Well, the Slashdot crowd seems to be of one mind this morning. But I am disappointed that 1/2 the comments seem to revel in the fact that the RIAA supposedly sued a 12-year old girl; like this will somehow turn the tide, now that are suing "regular" people.
Well, if it's illegal, it's illegal. The parents may be hoping for "boys will be boys" (or in this case, "girls will be girls" attitude, but that may not happen. If a twelve year old vandalizes his school, do we suddenly call for overturning vandalism laws? I concede that copyright violations are not in the same category as property crimes; but the point is, she's 12 years old (not 5), she knows right from wrong, etc. It's perfectly conceivable that she thought she was paying Kazaa for the service, that's a different story.
My point (and I do have one): the fact she is 12 is irrelevant, and it does not make the RIAA any more or less evil.
Well, this could be a turning point for either side. I see a few possibilities:
1) Nothing changes, and these pop-up ads become more intrusive and more bold
2) These ruling collides with the NY Times suit against Gator, and this gets kicked up a few notches in the legal system
3) Legislators change the law, by just the right amount. They essentially stay out of it, but require explicit, unambiguous disclosure before engaging in these type of shenanigans
4) Legislators decide to over-legislate, and provide an implicit endorsement of Palladium or some Ashcroftian scheme under the guise of protecting people. And the nanny state advocates (on the left & right) will be happy.
Let's hope it ends in either option 2 or option 3.
Hey, that's much better than what I wrote! I should've worded it better, but I guess I over-hyped & over-simplified the gist of the article. On the other hand, would Slashdot have picked it up w/o the sensationalist headline?
I still fell pretty good about getting the story posted, since it may allow supersonic flight to become common. If it works as well as hoped, a sonic boom will no longer be the problem it is now. Maybe it'll be more of a sonic rumble, and my headline will be an accepted description, even if technically wrong.
Well, that sums up my thoughts after reading this article. Huh? GPS is really useful for a lot of things, and railroads use it to track there cars in the rail yard (with the help of radios which broadcast their location) and on the rails. And they can distinguish whether a car is on one track or the other if they have differential GPS set up.
As for collisions, it could help avoid crashes between 2 cars or between 1 car and a known obstruction, if they are using differential GPS to identify the track. Otherwise. I suppose if there's only one track, the railroads could use this info to prevent trains from colliding. Or if a bridge is out, the railroad could use software that gets the GPS info to alert the driver.
However, the article doesn't go into any details at all; maybe they'll just use it to identify conductors of recent accidents, which they could probably do just as well w/o GPS since the dispatchers know where the trains are anyways. Maybe this is just the easiest thing to implement with the GPS technology, and once it's in place, they'll expand. I wish the article had more info though, so I could spare everyone from my idle speculation.
Well, the article makes a case for how the X-prize entries could be the springboard to cheaper access to orbital space. It seems like a nice idea, but it remains to be seen if that's the direction it will go in. I'm sure the X-prize backers have in mind a scenario like that for expanding the scope of non-governmental space efforts.
As for an RLV, it is true that only one design has ever flown; however, to give up on a whole class of vehicles when we're still on the 1st model seems very premature. Here's one remarkable fact about the Space Shuttle Columbia: their was a breach in the wing and the it was coming apart. Yet the craft (and its software) was actually able to maintain level flight until the wing actually broke off.
Are there flaws in the shuttle? You bet. But with 125 flights under their belt, NASA has a much better idea now how to build a reliable RLV. We're a long way from an operational vehicle, but that's only because of the high cost (and subsequent low number) of tests and launches. Maybe the X-prize entrants will solve this problem, or maybe a 2nd generation RLV will make a quantum leap in improvement-- today's big, dumb boosters are a lot better than how they started out; I bet the biggest improvments were early on.
So good luck to Armadillo and Scaled and NASA. If congress allocates the funds for NASA, I'm sure they can build a better, safer shuttle. If not, private industry will get there someday.
I've used the system, and it works great
on
MIT Roofnet
·
· Score: 4, Informative
My friend is a post-doc at MIT, and he installed Roofnet. Previously, he had been using a Wi-Fi connection that a neighbor was "sharing." The problem was that the signal was not very strong. Now, it's great! I used it to stream my iTunes collection from my PowerMac G4 in California, all the way to MIT, across Roofnet (via probably 3-4 jumps), to the roofnet router, which was connected to his G4 laptop; the laptop was set up as a wireless access point, and everything worked fine! The limiting factor was actually the upload speed of my DSL.
