The consumer still has the right to use their hardware any way they want. They still have the right to open up their PS3 (both the soft and hard ware) and do anything they want with it. If they want to continue connecting to Sony's network and using Sony's services then they must agree to certain limitations on that use. Nothing wrong with that.
Did you still want to keep Other OS? You had the option to decline their update. Sony didn't send killbots to your house to force you to update.
Seriously, California doesn't get to give advise to anyone ever about anything, you guys failed, epic style.
Sure, California is really struggling right now, but it's hard to say they've failed. According to Wikipedia, California has the 8th largest economy in the world. Greater than most countries.
Cali's gross state product contributes approximately 13% of the US GDP, while they hold only 12% of the US Population. By those numbers the average Californian is more productive than the average American.
They've got some problems right now to be sure, but I think its a hard sell to claim they've failed.
I had meant that line to be more dripping with sarcasm. After rereading it it sounded more serious than I meant it. I'd intended it to be satirical in drawing a parallel between the Vietnam war and the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan (equating Geurillas with Terrorists).
But now that we're on the topic, you should loosen up on the tinfoil headpiece. If you think the US Government is a shadow as oppressive as Hussein was then you are seriously misinformed.
"destabilize environmental and agricultural systems"
The U.S. government kills anyone, anywhere if it will make money for someone who secretly holds the strings of power. Climate destabilization is trivial by comparison.
Vietnam is an example. The poisons are still there. People are still dying from the land mines. Bombs costing more than a car were dropped on poor farmers.
And in what way was the Vietnam war in any way profitable for anybody? There was no money to be made on that war.
And to be fair, if the farmers had stopped supporting the Geurilla VC (1970's speak for terrorist) then we wouldn't have been dropping bombs on them.
Re:Life fills a space defined by its environment
on
Did Sea Life Arise Twice?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Give it some Heisenberg treatment. We cannot determine if life exists elsewhere, therefore for the purposes of meaningful scientific debate we have to act as if both possible realities are true. Anyone involved in that kind of discussion has to be equally ready for both possible outcomes.
We can't look to life on Earth as proof for or against life elsewhere.
ADD/ADHD symptoms represent a spectrum of abnormal behavior. The fact that there is a spectrum is very important.
Some peoples symptoms are controllable and do not detract from quality of life (such as yours). Some people's symptoms are much more severe and do drastically affect an individuals quality of life. The problem is that most people think of an ADHD diagnosis as something akin to "broken alternator" and assume there is a single specific recommended course of treatment to fix it. This is not the case.
ADHD isn't a disorder, it's a gift...people just don't utilize it properly.
We could go on and on in an etymological discussion over whether the term disorder applies. In the opinion of the medial and psychological communities ADD/ADHD is sufficiently outside the typical human condition to be classified as a disorder and is described in the current DSM. You seem to have developed impressive coping strategies to use your different capabilities to your advantage. Congratulations. In all seriousness that is wonderful. Not everyone who suffers is able to do the same.
(Disclaimer: Speaking to the American medical system here.)
Doctors are also on the hook if they assess and fail to diagnose things like depression. If they aren't sure they're pretty likely to throw you some low dose SSRI's. The side effects are mild and not life threatening, and they tend to make everyone feel a little bit happier. They leave it up to you to take (or not take) that medication, but they're covering themselves. If symptoms persist then they'll take a more serious look at it, but typically they'll write you a scrip and send you on your way.
I was almost diagnosed with ADD as a kid. My doctor leveled with me and my parents and said that wether or not I was actually suffering from real ADD the typical course of action would be to give me basic happy pills then wait and see what happened. We decided not to pursue medication at that time so we agreed to just pay attention to it and check back in after a while. Eventually the symptoms just went away, I stopped being an idiot and paid attention in school. Parents can be super pushy to get their kids fixed, I imagine a lot of Doctors just don't want to deal with taking a stance in such an ambiguous position and push the pills to keep the families happy.
In hindsight I'm glad I never received the formal diagnosis. Like your example, those diagnoses tend to stick with people (wether they are accurate or not). I would probably have been lumped in with the special needs kids, and that would have stuck with me all the way through high school.
