If our detection capabilities can let us spot a Super-Jupiter sized object 100 light years away, are there smaller object that are closer, but still pose a threat?
Of course there are. Scientists point out new discoveries of these all the time, and show the near misses. There's loads of things we haven't seen yet, which is why you can still get new comets being discovered that have hugely elliptic orbits.
We should improve our detection abilities mainly to spot asteroids headed our way in time to prevent a catastrophe.
I think this has already been best answered with "Well, our object collision budget's about a million dollars a year. That allows us to track about three percent of the sky, and begging your pardon sir, but it's a big-ass sky."
If we truly had one incoming on a collision course... I'm pretty sure we have nowhere near the technology to do anything about it. People occasionally float a new idea, but so far if something big comes along, we're screwed. Same if the Vogons show up.
Second, why does anyone care if there is a 'spike' in discussion with the 2012 doomsayers? You think there WOULDN'T be a spike in discussion around December 2012? And who cares if there is? The good news, is that by January, all the 2012 end of the world nonsense will be over (Even if they are right;) )
No, such people don't adjust their beliefs to match reality. There will be endless theories about how it really meant 2013, how the calendar is off by a little, or how we're just reading it wrong.
In fact, I expect them to spend a lot of time defending their position and trying to adapt their broken theory so it isn't quite so broken (according to their logic that is).
Expect this bit of silliness to drag on for years.
How is this any different then Apple stealing the name Apple from the Music label Apple?
Apple didn't 'steal' the name from Apple Music. Trademarks only apply in the field in which you do business. Which was why for a long time Apple computers agreed to stay very far away from music.
Of course, they've now bought Apple Music, so that part is moot.
But Acme Tires can't sue Acme Foods -- because they do business in different fields, there's not as much chance of confusing the one with the other. If Acme Foods started to also sell tires, they might find themselves sued by Acme Tires.
But it's also why I can see companies like "Apple Auto Glass". They're in entirely different industries, so their respective trademarks are non-overlapping.
In this case, it's pretty stupid, because 'memory' is descriptive and bordering on generic. So unless we start doing the German thing of combining a series of words into one big one, this sounds like a stupid trademark -- recollectionfrominsideyourbrain is a little awkward.
Likewise, I don't think you could trademark 'spreadsheet', 'word processor', or 'compiler' -- because they describe what they're for. Well, I don't think you should be able to trademark them -- clearly someone got memory. But, seriously, "Bob's Happy Fun Memory Game" should preclude Memory from being something which is valid.
Try to create a program with the 'Word', 'Excel', or 'Windows' in it. I dare 'ya.;-)
Sadly, like patents and copyright, trademarks have jumped the shark. Once they get granted, they're legally valid.
I would say that Ravensburger are penis heads, and whoever granted the word 'Memory' as a trademark is a complete moron. Now they're being memory nazi's.;-)
I think I'll trademark Computer, Internet, Software, and Program.. and maybe a couple of adjectives like Big, Small, and Laughable. Oh, and for good measure "German morons with tiny penises".
I'm pretty sure the Kardashians have been so busy fucking everybody else they wouldn't have time for incest.
This is what happens when someone becomes famous for being in a sex tape, as apparently other than having nice tits, I'm not sure she has anything which would have made her famous.
The newsfeed is just what it sais, a list of "news" from the sources you chose
Except they've started injecting ads into the middle of the news feed from sources I didn't choose. Not in the side bar, but in the stream.. listed as "Sponsored" with a prominent "Like this page" button.
But, that's OK... my experiment is deciding for myself if Facebook sucked or not is almost complete, and I'm coming down on the side of Facebook Sucks.
Of course, I find it amusing that FB is more than willing to inject ads into people's FB page... so I can only assume those people are paying.
They're also likely getting met with "WTF is this crap doing on my Facebook page".
I'm kind of hoping Facebook really starts to piss off people and we see an end to this whole social media craze where everybody wants everything to work like Facebook. Even stuff internal to companies is moving in that direction, and it isn't as useful as the people pushing for it like to believe.
