On 2 separate occasions I drove myself to a fever of about 102F right before a huge academic committment I wasn't prepared for: 9th grade paper due at 15 pages typed, and Sophmore year economics exam. Although the stress and anxiety was wholly my fault, that didn't make it imaginary, and my system flipped out a little bit.
I almost hate to do this, but your example is singularly inappropriate, with the exception of the "unnoticed until it breaks" part.
1)"anyone can read the plumbing codes". No, they can't. Plumbing and other building codes are published by code writing organizations and adopted by reference into law. That means that one must pay to get a copy of the code before you can read it. You don't pay Home Depot for IP - you pay the code organization. (Recently this was challenged in court, and I think the code writers and municipalities lost, so this may change)
2) "The sewage system is, in effect, Open Source: anyone can read the rules for designing it, and anyone who follows the rules can connect to it." Not even close. A ewage system is owned wholly and completely by the local municipality or authority; you CANNOT just "hook up" to it. First, only a licensed plumber can do so; second, fees must be paid. While it is true that what you do in your house with your plumbing will not likely be noticed, some of those things are definitely illegal, ESPECIALLY if you are not a licensed plumber.
Don't get me wrong: GPL is great, SCO is evil, etc. But that was a singularly bad comparicon.
Price discrimination is only illegal when connected with other forms of discrimination - racial, gender, etc. If I am selling something, I can charge anyone anything I wish (assuming non monopoly status). However, if the buyer is part of a protected class, more rules apply, and I cannot charge different prices based on certain criteria - again, race, gender, etc. But charging a different price based solely on other traits is wholly legal.
Amazon.com was sued by the owners of the Amazon Book Store, a woman-themed store that had been in existence long before the online company, for stealing their name. I think they got paid off.
I've been wearing gas permeable lenses for over 20 years, since grade school, in order to slow the progression of my nearsightedness. One result is that, when I take out my lenses, I can still see a little bit, but if they satay out for a while, my vision gets worse - REAL fast.
I was unaware of this until I broke a contact lens right before a driving trip to New Hampshire (at night). No problem, I just grabbed my glasses. Just around New York I noticed that I couldnn'r read road signs. That's right - I'm going 70 on I84 and I don't know where to get off of the highway. When I wound up in NYC, I turned around and drove about 40 mph to New Hampshire.
Since I almost never took off my contact lenses, when I went to get glasses I just popped them out, blathered on about "1 better than 2, 3 better than one", popped my lenses back in and threw the glasses in a case for emergencies.
I know better now, but I still wouldn't go for corneal reshaping - the damned things just pop back into shape. I'm waiting for implantable lenses.
"what kind of information can we gain by counting citations"
It is a way of approximating the value of qualities that are not readily quantifiable.
The paper in question attemps to rank articles by how "influential" they were. But "influence" is hard to measure. We intuitively know it is a quality some papers have, but it can't be measured directly, like word count. So they chose a meta-measurement. If influence is the ability to affect others, then how many others were affected?
With Google, they are trying to measure how well a page matches a query. Since, on its face, how well a page matches a query is wholly subjective, Google leverages that subjectivity by equating links to a page with how important someone thought the page is.
Yes, there are problems with the method, but it still has value. Google bombing is the equivalent of stuffing your paper with cites so others THINK its important, but it is still gaming the system. When enough people game the system, the value of the meta-measurement breaks down.
I think you may be underestimating both Google and the "soccer moms" to which you refer. To "google", as a verb, is rapidly entering the lexicon, replacing "to do a web search." That didn't happen with the previous search engine king (ever hear someone say "I'll Yahoo for it?") and it's not happening w. MSN.
As for the "soccer moms," just because a (large) portion of the populace can't code in their sleep doesn't mean that they are wholly clueless as to anything other than MS and its products. While they may not know how to change IE's default search behavior, that doesn't stop them from typing in "www.google.com" when they actually WANT to do a search, as opposed to mis-typing a URL.
