I don't think blackjack is a very good analogy since the payout is quite limited compared to the hypothetical big slot machine win. I expect that the rules for a remedy vary with the game.
I question if their claims of software errors causing payouts is always legit. Not in the case of this guy, but in cases of other people who actually win.
I understand, that's why I qualified my statement with *genuine* software error and legitimate wins not being *somehow lost*. In this particular case, if the bug had been immediately recognized, the play voided and the bet returned I'm not sure the casino could be faulted.
I suppose the most glaring issue here is the double standard that software errors can be legally taken advantage of by the casinos, while they are illegal to take advantage of by the gambler. (or at least that looks like how the recent verdicts have been swinging)
I understand your sentiment but technically the casino is only taking advantage if they keep the bet. If the play is void due to a *genuine* software error and the bet is returned then both sides have been restored to their initial state and no one has been taken advantage of. I understand the psychological let down (trauma ?) of seeing a win flash on the screen only to be told that the play is void but I don't think that counts as taking advantage of the gambler in a technical sense. Of course I am assuming that software errors only generate false wins and that legitimate wins are not somehow lost.
Are your politics causing you to fail to see what the reference to Normandy was? It was an example that in war civilians get killed by accident, against the intentions of those wielding the weapons. It was *not* some kind of comparison of the two invasions.
Yup, and I doubt any have been fired in anger at another plane.
I'm pretty sure it has happened. IIRC at least one F15 pilot ended up a little closer than he expected and rather than maneuver to an appropriate missile distance he instantly selected guns and got a kill. I agree its not a primary weapon but when things don't go according to plan it can be very useful.
For the most part modern fighters are just missile launch platforms.
That theory once dominated the Pentagon's thought. The F4 was initially a pure missile platforms. Once theory met the reality of combat the Air Force lengthened the nose and put in a gun. Every US fighter since then has included a gun.
I think F16 pilots would offer a different opinion.
Until they realize this thing is always either behind them or disappearing into the sun...
The F15 is an incredible aircraft but the advantages with respect to technical specs are sometimes countered by the reduced visibility (eyeball and radar) and greater agility of the F16. F16s have regularly taken out F15s during exercises and that is with F16 pilots who spend a greater portion of their time training for air-to-ground rather than air-to-air compared to their F15 counterparts.
Keep in mind that the F16 was originally designed by highly experienced aerial combat veterans, one of which *literally* wrote the book on air-to-air combat for the US Air Force. Many of these pilots were concerned that big multi-mission expensive fighters like the F15 could be vulnerable to smaller more maneuverable inexpensive fighters. So they went off to design something that had everything they thought a pure fighter needed and nothing else(*).
The F15 has a flawless combat record, zero losses to enemy aircraft, because of the superior training F15 pilots have had compared to their Mig and Mirage driving opponents. It was the pilot not the aircraft that determined victory. In training exercises where opposing pilots have comparable training the F15s are vulnerable to contemporaries such as the F16.
(*) To be fair today's F16s have moved from this a bit and have increased their complexity to support air-to-ground roles.
Dunno, man... the MiG 25 was basically two humongoid engines with a pilot and missile racks strapped on. It had the approximate combat range of a paper airplane, and from all accounts IMHO was about as maneuverable as a brick. The MiG 25's big trick was that it could move hella fast when it had to (well, for a few minutes anyway, then the gas ran out).
It wasn't the reality of the Mig 25 that saved the F14 and F15 projects back in the day, it was the rumored capabilities. By the time the defector flew the Mig 25 to Japan and the truth was revealed the F14 and F15 were operational.
In the financially strapped 1960s/70s the Soviet Mig 25 Foxbat appeared and it's rumored capabilities saved the US F14 and F15 projects from significant budget cutbacks or cancellation. Perhaps the savior of the F22 and F35 projects has arrived.
FTA: The Chinese prototype looks like it has "the potential to be a competitor with the F-22 and to be decisively superior to the F-35," said Mr. Fisher. The J-20 has two engines, like the F-22, and is about the same size, while the F-35 is smaller and has only one engine.
