That would be the official SI symbol for "megatonne." The official symbol for a metric ton is t (wouln't it be a bit redundant to have "metric" in the name of an SI unit?).
"I wouldn't worry too much about them confusing these with Tesla. Rocket scientists tend to understand context, unlike yourself."
If I weren't aware of what the author was trying to say, I wouldn't have tried suggesting replacements for "metric ton," would I?
However, the whole point of having an agreed-upon, standardized set of units and abbreviations like SI is that you shouldn't have to rely on context to convey an abbreviation's meaning. T is tesla and t is tonne, the metric using world has signed documents agreeing on this and there's really no reason for anybody to mix and match the two symbols.
If you're going to rely so heavily on context and tradition to convey the meaning of an abbreviation, why bother using metric to begin with?
Something that's been bothering me for the last few years about the cry from the administration for utmost secrecy in its actions is the way they never get around to saying exactly whom they're trying to hide information from. When all is said and done, is there any reason to believe that al Qaeda has intelligence gathering capabilities beyond watching satellite television?
We've had secret court cases before, we've had secret sessions of Congress, we have a whole series of safeguards that were apparently deemed necessary and proper when our foe was something as formidable as the KGB, why are we to believe that a non-state has the resources to do better? It would seem all that is needed to maintain secrecy from al Qaeda is to keep the information from being stored on USB drives in Baghdad. Does the administration really believe there are al Qaeda spies that highly placed in the United States government?
"It might seem unlikely considering that Mario was born and developed in Japan by Japanese minds, but America forever changed how our favorite plumber played."
Yes, his image was created in Japan, but Donkey Kong was created to sell in North America, a circuit board that could be tossed into unsold arcade cabinets over here, replacing the mundane space game that nobody remembers because nobody wanted to play it. Heck, it was NOA that gave him the name "Mario" (Super Jumpman Bros, anyone?). So it's a real strain to say "Only what came out of NCL is the One True Mario and anything else is heresy" when Mario was literally created to satisfy an international appeal.
And as for the The Lost Levels being "too hard" for players outside of Japan, the statement conveniently ignores the fact that it was a Famicom Disk System game. It sold well as a $5-$10 disk, but if you put the same music, the same graphics, the same features, the same gameplay as the original Super Mario Bros. into a new $50+ cartridge, it just wouldn't sell and we likely wouldn't even remember Mario today.
Besides, I have Super Mario All-Stars, I've played both and beaten both; Doki Doki Panic was harder. After having turned the original Super Mario Bros. inside out, there really was very little new to learn to beat the game, while Doki Doki Panic required learning some entirely new strategies.
Whatever the cause, Inida tends to be closer to nuclear war than the United States is at any given moment, and not just with Pakistan; even with US antagonism towards China, the US isn't the one with the border dispute with China.
So I was responding to the parents assertion that one place is just as unsafe as another.
"How do you calibrate a new atomic clock, if you have nothing more accurate to compare it against?"
A combination of the metric of fuckload of cesium clocks the world uses for official timekeeping and of known astronomical events. In other words, the same way we figure out UTC.
"And if we have clocks that won't lose or gain a second in 70 million years, why do we need to develop one that won't lose or gain a second in 400 million years?"
Because it takes 70 million years to lose an entire second. If, for example, you're trying to keep track of something that lasts for a billionth of a second (say, your CPU cycles), you miss one of them over the course of about 26 days.
"I guess actually asking about anything at all directly related to their products would be too relevant or something?"
Directly related to their products? The PS2 and even the PSP don't make for interesting news any more, and we still have months before the PS3 is anything more than vaporware. Beyond that, there are very few questions about the PS3 that wouldn't be answered with either "We already answered that at E3" or "You'll have to wait until $COMPANY_SHOW to find out." The only new things Sony has been putting out are asinine statements about what they think the market will do, and that's what the questions were about.
So recently after its launch, how many of current Xbox 360 owners actually bought theirs at scalper prices on eBay? If it's more than 5% I'll be surprised, and I'm being very generous going that high.
So Sony is charging more for a console than the vast majority of current console shoppers were willing to pay.
"the mere fact that it's American causes some contempt among the Japanese."
"Contempt?" If there were contempt against American products or American culture, they wouldn't be giving us all these humorous Engrish phrases; you know, the ones they try to use to seem more American, because they think acting like an American is cool?
"To put it in other terms, this is like asking why Toyotas don't sell better amongst American UAW union workers."
Employee discounts?
"Or why France doesn't have a major California wine festival."
The cost of transatlantic shipping?
"From my understanding of speaking with people who live(d) in Japan, there is a very big sense of nationalism with video games, more so than in any other country."
Wow, second-hand anecdotes, you must be right.
Why must there be some dark, sinister motive in the lackluster sales of Microsoft in Japan beyond "They don't like the games?" Is it that difficult a concept to grasp?
