It's the theory of constitutional interpretation referred to as "originalism" or "original intent", ie trying to figure out what the founders originally intended.
Given that the US had just finished rebelling against its original government, and in the lead up to that the leaders of that rebellion had to publish their written protests and criticisms of the government pseudonymously in order to avoid persecution by that government, it seems pretty clear to a lot of people that the primary intent of the first amendment was to protect political speech.
Exactly! The typical slashdotter isn't even going to be awake before noon, so there will be plenty of time for it to charge in the morning!
Now obviously this wouldn't be an ideal product for the subset that live in the basement, unless their parents are likely to turn the lights on themselves in the morning.
I have no inside knowledge about how things work at Amazon, but i'm pretty sure they don't just pick their "deal of the day" items randomly. There's got to be some kind of selection process, and i suspect that such a process would catch an item that had a lot of complaints about fraud of any kind.
Sarcasm aside, i picked one of those up when Amazon had a sale, and i've been rather amazed. It was an impulse purchase without any prior research done. I figured with both Logitech and Amazon's names attached it couldn't be a complete scam, but i though i'd probably have to be careful to make sure to put it under bright light every so often to keep it charged up or something, or that the signal strength might be a little weak to compensate. Or something anyways, never having to replace the keyboard batteries again just seemed too good to be true, as trivial as that seems.
In actuality the signal strength is fine, better than my wireless mouse certainly, and not once when i've thought to check has it been below full charge despite being kept in our regular living room lighting conditions, which can be pretty dim at times. One of the coolest bonuses is a button you can press to launch a light meter app on your computer, which will tell you the lux level the solar panels are currently being exposed to. It's been great fun to move the keyboard around and vary the lighting conditions to see how the value changes. It really brings home something everyone familiar with SF or photography is intellectually aware of, that the sun delivers a couple more magnitudes of light than we actually need to see comfortably with.
They keyboard is also incredibly light and thin. My only complaints relate solely to the the way some of the keys and their functions are placed/handled, but that's pretty obviously an issue with design choices and nothing to do with the basic hardware. And despite those quibbles it's still leaps and bounds above my previous Microsoft keyboard. (Silly me, when i bought it online as the only wireless keyboard option for my PC package i was putting together i figured "it's just a keyboard, how badly can Microsoft screw it up?")
Of course some people might not like the fact that it's not ergonomically shaped, but i prefer the old fashioned rectangular slabs:)
I wonder if they could make a solar powered mouse to match? You'd have to use curved solar panels that didn't feel too weird while you were actually using the mouse...
I'm waiting for the update to add the menu button back to the bottom row (does that set of buttons have an official name?)
I admit that i haven't actually had the chance to try ICS yet, but since hearing that the menu button was going to be removed i've been keeping track of how often i use it, and it's a lot. I'm not looking forward to figuring out where each app keeps its own menu button when they get updated to the "proper" method for ICS. And from the reviews i've read some people have indeed had issues with that. And certainly the lack of a menu button has been rather aggravating on my Nook Tablet.
I can't even figure out why it got removed. They obviously had enough room for four buttons. I guess i can understand wanting to make the task switch function it's own button rather than holding down on the home button, if you assume that most users are uninformed at least. But they didn't need to ditch two buttons, and of the two that they got rid of i use Menu a lot more than Search.
I'd just belatedly started listening to Kat Bailey's "new" Roleplayers' Realm podcast on GamePro, after she moved there from 1UP's "ATB" podcast. I guess there's still RPGFan's podcast to try and fill that niche, but i hope that she and everyone else at GamePro manage to land on their feet =/
I think you're both exaggerating and misunderstanding the statements and claims made by the patent?
First, in a simplified sense mod points are given to every user. You can lose the right to get mod points by being enough of an ass, but in general mod points are available to all.
Second, they are not trying to steal Slashdot's mod system by lying in a patent, they are using Slashdot as an example and then moving on to propose the exact opposite kind of mod system.
In Slashdot everyone gets to moderate (again, presuming you don't act like an ass) and it is hoped that in general the "correct" mods will outweigh the "incorrect" mods. Then there's the meta-mod system, but again anyone who wants to participate (and again, isn't acting like an ass) generally can. And again it's hoped that the "correct" meta-mods will outweigh the "incorrect" meta-mods.
The proposed system presumes there's someone in charge who knows what's "correct." They then get to choose some buddies who they also know have "correct" beliefs. Those buddies then get to choose their own buddies who have "correct" beliefs.
So in short it's the difference between a democratic system and an aristocratic system. In one everyone gets to vote (presuming you haven't recently been convicted of a felony) and ideally the best people/ideas get pushed to the top. As long as the general populace is well educated and not easily misled, it works great. In the other authority descends from the top in a feudal system of vassals. As long as the person at the top is completely fair and 100% infallible, it works great.
So no, what they describe is not "exactly the slashdot modding system", it is in fact almost the direct opposite.
