Yes, and I gave you chapter and verse why it's useless. You did not respond with anything quantitative
Ah, but you sure did. Lots of numbers. You must be right. Don't worry, we don't need to see any references on where you're getting your data. Only scientists worry about that sort of thing. Keep spouting numbers.
If you wish to answer in the lanuage[sic] of physics and thermodynamics, I'm all for continuing this discussion.
Dear God I'm not. You've gotten things wrong from your very first post. You don't know how the charging system works. You think the battery runs down to zero and then is useless. You think a lot of things that let me know that you probably haven't been within 100 yards of a Prius, yet you know all about them.
You claim a lack of scientific rigor, then give me numbers on efficiency that have no provenance. You have quoted no sources. Which tips me off that you're no scientist at all. I even told you that you were pulling these numbers out of thin air and you still provided no references.
And you continue to miss the point. Your statement is that the battery system is useless. I showed you that it was not. You state things that are absolute absurdities, such as this:
But in this real world, is we assume the typical 90%/80%/90% efficiencies, the system only has a 65% efficiency, and that's assuming you're going down with no friction or air resistance.
80% efficiency in a gasoline car??? You are mad. That's higher than the maximum Carnot efficiency for a gasoline engine! Real world numbers are far less, typically for a car about 25%. (See what I did there? I showed you where I'm getting my numbers from. Try it sometime.) So in any event, it's no small wonder you don't understand what I'm talking about. You don't comprehend basic physics.
So I'm done discussing this with you. I believe I've encountered my very first physics troll. You couldn't possibly be that stupid and still be able to work a computer without getting pudding in the keys so I have come to the conclusion that you're merely trolling.
You are out of your mind. Have problem arguing a point? Switch to a new one.
We are talking about a coast-to-coast race. The coasts are very near sea level. The amount of ups very closely equals the amount of downs.
No, we were talking about your claim of how the battery is useless on the freeway. That was your claim which I refuted. Then you decided to talk about the race. I am still debating the point that you made about the electric components being useless on the freeway.
And BTW, your statement above does not support your claim of "the battery is useless on the freeway". It supports my position of "the battery is useful". Going down the hill it stores energy that would normally be lost. Going back up the hill it spends that stored energy.
It doesn't matter if it's 65% efficient or 100% efficient or 5% efficient - that is energy that other cars simply lose. The Prius collects it and uses it when it is needed. And I know it works because I know how much gas this car uses. I own one. My record for best MPG over a full tank of gas was 53.1MPG. How do you account for that then? Are small winged faeries pissing ethanol into my fuel tank every night while I sleep?
Simply put, you don't get it. And it appears you never will.
And I still posit that you could not possibly be smarter than everyone at Toyota R&D. Your inability to grasp even simple engineering information is proof enough.
Another fact: You've obviously never been in a Prius. Or paid attention if you were. You're an armchair expert - I actually own one, so I'd say I'm in a better position to tell the world what this car does do, and what it doesn't do.
On a long highway trip sometimes the car will coast down inclines, charging the battery the whole way. More unassailable physics. Mine is called "gravitational potential energy". Yours is called "pulling numbers out of your ass".
The car also runs the engine at the RPMs that allow for peak efficiency as often as possible. Any excess torque generated is sent - you guessed it - back through the electric motor to the batteries where it is stored until you need it. Peak efficiency at the gas side, spare torque for later at the electric side. Yes, even on the freeway.
This is how I know you're full of BS. What you state is simply untrue. I can hop in my car right now, get on the freeway, and watch the electric motor add torque to the drive train. What you are telling me with statements like this:
"Once the battery runs down it's all dead weight."
...is that you've never even been in a Prius. The battery never runs down. The control system charges it heavily around 50-60% for reasons of efficiency and battery life. It never gets lower than that. Not once in the 2.5 years I've owned mine. Ever.
And if the battery charges up into the green (90-100%) and you're on the freeway, sometimes on a straightaway on the freeway the gas engine will turn off, and those "useless at freeway speeds" electric components will kick in and move you silently down the road. The embedded system on this car is brilliant. If it senses you're about to waste charge by having the battery at 100%, it'll start to lean harder on the battery.
And if you doubt me, go make a friend with a Prius. Dial up the Energy screen and watch what the car is doing on the drive train. You can watch the system moving energy back and forth depending on road conditions, current speed, gas pedal position, etc.
Again, you could not possibly be smarter than Toyota's entire R&D division. I know you think you are, but you aren't.
Nonsense. We are discussing a cross-country trip on highways, not 30MPH backstreets. A Prius can neither go 55 on electric only, not go cross-country on electric. On any significant trip, the electrics are doing nothing for you but weighing you down.