In the "worst" case, the error should be in the consumer's favor.
Bingo. I have no problem with producers or service providers giving estimates about the quantity or quality. But that estimate should be the lowest typical, or even the average under typical conditions. That estimate should be qualified e.g. pre-cooked weight or MPG Highway. That estimate should not be an unqualified maximum theoretically possible.
Think of it like an SLA. When I buy a pack of tomatoes advertised as 600g, I should expect to receive at least 600g of tomato. I might receive faster service or more product, but so long as the advertised expectation is met that should be sufficient.
the last can of Pringles I opened said on the side that there are at least 100 chips in it.
I'd be fine with that. I would love ISP to be straight up about the lowest possible speeds. Advertising or guaranteeing the minimum possible bound would be fantastic.
With your broadband modem, if it's configured for 6.7MBit/s, then that is your speed limitation. Whether the network behind it can serve it is another matter.
On that point I would have to disagree. When I contract service from the provider I am not interested the differences between their hardware and network capabilities. If they sell me a service package with a stated speed, I expect to be able to get that speed to my house.
I understand your point about the technical limitations of the available network (and as a geek I would be interested in knowing more about the network test results to my home). But if the service provider is not able to provide 6.7MBit/s to my home, they shouldn't be advertising and selling that capability. More importantly they shouldn't be charging me for that capability. Geeks know enough to understand how they are being shafted, but the average consumer probably does not.
From what I've read this is pretty common. Many third world developing areas are simply skipping wireline development. Wireless infrastructure is just cheaper to install and maintain (handful of towers vs. stringing wires to each home). I have no direct experience with any of that though.
The problem still comes down to electricity though. Without reliable electricity to the home it is difficult to power wired or wireless devices.
You joke, but one of my coworkers is in some kind of competition to be the Mayor of the nearby Starbucks. Apparently they offer some kind of discount to whoever is the current Mayor.
She thinks she's saving money with that 10% discount on the 3+ lattes she's buying there everyday.
Only on the internet would this post be modded as funny...
Seriously if I've got a DUI, a sober friend, and someplace to go, I'm telling my buddy to drive. But then again if I possessed reasonable decision making skills I probably wouldn't have landed the DUI in the first place.
You are saying people should be considered guilty of crimes not only not proven to have been committed, but which have not even been accused.
I don't think he was claiming we should just start pulling people out of their homes and assuming they've driven drunk at some point in their lives. I think the point he's making is that we shouldn't be giving freebies to first time offenders just because it's their first conviction.
His statement was factually correct, a first conviction simply indicates that this is the first time a person was caught. They might have offended before, maybe not. I don't care. I want to see every person receiving equal treatment under the law.
Hell, I should just give up on risk management altogether and go carve up my family with a meat cleaver.
Of course certain levels of risk are ok. The question is what constitutes reasonable risk and what is unacceptable endangerment. Operating a motor vehicle is generally pretty safe, as a society we have come to an agreement that the social utility outweighs the risk. Drunk driving makes operating a vehicle vastly more dangerous without adding anything beneficial in return.
All I'm asking is how low those limits are going to go before you're okay with it.
Personally? I'd be just fine with.000.
Violate that? The State should revoke your license to operate a motor vehicle. I don't personally care about the criminal or civil offenses, just revoke the license. I'm also cool with the State forcing violators to pay for an interlock device. Auto insurance is required in most (all?) States anyway, why not put an additional expense on drivers that have demonstrated high risk behavior.
For the record, I'm also cool with a similar stance on texting. Its bad. It creates scarily inattentive drivers.
Of course, modern-day bacteria are also just as evolutionarily distant from our common ancestor as we are, yet I'd say they are quite a bit more primitive than us.
Just a quick note on the term primitive. Within anthropological discussions the word primitive is used to describe features that have been passed down unchanged from an ancestor. Primitive does not inherently imply that the feature is less fit, detrimental, barbaric etc.
In your case though, Primitive is the perfect term. Modern bacteria are functionally very similar to the kinds of bacteria that we sprung from. But that does not mean that modern bacteria are not successful in their own way. Bacteria grows practically anywhere on the planet. Some species are incredibly hard to kill, many types serve critical functions in our digestive and eco systems. Furthermore, they are much better suited to rapid evolution. Short lifespans and higher rates of mutation allow them to evolve very quickly in response to a changing environment.