The reasons you state do not support your assertion that "Firefox is not an acceptable replacement for IE for 90% of the users out there"
1)"more than 90% of the Internet users out there aren't aware or concerned with IE vulnerabilities" So what? That has no bearing on whether Firefox would be an acceptable replacement. It might address WHY people find no incentive to switch, but not whether that switch would bew a good idea.
2)"Firefox isn't exactly the best browser out there if you want 100% compatibility with the "broken" sites on the Internet". Question? Is IE 100% compatible with "broken" sites? Thought not. Some sites don't work well, IE or no IE, and users are aware of this. There will always be crappy sites, and users blaming the software instead of the site - that is not a reason why Firefox can't replace IE for the average user.
Also, are there any statistics on how many sites are "actually" poorly rendered w. Firefox? 1%, 5%, 10%, 20%? My experience is that it's way down into single digits, but that is anecdotal.
Finally, what is "a seamless browsing experience?" Other than marketingspeak, I don't understand its meaning. When MS uses the phrase, it is as justifivation for browser integration, but that always struck me as a red herring to cover anti-competitive practices. Does the phrase mean anything real?
Look at the picture - it's an old console TV, built in the pre "lawsuit prevention" school of industrial design. It probably had half assed clips on particleboard, not tamper resistant torx.
You know - Darwinist design theory.
I think my son is going down that route. I have a jeweller's screwdriver with different shafts stored in the handle. R3.0 wanted to take something apart, but I had to step away for a few minutes, so "Don't mess with the screwdriver!"
I come back 15 minutes later, and his toy is pieces. He took the screwdriver, selected the correct bit (#0 phillips), mounted it in the handle, dismantled said toy, and then dissasembled the screwdriver and put the bit back. I was torn between praising his ingenuity or punishing his disobedience.
You realize that if this post was about research into asteroid mining, your alter ego would be saying "Why are we spending money on something so pointless when we could be trying to better understand the ecosystem where we live right now?"
SCO went to Baystar promising that, if Baystar financed them, SCO's IP properties were worth huge sums of money, and Baystar would profit handsomely. Baystar takes the bait.
Time passes.
Baystar realizes that SCO's IP claims are not all they were represented to be, and says so. They want out. SCO offers to buy back the preferred shares with cash and common shares. Baystar accepts.
Now we must realize that Baystar wasn't in this to break even, or to make a tidy profit - they were out to make a killing. So simply getting their money back won't do. So now that the deal is closing, Baystar is holding up SCO because, technically, they STILL own the preferred stock, and have questions they want answered - possibly for a later lawsuit for fraud, possibly just as a tactic to squeeze more out of SCO.
It's kind of like going to a closing on a house where all but the final paperwork is signed, and then the (current) owner says "Waitaminit - I still am not satisfied with your financial statement. Until you prove to me (to my satisfaction) that you can afford the house, I'm not signing.
While we can surmise that SCO is populated by con men and crooks, it does not follow that everyone SCO deals with is a victim. From Baystar's actions, they seem nearly as slimy. It's like 2 crooks arguing over booty that they agreed to share but turns out to be less than what was expected; just because 1 of them bonks the other one on the head doesn't make the unconcious one innocent.
Dark Helmet to Lone Star in "Spaceballs", but I don't get the relevance.
Re:Bad music?
on
TMBG on DRM
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
"People claim bad music is the reason for increased piracy"
No, that is not correct.
The record industry claims that "increased piracy" i.e. filesharing, is causing the record industry to lose money through lost sales.
In response, people claim that the record industry is losing money because lost sales due to poor product, i.e. "bad music", and that the RIAA's current argument is a red herring.
There are a great many people who, although they agrre that filesharing is a copyright violation, don't believe that the music industry is telling the truth when it comes to their profit/loss statements. They have not been arguing for new laws based on the moral high ground, but on monetary terms. As such, their claims are open to factual dispute. They have been trying to argue the moral high ground as representatives of the "artist's rights," but that isn't gaining a lot of traction due to how horribly they abuse the musicians.
