Actually, yes, you can say with certainty that the scroll wheel is better.
No, actually you can't.
Why? Because the operator can move her finger slower when she approaches the song she wants.
Oftentimes after the thing has overshot the target. And then you get back into a zone where it can be hard as heck to target a single entry--I can't say how many times I've seen what I want on the screen, I scroll up only to end up a song above it, then scroll down only to end up a song below it. And that's when I'm not moving. Doing any of this when you're running or on a bumpy road is simply frustrating.
Perhaps you can make the claim that the scrollwheel is better for quickly getting into the general area of a song, but it's certainly less precise when you're in the general area of the song and you want to select it. The claim has been made that it's more precise than buttons. No, it's definitely not. It may be faster at general navigation, but it's not more precise.
There's a reason the steering wheel in a car hasn't been replaced with two buttons, and the gas and brake with two more each.
Yeah, because you don't need to navigate your car to a millimeter accuracy nor adjust your gas to within a milliliter/minute accuracy. Like the scrollwheel, the car controls are great for general navigation but not for precise control.
Actually, you can't achieve anywhere near the same precision with standard buttons as you can with a scrollwheel.
I call B.S.
Feel free to make the argument that you like the scrollwheel better. But more precise? Nope, not at all. At least not in all cases.
If I'm running down the road or in a car on a bumpy dirt road, it can be damn well near impossible to do a single click up or down on the list. A button-based system would be cake: Tap the button and you're golden. But if you're in an environment where your body is anything but still, trying to move the scrollwheel exactly one notch can be a frustrating exercise in futility. Plus there's no tactile feel that tells you where your fingers are in relation to the scrollwheel, so you have to look at it to skip to the next song or whatever. And when I have my iPod in an arm-strapped case, I can't reliably interact with the scrollwheel through the plastic, I have to take it out of the case. None of these would be issues with a button-based player.
If there's one reason that I've considered ditching my iPod and getting some other MP3 player, it's the scrollwheel.
Yeah, the scrollwheel is nifty, it's different, and it's novel for about 5 seconds... thereafter, it's a pain in the *ss.
No-one says you'd have to press a "next" button 800 times. The firmware of the competing MP3 player could just as easily detect a sustained button press as a request for an accelerating scroll through the song list. Essentially, you can do exactly what the iPod's scroll wheel does with the scroll wheel. Whether or not any competing device has actually done that is another story. But there's nothing inherently special about the scroll wheel. You can accomplish the same functionality and more precision with standard buttons.
The clickwheel allows you to navigate the interface a lot faster while maintaining precision.
Precision? It's the most annoyingly inaccurate thing I can imagine if you're actually doing something (like walking or in a car that's bumping around on a dirt road). Even if I'm not in such a rough environment, I can't even imagine how many times I've overshot what I was looking for, then had to go back, then go forward.
The clickwheel might be novel, but I'd hardly call it precise.
The scroll wheel actually tends to piss me off. Especially if you're doing something like exercise, it's all too easy to overshoot with the dang scroll wheel.
I didn't say that. I'm not advocating wasting energy. I just don't think "light pollution" is, in and of itself, a compelling reason to turn off lights. The other reasons are. But that wasn't the topic of this article.
Whenever I've installed Linux on a laptop, the first thing I did was buy a new hard drive, install that, and install Linux on the new hard drive and tuck the original HD safely away--precisely for this purpose, or in the event something goes drastically wrong with the install and I can't get the laptop working with my desired OS at least I haven't nuked my only working OS installation. I do this if I replace Windows with Linux, or if I upgrade Linux to a new version of Linux. It's just common sense and also as good a reason as any to make sure you have a new HD at all times.
I also saved all boxes for 30 days on new purchases of anything I would even remotely returning. Why? Because it's a heck of a lot easier to deal with returning stuff if the retailer has no excuse to deny you.
This is just a matter of thinking things through and planning ahead.
This light pollution makes both professional and amateur ground-based astronomy less rewarding.
Amateur ground-based astronomy is still possible, and will continue to be. It's always been the case that you would drive at least 50-100 miles out of major cities to get a good view of the night sky. That is still the case and is still possible.
If stargazing becomes something only possible from space we will no longer recruit passionate astronomers who fall in love with amateur gear in their backyard.
