On the contrary, I possess a very good bullshit detector
I'm sorry but you just don't. You look at a site which is practically surrounded by signs flashing 'disinformation' and you have not an inkling as to why a serious visitor would be dubious about its contents. You need to exercise way more skepticism in assessing the credibility of your sources of information.
... this is still the essence of ad hominem.
Now pay attention and try to understand it this time! What I wrote was that "I've made no claim of invalidity" and since an ad hominem argument is in essence a claim of invalidity there can be no ad hom. Yes?
You'd be better off trying to characterise it as a species of argumentum ad verecundiam, which it is. But that's science for you.;)
... you are questioning the source based on where it happened to appear...
Just to clarify some terminology. The sourceis where it appears. You know the thing you italicise in your notes (have you actually ever done any academic writing?)
you DIDN'T EVEN EXAMINE THE ACTUAL SOURCE. You only examined the site it was posted on.
Do calm down. But yes, [translating] I didn't examine the actual article having dismissed the source as an overly obvious disinformation site. If Latour is presenting a serious scientific argument one would expect to find some form of it from a credible source (i.e. the scientific literature). If such a source exists, why not cite it? If it doesn't exist in the literature but only on an obvious disinformation site... well forgive my skepticism.
It may seem counter-intuitive, but being well informed involves filtering out information perhaps as much as acquiring it. You could spend a lot of time reading all the information on timecube.org, but there is an opportunity cost. And after all, it is the uncritical acceptance of disinformation that has compromised your own grasp on reality
To show just how STUPID that position is, by analogy: I could post the Declaration of Independence on this website... and you would ASSUME whether it was valid based on where you read it?
Again, it's not a question of validity, every word he wrote could be true. The nature of the source (site) is such that the threshold is not met at which validity of its contents even enters into consideration. But... this has the makings of a good example. OK forget anything you know about the text of the Declaration and I will do as you suggest, publish it (the start anyway) right here:
When in the cause of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which had connected them to another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and the LORD God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of humankind requires that they should declare the courses which compelled them toward that separation.
Now the problem is that the text published in this comment on this site differs occasionally from that found on the National Archives site.
... you would ASSUME whether it was valid based on where you read it?
Bearing in mind that we have both forgotten the text how to resolve the discrepancies in the two published versions? I would simply presume that the version on the authoritative source more likely reflects the actual wording. Yes I admit it.
And yes, Latour's contribution, if it appeared in Nature Geosciences say, would warrant our attention in a way it does not when it appears exclusively on the Sky Dragon disinformation site. Of course the mere fact of existing in the scienti
and that is precisely what ad hominem is all about
Don't presume to tell me what an ad hominem is. You seem confused about our respective roles here. To establish an ad hominem you would have to show that I dismissed the validity of an argument (or truth of a fact) based on a personal attribute of the "speaker." But we don't even get that far. Your source fails on the grounds of admissibility. I've made no claim of invalidity because there is no argument to address in the first place. That is not an ad hominem.
You called it "obvious" pseudo-science and refused to read it.
OK para-science or non-science then. Whatever you call it, if it is not immediately obvious to you that this site lacks credibility or authority that is not my failing. It is yours. And it is a failing I would urge you to rectify.
Let me put this in terms you can understand. If your term paper cites this source, as an authoritative source of the science (as opposed to say evidence on the pervasiveness of para-science), I will mark you down and I will in comments attempt to explain the appropriateness of your source. Just a few weeks ago I wrote that very comment. Though thankfully not in climate science! Can you imagine anything worse than having to deal with the self-righteous little twats citing garbage like this and then complaining of some giant conspiracy when they are called out?
But having refused to look at the evidence, you have no pretense of having falsified it.
You have presented no evidence worthy of consideration. Of course I'm not going to bother falsify it. In any case I was a pharmacology major, and while I do read the odd climate science paper, I would no be so impertinent as to prefer my own (mis)understand over that of the actual experts in the field.
This doesn't even qualify as straw-man argument.
You're right you know. It's not an argument at all, it's flippancy.
Dude. Take a class in debate or logical argument.
I'll give it to you...for a good price. Seriously though, what you need to learn very quickly is to develop a good bullshit detector, which by your own admission you lack. Otherwise you'll spend the rest of your life being just as much of a mug as you are now.
You are all over the place, and impress me not at all.
That is what is called an ad hominem argument, and it isn't a valid argument.
What was an ad hom? I'm passing no judgement on what Latour has written here, I just won't bother reading stuff (whatever position it is arguing) published on so ridiculous a forum.