So... more engines and bigger equals "decisively superior," based solely on some photos?
I think F16 pilots would offer a different opinion.
It's not a perfect analogy but think of the F22 as an F15 replacement (bigger, multiengine family) and the F35 as an F16 replacement (smaller, single engine family). It gets a little more complicated when you consider the F35 is also to be used by the US Navy and Marine Corp, not just the US Air Force, sort of like the F4. And of corse the British Royal Navy is heavily involved too..
I didn't pay attention to 45's back in the day but did Pink Floyd release any of their songs as singles on 45's? The 45 rpm seems to be the analog equivalent to the modern single digital download.
On the other hand digital downloads do take things a step farther since very few songs on albums were released as 45 singles. However I have seen stuff on iTunes that were available only as part of an album but it was not quite like the LP/45 situation. IIRC only a few song were available only via the album download.
Hell, he even told us about how he shot a buck in some guy's front yard when he was a teenager.
And thanks to him this is why we have to have licenses.
And mandatory hunter's safety classes which are a large portion common sense firearms safety, a larger portion informative firearms safety, a small portion ethics and a small portion actually hunting related.
... Take liquidity out of the market, and you send
us back to the dark days when stocks would trade at $1/8th spreads
if you were lucky... Unless you're pining for the days when you called
your broker, paid him a percentage of the trade, and
he placed your order in a market with a huge spread then
you should be thanking the liquidity providers, not bashing them... I know, because
I came of age when the old system was still in place for a few years.
Buying in with a $1/4 spread on something trading for $10-$20, and then waiting
for a significant percentage gain just to cover the spread???...
I believe you are misrepresenting the old system to a degree. You did not have to call a broker, the do-it-yourself fixed-cost-trade online brokers were available long before decimalization. I also don't recall much difficulty getting something at the 1/8 limit I wanted. Now I wasn't doing some kind of twitchy trading, if I put in a limit order and it took an hour or two to close that was no problem. I don't think 1/8 vs 0.01 pricing makes much different unless you are frantically day trading.
The stock speed that most phone vendors run their phones is often less than half of the processor's rated speed. So you can generally run the CPU quite a bit faster without it having any problems.
To elaborate on "generally"...
Running the CPU at its rated speed may generate more heat than the design of a particular device can accommodate. The design may only be within its thermal specs when the CPU is running at its reduced clock rate. Excess heat can cause incorrect results even if the clock rate is OK.
... as with all overclocking, it works fine with some units, not so well with others...
Judging an overclocked CPU to be working fine is quite tricky. Not all overclocking induced failures are catastrophic or otherwise noticeable. Sometimes the failure is as simple as giving an incorrect answer, a 1+2=4 for example.
I think that would be fine, although you should add a huge disclaimer in the description. Many apps that people complain about using 'unneeded' permissions don't clarify WHY they need them.
I am inclined to mention this in the integrated manual and the downloadable pdf manual.
... then why do so many android apps require internet access, and other information, even though they are just a simple game?, note pad, etc...
Apps may report non-personal info that is used only by the app developer. For example is the device a phone or tablet, what version of the OS is being used, what 3D chip? Things that a developer may find useful in order to guide further development.
Even a calculator might want to "phone" non-personal info home. I have a calculator, Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPad. It offers scientific, statistics, hex and bill/tip functionality. An update will soon add business/finance functionality. I have *thought about* adding code that records the number of operations performed in each of these area and reporting back to a server. This info would be transmitted in annotated plain text so that anyone watching packets can verify for themselves that no personally identifiable information is being sent and that the data is as advertised. On the sever side the data would be anonymously logged, no IP addresses or anything else. The purpose of all this would be to see which calculator functionality (scientific, hex or business) is more heavily used, and to guide further development using the feedback.
Again, I have *not* done this. Its just a thought. However I think this offers an example of a non-malevolent reason for virtually any app to establish a network connection. I am eager to hear community opinions, I encourage folks to post a response. Thanks in advance.
