Projectile weaponry would be fairly worthless given laser based counter measures that can shot down your projectiles long before they will reach their target. The only way to get them to hit is to overwhelm the defense system, which means huge amounts of resources wasted in trying to hit a target.
So the vast majority of weapon systems will be energy based. Lasers will not be visible until it hits you since it's moving at the speed of light. So in that respect you probably would not even see it until it's hit you. In fact you'll probably wouldn't even know that you are being fired at until something's hit you. Unless your opponents are using some sort of energy-emitting ("active") method of tracking your position, they would fire at you and you'd only know after you've been hit since classical information cannot travel faster than light or the laser itself.
If you have laser energy dissipating shields, then you'd see a blinding light splash across your shield when you get hit.
Now let's consider if you were in a space suit and in space and you're spectating. It's also likely that you wouldn't see much either. Lasers are monochromatic and does not scatter unless interrupted by particles. If vast stretches space, there is actually nothing there. In those regions, you wouldn't see the laser going between the ships. You will see when the laser impacts and does damage or if it is dissipated, but the whole Star Wars thing with the lasers that you can see? You wouldn't see them. If you are in a dust/gas field, then yes, the lasers will get deflected off the particles and you should see the laser. Of course laser based weapons will be less effective as it is hitting a whole bunch of stuff before it finds its way to the target. (You can think of a laser pointer at home. If you have a very clean room, no dust, then the laser point will point at whatever it is you're pointing at and you shouldn't see the beam itself. If you have dust in the room then the laser will illuminate the dust and you can make out the beam).
Continuing down the line of though, you probably wouldn't hear much if you didn't have a radio if you were in a space suit in space. Space is pretty much a vacuum and vacuums don't conduct sound unfortunately. Waves require matter to propagate (light is a special case) and sound is a wave. So without a radio, you get to watch the war in absolute silence (go watch 2001: A Space Odyssey, but ignore the orchestral accompaniment). But if you had a radio or was in a space ship, you'd hear explosions from the ship getting pummeled by laser batteries. But of course, if you were unlucky enough to get sucked out of the whole that was punched into your space ship, you'd very quickly be unable to hear anything before you died from suffocation or got incinerated by a second valley from the lasers.
So PGP and VPN is often used by companies to secure it's data. So all the top Fortune 500 companies support terrorism?
Encryption of data is a legal requirement for some of our work.
Because/. has a anti-Chinese government bias, so they quote Falun Gong backed sites, which obviously is against the Chinese government.
I think the truth is somewhere in between what the Falun Gong has to say and what the Chinese government has to say. Both use propaganda very well. But then again all media agencies are bias in some way and either sensationalize their reports or tries to achieve a political agenda.
Now I'm not saying the Chinese government is right for abusing human rights, in fact I think the Chinese government has a long way to go in that arena. In fact it's doing really poorly and its actions should not be acceptable. However, at the same time, I AM saying Falun Gong is full of crap, and I cannot support anything they say or do. I'd support other human right activists that aren't full of crap though.
If you don't check it, every time in future you see the word comparable you will recognise it and what it means but will just sound odd if you read it out loud that way to someone.
This just proves my point, there is an additional mapping from the entire word "compare" to the sound for it and "able" to the sound for it. When you see it together you'll pronounce it as it were two separate words, which is odd. And this doesn't contradict the fact that you have a visual storage for initially recognizing the words. I guess I'm just saying you don't go letter by letter and sound out the word. Because if people did they'd pronounce comparable correctly every time. Comparable has no special tricks, and follows all the rules of English pronunciation (at least in American English).
Why would you think that a PhD in Biological Sciences would be closely related (or even related) to one in Computer Science? Really?
The intelligence of PhDs really are Piled Higher and Deeper.
Biological Sciences have a lot of need for Computer Sciences right now. Everything from Genetics to Molecular Biology spends on staggering amounts of Statistics and CS work. I have a few friends of mine working for the National Health Institute and at Medical Schools and they all need CS and Stats background. So there is a pretty deep connect between Biology and CS right now. So yes, there is a very close relationship.
Obviously, a software firm may ask you why you got a Biological Sciences Ph.D. as opposed to a CS one, and why you are qualified. You may also get filtered out if CS is not on your resume as well. So, if you do get the Ivy Ph.D. you'll have some work cut out for you on your resume to make sure you come off the right way on paper.
