Well, Jayson Stark (the author of the article) makes frequent reference to the fact that Doug Glanville is a Yale graduate summa cum laude. I'd hardly call that stupid. Doug is also a hilarious guy if he really does say all the things Jayson writes... and from an interview I saw with Doug, I wouldn't doubt it.
Liquor stores are selling items which they own; bottles of booze. Napster users are giving something away which the owner does not want given away; free rights to listen to their music.
The former is a business to consumer transaction of goods owned by the business. The latter is a consumer to consumer transaction of rights they have no legal authority to transfer or bestow.
You clearly do not own the music (you aren't Lars Ulrich, are you?), only the rights to listen to it. Nowhere, implicitly or explicitly, are you given permission to bypass the owner's wishes and start dishing out these rights as if they were yours to give.
In your example, you site drunk driving, which is a possible illegal outcome of a legal transaction, and music swapping, which is an inherently illegal transaction. Apples and oranges. I don't like the law, but we have to live with it until it is stricken from the books.
Re:time as a fourth dimension
on
Stop, Light.
·
· Score: 3
Except that relativistic velocities are not simply additive... v_net != v_1 + v_2. Rather, v_net = (v_1 + v_2) / (1 + v_1*v_2/c^2). That way, even if v_1 = v_2 = c, the equation becomes v_net = (c + c) / (1 + c*c/c^2) = 2c/2 = c. At speeds that are not a significant fraction of c, the equation gives v_net \approx v_1 + v_2, as the denominator is approximately 1 (well, 1 + epsilon, which as we all know, is 1).
Your flaw is trying to add things with dissimilar units... when you consider time as a fourth dimension, you are really doing calculations with ct (a length), not t (a time). That way, you can express the distance through spacetime as ds^2 = (ct)^2 - r^2 (or r^2 - (ct)^2, depending on which metric you use).
The mouse IL-4 virus may be inactive in humans, but comments by the scientists made me believe that there is a human equivalent to IL-4. One of them was quoted saying, "It would be safe to assume that if some idiot did put human IL-4 into human smallpox, they'd increase the lethality quite dramatically,".
(As a side note, why would any sane person make this statement? That's like saying, hey! I don't know if y'all know this, but if you put enough plutonium-239 together, you can create an explosive nuclear fisson chain. Oh, but don't do that, ok? Nuclear explosions bad, hmm'k.)
Now, we have a very good vaccine for smallpox, good enough that it has effectively been eliminated as a threat to humans. However, in mice, the addition of IL-4 decreased the effectiveness of mouse smallpox vaccine to around 50%. If the same decrease in effectiveness was seen with the human smallpox vaccine against smallpox+human IL-4, I'd say there is a cause for concern.
Remember, before the advent of the smallpox vaccine, millions died from the disease.
The most disturbing thing about margin of error is that FAR too many people on/. kept (incorrectly) insisting that there was no margin of error. No amount of direction to texts concerning error calculations for counting statistics would make them STFU.
I like to think that the average/.er is well above the intelligence level of the average person. If these supposedly intelligent people a) don't know about or understand the statistics, and b) adamantly refuse to consult those who DO understand, then the media probably was correct to keep quiet about the margin of error. Last thing we needed was hoards of Bush and Gore supporters screaming at each oth... oh, nevermind.
First Claim:
What is claimed is:
1. At least one computer program stored on a computer-readable medium, embodying a method of searching for a match in a database of a plurality of records, where the records in the database include length information and number of segments for recordings corresponding to the records, comprising:
calculating approximate length information for the records in the database and for a selected recording having a number of segments;
and determining at least one approximately matching record in the database for the selected recording based on the number of
segments and the approximate length information.
Hmmm... a computer program stored on a computer-readable medium. Yup. Printouts of code don't work that well.
A database of a plurality of records. Sure, that means more than one record, because one record does not a database make.
