If you want to see what happens with a society tries to avoid the basic laws of economics go vacation in North Korea (or to a lesser extent, Cuba).
Ah, the old "those damn commies!" standby. "Basic laws of economics" apply in a standard economy. It is conceivable that there is something nonstandard---possibly even something that is sustainable. However, one example of failure in this regard shouldn't be enough to dismiss everything (or you need a class in logic).
Also, the idea of "basic laws" should be examined under the same light Shoenberg does with the "basic laws of music": there aren't any.
Actually, a great deal of thought has gone into how basic economic concepts drive behavior in non-market situations, such as marriage, suicide, and love. It seems human behavior follows a number of econmic theories - which would tend to point to the conclusion that a certain type of economy is better attuned to human interaction than other types. That's what makes it sustainable. Any system, after all, can run until you run out of raw materials; to be sustainable you need a way to efficiently allocate them and incentives to use them properly.
Economics, unlike music, is not a matter of taste but more fundamental forces that drive behavior.
At this rate, soon you won't be able to own anything.
Could be agood thing:
Dear (manufacturer:
I am returning your (5 year old and large hard to recycle device full of toxic material sthat can't be put in a landfill) to you as I am no longer able to comply with the original license.
Sincerely,
So for 10 bucks or so of shipping your disposal probkem becomes theirs.
Well, according to the uSPTO, the trademark to Burgertime has been cancelled as of early 2005. They copyright on the game may still be owned by someone.
Independent of what happened, Data East or whoever owns the rights to Burgertime now has a corporation that has deep pockets it can sue for copyright infringement.
The flash developer may just find himself in the middle of a nasty fight. Plus, DE may be pissed that their good name Burgertime was disparaged by the slaughterhouse links.
"If the same app crashs the system all the time when others you use don't, it is an application problem since it renders the application unusable."
No matter what you think, when the system crashes is an OS problem. No app is able to crash a proper designed and implemented OS.
On the other hand, you migth have a try to that very same OOo version on that machines... over Linux. Then you could see if it crashes or it doesn't.
It's irrelevant to the end user the technical reasons behind a crash - if app X crashes and others don't, they will avoid X and find an alternative that works on their machine.
Even if the OS is at fault, the fact that the app crashes it is enough reason for people to avoid it and not worry why; they aren't going to test it on other systems to troubleshoot the fault, they'll simply find something else that works.
In general, the attitude of OSS supports on/. is "fix it your self" "migrate to Linux" "add your own features" - which is fine - I certainly don't expect anyone to do anything for free based on my (or someoneelse's desires), but that also limits the adoption of OSS - users after all have the same right to say "I won't use OSS because it fails to meet my needs" - and ignore the entreaties of those who want to expand the use of OSS. It's the non-technical users that will ultimately decide if OSS is adopted or not, and they simply want stuff that works.
BSOD is an OS problem, not an application problem. Applications crashing themselves is one thing, applications crashing the OS is another. I believe the video drivers were moved from user to kernel space in NT4. A buggy video driver can therefore easily crash the OS.
If the same app crashs the system all the time when others you use don't, it is an application problem since it renders the application unusable.
No mtter what the cause, users will chose not to run the app since it results in the BSOD.
I've often wondered whether the role of Chekov contributed to the end of the cold war. The convergence of humankind is somewhat analogous to the Federation and Klingons in TNG, although not to the extent that humans are united in the original series.
I've also wondered if the addition of a Russian officer in the original series, in the 60's, was mere coincidence? If so, that's one hell of a coincidence!
IFAICR, Checkov was added after the Russians complained theat they were in space but ST didn't acknowldge them - hence teh constan "invented by a little old lady from Leningrad..."
If people are willing to pay to click on ads for the few pennies per click they get, why not pay someone to bet according to a bot's rules? Maybe that's India's next bet to keep off shoring market share?
You could monitor the bet and the bot's recommendation to ensure they match, even pay a percentage of tech wins to the person making the bets. A live person could respond to chat, and handle several tables at once or a simple phrase or two - which would be appropriate for the question.
