I was also sore and bruised after being hit by a van whilst I was on my motorbike. I was able to walk out of the hospital's A&E myself and get back to work the next day.
The way the van hit me caused me to slide down the road on my face. My crash helmet had multiple scratch marks on the visor, and the mouth air intake was smashed. If I hadn't been wearing a helmet I may well be dead, and definitely in a seriously bad condition.
I don't care if the law requires me to wear a crash helmet, I'd wear one anyway. I enjoy riding my bike, but I also understand the risks involved.
A person who survives a motorcycle crash because they wore a helmet, but sustains multiple fractures and internal bleeding will more costly to treat than a corpse....and can potentially give back more to society once fit again than a corpse.
First, if you have a personal DVR, you are probably not the target audience for this. You have the capability to record and watch shows at the moment.
Second, the article states that one of the options is for programmes downloaded that are episodic in nature won't expire until a week after the final episode has been broadcast, allowing viewers to catch up with the entire series with increased leisure.
Personally, I think this sounds good. It's not intended to create a permanent downloaded copy of the show, but act as an internet-based recorder, so that you can catch shows you missed watching on TV. It also increases personal leisure because you are no longer tied to the schedule as you would be when watching TV. With the proposed system, you can watch your favourite programmes any time of the week, as long as it has been broadcast and it's within a week of the broadcast.
Just don't view this as a way to build up a library, as this clearly isn't its function.
even the name, Windows, is a word stolen from the dictionary, made purely with letters stolen from the alphabet!
Not picking on you, but your post made me think about something a bit off-topic that frustrates me on slashdot too often: stealing versus copyright infringement.
Too many times people have bogged down a discussion because someone said something was 'stealing' and someone else just had to 'correct' them about it, saying that 'nothing really has been stolen' and that it's copyright infringement, as if that really makes a blind bit of difference to the discussion at hand. This derails the discussion, losing any good thoughts over semantics.
Look at your sentence. Were words really 'stolen' from the dictionary, or letters 'stolen' from the alphabet. I hope not, as I tend to use quite a few letters in my day-to-day communications. But you clearly make sense, and I imagine anyone even vaguely familiar with the language understands what you are trying to get across.
I would like to highlight this for anyone who thinks about destroying more intelligent argument by trying to declare any meaningful difference between stealing and copyright infringement. We understand the meaning intended by someone declaring something as 'stealing', even if it is perhaps not the exact word. It serves no real purpose to argue vehemently that it's the wrong word, and all it does is prevent the real issues being discussed. Please stop it.
Since when have retailers or manufacturers given a replacement copy of something for free when you lose the original? I don't, nor do I expect to, get a new copy of a CD if I lose the one I bought.
But, I hear you argue, there is no physical media involved in buying an MP3, so there is no impediment to this kind of replacement that there was before. Sure, but there is still bandwidth costs, so you may have to cover them as a minimum, as well as any administrative costs incurred. Even so, I would bet that a record label wouldn't send me a replacement CD at cost if I lost the one I legally bought.
How would you prove you 'lost' the file? It would be easy to back-up somewhere, or replacing the hard drive, or simply claiming it was on another computer. You may argue that DRM assures the company that the file was where you claim it to be, but as you are wanting a replacement copy of an MP3 I am assuming you are against DRM; would you like a system where your music was intrinsically tied to a single system but would be replaced on system failure, or a system where you could do what you wanted with your purchases but had the drawbacks also associated with the likes of CDs on loss or damage?
It's one thing to want a system that is fair to use, but another to take an existing system, as with CDs, and then impose extra uses on that system, like free replacements, an expect it to be implemented.
It's not as simple an argument as you make it out to be. First, it's not just that people think they should be able to speed and get away with it, it's that too much effort seems to be put in to catching people speeding, because it is seen as easier and more profitable than solving other crime, and that is what irks people. Someone gets burgled and they wait hours for police to turn up before being told that there is little that can be done and they aren't likely to get their stuff back, but that same person will be caught doing 2 mph above the limit by a hidden camera in a quiet area. The populace feels a little victimised over speeding that, generally, does no harm.
