In fact it's not even really legal to "drive" in the passing lane. The right lane is for driving, and the left lane is for passing. If, you're in the left lane you're supposed to be passing. You could actually get a ticket for driving in the left lane, regardless of speed, but most people probably aren't even aware of that.
By the way, when did time as we know it, begin? About the time that we knew it.
Sorry, was that response too existential?
What would be the problem with metric time for example? You would have to replace every clock, wristwatch, microwave, cell phone, TV, VCR/DVD player, GPS device, and computer BIOS (to name a few) on earth?
I think you're missing the point of this specification. Neither OOXML or ODF are presentation specifications, they are content specifications. Do either explain how to rasterize a specified font? Do either explain the algorithm that dithers an embedded image? They do not. Why? Because those are details of presentation, not content.
I am not traditionally an MS-backer but if in the same situation, I would probably do exactly what they've apparently done. Their only obligation is to explain the semantics of the tag. They are under no obligation to explain how every pixel is rendered to the screen/printer/plotter -- if they were, forget 6000 pages, it would probably be less verbose to just release the source code for MSWord. God help you trying to grok that God-forsaken mess...
And finally, even if MS were to go through the trouble of explaining the precise side-effects of every one of these tags, you'd still have to write the code that reproduces it. In the end, you'd very likely end up doing what you'd have to do otherwise -- run the legacy version of Word (or the current MSWord with that compatibility flag enabled) and see what it does. Frankly, it's easier.
This is not meant inflammatory but I'm really irritated by this statement:
Is the United States still the best choice of a place to live for safety, freedom, and quality of life?
Although it didn't occur to me at first, I'd have to agree -- probably the more correct question is "Is the United State still a good choice...?" If ever, it's been a long time since the US was the best choice. Let's not confuse political and economic success with "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". However, my patriotic side says that the US is still a pretty good choice.
It's very difficult to qualify what country is the best overall wrt freedom/opportunity. The US certainly has a pretty good lock on geographic freedom -- it's not too hard to find a climatic region in the US that suits your liking.
Industrially, it's also pretty diverse (excepting of course consumer electronics but that's no different than any other non-Far East country) with a pretty good spread geographically.
Socially, we have our ups and downs but the major issues (e.g. racism) at least seem to be on the mend.
Legally, we are very complicated and in some cases antiquated (read: patent process). At least, the legal devices required to overhaul the current state are still in place.
Politically and economically, the US is mixed bag. It's impossible to tell if we are on the rise or falling flat on our collective faces. Economic success is ever transient, just ask the Japanese. Health care is at the top of the hit list. If there is one issue that is going to make or break the US economically (and socially) over the next century, I'd say health care is it. That is the one thing that literally affects everyone and nobody has a handle on it.
When I see real life motion blur, I don't see two or three discrete after images. I see a smudge. Perhaps it would be more accurate for 3dfx to have called this motion-strobe or motion-stutter.
The "stuttering" affect is probably due to the fact that the blurring is effected by an accumulation of the previous few positions of the object. At the 10-15 fps the game was rendering, these positions would be far enough apart that the images do not blend convincingly.
This game is really a mis-application of motion-blur. Motion-blur is not intended for "real-time" applications -- it's more for animation and still rendering where you want to give the feeling of high-speed motion where it is not otherwise present.
For FPS games and the like, it can really be counter-productive. If you have a high enough frame-rate, you'll get motion-blur the natural way (persistence of vision). Turning on motion-blur can do nothing but lessen the natural blurring effect by decreasing the frame-rate. Slow it down too far and you get the stuttering effect you mentioned.
It seems to me that the Copernican effect is running out of control. Every day, almost, scientists strive to convince us that we are small and insignificant as a civilisation. I would disagree with this, however. We, the human race, are the most important things we know of.
Speak for yourself. I am the most important thing I know of. As a famous author once noted, everything else is nothing but a "bundle of vague sensory perceptions".
