As for everything about it "shouting" press release, I'm only giving my opinion, and I don't think it "shouts" press release.
Agreed. In fact, I've seen press releases that began with the words "for immediate release" and similar verbiage... I would say that such articles are closer to being up front about their press-release status. Whereas the only thing that might be taken to be indicative of press release status for this article (aside from the print buried at the end that you point out) is that it is so rosy; but anyone who thinks that such rosiness makes its provenance obvious is making an implicit statement that there is no such thing as purely good news, a position which is either too cynical or too foolish for me to relate to.
I think you're over-concerned. We've had ID cards for many years in Switzerland, and if they're anything, that's extremely convenient.
I don't know much about the government of Switzerland, but in the US we've now established quite clearly that the government intends to abuse the populace and the common good, hence the constant and rapid erosion of the civil liberties of its citizens. So more tools for such a government (like this card) can rightfully be taken to be of concern. If the government was benevolent, that would cast the issue in an entirely different light.
According to the article, he said that the "the government funded research in microdrive storage, electrochemistry and signal compression"
BUSH said that?? He can't even pronounce "nuclear". The above probably came out as "the gubmint did work in 'puter stuff, and in electoral... elecat... elcatrikomystery stuff, and in siggy... what is this word...si... to hell with it, in nukular stuff."
[yes the exceptions are more expensive] it's basic math: cost of page copy + exception + 2 * (page table update) is greater than cost of page copy + page table update.
Wouldn't there be a constant (an unknowable one) representing the percentage of the instances in which memory is reused? If a piece of memory used in a copyOnWrite scheme is never written to by another process, none of the page table updates occur, right? If K is the (often unknowable) constant indicating this percentage of the time when the copyOnWrite exception is generated, I'm thinking the equation you describe would need to be modified to something like:
The fact that you bought all of U2's old stuff (even "October") does not buy you the right to dictate the artistic direction they choose to go next.
I have all of U2's old stuff including October, and I've never wanted to dictate U2's direction... and for that matter, the grandparent post never claimed to want to dictate Madonna's direction now.
All I want is the right to stop buying U2's crap, and the right to bellyache about how little I like them compared to what they used to be. I'm perfectly happy with that combination of options.
Agreed, this article blows. One part I loved though:
These drug molecules are instantly reversible by the flumazenil
This is the first mention of flumazenil, yet the article refers to it as "THE flumazenil". Is flumazenil (whatever it is) in the same class as "the rheumatiz"? Or maybe it's like those people who refer to themselves in the third person: "Bob Dole doesn't like it when you touch him."
I have a degree in math and CS and I hardly ever use anything I learned in math for software development. Maybe simple sums and if things are getting really advanced I'll divide by the number of elements for an average.
I do a variety of different kinds of programming. The amount of math usage you describe fits reasonably with the server/storage kind of things I've done, whereas 3D programming is more heavily mathematical.
From a somewhat more general perspecitve, it might be accurate to say that programming usually makes use of at least the kinds of skills used to solve algebra problems, i.e. keeping track of quantities as variables and -- in effect -- implementing equations.
Put another way: if an interview candidate wasn't conversant with algebra, I'd never hire them for virtually any programming task. If they didn't know trig, I'd never hire them for 3D basic modeling and rendering work. If they didn't know calculus, I'd never hire them for 3D special effects work.
Then there are aspects of programming that don't seem to correlate well with math so much... like distributed systems, cache design (still need algebra profiency, but nothing more advanced as far as math). Off the top of my head I can't think of what formal studies would play well into these kinds of programming.
User Interface design is something that might be doable by someone without even algebra skills, as long as they didn't have to prototype their sketches. For UI, I'd think that various specialized art and visual design classes might be relevant.
(testing the smelliscope, a device for smelling distant objects)
Fry: "Hey, as long as you don't make me smell Uranus." *laughs*
Leela: "I don't get it."
Professor: "I'm sorry, Fry, but astronomers renamed Uranus in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all."
Fry: "Oh. What's it called now?"
Professor: "Urectum."
The researchers say the findings, published today in the journal Science, offer a counterargument to doubters of evolution who question how a progression of small changes could produce the intricate mechanisms found in living cells.
Two points I feel compelled to raise in response to things implied by the statement above:
(a) This is by no means the first evidence supporting evolution, nor the most substantive, and
(b) So-called 'Intelligent Design' (and I have little doubt that "doubters of evolution" refers to proponents of such) is not a scientific argument that deserves scientific refuting, given that "ID" is non-falsifiable in the same way as the "theory" that the universe was created three seconds ago and the memory of all that came before was implanted.
in the spam business "read" is as good as "interested"
Hmm, not sure how prepared I am to believe this. Replies to spam email supply valuable knowledge of existence... but fax spammers already know that a successfully sent fax means there's a live human on the other end who's paying electric/phone bills and restocking paper/toner. To assume a "buzz off" reply indicates interest seems off base... it'd make more sense to attribute interest to a reply that reads "I'd like to buy, here's my credit card number."
