Gore's actual words were widely reaffirmed by notable Internet pioneers, such as Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, who stated, "No one in public life has been more intellectually engaged in helping to create the climate for a thriving Internet than the Vice President"
This. The Pirate Bay (and Usenet, and private Torrent trackers) offer something that media companies don't... If they had been paying any attention, they'd have taken a clue from AllOfMP3: content for a decent price, in the format I want, at a compression rate of my choice. And mine to play and replay when I want, on a device of my choice, with no ads.
I don't pirate movies because I can do so free of charge. I got to a point in life where my time is actually rather valuable, so I am willing to pay for convenience. And I am certainly willing and able to pay for content because it's the right thing to do. Yet I pirate movies because the pirates offer a vastly better product and movie distributors stubbornly refuse to follow suit. Well, fuck 'em.
And fuck the book publishers too. I still get told all too often that I am not allowed to buy certain ebooks because I don't live in the USA... even though the same companies are happy to ship me a paper copy. Guess what, the customer you refused to do business with found what he wants on the Pirate Bay
That's the smart thing to do, and something often overlooked. Saving up, I mean. You can live a decent life doing IT work in the Asia / Middle East, or running a Scuba shop in some tourist trap or whatever... But does it allow you to put away enough for retirement? Especially if you want to return home sometime? (And many expats will want to, sooner or later)
Even the big earners fall into the expat trap, finding themselves more or less stuck in a foreign place, when they find out their savings will only get them a crappy semi detached place back home instead of the luxury downtown apartment with indoor pool and a household staff of 3 they have now. If you fancy some adventure and perhaps a taste of the high life, by all means go for it. But if you stay abroad for an extended period of time, start thinking about settling down there permanently.
More time and more effort if you are unlucky. A friend and I flagged down one of these (not in Austin, but some town near LA), and it turned out the driver was a nice Ukrainian girl, so all was well... until we hit the first hill. The poor lady had some trouble hauling two somewhat overweight middle aged guys up on the incline, so we volunteered for pedal duty. Turns out it's something of an exercise to propel these things along!
OxyContin isn't meds gone bad, but legislation and politics gone worse. Home of the free, where you can get high as long as the "right" people get a cut and make their campaign donations on time. But the medicine itself has its uses as a pain killer, even in semi-sane countries where you can get your high legally.
This may come as a surprise, but plenty of people (even those in lower income brackets) prefer to not have the government set wages and redistribute income to a great extent... even if it means that some other fellow might be making way more than themselves.
Having to deal with budgets and POs is what drove the switch to these vending machines in the first place. In some companies is it what drives employees to such desperation that they actually prefer to pay for small items out of their own pocket rather than follow the process to have the company pay for it. Budgets are notoriously inflexible, and dealing with POs is costly in terms of man-hours; these are costs that might not appear on your balance sheets as specific items, but they sure affect your bottom line.
What could lift a baby from its crib to change a diaper, or steady an elderly person moving about the house, without totally freaking out onlookers?
Something like this? But seriously, a humanoid robot might be really good at those jobs (as well as all the other chores around the house). Once we figure out how to program any robot to safely and reliably take care of babies or the elderly, having it control a humanoid body will be trivial in comparison.
There's good reasons for wanting a humanoid robot, especially in places they have to share with humans, like our homes. You could have a multitude of robots around the house for all manner of tasks, but a humanoid robot could do all of them using the same tools we use ourselves, being much more versatile. And if we're going to share living space with it, it would probably be nice for it to look like a human instead of a monstrosity with 6 arms and tracks.
Of course it'll be a while before such robots become viable; we're still struggling with making them walk more or less normally without getting themselves stuck in a corner, let alone giving them enough smarts to perform actual household tasks.
Be afraid... "Amazingly, a statistically significant portion of the transplanted one-eyes could not only detect LED changes, but they showed learning behavior when confronted with electric shock. [...]"
Regular schools teach. Great schools inspire. No matter how good the school, it is never going to turn you into a great programmer. It won't magically turn you into a great writer, actor, athlete, poet, or scientist either. But it might inspire you to strive for any of those.
Perhaps passengers on this thing can get a taste of each. 2 days in 1st class, 2 days in 2nd and 2 days in 3rd. And 1 day shoveling coal into a furnace...
