They're both interchangeable and have been for decades.
The ZX Spectrum had "cursor keys" which were originally to move the text "cursor" around. Most games used the cursor keys to move pointers rather than a text cursor. By the time the +2 came out, the cursor keys were used to navigate menus in the default ROM. Even before that, someone re-used those keys in a keyboard-mapped joystick and called it a Cursor joystick. That then moved into all games I've ever played on the system calling it a cursor, not a pointer, even back in the 80's.
Pointers and cursors are interchangeable, so "WIMP" is just as valid (and makes a better acronym). A pointer, however, isn't as generic - it's somewhat correct to say that a pointer is a specific case of a cursor.
"Caret" is a term I haven't ever used myself except to describe the "^" (upwards pointing arrow) character because that's the only name I'd ever heard used for it - some people now call it "the hat" but that's easily confusable with "the hash" (which in UK English makes no sense for what is clearly a noughts-and-crosses board - that's tic-tac-toe to you US foreigners - and why most automated phone systems tend to avoid using it). Microsoft's use of the word would only confuse and was probably just to make it sound more technical.
You might be technically correct, and possibly historically correct (but read on), but naming follows popular usage. Most people I work with call the mouse cursor (my preferred term for BOTH text/graphics indicators) the "arrow", and I don't see anything wrong with that either - probably comes from the same sort of derivation as "the arrow keys", again merging "cursor keys" with the same term for a mouse pointer.
I personally use the term "cursor" for both, with "text cursor" or "mouse cursor" when I need to differentiate (it's so rare, having a new specific word seems pointless). Most people understand that word immediately and don't need to think "which way round" it is (i.e. is "pointer" the text or the graphics cursor?). Once you get into explaining about the text cursor / mouse cursor, they have a complete grasp of the concept anyway and you're just being pedantic.
As the Wiki points out - cursor is a term that just indicates a position and has done since the 16th Century. There's nothing wrong with calling something a cursor at all. Being pedantic over decades-out-of-fashion naming when trying to educate people, though, is only going to cause you more problems (like the teachers I work with who still call things "floppy disks" or "Xerox machines" or still use "wireless" in it's original use!). If the kids call it an arrow, but they know the "proper" name if asked, that's good enough for me.
Cursor seems to historically be much more generic and trying to pin it down to a specific usage is silly. Hell, the original names for the mouse cursor are ludicrous ("the bug"!).
Basically: It's not *wrong*, and if you convey meaning unambiguously in the majority of everyday contexts, who cares?
Just because you signed it, doesn't mean it was a reasonable contract and, therefore, doesn't mean those sections are legally binding.
Otherwise, everyone in the world would write contracts that meant they could never be sued for anything ever even if your cars brakes fall off on your first trip from the showroom, while all their employees would be whipped to death each day to make them work. Hey, they signed the contract that said it was okay!
Contract law is only as binding as the court reasonably construes. Hell, even the jurisdiction statements in a lot of contracts don't work because they say all cases are bound by US law when they operate in the EU. Can't happen, or every company in the world would be using Country X's harsh regime to run their business legal departments and referring customers from all countries to their legal decisions in that country.
So you hover the link to make a decision about whether to click on it or not. Wouldn't that show up as a click, or not a click? And wouldn't suspicious websites end up as "potential click" candidates just as often as those that just don't grab your attention, or ones that have a funny URL?
The point is that the hover doesn't help you *differentiate* the user's intentions. It just lets you see where they happened to stick the mouse. The decision process concerning whether that site is "better" for the user or not is completely removed from their hovers and pretty much invisible to the search engine even if they record your face while you do so.
Knowing that I hovered a link teaches you nothing. Knowing whether I clicked it or not is infinitely more useful. Knowing whether I hit "next page" is also pretty useful too - much more so than any mouse-watching Javascript.
I do the same. My eyes can track the page and backtrack in a fraction of a second if there's a mistake, or something I need to double-check. The cursor is a high-cost movement, in that I would have to move my hand back.
I just experimented - my mouse cursor tends to be idle, then move directly for the only button I click, whether I'm in an app, on a website or just opening programs. Anything else is a bit of a waste of movement. "Fake" links and those of no relevance see no more contextual information from my movements than real links that I end up clicking on. So you might as well use my clicks.
And in the end, it's a dubious statistic. If I hover over a link, does that mean I'm considering clicking on it, or does it mean I'm suspicious of it and have stopped myself clicking it at the last moment? Do I just hover over things with my cursor as an "eye-line" to help me cope with the information on the screen? Do I have a trackpad / mouse that jerks and I fight with? Am I even *making* those movements at all or is it involuntary as I type?
I think it's a very, very dubious metric to collect or analyse and I doubt Google would *bother* to follow suit. It's unlikely to provide any significant advantage, especially if you already have things like "Do not show this link again" or "This link is my favourite on this particular search and I'll click it quite often even it other people don't" buttons.
Sorry, but the ISP's are run by people too - and they can end up on the streets just as easily. A company not only has to run by the law (and if the government says no, then that's your lot) but has to have people who will make those changes too. They can argue, they can try to change the law, they can stop doing business but it's not up to the ISP to try to be the last bastion of freedom in the country. It might be a *small* group of people who used to work at the ISP holding out but the ISP itself is just a virtual entity that has to obey the law if it wants to exist. It's the *people* that have to switch things off or on, and I don't expect any of them to stand up for my rights when the government is in such a state.
I *expect* the ISP's to co-operate with whatever they are made to do - either by law or by force - in order to protect their employees. Seen what happens in China if you decide that you *don't* want to follow their rules?
In the same way that when Russian submarines have their power turned off because the government hasn't paid its bill, I *EXPECT* the company to be forced to put the electric back on (as happened a few years ago) because someone is going to point a gun at them if they don't, and they are human too. I wouldn't expect there to be repercussions from the customers when such extremes of civil action take place.
Not everyone can be a hero, especially not over something so petty and transient in the middle of mass-rioting - and expecting everyone to be a hero basically makes "heroes" redundant. If someone points a gun at me, they will get what they want, unless that option is worse than death to me. A few million people being without the Internet *isn't* worse than death, despite what you might personally think.
The point is to make a system where NOBODY ever ends up pointing guns at you - i.e. a working government, a non-oppressive government, and a law where its completely illegal to do such things.
This is state censorship. If you live in that state, you have two choices - comply or risk persecution. Risking persecution is very heroic but for someone else's Internet connection, especially when you know it isn't going to stop anything? Pointless. This is why the Chinese are so "oppressed" - the "heroes" aren't shooting back, they are complying with every rule, being put under house arrest etc. It's that or be dead, in some cases. You can't make that choice for other people.
When someone points a gun at you, whether the switch in your ISP is on or off is the least important thing in the world. If it were a switch for a nuclear reactor that someone wants you to blow up, then you have a problem. Otherwise you just do what the man with the gun tells you. Or the several thousand men with guns who *will* come knocking if you don't.
Living in a reasonable country is an extreme luxury that most people in the world never experience. And it's all too easy to be the hero if you're not actually subject to the consequences. In the UK, the government tells the ISP's what to do. I damn well expect the ISP's to co-operate - it's not their domain to argue with the law, they are just a company. They can lobby for changes but if the law says that on 1st Jan the Internet goes off, I expect the Internet to go off.
When the anarchy breaks out and the government is replaced and the lawful decree goes out to turn things back on, then they can. But otherwise a company is just a law-abiding entity, or it's putting it's workers at risk (of just unemployment, or worse). If the US were to force your ISP to block all adult sites, are you going to blame the ISP or the government?
- Assuming ET life exists - Assuming it's inside our sphere of expanding radio emissions - Assuming they are within similar stages of scientific discovery - Assuming they are seriously looking for us (and haven't yet found us) and / or that they spot us by complete accident - Assuming they realise what it is and don't take several YEARS to decide what to actually do about that (as our governments almost certainly would). - Assuming that they then initiate contact in a way we can understand which arrives here within a human lifetime. - Assuming that we then receive, understand and need to form an initial reply to broadcast to them, and don't take YEARS to decide what to do about it. - Assuming that they then receive our reply, understand it, and wish to communicate with us - Assuming that we then wish to exchange, as a planet, information about ourselves with an unknown foreign entity - Assuming that all of the above happens within our lifetime, or the next generation or so
Then it would *still* be an enormous waste of research funds to discuss *NOW* what language to talk in. It's like those kids who argue over whether to write the next Facebook / World of Warcraft in VB or Java - they'll still be arguing long before the entire memory of such things is dead.
