Hmm actually the whole thing except the title and summary could be redacted with checksums and published openly as a log of changes with corresponding codes for whom made the changes. This would achieve the purpose of internally tracking all changes, providing public accountability for last minute edits AND proving who was involved in what legislation drafting.
Would be interesting to actually see what our elected reps are doing and whether they are getting the job done or not. OTOH it would also be funny and pathetic to see them game the system by making pointless edits to documents just to get their name in there (though I'm sure this already happens) so their constituents would see that they are working for them.... though they will pay attention to what they are getting in bed with the first time they put in a random edit to some bill that everyone in their state hates;-p
In the end I don't see how this type of tracking system could be bad. Well strike that, it could be a big boondoggle with money thrown all over the place in the name of "Transparent Government" with no real results after 4 years;-p -- that's always a possibility with Government Projects...
If it is an open XML based format then doing a conversion to whatever new format arises should be trivial (maybe not fast, but fairly easy with XSLT). SO better to put it into XML now and worry about what better format may arise later.
XML is just an acronym for Extensible Markup Language. SGML and HTML are subsets along with many other MLs out there. What is important is the Doctype Definition. That is what specifies how the markup is implemented. XML could be anything you want it to be as proven by MSXML.
That being said, XML or a well-defined subset, is a great choice for text documents. It's not the best choice for lots of other structured data but for text that is meant to be human readable in it's raw format, it's great.
I don't see running as a problem. It's not a power problem, it's a reflex problem and this can be solved by using a spring system (two semi-curves held in opposition to each other) in addition to the servos to get them started/stopped. Basically the robot just needs to start slow and build up potential energy in the springs each time it performs a longer controlled fall, that flexes the springs and is redirected forward by the foot/ankle. At least that's how a good long distance runner does it... as little use of stored energy as possible, use reflex energy as much as possible.
A jump is harder and sprinting way off the roadmap. Jumping needs both reflex energy and direct energy (we pump blood into the muscles to augment the reflex energy in them, then release it all at once in a concerted effort, very difficult to orchestrate). Sprinting is like a series of controlled forward jumps, so multiply the complexity several times.
These people are not Apple users... they don't have Macs but they do use iTunes and they have iPods. This is a woman in her 30s, a man in his 40s and a 20 somethiing young woman. I didn't even ask them... they announced it with pride and excitement. I asked one about what they thought of the service plan and price, she said "Doesn't really matter, they're all the same any ways" (plan that is) and didn't even bother to answer about the price.
I think as long as it works and does what Apple claims, people will love it.
I OTOH am an AVID Apple PC user. I love OS X. I don't have an iPod (had a 3G but it was stolen, haven't replaced it) but then again I dont' have an alternate MP3 player either... and I have a phone that works (SonyEricson T610) and does all that I need it to do. I will be waiting for the 2G iPhone that you very much, before I lay out $600 for a new phone/PDA.
What I really want is a Tablet Mac that uses the iPhone multi-touch screen but also takes input from a stylus.
In any case iPhones are well beyond the early adopter market as far as interest goes and will be picked up by anyone who's enjoyed their iPod (milions).
Enjoy the ride and make sure you're switching to a company you can stand to be with for a while. The offers may stop and then you'll be stuck for a while. Sure you're burning some small bridges but it's better to make the move early than to have a company grow to depend on you and then just cut out on them.
This is entirely flawed logic. There is no 'downloadable' font system, true. BUT. You can assign any font you care to use within your CSS and ANYONE who has that font on their system will see the correct font being used. The standard for this is to assign your custom font and follow it with a common font and then a generic font.
This is not a browser problem. It is a copyright and licensing problem. An average font costs $25 - $40 per typeface. If you were to be charged every time someone came to your web page you'd be screwed, regardless of whether such a system was implemented efficiently or not.
I work in OS X and while the Finder as directory browser is good, what I end up using most is saved searches (aka smart folders) and Spotlight. I work with thousands of files on a daily basis as an interactive director (flash, graphics, pdfs, word files, html, php, etc. etc) and being able to search the content of the files for keywords is more important to me than where the file is or what it's name is.
Most importantly the search feature has to work across SMB shares, which spotlight does (if a little slowly compared to local disks). I do run a cron of spotlight indexing on the shared projects directory though so that helps out (it's at least 10 times faster than if I didn't) which took some research to figure out.
The command line tool for this is mdutil as in: sudo mdutil -i on "/Volumes/YourShareName"
This will turn on Spotlight indexing for any volume that is mounted on your system.
