Sorry but you are so wrong. Quite a few countries have very strict laws prohibiting gambling. The US does in most states. Practically everything gambling related in the Netherlands is run by the governament. Besides there are a bunch of laws that are meant to protect persons from themselves. And no, a gambling addiction isn't the same as being addicted to chocolat.
What is different about the situation in Australia is that the governament is picking a fight with something that is too many steps away from the problem. Problem: gambling addiction Solution: prohibit gambling Extension to solution: prohibit advertisements for gambling Overreaction: trying to prevent people from visiting website that are located in other countries and are showing gambling advertisements. Stupid: trying to fine said websites.
Your algorithm is not AI, it is CI (Computer Intelligence). What the gaming world is looking for is neither AI nor CI but SI (Simulated Intelligence). Something along the lines of:
Which ofcourse is true for both sides. How is this not an arms race?
(2) bad actors tend not to follow rules anyway
Well yeah, but just because we have played unfair in the past that doesn't mean we will.....oh wait, you mean the other guys are the bad actors?;)
There are very few outside the US that have the belief that the US is the good guy and has the right to 'shape' the behaviour of the rest of the world. But since most people in the US do believe this I am terribly affraid that our discussion of space weapons is horribly naive. They are most likely allready beeing developed and deployed.
This was just a quicky opinion on a few of your points. I mostly agree on everything you said!
Not where I live (San Jose, CA). Microsoft is using a satalite image that is roughly 9x sharper and more recent. Microsof t map VS Google map. There is a playground in front of my house with yellow umbrella's clearly visible on the MS map and not there on google maps. This playground was finished in 2001. So if I want to impress people showing them an satalite image of where I live I will be sending the MS map. If on the other hand I need to find some location, I'm sticking with Google for now.
I hope Google isn't to shy about stealing features themselves, the zoom with mouse scroll wheel is neat.
And if you really want to know what it is like to colonize Mars, read Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson.
There is an abundance of technical detail about what it would be like to colonize mars. Habitats, mining, politics, space elevators, terra forming. All in the form of 3 long amazing novels. I forgot which scientist commented that these books should be mandatory reading for anyone considering a trip to Mars.
1) Four years of one of the most time intensive majors in colleges
If you only excel in arts and crafts, please don't pick up CS. If on the other hand you have discovered you enjoy math and love 'how a computer works' stories as a kid then CS might be something for you because...(see below)
2) Going through Microsoft's dehumanizing interview process
Lots of people will now tell you that our beloved Google is the one with the dehumanizing interview process. Go there, see what you thing. Then go job interview at 10 more companies. If you feel that Microsoft is evil, why would you interview there?
3) Getting free soda in exchange for 80 hour work weeks at minimum wage Free soda? Check.
80 hours? Well, I actually did 3 weeks at a 100+ hours once. Was an amazingly cool experience. Everyone else in the team put in the same effort. We got the demo done in time. Then got send home for a week (paid). 9% Salary raise that quarter if I remember correctly. Never done anything near that amount of hours again. You got to be young and willing. Right now I average about 45 hours a week with peeks up to 60 for the few weeks in the year that it matters. As for the salary. Nothing overly special about mine. Typical Silicon Valley employee, 15+ years experience. Including bonusus around $160k a year.
4) Getting fired at age 28 for being too old
I am 37 years old and the second youngest in our software development team of 6. To me it looks like in the last 10 years the average age of engineers around me has gone up with 8 years. I see no reason why I would be replaced with a young unmotivated brat like you anytime soon:-P
I agree that Sci fi _on tv_ has been stale for a long time. But I don't understand why. I have been reading a lot of modern sci fi and I think the genre has come really far and is growing and maturing at an ever increasing pace. There are a lot of amazing stories out there. Fresh, modern, witty and full of edgy ideas about possible futures.
According to Justice O'Conner the idea that she was often the so called 'swing vote' was made up by the media.
What is a swing vote? If a decision is 4-5 aren't all the 5 voters in the majority group considered swing voters? Since if any of them would vote the other way... 'SWING' their goes the vote. Was she statistically speaking most often in the group of 5 for all the 4-5 votes?
And your free market breaks down when: - A seller keeps prices artificially high because they have a monopoly on the product through loopholes in the law (patents) - Sellers keep prices artificially high because they have a monopoly on the product through false competition (microsoft) - Sellers make behind the scenes deals to artificially keep prices high (record industry).