Calculating length information for a record... I might be able to get this:
select sum(a.track_length)
from record_tracks a, records b
where a.record_id = b.record_id
and b.record_name = 'The Wall'
and b.artist_name = 'Pink Floyd';
So, if I'm working for a client that has timing information in a database with more than one record, and I need to calculate total times, I'm going to have to pay CDDB to write a basic SQL query? Fuggedahboutit!
Errr... Alpha Centauri is a star in our own galaxy (second closest to us, after Proxima Centauri). Most of the astrophysics being done concentrates on studies of our own galaxy (cause it's pretty easy to look at). Someone has to look at extragalactic objects.
I don't know where in SA the Incans live (by latitude, that is), but for the 'trick of the Egyptians' to work, you have to be able to see a star that is 10 degrees below the celestial pole. The angle between your local northern horizon and the north celestial pole (NCP) is equal to your latitude. To see a star 10 degrees below the NCP pole, you have to be at least 10 degrees north of the equator.
This would also work in the southern hemisphere IF there are a similar pair of stars surrounding the SCP. But, since I don't live there, and have never been farther south than 16 deg N, I'm not too sure.
...Flex time is good, m'kay. If you are working on project that takes more than a few hours (ie, most of them), do you want someone telling you that you have to go home at 5:30, and that any time past then is overtime? Where I work, if I work a 10 hour day, Friday == 6 hours, etc. That way, I can keep working on a project when I'm on a roll, but come the end of the week, it's goodbye job, hello life!
Luckily, I work for a company that farms out teams of people on a consulting basis. All my company cares about is that I spend at least 40 hours a week here, and at least 35 of them billable to the client. After that, it's all good.
Probably the same reason that Bush/Cheney have sent "legal observers" to FL. They're both looking after their best interests. I wouldn't expect anything less.
the polls in western florida closed one hour later than the rest of FL. They are on central time....
I wish I could mod you up to +5 Informative. It's amazing how few people know this, or bother paying attention when it is CONSTANTLY mentioned in the press as another example of the media goof-ups!
let's assume that only two candidates are running, A versus B, and each vote is like a random coin toss, with a 50 percent chance of going either way. In your let's assume that only two candidates are running, A versus B, and each
vote is like a random coin toss, with a 50 percent chance of going either way. In your nation of three, there's a 50 percent chance
that the other two voters will split, one for A and the other for B, and thus a 50 percent chance that our single vote will determine
the election. There's also, of course, a 25 percent chance both will vote for A and a 25 percent chance both will vote for B, making
your vote unimportant
The probability that the other two will agree with each other is 50% not 25%, I wonder about the rest of the article and 2 decades worth of research.
See the bold part above, the one where he states that there is a 50% chance that the first two votes will split? That's mathematically equivalent to saying there's a 50% chance the first two votes will match, as well. The only place 25% is brought up is when he says that there is a 25% chance the first two votes go to candidate A and a 25% chance the first two votes go to B.
That's 25% chance both vote for A, making your vote unimportant; 25% chance both vote for B, making your vote unimportant; and 50% chance the votes will split, making your vote the decisive one.
That being said, I don't wonder at all... when's the last time YOU testified before Congress?
Florida state law mandates a recount when the candidates are separated by no more than 0.5%. And yes, if you lost by 1000 out of 6 million votes, and it affected the outcome of a national race, you'd be interested in the recount, too.
Do you honestly think dub-ya would do any different if Gore had come out on top by 1-2000 votes? Nah...
Goes to show that a vote for Nader was a vote for Bush all along, Nader appears to have cost Gore Oregano, Ohio, and Florida. Sure hope he sleeps well.
Whew! At least he didn't cost Gore Thyme and Basil. That would really have screwed him over!!!
drsoran quoth:
Let's kick the Presidents out and have Cheney and Lieberman take office!
Now that's one of the few good suggestions I've seen so far!
I don't actually think that the results in Florida will change, but I think you overestimate the percentage of military ballots that will go to Bush. In 1996, those ballots broke about 53-47 for Dole (ignoring Perot supporters). I'd imagine those in the military would have more reason to dislike Clinton than Gore.