There is a difference between right vs. wrong and damaging vs. harmless. There are those that argue that filesharing of copyrighted works is right and just and perfectly OK, but they are a small minority. The rest of us (that have given it any thought) are of the opinion that file sharing is wrong, but harmless. The record industry is trying to convince the populace on the "damaging vs. harmless" front, and they haven't done it yet.
One of the (many) unintended consequences of this will be that parents and authorities will have a higher perceived confidence level but a lower real confidence level.
Current situation: Parent sends child to school. Did they get there? Probably, based on past behavior and other factors, but not necessarily definitely. Therefore, the parents continue to assert controls and recieve feedback (aka nagging and snooping) over time to increase the liklihood of the child going to school and behaving safely.
Proposed situation: Parent sends child to school. Did they get there? Definitely, based on the feedback from the sensors at the school. Parents don't need to check and reinforce behavior (spy and nag), because they can be sure that their little darling is safe at school. Except that only the tag is at school, in their little darling's friend's bag. Little darling is skipping school and is currenly at a bukkake shoot earning some extra coin.
The problem is that your example is stuck in the left/right dichotomy. In your politics, there is only Left and Right, and all candidates are judged by the public on where they fit on that continuum.
2 problems:
A) Not all candidates fit onto that continuum, and those that do have other traits that voters take into account.
B) In the US, we vote for individuals, NOT parties. Your post did not mention candidates, only parties. Yes, parties play a big role in our political system, but in the ballot box, there is a person's name to vote for, not just a party.
So, if in your example we replace "party" with "candidate", and assume they have other aspects than their "ice cream-ness",
40 votes for the Red candidate 30 votes for the Blue candidate 30 votes for the Yellow candidate The Red candidate got the most votes, so that candidate wins.
"Unfair" you cry; "60 people DID'NT WANT the Red candidate, but they are now sadddled with him!"
"True" I reply, "But while 60 people didn't want the Red candidate, 70 people didn't want the Blue, and 70 people didn't want the Yellow. So while a majority of the folks don't like Red, even greater majorities don't like Blue or Yellow, so we'll have to go with the least of the evils"
"I figure better to have an inferior browser on my computer, a little extra space, and less confusion then to load both of them. Can anyone solve that problem?"
So you won't give up a few megabytes of space to have a superior web browsing experience on your computer? No problem. Go into your IE settings and set your cache to 1 kilobyte. You will have to load every page from scratch, but you will save WAY more disk space that way. Also, what confusion? They all have the same basic functionality - forward, back stop refresh. Click on link and go there. How "confusing" could it be?
"I ended up using Outlook because the Mail Server I use requires SPA and a security plug that is used solely by Microsoft. Mozilla's mail program going to solve this for me? "
Mozilla isn't going to solve this problem, you are. Change mail servers. Bitch at the people running the one you use.
The problems you cite are not Mozilla's problems; they are deliberate decisions and plans by Microsoft to lock you in to using their products, and you have bought into it hook, line, & sinker.
1) Magazine feeds a CD to a dremel motor which spins the CD in place to about 5000 rpm. As it is spinning up, the...
2) capacitors in the railgun are charging. Since the disk has an aluminum layer, it should be able to be ejected from a railgun. So when the capacitors are charged...
3) a switch kills the dremel motor, which drops the disk into the railgun receiver. CD shoots off, rack another one into the spinner-upper.
4) Repeat.
Alternately, hack an old CD drive to spin and release the cd.
Slashdot Mirror
Ditto here.
On 2 separate occasions I drove myself to a fever of about 102F right before a huge academic committment I wasn't prepared for: 9th grade paper due at 15 pages typed, and Sophmore year economics exam. Although the stress and anxiety was wholly my fault, that didn't make it imaginary, and my system flipped out a little bit.
Ouch.
I almost hate to do this, but your example is singularly inappropriate, with the exception of the "unnoticed until it breaks" part.
