No, it means there is a factor that affects one group more than the other. It does not, on any level, mean that such is sufficient to "balance it out."
- Ogg and mp3 "support DRM" by your definition: Fairplay is just a wrapper added to the audio format....and yes, I have played them after copying them off. I had a hard drive crash and rescued my music off of my iPod precisely that way. Virtually my entire library was once on my iPod and had to be copied back.
You bring up three examples: Microsoft, iPod, and iTunes... all of which prove his point.
As to Microsoft, you even used the key words, "creating a no competition environment." They didn't enter a market with no competition, they removed that competition which was there.
iTunes: Certainly not the first music player on the market, nor was the iTMS the first music store. They didn't have a lack of competition, what they had was *bad* competition, which is what TFA says one wants.
iPod: Same deal as with iTunes. Remember that the initial comments on it in Slashdot were "less space than a nomad"? There certainly was competition for it when it came out, but that competition couldn't provide what Apple could. Hence, "bad competition," not "no competition."
First, security updates continue, IIRC all the way back to 10.1.
Second, newer applications don't "stop working." What happens is developers start to take advantage of new features in the API--Core Data, Core Animation, Spotlight, etc which, yes, one has to pay to get. Applications that do not use these features will continue to work into the far futrue.
The only time the "links broke" was at the 10.2 switch, and hasn't happened since. This was a deliberate move that was planned from before 10.1, announced in advance, and was related to the switch between GCC 2.x and 3.x. Other than that the software is, generally, both forward and backward compatible.
The people I've met who have had vocational programming are generally lousy programmers. Training in mathematics and engineering is training in problem solving--an invaluable skill--and the mathematics gives one skills that they may never use or they may need just to get in the door to a place that uses them.
I cannot emphasize enough the quote from the CAIP quarterly on mathematics, paraphrasing: "I tell my students to listen carefully when they decide to take their last mathematics class. They may be able to hear the sound of closing doors."
Most everyone in my office wishes they had more mathematics in school, most people who majored in economics say they would kill for the differential equations my school forced econ majors to take, and many professors in Ecology who are doing simulation wished that ecology grad students had a firmer background in mathematics. Its everywhere, but if you lack training in it then of course you will never use it or be required to use it.
"Personally I think there is much less mathematics going on at the programming level than college lecturers like to think."
I generally find that there is more.
Seriously. I work in decision support, and there's barely a day that goes by that I'm not working with an differential equation, Triginometry, set theory, graph theory, or linear algebra. At a minumum the discussions tend to frame things in terms of asymtotic notation.
It depends on what you want to do. If you want to be a DBA, the amount of math that you need and what kind of math you need is different from someone who works in game programming, decision support, or scientific computing.
"""One skilled player in a tech 2 ship will be able to take on a whole squadron of newbies (even ones lead by an old player), simply by picking them off one by one outside warp scrambler range (warp scramblers stop you from just warping off when in trouble).""""
This is patently untrue. I fly with a group that specializes in taking small squadrons out and wiping the floor with single ships with people who have a lot of skill points in comparison. Someone tried exactly the tactic you are describing, they failed to kill a single person and ended up screwing up and dying (and losing their nice Tech 2 Combat Recon ship in the process).
The nice Tech II equipment he was using simply didn't help him. A group of frigates can decline an engagement. Every time he showed up the frigate fleet simply turned and left for a safespot, and eventually we managed to kill him (twice, he brought back a smart-bombing dominix complete with drones) and his ally who had managed to escape in a pod earlier in the conflict.
Its just flat-out hard, no matter what your tech, to survive when they can damp and scramble you before you can get a lock or hit the warp button. It becomes doubly difficult if there is just one person in that wolfpack who can use 'dictors and/or one person who has a cov-ops ship.
Tech 2 equipment helps, but it cannot overcome numbers, training, or the right outfits. ISK helps, but it cannot over number numbers, training, or the right outfits. A wolfpack of tech 1 frigates or destroyers, with a good mix of ECM, scramblers, disruptors, and the like can take down most ships (including HACs and Ravens) with tech 2 gear with minimal (or no) losses.
>"And even Eve's slow but steady growth will only go so far, as it's a game of Haves and Have >Nots, and new players are mostly Nots."
This is only partly true.
First, the upper tiers of skill training take a long time. So, for example, getting to the point where you have a 20% bonus in Engineering takes only a fraction of the time it takes to get to a 25%
What this means is that someone who invests a lot more time in it will only generate a slightly better character.
