While exposure to the intended dose of radiation for a scan may be safe (even that is debatable), the scanning process is software controlled. Imagine if the software crashes in the middle of a scan, or the scanner mechanism sticks.
If I'm understanding you correctly, I think you are getting at the possibility for the scanner to inadvertently deliver a non-safe dose of radiation. If so, yes there is some validity to your concern. I remember hearing a while back that it was discovered some CAT scanners had a software error that was causing it to miscalculate the radiation dosage, and that tons of people had been exposed to much higher levels of radiation than they were supposed to. I have to believe that CAT scanners are held to a much higher standard of safety than these backscatter machines, so if it can happen to CAT scanners than it is very believable that the same could happen to backscatter machines.
Perhaps the "science" that is being taught is that, despite the fact that your research has reached the same conclusion on 2 separate occasions, you need to keep yourself open to the possibility that you might just have been wrong twice. When other people provide evidence you are wrong (I don't recall where it was, but I saw a tv show or webpage in the last few months that demonstrated the death ray does work), you need to examine that evidence, revisit your study, and see if you reach a new conclusion. That's a quality that a lot of people lack these days (they will insist they are correct even when showing them clear and concise evidence they are wrong).
Those who would defend it would probably say something about how they paid into it, so it's their money.
Though it varies by state, in general that would be wrong. All states have a cap on the amount of wages that are subject to unemployment tax, and 70% of the states have the cap so low that someone working full time at minimum wage has already exceeded the cap (and a number of states have a limit low enough that a half-time minimum wage earner would exceed it).
So, in the majority of cases, just about everyone that collects unemployment has probably paid in the same amount.
In the US, unemployment benefits are based on what you used to earn??? What the Hell is the rationale for that?
I think the rationale is that unemployment should (within reason) not be a life altering event. We don't want poor people to make more on unemployment than they would in a job, because we want an incentive for them to get off of it as soon as possible. At the same time, we don't want somebody who makes more and has bought an expensive house to be forced to sell their house because of a temporary situation***. Unemployment should not be a life altering situation...it should be a temporary inconvenience.
***If your answer here is "well they should have an emergency fund for that", then 1) I agree, but 2) that opens a whole different can of worms. It's unfortunate, but a number of things will penalize you for being responsible and having one vs the people who are irresponsible and blow their entire paycheck and thus look broke.
Not true. If a verdict (guilty or not guilty) has not been reached, there is no double jeopardy invoked. It doesn't even matter if (as someone else has suggested) the jury has been seated. In fact, you can go through the entire legal process and at the end, if you wind up with a hung jury then the case can still be retried without it being double jeopardy. You can even be tried by a state prosecutor, found not guilty, and then be tried by a federal prosecutor without it being double jeopardy.
Double jeopardy also does not apply if the defendant was never tried from the start. Charges that were dropped or put on hold for any reason can always be reinstated in the future if not barred by any statute of limitations.
'[T]he Double Jeopardy Clause protects against three distinct abuses: [1] a second prosecution for the same offense after acquittal; [2] a second prosecution for the same offense after conviction; and [3] multiple punishments for the same offense.' U.S. v. Halper, 490 U.S. 435, 440 (1989).
And as someone pointed out in yesterdays thread, the prosecutor may simply be dropping the charges simply to attempt to refile them in a different venue with a more favorable judge.
Please tell me you are kidding, right? We aren't just talking about a bulk discount. We are talking about a battery that, as far as I know, is made specifically for this vehicle (as there aren't any off-the-shelf batteries for this capacity, operating conditions, etc). That means there is a huge overhead specifically for these 10,000 batteries.
Besides that, come on....here is this young scientist at the very start of her career (she received her PhD in 2006) and she makes what is (in the scientific community) a pretty earth shattering discovery. Did you watch the video on NASA? I did...this lady is full of excitement, giddy at her discovery. This is A HUGE DEAL for her. This is going to affect her entire career. Let her enjoy her big moment here with a press conference.
Finally, one last personal nitpick. What the hell does "wiki" have to do with anything? I think he threw that term in there to gain additional trust and ride the coattails of Wikipedia. There is nothing "wiki" about wikileaks in any way whatsoever.
