The name "Streetmentioner" brought the memory right to the fore. Just the kind of thing that Adams would drop in there. Can't believe that you got a "troll" mod for the original post, though. Time to go and metamoderate.
The mod on Rick C's post might have been a troll mod, since "Overrated" was used. They need to close that loophole.
- There should be a comma after "form" in the first sentence.
- The comma after "1001 Tense Formations" should precede the quote, rather than following it. This is illogical, of course, but it is the rule. I frequently make this error on purpose. Another possibility was that the poster was asserting that book titles should be underlined, rather than double-quoted. That seems less likely.
- In the original post, the hyphen in "re-fresh" was inappropriate.
Those are my guesses, anyway. Not that it really matters. The original post was an excellent, subtle joke. Thanks.
Perhaps this is an effect of not using the system. I find relatively little difference in figuring the two amounts. Of course, I've been figuring amounts using 25 cent increments for forty years or thereabouts, so that does not speak much for the logic of the system.
Either alternative is fairly arbitrary, so conflicting opinions between someone outside the system (as it were) and someone inside the system aren't of much value in this discussion. If you want to talk about internal logic, there might be a discussion, but that's like arguing about what we name the colors (or colours).:-)
Good point. I find it interesting that nearly all of the large grocery stores near us (Dallas area) have gone to automated change-dispensing. One uses self-service checkout stands (one clerk supervises four of these).
U.S. coins currently are made in the following six denominations: cent, nickel, dime, quarter, half dollar, and dollar.
If you are talking about the gap between 10 and 50, it seems equally plausible to use a 20 (twice 10; as in US paper currency) or a 25 (half fifty; as in US coins).
Problem with the Assumptions
on
Making Change
·
· Score: 1
In finding coin denominations that minimize the average cost of making change, Shallit assumed that every amount of change between 0 and 99 cents is equally likely.
I think that this is not the case. Currently, many prices are tailored to avoid the use of pennies. How many vending machines, for instance, will even accept pennies? If this is a significant effect, his "optimization" is going to be seriously flawed.
Just for correctness sake, Bored of the Rings was written and published by the Harvard Lampoon, not the National Lampoon. The latter had some continuity of staff with the former, however, so it's not completely wrong. The Harvard Lampoon predates the National Lampoon by quite a few years (history.
Like a huge SF library. Or he could buy a small publisher and reprint some of the really good books that are mouldering (figuratively speaking) on various authors backlists. Or bring back some authors that were writing really good original SF that were submerged in the glut of media-based offerings (not that media-based SF is inherently bad, but much of it is ironically pedestrian and repetitive, given that it is (in name) science fiction). Daniel Keyes Moran, anyone?
What this museum project on "literary science fiction" says to me is: "Not clear on the concept".
You have it reversed. Common shareholders vote; preferred shareholders typically do not. "Preferred" means that holders of those shares have precedence in the distribution of assets if/when the company is liquidated (not an insignificant privilege, these days). Preferred stock is sometimes convertible into common (convertible preferred).
Of course, option holders don't vote - until they actually purchase the stock. And there is an income consequence, depending on how the options are priced and valued. So you really don't see company officers being given large gobs of company stock. The goal of giving options is to give key employees an incentive to maximize company performance, and to help employee morale in general. The latter goal sometimes backfires, though - it does not help morale much if everyone has $20 options and the stock is selling for $2. Options are most valuable when they are issued prior to an IPO, typically for a strike price much lower than the anticipated IPO price.
Not to mention the fact that, while it can make you sick from radiation, Radon is an inert gas under anything like normal conditions. So it is very unlikely to trigger an allergic reaction.
Something tells me that the al-Qaeda informant had something to do with this as well. The article raises several interesting question about the arrest. Who actually was in charge?
Also, what is the point (for the government) in releasing information about the capabilities of Echelon and how effectively it is being used? The net effect is to make the terrorists (and drug dealers, per the article) more circumspect. Is this a good thing? Or was that the aim of the disclosure in the first place?
Well, to the extent that all spam is a scam of some sort, "Senegalese Minister" will likely never achive the prominence of viagra or penis enlargement.
I get about five or six of the "Nigerian Minister" a month, and it's the only one that I get that is really identifiable as a confidence trick. That was the sense in which I intended "scam".
Since spam is a numbers game (so many responses per million e-mails sent), I'd guess that they don't care whether your address is in the US or the UK. If you tried to buy one of their products from out of the country, they would probably seize the opportunity to charge you extra for shipping. And then they would just keep the money, and say that the package must have been lost in the international mail.
