Well, we're all free to do that. Any one of us can chose to only accept e-mail that is pgp signed, or comes from an approved list of senders, or contains the phrase "this mail is not spam" in the header.
That's the beauty of the internet. We can all do it the way we want. I am afraid of what will happen when some people start imposing their ideas of how things should work on the system.
Often what starts as common sense restrictions becomes a straightjacket.
I'm not even thinking that the parabola has to go through the center of the earth - I don't think that would be necessary... as long as the line containing the center of the earth and the vertex were perpendicular to the line containing the two end points.
I'm not sure why I feel like a parabola would be necessary, or why it would help. Would it go faster? Or faster with less energy?
Hmmm. I don't have the aparatus to try this, but maybe someone has. Suppose you have to end points, say up on two different tabletops. You then have tracks different tracks that connect the tables, but some go lower than others. While naturally, these tracks would be caternaries, one could probably force them into parabolic shapes (would it matter?). Now suppose I let the Hotwheels(tm) go at one table. Would they both arrive at the other table at the same time?
Here's a question, though. Could someone design parabolic shaped tunnels between destinations for transportation?
Suppose one built a tunnel between New York and Los Angeles that is parabolic. Then, design it with some kind maglev system to reduce friction. Could you then send specially designed cars through these tunnels with a minimum of energy expended?
Maybe you could impart the the car with enough velocity at the beginning so it comes to a gentle stop at the end.
Has someone already done this in Science Fiction? Has anyone ever tried it in reality?
Mrs. Sarah Faulder of the MPA should be aware that on many occasions, I've remembered a fragment of the lyrics of a song I liked. I didn't know the title, the artist or any other information. I was then able to search lyric sites with the fragment I had to determine the song.
Several times, that has been followed by purchasing the CD.
If the MPA is going to force me to pay to search lyrics, they can f*ck off, and I'll be relagated to humming the fragments that I know... never buying the CDs after I figure out who they are by.
Hmmm... flogging... what a great way to let off some of that sys admin steam! I can see the schedule now: Lost Password.... 10 Lashes File Reocovery... 20 Lashes Virus Removal.... 100 Lashes
As for the printing, there is a fixed lab fee. Our philosophy on that was that it was to cover costs such as new computers, admin salaries, printing costs, etc.
For individual pages, we did not charge, but we did keep track. As I said, if you go over 1000 pages, we cut you off. If you could justify it we'd raise that limit. Or, you could bring in a box of paper as "tribute".
We had one guy who brought in a box of paper at the beginning of each term!
This worked well. A lot of people print stuff and just leave it. Putting some kind of limit on it prevents that, and since students were already paying a lab fee, it doesn't seem right to charge them per-print.
One thing we did in a lab was publish a "hogs" list. We would rank each person's use and print out the list of the top users. Once someone exceeded 1000 pages, they could no longer print.
We found there were usually only a few students who printed the most. Hogs slowed them down quite a bit.
Maybe one could set up a bell, flashing light, and loudspeaker for each printer. When someone prints, the bell would sound, the light would flash, and the speaker would declare "Joe Smith is now printing 150 pages. The file name is Kama_Sutra.doc"
I realize one case is only anecdotal, but here's one.
My dad was living in Salt Lake and I was in Portland, OR. He needed to send something quick, so he used the $3.00 "priority", and also sent a regular letter that wasn't urgent.
I got the regular letter the next day. The "priority" envelope didn't arrive for 5 days. Of course, the USPS doesn't guarantee "priority", and only suggests that it might get there within two days.
But, I find it ridiculous that the $0.34 letter arrived so much faster than the priority letter, especially when they were sent the same day, at the same post office, using the same technician.
4. avoid the acquisition of products that do not comply with open standards for interoperability or data storage;
I agree with you that this is one of the most important aspects of this bill. I like open source, but I think ALL software used by the government should store its data in an open and published format.
Democracy requires free information. I detest the idea that information created and stored using a certain piece of software might not be accessible at a future date.
When I took the GMAT (to get in to an MBA program), there were essays. Each was graded by 4 professors. They discarded the score that was most different and took the average of the remainder.
