Those of you not involved with Glender won't recognize the names of three of the individuals involved in the project thus far,
Bassam Kurdali aka slikdigit - created the animation 'chicken chair' among others.
Andy Goralczyk aka @ndy - has done both gorgeous stills and lively and fun animations.
These are two of the best artists/animators using blender, both have excellent imagination and the talent to accomplish any bit of artistry they put their minds to.
and lastly Ton Roosendaal - he is the creator of Blender and the primary driving force behind its open source development.
With this combination of talent being the driving force behind project Orange, we can be sure to expect something truly entertaining and masterfully executed.
Since they will be using Blender, you might be interested in the upcoming features that the next release will have along with some of the scripts available
Blender now has manipulators and universal undo - two things that lots of slashdotters complained were missing the last time Blender was mentioned on slashdot.
I taught a computer class for a large group of home school students and private school kids this year. They were, at the beginning, interested in learning to program. However, when it came down to actually doing it, and learning to code, they all, except for one, said "We're just more interested in playing games."
Blender has a built in game engine that can easily be scripted in python. Also by the end of summer I believe it will have a shockwave exporter (I know one is currently in development and is fairly far along, but won't be ready for the upcoming release) that can turn their games into shockwave games they can put on the web for their friends.
Trademark is generally only relevant for trade done in a specific domain - so usage of Tiger for a football franchise won't disallow another company to use football as a software reseller.
Where Apple potentially gets in trouble is that there is a company that is a software reseller that is doing business under the trademark of Tiger. Whether Apples line of business and Tiger Direct are closely enough related that the courts would disallow Apples usage of the trademark is unclear.
I don't oppose software patents but I oppose how they have been implemented. Software is an area of rapid development, and what the patent office considers patentable often is in fact 'obvious' to even a moderately competent programmer. The gap between actually obvious and what has been designated as 'patently obvious' means that a great deal a large number of ideas that are frequently and easily created independently are patented.
So, if patents for software were related to its requirement for extensive R&D and were truly non-obvious then I wouldn't have a problem with them.
The reason this isn't as much an issue in other industries (although it is a problem with biotech also) is that they are already mature and thus creating something patentable is quite a bit more difficult and usually does imply a high degree of non obviousness.
[QUOTE]Every part on a car would need to be tested for strength, width, height, depth, shape, mass, the connections holding it to another part, and that bolt tested...You get the idea. You would also need the conditions that happened the second the crash occured. Road type, amount of friction, temperature, slope, etc. As a juror I would never trust a computer simulation.[/QUOTE]
This is like claiming that we can't calculate the acceleartion on an apple due to gravity, because the actual effect of gravity is dependent on the gravitational force of every atom, etc.
Perfect knowledge is not necessary to acquire a reasonably accuarate simulation or estimation. And the error bars on simulation can easily be small enough that they are irrelevant to the conclusion.
Now, we don't know the particular of this case, but nowhere near the information you seem to think is neccessary is actually relevent to a reasonably and usefully accurate simulation.
There metric that measures self descriptabiity, is going to be way off if they don't strip out the GPL license for projects that include it in every file.
The author didn't say whether he defraged the disk, or whether he had any of the programs preinstalled and frequently used on windows.
Since windows optimizes according to usage, this could pontentiall make a massive difference in speed.
Firefox is faster all around for me than IE as far as I can tell. Of course even if it weren't there are other features that are of sufficient importance to me that I'd stick with Firefox even f there was a slight speed hit.
Also I seem to recall that you can preload Firefox, which would make 'loading' seem even faster. Since much of IE is preloaded into memory that would make the comparison more apples to apples.
I believe you have linked to the wrong study (while it is on the First Amendment and the media it doesn't ask the same questions as this study), the results and questions refered to in the article are here
[QUOTE]Studies show that most studies are conducted in ways that can guarantee the desired results. I can think of lots of ways to ask questions that would provide enough confusion to get the answers they reported. There are also other ways to ask the questions to get the opposite answers or even more ways to ask the questions to get unbiased answers.
If this study were repeated independently I'll believe it. Otherwise, I'll presume it's as fair and balanced as cable news.[/QUOTE]
Why not look up the study and see for yourself, instead of speculating? It took me all of a few seconds to find the following...
As others have noted, you can combine village or family incomes, also a loan system can be set up, thus it could result in costs of less than 1% of annual family income per person.