At what point are we scratching an itch that developed in such a different context that there is simply no rational way to justify it anymore?
You are mistaken in your belief that there is no evolutionary advantage to colonizing beyond earth, that we have moved beyond the context of survival. A species with a single habitat, earth in this case, is more vulnerable than a species with multiple habitats. A large enough asteroid or a large enough volcanic eruption could wipe out the species. As an asteroid did for the dinosaurs and as a volcano nearly did for humanity in the past. Our species may have *barely* survived a "recent" event:
"The Toba supereruption (Youngest Toba Tuff or simply YTT[1]) occurred between 69,000 and 77,000 years ago at Lake Toba (Sumatra, Indonesia), and it is recognized as one of the earth's largest known eruptions. The related catastrophe theory holds that this supervolcanic event plunged the planet into a 6-to-10-year volcanic winter, which resulted in the world's human population being reduced to 10,000 or even a mere 1,000 breeding pairs, creating a bottleneck in human evolution." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory
True. But I think the advantages of being so much closer outweight this.
Closer to what, earth or the resources of the asteroid belt? While being closer to earth may be more important until a colony is self sufficient in the long run being closer to the asteroid belt may be a better deal. I'd expect a mars colony to be self sufficient more quickly than an orbital colony, if orbital gets there at all.
Easier construction environment, simpler building designs, etc.
I'm not sure about this. Building stuff in orbit is hard; but how much of this is because it's in free fall, and how much is because you have to do it while wearing spacesuits (which applies to Mars too)? There are advantages to building without worrying about gravity.
Go back to your thoughts on making an orbital colony rotate to generate a gravity like effect, that complicates the design a bit. Something that just sits planted on the surface would be of a simpler design. Easier to maintain too. Also since we are talking about a colony not a research station, something on the surface will be easier to expand as population and needs increase.
Wow... can I visit the fantasy land where you live? It sounds just like a classic sci-fi novel! Do you have flying cars too?Lets break this down...
Perhaps it would be more useful for you to reread the post you responded to. A mars colony was not being compared to something on earth, it was being compared to something in near earth orbit.
but my question about figures was for colonizing mars over the moon being worth it in the long term, not buying a house over renting:)
Oops.:-)
Alright, try this. Compare the cost of the early exploration and colonization of North America against the economic output that came later.
The original post referred to orbital environments, you refer to the moon. I think the moon, like mars, would have advantages over being in orbit. The moon has a very special potential economic opportunity with respect to He-3. Mars still has some technical advantages. Its atmosphere provides various chemicals not present or easily acquired from minerals. We may even be able to grow crops in martian soil. It may be easier to get a Mars colony self sufficient.
Renting a house is often more rational in the long term, purely in terms of financial gains. it all depends on the relative costs of loan financing and renting and the relative performance of a single real estate investment against some other investment strategy.
Of course. However these normally line up to make ownership a win in the medium term let alone the long term. Today's market is an aberration, but even so its the medium term outcome that is threatened not the long term.
Do you have some figures to back up that those benefits outweigh the initial additional issues in the long term?
The default settings predict a win for owning at year six and FWIW this was roughly the time frame where my former apartment's rent matched my equivalent (same neighborhood, same square feet) condo's mortgage plus taxes.
The default settings also indicate that at year 18 the savings catch up to your down payment. However that doesn't account for the opportunity cost of having invested that down payment elsewhere. Using a 10 year US Treasury rate of 3% and you catch up to the hypothetical interest at year 22. Note that we have not even consider appreciation of the property over 22 years, that down payment was an investment in the property.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think blackjack is a very good analogy since the payout is quite limited compared to the hypothetical big slot machine win. I expect that the rules for a remedy vary with the game.
I question if their claims of software errors causing payouts is always legit. Not in the case of this guy, but in cases of other people who actually win.
I understand, that's why I qualified my statement with *genuine* software error and legitimate wins not being *somehow lost*. In this particular case, if the bug had been immediately recognized, the play voided and the bet returned I'm not sure the casino could be faulted.