Also, if you end up working for a Bio Tech, then this argument is moot, they would take a Biologist any day of the week.
The fact that the non-native reader tries to read it as compare+able shows that sounds are associated with the entire word as opposed to individual letters the same way as an ideogram would.
And another thing: English is not my native language and I know a lot of English words I have never heard. Yet I can read them no problem. Another fact in favor of the theory in the article.
I am a native speaker and I've learned many words in writing before I learned them in speech. As a result, some of my pronunciations are nonstandard. I pronounce "comparable" as if it were "compare" + "able", even though the standard way is irregular, "comp" + "arable". I tried to pronounce these words from how they were written before I'd heard them.
I don't know why this is even up for debate. If you look at any ideogram languages, you can't just sound out each word. Especially Chinese, where there are character that sound the same but have different characters. Or even the same character can be read differently depending on context. You definitely memorized the shape. The article is definitely right that we must be storing a visual dictionary of sorts. If we had to sound out each word, then ideogram languages would have never been invented, too inefficient.
But this also doesn't mean that you don't also associate shapes to sounds. The reason you pronounce it like "compare" + "able" is because you associated the shape "compare" to its sound and "able" to its sound. When put together, it would come out as "compare" + "able". This doesn't prove that you sound out the words as you see them. However, English is a language that runs on syllables, and "compare" is a multiple syllable word, so it gets broken up in the official pronunciation of the word comparable.
Seriously? If anyone it's inept, it's the cable companies. Government mandated you to do a test. You screwed up. How this is a government failure is beyond comprehension.
I'm pretty sure they meant in China, China hasn't built a supercomputer that didn't use Intel or AMD chips before this one. They were listing reasons why this computer is significant for China.
Agreed the university are a oligopoly and have enough clout to price discriminate. The issue is that when you take away the subsidy the university wouldn't downward price match the same drop in available resources.
In fact a lot of Universities will give you very aggressive Financial aid packages when you are applying to lure you in and then each year reduce the aid significantly. It is highly possible that the Universities will price match the drop for only the first year.
Agreed, all countries censor, just to a different extend. China does it much more so and openly than most other nations out there.
Of course blocking twitter and other social media that is not state controlled is a great idea for China. When you have to manage over 1.2 billion people, it's very very hard to make everyone happy. The US only has 300+ million and it's already hard for congress to agree on anything. Now if you make that 4 times as many people, it's even hard to agree. And as a single party state, you must make it as hard as possible for people to riot and try to brainwash them into being complacent. This leads to all sorts of Human Rights violations, but what kind you do if you don't want a social meltdown?
A lot of people talk about "democracy" for China as if China can just jump to a multi-party system and everything will magically be better. However, reality doesn't work like that. Switching forms of government will always create large amounts of turmoil, both socially and economically. Socially because not everyone will be happy with the new form of government and the policies instituted. This will often lead to splitting of the state given a weak central government. Economically because businesses do not know what policies the new government will implement and the social turmoil. Business tend to be very conservative given economic uncertainty (you can see if very well currently in the US and Europe, businesses are not hiring and not spending on acquisitions).
No, the Taiwanese government (aka the Nationalists) lost the civil war against the communists. If anything, they have lost their legitimacy.
I don't think Taiwan can claim legitimacy anymore than PRC, I mean it started out from the Boxer Rebellion. How can one successful rebellion be more legitimate than another?
Now the question on whether or not Taiwan is part of PRC is how different ball game, a debate that I don't wish to get into.
You have some options here:
1. Get an unlocked Quad Band GSM phone. If you are on AT&T, well you're phone is probably locked. But if you had an unlocked phone, then iPhones and Blackberries definitely work everywhere in China. The vast majority of China is covered with GSM and UMTS so any phone that works on T-mobile will work in China. I have no idea why AT&T decided to use a frequency that no one else uses... The good thing about this is that the Phone is in English, and is easy to use if you are not fluent in Chinese. Once there, like so many other people have said, just by a sim card. If you have an unlocked iPhone 4 like I do, you'll also need a Sim Cutter tool (available on ebay and the likes for around 20 dollars).
2. Buy a phone there. Some smart phones carry multiple languages in the system by default and all you have to do is get someone to help you change it to English.
