Finally! When I say "Science has been in a perpetual state of being wrong since it's inception", I can now point out fundamental changes in what is thought of as indisputable information. Understand that I am a working scientist, and my attitude is not meant to dismiss science, but to point out that people are often wrong in what they think is objective truth. The world is a bit too complicated for anyone to claim that they have a thorough understanding of the universe. Not to say truth is unobtainable, there is just a lot of it, and it's hard to really wrap your head around the exocentric universe in full.
you have no will power to resist the messages of advertiser, and if they start targeting you with relevant ads then you are going to rush out and buy everything they tell you to.
That's exactly the problem with advertising. People do follow it mindlessly.
Oh well, there goes the last bit of faith that I had in humanity. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
More like: "So long, and thanks for all the fish stories"
...and people, companies, and governments lie a lot, if not most of the time, the ocean is full of water, the Pope's hat is pretty funny, and bears rarely poop in a toilet.
If I could go ahead and rate this a "Score:0,Troll" myself, I would.
It's interesting, because the property of photo-resistive substances/elements was discovered when the selenium-based components of an early voltimeter was being used to while the first (or least one-of the first) trans-Atlantic Telecom cables was being laid. The gear would give different readings whenever the door of the equipment room.*
*to not be guilty of outright plagiarism, I got this from Tim Hunkin the highly-understated host of the secret life of machines.
This is a great reason not to have cable television service and find more fulfilling things to do with your time. The way advertising is defeated is by:
a. Not exposing yourself to advertising unless it's forced on you (i.e. billboards, etc.)
b. Not patronizing businesses that force advertising on you.
I assure you that the power of advertising is entirely based on your voluntary submission to it's message.
It's as simple as not downloading the programs that have that feature, if you don't have enough self-control to not download shitty Ad-riddled apps, you deserve to be programmed by Madison avenue.
I entirely understand your point, but I question the legitimacy of the billboard's presence to begin with, more so than the technology embedded in it. Advertising is an influence on your decisions being controlled by someone or something that has no understanding of you beyond your most impulsive, universal, and base qualities, I simply cannot see any reason a person could possibly want that. I would love to get on a tirade about the myth of consumerism, but I really should be getting back to work on my MacBook Air instead of being a total hypocrite.
I hate advertising so much I have stopped watching live television. However, IAd is no more intrusive than any other form of mobile advertising you might have encountered in the past (i.e. browsing nearly any website). Additionally, this is a service that is packaged with mostly free software that you download voluntarily, so it's only as intrusive as you allow it to be.
Yeah but now they are putting meters inside appliances which will communicate with the central smart meter (house thermostat). So they'll be able to see if it's a plug-in hybrid or a rack of grow lights.
And they put chips in your dog's ass to track how many times it poops every day.
Puns DO work that way. It just has to sound close enough that your brain expects the one, but hears the other.
This is entirely correct. Puns are extremely flexible, and this is a pretty solid example of a well crafted one because it actually makes sense beyond the pun itself, I would personally love to throw any XP disks I may have around in a vat of hexanes as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexanes
I know someone who works in the fraud prevention business and they allege that iTunes purchases and credit card fraud are strongly correlated.
I also know someone who works in the fraud prevention business, and they say that this correlation is non-existent. Note, that I too can make up anonymous and unsourced 3rd party quotes to support any thing I choose to say, and the credibility of said quotes is identical to yours.
Also, since this is Slashdot, it's incumbent on me to remark that correlation is not causation.
Good rhetorical dissection, the world needs more people who understand the validity of certain forms of "proof".
