Mirecki recently sent an e-mail to members of a student organization in which he referred to religious conservatives as "fundies" and said a course depicting intelligent design as mythology would be a "nice slap in their big fat face." He later apologized, and did so again Thursday in a statement issued by the university."
It's funny how people fully support this kind of forthright talk about any number of groups when it's done by politically-motivated radio and television personalities with license to broadcast over public airwaves to millions of people, but when a man with a doctorate of theology uses similar language in an email discussion with the atheist student group to whom he is an advisor, it causes an uproar.
The specific AMD technology leads over Intel right now are.......not what was implied by your previous post.
The newest AMD Fab was built for 65 nm and can later move to 45 nm.
That doesn't change the fact that it is 90nm today, and will be until at least late next year.
I'm not going to bother mentioning out all of the things you're overlooking, because I don't really care one way or another about Intel or AMD, but I will point out that for someone apparently concerned about fanboyism, you sound a lot like a fanboy.
Isn't the fact that a laptop chip is even being *compared* to a dual core desktop chip in terms of power consumption quite worrying?
It is a desktop chip. The entire system was identical, save for the motherboard and obviously the chip. Looks like someone didn't actually read what they're saying.
And for that same "little big less power" they're getting a "little bit less speed"? I thought this was all about performance per Watt?
40 watts is not "a little bit less power". And equal performance without an on-die memory controller is not "a little less speed".
It's hardly surprising that Intel is moving to more cores with 65 and 45 nm. AMD started doing that two years ago.
The point is that Intel is actually producing 65nm chips in quantity right now. AMD is not: even Fab 36 is still 90nm. Your statement that AMD has "at least a one-year lead" is outright false.
I just dont understand how people can think it looks good to have bright pink text and a purple background overlayed with a floating image while forcing you to listen to music and squint past the animations.
People think it looks good because they made it, and it reflects who they are. It's just an continuation of the usual adolecent identity-formation. The same desire that teenagers have to dress the same way as their friends and decorate their rooms with posters of bands they like extends equally onto the web. They haven't learned to internalize "Who Am I?", so they wear it all outwardly -- who you are is dependent on what you wear, what you listen to, and what your MySpace page looks like. This mostly fades with age, but not entirely. I think most of us carry some amount of adolecent stupidity around with us.
Facebook will probably never be as bad as MySpace in that regard. College-age kids start to identify more by things that they do or accomplishments than just appearances. It can be just as stupid, but it's at least not as shrill.
Sure, from the outset it sounds like a good idea, but think about it from a practical standpoint and it suddenly becomes a bad idea.
Most technical innovation involves taking something impractical and making it practical. This really doesn't sound like anything that a handful of resonably intellegent designers and engineers can't handle. Add to this the probability that they have access to newer 65nm-process chips and it becomes quite plausible.
The big IF is, will they price it for the market or let their ego do the pricing?
Apple does price for the market, and the market pays.
When people complain that Apple's products are "overpriced", what they mean is "I don't want it (at that price)". You are part of the market, not the market. Just because you don't want to buy at that price doesn't mean that plenty of other people will. Apple has trouble keeping up with demand for many of it's products as it is. If demand slips over time, as it invariably does with computer products, they will adjust pricing to offer either a new product for the same price or the same product for a lower price. This is completely normal and not, as you say, "ego".
"Ego" would be assuming that one's individual contribution to demand constitutes that of the whole market.
Typical extrovert thinking... "hey why don't you get drunk then you'd have fun just like me". I don't blame you for thinking that, an extrovert can't help it, they have no chance of understanding what makes an introvert tick because not only do we not care to spend the time to tell you, but you won't sit still long enough to hear it.
Wow, what an asshole. I say that as someone who is introverted as all hell.
It's one thing to know what you enjoy and what you don't enjoy; it's another to assume that what other people do is especially different from what you do, and therefore inferior. I don't understand how you can take one person's suggestion that alcohol can make socializing easier (as has been known for centuries) to accusing them of "mindless verbal diahhorea" and "hitting on anything with legs", as if that encompassed all social activity available to people other than you.
Uh, dude, I don't know where you've been, but the entire fucking point of DRM is to artificially limit your copying privilidges so you get inconvenienced in this way.
You do not know what you're talking about.
iTunes' DRM does not prevent me from doing any of the things I described. I know because I do them. I only mentioned that iTunes has data CD burning built-in to show that it's really easy. You do not need to use iTunes to back up the files. You do not need to defeat the DRM to back up the files. You can make a million copies of the files without even thinking about the DRM.
