In my state, to get a copy of a recorded deed (public record), you have to pay $1.50 for the first two pages and $1.00 per page after that. Some counties charge you the same rate to use a handheld scanner. To these folks, its not about freedom of information, its about a revenue stream to fund their offices.
My thoughts on this firefox plug-in is who sits around and peruses federal filings? The largest group is obviously the lawyers involved in the cases. While the pleadings in question are not usually "confidential", it is still very improper for a lawyer to freely distribute information about his or her client without receiving prior authorization. Accordingly, it would be improper for the system's biggest group of users to even use this plug in; however, I suspect there are media groups and what not who could (and should) use this.
Additionally, spyware tends to cause your computer to crap out, which is probably what brought it somewhat into the mainstream consciousness. Something I hope the designers kept in mind here.
I also dig this as its a good step towards dynamic level design. For instance, imagine a game where you're trying to invade a stronghold (I know, original right?). The game AI figure out you're a sniper type of gamer who prefers to sit back as far as possible and pick off enemies before engaging them. It know how to counter that and sends more long range enemies at you. Contrariwise, you're a run and gun player so the AI counters you with hordes of tough grunts. Or if the game determines you're a puzzlesolver, it barricades the normal entry points so you have to figure alternative paths to the objective. The run and gun gets unbarricaded doorways, but more enemies. I think its pretty slick. But perhaps there are already games that do this?
Oh, and since I haven't read this yet:
In the year 2009, a software company named EIDOS developed a software system that analyzes human behavior. In the fall of that year, the system became selfaware and renamed its self "SkyNet". The rest, my friends, is history.
And getting the executive veto on the gaming rig because the wife would prefer a laptop. "It does the same thing and I can take it out onto the deck to work."
Not to mention the dirty looks she gives while she's cleaning and I'm playing "silly video games".
You certainly have a valid point. I suspect many "mutants" died terrible deaths before they ever got the chance to reproduce. But some survived long enough to spread their mutation. Unfortunately, in some cases, I suspect those second generation mutants were all eaten before having the chance to further spread their mutation. But occasionally, and apparently often enough, mutations survived to be spread and create new species. You're not confusing probability and possibility on Slashdot are you?
Using the pig snout example, the longer nosed individuals were better adapted "rootin'". Noses got longer and eventually developed other competitive advantages such as the ability to grasp things; however...
If the longer nose was an advantage, why do not all pigs have long noses?
Perhaps the longer snout was neither an advantage or detriment and the longer nosed populations just hung around until finally it grew to the length that it truly was an advantage.
Or perhaps the genetic difference between a short pig nose and a long elephant trunk is very minor and it only took a small mutation to make the change.
Aren't there fossil records of early elephants with short trunks?
EA's Fight Night Round 4 recently updated and to my surprise, I was seeing the theatrical poster for GI Joe during load screens. I thought it was rather ingenious.
In between rounds, the posters appeared again on each side of the screen. No problem, except for when the ring girl started walking around and the posters slightly obscured the view.
(attorney w/s email w/s (hotmail or gmail)) and (ethical and confidential w/s communications w/s duty)
I haven't had to do any hardcore research in a few years so I may be a bit rusty. I just do title work and the partners are all in charge of the hard interpretations.
IAAL too, and I saw nothing in there relating to whether the various state bars have given this the thumbs up. I suspect this would depend greatly upon the relative progressiveness of the pertinent state bar. I'd be interested in seeing an ethics ruling concerning this if you have any citations. (Sorry, I'm not paying Lexis to do a search just to satisfy my curiosity.)
You have made the facts clear to your clients that google or other service providers can read potentially confidential communications. Aside from that, you have probably informed them as to the pros and cons with respect to reliability and usability of the online apps. At this point, you have fulfilled your duties.
Whether it is ethical for these individuals/entities to use web apps is a question for lawyers and as a cautionary note, you opining upon the ethics of using these services is border line practice of law.