You can't just look at a website and judge the validity of what it has to say.
I can though. It's a skill that comes with experience. Really, the site itself does not have the requisite authority or credibility to be taken seriously. With an abundance of quality science available, much of it for free, why even waste your time in such a place?
You have to actually read it and refute what is written.
I'd prefer to spend that time reading the actual science.
Dr. Pierre Latour is a former NASA scientist.
Argument from (erstwhile) authority? If Dr Latour's work on this subject is of sufficient rigour he will be able to publish. As it stands this seems to be outside the bounds of the normative scientific discussion.
But until then, you have no argument to make.
Sure. And I wasn't making any argument. I was asking you, by reference to similar pseudo-science, to prove that thermonuclear weapons do not exist. Are you up to it or not?
The majority of CO2 warming models rely on a concept of "back radiation" that (according to "physicists") does not even exist...
You know these pseudo-scientific refutations of climate science are getting, well a bit lame, to be honest. Why don't you try something more exciting, like proving that thermo-nuclear weapons break the rules of thermodynamics and therefore can't even exist. C'mon you can do it!
I am a Korean and I just looked up the Korean articles. It meant "not dualism" as you explained in your first paragraph. If I was to translate the word literally, I would have translated it as "theory of materials" or "theory of matter".
Yes, in English we call it materialism -- the theory that the material (psychical) nature of the universe is the fundamental reality (mind ultimately being a product of material forces), as opposed to idealism -- the theory that reality is a manifestation of mind or spirit (the material universe being ultimately a figment of the imagination).
You're harmonising [sic] with US spelling, why do you expect the law to remain immune?
Seriously though, the reason is the net. The late C20th and early C21st has seen IP law move into 2 related directions. Firstly attempts to reduce the risk digital communications pose to IP holders and the concomitant internationalisation of the Law. Given the position of the US as the world's major content creator (Silicon valley and Hollywood) and the decline of their "hard" manufacturing sector, it is unsurprising that (after a century of isolating themselves from the international IP scene) they have sought most vigorously to establish a regime which protects the value of their exports.
The code apocryphally dreamt up in the legal depts. of your Disneys, passed onto US negotiators at the WTO has been incorporated via instruments such as TRIPS, into the municipal law of WTO member countries. Thus similar provisions to those found the in the US DMCA, were incorporated into our copyright law via the Copyright Amendment (Digital Agenda) Act 2000 (C'th). Nor were these the last. Such is the price of membership and we are not about to drop out of the WTO any time soon..
Having imported many of the new restrictions, it is thought we ought also to access a few of the liberties. However, the decision to devise "fair use" exception must also be understood in the context of facilitating international business. Take the concrete example of some US based vendor who incorporates what is there allowable fair use content into a product which could be sold also in Australia. The dangers posed by a non-harmonised legal framework poses for such transactions ought to be obvious.
You're new to this government thing, aren't you? In all the decades you have been reading ALRC reports, or the reports of other government appointed inquiries for that matter, when have you ever read "everything is OK as it is, and we have no recommendations?"
Read between the lines of the terms of reference. The ALRC has been asked to "to consider whether existing exceptions are appropriate and whether further exceptions should recognise fair use of copyright material..." Are existing exceptions anywhere near appropriate, say in ensuring "fair use" such as it might be understood in the US? ALRC is going to have hard time answering that in the affirmative! The further exceptions they are being asked to devise should you know. And they will...
This is another step towards harmonising our law with that of the US and for a change from all the punitive harmonisations, this will introduce some small measure of freedom. It is well known that the government has for some time wanted to introduce some kind of fair use provision into Australian copyright law. Just don't expect an overly broad one.
The problem with programmed trading at these levels is that it prioritizes arbitrage over the health of the companies the market is supposed to serve.
Exploiting actual arbitrage opportunities would contribute to the health of the market itself, surely! But what makes you think that is what trading bots are doing? Aren't they simply scalping miniscule price movements at extremely high frequency?
I think that Cuban is wrong when he dismisses arguments that high frequency traders are providing markets with liquidity, clearly they are. And I think that software bugs in trading programs would sound primarily in reduced profits for their operators. However, I think he is correct to be concerned. As trading is increasingly conducted on the basis of tiny price movements without any regard to the underlying equities, and that at higher frequency and quantity, markets are being exposed to mass phenomena and feedbacks which have the potential to dislodge the performance of equities from the underlying performance of the actual companies, perhaps to disastrous consequences.
