The amazing thing is you can pick that phone up and *immediately* without answering put it back down. Repeat as necessary.
Later, when they talk to you in person, or you actually answer, tell them "my phone has been on the fritz lately" and they'll assume it was a technology problem, not intentional hangups.
He treated that as if it were the only distinction, when anyone who's familiar with the American ratings systems for anything would know that the violence distinctions are pretty unimportant; all anyone ever pays attention to are the sex and language parts.
Tycho missed it, actually. Time is the difference only when applied to violence.
The other difference is "graphic sexual content and/or nudity" as opposed to "sexual content". It's the difference between "Hey, let's fuck" and actually showing the act.
If you want a more clearly written version of the AO markers, it would be:
Basically, extended violence or graphic sexual content can trigger AO.
That said, the whole thing is fucking stupid and they should all, from Rockstar and Tycho on down to the ESRB and "concerned parents everywhere", burn in a hell of their own imagining. The only people innocent in all this? The guys who hacked together the hot coffee mod.
Crap. Not only do you write stories I really enjoy, but you have a 4 digit slashdot ID? Awe. Shock. Science fiction fan lust.
(Seriously, though. I've truly enjoyed everything I've read of yours, and I'm impressed that you decided to release under Creative Commons. Been following Manfred in Asimov's for a couple years now, and looking forward to following the clan further in Accelerando.)
OK, power gain, so use 10log10(X/Y). There's still a logarithm in there.:p
V/V is a valid representation, if usually not that useful, but even so, nearly anyone who expresses in V/V should/will have, in the back of their head, the dB equivalent value. And even people working with digital ICs have to worry about PSRR, CMRR, and the like, if they want their system to work properly with dirty power or EMI. If you're genuinely not worrying about any of those specs (you know... the ones with dB on them), then you're not a EE, you're a CE.
I can't think of a single EE, anywhere I've worked, who is doing meaningful *engineering* work, who doesn't need to use logarithms on a regular basis.
Raise your hand if this story does NOT currently apply to you.
One... two... Mr. Bush, put your hand down!
Re:Education Sucks in the US? That's news to me!
on
Improving Education?
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· Score: 1
They were for me, and quite a few of my friends and classmates.
Don't be so quick to assume that just because your education sucked, all of the schools in the US must; the trick isn't to rip out the roots, but to look at the healthy stems and ask "What are we doing differently here? What can we take from these and apply to that diseased dying one over there?"
I was in algebra in 6th grade, geometry in 7th, analysis my first year in high school, calculus as a sophomore, and taking university math classes my last two years of high school. Why? Because my school system, at the time, had a TAG track for mathematics, allowing those for whom it was suited to work 3 years ahead of the standard track of the system. They've since disbanded the 2 most advanced years of the program, allowing only for a 1 year advance on subject, leaving some perfectly bright kids (including my younger brother) to languish in classes that bore the shit out of them.
If someone is capable of moving forward faster in a subject, our schools should *absolutely* include this under their umbrella. A minimum standard is fine, but we should not be setting a maximum standard.
I can't imagine any EE who doesn't at least use 20log10(X/Y) on a regular basis. Not one doing meaningful work, at any rate.
Other than that, some of what you say is good. Keep score in kids sports, fail kids who need to fail. That said, school *should* be enjoyable. If you can convince the kid that learning is enjoyable, even once, it becomes incredibly hard no matter how bad the school becomes to keep them from learning.
It'd be a lot more like a Toyota powertrain control module sensing whether it was working with a Toyota or 3rd-party ECU; if it was a Toyota ECU, it would use every trick it knew, and if it wasn't, it intentionally would run it in such a fashion as to produce the worst emissions, reliability, power, and efficiency.
Nope. Metrowerks was spun off with, and belongs to, Freescale. Which you would know, had you done something so simple as go to their home page and read the words: "Metrowerks - A Freescale Semiconductor Company".
How could you forget Apple vs. Microsoft vs. Linux? A three way cage match between an effeminate, yet somehow effective flamenco dancer, a 900 pound gorilla with halitosis, and a pasty guy with glasses and a tuxedo! With flamethrowers!
It's a title, FFS. There (was, changed after 9/11) a band called "I Am The World Trade Center". Do you think they were really claiming they were the WTC, or maybe it was just a name that sounded good?
So in a textbook democracy the vote of a personon in one area (Wyoming) counts more towards electing the chief executive officer than any other? in a Democracy 1/6th the population can controll half the senate?
