Do you have any emprical data to prove how well Wikipedia works?
I find it useful as a quick reference, but on subjects others would consider me an expert on (as explicitly different from areas I think I'd be an expert in), its rife with inaccuracies.
With that as a filter (the gut sense of the accuracy of the stuff I do know about), I can reasonably look up information in areas I'm not, but anyone who uses it as a primary source (or uses anything in it as a verification of a source) is just nuts.
No, you can only easily strip it from one of the two formats they come in.
The newer one, which seems to primarily be used to push out images of letters/words, as opposed to the text (to maintain fonts, or to ease getting scanned books into Kindle format, as far as I can tell) isn't able to be de-DRMed directly.
Worst part is, they also look like crap and you can't tell prior to buying them if you're going to get a Mobi format or the new one (can't recall the name, I think it starts with an A?)
They already do. The Kindle application for the PC, for example, doesn't expose the contents of the page via the UI Automation interfaces in Windows (which effectively means its invisible to a screen reader).
Of course, that would make it trivial to write an app to extract the contents of a book from it. (Not that it wasn't... er... isn't... er... would be... hard to do so with an OCR library and small bit of wrapper code)
Generally speaking there are two kinds of jobs -- the kind that no one is going to complain if you're late, or the kind that doesn't give a shit why you're late.
The plasticity of the brain means it can fairly easily re-wire how it processes input. The problem with fake 3-D is that it's not a matter of how the brain processes the images it sees, its about how the brain controls your eyes relative to the images it sees.
There's been plenty of literature suggesting the potential of developmental problems with how children end up controlling the positioning of their eyes (lazy eyes, etc). The end result could be an inability to align them properly to see depth in the *real world*. (I didn't realize this until I started digging into it, but a surprisingly large percentage -- nearly double digit -- of people can't see stereoscopic 3D)
The thing that really shocked me is how hard SyFi worked to kill it.
The only thing more ignorant than running a split season in the first season of a new show that people aren't yet caught up in (*cough*Caprica) is splitting your first season into THREE chunks spread out over a year.
That pretty much guarantees no chance of getting a following.
Not to be all conspiratorial, but there's no way a decision that stupid was made accidentally -- someone there wanted to kill the show.
Having re-watched Tron recently, the thing that struck me most is that the scenes that aged are the scenes where they tried to use sets to mimick the computer world. The rendered bits hold up fine.
It depends on what you want to use it for. I have a W7 tablet, and have been very happy with it. The core UI isn't designed for multitouch finger swiping like the iPad, but it works extremely well for writing on it, whiteboard sharing, etc. There are a lot of ideas for what makes a useful tablet. Apple's idea brought the fact that tablets exist to the forefront of the general public's mind, and shaped their ideas of what a tablet is, nevermind millions of them have been running Windows for a decade, just at price points too high for consumer use.
I think particularly the handwriting recognition is underappreciated in Windows 7.
This is Slashdot, where the mindless masses comment on patents without spending a couple hours learning how to read patents.
Are you surprised?
For everyone else: if you don't know the difference between an independant and dependant claim or the difference between the claims and the supporting text...
Don't reply to patent stories.
You just look like a moron. (BTW, in a quick skim, I can see why this passed muster with the examiner.)
Not to dismiss, but keep in mind that is the total dollars spent, in which the vast majority was in 1970's dollars.
Assuming that was mostly spent in, say, 1975 (figuring 700m of it), that would be almost $3b in "official" 2009 dollars, although arguably the government has been playing games with the inflation figures for most of the 2000s, so its likely actually more.
Why do you assume Google cares? You are not their customer (unlike Apple). The carrier is Google's customer. You are just eyeballs for advertising.
Google wins when every crappy phone has Android on it, regardless of the end user's experience. They don't need quality, they need quantity. Being able to use different GPUs and CPUs is critical because that is why you can find Android phones for 1/4 the cost of the high end smart phones.
Except how the eye gradually evolved isn't a particular mystery.
Basic chemistry is very different than complex macro structures. If intermediate forms are not alive, you don't move from point A to point B through direct evolution of the trait.
Now, in this case (hours later, now that the announcement has come out), it seems likely that this is exactly that -- a direct shift in chemistry, given the structure of the bacteria matches "normal" bacteria.
Re: DNA and genes -- we know RNA spontaneously assembles itself, so its not at all unlikely that RNA as an information-carrying molecule would arise multiple times.
Had this, in fact, been a case where it was a biologically distinct lifeform at its most basic chemistry *and* it still used RNA (or DNA) then you absolutely need to consider both options. (And given that viruses frequently transplant genes, you couldn't even assume one or the other based on having common genes.)
I'd strongly recommend a book called "Life Ascending" by Nick Lane. Its got a very easy to follow chapter on the most up-to-date ideas behind that. (Which, frankly, are a lot more solid than the vast majority of people -- even people who have been casually following the science -- may know.)
