Similarly, if I were looking to diffuse a bomb, I might need to research different types of bombs to learn...... how strong the lens will need to be to withstand the blast?
This is not worth it. You can't claim legal costs under the small claims track and there shouldn't be any need.
True, but many solicitors will offer a free initial consultation that could be very useful.
True, but even if it does, the warranty is in addition to your statutory rights. The hinge should not fail within 5 months.
Yes, so even in that case it isn't hopeless, but my guess is that this is not written in the warranty information anywhere (it isn't for the desktop PCs I bought from PC World, at least), and if that's the case it will be _much_ easier than arguing the case based on staturory rights.
Basically you can sue Dixons in small claims court. The threat of doing so is going to cause them to capitulate quickly.
It didn't when I tried it, although I did eventually win in court. But that was for a less clear-cut claim: goods not as described in advertising.
It might work in this case, though. First step should be to get the contact details of their litigation department, which is located in their head office in St Albans. Send them a letter explaining the situation and that if they do not honour the warranty you will sue for a refund of the purchase price.
If they don't capitulate immediately, you may want to start talking to solicitors, although this isn't strictly necessary. Small claims court in the UK is designed so that you can use it without a solicitor, although it is best to have a fair knowledge of the law. You should check all the documents they gave you with the computer. If none of them mention warranty being voided by changing the OS, they don't have a leg to stand on. Even if they do, they may not be valid if your attention was not drawn to them at the time, particularly if you mentioned to the salesman that you wanted to install Linux on the machine.
The summary implies that all of Jatol's hosted sites disappeared instantly. This isn't the case. Jatol may have stopped responding to queries on Aug 31, but at least some of their sites were still operational on Sep 5. See thread here from one site who had forewarning that they would need to move.
This sucks worse than most similar sites I've looked at.
The server running slowly showed up some serious cracks in their design. First off, they're calling this AJAX? It _pauses_ while downloading stuff. Some core code is _not_ asynchronous.
There are a number of problems with the user interface. At one point I was prompted with a browser window about trusting the site without any comment that this would happen. When I said I didn't trust it, I ended up with a box on the screen that obscured other windows, even when they were supposedly in front of it in z-order. Assuming the content would have been implemented with Java, I don't see how this is ever going to be different, even if I had decided to trust it (Java applet components cannot have HTML-rendered components in front of them; basic browser limitation).
When I told it to add a new application, it crashed. No components worked.
Many elements of the user interface are blatant ripoffs of other people's designs. The add applications dialog uses an almost identical layout and icon set to Microsoft's similar control panel application in Windows. The icon for their "synchronize" application is a direct rip-off of Palm's HotSync icon.
And finally, when I closed the desktop window, it crashed Firefox. I couldn't switch tabs, and couldn't set the focus to any controls. I had to kill it and restart to post this message.
Of course it downloads new messages when the display is sleeping. There'd be no point to sleep if it didn't.
Really? How about the ability to receive incoming calls? Wake on timer functions? Ability to use the device without waiting for the OS to restart?
There are _plenty_ of applications for sleep mode. I don't see the benefit, in fact, of being able to switch off the display without also disabling other potentially unwanted functions of the device. Wouldn't a "lock buttons/display screensaver" mode be more useful?
Every brick-style cell phone I have ever seen has a "locked" mode, where the screen is not on and there is no indication that the device is operating.
Every phone I've ever seen has a visible indication that the device is active when in locked mode. Which phones have you seen that don't, other than of course the iPhone?
One of the stumbling blocks that I had was basic vision recognition. We haven't developed the technology to take in objects from a camera and then recognize them on the computer. If we had vision recognition then AI would be a lot easier to program.
Right. And if we had AI, vision recognition would be a lot easier to program. The two problems are closely related, as is natural language understanding. You probably can't solve any one of them in independence from the others.
The AI research Eliezer Yudkowsky has proposed and run experiments showing it's possible that a very very intelligent program could "override a human through a text-only terminal". That is, it could convince a human operator to "let the genie out of the bottle".
See the science fiction stories "A for Andromeda" and "Andromeda Breakthrough" by Fred Hoyle and John Eliot, which discuss this very issue (albeit with an AI of extra-terrestrial origin).
'Let an ultra-intelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultra-intelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an 'intelligence explosion,' and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultra-intelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make.'
Of course an ultra-intelligent machine might be smart enough to realise that designing and building a machine that's even smarter than it is a somewhat limiting career move.
I cannot begin to understand how Doctor Who took the award for best episode even when its fanbase was split between two nominated episodes.
The Hugo vote uses a form of instant runoff voting. In most cases, splitting the fans between the two episodes shouldn't matter, because as soon as one episode is eliminated their votes will be transferred to the other.
Are the Hugo readers still a little too snobby for the web?
No. There's a distinct shortage of web publishers who pay as well for stories as the leading print ones, so there aren't as many good stories published first on the web. It's times like this I really mourn the loss of scifi.com's "scifiction" site, but they had a number of Hugo winning stories over the last few years, IIRC.
