I see something VERY wrong with your argument that humans are evolving to take their rightful place at God's side.
I know of no human I would want to be at God's side as they are often selfish, ill-intentioned, and easily and politically corrupted. There are reasons why we remain close to the pond scum, worms, and slugs found all over this Earth.
We will never comprehend beyond the barriers of our minds; our life span places limits on how much we can learn and understand. And just getting to that means is an incredible journey in and of itself.
Email technology will have to change in the future to avoid taking our precious time. One method I thought of while reading through the posts here on Slashdot that no one seemed to suggest is that DRM (the bad and ugly Digital Rights Managment) could used to encrypt legitimate email. I think that the time I spend here on Earth is quite valuable and is in a sense intellectual property and has a dollar amount that can not be used/stolen by someone else that is not approved by me. Just as the Music Industry cried, screamed, and wailed about Napster and Gnutella networks being means to assist people in stealing music and profits, so is spam stealing time from our lives. By encrypting email in a way similar to CDMA digital cellular phones, a key would be required to decrypt the message if the email was legitimate. If a key is not legitimate, the email is simply deleted. Of course, the key could not simply be a set of numbers or characters, that's too easy to break the encryption, and pass along a list for sale. What is needed is an intelligent encryption method, using a key composed of two or more algorythms. The email sent to you would contain one algorythm and your computer would contain the second algorythm. Using both algorythms together with initial conditions and present conditions (i.e. date) that exist only on YOUR computer can the email be successfully decrypted, otherwise it gets sent to oblivion.
Making email intellectual property under the DRM law is punishable by fines and imprisonment if I understand the law correctly. By breaking or stealing the keys to my email account, someone had to be hacking or participating in some pretty mischievous activities that would be recognized as unlawful and deserving of serious fines and jail time.
This is in a sense a Whitelist, though a more intellectual approach to it. Whitelists will probably evolve first with a method similar to the one I thought of to follow once the Whitelist system falls apart due to profit-seeking business corruption.
I keeping looking at "Ascending and Descending" and I can't see where the trick to illusion is. I can't SEE how he did it. The "Belvedere" is easy to see how he cheated the illusion - it's in the columns. How in the *UCKIN' HELL did he do it?
I've been staring at this for fifteen minutes, connecting the stairs, following the path of little figures, and this is really pissing me off. And I'm not an idiot.
That new graphics card sure looks pretty and EXPENSIVE with all that copper. This will certainly add to the cost of that product. I wonder what percent by weight of the entire product is copper, seeing that copper is a commodity metal.
Regarding those comments about the cooling system not having a filter, this is a pre-production model. Give it some time, it will have to use a filter to keep the small space between the copper fins free of dust.
Hey Bob, while you're out at Murray's Automotive, get me a new oil filter model number P3160 for a Saturn SL2 dual overhead cam and FX160 filter for my NVidia graphics card, 128MB DDR2 RAM, and be sure to read the serial number information. My FX card is post 4375XXX, so it doesn't need a finotany rod or a muffler bearing.
DRM simply will NEVER work. If a DRM'd movie can be seen on a computer screen, the video can be captured. If the DRM'd sound file from a movie or CD can be heard on a computer speaker, the audio can be captured. Steve Jobs mentioned that an upcoming version of iTunes would be able to play MP3's from another Mac over a network but not be savable. That too has already been beaten. A program for Mac OS X called "Audio Hijack" can be found on Versiontracker (http://www.versiontracker.com/macosx/) that STEALS audio from any program you specify from an Audio Hijack file dialog box. Audio Hijack then saves the file to a location you specify in AIFF format. I've used it and it works very well.
The proliferation of the digital lifestyle has educated the masses and produced many a nerd/geek. It isn't difficult to write these programs to capture audio once one knows the inards of an OS like Mac OS X. Audio Hijack clearly exemplifies this. The audio at some point has to converted from digital to analog, and capturing it on its way to the speaker doesn't seem to be problematic. And once the keys to Palladium are leaked/stolen/misused by some programmer who was wronged by a lame-ass company, the program would lie to the OS indicating the customer paid for the content. Hence DRM will NEVER work.
The bottom line is that if it can be seen or heard, then it can be stolen and reproducible. The best DRM is to think of a movie or song and never make it/release it.
Back in February of this year I purchased my first cell phone and service contract from ALLTEL. The plan I have is 500 anytime minutes Mon - Fri, 5000 minutes nights and weekends, nation wide long distance service, caller ID, call waiting, and voice mail. My local calling area is the entire state of Ohio. The monthly service fee costs $39.95/month + state and federal taxes on the calls I make. The FREE CDMA cell phone ALLTEL shipped to me was a Motorola TalkAbout T2260. During the time of owning this phone and using their service, mostly for free long distance service, only two calls were dropped while I was talking to people. I think this service is excellent compared to other services and I whole heartedly recommend this service. Man, I couldn't be a happier camper with this company.
My parents have had dismal results when they switched to Sprint. For two weeks they were getting calls from people all over the country they didn't know, apparently from Sprint network problems.
The U.S., Russia, and other countries can't even complete and maintain the current Space Station on schedule, and it still isn't as functional as was orginally intended with the current time schedule. Though this makes for some cool Gee-whiz science and experience working in low/no gravaity environments, I don't foresee any nobel-prize winning science coming out of the International Space Station. We certainly don't need another one.
If NASA intends on building something useful, it should consider building a large space ship for touring the solar system for conducting long term research with a crew of about 100 people. For propulsion, it could probably use a very large array of solar panels and those non/asymmetrical capacitors that were recently patented by NASA. Heck, with the large electric field generated from the propulsion system, external radiation might not be the serious problem that it is currently on the International Space Station.