Still, supposing that this were true, this function attributed to reply faxes (differentiating between "not interested" vs a perverted definition of "interested") is radically different from the function of a reply in the email spam domain (differentiating between "definitely exists" vs "unknown whether exists"). The tone of the great-grandparent post ("...of course, you DO understand that you're partially to blame...") implies that it should be obvious to people that replying to junk spam upped their score; given that the signal being sent is -- in effect -- quite different, I remain convinced that it is not at all obvious.
And if spammers take a "do not bug me further" reply fax as evidence of actual interest, that's probably good news... such ignorance would seem destined to count against them.
Of course, you DO understand that you're partially to blame for the explosion?
The *first* time you called one and said "take me off your list", you just raised the value of that CONFIRMED GOOD fax number 100x. So you got bumped to the "confirmed good" fax number list, to be sold MUCH more widely.
Huh? This line of thought applies to email, where sending to a non-existent address and sending to an existing address may only be differentiated by a "remove me from your spam list" reply, but a fax number is confirmed as "good" the instant the fax is sent.
Every time I go to my bank's ATM I withdraw $300. To do this, they make me hit "withdraw money", then hit "from checking", then present me with several pre-selected amount buttons all below $200 which makes me hit "other amount", then I hit 3-0-0-0-0-ENTER, then I hit "confirm with receipt".
Message to the bank: how about if you customize my options so that one of the first buttons I have the option of hitting reads "withdraw $300 like you have every time you've been here in the past ten years". I'd really like to hit just one button instead of ten. Doesn't seem like rocket science.
Agreed. "Identity sharing" is a more appropriate term than "Identity theft", because "theft" deprives the victim of the thing being stolen. Perhaps even better than identity sharing (which implies collaboration on the part of the owner) would be "identity duplication".
Not to nitpick terms, but "theft" is thrown around WAY too loosely. If the term "rape" didn't already exist, people would refer to it as "sex theft".
Chris, I'm a longtime resident of your fans list, and moved to Texas myself in 2004. Would be delighted to meet in person if you're anywhere near Austin. I'm reachable at sacrilicious.opt@spamREMOVEgourmet.com (just remove 'REMOVE').
I think you might be interested in my upcoming book, 'The De Vinci Code'.
Its about this... uh... woman, who is called to a muse...err art gallery, where she finds an old man... err woman dead with stuff written on the floor in bloo... err saliva...
The movie "Fargo" claimed to be fact, too, and the MPAA keeps telling me that I can't copy it freely, even though it's a true story. Copyright refers specifically to an implimentation. I am free to make a movie about a car salesman in North Dakota who tries to kidnap his own wife for the ransom money...
Hmmm... what degree of difference must exist between two works to render the second of them "not a copy in violation of copyright"? Can I publish a book that is one word different from Da Vinci code? What if I rename the characters?
I don't think there's such a bright line delineation of copyright non-infringement as you seem to be implying.
Slashdot Mirror
No *wonder* she hasn't answered my letters.
No matter, I thought she was a little too aloof anyhow.
Agreed. In fact, I've seen press releases that began with the words "for immediate release" and similar verbiage... I would say that such articles are closer to being up front about their press-release status. Whereas the only thing that might be taken to be indicative of press release status for this article (aside from the print buried at the end that you point out) is that it is so rosy; but anyone who thinks that such rosiness makes its provenance obvious is making an implicit statement that there is no such thing as purely good news, a position which is either too cynical or too foolish for me to relate to.
I don't know much about the government of Switzerland, but in the US we've now established quite clearly that the government intends to abuse the populace and the common good, hence the constant and rapid erosion of the civil liberties of its citizens. So more tools for such a government (like this card) can rightfully be taken to be of concern. If the government was benevolent, that would cast the issue in an entirely different light.
BUSH said that?? He can't even pronounce "nuclear". The above probably came out as "the gubmint did work in 'puter stuff, and in electoral... elecat... elcatrikomystery stuff, and in siggy ... what is this word ...si... to hell with it, in nukular stuff."
Wouldn't there be a constant (an unknowable one) representing the percentage of the instances in which memory is reused? If a piece of memory used in a copyOnWrite scheme is never written to by another process, none of the page table updates occur, right? If K is the (often unknowable) constant indicating this percentage of the time when the copyOnWrite exception is generated, I'm thinking the equation you describe would need to be modified to something like:
for Linus' argument to stand up...Q is free. And, it it allows live switching (without rebooting) between virtual contexts, unlike BootCamp.
