There's a whole host of genes that can make people better athletes, but we have to ask, where do we step in and drop the 'unfair advantage' bomb? That's the question I'm getting at.
Alright, so you have genes that allow your muscles to be more efficient. You have genes that allow you to store more energy for quick use. Then you have genes that cause your hormone levels to match that of a male. Since the event was specifically designed to make this event fair for women, why let someone that is that close to being male compete with the women?
The solution is to genetically test several different spots on their body to make sure it isn't a case of them being a male/female chimera, that is, having both cells that are XX and cells that are XY. Being a chimera would give them an advantage, though, not as much of an advantage as them being male.
This opens up a whole new can of worms, in terms of sporting events and genetic disorders. Do you let the kid with that genetic disorder that makes him super muscular compete in weightlifting competitions, knowing that he has an unfair genetic advantage to begin with? Would you let a person born with a mermaid tail instead of legs compete in swimming?
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out, as it could shape the future of competition in sporting events. Personally, I'd like to keep things fair. It's not fair to the other racers if she's female but has a genetic disorder that makes her much more male than the other racers. She's built like a man, looks like a man, runs like a man, and probably has the urge to urinate while standing up like a man. How is this fair in a competition built around females, knowing that males would have an unfair advantage against them?
Let them move to countries that rely more on rote memorization of facts, and little in the way of independent thinking. Let them move to countries where the employees could feed themselves for a year by stealing a few pieces of their product. Let them move to countries where the government could very well decide that the company isn't pious or nationalistic enough, and take over their assets.
America has many great and successful companies for a reason.
It's hard to put a dollar amount on how much money will be lost by them moving overseas, but I guarantee it'll be a net loss. I look forward to hearing some CEO's say, "Well, we had record profits this year, but no one can seem to actually find any of this money, and we can't even pay rent on some of our offices anymore!" Metrics aren't perfect, and no one with a marketing degree or above the level of middle management seems to know that.
You give us Americans too much credit to be able to see two steps into the future. America is the home of corporations that will sell off their assets at a 50% loss so they can say, "Hey! This quarter we're 200% over expectations!" so they can get a bunch of investors, and then disappear with the money.
America is the home of people that use check cashing services week after week so they don't have to miss a case of beer or a carton of cigarettes a single time to make ends meet.
No, let me explain how it works.
You charge Paul $20,000 to fix his broken leg, because he has no insurance. Well shit, Paul's an honest hard working guy. If he pays it, then he and his family has to eat peanut butter and bread for lunch/dinner for a few years. He isn't going to do that. But it will kill Paul and his wife's credit rating, so if they ever have to get another car (and they will), they'll be eating peanut butter and bread for lunch/dinner anyway, assuming they can even get one.
So Paul doesn't pay, like I said. Hospital posts a $20,000 loss because Paul wouldn't pay. Pretty soon, these costs add up. Hospital is, lets say, a few million in the hole. When they're ACTUALLY staying decently afloat, because it didn't cost them $20,000 for some x-rays, a cast, and a couple hours of time from a doctor. But anyway, the hospital closes or shuts down or remains understaffed or underequipped.
Now we're all paying so that Paul and his family can eat and seek medical help, because they have no car, and don't live in an area with endlessly generous friends or public transportation. You can bet your ass that even if we paid the massively-inflated $20,000, we'd come out ahead in the long run. Paul and his wife/family would easily make up for that amount in taxes. But no, we didn't. Instead we pay for Paul and his family and their medical care, probably for the rest of their lives.
So who's to blame here? The hospital, partially, for asking absolutely absurd and life-ruining rates for simple procedures. The insurance companies, partially, for making the hospitals pay such absurd rates for insurance. The government, partially, for letting the hospitals and insurance companies get away with this kind of pricing structure. We, the people, partially for wanting to save 10% of our salary from going to universal health care and instead paying 20% of our salary to social programs that happened as a result.
Why should they care? The owners got their money and bailed, since the various legal systems in the world were starting to remove blocks from under them like some kind of Jenga tower. They'll probably get to retire somewhere nice now, or they'll try again with a REAL business.
One PayPal and eBay got together, eBay was already on the way out the door. Everyone had already found out that there just MIGHT be someone out there willing to pay $50 for a $10 pair of speakers, and that it MIGHT be pretty trivial to scam people out of money for a living. 80% or more of eBay is totally worthless to most people due to this.
So now what you have now is a company that makes its money from transactions, and settling a dispute wastes more time than its worth. For every scammed item or payment, there's one side that's unhappy, and one side that's happy. For a net gain of 0%. One person stops using it, the other person continues using it. All they have to do is maintain a decent user base and they'll be around for a while.
