No, that's not the way it works. I've actually voted on one of these paper-trail voting machines, and really, it's quite elegant; and voting on it gave me warm fuzzies that my vote would actually be counted.
The machine lets you pick your candidate via touchscreen, and performs basic sanity checking on your vote (it doesn't let you vote for two candidates, etc). When you reach the last page and touch "I'm ready to record my vote", it prints a paper receipt which it displays under glass, for you to verify. Then it rolls the receipt up for storage.
The voter doesn't take a copy of the receipt home. But the key is that the paper has been printed, and now there is a paper ballot that exists somewhere. This makes the system exactly as secure as our current paper-ballot system: in order for someone to defeat this, he'd have to physically gain access to the precinct office and destroy printed ballots. Certainly it is possible to do so, but the point is that it's very hard to do this on a large scale.
If I, as a voter, notice that the machine didn't print what I voted, I'll make a fuss. If multiple people make a fuss in one precinct, that will raise alarms. It doesn't even matter if most people don't bother to double-check the printed ballot, since all that's necessary is that a sufficient random sample *does* double-check.
See? It's no more corruptible than a box full of traditional paper ballots. On the other hand, a box that simply records my vote electronically is potentially *much* more corruptible than a paper-trail machine. If a hacker somehow gains access to the box and compromises the program inside, he can make it record whatever votes he likes, and there is absolutely no way to recover the original votes.
That's the key difference. As long as all e-voting machines print a ballot like that, I'm all for the technology. But not having a paper backup is just asking for trouble.
It's a question of scale. Our current system is surely tamperable, but only on a local level. A particular person with malicious intent would have to bribe or distract or otherwise compromise the sworn attendants at a particular precinct in order to stuff the ballots. Certainly possible.
In order to influence the election on a larger scale, though, that person would need a *lot* of help, and it's hard to imagine that such a massive effort would not be noticed.
On the other hand, with an electronic counting system, it's theoretically possible for a small number of people, working remotely, to influence the results of a large number of precincts at once. *That* is reason enough to be highly suspicious of black-box electronic voting systems. However, the simple presence of a paper trail is sufficient to reduce this danger to the current (low) level of risk.
Huh. There are lots of better ways to reduce our paper usage. The amount of paper that would be consumed in this way for even one national election is absolutely nothing compared to the enormous mounds of paper that are used, for instance, to wrap all the Big Macs consumed across the country in any one day. If our goal is to reduce paper consumption, we've got a lot of work to do, and it doesn't make sense to start with our election system. (Besides, most states use paper ballots today anyway, so we're not talking about *increasing* paper consumption here--just keeping it at about the same level.)
As to proving the technology tamper-free: first, we'll never be able to prove it tamper free to a 99.999% level; and second, even if we could, 99.999% isn't nearly good enough. (Though it's not quite clear what that number would mean, exactly. But if the tamper-resistance is not exactly 100%--and that's clearly impossible--then someone, somewhere can figure out a way to corrupt the system--and some desparate political candidate will find that person and hire him.)
I said nothing that would limit us to a CHRISTIAN God.
I apologize for putting words in your mouth.
But when it gets twisted into freedom FROM religion, that somehow you're protected from hearing about other religions in the public sphere or that science must exist free FROM religion, that's when I have a problem.
Fair enough. It is a difficult balance. Yet I believe the correct balance point is much further into the neutral territory than you seem to.
Education however is NOT persecution, it binds us together as one people; thus all religions SHOULD be taught.
All religions? Really? Including Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Taoism, Zoroastrianism, Wicca, and Druidism? How about Satanism? And Scientology? And, for that matter, plain old atheism? And how about the dozens or hundreds of variants within each of those blanket labels, like Catholics, Mormons, and Unificationists?
Should all of these religions be taught as Truth? It'll take a very long time to get through the science curriculum that way. Or shall we filter them all down the their common demoninator, and teach that? If we do, then we are teaching just the science itself.