Second, tactics and numbers beat raw points. Give me a dozen or so people who have been playing less than a month, give them the right mix of easy to get skills, and we'll go all evening taking down battleships, force recon ships, etc with barely in losses. Sure, they won't beat a force of equal numbers flying interceptors or anything funny like that, but they can decline engagements they can't win and will just cause a massive amount of damage relative to the total number of skill points in the group.
>There is absolutely nothing "religious" about the belief that personhood begins at conception (rather than any other >point you want to put it). Indeed, the Bible says essentially nothing on the matter.
Just because the bible says nothing in particular on the matter (whether it says something in general via implication is up for debate), the Catechism of the Catholic Church *does* make statements on the matter, so it clearly is a "religious issue" for some people. Bush has made statements to indicate that it is part of his religious beliefs as well, not just his abstract morality independent of his religion. Religion != The Bible and Religion != Christianity.
Reading comprehension. You aren't talking about the same thing.
HHHHHHHHHH is as likely as any other combination. This can be confirmed by modeling it as a series of bernoulli trials and using conditional probability. Remeber that in what the parent is talking about, order matters.
The question of "how many heads" you get is a binomial distribution. P(H=9) = 10C9* 0.5^9 * 0.5 = 10C9 * 0.5^10.
10C9 = 10! / ( ( 10 - 9 )! 9! ) = 10.
The probability of getting HHHHHHHHHH is equal to the probability of getting HHHHHHHHHT, that's what the parent poster was asserting. This is very different from the probability of getting 1 tail and 9 heads, which is what you are talking about.
It is really quite irrelevant whether *I* have paranormal powers.
The question is whether they exist, period. That is being researched under the name "Psi." These challenges prove nothing (much like the "hack this box" challenges) and Brian Josephson has already recorded cases that make Randi's bias and unwilling to entertain the possibility.
For example, http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/%7Ebdj10/propaganda/
"Randi doesn't have to get perfect results in telepathy, since he doesn't believe it is possible. That's his whole point."...and that is why I call him a fraud and why Josephon's point about his challenge is valid.
Quoting Marcello Truzzi, one of the founders of CSICOP:
"In science, the burden of proof falls upon the claimant; and the more extraordinary a claim, the heavier is the burden of proof demanded. The true skeptic takes an agnostic position, one that says the claim is not proved rather than disproved. He asserts that the claimant has not borne the burden of proof and that science must continue to build its cognitive map of reality without incorporating the extraordinary claim as a new "fact." Since the true skeptic does not assert a claim, he has no burden to prove anything. He just goes on using the established theories of "conventional science" as usual. But if a critic asserts that there is evidence for disproof, that he has a negative hypothesis -- saying, for instance, that a seeming psi result was actually due to an artifact -- he is making a claim and therefore also has to bear a burden of proof." -- Truzzi, Zetetic Scholar, #12-13, 1987
Randi does not keep an open mind, Randi is not interested in proof, he does not say "maybe, but we need more evidence." He, as you put it, "does not believe it is possible."
People make a big deal out of failure to replicate, but it doesn't mean as much taken in isolation as one would suspect.
For an oversimplified case, let's say that I will reject the null hypothesis for p <= 0.05. The experiment is replicated 19 more times, and 15 of them fail to reject the null hypothesis while 4 of them reject the null hypothesis. Without getting into meta-analysis (this is over-simplified), the results could still be consistent with the first successful experiment, despite that only 25% of the experiments are successful. This is because given a p-value of 0.05, we'd expect only 1/20 experiments to be successful, not 5/20.
If you are looking for "a good Psychic" then your approach is fundamentally unscientific as far as looking for evidence of psychic functioning.
Read studies by people in the field of Parapsychology. Look up statisticians such as Jessica Utts. That is where the scientific evidence comes from--not from an arbitrary hunt for a "good psychic" on slashdot.
" We have looked, and looked, and looked and come up empty handed EVERY TIME."
Have you actually bothered to look at the scientific studies performed in the field, or are you just saying this because nothing has come up in the news media that you paid attention to?
The studies I've seen for Psi have been showing interesting results for years.
It has been written for laymen, but read Dean Radin's Conscious Universe and the papers (not so-much written for laymen) by Brian Josephon and Jessica Utts.
Slashdot Mirror
What do you want them to be? They are configurable.
You can also set it up so the entire OS can be accesses from the keyboard.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
No, it means there is a factor that affects one group more than the other. It does not, on any level, mean that such is sufficient to "balance it out."
- Ogg and mp3 "support DRM" by your definition: Fairplay is just a wrapper added to the audio format. ...and yes, I have played them after copying them off. I had a hard drive crash and rescued my music off of my iPod precisely that way. Virtually my entire library was once on my iPod and had to be copied back.
