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User: mre5565

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  1. Likewise.

    I don't own either of the Google or Alexa home devices, and as a result of this story, I am unlikely to do so.

    Why aren't Google Home and Alexa locked down to specific voice patterns like Siri? If I say "Hey Siri" to someone else's iPhone nothing happens.

  2. > The artificially intelligent algorithms began to train themselves using existing data to look for patterns and create their own "rules." Then, they began testing these guidelines against other records. And as it turns out, all four of these methods "performed significantly better than the ACC/AHA guidelines," Science reports.

    This is merely back testing. It's easy to come up with an algorithm that works with data set A and they works with data set B. People have been claiming back tested algorithms to predict stock market returns and election returns for ages. And in forward testing the algorithms always fail.

    This is not to say that a machine-based approach to predicting heart ailments cannot work. But for it to be proven, it has to be forward tested: it has to work with new patients.

  3. Re:Netizen? on China To Run Out of IPv4 Addresses In 830 Days · · Score: 1

    Kind of like calling someone a pilot if they would someday like to fly a plane.

    Come now, this is Slashdot. It's actually more like calling someone a car mechanic, when they would some day like to work on cars.

    No it's more like calling the average Slashdotter sexually active, when he'd someday like to lose his virginity.

  4. Re:Backstory on Antigua May Be Allowed To Violate US Copyrights · · Score: 1

    > They made it into a "moral issue," but that's just bullshit that they can sell to a few Evangelical hicks.

    That's not the cover story - it's the whole story.
    Not at all. The reason the WTO has ruled against the USA is that it allows online gaming for Keno and horse race betting.
  5. Allofmp3 mark II is coming on Antigua May Be Allowed To Violate US Copyrights · · Score: 2, Funny

    I love it.

  6. Google is a global company ... on Which Google Should Congress Believe? · · Score: 1

    ... Therefore Google can hire outside the USA.

    Next?

  7. Re:Applies to gas too? on Slot Machine with Bad Software Sends Players To Jail · · Score: 1

    http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/stories/2006/02/ 06/daily49.html

    ``The organization announced Thursday that it will drop the prices on some of its tickets next season, even offering $2 tickets for seats at the American Airlines Center's terrace level at 10 games.''

    By the logic presented here on slashdot, since $2 tickets to an NBA contender are too good to be true, the people who buy them are thieves.

  8. Re:Applies to gas too? on Slot Machine with Bad Software Sends Players To Jail · · Score: 1

    http://www.metafilter.com/50707/A-very-expensive-t ypo

    ``A very expensive typo. For twelve hours on April 5, a business class fare on Alitalia from Toronto to Lanarca, Cyprus was $39 CAD instead of the usual $3900. Someone at farecompare.com with access to ATPCO airfare feeds found the error and posted the news to FlyerTalk, which started a stampede for tickets that lasted until the fare was belatedly corrected. Alitalia initially tried to cancel the already issued tickets, sparking debates debates over whether the obviously wrong fares should be honored. Alitalia eventually relented, and a lucky 500-2000 people (according to some guesses) will be flying to Cyprus for under $200 including taxes.''

    This happens very often in the airline business. Airlines usually honor such mistakes. I've never heard of criminal prosecution.

  9. Floating nuclear power plants aren't new on Russia's Floating Nuclear Plants Under Fire From Greens · · Score: 1

    They are called aircraft carriers.

    Also many (most?) submarines are nuclear powered, and they are designed to float (surface) from time to time.

  10. Ballmer is a multi-billionaire on Ballmer Says Google's Growth Is 'Insane' · · Score: 1

    All earned from MSFT stock. He wants to hire programmers,
    he can always sell his stock back to MSFT for pennies, and
    let MSFT use the stock to attrack programmers.

  11. I totally don't know what 2160p is, but I want it! on Enter The 2160p HDTV · · Score: 1

    :-) :-)

  12. Re:WOw, what a neat idea on Google Offers Innovative Stock Option Scheme · · Score: 3, Informative

    You and people who modded you up are laughing because you fail to understand.

    There are basically two types of options: stock option grants to employees, and derivatve options sold by options exchanges. The latter come in the form of puts and calls. A person who buys a put option is buying the right to sell 100 shares of a specified company to seller of the put at a specific price. A person who buys a call option is buying the right to buy 100 shares of a company from the option seller at a specific price. One buys a put option if he expects the price of the stock to drop. One buys a call option if he expects the price of the stock to rise. One who buys a call or put can sell it later if he wants. The call or put usually has a short life time (a few months usually), and expires if not "exercised" (i.e. the owner of the call buys the stock, and the owner of the put sells the stock).

