A number of people I know have a desktop computer, later bought a laptop, and from then on only use the desktop occasionally. The story seems completely plausible to me. Also, the article doesn't say that it was a boot drive. It could have been an external USB connected drive used for backups or something, and the computer would have functioned perfectly fine until someone tried to access it.
That's only if it goes that far. I'm not sure if they are still doing it, but before you could usually settle out of the matter for a few grand.
Also, I'm unclear on whether this sort of debt can be discharged in bankruptcy. I know restitution and fines in criminal cases often aren't dischargable, but I'm not clear on this since it's a civil matter.
Finally, if you decided to leave the country (for good), I wonder which would have more effect on you.
I know this was just a joke, but I should point out that the punishment from downloading is generally just a monetary fine in a civil lawsuit, where as the punishment of the physical theft carries a criminal conviction that goes on your record. The up front monetary fine may be smaller for the physical theft, but the criminal record aspect has a cost of its own.
True, it does make it easier to do now. However, it was always possible, just more work.
As usual, you take the good of progress with the bad. I've never considered watermarks to be a good way of protecting images. I watermark mine, but I usually want my name to be very visible, so when possible I try to put the watermark in the most solid colored corner. I know it's going to make it easier to clone out, but it's also easier to read. I take a lesson from the many complains of DRM. You can't stop the bad people, so don't focus on them....focus on your actual (or potential) customers. If someone is bent on stealing my image, I really can't stop them, so I try not to worry about it so much (and deal with it on a one-off basis after the fact if I find out). Instead, I'll concern myself more with making my watermark easier to read so people can more easily see who took the photo (provided someone doesn't remove the watermark, but again, nothing much I can do about it, so I don't worry).
Aside from that, your best mechanism of protection of your work (at least from my point of view as a part-time professional photographer) is to downsample what you post online. At least it gives me some sort of protection that dishonest people can't deal with. At least until this sort of smart fill is adapted in the next version or two of photoshop to become a smart resample (though that's got it's limits, because important details and textures may be lost in the downsample and not recoverable).
I hope this 3D fad is over soon. It's just another excuse to distract people with eye-candy instead of creating something more compelling.
With the type of 3D you see in the movies and stuff, I agree. However, if this is done in the way suggested in the video linked to by the article (where it uses the camera to detect your movement and simulate 3D) then I don't think it's entirely useless. How often do people playing a game tend to lean to the side to see around a corner. Yeah, we all have a good laugh about it now, but if you could actually make it work, that's would be great***. One of my complains about a lot of 3D games is that the camera control is awkward or could use tweaking. Being able to lean to make subtle adjustments to the camera could be invaluable. More natural than anything else, and you don't need to add an extra control stick or button combo to complicate, and it would more precise and quicker. Camera controls seem nearly impossible to get a good sensitivity, even with analog sticks. Either it's too jumpy when you try to make small movements, or it's too slow when you try to make a really quick change.
That said, it's just in my head that it would seem really good. How well the implementation pans out is yet to be determined.
***Whats funny is that first Nintendo was exploiting our tendency to move the game controller while playing, and now they are exploiting our tendency to move our head to change the view while playing. Are there any other common gamer quirks they can exploit next? Maybe screaming to intimidate an opponent while you attack (I hope not)? Flinching to dodge an attack or brace for impact?
What really bothers me about this is that this guy became a mob boss at 33. I really need to pick up the pace.
Pick up the pace? You still don't get it, and that's why you're still where you are at. You need to work smarter, not harder. Start by asking the important questions....like "who do I have to kill to get a promotion around here?" In the mob, that's not just a saying.
Health care insurance is for yourself and no one else.
Really? It seems to me that part of the cost I pay is probably related to the hospital needing to use paying customers to recoup their losses on those who don't pay.
It would be a good defensive item. If someone breaks into your house, hiding in an invisibility cloak would be the next best thing to getting out of the house.
It would be a hilarious prank item. Cover a sheet of plywood in an invisibility cloak and put it in front of an open doorway.
It might be useful for people who want to observe wildlife. Various sorts of camouflage work, but this may be more effective (I'm not sure if there are any animals that are very good at detecting people even in camouflage).
It's the Olympic version of "security theater" that we get at the airport. It doesn't accomplish anything but shut up the people who are saying "aren't you going to do something about it?"
Wrapping the posts in padding? That better be some good fucking padding if it's going to save a guy traveling 90MPH colliding with a solid object. I mean, come on....automobiles have airbags and a 4+ foot crumple zone at the front to decelerate the occupants, but even then they're pretty damn fatal in a 90MPH collision.
