Of course, it works! See? I put some hydrogen and nickel in this area, press the button labeled "Fusion" and out pops some copper. There's even a little light bulb that lights up showing that it is producing electricity. How does it work? Well, that's complicated and a trade secret and... no, those aren't wires going from my box to that power outlet... no, they aren't powering the light. No, the table doesn't contain a trap door and a hidden assistant changing out the nickel for the copper. Ok, no more questions unless you're asking who to make checks out to!!!
Ah. I've been on Twitter quite awhile and have never seen that. I guess it's a rarely used abbreviation. Usually if I want to add my own content to a RT, I'll keep the original tweet in it's entirety (or as much as possible) and add " => My comment here" to visually separate the two. I've seen a lot of other users do similar things.
Fred Phelps will be turning 82 this year. He likely doesn't have much longer to go. What will be interesting is, after he passes away, will the WBC disintegrate or will one of the other family members step up and be the center?
The thing I noticed is that Margie Phelps used "MT" instead of "RT". Typically, one uses RT to "retweet" a message. That is, to send the same message to your own followers but attribute it to the person who originally tweeted it. (And, sometimes, to add your own comment on the original message.) Instead, she used MT which has no meaning in Twitter. Now, it could be just a weird typo, but checking her Twitter feed, she's used it repeatedly on many tweets.
I guess learning how to use Twitter properly is the Devil's work also.
I propose we give the Phelps family detailed directions on how to find the funeral.
"Now, after you reach the edge of the Grand Canyon, turn right and drive 50 feet until you plummet to the bottom. Congratulations! You've reached your (final) destination!"
Then again, this might not be fair to the Grand Canyon. Anyone know of any nearby active volcanoes?
Actually, I thought the Comic-Con counter protest was the best response to the Phleps family that I've ever seen. It reduced them to ridicule and, via sheer numbers, made them seem pathetically small to boot. (About 4 Phleps followers versus dozens, if not hundreds of Comic-Con "protesters.")
Key word: A bully. As in one. I clotheslined one bully once and he stopped. How do you propose that a bullied kid handles a group of 6 bullies who could easily overpower him? If he tries fighting them all at once, he'll just get beaten to a pulp and I doubt that the bullies will stop because they just beat up their target. Plus, a bullied kid who crafts a weapon and fights back is likely to be arrested nowadays. (While the bullies might face a stern lecture.)
There need to be resources for the bullied beyond "just punch back" advice and there needs to be consequences for the bullies beyond "well, the kid might snap and hit you" warnings.
Original Post on Mary's blog: "Peter is corrupt and accepts bribes."
Correction submitted by Peter and posted on Mary's blog: "Peter is a saint, unlike that corrupt Paul."
Correction submitted by Paul and posted on Mary's blog: "Paul is the one who is a saint. He regularly kisses babies. Peter worships Satan."
Correction submitted by Peter and posted on Mary's blog: "Paul kisses babies because he is tasting them before he eats them. Peter personally beat Satan up when he tried to take over Earth."
Correction submitted by Paul and posted on Mary's blog: "Paul has never eaten a baby (unlike Peter). Peter aligned himself with Satan when Satan tried to take over the world, but was so incompetent that he messed up the Dark Lord's plans."
Post by Mary: "This bickering is ridiculous. I'm shutting this blog down."
But what about the people editing the articles? If an Italian citizen edits an article that some minor politician finds offensive, and Wikipedia doesn't post the "required" correction in 48 hours, does that Italian citizen go to jail, get heavily fined or face some other penalty? If so, the number of Italian citizens willing to work on the project will dwindle. The Italian Wikipedia has recognized this threat and is trying to make some waves to get people to see the problem.
I used to do this, but then I would forget to do it for awhile and would wind up unable to find my categories among the newly installed program folders. I found FreeLaunchBar ( http://www.freelaunchbar.com/ ) and now I have the best of both worlds. My Quick Launch Bar has a few categories (Internet, Web Development, Multimedia, etc) which, when clicked, open to menus with links to programs. Meanwhile, if I want to find a program I haven't added, I can go back to the Start Menu.
There mere expression of an idea cannot hurt anyone.
Suppose a TV personality gets on the air. He has quite a large following of people who he knows hang off his every word. He knows if he says that something should be done, at least one of his followers will do it. On this particular program, he is angry at someone. Whatever the reason for his anger (justified or not), he begins heavily implying that the person is a child pornographer. He never quite says it, but the implication is clearly there. He ends the program by saying "Someone should really do something about this scum." Two days later, the object of TV personality's anger is shot.