In their backyard? When could you ever do any real astronomy in your backyard. Except for maybe the moon, astronomy includes lots of road trips. And with a road trip you can still get a good view of the night sky. In my previous post I cited lots of examples of where. The Western United States is great and the sky is amazing. Having camped two weeks in Death Valley, California in the back country I can assure you that I was simply in awe.
Just because it doesn't matter to you doesn't mean it doesn't matter. I know astronomers who have very strong feelings about it and have watched in horror as the skies get brighter and brighter every year.
That doesn't make it even remotely something that society should be concerned about. I'd be more concerned with the potential for more crime if we dimmed our cities than whether or not some amateur astronomer can see a star from his backyard. If he wants to see a dim star, he should drive a few hundred miles. The whole experience will be a lot more rewarding anyway.
Me: A responsible drinker drinks at home
You: So people who don't drink at home are irresponsible?
I guess you didn't read the very next sentence of my original post: "A responsible drinker that wants to drink in a social environment gets a ride home with a friend. Or walks. Or calls a cab. Or takes the bus."
BTW, you don't have to be DRIVING a CAR DRUNK to be charged with DUI. IF you're at home and leave your car windows down, just by putting the keys in the ignition to put the window up (after drinking) means you're in control (or operating while intoxicated) of your vehicle which is really how DUI laws are defined.
If you get arrested for that, take it to court. I've never heard of that happening but I suppose in this country of ours, it's probably happened somewhere.
There are also cases where people were arrested for DUI on a horse, an electric wheelchair, a golf cart and DUI on a bicycle.
And what exactly is the problem with? It's entirely possible that you'll cause an accident if you are drunk and operating any of those vehicles. The horse might help a little because a horse is potentially smarter than a drunk human, but you still can navigate your vehicle (or horse) into traffic and cause a nasty accident.
People, like yourself, still believe DUI laws are about DRIVING a CAR while DRUNK on alcohol.
Car, horse, bicycle, golf cart... any of those have the potential to cause an accident because of you being impaired. If you're drunk, someone else should get you home or you should walk. At least if you walk and there's no vehicle, the only person that gets hurt when you wander into traffic is hopefully you.
In fact you also don't have to had alcohol in order to be arrested for DUI. There are plenty of OTC and legal prescribed meds that can earn you a DUI.
So? Follow the recommendations and don't operate heavy machinery after taking such drugs. There's a reason they have those recommendations.
FYI, RIDL stands for 'Responsiblity in DUI Laws'. Arresting someone in a wheelchair for DUI isn't responsible.
A wheelchair is a little extreme, I'll agree. But, again, you're highlighting the extreme cases that don't apply to many people. Your typical "responsible drinker" is not riding a horse, a wheelchair, or a golf cart. Most are driving themselves to and from the bar--and that's not responsible.
War on light pollution? Oh, come on. What are we going to do, power down our cities at night? Please...
Want dark in the U.S.? Try Death Valley in California, or most of central Nevada. There's enough space there to lose a well-known aviator. Utah isn't much brighter, nor is a lot of Western Colorado, lots of New Mexico and Arizona, and lots of space in Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma...
While it writes about someone that lived not too far outside a growing city in Arizona, it's kind of funny the article appears in the New Yorker. Perhaps if some of these people actually left the areas of growing cities to the vast majority of rural America, they'd see more stars.
And even if it gets to the point that you can't, well, luckily we have telescopes and other observatories in orbit. That's where most of the good images come from these days anyway.
Sheesh, talk about a non-issue. Must have been a slow news week.
You know, I'm not a MADD reactionary by any means. And if there are cases of sober people (zero drinks) getting tagged with DUI, obviously we have a problem.
But I can't help but thinking that that putting together an organization to fight for "Responsible Drinkers" is absurd. A responsible drinker drinks at home. A responsible drinker that wants to drink in a social environment gets a ride home with a friend. Or walks. Or calls a cab. Or takes the bus. If you've had more than a single drink in an evening (yes, I know that's low) and then you drive, it's no longer a question of being a responsible drinker--it's just a question of degree of how irresponsible you are as a human being.
If you are a "responsible drinker"--especially if you do so often--get an alternative form of transportation together. Period. Now that is responsible.