To me the point of concern/interest is infrastructure and costs for powering it.
2$ isn't really meaningful except for goods that are bought on the international market. What is relevant is 'Purchasing Power Parity' - how much goods and services the two dollars will buy on the local market.
[QUOTE]DDT is a mixed blessing. Extremely bad for you, yes -- but DDT is also responsible for the almost complete eradication of malaria in the first world. Nothing kills mosquitoes so efficiently. There are those who feel that the world-wide ban on DDT (due to its harmful effects) is what allows malaria to remain a serious problem throughout South Asia. Sure, DDT kills people, but malaria kills more. It's like chemotherapy -- you poison your own body in hopes that it kills the cancer before it kills you. Not ideal, of course, but don't pretend that it was all bad.[/QUOTE]
A number of common mistakes in your post...
DDT doesn't appear to be overly harmful to humans. So it isn't 'extremely bad for you'. The issue that people have with it is that it is a 'Persistent Organic Pollutant' ie it stays in the environment for a long time, and it's impact on raptors (eggshell weakening), and other non target species when it was used on crops. You are correct that it was largely responsible for eradication of malaria in the first world (along with improved medical care). However it is not the most efficient killer of mosquitos - instead it is cheap and effective.
There is no 'world wide ban' on DDT for mosquito control, there is a ban for its usage on crops. For countries where malaria is still an issue some countries still utilize it (although I have seen ignorant statements by public health ministers on why their country chooses not to use it). Mosquitos become resistent to DDT and other pesticides, so they usage of the pesticides have to be cycled.
You are probably thinking of Sri Lanka, which was following the cycling procedure (I think it was six years on, then six years of monitoring to make sure that the malaria was eliminated). Unfortunately they fell far behind on the monitoring (doing blood tests mostly), and realized too late the resurgence of malaria. Also there were other factors (the funding countries ahd been told that malaria would be elimanated by a specified time and thus had dropped funding some years before the resurgence. This was part of the reason that the monitoring was inadequate..., also they didn't have supplies of pesticide ready and so response was too slow...)
Also some mosquitos (don't recall the species) don't land on walls before or after feeding, and thus spraying DDT on the walls is not effective for handling them.
Read over at Osnews the other day that since the current chip controller for the fan isn't supported by Linux it defaults the fan to the wide open state, thus instead of whisper quite with Mac OS X the fan is really loud.
It sounds like the newspaper writer is making statements far beyond what the report says.
This happens all the time, the journalist misreads (or overinterprets) the report, makes irresponsible claims and statements supposedly based on the report, which inevitably results in the authors of the report being accussed of alarmism by pundits.
Which means the general populace gets bad information all around, and the zealous individuals of the 'right' and 'left' continue to feel they are vindicated in their opinions on global warming and how the 'other side' are ignoring the obvious truth.
While I oppose software patents as they are currently implemented in the US I disagree with some of your statements,
[QUOTE]Its why Bill Gates, a college drop-out, could build a multi-billion dollar company out of nothing but the ideas in his head.[/QUOTE]
Mr. Gates first sales were of a compiler and operating system to IBM. The OS he purchased from another programmer, and the compiler followed many of the same ideas and designs of DEC Basic (I've heard unsubstantiated rumors that he had looked at the source from the DEC Basic compiler), also he apparently used bios code that he did not have copyright to.
Mr. Gates has had superb business sense and has had tremendous success with his leadership of Microsoft, but I'm not sure how much of his success can be attributed to 'nothing but ideas in his head'.
[QUOTE]Patents should not apply to software for the simple reason that they would do far more harm than good, harming creativity rather than promoting it.[/QUOTE]
With the state of patenting as it currently is I agree, but if changes were made so that patents are 'properly' rewarded - ie restricted to true innovations that require a reasonable amount of risk and investment, then I would disagree.
[QUOTE]Software doesn't need patents, copyright is more than adequate to provide the incentive software engineers need to turn their ideas into software. The cost to society of a 20 year monopoly over a software invention will never be justified, because it is inconceivable that any software invention could require such a powerful incentive. The price for this monopoly is paid by other inventors, and so the effect is to stifle innovation, not to promote it.[/QUOTE]
Some software ideas are difficult to create - ie the SHA encryption algorithm, but can readily implemented by a competent programmer. I don't see how copyright would be adequate incentive to create such notrivial ideas. Not to say that other incentives might work as well for many inventors (ie pride, curiousity, prestige, reciprocity, etc.).