Wow - you're smart! That's some good thinking there. I'll dash right out and gut my Prius of those gigantic useless batteries and electric motor that never gets used. Just think of how much better it'll work without all that heavy stuff that teams of professional automotive engineers designed in! Thank God I found someone on the internet who is smarter than everyone at Toyota.
These are truly magic times we live in. I thank you for your wisdom.
My Prius generates its electricity through breaking. Not sure where you get the info about electricity generation in reverse during coasting.
Switch your Info screen from Consumption to Energy, and watch what the drive train does when you're on the freeway and you let your foot off the gas pedal. You'll see it switch to charging the battery.
The claim of 150 mpg even considering a 95% gasoline mixture would indicate a severe amount of tweaking to the engine. I've heard of 80 mpg (in Japan), but thats nowhere near 150 mpg. This makes the entire PR effort especially dubious in my opinion, even ignoring the fact that 95% of the fuel is simply conventional gasoline.
Yeah, it's BS. The article mentions a plug. What they're doing is driving as far as they can, filling the car up with regular gas, squirting a little of this bio stuff in, then charging up the modified batteries at a plug in station.
Most folks would take a highway, where the electric motor and battery do not get used at all-- they're just useless weight.
Not how it works at all. The electric motor in my Prius works at all speeds. It contributes to the drive chain when it makes sense to do so regardless of the speed. If I take my foot off the gas at 65mph the car coasts and the motor runs in reverse as a generator and charges the batteries. If I lightly rest my foot on the gas the gasoline motor stays off and the electric has enough torque to maintain speed. Until I hit an incline or need to accelerate, then the gas will pop on. Under most conditions if you watch the Energy display screen, you can see both the gas motor and the electric drive contributing at the same time.
The whole system is pretty dynamic. It's not like there is a kill switch on the motors at 30mph.
at some point, they will have to admit it can't work.
You haven't been keeping up on your SCO/Darl McBride stories, have you?
I assure you it's possible to tell a straight faced lie for years on end. Once you're in that deep, sometimes the only play you've got left is "keep digging".
It's like when a five year old tells you he can't find his shoes because he lost them. But he doesn't want to get in trouble so he'll say a gypsy took them. And you know the kid is lying but when you press him - he'll start to describe the gypsy. "He had purple pants, a gold shirt, and a moustache. He had a little monkey with him."
Much the same with DRM. They've lobbied for it, they've pushed it, they've gotten people to buy it and then yanked the key servers and left them high and dry. It can't be a swindle, they just haven't found the correct solution yet! So we go around and around with the industry talking about how to do this the right way. The truth is that there is no right way. The truth is that DRM is a lie. It can't work. Ever. Whenever you hold both the lock and the key, it stops being about cryptography and starts being about how to game the system.
Read up on how people beat DRM systems. Like DVD Jon. He's not a gonzo cryptographer. He didn't break DVD by his sheer mathematical skills. No. He was a kid with a machine code monitor who found the decrypted key in memory.
But like any good lie, you have to keep telling it once you start. Because the minute you say "well as it turns out there wasn't any gypsy" that's when you get in deep trouble. Imagine the class action lawsuits that would result! No, telling the lie over and over is much cheaper. So let's hear it for DRM2. I'm sure it'll buy the industry at least six more months before the next bored kid from the Netherlands comes along.
Or... it's a cunning ploy to show how idiotic Patents are in this day-and-age.
It is what it is. A patent. Reason being, those are the rules of the game today.
Just because you're for patent reform doesn't suddenly mean that the whole rest of the world will leave you alone while you're off crusading. You still have to play by the rules of the game as they are today. If they were suddenly to not pursue patents, they'd be bulldozed over by the competition. When you're dead and buried it's hard to fight for change.
So as for now, they're in it to win by the rules of the day. Here's hoping they work to make a better ruleset for tomorrow, but I don't begrudge them fighting tooth and nail within the system as it is today.
My father died of cancer. He wanted to do it at home, hospice style. He hated hospitals. So I was with him throughout his last day. It didn't happen in a hospital, he did it at home. With me as primary caregiver. I got to be there for the whole thing. I know what you're going through and you have my deepest sympathies. Not just for the loss, but for the manner of it as well.
And as for this guy with lung cancer ending his life - I don't blame him one single bit. It's not cowardice, it's not bravery, it's nothing but making the decision he was happiest with. Could he have lived a while longer? Sure. Would he have enjoyed it? Not a chance.
The problem is...
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The Geek Atlas
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· Score: 3, Insightful
...you have a limited definition of 'beautiful'.
For instance, the Large Hadron Collider. It is, in fact, beautiful. Beautiful in execution, beautiful physics, beautiful. And falls neatly outside your context.
If this book being recommended can bring that sense of beauty to power sub stations and the like, then I think it's a good idea.