I'm ok with that as long as they are up front about it, and explain in their policy that they will hand over your information to the feds if they come knocking with the right search warrants or court orders or whatever is required. Law enforcement should, under certain conditions, be able to get at your stuff in order to investigate crimes, just like they can search your home in certain cases. That's fine, as long as companies require the feds to follow process, and as long as the process itself respects your rights.
Which, by the way, it doesn't in my own country. Apparently there are days when Dutch authorities perform more wiretaps (per capita) than are performed in the US in the entire year. It doesn't require a court order (neither does a house search anymore...)
(Slightly OT) Like Slashdot? Not sure what was up yesterday, but I kept getting a (Swedish) ad on this site, one that expanded by itself even without rolling over it, and played video with (loud) audio. Great fun when idly browsing./ during a conference call.
I thought advertisers wised up about doing that that sort of thing in the last decade. Suffice to say I finally disabled ads on./
Precisely, the law is crappy because it doesn't distinguish properly between the various types of cookies. All sites now gove you a popup asking "cookies, yes or no", and if you click "no", stuff doesn't always work.
By the way, there's a new proposal for the Dutch implementation of the Euro law, stating that a site does not have to ask permission for cookies essential to the functionality of the site (session cookies for shopping carts, login cookies, etc), and also cookies used to gather statistics on the site itself, as long as none of that info is shared with 3rd parties. For everything else they have to ask permission (and they are not allowed to block functionality if you refuse). That's a big step in the right direction.
Good point... I don't see any harm in allowing 3rd party session cookies (anyone?). I don't think FF currently has an option to block 3rd party cookies but allow session cookies from 3rd parties,not even manually. If you're in the business of making apps like this, perhaps it's worth pointing out to the FF guys; they might not have thought of everything. Just look at the crappy cookie law we just got in Europe.
Killing 3rd party cookies doesn't mean the end of advertising, not even the end of targetted ads like Google adwords. Neither rely on 3rd party cookies. It will mean the end of tracking users across sites, collecting browsing history that they have no business collecting (and which most users are not even aware of).
It sounds like the DHS clerk was way out of line, and deserves to be dismissed for this. The problem is: you'll have to prove it. You'd think that they'd be interested in cases of abuse of power, but in practice government organisations close up ranks and turn a cold shoulder if you complain about one. Then it's your word against theirs, in other words you've already lost. For this reason I always* record any conversation with government officials.
* Make sure it's legal, though. The rules vary per country and with circumstances. Also, hide the recorder, use a smart phone + app that streams to a remote server, And if you feel hard done by, don't tell them "I recorded this!", especially at borders. Border officials often have additional powers such as seizing your recorder / smart phone.
I'm speaking from experience, which is not in the US. Budget cuts are common here, and the reaction of budget holders is frequently as described, though I should have written "threaten to" rather than "tend to", because those inappropriate measures are rarely actually carried out after the desired public outcry.
The problem, as pointed out by others, is that the department heads tend to cut the wrong things, deliberately. They make sure that it's the public rather than the department itself feeling necessity's sharp pinch. The Trashmaster General will not cut redundant management layers or cancel the 70 man junket to GarbageCon'13, but will instead reduce service levels and let the trash pile up in the streets. Not because it is easier (which it is), but because it will cause a public outcry so that, with a little luck, his budget will be back to its former levels the next year.
Congress shouln't micromanage these cuts, but isn't it their job to make sure the secretaries cut the right things in the right way, and set them straight if they don't? (Not sure how that works; I am not from the US But don't worry, we're in the same boat over here).
True if you only consider power generation in itself, but there are other factors such as distribution. That's why we have power stations (and an extensive national grid), but we still have small individual power plants in our cars. If this technology scales down well (and works at all...), then large power stations could be a thing of the past. A more efficient setup could mean small, local grids at the town, neighborhood or even street level with a few small plants supplying power, and a few crossovers for redundancy. And for those living out in the sticks, a home power plant may well be the more economical option.
In that case, they should have recognized those predecessors instead: the EEG, and hey, how about NATO? Giving the award to the current EC is a bit like recognizing Obama for stuff that was actually accomplished during the Bush era.
So just because he once had those cards made, probably as a joke, when he started the company, should he now be forever ignored? Come on...
Scientists will take this prize as seriously as the selection process is going to be. If they award this to deserving scientists, then the scientific community will, over time, take them seriously. Silly business cards of one of the founders notwithstanding.