You want to note that in China, they don't have "nation-wide" calling. Calling a local number and a long-distance number makes a huge difference on the price. However, a text message to any cell phone in China is always the same price. And texting is very cheap compared to US standards, so most people will send lots of text messages.
Also, I wanted to say that like any international traveling, you should consider using VOIP where possible. You certainly don't want to make an international call on your cell in China, it's absurdly expensive. Skype is accessible within China. The premier Instant Messaging Network in China is QQ, there is an English edition that you can get as well so chat with Family at home with. But I would recommend Skype over that since many people already have Skype in the US.
I also want to dispel some of the rumors that people have and the fear mongering. Every time I've flown in, I've never seen anyone get their cell phones confiscated or searched. The only time this will happen is if the Chinese government has a record of you do something "disruptive of social harmony". (This means don't bad mouth the government and you'll be OK. Also "When in Rome, do as the Romans do" is quite applicable here. However, it's not like there is a listen device in every room either. You should feel fairly save from unwanted invasions of privacy. As they say, the dog will bite you if you kick it.) The person saying that he had 3 colleagues who had their phones searched or confiscated probably works for a human rights organization, works for something else that China doesn't like, or did something suspicious during their entry. Most people will go through customs without any issues. (Oh there is additional scrutiny if you going to an area like Tibet or where there is currently social unrest. But for most of the big tourist spots (I'm assuming you're going for leisure since you are taking pictures and stuff) should be OK).
Also, the rootkit issue. In order to install a rootkit, the attacker must either have physical access to your phone or get you visit a malicious link. Buying a new phone wouldn't mean there is a rootkit installed on the phone either, it's just to practical to install a rootkit on every phone. Of course if you some how managed to get the Chinese secret service to tail you, well then all bets are off;)
I just don't see why this is such a big deal. I've never found it difficult to switch between the two... I just automatically do it. You're brain is not so limited in that it can only remember to do one thing. If you use different fingers when you're using different things, you end up with three distinct sets of spatial/muscle memory that does not conflict.
For calculators, I use both thumbs
For phones, I use my index finger on the phone number pad. To type, I use both thumbs, I think this is left over from my TI-89 days in High School
For computer's number pad, I use Index, Middle, and Ring fingers for the 3 columns.
Of course it doesn't help if you're one of those people who only use their index finger to type everything....
First of all, there is no need for you to defend your qualifications. A sound argument should carry it's own weight, most people would agree. The fact that you spend all that time defending your own point of view really detracts from your argument.
Second, under the US law, Car Rental agencies are liable as owners of the vehicle regardless if the driver was doing something irresponsible. Thus, ISPs are not quite like Car Agencies, in that they not usually liable for infringements of its users. Additionally, allow me to add to the Judge's argument and hope that it makes some sense. Car Agencies rent out physical goods owned by the car rental itself, namely the vehicles. Therefore, the car agency will have liability as it was something owned by the agency that caused damage. Whereas, the ISP is a routing service. It does not own the data sent nor received. In that sense, it is more like USPS or any other mail/package delivery service. If someone mails some a DVD with copyright infringing materials on it, is USPS liable? Most likely not, whoever sent the package should be liable, along with the recipient of the package if they acquired the DVD to circumvent copyrights. Here USPS does not own anything that caused damage. Similarly, the ISP does not own anything that caused damage. The IP address certainly didn't do any damage to VPR. Hence ISP is not a potential defendant in the lawsuit where as the car agency would be. Hence it's not a very good analogy. VPR should have made the argument that you can subpoena the post office for where the mail was going to and where it was from. But then it's also against federal law to look at mail that wasn't intended for you, you wouldn't know about the copyright infringement.
Third, your vote-off terms are quite one sided. You have failed to summerize Judge Baker's argument correctly. It's not because you can sue the Car Rental in order to subpoena the identity of the driver, but rather, Car Rental agencies could be codefendants where as the ISP are not. This is a critical distinction in law since these two different firms have different legal protection in place. Not to mention if the ISP was a defendant, then the ISP would have to yield the identity of the customer during the adversial process. There would have been no need for a subpoena!
Fourth, you say that the Judge's writing is incoherent, what about this sentence you wrote? "If some customers in similar situations have had their identities made public by other circumstances, the judge's ruling gives no reason why that should be relevant at all, in a situation where the customer's identity is not public." I am going to ignore the fact that sentence is poorly constructed, but explain why the Judge's ruling actually supports his claim. He is using this sentence to support the fact that car agency analogy doesn't apply to the ISP. In the Car Rental case, there are also public records of the customer's information, and in the ISP's case there are not. Hence this is an additional fundamental difference between the two scenarios, so any analogy is not apt.