The real problem is that patents should only be awarded in any field based on innovativeness - the likelyhood that it could or would have been invented without a substantial investment of sweat equity. There also needs to be a method where if an idea is broadly useful, that even if it is highly innovative and patentable, the rights can be purchased to it to make it generally available for usage (ie perhaps a government patent buyback or some such).
[QUOTE]Would you rather have a $10K or $7K raise? You would work harder for the $10K right? Higher marginal tax rates suppress growth.[/QUOTE]
Of course this ignores that their is a maximum of the amount of 'hard work' that can be increased, and that each additional dollar is 'worth less' to the individual, and that there will generally be diminishing returns. Look up 'marginal utility' and 'marginal efficiency'. Also look up 'elasticity and utility'.
[QUOTE]Would you hire an accountant if he could get you that extra $3K if you only got the $7K? Would you accept $2k in benefits over nothing? High tax rates cause avoidance of taxes. Low tax rates make the cost of avoidance higher than the benefit [/QUOTE]
Again this deals with marginal utility and marginal efficiency, and the elasticity of utility. Even a low tax rate will have individuals to whom the utility of avoidance will be significant. Some silly examples - for someone making 2$ a year, a tax rate of 100% isn't really worth avoiding since the 2$ have little or no utility. For someone making a billion dollars a tax rate of 1% is worth avoiding. If there is the death penalty for tax evasion, then it might be worth paying more than the tax rate. The utility of avoidance varies with the individuals income, the tax rate, and also with enforcement and expected penalities.
[QUOTE]Decreasing taxes increases growth.[/QUOTE]
Taxes fund things like education, communication and transport infrastructure, the military, financial institutes etc. Thus decreasing taxes can result in increased marginal cost of labor, increased logistics costs, loss of property (or increased cost of protecting property), increased cost of contract enforcement, etc. possibly resulting in a decrease of growth resultant from a decrease in taxes.
Wanniski and Laffer are not sources of quality analysis on economics.
[QUOTE] delta V is a function of how hard you smack it, and from how far away.. [/QUOTE]
Isn't delta v, change in velocity? It doesn't matter from how far away you smack it as far as delta v is concerned, however, an equivalent change in velocity from a greater distance from earth is more significant, because it will have much more time to travel along the new trajectory and thus be more likely to miss the earth with an equivalent applied force.
A paper trail allows a random auditing of machines.
You audit x% of the machines and see if it turns up invalid errors. If so then you do a full audit. While it is possible for the software authors to get cheat and get away with it. A reasonable possibility of getting caught is likely to reduce the odds of them doing so.
[QUOTE]Apart from the fact that it is meaningless (any programmer knows that the printout doesn't have to match the vote that was recorded internally) there is a more fundamental problem.[/QUOTE]
Um... I think you need to read up a bit before talking about this subject.
You take the numbers reported for each precint from the computer recorded data. They you randomly audit a certain number of precincts. Or you can audit precints based on challenges or questionable results. (Preferably both audits based on a random sample and anomalous looking results should be done). If you find a descrepency - you determine if the error is due to the paper ballot counting or the computer.
[QUOTE]The belief that electronic voting (or indeed automated vote counting of any kind) can work or deliver any kind of benefit is a serious mistake. A huge amount of cash need to be spent to test it, get it working and provide some degree of confidence that the result isn't wrong, and even then you can never be 100% sure.[/QUOTE]
The 'benefit' is speed and possibly accuracy. Other benefits are access for the physically handicapped.
Slashdot Mirror
Those of you not involved with Glender won't recognize the names of three of the individuals involved in the project thus far,
Bassam Kurdali aka slikdigit - created the animation 'chicken chair' among others.
Andy Goralczyk aka @ndy - has done both gorgeous stills and lively and fun animations.
These are two of the best artists/animators using blender, both have excellent imagination and the talent to accomplish any bit of artistry they put their minds to.
and lastly Ton Roosendaal - he is the creator of Blender and the primary driving force behind its open source development.
With this combination of talent being the driving force behind project Orange, we can be sure to expect something truly entertaining and masterfully executed.
