrote to mean something other than what I meant.
We have certainly not found all exoplanets within a few hundred light years. However, this technique is useless for distances that short. So, it will not help us in finding any additional planets within that distance.
The reason this is important is because within that distance is where we are going to detect our first Earth like exo planet.
It is pretty unlikely to be used in the way (I think) you are thinking. The technique relies upon the use of gravitational lensing (specifically microlensing from a star). This requires that a closer star is very close to the line of sight of a more distant star. Also, the microlensing effect bends the angle of the light, and so the angular displacement depends on how far away the star doing the bending is. (If a star is very close and bending light, the light will not have gone very far from where it would be otherwise by the time it reaches us). I hope that made sense
Anyway, because of these reasons, this technique is unlikely to be useful in analyzing stars within our own galaxy, and certainly is useless for stars within a few hundred light years, where all the other exoplanets have been found.
Yes; in principle the same sorts of tests that have been done for quantum mechanics could be done to test string theory. The example I gave above is a good one; string theory would predict slightly different energy levels for the hydrogen atom.
However, there is a slight practical problem. While we can measure these things to phenomenal accuracy (10 or 12 digits) the predictions of string theory would only become different from the predictions of quantum theory at somewhere in the range of 25 to 35 digits, depending on the theory. These differences are so far beyond our current ability to measure that there is very little hope for any sort of confirmation of string theory in the foreseeable future.
Because of this fact and the fact that there is no clear mathematical reason to favor one string theory in particular (there are infinite possible variations), string theory has in the end contributed essentially nothing to modern physics.
You make a mistake in lumping quantum theory in with String Theory.
There is at present no evidence whatsoever that quantum mechanics, quantum electrodynamics, and so on are wrong. These theories are the best tested theories in human history (certain predictions about energy levels such as those in the hydrogen atom have been verified to 12 or so digits of accuracy.) Quantum mechanics is at this point the best tested and thus most probably correct theory in physics by far. This does not mean that there isn't another underlying theory that will make somewhat different predictions, but the differences would have to be fantastically small.
String theory, on the other hand, has basically no evidence against it, but also virtually no supporting evidence. This is mostly because it hasn't really come up with much in the way of testable claims.
In fact there is a fabric of sorts, see Casimir Effect for an experimental result of that "fabric".
It is not at all like the aether that people were thinking of in the 19th century, but it does exist. One way of looking at it is that the vacuum is filled with particles that are constantly popping in and out of existence. Another way is to look as the vacuum as having a "zero point" energy. Either way, it is not truly "empty".
Indeed, I think you are right. In fact, not even musicians are really a market for Creative's cards. Most musicians want something with some good quality recording capability, and this is not something that Creative is known for.
Actually I misspoke slightly - With a fixed overlay you do not need an additional dimension - the overlay is fixed after all. If you are allowed to move said overlay around, then, yes, obviously you would 2 additional dimensions for each such overlay.
I assumed like you previously said, that you were trying to identify a single pixel. In this case, the set is 3D or 4D if you include time, as I stated.
If you want to know what portion of the page is visible, you only need 2 additional fixed variables, the screen width and screen height. These are not additional dimensions. They are fixed. (Unless you want to consider the ability to resize the browser window a dimension, in which case I will grant you 2 additional dimensions).
It is true that if you have a fixed overlay, then you would need additional dimensions to describe this. However, I should point out that we could go on like this all day adding more dimensions. What I think was originally being referred to was just a more typical simple web page. Unless you have an overlay as you describe, you do not need scrollx or scrolly.
Actually, if you want to be pedantic, the browser is only 1 dimensional (plus 1 more for time, if you like). There are only a finite number of possible states your computer can assume. Therefore, you can describe your entire browser state with just 1 variable.
You do not need this many variables, however. One definition of dimension is the smallest number of variables you need to span a set. For example, the following would work:
I hate these articles. They merely further the myth that you have to spend thousands on a PC to get decent gaming performance.
In reality, you could spend $500 on a PC (not including monitor) and get something that will play Crysis on high or very high depending on what resolution you are running.
You can put together what would in reasonable circles be considered high end for under $1000, yet that price is basically relegated to be "bargain basement" in this article.
Slashdot Mirror
I would say most likely this is a combination of confirmation bias and the fact that they do in fact track what you are buying.
You only remember when you see the coupon around your wife's period, even though you are probably seeing them all the time.
