I was on a committe at NIST that analyzed this issue. Basically leap seconds are compensatory measures taken by government (mainly scientists) to keep time running the way it does. The system of hours/minutes/seconds we have set up is quite arbitrary and so this doesn't really affect it critically, but even a fraction of a second can impact our lives in the strangest of ways. (Our biological clocks, bird migration patterns...) NIST wields quite a bit of power, if you think about it.
I was on a NASA committee involved in the predesign stages of the Stardust probe (we weren't designing it ourselves, rather we were consulting with one of the teams at the JPL who were) and this comet dust was one of our main points of focus. You'd think of dust as about the most innocuous stuff there is, but it was quite a challenge designing all the intricate mechanisms on the craft to be resistant to it - at the speed it travels, it can be like sandpaper on all the components.
You seem thoroughly confused at the difference between the RIAA and it's members. Do you mean to say, for instance, that a member of the NRA can't be for gun control even if the NRA is opposed to it?
I mean to say that the NRA can't be for gun control if all (or probably even the majority) of its members are against it. All the big RIAA members are participating in iTMS, ergo, if the RIAA were against iTMS, it sure would defy common sense, wouldn't it.
I've seen no evidence that iTMS exists or is commericially viable because of the RIAA. In fact, Steve Jobs himself has said that they had to go to record labels one at a timeand convince them.
You're only arguing over semantics. iTMS is commercially viable because of RIAA member companies, of which there are only a handful. It's just easier to say "RIAA." You probably knew that, but you prefer to pick nits for some reason. But this I had to jump on:
The RIAA had nothing to do with it, and I wouldn't doubt they'd be opposed to it.
You wouldn't doubt they'd be opposed to it even if every one of their member companies were not? Huh??
Well, yeah, why preinstall Linux when 98% of people do prefer Windows? I dunno? Because they prefer Windows? Gee whiz. It's like Mormons complaining that their religion doesn't have a fair chance because Christianity has a monopoly. Well, golly. Maybe you should make your religion more appealing then - I don't know. I'm sympathetic, but I can't help you.
The RIAA markets what it does to listeners because that's what it thinks is what people most want. Don't think of the RIAA as one entity. It's actually several corporations which, although they do cooperate with each other, do also compete with each other to offer the most appealing music. They are very aggressive in picking up new trends and moulding their product into what they think people will want. They do quite often get it wrong, although you never hear about it because a failed act is, by definition, one you probably don't know about. But when they get it right, they really get it right. It's the same way with Coke or Pepsi, or beer, or laundry detergent, or clothing, or any mass-market commodity really. Coke/Pepsi sell shitloads of pretty good soda because people apparently like it. There is probably better small-label cola available in tiny markets somewhere, but I don't really care.
If people didn't generally like what the RIAA offered, they wouldn't listen to it. But surprise surprise, they do listen to it... in vast quantities.
No - because the RIAA makes it impossible (via Payola and monopoly) for any non-RIAA band to be widely heard. There are plenty of great bands out there that won't make it big until they sell out to the RIAA for pennies on the dollar.
So what. 98.5% of people don't care. 98.5% of people aren't music snobs and they don't give a shit about authenticity or integrity or anything that music snobs care about. They just want what they think sounds good. And the RIAA provides that. Indie music isn't small beans because of the RIAA, it's small because nobody cares about it. If people cared, it would be big. "But nobody knows about it, that's why it can't get big." If it were that great, it would catch on and spread via word of mouth and whatever other non-RIAA means.
- Set up massive P2P network of FCC-legal low-power broadcast stations (i.e. - garage, cable modem and some unsigned bands) - Distribute media through internet and synchronize broadcast thereof - every node broadcasts the same song at the same time with allowance for DJs to input their local color (they just have to watch the clock so that they know when the next song will come on) - Create an open system providing for anyone to participate - Voila, profit
Nobody cares!!!! Nobody cares about your stupid high-tech P2p indie open-standard whatever bullshit. You speak like it will only take ____, and then everything will crumble, the whole system will crumble because the consumer will realize that the RIAA had pulled the wool over their eyes and prevented them from seeing the light or whatever.... bullshit. That's the same argument made by all the fringe groups, from the libertarians to the socialists to the digital anarchists to the evangelical religious people: "My idea is correct and it's only a matter of time before ____ (dramatic revolution)! Only this needs to happen, and once it does, bang!" In order to understand why the RIAA is crucial to the success of iTMS, you have to understand the situation from the perspective of the average person.
Because RIAA music is what 98.5% of listeners want to hear. Why not offer everything and anything and let the consumer choose? Independent labels can compete just fine with or without the RIAA on iTunes.