Oh god, not the "the poles shouldn't have been there" argument again. The guy was traveling at 90 MPH, for crying out loud. At that speed, his trajectory could have easily carried him 50 meters. If those poles weren't there he would have hit the whatever object was in the next 50 meters. And you are looking at a very specific case. The track wasn't designed with his specific accident in mind. If you want to say it was unsafe because he hit an object, then you better realize that at 90MPH, with the optimal launch angle an object can travel airborne for 250 meters before landing (and that's based on a flat surface...if it were launch from a higher portion of the track it could go even further). So do you want them to design a course with nothing to hit for 250 meters from any point on the course?
Face it...90MPH is just impossible to protect against worst case scenarios like this.
How could that possibly cause a system crash instead of just corrupted graphics?
There are chips on the card that handle its end of the bus communication, so if the ram is faulty it corrupts the chip's data. Then you could get anything from invalid data being sent back over the bus (which the driver may not be designed to handle, because it should NEVER happen) to errant signals being sent in a way that don't conform to the bus communication protocol.
It makes perfect sense if you use less minutes than any contract will offer you to pay a higher per minute rate to lower your overall bill, but very few people are in that situation.
Actually, everyone who doesn't choose the most expensive plan available falls into that. For instance, tmobile offers the following options under their Even More plans
unlimited for $60 1000 minutes for $50 = 5 cents a minute 500 minutes for $40 = 8 cents a minute
anyone who chooses the $40 or $50 plan over the $60 plan is making the same decision I've made...they've just chosen a different tier as their optimal tier. My tier is at the bottom...10 cents a minute vs 8 or 5 cents.
It really wasn't that difficult, though I admit he could have worded it better. Basically, what he was saying was the unsubsidized will save you $480 on the plan but cost you $350 more on the phone, which is a net savings of $130 by getting the unsubsidized (assuming you keep the plan for 2 years)
No, the point is that this article says the unsubsidized phone really only costs $49 spread over 2 years. However, in order to actually realize that $49 price, you need to voluntarily lock yourself into said plan for 2 years. Thus the "ETF" is essentially $480 prorated over 24 months (only you pay the "ETF" up front and get it slowly refunded back to you).
I have prepaid, I have excellent credit, and I do use my phone (though I suppose by a lot of people's standards it's barely using it). Over the course of 4 years, my highest monthly usage has been about 130 minutes and my lowest is about 25 minutes, so my monthly "bill" ranges from $2.50 to $13.00, with $4-6 being typical. My wife also has the same setup, and her typical usage is around $13-$15 a month. Our highest combined monthly usage over the 4 years was about $26/month total.
Juries do not need to research their "rights" while a trial is on, they should be concentrating on the evidence in court, and if there is a point of law or something, they should ask the judge.
One of the "rights" of a juror is that of jury nullification. Though it is quite controversial, the history of common law and most of US legal precedent suggests it exists. However, if you ask a judge about this they will explicitly tell you that it doesn't exist.
So what you're saying is we should obseverve some creature that travels faster than light and not blindly copy them?
No, but I suppose if we ever did observe one, it may not give us a lot of insight into how to accomplish it. The only thing it will help us in is at least knowing that SOMETHING can move faster than light.
In any case, the premise is wrong. 400 years ago Leonardo aa Vinci produced theoretical designs and 200 years ago George Cayley built a working prototype.
I'm not sure how the premise is wrong. There have always been people who believed flight was possible but the popular consensus was that it wasn't possible. Now the popular consensus is that faster-than-light travel isn't possible. Yet there are still people that believe it is. Some of those people have ideas about how it could be theoretically accomplished. Perhaps one of those people has already come up with the proper theory but it will be hundred or even thousands of years until we figure out the mechanics of how to implement it. I'm sure Da Vinci's ideas were considered crazy by a lot of people at the time.
Did you even click on the last link in the article...the link about New Jersey? The first sentence in that article:
New Jersey on Monday became the first state to enact "smart gun" legislation that would eventually require new handguns to contain a mechanism that allows only their owners to fire them.
Yes, and people said "maybe we can do that too" and created gigantic wings that they tried to flap but it couldn't generate even the tiniest bit of lift. Thus people concluded it wasn't possible...those creatures had bodies that were custom made for flight. Humans were much too heavy/dense, thus it had to be impossible.
Well, your teen-aged daughters must be the exception. According to studies, most Americans shower for 10 minutes or less with men being 5 minutes or less (http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/445121.html), and the average household size 2.6 people.
I'd say my estimates were pretty reasonable. If it doesn't fit you family...well congratulations, you now know what it's like to be a statistical outlier.
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A number of people I know have a desktop computer, later bought a laptop, and from then on only use the desktop occasionally. The story seems completely plausible to me. Also, the article doesn't say that it was a boot drive. It could have been an external USB connected drive used for backups or something, and the computer would have functioned perfectly fine until someone tried to access it.
That's only if it goes that far. I'm not sure if they are still doing it, but before you could usually settle out of the matter for a few grand.