Did the expression of the TV personality's ideas hurt someone? Should the TV personality face any repercussions for his speech or should he be protected to be able to say whatever he wants even if he knows it will lead to someone being injured?
From personal experience, I agree. In high school, I was bullied so much by one group of kids (who would ignore me if they passed me in the hall individually) that I became paranoid. Any laughter I heard, I assumed was directed at me. I didn't feel like I could talk to my parents or teachers, I only had one friend I felt comfortable confiding in. I couldn't fight back since a) I didn't want to get in trouble and b) even if I did, the five or six of them could easily beat me up. I ignored them the best I could, but that just bottles the feelings up. I dreaded going to school every day because I knew I'd be tormented at every turn.
My one friend finally spoke with the bullies (late in senior year). They thought they were just having some fun and didn't realize there were consequences. Although they stopped, it took many years of college before I recovered. In some ways, I've never recovered and never will.
Fighting bullying needs a three pronged approach. You need to help the kids who are bullied, educate the bullies as to the consequences for their actions, and, should the bullies not care about the bullied child at all, have some legal recourse to take against them. If cappp's assessment is right, this is a good thing. We might have freedom of speech but that doesn't mean we get to say whatever we want without any consequences.
I think you are completely right. I don't think Amazon is going after Apple with their Fire offering. At least not at first. They're not trying to be the #1 tablet, but the #2 tablet. If they play this right and if the Fire lives up to the hype, they'll wipe the floor with the other tablets. Then, when someone decides which tablet to buy, they'll ask themselves whether they want to spend the $499+ for an iPad or go with the cheaper, less-feature-rich, but still very nice Kindle Fire for $199.
I want one also. I've been drooling over the iPad for quite awhile, but couldn't justify the $499 starting price point. At $199, though, I can buy one for me and one for my wife and still save money versus buying a single iPad. No, it doesn't have all of the features that the iPad has, but that's why it is being offered for less money.
Of course, from what I've heard, there will be a Kindle Fire 2 released in early 2012 which will be better than this initial offering. I might just start saving now and see what that one looks like. (Or perhaps I'll get one Fire now and one Fire 2 when that's released.)
1) Where did they say that the Amazon Fire would only operate within a walled garden? Sure, they're tying it into the Amazon Video, Music, Cloud Storage, etc offerings, but they are have a web browser in it as well. You can go to google.com or any other website that you want to go to and Amazon won't stop you.
2) "Bricked in less than a decade"? Let's start with the second half of that statement. What computing device sold today is seriously purchased with the intent of it being completely usable (and not hopelessly obsolete) in 10 years? If you built a computer in 2001, installed Windows XP (just released in October 2001) on it and gave it the leading web browser of the time (IE6), would you complain that many websites today didn't work right and thus your investment 10 years ago was worthless?
Now for the first half of the statement. Where have you heard that Amazon was going to have the capability to brick these tablets? Perhaps, if something happened to the Amazon.com company, you would be locked out of their music and movie offerings, but that wouldn't stop you from using the tablet to browse the Internet. By default, the Fire uses Amazon's cloud servers to connect but you can switch to "off-cloud mode" and bypass their servers. (So if they shut down those servers, it wouldn't render your tablet useless.)
The only movie that springs to mind that had realistic zero-G effects was Apollo 13 and they went to great lengths to get those. They flew on the "vomit comet" and filmed in 23 second increments. (See: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112384/trivia )
The thing is, faking the moon landings runs into the problem that the truth will come out rather quickly. You can't keep a secret that big with that many people involved. Then your big propaganda coup massively backfires on you. And the Soviets would figure out who to bribe to get that information out in as embarrassing a fashion as possible.
Ah, but the conspiracy is so competent that they're able to hide all of the evidence from other scientists, competing nations, press (both at the time and in the future) and tons of onlookers. Still, they are so incompetent that they make rookie mistakes and lone conspiracy theorists are able to see through their charade where the other scientists, competing nations, press and onlookers weren't able to.
It's the ultimate pat-yourself-on-the-back attitude: "All these other people are idiots for buying into the 'Official Story', but I'm so smart because I figured out their ruse." *pat* *pat* *pat*
Roku boxes support Amazon's video services and will hook right into your TV. And they cost a lot less than a tablet computer. If you're buying a tablet so you can hook it up to your TV, you are better off just getting a Roku. (The newest version even has Angry Birds on it.)