Fifth, about the whether or not IP subscribers are at fault, you claim that even if the defendant is not guilty, that could be proven in court. Unfortunately, that not how most of these cases work. Once VPR subpeonas the customer's information, they end settlement letters threatening very expensive law suits unless the "defendant" settles out of court (usually for several thousand dollars). Many users cannot fight this because they cannot afford a lawyer to do legal battles for a whole year. And at the end of the day, even if proven innocent, they could still be down even more money because they had to pay the lawyer. Unlike a criminal trial, this would be a civil suit and you do not have the right to a lawyer. Hence, a trail may not even happen, in which case you are punishing the wrong people.
That aside, you claim that the court must believe that there is a reasonable probablity that the plaintiffs will win; in reality is quite unlikely. It'
I think it'll be OK. Just look at what happened with Australia. Just give it fifty years or so. OK, jokes aside, I don't think convicted murders have the mental capacity to stay focused to survive on Mars.
It's probably true that Chinese names are slightly more diverse in Chinese, but the moment you use PinYin or Giles-Wades to romanize it, they have have the same spelling.
And also, Chinese people also tends to pick very common English names if they have them (yeah I have one of them too); compounded with the fact that there aren't that many Chinese last names (especially within one geographic location*), everyone has the same name in English.
Now for my Chinese name in Chinese, I'm fairly certain that no one else in the world has it, and I have very good confidence in it. But using PinYin shares my first name with a Taiwanese actress/singer.
* In rural China, there are entire villages where everyone has the same last name. It's kinda hill billy out there.
Slashdot Mirror
Projectile weaponry would be fairly worthless given laser based counter measures that can shot down your projectiles long before they will reach their target. The only way to get them to hit is to overwhelm the defense system, which means huge amounts of resources wasted in trying to hit a target.
So the vast majority of weapon systems will be energy based. Lasers will not be visible until it hits you since it's moving at the speed of light. So in that respect you probably would not even see it until it's hit you. In fact you'll probably wouldn't even know that you are being fired at until something's hit you. Unless your opponents are using some sort of energy-emitting ("active") method of tracking your position, they would fire at you and you'd only know after you've been hit since classical information cannot travel faster than light or the laser itself.
If you have laser energy dissipating shields, then you'd see a blinding light splash across your shield when you get hit.
Now let's consider if you were in a space suit and in space and you're spectating. It's also likely that you wouldn't see much either. Lasers are monochromatic and does not scatter unless interrupted by particles. If vast stretches space, there is actually nothing there. In those regions, you wouldn't see the laser going between the ships. You will see when the laser impacts and does damage or if it is dissipated, but the whole Star Wars thing with the lasers that you can see? You wouldn't see them. If you are in a dust/gas field, then yes, the lasers will get deflected off the particles and you should see the laser. Of course laser based weapons will be less effective as it is hitting a whole bunch of stuff before it finds its way to the target. (You can think of a laser pointer at home. If you have a very clean room, no dust, then the laser point will point at whatever it is you're pointing at and you shouldn't see the beam itself. If you have dust in the room then the laser will illuminate the dust and you can make out the beam).
Continuing down the line of though, you probably wouldn't hear much if you didn't have a radio if you were in a space suit in space. Space is pretty much a vacuum and vacuums don't conduct sound unfortunately. Waves require matter to propagate (light is a special case) and sound is a wave. So without a radio, you get to watch the war in absolute silence (go watch 2001: A Space Odyssey, but ignore the orchestral accompaniment). But if you had a radio or was in a space ship, you'd hear explosions from the ship getting pummeled by laser batteries. But of course, if you were unlucky enough to get sucked out of the whole that was punched into your space ship, you'd very quickly be unable to hear anything before you died from suffocation or got incinerated by a second valley from the lasers.
So PGP and VPN is often used by companies to secure it's data. So all the top Fortune 500 companies support terrorism? Encryption of data is a legal requirement for some of our work.
Because /. has a anti-Chinese government bias, so they quote Falun Gong backed sites, which obviously is against the Chinese government.
