It's not floating, it sank, and they didn't throw it overboard for purposes of lightening a ship.. they threw it out, with no intention of ever recovering it.
Re:Mach Freakin' 5
on
NASA Tests X-43A
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Some of us didn't take fluid mechanics and/or thermodynamic classes, but we still know that:
Mach at sea level is about 761mph
At 50,000 ft, it's about 660mph
At 100,000 ft it's about 775mph
At 150,000 ft it's about 703mph
At 400,000 ft at the edge of the thermosphere, it's 681mph.
All those numbers are in the same ballpark.
Some of us remember that the speed of sound is affected chiefly by temperature and not pressure.
It's easier to go to higher mach speeds at higher elevation becauset here is less resistance due to friction.... not because the speed of sound is significantly slower.
I've seen shuffles that generally involve putting the cards to be shuffled on the table, smearing them all around randomly, then stacking them back up.
Card counting does indeed work, I know a number of people who have been barred from casinos for previously making a living playing blackjack.
Unless there is a specific law barring using calculating devices... it's probably not illegal. nevada has such specific laws.
As long as you are not interfering with the game in some way, or obtaining information you are not supposed to have (like another player's hidden cards).. you are not cheating.
Casinos in most places can, however, bar anyone they like from playing. If you win consistently, you will be gone.
Nobody expects the casino to allow them to play, or to not ban them for life... everyone involved HAD to konw the casino would blow a gasket when they found out.
The issue is whether or not this is criminal.. in Vegas, it would be, because there are specific laws dealing with using computing devices to augment your play.
Barring such laws, and considering their method in no way interfered with the game itself, there is probably nothing the casino can charge them with.. just as a card counter in blackjack cannot be charged with cheating. A person using the same system to count cards as me, but using a computer to do it, WOULD be charged in nevada.. whearas I would merely be politely barred form the blackjack table at that particular casino.
They are using public information available to everyone. That is not cheating.
They are in no way influencing the outcome for everyone else.
Using hidden cameras to view other player's poker hands is cheating.. the game is based on the fact that you can't see other players cards.
Unethical? Casinos are unethical in the first place, many would argue.
Counting cards at blackjack is not cheating. Neither is using the same system with a computer instead of your brain... however, the latter is illegal in Nevada. It is still not, however, cheating.
It may very well be that the law where these guys pulled this stunt has nothing in it that bars observing the game or computer assistance. So long as they in no way tampered with the outcome of the game, it's not cheating.
Only in some jurisdictions, and then only in more recent history.
In the early days of vegas it was not illegal, partly because nobody really thought of it.
Using a computer to win a chess tournament is different.. because the game of chess is completely about mind-vs-mind.
In a casino.. the casino tries to portray the games as perfectly random.. that's why it's called gambling. IN a few games, however, it is possible for the observant calculating person to gain an edge on the house, and suddenly not be gambling, but working. Obviously the casinos do what they can to demonize this, and call it cheating.
But it's not about the wheel being less than random.. the wheel is fair and balanced. The game itself has some variables you could in theory work with.
If you take into account the wheelspeed, where the ball entered the wheel.. you can develop a profile for where the ball will land, statistically.
They were taken into custody becuase they were percieved as doing something illegal. Now.. because the laws there are old, and because they were not actually in any way interfering with the mechanism of the game.. they will probably not be charged.. because they have not broken a law. IN Vegas, it used to be the same.. a ring was busted using computers to count blackjack. The casino charged them with cheating.. charges were dropped because they were not actually interfering with the game.. just doing number crunching and statistics on publicly available information.
Of course, now using a device to augment your play is illegal in nevada.
He is correct.. in that blackjack is the only game in the house where previous rounds statistically affect the outcome of future rounds... in other words, counting cards.
If you track what has been played in blackjack,you can nudge the odds in your favor.. it's not as exotic or hard as it sounds.
Even the simplest counting system will shift the odds in your favor, slightly.
The problem is that to take advantage of this, you have to raise and lower your bets accordingly.. bet high when the deck is in your favor, low when it's not.. and these betting swings are easily detectable by the house... and if they catch you counting, and winning consistently, you will politely be asked to not play blackjack anymore at the casino.