When I think of "wiki" I think of the idea of user contributed knowledge, and that's what wikileaks is all about. The users are everyday people from industries and governments all over the world. They contribute the special knowledge they have about their industry/government.
There has never been even one single case of a terrorist boarding any train in the United States with the intent to cause it harm. There has never even been intelligence suggesting that this is a credible threat.
To me, that's the key item. There are countless ways that terrorist can cause lots of damage and death in places where security is currently minimal or nonexistent, yet for some odd reason that doesn't happen much. Despite the fact we keep beefing up airport security, they continue to attack this one target instead of all the other easier targets. We know that these days a terrorist is not going to be able to take control of a plane, so that can't be a reason. So why do they continue to attack planes? The only conclusion I can come up with is that they want to do it so they can say "put all the security in place you want...you are still powerless to stop me". I fear that adding such security to trains would only make them a more attractive target to terrorists. Right now they don't bother because it's too easy, but once you say "haha...you'll NEVER get past our train security now" you've laid down the challenge and they are going to have to take you up on it.
As far as Move goes, I don't see that as out-innovating the Wii. From my point of view, the PS3 is several years more advanced than the Wii (in both the base hardware and the motion control hardware), they've had years more of research to benefit from (both their own research and what others in the industry and academia have researched and demonstrated), they have the benefit several years of sitting back and learning from the Wii's mistakes and shortcomings, and with all of that benefit they've managed to brute force a solutions that is only slightly more capable than the Wii, and looks stupid and inelegant in the process.
As far as Kinect goes, I have a lot of respect for what they've done there. Rather than just tracking the position of some sex-toy-looking orbs, it actually analyzes the scene to extract skeletal structure information from the players movement. It's quite technologically advanced. Very impressive in the way it operates and the capabilities it provides. Yet the one thing that REALLY bugs me about it is that it is a purely controller-less design. Being able to play controller-less is pretty cool, but a lot of games will suffer or be impractical without buttons to press. Using an existing controller 2-handed kind of defeats the purpose of Kinect's advanced capabilities, the existing 360 controllers aren't conducive to single-hand use, and releasing a future add-on-controller-for-the-add-on-kinect is just completely out of the question.
So no, I don't really feel that the Wii has been out-innovated much. Move is pretty pathetic and uninspired considering how much later it came than the Wii, and Kinect is really impressive and innovative in ways but has a fatal flaw. I think it will take until the next generation before someone truly outdoes the Wii (when they can combine the Kinect's sensor technology with the Wii/Move controller system)
I see no reason why explanation number one is more likely than explanation number two.
I do. Given the nature of the changes that were used to uncover this, to me (as a programmer) it seems very unlikely that such over-optimization could happen in such a way that it would degrade so severely with those changes. Here is what was changed (look at the 2 diff files linked near the bottom of the article):
1) A "true;" statement was added into the code. It was not an assignment or a function call, or anything complex. Just a simple true statement. Depending on the level of optimization by the interpreter/compiler, this should turn into a noop at best, or simply loading a constant into a register or memory location (and then doing nothing more with it) at worst.. 2) A "return" added at the end of a function, instead of using the implicit return. This also should have minimal impact. In the best case, the code generated should be identical to the return code already generated by the implicit return. In the worst case, the compiler might be sloppy and generate 2 return instructions (one for the explicit return, and another unreachable instruction for the implicit return).
So from my experience, it seems EXTREMELY unlikely that this could have happened by accident just through optimization. I'm not going to go so far as to say it CAN'T happen, because I know from experience that things can get really complex and things not so obvious can happen (like cache issues as mentioned in the article). However, in all likelihood, I suspect this is going to be just like when video card drivers detect the filename of the executable and optimize specifically for that (I think it was quake3.exe that we saw that happen with before).
What used to be "additional screening" a few years ago is now applied to all passengers - we're all getting a pat-down or backscatter scan now.
Yeah, but the fine isn't exactly a new policy enacted since that change. And there are still ways that aborting the search could be useful. Just because you couldn't think of them doesn't mean they don't exist. Here's one off the top of my head. Don't give me crap if you think it's far fetched or something, because it merely an example. Fat terrorist hides something in between fat rolls, thinking a simple pat down won't detect it. The TSA agent gets a little more intrusive and probes his finger between fat rolls. Terrorist says "this is ridiculous" and walks away before the agent actually discovers the concealed item.