Most astrophysicists believe it to be an incredibly bad idea to advertise even our presence, let alone communicate - you can be sure that they will express those sentiments when brought into discussions by the government.
Yes, it would be fascinating to discover a friendly civilisation, at approximately the same scientific level as ourselves who we communicate with and pass useful information. It can't happen for DECADES, which means we have plenty of time in which to sort things out, such as language. Almost certainly anything we "design" now will be useless (e.g. say we find out that in just 50 years time sending quantum-entangled particles provides much more sensible communication because of speed / space / penetration etc. issues - and that won't work on a "binary" basis, then all that research is useless).
The possibilities are boundless. Which means that the budget is too. Unless and until we have anything even close to a simple contact (e.g. a "WOW" signal that's repeatable) and need to send a single message and hope for reply within the next few millenia, it's pointless to discuss it seriously. It's literally like figuring out which question you will ask God when you find him, or what stick you'll poke into the edge of the universe to see what happens.
The probability of success is entirely, completely miniscule. We haven't found a single *candidate* for a planet supporting developed life, let alone received anything approaching a confirmation that there *could* be life anywhere. So suggesting that we "pick and choose" only those that reply to our existing messages is silly already - that is automatic and any reply must be a reply that we can perceive and that they understood in the first place.
Alien scientists may not even have a need to perceive our signal at all, thus receiving it may be impossible. We will almost certainly be using different technologies (given that today we ourselves are using different technologies to just 50 years ago).
If they are more developed, our radio attempts might literally be like us seriously shining a torch in the sky and looking for a big flashing visible-white reply. Things on a subatomic scale that we're *not* measuring are much more likely to get somewhere useful in a decent amount of time, facilitate near-real-time two-way communication and not be hindered by everything else in the universe (e.g. neutrinos).
Getting their attention is the thing that matters but, to be honest, we can't be sure that anything we send is actually getting anywhere. There are several theories that nothing electromagnetic outside 2 light years would be at a detectable level. And in the way are billions of stars bigger than the sun exploding with forces we
Pictograms are all but worthless. There are a billion interpretations and mostly that's assuming a 2D system of "vision" / "interpretation". And basically boils down to trying to teach someone who doesn't know anything about your species how to write and interpret images (like trying to teach a wild dolphin to read Shakespeare or recognise pictures of fruit with ZERO feedback about their correctness - intelligent or not, writing is still new to *us* because we've only been doing it for a tiny percentage of the time that humans have existed).
And your encoding is ambiguous - how do they know it's not length, then width? Or that it's not length then width then depth followed by a 3D representation (possibly the length might tell you that but once you get into that level of interpretation, you can "make sense" of any nonsense whatsoever)? Or that you didn't put the length/width at the end, or in the middle, or in whatever offset *they* consider logical? Yes, there may be a "pattern" of X times Y that gives us the size of the "packet" but there are probably a million other way of interpreting raw bits that would work out in the same way (i.e. if the first bit is a one, then the message is junk, so ignore it, parity, etc.)
You're just making far too many assumptions about mathematics and interpretation. This is the problem, almost everything we try will probably be useless because we've never encountered an intelligence other than our own, so we have *no* idea how to communicate at all. Who says they are even LOOKING at EM radiation? Maybe in a thousand years we won't even bother looking at it either (because of things like light-year limits to it's readability, degradation, interference, etc.) - maybe the sign of an "intelligent" civilisation will be using (insert whatever fancy physics you like here) systems instead and not bother with "pre-quantum" civilisations, etc.
And a thousand years in time, galactically, is nothing. And any civilisation that lasts long enough to contact others is much more likely to be millions of years more advanced than we are by sheer probability. MILLLIONS. As in CERN, the satellite systems, mainframes and the whole of civilisation would look like a fragment of fossil in the rock to them, technologically.
Prime numbers? The numbers that occur in nature when you take out all factors (in your case, just those up to 5) and occur often in purely physical systems? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_number#Prime_numbers_in_nature) There are species of animal that come out every prime year in order to avoid predators that work on various regular intervals and being prime reduces their chances. It's not hard to imagine that such things could get lost in the noise (i.e. you can probably "see" prime numbers everywhere if you bother to look) or simply are a by-product of ordinary physics (e.g. primes pop up in the Zeta-function etc.)
I agree the primes are simple but they won't necessarily attract attention. It's also assuming that maths is as universal as we hope (I'm a mathematician, but it's not hard to imagine somewhere where mathematics doesn't exist in a form we would understand). Carl Sagan suggests them as a way to demonstrate that an alien understand mathematics in a novel, but it's a bit far-fetched to say the least (messages from God are also hidden in pi in the book).
The problem is that it's incredibly easy to send anything we want but we have absolutely ZERO idea about how it would ever be interpreted. Even if we found a remote hidden tribe in the Amazon that had never had human contact and were mathematically literate and we gave them the messages and after 50 years they were able to decode them, it wouldn't mean *anything* because their brains would work the same way as ours, with the same perceptions and senses. Also, it would still take thousands of years for any reply (or else we'd *probably* have been visited already).
Finding ET is viable - it's easy to craft a "we're over here" signal just by sheer brute force and pushin
Just intent to slow down a website, or prevent other people accessing it, or even ENABLING people to intend to impair it's operation (e.g. distributing click-and-point tools and encouraging people to aim them at websites) is enough to get you charged under that act and imprisoned for a long time if proven in court.
Quoting from the section headed: "Unauthorised acts with intent to impair, or with recklessness as to impairing, operation of computer, etc."
(2) This subsection applies if the person intends by doing the actâ"
(a) to impair the operation of any computer;
(b) to prevent or hinder access to any program or data held in any computer;
(c) to impair the operation of any such program or the reliability of any such data; or
(d) to enable any of the things mentioned in paragraphs (a) to (c) above to be done.
Just intent to slow down a website, or prevent other people accessing it, or even ENABLING people to intend to impair it's operation (e.g. distributing click-and-point tools and encouraging people to aim them at websites).
You carry on as normal, call it an "update", and then push it to desktops after appropriate testing. Why this should create a problem on a managed system is beyond me. Office changes the ways it operates every year. Windows changes the way it operates with every update. At the very most, all this is is an update provided by a group of programmers - that the programmers aren't the same as the original ones is an ADVANTAGE - it means the software kept moving instead of died.
If you don't know how to handle that situation, it means you're not responsible for managing such changes. I moved a school to OO.org in a fortnight. LibreOffice is just a new name to them, they don't care, because they can see in a second that it's a damn sight better than MS's constantly-moving offerings involving staff-retraining every time.
Weird. I've had a bit for that in my screwdriver for years. And anyone who *wanted* to open that screw could easily do so - you just need to attach to it in a way strong enough to withstand the torque needed. Any one of those magic "stripped-screwhead removal" tools would do it just by drilling a new top to it, and there are tools that will do it without damaging the screw. Then replace with Philips if you really wanted to.
If you work in console repair, or any sort of electronics repair, you've been able to open these for years.
It's a load of over-sensitive could-possibly-be-thought-might-happen crap. Like using a mobile phone in a petrol station - the risk is actually from dodgy, illegally imported batteries installed in such things which might "spark" if dropped, nothing to do with the phone itself somehow magically igniting vapours. Most petrol station fires are caused by static sparks from people re-entering their cars while they are fuelling (which in itself suggests inattention to the pump pushing litres of a flammable liquid at high speed into your car) or just plain carelessness (i.e. smoking on the forecourt).
At some point, there probably WAS a time it could interfere with a piece of equipment not designed to take account that mobile phones were nearby (even if that was just audible chirps being recorded on the cockpit tapes because the mics picked them up like mics tend to do with mobile phone "check-in" broadcasts). If you're seriously using planes which are not designed to cope with mobile phone transmissions now, you're in a serious breach of due diligence as regards safety and hazards. For a start, it's too easy to leave one on, whether in the hold, or the overhead compartments, or your pocket, or even the pilot's pocket, and secondly you are going to be flying OVER mobile phone masts (with a lot more power output) and getting very, very close to them and mobile phones whenever you come into land and taxi.