Yes, you can win at blackjack in the casino.. but NOT online... online blackjack generally deals from a new shoe every hand, or simply from an infinite one. Counting cards is useless.. the odds do not change after each hand.
Hold'Em: Knowing the odds is a good tool.. but won't let you win. Poker is a people game.... gotta knwo what your opponent is thinking:)
Okay.. abuses of staff like that, although definite issues, are not monopolistic.
Asking suppliers to decrease costs may be.. but it's also a good tactic.
As to what they "force" salaried employees to do.. that is up to local labor codes, and if the employees don't take it up with the appropriate authorities, there is no point in whining about it. LOTS of companies do similar things. Walmart is not a monopoly, yet... though it might be on some small regional scales. Telling national suppliers to drop prices is not illegal, it's strong business.
I'm not trying to paint walmart as a white night, I think they suck... but as a business, they are doing well.. and they would not be the first bigger, more efficient business to shut down older smaller ones, as i said.
Forcing lower prices from suppliers is business.. it's called negotiating. If you run a business, adn I am your biggest client, and I say I'm dropping you and finding someone else if you don't drop your prices.. that's business my friend.
To play devil's advocate here... even though I'm no fan of walmart...
first, walmart is simply doing good business. They aren't threatening anyone, or as far as I know abusing their monopoly position. They are not pricing things at a loss to kill all local business, then jacking up prices...
Wal-mart simply comes out as a better business.. and wins big.
IF you look back, you might find that before the 4 grocery stores and 2 department stores opened, there were a half dozen small local grocers spread around, and a dozen or so specialty shops instead of department stores... all who eventually went out of business after the larger stores opened.
Now, I'm not saying it's good.. but it's not like this is an abnormal thing in business.
There is absolutely no need for this whatsoever. There are a zillion ways to pull off this kind of mail system without introducing a new TLD...
A better requirement, though probably almost impossible to pull off due to negligence in the past, is to make sure that domains are registered to true, legal entities, and yank them if they are not.
Your business is fixing computers for people. Some people always break their computer, so they spend a lot of money getting you to fix it. That makes them a good customer, no?
This idea will work. It seems like a good idea.. except
I do not want my ISP to decide what web pages I am allowed to view. They are not there to control my internet access. Ideally we want ISPs to simply re-sell INTERNET connections, period.. or we enter a slippery slope.
If AOL does it.. well.. aol is not *exactly* and ISP.. we sort of expect them to be a custom online service that happens to nowadays use the internet heavily.... I suppose that's somewhat acceptable. But if joe average dialup ISP starts fucking with my packets.... watch out
The GPL is not necessary to have work attributed to you.
Removing copyright notices is illegal in the US at least, and claiming work as yours that is really someone elses is fraud, GPL or not.
You can take teh software I wrote, and released under GPL, and re-build it into anything you want.. but if you try to assert copyright over the resul, GPL or not, it's fraud.
Google is a poor example.. trademark does not apply to common speech. If I choose to make your trademarked product name into a verb and use it, you have no recourse. This, however, does not invalidate your mark.
Xerox, Kleenex, good examples in north american anyway.... these are valid trademarks.. you cannot market your photocopier as a xerox machine,,or your tissue as "kleenex" even though in the common tongue we take both to define their entire class of product.
- You do have to defend your trademark to keep it. You cannot selectively enforce trademark. If it becomes diluted, you lose it.
- What if I took my own browser, totally unrelated to the mozilla project, and called it FireFox, should I be allowed to do this? Same for Apache, or Gnome, or the GIMP, or any other tool out there.
- Who really cares... after all this is about a name, not about code, or function.. it's just about marketing.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not floating, it sank, and they didn't throw it overboard for purposes of lightening a ship.. they threw it out, with no intention of ever recovering it.
All those numbers are in the same ballpark.
Some of us remember that the speed of sound is affected chiefly by temperature and not pressure.
It's easier to go to higher mach speeds at higher elevation becauset here is less resistance due to friction.... not because the speed of sound is significantly slower.
Charts and stuff
Cheers
What did you use to decompile with?
Here is where your theory falls apart.
Let's say you lose the first four bets, and win the 5th.
