Even if it had all the brains, do you really think Al Qaeda has the resources to build a rocket that could launch several kg into LEO? All the while having the construction of this rocket going undetected? I seriously, seriously doubt that. Building a rocket that can get to LEO is a HUGE endeavor that requires massive amounts of money, materials, and manpower- the combined effort of thousands of people between the government and hundreds of corporations building and designing the various parts, etc. It requires huge difficult-to-conceal structures such as warehouses, construction bays, and launch facilities. Besides- if they can build a rocket that can get to LEO, they can build an ICBM. Why waste their time scattering a bunch of ball bearings in space with the hope that they can do harm when they could use the rocket do deliver a bomb directly to any US city?
I think the point is not that the risk with regard to strangers is an acceptable one -the fact that there is any possibility of it occurring is detestable- but that it's silly to make a big fuss about random strangers when 90% of child abuse is perpetrated (see perpetrators) by people living in the home, and the majority of the rest is most likely perpetrated by people close within the victim's social circle that you trust (camp counselor, priest, school employee, etc.) It's probably just as likely that your child will get hit by a stray bullet as it is they will get abducted out of nowhere by a complete stranger. So it doesn't make sense to be paying much attention to the attack vector which has probably a less than 1:1,000,000 chance of happening when there is a much more likely threat nearby.
Accept the fact that there is an extremely remote chance that something awful could happen to your child (just like you) at any time, and try to mitigate the greatest risks. Complete strangers abducting/abusing your children is not a high enough risk to merit devoting your attention to, as a parent. Given that your attention is a finite resource, there are far more pressing threats to be dealt with. Watch your kids closely and pay attention to where they go and who they spend time with. Abuse, like most things that threaten your child, is best dealt with by teaching the child how to act in the situation- Teach them not to talk to strangers, what kind of touching is appropriate and what is not, and how to respond to various situations with people they know as well as strangers. There's not much else you can do to mitigate the risk that is worth the time you'll spend doing it. That's the point.
Apple's a hardware manufacturer who happens to make the OS that runs on their hardware. It allows them to more fully take advantage of the hardware's capabilities as well as to maintain a seamless integration between OS and hardware. The capabilities of the IBM processors were lagging in comparison to Intel and AMD processors, as well in comparison to where it they were originally projected to be by this point. Apple is switching because they want to be among the fastest computers being made.
The added benefit of switching to the x86 architecture is that multiple vendors make chips that can handle the x86 instruction set, which means they compete with each other on performance and price, which means Apple can build their computers for less (whether or not they will pass that savings on to consumers has yet to be seen) and that they can threaten Intel with a move to AMD, should Intel fail to be competitive with regard to either performance or price.
Fortunately, they had the foresight to develop an x86 version of OS X concurrently, in case IBM's products didn't meet expectations. Otherwise, they'd be stuck way behind while trying to port OS X to x86 now. The downside to all this, of course, is that their OS isn't as thoroughly locked to their computers now that it uses the same instruction set that most PC's use. Not too much of an issue, though, because probably 95% of their target market only uses whatever OS comes on their machines and because Apple can sue the crap out of any vendor who tries to put OS X on a non-Apple machine.
I don't think you were supposed to actually believe that was something a White House spokesperson said. I believe the GP was merely trying to make a point by suggesting the implications of allowing the gov't access to Google logs. It may be "for the children" now, but next they'll be doing it to silence "unpatriotic" speech, or some other crap...
Yeah, Slashdot's casual. We get that. If somebody says something important in the discussion about the article, even if their writing is less than perfect, it will float up to the top. Nobody's suggesting you add "-1 bad grammar" or "-1 bad spelling" mods. But you say that as an editor you're trying to eliminate distractions from the story, and you admit that there will always be people who will get caught up by lousy writing in the story and generate irrelevant discussion. So why not eliminate that irrelevant discussion by cleaning up any lousy writing?
the reason rape is not considered a horrible awful thing in those other cultures is likely that the women are not treated with respect as intellectual equals in the first place, and thus their opinion with regard to whose penis gets to go inside them is not considered valuable. Naturally, if you have a woman who is raised to believe that her opinion is valuable and that she should be equal with men she will be scarred and indignant if another man forces his will upon her. It's as violent of an act as any. Would you be scarred and indignant if another man came and forced himself upon you?
