I RTFAed, expecting to find some sort of explanation for why exactly Diebold is suing.
There isn't one. To save others the trouble, here's the closest thing to a reason they give:
"We compete against AutoMARK around the country all the time," Weisberg said. "Based on the criteria set out by the Commonwealth, we had a fair degree of confidence we'd come out on top, and nothing we heard during the process dissuaded us of that confidence."
Weisberg said Diehold was so stunned it did not get the contract that it now believes "it's worth the time and money" of going to court to challenge the contract's award, even though the company at this stage has no hard evidence of unfair treatment.
I'm a little surprised they think they can sue just based on a gut feeling and expect to get away with it, but then again, it is Diebold. They seem to get away with just about anything.
These mosquitoes aren't going to live longer. They just aren't going to kill people. Normally, that's counted as a good thing.
From the summary:
These GM insects carry a gene that prevents them from being infected by the malaria parasite and has the added benefit of providing a fitness advantage to the mosquitoes.
They might not live longer but even a tiny survival advantage could result in huge number of extra mosquitoes. And we don't know what the chances are of the malaria parasite adapting to the new 'super-mozzies'. More mosquitoes and a hardier version of malaria? That would be rather bad. I'm not saying the research is without merit, but I'd really want to know what we're getting in for, since a repeat of Australian Cane Toad introduction would kinda suck. A lot.
(Pun about mosquitoes and sucking was not intended. Those responsible will face consequences.)
Nonsense.
"What's the death rate here?"
"Same as everywhere - one each."
If recent documentaries such as The Mummy Returns have taught us anything, it's that those who are mummified actually likely to come back to life (and die again) many, many times.
Please, try to keep up with modern Egyptology.
Re:Fortunately, it's still in infancy :)
on
AACS Device Key Found
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Which is why i don't understand why Sony made the MD format. It wasa obvious that hard drives and flash memory was the future - and they introduced a new optical audio disc right at the end of the optical audio disc's popularity and usefulness.
The MD format was originally introduced in 1992. USB wasn't released until 1996 and the iPod was still a long way off.
I think that where MD really fell down was that Sony hadn't quite realized that people were ready to start treating their music as a digital resource that could be manipulated by computer. MiniDisc is a format that is based around MD player/recorders functioning as single-use appliances. Most people changed how they thought about music somewhere between 1996-2002, depending on how wired they were. They realized that music formats were digital and that music could be downloaded, stored, and manipulated on computer. MD was a format that didn't allow these functions, and so it was useless. Not a bad format for what it did, but it missed a shift in how people thought about what music did.
As a side note, I think that the same shift is happening with television. It's taken longer to catch on, but now everyone's starting to understand that the episode of Lost they missed doesn't mean they have to beg to borrow a tape off some friend because it's on the internet and can be downloaded if they want to...
How accurately can we separate man's impact, if any, from natural variation (assuming we know something about the natural short-term variation, if any)?
This is one of those lines that confuses me, especially when set out in the stronger version of the argument: "We don't know for complete certain that mankind is the sole cause of climate change, therefore we should do nothing."
In many ways the actual cause of climate change is a moot point. The climate is changing. This is having adverse effects on the world now, and is going to have truly horrific effects on the world in the future. Let's assume that humanity is not the cause. Nonetheless it seems like reducing carbon emissions will help to reduce the global temperature. Why don't we give it a shot? It seems like trying something would be better than sitting on our hands.
Pretty much every report I've come across that considers the issue says that the projected costs of climate change on the economies of major western nations (eg. Australia, the US, Europe) is far greater than the cost of drastically reducing carbon emissions. Seems like it might be a good idea to take a mild risk rather than wait till you're certain that climate change is happening but the sea is lapping around your ankles.
The only way something like this could work is if every municipality were to have a recycling program in which people don't have to sort their recyclables.
This is the case in Australia. Each council gives each household a recycling bin (usually as large or larger than the non-recycling bin), you throw in pretty much anything with a recycling logo and you're done.
I feel compelled to mention what the lecturer said in my first undergrad psych lecture: "Med students are over in that building having their first lecture, and they will hear about all sorts of diseases and disorders and inevitably decide that they have each of them. You, as students of psychology, will also hear about all sorts of disorders. But you won't decide that you have them. You will decide that your friends and family have them." Everyone laughed dutifully.
But over the next few years of study there was always a temptation to say "He's looking down, must be major depression. And she must be OCD because she's washed her hands a couple of times today." As someone who studied psych obsessively for quite a while, the two big things I learned were a) statistics and b) to stay out of making anything but the most rudimentary diagnosis of someone's mental health (eg. crazy/not crazy).