"You can't sit a child in front of a computer and expect him to learn things he needs to succeed in society"
The same can be said about many teachers, but the computers are dues-paying union members.
My only real complaint is that not everybody can afford a computer. But beyond that, it's true that a computer can't compete with a good teacher, but it can easily surpass a bad (read "tenured") one.
"Creating and selling derivatives of my work is a big no-no."
But that's not entirely what they're doing, they're selling a "derivative work" alongside your original work, they either purchase both or none. You get your money either way.
"These are my rights as an author."
No, your right is to make money from your work, anything beyond that violates the First Amendment. Preventing the distribution of derivative works isn't about preserving artistic integrity, it's about preserving your profits, as derivative works may detract from your ablity to sell the original. But if you're making the same amount of money from both people who view the original content and from those who purchase the original content solely to contract out another production company to do further edits on it, there's nothing much else you can do without infringing on the purchaser's fair use rights.
At most, you might have a case for libel (your name is still attached to the finished product, after all), but even then these companies clearly label their finished product as being further edited for content.
"In the end, it's important that it remains that way for OSS, becuase that's what gives the GPL legal force."
No, Cleanflix is doing exactly what the GPL calls for. Cleanflix is not distributing their clean copies to just anybody, they are only exchanged to people who have purchased the original source code. Access to the original source code is pretty much the only thing GPL calls for, as I recall.
"Christians are constantly pushing their views onto others and pressuring law makers to criminalize behavior they disagree with, even when it has nothing to do with them."
Ad hominem.
"This was a clear case of a commercial company profiting from derivative works of copyrighted material. "
They were putting no more copies into commercial circulation than there were before they edited the movies, the movies are exchanged on a one-for-one basis with original copies. The author/publisher/etc. still made their cut on each and every DVD edited by Cleanflix. This cannot be compared to "I'm going to sample this one CD in my work and sell 10,000 copies of it."
"That's exactly the thing copyright law was created to prevent."
No, copyright law is to protect profits from a work (anything more than that and it runs up against the First Amendment). As I just said in the previous paragraph, the movie companies are still making as much profit as they would before (if not moreso). This isn't copyright law, this is like software licensing, where the movie companies want to impose their rules on how you can use your legitimately purchased media. This is what fair use was supposed to support.
"You can't alter a copy of a DVD and re-sell the altered version without making a copy of the DVD."
Copying in and of itself is not illegal, what may or may not be illegal is how it is distributed. The customer already purchased an original copy and is trading it to Cleanflix for them to edit, who then exchanges the original copy for a new, edited copy after charging a fee for their service. There are no more copies for sale in the market than there was before Cleanflix exchanged on a one-for-one basis an unedited copy for their edited copy, the author/publisher/whatever still has their "exclusive rights" and they still made their money on the first sale.
"If my name was in those credits, I wouldn't want people to see a butchered version passing itself off as the genuine article."
Why should you have a right to impose your will this way after you've already accepted money from the media's new owner? Where's the contract you forced them to sign before you parted with your work?
"I hope that helps you understand what the problem is."
Well, the original post is there for all to see, and you make no claims that you are either the parent or that you are quoting the original post verbatim. The only difference I see is that you didn't pay the parent any money for a copy of the original post to edit.
Sorry, all I'm seeing are movie companies trying to assert ownership of the physical media after the point of first sale.
Looking at how they shifted their proprietary a/v output jack upwards and squeezed in the HDMI port underneath it, I took a look at how the component cable connects to the back of my 360. The component plug has a good deal of overhang and I'm not all that sure you can connect both it and the HDMI cable at the same time, which you would want to do if you want to use the optical audio port on the component cable. It would have worked better if they put the HDMI plug above the proprietary plug instead of what is pictured. The arrangement might even get in the way of the wireless networking adapter.
So, whatever this is, I doubt it's going to be released to the market as-is. It's been suggested that the proprietary a/v jack might be able to support an HDMI adapter plugged into it, the HDMI port pictured might just be a lead-off from the proprietary plug for development purposes (the submitter said he saw a grand total of 3 such motherboards, and no mention of a shell).
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, by the way...
"the official SI symbol is Mt."
That would be the official SI symbol for "megatonne." The official symbol for a metric ton is t (wouln't it be a bit redundant to have "metric" in the name of an SI unit?).
"I wouldn't worry too much about them confusing these with Tesla. Rocket scientists tend to understand context, unlike yourself."
If I weren't aware of what the author was trying to say, I wouldn't have tried suggesting replacements for "metric ton," would I?
However, the whole point of having an agreed-upon, standardized set of units and abbreviations like SI is that you shouldn't have to rely on context to convey an abbreviation's meaning. T is tesla and t is tonne, the metric using world has signed documents agreeing on this and there's really no reason for anybody to mix and match the two symbols.
