One thing that I have not been able to comprehend is why talking on cell phones in public or semi-public places, in general, is such a bad thing. Of course I understand the problem with using them in theaters and the like, but then you're not supposed to talk during a play or movie anyway. But I've never seen anyone complain about people talking to each other (in person) in restaurants--well, I guess it depends on the restaurant--or supermarkets. Why, then, is it suddenly improper for people to talk on cell phones in such places, assuming they use a similar tone of voice?
I agree completely with what you're saying with respect to providing proof, and especially because most people don't bother to document things they do on their own time, I think it's inevitable, though unfortunate, that cases like this will come up. The parent post, however, seemed to be implying that even if Brown had developed the idea on his time, the company should still have had rights to it, and that I can't agree with.
The courts rightly recognized that employees should not be able to withhold potentially valuable ideas from their employer, specifically against their employee agreement.
Against the agreement, yes. But no employer should be able to require that employees do anything when they are not on company time. Otherwise how is the relationship any different from "master and slave"? Slavery was (at least in the U.S.) outlawed a long time ago . . .
He had an idea valuable to his employer, tried to get extra money from it, and when he didn't get an offer good enough, he refused to disclose the idea.
And just where is the problem in this? Assuming, of course, that Brown really did invent it on his own time, he should have every right to sell it to the highest bidder, or not sell it at all if he wants. The company certainly shouldn't have the right to take something from him that they never paid him to create in the first place.
I think a large part of the "problem" with MMORPGs is that they're just too slowly paced--it takes too long to get anywhere useful. In an ordinary RPG, a month or so will usually be more than sufficient to beat the game, max out your characters' levels, etc., but in MMORPGs that will barely get you started.
I signed up for the Final Fantasy XI beta on a lark earlier this year (more because I wanted to exercise my bug-hunting skills than anything else), and to my surprise the pacing was faster than I had expected, and in about a month and a half of play I had raised my character's level pretty close to the level cap (35). The final version, however, slowed things down considerably; I haven't been able to make as much progress in three months as I did in half that time in the beta, and it's become more of a chore than anything else. (I've already resolved to quit later this month once I pass my items and such on.)
While I obviously don't know what Square is really thinking, I've heard rumors that they need to keep players paying for a year to recoup their costs, and it seems to me that they're doing their best to make sure players can't progress quickly and have to pour tons of time into the game in order to "enjoy" it. Since RPG players in particular have a tendency toward trying to maximize their stats, it's inevitable that this leads to the sort of addiction we hear stories about.
Ironically, when you click "Play" on the FFXI title screen, a message pops up saying "don't let FFXI affect your real life" (or words to that effect), yet Square publicly congratulated the first players to hit the level cap. Perhaps the right hand doesn't know what the left hand's doing?
Oh, absolutely. I'm bilingual as well (Japanese and English), and particularly with Japanese, the language itself is so ambiguous that even native speakers don't always understand each other--you can imagine how difficult that made it to learn the language.;)
But I don't think the point of machine translation is necessarily to get a perfect translation out; for that, the machine would have to be able to think like a human, and that would bring up all sorts of difficulties I don't even want to touch. But if the computer can do a good-enough translation, then the humans involved can figure out the rest. For example, another poster suggested the ambiguity of "bank"--a place where you store money vs. the edge of a river--but even if the machine translation got it wrong, the humans involved could figure things out in the end. (You could say "the edge of the river" instead, for example.)
I'm personally looking forward to progress in machine translation. While there will never be any substitute for actually learning and understanding a foreign language, realtime translation could go a long way toward improving intercultural understanding, and could help stem the loss of languages due to the spread of English and other "core" languages.
For some reason, this quote sent me into fits of laughter:
"We believe that AOL Time Warner, and a whole bunch of their companies, have been rampantly using our copyrighted material without licensing it or paying for it," said Martin Bandier, chairman and chief executive of EMI Music Publishing.
it's not the disc breaking the computer. it is the poor handling of corrupted data files in the mac that is breaking the computer.