...in the February 15, 2002 issue of Crypto-Gram. They are the current residents of his Doghouse.
Re:dead before it was online
on
Sim-Dud?
·
· Score: 1
My stepfather, a city manager, enjoyed the original SimCity quite a bit. He never got into SC2K - I think that he thought that it had more detail than he really wanted to deal with.
IMO, the UI in SC3K degenerated from SC2K - too warm and fuzzy, not functional enough.
Excellent point. We spend so much time trying to restrict or prevent bad behavior that the effectiveness of encouraging good behavior is lost. In this case, I suspect that your suggestions would do a lot of good.
Now, if we could only work this angle with the RIAA and MPAA...:-)
If the "not their own words" exclusion applies, what happens if the writer used a spell checker, thesaurus, or grammar checker? What about some kind of intelligent assistant that can suggest phrases?
For the "boilerplate activists", it should not be too hard to produce some kind of program that would vary the phrasing enough to avoid content-matching filters.
So, how do we distinguish between a person's opinion and the expression of that opinion? I would be interested to hear some suggestions, but I'm not sure that it is reasonably possible.
They have two functions: up-front money for musicians to make recordings, and their distribution apparatus. The former is being undercut by the growing availability of cheaper digital technology, and the latter has been undercut by the (clearly practical) distribution of music over the internet.
They are searching desperately for some means to survive in the connected society, as their business model disintegrates. Is anyone surprised that they are taking desperate (and not well-thought-out) measures?
Seriously, though, I thought of those little XXX In a Box things that they sell at the checkout registers in bookstores. Like Zen Garden in a Box, and so on. I'm not sure if you could get them for your target price, but they would make cool favors. You could pick one that you like, or get a variety. They might be cheaper if you could get them in bulk.
Slashdot Mirror
"I'm in a different timezone to you, moron!"
Also in a different time zone from the drones in Redmond, Washington, USA, where it was, in fact, about 5:15am at the time of the post.
The name "Streetmentioner" brought the memory right to the fore. Just the kind of thing that Adams would drop in there. Can't believe that you got a "troll" mod for the original post, though. Time to go and metamoderate.
The mod on Rick C's post might have been a troll mod, since "Overrated" was used. They need to close that loophole.
I think that these were the punctuation issues:
- There should be a comma after "form" in the first sentence.
- The comma after "1001 Tense Formations" should precede the quote, rather than following it. This is illogical, of course, but it is the rule. I frequently make this error on purpose. Another possibility was that the poster was asserting that book titles should be underlined, rather than double-quoted. That seems less likely.
- In the original post, the hyphen in "re-fresh" was inappropriate.
Those are my guesses, anyway. Not that it really matters. The original post was an excellent, subtle joke. Thanks.
Perhaps this is an effect of not using the system. I find relatively little difference in figuring the two amounts. Of course, I've been figuring amounts using 25 cent increments for forty years or thereabouts, so that does not speak much for the logic of the system.
:-)
Either alternative is fairly arbitrary, so conflicting opinions between someone outside the system (as it were) and someone inside the system aren't of much value in this discussion. If you want to talk about internal logic, there might be a discussion, but that's like arguing about what we name the colors (or colours).
Good point. I find it interesting that nearly all of the large grocery stores near us (Dallas area) have gone to automated change-dispensing. One uses self-service checkout stands (one clerk supervises four of these).
According to the U.S. Mint:
U.S. coins currently are made in the following six denominations: cent, nickel, dime, quarter, half dollar, and dollar.
If you are talking about the gap between 10 and 50, it seems equally plausible to use a 20 (twice 10; as in US paper currency) or a 25 (half fifty; as in US coins).
In finding coin denominations that minimize the average cost of making change, Shallit assumed that every amount of change between 0 and 99 cents is equally likely.
I think that this is not the case. Currently, many prices are tailored to avoid the use of pennies. How many vending machines, for instance, will even accept pennies? If this is a significant effect, his "optimization" is going to be seriously flawed.
Working title: "Indiana Jones and the Wheelchair of Destiny"
Just for correctness sake, Bored of the Rings was written and published by the Harvard Lampoon, not the National Lampoon. The latter had some continuity of staff with the former, however, so it's not completely wrong. The Harvard Lampoon predates the National Lampoon by quite a few years (history.