Yes, because democracy does not automatically imply majority rule. Sorry. It doesn't. A democracy is a government wherein the people, either directly or by means of elected representatives, control the course of government. Nothing in there about the equality of votes. Nothing in there about letting everyone vote. While these are certainly good things that contribute to a *healthy* democracy, they are not required in order to be a democracy.
Would you like to try explaining why a government wherein the governors (not the state governors, but the individuals who govern the state) are directly elected isn't a democracy? I'll let you try, if you like.
For one because I was talking about the federal government where the democratically elected state governers have basically *zero* power to do anything.
Learn to read. I specifically said "not the state governors, but the individuals who govern the state". For the simple-minded (read: you), this means the individuals who operate the government of the republic.
You also omit the fact that, while 50 million people could control the Senate, they could not control the House; without control of both, you cannot pass a law.
Yes but with control of either you can stop anything from becoming law! meaning unlike a democracy 1/6th of the people of the US can stop the other 5/6th from doing something. Is that textbook democracy.
Yes, it is. Because a democracy DOES NOT IMPLY THAT THE MAJORITY MUST ALWAYS RULE. Your very limited view of a democracy, which seems to be pretty much focused on the ancient Greek state (wherein, I would remind you, most people did not have the franchise) would say it isn't. But you're wrong. A good democracy will prevent the tyranny of the majority by precisely such measures that allow a minority to still exert influence. If not for the Senate, no one would care if they won in states like Montana and the Dakotas, and issues important in those states would have no importance in the government. Without the House, the cost-efficiencies of winning 1/6th of the population would prevent the problems of urban centers from having any effect on politics. It's a wise democracy that both prevents the majority from tyrannizing the minority and simultaneously makes it a non-winning strategy to over-utilize the minority's defenses.
We are a republic. We are a democracy. The two terms are not mutually exclusive. Now, if you wanted to argue whether we're a direct democracy, as opposed to a representative one, I would have to agree that we are not. But without the prefix, it's hard to argue that we aren't.
1. Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives.
We are a *textbook* democracy. Republics and democracies are not mutually exclusive, as you seem to think.
We elect our local and state representatives (without exception, so far as I know) by direct methods. Our representatives to the federal government are also directly elected. We do not directly elect the president; we vote for him, and appointed electors who are (generally, though not always) bound to vote the will of the people elect the president.
You also omit the fact that, while 50 million people could control the Senate, they could not control the House; without control of both, you cannot pass a law.
We live in a state which operates on democratic principles, and is a democracy; that it is also a republic does not change that basic fact. Furthermore, with the *single* exception of the president, ALL of our government is directly elected.
Would you like to try explaining why a government wherein the governors (not the state governors, but the individuals who govern the state) are directly elected isn't a democracy? I'll let you try, if you like.
So no we are not a democracy
Simple declaratives are for simple people.
were not even close and we were never intended to be.
Considering that the prime definition of democracy is a government elected by the people, and that our founding father saw fit to open the document that constructs and constrains our nation with the words "We the People", I think its hard to argue we were ever intended to be anything but.
We dont elect parties, we elect people!
Uhm. No. See, democracies can elect people as well. The British and Canadians may not, but we do, and so do the Australians, the Irish, and fans of Major League Baseball. The Israelis do, but only for their prime minister; their parliament is elected via party procedures. And yet? They're all democracies, whether the vote is for the people or the party.
and we dont live by mob rule..
Democracies don't have to; a good one has protections in place to ensure that *all* the people, even the ones who aren't most of the people, benefit.
One thing to note is that most (all, so far as I know) of the 200/300/400/600 series phones have two seperate stored ring settings - one for when its plugged in to charge, and one for when it isn't. If you change one setting, it won't affect the other. Of course, if you don't know it does that, it's a pain in the ass. I leave mine set to vibrate when its not plugged in (it must be in my pocket) and ring loud as a bastard when it is (I'm probably not that close to it, or I need the wakeup call).
Out of curiosity, what menu depth issues do you have? The OS Motorola used on that phone is pretty flexible; if there's a frequently used feature you're missing quick access to, it might be very easy to restore.
If you re-flex your handset, the Cingular logo will disappear.
Other than that logo/branding issue, though, Cingular's been very good with their software about keeping all the useful features enabled. So good I might not even re-flex the next handset I get.
