Most experts say computers are not addictive in the same sense that drugs are, but they could be on the same level as gambling.
I'm not so sure gambling and drugs are all that different, surely not as different as this sentence implies.
Recent research has shown that drugs and gambling trigger in addicts the same pleasure receptors in the brain, in the same areas.
Antidepressants like Prozac, affecting dopamine levels, have been used for years to treat drug and alcohol dependency. Experimental evidence now shows it often has the same success in curbing the urge to gamble as well.
As a professional gambler, I've seen firsthand the amazing recklessness gambling addiction can cause, the complete lack of self-control it can cause. I've heard more than one person say that kicking drugs was hard, but nothing compared to trying to stop gambling.
Automatically treating addictions to gambling or sex or anything else as minor or somehow less real because they don't involve a chemical dependency is a mistake.
Nope. Roughly 60 plays + special plays (kickoffs, punts, etc). Likely fewer in this game, since both teams have potent running games.
Wrong. There are 60 minutes in a game. Even if the clock ran continuously through the game, they only get 40 seconds max between plays, plus the time the actual play takes, so maybe one play per 45 seconds. This means a minimum of 80 plays. In reality, teams don't take the full 40 seconds between plays all the time, plus the clock stops after an incomplete pass, whenever the ball carrier goes out of bounds, at the end of quarters/halves, after scores, and after every timeout - and it doesn't start again until the next snap.
Consider the extreme situation, the two-minute drill at the end of the game. Teams often run 6 or 7 plays during a single (game-clock) minute.
A much closer estimate would probably be a play every 30 game-clock seconds, or 120 plays per game.
do they really switch them every single play?
For the first half. Then they use only(!) 12 balls for the 2nd half. It's in the article.
Also note that this isn't standard practice for all NFL games, just something for the Super Bowl. Although even in regular season games, they still keep some ridiculous number of balls on hand. It's usually left up to the offensive team how often they switch the ball, so they could technically do it every play for the whole season.
It's not like the cost for this many balls, even with embedded DNA, is the least bit significant for the NFL, considering what they are making off this one game.
Hell, even in grade school football I remember each team running in a clean, dry ball at the beginning of each possession, and more often in bad weather.
Cocaine is an illegal product under ALL circumstances. Actually, no. Cocaine is classified as a Schedule II controlled substance by the DEA. It's rarely done, but doctors willing to fill out a bunch of extra paperwork - and probably answer some extra questions - can prescribe it.
It's a well known fact that the term "hacker" did not originally apply to the people that media now calls hackers.
The whole reason this discussion keeps happening is that it is not a "well known fact."
Just because the media says it, doesn't mean it's true.
And just because the Jargon File says it's not doesn't make it false.
Linguistically, words have no transcendent, objective "true" or "false" meaning. The "correct" definition of a word is simply however most people use it. It is not the original meaning, or the meaning that some people want it to be.
I generally agree with your sentiment, and have even "corrected" people who've used it in the perjorative sense. But, what's the point? If the general public thinks it means one thing, what good does it do to take the considerable effort required to re-engineer its meaning back to what we want it to be?
Cracking refers to people who break into computer systems using nefarious means.
This is a good example of my point. The only time I see "cracking" used in this sense is by those trying to reclaim the positive meaning of "hacker."
If these were technical terms, arguing for a "correct" definition would be one thing, but these are all basically slang. There are a lot of good issues for this community to advocate; why spend so much effort on a purely semantic one?
Mandrake 10.1 with current standard patches, logged in remotely (laptop in the same room). All that did was make the machine start whirring loudly. Then it got a little slow.
Okay, the load hit four digits, and then I couldn't log in for a few minutes. Totally reasonable.
Hey, at least it didn't crash!
I run Mandrake because it's "easy," and because I've never used a non-RPM based distro. I was a sysadmin in college but am out of the industry and don't have time to configure and tweak every package. I've been getting more and more fed up with Mandrake for lots of reasons, but have kept putting off switching. Debian has always sounded great, but there's just always been higher priorities.
How much time and effort would it take to get up and running with Debian and be comfortable installing and upgrading packages, etc., for someone who's never used anything but RPM or build manually from source? Are there other major differences in administration?
Is it worth switching? This is just a home machine, for running samba and apache inside a firewall and personal hacking projects. It runs and is stable, and the goal is to keep it that way while avoiding lots of headaches.
Is there a good guide or discussion somewhere on switching between distributions in general, or specifically to Debian? Should I consider something else?
1) Internet access is a "nice to have" convienence but hardly a public necessity (like roads, schools, etc.). By creating a government-sponsored network, you inevitably impose taxes on many folks who will never use, nor want, a wireless network.
So, should government not provide public libraries? Museums? Parks? Most people don't use those, and you are inevitably imposing taxes on those that can't read and don't want books.
Private enterprise would probably create a technologically superior network, true, but then they have to come up with a pricing model to charge for use. This defeats the whole purpose of the plan: free access for all.
