Actually, they said that this happened "fewer than 13,000 prepaid transactions," so, according to google, the most it could be is $3.00935119 × 10 to the power of 20. Chump change, really.
In other news, a similar study into the purpose of the human eye has failed to draw any valid conclusions about their purpose. Scientists were unable to determine the exact purpose of the human eye, although more studies are planned for 2010.
I like how this is happening in ENGLAND of all places. How many CC cameras are there per block in London? Some ridiculous number? Where is the outrage over that???
My Sony 810i does this as well. I've set it to the least annoying sound, but it's still a bother. I actually tried to disable the sound, did some poking around online, but I wasn't able to find anyone who had done it.
How vampire bats split off from insect-eating bats: "Once you're pulling insects off of a mammal, it's a very small step to going after the blood."
lol
It seems to me that this would drastically increase the security of passwords from attack by machines but would make them more susceptible to attack from humans.
There are only so many places to start drawing your password on a picture and a human would recognize that. People would probably draw birds in the sky and dogs on the ground, right? Also, I would guess that people would make linear leaps with their pictures: someone will draw a bird, and not a fish, in a picture of a tree.
That said, I'm not saying that this isn't a worthwhile endeavor, just that it wouldn't necessarily be as secure as it looks at first glance.
I said that there are a significant number of people who use open office on their laptops, mostly mac users. I also said that there is no demand for open office to be installed on the library computers. These comments only seem incongruous when taken out of context.
Of the people using open office on their laptops, not one who I have talked to has asked for open office to be installed on the library computers. Similarly, all but one of them were using it simply because they did not want to pay for word and found it hard to find pirated copies of mac software. They were not using it in order to avoid the use of the.doc format or for any other ideological stand.
As I also explained, it's not as simple as just installing it on the machines; it would actually be a pretty big hassle to implement. If we're going to spend time upgrading things to better serve students (which, I must say, the library does a better job at than I would have expected before I started working there), there are more pressing issues.
As I understand it, the reason Open Office has not been installed is that there is simply no demand for it. Seeing as there are only a handful of people who would avail themselves of it, it's not worth the hassle of installing it on every computer and the various ghosts that we use.
It's also a matter of support: the tech desk personnel are required to know how to use the programs that are on the computers now (word, excel, powerpoint, acrobat, scanning software, etc.), so adding more software would make hiring and training more time consuming.
It seems to me that the library is not going to take the initiative unless there is a pressing need. The desire to go along with the 'spirit' of anti-trust legislation is not going to be convincing enough.
I work at a tech desk at a university library and see a significant number of people who use open office, mainly Mac users. All of the people who have come to the desk with open office issues save in.odf. Their problem is that they want to print at the library, which requires the use of one of our information commons computers and therefore Word. So I have to show them how to save their documents as.doc files in order to load them in Word. None of them knew how to save as a.doc file and only one of them was even aware that open office saved as.odf.
Even if this were to work (which is by no means a given), people will begin to take its predictions into account in order to do the unexpected. Truly a preposterous endeavor.
I must say that I am impressed with how much thought you have put into this.
I do not take your moderation at all personally, although I will admit to being slightly incensed when you implied that I was masquerading as having done something I had not. On the whole, I think that we would likely agree about the degree of misinformation that is out there on this topic: I am so tired of people talking about flashbacks!
Your comments do make me to wonder if perhaps I had particularly potent acid or have a low tolerance. In one instance we all did one tab, and another time we each did a tab and a half. None of us noticed a difference with the increase, so we went back to taking one tab at a time. I am, of course, aware that a 'tab' is in no way a standard measure. While I have an extremely low tolerance for dope (and a high one for alcohol), the people who I was with also saw, for example, the paint move off of the painting and onto the wall. So maybe we had good stuff.
Anyways, just to be clear: I did not intend to imply that one sees things that are not there as a result of taking LSD.
Even though perhaps this was not an ideal case, keep up the considered and critical modding!
Hey, thanks for responding. I wondered who modded me troll!
What I meant by hallucinations were things like how patterns appear to move - grains in wood swirled, the floor of a movie theater slithered around, and some colors from a painting appeared to move off of the canvas and on to the wall. I have never seen anything close to that from drinking alcohol, or even on mushrooms.
I guess, by reading your post, that you mean that what I describe is not, in fact, hallucinations, and that it is actually 'exaggerations of visual perceptions.'
Fair enough in that one does not see things that are not there, but does a failure to make that distinction really make me a troll?