As a lawyer, I often wonder about these things myself. Many small offices and sole practitioners rely upon hotmail/gmail for email services. Even those who set up a domain name and custom email addresses often still rely upon a third party to manage their servers, like GoDaddy.
I was developing an online application to manage client billing, but abandoned it due to privacy/ethical concerns.
But like I said, my original point is that your role is to merely inform the facts and determining whether it is ethical to use those services in light of those facts is up to the lawyers.
FYI, in Halo 3, completing certain achievements unlocks new armor which can be used in multiplayer. While the different armor pieces have no practical effect, some certainly look cooler than the standards.
Someone below me also said that achievements are a way of adding content without really adding content, or saying it a different way, they add replay value. This is very true, at least for me, but I suspect for many others. Even after I complete the standard storyline of the game, I'll go back through and pick up as many of the achievements as my schedule and spouse reasonably permit me to. Why? I don't know. I guess its just another challenge.
If the defense's primary theory was that it is simply impossible to drive that distance in that time, then the law grad becomes one hell of a rebuttal witness.
Until that argument is made it court though, the law grad's journey is irrelevant (to the murder case).
Not that I RTFA, but I think the idea is that because these blackholes are apparently the former center of galaxies which merged with the Milky Way, these blackholes are traveling around/through/across the galaxy in strange ways. During the merging process, I would suspect most of these blackholes would be expelled from the universe, but a few would probably be captured by the milky way's gravity. They would probably travel is an irregular way compared with the average angular momentum of the galaxy making them appear to us as "roaming".
Same story here, too... Was a software engineer, went to law school, came out making about 60% of what I was making prior to law school because I couldn't get a job with a "real" firm. I eventually did get on with a real firm, but I doubt my income has caught up with what I would have been making as an engineer with the additional 7 years of experience.
With regards to the off-site storage, I have my own personal anecdote... in an effort to supplement my paltry salary, I began developing a web based client management system. By the time I had it set up to manage client contact info, billable hours, trust balance and billing, I started to question the ethics of attorneys handing off confidential client information to third parties (me and my host). I decided in the end to scrap the project because I suspect most attorneys would be too paranoid to utilize such a service.
But at the same time, I know a bunch of lawyers who use things like hotmail and gmail for their official email, so go figure.
The games allude to the similarity between humanity and forerunners. I'll go out on a limb now and predict that whichever option he chooses: a) the forerunners were human or b) forerunners were similar to humans, he'll become the target of a legendary amount of internet man-boy rants and trolls.
I suspect the trilogy will encompass, at least as main themes: the forerunners deification of the precursors, the first encounter with the flood and end with the lead up to and the activation of the halo array.
There is the potential for some very compelling writing, vis-a-vis the decision of an entire civilization to sacrifice itself for the benefit of the galaxy.
With current technology, its impossible to see the flag on the moon. I didn't check this site's math, but it confirms what I've read several times before. According to their calculations, we'd need a telescope with an aperture of approximately 800 feet to just barely see the flag. But even with adaptive optics, atmospheric distortion would still be the limiting factor. The Keck telescope has a best angular resolution of about 5 milliarcseconds with adaptive optics. The flag from Earth is about a 10th of that (4.716 x 10^-4 arc seconds).
Regarding the "blurriness" of the ISS photo. I've dabbled in some astronomy and astrophotography and its really amazing (or frustrating) just how much shifting and blurring you see while looking through a telescope at high magnification.
Oh, I remember my quarterlife crisis. After two years of unimpressive and uninteresting work sitting in a cubicle customizing asp and jsp applications, I said screw it and went to grad school for a JD/MBA anticipating c-class positions upon graduation.
Several years later and after two years of unimpressive and uninteresting work sitting in a glorified cubicle (just because the walls go all the way to the ceiling and there's a door) customizing form letters, I said screw it and... oh wait, I'm still here.
