I frequently give out my credit card number in exchange for a chocolate bar... why, just the other day I walked into Safeway, picked up a chocolate bar, proceeded to the checkout counter, plopped down my credit card, and to my amazement, they let me walk out with it for no more than my signature on a piece of paper...
The issue is people stupidly trusting random individuals of whom they don't have any way to really determine the trustworthiness.
Yes, well, but an important (perhaps overriding) factor is not considered by that study, and it says so itself:
Today's PV industry generally recrystallizes any of several types of "off-grade" silicon from the microelectronics industry, and estimates for the energy used to purify and crystallize silicon vary widely. Because of these factors, energy payback calculations are not straightforward. Until
the PV industry begins to make its own silicon, which it could do in the near future, calculating payback for crystalline PV requires that we make certain assumptions.
And...
To calculate payback, Dutch researcher Alsema reviewed previous energy analyses and did not include the energy that originally went into crystallizing microelectronics scrap.
And...
For single-crystal silicon, which
Alsema did not calculate, Kato calculated a payback of
3 years when he did not charge for off-grade feedstock.
Insurance companies typically make almost all their money on "float", i.e. the interest/capital gains on investments they make (they get the premiums significantly before they have to pay the claims, you see).
The reason health care has gotten expensive all of a sudden is that investments suck right now. Since an insurance company can guarantee (with lovely actuarial precision) how much money they make by setting rates, they do. Only competition keeps them in check, and that only badly.
The government, of course, won't be politically able to make money on float (notwithstanding that with negative income they would lose money on it:-).
To compensate, Americans seem to feel it's their patriotic duty to screw the government out of a few bucks, which is why the bureaucracy and regulations are so draconian. Unless that changes (which I don't see happening any time soon), government will always (have to) have worse service and more bureaucracy.
The last time I was in Germany, I checked out the adult book stores, and let me tell you, the average porn found there is considerably more extreme than anything found out on the shelves in the U.S.
Of course, I have some suspicion that the difference may be in what various people consider extreme.
Coprophilia, Bestiality, and rape porn are not seen here to any significant degree. Perhaps they've cleaned up in the last 10 years or so, but they were common when I was there.
Mind you, I'm not necessarily complaining about that... whatever turns you on...
Yes, well, most foreign countries have this thing about conformity, and generate lots of grads with higher average abilities. The problem is, their distribution of talent is really narrow. The tend to stamp out (good!) cookie cutter programmers.
The U.S., on the other hand, has a lower average (in my experience), but a *much* wider distribution. You find many more true stars as a percentage of grads.
Why doesn't that generate wins in the ACM contest, you might ask? Well, at least when I looked into joining my school's team, it was a very informal thing. No studying and practicing for years, no serious coaches, etc. That's changed somewhat, but these *are* the kinds of problems that get easier the more you practice them.
Having looked at quite a few, I can pick out an ACM question in seconds... they're really unique. Oh, and completely unrelated to anything anyone actually does in the real world:-). I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing.
Errr... you can put whatever data constraints you want into Excel. Hell, you can manipulate and validate your data with arbitrary VB programs that look things up and/or store them in a real database if you want to.
The point of Excel is to be a WYSIWYG (mostly:-) calculation tool. A kind of "Mr. Potatohead" interface to a calculator.
One could certainly argue that it's unwise to give powerful tools to people incapable of using them properly, but that's hardly unique to Excel...
Ummm, if it's a class trying to teach these concepts, there is a large amount of value in the students implementing it themselves rather than using an off-the-shelf program, even if it is inferior (in fact, we have no evidence that the class doesn't, in fact, go on to demonstrate the inferiority of amateur solutions).
Unless you want to insist on teaching programming to all of the students, a simplified programming environment like Excel is ideal for a classroom environment.
That's interesting, but it could just as easily be used in the opposite direction. Suppose you slip on some yogurt at a store and they claim you were drunk?
Subpoena their loyalty card records to "prove" that you aren't a frequent alcohol buyer...
It would only protect your data if they actually copied it from your database, not if they got it some other way. "Getting it some other way" is explicitly permitted by the proposed (stupid) law.
Now, for a lot of this data, the question of "how else would you be able to get it" becomes an interesting one. But not for your personal data.
The subject pretty much says it all. Any election where there is a large disagreement between exit poll results by the press (another check and balance people often forget), and the result of the election will be thoroughly scrutinized and shenanigans are extremely likely to be discovered.
In terms of the impact on democracy, I would claim that in a close enough race that it would be possible to tamper with the results, it doesn't really matter which candidate is elected. The number of disenfranchised people due to such a result is extremely small as a percentage of the population.
