I understand NASA was fighting the concept because they felt the money would be better spent on shuttle studies and Mars activity. Not that they did not want the money, they just did not want to earmark it onto a mission to Pluto.
Good point and I would like to expand a little more. Right now NASA is very concerned with public image. If the public and government views NASA as beneficial then funding will continue to come. Likewise, if NASA is seen as wasting money then future budgets may get cut.
That being said, NASA would much rather spend this money on something that will show direct results quickly. The Pluto mission will not have any results until 2015 when the probe finally reaches the planet. I'm sure that scientifically NASA doesn't mind going forward with a Pluto mission but from a budget standpoint they would rather have used the money for something else.
I completely agree with your proposed solution (both parts) and I think the articles conclusion does also. The article deals with the question of whether he should get a nomination for Best Supporting Actor. I believe the answer still holds at no because his performance fits into a different type of category.
Your solution solves the problem perfectly. It is too late to create a new category at this point, so instead recognize his amazing work with a groundbreaking performance award. And at that time announce the creation of a new category for the "synthespian" performances.
The end of the Salon article wraps things up perfectly. Should he have recieved a nomination for Best Supporting Actor?
In the end, the answer is no, not because his talents are less significant than those of the supporting actor nominees, but because the work that he has done here is not equivalent. It would be a disservice to the other nominees to compete against the computer-enhanced Serkis, just as it would be a disservice to Gollum to be written off as an accomplishment of acting. The fact is that Gollum represents a new breed of synthespian performers...
Without Serkis' acting and voice work, Golum would not have been as good. Likewise, without the great CG work the character of Gollum would again have not been as good. It looks like the Academy really needs to wake up and create a new category for these "synthespian" performances which combine real acting/voice with digital effects teams.
Having read the article I noticed that this is not a mission to land on the moon. Rather it is an orbiting probe to take pictures:
TransOrbital, Inc. received permission from various government agencies last week to send a probe back to the Earth's little sister. That probe, dubbed Trailblazer, will orbit the moon for 90 days, filming portraits of Earth as it rises over the lunar horizon and mapping the moonscape in unprecedented detail -- as small as one meter in diameter.
Does anybody not see this as the MPAA shooting itself in the foot?
The MPAA is only shooting themselves in foot if they lose the battle and "proper security measures" are not implemented. Naturally the MPAA doesn't want to lose money, they are just making a threat (yes a threat; by not allowing their movies to be broadcast, the cable companies will also lose potential ad revenue) in order to get what they want. Do you think they will lose the battle? They certainly don't plan on losing.
Your questioning of Intel's math abilities intrigued me, so I looked into the new pricing.
As clearly stated on the new pricing table here, the P4M 1.5GHz dropped 26%, the P4M 1.7Ghz dropped 53%, and other P4Ms dropped between those two percentages. Clearly they were stating the range of percentages of the price drops.
Since you might indeed be math impared yourself, I will show you how they got the 53%:
(Orig. Price - New Price) / New Price * 100 = % Decrease
($508-$241)/$508*100=53%
I hope this cleared up the issue. I don't know which is worse, one who spouts off without looking at the facts or one who just bashes a company to get karma.;-)
Not sure that the parent is "insightful" since it was hopefully meant as a joke!
The purpose of the new Bookscan or even current best seller lists is not to let us know which books are the BEST. They simply tell us which books are selling the most. Just like the music charts showing the most requested songs do not signify that the latest NSync tune is the best song in the world.
When purchasing a Bible there are tons of options (Adult study, Teen bible, children's picture bible, etc...) as well as different translations (KJ, NKJ, NIV, NL, AS, etc...). Each of these Bibles (probably hundreds) has a different ISBN. So all of these would probably be counted individually under this new system. I think it is likely that the current sales numbers for "The Bible" are probably a combination of all Bible sales regardless of ISBN, which is why it is always a best seller. It will be interesting to see if the new tracking changes the results. Go buy your bible today!
Well contrary to what you might think smart people do NOT save money by hiding it under a matress or even leaving it in a bank. A good deal of it is in non-liquid assets like land, their house, etc. This cannot just be easily liquidated. Even at a large loss it would be problematic to liquidate it in a couple weeks. The most luquid asset they really invest in is stocks. However even those aren't something you want to liquidate unless it's absolutly necessary. In addition to paying captial gains (on those that are up) you then loose the potential growth.