Anyways, it's a real-world technology that really works. It's still in it's infancy, and I'm sure it will move forward in fits (crackers & bandwidth hogs) and bursts (multiple, independent gateways to the internet). If this becomes easy to use & seamless, this could be technology that finally brings broadband to the masses, cheaply.
Geeze, just call me Webster. But here's how they define violence:
"Physical force exerted for the purpose of violating, damaging, or abusing"
Now, you can lump in Al-Queda & the DMA if you want. But the DMA isn't a terrorist organization by any stretch of any definition. There may be a better word for it that better describes your sentiments. But as it stands your argument essentially boils down to, "I don't like the DMA. Terrorism is bad. The DMA is a terrorist group."
Calling the DMA a terrorist group undermines your entire argument and only serves to make you appear adamant, foolish & stubborn.
Your point is taken-- these marketers harass us at every oppurtunity without considerations of their actions; but I think you need to look up the word terrorism. It's defined at Dictionary.com as:
The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.
I prefer to think of it in simpler terms, roughly defined as violence against civilians for political purposes. While marketing is aimed at civilians, it's mostly apolitical, and does not employ violence. Now, if you consider getting a phone call at home to be violence, you might be able to lump it in. Of course, then anyone making a phone call would be committing a criminal act.
So, maybe a law could be passed outlawing direct marketing that would withstand constitutional muster; now try to define the difference between word of mouth and marketing. What if Sprint offers $20 for every new customer I refer-- am I violating the law to tell my parents about their calling plans. I guess a judge can decide.
It's obvious you have a sincere belief that direct marketing is wrong and should be outlawed. I just think you're sabotaging your argument and opeing yourself to ridicule by branding them a terrorist group. They just don't fit the definition.
Let's start at the top. The U.S. does not make any political party or business association illegal-- I mean, there's an American Nazi party, NAMBLA, and a whole bunch of honest-to-goodness evil people out there. Basically, only groups dedicated to overthrowing the government are outlawed. Others might get there assets frozen or be punished for engaging in illegal conduct, but you don't go to jail for being a member.
Second, kiddie porn is illegal not b/c it's obscene, but because it's harmful to minors. Not in the CDA, COPA or CIPA way (i.e., if kids see naked chicks they'll be harmed), but in the very real sense that some sick bastard made these kids engage in sexual acts, and then photographed or videotaped it. Kiddie porn is unprotected for a very good reason, and in a very real sense, is not comparable to any other kind of media.
Alas, if we want to make direct marketing illegal, we certainly can try. But you can do many things to avoid these pitched. Like get an unlisted number, and don't give it out. Same with your mailing address, and request your name be removed from marketing lists. And put up a sign that says "no soliciters/ no trespassing" on your entry way, or build a gate.
Commercial speech is protected by the 1st amendment. The government would have a damn hard time outlawing all direct marketing, unless you want to change the 1st amendment more to your liking. Until then, we'll all be exposed to marketing, both direct and indirect. Oh well.
It boggles my mind that our leaders and our people think they can score points by linking terrorism with some group with whom they disagree. Terrorists are the new Nazis.
I have an idea. Why don't we have the government set the fair and reasonable rate for what movie stars make. They shouldn't be able to get filthy rich like that. And mandate the salaries for the techs working on the project. And perhaps the government can follow your idea, and set a law which limits the maximum price for movie tickets, CDs and DVDs. Brilliant.
Oh yeah, we live in a capitalist country.
Ok try this. Get a bunch of investors together. Make a movie, paying the actors close to the salary you envision. Only send the movies to independent theatres that charge $5 a ticket, and don't put out shlock. What's that, there's a thriving independent cinema in this country putting out many good & great movies? Huh.
The fact is, there are options out there. If you don't like mass-produced entertainment, don't pay for it and follow independent artists. However, most people complain until they are blue in the face about the high prices charged by the entertainment industry, while completing ignoring the independent stuff. You can't have it both ways. So quit your belly-achin, and quit trying to tell other people how to do their jobs.
Well, I tried it too. It might be nice to have that daa in a database, but I don't see it being all that useful. The interface is poor, reading messages in their system is laborious and it's generally inefficient.
