In the industry, this is a concept that has already been talked about quite a bit. In fact, a common mantra heard at AMIA conventions is the oft recited, "Any physician who can be replaced by a computer should be."
Unfortunately, that is MUCH easier said than done. And while clinical decision support systems exist to help physicians with their patient diagnosis, every physician uses them as a guideline, and not as an absolute reference or comprehensive source of information. Experience is heavily valued, which is why every physician has 7+ years of postgraduate education and working in the field.
You are considering the wrong criteria in getting a degree. You should instead be asking yourself, "What would I enjoy doing more?" The passion in doing what you enjoy is the best way to maximize your earning potential. You will enjoy going to work everyday, you will be excited to take on and complete diverse projects, and your passion and drive will be obvious to anyone who is around you. People will interpret this as a hardworking ethic at the company , and/or love of the company you work at which will in turn translate in to a higher income.
So if you are interested in setting policy, go for your MBA. If you are interested in applying computer technology to the business setting, go for the MS in IT degree. If you are interested in programming, and the creation of computer tools, go for the MS in computer science. However, there are many fields of study that you did not mention that may be of interest as well, everything from software engineering (specialization in writing software), to computer engineering (designing specialized computing devices), to HCI (how people interact with computers), to the numerous sub specialties of informatics (I'm personally studying health informatics, and the creation of unique tools to better health care and help clinicians be safer and more effective).
Sounds like you need to do more research into what you want to do for the rest of your life, and change the criteria basis for which you are basing this decision.
Exactly, make the hint button inaccessible for several seconds after a move has been made, justifying it by saying they haven't tried long enough to try figure out the next move. Imagine if you were sitting next to the player, what kinds of hints would you give them, and how often?
Developers should respond to the requests of their users, however, those requests should be tempered be the social aspect of user (player) interaction with the software (game).
The problem is that once you purchase the game, you cannot return it, you cannot sell it, and you cannot give it away/transfer it to another party.
As well, despite the fact that the steam version has no packaging costs, no printing costs, no warehousing costs, no stocking, shipping, or handling costs, you are still paying the same for the game as everyone else who bought it in the store.
Finally, the Steam store does not answer to market concerns, and operates arbitrarily. For example: In most stores, once the demand for a game has worn off, the price comes down in order to move the remaining copies of a game to make room for new games. In the Steam store, costs remain the same until the vendor authorizes a price reduction based on arbitrary decisions (increase sales volume, allow for pricing difference between game and sequel, etc.).
The technology embedded in Steam would allow for the first issue to be resolved, should Valve care to pursue this. As well, a second Steam store, not operated by Valve, yet accessible on the Steam system would ensure that the last two issues are properly addressed.
A few years ago, I might have agreed with you. After all, on a basic level you are correct, if we program what we know into a simulation, the simulation will be based on what we know!
Last semester I took a class in complex system, and it really opened my eyes about what computer simulations can do for us in providing unexpected behavior. Most of this is because we have a pretty good grasp on simple systems, and can take those simple systems and program them into a computer with rules of interaction to see how they will interact without human guidance.
Let me give you an example: Most everyone here at one point of time or another have programed "Life" into a computer. We understand the rules, we understand the program itself, and we understand how everything is going to work, but until you actually run the program, you would never have expected the results! How could you have predicted the formations that would develop? The stable formations, the chaotic formations, the moving formations? Much less how these formations would interact when they collide?
I think in a way this is what was being simulated in the program mentioned above. We think we have a pretty good idea about the simple systems which make up a complex entity like a black hole. But how do these simple systems interact when they encroach upon another black hole? Assuming we really do understand these simple systems, and that they stay constant, I think this simulation gives us a reasonable expectation as to how black holes will react to a collision.
Nothing non-microbial makes its habitat there. It's nothing paradisaical and talking about it as if it were does not make it true.
The refuge supports a greater variety of plant and animal life than any other protected area in the Arctic Circle. A continuum of six different ecozones spans some 200 miles (300 km) north to south...Each year, thousands of waterfowl and other birds nest and reproduce in areas surrounding Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk fields and a healthy and increasing caribou herd migrates through these areas to calve and seek respite from annoying pests(1).
Go Edumacate yourself before you force me to hit you with the cluebat.
There is a solution no one has yet mentioned, ISDN. All POTS companies are required to offer it, and provide it at a decent rate. It won't compare to DSL or Cable, but it is a hell of a lot better than dial up. (Up to 128Kbps)
Rates for a Basic Rate Interface (BRI) should be similar to a standard phone connection, and with modern dial-up modem banks, just about any company that offers dial-up should offer ISDN access. From there, you would have to purchase an ISDN modem for your parents - I personally like 3Com's Office Connect ISDN LAN Modem for the features it provides. The upshot to this solution is that like DSL your parents can use the internet and receive phone calls simultaneously.
As long as the patent office views itself as a revenue generating arm of the United States government, these problems will at best persist, and at worse intensify.
First off, the iphone isn't even on this list, it isn't new enough anymore. Second, what most people don't seem to understand is that the iphone isn't just a device, and while manufacturers can try all they want to create devices that look and act similarly, the iphone is part of a complex system which integrates itunes, and thus music, movies, photos, etc. into an interactive product which interfaces well with both the mac and windows operating systems.
Yes, big deal, I've got opera mini running on my phone, I've got a media player on my phone, I've got a camera on my phone, etc. However it doesn't all work together. I can't listen to music and surf the web at the same time. I can't talk and browse photos at the same time. Connecting to my computer? 9 times out of 10 the phone or the computer crashes when I try to interface through the USB cable.