If you're a college kid with empty pockets I'm sure the MacBook is fine. If you want to do real work, you need a MacBook Pro.
Define 'real work'. I'm not in IT or multi-media, so most of the time work for me involves email, net access and (much as I hate it) MS Office. A MacBook is more than capable of doing all of those things. I would suggest a vast majority of people who use computers in their line of work would rarely find themselves in situations where the advantages that you mention are actually necessary. Those that do (and that buy Macs) are usually some sort of creative professional, in which case they usually need more screen space than a MBP supplies, partially negating the usefulness of the damn thing...
Don't get me wrong, the MBP is a fine machine, but if you need to do real work you probably don't need one. Most people want them either because they're shiny and nice, or they want to play games on them.
Every company listed literally is falling over themselves to access new markets.
Literally? How does an intangible company literally fall over? I think you might mean figuratively.
Sorry to be a pedant, but people do this all the time now and it's been starting to (figuratively) get my goat. 'Literal' has a specific meaning, and when people start using it when the opposite is the case, it just becomes pointless.
I'm sure someone will say that 'literally' is today being used to simple provide emphasis, which is fine until I want to say that something literally happened and people just think I'm providing emphasis.
NO!
A solid background in statistics is required to launch a bombshell like this. It is likely that these authors have that background.
This idea that all one needs to understand is statistics in order to comment on a scientific discipline is incorrect. Analysis of statistics is important, but in order to draw conclusions from them, one really has to understand the field they are being made in. It is a common issue with economists who tend to view the numbers as the be all and end all without understanding where they have come from and what the greater issues at play around the numbers might be.
Provided the counties that received cable television did so for essentially random reasons, this data is the equivalent of a randomised experimental trial.
That's such an idiotic assumption that it essentially destroys the research on its own. Genuine randomness is incredibly important is selecting participants for any sort of psychological experiment, and I can think of a number of reasons off the top of head why there would be a correlation between the availability of cable TV and incidence of autism.
For example, increased wealth makes cable TV a viable business to set up, but also allows parents to pay to have autistic children treated resulting an increased number of reported cases. Alternately, cable TV may only be launched in areas with a certain level of technological uptake.
There's also a theory that autism rates increase when technologically minded people start gathering together at workplaces (therefore breeding, therefore passing on (and concentrating) their autistic-related genes). There's another potential explanation for the correlation.
This is certainly not a study that psychologists would credit as being worthwhile, which highlights why people should have some idea why they're talking about before dropping bombshells like this.
Um... You are aware that it's stressed multiple times in Snowcrash that only the very elite members of society (well-educated, wealthy, etc) can afford to use the metaverse, right?
I'm not saying that WoW==metaverse, but a) you're trying to dismiss it on grounds that were acknowledged by the original author and b) there's certain parallels that are actually pretty damn close. The structures and methods of interaction (eg. object trading, avatars walking through each other, online meeting places, etc) in WoW would be familiar to someone who read Snowcrash 13 years ago. That's pretty impressive given the state of online communications back then.
My brother-in-law (for want of a better term) doesn't know my phone number or email address, if he needs to reach me, he'll just send mail to my WoW character. It's not quite an alternative reality, but it can serve as an appoximation of a social setting.
With a meritocratically oriented civil service that runs all the way to the top, the leaders of Chinese government tend to be engineers and scientists, whereas we in the democratic USA are stuck with lawyers.
And in China, do they have all the lawyers design bridges and research physics?
Lawyers making laws are not the problem with the US (or other democracies). Idiots pandering to the lowest common denominator and big business seems to be. Not that China's exactly a model of enlightened government...
I've been using it for about three years now, and I've never had an infection on my computer or any of the machines belonging to friends and family that I 'administer'. At one stage I was carrying around burnt CDs with the Blaster removal tool and Avast on them and giving them to people when they complained about the damn thing.
My only gripe is that the small alert notice that lets you know Avast has been updated does not play well with fullscreen 3D apps. Everything stops for about five seconds, then the framerate drops to about 3 FPS while the box moves on and off the screen. Very frustrating when you're in the middle of a fight in World of Warcraft and you get your whole group wiped, but getting own3d in WoW beats getting your box own3d in reality.
Electricity, water, resources that have fixed, continuous costs, that makes sense in the consumer's eye....but software? Music? Digital stuff with practically zero reproduction cost? This is what drives people to piracy...they can't visualize the need for software et al to have continuous fees...it feels like extortion.