The mobile phone thing is most probably, as has been recorded in several of the EU discussions, more about radio licensing - because having lots of mobiles suddenly appear in the air can mess up OTHER things. Like I can join a ferry's maritime network but only when it's switched on when we're out at sea, not near the coast. In terms of safety, if a mobile phone, or even a thousand mobile phones, can interfere with the operation of an aircraft, then you have much more to worry about that mobile phones themselves. For a start, any transmitter, any static, any friction at all. Same for wireless, bluetooth, and anything else that operates on similar wavelengths. Hell, most aircraft that serve food have a microwave or similar heater on board - bet that churns out a million times more "Risk Assessment" than the pilot's mobile phone.
I'm afraid, as a Brit, I am now legally required to murder you.
1) For liking Monty Python after the 70's have passed. 2) For linking Monty Python to English humour. 3) For thinking that any modern UK comedy show follows Monty Python.
Monty Python was "funny" in the 70's because it was outrageous. Their three worst sketches were the most outrageous and the ones that everyone remembers. 99% of what they produced was absolute shite. They are not, in and of themselves, funny any more anyway. The films? Pah. Basically designed to be outrageous / controversial with a few good lines thrown in. Follow the example of XKCD who understand this: http://xkcd.com/16/ Anyone caught with the words "Ni", "Very Naughty Boy" or "It's dead" should be shot on sight - it's like schoolkids that think they're cool because they have a designer jacket that ALL the schoolkids are wearing. Few UK people remember MP, fewer discuss them out of anything more than nostalgia, and even fewer think they are "English" humour.
What you fail to miss is that Monty Python is the exact OPPOSITE of the proper English humour. That's why it was funny at the time. Proper English comedy has nobody doing weird things. It's mostly sitcoms or standup in perfectly ordinary scenarios (e.g. a shopkeeper in a shop, a market trader on a stall, etc.). If it's "surreal", chances are it comes from the crap, outrageous side of English humour (e.g. Little Britain, etc.). However, things like Red Dwarf, Blackadder (Series 2 onwards), Only Fools & Horses (historically, but too many re-runs), etc. are funny not because of the situation, or because of slapstick, or because of "weird stuff" - the comedy is mostly background and almost all of it in simple dialogue between two people. A "newer" example would be Not Going Out with Lee Mack and Tim Vine but you'd have to watch several series to get into it, especially if you have trouble with the accents. It can't be written down or recited or told to people, because it's about inflection, and facial expression, and intangible stuff, but if it is funny to someone it's because they've SEEN it and are reminded of their reaction to it at the time. It's as much the comedian delivering the line as the comedy itself - this is why Rowan Atkinson is a comedy genius and Michael Palin (despite being in the original Monty Python line-up) films documentaries about travel. John Cleese *can* "get it", especially now, but it's more Bond-film-style humour in his case, not one-man-on-his-own.
Any fan of British comedy will instantly recognise things like these clips below but they are ONLY funny if you've actually seen the joke, delivered first in its original form, in its entirety, beforehand:
Red Dwarf, while on "Blue Alert": "Red alert sir? Are you entirely sure? It does mean changing the bulb." Only Fools and Horses (while picking up girls in a bar): "You've got to impress 'em, talk about money" , "Yeah? I found one of those old five-pound notes the other day." The Two Ronnies: "Four candles?" "There you are: four candles." "No, no, no, FOUR CANDLES" "Well, there you are, four candles." "NO, handles for forks."
Otherwise, it's just a bad Christmas-cracker joke.
Chances are, as a "yank", you've probably never seen anything truly British and actually funny, because you don't import them (only the crap). The US pilot of Red Dwarf was a travesty because the US networks wanted so many changes it wasn't funny any more - seriously go hunt down one episode of Red Dwarf and the US pilot and then watch them one after another - and that was AFTER a revolt including script re-write by the only original cast member to still be involved in the US pilot by that point.
You also need to give anything funny at least 4 episodes of your time. It takes me that long to "get" things like Friends, or Frasier (yuck!), or Just Shoot Me, or Ally McBeal (and you accuse us of weird stuff?) or anything else that's ever been available over here and
Apart from the fact that most cars *are* more fuel efficient at about 50mph (some new ones lower, but generally most cars capable of 70mph are more fuel efficient at 50mph than most other speeds) - basically 5th gear, lowest revs - there are millions more ways to make thing fuel efficient which don't affect driving (e.g. use aircon instead of opening a window, remove roof-top boxes, etc.) and most people don't do ANY of them.
My point is - fuel efficiency is NOT a big seller for this idea. Nobody *really* cares that much, even if they do whinge about fuel costs being high (and if you think fuel costs are high, come to the UK - if you're not already there). The most fuel efficient cars tend to be the smallest ones and even when people only ever have one passenger they rarely drive a 2-seater. Most people want a car that gets them to their destination fast and reasonably comfortably. The people who buy for other reasons are generally lying or kidding themselves (e.g. fast car is entirely image, convertibles are entirely image, big people-carriers are NOT safer for your kids, electric cars are nowhere near "green", etc. etc. etc.).
If someone actually *wanted* fuel efficiency, it would be to save money or be green. If someone has an LPG car, they can probably claim to be more fuel efficient (though I doubt it's any greener, probably worse), and it's cheap enough that it wouldn't cost much to convert even an old banger. I very, very much doubt that someone who wanted to be fuel efficient would be paying tens of thousands for a brand new car with the "road train" computer onboard and hoping everyone else follows suits with a standardised system from other manufacturers. (That's even *if* it was actually legal in any country for this to work without the human taking 100% responsibility should they kill someone in it). They certainly wouldn't be driving a Land Rover.
I drive past thousands of people every day. Most of their cars are the least fuel efficient and most expensive-to-run cars available. (I remind them of it when we drive the same roads and they think pushing their way through against the highway code will make me stop my car for fear of scratches/dents - my car is worth less than most of their wing-mirrors).
Disclaimer: My car cost me £300. It has a different coloured bonnet (hood), no AC, and just barely scrapes into having electric windows. It costs me 3 times as much to insure it as it would do to buy the thing again. It's 1.8 litre which is quite large by European standards. Fuel efficiency is the *last* thing I care about but actually I get 500 miles on 60 litres and much more if I drive at the bottom end of my gears. I don't really care. The fact is the car was cheap and maintenance is cheap (i.e. never more than £300 because I'd just get another car) - but fuel efficiency? The only people who *really* care won't be driving this car for decades.
She drives a Range Rover. Fuel costs won't be on her mind. In fact, judging by the average driver, anything to get someone to their destination quicker will be welcomed, not deliberately running in the most fuel-efficient way - I get much more efficiency at 50mph, how many people do that speed on a major motorway?
Well, I've stopped buying games that come in boxes. Several years ago, in fact. There are several factors: Availability, Price, Convenience, Backup/Returns being impossible or worthless anyway, and Impulse-buying. I don't really use App-stores at all (I have no Apple devices) - the nearest I get is Steam but is that really an "App-store"? I think possibly the WiiStore might count but the same holds for that as for Steam. Anything PC that I buy tends to come from digital sources, though, because I need to be able to move it between machines and have it follow me for several years (all my Steam games have followed me perfectly since 2003, so they have a much better reputation already than 99% of the app-stores, eBooks, music-stores, etc. out there).
1) Availability: Most of the games I've bought, I do *not* see on shelves in stores. That's if I bother to go into a store at all. Can you buy Altitude in a shop? No? Why not? World of Goo is available for the Wii but I've never seen it in amongst the Wii games at any shop I've ever been in. Because physical media production and distribution is expensive, and because shops decide what to sell (which means high-margin products mainly), and because the "PC" section of any games shop is shrinking by the day. Can I get GTA (the original version) or Quake? No. As soon as a game is a year old, it disappears and only re-appears in supermarket "bargain basement" stands costing almost as much as it did new.
