True enough, true enough. But let's not speak of their agenda as though there were something nefarious going on. You can't get much more straightforward than the arrangement they offer.
It's possible, but I'm not so sure. Every time I've participated in a Humble Bundle I've given more than the average for four reasons: 1) an admittedly pathetic and irrational but nonetheless real desire to see Linux users beat out the other categories (IOW, I would not have anyone think anti-DRM, FOSS faithful are just cheap--we have money and we're willing to give it, just not on locked-down terms); 2) Humble Bundle Inc. wisely sweetens the deal for those who go above the average to drive up the average bid; 3) when I do participate (which isn't always) it's because I actually think the product worth it; 4) rather than just complaining about the way things are going, I rather like to give money to the EFF because I think they're doing good work.
It goes without saying that this is purely my own experience but since we're speculating I have to imagine that some share these reasons. After all, for every $242.01 outlier (the current high bid) there's likely a $.01 out there. We'll never know, as citizenr points out, without better information.
As of right now, something else is going on that's strange. Here's the OS breakdown:
Average Windows: $10.07
Average Mac: $13.09
Average Linux: $13.84
In every Humble Game Bundle that I recall, the spread was much wider, especially for Linux users. While I suppose part of it is that we're so happy to support games that support Linux, I wonder what else might be at work here.
I suspect that if there are any trends to be spotted, they'll have to do when people began to use Linux more than what they began with. The distros available to anyone with broadband today are far more numerous than those once available to us. My first exposure to Linux, e.g., was an early iteration of S.u.s.e. included with a magazine. I could not at that time (90s) have hoped to download a full distro on my ~28k dial-up.
Here, however, is a trend I think we'll certainly find. Many seem to go through a stage where trying different distros for a couple months at a time is fun. Then they get sick of backing data up, tinkering with settings, and explaining to significant others why the computer isn't working at the moment. Whereupon they settle on whatever distro they feel like they'll have to fool with the least.
The real mindfsck is when you read the comment from the girl on the far left and work out that, despite all of that apparently vast area to explore, the whole thing represents is only about five miles from one side to the other.
Clever. Another way to work out the dimensions would be to scale it to the Burj Khalifa located in the center.
I'm sorry to say there's probably a reason you haven't seen a dragon. Remember, they stretching this out into two--no wait, scratch that--three films. You can't go showing your dragon too early.
It reminds me of a parody of the final Harry Potter film(s) the Onion did a while back. See here.
Anyone who uses the term "dastardly plots" is not being serious. As for, "I'm all for giving the government all the powers they need to keep me and my family safe", that's satire. I think, however, that an attempt made by the poster to be funny has inadvertently turned into an effective troll.
This reminds me of my wife telling me her coworkers said they liked John Stewart but didn't care for Stephen Colbert because "he's too conservative."
Exactly. There are many who, having more technical knowledge than the average citizen, say there can be no reasonable expectation of privacy in an unencrypted transmission. It happens that I know of a neat little trick for reading papyri from late antiquity period without unrolling (i.e. destroying) them. It's called x-ray tomography (CT). Because I have this little bit of technical knowledge, I also know that letters can be read without opening them. Were we to follow this "reasonably informed person" line of thinking, interpreting it to refer to those with a technical knowledge not possessed by the average citizen, then letters sent through the mail and not requiring a decoder ring to read would not have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Those who think that the distinction between an encrypted and unencrypted wifi signal is so basic that the average citizen should be expected to know it demonstrate the effects of homophily. Their perception of what people ought to know is shaped by being surrounded by people with a like technical knowledge.
Besides, shouldn't we ere on the side of protecting the individual citizen from potential usurpations and abuses of the legal system?
I'd suggest it's because one must always add to the security theatre. They took away the >3 oz carry-ons to make you feel safe so long as they were around to take such things and afraid should they leave. Now that you're accustomed to that, they have to add a new unnecessary procedure to remind you how necessary they are. Most importantly: they must be seen doing it and therefore mere restrictions are inadequate. Alternatively, John Pistole had already been watching too many episodes of Burn Notice, when Janet Napolitano, who remembers back to an early era of television, turned him onto MacGuyver. It quickly became apparent to him just how dangerous things you can buy at a convenience store can be.
