The NY Times had an article recently on autism -- this link is a reprint on the father's network. It has a little information on Asperger's. Although it doesn't say much on the medical, technical, scientific details of Asperger's there are enough vignettes in the article to have the student think about his own life's situation.
- malpractice, at least as defined by negligence, is fairly common - of those with valid claims, only about 1% actually bring suit against a doctor - of those who bring suit, only 1% are successful
This means that 1/100 of a percent of incidents of malpractice actually result in an award.
I just checked some of the numbers from NEJM myself. For the most part you are correct, but you have to be careful mixing and matching numbers from other studies.
From part I of the study:
Adverse events occurred in 3.7 percent of the hospitalizations (95 percent confidence interval, 3.2 to 4.2), and 27.6 percent of the adverse events were due to negligence (95 percent confidence interval, 22.5 to 32.6).
So if you multiply 3.7% with 27.6% you get 1.02% of all hospitalizations resulting in adverse effects that were actually due to negligence, the other 99% of adverse effects were due to something other than negligence out of control by the physician. So back to your comment, I don't see how 1% malpractice due to negligence is "fairly common," but that's a glass half-full argument, so I'll give it to you -- many people will still see 1% as "fairly common," after all, physicians see many patients and at a pure numbers standpoint 1% of all patients is a lot.
Part III of the NEJM study said:
Of the 280 patients who had adverse events caused by medical negligence as defined by the study protocol, 8 filed malpractice claims (weighted rate, 1.53 percent; 95 percent confidence interval, 0 to 3.2 percent).
So that means that (1.53% times 1%) 0.0153% actually lead to malpractice claims due to negligence. Ok, so the 1.53% backs your second point, but my contention is with your third point: - of those who bring suit, only 1% are successful. I don't see those numbers anywhere in the NEJM study (granted, I only read the abstracts and not the entirety of the papers), so I can only assume you got the figure in your third point from yet another study. There is no mention whether or not that number came from cases that truly stemmed from incidents of negligence. After all you could still have say 100 cases, all of them frivolous (i.e. not a result of negligence), and still 1 successful out of them and get 1% success rate.
there are gonna be hordes of lawyers who are making their living off of them
True story:
I was at the medschool graduation ceremony of George Washington University 2 years ago. That year, the med school graduated about 150 students, and the law school graduated some 400-500+ students. The president of the university commented on this disparity as a joke and said something to the effect, "I hope there are enough MDs in the crowd to support the number of lawyers that we graduated." Jokes are funny because they always have some base of truth in them.
To answer your question, yes, there is something that can be done. Certain legislations have batted around the idea of malpractice payout caps, restricting it to say nothing more than $100K. Some states, like Florida, have passed certain types of caps. If you want more info, you should check out www.medrants.com and do a search for "malpractice" -- it's a site managed by a physician. Now the problem with caps is that one state may have such an enticing package that MDs will flock to it and other states with policies less enticing to physicians will experience a "brain-drain" of sorts and will lose their health care staff. So what? you say? Well, imagine that your state is understaffed with MDs -- so that means that the ones who are practicing will be overworked. Lets face it, MDs aren't gods and so being overworked WILL lead to mistakes and mistakes may lead to lawsuits and increased payouts. Increase number of suits lead to higher malpractice insurance and the rise in cost to MDs forces many to just stop practicing or limit their practice and the vicious cycle continues (i.e. less MDs in the field, and overwork those who are practicing). If you don't believe this is happening, then you have to check out the state of healthcare in states such as West Virginia.
