Extortion generally needs an illegal act in the attempt to gain what you want.
If the guy is telling the truth about the laptop and it is not illegal for him to post the pictures (I don't have any idea what the law is) then there should be no problem. In fact, I would say way to go. That *should* be part of free speech and consumer laws.
This is closer to a store selling you equipment and you protesting with pictures/signs out front until they refund your money. If your claim is true (in this case the laptop was defective and he refused to refund the money) - oh well, perfectly legal and should be (well, at least in the US, I don't know about the UK). He sold him the stuff so it's now his to do with as he pleases.
If the buyer is lieing trying to get his laptop for free, then he should get screwed (and it would then be extortion, the illegal act being libel).
I don't know which way it is, one is funny and a person getting what they deserve, the other the buyer needs to get hit with a baseball bat. Of course, if it turns out the buyer is lieing, he is probably financially ruined from damages as wide an exposure as this is getting.
"You're inaccurate at best in several places. Please tell me this is just stuff you picked up by reading the internet, and not the result of a formal mathematics education."
Formal, sorta (CS major, not math), and it's been 15 years and I don't use it (well, I do CS realted math, just not the rest).
"First, the Cantor set is a fractal. You're thinking of Cantor's diagonal argument."
Yes, pretty much, I don't remember the distinction being made. Maybe it was.
"Also, there aren't more rational numbers than there are whole numbers; both are countably infinite. A bijection (one-to-one and onto mapping) can be established by considering rationals as ordered pairs of natural numbers and enumerating thusly. You're thinking of real numbers, which are not countably infinite."
Correct, if you will notice in my signature I'm dyslexic. One of the issues is confusing words, if you note I did write real numbers in the example and wrote rationals (I thought the correct thing, wrote/read the wrong thing. I would have said it backwards also), I can not read it as wrong unless I go back a few days later and read it or someone points it out. Sorry, not much I can do about it however much I would like too. It made some classes/professions impossible to persue.
"Okay, now you've switched from rational to real numbers. But your example still proves nothing. The fact that the function you made up fails to be a bijection doesn't prove that no such bijection exists. By analogy:"
Again, this I know. I was attempting to condense it enough for someone who doesn't know to get some idea and make it obvious the pattern I was using in the example. Obviously you don't like the example (not proof, I know it was not one) and would prefer something more formal. But then, most get the gist of what I'm saying, you need the formal education to get the real explaination. It is just the same as saying "one infinite is bigger than the other" isn't exactly correct either yet it's introduced as that by many many people. If you go start talking about cardinality you will loose 99.9% of the people you are talking too unless speaking to mathmaticians (of which I'm not, I stopped not much further than the classes where I had this).
The rest of your stuff, again, is very accurate. But I wasn't trying to be that accurate, just to get the basic idea across. Too much formality makes it hard for others to understand, not formal means there are going to be omissions/errors. What I wrote above has served well in the past to "normal" people to get the idea across, any more and they don't follow.
Though I'll try and remember not to call them cantor sets in the future, real/rational is something that I always have and always will be confused on which one means what (though I do understand the concepts).
"Not exactly; the unsolved problem that Cantor never found the solution to was the continuum hypothesis; he asked if there was a space with cardinality between that of the natural numbers (countably infinite) and that of the real numbers (the continuum). It turns out that there answer is independent of standard set theory; it works with it true, and it works with it false. But this is a pretty abstract question, and not as earth-shattering as the initial discovery that there are more reals than there are rational numbers."
We had been told it was trying to find other cardinality than aleph 0 and aleph 1, including the one you said and greater ones. *shrug* I always took that statement (going insane over it, not that he was looking to prove them) to be half or more legend anyway.
It's called Cantor sets, there are more rational numbers than there are whole numbers.
For a really simple example (there are more formal ones out there) take the following series:
1--1.1000... 2--1.0100... 3--1.0010... x--1+1/(1*10^x) where x is an integer
As you can see, for every single integer there is a corresponding real number. This list is one-to-one but not onto, the list on the right will never have 1.2 in it's list, therefore there *must* be more real numbers than there are integers. In fact, it turns out that there are an infinatly greater amount of real numbers than there are integers.
Don't go to far with this though, I understand that Gregory Cantor went insane trying to find the next greater space:)
When it very first started occuring our university IT department thought they had contracted some virus. Of course, it was some student trying to do thier homework, getting the first click, and then trying to find a machine on campus that would read thier work. For years they would come in waves - replaced all of them, one gets to clicking and then that student deperatly tries to get thier project off of it.
For quite a while lab monitors were *very* diligent in listening for clicks, signs were all over the lab, and they eventually just got rid of them. When I left you e-mailed it to your department account, downloaded the attachment to a local mcahine, did your work then e-mailed it back (basically using the e-mail server for storage). The machines were ghosted to a clean state after each student left the station. I don't know what they do now, that was quite a few years ago and about the best solution available outside of the zip drive at the time.
That's the way we did it. The only class where the teachers cared what tools you used to produce the software was one of the Software Engineering course and that was only because as pretend managers we had to evaluate and choose what tools our teams would use. Still, it didn't really matter what tools we choose, as long as we justified it and that part of the project was more about how to choose the correct tool instead of using that tool. IIRC correctly our file processing class required use of the UNIX workstations (the only other time a tools was required), but we were free to install our own stuff in our directories, but most used VI/emacs and gcc. Though Visual C++ was the "official" devel environment, that just meant all the profs were familiar with it and could answer questions *after class*.
We gave the teacher a print out that most of the grading was done on and a disk (later e-mail a zip instead of the disk, was in college during the 90's and the shift towards that mode) for them to run against thier data sets.
In fact, the very first day of intro to comp sci we were told this is a programming course, not a program course. It's our responsibility to learn to use our tools (language was specified, but you could usually ask and write it in something else).
During my stay at ORNL we had around 15 students - all of them were the same as me. Never even really occured to me a "real" comp sci course (word processor usage and anything involving a computer was also in the CSCI courses) would teach you how to use a program, IDE or otherwise.
Really, as you say, if they are teaching you to use and IDE they are wasting time they could spend on actually writing software. IDE's change, what you start with in college will not be useful when you graduate for the msot part, but *how* to write programs is independant of an IDE or not (plus if you are using wizards for programming before junior/senior level courses you getting screwed on your programming education). You can even forgoe the computer all the way for many classes, though I do prefer that *some* programs are written.
"If you really want to do something good for the US stand up and proclaim that you want better education systems!"
Why not do both? It's not like we have "support US based companies" XOR "demand better education". I don't know about you, but I'm not so simple I can only hold the one thought inside my head, I rather suspect you aren't either and are just using this as a snide remark. Plus I suspect that the original poster would also like a better educational system.
Even with the concept of relative advantage (and yes, I know more about it than what you wrote, I've had more than an introductory course in economics) it's not really clear which is better. Of course this is assuming that US based companies aren't screwing the govt over with costs because they *have* to purchase from them (something that is rarely true, but there is no reason this must be true - just like poor education it is something we allow ourselves).