Second, it is that we are being lied to. The speed cameras have also got the nickname of revenue generators. We are told that the cameras are to aid road safety, which is an admirable and noble goal. It just isn't the case in most instances. Some cameras are placed in accident hot-spots, and there are cameras to catch people who jump red lights. However, there are many more cameras placed in areas with the sole intention of making money from tickets, without any thought to reducing safety. The autonomous nature of the cameras makes this feasible.
Speed cameras still cost money to manufacture and run, though. The cameras have to bring in a certain amount of revenue for them to be worth running, according to the authorities, and so they set targets for the cameras for the number of drivers to catch, otherwise they are not seen as cost-efficient and are removed. The fallacy of this is that if the camera has been installed in a place where speeding is dangerous, with the intention of reducing accidents by lowering people's speeds, if the camera doesn't make money then people are not speeding past it and it is performing its function. By removing the camera, the situation will revert and lives will again be at risk. If we didn't have this absurd position of the police removing effective cameras simply because they didn't make money, and have them realise that those that don't make money are probably saving lives and make roads safer, then the public may not complain about them so loudly. As it is, the cameras are seen just as money makers, another way for the authorities to get more money from us that will not be fed back in to public services.
Recent books I've read have even suggested the idea that we may someday have a flash-type memory implanted that will give us instant recall of data, much like Star Trek's Data could command.
It's easy to suggest chucking some electronic memory in to our heads to allow for perfect storage and retrieval of memory, but it vastly oversimplifies matters. How do we recall the memory from the flash memory, and how would it be different from what we do at the moment with information recall from the brain? How do we know that the information is in the memory, and what location it is stored at? How do we know if we know something, or that we don't know something? Do we scan the whole of the memory looking, dredging up every single memory in sequence until we get what we want, or do we have some search capability? How is this search performed, on what meta-data, and how is this meta-data created?
These are pretty much questions that are baffling scientists and philosophers about the human mind currently. Just how does the brain retrieve information so quickly and reliably, in a way that manages to pluck the right bit of information out of memory, ignoring things that aren't relevant? This is complicated more when leaps of intuition are taken in to consideration. What causes us to link seemingly irrelevant memories together to form something that decidedly is relevant to the situation at hand? Look up the the philospher's frame problem to get an idea of what I mean.
Changing memory from a lump of meat to silicon won't automatically solve these problems.
I believe it's exactly the same thing as with mice. Does anybody still buy/use mice without a scroll wheel? Would you use one?
I abhor mouse scroll wheels, and go out of my way to use a mouse without one. I just never liked the 'feel' of them. I don't think this detracts from your point about the iPod's scroll wheel, but the mouse scroll wheel is a different beastie for me.
There's no rational basis for calling the actions or creations of human beings un-natural without recourse to superstition.
He didn't say it was 'un-natural', but 'not natural'.
It can be useful to have a distinction between 'natural' and 'man-made', as long as you realise that people use the word 'natural' as an antonym to 'man-made'. I would think it absurd to consider nuclear power stations as 'natural' just because humans built them and humans are a part of nature as a whole. In the same way, I wouldn't consider a bird's nest to be naturally-occurring either; I wouldn't see one in a tree and think that the twigs came to be in that formation 'naturally'.
I would say you are being unnecessarily strict about the use of the word 'natural', in a way that is not informative nor useful in the real world. If everything is natural, what use is the word?
That's probably because most roads (carriageways) that have more than two lanes are motorways, so a dual-carriageway is seen as 'not a motorway but has multiple lanes', which gives it the 'two lane' definition.
The national speed limit in the UK for a single-carriageway road is 60 mph, and that of a dual-carriageway is 70 mph. The distinction is still important for any dual-carriageway roads with single lanes on both sides. There are also some single-carriageway roads that have multiple lanes going in one or both directions.
... a culture of scholars who consistently misktake eloquence for sound argument, who consistently believe that truth can be discovered by coupling logic with fuzzy verbal terminologies such as utility, happiness, common good, etc. In a word: Philosophy.