Now imagine how litigation will influence the minds of potential future MDs. After 4 years of med school, plus 4 years of residency, you're in the hole with around $80-100K in debt -- that's a very daunting situation to many. And if your future is questionable as to whether or not you can pay that off, you can imagine that not many will elect to go that route. Even worse, the best and brightest among them will go elsewhere in terms of their career choice and so you end up with individuals who may be less suitable to practice medicine. And so it goes back to less and less available MDs and soon the healthcare system may come to a crisis. I realize that this sounds like a doomsday situation, but the healthcare system is so wrought with problems that are so overwhelming that many lawmakers have no idea where and how to start -- some concentrate on drug costs, others concentrate on universal healthcare insurance, others talk about malpractice caps, etc. I am biased to place some of the blame on "ambulance chasers" -- there is just so much the medical profession can do to restructure and to revamp their image. But the bottom line is, MDs have been so demonized in the media in the past that their numbers may be dwindling, and where will the healthcare system be without enough of them?
Let's assume that this is truly the case -- that SCO is just a pawn in Microsoft's chess game. If so, why would the likes of Darl McBride and his cronies commit, what I believe, career-suicide? Come on, let's be honest, once Darl loses, what company would even want to touch him with a ten-foot pole? He'll always be referred to as "that guy" who started a ridiculous claim that never came to fruition. The only thing that I can think of, to make it worthwhile for Darl to do such a thing is if Microsoft said to him "don't worry about your career, we'll take care of you" and paid him off big-time. The legalities of this payoff is questionable -- but then again, the legalities of what SCO is currently doing is highly questionable.
I fear that SVG will never be able to catch up with Flash and be a viable competitor. Here are a couple reasons why I think this:
1. Development tools for SVG are hard to come by. 2. Plugins, plugins, plugins -- I can't find a working plugin for mozilla. Sure Adobe has one that is kinda there, but I currently tested it in Mozilla 1.6 in Debian unstable and it consistently crashed on me.
Feel free to add more points to the list. I understand the merit of an open-standard for vector graphics, but until there's a true demand for it with an easy migration path, most users and developers will use Flash. However, if someone out there has a personal desire or commercial reason to push SVG to the forefront, s/he will have to address these shortcomings AND build robust software to convert existing Flash to SVG.
Compgeeks has them for $144.50; you can check the site for the specs. It has MP4 capability, which is nice for you Xvid fans. For those of you who don't understand why we're griping that it has no CF slot, perhaps you'll understand better after I tell you that people have been getting cheap 4GB minidrive CF cards by cracking open devices such as the Creative Lab's Muvo2 MP3 player -- i.e. the higher capacity drives/memory cards so far, tend to be CF cards. It's still up in the air whether or not the 4GB minidrive from the Apple iPod can be used in devices that support CF Type II cards.
At first I thought the same, but because of some of the consistency in typos -- for example, he mis-spelled "brought" without the "t" more than once -- and the nature of the email made me think otherwise. What I mean by "nature" of the email is that the email was intended as an outline for a future meeting and so he must have figured that if he was not clear, he'll clarify in person later. Secondly, as an "outline" of discussion topics, it was more a stream-of-consciousness type of synthesis -- off-the-cuff kinda thing -- and the style of the email surely supports this. These people are extremely busy (scheming up ways to make/take/steal/hoard money) that they have little time to proofread.
Actually, according to the article, those buttons aren't taken down in an effort to SAVE money, not waste it. At one point in time they did work, but because of the changes in technology (i.e. changes for emergency vehicles) and traffic patterns, these buttons turned out to be more a hassle then a benefit. But at least they do provide a somewhat "placebo" effect; that is, I am more likely to stay put at that corner on the off-chance that it does work rather than hastily trying to cross against traffic, thereby jeopardizing myself and oncoming traffic.
Classify this infraction in the "Preying on subordinates" file. What do I mean by this? Well, lots of things in this category offends us. For example, Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky -- Americans were upset not because Bill committed adultery, but because he used a position of power to awe and influence a subordinate for his personal entertainment. Same reason why there can be no doctor-patient sexual relationship because the doctor is in a position of power. Same reason why there can be no teacher-student sexual relationship (even in college or otherwise) because the teacher is in a position of power. Same reason why there should be no hanky-panky in the workplace because inevitably the one individual could be in a position of power. The perp in this crime was in a position of power and preyed on helpless children. The issue of punishment is another matter, but there should be no confusion as to the merit of his crime.
