FTA:
Two major directions at conceptual and technological level are considered: ram-compression and active compression Use ram-compression, we already have well-known solutions like Huffman and Lempel-Ziv.
I'm sure every sane engineer would look at that 3.2 and decide that, for reasons related to what's practical and works well, the exact 3.20000000 can't be used with full precision, instead a rough approximation is needed, say 3.14159265 or thereabouts.
would have erroneously established pi as the ratio 'five-fourths to four' or 3.2. What's wrong with that? It's fairly close to the truth, much closer than many of the current federal administration's views on reality. And far less disastrous.
(and not one in my country either so I'm less than interested given that the important bit i.e. Bush is going is a given) Bush leaving isn't enough if his cronies stay. Radically new policies are needed, not just a new individual. We desperately, desperately need the US to stop fueling terrorism and generally messing everything up.
In the open-source solution that is linked in the summary, a touch-screen interface produces a printed paper with a barcode for scanning. I think the barcode is a mistake as it's an unnecessary abstraction.
Instead let the voter choose between manual forms and machine forms which both look exactly the same. The only difference is that if you fill in the manual form you make marks with a marker pen, but if you use the touch-screen interface the form comes out of the printer with the spots already marked the way you selected on the touch screen.
The scanner scans both types of forms in exactly the same way. In both cases it looks for the same human-readable ink-filled spots.
I had an answer but forgot to post it so here it comes a day later.
I agree wholeheartedly with what you say, except apparently the following, depending on what you mean:
One objective of terrorists is to force people to make a choice: Tyranny or death. Terrorists do not force people of the West to that choice, because they have no way of forcing tyranny upon us. They have no such power over us. Only lawmakers and voters can do that. Lawmakers and voters can do this in various ways, one way is by reacting to the terrorists by giving up freedoms.
Even if the terrorists incited the initial fear that led to this reaction, it wouldn't be the terrorists that would give up the freedoms, it would be the lawmakers and the voters.
In my view the terrorists are no threat to freedom. Only fear is.
The whole idea that terrorists hate our freedoms is unfounded and extremely weird. Why on earth would they sacrifice their lives based on our freedoms? How could the freedom of people in distant countries be a cause for sacrificing your life? It's preposterous, it makes no sense. Their motivations must be different.
Either way, the house/broker always wins and it's a net loss for the players. But of course. That's why they're called brokers. They make people go broke.
should the chevron at the right of the toolbar open a history page listing the most recently viewed pages, or -- as on desktop Firefox -- merely a list of most frequently typed URLs? Apparently he means the chevron which in the desktop version is at the right of the address field. It's unfortunate that this dropdown list keeps track only of typed urls. It would be much better if it kept track of the urls that were most recently invoked by typing or by using the dropdown list, most recent first. When you often use the dropdown list for a certain url, you want that url at the top of the list, you don't want it wandering down lower and lower in spite of your frequent usage.
appealed to the public's common sense Never heard of this what is it? Why are Americans so parochial? Just because the public in the US has no common sense doesn't mean it's the the same in the rest of the world.
If you think that is bad, think of me man! Back in my day they would totally rip off an arm and a leg! Have you ever tried to drive a wheelchair with a single arm? In the snow? Uphill both ways?
It's far too slow for everyday use. But if you only use it that way two or three times a year, it isn't too bad. You choose several interesting stories, making them load into separate tabs, and then make coffee or something while they download.
Indeed that would make more sense for most people. But in my case I keep the antique service also for another reason, it allows me to keep my antique e-mail address.
Here in Sweden no such service is entirely free, but I could get one much cheaper with no monthly/yearly fee, and the same per-minute fee. For anyone who uses the Net a lot, it makes sense to have a free or cheap additional service.
Would you pay 2 time the price [...] Consumers don't. Some do. At home I have 8MB cable, and also, for the infrequent times when the cable is down, I have an antique 56K telephone-modem subscription. The latter costs very little when unused, and instead costs by the minute when used.
Of course the phone-modem connection isn't useful for any serious download, but I'm never helplessly disconnected from e-mail, news, slashdot etc.
Occasional downmods are unavoidable. If you aren't modded down occasionally, it means you're being far too careful.
The proper way to interpret mods is: Modded up? Great! My post was appreciated! Modded down? Sigh. Stupid mods. Move on.
Only persistent downmods are cause for concern.
As long as your posting is generally constructive and contributing, you can always afford to lose a couple of mod points now and then, because this has no important effect on your karma. The effect on your karma becomes important only if you're consistently misbehaving, which clearly you aren't doing.
So just keep making good posts, and don't worry about the occasional downmod. It really is unavoidable.
Although I have to agree the analogy was terrible. You are certainly right, it was truly horrible! I wonder where he got this idea that he could post an analogy without cars on Slashdot. He must be new here.
Republic means that it's not led by a hereditary monarch — as opposed to a monarchy where there is a hereditary monarch.
Democracy means that the people of the country either make the laws and the government decisions, or elect representatives who make the laws and the government decisions — as opposed to a dictatorship where the people have no say (or have practically no say).