Your total amount wagered is 400 + 200 + 100 + 50 + 25, or $775
If you win the last wager, you win $400, so you are up $25
If you LOSE the last wager, you are out $1175, and can't bet $800 to make it up, because you hit the table limit.
the monte-carlo system does not work expect with unlimited capital and no table limits, with an infinite number of spins.
You did not beat one in 32 odds. (give or take)
Beating 1 in 32 would be winning all five spins.
I've seen shuffles that generally involve putting the cards to be shuffled on the table, smearing them all around randomly, then stacking them back up.
Card counting does indeed work, I know a number of people who have been barred from casinos for previously making a living playing blackjack.
Nope.
Unless there is a specific law barring using calculating devices... it's probably not illegal. nevada has such specific laws.
As long as you are not interfering with the game in some way, or obtaining information you are not supposed to have (like another player's hidden cards).. you are not cheating.
Casinos in most places can, however, bar anyone they like from playing. If you win consistently, you will be gone.
This comes down to the law though.
Nobody expects the casino to allow them to play, or to not ban them for life... everyone involved HAD to konw the casino would blow a gasket when they found out.
The issue is whether or not this is criminal.. in Vegas, it would be, because there are specific laws dealing with using computing devices to augment your play.
Barring such laws, and considering their method in no way interfered with the game itself, there is probably nothing the casino can charge them with.. just as a card counter in blackjack cannot be charged with cheating.
A person using the same system to count cards as me, but using a computer to do it, WOULD be charged in nevada.. whearas I would merely be politely barred form the blackjack table at that particular casino.
No, it's not cheating.
They are using public information available to everyone. That is not cheating.
They are in no way influencing the outcome for everyone else.
Using hidden cameras to view other player's poker hands is cheating.. the game is based on the fact that you can't see other players cards.
Unethical? Casinos are unethical in the first place, many would argue.
Counting cards at blackjack is not cheating. Neither is using the same system with a computer instead of your brain... however, the latter is illegal in Nevada. It is still not, however, cheating.
It may very well be that the law where these guys pulled this stunt has nothing in it that bars observing the game or computer assistance. So long as they in no way tampered with the outcome of the game, it's not cheating.
Only in some jurisdictions, and then only in more recent history.
In the early days of vegas it was not illegal, partly because nobody really thought of it.
Using a computer to win a chess tournament is different.. because the game of chess is completely about mind-vs-mind.
In a casino.. the casino tries to portray the games as perfectly random.. that's why it's called gambling. IN a few games, however, it is possible for the observant calculating person to gain an edge on the house, and suddenly not be gambling, but working. Obviously the casinos do what they can to demonize this, and call it cheating.
But it's not about the wheel being less than random.. the wheel is fair and balanced. The game itself has some variables you could in theory work with.
If you take into account the wheelspeed, where the ball entered the wheel.. you can develop a profile for where the ball will land, statistically.
They were taken into custody becuase they were percieved as doing something illegal. Now.. because the laws there are old, and because they were not actually in any way interfering with the mechanism of the game.. they will probably not be charged.. because they have not broken a law. IN Vegas, it used to be the same.. a ring was busted using computers to count blackjack. The casino charged them with cheating.. charges were dropped because they were not actually interfering with the game.. just doing number crunching and statistics on publicly available information.
Of course, now using a device to augment your play is illegal in nevada.
He is correct.. in that blackjack is the only game in the house where previous rounds statistically affect the outcome of future rounds... in other words, counting cards.
,you can nudge the odds in your favor.. it's not as exotic or hard as it sounds.
If you track what has been played in blackjack
Even the simplest counting system will shift the odds in your favor, slightly.
The problem is that to take advantage of this, you have to raise and lower your bets accordingly.. bet high when the deck is in your favor, low when it's not.. and these betting swings are easily detectable by the house... and if they catch you counting, and winning consistently, you will politely be asked to not play blackjack anymore at the casino.
6 to 8 decks is not the problem.. the problem is more frequent early reshuffles, with around 3 decks left in the shoe.
Even still, you can still count and sit there all day and make a profit...
Were either of those ever sold to the PC market? No.
They were and are considered Workstations.