Being a grad student, he could help out his fellow 'mates by calling for proposals of possible computations. I'm sure there are plenty of other grad students who would love to find answers to certain problems that require a supercomputer -- that could be answered in a few minutes to hours.
The best alarms don't make a sound. They give the thief a minute or so to drive off and then cut off the fuel. The idea being that they will be in traffic by then where they are much too high profile to attempt to bypass the alarm.
As a scientist, I hear you my man -- you're preaching to the choir. But this situation is obviously mired in politics for the simple fact that it attacks the Bush administration. To convince non-science minded individuals the "truth" behind this matter is as difficult as convincing Christians that Jesus was not Christ. Now on the other hand, putting blind trust on what these scientists say is, let's face it, also against human nature -- heck, it's against the scientific process (i.e. the process of science is to question the observed phenomenon). So even if it is 20 Nobel laureates, it doesn't mean squat to the vast majority of the voting population -- these are the only people who matter to Bush. Put it this way you can change what you said:
if you can't count on 20 Nobel laureate scientists to make an honest, apolitical assessment of the state of science in our government, who on earth can you trust?
to what Catholics believe:
if you can't count on 20 Cardinals to make an honest, apolitical assessment of the state of Catholicism in our society, who on earth can you trust?
Those who aren't Catholics will think otherwise. Maybe that's not that great of an example, but you get my point, I hope. And so those who aren't scientists -- even some scientists themselves! -- will think otherwise of the UCS' report.
Diamonds are no longer a GIRLS best friend
on
Diamond Age Coming Soon
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
The interesting point about that Wired article is that the owner of one of the companies is not really interested in making money in diamonds via selling it as jewelry. Rather, he may be selling some as jewelry to bankroll more research in developing diamonds that are large enough to supplant silicon in creating new types of computer processors. The semiconductor business is where the money's at. In fact, that's how he originally made his fortune, as an engineer in Silicon Valley developing chips. When he dropped everything and pursued diamonds, many thought he was a kook. Both heads of the companies fear for their lives, I'd imagine, and rightly so -- you don't know how ruthless DeBeers can be.
I didn't RTFA, but off-the-cuff, the industry of textbook sales has gotten to be quite a cottage industry for students overseas. Apparently, overseas students buy the books cheaper than those here in the US and can sell them used at a premium price in the US. A couple of entrepeneurs have caught on this discrepancy and found a niche market. Needless to say the publishers aren't quite happy. I read about this issue in a NYTimes article by Tamar Lewin in the October 21, 2003 issue. Unfortunately the article has to be paid for at this moment, but you can still google it to find the article: http://www.google.com/search?q=tamar+lewin+student s+overseas&btnG=Google+Search&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&o e=utf-8.
Please mod the parent post up. You bring up a very interesting point, although it may be a bit off-topic. Is it a requirement of Sourceforge projects to be open-source if they are hosted by sf.net? Yes, sf.net project implies that they are open-source, but is it mandatory for hosting? I looked through DVArchive's docs and no mention of whether or not it's an open-source project. There is full license document, and it says it's "free" software. But free software doesn't mean open-source. I guess I got caught up in the usefulness of the program that I just didn't care whether or not it was open-source. If you happen to be a stickler to the "spirit of the law" then perhaps we have to revert back to using the commandline software ReplayPC.
I agree with your point. But let's take this argument one step further. The choice to buy the product advertised is also the consumer's. That's the nice thing about the internet--that is, information when they want it, how they want it. Stop worrying about advertising to the masses and "getting that one hit." If the consumer wants to buy your product, he or she will eventually search for it on the internet. You should only worry about your product showing up in the search engines. I concede, spam may work because, well, it's spam...but I would venture a guess that you can get the same results that you get with mass marketing without the mass marketing tactics, you just have to be smart about who to market to---and the tools to do this targeted markting are increasing by the minute. There was a nice recent article in the NY Times about this very topic of direct/targeted marketing and using statistics to gain more insight of the results.