Seriously. Look up virtual particles and perturbation theory; vacuum fluctuation and the Casimir effect. The implication is that there is an extremely low, but finite and non-zero, probability that at any given moment a Universe-sized blob of mass shaped appropriately to generate the Big Bang can appear. Since it is non-zero, given enough "time" (as the GP said, time is a meaningless concept before the Big Bang, but assume an infinite framework on which things exist/can happen and its more or less the same thing) it is guaranteed to happen (for P_trial > 0, as #trials goes to infinity, P_event becomes 1).
It also implies that at any minute, the Universe's internal auditors could say "Whoops, that mass needs to go away now" and the entire thing will disappear.
There *are* scientific explanations for the questions you're asking. They have their own problems, and most cosmologists will be happy to admit that; rarely will one "hurl random insults". You're a bit touchy on this point, it would seem.
The name for the V series is actually the Triplets family, named after the 300/400/600 introductory members; they all run the same OS, down to the point where a V600 flash will run perfectly well on a V400 (I think the RAZR has enough firmware mods in there that this is no longer true for it, but it runs more or less the same OS as the triplets).
RAZR V3 is the model. PEBL V6 is the model. SLVR V8 is the model. There are plans for a SLVRcam, from what I've heard, but it will be a seperately named model. There will probably be RAZR updates as well. However, you're confusing family (which is a lot more to do with internals - hardware platform and software) with design style (all the members of the triplets series, which now bears a striking resemblence to Adams' Hitchhikers' Trilogy, share a general design style, while RAZR has its own which it will share with any eventual updates). Technically, RAZR and PEBL (and eventually SLVR) belong to the triplets family as well.
Why am I sure I'm right about this? Well, I was playing with a RAZR in mid-2003. That should give you some idea why I might know about it. (No, I don't work for Motorola designing cellphones - yes, I was given strict instructions not to photograph or talk about the RAZR at the time before I was allowed to play with it.)
Slashdot Mirror
The amazing thing is you can pick that phone up and *immediately* without answering put it back down. Repeat as necessary.
Later, when they talk to you in person, or you actually answer, tell them "my phone has been on the fritz lately" and they'll assume it was a technology problem, not intentional hangups.
He treated that as if it were the only distinction, when anyone who's familiar with the American ratings systems for anything would know that the violence distinctions are pretty unimportant; all anyone ever pays attention to are the sex and language parts.
Tycho missed it, actually. Time is the difference only when applied to violence.
The other difference is "graphic sexual content and/or nudity" as opposed to "sexual content". It's the difference between "Hey, let's fuck" and actually showing the act.
If you want a more clearly written version of the AO markers, it would be:
(Prolonged violence) || (graphic sexual content)
As opposed to M, which would be:
(Intense violence) || (Blood && gore) || (sexual content) || (strong language)
Basically, extended violence or graphic sexual content can trigger AO.
That said, the whole thing is fucking stupid and they should all, from Rockstar and Tycho on down to the ESRB and "concerned parents everywhere", burn in a hell of their own imagining. The only people innocent in all this? The guys who hacked together the hot coffee mod.
Crap. Not only do you write stories I really enjoy, but you have a 4 digit slashdot ID? Awe. Shock. Science fiction fan lust.
(Seriously, though. I've truly enjoyed everything I've read of yours, and I'm impressed that you decided to release under Creative Commons. Been following Manfred in Asimov's for a couple years now, and looking forward to following the clan further in Accelerando.)
OK, power gain, so use 10log10(X/Y). There's still a logarithm in there. :p
V/V is a valid representation, if usually not that useful, but even so, nearly anyone who expresses in V/V should/will have, in the back of their head, the dB equivalent value. And even people working with digital ICs have to worry about PSRR, CMRR, and the like, if they want their system to work properly with dirty power or EMI. If you're genuinely not worrying about any of those specs (you know... the ones with dB on them), then you're not a EE, you're a CE.
I can't think of a single EE, anywhere I've worked, who is doing meaningful *engineering* work, who doesn't need to use logarithms on a regular basis.
Raise your hand if this story does NOT currently apply to you.
One... two... Mr. Bush, put your hand down!
They were for me, and quite a few of my friends and classmates.
Don't be so quick to assume that just because your education sucked, all of the schools in the US must; the trick isn't to rip out the roots, but to look at the healthy stems and ask "What are we doing differently here? What can we take from these and apply to that diseased dying one over there?"
Yes.
I was in algebra in 6th grade, geometry in 7th, analysis my first year in high school, calculus as a sophomore, and taking university math classes my last two years of high school. Why? Because my school system, at the time, had a TAG track for mathematics, allowing those for whom it was suited to work 3 years ahead of the standard track of the system. They've since disbanded the 2 most advanced years of the program, allowing only for a 1 year advance on subject, leaving some perfectly bright kids (including my younger brother) to languish in classes that bore the shit out of them.