LetterRip
Since they will be using Blender, you might be interested in the upcoming features that the next release will have along with some of the scripts available
have a look at the development digest
http://cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=233256
Blender now has manipulators and universal undo - two things that lots of slashdotters complained were missing the last time Blender was mentioned on slashdot.
LetterRip
If you teach such a programming class again, I'd recommend using Blender http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Home.2.0.html and teaching them to program in python.
Blender has a built in game engine that can easily be scripted in python. Also by the end of summer I believe it will have a shockwave exporter (I know one is currently in development and is fairly far along, but won't be ready for the upcoming release) that can turn their games into shockwave games they can put on the web for their friends.
Trademark is generally only relevant for trade done in a specific domain - so usage of Tiger for a football franchise won't disallow another company to use football as a software reseller.
Where Apple potentially gets in trouble is that there is a company that is a software reseller that is doing business under the trademark of Tiger. Whether Apples line of business and Tiger Direct are closely enough related that the courts would disallow Apples usage of the trademark is unclear.
LetterRip
Your first 10$ is already won, search for Sedna, the 'tenth planet' in our solar system.
LetterRip
That would be cool if someone could add something like that to Blender
http://www.blender3d.org/
I don't oppose software patents but I oppose how they have been implemented. Software is an area of rapid development, and what the patent office considers patentable often is in fact 'obvious' to even a moderately competent programmer. The gap between actually obvious and what has been designated as 'patently obvious' means that a great deal a large number of ideas that are frequently and easily created independently are patented.
So, if patents for software were related to its requirement for extensive R&D and were truly non-obvious then I wouldn't have a problem with them.
The reason this isn't as much an issue in other industries (although it is a problem with biotech also) is that they are already mature and thus creating something patentable is quite a bit more difficult and usually does imply a high degree of non obviousness.
LetterRip
[QUOTE]Every part on a car would need to be tested for strength, width, height, depth, shape, mass, the connections holding it to another part, and that bolt tested...You get the idea. You would also need the conditions that happened the second the crash occured. Road type, amount of friction, temperature, slope, etc. As a juror I would never trust a computer simulation.[/QUOTE]
This is like claiming that we can't calculate the acceleartion on an apple due to gravity, because the actual effect of gravity is dependent on the gravitational force of every atom, etc.
Perfect knowledge is not necessary to acquire a reasonably accuarate simulation or estimation. And the error bars on simulation can easily be small enough that they are irrelevant to the conclusion.
Now, we don't know the particular of this case, but nowhere near the information you seem to think is neccessary is actually relevent to a reasonably and usefully accurate simulation.
LetterRip
There metric that measures self descriptabiity, is going to be way off if they don't strip out the GPL license for projects that include it in every file.
LetterRip
The author didn't say whether he defraged the disk, or whether he had any of the programs preinstalled and frequently used on windows.
Since windows optimizes according to usage, this could pontentiall make a massive difference in speed.
Firefox is faster all around for me than IE as far as I can tell. Of course even if it weren't there are other features that are of sufficient importance to me that I'd stick with Firefox even f there was a slight speed hit.
Also I seem to recall that you can preload Firefox, which would make 'loading' seem even faster. Since much of IE is preloaded into memory that would make the comparison more apples to apples.
LetterRip
I believe you have linked to the wrong study (while it is on the First Amendment and the media it doesn't ask the same questions as this study), the results and questions refered to in the article are here
LetterRip
[QUOTE]Studies show that most studies are conducted in ways that can guarantee the desired results. I can think of lots of ways to ask questions that would provide enough confusion to get the answers they reported. There are also other ways to ask the questions to get the opposite answers or even more ways to ask the questions to get unbiased answers.
/ studentsurvey1.php
If this study were repeated independently I'll believe it. Otherwise, I'll presume it's as fair and balanced as cable news.[/QUOTE]
Why not look up the study and see for yourself, instead of speculating? It took me all of a few seconds to find the following...
http://firstamendment.jideas.org/results/students
LetterRip
2*365= 730$
100/730$ = 13.7% of annual income.
As others have noted, you can combine village or family incomes, also a loan system can be set up, thus it could result in costs of less than 1% of annual family income per person.
To me the point of concern/interest is infrastructure and costs for powering it.
2$ isn't really meaningful except for goods that are bought on the international market. What is relevant is 'Purchasing Power Parity' - how much goods and services the two dollars will buy on the local market.
LetterRip
The price is 100$ for a PC that won't be produced for another 18 months.