You wouldn't even need people who spoke English - they could respond in their native tongue.
Off course, an on-line poker house could run the same bot for every game and match bet's with the bot's recommendations and use that to id bot's.
I recommend buying one from a vendor - that way, you are assured that th emachine not only meets the physical requirements but has the paperwork/certs (if any) need to satisfy the DoD.
Also scheck with who handles DoD security for your company - there's a lot more too it than just buying a machine - controlling access; ensuring everyone who does has the required clerance and is granted access; labeling any mdia put in it with the right classification notice (putting your jump drive in the machine means it now must be marked and treated as Secret)
The machine is a minor cost - and bad paperwork will cause nightmares if your auditted.
Then that data is COMPLETELY invalid. You cannot discount US State taxes as state governments are a HUGE part of US law and infrastructure. That would be like counting "European union tax" and ignoring Britain's taxes and then stating that people in Europe have almost no tax burden.
No, the data is reasonable for comparative purposes - state tax burden varies greatly, from 0 to 10+%, so a comparison of taxes is much harder if you include it - but even without it, the OECD data is a reasonable approximation of the relative tax burdens in various countries. Even though it understates the tax rate paid by many Americans, it no doubt oes taht for other countries as well- such as Gernmany's with its reunificaton tax, or Europes VAT which is much higher than our state sales taxes (which also vary from 0 to 8+%)
if you said we are going to go to a 40% tax rate and add the following social benefits,
Just a minor quibble here - we already are at a 40% tax rate - it's just spread out: - Most people are in the 15% income tax bracket - Everyone pays 15.2% in FICA taxes (SS and Medicare) - either split with their employer or all on their own as Self Employment taxes - State income taxes vary between 0% (SD, TX, and FLorida) to 8%-10% (IA & CA)
I think the OECD data doesn't include state tax - but does include FICA.
State, slaes, property taxes are so variable since you have evrything from NH (no sales / income) NYC (income if you work there - resident or not)to CA (everything and then some).
But either way I stand by my earlier assertion about think link between tax aversion and funding a social net.
Both parts of this statement are true, but it is not a causal link.
(A) American's don't like taxes. [TRUE]
(B) Establishing a broad social net funded by high tax rates is very unlikely. [TRUE]
(C) A causes B. [FALSE]
Supportive evidence:
We do have high taxes, and most of those taxes end up in the pockets of campaign contributors. In other words, voters aren't making the decision to increase taxes on merit, nor based on the causes the taxes will fund, but rather on the paid advertising which decides the outcome of most elections.
Firts of all, our tax rate is amongst the lowest in the OECD. I also believe there is a casual link - if you said we are going to go to a 40% tax rate and add the following social benefits, most Americans would not be very supportive - if the politicians thought they would, they would fall over themselves offering such a proposal. Even though Americans have a low tax burden by OECD standards, Americans generally think thy pay too much in taxes; and tend not to support any idea that would increase taxes.
and most of those taxes end up in the pockets of campaign contributors. In other words, voters aren't making the decision to increase taxes on merit, nor based on the causes the taxes will fund, but rather on the paid advertising which decides the outcome of most elections.
were it that simple...
A lot gets funneled back into projects in districts or contracts that provide jobs which pay people's salaries while it ceratainly benefits the politically connected, voters see it in terms of what happens in their district - i.e. is the plant going to close and did we get a new road / library / post office.
The poster noted that Americans AND America are generous, however this is a widely held belief by Americans which does not fully hold up.
Not trying to offend people, but it can get a bit... trying to be told how generous America is (being Irish, we do quite well).
Interestingly enough, the stats on that page look at a very specific subset of foriegn aid - it excludes private donations as well as other government aid that doesn't fit the aid to developing nations category. It also depends on how you look at the stat - #2 in total aid is pretty generous but it's not on a percapita basis. Of course, if the #1 nation in per capita donations cut it's aid to US per capita levels it would go from 150 mil to about 1.2 mill dollars - a drop in the overall bucket. No if the #5 did that, it would drop to about $500 mill - are the Sewdes less generous at that level than the Luxemburgers at their current level? Would Swedes have a bigger impact at US per capita rates than Luxemburg at it's current rate?