If you're going to rely so heavily on context and tradition to convey the meaning of an abbreviation, why bother using metric to begin with?
"I thought MT or Mt was the traditional abbreviation for megatonne."
So are we putting stadiums on the moon or nuclear weapons?
"Can we only put ~70 mT on the Moon or can we put more?"
Um... 70 militeslas?
If you're trying to say "metric tons," you might be better off with "mton," "tonne," or the far less ambiguous "Mg."
Something that's been bothering me for the last few years about the cry from the administration for utmost secrecy in its actions is the way they never get around to saying exactly whom they're trying to hide information from. When all is said and done, is there any reason to believe that al Qaeda has intelligence gathering capabilities beyond watching satellite television?
We've had secret court cases before, we've had secret sessions of Congress, we have a whole series of safeguards that were apparently deemed necessary and proper when our foe was something as formidable as the KGB, why are we to believe that a non-state has the resources to do better? It would seem all that is needed to maintain secrecy from al Qaeda is to keep the information from being stored on USB drives in Baghdad. Does the administration really believe there are al Qaeda spies that highly placed in the United States government?
"It might seem unlikely considering that Mario was born and developed in Japan by Japanese minds, but America forever changed how our favorite plumber played."
Yes, his image was created in Japan, but Donkey Kong was created to sell in North America, a circuit board that could be tossed into unsold arcade cabinets over here, replacing the mundane space game that nobody remembers because nobody wanted to play it. Heck, it was NOA that gave him the name "Mario" (Super Jumpman Bros, anyone?). So it's a real strain to say "Only what came out of NCL is the One True Mario and anything else is heresy" when Mario was literally created to satisfy an international appeal.
And as for the The Lost Levels being "too hard" for players outside of Japan, the statement conveniently ignores the fact that it was a Famicom Disk System game. It sold well as a $5-$10 disk, but if you put the same music, the same graphics, the same features, the same gameplay as the original Super Mario Bros. into a new $50+ cartridge, it just wouldn't sell and we likely wouldn't even remember Mario today.
Besides, I have Super Mario All-Stars, I've played both and beaten both; Doki Doki Panic was harder. After having turned the original Super Mario Bros. inside out, there really was very little new to learn to beat the game, while Doki Doki Panic required learning some entirely new strategies.
Whatever the cause, Inida tends to be closer to nuclear war than the United States is at any given moment, and not just with Pakistan; even with US antagonism towards China, the US isn't the one with the border dispute with China.
So I was responding to the parents assertion that one place is just as unsafe as another.
"And what, exactly, makes people think that India is going to be more subject to future terrorist attacks than... "
One word: Kashmir.
Once upon a time, wireless controllers were a cheap gimmick until Nintendo made a first-party one.
"How do you calibrate a new atomic clock, if you have nothing more accurate to compare it against?"
A combination of the metric of fuckload of cesium clocks the world uses for official timekeeping and of known astronomical events. In other words, the same way we figure out UTC.
"And if we have clocks that won't lose or gain a second in 70 million years, why do we need to develop one that won't lose or gain a second in 400 million years?"
Because it takes 70 million years to lose an entire second. If, for example, you're trying to keep track of something that lasts for a billionth of a second (say, your CPU cycles), you miss one of them over the course of about 26 days.
"Why do we always outsource to places that are stuck in eternal struggles."
Cheap labor.
"Seriously, when was the last time Iceland or New Zeland had some terrorist plot or civil war ensue."
The last time the majority was anything but fat, happy and content enough to expect a higher paycheck.
Yeah, they'll implement that right after they add spell-check.
Let me introduce you to my friend, the Silent E!
"I guess actually asking about anything at all directly related to their products would be too relevant or something?"
Directly related to their products? The PS2 and even the PSP don't make for interesting news any more, and we still have months before the PS3 is anything more than vaporware. Beyond that, there are very few questions about the PS3 that wouldn't be answered with either "We already answered that at E3" or "You'll have to wait until $COMPANY_SHOW to find out." The only new things Sony has been putting out are asinine statements about what they think the market will do, and that's what the questions were about.
So recently after its launch, how many of current Xbox 360 owners actually bought theirs at scalper prices on eBay? If it's more than 5% I'll be surprised, and I'm being very generous going that high.
So Sony is charging more for a console than the vast majority of current console shoppers were willing to pay.
"MS doesn't get the Japanese market, they keep acting like 1 or 2 games is going to change the entire fate of a system."
Newsflash: Sony lures Final Fantasy VII away from the N64. Japanese consumers drop the Sega Saturn like a bad habit.
"the mere fact that it's American causes some contempt among the Japanese."