And while we're on the subject of "labouring under illusions", who told you that we (the human race) are so damn important? Because we possess intelligence (a word, conveniently enough, defined by humans)? 'Cos the Bible alludes to it (again, conveniently written by humans)? By the same logic, cheetahs are the fastest land animals known, so therefore they should have a substantial vote in the superiority "election". Birds and bats can fly under their own power -- that sounds pretty damn superior to me. Without water or oxygen, we would cease to exist -- pretty weeny crutch for the most important thing in the universe.
I purport in this age of fragile egos and delusions of grandeur run riot, scientists should be striving to show how amazing the universe is and how little we really know about it; how we are merely residents of this universe and not owners.
Strangely enough, that seems to be exactly what they are doing.
Suppose one of these patented genes turned out to instrumental in curing a certain form of cancer. The patent-holder demands, say, $1 billion to license the gene for use in this treatment (because of other patents pending, they aren't capable of producing the treatment themselves).
Suppose I have that form of cancer and death is imminent without immediate medication. This financial gridlock is preventing me from getting the treatment I need to save my own life.
It seems to me that I should be able to sue the patent-holders for extortion, criminal neglect, and wrongful death (posthumously). Can you give me a reason why I shouldn't win?
The fact is, these companies can sit on these genes for the next 17 years and not do a thing with them. Why not? They didn't know of a single application of the gene when they got the patent -- why would we assume that they'll ever find one?
It is criminal to allow someone to hold a patent over the mere existence of a chemical. No matter what the patent actually says, this is in effect what they are doing. If they can't find an application for it that differs significantly from "prior art" (in this case, the human genome), then it shouldn't be patentable.
By the same logic, I should be able to patent human hemoglobin.
What the hell, I think I'll patent the entire patent system while I'm at it. The money ought to really start rolling in then...
The "pure" rating system is a little flawed in that it assumes an altruistic and logical voting public. In such a system, Democratic (Republican) voters would tend to artificially deflate the value of the Republican (Democratic) candidate. Thereby making it much more likely that a candidate like Buchanan would win the election by continually coming in second (OpEd: Yikes!!!)
Personally, I find the esteemed professor's arguments and conclusions drawn a tad disturbing:
"... all that happens is someone with fewer votes gets elected."
And this is a good thing???
"The theorem," he sums up, "essentially says that you're better off districted in any large election, unless every voter in the country is alike and very closely balanced between candidates A and B. In that very extraordinary case, which rarely if ever occurs in our elections, it would be better to have a simple national election."
I.e. if the election is close (where presumably an accurate voting system is most important), the electoral college is worse than the simple election. If the election is NOT close, then (apparently) the electoral college makes little to no difference whatsoever. I'm sorry, explain to me what your argument was again? Methinks the professor doth protest too much...
His specious arguments notwithstanding, I find the electoral college an adequate system. However, I do agree that it does tend to surpress the less well-known parties. It looks better to the public to have garnered 1,000,000 votes and finished third than to have won 0 electoral votes and evidently tie for last place.
I think some of you are misinterpreting the motivation of these companies to standardize Open Software.
Facts:
1. All of the listed "partners" in this project have a vested interest in the success of Linux. The interest of the Linux distributors is obvious. The interest of the hardware OEMs is that they've all announced support for the OS and development within.
2. Open software is cheaper for a hardware OEM to support than is proprietary software. So there is a natural desire to levitate towards it.
3. The majority clients of hardware OEMs (particularly UNIX hardware OEMs) are large companies.
4. Large companies do not, in general, blindly install large-scale software/patch updates just because their hardware/software distributor tells them to. Such installations require an extensive certification process. If the software does not pass the certification process, the software does not get installed and the distributor does not get their money.
5 There is currently no standard way of certifying that Linux (for instance) meets the various performance and security requirements that the average business customer demands.
6. Certification requirements are largely the same for a given type of application.
7. Linux (at least the important bits) will largely be the same no matter which vendor is supplying it. Thereby multiple certifications by multiple vendors would be a massive waste of time, effort, and money if they're all hawking basically the same software.