And I must argue that education in the wrong religion is indeed perceived as persecution. People use the word "indoctrination" to describe this, and get very upset about it. If people didn't feel strongly about this, we wouldn't be having this conversation.:)
Yes, and the eightfold path, the ten commandments, and the Quran all essentially teach the same morality- but you'd have them banned.
Again, there are more than just these three religions, and not all of them teach the same moral codes. It is the state's job to teach the morality codified within its own laws, but no more than that; the rest is up to the individual.
And yet- you fail to see that you're only teaching half the subject by failing to mention it's religious roots.
I wouldn't say that it's half the subject. We haven't even established that the theology of the ancient mathematicians is even relevant to the study of mathematics. But in any case, yes--it's not the job of the public schools to put knowledge in a theological context. It can't be, because there is no context that would satisfy all religions, so it has to be up to the individual.
You've apparently never read a modern textbook on evolution, where a random universe is a neccessary precondition of the whole idea. Without random mutation and variation within species, atheistic evolution falls apart.
OK, haven't we been through this already? It feels like this is where I came in. The word "random" does not imply "godless". Asserting that there is random mutation and variation within a species does not imply that God is not involved, nor does it imply that God is involved. It implies nothing about God one way or the other. The relation of the Theory of Evolution to God is left to the student.
OK, you're right--there's more to be said. I now understand you to be saying something along the lines of "God is in everything, including the abstract, so separation of church and state is meaningless."
While this thesis is a worthwhile subject for debate in itself--and I'd love to go into the pre-Christian origins of algebra and multiplication--it's completely beside the point.
Here's the thing: you're completely misunderstanding the intent of separation of church and state. It's not about keeping God away from the people. It's about allowing people to hold their own religion. And here's the key point: there's more than one religion.
Freedom of religion, as guaranteed by our Constitution, means that each citizen must have the freedom to worship his or her religion of choice, without fear of persecution from the state or from neighbors. This means the state cannot promote any one religion over any other--all religions must be treated with equal respect. This includes Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism, as well as the doctrine of atheism.
This means that any education promoted by the state must be free of any explicit references to any one religion. Mathematics is one such discipline: a Muslim and a Buddhist can equally appreciate that 6 * 3 = 18. (Even a fundamentalist Christian is likely to agree to this.) Now, if a particular person wishes to reflect upon the divinity inherent in multiplication, that's his private business.
The Theory of Evolution shares this property with mathematics: each person is free to intrepret the deeper meaning of evolution in the context of his own religion, but the theory itself does not impose any such requirement. It's based on mathematical principles, not doctrines from any particular religion. Note that, in spite of popular arguments to the contrary, it doesn't even reference atheism (nor, as you have argued, any kind of theism).
See, here's the separation of church and state at work: nowhere in a science textbook will you see something like "there is no God" or "so-and-so happened all by itself, proving the absence of God" or "God caused thus-and-so to happen" or "Allah's divine wisdom showed the way for this-and-that" or "Through the grace of Lord Shiva, we now have whatever-it-is." There are no references to the Christian God, or any god, or the lack thereof (except in a social sciences context, and then it's always in reference to the people who hold a particular belief). That's the whole point. Each person is free to interpret the knowledge within the context of his or her own religion; the knowledge itself does not come encumbered by a particular religious belief.
This is the difference between the Theory of Evolution and the doctrine of Intelligent Design. The ToE requires no particular religious belief in order to accept it--like any true science, it is independent of religion, and can be accepted by people of a variety of religious backgrounds. ID, on the hand, does require a particular religious belief: that there is a single intelligent being doing the designing. You may believe that to be incontrovertibly true, and you may find it incredible that anyone could believe anything else. But the fact of the matter is, there are a multitude of people who do believe something else, and our Constitution guarantees them the freedom to do so.
Exactly right- probility distristributions are a theological construct describing human ignorance.
I begin to understand the balance of your argument (although I don't really understand how you can make the above claim). If I accepted that the mathematical concept of a probability distribution were, in fact, theological in nature, then I would have to agree with you that the Theory of Evolution, and in fact, most scientific discoveries since the middle ages, were therefore theological in nature, and should not be taught in public schools.
