One of the consequences of shopping by the net is that you can put up a big ad on the web, and ship in a little box. OEM software almost always comes like this. Electronic delivery is even better.
But this works to everyone's advantage -- those big boxes cost much more to design, print, glue and ship than a shrink-wrapped jewel case. Businesses can make money off of doing the right thing! Only people who lose are the CompUSAs of the world.
Can this be a poll question? Who still buys software in a store instead of online?
Jon, what are you talking about? Which Government (there are some non-US readers here, I think)? Throwing stones at "Government" isn't fair -- there are lots of uses of the Net by government to make your life easier. And, um, they built it.
You can get a weather report without waiting for the evening news or the radio to get to it, you can get social security retirement estimates, and file you taxes and your student loan applications without moving your fat ass out of your chair.
I keep hearing MP3 and Napster, et. al., discussed in the popular press, and no one is getting it right. They (including Lars) keep talking about "perfect digital copies (pdc)." But no one is swapping pdc's, and MP3s are no such thing. They're compressed, lower quality copies. They are the PC equivalent to the cassette tape. They may sound the same on your cheap PC speakers, but pump them through a stereo and crank the volume and the difference is very clear, especially at 128 Kb/s, which is the encoding bitrate most used on Napster. (Ars has a review of different MP3 encoders and how their output compares to the original here . If they were pdc's, would there be a need for this?) A pdc is the wave file from the CD, which runs about 50MB for the average cut from a 10-cut CD. That's too large for the average use to pull down over the net with anything but a blazing connection, and even at that, you aren't going to be able to pull many down per day. It can be done, just like you can rip DVDs and post the movies to the net, but only the very persistent and very lucky (others on your LAN?) are going to be able to pull them down illegally. Please call into talk radio/TV/whatever and draw this disticntion, the RIAA has convinced the press that MP3=CD quality. Stop the misinformation!!!
Credit card companies require companies to agree to relatively strict merchant agreements governing terms of their service. This nonsense may violate those agreements.
It's not uncommon for merchants to violate them -- anywhere you see a minimum required purchase to use a card is usually a violation.
I understand that everyone's just trying to cover their butt on this, Visa doesn't want to pay for fraud, neither does joe-the-e-tailer, but Consumers sure shouldn't be paying. We already pay larcenous interest rates, not to mention shipping and handling charges (did I mention that my wife paid 30$ S/H on a $150 bedspread? not including sales tax.) I think the consumer is paying enough.
To help prevent fraud, I just report my card stolen periodically. The company reissues with a different number. Couldn't we just have rolling numbers on all of them (a la secureID)?
I read this as you can't use these TMs in the sort of extra-curricular areas sometimes seen on webpages -- like the "TM-deleted" strip bar. You can't damage the value of the TMs. But I don't see how a poor review would necessarily do that.
If they try to enforce it that way, I doubt it'll hold up in court (again, I'll offer my $5 to whoever has to take it to court). Fair use is a law that's been upheld in the Supreme Court -- no law that the States pass can circumvent that. Parodies of Duke are still protected.
What really kills me is that they don't allow you to hyphenate the title, even at the end of the line, or to use the possessive. (I.E. you can't talk about Duke Nukem's anything!) I guess you can't even call him Duke. Full names only, please.
Can you take something that is public domain or otherwise protected, use it in a product and protect it? They also list the Radioactive symbol (although I suspect only their artistically modified version).
I recently (beginning of March) bought a Poweredge 4400 from Dell, no OS, no questions asked. Is this a new policy?
Re:Why take a shot a Shakespeare?
on
Fahrenheit 451
·
· Score: 1
Watching them performed on stage would be great.
On video not so much. And if you're watching it reinterpretted with Ethan Hawke or Leo DiCarpio, definitely not. It's the writing that matters.
And you don't have to read Romeo and Juliet, or at least read it last.
