And since we can now patent thing like that, I'm going to patent 'fucking', and become the richest person on the planet. Or, perhaps I'll refuse to issue licenses, and I'll be the only person on th planet that all the fine ladies can get down with....
I know this is a joke, but it might actually be possible to patent specific `positions'. Enough position patents, and you could probably force the pornography industry to pay royalties.
Not to mention that a portfolio of sex patents might actually be enough to convince some politicians that the patent system is broken.
I just make a playlist called `Shuffle', and include all of the songs that I want to be played normally in that. You can pretty much make any additional restriction on this set of songs that you like by making the appropriate smart playlist.
Heck, you can even design your own distribution for random play. For example, I have playlists that randomly plays X 5-star, Y 4-star and Z 3-star songs from my shuffle playlist, for several different combinations of values for X, Y and Z. (I also reserve 1 and 2 stars, but use them for other things. Only reason I do this is that the number of stars can be easily changed from an iPod.)
Just in case anyone wants to replicate something like this: selecting live updating isn't enough to force `random' playlists to be recomputed after they are played. The solution is to make another playlist that contains the X most recently played songs (or alternatively: all of the songs played in the last day), and add a condition that none of the songs in this playlist be included in any of the `random' ones.
(Or, in the common case where it doesn't effect a particular sentence's ambiguity, it at least contributes to the belief that "i.e." = "for example" which helps propogate the ambiguous instances.)
While we are being pedantic, that should be affect. You might say: `an effect of closing your eyes is that you cannot see', or `closing your eyes affects your ability to see'. But saying `closing your eyes effects your ability to see' is saying that closing your eyes is what gave you the ability of sight!
(I do completely agree about the degradation of the language through sloppy usage.)
No discussion about the flaws of Unix is complete without a reference to the Unix Haters Handbook. (Ignore the URL - Microsoft had nothing to do with it) It might be getting a bit dated, but some of the points are still relevant, and it is very very funny.
Rodney Brooks of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said: "It is not too far-fetched to see a situation where we put implants into our brains before too long."
And this is a problem exactly why?
Sure, you would have to be pretty careful about it. But given the right implimentation, I wouldn't mind being able to directly interface with a computer. Once you got good at using it (propably would be a bit like learning to use a third arm) you could delegate all of those things that the human brain is bad at, like repetative calculations.
Of course, there would be a bit of a downside. After all, you can't dazzle a blind person with a bright light. But doesn't mean you would prefer to be blind.
Look at ICQ for an example of what AOL can do to something.
To start with there really wasn't any sign that anything had changed.
Then they released a version that would automatically upgrade itself
when you logged onto ICQ. The first update was pretty innocent, just
changing the formatting a little, although that took me completely by
surprise.
Most who use ICQ might not have a problem with that, but building in an
auto-update with no way to turn it off is pretty poor security. Could
burn a lot of people if whatever server they use for this gets hacked.
What REALLY gets me though is the update that introduced the banner adds
to the bottom of the message window.
I respect their right to try and make a profit off the network, but they
basically tricked a large number of people into downloading something
that was capable of showing their adds. Why not simply use the previous
version, you ask? Well, they change the format of the database when you
'upgrade', meaning that you have to enter all of those contacts since
the last upgrade into the old version (and that is if you kept it), so
it would probably be too much trouble for most people...
I don't know what they have done recently; this was all before I escaped
to Linux, so I use one of the open source clients now.
I hadn't heard that AOL had bought Nullsoft, but just because they have
left winamp alone so far doesn't mean they will forever... it would be
prudent not to delete the old versions when you upgrade, just in case.
Personally, I have a bad feeling about the idea of AOL buying out Red
Hat. Red Hat has become successful enough that to many people it
represents Linux, and I somehow doubt that the direction AOL will want
to take things will be something that the rest of us will be that
trilled about.
But then again, maybe I'm wrong and a capital injection is just what Red
Hat needs. Just don't forget that if AOL buys Red Hat, it won't be for
a love of open source.
I live in NSW, and the only two references I have seen about its internet censorship legislation both come from/.
This issue is basically ignored by the media, although its good to see the Sydney Morning Herald publish something about it. Not the newspaper I read, but its one of the major ones.