You can't have a culture that considers women equals with men where any man can do what he wants with a woman regardless of how she feels about it, because equality necessitates that it also be a culture where a man can do what he wants with a man regardless of how he feels about it, and you wouldn't want that.
Knowing how to use technical things in ways they were never meant to be used makes you a geek. (and this is only one small definition "geekiness.")
I agree with you on all the other points, but wasn't this the definition of a "hack" last time we had this pointless discussion?
To me "geek", at least in the sense related to technology, is one who not only uses technology, but also understands how it works and is capable of applying technical knowledge. One who loves programming computers is probably not using anything "in ways they were never meant to be used", but most certainly a "geek" by most people's definition of the word. Probably a "hacker" by a lot of people's definition, too, although the programming itself wouldn't likely be considered a "hack" unless it were something quick-n-dirty or a particularly elegant application of some algorithm that were previously used for something entirely different.
So... you're going to boycott Sony by not playing the PS2 that you already paid for? How is that hurting Sony? Why not sell your PS2? Then you've at least possibly deprived Sony of purchase.
But then, the division that makes the PS2 is fairly disparate within the company from the one you're attempting to hurt. But then you've already admitted that you don't buy CD's, the record company couldn't really care less about you. Still- why attempt to harm the folks within the company who make a cool product for the actions of another part of the company which they have no say in?
"Closer to" - as in, say, "$1,500 is closer to $1,000 than $2,500". Considering that they already start at $1,999, is it that unbelievable that the same configuration could be $500-800 cheaper in 8-9 months? I don't think so...
They're not a charity- they're looking to make as much money as possible. They can sell every MacBook Pro in their inventory in the next couple months for $2,500 a pop, but they won't be able to keep that up indefinitely. Toshiba, Asus, IBM, and others all have Core Duo laptops and tablets coming out in February, and for once consumers will be able to compare between PC's and Macs "apples-to-apples", so to speak. They may be able to justify a slight premium for being Apple, but too much and people will decide not to switch. In the end, they're going to price them similarly to PC's because they can make more selling a huge volume at a modest profit than selling a small volume at a huge profit.
Also, by the end of September I imagine Apple will be coming out with a 64-bit dual-core laptop based on the Jonah or Merom chips, which would bump the current MacBook Pro down a notch. The Yonahs may seem like top of the line now, but should be pretty commonplace within a year.
The current prices aren't indicative of what they will be in the long run. Apple's charging as much as they are for these computers right now because Intel is just beginning to ramp up production on the Core Duo chips, and because the demand from all the early-adopting uber-excited people far exceeds what computers they actually have in stock. Once all the "I have to have one! Now! No matter the cost!" people have made their purchases, and once Intel starts cranking out these processors for Apple (and all the other PC manufacturers that will be using them) for a couple months, the prices should drop significantly. I imagine a dual-core MacBook Pro should be closer to $1,000 by August-September.
You seem to think that the environment can "fix itself" regardless of what we do to it. If things get out of balance to the point where billions of humans are dying, while it may return to an equilibrium friendly to human life, there's no guarantee that it it will. There's no guarantee that a few hundred years from now some tipping point could be reached that causes the atmosphere's composition to change in a way that could not be reversed without some massive effort (like having to build oxygen creation plants, or something). I'm not saying there's any reason to believe that it WILL definitely happen, but there are certainly scenarios where something gets out of whack- plankton counts could skyrocket or plummet, weather systems or ocean currents could get screwed up, etc. The best way to deal with this is to proceed as usual but constantly study and try to minimize the environmental impact of industry
What happened to all these gigantic human-hunting birds? Did humans kill them all? It seems like they'd still be pretty successful, especially in rural areas. I'm glad I don't have to constantly be on the lookout for giant birds that could swoop down from the sky and pierce my brain with its talons through my eyeballs to let me dangle until I die. That's pretty horrific- someone should make a movie where a crazy scientist does some Jurassic Park shit and brings these birds back from extinction by crossbreeding them with pigeons. Being part pigeon, they multiply rapidly and quickly spread to the mainland US to terrorize the population....