Like a huge SF library. Or he could buy a small publisher and reprint some of the really good books that are mouldering (figuratively speaking) on various authors backlists. Or bring back some authors that were writing really good original SF that were submerged in the glut of media-based offerings (not that media-based SF is inherently bad, but much of it is ironically pedestrian and repetitive, given that it is (in name) science fiction). Daniel Keyes Moran, anyone?
What this museum project on "literary science fiction" says to me is: "Not clear on the concept".
You have it reversed. Common shareholders vote; preferred shareholders typically do not. "Preferred" means that holders of those shares have precedence in the distribution of assets if/when the company is liquidated (not an insignificant privilege, these days). Preferred stock is sometimes convertible into common (convertible preferred).
Of course, option holders don't vote - until they actually purchase the stock. And there is an income consequence, depending on how the options are priced and valued. So you really don't see company officers being given large gobs of company stock. The goal of giving options is to give key employees an incentive to maximize company performance, and to help employee morale in general. The latter goal sometimes backfires, though - it does not help morale much if everyone has $20 options and the stock is selling for $2. Options are most valuable when they are issued prior to an IPO, typically for a strike price much lower than the anticipated IPO price.
Nice, but that page tries to install Gator. Are they desperate?
Not to mention the fact that, while it can make you sick from radiation, Radon is an inert gas under anything like normal conditions. So it is very unlikely to trigger an allergic reaction.
Something tells me that the al-Qaeda informant had something to do with this as well. The article raises several interesting question about the arrest. Who actually was in charge?
Also, what is the point (for the government) in releasing information about the capabilities of Echelon and how effectively it is being used? The net effect is to make the terrorists (and drug dealers, per the article) more circumspect. Is this a good thing? Or was that the aim of the disclosure in the first place?
Well, to the extent that all spam is a scam of some sort, "Senegalese Minister" will likely never achive the prominence of viagra or penis enlargement.
I get about five or six of the "Nigerian Minister" a month, and it's the only one that I get that is really identifiable as a confidence trick. That was the sense in which I intended "scam".
Since spam is a numbers game (so many responses per million e-mails sent), I'd guess that they don't care whether your address is in the US or the UK. If you tried to buy one of their products from out of the country, they would probably seize the opportunity to charge you extra for shipping. And then they would just keep the money, and say that the package must have been lost in the international mail.
The "Senegalese Minister" scam overtakes the "Nigerian Minister" scam as the leading scam spam theme.
...in the February 15, 2002 issue of Crypto-Gram. They are the current residents of his Doghouse.
My stepfather, a city manager, enjoyed the original SimCity quite a bit. He never got into SC2K - I think that he thought that it had more detail than he really wanted to deal with.
IMO, the UI in SC3K degenerated from SC2K - too warm and fuzzy, not functional enough.
Excellent point. We spend so much time trying to restrict or prevent bad behavior that the effectiveness of encouraging good behavior is lost. In this case, I suspect that your suggestions would do a lot of good.
:-)
Now, if we could only work this angle with the RIAA and MPAA...
If the "not their own words" exclusion applies, what happens if the writer used a spell checker, thesaurus, or grammar checker? What about some kind of intelligent assistant that can suggest phrases?
For the "boilerplate activists", it should not be too hard to produce some kind of program that would vary the phrasing enough to avoid content-matching filters.
So, how do we distinguish between a person's opinion and the expression of that opinion? I would be interested to hear some suggestions, but I'm not sure that it is reasonably possible.
Just call it a "Ford Exploder". Though it may be a bit hard to sell.
They have two functions: up-front money for musicians to make recordings, and their distribution apparatus. The former is being undercut by the growing availability of cheaper digital technology, and the latter has been undercut by the (clearly practical) distribution of music over the internet.
They are searching desperately for some means to survive in the connected society, as their business model disintegrates. Is anyone surprised that they are taking desperate (and not well-thought-out) measures?
Sorry, couldn't resist that.
Seriously, though, I thought of those little XXX In a Box things that they sell at the checkout registers in bookstores. Like Zen Garden in a Box, and so on. I'm not sure if you could get them for your target price, but they would make cool favors. You could pick one that you like, or get a variety. They might be cheaper if you could get them in bulk.
You could try these:
Desk Toys
Mini Kits - this appears to be the original source for the kits.
Congratulations and good luck with your wedding!
Get him out of Microsoft!
:-)
I've only read The Last Dancer, but it was very good.