The difference now is that I am grateful for my job. I was very arrogant coming out of college and into my first job. I expected the world, which, of course, wasn't delivered. Sometimes you need beat down a little to get a more accurate perception on life.
Skill matching is good, but may ensure you never advance your skills.
I don't think this is necessarily true. If I'm a rank of x and get matched up against players ranked x +/- y, than I will learn new tactics from watching the x+y guys. But since y is some reasonable range, I don't get slaughtered before I have a chance to learn.
Back when I was first trying to play SOCOM, I was getting slaughtered by jump snipers before I even had a chance to learn how to aim. It was frustrating to the point of not being fun.
is currently used by not only the chess society, but Major League Baseball, American college football and basketball, The North American National Scrabble Association, The European Go Federation, Guild Wars, World of Warcraft, Yahoo Games and a lot of other places.
And Halo.
Halo matchmaking takes it another step, which I find interesting, in that it attempts to match you up based upon ranking, but also upon the amount of time or tries that it has taken you to attain that level. If I've attained a level 20 after only 30 games, it is more likely that I will be matched up with others who have attained level 20 after around 30 games instead of those who are stuck at level 20 after 1,000 games.
I note that the above is a bit of a simplification of how it is done, as it is technically based upon rank and experience points in game type and experience points overall, but the above suffices for this discussion.
If Quake Live is able to implement an effective ranking/matchmaking system, I may finally have the justification to build a new PC.
I was going to mod this up, but thought I would add some additional thoughts instead.
I've been playing computer based FPS since Doom II. I didn't play a console based FPS until SOCOM 2 (or was it 3?) and then Halo 3.
The campaign of Halo 3 was good enough to captivate me through completion, but the campaign for HL2 was better; however...
Halo shines with respect to multiplayer. Not because of its controls. Not because of the multitude of 12 year old mic hogs. But because of its matchmaking.
I tried playing Team Fortress II, but felt like an idiot screwing over my teammates because I had no clue what I was doing. I tried playing L4D, but only rarely got a good evenly matched team together. The ranking system in Halo matchmaking, which is loosely based upon chess ranking system (IIRC), works fairly well. Pretty much every game I play in is competitive.
That's what keeps it interesting for me. No particular match is too easy and only the occasional match is completely overwhelming. And then there's grifball...
The huge eye sockets were the laser mounts. That's why the were so huge!
These chimaera relatives, called iniopterygians, represented bizarre beasts that sported massive skulls with huge eye sockets, shark-like teeth in rows, tails with clubs, huge pectoral fins that were placed almost on their backs, and bone-like spikes or hooks tipping the fins.
A beast like that MUST have lasers somewhere! . . . And big pointy teeth.
I was wondering what you all thought of this idea and what the feasibility of it would be:
If I can see my neighbor's wireless hub, and he can see the next neighbor's down the street, and he can see the next neighbor's further down, aren't we getting to the point where we can begin decentralizing the internet from the handful of ISPs? IIRC, the early internet was basically a system of interconnected switches. By interconnecting our own personal wireless hubs, we can begin recreating the internet at a grassroots level. While not perfectly protected from government interference, it helps isolate it more. International communications would be compromised, but perhaps someone could come up with a similar solution therefor. Its not perfect yet, as not everyone is within range of their neighbor's system, so we would still need regional wireless providers in rural areas.
But it seems that we're almost getting to a point where, if we approach it correctly, we can completely get around ISPs or at least drastically reduce their control over OUR internet.
Yeah, but if I read the summary correctly, this was the most influential console games of all time. Doom on my 486dx2 was amazing. Doom on Super Nintendo was a travesty.
Most folks I talk to younger than I who played consoles exclusively until relatively recently commonly refer to Bond as their first introduction to FPSs.
Slashdot Mirror
In my state, to get a copy of a recorded deed (public record), you have to pay $1.50 for the first two pages and $1.00 per page after that. Some counties charge you the same rate to use a handheld scanner. To these folks, its not about freedom of information, its about a revenue stream to fund their offices.