2) Price: Most download games can be had much cheaper. Whether they are brand new or years old, they are usually cheaper online as a download. I don't need the boxes, the manuals, the flyers, etc. If I *really* do, I can just print them off from a PDF - the money I save by not having the maps printed by the games publisher is much more than the cost of printing out only the maps that I *DO* actually need. I throw the boxes out because, after decades of keeping them all, I've realised that I *NEVER* use them and only need the occasional manual for copy-protection. They also damage much more easily than an original install disk (and copy) placed in a proper disk storage case and kept safe. My entire software archive since my first CD-drive (and several dozen floppies) can fit into a box under my desk - approximately the same size as 10-15 games if I were to keep the boxes. The only thing I need to buy is a storage medium in a container - a DVD or CD case fits that description, or a USB key, but a lot of games only come in A4-sized thick boxes.
3) I have to go to a shop. Find a physical box of the exact type I require. Make sure it exactly corresponds with the game I want and is for the right platform. Take it to the counter. Have some guy put his sticky fingers on a disk that they ripped out earlier in case people stole it. Carry it home. Unpack it (so the packaging has a journey of about an hour). Throw the crap away. File the manual somewhere (or more likely just throw it). Take the CD and *carefully* make a copy (if I can) or install it. Then put that CD into some sort of case for long-term storage so it won't get damaged (and which doesn't take up the whole room). Or I just could click the link on something like the Steam / GOG.com store and have it installed within ten minutes while I'm using the computer for something else. When I'm done with it, I delete it. If I want it back, I double-click it (or at worst download it again). If I want to back it up, I copy a folder/file it into my normal backup paths. If I want to move it to another machine, I just double-click it from the other machine.
4) Backup/Returns: A lot of games can't be backed up from the CD / DVD. If I do, they often require hideous hacks that can affect the game and/or online accounts. With digital downloads (as counter-intuitive as it is to anyone who worries about DRM), I can back them up and restore them on other machines quite easily. If there's a problem with a game I've bought, it's usually only a) physical disk is broken or b) software is brok
Interest is money that's taxed. Income earned in other countries may not be adequately taxed (or declared as taxed in your home country) and then never actually get taxed because it doesn't enter that country. A bank account will tell you *exactly* how much that person earned worldwide and who needs to tax it. Most Swiss banks will NEVER tell the countries involved that they suspect untaxed money is sitting in their accounts - go abroad, earn £10m, stick it in a Swiss account, come home, claim benefits.
There are a million and one ways to launder money, and to avoid taxation, and most of them involve off-shore accounts like these.
"Note that the link is thin, and the sources are behind logins and subscription links, so please post better URLs if you can find them."
Er, no? That's what I expect a story-poster to do for me? Or the editors? You know, those *paid* people?
Might as well say "Vague story happens but you can only read about it on other sites - help us do our job and find other people's coverage so we can post the link here!"
Seriously, as the days go buy, there's less and less reason to come to this site, and less and less reason to pay for a subscription.
The problem was ignorant parents. At no point did anyone say that ALL MMR vaccines are dangerous - the (completely unfounded) rumours only ever circulated on the combined MMR vaccine. You still can, and always have been able to, get the separate vaccines which have been working since the 70's in just about everyone without any problems of the kind mentioned here. But parents didn't read that bit. They just read "vaccination" = "autism" (which happened to be complete bollocks anyway) and assumed it meant EVERY vaccination. Stupidity on the part of parents who can't read can't be blamed on governments or rogue doctors here.
In the UK (where this doctor was based and doing his research and started this scandal), you could opt for the normal, old, tested vaccines without any problem at all. It was only the new, combined MMR vaccine that ever had such claims against it. Doctors in the UK routinely offered the alternatives to parents who were worried. It was only the *dumb* parents who immediately steered clear of things that had been working, without problems, without dubious claims, and without association with any such scandals, even when they were offered them. The media over here actually did a good job of separating it out and offering correct advice, but some people always get too hysterical to actually LISTEN to what they are being told.
It's like saying that a particular model of car has been recalled because of faulty brakes and then NOBODY buying a car ever again. It's that ridiculous.
And it wouldn't be a felony, because he's in the UK and we don't have that word. However, he's already been dismissed by the GMC and will never practice as a doctor again. There's also the very-real possibility of legal action against the doctor, hospital, government advisers that listened, etc.
I can't name a single item I've ever owned myself that had a Sony badge on it and that I paid money for (someone gave me a Playstation once - it's in a cupboard somewhere and only got used about twice).
He may have "facilitated" copyright infringement (and even that's a matter of opinion) but he's not involved in it in any other way. But facilitation is a bit of a problem - do I "facilitate" theft of cars when I learn that their remote keyfobs codes are insecure? Do I "facilitate" theft / criminal damage if I show someone that you can break a glass window with a hammer? It's all pretty subjective.
Fact is, he found existing security flaws and published them, like a thousand security researchers do every day. He did not condone, endorse, or assist copyright infringement (to my knowledge). So why would he *try* to hide his name and make himself look guilty? To a court, they may be suspicious enough that they look a lot more closely than they otherwise would. At is stands, on the face of it, he was pretty open about what he was doing but at no point condoned copyright infringement. So he actually comes out looking like a good guy, even in court.
1) That's accurate (i.e. an Ancient Greek who could judge accurately how many separate people were involved on a 20 year Egyptian project 1500 years before his time without exaggeration) 2) The builder's ALL worked an 8 hour day, every single day, even religious festivals (and there wasn't, say, one man who knew how to do the bottom bits and then slunk off, or only lifted one stone before breaking his back, etc.) during the night, etc. on hard heavy-labour, as did every architect, priest, tile-polisher, boatsman etc. and there was never a flood, or rainstorms, or other problems that stopped work for even a single guy. 3) The Egyptian pyramids weren't slave-built (actually they were quite decently treated for the time) - so "the builders" probably worked no harder than anyone else, especially if it meant burning oil to be able to see.
"Contrary to some popular depictions, the pyramid builders were not slaves or foreigners." "Some of the builders were permanent employees of the pharaoh. Others were conscripted for a limited time from local villages." "An estimated 20,000 to 30,000 workers built the Pyramids at Giza over 80 years. Much of the work probably happened while the River Nile was flooded." (suggesting 1.6m man-years assuming 24/7 working, or 53,000 man-years on a working-day, less than your estimate)
And that's the pyramids (plural), not your unfounded estimate of a pyramid (singular).
I'd be extremely surprised if there was more than 30,000 man years of productive work overall, and probably a lot less.
Good illustration. That's 34,000 man-years. 34,000 men for a year, or one man for 34,000 years (i.e. about 500 lifetimes). The pyramids didn't need that. The Apollo missions probably didn't need that. Most of modern physics and mathematics could have been discovered in that (it's like Archimedes still being alive and just as productive right through to the current day, and still only one-sixteenth of the way of the way through his useful working life).
To put it in context, though, going to the toilet takes much more time than that, per person, over the course of a single life (so multiplied by 6 billion, it's quite a lot of total "wasted man-hours"). We waste inordinate amounts of time doing silly things that aren't strictly necessary, too. Productivity can only be measured on a personal level, not a numerical one. Was Alexander Fleming productive enough (or incited enough productivity in others through his discoveries) even if he was also an accomplished glass-blower? (And that actually helped him make further discoveries in unrelated fields). How do you measure something like that? And how much do we waste in actual wars? I bet it's orders-of-magnitude more, given the budget allocated to it (and thus the tax etc. used to generate it, and the work used to generate that, etc. etc. etc.).
Adding it up, it's a waste of time that could theoretically be used doing better things. On a personal level? Fuck off, I want to play Counterstrike sometimes to rest and actually have a life, not be a machine. Both points of view are equally valid. Neither will ever change except in small details. And posting on Slashdot to complain about it, like the OP did, is probably the *greatest* hypocrisy ever. Let's take five minutes to hit buttons to send a comment over thousands of km of copper and infrastructure so that lots of other people can ignore it and nobody ever benefit from it.
Slashdot Mirror
They're both interchangeable and have been for decades.