But according to the DMCA, I don't have the right to circumvent any DRM that may be imposed on it, so how the fuck am I supposed to back it up legally?
You don't have to circumvent the DRM to back it up. A file is a file. You can copy it over and over and over again. The DRM only matters when you try to play it; and for that you only need the email/password you purchased the tracks with.
I'd hand them a blank CD and tell them to use that. If I can buy hundreds of CDs for less than $10, they better not even think about charging me for a replacement. I'm sure they get CDs for less than $0.001 per CD, so they should be able to replace your occasional scratched CD.
You already have the right to copy your CDs for personal backup. The burden is on you to do so.
I wonder when the first lawsuit over consumer rights and ownership of 'lost' music files will be?
About the time some lawyer gets dumb enough to attack Apple's policy that what the thing you own is the bits you've downloaded and the right to listen to them.
What if my computer is lost, or the data corrupted? With a CD I can always re-rip, but with just the MP3 file it would be gone forever...
iTunes does nothing to prevent you from copying the music onto any form of backup media, be it a CD, DVD, another computer, twenty other computers, an external disk, an FTP server, a tape, or a bunch of floppies. If you're not doing this already for your other valuable data, you've only yourself to blame. iTunes even has CD/DVD (data) burning built-in, so you really don't have much excuse.
As are M4P files. They're just regular old files that happen to contain music in an ecrypted form. You can back them up as easily as any other data. Copy them to a CD (as data, not audio) or other form of backup and you're safe as kittens.
An expense is incurred in reproducing a physical object. Not so in duplicating a downloadable MP3.
Which is why the smart thing to do, instead of bitching and moaning that iTunes should let you re-download things, is to just back your music up yourself, as you would any other important files.
People seem to forget that iTunes DRM doesn't prevent you from copying the file as many times as you like.
Actually, if half the people here *had* a clue, they'd realize that "open source" is not something owned by hackers or anyone else.
And this story isn't about two different groups trying to own the term?
I'll conced that open source can be a generic term, but I have yet to see a reason why political bloggers, and the companies they form, should co-opt it. As it stands it seems more like shameless coattail riding than a natual choice. If they are offering transparent journalism or reliable reporting, why can't they call it that?
Seriously - until the advent of this sort of open source media...blah blah blah
I didn't deny that political blogging exists. It does, and it would still exist if people called it "flapperdang zipperdoodle", or anything other than "open source". I just think it'd be nice if people called it something meaningful ("political blogging" has a nice ring to it) instead of diluting an existing term.
That's why what OSM is doing *is* open source. It's just reporting and news analysis in this case, and it's an exciting change that is going to fundamentally alter the reliability of media for the better(and may well ultimately significantly diminish the ability of all parties to "spin" events) for a long time to come.
It sounds to me more like a way of reinventing the mainstream media that it claims to replace.
Starting a for-profit company with millions of dollars in capital with the intention of hand-picking a network of blogs sounds a less like open source and a lot more like the heavily biased media companies we already have plenty of.
I would go so far as to suggest that OSM Media, LLC's ultimate intention, like most of the other "blog networks" springing up, is to be bought out by some large media company or another: "We anticipate that Pajamas Media will have a profound and positive market impact due to its outstanding team and unique business approach. We believe successful industry trends such as AOL's acquisition of Weblogs validates the emergence of blogging as an important new media market. This financing will allow the company to accelerate its growth and solidify its market position." -- Pajamas Media Closes $3.5 Million Venture Round.
How long until every parent asks why little Johnny or little Mary isn't in the "gifted" program.
About -8 years, in my experience. During my freshman year of high school, the county-wide "gifted" program "reorganized", deciding that there was that there were a fixed number of gifted students each year, and that the best way to identify them would be to get them to submit an application. Previously-involved students like myself would have to apply, as would anybody who just wanted to pad their college applications.
I, boiling with angst anyway, saw that this was utter bullshit and opted out.
This was the genesis of my belief that gifted programs are a crock of shit, and that schools should treat everyone like the genius they were born as. Barring that idealism, I began to believe that the best way to deal with gifted students in the existing school system is to tell them to drop out as soon as possible.
I don't know anybody who's public school 'gifted program' gave them what they really needed, self expression.
Indeed. I think the reason is that, were schools to acknowledge the importance of self-expression in so-called 'gifted' kids, it would highlight the devastating influence they have over it in 'non-gifted' kids. The whole system revolves around the idea that things like self-expression and initiative should be electives, while the ability to follow orders and accept meaningless work form the core curriculum. It's much easier to justify treating everyone like the idiot you want them to be than treating everyone like the genius they are.