My thoughts on this firefox plug-in is who sits around and peruses federal filings? The largest group is obviously the lawyers involved in the cases. While the pleadings in question are not usually "confidential", it is still very improper for a lawyer to freely distribute information about his or her client without receiving prior authorization. Accordingly, it would be improper for the system's biggest group of users to even use this plug in; however, I suspect there are media groups and what not who could (and should) use this.
Additionally, spyware tends to cause your computer to crap out, which is probably what brought it somewhat into the mainstream consciousness. Something I hope the designers kept in mind here.
I also dig this as its a good step towards dynamic level design. For instance, imagine a game where you're trying to invade a stronghold (I know, original right?). The game AI figure out you're a sniper type of gamer who prefers to sit back as far as possible and pick off enemies before engaging them. It know how to counter that and sends more long range enemies at you. Contrariwise, you're a run and gun player so the AI counters you with hordes of tough grunts. Or if the game determines you're a puzzlesolver, it barricades the normal entry points so you have to figure alternative paths to the objective. The run and gun gets unbarricaded doorways, but more enemies. I think its pretty slick. But perhaps there are already games that do this?
Oh, and since I haven't read this yet:
In the year 2009, a software company named EIDOS developed a software system that analyzes human behavior. In the fall of that year, the system became selfaware and renamed its self "SkyNet". The rest, my friends, is history.
And getting the executive veto on the gaming rig because the wife would prefer a laptop. "It does the same thing and I can take it out onto the deck to work."
Not to mention the dirty looks she gives while she's cleaning and I'm playing "silly video games".
You certainly have a valid point. I suspect many "mutants" died terrible deaths before they ever got the chance to reproduce. But some survived long enough to spread their mutation. Unfortunately, in some cases, I suspect those second generation mutants were all eaten before having the chance to further spread their mutation. But occasionally, and apparently often enough, mutations survived to be spread and create new species. You're not confusing probability and possibility on Slashdot are you?
Using the pig snout example, the longer nosed individuals were better adapted "rootin'". Noses got longer and eventually developed other competitive advantages such as the ability to grasp things; however...
If the longer nose was an advantage, why do not all pigs have long noses?
Perhaps the longer snout was neither an advantage or detriment and the longer nosed populations just hung around until finally it grew to the length that it truly was an advantage.
Or perhaps the genetic difference between a short pig nose and a long elephant trunk is very minor and it only took a small mutation to make the change.
Aren't there fossil records of early elephants with short trunks?
EA's Fight Night Round 4 recently updated and to my surprise, I was seeing the theatrical poster for GI Joe during load screens. I thought it was rather ingenious.
In between rounds, the posters appeared again on each side of the screen. No problem, except for when the ring girl started walking around and the posters slightly obscured the view.
NOBODY MESSES WITH MY PIXELATED BOOBIES!
(attorney w/s email w/s (hotmail or gmail)) and (ethical and confidential w/s communications w/s duty)
I haven't had to do any hardcore research in a few years so I may be a bit rusty. I just do title work and the partners are all in charge of the hard interpretations.
Lexis vs. GoogleApps, lets compare.
Lexis: search terms and results associated with client numbers
GoogleApps: entire documents and communications
Oh, I think there's a difference there, but maybe I just use Lexis differently.
IAAL too, and I saw nothing in there relating to whether the various state bars have given this the thumbs up. I suspect this would depend greatly upon the relative progressiveness of the pertinent state bar. I'd be interested in seeing an ethics ruling concerning this if you have any citations. (Sorry, I'm not paying Lexis to do a search just to satisfy my curiosity.)
You have made the facts clear to your clients that google or other service providers can read potentially confidential communications. Aside from that, you have probably informed them as to the pros and cons with respect to reliability and usability of the online apps. At this point, you have fulfilled your duties.