Maybe, but by then the ad-laden content would be the most widespread, and would therefore be the fastest to download. It seems like a good idea to me. Not that it's likely to happen anytime soon.
I cannot believe that Colbert was not rewarded for his groundbreaking research into new techniques for transforming donuts into balls without tearing them.
This is an absolute travesty and demonstrates with crystal clarity that the terrorists have already won.
I was going to say that my aim was not to nitpick, but I guess it is, so I apologize in advance. I agree with your main argument, and you seem generally well informed, however...
As a side note, the CIA did not fund bin Laden, although they knew of him and knew that some fighters they did fund were also working with him.
The US knew there were two main groups opposing the Soviets in Afghanistan in the wake of the 1979 Soviet invasion. One group was mostly Afghani and secular, while the other was composed mostly of foreign fighters of the Islamic fundamentalist persuasion. The US, more specifically the CIA, chose to support the latter (against the wishes of the State Department), ostensibly because they were more effective in opposing the Soviets - a debatable point. Al-Qaeda began as an old boys club of ex-Mujaheddin; those who fought, with US money and arms, against the Soviets in Afghanistan. While the US did not directly fund bin Laden himself, they indirectly funded (through the Pakistani intelligence agency, the ISI) Islamic fundamentalist foreign fighters in Afghanistan, out of which al-Qaeda formed. So while you are correct in arguing that the US did not fund bin Laden personally, the United States did indeed play a critical role in the creation of al-Qaeda as an entity and bin Laden as a symbol.
Let me clarify: if you were a person from Brazil, you would sign up at the brazilian incarnation of the site or tick off 'brazilian' in your user profile or something. Regardless of how it happens, differentiate between the brazilians and the americans and enable the users to, if they so desire, only see posts that are by brazilian or american posters.
Why don't they just give their users the ability to filter by language? If you don't want to see the brazilian posts, you should be able to filter them out.
I think he might have been being trying to appeal to those Wired readers out there who don't have your obviously extensive level of technical skill and brilliance. He very neatly explains the content of the hoax e-mail within his story and does it in a funny way.
It really depends on your definition of language, as well as to what extend the author meant to apply this theory. If he means that you can tell that somebody who writes a sad song is trying to convey a sad feeling, I agree. But if he means that you can say "in the part of the song where it goes G, D, A, E, he is saying 'man my girlfriend left me and she took my dog and then i found out that i lost my job'" I would have to disagree.
I would say that music is probably somewhere inbetween body language and language-type-language like english in terms of complexity and depth of what it is able to communicate.
Most metal music is basically classical chords repeated over and over again with heavy distortion. The algorithm would probably see it as classical music performed by somebody with an intense musical stutter.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, they said that this happened "fewer than 13,000 prepaid transactions," so, according to google, the most it could be is $3.00935119 × 10 to the power of 20. Chump change, really.
In other news, a similar study into the purpose of the human eye has failed to draw any valid conclusions about their purpose. Scientists were unable to determine the exact purpose of the human eye, although more studies are planned for 2010.
I like how this is happening in ENGLAND of all places. How many CC cameras are there per block in London? Some ridiculous number? Where is the outrage over that???
Looks like it's slashdotted... or my ubuntu machine has Conficker!
Privacy is so pre-millennium.
My Sony 810i does this as well. I've set it to the least annoying sound, but it's still a bother. I actually tried to disable the sound, did some poking around online, but I wasn't able to find anyone who had done it.
How vampire bats split off from insect-eating bats: "Once you're pulling insects off of a mammal, it's a very small step to going after the blood." lol
There are only so many places to start drawing your password on a picture and a human would recognize that. People would probably draw birds in the sky and dogs on the ground, right? Also, I would guess that people would make linear leaps with their pictures: someone will draw a bird, and not a fish, in a picture of a tree.
That said, I'm not saying that this isn't a worthwhile endeavor, just that it wouldn't necessarily be as secure as it looks at first glance.
Of the people using open office on their laptops, not one who I have talked to has asked for open office to be installed on the library computers. Similarly, all but one of them were using it simply because they did not want to pay for word and found it hard to find pirated copies of mac software. They were not using it in order to avoid the use of the .doc format or for any other ideological stand.
As I also explained, it's not as simple as just installing it on the machines; it would actually be a pretty big hassle to implement. If we're going to spend time upgrading things to better serve students (which, I must say, the library does a better job at than I would have expected before I started working there), there are more pressing issues.
It's also a matter of support: the tech desk personnel are required to know how to use the programs that are on the computers now (word, excel, powerpoint, acrobat, scanning software, etc.), so adding more software would make hiring and training more time consuming.