Slashdot Mirror
Gore's actual words were widely reaffirmed by notable Internet pioneers, such as Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, who stated, "No one in public life has been more intellectually engaged in helping to create the climate for a thriving Internet than the Vice President"
More of these outlandish AGW claims... ;)
This. The Pirate Bay (and Usenet, and private Torrent trackers) offer something that media companies don't... If they had been paying any attention, they'd have taken a clue from AllOfMP3: content for a decent price, in the format I want, at a compression rate of my choice. And mine to play and replay when I want, on a device of my choice, with no ads.
I don't pirate movies because I can do so free of charge. I got to a point in life where my time is actually rather valuable, so I am willing to pay for convenience. And I am certainly willing and able to pay for content because it's the right thing to do. Yet I pirate movies because the pirates offer a vastly better product and movie distributors stubbornly refuse to follow suit. Well, fuck 'em.
And fuck the book publishers too. I still get told all too often that I am not allowed to buy certain ebooks because I don't live in the USA... even though the same companies are happy to ship me a paper copy. Guess what, the customer you refused to do business with found what he wants on the Pirate Bay
That's the smart thing to do, and something often overlooked. Saving up, I mean. You can live a decent life doing IT work in the Asia / Middle East, or running a Scuba shop in some tourist trap or whatever... But does it allow you to put away enough for retirement? Especially if you want to return home sometime? (And many expats will want to, sooner or later)
Even the big earners fall into the expat trap, finding themselves more or less stuck in a foreign place, when they find out their savings will only get them a crappy semi detached place back home instead of the luxury downtown apartment with indoor pool and a household staff of 3 they have now. If you fancy some adventure and perhaps a taste of the high life, by all means go for it. But if you stay abroad for an extended period of time, start thinking about settling down there permanently.
More time and more effort if you are unlucky. A friend and I flagged down one of these (not in Austin, but some town near LA), and it turned out the driver was a nice Ukrainian girl, so all was well... until we hit the first hill. The poor lady had some trouble hauling two somewhat overweight middle aged guys up on the incline, so we volunteered for pedal duty. Turns out it's something of an exercise to propel these things along!
Austin is not very hilly though, IIRC.
OxyContin isn't meds gone bad, but legislation and politics gone worse. Home of the free, where you can get high as long as the "right" people get a cut and make their campaign donations on time. But the medicine itself has its uses as a pain killer, even in semi-sane countries where you can get your high legally.
This may come as a surprise, but plenty of people (even those in lower income brackets) prefer to not have the government set wages and redistribute income to a great extent... even if it means that some other fellow might be making way more than themselves.
Having to deal with budgets and POs is what drove the switch to these vending machines in the first place. In some companies is it what drives employees to such desperation that they actually prefer to pay for small items out of their own pocket rather than follow the process to have the company pay for it. Budgets are notoriously inflexible, and dealing with POs is costly in terms of man-hours; these are costs that might not appear on your balance sheets as specific items, but they sure affect your bottom line.
Something like this? But seriously, a humanoid robot might be really good at those jobs (as well as all the other chores around the house). Once we figure out how to program any robot to safely and reliably take care of babies or the elderly, having it control a humanoid body will be trivial in comparison.
There's good reasons for wanting a humanoid robot, especially in places they have to share with humans, like our homes. You could have a multitude of robots around the house for all manner of tasks, but a humanoid robot could do all of them using the same tools we use ourselves, being much more versatile. And if we're going to share living space with it, it would probably be nice for it to look like a human instead of a monstrosity with 6 arms and tracks.
Of course it'll be a while before such robots become viable; we're still struggling with making them walk more or less normally without getting themselves stuck in a corner, let alone giving them enough smarts to perform actual household tasks.
Be afraid... "Amazingly, a statistically significant portion of the transplanted one-eyes could not only detect LED changes, but they showed learning behavior when confronted with electric shock. [...]"
Coming soon: human trials!
School needs to teach mainstream topics
Regular schools teach. Great schools inspire. No matter how good the school, it is never going to turn you into a great programmer. It won't magically turn you into a great writer, actor, athlete, poet, or scientist either. But it might inspire you to strive for any of those.
Perhaps passengers on this thing can get a taste of each. 2 days in 1st class, 2 days in 2nd and 2 days in 3rd. And 1 day shoveling coal into a furnace...
I'd actually pay for a trip on that, though perhaps not if it'll use hydrogen as its lifting gas like the original.
