The idea is that the ISP's would not be able to deal with the traffic if the users actually started using a significant fraction of the bandwidth they are paying for. The lines connecting the ISP's are not wide enough.
Some teenagers downloading movies is not a problem, but if average Joe started to use the net as a replacement for TV, then the ISP's would no longer be able to deliver on the bandwidth they have sold.
Or so the theory goes.
What would probably happen is that the unlimited use rates would increase a lot, and normal subscriptions would limit how much you can download.
> It's called the Berne Convention Treaty. America was shoved into coming in line with it; and ran with it.
US made the mistake of joining Bern convention, EU made the mistake of copying the DMCA. Basically, every new limitation on the right of the public on either side of the is copied to the other side, in the interest of harmonization. For some reason, the harmonization never goes to the side that helps the public.
> If the person who wrote the spec "invented" it by copying other people's suggestions then they can't.
Actually, I believe few engineers or scientists would consider it immoral to base a patent on a suggestion from a user survey. User surveys are considered basic research in user interfaces, and the conclusions from the surveys are considered the product of the researcher, not the people being interviewed, even if taken directly from the interviews.
> You do realize that investment firms use analyst's data to make decisions on stocks and bonds > worth tens of millions of dollars. These aren't some fanboys sitting around pulling data out of > their ass.
No, they are some con artists pulling data out of their ass. I have never seen an "analyst" being right in any prediction. They seem to score below what random chance would give.
The reason they are used none the less is that the "deciosion makers" are afraid to make decisions, and use the expensive reports a CYA tool.
Except in the legal sense, Microsoft is not a single entity. It is a collection of people who does not always know what each other do.
The story seems to go like this:
BlueJ becomes popular in academia. When Microsoft ask people in academia which new features they would like to see in Visual Studio, naturally they suggest some of the features that makes BlueJ popular.
Now some people from Microsoft gets assigned to implement this new feature, and for extra credit also write a patent application (or submit the idea to the people who write the patent application).
Later, another person from another subdivision, who happen to be an active blogger, get wind of the BlueJ people are angry that Visual Studio has a new feature copied from BlueJ without acknowledgment. So the blogger find out that it was most likely BlueJ that inspired the academicians to suggest the feature, and acknowledge the fact.
And now, because people think of Microsoft as a single entity, they are angry because Microsoft both patent the idea, and at the same time acknowledge where it came from.
If you change the search for PS3 instead of "playstation 3" and use "," instead of "." to seperate PS3 from Wii, the trend seem to be that PS3 is consistently above XBOX360, and almost identical to Wii. But in the very latest results, Wii has outrun PS3.
If you look at at the cities/regional/language bars below, PS3 is consistently in top for all cities, regions and languages, with Wii and XBOX 360 fighting for the second spot. However, Wii is seriously handicapped by being known under a different name for half the period.
> And people wonder why some Linux and Apple supporters have a bad reputation for being fanatical.
Really? Who are those people?
I have never seen anyone question the fact that some Linux and Apple supporters are fanatical. Not even the fanatical Linux and Apple supporters themselves.
Unless Apple is totally nuts, they will have negotiated the contract terms in advance with Cingular, and threatened to go to one of the other GSM providers if the terms were not as favorable to the customers as possible. They should in fact be able to negotiate terms that makes the iPhone a loss-leader for Cingular, as the iPhone exclusive will be of great promotional value to the company.
If Apple is totally nuts they might have let Cingular in a position to decide the fate of the iPhone. Cingular might then very decide that iPhone is the perfect low volume high margin product, as the most determined Apple fans will buy it at any price.
Only a very confused Libertarian would try to "safeguard the free passage of coins abroad", the coins are state property.
What a Libertarian government might want to do was to withdraw the government from the money concept. A start would be to bind the dollar to the gold again, and the eventually goal would be that instead of government issued money, you would rely on private corporations (most likely banks) to issue money. These "bank notes" would represent a small loan from the bank to the holder of the bank note. For practical reasons, the banks might use paper for larger loans, and small pieces of engraved metal for small loans.
This discussion is interesting, because it illustrates the difference between two different groups of/. users, who are usually allied.
First, there is the freedom crowd. They of course cheer on Norway, as this decision will increase competition between music stores and makers of portable music players, by cutting the tie between the dominating player in both groups.