On the contrary. Philosophy specifically teaches how to create sound and valid arguments using clear and concise language, and 'fuzzy verbal terminologies' are attacked equally by philosophers if they are not well enough defined.
Music makes memories. Hardly when I am playing an old game do I remember the old times with it. So there is no urge to play old games as their is to listen to old music on occasion.
That's interesting, because sometimes when I am listening to old music I am reminded of a game that I played a lot back in the days when the music was current. Magical Dream, by 808 State, for example, often brings back memories of playing Populus on my Amiga.
I hate it when people use PC as a title for Windows only Computers. PC stands for Personal Computer.
'PC' used to mean 'Personal Computer' and nothing else, and included computers like the Amiga and what have you. It evolved (mutated, if you like) in to meaning a computer running Windows OS, if only because of the relative popularity of the platform.
'The PC' has come to mean something specific out of a generic phrase. It happens all the time. We still have ways to identify other 'PCs', like the Mac, Linux systems, and the occasional C=64 that defies police departments, even if they all would have been described as PCs a decade ago. There are far greater things to get worked up over.
How is this even an 'experiment'? It's not like he's sailing uncharted waters, trying to find out if the BDSM scene is active or not. Of course it is, people do it all the time. It's asinine that he did such a thing, and to call it an 'experiment' or a 'prank' is absurd.
This, if it happened, is a more interesting experiment, and didn't expose anyone's information.
'Piracy' is the term used to describe illegally copying software for as long as I can remember, including back to the early days of the C=64, over 20 years ago. It's not a new term, nor is it specific to DVDs.
The term may have been adapted from imagery over pirates of the seas, but I would venture that it is the software pirates who adopted the imagery and term themselves, not the authorities who wanted to make the crime seem more sinister.
'Piracy' is just another bit of jargon used in the world of computer software, nothing more. To say that it's 'not piracy' but simply 'illegally selling copies of software' is like saying 'it's not water, it's H20'.
It's actually 'The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Island', so there is a distinct difference between the UK and Britain. That title is on the front of every UK passport, by the way.
2. FLIR Equipment not rated for -40 deg
My problem with this is, working in automotive systems, we regularly see this requirement, and it's more of a "spec" thing. Most electronics are fine in cold weather... short of devices with moving parts (hard drive, for example). Just because the FLIR is not "rated" at -40 doesn't mean it can't handle such temperatures, only that one or more components (chips, capacitors, resistors, etc...) in the system are not CERTIFIED to operate at the wide range of temperatures....which is why the system is put in to an environmental test programme, involving test chambers that simulate the harsh environments and test whether the electronics work as required. This is what he is talking about: the FLIR system is supposed to operate down to -40C but fails to operate at anything below -5C. It's not about rating of the components, the system just flat out fails to work in the environment it will be put in.
Yes, this sort of testing is expensive, but it's a one-off cost to mitigate risk and looks to ensure the entire production run of your hardware will do what it's supposed to.
He said "We found out the FLIR system would not survive temperatures below -5". There is a vast chasm between saying "this FLIR is not rated for -5" and saying "the FLIR would not survive temperatures below -5". I'm not sure on FLIR sensitivity to cold weather, but he is implying it would then break.
I'm an environmental engineer working in a company that designs defence electronics. The FLIR system would have gone through environmental testing across the whole temperature range, including power-on at the extremes. I got the same understanding from the video as you, and he is stating that the equipment failed to work at temperatures below -5C.
It's unlikely that the equipment would break, as it is likely its components are rated to -55C unpowered, but more that some part of the electronics would simply fail to work as intended because of the effects of the temperature. Once warmed above -5C the system would start operating as normal again. Nevertheless, this would be considered as quite a serious failure in my field. It's not even a borderline failure, but a great deal outside of the specification.
Slashdot Mirror
I was also sore and bruised after being hit by a van whilst I was on my motorbike. I was able to walk out of the hospital's A&E myself and get back to work the next day.
The way the van hit me caused me to slide down the road on my face. My crash helmet had multiple scratch marks on the visor, and the mouth air intake was smashed. If I hadn't been wearing a helmet I may well be dead, and definitely in a seriously bad condition.