I can say the problem will not be addressed until the faculty address it. This will not happen so long as teaching loads increase because administration will not allocate new lines to replace retiring faculty.
I say the former because I have addressed this problem in my own courses. Granted, I teach in the liberal arts rather than the sciences where the textbook prices are the most atrocious, but the liberal arts are trying desperately to catch up. Even so, when I build my classes I do so around primary texts which for texts up to the twentieth century are largely available in the public domain. My students simply access the material on their laptops or tablets even during class. I also give them a list of books upon request so they can buy paper versions on Amazon if they like. As for the role traditionally occupied by the survey textbook, in my way of thinking that is the purpose of a lecture. With well structured lectures and handouts, a textbook becomes superfluous. Using these methods, I have managed to get textbook costs down to $0 per semester. This has also led to interesting conversations with an incredulous university bookstore. As a historian I am able to focus on primary sources as I teach, but I do not see a reason a similar approach could not work in STEM (and my apologies if this is merely a consequence of my ignorance).
I say the latter because the ability to do the former requires significant amounts of time. As our baby-boomer colleagues retire--and these make the bulk of faculty--departments are often denied funding to replace them. To cover basic course requirements, therefore, departments either have to pile extra teaching onto the remaining faculty or hire part time instructors. PTI's are becoming an ever larger part of faculties, but this is an unsustainable system. They're underpaid with no benefits and their situation has only been getting worse. At least at the universities I've worked at PTI positions pay no higher than they did more than a decade ago. As a PTI, I once calculated an hourly wage based upon what I put into a class and came out around $4/hour. This cannot last because even young, talented, and dedicated teachers have bills to pay.
As for piling extra work on present faculty, this is how we end up with the textbook situation. Faculty at state schools often must teach 4/4 course loads, and sometimes more, in addition to committee, service, and research requirements. Under such time restraints, they tend to be rather open minded toward time saving short cuts. Enter the textbook publisher's sales representative. For those who're familiar with the sitcom Scrubs, this is essentially the same character as Julie Keaton, played by Heather Locklear, who pushed the side-effects ridden Plomox. Often a young woman who is all smiles, she offers copies of all their wares, course and lectures outlines, and sometimes even free lunch. "Now here's something," thinks the faculty member, "that will allow me actually to make it home in the evening to see my spouse, my children, and maybe even watch an episode of Scrubs or post on Slashdot. Besides, look at the big glossy pictures. I got complaints last semesters that the text did not have enough pictures." (And yes, the pictures are used as a sales point.) And thus the prof will receive a free copy of the textbook for which his students will pay $200, and he builds his entire syllabus around it. Then when the next edition comes out, and the online content ends, there's another turn of the knife. In the liberal arts, the texts are largely the same but for a few small changes the knock the pages numbers off. Old syllabi must be abandoned and old editions of the book will not line up with the new syllabi. Thus the system perpetuates itself.
I am glad to work in a field where I can use the internet to make life a little more convenient on my students. I prefer to focus on primary sources anyway. For those in other fields, and indeed my own, I would propose this solution t
I've noticed several posts where complaints are made about the history of Republicans and politicians in general on this subject. I don't doubt that these complaints are valid, but I fear a mistake is made in applying them to what's going on now with the Republican party platform.
The majority of Republicans (and Democrats, I daresay) certainly have been bad about internet rights. But I do not think it true of the Paul (Ron and Rand, not Ryan who's something else entirely) wing of the party. They've become a more vocal and powerful minority in the party mostly through a dedicated following who knows Robert's Rules and they really do take internet freedom as a civil right. The same can't be said of the party as a whole, but the party is willing to throw language like this in just to get the Paul wing to shut up.
Still, although powerful enough to add planks to the party platform, the Paul wing remains small and mostly marginalized. We can't say they've really taken charge from the old Neo-con and the Rockefeller Republican wing until they can overcome the hawkishness of the Republican party and get rid of the terrorism scare tactics used to infringe upon civil liberties.