OS X has command line tools that allow you to make your computer an SSH tunnel server or client out of the box, it's mainly a matter of simply configuring it. I have done this before as way of making a pretty low-key VPN. You can use whatever port you like, especially if your server at home is only providing a tunnel. Also with the SSH remote administration, you can remotely change certain parameters to fit your situation better ( i.e. a port you are trying to use might be blocked, etc. ). Additionally you can direct any and all of your IP traffic through your custom and encrypted tunnel. Further more these are very customizable and scriptable solutions, so it is possible to make a very personalized and exotic ( thus, hard to identify the nature of the traffic ) system. This is all equally accomplishable in Linux distros, typically ' out of the box* ' as well. Why trust some random Dane with your traffic when you can just make your own infrastructure* ?
Dude, they employ thousands of the smartest CS people in the United States. That might not translate into products you like, but fucking try to acknowledge a little reality through the smell of your own farts.
When have they ever proved that they have the smartest CS people in the US (This stupid obsolete battery thing doesn't count, see my earlier comments on it if you want to know why I think the battery 'invention' is pointless and kind of dumb)? Say what you want about Microsoft abilities as a company, but describing them as 'innovators' in any way is comically inaccurate.
The number of possible answers to a question has absolutely nothing to do with how rhetorical it is. Rhetorical questions are often asked in a way that doesn't expect an answer, but that quality of a question is distinctive from it rhetorical value.
It doesn't require complicated addition wiring - each cell will have one +ve and one -ve output in total, which can be wired in series as you see fit.
I don't think I own a single device that uses multiple dry cell batteries.
Most.99 cent plastic all-purpose dry-cell battery holders have the option of wiring it in a series or parallel. I agree that batteries being inserted in the wrong way are a classic engineering conundrum. The problem is that technologies that use giant array's of disposable dry cells are increasingly disappearing from the landscape because rechargeable/embedded batteries are increasingly becoming the norm. Additionally, most people (including my absurdly technologically incapable grandmother) know how to put a battery in something properly. So, congratulations MS for inventing something that solves an obsolete problem, and in a way doesn't really solve anything. The designer of the product that uses such a device would still have to design some type of routing system to compensate for the "either direction" nature of it. Basically it creates a problem that actually makes the product harder to use. Batteries have poles, and as such it is important how they are connected to the device, classic spring & plate style battery holders make it difficult for you to put the battery in the wrong direction for a reason. This seems like an Onion headline, unfortunately it most likely isn't. Any problem this product solves has already been solved in a more graceful way many many years ago. Leave it to Microsoft to un-invent the wheel an then present that accomplishment to the world, in the same way a cat presents dead animals it finds in the yard to its owner.
I frequently have to use Word at work, because for some reason major academic journals haven't adopted WYSIWG text formats for some reason. When I collaborate with someone on a Word Document, I spend (literally) half the time fixing the errors that are generated by the fact that Microsoft cannot even implement it's own proprietary formats consistently. When i send a word document to someone, I cannot rely on it's fidelity, this makes it the least conducive format for work that relies on prescribed formatting (like APA style) When will these people start using using professional and consistent formats? As soon as we stop using their garbage products and handing them dump-trucks of cash for it.
I have multiple Apple's and I iTunes has never been opened (once) on any of them, VLC (Free and Open) is my media handler of choice. No one is "locked-in" to anything on a Mac. If you are "locked in" to anything, you should be able "unlock" it with the "SUDO" command.
Phones are a special case because they involved paid subscriptions. Carriers don't like you messing around with their phones because you could alter it to defraud them. As a phreek, I am hardly sympathetic, but understand that it's not the mean old codgers trying to keep you from having fun with your phone. Only recently is it even possible to put something like a linux kernel on a mobile phone, so what's really going on is just a slow response to a changing situation. Cell phones have primarily been a closed technology through most of their history, the limitations on new products that should (and can) defy that standard are simply hold-overs from an older way of doing business (like record companies). Just because a product is not as open as you would like it to be doesn't mean that it's intrinsically evil or inferior to a far more closed standard (like everything microsoft touches).