Everytime I read about genetic testing and the possible repercussions from it (job discrimination, social discrimination, insurance discrimination, law discrimination), the idea resonates of obtaining resources and greed. Even though we humans tend to think of ourselves as civilized beings, we are just as savage as the animals we watch on National Geographic Television and the Discovery Channel. Our society is built upon genetic and social connectedness, i.e., birds of a feather flock together. The little camps or groups of people arise from genetic similarities which are expressed as behavior or abilities. People with certain genes will have some abilities, whether they are exceptional use of language, abstract thinking, exceptional physical endurance and motor control (athletes), deviant thinking and behavior (criminals tend to congregate in prisons) will tend to socialize with one another. It's up to the individuals with these genes to utilize what evolution and natural selection provided them to obtain resources necessary to ensure survivability of their genes. Just as the law makers, insurance industry, private industry, and educational system (Ivy League, public, and private schools) would like to have access to this information, it's almost like watching the Lions and Hyienas fighting over the injured gazelle. Law makers want to protect the people or industry to get re-elected. The insurance industry wants to limit insurance to diseased people to increase profits (they're cheating at the game of CHANCE and RISK). Private industry wants more efficient people (education/abilities) to increase profits. Schools only want the best, most successful students to increase their stature and graduation rate. Everyone wants to flex their intellectual and economic muscles with this issue to GAIN RESOURCES that help their organization or cause: GREED!
Let's face it folks, this is a central fact of biology and chemistry: Molecules are competing for energy to sustain the transition state for metabolism and reproduction to continue. It doesn't matter that the needs are currently met, "more" is always sought "just in case" (random events) the energy isn't available in the future. "More" is always sought to prevent foreign genes from being over expressed which might lead lead to native gene extinction.
I never thought much about the significance of an electron being promoted to an excited state in an antibonding orbital until I read this article.
The guy's death was not the game's fault or the game's maker. Just as he had a genetic predisposition for depression, he had a predisposition for THAT addiction. And, knowing that depressed people often have very poor concentration, I don't see how this man could have played the game 86 hours consecutively unless there were other factors to consider such as drugs or genetics (some weird neural feed back loop). I'm not trying to be insensitive, but Darwin's theories of natural selection are at work here, TODAY, in our society, in many forms (economics, employment, social pecking order, education, etc...). This is just one more person who didn't have the abilities to adapt to his changing environment. Survival of the fittest.
Dude, do you have any idea the brain damage you inflicted on yourself? Sleep deprivation is very bad for you. Go to a Medical College Library and look up a book called "Principles of Sleep Medicine, Vol.1 & Vol.2". What you can read in there will scare the shit out of you so much that you'll go to bed every night for the rest of life consistently on time if you don't want to be either dead at 50 or drooling and smiling at a wall when you're 65. Sleep deprivation is very VERY bad for you.
Why?
Sleep not only controls our circadian rhythms, but also apetite control, immune system function, and cognitive performance. I think you can see where this is going.
Apple vehemently defends its intellectual property rights regarding the Aqua interface. I remember downloading and installing an Aqua theme for LinuxPPC 2000 when it was on my Blue & White PowerMac G3. Apple quickly put an end to the "Aqua" schemes, themes, and skins for all non Mac OS X GUI's. Though I don't like my reduced freedom of choice regarding the Mac OS X Aqua GUI, if this action makes my system more stable, I thinks it's a move in the right direction. For the truest of nerds, geeks, and rocket-heads, they can always download and install Gnome, GTK, and whatever themes or skins they want and theme to their heart's content. IIRC, you can boot Mac OS X into the console and start XWindows from there. There you go, you have the truely customized GUI you've always longed for, it just can't be or use Aqua.
It's only a matter of time before someone makes a downloadable installer that will install XWindows, GTK, Gnome, KDE, or whatever window mangager the user preferes, with a simple double click on an icon, type in the administrator password, click a few check boxes, and install the software. I know that Fink (http://fink.sourceforge.net/) will install this software, but it requires a lot from the user. It isn't a simple click and install which is what the Mac community is accustomed to doing.
Intel's designs could be hindering its success.
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These comments aren't intended to be flamebait or written for the purpose of trolling.
Intel's processor designs could be hindering its success. For years Intel has been marketing chips with more transistors and higher clock rates. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you perceive it, this doesn't neccessarily mean better products for consumers. Yes, Megahurts sells, transistor counts get more attention, and people (average Joe and Jane consumer) swallow it up and think they've got the latest greatest high tech equipment. The problem is, Intel should have invested in making their current processor designs more efficent first, not faster first. Now that their processors (pentium4) are operating near 3 GHz, the power requirements are astronomical. IBM, on the otherhand, invested in the RISC architecture and later included input from Apple and Motorola to design the PowerPC chip. If one looks at features only while ignoring market share, the PowerPC chip seems like a better processor than the Intel.
PowerPC has more but shallower pipelines than the Intel, lower clockrates = lower heat generation, 128-bit AltiVec processing unit gets more work done for every cycle.
Looking at these features alone shows that it is more cost effective over the long term to go with PowerPC than Intel.
As an Apple computer owner for 17 years, I know that the TOTAL COST of ownership of a Macinotsh for my needs has been lower than owning a PC. Yes, the hardware costs more upfront, but I don't have a power-hungry blast furnace living beneath my desk that has the Micro$oft tax. Even putting together your own computer as I'm sure most of the Slashdot readership does, still will not offset the cost of electricity for running that homebrew PC. I am hoping that IBM will market the Power4-derived 64-bit GPuL PowerPC processor for the Linux crowd.
It's ironic how Apple has been trying to dispell the Megahurts myth all while trying to catch up to Intel in the clockrate game. Intel is the undisputed leader of Gigahurts and now after years of designing processors around marketing stategies has it realized that electricity requirements are a significant factor in computer purchases in corporate America. It's intersting to see how computing needs have changed from "raw processing power" to "how much work can get done for the lowest overall cost". I suspect the California Enron scandel plays a small factor in these considerations.
