People that have already staked out their territory regarding their opinion of Gore won't be effected by this decision. For those who already have decided they hate him for one reason or another, they will simply find justification to ignore the award as being somehow politicized or undeserved or something to that effect.
People that have already decided the world would be a lot better place right now if one person on the Supreme Court had changed their vote will likewise look at this as further justification for their beliefs and support of Gore.
The other roughly 75% of the American population will likely end up with the opinion of the last opinionated person they heard of (or news report). The Nobel Prize is still very largely respected among the US Populace, and so if somebody who is otherwise relatively uninformed hears that Gore received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on Global Warming, they are more likely than not to form a positive opinion of him with regard to his work. So a reasonable chunk of those 75% will probably form positive opinions of Gore based on the award. He's further bolstered to some degree by those who have become frustrated with the current state of affairs and remember pre-2000 as a generally better time. Others have negative opinions of global warming 'alarmists' in general and will attribute those to Gore as well, although the percentage of Americans who accept global warming as fact is a lot higher than many Europeans tend to think, due to the current administration's policies.
So yes, overall this award (and the subsequent news reports) probably will have a positive impact on American's perception of Gore on the whole, although like anything else there is going to be a multitude of opinions.
There's really no connection in most people's minds between the differing politics of Europe/US and the Nobel Peace Prize. Acceptance of Global Warming is also growing rapidly in the US as well, and with even the Bush administration recently flatly stating it exists, there's less and less of a connection between Europe and global warming... Americans now generally accept it as an American issue (as well?).
With regard to Gore running for President or people voting for him... it won't happen, period. He will not enter the race, and I say that with pretty much as close to 100% certainty as possible. Despite his popularity, he couldn't win even the Democratic Primary at this point in time, simply because of how much is actually required to run an actual campaign today. While he won't run for president though, he will almost certainly be involved at a very high level with any Democratic administration, with regards to the issue of global warming. Winning the Nobel Peace Prize has now virtually guaranteed that. So if a democratic administration did take over the White House in 2009, you can expect America to have a vastly different position with regards to global warming than it does right now. Of course, there's no way to know if there will be a democratic administration in 2009.
Perhaps it's time to start reminding juries in these kinds of cases of their right to Jury Nullification.
Just because the facts are not in despite (effectively proving somebody did something that violates the written letter of the law) does not mean that a jury must also be compelled to render a guilty verdict. A jury has the authority to question both the merits of the case and the law itself when rendering its verdict, although nobody ever informs juries of this right. Jury Nullification played a major role in undermining Prohibition, for example.
A but you see there's no third party in this situation... the robber and the hero are one in the same.
A better analogy would be the Yen Buddhists, who believe that the accumulation of money is a great evil and a burden on the soul and they therefore, regardless of personal hazard, see it as their unpleasant duty to acquire as much money as possible to reduce the risk to innocent people.[1]
Well, I'm not an astronomer, but from the article on physorg.com: "The burst of radio waves was strong by astronomical standards, but lasted less than five milliseconds. The signal was spread out, with higher frequencies arriving at the telescope before the lower frequencies. This effect, called dispersion, is caused by the signal passing through ionized gas in interstellar and intergalactic space. The amount of this dispersion, the astronomers said, indicates that the signal likely originated about three billion light-years from Earth."
To me that suggests that, while the actual event at the location it occurs can be reasonably said to have lasted less than five milliseconds, the actual recording of data lasted longer than that period of time, and there are certain identifiable characteristics in the data that an astronomer would expect to find, both of which seem to strongly suggest that the event really did occur.
While the taser is meant to be a non-lethal weapon, it has caused death before, and if you've ever been hit by one, you know how immensely painful it is.
I completely agree that the questioner was out of line for the given forum and that he should have been removed; however, I do not think he should have been arrested for what was essentially a completely non-violent protest, and I think the use of the taser was just downright disturbing.