Yeah, I bet Red Hat, Tivo, and Sharp (the Zaurus) are kicking themselves right now...
LOL! I agree with your sentimental sarcasm. Please add MontaVista to the list as well. I would like the parent poster to explain and elaborate himself/herself of why Linux is "a silly idea for commercial products."
Darl McBride may be one. But what most upsets me is David Boies, the bigshot lawyer behind SCO, who has turned into one himself. And I quote from this article:
Boies also represented the federal government in its antitrust case against Microsoft, Al Gore in his attempt to win a favorable Florida ruling in the 2000 presidential election, and Napster in its fight to defend its online music-swapping business.
I'm fine with the fact that you were a turd all your life and show it (Darl), but if you weren't and turned to the dark side (David Boies), I have a harder time accepting it.
For the sheer joy of whizzing by in the HOV (high occupancy vehicle, for those of you are not familiar with such dealings) lane, and laughing at the gas-guzzling, smog producing, slow-moving vehicles on the right, I'd buy one in a heart beat -- it's just that my dinky little economical corolla is still chugging along.
These people are running amok, with no checks and balances. All this for possible copyright infringment.
Sad thing is, they're funded by the massive profits that they've gotten from us, the consumers -- to protect the business model so that they can still acquire the same massive profits. Now, I can understand if they're doing this to protect the livelihoods of those in the industry who are not doing too well. But again, sadly, the profits gained from CD sales is NOT evenly distributed among all those involved in pressing that CD -- from start to finish (creative process included).
The RIAA's image has been soiled by the large corporate backing that it receives; if only they had a good PR group at the beginning, to let us know whether or not they are really doing this in the best interest of all artists in America or are doing this for the big corporations. When people look at the RIAA they just see large dollar signs and the bling bling of the artists who "sold out." Let's face it, when you watch MTV, VH1, etc., all you see is the "Cribs" show or them pushing the cookie cutter pop music onto the populace. But little do consumers see the artists who are still "paying their dues," trying to make a living, but at the same time providing us with the diversity and choice that we all clamor for. If only the RIAA was shown to champion choice and diversity for all artists and genres of music, then perhaps consumers will have a more sympathetic eye for their intentions.
The semi-ironic fact behind the matter of this P2P file trading hoopla is that the downloaders are looking to the P2P service for a easily accessible channel of music diversity -- large library of ALL types of music, not just the pop variety. But the RIAA is attacking it so that they can preserve their model of business of pushing just the cookie cutter stuff that sells and makes them lots of money -- if they'd only open up their eyes and see that they are fighting a battle against human nature, that is against the human's desire for novelty, uniqueness, variety. There's lots of money to be made by providing variety, they just need to discover that for themselves, rather than resist change.
So rather than go long on SCO, we must all sell any remaining holdings and short sell the stock as much as possible. Those who already shorted, get ready to cover soon. I wonder if any SCO insiders already have this strategy in mind. I also wonder who is involved in the latest run-up in SCO stock. Institutional buyers? Hopefully not -- mutual fund holders should check with their manager. Daytraders? Probable. Individual investors? Not likely, unless they have privvy information.
The diagram at the bottom of the BBC report doesn't do any justice to his feat. He jumped at an altitude of 9,000 m (or 9 km), and traveled a distance of 35 km -- nearly 4 times the distance of his initial height! It's like if I was 10 feet above the ground, I had to do a long distance jump of almost 40 feet. As a point of comparison, Carl Lewis' best for the long jump in track and field was a little longer than 29 feet (and that was with a fast running start). The picture at the bottom of the BBC article should have been closer to scale -- just looking at it, one might think that he just had to glide two times the distance of his initial height.