Even if they decided that wireless wasn't generally useful and that most residents wouldn't use it and didn't want to pay for it, they could still easily justify it. It makes the city more attractive to tourists and businesses, stimulating the local economy, providing jobs, increasing tax revenues to offset the costs.
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I'm not so sure gambling and drugs are all that different, surely not as different as this sentence implies.
Recent research has shown that drugs and gambling trigger in addicts the same pleasure receptors in the brain, in the same areas.
Antidepressants like Prozac, affecting dopamine levels, have been used for years to treat drug and alcohol dependency. Experimental evidence now shows it often has the same success in curbing the urge to gamble as well.
As a professional gambler, I've seen firsthand the amazing recklessness gambling addiction can cause, the complete lack of self-control it can cause. I've heard more than one person say that kicking drugs was hard, but nothing compared to trying to stop gambling.
Automatically treating addictions to gambling or sex or anything else as minor or somehow less real because they don't involve a chemical dependency is a mistake.
"Does the average game even have 120 plays"
Nope. Roughly 60 plays + special plays (kickoffs, punts, etc). Likely fewer in this game, since both teams have potent running games.
Wrong. There are 60 minutes in a game. Even if the clock ran continuously through the game, they only get 40 seconds max between plays, plus the time the actual play takes, so maybe one play per 45 seconds. This means a minimum of 80 plays. In reality, teams don't take the full 40 seconds between plays all the time, plus the clock stops after an incomplete pass, whenever the ball carrier goes out of bounds, at the end of quarters/halves, after scores, and after every timeout - and it doesn't start again until the next snap.
Consider the extreme situation, the two-minute drill at the end of the game. Teams often run 6 or 7 plays during a single (game-clock) minute.
A much closer estimate would probably be a play every 30 game-clock seconds, or 120 plays per game.
do they really switch them every single play?
For the first half. Then they use only(!) 12 balls for the 2nd half. It's in the article.
Also note that this isn't standard practice for all NFL games, just something for the Super Bowl. Although even in regular season games, they still keep some ridiculous number of balls on hand. It's usually left up to the offensive team how often they switch the ball, so they could technically do it every play for the whole season.
It's not like the cost for this many balls, even with embedded DNA, is the least bit significant for the NFL, considering what they are making off this one game.
Hell, even in grade school football I remember each team running in a clean, dry ball at the beginning of each possession, and more often in bad weather.
Cocaine is an illegal product under ALL circumstances.
Actually, no. Cocaine is classified as a Schedule II controlled substance by the DEA. It's rarely done, but doctors willing to fill out a bunch of extra paperwork - and probably answer some extra questions - can prescribe it.
It's a well known fact that the term "hacker" did not originally apply to the people that media now calls hackers.
The whole reason this discussion keeps happening is that it is not a "well known fact."
Just because the media says it, doesn't mean it's true.
And just because the Jargon File says it's not doesn't make it false.
Linguistically, words have no transcendent, objective "true" or "false" meaning. The "correct" definition of a word is simply however most people use it. It is not the original meaning, or the meaning that some people want it to be.
I generally agree with your sentiment, and have even "corrected" people who've used it in the perjorative sense. But, what's the point? If the general public thinks it means one thing, what good does it do to take the considerable effort required to re-engineer its meaning back to what we want it to be?
Cracking refers to people who break into computer systems using nefarious means.
This is a good example of my point. The only time I see "cracking" used in this sense is by those trying to reclaim the positive meaning of "hacker."
If these were technical terms, arguing for a "correct" definition would be one thing, but these are all basically slang. There are a lot of good issues for this community to advocate; why spend so much effort on a purely semantic one?
Hey, at least it didn't crash!
I run Mandrake because it's "easy," and because I've never used a non-RPM based distro. I was a sysadmin in college but am out of the industry and don't have time to configure and tweak every package. I've been getting more and more fed up with Mandrake for lots of reasons, but have kept putting off switching. Debian has always sounded great, but there's just always been higher priorities.
How much time and effort would it take to get up and running with Debian and be comfortable installing and upgrading packages, etc., for someone who's never used anything but RPM or build manually from source? Are there other major differences in administration?
Is it worth switching? This is just a home machine, for running samba and apache inside a firewall and personal hacking projects. It runs and is stable, and the goal is to keep it that way while avoiding lots of headaches.
Is there a good guide or discussion somewhere on switching between distributions in general, or specifically to Debian? Should I consider something else?
1) Internet access is a "nice to have" convienence but hardly a public necessity (like roads, schools, etc.). By creating a government-sponsored network, you inevitably impose taxes on many folks who will never use, nor want, a wireless network.
So, should government not provide public libraries? Museums? Parks? Most people don't use those, and you are inevitably imposing taxes on those that can't read and don't want books.
Private enterprise would probably create a technologically superior network, true, but then they have to come up with a pricing model to charge for use. This defeats the whole purpose of the plan: free access for all.
Even if they decided that wireless wasn't generally useful and that most residents wouldn't use it and didn't want to pay for it, they could still easily justify it. It makes the city more attractive to tourists and businesses, stimulating the local economy, providing jobs, increasing tax revenues to offset the costs.