Really? For going 62 in a 45? What about 61 or 60 or 59? What should happen to him if he was going 65? The death penalty? Just wondering.
What the hell does this mean? You want no speed limits?
Do you think you're everyone's Mom? Do we all need your advice on how fast we should go on each stretch of road in every weather and traffic condition at every time of the day? Do we need your wisdom so much that you should be able to use armed troops to force it on us -- threatening us with imprisonment or worse if we don't obey you? (Because otherwise someone might go 62 in a 45! Gasp!!!)
Stop trying to control everyone. We don't need your help. No one wants to get in a car crash. We are all competent adults and must be assumed to know how to drive. We can judge speed, traffic, weather, road conditions and available light to choose our own speed.
For any Mom, there comes a time when you have to let your children go. You've been a good Mom, but we're all grown up now. Thanks for trying to protect us, Mom, but now we need to be free to live our own lives and make our own mistakes.
Speeding cases are different than yours because there's a measurement involved. Even when the cop shows up, he can't say "I saw him going faster than XX speed". No one can be assumed to have the ability to reliably judge speed by sight, and it's easy to demonstrate that. Measurements are only as accurate as a measuring device. The cop has to prove that the radar gun was accurate. These are all hurdles that the cops have to overcome. They fail often.
It's actually supposed to be pretty easy for the defense to win a speeding ticket case. This is true regardless of whether you were actually speeding, GPS data, or any other evidence you present.
The cops have to prove their case. This means showing up to court with the proper evidence. The evidence has to be maintained and presented in a condition where it is admissible. Very often, one or more of these things do not happen and the defense wins by default.
Everyone should always take their speeding tickets to court. Speed limit laws need to be made unprofitable for the government and then maybe we can get our freedom back on the roads.
Security solutions have to be designed around usability. If usability isn't the #1 or #2 consideration, it will increase the failure rate of the humans involved and you'll end up with an insecure system in practice regardless of the technical merits of the security methods.
This is the worst Internet injustice since the last thing that had Slashdot's panties in a wad. And that one was so horrible that everyone forgot about it.
I think you were looking for the biased hype you're used to seeing with your news. Here you go:
George Bush Fails to Act as Sunspots Hit Historic Minimum Is it the end of the world?
MADISON, WI - Scientists from the United Nations and the Socialist Workers Party expressed extreme alarm today as the level of The Sun's sunspot activity reached a low in it's current cycle. "George Bush is too busy bombing children to fix the sun", said George Debs, PhD (Women's Studies) at the afternoon joint press conference. "President Clinton cared about the Sun and all the other planets. He understood how important it was."
The Sun, closest star to the the Earth, has been under increasing pressure from human development. Ordinarily stars undergo a natural cycle of sunspot activity throughout their lives. In nature, these variations go unobserved. But recently, several satellites have been violently hurtled at The Sun to better observe these phenomena. Scientists said they couldn't be sure of a definite link between the interference caused by this human encroachment on The Sun's habitat and the lower sunspot levels. Space activists were less cautious, saying "We killed The Sun".
The Madison City Council Subcommittee on Non-Planetary Space Phenomena (SNPSP) held public hearings on a non-binding resolution offering The Sun Madison's full support and urging The Sun to "Please continue shining, but only during the day." The resolution is expected to be voted on by the committee after the early October recess but before the subcommittee adjourns in late October for their Halloween week vacation.
I think Christmas is safe. A very large number of very high quality videogames are due out in the next 2 months.
This follows the recent release of Halo 3, Orange Box, Warhawk, Heavenly Sword, Bioshock, and several other outstanding next-gen games. And some Wii games too.
Hush. You're ruining it for the lawyers. How do you expect lawyers to cash in? People are in pain and the lawyers haven't fully exploited the moneymaking opportunity yet! Computer companies have deep, deep pockets, you know.
Wait until the companies have settled up and gone bankrupt. Then let it slip quietly that the whole thing wasn't true -- just like they did with the silicone gel breast-implant cases. Those were found to be harmless after the lawyers got paid.
They won't check facts, they refuse to show how they come to conclusions when they actually do research, and the research itself is so one sided it's just plain sickening.
Sounds like 90% of so-called mainstream journalism these days.
I know this is nothing new, but I have never understood it.
I think you clearly do understand it.
The folks who have control over the situation want what they want. And the rules say what they should get. And that's the end of it.
If the store has to turn off the radio and buy Muzak, which pays the fee, then the fee gets paid. If they don't, then the fee doesn't get paid. That's the motive. Courts are the mechanism.
You just don't agree.
A lot of folks seemingly overestimate the importance of their own opinion. Lots of stuff happens without people checking with you for your approval first. That's not likely to change.