And it's the recording industry that created the corrupted data that triggers the poor handling of corrupted data files in the Mac that is breaking the computer. Even if the labels could convince the court that they hadn't known about this problem when they came up with their scheme, they'd get hit with gross negligence for failing to recall the products once the problem became known.
When you purchase a commuter pass, you have to give personal information (name, address, telephone number, place of work) to the railway company. That isn't a big problem with the previous magnetic cards, because the information isn't stored on the card in an electronically-readable format (your name is printed on the non-magnetic side). But with Suica, each card gets an ID number, which is correlated with your personal info in a database. And every time you pass through a ticket gate, that ID is transmitted to a central computer. Need I say more?
Granted, this isn't necessarily a huge invasion of privacy, much like buying things with credit cards isn't necessarily a huge invasion of privacy. But as I live in what's commonly regarded as one of the most dangerous parts of the Tokyo metro area, I'm not at all thrilled about the possibility of thieves finding out exactly what time I get on and off the train each day.
As a side note, Suica is anonymous (I think) when you use it as a plain charge card; but there are already magnetic charge cards which do the same thing (plus give you a printout on the card of each transaction), and I really can't convince myself that saving the extra 0.7 seconds or so I'd gain by using the IC card is worth it.
I find it odd that someone who even admits they have reading problems still insists on dumping all of the blame on Sony. I had no trouble at all setting up Linux on my PS2 (though admittedly I have the Japanese version; maybe somebody screwed something up for the US release).
As far as the network adapter goes, I've had zero problems, even while doing a raw disk dump over the network. I do, on the other hand, recall splay locking up on me once or twice. Try setting the playback rate to 48000 Hz, since the PS2 Linux driver can't handle anything else natively, and see if that helps. This is also mentioned in the manual, by the way (at least the Japanese one).
Also, when I had a keyboard problem—which just turned out to be me typing too fast for the keyboard's specs—I was able to send just the keyboard back to Sony and use the PS2 via Ethernet in the meantime. Maybe you didn't communicate clearly that it was just the keyboard that was defective?
Yes! I remember making a whole tree of directories like that on my parents' 286 back when I was a kid, to keep my stuff hidden (I very conveniently ignored the fact that my dad had about 15 years of computer experience even then, because I was obviously being so clever). In order to remember where it was myself, I used the digits of pi, so the top directory had 3 Alt-255's, the next one had 1, the next 4, and so on. For a fifth grader I sure was proud of myself--my very own passworded directory, that no one could possibly guess at!
. . .
Sure is a good thing that computer isn't still hanging around . . .
I don't necessarily understand the objections to face scanning technology. [...] Like everything else, if we use it wisely, it can help. If we use it irresponsibly, it can hurt.
You just hit the nail on the head there; most people who don't like this technology don't like it because (they believe) it will be used irresponsibly, eventually if not immediately. Power corrupts, as the old saying goes, and people are unfortunately easily corruptible. Ordinarily I wouldn't be quite so pessimistic, but given all the hoopla over the "War on Terrorism", I'm inclined to side with the Slashdot popular view.
(Note to moderators: Yes, I do realize that there are many points of view represented on Slashdot, thankyouverymuch.)
I immediately thought of games (who didn't!?) retailing at hugely above their production cost, and books the same. [...] Who would rip games onto CDs for their friends if you could get them in the store (with a free CD case and handy booklet) for $5?
And under your hypothetical $5 per copy, where would the money come from to pay the people who spent months (or years) of their life developing the game? Do you think the companies that employ them have some secret stash of money-growing trees? They don't, and that's why games cost so much (whether $60 for a particular game is okay or $50 would be more proper is a different issue). The same goes for books, and at least as I've heard, very, very few authors make more than a decent living, if that.
CD's, of course (which run to US$25 here in Japan, by the way), are a different matter entirely . . .
All that says is that they believe making a bug-compatible reimplementation of their server is beyond the ability of a non-commercial third party. "They couldn't possibly have copied this bug without copying our code!"