If someone is capable of moving forward faster in a subject, our schools should *absolutely* include this under their umbrella. A minimum standard is fine, but we should not be setting a maximum standard.
I can't imagine any EE who doesn't at least use 20log10(X/Y) on a regular basis. Not one doing meaningful work, at any rate.
Other than that, some of what you say is good. Keep score in kids sports, fail kids who need to fail. That said, school *should* be enjoyable. If you can convince the kid that learning is enjoyable, even once, it becomes incredibly hard no matter how bad the school becomes to keep them from learning.
I want to reach for my revolver for your suggesting that that song was that no talent hack Moby's to begin with.
It's a cover of a song by the excellent band Mission of Burma. Remember that song Academy Fight Song? The one REM covered? That's theirs too.
It'd be a lot more like a Toyota powertrain control module sensing whether it was working with a Toyota or 3rd-party ECU; if it was a Toyota ECU, it would use every trick it knew, and if it wasn't, it intentionally would run it in such a fashion as to produce the worst emissions, reliability, power, and efficiency.
Nope. Metrowerks was spun off with, and belongs to, Freescale. Which you would know, had you done something so simple as go to their home page and read the words: "Metrowerks - A Freescale Semiconductor Company".
The original cyberspace, of course.
Vernor Vinge's novella "True Names".
How could you forget Apple vs. Microsoft vs. Linux? A three way cage match between an effeminate, yet somehow effective flamenco dancer, a 900 pound gorilla with halitosis, and a pasty guy with glasses and a tuxedo! With flamethrowers!
It's a title, FFS. There (was, changed after 9/11) a band called "I Am The World Trade Center". Do you think they were really claiming they were the WTC, or maybe it was just a name that sounded good?
I'm from the US, and I joked about 9/11 too.
Laughter makes us human. It's probably the best thing we have going. If you can't laugh at death, all you can do is be afraid of it.
So in a textbook democracy the vote of a personon in one area (Wyoming) counts more towards electing the chief executive officer than any other? in a Democracy 1/6th the population can controll half the senate?
Yes, because democracy does not automatically imply majority rule. Sorry. It doesn't. A democracy is a government wherein the people, either directly or by means of elected representatives, control the course of government. Nothing in there about the equality of votes. Nothing in there about letting everyone vote. While these are certainly good things that contribute to a *healthy* democracy, they are not required in order to be a democracy.
Would you like to try explaining why a government wherein the governors (not the state governors, but the individuals who govern the state) are directly elected isn't a democracy? I'll let you try, if you like.
For one because I was talking about the federal government where the democratically elected state governers have basically *zero* power to do anything.
Learn to read. I specifically said "not the state governors, but the individuals who govern the state". For the simple-minded (read: you), this means the individuals who operate the government of the republic.
You also omit the fact that, while 50 million people could control the Senate, they could not control the House; without control of both, you cannot pass a law.
Yes but with control of either you can stop anything from becoming law! meaning unlike a democracy 1/6th of the people of the US can stop the other 5/6th from doing something. Is that textbook democracy.
Yes, it is. Because a democracy DOES NOT IMPLY THAT THE MAJORITY MUST ALWAYS RULE. Your very limited view of a democracy, which seems to be pretty much focused on the ancient Greek state (wherein, I would remind you, most people did not have the franchise) would say it isn't. But you're wrong. A good democracy will prevent the tyranny of the majority by precisely such measures that allow a minority to still exert influence. If not for the Senate, no one would care if they won in states like Montana and the Dakotas, and issues important in those states would have no importance in the government. Without the House, the cost-efficiencies of winning 1/6th of the population would prevent the problems of urban centers from having any effect on politics. It's a wise democracy that both prevents the majority from tyrannizing the minority and simultaneously makes it a non-winning strategy to over-utilize the minority's defenses.
We are a republic. We are a democracy. The two terms are not mutually exclusive. Now, if you wanted to argue whether we're a direct democracy, as opposed to a representative one, I would have to agree that we are not. But without the prefix, it's hard to argue that we aren't.
Democracy. From the American Heritage:
1. Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives.
We are a *textbook* democracy. Republics and democracies are not mutually exclusive, as you seem to think.