Why take a shot a Shakespeare?
on
Fahrenheit 451
·
· Score: 2
You should read them all. They're good for you, too. There's much drivel in school literature classes nowadays, and I certainly agree that these latter-day great books (1984, F-451, etc.) should be included, but not at the expense of other classics. This is like saying that you should give up eating salad to add more vegetables to your diet. Give up the cake.
Disclaimer: I have been a teacher, and taught math. I have some ecperience with the education of teachers.
You are asking a crowd which will be biased in one of two ways, and probably not well versed in the field you're asking about. You should go do some research with real experts.
You also shouldn't put too much stock in what teachers themselves say, since they are no more experts in that particular field of education and brain research as the trolls here are. Those with lots (20 or 30 years) of experience might have something useful to contribute, few others will. These people are out in the trenches doing a job, not doing research. Besides, how many math teachers would you expect to say no, what I do isn't important?
Brain research is in its infancy, and mostly we don't know much more than we do. It's generally accepted that puberty and the advent of abstract reasoning tend to coincide, but it's not just a given that it happens that way with everyone. nor does anyone have any idea why that might be, or what gives rise to the development of abstract reasoning. Maybe it's all that rote memorization of math tables (I hope not, because with the rate at which people are doing that nowadays, we'd have an awful lot of non-abstract adults soon!), maybe it's some other combination of things. No one really knows.
The fact of the matter is that to live in the real world, you need math. You can't carry a calculator into 7-11 every time you buy a big gulp to see if you got the right change. Algebra (at least basic stuff -- solve for X kinds of things) is important, too. I'd argue that to really intuitively understand the world around you, basic calculus is important, too (rate of change, etc.)
No, people who are math-gifted aren't necessarily smarter than those who are language-gifted. The notion of placing one discipline above another in iportance is a failing of our (the US) educational system. These areas are all important. But the lack of standards in the US is another failing. I think that just because you aren't good at math shouldn't give you a pass to avoid it.
Many things taught in school (lond division, siagramming sentences, etc.) are done to drive home structure. That there is a process behind what the calculator says the answer is. rote memorization of division tables facilitates the performance of long division, and the performance of long division performed enough times allows a student to develop a more intuitive, quicker method. (Short division?) They compliment one another. Learn the basics, drive home the rules for the non-basic stuff. Then you can do anything.
There has been shown to be a strong correlation between music education and mathematical skills. Something like music helps with math. Duh. Music is math, at least organizationally. Helps order thinking, helps develop intuitive sense for order -- which orders make sense and which don't. Language, thought itself all thrive on order, or the ability to order and associate things. The most brilliant people can order and associate things in ways that are new, unique, but often obvious to everyone else, AFTER they've been shown the association.
Can some gnutella servers act as simple relays to other servers (a la freenet)? When I look at that IP, do I know that that IP is really where my file is going?
First, let me state that Pedophilia is wrong, sick, and should be illegal.
But this brings up the question of the state of the laws against kiddie porn in the US. Possessing it is illegal (as in federal felony), as is looking at it. So despite the fact that they are supposed to find people who use/view/possess his stuff, no agent of the United States can have legally ever seen it! One gets quickly hung up in the, "I know it when I see it..." argument.
Also illegal (although not upheld in court yet) are images which are altered to create what appears to be kiddie porn (cut and paste kid's picture on Pamela Lee's body, etc.). Does this mean every pigtail-wearing porn star is in violation?
Now, are files named to indicate they contain kiddie porn going to illegal as well? What do these files actually contain? If I put up a video of an 18-yo chick doing something maughty, but I mistype and title it 16-yo.jpg, have I felonied?
I don't mean to make light of the crime, but to show that the US in it's zealotry to expunge this activity creates extremely vague and poorly written laws.
As an aside, I have read somewhere that an extremely large percentage of all kiddie porn is maintained and distributed my law enforcement to trap potential pedophiles. Even they admit that the actual creation of new kiddie porn is extremely rare.