You are "willing" to pay this because there is no alternative. Explain this "free" market part again? I am not against a free market, but we are discussing one of the many issues that is NOT part of the free market.
Failures are an accepted part of research and should be calculated as part of the research cost. In a science lab there is a name for this: "experiments".
* Rewarding creators and inventors of intellectual property.
Fair is if the reward matches the amount of effort that went into creating the invention.
Calculate the cost of the invention. How long did it take to create the invention? How much research money was spend? Include the wages of the people making the invention etc.
Now add some proper bonus and allow the invention to be protected untill the cost + bonus has been reached.
When patents started this was the model, but back then they just made a rough estimate on how long it would be to get cost + bonus back based on the industries that where available at the time. That was quite some time back. Those numbers need to be refined for each new modern industry.
Why are you all foaming at the mouth about this problem? Unjustified aggression in youth is a very serious issue. Whether they show this behaviour because they picked it up from TV, games, their friends, the news or even at home. In the big picture eduction is the only thing that will solve this. Just claiming that "parents should educate their kids" isn't actually solving anything, it just moves the education problem. Who is going to educate the parents about this then? The parents don't go to school anymore. Most parents don't play these games either. They watch TV, where there is no hope for education. They read the news, where there is even less hope for education...so that leaves the governament. No wait, this is america, the governament can do no good.
No, I don't believe that banning games is a solution. But a proper campaign educating parents about the existense of sensitive topics in the video games their kids play is going to cost money. Are you willing to help solve this problem? What kind of accident will it take for you to change your mind?
not "free". You still have a landline for which you pay 2 fixed monthly fees. Your home phoneline and DSL. I don't know of a provider that will give you DSL without making you pay for the phoneline.
What you save is the cost of phonecalls made over your phoneline.
Including the internation calls I make (about 3 hours a month US=>Netherlands) this adds up to a not so whopping $15 a month for me.
Cosmic Voyage talks about the size and age of the Universe. Galápagos talks about where Darwin came up with evolution. Volcanoes of the Deep Sea talks about undersea thermal vents, where life might have started.
Well, I'm a somebody. Working for a You-Would-Recognize-The-Name company. I get 2 to 3 spam emails a week. Sure, this is after the company spam filters. But isn't that like expected nowadays? It's hardly rocket surgery people.
And at my home we get practically no spam. The spamfilter I have just does it's job. If you are tech savvy enough to post on slashdot, I think you are capable of solving your spam problem.
Don't know how it compares to the sales of HL2 of Doom3. But here is my quicky take on how the game stacks up against said FPS's.
Doom3: + Finished the singleplayer in ~1 week + Neat graphics (I create 3D graphics hardware..'neat' is only barely a compliment) + The only game of the 3 that was scary. Really scary. In a paranoid kind of way. + 20 hours of gameplay for $49.95 - Can't imaging ever touching this game again now that I am done. - No interesting multiplayer. - Unbelievable resource hog.
HL2: + Finished the single player in ~3 weeks + Awesome graphics 'abilities' + Really neat physics + Decent AI + 60 hours gameplay for $49.95 - Hardly any interesting multiplayer yet. - Gameplay wasn't refreshing enough to keep me promoting it beyond 'technologically advanced engine'.
WoW: + Started playing from day 1. Have not stopped. ++ Though technologically not as advanced, the graphics in WoW are by far the best of the 3 games. 3 words: content, content, content. After two months I still find new areas where I just stop and look around for a while with my mouth hanging open. That good. +++ 200+ hours gameplay for $49.95 + ~$14/month. - Real Life (tm) takes a hit. Seriously, if you can't afford getting addicted, you should just not get this game yet.
looking at the screenshots of the upcoming Windows Mobile 2005 I am just surprised about some of the GUI design choices. A background that blends with the text and makes things unreadable. Top right button is interchangably "OK" or "X". Nobody in the design team notice these things? Not trained to notice them?
Slashdot Mirror
Something tells me that the public opinion of scientists isn't going to be helped by yet another water-on-mars-theory-of-the-week.
Sorry but you are so wrong. Quite a few countries have very strict laws prohibiting gambling. The US does in most states. Practically everything gambling related in the Netherlands is run by the governament. Besides there are a bunch of laws that are meant to protect persons from themselves. And no, a gambling addiction isn't the same as being addicted to chocolat.