Poor profs - the ones who grade these are no doubt the untenured saps who have to scrap for every bit of money.
But, at least with the GMAT, it WAS on a computer - no spellcheck, of course.
I just took the Foreign Service Exam to get into the State Department. Damn thing was with pen on paper. I pitty the fool that has to try to read mine... then again, they already have their nifty job in the diplomatic corps... and I probably won't!
Sign up for a class or two as a non-matriculating student. Doing well in those will count more than your SAT score.
Or take some classes at a community college (often, for lower division, the level of instruction is better - IMHO.. you have a "real" professor, rather than a student teacher), then transfer in. The standards and requirements are often different than for incoming freshmen.
Ultimately, though, go talk to the admission counselors at the school you want to attend. They'll be able to give you the most thorough answers.
Plus, by just taking a couple classes, you'll know pretty quickly if it's something you want to do - without investing much in tests and application fees.
I don't think I'd ever want to be associated with an organization that would look at me, then say "well sure you have a masters degree, you only got a 200 on the SAT. I'm sorry, we can't hire you/give you a security clearance/let you ride in our airplane/marry our daughter."
Actually this might be a good sanity filter! Where do I sign up?
I fully realize that I'm fighting a long-since lost battle, but it's one of the perversions of the languange that I'm unwilling to accept.
Please don't take this way off-topic message as a personal affront, as it's not meant as one.
My impression is that english is a living, growing language. At what point in time, then, do you say something is English or not? 1600? 1900? For example, the "plane" you referred to earlier was first used to describe a vehicle of flight in 1908.
And of course there is the "problem" of deciding what gets "accepted" as proper language. I'm not sure a democratic method is necessarily best. For example, "have got" as in "I have got three cars." seems to be acceptable now because of its common use. That makes me cringe every time I hear it!
Going back to "plane", you can in fact plane something. That is to make it flat, as in a carpenter planing a piece of wood. The wings of the first airplanes were flat, which gave the craft its name. This noun for the word is surely newer than the verb.
Webster's dictionary says it is both a noun and verb:
access
n 1: the right to enter [syn: entree, admittance] 2: the right to obtain or make use of or take advantage of something (as services or membership) 3: a way of entering or leaving; "he took a wrong turn on the access to the bridge" [syn: approach] 4: (computer science) the operation of reading or writing stored information [syn: memory access] 5: the act of approaching or entering; "he gained access to the builidng" v 1: obtain or retrieve from a storage device; as of information on a computer 2: reach or gain access to [syn: get at]
A representative claim of SBC's '574 patent, independent Claim 7, recites a method for navigating a document having multiple sections. The claimed method comprises the steps of:
(a) displaying a document with a browser comprising a user interface; (b) automatically displaying a plurality of selectors in the user interface of the browser and not in the document, the plurality of selectors automatically configured to correspond to respective sections of the document regardless of what section of the document is being displayed; (c) receiving a selection of one of the plurality of selectors; and (d) displaying a section of the document that corresponds to the selector selected in (c).
SBC might THINK this means frames, but it sounds to me that there are codes in the document that change the user interface of the browser itself. For example, the page you've loaded changes the "back" and "forward" buttons, or adds new ones to the browser.
I'm sorry, but if you simply have a frame with navigation buttons, this is still a document, and not an inherent part of the browser.
The Table of Contents of a book is not a seperate document from the book, even though it is different in appearance. In fact, you can hold your finger there and then browse through the book, using the TOC as a reference. But, the TOC is still a part of the document and is not seperate from it.
What happens if you don't set up the navigation using "frames", but instead just duplicate the navigation section on each page? On a fast enough load, you couldn't tell the difference.
I wonder how long it will be before we start "leasing" our printer cartridges and have to click through a license agreement to get the printer to work?
The last 2 times I flew (in the US), I was told to make sure my bag was unlocked. I heard several calls on the intercom telling people to report back to the ticket counter to unlock their bags.
This is so the TSA can open your bags and inspect them.
The more they make flying a hassle, the less people will fly. No wonder many of the airlines are in trouble.