Slashdot Mirror
The NY Times had an article recently on autism -- this link is a reprint on the father's network. It has a little information on Asperger's. Although it doesn't say much on the medical, technical, scientific details of Asperger's there are enough vignettes in the article to have the student think about his own life's situation.
- malpractice, at least as defined by negligence, is fairly common
- of those with valid claims, only about 1% actually bring suit against a doctor
- of those who bring suit, only 1% are successful
This means that 1/100 of a percent of incidents of malpractice actually result in an award.
I just checked some of the numbers from NEJM myself. For the most part you are correct, but you have to be careful mixing and matching numbers from other studies.
From part I of the study:
Adverse events occurred in 3.7 percent of the hospitalizations (95 percent confidence interval, 3.2 to 4.2), and 27.6 percent of the adverse events were due to negligence (95 percent confidence interval, 22.5 to 32.6).
So if you multiply 3.7% with 27.6% you get 1.02% of all hospitalizations resulting in adverse effects that were actually due to negligence, the other 99% of adverse effects were due to something other than negligence out of control by the physician. So back to your comment, I don't see how 1% malpractice due to negligence is "fairly common," but that's a glass half-full argument, so I'll give it to you -- many people will still see 1% as "fairly common," after all, physicians see many patients and at a pure numbers standpoint 1% of all patients is a lot.
Part III of the NEJM study said:
Of the 280 patients who had adverse events caused by medical negligence as defined by the study protocol, 8 filed malpractice claims (weighted rate, 1.53 percent; 95 percent confidence interval, 0 to 3.2 percent).
So that means that (1.53% times 1%) 0.0153% actually lead to malpractice claims due to negligence. Ok, so the 1.53% backs your second point, but my contention is with your third point: - of those who bring suit, only 1% are successful. I don't see those numbers anywhere in the NEJM study (granted, I only read the abstracts and not the entirety of the papers), so I can only assume you got the figure in your third point from yet another study. There is no mention whether or not that number came from cases that truly stemmed from incidents of negligence. After all you could still have say 100 cases, all of them frivolous (i.e. not a result of negligence), and still 1 successful out of them and get 1% success rate.
there are gonna be hordes of lawyers who are making their living off of them
True story:
I was at the medschool graduation ceremony of George Washington University 2 years ago. That year, the med school graduated about 150 students, and the law school graduated some 400-500+ students. The president of the university commented on this disparity as a joke and said something to the effect, "I hope there are enough MDs in the crowd to support the number of lawyers that we graduated." Jokes are funny because they always have some base of truth in them.
To answer your question, yes, there is something that can be done. Certain legislations have batted around the idea of malpractice payout caps, restricting it to say nothing more than $100K. Some states, like Florida, have passed certain types of caps. If you want more info, you should check out www.medrants.com and do a search for "malpractice" -- it's a site managed by a physician. Now the problem with caps is that one state may have such an enticing package that MDs will flock to it and other states with policies less enticing to physicians will experience a "brain-drain" of sorts and will lose their health care staff. So what? you say? Well, imagine that your state is understaffed with MDs -- so that means that the ones who are practicing will be overworked. Lets face it, MDs aren't gods and so being overworked WILL lead to mistakes and mistakes may lead to lawsuits and increased payouts. Increase number of suits lead to higher malpractice insurance and the rise in cost to MDs forces many to just stop practicing or limit their practice and the vicious cycle continues (i.e. less MDs in the field, and overwork those who are practicing). If you don't believe this is happening, then you have to check out the state of healthcare in states such as West Virginia.