    Employee stock options are basically call options that the company has sold to the employees for zero dollars (well technically the company has bartered the options to the employee in exchange for their labor). However, employees cannot sell these options on an open market. All they can do is "exercise" (i.e. "call the option" by buying the stock from their employer). At least, not until Google.

    Why would an employee want to do this? Because sometimes call option prices have built into them a future expectation of price appreciation. It is possible for the employee's call option to be sold for more than the current market value of company's stock. And with GOOG's rise over since its IPO, many buyers of GOOG call options would be willing to make that bet. An employee can thus bank GOOG's future appreciation now, and diversify now (or he can use the proceeds to buy more GOOG). Another example would be employees that have "under water" options; options that have a strike price higher than the current market value of the GOOG. Without Google's new options market for employee, such options are worthless. Whereas, with an options market, such options might be worth something, even it is just a few dollars per option. There are lots of employees of former high flyers like Sun that would be interested in such a market, because they hold options with strikes of $50 per share or more.

    So this is a good, employee friendly, thing. Yes it is an obvious idea, but keep in mind that the investment industry is very conservative, and it sometimes requires people like the Google founders to question conventional approaches.

  13. Re:It's standard progression. on Newt Gingrich Says Free Speech May Be Forfeit · · Score: 1
    There's always some "threat" that requires that we give up some Freedoms ... just until the threat is over ... so the government can "protect" us.

    Would you be choked up the freedom of a preacher from a pulpit to tell his congregation to commit terrorist acts was curtailed?

    I wouldn't. If Newt is thinking about reigning in Muslim, and yes, Christian and Jewish extremists, tell where to send my political contribution.

  14. Re:Hold on there, Cowboy on The Great Firewall of Canada · · Score: 1

    How will you know if any sites are wrongly blocked?

    I noticed when I visit relatives in Canada who have Shaw Cable as their ISP that when I try to access google.com, I am redirected to google.ca. Don't be surprised if google and other search engines filter the web sites that cybertip.ca tells them to filter.

    Besides, will cybertip.ca filter fictional stories, such as what Senator-elect James Webb wrote? Will cybertip.ca filter images of children that are artificial and nor derived from real people?

  15. Re:Why He Should Not Have Been Tased on Students Put UCLA Taser Video On YouTube · · Score: 1
    I'm a radical right winger.

    UCLA apparently has a policy that requires students to produce ID demand. The student failed to produce it, so he broke UCLA's rules (note to self: tell the kids that UCLA is not on their list of places to attend college). As far as that goes, the UCLA police were in the right to evict him.

    From what little I can tell from the video, his resistance consisted of refusing to stand up. Protesters have been doing that for centuries, i.e. well before tasers were invented.

    The police, if they wanted to arrest/remove him, should have physically picked him up and done so. Only if he resisted would more forceful methods have been needed. But all reports have said the guy went "limp".

    This was basically a combination of torture, and laziness on the part of the police.

    I'm starting to be convinced that police don't understand how to use tasers and what they are for, and we'd better off if they went back to night sticks and firearms.

  16. Re:$625? ... on GPS Phone Tells Others Where You Are · · Score: 1
    The in-laws can type an address into the GPS unit I bought them (indeed,

    I can even program in the locatio in "my favorites" before I give it to them). This can be done without paying Verizon or whatever the $50 extra or so per month for GPS service.

    It's a problem looking for a solution.

    Now if you tell me there's a blue tooth cell phone and and a blue tooth gps that allow the latter to accept coordinates from the former (which are received via a text message), then I'll get a little more excited. As long as I don't have to pay extra fees to Verizon for it.

  17. $625? ... on GPS Phone Tells Others Where You Are · · Score: 1

    ... for $200 I can buy the in-laws a GPS unit for the car.
    Stupid.

  18. UNIX wars don't turn out well ... on Linux Kernel Developers' Position on GPLv3 · · Score: 1
    ... all the combatants lose, and a watcher from the sideline wins (re: OSF vs UNIX International, customers got confused, afraid, or weary, so they switched to Windows. Microsoft won).

    Linus should change the COPYING file such that anyone can re-license the code to use GPLv3 if they want. Let RMS try to fork if he wants. If he succeeds, great, no more bloody DRM.

    If he doesn't, great, little harm done.