So will we ever get computers where the processor, RAM, and flash memory storage are all on the same chip? it seems like you could make a very space-efficient computer that way, and probably produce the whole thing for less since you would have less individual parts and connectors, etc. Or would that cause heat dissipation problems? When do I get my tablet that is one solid block consisting of one chip, one battery, the display, and a few other minor components? (maybe with channels full of alcohol hollowed into the block?)
So how about a system where I give a yea or nea votes to stories, and then it determines what to bring to the front by using a bayesian algorithm to compare my votes on previous stories to others' votes on those same stories? It would only show me things that people who share my tastes say they like.
Remember the "flash mob" fad? Sounds sorta like the same thing. If I organized a flash mob at my competitor's store and it effectively disabled their store (and didn't merely bring them a bunch of customers) would they have a case against me?
I'd LOVE to have a MythTV PVR, even if it's a pain in the ass to configure- having automatic commercial removal rocks, no ads in the program guide rocks, being able to do whatever the hell I want with the video I record rocks, but there's one thing that's holding me back- I want more HDTV content than merely what is available over the air. Until they make a card that I can put in my computer that accepts a CableCard, I'm pretty much up a creek when it comes to getting HD content from digital cable with MythTV. That means no Discovery HD theater, no ESPNHD, no InHD, no HDnet, etc, etc.
This TiVo sounds like the best solution to date- at least I'll probably be able to get the content onto my computer (although it'll likely be a little more complicated than drag-n-drop)- unlike the Scientific Atlanta HD DVR Time Warner gives us. The downside being that their interface, and the recorded programs, will likely be littered with ads, as well as any subscription fees they may charge.
Anyone know of any PCI cards with CableCard slots in them in the works? or is that something the content/cable companies have ensured will never happen?
so true, and so sad. digg gets good stories, and they make it to the fron page faster than/., but the comments are totally worthless because they're not threaded, and thus no real coversations ensue, and thus few actually bother to comment or read the comments.
Imagine if digg's comments worked the way/.'s do, or if/.'s stories were user-moderated the way digg is.
What's the/. editors' hangup on having control anyway? I guess that's the only way they can ensure Roland Piquepaille, **BeatlesBeatles, Sterling Allan, and whomever else pays to get on/. actually get what they want...
alas, even if the stories are lame, the discussions are usually interesting enough to keep me coming back. It would be nice to see a site that lived up to potential, though...
1) You have non-forgeable (printed like money) ballots with detachable stubs on them, each of which would have the same unique number printed on them. Why we go through so much effort to make our money non-forgeable, but not our ballots, is beyond me. 2) When you sign in at the polling location, your ID info is written on the stub. Perhaps the stub is even thumbprinted with indelible ink. 3) You vote on the computer, which prints your votes on the ballot (but not the stub) in human-readable as well as machine-readable form, put your ballot in the box, and take the stub home. 4) The ballots are then kept by the registrar after the polls have closed. For a certain period of time after the election, any voter may present their stub to the registrar, verify their identity, and request to view their ballot to ensure that it was counted and not altered.
There are probably flaws I haven't thought of... Anyone?
dude. i have to be a pedant- the word is site, not sight.
sight = vision. site = location.
as in, "we have an on-site admin" or "can you send someone out to the job site to check on this?". while there are many sights to be seen at various sites on the web, one does not go to a websight, but to a website.
So when a call comes in, you have to interact with it in order to NOT take the call? That's counterintuitive- So you're working on your Impala, hands all greasy, when your ex-gf calls. On any normal phone, you just ignore it and it ignores her, but on your ROKR you have to push a button? No thanks...
Now, if it could recognize your voice and only answer when you say "Take call" or something like that, that would rock. Other than that, and the lack of a SD slot for expansion, it sounds like a pretty cool phone...