Hint: If you don't have heating, you don't need cooling.
Logically very true, but given that this is a satellite whose purpose is to collect sensor data then the heat generation must be assumed. Heat is a given byproduct of running the sensors. NASA could solve the problem very quickly by just shutting down the sensors. But that defeats the purpose of putting the thing into space in the first place.
Though the GP might have been better informed by reading the article, but the point was valid. The problem is not that the spacecraft is generating more heat than designed, the problem is that its cooling capacity has diminished.
But if I have a gun, it'll take a lot more than one chimp to cause trouble for me.
Right, that was kind of my point. We (humans) have a very strong collaborative society that allows us to do things like research and manufacturing. In that sense the argument is very compelling that the development of higher order intelligence places us at an advantage over other organisms.
That gun is a very good metaphor for the research and manufacturing capabilities that our particular evolutionary path has allowed. I'm not arguing that humans are not the dominant species on Earth, but if you put humans into a Chimps evolutionary niche you will probably see first hand how advanced they are within that niche.
Chimps might appear to be more primitive than humans, but they are just as evolutionarily distant from our common ancestor as we are. Looking to chimps for evidence of human-like behavior is interesting in that it shows behaviors like tool use are not unique to humans, but is not really indicative of the capabilities of our ancestors. There is nothing really "advanced" about humans, we have simply evolved different capabilities. Remember that pound for pound and average chimp is about 10x stronger than an average human.
We use our language and thinking skills to develop elaborate cooperative societies. Chimps do this on a smaller scale, but are more than able to beat a human to death in an individual confrontation. You can't really label on as more advanced than the other without understanding the the completely different contexts of our separate evolutions.
Slashdot Mirror
removed from existing machines as a mandatory upgrade, that made the platform a no-go.
It wasn't mandatory. It was definitely coerced, but owners did have a choice.
The consumer still has the right to use their hardware any way they want. They still have the right to open up their PS3 (both the soft and hard ware) and do anything they want with it. If they want to continue connecting to Sony's network and using Sony's services then they must agree to certain limitations on that use. Nothing wrong with that.
Did you still want to keep Other OS? You had the option to decline their update. Sony didn't send killbots to your house to force you to update.
Seriously, California doesn't get to give advise to anyone ever about anything, you guys failed, epic style.
Sure, California is really struggling right now, but it's hard to say they've failed. According to Wikipedia, California has the 8th largest economy in the world. Greater than most countries.
Cali's gross state product contributes approximately 13% of the US GDP, while they hold only 12% of the US Population. By those numbers the average Californian is more productive than the average American.
They've got some problems right now to be sure, but I think its a hard sell to claim they've failed.
Oops.
I had meant that line to be more dripping with sarcasm. After rereading it it sounded more serious than I meant it. I'd intended it to be satirical in drawing a parallel between the Vietnam war and the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan (equating Geurillas with Terrorists).
But now that we're on the topic, you should loosen up on the tinfoil headpiece. If you think the US Government is a shadow as oppressive as Hussein was then you are seriously misinformed.
"destabilize environmental and agricultural systems"
The U.S. government kills anyone, anywhere if it will make money for someone who secretly holds the strings of power. Climate destabilization is trivial by comparison.
Vietnam is an example. The poisons are still there. People are still dying from the land mines. Bombs costing more than a car were dropped on poor farmers.
And in what way was the Vietnam war in any way profitable for anybody? There was no money to be made on that war.
And to be fair, if the farmers had stopped supporting the Geurilla VC (1970's speak for terrorist) then we wouldn't have been dropping bombs on them.
We deal in facts on Slashdot.
Since when?!?!
Give it some Heisenberg treatment. We cannot determine if life exists elsewhere, therefore for the purposes of meaningful scientific debate we have to act as if both possible realities are true. Anyone involved in that kind of discussion has to be equally ready for both possible outcomes.
We can't look to life on Earth as proof for or against life elsewhere.
ADD/ADHD symptoms represent a spectrum of abnormal behavior. The fact that there is a spectrum is very important.