Go find one and get into it. Preferably at a big firm or a small one with a big reputation, but anything will help. This shows huge initiative and you'll get some valuable experience in the work environment that other students won't have.
It's an operating system and file manager.... if you spend a lot of time organizing and working with lots of files then the OS/file manager is pretty important. If you spend the majority of your time in an application doing things unrelated to files then you don't really care about the OS as long as it doesn't slow you down and is stable and runs your preferred app.
That's it. Some people will be able to take advantage of OS tools being smarter or easier to use... some people won't.
This is the ultimate argument for any westerner regarding who did what first. "If it's not documented with jargon, it's not valid."
What this really means is that we have a self-maintaining society of elitism in science, math, etc. whereby if you can't describe something in the standard accepted language of the elite practitioners then you can't claim understanding. This is flawed logic at it's finest and does both a disservice to our predecessors and closes the door to science/math/etc on many who simply do not have the time or resources to learn the jargon (terminology, formulaic symbology, etc) of the 'peerage'.
I discovered this logical fallacy when looking at whether there was any real benefit to attending a University or not. What it came down to was this realization: Universities are only good for learning the prevailing jargon of your chosen field of study, networking with future peers and providing access to equipment too expensive for an individual to acquire. Then the internet came along and the first part of that realization became moot. So now all universities are good for is networking and access to cool gadgets....
SO back to the point... just because ancient Muslims did not have the same jargon and symbology for mathematics as we have, does not mean they did not understand it and share their understanding with their peers in a way just as valid for their society. More likely they did have such a language that we could decode and compare with the current status quo BUT it was an even more closely held language which was only passed down within an even more elite group and may have simply been forgotten or lost. Such a language would have been very valuable to the people using it for their livelihood.... think of it as trade secrets.
So more than just a discussion of Muslim geometry and mathematics... this should be a discussion of the inherent societal mistake of not sharing knowledge in an open public forum. Basically, what knowledge the public does not have full access to is in clear and present danger of being lost to society altogether.
AH good old fashion library methodology.... in the old days when books were expensive, people would 'subscribe' to a library and pay membership dues which would be used to purchase new books. Each member would have a quota of books they could borrow for a period of time. These days of course we have public libraries that we all pay for via taxes.
Wikipedia should with this logic, set up as a non-profit library of knowledge and get money from the tax payers. Let people donate still, but let it be tax-deductible.
Why does it seem, with the internet, everything old has to be reinvented? (I know the answer is profit... people see an old business model that can be revived for the internet and think they can pull a fast one on society).
Thieves don't take the time to cut anything. They just break in steal stuff and leave. If you've got a full alarm with cameras etc, you'd need to have a priceless work of art to get the attention of thief who would try to get around your alarm. Any other thief will just look for easier pickings.
This is where a tagging system would make a lot of sense. Websites should be able to be meta-filtered by content type...
Professional Grade Article - does it contain an abnormal number of jargon/professional terms or have a number of equations beyond a threshold level, tag it as a professional article (Use standard algorithms to determine it's popularity and popular authority... leave it up to those who know to determine it's accuracy)
Consumer Grade Article - does it contain few if any jargon/professional terms within the body... is it in the first or third person... what level of grammar is it at?
Commercial Grade Article - how many ads on the page, how many offers... are there price listings or email addresses with the words sales, customer support, etc.
This is just a rough example of what could be done to further meta-filter content by standards that are useful to everyone.
On the results page of such a search engine, each type of content would be given a grading... and an icon or color-coding or whatever...
This type of meta-filter would be difficult to game and to what end? Yet it would be ultimately helpful in providing accurate search results to people looking for information. Some people are doing generic research on a topic, others are looking for info on a product related to a topic, others are looking for professional resources and literature on a topic, others are looking for a service professional to hire.
Go to a finder window or your desktop and hit CMD-F a new search window will open... there you get full power of spotlight in a nice format with multiple search options available. I too dislike the little magnifier icon thingie... so I use full search when I want to search. Full search is also nice cause you can save it when you're done, so you'll never have to write that query again.
And how does a Vacuum work in a vacuum? I'm thinking a giant net might be a better option.... just attach it to the Space Elevator and trawl it out like a shrimp net... Yum, giant radioactive space shrimp.
I don't know about the rest of the states but in California we do have the General and Presidential elections at the same time, which means we vote on district, city and state as well as national... SO there is always at least 2 Congressional seats up for election, often Governor as well, State legislative positions, Judgeships every few years, City officials, State officials (such as Attorney General, etc.) School Boards and then there are the Propositions (laws and taxes we get to vote on) which last year there were 13 of... and this is still typical of a Presidential election year... not just in between years.