Slashdot Mirror
Even if it had all the brains, do you really think Al Qaeda has the resources to build a rocket that could launch several kg into LEO? All the while having the construction of this rocket going undetected? I seriously, seriously doubt that. Building a rocket that can get to LEO is a HUGE endeavor that requires massive amounts of money, materials, and manpower- the combined effort of thousands of people between the government and hundreds of corporations building and designing the various parts, etc. It requires huge difficult-to-conceal structures such as warehouses, construction bays, and launch facilities. Besides- if they can build a rocket that can get to LEO, they can build an ICBM. Why waste their time scattering a bunch of ball bearings in space with the hope that they can do harm when they could use the rocket do deliver a bomb directly to any US city?
I think the point is not that the risk with regard to strangers is an acceptable one -the fact that there is any possibility of it occurring is detestable- but that it's silly to make a big fuss about random strangers when 90% of child abuse is perpetrated (see perpetrators) by people living in the home, and the majority of the rest is most likely perpetrated by people close within the victim's social circle that you trust (camp counselor, priest, school employee, etc.) It's probably just as likely that your child will get hit by a stray bullet as it is they will get abducted out of nowhere by a complete stranger. So it doesn't make sense to be paying much attention to the attack vector which has probably a less than 1:1,000,000 chance of happening when there is a much more likely threat nearby.
Accept the fact that there is an extremely remote chance that something awful could happen to your child (just like you) at any time, and try to mitigate the greatest risks. Complete strangers abducting/abusing your children is not a high enough risk to merit devoting your attention to, as a parent. Given that your attention is a finite resource, there are far more pressing threats to be dealt with. Watch your kids closely and pay attention to where they go and who they spend time with. Abuse, like most things that threaten your child, is best dealt with by teaching the child how to act in the situation- Teach them not to talk to strangers, what kind of touching is appropriate and what is not, and how to respond to various situations with people they know as well as strangers. There's not much else you can do to mitigate the risk that is worth the time you'll spend doing it. That's the point.
Apple's a hardware manufacturer who happens to make the OS that runs on their hardware. It allows them to more fully take advantage of the hardware's capabilities as well as to maintain a seamless integration between OS and hardware. The capabilities of the IBM processors were lagging in comparison to Intel and AMD processors, as well in comparison to where it they were originally projected to be by this point. Apple is switching because they want to be among the fastest computers being made.
The added benefit of switching to the x86 architecture is that multiple vendors make chips that can handle the x86 instruction set, which means they compete with each other on performance and price, which means Apple can build their computers for less (whether or not they will pass that savings on to consumers has yet to be seen) and that they can threaten Intel with a move to AMD, should Intel fail to be competitive with regard to either performance or price.
Fortunately, they had the foresight to develop an x86 version of OS X concurrently, in case IBM's products didn't meet expectations. Otherwise, they'd be stuck way behind while trying to port OS X to x86 now. The downside to all this, of course, is that their OS isn't as thoroughly locked to their computers now that it uses the same instruction set that most PC's use. Not too much of an issue, though, because probably 95% of their target market only uses whatever OS comes on their machines and because Apple can sue the crap out of any vendor who tries to put OS X on a non-Apple machine.
I don't think you were supposed to actually believe that was something a White House spokesperson said. I believe the GP was merely trying to make a point by suggesting the implications of allowing the gov't access to Google logs. It may be "for the children" now, but next they'll be doing it to silence "unpatriotic" speech, or some other crap...
Yeah, Slashdot's casual. We get that. If somebody says something important in the discussion about the article, even if their writing is less than perfect, it will float up to the top. Nobody's suggesting you add "-1 bad grammar" or "-1 bad spelling" mods. But you say that as an editor you're trying to eliminate distractions from the story, and you admit that there will always be people who will get caught up by lousy writing in the story and generate irrelevant discussion. So why not eliminate that irrelevant discussion by cleaning up any lousy writing?
One who works "in a field where one lives and dies by one's word" should know that anthama is spelled anathema.
I think he meant yelling 'Fire!' in a crowded theater. That's the usual go-to example.
the reason rape is not considered a horrible awful thing in those other cultures is likely that the women are not treated with respect as intellectual equals in the first place, and thus their opinion with regard to whose penis gets to go inside them is not considered valuable. Naturally, if you have a woman who is raised to believe that her opinion is valuable and that she should be equal with men she will be scarred and indignant if another man forces his will upon her. It's as violent of an act as any. Would you be scarred and indignant if another man came and forced himself upon you?