But I think this is as silly as claiming that the concept of, for instance, multiplication is theological in nature. Probability distribution is just a tool for describing the number of times a certain event is likely to happen in a given sample. It's purely a mathematical concept. If you can't see the difference between an abstract, mathematical concept, and a theological statement of belief, then I suppose our discussion has found its logical terminus.
Then you'd better ban the words "random mutation" from the science classroom as well, if you want to stay away from deities.
Huh? What's so athestic about the word "random"? From dictionary.com:
random (2) Mathematics & Statistics. Of or relating to a type of circumstance or event that is described by a probability distribution.
That definition says nothing about whether God is involved or not. Certainly God can create events that can be described by a probability distribution; I would say that He creates these kinds of events all the time. They're all around you. Using the word "random" to describe such events does not imply that they happened in the absence of a deity.
Ok, so you believe in teaching ID.
Sure. Feel free to teach ID, or any religious dogma of your choice, in whatever church or private school you belong to. I absolutely believe in freedom of religion, and that includes the freedom to study and teach your religion of choice. But this dogma doesn't belong in public schools, which have a duty not to impose a particular religion on students.
The other assumes an Unintelligent Designer instead- Random Chance.
Actually, it doesn't. The Theory of Evolution makes no presumption about what deity or lack of deity started the whole thing. Like any scientific theory, it is merely an attempt to explain the cause-and-effect of observable phenomena (in this case, the diversity of species).
It is perfectly reasonable to subscribe to the religious belief of your choice, while also accepting this theory. In this context, the Theory of Evolution is simply an attempt to explain the exact mechanism by which God created the diversity of species on the Earth.
I would say that the meaning of "copy" as a synonym of "manuscript" is archaic in the sense that it is now used only within one limited context, that of journalism. Outside of this discipline, many or most people may not even be aware of this additional meaning of the word.
copyright
The legal right granted to an author, composer, playwright, publisher, or distributor to exclusive publication, production, sale, or distribution of a literary, musical, dramatic, or artistic work.
Note that this definition refers to distribution, not the making of copies.
For a longer treatise on this subject, including the misinterpretation of the original meaning of "copy", see Taking the Copy Out of Copyright, by Miller and Feigenbaum.
Actually, that's not strictly true, at least not in the original meaning of copyright. Nowadays few people remember the original meaning, and most think only in terms of preventing unauthorized copies, probably since that's what the word suggests to the modern ear.
The DMCA follows this modern way of thinking, and it therefore does indeed forbid the making of copies for whatever purpose. But that is not the original intention of copyright.
The word "copyright", as it was coined in the beginning part of the 20th century, came from the now-archaic meaning of copy referring to an original document, as in "newspaper copy", and was more about the distribution rights of said original, than about the right to make copies.
(Not that it really matters much anyway, since copyright seems to have become whatever the major media corporations say it ought to be.)
I hate to stomp on the/. idealogy, but what the fuck is wrong with closed standards? Whats wrong with innovation? 'Open' isn't always the best. An open console platform would be disaterous. The market would be flooded by look-a-like hardware.
Not so. It is hard to imagine any company deciding to sell a PSX2 clone, for instance, since there would be no profit in it--Sony is already planning to sell these things at a loss! They discovered with the PSX1 that they make far more money licensing the games than they ever do on just selling the consoles, so it's in their best interest to get these things into as many households as possible.
Sony is probably much more worried about fly-by-night software companies (or open-source programmers!), armed with full specs about the PSX2, developing content for the box without purchasing one of those expensive DevKits or any kind of a license from Sony.
Is it in the consumer's best interest? It's pretty hard to say.
if he says the Aladin TNT wasn't there, I believe the Aladin TNT wasn't there.
Read a bit more carefully. He didn't actually say the TNT wasn't there--he said he doesn't know. (And how could he?)
But he did say he was at the booth for an hour and that no one there mentioned the TNT in any way.