While I'm not trying to plug Apple computers, I always recommend people to purchase a particular system for their computing needs, and then consider the factors I've mentioned.
AOL can finally beat M$ at its own game. And now AOL has an OS and cheap hardware to do it. First came the FREE (as in beer) AOL CD's, now comes a cheap PC for cruising the internet. If this hardware/software combo takes off, the next best thing for AOL to do is to help coordinate a suite of software products for Linux that are commonly used by the average Windows PC user and distribute them in a Linux CD. This way the average joe PC user won't lose functionality of his/her PC. While this hypothetical situation is a long way off, it's nice to know that M$ Windows won't be REQUIRED for the internet experience. For many people, the only thing they need a computer for is the internet and this is a good solution for average joe. While I don't like AOL internet software, AIM is OK, and using Linux is even better. This is how M$ will lose market share to Linux. It's about time someone made a PC with Linux installed from the factory.
I disagree with much of your argument about doing research just for the sake of science. The discoveries and fruits of science should serve mankind in productive ways. Research funding should not be dolled out to anyone who wants to do research just because it's fun. Projects need to have very focused goals and time scales. How else are you going to discover accidents that DO help mankind? I agree that a massive undertaking to send humans to the moon has benefitted mankind in many ways through trial and error, but giving large sums of tax dollars to new Ph.D.s graduating from Bob's College of Chemistry and Physics isn't going to result in a greater influx of new accidental discoveries that will be helpful to mankind. There are plenty of accidental discoveries being made from the well focused and well funded current research projects. If you haven't gotten the gist of my argument, basically what I'm saying is that given a nice, grand, properly thought-out project, many accidental discoveries will flurish from it.
There are already too many Ph.D.s in science and not enough positions for them. This is why it is so difficult for many to get a research and teaching position at universities. We don't need more scientists, there are too many already. What we need are more focused research projects that do benefit humans. Think of it as the public investing in science and later getting a return on the investment. Natural Selection in the Evolutionary sense is guiding science and our society(economics). Beneficial ideas and projects get funding, failures do not. And I don't want to forget to mention that Evolution doesn't give second chances; once you've had your chance to succeed or fail, that's it.
A few comments about your examples:
Regarding your comment of funding for super colliders, there should be only ONE supercollider. There is no need to have 5 or 6 spread through out the the nation. Build one massive supercollider that is multifunctional. This maximizes the efficiency of tax dollars and reduces redundancy of personnel and hardware.
A brief comment about scientific journals:
Another problem with current scientific literature is that only positive results are published, failures are not. This means that researchers working in closely related areas will learn through trial and error that certain chemical syntheses won't work. This further wastes public funding. If there existed scientific journals that published designated goals of a project and the failures associated with the project, a lot of material and time would not be wasted. But then again, this undermines the competitive nature of science not to mention that if your project is resulting in more failures than successes, perhaps it's time to choose another career.
Insight into why we don't need more scientists:
You should familiarize yourself with the Myers-Briggs Personality Test. It is a very simple test that categorizes personalities in to 16 different types. There are generally two personality types found in scientists: INTJ (Introvert, iNtuitive, Thinking, Judgemental) and ISTJ (Introvert, Sensing, Thinking, Judgemental). INTJ occurs in about 1% of the population. These people are really good at dealing with theories and abstract ideas. These people are your Einsteins, your Stephen Hawkings, and your synthetic organic chemists. ISTJ are good for doing repetitive technical tasks: routinely operating analytical equipment, being a watchmaker, etc... These people occur in about 5% of the population. So you see, graduating more scientists from universities is not going to improve the accidental discoveries in science. Truely successful scientists are born, not made. Their brains are, in a way, hardwired for that profession.
Employment Stats for the scientific profession (assumes individuals working in their field of study or education):
Chemists are the LEAST unemployed among scientific professionals. Biologists are the most unemployed and make up the largest percentage of educated scientists. Physicists are somewhere in between with regard to employment but make up the least percentage of scientists.
What kind of shock did you experience upon hearing the sentence? What kind of prison are you going to be LIVING at for the next 33 months? Minimum security? Maximum security? SUPER MAX? How will you be traveling there, state trouper, sheriff, prison bus, state marshall?
What personal items can you take with you, besides a bible?
I think there was a prison-oriented periodical called "Prison Life". If it exists, are you going to subscribe to it?
When you were standing before the judge and court and first heard the sentence, did you feel a cold numbness permeate through your body? Did you start to see grey around the periphery of your field of vision?
Are you sorry for what you did, or sorry you were caught?
How many hours will you be in lock-up during the day? 23?
How will you be taking showers? Every two or three days? Communally? With shackles on?
How do you feel about the government putting chemical tracers in prison food, which you will eventually eat, that can be used to track you should you escape? In case you're wondering, No, they don't ever leave your body. You are branded a criminal for life.
If you could take a webcam into prison and aim it towards your prison cell, would you be opposed to people watching you through webcast for demonstrating to others the seriousness of your crime?
Have you been issued an INMATE NUMBER yet? If so, what is it?
What are the conditions of your parole? What happens if you get caught pirating software again?
How has this CONVICTION affected your life? How do you think the prison experience is going to affect you personally? Have you thought about what it means to be included with a small percentage of the population that are convicted felons? How do you think this felony conviction has affected your career? What about the people closest to you (your wife, girlfriend, significant other, and children (if any))?
Obviously prison is not a place for personal growth. Besides being scared out of your wits, what do you think you're going to think or worry about while being in prison?
I suspect that homosexual activity/behavior is prevelent in prison. Have you thought about how you're going to prevent Bubba from *LIKING YOU REALLY WELL*?
Do you NOW have a better understanding of right and wrong? More respect for the Law? And more respect for a legal system defending capitalism in general, intellectual property, corporations, and individuals through license agreements?
