If they make custom patches for their own use and don't sell them, I don't see what's the problem. They have a legal and moral right to do that, it seems to me.
I was a bit surprised about the name Polydeuces, because he (the mythological character) had little to do with Troy. However, it turns out that there's another Trojan moon called Helene (now this makes sense!), and Polydeucues is Helene's brother.
You should read old "Doc" Smith's SF novels. I almost died when I read a line like the following:
A Nevian computer handed his chief a sheet of metal, bearing rows of symbols.
or
"Not exactly," the computer still stared. "I was going to set up an integral. I didn't want it, either-I could swear that somebody told me to set it up."
Yep, those are people that do computations - computers.
My understanding is that they want more and better people (remember the billboard advertisements, google tests, contests, etc), not that they can't retain the ones they have already. They have high standards and the "very smart" employee pool is limited. So, I imagine, they want to poach from other big companies a little.
Remember -- at the undergraduate level, most schools will teach you the same things (oftentimes, from the same books). So why pay out the nose for an education that can be obtained for a fraction of the cost of a top-tier university?
Not to argue with your overall point, about going into debt, I think there's plenty of difference. If your education was about transferring data from textbooks into your brain, then I'd agree with you. However, the quality of your fellow students and the quality of your professors is very important.
The quality of your fellow students means that you'll have interesting partners for your projects, that your classes would be more interesting (and not just CS classes), that you'll have good TAs, and that you won't be the only guy in your class to be interested in the course material.
The quality of your professors means not only that you learn more and better, but also that you can get involved in cutting edge research, and go to graduate school if you like it.
And of course you can look down your nose on the poor mortals who didn't get your elite education:)
The article says that the slowing-down effect for paper-like objects is much larger than normal "parachuting" effect. I wonder if this could be used in some way for parachutes.
The language guranteed to fuck you up if you've by some strange chance of fate actually programmed before getting to the school.
If a language can do that to you, it is a language worth knowing. Most modern languages (read scripting, like Perl, Python, Ruby, etc) support many functional paradigms, like map, lambda functions, etc. They are incredibly useful, if you know how.
Personally, I don't care if Bush says "internet" or "internets". My impression is that he says it that way because he doesn't care about maintaining an intellectual facade.
My feeling is that Bush hasn't really used Internet in a normal way, since he became president. He doesn't need to, after all, he has staff to do all that. And he probably wasn't a power user in 2000 to begin with. So he is still confused about all the Net stuff, more so than even the relatively uneducated part of his constituents: they do use the Internet to some extent.
One thing that's missing is the ability to find where you are. So you actually have to tell it your address. However, the phone company obviously knows where you are, and I personally wouldn't mind if it communicated this information to Google upon my request.
For those concerned about privacy, I'd simply make it opt-in, i.e. phone company messages you the first time you do this, and asks to reply if you want to enable Google/some other guy (identified by their phone number) to see this information. The phone company then always attaches your address when you message this number.
it is WRONG to take from someone and give to someone else.
So, basically you consider taxes to be theft? First, that means you do not subscribe to the democratic principle, i.e. the rule of the majority. That's fine, I don't either (not completely, at least), but it's worth noting.
I think you will have to agree that some taxes are necessary. In a modern society there are things which are not possible to do on a completely voluntary basis. Like the military. If I don't pay for the military, basically someone else has to, because if we are bombed/invaded/etc, everyone suffers. Or the roads. You simply can't make each street a toll road. And people would otherwise simply not pay. And the community can't really ostracize them if they don't: I don't know/care about my neighbors anyway, and I can work very far away from where I ive.
So, I think unless you are an anarchist, rather than a libertarian, you'd have to agree that some taxes are a necessary evil. And, therefore, are different from theft and not immoral. And if the government can take a penny, it can also take a million. And a totalitarian government does. However, your democratic government can't do that, because that would be the last thing it does as a government.