So no, I won't be worring about anything topping the iphone for a long time. As for any industry pundit who wispers "iphone killer"? I just chuckle at their misunderstanding of what people want.
Triggering apoptosis is the ultimate goal in cancer treatment. When a normal cell examines itself, and finds that it is genetically different, it will trigger apoptosis in order to sacrifice itself for the good of the being. Tumorigenic cells want to die, but for some reason the apoptosis mechanism never gets triggered, or is triggered and does not work. Therefore if researchers better understand what triggers apoptosis, then tumorigenic cells can be examined for those missing proteins. Perhaps if the apoptosis mechanism can be fixed, we will have a cure for the majority of cancer. There will still be a small number of tumorigenic cells which don't know they are different, thus have a perfectly working apoptosis mechanism which was never triggered.
Lets try putting this in computer terms. Say when you copy a file by downloading it off the internet, the file itself wants to ensure you have an exact duplicate. Therefore the file performs its own CRC check once it is downloaded. If it fails the CRC check, it deletes itself and you have to download another copy. Now imagine this is a file sharing operation, thus your copy gets shared with many others who are downloading the file from you. If your copy became corrupt in the download process, yet didn't delete itself, a corrupt version of the file would be spread across the Internet (Pandemonium! Cats and dogs sleeping together! Chaos!). Thus wouldn't you want to fix the broken mechanism so that the corrupt file deleted itself, so that the process is started over? Unfortunately there is also a minuscule chance that a corrupt file will generate an identical CRC value thus never triggering the deletion.
Clearly it is a joke. If it is not your cup of tea that does not make me a troll.
Misinterpretation makes you a troll, if it is not obvious that it is a joke, then your message will be interpreted incorrectly which will get you mislabeled - especially in a text only communications medium in which context, facial expressions, vocal intonations, and body language are not being expressed. I am sorry for mislabeling you as a troll, it seems that was not your true intention.
... you didnt list anything there that my n95 didnt have.
Are you really trying to compare a $400 iphone with an $800 n95 which you clearly indicated in an earlier post by saying:
which sucks, never buy one, too many faults to count
As for the windows mobile specific feature, I am at fault - without being involved in the market, or needing such a device, I have not shopped around for such devices therefore I am unaware of what are current features. Is this because of a lack of advertising by Nokia? Microsoft? Why is it that I am aware of the features of the iphone without realizing it, yet know nothing of Microsoft's platform when they have been in the market longer? Is that a failure on Microsoft's part?
The point I was trying to express was that while many devices focus on specific features, the iphone brings all of these features into one device which works as advertised.
Also yes i have used the iphone on several occasions.
Conversation over - if you have used this device and you see no value in it, then there is nothing I or anyone else can say to change your opinion. You are obviously too entrenched in your own perceptions that it would be useless for me to continue trying to enumerate the value I perceive this device brings me.
I cannot count how many times I have heard this advice, yet it bears out repeating over and over and over again - do not sign ANYTHING without reading it first. This is the person's mistake, and he willingly admits to his mistake. It is a shame that it happened at an Apple store, but to be honest, it could have been anywhere, even an automotive repair shop.
The only reason automobile mechanics must give you a replaced part if you ask for it is so that you can get a second opinion afterwards, thus hoping to reduce fraud that tends to run rampant at some questionable automotive places where either through technician ignorance, negligence, or through purposeful managerial policy, a part is replace that does not need to be replaced.
Apple has a legitimate reason for keeping the drive which is described on the form given to the customer - it believes the drive can be fixed and sold. As a paying customer, you are a part of that economic system. If you do not wish to participate, that is your prerogative, and with standardization of components, you are more than welcome to find an alternative (which ironically the consumer considered and should have pursued).
Funny stuff in a social engineering way. This begs the question of liability however, if someone did this with a real rope and someone blew through a similar scenario would the driver be liable for injuring the participants on the side of the road? Or would the individuals be liable for causing their own injuries? If the latter is true, then why would anyone slow down when this situation is confronted?
One of the aspects that was mentioned in this article that is rarely talked about is ease of use. Apple has gone out of their way to make it difficult for the user to mess up. The system is fully integrated because Apple has full control over all aspects of the system. It is easy for them to make changes in the itunes store, modify the itunes software, and change the ipod firmware to reflect the changes. They can do all of this internally and push it out to their customers when they connect online next. Microsoft does not have this level of control. They merely control the DRM through the media player. If the store wants to offer something new, they have to get both Microsoft and the vendors of the mp3 players on board to make the change universal. If Microsoft wants to make a change in how media player works, they have to get both the stores and the mp3 players on board. If the mp3 players want to make a change in functionality, they have to work through the channels of their "partner" companies to make it happen. Thus change is slow, and not all stakeholders will make the change. This introduces incomplete functionality and causes problems for consumers.
The mp3 player vendors want to sell new units, not patch old units to allow them to play new content. Media stores want to sell more content and if that means bringing a new product to market, all the better for them to make more money from! Microsoft is stuck in the middle. Microsoft want to help the mp3 player vendors sell more units because Microsoft gets royalties on every mp3 player sold with their DRM on it. Microsoft wants to help the media stores sell more media because Microsoft gets royalties on every piece of media encrypted in their DRM. Thus Microsoft profits from the use of their DRM. Microsoft does not want record labels to stop using DRM because it would hurt Microsoft. Conversely, Apple does not licence their DRM. Apple's DRM is a drag on their business model. Apple would rather sell songs without DRM because that means less code for them to maintain, and less overhead on the servers which encode the songs with DRM with customer's specific user key. Apple wants record labels to stop using DRM because DRM hurts Apple as much as it hurts the customer.
