Now, I realise that I only have a degree and dropped out of my Phd before completing it (due to intense boredom), but what is "academic-grade" supposed to mean? (Before anyone suggests it, Google is being less than helpful...)
This system would contradict one of the basic realities of this universe: ideas are infinitely duplicable at no cost other than the medium to store them.
Unfortunately, an attendant basic reality is that the production of (good) ideas is hard and time consuming, and transforming the basic idea into a completed work (be it a book, film, play, song, painting, etc) can be exorbitantly expensive and time consuming.
Just because you or I can copy a DVD in a few minutes using a couple of pounds worth of disk space doesn't mean that the DVD itself was so easy or cheap to produce.
You are attracted to females in their sexual prime, and this makes you normal.
How old was she? You seem very sure of his total innocence, so, how old was she?
All he says for definite is "under 18". That leaves you free to assume she was 16, 17 or so; until he goes on to say that in court, she looked just like his 12 year old sister.
Now I'm not condoning his treatment, and I definitely don't condone making the identity of currently-registered sex offenders public (and yes, I am a parent), there's just too much danger of mob justice, not to mention people who genuinely didn't do anything very bad being treated like they rape and eat babies. But this guy hasn't given us enough info for you to make that assertion; you don't know if she was a mature 17 year old or a precocious but immature 12 year old.
Does he deserve his treatment at the hands of society? No. Do his parents and friends? Of course not. Can we say for sure that he's "normal" and their persecutors are the "sick" ones? No, not with the information we have.
That's pretty much what he's saying - that unless you're prepared to go and fight yourself, and prove it by joining up and thus putting yourself in a position where you can fight, then you have no right to be pro-war and demand of others something you're not willing to do yourself.
It seems a reasonable position to me - kind of like the old "if you don't vote, you lose the right to complain about the government" line. If you won't fight, you lose the right to demand that others fight on your behalf.
it's a freely available, self updating representation of the entire earth's surface
Just how often do you think the pictures are updated at Google's end? It's every couple of years at best - this isn't Snow Crash, and Google Earth is not a real-time representation.
Because it tastes nice and it's fun, and no matter how healthy you try to be you're still going to die one day. Might as well enjoy yourself in the meantime; rather a waste of a life otherwise.
I already get DVDs with 33% advertizing. Or did you buy one recently where you could skip those pesky ads before the movie?
I can generally skip the adverts - all apart from the stupid anti-piracy one (hello? this is on a DVD I BOUGHT!) and the Dolby or THX one, if there is one. However, unless you either buy really, really short films or get about half an hour of unskippable ads, you're not getting 33% advertising.
Well, if you're talking about sampling, then I can't see how the act of plagiarising in any way detracts from the original author's ability to sell their version. Now, if you're talking about simply taking an entire work, changing the author's name to your own and selling that, then of course you'll have issues.
When you open a postal mail and look at the flyer, it does not report to an anonymous sender that you've read it.
I'm not sure what you're referring to there - are you talking about embedded image links that have recipient-specific parameters in them (in which case blame the idiots that do that, don't use email clients that won't let you not display images, etc), or are you talking about read receipts (that have nothing at all to do with HTML email and are what the aforementioned idiots would use if they couldn't use web bugs)?
The poorly framed pictures on a postcard do not overflow a buffer in your brain, causing you to spontaneously send out truckloads of postcards containing the compromised picture and inducing you to be highly suggestible to the advances of complete strangers.
It's entirely possible to write a text-only email client that is vulnerable to buffer-overflow exploits; again, this is not a problem with HTML email, but with poorly-written software. (I'm also not aware of any such vulnerabilities, but I don't really follow security postings, so I may have missed them)
The vast majority of people who receive postal mail do not have an agent that "previews" all of their postal mail, even from random strangers, and slavishly executes all the instructions contained within it.
There's nothing about HTML mail that makes this a requirement, and it's perfectly possible to have HTML mail and not have dynamic content. Again, you're blaming HTML mail for the failings of poorly-written/designed software.
Now, if you want to talk about the increased bandwidth and storage requirements of HTML mail then that's another matter entirely, but none of your complaints are really about HTML mail, they're about how some software that displays HTML mail has been implemented.
The Word format allows you to embed all sorts of nasties, including macros, 3rd party objects, other documents, etc.
The Word format does, yes - but that doesn't mean that you'll be able to do that in an email, even if both clients do use Word's rendering engine to create and display it.
note that if you get rid of the Imperial Inch, say goodbye to "point" font-sizes; no more will you be able to specify a simple 12pt (ie, 12/72 of an inch), but rather 4.233mm!
Uh, so the "point" becomes the "unit" of font size, and the fact that it's a messy number of mm is irrelevant - just like in Physics when you use c rather than 299 792 458 m/s. The fact that it was originally defined in relation to the inch is irrelevant.