Since you mentioned Ireland ( a country I rather like so this is intended to be illustrative rather than a criticism) - they have the fasted growing GDP amongst the OECD nations, yet their total donations is barely above some of the slowest growing developed countries - such as Portugal. Are the Irish less generous than the Portuguese? Even tiny Austria gave more.
Yes, it is trying to hear how generous a country is, just as it is trying to be told that you must do more or that what you are doing isn't enough.
That's the part I've never understanded about the US. On one hand the US is ultra-religious. But on the other hand helping the poor is totaly unamerican (socialism is baaaaaaaad). Now what I don't get is this: is the US hypocritical (a lot of talking, but noone really meaning what they say) or is this a case of a splitten personality? (radical differences in oppinion) This isn't meant as flamebait or anti-americanism or something. It's just strange that a society that holds on to religion in so many ways, seems to disagree with a major portion of it.
Part of that is probably the roots of America's predominant religion - US Christianity stems from Puritan and other sects where being poor wasn't a sin but sloth was - hard work was a virtue (which fit in nicely with what was needed to survive in a foreign land)and neighbors helped each other through hard times when luck, not sloth, caused someone to fall onto hard times. Coupled with America's belief that you can triumph through hard work provides an American view of charity - help people get on their feet but don't let them stay on the dole forever - hence work fare vs welfare.
Americans and America are generally generous people - in the context of how they view charity, which is to say not better or worse, but different.
As a side note - America's disdain for socialism is rooted in the innate distrust of government and a belief in the "American Dream." American's don't like taxes (ask the English about that)so establishing a broad social net funded by high tax rates is very unlikely.
Here's one very basic, very common problem anti-spam legislation doesn't solve.
Here's another:
Someone does a Joe-job on you - and you get a bunch of unsolicated emails in response - and chose to complain to each person's ISP. Now, the ISP probably would realize what had happened, but it still takes time to do that. Mulriply that by a few hundred Joe-jobs and ISP's will rapidly learn to ignore spam complaints.
Alternatively, they could pass every complaint on to the government agency responsible for investigating them, and let them sort out the mess.
is OS FRM would make it unnecessary to reverse engineer it in order to circumvent it. Of ocurse, that will mak eit less acctractive to copyright owners.
Anyone who hasn't seen someone accused of cheating on an online poker site simply hasn't played on an online poker site.
However, this is hardly specific to poker. Lamers, Newbs, and all of their pathetic whining exist in all forms of online gaming.
I concuer - I used to play Hearts on Pogo a bit, and started off in teh begineer section, mainly beacuse the higher point level players didn't want to play with low point players (if tehy lost they'd lsoe more points, plus many were newbies who couldn't play at their level and srew up teh game).
Sometimes you'd see higher point level players in teh begineer room - they seemed to be looking for an easy way to get points by beating a lot of newcommers they could slowly up their point count. I enjoyed playing them becaus ethey usually weren't that good, despite their "status." They'd cry like babies when you'd finesse a 10 - J past their K and then pull it with an A and shot the moon - a claim you "cheated."
Even funnier was their protestations when you pointed out only an idiot holds a K twice and lets it become a singleton - they never could grasp the concept that their stupidity was a more logical explanation why they lost.
Of course, someone may have very varied taste in music - but their songs would still flow - to them - beacuse they probably like to have very different songs played while listening.
Buried in this claim is the implication that any song in a selective subset of songs collected by anyone has a uniform ability to flow into any other song in the subset. A random selection is as good as any statistically matched selection if and only if the preceding statement is true. I'm not claiming to have/know such a magic bullet, but you'll have a harder time supporting your assertion that it is not possible.
Actually, I'm asserting just the opposite - since a song collection is a selected, not random, set of music, a random selection from that set of songs is as likely to flow as some set selected by a mathematical formula.