But I mean to give credit when it is due. In the long run, the Paul wing may not succeed in creating a pro-internet-and-civil-freedom party. It may not succeed in creating a party which, when speaking of foreign relations, says "all options are on the table" includes peace and diplomacy among those options. In fact, I fear in the long run they may only succeed in enacting pro-corporate policies that their Neo-con and Rockefeller colleagues would have approved of anyway. Be that as it may, I will praise a positive step where I see it. I will further refuse to give in to the old "this side" and "that side" narrative, that only results in two bad sides. As parties, both the Republican and the Democratic do more harm than good. But I will praise any republican or any democrat who supports peace, civil rights and liberties (including on the internet), breathable air and potable water, and policies which would further localize power, empowering communities rather than corporations, and leading to a broader distribution of wealth and property. (Still looking for a politician who cares about the latter.)
The study in question mostly just found that T. gondii infection rates aren't correlated with cat ownership after all, but there's still no word on whether our friend the parasite causes cancer or not.
Then I'd suggest the headline should be Cats May Not Be Linked To Brain Cancer After All. For where the cats go, so goes toxoplasma and we should know well enough, unless we're Reader's Digest or Prevention magazine, not to jump to a conclusion that the study did not demonstrate.
When they attempted to use the robotic hand to automate functions in a nuclear reactor plant, the experiment failed miserably. Unfortunately, the hand is only adept at opening cans of Duff beer and eating donuts.
Sad, in a way. I'd bought nothing but Dells until my last Dell/Linux laptop kicked the bucket. Because Dell no longer allowed me to avoid the Microsoft tax on my laptop, I bought from someone else. It makes me wonder about the cost/benefit of carrying a Linux line for folks like me who just want a laptop we're going to wipe and put our own OS on anyway. It isn't as though they need to manufacture the computers separately. While they would have to put different images on the HDDs, this is no different from when one orders and of the numerous flavors of Windows or chooses different software packages. I wonder, therefore, why they chose to ditch the Linux line in the first place.
Chinese censors may soon have to deal with an unprecedented transparency of their actions.
The question remains, however: Who watches the watchers watching the censors? Those at U of Hong Kong may have to soon deal with an unprecedented amount of attention upon their actions.
I think I'll patent magnetic flies and lures to better attract trout. Of course, it doesn't work that way but the point is it can be marketed as though it does.
For those who're interested, here's a reference from the Texas Ag Extension Service. Finding more info on the matter is proving difficult (by which I mean it's taking more than five minutes) but here's a relevant quote:
Tifton 85 is a hybrid bermudagrass that was jointly developed and officially released in 1992 by the USDAARS and the University of Georgia Coastal Plain Experiment Station in Tifton, Georgia. It is a cross between a selection from South Africa (PI 290884) and Tifton 68.
Putin may now have a challenger. Even after the Russian presidential race has come to an end, Newt Gingrich is now convinced that he can win the presidency with a grassroots, insurgent campaign.
Slashdot Mirror
True enough, true enough. But let's not speak of their agenda as though there were something nefarious going on. You can't get much more straightforward than the arrangement they offer.
It goes without saying that this is purely my own experience but since we're speculating I have to imagine that some share these reasons. After all, for every $242.01 outlier (the current high bid) there's likely a $.01 out there. We'll never know, as citizenr points out, without better information.
In every Humble Game Bundle that I recall, the spread was much wider, especially for Linux users. While I suppose part of it is that we're so happy to support games that support Linux, I wonder what else might be at work here.
NO!.
Dammit. See, the law doesn't work. Betteridge must have been a tool.
Oh, wait...
I suspect that if there are any trends to be spotted, they'll have to do when people began to use Linux more than what they began with. The distros available to anyone with broadband today are far more numerous than those once available to us. My first exposure to Linux, e.g., was an early iteration of S.u.s.e. included with a magazine. I could not at that time (90s) have hoped to download a full distro on my ~28k dial-up.
Here, however, is a trend I think we'll certainly find. Many seem to go through a stage where trying different distros for a couple months at a time is fun. Then they get sick of backing data up, tinkering with settings, and explaining to significant others why the computer isn't working at the moment. Whereupon they settle on whatever distro they feel like they'll have to fool with the least.
