I love the people who tailgate using boolean throttle techniques; they constantly alternate between slamming on the accelerator then the brakes to maintain a constant average speed. It's only slightly better than driving at a constant speed while simultaneously applying the brakes and the accelerator but it clearly projects to drivers around them that they're morons...which I assume is the idea because I can think of no other reason why they do it.
I think every new car should have a system that calculates how much fuel you consume and compares it against how much you should have consumed for the same distance and average speed if you were driving optimally. It could then use current gas prices to give you an output in dollars wasted. You could think of it as an idiot tax for poor drivers.
If it says "purchase" on their website it should mean purchase. I generally support defending intellectual property but they can't have their cake and eat it too. If they want to license software they should be required to say "license" so the licensees know what they're getting into. It's false advertising to say "sell" and then bury "well OK, we didn't actually sell you anything" in the EULA. (By the way, I may support upholding intellectual property but fuck EULAs.)
Same goes for music. If I see the word "purchase" or "buy" anywhere on the site I'm "buying" it from I'm going to treat it as if I own a copy. Someone needs to counter-sue for false advertising the next time the get sued for license violation.
Psystar should have every right to modify a copy of OS X and resell it. If they make an extra copy and sell both, run them up the flag-pole; it's unclear whether they've done that.
They have yet to demonstrate that their device is capable of quantum computation. Rather than address that they've made it compute with larger registers of bits but don't seem to have ever verified that an "answer" from it is correct; it could be spitting out classical random numbers for all anyone knows. Furthermore, the guys who developed the theory for an adiabatic quantum computer (the type of computer that D-Wave is making) say D-Wave doesn't seem to understand the theory and can't possibly be making true claims. See the criticism section of the Wikipedia article, it has some good links.
The article contains some interesting examples but all of which have been in programming texts and courses for years. I'm not really sure why it's on/.
I'm eagerly awaiting the openSuse 11.2 release in 12 days myself. Linux releases aren't really much of an event though. They happen every 6 months (maybe a year) and don't really do much other than provide stability as compared to rolling releases.
I was responding directly to the parent's assertion that the higher parent "presupposes that people accused of something are automatically guilty of it."
Isn't it *distribution* of copyrighted material that is illegal?
Depends on the country that you live in. That's true in Canada, for example, not the U.S.
Now if you're trying to say that "everyone" is guilty of UPloading (c)ed content. Assertion disproved.
In fact, my statement only requires one such case to be valid.
The question is perfectly valid; it presupposes that people are illegally downloading copyrighted content. Which they are.
If you're going to try to "unask" the question on the basis that it makes an invalid supposition you'll have to try to argue that no one is illegally downloading content. Good luck.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, no one's stealing. If they were stealing it would be a criminal offense under the jurisdiction of the police. That wouldn't go well for the record labels at all since the police don't care. It's copyright violation or license violation; which carries the same moral penalty as theft but a dramatically larger punishment.
Another problem arises when ISPs offer content as well as connectivity. Once ISPs start to offer cloud computing services locally will they offer equal traffic priority to their own services as to more distant services? Why would they bother? It's cheaper for them if you send a GB of data that stops in their server room rather than getting transmitted over a backbone to a remote server. If it costs less per GB to download music from your ISP will they charge the same rate as for a GB of music from iTunes. Or will they locally cache iTunes databases and prioritize traffic to them over traffic to other music stores that don't have contracts with the ISPs?
I feel that as long as content and distribution remain distinct, there will some self-regulation with a few exceptions. Once cloud computing and cloud storage become prevalent, I suspect that ISPs will start offering local services or at least local caches; at that point we might be in trouble. Of course, then cloud services will become another distinction between ISPs and may provide another opportunity for independents (assuming the independents live that long).
The trouble is that it's either expensive or illegal. The student version is about $180 I think. That's a great value for Mathematica but not for an equation editor. If you need the software anyways, it's a terrific investment but otherwise, not so much.
Intelligent Design has only ever really gotten dismissal from the scientific community. The "discussion" is a myth that they promulgate. Not shutting up is not the same as sparking debate.