[Y]ou would also know that the syllabus of statistics 101 is so basic that it doesn't vary depending on the major of the students sitting for the class.
I agree and I do hope that our calculus Prof doesn't have a bit of a chip on his or her shoulder as regards the humanities.
However, if you want to be particularly relevant to social science students, here is what I, in my infinite wisdom;), would suggest:
Pick up a textbook on Statistics for the Socials Sciences and come to grips with how important a role statistics actually do play in that field.
Get on an abstracting service and scour the literature for a number of interesting (from the statistical PoV) studies. Analyse the methodology in class explaining why particular statistical tests were chosen (especially as you get to them in the course), what has been done well and what could be done better. That is, arm your students with the apparatus to conduct methodological critiques of published work -- this is the most essential skill any undergraduate social science student must learn. Graduate students must additionally learn how to design their own studies.
Engage with some of the great and controversial debates of the time. Discuss what the statistics can and can't tell us and reflect upon the portrayal of these studies in the popular media. BUT be careful not to succumb to your own personal ideological predisposition... in fact take the high ground and stay above the fray pointing out the problems of both sides and let the students draw their own conclusions.
That to my mind would be a useful course in stats for the humanities.
And I think you will have to admit that this is because you didn't allow yourself the space to comprehend the metaphor. And I have to admit that one size doesn't necessarily fit all. There are probably folks out there more productive on Gnome than anything else.
I use OSX, XFCE and MS WIndows on a daily basis (as I type this on my linux box, a macbook is to my left, and a windows box to my right). After initial frustration with the Mac interface back in 2007, its elegance (indeed it's superiority) has slowly become more and more apparent. Ironically perhaps, my small epiphanies tend to come when I'm working on the nix box (eg. AHA!. I was wrong! The close, maximise and minimise buttons DO actually belong on the left of the window (for a right handed person)... took me a long time to grok that one).
I totally dislike the way my programs don't close when I tell them to, they just hide.
Close!? See, there is your problem right there. A program can't close or hide, it can run or quit. It's individual windows which open and close. You are used to Applications quitting without being asked to, ie. when the last window closes.
In OSX you tell a program to quit, by quitting (or using the command-Q key combination) and you tell a window to close by closing it (or command-W). It's REALLY simple. [Now Lion changes this a little by reserving the right to quit, without explicitly being told to, any application for which all windows have been closed (a la Windows), should additional resources be required elsewhere.] Once you grasp the clear and sharp distinction between closing and quitting (and train your fingers to cmd-Q and cmd-W without thinking) you will begin to understand how confused the concepts of quitting and closing an application really are on other UIs.
But the real question isn't whether an application quits or not, it's why a human operator would object to the quicker response an already loaded application gives when asked to open another document?
I also didn't like option/apple clicking, the 'missing mouse button'
Agreed, it's awful. The command-click is an all but an admission that the one-button mouse simply does not work. That's why serious mac users throw the vanilla apple mouse as far away as possible, dunno about the 'Magic' mouse, I just use an old Logitech one or the pad.
the keyboard layout
Huh? Appart from the Apple/Command keys how is the macbook layout much different from any other laptop? I just fix the [Caps_Lock] to be the [Ctrl] (as I have on this keyboard as well), and Bob's your uncle.
I don't like the shared menu-bar thing. (Never have.)
And if you are as stubborn as Steve Jobs was about the one-button mouse you can keep not liking it indefinitely. It is, however, and even without taking the space saving into account, a far more elegant solution. And I never liked the Dock as an interface idea, but I have to admit it saves a lot of time.
And moving windows around, seeing multiple apps at once, switching back and forth between two applications, none of that was any good at all.
Windows move, you can see multiple applications at once and it's a breeze to switch back and forth between two applications. Mind you that applies to any modern UI really. What was your problem?
It's possible part of the reason I didn't like it was because I'm not typically a laptop user and that might have contributed to the annoyance factor.
Perhaps. But it sounds like you simply didn't give yourself permission to appreciate the design quality of the UI on it's own terms. And that's fine too. If something works better for you, and your primary interest isn't in UI design, you shouldn't really have to make that effort.
A private school can't require your kids to do anything, because they are not required to go to private school. If you choose to send your kids to a private school, then anything they "require" is actually chosen by you.
Sorry, but that fluffy piece of sophistry isn't going to find you a head of action.