So if I develop a hardware stereo (i.e., totally implemented in hardware as opposed to software) with a novel set of knobs and switches, it's OK to patent that, but if I use software to display the interface on a screen instead and use a very novel scroll wheel it's suddenly not OK?
Care to explain that?
Actually, you may not be able to do that - depending how the patent is written, they could "own" the interface and a software or hardware implementation would be infringing.
Finally you could take Fourier transforms, statistics on mean and variance of volume, beats per minute etc., and the user rating of the track, as one huge multidimensional space, throw it through PCA and select the closest track in the re(multidimensional)scaled space, which would actually give some semblance of "flow" and even use eigenvalues somewhere in the whole process... but that's an awfully large amount of heavy lifting to do compared to just picking a track at random which can do a surprisingly good job.
Further, since most iPods contain a self-selected set of music and not a large but random compilation of tunes from iTunes, one would expect them to "flow" since they would all match the listener's taste and prefered style. Picking randomly from a playlist of songs the listener likes is likely to produce a set of songs that seem to flow - since the number of different groups and styles is likely to vary in a small band.
Of course, someone may have very varied taste in music - but their songs would still flow - to them - beacuse they probably like to have very different songs played while listening.
To me, self - selection is key - thay's why Amazon's book recommendation is less likely to interest you than if you randomly pull a book from your collection to read (and the one you read will probably be similar to the last one you read as well as the follow-on).
Slashdot Mirror
If you want to see what happens with a society tries to avoid the basic laws of economics go vacation in North Korea (or to a lesser extent, Cuba).
Ah, the old "those damn commies!" standby. "Basic laws of economics" apply in a standard economy. It is conceivable that there is something nonstandard---possibly even something that is sustainable. However, one example of failure in this regard shouldn't be enough to dismiss everything (or you need a class in logic).
Also, the idea of "basic laws" should be examined under the same light Shoenberg does with the "basic laws of music": there aren't any.
Actually, a great deal of thought has gone into how basic economic concepts drive behavior in non-market situations, such as marriage, suicide, and love. It seems human behavior follows a number of econmic theories - which would tend to point to the conclusion that a certain type of economy is better attuned to human interaction than other types. That's what makes it sustainable. Any system, after all, can run until you run out of raw materials; to be sustainable you need a way to efficiently allocate them and incentives to use them properly.
Economics, unlike music, is not a matter of taste but more fundamental forces that drive behavior.
At this rate, soon you won't be able to own anything.
Could be agood thing:
Dear (manufacturer:
I am returning your (5 year old and large hard to recycle device full of toxic material sthat can't be put in a landfill) to you as I am no longer able to comply with the original license.
Sincerely,
So for 10 bucks or so of shipping your disposal probkem becomes theirs.
Well, according to the uSPTO, the trademark to Burgertime has been cancelled as of early 2005. They copyright on the game may still be owned by someone.
Independent of what happened, Data East or whoever owns the rights to Burgertime now has a corporation that has deep pockets it can sue for copyright infringement.
The flash developer may just find himself in the middle of a nasty fight. Plus, DE may be pissed that their good name Burgertime was disparaged by the slaughterhouse links.
do not consider them at all, and am definitely prejudiced against someone who puts them on their resume.
Let's forget for a a minute that that is illegal.
Uh, no it's not - certified people are not a protected class. I trash any resume with MENSA on it, for example.
This is a stupid way to think. Having a Cert doesn't make a candidate any worse than having a Cert makes them good.
A Cert, if nothing else, tells you the person WANTS to be in IT.
It's reality, and why you need to understand the hiring company and if possible, the hiring manager's needs and interets.
"If the same app crashs the system all the time when others you use don't, it is an application problem since it renders the application unusable."
/. is "fix it your self" "migrate to Linux" "add your own features" - which is fine - I certainly don't expect anyone to do anything for free based on my (or someoneelse's desires), but that also limits the adoption of OSS - users after all have the same right to say "I won't use OSS because it fails to meet my needs" - and ignore the entreaties of those who want to expand the use of OSS. It's the non-technical users that will ultimately decide if OSS is adopted or not, and they simply want stuff that works.