Also note that Hugos are fan-voted awards, not industry selected, so snobbiness is somewhat unlikely.
Let's hold these people to a higher standard. If they WANT us to buy their new cards they are going to have to give open access to their old hardware specifications. It's that simple.
The market has a very short memory. It simply doesn't work like this. AMD realise that they only need to convince the leading edge to use their products, because that's where they make 99% of their profit.
The problem with that is you are then left with uncompressed video, which must be recompressed, a lossy procedure.
1) there are lossless formats available 2) if you can't afford the space, you probably wanted to recompress anyway, as you can normally compress further than the source media without noticeable loss of quality.
For video, I suspect in most cases one of these applies. For audio, the matter is slightly different: most DRM'd audio currently sold is compressed pretty much to the limit of acceptability already.
IDG, which owns a number of domains and "magazines"
I'm not sure why you have scare quotes in there. IDG does in fact own a number of magazines. ComputerWorld, PC World, PC Adviser, CIO Magazine and others are all print publications.
Ignoring a takedown notice that falls short of the technical requirements but that identifies the work infringed, the infringing content, and provides contact information has the legal result that the flawed takedown notice may be used to prove the service provider's knowledge of infringement, and thus have the same effect on liability, as if it were a flawless takedown notice (see 17 U.S.C. 512(c)(3)(B)(ii)).
The courts don't seem to agree with you here.
In order to substantially comply with 512(c)(3)s requirements, a notification must do more than identify infringing files. The DMCA requires a complainant to declare, under penalty of perjury, that he is authorized to represent the copyright holder, and that he has a good-faith belief that the use is infringing. This requirement is not superfluous. Accusations of alleged infringement have drastic consequences: A user could have content removed, or may have his access terminated entirely. If the content infringes, justice has been done. But if it does not, speech protected under the First Amendment could be removed. We therefore do not require a service provider to start potentially invasive proceedings if the complainant is unwilling to state under penalty of perjury that he is an authorized representative of the copyright owner, and that he has a good-faith belief that the material is unlicensed.
From the opinion of the 9th circuit court of appeals in Perfect 10, Inc. v. CCBill LLC, 488 F.3d at 1112, quoted in scribd's response. Emphasis mine.
Slashdot Mirror
To moderators who marked this offtopic, you may wish to read the linked article first.
Similarly, if I were looking to diffuse a bomb, I might need to research different types of bombs to learn ... ... how strong the lens will need to be to withstand the blast?
I tried following the link but it was invalid on my machine, so I did a search for
:)
bomb, kill, genocide or terrorism
Wow. Your post is now 7th on the list of links in the search it linked to. Well done!
This is not worth it. You can't claim legal costs under the small claims track and there shouldn't be any need.
True, but many solicitors will offer a free initial consultation that could be very useful.
True, but even if it does, the warranty is in addition to your statutory rights. The hinge should not fail within 5 months.
Yes, so even in that case it isn't hopeless, but my guess is that this is not written in the warranty information anywhere (it isn't for the desktop PCs I bought from PC World, at least), and if that's the case it will be _much_ easier than arguing the case based on staturory rights.
Basically you can sue Dixons in small claims court. The threat of doing so is going to cause them to capitulate quickly.
It didn't when I tried it, although I did eventually win in court. But that was for a less clear-cut claim: goods not as described in advertising.
It might work in this case, though. First step should be to get the contact details of their litigation department, which is located in their head office in St Albans. Send them a letter explaining the situation and that if they do not honour the warranty you will sue for a refund of the purchase price.
If they don't capitulate immediately, you may want to start talking to solicitors, although this isn't strictly necessary. Small claims court in the UK is designed so that you can use it without a solicitor, although it is best to have a fair knowledge of the law. You should check all the documents they gave you with the computer. If none of them mention warranty being voided by changing the OS, they don't have a leg to stand on. Even if they do, they may not be valid if your attention was not drawn to them at the time, particularly if you mentioned to the salesman that you wanted to install Linux on the machine.
The summary implies that all of Jatol's hosted sites disappeared instantly. This isn't the case. Jatol may have stopped responding to queries on Aug 31, but at least some of their sites were still operational on Sep 5. See thread here from one site who had forewarning that they would need to move.
This sucks worse than most similar sites I've looked at.
The server running slowly showed up some serious cracks in their design. First off, they're calling this AJAX? It _pauses_ while downloading stuff. Some core code is _not_ asynchronous.
There are a number of problems with the user interface. At one point I was prompted with a browser window about trusting the site without any comment that this would happen. When I said I didn't trust it, I ended up with a box on the screen that obscured other windows, even when they were supposedly in front of it in z-order. Assuming the content would have been implemented with Java, I don't see how this is ever going to be different, even if I had decided to trust it (Java applet components cannot have HTML-rendered components in front of them; basic browser limitation).