You miss my point. You're specifically annoying and insulting those customers that have already paid you some amount of money and assuming they're ripping you off when, probably, the ones that are ripping you off didn't buy anything and would be exempt anyway.
I understand that there could be tricks that thieves could do with re-using sales tickets, but that would still be obvious on video camera and would assume that no-one in the check-out area noticed the guy walking through without paying or didn't put all the stuff on the counter.
I have to believe that the amount of theft that is deterred by checking receipts at the door is minimal.
Even in such a simple case there are many things it should be testing. Is the A/D output sane? Does it take 3 quick samples while someone is blowing and average them or just take it once (which could be wrong for some reason)?
I have an even more important question: Does the friggin' device work? I agree that reading through the observations, the code doesn't instill confidence. But the real important question is whether or not it works. There must be some requirement as to how many false positives/negatives are allowed because no matter how good your code, nothing is infallible. So what is the requirement in terms of acceptable false positives and/or false negatives, and does the device meet that requirement?
Is there is a real and legitimate belief that this device doesn't work? Or is this just some escapade launched by an attorney to free a guilty drunk driver?
Anyway, if you like to have a drink out at all...you should know the laws of your state...and be prepared...
Or just think ahead and don't drink if you're planning on navigating a massive structure weighing thousands of pounds down a highway with fellow human beings. Have a designated driver. Walk home. Take a cab. Driving isn't your only option.
Rather than making this an exercise in what you can get away with within the law, make it an exercise in personal responsibility in regards to your fellow man.
If you can't be bothered to give up 10s to assist the store in elmininating theft, then you're free to abort the purchase and exit the store unmolested. If you make the purchase, though, then refuse to show the receipt...you can't say you weren't warned.
In other words, insult and detain your customers but let your non-customers avoid the insult and detention. Good policy.
To believe in evolution is to make a series of "leaps in logic." That much is true.
What some call "leaps in logic" others may call "faith."
However, to discredit the entire theory is folly.
I by no means am advocating throwing out the entire theory. Microevolution is fact. I personally have problems with macroevolution; I also have problems with the definition of macroevolution. I have no doubts that microevolution can lead to "species" that can't breed but I don't think that necessarily means we'll get new features that really merit a new species in anything but that technical non-breeding sense.
The important thing is that there is a solid base of data supporting the theory.
There's a solid base of data supporting microevolution. The data supporting evolutionary creation of new and novel species is far less solid. All we really know is that older species were far less complex. Everything beyond that is simpy interpretation--not fact.
I haven't the desire to find the passages, as I haven't seen a bible in years, but I assure you I've read the thing cover to cover, and there are several places in scripture that discuss the idea of faith and what it means to a christian. The bible stresses the importance of faith because it's supposed to be all christians have in their walk. Faith is so important because proof will never, ever, ever be given that a god exists until the day of judgment is upon us.
My belief does not contradict that. I see compelling scientific evidence that supports the notion that life (and perhaps all the individual species) did not come into being randomly. Others look at the exact same evidence and laugh in my face. So the requirement of faith is still there, but for those of us that have faith, we see scientific validation of that faith which only further strengthens that faith.
As the saying goes, there are none so blind as those that will not see.
Calling the bible a historic document is a bit of a misnomer when you take into account the argument of literal vs. figurative translations. Certain parts of the bible, such as the earlier parts of the new testament are obviously written as a historical document passing down the lineage of men. Other parts, such as the entire new testament, are pretty obviously meant to be taken figuratively.
The New Testament deals with more Christian-centric material, but the references it makes to then current events are consistent with other historical documents. Like I said, where the Bible documents historic events, it's never been shown to be wrong. That's a track record most scientists would envy.
I guess that's the problem with a "historical document" that was written by many authors in many styles of writing over many, many years.
Which is amazing when you think about it: That that many people could write about topics over so many centuries in so many languages and never contradict each other. If this were a fraud, it's the best fraud ever perpetrated. It could be said that such an amazing fraud with no contradictions is entirely beyond the capacity of humans. Which leads to a logical conclusion that many atheists dislike.
I also take issue with your idea that because you can't disprove the bible it must be fact.
Take issue with that if you like, because I never said it.