Does VLC not have a time stretch function for it's audio? If you haven't looked for this feature in VLC I suggest you try that first. http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ If that doesn't help, you can always use MAX/MSP/Jitter to make your own, or bust out the DVD that came with your mac and write a simple video player Xcode (Due to the joys of object oriented programming, this is easier than it seems it would be).
Slashdot Mirror
Finally! When I say "Science has been in a perpetual state of being wrong since it's inception", I can now point out fundamental changes in what is thought of as indisputable information. Understand that I am a working scientist, and my attitude is not meant to dismiss science, but to point out that people are often wrong in what they think is objective truth. The world is a bit too complicated for anyone to claim that they have a thorough understanding of the universe. Not to say truth is unobtainable, there is just a lot of it, and it's hard to really wrap your head around the exocentric universe in full.
You need at least at least a 1 THz laser (space-time saturation, E=MCC-type stuff) to get zombie-mutant researcher-eating space bacteria.
you have no will power to resist the messages of advertiser, and if they start targeting you with relevant ads then you are going to rush out and buy everything they tell you to.
That's exactly the problem with advertising. People do follow it mindlessly.
Oh well, there goes the last bit of faith that I had in humanity. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
More like: "So long, and thanks for all the fish stories"
...and people, companies, and governments lie a lot, if not most of the time, the ocean is full of water, the Pope's hat is pretty funny, and bears rarely poop in a toilet.
If I could go ahead and rate this a "Score:0,Troll" myself, I would.
used to while
Sorry I am having preposition-malfunction.
How is measuring something "playing God"?
*to not be guilty of outright plagiarism, I got this from Tim Hunkin the highly-understated host of the secret life of machines.
What if we found out something we really don't want to know?
There is no such thing.
ad free cable costing $500/month
This is a great reason not to have cable television service and find more fulfilling things to do with your time. The way advertising is defeated is by:
a. Not exposing yourself to advertising unless it's forced on you (i.e. billboards, etc.)
b. Not patronizing businesses that force advertising on you.
I assure you that the power of advertising is entirely based on your voluntary submission to it's message.
It's as simple as not downloading the programs that have that feature, if you don't have enough self-control to not download shitty Ad-riddled apps, you deserve to be programmed by Madison avenue.
I entirely understand your point, but I question the legitimacy of the billboard's presence to begin with, more so than the technology embedded in it. Advertising is an influence on your decisions being controlled by someone or something that has no understanding of you beyond your most impulsive, universal, and base qualities, I simply cannot see any reason a person could possibly want that. I would love to get on a tirade about the myth of consumerism, but I really should be getting back to work on my MacBook Air instead of being a total hypocrite.
I hate advertising so much I have stopped watching live television. However, IAd is no more intrusive than any other form of mobile advertising you might have encountered in the past (i.e. browsing nearly any website). Additionally, this is a service that is packaged with mostly free software that you download voluntarily, so it's only as intrusive as you allow it to be.
Yeah but now they are putting meters inside appliances which will communicate with the central smart meter (house thermostat). So they'll be able to see if it's a plug-in hybrid or a rack of grow lights.
And they put chips in your dog's ass to track how many times it poops every day.
That's soluble. Puns don't work well that way!
Puns DO work that way. It just has to sound close enough that your brain expects the one, but hears the other.
This is entirely correct. Puns are extremely flexible, and this is a pretty solid example of a well crafted one because it actually makes sense beyond the pun itself, I would personally love to throw any XP disks I may have around in a vat of hexanes as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexanes
I also know someone who works in the fraud prevention business, and they say that this correlation is non-existent. Note, that I too can make up anonymous and unsourced 3rd party quotes to support any thing I choose to say, and the credibility of said quotes is identical to yours.
Also, since this is Slashdot, it's incumbent on me to remark that correlation is not causation.
Good rhetorical dissection, the world needs more people who understand the validity of certain forms of "proof".
*so to speak
Dude, they employ thousands of the smartest CS people in the United States. That might not translate into products you like, but fucking try to acknowledge a little reality through the smell of your own farts.