The moronic thing is thinking that someone who is going to set off a bomb to kill hundreds in an airplane would not set off a bomb to kill hundreds in a crowded security area.
Actually, I don't think it's quite moronic. You are absolutely right, there are tons of ways to kill lots of people. Airport security, crowded mall, concerts, various political rallies, etc. The fact that it hasn't happened at one of those tells me that the terrorists must not be interested in simply killing a bunch of people, because if they wanted to they could have done it 100 times over, but instead we catch them trying to infiltrate planes over and over. I suspect it's that they want to make a bigger psychological impact. Like the computer hacker mentality...the tougher you make the challenge, the more determined I am to hack it to show you how much better I am then you.
The moronic justification is that ebil terists would get in line to gather intel, and then leave the line. Apparently it never occurred to the TSA that the ebil terists could go completely through the screening, and then pass on the intel.
Wrong. The justification is that terrorists attempting to breach security could carry out their attempt up just before the point of detection, then say "you know what...never mind, I don't want to subject myself to this", then leave without detection and have a chance to try again until one of them makes it through successfully. That's a useful strategy for defeating the random inspections, where people are randomly chosen for additional screening. So from this point of view, the justification isn't the slightest bit moronic. It makes a ton of sense.
The thing that may be moronic about it is assuming that someone who is about to sacrifice their life in an attack would actually care about being fined $10K. I guess the only way that really makes any sense is that the threat of a $10K fine will drastically cut down on the number of non-terrorists walking out in the middle of a screening, so anyone that actually does so is much more suspicious.
Meanwhile, the CD box set is selling for $130 on amazon (and I thought I read recently someone was offering it for around $100). I thought downloads were supposed to be cheaper than the physical CDs.
They didn't remove the unison bonus, they expanded it to apply in solo play as well.
Really? I must be missing something. I haven't played the game extensively yet, but I have played about 5 or 6 solo songs, and maybe 15 or so song with 2 players and I don't remember ever seeing a unison bonus.
Says the guy with a slashdot account with ABSOLUTELY NOT HISTORY outside of this thread, probably just now created for the sole purpose of trolling this thread (and here I am feeding you).
Really? I am? The phrase "bug your phone line" certainly uses "bug" as a verb, but are you saying that in the phrase "plant a bug in your office", the word "bug" is also a verb?
"tracking pixel" is a term that already has a commonly understood meaning (and has for OVER A DECADE)
Excellent. And so has the term "web bug" been used for OVER A DECADE.
And that's not even the earliest usage of the word, but simply the oldest and most authoritative usage of the word I could find on the the first page of results from a google search for "web bug".
You are revealing WAY too much about your own intellect with your angry, uncontrolled ranting.
calling a software feature a "bug"
You seemed to have completely missed what is being discussed here, despite the extensive discussion over that exact subject. This isn't "bug" as in "software error". This is "bug" as in the following:
I don't really care how long you've been doing web development. Perhaps you haven't been paying enough attention. Perhaps you've been too wrapped up in the developer terminology that your not so familiar with what the ordinary user typically calls it. I've been doing development just as long as you and I've heard the term countless times. "Tracking pixel" is not a word that non-developers typically use. Just with a really quick google search, here's a result from 1999 http://w2.eff.org/Privacy/Marketing/web_bug.html
And your complaint about his usage...verb vs noun, "bug" is a dual purpose word where the verb form is the action of applying the noun form. Much like label. I label a jar with a label. I also bug your phone with a bug. Are you seriously unfamiliar with the term "bug" used in the noun form related to eavesdropping? It's not really new. Oxford English Dictionary has documented this usage going back to 1946.
We could have bought the whole company for less than $1 billion. But instead we paid over $40 billion for a 60% stake.