The stereotype is tired. Weather forecasting is one of the most mathematically and scientifically complex undertakings of modern science. Forecasting has improved dramatically over the past 5, 10, and 20 years.
This law is a bone thrown to consumers by legislators afraid of being seen as doing nothing. I get several calls (many just hang-ups) a day, and haven't the time or resources to take them all to court. Since they don't use caller-ID-able systems (most T-1 lines don't provide for this) I can't track them down. And Even if they agree to remove me from the list, it can take months, during which time I can end up on the list again from another source.
This country needs a comprehensive federal privacy protection law. The states cannot be trusted to do this, many of them want to sell you up the telemarketer river by selling your driver's license info.
I keep hoping that someone less extreme in so many other areas will take up this flag. I appreciate Jon's work, but he's got one too many monkeys on his back.
Couldn't (Shouldn't?) the geeks of the world turn this around and deluge WAVE with lots of false reports of dangerous jocks, etc.? Report the abuse you take as fighting, violence, and so forth. Take every slight offense and report it. Either they'll give up because of an overwhelming signal-to-noise ratio, or maybe they'll turn in the jocks.
FAQ says it isn't searchable, no one knows what's on their own site, no idea where documents are stored.
How does one retrieve a document? You have to know it's title and/or keywords, plug them into a client, and here it comes? If not searchable, how does IT find stuff in itself? (To anthropomorphize a bit.)
Slashdot Mirror
One of the consequences of shopping by the net is that you can put up a big ad on the web, and ship in a little box. OEM software almost always comes like this. Electronic delivery is even better.
But this works to everyone's advantage -- those big boxes cost much more to design, print, glue and ship than a shrink-wrapped jewel case. Businesses can make money off of doing the right thing! Only people who lose are the CompUSAs of the world.
Can this be a poll question? Who still buys software in a store instead of online?
Jon, what are you talking about? Which Government (there are some non-US readers here, I think)? Throwing stones at "Government" isn't fair -- there are lots of uses of the Net by government to make your life easier. And, um, they built it.
You can get a weather report without waiting for the evening news or the radio to get to it, you can get social security retirement estimates, and file you taxes and your student loan applications without moving your fat ass out of your chair.
Next, please.
Anyone still have the link for the medusa case mentioned a few months ago on Ars or HardOCP?
I keep hearing MP3 and Napster, et. al., discussed in the popular press, and no one is getting it right. They (including Lars) keep talking about "perfect digital copies (pdc)." But no one is swapping pdc's, and MP3s are no such thing. They're compressed, lower quality copies. They are the PC equivalent to the cassette tape. They may sound the same on your cheap PC speakers, but pump them through a stereo and crank the volume and the difference is very clear, especially at 128 Kb/s, which is the encoding bitrate most used on Napster. (Ars has a review of different MP3 encoders and how their output compares to the original here . If they were pdc's, would there be a need for this?) A pdc is the wave file from the CD, which runs about 50MB for the average cut from a 10-cut CD. That's too large for the average use to pull down over the net with anything but a blazing connection, and even at that, you aren't going to be able to pull many down per day. It can be done, just like you can rip DVDs and post the movies to the net, but only the very persistent and very lucky (others on your LAN?) are going to be able to pull them down illegally. Please call into talk radio/TV/whatever and draw this disticntion, the RIAA has convinced the press that MP3=CD quality. Stop the misinformation!!!
Credit card companies require companies to agree to relatively strict merchant agreements governing terms of their service. This nonsense may violate those agreements.
It's not uncommon for merchants to violate them -- anywhere you see a minimum required purchase to use a card is usually a violation.
I understand that everyone's just trying to cover their butt on this, Visa doesn't want to pay for fraud, neither does joe-the-e-tailer, but Consumers sure shouldn't be paying. We already pay larcenous interest rates, not to mention shipping and handling charges (did I mention that my wife paid 30$ S/H on a $150 bedspread? not including sales tax.) I think the consumer is paying enough.