Also, I'm unclear on whether this sort of debt can be discharged in bankruptcy. I know restitution and fines in criminal cases often aren't dischargable, but I'm not clear on this since it's a civil matter.
Finally, if you decided to leave the country (for good), I wonder which would have more effect on you.
Penile implants done by Dr. Stephen Hardeman.
Dick Chopp, Les Wang, and Dr Hardeman? This isn't a real clinic, right? Surely this is a joke.
Well, If it is, they took it took it pretty far, because google maps seems to think their office exists right where they say it does.
I know this was just a joke, but I should point out that the punishment from downloading is generally just a monetary fine in a civil lawsuit, where as the punishment of the physical theft carries a criminal conviction that goes on your record. The up front monetary fine may be smaller for the physical theft, but the criminal record aspect has a cost of its own.
Then don't download the update and keep running Linux.
And if it turns out that the update is required for certain games to work (as will almost surely be the case), what would you suggest then?
True, it does make it easier to do now. However, it was always possible, just more work.
As usual, you take the good of progress with the bad. I've never considered watermarks to be a good way of protecting images. I watermark mine, but I usually want my name to be very visible, so when possible I try to put the watermark in the most solid colored corner. I know it's going to make it easier to clone out, but it's also easier to read. I take a lesson from the many complains of DRM. You can't stop the bad people, so don't focus on them....focus on your actual (or potential) customers. If someone is bent on stealing my image, I really can't stop them, so I try not to worry about it so much (and deal with it on a one-off basis after the fact if I find out). Instead, I'll concern myself more with making my watermark easier to read so people can more easily see who took the photo (provided someone doesn't remove the watermark, but again, nothing much I can do about it, so I don't worry).
Aside from that, your best mechanism of protection of your work (at least from my point of view as a part-time professional photographer) is to downsample what you post online. At least it gives me some sort of protection that dishonest people can't deal with. At least until this sort of smart fill is adapted in the next version or two of photoshop to become a smart resample (though that's got it's limits, because important details and textures may be lost in the downsample and not recoverable).
I hope this 3D fad is over soon. It's just another excuse to distract people with eye-candy instead of creating something more compelling.
With the type of 3D you see in the movies and stuff, I agree. However, if this is done in the way suggested in the video linked to by the article (where it uses the camera to detect your movement and simulate 3D) then I don't think it's entirely useless. How often do people playing a game tend to lean to the side to see around a corner. Yeah, we all have a good laugh about it now, but if you could actually make it work, that's would be great***. One of my complains about a lot of 3D games is that the camera control is awkward or could use tweaking. Being able to lean to make subtle adjustments to the camera could be invaluable. More natural than anything else, and you don't need to add an extra control stick or button combo to complicate, and it would more precise and quicker. Camera controls seem nearly impossible to get a good sensitivity, even with analog sticks. Either it's too jumpy when you try to make small movements, or it's too slow when you try to make a really quick change.
That said, it's just in my head that it would seem really good. How well the implementation pans out is yet to be determined.
***Whats funny is that first Nintendo was exploiting our tendency to move the game controller while playing, and now they are exploiting our tendency to move our head to change the view while playing. Are there any other common gamer quirks they can exploit next? Maybe screaming to intimidate an opponent while you attack (I hope not)? Flinching to dodge an attack or brace for impact?
What really bothers me about this is that this guy became a mob boss at 33. I really need to pick up the pace.
Pick up the pace? You still don't get it, and that's why you're still where you are at. You need to work smarter, not harder. Start by asking the important questions....like "who do I have to kill to get a promotion around here?" In the mob, that's not just a saying.
Health care insurance is for yourself and no one else.
Really? It seems to me that part of the cost I pay is probably related to the hospital needing to use paying customers to recoup their losses on those who don't pay.
It would be a good defensive item. If someone breaks into your house, hiding in an invisibility cloak would be the next best thing to getting out of the house.
It would be a hilarious prank item. Cover a sheet of plywood in an invisibility cloak and put it in front of an open doorway.
It might be useful for people who want to observe wildlife. Various sorts of camouflage work, but this may be more effective (I'm not sure if there are any animals that are very good at detecting people even in camouflage).
Thanks to Legend of Zelda my basic math sucked for years.
I'm guessing you thought 255+5=255
Or we'd be discussing how 2 people died as 2 skulls cracked together at 90MPH, and how unsafe it was that the spectators were put at risk.
It's the Olympic version of "security theater" that we get at the airport. It doesn't accomplish anything but shut up the people who are saying "aren't you going to do something about it?"
Wrapping the posts in padding? That better be some good fucking padding if it's going to save a guy traveling 90MPH colliding with a solid object. I mean, come on....automobiles have airbags and a 4+ foot crumple zone at the front to decelerate the occupants, but even then they're pretty damn fatal in a 90MPH collision.