Exactly, and this was a point brought up in the article. Copyright infringement is nothing new, people have been recording songs off the radio, passing mix tapes to their firends, etc. However, now that a lot of infringement is done on the internet, thus there are IP addresses and logs with which to find and prosecute (did I say persecute?) casual infringers who otherwise would have gone unnoticed. The article goes into detail about how copyright holders are using technology to enforce their copyright into domains with which they knew infringement was taking place, yet could do nothing about it. He even theorizes that the day may come when your radio will record you singing along to the songs on the radio, convert voice to text, match to lyrics, and send you a monthly bill licencing you to sing those songs you sang!
My question is this:
If Comcast is blocking, throttling, or in some other way denying traffic, don't they lose their common carrier status? And wouldn't this open them up to lawsuits? After all if they are able to slow X traffic, why can't they stop illegal music/movie/software/etc. downloads?
If you were a copyright holder, and you suspected that individuals were copying your works over the Comcast network - who is throttling specific traffic - wouldn't you sue to get them to stop the flow of traffic containing your works? Why doesn't this action open them up to legal action from the litigious-happy RIAA and others?
I am of the impression that uninformed consumers do not concern themselves with technical details, and are far more motivated by cost. I believe this is why VHS won out over Beta, and why HD VMD will destroy both Blu-ray and HD DVD formats.
While movie studios will want DRM on their disks, ultimately they desire sales, and will go with whatever format dominates the marketplace, no matter how much or little DRM is in place. However, as the article mentions that the $150 player comes with HDMI, I suspect they have comparable DRM to the other HD competitors.
There is a reason why research papers take the format that they take - to make it easy to locate the pertinent information that another researcher is trying to find. Most readers will be interested in the results section of a paper - where significant findings are listed. If the findings seem too good to be true, you might read the methodologies section to see how the researcher validated their study tools and to see if the methods used to arriving at their conclusions are suspect. If you are a layman to the field of study or you want to see what literature directed the researcher to this research question, you might be interested in reading the background section of the paper. If you found the topic interesting, and want to continue this line of questioning, you would read the discussions section to learn interesting aspects about what the researcher would do differently had they the opportunity to do the research over again or to perform the research again in the future. A lot of the discussion section might pertain to how they might change their methodology, or change their survey instrument in order to increase the return of relevant data.
Now, having said all of that, I do think that a site which offers video presentations of papers would be a more interesting way of learning information. In acadamia, a lot of professors and researchers are expected to become involved in their area of research, which means that they perform research, present research, and attend presentations of other researchers. In many areas you could attend presentations almost every day of the week. While this is encouraged, it does take up valuable time, and many in acadamia have to be selective about which presentations would be most valuable to attend, as presentations take more time than would reading the relevant portions of the paper. Finally, I have seen enough awful presentations to realize that just because the information is presented in another format does not mean that the author has become any less dry.
That's not the definition of a free market. As an owner of a protected piece of work, I can license that piece of work to anyone or no one. In fact the situation you described is completely feasible if Mr. Jobs were able to convince Disney (of which he is a member of the board) to sell their music exclusively through iTunes. However, that is his prerogative, and the prerogative of the company he works with.
A free market is one where the supply and demand of a commodity is not regulated whatsoever. A good example might be the automotive industry, where the supply of vehicles is not regulated, and consumers are not limited on the number of vehicles they can purchase. There are government regulations on safety standards required for every vehicle sold, and there may be tariffs on vehicles manufactured outside of the United States, but over all, no matter what choice you make in vehicle purchase, the vehicle will do what it is suppose to do. This is because other than styling, all automobiles are basically the same thing.
Unfortunately this does not hold true to works of art. While it is possible to make copies of art, those copies are made at the discretion of the copy right holder in order to offset the cost of producing the work of art. Therefore works of art will never be in a free market because the copyright holder will always be able to dictate how many copies will be made, for what price, and to whom they can be sold. This directly effects the supply side of a free market equation.
I am sorry to say, but I think you are completely incorrect. You are confusing free trade with free information. Many of us who regularly visit Slashdot have become anti-copyright because media companies have formed a monopoly, and can dictate their terms to individuals who enter the market, such as, sign over your copyright to us, or we won't distribute your work. However, once your work becomes popular, you can dictate your terms to the media companies, because if they don't let you retain your copyright, one of their competitors will let you keep it.
However, government sanctioned copyright is an incentive for people to invest in works of art, such as creation of a song, writing a book, or creating a film. Without copyright, what incentive is there to invest $100 million into the next great Hollywood blockbuster? Especially if one of the other studios can infiltrate their organization, steal the unreleased film, duplicate it as their own, and sell it to the regional cinema players? I believe that the DMCA give copyright owners too much power without due process for example, but for the most part the DMCA is an untested legislative work, and until there is a landmark DMCA case, copyright owners are free to interpret the law as they see fit.
Now that I have said all of that, I can tell you that there is a difference between copyrighted works, and proprietary information. While those of us in the open source realm operate using open standards, many companies do not, and there is nothing preventing them from adopting their own standards (with the exception of market forces, and some governmental regulations requiring interoperability). For example, what would happen of the next version of Windows did not have a TCP/IP stack, instead using a proprietary Microsoft only communications protocol that was incompatible with anything on the Internet so far? Or General Motors created a new initiative where new vehicles would only run on GM-Fuel which was only offered at a General Motors service station. Both sound ridiculous because they would be attempting to change an existing market where many alternatives exist. However, when Apple created the iPod and iTunes, they were able to define a new market where one previously did not exist, and monopolize the market. They have become the de facto standard and have no incentive to change their standard to allow for interoperability. If Apple's competitors created an open standard that worked and considered the consumer, then Apple would be force to adopt, or find themselves as a minority player in a market they created (again).