Google has also gone ahead and put Usenet in a database, and there solution is pretty handy. Read 10 messages at a time, instantly jump to any thread, search across groups quickly. Essentially, Google has done the obvious, easy stuff that makes it much simpler to use than other web-based (and many client-based) usenet readers. OTOH, Microsoft has gone ahead and implemented non-obvious, complex solutions which don't add much value. MS is famous for V.1 shittiness, and this is no exception.
FYI, 100,000 people is 0.04% of the population. 1000 people is 0.0004%. You've made the common soapbox mistake of thinking that 1% is the entire population in order to make you're argument sound more convincing.
The sad part isn't that so many on Slashdot have such little understanding of math; rather, the sad part is that so many of them are completely unaware of their shortcoming.
It is a good start, but the analysis is sorely lacking. What would be interesting to do is determine which set(s) of songs have at least one occurence for each subpoena. In other words, Song "A" is on computers 1-20. song "B" is on 21-32, song "C" is on 33-37 and song "D" is on computers 38-50. If you can find a small subset of ~10 songs (or 3-4 artists), that may strongly indicate which songs are being targeted.
Well, Hubble has been a brilliant program. The big problem with keeping it going is political and economic. If NASA tries to extend the life of Hubble, this will put pressure on delaying the NGST (Next Generation Space Telescope). Plus, operating two separate programs at once is expensive. NASA would probably like a lot of the same people now running Hubble to run NGST. With Hubble still operating, that's hard to do.
Then there's the question of whether someone else could run it. This could either be a public institution taking it over completely (think JPL, or a major research university), selling it to a foreign country (Europeans?) to run it, or letting a private company run it for profit. The problem w/ #2 is national pride & national security-- could Hubble be a really good spy camera? The problem w/ #3 is assuring public access. Of course, with NGST allowing free access for researchers, it would be tough to compete. A private company would have a tough time getting enough revenues to run it. Which leaves #1-- but they'd need to be given a sizable budget to run it, since with the free NGST how would it be run?
I think the best option would be for 10-20 major institutes to collectively run it and pay for it, using it 50-90% of the time and selling the rest. But will these institutes have the $500,000,000 to pay NASA for the necessary servicing missions?
As for disposal, I still think NASA should go up, grab it & bring it back to earth. It would be a phenomenal exhibit and a great piece of history. As far as not going b/c of post-Columbia stuff, that's overblown. I think NASA will require good contingency for non-Space Station missions, but to rule out Hubble missions would be seriously misguided. NASA could equip the shuttle with repair capabilities, have another shuttle ready to launch, or have a set of emergency supplied ready to be delivered aboard an Atlas V or Delta IV. I'm sure this has been proposed, and I think the final recommendations won't rule out a Hubble recovery mission.
Yeah, it was written by Microsoft, which is out to get Google. And poorly formed search queries yield poor search results. Ah, I remember AltaVista, when you had to spend 10 minutes carefully crafting just the right query to make sure your results were decent. Along comes Google. Pop in 1 or 2 words, and boom, perfect results! Often, the most relevant search result sat at #1. How novel.
Fast forward 4 years. Google has been figured out. Link farms sprout, bloggers have risen and shopping sites have the incentive to imrpove their search rank. All of a sudden, that simple 1 or 2 work query results is a whole bunch a junk. So, we carefully craft our search query after we figure out the junk which is cluttering it. Usually on my 3rd try, the result I really want hits the top ten.
Google is great, but not as good as it was before it landed on everybody's radar screen. Heisenberg rules, and this sort of Deja' Vu' will happen again and again as websites figure out the most efficient way to manipulate the results in their favor. Google had turned the tide in our favor for a few years, but they are losing now. If they don't fight back in the next year or two, they'll go the way of AltaVista.
The amount of people with poor math skills for a site like Slashdot, frequented by many software "engineers," is astounding. I find it amazing how many Slashdotters defend incorrect math-- it's inexcusable and pathetic.
The writer made more math mistakes than this. He quotes 2 different royalty rates, neither one of which adds up to 70 cents/ thousand users. The above calculation is wrong. His idea that 1/10,000 is a preposterously low number is completely out of whack-- the odds of getting struck by a meteorite are roughly 1/ billion, since it's only happened once in recorded history; of course, a really big one would hit a lot of people.