I'm sure there used to be heated debates about whether or not the earth was flat or round. In the end truth wins. So I'm content to sit here and see what happens first: the return of the christ that will herald the horsemen and end our world, or the passage of enough time to accurately prove that evolution exists by measuring it's progress.
Ok, you want to have this off-topic discussion? Fine. But I plan to be brief.
Nothing in the Bible has been disproven. Sure, you can take some figurative verses or books (mostly nearly the very beginning and very end of the Bible) out of context but when it comes to specifics in those parts of the Bible that are clearly literal, it has never been shown to be inaccurate by history or science. To the contrary, it's a wealth of historical information.
On the other hand, even though evolution might be the best science has to offer right now, a lot doesn't make sense. There are missing transitional fossils--though evolution theory tries to work around that with entirely speculative theories such as puntuated equilibrium which is entirely unproven and, at best, a good effort of shoehorning the general theory of evolution into a fossil record that doesn't support it. Because, face it, if you don't accept punctuated equilibrium on faith (since there's no evidence that it's real), the fossil record doesn't support evolution. Saying that the fossil record is proof of punctuated equilibrium is a cyclical argument that is not in itself evidence. And then we have the occasional fossil that comes along and has all the paleontologists scratching their heads because it doesn't make sense.
So we have a historic document that has never been wrong, and evolution which doesn't match the fossil record unless you amend it with unproven theories such as punctuated equilibrium which has most definitely not been proven.
And you wonder why someone might say that it takes more faith to believe in evolution?
Which software will have more errors? One that was completed two weeks before the delivery date and rushed out the door, or one which was completed and had a 6 month test cycle to find bugs and work through unforeseen errors?
Like software, much music doesn't just "come together" and it has to go through several revisions until the "bugs" are out. My point about "throwing buckets of money" was so that the indie-artists could quit their day jobs and put more effort into doing that which they love (i.e. making music).
I don't find software development to be analogous to making music. But if you're going to make that analogy, we would have to conclude that Microsoft Vista is somehow better or higher quality than Linux simply because people threw buckets of money at Microsoft. Or that RIAA music is great because people throw buckets of money at them.
Whether someone can dedicate their life to something doesn't necessarily mean the quality of their work will be any better--this is especially true of creative endeavors where people are going to produce their best creative work regardless. When it's a calling, artists are going to do it whether they are well-paid or not. They maybe be able to personally enjoy their life more if they don't have to do anything besides what they like, but it's hardly certain their quality will be any better.
I never said God created mankind and dinosaurs at the same time about 10,000 years ago, nor did I tell you to take literally a book in the Bible that is virtually universally accepted to be an extremely figurative piece of literature. Neither did the OP with the signature.
If you're going to make an effort to attack that which you obviously know little about, do a better job next time at educating yourself about the topic. This time you just ended up looking like an uninformed boob.
but it is still challenging to find "good copyleft material" there and a person can spend an hour searching only to uncover 5 or 6 good songs... Bottom line... throw buckets of money towards copyleft supportive artists and they will have a chance to "quit their day jobs" and produce content that is "Open".
Is there any evidence that throwing "buckets of money" at such artists will improve the quality? The RIAA throws "buckets of money" at their artists and I don't see much evidence that that improves things. In fact, quite the opposite can be argued.
I agree with the general idea though--there should be some way to find decent free/copyleft/indie music out there. I'm sure there's some indie music out there that I'd like, but where am I going to hear it? I don't listen to the radio (neither RF nor Internet) and I have better things to do than go out hunting for music and have to sift through dozens of pieces of coal to find one diamond. I stopped listening to RF radio because I'd have to listen to dozens of songs before I heard one that I liked; I seriously doubt that is any different on indie-based Internet radio.
So I tend to listen to the music that I already have (and, for the most part, have had for decades) that I know I like so I don't have to tolerate dozens of bad songs just to hear something I like. It condemns me to a lot of repetition, but with hundreds of CDs and thousands of MP3s, it can be quite awhile before I have to repeat. And even if I repeat, I'd rather repeat something I like than hear a variety of music I don't.
There is no reason whatever to download or upload top 40 crap with P2P;
Really? Then why are there so many "hits" if you search for "top 40" music if you search for it on P2P? Apparently a lot of people don't agree with you. Those are the people the RIAA is concerned with.
it's easier to sample it from the radio.