More relevant is the consideration that while this might look like a clear case of third line forcing, the relevant competition law (aka anti-trust law) provisions could, depending on your jurisdiction, be applicable only to corporations (as they are in mine). Thus while an incorporated private school may well attract liability for any requirement to purchase the goods and services of a third party, it is far less clear what grounds there would be to proceed against a government (or unincorporated private) school. Do you have any practical answer to that?
The success of Linux as a whole has much to do with the usability among all users, not just those that put themselves on a pedestal. Try not to ignore what happened to name brand Unix because of that same mentality.
You're right that a commercial "name brand" must measure its "success" in terms of the amount of paid custom it can attract and it is natural enough mistakenly to believe that the success of FOSS must be measured in just the same way.
Maybe the logic makes little sense to you
Logic has always made sense to me. What is at fault is not the logic, but the presumption.
... but imagine how much easier adoption of Linux would be...
Imagining... imagining... Nope, sorry. All I see is Linux asymptotically approaching market saturation. There may be a game changer around the corner, but non-expert advocacy (or advocacy per se) ain't it.
Linux is much more than just a server OS, yet we don't see desktop adoption. This is not because Linux lacks desktop functionality mind you, quite the contrary.
I agree 100%
This is because a bunch of techies, that could do most of their work on an old teletype are pissing and moaning.
That's nonsense. Gnome has explicitly been designed to appeal to potential non-expert users even at the expense of the installed user base. It's specifically designed to appeal to Windows users. It has failed to attract these mythical potential users and it has disappointed many actual users. That is not success. Success would have been developing a set of UI metaphors so elegant and utile that Apple and Microsoft felt compelled to copy them.
The reason it has not caught on as a widespread Desktop OS is largely because of network effects (eg. the lack of MS Office).
If you want to get people off of MS products, isn't that the ultimate goal?
You want to stop other people using MS products?! Why?
And why posit this conditional when is it abundantly clear that OP does not suffer from this attitude, but wants instead "the best OS out there. The most powerful one. The most flexible one. The most featured yet elegant one."
Not only is this a poor motivation, it's delusional. The result is that Linux Desktop developers have alienated the established user base in favour the fantasy of capturing the corporate/mainstream market, a fantasy wedded to failure. Worst of all the third hand imitations we are offered on *nix are poison to creativity and innovation in UI design.
Fortunately I work almost exclusively on the terminal. XFCE, which I use at work, has the virtue, at least, of not getting in my way. Gnome, otoh, drove me to the DarkSide(tm) (ie buying an iMac for my family and a MacBook Pro for my personal use). It's sad that you have to sell your soul (and when you get Apple or Google products you do sell your soul into their clouds) to see real UI innovation. It ought to have been the Gnome (as the GNU desktop) pushing that envelope.
I love the idea of leaving these illegal prosecutions on the books.
What was illegal about the prosecution?! Was he not convicted of a crime by due process of law upon evidence and beyond reasonable doubt?
The point of Lord McNally was making was that just because the particular offence "now seems both cruel and absurd," does not mean it was not at that point in history a criminal offence. That being the case a pardon is not appropriate. What is appropriate is that we recognise the criminal law ought not to intervene in the choice of sexual behaviour among consenting adults. And that we should be careful not to elect to the legislature people who would seek once again to make it so.
Oui. But I had heard that joke a number of years earlier. I believe it's of the same vintage as, "Did you hear the one about the Grasshopper who went into the bar..." The way La Haine worked it was a little darker though.
I highly doubt they're going to take that chance just because they might have a good sense of humour.
My point was that the signs are evidence of just how commonplace such jokes were at Australian airports, and they simply don't have the staffing levels required to interview everyone with a poor enough sense of humour to make one. What do you imagine the correlation is between people who make smartarse comments like leaving their C4 at home and those who actually have it? What chance would they be taking? I put it to you that a reaction from the sniffer dogs is a more reliable indicator and one that would actually trigger the expenditure of limited resources. If you really want that interview, my advice would be not to bother with ironic self-incriminating statements, but actually to carry explosives or try taking a handgun through the metal detector.
When you are in Canada on the other hand, where the chances are that the official has never heard an ironic statement in his or her life...
And that was my main point, our sense of humour can get us into all sorts of trouble OS.
But, I think if they follow the liberal solution, their country will burn.
You do think that, and that's what's fatal to your "proof." It's question begging, since you are simply assuming that your prescription of austerity (which you are associating with 'conservative') with no increase in taxation, is in reality the prescription which will produce the best results. We don't know that as a fact against which we can asses the bias of reality.
Bad example basically. Perhaps leftist AIDS denialism would server better?