(I don't necessarily agree either, but there's no point in arguing with reality. Arguments don't change rules. Power does.)
The Internet is good for amateur writers with talent.
I'm guessing the article says it's bad for professional writers with limited talent. And everyone else is to blame for the professional writers' comeuppance.
Ah, how convenient for you. Simply dismiss arbitrarily many scientific arguments as "biased", it so conveniently lets you retain whatever prejudices you have.
Everybody does it. The next time an oil-company-funded study is taken at face value by everyone, I'll go read RealClimate with an open mind.
I didn't invent ad-hominem. I didn't popularize it. But it's now the dominant form of reasoning worldwide. And it's the only one most people understand.
Please, point out the scientific error in their analysis.
One-sided analysis is not a scientific error.
If it goes for tobacco company funded organizations and oil company funded organizations, it goes for socialist agenda-driven funded organizations as well.
RealClimate is funded by the Tides Foundation, which has a "social change" agenda and receives backing from George Soros. I wouldn't expect purely objective analysis from any agenda-driven organization. That goes for RealClimate and NewsBusters both.
Classic case of GIGO, even if 0.5% extra precision was worth the money, it's a moot point because that level of precision doesn't exist in the production work flow.
Two things:
1. Better isn't necessarily the same as "level of precision". What if the expensive cable changes the sound to be less precisely recreated -- so the signal on the original source recording is filtered to produce a more pleasing sound? People might say it sounds better.
2. Whatever imperfections there are in the original recording, you could possibly add to them by using cheap cables. That might lead to worse sound. It's the converse of the other argument.
The only question is whether the cables sound different and whether they sound better. The input quality is a limiting factor on the absolute quality of the output, not the relative quality between two sets of output equipment. And then there's a human perception factor on top of that.
Randi may be right. He's almost certainly right that the marketing on the cables is misleading. (Wow, misleading marketing. Who would have thought?) He doesn't have enough basis to be certain that some random cheap cables sound as good as any other set of cables.
Also unreported by the major media is the new crack in the consensus on ozone depletion in general. There are new indications that the mechanism scientists told us was destroying ozone might not be doing what they thought.
All you need is an appropriate length of oxygen free copper cable/wire with sufficient shielding and appropriate gauge.
So that's 4 requirements: - the right length - the right composition - the right amount of shielding - the right gauge
And all of these requirements, except for length, are various degrees. There's a lot of room for optimization there.
Some high-end audio stuff makes sense and a lot is just emotional. The really expensive speakers sound better. Cables, on the other hand, probably only get better up to a certain point -- possibly in the 3-figure range.
All but the lowest of low end OEM cables meet these needs. Beyond this, there is zero difference in cables other than packaging and branding. Any perceived difference is in the listeners head.
This statement is probably provably false, though it's true enough for consumer-level equipment. For expensive setups, a sound quality improvement is probably available using higher gauge, better shielding, and better composition than you get with cheap cables.
None of that justifies $7k.
Randi might lose this one, depending on how he defines "prove". The signal at the other end of the cable won't be identical between the 2 cables. They are analog cables. It's nearly impossible for them to be identical. "Better" would be a question of whether the difference is audible and a group of people decide it's better in a double-blind trial by a significant margin. I'm not sure what makes him thinks that's an impossible outcome.
What about The Grand Duchy of Luxemburg ? They seem pretty innocent. Could he/she at least get someone from Luxemburg to dig the hole, if they don't actually manufacture laptops ?
I think the ancestors of the citizens of Luxembourg were involved in a war at some point in history.
Plus, in World War 2, the people of Luxembourg were either on the Axis side, the Allied side, or neutral, or somewhere in between one of those.
If they were on the Allied side, then their bombs killed innocent people. If they were on the Axis side, then they are complicit in the holocaust. If they were neutral, then they turned a blind eye to the holocaust. If they were somewhere in between, then they are partially guilty on two or more of these points.
So no. Maybe he can just find a hole that already exists. Or steal one.
Actually, you can't buy a laptop or anything else. There's no one in the world who can't be at least associated with something that someone did wrong at one time in the past. Not even you -- so making it yourself isn't an option either.
Slashdot Mirror
The kid should have his license revoked.
Really? For going 62 in a 45? What about 61 or 60 or 59? What should happen to him if he was going 65? The death penalty? Just wondering.
What the hell does this mean? You want no speed limits?
Do you think you're everyone's Mom? Do we all need your advice on how fast we should go on each stretch of road in every weather and traffic condition at every time of the day? Do we need your wisdom so much that you should be able to use armed troops to force it on us -- threatening us with imprisonment or worse if we don't obey you? (Because otherwise someone might go 62 in a 45! Gasp!!!)