The ZX Spectrum had "cursor keys" which were originally to move the text "cursor" around. Most games used the cursor keys to move pointers rather than a text cursor. By the time the +2 came out, the cursor keys were used to navigate menus in the default ROM. Even before that, someone re-used those keys in a keyboard-mapped joystick and called it a Cursor joystick. That then moved into all games I've ever played on the system calling it a cursor, not a pointer, even back in the 80's.
Pointers and cursors are interchangeable, so "WIMP" is just as valid (and makes a better acronym). A pointer, however, isn't as generic - it's somewhat correct to say that a pointer is a specific case of a cursor.
"Caret" is a term I haven't ever used myself except to describe the "^" (upwards pointing arrow) character because that's the only name I'd ever heard used for it - some people now call it "the hat" but that's easily confusable with "the hash" (which in UK English makes no sense for what is clearly a noughts-and-crosses board - that's tic-tac-toe to you US foreigners - and why most automated phone systems tend to avoid using it). Microsoft's use of the word would only confuse and was probably just to make it sound more technical.
You might be technically correct, and possibly historically correct (but read on), but naming follows popular usage. Most people I work with call the mouse cursor (my preferred term for BOTH text/graphics indicators) the "arrow", and I don't see anything wrong with that either - probably comes from the same sort of derivation as "the arrow keys", again merging "cursor keys" with the same term for a mouse pointer.
I personally use the term "cursor" for both, with "text cursor" or "mouse cursor" when I need to differentiate (it's so rare, having a new specific word seems pointless). Most people understand that word immediately and don't need to think "which way round" it is (i.e. is "pointer" the text or the graphics cursor?). Once you get into explaining about the text cursor / mouse cursor, they have a complete grasp of the concept anyway and you're just being pedantic.
As the Wiki points out - cursor is a term that just indicates a position and has done since the 16th Century. There's nothing wrong with calling something a cursor at all. Being pedantic over decades-out-of-fashion naming when trying to educate people, though, is only going to cause you more problems (like the teachers I work with who still call things "floppy disks" or "Xerox machines" or still use "wireless" in it's original use!). If the kids call it an arrow, but they know the "proper" name if asked, that's good enough for me.
Cursor seems to historically be much more generic and trying to pin it down to a specific usage is silly. Hell, the original names for the mouse cursor are ludicrous ("the bug"!).
Basically: It's not *wrong*, and if you convey meaning unambiguously in the majority of everyday contexts, who cares?
Trumped by basic contract law.
Just because you signed it, doesn't mean it was a reasonable contract and, therefore, doesn't mean those sections are legally binding.
Otherwise, everyone in the world would write contracts that meant they could never be sued for anything ever even if your cars brakes fall off on your first trip from the showroom, while all their employees would be whipped to death each day to make them work. Hey, they signed the contract that said it was okay!
Contract law is only as binding as the court reasonably construes. Hell, even the jurisdiction statements in a lot of contracts don't work because they say all cases are bound by US law when they operate in the EU. Can't happen, or every company in the world would be using Country X's harsh regime to run their business legal departments and referring customers from all countries to their legal decisions in that country.
So you hover the link to make a decision about whether to click on it or not. Wouldn't that show up as a click, or not a click? And wouldn't suspicious websites end up as "potential click" candidates just as often as those that just don't grab your attention, or ones that have a funny URL?
The point is that the hover doesn't help you *differentiate* the user's intentions. It just lets you see where they happened to stick the mouse. The decision process concerning whether that site is "better" for the user or not is completely removed from their hovers and pretty much invisible to the search engine even if they record your face while you do so.
Knowing that I hovered a link teaches you nothing. Knowing whether I clicked it or not is infinitely more useful. Knowing whether I hit "next page" is also pretty useful too - much more so than any mouse-watching Javascript.
I do the same. My eyes can track the page and backtrack in a fraction of a second if there's a mistake, or something I need to double-check. The cursor is a high-cost movement, in that I would have to move my hand back.
I just experimented - my mouse cursor tends to be idle, then move directly for the only button I click, whether I'm in an app, on a website or just opening programs. Anything else is a bit of a waste of movement. "Fake" links and those of no relevance see no more contextual information from my movements than real links that I end up clicking on. So you might as well use my clicks.
And in the end, it's a dubious statistic. If I hover over a link, does that mean I'm considering clicking on it, or does it mean I'm suspicious of it and have stopped myself clicking it at the last moment? Do I just hover over things with my cursor as an "eye-line" to help me cope with the information on the screen? Do I have a trackpad / mouse that jerks and I fight with? Am I even *making* those movements at all or is it involuntary as I type?
I think it's a very, very dubious metric to collect or analyse and I doubt Google would *bother* to follow suit. It's unlikely to provide any significant advantage, especially if you already have things like "Do not show this link again" or "This link is my favourite on this particular search and I'll click it quite often even it other people don't" buttons.
Sorry, but the ISP's are run by people too - and they can end up on the streets just as easily. A company not only has to run by the law (and if the government says no, then that's your lot) but has to have people who will make those changes too. They can argue, they can try to change the law, they can stop doing business but it's not up to the ISP to try to be the last bastion of freedom in the country. It might be a *small* group of people who used to work at the ISP holding out but the ISP itself is just a virtual entity that has to obey the law if it wants to exist. It's the *people* that have to switch things off or on, and I don't expect any of them to stand up for my rights when the government is in such a state.
I *expect* the ISP's to co-operate with whatever they are made to do - either by law or by force - in order to protect their employees. Seen what happens in China if you decide that you *don't* want to follow their rules?
In the same way that when Russian submarines have their power turned off because the government hasn't paid its bill, I *EXPECT* the company to be forced to put the electric back on (as happened a few years ago) because someone is going to point a gun at them if they don't, and they are human too. I wouldn't expect there to be repercussions from the customers when such extremes of civil action take place.
Not everyone can be a hero, especially not over something so petty and transient in the middle of mass-rioting - and expecting everyone to be a hero basically makes "heroes" redundant. If someone points a gun at me, they will get what they want, unless that option is worse than death to me. A few million people being without the Internet *isn't* worse than death, despite what you might personally think.
The point is to make a system where NOBODY ever ends up pointing guns at you - i.e. a working government, a non-oppressive government, and a law where its completely illegal to do such things.
This is state censorship. If you live in that state, you have two choices - comply or risk persecution. Risking persecution is very heroic but for someone else's Internet connection, especially when you know it isn't going to stop anything? Pointless. This is why the Chinese are so "oppressed" - the "heroes" aren't shooting back, they are complying with every rule, being put under house arrest etc. It's that or be dead, in some cases. You can't make that choice for other people.
When someone points a gun at you, whether the switch in your ISP is on or off is the least important thing in the world. If it were a switch for a nuclear reactor that someone wants you to blow up, then you have a problem. Otherwise you just do what the man with the gun tells you. Or the several thousand men with guns who *will* come knocking if you don't.
Living in a reasonable country is an extreme luxury that most people in the world never experience. And it's all too easy to be the hero if you're not actually subject to the consequences. In the UK, the government tells the ISP's what to do. I damn well expect the ISP's to co-operate - it's not their domain to argue with the law, they are just a company. They can lobby for changes but if the law says that on 1st Jan the Internet goes off, I expect the Internet to go off.
When the anarchy breaks out and the government is replaced and the lawful decree goes out to turn things back on, then they can. But otherwise a company is just a law-abiding entity, or it's putting it's workers at risk (of just unemployment, or worse). If the US were to force your ISP to block all adult sites, are you going to blame the ISP or the government?
- Assuming ET life exists
- Assuming it's inside our sphere of expanding radio emissions
- Assuming they are within similar stages of scientific discovery
- Assuming they are seriously looking for us (and haven't yet found us) and / or that they spot us by complete accident
- Assuming they realise what it is and don't take several YEARS to decide what to actually do about that (as our governments almost certainly would).
- Assuming that they then initiate contact in a way we can understand which arrives here within a human lifetime.
- Assuming that we then receive, understand and need to form an initial reply to broadcast to them, and don't take YEARS to decide what to do about it.
- Assuming that they then receive our reply, understand it, and wish to communicate with us
- Assuming that we then wish to exchange, as a planet, information about ourselves with an unknown foreign entity
- Assuming that all of the above happens within our lifetime, or the next generation or so
Then it would *still* be an enormous waste of research funds to discuss *NOW* what language to talk in. It's like those kids who argue over whether to write the next Facebook / World of Warcraft in VB or Java - they'll still be arguing long before the entire memory of such things is dead.