When have they ever proved that they have the smartest CS people in the US (This stupid obsolete battery thing doesn't count, see my earlier comments on it if you want to know why I think the battery 'invention' is pointless and kind of dumb)? Say what you want about Microsoft abilities as a company, but describing them as 'innovators' in any way is comically inaccurate.
Note: if a question actually has multiple possible answers, it's not rhetorical.
If a question is meant to illustrate a point or accomplish rhetorical goals, the question is Rhetorical.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric
The number of possible answers to a question has absolutely nothing to do with how rhetorical it is. Rhetorical questions are often asked in a way that doesn't expect an answer, but that quality of a question is distinctive from it rhetorical value.
If it had come from Apple, there would be Nobel nominations.
Apple would never invent something this stupid.
It doesn't require complicated addition wiring - each cell will have one +ve and one -ve output in total, which can be wired in series as you see fit.
I don't think I own a single device that uses multiple dry cell batteries. Most .99 cent plastic all-purpose dry-cell battery holders have the option of wiring it in a series or parallel. I agree that batteries being inserted in the wrong way are a classic engineering conundrum. The problem is that technologies that use giant array's of disposable dry cells are increasingly disappearing from the landscape because rechargeable/embedded batteries are increasingly becoming the norm. Additionally, most people (including my absurdly technologically incapable grandmother) know how to put a battery in something properly. So, congratulations MS for inventing something that solves an obsolete problem, and in a way doesn't really solve anything. The designer of the product that uses such a device would still have to design some type of routing system to compensate for the "either direction" nature of it. Basically it creates a problem that actually makes the product harder to use. Batteries have poles, and as such it is important how they are connected to the device, classic spring & plate style battery holders make it difficult for you to put the battery in the wrong direction for a reason. This seems like an Onion headline, unfortunately it most likely isn't. Any problem this product solves has already been solved in a more graceful way many many years ago. Leave it to Microsoft to un-invent the wheel an then present that accomplishment to the world, in the same way a cat presents dead animals it finds in the yard to its owner.
I frequently have to use Word at work, because for some reason major academic journals haven't adopted WYSIWG text formats for some reason. When I collaborate with someone on a Word Document, I spend (literally) half the time fixing the errors that are generated by the fact that Microsoft cannot even implement it's own proprietary formats consistently. When i send a word document to someone, I cannot rely on it's fidelity, this makes it the least conducive format for work that relies on prescribed formatting (like APA style) When will these people start using using professional and consistent formats? As soon as we stop using their garbage products and handing them dump-trucks of cash for it.
What is open about Exchange or MSWord? I have trouble getting MSWord to be compatible with itself, much less the rest of the world.
I have multiple Apple's and I iTunes has never been opened (once) on any of them, VLC (Free and Open) is my media handler of choice. No one is "locked-in" to anything on a Mac. If you are "locked in" to anything, you should be able "unlock" it with the "SUDO" command.
Phones are a special case because they involved paid subscriptions. Carriers don't like you messing around with their phones because you could alter it to defraud them. As a phreek, I am hardly sympathetic, but understand that it's not the mean old codgers trying to keep you from having fun with your phone. Only recently is it even possible to put something like a linux kernel on a mobile phone, so what's really going on is just a slow response to a changing situation. Cell phones have primarily been a closed technology through most of their history, the limitations on new products that should (and can) defy that standard are simply hold-overs from an older way of doing business (like record companies). Just because a product is not as open as you would like it to be doesn't mean that it's intrinsically evil or inferior to a far more closed standard (like everything microsoft touches).
Does VLC not have a time stretch function for it's audio? If you haven't looked for this feature in VLC I suggest you try that first. http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ If that doesn't help, you can always use MAX/MSP/Jitter to make your own, or bust out the DVD that came with your mac and write a simple video player Xcode (Due to the joys of object oriented programming, this is easier than it seems it would be).