You suggest describing the universe With carefully constructed verse. But poetry alone cannot explain Why "we" are more than just a brain.
For that needs physics of the quantum sort? That's silly, as we should all retort. The question of why we are we Has been answered with "Je pense donc je suis."
For mysteries of the universe remain Far greater than the quanta of our brain. The notion that we can solve them all Is a load of utter fol de rol.
Our selves may be god-derived or not To know for sure, prob'ly ain't our lot Better that we spend the time instead Exploring life - the stuff outside our head.
For if we try too long and hard to solve This matter of how consciousness evolved We'll let all the important stuff slip by Like living life, instead of asking why.
Being unable to write a simple driver and being unable to understand a machine that's so complex it had to be designed by another complex machine aren't really comparable, are they?
I'm pretty good with computers, but if someone told me to build a video card tomorrow, I wouldn't know where to start. And I bet you wouldn't either.
There was a time not so long ago when buying a computer meant you took home a box of parts and soldered stuff together. Doing that, you learned a whole lot about how the system worked.
I can't say I don't sometimes miss the simpler days. I miss being able to play a game without some jackass Windows system message stealing focus and popping me out of the game right as I'm being attacked by 5 bad guys. I miss command line interfaces because the more layers of easy-to-use you pile on top of something, the more annoying it is to get under the hood and fix it.
That's not to say that I'm an old fart who hates modern conveniences, but in any technological evolution, there are trade-offs for the upgrades. After all, I recall a time when you could cool a computer without putting something the size of a jet engine on the chip.
This country's all about form over function, even when the form gives false impressions as to the function.
See: Wings/tail fins/fender holes on cars, false fronts on buildings, iPods that you can't change the battery on because someone thought screws are ugly, botox, breast implants, TV news, food photography, politics, and the Star Wars prequels. If given a choice between doing the job right and doing the job to look good, 9 times out of 10 people will pick what looks good.
Does the $170 million figure include compensation for PSN subscribers who suffered from the outage?
Probably not. The (old) games they're offering in "compensation" are ones that I wasn't planning to buy anyway. I'm sure I'm far from the only one that can say that. Add that group together with the group composed of people who have already bought those games, and factor in the fact that digital downloads don't really cost the company anything, and you end up with a few people feeling left out (because they bought the game) and a few people with a game that they wouldn't have spent money on anyway. Sony won't lose anything on that deal.
For the same reason people say the 6-o'clock news comes out and films a story. Film? TV news hasn't used film in decades. Hell, a lot of them don't even use tape anymore. The proper term would be "record" or "shoot," but no one says that. Even people in the industry still say they're filming stuff.
There are two tiers of language: Accurate, and common use. I usually find that advocates of both tiers are a little too passionate for their own good. Broadband in common use means fast internet because most consumers don't give a damn what the transmission technology is. You could transmit their data via ip-over-carrier-pigeon for all they care, as long as it gets there fast enough and the porn isn't overly pixelated. Back when 56k was the standard, "broadband" providers advertised that "broadband" is faster. So now broadband means fast internet. I don't see a major problem there.
At the risk of making this post too long, here's an example from my psych major college days: Most people say that spanking a child is negative reinforcement. Psychologists say it's positive reinforcement because in psychological terms, the type of reinforcement refers to the action and not the interpretation of the action. Because you're adding stimulus (spanking) as opposed to withdrawing stimulus (silent treatment), it's positive, rather than negative reinforcement. The problem is that to understand (or care) the nuances of this, you pretty much have to have a background in psych. So the general public says that positive reinforcement is something the kid likes (candy) while negative reinforcement is something the kid doesn't like (spanking). As long as you're clear on whether you're using common language vs technical language, you can get the message across.
"What if disputes over spectrum arose? The answer is simple. Whoever owned the rights to that slice of virtual real estate would locate the illicit broadcaster, march into the local courthouse and get a restraining order to pull the plug on the transmitter."
Yeah, I loved that one too. Talk about overcrowding the courts. Someone starts fooling around on my frequency. So I sue them and win and they stop. Then someone else decides to start fooling around on my frequency. Now I have to sue the new guy too. Pretty soon I'm in court more often than most lawyers, and meanwhile until the lawsuit is decided I can't use my frequency. Tough shit, you might say, if I'm a television station, but what if I'm the fire department?