A typical ballot has > 4 pages of candidate options for various positions plus the Propositions. It takes 10 minutes just to go through them all even if you already have your mind made up on everything (ie you brought your voters guide with you and have highlighted your choices). Most people take at least 15 while they flip-flop on one or the other that they just aren't sure about.
I'm guessing that people in Iowa don't have the same experience... but I only know what I've had to deal with;-p
Hmrff... shows what you know;-p I've got tons of accessories for products that came out after them. I've got a printer that is 6 years old, a USB drive that is 4 years old, a wireless router that is 4 years old, etc. etc. and the computer I use as the main hub for these accessories, yes they are accessories as they are useless without it,... is 1 year old.
Our elections are on Tuesdays... ??? anyways, we do have local polling stations. There are thousands of them in just this county but since everything is more spread out here they aren't within walking distance (unless you plan on walking 30 minutes to and 30 minutes back) for 90% of the people assigned to a specific one. Regardless it seems that there must be more voters at least in my district and all the districts I have lived in previously, or else we are just really slow about marking our ballots. Would be interesting to compare the ratio of polling places here and there.
I live in Southern California. When I go to the polls (usually on a weekday before work, at lunch or after work - election day is not a national holiday in the US) there are at least 40 people waiting with up to 10 clerks doing documentation and providing help for disabled or elderly voters and 6 - 8 polling booths. I can't even imagine how irritating it must be in Los Angeles or New York where there are > 3 times as many people as where I live ( about 3.1 million in Orange County / 10 million in LA County )
What if you were able to take your time with voting instead of being rushed through a line/queue with 20 people waiting for you to finish when you finally get to the polling station? Maybe an online version could be done at home, at your leisure and in your own time and it could even provide enough reading material to inform a person who had not previously taken the time to research each candidate or issue.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmm actually the whole thing except the title and summary could be redacted with checksums and published openly as a log of changes with corresponding codes for whom made the changes. This would achieve the purpose of internally tracking all changes, providing public accountability for last minute edits AND proving who was involved in what legislation drafting.
;-p
;-p -- that's always a possibility with Government Projects...
Would be interesting to actually see what our elected reps are doing and whether they are getting the job done or not. OTOH it would also be funny and pathetic to see them game the system by making pointless edits to documents just to get their name in there (though I'm sure this already happens) so their constituents would see that they are working for them.... though they will pay attention to what they are getting in bed with the first time they put in a random edit to some bill that everyone in their state hates
In the end I don't see how this type of tracking system could be bad. Well strike that, it could be a big boondoggle with money thrown all over the place in the name of "Transparent Government" with no real results after 4 years
If it is an open XML based format then doing a conversion to whatever new format arises should be trivial (maybe not fast, but fairly easy with XSLT). SO better to put it into XML now and worry about what better format may arise later.
This is good news... why be negative about it?
XML is just an acronym for Extensible Markup Language. SGML and HTML are subsets along with many other MLs out there. What is important is the Doctype Definition. That is what specifies how the markup is implemented. XML could be anything you want it to be as proven by MSXML.
That being said, XML or a well-defined subset, is a great choice for text documents. It's not the best choice for lots of other structured data but for text that is meant to be human readable in it's raw format, it's great.
If you're going to go cornflower... why not periwinkle instead? Cornflower was discontinue by crayola back in the 80s.
I don't see running as a problem. It's not a power problem, it's a reflex problem and this can be solved by using a spring system (two semi-curves held in opposition to each other) in addition to the servos to get them started/stopped. Basically the robot just needs to start slow and build up potential energy in the springs each time it performs a longer controlled fall, that flexes the springs and is redirected forward by the foot/ankle. At least that's how a good long distance runner does it... as little use of stored energy as possible, use reflex energy as much as possible.
A jump is harder and sprinting way off the roadmap. Jumping needs both reflex energy and direct energy (we pump blood into the muscles to augment the reflex energy in them, then release it all at once in a concerted effort, very difficult to orchestrate). Sprinting is like a series of controlled forward jumps, so multiply the complexity several times.
These people are not Apple users... they don't have Macs but they do use iTunes and they have iPods. This is a woman in her 30s, a man in his 40s and a 20 somethiing young woman. I didn't even ask them... they announced it with pride and excitement. I asked one about what they thought of the service plan and price, she said "Doesn't really matter, they're all the same any ways" (plan that is) and didn't even bother to answer about the price.