When it comes to the business world, you need capital to operate, which usually comes from outside investors. These investors want to make sure you are going to repay their investment. Investors want to know if you own the rights to what you are making, or can someone else copy what you are doing and undercut your sales. This requires intellectual rights, and proof of ownership of those ideas (such as patents). Your ability to return the investor's investment with interest insures that he will be able to invest in other startups, increasing the overall economy.
What this decision by the Supreme Court of the Unites States of America possibly has impact on will help decide the state of the free market as we know it. There are many possible ways that SCOTUS can rule, but the top two options are that they will leave the free market system as it is (no change), or they will revert our economy to a system that we had in the United States before our anti-trust legislation. Considering the conservative majority makeup of SCOTUS, I believe they will leave things just as they are.
This is an interesting question that we have talked about in my graduate level classes.
IT is shifting from a low skill worker base to a high skill worker base. This is because a lot of the base technologies are perceived as mature. After all, most development in the hardware and operating systems arena seem to be more incremental rather than revolutionary. The real ground-breaking work being done in IT right now is in application development, especially applications that are specific for industries or specific organizations. This is why many organizations are outsourcing programming because it is more cost effective to pay a vendor for a specific application, or a bunch of programmers in India to write a program at a less cost than to have an in-house programmer write it. Hardware is powerful enough that the code does not need to be optimized to run well - thus the quality of the code does not need to be good quality.
I foresee a day when solid state, networked devices will take over the corporation and the need for an IT department will diminish. Until that day comes, the support technician will be required to keep things operating smoothly, putting out the fires. There is no need to invest in IT as the technical side of IT has made employees as efficient as possible. In order to increase efficiency, organizations are investing in applications that automate worker functions, reduce the need for overhead, and allow companies to better focus on their primary business functions - which in most cases means less IT.
It is interesting that you mentioned news media. It is very common for Broadcast talent, because specific talent tends to draw a specific audience. I have a story about an incident that happened in the Indianapolis radio market several years ago and is a story about how a non-compete clause backfired.
A local radio station had a male and female DJ pair doing a show for several years. One day one of the DJs proposed marriage to the other DJ over the air, and she accepted. The radio station promptly fired the both of them. The show had a huge following, and another local station picked them up within a few days, and the whole story made the local news on all of the television stations. However, because they had both signed a non-compete contract, they couldn't work for their new station for six months, or face fines. This actually worked for the benefit of the new station who did similar programming, as they got to spout to the entire market how they have the lovebirds that everyone likes to listen to, and how bad their previous station was for firing them, and prohibiting them from working. Not a week went by that they weren't encouraging listeners to call in or write the former radio station to complain about their treatment of the two DJs. Not only were they able to keep the audience, but they were able to garner serious ill will for the competing station that fired the two DJs.
You are correct, computer knowledge and how things are done in your organization can and should be taught. This means that the individual you are going to hire needs to have a good work ethic, troubleshooting skills, and have excellent customer service skills. This individual is going to be the physical representation of the IT department for the majority of the company. You want someone who is going to come off as courteous, intelligent, and hard-working.
What questions you ask are not as important as how the candidate answers the question. Are they confident of the answer they provide? Are they too serious, or are they friendly in their interview? Are they able to create a rapport with you during your conversation? Do they come across as someone who knows what they are talking about? Would you want this person to represent your department to all the other employees in the company?
Thats just it, it will not catch on and prices will remain low, or at least mostly free.
As it is, Diesel is not a popular technology in the United States. Most consumers in northern states avoid it for fear of jelling in cold weather, and Diesel all-around has gotten a bad reputation for small vehicles. Consumers prefer Gasoline to Diesel. The only place where Diesel is strong is in the transportation industry as just about every transportation truck fleet is Diesel powered. Now, considering that consumer Diesel vehicles are a small market to begin with, Waste Vegetable Oil (WVO) vehicles are an even smaller fraction of this market.
No commercial automobile manufacturer is going to make WVO an option, so any WVO vehicles on the road will be strictly conversions. The number of conversion kits will be limited to a select number of individuals who are either "in-the-know" or have been talked into making the change by someone who is familiar with the concept. I suspect that while numbers of WVO vehicles may fluctuate from year to year, after an initial rapid growth of the industry, the volume of WVO vehicles will plateau and stay maintained at several thousand. This of course assumes that early adopters do not cool to the idea and replace their WVO vehicles with non-WVO vehicles, causing a dip in overall WVO vehicles as other alternative fuel vehicles generate interest or fast food restaurants limit access to WVO for fear of litigation should their WVO cause damage to the vehicle.
While this is an interesting case study, and WVO vehicles generate interest, I doubt that the concept will take off, or that WVO vehicles will ever become "mainstream" despite their obvious draws.
I also question how biodiesel and federal regulations figures into all of this, and what impact biodiesel will have on WVO and vice versa. Will WVO be converted in bulk into commercial biodiesel thus creating a demand on WVO? Will new federal regulations concerning Diesel emission quality limit WVO conversions? As biodiesel moves dependence away from foreign oil toward domestic renewable fuel, will the price drop enough to make WVO conversions financially impractical?
No, this technology will be niche at best or dead in a decade at worst.