That could actually be a valid point--much as the way dictionary authors (supposedly) put intentional errors in their dictionaries so they can prove violation of copyright if someone tries to copy the dictionary. ("So tell me, just where did you get the definition for `bloofargle' from?") Of course, how effective that is depends on what kind of bug it is, and if it's something that's apparent from the behavior of the program, then it would be reasonable to expect bnetd to be able to duplicate it. But "they have the same bug we do" isn't on its face an invalid or "lame" complaint.
Incidentally, the comment I linked to said "30 lines" were copied, but when I went to reread the article it said 30 lines "out of hundreds", which doesn't sound all that bad.
How on Earth are we to judge if we can't see the code?
In case you missed my next sentence: "Still, I'd want to see the code in question before saying whether the student's in the right or not."
Just because me and someone else have identical blocks of code doesn't mean we collaborated or copied.
Oh, I agree with you completely--but on the other hand it doesn't mean you didn't copy, either, and I'd want more information before I decided one way or the other. It doesn't change the fact that GA Tech has some pretty stupid rules, but maybe the kid did go too far. Remember that the point of going to university is to learn, and just copying people's code won't, in general, accomplish that goal. Even if you do get help from someone else on a part of an assignment you just can't figure out, it's much more instructive to actually write the code yourself than just copy from what the other person did.
Incidentally, the comment I linked to said "30 lines" were copied, but when I went to reread the article it said 30 lines "out of hundreds", which doesn't sound all that bad. Still, I'd want to see the code in question before saying whether the student's in the right or not. (I wonder if I'd have to sign an NDA to do that?)
By reading this ROT-26 encoded comment, you are doing something expressly forbidden (by the DMCA).
2. Students' excuses in such matters are always pathetic and disingenuous. The student wasn't trying to learn, he/she was trying to cheat.
Hackers' excuses are always pathetic and disingenuous. The hacker wasn't trying to help secure the system, he/she was trying to steal confidential data.
3. I am appalled by the attitude of the submitter in this matter. This is serious and should be treated as such. Can we get a responsible update to correct this?????
Okay, into serious mode (and I'll try to avoid any comments on the number of punctuation marks there): First off, there are no direct quotes from the submitter in the article, so blaming the submitter is irresponsible. Second, given the information in the article, I see no real problem, and certainly no indication that it's not being treated seriously, in the story text. The issue, in case you missed it, is that Georgia Tech's rules regarding at least this particular course are overly strict and ought to be changed.
That said, another poster who attends the same university says that the student was found to have actually copied code, so the issue may not be as one-sided as it originally appeared.
While I wasn't entirely serious in my post--I am aware that this action isn't actually anywhere near what the RIAA and MPAA are doing--it does concern me because it says to people "we don't like you buying used books", even if it doesn't try to enforce such a "rule". Although it's reasonable for authors to avoid contributing to their own loss of income, I have a bit more of a problem with the Authors Guild publicly encouraging such action.
The important question is whether the Russian text imparts the same meaning and nuances to a native Russian reader as the English text does to an English reader--not whether the words happen to match up. I don't know any Russian, so I can't speak for this particular case, but I do speak fluent Japanese, and I have seen far too many "translations" that rely too heavily on dictionaries and end up missing critical points because of it. (Those who have played console games, particularly in the 8/16-bit era, will probably remember the frequency of unnatural English text in those games; one good example is "it's dangerous", which is a literal--and incorrect--translation of the Japanese word used to mean "look out!".) The better translation is not the one with the most word-for-word matches, but the one that causes readers in both languages to think the same thing. And with all due respect, I think it's difficult to judge that without a fluent knowledge of both languages involved.
It's also worth noting that it simply isn't possible to express some concepts in some languages, because the culture/society the language is used in simply doesn't have the concept in the first place. For example, Japanese has numerous words for expressing interpersonal relationships (such as nearly a dozen first-person singular pronouns, each with a different connotation); while you can approximate the meaning of those in English by playing games with sentence structure and the like, you can't get exactly the same nuance because English simply doesn't use the same concept set as Japanese does. So there will always be some inaccuracies in any translation, especially with colloquialisms like "party on, dude!"; the object is to keep them as few and as small as possible--again. in terms of the effect on the reader.