8. A politically-balanced certification authority will give business customers a high degree of confidence that the software meets a wide degree of standards and performance requirements.
9. An "objective" certification authority (one independent of the interests of the OEMs/vendors) may end up being ignored/discredited if their results are not politically acceptable to the vendor. This is not politically possible if the vendor sponsors the certification process.
10. Because it's agenda is not always obvious, an "objective" authority is more susceptible to corruption than a "not-so-objective" authority..: A joint effort amongst the interested companies seems to be the most economical way of ensuring the an open software product is commerically viable in an industrial setting.
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In fact it's not even really legal to "drive" in the passing lane. The right lane is for driving, and the left lane is for passing. If, you're in the left lane you're supposed to be passing. You could actually get a ticket for driving in the left lane, regardless of speed, but most people probably aren't even aware of that.
It appears there is much you are not aware of either: http://www.mit.edu/~jfc/right.html
There are exactly 8 US states where it is outright illegal to be in the left lane when not passing.
Sorry, was that response too existential? What would be the problem with metric time for example? You would have to replace every clock, wristwatch, microwave, cell phone, TV, VCR/DVD player, GPS device, and computer BIOS (to name a few) on earth?
I think you're missing the point of this specification. Neither OOXML or ODF are presentation specifications, they are content specifications. Do either explain how to rasterize a specified font? Do either explain the algorithm that dithers an embedded image? They do not. Why? Because those are details of presentation, not content.
I am not traditionally an MS-backer but if in the same situation, I would probably do exactly what they've apparently done. Their only obligation is to explain the semantics of the tag. They are under no obligation to explain how every pixel is rendered to the screen/printer/plotter -- if they were, forget 6000 pages, it would probably be less verbose to just release the source code for MSWord. God help you trying to grok that God-forsaken mess...
And finally, even if MS were to go through the trouble of explaining the precise side-effects of every one of these tags, you'd still have to write the code that reproduces it. In the end, you'd very likely end up doing what you'd have to do otherwise -- run the legacy version of Word (or the current MSWord with that compatibility flag enabled) and see what it does. Frankly, it's easier.
It's very difficult to qualify what country is the best overall wrt freedom/opportunity. The US certainly has a pretty good lock on geographic freedom -- it's not too hard to find a climatic region in the US that suits your liking.
Industrially, it's also pretty diverse (excepting of course consumer electronics but that's no different than any other non-Far East country) with a pretty good spread geographically.
Socially, we have our ups and downs but the major issues (e.g. racism) at least seem to be on the mend.
Legally, we are very complicated and in some cases antiquated (read: patent process). At least, the legal devices required to overhaul the current state are still in place.
Politically and economically, the US is mixed bag. It's impossible to tell if we are on the rise or falling flat on our collective faces. Economic success is ever transient, just ask the Japanese. Health care is at the top of the hit list. If there is one issue that is going to make or break the US economically (and socially) over the next century, I'd say health care is it. That is the one thing that literally affects everyone and nobody has a handle on it.
The "stuttering" affect is probably due to the fact that the blurring is effected by an accumulation of the previous few positions of the object. At the 10-15 fps the game was rendering, these positions would be far enough apart that the images do not blend convincingly.
This game is really a mis-application of motion-blur. Motion-blur is not intended for "real-time" applications -- it's more for animation and still rendering where you want to give the feeling of high-speed motion where it is not otherwise present.
For FPS games and the like, it can really be counter-productive. If you have a high enough frame-rate, you'll get motion-blur the natural way (persistence of vision). Turning on motion-blur can do nothing but lessen the natural blurring effect by decreasing the frame-rate. Slow it down too far and you get the stuttering effect you mentioned.
Speak for yourself. I am the most important thing I know of. As a famous author once noted, everything else is nothing but a "bundle of vague sensory perceptions".