Representative democracy means that you vote for representatives who make the laws and govern — as opposed to direct democracy where the people make the laws and/or govern.
It's abundantly clear that the US is a republic and a representative democracy.
It's a weak democracy, since it's a two-party system where it's mathematically extremely difficult for any but the two ruling parties to come to power, but that only makes it weak, it's still a democracy.
Why do some people get this weird illusion that republics are not democracies? Are you under the impression that Britain having a queen makes it more democratic than the US? Or do you give these words completely different meanings?
I find it unsettling and worrying that some people are so badly informed about something so very important. The school system must be terribly bad in your country.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sure every sane engineer would look at that 3.2 and decide that, for reasons related to what's practical and works well, the exact 3.20000000 can't be used with full precision, instead a rough approximation is needed, say 3.14159265 or thereabouts.
In the open-source solution that is linked in the summary, a touch-screen interface produces a printed paper with a barcode for scanning. I think the barcode is a mistake as it's an unnecessary abstraction.
Instead let the voter choose between manual forms and machine forms which both look exactly the same. The only difference is that if you fill in the manual form you make marks with a marker pen, but if you use the touch-screen interface the form comes out of the printer with the spots already marked the way you selected on the touch screen.
The scanner scans both types of forms in exactly the same way. In both cases it looks for the same human-readable ink-filled spots.
"Mega-D botnet"? Pffft! That's nothing compared to the latest ship-and-anchor technology!
I agree wholeheartedly with what you say, except apparently the following, depending on what you mean: One objective of terrorists is to force people to make a choice:
Tyranny or death. Terrorists do not force people of the West to that choice, because they have no way of forcing tyranny upon us. They have no such power over us. Only lawmakers and voters can do that. Lawmakers and voters can do this in various ways, one way is by reacting to the terrorists by giving up freedoms.
Even if the terrorists incited the initial fear that led to this reaction, it wouldn't be the terrorists that would give up the freedoms, it would be the lawmakers and the voters.
In my view the terrorists are no threat to freedom. Only fear is.
The whole idea that terrorists hate our freedoms is unfounded and extremely weird. Why on earth would they sacrifice their lives based on our freedoms? How could the freedom of people in distant countries be a cause for sacrificing your life? It's preposterous, it makes no sense. Their motivations must be different.
I agree strongly with the rest of what you say.
Don't worry, Bush still gets far more damage bragging rights than any virus writer.
All those virus writers struggling so hard, and then a simple ship gets all the bragging rights.
If you think that is bad, think of me man! Back in my day they would totally rip off an arm and a leg! Have you ever tried to drive a wheelchair with a single arm? In the snow? Uphill both ways?
Let's be honest and give Microsoft credit where credit is due.
It's far too slow for everyday use. But if you only use it that way two or three times a year, it isn't too bad. You choose several interesting stories, making them load into separate tabs, and then make coffee or something while they download.
Indeed that would make more sense for most people. But in my case I keep the antique service also for another reason, it allows me to keep my antique e-mail address.
Here in Sweden no such service is entirely free, but I could get one much cheaper with no monthly/yearly fee, and the same per-minute fee. For anyone who uses the Net a lot, it makes sense to have a free or cheap additional service.
Indeed there's nothing wrong with Vista. Except of course the operating system.
Of course the phone-modem connection isn't useful for any serious download, but I'm never helplessly disconnected from e-mail, news, slashdot etc.
Occasional downmods are unavoidable. If you aren't modded down occasionally, it means you're being far too careful.
The proper way to interpret mods is: Modded up? Great! My post was appreciated! Modded down? Sigh. Stupid mods. Move on.
Only persistent downmods are cause for concern.
As long as your posting is generally constructive and contributing, you can always afford to lose a couple of mod points now and then, because this has no important effect on your karma. The effect on your karma becomes important only if you're consistently misbehaving, which clearly you aren't doing.
So just keep making good posts, and don't worry about the occasional downmod. It really is unavoidable.
"...of less than a thousandth the diameter of an atomic nucleus."
As if everybody didn't already waste too much time on games, do we have to teach programs to waste time too?
Are you implying he didn't?
Sure it's a republic, as opposed to a monarchy.
But it's also a democracy, as opposed to a dictatorship.
More precisely, it's a representative democracy, as opposed to a direct democracy.
Republic means that it's not led by a hereditary monarch — as opposed to a monarchy where there is a hereditary monarch.
Democracy means that the people of the country either make the laws and the government decisions, or elect representatives who make the laws and the government decisions — as opposed to a dictatorship where the people have no say (or have practically no say).
Representative democracy means that you vote for representatives who make the laws and govern — as opposed to direct democracy where the people make the laws and/or govern.
It's abundantly clear that the US is a republic and a representative democracy.
It's a weak democracy, since it's a two-party system where it's mathematically extremely difficult for any but the two ruling parties to come to power, but that only makes it weak, it's still a democracy.
Why do some people get this weird illusion that republics are not democracies? Are you under the impression that Britain having a queen makes it more democratic than the US? Or do you give these words completely different meanings?
I find it unsettling and worrying that some people are so badly informed about something so very important. The school system must be terribly bad in your country.