Aren't casinos exploiting humans? Isn't this worse?
They are not exploiting anyone, they are providing a service. For a fee they will play cards with you. :-)
I suppose the most glaring issue here is the double standard that software errors can be legally taken advantage of by the casinos, while they are illegal to take advantage of by the gambler. (or at least that looks like how the recent verdicts have been swinging)
I understand your sentiment but technically the casino is only taking advantage if they keep the bet. If the play is void due to a *genuine* software error and the bet is returned then both sides have been restored to their initial state and no one has been taken advantage of. I understand the psychological let down (trauma ?) of seeing a win flash on the screen only to be told that the play is void but I don't think that counts as taking advantage of the gambler in a technical sense. Of course I am assuming that software errors only generate false wins and that legitimate wins are not somehow lost.
Comparing the Gulf War and Normandy is insulting.
Are your politics causing you to fail to see what the reference to Normandy was? It was an example that in war civilians get killed by accident, against the intentions of those wielding the weapons. It was *not* some kind of comparison of the two invasions.
Yup, and I doubt any have been fired in anger at another plane.
I'm pretty sure it has happened. IIRC at least one F15 pilot ended up a little closer than he expected and rather than maneuver to an appropriate missile distance he instantly selected guns and got a kill. I agree its not a primary weapon but when things don't go according to plan it can be very useful.
For the most part modern fighters are just missile launch platforms.
That theory once dominated the Pentagon's thought. The F4 was initially a pure missile platforms. Once theory met the reality of combat the Air Force lengthened the nose and put in a gun. Every US fighter since then has included a gun.
I think F16 pilots would offer a different opinion.
Until they realize this thing is always either behind them or disappearing into the sun...
The F15 is an incredible aircraft but the advantages with respect to technical specs are sometimes countered by the reduced visibility (eyeball and radar) and greater agility of the F16. F16s have regularly taken out F15s during exercises and that is with F16 pilots who spend a greater portion of their time training for air-to-ground rather than air-to-air compared to their F15 counterparts.
Keep in mind that the F16 was originally designed by highly experienced aerial combat veterans, one of which *literally* wrote the book on air-to-air combat for the US Air Force. Many of these pilots were concerned that big multi-mission expensive fighters like the F15 could be vulnerable to smaller more maneuverable inexpensive fighters. So they went off to design something that had everything they thought a pure fighter needed and nothing else(*).
The F15 has a flawless combat record, zero losses to enemy aircraft, because of the superior training F15 pilots have had compared to their Mig and Mirage driving opponents. It was the pilot not the aircraft that determined victory. In training exercises where opposing pilots have comparable training the F15s are vulnerable to contemporaries such as the F16.
(*) To be fair today's F16s have moved from this a bit and have increased their complexity to support air-to-ground roles.
Dunno, man... the MiG 25 was basically two humongoid engines with a pilot and missile racks strapped on. It had the approximate combat range of a paper airplane, and from all accounts IMHO was about as maneuverable as a brick. The MiG 25's big trick was that it could move hella fast when it had to (well, for a few minutes anyway, then the gas ran out).
It wasn't the reality of the Mig 25 that saved the F14 and F15 projects back in the day, it was the rumored capabilities. By the time the defector flew the Mig 25 to Japan and the truth was revealed the F14 and F15 were operational.
In the financially strapped 1960s/70s the Soviet Mig 25 Foxbat appeared and it's rumored capabilities saved the US F14 and F15 projects from significant budget cutbacks or cancellation. Perhaps the savior of the F22 and F35 projects has arrived.
FTA: The Chinese prototype looks like it has "the potential to be a competitor with the F-22 and to be decisively superior to the F-35," said Mr. Fisher. The J-20 has two engines, like the F-22, and is about the same size, while the F-35 is smaller and has only one engine. So... more engines and bigger equals "decisively superior," based solely on some photos?
I think F16 pilots would offer a different opinion.