You're going to have to explain what the fuck you're talking about here, because I'll bet you're either wrong or are complaining that Android doesn't use Apple's DRM.
No, not Apple's DRM.. whatever the studios use. Buy a movie with a digital copy, your options (as far as I can tell) are Windows Media Player and iTunes to redeem it and be able to play it -- because the studios themselves have applied the DRM and decided that they trust. Have they extended that trust to Android? To Linux?
This has little do with with Apple's DRM, but the studios. Since I prefer to buy Blu Ray titles with the digital copy, I like to have it. I know you can do it in iTunes. I suspect you can do it in the Windows Music Player. I highly doubt that they've made it do-able on Android or Linux.
As to rounded corners... well, that's a manifestation of the fscking broken patent system. If the USPTO granted a stupid patent, these are the consequences of it. Personally, I think design and software patents are a joke, but they issue them. Unfortunately, once a stupid patent has been issued the lawyers take over and do their thing.
You're right, but I'm still be convinced that the tablet market wants to be "PC tablets" -- Microsoft's vision of it being something I can access Exchange and Excel with? Not so much. Microsoft still hasn't grown past the point of understanding that there's more to life than spreadsheets and corporate email -- and most of what I use my iPad for has nothing to do with either.
There are plenty of other companies making good enough alternatives.
Well, "good enough" is subjective... my wife's BB Playbook is a little flaky, and my brother's Android tablet underwhelmed me.
Unless you into buying DRM-laden media from the Apple company store, you really don't have any reason to feel trapped.
You make the presumption that people "feel trapped". I've never actually bought any DRM-laden media from Apple, nor do I plan to. But working with my existing iTunes was a huge plus for me. The fact that digital copies of movies works with it is even nicer, since I really prefer to have a digital copy as well. I'm betting an Android tablet isn't allowed to do that due to the DRM.
You don't have to personally like Apple or their products.. but you're largely talking out of your ass if you actually believe all of the people who have bought these products feel trapped by their decision. Outside of here on Slashdot where everyone wants to hate on Apple the way we used to hate on Microsoft... people actually like these products and are happy with them.
A friend recently upgraded his cell phone to an iPhone (free upgrade from the carrier). And he immediately found himself going "dammit, this is actually much better than what I've had the last few years".
At the consumer level, people actually really like the products.
Its probably best for Apple's users, anyway. They've all got Stockholm syndrome at the moment, but once they're freed from that incarceration, they can start the long road to recovery.
I'm sorry, but after years of Microsoft's half-assed or insecure offerings, Linux alternatives which would require jumping through all sorts of hoops to get only most of the functionality... I'll take my iPad which worked straight out of the box on day 1, and has done so since.
I think you're confusing Stockholm syndrome with "bought a product they're happy with".
Despite all of the bile on Slashdot directed at Apple, outside of here, people with Apple products tend to be quite pleased with them.
After that, Samsung loses the contract once and for all.
I believe Samsung has already told Apple they'd be terminating the contract next year or so... so it's not like they're at risk of losing a contract they've already decided they don't want any more.
To be fair, this is no longer mr. Lucas calling all the shots, so there's a small chance the new movies are not going to utterly suck.
Except, this is now Disney milking a title for as many sequels as they can manage.
Historically, that leads to direct to video crap. That tends to suck all of the merit out of the title until it's just lousy. It will be an endless stream of terrible stuff Disney keeps rolling out.
I feel a great disturbance in the force, as if millions of lawyers and accountants cried out with glee.
For me, they're going to be facing an uphill battle of making me believe this won't be just some cynical cash grab with a bad plot and extensive merchandising and fast food tie-ins. Another Star Wars would have scared me without Disney, with Disney I'm fearing the worst.
Admittedly, they may have learned their lessons.. in buying Marvel and still letting them have good control over the script, they've demonstrated they can still make those movies. So, maybe, just maybe, this won't be utter crap -- but I'm not holding my breath.