Of course, translating a Russian translation back into English is going to result in even more inaccuracies, like converting an MP3 file to Ogg Vorbis and then back to MP3 again; just because the final result sounds bad doesn't necessarily mean that the original or intermediate result are also bad.
Sure, this corrects people who are off-key, but what about those of us who intentionally change notes or tempo? I don't want to have my choices vetoed by vocoder.
Don't use vocoder.
Man, that was simple.
Well, yes, if you can figure out which of the 87 buttons on the remote turns off the vocoder.
On a slightly unrelated note, this reminds me of a story I heard about the Star Trek (TOS) episode with the green-skinned woman: no matter how much makeup they put on her, the films always came back with ordinary flesh color. When the producer finally gave up and went to the film processing crew about it, the answer was, "Oh, you wanted it green? We thought that was a lighting problem!"
"Except as otherwise permitted by the NetMeeting, Remote Assistance, and Remote Desktop features described below, you may not use the Product to permit any Device to use, access, display, or run other executable software residing on the Workstation Computer, nor may you permit any Device to use, access, display, or run the Product or Product's user interface, unless the Device has a separate license for the Product."
this is really stretching it, but say you've got a dual boot machine with linux/XP on it. by reading this license you can't boot to linux and remotely run any software on the box.
Wrong, at least going by the quote above--note how it says "you may not use the Product to permit any Device to use, access, display, or run . .." Since "Product" presumably refers to Windows, the clause doesn't apply while you're running Linux. (It might, on the other hand, apply if you had an emulator running Linux under Windows.)
Re:Is this really healthy?
on
To The Pain
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
We must throw off the shackles of the typing paradigm.
That's funny, I've been typing for long periods of time (lately 12-16 hours a day isn't unusual) a day for the last 15 years or so and I've never had my wrists hurt. I suspect this is related to the fact that I taught myself to type, rather than having that godawful "home row" method drilled into me (which did hurt for the few weeks I was forced to do it in school). I wouldn't denounce the keyboard just yet.
My thumbs will agree with you on the bit about game controllers, though.
Slashdot Mirror
One thing that I have not been able to comprehend is why talking on cell phones in public or semi-public places, in general, is such a bad thing. Of course I understand the problem with using them in theaters and the like, but then you're not supposed to talk during a play or movie anyway. But I've never seen anyone complain about people talking to each other (in person) in restaurants--well, I guess it depends on the restaurant--or supermarkets. Why, then, is it suddenly improper for people to talk on cell phones in such places, assuming they use a similar tone of voice?
I agree completely with what you're saying with respect to providing proof, and especially because most people don't bother to document things they do on their own time, I think it's inevitable, though unfortunate, that cases like this will come up. The parent post, however, seemed to be implying that even if Brown had developed the idea on his time, the company should still have had rights to it, and that I can't agree with.
The courts rightly recognized that employees should not be able to withhold potentially valuable ideas from their employer, specifically against their employee agreement.
Against the agreement, yes. But no employer should be able to require that employees do anything when they are not on company time. Otherwise how is the relationship any different from "master and slave"? Slavery was (at least in the U.S.) outlawed a long time ago . . .
He had an idea valuable to his employer, tried to get extra money from it, and when he didn't get an offer good enough, he refused to disclose the idea.
And just where is the problem in this? Assuming, of course, that Brown really did invent it on his own time, he should have every right to sell it to the highest bidder, or not sell it at all if he wants. The company certainly shouldn't have the right to take something from him that they never paid him to create in the first place.
I think a large part of the "problem" with MMORPGs is that they're just too slowly paced--it takes too long to get anywhere useful. In an ordinary RPG, a month or so will usually be more than sufficient to beat the game, max out your characters' levels, etc., but in MMORPGs that will barely get you started.
