Getting a master's degree in physics did not give me any particular understanding of death.
It's the old correlation vs. causation thing again.
No, getting a master's degree in physics did not give you any additional understanding or perspective. However, you being the type of person to get a master's degree puts you in a group that is more highly correlated with having that perspective...
And if she gets elected, we can see what becomes of the country when someone "just like me" runs it. At least the people currently in office know what they're doing, even though their goals are counter to ours.
I've never understood the "someone just like me" sentiment.
If I were to go to have brain surgery, I wouldn't want "someone like me" -- I would want someone who is a great surgeon! Yet, for politics, people want someone who is like them. I understand wanting similar values, but people actually voted for Palin and GWB because they were perceived as not-smart. Scary...
Hey GP, for a fun experiment, take the position of someone you fiercely disagree with, assume you lack the knowledge to properly justify it, pretend to justify it, and then do what you advocate doing. How angry did that make you feel?
But to your point, what if the Finnish services couldn't get there? what should the Swedish system do?
Actually, it's more like, what if the Finnish people decided that they wanted to save some tax money, and so dissolved their fire department(s). Would the Swedish fire department then come and fight their fires for them?
What is a hard floppy? (and isn't the term "soft floppy" a bit redundant?)
He probably meant hard or soft sectoring. Originally, floppy disks were hard-sectored, meaning that there were actually marks (holes, I believe) on the floppy itself, which the controller then looked for when seeking. Later, those were removed, and seeking was done by looking for patterns on the disk (soft-sectoring).
It also makes you wonder if their algorithm depends on the jpeg pass in some way to get their great results. Its better than jpeg as long as you use jpeg first?
Which would still be fine, as it would be part of the encoding step, which isn't much speed-dependent.
I.e. if "cat IMAGE | JPEG_ENCODER | WEBP_ENCODER" results in a better image with smaller files, why would that be a problem?
In some areas it's quite out of hand, train services are regularly disrupted at vast expense. I'm not generally one for new criminal offences (I think we've probably got too many already in some areas), but in this case I really think you need something a bit heavier than theft (and maybe criminal damage). A new offence of 'Infrastructure Sabotage' for removing parts of a working railway, tramway etc., with punishments maybe 5-10x more than simply (say) stealing equivalent unused cable from storage might reduce the attraction and go someway to reflecting the relative cost to society and to Network Rail etc.
Studies have shown that increasing penalties has very little to do with deterrence. The only thing that significantly affects the crime rate is the likelihood of getting caught.
So, increasing the penalties would most likely only give the DA more ability to coerce a plea bargain. "Oh, so you crashed your car into a telephone pole. That's 'infrastructure sabotage', with a maximum penalty of twenty years. You'd best plead guilty, and accept the three years that I'm offering"...
I guess so. All software is simply a really big number. The fact that the number makes fancy GUIs, or let's you watch a movie is what matters in the courts, I think.
I understand that your post is at least partially tongue-in-cheek...
With that said, note that the "big number" for software is the output of a conversion (say by a compiler) from a "creative work", which is covered by copyright, while the "big number" for the HDCP master key is simply the random output of a program, and is probably not covered by copyright...
What ever the data rate is supposed to max out at I haven't seen anywhere close to that (I'm looking at you Rogers). I see more compression artifacts then detail, especially on sports broadcasts. The only content that would really use it to its potential would be BluRay media. YMMV
Note that DVI/HDMI is uncompressed -- it doesn't matter what the source data rate is -- it could be 1MB/sec, but the output rate would be several GB/sec...
Damn.. not only does it make for great breakfast every morning, but it can help clean my gadgets too? This makes me wonder if you can legally marry peanut butter.
It's a dessert topping and a floor wax! (SNL reference)
For years, there was an Eight Ball Deluxe machine in the Minneapolis airport that didn't have a functioning tilt sensor. I looked forward to flying through that airport every time, until they finally removed it...
However, for other machines that had sensitive tilt sensors, I couldn't consistently win games, as it much too often ran the ball right down the middle, without my ever even getting a chance at a save.
Love that machine. I haven't played for a while, but do remember there being a functional simulation (MESS?)...
it's probably a little better than the alternative: the 'high-velocity exploding lead shrapnel to the head'-ray. that inflicts pain, too. but it's a little harder to turn off.
Yes, but the big difference is that, like tasers, this is "non-lethal" (even if people might die from its application), meaning that authorities may use it with impunity in pretty much any situation, where they wouldn't otherwise be able to use those lead projectiles.
And, the fact that it doesn't leave any evidence as to its application... means free torture!
I believe what the grandparent is referring to is the unbalancing of the genders due to the One Child Per Family policy and the cultural preference to have a male as opposed to a female. Since there are currently more males than females reaching sexual maturity, the government is likely worried about the social unrest this will cause since it means that the men will be unable to find a wife to start a family with.
I would've expected that the "market" would've eventually taken care of this. I.e. if females become somewhat rare, then charge a "reverse dowry" for the opportunity to wed. I guess that it is culture that keeps this from happening?
DV is basically a slightly altered MJPEG, and it's a pretty popular acquisition format. It's not the best quality, but I'd hardly call it lousy.
25 megabit for standard definition video is insanely high (most DVDs are 4-6 megabit), which is why it has good quality (and why it is almost never a "final" format, though it is great for editing, simply because it doesn't have inter-frame compression).
Yes, a bit later I even saw a separate release of this monkey thing: you would launch your app, then launch the monkey, and thousands of clicks were hitting the screen. (seeing this the first time was atrocious;-)
When the worst that happened was that sooner or later a given serie of click would trigger a quit command, you were safe:-)
And to elaborate, the reason that programs such as MacPaint would test the "MonkeyLives" location, would be to disable commands, such as "Quit" and "Save" that would be better off not triggered by the monkey...