Giving them $1 billion would not have solved their problem. They required a lot more than that. The choices were to either make a very unusual investment in the company, or to just let them close up shop. The latter wasn't really an option, considering how many people they employed and the effect that would have compounding on top of the rest of the countries economic problem, so it was believed making that unusual investment was the best option. Could they have demanded 100% of the stock? Sure, but considering the amount of crap the Obama administration already gets for the over-generous loan, imagine how terrible the blowback would be if we did an outright 100% purchase. It was really a no-win situation for Obama. Do nothing and catch shit for disaster. Do the loan and catch shit for "handouts". Buy it outright and catch shit about government owned industry and socialism. And in the end, they simultaneously catch shit about all 3 anyway. There was nothing he could do without a shitstorm coming his way, so he ignored the inevitable shit and did what he felt was best for the long-term health of the country. I don't want to debate whether he made the right decision, because I honestly doubt anybody here on slashdot is qualified enough to make that judgment.
First, just because I don't worship Obama as you do does not mean I'm trolling. But you, like so many others think that someone disagreeing with you equals trolling.
No, you aren't trolling because you disagree with me or don't like him. You are trolling when you start busting out your "Messiah" crap.
I don't have time to respond to all your crap, so I'll focus on the last one (since I've already bothered to explore that one in detail for you). So first, basically it sounds like what you are saying is "it's not really important that you tried to lie...what's more important is that when asked about it, you admit it". Sorry, but I don't agree with that at all. But even more important, in the example I cited, the White House did NOT come clean about what it was doing. They were merely fixing up inconsistencies in testimony, as if they knew better than the scientists: http://abcnews.go.com/WN/story?id=3772102&page=1
I'm sorry, but that sort of response is worse than the current one in question. Assuming both incident were maliciously done, the Obama response is "we didn't mean to do it" whereas the bush response is "oh, we meant it because we know the science better than the scientist, so we know what they MEANT to say".
Slashdot Mirror
While exposure to the intended dose of radiation for a scan may be safe (even that is debatable), the scanning process is software controlled. Imagine if the software crashes in the middle of a scan, or the scanner mechanism sticks.
If I'm understanding you correctly, I think you are getting at the possibility for the scanner to inadvertently deliver a non-safe dose of radiation. If so, yes there is some validity to your concern. I remember hearing a while back that it was discovered some CAT scanners had a software error that was causing it to miscalculate the radiation dosage, and that tons of people had been exposed to much higher levels of radiation than they were supposed to. I have to believe that CAT scanners are held to a much higher standard of safety than these backscatter machines, so if it can happen to CAT scanners than it is very believable that the same could happen to backscatter machines.
They also have some new material to work with, what with that Hotel cum Death Ray story from a few months back.
Thank you. That's exactly the example I was trying to remember.
Perhaps the "science" that is being taught is that, despite the fact that your research has reached the same conclusion on 2 separate occasions, you need to keep yourself open to the possibility that you might just have been wrong twice. When other people provide evidence you are wrong (I don't recall where it was, but I saw a tv show or webpage in the last few months that demonstrated the death ray does work), you need to examine that evidence, revisit your study, and see if you reach a new conclusion. That's a quality that a lot of people lack these days (they will insist they are correct even when showing them clear and concise evidence they are wrong).
I forgot to post the link with info about caps:
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/Content/PDF/state_unemp_rate.pdf
Those who would defend it would probably say something about how they paid into it, so it's their money.
Though it varies by state, in general that would be wrong. All states have a cap on the amount of wages that are subject to unemployment tax, and 70% of the states have the cap so low that someone working full time at minimum wage has already exceeded the cap (and a number of states have a limit low enough that a half-time minimum wage earner would exceed it).
So, in the majority of cases, just about everyone that collects unemployment has probably paid in the same amount.
In the US, unemployment benefits are based on what you used to earn??? What the Hell is the rationale for that?
I think the rationale is that unemployment should (within reason) not be a life altering event. We don't want poor people to make more on unemployment than they would in a job, because we want an incentive for them to get off of it as soon as possible. At the same time, we don't want somebody who makes more and has bought an expensive house to be forced to sell their house because of a temporary situation***. Unemployment should not be a life altering situation...it should be a temporary inconvenience.
***If your answer here is "well they should have an emergency fund for that", then 1) I agree, but 2) that opens a whole different can of worms. It's unfortunate, but a number of things will penalize you for being responsible and having one vs the people who are irresponsible and blow their entire paycheck and thus look broke.