I signed up for the Final Fantasy XI beta on a lark earlier this year (more because I wanted to exercise my bug-hunting skills than anything else), and to my surprise the pacing was faster than I had expected, and in about a month and a half of play I had raised my character's level pretty close to the level cap (35). The final version, however, slowed things down considerably; I haven't been able to make as much progress in three months as I did in half that time in the beta, and it's become more of a chore than anything else. (I've already resolved to quit later this month once I pass my items and such on.)
While I obviously don't know what Square is really thinking, I've heard rumors that they need to keep players paying for a year to recoup their costs, and it seems to me that they're doing their best to make sure players can't progress quickly and have to pour tons of time into the game in order to "enjoy" it. Since RPG players in particular have a tendency toward trying to maximize their stats, it's inevitable that this leads to the sort of addiction we hear stories about.
Ironically, when you click "Play" on the FFXI title screen, a message pops up saying "don't let FFXI affect your real life" (or words to that effect), yet Square publicly congratulated the first players to hit the level cap. Perhaps the right hand doesn't know what the left hand's doing?
People will always do the translation gig better.
Oh, absolutely. I'm bilingual as well (Japanese and English), and particularly with Japanese, the language itself is so ambiguous that even native speakers don't always understand each other--you can imagine how difficult that made it to learn the language. ;)
But I don't think the point of machine translation is necessarily to get a perfect translation out; for that, the machine would have to be able to think like a human, and that would bring up all sorts of difficulties I don't even want to touch. But if the computer can do a good-enough translation, then the humans involved can figure out the rest. For example, another poster suggested the ambiguity of "bank"--a place where you store money vs. the edge of a river--but even if the machine translation got it wrong, the humans involved could figure things out in the end. (You could say "the edge of the river" instead, for example.)
I'm personally looking forward to progress in machine translation. While there will never be any substitute for actually learning and understanding a foreign language, realtime translation could go a long way toward improving intercultural understanding, and could help stem the loss of languages due to the spread of English and other "core" languages.
it's not the disc breaking the computer. it is the poor handling of corrupted data files in the mac that is breaking the computer.
And it's the recording industry that created the corrupted data that triggers the poor handling of corrupted data files in the Mac that is breaking the computer. Even if the labels could convince the court that they hadn't known about this problem when they came up with their scheme, they'd get hit with gross negligence for failing to recall the products once the problem became known.
Granted, this isn't necessarily a huge invasion of privacy, much like buying things with credit cards isn't necessarily a huge invasion of privacy. But as I live in what's commonly regarded as one of the most dangerous parts of the Tokyo metro area, I'm not at all thrilled about the possibility of thieves finding out exactly what time I get on and off the train each day.
As a side note, Suica is anonymous (I think) when you use it as a plain charge card; but there are already magnetic charge cards which do the same thing (plus give you a printout on the card of each transaction), and I really can't convince myself that saving the extra 0.7 seconds or so I'd gain by using the IC card is worth it.
I find it odd that someone who even admits they have reading problems still insists on dumping all of the blame on Sony. I had no trouble at all setting up Linux on my PS2 (though admittedly I have the Japanese version; maybe somebody screwed something up for the US release).
As far as the network adapter goes, I've had zero problems, even while doing a raw disk dump over the network. I do, on the other hand, recall splay locking up on me once or twice. Try setting the playback rate to 48000 Hz, since the PS2 Linux driver can't handle anything else natively, and see if that helps. This is also mentioned in the manual, by the way (at least the Japanese one).
Also, when I had a keyboard problem—which just turned out to be me typing too fast for the keyboard's specs—I was able to send just the keyboard back to Sony and use the PS2 via Ethernet in the meantime. Maybe you didn't communicate clearly that it was just the keyboard that was defective?