I'm 32 and can remember when they used to quote temperatures in both F and C; I'm not sure if they still do, as I haven't watched a forecast in years. On the BBC weather site at least you can switch between F and C (although I think it defaults to C). I definitely remember it from when I was a kid; not so sure about more recently.
The tabloids definitely tend to use F when reporting on how hot it is in summer, and even my ex (30 years old) seems to tend to think in F when it comes to ambient temperature.
When talking to people I discovered that even though the UK has officially gone metric most people still think in imperial units when it comes to body weight and height, liquid volumes, speeds and distances (long and short)
Yes and no. Well, obviously that's your experience, but I don't think you're getting the whole picture.
Speed is still mostly measured in miles/hour - car speedos have mph much more prominently than kph, and all speed limits are in mph. Likewise, distances on maps and signs are in miles. News reports tend to quote both mph and kph.
We do mostly measure our height and weight in Imperial units; if asked, I'd supply mine in Imperial units, although I know my height in metric (but oddly, not my weight - I can do the conversion though).
Liquid volumes is where your experience differs the most from mine. We buy beer in a pub by the pint, yes; however, while most people will probably still talk about buying a pint of milk, I can't remember the last time I saw milk that wasn't sold in some multiple of litres, and every single other liquid I can think of is sold in litres; fizzy drinks are in litre bottles, wine and spirits in (usually) 75cl bottles (or multiples thereof), cans of beer/cider/soft drinks etc are measured in ml, recipes generally quote both metric and Imperial measures (for everything, not just liquids), etc.
(It's the cans of beer that make me chuckle - we buy it by the pint in a pub, but in 440ml/500ml cans from an off licence...)
Don't forget though that we only went metric for the sale of weighed/measured goods a few years ago, and I'm plenty old enough to remember when weather forecasts gave both celsius and Fahrenheit (in fact, may be they still do; I get my forecasts online now, where you choose). There have even been court cases fairly recently in which people have been prosecuted for refusing to weigh goods in kg, sticking with pounds and ounces.
Given that I have a degree in Physics (with the science-heavy education that implies), it never fails to mystify me why people find Imperial units easier than metric. I've ranted before about the inconsistency (16 ouznces in a pound, but 14 pounds in a stone, 12 inches in a foot but 3 feet in a yard, etc) so I shan't repeat myself here, but I simply don't get it.
Clearly you knew very well that on/., bashing Americans and America is one of the fastest ways to get karma.
No; the fastest way to get karma is to predict that you're going to lose it *or* to invite down-modding. Both of these generally lead to the post in question hitting +4 or +5.
This is something he referred to as a patent plateau -- where the large companies are all so far beyond the reach of smaller entities, be it individuals or companies, that patents in the hands of those not "on the plateau", are practically useless.
Only if you go up against one of the big guys, and are unfortunate enough to have infringed some of their patents. If you don't actually produce anything, or if you otherwise manage not to infringe any of their patents, or if you only go after smaller companies, then you should be fine.
On the other hand, without patents, there would be nothing to stop Company A spending years and millions of pounds developing something, then brining it to market, then watching Company B spending a couple of months and a few thousand pounds reverse engineering it and bringing their own version to market at a reduced price (due to effectively zero R&D costs) and preventing them from recouping their costs. Given that companies are obliged to show a return on their investments and turn a profit, what incentive then is there to make the investment?
If you want to argue that the USPTO is failing in its duty of disallowing frivolous patents, or that patents are granted for too long a period of time, then I'd agree. However to say that patents are useless is rather missing the point.
Nice try, but that'll be 10-20 years *per murder*, with multiple murders and murdering children both likely to push the sentence up as far as the judge can take it.
This isn't a supermarket, they don't do "kill two, get one free" offers...
You're clearly trying to argue that a line has to be drawn somewhere; however, the OP didn't suggest that public nudity or sex should be permissible, and neither is it an unavoidable consequence of allowing women the same freedom to be topless in public that men have, so your argument fails.
However, what exactly would be wrong with allowing people to be naked in public? Or even to have sex in public for that matter? I know it's a cliché, but I really do have to wonder at a race that finds graphic images of death and violence more acceptable than even partial nudity. If anything is likely to create social problems, surely it's the impression that violence is an acceptable response to even the most trivial of slights...
Sounds to me like it makes them look substantially more realistic, which can only be a good thing (for society as a whole, if perhaps not for those of us watching...)
I think you'll find it was sarcasm, parodying the stereotypical attitude of most creative people (including programmers, who tend to shy away from the business side of things too).
Slashdot Mirror
Now, I realise that I only have a degree and dropped out of my Phd before completing it (due to intense boredom), but what is "academic-grade" supposed to mean? (Before anyone suggests it, Google is being less than helpful...)
Demon corpses blocking the path of new demons.