You can't have a culture that considers women equals with men where any man can do what he wants with a woman regardless of how she feels about it, because equality necessitates that it also be a culture where a man can do what he wants with a man regardless of how he feels about it, and you wouldn't want that.
Knowing how to use technical things in ways they were never meant to be used makes you a geek. (and this is only one small definition "geekiness.")
I agree with you on all the other points, but wasn't this the definition of a "hack" last time we had this pointless discussion?
To me "geek", at least in the sense related to technology, is one who not only uses technology, but also understands how it works and is capable of applying technical knowledge. One who loves programming computers is probably not using anything "in ways they were never meant to be used", but most certainly a "geek" by most people's definition of the word. Probably a "hacker" by a lot of people's definition, too, although the programming itself wouldn't likely be considered a "hack" unless it were something quick-n-dirty or a particularly elegant application of some algorithm that were previously used for something entirely different.
There. I think that clears it up. *HEAD EXPLODES*
So... you're going to boycott Sony by not playing the PS2 that you already paid for? How is that hurting Sony? Why not sell your PS2? Then you've at least possibly deprived Sony of purchase.
But then, the division that makes the PS2 is fairly disparate within the company from the one you're attempting to hurt. But then you've already admitted that you don't buy CD's, the record company couldn't really care less about you. Still- why attempt to harm the folks within the company who make a cool product for the actions of another part of the company which they have no say in?
"Closer to" - as in, say, "$1,500 is closer to $1,000 than $2,500". Considering that they already start at $1,999, is it that unbelievable that the same configuration could be $500-800 cheaper in 8-9 months? I don't think so...
They're not a charity- they're looking to make as much money as possible. They can sell every MacBook Pro in their inventory in the next couple months for $2,500 a pop, but they won't be able to keep that up indefinitely. Toshiba, Asus, IBM, and others all have Core Duo laptops and tablets coming out in February, and for once consumers will be able to compare between PC's and Macs "apples-to-apples", so to speak. They may be able to justify a slight premium for being Apple, but too much and people will decide not to switch. In the end, they're going to price them similarly to PC's because they can make more selling a huge volume at a modest profit than selling a small volume at a huge profit.
Also, by the end of September I imagine Apple will be coming out with a 64-bit dual-core laptop based on the Jonah or Merom chips, which would bump the current MacBook Pro down a notch. The Yonahs may seem like top of the line now, but should be pretty commonplace within a year.
The current prices aren't indicative of what they will be in the long run. Apple's charging as much as they are for these computers right now because Intel is just beginning to ramp up production on the Core Duo chips, and because the demand from all the early-adopting uber-excited people far exceeds what computers they actually have in stock. Once all the "I have to have one! Now! No matter the cost!" people have made their purchases, and once Intel starts cranking out these processors for Apple (and all the other PC manufacturers that will be using them) for a couple months, the prices should drop significantly. I imagine a dual-core MacBook Pro should be closer to $1,000 by August-September.
You seem to think that the environment can "fix itself" regardless of what we do to it. If things get out of balance to the point where billions of humans are dying, while it may return to an equilibrium friendly to human life, there's no guarantee that it it will. There's no guarantee that a few hundred years from now some tipping point could be reached that causes the atmosphere's composition to change in a way that could not be reversed without some massive effort (like having to build oxygen creation plants, or something). I'm not saying there's any reason to believe that it WILL definitely happen, but there are certainly scenarios where something gets out of whack- plankton counts could skyrocket or plummet, weather systems or ocean currents could get screwed up, etc. The best way to deal with this is to proceed as usual but constantly study and try to minimize the environmental impact of industry
What happened to all these gigantic human-hunting birds? Did humans kill them all? It seems like they'd still be pretty successful, especially in rural areas. I'm glad I don't have to constantly be on the lookout for giant birds that could swoop down from the sky and pierce my brain with its talons through my eyeballs to let me dangle until I die. That's pretty horrific- someone should make a movie where a crazy scientist does some Jurassic Park shit and brings these birds back from extinction by crossbreeding them with pigeons. Being part pigeon, they multiply rapidly and quickly spread to the mainland US to terrorize the population....