Some peoples symptoms are controllable and do not detract from quality of life (such as yours). Some people's symptoms are much more severe and do drastically affect an individuals quality of life. The problem is that most people think of an ADHD diagnosis as something akin to "broken alternator" and assume there is a single specific recommended course of treatment to fix it. This is not the case.
ADHD isn't a disorder, it's a gift...people just don't utilize it properly.
We could go on and on in an etymological discussion over whether the term disorder applies. In the opinion of the medial and psychological communities ADD/ADHD is sufficiently outside the typical human condition to be classified as a disorder and is described in the current DSM. You seem to have developed impressive coping strategies to use your different capabilities to your advantage. Congratulations. In all seriousness that is wonderful. Not everyone who suffers is able to do the same.
It makes you wonder how many American kids are mis-diagnosed as Obese just because they're even fatter than the rest of the kids in class!
Leave no child behind! Let's fatten all the other ones up so we can get those unhealthy kids back to a normal weight!
(Disclaimer: Speaking to the American medical system here.)
Doctors are also on the hook if they assess and fail to diagnose things like depression. If they aren't sure they're pretty likely to throw you some low dose SSRI's. The side effects are mild and not life threatening, and they tend to make everyone feel a little bit happier. They leave it up to you to take (or not take) that medication, but they're covering themselves. If symptoms persist then they'll take a more serious look at it, but typically they'll write you a scrip and send you on your way.
I was almost diagnosed with ADD as a kid. My doctor leveled with me and my parents and said that wether or not I was actually suffering from real ADD the typical course of action would be to give me basic happy pills then wait and see what happened. We decided not to pursue medication at that time so we agreed to just pay attention to it and check back in after a while. Eventually the symptoms just went away, I stopped being an idiot and paid attention in school. Parents can be super pushy to get their kids fixed, I imagine a lot of Doctors just don't want to deal with taking a stance in such an ambiguous position and push the pills to keep the families happy.
In hindsight I'm glad I never received the formal diagnosis. Like your example, those diagnoses tend to stick with people (wether they are accurate or not). I would probably have been lumped in with the special needs kids, and that would have stuck with me all the way through high school.
In the "worst" case, the error should be in the consumer's favor.
Bingo. I have no problem with producers or service providers giving estimates about the quantity or quality. But that estimate should be the lowest typical, or even the average under typical conditions. That estimate should be qualified e.g. pre-cooked weight or MPG Highway. That estimate should not be an unqualified maximum theoretically possible.
Think of it like an SLA. When I buy a pack of tomatoes advertised as 600g, I should expect to receive at least 600g of tomato. I might receive faster service or more product, but so long as the advertised expectation is met that should be sufficient.
the last can of Pringles I opened said on the side that there are at least 100 chips in it.
I'd be fine with that. I would love ISP to be straight up about the lowest possible speeds. Advertising or guaranteeing the minimum possible bound would be fantastic.
With your broadband modem, if it's configured for 6.7MBit/s, then that is your speed limitation. Whether the network behind it can serve it is another matter.
On that point I would have to disagree. When I contract service from the provider I am not interested the differences between their hardware and network capabilities. If they sell me a service package with a stated speed, I expect to be able to get that speed to my house.
I understand your point about the technical limitations of the available network (and as a geek I would be interested in knowing more about the network test results to my home). But if the service provider is not able to provide 6.7MBit/s to my home, they shouldn't be advertising and selling that capability. More importantly they shouldn't be charging me for that capability. Geeks know enough to understand how they are being shafted, but the average consumer probably does not.
From what I've read this is pretty common. Many third world developing areas are simply skipping wireline development. Wireless infrastructure is just cheaper to install and maintain (handful of towers vs. stringing wires to each home). I have no direct experience with any of that though.
The problem still comes down to electricity though. Without reliable electricity to the home it is difficult to power wired or wireless devices.
You joke, but one of my coworkers is in some kind of competition to be the Mayor of the nearby Starbucks. Apparently they offer some kind of discount to whoever is the current Mayor.
She thinks she's saving money with that 10% discount on the 3+ lattes she's buying there everyday.