While I was watching the video I chuckled a few times at the beginning, especially after hearing all of his questions, although by the end of the video I simply couldn't believe what I saw. There need to be some serious repercussions for all of the security personnel who were involved in the incident, particularly whoever made the decision to and used the taser (if multiple suggested it then they should all be accountable for it), and we as a society need to seriously rethink the amount of leverage law enforcement personnel are given to escalate force and the training we provide them with regard to how and when it is appropriate to escalate force.
no, the relationship could be as simple as just friendship between two friends. there's nothing about the word that suggests some economic incentive or benefit. You'd use the same word to refer to the relationship between you and your mother.
guanxi (/) isn't a system of business relationships or something like that, it literally just means relationship, and can mean anything from a business relation to a personal one.
The US economy long ago has transitioned from a primarily manufacturing-based economy to a (higher paying) service-based one. In fact, Microsoft itself would be counted more in the service-based section than in the area of manufacturing. There's nothing particularly wrong with this in general, except that the transition was somewhat mismanaged and has occurred faster than we have been able to adequately re-train our labor, which has left us in the ironic situation of being dependent on both illegal immigration for many of the lower paying jobs in the country, particularly in agriculture, and also with a shortage of qualified people for many higher paying (service-oriented) technical jobs. But despite the stumble, the US economy on the whole is still extremely strong and the average income and consumption by Americans is higher than anywhere else in the world (as is the amount produced per capita if you use GDP/working population)
I'd suspect that while certainly the Justice Department has no interest in completely dismantling a major US company, the decisions that got people like Assistant Attorney General Thomas O. Barnett into the JD originally had a lot more to do with lobbying and campaign dollars than it did with any particular interest in sustaining the Microsoft monopoly on a global scale. Similarly I doubt the DMCA has as much to do with any Senator trying to protect some global US monopoly as it does with the RIAA and MPAA spending huge amounts of money on lobbying efforts.
There has already been far too much muddying of fact with the general population that no question or answer in 30 seconds is really going to be able to hold anyone over the proverbial fire, and there are far too many ways to duck out of the question that won't negatively effect any of the candidates. The most likely would simply be to ignore talking about science entirely and instead talk about their faith, which would just pander to the Republican base.
Instead, frame the question in a way that Americans as a whole can recognize far more clearly as incompetent interference in scientific research. Point out the recent backlash many scientists have had against this administration, particularly with people completely uneducated in a scientific field editing and influencing scientific reports (like the one from NASA about Global Warming), and ask the candidate how they can assure the American people scientific research won't be falsified or influenced by politics.
If you click the link at the top of the page about Firefox Myths, you'll find quite a few gems, including this one:
Myth - "Firefox is not a Religion"
Reality - Type in about:mozilla into the Firefox address bar to get "The Book of Mozilla".
I think anyone intelligent enough to be aware of what Firefox is and how to use it would probably also be capable of seeing that this is rather absurd.
Microsoft owns 0.0000% of Apple voting stock, and I'm fairly sure they've since sold off all of the stock they bought back in 1997 (which was only $150 Million of non-voting stock, so still a small percentage).
I'd guess Apple voted in favor of OOXML in the hopes that it would prevent MS Office formats from being moving targets from release to release, and possibly to use as leverage (probably in Europe) to force MS to publish specifications for all of the currently undocumented specs in OOXML, which would basically allow for full compatibility with any version of Office.
I don't know about any versions of Linux or Windows as I haven't tested it on those yet, although I was definitely able to close it on a Mac using Safari (the site says it was tested for Safari as well).
When the java applet comes up fullscreen, it doesn't actually cover the menu bar on a Mac. To close the applet simply select the window that spawned the applet and go up to the File menu and select Close Window (or hit Cmd-W).
It also only effects your control over the specific browser (I'd imagine that's the same for Linux and Windows as well), as I could still cmd-tab between applications or use Expose.
I think you're misreading the judges comment. The judge clearly stated that 'MercExchange has utilized its patents as a sword to extract money rather than as a shield to protect its right to exclude or its market share, reputation, good will, or name recognition', which means that, while market share is one possible valid reason to exercise patent rights, it is by no means a requirement (which is why the judge used the word 'or' and not 'and' when listing possible reasonable uses).
Reputation, good will, and name recognition cover quite a lot of additional ground. I don't think this should be the ultimate test for acceptable patent use as laid out in this case, but I think the judge came to the correct decision in the case, and at least has made strides towards a more reasonable patent test.