We elect our local and state representatives (without exception, so far as I know) by direct methods. Our representatives to the federal government are also directly elected. We do not directly elect the president; we vote for him, and appointed electors who are (generally, though not always) bound to vote the will of the people elect the president.
You also omit the fact that, while 50 million people could control the Senate, they could not control the House; without control of both, you cannot pass a law.
We live in a state which operates on democratic principles, and is a democracy; that it is also a republic does not change that basic fact. Furthermore, with the *single* exception of the president, ALL of our government is directly elected.
Would you like to try explaining why a government wherein the governors (not the state governors, but the individuals who govern the state) are directly elected isn't a democracy? I'll let you try, if you like.
So no we are not a democracy
Simple declaratives are for simple people.
were not even close and we were never intended to be.
Considering that the prime definition of democracy is a government elected by the people, and that our founding father saw fit to open the document that constructs and constrains our nation with the words "We the People", I think its hard to argue we were ever intended to be anything but.
We dont elect parties, we elect people!
Uhm. No. See, democracies can elect people as well. The British and Canadians may not, but we do, and so do the Australians, the Irish, and fans of Major League Baseball. The Israelis do, but only for their prime minister; their parliament is elected via party procedures. And yet? They're all democracies, whether the vote is for the people or the party.
and we dont live by mob rule..
Democracies don't have to; a good one has protections in place to ensure that *all* the people, even the ones who aren't most of the people, benefit.
A democratic republic, yes.
As in, a republic wherein the representatives are elected via democratic means, you nitpicking prat.
One thing to note is that most (all, so far as I know) of the 200/300/400/600 series phones have two seperate stored ring settings - one for when its plugged in to charge, and one for when it isn't. If you change one setting, it won't affect the other. Of course, if you don't know it does that, it's a pain in the ass. I leave mine set to vibrate when its not plugged in (it must be in my pocket) and ring loud as a bastard when it is (I'm probably not that close to it, or I need the wakeup call).
Out of curiosity, what menu depth issues do you have? The OS Motorola used on that phone is pretty flexible; if there's a frequently used feature you're missing quick access to, it might be very easy to restore.
No.
And we like it that way.
If you re-flex your handset, the Cingular logo will disappear.
Other than that logo/branding issue, though, Cingular's been very good with their software about keeping all the useful features enabled. So good I might not even re-flex the next handset I get.
The universe is one big lie.
Seriously. Look up virtual particles and perturbation theory; vacuum fluctuation and the Casimir effect. The implication is that there is an extremely low, but finite and non-zero, probability that at any given moment a Universe-sized blob of mass shaped appropriately to generate the Big Bang can appear. Since it is non-zero, given enough "time" (as the GP said, time is a meaningless concept before the Big Bang, but assume an infinite framework on which things exist/can happen and its more or less the same thing) it is guaranteed to happen (for P_trial > 0, as #trials goes to infinity, P_event becomes 1).
It also implies that at any minute, the Universe's internal auditors could say "Whoops, that mass needs to go away now" and the entire thing will disappear.
There *are* scientific explanations for the questions you're asking. They have their own problems, and most cosmologists will be happy to admit that; rarely will one "hurl random insults". You're a bit touchy on this point, it would seem.
Opteron 144
ATI 2D graphics card
512 MB (2x256) memory, non-ECC
80GB 7200 RPM SATA
GigE
DVD-ROM drive
For 1395 you can move up to an Opteron 148, 1GB ECC (2x512), and a Quadro NVS 280.
The name for the V series is actually the Triplets family, named after the 300/400/600 introductory members; they all run the same OS, down to the point where a V600 flash will run perfectly well on a V400 (I think the RAZR has enough firmware mods in there that this is no longer true for it, but it runs more or less the same OS as the triplets).
RAZR V3 is the model. PEBL V6 is the model. SLVR V8 is the model. There are plans for a SLVRcam, from what I've heard, but it will be a seperately named model. There will probably be RAZR updates as well. However, you're confusing family (which is a lot more to do with internals - hardware platform and software) with design style (all the members of the triplets series, which now bears a striking resemblence to Adams' Hitchhikers' Trilogy, share a general design style, while RAZR has its own which it will share with any eventual updates). Technically, RAZR and PEBL (and eventually SLVR) belong to the triplets family as well.
Why am I sure I'm right about this? Well, I was playing with a RAZR in mid-2003. That should give you some idea why I might know about it. (No, I don't work for Motorola designing cellphones - yes, I was given strict instructions not to photograph or talk about the RAZR at the time before I was allowed to play with it.)