Eh... whatever. Like you, I think ALL the candidates sucked ass, but what can you do? I just don't like it when the executive and legislative branches are ruled by the same party. It's almost like "we're going to do what we think is best... screw the other half of the country." Maybe I've overreacted, though. I hope so.
Well, Kennedy beat Nixon in 1960 by about 100,000 votes out of 62 million. The electoral vote wasn't that close, though. This election is surprising because both the electoral AND popular vote is so close!
They do it because certain state almost always vote a certain way in presidential elections. Most New England states always vote Dem, while most of the Bible belt always goes Rep (hell, Gore couldn't even take HIS OWN STATE).
As to other statements in this thread, all states except Nebraska and Maine are winner take all in the electoral vote. If you win the state by 1 vote (and that total passes the recount, too), you get all of the electoral votes for that state.
I don't quite understand how the other states work, though. I remember hearing that the vote in Maine was somewhere in the vicinity of Gore leading by a few percent, but no one is talking about a straight split of those votes. What I heard is that it MAY go 3-1 for Gore, but probably all 4 to Gore (that's what MSNBC and CNN were saying, anyway).
Bush only has that many IF he still wins Florida. If what the previous poster is talking about happens, Florida could shift to Gore, and he'd win. It's all rather amazing, though. Much more interesting than, say, 1984. Seems like Mondale got his home state and Washington DC, Reagan carried the other *49* states.
Exactly what is a "qualified no answer"??? Is that like answering a somewhat related question, but ducking the issue at hand? If so, all of them should have been marked n/a*. It's what politicians are best at!
Slashdot Mirror
You mean like this one from last Sunday?
Yeah... I forgot my manners. I didn't get to use F90 until my last 3 months or so (after 5 years of F77)... it did look like a much better language.
Learn FORTRAN? That's funny. If you know basically any language, you can read FORTRAN... Just don't shudder too often. And no loud shouting, either.
Pratt is the backup catcher for the Mets, behind Mike Piazza... in case you really cared.
-E
Well, Jayson Stark (the author of the article) makes frequent reference to the fact that Doug Glanville is a Yale graduate summa cum laude. I'd hardly call that stupid. Doug is also a hilarious guy if he really does say all the things Jayson writes... and from an interview I saw with Doug, I wouldn't doubt it.
-E
Liquor stores are selling items which they own; bottles of booze. Napster users are giving something away which the owner does not want given away; free rights to listen to their music.
The former is a business to consumer transaction of goods owned by the business. The latter is a consumer to consumer transaction of rights they have no legal authority to transfer or bestow.
You clearly do not own the music (you aren't Lars Ulrich, are you?), only the rights to listen to it. Nowhere, implicitly or explicitly, are you given permission to bypass the owner's wishes and start dishing out these rights as if they were yours to give.
In your example, you site drunk driving, which is a possible illegal outcome of a legal transaction, and music swapping, which is an inherently illegal transaction. Apples and oranges. I don't like the law, but we have to live with it until it is stricken from the books.
Eric
I'd say 'your soul.'
Eric
Except that relativistic velocities are not simply additive... v_net != v_1 + v_2. Rather, v_net = (v_1 + v_2) / (1 + v_1*v_2/c^2). That way, even if v_1 = v_2 = c, the equation becomes v_net = (c + c) / (1 + c*c/c^2) = 2c/2 = c. At speeds that are not a significant fraction of c, the equation gives v_net \approx v_1 + v_2, as the denominator is approximately 1 (well, 1 + epsilon, which as we all know, is 1).
Your flaw is trying to add things with dissimilar units... when you consider time as a fourth dimension, you are really doing calculations with ct (a length), not t (a time). That way, you can express the distance through spacetime as ds^2 = (ct)^2 - r^2 (or r^2 - (ct)^2, depending on which metric you use).