Slashdot Mirror
In the industry, this is a concept that has already been talked about quite a bit. In fact, a common mantra heard at AMIA conventions is the oft recited, "Any physician who can be replaced by a computer should be."
Unfortunately, that is MUCH easier said than done. And while clinical decision support systems exist to help physicians with their patient diagnosis, every physician uses them as a guideline, and not as an absolute reference or comprehensive source of information. Experience is heavily valued, which is why every physician has 7+ years of postgraduate education and working in the field.
You are considering the wrong criteria in getting a degree. You should instead be asking yourself, "What would I enjoy doing more?" The passion in doing what you enjoy is the best way to maximize your earning potential. You will enjoy going to work everyday, you will be excited to take on and complete diverse projects, and your passion and drive will be obvious to anyone who is around you. People will interpret this as a hardworking ethic at the company , and/or love of the company you work at which will in turn translate in to a higher income.
So if you are interested in setting policy, go for your MBA. If you are interested in applying computer technology to the business setting, go for the MS in IT degree. If you are interested in programming, and the creation of computer tools, go for the MS in computer science. However, there are many fields of study that you did not mention that may be of interest as well, everything from software engineering (specialization in writing software), to computer engineering (designing specialized computing devices), to HCI (how people interact with computers), to the numerous sub specialties of informatics (I'm personally studying health informatics, and the creation of unique tools to better health care and help clinicians be safer and more effective).
Sounds like you need to do more research into what you want to do for the rest of your life, and change the criteria basis for which you are basing this decision.
Exactly, make the hint button inaccessible for several seconds after a move has been made, justifying it by saying they haven't tried long enough to try figure out the next move. Imagine if you were sitting next to the player, what kinds of hints would you give them, and how often?
Developers should respond to the requests of their users, however, those requests should be tempered be the social aspect of user (player) interaction with the software (game).
what's the problem?
The problem is that once you purchase the game, you cannot return it, you cannot sell it, and you cannot give it away/transfer it to another party.
As well, despite the fact that the steam version has no packaging costs, no printing costs, no warehousing costs, no stocking, shipping, or handling costs, you are still paying the same for the game as everyone else who bought it in the store.
Finally, the Steam store does not answer to market concerns, and operates arbitrarily. For example: In most stores, once the demand for a game has worn off, the price comes down in order to move the remaining copies of a game to make room for new games. In the Steam store, costs remain the same until the vendor authorizes a price reduction based on arbitrary decisions (increase sales volume, allow for pricing difference between game and sequel, etc.).
The technology embedded in Steam would allow for the first issue to be resolved, should Valve care to pursue this. As well, a second Steam store, not operated by Valve, yet accessible on the Steam system would ensure that the last two issues are properly addressed.
I was going to suggest Social Informatics.
A few years ago, I might have agreed with you. After all, on a basic level you are correct, if we program what we know into a simulation, the simulation will be based on what we know!
Last semester I took a class in complex system, and it really opened my eyes about what computer simulations can do for us in providing unexpected behavior. Most of this is because we have a pretty good grasp on simple systems, and can take those simple systems and program them into a computer with rules of interaction to see how they will interact without human guidance.
Let me give you an example: Most everyone here at one point of time or another have programed "Life" into a computer. We understand the rules, we understand the program itself, and we understand how everything is going to work, but until you actually run the program, you would never have expected the results! How could you have predicted the formations that would develop? The stable formations, the chaotic formations, the moving formations? Much less how these formations would interact when they collide?
I think in a way this is what was being simulated in the program mentioned above. We think we have a pretty good idea about the simple systems which make up a complex entity like a black hole. But how do these simple systems interact when they encroach upon another black hole? Assuming we really do understand these simple systems, and that they stay constant, I think this simulation gives us a reasonable expectation as to how black holes will react to a collision.
The refuge supports a greater variety of plant and animal life than any other protected area in the Arctic Circle. A continuum of six different ecozones spans some 200 miles (300 km) north to south...Each year, thousands of waterfowl and other birds nest and reproduce in areas surrounding Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk fields and a healthy and increasing caribou herd migrates through these areas to calve and seek respite from annoying pests(1).
Go Edumacate yourself before you force me to hit you with the cluebat.
(1) Wikipedia contributors. Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. June 15, 2008, 01:44 UTC. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arctic_National_Wildlife_Refuge&oldid=219402881. Accessed June 25, 2008.
There is a solution no one has yet mentioned, ISDN. All POTS companies are required to offer it, and provide it at a decent rate. It won't compare to DSL or Cable, but it is a hell of a lot better than dial up. (Up to 128Kbps)
Rates for a Basic Rate Interface (BRI) should be similar to a standard phone connection, and with modern dial-up modem banks, just about any company that offers dial-up should offer ISDN access. From there, you would have to purchase an ISDN modem for your parents - I personally like 3Com's Office Connect ISDN LAN Modem for the features it provides. The upshot to this solution is that like DSL your parents can use the internet and receive phone calls simultaneously.
As long as the patent office views itself as a revenue generating arm of the United States government, these problems will at best persist, and at worse intensify.
First off, the iphone isn't even on this list, it isn't new enough anymore. Second, what most people don't seem to understand is that the iphone isn't just a device, and while manufacturers can try all they want to create devices that look and act similarly, the iphone is part of a complex system which integrates itunes, and thus music, movies, photos, etc. into an interactive product which interfaces well with both the mac and windows operating systems.
Yes, big deal, I've got opera mini running on my phone, I've got a media player on my phone, I've got a camera on my phone, etc. However it doesn't all work together. I can't listen to music and surf the web at the same time. I can't talk and browse photos at the same time. Connecting to my computer? 9 times out of 10 the phone or the computer crashes when I try to interface through the USB cable.