What is different about the situation in Australia is that the governament is picking a fight with something that is too many steps away from the problem.
Problem: gambling addiction
Solution: prohibit gambling
Extension to solution: prohibit advertisements for gambling
Overreaction: trying to prevent people from visiting website that are located in other countries and are showing gambling advertisements.
Stupid: trying to fine said websites.
(1) militarily, it sucks to get leapfrogged
;)
Which ofcourse is true for both sides. How is this not an arms race?
(2) bad actors tend not to follow rules anyway
Well yeah, but just because we have played unfair in the past that doesn't mean we will.....oh wait, you mean the other guys are the bad actors?
There are very few outside the US that have the belief that the US is the good guy and has the right to 'shape' the behaviour of the rest of the world. But since most people in the US do believe this I am terribly affraid that our discussion of space weapons is horribly naive. They are most likely allready beeing developed and deployed.
This was just a quicky opinion on a few of your points. I mostly agree on everything you said!
...run Doom 3 on max settings.
Ahhh I just heard something POP in my brain!
Not where I live (San Jose, CA). Microsoft is using a satalite image that is roughly 9x sharper and more recent. Microsof t map VS Google map.
There is a playground in front of my house with yellow umbrella's clearly visible on the MS map and not there on google maps. This playground was finished in 2001. So if I want to impress people showing them an satalite image of where I live I will be sending the MS map. If on the other hand I need to find some location, I'm sticking with Google for now.
I hope Google isn't to shy about stealing features themselves, the zoom with mouse scroll wheel is neat.
And if you really want to know what it is like to colonize Mars, read Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson.
There is an abundance of technical detail about what it would be like to colonize mars. Habitats, mining, politics, space elevators, terra forming. All in the form of 3 long amazing novels. I forgot which scientist commented that these books should be mandatory reading for anyone considering a trip to Mars.
"Very funny Scotty, now BEAM DOWN MY CLOTHES!"
We will mis you!
1) Four years of one of the most time intensive majors in colleges
:-P
If you only excel in arts and crafts, please don't pick up CS. If on the other hand you have discovered you enjoy math and love 'how a computer works' stories as a kid then CS might be something for you because...(see below)
2) Going through Microsoft's dehumanizing interview process
Lots of people will now tell you that our beloved Google is the one with the dehumanizing interview process. Go there, see what you thing. Then go job interview at 10 more companies. If you feel that Microsoft is evil, why would you interview there?
3) Getting free soda in exchange for 80 hour work weeks at minimum wage
Free soda? Check.
80 hours? Well, I actually did 3 weeks at a 100+ hours once. Was an amazingly cool experience. Everyone else in the team put in the same effort. We got the demo done in time. Then got send home for a week (paid). 9% Salary raise that quarter if I remember correctly. Never done anything near that amount of hours again. You got to be young and willing. Right now I average about 45 hours a week with peeks up to 60 for the few weeks in the year that it matters.
As for the salary. Nothing overly special about mine. Typical Silicon Valley employee, 15+ years experience. Including bonusus around $160k a year.
4) Getting fired at age 28 for being too old
I am 37 years old and the second youngest in our software development team of 6. To me it looks like in the last 10 years the average age of engineers around me has gone up with 8 years. I see no reason why I would be replaced with a young unmotivated brat like you anytime soon
I agree that Sci fi _on tv_ has been stale for a long time. But I don't understand why. I have been reading a lot of modern sci fi and I think the genre has come really far and is growing and maturing at an ever increasing pace. There are a lot of amazing stories out there. Fresh, modern, witty and full of edgy ideas about possible futures.
According to Justice O'Conner the idea that she was often the so called 'swing vote' was made up by the media.
... 'SWING' their goes the vote.
What is a swing vote? If a decision is 4-5 aren't all the 5 voters in the majority group considered swing voters? Since if any of them would vote the other way
Was she statistically speaking most often in the group of 5 for all the 4-5 votes?
Does anyone care?
The new line of computers will come with an advertisement campaign around the slogan "Apple Outside"
And your free market breaks down when:
- A seller keeps prices artificially high because they have a monopoly on the product through loopholes in the law (patents)
- Sellers keep prices artificially high because they have a monopoly on the product through false competition (microsoft)
- Sellers make behind the scenes deals to artificially keep prices high (record industry).
You are "willing" to pay this because there is no alternative. Explain this "free" market part again? I am not against a free market, but we are discussing one of the many issues that is NOT part of the free market.