From what I understand, 'house cats' (i.e. cats that are raised solely by humans) never mature 'mentally' and are basicly stuck as kids for their life, as such they see their humans as 'mother'. Cats that are raised by other cats and allowed to mature mentally (i.e. learn to hunt, learn how to take care of their own young, etc) don't have this disability and thus tend to see humans as 'part of the colony'
That makes perfect sense. I've heard the same thing about dogs - basically if they have people to raise them they remain mentally a puppy. That's why they bark. Youthful exuberance, like how puppies will yip and run in circles. It's puppy behavior.
And while I don't want to take away from your feelings towards your cat, I have a feeling that when she smelt 'new birth and blood' on your hands the reason she did the laps around the house wasn't celebration but panic. In nature a male cat showing up with blood and birth smells means there is probably a kitten out there dead. Male cats aren't just "more of a danger than a benefit", they actively look for kittens and kill them as it brings the mothers into heat quicker.
Yeah, I know that about male cats. And when I first showed up she was staring at me with a sort of horrified intensity. I'm sure that was the first thought on her mind.
But you would have had to have seen her to understand. She wasn't hauling ass around looking for anything. She did circles around the living room. Pure speed, no searching for anything. I've seen her when she panics. Being a former outdoor cat when we have a thunderstorm she does indeed panic. It's unmistakable. The body language is totally different.
This was not panic. It was joy, or as close to that feeling as a cat can get and display. She ran laps, pounced on another house cat and rolled around with her, loved on me a bunch then had dinner.
I agree that on the face of it your explanation is more likely, but if you had seen her you'd know that just wasn't the case. And it went from there. This bizarre cat actually tries to encourage me to be a good parent. When I play with my kid or show affection she makes it a point to love on me. She knows deep down that males are dangerous to children, so she does her best to reinforce behavior in me that she sees as beneficial to the baby.
I know how unlikely it all sounds, so I don't blame your skepticism one bit.
Not so much. Animals have body language as well. Her body language was quite clear.
"I'm watching you. Behave yourself."
She is a very laid back and even shy animal. She only allows me and my wife to pet her - other people she doesn't trust enough. She was a stray cat and we two were her first introduction to humanity. She trusts us, and not others. We get company and she hides.
Until the baby.
When the kid was an infant she changed her behavior to a more aggressive posture. She would sit in between guests and the kid. And stare. And she was tense. She had that body posture that cats get when they spot a field mouse. That sort of taut watchfulness that says "I can pounce on a microsecond's notice." She was ready for instant action, and didn't mind letting the whole world know.
So yeah, not as good as a control but I know my cats. She was good natured about it, she'd swish her tail and be happy when we had guests. But she would make her presence known, and her body posture was "I'm ready for action" which is a 180 degree reversal from her behavior before.
Give her a hi-bounce ball, the little elastic balls that you get for pocket change out of vending machines at the store. She'll pick it up and carry it to the top of the stairs. Then swat it and watch it bounce down the stairs. Soon as it gets to the bottom she'll haul ass and pounce on it. Carry it back to the top and repeat.
First time I caught her doing it I was on my computer around 1 am. I kept hearing *boomp*..*boomp*...*boomp boompboomp*...boomp... I couldn't figure out what the hell I was hearing. It was the cat bouncing the ball down the wooden stairs to the basement.
I saw a special once where a bunch of female cats on a farm developed a community. They would feed each others kittens and arrange patrols to keep aggressive males away from the young. It was communal. They were a band of mothers doing a community job.
And we have one cat here who decided same thing. We have three cats, two from a rescue shelter that were fixed as kittens, and one we found in our backyard pregnant. The cat that went through motherhood has mothering instincts, the other two do not.
Two years ago my wife got pregnant.
The mother cat knew exactly what was up, the other two did not. She would sit on her belly off to the side of the bulge and purr beside the child which would calm him down and make him sleep. She became very gingerly and delicate towards my wife. The other two didn't change their behavior - they'd step on my wife's belly and had no clue they were disturbing a baby.
On the day the kid was born I stopped back from the hospital to feed the cats. I'm sure to a cat's senses I reeked of blood and birth. Mother cat was staring at me wild eyed with suspicion, taut as a bow string. I had never seen her so tense. I spoke to her in reassuring tones and let her smell my hands where I was holding the baby. As soon as she smelled "the baby is ok and dad here didn't hurt him" she took off like a rocket and ran laps around our house. She's very fat and I had honestly never seen her run before. The cat was celebrating. I know that seems unlikely and the sort of anthropomorphizing that pet owners often times overdo - but I swear...she was celebrating! She ran a few laps around the house, jumped on one of the other cats and went for a tumble, then started loving all over me. She knew. She is lethargic otherwise. A burst of energy from this cat is completely out of character. She knew.