He also offers two more arguments in partial support of the suspicion that what he saw was not a TNT2 board (whether or not there were TNT boards at the booth or not): (1) it would be surprising that ArtX would put the Quake star on some other hardware than their own, and (2) one would expect a TNT2 board to generate a higher frame rate.
However, these are just arguments. Hannibal only presents, reasonably objectively, the facts as he saw them. He does not make ungrounded assertions one way or the other about what he did or did not see. When he does present his opinion it is clearly introduced as such.
This reasonable and rational behavior is in clear contrast to Calle's schoolboy pranks.
Wow. It is a rare joy to read a well-argued, eloquent reply to a well-argued, eloquent posting. Congratulations to both.
I personally agree with TheDullBlade here--quibbles about the existence or lack of a year zero are just quibbles; it all amounts to whether the definition of "millennium" is "a period of 1,000 consecutive years including and following the first year of the calendar, and each period of 1,000 consecutive years thereafter" or "a period of 1,000 years beginning with the change of the thousands digit of the calendar year."
Certainly the first definition is the more mathematically consistent, although the second is the one in more common use. Is one more correct than the other? Who cares? It's more satisfying to have a big party when the odometer rolls over, and that's all it boils down to.
MP3 at 128kbit/sec does introduce perceptible distortion, so it's something of a shame that 128kbit/sec has become the de facto standard for internet music downloads. But the analogy to JPEG compression holds: the perceived distortion falls off quite rapidly as the compression ratio decreases.
At higher bitrates, MP3 becomes quite attractive for general use, even for audiophiles, and the compression ratio is still impressive.
Try this experiment: Pick your favorite song from any CD. Rip it to a WAV file. Encode that WAV file to an MP3 at, say, 256 kbit/sec. Then decode that MP3 back to another WAV file. Now have a friend flip a coin, say, ten times, and burn a new CD with ten tracks; for each track, if the coin came up heads, write out the original WAV; tails, write the MP3 version. Have your friend write out the order, but don't let him show it to you.
Then take that CD and play it on your best stereo system, and I defy you to duplicate your friend's sequence list.
Slashdot Mirror
No, that's not the way it works. I've actually voted on one of these paper-trail voting machines, and really, it's quite elegant; and voting on it gave me warm fuzzies that my vote would actually be counted.
The machine lets you pick your candidate via touchscreen, and performs basic sanity checking on your vote (it doesn't let you vote for two candidates, etc). When you reach the last page and touch "I'm ready to record my vote", it prints a paper receipt which it displays under glass, for you to verify. Then it rolls the receipt up for storage.
The voter doesn't take a copy of the receipt home. But the key is that the paper has been printed, and now there is a paper ballot that exists somewhere. This makes the system exactly as secure as our current paper-ballot system: in order for someone to defeat this, he'd have to physically gain access to the precinct office and destroy printed ballots. Certainly it is possible to do so, but the point is that it's very hard to do this on a large scale.
If I, as a voter, notice that the machine didn't print what I voted, I'll make a fuss. If multiple people make a fuss in one precinct, that will raise alarms. It doesn't even matter if most people don't bother to double-check the printed ballot, since all that's necessary is that a sufficient random sample *does* double-check.
See? It's no more corruptible than a box full of traditional paper ballots. On the other hand, a box that simply records my vote electronically is potentially *much* more corruptible than a paper-trail machine. If a hacker somehow gains access to the box and compromises the program inside, he can make it record whatever votes he likes, and there is absolutely no way to recover the original votes.
That's the key difference. As long as all e-voting machines print a ballot like that, I'm all for the technology. But not having a paper backup is just asking for trouble.
It's a question of scale. Our current system is surely tamperable, but only on a local level. A particular person with malicious intent would have to bribe or distract or otherwise compromise the sworn attendants at a particular precinct in order to stuff the ballots. Certainly possible.
In order to influence the election on a larger scale, though, that person would need a *lot* of help, and it's hard to imagine that such a massive effort would not be noticed.