Failures are an accepted part of research and should be calculated as part of the research cost. In a science lab there is a name for this: "experiments".
* Rewarding creators and inventors of intellectual property.
Fair is if the reward matches the amount of effort that went into creating the invention.
Calculate the cost of the invention. How long did it take to create the invention? How much research money was spend? Include the wages of the people making the invention etc.
Now add some proper bonus and allow the invention to be protected untill the cost + bonus has been reached.
When patents started this was the model, but back then they just made a rough estimate on how long it would be to get cost + bonus back based on the industries that where available at the time. That was quite some time back. Those numbers need to be refined for each new modern industry.
I tried to read the article but both my sunglasses turned completely black!!
I'm with you but your argumentation can unfortunatly be used against you.
:-(
Because of the commercials cable television doesn't cost as much.
Because of the commercials DVDs don't cost that much.
Etc..
Worst is, if you mention that you would be willing to pay more for cable tv without the adds...they point you to HBO
Exactly. That's why I don't subscribe to newspapers and magazines anymore.
If TiVo continues in this direction I will toss them too.
Why are you all foaming at the mouth about this problem? Unjustified aggression in youth is a very serious issue. Whether they show this behaviour because they picked it up from TV, games, their friends, the news or even at home. In the big picture eduction is the only thing that will solve this. Just claiming that "parents should educate their kids" isn't actually solving anything, it just moves the education problem. Who is going to educate the parents about this then? The parents don't go to school anymore. Most parents don't play these games either. They watch TV, where there is no hope for education. They read the news, where there is even less hope for education...so that leaves the governament. No wait, this is america, the governament can do no good.
No, I don't believe that banning games is a solution. But a proper campaign educating parents about the existense of sensitive topics in the video games their kids play is going to cost money. Are you willing to help solve this problem? What kind of accident will it take for you to change your mind?
oh, man....that would have been just that bit funnier if you had thought of "Adobi Wan"
not "free". You still have a landline for which you pay 2 fixed monthly fees. Your home phoneline and DSL. I don't know of a provider that will give you DSL without making you pay for the phoneline.
What you save is the cost of phonecalls made over your phoneline.
Including the internation calls I make (about 3 hours a month US=>Netherlands) this adds up to a not so whopping $15 a month for me.
Cosmic Voyage talks about the size and age of the Universe.
Galápagos talks about where Darwin came up with evolution.
Volcanoes of the Deep Sea talks about undersea thermal vents, where life might have started.
Well, I'm a somebody. Working for a You-Would-Recognize-The-Name company.
I get 2 to 3 spam emails a week.
Sure, this is after the company spam filters. But isn't that like expected nowadays? It's hardly rocket surgery people.
And at my home we get practically no spam. The spamfilter I have just does it's job. If you are tech savvy enough to post on slashdot, I think you are capable of solving your spam problem.
Don't know how it compares to the sales of HL2 of Doom3. But here is my quicky take on how the game stacks up against said FPS's.
Doom3:
+ Finished the singleplayer in ~1 week
+ Neat graphics (I create 3D graphics hardware..'neat' is only barely a compliment)
+ The only game of the 3 that was scary. Really scary. In a paranoid kind of way.
+ 20 hours of gameplay for $49.95
- Can't imaging ever touching this game again now that I am done.
- No interesting multiplayer.
- Unbelievable resource hog.
HL2:
+ Finished the single player in ~3 weeks
+ Awesome graphics 'abilities'
+ Really neat physics
+ Decent AI
+ 60 hours gameplay for $49.95
- Hardly any interesting multiplayer yet.
- Gameplay wasn't refreshing enough to keep me promoting it beyond 'technologically advanced engine'.
WoW:
+ Started playing from day 1. Have not stopped.
++ Though technologically not as advanced, the graphics in WoW are by far the best of the 3 games. 3 words: content, content, content. After two months I still find new areas where I just stop and look around for a while with my mouth hanging open. That good.
+++ 200+ hours gameplay for $49.95 + ~$14/month.
- Real Life (tm) takes a hit. Seriously, if you can't afford getting addicted, you should just not get this game yet.
looking at the screenshots of the upcoming Windows Mobile 2005 I am just surprised about some of the GUI design choices. A background that blends with the text and makes things unreadable. Top right button is interchangably "OK" or "X". Nobody in the design team notice these things? Not trained to notice them?