"It captures the attention of the masses, and somebody steps up and says 'I want one of those' and somebody else steps up and says 'I want one something like that' and somebody else steps up and says 'I want one of those!' and the manufacturing of solar panels goes into overdrive and the price comes down and the capability goes up and its affordable to make solar powered buses and the city does that and makes them free for use to cut down on the traffic fumes and all of a sudden your life is better."
And this is done because a plane flies around the world or a boat goes around it? No, I don't think so - we don't see a big boom of wind powered stuff because a sailboat made it around. So, now everyone see's it, "Cool, I want one", you get one and it stays in your garage because there is no where to use it. Boat, maybe but that's a long shot - plane, nope, no one is gonna care.
Now, if someone made a solar powered jet ski, drove across the country in a reasonable amount of time on soloar, or something that people would actually care about then your scenario would work. But this isn't going to raise awareness or desire much at all. It's a good research project and a god challenge, but it's not gonna do anything. Plus I rather suspect you will not hear about it much outside of places like here.
"Its quite a big deal to reach those kind of speeds in a boat."
Hmm, I guess I need to sell mine then since it's radical. Gotta get rid of my seadoo also. Both of them reach the 60mph speed pretty easily. Maybe your stuff is too old, my boat was manufactured in the early 90's and the seadoo in 2001, newer stuff reaches those speeds even easier and with more stability. You need to move into at least the last 20 years. Maybe look at something like this or one of these with a 225 or 250 2-stroke that exceedes emission standards (nice geeky engine there). All of them will easily hit the 60mph mark.
"Its not like getting into a car and putting your foot down,"
Your right, the seadoo has a little lever you pull and the boat has a lever you push forward, nothing like putting my foot down
"think about what would happen to your car if there were 10cm bumps in the road, and 10cm bumps in the water is nothing."
I don't have to think much about it - I even know what happens when you get into the 50cm waves, heck I've even been on a lake during windstorm with 60mph sustained winds with 90-121cm waves. On the seadoo the 30-50cm waves beat you prety hard, on a decently made speed boat you hardly notice them.
All you have to is watch a fishing show or two and you will regulary see boats into the 60-70mph on lakes, many of them aren't even V hulls and bounce alot more.
Ok I'm bored and am going to complain about a slashdot summary - yes I know...
"Both groups hope to bring greater attention to solar power, which they believe is more appropriate for alternative transportation than for automobiles."
What? That doesn't make any sense. How does a plane flying around the world or a boat floating around the world affect my commute? I don't know about you guys but solar vs gas isn't what stops me from driving a boat or plane to work. That would be cool, commutes would be fun instead of boring traffic, though I bet if everyone did it there would be crashes galore (especially the planes). Plus - why do we have to choose solar power or cars - what I want a solar powered car?
To be fair, one of the teams (boats), for some reason seems to make this comparison. I doubt there are many places where what they say is feasable. I don't care how effecient solar boats are - I can't drive one to work and I bet very very very few people in the whole freaking world can (of course, there are some - but then I bet alot of them do so to avoid traffic. It's no big deal to hit 60-70 in a boat and no traffic, not to mention the "fun" factor. I know I would do so in a heart beat).
As to what the parent article said - I don't see why this makes a difference in perception. I find the challenge pretty neat and plan to follow it (no problems there - great geeky/tech story), but making it happen doesn't really change my commute in any way. Jeese, a wind powered boat made a world wide traversal a few hundred years ago (continent to continent a few thousand years ago) - doesn't make wind powered cars any more useful or practical. A solar transversal isn't going to change much either. Again - not that I don't think this is useful or neat (anything that advances our understanding is worth it - I'm fully aware that solving thier problems may lead to some great advances and wish them great success - I want to see our dependancy on oil vanish for a variety of reasons), if thier goal is to raise perception of solar powered commute this isn't the way.
Back to geeking out - my bet is on the plane. Unless it's *really* slow I can't see it beating the boat. Especially given the plane can fly a fairly straight line (even with air space restrictions) compared to the boat. As to which will be made first - my bet is the boat. If the motor fails you still get to float, a plane loosing power is deadly.
Not that I particularly care for this happenening or think it can't happen here - but why would US mail tampering laws be enforced in the UK? I'm assuming you just missed the "UK" part and don't want the US to enforce it's laws onto other countries.
Unfortunatly in this case it's also not fedex doing it but customs officials so your whole point (fedex violating what should be law) is moot anyway. I'm betting FedEx doesn't much care for this either (cuts thier profits to increase another companies profits, I can't imagine any business liking that too much).
Up until a short while ago I helped run/maintain a few large compute clusters. Once the systems were up (or the manufacturer did what we said) the bios set to pxe boot was the easiest. with an invalid MBR and they updated to the new image or did thier initial instal.
Barring that, it was far easier to use floppies. Didn't need to turn on several hundred, place the disks in, close the thing, and then reboot - you could push in all the disks and reboot. Not to mention that floppy drives are signifigantly cheaper than cd-roms - especially useful when you are looking at purchasing hundreds or thousands of computers. The floppies tended to work quicker too, again something that matters when you get to large enough intallation.
For indivdual workstation installs I agree, but there is a HUGE area of the world outside of that. You know, many of us aren't as stupid as you seem to think. But hey - this (hubris) is what slashdot is all about right?
Plus, at home, for somethings the floppy is just more reliable. I have computers both with and without them. There are times I wish mine without them had one. Yes, it's rare, and yes there is always a workaround, but that doesn't negate that sometimes it' still the easiest solution.
Just because something *can* be done doesn't mean it is the best solution - nor does old mean it is bad either. We *could* have booted several hundred machines from a keyring USB flash device.
You are assuming something that most likely isn't true - they are not doing this to promote sales (at least directly).
They are doing this to protect thier market. It's been said many times - file sharing does an end-run around them. Without thier lock on distribution they are nothing. It doesn't matter if it's legal for a band to distribute music outside of them if every distribution means is illegal. It's sorta like not being able to ban firearms but (since it's not mentioned directly by the constitution) banning all ammunition. This argument is also like telling people who eat meat that the animal died for us to eat - uh, yea, so? To those that buy that argument it makes all the difference in the world, to those that don't it's no more persuasive than saying "The sky is normally blue colored".
Even if they piss 50% of thier customer base off, it's better than having 0 customers. Thus pointing out that they are alienating customers is irrelevant - that's has nothing to do with their goals.
Not to mention they get *another* talking point (declining sales because of piracy) when pushing for legislation. Never mind that their tactics are what is causing the decline - thier tactics are forced on them by music pirates (and, to some extent, that is true).
From thier point of view it's a win-win scenario. Loosing customers because of thier tactics just locks them into a stronger position to be the *only* place to get music. If they are the *only* source then you have no choice if you want music. They are taking an All-or-Nothing tactic.
