...for making a Wing Commander reference (from the books, not the horrific movie that by coincidence has the same name) in the "department" byline for this story.
One district that received the letter said it had not taught sex ed for years.
So glad the kids are being taught about their own sexuality, rather than being inundated with guilt and mystery and likely engaging in risky behavior.
Re:If you can't handle calculus, science isnt for
on
Help Me Get My Math Back?
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
And stats is pretty useless
That has to be one of the most useless statements I've read on Slashdot. Statistics is one of the most applicable branches of mathematics; it does the best job of allowing us to model our observations of events, since we understand 0% of the world around us well enough to say with 100% confidence what the outcome of a certain event will be.
Not only is it an extremely important field, it's an extremely understudied and undervalued one. I avoided statistics until I began my master's degree, and if there was anything about my educational career I could change it would be taking an intro to statistics course in my undergraduate years, or even AP Statistics while in high school because of how applicable it is to everything.
Re:If you can't handle calculus, science isnt for
on
Help Me Get My Math Back?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Ahhh yeah, I'm in biology and I'm computing non-trivial derivatives and integrals (what's the distribution of the protein location patterns in response to drug x?), in addition to setting up differential equations left and right (enzyme kinetics driving reactions left and right, what are those rates?).
It's not arrogance; frankly, a true scientist is thrilled at the prospect of being proved wrong. It means they're answering some long-standing questions and posing countless new ones. Furthermore, the concepts of "dark matter" and "dark energy" are still only theories; scientists have yet to definitively prove the existence of these entities. These theories just happen to be the best explanations for what scientists observe.
The bottom line remains what osgeek above me said: it's easy for you to call the scientists who postulate dark matter "arrogant" considering it's something that has about as much impact on our daily lives as Einstein's Theory of Relativity does (which, when it was being proved, required very specific measurements to be taken, measurements that could only be gathered in a solar eclipse...how's that for completely unnecessary to quotidian life?).
No, right now we can't definitively prove that the 3D image referenced in TFA is indeed dark matter. But within the parameters of the current hypothesized model, that is what scientists believe to be pockets of dark matter.
This might be naive on my part, but I would argue that the spirit of patents is to protect the inventor's innovation, which in theory would take the form of some sort of product. The protection would allow the inventor to reap the benefits of his/her brilliance.
Essentially, making the invention process more "fair". But I think what we have instead is a system that's far from the spirit in which it was created.
I'm not necessarily saying that's the right way to do things (Nietzsche would have a field day). I'm just saying that's how I see the current system trying to work...and failing miserably.
It's a legitimate issue in the technology sector. All we keep hearing from political pundits and professors in the classroom is that innovation will drive the economy, lead you out of your bankrupt and unemployed community, solve world hunger and cure cancer.
And yet the patent system is structured in such a way that encourages this sort of corporate behavior, culminating in companies like Intellectual Ventures who, given that they don't produce anything per se, exist almost exclusively to stifle innovation. And they're making a truckload of profit in doing so.
Yes, there are certainly other issues that still need working out - can software really be patented, is something intangible really able to belong to someone, should monopolies be regulated, WHEN IS THE US PATENT OFFICE GETTING THEIR ACT TOGETHER (sorry, fingers slipped there), and countless others. But this would appear to be the poster child for everything that's wrong with the current patent system.
I agree, it's a double-edged sword. The system lends itself to simple questions with answers that are easily guessed, and simultaneously users make themselves very predictable. I should have started my previous comment with "And" instead of "Or".
I guess I made the fatal assumption that what you just pointed out was implied in my first post. It's well-known amongst techies that malware across the board has been becoming increasingly complex, even (as is the case with some existing botnets) acting as AV themselves so as to maximize their control over the infected system.
Yes, my comment was applicable to anyone with generic antivirus protection, but my point was to address the (possible) intuitive error that AV software + no observable infection = effective AV software. Arguably, the infections that one should be most worried about are also the infections that are most likely to bypass AV systems.
All this I assumed was implied, given the Slashdot audience at large is very technically savvy; plus I was hoping for brevity being the soul of wit. But I'm also willing to accept that I failed miserably in that task. It's the "Troll" label that has me scratching my head.
I would guess, though, that in order to do something we would typically characterize as "malacious" it would have to eventually wind up in RAM (except in the case of ROM...that would really fubar the system).
Processor cache would eventually result in execution, which takes place in RAM. Video card memory would just do funky things to the display. A pipelined instruction would also eventually end up in RAM once it was executed.
Perhaps the key here is "actively executing" malware. I suppose it can lay dormant just about anywhere that can possibly store writeable information for an extended period of time, but in order to wreak havoc it'd have to eventually wind up in RAM.
I had always assumed the cab industry in New York was so saturated with competition and so decentralized that price fixing like this wouldn't be possible; everyone would have to charge essentially the same rates or risk being driven (literally and figuratively) out of business.
That is a chicken-and-egg problem no matter whether Google exists or not.
Hence why I'm not really sure why Microsoft is getting their lawyers to whine about how unfair it is. It's the nature of the business they're trying to wiggle into.
Slashdot Mirror
+1 just for the "you can't touch my karma, bitches" comment. Awesome.
but not really worth losing your job.
Do we know that he hasn't lost his job already?
...for making a Wing Commander reference (from the books, not the horrific movie that by coincidence has the same name) in the "department" byline for this story.
...welcome our new plankton overlords!
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but isn't that $6B the increase NASA's budget is getting on top of their current budget?