So we are talking quite a bit of lead time, and for completely unknown specs.
Without knowing the hardware it is completely unknowable whether that will be a good value especiallly that far in the future.
LetterRip
[QUOTE]DDT is a mixed blessing. Extremely bad for you, yes -- but DDT is also responsible for the almost complete eradication of malaria in the first world. Nothing kills mosquitoes so efficiently. There are those who feel that the world-wide ban on DDT (due to its harmful effects) is what allows malaria to remain a serious problem throughout South Asia. Sure, DDT kills people, but malaria kills more. It's like chemotherapy -- you poison your own body in hopes that it kills the cancer before it kills you. Not ideal, of course, but don't pretend that it was all bad.[/QUOTE]
A number of common mistakes in your post...
DDT doesn't appear to be overly harmful to humans. So it isn't 'extremely bad for you'. The issue that people have with it is that it is a 'Persistent Organic Pollutant' ie it stays in the environment for a long time, and it's impact on raptors (eggshell weakening), and other non target species when it was used on crops. You are correct that it was largely responsible for eradication of malaria in the first world (along with improved medical care). However it is not the most efficient killer of mosquitos - instead it is cheap and effective.
There is no 'world wide ban' on DDT for mosquito control, there is a ban for its usage on crops. For countries where malaria is still an issue some countries still utilize it (although I have seen ignorant statements by public health ministers on why their country chooses not to use it). Mosquitos become resistent to DDT and other pesticides, so they usage of the pesticides have to be cycled.
You are probably thinking of Sri Lanka, which was following the cycling procedure (I think it was six years on, then six years of monitoring to make sure that the malaria was eliminated). Unfortunately they fell far behind on the monitoring (doing blood tests mostly), and realized too late the resurgence of malaria. Also there were other factors (the funding countries ahd been told that malaria would be elimanated by a specified time and thus had dropped funding some years before the resurgence. This was part of the reason that the monitoring was inadequate..., also they didn't have supplies of pesticide ready and so response was too slow...)
Also some mosquitos (don't recall the species) don't land on walls before or after feeding, and thus spraying DDT on the walls is not effective for handling them.
LetterRip
[QUOTE]The scientists behind the project, called climateprediction.net, say it shows there's no such thing as a safe level of carbon dioxide.[/QUOTE]
There are plenty of safe levels of carbon dioxide... how moronic. The actual quote from the scientists is later in the article,
[QUOTE]"However, with our current state of knowledge, we can't yet define a safe level in the atmosphere."[/QUOTE]
Ie they aren't certain what the safe level is, not that one doesn't exist. Yet more irresponsible journalism.
LetterRip
Read over at Osnews the other day that since the current chip controller for the fan isn't supported by Linux it defaults the fan to the wide open state, thus instead of whisper quite with Mac OS X the fan is really loud.
LetterRip
It sounds like the newspaper writer is making statements far beyond what the report says.
This happens all the time, the journalist misreads (or overinterprets) the report, makes irresponsible claims and statements supposedly based on the report, which inevitably results in the authors of the report being accussed of alarmism by pundits.
Which means the general populace gets bad information all around, and the zealous individuals of the 'right' and 'left' continue to feel they are vindicated in their opinions on global warming and how the 'other side' are ignoring the obvious truth.
LetterRip
While I oppose software patents as they are currently implemented in the US I disagree with some of your statements,
[QUOTE]Its why Bill Gates, a college drop-out, could build a multi-billion dollar company out of nothing but the ideas in his head.[/QUOTE]
Mr. Gates first sales were of a compiler and operating system to IBM. The OS he purchased from another programmer, and the compiler followed many of the same ideas and designs of DEC Basic (I've heard unsubstantiated rumors that he had looked at the source from the DEC Basic compiler), also he apparently used bios code that he did not have copyright to.
Mr. Gates has had superb business sense and has had tremendous success with his leadership of Microsoft, but I'm not sure how much of his success can be attributed to 'nothing but ideas in his head'.
[QUOTE]Patents should not apply to software for the simple reason that they would do far more harm than good, harming creativity rather than promoting it.[/QUOTE]
With the state of patenting as it currently is I agree, but if changes were made so that patents are 'properly' rewarded - ie restricted to true innovations that require a reasonable amount of risk and investment, then I would disagree.