So you are basically saying that smart people don't keep any money in a savings account? Right....
Part of being a "smart" investor is to make sure that you will not be adversely affected in a situation where you have a paycut or are even unemployed for a few months. Before putting your money into non-liquid assets (land, CDs, etc..) or even stocks that you don't want to sell, you should first make sure that you have enough cash for emergencies. A savings account with enough money to survive for three months is a "smart" thing. You will earn a little interest (helps combat inflation) and have enough cash to survive hardships like losing a job, needing a new fridge, fixing a roof, etc. If one works in a volatile industry, muck like IT is now, then even more money in a savings account is a good idea. Only after one has enough liquid assets to fall back on in hard times, should one start investing in non-liquid assets.
Cooking is fun! I would never ever demand a turn-key-solution for one of my life essentials!
Good for you! However, maybe a lot of other people have no desire to cook and just want a simple, quick, and easy way to get consistent results when heating up their boring and unhealthy microwave dinners.
I am not sure you example is quite right. The issue is not really whether this law could lead to other laws. The issue is that this one law has great potential to set a precedent for censorship on the web. I am proposing that a better solution should be found to the problem (i.e. Somehow going after people who create and/or view these sites).
The method of removing child porn sites enabled by this law (i.e. blocking a list of sites determined by the gov't) is what has the potential to harm our freedom. This government managed list opens up the possibility for the gov't to put anything on the list that they don't want people to see. Essentially the governemnt could be able to censor/ban any material they desired. This is the potential danger I see from this law. I do not think that blocking access to child porn sites restricts our freedom.
First, this is obviously a kneejerk reaction to Candyman.
Yeah, Candyman was announced two days ago. You expect us to believe that the government/lawmakers suddenly wrote and got passed a new law in two days, somehow skipping all the normal beaurocracy required.
Oh, but then the article goes on to say that the law was passed last month:
"Under the law,
signed last month, prosecutors would, after obtaining a court order, give ISPs a list of Web sites and other items to block."
And reading even further, we see that this has been in the works for years:
"
Two years ago, a congressional commission called for law enforcement agencies to develop a list of Web sites, newsgroups and other Internet destinations that contain child pornography."
Please, read the facts before starting your rant! Now on to the important issue..this does seem to be a dangerous opportunity to for the government to begin censoring/banning web sites at will. I'm all for getting rid of the child porn websites, but I would rather it be done in a way that does not remove the freedom of surfing the web.
Rather than ranting and raving about how bad this is, why don't we try to come up with an alternative solution.
Moving to mainstream??? I am not sure about the rest of the people here but I have certainly never heard of the Sundance Channel before I read this post. Sundance Film Festival yes but not the channel. Does anyone here acutally get the Sundance Channel with their cable?
Maybe someone can put it up on the web so we can all see it
I agree that if RedHat packages Linux and sells it then they would indeed be declaring it finished. I was mainly refering to the people who download free source code and do withit what they will.
But by Microsoft taking a product to market and selling it they are in effect declaring it finished. The difference would have to be whether a company actually sells a piece of software or simply allows people to download source code and use/modify it at will.
Slashdot Mirror
I would rather just put it in my pocket or backpack ;-)
That being said, NASA would much rather spend this money on something that will show direct results quickly. The Pluto mission will not have any results until 2015 when the probe finally reaches the planet. I'm sure that scientifically NASA doesn't mind going forward with a Pluto mission but from a budget standpoint they would rather have used the money for something else.
fair enough ;)
I completely agree with your proposed solution (both parts) and I think the articles conclusion does also. The article deals with the question of whether he should get a nomination for Best Supporting Actor. I believe the answer still holds at no because his performance fits into a different type of category.
Your solution solves the problem perfectly. It is too late to create a new category at this point, so instead recognize his amazing work with a groundbreaking performance award. And at that time announce the creation of a new category for the "synthespian" performances.
Just found this story in the /. archive about a different Japanese research project stating that gaming stunts the brain.
I noticed that the text equation has an error while the numeric one is correct. Correction below:
(Orig. Price - New Price) / Orig. Price * 100 = % Decrease
($508-$241)/$508*100=53%
Your questioning of Intel's math abilities intrigued me, so I looked into the new pricing.