Unfortunatly they are not going to be able to do what they want. I keep the "unfortunatly" universal because it sucks for everyone until they face up to reality (and will suck for some even at the end). Even if you do not agree, think it sucks, or any other thing it is irrelevant (and I even agree - copyrights are important, though they have gone too far). If you slip and fall off a cliff you will think it sucks and are 100% correct - however that still will not prevent the sudden stop at the end. You gotta work with what you have, not what you want, wish, or think is Right. To do anything else assures death.
The last supposed "high security" place I worked (Oak Ridge National Labs) had a pretty sane password scheme - computer generated every 6 months or year (too long ago, I do not remember now). They generated a big list and you picked one so you could get one you could remember. It was good combination of stuff, not really something that was attackable by a dictionary and they watched external requests pretty hard (ad most of the service providers did also).
But, the problem was that every single hack/intrusion we knew of (either on our machines or lab wide) had nothing to do with password and all to do with users desktops on SSH key management. Everyone wanted symetric keys so they never needed to type a passphrase of password. No one wanted to mess with keeping thier computer updated. So once one computer was violated nearly all in the lab were - even those of us who tried to patch and watch were brought down by what the users demanded. We were really damned when an offsite place (say a university) was weak and a user had symmetric keys installed.
That ended up being a VERY difficult issue to educate on - it's a fairly abstract idea. Very very very few of the people there were unintelligent but few were educated enough in that field to even really understand the issues (no reason why a chemist should understand key management any more than I should know how carbon rings react in some random environment). Password management is pretty obvious, heck many of us even had "secret" clubs in elementary school that did similar stuff. However strong encrypted keys tend to be something different, offering the ease of no password and the security of really strong ones (when done correctly). It take some amount of knowledge to "get it" along with thinking about having the private keys stored in unsafe places.
*shrug* I think that password management (in secure business processes) is becoming much less important. Even hotel reservation systems are mostly moving over to SSH and key management. For logging into your credit card service? SSH key and passphrase is great. For much of business practice, as SSH and similar type things become the standard password management this is MUCH more important. Right now we are horrid in that area of education.
Less articles about password management, if it has not been beat into your head by now you are a lost cause. Lets spend some time on key management and other security issues that are becoming MUCH more useful.
At some point you just can't see the difference - if you do it's all in your head. Many things "gamers" (I'm a gamer, I just try and be reasonable about what I need) think they need are irrelevant. How many people try and push the FPS up but are running a monitor at 60hz? I've known people to spend thousands on a system and brag about getting 200-300 fps on some FPS and about how smooth it looks compared to 120 fps (all while running 60-80hz refresh). I've seen people talk about being able to bit depths that we just can not see (or more colors than your monitor can display) and how much more vibrant they are.
As long as someone can come up with a way to enumerate something people will want the better numbers and think it makes "the experience" better. Many think they need it, think they can tell a difference. But if they were to do a double blind test they would find they are simply wrong (but, having done that a time or two with people I can assure it will not change many minds).
That being said, the original poster is talking home markets which really doesn't drive the market as much as most home computing people think. Even if it did, gamers drive that market. So just because it's enough for watching your home movies, looking at your pictures, browsing the web, and other general home use doesn't mean there would be no more advances. Even now many general home computer users are realising that they hit saturation in what they can do a few years ago and are starting to complain about having to upgrade to do the same thing, in the same speed, and same quality.
Idustrial/commercial/research is a whole other story. Some of the human genome people are working with "small" (compared to the whole) subsets of thier data coming in at 10's of terabytes. Large multinational corperations are seeing petabytes of usage. So the need is even currently there in the cash flush markets.
In the future, with enough storage, bandwidth, and system memory it starts to become possible to simulate physical systems at the molecular level. Businesses can store very detailed customer data for very long periods of time (yes yes, I know some do not like it and it may not fall into the "good" category - but it is still something that drives the tech industry). Lots of large scale applications become available. We are no where near being at "what can I do with that much storage" in large applications, we are still cutting many things out we want to do.
As far as I know there is no "silver bullet" out there. That is, there is no clean great solution (clean and cheap enough to not drive tech companies out of business). Recylcing isn't that clean, dumps aren't that clean, and even if sending old computers to poor areas that they are still "fast" works now it eventually will not. If there is then I will agree to push to legislate it.
While I will not purchase from known pulluters if possible (as is my right to choose), I can't say I blame companies if a country out there says "Send me your crap - we will take care of it cheap". I don't see how one can feel justified in controlling international trade in ways they like but not in ways they do not as "like" tends to be personal and arbitrary (even if your line in the sand is pollution the next person may be "terrorism" or something else). You get control or no control - personally I choose as little control as possible and only where a clear line is.
Even then you need a clear plan in opposition - we have the discarded computers and "Can't do anything with them" isn't a solution (they have to do something with them). Yes, maybe it's REALLY bad for the environment but the stuff is there and we have to do something.
In this you can not make a clear line in the sand, only a random one where you feel it needs to be. Nothing really wrong with that other than many will have other random lines in the sand (and you do not get angry and worked up because someone has a different line in the sand).
Eh, anyway, this has been a known issue even in the early 90's when I first got into computing - I assume it was known before then, although I do not know how long before (my guess is even in the early days of computing).
Finally, don't take this as a too negative post. If you have a solution that allows companies to stay in business and is clean - by all means propose it and I'll support it. This isn't anything close to something I keep up with, only through news blurbs. Every one I see is complaints, no solutions. Complaints are OK as long there is a solution - I have been going bald since my early 20s, complaining about it hasn't stopped anything. Sometimes every choice sucks and you choose the least sucky (for instance, cost and effectiveness for baldness cure is horrid, thus best option is to accept it and go on unless you are one of the unusal individual that it works for).
"Don't you think that this provides some sort of proof of what so many people here have been saying? "
Not so much, as others pointed out it was more a marketing thing and is a single song. I would bet with the correct marketing you get get a number one song to be sold only in a cereal box.
I figure the proof is more along the lines of iTunes - much broader and much less harder to argue with. It's long term, broad, and profitable.
IMO fine for the special sections of slashdot, probably not up to main page. But, as I said, I've been here long enough to know it's their show, they decide, and they don't care what we think (and, to note, were I doing this website I would most likely have the same opinion).
It should be noted the whole thing you are replying too is an aside and a weak one at that. My point (which I figured would be modded to -1, anti-Americanism is popular here) was that the anti-american post was doing exactly what he was accusing Americans of doing. Didn't figure it would do any good, but was bored so posted anyway. I tend to find it more amusing than anything.
Your solution assumes the user doesn't behave too badly and is trying to avoid it.
It fails when you get a user who randomly clicks on the screen when something fails, doesn't understand (and refuses to) what popups are so they click on *all* of them, basically just does almost everything wrong and is what these people prey on.
Now, in a business you may be able to say "screw you" but your spouse? Parents? Kids? Maybe even a neigbor that does enough other work for you that you feel obligated to "fix" thier computer. Much harder to do - your stuck with em and some of those categories are in a position to ignore any ranting you choose to do (and in some cases may even "show you who is right" and explicitly do what makes you angry). Heck, sometimes it's a choice in your job of that or quit.