That said, it would be nice to see more done to undermine 'obvious' patents.
And technically you can download iTunes for free, download a free song once a week from the store, listen to radio stations for free, download podcasts for free, download lectures (like the ones Stanford released to iTunes) for free... with many of these completely free things only being available from the iTunes store and encoded with iTunes' DRM.
Of course you can also buy music, movies and TV shows from iTunes that will only play on an iPod, but you could also easily enough buy that same music or movies or shows in a higher quality format for about the same price and play it anywhere you want, so iTunes doesn't have a monopoly on music, movies, or tv. Rather, it has a monopoly on a distribution method for easily putting music, movies or tv shows on an iPod.
I'd personally be thrilled to see DRM done away with for good, but at the same time I think the reaction from European governments to iTunes is rather rediculous, and probably has more to do with trying to foster/protect homegrown business than it does about protecting consumers.
Except IE is software that's available to download freely whether or not you bought anything from MS or not, which is quite different in terms of the Sarbanes-Oxley law and 802.11n where you already bought hardware previously that is now receiving new functionality not previously advertised.
Every assumption here on Slashdot for the most part seems to assume that ANYBODY can "write" information in a location and when you walk into that location it is wirelessly transferred to your iPod, iPhone whatever, so that you have no control of what content you are receiving.
Wouldn't it be far more likely for the information to be downloaded to your iPod FIRST, and then the information already on your iPod is then simply triggered to come up when you're in a specific location? Stores could potentially use this data for advertisements, but you'd have to agree to download them first... not likely. I think a more likely use of this technology could be by museums or various attractions to provide a kind of "virtual guide" to people with iPods/iPhones, or by individuals themselves to possibly import information from iCal for example to help them remember appointments, or to use as a personal shopping list reminder that sits right there in one device with your music, phone, etc, quite convenient.
Dak
I'm living in Kaohsiung (Taiwan, 50 miles from the quakes) and am also using HiNet. I haven't noticed any slowdown whatsoever (I was even online at the time they occurred chatting with friends, all of whom also didn't lost any connectivity).
Even though the earthquake was just off the southern coast of Taiwan, I think it was Singapore and a few other nations with less developed infrastructure who are having the problems.
The quakes disrupted cables primarily dedicated to business use, such as for currency exchange with banks. I am currently living in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, () which is the 2nd biggest city in Taiwan on the southern side of the island (less than 50 miles from the quakes), and I was online during both quakes and never experienced any interruption in service or slowdown. In fact I was using it at the time to chat with friends here and to e-mail home that I was fine.
There were actually 2 distinct quakes, one magnitude 7.1, one 7.0, that occurred about 7 minutes apart, and so far have been 3 aftershocks measuring from 5.4 to 5.6 (the 5.6 being just yesterday morning). All of the quakes were very shallow (7 miles deep and less).
I find it incredibly ironic that for once the customer would have probably been better served by a customer representative in India than by one who speaks (presumably) the same language.
"Are you calling to complain about a mathematical error in your billing? If yes, press 1 now to speak to a representative in a country with a more effective educational system than yours, if no, press 2."
Well, checking now, at 11pm EST, the BLACK Zune is coming in at 86, between the Sandisk Sansa Silicone Case for m200 Players (Pink) and the GPX iLive ISPK2806 iPod Speakers with Remote Control & Dock for iPod, Mini, Shuffle, and Nano.
For comparisson:
10 SanDisk Sansa M240 1 GB MP3 Player (Silver)
23 Creative Zen Vision:M 30 GB MP3 and Video Player (Black)
33 Kensington Digital FM Transmitter and Auto Charger for iPod (Black)
44 Belkin F8Z060 iPod Nano Silicon Sleeve (Black)
52 Palm Z22 Handheld
56 Garmin Forerunner 205 Wrist-Mounted GPS Personal Training Device
61 Apple iPod USB Power Adapter
74 Logitech Harmony 550 Universal Remote
83 Coby TF-DVD7107 7" TFT Portable DVD Player
86 Zune 30 GB Digital Media Player (Black)
the brown Zune isn't even registering in the top 100. 4 of the top 5 are iPods, including all the top 3, and numerous others all over the top 10 and top 25, not to mention iPod accessories.