His "cunning scheme" is pathetically transparent, and the Inquirer should be ashamedfor running such dreck. Honestly, for now on, I'll take a dim view of all Inquirer articles since it's clear that their editors don't know how to edit.
The article is a joke, and the writer is a joke. He needs to a couple classes in mathematics (something where they teach you how to multiply, solve word problems and use decimals properly) and critical thinking.
I kid you not, I've been reading headlines for these "Ethical AI" Stories for a few months now, and until this morning, I didn't realize that they referred to A.I., and not some really moral guy named Al.
It's a very good point. The government resources clearly outmatch any private company at this point, and probably will for some time. The big problem is, space stuff is risky and expensive, and no one can really see the return on capital that they need to take the risks. Boeing, Lockheed, et.al. always need some government contracts to pay for the development before it makes sense to build a new rocket.
Of course, the engineers at NASA, Boeing, Lockheed, etc., are brilliant, and I'm sure they'd love to be doing this stuff. But that's not what Boeing pays them to do. and real rockets are a lot more expensive than computers. Plus, you can try new things and let them fail fairly risk-free in the computer world; not true in rocket science.
So while these "amateur" (quotes is b/c none of these groups are really amateurs. They are professionals doing this on the side) will come up with some very clever ideas, the government may be in the best position to exploit them. Which is fine, and I bet these guys would be happy if that were there legacy. And if Armadillo, or more likely Scaled Composites, comes up w/ a sustainable business propoisition, then this will get a lot more interesting.
[ Warning: Rocket Science humor ahead. ] In fact, if things go right, after the X-prize is won, this space thing will take off like a rocket-- and more like a Delta II-heavy than a Delta IV medium, if you know what I mean!
(h) "Unsolicited" means without the recipient's express permission. An e-mail is not unsolicited if the sender has a preexisting business or personal relationship with the recipient. An e-mail is not unsolicited if it was received as a result of the recipient opting into a system in order to receive promotional material.
Spirit of the law be damned, this act will be badly misused and put some ordinary citizens in jail when the polic can't prove the drug case that they are pursuing. Bad law- overbroad and overreaching.
Essentially, it does not distinguish between real spam (millions of solicitations sent slyly to regular folk) and ordinary people sending email to strangers. The spam problem should've been attacked a long time ago starting with the worst offenders; the pendulum has swung so far, that we are ready to welcome laws the seriously erode our liberties.
Absolutely correct. I didn't write quite what I meant.
More along the lines of 5 years from now, the state discovers that John Q. Public once sent an email to a Bill Grudgeman asking him if he was interested in a deal on widgets. The whole story? Mr. Public sent the email b/c Mr. Grudgeman has a website describing how he uses similar widgets. John Q. wrote him a personal, friendly email asking if he was interested in a new supplier.
Grudgeman's friend is embarassed by John Q.'s investigative website, and remembers this old email. Grudgeman presents it to his local D.A. (sister-in-law's neigbor), who is looking to "make spammers pay" before the upcoming election. John Q. is charged, and faced with a year in jail, pleads out for 90 days and the $10,000 fine.
This is a very bad idea. The law is draconian in its punishment (1 year in jail) for so minor an infraction (1 spam!?!) that it is guaranteed to be misused. This will be a political tool and nothing else. Whenever the government wants to stick some guy in jail, they'll discover some ancient SPAM message and stick the guy in jail.
This law is overeaching and overbroad, and the slashdot community should be ashamed for cheering it. Karma be damned,
Interesting... but pointless
on
dB Drag Racing
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
I read this article earlier today, and it just struck me as pointless. I guess there are other competitions which are even more contrived, and maybe I just don't "get it." I suppose anything that keeps the youngins off the street and out of trouble is good.
But honestly, how can it be a car stereo system when the car can't even move by itself! And given that you can't even listen to these things without: a) killing yourself, b) going deaf, c) being real far away, d) turning the volume way down or e) insulating it to lessen the sound; it just doesn't jibe.
I guess it's the thrill of competition, but there have gotta be more intersting engineering challenges than this.
That's taking model rocketry to a whole new level. Sounds like good fun, I'm looking forward to watching the Discovery program to find out what they used for control, etc. Sounds like it worked, and I bet it came about through a consensus process (i.e., all 4 had to agree it was ready). I wonder if they went through a no/ no-go checklist-- Controls? Go! Engine? Go! Parachutes? Go! etc.