On the other hand, with an electronic counting system, it's theoretically possible for a small number of people, working remotely, to influence the results of a large number of precincts at once. *That* is reason enough to be highly suspicious of black-box electronic voting systems. However, the simple presence of a paper trail is sufficient to reduce this danger to the current (low) level of risk.
Huh. There are lots of better ways to reduce our paper usage. The amount of paper that would be consumed in this way for even one national election is absolutely nothing compared to the enormous mounds of paper that are used, for instance, to wrap all the Big Macs consumed across the country in any one day. If our goal is to reduce paper consumption, we've got a lot of work to do, and it doesn't make sense to start with our election system. (Besides, most states use paper ballots today anyway, so we're not talking about *increasing* paper consumption here--just keeping it at about the same level.)
As to proving the technology tamper-free: first, we'll never be able to prove it tamper free to a 99.999% level; and second, even if we could, 99.999% isn't nearly good enough. (Though it's not quite clear what that number would mean, exactly. But if the tamper-resistance is not exactly 100%--and that's clearly impossible--then someone, somewhere can figure out a way to corrupt the system--and some desparate political candidate will find that person and hire him.)
I said nothing that would limit us to a CHRISTIAN God.
:)
I apologize for putting words in your mouth.
But when it gets twisted into freedom FROM religion, that somehow you're protected from hearing about other religions in the public sphere or that science must exist free FROM religion, that's when I have a problem.
Fair enough. It is a difficult balance. Yet I believe the correct balance point is much further into the neutral territory than you seem to.
Education however is NOT persecution, it binds us together as one people; thus all religions SHOULD be taught.
All religions? Really? Including Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Taoism, Zoroastrianism, Wicca, and Druidism? How about Satanism? And Scientology? And, for that matter, plain old atheism? And how about the dozens or hundreds of variants within each of those blanket labels, like Catholics, Mormons, and Unificationists?
Should all of these religions be taught as Truth? It'll take a very long time to get through the science curriculum that way. Or shall we filter them all down the their common demoninator, and teach that? If we do, then we are teaching just the science itself.
And I must argue that education in the wrong religion is indeed perceived as persecution. People use the word "indoctrination" to describe this, and get very upset about it. If people didn't feel strongly about this, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Yes, and the eightfold path, the ten commandments, and the Quran all essentially teach the same morality- but you'd have them banned.
Again, there are more than just these three religions, and not all of them teach the same moral codes. It is the state's job to teach the morality codified within its own laws, but no more than that; the rest is up to the individual.
And yet- you fail to see that you're only teaching half the subject by failing to mention it's religious roots.
I wouldn't say that it's half the subject. We haven't even established that the theology of the ancient mathematicians is even relevant to the study of mathematics. But in any case, yes--it's not the job of the public schools to put knowledge in a theological context. It can't be, because there is no context that would satisfy all religions, so it has to be up to the individual.
You've apparently never read a modern textbook on evolution, where a random universe is a neccessary precondition of the whole idea. Without random mutation and variation within species, atheistic evolution falls apart.
OK, haven't we been through this already? It feels like this is where I came in. The word "random" does not imply "godless". Asserting that there is random mutation and variation within a species does not imply that God is not involved, nor does it imply that God is involved. It implies nothing about God one way or the other. The relation of the Theory of Evolution to God is left to the student.
David
OK, you're right--there's more to be said. I now understand you to be saying something along the lines of "God is in everything, including the abstract, so separation of church and state is meaningless."
While this thesis is a worthwhile subject for debate in itself--and I'd love to go into the pre-Christian origins of algebra and multiplication--it's completely beside the point.
Here's the thing: you're completely misunderstanding the intent of separation of church and state. It's not about keeping God away from the people. It's about allowing people to hold their own religion. And here's the key point: there's more than one religion.
Freedom of religion, as guaranteed by our Constitution, means that each citizen must have the freedom to worship his or her religion of choice, without fear of persecution from the state or from neighbors. This means the state cannot promote any one religion over any other--all religions must be treated with equal respect. This includes Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism, as well as the doctrine of atheism.