I never claimed they don't track what you are buying, simply that they are not going to extrapolate enough from their data to be able to advertise lipitor based on how much beef you eat. This is a much bigger stretch than advertising hygiene products because you buy other, similar hygiene products, which I'm sure they regularly do.
It is true that isn't illegal, just non-compliant. Which I don't think is a major point in this case since it is still something the merchant cannot do.
I'm sorry that the poster didn't have the time or inclination to look anything up, but without any sources or credentials one has no reason whatsoever to believe anything being written anonymously on the internet. Anyone can easily claim they are an authority on any subject.
I didn't claim to be an authority on the topic. Instead I cited a source here. If you read my comment I think you will see that.
Considering how much mail I get at my house belonging to previous tenants I don't think you can assume that all (or even most) people have their mail forwarded. Also, how much junk mail have you gotten with "Address Service Requested" on it? I don't think I have ever seen that, as there is a charge. See here.
Instead of making a completely unverifiable claim that you are an authority figure on the topic, you should cite actual sources.
You are being a little silly here. When you sign up for the card, they get your address so they can sell it to junk mailers. They do not, however, know your current address if you have moved since getting the card (and I'm sure many people have).
Storing your credit card numbers when you use them via a magnetic swipe is actually illegal, see here for example. So, supermarkets actually cannot store your credit card information.
And finally, the reason the supermarket wants your purchase information is to do analysis of demographics and to better optimize their business. They are not doing the sort of data mining that would allow them to sell you lipitor based on how much beef you eat. You have absolutely no evidence to back up that assertion.
Despite the title, what this article is actually referring to is smartphone sales. That does not include iPods or iPads.
What I find interesting is that despite essentially doubling their iPhone sales since the middle of 2010, Apple is now already a distant second to Android in terms of sales and smartphone market share. This situation is especially remarkable when you consider where Android was 2 or even 1 year ago.
There is no requirement that something be written about in an academic source to be included in wikipedia. Any reputable source will generally do, including newspapers and magazines in most cases.
Any game that had a substantial influence shaping the development of gaming is worthy of inclusion. That doesn't mean that it won't be difficult to find good sources to back up the argument that it was in fact influential.
That's interesting. Most of the non-geek people I know who still have iPhones are planning to switch to Android when their contract is up. I also know a number of people who have already switched and are much happier than they were with the iPhone. There is a whole family of non-geeks I know who have switched directly from the iPhone to the HTC Incredible and are loving it.
As an Android end user, I must say I haven't experienced the "endemic" reliability issues you are talking about. I think your sentiment that Android is "years and year behind the iPhone" is years and years out of date.
There are several advantages if you think about it. One important property of hex tilings is that as you make the hex grid finer and finer, the distance between two arbitrary points on the grid approaches our standard (Euclidean) distance measure. Square tiles do not have this property. (Think moving diagonally; no matter how fine the grid is it is always faster to move diagonally than horizontally or vertically.
Another advantage is in combat; forming defensive or offensive lines will work better as the distance between a tile and any adjacent tile is always the same. In the context of Civ, this also makes a lot more sense for things like the city radius.
Overall, it is just a much better system.
The summary says it will be "bathing the cosmos with infrared light". What is this supposed to mean? The spacecraft will be detecting light, but will not be emitting it in any substantial quantity. In fact, WISE will be emitting very little infrared light at all (even for a spacecraft), as it is being kept cool for the next 10 months or so with an onboard supply of solid hydrogen.
No, he is right. The reason you can't always get close to 100% is because of something called Carnot efficiency.
Carnot Cycle
However, in this situation, that doesn't apply. There is no reason you cannot collect very close to 100% of the energy from braking using your regenerative braking system. There will of course be some loss due to efficiency in the air resistance and rolling resistance. Also, current regenerative braking technology doesn't apply enough force at slow speeds to stop the car in a reasonable manner, and so is quite inefficient at slow speeds. There is nothing fundamental preventing it from being much more efficient, however.
The article claims Ramji has improved relations between Microsoft and open source people? Since when have relations between Microsoft and open source been anything but negative? We read stories on here almost every day about some new point of conflict.