Given enough computing power you could just simulate umpteen-billion neurons. We don't understand how the brain works, but if you copy all the parts into a computer simulation you know it will produce the same result.
If we've got a computer simulating a full brain, that simulated brain would have to possess some kind of consciousness, wouldn't it? Otherwise it wouldn't be a complete simulation. What if consciousness is not strictly a result of neuron interaction, but it is also found that e.g. chemical reactions are critical for it to work? If so, then just like we can simulate a nuclear explosion in a computer, but we can't cause one, we may find that we can't "cause" consciousness... which would leave us with a pretty unexciting brain, no matter how many bajillion petaflops we have.
You can't have a civil discussion with a Linux user. Linux users like to think of themselves as rational, but if you observe their behavior you'll find they are anything but. They are full of anger and bitterness, and react with frightful outrage whenever they encounter someone with different views from their own. Even people who think that Linux userity is a reasonable philosophy must admit that most Linux users did not arrive at their point of view through anything resembling a rational process. Rather, they are poorly socialized individuals who are lashing out angrily at anything which is valued by mainstream society. You really shouldn't take it personally. It is the result of an angry and profoundly unhappy psychological condition on their part, not due to you or your Windows beliefs.
I don't even think about keyboarding anymore - after 20+ years the keyboard is simply an extension of my thought process, I'm sure you were right in the center of Microsoft's target market for their keyboards, too, weren't you, Johnny Mnemonic? After 20+ years, I would say it's the thought process, not the keyboard, that's proving to be the problem for you.
no, but you can achieve the same effect in X by modifying whatever the hell config files, commenting out some gibberish and adding a few more lines, then restarting the X server, wondering why it didn't work, double-checking that you did it correctly, WHOOPS the permissions on that config file are messed up for some reason, restart again, there, it works, but only in this app, why not the rest? God damn it.
whoa there big shooter. settle down now, it's ok, just because you can't get threesomes with keanu and carrie-ann off your mind does not make opensores software any worse. ok? hug!
Slashdot Mirror
a few hits of that and you won't really care about caffeine anymore.
I was on a committe at NIST that analyzed this issue. Basically leap seconds are compensatory measures taken by government (mainly scientists) to keep time running the way it does. The system of hours/minutes/seconds we have set up is quite arbitrary and so this doesn't really affect it critically, but even a fraction of a second can impact our lives in the strangest of ways. (Our biological clocks, bird migration patterns...) NIST wields quite a bit of power, if you think about it.
I was on a NASA committee involved in the predesign stages of the Stardust probe (we weren't designing it ourselves, rather we were consulting with one of the teams at the JPL who were) and this comet dust was one of our main points of focus. You'd think of dust as about the most innocuous stuff there is, but it was quite a challenge designing all the intricate mechanisms on the craft to be resistant to it - at the speed it travels, it can be like sandpaper on all the components.
Get a fucking LIFE people!
icab is not crap, it's the only modern mac browser that runs on m68k and doesn't choke on a 601.
If it's true that floss is gaining momentum throughout the world, you wouldn't know it by looking into the mouths of most Slashdotters.
Why limit yourself to Macs when iTunes runs on PCs?
Maybe they chose windows when they went out and bought 65 billion copies of it.
thank you
OMFG I got modded down for dissing Christina Aguilera on Slashdot. :)
You seem thoroughly confused at the difference between the RIAA and it's members. Do you mean to say, for instance, that a member of the NRA can't be for gun control even if the NRA is opposed to it?
I mean to say that the NRA can't be for gun control if all (or probably even the majority) of its members are against it. All the big RIAA members are participating in iTMS, ergo, if the RIAA were against iTMS, it sure would defy common sense, wouldn't it.
Saddam is a tyrannical dictator, MJ is a gay pedophile, and Michael Sims is both.
"doesn't doesn't" = does?
Judging by her appearance, there are few people she hasn't "performed" with.
I've seen no evidence that iTMS exists or is commericially viable because of the RIAA. In fact, Steve Jobs himself has said that they had to go to record labels one at a timeand convince them.
You're only arguing over semantics. iTMS is commercially viable because of RIAA member companies, of which there are only a handful. It's just easier to say "RIAA." You probably knew that, but you prefer to pick nits for some reason. But this I had to jump on:
The RIAA had nothing to do with it, and I wouldn't doubt they'd be opposed to it.
You wouldn't doubt they'd be opposed to it even if every one of their member companies were not? Huh??
Well, yeah, why preinstall Linux when 98% of people do prefer Windows? I dunno? Because they prefer Windows? Gee whiz. It's like Mormons complaining that their religion doesn't have a fair chance because Christianity has a monopoly. Well, golly. Maybe you should make your religion more appealing then - I don't know. I'm sympathetic, but I can't help you.