Let me qualify my remarks as not being hostile towards the coexistence of religion and science (even as perceived by one person). It's really just the idea of passing religion off as being derived from scientific principles that I disagree with. They can coexist because the precepts are orthogonal.
It saves tons of time. The entry of equations is fast and you don't even have to finish the derivations yourself, just hit Shift+Enter and there's the result. The only real trick is trying to get the prof to let you take your "notes" into an exam...that and the price tag.
Seriously though, I'm going to throw my vote behind the pencil/paper method. If you want, digitize later, but pencil/paper gives you necessary flexibility. You need to be able to work through derivations as you go, follow along. Keeping up isn't enough, you have to follow the logic of the lecture and having room to do scratch work on the side, full and easy control over the layout (which is important to how you organize ideas) and the ability to see what you're writing down is all critical.
If you insist on digital input is has got to be a WYSIWYG editor (not that I have one to suggest). LaTeX is irreplaceable for writing a thesis but you'll never follow the logic of what you're writing if you're looking at source code. Transcribing what the prof writes just doesn't cut it for advanced math, you have to follow along and I argue that that means using a pencil.
You can make any place sound terrifying by aggregating stories of violent crimes from across the nation. Australia's violent crime rate is moderately higher than Canada on average but still lower than than the U.S.
I have a Master's in physics and I would like to apply. I even have some restaurant experience. What city is it in? Unfortunately I look terrible in shorts.
For those who care: some background. The experiment discusses the "duality of light" (light/particle nature). However, the question isn't "does light behave as a wave or a particle?" That's not really a question that needs asking, various theories of the propagation of light are well established and understood. Geometric optics treats light as a particle and is valid within the constraint that you're dealing with structures that are large compared with the wavelength of the light. The electromagnetic wave approach covers, more or less, all propagation of light and treats light as a wave. Finally, quantum optics is used to explore the interaction of light with matter. Here's where duality becomes interesting: working with the electromagnetic field as a quantum field, the notion of a photon as a quantum particle arises. The propagation of the photon is well described by considering it as a classical electromagnetic wave but the picture of a photon is useful when discussing it's interaction with matter (for example, the photoelectric effect).
In the case of the double-slit experiment, which is the basis for Afshar's experiment, the propagation of light can be described classically by treating it as an electromagnetic wave. However, double slit experiments work with single photons as well. Single photons are only described by quantum optics and when the experiment is done with prepared single photons, the interference fringes (viewed in the Fourier plane) can be considered a measurement of the momentum of the photon as it passes through one of the slits (where it ends up on the screen depends on what direction it was travelling in when it passed through the slit). Which slit it passes through is a measurement of the position. Position and momentum are complementary variables in quantum mechanics and cannot be measured simultaneously with perfect accuracy.
Afshar proposed an experiment to do exactly that, measure both. The key criticism, however, is that the interference fringes (momentum measurement) aren't observed, they're inferred, which doesn't really constitute a measurement. His thought experiment was analyzed quantitatively as well as was found not to violate the complementarity of the position and momentum variables. The issue is further obscured by the fact that the measurements are related to the spatial mode of the photon and it's propagation vector, which is related, but not quite identical, to a position-momentum measurement for a more classical particle. In any case, Afshar's work is interesting, but doesn't really tread the revolutionary/crackpot line, it can be analyzed well within the existing body of knowledge of quantum optics.
It's not quite as bad as most crackpots. I looked it up on Wikipedia and it looks like his big mistake is writing a blog about it. That's the difference between a controversial (or perhaps flat out incorrect) theory and a crackpot theory; the blog about it. His paper has sparked much debate over it's validity which makes it a valuable contribution. Even if it's incorrect, it has enough merit to provoke criticism, not dismissal.
You're allowed to be wrong in science; being wrong is still more useful than saying nothing. Just don't blog about it.
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Your router will throttle you, take your wallet and run.
I love the people who tailgate using boolean throttle techniques; they constantly alternate between slamming on the accelerator then the brakes to maintain a constant average speed. It's only slightly better than driving at a constant speed while simultaneously applying the brakes and the accelerator but it clearly projects to drivers around them that they're morons...which I assume is the idea because I can think of no other reason why they do it.