The distinction may not matter from a technical point of view. but it's a fair one.... those machines were never marketed or sold as PCs
At the time Apple started selling the G5, was anyone selling a 64 bit PC, and if so, was it faster than the G5?
There were plenty of 64 bit computers available.. but not really on the PC market...
Two important notes:
:)
Yes, you can win at blackjack in the casino.. but NOT online... online blackjack generally deals from a new shoe every hand, or simply from an infinite one. Counting cards is useless.. the odds do not change after each hand.
Hold'Em: Knowing the odds is a good tool.. but won't let you win. Poker is a people game.... gotta knwo what your opponent is thinking
Okay.. abuses of staff like that, although definite issues, are not monopolistic.
Asking suppliers to decrease costs may be.. but it's also a good tactic.
As to what they "force" salaried employees to do.. that is up to local labor codes, and if the employees don't take it up with the appropriate authorities, there is no point in whining about it. LOTS of companies do similar things. Walmart is not a monopoly, yet... though it might be on some small regional scales. Telling national suppliers to drop prices is not illegal, it's strong business.
I'm not trying to paint walmart as a white night, I think they suck... but as a business, they are doing well.. and they would not be the first bigger, more efficient business to shut down older smaller ones, as i said.
Forcing lower prices from suppliers is business.. it's called negotiating. If you run a business, adn I am your biggest client, and I say I'm dropping you and finding someone else if you don't drop your prices.. that's business my friend.
To play devil's advocate here... even though I'm no fan of walmart...
first, walmart is simply doing good business. They aren't threatening anyone, or as far as I know abusing their monopoly position. They are not pricing things at a loss to kill all local business, then jacking up prices...
Wal-mart simply comes out as a better business.. and wins big.
IF you look back, you might find that before the 4 grocery stores and 2 department stores opened, there were a half dozen small local grocers spread around, and a dozen or so specialty shops instead of department stores... all who eventually went out of business after the larger stores opened.
Now, I'm not saying it's good.. but it's not like this is an abnormal thing in business.
I didn't say it would fix spam, I just said what was proposed could be done equally well without resorting to new TLDs
There is absolutely no need for this whatsoever. There are a zillion ways to pull off this kind of mail system without introducing a new TLD...
A better requirement, though probably almost impossible to pull off due to negligence in the past, is to make sure that domains are registered to true, legal entities, and yank them if they are not.
Okay, this I don't get... help me out here.
Your business is fixing computers for people.
Some people always break their computer, so they spend a lot of money getting you to fix it. That makes them a good customer, no?
This idea will work. It seems like a good idea.. except
.. we sort of expect them to be a custom online service that happens to nowadays use the internet heavily.... I suppose that's somewhat acceptable. But if joe average dialup ISP starts fucking with my packets.... watch out
I do not want my ISP to decide what web pages I am allowed to view. They are not there to control my internet access. Ideally we want ISPs to simply re-sell INTERNET connections, period.. or we enter a slippery slope.
If AOL does it.. well.. aol is not *exactly* and ISP
How does this hold up though, the copyrighted works in question are in the public domain... PG can't assert any kind of copyright over it.
Huh?
The GPL is not necessary to have work attributed to you.
Removing copyright notices is illegal in the US at least, and claiming work as yours that is really someone elses is fraud, GPL or not.
You can take teh software I wrote, and released under GPL, and re-build it into anything you want.. but if you try to assert copyright over the resul, GPL or not, it's fraud.
Google is a poor example.. trademark does not apply to common speech. If I choose to make your trademarked product name into a verb and use it, you have no recourse. This, however, does not invalidate your mark.
,or your tissue as "kleenex" even though in the common tongue we take both to define their entire class of product.
Xerox, Kleenex, good examples in north american anyway.... these are valid trademarks.. you cannot market your photocopier as a xerox machine,
think about this:
- You do have to defend your trademark to keep it. You cannot selectively enforce trademark. If it becomes diluted, you lose it.
- What if I took my own browser, totally unrelated to the mozilla project, and called it FireFox, should I be allowed to do this? Same for Apache, or Gnome, or the GIMP, or any other tool out there.
- Who really cares... after all this is about a name, not about code, or function.. it's just about marketing.