So, if the majority (or, let's say a constitutional-amendment size super-majority) says something is a right, then it is.
I assume you know or can guess that the Soviet constitution literally said that you have a right to free medical care. Of course it also said you have a right to free speech, but the former one was real. Also notice, that there were plenty of things you had to pay for in the former USSR (like food), but health care wasn't one. There are even more things you have to pay for in the rest of civilized world, but health care isn't one, in any other western country.
So why wasn't food free, but health care was? Well, because everyone who has even minimal income can afford food, but it's not the case with the health care. Just imagine yourself becoming disabled (you can't work) with permanent care need of ~100k a year. And your insurance drops you at some point, because most of them have caps of some sort. Very few people, in the bottom 90% of income range can afford to survive that financially.
That's why if it's not unreasonable to have a right to be physically protected (by police, military & firefighters), it's also not unreasonable to be protected from disease. And notice, that means that I have the right to use their skills without their consent, too! (At least, they never consented to serve me, personally). Also, if I am lying on the street, dying, a doctor can't walk by and ignore me. So I get his services for free (if I can't pay), and he can't do anything about it. However, he is still earning his six-figure salary somehow. And the police, military, and firefighters are getting paid (if poorly) too.
"Working person" is an unfortunate label which really means poor or lower-class. Just think of how many times you've heard the word middle-class, or even upper-class, aka "the rich" (excluding college & high school:)), but never lower-class. So you have your working class.
Now, as to the substance. This is really a socialist approach, which has been partially adopted by Greens, and to some extent by the mainstream parties as well. The idea is that you don't need protection or help, or at least need less of it. After all, you are doing all right without it. Some people, namely the poor, might need it. Now, there could be stupid and smart ways to help, and one can argue about it, but the general notion that the poor need help can hardly be denied, even by a libertarian (He might advocate removing taxation or motivate them in some other way, for example).
So, there you go. Even though I am personally not poor, I think you can hardly support a party that would advocate primarily helping the rich, without simply being a selfish bastard.
You know, I think it is the state that decides how its electoral college votes are distributed. So it could in principle run instant runoff vote and determine their delegation based on that. IANAL, so please correct me if I am wrong.
While I think this is a reasonable question, I think it misses the point. I think the average American makes more like $30,000 a year. So what you are asking, while perhaps relevant for the Slashdot audience, is slightly biased.
I think the difference lies in what could happen when the target company reacts. I don't think people would mourn is MS and AOL were to go bankrupt, or even simply stop producing a particular product.
Whereas people are afraid something bad will happen to Google (and whoever takes their place would be worse), and they don't want GMail to be pulled or crippled.
"...efforts to get more women involved in the MIT community..." i really hope that this is not the reason she got elected president. you see, i think such positions should be awarded according to ability, _regardless_ of the gender. so "because of" is as wrong as "in spite of".
While I agree with you, generally speaking, you should remember that a Univiersity President position is not some kind of prize based on performance, it's an admnistrative job. Moreover, one of the major things the president is responsible for, perhaps even more than running the school, is raising money. (Provost is the one running the academic side of things). So, for instance, the university would be justified in considering even such factors as personal appearance, let alone gender.
So, basically, if they think it likely that she'd be able to fundraise more because she is female, they would have a rational reason for preferring her. Not that I think it's a sufficient reason. And, as many people have said, I agree that MIT probably had many other good reason to hire her.
you also know the name of at least one person who they know, so you can fake the From: field to be that person, and that will improve the chances they read the email by a lot.
Slashdot Mirror
If they make custom patches for their own use and don't sell them, I don't see what's the problem. They have a legal and moral right to do that, it seems to me.
Usually closer? I'd say it has to be closer to the smaller body, otherwise the forces won't cancel out.
I was a bit surprised about the name Polydeuces, because he (the mythological character) had little to do with Troy. However, it turns out that there's another Trojan moon called Helene (now this makes sense!), and Polydeucues is Helene's brother.