It's also curious to see this happening in Canada. Would DHS or the FAA allow this in the states, and what kind of permits are required before launching something to 5000 feet?
Slashdot Mirror
Well, the Slashdot crowd seems to be of one mind this morning. But I am disappointed that 1/2 the comments seem to revel in the fact that the RIAA supposedly sued a 12-year old girl; like this will somehow turn the tide, now that are suing "regular" people.
Well, if it's illegal, it's illegal. The parents may be hoping for "boys will be boys" (or in this case, "girls will be girls" attitude, but that may not happen. If a twelve year old vandalizes his school, do we suddenly call for overturning vandalism laws? I concede that copyright violations are not in the same category as property crimes; but the point is, she's 12 years old (not 5), she knows right from wrong, etc. It's perfectly conceivable that she thought she was paying Kazaa for the service, that's a different story.
My point (and I do have one): the fact she is 12 is irrelevant, and it does not make the RIAA any more or less evil.
Well, this could be a turning point for either side. I see a few possibilities:
1) Nothing changes, and these pop-up ads become more intrusive and more bold
2) These ruling collides with the NY Times suit against Gator, and this gets kicked up a few notches in the legal system
3) Legislators change the law, by just the right amount. They essentially stay out of it, but require explicit, unambiguous disclosure before engaging in these type of shenanigans
4) Legislators decide to over-legislate, and provide an implicit endorsement of Palladium or some Ashcroftian scheme under the guise of protecting people. And the nanny state advocates (on the left & right) will be happy.
Let's hope it ends in either option 2 or option 3.
Hey, that's much better than what I wrote! I should've worded it better, but I guess I over-hyped & over-simplified the gist of the article. On the other hand, would Slashdot have picked it up w/o the sensationalist headline?
I still fell pretty good about getting the story posted, since it may allow supersonic flight to become common. If it works as well as hoped, a sonic boom will no longer be the problem it is now. Maybe it'll be more of a sonic rumble, and my headline will be an accepted description, even if technically wrong.
Well, that sums up my thoughts after reading this article. Huh? GPS is really useful for a lot of things, and railroads use it to track there cars in the rail yard (with the help of radios which broadcast their location) and on the rails. And they can distinguish whether a car is on one track or the other if they have differential GPS set up.
As for collisions, it could help avoid crashes between 2 cars or between 1 car and a known obstruction, if they are using differential GPS to identify the track. Otherwise. I suppose if there's only one track, the railroads could use this info to prevent trains from colliding. Or if a bridge is out, the railroad could use software that gets the GPS info to alert the driver.
However, the article doesn't go into any details at all; maybe they'll just use it to identify conductors of recent accidents, which they could probably do just as well w/o GPS since the dispatchers know where the trains are anyways. Maybe this is just the easiest thing to implement with the GPS technology, and once it's in place, they'll expand. I wish the article had more info though, so I could spare everyone from my idle speculation.
Well, the article makes a case for how the X-prize entries could be the springboard to cheaper access to orbital space. It seems like a nice idea, but it remains to be seen if that's the direction it will go in. I'm sure the X-prize backers have in mind a scenario like that for expanding the scope of non-governmental space efforts.
As for an RLV, it is true that only one design has ever flown; however, to give up on a whole class of vehicles when we're still on the 1st model seems very premature. Here's one remarkable fact about the Space Shuttle Columbia: their was a breach in the wing and the it was coming apart. Yet the craft (and its software) was actually able to maintain level flight until the wing actually broke off.
Are there flaws in the shuttle? You bet. But with 125 flights under their belt, NASA has a much better idea now how to build a reliable RLV. We're a long way from an operational vehicle, but that's only because of the high cost (and subsequent low number) of tests and launches. Maybe the X-prize entrants will solve this problem, or maybe a 2nd generation RLV will make a quantum leap in improvement-- today's big, dumb boosters are a lot better than how they started out; I bet the biggest improvments were early on.
So good luck to Armadillo and Scaled and NASA. If congress allocates the funds for NASA, I'm sure they can build a better, safer shuttle. If not, private industry will get there someday.