Of course, like most companies, they aren't looking to the future at all. They aren't trying to change things to sustain their business.
Entering someone's property without being invited is trespassing.
Entering someone's house without being invited is usually breaking and entering.
Gaining access to the contents of something like a safe or a drawer would establish intent for theft, since that's pretty much the only reason you'd be entering a safe or drawer anyway, or at least, that's what the expensive lawyers would be paid to prove.
So you have trespassing, and breaking and entering in the least.
Now, this being a computer situation, I don't think trespassing is really an issue. You can't charge someone for looking at your login prompt, as it would be akin to them seeing your 'no trespassing' or 'keep out' sign. Effectively, you have no property that's not behind the door.
The breaking and entering charge could stick, since you were uninvited, but came right in anyway.
An even better, and car-related analogy, would be if someone left their car door unlocked but had a 'keep out' sign on it, but you entered it anyway. Regardless of whether or not you stunk the car up or stole anything, you'd certainly be charged with (most likely) breaking and entering.
I think he means he's tired of textbook companies charging more and more for the exact same book, simply because the students taking a course have no recourse other than to either pay up for the book or drop the class (in most cases). It's a horrible scam and if I wrote textbooks, I'd be looking for a way around it, as well.
Most likely what happened was what's known as arc flash.
Arc flash is when metal is vaporized due to difference in potential between two objects, like phase to phase, or phase to ground. It's very dangerous to us humans because we burn easily, and because the vaporized metal tends to fly outward in a shotgun pattern.
An electrical breakdown in a large transformer can cause this internally, and as the live power works its way from the inside out, it can vaporize holes in the transformer casing. So you have boiling oil, vaporized copper/steel/etc, and a lot of live electricity trying to get back to earth ground.
This is why electrical engineering is very important. All it takes to cause this is someone disconnecting or connecting a line under the wrong load, or with no load at all.
Technological solutions shouldn't be used to solve social problems.
Fear of cell phone radiation isn't a technological problem. It's a social one. Namely, unfamiliarity with basic science, and being quick to blame Big Corporations for every little sniffle and sneeze.
Oh, and the phone-use-during-class thing too, have the teacher confiscate the phones.
Hollywood accounting should be illegal. It exists only to fuck people out of money who may not be able to afford lawyers as expensive as the company doing the shady accounting. Calling this Hollywood accounting is like calling Michael Vick a dog trainer.
Meanwhile, across the sea in the United States, the 'Land of the Free,' various employees of various music/movie/video game agencies are taking notes. They're following this with a keen eye. If it works in Australia, why can't it work here?
Pretty soon, files such as Bellsouth Sucks.txt and Comcast Blows.rtf will be blocked in the US due to 'copyright infringement.'
Unmanned planes would be easier to do than unmanned cars.
We already have very good automation software for UAVs that can take off, survey, inspect, and land, mostly unassisted. If assistance is needed, such as to fire weapons, or in the event of an emergency or other engagement, it can be handled by remote by the operator. I'd expect these planes would be similar. Maybe hire some pilots and train them in unmanned systems, to handle emergencies. A human element in the system is about necessary, since it would be unreasonable to program in every possible scenario and outcome.
That being said, it'd be a lot cheaper to ditch an unmanned aircraft than it would be to ditch an airliner. Collision alarm going off due to a 747 heading towards the drone? Have the drone pull a 400G turn until there isn't a threat anymore. Worst case scenario, trigger an explosive to blow it out of the sky.
An unmanned aircraft can survive much higher stresses than manned aircraft, so you could essentially make the unmanned aircraft drop out of the sky rather than collide. Maybe it can pull a 300G turn to avoid the collision. It's sensor package and avionics would react much faster than those controlled by humans.
I don't know how many times I have to explain it, but your character on World of Warcraft is not a cartoon.
It's a character.
When people think 'toon' they think 'Looney Toons' like you're spending however many hours a week dropping anvils on people's heads and other cartoonish things. If you want to call it a toon, fine, but don't get emo or surprised when people who don't play make fun of you for doing so.
You know, they could have been found out much earlier if one of those employees had stopped to make a sanity check of what they were being asked to do.
Also blame employers. Most employers prefer the subordinate type that follows and asks questions later. Those employees are especially vulnerable to attacks like this. All you have to do is find one 'yes sir/no sir' type to 'change the fuses'.
Have you seen some of the laptops of yesteryear? Ten pounds? That's only small, compact, and light when compared to the old mainframes of the same era..
The reason for pain is to make you escape something.