I have all of U2's old stuff including October, and I've never wanted to dictate U2's direction... and for that matter, the grandparent post never claimed to want to dictate Madonna's direction now.
All I want is the right to stop buying U2's crap, and the right to bellyache about how little I like them compared to what they used to be. I'm perfectly happy with that combination of options.
Taco, you made a grammatical error so lingo that I feel compelled to point it out.
I do a variety of different kinds of programming. The amount of math usage you describe fits reasonably with the server/storage kind of things I've done, whereas 3D programming is more heavily mathematical.
From a somewhat more general perspecitve, it might be accurate to say that programming usually makes use of at least the kinds of skills used to solve algebra problems, i.e. keeping track of quantities as variables and -- in effect -- implementing equations.
Put another way: if an interview candidate wasn't conversant with algebra, I'd never hire them for virtually any programming task. If they didn't know trig, I'd never hire them for 3D basic modeling and rendering work. If they didn't know calculus, I'd never hire them for 3D special effects work.
Then there are aspects of programming that don't seem to correlate well with math so much... like distributed systems, cache design (still need algebra profiency, but nothing more advanced as far as math). Off the top of my head I can't think of what formal studies would play well into these kinds of programming.
User Interface design is something that might be doable by someone without even algebra skills, as long as they didn't have to prototype their sketches. For UI, I'd think that various specialized art and visual design classes might be relevant.
By the looks of it, this project "Q" is a (free) virtualization layer for OSX which runs windows or any other OS. Anybody have experience with it?
Fry: "Hey, as long as you don't make me smell Uranus." *laughs*
Leela: "I don't get it."
Professor: "I'm sorry, Fry, but astronomers renamed Uranus in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all."
Fry: "Oh. What's it called now?"
Professor: "Urectum."
Two points I feel compelled to raise in response to things implied by the statement above:
(a) This is by no means the first evidence supporting evolution, nor the most substantive, and
(b) So-called 'Intelligent Design' (and I have little doubt that "doubters of evolution" refers to proponents of such) is not a scientific argument that deserves scientific refuting, given that "ID" is non-falsifiable in the same way as the "theory" that the universe was created three seconds ago and the memory of all that came before was implanted.
Hmm, not sure how prepared I am to believe this. Replies to spam email supply valuable knowledge of existence... but fax spammers already know that a successfully sent fax means there's a live human on the other end who's paying electric/phone bills and restocking paper/toner. To assume a "buzz off" reply indicates interest seems off base... it'd make more sense to attribute interest to a reply that reads "I'd like to buy, here's my credit card number."
Still, supposing that this were true, this function attributed to reply faxes (differentiating between "not interested" vs a perverted definition of "interested") is radically different from the function of a reply in the email spam domain (differentiating between "definitely exists" vs "unknown whether exists"). The tone of the great-grandparent post ("...of course, you DO understand that you're partially to blame...") implies that it should be obvious to people that replying to junk spam upped their score; given that the signal being sent is -- in effect -- quite different, I remain convinced that it is not at all obvious.
And if spammers take a "do not bug me further" reply fax as evidence of actual interest, that's probably good news... such ignorance would seem destined to count against them.
Huh? This line of thought applies to email, where sending to a non-existent address and sending to an existing address may only be differentiated by a "remove me from your spam list" reply, but a fax number is confirmed as "good" the instant the fax is sent.
Every time I go to my bank's ATM I withdraw $300. To do this, they make me hit "withdraw money", then hit "from checking", then present me with several pre-selected amount buttons all below $200 which makes me hit "other amount", then I hit 3-0-0-0-0-ENTER, then I hit "confirm with receipt". Message to the bank: how about if you customize my options so that one of the first buttons I have the option of hitting reads "withdraw $300 like you have every time you've been here in the past ten years". I'd really like to hit just one button instead of ten. Doesn't seem like rocket science.
Check out Q. It allows running Windows while running OS X (unlike the dual boot onmac.net approach).
Agreed. And half advertising... jebus. Coming soon to grocery stores: baseball bats.
Not to nitpick terms, but "theft" is thrown around WAY too loosely. If the term "rape" didn't already exist, people would refer to it as "sex theft".
Perfect! This is why we must continue our efforts to achieve global warming.
Chris, I'm a longtime resident of your fans list, and moved to Texas myself in 2004. Would be delighted to meet in person if you're anywhere near Austin. I'm reachable at sacrilicious.opt@spamREMOVEgourmet.com (just remove 'REMOVE').
... can I have Katherine's car?
LOL!
Hmmm... what degree of difference must exist between two works to render the second of them "not a copy in violation of copyright"? Can I publish a book that is one word different from Da Vinci code? What if I rename the characters?
I don't think there's such a bright line delineation of copyright non-infringement as you seem to be implying.