When did Americans start caring for their health systems?
At the very least you would deserve to have the word "Dumbass" tattooed on your forehead.
Only on the internet would this post be modded as funny...
Seriously if I've got a DUI, a sober friend, and someplace to go, I'm telling my buddy to drive. But then again if I possessed reasonable decision making skills I probably wouldn't have landed the DUI in the first place.
You are saying people should be considered guilty of crimes not only not proven to have been committed, but which have not even been accused.
I don't think he was claiming we should just start pulling people out of their homes and assuming they've driven drunk at some point in their lives. I think the point he's making is that we shouldn't be giving freebies to first time offenders just because it's their first conviction.
His statement was factually correct, a first conviction simply indicates that this is the first time a person was caught. They might have offended before, maybe not. I don't care. I want to see every person receiving equal treatment under the law.
Hell, I should just give up on risk management altogether and go carve up my family with a meat cleaver.
Of course certain levels of risk are ok. The question is what constitutes reasonable risk and what is unacceptable endangerment. Operating a motor vehicle is generally pretty safe, as a society we have come to an agreement that the social utility outweighs the risk. Drunk driving makes operating a vehicle vastly more dangerous without adding anything beneficial in return.
All I'm asking is how low those limits are going to go before you're okay with it.
Personally? I'd be just fine with .000.
Violate that? The State should revoke your license to operate a motor vehicle. I don't personally care about the criminal or civil offenses, just revoke the license. I'm also cool with the State forcing violators to pay for an interlock device. Auto insurance is required in most (all?) States anyway, why not put an additional expense on drivers that have demonstrated high risk behavior.
For the record, I'm also cool with a similar stance on texting. Its bad. It creates scarily inattentive drivers.
Of course, modern-day bacteria are also just as evolutionarily distant from our common ancestor as we are, yet I'd say they are quite a bit more primitive than us.
Just a quick note on the term primitive. Within anthropological discussions the word primitive is used to describe features that have been passed down unchanged from an ancestor. Primitive does not inherently imply that the feature is less fit, detrimental, barbaric etc.
In your case though, Primitive is the perfect term. Modern bacteria are functionally very similar to the kinds of bacteria that we sprung from. But that does not mean that modern bacteria are not successful in their own way. Bacteria grows practically anywhere on the planet. Some species are incredibly hard to kill, many types serve critical functions in our digestive and eco systems. Furthermore, they are much better suited to rapid evolution. Short lifespans and higher rates of mutation allow them to evolve very quickly in response to a changing environment.
Hint: If you don't have heating, you don't need cooling.
Logically very true, but given that this is a satellite whose purpose is to collect sensor data then the heat generation must be assumed. Heat is a given byproduct of running the sensors. NASA could solve the problem very quickly by just shutting down the sensors. But that defeats the purpose of putting the thing into space in the first place.
Though the GP might have been better informed by reading the article, but the point was valid. The problem is not that the spacecraft is generating more heat than designed, the problem is that its cooling capacity has diminished.
But if I have a gun, it'll take a lot more than one chimp to cause trouble for me.
Right, that was kind of my point. We (humans) have a very strong collaborative society that allows us to do things like research and manufacturing. In that sense the argument is very compelling that the development of higher order intelligence places us at an advantage over other organisms.
That gun is a very good metaphor for the research and manufacturing capabilities that our particular evolutionary path has allowed. I'm not arguing that humans are not the dominant species on Earth, but if you put humans into a Chimps evolutionary niche you will probably see first hand how advanced they are within that niche.
+1 Insightful
Chimps might appear to be more primitive than humans, but they are just as evolutionarily distant from our common ancestor as we are. Looking to chimps for evidence of human-like behavior is interesting in that it shows behaviors like tool use are not unique to humans, but is not really indicative of the capabilities of our ancestors. There is nothing really "advanced" about humans, we have simply evolved different capabilities. Remember that pound for pound and average chimp is about 10x stronger than an average human.
We use our language and thinking skills to develop elaborate cooperative societies. Chimps do this on a smaller scale, but are more than able to beat a human to death in an individual confrontation. You can't really label on as more advanced than the other without understanding the the completely different contexts of our separate evolutions.