The RIAA markets what it does to listeners because that's what it thinks is what people most want. Don't think of the RIAA as one entity. It's actually several corporations which, although they do cooperate with each other, do also compete with each other to offer the most appealing music. They are very aggressive in picking up new trends and moulding their product into what they think people will want. They do quite often get it wrong, although you never hear about it because a failed act is, by definition, one you probably don't know about. But when they get it right, they really get it right. It's the same way with Coke or Pepsi, or beer, or laundry detergent, or clothing, or any mass-market commodity really. Coke/Pepsi sell shitloads of pretty good soda because people apparently like it. There is probably better small-label cola available in tiny markets somewhere, but I don't really care.
If people didn't generally like what the RIAA offered, they wouldn't listen to it. But surprise surprise, they do listen to it... in vast quantities.
No - because the RIAA makes it impossible (via Payola and monopoly) for any non-RIAA band to be widely heard. There are plenty of great bands out there that won't make it big until they sell out to the RIAA for pennies on the dollar.
So what. 98.5% of people don't care. 98.5% of people aren't music snobs and they don't give a shit about authenticity or integrity or anything that music snobs care about. They just want what they think sounds good. And the RIAA provides that. Indie music isn't small beans because of the RIAA, it's small because nobody cares about it. If people cared, it would be big. "But nobody knows about it, that's why it can't get big." If it were that great, it would catch on and spread via word of mouth and whatever other non-RIAA means.
- Set up massive P2P network of FCC-legal low-power broadcast stations (i.e. - garage, cable modem and some unsigned bands)
- Distribute media through internet and synchronize broadcast thereof - every node broadcasts the same song at the same time with allowance for DJs to input their local color (they just have to watch the clock so that they know when the next song will come on)
- Create an open system providing for anyone to participate
- Voila, profit
Nobody cares!!!! Nobody cares about your stupid high-tech P2p indie open-standard whatever bullshit. You speak like it will only take ____, and then everything will crumble, the whole system will crumble because the consumer will realize that the RIAA had pulled the wool over their eyes and prevented them from seeing the light or whatever.... bullshit. That's the same argument made by all the fringe groups, from the libertarians to the socialists to the digital anarchists to the evangelical religious people: "My idea is correct and it's only a matter of time before ____ (dramatic revolution)! Only this needs to happen, and once it does, bang!" In order to understand why the RIAA is crucial to the success of iTMS, you have to understand the situation from the perspective of the average person.
Because RIAA music is what 98.5% of listeners want to hear. Why not offer everything and anything and let the consumer choose? Independent labels can compete just fine with or without the RIAA on iTunes.
faggot
If we've got a computer simulating a full brain, that simulated brain would have to possess some kind of consciousness, wouldn't it? Otherwise it wouldn't be a complete simulation. What if consciousness is not strictly a result of neuron interaction, but it is also found that e.g. chemical reactions are critical for it to work? If so, then just like we can simulate a nuclear explosion in a computer, but we can't cause one, we may find that we can't "cause" consciousness... which would leave us with a pretty unexciting brain, no matter how many bajillion petaflops we have.
what does AI have to do with Moore's Law?
You can't have a civil discussion with a Linux user. Linux users like to think of themselves as rational, but if you observe their behavior you'll find they are anything but. They are full of anger and bitterness, and react with frightful outrage whenever they encounter someone with different views from their own. Even people who think that Linux userity is a reasonable philosophy must admit that most Linux users did not arrive at their point of view through anything resembling a rational process. Rather, they are poorly socialized individuals who are lashing out angrily at anything which is valued by mainstream society. You really shouldn't take it personally. It is the result of an angry and profoundly unhappy psychological condition on their part, not due to you or your Windows beliefs.
I don't even think about keyboarding anymore - after 20+ years the keyboard is simply an extension of my thought process,
I'm sure you were right in the center of Microsoft's target market for their keyboards, too, weren't you, Johnny Mnemonic? After 20+ years, I would say it's the thought process, not the keyboard, that's proving to be the problem for you.
no, but you can achieve the same effect in X by modifying whatever the hell config files, commenting out some gibberish and adding a few more lines, then restarting the X server, wondering why it didn't work, double-checking that you did it correctly, WHOOPS the permissions on that config file are messed up for some reason, restart again, there, it works, but only in this app, why not the rest? God damn it.
whoa there big shooter. settle down now, it's ok, just because you can't get threesomes with keanu and carrie-ann off your mind does not make opensores software any worse. ok? hug!