From what I've read, this is version 1 of the Kindle Fire. It was outsourced to the same folks who did the Playbook. It was rushed to have something out by the holiday season. Meanwhile, they're working on a version 2 which should be much nicer and out in Q1 2012.
Part of me says to wait for the second version, but part of me is drooling over the Fire. No, it's not an iPad and it lacks a lot of the great features that the iPad has, but it doesn't look like it was designed to compete with the iPad. Instead, it looks like it was targeted towards people like me: People who would love to own an iPad-like device but don't want to pay $600+.
I'll wait for the first reviews when people get their hands on the released versions of the Kindle Fire, but I'm definitely keeping an eye on this tablet.
You should never phrase it "shut up. Not now. I'm busy" but you also shouldn't have your child expect that they can interrupt you no matter what you're doing and you'll answer every question they pose to you. Children need to understand social conventions also. For example, my oldest son (8 years old) will often try to talk to me while I'm in the middle of a conversation with someone else. It would be rude of me to stop conversing with the person every time my child had a question, so I'll use the time to teach my son the value of patience and, if you need to interrupt, how to ask your question politely. (Instead of "Hey dad! Stop talking right now and answer this or I'll scream!!!!")
It wasn't really "just filed." It was filed March 10th, 2010 ( http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2011/0225156.html ). I believe this means prior art needs to be from March 10th, 2009 or earlier. Google TV was announced in May of 2010, so it wouldn't qualify. However, as Google rose in popularity but before it became *THE* place to search, there were a lot of meta search engines. You'd type your query in one site and see results from Google, Alta Vista, Yahoo, etc. (These died out as searching Google became all anyone wanted to do.) So these might qualify as prior art. In fact, here's one that was developed in 1994: Metacrawler ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metacrawler )
I'd think that, after proof of concept stage, they would look for a good fuel that could be converted at low cost and low environmental impact. One biofuel candidate I've heard of is Kudzu. It's an invasive vine species that's taken over parts of the south. We could harvest it and, given its quick growth rate, it'd grow back rapidly. Even if we wound up depleting the supply, we'd only be cleaning up an invasive species that we introduced into the ecosystem in the first place.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, it works! See? I put some hydrogen and nickel in this area, press the button labeled "Fusion" and out pops some copper. There's even a little light bulb that lights up showing that it is producing electricity. How does it work? Well, that's complicated and a trade secret and... no, those aren't wires going from my box to that power outlet... no, they aren't powering the light. No, the table doesn't contain a trap door and a hidden assistant changing out the nickel for the copper. Ok, no more questions unless you're asking who to make checks out to!!!
Ah. I've been on Twitter quite awhile and have never seen that. I guess it's a rarely used abbreviation. Usually if I want to add my own content to a RT, I'll keep the original tweet in it's entirety (or as much as possible) and add " => My comment here" to visually separate the two. I've seen a lot of other users do similar things.
Fred Phelps will be turning 82 this year. He likely doesn't have much longer to go. What will be interesting is, after he passes away, will the WBC disintegrate or will one of the other family members step up and be the center?
The thing I noticed is that Margie Phelps used "MT" instead of "RT". Typically, one uses RT to "retweet" a message. That is, to send the same message to your own followers but attribute it to the person who originally tweeted it. (And, sometimes, to add your own comment on the original message.) Instead, she used MT which has no meaning in Twitter. Now, it could be just a weird typo, but checking her Twitter feed, she's used it repeatedly on many tweets.
I guess learning how to use Twitter properly is the Devil's work also.
I propose we give the Phelps family detailed directions on how to find the funeral.
"Now, after you reach the edge of the Grand Canyon, turn right and drive 50 feet until you plummet to the bottom. Congratulations! You've reached your (final) destination!"
Then again, this might not be fair to the Grand Canyon. Anyone know of any nearby active volcanoes?
Actually, I thought the Comic-Con counter protest was the best response to the Phleps family that I've ever seen. It reduced them to ridicule and, via sheer numbers, made them seem pathetically small to boot. (About 4 Phleps followers versus dozens, if not hundreds of Comic-Con "protesters.")
Key word: A bully. As in one. I clotheslined one bully once and he stopped. How do you propose that a bullied kid handles a group of 6 bullies who could easily overpower him? If he tries fighting them all at once, he'll just get beaten to a pulp and I doubt that the bullies will stop because they just beat up their target. Plus, a bullied kid who crafts a weapon and fights back is likely to be arrested nowadays. (While the bullies might face a stern lecture.)