In particular, with regard to the 2000 presidential election, as far as I'm concerned they were welcome to decide that race by a coin toss. Which candidate won didn't really make much of a difference in terms of impact to democracy. It might well have made a difference in what happened after the election, but in either case extremely close to 50% of the population of voters would have been unhappy.
And yes, I will claim that only the voters count in terms of democracy. Anyone who doesn't care enough to get out and vote would be essentially flipping a coin themselves when deciding on a candidate. As a result, I don't care about their opinion.
Another correlary of this is that our election system makes it extremely likely that most credible candidates will tend to move towards a centrist mainstream position.
Strangely but reassuringly, that means that the American system of democracy is set up to minimize the impact of elections on the degree to which the government reflects the will of the people. Another bizzarre check and balance...
I don't think it's especially off topic. I think the point he is trying to make is that older people, while not statistically likely to be incompentent, could reasonably be expected to be statistically less likely to be congizant of technology issues than younger people, simply due to their level of exposure during their learning years.
That strikes me as a reasonable concern, agism completely aside.
You don't need iexplore.exe installed to use Windows Update (at least on XP+). Automatic updates don't use it at all (except for the parts that *should* be part of the OS.
You *can* install Windows without IE, and you've been able to do that since the beginning. It's not the default, but it's certainly possible.
What you *can't* do is install Windows without the HTML rendering engine and supporting goop.
And that's good, because it's completely stupid in this day and age for an OS to come without at least a default version of that component. An OS is *nothing* but a giant pile of reusable code that does common tasks that many app writers won't want to do themselves.
So (video or still) thumbnails aren't a useful thing for the file manager to be able to present?
They'd need the codecs for that, at least.
I find it refreshingly naive that Slashdotters like to make a big brouhaha about the difference between an operating system and an operating environment, as though most people care about that difference... The difference that makes no difference is no difference.
In case you're wondering, you can sue anyone for any reason at any time. The question is whether the suit will be laughed out of court "immediately" (though probably still requiring you to hire a lawyer unless you're terminally stupid), or go through full litigation.
The SCO debacle should demonstrate to all Slashdotters that having a patent doesn't provide anyone with any "right to sue" that they didn't have already. It provides someone with one additional excuse to mention in the filing.
If a corporation (or anyone else for that matter) wants to make your life miserable and is willing to spend a lot of money doing it, they don't need the patent office's help.
Interesting. It seems to me that one way to legally "participate" in these (and, in fact, the only way that such websites mostly likely typically allow) is through fantasy.
I'm no fan of this "solution" (which seems no better nor even any different from a whitelist).
However, the people asking how we'll collect from the spammers didn't RTFA. You pay *first* by buying the stamp from the third party (and presumably get refunded for any mail that doesn't go through).
Yes, they could, theoretically, scam credit card numbers (assuming there weren't an escrow period for volume buys, which is sure how I would set it up), but if anything has the slightest chance to get them stomped for good, stealing from Visa is it.
Time to bring out that old saw (updated for modern times:-):
Windows XP 64 will be a 64-bit hack on a 32-bit extension to a 16-bit patch of an 8-bit operating system designed for a 4-bit processor by 2-bit engineers without one bit of respect for the consumers...
Slashdot Mirror
The issue is people stupidly trusting random individuals of whom they don't have any way to really determine the trustworthiness.
Today's PV industry generally recrystallizes any of several types of "off-grade" silicon from the microelectronics industry, and estimates for the energy used to purify and crystallize silicon vary widely. Because of these factors, energy payback calculations are not straightforward. Until the PV industry begins to make its own silicon, which it could do in the near future, calculating payback for crystalline PV requires that we make certain assumptions.
And...
To calculate payback, Dutch researcher Alsema reviewed previous energy analyses and did not include the energy that originally went into crystallizing microelectronics scrap.
And...
For single-crystal silicon, which Alsema did not calculate, Kato calculated a payback of 3 years when he did not charge for off-grade feedstock.
Seems there's some axe grinding going on here...
The reason health care has gotten expensive all of a sudden is that investments suck right now. Since an insurance company can guarantee (with lovely actuarial precision) how much money they make by setting rates, they do. Only competition keeps them in check, and that only badly.
The government, of course, won't be politically able to make money on float (notwithstanding that with negative income they would lose money on it :-).
To compensate, Americans seem to feel it's their patriotic duty to screw the government out of a few bucks, which is why the bureaucracy and regulations are so draconian. Unless that changes (which I don't see happening any time soon), government will always (have to) have worse service and more bureaucracy.
Of course, I have some suspicion that the difference may be in what various people consider extreme.