Second, there is the cool technology crowd. They hate the decision, because Apple is "the good master", providing us with all kind of cool technology. And come up with all kind of objections, that really only make sense to a true believer.
The Good Master meme is well integrated in our culture, think about how many fairy tales are about the good king versus the bad king, rather than about the peasants maybe being able to do without a king in the first place. The Apple worship (and the Microsoft demonising) draw directly on that archetype.
Usually the crowds are aligned, because Microsoft is usually the dominating player, systematically abusing their desktop monopoly in order to expand into other areas. They have been convicted for that many times. And at the same time their technology, while not a sucky as it used to be, is still very boring.
> I think the real problem is that peer review happens before publication, not after.
Very few peer-reviews results in the paper being accepted "as is". The paper is usually "accepted with major revisions", or if the paper is very good, "with minor revisions". Even though we always curse the "stupid reviewers" for the additional work, the truth is that these revisions tend to improve the articles significantly. If the reviewer, usually a seasoned scientist, had trouble seeing understanding some point in the original paper, other readers will as well.
I'm kind of surprised to see an article calling attention to an upcoming FUD campaign by the traditional publishers, in a traditionally published journal.
Pleasantly surprised, but still it seems to me that there is an interesting story hidden there.
Peer review may be of little value for articles by people who are stars of their field, but that is just a tiny fraction of the articles submitted for publishing. For the rest, peer review filters out incredible amounts of junk (I *have* seen the rejections), and improve the rest significantly (that is called "accepted with major/minor revisions").
The nations who invaded Iraq (mine unfortunately included) of course have a responsibility to clean up the mess they created. Unfortunately, the coalition forces have wasted every opportunity presented until now, mostly thanks to a leadership whose strong ideology have prevented them from listening to the advice from people with military and diplomatic experience.
The least bad of the very bad options that remains would be to negotiate a division of the country into Syrian, Iranian, and Turkish(!) areas if interests. If the three countries agreed on borders, the militant groups would more or less be forced to comply.
This is bad because it would screw those Sunnis and Shias who had hoped for freedom, and worse, it would screw the Kurds who have been the most faithful ally of the coalition. But unfortunately for them, Turkey is more important. It would be similar to the Yalta agreement, where the freedom of millions of East Europeans were sacrificed for the sake of peace with the Soviet Union.
> Was the offer made in writing? If so, they are obligated to honor it
They are legally obligated to honor the agreement, even if it was verbal. Of course, if it is verbal, they can deny the agreement was ever made. The trick is to get them to admit (in writing) that there was a verbal agreement in the first place.
The relative poor Eastern Europe has much lower fertility rate than the rich Western Europe, despite a similar culture and similar (high) level of education. Even the very poor North Korea has fertility rate of only 1.9 children per woman. This seem to indicate a different cause is more likely.
In the countries with high fertility, children tend to be (or, until recently have been) responsible for the care of their parent in their old age. Having many children is therefore a way to ensure your comfort at an old age. In the welfare states of Western Europe, the state tend to take over that responsibility from the children. And in the communist states, the responsibility lies with the state to an even higher degree. This can explain why long time communist states have very low fertility rates, and why stable welfare states also have low fertility rates.
For capitalist countries with less well developed welfare systems, rich and well educated people will tend to set up other provisions (funds) to ensure their economic independence in their old age, and thus also be less depend on children for their pension. This explain the effect you see.
The average IQ on a fixed scale has been increasing with about 3 point per decade in the period from IQ tests were introduced until around ten years ago. Since the IQ scale is defines so 100 is the average, this means that the scale has had to be renormalized periodically.
Thus, evolution does not seem to have had a bad effect in IQ for that period (which is probably too short for evolution to be a factor anyway).
Slashdot Mirror
When a "technologist" is off-duty, he want to get as far *away* from technology as possible?
> And just what is it that makes an invasion "legitimate"?
That country invading an ally of yours. George H. W. Bush's invasion of Iraq was legitimate.
The idea is that the ISP's would not be able to deal with the traffic if the users actually started using a significant fraction of the bandwidth they are paying for. The lines connecting the ISP's are not wide enough.
Some teenagers downloading movies is not a problem, but if average Joe started to use the net as a replacement for TV, then the ISP's would no longer be able to deliver on the bandwidth they have sold.