You bring up three examples: Microsoft, iPod, and iTunes... all of which prove his point.
As to Microsoft, you even used the key words, "creating a no competition environment." They didn't enter a market with no competition, they removed that competition which was there.
iTunes: Certainly not the first music player on the market, nor was the iTMS the first music store. They didn't have a lack of competition, what they had was *bad* competition, which is what TFA says one wants.
iPod: Same deal as with iTunes. Remember that the initial comments on it in Slashdot were "less space than a nomad"? There certainly was competition for it when it came out, but that competition couldn't provide what Apple could. Hence, "bad competition," not "no competition."
"something is rotten in the states of Louisiana, South Dakota, Mississippi, New Jersey ... all states with gambling in poor areas"
Question, do you know where Harrah's casino is located in New Orleans, LA?
"Are Antitrust Laws still enforced in the US?"
No. Next question?
Stop spreading misinformation.
First, security updates continue, IIRC all the way back to 10.1.
Second, newer applications don't "stop working." What happens is developers start to take advantage of new features in the API--Core Data, Core Animation, Spotlight, etc which, yes, one has to pay to get. Applications that do not use these features will continue to work into the far futrue.
The only time the "links broke" was at the 10.2 switch, and hasn't happened since. This was a deliberate move that was planned from before 10.1, announced in advance, and was related to the switch between GCC 2.x and 3.x. Other than that the software is, generally, both forward and backward compatible.
I keep hearing this argument, does Steve Jobs beat up everyone who doesn't upgrade or something?
It costs you $0 if you don't upgrade, and the computer continues to work.
To start, that tower is only "better" if your space is worthless. A large part of the Mac Mini's appeal is its form factor.
AAC is also a non-DRM format, as are AIFF, WAV, and Apple Lossless.
The people I've met who have had vocational programming are generally lousy programmers. Training in mathematics and engineering is training in problem solving--an invaluable skill--and the mathematics gives one skills that they may never use or they may need just to get in the door to a place that uses them.
I cannot emphasize enough the quote from the CAIP quarterly on mathematics, paraphrasing: "I tell my students to listen carefully when they decide to take their last mathematics class. They may be able to hear the sound of closing doors."
Most everyone in my office wishes they had more mathematics in school, most people who majored in economics say they would kill for the differential equations my school forced econ majors to take, and many professors in Ecology who are doing simulation wished that ecology grad students had a firmer background in mathematics. Its everywhere, but if you lack training in it then of course you will never use it or be required to use it.
"Personally I think there is much less mathematics going on at the programming level than college lecturers like to think."
I generally find that there is more.
Seriously. I work in decision support, and there's barely a day that goes by that I'm not working with an differential equation, Triginometry, set theory, graph theory, or linear algebra. At a minumum the discussions tend to frame things in terms of asymtotic notation.
It depends on what you want to do. If you want to be a DBA, the amount of math that you need and what kind of math you need is different from someone who works in game programming, decision support, or scientific computing.
"""One skilled player in a tech 2 ship will be able to take on a whole squadron of newbies (even ones lead by an old player), simply by picking them off one by one outside warp scrambler range (warp scramblers stop you from just warping off when in trouble).""""
This is patently untrue. I fly with a group that specializes in taking small squadrons out and wiping the floor with single ships with people who have a lot of skill points in comparison. Someone tried exactly the tactic you are describing, they failed to kill a single person and ended up screwing up and dying (and losing their nice Tech 2 Combat Recon ship in the process).
The nice Tech II equipment he was using simply didn't help him. A group of frigates can decline an engagement. Every time he showed up the frigate fleet simply turned and left for a safespot, and eventually we managed to kill him (twice, he brought back a smart-bombing dominix complete with drones) and his ally who had managed to escape in a pod earlier in the conflict.
Its just flat-out hard, no matter what your tech, to survive when they can damp and scramble you before you can get a lock or hit the warp button. It becomes doubly difficult if there is just one person in that wolfpack who can use 'dictors and/or one person who has a cov-ops ship.
Tech 2 equipment helps, but it cannot overcome numbers, training, or the right outfits. ISK helps, but it cannot over number numbers, training, or the right outfits. A wolfpack of tech 1 frigates or destroyers, with a good mix of ECM, scramblers, disruptors, and the like can take down most ships (including HACs and Ravens) with tech 2 gear with minimal (or no) losses.
>"And even Eve's slow but steady growth will only go so far, as it's a game of Haves and Have
>Nots, and new players are mostly Nots."
This is only partly true.