[QUOTE]Software doesn't need patents, copyright is more than adequate to provide the incentive software engineers need to turn their ideas into software. The cost to society of a 20 year monopoly over a software invention will never be justified, because it is inconceivable that any software invention could require such a powerful incentive. The price for this monopoly is paid by other inventors, and so the effect is to stifle innovation, not to promote it.[/QUOTE]
Some software ideas are difficult to create - ie the SHA encryption algorithm, but can readily implemented by a competent programmer. I don't see how copyright would be adequate incentive to create such notrivial ideas. Not to say that other incentives might work as well for many inventors (ie pride, curiousity, prestige, reciprocity, etc.).
The real problem is that patents should only be awarded in any field based on innovativeness - the likelyhood that it could or would have been invented without a substantial investment of sweat equity. There also needs to be a method where if an idea is broadly useful, that even if it is highly innovative and patentable, the rights can be purchased to it to make it generally available for usage (ie perhaps a government patent buyback or some such).
LetterRip
[QUOTE]Would you rather have a $10K or $7K raise?
You would work harder for the $10K right? Higher marginal tax rates suppress growth.[/QUOTE]
Of course this ignores that their is a maximum of the amount of 'hard work' that can be increased, and that each additional dollar is 'worth less' to the individual, and that there will generally be diminishing returns. Look up 'marginal utility' and 'marginal efficiency'. Also look up 'elasticity and utility'.
[QUOTE]Would you hire an accountant if he could get you that extra $3K if you only got the $7K? Would you accept $2k in benefits over nothing? High tax rates cause avoidance of taxes. Low tax rates make the cost of avoidance higher than the benefit [/QUOTE]
Again this deals with marginal utility and marginal efficiency, and the elasticity of utility. Even a low tax rate will have individuals to whom the utility of avoidance will be significant. Some silly examples - for someone making 2$ a year, a tax rate of 100% isn't really worth avoiding since the 2$ have little or no utility. For someone making a billion dollars a tax rate of 1% is worth avoiding. If there is the death penalty for tax evasion, then it might be worth paying more than the tax rate. The utility of avoidance varies with the individuals income, the tax rate, and also with enforcement and expected penalities.
[QUOTE]Decreasing taxes increases growth.[/QUOTE]
Taxes fund things like education, communication and transport infrastructure, the military, financial institutes etc. Thus decreasing taxes can result in increased marginal cost of labor, increased logistics costs, loss of property (or increased cost of protecting property), increased cost of contract enforcement, etc. possibly resulting in a decrease of growth resultant from a decrease in taxes.
Wanniski and Laffer are not sources of quality analysis on economics.
LetterRip
[QUOTE] delta V is a function of how hard you smack it, and from how far away.. [/QUOTE]
Isn't delta v, change in velocity? It doesn't matter from how far away you smack it as far as delta v is concerned, however, an equivalent change in velocity from a greater distance from earth is more significant, because it will have much more time to travel along the new trajectory and thus be more likely to miss the earth with an equivalent applied force.
LetterRip
How about blender,
http://www.blender3d.org/
LetterRip
A paper trail allows a random auditing of machines.
You audit x% of the machines and see if it turns up invalid errors. If so then you do a full audit. While it is possible for the software authors to get cheat and get away with it. A reasonable possibility of getting caught is likely to reduce the odds of them doing so.
LetterRip
[QUOTE]Apart from the fact that it is meaningless (any programmer knows that the printout doesn't have to match the vote that was recorded internally) there is a more fundamental problem.[/QUOTE]
Um... I think you need to read up a bit before talking about this subject.
You take the numbers reported for each precint from the computer recorded data. They you randomly audit a certain number of precincts. Or you can audit precints based on challenges or questionable results. (Preferably both audits based on a random sample and anomalous looking results should be done). If you find a descrepency - you determine if the error is due to the paper ballot counting or the computer.
[QUOTE]The belief that electronic voting (or indeed automated vote counting of any kind) can work or deliver any kind of benefit is a serious mistake. A huge amount of cash need to be spent to test it, get it working and provide some degree of confidence that the result isn't wrong, and even then you can never be 100% sure.[/QUOTE]
The 'benefit' is speed and possibly accuracy. Other benefits are access for the physically handicapped.
LetterRip
It isn't widely known but the government pays Medical schools to limit the number of Medical school students they accept.
LetterRip