And the demons climbing over them, pushing their way through your makeshift barricades.
In fact, that could've been damn fine with tables, chairs, etc, let alone corpses.
This system would contradict one of the basic realities of this universe: ideas are infinitely duplicable at no cost other than the medium to store them.
Unfortunately, an attendant basic reality is that the production of (good) ideas is hard and time consuming, and transforming the basic idea into a completed work (be it a book, film, play, song, painting, etc) can be exorbitantly expensive and time consuming.
Just because you or I can copy a DVD in a few minutes using a couple of pounds worth of disk space doesn't mean that the DVD itself was so easy or cheap to produce.
Merde!
You are attracted to females in their sexual prime, and this makes you normal.
How old was she? You seem very sure of his total innocence, so, how old was she?
All he says for definite is "under 18". That leaves you free to assume she was 16, 17 or so; until he goes on to say that in court, she looked just like his 12 year old sister.
Now I'm not condoning his treatment, and I definitely don't condone making the identity of currently-registered sex offenders public (and yes, I am a parent), there's just too much danger of mob justice, not to mention people who genuinely didn't do anything very bad being treated like they rape and eat babies. But this guy hasn't given us enough info for you to make that assertion; you don't know if she was a mature 17 year old or a precocious but immature 12 year old.
Does he deserve his treatment at the hands of society? No. Do his parents and friends? Of course not. Can we say for sure that he's "normal" and their persecutors are the "sick" ones? No, not with the information we have.
so civilians can't be pro-war?
That's pretty much what he's saying - that unless you're prepared to go and fight yourself, and prove it by joining up and thus putting yourself in a position where you can fight, then you have no right to be pro-war and demand of others something you're not willing to do yourself.
It seems a reasonable position to me - kind of like the old "if you don't vote, you lose the right to complain about the government" line. If you won't fight, you lose the right to demand that others fight on your behalf.
it's a freely available, self updating representation of the entire earth's surface
Just how often do you think the pictures are updated at Google's end? It's every couple of years at best - this isn't Snow Crash, and Google Earth is not a real-time representation.
Because it tastes nice and it's fun, and no matter how healthy you try to be you're still going to die one day. Might as well enjoy yourself in the meantime; rather a waste of a life otherwise.
Not so much "why bother", more like "I mustn't play with things or I'll get in trouble".
Well, if you're talking about sampling, then I can't see how the act of plagiarising in any way detracts from the original author's ability to sell their version. Now, if you're talking about simply taking an entire work, changing the author's name to your own and selling that, then of course you'll have issues.
When you open a postal mail and look at the flyer, it does not report to an anonymous sender that you've read it.
I'm not sure what you're referring to there - are you talking about embedded image links that have recipient-specific parameters in them (in which case blame the idiots that do that, don't use email clients that won't let you not display images, etc), or are you talking about read receipts (that have nothing at all to do with HTML email and are what the aforementioned idiots would use if they couldn't use web bugs)?
The poorly framed pictures on a postcard do not overflow a buffer in your brain, causing you to spontaneously send out truckloads of postcards containing the compromised picture and inducing you to be highly suggestible to the advances of complete strangers.
It's entirely possible to write a text-only email client that is vulnerable to buffer-overflow exploits; again, this is not a problem with HTML email, but with poorly-written software. (I'm also not aware of any such vulnerabilities, but I don't really follow security postings, so I may have missed them)
The vast majority of people who receive postal mail do not have an agent that "previews" all of their postal mail, even from random strangers, and slavishly executes all the instructions contained within it.
There's nothing about HTML mail that makes this a requirement, and it's perfectly possible to have HTML mail and not have dynamic content. Again, you're blaming HTML mail for the failings of poorly-written/designed software.
Now, if you want to talk about the increased bandwidth and storage requirements of HTML mail then that's another matter entirely, but none of your complaints are really about HTML mail, they're about how some software that displays HTML mail has been implemented.
The Word format allows you to embed all sorts of nasties, including macros, 3rd party objects, other documents, etc.
The Word format does, yes - but that doesn't mean that you'll be able to do that in an email, even if both clients do use Word's rendering engine to create and display it.
cunts like you that push email clients to send and display HTML in all its glory
Do you truly believe that developers added HTML support to their email clients because a bunch of marketers told them to?
note that if you get rid of the Imperial Inch, say goodbye to "point" font-sizes; no more will you be able to specify a simple 12pt (ie, 12/72 of an inch), but rather 4.233mm!
Uh, so the "point" becomes the "unit" of font size, and the fact that it's a messy number of mm is irrelevant - just like in Physics when you use c rather than 299 792 458 m/s. The fact that it was originally defined in relation to the inch is irrelevant.