It's not a perfect analogy but think of the F22 as an F15 replacement (bigger, multiengine family) and the F35 as an F16 replacement (smaller, single engine family). It gets a little more complicated when you consider the F35 is also to be used by the US Navy and Marine Corp, not just the US Air Force, sort of like the F4. And of corse the British Royal Navy is heavily involved too..
I didn't pay attention to 45's back in the day but did Pink Floyd release any of their songs as singles on 45's? The 45 rpm seems to be the analog equivalent to the modern single digital download.
On the other hand digital downloads do take things a step farther since very few songs on albums were released as 45 singles. However I have seen stuff on iTunes that were available only as part of an album but it was not quite like the LP/45 situation. IIRC only a few song were available only via the album download.
Most music nowadays is bite size but most of Floyd's stuff you really had to listen to the entire Album to appreciate it.
I agree that albums can yield a greater experience but how is buying a single different than listening to a single on the radio?
Also can't a single be a "preview" of some kind, inspiring the listener to *eventually* buy the album?
Hell, he even told us about how he shot a buck in some guy's front yard when he was a teenager.
And thanks to him this is why we have to have licenses.
And mandatory hunter's safety classes which are a large portion common sense firearms safety, a larger portion informative firearms safety, a small portion ethics and a small portion actually hunting related.
... Take liquidity out of the market, and you send us back to the dark days when stocks would trade at $1/8th spreads if you were lucky ... Unless you're pining for the days when you called
your broker, paid him a percentage of the trade, and
he placed your order in a market with a huge spread then
you should be thanking the liquidity providers, not bashing them ... I know, because
I came of age when the old system was still in place for a few years.
Buying in with a $1/4 spread on something trading for $10-$20, and then waiting
for a significant percentage gain just to cover the spread??? ...
I believe you are misrepresenting the old system to a degree. You did not have to call a broker, the do-it-yourself fixed-cost-trade online brokers were available long before decimalization. I also don't recall much difficulty getting something at the 1/8 limit I wanted. Now I wasn't doing some kind of twitchy trading, if I put in a limit order and it took an hour or two to close that was no problem. I don't think 1/8 vs 0.01 pricing makes much different unless you are frantically day trading.
The stock speed that most phone vendors run their phones is often less than half of the processor's rated speed. So you can generally run the CPU quite a bit faster without it having any problems.
To elaborate on "generally" ...
Running the CPU at its rated speed may generate more heat than the design of a particular device can accommodate. The design may only be within its thermal specs when the CPU is running at its reduced clock rate. Excess heat can cause incorrect results even if the clock rate is OK.
... as with all overclocking, it works fine with some units, not so well with others ...
Judging an overclocked CPU to be working fine is quite tricky. Not all overclocking induced failures are catastrophic or otherwise noticeable. Sometimes the failure is as simple as giving an incorrect answer, a 1+2=4 for example.
I think that would be fine, although you should add a huge disclaimer in the description. Many apps that people complain about using 'unneeded' permissions don't clarify WHY they need them.
I am inclined to mention this in the integrated manual and the downloadable pdf manual.
... then why do so many android apps require internet access, and other information, even though they are just a simple game?, note pad, etc ...
Apps may report non-personal info that is used only by the app developer. For example is the device a phone or tablet, what version of the OS is being used, what 3D chip? Things that a developer may find useful in order to guide further development.
Even a calculator might want to "phone" non-personal info home. I have a calculator, Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPad. It offers scientific, statistics, hex and bill/tip functionality. An update will soon add business/finance functionality. I have *thought about* adding code that records the number of operations performed in each of these area and reporting back to a server. This info would be transmitted in annotated plain text so that anyone watching packets can verify for themselves that no personally identifiable information is being sent and that the data is as advertised. On the sever side the data would be anonymously logged, no IP addresses or anything else. The purpose of all this would be to see which calculator functionality (scientific, hex or business) is more heavily used, and to guide further development using the feedback.