So yes, the Zune the day after appears to be slightly less popular than a wrist-mounted personal training device, and is pretty convincingly outsold by an FM Transmitter for the iPod (which was one of Zune's touted advantages over the iPod).
Why don't we just start generating a large number of FCC complaints on any television program Jerry Fallwell appears on? If you're black, Jewish, Chinese, liberal, homosexual, athiest, or any of a few others I know I'm forgetting, then you have a legitimate claim.
FCC keeps quoting the "people's voice" and the number of complaints as the reason they're taking action... I wonder if they'd be willing to fine a right-wing broadcast if enough people complained?
If they do, well, then this is a scary country to live in and I'll be moving to Canada, although the more likely scenario is that they won't, at which point in time they bite their own argument regarding the number of complaints received.
The military already has its own, albeit extremely slow, internet it calls "SIPRNET" (it's basically a secure network that spans the entire globe where the US Military is, and only handles classified information). The US Military actually uses two networks on the battlefield at the same time, NIPRNET (connected to the Internet), and SIPRNET, which is only for classified information.
The NYT article talked about how soldiers of the future will have a "bird's eye view" of the battlefield in their own HMMWV, although something similar exists today as well. There are a few competing programs in the military right now, such as C2PC, which allow commanders and other soldiers to monitor in real time the location of friendly and enemy units, as well as sorties, terrain, etc. (although the location of enemy units of course isn't 100% accurate). Many many HMMWVs in Iraq right now (I drove a HMMWV in Iraq with this installed) have basic systems installed so that commanders and troops can monitor the same information on a battlefield in real time and coordinate with one another.
I'm sure this new system will be far more advanced and provide much more detailed information than the current one, but don't think that soldiers don't have some of this technology right now either.
Here's a quote from the FreeRepublic.com "Conservative News Forum":
"The media down plays the fact that thousands of Muslims ARE living in our Country!"
- SheLion
Perhaps nobody has explained to everyone yet that Muslim is not a synonym for terrorist. It's extremely disheartening to see Americans who hold this belief so readily and elicits memories of Japanese concentration camps in America during World War II.
Have we really learned anything from past mistakes?
Slashdot Mirror
People that have already decided the world would be a lot better place right now if one person on the Supreme Court had changed their vote will likewise look at this as further justification for their beliefs and support of Gore.
The other roughly 75% of the American population will likely end up with the opinion of the last opinionated person they heard of (or news report). The Nobel Prize is still very largely respected among the US Populace, and so if somebody who is otherwise relatively uninformed hears that Gore received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on Global Warming, they are more likely than not to form a positive opinion of him with regard to his work. So a reasonable chunk of those 75% will probably form positive opinions of Gore based on the award. He's further bolstered to some degree by those who have become frustrated with the current state of affairs and remember pre-2000 as a generally better time. Others have negative opinions of global warming 'alarmists' in general and will attribute those to Gore as well, although the percentage of Americans who accept global warming as fact is a lot higher than many Europeans tend to think, due to the current administration's policies.
So yes, overall this award (and the subsequent news reports) probably will have a positive impact on American's perception of Gore on the whole, although like anything else there is going to be a multitude of opinions.
There's really no connection in most people's minds between the differing politics of Europe/US and the Nobel Peace Prize. Acceptance of Global Warming is also growing rapidly in the US as well, and with even the Bush administration recently flatly stating it exists, there's less and less of a connection between Europe and global warming... Americans now generally accept it as an American issue (as well?).
With regard to Gore running for President or people voting for him... it won't happen, period. He will not enter the race, and I say that with pretty much as close to 100% certainty as possible. Despite his popularity, he couldn't win even the Democratic Primary at this point in time, simply because of how much is actually required to run an actual campaign today. While he won't run for president though, he will almost certainly be involved at a very high level with any Democratic administration, with regards to the issue of global warming. Winning the Nobel Peace Prize has now virtually guaranteed that. So if a democratic administration did take over the White House in 2009, you can expect America to have a vastly different position with regards to global warming than it does right now. Of course, there's no way to know if there will be a democratic administration in 2009.