I'm ok with that as long as they are up front about it, and explain in their policy that they will hand over your information to the feds if they come knocking with the right search warrants or court orders or whatever is required. Law enforcement should, under certain conditions, be able to get at your stuff in order to investigate crimes, just like they can search your home in certain cases. That's fine, as long as companies require the feds to follow process, and as long as the process itself respects your rights.
Which, by the way, it doesn't in my own country. Apparently there are days when Dutch authorities perform more wiretaps (per capita) than are performed in the US in the entire year. It doesn't require a court order (neither does a house search anymore...)
they just stuck some wires and gizmos up the ass of a dead sparrow
All is fair in the name of science
(Slightly OT) Like Slashdot? Not sure what was up yesterday, but I kept getting a (Swedish) ad on this site, one that expanded by itself even without rolling over it, and played video with (loud) audio. Great fun when idly browsing ./ during a conference call.
./
I thought advertisers wised up about doing that that sort of thing in the last decade. Suffice to say I finally disabled ads on
Precisely, the law is crappy because it doesn't distinguish properly between the various types of cookies. All sites now gove you a popup asking "cookies, yes or no", and if you click "no", stuff doesn't always work.
By the way, there's a new proposal for the Dutch implementation of the Euro law, stating that a site does not have to ask permission for cookies essential to the functionality of the site (session cookies for shopping carts, login cookies, etc), and also cookies used to gather statistics on the site itself, as long as none of that info is shared with 3rd parties. For everything else they have to ask permission (and they are not allowed to block functionality if you refuse). That's a big step in the right direction.
Good point... I don't see any harm in allowing 3rd party session cookies (anyone?). I don't think FF currently has an option to block 3rd party cookies but allow session cookies from 3rd parties,not even manually. If you're in the business of making apps like this, perhaps it's worth pointing out to the FF guys; they might not have thought of everything. Just look at the crappy cookie law we just got in Europe.
Killing 3rd party cookies doesn't mean the end of advertising, not even the end of targetted ads like Google adwords. Neither rely on 3rd party cookies. It will mean the end of tracking users across sites, collecting browsing history that they have no business collecting (and which most users are not even aware of).
It sounds like the DHS clerk was way out of line, and deserves to be dismissed for this. The problem is: you'll have to prove it. You'd think that they'd be interested in cases of abuse of power, but in practice government organisations close up ranks and turn a cold shoulder if you complain about one. Then it's your word against theirs, in other words you've already lost. For this reason I always* record any conversation with government officials.
* Make sure it's legal, though. The rules vary per country and with circumstances. Also, hide the recorder, use a smart phone + app that streams to a remote server, And if you feel hard done by, don't tell them "I recorded this!", especially at borders. Border officials often have additional powers such as seizing your recorder / smart phone.
I'm speaking from experience, which is not in the US. Budget cuts are common here, and the reaction of budget holders is frequently as described, though I should have written "threaten to" rather than "tend to", because those inappropriate measures are rarely actually carried out after the desired public outcry.
The problem, as pointed out by others, is that the department heads tend to cut the wrong things, deliberately. They make sure that it's the public rather than the department itself feeling necessity's sharp pinch. The Trashmaster General will not cut redundant management layers or cancel the 70 man junket to GarbageCon'13, but will instead reduce service levels and let the trash pile up in the streets. Not because it is easier (which it is), but because it will cause a public outcry so that, with a little luck, his budget will be back to its former levels the next year.
Congress shouln't micromanage these cuts, but isn't it their job to make sure the secretaries cut the right things in the right way, and set them straight if they don't? (Not sure how that works; I am not from the US But don't worry, we're in the same boat over here).
True if you only consider power generation in itself, but there are other factors such as distribution. That's why we have power stations (and an extensive national grid), but we still have small individual power plants in our cars. If this technology scales down well (and works at all...), then large power stations could be a thing of the past. A more efficient setup could mean small, local grids at the town, neighborhood or even street level with a few small plants supplying power, and a few crossovers for redundancy. And for those living out in the sticks, a home power plant may well be the more economical option.
In that case, they should have recognized those predecessors instead: the EEG, and hey, how about NATO? Giving the award to the current EC is a bit like recognizing Obama for stuff that was actually accomplished during the Bush era.
So just because he once had those cards made, probably as a joke, when he started the company, should he now be forever ignored? Come on...
Scientists will take this prize as seriously as the selection process is going to be. If they award this to deserving scientists, then the scientific community will, over time, take them seriously. Silly business cards of one of the founders notwithstanding.