First, the upper tiers of skill training take a long time. So, for example, getting to the point where you have a 20% bonus in Engineering takes only a fraction of the time it takes to get to a 25%
What this means is that someone who invests a lot more time in it will only generate a slightly better character.
Second, tactics and numbers beat raw points. Give me a dozen or so people who have been playing less than a month, give them the right mix of easy to get skills, and we'll go all evening taking down battleships, force recon ships, etc with barely in losses. Sure, they won't beat a force of equal numbers flying interceptors or anything funny like that, but they can decline engagements they can't win and will just cause a massive amount of damage relative to the total number of skill points in the group.
Skills and 1337 eq aren't everything.
It is in the manufacturer's "best interest" to support what their customers want.
>There is absolutely nothing "religious" about the belief that personhood begins at conception (rather than any other
>point you want to put it). Indeed, the Bible says essentially nothing on the matter.
Just because the bible says nothing in particular on the matter (whether it says something in general via implication is up for debate), the Catechism of the Catholic Church *does* make statements on the matter, so it clearly is a "religious issue" for some people. Bush has made statements to indicate that it is part of his religious beliefs as well, not just his abstract morality independent of his religion. Religion != The Bible and Religion != Christianity.
Reading comprehension. You aren't talking about the same thing.
HHHHHHHHHH is as likely as any other combination. This can be confirmed by modeling it as a series of bernoulli trials and using conditional probability. Remeber that in what the parent is talking about, order matters.
The question of "how many heads" you get is a binomial distribution. P(H=9) = 10C9* 0.5^9 * 0.5 = 10C9 * 0.5^10.
10C9 = 10! / ( ( 10 - 9 )! 9! ) = 10.
The probability of getting HHHHHHHHHH is equal to the probability of getting HHHHHHHHHT, that's what the parent poster was asserting. This is very different from the probability of getting 1 tail and 9 heads, which is what you are talking about.
It is really quite irrelevant whether *I* have paranormal powers.
The question is whether they exist, period. That is being researched under the name "Psi." These challenges prove nothing (much like the "hack this box" challenges) and Brian Josephson has already recorded cases that make Randi's bias and unwilling to entertain the possibility.
For example, http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/%7Ebdj10/propaganda/
"Randi doesn't have to get perfect results in telepathy, since he doesn't believe it is possible. That's his whole point." ...and that is why I call him a fraud and why Josephon's point about his challenge is valid.
Quoting Marcello Truzzi, one of the founders of CSICOP:
"In science, the burden of proof falls upon the claimant; and the more extraordinary a claim, the heavier is the burden of proof demanded. The true skeptic takes an agnostic position, one that says the claim is not proved rather than disproved. He asserts that the claimant has not borne the burden of proof and that science must continue to build its cognitive map of reality without incorporating the extraordinary claim as a new "fact." Since the true skeptic does not assert a claim, he has no burden to prove anything. He just goes on using the established theories of "conventional science" as usual. But if a critic asserts that there is evidence for disproof, that he has a negative hypothesis -- saying, for instance, that a seeming psi result was actually due to an artifact -- he is making a claim and therefore also has to bear a burden of proof." -- Truzzi, Zetetic Scholar, #12-13, 1987
Randi does not keep an open mind, Randi is not interested in proof, he does not say "maybe, but we need more evidence." He, as you put it, "does not believe it is possible."
People make a big deal out of failure to replicate, but it doesn't mean as much taken in isolation as one would suspect.
For an oversimplified case, let's say that I will reject the null hypothesis for p <= 0.05. The experiment is replicated 19 more times, and 15 of them fail to reject the null hypothesis while 4 of them reject the null hypothesis. Without getting into meta-analysis (this is over-simplified), the results could still be consistent with the first successful experiment, despite that only 25% of the experiments are successful. This is because given a p-value of 0.05, we'd expect only 1/20 experiments to be successful, not 5/20.
Read Dean Radin's Conscious Universe to start.
If you are looking for "a good Psychic" then your approach is fundamentally unscientific as far as looking for evidence of psychic functioning.
Read studies by people in the field of Parapsychology. Look up statisticians such as Jessica Utts. That is where the scientific evidence comes from--not from an arbitrary hunt for a "good psychic" on slashdot.
"
We have looked, and looked, and looked and come up empty handed EVERY TIME."
Have you actually bothered to look at the scientific studies performed in the field, or are you just saying this because nothing has come up in the news media that you paid attention to?
The studies I've seen for Psi have been showing interesting results for years.
It has been written for laymen, but read Dean Radin's Conscious Universe and the papers (not so-much written for laymen) by Brian Josephon and Jessica Utts.