So no, I won't be worring about anything topping the iphone for a long time. As for any industry pundit who wispers "iphone killer"? I just chuckle at their misunderstanding of what people want.
Triggering apoptosis is the ultimate goal in cancer treatment. When a normal cell examines itself, and finds that it is genetically different, it will trigger apoptosis in order to sacrifice itself for the good of the being. Tumorigenic cells want to die, but for some reason the apoptosis mechanism never gets triggered, or is triggered and does not work. Therefore if researchers better understand what triggers apoptosis, then tumorigenic cells can be examined for those missing proteins. Perhaps if the apoptosis mechanism can be fixed, we will have a cure for the majority of cancer. There will still be a small number of tumorigenic cells which don't know they are different, thus have a perfectly working apoptosis mechanism which was never triggered.
Lets try putting this in computer terms. Say when you copy a file by downloading it off the internet, the file itself wants to ensure you have an exact duplicate. Therefore the file performs its own CRC check once it is downloaded. If it fails the CRC check, it deletes itself and you have to download another copy. Now imagine this is a file sharing operation, thus your copy gets shared with many others who are downloading the file from you. If your copy became corrupt in the download process, yet didn't delete itself, a corrupt version of the file would be spread across the Internet (Pandemonium! Cats and dogs sleeping together! Chaos!). Thus wouldn't you want to fix the broken mechanism so that the corrupt file deleted itself, so that the process is started over? Unfortunately there is also a minuscule chance that a corrupt file will generate an identical CRC value thus never triggering the deletion.
Misinterpretation makes you a troll, if it is not obvious that it is a joke, then your message will be interpreted incorrectly which will get you mislabeled - especially in a text only communications medium in which context, facial expressions, vocal intonations, and body language are not being expressed. I am sorry for mislabeling you as a troll, it seems that was not your true intention.
... you didnt list anything there that my n95 didnt have.Are you really trying to compare a $400 iphone with an $800 n95 which you clearly indicated in an earlier post by saying:
which sucks, never buy one, too many faults to countAs for the windows mobile specific feature, I am at fault - without being involved in the market, or needing such a device, I have not shopped around for such devices therefore I am unaware of what are current features. Is this because of a lack of advertising by Nokia? Microsoft? Why is it that I am aware of the features of the iphone without realizing it, yet know nothing of Microsoft's platform when they have been in the market longer? Is that a failure on Microsoft's part?
The point I was trying to express was that while many devices focus on specific features, the iphone brings all of these features into one device which works as advertised.
Also yes i have used the iphone on several occasions.Conversation over - if you have used this device and you see no value in it, then there is nothing I or anyone else can say to change your opinion. You are obviously too entrenched in your own perceptions that it would be useless for me to continue trying to enumerate the value I perceive this device brings me.
I cannot count how many times I have heard this advice, yet it bears out repeating over and over and over again - do not sign ANYTHING without reading it first. This is the person's mistake, and he willingly admits to his mistake. It is a shame that it happened at an Apple store, but to be honest, it could have been anywhere, even an automotive repair shop.
The only reason automobile mechanics must give you a replaced part if you ask for it is so that you can get a second opinion afterwards, thus hoping to reduce fraud that tends to run rampant at some questionable automotive places where either through technician ignorance, negligence, or through purposeful managerial policy, a part is replace that does not need to be replaced.
Apple has a legitimate reason for keeping the drive which is described on the form given to the customer - it believes the drive can be fixed and sold. As a paying customer, you are a part of that economic system. If you do not wish to participate, that is your prerogative, and with standardization of components, you are more than welcome to find an alternative (which ironically the consumer considered and should have pursued).
Funny stuff in a social engineering way. This begs the question of liability however, if someone did this with a real rope and someone blew through a similar scenario would the driver be liable for injuring the participants on the side of the road? Or would the individuals be liable for causing their own injuries? If the latter is true, then why would anyone slow down when this situation is confronted?
Keep posting more things like this on Idle!
One of the aspects that was mentioned in this article that is rarely talked about is ease of use. Apple has gone out of their way to make it difficult for the user to mess up. The system is fully integrated because Apple has full control over all aspects of the system. It is easy for them to make changes in the itunes store, modify the itunes software, and change the ipod firmware to reflect the changes. They can do all of this internally and push it out to their customers when they connect online next. Microsoft does not have this level of control. They merely control the DRM through the media player. If the store wants to offer something new, they have to get both Microsoft and the vendors of the mp3 players on board to make the change universal. If Microsoft wants to make a change in how media player works, they have to get both the stores and the mp3 players on board. If the mp3 players want to make a change in functionality, they have to work through the channels of their "partner" companies to make it happen. Thus change is slow, and not all stakeholders will make the change. This introduces incomplete functionality and causes problems for consumers.
The mp3 player vendors want to sell new units, not patch old units to allow them to play new content. Media stores want to sell more content and if that means bringing a new product to market, all the better for them to make more money from! Microsoft is stuck in the middle. Microsoft want to help the mp3 player vendors sell more units because Microsoft gets royalties on every mp3 player sold with their DRM on it. Microsoft wants to help the media stores sell more media because Microsoft gets royalties on every piece of media encrypted in their DRM. Thus Microsoft profits from the use of their DRM. Microsoft does not want record labels to stop using DRM because it would hurt Microsoft. Conversely, Apple does not licence their DRM. Apple's DRM is a drag on their business model. Apple would rather sell songs without DRM because that means less code for them to maintain, and less overhead on the servers which encode the songs with DRM with customer's specific user key. Apple wants record labels to stop using DRM because DRM hurts Apple as much as it hurts the customer.