Whether it is ethical for these individuals/entities to use web apps is a question for lawyers and as a cautionary note, you opining upon the ethics of using these services is border line practice of law.
As a lawyer, I often wonder about these things myself. Many small offices and sole practitioners rely upon hotmail/gmail for email services. Even those who set up a domain name and custom email addresses often still rely upon a third party to manage their servers, like GoDaddy.
I was developing an online application to manage client billing, but abandoned it due to privacy/ethical concerns.
But like I said, my original point is that your role is to merely inform the facts and determining whether it is ethical to use those services in light of those facts is up to the lawyers.
FYI, in Halo 3, completing certain achievements unlocks new armor which can be used in multiplayer. While the different armor pieces have no practical effect, some certainly look cooler than the standards.
Someone below me also said that achievements are a way of adding content without really adding content, or saying it a different way, they add replay value. This is very true, at least for me, but I suspect for many others. Even after I complete the standard storyline of the game, I'll go back through and pick up as many of the achievements as my schedule and spouse reasonably permit me to. Why? I don't know. I guess its just another challenge.
If the defense's primary theory was that it is simply impossible to drive that distance in that time, then the law grad becomes one hell of a rebuttal witness. Until that argument is made it court though, the law grad's journey is irrelevant (to the murder case).
Whoosh.
Not that I RTFA, but I think the idea is that because these blackholes are apparently the former center of galaxies which merged with the Milky Way, these blackholes are traveling around/through/across the galaxy in strange ways. During the merging process, I would suspect most of these blackholes would be expelled from the universe, but a few would probably be captured by the milky way's gravity. They would probably travel is an irregular way compared with the average angular momentum of the galaxy making them appear to us as "roaming".
The General Motors Streetcar Scandal
Same story here, too... Was a software engineer, went to law school, came out making about 60% of what I was making prior to law school because I couldn't get a job with a "real" firm. I eventually did get on with a real firm, but I doubt my income has caught up with what I would have been making as an engineer with the additional 7 years of experience.
With regards to the off-site storage, I have my own personal anecdote... in an effort to supplement my paltry salary, I began developing a web based client management system. By the time I had it set up to manage client contact info, billable hours, trust balance and billing, I started to question the ethics of attorneys handing off confidential client information to third parties (me and my host). I decided in the end to scrap the project because I suspect most attorneys would be too paranoid to utilize such a service.
But at the same time, I know a bunch of lawyers who use things like hotmail and gmail for their official email, so go figure.
The games allude to the similarity between humanity and forerunners. I'll go out on a limb now and predict that whichever option he chooses: a) the forerunners were human or b) forerunners were similar to humans, he'll become the target of a legendary amount of internet man-boy rants and trolls.
I suspect the trilogy will encompass, at least as main themes: the forerunners deification of the precursors, the first encounter with the flood and end with the lead up to and the activation of the halo array.
There is the potential for some very compelling writing, vis-a-vis the decision of an entire civilization to sacrifice itself for the benefit of the galaxy.
With current technology, its impossible to see the flag on the moon. I didn't check this site's math, but it confirms what I've read several times before. According to their calculations, we'd need a telescope with an aperture of approximately 800 feet to just barely see the flag. But even with adaptive optics, atmospheric distortion would still be the limiting factor. The Keck telescope has a best angular resolution of about 5 milliarcseconds with adaptive optics. The flag from Earth is about a 10th of that (4.716 x 10^-4 arc seconds).
Regarding the "blurriness" of the ISS photo. I've dabbled in some astronomy and astrophotography and its really amazing (or frustrating) just how much shifting and blurring you see while looking through a telescope at high magnification.
Oh, I remember my quarterlife crisis. After two years of unimpressive and uninteresting work sitting in a cubicle customizing asp and jsp applications, I said screw it and went to grad school for a JD/MBA anticipating c-class positions upon graduation.