"Only 1 more dropped call per 100 calls..." but how many dropped calls is that? If it's 2 instead of 1, then that's a HUGE deal.
Not to mention that he was comparing it to the 3GS, which isn't known for having great reception to begin with.
My experience: I had a 3G with which I could almost never complete a call from my house, despite having 4-5 bars (with either Edge or 3G), though it was better most other places. I ended up breaking that phone, and so bought a Samsung Blackjack (Edge only, I believe) to tide me over until the new iPhone arrived -- no problem at all with making calls from my house. I didn't like the way that the Blackjack worked otherwise, however, so I bought an (cheap) unopened first-generation iPhone from someone I knew. Also no problems at my house. So, the fact that the iPhone 4 is worse than the 3GS is very much a concern (though I will probably try for myself...).
Slashdot Mirror
I didn't realize that Idiocracy was a documentary...
It's the old correlation vs. causation thing again.
No, getting a master's degree in physics did not give you any additional understanding or perspective. However, you being the type of person to get a master's degree puts you in a group that is more highly correlated with having that perspective...
I've never understood the "someone just like me" sentiment.
If I were to go to have brain surgery, I wouldn't want "someone like me" -- I would want someone who is a great surgeon! Yet, for politics, people want someone who is like them. I understand wanting similar values, but people actually voted for Palin and GWB because they were perceived as not-smart. Scary...
And, even more, they don't find men without any semblance of a sense of humor to be at all attractive...
What is one person's insanity is another's attention to detail...
Most people are incapable of doing that...
Actually, it's more like, what if the Finnish people decided that they wanted to save some tax money, and so dissolved their fire department(s). Would the Swedish fire department then come and fight their fires for them?
He probably meant hard or soft sectoring. Originally, floppy disks were hard-sectored, meaning that there were actually marks (holes, I believe) on the floppy itself, which the controller then looked for when seeking. Later, those were removed, and seeking was done by looking for patterns on the disk (soft-sectoring).
First time I've been rick-rolled by a Slashdot comment. Time to write a new Firefox plugin...
Which would still be fine, as it would be part of the encoding step, which isn't much speed-dependent.
I.e. if "cat IMAGE | JPEG_ENCODER | WEBP_ENCODER" results in a better image with smaller files, why would that be a problem?
(Though I highly doubt that that is the case...)
Studies have shown that increasing penalties has very little to do with deterrence. The only thing that significantly affects the crime rate is the likelihood of getting caught.
So, increasing the penalties would most likely only give the DA more ability to coerce a plea bargain. "Oh, so you crashed your car into a telephone pole. That's 'infrastructure sabotage', with a maximum penalty of twenty years. You'd best plead guilty, and accept the three years that I'm offering"...
I understand that your post is at least partially tongue-in-cheek...
With that said, note that the "big number" for software is the output of a conversion (say by a compiler) from a "creative work", which is covered by copyright, while the "big number" for the HDCP master key is simply the random output of a program, and is probably not covered by copyright...
Note that DVI/HDMI is uncompressed -- it doesn't matter what the source data rate is -- it could be 1MB/sec, but the output rate would be several GB/sec...
It's a dessert topping and a floor wax! (SNL reference)
For years, there was an Eight Ball Deluxe machine in the Minneapolis airport that didn't have a functioning tilt sensor. I looked forward to flying through that airport every time, until they finally removed it...
However, for other machines that had sensitive tilt sensors, I couldn't consistently win games, as it much too often ran the ball right down the middle, without my ever even getting a chance at a save.
Love that machine. I haven't played for a while, but do remember there being a functional simulation (MESS?)...
He owns Ticketmaster; doesn't get much more evil than that...
'Tis funnier if you say "died peacefully in his sleep", IMO...
No, the cat's cycle is 22 hours asleep, 2 hours awake...
Probably a stupid question, but why wasn't that a good thing (to clean the coins)?
Where did you learn your math?
Yes, but the big difference is that, like tasers, this is "non-lethal" (even if people might die from its application), meaning that authorities may use it with impunity in pretty much any situation, where they wouldn't otherwise be able to use those lead projectiles.
And, the fact that it doesn't leave any evidence as to its application ... means free torture!
I would've expected that the "market" would've eventually taken care of this. I.e. if females become somewhat rare, then charge a "reverse dowry" for the opportunity to wed. I guess that it is culture that keeps this from happening?
25 megabit for standard definition video is insanely high (most DVDs are 4-6 megabit), which is why it has good quality (and why it is almost never a "final" format, though it is great for editing, simply because it doesn't have inter-frame compression).
And to elaborate, the reason that programs such as MacPaint would test the "MonkeyLives" location, would be to disable commands, such as "Quit" and "Save" that would be better off not triggered by the monkey...
Not to mention that he was comparing it to the 3GS, which isn't known for having great reception to begin with.
My experience: I had a 3G with which I could almost never complete a call from my house, despite having 4-5 bars (with either Edge or 3G), though it was better most other places. I ended up breaking that phone, and so bought a Samsung Blackjack (Edge only, I believe) to tide me over until the new iPhone arrived -- no problem at all with making calls from my house. I didn't like the way that the Blackjack worked otherwise, however, so I bought an (cheap) unopened first-generation iPhone from someone I knew. Also no problems at my house. So, the fact that the iPhone 4 is worse than the 3GS is very much a concern (though I will probably try for myself...).