I don't care if the law requires me to wear a crash helmet, I'd wear one anyway. I enjoy riding my bike, but I also understand the risks involved.
A person who survives a motorcycle crash because they wore a helmet, but sustains multiple fractures and internal bleeding will more costly to treat than a corpse. ...and can potentially give back more to society once fit again than a corpse.
First, if you have a personal DVR, you are probably not the target audience for this. You have the capability to record and watch shows at the moment.
Second, the article states that one of the options is for programmes downloaded that are episodic in nature won't expire until a week after the final episode has been broadcast, allowing viewers to catch up with the entire series with increased leisure.
Personally, I think this sounds good. It's not intended to create a permanent downloaded copy of the show, but act as an internet-based recorder, so that you can catch shows you missed watching on TV. It also increases personal leisure because you are no longer tied to the schedule as you would be when watching TV. With the proposed system, you can watch your favourite programmes any time of the week, as long as it has been broadcast and it's within a week of the broadcast.
Just don't view this as a way to build up a library, as this clearly isn't its function.
The hardware also just works! Its just a shame you pay a premium for it.
I don't see it as 'a shame' but simple economics.
I pay more than bargain prices for many items with the expectation that I will have fewer problems as a result.
even the name, Windows, is a word stolen from the dictionary, made purely with letters stolen from the alphabet!
Not picking on you, but your post made me think about something a bit off-topic that frustrates me on slashdot too often: stealing versus copyright infringement.
Too many times people have bogged down a discussion because someone said something was 'stealing' and someone else just had to 'correct' them about it, saying that 'nothing really has been stolen' and that it's copyright infringement, as if that really makes a blind bit of difference to the discussion at hand. This derails the discussion, losing any good thoughts over semantics.
Look at your sentence. Were words really 'stolen' from the dictionary, or letters 'stolen' from the alphabet. I hope not, as I tend to use quite a few letters in my day-to-day communications. But you clearly make sense, and I imagine anyone even vaguely familiar with the language understands what you are trying to get across.
I would like to highlight this for anyone who thinks about destroying more intelligent argument by trying to declare any meaningful difference between stealing and copyright infringement. We understand the meaning intended by someone declaring something as 'stealing', even if it is perhaps not the exact word. It serves no real purpose to argue vehemently that it's the wrong word, and all it does is prevent the real issues being discussed. Please stop it.
Since when have retailers or manufacturers given a replacement copy of something for free when you lose the original? I don't, nor do I expect to, get a new copy of a CD if I lose the one I bought.
But, I hear you argue, there is no physical media involved in buying an MP3, so there is no impediment to this kind of replacement that there was before. Sure, but there is still bandwidth costs, so you may have to cover them as a minimum, as well as any administrative costs incurred. Even so, I would bet that a record label wouldn't send me a replacement CD at cost if I lost the one I legally bought.
How would you prove you 'lost' the file? It would be easy to back-up somewhere, or replacing the hard drive, or simply claiming it was on another computer. You may argue that DRM assures the company that the file was where you claim it to be, but as you are wanting a replacement copy of an MP3 I am assuming you are against DRM; would you like a system where your music was intrinsically tied to a single system but would be replaced on system failure, or a system where you could do what you wanted with your purchases but had the drawbacks also associated with the likes of CDs on loss or damage?
It's one thing to want a system that is fair to use, but another to take an existing system, as with CDs, and then impose extra uses on that system, like free replacements, an expect it to be implemented.
It's not as simple an argument as you make it out to be. First, it's not just that people think they should be able to speed and get away with it, it's that too much effort seems to be put in to catching people speeding, because it is seen as easier and more profitable than solving other crime, and that is what irks people. Someone gets burgled and they wait hours for police to turn up before being told that there is little that can be done and they aren't likely to get their stuff back, but that same person will be caught doing 2 mph above the limit by a hidden camera in a quiet area. The populace feels a little victimised over speeding that, generally, does no harm.
Second, it is that we are being lied to. The speed cameras have also got the nickname of revenue generators. We are told that the cameras are to aid road safety, which is an admirable and noble goal. It just isn't the case in most instances. Some cameras are placed in accident hot-spots, and there are cameras to catch people who jump red lights. However, there are many more cameras placed in areas with the sole intention of making money from tickets, without any thought to reducing safety. The autonomous nature of the cameras makes this feasible.