To help prevent fraud, I just report my card stolen periodically. The company reissues with a different number. Couldn't we just have rolling numbers on all of them (a la secureID)?
Go read it, and things don't seem quite as bad...
I read this as you can't use these TMs in the sort of extra-curricular areas sometimes seen on webpages -- like the "TM-deleted" strip bar. You can't damage the value of the TMs. But I don't see how a poor review would necessarily do that.
If they try to enforce it that way, I doubt it'll hold up in court (again, I'll offer my $5 to whoever has to take it to court). Fair use is a law that's been upheld in the Supreme Court -- no law that the States pass can circumvent that. Parodies of Duke are still protected.
What really kills me is that they don't allow you to hyphenate the title, even at the end of the line, or to use the possessive. (I.E. you can't talk about Duke Nukem's anything!) I guess you can't even call him Duke. Full names only, please.
Can you take something that is public domain or otherwise protected, use it in a product and protect it? They also list the Radioactive symbol (although I suspect only their artistically modified version).
Please please please tell me this is nothing more than a vehicle to get the offending UCITA provisions overturned.
But UCITA requires permission to do reviews. If I say APOGEE SUCKS, without actually looking at software, that's not a review, it's an opinion.
THe article indicates that this is already done in the US -- anyone have details on that?
What if my fart smells different than yours?
I find mine come in a variety of scents.
The ISO requirements are probably related to QA -- how do you run a burn-in or other suite of tests is there's no OS?
Otherwise, the manufacturer has to load OS, test, unload OS. PITA for them.
You don't need a drivers license to buy a car. Just to drive one. Cars can be collected, left to sit and rust, etc.
Might make it ewasier to buy one (and certainly to get it home)!
I recently (beginning of March) bought a Poweredge 4400 from Dell, no OS, no questions asked. Is this a new policy?
Watching them performed on stage would be great.
On video not so much. And if you're watching it reinterpretted with Ethan Hawke or Leo DiCarpio, definitely not. It's the writing that matters.
And you don't have to read Romeo and Juliet, or at least read it last.
You should read them all. They're good for you, too. There's much drivel in school literature classes nowadays, and I certainly agree that these latter-day great books (1984, F-451, etc.) should be included, but not at the expense of other classics. This is like saying that you should give up eating salad to add more vegetables to your diet. Give up the cake.
What sort of world are we living in where the French are the voice of reason in ANYTHING?
Vive le France!
If you'll take this one all the way to the Supreme Court. DMCA (and UCITA, btw) needs to be overturned, the sooner the better.
Should I send a check or just buy some stock?
Disclaimer: I have been a teacher, and taught math. I have some ecperience with the education of teachers.
You are asking a crowd which will be biased in one of two ways, and probably not well versed in the field you're asking about. You should go do some research with real experts.
You also shouldn't put too much stock in what teachers themselves say, since they are no more experts in that particular field of education and brain research as the trolls here are. Those with lots (20 or 30 years) of experience might have something useful to contribute, few others will. These people are out in the trenches doing a job, not doing research. Besides, how many math teachers would you expect to say no, what I do isn't important?
Brain research is in its infancy, and mostly we don't know much more than we do. It's generally accepted that puberty and the advent of abstract reasoning tend to coincide, but it's not just a given that it happens that way with everyone. nor does anyone have any idea why that might be, or what gives rise to the development of abstract reasoning. Maybe it's all that rote memorization of math tables (I hope not, because with the rate at which people are doing that nowadays, we'd have an awful lot of non-abstract adults soon!), maybe it's some other combination of things. No one really knows.
The fact of the matter is that to live in the real world, you need math. You can't carry a calculator into 7-11 every time you buy a big gulp to see if you got the right change. Algebra (at least basic stuff -- solve for X kinds of things) is important, too. I'd argue that to really intuitively understand the world around you, basic calculus is important, too (rate of change, etc.)