Have you looked into consulting? Presumably, you have a rather large amount of industry experience and breadth of knowledge.
Being a PM, working with companies on IT initiatives, that kind of thing?
After I 'graduated' from my last programming job, I've been in consulting and not writing code. I've actually found it quite rewarding, and companies are looking for people with "big picture" kinds of skillsets and not just people who can work on the technical nuts and bolts.
All of those soft-skills you've likely picked up, like being able to work in meetings, work to build consensus, scheduling and planning, estimating, overseeing.. these are all skillsets people will still be willing to pay for.
There is life after code, and I definitely know people in their 50's and 60's who are still consultants and in demand.
For some tasks, a little age and perspective is actually what is most needed -- it's like the old joke about the young bull wanting to run down and fuck one of the cows, and the old bull wanting to walk down and fuck them all. The stuff you've already done can be really valuable in helping organizations do new things. Sometimes, just having been there and done that gives you the perspective to see similarities in what's going on and understand where to go from there.
But organizations probably aren't looking to hire you as a coder, but as someone who works at a slightly higher level. (And I'm not saying give up on your tech skills, just recognize the your experience might be more valuable than your ability to write code. If you can still wow the young punks with some coding wizardry, all the better.)
In the iTunes player? Where is this big giant button you're talking about?
I'm looking at my iTunes in Windows right now, and there's two line items in the folder view for the store, and one function menu. 99% of my screen is for my music collection, and has nothing at all to do with the store.
I'm not sure I follow what you're saying about the Store button being hugely prominent -- it's barely there.
Of course iTunes does -- the whole right column in the display is ads trying to get you to buy music related to what you've got, or complete the album the music is from, etc...
Which is trivially collapsed and never seen again.
TFA is talking about full page ads, and the weather application showing ads for hair products.
I was initially going to disagree with you in favor of Cubans (which I'm fond of), but Cigar Aficionado pegs 8 of their top 10 for 2012 as being Nicaraguan.
Maybe I don't spend as much on cigars as Cigar Aficionado does, but I've been underwhelmed in the past with Nicaraguan cigars.
But clearly they're a more authoritative source than I.
Of course, the problem is that pretty much every major company has to get involved in patent lawsuits.
Microsoft has been in and out of litigation for decades. Motorolla is in there playing.
I'm pretty sure if you started a new company to make a product, you wouldn't get anywhere in a lot of cases, because you'd be sued as soon as you started making any money.
It's hard not to see this as general stupidity of the whole system -- and I no longer care if they're supposed to be the good guys or the bad guys. They all do it, and it mostly just serves to divert a lot of time and money to lawyers on either side.
I'm quite certain I've seen stuff that's now patented that we discussed when I was in university, and other things we all were thinking "wouldn't it be cool if".
The entire patent system seems like a horrible joke these days, and unless you've got vast amounts of money to play this losing game.
This discussion over if Apple deserves this or not is irrelevant (mostly because it's about how people feel about the company) -- instead we should be focusing on why the patent system is granting patents for ideas, or for things which other people have already done for years.
To put it in perspective, imagine a combat veteran's reaction to any number of films involving gun fighting and war. A lot of these people are probably bemusedly shaking their heads at a minimum.
That's going to be true of almost any plot device which which involves domain-specific knowledge.
I used to do some work in the airline industry, and the maintenance guys told me numerous tales about stuff that was shown in movies that was wrong for the kind of aircraft being depicted (the cabin isn't hat big, that panel doesn't do that, that's not where the lav is).
If they go much beyond doing to the most mundane of things, someone will watch it and be able to say "hey, that's incorrect".
A you say, the movie creators are more worried about pacing and their plot, and the technical details often get glossed over. And, as Myth Busters has shown up... even simple physics can fall by the wayside.
That's not exactly new... car commercials, coca cola, banks, cell phone companies... all sorts of extra ads and crap has been shown before movies for quite some time.
Well, I tried to put it together from a couple of fragments, but I read "Syr, yr hyn a ddywedwch" as "Sir, you're being a douche" almost verbatim... so maybe it's then followed with "... but are probably correct".