The dumbest thing about this story is that neither OSM Media, LLC, or Open Source Media, Inc. or Open Source, the show, have anything to do with Open Source Software, a much more meaningful and established term.
Quoth them: "We consider Open Source Media to be a description of what we are and do, not a trade name.", "We chose the name "Open Source" because it signals the way we produce radio and web content."
Apparently "Open Source" now means blogging about politics. Who knew?
Many people, including myself, have said time and again that openOffice should not be copying Microsoft Office, but instead try to be original and just be a great office suite.
That's insane! We need a boring, uncompelling, Microsoft-like office suite to run in our boring, uncompelling, Windows-like desktop environments! That's what open source is all about!
Just like they knew what they were doing when they designed everything around "Task Panes"? Or those yellow speech bubbles that pop up from every other icon? Or when they made Clippy? Or any of the other genius ideas that have done nothing but confuse and annoy new and old users alike?
Office 12's interface might have some nice ideas, but I don't trust Microsoft's hype. Until I find some reason to think otherwise, I'm going to assume that this is yet another in a long string of over-hyped crap that is going to confuse and annoy more people than it helps.
"Apple is planning to release its first entry-level iBook laptops with Intel processors next January at Macworld Expo in San Francisco, highly reliable sources have confirmed to Think Secret."
This takes three bits of well-known information--that Apple will release something at Macworld like they always do; that they will release some kind of Intel-based machine in 2006; and that they happen to sell a computer called an iBook--and just sticks them together. You don't need "highly reliable sources" for that. Hell, we know Think Secret doesn't have highly reliable sources, because when they did, they got sued.
So if Apple releases something else at Macworld, or some other Intel-based machine first, Think Secret will claim that these phantom iBooks were merely delayed. Because that's what you do when you're into making shit up. You don't ever admit to it.
Slashdot Mirror
Mirecki recently sent an e-mail to members of a student organization in which he referred to religious conservatives as "fundies" and said a course depicting intelligent design as mythology would be a "nice slap in their big fat face." He later apologized, and did so again Thursday in a statement issued by the university."
It's funny how people fully support this kind of forthright talk about any number of groups when it's done by politically-motivated radio and television personalities with license to broadcast over public airwaves to millions of people, but when a man with a doctorate of theology uses similar language in an email discussion with the atheist student group to whom he is an advisor, it causes an uproar.
The specific AMD technology leads over Intel right now are.... ...not what was implied by your previous post.
The newest AMD Fab was built for 65 nm and can later move to 45 nm.
That doesn't change the fact that it is 90nm today, and will be until at least late next year.
I'm not going to bother mentioning out all of the things you're overlooking, because I don't really care one way or another about Intel or AMD, but I will point out that for someone apparently concerned about fanboyism, you sound a lot like a fanboy.
Isn't the fact that a laptop chip is even being *compared* to a dual core desktop chip in terms of power consumption quite worrying?
It is a desktop chip. The entire system was identical, save for the motherboard and obviously the chip. Looks like someone didn't actually read what they're saying.
And for that same "little big less power" they're getting a "little bit less speed"? I thought this was all about performance per Watt?
40 watts is not "a little bit less power". And equal performance without an on-die memory controller is not "a little less speed".
It's hardly surprising that Intel is moving to more cores with 65 and 45 nm. AMD started doing that two years ago.
The point is that Intel is actually producing 65nm chips in quantity right now. AMD is not: even Fab 36 is still 90nm. Your statement that AMD has "at least a one-year lead" is outright false.
I just dont understand how people can think it looks good to have bright pink text and a purple background overlayed with a floating image while forcing you to listen to music and squint past the animations.
People think it looks good because they made it, and it reflects who they are. It's just an continuation of the usual adolecent identity-formation. The same desire that teenagers have to dress the same way as their friends and decorate their rooms with posters of bands they like extends equally onto the web. They haven't learned to internalize "Who Am I?", so they wear it all outwardly -- who you are is dependent on what you wear, what you listen to, and what your MySpace page looks like. This mostly fades with age, but not entirely. I think most of us carry some amount of adolecent stupidity around with us.
Facebook will probably never be as bad as MySpace in that regard. College-age kids start to identify more by things that they do or accomplishments than just appearances. It can be just as stupid, but it's at least not as shrill.
Are people doing that?? I mean, creating their own shows and distributing them for iPod users?