Does getting pounded in the ass hurt less on the Moon?
So will we ever get computers where the processor, RAM, and flash memory storage are all on the same chip? it seems like you could make a very space-efficient computer that way, and probably produce the whole thing for less since you would have less individual parts and connectors, etc. Or would that cause heat dissipation problems? When do I get my tablet that is one solid block consisting of one chip, one battery, the display, and a few other minor components? (maybe with channels full of alcohol hollowed into the block?)
So how about a system where I give a yea or nea votes to stories, and then it determines what to bring to the front by using a bayesian algorithm to compare my votes on previous stories to others' votes on those same stories? It would only show me things that people who share my tastes say they like.
Remember the "flash mob" fad? Sounds sorta like the same thing. If I organized a flash mob at my competitor's store and it effectively disabled their store (and didn't merely bring them a bunch of customers) would they have a case against me?
I'd LOVE to have a MythTV PVR, even if it's a pain in the ass to configure- having automatic commercial removal rocks, no ads in the program guide rocks, being able to do whatever the hell I want with the video I record rocks, but there's one thing that's holding me back- I want more HDTV content than merely what is available over the air. Until they make a card that I can put in my computer that accepts a CableCard, I'm pretty much up a creek when it comes to getting HD content from digital cable with MythTV. That means no Discovery HD theater, no ESPNHD, no InHD, no HDnet, etc, etc.
This TiVo sounds like the best solution to date- at least I'll probably be able to get the content onto my computer (although it'll likely be a little more complicated than drag-n-drop)- unlike the Scientific Atlanta HD DVR Time Warner gives us. The downside being that their interface, and the recorded programs, will likely be littered with ads, as well as any subscription fees they may charge.
Anyone know of any PCI cards with CableCard slots in them in the works? or is that something the content/cable companies have ensured will never happen?
so true, and so sad. digg gets good stories, and they make it to the fron page faster than /., but the comments are totally worthless because they're not threaded, and thus no real coversations ensue, and thus few actually bother to comment or read the comments.
/.'s do, or if /.'s stories were user-moderated the way digg is.
/. editors' hangup on having control anyway? I guess that's the only way they can ensure Roland Piquepaille, **BeatlesBeatles, Sterling Allan, and whomever else pays to get on /. actually get what they want...
Imagine if digg's comments worked the way
What's the
alas, even if the stories are lame, the discussions are usually interesting enough to keep me coming back. It would be nice to see a site that lived up to potential, though...
This is true. So here's what you do-
1) You have non-forgeable (printed like money) ballots with detachable stubs on them, each of which would have the same unique number printed on them. Why we go through so much effort to make our money non-forgeable, but not our ballots, is beyond me.
2) When you sign in at the polling location, your ID info is written on the stub. Perhaps the stub is even thumbprinted with indelible ink.
3) You vote on the computer, which prints your votes on the ballot (but not the stub) in human-readable as well as machine-readable form, put your ballot in the box, and take the stub home.
4) The ballots are then kept by the registrar after the polls have closed. For a certain period of time after the election, any voter may present their stub to the registrar, verify their identity, and request to view their ballot to ensure that it was counted and not altered.
There are probably flaws I haven't thought of... Anyone?
lol... nice! somebody mod parent up!
dude. i have to be a pedant- the word is site, not sight.
sight = vision.
site = location.
as in, "we have an on-site admin" or "can you send someone out to the job site to check on this?". while there are many sights to be seen at various sites on the web, one does not go to a websight, but to a website.
got it? kthxbye.
So when a call comes in, you have to interact with it in order to NOT take the call? That's counterintuitive- So you're working on your Impala, hands all greasy, when your ex-gf calls. On any normal phone, you just ignore it and it ignores her, but on your ROKR you have to push a button? No thanks...
Now, if it could recognize your voice and only answer when you say "Take call" or something like that, that would rock. Other than that, and the lack of a SD slot for expansion, it sounds like a pretty cool phone...