Most astrophysicists believe it to be an incredibly bad idea to advertise even our presence, let alone communicate - you can be sure that they will express those sentiments when brought into discussions by the government.
Yes, it would be fascinating to discover a friendly civilisation, at approximately the same scientific level as ourselves who we communicate with and pass useful information. It can't happen for DECADES, which means we have plenty of time in which to sort things out, such as language. Almost certainly anything we "design" now will be useless (e.g. say we find out that in just 50 years time sending quantum-entangled particles provides much more sensible communication because of speed / space / penetration etc. issues - and that won't work on a "binary" basis, then all that research is useless).
The possibilities are boundless. Which means that the budget is too. Unless and until we have anything even close to a simple contact (e.g. a "WOW" signal that's repeatable) and need to send a single message and hope for reply within the next few millenia, it's pointless to discuss it seriously. It's literally like figuring out which question you will ask God when you find him, or what stick you'll poke into the edge of the universe to see what happens.
The probability of success is entirely, completely miniscule. We haven't found a single *candidate* for a planet supporting developed life, let alone received anything approaching a confirmation that there *could* be life anywhere. So suggesting that we "pick and choose" only those that reply to our existing messages is silly already - that is automatic and any reply must be a reply that we can perceive and that they understood in the first place.
Alien scientists may not even have a need to perceive our signal at all, thus receiving it may be impossible. We will almost certainly be using different technologies (given that today we ourselves are using different technologies to just 50 years ago).
If they are more developed, our radio attempts might literally be like us seriously shining a torch in the sky and looking for a big flashing visible-white reply. Things on a subatomic scale that we're *not* measuring are much more likely to get somewhere useful in a decent amount of time, facilitate near-real-time two-way communication and not be hindered by everything else in the universe (e.g. neutrinos).
Getting their attention is the thing that matters but, to be honest, we can't be sure that anything we send is actually getting anywhere. There are several theories that nothing electromagnetic outside 2 light years would be at a detectable level. And in the way are billions of stars bigger than the sun exploding with forces we
Pictograms are all but worthless. There are a billion interpretations and mostly that's assuming a 2D system of "vision" / "interpretation". And basically boils down to trying to teach someone who doesn't know anything about your species how to write and interpret images (like trying to teach a wild dolphin to read Shakespeare or recognise pictures of fruit with ZERO feedback about their correctness - intelligent or not, writing is still new to *us* because we've only been doing it for a tiny percentage of the time that humans have existed).
And your encoding is ambiguous - how do they know it's not length, then width? Or that it's not length then width then depth followed by a 3D representation (possibly the length might tell you that but once you get into that level of interpretation, you can "make sense" of any nonsense whatsoever)? Or that you didn't put the length/width at the end, or in the middle, or in whatever offset *they* consider logical? Yes, there may be a "pattern" of X times Y that gives us the size of the "packet" but there are probably a million other way of interpreting raw bits that would work out in the same way (i.e. if the first bit is a one, then the message is junk, so ignore it, parity, etc.)
You're just making far too many assumptions about mathematics and interpretation. This is the problem, almost everything we try will probably be useless because we've never encountered an intelligence other than our own, so we have *no* idea how to communicate at all. Who says they are even LOOKING at EM radiation? Maybe in a thousand years we won't even bother looking at it either (because of things like light-year limits to it's readability, degradation, interference, etc.) - maybe the sign of an "intelligent" civilisation will be using (insert whatever fancy physics you like here) systems instead and not bother with "pre-quantum" civilisations, etc.
And a thousand years in time, galactically, is nothing. And any civilisation that lasts long enough to contact others is much more likely to be millions of years more advanced than we are by sheer probability. MILLLIONS. As in CERN, the satellite systems, mainframes and the whole of civilisation would look like a fragment of fossil in the rock to them, technologically.
Prime numbers? The numbers that occur in nature when you take out all factors (in your case, just those up to 5) and occur often in purely physical systems? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_number#Prime_numbers_in_nature) There are species of animal that come out every prime year in order to avoid predators that work on various regular intervals and being prime reduces their chances. It's not hard to imagine that such things could get lost in the noise (i.e. you can probably "see" prime numbers everywhere if you bother to look) or simply are a by-product of ordinary physics (e.g. primes pop up in the Zeta-function etc.)
I agree the primes are simple but they won't necessarily attract attention. It's also assuming that maths is as universal as we hope (I'm a mathematician, but it's not hard to imagine somewhere where mathematics doesn't exist in a form we would understand). Carl Sagan suggests them as a way to demonstrate that an alien understand mathematics in a novel, but it's a bit far-fetched to say the least (messages from God are also hidden in pi in the book).
The problem is that it's incredibly easy to send anything we want but we have absolutely ZERO idea about how it would ever be interpreted. Even if we found a remote hidden tribe in the Amazon that had never had human contact and were mathematically literate and we gave them the messages and after 50 years they were able to decode them, it wouldn't mean *anything* because their brains would work the same way as ours, with the same perceptions and senses. Also, it would still take thousands of years for any reply (or else we'd *probably* have been visited already).
Finding ET is viable - it's easy to craft a "we're over here" signal just by sheer brute force and pushin
(sorry - missed off last bit of the sentence)
Just intent to slow down a website, or prevent other people accessing it, or even ENABLING people to intend to impair it's operation (e.g. distributing click-and-point tools and encouraging people to aim them at websites) is enough to get you charged under that act and imprisoned for a long time if proven in court.
Quoting from the section headed: "Unauthorised acts with intent to impair, or with recklessness as to impairing, operation of computer, etc."
(2) This subsection applies if the person intends by doing the actâ"
(a) to impair the operation of any computer;
(b) to prevent or hinder access to any program or data held in any computer;
(c) to impair the operation of any such program or the reliability of any such data; or
(d) to enable any of the things mentioned in paragraphs (a) to (c) above to be done.
Just intent to slow down a website, or prevent other people accessing it, or even ENABLING people to intend to impair it's operation (e.g. distributing click-and-point tools and encouraging people to aim them at websites).
How does this affect an in-place system?
You carry on as normal, call it an "update", and then push it to desktops after appropriate testing. Why this should create a problem on a managed system is beyond me. Office changes the ways it operates every year. Windows changes the way it operates with every update. At the very most, all this is is an update provided by a group of programmers - that the programmers aren't the same as the original ones is an ADVANTAGE - it means the software kept moving instead of died.
If you don't know how to handle that situation, it means you're not responsible for managing such changes. I moved a school to OO.org in a fortnight. LibreOffice is just a new name to them, they don't care, because they can see in a second that it's a damn sight better than MS's constantly-moving offerings involving staff-retraining every time.
Weird. I've had a bit for that in my screwdriver for years. And anyone who *wanted* to open that screw could easily do so - you just need to attach to it in a way strong enough to withstand the torque needed. Any one of those magic "stripped-screwhead removal" tools would do it just by drilling a new top to it, and there are tools that will do it without damaging the screw. Then replace with Philips if you really wanted to.
If you work in console repair, or any sort of electronics repair, you've been able to open these for years.
It's a load of over-sensitive could-possibly-be-thought-might-happen crap. Like using a mobile phone in a petrol station - the risk is actually from dodgy, illegally imported batteries installed in such things which might "spark" if dropped, nothing to do with the phone itself somehow magically igniting vapours. Most petrol station fires are caused by static sparks from people re-entering their cars while they are fuelling (which in itself suggests inattention to the pump pushing litres of a flammable liquid at high speed into your car) or just plain carelessness (i.e. smoking on the forecourt).
At some point, there probably WAS a time it could interfere with a piece of equipment not designed to take account that mobile phones were nearby (even if that was just audible chirps being recorded on the cockpit tapes because the mics picked them up like mics tend to do with mobile phone "check-in" broadcasts). If you're seriously using planes which are not designed to cope with mobile phone transmissions now, you're in a serious breach of due diligence as regards safety and hazards. For a start, it's too easy to leave one on, whether in the hold, or the overhead compartments, or your pocket, or even the pilot's pocket, and secondly you are going to be flying OVER mobile phone masts (with a lot more power output) and getting very, very close to them and mobile phones whenever you come into land and taxi.