And while we're on the subject of "labouring under illusions", who told you that we (the human race) are so damn important? Because we possess intelligence (a word, conveniently enough, defined by humans)? 'Cos the Bible alludes to it (again, conveniently written by humans)? By the same logic, cheetahs are the fastest land animals known, so therefore they should have a substantial vote in the superiority "election". Birds and bats can fly under their own power -- that sounds pretty damn superior to me. Without water or oxygen, we would cease to exist -- pretty weeny crutch for the most important thing in the universe.
I purport in this age of fragile egos and delusions of grandeur run riot, scientists should be striving to show how amazing the universe is and how little we really know about it; how we are merely residents of this universe and not owners.
Strangely enough, that seems to be exactly what they are doing.
Suppose one of these patented genes turned out to instrumental in curing a certain form of cancer. The patent-holder demands, say, $1 billion to license the gene for use in this treatment (because of other patents pending, they aren't capable of producing the treatment themselves).
Suppose I have that form of cancer and death is imminent without immediate medication. This financial gridlock is preventing me from getting the treatment I need to save my own life.
It seems to me that I should be able to sue the patent-holders for extortion, criminal neglect, and wrongful death (posthumously). Can you give me a reason why I shouldn't win?
The fact is, these companies can sit on these genes for the next 17 years and not do a thing with them. Why not? They didn't know of a single application of the gene when they got the patent -- why would we assume that they'll ever find one?
It is criminal to allow someone to hold a patent over the mere existence of a chemical. No matter what the patent actually says, this is in effect what they are doing. If they can't find an application for it that differs significantly from "prior art" (in this case, the human genome), then it shouldn't be patentable.
By the same logic, I should be able to patent human hemoglobin.
What the hell, I think I'll patent the entire patent system while I'm at it. The money ought to really start rolling in then...
Personally, I find the esteemed professor's arguments and conclusions drawn a tad disturbing:
And this is a good thing???
I.e. if the election is close (where presumably an accurate voting system is most important), the electoral college is worse than the simple election. If the election is NOT close, then (apparently) the electoral college makes little to no difference whatsoever. I'm sorry, explain to me what your argument was again? Methinks the professor doth protest too much...
His specious arguments notwithstanding, I find the electoral college an adequate system. However, I do agree that it does tend to surpress the less well-known parties. It looks better to the public to have garnered 1,000,000 votes and finished third than to have won 0 electoral votes and evidently tie for last place.
I think some of you are misinterpreting the motivation of these companies to standardize Open Software. Facts: 1. All of the listed "partners" in this project have a vested interest in the success of Linux. The interest of the Linux distributors is obvious. The interest of the hardware OEMs is that they've all announced support for the OS and development within. 2. Open software is cheaper for a hardware OEM to support than is proprietary software. So there is a natural desire to levitate towards it. 3. The majority clients of hardware OEMs (particularly UNIX hardware OEMs) are large companies. 4. Large companies do not, in general, blindly install large-scale software/patch updates just because their hardware/software distributor tells them to. Such installations require an extensive certification process. If the software does not pass the certification process, the software does not get installed and the distributor does not get their money. 5 There is currently no standard way of certifying that Linux (for instance) meets the various performance and security requirements that the average business customer demands. 6. Certification requirements are largely the same for a given type of application. 7. Linux (at least the important bits) will largely be the same no matter which vendor is supplying it. Thereby multiple certifications by multiple vendors would be a massive waste of time, effort, and money if they're all hawking basically the same software. 8. A politically-balanced certification authority will give business customers a high degree of confidence that the software meets a wide degree of standards and performance requirements. 9. An "objective" certification authority (one independent of the interests of the OEMs/vendors) may end up being ignored/discredited if their results are not politically acceptable to the vendor. This is not politically possible if the vendor sponsors the certification process. 10. Because it's agenda is not always obvious, an "objective" authority is more susceptible to corruption than a "not-so-objective" authority. .: A joint effort amongst the interested companies seems to be the most economical way of ensuring the an open software product is commerically viable in an industrial setting.