Yes! I remember making a whole tree of directories like that on my parents' 286 back when I was a kid, to keep my stuff hidden (I very conveniently ignored the fact that my dad had about 15 years of computer experience even then, because I was obviously being so clever). In order to remember where it was myself, I used the digits of pi, so the top directory had 3 Alt-255's, the next one had 1, the next 4, and so on. For a fifth grader I sure was proud of myself--my very own passworded directory, that no one could possibly guess at!
. . .
Sure is a good thing that computer isn't still hanging around . . .
I don't necessarily understand the objections to face scanning technology. [...] Like everything else, if we use it wisely, it can help. If we use it irresponsibly, it can hurt.
You just hit the nail on the head there; most people who don't like this technology don't like it because (they believe) it will be used irresponsibly, eventually if not immediately. Power corrupts, as the old saying goes, and people are unfortunately easily corruptible. Ordinarily I wouldn't be quite so pessimistic, but given all the hoopla over the "War on Terrorism", I'm inclined to side with the Slashdot popular view.
(Note to moderators: Yes, I do realize that there are many points of view represented on Slashdot, thankyouverymuch.)
I immediately thought of games (who didn't!?) retailing at hugely above their production cost, and books the same. [...] Who would rip games onto CDs for their friends if you could get them in the store (with a free CD case and handy booklet) for $5?
And under your hypothetical $5 per copy, where would the money come from to pay the people who spent months (or years) of their life developing the game? Do you think the companies that employ them have some secret stash of money-growing trees? They don't, and that's why games cost so much (whether $60 for a particular game is okay or $50 would be more proper is a different issue). The same goes for books, and at least as I've heard, very, very few authors make more than a decent living, if that.
CD's, of course (which run to US$25 here in Japan, by the way), are a different matter entirely . . .
All that says is that they believe making a bug-compatible reimplementation of their server is beyond the ability of a non-commercial third party. "They couldn't possibly have copied this bug without copying our code!"
That could actually be a valid point--much as the way dictionary authors (supposedly) put intentional errors in their dictionaries so they can prove violation of copyright if someone tries to copy the dictionary. ("So tell me, just where did you get the definition for `bloofargle' from?") Of course, how effective that is depends on what kind of bug it is, and if it's something that's apparent from the behavior of the program, then it would be reasonable to expect bnetd to be able to duplicate it. But "they have the same bug we do" isn't on its face an invalid or "lame" complaint.
Y o u c o u l d l i n k e v e r y c h a r a c t e r a n d h a v e l e f t o v e r s . . .
How on Earth are we to judge if we can't see the code?
In case you missed my next sentence: "Still, I'd want to see the code in question before saying whether the student's in the right or not."
Just because me and someone else have identical blocks of code doesn't mean we collaborated or copied.
Oh, I agree with you completely--but on the other hand it doesn't mean you didn't copy, either, and I'd want more information before I decided one way or the other. It doesn't change the fact that GA Tech has some pretty stupid rules, but maybe the kid did go too far. Remember that the point of going to university is to learn, and just copying people's code won't, in general, accomplish that goal. Even if you do get help from someone else on a part of an assignment you just can't figure out, it's much more instructive to actually write the code yourself than just copy from what the other person did.
Incidentally, the comment I linked to said "30 lines" were copied, but when I went to reread the article it said 30 lines "out of hundreds", which doesn't sound all that bad. Still, I'd want to see the code in question before saying whether the student's in the right or not. (I wonder if I'd have to sign an NDA to do that?)
1. The student did something expressly forbidden.
By reading this ROT-26 encoded comment, you are doing something expressly forbidden (by the DMCA).
2. Students' excuses in such matters are always pathetic and disingenuous. The student wasn't trying to learn, he/she was trying to cheat.
Hackers' excuses are always pathetic and disingenuous. The hacker wasn't trying to help secure the system, he/she was trying to steal confidential data.
3. I am appalled by the attitude of the submitter in this matter. This is serious and should be treated as such. Can we get a responsible update to correct this?????