Slashdot Mirror
On the contrary, I possess a very good bullshit detector
I'm sorry but you just don't. You look at a site which is practically surrounded by signs flashing 'disinformation' and you have not an inkling as to why a serious visitor would be dubious about its contents. You need to exercise way more skepticism in assessing the credibility of your sources of information.
Now pay attention and try to understand it this time! What I wrote was that "I've made no claim of invalidity" and since an ad hominem argument is in essence a claim of invalidity there can be no ad hom. Yes?
You'd be better off trying to characterise it as a species of argumentum ad verecundiam, which it is. But that's science for you. ;)
Just to clarify some terminology. The source is where it appears. You know the thing you italicise in your notes (have you actually ever done any academic writing?)
you DIDN'T EVEN EXAMINE THE ACTUAL SOURCE. You only examined the site it was posted on.
Do calm down. But yes, [translating] I didn't examine the actual article having dismissed the source as an overly obvious disinformation site. If Latour is presenting a serious scientific argument one would expect to find some form of it from a credible source (i.e. the scientific literature). If such a source exists, why not cite it? If it doesn't exist in the literature but only on an obvious disinformation site ... well forgive my skepticism.
It may seem counter-intuitive, but being well informed involves filtering out information perhaps as much as acquiring it. You could spend a lot of time reading all the information on timecube.org, but there is an opportunity cost. And after all, it is the uncritical acceptance of disinformation that has compromised your own grasp on reality
To show just how STUPID that position is, by analogy: I could post the Declaration of Independence on this website ... and you would ASSUME whether it was valid based on where you read it?
Again, it's not a question of validity, every word he wrote could be true. The nature of the source (site) is such that the threshold is not met at which validity of its contents even enters into consideration. But ... this has the makings of a good example. OK forget anything you know about the text of the Declaration and I will do as you suggest, publish it (the start anyway) right here:
When in the cause of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which had connected them to another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and the LORD God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of humankind requires that they should declare the courses which compelled them toward that separation.
Now the problem is that the text published in this comment on this site differs occasionally from that found on the National Archives site.
Bearing in mind that we have both forgotten the text how to resolve the discrepancies in the two published versions? I would simply presume that the version on the authoritative source more likely reflects the actual wording. Yes I admit it.
And yes, Latour's contribution, if it appeared in Nature Geosciences say, would warrant our attention in a way it does not when it appears exclusively on the Sky Dragon disinformation site. Of course the mere fact of existing in the scienti
and that is precisely what ad hominem is all about
Don't presume to tell me what an ad hominem is. You seem confused about our respective roles here. To establish an ad hominem you would have to show that I dismissed the validity of an argument (or truth of a fact) based on a personal attribute of the "speaker." But we don't even get that far. Your source fails on the grounds of admissibility. I've made no claim of invalidity because there is no argument to address in the first place. That is not an ad hominem.
You called it "obvious" pseudo-science and refused to read it.
OK para-science or non-science then. Whatever you call it, if it is not immediately obvious to you that this site lacks credibility or authority that is not my failing. It is yours. And it is a failing I would urge you to rectify.
Let me put this in terms you can understand. If your term paper cites this source, as an authoritative source of the science (as opposed to say evidence on the pervasiveness of para-science), I will mark you down and I will in comments attempt to explain the appropriateness of your source. Just a few weeks ago I wrote that very comment. Though thankfully not in climate science! Can you imagine anything worse than having to deal with the self-righteous little twats citing garbage like this and then complaining of some giant conspiracy when they are called out?
But having refused to look at the evidence, you have no pretense of having falsified it.
You have presented no evidence worthy of consideration. Of course I'm not going to bother falsify it. In any case I was a pharmacology major, and while I do read the odd climate science paper, I would no be so impertinent as to prefer my own (mis)understand over that of the actual experts in the field.
This doesn't even qualify as straw-man argument.
You're right you know. It's not an argument at all, it's flippancy.
Dude. Take a class in debate or logical argument.
I'll give it to you ...for a good price. Seriously though, what you need to learn very quickly is to develop a good bullshit detector, which by your own admission you lack. Otherwise you'll spend the rest of your life being just as much of a mug as you are now.
You are all over the place, and impress me not at all.
Diddums.
That is what is called an ad hominem argument, and it isn't a valid argument.
What was an ad hom? I'm passing no judgement on what Latour has written here, I just won't bother reading stuff (whatever position it is arguing) published on so ridiculous a forum.
You can't just look at a website and judge the validity of what it has to say.