Your choices become a) severely limit thier access (not usually an option, but sometimes setting them up as a un-privledged user is an option), b) put up with it, or c) use some sort of imaging tool to reverse thier idiocy. Of those option "c" is the easiest, most effective, and can even get you out of many arguments (especially if you set the computer up such that they don't really know what you are doing).
Spoken like a true Anti-American - unable to even notice that they have something loged sideways up thier ass. At least we know we do.
The guy figured that "number one song" isn't really news for nerds and such (I would tend to agree, though not enough to warrent a post - been here long enough to know it's not my opinion that matters).
It might interest you to know that we know very well there are other people and the world doesn't revolve around you any more than it does us.
You might want to look in the mirror before you post like this again. You immediatly jumped to the "American are self centered idiots who don't think about *me*!" idea.
We are starting to recover in the smallest markets. We are finally getting rid of the final vestiges of people who were in it totally for the money and salaries are starting to stablise. It takes several years for it to trickle down to us.
Even then it's tough to get a job if you graduated in the height of the dot com boom and lost your job in the worst of it (especially in small markets like where I live and are in the position I am in - though my personal timing has nothing to do with the.com stuff). Having a second one isn't going to help matters any - I want a moderatly stable job with a decent salary. If you get a.com type of thing save up and don't become greedy, it's not going to last.
For the sake of the industry I hope not - one would think that people learned in the last one. While it's not so bad on the large stable markets it kills the smaller ones.
When I first started geting into hotter peppers I knew not what most of them looked like. I had to go by the labels at the store. Interested in the next level up I purchased some "serrano" peppers - they were small orange wrinkly peppers (the habenero bin had small smooth skinned green peppers). I took them home and chopped up two of them for a salad, placed them in the lettuece, and felt the urge to go to the bathroom. Upon the "aiming" phase of the process I kinda figured out something was wrong when the searing pain began to build, and build, and build, and build, and build - for quite a while (seranno don't rate high enough for me to bother with gloves). Went and looked up the pictures and discovered some kind person at the grocery store had swapped the habanero bin and the seranno pepper bin.
I actually ate and ejoyed the salad after removing some of the pulp, I had ate hot suaces in the past up to over 200,000 scoville so the heat wasn't so much an an issue there, I just found it best to not go to the top in the beginning, you never know. However, I do not wish to undergo the spread upon my privates ever again.
The statement is that most of the people who want to regulate/ban video games are not educated enough to make that decision. Not that those who don't play them don't like them.
There are many areas where this happens. The anti-technology crowd, the anti-gun crowd, and many others. Some are well read, but raed bad information. For example from the recent Cheney thing it was amusing hearing them talk of bird hunting with buckshot from a rifle and that should be illegal and this was a wakeup call (granted there wasn't much talk outside of the normal anti-gun people). Sure, lets make that illegal, but there isn't a rifle on the planet that shoots buckshot and you bird hunt with birdshot (if it had been buckshot they guy would have had never known what hit him). Many of those same people actually did *extensive* research but only from places that were also wrong (lots of garbage in doesn't suddenly make it not garbage out). It's not hard to find luddits who hate technology for reasons that do not exist and are extensivly researched in the same way.
Typically most of the anti-gameing crowd are so ignorant on gaming that if they have a opinion that could be supported by fact it's purely luck, even some that have raed reams of papers on the issue. That was the point of the original poster.
Can't say for the original poster but if you parent owns a company you can start working there at 12. If you have good parents that's great - I got full time employment during the summer and breaks at 12 - how many others my age had enough money to do what they wanted? Parents didn't kill me, got payed the maximum allowed (which, amusingly enough, was minimum wage, but at 16 labor laws changed and could make more). I got the video games I wanted, the shoes I wanted, and all the otehr stupid stuff (and non-stupid stuff) a kid in middle school wants without having to beg and pester constantly.
Now, if your parents keep the money and force you to work, that sucks. But for me it worked well and there are many others that began working much younger than 16. Though there are other things not to like in the original posters article.
Maybe the guy is so cerebral that he would have revolutionalised the magazine industry with his writing and has progressed beyond mere TV and moved into documentaryland. If that were the case even *knowing* what the the comic book guy was would have crowded out some vital peice of information and he would be unable to educate us masses properly.
I mean, If I was that good it would tick me off when the rest of us moronic peons didn't bow before my vast intellect also.
Or, maybe he doesn't have a very thick skin when it comes to anything slightly derogatory about him and over-reacts, especially when sending a letter to an editor who makes fun of every single letter they get or posts on slashdot. I'm not sure which I believe, they seem to be about equal in probability.
I'm payed for my experteise, both in designing and implementing a system. The boss takes responsibility for "higer level" decisions - maybe we need to use windows for non-technical reasons, even if it totally the worst decision and barely workable. As such I'm pretty agnostic on most issues, as long as my boss realises what I'm telling them if they choose to ignore it that's fine. As long as I don't take the blame for something I'm not responsible for (assuming it ends up failing) I don't care, the person who signs my paycheck can over-ride me all they want - that's what signing the paycheck means.
Outside of a few moral restrictions (not gonna lie, cheat, or steal for example) as long as they are willing to pay me what they should I don't care. If they want a large, bloated, and expensive system (be it e-mail or the software I'm writing) so be it. Just make sure you document everything that way if the even higher muckety mucks stick their noses in then you have covered your ass. If you are in a small company and are stuck where you aren't listened too and blamed for everything you probably ought to start sending out resume's (even if the pay is good you most likely will not have long term employment anyway - after all you are the "cause" of the problems). Of course, if you* really are incompetant then take what you will get:)
* as most of the time, the "you" in what Iw rote above is general, not pointed at this anon coward.
I know I have a pretty large net in my basement, I'm hoping for the thing to hit right around me.
Though, to some reality, I wonder if this thing were to really crash into your property who would have it's mineral rights? Yes, I know the amount of destruction it would cause, but unless it destroyed the earth totally we have GPS coordinates for property and can re-establish what you own (well, we would still have them but no ability to read the numbers no matter what).
Heck, if you owned 80,000 acres and had an asteroid worth 20 million hit it and destroy everything it would probably be worth it (at least monetary wise - I'm also assuming you family/friends don't get wiped out which is likely without enough warning).
I don't know - kinda an interesting "what if" question. I guess not really that important on such a large thing - too destructive to care afterwards. But the idea exist and will, at some point, have to be answered. Just think how much your property might be worth if you have a 80% chance of a small celestial body full of precious metals making it through the atmosphere hitting your property (and being big enough to leave stuff, small enough to not cause too much damage to be unprofitable). Sell it now for speculators or bank on it hitting? Or am I missing something on how the metals will be deposited?
Slashdot Mirror
Extortion generally needs an illegal act in the attempt to gain what you want.