Okay, into serious mode (and I'll try to avoid any comments on the number of punctuation marks there): First off, there are no direct quotes from the submitter in the article, so blaming the submitter is irresponsible. Second, given the information in the article, I see no real problem, and certainly no indication that it's not being treated seriously, in the story text. The issue, in case you missed it, is that Georgia Tech's rules regarding at least this particular course are overly strict and ought to be changed.
That said, another poster who attends the same university says that the student was found to have actually copied code, so the issue may not be as one-sided as it originally appeared.
While I wasn't entirely serious in my post--I am aware that this action isn't actually anywhere near what the RIAA and MPAA are doing--it does concern me because it says to people "we don't like you buying used books", even if it doesn't try to enforce such a "rule". Although it's reasonable for authors to avoid contributing to their own loss of income, I have a bit more of a problem with the Authors Guild publicly encouraging such action.
Oh, and cute comic. :^)
This reminds me far too much of MPAA/RIAA tactics . . . what will we see next, ranting against libraries because they allow people to share books?
And here I thought all Evil Organizations had acronyms ending in AA . . .
While you're at it, here's one RMS would like: "The right of freedom of speech and press includes . . . the right to read . . ." (footnote 11)
The important question is whether the Russian text imparts the same meaning and nuances to a native Russian reader as the English text does to an English reader--not whether the words happen to match up. I don't know any Russian, so I can't speak for this particular case, but I do speak fluent Japanese, and I have seen far too many "translations" that rely too heavily on dictionaries and end up missing critical points because of it. (Those who have played console games, particularly in the 8/16-bit era, will probably remember the frequency of unnatural English text in those games; one good example is "it's dangerous", which is a literal--and incorrect--translation of the Japanese word used to mean "look out!".) The better translation is not the one with the most word-for-word matches, but the one that causes readers in both languages to think the same thing. And with all due respect, I think it's difficult to judge that without a fluent knowledge of both languages involved.
It's also worth noting that it simply isn't possible to express some concepts in some languages, because the culture/society the language is used in simply doesn't have the concept in the first place. For example, Japanese has numerous words for expressing interpersonal relationships (such as nearly a dozen first-person singular pronouns, each with a different connotation); while you can approximate the meaning of those in English by playing games with sentence structure and the like, you can't get exactly the same nuance because English simply doesn't use the same concept set as Japanese does. So there will always be some inaccuracies in any translation, especially with colloquialisms like "party on, dude!"; the object is to keep them as few and as small as possible--again. in terms of the effect on the reader.
Of course, translating a Russian translation back into English is going to result in even more inaccuracies, like converting an MP3 file to Ogg Vorbis and then back to MP3 again; just because the final result sounds bad doesn't necessarily mean that the original or intermediate result are also bad.
Don't use vocoder.
Man, that was simple.
Well, yes, if you can figure out which of the 87 buttons on the remote turns off the vocoder.
On a slightly unrelated note, this reminds me of a story I heard about the Star Trek (TOS) episode with the green-skinned woman: no matter how much makeup they put on her, the films always came back with ordinary flesh color. When the producer finally gave up and went to the film processing crew about it, the answer was, "Oh, you wanted it green? We thought that was a lighting problem!"
- Gender detection and ajustment
That's probably the first time I've heard the word "adjust" applied to a binary attribute . . .
this is really stretching it, but say you've got a dual boot machine with linux/XP on it. by reading this license you can't boot to linux and remotely run any software on the box.
Wrong, at least going by the quote above--note how it says "you may not use the Product to permit any Device to use, access, display, or run . . ." Since "Product" presumably refers to Windows, the clause doesn't apply while you're running Linux. (It might, on the other hand, apply if you had an emulator running Linux under Windows.)
We must throw off the shackles of the typing paradigm.
That's funny, I've been typing for long periods of time (lately 12-16 hours a day isn't unusual) a day for the last 15 years or so and I've never had my wrists hurt. I suspect this is related to the fact that I taught myself to type, rather than having that godawful "home row" method drilled into me (which did hurt for the few weeks I was forced to do it in school). I wouldn't denounce the keyboard just yet.
My thumbs will agree with you on the bit about game controllers, though.