When I told it to add a new application, it crashed. No components worked.
Many elements of the user interface are blatant ripoffs of other people's designs. The add applications dialog uses an almost identical layout and icon set to Microsoft's similar control panel application in Windows. The icon for their "synchronize" application is a direct rip-off of Palm's HotSync icon.
And finally, when I closed the desktop window, it crashed Firefox. I couldn't switch tabs, and couldn't set the focus to any controls. I had to kill it and restart to post this message.
I do intend to write a web-based OS. It will emulate a virtual machine, enabling all of the things that you mention.
Of course, this is just an academic excercise. The actual results will be pretty much useless.
Of course it downloads new messages when the display is sleeping. There'd be no point to sleep if it didn't.
Really? How about the ability to receive incoming calls? Wake on timer functions? Ability to use the device without waiting for the OS to restart?
There are _plenty_ of applications for sleep mode. I don't see the benefit, in fact, of being able to switch off the display without also disabling other potentially unwanted functions of the device. Wouldn't a "lock buttons/display screensaver" mode be more useful?
Every brick-style cell phone I have ever seen has a "locked" mode, where the screen is not on and there is no indication that the device is operating.
Every phone I've ever seen has a visible indication that the device is active when in locked mode. Which phones have you seen that don't, other than of course the iPhone?
One of the stumbling blocks that I had was basic vision recognition. We haven't developed the technology to take in objects from a camera and then recognize them on the computer. If we had vision recognition then AI would be a lot easier to program.
Right. And if we had AI, vision recognition would be a lot easier to program. The two problems are closely related, as is natural language understanding. You probably can't solve any one of them in independence from the others.
This is the Nerd Rapture, and heresy will not be tolerated!
:)
Even the Heresy of the Shortened Name. That should be Rapture of the Nerds, not Nerd Rapture.
The AI research Eliezer Yudkowsky has proposed and run experiments showing it's possible that a very very intelligent program could "override a human through a text-only terminal". That is, it could convince a human operator to "let the genie out of the bottle".
See the science fiction stories "A for Andromeda" and "Andromeda Breakthrough" by Fred Hoyle and John Eliot, which discuss this very issue (albeit with an AI of extra-terrestrial origin).
'Let an ultra-intelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultra-intelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an 'intelligence explosion,' and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultra-intelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make.'
Of course an ultra-intelligent machine might be smart enough to realise that designing and building a machine that's even smarter than it is a somewhat limiting career move.
Because the comment author plagarized the entire introductory paragraph from Wikipedia.
It's not exactly plagiarism, seeing as he did provide a link to his source.
The winners were known more than two months ago
Really? How on Earth could that be possible, seeing as the ballot only closed last month?
In addition to the other replies, there's also Interzone, which is British and of a slightly different tone.
I cannot begin to understand how Doctor Who took the award for best episode even when its fanbase was split between two nominated episodes.
The Hugo vote uses a form of instant runoff voting. In most cases, splitting the fans between the two episodes shouldn't matter, because as soon as one episode is eliminated their votes will be transferred to the other.
Are the Hugo readers still a little too snobby for the web?
No. There's a distinct shortage of web publishers who pay as well for stories as the leading print ones, so there aren't as many good stories published first on the web. It's times like this I really mourn the loss of scifi.com's "scifiction" site, but they had a number of Hugo winning stories over the last few years, IIRC.
Also note that Hugos are fan-voted awards, not industry selected, so snobbiness is somewhat unlikely.
Which is to say, less than random 50-50. I don't see a problem.
The problem is, the jury are more likely to trust it than they are a non-polygraphed witness statement. It will lead to less accurate trial results.
Dunno why this is still sitting at 0. Flatland is considered a classic piece of mathematical fiction, and is definitely worth considering.
Also worth considering the unofficial sequel, Flatterland by Ian Stewart.
Let's hold these people to a higher standard. If they WANT us to buy their new cards they are going to have to give open access to their old hardware specifications. It's that simple.
The market has a very short memory. It simply doesn't work like this. AMD realise that they only need to convince the leading edge to use their products, because that's where they make 99% of their profit.
The problem with that is you are then left with uncompressed video, which must be recompressed, a lossy procedure.
1) there are lossless formats available
2) if you can't afford the space, you probably wanted to recompress anyway, as you can normally compress further than the source media without noticeable loss of quality.
For video, I suspect in most cases one of these applies. For audio, the matter is slightly different: most DRM'd audio currently sold is compressed pretty much to the limit of acceptability already.
IDG, which owns a number of domains and "magazines"
I'm not sure why you have scare quotes in there. IDG does in fact own a number of magazines. ComputerWorld, PC World, PC Adviser, CIO Magazine and others are all print publications.
The courts don't seem to agree with you here.
From the opinion of the 9th circuit court of appeals in Perfect 10, Inc. v. CCBill LLC, 488 F.3d at 1112, quoted in scribd's response. Emphasis mine.