Oh god, not the "the poles shouldn't have been there" argument again. The guy was traveling at 90 MPH, for crying out loud. At that speed, his trajectory could have easily carried him 50 meters. If those poles weren't there he would have hit the whatever object was in the next 50 meters. And you are looking at a very specific case. The track wasn't designed with his specific accident in mind. If you want to say it was unsafe because he hit an object, then you better realize that at 90MPH, with the optimal launch angle an object can travel airborne for 250 meters before landing (and that's based on a flat surface...if it were launch from a higher portion of the track it could go even further). So do you want them to design a course with nothing to hit for 250 meters from any point on the course?
Face it...90MPH is just impossible to protect against worst case scenarios like this.
No doubt, some people would be like "If some guy WANTS to clock in and out for me and work my shifts, he can HAVE one of my fingers".
How could that possibly cause a system crash instead of just corrupted graphics?
There are chips on the card that handle its end of the bus communication, so if the ram is faulty it corrupts the chip's data. Then you could get anything from invalid data being sent back over the bus (which the driver may not be designed to handle, because it should NEVER happen) to errant signals being sent in a way that don't conform to the bus communication protocol.
It makes perfect sense if you use less minutes than any contract will offer you to pay a higher per minute rate to lower your overall bill, but very few people are in that situation.
Actually, everyone who doesn't choose the most expensive plan available falls into that. For instance, tmobile offers the following options under their Even More plans
unlimited for $60
1000 minutes for $50 = 5 cents a minute
500 minutes for $40 = 8 cents a minute
anyone who chooses the $40 or $50 plan over the $60 plan is making the same decision I've made...they've just chosen a different tier as their optimal tier. My tier is at the bottom...10 cents a minute vs 8 or 5 cents.
It really wasn't that difficult, though I admit he could have worded it better. Basically, what he was saying was the unsubsidized will save you $480 on the plan but cost you $350 more on the phone, which is a net savings of $130 by getting the unsubsidized (assuming you keep the plan for 2 years)
No, the point is that this article says the unsubsidized phone really only costs $49 spread over 2 years. However, in order to actually realize that $49 price, you need to voluntarily lock yourself into said plan for 2 years. Thus the "ETF" is essentially $480 prorated over 24 months (only you pay the "ETF" up front and get it slowly refunded back to you).
I have prepaid, I have excellent credit, and I do use my phone (though I suppose by a lot of people's standards it's barely using it). Over the course of 4 years, my highest monthly usage has been about 130 minutes and my lowest is about 25 minutes, so my monthly "bill" ranges from $2.50 to $13.00, with $4-6 being typical. My wife also has the same setup, and her typical usage is around $13-$15 a month. Our highest combined monthly usage over the 4 years was about $26/month total.
Juries do not need to research their "rights" while a trial is on, they should be concentrating on the evidence in court, and if there is a point of law or something, they should ask the judge.
One of the "rights" of a juror is that of jury nullification. Though it is quite controversial, the history of common law and most of US legal precedent suggests it exists. However, if you ask a judge about this they will explicitly tell you that it doesn't exist.
So what you're saying is we should obseverve some creature that travels faster than light and not blindly copy them?
No, but I suppose if we ever did observe one, it may not give us a lot of insight into how to accomplish it. The only thing it will help us in is at least knowing that SOMETHING can move faster than light.
In any case, the premise is wrong. 400 years ago Leonardo aa Vinci produced theoretical designs and 200 years ago George Cayley built a working prototype.
I'm not sure how the premise is wrong. There have always been people who believed flight was possible but the popular consensus was that it wasn't possible. Now the popular consensus is that faster-than-light travel isn't possible. Yet there are still people that believe it is. Some of those people have ideas about how it could be theoretically accomplished. Perhaps one of those people has already come up with the proper theory but it will be hundred or even thousands of years until we figure out the mechanics of how to implement it. I'm sure Da Vinci's ideas were considered crazy by a lot of people at the time.
Did you even click on the last link in the article...the link about New Jersey? The first sentence in that article:
New Jersey on Monday became the first state to enact "smart gun" legislation that would eventually require new handguns to contain a mechanism that allows only their owners to fire them.
Yes, and people said "maybe we can do that too" and created gigantic wings that they tried to flap but it couldn't generate even the tiniest bit of lift. Thus people concluded it wasn't possible...those creatures had bodies that were custom made for flight. Humans were much too heavy/dense, thus it had to be impossible.
Well, your teen-aged daughters must be the exception. According to studies, most Americans shower for 10 minutes or less with men being 5 minutes or less (http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/445121.html), and the average household size 2.6 people.
I'd say my estimates were pretty reasonable. If it doesn't fit you family...well congratulations, you now know what it's like to be a statistical outlier.