Yeah, I remember playing an old strategy game about defending the Alamo. Now, that would be appropriate!
or
Yep, those are people that do computations - computers.
My understanding is that they want more and better people (remember the billboard advertisements, google tests, contests, etc), not that they can't retain the ones they have already. They have high standards and the "very smart" employee pool is limited. So, I imagine, they want to poach from other big companies a little.
And also the name of Google's campus
NYT's daily circulation is over a million. Do you really think they'd notice?
Remember -- at the undergraduate level, most schools will teach you the same things (oftentimes, from the same books). So why pay out the nose for an education that can be obtained for a fraction of the cost of a top-tier university?
Not to argue with your overall point, about going into debt, I think there's plenty of difference. If your education was about transferring data from textbooks into your brain, then I'd agree with you. However, the quality of your fellow students and the quality of your professors is very important.
The quality of your fellow students means that you'll have interesting partners for your projects, that your classes would be more interesting (and not just CS classes), that you'll have good TAs, and that you won't be the only guy in your class to be interested in the course material.
The quality of your professors means not only that you learn more and better, but also that you can get involved in cutting edge research, and go to graduate school if you like it.
And of course you can look down your nose on the poor mortals who didn't get your elite education:)
The article says that the slowing-down effect for paper-like objects is much larger than normal "parachuting" effect. I wonder if this could be used in some way for parachutes.
Clausewitz (I think) once said that no plan ever survives contact with the enemy. His words are true today as they were in the 16th century.
No doubt that's true. Except Clausewitz lived in the 19th century.
The language guranteed to fuck you up if you've by some strange chance of fate actually programmed before getting to the school.
If a language can do that to you, it is a language worth knowing. Most modern languages (read scripting, like Perl, Python, Ruby, etc) support many functional paradigms, like map, lambda functions, etc. They are incredibly useful, if you know how.
And my spam filters would have killed that message dead. Too much non-human-readable text.
Your spam filter cares about the non-readable text in the header?
Personally, I don't care if Bush says "internet" or "internets". My impression is that he says it that way because he doesn't care about maintaining an intellectual facade.
My feeling is that Bush hasn't really used Internet in a normal way, since he became president. He doesn't need to, after all, he has staff to do all that. And he probably wasn't a power user in 2000 to begin with. So he is still confused about all the Net stuff, more so than even the relatively uneducated part of his constituents: they do use the Internet to some extent.
One thing that's missing is the ability to find where you are. So you actually have to tell it your address. However, the phone company obviously knows where you are, and I personally wouldn't mind if it communicated this information to Google upon my request.
For those concerned about privacy, I'd simply make it opt-in, i.e. phone company messages you the first time you do this, and asks to reply if you want to enable Google/some other guy (identified by their phone number) to see this information.
The phone company then always attaches your address when you message this number.
Stern Will Jump To Sirius In 2006
You know, even if he jumps to Alpha Centauri, not many of us would miss him.
...wouldn't neccessarily do bad to create a folder for each downloadable file. No one would be annoyed by that...
Sorry, I'd be annoyed. It means extra time accessing the files. That's probably why they moved the download directory to Desktop in the first place.
it is WRONG to take from someone and give to someone else.
So, basically you consider taxes to be theft? First, that means you do not subscribe to the democratic principle, i.e. the rule of the majority. That's fine, I don't either (not completely, at least), but it's worth noting.
I think you will have to agree that some taxes are necessary. In a modern society there are things which are not possible to do on a completely voluntary basis. Like the military. If I don't pay for the military, basically someone else has to, because if we are bombed/invaded/etc, everyone suffers. Or the roads. You simply can't make each street a toll road. And people would otherwise simply not pay. And the community can't really ostracize them if they don't: I don't know/care about my neighbors anyway, and I can work very far away from where I ive.