There need to be resources for the bullied beyond "just punch back" advice and there needs to be consequences for the bullies beyond "well, the kid might snap and hit you" warnings.
RIP Steve. I might not own any Apple products, but the paths he blazed have definitely impacted how I use my computer.
(And, yes, the geek in me noticed the "42" reference.)
That was the first thought that crossed my mind.
Original Post on Mary's blog: "Peter is corrupt and accepts bribes."
Correction submitted by Peter and posted on Mary's blog: "Peter is a saint, unlike that corrupt Paul."
Correction submitted by Paul and posted on Mary's blog: "Paul is the one who is a saint. He regularly kisses babies. Peter worships Satan."
Correction submitted by Peter and posted on Mary's blog: "Paul kisses babies because he is tasting them before he eats them. Peter personally beat Satan up when he tried to take over Earth."
Correction submitted by Paul and posted on Mary's blog: "Paul has never eaten a baby (unlike Peter). Peter aligned himself with Satan when Satan tried to take over the world, but was so incompetent that he messed up the Dark Lord's plans."
Post by Mary: "This bickering is ridiculous. I'm shutting this blog down."
But what about the people editing the articles? If an Italian citizen edits an article that some minor politician finds offensive, and Wikipedia doesn't post the "required" correction in 48 hours, does that Italian citizen go to jail, get heavily fined or face some other penalty? If so, the number of Italian citizens willing to work on the project will dwindle. The Italian Wikipedia has recognized this threat and is trying to make some waves to get people to see the problem.
I used to do this, but then I would forget to do it for awhile and would wind up unable to find my categories among the newly installed program folders. I found FreeLaunchBar ( http://www.freelaunchbar.com/ ) and now I have the best of both worlds. My Quick Launch Bar has a few categories (Internet, Web Development, Multimedia, etc) which, when clicked, open to menus with links to programs. Meanwhile, if I want to find a program I haven't added, I can go back to the Start Menu.
Suppose a TV personality gets on the air. He has quite a large following of people who he knows hang off his every word. He knows if he says that something should be done, at least one of his followers will do it. On this particular program, he is angry at someone. Whatever the reason for his anger (justified or not), he begins heavily implying that the person is a child pornographer. He never quite says it, but the implication is clearly there. He ends the program by saying "Someone should really do something about this scum." Two days later, the object of TV personality's anger is shot.
Did the expression of the TV personality's ideas hurt someone? Should the TV personality face any repercussions for his speech or should he be protected to be able to say whatever he wants even if he knows it will lead to someone being injured?
From personal experience, I agree. In high school, I was bullied so much by one group of kids (who would ignore me if they passed me in the hall individually) that I became paranoid. Any laughter I heard, I assumed was directed at me. I didn't feel like I could talk to my parents or teachers, I only had one friend I felt comfortable confiding in. I couldn't fight back since a) I didn't want to get in trouble and b) even if I did, the five or six of them could easily beat me up. I ignored them the best I could, but that just bottles the feelings up. I dreaded going to school every day because I knew I'd be tormented at every turn.
My one friend finally spoke with the bullies (late in senior year). They thought they were just having some fun and didn't realize there were consequences. Although they stopped, it took many years of college before I recovered. In some ways, I've never recovered and never will.
Fighting bullying needs a three pronged approach. You need to help the kids who are bullied, educate the bullies as to the consequences for their actions, and, should the bullies not care about the bullied child at all, have some legal recourse to take against them. If cappp's assessment is right, this is a good thing. We might have freedom of speech but that doesn't mean we get to say whatever we want without any consequences.
I think you are completely right. I don't think Amazon is going after Apple with their Fire offering. At least not at first. They're not trying to be the #1 tablet, but the #2 tablet. If they play this right and if the Fire lives up to the hype, they'll wipe the floor with the other tablets. Then, when someone decides which tablet to buy, they'll ask themselves whether they want to spend the $499+ for an iPad or go with the cheaper, less-feature-rich, but still very nice Kindle Fire for $199.
I want one also. I've been drooling over the iPad for quite awhile, but couldn't justify the $499 starting price point. At $199, though, I can buy one for me and one for my wife and still save money versus buying a single iPad. No, it doesn't have all of the features that the iPad has, but that's why it is being offered for less money.
Of course, from what I've heard, there will be a Kindle Fire 2 released in early 2012 which will be better than this initial offering. I might just start saving now and see what that one looks like. (Or perhaps I'll get one Fire now and one Fire 2 when that's released.)