Just because the facts are not in despite (effectively proving somebody did something that violates the written letter of the law) does not mean that a jury must also be compelled to render a guilty verdict. A jury has the authority to question both the merits of the case and the law itself when rendering its verdict, although nobody ever informs juries of this right. Jury Nullification played a major role in undermining Prohibition, for example.
A better analogy would be the Yen Buddhists, who believe that the accumulation of money is a great evil and a burden on the soul and they therefore, regardless of personal hazard, see it as their unpleasant duty to acquire as much money as possible to reduce the risk to innocent people.[1]
[1] With apologies to Terry Pratchett
To me that suggests that, while the actual event at the location it occurs can be reasonably said to have lasted less than five milliseconds, the actual recording of data lasted longer than that period of time, and there are certain identifiable characteristics in the data that an astronomer would expect to find, both of which seem to strongly suggest that the event really did occur.
I picked Taiwan. Most of the population here is still actively fighting for ever-increasing rights.
I completely agree that the questioner was out of line for the given forum and that he should have been removed; however, I do not think he should have been arrested for what was essentially a completely non-violent protest, and I think the use of the taser was just downright disturbing.
While I was watching the video I chuckled a few times at the beginning, especially after hearing all of his questions, although by the end of the video I simply couldn't believe what I saw. There need to be some serious repercussions for all of the security personnel who were involved in the incident, particularly whoever made the decision to and used the taser (if multiple suggested it then they should all be accountable for it), and we as a society need to seriously rethink the amount of leverage law enforcement personnel are given to escalate force and the training we provide them with regard to how and when it is appropriate to escalate force.
no, the relationship could be as simple as just friendship between two friends. there's nothing about the word that suggests some economic incentive or benefit. You'd use the same word to refer to the relationship between you and your mother.
guanxi (/) isn't a system of business relationships or something like that, it literally just means relationship, and can mean anything from a business relation to a personal one.
I'd suspect that while certainly the Justice Department has no interest in completely dismantling a major US company, the decisions that got people like Assistant Attorney General Thomas O. Barnett into the JD originally had a lot more to do with lobbying and campaign dollars than it did with any particular interest in sustaining the Microsoft monopoly on a global scale. Similarly I doubt the DMCA has as much to do with any Senator trying to protect some global US monopoly as it does with the RIAA and MPAA spending huge amounts of money on lobbying efforts.
Instead, frame the question in a way that Americans as a whole can recognize far more clearly as incompetent interference in scientific research. Point out the recent backlash many scientists have had against this administration, particularly with people completely uneducated in a scientific field editing and influencing scientific reports (like the one from NASA about Global Warming), and ask the candidate how they can assure the American people scientific research won't be falsified or influenced by politics.
Myth - "Firefox is not a Religion"
Reality - Type in about:mozilla into the Firefox address bar to get "The Book of Mozilla".
I think anyone intelligent enough to be aware of what Firefox is and how to use it would probably also be capable of seeing that this is rather absurd.
I'd guess Apple voted in favor of OOXML in the hopes that it would prevent MS Office formats from being moving targets from release to release, and possibly to use as leverage (probably in Europe) to force MS to publish specifications for all of the currently undocumented specs in OOXML, which would basically allow for full compatibility with any version of Office.
When the java applet comes up fullscreen, it doesn't actually cover the menu bar on a Mac. To close the applet simply select the window that spawned the applet and go up to the File menu and select Close Window (or hit Cmd-W).
It also only effects your control over the specific browser (I'd imagine that's the same for Linux and Windows as well), as I could still cmd-tab between applications or use Expose.
That said, it's still bloody annoying.
Reputation, good will, and name recognition cover quite a lot of additional ground. I don't think this should be the ultimate test for acceptable patent use as laid out in this case, but I think the judge came to the correct decision in the case, and at least has made strides towards a more reasonable patent test.
That said, it would be nice to see more done to undermine 'obvious' patents.
Of course you can also buy music, movies and TV shows from iTunes that will only play on an iPod, but you could also easily enough buy that same music or movies or shows in a higher quality format for about the same price and play it anywhere you want, so iTunes doesn't have a monopoly on music, movies, or tv. Rather, it has a monopoly on a distribution method for easily putting music, movies or tv shows on an iPod.