How about a Mac OS X version?
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Beaver:Gee Wally, it sure would be swell if there was a Mac OS X version of this Quake mod.
Wally:Well Beave, maybe you should ask one of geek friends over at Slashdot if they can port it over to Mac OS X for the Macintosh community, maybe even suggest to the author to post the source code.
Mom:Oh Boys, don't be silly, now run along and do your homework.
Wally and Beaver:But mom...
Ward: Boys! You heard your mother! Now do your damn homework!
If the Chinese could safely and efficiently recover the components of computers, they could become world leaders for suppling lead, cadmium, chromium, and mercury. They're getting these computers for next to nothing, and it costs money to mine and purify metals. Granted these metals will have to be purified from chips, capacitors, etc..., but the process should be easier and less costly than purifying these same metals from the ground. With the right equipment and people, almost anything is possible.
The only problem with this is that human life and labor are very "cheap" in China. Knocking off a few thousand people won't bother the Chinese government unless other countries bitch and complain about human rights violations.
The only hope for change in this situation is for China to continue its "Westernization", which I recently saw on PBS television. I was really shocked to see so many Americans over there fluorishing in "Western" cities. The real surprize was you can do almost anything over there, except criticize the government. Beijing just wreaks of capitalism (Chinese communist governemt gets 50% of whatever you make).
It could be that this new "technology" doesn't exist at all. It's probably just a deception that will justify selective ethnic profiling. "Gee, walk through this gate. It will read your brainwaves and heartbeat. Don't be afraid, it's harmless and non-intrusive. We can't actually read your thoughts, but we can get a pretty good idea of your state of mind and intentions from your physiological data." translates into walk through this gate with the pretty blinking lights, and we will pull you aside, run background checks all the way back to your great grandparents, interrogate you anyway we see fit, and if we find anything, you win a FREE all expenses paid vacation to Cuba.
To bluff the system, just wrap a wet towel around your head, or if you're wearing a turban, dunk your head quickly in and out of a toilet.
The fact that it "cheats" somehow restores my faith in robotkind....
If cheating is a real element of artificial intelligence, or intelligence for that matter, this might help explain the collapse of Enron, Worldcom, etc... and the behavior of the Kenneth Lay and the other Goons of The Greedy Bunch. Even if these "cheating" decisions are part of evolution, these people still knew their actions were unethical and unlawful. Their punishment should be proportionate to the devastation they wreaked in the economy and people's lives.
This is how it should have read...Sorry for the formatting problems of the original post (Mozilla's "pref.js" file had a corruption problem)...
This is not intended to be a troll or flame, but is in general, the sad truth about Science. You didn't list your current credentials or your career plans, so I will put this in plain easy-to-read English. I will tell you exactly the same advice my undergraduate chemistry advisor told me. DO NOT EVEN THINK of getting a Ph.D. in Science unless you are graduating from a top-notch graduate program. The world is full of Ph.D's working at McDonald's flipping burgers and stocking shelves at Walmart. The sad fact is there are not enough Ph.D. jobs to go around for every Ph.D. The Ph.D. is a terminal degree, there is no degree higher than that. Even an M.D. is lower on the education scale than a Ph.D. If you get a Ph.D., you will be in the same arena as your peers graduating from Ivy League schools, and judged accordingly; the same work/research performance will be expected of you. And believe me, you will not be able to do that kind of work because the program you graduated from didn't train you and put you through the rigors necessary for that kind of work. Of course, we all know that the Ivy League schools select the best students our gene pool has to offer. The reputation of the school you graduate from will likely carry you further than the degree alone, assuming you brown-nose your advisor or help him or her win the nobel prize. My undergraduate advisor also warned me that if the Ph.D. is all that you are concerned about getting (from any average-Joe Ph.D. program), be prepared to spend the rest of your life in poverty post docing around the country making $20k/year. You will not have medical benefits, you will not have retirement benefits, you will not have annual bonuses, YOU WILL NOT LIVE THE AMERICAN DREAM. By the time you finally get around to paying off your student loans, and you will acquire student loan debt in graduate school, you will be very near retirement, still driving an old clunker, and never owning your own home. Unless you're already married, I can think of no better way of being chick REPELLANT.
Sorry about the post guys (and gals), Mozilla's "pref.js" file had a major corruption problem. Lucky I had a backup lying around to replace the fsck'd file. This wasn't the only board/forum that resulted from these ill effects. Again, my apologies.
Quote:
"For technical assistance call 724-987-1192, however, by calling this number you release us from any obligation of helping you."
You also forgot to mention: "You give us the right to sell your phone number and contact information to make up for the lost time of paying our minimum-wage employees the inconvenience of dealing with your hopelessly futile complaint."
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I see something VERY wrong with your argument that humans are evolving to take their rightful place at God's side.
I know of no human I would want to be at God's side as they are often selfish, ill-intentioned, and easily and politically corrupted. There are reasons why we remain close to the pond scum, worms, and slugs found all over this Earth.
We will never comprehend beyond the barriers of our minds; our life span places limits on how much we can learn and understand. And just getting to that means is an incredible journey in and of itself.
Email technology will have to change in the future to avoid taking our precious time. One method I thought of while reading through the posts here on Slashdot that no one seemed to suggest is that DRM (the bad and ugly Digital Rights Managment) could used to encrypt legitimate email. I think that the time I spend here on Earth is quite valuable and is in a sense intellectual property and has a dollar amount that can not be used/stolen by someone else that is not approved by me. Just as the Music Industry cried, screamed, and wailed about Napster and Gnutella networks being means to assist people in stealing music and profits, so is spam stealing time from our lives. By encrypting email in a way similar to CDMA digital cellular phones, a key would be required to decrypt the message if the email was legitimate. If a key is not legitimate, the email is simply deleted. Of course, the key could not simply be a set of numbers or characters, that's too easy to break the encryption, and pass along a list for sale. What is needed is an intelligent encryption method, using a key composed of two or more algorythms. The email sent to you would contain one algorythm and your computer would contain the second algorythm. Using both algorythms together with initial conditions and present conditions (i.e. date) that exist only on YOUR computer can the email be successfully decrypted, otherwise it gets sent to oblivion.