No it isn't. You have to hook up the radio, you have to wait for them to play it, you have to set the right recording level, etc. It's far easier to download it from P2P in a minute or two.
My guess is that it means exactly what it says and is not meant to be slapstick funny, though there is a certain humor in that what it says is basically true.
So basically, what started as a freedom to sue for losses, turned into a clusterf*ck requiring websites to either: a) Incriminate themselves and thier users b) Cut the US out of the picture and carry on business as usual.
So basically Torrentspy is cutting off the U.S. because it might actually attempt to compel them to not permit illegal activity?
Hey, I'm as opposed to the RIAA/MPAA as much as the next guy. But let's call a spade a spade--Torrentspy continues to serve the rest of the world because the rest of the world lets them get away with looking the other way, and they're not servicing the U.S. because there's the possibility that justice will be demanded by the U.S. And Torrentspy is the good guys here and the U.S. is the bad guy?
I agree that the RIAA's (and to a lesser extent the MPAA's) business model is broken but they have the right to distribute their content and charge what they want for it. No-one has the right to violate their copyrights. Are RIAA lawsuits against individuals excessive and abusive? Yep, I think so. Do I feel the need to buy their junk? Nope! But do they have the right to go after those that they can prove are distributing their copyrighted content? Damn right! If someone was wholesale distributing my commercial software, I'd go after that person too.
Personally, I think everyone is responsible for their actions. If you are trading copyrighted material, you should not expect your ISP to protect your identity. People here often complain about the "corporate shield" protecting corporate bad guys from their illegal acts, but yet turn around and expect ISPs or their IP address to somehow protect them from their illegal actions. I call B.S. and hypocrisy.
I understand the relatively rare need for privacy on the Internet: Whistleblowers and oppressed political discussion. But anonymity should not be abused to conduct illegal acts. To use that anonymity for illegal acts and then complain when governments/businesses make moves to make the infrastructure less anonymous is absurd. Own up to your actions and stop abusing anonymity for a free ride.
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No, actually you can't.
Oftentimes after the thing has overshot the target. And then you get back into a zone where it can be hard as heck to target a single entry--I can't say how many times I've seen what I want on the screen, I scroll up only to end up a song above it, then scroll down only to end up a song below it. And that's when I'm not moving. Doing any of this when you're running or on a bumpy road is simply frustrating.
Perhaps you can make the claim that the scrollwheel is better for quickly getting into the general area of a song, but it's certainly less precise when you're in the general area of the song and you want to select it. The claim has been made that it's more precise than buttons. No, it's definitely not. It may be faster at general navigation, but it's not more precise.
Yeah, because you don't need to navigate your car to a millimeter accuracy nor adjust your gas to within a milliliter/minute accuracy. Like the scrollwheel, the car controls are great for general navigation but not for precise control.
I call B.S.
Feel free to make the argument that you like the scrollwheel better. But more precise? Nope, not at all. At least not in all cases.
If I'm running down the road or in a car on a bumpy dirt road, it can be damn well near impossible to do a single click up or down on the list. A button-based system would be cake: Tap the button and you're golden. But if you're in an environment where your body is anything but still, trying to move the scrollwheel exactly one notch can be a frustrating exercise in futility. Plus there's no tactile feel that tells you where your fingers are in relation to the scrollwheel, so you have to look at it to skip to the next song or whatever. And when I have my iPod in an arm-strapped case, I can't reliably interact with the scrollwheel through the plastic, I have to take it out of the case. None of these would be issues with a button-based player.
If there's one reason that I've considered ditching my iPod and getting some other MP3 player, it's the scrollwheel.
Yeah, the scrollwheel is nifty, it's different, and it's novel for about 5 seconds... thereafter, it's a pain in the *ss.
No-one says you'd have to press a "next" button 800 times. The firmware of the competing MP3 player could just as easily detect a sustained button press as a request for an accelerating scroll through the song list. Essentially, you can do exactly what the iPod's scroll wheel does with the scroll wheel. Whether or not any competing device has actually done that is another story. But there's nothing inherently special about the scroll wheel. You can accomplish the same functionality and more precision with standard buttons.
Precision? It's the most annoyingly inaccurate thing I can imagine if you're actually doing something (like walking or in a car that's bumping around on a dirt road). Even if I'm not in such a rough environment, I can't even imagine how many times I've overshot what I was looking for, then had to go back, then go forward.