If the guy is telling the truth about the laptop and it is not illegal for him to post the pictures (I don't have any idea what the law is) then there should be no problem. In fact, I would say way to go. That *should* be part of free speech and consumer laws.
This is closer to a store selling you equipment and you protesting with pictures/signs out front until they refund your money. If your claim is true (in this case the laptop was defective and he refused to refund the money) - oh well, perfectly legal and should be (well, at least in the US, I don't know about the UK). He sold him the stuff so it's now his to do with as he pleases.
If the buyer is lieing trying to get his laptop for free, then he should get screwed (and it would then be extortion, the illegal act being libel).
I don't know which way it is, one is funny and a person getting what they deserve, the other the buyer needs to get hit with a baseball bat. Of course, if it turns out the buyer is lieing, he is probably financially ruined from damages as wide an exposure as this is getting.
"You're inaccurate at best in several places. Please tell me this is just stuff you picked up by reading the internet, and not the result of a formal mathematics education."
Formal, sorta (CS major, not math), and it's been 15 years and I don't use it (well, I do CS realted math, just not the rest).
"First, the Cantor set is a fractal. You're thinking of Cantor's diagonal argument."
Yes, pretty much, I don't remember the distinction being made. Maybe it was.
"Also, there aren't more rational numbers than there are whole numbers; both are countably infinite. A bijection (one-to-one and onto mapping) can be established by considering rationals as ordered pairs of natural numbers and enumerating thusly. You're thinking of real numbers, which are not countably infinite."
Correct, if you will notice in my signature I'm dyslexic. One of the issues is confusing words, if you note I did write real numbers in the example and wrote rationals (I thought the correct thing, wrote/read the wrong thing. I would have said it backwards also), I can not read it as wrong unless I go back a few days later and read it or someone points it out. Sorry, not much I can do about it however much I would like too. It made some classes/professions impossible to persue.
"Okay, now you've switched from rational to real numbers. But your example still proves nothing. The fact that the function you made up fails to be a bijection doesn't prove that no such bijection exists. By analogy:"
Again, this I know. I was attempting to condense it enough for someone who doesn't know to get some idea and make it obvious the pattern I was using in the example. Obviously you don't like the example (not proof, I know it was not one) and would prefer something more formal. But then, most get the gist of what I'm saying, you need the formal education to get the real explaination. It is just the same as saying "one infinite is bigger than the other" isn't exactly correct either yet it's introduced as that by many many people. If you go start talking about cardinality you will loose 99.9% of the people you are talking too unless speaking to mathmaticians (of which I'm not, I stopped not much further than the classes where I had this).
The rest of your stuff, again, is very accurate. But I wasn't trying to be that accurate, just to get the basic idea across. Too much formality makes it hard for others to understand, not formal means there are going to be omissions/errors. What I wrote above has served well in the past to "normal" people to get the idea across, any more and they don't follow.
Though I'll try and remember not to call them cantor sets in the future, real/rational is something that I always have and always will be confused on which one means what (though I do understand the concepts).
"Not exactly; the unsolved problem that Cantor never found the solution to was the continuum hypothesis; he asked if there was a space with cardinality between that of the natural numbers (countably infinite) and that of the real numbers (the continuum). It turns out that there answer is independent of standard set theory; it works with it true, and it works with it false. But this is a pretty abstract question, and not as earth-shattering as the initial discovery that there are more reals than there are rational numbers."
We had been told it was trying to find other cardinality than aleph 0 and aleph 1, including the one you said and greater ones. *shrug* I always took that statement (going insane over it, not that he was looking to prove them) to be half or more legend anyway.
It's called Cantor sets, there are more rational numbers than there are whole numbers.
:)
For a really simple example (there are more formal ones out there) take the following series:
1--1.1000...
2--1.0100...
3--1.0010...
x--1+1/(1*10^x)
where x is an integer
As you can see, for every single integer there is a corresponding real number. This list is one-to-one but not onto, the list on the right will never have 1.2 in it's list, therefore there *must* be more real numbers than there are integers. In fact, it turns out that there are an infinatly greater amount of real numbers than there are integers.
Don't go to far with this though, I understand that Gregory Cantor went insane trying to find the next greater space
When it very first started occuring our university IT department thought they had contracted some virus. Of course, it was some student trying to do thier homework, getting the first click, and then trying to find a machine on campus that would read thier work. For years they would come in waves - replaced all of them, one gets to clicking and then that student deperatly tries to get thier project off of it.
For quite a while lab monitors were *very* diligent in listening for clicks, signs were all over the lab, and they eventually just got rid of them. When I left you e-mailed it to your department account, downloaded the attachment to a local mcahine, did your work then e-mailed it back (basically using the e-mail server for storage). The machines were ghosted to a clean state after each student left the station. I don't know what they do now, that was quite a few years ago and about the best solution available outside of the zip drive at the time.
That's the way we did it. The only class where the teachers cared what tools you used to produce the software was one of the Software Engineering course and that was only because as pretend managers we had to evaluate and choose what tools our teams would use. Still, it didn't really matter what tools we choose, as long as we justified it and that part of the project was more about how to choose the correct tool instead of using that tool. IIRC correctly our file processing class required use of the UNIX workstations (the only other time a tools was required), but we were free to install our own stuff in our directories, but most used VI/emacs and gcc. Though Visual C++ was the "official" devel environment, that just meant all the profs were familiar with it and could answer questions *after class*.
We gave the teacher a print out that most of the grading was done on and a disk (later e-mail a zip instead of the disk, was in college during the 90's and the shift towards that mode) for them to run against thier data sets.
In fact, the very first day of intro to comp sci we were told this is a programming course, not a program course. It's our responsibility to learn to use our tools (language was specified, but you could usually ask and write it in something else).
During my stay at ORNL we had around 15 students - all of them were the same as me. Never even really occured to me a "real" comp sci course (word processor usage and anything involving a computer was also in the CSCI courses) would teach you how to use a program, IDE or otherwise.
Really, as you say, if they are teaching you to use and IDE they are wasting time they could spend on actually writing software. IDE's change, what you start with in college will not be useful when you graduate for the msot part, but *how* to write programs is independant of an IDE or not (plus if you are using wizards for programming before junior/senior level courses you getting screwed on your programming education). You can even forgoe the computer all the way for many classes, though I do prefer that *some* programs are written.
"If you really want to do something good for the US stand up and proclaim that you want better education systems!"
Why not do both? It's not like we have "support US based companies" XOR "demand better education". I don't know about you, but I'm not so simple I can only hold the one thought inside my head, I rather suspect you aren't either and are just using this as a snide remark. Plus I suspect that the original poster would also like a better educational system.
Even with the concept of relative advantage (and yes, I know more about it than what you wrote, I've had more than an introductory course in economics) it's not really clear which is better. Of course this is assuming that US based companies aren't screwing the govt over with costs because they *have* to purchase from them (something that is rarely true, but there is no reason this must be true - just like poor education it is something we allow ourselves).