Making email intellectual property under the DRM law is punishable by fines and imprisonment if I understand the law correctly. By breaking or stealing the keys to my email account, someone had to be hacking or participating in some pretty mischievous activities that would be recognized as unlawful and deserving of serious fines and jail time.
This is in a sense a Whitelist, though a more intellectual approach to it. Whitelists will probably evolve first with a method similar to the one I thought of to follow once the Whitelist system falls apart due to profit-seeking business corruption.
I keeping looking at "Ascending and Descending" and I can't see where the trick to illusion is. I can't SEE how he did it. The "Belvedere" is easy to see how he cheated the illusion - it's in the columns. How in the *UCKIN' HELL did he do it?
I've been staring at this for fifteen minutes, connecting the stairs, following the path of little figures, and this is really pissing me off. And I'm not an idiot.
That new graphics card sure looks pretty and EXPENSIVE with all that copper. This will certainly add to the cost of that product. I wonder what percent by weight of the entire product is copper, seeing that copper is a commodity metal.
Regarding those comments about the cooling system not having a filter, this is a pre-production model. Give it some time, it will have to use a filter to keep the small space between the copper fins free of dust.
Hey Bob, while you're out at Murray's Automotive, get me a new oil filter model number P3160 for a Saturn SL2 dual overhead cam and FX160 filter for my NVidia graphics card, 128MB DDR2 RAM, and be sure to read the serial number information. My FX card is post 4375XXX, so it doesn't need a finotany rod or a muffler bearing.
DRM simply will NEVER work. If a DRM'd movie can be seen on a computer screen, the video can be captured. If the DRM'd sound file from a movie or CD can be heard on a computer speaker, the audio can be captured. Steve Jobs mentioned that an upcoming version of iTunes would be able to play MP3's from another Mac over a network but not be savable. That too has already been beaten. A program for Mac OS X called "Audio Hijack" can be found on Versiontracker (http://www.versiontracker.com/macosx/) that STEALS audio from any program you specify from an Audio Hijack file dialog box. Audio Hijack then saves the file to a location you specify in AIFF format. I've used it and it works very well.
The proliferation of the digital lifestyle has educated the masses and produced many a nerd/geek. It isn't difficult to write these programs to capture audio once one knows the inards of an OS like Mac OS X. Audio Hijack clearly exemplifies this. The audio at some point has to converted from digital to analog, and capturing it on its way to the speaker doesn't seem to be problematic. And once the keys to Palladium are leaked/stolen/misused by some programmer who was wronged by a lame-ass company, the program would lie to the OS indicating the customer paid for the content. Hence DRM will NEVER work.
The bottom line is that if it can be seen or heard, then it can be stolen and reproducible. The best DRM is to think of a movie or song and never make it/release it.
Back in February of this year I purchased my first cell phone and service contract from ALLTEL. The plan I have is 500 anytime minutes Mon - Fri, 5000 minutes nights and weekends, nation wide long distance service, caller ID, call waiting, and voice mail. My local calling area is the entire state of Ohio. The monthly service fee costs $39.95/month + state and federal taxes on the calls I make. The FREE CDMA cell phone ALLTEL shipped to me was a Motorola TalkAbout T2260. During the time of owning this phone and using their service, mostly for free long distance service, only two calls were dropped while I was talking to people. I think this service is excellent compared to other services and I whole heartedly recommend this service. Man, I couldn't be a happier camper with this company.
My parents have had dismal results when they switched to Sprint. For two weeks they were getting calls from people all over the country they didn't know, apparently from Sprint network problems.
The U.S., Russia, and other countries can't even complete and maintain the current Space Station on schedule, and it still isn't as functional as was orginally intended with the current time schedule. Though this makes for some cool Gee-whiz science and experience working in low/no gravaity environments, I don't foresee any nobel-prize winning science coming out of the International Space Station. We certainly don't need another one.
If NASA intends on building something useful, it should consider building a large space ship for touring the solar system for conducting long term research with a crew of about 100 people. For propulsion, it could probably use a very large array of solar panels and those non/asymmetrical capacitors that were recently patented by NASA. Heck, with the large electric field generated from the propulsion system, external radiation might not be the serious problem that it is currently on the International Space Station.
Everytime I read about genetic testing and the possible repercussions from it (job discrimination, social discrimination, insurance discrimination, law discrimination), the idea resonates of obtaining resources and greed. Even though we humans tend to think of ourselves as civilized beings, we are just as savage as the animals we watch on National Geographic Television and the Discovery Channel. Our society is built upon genetic and social connectedness, i.e., birds of a feather flock together. The little camps or groups of people arise from genetic similarities which are expressed as behavior or abilities. People with certain genes will have some abilities, whether they are exceptional use of language, abstract thinking, exceptional physical endurance and motor control (athletes), deviant thinking and behavior (criminals tend to congregate in prisons) will tend to socialize with one another. It's up to the individuals with these genes to utilize what evolution and natural selection provided them to obtain resources necessary to ensure survivability of their genes. Just as the law makers, insurance industry, private industry, and educational system (Ivy League, public, and private schools) would like to have access to this information, it's almost like watching the Lions and Hyienas fighting over the injured gazelle. Law makers want to protect the people or industry to get re-elected. The insurance industry wants to limit insurance to diseased people to increase profits (they're cheating at the game of CHANCE and RISK). Private industry wants more efficient people (education/abilities) to increase profits. Schools only want the best, most successful students to increase their stature and graduation rate. Everyone wants to flex their intellectual and economic muscles with this issue to GAIN RESOURCES that help their organization or cause: GREED!