Again, I have *not* done this. Its just a thought. However I think this offers an example of a non-malevolent reason for virtually any app to establish a network connection. I am eager to hear community opinions, I encourage folks to post a response. Thanks in advance.
At what point are we scratching an itch that developed in such a different context that there is simply no rational way to justify it anymore?
You are mistaken in your belief that there is no evolutionary advantage to colonizing beyond earth, that we have moved beyond the context of survival. A species with a single habitat, earth in this case, is more vulnerable than a species with multiple habitats. A large enough asteroid or a large enough volcanic eruption could wipe out the species. As an asteroid did for the dinosaurs and as a volcano nearly did for humanity in the past. Our species may have *barely* survived a "recent" event:
"The Toba supereruption (Youngest Toba Tuff or simply YTT[1]) occurred between 69,000 and 77,000 years ago at Lake Toba (Sumatra, Indonesia), and it is recognized as one of the earth's largest known eruptions. The related catastrophe theory holds that this supervolcanic event plunged the planet into a 6-to-10-year volcanic winter, which resulted in the world's human population being reduced to 10,000 or even a mere 1,000 breeding pairs, creating a bottleneck in human evolution."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory
Local water is pretty damn nice too.
True. But I think the advantages of being so much closer outweight this.
Closer to what, earth or the resources of the asteroid belt? While being closer to earth may be more important until a colony is self sufficient in the long run being closer to the asteroid belt may be a better deal. I'd expect a mars colony to be self sufficient more quickly than an orbital colony, if orbital gets there at all.
Easier construction environment, simpler building designs, etc.
I'm not sure about this. Building stuff in orbit is hard; but how much of this is because it's in free fall, and how much is because you have to do it while wearing spacesuits (which applies to Mars too)? There are advantages to building without worrying about gravity.
Go back to your thoughts on making an orbital colony rotate to generate a gravity like effect, that complicates the design a bit. Something that just sits planted on the surface would be of a simpler design. Easier to maintain too. Also since we are talking about a colony not a research station, something on the surface will be easier to expand as population and needs increase.
>1/3 gravity would be healthier.
Really? Are you so sure? Sounds nice, but also sounds like a recipe for all kinds of bone and muscle problems.
We are comparing mars to near earth orbit which has nearly zero gravity.
Wow... can I visit the fantasy land where you live? It sounds just like a classic sci-fi novel! Do you have flying cars too?Lets break this down ...
Perhaps it would be more useful for you to reread the post you responded to. A mars colony was not being compared to something on earth, it was being compared to something in near earth orbit.
but my question about figures was for colonizing mars over the moon being worth it in the long term, not buying a house over renting :)
Oops. :-)
Alright, try this. Compare the cost of the early exploration and colonization of North America against the economic output that came later.
The original post referred to orbital environments, you refer to the moon. I think the moon, like mars, would have advantages over being in orbit. The moon has a very special potential economic opportunity with respect to He-3. Mars still has some technical advantages. Its atmosphere provides various chemicals not present or easily acquired from minerals. We may even be able to grow crops in martian soil. It may be easier to get a Mars colony self sufficient.
Renting a house is often more rational in the long term, purely in terms of financial gains. it all depends on the relative costs of loan financing and renting and the relative performance of a single real estate investment against some other investment strategy.
Of course. However these normally line up to make ownership a win in the medium term let alone the long term. Today's market is an aberration, but even so its the medium term outcome that is threatened not the long term.
Do you have some figures to back up that those benefits outweigh the initial additional issues in the long term?
Have fun with this calculator:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/business/buy-rent-calculator.html
The default settings predict a win for owning at year six and FWIW this was roughly the time frame where my former apartment's rent matched my equivalent (same neighborhood, same square feet) condo's mortgage plus taxes. The default settings also indicate that at year 18 the savings catch up to your down payment. However that doesn't account for the opportunity cost of having invested that down payment elsewhere. Using a 10 year US Treasury rate of 3% and you catch up to the hypothetical interest at year 22. Note that we have not even consider appreciation of the property over 22 years, that down payment was an investment in the property.