Exactly, and this was a point brought up in the article. Copyright infringement is nothing new, people have been recording songs off the radio, passing mix tapes to their firends, etc. However, now that a lot of infringement is done on the internet, thus there are IP addresses and logs with which to find and prosecute (did I say persecute?) casual infringers who otherwise would have gone unnoticed. The article goes into detail about how copyright holders are using technology to enforce their copyright into domains with which they knew infringement was taking place, yet could do nothing about it. He even theorizes that the day may come when your radio will record you singing along to the songs on the radio, convert voice to text, match to lyrics, and send you a monthly bill licencing you to sing those songs you sang!
My question is this:
If Comcast is blocking, throttling, or in some other way denying traffic, don't they lose their common carrier status? And wouldn't this open them up to lawsuits? After all if they are able to slow X traffic, why can't they stop illegal music/movie/software/etc. downloads?
If you were a copyright holder, and you suspected that individuals were copying your works over the Comcast network - who is throttling specific traffic - wouldn't you sue to get them to stop the flow of traffic containing your works? Why doesn't this action open them up to legal action from the litigious-happy RIAA and others?
I am of the impression that uninformed consumers do not concern themselves with technical details, and are far more motivated by cost. I believe this is why VHS won out over Beta, and why HD VMD will destroy both Blu-ray and HD DVD formats.
While movie studios will want DRM on their disks, ultimately they desire sales, and will go with whatever format dominates the marketplace, no matter how much or little DRM is in place. However, as the article mentions that the $150 player comes with HDMI, I suspect they have comparable DRM to the other HD competitors.
There is a reason why research papers take the format that they take - to make it easy to locate the pertinent information that another researcher is trying to find. Most readers will be interested in the results section of a paper - where significant findings are listed. If the findings seem too good to be true, you might read the methodologies section to see how the researcher validated their study tools and to see if the methods used to arriving at their conclusions are suspect. If you are a layman to the field of study or you want to see what literature directed the researcher to this research question, you might be interested in reading the background section of the paper. If you found the topic interesting, and want to continue this line of questioning, you would read the discussions section to learn interesting aspects about what the researcher would do differently had they the opportunity to do the research over again or to perform the research again in the future. A lot of the discussion section might pertain to how they might change their methodology, or change their survey instrument in order to increase the return of relevant data.
Now, having said all of that, I do think that a site which offers video presentations of papers would be a more interesting way of learning information. In acadamia, a lot of professors and researchers are expected to become involved in their area of research, which means that they perform research, present research, and attend presentations of other researchers. In many areas you could attend presentations almost every day of the week. While this is encouraged, it does take up valuable time, and many in acadamia have to be selective about which presentations would be most valuable to attend, as presentations take more time than would reading the relevant portions of the paper. Finally, I have seen enough awful presentations to realize that just because the information is presented in another format does not mean that the author has become any less dry.
That's not the definition of a free market. As an owner of a protected piece of work, I can license that piece of work to anyone or no one. In fact the situation you described is completely feasible if Mr. Jobs were able to convince Disney (of which he is a member of the board) to sell their music exclusively through iTunes. However, that is his prerogative, and the prerogative of the company he works with.
A free market is one where the supply and demand of a commodity is not regulated whatsoever. A good example might be the automotive industry, where the supply of vehicles is not regulated, and consumers are not limited on the number of vehicles they can purchase. There are government regulations on safety standards required for every vehicle sold, and there may be tariffs on vehicles manufactured outside of the United States, but over all, no matter what choice you make in vehicle purchase, the vehicle will do what it is suppose to do. This is because other than styling, all automobiles are basically the same thing.
Unfortunately this does not hold true to works of art. While it is possible to make copies of art, those copies are made at the discretion of the copy right holder in order to offset the cost of producing the work of art. Therefore works of art will never be in a free market because the copyright holder will always be able to dictate how many copies will be made, for what price, and to whom they can be sold. This directly effects the supply side of a free market equation.
I am sorry to say, but I think you are completely incorrect. You are confusing free trade with free information. Many of us who regularly visit Slashdot have become anti-copyright because media companies have formed a monopoly, and can dictate their terms to individuals who enter the market, such as, sign over your copyright to us, or we won't distribute your work. However, once your work becomes popular, you can dictate your terms to the media companies, because if they don't let you retain your copyright, one of their competitors will let you keep it.
However, government sanctioned copyright is an incentive for people to invest in works of art, such as creation of a song, writing a book, or creating a film. Without copyright, what incentive is there to invest $100 million into the next great Hollywood blockbuster? Especially if one of the other studios can infiltrate their organization, steal the unreleased film, duplicate it as their own, and sell it to the regional cinema players? I believe that the DMCA give copyright owners too much power without due process for example, but for the most part the DMCA is an untested legislative work, and until there is a landmark DMCA case, copyright owners are free to interpret the law as they see fit.
Now that I have said all of that, I can tell you that there is a difference between copyrighted works, and proprietary information. While those of us in the open source realm operate using open standards, many companies do not, and there is nothing preventing them from adopting their own standards (with the exception of market forces, and some governmental regulations requiring interoperability). For example, what would happen of the next version of Windows did not have a TCP/IP stack, instead using a proprietary Microsoft only communications protocol that was incompatible with anything on the Internet so far? Or General Motors created a new initiative where new vehicles would only run on GM-Fuel which was only offered at a General Motors service station. Both sound ridiculous because they would be attempting to change an existing market where many alternatives exist. However, when Apple created the iPod and iTunes, they were able to define a new market where one previously did not exist, and monopolize the market. They have become the de facto standard and have no incentive to change their standard to allow for interoperability. If Apple's competitors created an open standard that worked and considered the consumer, then Apple would be force to adopt, or find themselves as a minority player in a market they created (again).