Eric
Eric
The mouse IL-4 virus may be inactive in humans, but comments by the scientists made me believe that there is a human equivalent to IL-4. One of them was quoted saying, "It would be safe to assume that if some idiot did put human IL-4 into human smallpox, they'd increase the lethality quite dramatically,".
(As a side note, why would any sane person make this statement? That's like saying, hey! I don't know if y'all know this, but if you put enough plutonium-239 together, you can create an explosive nuclear fisson chain. Oh, but don't do that, ok? Nuclear explosions bad, hmm'k.)
Now, we have a very good vaccine for smallpox, good enough that it has effectively been eliminated as a threat to humans. However, in mice, the addition of IL-4 decreased the effectiveness of mouse smallpox vaccine to around 50%. If the same decrease in effectiveness was seen with the human smallpox vaccine against smallpox+human IL-4, I'd say there is a cause for concern.
Remember, before the advent of the smallpox vaccine, millions died from the disease.
Eric
The most disturbing thing about margin of error is that FAR too many people on /. kept (incorrectly) insisting that there was no margin of error. No amount of direction to texts concerning error calculations for counting statistics would make them STFU.
/.er is well above the intelligence level of the average person. If these supposedly intelligent people a) don't know about or understand the statistics, and b) adamantly refuse to consult those who DO understand, then the media probably was correct to keep quiet about the margin of error. Last thing we needed was hoards of Bush and Gore supporters screaming at each oth... oh, nevermind.
I like to think that the average
Wake me up in time for the rematch in 2004.
Eric
What is claimed is:
1. At least one computer program stored on a computer-readable medium, embodying a method of searching for a match in a database of a plurality of records, where the records in the database include length information and number of segments for recordings corresponding to the records, comprising:
calculating approximate length information for the records in the database and for a selected recording having a number of segments;
and determining at least one approximately matching record in the database for the selected recording based on the number of segments and the approximate length information.
Hmmm... a computer program stored on a computer-readable medium. Yup. Printouts of code don't work that well.
A database of a plurality of records. Sure, that means more than one record, because one record does not a database make.
Calculating length information for a record... I might be able to get this:
select sum(a.track_length)
from record_tracks a, records b
where a.record_id = b.record_id
and b.record_name = 'The Wall'
and b.artist_name = 'Pink Floyd';
So, if I'm working for a client that has timing information in a database with more than one record, and I need to calculate total times, I'm going to have to pay CDDB to write a basic SQL query? Fuggedahboutit!
Eric
It's purpose was to study the solar wind. Moving away from the sun is kinda counterproductive to that end...
Eric
Errr... Alpha Centauri is a star in our own galaxy (second closest to us, after Proxima Centauri). Most of the astrophysics being done concentrates on studies of our own galaxy (cause it's pretty easy to look at). Someone has to look at extragalactic objects.
Eric
I don't know where in SA the Incans live (by latitude, that is), but for the 'trick of the Egyptians' to work, you have to be able to see a star that is 10 degrees below the celestial pole. The angle between your local northern horizon and the north celestial pole (NCP) is equal to your latitude. To see a star 10 degrees below the NCP pole, you have to be at least 10 degrees north of the equator.
This would also work in the southern hemisphere IF there are a similar pair of stars surrounding the SCP. But, since I don't live there, and have never been farther south than 16 deg N, I'm not too sure.
Eric (who used to teach freshman astronomy)
...Flex time is good, m'kay. If you are working on project that takes more than a few hours (ie, most of them), do you want someone telling you that you have to go home at 5:30, and that any time past then is overtime? Where I work, if I work a 10 hour day, Friday == 6 hours, etc. That way, I can keep working on a project when I'm on a roll, but come the end of the week, it's goodbye job, hello life!
Luckily, I work for a company that farms out teams of people on a consulting basis. All my company cares about is that I spend at least 40 hours a week here, and at least 35 of them billable to the client. After that, it's all good.
Eric
Probably the same reason that Bush/Cheney have sent "legal observers" to FL. They're both looking after their best interests. I wouldn't expect anything less.