When the kid got home she "helped". You get a lot of visitors from people you don't see very often with a newborn in the house. Soon as one would show up, she would position herself near the baby, and *watch* the guest. Her intent was clear. "Harm that kid, do anything I don't like and I'll shred your face" It was the same pose and watchfulness she would do when her kittens were around (which we took to a no-kill shelter eventually - the same one we got our other two worthless cats from).
And the cat would praise me for being a good parent. Male cats are more of a danger to kittens than a benefit. It seemed at first she was worried it was the same with people. Any time she'd see me being good to the kid (feeding/playing/whatever) she would make it a point to come up to me and love on me. Purr louder than a lawnmower and rub on my legs. She is a very vocal proponent of good parenting. Soon as I set the kid down she'd stop. Pick him back up, she's on again.
But as for our other two cats - you're right. They definitely view us as parents, not equals. They will do that "kneading" thing with their front paws cats do when they sit on our laps. That's something kittens do to get more milk out of their mother. It's a baby reflex and they do it with us. But mom cat does not - she views us as fellow parents in the pack. So your observation is true if you have cats that have never been through parenthood, but occasionally that's not the case. YMMV though, of course. Cats are definitely unique individuals.
That was my first thought too - he's missing the *middle* step. In between examples and collaborating on a huge multi-programmer project he needs to make something for himself first.
there's no evidence that open source textbooks are impossible.
That was my first thought too - why not have open source textbooks? Solves the problem completely.
But then I remembered "teacher's editions".
Each textbook has a teacher's edition that has all the answers in it. Any open source book would logically have to have the same, if it as a product is to provide the same utility. And if it's available to the teacher, by the definition of open source it would be available to the students as well. Suddenly you'd see a lot of people getting 100% on their homework - they'd just copy it out of the teacher's edition.
I'm trying to figure out a way around this but I think that textbooks may be in that rare class of problems that open source and full disclosure doesn't solve.
Seriously. It means that anyone else with this idiotic idea will have to pay a royalty fee, which should discourage them. Unless you want to fight a prior art campaign against Amazon, claiming magazines with ads are prior art. Either way the money will discourage people from trying and this idea will die a lonely death.
Except for Amazon of course, since they hold the patent. But they can try it, and then they can see for themselves just how great this idea is when they launch it. It'll tank, hard. Nobody will want this.
Ok. Try to come up with a video game - any video game - that would have a dumber movie premise. Go ahead. There are plenty of posts about this with people saying "no way this has to be a joke". So let's try to top Hollywood here. Let's try to come up with something even dumber. Classic arcade or modern game, doesn't matter.
We've already seen Pong in this thread. That's a good one. Post more like that. Something dumber than Asteroids: The Movie.
5. In my opinion their objection is frivolous, and demonstrates that they are deathly afraid of Audrey Amurao's motion.
So, what exactly is at stake here? I'd like to know more about the deathly fear part. =)
If I'm reading it right, would the summary judgment if granted provide some sort of precedent? For instance, if this flies would other cases be able to say the RIAA's evidence is inconclusive or inadmissible, or "making available" is not proven? Something like that maybe?
Trying to mop up all the problems from millions of cars is the real problem here.
Instead, let's work on moving to all electric cars. This will centralize the pollution at the power generators and then you can take whatever steps are necessary to minimize it without having to worry about catalytic converters and artificial trees.
I mean really, artificial tree/plants to remove CO2? Come on. There are easier solutions out there. Here's another one: Algae biodiesel.
If you don't like electric, go diesel. Then use algae farms to press for oil. It's a closed-loop CO2 system. Car burns fuel, CO2 goes into air. Biodiesel farm collects CO2 and sunshine in photosynthesis, makes fuel. Lather rinse repeat. Closed loop to CO2, just like mother nature does in a forest.
I applaud these guys for pitching a solution that works with what we have, but if we really want a solution that speaks to the future we need to ditch what we have and try for better. Mopping up the water from the sink overflowing is a temporary solution - we should be working on turning the sink off.
The people who smoke are not necessarily bat shit insane. They may figure the pleasure is worth the final pain. I don't think it's worth it so I don't smoke.
Yeah, that's kind of my point. They don't know what the "final pain" actually is. I'll betcha if they did they would feel differently.
We all are building sand castles that will eventually be washed away. Learning to accept that is a good way to have more fun.
Oh, I agree completely. We all die. But getting your end prematurely from something that painful...well, sucks.
My dad was a tournament tennis player and a black diamond downhill skier when he was diagnosed. Cancer took it all from him. Hell, if it wasn't for the cancer he'd probably be playing tennis today.
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Yes, and I gave you chapter and verse why it's useless. You did not respond with anything quantitative
Ah, but you sure did. Lots of numbers. You must be right. Don't worry, we don't need to see any references on where you're getting your data. Only scientists worry about that sort of thing. Keep spouting numbers.