Now imagine how litigation will influence the minds of potential future MDs. After 4 years of med school, plus 4 years of residency, you're in the hole with around $80-100K in debt -- that's a very daunting situation to many. And if your future is questionable as to whether or not you can pay that off, you can imagine that not many will elect to go that route. Even worse, the best and brightest among them will go elsewhere in terms of their career choice and so you end up with individuals who may be less suitable to practice medicine. And so it goes back to less and less available MDs and soon the healthcare system may come to a crisis. I realize that this sounds like a doomsday situation, but the healthcare system is so wrought with problems that are so overwhelming that many lawmakers have no idea where and how to start -- some concentrate on drug costs, others concentrate on universal healthcare insurance, others talk about malpractice caps, etc. I am biased to place some of the blame on "ambulance chasers" -- there is just so much the medical profession can do to restructure and to revamp their image. But the bottom line is, MDs have been so demonized in the media in the past that their numbers may be dwindling, and where will the healthcare system be without enough of them?
SCO is just Microsoft's "SCOpegoat"
Let's assume that this is truly the case -- that SCO is just a pawn in Microsoft's chess game. If so, why would the likes of Darl McBride and his cronies commit, what I believe, career-suicide? Come on, let's be honest, once Darl loses, what company would even want to touch him with a ten-foot pole? He'll always be referred to as "that guy" who started a ridiculous claim that never came to fruition. The only thing that I can think of, to make it worthwhile for Darl to do such a thing is if Microsoft said to him "don't worry about your career, we'll take care of you" and paid him off big-time. The legalities of this payoff is questionable -- but then again, the legalities of what SCO is currently doing is highly questionable.
I fear that SVG will never be able to catch up with Flash and be a viable competitor. Here are a couple reasons why I think this:
1. Development tools for SVG are hard to come by.
2. Plugins, plugins, plugins -- I can't find a working plugin for mozilla. Sure Adobe has one that is kinda there, but I currently tested it in Mozilla 1.6 in Debian unstable and it consistently crashed on me.
Feel free to add more points to the list. I understand the merit of an open-standard for vector graphics, but until there's a true demand for it with an easy migration path, most users and developers will use Flash. However, if someone out there has a personal desire or commercial reason to push SVG to the forefront, s/he will have to address these shortcomings AND build robust software to convert existing Flash to SVG.
Compgeeks has them for $144.50; you can check the site for the specs. It has MP4 capability, which is nice for you Xvid fans. For those of you who don't understand why we're griping that it has no CF slot, perhaps you'll understand better after I tell you that people have been getting cheap 4GB minidrive CF cards by cracking open devices such as the Creative Lab's Muvo2 MP3 player -- i.e. the higher capacity drives/memory cards so far, tend to be CF cards. It's still up in the air whether or not the 4GB minidrive from the Apple iPod can be used in devices that support CF Type II cards.
At first I thought the same, but because of some of the consistency in typos -- for example, he mis-spelled "brought" without the "t" more than once -- and the nature of the email made me think otherwise. What I mean by "nature" of the email is that the email was intended as an outline for a future meeting and so he must have figured that if he was not clear, he'll clarify in person later. Secondly, as an "outline" of discussion topics, it was more a stream-of-consciousness type of synthesis -- off-the-cuff kinda thing -- and the style of the email surely supports this. These people are extremely busy (scheming up ways to make/take/steal/hoard money) that they have little time to proofread.
Actually, according to the article, those buttons aren't taken down in an effort to SAVE money, not waste it. At one point in time they did work, but because of the changes in technology (i.e. changes for emergency vehicles) and traffic patterns, these buttons turned out to be more a hassle then a benefit. But at least they do provide a somewhat "placebo" effect; that is, I am more likely to stay put at that corner on the off-chance that it does work rather than hastily trying to cross against traffic, thereby jeopardizing myself and oncoming traffic.
Classify this infraction in the "Preying on subordinates" file. What do I mean by this? Well, lots of things in this category offends us. For example, Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky -- Americans were upset not because Bill committed adultery, but because he used a position of power to awe and influence a subordinate for his personal entertainment. Same reason why there can be no doctor-patient sexual relationship because the doctor is in a position of power. Same reason why there can be no teacher-student sexual relationship (even in college or otherwise) because the teacher is in a position of power. Same reason why there should be no hanky-panky in the workplace because inevitably the one individual could be in a position of power. The perp in this crime was in a position of power and preyed on helpless children. The issue of punishment is another matter, but there should be no confusion as to the merit of his crime.