But, if wifi stuff (or computers, or CD players, etc) is so dangerous, and they're not scanning, that must make for an easy way for someone to crash a plane.
It's the same situation as hardening the cockpit doors to keep people out out of the cockpit. A plane is much safer by hardening that door than it is by taking away people's fingernail clippers. Anything can be used as a weapon.
So, if planes are so vulnerable to RF signals, then maybe they need to rethink their navigation strategies. If they're not so vulnerable, then they need to lay off and let people use their computers, cellphones, and PDAs.
When trying to find a cable connected to a particular computer, I usually just log into computer that's at the top of the tree of switches and flood ping the computer I want to find. Follow the blinking lights on the switches and look for red.
If you can log into the computer you want to find, flood-ping from it to the original computer, just to really saturate that path. You'll find it!
If you brush your cat vigorously, the hair flies up everywhere and gets in your face. I hate that.
I put the fan on high, with the filter on the backside of the fan. Then I just park the cat behind the fan and brush like crazy. Plus, the hair kind of looks cool as it slowly lifts off the cat and then rushes into the fan.
I used to work in a university computer lab. A few years ago, the university required that we switch to recycled paper for the laser printers. When that happened, we found that our air conditioner's filters plugged up much more frequently with the dust, and had to be replaced every 4 months instead of once a year. My understanding is that the fibers in recycled paper are smaller than fibers of "virgin" paper. So, the paper sheds more of them while being processed.
Slashdot Mirror
Or if you're really married to using that comma:
"Data Mining for Product Pricing, Is It Illegal?"
Commas just don't get used enough. Maybe he just wants to get more even wear on his keyboard. I'm sur we can expect more tildes soon!
Well, we're all free to do that. Any one of us can chose to only accept e-mail that is pgp signed, or comes from an approved list of senders, or contains the phrase "this mail is not spam" in the header.
That's the beauty of the internet. We can all do it the way we want. I am afraid of what will happen when some people start imposing their ideas of how things should work on the system.
Often what starts as common sense restrictions becomes a straightjacket.
I'm not even thinking that the parabola has to go through the center of the earth - I don't think that would be necessary... as long as the line containing the center of the earth and the vertex were perpendicular to the line containing the two end points.
I'm not sure why I feel like a parabola would be necessary, or why it would help. Would it go faster? Or faster with less energy?
Hmmm. I don't have the aparatus to try this, but maybe someone has. Suppose you have to end points, say up on two different tabletops. You then have tracks different tracks that connect the tables, but some go lower than others. While naturally, these tracks would be caternaries, one could probably force them into parabolic shapes (would it matter?). Now suppose I let the Hotwheels(tm) go at one table. Would they both arrive at the other table at the same time?
Here's a question, though. Could someone design parabolic shaped tunnels between destinations for transportation?
Suppose one built a tunnel between New York and Los Angeles that is parabolic. Then, design it with some kind maglev system to reduce friction. Could you then send specially designed cars through these tunnels with a minimum of energy expended?
Maybe you could impart the the car with enough velocity at the beginning so it comes to a gentle stop at the end.
Has someone already done this in Science Fiction? Has anyone ever tried it in reality?
Mrs. Sarah Faulder of the MPA should be aware that on many occasions, I've remembered a fragment of the lyrics of a song I liked. I didn't know the title, the artist or any other information. I was then able to search lyric sites with the fragment I had to determine the song.
Several times, that has been followed by purchasing the CD.
If the MPA is going to force me to pay to search lyrics, they can f*ck off, and I'll be relagated to humming the fragments that I know... never buying the CDs after I figure out who they are by.
Hmmm... flogging... what a great way to let off some of that sys admin steam! I can see the schedule now:
Lost Password.... 10 Lashes
File Reocovery... 20 Lashes
Virus Removal.... 100 Lashes
As for the printing, there is a fixed lab fee. Our philosophy on that was that it was to cover costs such as new computers, admin salaries, printing costs, etc.