If you wish to answer in the lanuage[sic] of physics and thermodynamics, I'm all for continuing this discussion.
Dear God I'm not. You've gotten things wrong from your very first post. You don't know how the charging system works. You think the battery runs down to zero and then is useless. You think a lot of things that let me know that you probably haven't been within 100 yards of a Prius, yet you know all about them.
You claim a lack of scientific rigor, then give me numbers on efficiency that have no provenance. You have quoted no sources. Which tips me off that you're no scientist at all. I even told you that you were pulling these numbers out of thin air and you still provided no references.
And you continue to miss the point. Your statement is that the battery system is useless. I showed you that it was not. You state things that are absolute absurdities, such as this:
But in this real world, is we assume the typical 90%/80%/90% efficiencies, the system only has a 65% efficiency, and that's assuming you're going down with no friction or air resistance.
80% efficiency in a gasoline car??? You are mad. That's higher than the maximum Carnot efficiency for a gasoline engine! Real world numbers are far less, typically for a car about 25%. (See what I did there? I showed you where I'm getting my numbers from. Try it sometime.) So in any event, it's no small wonder you don't understand what I'm talking about. You don't comprehend basic physics.
So I'm done discussing this with you. I believe I've encountered my very first physics troll. You couldn't possibly be that stupid and still be able to work a computer without getting pudding in the keys so I have come to the conclusion that you're merely trolling.
You are out of your mind. Have problem arguing a point? Switch to a new one.
We are talking about a coast-to-coast race. The coasts are very near sea level. The amount of ups very closely equals the amount of downs.
No, we were talking about your claim of how the battery is useless on the freeway. That was your claim which I refuted. Then you decided to talk about the race. I am still debating the point that you made about the electric components being useless on the freeway.
And BTW, your statement above does not support your claim of "the battery is useless on the freeway". It supports my position of "the battery is useful". Going down the hill it stores energy that would normally be lost. Going back up the hill it spends that stored energy.
It doesn't matter if it's 65% efficient or 100% efficient or 5% efficient - that is energy that other cars simply lose. The Prius collects it and uses it when it is needed. And I know it works because I know how much gas this car uses. I own one. My record for best MPG over a full tank of gas was 53.1MPG. How do you account for that then? Are small winged faeries pissing ethanol into my fuel tank every night while I sleep?
Simply put, you don't get it. And it appears you never will.
And I still posit that you could not possibly be smarter than everyone at Toyota R&D. Your inability to grasp even simple engineering information is proof enough.
Another fact: You've obviously never been in a Prius. Or paid attention if you were. You're an armchair expert - I actually own one, so I'd say I'm in a better position to tell the world what this car does do, and what it doesn't do.
On a long highway trip sometimes the car will coast down inclines, charging the battery the whole way. More unassailable physics. Mine is called "gravitational potential energy". Yours is called "pulling numbers out of your ass".
The car also runs the engine at the RPMs that allow for peak efficiency as often as possible. Any excess torque generated is sent - you guessed it - back through the electric motor to the batteries where it is stored until you need it. Peak efficiency at the gas side, spare torque for later at the electric side. Yes, even on the freeway.
This is how I know you're full of BS. What you state is simply untrue. I can hop in my car right now, get on the freeway, and watch the electric motor add torque to the drive train. What you are telling me with statements like this:
"Once the battery runs down it's all dead weight."
...is that you've never even been in a Prius. The battery never runs down. The control system charges it heavily around 50-60% for reasons of efficiency and battery life. It never gets lower than that. Not once in the 2.5 years I've owned mine. Ever.
And if the battery charges up into the green (90-100%) and you're on the freeway, sometimes on a straightaway on the freeway the gas engine will turn off, and those "useless at freeway speeds" electric components will kick in and move you silently down the road. The embedded system on this car is brilliant. If it senses you're about to waste charge by having the battery at 100%, it'll start to lean harder on the battery.
And if you doubt me, go make a friend with a Prius. Dial up the Energy screen and watch what the car is doing on the drive train. You can watch the system moving energy back and forth depending on road conditions, current speed, gas pedal position, etc.
Again, you could not possibly be smarter than Toyota's entire R&D division. I know you think you are, but you aren't.
Nonsense. We are discussing a cross-country trip on highways, not 30MPH backstreets. A Prius can neither go 55 on electric only, not go cross-country on electric. On any significant trip, the electrics are doing nothing for you but weighing you down.
Wow - you're smart! That's some good thinking there. I'll dash right out and gut my Prius of those gigantic useless batteries and electric motor that never gets used. Just think of how much better it'll work without all that heavy stuff that teams of professional automotive engineers designed in! Thank God I found someone on the internet who is smarter than everyone at Toyota.
These are truly magic times we live in. I thank you for your wisdom.