The clickwheel might be novel, but I'd hardly call it precise.
The scroll wheel actually tends to piss me off. Especially if you're doing something like exercise, it's all too easy to overshoot with the dang scroll wheel.
I didn't say that. I'm not advocating wasting energy. I just don't think "light pollution" is, in and of itself, a compelling reason to turn off lights. The other reasons are. But that wasn't the topic of this article.
Whenever I've installed Linux on a laptop, the first thing I did was buy a new hard drive, install that, and install Linux on the new hard drive and tuck the original HD safely away--precisely for this purpose, or in the event something goes drastically wrong with the install and I can't get the laptop working with my desired OS at least I haven't nuked my only working OS installation. I do this if I replace Windows with Linux, or if I upgrade Linux to a new version of Linux. It's just common sense and also as good a reason as any to make sure you have a new HD at all times.
I also saved all boxes for 30 days on new purchases of anything I would even remotely returning. Why? Because it's a heck of a lot easier to deal with returning stuff if the retailer has no excuse to deny you.
This is just a matter of thinking things through and planning ahead.
Amateur ground-based astronomy is still possible, and will continue to be. It's always been the case that you would drive at least 50-100 miles out of major cities to get a good view of the night sky. That is still the case and is still possible.
In their backyard? When could you ever do any real astronomy in your backyard. Except for maybe the moon, astronomy includes lots of road trips. And with a road trip you can still get a good view of the night sky. In my previous post I cited lots of examples of where. The Western United States is great and the sky is amazing. Having camped two weeks in Death Valley, California in the back country I can assure you that I was simply in awe.
That doesn't make it even remotely something that society should be concerned about. I'd be more concerned with the potential for more crime if we dimmed our cities than whether or not some amateur astronomer can see a star from his backyard. If he wants to see a dim star, he should drive a few hundred miles. The whole experience will be a lot more rewarding anyway.
It's GSM, not Cingular. Cingular just happens to use GSM. I use that noise as a pre-warning that my phone is about to ring. :)
I guess you didn't read the very next sentence of my original post: "A responsible drinker that wants to drink in a social environment gets a ride home with a friend. Or walks. Or calls a cab. Or takes the bus."
If you get arrested for that, take it to court. I've never heard of that happening but I suppose in this country of ours, it's probably happened somewhere.
And what exactly is the problem with? It's entirely possible that you'll cause an accident if you are drunk and operating any of those vehicles. The horse might help a little because a horse is potentially smarter than a drunk human, but you still can navigate your vehicle (or horse) into traffic and cause a nasty accident.
Car, horse, bicycle, golf cart... any of those have the potential to cause an accident because of you being impaired. If you're drunk, someone else should get you home or you should walk. At least if you walk and there's no vehicle, the only person that gets hurt when you wander into traffic is hopefully you.
So? Follow the recommendations and don't operate heavy machinery after taking such drugs. There's a reason they have those recommendations.
A wheelchair is a little extreme, I'll agree. But, again, you're highlighting the extreme cases that don't apply to many people. Your typical "responsible drinker" is not riding a horse, a wheelchair, or a golf cart. Most are driving themselves to and from the bar--and that's not responsible.
War on light pollution? Oh, come on. What are we going to do, power down our cities at night? Please...
Want dark in the U.S.? Try Death Valley in California, or most of central Nevada. There's enough space there to lose a well-known aviator. Utah isn't much brighter, nor is a lot of Western Colorado, lots of New Mexico and Arizona, and lots of space in Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma...
While it writes about someone that lived not too far outside a growing city in Arizona, it's kind of funny the article appears in the New Yorker. Perhaps if some of these people actually left the areas of growing cities to the vast majority of rural America, they'd see more stars.
And even if it gets to the point that you can't, well, luckily we have telescopes and other observatories in orbit. That's where most of the good images come from these days anyway.
Sheesh, talk about a non-issue. Must have been a slow news week.
You know, I'm not a MADD reactionary by any means. And if there are cases of sober people (zero drinks) getting tagged with DUI, obviously we have a problem.