Let's face it folks, this is a central fact of biology and chemistry: Molecules are competing for energy to sustain the transition state for metabolism and reproduction to continue. It doesn't matter that the needs are currently met, "more" is always sought "just in case" (random events) the energy isn't available in the future. "More" is always sought to prevent foreign genes from being over expressed which might lead lead to native gene extinction.
I never thought much about the significance of an electron being promoted to an excited state in an antibonding orbital until I read this article.
Gosh, it's fun being a chemist.
The guy's death was not the game's fault or the game's maker. Just as he had a genetic predisposition for depression, he had a predisposition for THAT addiction. And, knowing that depressed people often have very poor concentration, I don't see how this man could have played the game 86 hours consecutively unless there were other factors to consider such as drugs or genetics (some weird neural feed back loop). I'm not trying to be insensitive, but Darwin's theories of natural selection are at work here, TODAY, in our society, in many forms (economics, employment, social pecking order, education, etc...). This is just one more person who didn't have the abilities to adapt to his changing environment. Survival of the fittest.
Dude, do you have any idea the brain damage you inflicted on yourself? Sleep deprivation is very bad for you. Go to a Medical College Library and look up a book called "Principles of Sleep Medicine, Vol.1 & Vol.2". What you can read in there will scare the shit out of you so much that you'll go to bed every night for the rest of life consistently on time if you don't want to be either dead at 50 or drooling and smiling at a wall when you're 65. Sleep deprivation is very VERY bad for you.
Why?
Sleep not only controls our circadian rhythms, but also apetite control, immune system function, and cognitive performance. I think you can see where this is going.
Apple vehemently defends its intellectual property rights regarding the Aqua interface. I remember downloading and installing an Aqua theme for LinuxPPC 2000 when it was on my Blue & White PowerMac G3. Apple quickly put an end to the "Aqua" schemes, themes, and skins for all non Mac OS X GUI's. Though I don't like my reduced freedom of choice regarding the Mac OS X Aqua GUI, if this action makes my system more stable, I thinks it's a move in the right direction. For the truest of nerds, geeks, and rocket-heads, they can always download and install Gnome, GTK, and whatever themes or skins they want and theme to their heart's content. IIRC, you can boot Mac OS X into the console and start XWindows from there. There you go, you have the truely customized GUI you've always longed for, it just can't be or use Aqua.
It's only a matter of time before someone makes a downloadable installer that will install XWindows, GTK, Gnome, KDE, or whatever window mangager the user preferes, with a simple double click on an icon, type in the administrator password, click a few check boxes, and install the software. I know that Fink (http://fink.sourceforge.net/) will install this software, but it requires a lot from the user. It isn't a simple click and install which is what the Mac community is accustomed to doing.
These comments aren't intended to be flamebait or written for the purpose of trolling.
Intel's processor designs could be hindering its success. For years Intel has been marketing chips with more transistors and higher clock rates. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you perceive it, this doesn't neccessarily mean better products for consumers. Yes, Megahurts sells, transistor counts get more attention, and people (average Joe and Jane consumer) swallow it up and think they've got the latest greatest high tech equipment. The problem is, Intel should have invested in making their current processor designs more efficent first, not faster first. Now that their processors (pentium4) are operating near 3 GHz, the power requirements are astronomical. IBM, on the otherhand, invested in the RISC architecture and later included input from Apple and Motorola to design the PowerPC chip. If one looks at features only while ignoring market share, the PowerPC chip seems like a better processor than the Intel.
PowerPC has more but shallower pipelines than the Intel, lower clockrates = lower heat generation, 128-bit AltiVec processing unit gets more work done for every cycle.
Looking at these features alone shows that it is more cost effective over the long term to go with PowerPC than Intel.
As an Apple computer owner for 17 years, I know that the TOTAL COST of ownership of a Macinotsh for my needs has been lower than owning a PC. Yes, the hardware costs more upfront, but I don't have a power-hungry blast furnace living beneath my desk that has the Micro$oft tax. Even putting together your own computer as I'm sure most of the Slashdot readership does, still will not offset the cost of electricity for running that homebrew PC. I am hoping that IBM will market the Power4-derived 64-bit GPuL PowerPC processor for the Linux crowd.
It's ironic how Apple has been trying to dispell the Megahurts myth all while trying to catch up to Intel in the clockrate game. Intel is the undisputed leader of Gigahurts and now after years of designing processors around marketing stategies has it realized that electricity requirements are a significant factor in computer purchases in corporate America. It's intersting to see how computing needs have changed from "raw processing power" to "how much work can get done for the lowest overall cost". I suspect the California Enron scandel plays a small factor in these considerations.
While I'm not trying to plug Apple computers, I always recommend people to purchase a particular system for their computing needs, and then consider the factors I've mentioned.
AOL can finally beat M$ at its own game. And now AOL has an OS and cheap hardware to do it. First came the FREE (as in beer) AOL CD's, now comes a cheap PC for cruising the internet. If this hardware/software combo takes off, the next best thing for AOL to do is to help coordinate a suite of software products for Linux that are commonly used by the average Windows PC user and distribute them in a Linux CD. This way the average joe PC user won't lose functionality of his/her PC. While this hypothetical situation is a long way off, it's nice to know that M$ Windows won't be REQUIRED for the internet experience. For many people, the only thing they need a computer for is the internet and this is a good solution for average joe. While I don't like AOL internet software, AIM is OK, and using Linux is even better. This is how M$ will lose market share to Linux. It's about time someone made a PC with Linux installed from the factory.