(Yes, yes, I know - IHBT, IHL, I will HAND)
I'm 32 and can remember when they used to quote temperatures in both F and C; I'm not sure if they still do, as I haven't watched a forecast in years. On the BBC weather site at least you can switch between F and C (although I think it defaults to C). I definitely remember it from when I was a kid; not so sure about more recently.
The tabloids definitely tend to use F when reporting on how hot it is in summer, and even my ex (30 years old) seems to tend to think in F when it comes to ambient temperature.
When talking to people I discovered that even though the UK has officially gone metric most people still think in imperial units when it comes to body weight and height, liquid volumes, speeds and distances (long and short)
Yes and no. Well, obviously that's your experience, but I don't think you're getting the whole picture.
Speed is still mostly measured in miles/hour - car speedos have mph much more prominently than kph, and all speed limits are in mph. Likewise, distances on maps and signs are in miles. News reports tend to quote both mph and kph.
We do mostly measure our height and weight in Imperial units; if asked, I'd supply mine in Imperial units, although I know my height in metric (but oddly, not my weight - I can do the conversion though).
Liquid volumes is where your experience differs the most from mine. We buy beer in a pub by the pint, yes; however, while most people will probably still talk about buying a pint of milk, I can't remember the last time I saw milk that wasn't sold in some multiple of litres, and every single other liquid I can think of is sold in litres; fizzy drinks are in litre bottles, wine and spirits in (usually) 75cl bottles (or multiples thereof), cans of beer/cider/soft drinks etc are measured in ml, recipes generally quote both metric and Imperial measures (for everything, not just liquids), etc.
(It's the cans of beer that make me chuckle - we buy it by the pint in a pub, but in 440ml/500ml cans from an off licence...)
Don't forget though that we only went metric for the sale of weighed/measured goods a few years ago, and I'm plenty old enough to remember when weather forecasts gave both celsius and Fahrenheit (in fact, may be they still do; I get my forecasts online now, where you choose). There have even been court cases fairly recently in which people have been prosecuted for refusing to weigh goods in kg, sticking with pounds and ounces.
Given that I have a degree in Physics (with the science-heavy education that implies), it never fails to mystify me why people find Imperial units easier than metric. I've ranted before about the inconsistency (16 ouznces in a pound, but 14 pounds in a stone, 12 inches in a foot but 3 feet in a yard, etc) so I shan't repeat myself here, but I simply don't get it.
Clearly you knew very well that on /., bashing Americans and America is one of the fastest ways to get karma.
No; the fastest way to get karma is to predict that you're going to lose it *or* to invite down-modding. Both of these generally lead to the post in question hitting +4 or +5.
This is something he referred to as a patent plateau -- where the large companies are all so far beyond the reach of smaller entities, be it individuals or companies, that patents in the hands of those not "on the plateau", are practically useless.
Only if you go up against one of the big guys, and are unfortunate enough to have infringed some of their patents. If you don't actually produce anything, or if you otherwise manage not to infringe any of their patents, or if you only go after smaller companies, then you should be fine.
On the other hand, without patents, there would be nothing to stop Company A spending years and millions of pounds developing something, then brining it to market, then watching Company B spending a couple of months and a few thousand pounds reverse engineering it and bringing their own version to market at a reduced price (due to effectively zero R&D costs) and preventing them from recouping their costs. Given that companies are obliged to show a return on their investments and turn a profit, what incentive then is there to make the investment?
If you want to argue that the USPTO is failing in its duty of disallowing frivolous patents, or that patents are granted for too long a period of time, then I'd agree. However to say that patents are useless is rather missing the point.
Well, the "should of" thing is because it's commonly shortened to "should've", which *sounds* like "should of".
Quite why the people who say "should of" don't twig that "'ve" isn't shorter than "of" nor anything like it I don't know...
Nice try, but that'll be 10-20 years *per murder*, with multiple murders and murdering children both likely to push the sentence up as far as the judge can take it.
This isn't a supermarket, they don't do "kill two, get one free" offers...
You're clearly trying to argue that a line has to be drawn somewhere; however, the OP didn't suggest that public nudity or sex should be permissible, and neither is it an unavoidable consequence of allowing women the same freedom to be topless in public that men have, so your argument fails.
However, what exactly would be wrong with allowing people to be naked in public? Or even to have sex in public for that matter? I know it's a cliché, but I really do have to wonder at a race that finds graphic images of death and violence more acceptable than even partial nudity. If anything is likely to create social problems, surely it's the impression that violence is an acceptable response to even the most trivial of slights...
Sounds to me like it makes them look substantially more realistic, which can only be a good thing (for society as a whole, if perhaps not for those of us watching...)
Now that's what I call a false economy - spend a little bit less money now, to spend a whole fuckload more later.
Of course, by the time it's a problem the people making the decisions will be long dead, so what do they care?
I think you'll find it was sarcasm, parodying the stereotypical attitude of most creative people (including programmers, who tend to shy away from the business side of things too).