I think the truth is somewhere in between what the Falun Gong has to say and what the Chinese government has to say. Both use propaganda very well. But then again all media agencies are bias in some way and either sensationalize their reports or tries to achieve a political agenda.
Now I'm not saying the Chinese government is right for abusing human rights, in fact I think the Chinese government has a long way to go in that arena. In fact it's doing really poorly and its actions should not be acceptable. However, at the same time, I AM saying Falun Gong is full of crap, and I cannot support anything they say or do. I'd support other human right activists that aren't full of crap though.
If you don't check it, every time in future you see the word comparable you will recognise it and what it means but will just sound odd if you read it out loud that way to someone.
This just proves my point, there is an additional mapping from the entire word "compare" to the sound for it and "able" to the sound for it. When you see it together you'll pronounce it as it were two separate words, which is odd. And this doesn't contradict the fact that you have a visual storage for initially recognizing the words. I guess I'm just saying you don't go letter by letter and sound out the word. Because if people did they'd pronounce comparable correctly every time. Comparable has no special tricks, and follows all the rules of English pronunciation (at least in American English).
Why would you think that a PhD in Biological Sciences would be closely related (or even related) to one in Computer Science? Really?
The intelligence of PhDs really are Piled Higher and Deeper.
Biological Sciences have a lot of need for Computer Sciences right now. Everything from Genetics to Molecular Biology spends on staggering amounts of Statistics and CS work. I have a few friends of mine working for the National Health Institute and at Medical Schools and they all need CS and Stats background. So there is a pretty deep connect between Biology and CS right now. So yes, there is a very close relationship.
Obviously, a software firm may ask you why you got a Biological Sciences Ph.D. as opposed to a CS one, and why you are qualified. You may also get filtered out if CS is not on your resume as well. So, if you do get the Ivy Ph.D. you'll have some work cut out for you on your resume to make sure you come off the right way on paper.
Also, if you end up working for a Bio Tech, then this argument is moot, they would take a Biologist any day of the week.
You're missing the point.
The fact that the non-native reader tries to read it as compare+able shows that sounds are associated with the entire word as opposed to individual letters the same way as an ideogram would.
And another thing: English is not my native language and I know a lot of English words I have never heard. Yet I can read them no problem. Another fact in favor of the theory in the article.
I am a native speaker and I've learned many words in writing before I learned them in speech. As a result, some of my pronunciations are nonstandard. I pronounce "comparable" as if it were "compare" + "able", even though the standard way is irregular, "comp" + "arable". I tried to pronounce these words from how they were written before I'd heard them.
I don't know why this is even up for debate. If you look at any ideogram languages, you can't just sound out each word. Especially Chinese, where there are character that sound the same but have different characters. Or even the same character can be read differently depending on context. You definitely memorized the shape. The article is definitely right that we must be storing a visual dictionary of sorts. If we had to sound out each word, then ideogram languages would have never been invented, too inefficient.
But this also doesn't mean that you don't also associate shapes to sounds. The reason you pronounce it like "compare" + "able" is because you associated the shape "compare" to its sound and "able" to its sound. When put together, it would come out as "compare" + "able". This doesn't prove that you sound out the words as you see them. However, English is a language that runs on syllables, and "compare" is a multiple syllable word, so it gets broken up in the official pronunciation of the word comparable.
I guess it's better than the PETA.xxx they tried.
Mad props to Nintendo if they add an DLC that gives the skinless Tanuki an appearance in game.
Seriously? If anyone it's inept, it's the cable companies. Government mandated you to do a test. You screwed up. How this is a government failure is beyond comprehension.
I'm pretty sure they meant in China, China hasn't built a supercomputer that didn't use Intel or AMD chips before this one. They were listing reasons why this computer is significant for China.
Better, but still xenophobic and racist...
Can't wait until some Horde guild grabs a world first with only Pandarens. :)
A chinese person will reply that there was no egg, simply a reversed-engineered chicken to form another chicken :)
Funny, but a Chinese person would reply an egg, because the all that is in the universe was born out of an egg in Chinese mythology. See Pangu.
Agreed the university are a oligopoly and have enough clout to price discriminate. The issue is that when you take away the subsidy the university wouldn't downward price match the same drop in available resources.
In fact a lot of Universities will give you very aggressive Financial aid packages when you are applying to lure you in and then each year reduce the aid significantly. It is highly possible that the Universities will price match the drop for only the first year.