I disagree with much of your argument about doing research just for the sake of science. The discoveries and fruits of science should serve mankind in productive ways. Research funding should not be dolled out to anyone who wants to do research just because it's fun. Projects need to have very focused goals and time scales. How else are you going to discover accidents that DO help mankind? I agree that a massive undertaking to send humans to the moon has benefitted mankind in many ways through trial and error, but giving large sums of tax dollars to new Ph.D.s graduating from Bob's College of Chemistry and Physics isn't going to result in a greater influx of new accidental discoveries that will be helpful to mankind. There are plenty of accidental discoveries being made from the well focused and well funded current research projects. If you haven't gotten the gist of my argument, basically what I'm saying is that given a nice, grand, properly thought-out project, many accidental discoveries will flurish from it.
There are already too many Ph.D.s in science and not enough positions for them. This is why it is so difficult for many to get a research and teaching position at universities. We don't need more scientists, there are too many already. What we need are more focused research projects that do benefit humans. Think of it as the public investing in science and later getting a return on the investment. Natural Selection in the Evolutionary sense is guiding science and our society(economics). Beneficial ideas and projects get funding, failures do not. And I don't want to forget to mention that Evolution doesn't give second chances; once you've had your chance to succeed or fail, that's it.
A few comments about your examples:
Regarding your comment of funding for super colliders, there should be only ONE supercollider. There is no need to have 5 or 6 spread through out the the nation. Build one massive supercollider that is multifunctional. This maximizes the efficiency of tax dollars and reduces redundancy of personnel and hardware.
A brief comment about scientific journals:
Another problem with current scientific literature is that only positive results are published, failures are not. This means that researchers working in closely related areas will learn through trial and error that certain chemical syntheses won't work. This further wastes public funding. If there existed scientific journals that published designated goals of a project and the failures associated with the project, a lot of material and time would not be wasted. But then again, this undermines the competitive nature of science not to mention that if your project is resulting in more failures than successes, perhaps it's time to choose another career.
Insight into why we don't need more scientists:
You should familiarize yourself with the Myers-Briggs Personality Test. It is a very simple test that categorizes personalities in to 16 different types. There are generally two personality types found in scientists: INTJ (Introvert, iNtuitive, Thinking, Judgemental) and ISTJ (Introvert, Sensing, Thinking, Judgemental). INTJ occurs in about 1% of the population. These people are really good at dealing with theories and abstract ideas. These people are your Einsteins, your Stephen Hawkings, and your synthetic organic chemists. ISTJ are good for doing repetitive technical tasks: routinely operating analytical equipment, being a watchmaker, etc... These people occur in about 5% of the population. So you see, graduating more scientists from universities is not going to improve the accidental discoveries in science. Truely successful scientists are born, not made. Their brains are, in a way, hardwired for that profession.
Employment Stats for the scientific profession (assumes individuals working in their field of study or education):
Chemists are the LEAST unemployed among scientific professionals. Biologists are the most unemployed and make up the largest percentage of educated scientists. Physicists are somewhere in between with regard to employment but make up the least percentage of scientists.
Hmmm.....
This goes for the ubiquitous rent-a-cops who parade around with guns pretending to be law enforcement officers.
This is a non sequitur. For some of the Slashdot readership not accustomed to correct spelling, I kindly offer the incorrectly spelled non-seqetor.
What kind of shock did you experience upon hearing the sentence? What kind of prison are you going to be LIVING at for the next 33 months? Minimum security? Maximum security? SUPER MAX? How will you be traveling there, state trouper, sheriff, prison bus, state marshall?
What personal items can you take with you, besides a bible?
I think there was a prison-oriented periodical called "Prison Life". If it exists, are you going to subscribe to it?
When you were standing before the judge and court and first heard the sentence, did you feel a cold numbness permeate through your body? Did you start to see grey around the periphery of your field of vision?
Are you sorry for what you did, or sorry you were caught?
How many hours will you be in lock-up during the day? 23?
How will you be taking showers? Every two or three days? Communally? With shackles on?
How do you feel about the government putting chemical tracers in prison food, which you will eventually eat, that can be used to track you should you escape? In case you're wondering, No, they don't ever leave your body. You are branded a criminal for life.
If you could take a webcam into prison and aim it towards your prison cell, would you be opposed to people watching you through webcast for demonstrating to others the seriousness of your crime?
Have you been issued an INMATE NUMBER yet? If so, what is it?
What are the conditions of your parole? What happens if you get caught pirating software again?
Several serious questions:
How has this CONVICTION affected your life? How do you think the prison experience is going to affect you personally? Have you thought about what it means to be included with a small percentage of the population that are convicted felons? How do you think this felony conviction has affected your career? What about the people closest to you (your wife, girlfriend, significant other, and children (if any))?
Obviously prison is not a place for personal growth. Besides being scared out of your wits, what do you think you're going to think or worry about while being in prison?
I suspect that homosexual activity/behavior is prevelent in prison. Have you thought about how you're going to prevent Bubba from *LIKING YOU REALLY WELL*?
Do you NOW have a better understanding of right and wrong? More respect for the Law? And more respect for a legal system defending capitalism in general, intellectual property, corporations, and individuals through license agreements?
Beaver: Gee Wally, it sure would be swell if there was a Mac OS X version of this Quake mod.
Wally: Well Beave, maybe you should ask one of geek friends over at Slashdot if they can port it over to Mac OS X for the Macintosh community, maybe even suggest to the author to post the source code.
Mom: Oh Boys, don't be silly, now run along and do your homework.
Wally and Beaver: But mom...
Ward: Boys! You heard your mother! Now do your damn homework!
If the Chinese could safely and efficiently recover the components of computers, they could become world leaders for suppling lead, cadmium, chromium, and mercury. They're getting these computers for next to nothing, and it costs money to mine and purify metals. Granted these metals will have to be purified from chips, capacitors, etc..., but the process should be easier and less costly than purifying these same metals from the ground. With the right equipment and people, almost anything is possible.