Coprophilia, Bestiality, and rape porn are not seen here to any significant degree. Perhaps they've cleaned up in the last 10 years or so, but they were common when I was there.
Mind you, I'm not necessarily complaining about that... whatever turns you on...
The U.S., on the other hand, has a lower average (in my experience), but a *much* wider distribution. You find many more true stars as a percentage of grads.
Why doesn't that generate wins in the ACM contest, you might ask? Well, at least when I looked into joining my school's team, it was a very informal thing. No studying and practicing for years, no serious coaches, etc. That's changed somewhat, but these *are* the kinds of problems that get easier the more you practice them.
Having looked at quite a few, I can pick out an ACM question in seconds... they're really unique. Oh, and completely unrelated to anything anyone actually does in the real world :-). I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing.
Look again. The "TM" is there now.
The point of Excel is to be a WYSIWYG (mostly :-) calculation tool. A kind of "Mr. Potatohead" interface to a calculator.
One could certainly argue that it's unwise to give powerful tools to people incapable of using them properly, but that's hardly unique to Excel...
Unless you want to insist on teaching programming to all of the students, a simplified programming environment like Excel is ideal for a classroom environment.
X&-X
What if you need to program the computer to square numbers that are larger than the word size can contain? (i.e. arbitrary precision arithmetic)
If you know the math tricks, you can do this easily. If you don't, you have to struggle to do it analytically, which is a pain.
Quick, how can you figure out the lowest set bit of a number?
I.e. "From the latin for 'below the penis', the word subpoena indicates that they have you by the balls".
That's interesting, but it could just as easily be used in the opposite direction. Suppose you slip on some yogurt at a store and they claim you were drunk?
Subpoena their loyalty card records to "prove" that you aren't a frequent alcohol buyer...
Now, for a lot of this data, the question of "how else would you be able to get it" becomes an interesting one. But not for your personal data.
Of course exit polls don't work perfectly. That wouldn't stop the scrutiny if there *were* a discrepency... so what's your point?
AFAIK, each vote and it's time are recorded, and that's part of the spec.
In terms of the impact on democracy, I would claim that in a close enough race that it would be possible to tamper with the results, it doesn't really matter which candidate is elected. The number of disenfranchised people due to such a result is extremely small as a percentage of the population.
In particular, with regard to the 2000 presidential election, as far as I'm concerned they were welcome to decide that race by a coin toss. Which candidate won didn't really make much of a difference in terms of impact to democracy. It might well have made a difference in what happened after the election, but in either case extremely close to 50% of the population of voters would have been unhappy.
And yes, I will claim that only the voters count in terms of democracy. Anyone who doesn't care enough to get out and vote would be essentially flipping a coin themselves when deciding on a candidate. As a result, I don't care about their opinion.
Another correlary of this is that our election system makes it extremely likely that most credible candidates will tend to move towards a centrist mainstream position. Strangely but reassuringly, that means that the American system of democracy is set up to minimize the impact of elections on the degree to which the government reflects the will of the people. Another bizzarre check and balance...
That strikes me as a reasonable concern, agism completely aside.
You don't need iexplore.exe installed to use Windows Update (at least on XP+). Automatic updates don't use it at all (except for the parts that *should* be part of the OS.
What you *can't* do is install Windows without the HTML rendering engine and supporting goop.
And that's good, because it's completely stupid in this day and age for an OS to come without at least a default version of that component. An OS is *nothing* but a giant pile of reusable code that does common tasks that many app writers won't want to do themselves.
They'd need the codecs for that, at least.
I find it refreshingly naive that Slashdotters like to make a big brouhaha about the difference between an operating system and an operating environment, as though most people care about that difference... The difference that makes no difference is no difference.
The SCO debacle should demonstrate to all Slashdotters that having a patent doesn't provide anyone with any "right to sue" that they didn't have already. It provides someone with one additional excuse to mention in the filing.
If a corporation (or anyone else for that matter) wants to make your life miserable and is willing to spend a lot of money doing it, they don't need the patent office's help.
It's life. Get over it :-).
Or are you a proponent of thoughtcrime?
However, the people asking how we'll collect from the spammers didn't RTFA. You pay *first* by buying the stamp from the third party (and presumably get refunded for any mail that doesn't go through).
Yes, they could, theoretically, scam credit card numbers (assuming there weren't an escrow period for volume buys, which is sure how I would set it up), but if anything has the slightest chance to get them stomped for good, stealing from Visa is it.
The best thing about IE is that you can use it to download Mozilla!!!!
Windows XP 64 will be a 64-bit hack on a 32-bit extension to a 16-bit patch of an 8-bit operating system designed for a 4-bit processor by 2-bit engineers without one bit of respect for the consumers...