The one service in the U.S. that will do this mail culling for you charges $19.95 per month for it. And then on top of that, if you actually want something scanned, they charge per-piece fees. And the best one is, if you want them to dispose of the paper copies in a recycling bin it's free, but if you want them to shred the paper copies it's an extra $4.95/month...so if you're doing this to make your bills all-electronic, you have to pay 25% extra or your bills (and the account numbers and other personally identifying info they contain) become the property of the local recycling center...
So there's plenty of room for the US Postal Service to find a way to profit from charging you not to ever deliver you a piece of junk mail or a bill again.
The government doesn't interfere with such things.
They just log them, copy them, pass the copy along to the analysts, and deliver the mail, so as not to arouse the suspicions of people who are already paranoid.
(Kids, if you think there's any reason in the world for the US Government to be running a delivery service, other than that it simplifies intelligence gathering immensely, then you probably didn't go to business school.)
Because it's possible the EIRP at his home from the cell tower is bigger than the total output his cellphone is capable of.
This is why "arbitration" is no substitute for a court case. Arbitrators often don't know that even if you think you know everything, you need to weigh the facts against each other, not against what you personally believe. Unfortunately, many judges make the decisions based purely on their apprehensions of reality, too. Which brings up the central fallacy of our justice system, and why so many people have to be let out of jail every time technology finds a new way of extracting facts from evidence.
uh...as much fun as that show is...their grasp and/or communication of the science involved in many of their stunts is generally appalling
i take it the producers see that as a feature, not a bug
even bringing in grant imihara, an actual science geek and not just a repurposed movie-prop hacker, didn't really help
and, if you haven't noticed a pattern to their presentations, the prius will end up packed with c4 and hurled into the quarry no matter what else they find
which is just compensation to the viewer for the aforementioned appall-making of the science
well, that would be funny but not terribly close to true
IGT is of course interested in selling security to those who buy its equipment
but moreso it's bound by laws requiring them to ensure their machinery doesn't contain back-doors or exploitable flaws through which skimming can be effected, nor any means by which the machine can be made to pay out at lower than the rate the machine is set to when the gaming commission inspects it. because gambling, see, used to be an industry run almost exclusively by people who didn't like the idea of playing by the rules (whereas today most of the people running the industry understand that a built-in advantage is still a gold mine if you manage the implementation efficiently; which is a lot of the reason it's not as much fun as it used to be).
and almost anywhere human lives are at stake and there's a regulating authority involved, there are well-defined rules for the processes for engineering the hardware and software. but even the processes for safety-critical systems are more about "best practices," or tracking bugs moreso than ensuring they can't possibly occur. they attempt to limit the places where they can occur, and they can get a little silly about the things they permit and prohibit, but they don't require provability of all safety-critical code, just certain types of testing based on the likely effect on maintaining safety in the event of a failure.
regardless, i'd put a program written under DO-178B up against any slot machine.
multicore it immediately gets most OS background tasks out of the way of your browser
and if you have foreground multitasking going on, like a music app or maybe a movie in the corner of the screen, plus a compile in one window or some other data-crunching app, you find yourself waiting noticeably less when you interact with anything.
but since you're the only computing device in the vicinity whose time has time-value, that is ultimately the goal.
throwing 2, 4, or even 6 cores at that is a win.
of course, it will be hard for a desktop user to care about 12 cores. the average person can only manage 7 tasks total in real-time, and that includes the things you're doing on your computer plus all the IRL stuff you're paying attention to. you'd have to hire an assistant to do extra stuff on your machine to make it pay. or virtualize yourself and have your virtual self dream up things to do for itself...
When you "strongly discourage" them, do you show them the total cost-to-own of their impending choice vs. the better one? Or do you just wave your hands?
Because they can't put hand-waving in the price box on a P.O.
But it's run by wage slaves who work in a hole rifling through paperwork all day. They don't think well enough to discern what is and isn't obvious in technological change.
And the huge corporations (like IBM) that have made patent-filing a business model like it that way.
So to change the patent system, you need to do two things: 1. start enforcing the law that constitutes the patent system; and, 2. stop corporations from filing for patents.
When asserting a patent, the patent holder is required to license the patent to anyone wishing to use it, at reasonable rates. If they refuse, they can be sued back, and lose the patent.
Given how little of the function of a smartphone is reliant on the accelerometer, the "reasonable" value of motion-control features as a portion of a smartphone's cost is going to be very small.
it's threads like these that make me wish i'd be less compulsive in disposing of my mod points...i had 15 bright, shiny ones yesterday, and wasted them all modding people UP...
Slashdot Mirror
Lots and lots and lots of money.
The one service in the U.S. that will do this mail culling for you charges $19.95 per month for it. And then on top of that, if you actually want something scanned, they charge per-piece fees. And the best one is, if you want them to dispose of the paper copies in a recycling bin it's free, but if you want them to shred the paper copies it's an extra $4.95/month...so if you're doing this to make your bills all-electronic, you have to pay 25% extra or your bills (and the account numbers and other personally identifying info they contain) become the property of the local recycling center...
So there's plenty of room for the US Postal Service to find a way to profit from charging you not to ever deliver you a piece of junk mail or a bill again.
The government doesn't interfere with such things.
They just log them, copy them, pass the copy along to the analysts, and deliver the mail, so as not to arouse the suspicions of people who are already paranoid.
(Kids, if you think there's any reason in the world for the US Government to be running a delivery service, other than that it simplifies intelligence gathering immensely, then you probably didn't go to business school.)