No matter what you think, when the system crashes is an OS problem. No app is able to crash a proper designed and implemented OS.
On the other hand, you migth have a try to that very same OOo version on that machines... over Linux. Then you could see if it crashes or it doesn't.
It's irrelevant to the end user the technical reasons behind a crash - if app X crashes and others don't, they will avoid X and find an alternative that works on their machine.
Even if the OS is at fault, the fact that the app crashes it is enough reason for people to avoid it and not worry why; they aren't going to test it on other systems to troubleshoot the fault, they'll simply find something else that works.
In general, the attitude of OSS supports on
BSOD is an OS problem, not an application problem.
Applications crashing themselves is one thing, applications crashing the OS is another.
I believe the video drivers were moved from user to kernel space in NT4. A buggy video driver can therefore easily crash the OS.
If the same app crashs the system all the time when others you use don't, it is an application problem since it renders the application unusable.
No mtter what the cause, users will chose not to run the app since it results in the BSOD.
I've often wondered whether the role of Chekov contributed to the end of the cold war. The convergence of humankind is somewhat analogous to the Federation and Klingons in TNG, although not to the extent that humans are united in the original series.
I've also wondered if the addition of a Russian officer in the original series, in the 60's, was mere coincidence? If so, that's one hell of a coincidence!
IFAICR, Checkov was added after the Russians complained theat they were in space but ST didn't acknowldge them - hence teh constan "invented by a little old lady from Leningrad..."
If people are willing to pay to click on ads for the few pennies per click they get, why not pay someone to bet according to a bot's rules? Maybe that's India's next bet to keep off shoring market share?
You could monitor the bet and the bot's recommendation to ensure they match, even pay a percentage of tech wins to the person making the bets. A live person could respond to chat, and handle several tables at once or a simple phrase or two - which would be appropriate for the question.
You wouldn't even need people who spoke English - they could respond in their native tongue.
Off course, an on-line poker house could run the same bot for every game and match bet's with the bot's recommendations and use that to id bot's.
I recommend buying one from a vendor - that way, you are assured that th emachine not only meets the physical requirements but has the paperwork/certs (if any) need to satisfy the DoD.
Also scheck with who handles DoD security for your company - there's a lot more too it than just buying a machine - controlling access; ensuring everyone who does has the required clerance and is granted access; labeling any mdia put in it with the right classification notice (putting your jump drive in the machine means it now must be marked and treated as Secret)
The machine is a minor cost - and bad paperwork will cause nightmares if your auditted.
When they say "Southeast Asia," are they talking about Vietnam? I can't think of anywhere else where they have a large residue of English speakers.
The Philippines - not a residue, but native speakers along with Filipino(Tagalog).
Then that data is COMPLETELY invalid. You cannot discount US State taxes as state governments are a HUGE part of US law and infrastructure. That would be like counting "European union tax" and ignoring Britain's taxes and then stating that people in Europe have almost no tax burden.
No, the data is reasonable for comparative purposes - state tax burden varies greatly, from 0 to 10+%, so a comparison of taxes is much harder if you include it - but even without it, the OECD data is a reasonable approximation of the relative tax burdens in various countries. Even though it understates the tax rate paid by many Americans, it no doubt oes taht for other countries as well- such as Gernmany's with its reunificaton tax, or Europes VAT which is much higher than our state sales taxes (which also vary from 0 to 8+%)
NEXT DAY AIR INTERNATIONAL. Or 2-day international morning delivery.
Costs a hell of a lot, but there's a market for it.
Got that today - it's called curior or air cargo - you can get same day US delivery today, for example, or send a curior overnight.
Again, a fast plan doesn't cut that much time off of the trip - especially if it can only go over water at high speed.
if you said we are going to go to a 40% tax rate and add the following social benefits,
Just a minor quibble here - we already are at a 40% tax rate - it's just spread out:
- Most people are in the 15% income tax bracket
- Everyone pays 15.2% in FICA taxes (SS and Medicare) - either split with their employer or all on their own as Self Employment taxes
- State income taxes vary between 0% (SD, TX, and FLorida) to 8%-10% (IA & CA)
I think the OECD data doesn't include state tax - but does include FICA.