The mobile phone thing is most probably, as has been recorded in several of the EU discussions, more about radio licensing - because having lots of mobiles suddenly appear in the air can mess up OTHER things. Like I can join a ferry's maritime network but only when it's switched on when we're out at sea, not near the coast. In terms of safety, if a mobile phone, or even a thousand mobile phones, can interfere with the operation of an aircraft, then you have much more to worry about that mobile phones themselves. For a start, any transmitter, any static, any friction at all. Same for wireless, bluetooth, and anything else that operates on similar wavelengths. Hell, most aircraft that serve food have a microwave or similar heater on board - bet that churns out a million times more "Risk Assessment" than the pilot's mobile phone.
I'm afraid, as a Brit, I am now legally required to murder you.
1) For liking Monty Python after the 70's have passed.
2) For linking Monty Python to English humour.
3) For thinking that any modern UK comedy show follows Monty Python.
Monty Python was "funny" in the 70's because it was outrageous. Their three worst sketches were the most outrageous and the ones that everyone remembers. 99% of what they produced was absolute shite. They are not, in and of themselves, funny any more anyway. The films? Pah. Basically designed to be outrageous / controversial with a few good lines thrown in. Follow the example of XKCD who understand this: http://xkcd.com/16/ Anyone caught with the words "Ni", "Very Naughty Boy" or "It's dead" should be shot on sight - it's like schoolkids that think they're cool because they have a designer jacket that ALL the schoolkids are wearing. Few UK people remember MP, fewer discuss them out of anything more than nostalgia, and even fewer think they are "English" humour.
What you fail to miss is that Monty Python is the exact OPPOSITE of the proper English humour. That's why it was funny at the time. Proper English comedy has nobody doing weird things. It's mostly sitcoms or standup in perfectly ordinary scenarios (e.g. a shopkeeper in a shop, a market trader on a stall, etc.). If it's "surreal", chances are it comes from the crap, outrageous side of English humour (e.g. Little Britain, etc.). However, things like Red Dwarf, Blackadder (Series 2 onwards), Only Fools & Horses (historically, but too many re-runs), etc. are funny not because of the situation, or because of slapstick, or because of "weird stuff" - the comedy is mostly background and almost all of it in simple dialogue between two people. A "newer" example would be Not Going Out with Lee Mack and Tim Vine but you'd have to watch several series to get into it, especially if you have trouble with the accents. It can't be written down or recited or told to people, because it's about inflection, and facial expression, and intangible stuff, but if it is funny to someone it's because they've SEEN it and are reminded of their reaction to it at the time. It's as much the comedian delivering the line as the comedy itself - this is why Rowan Atkinson is a comedy genius and Michael Palin (despite being in the original Monty Python line-up) films documentaries about travel. John Cleese *can* "get it", especially now, but it's more Bond-film-style humour in his case, not one-man-on-his-own.
Any fan of British comedy will instantly recognise things like these clips below but they are ONLY funny if you've actually seen the joke, delivered first in its original form, in its entirety, beforehand:
Red Dwarf, while on "Blue Alert": "Red alert sir? Are you entirely sure? It does mean changing the bulb."
Only Fools and Horses (while picking up girls in a bar): "You've got to impress 'em, talk about money" , "Yeah? I found one of those old five-pound notes the other day."
The Two Ronnies: "Four candles?" "There you are: four candles." "No, no, no, FOUR CANDLES" "Well, there you are, four candles." "NO, handles for forks."
Otherwise, it's just a bad Christmas-cracker joke.
Chances are, as a "yank", you've probably never seen anything truly British and actually funny, because you don't import them (only the crap). The US pilot of Red Dwarf was a travesty because the US networks wanted so many changes it wasn't funny any more - seriously go hunt down one episode of Red Dwarf and the US pilot and then watch them one after another - and that was AFTER a revolt including script re-write by the only original cast member to still be involved in the US pilot by that point.
You also need to give anything funny at least 4 episodes of your time. It takes me that long to "get" things like Friends, or Frasier (yuck!), or Just Shoot Me, or Ally McBeal (and you accuse us of weird stuff?) or anything else that's ever been available over here and
Apart from the fact that most cars *are* more fuel efficient at about 50mph (some new ones lower, but generally most cars capable of 70mph are more fuel efficient at 50mph than most other speeds) - basically 5th gear, lowest revs - there are millions more ways to make thing fuel efficient which don't affect driving (e.g. use aircon instead of opening a window, remove roof-top boxes, etc.) and most people don't do ANY of them.
My point is - fuel efficiency is NOT a big seller for this idea. Nobody *really* cares that much, even if they do whinge about fuel costs being high (and if you think fuel costs are high, come to the UK - if you're not already there). The most fuel efficient cars tend to be the smallest ones and even when people only ever have one passenger they rarely drive a 2-seater. Most people want a car that gets them to their destination fast and reasonably comfortably. The people who buy for other reasons are generally lying or kidding themselves (e.g. fast car is entirely image, convertibles are entirely image, big people-carriers are NOT safer for your kids, electric cars are nowhere near "green", etc. etc. etc.).
If someone actually *wanted* fuel efficiency, it would be to save money or be green. If someone has an LPG car, they can probably claim to be more fuel efficient (though I doubt it's any greener, probably worse), and it's cheap enough that it wouldn't cost much to convert even an old banger. I very, very much doubt that someone who wanted to be fuel efficient would be paying tens of thousands for a brand new car with the "road train" computer onboard and hoping everyone else follows suits with a standardised system from other manufacturers. (That's even *if* it was actually legal in any country for this to work without the human taking 100% responsibility should they kill someone in it). They certainly wouldn't be driving a Land Rover.
I drive past thousands of people every day. Most of their cars are the least fuel efficient and most expensive-to-run cars available. (I remind them of it when we drive the same roads and they think pushing their way through against the highway code will make me stop my car for fear of scratches/dents - my car is worth less than most of their wing-mirrors).
Disclaimer: My car cost me £300. It has a different coloured bonnet (hood), no AC, and just barely scrapes into having electric windows. It costs me 3 times as much to insure it as it would do to buy the thing again. It's 1.8 litre which is quite large by European standards. Fuel efficiency is the *last* thing I care about but actually I get 500 miles on 60 litres and much more if I drive at the bottom end of my gears. I don't really care. The fact is the car was cheap and maintenance is cheap (i.e. never more than £300 because I'd just get another car) - but fuel efficiency? The only people who *really* care won't be driving this car for decades.
She drives a Range Rover. Fuel costs won't be on her mind. In fact, judging by the average driver, anything to get someone to their destination quicker will be welcomed, not deliberately running in the most fuel-efficient way - I get much more efficiency at 50mph, how many people do that speed on a major motorway?
Well, I've stopped buying games that come in boxes. Several years ago, in fact. There are several factors: Availability, Price, Convenience, Backup/Returns being impossible or worthless anyway, and Impulse-buying. I don't really use App-stores at all (I have no Apple devices) - the nearest I get is Steam but is that really an "App-store"? I think possibly the WiiStore might count but the same holds for that as for Steam. Anything PC that I buy tends to come from digital sources, though, because I need to be able to move it between machines and have it follow me for several years (all my Steam games have followed me perfectly since 2003, so they have a much better reputation already than 99% of the app-stores, eBooks, music-stores, etc. out there).
1) Availability: Most of the games I've bought, I do *not* see on shelves in stores. That's if I bother to go into a store at all. Can you buy Altitude in a shop? No? Why not? World of Goo is available for the Wii but I've never seen it in amongst the Wii games at any shop I've ever been in. Because physical media production and distribution is expensive, and because shops decide what to sell (which means high-margin products mainly), and because the "PC" section of any games shop is shrinking by the day. Can I get GTA (the original version) or Quake? No. As soon as a game is a year old, it disappears and only re-appears in supermarket "bargain basement" stands costing almost as much as it did new.