(or the presumed new iPhone to accompany OS 4.0)
...then yeah, no multitasking for you. Sorry about that.
One district that received the letter said it had not taught sex ed for years.
So glad the kids are being taught about their own sexuality, rather than being inundated with guilt and mystery and likely engaging in risky behavior.
And stats is pretty useless
That has to be one of the most useless statements I've read on Slashdot. Statistics is one of the most applicable branches of mathematics; it does the best job of allowing us to model our observations of events, since we understand 0% of the world around us well enough to say with 100% confidence what the outcome of a certain event will be.
Not only is it an extremely important field, it's an extremely understudied and undervalued one. I avoided statistics until I began my master's degree, and if there was anything about my educational career I could change it would be taking an intro to statistics course in my undergraduate years, or even AP Statistics while in high school because of how applicable it is to everything.
Ahhh yeah, I'm in biology and I'm computing non-trivial derivatives and integrals (what's the distribution of the protein location patterns in response to drug x?), in addition to setting up differential equations left and right (enzyme kinetics driving reactions left and right, what are those rates?).
It's not arrogance; frankly, a true scientist is thrilled at the prospect of being proved wrong. It means they're answering some long-standing questions and posing countless new ones. Furthermore, the concepts of "dark matter" and "dark energy" are still only theories; scientists have yet to definitively prove the existence of these entities. These theories just happen to be the best explanations for what scientists observe.
The bottom line remains what osgeek above me said: it's easy for you to call the scientists who postulate dark matter "arrogant" considering it's something that has about as much impact on our daily lives as Einstein's Theory of Relativity does (which, when it was being proved, required very specific measurements to be taken, measurements that could only be gathered in a solar eclipse...how's that for completely unnecessary to quotidian life?).
No, right now we can't definitively prove that the 3D image referenced in TFA is indeed dark matter. But within the parameters of the current hypothesized model, that is what scientists believe to be pockets of dark matter.
This might be naive on my part, but I would argue that the spirit of patents is to protect the inventor's innovation, which in theory would take the form of some sort of product. The protection would allow the inventor to reap the benefits of his/her brilliance.
Essentially, making the invention process more "fair". But I think what we have instead is a system that's far from the spirit in which it was created.
I'm not necessarily saying that's the right way to do things (Nietzsche would have a field day). I'm just saying that's how I see the current system trying to work...and failing miserably.
It's a legitimate issue in the technology sector. All we keep hearing from political pundits and professors in the classroom is that innovation will drive the economy, lead you out of your bankrupt and unemployed community, solve world hunger and cure cancer.
And yet the patent system is structured in such a way that encourages this sort of corporate behavior, culminating in companies like Intellectual Ventures who, given that they don't produce anything per se, exist almost exclusively to stifle innovation. And they're making a truckload of profit in doing so.
Yes, there are certainly other issues that still need working out - can software really be patented, is something intangible really able to belong to someone, should monopolies be regulated, WHEN IS THE US PATENT OFFICE GETTING THEIR ACT TOGETHER (sorry, fingers slipped there), and countless others. But this would appear to be the poster child for everything that's wrong with the current patent system.
Crap, I didn't mean "two-edged sword", I meant "insult to injury". I'm confusing my fighting metaphors here.
I agree, it's a double-edged sword. The system lends itself to simple questions with answers that are easily guessed, and simultaneously users make themselves very predictable. I should have started my previous comment with "And" instead of "Or".
Or the users need to cease using common knowledge as the answers to these not-so-security questions.
Why are we not funding this???
Hey, I need something to whine about, and today was a damn good day just about everywhere else.
I guess I made the fatal assumption that what you just pointed out was implied in my first post. It's well-known amongst techies that malware across the board has been becoming increasingly complex, even (as is the case with some existing botnets) acting as AV themselves so as to maximize their control over the infected system.
Yes, my comment was applicable to anyone with generic antivirus protection, but my point was to address the (possible) intuitive error that AV software + no observable infection = effective AV software. Arguably, the infections that one should be most worried about are also the infections that are most likely to bypass AV systems.
All this I assumed was implied, given the Slashdot audience at large is very technically savvy; plus I was hoping for brevity being the soul of wit. But I'm also willing to accept that I failed miserably in that task. It's the "Troll" label that has me scratching my head.
*sigh* Modded "troll" for speaking the truth, yet again.
and I have gotten a virus in ages.
That you know of.
I would guess, though, that in order to do something we would typically characterize as "malacious" it would have to eventually wind up in RAM (except in the case of ROM...that would really fubar the system).
Processor cache would eventually result in execution, which takes place in RAM. Video card memory would just do funky things to the display. A pipelined instruction would also eventually end up in RAM once it was executed.
Perhaps the key here is "actively executing" malware. I suppose it can lay dormant just about anywhere that can possibly store writeable information for an extended period of time, but in order to wreak havoc it'd have to eventually wind up in RAM.
The hard part is actually finding it.
I had always assumed the cab industry in New York was so saturated with competition and so decentralized that price fixing like this wouldn't be possible; everyone would have to charge essentially the same rates or risk being driven (literally and figuratively) out of business.
Apparently, it can happen anywhere.
Ah right...should've read TFA first before posting (in true Slashdot spirit). Thanks!
That is a chicken-and-egg problem no matter whether Google exists or not.
Hence why I'm not really sure why Microsoft is getting their lawyers to whine about how unfair it is. It's the nature of the business they're trying to wiggle into.