"... my observation is that Cygwin makes Windows bearable enough for people that they don't see it being worth the effort to install a full Linux system."
This isn't true, at least in my case; using Cygwin was what eventually led me to look seriously at installing Debian on my home computer.
I think that there are two reasons that would cause people to do a proper install after using Cygwin;
1) Cygwin can be quite slow at times, especially if X is being used.
2) Not everything works, and some things don't work with full functionality.
It was the later that caused me to switch (I couldn't get the windows emacs to do something).
Porting more stuff to Cygwin gives people who use it a better idea on what they are missing out on.
Slashdot Mirror
I just make a playlist called `Shuffle', and include all of the songs that I want to be played normally in that. You can pretty much make any additional restriction on this set of songs that you like by making the appropriate smart playlist.
Heck, you can even design your own distribution for random play. For example, I have playlists that randomly plays X 5-star, Y 4-star and Z 3-star songs from my shuffle playlist, for several different combinations of values for X, Y and Z. (I also reserve 1 and 2 stars, but use them for other things. Only reason I do this is that the number of stars can be easily changed from an iPod.)
Just in case anyone wants to replicate something like this: selecting live updating isn't enough to force `random' playlists to be recomputed after they are played. The solution is to make another playlist that contains the X most recently played songs (or alternatively: all of the songs played in the last day), and add a condition that none of the songs in this playlist be included in any of the `random' ones.
While we are being pedantic, that should be affect. You might say: `an effect of closing your eyes is that you cannot see', or `closing your eyes affects your ability to see'. But saying `closing your eyes effects your ability to see' is saying that closing your eyes is what gave you the ability of sight!
(I do completely agree about the degradation of the language through sloppy usage.)
No discussion about the flaws of Unix is complete without a reference to the Unix Haters Handbook. (Ignore the URL - Microsoft had nothing to do with it) It might be getting a bit dated, but some of the points are still relevant, and it is very very funny.
I was at this talk. The 'dude' is Dr Roger Clarke. He has a webpage at http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/.
And this is a problem exactly why?
Sure, you would have to be pretty careful about it. But given the right implimentation, I wouldn't mind being able to directly interface with a computer. Once you got good at using it (propably would be a bit like learning to use a third arm) you could delegate all of those things that the human brain is bad at, like repetative calculations.
Of course, there would be a bit of a downside. After all, you can't dazzle a blind person with a bright light. But doesn't mean you would prefer to be blind.
Look at ICQ for an example of what AOL can do to something.
To start with there really wasn't any sign that anything had changed.
Then they released a version that would automatically upgrade itself
when you logged onto ICQ. The first update was pretty innocent, just
changing the formatting a little, although that took me completely by
surprise.
Most who use ICQ might not have a problem with that, but building in an
auto-update with no way to turn it off is pretty poor security. Could
burn a lot of people if whatever server they use for this gets hacked.
What REALLY gets me though is the update that introduced the banner adds
to the bottom of the message window.
I respect their right to try and make a profit off the network, but they
basically tricked a large number of people into downloading something
that was capable of showing their adds. Why not simply use the previous
version, you ask? Well, they change the format of the database when you
'upgrade', meaning that you have to enter all of those contacts since
the last upgrade into the old version (and that is if you kept it), so
it would probably be too much trouble for most people...
I don't know what they have done recently; this was all before I escaped
to Linux, so I use one of the open source clients now.
I hadn't heard that AOL had bought Nullsoft, but just because they have
left winamp alone so far doesn't mean they will forever... it would be
prudent not to delete the old versions when you upgrade, just in case.
Personally, I have a bad feeling about the idea of AOL buying out Red
Hat. Red Hat has become successful enough that to many people it
represents Linux, and I somehow doubt that the direction AOL will want
to take things will be something that the rest of us will be that
trilled about.
But then again, maybe I'm wrong and a capital injection is just what Red
Hat needs. Just don't forget that if AOL buys Red Hat, it won't be for
a love of open source.
This is sad.
/.
I live in NSW, and the only two references I have seen about its internet censorship legislation both come from
This issue is basically ignored by the media, although its good to see the Sydney Morning Herald publish something about it. Not the newspaper I read, but its one of the major ones.