LE don't have "guilt" as a rule of engagement.
They base their actions on "evidence," "probable cause," and "reasonable suspicion."
It's the job of the courts to determine if the suspect is guilty.
Too often, they all do it using muscle-memory rather than logic.
mod parent (-1 Truth Hurts)
so did i.
so i read it again.
and i learned some more.
so i read it again. and again. and again.
but my boss walked in so i'm doing some work now. well, not now but he's used to me posting to /., so i'll be doing the work in just a minute.
i'll read it again later, when i get home.
How far was the guy from the cell tower?
Because it's possible the EIRP at his home from the cell tower is bigger than the total output his cellphone is capable of.
This is why "arbitration" is no substitute for a court case. Arbitrators often don't know that even if you think you know everything, you need to weigh the facts against each other, not against what you personally believe. Unfortunately, many judges make the decisions based purely on their apprehensions of reality, too. Which brings up the central fallacy of our justice system, and why so many people have to be let out of jail every time technology finds a new way of extracting facts from evidence.
Then your lawyer was an idiot for not countersuing for either frivolous or malicious litigation.
A fight is a fight. You have to punch back or you're going to get your ass beat, regardless of who's right or wrong.
the less they say about some things, the fewer people make with the gefingerpoken in the sploit vat
that doesn't help you with your security, it helps them with theirs
uh...as much fun as that show is...their grasp and/or communication of the science involved in many of their stunts is generally appalling
i take it the producers see that as a feature, not a bug
even bringing in grant imihara, an actual science geek and not just a repurposed movie-prop hacker, didn't really help
and, if you haven't noticed a pattern to their presentations, the prius will end up packed with c4 and hurled into the quarry no matter what else they find
which is just compensation to the viewer for the aforementioned appall-making of the science
well, that would be funny but not terribly close to true
IGT is of course interested in selling security to those who buy its equipment
but moreso it's bound by laws requiring them to ensure their machinery doesn't contain back-doors or exploitable flaws through which skimming can be effected, nor any means by which the machine can be made to pay out at lower than the rate the machine is set to when the gaming commission inspects it. because gambling, see, used to be an industry run almost exclusively by people who didn't like the idea of playing by the rules (whereas today most of the people running the industry understand that a built-in advantage is still a gold mine if you manage the implementation efficiently; which is a lot of the reason it's not as much fun as it used to be).
and almost anywhere human lives are at stake and there's a regulating authority involved, there are well-defined rules for the processes for engineering the hardware and software. but even the processes for safety-critical systems are more about "best practices," or tracking bugs moreso than ensuring they can't possibly occur. they attempt to limit the places where they can occur, and they can get a little silly about the things they permit and prohibit, but they don't require provability of all safety-critical code, just certain types of testing based on the likely effect on maintaining safety in the event of a failure.
regardless, i'd put a program written under DO-178B up against any slot machine.
Cassini has put his thumb into the frame again.
...or wring your hands over the decision until Intel's dodecacore model drops, and solves the problem for you...
once the computer is doing all those things to itself, what does it need you for?
multicore it immediately gets most OS background tasks out of the way of your browser
and if you have foreground multitasking going on, like a music app or maybe a movie in the corner of the screen, plus a compile in one window or some other data-crunching app, you find yourself waiting noticeably less when you interact with anything.
but since you're the only computing device in the vicinity whose time has time-value, that is ultimately the goal.
throwing 2, 4, or even 6 cores at that is a win.
of course, it will be hard for a desktop user to care about 12 cores. the average person can only manage 7 tasks total in real-time, and that includes the things you're doing on your computer plus all the IRL stuff you're paying attention to. you'd have to hire an assistant to do extra stuff on your machine to make it pay. or virtualize yourself and have your virtual self dream up things to do for itself...
Someone needs to put "Advertisement" at the top and bottom of these posts of PR copy.
They have jobs.
Now compare with your lot. All of you.
The sensationalist headlines ignore the rigor put into the research.
So do the mouth-breathers who have the headline tattooed under their "88".
So they're worried that the smart people are going to act stupid and risk their health when offered an extra $2300?
There've been a few bait-titled posts like this the past week.
They're softening us up for 4/1.
They'll soon find out that basing team selection on criteria other than work performance is a recipe for random work performance.
Or they'll never figure that out, and they'll become as marginalized in business as they are in real life.
When you "strongly discourage" them, do you show them the total cost-to-own of their impending choice vs. the better one? Or do you just wave your hands?
Because they can't put hand-waving in the price box on a P.O.
Funny, yours didn't say a thing about Nice.
All inventions are discoveries.
Some are more obvious than others.
The USPTO is supposed to be judging obviousness.
But it's run by wage slaves who work in a hole rifling through paperwork all day. They don't think well enough to discern what is and isn't obvious in technological change.
And the huge corporations (like IBM) that have made patent-filing a business model like it that way.
So to change the patent system, you need to do two things: 1. start enforcing the law that constitutes the patent system; and, 2. stop corporations from filing for patents.
When asserting a patent, the patent holder is required to license the patent to anyone wishing to use it, at reasonable rates. If they refuse, they can be sued back, and lose the patent.
Given how little of the function of a smartphone is reliant on the accelerometer, the "reasonable" value of motion-control features as a portion of a smartphone's cost is going to be very small.
it's threads like these that make me wish i'd be less compulsive in disposing of my mod points...i had 15 bright, shiny ones yesterday, and wasted them all modding people UP...