Such as burning yourself on a stove, getting stabbed, bitten, stung, etc. You don't want these things to happen. Pain is strongly connected with negative in most minds. At least, most pain..
The reason for itching is to call your attention to something.
It's kind of the difference between a critical error and an error. One's a dire warning, and the other one is just an exclamation. It would be very fucking useful to distinguish between the two. One, so that you don't freak out every time you walk through some grasses that tickle your legs. Two, so you don't beat your bed-mate to death when they rub up against you. Three, so you don't let bugs chew on you or flip out every time one does.
I'll bet the 'itching' pathways have other uses as well. Perhaps the tickling response is there?
You can open up your device and check the sensors yourself, I'm sure there will be instructions.
And that by doing so, you'll void your warranty.
You could ask them to check and prove to you that they aren't already triggered when you buy it, but they're just going to pretend like you disappeared and look at the next frothing-at-the-mouth Apple fanboy that has cash in hand and doesn't care about the protection devices.
You're not going to be able to prove it without doing testing on them, and you probably can't get your hands on a supply of them to test.
Like most things, the spec was probably sent to China, the fee for so many units paid, and then the design was 'changed' to be cheaper, without letting the purchaser know. It's standard practice for companies to only test a few units, and usually only the units that are specifically given to them for testing.
Make of this what you will, but keep in mind that humidity can and does set off moisture detectors on a regular basis, and no positive outcome can come from someone who has a faulty sensor.
Between the time you come in and 'sign in' at the cell phone shop and when your name is called, you've got about 30 seconds to state your problem or desires before they lose interest and move on to the next person. If you say you're interested in the phone, they see a sale. If you want them to take the phone apart and void the warranty, they see multiple lost sales in the hour it will take the sales person to fumble their way around the inside of the phone.
So they'll just ignore you and move on, and let the horde of uninformed people buy their phones instead.
Slashdot Mirror
There's a whole host of genes that can make people better athletes, but we have to ask, where do we step in and drop the 'unfair advantage' bomb? That's the question I'm getting at.
Alright, so you have genes that allow your muscles to be more efficient. You have genes that allow you to store more energy for quick use. Then you have genes that cause your hormone levels to match that of a male. Since the event was specifically designed to make this event fair for women, why let someone that is that close to being male compete with the women?
The solution is to genetically test several different spots on their body to make sure it isn't a case of them being a male/female chimera, that is, having both cells that are XX and cells that are XY. Being a chimera would give them an advantage, though, not as much of an advantage as them being male.
This opens up a whole new can of worms, in terms of sporting events and genetic disorders. Do you let the kid with that genetic disorder that makes him super muscular compete in weightlifting competitions, knowing that he has an unfair genetic advantage to begin with? Would you let a person born with a mermaid tail instead of legs compete in swimming?
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out, as it could shape the future of competition in sporting events. Personally, I'd like to keep things fair. It's not fair to the other racers if she's female but has a genetic disorder that makes her much more male than the other racers. She's built like a man, looks like a man, runs like a man, and probably has the urge to urinate while standing up like a man. How is this fair in a competition built around females, knowing that males would have an unfair advantage against them?
Well, let them all move to India/China/etc, then.
Let them move to countries that rely more on rote memorization of facts, and little in the way of independent thinking. Let them move to countries where the employees could feed themselves for a year by stealing a few pieces of their product. Let them move to countries where the government could very well decide that the company isn't pious or nationalistic enough, and take over their assets.
America has many great and successful companies for a reason.
It's hard to put a dollar amount on how much money will be lost by them moving overseas, but I guarantee it'll be a net loss. I look forward to hearing some CEO's say, "Well, we had record profits this year, but no one can seem to actually find any of this money, and we can't even pay rent on some of our offices anymore!" Metrics aren't perfect, and no one with a marketing degree or above the level of middle management seems to know that.
You give us Americans too much credit to be able to see two steps into the future. America is the home of corporations that will sell off their assets at a 50% loss so they can say, "Hey! This quarter we're 200% over expectations!" so they can get a bunch of investors, and then disappear with the money.
America is the home of people that use check cashing services week after week so they don't have to miss a case of beer or a carton of cigarettes a single time to make ends meet.
No, let me explain how it works.
You charge Paul $20,000 to fix his broken leg, because he has no insurance. Well shit, Paul's an honest hard working guy. If he pays it, then he and his family has to eat peanut butter and bread for lunch/dinner for a few years. He isn't going to do that. But it will kill Paul and his wife's credit rating, so if they ever have to get another car (and they will), they'll be eating peanut butter and bread for lunch/dinner anyway, assuming they can even get one.