Or so the theory goes.
What would probably happen is that the unlimited use rates would increase a lot, and normal subscriptions would limit how much you can download.
> It's called the Berne Convention Treaty. America was shoved into coming in line with it; and ran with it.
US made the mistake of joining Bern convention, EU made the mistake of copying the DMCA. Basically, every new limitation on the right of the public on either side of the is copied to the other side, in the interest of harmonization. For some reason, the harmonization never goes to the side that helps the public.
> If the person who wrote the spec "invented" it by copying other people's suggestions then they can't.
Actually, I believe few engineers or scientists would consider it immoral to base a patent on a suggestion from a user survey. User surveys are considered basic research in user interfaces, and the conclusions from the surveys are considered the product of the researcher, not the people being interviewed, even if taken directly from the interviews.
> Except I can't shoot a corporation as the last course of action.
But you can bomb their headquarter.
> You do realize that investment firms use analyst's data to make decisions on stocks and bonds
> worth tens of millions of dollars. These aren't some fanboys sitting around pulling data out of
> their ass.
No, they are some con artists pulling data out of their ass. I have never seen an "analyst" being right in any prediction. They seem to score below what random chance would give.
The reason they are used none the less is that the "deciosion makers" are afraid to make decisions, and use the expensive reports a CYA tool.
Except in the legal sense, Microsoft is not a single entity. It is a collection of people who does not always know what each other do.
The story seems to go like this:
BlueJ becomes popular in academia. When Microsoft ask people in academia which new features they would like to see in Visual Studio, naturally they suggest some of the features that makes BlueJ popular.
Now some people from Microsoft gets assigned to implement this new feature, and for extra credit also write a patent application (or submit the idea to the people who write the patent application).
Later, another person from another subdivision, who happen to be an active blogger, get wind of the BlueJ people are angry that Visual Studio has a new feature copied from BlueJ without acknowledgment. So the blogger find out that it was most likely BlueJ that inspired the academicians to suggest the feature, and acknowledge the fact.
And now, because people think of Microsoft as a single entity, they are angry because Microsoft both patent the idea, and at the same time acknowledge where it came from.
If you change the search for PS3 instead of "playstation 3" and use "," instead of "." to seperate PS3 from Wii, the trend seem to be that PS3 is consistently above XBOX360, and almost identical to Wii. But in the very latest results, Wii has outrun PS3.
If you look at at the cities/regional/language bars below, PS3 is consistently in top for all cities, regions and languages, with Wii and XBOX 360 fighting for the second spot. However, Wii is seriously handicapped by being known under a different name for half the period.
You don't have a four digit /. user id, you are not cool.
> And people wonder why some Linux and Apple supporters have a bad reputation for being fanatical.
Really? Who are those people?
I have never seen anyone question the fact that some Linux and Apple supporters are fanatical. Not even the fanatical Linux and Apple supporters themselves.
If you read Wikipedia's policy on acceptable sources, they explicitly excludes wikis.
I find it hard to blame a college for holding the same standards for sources.
Unless Apple is totally nuts, they will have negotiated the contract terms in advance with Cingular, and threatened to go to one of the other GSM providers if the terms were not as favorable to the customers as possible. They should in fact be able to negotiate terms that makes the iPhone a loss-leader for Cingular, as the iPhone exclusive will be of great promotional value to the company.
If Apple is totally nuts they might have let Cingular in a position to decide the fate of the iPhone. Cingular might then very decide that iPhone is the perfect low volume high margin product, as the most determined Apple fans will buy it at any price.
Only a very confused Libertarian would try to "safeguard the free passage of coins abroad", the coins are state property.
What a Libertarian government might want to do was to withdraw the government from the money concept. A start would be to bind the dollar to the gold again, and the eventually goal would be that instead of government issued money, you would rely on private corporations (most likely banks) to issue money. These "bank notes" would represent a small loan from the bank to the holder of the bank note. For practical reasons, the banks might use paper for larger loans, and small pieces of engraved metal for small loans.
This discussion is interesting, because it illustrates the difference between two different groups of /. users, who are usually allied.
First, there is the freedom crowd. They of course cheer on Norway, as this decision will increase competition between music stores and makers of portable music players, by cutting the tie between the dominating player in both groups.