My friend is a post-doc at MIT, and he installed Roofnet. Previously, he had been using a Wi-Fi connection that a neighbor was "sharing." The problem was that the signal was not very strong. Now, it's great! I used it to stream my iTunes collection from my PowerMac G4 in California, all the way to MIT, across Roofnet (via probably 3-4 jumps), to the roofnet router, which was connected to his G4 laptop; the laptop was set up as a wireless access point, and everything worked fine! The limiting factor was actually the upload speed of my DSL.
Anyways, it's a real-world technology that really works. It's still in it's infancy, and I'm sure it will move forward in fits (crackers & bandwidth hogs) and bursts (multiple, independent gateways to the internet). If this becomes easy to use & seamless, this could be technology that finally brings broadband to the masses, cheaply.
Geeze, just call me Webster. But here's how they define violence:
"Physical force exerted for the purpose of violating, damaging, or abusing"
Now, you can lump in Al-Queda & the DMA if you want. But the DMA isn't a terrorist organization by any stretch of any definition. There may be a better word for it that better describes your sentiments. But as it stands your argument essentially boils down to, "I don't like the DMA. Terrorism is bad. The DMA is a terrorist group."
Calling the DMA a terrorist group undermines your entire argument and only serves to make you appear adamant, foolish & stubborn.
I prefer to think of it in simpler terms, roughly defined as violence against civilians for political purposes. While marketing is aimed at civilians, it's mostly apolitical, and does not employ violence. Now, if you consider getting a phone call at home to be violence, you might be able to lump it in. Of course, then anyone making a phone call would be committing a criminal act.
So, maybe a law could be passed outlawing direct marketing that would withstand constitutional muster; now try to define the difference between word of mouth and marketing. What if Sprint offers $20 for every new customer I refer-- am I violating the law to tell my parents about their calling plans. I guess a judge can decide.
It's obvious you have a sincere belief that direct marketing is wrong and should be outlawed. I just think you're sabotaging your argument and opeing yourself to ridicule by branding them a terrorist group. They just don't fit the definition.
Let's start at the top. The U.S. does not make any political party or business association illegal-- I mean, there's an American Nazi party, NAMBLA, and a whole bunch of honest-to-goodness evil people out there. Basically, only groups dedicated to overthrowing the government are outlawed. Others might get there assets frozen or be punished for engaging in illegal conduct, but you don't go to jail for being a member.
Second, kiddie porn is illegal not b/c it's obscene, but because it's harmful to minors. Not in the CDA, COPA or CIPA way (i.e., if kids see naked chicks they'll be harmed), but in the very real sense that some sick bastard made these kids engage in sexual acts, and then photographed or videotaped it. Kiddie porn is unprotected for a very good reason, and in a very real sense, is not comparable to any other kind of media.
Alas, if we want to make direct marketing illegal, we certainly can try. But you can do many things to avoid these pitched. Like get an unlisted number, and don't give it out. Same with your mailing address, and request your name be removed from marketing lists. And put up a sign that says "no soliciters/ no trespassing" on your entry way, or build a gate.
Commercial speech is protected by the 1st amendment. The government would have a damn hard time outlawing all direct marketing, unless you want to change the 1st amendment more to your liking. Until then, we'll all be exposed to marketing, both direct and indirect. Oh well.
It boggles my mind that our leaders and our people think they can score points by linking terrorism with some group with whom they disagree. Terrorists are the new Nazis.
I have an idea. Why don't we have the government set the fair and reasonable rate for what movie stars make. They shouldn't be able to get filthy rich like that. And mandate the salaries for the techs working on the project. And perhaps the government can follow your idea, and set a law which limits the maximum price for movie tickets, CDs and DVDs. Brilliant.
Oh yeah, we live in a capitalist country.
Ok try this. Get a bunch of investors together. Make a movie, paying the actors close to the salary you envision. Only send the movies to independent theatres that charge $5 a ticket, and don't put out shlock. What's that, there's a thriving independent cinema in this country putting out many good & great movies? Huh.
The fact is, there are options out there. If you don't like mass-produced entertainment, don't pay for it and follow independent artists. However, most people complain until they are blue in the face about the high prices charged by the entertainment industry, while completing ignoring the independent stuff. You can't have it both ways. So quit your belly-achin, and quit trying to tell other people how to do their jobs.
Well, I tried it too. It might be nice to have that daa in a database, but I don't see it being all that useful. The interface is poor, reading messages in their system is laborious and it's generally inefficient.