"Contempt?" If there were contempt against American products or American culture, they wouldn't be giving us all these humorous Engrish phrases; you know, the ones they try to use to seem more American, because they think acting like an American is cool?
"To put it in other terms, this is like asking why Toyotas don't sell better amongst American UAW union workers."
Employee discounts?
"Or why France doesn't have a major California wine festival."
The cost of transatlantic shipping?
"From my understanding of speaking with people who live(d) in Japan, there is a very big sense of nationalism with video games, more so than in any other country."
Wow, second-hand anecdotes, you must be right.
Why must there be some dark, sinister motive in the lackluster sales of Microsoft in Japan beyond "They don't like the games?" Is it that difficult a concept to grasp?
"You can't sit a child in front of a computer and expect him to learn things he needs to succeed in society"
The same can be said about many teachers, but the computers are dues-paying union members.
My only real complaint is that not everybody can afford a computer. But beyond that, it's true that a computer can't compete with a good teacher, but it can easily surpass a bad (read "tenured") one.
I suddenly have visions of my Wii having a blinking red power light...
"Creating and selling derivatives of my work is a big no-no."
But that's not entirely what they're doing, they're selling a "derivative work" alongside your original work, they either purchase both or none. You get your money either way.
"These are my rights as an author."
No, your right is to make money from your work, anything beyond that violates the First Amendment. Preventing the distribution of derivative works isn't about preserving artistic integrity, it's about preserving your profits, as derivative works may detract from your ablity to sell the original. But if you're making the same amount of money from both people who view the original content and from those who purchase the original content solely to contract out another production company to do further edits on it, there's nothing much else you can do without infringing on the purchaser's fair use rights.
At most, you might have a case for libel (your name is still attached to the finished product, after all), but even then these companies clearly label their finished product as being further edited for content.
"In the end, it's important that it remains that way for OSS, becuase that's what gives the GPL legal force."
No, Cleanflix is doing exactly what the GPL calls for. Cleanflix is not distributing their clean copies to just anybody, they are only exchanged to people who have purchased the original source code. Access to the original source code is pretty much the only thing GPL calls for, as I recall.
"Christians are constantly pushing their views onto others and pressuring law makers to criminalize behavior they disagree with, even when it has nothing to do with them."
Ad hominem.
"This was a clear case of a commercial company profiting from derivative works of copyrighted material. "
They were putting no more copies into commercial circulation than there were before they edited the movies, the movies are exchanged on a one-for-one basis with original copies. The author/publisher/etc. still made their cut on each and every DVD edited by Cleanflix. This cannot be compared to "I'm going to sample this one CD in my work and sell 10,000 copies of it."
"That's exactly the thing copyright law was created to prevent."
No, copyright law is to protect profits from a work (anything more than that and it runs up against the First Amendment). As I just said in the previous paragraph, the movie companies are still making as much profit as they would before (if not moreso). This isn't copyright law, this is like software licensing, where the movie companies want to impose their rules on how you can use your legitimately purchased media. This is what fair use was supposed to support.
"You can't alter a copy of a DVD and re-sell the altered version without making a copy of the DVD."
Copying in and of itself is not illegal, what may or may not be illegal is how it is distributed. The customer already purchased an original copy and is trading it to Cleanflix for them to edit, who then exchanges the original copy for a new, edited copy after charging a fee for their service. There are no more copies for sale in the market than there was before Cleanflix exchanged on a one-for-one basis an unedited copy for their edited copy, the author/publisher/whatever still has their "exclusive rights" and they still made their money on the first sale.
"If my name was in those credits, I wouldn't want people to see a butchered version passing itself off as the genuine article."
Why should you have a right to impose your will this way after you've already accepted money from the media's new owner? Where's the contract you forced them to sign before you parted with your work?
"I hope that helps you understand what the problem is."
Well, the original post is there for all to see, and you make no claims that you are either the parent or that you are quoting the original post verbatim. The only difference I see is that you didn't pay the parent any money for a copy of the original post to edit.
Sorry, all I'm seeing are movie companies trying to assert ownership of the physical media after the point of first sale.
Looking at how they shifted their proprietary a/v output jack upwards and squeezed in the HDMI port underneath it, I took a look at how the component cable connects to the back of my 360. The component plug has a good deal of overhang and I'm not all that sure you can connect both it and the HDMI cable at the same time, which you would want to do if you want to use the optical audio port on the component cable. It would have worked better if they put the HDMI plug above the proprietary plug instead of what is pictured. The arrangement might even get in the way of the wireless networking adapter.
So, whatever this is, I doubt it's going to be released to the market as-is. It's been suggested that the proprietary a/v jack might be able to support an HDMI adapter plugged into it, the HDMI port pictured might just be a lead-off from the proprietary plug for development purposes (the submitter said he saw a grand total of 3 such motherboards, and no mention of a shell).