I think as long as it works and does what Apple claims, people will love it.
I OTOH am an AVID Apple PC user. I love OS X. I don't have an iPod (had a 3G but it was stolen, haven't replaced it) but then again I dont' have an alternate MP3 player either... and I have a phone that works (SonyEricson T610) and does all that I need it to do. I will be waiting for the 2G iPhone that you very much, before I lay out $600 for a new phone/PDA.
What I really want is a Tablet Mac that uses the iPhone multi-touch screen but also takes input from a stylus.
In any case iPhones are well beyond the early adopter market as far as interest goes and will be picked up by anyone who's enjoyed their iPod (milions).
Then it must not be a factor in your case.
Enjoy the ride and make sure you're switching to a company you can stand to be with for a while. The offers may stop and then you'll be stuck for a while. Sure you're burning some small bridges but it's better to make the move early than to have a company grow to depend on you and then just cut out on them.
This is entirely flawed logic. There is no 'downloadable' font system, true. BUT. You can assign any font you care to use within your CSS and ANYONE who has that font on their system will see the correct font being used. The standard for this is to assign your custom font and follow it with a common font and then a generic font.
This is not a browser problem. It is a copyright and licensing problem. An average font costs $25 - $40 per typeface. If you were to be charged every time someone came to your web page you'd be screwed, regardless of whether such a system was implemented efficiently or not.
I work in OS X and while the Finder as directory browser is good, what I end up using most is saved searches (aka smart folders) and Spotlight. I work with thousands of files on a daily basis as an interactive director (flash, graphics, pdfs, word files, html, php, etc. etc) and being able to search the content of the files for keywords is more important to me than where the file is or what it's name is.
k factor/index.php
Most importantly the search feature has to work across SMB shares, which spotlight does (if a little slowly compared to local disks). I do run a cron of spotlight indexing on the shared projects directory though so that helps out (it's at least 10 times faster than if I didn't) which took some research to figure out.
The command line tool for this is mdutil as in: sudo mdutil -i on "/Volumes/YourShareName"
This will turn on Spotlight indexing for any volume that is mounted on your system.
A fairly good article on the subject is here: http://www.macworld.com/2005/07/secrets/augustgee
Go find one and get into it. Preferably at a big firm or a small one with a big reputation, but anything will help. This shows huge initiative and you'll get some valuable experience in the work environment that other students won't have.
It's an operating system and file manager.... if you spend a lot of time organizing and working with lots of files then the OS/file manager is pretty important. If you spend the majority of your time in an application doing things unrelated to files then you don't really care about the OS as long as it doesn't slow you down and is stable and runs your preferred app.
That's it. Some people will be able to take advantage of OS tools being smarter or easier to use... some people won't.
This is the ultimate argument for any westerner regarding who did what first. "If it's not documented with jargon, it's not valid."
What this really means is that we have a self-maintaining society of elitism in science, math, etc. whereby if you can't describe something in the standard accepted language of the elite practitioners then you can't claim understanding. This is flawed logic at it's finest and does both a disservice to our predecessors and closes the door to science/math/etc on many who simply do not have the time or resources to learn the jargon (terminology, formulaic symbology, etc) of the 'peerage'.
I discovered this logical fallacy when looking at whether there was any real benefit to attending a University or not. What it came down to was this realization: Universities are only good for learning the prevailing jargon of your chosen field of study, networking with future peers and providing access to equipment too expensive for an individual to acquire. Then the internet came along and the first part of that realization became moot. So now all universities are good for is networking and access to cool gadgets....
SO back to the point... just because ancient Muslims did not have the same jargon and symbology for mathematics as we have, does not mean they did not understand it and share their understanding with their peers in a way just as valid for their society. More likely they did have such a language that we could decode and compare with the current status quo BUT it was an even more closely held language which was only passed down within an even more elite group and may have simply been forgotten or lost. Such a language would have been very valuable to the people using it for their livelihood.... think of it as trade secrets.
So more than just a discussion of Muslim geometry and mathematics... this should be a discussion of the inherent societal mistake of not sharing knowledge in an open public forum. Basically, what knowledge the public does not have full access to is in clear and present danger of being lost to society altogether.
AH good old fashion library methodology.... in the old days when books were expensive, people would 'subscribe' to a library and pay membership dues which would be used to purchase new books. Each member would have a quota of books they could borrow for a period of time. These days of course we have public libraries that we all pay for via taxes.