I do agree with you to some extent. However, a lot of the time you spent "bored out of your mind" was probably still production, whether you realize it or not. Sitting down to memorize multiplication tables is not in any way fun and does require quite a bit of discipline for the vast majority of children. It is still a very important thing to learn and it sounds like this "unschooling" would not deliver this sort of learning. If you actually sit down and think about it there are a great many things you learned at a young age which are like multiplication tables in this respect.
Sorry, I can see how one could easily read what I wrote to mean something other than what I meant.
We have certainly not found all exoplanets within a few hundred light years. However, this technique is useless for distances that short. So, it will not help us in finding any additional planets within that distance.
The reason this is important is because within that distance is where we are going to detect our first Earth like exo planet.
It is pretty unlikely to be used in the way (I think) you are thinking. The technique relies upon the use of gravitational lensing (specifically microlensing from a star). This requires that a closer star is very close to the line of sight of a more distant star. Also, the microlensing effect bends the angle of the light, and so the angular displacement depends on how far away the star doing the bending is. (If a star is very close and bending light, the light will not have gone very far from where it would be otherwise by the time it reaches us). I hope that made sense
Anyway, because of these reasons, this technique is unlikely to be useful in analyzing stars within our own galaxy, and certainly is useless for stars within a few hundred light years, where all the other exoplanets have been found.
Yes; in principle the same sorts of tests that have been done for quantum mechanics could be done to test string theory. The example I gave above is a good one; string theory would predict slightly different energy levels for the hydrogen atom.
However, there is a slight practical problem. While we can measure these things to phenomenal accuracy (10 or 12 digits) the predictions of string theory would only become different from the predictions of quantum theory at somewhere in the range of 25 to 35 digits, depending on the theory. These differences are so far beyond our current ability to measure that there is very little hope for any sort of confirmation of string theory in the foreseeable future.
Because of this fact and the fact that there is no clear mathematical reason to favor one string theory in particular (there are infinite possible variations), string theory has in the end contributed essentially nothing to modern physics.
You make a mistake in lumping quantum theory in with String Theory.
There is at present no evidence whatsoever that quantum mechanics, quantum electrodynamics, and so on are wrong. These theories are the best tested theories in human history (certain predictions about energy levels such as those in the hydrogen atom have been verified to 12 or so digits of accuracy.) Quantum mechanics is at this point the best tested and thus most probably correct theory in physics by far. This does not mean that there isn't another underlying theory that will make somewhat different predictions, but the differences would have to be fantastically small.
String theory, on the other hand, has basically no evidence against it, but also virtually no supporting evidence. This is mostly because it hasn't really come up with much in the way of testable claims.
In fact there is a fabric of sorts, see Casimir Effect for an experimental result of that "fabric".
It is not at all like the aether that people were thinking of in the 19th century, but it does exist. One way of looking at it is that the vacuum is filled with particles that are constantly popping in and out of existence. Another way is to look as the vacuum as having a "zero point" energy. Either way, it is not truly "empty".
Indeed, I think you are right. In fact, not even musicians are really a market for Creative's cards. Most musicians want something with some good quality recording capability, and this is not something that Creative is known for.
I think that what you are suggesting is already standard fare for the Linux kernel.
Typically, the kernel and all modules are precompiled. Then, modules are swapped in and out as needed.
Actually I misspoke slightly - With a fixed overlay you do not need an additional dimension - the overlay is fixed after all. If you are allowed to move said overlay around, then, yes, obviously you would 2 additional dimensions for each such overlay.
If you want to know what portion of the page is visible, you only need 2 additional fixed variables, the screen width and screen height. These are not additional dimensions. They are fixed. (Unless you want to consider the ability to resize the browser window a dimension, in which case I will grant you 2 additional dimensions).
It is true that if you have a fixed overlay, then you would need additional dimensions to describe this. However, I should point out that we could go on like this all day adding more dimensions. What I think was originally being referred to was just a more typical simple web page. Unless you have an overlay as you describe, you do not need scrollx or scrolly.
Actually, if you want to be pedantic, the browser is only 1 dimensional (plus 1 more for time, if you like). There are only a finite number of possible states your computer can assume. Therefore, you can describe your entire browser state with just 1 variable.
I hate these articles. They merely further the myth that you have to spend thousands on a PC to get decent gaming performance.
In reality, you could spend $500 on a PC (not including monitor) and get something that will play Crysis on high or very high depending on what resolution you are running.
You can put together what would in reasonable circles be considered high end for under $1000, yet that price is basically relegated to be "bargain basement" in this article.