Agreed, all countries censor, just to a different extend. China does it much more so and openly than most other nations out there.
Of course blocking twitter and other social media that is not state controlled is a great idea for China. When you have to manage over 1.2 billion people, it's very very hard to make everyone happy. The US only has 300+ million and it's already hard for congress to agree on anything. Now if you make that 4 times as many people, it's even hard to agree. And as a single party state, you must make it as hard as possible for people to riot and try to brainwash them into being complacent. This leads to all sorts of Human Rights violations, but what kind you do if you don't want a social meltdown?
A lot of people talk about "democracy" for China as if China can just jump to a multi-party system and everything will magically be better. However, reality doesn't work like that. Switching forms of government will always create large amounts of turmoil, both socially and economically. Socially because not everyone will be happy with the new form of government and the policies instituted. This will often lead to splitting of the state given a weak central government. Economically because businesses do not know what policies the new government will implement and the social turmoil. Business tend to be very conservative given economic uncertainty (you can see if very well currently in the US and Europe, businesses are not hiring and not spending on acquisitions).
Agreed. Smoking and Cancer researches are funded by politics, so there will always be politics in science.
No, Taiwan is the legit China.
No, the Taiwanese government (aka the Nationalists) lost the civil war against the communists. If anything, they have lost their legitimacy.
I don't think Taiwan can claim legitimacy anymore than PRC, I mean it started out from the Boxer Rebellion. How can one successful rebellion be more legitimate than another?
Now the question on whether or not Taiwan is part of PRC is how different ball game, a debate that I don't wish to get into.
You have some options here:
;)
1. Get an unlocked Quad Band GSM phone. If you are on AT&T, well you're phone is probably locked. But if you had an unlocked phone, then iPhones and Blackberries definitely work everywhere in China. The vast majority of China is covered with GSM and UMTS so any phone that works on T-mobile will work in China. I have no idea why AT&T decided to use a frequency that no one else uses... The good thing about this is that the Phone is in English, and is easy to use if you are not fluent in Chinese. Once there, like so many other people have said, just by a sim card. If you have an unlocked iPhone 4 like I do, you'll also need a Sim Cutter tool (available on ebay and the likes for around 20 dollars).
2. Buy a phone there. Some smart phones carry multiple languages in the system by default and all you have to do is get someone to help you change it to English.
You want to note that in China, they don't have "nation-wide" calling. Calling a local number and a long-distance number makes a huge difference on the price. However, a text message to any cell phone in China is always the same price. And texting is very cheap compared to US standards, so most people will send lots of text messages.
Also, I wanted to say that like any international traveling, you should consider using VOIP where possible. You certainly don't want to make an international call on your cell in China, it's absurdly expensive. Skype is accessible within China. The premier Instant Messaging Network in China is QQ, there is an English edition that you can get as well so chat with Family at home with. But I would recommend Skype over that since many people already have Skype in the US.
I also want to dispel some of the rumors that people have and the fear mongering. Every time I've flown in, I've never seen anyone get their cell phones confiscated or searched. The only time this will happen is if the Chinese government has a record of you do something "disruptive of social harmony". (This means don't bad mouth the government and you'll be OK. Also "When in Rome, do as the Romans do" is quite applicable here. However, it's not like there is a listen device in every room either. You should feel fairly save from unwanted invasions of privacy. As they say, the dog will bite you if you kick it.) The person saying that he had 3 colleagues who had their phones searched or confiscated probably works for a human rights organization, works for something else that China doesn't like, or did something suspicious during their entry. Most people will go through customs without any issues. (Oh there is additional scrutiny if you going to an area like Tibet or where there is currently social unrest. But for most of the big tourist spots (I'm assuming you're going for leisure since you are taking pictures and stuff) should be OK).
Also, the rootkit issue. In order to install a rootkit, the attacker must either have physical access to your phone or get you visit a malicious link. Buying a new phone wouldn't mean there is a rootkit installed on the phone either, it's just to practical to install a rootkit on every phone. Of course if you some how managed to get the Chinese secret service to tail you, well then all bets are off
I just don't see why this is such a big deal. I've never found it difficult to switch between the two... I just automatically do it. You're brain is not so limited in that it can only remember to do one thing. If you use different fingers when you're using different things, you end up with three distinct sets of spatial/muscle memory that does not conflict.