Yes. Some talk about Digg. Some of them are robots. And some of them are naked.
Sure, from the outset it sounds like a good idea, but think about it from a practical standpoint and it suddenly becomes a bad idea.
Most technical innovation involves taking something impractical and making it practical. This really doesn't sound like anything that a handful of resonably intellegent designers and engineers can't handle. Add to this the probability that they have access to newer 65nm-process chips and it becomes quite plausible.
The big IF is, will they price it for the market or let their ego do the pricing?
Apple does price for the market, and the market pays.
When people complain that Apple's products are "overpriced", what they mean is "I don't want it (at that price)". You are part of the market, not the market. Just because you don't want to buy at that price doesn't mean that plenty of other people will. Apple has trouble keeping up with demand for many of it's products as it is. If demand slips over time, as it invariably does with computer products, they will adjust pricing to offer either a new product for the same price or the same product for a lower price. This is completely normal and not, as you say, "ego".
"Ego" would be assuming that one's individual contribution to demand constitutes that of the whole market.
Typical extrovert thinking... "hey why don't you get drunk then you'd have fun just like me". I don't blame you for thinking that, an extrovert can't help it, they have no chance of understanding what makes an introvert tick because not only do we not care to spend the time to tell you, but you won't sit still long enough to hear it.
Wow, what an asshole. I say that as someone who is introverted as all hell.
It's one thing to know what you enjoy and what you don't enjoy; it's another to assume that what other people do is especially different from what you do, and therefore inferior. I don't understand how you can take one person's suggestion that alcohol can make socializing easier (as has been known for centuries) to accusing them of "mindless verbal diahhorea" and "hitting on anything with legs", as if that encompassed all social activity available to people other than you.
Uh, dude, I don't know where you've been, but the entire fucking point of DRM is to artificially limit your copying privilidges so you get inconvenienced in this way.
You do not know what you're talking about.
iTunes' DRM does not prevent me from doing any of the things I described. I know because I do them. I only mentioned that iTunes has data CD burning built-in to show that it's really easy. You do not need to use iTunes to back up the files. You do not need to defeat the DRM to back up the files. You can make a million copies of the files without even thinking about the DRM.
But according to the DMCA, I don't have the right to circumvent any DRM that may be imposed on it, so how the fuck am I supposed to back it up legally?
You don't have to circumvent the DRM to back it up. A file is a file. You can copy it over and over and over again. The DRM only matters when you try to play it; and for that you only need the email/password you purchased the tracks with.
I'd hand them a blank CD and tell them to use that. If I can buy hundreds of CDs for less than $10, they better not even think about charging me for a replacement. I'm sure they get CDs for less than $0.001 per CD, so they should be able to replace your occasional scratched CD.
You already have the right to copy your CDs for personal backup. The burden is on you to do so.
I wonder when the first lawsuit over consumer rights and ownership of 'lost' music files will be?
About the time some lawyer gets dumb enough to attack Apple's policy that what the thing you own is the bits you've downloaded and the right to listen to them.
What if my computer is lost, or the data corrupted? With a CD I can always re-rip, but with just the MP3 file it would be gone forever...
iTunes does nothing to prevent you from copying the music onto any form of backup media, be it a CD, DVD, another computer, twenty other computers, an external disk, an FTP server, a tape, or a bunch of floppies. If you're not doing this already for your other valuable data, you've only yourself to blame. iTunes even has CD/DVD (data) burning built-in, so you really don't have much excuse.
CDs are easily backed up.
As are M4P files. They're just regular old files that happen to contain music in an ecrypted form. You can back them up as easily as any other data. Copy them to a CD (as data, not audio) or other form of backup and you're safe as kittens.
An expense is incurred in reproducing a physical object. Not so in duplicating a downloadable MP3.
Which is why the smart thing to do, instead of bitching and moaning that iTunes should let you re-download things, is to just back your music up yourself, as you would any other important files.
People seem to forget that iTunes DRM doesn't prevent you from copying the file as many times as you like.
Actually, if half the people here *had* a clue, they'd realize that "open source" is not something owned by hackers or anyone else.
And this story isn't about two different groups trying to own the term?
I'll conced that open source can be a generic term, but I have yet to see a reason why political bloggers, and the companies they form, should co-opt it. As it stands it seems more like shameless coattail riding than a natual choice. If they are offering transparent journalism or reliable reporting, why can't they call it that?