So, I think unless you are an anarchist, rather than a libertarian, you'd have to agree that some taxes are a necessary evil. And, therefore, are different from theft and not immoral. And if the government can take a penny, it can also take a million. And a totalitarian government does. However, your democratic government can't do that, because that would be the last thing it does as a government.
So, if the majority (or, let's say a constitutional-amendment size super-majority) says something is a right, then it is.
I assume you know or can guess that the Soviet constitution literally said that you have a right to free medical care. Of course it also said you have a right to free speech, but the former one was real. Also notice, that there were plenty of things you had to pay for in the former USSR (like food), but health care wasn't one. There are even more things you have to pay for in the rest of civilized world, but health care isn't one, in any other western country.
So why wasn't food free, but health care was? Well, because everyone who has even minimal income can afford food, but it's not the case with the health care. Just imagine yourself becoming disabled (you can't work) with permanent care need of ~100k a year. And your insurance drops you at some point, because most of them have caps of some sort. Very few people, in the bottom 90% of income range can afford to survive that financially.
That's why if it's not unreasonable to have a right to be physically protected (by police, military & firefighters), it's also not unreasonable to be protected from disease. And notice, that means that I have the right to use their skills without their consent, too! (At least, they never consented to serve me, personally). Also, if I am lying on the street, dying, a doctor can't walk by and ignore me. So I get his services for free (if I can't pay), and he can't do anything about it. However, he is still earning his six-figure salary somehow. And the police, military, and firefighters are getting paid (if poorly) too.
IANG (I am not Green), but here's my take on it:
:)), but never lower-class. So you have your working class.
"Working person" is an unfortunate label which really means poor or lower-class. Just think of how many times you've heard the word middle-class, or even upper-class, aka "the rich" (excluding college & high school
Now, as to the substance. This is really a socialist approach, which has been partially adopted by Greens, and to some extent by the mainstream parties as well. The idea is that you don't need protection or help, or at least need less of it. After all, you are doing all right without it. Some people, namely the poor, might need it. Now, there could be stupid and smart ways to help, and one can argue about it, but the general notion that the poor need help can hardly be denied, even by a libertarian (He might advocate removing taxation or motivate them in some other way, for example).
So, there you go. Even though I am personally not poor, I think you can hardly support a party that would advocate primarily helping the rich, without simply being a selfish bastard.
You know, I think it is the state that decides how its electoral college votes are distributed. So it could in principle run instant runoff vote and determine their delegation based on that. IANAL, so please correct me if I am wrong.
While I think this is a reasonable question, I think it misses the point. I think the average American makes more like $30,000 a year. So what you are asking, while perhaps relevant for the Slashdot audience, is slightly biased.
I think the difference lies in what could happen when the target company reacts. I don't think people would mourn is MS and AOL were to go bankrupt, or even simply stop producing a particular product.
Whereas people are afraid something bad will happen to Google (and whoever takes their place would be worse), and they don't want GMail to be pulled or crippled.
"...efforts to get more women involved in the MIT community..."
i really hope that this is not the reason she got elected president. you see, i think such positions should be awarded according to ability, _regardless_ of the gender. so "because of" is as wrong as "in spite of".
While I agree with you, generally speaking, you should remember that a Univiersity President position is not some kind of prize based on performance, it's an admnistrative job. Moreover, one of the major things the president is responsible for, perhaps even more than running the school, is raising money. (Provost is the one running the academic side of things). So, for instance, the university would be justified in considering even such factors as personal appearance, let alone gender.
So, basically, if they think it likely that she'd be able to fundraise more because she is female, they would have a rational reason for preferring her. Not that I think it's a sufficient reason. And, as many people have said, I agree that MIT probably had many other good reason to hire her.
You may be right, but consider this:
you also know the name of at least one person who they know, so you can fake the From: field to be that person, and that will improve the chances they read the email by a lot.
It's a good thing the Supreme Court can afford to be unpopular. The justices are elected for life after all.