I can though. It's a skill that comes with experience. Really, the site itself does not have the requisite authority or credibility to be taken seriously. With an abundance of quality science available, much of it for free, why even waste your time in such a place?
You have to actually read it and refute what is written.
I'd prefer to spend that time reading the actual science.
Dr. Pierre Latour is a former NASA scientist.
Argument from (erstwhile) authority? If Dr Latour's work on this subject is of sufficient rigour he will be able to publish. As it stands this seems to be outside the bounds of the normative scientific discussion.
But until then, you have no argument to make.
Sure. And I wasn't making any argument. I was asking you, by reference to similar pseudo-science, to prove that thermonuclear weapons do not exist. Are you up to it or not?
Pseudo-scientific?
Dude, I looked at the site you linked to. Isn't it obvious?
The majority of CO2 warming models rely on a concept of "back radiation" that (according to "physicists") does not even exist ...
You know these pseudo-scientific refutations of climate science are getting, well a bit lame, to be honest. Why don't you try something more exciting, like proving that thermo-nuclear weapons break the rules of thermodynamics and therefore can't even exist. C'mon you can do it!
I am a Korean and I just looked up the Korean articles. It meant "not dualism" as you explained in your first paragraph. If I was to translate the word literally, I would have translated it as "theory of materials" or "theory of matter".
Yes, in English we call it materialism -- the theory that the material (psychical) nature of the universe is the fundamental reality (mind ultimately being a product of material forces), as opposed to idealism -- the theory that reality is a manifestation of mind or spirit (the material universe being ultimately a figment of the imagination).
Why even consider harmonizing with US law?
You're harmonising [sic] with US spelling, why do you expect the law to remain immune?
Seriously though, the reason is the net. The late C20th and early C21st has seen IP law move into 2 related directions. Firstly attempts to reduce the risk digital communications pose to IP holders and the concomitant internationalisation of the Law. Given the position of the US as the world's major content creator (Silicon valley and Hollywood) and the decline of their "hard" manufacturing sector, it is unsurprising that (after a century of isolating themselves from the international IP scene) they have sought most vigorously to establish a regime which protects the value of their exports.
The code apocryphally dreamt up in the legal depts. of your Disneys, passed onto US negotiators at the WTO has been incorporated via instruments such as TRIPS, into the municipal law of WTO member countries. Thus similar provisions to those found the in the US DMCA, were incorporated into our copyright law via the Copyright Amendment (Digital Agenda) Act 2000 (C'th). Nor were these the last. Such is the price of membership and we are not about to drop out of the WTO any time soon..
Having imported many of the new restrictions, it is thought we ought also to access a few of the liberties. However, the decision to devise "fair use" exception must also be understood in the context of facilitating international business. Take the concrete example of some US based vendor who incorporates what is there allowable fair use content into a product which could be sold also in Australia. The dangers posed by a non-harmonised legal framework poses for such transactions ought to be obvious.
Good luck with that.
You're new to this government thing, aren't you? In all the decades you have been reading ALRC reports, or the reports of other government appointed inquiries for that matter, when have you ever read "everything is OK as it is, and we have no recommendations?"
Read between the lines of the terms of reference. The ALRC has been asked to "to consider whether existing exceptions are appropriate and whether further exceptions should recognise fair use of copyright material ..." Are existing exceptions anywhere near appropriate, say in ensuring "fair use" such as it might be understood in the US? ALRC is going to have hard time answering that in the affirmative! The further exceptions they are being asked to devise should you know. And they will ...
This is another step towards harmonising our law with that of the US and for a change from all the punitive harmonisations, this will introduce some small measure of freedom. It is well known that the government has for some time wanted to introduce some kind of fair use provision into Australian copyright law. Just don't expect an overly broad one.
The problem with programmed trading at these levels is that it prioritizes arbitrage over the health of the companies the market is supposed to serve.
Exploiting actual arbitrage opportunities would contribute to the health of the market itself, surely! But what makes you think that is what trading bots are doing? Aren't they simply scalping miniscule price movements at extremely high frequency?
I think that Cuban is wrong when he dismisses arguments that high frequency traders are providing markets with liquidity, clearly they are. And I think that software bugs in trading programs would sound primarily in reduced profits for their operators. However, I think he is correct to be concerned. As trading is increasingly conducted on the basis of tiny price movements without any regard to the underlying equities, and that at higher frequency and quantity, markets are being exposed to mass phenomena and feedbacks which have the potential to dislodge the performance of equities from the underlying performance of the actual companies, perhaps to disastrous consequences.