No, people who are math-gifted aren't necessarily smarter than those who are language-gifted. The notion of placing one discipline above another in iportance is a failing of our (the US) educational system. These areas are all important. But the lack of standards in the US is another failing. I think that just because you aren't good at math shouldn't give you a pass to avoid it.
Many things taught in school (lond division, siagramming sentences, etc.) are done to drive home structure. That there is a process behind what the calculator says the answer is. rote memorization of division tables facilitates the performance of long division, and the performance of long division performed enough times allows a student to develop a more intuitive, quicker method. (Short division?) They compliment one another. Learn the basics, drive home the rules for the non-basic stuff. Then you can do anything.
There has been shown to be a strong correlation between music education and mathematical skills. Something like music helps with math. Duh. Music is math, at least organizationally. Helps order thinking, helps develop intuitive sense for order -- which orders make sense and which don't. Language, thought itself all thrive on order, or the ability to order and associate things. The most brilliant people can order and associate things in ways that are new, unique, but often obvious to everyone else, AFTER they've been shown the association.
Can some gnutella servers act as simple relays to other servers (a la freenet)? When I look at that IP, do I know that that IP is really where my file is going?
First, let me state that Pedophilia is wrong, sick, and should be illegal.
But this brings up the question of the state of the laws against kiddie porn in the US. Possessing it is illegal (as in federal felony), as is looking at it. So despite the fact that they are supposed to find people who use/view/possess his stuff, no agent of the United States can have legally ever seen it! One gets quickly hung up in the, "I know it when I see it..." argument.
Also illegal (although not upheld in court yet) are images which are altered to create what appears to be kiddie porn (cut and paste kid's picture on Pamela Lee's body, etc.). Does this mean every pigtail-wearing porn star is in violation?
Now, are files named to indicate they contain kiddie porn going to illegal as well? What do these files actually contain? If I put up a video of an 18-yo chick doing something maughty, but I mistype and title it 16-yo.jpg, have I felonied?
I don't mean to make light of the crime, but to show that the US in it's zealotry to expunge this activity creates extremely vague and poorly written laws.
As an aside, I have read somewhere that an extremely large percentage of all kiddie porn is maintained and distributed my law enforcement to trap potential pedophiles. Even they admit that the actual creation of new kiddie porn is extremely rare.
Anyone have details on this?
The stereotype is tired. Weather forecasting is one of the most mathematically and scientifically complex undertakings of modern science. Forecasting has improved dramatically over the past 5, 10, and 20 years.
95 and sunny usually leads to storms anyway.
So we know who to write to to get him fired?
This law is a bone thrown to consumers by legislators afraid of being seen as doing nothing. I get several calls (many just hang-ups) a day, and haven't the time or resources to take them all to court. Since they don't use caller-ID-able systems (most T-1 lines don't provide for this) I can't track them down. And Even if they agree to remove me from the list, it can take months, during which time I can end up on the list again from another source.
This country needs a comprehensive federal privacy protection law. The states cannot be trusted to do this, many of them want to sell you up the telemarketer river by selling your driver's license info.
I keep hoping that someone less extreme in so many other areas will take up this flag. I appreciate Jon's work, but he's got one too many monkeys on his back.
Couldn't (Shouldn't?) the geeks of the world turn this around and deluge WAVE with lots of false reports of dangerous jocks, etc.? Report the abuse you take as fighting, violence, and so forth. Take every slight offense and report it. Either they'll give up because of an overwhelming signal-to-noise ratio, or maybe they'll turn in the jocks.
See this article about his remarks.
Anyone have a transcript of the whole thing?
FAQ says it isn't searchable, no one knows what's on their own site, no idea where documents are stored.
How does one retrieve a document? You have to know it's title and/or keywords, plug them into a client, and here it comes? If not searchable, how does IT find stuff in itself? (To anthropomorphize a bit.)