  19. Re:Before the Google love-in gets out of hand on Google.org, a For-Profit Charity · · Score: 1
    The government should do a few main things:

    -make sure other people don't take my stuff, my life, or impose upon my life in a negative way.
    -protect my life and the sovereignty of my country.
    -make sure its populace is well-educated and healthy
    -deal with the people who cross the above two in a just manner.
    Well you are 3 for 4, but a very good post otherwise.
  20. Re:Before the Google love-in gets out of hand on Google.org, a For-Profit Charity · · Score: 1
    ...this development, along with the Bill and Melinda foundation, means we now have extremely large, extremely rich companies doing what our governments should be doing.

    On the contrary, this is exactly what the rich should be doing; a tradition older than Rockefeller and Carnegie. Name one gov't university better than CMU or Stanford, to name a couple founded by rich capitalists? (In fairness, I suspect the 3 military academies do a better job of teach military strategy and maybe aviation than CMU or Stanford.)

    Would Christian conservatives be happy if Google started a campaign to push condoms in schools and third world countries to help stop AIDS?

    Isn't this pretty much what Bill and Melinda Gates, as well as George Soros do? In any case, it is their money, and if it is legal to spend it that way, X'tian conservatives can't do much about it, other than try to have school boards and third world leaders elected out of office. That is the accountability. The difference here is that Google.org might find a way to make money pusing condoms (e.g. by selling advertising on free condoms). If Google.org can do that, this frees the Gates family and Soros to give to other causes.

    Let's remember that this is the same Google which is arguably supporting the tyrannical Chinese government's censorship. Fundamentally, we should be asking, what is Google's agenda? What if we disagree with it?

    It isn't your money, unless you own shares of GOOG. As long as it is legal, your disagreement is immaterial. You can sell your shares of GOOG and stop using their search engine (and there are alternatives; I'm finding google.com produces too much spam, and less famous engines are less vulnerable) if Google bothers you.

    I prefer my social engineering to be done by the government because in principle at least the government represents me and my interests.

    Well in the USA at least, the majority year in and year out elects governments that don't include the amount of social engineering you want in their party platforms. I do not want the US government engaging in that degree of social engineering, especially considering that gov't social engineering can make things worse. Having corporations compete to do good and try to make a buck at it, strikes me as a more efficient and reliable way to determine the social engineering that works.

    I urge you to think about whether it's really a positive thing to have one company exerting so much influence over the information we receive (google.com), knowing so much about what we are interested in (google.com), what we talk about (gmail), where we go (google maps/earth), what we buy (Adwords, froogle), what we are creating (the emerging word processing software and related tools, Picasa), and apparently now, how we operate as a society.

    I don't worry because Yahoo and Microsoft provide viable, and in some cases, superior alternatives. Of that list, the only thing from Google that is indispensible (to me), is google earth.

    Similar whining was uttered about Microsoft 10 years ago. How silly that looks today.

  21. Some much for an independent board on HP's Dunn Stepping Down · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The CEO is now the chairman of the board. While
    Hurd was probably exasperated, and rightly felt
    he had to take the reigns to prevent further
    damage to his company, the post-Enron concept
    of an independent board has just taken a big
    step backward. In the long run this is bad
    for shareholders (not just HP shareholders).

  22. Re:"Keep the original CD" = silly requirement on Storage System for Thousands of CDs and DVDs? · · Score: 1

    > This is the government/legal system at work. If you were to lose the CD's and an audit was done and you did not have them, you can face massive legal fines.

    Which is precisely the reason why the data should be put in a RAID protected disk subsystem that
    has Sarbanes-Oxley compatible data retention (WORM) capabilities. CDs don't last. Data online can
    be made to last indefinitely.

  23. Buy a real storage system from EMC or NetApp on Storage System for Thousands of CDs and DVDs? · · Score: 1

    Read from CD or DVD write to disk protected with RAID.

    30,000 DVDs at say 4 GB each is 120,000 GB, or 120 TB.

  24. Re:Thermal depolymerisation? on Biofuel Production to Cause Water Shortages? · · Score: 1

    > currently runs on turkey guts --- it's producing oil at about 400 barrels a day, at about break-even prices.
    [...]
    > I just seem to be amazed at how little interest there is in this...

    If it you can only break even at the current price of oil ($70+ / barrel), then
    you shouldn't be amazed.

  25. Re:This is absurd on so many levels on NH Man Arrested for Videotaping Police · · Score: 1
    > New Hampshire is a beautiful state, and parts of the state are within commuting distance of Boston,

    There's a bit of hyprocrisy here in that Mass. is one of the least free states. and yet free staters picked NH to take advantage of some of the benefits of a nearby metropolis (and many of those benefits come as a result of policies free staters abhor).

    You'd have been better off with Wyoming or Montana. Far more libertarians out West, and people who won't miss the big city.