It's not often I get told what for in a language I don't know, so I'm a little rusty and not quite the cunning linguist I used to be.;-)
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Of course there are. Scientists point out new discoveries of these all the time, and show the near misses. There's loads of things we haven't seen yet, which is why you can still get new comets being discovered that have hugely elliptic orbits.
I think this has already been best answered with "Well, our object collision budget's about a million dollars a year. That allows us to track about three percent of the sky, and begging your pardon sir, but it's a big-ass sky."
If we truly had one incoming on a collision course ... I'm pretty sure we have nowhere near the technology to do anything about it. People occasionally float a new idea, but so far if something big comes along, we're screwed. Same if the Vogons show up.
No, such people don't adjust their beliefs to match reality. There will be endless theories about how it really meant 2013, how the calendar is off by a little, or how we're just reading it wrong.
In fact, I expect them to spend a lot of time defending their position and trying to adapt their broken theory so it isn't quite so broken (according to their logic that is).
Expect this bit of silliness to drag on for years.
Apple didn't 'steal' the name from Apple Music. Trademarks only apply in the field in which you do business. Which was why for a long time Apple computers agreed to stay very far away from music.
Of course, they've now bought Apple Music, so that part is moot.
But Acme Tires can't sue Acme Foods -- because they do business in different fields, there's not as much chance of confusing the one with the other. If Acme Foods started to also sell tires, they might find themselves sued by Acme Tires.
But it's also why I can see companies like "Apple Auto Glass". They're in entirely different industries, so their respective trademarks are non-overlapping.
In this case, it's pretty stupid, because 'memory' is descriptive and bordering on generic. So unless we start doing the German thing of combining a series of words into one big one, this sounds like a stupid trademark -- recollectionfrominsideyourbrain is a little awkward.
Likewise, I don't think you could trademark 'spreadsheet', 'word processor', or 'compiler' -- because they describe what they're for. Well, I don't think you should be able to trademark them -- clearly someone got memory. But, seriously, "Bob's Happy Fun Memory Game" should preclude Memory from being something which is valid.
Try to create a program with the 'Word', 'Excel', or 'Windows' in it. I dare 'ya. ;-)
Sadly, like patents and copyright, trademarks have jumped the shark. Once they get granted, they're legally valid.
I would say that Ravensburger are penis heads, and whoever granted the word 'Memory' as a trademark is a complete moron. Now they're being memory nazi's. ;-)
I think I'll trademark Computer, Internet, Software, and Program .. and maybe a couple of adjectives like Big, Small, and Laughable. Oh, and for good measure "German morons with tiny penises".
This is truly absurd.
I'm pretty sure the Kardashians have been so busy fucking everybody else they wouldn't have time for incest.
This is what happens when someone becomes famous for being in a sex tape, as apparently other than having nice tits, I'm not sure she has anything which would have made her famous.
Except they've started injecting ads into the middle of the news feed from sources I didn't choose. Not in the side bar, but in the stream .. listed as "Sponsored" with a prominent "Like this page" button.
But, that's OK ... my experiment is deciding for myself if Facebook sucked or not is almost complete, and I'm coming down on the side of Facebook Sucks.
Of course, I find it amusing that FB is more than willing to inject ads into people's FB page ... so I can only assume those people are paying.
They're also likely getting met with "WTF is this crap doing on my Facebook page".
I'm kind of hoping Facebook really starts to piss off people and we see an end to this whole social media craze where everybody wants everything to work like Facebook. Even stuff internal to companies is moving in that direction, and it isn't as useful as the people pushing for it like to believe.
Wouldn't re-sizing the image to 160x160 basically wipe out so much of the detail as to lose a lot of precision?
I should think most things people doing in Photoshop on a decent megapixel image would essentially become noise at that resolution.
My 12 megapixel camera takes images at 4000x3000 ... 160x160 is trivial in comparison.