Second, there is the cool technology crowd. They hate the decision, because Apple is "the good master", providing us with all kind of cool technology. And come up with all kind of objections, that really only make sense to a true believer.
The Good Master meme is well integrated in our culture, think about how many fairy tales are about the good king versus the bad king, rather than about the peasants maybe being able to do without a king in the first place. The Apple worship (and the Microsoft demonising) draw directly on that archetype.
Usually the crowds are aligned, because Microsoft is usually the dominating player, systematically abusing their desktop monopoly in order to expand into other areas. They have been convicted for that many times. And at the same time their technology, while not a sucky as it used to be, is still very boring.
Norway is asking Apple to license out their technology to other companies, just like Microsoft already does with PlayForSure.
> I think the real problem is that peer review happens before publication, not after.
Very few peer-reviews results in the paper being accepted "as is". The paper is usually "accepted with major revisions", or if the paper is very good, "with minor revisions". Even though we always curse the "stupid reviewers" for the additional work, the truth is that these revisions tend to improve the articles significantly. If the reviewer, usually a seasoned scientist, had trouble seeing understanding some point in the original paper, other readers will as well.
I'm kind of surprised to see an article calling attention to an upcoming FUD campaign by the traditional publishers, in a traditionally published journal.
Pleasantly surprised, but still it seems to me that there is an interesting story hidden there.
Peer review may be of little value for articles by people who are stars of their field, but that is just a tiny fraction of the articles submitted for publishing. For the rest, peer review filters out incredible amounts of junk (I *have* seen the rejections), and improve the rest significantly (that is called "accepted with major/minor revisions").
[ I have been in "academia" for two decades. ]
The nations who invaded Iraq (mine unfortunately included) of course have a responsibility to clean up the mess they created. Unfortunately, the coalition forces have wasted every opportunity presented until now, mostly thanks to a leadership whose strong ideology have prevented them from listening to the advice from people with military and diplomatic experience.
The least bad of the very bad options that remains would be to negotiate a division of the country into Syrian, Iranian, and Turkish(!) areas if interests. If the three countries agreed on borders, the militant groups would more or less be forced to comply.
This is bad because it would screw those Sunnis and Shias who had hoped for freedom, and worse, it would screw the Kurds who have been the most faithful ally of the coalition. But unfortunately for them, Turkey is more important. It would be similar to the Yalta agreement, where the freedom of millions of East Europeans were sacrificed for the sake of peace with the Soviet Union.
> Was the offer made in writing? If so, they are obligated to honor it
They are legally obligated to honor the agreement, even if it was verbal. Of course, if it is verbal, they can deny the agreement was ever made. The trick is to get them to admit (in writing) that there was a verbal agreement in the first place.
The relative poor Eastern Europe has much lower fertility rate than the rich Western Europe, despite a similar culture and similar (high) level of education. Even the very poor North Korea has fertility rate of only 1.9 children per woman. This seem to indicate a different cause is more likely.
In the countries with high fertility, children tend to be (or, until recently have been) responsible for the care of their parent in their old age. Having many children is therefore a way to ensure your comfort at an old age. In the welfare states of Western Europe, the state tend to take over that responsibility from the children. And in the communist states, the responsibility lies with the state to an even higher degree. This can explain why long time communist states have very low fertility rates, and why stable welfare states also have low fertility rates.
For capitalist countries with less well developed welfare systems, rich and well educated people will tend to set up other provisions (funds) to ensure their economic independence in their old age, and thus also be less depend on children for their pension. This explain the effect you see.
The average IQ on a fixed scale has been increasing with about 3 point per decade in the period from IQ tests were introduced until around ten years ago. Since the IQ scale is defines so 100 is the average, this means that the scale has had to be renormalized periodically.
Thus, evolution does not seem to have had a bad effect in IQ for that period (which is probably too short for evolution to be a factor anyway).
Estonia was more or less rebuilt from scratch by Nokia, Talinn is probably the most technically advanced city in Europe.
Obviously a mathematical and legal proof is not the same. The general meaning is "something that convince you that it is true".
In physics the meaning is usually taken to be "an experiment that demonstrates predictive power to a theory that didn't exist without it."
Due to laypeople who confuse physical proofs with other kinds of proofs, we usually say "validate" instead of "prove".