I think every new car should have a system that calculates how much fuel you consume and compares it against how much you should have consumed for the same distance and average speed if you were driving optimally. It could then use current gas prices to give you an output in dollars wasted. You could think of it as an idiot tax for poor drivers.
If it says "purchase" on their website it should mean purchase. I generally support defending intellectual property but they can't have their cake and eat it too. If they want to license software they should be required to say "license" so the licensees know what they're getting into. It's false advertising to say "sell" and then bury "well OK, we didn't actually sell you anything" in the EULA. (By the way, I may support upholding intellectual property but fuck EULAs.)
Same goes for music. If I see the word "purchase" or "buy" anywhere on the site I'm "buying" it from I'm going to treat it as if I own a copy. Someone needs to counter-sue for false advertising the next time the get sued for license violation.
Psystar should have every right to modify a copy of OS X and resell it. If they make an extra copy and sell both, run them up the flag-pole; it's unclear whether they've done that.
I'm fairly certain that the oil industry has a particularly good understanding of plate tectonics; the term "fossil fuels" isn't lost on them.
They have yet to demonstrate that their device is capable of quantum computation. Rather than address that they've made it compute with larger registers of bits but don't seem to have ever verified that an "answer" from it is correct; it could be spitting out classical random numbers for all anyone knows. Furthermore, the guys who developed the theory for an adiabatic quantum computer (the type of computer that D-Wave is making) say D-Wave doesn't seem to understand the theory and can't possibly be making true claims. See the criticism section of the Wikipedia article, it has some good links.
The article contains some interesting examples but all of which have been in programming texts and courses for years. I'm not really sure why it's on /.
I'm eagerly awaiting the openSuse 11.2 release in 12 days myself. Linux releases aren't really much of an event though. They happen every 6 months (maybe a year) and don't really do much other than provide stability as compared to rolling releases.
Spoil it in a hilarious manner.
Or a few seconds if you believe D-Wave. (Don't believe D-wave, it's a well-funded scam.)
What the hell are you talking about?
I was responding directly to the parent's assertion that the higher parent "presupposes that people accused of something are automatically guilty of it."
Isn't it *distribution* of copyrighted material that is illegal?
Depends on the country that you live in. That's true in Canada, for example, not the U.S.
Now if you're trying to say that "everyone" is guilty of UPloading (c)ed content. Assertion disproved.
In fact, my statement only requires one such case to be valid.
Now shoo, the big people want to talk.
Flamebait.
The question is perfectly valid; it presupposes that people are illegally downloading copyrighted content. Which they are.
If you're going to try to "unask" the question on the basis that it makes an invalid supposition you'll have to try to argue that no one is illegally downloading content. Good luck.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, no one's stealing. If they were stealing it would be a criminal offense under the jurisdiction of the police. That wouldn't go well for the record labels at all since the police don't care. It's copyright violation or license violation; which carries the same moral penalty as theft but a dramatically larger punishment.
From now on port 85 is the "port of shame."
Arizona? I'd go with more surprised about the former statement.
Decades-old is bleeding edge as far as the law is concerned.
Another problem arises when ISPs offer content as well as connectivity. Once ISPs start to offer cloud computing services locally will they offer equal traffic priority to their own services as to more distant services? Why would they bother? It's cheaper for them if you send a GB of data that stops in their server room rather than getting transmitted over a backbone to a remote server. If it costs less per GB to download music from your ISP will they charge the same rate as for a GB of music from iTunes. Or will they locally cache iTunes databases and prioritize traffic to them over traffic to other music stores that don't have contracts with the ISPs?
I feel that as long as content and distribution remain distinct, there will some self-regulation with a few exceptions. Once cloud computing and cloud storage become prevalent, I suspect that ISPs will start offering local services or at least local caches; at that point we might be in trouble. Of course, then cloud services will become another distinction between ISPs and may provide another opportunity for independents (assuming the independents live that long).
The trouble is that it's either expensive or illegal. The student version is about $180 I think. That's a great value for Mathematica but not for an equation editor. If you need the software anyways, it's a terrific investment but otherwise, not so much.