Being a grad student, he could help out his fellow 'mates by calling for proposals of possible computations. I'm sure there are plenty of other grad students who would love to find answers to certain problems that require a supercomputer -- that could be answered in a few minutes to hours.
http://images.google.com and search with any of the well known Playboy playmate model names.
The best alarms don't make a sound. They give the thief a minute or so to drive off and then cut off the fuel. The idea being that they will be in traffic by then where they are much too high profile to attempt to bypass the alarm.
9 94697
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99
As a scientist, I hear you my man -- you're preaching to the choir. But this situation is obviously mired in politics for the simple fact that it attacks the Bush administration. To convince non-science minded individuals the "truth" behind this matter is as difficult as convincing Christians that Jesus was not Christ. Now on the other hand, putting blind trust on what these scientists say is, let's face it, also against human nature -- heck, it's against the scientific process (i.e. the process of science is to question the observed phenomenon). So even if it is 20 Nobel laureates, it doesn't mean squat to the vast majority of the voting population -- these are the only people who matter to Bush. Put it this way you can change what you said:
if you can't count on 20 Nobel laureate scientists to make an honest, apolitical assessment of the state of science in our government, who on earth can you trust?
to what Catholics believe:
if you can't count on 20 Cardinals to make an honest, apolitical assessment of the state of Catholicism in our society, who on earth can you trust?
Those who aren't Catholics will think otherwise. Maybe that's not that great of an example, but you get my point, I hope. And so those who aren't scientists -- even some scientists themselves! -- will think otherwise of the UCS' report.
The interesting point about that Wired article is that the owner of one of the companies is not really interested in making money in diamonds via selling it as jewelry. Rather, he may be selling some as jewelry to bankroll more research in developing diamonds that are large enough to supplant silicon in creating new types of computer processors. The semiconductor business is where the money's at. In fact, that's how he originally made his fortune, as an engineer in Silicon Valley developing chips. When he dropped everything and pursued diamonds, many thought he was a kook. Both heads of the companies fear for their lives, I'd imagine, and rightly so -- you don't know how ruthless DeBeers can be.
I didn't RTFA, but off-the-cuff, the industry of textbook sales has gotten to be quite a cottage industry for students overseas. Apparently, overseas students buy the books cheaper than those here in the US and can sell them used at a premium price in the US. A couple of entrepeneurs have caught on this discrepancy and found a niche market. Needless to say the publishers aren't quite happy. I read about this issue in a NYTimes article by Tamar Lewin in the October 21, 2003 issue. Unfortunately the article has to be paid for at this moment, but you can still google it to find the article: http://www.google.com/search?q=tamar+lewin+student s+overseas&btnG=Google+Search&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&o e=utf-8.
The kits need curved rods and a cutting tool that can cut the plexi in anything other than straight lines. You're too limited with straight edges.
Please mod the parent post up. You bring up a very interesting point, although it may be a bit off-topic. Is it a requirement of Sourceforge projects to be open-source if they are hosted by sf.net? Yes, sf.net project implies that they are open-source, but is it mandatory for hosting? I looked through DVArchive's docs and no mention of whether or not it's an open-source project. There is full license document, and it says it's "free" software. But free software doesn't mean open-source. I guess I got caught up in the usefulness of the program that I just didn't care whether or not it was open-source. If you happen to be a stickler to the "spirit of the law" then perhaps we have to revert back to using the commandline software ReplayPC.
I agree with your point. But let's take this argument one step further. The choice to buy the product advertised is also the consumer's. That's the nice thing about the internet--that is, information when they want it, how they want it. Stop worrying about advertising to the masses and "getting that one hit." If the consumer wants to buy your product, he or she will eventually search for it on the internet. You should only worry about your product showing up in the search engines. I concede, spam may work because, well, it's spam...but I would venture a guess that you can get the same results that you get with mass marketing without the mass marketing tactics, you just have to be smart about who to market to---and the tools to do this targeted markting are increasing by the minute. There was a nice recent article in the NY Times about this very topic of direct/targeted marketing and using statistics to gain more insight of the results.