My Prius generates its electricity through breaking. Not sure where you get the info about electricity generation in reverse during coasting.
Switch your Info screen from Consumption to Energy, and watch what the drive train does when you're on the freeway and you let your foot off the gas pedal. You'll see it switch to charging the battery.
The claim of 150 mpg even considering a 95% gasoline mixture would indicate a severe amount of tweaking to the engine. I've heard of 80 mpg (in Japan), but thats nowhere near 150 mpg. This makes the entire PR effort especially dubious in my opinion, even ignoring the fact that 95% of the fuel is simply conventional gasoline.
Yeah, it's BS. The article mentions a plug. What they're doing is driving as far as they can, filling the car up with regular gas, squirting a little of this bio stuff in, then charging up the modified batteries at a plug in station.
So you're right, it's bullcrap.
Most folks would take a highway, where the electric motor and battery do not get used at all-- they're just useless weight.
Not how it works at all. The electric motor in my Prius works at all speeds. It contributes to the drive chain when it makes sense to do so regardless of the speed. If I take my foot off the gas at 65mph the car coasts and the motor runs in reverse as a generator and charges the batteries. If I lightly rest my foot on the gas the gasoline motor stays off and the electric has enough torque to maintain speed. Until I hit an incline or need to accelerate, then the gas will pop on. Under most conditions if you watch the Energy display screen, you can see both the gas motor and the electric drive contributing at the same time.
The whole system is pretty dynamic. It's not like there is a kill switch on the motors at 30mph.
Oh, I don't know. Stop funding Darl McBride.
That would be a nice start.
at some point, they will have to admit it can't work.
You haven't been keeping up on your SCO/Darl McBride stories, have you?
I assure you it's possible to tell a straight faced lie for years on end. Once you're in that deep, sometimes the only play you've got left is "keep digging".
It's like when a five year old tells you he can't find his shoes because he lost them. But he doesn't want to get in trouble so he'll say a gypsy took them. And you know the kid is lying but when you press him - he'll start to describe the gypsy. "He had purple pants, a gold shirt, and a moustache. He had a little monkey with him."
Much the same with DRM. They've lobbied for it, they've pushed it, they've gotten people to buy it and then yanked the key servers and left them high and dry. It can't be a swindle, they just haven't found the correct solution yet! So we go around and around with the industry talking about how to do this the right way. The truth is that there is no right way. The truth is that DRM is a lie. It can't work. Ever. Whenever you hold both the lock and the key, it stops being about cryptography and starts being about how to game the system.
Read up on how people beat DRM systems. Like DVD Jon. He's not a gonzo cryptographer. He didn't break DVD by his sheer mathematical skills. No. He was a kid with a machine code monitor who found the decrypted key in memory.
But like any good lie, you have to keep telling it once you start. Because the minute you say "well as it turns out there wasn't any gypsy" that's when you get in deep trouble. Imagine the class action lawsuits that would result! No, telling the lie over and over is much cheaper. So let's hear it for DRM2. I'm sure it'll buy the industry at least six more months before the next bored kid from the Netherlands comes along.
Or... it's a cunning ploy to show how idiotic Patents are in this day-and-age.
It is what it is. A patent. Reason being, those are the rules of the game today.
Just because you're for patent reform doesn't suddenly mean that the whole rest of the world will leave you alone while you're off crusading. You still have to play by the rules of the game as they are today. If they were suddenly to not pursue patents, they'd be bulldozed over by the competition. When you're dead and buried it's hard to fight for change.
So as for now, they're in it to win by the rules of the day. Here's hoping they work to make a better ruleset for tomorrow, but I don't begrudge them fighting tooth and nail within the system as it is today.
My father died of cancer. He wanted to do it at home, hospice style. He hated hospitals. So I was with him throughout his last day. It didn't happen in a hospital, he did it at home. With me as primary caregiver. I got to be there for the whole thing. I know what you're going through and you have my deepest sympathies. Not just for the loss, but for the manner of it as well.
And as for this guy with lung cancer ending his life - I don't blame him one single bit. It's not cowardice, it's not bravery, it's nothing but making the decision he was happiest with. Could he have lived a while longer? Sure. Would he have enjoyed it? Not a chance.
Nothing wrong with what he did at all.
Is here. Share and enjoy.
...you have a limited definition of 'beautiful'.
For instance, the Large Hadron Collider. It is, in fact, beautiful. Beautiful in execution, beautiful physics, beautiful. And falls neatly outside your context.
If this book being recommended can bring that sense of beauty to power sub stations and the like, then I think it's a good idea.