It spells out several paths likely to have done so. (This isn't nearly the mystery the "creationists" seem to think it is... we may never know how it *actually* happened, but we know ways it *can* happen.)
There's nothing to see here if it can be shown that there is a sequence of changes that can go directly from point A to point B (A being "life" -- without a firm definition, but "life" using phosphorus, and B being identical "life" using arsenic instead) where every step of the path between forms a viable chemistry that continues to be "life".
If you can't do that, then there's pretty significant reason to think that along with the handful of times life likely arose on Earth with a chemistry that *can* be linked that way to now, it arose a time using a completely different chemistry.
That latter would mean two VERY important things -- the conditions that life could arise in is a lot broader than we believe AND, if its got similar genetics and use of amino acids, that the opportunistic use of amino acids (which are known to be extremely common in space) isn't a rare thing.
This are staggering, dicipline-changing insights unless someone can show a path from A-B.
And you actually think the service into a neighborhood can take everyone drawing 200 amps?
Not even remotely close.
Hell, the generation capacity for most power companies is carefully managed to meet the expected peak demand of the customers they have, at a specific rate of typical peak usage.
Increase that by ten percent, and you'll get rolling brownouts or blackouts during the summer when people are running their A/C.
The US has a 3rd world power infrastructure that is cobbled together to work in exactly the environment they're in.
Hell, the climate shifts are already causing grief to power companies because they're getting even small percentage increases in the number of peak days or the length of the heating or cooling seasons.
Add a 7kw charger to 10% of their customers and you're in BIG trouble, especially if it makes the generation profile change substantially. (A lot of hydro plants, for example, shut their outflow off at night to maintain water levels behind dams because the demand is low at night -- if its not, then water will have to be drawn down 24/7 -- something they aren't set up for.)
Slashdot Mirror
Do you have any emprical data to prove how well Wikipedia works?
I find it useful as a quick reference, but on subjects others would consider me an expert on (as explicitly different from areas I think I'd be an expert in), its rife with inaccuracies.
With that as a filter (the gut sense of the accuracy of the stuff I do know about), I can reasonably look up information in areas I'm not, but anyone who uses it as a primary source (or uses anything in it as a verification of a source) is just nuts.
Although very crudely worded, "Anonymous Coward" is right. H.264 is created to make money.
Chrome was created to make money.
Don't forget that when evaluating Google's stance on this.
Last I checked, breast cancer was fairly rare in 9 year old girls.
No, you can only easily strip it from one of the two formats they come in.
The newer one, which seems to primarily be used to push out images of letters/words, as opposed to the text (to maintain fonts, or to ease getting scanned books into Kindle format, as far as I can tell) isn't able to be de-DRMed directly.
Worst part is, they also look like crap and you can't tell prior to buying them if you're going to get a Mobi format or the new one (can't recall the name, I think it starts with an A?)
They already do. The Kindle application for the PC, for example, doesn't expose the contents of the page via the UI Automation interfaces in Windows (which effectively means its invisible to a screen reader).
Of course, that would make it trivial to write an app to extract the contents of a book from it. (Not that it wasn't ... er... isn't ... er... would be... hard to do so with an OCR library and small bit of wrapper code)
It does say right on the box how much space it needs ...
There are hundreds of options for hardware better at doing the things you just listed that are cheaper than a Playstation.
A $50 router and OpenWRT can do all of that.
Generally speaking there are two kinds of jobs -- the kind that no one is going to complain if you're late, or the kind that doesn't give a shit why you're late.
The plasticity of the brain means it can fairly easily re-wire how it processes input. The problem with fake 3-D is that it's not a matter of how the brain processes the images it sees, its about how the brain controls your eyes relative to the images it sees.
There's been plenty of literature suggesting the potential of developmental problems with how children end up controlling the positioning of their eyes (lazy eyes, etc). The end result could be an inability to align them properly to see depth in the *real world*. (I didn't realize this until I started digging into it, but a surprisingly large percentage -- nearly double digit -- of people can't see stereoscopic 3D)
The thing that really shocked me is how hard SyFi worked to kill it.
The only thing more ignorant than running a split season in the first season of a new show that people aren't yet caught up in (*cough*Caprica) is splitting your first season into THREE chunks spread out over a year.
That pretty much guarantees no chance of getting a following.
Not to be all conspiratorial, but there's no way a decision that stupid was made accidentally -- someone there wanted to kill the show.
Having re-watched Tron recently, the thing that struck me most is that the scenes that aged are the scenes where they tried to use sets to mimick the computer world. The rendered bits hold up fine.