Yeah, I bet Red Hat, Tivo, and Sharp (the Zaurus) are kicking themselves right now...
LOL! I agree with your sentimental sarcasm. Please add MontaVista to the list as well. I would like the parent poster to explain and elaborate himself/herself of why Linux is "a silly idea for commercial products."
Darl McBride may be one. But what most upsets me is David Boies, the bigshot lawyer behind SCO, who has turned into one himself. And I quote from this article:
Boies also represented the federal government in its antitrust case against Microsoft, Al Gore in his attempt to win a favorable Florida ruling in the 2000 presidential election, and Napster in its fight to defend its online music-swapping business.
I'm fine with the fact that you were a turd all your life and show it (Darl), but if you weren't and turned to the dark side (David Boies), I have a harder time accepting it.
For the sheer joy of whizzing by in the HOV (high occupancy vehicle, for those of you are not familiar with such dealings) lane, and laughing at the gas-guzzling, smog producing, slow-moving vehicles on the right, I'd buy one in a heart beat -- it's just that my dinky little economical corolla is still chugging along.
These people are running amok, with no checks and balances. All this for possible copyright infringment.
Sad thing is, they're funded by the massive profits that they've gotten from us, the consumers -- to protect the business model so that they can still acquire the same massive profits. Now, I can understand if they're doing this to protect the livelihoods of those in the industry who are not doing too well. But again, sadly, the profits gained from CD sales is NOT evenly distributed among all those involved in pressing that CD -- from start to finish (creative process included).
The RIAA's image has been soiled by the large corporate backing that it receives; if only they had a good PR group at the beginning, to let us know whether or not they are really doing this in the best interest of all artists in America or are doing this for the big corporations. When people look at the RIAA they just see large dollar signs and the bling bling of the artists who "sold out." Let's face it, when you watch MTV, VH1, etc., all you see is the "Cribs" show or them pushing the cookie cutter pop music onto the populace. But little do consumers see the artists who are still "paying their dues," trying to make a living, but at the same time providing us with the diversity and choice that we all clamor for. If only the RIAA was shown to champion choice and diversity for all artists and genres of music, then perhaps consumers will have a more sympathetic eye for their intentions.
The semi-ironic fact behind the matter of this P2P file trading hoopla is that the downloaders are looking to the P2P service for a easily accessible channel of music diversity -- large library of ALL types of music, not just the pop variety. But the RIAA is attacking it so that they can preserve their model of business of pushing just the cookie cutter stuff that sells and makes them lots of money -- if they'd only open up their eyes and see that they are fighting a battle against human nature, that is against the human's desire for novelty, uniqueness, variety. There's lots of money to be made by providing variety, they just need to discover that for themselves, rather than resist change.
So rather than go long on SCO, we must all sell any remaining holdings and short sell the stock as much as possible. Those who already shorted, get ready to cover soon. I wonder if any SCO insiders already have this strategy in mind. I also wonder who is involved in the latest run-up in SCO stock. Institutional buyers? Hopefully not -- mutual fund holders should check with their manager. Daytraders? Probable. Individual investors? Not likely, unless they have privvy information.
The diagram at the bottom of the BBC report doesn't do any justice to his feat. He jumped at an altitude of 9,000 m (or 9 km), and traveled a distance of 35 km -- nearly 4 times the distance of his initial height! It's like if I was 10 feet above the ground, I had to do a long distance jump of almost 40 feet. As a point of comparison, Carl Lewis' best for the long jump in track and field was a little longer than 29 feet (and that was with a fast running start). The picture at the bottom of the BBC article should have been closer to scale -- just looking at it, one might think that he just had to glide two times the distance of his initial height.