But I can't help but thinking that that putting together an organization to fight for "Responsible Drinkers" is absurd. A responsible drinker drinks at home. A responsible drinker that wants to drink in a social environment gets a ride home with a friend. Or walks. Or calls a cab. Or takes the bus. If you've had more than a single drink in an evening (yes, I know that's low) and then you drive, it's no longer a question of being a responsible drinker--it's just a question of degree of how irresponsible you are as a human being.
If you are a "responsible drinker"--especially if you do so often--get an alternative form of transportation together. Period. Now that is responsible.
You miss my point. You're specifically annoying and insulting those customers that have already paid you some amount of money and assuming they're ripping you off when, probably, the ones that are ripping you off didn't buy anything and would be exempt anyway.
I understand that there could be tricks that thieves could do with re-using sales tickets, but that would still be obvious on video camera and would assume that no-one in the check-out area noticed the guy walking through without paying or didn't put all the stuff on the counter.
I have to believe that the amount of theft that is deterred by checking receipts at the door is minimal.
I have an even more important question: Does the friggin' device work? I agree that reading through the observations, the code doesn't instill confidence. But the real important question is whether or not it works. There must be some requirement as to how many false positives/negatives are allowed because no matter how good your code, nothing is infallible. So what is the requirement in terms of acceptable false positives and/or false negatives, and does the device meet that requirement?
Is there is a real and legitimate belief that this device doesn't work? Or is this just some escapade launched by an attorney to free a guilty drunk driver?
Or just think ahead and don't drink if you're planning on navigating a massive structure weighing thousands of pounds down a highway with fellow human beings. Have a designated driver. Walk home. Take a cab. Driving isn't your only option.
Rather than making this an exercise in what you can get away with within the law, make it an exercise in personal responsibility in regards to your fellow man.
In other words, insult and detain your customers but let your non-customers avoid the insult and detention. Good policy.
What some call "leaps in logic" others may call "faith."
I by no means am advocating throwing out the entire theory. Microevolution is fact. I personally have problems with macroevolution; I also have problems with the definition of macroevolution. I have no doubts that microevolution can lead to "species" that can't breed but I don't think that necessarily means we'll get new features that really merit a new species in anything but that technical non-breeding sense.
There's a solid base of data supporting microevolution. The data supporting evolutionary creation of new and novel species is far less solid. All we really know is that older species were far less complex. Everything beyond that is simpy interpretation--not fact.
My belief does not contradict that. I see compelling scientific evidence that supports the notion that life (and perhaps all the individual species) did not come into being randomly. Others look at the exact same evidence and laugh in my face. So the requirement of faith is still there, but for those of us that have faith, we see scientific validation of that faith which only further strengthens that faith.
As the saying goes, there are none so blind as those that will not see.
The New Testament deals with more Christian-centric material, but the references it makes to then current events are consistent with other historical documents. Like I said, where the Bible documents historic events, it's never been shown to be wrong. That's a track record most scientists would envy.
Which is amazing when you think about it: That that many people could write about topics over so many centuries in so many languages and never contradict each other. If this were a fraud, it's the best fraud ever perpetrated. It could be said that such an amazing fraud with no contradictions is entirely beyond the capacity of humans. Which leads to a logical conclusion that many atheists dislike.
Take issue with that if you like, because I never said it.
That's fine. Unfortunately, you'll probab
Ok, you want to have this off-topic discussion? Fine. But I plan to be brief.
Nothing in the Bible has been disproven. Sure, you can take some figurative verses or books (mostly nearly the very beginning and very end of the Bible) out of context but when it comes to specifics in those parts of the Bible that are clearly literal, it has never been shown to be inaccurate by history or science. To the contrary, it's a wealth of historical information.
On the other hand, even though evolution might be the best science has to offer right now, a lot doesn't make sense. There are missing transitional fossils--though evolution theory tries to work around that with entirely speculative theories such as puntuated equilibrium which is entirely unproven and, at best, a good effort of shoehorning the general theory of evolution into a fossil record that doesn't support it. Because, face it, if you don't accept punctuated equilibrium on faith (since there's no evidence that it's real), the fossil record doesn't support evolution. Saying that the fossil record is proof of punctuated equilibrium is a cyclical argument that is not in itself evidence. And then we have the occasional fossil that comes along and has all the paleontologists scratching their heads because it doesn't make sense.