Speed cameras still cost money to manufacture and run, though. The cameras have to bring in a certain amount of revenue for them to be worth running, according to the authorities, and so they set targets for the cameras for the number of drivers to catch, otherwise they are not seen as cost-efficient and are removed. The fallacy of this is that if the camera has been installed in a place where speeding is dangerous, with the intention of reducing accidents by lowering people's speeds, if the camera doesn't make money then people are not speeding past it and it is performing its function. By removing the camera, the situation will revert and lives will again be at risk. If we didn't have this absurd position of the police removing effective cameras simply because they didn't make money, and have them realise that those that don't make money are probably saving lives and make roads safer, then the public may not complain about them so loudly. As it is, the cameras are seen just as money makers, another way for the authorities to get more money from us that will not be fed back in to public services.
You could at least mention Bill Watterson as the source of your comedic genius.
Recent books I've read have even suggested the idea that we may someday have a flash-type memory implanted that will give us instant recall of data, much like Star Trek's Data could command.
It's easy to suggest chucking some electronic memory in to our heads to allow for perfect storage and retrieval of memory, but it vastly oversimplifies matters. How do we recall the memory from the flash memory, and how would it be different from what we do at the moment with information recall from the brain? How do we know that the information is in the memory, and what location it is stored at? How do we know if we know something, or that we don't know something? Do we scan the whole of the memory looking, dredging up every single memory in sequence until we get what we want, or do we have some search capability? How is this search performed, on what meta-data, and how is this meta-data created?
These are pretty much questions that are baffling scientists and philosophers about the human mind currently. Just how does the brain retrieve information so quickly and reliably, in a way that manages to pluck the right bit of information out of memory, ignoring things that aren't relevant? This is complicated more when leaps of intuition are taken in to consideration. What causes us to link seemingly irrelevant memories together to form something that decidedly is relevant to the situation at hand? Look up the the philospher's frame problem to get an idea of what I mean.
Changing memory from a lump of meat to silicon won't automatically solve these problems.
I believe it's exactly the same thing as with mice. Does anybody still buy/use mice without a scroll wheel? Would you use one?
I abhor mouse scroll wheels, and go out of my way to use a mouse without one. I just never liked the 'feel' of them. I don't think this detracts from your point about the iPod's scroll wheel, but the mouse scroll wheel is a different beastie for me.
Err... just because you are paranoid, it doesn't mean they are not out to get you.
Yes it does, by definition.
There's no rational basis for calling the actions or creations of human beings un-natural without recourse to superstition.
He didn't say it was 'un-natural', but 'not natural'.
It can be useful to have a distinction between 'natural' and 'man-made', as long as you realise that people use the word 'natural' as an antonym to 'man-made'. I would think it absurd to consider nuclear power stations as 'natural' just because humans built them and humans are a part of nature as a whole. In the same way, I wouldn't consider a bird's nest to be naturally-occurring either; I wouldn't see one in a tree and think that the twigs came to be in that formation 'naturally'.
I would say you are being unnecessarily strict about the use of the word 'natural', in a way that is not informative nor useful in the real world. If everything is natural, what use is the word?
That's probably because most roads (carriageways) that have more than two lanes are motorways, so a dual-carriageway is seen as 'not a motorway but has multiple lanes', which gives it the 'two lane' definition.
The national speed limit in the UK for a single-carriageway road is 60 mph, and that of a dual-carriageway is 70 mph. The distinction is still important for any dual-carriageway roads with single lanes on both sides. There are also some single-carriageway roads that have multiple lanes going in one or both directions.
... a culture of scholars who consistently misktake eloquence for sound argument, who consistently believe that truth can be discovered by coupling logic with fuzzy verbal terminologies such as utility, happiness, common good, etc. In a word: Philosophy.
On the contrary. Philosophy specifically teaches how to create sound and valid arguments using clear and concise language, and 'fuzzy verbal terminologies' are attacked equally by philosophers if they are not well enough defined.