Or at what point does this become demonstrably worse child abuse than the usual level of child abuse perpetrated by schools?
That's a good point. They taught me to read and write and look where's it's left me ... responding to a post such as yours.
[Y]ou would also know that the syllabus of statistics 101 is so basic that it doesn't vary depending on the major of the students sitting for the class.
I agree and I do hope that our calculus Prof doesn't have a bit of a chip on his or her shoulder as regards the humanities.
However, if you want to be particularly relevant to social science students, here is what I, in my infinite wisdom ;), would suggest:
That to my mind would be a useful course in stats for the humanities.
I have to admit I'm not liking the MAC UI at all.
And I think you will have to admit that this is because you didn't allow yourself the space to comprehend the metaphor. And I have to admit that one size doesn't necessarily fit all. There are probably folks out there more productive on Gnome than anything else.
I use OSX, XFCE and MS WIndows on a daily basis (as I type this on my linux box, a macbook is to my left, and a windows box to my right). After initial frustration with the Mac interface back in 2007, its elegance (indeed it's superiority) has slowly become more and more apparent. Ironically perhaps, my small epiphanies tend to come when I'm working on the nix box (eg. AHA!. I was wrong! The close, maximise and minimise buttons DO actually belong on the left of the window (for a right handed person)... took me a long time to grok that one).
I totally dislike the way my programs don't close when I tell them to, they just hide.
Close!? See, there is your problem right there. A program can't close or hide, it can run or quit. It's individual windows which open and close. You are used to Applications quitting without being asked to, ie. when the last window closes.
In OSX you tell a program to quit, by quitting (or using the command-Q key combination) and you tell a window to close by closing it (or command-W). It's REALLY simple. [Now Lion changes this a little by reserving the right to quit, without explicitly being told to, any application for which all windows have been closed (a la Windows), should additional resources be required elsewhere.] Once you grasp the clear and sharp distinction between closing and quitting (and train your fingers to cmd-Q and cmd-W without thinking) you will begin to understand how confused the concepts of quitting and closing an application really are on other UIs.
But the real question isn't whether an application quits or not, it's why a human operator would object to the quicker response an already loaded application gives when asked to open another document?
I also didn't like option/apple clicking, the 'missing mouse button'
Agreed, it's awful. The command-click is an all but an admission that the one-button mouse simply does not work. That's why serious mac users throw the vanilla apple mouse as far away as possible, dunno about the 'Magic' mouse, I just use an old Logitech one or the pad.
the keyboard layout
Huh? Appart from the Apple/Command keys how is the macbook layout much different from any other laptop? I just fix the [Caps_Lock] to be the [Ctrl] (as I have on this keyboard as well), and Bob's your uncle.
I don't like the shared menu-bar thing. (Never have.)
And if you are as stubborn as Steve Jobs was about the one-button mouse you can keep not liking it indefinitely. It is, however, and even without taking the space saving into account, a far more elegant solution. And I never liked the Dock as an interface idea, but I have to admit it saves a lot of time.
And moving windows around, seeing multiple apps at once, switching back and forth between two applications, none of that was any good at all.
Windows move, you can see multiple applications at once and it's a breeze to switch back and forth between two applications. Mind you that applies to any modern UI really. What was your problem?
It's possible part of the reason I didn't like it was because I'm not typically a laptop user and that might have contributed to the annoyance factor.
Perhaps. But it sounds like you simply didn't give yourself permission to appreciate the design quality of the UI on it's own terms. And that's fine too. If something works better for you, and your primary interest isn't in UI design, you shouldn't really have to make that effort.
Australia* was established on 1 January 1901. [*as a political rather than a geographical entity]
A private school can't require your kids to do anything, because they are not required to go to private school. If you choose to send your kids to a private school, then anything they "require" is actually chosen by you.
Sorry, but that fluffy piece of sophistry isn't going to find you a head of action.
More relevant is the consideration that while this might look like a clear case of third line forcing, the relevant competition law (aka anti-trust law) provisions could, depending on your jurisdiction, be applicable only to corporations (as they are in mine). Thus while an incorporated private school may well attract liability for any requirement to purchase the goods and services of a third party, it is far less clear what grounds there would be to proceed against a government (or unincorporated private) school. Do you have any practical answer to that?
Any school requiring my kids to purchase anything from a particular vendor, ESPECIALLY Apple is going to get sued by me ...
Under what head of action? Wouldn't it depend whether it was a government school or a commercially operated one?
The success of Linux as a whole has much to do with the usability among all users, not just those that put themselves on a pedestal. Try not to ignore what happened to name brand Unix because of that same mentality.