"The FCC shouldn't exist" is the call of the obnoxious anti-gubmint anarchist. Nothing more.
OK, I'll bite. How would you solve the inevitable frequency anarchy if the FCC didn't regulate it? Or are you cool with it if I decide to step all over your cell connection with my homebuilt widget that operates on the same frequency at about 2,000 watts?
IANAL but there may be provisions in law for just that. The contract with Steam is as a distribution service, not a game maker. The games you've already downloaded were under the previous "we'll give you the offline keys if we shut down" contract. A new contract that removes this clause would be a materially adverse change, and you wouldn't have to agree to it. That doesn't mean you have to give up the games you already bought, any more than you'd have to send back stuff you bought from Amazon if you didn't like a new policy they came up with. If the new Steam owners came in and told you you no longer had the right to play a game you legitimately paid for, I'd argue they'd be stealing.
Based on some past articles at Consumerist that were sensationalized lies, I'm always suspicious when they make a claim like this. Anyone got a more reliable source for this?
to see how they manage to regulate other countries, should they send up space-tourism vehicles. How exactly do you restrict, uh, spacespace? when orbital mechanics dictate that the vehicle can't avoid orbiting over the US?
How does writing a book equate to suing a company?
Nader was lucky - he's smart, and can (or could, anyway) write stuff people wanted to read. Not everyone is a good writer, and not everyone is that intelligent. Justice should not only be for the intellectuals.
That's great, but individually, consumers do not generally have the financial clout to take on a massive corporation. Bill Gates might be able to pull it off, but the average Joe who thinks dropping $30,000 on a car is a lot of money, will be outspent before the first day of trial prep is over.
Class actions aren't intended to bring restitution to the victims of corporate malfeasance. They're intended to apply enough leverage to significantly punish the corporations. If you want restitution, file your own lawsuit. If you want to teach the corporation never to do that again, join the class action.
Basically, in a class action, you've already been screwed, and there's no way to get unscrewed, but at least you can take down the SOB who screwed you.
And even if they couldn't, they could tie the timestamp from the GPS in with the timestamp from the traffic cameras, and figure out who you are, and when you travel. Then they can just leisurely stroll over there when they know you'll be coming through.
And their professional stuff still is damned good. Unfortunately, few of us want to spend 50 grand on a camcorder. Their consumer stuff is, when you take the price into account, junk.
It's not that employee schedules are necessarily protected under HIPPA (more on that in a minute). It's that the entire network is protected under HIPPA in that data breaches would violate HIPPA whether it's IT's fault or not. Since they're on the hook for any data breaches that happen as a result of technology (rather than a malicious doctor printing off his patient's records and mailing them to newspapers, for instance) they have a very good incentive to make sure that they know everything about everything on that network. If you start plugging in a server, even if it's only to schedule employees, you're expecting IT to take your word for it that employee scheduling is all that will ever be on that server, and also that your server is properly protected from attack, and *also* that you aren't giving logins/passwords to people who might decide to see how far they can get cracking the network.
And that doesn't even address the problem that employee schedules can indeed be HIPPA issues, depending on the format of the scheduling. If it's "Dr. Jones, 9-9 Monday" that's one thing. But if it's "Dr. Jones, Smith Hysterectomy, 3pm Tuesday" then now you have confidential patient data on your employee schedule, and so IT needs to make sure that only people who need to know that are seeing it.
Slashdot Mirror
You suggest describing the universe
With carefully constructed verse.
But poetry alone cannot explain
Why "we" are more than just a brain.
For that needs physics of the quantum sort?
That's silly, as we should all retort.
The question of why we are we
Has been answered with "Je pense donc je suis."
For mysteries of the universe remain
Far greater than the quanta of our brain.
The notion that we can solve them all
Is a load of utter fol de rol.
Our selves may be god-derived or not
To know for sure, prob'ly ain't our lot
Better that we spend the time instead
Exploring life - the stuff outside our head.
For if we try too long and hard to solve
This matter of how consciousness evolved
We'll let all the important stuff slip by
Like living life, instead of asking why.