Seriously - until the advent of this sort of open source media...blah blah blah
I didn't deny that political blogging exists. It does, and it would still exist if people called it "flapperdang zipperdoodle", or anything other than "open source". I just think it'd be nice if people called it something meaningful ("political blogging" has a nice ring to it) instead of diluting an existing term.
That's why what OSM is doing *is* open source. It's just reporting and news analysis in this case, and it's an exciting change that is going to fundamentally alter the reliability of media for the better(and may well ultimately significantly diminish the ability of all parties to "spin" events) for a long time to come.
It sounds to me more like a way of reinventing the mainstream media that it claims to replace.
Starting a for-profit company with millions of dollars in capital with the intention of hand-picking a network of blogs sounds a less like open source and a lot more like the heavily biased media companies we already have plenty of.
I would go so far as to suggest that OSM Media, LLC's ultimate intention, like most of the other "blog networks" springing up, is to be bought out by some large media company or another: "We anticipate that Pajamas Media will have a profound and positive market impact due to its outstanding team and unique business approach. We believe successful industry trends such as AOL's acquisition of Weblogs validates the emergence of blogging as an important new media market. This financing will allow the company to accelerate its growth and solidify its market position." -- Pajamas Media Closes $3.5 Million Venture Round.
How long until every parent asks why little Johnny or little Mary isn't in the "gifted" program.
About -8 years, in my experience. During my freshman year of high school, the county-wide "gifted" program "reorganized", deciding that there was that there were a fixed number of gifted students each year, and that the best way to identify them would be to get them to submit an application. Previously-involved students like myself would have to apply, as would anybody who just wanted to pad their college applications.
I, boiling with angst anyway, saw that this was utter bullshit and opted out.
This was the genesis of my belief that gifted programs are a crock of shit, and that schools should treat everyone like the genius they were born as. Barring that idealism, I began to believe that the best way to deal with gifted students in the existing school system is to tell them to drop out as soon as possible.
I don't know anybody who's public school 'gifted program' gave them what they really needed, self expression.
Indeed. I think the reason is that, were schools to acknowledge the importance of self-expression in so-called 'gifted' kids, it would highlight the devastating influence they have over it in 'non-gifted' kids. The whole system revolves around the idea that things like self-expression and initiative should be electives, while the ability to follow orders and accept meaningless work form the core curriculum. It's much easier to justify treating everyone like the idiot you want them to be than treating everyone like the genius they are.
The dumbest thing about this story is that neither OSM Media, LLC, or Open Source Media, Inc. or Open Source, the show, have anything to do with Open Source Software, a much more meaningful and established term.
Quoth them: "We consider Open Source Media to be a description of what we are and do, not a trade name.", "We chose the name "Open Source" because it signals the way we produce radio and web content."
Apparently "Open Source" now means blogging about politics. Who knew?
Is it me or does the latest version not allow you to disable the display of the iTunes music store?
It's you.
It's under "Parental".
Many people, including myself, have said time and again that openOffice should not be copying Microsoft Office, but instead try to be original and just be a great office suite.
That's insane! We need a boring, uncompelling, Microsoft-like office suite to run in our boring, uncompelling, Windows-like desktop environments! That's what open source is all about!
Their UI people know what they're doing.
Just like they knew what they were doing when they designed everything around "Task Panes"? Or those yellow speech bubbles that pop up from every other icon? Or when they made Clippy? Or any of the other genius ideas that have done nothing but confuse and annoy new and old users alike?
Office 12's interface might have some nice ideas, but I don't trust Microsoft's hype. Until I find some reason to think otherwise, I'm going to assume that this is yet another in a long string of over-hyped crap that is going to confuse and annoy more people than it helps.
"Apple is planning to release its first entry-level iBook laptops with Intel processors next January at Macworld Expo in San Francisco, highly reliable sources have confirmed to Think Secret."
This takes three bits of well-known information--that Apple will release something at Macworld like they always do; that they will release some kind of Intel-based machine in 2006; and that they happen to sell a computer called an iBook--and just sticks them together. You don't need "highly reliable sources" for that. Hell, we know Think Secret doesn't have highly reliable sources, because when they did, they got sued.
So if Apple releases something else at Macworld, or some other Intel-based machine first, Think Secret will claim that these phantom iBooks were merely delayed. Because that's what you do when you're into making shit up. You don't ever admit to it.
Finally, WB-AOL needs an "Internet Extender." IP based set-top box that connects to your TV.
A box that allows you to watch television on your television? I think I can get behind that.
For me it is not a catch, it is the technology that allows WB to broadcast these videos on internet.
Indeed, nobody ever broadcasts video on the internet without P2P.