;-)
As clearly stated on the new pricing table here, the P4M 1.5GHz dropped 26%, the P4M 1.7Ghz dropped 53%, and other P4Ms dropped between those two percentages. Clearly they were stating the range of percentages of the price drops.
Since you might indeed be math impared yourself, I will show you how they got the 53%:
(Orig. Price - New Price) / New Price * 100 = % Decrease
($508-$241)/$508*100=53%
I hope this cleared up the issue. I don't know which is worse, one who spouts off without looking at the facts or one who just bashes a company to get karma.
Not sure that the parent is "insightful" since it was hopefully meant as a joke!
The purpose of the new Bookscan or even current best seller lists is not to let us know which books are the BEST. They simply tell us which books are selling the most. Just like the music charts showing the most requested songs do not signify that the latest NSync tune is the best song in the world.
When purchasing a Bible there are tons of options (Adult study, Teen bible, children's picture bible, etc...) as well as different translations (KJ, NKJ, NIV, NL, AS, etc...). Each of these Bibles (probably hundreds) has a different ISBN. So all of these would probably be counted individually under this new system. I think it is likely that the current sales numbers for "The Bible" are probably a combination of all Bible sales regardless of ISBN, which is why it is always a best seller. It will be interesting to see if the new tracking changes the results. Go buy your bible today!
hotdogs are just as bad as ramen and spaghetti!
Part of being a "smart" investor is to make sure that you will not be adversely affected in a situation where you have a paycut or are even unemployed for a few months. Before putting your money into non-liquid assets (land, CDs, etc..) or even stocks that you don't want to sell, you should first make sure that you have enough cash for emergencies. A savings account with enough money to survive for three months is a "smart" thing. You will earn a little interest (helps combat inflation) and have enough cash to survive hardships like losing a job, needing a new fridge, fixing a roof, etc. If one works in a volatile industry, muck like IT is now, then even more money in a savings account is a good idea. Only after one has enough liquid assets to fall back on in hard times, should one start investing in non-liquid assets.
- Someone getting sunk in their personal sub because they were mistaken for a enemy military sub.
- Someone surfacing into the bottom of a surface ship.
- Getting rammed by a surface ship while surfaced becuase they have such a small above water profile that they are not seen by a ship operator.
- etc...
I know I won't be buying my personal sub until I know these issues are resolved!I'm not sure where you're looking but this is what I see:
[613] - Picture of a service station
[614] - Picture of an empty field
The conclusion of the article states that the system is currently commercially available. Here is a link to the QKD System.
I am not sure you example is quite right. The issue is not really whether this law could lead to other laws. The issue is that this one law has great potential to set a precedent for censorship on the web. I am proposing that a better solution should be found to the problem (i.e. Somehow going after people who create and/or view these sites).
The method of removing child porn sites enabled by this law (i.e. blocking a list of sites determined by the gov't) is what has the potential to harm our freedom. This government managed list opens up the possibility for the gov't to put anything on the list that they don't want people to see. Essentially the governemnt could be able to censor/ban any material they desired. This is the potential danger I see from this law. I do not think that blocking access to child porn sites restricts our freedom.
Oh, but then the article goes on to say that the law was passed last month: And reading even further, we see that this has been in the works for years: Please, read the facts before starting your rant! Now on to the important issue..this does seem to be a dangerous opportunity to for the government to begin censoring/banning web sites at will. I'm all for getting rid of the child porn websites, but I would rather it be done in a way that does not remove the freedom of surfing the web.
Rather than ranting and raving about how bad this is, why don't we try to come up with an alternative solution.
Moving to mainstream??? I am not sure about the rest of the people here but I have certainly never heard of the Sundance Channel before I read this post. Sundance Film Festival yes but not the channel. Does anyone here acutally get the Sundance Channel with their cable?
Maybe someone can put it up on the web so we can all see it
I agree that if RedHat packages Linux and sells it then they would indeed be declaring it finished. I was mainly refering to the people who download free source code and do withit what they will.
But by Microsoft taking a product to market and selling it they are in effect declaring it finished. The difference would have to be whether a company actually sells a piece of software or simply allows people to download source code and use/modify it at will.