Eric
I wish I could mod you up to +5 Informative. It's amazing how few people know this, or bother paying attention when it is CONSTANTLY mentioned in the press as another example of the media goof-ups!
Eric
let's assume that only two candidates are running, A versus B, and each vote is like a random coin toss, with a 50 percent chance of going either way. In your let's assume that only two candidates are running, A versus B, and each vote is like a random coin toss, with a 50 percent chance of going either way. In your nation of three, there's a 50 percent chance that the other two voters will split, one for A and the other for B, and thus a 50 percent chance that our single vote will determine the election. There's also, of course, a 25 percent chance both will vote for A and a 25 percent chance both will vote for B, making your vote unimportant
The probability that the other two will agree with each other is 50% not 25%, I wonder about the rest of the article and 2 decades worth of research.
See the bold part above, the one where he states that there is a 50% chance that the first two votes will split? That's mathematically equivalent to saying there's a 50% chance the first two votes will match, as well. The only place 25% is brought up is when he says that there is a 25% chance the first two votes go to candidate A and a 25% chance the first two votes go to B.
It's like this:
1=A, 2=A
1=A, 2=B
1=B, 2=A
1=B, 2=B
That's 25% chance both vote for A, making your vote unimportant; 25% chance both vote for B, making your vote unimportant; and 50% chance the votes will split, making your vote the decisive one.
That being said, I don't wonder at all... when's the last time YOU testified before Congress?
Eric
Florida state law mandates a recount when the candidates are separated by no more than 0.5%. And yes, if you lost by 1000 out of 6 million votes, and it affected the outcome of a national race, you'd be interested in the recount, too.
Do you honestly think dub-ya would do any different if Gore had come out on top by 1-2000 votes? Nah...
Eric
Whew! At least he didn't cost Gore Thyme and Basil. That would really have screwed him over!!!
Eric
drsoran quoth:
Let's kick the Presidents out and have Cheney and Lieberman take office!
Now that's one of the few good suggestions I've seen so far!
I don't actually think that the results in Florida will change, but I think you overestimate the percentage of military ballots that will go to Bush. In 1996, those ballots broke about 53-47 for Dole (ignoring Perot supporters). I'd imagine those in the military would have more reason to dislike Clinton than Gore.
Eh... whatever. Like you, I think ALL the candidates sucked ass, but what can you do? I just don't like it when the executive and legislative branches are ruled by the same party. It's almost like "we're going to do what we think is best... screw the other half of the country." Maybe I've overreacted, though. I hope so.
Eric
Well, Kennedy beat Nixon in 1960 by about 100,000 votes out of 62 million. The electoral vote wasn't that close, though. This election is surprising because both the electoral AND popular vote is so close!
Eric
They do it because certain state almost always vote a certain way in presidential elections. Most New England states always vote Dem, while most of the Bible belt always goes Rep (hell, Gore couldn't even take HIS OWN STATE).
As to other statements in this thread, all states except Nebraska and Maine are winner take all in the electoral vote. If you win the state by 1 vote (and that total passes the recount, too), you get all of the electoral votes for that state.
I don't quite understand how the other states work, though. I remember hearing that the vote in Maine was somewhere in the vicinity of Gore leading by a few percent, but no one is talking about a straight split of those votes. What I heard is that it MAY go 3-1 for Gore, but probably all 4 to Gore (that's what MSNBC and CNN were saying, anyway).
Eric
Bush only has that many IF he still wins Florida. If what the previous poster is talking about happens, Florida could shift to Gore, and he'd win. It's all rather amazing, though. Much more interesting than, say, 1984. Seems like Mondale got his home state and Washington DC, Reagan carried the other *49* states.
Bizarr-o
Eric
Exactly what is a "qualified no answer"??? Is that like answering a somewhat related question, but ducking the issue at hand? If so, all of them should have been marked n/a*. It's what politicians are best at!
Eric