Not true. If a verdict (guilty or not guilty) has not been reached, there is no double jeopardy invoked. It doesn't even matter if (as someone else has suggested) the jury has been seated. In fact, you can go through the entire legal process and at the end, if you wind up with a hung jury then the case can still be retried without it being double jeopardy. You can even be tried by a state prosecutor, found not guilty, and then be tried by a federal prosecutor without it being double jeopardy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_jeopardy#United_States
Double jeopardy also does not apply if the defendant was never tried from the start. Charges that were dropped or put on hold for any reason can always be reinstated in the future if not barred by any statute of limitations.
http://www.lectlaw.com/def/d075.htm
'[T]he Double Jeopardy Clause protects against three distinct abuses: [1] a second prosecution for the same offense after acquittal; [2] a second prosecution for the same offense after conviction; and [3] multiple punishments for the same offense.' U.S. v. Halper, 490 U.S. 435, 440 (1989).
And as someone pointed out in yesterdays thread, the prosecutor may simply be dropping the charges simply to attempt to refile them in a different venue with a more favorable judge.
Privatize the profits; socialize the losses.
Uhhhhh, you do understand how LOANS works, don't you?
Please tell me you are kidding, right? We aren't just talking about a bulk discount. We are talking about a battery that, as far as I know, is made specifically for this vehicle (as there aren't any off-the-shelf batteries for this capacity, operating conditions, etc). That means there is a huge overhead specifically for these 10,000 batteries.
First of all, exaggerate much? Where was this "few weeks" of "rampant speculation"? The first I knew of this was NASA announcing 3 days ago that there would be a conference:
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/nov/HQ_M10-167_Astrobiology.html
Besides that, come on....here is this young scientist at the very start of her career (she received her PhD in 2006) and she makes what is (in the scientific community) a pretty earth shattering discovery. Did you watch the video on NASA? I did...this lady is full of excitement, giddy at her discovery. This is A HUGE DEAL for her. This is going to affect her entire career. Let her enjoy her big moment here with a press conference.
Finally, one last personal nitpick. What the hell does "wiki" have to do with anything? I think he threw that term in there to gain additional trust and ride the coattails of Wikipedia. There is nothing "wiki" about wikileaks in any way whatsoever.
When I think of "wiki" I think of the idea of user contributed knowledge, and that's what wikileaks is all about. The users are everyday people from industries and governments all over the world. They contribute the special knowledge they have about their industry/government.
There has never been even one single case of a terrorist boarding any train in the United States with the intent to cause it harm. There has never even been intelligence suggesting that this is a credible threat.
To me, that's the key item. There are countless ways that terrorist can cause lots of damage and death in places where security is currently minimal or nonexistent, yet for some odd reason that doesn't happen much. Despite the fact we keep beefing up airport security, they continue to attack this one target instead of all the other easier targets. We know that these days a terrorist is not going to be able to take control of a plane, so that can't be a reason. So why do they continue to attack planes? The only conclusion I can come up with is that they want to do it so they can say "put all the security in place you want...you are still powerless to stop me". I fear that adding such security to trains would only make them a more attractive target to terrorists. Right now they don't bother because it's too easy, but once you say "haha...you'll NEVER get past our train security now" you've laid down the challenge and they are going to have to take you up on it.
I disagree.
As far as Move goes, I don't see that as out-innovating the Wii. From my point of view, the PS3 is several years more advanced than the Wii (in both the base hardware and the motion control hardware), they've had years more of research to benefit from (both their own research and what others in the industry and academia have researched and demonstrated), they have the benefit several years of sitting back and learning from the Wii's mistakes and shortcomings, and with all of that benefit they've managed to brute force a solutions that is only slightly more capable than the Wii, and looks stupid and inelegant in the process.
As far as Kinect goes, I have a lot of respect for what they've done there. Rather than just tracking the position of some sex-toy-looking orbs, it actually analyzes the scene to extract skeletal structure information from the players movement. It's quite technologically advanced. Very impressive in the way it operates and the capabilities it provides. Yet the one thing that REALLY bugs me about it is that it is a purely controller-less design. Being able to play controller-less is pretty cool, but a lot of games will suffer or be impractical without buttons to press. Using an existing controller 2-handed kind of defeats the purpose of Kinect's advanced capabilities, the existing 360 controllers aren't conducive to single-hand use, and releasing a future add-on-controller-for-the-add-on-kinect is just completely out of the question.