It seems to me that the library is not going to take the initiative unless there is a pressing need. The desire to go along with the 'spirit' of anti-trust legislation is not going to be convincing enough.
I work at a tech desk at a university library and see a significant number of people who use open office, mainly Mac users. All of the people who have come to the desk with open office issues save in .odf. Their problem is that they want to print at the library, which requires the use of one of our information commons computers and therefore Word. So I have to show them how to save their documents as .doc files in order to load them in Word. None of them knew how to save as a .doc file and only one of them was even aware that open office saved as .odf.
Anyone ever read Vernor Vinge's 'A Deepness in the Sky'? These things might be a great power source for the localizers he mentions.
Even if this were to work (which is by no means a given), people will begin to take its predictions into account in order to do the unexpected. Truly a preposterous endeavor.
I do not take your moderation at all personally, although I will admit to being slightly incensed when you implied that I was masquerading as having done something I had not. On the whole, I think that we would likely agree about the degree of misinformation that is out there on this topic: I am so tired of people talking about flashbacks!
Your comments do make me to wonder if perhaps I had particularly potent acid or have a low tolerance. In one instance we all did one tab, and another time we each did a tab and a half. None of us noticed a difference with the increase, so we went back to taking one tab at a time. I am, of course, aware that a 'tab' is in no way a standard measure. While I have an extremely low tolerance for dope (and a high one for alcohol), the people who I was with also saw, for example, the paint move off of the painting and onto the wall. So maybe we had good stuff.
Anyways, just to be clear: I did not intend to imply that one sees things that are not there as a result of taking LSD.
Even though perhaps this was not an ideal case, keep up the considered and critical modding!
Hey, thanks for responding. I wondered who modded me troll! What I meant by hallucinations were things like how patterns appear to move - grains in wood swirled, the floor of a movie theater slithered around, and some colors from a painting appeared to move off of the canvas and on to the wall. I have never seen anything close to that from drinking alcohol, or even on mushrooms. I guess, by reading your post, that you mean that what I describe is not, in fact, hallucinations, and that it is actually 'exaggerations of visual perceptions.' Fair enough in that one does not see things that are not there, but does a failure to make that distinction really make me a troll?
I meant visual hallucinations, like patterns appearing to move. However, you make a valid point.
The effect described sounds like the euphoric feeling you sometimes get while on acid. Minus the hallucinations.
Maybe, but by then the ad-laden content would be the most widespread, and would therefore be the fastest to download. It seems like a good idea to me. Not that it's likely to happen anytime soon.
I cannot believe that Colbert was not rewarded for his groundbreaking research into new techniques for transforming donuts into balls without tearing them. This is an absolute travesty and demonstrates with crystal clarity that the terrorists have already won.
The US knew there were two main groups opposing the Soviets in Afghanistan in the wake of the 1979 Soviet invasion. One group was mostly Afghani and secular, while the other was composed mostly of foreign fighters of the Islamic fundamentalist persuasion. The US, more specifically the CIA, chose to support the latter (against the wishes of the State Department), ostensibly because they were more effective in opposing the Soviets - a debatable point. Al-Qaeda began as an old boys club of ex-Mujaheddin; those who fought, with US money and arms, against the Soviets in Afghanistan. While the US did not directly fund bin Laden himself, they indirectly funded (through the Pakistani intelligence agency, the ISI) Islamic fundamentalist foreign fighters in Afghanistan, out of which al-Qaeda formed. So while you are correct in arguing that the US did not fund bin Laden personally, the United States did indeed play a critical role in the creation of al-Qaeda as an entity and bin Laden as a symbol.
For anyone who is interested and does not have access to courses on US foreign policy, an excellent and reliable book on this subject is Ghost Wars by Steve Coll. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0143034669/sr=8-
Let me clarify: if you were a person from Brazil, you would sign up at the brazilian incarnation of the site or tick off 'brazilian' in your user profile or something. Regardless of how it happens, differentiate between the brazilians and the americans and enable the users to, if they so desire, only see posts that are by brazilian or american posters.
Why don't they just give their users the ability to filter by language? If you don't want to see the brazilian posts, you should be able to filter them out.
You're the idiot, Annonymous Coward.
I would say that music is probably somewhere inbetween body language and language-type-language like english in terms of complexity and depth of what it is able to communicate.
Most metal music is basically classical chords repeated over and over again with heavy distortion. The algorithm would probably see it as classical music performed by somebody with an intense musical stutter.