"It captures the attention of the masses, and somebody steps up and says 'I want one of those' and somebody else steps up and says 'I want one something like that' and somebody else steps up and says 'I want one of those!' and the manufacturing of solar panels goes into overdrive and the price comes down and the capability goes up and its affordable to make solar powered buses and the city does that and makes them free for use to cut down on the traffic fumes and all of a sudden your life is better."
And this is done because a plane flies around the world or a boat goes around it? No, I don't think so - we don't see a big boom of wind powered stuff because a sailboat made it around. So, now everyone see's it, "Cool, I want one", you get one and it stays in your garage because there is no where to use it. Boat, maybe but that's a long shot - plane, nope, no one is gonna care.
Now, if someone made a solar powered jet ski, drove across the country in a reasonable amount of time on soloar, or something that people would actually care about then your scenario would work. But this isn't going to raise awareness or desire much at all. It's a good research project and a god challenge, but it's not gonna do anything. Plus I rather suspect you will not hear about it much outside of places like here.
"Its quite a big deal to reach those kind of speeds in a boat."
Hmm, I guess I need to sell mine then since it's radical. Gotta get rid of my seadoo also. Both of them reach the 60mph speed pretty easily. Maybe your stuff is too old, my boat was manufactured in the early 90's and the seadoo in 2001, newer stuff reaches those speeds even easier and with more stability. You need to move into at least the last 20 years. Maybe look at something like this or one of these with a 225 or 250 2-stroke that exceedes emission standards (nice geeky engine there). All of them will easily hit the 60mph mark.
"Its not like getting into a car and putting your foot down,"
Your right, the seadoo has a little lever you pull and the boat has a lever you push forward, nothing like putting my foot down
"think about what would happen to your car if there were 10cm bumps in the road, and 10cm bumps in the water is nothing."
I don't have to think much about it - I even know what happens when you get into the 50cm waves, heck I've even been on a lake during windstorm with 60mph sustained winds with 90-121cm waves. On the seadoo the 30-50cm waves beat you prety hard, on a decently made speed boat you hardly notice them.
All you have to is watch a fishing show or two and you will regulary see boats into the 60-70mph on lakes, many of them aren't even V hulls and bounce alot more.
Ok I'm bored and am going to complain about a slashdot summary - yes I know...
"Both groups hope to bring greater attention to solar power, which they believe is more appropriate for alternative transportation than for automobiles."
What? That doesn't make any sense. How does a plane flying around the world or a boat floating around the world affect my commute? I don't know about you guys but solar vs gas isn't what stops me from driving a boat or plane to work. That would be cool, commutes would be fun instead of boring traffic, though I bet if everyone did it there would be crashes galore (especially the planes). Plus - why do we have to choose solar power or cars - what I want a solar powered car?
To be fair, one of the teams (boats), for some reason seems to make this comparison. I doubt there are many places where what they say is feasable. I don't care how effecient solar boats are - I can't drive one to work and I bet very very very few people in the whole freaking world can (of course, there are some - but then I bet alot of them do so to avoid traffic. It's no big deal to hit 60-70 in a boat and no traffic, not to mention the "fun" factor. I know I would do so in a heart beat).
As to what the parent article said - I don't see why this makes a difference in perception. I find the challenge pretty neat and plan to follow it (no problems there - great geeky/tech story), but making it happen doesn't really change my commute in any way. Jeese, a wind powered boat made a world wide traversal a few hundred years ago (continent to continent a few thousand years ago) - doesn't make wind powered cars any more useful or practical. A solar transversal isn't going to change much either. Again - not that I don't think this is useful or neat (anything that advances our understanding is worth it - I'm fully aware that solving thier problems may lead to some great advances and wish them great success - I want to see our dependancy on oil vanish for a variety of reasons), if thier goal is to raise perception of solar powered commute this isn't the way.
Back to geeking out - my bet is on the plane. Unless it's *really* slow I can't see it beating the boat. Especially given the plane can fly a fairly straight line (even with air space restrictions) compared to the boat. As to which will be made first - my bet is the boat. If the motor fails you still get to float, a plane loosing power is deadly.
Not that I particularly care for this happenening or think it can't happen here - but why would US mail tampering laws be enforced in the UK? I'm assuming you just missed the "UK" part and don't want the US to enforce it's laws onto other countries.
Unfortunatly in this case it's also not fedex doing it but customs officials so your whole point (fedex violating what should be law) is moot anyway. I'm betting FedEx doesn't much care for this either (cuts thier profits to increase another companies profits, I can't imagine any business liking that too much).
Up until a short while ago I helped run/maintain a few large compute clusters. Once the systems were up (or the manufacturer did what we said) the bios set to pxe boot was the easiest. with an invalid MBR and they updated to the new image or did thier initial instal.
Barring that, it was far easier to use floppies. Didn't need to turn on several hundred, place the disks in, close the thing, and then reboot - you could push in all the disks and reboot. Not to mention that floppy drives are signifigantly cheaper than cd-roms - especially useful when you are looking at purchasing hundreds or thousands of computers. The floppies tended to work quicker too, again something that matters when you get to large enough intallation.
For indivdual workstation installs I agree, but there is a HUGE area of the world outside of that. You know, many of us aren't as stupid as you seem to think. But hey - this (hubris) is what slashdot is all about right?
Plus, at home, for somethings the floppy is just more reliable. I have computers both with and without them. There are times I wish mine without them had one. Yes, it's rare, and yes there is always a workaround, but that doesn't negate that sometimes it' still the easiest solution.
Just because something *can* be done doesn't mean it is the best solution - nor does old mean it is bad either. We *could* have booted several hundred machines from a keyring USB flash device.
You are assuming something that most likely isn't true - they are not doing this to promote sales (at least directly).
They are doing this to protect thier market. It's been said many times - file sharing does an end-run around them. Without thier lock on distribution they are nothing. It doesn't matter if it's legal for a band to distribute music outside of them if every distribution means is illegal. It's sorta like not being able to ban firearms but (since it's not mentioned directly by the constitution) banning all ammunition. This argument is also like telling people who eat meat that the animal died for us to eat - uh, yea, so? To those that buy that argument it makes all the difference in the world, to those that don't it's no more persuasive than saying "The sky is normally blue colored".
Even if they piss 50% of thier customer base off, it's better than having 0 customers. Thus pointing out that they are alienating customers is irrelevant - that's has nothing to do with their goals.
Not to mention they get *another* talking point (declining sales because of piracy) when pushing for legislation. Never mind that their tactics are what is causing the decline - thier tactics are forced on them by music pirates (and, to some extent, that is true).
From thier point of view it's a win-win scenario. Loosing customers because of thier tactics just locks them into a stronger position to be the *only* place to get music. If they are the *only* source then you have no choice if you want music. They are taking an All-or-Nothing tactic.