The only problem with this is that human life and labor are very "cheap" in China. Knocking off a few thousand people won't bother the Chinese government unless other countries bitch and complain about human rights violations.
The only hope for change in this situation is for China to continue its "Westernization", which I recently saw on PBS television. I was really shocked to see so many Americans over there fluorishing in "Western" cities. The real surprize was you can do almost anything over there, except criticize the government. Beijing just wreaks of capitalism (Chinese communist governemt gets 50% of whatever you make).
It could be that this new "technology" doesn't exist at all. It's probably just a deception that will justify selective ethnic profiling. "Gee, walk through this gate. It will read your brainwaves and heartbeat. Don't be afraid, it's harmless and non-intrusive. We can't actually read your thoughts, but we can get a pretty good idea of your state of mind and intentions from your physiological data." translates into walk through this gate with the pretty blinking lights, and we will pull you aside, run background checks all the way back to your great grandparents, interrogate you anyway we see fit, and if we find anything, you win a FREE all expenses paid vacation to Cuba.
To bluff the system, just wrap a wet towel around your head, or if you're wearing a turban, dunk your head quickly in and out of a toilet.
The fact that it "cheats" somehow restores my faith in robotkind....
If cheating is a real element of artificial intelligence, or intelligence for that matter, this might help explain the collapse of Enron, Worldcom, etc... and the behavior of the Kenneth Lay and the other Goons of The Greedy Bunch. Even if these "cheating" decisions are part of evolution, these people still knew their actions were unethical and unlawful. Their punishment should be proportionate to the devastation they wreaked in the economy and people's lives.
This is how it should have read...Sorry for the formatting problems of the original post (Mozilla's "pref.js" file had a corruption problem)...
This is not intended to be a troll or flame, but is in general, the sad truth about Science. You didn't list your current credentials or your career plans, so I will put this in plain easy-to-read English. I will tell you exactly the same advice my undergraduate chemistry advisor told me. DO NOT EVEN THINK of getting a Ph.D. in Science unless you are graduating from a top-notch graduate program. The world is full of Ph.D's working at McDonald's flipping burgers and stocking shelves at Walmart. The sad fact is there are not enough Ph.D. jobs to go around for every Ph.D. The Ph.D. is a terminal degree, there is no degree higher than that. Even an M.D. is lower on the education scale than a Ph.D. If you get a Ph.D., you will be in the same arena as your peers graduating from Ivy League schools, and judged accordingly; the same work/research performance will be expected of you. And believe me, you will not be able to do that kind of work because the program you graduated from didn't train you and put you through the rigors necessary for that kind of work. Of course, we all know that the Ivy League schools select the best students our gene pool has to offer. The reputation of the school you graduate from will likely carry you further than the degree alone, assuming you brown-nose your advisor or help him or her win the nobel prize. My undergraduate advisor also warned me that if the Ph.D. is all that you are concerned about getting (from any average-Joe Ph.D. program), be prepared to spend the rest of your life in poverty post docing around the country making $20k/year. You will not have medical benefits, you will not have retirement benefits, you will not have annual bonuses, YOU WILL NOT LIVE THE AMERICAN DREAM. By the time you finally get around to paying off your student loans, and you will acquire student loan debt in graduate school, you will be very near retirement, still driving an old clunker, and never owning your own home. Unless you're already married, I can think of no better way of being chick REPELLANT.
Sorry about the post guys (and gals), Mozilla's "pref.js" file had a major corruption problem. Lucky I had a backup lying around to replace the fsck'd file. This wasn't the only board/forum that resulted from these ill effects. Again, my apologies.
alchemist68
Thisisnotintendedtobeatrollorflame,butisingeneral, thesadtruthaboutScience.Youdidn'tlistyourcurrentcr edentialsoryourcareerplans,soIwillputthisinplainea sy-to-readEnglish.Iwilltellyouexactlythesameadvice myundergraduatechemistryadvisortoldme.DONOTEVENTHI NKofgettingaPh.D.inScienceunlessyouaregraduatingfr omatop-notchgraduateprogram.TheworldisfullofPh.D's workingatMcDonald'sflippingburgersandstockingshelv esatWalmart.ThesadfactistherearenotenoughPh.D.jobs togoaroundforeveryPh.D.ThePh.D.isaterminaldegree,t hereisnodegreehigherthanthat.EvenanM.D.isloweronth eeducationscalethanaPh.D.IfyougetaPh.D.,youwillbei nthesamearenaasyourpeersgraduatingfromIvyLeaguesch ools,andjudgedaccordingly;thesamework/researchperf ormancewillbeexpectedofyou.Andbelieveme,youwillnot beabletodothatkindofworkbecausetheprogramyougradua tedfromdidn'ttrainyouandputyouthroughtherigorsnece ssaryforthatkindofwork.Ofcourse,weallknowthattheIv yLeagueschoolsselectthebeststudentsourgenepoolhast ooffer.Thereputationoftheschoolyougraduatefromwill likelycarryyoufurtherthanthedegreealone,assumingyo ubrown-noseyouradvisororhelphimorherwinthenobelpri ze.MyundergraduateadvisoralsowarnedmethatifthePh.D .isallthatyouareconcernedaboutgetting(fromanyavera ge-JoePh.D.program),bepreparedtospendtherestofyour lifeinpovertypostdocingaroundthecountrymaking$20k/ year.Youwillnothavemedicalbenefits,youwillnothaver etirementbenefits,youwillnothaveannualbonuses,YOUW ILLNOTLIVETHEAMERICANDREAM.Bythetimeyoufinallygeta roundtopayingoffyourstudentloans,andyouwillacquire studentloandebtingraduateschool,youwillbeverynearr etirement,stilldrivinganoldclunker,andneverowningy ourownhome.Unlessyou'realreadymarried,Icanthinkofn obetterwayofbeingchickREPELLANT.
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