1)"anyone can read the plumbing codes". No, they can't. Plumbing and other building codes are published by code writing organizations and adopted by reference into law. That means that one must pay to get a copy of the code before you can read it. You don't pay Home Depot for IP - you pay the code organization.
(Recently this was challenged in court, and I think the code writers and municipalities lost, so this may change)
2) "The sewage system is, in effect, Open Source: anyone can read the rules for designing it, and anyone who follows the rules can connect to it." Not even close. A ewage system is owned wholly and completely by the local municipality or authority; you CANNOT just "hook up" to it. First, only a licensed plumber can do so; second, fees must be paid. While it is true that what you do in your house with your plumbing will not likely be noticed, some of those things are definitely illegal, ESPECIALLY if you are not a licensed plumber.
Don't get me wrong: GPL is great, SCO is evil, etc. But that was a singularly bad comparicon.
If anyonewas of a size to need BOTH hands to occupy themselves, they wouldn't be reading /. - they'd be making porn.
Price discrimination is only illegal when connected with other forms of discrimination - racial, gender, etc. If I am selling something, I can charge anyone anything I wish (assuming non monopoly status). However, if the buyer is part of a protected class, more rules apply, and I cannot charge different prices based on certain criteria - again, race, gender, etc. But charging a different price based solely on other traits is wholly legal.
Amazon .com was sued by the owners of the Amazon Book Store, a woman-themed store that had been in existence long before the online company, for stealing their name. I think they got paid off.
Betcherass - it happened to me.
I've been wearing gas permeable lenses for over 20 years, since grade school, in order to slow the progression of my nearsightedness. One result is that, when I take out my lenses, I can still see a little bit, but if they satay out for a while, my vision gets worse - REAL fast.
I was unaware of this until I broke a contact lens right before a driving trip to New Hampshire (at night). No problem, I just grabbed my glasses. Just around New York I noticed that I couldnn'r read road signs. That's right - I'm going 70 on I84 and I don't know where to get off of the highway. When I wound up in NYC, I turned around and drove about 40 mph to New Hampshire.
Since I almost never took off my contact lenses, when I went to get glasses I just popped them out, blathered on about "1 better than 2, 3 better than one", popped my lenses back in and threw the glasses in a case for emergencies.
I know better now, but I still wouldn't go for corneal reshaping - the damned things just pop back into shape. I'm waiting for implantable lenses.
"what kind of information can we gain by counting citations"
It is a way of approximating the value of qualities that are not readily quantifiable.
The paper in question attemps to rank articles by how "influential" they were. But "influence" is hard to measure. We intuitively know it is a quality some papers have, but it can't be measured directly, like word count. So they chose a meta-measurement. If influence is the ability to affect others, then how many others were affected?
With Google, they are trying to measure how well a page matches a query. Since, on its face, how well a page matches a query is wholly subjective, Google leverages that subjectivity by equating links to a page with how important someone thought the page is.
Yes, there are problems with the method, but it still has value. Google bombing is the equivalent of stuffing your paper with cites so others THINK its important, but it is still gaming the system. When enough people game the system, the value of the meta-measurement breaks down.
I believe the parent was referring to the fact that Google, with its simple interface and start page, is very friendly to 56k in and of itself.
I think you may be underestimating both Google and the "soccer moms" to which you refer. To "google", as a verb, is rapidly entering the lexicon, replacing "to do a web search." That didn't happen with the previous search engine king (ever hear someone say "I'll Yahoo for it?") and it's not happening w. MSN.
As for the "soccer moms," just because a (large) portion of the populace can't code in their sleep doesn't mean that they are wholly clueless as to anything other than MS and its products. While they may not know how to change IE's default search behavior, that doesn't stop them from typing in "www.google.com" when they actually WANT to do a search, as opposed to mis-typing a URL.
The reasons you state do not support your assertion that "Firefox is not an acceptable replacement for IE for 90% of the users out there"
1)"more than 90% of the Internet users out there aren't aware or concerned with IE vulnerabilities"
So what? That has no bearing on whether Firefox would be an acceptable replacement. It might address WHY people find no incentive to switch, but not whether that switch would bew a good idea.