State, slaes, property taxes are so variable since you have evrything from NH (no sales / income) NYC (income if you work there - resident or not)to CA (everything and then some).
But either way I stand by my earlier assertion about think link between tax aversion and funding a social net.
2005 SRS Best Practices Awards
Parcel carriers need cargo space and low cost - neither of which this gives.
Plus, the air transit time is a small part of the total delievry time.
Both parts of this statement are true, but it is not a causal link.
(A) American's don't like taxes. [TRUE]
(B) Establishing a broad social net funded by high tax rates is very unlikely. [TRUE]
(C) A causes B. [FALSE]
Supportive evidence:
We do have high taxes, and most of those taxes end up in the pockets of campaign contributors. In other words, voters aren't making the decision to increase taxes on merit, nor based on the causes the taxes will fund, but rather on the paid advertising which decides the outcome of most elections.
Firts of all, our tax rate is amongst the lowest in the OECD. I also believe there is a casual link - if you said we are going to go to a 40% tax rate and add the following social benefits, most Americans would not be very supportive - if the politicians thought they would, they would fall over themselves offering such a proposal. Even though Americans have a low tax burden by OECD standards, Americans generally think thy pay too much in taxes; and tend not to support any idea that would increase taxes.
and most of those taxes end up in the pockets of campaign contributors. In other words, voters aren't making the decision to increase taxes on merit, nor based on the causes the taxes will fund, but rather on the paid advertising which decides the outcome of most elections.
were it that simple...
A lot gets funneled back into projects in districts or contracts that provide jobs which pay people's salaries while it ceratainly benefits the politically connected, voters see it in terms of what happens in their district - i.e. is the plant going to close and did we get a new road / library / post office.
The poster noted that Americans AND America are generous, however this is a widely held belief by Americans which does not fully hold up.
Not trying to offend people, but it can get a bit... trying to be told how generous America is (being Irish, we do quite well).
Interestingly enough, the stats on that page look at a very specific subset of foriegn aid - it excludes private donations as well as other government aid that doesn't fit the aid to developing nations category. It also depends on how you look at the stat - #2 in total aid is pretty generous but it's not on a percapita basis. Of course, if the #1 nation in per capita donations cut it's aid to US per capita levels it would go from 150 mil to about 1.2 mill dollars - a drop in the overall bucket. No if the #5 did that, it would drop to about $500 mill - are the Sewdes less generous at that level than the Luxemburgers at their current level? Would Swedes have a bigger impact at US per capita rates than Luxemburg at it's current rate?
Since you mentioned Ireland ( a country I rather like so this is intended to be illustrative rather than a criticism) - they have the fasted growing GDP amongst the OECD nations, yet their total donations is barely above some of the slowest growing developed countries - such as Portugal. Are the Irish less generous than the Portuguese? Even tiny Austria gave more.
Yes, it is trying to hear how generous a country is, just as it is trying to be told that you must do more or that what you are doing isn't enough.
That's the part I've never understanded about the US. On one hand the US is ultra-religious. But on the other hand helping the poor is totaly unamerican (socialism is baaaaaaaad). Now what I don't get is this: is the US hypocritical (a lot of talking, but noone really meaning what they say) or is this a case of a splitten personality? (radical differences in oppinion)
This isn't meant as flamebait or anti-americanism or something. It's just strange that a society that holds on to religion in so many ways, seems to disagree with a major portion of it.
Part of that is probably the roots of America's predominant religion - US Christianity stems from Puritan and other sects where being poor wasn't a sin but sloth was - hard work was a virtue (which fit in nicely with what was needed to survive in a foreign land)and neighbors helped each other through hard times when luck, not sloth, caused someone to fall onto hard times. Coupled with America's belief that you can triumph through hard work provides an American view of charity - help people get on their feet but don't let them stay on the dole forever - hence work fare vs welfare.