Two questions:
1) Where did they say that the Amazon Fire would only operate within a walled garden? Sure, they're tying it into the Amazon Video, Music, Cloud Storage, etc offerings, but they are have a web browser in it as well. You can go to google.com or any other website that you want to go to and Amazon won't stop you.
2) "Bricked in less than a decade"? Let's start with the second half of that statement. What computing device sold today is seriously purchased with the intent of it being completely usable (and not hopelessly obsolete) in 10 years? If you built a computer in 2001, installed Windows XP (just released in October 2001) on it and gave it the leading web browser of the time (IE6), would you complain that many websites today didn't work right and thus your investment 10 years ago was worthless?
Now for the first half of the statement. Where have you heard that Amazon was going to have the capability to brick these tablets? Perhaps, if something happened to the Amazon.com company, you would be locked out of their music and movie offerings, but that wouldn't stop you from using the tablet to browse the Internet. By default, the Fire uses Amazon's cloud servers to connect but you can switch to "off-cloud mode" and bypass their servers. (So if they shut down those servers, it wouldn't render your tablet useless.)
The only movie that springs to mind that had realistic zero-G effects was Apollo 13 and they went to great lengths to get those. They flew on the "vomit comet" and filmed in 23 second increments. (See: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112384/trivia )
Ah, but the conspiracy is so competent that they're able to hide all of the evidence from other scientists, competing nations, press (both at the time and in the future) and tons of onlookers. Still, they are so incompetent that they make rookie mistakes and lone conspiracy theorists are able to see through their charade where the other scientists, competing nations, press and onlookers weren't able to.
It's the ultimate pat-yourself-on-the-back attitude: "All these other people are idiots for buying into the 'Official Story', but I'm so smart because I figured out their ruse." *pat* *pat* *pat*
Roku boxes support Amazon's video services and will hook right into your TV. And they cost a lot less than a tablet computer. If you're buying a tablet so you can hook it up to your TV, you are better off just getting a Roku. (The newest version even has Angry Birds on it.)
From what I've read, this is version 1 of the Kindle Fire. It was outsourced to the same folks who did the Playbook. It was rushed to have something out by the holiday season. Meanwhile, they're working on a version 2 which should be much nicer and out in Q1 2012.
Part of me says to wait for the second version, but part of me is drooling over the Fire. No, it's not an iPad and it lacks a lot of the great features that the iPad has, but it doesn't look like it was designed to compete with the iPad. Instead, it looks like it was targeted towards people like me: People who would love to own an iPad-like device but don't want to pay $600+.
I'll wait for the first reviews when people get their hands on the released versions of the Kindle Fire, but I'm definitely keeping an eye on this tablet.
I can see the Count now: "The number of the day is 3, Point, 1, 4, 1, 5, *ha ha ha*, 9, 2, 6, 5, 3, *ha ha ha*, 5....."
Much, much later in the episode....
Count (very tired): "... 2... 8... 1.... 3... ah, I quit!" (collapses from exhaustion)
You should never phrase it "shut up. Not now. I'm busy" but you also shouldn't have your child expect that they can interrupt you no matter what you're doing and you'll answer every question they pose to you. Children need to understand social conventions also. For example, my oldest son (8 years old) will often try to talk to me while I'm in the middle of a conversation with someone else. It would be rude of me to stop conversing with the person every time my child had a question, so I'll use the time to teach my son the value of patience and, if you need to interrupt, how to ask your question politely. (Instead of "Hey dad! Stop talking right now and answer this or I'll scream!!!!")
It wasn't really "just filed." It was filed March 10th, 2010 ( http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2011/0225156.html ). I believe this means prior art needs to be from March 10th, 2009 or earlier. Google TV was announced in May of 2010, so it wouldn't qualify. However, as Google rose in popularity but before it became *THE* place to search, there were a lot of meta search engines. You'd type your query in one site and see results from Google, Alta Vista, Yahoo, etc. (These died out as searching Google became all anyone wanted to do.) So these might qualify as prior art. In fact, here's one that was developed in 1994: Metacrawler ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metacrawler )
I'd think that, after proof of concept stage, they would look for a good fuel that could be converted at low cost and low environmental impact. One biofuel candidate I've heard of is Kudzu. It's an invasive vine species that's taken over parts of the south. We could harvest it and, given its quick growth rate, it'd grow back rapidly. Even if we wound up depleting the supply, we'd only be cleaning up an invasive species that we introduced into the ecosystem in the first place.
Yeah? Well, I'll do it for $3,999,999 and 100 cents. My motto is "you know it's a rip but you'll pay for the convenience!"