When it comes to the business world, you need capital to operate, which usually comes from outside investors. These investors want to make sure you are going to repay their investment. Investors want to know if you own the rights to what you are making, or can someone else copy what you are doing and undercut your sales. This requires intellectual rights, and proof of ownership of those ideas (such as patents). Your ability to return the investor's investment with interest insures that he will be able to invest in other startups, increasing the overall economy.
What this decision by the Supreme Court of the Unites States of America possibly has impact on will help decide the state of the free market as we know it. There are many possible ways that SCOTUS can rule, but the top two options are that they will leave the free market system as it is (no change), or they will revert our economy to a system that we had in the United States before our anti-trust legislation. Considering the conservative majority makeup of SCOTUS, I believe they will leave things just as they are.
This is an interesting question that we have talked about in my graduate level classes.
IT is shifting from a low skill worker base to a high skill worker base. This is because a lot of the base technologies are perceived as mature. After all, most development in the hardware and operating systems arena seem to be more incremental rather than revolutionary. The real ground-breaking work being done in IT right now is in application development, especially applications that are specific for industries or specific organizations. This is why many organizations are outsourcing programming because it is more cost effective to pay a vendor for a specific application, or a bunch of programmers in India to write a program at a less cost than to have an in-house programmer write it. Hardware is powerful enough that the code does not need to be optimized to run well - thus the quality of the code does not need to be good quality.
I foresee a day when solid state, networked devices will take over the corporation and the need for an IT department will diminish. Until that day comes, the support technician will be required to keep things operating smoothly, putting out the fires. There is no need to invest in IT as the technical side of IT has made employees as efficient as possible. In order to increase efficiency, organizations are investing in applications that automate worker functions, reduce the need for overhead, and allow companies to better focus on their primary business functions - which in most cases means less IT.
It is interesting that you mentioned news media. It is very common for Broadcast talent, because specific talent tends to draw a specific audience. I have a story about an incident that happened in the Indianapolis radio market several years ago and is a story about how a non-compete clause backfired.
A local radio station had a male and female DJ pair doing a show for several years. One day one of the DJs proposed marriage to the other DJ over the air, and she accepted. The radio station promptly fired the both of them. The show had a huge following, and another local station picked them up within a few days, and the whole story made the local news on all of the television stations. However, because they had both signed a non-compete contract, they couldn't work for their new station for six months, or face fines. This actually worked for the benefit of the new station who did similar programming, as they got to spout to the entire market how they have the lovebirds that everyone likes to listen to, and how bad their previous station was for firing them, and prohibiting them from working. Not a week went by that they weren't encouraging listeners to call in or write the former radio station to complain about their treatment of the two DJs. Not only were they able to keep the audience, but they were able to garner serious ill will for the competing station that fired the two DJs.
You are correct, computer knowledge and how things are done in your organization can and should be taught. This means that the individual you are going to hire needs to have a good work ethic, troubleshooting skills, and have excellent customer service skills. This individual is going to be the physical representation of the IT department for the majority of the company. You want someone who is going to come off as courteous, intelligent, and hard-working.
What questions you ask are not as important as how the candidate answers the question. Are they confident of the answer they provide? Are they too serious, or are they friendly in their interview? Are they able to create a rapport with you during your conversation? Do they come across as someone who knows what they are talking about? Would you want this person to represent your department to all the other employees in the company?
Thats just it, it will not catch on and prices will remain low, or at least mostly free.
As it is, Diesel is not a popular technology in the United States. Most consumers in northern states avoid it for fear of jelling in cold weather, and Diesel all-around has gotten a bad reputation for small vehicles. Consumers prefer Gasoline to Diesel. The only place where Diesel is strong is in the transportation industry as just about every transportation truck fleet is Diesel powered. Now, considering that consumer Diesel vehicles are a small market to begin with, Waste Vegetable Oil (WVO) vehicles are an even smaller fraction of this market.
No commercial automobile manufacturer is going to make WVO an option, so any WVO vehicles on the road will be strictly conversions. The number of conversion kits will be limited to a select number of individuals who are either "in-the-know" or have been talked into making the change by someone who is familiar with the concept. I suspect that while numbers of WVO vehicles may fluctuate from year to year, after an initial rapid growth of the industry, the volume of WVO vehicles will plateau and stay maintained at several thousand. This of course assumes that early adopters do not cool to the idea and replace their WVO vehicles with non-WVO vehicles, causing a dip in overall WVO vehicles as other alternative fuel vehicles generate interest or fast food restaurants limit access to WVO for fear of litigation should their WVO cause damage to the vehicle.
While this is an interesting case study, and WVO vehicles generate interest, I doubt that the concept will take off, or that WVO vehicles will ever become "mainstream" despite their obvious draws.
I also question how biodiesel and federal regulations figures into all of this, and what impact biodiesel will have on WVO and vice versa. Will WVO be converted in bulk into commercial biodiesel thus creating a demand on WVO? Will new federal regulations concerning Diesel emission quality limit WVO conversions? As biodiesel moves dependence away from foreign oil toward domestic renewable fuel, will the price drop enough to make WVO conversions financially impractical?
No, this technology will be niche at best or dead in a decade at worst.