2) Price: Most download games can be had much cheaper. Whether they are brand new or years old, they are usually cheaper online as a download. I don't need the boxes, the manuals, the flyers, etc. If I *really* do, I can just print them off from a PDF - the money I save by not having the maps printed by the games publisher is much more than the cost of printing out only the maps that I *DO* actually need. I throw the boxes out because, after decades of keeping them all, I've realised that I *NEVER* use them and only need the occasional manual for copy-protection. They also damage much more easily than an original install disk (and copy) placed in a proper disk storage case and kept safe. My entire software archive since my first CD-drive (and several dozen floppies) can fit into a box under my desk - approximately the same size as 10-15 games if I were to keep the boxes. The only thing I need to buy is a storage medium in a container - a DVD or CD case fits that description, or a USB key, but a lot of games only come in A4-sized thick boxes.
3) I have to go to a shop. Find a physical box of the exact type I require. Make sure it exactly corresponds with the game I want and is for the right platform. Take it to the counter. Have some guy put his sticky fingers on a disk that they ripped out earlier in case people stole it. Carry it home. Unpack it (so the packaging has a journey of about an hour). Throw the crap away. File the manual somewhere (or more likely just throw it). Take the CD and *carefully* make a copy (if I can) or install it. Then put that CD into some sort of case for long-term storage so it won't get damaged (and which doesn't take up the whole room). Or I just could click the link on something like the Steam / GOG.com store and have it installed within ten minutes while I'm using the computer for something else. When I'm done with it, I delete it. If I want it back, I double-click it (or at worst download it again). If I want to back it up, I copy a folder/file it into my normal backup paths. If I want to move it to another machine, I just double-click it from the other machine.
4) Backup/Returns: A lot of games can't be backed up from the CD / DVD. If I do, they often require hideous hacks that can affect the game and/or online accounts. With digital downloads (as counter-intuitive as it is to anyone who worries about DRM), I can back them up and restore them on other machines quite easily. If there's a problem with a game I've bought, it's usually only a) physical disk is broken or b) software is brok
Interest is money that's taxed.
Income earned in other countries may not be adequately taxed (or declared as taxed in your home country) and then never actually get taxed because it doesn't enter that country. A bank account will tell you *exactly* how much that person earned worldwide and who needs to tax it. Most Swiss banks will NEVER tell the countries involved that they suspect untaxed money is sitting in their accounts - go abroad, earn £10m, stick it in a Swiss account, come home, claim benefits.
There are a million and one ways to launder money, and to avoid taxation, and most of them involve off-shore accounts like these.
"Note that the link is thin, and the sources are behind logins and subscription links, so please post better URLs if you can find them."
Er, no? That's what I expect a story-poster to do for me? Or the editors? You know, those *paid* people?
Might as well say "Vague story happens but you can only read about it on other sites - help us do our job and find other people's coverage so we can post the link here!"
Seriously, as the days go buy, there's less and less reason to come to this site, and less and less reason to pay for a subscription.
Funny, I don't remember having to pay a licence fee to use English.
The problem was ignorant parents. At no point did anyone say that ALL MMR vaccines are dangerous - the (completely unfounded) rumours only ever circulated on the combined MMR vaccine. You still can, and always have been able to, get the separate vaccines which have been working since the 70's in just about everyone without any problems of the kind mentioned here. But parents didn't read that bit. They just read "vaccination" = "autism" (which happened to be complete bollocks anyway) and assumed it meant EVERY vaccination. Stupidity on the part of parents who can't read can't be blamed on governments or rogue doctors here.
In the UK (where this doctor was based and doing his research and started this scandal), you could opt for the normal, old, tested vaccines without any problem at all. It was only the new, combined MMR vaccine that ever had such claims against it. Doctors in the UK routinely offered the alternatives to parents who were worried. It was only the *dumb* parents who immediately steered clear of things that had been working, without problems, without dubious claims, and without association with any such scandals, even when they were offered them. The media over here actually did a good job of separating it out and offering correct advice, but some people always get too hysterical to actually LISTEN to what they are being told.
It's like saying that a particular model of car has been recalled because of faulty brakes and then NOBODY buying a car ever again. It's that ridiculous.
And it wouldn't be a felony, because he's in the UK and we don't have that word. However, he's already been dismissed by the GMC and will never practice as a doctor again. There's also the very-real possibility of legal action against the doctor, hospital, government advisers that listened, etc.
People still buy Sony stuff? Really? Wow.
I can't name a single item I've ever owned myself that had a Sony badge on it and that I paid money for (someone gave me a Playstation once - it's in a cupboard somewhere and only got used about twice).
Nobody really started looking until OtherOS disappeared. By that standard, even DVDCSS lasted longer.
Because he has nothing to hide?
He may have "facilitated" copyright infringement (and even that's a matter of opinion) but he's not involved in it in any other way. But facilitation is a bit of a problem - do I "facilitate" theft of cars when I learn that their remote keyfobs codes are insecure? Do I "facilitate" theft / criminal damage if I show someone that you can break a glass window with a hammer? It's all pretty subjective.
Fact is, he found existing security flaws and published them, like a thousand security researchers do every day. He did not condone, endorse, or assist copyright infringement (to my knowledge). So why would he *try* to hide his name and make himself look guilty? To a court, they may be suspicious enough that they look a lot more closely than they otherwise would. At is stands, on the face of it, he was pretty open about what he was doing but at no point condoned copyright infringement. So he actually comes out looking like a good guy, even in court.
Far too many assumptions:
1) That's accurate (i.e. an Ancient Greek who could judge accurately how many separate people were involved on a 20 year Egyptian project 1500 years before his time without exaggeration)
2) The builder's ALL worked an 8 hour day, every single day, even religious festivals (and there wasn't, say, one man who knew how to do the bottom bits and then slunk off, or only lifted one stone before breaking his back, etc.) during the night, etc. on hard heavy-labour, as did every architect, priest, tile-polisher, boatsman etc. and there was never a flood, or rainstorms, or other problems that stopped work for even a single guy.
3) The Egyptian pyramids weren't slave-built (actually they were quite decently treated for the time) - so "the builders" probably worked no harder than anyone else, especially if it meant burning oil to be able to see.
Allow me to link to a really crappy, kiddies article: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/pyramids/pyramids.html
"Contrary to some popular depictions, the pyramid builders were not slaves or foreigners."
"Some of the builders were permanent employees of the pharaoh. Others were conscripted for a limited time from local villages."
"An estimated 20,000 to 30,000 workers built the Pyramids at Giza over 80 years. Much of the work probably happened while the River Nile was flooded." (suggesting 1.6m man-years assuming 24/7 working, or 53,000 man-years on a working-day, less than your estimate)
And that's the pyramids (plural), not your unfounded estimate of a pyramid (singular).
I'd be extremely surprised if there was more than 30,000 man years of productive work overall, and probably a lot less.
Good illustration. That's 34,000 man-years. 34,000 men for a year, or one man for 34,000 years (i.e. about 500 lifetimes). The pyramids didn't need that. The Apollo missions probably didn't need that. Most of modern physics and mathematics could have been discovered in that (it's like Archimedes still being alive and just as productive right through to the current day, and still only one-sixteenth of the way of the way through his useful working life).
To put it in context, though, going to the toilet takes much more time than that, per person, over the course of a single life (so multiplied by 6 billion, it's quite a lot of total "wasted man-hours"). We waste inordinate amounts of time doing silly things that aren't strictly necessary, too. Productivity can only be measured on a personal level, not a numerical one. Was Alexander Fleming productive enough (or incited enough productivity in others through his discoveries) even if he was also an accomplished glass-blower? (And that actually helped him make further discoveries in unrelated fields). How do you measure something like that? And how much do we waste in actual wars? I bet it's orders-of-magnitude more, given the budget allocated to it (and thus the tax etc. used to generate it, and the work used to generate that, etc. etc. etc.).
Adding it up, it's a waste of time that could theoretically be used doing better things. On a personal level? Fuck off, I want to play Counterstrike sometimes to rest and actually have a life, not be a machine. Both points of view are equally valid. Neither will ever change except in small details. And posting on Slashdot to complain about it, like the OP did, is probably the *greatest* hypocrisy ever. Let's take five minutes to hit buttons to send a comment over thousands of km of copper and infrastructure so that lots of other people can ignore it and nobody ever benefit from it.