Ignorance is strength
War is peace
Freedom is slavery
And the new fourth one:
OWNERSHIP IS DISCRETIONARY
From what I understand, 'house cats' (i.e. cats that are raised solely by humans) never mature 'mentally' and are basicly stuck as kids for their life, as such they see their humans as 'mother'. Cats that are raised by other cats and allowed to mature mentally (i.e. learn to hunt, learn how to take care of their own young, etc) don't have this disability and thus tend to see humans as 'part of the colony'
That makes perfect sense. I've heard the same thing about dogs - basically if they have people to raise them they remain mentally a puppy. That's why they bark. Youthful exuberance, like how puppies will yip and run in circles. It's puppy behavior.
And while I don't want to take away from your feelings towards your cat, I have a feeling that when she smelt 'new birth and blood' on your hands the reason she did the laps around the house wasn't celebration but panic. In nature a male cat showing up with blood and birth smells means there is probably a kitten out there dead. Male cats aren't just "more of a danger than a benefit", they actively look for kittens and kill them as it brings the mothers into heat quicker.
Yeah, I know that about male cats. And when I first showed up she was staring at me with a sort of horrified intensity. I'm sure that was the first thought on her mind.
But you would have had to have seen her to understand. She wasn't hauling ass around looking for anything. She did circles around the living room. Pure speed, no searching for anything. I've seen her when she panics. Being a former outdoor cat when we have a thunderstorm she does indeed panic. It's unmistakable. The body language is totally different.
This was not panic. It was joy, or as close to that feeling as a cat can get and display. She ran laps, pounced on another house cat and rolled around with her, loved on me a bunch then had dinner.
I agree that on the face of it your explanation is more likely, but if you had seen her you'd know that just wasn't the case. And it went from there. This bizarre cat actually tries to encourage me to be a good parent. When I play with my kid or show affection she makes it a point to love on me. She knows deep down that males are dangerous to children, so she does her best to reinforce behavior in me that she sees as beneficial to the baby.
I know how unlikely it all sounds, so I don't blame your skepticism one bit.
Not so much. Animals have body language as well. Her body language was quite clear.
"I'm watching you. Behave yourself."
She is a very laid back and even shy animal. She only allows me and my wife to pet her - other people she doesn't trust enough. She was a stray cat and we two were her first introduction to humanity. She trusts us, and not others. We get company and she hides.
Until the baby.
When the kid was an infant she changed her behavior to a more aggressive posture. She would sit in between guests and the kid. And stare. And she was tense. She had that body posture that cats get when they spot a field mouse. That sort of taut watchfulness that says "I can pounce on a microsecond's notice." She was ready for instant action, and didn't mind letting the whole world know.
So yeah, not as good as a control but I know my cats. She was good natured about it, she'd swish her tail and be happy when we had guests. But she would make her presence known, and her body posture was "I'm ready for action" which is a 180 degree reversal from her behavior before.
I have one cat that plays fetch with itself.
Give her a hi-bounce ball, the little elastic balls that you get for pocket change out of vending machines at the store. She'll pick it up and carry it to the top of the stairs. Then swat it and watch it bounce down the stairs. Soon as it gets to the bottom she'll haul ass and pounce on it. Carry it back to the top and repeat.
First time I caught her doing it I was on my computer around 1 am. I kept hearing *boomp*..*boomp*...*boomp boompboomp*...boomp... I couldn't figure out what the hell I was hearing. It was the cat bouncing the ball down the wooden stairs to the basement.
Sometimes cats view people as other cats.
I saw a special once where a bunch of female cats on a farm developed a community. They would feed each others kittens and arrange patrols to keep aggressive males away from the young. It was communal. They were a band of mothers doing a community job.
And we have one cat here who decided same thing. We have three cats, two from a rescue shelter that were fixed as kittens, and one we found in our backyard pregnant. The cat that went through motherhood has mothering instincts, the other two do not.
Two years ago my wife got pregnant.
The mother cat knew exactly what was up, the other two did not. She would sit on her belly off to the side of the bulge and purr beside the child which would calm him down and make him sleep. She became very gingerly and delicate towards my wife. The other two didn't change their behavior - they'd step on my wife's belly and had no clue they were disturbing a baby.
On the day the kid was born I stopped back from the hospital to feed the cats. I'm sure to a cat's senses I reeked of blood and birth. Mother cat was staring at me wild eyed with suspicion, taut as a bow string. I had never seen her so tense. I spoke to her in reassuring tones and let her smell my hands where I was holding the baby. As soon as she smelled "the baby is ok and dad here didn't hurt him" she took off like a rocket and ran laps around our house. She's very fat and I had honestly never seen her run before. The cat was celebrating. I know that seems unlikely and the sort of anthropomorphizing that pet owners often times overdo - but I swear...she was celebrating! She ran a few laps around the house, jumped on one of the other cats and went for a tumble, then started loving all over me. She knew. She is lethargic otherwise. A burst of energy from this cat is completely out of character. She knew.