You're right that a commercial "name brand" must measure its "success" in terms of the amount of paid custom it can attract and it is natural enough mistakenly to believe that the success of FOSS must be measured in just the same way.
Maybe the logic makes little sense to you
Logic has always made sense to me. What is at fault is not the logic, but the presumption.
Imagining ... imagining ... Nope, sorry. All I see is Linux asymptotically approaching market saturation. There may be a game changer around the corner, but non-expert advocacy (or advocacy per se) ain't it.
Linux is much more than just a server OS, yet we don't see desktop adoption. This is not because Linux lacks desktop functionality mind you, quite the contrary.
I agree 100%
This is because a bunch of techies, that could do most of their work on an old teletype are pissing and moaning.
That's nonsense. Gnome has explicitly been designed to appeal to potential non-expert users even at the expense of the installed user base. It's specifically designed to appeal to Windows users. It has failed to attract these mythical potential users and it has disappointed many actual users. That is not success. Success would have been developing a set of UI metaphors so elegant and utile that Apple and Microsoft felt compelled to copy them.
The reason it has not caught on as a widespread Desktop OS is largely because of network effects (eg. the lack of MS Office).
If you want to get people off of MS products, isn't that the ultimate goal?
You want to stop other people using MS products?! Why?
And why posit this conditional when is it abundantly clear that OP does not suffer from this attitude, but wants instead "the best OS out there. The most powerful one. The most flexible one. The most featured yet elegant one."
Not only is this a poor motivation, it's delusional. The result is that Linux Desktop developers have alienated the established user base in favour the fantasy of capturing the corporate/mainstream market, a fantasy wedded to failure. Worst of all the third hand imitations we are offered on *nix are poison to creativity and innovation in UI design.
Fortunately I work almost exclusively on the terminal. XFCE, which I use at work, has the virtue, at least, of not getting in my way. Gnome, otoh, drove me to the DarkSide(tm) (ie buying an iMac for my family and a MacBook Pro for my personal use). It's sad that you have to sell your soul (and when you get Apple or Google products you do sell your soul into their clouds) to see real UI innovation. It ought to have been the Gnome (as the GNU desktop) pushing that envelope.
I love the idea of leaving these illegal prosecutions on the books.
What was illegal about the prosecution?! Was he not convicted of a crime by due process of law upon evidence and beyond reasonable doubt?
The point of Lord McNally was making was that just because the particular offence "now seems both cruel and absurd," does not mean it was not at that point in history a criminal offence. That being the case a pardon is not appropriate. What is appropriate is that we recognise the criminal law ought not to intervene in the choice of sexual behaviour among consenting adults. And that we should be careful not to elect to the legislature people who would seek once again to make it so.
Oui. But I had heard that joke a number of years earlier. I believe it's of the same vintage as, "Did you hear the one about the Grasshopper who went into the bar ..." The way La Haine worked it was a little darker though.
Hey, we're still here, aren't we?
There's this guy, he's jumped out of the 70th floor of a skyscraper. ..."
As he's dropping past the 40th floor, he's thinking "so far so good
Oh you whacky mathematicians ... always manipulating the numbers to serve your argument!
That's funny. The website was working fine before he made that post.
A one meter rise in sea level over a century is not of much significance in itself ...
Say what?!
I highly doubt they're going to take that chance just because they might have a good sense of humour.
My point was that the signs are evidence of just how commonplace such jokes were at Australian airports, and they simply don't have the staffing levels required to interview everyone with a poor enough sense of humour to make one. What do you imagine the correlation is between people who make smartarse comments like leaving their C4 at home and those who actually have it? What chance would they be taking? I put it to you that a reaction from the sniffer dogs is a more reliable indicator and one that would actually trigger the expenditure of limited resources. If you really want that interview, my advice would be not to bother with ironic self-incriminating statements, but actually to carry explosives or try taking a handgun through the metal detector.
When you are in Canada on the other hand, where the chances are that the official has never heard an ironic statement in his or her life ...
And that was my main point, our sense of humour can get us into all sorts of trouble OS.
But, I think if they follow the liberal solution, their country will burn.
You do think that, and that's what's fatal to your "proof." It's question begging, since you are simply assuming that your prescription of austerity (which you are associating with 'conservative') with no increase in taxation, is in reality the prescription which will produce the best results. We don't know that as a fact against which we can asses the bias of reality.
Bad example basically. Perhaps leftist AIDS denialism would server better?