I'd personally be thrilled to see DRM done away with for good, but at the same time I think the reaction from European governments to iTunes is rather rediculous, and probably has more to do with trying to foster/protect homegrown business than it does about protecting consumers.
Except IE is software that's available to download freely whether or not you bought anything from MS or not, which is quite different in terms of the Sarbanes-Oxley law and 802.11n where you already bought hardware previously that is now receiving new functionality not previously advertised.
Wouldn't it be far more likely for the information to be downloaded to your iPod FIRST, and then the information already on your iPod is then simply triggered to come up when you're in a specific location? Stores could potentially use this data for advertisements, but you'd have to agree to download them first... not likely. I think a more likely use of this technology could be by museums or various attractions to provide a kind of "virtual guide" to people with iPods/iPhones, or by individuals themselves to possibly import information from iCal for example to help them remember appointments, or to use as a personal shopping list reminder that sits right there in one device with your music, phone, etc, quite convenient. Dak
Even though the earthquake was just off the southern coast of Taiwan, I think it was Singapore and a few other nations with less developed infrastructure who are having the problems.
There were actually 2 distinct quakes, one magnitude 7.1, one 7.0, that occurred about 7 minutes apart, and so far have been 3 aftershocks measuring from 5.4 to 5.6 (the 5.6 being just yesterday morning). All of the quakes were very shallow (7 miles deep and less).
You can get specific information on the quakes from the USGS: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Ma ps/10/120_25.php
"Are you calling to complain about a mathematical error in your billing? If yes, press 1 now to speak to a representative in a country with a more effective educational system than yours, if no, press 2."
For comparisson:
10 SanDisk Sansa M240 1 GB MP3 Player (Silver)
23 Creative Zen Vision:M 30 GB MP3 and Video Player (Black)
33 Kensington Digital FM Transmitter and Auto Charger for iPod (Black)
44 Belkin F8Z060 iPod Nano Silicon Sleeve (Black)
52 Palm Z22 Handheld
56 Garmin Forerunner 205 Wrist-Mounted GPS Personal Training Device
61 Apple iPod USB Power Adapter
74 Logitech Harmony 550 Universal Remote
83 Coby TF-DVD7107 7" TFT Portable DVD Player
86 Zune 30 GB Digital Media Player (Black)
the brown Zune isn't even registering in the top 100. 4 of the top 5 are iPods, including all the top 3, and numerous others all over the top 10 and top 25, not to mention iPod accessories.
So yes, the Zune the day after appears to be slightly less popular than a wrist-mounted personal training device, and is pretty convincingly outsold by an FM Transmitter for the iPod (which was one of Zune's touted advantages over the iPod).
FCC keeps quoting the "people's voice" and the number of complaints as the reason they're taking action... I wonder if they'd be willing to fine a right-wing broadcast if enough people complained?
If they do, well, then this is a scary country to live in and I'll be moving to Canada, although the more likely scenario is that they won't, at which point in time they bite their own argument regarding the number of complaints received.
The NYT article talked about how soldiers of the future will have a "bird's eye view" of the battlefield in their own HMMWV, although something similar exists today as well. There are a few competing programs in the military right now, such as C2PC, which allow commanders and other soldiers to monitor in real time the location of friendly and enemy units, as well as sorties, terrain, etc. (although the location of enemy units of course isn't 100% accurate). Many many HMMWVs in Iraq right now (I drove a HMMWV in Iraq with this installed) have basic systems installed so that commanders and troops can monitor the same information on a battlefield in real time and coordinate with one another.
I'm sure this new system will be far more advanced and provide much more detailed information than the current one, but don't think that soldiers don't have some of this technology right now either.
BSOD
who knew graffiti could be geeky?
"The media down plays the fact that thousands of Muslims ARE living in our Country!" - SheLion
Perhaps nobody has explained to everyone yet that Muslim is not a synonym for terrorist. It's extremely disheartening to see Americans who hold this belief so readily and elicits memories of Japanese concentration camps in America during World War II.
Have we really learned anything from past mistakes?