"try and" ... is just plain wrong.
m l
http://alt-usage-english.org/excerpts/fxtryand.ht
How do animal extinctions change the Earth's orbit?
Right on. The headline should read 'Extinctions linked to changes in Earth's orbit'. Silly editors.
Music makes memories. Hardly when I am playing an old game do I remember the old times with it. So there is no urge to play old games as their is to listen to old music on occasion.
That's interesting, because sometimes when I am listening to old music I am reminded of a game that I played a lot back in the days when the music was current. Magical Dream, by 808 State, for example, often brings back memories of playing Populus on my Amiga.
I hate it when people use PC as a title for Windows only Computers. PC stands for Personal Computer.
'PC' used to mean 'Personal Computer' and nothing else, and included computers like the Amiga and what have you. It evolved (mutated, if you like) in to meaning a computer running Windows OS, if only because of the relative popularity of the platform.
'The PC' has come to mean something specific out of a generic phrase. It happens all the time. We still have ways to identify other 'PCs', like the Mac, Linux systems, and the occasional C=64 that defies police departments, even if they all would have been described as PCs a decade ago. There are far greater things to get worked up over.
How is this even an 'experiment'? It's not like he's sailing uncharted waters, trying to find out if the BDSM scene is active or not. Of course it is, people do it all the time. It's asinine that he did such a thing, and to call it an 'experiment' or a 'prank' is absurd.
This, if it happened, is a more interesting experiment, and didn't expose anyone's information.
'Piracy' is the term used to describe illegally copying software for as long as I can remember, including back to the early days of the C=64, over 20 years ago. It's not a new term, nor is it specific to DVDs.
The term may have been adapted from imagery over pirates of the seas, but I would venture that it is the software pirates who adopted the imagery and term themselves, not the authorities who wanted to make the crime seem more sinister.
'Piracy' is just another bit of jargon used in the world of computer software, nothing more. To say that it's 'not piracy' but simply 'illegally selling copies of software' is like saying 'it's not water, it's H20'.
'Northern Island'? My apologies, Ireland; it's time for me to put down the crack pipe.
Britain and UK are synonymous
It's actually 'The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Island', so there is a distinct difference between the UK and Britain. That title is on the front of every UK passport, by the way.
Britain consists of England, Wales and Scotland.
Lord Apathy? Pfh, who cares?
2. FLIR Equipment not rated for -40 deg ...which is why the system is put in to an environmental test programme, involving test chambers that simulate the harsh environments and test whether the electronics work as required. This is what he is talking about: the FLIR system is supposed to operate down to -40C but fails to operate at anything below -5C. It's not about rating of the components, the system just flat out fails to work in the environment it will be put in.
My problem with this is, working in automotive systems, we regularly see this requirement, and it's more of a "spec" thing. Most electronics are fine in cold weather... short of devices with moving parts (hard drive, for example). Just because the FLIR is not "rated" at -40 doesn't mean it can't handle such temperatures, only that one or more components (chips, capacitors, resistors, etc...) in the system are not CERTIFIED to operate at the wide range of temperatures.
Yes, this sort of testing is expensive, but it's a one-off cost to mitigate risk and looks to ensure the entire production run of your hardware will do what it's supposed to.
He said "We found out the FLIR system would not survive temperatures below -5". There is a vast chasm between saying "this FLIR is not rated for -5" and saying "the FLIR would not survive temperatures below -5". I'm not sure on FLIR sensitivity to cold weather, but he is implying it would then break.
I'm an environmental engineer working in a company that designs defence electronics. The FLIR system would have gone through environmental testing across the whole temperature range, including power-on at the extremes. I got the same understanding from the video as you, and he is stating that the equipment failed to work at temperatures below -5C.
It's unlikely that the equipment would break, as it is likely its components are rated to -55C unpowered, but more that some part of the electronics would simply fail to work as intended because of the effects of the temperature. Once warmed above -5C the system would start operating as normal again. Nevertheless, this would be considered as quite a serious failure in my field. It's not even a borderline failure, but a great deal outside of the specification.