For individual pages, we did not charge, but we did keep track. As I said, if you go over 1000 pages, we cut you off. If you could justify it we'd raise that limit. Or, you could bring in a box of paper as "tribute".
We had one guy who brought in a box of paper at the beginning of each term!
This worked well. A lot of people print stuff and just leave it. Putting some kind of limit on it prevents that, and since students were already paying a lab fee, it doesn't seem right to charge them per-print.
It's not so much announcing the file names.
One thing we did in a lab was publish a "hogs" list. We would rank each person's use and print out the list of the top users. Once someone exceeded 1000 pages, they could no longer print.
We found there were usually only a few students who printed the most. Hogs slowed them down quite a bit.
Maybe one could set up a bell, flashing light, and loudspeaker for each printer. When someone prints, the bell would sound, the light would flash, and the speaker would declare "Joe Smith is now printing 150 pages. The file name is Kama_Sutra.doc"
There's nothing like peer pressure!
I realize one case is only anecdotal, but here's one.
My dad was living in Salt Lake and I was in Portland, OR. He needed to send something quick, so he used the $3.00 "priority", and also sent a regular letter that wasn't urgent.
I got the regular letter the next day. The "priority" envelope didn't arrive for 5 days. Of course, the USPS doesn't guarantee "priority", and only suggests that it might get there within two days.
But, I find it ridiculous that the $0.34 letter arrived so much faster than the priority letter, especially when they were sent the same day, at the same post office, using the same technician.
4. avoid the acquisition of products that do not comply with open standards for interoperability or data storage;
I agree with you that this is one of the most important aspects of this bill. I like open source, but I think ALL software used by the government should store its data in an open and published format.
Democracy requires free information. I detest the idea that information created and stored using a certain piece of software might not be accessible at a future date.
When I took the GMAT (to get in to an MBA program), there were essays. Each was graded by 4 professors. They discarded the score that was most different and took the average of the remainder.
Poor profs - the ones who grade these are no doubt the untenured saps who have to scrap for every bit of money.
But, at least with the GMAT, it WAS on a computer - no spellcheck, of course.
I just took the Foreign Service Exam to get into the State Department. Damn thing was with pen on paper. I pitty the fool that has to try to read mine... then again, they already have their nifty job in the diplomatic corps... and I probably won't!
Sign up for a class or two as a non-matriculating student. Doing well in those will count more than your SAT score.
Or take some classes at a community college (often, for lower division, the level of instruction is better - IMHO.. you have a "real" professor, rather than a student teacher), then transfer in. The standards and requirements are often different than for incoming freshmen.
Ultimately, though, go talk to the admission counselors at the school you want to attend. They'll be able to give you the most thorough answers.
Plus, by just taking a couple classes, you'll know pretty quickly if it's something you want to do - without investing much in tests and application fees.
I don't think I'd ever want to be associated with an organization that would look at me, then say "well sure you have a masters degree, you only got a 200 on the SAT. I'm sorry, we can't hire you/give you a security clearance/let you ride in our airplane/marry our daughter."
Actually this might be a good sanity filter! Where do I sign up?
I fully realize that I'm fighting a long-since lost battle, but it's one of the perversions of the languange that I'm unwilling to accept.
Please don't take this way off-topic message as a personal affront, as it's not meant as one.
My impression is that english is a living, growing language. At what point in time, then, do you say something is English or not? 1600? 1900? For example, the "plane" you referred to earlier was first used to describe a vehicle of flight in 1908.
And of course there is the "problem" of deciding what gets "accepted" as proper language. I'm not sure a democratic method is necessarily best. For example, "have got" as in "I have got three cars." seems to be acceptable now because of its common use. That makes me cringe every time I hear it!
Going back to "plane", you can in fact plane something. That is to make it flat, as in a carpenter planing a piece of wood. The wings of the first airplanes were flat, which gave the craft its name. This noun for the word is surely newer than the verb.