While I'm not at all interested in this Urge thing, I disagree on this point.
You seem to be imagining that people will buy a bunch of songs and then stop, just paying the fee without buying new music, which would certainly get most customers offside. But that's not what will happen. People will be charged every month, but people will download new stuff every month. That's where they will get the percieved value out of the service.
Some people don't really care about the having-it-forever thing, and will just view this as a radio where they control what songs get played. (See this comment for an example.) Meanwhile, I'll keep buying vinyl...
While a lot of people (myself included) think that this will have no storyline and be essentially a giant ad for merchandise, there a webcomic series based on DDR which is actually pretty good: The 10K Commotion
Even if you don't like DDR (like me) I suggest checking it out briefly, if only for the distinctive artwork.
PS. I am not affiliated with the comic, DDR, or the secret service. Especially not DDR.
-1 Troll: WAAAAAAAH WE DON'T AGREE
Looks like scientists are shouting down people who disagree with them. Galileo and Einstein would be proud. More mod points wasted. Yawn.
I've got a mod point left. I was going to mod you down, but instead I'll reply.
Your original post, the one modded to -1 Troll, had two statements in it which were pretty much wrong for reasons that other posters have given. (Refer to here and here for the posts). As such, most slashdotters would consider reading your post a waste of their time and so the mods called you a troll.
Then you have a whine about it. Congratulations.
On a somewhat related issue, why do people consider mod points to 'wasted' when they don't do anything but mod? It's not like they could have been used to feed starving children in Africa or anything. There's no limited supply either. If we use them all up, then Slashdot will give people more.
The question now is: Is a computer that will soon be capable of triple booting, running the superior Mac OS X, and having the best form factors in the industry worth $200.00?
I'd pay $300.00 extra for an extra mouse button as well...
Slashdot Mirror
I just had my mod points expire, but the 'exercise left to the reader' line makes this post the best I've read in days.
There isn't one. To save others the trouble, here's the closest thing to a reason they give:
I'm a little surprised they think they can sue just based on a gut feeling and expect to get away with it, but then again, it is Diebold. They seem to get away with just about anything.
From the summary:
They might not live longer but even a tiny survival advantage could result in huge number of extra mosquitoes. And we don't know what the chances are of the malaria parasite adapting to the new 'super-mozzies'. More mosquitoes and a hardier version of malaria? That would be rather bad. I'm not saying the research is without merit, but I'd really want to know what we're getting in for, since a repeat of Australian Cane Toad introduction would kinda suck. A lot.(Pun about mosquitoes and sucking was not intended. Those responsible will face consequences.)
Please, try to keep up with modern Egyptology.
I think that where MD really fell down was that Sony hadn't quite realized that people were ready to start treating their music as a digital resource that could be manipulated by computer. MiniDisc is a format that is based around MD player/recorders functioning as single-use appliances. Most people changed how they thought about music somewhere between 1996-2002, depending on how wired they were. They realized that music formats were digital and that music could be downloaded, stored, and manipulated on computer. MD was a format that didn't allow these functions, and so it was useless. Not a bad format for what it did, but it missed a shift in how people thought about what music did.
As a side note, I think that the same shift is happening with television. It's taken longer to catch on, but now everyone's starting to understand that the episode of Lost they missed doesn't mean they have to beg to borrow a tape off some friend because it's on the internet and can be downloaded if they want to...
In many ways the actual cause of climate change is a moot point. The climate is changing. This is having adverse effects on the world now, and is going to have truly horrific effects on the world in the future. Let's assume that humanity is not the cause. Nonetheless it seems like reducing carbon emissions will help to reduce the global temperature. Why don't we give it a shot? It seems like trying something would be better than sitting on our hands.
Pretty much every report I've come across that considers the issue says that the projected costs of climate change on the economies of major western nations (eg. Australia, the US, Europe) is far greater than the cost of drastically reducing carbon emissions. Seems like it might be a good idea to take a mild risk rather than wait till you're certain that climate change is happening but the sea is lapping around your ankles.
But over the next few years of study there was always a temptation to say "He's looking down, must be major depression. And she must be OCD because she's washed her hands a couple of times today." As someone who studied psych obsessively for quite a while, the two big things I learned were a) statistics and b) to stay out of making anything but the most rudimentary diagnosis of someone's mental health (eg. crazy/not crazy).
Don't get me wrong, the MBP is a fine machine, but if you need to do real work you probably don't need one. Most people want them either because they're shiny and nice, or they want to play games on them.