So Paul doesn't pay, like I said. Hospital posts a $20,000 loss because Paul wouldn't pay. Pretty soon, these costs add up. Hospital is, lets say, a few million in the hole. When they're ACTUALLY staying decently afloat, because it didn't cost them $20,000 for some x-rays, a cast, and a couple hours of time from a doctor. But anyway, the hospital closes or shuts down or remains understaffed or underequipped.
Now we're all paying so that Paul and his family can eat and seek medical help, because they have no car, and don't live in an area with endlessly generous friends or public transportation. You can bet your ass that even if we paid the massively-inflated $20,000, we'd come out ahead in the long run. Paul and his wife/family would easily make up for that amount in taxes. But no, we didn't. Instead we pay for Paul and his family and their medical care, probably for the rest of their lives.
So who's to blame here? The hospital, partially, for asking absolutely absurd and life-ruining rates for simple procedures. The insurance companies, partially, for making the hospitals pay such absurd rates for insurance. The government, partially, for letting the hospitals and insurance companies get away with this kind of pricing structure. We, the people, partially for wanting to save 10% of our salary from going to universal health care and instead paying 20% of our salary to social programs that happened as a result.
I think a class action lawsuit can only be brought about if the company knowingly sells a defective product or design and then refuses to fix them.
I think there was (or was going to be) a lawsuit about Microsoft sending refurb 360's that had already been banned from Live, though.
Why should they care? The owners got their money and bailed, since the various legal systems in the world were starting to remove blocks from under them like some kind of Jenga tower. They'll probably get to retire somewhere nice now, or they'll try again with a REAL business.
One PayPal and eBay got together, eBay was already on the way out the door. Everyone had already found out that there just MIGHT be someone out there willing to pay $50 for a $10 pair of speakers, and that it MIGHT be pretty trivial to scam people out of money for a living. 80% or more of eBay is totally worthless to most people due to this.
So now what you have now is a company that makes its money from transactions, and settling a dispute wastes more time than its worth. For every scammed item or payment, there's one side that's unhappy, and one side that's happy. For a net gain of 0%. One person stops using it, the other person continues using it. All they have to do is maintain a decent user base and they'll be around for a while.
Of course, like most companies, they aren't looking to the future at all. They aren't trying to change things to sustain their business.
Entering someone's property without being invited is trespassing.
Entering someone's house without being invited is usually breaking and entering.
Gaining access to the contents of something like a safe or a drawer would establish intent for theft, since that's pretty much the only reason you'd be entering a safe or drawer anyway, or at least, that's what the expensive lawyers would be paid to prove.
So you have trespassing, and breaking and entering in the least.
Now, this being a computer situation, I don't think trespassing is really an issue. You can't charge someone for looking at your login prompt, as it would be akin to them seeing your 'no trespassing' or 'keep out' sign. Effectively, you have no property that's not behind the door.
The breaking and entering charge could stick, since you were uninvited, but came right in anyway.
An even better, and car-related analogy, would be if someone left their car door unlocked but had a 'keep out' sign on it, but you entered it anyway. Regardless of whether or not you stunk the car up or stole anything, you'd certainly be charged with (most likely) breaking and entering.
I think he means he's tired of textbook companies charging more and more for the exact same book, simply because the students taking a course have no recourse other than to either pay up for the book or drop the class (in most cases). It's a horrible scam and if I wrote textbooks, I'd be looking for a way around it, as well.
Most likely what happened was what's known as arc flash.
Arc flash is when metal is vaporized due to difference in potential between two objects, like phase to phase, or phase to ground. It's very dangerous to us humans because we burn easily, and because the vaporized metal tends to fly outward in a shotgun pattern.
An electrical breakdown in a large transformer can cause this internally, and as the live power works its way from the inside out, it can vaporize holes in the transformer casing. So you have boiling oil, vaporized copper/steel/etc, and a lot of live electricity trying to get back to earth ground.
This is why electrical engineering is very important. All it takes to cause this is someone disconnecting or connecting a line under the wrong load, or with no load at all.
Technological solutions shouldn't be used to solve social problems.
Fear of cell phone radiation isn't a technological problem. It's a social one. Namely, unfamiliarity with basic science, and being quick to blame Big Corporations for every little sniffle and sneeze.
Oh, and the phone-use-during-class thing too, have the teacher confiscate the phones.
Hollywood accounting should be illegal. It exists only to fuck people out of money who may not be able to afford lawyers as expensive as the company doing the shady accounting. Calling this Hollywood accounting is like calling Michael Vick a dog trainer.
Why is Warhammer Online releasing an expansion? There's not enough players for the content that's out there, unless they merge to about five servers.