Stop trying to control everyone. We don't need your help. No one wants to get in a car crash. We are all competent adults and must be assumed to know how to drive. We can judge speed, traffic, weather, road conditions and available light to choose our own speed.
For any Mom, there comes a time when you have to let your children go. You've been a good Mom, but we're all grown up now. Thanks for trying to protect us, Mom, but now we need to be free to live our own lives and make our own mistakes.
That's not a speeding case.
Speeding cases are different than yours because there's a measurement involved. Even when the cop shows up, he can't say "I saw him going faster than XX speed". No one can be assumed to have the ability to reliably judge speed by sight, and it's easy to demonstrate that. Measurements are only as accurate as a measuring device. The cop has to prove that the radar gun was accurate. These are all hurdles that the cops have to overcome. They fail often.
It's actually supposed to be pretty easy for the defense to win a speeding ticket case. This is true regardless of whether you were actually speeding, GPS data, or any other evidence you present.
The cops have to prove their case. This means showing up to court with the proper evidence. The evidence has to be maintained and presented in a condition where it is admissible. Very often, one or more of these things do not happen and the defense wins by default.
Everyone should always take their speeding tickets to court. Speed limit laws need to be made unprofitable for the government and then maybe we can get our freedom back on the roads.
No, just the people at the corporations.
Security solutions have to be designed around usability. If usability isn't the #1 or #2 consideration, it will increase the failure rate of the humans involved and you'll end up with an insecure system in practice regardless of the technical merits of the security methods.
This is the worst Internet injustice since the last thing that had Slashdot's panties in a wad. And that one was so horrible that everyone forgot about it.
Do I get my license to kill on the first day? Are there Baccarat-related questions in the job interview?
It means there are less sunspots.
I think you were looking for the biased hype you're used to seeing with your news. Here you go:
George Bush Fails to Act as Sunspots Hit Historic Minimum
Is it the end of the world?
MADISON, WI - Scientists from the United Nations and the Socialist Workers Party expressed extreme alarm today as the level of The Sun's sunspot activity reached a low in it's current cycle. "George Bush is too busy bombing children to fix the sun", said George Debs, PhD (Women's Studies) at the afternoon joint press conference. "President Clinton cared about the Sun and all the other planets. He understood how important it was."
The Sun, closest star to the the Earth, has been under increasing pressure from human development. Ordinarily stars undergo a natural cycle of sunspot activity throughout their lives. In nature, these variations go unobserved. But recently, several satellites have been violently hurtled at The Sun to better observe these phenomena. Scientists said they couldn't be sure of a definite link between the interference caused by this human encroachment on The Sun's habitat and the lower sunspot levels. Space activists were less cautious, saying "We killed The Sun".
The Madison City Council Subcommittee on Non-Planetary Space Phenomena (SNPSP) held public hearings on a non-binding resolution offering The Sun Madison's full support and urging The Sun to "Please continue shining, but only during the day." The resolution is expected to be voted on by the committee after the early October recess but before the subcommittee adjourns in late October for their Halloween week vacation.
and so on
Does that help? Do you feel better now?
I think Christmas is safe. A very large number of very high quality videogames are due out in the next 2 months.
This follows the recent release of Halo 3, Orange Box, Warhawk, Heavenly Sword, Bioshock, and several other outstanding next-gen games. And some Wii games too.
Hush. You're ruining it for the lawyers. How do you expect lawyers to cash in? People are in pain and the lawyers haven't fully exploited the moneymaking opportunity yet! Computer companies have deep, deep pockets, you know.
Wait until the companies have settled up and gone bankrupt. Then let it slip quietly that the whole thing wasn't true -- just like they did with the silicone gel breast-implant cases. Those were found to be harmless after the lawyers got paid.
Harboring water? It's pun-tastic.
Those are observations mixed with hype. The observations are news if they are actually new. The hype is bias.
The corresponding observations in this story: spam, botnets and phishing exist. Not news.
Predictions and speculation about the future aren't news. Not for nerds, not for anyone.
They won't check facts, they refuse to show how they come to conclusions when they actually do research, and the research itself is so one sided it's just plain sickening.
Sounds like 90% of so-called mainstream journalism these days.
I know this is nothing new, but I have never understood it.
I think you clearly do understand it.
The folks who have control over the situation want what they want. And the rules say what they should get. And that's the end of it.
If the store has to turn off the radio and buy Muzak, which pays the fee, then the fee gets paid. If they don't, then the fee doesn't get paid. That's the motive. Courts are the mechanism.