Google has also gone ahead and put Usenet in a database, and there solution is pretty handy. Read 10 messages at a time, instantly jump to any thread, search across groups quickly. Essentially, Google has done the obvious, easy stuff that makes it much simpler to use than other web-based (and many client-based) usenet readers. OTOH, Microsoft has gone ahead and implemented non-obvious, complex solutions which don't add much value. MS is famous for V.1 shittiness, and this is no exception.
FYI, 100,000 people is 0.04% of the population. 1000 people is 0.0004%. You've made the common soapbox mistake of thinking that 1% is the entire population in order to make you're argument sound more convincing.
The sad part isn't that so many on Slashdot have such little understanding of math; rather, the sad part is that so many of them are completely unaware of their shortcoming.
It is a good start, but the analysis is sorely lacking. What would be interesting to do is determine which set(s) of songs have at least one occurence for each subpoena. In other words, Song "A" is on computers 1-20. song "B" is on 21-32, song "C" is on 33-37 and song "D" is on computers 38-50. If you can find a small subset of ~10 songs (or 3-4 artists), that may strongly indicate which songs are being targeted.
Well, Hubble has been a brilliant program. The big problem with keeping it going is political and economic. If NASA tries to extend the life of Hubble, this will put pressure on delaying the NGST (Next Generation Space Telescope). Plus, operating two separate programs at once is expensive. NASA would probably like a lot of the same people now running Hubble to run NGST. With Hubble still operating, that's hard to do.
Then there's the question of whether someone else could run it. This could either be a public institution taking it over completely (think JPL, or a major research university), selling it to a foreign country (Europeans?) to run it, or letting a private company run it for profit. The problem w/ #2 is national pride & national security-- could Hubble be a really good spy camera? The problem w/ #3 is assuring public access. Of course, with NGST allowing free access for researchers, it would be tough to compete. A private company would have a tough time getting enough revenues to run it. Which leaves #1-- but they'd need to be given a sizable budget to run it, since with the free NGST how would it be run?
I think the best option would be for 10-20 major institutes to collectively run it and pay for it, using it 50-90% of the time and selling the rest. But will these institutes have the $500,000,000 to pay NASA for the necessary servicing missions?
As for disposal, I still think NASA should go up, grab it & bring it back to earth. It would be a phenomenal exhibit and a great piece of history. As far as not going b/c of post-Columbia stuff, that's overblown. I think NASA will require good contingency for non-Space Station missions, but to rule out Hubble missions would be seriously misguided. NASA could equip the shuttle with repair capabilities, have another shuttle ready to launch, or have a set of emergency supplied ready to be delivered aboard an Atlas V or Delta IV. I'm sure this has been proposed, and I think the final recommendations won't rule out a Hubble recovery mission.
Yeah, it was written by Microsoft, which is out to get Google. And poorly formed search queries yield poor search results. Ah, I remember AltaVista, when you had to spend 10 minutes carefully crafting just the right query to make sure your results were decent. Along comes Google. Pop in 1 or 2 words, and boom, perfect results! Often, the most relevant search result sat at #1. How novel.
Fast forward 4 years. Google has been figured out. Link farms sprout, bloggers have risen and shopping sites have the incentive to imrpove their search rank. All of a sudden, that simple 1 or 2 work query results is a whole bunch a junk. So, we carefully craft our search query after we figure out the junk which is cluttering it. Usually on my 3rd try, the result I really want hits the top ten.
Google is great, but not as good as it was before it landed on everybody's radar screen. Heisenberg rules, and this sort of Deja' Vu' will happen again and again as websites figure out the most efficient way to manipulate the results in their favor. Google had turned the tide in our favor for a few years, but they are losing now. If they don't fight back in the next year or two, they'll go the way of AltaVista.
The amount of people with poor math skills for a site like Slashdot, frequented by many software "engineers," is astounding. I find it amazing how many Slashdotters defend incorrect math-- it's inexcusable and pathetic.
This is the best link I could find on the topic.
r it e.html
http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/astronomy/Meteo
One confirmed case of a meteorite hitting someone.
The writer made more math mistakes than this. He quotes 2 different royalty rates, neither one of which adds up to 70 cents/ thousand users. The above calculation is wrong. His idea that 1/10,000 is a preposterously low number is completely out of whack-- the odds of getting struck by a meteorite are roughly 1/ billion, since it's only happened once in recorded history; of course, a really big one would hit a lot of people.