2)"Firefox isn't exactly the best browser out there if you want 100% compatibility with the "broken" sites on the Internet". Question? Is IE 100% compatible with "broken" sites? Thought not. Some sites don't work well, IE or no IE, and users are aware of this. There will always be crappy sites, and users blaming the software instead of the site - that is not a reason why Firefox can't replace IE for the average user.
Also, are there any statistics on how many sites are "actually" poorly rendered w. Firefox? 1%, 5%, 10%, 20%? My experience is that it's way down into single digits, but that is anecdotal.
Finally, what is "a seamless browsing experience?" Other than marketingspeak, I don't understand its meaning. When MS uses the phrase, it is as justifivation for browser integration, but that always struck me as a red herring to cover anti-competitive practices. Does the phrase mean anything real?
Look at the picture - it's an old console TV, built in the pre "lawsuit prevention" school of industrial design. It probably had half assed clips on particleboard, not tamper resistant torx.
You know - Darwinist design theory.
I think my son is going down that route. I have a jeweller's screwdriver with different shafts stored in the handle. R3.0 wanted to take something apart, but I had to step away for a few minutes, so "Don't mess with the screwdriver!"
I come back 15 minutes later, and his toy is pieces. He took the screwdriver, selected the correct bit (#0 phillips), mounted it in the handle, dismantled said toy, and then dissasembled the screwdriver and put the bit back. I was torn between praising his ingenuity or punishing his disobedience.
He was 3 years old at the time.
You realize that if this post was about research into asteroid mining, your alter ego would be saying "Why are we spending money on something so pointless when we could be trying to better understand the ecosystem where we live right now?"
It all depends on whose ox is gored.
"getting around lamness filter, caps needed to make point
around lamness filter, caps needed to make point"
Don't worry - you are still lame.
Oh, and I'd be careful about throwing around the "moron" label when your post has 8 typos/punctuation errors in 2 lines.
Here's my interpretation:
SCO went to Baystar promising that, if Baystar financed them, SCO's IP properties were worth huge sums of money, and Baystar would profit handsomely. Baystar takes the bait.
Time passes.
Baystar realizes that SCO's IP claims are not all they were represented to be, and says so. They want out. SCO offers to buy back the preferred shares with cash and common shares. Baystar accepts.
Now we must realize that Baystar wasn't in this to break even, or to make a tidy profit - they were out to make a killing. So simply getting their money back won't do. So now that the deal is closing, Baystar is holding up SCO because, technically, they STILL own the preferred stock, and have questions they want answered - possibly for a later lawsuit for fraud, possibly just as a tactic to squeeze more out of SCO.
It's kind of like going to a closing on a house where all but the final paperwork is signed, and then the (current) owner says "Waitaminit - I still am not satisfied with your financial statement. Until you prove to me (to my satisfaction) that you can afford the house, I'm not signing.
While we can surmise that SCO is populated by con men and crooks, it does not follow that everyone SCO deals with is a victim. From Baystar's actions, they seem nearly as slimy. It's like 2 crooks arguing over booty that they agreed to share but turns out to be less than what was expected; just because 1 of them bonks the other one on the head doesn't make the unconcious one innocent.
Dark Helmet to Lone Star in "Spaceballs", but I don't get the relevance.
"People claim bad music is the reason for increased piracy"
No, that is not correct.
The record industry claims that "increased piracy" i.e. filesharing, is causing the record industry to lose money through lost sales.
In response, people claim that the record industry is losing money because lost sales due to poor product, i.e. "bad music", and that the RIAA's current argument is a red herring.
There are a great many people who, although they agrre that filesharing is a copyright violation, don't believe that the music industry is telling the truth when it comes to their profit/loss statements. They have not been arguing for new laws based on the moral high ground, but on monetary terms. As such, their claims are open to factual dispute. They have been trying to argue the moral high ground as representatives of the "artist's rights," but that isn't gaining a lot of traction due to how horribly they abuse the musicians.