Unfortunatly they are not going to be able to do what they want. I keep the "unfortunatly" universal because it sucks for everyone until they face up to reality (and will suck for some even at the end). Even if you do not agree, think it sucks, or any other thing it is irrelevant (and I even agree - copyrights are important, though they have gone too far). If you slip and fall off a cliff you will think it sucks and are 100% correct - however that still will not prevent the sudden stop at the end. You gotta work with what you have, not what you want, wish, or think is Right. To do anything else assures death.
The last supposed "high security" place I worked (Oak Ridge National Labs) had a pretty sane password scheme - computer generated every 6 months or year (too long ago, I do not remember now). They generated a big list and you picked one so you could get one you could remember. It was good combination of stuff, not really something that was attackable by a dictionary and they watched external requests pretty hard (ad most of the service providers did also).
But, the problem was that every single hack/intrusion we knew of (either on our machines or lab wide) had nothing to do with password and all to do with users desktops on SSH key management. Everyone wanted symetric keys so they never needed to type a passphrase of password. No one wanted to mess with keeping thier computer updated. So once one computer was violated nearly all in the lab were - even those of us who tried to patch and watch were brought down by what the users demanded. We were really damned when an offsite place (say a university) was weak and a user had symmetric keys installed.
That ended up being a VERY difficult issue to educate on - it's a fairly abstract idea. Very very very few of the people there were unintelligent but few were educated enough in that field to even really understand the issues (no reason why a chemist should understand key management any more than I should know how carbon rings react in some random environment). Password management is pretty obvious, heck many of us even had "secret" clubs in elementary school that did similar stuff. However strong encrypted keys tend to be something different, offering the ease of no password and the security of really strong ones (when done correctly). It take some amount of knowledge to "get it" along with thinking about having the private keys stored in unsafe places.
*shrug* I think that password management (in secure business processes) is becoming much less important. Even hotel reservation systems are mostly moving over to SSH and key management. For logging into your credit card service? SSH key and passphrase is great. For much of business practice, as SSH and similar type things become the standard password management this is MUCH more important. Right now we are horrid in that area of education.
Less articles about password management, if it has not been beat into your head by now you are a lost cause. Lets spend some time on key management and other security issues that are becoming MUCH more useful.
I would agree with both of you.
At some point you just can't see the difference - if you do it's all in your head. Many things "gamers" (I'm a gamer, I just try and be reasonable about what I need) think they need are irrelevant. How many people try and push the FPS up but are running a monitor at 60hz? I've known people to spend thousands on a system and brag about getting 200-300 fps on some FPS and about how smooth it looks compared to 120 fps (all while running 60-80hz refresh). I've seen people talk about being able to bit depths that we just can not see (or more colors than your monitor can display) and how much more vibrant they are.
As long as someone can come up with a way to enumerate something people will want the better numbers and think it makes "the experience" better. Many think they need it, think they can tell a difference. But if they were to do a double blind test they would find they are simply wrong (but, having done that a time or two with people I can assure it will not change many minds).
That being said, the original poster is talking home markets which really doesn't drive the market as much as most home computing people think. Even if it did, gamers drive that market. So just because it's enough for watching your home movies, looking at your pictures, browsing the web, and other general home use doesn't mean there would be no more advances. Even now many general home computer users are realising that they hit saturation in what they can do a few years ago and are starting to complain about having to upgrade to do the same thing, in the same speed, and same quality.
Idustrial/commercial/research is a whole other story. Some of the human genome people are working with "small" (compared to the whole) subsets of thier data coming in at 10's of terabytes. Large multinational corperations are seeing petabytes of usage. So the need is even currently there in the cash flush markets.
In the future, with enough storage, bandwidth, and system memory it starts to become possible to simulate physical systems at the molecular level. Businesses can store very detailed customer data for very long periods of time (yes yes, I know some do not like it and it may not fall into the "good" category - but it is still something that drives the tech industry). Lots of large scale applications become available. We are no where near being at "what can I do with that much storage" in large applications, we are still cutting many things out we want to do.
My guess is that Gates is one of those people who does his best thinking sitting on the toilet. Have to always have one near.
In that light Windows make MUCH greater sense.
As far as I know there is no "silver bullet" out there. That is, there is no clean great solution (clean and cheap enough to not drive tech companies out of business). Recylcing isn't that clean, dumps aren't that clean, and even if sending old computers to poor areas that they are still "fast" works now it eventually will not. If there is then I will agree to push to legislate it.
While I will not purchase from known pulluters if possible (as is my right to choose), I can't say I blame companies if a country out there says "Send me your crap - we will take care of it cheap". I don't see how one can feel justified in controlling international trade in ways they like but not in ways they do not as "like" tends to be personal and arbitrary (even if your line in the sand is pollution the next person may be "terrorism" or something else). You get control or no control - personally I choose as little control as possible and only where a clear line is.
Even then you need a clear plan in opposition - we have the discarded computers and "Can't do anything with them" isn't a solution (they have to do something with them). Yes, maybe it's REALLY bad for the environment but the stuff is there and we have to do something.
In this you can not make a clear line in the sand, only a random one where you feel it needs to be. Nothing really wrong with that other than many will have other random lines in the sand (and you do not get angry and worked up because someone has a different line in the sand).
Eh, anyway, this has been a known issue even in the early 90's when I first got into computing - I assume it was known before then, although I do not know how long before (my guess is even in the early days of computing).
Finally, don't take this as a too negative post. If you have a solution that allows companies to stay in business and is clean - by all means propose it and I'll support it. This isn't anything close to something I keep up with, only through news blurbs. Every one I see is complaints, no solutions. Complaints are OK as long there is a solution - I have been going bald since my early 20s, complaining about it hasn't stopped anything. Sometimes every choice sucks and you choose the least sucky (for instance, cost and effectiveness for baldness cure is horrid, thus best option is to accept it and go on unless you are one of the unusal individual that it works for).
"Don't you think that this provides some sort of proof of what so many people here have been saying? "
Not so much, as others pointed out it was more a marketing thing and is a single song. I would bet with the correct marketing you get get a number one song to be sold only in a cereal box.
I figure the proof is more along the lines of iTunes - much broader and much less harder to argue with. It's long term, broad, and profitable.
IMO fine for the special sections of slashdot, probably not up to main page. But, as I said, I've been here long enough to know it's their show, they decide, and they don't care what we think (and, to note, were I doing this website I would most likely have the same opinion).
It should be noted the whole thing you are replying too is an aside and a weak one at that. My point (which I figured would be modded to -1, anti-Americanism is popular here) was that the anti-american post was doing exactly what he was accusing Americans of doing. Didn't figure it would do any good, but was bored so posted anyway. I tend to find it more amusing than anything.
I've done similar things.
Your solution assumes the user doesn't behave too badly and is trying to avoid it.
It fails when you get a user who randomly clicks on the screen when something fails, doesn't understand (and refuses to) what popups are so they click on *all* of them, basically just does almost everything wrong and is what these people prey on.