This means that any education promoted by the state must be free of any explicit references to any one religion. Mathematics is one such discipline: a Muslim and a Buddhist can equally appreciate that 6 * 3 = 18. (Even a fundamentalist Christian is likely to agree to this.) Now, if a particular person wishes to reflect upon the divinity inherent in multiplication, that's his private business.
The Theory of Evolution shares this property with mathematics: each person is free to intrepret the deeper meaning of evolution in the context of his own religion, but the theory itself does not impose any such requirement. It's based on mathematical principles, not doctrines from any particular religion. Note that, in spite of popular arguments to the contrary, it doesn't even reference atheism (nor, as you have argued, any kind of theism).
See, here's the separation of church and state at work: nowhere in a science textbook will you see something like "there is no God" or "so-and-so happened all by itself, proving the absence of God" or "God caused thus-and-so to happen" or "Allah's divine wisdom showed the way for this-and-that" or "Through the grace of Lord Shiva, we now have whatever-it-is." There are no references to the Christian God, or any god, or the lack thereof (except in a social sciences context, and then it's always in reference to the people who hold a particular belief). That's the whole point. Each person is free to interpret the knowledge within the context of his or her own religion; the knowledge itself does not come encumbered by a particular religious belief.
This is the difference between the Theory of Evolution and the doctrine of Intelligent Design. The ToE requires no particular religious belief in order to accept it--like any true science, it is independent of religion, and can be accepted by people of a variety of religious backgrounds. ID, on the hand, does require a particular religious belief: that there is a single intelligent being doing the designing. You may believe that to be incontrovertibly true, and you may find it incredible that anyone could believe anything else. But the fact of the matter is, there are a multitude of people who do believe something else, and our Constitution guarantees them the freedom to do so.
David
Exactly right- probility distristributions are a theological construct describing human ignorance.
I begin to understand the balance of your argument (although I don't really understand how you can make the above claim). If I accepted that the mathematical concept of a probability distribution were, in fact, theological in nature, then I would have to agree with you that the Theory of Evolution, and in fact, most scientific discoveries since the middle ages, were therefore theological in nature, and should not be taught in public schools.
But I think this is as silly as claiming that the concept of, for instance, multiplication is theological in nature. Probability distribution is just a tool for describing the number of times a certain event is likely to happen in a given sample. It's purely a mathematical concept. If you can't see the difference between an abstract, mathematical concept, and a theological statement of belief, then I suppose our discussion has found its logical terminus.
David
Then you'd better ban the words "random mutation" from the science classroom as well, if you want to stay away from deities.
Huh? What's so athestic about the word "random"? From dictionary.com:
random (2) Mathematics & Statistics. Of or relating to a type of circumstance or event that is described by a probability distribution.
That definition says nothing about whether God is involved or not. Certainly God can create events that can be described by a probability distribution; I would say that He creates these kinds of events all the time. They're all around you. Using the word "random" to describe such events does not imply that they happened in the absence of a deity.
Ok, so you believe in teaching ID.
Sure. Feel free to teach ID, or any religious dogma of your choice, in whatever church or private school you belong to. I absolutely believe in freedom of religion, and that includes the freedom to study and teach your religion of choice. But this dogma doesn't belong in public schools, which have a duty not to impose a particular religion on students.
David
Actually, it doesn't. The Theory of Evolution makes no presumption about what deity or lack of deity started the whole thing. Like any scientific theory, it is merely an attempt to explain the cause-and-effect of observable phenomena (in this case, the diversity of species).
It is perfectly reasonable to subscribe to the religious belief of your choice, while also accepting this theory. In this context, the Theory of Evolution is simply an attempt to explain the exact mechanism by which God created the diversity of species on the Earth.
David
I think you took the poster too literally. It's clearly intended as an ironic reference to the U.S.'s current President.
Well, ok--but the dictionary reference was just for a cheesy quick response. The real reference was the paper.
I would say that the meaning of "copy" as a synonym of "manuscript" is archaic in the sense that it is now used only within one limited context, that of journalism. Outside of this discipline, many or most people may not even be aware of this additional meaning of the word.