There is a difference between right vs. wrong and damaging vs. harmless. There are those that argue that filesharing of copyrighted works is right and just and perfectly OK, but they are a small minority. The rest of us (that have given it any thought) are of the opinion that file sharing is wrong, but harmless. The record industry is trying to convince the populace on the "damaging vs. harmless" front, and they haven't done it yet.
the plot for a new Spongebob episode
One of the (many) unintended consequences of this will be that parents and authorities will have a higher perceived confidence level but a lower real confidence level.
Current situation: Parent sends child to school. Did they get there? Probably, based on past behavior and other factors, but not necessarily definitely. Therefore, the parents continue to assert controls and recieve feedback (aka nagging and snooping) over time to increase the liklihood of the child going to school and behaving safely.
Proposed situation: Parent sends child to school. Did they get there? Definitely, based on the feedback from the sensors at the school. Parents don't need to check and reinforce behavior (spy and nag), because they can be sure that their little darling is safe at school. Except that only the tag is at school, in their little darling's friend's bag. Little darling is skipping school and is currenly at a bukkake shoot earning some extra coin.
I'll stick with the nagging and snooping.
The problem is that your example is stuck in the left/right dichotomy. In your politics, there is only Left and Right, and all candidates are judged by the public on where they fit on that continuum.
2 problems:
A) Not all candidates fit onto that continuum, and those that do have other traits that voters take into account.
B) In the US, we vote for individuals, NOT parties. Your post did not mention candidates, only parties. Yes, parties play a big role in our political system, but in the ballot box, there is a person's name to vote for, not just a party.
So, if in your example we replace "party" with "candidate", and assume they have other aspects than their "ice cream-ness",
40 votes for the Red candidate
30 votes for the Blue candidate
30 votes for the Yellow candidate
The Red candidate got the most votes, so that candidate wins.
"Unfair" you cry; "60 people DID'NT WANT the Red candidate, but they are now sadddled with him!"
"True" I reply, "But while 60 people didn't want the Red candidate, 70 people didn't want the Blue, and 70 people didn't want the Yellow. So while a majority of the folks don't like Red, even greater majorities don't like Blue or Yellow, so we'll have to go with the least of the evils"
Somebody suggested this as a good way to destroy hard drives:
1) Hang old HD up broadside.
2) Hook up old 12v lawn tractor battery to get platters spinning
3) FIRE
4) Watch HD explode at 5400 or 7200 RPM.
"I figure better to have an inferior browser on my computer, a little extra space, and less confusion then to load both of them. Can anyone solve that problem?"
So you won't give up a few megabytes of space to have a superior web browsing experience on your computer? No problem. Go into your IE settings and set your cache to 1 kilobyte. You will have to load every page from scratch, but you will save WAY more disk space that way. Also, what confusion? They all have the same basic functionality - forward, back stop refresh. Click on link and go there. How "confusing" could it be?
"I ended up using Outlook because the Mail Server I use requires SPA and a security plug that is used solely by Microsoft. Mozilla's mail program going to solve this for me? "
Mozilla isn't going to solve this problem, you are. Change mail servers. Bitch at the people running the one you use.
The problems you cite are not Mozilla's problems; they are deliberate decisions and plans by Microsoft to lock you in to using their products, and you have bought into it hook, line, & sinker.
I like xxx.yyy@zzz.com.
Mebbe not - just looked up rail gun construction.
I'm thinking the following:
1) Magazine feeds a CD to a dremel motor which spins the CD in place to about 5000 rpm. As it is spinning up, the...
2) capacitors in the railgun are charging. Since the disk has an aluminum layer, it should be able to be ejected from a railgun. So when the capacitors are charged...
3) a switch kills the dremel motor, which drops the disk into the railgun receiver. CD shoots off, rack another one into the spinner-upper.
4) Repeat.
Alternately, hack an old CD drive to spin and release the cd.
You don't work for a real company, do you?