Wikipedia should with this logic, set up as a non-profit library of knowledge and get money from the tax payers. Let people donate still, but let it be tax-deductible.
Why does it seem, with the internet, everything old has to be reinvented? (I know the answer is profit... people see an old business model that can be revived for the internet and think they can pull a fast one on society).
re: in full audio: hmmm foiled again... should check my links before posting ;-p
and I would've gotten away with it TOO! If it hadn't been for you meddling kids!!!!!
that's right, in full audio
Thieves don't take the time to cut anything. They just break in steal stuff and leave. If you've got a full alarm with cameras etc, you'd need to have a priceless work of art to get the attention of thief who would try to get around your alarm. Any other thief will just look for easier pickings.
Yep they've got full benefits packages.... and tenure, so they can't get downsized ;-p nothing a woman loves more than a full package.
This is where a tagging system would make a lot of sense. Websites should be able to be meta-filtered by content type...
Professional Grade Article - does it contain an abnormal number of jargon/professional terms or have a number of equations beyond a threshold level, tag it as a professional article (Use standard algorithms to determine it's popularity and popular authority... leave it up to those who know to determine it's accuracy)
Consumer Grade Article - does it contain few if any jargon/professional terms within the body... is it in the first or third person... what level of grammar is it at?
Commercial Grade Article - how many ads on the page, how many offers... are there price listings or email addresses with the words sales, customer support, etc.
This is just a rough example of what could be done to further meta-filter content by standards that are useful to everyone.
On the results page of such a search engine, each type of content would be given a grading... and an icon or color-coding or whatever...
This type of meta-filter would be difficult to game and to what end? Yet it would be ultimately helpful in providing accurate search results to people looking for information. Some people are doing generic research on a topic, others are looking for info on a product related to a topic, others are looking for professional resources and literature on a topic, others are looking for a service professional to hire.
Go to a finder window or your desktop and hit CMD-F a new search window will open... there you get full power of spotlight in a nice format with multiple search options available. I too dislike the little magnifier icon thingie... so I use full search when I want to search. Full search is also nice cause you can save it when you're done, so you'll never have to write that query again.
And how does a Vacuum work in a vacuum? I'm thinking a giant net might be a better option.... just attach it to the Space Elevator and trawl it out like a shrimp net... Yum, giant radioactive space shrimp.
I don't know about the rest of the states but in California we do have the General and Presidential elections at the same time, which means we vote on district, city and state as well as national... SO there is always at least 2 Congressional seats up for election, often Governor as well, State legislative positions, Judgeships every few years, City officials, State officials (such as Attorney General, etc.) School Boards and then there are the Propositions (laws and taxes we get to vote on) which last year there were 13 of... and this is still typical of a Presidential election year... not just in between years.
;-p
A typical ballot has > 4 pages of candidate options for various positions plus the Propositions. It takes 10 minutes just to go through them all even if you already have your mind made up on everything (ie you brought your voters guide with you and have highlighted your choices). Most people take at least 15 while they flip-flop on one or the other that they just aren't sure about.
I'm guessing that people in Iowa don't have the same experience... but I only know what I've had to deal with
Hmrff... shows what you know ;-p I've got tons of accessories for products that came out after them. I've got a printer that is 6 years old, a USB drive that is 4 years old, a wireless router that is 4 years old, etc. etc. and the computer I use as the main hub for these accessories, yes they are accessories as they are useless without it,... is 1 year old.
Our elections are on Tuesdays... ??? anyways, we do have local polling stations. There are thousands of them in just this county but since everything is more spread out here they aren't within walking distance (unless you plan on walking 30 minutes to and 30 minutes back) for 90% of the people assigned to a specific one. Regardless it seems that there must be more voters at least in my district and all the districts I have lived in previously, or else we are just really slow about marking our ballots. Would be interesting to compare the ratio of polling places here and there.
I live in Southern California. When I go to the polls (usually on a weekday before work, at lunch or after work - election day is not a national holiday in the US) there are at least 40 people waiting with up to 10 clerks doing documentation and providing help for disabled or elderly voters and 6 - 8 polling booths. I can't even imagine how irritating it must be in Los Angeles or New York where there are > 3 times as many people as where I live ( about 3.1 million in Orange County / 10 million in LA County )
What if you were able to take your time with voting instead of being rushed through a line/queue with 20 people waiting for you to finish when you finally get to the polling station? Maybe an online version could be done at home, at your leisure and in your own time and it could even provide enough reading material to inform a person who had not previously taken the time to research each candidate or issue.