When the kid got home she "helped". You get a lot of visitors from people you don't see very often with a newborn in the house. Soon as one would show up, she would position herself near the baby, and *watch* the guest. Her intent was clear. "Harm that kid, do anything I don't like and I'll shred your face" It was the same pose and watchfulness she would do when her kittens were around (which we took to a no-kill shelter eventually - the same one we got our other two worthless cats from).
And the cat would praise me for being a good parent. Male cats are more of a danger to kittens than a benefit. It seemed at first she was worried it was the same with people. Any time she'd see me being good to the kid (feeding/playing/whatever) she would make it a point to come up to me and love on me. Purr louder than a lawnmower and rub on my legs. She is a very vocal proponent of good parenting. Soon as I set the kid down she'd stop. Pick him back up, she's on again.
But as for our other two cats - you're right. They definitely view us as parents, not equals. They will do that "kneading" thing with their front paws cats do when they sit on our laps. That's something kittens do to get more milk out of their mother. It's a baby reflex and they do it with us. But mom cat does not - she views us as fellow parents in the pack. So your observation is true if you have cats that have never been through parenthood, but occasionally that's not the case. YMMV though, of course. Cats are definitely unique individuals.
That was my first thought too - he's missing the *middle* step. In between examples and collaborating on a huge multi-programmer project he needs to make something for himself first.
there's no evidence that open source textbooks are impossible.
That was my first thought too - why not have open source textbooks? Solves the problem completely.
But then I remembered "teacher's editions".
Each textbook has a teacher's edition that has all the answers in it. Any open source book would logically have to have the same, if it as a product is to provide the same utility. And if it's available to the teacher, by the definition of open source it would be available to the students as well. Suddenly you'd see a lot of people getting 100% on their homework - they'd just copy it out of the teacher's edition.
I'm trying to figure out a way around this but I think that textbooks may be in that rare class of problems that open source and full disclosure doesn't solve.
Seriously. It means that anyone else with this idiotic idea will have to pay a royalty fee, which should discourage them. Unless you want to fight a prior art campaign against Amazon, claiming magazines with ads are prior art. Either way the money will discourage people from trying and this idea will die a lonely death.
Except for Amazon of course, since they hold the patent. But they can try it, and then they can see for themselves just how great this idea is when they launch it. It'll tank, hard. Nobody will want this.
Ok. Try to come up with a video game - any video game - that would have a dumber movie premise. Go ahead. There are plenty of posts about this with people saying "no way this has to be a joke". So let's try to top Hollywood here. Let's try to come up with something even dumber. Classic arcade or modern game, doesn't matter.
We've already seen Pong in this thread. That's a good one. Post more like that. Something dumber than Asteroids: The Movie.
If you can.
I'll start the bidding with Marble Madness.
5. In my opinion their objection is frivolous, and demonstrates that they are deathly afraid of Audrey Amurao's motion.
So, what exactly is at stake here? I'd like to know more about the deathly fear part. =)
If I'm reading it right, would the summary judgment if granted provide some sort of precedent? For instance, if this flies would other cases be able to say the RIAA's evidence is inconclusive or inadmissible, or "making available" is not proven? Something like that maybe?
Millions of little smog reducing machines stuck under millions of cars, which have to meet stringent weight/price/space requirements to be practical - or gigantic smokestack scrubbers like algae biofuel this one?
Trying to mop up all the problems from millions of cars is the real problem here.
Instead, let's work on moving to all electric cars. This will centralize the pollution at the power generators and then you can take whatever steps are necessary to minimize it without having to worry about catalytic converters and artificial trees.
I mean really, artificial tree/plants to remove CO2? Come on. There are easier solutions out there. Here's another one: Algae biodiesel.
If you don't like electric, go diesel. Then use algae farms to press for oil. It's a closed-loop CO2 system. Car burns fuel, CO2 goes into air. Biodiesel farm collects CO2 and sunshine in photosynthesis, makes fuel. Lather rinse repeat. Closed loop to CO2, just like mother nature does in a forest.
I applaud these guys for pitching a solution that works with what we have, but if we really want a solution that speaks to the future we need to ditch what we have and try for better. Mopping up the water from the sink overflowing is a temporary solution - we should be working on turning the sink off.
The people who smoke are not necessarily bat shit insane. They may figure the pleasure is worth the final pain. I don't think it's worth it so I don't smoke.
Yeah, that's kind of my point. They don't know what the "final pain" actually is. I'll betcha if they did they would feel differently.
We all are building sand castles that will eventually be washed away. Learning to accept that is a good way to have more fun.
Oh, I agree completely. We all die. But getting your end prematurely from something that painful...well, sucks.
My dad was a tournament tennis player and a black diamond downhill skier when he was diagnosed. Cancer took it all from him. Hell, if it wasn't for the cancer he'd probably be playing tennis today.