Sorry to shit on their parade, but every time I check server populations, it's low/low or medium/low. Haven't seen any highs, except in the beginning.
Meanwhile, across the sea in the United States, the 'Land of the Free,' various employees of various music/movie/video game agencies are taking notes. They're following this with a keen eye. If it works in Australia, why can't it work here?
Pretty soon, files such as Bellsouth Sucks.txt and Comcast Blows.rtf will be blocked in the US due to 'copyright infringement.'
Unmanned planes would be easier to do than unmanned cars.
We already have very good automation software for UAVs that can take off, survey, inspect, and land, mostly unassisted. If assistance is needed, such as to fire weapons, or in the event of an emergency or other engagement, it can be handled by remote by the operator. I'd expect these planes would be similar. Maybe hire some pilots and train them in unmanned systems, to handle emergencies. A human element in the system is about necessary, since it would be unreasonable to program in every possible scenario and outcome.
That being said, it'd be a lot cheaper to ditch an unmanned aircraft than it would be to ditch an airliner. Collision alarm going off due to a 747 heading towards the drone? Have the drone pull a 400G turn until there isn't a threat anymore. Worst case scenario, trigger an explosive to blow it out of the sky.
Actually, that's not too far from the truth.
An unmanned aircraft can survive much higher stresses than manned aircraft, so you could essentially make the unmanned aircraft drop out of the sky rather than collide. Maybe it can pull a 300G turn to avoid the collision. It's sensor package and avionics would react much faster than those controlled by humans.
I don't know how many times I have to explain it, but your character on World of Warcraft is not a cartoon.
It's a character.
When people think 'toon' they think 'Looney Toons' like you're spending however many hours a week dropping anvils on people's heads and other cartoonish things. If you want to call it a toon, fine, but don't get emo or surprised when people who don't play make fun of you for doing so.
So that law enforcement can subpoena Palm and ask for user location at x time on the day of x crime, to determine if they're in the area.
I bet this is a new 'service' they offer.
Much like people can opt-in to the non-smoking program on their insurance, that gives you a small discount or something.
Anyone that didn't opt-in, a year later, gets to pay extra because the fees went up to recoup their losses from the discount.
So, in essence, they opted out of a discount, instead of being forced to pay extra. This is already happening with 'black boxes' for cars.
You know, they could have been found out much earlier if one of those employees had stopped to make a sanity check of what they were being asked to do.
Also blame employers. Most employers prefer the subordinate type that follows and asks questions later. Those employees are especially vulnerable to attacks like this. All you have to do is find one 'yes sir/no sir' type to 'change the fuses'.
Did it?
Have you seen some of the laptops of yesteryear? Ten pounds? That's only small, compact, and light when compared to the old mainframes of the same era..
The reason for pain is to make you escape something.
Such as burning yourself on a stove, getting stabbed, bitten, stung, etc. You don't want these things to happen. Pain is strongly connected with negative in most minds. At least, most pain..
The reason for itching is to call your attention to something.
It's kind of the difference between a critical error and an error. One's a dire warning, and the other one is just an exclamation. It would be very fucking useful to distinguish between the two. One, so that you don't freak out every time you walk through some grasses that tickle your legs. Two, so you don't beat your bed-mate to death when they rub up against you. Three, so you don't let bugs chew on you or flip out every time one does.
I'll bet the 'itching' pathways have other uses as well. Perhaps the tickling response is there?
You can open up your device and check the sensors yourself, I'm sure there will be instructions.
And that by doing so, you'll void your warranty.
You could ask them to check and prove to you that they aren't already triggered when you buy it, but they're just going to pretend like you disappeared and look at the next frothing-at-the-mouth Apple fanboy that has cash in hand and doesn't care about the protection devices.
You're not going to be able to prove it without doing testing on them, and you probably can't get your hands on a supply of them to test.
Like most things, the spec was probably sent to China, the fee for so many units paid, and then the design was 'changed' to be cheaper, without letting the purchaser know. It's standard practice for companies to only test a few units, and usually only the units that are specifically given to them for testing.
Make of this what you will, but keep in mind that humidity can and does set off moisture detectors on a regular basis, and no positive outcome can come from someone who has a faulty sensor.
Between the time you come in and 'sign in' at the cell phone shop and when your name is called, you've got about 30 seconds to state your problem or desires before they lose interest and move on to the next person. If you say you're interested in the phone, they see a sale. If you want them to take the phone apart and void the warranty, they see multiple lost sales in the hour it will take the sales person to fumble their way around the inside of the phone.
So they'll just ignore you and move on, and let the horde of uninformed people buy their phones instead.