His "cunning scheme" is pathetically transparent, and the Inquirer should be ashamedfor running such dreck. Honestly, for now on, I'll take a dim view of all Inquirer articles since it's clear that their editors don't know how to edit.
The article is a joke, and the writer is a joke. He needs to a couple classes in mathematics (something where they teach you how to multiply, solve word problems and use decimals properly) and critical thinking.
I kid you not, I've been reading headlines for these "Ethical AI" Stories for a few months now, and until this morning, I didn't realize that they referred to A.I., and not some really moral guy named Al.
Seriously.
It's a very good point. The government resources clearly outmatch any private company at this point, and probably will for some time. The big problem is, space stuff is risky and expensive, and no one can really see the return on capital that they need to take the risks. Boeing, Lockheed, et.al. always need some government contracts to pay for the development before it makes sense to build a new rocket.
Of course, the engineers at NASA, Boeing, Lockheed, etc., are brilliant, and I'm sure they'd love to be doing this stuff. But that's not what Boeing pays them to do. and real rockets are a lot more expensive than computers. Plus, you can try new things and let them fail fairly risk-free in the computer world; not true in rocket science.
So while these "amateur" (quotes is b/c none of these groups are really amateurs. They are professionals doing this on the side) will come up with some very clever ideas, the government may be in the best position to exploit them. Which is fine, and I bet these guys would be happy if that were there legacy. And if Armadillo, or more likely Scaled Composites, comes up w/ a sustainable business propoisition, then this will get a lot more interesting.
[ Warning: Rocket Science humor ahead. ] In fact, if things go right, after the X-prize is won, this space thing will take off like a rocket-- and more like a Delta II-heavy than a Delta IV medium, if you know what I mean!
Spirit of the law be damned, this act will be badly misused and put some ordinary citizens in jail when the polic can't prove the drug case that they are pursuing. Bad law- overbroad and overreaching.
Essentially, it does not distinguish between real spam (millions of solicitations sent slyly to regular folk) and ordinary people sending email to strangers. The spam problem should've been attacked a long time ago starting with the worst offenders; the pendulum has swung so far, that we are ready to welcome laws the seriously erode our liberties.
Absolutely correct. I didn't write quite what I meant.
More along the lines of 5 years from now, the state discovers that John Q. Public once sent an email to a Bill Grudgeman asking him if he was interested in a deal on widgets. The whole story? Mr. Public sent the email b/c Mr. Grudgeman has a website describing how he uses similar widgets. John Q. wrote him a personal, friendly email asking if he was interested in a new supplier.
Grudgeman's friend is embarassed by John Q.'s investigative website, and remembers this old email. Grudgeman presents it to his local D.A. (sister-in-law's neigbor), who is looking to "make spammers pay" before the upcoming election. John Q. is charged, and faced with a year in jail, pleads out for 90 days and the $10,000 fine.
Justice indeed.
This is a very bad idea. The law is draconian in its punishment (1 year in jail) for so minor an infraction (1 spam!?!) that it is guaranteed to be misused. This will be a political tool and nothing else. Whenever the government wants to stick some guy in jail, they'll discover some ancient SPAM message and stick the guy in jail.
This law is overeaching and overbroad, and the slashdot community should be ashamed for cheering it. Karma be damned,
I read this article earlier today, and it just struck me as pointless. I guess there are other competitions which are even more contrived, and maybe I just don't "get it." I suppose anything that keeps the youngins off the street and out of trouble is good.
But honestly, how can it be a car stereo system when the car can't even move by itself! And given that you can't even listen to these things without: a) killing yourself, b) going deaf, c) being real far away, d) turning the volume way down or e) insulating it to lessen the sound; it just doesn't jibe.
I guess it's the thrill of competition, but there have gotta be more intersting engineering challenges than this.
That's taking model rocketry to a whole new level. Sounds like good fun, I'm looking forward to watching the Discovery program to find out what they used for control, etc. Sounds like it worked, and I bet it came about through a consensus process (i.e., all 4 had to agree it was ready). I wonder if they went through a no/ no-go checklist-- Controls? Go! Engine? Go! Parachutes? Go! etc.
It's also curious to see this happening in Canada. Would DHS or the FAA allow this in the states, and what kind of permits are required before launching something to 5000 feet?