Being unable to write a simple driver and being unable to understand a machine that's so complex it had to be designed by another complex machine aren't really comparable, are they?
I'm pretty good with computers, but if someone told me to build a video card tomorrow, I wouldn't know where to start. And I bet you wouldn't either.
There was a time not so long ago when buying a computer meant you took home a box of parts and soldered stuff together. Doing that, you learned a whole lot about how the system worked.
I can't say I don't sometimes miss the simpler days. I miss being able to play a game without some jackass Windows system message stealing focus and popping me out of the game right as I'm being attacked by 5 bad guys. I miss command line interfaces because the more layers of easy-to-use you pile on top of something, the more annoying it is to get under the hood and fix it.
That's not to say that I'm an old fart who hates modern conveniences, but in any technological evolution, there are trade-offs for the upgrades. After all, I recall a time when you could cool a computer without putting something the size of a jet engine on the chip.
They're all wings. The wing you posted is for a moron. The ones I posted are stock. ;)
http://www.speedwheels.com/imagesc/pontiac-grand-am-2001_902.jpg
http://www.classycars.org/Oldsmobile/oldsmobile.2004.alero02.jpg
Both stock. Both wings. Both neutral-lift ;)
Paradise Ranch, Dreamland, and Groom Lake are the most common other-names for A51.
well. . mostly "immigrants" and GM. For awhile there just about everything they made came with a wing, especially Pontiac.
I was more thinking of Cadillac fins, and when I said "fender holes" I meant holes in Buick fenders, not hood scoops.
Tail fins, btw, were never functional. They were designed to look like rocket fins because the public was excited about NASA's rockets.
Don't get me wrong, though - I'm not completely anti-style. I'm anti-fake-shit. The stuff you talked about being on Civics being a prime example.
Uh. Yes. Do you live in the USA? ;)
This country's all about form over function, even when the form gives false impressions as to the function.
See: Wings/tail fins/fender holes on cars, false fronts on buildings, iPods that you can't change the battery on because someone thought screws are ugly, botox, breast implants, TV news, food photography, politics, and the Star Wars prequels.
If given a choice between doing the job right and doing the job to look good, 9 times out of 10 people will pick what looks good.
Probably not. The (old) games they're offering in "compensation" are ones that I wasn't planning to buy anyway. I'm sure I'm far from the only one that can say that. Add that group together with the group composed of people who have already bought those games, and factor in the fact that digital downloads don't really cost the company anything, and you end up with a few people feeling left out (because they bought the game) and a few people with a game that they wouldn't have spent money on anyway. Sony won't lose anything on that deal.
For the same reason people say the 6-o'clock news comes out and films a story. Film? TV news hasn't used film in decades. Hell, a lot of them don't even use tape anymore. The proper term would be "record" or "shoot," but no one says that. Even people in the industry still say they're filming stuff.
There are two tiers of language: Accurate, and common use. I usually find that advocates of both tiers are a little too passionate for their own good. Broadband in common use means fast internet because most consumers don't give a damn what the transmission technology is. You could transmit their data via ip-over-carrier-pigeon for all they care, as long as it gets there fast enough and the porn isn't overly pixelated. Back when 56k was the standard, "broadband" providers advertised that "broadband" is faster. So now broadband means fast internet. I don't see a major problem there.
At the risk of making this post too long, here's an example from my psych major college days: Most people say that spanking a child is negative reinforcement. Psychologists say it's positive reinforcement because in psychological terms, the type of reinforcement refers to the action and not the interpretation of the action. Because you're adding stimulus (spanking) as opposed to withdrawing stimulus (silent treatment), it's positive, rather than negative reinforcement. The problem is that to understand (or care) the nuances of this, you pretty much have to have a background in psych. So the general public says that positive reinforcement is something the kid likes (candy) while negative reinforcement is something the kid doesn't like (spanking). As long as you're clear on whether you're using common language vs technical language, you can get the message across.