Webster's dictionary says it is both a noun and verb:
access
n 1: the right to enter [syn: entree, admittance] 2: the right to obtain or make use of or take advantage of something (as services or membership) 3: a way of entering or leaving; "he took a wrong turn on the access to the bridge" [syn: approach] 4: (computer science) the operation of reading or writing stored information [syn: memory access] 5: the act of approaching or entering; "he gained access to the builidng" v 1: obtain or retrieve from a storage device; as of information on a computer 2: reach or gain access to [syn: get at]
I knew it! Bill Gates hates cats, and this is the beginning of his scheme to eradicate them from the face of the earth.
Come on, Fluffy! We're switching to Linux!
I read the decription on King & Spalding:
A representative claim of SBC's '574 patent, independent Claim 7, recites a method for navigating a document having multiple sections. The claimed method comprises the steps of:
(a) displaying a document with a browser comprising a user interface;
(b) automatically displaying a plurality of selectors in the user interface of the browser and not in the document, the plurality of selectors automatically configured to correspond to respective sections of the document regardless of what section of the document is being displayed;
(c) receiving a selection of one of the plurality of selectors; and
(d) displaying a section of the document that corresponds to the selector selected in (c).
SBC might THINK this means frames, but it sounds to me that there are codes in the document that change the user interface of the browser itself. For example, the page you've loaded changes the "back" and "forward" buttons, or adds new ones to the browser.
I'm sorry, but if you simply have a frame with navigation buttons, this is still a document, and not an inherent part of the browser.
The Table of Contents of a book is not a seperate document from the book, even though it is different in appearance. In fact, you can hold your finger there and then browse through the book, using the TOC as a reference. But, the TOC is still a part of the document and is not seperate from it.
What happens if you don't set up the navigation using "frames", but instead just duplicate the navigation section on each page? On a fast enough load, you couldn't tell the difference.
I really hope these people get squished!
I don't know the exact language, but when you set a creative work in a tangible form, it is automatically endowed with copyright protection.
Suppose you think of a cool story or song. Having it in your head, it's not protected. But once you write it down, or record it, it is then protected.
I wonder how long it will be before we start "leasing" our printer cartridges and have to click through a license agreement to get the printer to work?
"This cartridge is the property of HP...."
Oh boy, I can't wait!
Thank you! I've met my quota of learning one new thing a day!
Michael Qunion, who runs World Wide Words, has an excellent explantion of "beg the question":
http://www.quinion.com/words/qa/qa-beg1.htm
The last 2 times I flew (in the US), I was told to make sure my bag was unlocked. I heard several calls on the intercom telling people to report back to the ticket counter to unlock their bags.
This is so the TSA can open your bags and inspect them.
The more they make flying a hassle, the less people will fly. No wonder many of the airlines are in trouble.
But, if wifi stuff (or computers, or CD players, etc) is so dangerous, and they're not scanning, that must make for an easy way for someone to crash a plane.
It's the same situation as hardening the cockpit doors to keep people out out of the cockpit. A plane is much safer by hardening that door than it is by taking away people's fingernail clippers. Anything can be used as a weapon.
So, if planes are so vulnerable to RF signals, then maybe they need to rethink their navigation strategies. If they're not so vulnerable, then they need to lay off and let people use their computers, cellphones, and PDAs.
When trying to find a cable connected to a particular computer, I usually just log into computer that's at the top of the tree of switches and flood ping the computer I want to find. Follow the blinking lights on the switches and look for red.
If you can log into the computer you want to find, flood-ping from it to the original computer, just to really saturate that path. You'll find it!
Funny! I do the same thing when brushing my cats.
If you brush your cat vigorously, the hair flies up everywhere and gets in your face. I hate that.
I put the fan on high, with the filter on the backside of the fan. Then I just park the cat behind the fan and brush like crazy. Plus, the hair kind of looks cool as it slowly lifts off the cat and then rushes into the fan.
Speaking of paper dust...
I used to work in a university computer lab. A few years ago, the university required that we switch to recycled paper for the laser printers. When that happened, we found that our air conditioner's filters plugged up much more frequently with the dust, and had to be replaced every 4 months instead of once a year. My understanding is that the fibers in recycled paper are smaller than fibers of "virgin" paper. So, the paper sheds more of them while being processed.
I don't even like to think about breathing it!