Americans and America are generally generous people - in the context of how they view charity, which is to say not better or worse, but different.
As a side note - America's disdain for socialism is rooted in the innate distrust of government and a belief in the "American Dream." American's don't like taxes (ask the English about that)so establishing a broad social net funded by high tax rates is very unlikely.
Here's one very basic, very common problem anti-spam legislation doesn't solve.
Here's another:
Someone does a Joe-job on you - and you get a bunch of unsolicated emails in response - and chose to complain to each person's ISP. Now, the ISP probably would realize what had happened, but it still takes time to do that. Mulriply that by a few hundred Joe-jobs and ISP's will rapidly learn to ignore spam complaints.
Alternatively, they could pass every complaint on to the government agency responsible for investigating them, and let them sort out the mess.
is OS FRM would make it unnecessary to reverse engineer it in order to circumvent it. Of ocurse, that will mak eit less acctractive to copyright owners.
I must be old. I remember the time where calculators were used to do calculations and even plotting a nice graphic of a function.
I just pulled out my old calculator (AKA slide rule) and can't find the plot function - can you point me to the hack that enables that function?
Anyone who hasn't seen someone accused of cheating on an online poker site simply hasn't played on an online poker site.
However, this is hardly specific to poker. Lamers, Newbs, and all of their pathetic whining exist in all forms of online gaming.
I concuer - I used to play Hearts on Pogo a bit, and started off in teh begineer section, mainly beacuse the higher point level players didn't want to play with low point players (if tehy lost they'd lsoe more points, plus many were newbies who couldn't play at their level and srew up teh game).
Sometimes you'd see higher point level players in teh begineer room - they seemed to be looking for an easy way to get points by beating a lot of newcommers they could slowly up their point count. I enjoyed playing them becaus ethey usually weren't that good, despite their "status." They'd cry like babies when you'd finesse a 10 - J past their K and then pull it with an A and shot the moon - a claim you "cheated."
Even funnier was their protestations when you pointed out only an idiot holds a K twice and lets it become a singleton - they never could grasp the concept that their stupidity was a more logical explanation why they lost.
Of course, someone may have very varied taste in music - but their songs would still flow - to them - beacuse they probably like to have very different songs played while listening.
Buried in this claim is the implication that any song in a selective subset of songs collected by anyone has a uniform ability to flow into any other song in the subset. A random selection is as good as any statistically matched selection if and only if the preceding statement is true. I'm not claiming to have/know such a magic bullet, but you'll have a harder time supporting your assertion that it is not possible.
Actually, I'm asserting just the opposite - since a song collection is a selected, not random, set of music, a random selection from that set of songs is as likely to flow as some set selected by a mathematical formula.
So if I develop a hardware stereo (i.e., totally implemented in hardware as opposed to software) with a novel set of knobs and switches, it's OK to patent that, but if I use software to display the interface on a screen instead and use a very novel scroll wheel it's suddenly not OK?
Care to explain that?
Actually, you may not be able to do that - depending how the patent is written, they could "own" the interface and a software or hardware implementation would be infringing.
Finally you could take Fourier transforms, statistics on mean and variance of volume, beats per minute etc., and the user rating of the track, as one huge multidimensional space, throw it through PCA and select the closest track in the re(multidimensional)scaled space, which would actually give some semblance of "flow" and even use eigenvalues somewhere in the whole process... but that's an awfully large amount of heavy lifting to do compared to just picking a track at random which can do a surprisingly good job.
Further, since most iPods contain a self-selected set of music and not a large but random compilation of tunes from iTunes, one would expect them to "flow" since they would all match the listener's taste and prefered style. Picking randomly from a playlist of songs the listener likes is likely to produce a set of songs that seem to flow - since the number of different groups and styles is likely to vary in a small band.
Of course, someone may have very varied taste in music - but their songs would still flow - to them - beacuse they probably like to have very different songs played while listening.
To me, self - selection is key - thay's why Amazon's book recommendation is less likely to interest you than if you randomly pull a book from your collection to read (and the one you read will probably be similar to the last one you read as well as the follow-on).