For calculators, I use both thumbs
For phones, I use my index finger on the phone number pad. To type, I use both thumbs, I think this is left over from my TI-89 days in High School
For computer's number pad, I use Index, Middle, and Ring fingers for the 3 columns.
Of course it doesn't help if you're one of those people who only use their index finger to type everything....
Doesn't gmail "scan" your email to get the ad keywords for the ads on the side?
First of all, there is no need for you to defend your qualifications. A sound argument should carry it's own weight, most people would agree. The fact that you spend all that time defending your own point of view really detracts from your argument.
Second, under the US law, Car Rental agencies are liable as owners of the vehicle regardless if the driver was doing something irresponsible. Thus, ISPs are not quite like Car Agencies, in that they not usually liable for infringements of its users. Additionally, allow me to add to the Judge's argument and hope that it makes some sense. Car Agencies rent out physical goods owned by the car rental itself, namely the vehicles. Therefore, the car agency will have liability as it was something owned by the agency that caused damage. Whereas, the ISP is a routing service. It does not own the data sent nor received. In that sense, it is more like USPS or any other mail/package delivery service. If someone mails some a DVD with copyright infringing materials on it, is USPS liable? Most likely not, whoever sent the package should be liable, along with the recipient of the package if they acquired the DVD to circumvent copyrights. Here USPS does not own anything that caused damage. Similarly, the ISP does not own anything that caused damage. The IP address certainly didn't do any damage to VPR. Hence ISP is not a potential defendant in the lawsuit where as the car agency would be. Hence it's not a very good analogy. VPR should have made the argument that you can subpoena the post office for where the mail was going to and where it was from. But then it's also against federal law to look at mail that wasn't intended for you, you wouldn't know about the copyright infringement.
Third, your vote-off terms are quite one sided. You have failed to summerize Judge Baker's argument correctly. It's not because you can sue the Car Rental in order to subpoena the identity of the driver, but rather, Car Rental agencies could be codefendants where as the ISP are not. This is a critical distinction in law since these two different firms have different legal protection in place. Not to mention if the ISP was a defendant, then the ISP would have to yield the identity of the customer during the adversial process. There would have been no need for a subpoena!
Fourth, you say that the Judge's writing is incoherent, what about this sentence you wrote? "If some customers in similar situations have had their identities made public by other circumstances, the judge's ruling gives no reason why that should be relevant at all, in a situation where the customer's identity is not public." I am going to ignore the fact that sentence is poorly constructed, but explain why the Judge's ruling actually supports his claim. He is using this sentence to support the fact that car agency analogy doesn't apply to the ISP. In the Car Rental case, there are also public records of the customer's information, and in the ISP's case there are not. Hence this is an additional fundamental difference between the two scenarios, so any analogy is not apt.
Fifth, about the whether or not IP subscribers are at fault, you claim that even if the defendant is not guilty, that could be proven in court. Unfortunately, that not how most of these cases work. Once VPR subpeonas the customer's information, they end settlement letters threatening very expensive law suits unless the "defendant" settles out of court (usually for several thousand dollars). Many users cannot fight this because they cannot afford a lawyer to do legal battles for a whole year. And at the end of the day, even if proven innocent, they could still be down even more money because they had to pay the lawyer. Unlike a criminal trial, this would be a civil suit and you do not have the right to a lawyer. Hence, a trail may not even happen, in which case you are punishing the wrong people. That aside, you claim that the court must believe that there is a reasonable probablity that the plaintiffs will win; in reality is quite unlikely. It'
I think it'll be OK. Just look at what happened with Australia. Just give it fifty years or so.
OK, jokes aside, I don't think convicted murders have the mental capacity to stay focused to survive on Mars.
It's probably true that Chinese names are slightly more diverse in Chinese, but the moment you use PinYin or Giles-Wades to romanize it, they have have the same spelling. And also, Chinese people also tends to pick very common English names if they have them (yeah I have one of them too); compounded with the fact that there aren't that many Chinese last names (especially within one geographic location*), everyone has the same name in English. Now for my Chinese name in Chinese, I'm fairly certain that no one else in the world has it, and I have very good confidence in it. But using PinYin shares my first name with a Taiwanese actress/singer. * In rural China, there are entire villages where everyone has the same last name. It's kinda hill billy out there.
:( /. killed the Chinese characters in my post... >_