So no, I don't really feel that the Wii has been out-innovated much. Move is pretty pathetic and uninspired considering how much later it came than the Wii, and Kinect is really impressive and innovative in ways but has a fatal flaw. I think it will take until the next generation before someone truly outdoes the Wii (when they can combine the Kinect's sensor technology with the Wii/Move controller system)
I see no reason why explanation number one is more likely than explanation number two.
I do. Given the nature of the changes that were used to uncover this, to me (as a programmer) it seems very unlikely that such over-optimization could happen in such a way that it would degrade so severely with those changes. Here is what was changed (look at the 2 diff files linked near the bottom of the article):
1) A "true;" statement was added into the code. It was not an assignment or a function call, or anything complex. Just a simple true statement. Depending on the level of optimization by the interpreter/compiler, this should turn into a noop at best, or simply loading a constant into a register or memory location (and then doing nothing more with it) at worst..
2) A "return" added at the end of a function, instead of using the implicit return. This also should have minimal impact. In the best case, the code generated should be identical to the return code already generated by the implicit return. In the worst case, the compiler might be sloppy and generate 2 return instructions (one for the explicit return, and another unreachable instruction for the implicit return).
So from my experience, it seems EXTREMELY unlikely that this could have happened by accident just through optimization. I'm not going to go so far as to say it CAN'T happen, because I know from experience that things can get really complex and things not so obvious can happen (like cache issues as mentioned in the article). However, in all likelihood, I suspect this is going to be just like when video card drivers detect the filename of the executable and optimize specifically for that (I think it was quake3.exe that we saw that happen with before).
What used to be "additional screening" a few years ago is now applied to all passengers - we're all getting a pat-down or backscatter scan now.
Yeah, but the fine isn't exactly a new policy enacted since that change. And there are still ways that aborting the search could be useful. Just because you couldn't think of them doesn't mean they don't exist. Here's one off the top of my head. Don't give me crap if you think it's far fetched or something, because it merely an example. Fat terrorist hides something in between fat rolls, thinking a simple pat down won't detect it. The TSA agent gets a little more intrusive and probes his finger between fat rolls. Terrorist says "this is ridiculous" and walks away before the agent actually discovers the concealed item.
The moronic thing is thinking that someone who is going to set off a bomb to kill hundreds in an airplane would not set off a bomb to kill hundreds in a crowded security area.
Actually, I don't think it's quite moronic. You are absolutely right, there are tons of ways to kill lots of people. Airport security, crowded mall, concerts, various political rallies, etc. The fact that it hasn't happened at one of those tells me that the terrorists must not be interested in simply killing a bunch of people, because if they wanted to they could have done it 100 times over, but instead we catch them trying to infiltrate planes over and over. I suspect it's that they want to make a bigger psychological impact. Like the computer hacker mentality...the tougher you make the challenge, the more determined I am to hack it to show you how much better I am then you.
The moronic justification is that ebil terists would get in line to gather intel, and then leave the line. Apparently it never occurred to the TSA that the ebil terists could go completely through the screening, and then pass on the intel.
Wrong. The justification is that terrorists attempting to breach security could carry out their attempt up just before the point of detection, then say "you know what...never mind, I don't want to subject myself to this", then leave without detection and have a chance to try again until one of them makes it through successfully. That's a useful strategy for defeating the random inspections, where people are randomly chosen for additional screening. So from this point of view, the justification isn't the slightest bit moronic. It makes a ton of sense.
The thing that may be moronic about it is assuming that someone who is about to sacrifice their life in an attack would actually care about being fined $10K. I guess the only way that really makes any sense is that the threat of a $10K fine will drastically cut down on the number of non-terrorists walking out in the middle of a screening, so anyone that actually does so is much more suspicious.
Meanwhile, the CD box set is selling for $130 on amazon (and I thought I read recently someone was offering it for around $100). I thought downloads were supposed to be cheaper than the physical CDs.
They didn't remove the unison bonus, they expanded it to apply in solo play as well.
Really? I must be missing something. I haven't played the game extensively yet, but I have played about 5 or 6 solo songs, and maybe 15 or so song with 2 players and I don't remember ever seeing a unison bonus.
anonymity is a tool only of the coward.
why do you cower? what are you afraid of?