Now, in a business you may be able to say "screw you" but your spouse? Parents? Kids? Maybe even a neigbor that does enough other work for you that you feel obligated to "fix" thier computer. Much harder to do - your stuck with em and some of those categories are in a position to ignore any ranting you choose to do (and in some cases may even "show you who is right" and explicitly do what makes you angry). Heck, sometimes it's a choice in your job of that or quit.
Your choices become a) severely limit thier access (not usually an option, but sometimes setting them up as a un-privledged user is an option), b) put up with it, or c) use some sort of imaging tool to reverse thier idiocy. Of those option "c" is the easiest, most effective, and can even get you out of many arguments (especially if you set the computer up such that they don't really know what you are doing).
Spoken like a true Anti-American - unable to even notice that they have something loged sideways up thier ass. At least we know we do.
The guy figured that "number one song" isn't really news for nerds and such (I would tend to agree, though not enough to warrent a post - been here long enough to know it's not my opinion that matters).
It might interest you to know that we know very well there are other people and the world doesn't revolve around you any more than it does us.
You might want to look in the mirror before you post like this again. You immediatly jumped to the "American are self centered idiots who don't think about *me*!" idea.
We are starting to recover in the smallest markets. We are finally getting rid of the final vestiges of people who were in it totally for the money and salaries are starting to stablise. It takes several years for it to trickle down to us.
.com stuff). Having a second one isn't going to help matters any - I want a moderatly stable job with a decent salary. If you get a .com type of thing save up and don't become greedy, it's not going to last.
Even then it's tough to get a job if you graduated in the height of the dot com boom and lost your job in the worst of it (especially in small markets like where I live and are in the position I am in - though my personal timing has nothing to do with the
For the sake of the industry I hope not - one would think that people learned in the last one. While it's not so bad on the large stable markets it kills the smaller ones.
When I first started geting into hotter peppers I knew not what most of them looked like. I had to go by the labels at the store. Interested in the next level up I purchased some "serrano" peppers - they were small orange wrinkly peppers (the habenero bin had small smooth skinned green peppers). I took them home and chopped up two of them for a salad, placed them in the lettuece, and felt the urge to go to the bathroom. Upon the "aiming" phase of the process I kinda figured out something was wrong when the searing pain began to build, and build, and build, and build, and build - for quite a while (seranno don't rate high enough for me to bother with gloves). Went and looked up the pictures and discovered some kind person at the grocery store had swapped the habanero bin and the seranno pepper bin.
I actually ate and ejoyed the salad after removing some of the pulp, I had ate hot suaces in the past up to over 200,000 scoville so the heat wasn't so much an an issue there, I just found it best to not go to the top in the beginning, you never know. However, I do not wish to undergo the spread upon my privates ever again.
The statement is that most of the people who want to regulate/ban video games are not educated enough to make that decision. Not that those who don't play them don't like them.
There are many areas where this happens. The anti-technology crowd, the anti-gun crowd, and many others. Some are well read, but raed bad information. For example from the recent Cheney thing it was amusing hearing them talk of bird hunting with buckshot from a rifle and that should be illegal and this was a wakeup call (granted there wasn't much talk outside of the normal anti-gun people). Sure, lets make that illegal, but there isn't a rifle on the planet that shoots buckshot and you bird hunt with birdshot (if it had been buckshot they guy would have had never known what hit him). Many of those same people actually did *extensive* research but only from places that were also wrong (lots of garbage in doesn't suddenly make it not garbage out). It's not hard to find luddits who hate technology for reasons that do not exist and are extensivly researched in the same way.
Typically most of the anti-gameing crowd are so ignorant on gaming that if they have a opinion that could be supported by fact it's purely luck, even some that have raed reams of papers on the issue. That was the point of the original poster.
Can't say for the original poster but if you parent owns a company you can start working there at 12. If you have good parents that's great - I got full time employment during the summer and breaks at 12 - how many others my age had enough money to do what they wanted? Parents didn't kill me, got payed the maximum allowed (which, amusingly enough, was minimum wage, but at 16 labor laws changed and could make more). I got the video games I wanted, the shoes I wanted, and all the otehr stupid stuff (and non-stupid stuff) a kid in middle school wants without having to beg and pester constantly.
Now, if your parents keep the money and force you to work, that sucks. But for me it worked well and there are many others that began working much younger than 16. Though there are other things not to like in the original posters article.
It's not pretentious if it's true.
Maybe the guy is so cerebral that he would have revolutionalised the magazine industry with his writing and has progressed beyond mere TV and moved into documentaryland. If that were the case even *knowing* what the the comic book guy was would have crowded out some vital peice of information and he would be unable to educate us masses properly.
I mean, If I was that good it would tick me off when the rest of us moronic peons didn't bow before my vast intellect also.
Or, maybe he doesn't have a very thick skin when it comes to anything slightly derogatory about him and over-reacts, especially when sending a letter to an editor who makes fun of every single letter they get or posts on slashdot. I'm not sure which I believe, they seem to be about equal in probability.
This has always been my general attitude.
:)
I'm payed for my experteise, both in designing and implementing a system. The boss takes responsibility for "higer level" decisions - maybe we need to use windows for non-technical reasons, even if it totally the worst decision and barely workable. As such I'm pretty agnostic on most issues, as long as my boss realises what I'm telling them if they choose to ignore it that's fine. As long as I don't take the blame for something I'm not responsible for (assuming it ends up failing) I don't care, the person who signs my paycheck can over-ride me all they want - that's what signing the paycheck means.
Outside of a few moral restrictions (not gonna lie, cheat, or steal for example) as long as they are willing to pay me what they should I don't care. If they want a large, bloated, and expensive system (be it e-mail or the software I'm writing) so be it. Just make sure you document everything that way if the even higher muckety mucks stick their noses in then you have covered your ass. If you are in a small company and are stuck where you aren't listened too and blamed for everything you probably ought to start sending out resume's (even if the pay is good you most likely will not have long term employment anyway - after all you are the "cause" of the problems). Of course, if you* really are incompetant then take what you will get
* as most of the time, the "you" in what Iw rote above is general, not pointed at this anon coward.
I know I have a pretty large net in my basement, I'm hoping for the thing to hit right around me.
Though, to some reality, I wonder if this thing were to really crash into your property who would have it's mineral rights? Yes, I know the amount of destruction it would cause, but unless it destroyed the earth totally we have GPS coordinates for property and can re-establish what you own (well, we would still have them but no ability to read the numbers no matter what).
Heck, if you owned 80,000 acres and had an asteroid worth 20 million hit it and destroy everything it would probably be worth it (at least monetary wise - I'm also assuming you family/friends don't get wiped out which is likely without enough warning).
I don't know - kinda an interesting "what if" question. I guess not really that important on such a large thing - too destructive to care afterwards. But the idea exist and will, at some point, have to be answered. Just think how much your property might be worth if you have a 80% chance of a small celestial body full of precious metals making it through the atmosphere hitting your property (and being big enough to leave stuff, small enough to not cause too much damage to be unprofitable). Sell it now for speculators or bank on it hitting? Or am I missing something on how the metals will be deposited?
Eh, just a thought.