Sorry to be a pedant, but people do this all the time now and it's been starting to (figuratively) get my goat. 'Literal' has a specific meaning, and when people start using it when the opposite is the case, it just becomes pointless.
I'm sure someone will say that 'literally' is today being used to simple provide emphasis, which is fine until I want to say that something literally happened and people just think I'm providing emphasis.
This idea that all one needs to understand is statistics in order to comment on a scientific discipline is incorrect. Analysis of statistics is important, but in order to draw conclusions from them, one really has to understand the field they are being made in. It is a common issue with economists who tend to view the numbers as the be all and end all without understanding where they have come from and what the greater issues at play around the numbers might be.
That's such an idiotic assumption that it essentially destroys the research on its own. Genuine randomness is incredibly important is selecting participants for any sort of psychological experiment, and I can think of a number of reasons off the top of head why there would be a correlation between the availability of cable TV and incidence of autism.For example, increased wealth makes cable TV a viable business to set up, but also allows parents to pay to have autistic children treated resulting an increased number of reported cases. Alternately, cable TV may only be launched in areas with a certain level of technological uptake.
There's also a theory that autism rates increase when technologically minded people start gathering together at workplaces (therefore breeding, therefore passing on (and concentrating) their autistic-related genes). There's another potential explanation for the correlation.
This is certainly not a study that psychologists would credit as being worthwhile, which highlights why people should have some idea why they're talking about before dropping bombshells like this.
I'm not saying that WoW==metaverse, but a) you're trying to dismiss it on grounds that were acknowledged by the original author and b) there's certain parallels that are actually pretty damn close. The structures and methods of interaction (eg. object trading, avatars walking through each other, online meeting places, etc) in WoW would be familiar to someone who read Snowcrash 13 years ago. That's pretty impressive given the state of online communications back then.
My brother-in-law (for want of a better term) doesn't know my phone number or email address, if he needs to reach me, he'll just send mail to my WoW character. It's not quite an alternative reality, but it can serve as an appoximation of a social setting.
Lawyers making laws are not the problem with the US (or other democracies). Idiots pandering to the lowest common denominator and big business seems to be. Not that China's exactly a model of enlightened government...
I'm sure there's a joke about horse shows here somewhere, too...
Can this pattern of modding-up innane comments stand another iteration?
I'm sorry, but playing Quake at really high framerates does not count as research. He's not fooling anyone.
The business cards which list him as 'Profess0r of Pwnage' probably aren't helping either.
It's also bad when he refers to the undergrads as 'n00bs' during his lectures to them.
I've been using it for about three years now, and I've never had an infection on my computer or any of the machines belonging to friends and family that I 'administer'. At one stage I was carrying around burnt CDs with the Blaster removal tool and Avast on them and giving them to people when they complained about the damn thing.
My only gripe is that the small alert notice that lets you know Avast has been updated does not play well with fullscreen 3D apps. Everything stops for about five seconds, then the framerate drops to about 3 FPS while the box moves on and off the screen. Very frustrating when you're in the middle of a fight in World of Warcraft and you get your whole group wiped, but getting own3d in WoW beats getting your box own3d in reality.
While I'm not at all interested in this Urge thing, I disagree on this point.
You seem to be imagining that people will buy a bunch of songs and then stop, just paying the fee without buying new music, which would certainly get most customers offside. But that's not what will happen. People will be charged every month, but people will download new stuff every month. That's where they will get the percieved value out of the service.
Some people don't really care about the having-it-forever thing, and will just view this as a radio where they control what songs get played. (See this comment for an example.) Meanwhile, I'll keep buying vinyl...
Even if you don't like DDR (like me) I suggest checking it out briefly, if only for the distinctive artwork.
PS. I am not affiliated with the comic, DDR, or the secret service. Especially not DDR.
So... Your first dates end with cops chasing you too, huh?
I've been there and here's a tip: Don't ask for the "extra RAM" unless you're sure you can handle it.
Your original post, the one modded to -1 Troll, had two statements in it which were pretty much wrong for reasons that other posters have given. (Refer to here and here for the posts). As such, most slashdotters would consider reading your post a waste of their time and so the mods called you a troll.
Then you have a whine about it. Congratulations.
On a somewhat related issue, why do people consider mod points to 'wasted' when they don't do anything but mod? It's not like they could have been used to feed starving children in Africa or anything. There's no limited supply either. If we use them all up, then Slashdot will give people more.
I'd pay $300.00 extra for an extra mouse button as well...