You just don't agree.
A lot of folks seemingly overestimate the importance of their own opinion. Lots of stuff happens without people checking with you for your approval first. That's not likely to change.
(I don't necessarily agree either, but there's no point in arguing with reality. Arguments don't change rules. Power does.)
The Internet is good for amateur writers with talent.
I'm guessing the article says it's bad for professional writers with limited talent. And everyone else is to blame for the professional writers' comeuppance.
Yeah. This has been the rule for how many decades now?
It seems like every week, Slashdot will get outraged about some extremely old news. Outraged!
"What's next?", they ask. Well, it's been 20 or 50 years, so what was next?
Ah, how convenient for you. Simply dismiss arbitrarily many scientific arguments as "biased", it so conveniently lets you retain whatever prejudices you have.
Everybody does it. The next time an oil-company-funded study is taken at face value by everyone, I'll go read RealClimate with an open mind.
I didn't invent ad-hominem. I didn't popularize it. But it's now the dominant form of reasoning worldwide. And it's the only one most people understand.
Please, point out the scientific error in their analysis.
One-sided analysis is not a scientific error.
If it goes for tobacco company funded organizations and oil company funded organizations, it goes for socialist agenda-driven funded organizations as well.
RealClimate is funded by the Tides Foundation, which has a "social change" agenda and receives backing from George Soros. I wouldn't expect purely objective analysis from any agenda-driven organization. That goes for RealClimate and NewsBusters both.
Classic case of GIGO, even if 0.5% extra precision was worth the money, it's a moot point because that level of precision doesn't exist in the production work flow.
Two things:
1. Better isn't necessarily the same as "level of precision". What if the expensive cable changes the sound to be less precisely recreated -- so the signal on the original source recording is filtered to produce a more pleasing sound? People might say it sounds better.
2. Whatever imperfections there are in the original recording, you could possibly add to them by using cheap cables. That might lead to worse sound. It's the converse of the other argument.
The only question is whether the cables sound different and whether they sound better. The input quality is a limiting factor on the absolute quality of the output, not the relative quality between two sets of output equipment. And then there's a human perception factor on top of that.
Randi may be right. He's almost certainly right that the marketing on the cables is misleading. (Wow, misleading marketing. Who would have thought?) He doesn't have enough basis to be certain that some random cheap cables sound as good as any other set of cables.
Also unreported by the major media is the new crack in the consensus on ozone depletion in general. There are new indications that the mechanism scientists told us was destroying ozone might not be doing what they thought.
This is the only info available because the press won't report it and I don't have a subscription to the journal "Nature".
All you need is an appropriate length of oxygen free copper cable/wire with sufficient shielding and appropriate gauge.
So that's 4 requirements:
- the right length
- the right composition
- the right amount of shielding
- the right gauge
And all of these requirements, except for length, are various degrees. There's a lot of room for optimization there.
Some high-end audio stuff makes sense and a lot is just emotional. The really expensive speakers sound better. Cables, on the other hand, probably only get better up to a certain point -- possibly in the 3-figure range.
All but the lowest of low end OEM cables meet these needs. Beyond this, there is zero difference in cables other than packaging and branding. Any perceived difference is in the listeners head.
This statement is probably provably false, though it's true enough for consumer-level equipment. For expensive setups, a sound quality improvement is probably available using higher gauge, better shielding, and better composition than you get with cheap cables.
None of that justifies $7k.
Randi might lose this one, depending on how he defines "prove". The signal at the other end of the cable won't be identical between the 2 cables. They are analog cables. It's nearly impossible for them to be identical. "Better" would be a question of whether the difference is audible and a group of people decide it's better in a double-blind trial by a significant margin. I'm not sure what makes him thinks that's an impossible outcome.
What about The Grand Duchy of Luxemburg ? They seem pretty innocent. Could he/she at least get someone from Luxemburg to dig the hole, if they don't actually manufacture laptops ?
I think the ancestors of the citizens of Luxembourg were involved in a war at some point in history.
Plus, in World War 2, the people of Luxembourg were either on the Axis side, the Allied side, or neutral, or somewhere in between one of those.
If they were on the Allied side, then their bombs killed innocent people.
If they were on the Axis side, then they are complicit in the holocaust.
If they were neutral, then they turned a blind eye to the holocaust.
If they were somewhere in between, then they are partially guilty on two or more of these points.
So no. Maybe he can just find a hole that already exists. Or steal one.
Actually, you can't buy a laptop or anything else. There's no one in the world who can't be at least associated with something that someone did wrong at one time in the past. Not even you -- so making it yourself isn't an option either.
I suggest digging a hole and climbing in it.