To be intellectually honest, this question should be re-asked about 6 months from now after the Sony hackers have had time to steal more identities ;)
asdfjk;asdjk;lasdfjk;ladsfjk;lSo what happens if you rest your fingers on the keys between typing?asdfjkl;asdfjklasdfjkl;
"What if disputes over spectrum arose? The answer is simple. Whoever owned the rights to that slice of virtual real estate would locate the illicit broadcaster, march into the local courthouse and get a restraining order to pull the plug on the transmitter."
Yeah, I loved that one too. Talk about overcrowding the courts. Someone starts fooling around on my frequency. So I sue them and win and they stop. Then someone else decides to start fooling around on my frequency. Now I have to sue the new guy too. Pretty soon I'm in court more often than most lawyers, and meanwhile until the lawsuit is decided I can't use my frequency. Tough shit, you might say, if I'm a television station, but what if I'm the fire department?
"The FCC shouldn't exist" is the call of the obnoxious anti-gubmint anarchist. Nothing more.
Yes. Yes it does.
OK, I'll bite. How would you solve the inevitable frequency anarchy if the FCC didn't regulate it? Or are you cool with it if I decide to step all over your cell connection with my homebuilt widget that operates on the same frequency at about 2,000 watts?
IANAL but there may be provisions in law for just that. The contract with Steam is as a distribution service, not a game maker. The games you've already downloaded were under the previous "we'll give you the offline keys if we shut down" contract. A new contract that removes this clause would be a materially adverse change, and you wouldn't have to agree to it. That doesn't mean you have to give up the games you already bought, any more than you'd have to send back stuff you bought from Amazon if you didn't like a new policy they came up with. If the new Steam owners came in and told you you no longer had the right to play a game you legitimately paid for, I'd argue they'd be stealing.
Based on some past articles at Consumerist that were sensationalized lies, I'm always suspicious when they make a claim like this. Anyone got a more reliable source for this?
to see how they manage to regulate other countries, should they send up space-tourism vehicles. How exactly do you restrict, uh, spacespace? when orbital mechanics dictate that the vehicle can't avoid orbiting over the US?
As someone who used to deal with SOE customer support until I got fed up and stopped giving the idiots money, I can believe this theory 100%.
How does writing a book equate to suing a company?
Nader was lucky - he's smart, and can (or could, anyway) write stuff people wanted to read. Not everyone is a good writer, and not everyone is that intelligent. Justice should not only be for the intellectuals.
That's great, but individually, consumers do not generally have the financial clout to take on a massive corporation. Bill Gates might be able to pull it off, but the average Joe who thinks dropping $30,000 on a car is a lot of money, will be outspent before the first day of trial prep is over.
Class actions aren't intended to bring restitution to the victims of corporate malfeasance. They're intended to apply enough leverage to significantly punish the corporations. If you want restitution, file your own lawsuit. If you want to teach the corporation never to do that again, join the class action.
Basically, in a class action, you've already been screwed, and there's no way to get unscrewed, but at least you can take down the SOB who screwed you.
And even if they couldn't, they could tie the timestamp from the GPS in with the timestamp from the traffic cameras, and figure out who you are, and when you travel. Then they can just leisurely stroll over there when they know you'll be coming through.
And their professional stuff still is damned good. Unfortunately, few of us want to spend 50 grand on a camcorder. Their consumer stuff is, when you take the price into account, junk.
It's not that employee schedules are necessarily protected under HIPPA (more on that in a minute). It's that the entire network is protected under HIPPA in that data breaches would violate HIPPA whether it's IT's fault or not. Since they're on the hook for any data breaches that happen as a result of technology (rather than a malicious doctor printing off his patient's records and mailing them to newspapers, for instance) they have a very good incentive to make sure that they know everything about everything on that network. If you start plugging in a server, even if it's only to schedule employees, you're expecting IT to take your word for it that employee scheduling is all that will ever be on that server, and also that your server is properly protected from attack, and *also* that you aren't giving logins/passwords to people who might decide to see how far they can get cracking the network.
And that doesn't even address the problem that employee schedules can indeed be HIPPA issues, depending on the format of the scheduling. If it's "Dr. Jones, 9-9 Monday" that's one thing. But if it's "Dr. Jones, Smith Hysterectomy, 3pm Tuesday" then now you have confidential patient data on your employee schedule, and so IT needs to make sure that only people who need to know that are seeing it.