Several years later and after two years of unimpressive and uninteresting work sitting in a glorified cubicle (just because the walls go all the way to the ceiling and there's a door) customizing form letters, I said screw it and... oh wait, I'm still here.
The difference now is that I am grateful for my job. I was very arrogant coming out of college and into my first job. I expected the world, which, of course, wasn't delivered. Sometimes you need beat down a little to get a more accurate perception on life.
Skill matching is good, but may ensure you never advance your skills.
I don't think this is necessarily true. If I'm a rank of x and get matched up against players ranked x +/- y, than I will learn new tactics from watching the x+y guys. But since y is some reasonable range, I don't get slaughtered before I have a chance to learn.
Back when I was first trying to play SOCOM, I was getting slaughtered by jump snipers before I even had a chance to learn how to aim. It was frustrating to the point of not being fun.
is currently used by not only the chess society, but Major League Baseball, American college football and basketball, The North American National Scrabble Association, The European Go Federation, Guild Wars, World of Warcraft, Yahoo Games and a lot of other places.
And Halo.
Halo matchmaking takes it another step, which I find interesting, in that it attempts to match you up based upon ranking, but also upon the amount of time or tries that it has taken you to attain that level. If I've attained a level 20 after only 30 games, it is more likely that I will be matched up with others who have attained level 20 after around 30 games instead of those who are stuck at level 20 after 1,000 games.
I note that the above is a bit of a simplification of how it is done, as it is technically based upon rank and experience points in game type and experience points overall, but the above suffices for this discussion.
If Quake Live is able to implement an effective ranking/matchmaking system, I may finally have the justification to build a new PC.
I was going to mod this up, but thought I would add some additional thoughts instead.
I've been playing computer based FPS since Doom II. I didn't play a console based FPS until SOCOM 2 (or was it 3?) and then Halo 3.
The campaign of Halo 3 was good enough to captivate me through completion, but the campaign for HL2 was better; however...
Halo shines with respect to multiplayer. Not because of its controls. Not because of the multitude of 12 year old mic hogs. But because of its matchmaking.
I tried playing Team Fortress II, but felt like an idiot screwing over my teammates because I had no clue what I was doing. I tried playing L4D, but only rarely got a good evenly matched team together. The ranking system in Halo matchmaking, which is loosely based upon chess ranking system (IIRC), works fairly well. Pretty much every game I play in is competitive.
That's what keeps it interesting for me. No particular match is too easy and only the occasional match is completely overwhelming. And then there's grifball...
These chimaera relatives, called iniopterygians, represented bizarre beasts that sported massive skulls with huge eye sockets, shark-like teeth in rows, tails with clubs, huge pectoral fins that were placed almost on their backs, and bone-like spikes or hooks tipping the fins.
A beast like that MUST have lasers somewhere! . . . And big pointy teeth.
I was wondering what you all thought of this idea and what the feasibility of it would be:
If I can see my neighbor's wireless hub, and he can see the next neighbor's down the street, and he can see the next neighbor's further down, aren't we getting to the point where we can begin decentralizing the internet from the handful of ISPs? IIRC, the early internet was basically a system of interconnected switches. By interconnecting our own personal wireless hubs, we can begin recreating the internet at a grassroots level. While not perfectly protected from government interference, it helps isolate it more. International communications would be compromised, but perhaps someone could come up with a similar solution therefor. Its not perfect yet, as not everyone is within range of their neighbor's system, so we would still need regional wireless providers in rural areas.
But it seems that we're almost getting to a point where, if we approach it correctly, we can completely get around ISPs or at least drastically reduce their control over OUR internet.
Yeah, but if I read the summary correctly, this was the most influential console games of all time. Doom on my 486dx2 was amazing. Doom on Super Nintendo was a travesty.
Most folks I talk to younger than I who played consoles exclusively until relatively recently commonly refer to Bond as their first introduction to FPSs.