Incidentally (IIRC): S.u.s.e. --> Redhat --> Mandrake --> Mandriva --> Arch --> Gentoo --> Ubuntu --> OpenSuse --> Ubuntu --> Mint --> Ubuntu
Clever. Another way to work out the dimensions would be to scale it to the Burj Khalifa located in the center.
Wait, so Orlando Bloom's going to play a female elf?
It reminds me of a parody of the final Harry Potter film(s) the Onion did a while back. See here.
Tune in tonight to find out.
Anyone who uses the term "dastardly plots" is not being serious. As for, "I'm all for giving the government all the powers they need to keep me and my family safe", that's satire. I think, however, that an attempt made by the poster to be funny has inadvertently turned into an effective troll. This reminds me of my wife telling me her coworkers said they liked John Stewart but didn't care for Stephen Colbert because "he's too conservative."
Exactly. There are many who, having more technical knowledge than the average citizen, say there can be no reasonable expectation of privacy in an unencrypted transmission. It happens that I know of a neat little trick for reading papyri from late antiquity period without unrolling (i.e. destroying) them. It's called x-ray tomography (CT). Because I have this little bit of technical knowledge, I also know that letters can be read without opening them. Were we to follow this "reasonably informed person" line of thinking, interpreting it to refer to those with a technical knowledge not possessed by the average citizen, then letters sent through the mail and not requiring a decoder ring to read would not have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Those who think that the distinction between an encrypted and unencrypted wifi signal is so basic that the average citizen should be expected to know it demonstrate the effects of homophily. Their perception of what people ought to know is shaped by being surrounded by people with a like technical knowledge.
Besides, shouldn't we ere on the side of protecting the individual citizen from potential usurpations and abuses of the legal system?
FTFY. Otherwise, you're absolutely right.
I'd suggest it's because one must always add to the security theatre. They took away the >3 oz carry-ons to make you feel safe so long as they were around to take such things and afraid should they leave. Now that you're accustomed to that, they have to add a new unnecessary procedure to remind you how necessary they are. Most importantly: they must be seen doing it and therefore mere restrictions are inadequate. Alternatively, John Pistole had already been watching too many episodes of Burn Notice, when Janet Napolitano, who remembers back to an early era of television, turned him onto MacGuyver. It quickly became apparent to him just how dangerous things you can buy at a convenience store can be.
I say the former because I have addressed this problem in my own courses. Granted, I teach in the liberal arts rather than the sciences where the textbook prices are the most atrocious, but the liberal arts are trying desperately to catch up. Even so, when I build my classes I do so around primary texts which for texts up to the twentieth century are largely available in the public domain. My students simply access the material on their laptops or tablets even during class. I also give them a list of books upon request so they can buy paper versions on Amazon if they like. As for the role traditionally occupied by the survey textbook, in my way of thinking that is the purpose of a lecture. With well structured lectures and handouts, a textbook becomes superfluous. Using these methods, I have managed to get textbook costs down to $0 per semester. This has also led to interesting conversations with an incredulous university bookstore. As a historian I am able to focus on primary sources as I teach, but I do not see a reason a similar approach could not work in STEM (and my apologies if this is merely a consequence of my ignorance).
I say the latter because the ability to do the former requires significant amounts of time. As our baby-boomer colleagues retire--and these make the bulk of faculty--departments are often denied funding to replace them. To cover basic course requirements, therefore, departments either have to pile extra teaching onto the remaining faculty or hire part time instructors. PTI's are becoming an ever larger part of faculties, but this is an unsustainable system. They're underpaid with no benefits and their situation has only been getting worse. At least at the universities I've worked at PTI positions pay no higher than they did more than a decade ago. As a PTI, I once calculated an hourly wage based upon what I put into a class and came out around $4/hour. This cannot last because even young, talented, and dedicated teachers have bills to pay.