So we have a historic document that has never been wrong, and evolution which doesn't match the fossil record unless you amend it with unproven theories such as punctuated equilibrium which has most definitely not been proven.
And you wonder why someone might say that it takes more faith to believe in evolution?
I don't find software development to be analogous to making music. But if you're going to make that analogy, we would have to conclude that Microsoft Vista is somehow better or higher quality than Linux simply because people threw buckets of money at Microsoft. Or that RIAA music is great because people throw buckets of money at them.
Whether someone can dedicate their life to something doesn't necessarily mean the quality of their work will be any better--this is especially true of creative endeavors where people are going to produce their best creative work regardless. When it's a calling, artists are going to do it whether they are well-paid or not. They maybe be able to personally enjoy their life more if they don't have to do anything besides what they like, but it's hardly certain their quality will be any better.
I never said God created mankind and dinosaurs at the same time about 10,000 years ago, nor did I tell you to take literally a book in the Bible that is virtually universally accepted to be an extremely figurative piece of literature. Neither did the OP with the signature.
If you're going to make an effort to attack that which you obviously know little about, do a better job next time at educating yourself about the topic. This time you just ended up looking like an uninformed boob.
Is there any evidence that throwing "buckets of money" at such artists will improve the quality? The RIAA throws "buckets of money" at their artists and I don't see much evidence that that improves things. In fact, quite the opposite can be argued.
I agree with the general idea though--there should be some way to find decent free/copyleft/indie music out there. I'm sure there's some indie music out there that I'd like, but where am I going to hear it? I don't listen to the radio (neither RF nor Internet) and I have better things to do than go out hunting for music and have to sift through dozens of pieces of coal to find one diamond. I stopped listening to RF radio because I'd have to listen to dozens of songs before I heard one that I liked; I seriously doubt that is any different on indie-based Internet radio.
So I tend to listen to the music that I already have (and, for the most part, have had for decades) that I know I like so I don't have to tolerate dozens of bad songs just to hear something I like. It condemns me to a lot of repetition, but with hundreds of CDs and thousands of MP3s, it can be quite awhile before I have to repeat. And even if I repeat, I'd rather repeat something I like than hear a variety of music I don't.
Really? Then why are there so many "hits" if you search for "top 40" music if you search for it on P2P? Apparently a lot of people don't agree with you. Those are the people the RIAA is concerned with.
No it isn't. You have to hook up the radio, you have to wait for them to play it, you have to set the right recording level, etc. It's far easier to download it from P2P in a minute or two.
My guess is that it means exactly what it says and is not meant to be slapstick funny, though there is a certain humor in that what it says is basically true.
So basically Torrentspy is cutting off the U.S. because it might actually attempt to compel them to not permit illegal activity?
Hey, I'm as opposed to the RIAA/MPAA as much as the next guy. But let's call a spade a spade--Torrentspy continues to serve the rest of the world because the rest of the world lets them get away with looking the other way, and they're not servicing the U.S. because there's the possibility that justice will be demanded by the U.S. And Torrentspy is the good guys here and the U.S. is the bad guy?
I agree that the RIAA's (and to a lesser extent the MPAA's) business model is broken but they have the right to distribute their content and charge what they want for it. No-one has the right to violate their copyrights. Are RIAA lawsuits against individuals excessive and abusive? Yep, I think so. Do I feel the need to buy their junk? Nope! But do they have the right to go after those that they can prove are distributing their copyrighted content? Damn right! If someone was wholesale distributing my commercial software, I'd go after that person too.
Personally, I think everyone is responsible for their actions. If you are trading copyrighted material, you should not expect your ISP to protect your identity. People here often complain about the "corporate shield" protecting corporate bad guys from their illegal acts, but yet turn around and expect ISPs or their IP address to somehow protect them from their illegal actions. I call B.S. and hypocrisy.
I understand the relatively rare need for privacy on the Internet: Whistleblowers and oppressed political discussion. But anonymity should not be abused to conduct illegal acts. To use that anonymity for illegal acts and then complain when governments/businesses make moves to make the infrastructure less anonymous is absurd. Own up to your actions and stop abusing anonymity for a free ride.
How much have you paid for content you got from Bittorent? Come on, be honest. It's the "free shit" and the "free delivery." That IS why you use it.