It depends on what you want to use it for. I have a W7 tablet, and have been very happy with it. The core UI isn't designed for multitouch finger swiping like the iPad, but it works extremely well for writing on it, whiteboard sharing, etc. There are a lot of ideas for what makes a useful tablet. Apple's idea brought the fact that tablets exist to the forefront of the general public's mind, and shaped their ideas of what a tablet is, nevermind millions of them have been running Windows for a decade, just at price points too high for consumer use.
I think particularly the handwriting recognition is underappreciated in Windows 7.
This is Slashdot, where the mindless masses comment on patents without spending a couple hours learning how to read patents.
Are you surprised?
For everyone else: if you don't know the difference between an independant and dependant claim or the difference between the claims and the supporting text ...
Don't reply to patent stories.
You just look like a moron. (BTW, in a quick skim, I can see why this passed muster with the examiner.)
How about a nice game of chess?
Not to dismiss, but keep in mind that is the total dollars spent, in which the vast majority was in 1970's dollars.
Assuming that was mostly spent in, say, 1975 (figuring 700m of it), that would be almost $3b in "official" 2009 dollars, although arguably the government has been playing games with the inflation figures for most of the 2000s, so its likely actually more.
And, you're off by three orders of magnitude.
The TSA isn't the problem. Politicians scaring the public, and a public easily scared are the problem.
The TSA is just doing their job.
Who the hell is writing the live launch blog?
"One day I will go back to space. Like, without using pills."
Mom!?
Have you completely missed all the Android-based tablets, or the Google TV?
Android is all over the place in embedded consumer systems.
Why do you assume Google cares? You are not their customer (unlike Apple). The carrier is Google's customer. You are just eyeballs for advertising.
Google wins when every crappy phone has Android on it, regardless of the end user's experience. They don't need quality, they need quantity. Being able to use different GPUs and CPUs is critical because that is why you can find Android phones for 1/4 the cost of the high end smart phones.
Protected mode is the default.
I doubt 99% of people using Windows Vista or 7 with IE would have the first idea how to shut it off.
Except how the eye gradually evolved isn't a particular mystery.
Basic chemistry is very different than complex macro structures. If intermediate forms are not alive, you don't move from point A to point B through direct evolution of the trait.
Now, in this case (hours later, now that the announcement has come out), it seems likely that this is exactly that -- a direct shift in chemistry, given the structure of the bacteria matches "normal" bacteria.
Re: DNA and genes -- we know RNA spontaneously assembles itself, so its not at all unlikely that RNA as an information-carrying molecule would arise multiple times.
Had this, in fact, been a case where it was a biologically distinct lifeform at its most basic chemistry *and* it still used RNA (or DNA) then you absolutely need to consider both options. (And given that viruses frequently transplant genes, you couldn't even assume one or the other based on having common genes.)
I'd strongly recommend a book called "Life Ascending" by Nick Lane. Its got a very easy to follow chapter on the most up-to-date ideas behind that. (Which, frankly, are a lot more solid than the vast majority of people -- even people who have been casually following the science -- may know.)
It spells out several paths likely to have done so. (This isn't nearly the mystery the "creationists" seem to think it is ... we may never know how it *actually* happened, but we know ways it *can* happen.)
There's nothing to see here if it can be shown that there is a sequence of changes that can go directly from point A to point B (A being "life" -- without a firm definition, but "life" using phosphorus, and B being identical "life" using arsenic instead) where every step of the path between forms a viable chemistry that continues to be "life".
If you can't do that, then there's pretty significant reason to think that along with the handful of times life likely arose on Earth with a chemistry that *can* be linked that way to now, it arose a time using a completely different chemistry.
That latter would mean two VERY important things -- the conditions that life could arise in is a lot broader than we believe AND, if its got similar genetics and use of amino acids, that the opportunistic use of amino acids (which are known to be extremely common in space) isn't a rare thing.
This are staggering, dicipline-changing insights unless someone can show a path from A-B.
And you actually think the service into a neighborhood can take everyone drawing 200 amps?
Not even remotely close.
Hell, the generation capacity for most power companies is carefully managed to meet the expected peak demand of the customers they have, at a specific rate of typical peak usage.
Increase that by ten percent, and you'll get rolling brownouts or blackouts during the summer when people are running their A/C.
The US has a 3rd world power infrastructure that is cobbled together to work in exactly the environment they're in.
Hell, the climate shifts are already causing grief to power companies because they're getting even small percentage increases in the number of peak days or the length of the heating or cooling seasons.
Add a 7kw charger to 10% of their customers and you're in BIG trouble, especially if it makes the generation profile change substantially. (A lot of hydro plants, for example, shut their outflow off at night to maintain water levels behind dams because the demand is low at night -- if its not, then water will have to be drawn down 24/7 -- something they aren't set up for.)
You're looking at it wrong. Criminals just glorify violence and illegalized murder.