No, not Apple's DRM .. whatever the studios use. Buy a movie with a digital copy, your options (as far as I can tell) are Windows Media Player and iTunes to redeem it and be able to play it -- because the studios themselves have applied the DRM and decided that they trust. Have they extended that trust to Android? To Linux?
This has little do with with Apple's DRM, but the studios. Since I prefer to buy Blu Ray titles with the digital copy, I like to have it. I know you can do it in iTunes. I suspect you can do it in the Windows Music Player. I highly doubt that they've made it do-able on Android or Linux.
As to rounded corners ... well, that's a manifestation of the fscking broken patent system. If the USPTO granted a stupid patent, these are the consequences of it. Personally, I think design and software patents are a joke, but they issue them. Unfortunately, once a stupid patent has been issued the lawyers take over and do their thing.
You're right, but I'm still be convinced that the tablet market wants to be "PC tablets" -- Microsoft's vision of it being something I can access Exchange and Excel with? Not so much. Microsoft still hasn't grown past the point of understanding that there's more to life than spreadsheets and corporate email -- and most of what I use my iPad for has nothing to do with either.
Well, "good enough" is subjective ... my wife's BB Playbook is a little flaky, and my brother's Android tablet underwhelmed me.
You make the presumption that people "feel trapped". I've never actually bought any DRM-laden media from Apple, nor do I plan to. But working with my existing iTunes was a huge plus for me. The fact that digital copies of movies works with it is even nicer, since I really prefer to have a digital copy as well. I'm betting an Android tablet isn't allowed to do that due to the DRM.
You don't have to personally like Apple or their products .. but you're largely talking out of your ass if you actually believe all of the people who have bought these products feel trapped by their decision. Outside of here on Slashdot where everyone wants to hate on Apple the way we used to hate on Microsoft ... people actually like these products and are happy with them.
A friend recently upgraded his cell phone to an iPhone (free upgrade from the carrier). And he immediately found himself going "dammit, this is actually much better than what I've had the last few years".
At the consumer level, people actually really like the products.
I'm sorry, but after years of Microsoft's half-assed or insecure offerings, Linux alternatives which would require jumping through all sorts of hoops to get only most of the functionality ... I'll take my iPad which worked straight out of the box on day 1, and has done so since.
I think you're confusing Stockholm syndrome with "bought a product they're happy with".
Despite all of the bile on Slashdot directed at Apple, outside of here, people with Apple products tend to be quite pleased with them.
I believe Samsung has already told Apple they'd be terminating the contract next year or so ... so it's not like they're at risk of losing a contract they've already decided they don't want any more.
Except, this is now Disney milking a title for as many sequels as they can manage.
Historically, that leads to direct to video crap. That tends to suck all of the merit out of the title until it's just lousy. It will be an endless stream of terrible stuff Disney keeps rolling out.
I feel a great disturbance in the force, as if millions of lawyers and accountants cried out with glee.
For me, they're going to be facing an uphill battle of making me believe this won't be just some cynical cash grab with a bad plot and extensive merchandising and fast food tie-ins. Another Star Wars would have scared me without Disney, with Disney I'm fearing the worst.
Admittedly, they may have learned their lessons .. in buying Marvel and still letting them have good control over the script, they've demonstrated they can still make those movies. So, maybe, just maybe, this won't be utter crap -- but I'm not holding my breath.
Have you looked into consulting? Presumably, you have a rather large amount of industry experience and breadth of knowledge.
Being a PM, working with companies on IT initiatives, that kind of thing?
After I 'graduated' from my last programming job, I've been in consulting and not writing code. I've actually found it quite rewarding, and companies are looking for people with "big picture" kinds of skillsets and not just people who can work on the technical nuts and bolts.
All of those soft-skills you've likely picked up, like being able to work in meetings, work to build consensus, scheduling and planning, estimating, overseeing .. these are all skillsets people will still be willing to pay for.
There is life after code, and I definitely know people in their 50's and 60's who are still consultants and in demand.