Intelligent Design has only ever really gotten dismissal from the scientific community. The "discussion" is a myth that they promulgate. Not shutting up is not the same as sparking debate.
Let me qualify my remarks as not being hostile towards the coexistence of religion and science (even as perceived by one person). It's really just the idea of passing religion off as being derived from scientific principles that I disagree with. They can coexist because the precepts are orthogonal.
It saves tons of time. The entry of equations is fast and you don't even have to finish the derivations yourself, just hit Shift+Enter and there's the result. The only real trick is trying to get the prof to let you take your "notes" into an exam...that and the price tag.
Seriously though, I'm going to throw my vote behind the pencil/paper method. If you want, digitize later, but pencil/paper gives you necessary flexibility. You need to be able to work through derivations as you go, follow along. Keeping up isn't enough, you have to follow the logic of the lecture and having room to do scratch work on the side, full and easy control over the layout (which is important to how you organize ideas) and the ability to see what you're writing down is all critical.
If you insist on digital input is has got to be a WYSIWYG editor (not that I have one to suggest). LaTeX is irreplaceable for writing a thesis but you'll never follow the logic of what you're writing if you're looking at source code. Transcribing what the prof writes just doesn't cut it for advanced math, you have to follow along and I argue that that means using a pencil.
You can make any place sound terrifying by aggregating stories of violent crimes from across the nation. Australia's violent crime rate is moderately higher than Canada on average but still lower than than the U.S.
but I would take everything John Hodgman says with a grain of salt.
I have a Master's in physics and I would like to apply. I even have some restaurant experience. What city is it in? Unfortunately I look terrible in shorts.
ThinkGeek will have a field day.
For those who care: some background. The experiment discusses the "duality of light" (light/particle nature). However, the question isn't "does light behave as a wave or a particle?" That's not really a question that needs asking, various theories of the propagation of light are well established and understood. Geometric optics treats light as a particle and is valid within the constraint that you're dealing with structures that are large compared with the wavelength of the light. The electromagnetic wave approach covers, more or less, all propagation of light and treats light as a wave. Finally, quantum optics is used to explore the interaction of light with matter. Here's where duality becomes interesting: working with the electromagnetic field as a quantum field, the notion of a photon as a quantum particle arises. The propagation of the photon is well described by considering it as a classical electromagnetic wave but the picture of a photon is useful when discussing it's interaction with matter (for example, the photoelectric effect).
In the case of the double-slit experiment, which is the basis for Afshar's experiment, the propagation of light can be described classically by treating it as an electromagnetic wave. However, double slit experiments work with single photons as well. Single photons are only described by quantum optics and when the experiment is done with prepared single photons, the interference fringes (viewed in the Fourier plane) can be considered a measurement of the momentum of the photon as it passes through one of the slits (where it ends up on the screen depends on what direction it was travelling in when it passed through the slit). Which slit it passes through is a measurement of the position. Position and momentum are complementary variables in quantum mechanics and cannot be measured simultaneously with perfect accuracy.
Afshar proposed an experiment to do exactly that, measure both. The key criticism, however, is that the interference fringes (momentum measurement) aren't observed, they're inferred, which doesn't really constitute a measurement. His thought experiment was analyzed quantitatively as well as was found not to violate the complementarity of the position and momentum variables. The issue is further obscured by the fact that the measurements are related to the spatial mode of the photon and it's propagation vector, which is related, but not quite identical, to a position-momentum measurement for a more classical particle. In any case, Afshar's work is interesting, but doesn't really tread the revolutionary/crackpot line, it can be analyzed well within the existing body of knowledge of quantum optics.
It's not quite as bad as most crackpots. I looked it up on Wikipedia and it looks like his big mistake is writing a blog about it. That's the difference between a controversial (or perhaps flat out incorrect) theory and a crackpot theory; the blog about it. His paper has sparked much debate over it's validity which makes it a valuable contribution. Even if it's incorrect, it has enough merit to provoke criticism, not dismissal.
You're allowed to be wrong in science; being wrong is still more useful than saying nothing. Just don't blog about it.