Says the guy with a slashdot account with ABSOLUTELY NOT HISTORY outside of this thread, probably just now created for the sole purpose of trolling this thread (and here I am feeding you).
you are using "bug" as a verb.
Really? I am? The phrase "bug your phone line" certainly uses "bug" as a verb, but are you saying that in the phrase "plant a bug in your office", the word "bug" is also a verb?
"tracking pixel" is a term that already has a commonly understood meaning (and has for OVER A DECADE)
Excellent. And so has the term "web bug" been used for OVER A DECADE.
November 11, 1999 - http://w2.eff.org/Privacy/Marketing/web_bug.html
And that's not even the earliest usage of the word, but simply the oldest and most authoritative usage of the word I could find on the the first page of results from a google search for "web bug".
You are revealing WAY too much about your own intellect with your angry, uncontrolled ranting.
calling a software feature a "bug"
You seemed to have completely missed what is being discussed here, despite the extensive discussion over that exact subject. This isn't "bug" as in "software error". This is "bug" as in the following:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bug
"a concealed listening device"
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bug
"a hidden microphone or other electronic eavesdropping device."
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/bug_4
"a very small device fixed on to a telephone or hidden in a room, that allows you to listen to what people are saying without them knowing"
a "web bug" is merely the web based version of an eavesdropping device.
So yes, the conversation is indeed ENTIRELY about only ONE form of the word....the form I just documented.
I don't really care how long you've been doing web development. Perhaps you haven't been paying enough attention. Perhaps you've been too wrapped up in the developer terminology that your not so familiar with what the ordinary user typically calls it. I've been doing development just as long as you and I've heard the term countless times. "Tracking pixel" is not a word that non-developers typically use. Just with a really quick google search, here's a result from 1999
http://w2.eff.org/Privacy/Marketing/web_bug.html
And your complaint about his usage...verb vs noun, "bug" is a dual purpose word where the verb form is the action of applying the noun form. Much like label. I label a jar with a label. I also bug your phone with a bug. Are you seriously unfamiliar with the term "bug" used in the noun form related to eavesdropping? It's not really new. Oxford English Dictionary has documented this usage going back to 1946.
We could have bought the whole company for less than $1 billion. But instead we paid over $40 billion for a 60% stake.
Giving them $1 billion would not have solved their problem. They required a lot more than that. The choices were to either make a very unusual investment in the company, or to just let them close up shop. The latter wasn't really an option, considering how many people they employed and the effect that would have compounding on top of the rest of the countries economic problem, so it was believed making that unusual investment was the best option. Could they have demanded 100% of the stock? Sure, but considering the amount of crap the Obama administration already gets for the over-generous loan, imagine how terrible the blowback would be if we did an outright 100% purchase. It was really a no-win situation for Obama. Do nothing and catch shit for disaster. Do the loan and catch shit for "handouts". Buy it outright and catch shit about government owned industry and socialism. And in the end, they simultaneously catch shit about all 3 anyway. There was nothing he could do without a shitstorm coming his way, so he ignored the inevitable shit and did what he felt was best for the long-term health of the country. I don't want to debate whether he made the right decision, because I honestly doubt anybody here on slashdot is qualified enough to make that judgment.
First, just because I don't worship Obama as you do does not mean I'm trolling. But you, like so many others think that someone disagreeing with you equals trolling.
No, you aren't trolling because you disagree with me or don't like him. You are trolling when you start busting out your "Messiah" crap.
I don't have time to respond to all your crap, so I'll focus on the last one (since I've already bothered to explore that one in detail for you). So first, basically it sounds like what you are saying is "it's not really important that you tried to lie...what's more important is that when asked about it, you admit it". Sorry, but I don't agree with that at all. But even more important, in the example I cited, the White House did NOT come clean about what it was doing. They were merely fixing up inconsistencies in testimony, as if they knew better than the scientists:
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/story?id=3772102&page=1
I'm sorry, but that sort of response is worse than the current one in question. Assuming both incident were maliciously done, the Obama response is "we didn't mean to do it" whereas the bush response is "oh, we meant it because we know the science better than the scientist, so we know what they MEANT to say".