For a quick justification, see www.dictionary.com:
copyright
The legal right granted to an author, composer, playwright, publisher, or distributor to exclusive publication, production, sale, or distribution of a literary, musical, dramatic, or artistic work.
Note that this definition refers to distribution, not the making of copies.
For a longer treatise on this subject, including the misinterpretation of the original meaning of "copy", see Taking the Copy Out of Copyright, by Miller and Feigenbaum.
Actually, that's not strictly true, at least not in the original meaning of copyright. Nowadays few people remember the original meaning, and most think only in terms of preventing unauthorized copies, probably since that's what the word suggests to the modern ear.
The DMCA follows this modern way of thinking, and it therefore does indeed forbid the making of copies for whatever purpose. But that is not the original intention of copyright.
The word "copyright", as it was coined in the beginning part of the 20th century, came from the now-archaic meaning of copy referring to an original document, as in "newspaper copy", and was more about the distribution rights of said original, than about the right to make copies.
(Not that it really matters much anyway, since copyright seems to have become whatever the major media corporations say it ought to be.)
I hate to stomp on the
Not so. It is hard to imagine any company deciding to sell a PSX2 clone, for instance, since there would be no profit in it--Sony is already planning to sell these things at a loss! They discovered with the PSX1 that they make far more money licensing the games than they ever do on just selling the consoles, so it's in their best interest to get these things into as many households as possible.
Sony is probably much more worried about fly-by-night software companies (or open-source programmers!), armed with full specs about the PSX2, developing content for the box without purchasing one of those expensive DevKits or any kind of a license from Sony.
Is it in the consumer's best interest? It's pretty hard to say.
if he says the Aladin TNT wasn't there, I believe the Aladin TNT wasn't there.
Read a bit more carefully. He didn't actually say the TNT wasn't there--he said he doesn't know. (And how could he?)
But he did say he was at the booth for an hour and that no one there mentioned the TNT in any way.
He also offers two more arguments in partial support of the suspicion that what he saw was not a TNT2 board (whether or not there were TNT boards at the booth or not): (1) it would be surprising that ArtX would put the Quake star on some other hardware than their own, and (2) one would expect a TNT2 board to generate a higher frame rate.
However, these are just arguments. Hannibal only presents, reasonably objectively, the facts as he saw them. He does not make ungrounded assertions one way or the other about what he did or did not see. When he does present his opinion it is clearly introduced as such.
This reasonable and rational behavior is in clear contrast to Calle's schoolboy pranks.
Wow. It is a rare joy to read a well-argued, eloquent reply to a well-argued, eloquent posting. Congratulations to both.
I personally agree with TheDullBlade here--quibbles about the existence or lack of a year zero are just quibbles; it all amounts to whether the definition of "millennium" is "a period of 1,000 consecutive years including and following the first year of the calendar, and each period of 1,000 consecutive years thereafter" or "a period of 1,000 years beginning with the change of the thousands digit of the calendar year."
Certainly the first definition is the more mathematically consistent, although the second is the one in more common use. Is one more correct than the other? Who cares? It's more satisfying to have a big party when the odometer rolls over, and that's all it boils down to.
MP3 at 128kbit/sec does introduce perceptible distortion, so it's something of a shame that 128kbit/sec has become the de facto standard for internet music downloads. But the analogy to JPEG compression holds: the perceived distortion falls off quite rapidly as the compression ratio decreases.
At higher bitrates, MP3 becomes quite attractive for general use, even for audiophiles, and the compression ratio is still impressive.
Try this experiment: Pick your favorite song from any CD. Rip it to a WAV file. Encode that WAV file to an MP3 at, say, 256 kbit/sec. Then decode that MP3 back to another WAV file. Now have a friend flip a coin, say, ten times, and burn a new CD with ten tracks; for each track, if the coin came up heads, write out the original WAV; tails, write the MP3 version. Have your friend write out the order, but don't let him show it to you.
Then take that CD and play it on your best stereo system, and I defy you to duplicate your friend's sequence list.