For some tasks, a little age and perspective is actually what is most needed -- it's like the old joke about the young bull wanting to run down and fuck one of the cows, and the old bull wanting to walk down and fuck them all. The stuff you've already done can be really valuable in helping organizations do new things. Sometimes, just having been there and done that gives you the perspective to see similarities in what's going on and understand where to go from there.
But organizations probably aren't looking to hire you as a coder, but as someone who works at a slightly higher level. (And I'm not saying give up on your tech skills, just recognize the your experience might be more valuable than your ability to write code. If you can still wow the young punks with some coding wizardry, all the better.)
In the iTunes player? Where is this big giant button you're talking about?
I'm looking at my iTunes in Windows right now, and there's two line items in the folder view for the store, and one function menu. 99% of my screen is for my music collection, and has nothing at all to do with the store.
I'm not sure I follow what you're saying about the Store button being hugely prominent -- it's barely there.
Which is trivially collapsed and never seen again.
TFA is talking about full page ads, and the weather application showing ads for hair products.
As I said, a whole different thing.
Yeah, but neither the iTunes player nor the store show me ads.
You launch the music player, you play music. You launch the music store, and it will show you stuff to buy.
This is ads embedded in the native apps ... which is a whole different thing.
I was initially going to disagree with you in favor of Cubans (which I'm fond of), but Cigar Aficionado pegs 8 of their top 10 for 2012 as being Nicaraguan.
Maybe I don't spend as much on cigars as Cigar Aficionado does, but I've been underwhelmed in the past with Nicaraguan cigars.
But clearly they're a more authoritative source than I.
Of course, the problem is that pretty much every major company has to get involved in patent lawsuits.
Microsoft has been in and out of litigation for decades. Motorolla is in there playing.
I'm pretty sure if you started a new company to make a product, you wouldn't get anywhere in a lot of cases, because you'd be sued as soon as you started making any money.
It's hard not to see this as general stupidity of the whole system -- and I no longer care if they're supposed to be the good guys or the bad guys. They all do it, and it mostly just serves to divert a lot of time and money to lawyers on either side.
I'm quite certain I've seen stuff that's now patented that we discussed when I was in university, and other things we all were thinking "wouldn't it be cool if".
The entire patent system seems like a horrible joke these days, and unless you've got vast amounts of money to play this losing game.
This discussion over if Apple deserves this or not is irrelevant (mostly because it's about how people feel about the company) -- instead we should be focusing on why the patent system is granting patents for ideas, or for things which other people have already done for years.
That's going to be true of almost any plot device which which involves domain-specific knowledge.
I used to do some work in the airline industry, and the maintenance guys told me numerous tales about stuff that was shown in movies that was wrong for the kind of aircraft being depicted (the cabin isn't hat big, that panel doesn't do that, that's not where the lav is).
If they go much beyond doing to the most mundane of things, someone will watch it and be able to say "hey, that's incorrect".
A you say, the movie creators are more worried about pacing and their plot, and the technical details often get glossed over. And, as Myth Busters has shown up ... even simple physics can fall by the wayside.
That's not exactly new ... car commercials, coca cola, banks, cell phone companies ... all sorts of extra ads and crap has been shown before movies for quite some time.
LOL ... "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt.
OK don't even attempt to match Welsh phonetically to English is the lesson here. :-P
LOL ... I tried phonetically mapping it to English, and Ddywedwch seemed to map to the oh-so-common "douche" one sees on Slashdot.
But then, I never claimed to speak Welsh. Some days, English is enough of a chore :-P
Well, I tried to put it together from a couple of fragments, but I read "Syr, yr hyn a ddywedwch" as "Sir, you're being a douche" almost verbatim ... so maybe it's then followed with "... but are probably correct".
It's not often I get told what for in a language I don't know, so I'm a little rusty and not quite the cunning linguist I used to be. ;-)
It depends entirely on how many zeroes they put on that cheque.
For high anything over $50 mil ... I'd fuck Zuckerburg at the Super Bowl half time show. Anything over $100 mil, and he can bring a friend. ;-)