As for piling extra work on present faculty, this is how we end up with the textbook situation. Faculty at state schools often must teach 4/4 course loads, and sometimes more, in addition to committee, service, and research requirements. Under such time restraints, they tend to be rather open minded toward time saving short cuts. Enter the textbook publisher's sales representative. For those who're familiar with the sitcom Scrubs, this is essentially the same character as Julie Keaton, played by Heather Locklear, who pushed the side-effects ridden Plomox. Often a young woman who is all smiles, she offers copies of all their wares, course and lectures outlines, and sometimes even free lunch. "Now here's something," thinks the faculty member, "that will allow me actually to make it home in the evening to see my spouse, my children, and maybe even watch an episode of Scrubs or post on Slashdot. Besides, look at the big glossy pictures. I got complaints last semesters that the text did not have enough pictures." (And yes, the pictures are used as a sales point.) And thus the prof will receive a free copy of the textbook for which his students will pay $200, and he builds his entire syllabus around it. Then when the next edition comes out, and the online content ends, there's another turn of the knife. In the liberal arts, the texts are largely the same but for a few small changes the knock the pages numbers off. Old syllabi must be abandoned and old editions of the book will not line up with the new syllabi. Thus the system perpetuates itself.
I am glad to work in a field where I can use the internet to make life a little more convenient on my students. I prefer to focus on primary sources anyway. For those in other fields, and indeed my own, I would propose this solution t
The majority of Republicans (and Democrats, I daresay) certainly have been bad about internet rights. But I do not think it true of the Paul (Ron and Rand, not Ryan who's something else entirely) wing of the party. They've become a more vocal and powerful minority in the party mostly through a dedicated following who knows Robert's Rules and they really do take internet freedom as a civil right. The same can't be said of the party as a whole, but the party is willing to throw language like this in just to get the Paul wing to shut up.
Still, although powerful enough to add planks to the party platform, the Paul wing remains small and mostly marginalized. We can't say they've really taken charge from the old Neo-con and the Rockefeller Republican wing until they can overcome the hawkishness of the Republican party and get rid of the terrorism scare tactics used to infringe upon civil liberties.
But I mean to give credit when it is due. In the long run, the Paul wing may not succeed in creating a pro-internet-and-civil-freedom party. It may not succeed in creating a party which, when speaking of foreign relations, says "all options are on the table" includes peace and diplomacy among those options. In fact, I fear in the long run they may only succeed in enacting pro-corporate policies that their Neo-con and Rockefeller colleagues would have approved of anyway. Be that as it may, I will praise a positive step where I see it. I will further refuse to give in to the old "this side" and "that side" narrative, that only results in two bad sides. As parties, both the Republican and the Democratic do more harm than good. But I will praise any republican or any democrat who supports peace, civil rights and liberties (including on the internet), breathable air and potable water, and policies which would further localize power, empowering communities rather than corporations, and leading to a broader distribution of wealth and property. (Still looking for a politician who cares about the latter.)
Then I'd suggest the headline should be Cats May Not Be Linked To Brain Cancer After All. For where the cats go, so goes toxoplasma and we should know well enough, unless we're Reader's Digest or Prevention magazine, not to jump to a conclusion that the study did not demonstrate.
When they attempted to use the robotic hand to automate functions in a nuclear reactor plant, the experiment failed miserably. Unfortunately, the hand is only adept at opening cans of Duff beer and eating donuts.
Sad, in a way. I'd bought nothing but Dells until my last Dell/Linux laptop kicked the bucket. Because Dell no longer allowed me to avoid the Microsoft tax on my laptop, I bought from someone else. It makes me wonder about the cost/benefit of carrying a Linux line for folks like me who just want a laptop we're going to wipe and put our own OS on anyway. It isn't as though they need to manufacture the computers separately. While they would have to put different images on the HDDs, this is no different from when one orders and of the numerous flavors of Windows or chooses different software packages. I wonder, therefore, why they chose to ditch the Linux line in the first place.
The question remains, however: Who watches the watchers watching the censors? Those at U of Hong Kong may have to soon deal with an unprecedented amount of attention upon their actions.
I think I'll patent magnetic flies and lures to better attract trout. Of course, it doesn't work that way but the point is it can be marketed as though it does.
Oblig.
Putin may now have a challenger. Even after the Russian presidential race has come to an end, Newt Gingrich is now convinced that he can win the presidency with a grassroots, insurgent campaign.