Not 30 years in my case, but i worked on a software project in 2000-2001 that used Macrovision's DRM. It was a pain in the ass to deal with and i argued that we could come up with our own simple CD check in a couple days that would accomplish the only practical goal of DRM, keeping joe six-pack from making twenty copies of the game and handing them out to his friends. (And that notably wouldn't require us to pay Macrovision $1 for every CD we shipped.) I didn't argue it very loudly though because management was clearly set on the Macrovision route. I think GameStop at the time had some policy about requiring PC games to have "real" DRM?
So we went with Macrovision, and because we'd used the very latest version it took the pirates a couple days, maybe even an entire week to crack the game and post it online. Yay?
I worked at EA as a programmer from late 1999 to late 2001, or rather at a company that had been been bought by EA a year or two before i started working there and was gradually brought more and more under the EA umbrella during the entire time i was there.
I was one of eleven programmers on a millon+ unit game and its expansion. Only seven of us were actually working on the game full time, though admittedly we had the benefit(?) of a lot of legacy code from the previous game in the series.
I got paid considerably less than a six figure salary. I don't remember the exact number, but i believe i started out slightly below the median five figure salary and ended up slightly above the median five figure salary by the time i and a lot of other people were laid off, shortly after finishing the expansion.
I don't remember exactly which point we started working 80+ hour weeks, i might be able to dig up some old references in emails and such if i start checking, but i know it was for several months before the release of the main game and at least a month before the release of the expansion.
After getting laid off by EA i then went to work at another game company that wasn't as successful but had pretty much the same practices. After getting laid off by that company (again after finishing up two products in two years) i ended up getting a "boring" job working on business software. Except now i'm an hourly employee and i get paid more than i did in the games industry (though still not six figures) and i've been here for over five years without a single round of layoffs. On the two occasions where overtime has been required it was for _far_ less than 80 hours a week and and it was only for a week or two each time. And wonder of wonders, i got paid time and a half for that overtime! (Funny the correlation there, the company demands less overtime when it means paying me more.)
I'm not assuming one way or the other, i just find it hard to believe that they didn't notice it. Logically i therefore find it easy to believe that they did notice it.
And if I could weight other people's ratings by raters who rate similarly to how I rate, then I might better find crap that I'd like anyway.
Doesn't it theoretically do that already? I know it gives star rating estimations for stuff that we haven't watched yet based on past ratings. I thought that was done via the ratings of people similar to us, but i admit that i haven't really looked into it much.
I agree. Heinlein was the first SF i ever read, and he's one of my favorite authors, but only for his early books and a couple of his middle books. The rest of the middle books and all of the late books are only of interest as a curiosity and a sad example of the decline of an author. "The Door Into Summer", "Double Star", "Citizen of the Galaxy", "The Star Beast", "Tunnel in the Sky", "Starship Troopers", "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", those are where it's at.
I really liked the Talent series, at least the early ones. "The Rowan" was interesting, though more so as a short story before it got fleshed out to a novel to try and merge it with the Pegasus books, but after that the series started seeming a bit formulaic and repetitive to me, particularly in regards to the romance aspect. In general it suffered from the same flaw as the Pern series and which many an author has grappled with in the past. Starting a new series out strong but not knowing how to continue it past a certain point and not knowing when to quit. Sometimes it happens because the publishers want to keep the cash cow going, sometimes it's because the author loves the world too much and doesn't want to give it up, and sometimes it's a bit of both.
Lots of people? I have one friend who has a large pile of cash in a safe. Personally i have a couple thousand in a simple savings account which is effectively the same thing (the "ST Investments" bit in "Cash and ST Investments") That's aside from the couple hundred i get paid in cash every month from my roommate, which sits on my desk and is only slowly transferred to my literal pockets as needed. And when you're speaking of approximately five times their current annual profit it's not pocket change anymore no matter where you keep it. You seem to be confusing the literal interpretation of a phrase with its actual meaning.
From the site you linked: "Google Cash and ST Investments: 42.56B." I don't think "practically every bit of cash you have on hand" equates to "pocket change."
It would never get approved because of that, not after the Motorola deal anyways, but i think it would be a great thing, or at least better than the alternatives. It would keep T-Mobile alive as a GSM alternative to AT&T at least and i don't think vertical integration is all that bad as long as you've got plenty of horizontal competition at all the levels.
But even aside from the regulatory approval, $40 billion is a pretty large chunk of change, even for Google.
T-Mobile has a banging-hot chick in their advertisements.
And i find it hard to believe that when they were filming their latest commercial they didn't notice what it actually sounds like when they're singing "walking in a 4g wonderland."
Okay, i was simplifying a bit on that part, yes. The point is they kill bacteria but not your own human cells. Exactly how is the rest of the post utter nonsense? It's certainly not a college level biology course but as far as i'm aware it's more or less accurate. If you wish to offer a better explanation feel free, just muttering "utter nonsense" and walking away is of no service to anyone.
To elaborate on what the other responder said, antibiotics work because we've discovered chemicals which don't damage human cells but attack specific weaknesses particular to the bacteria we want to kill. That way we can ingest high doses that will affect the bacteria without damaging ourselves.
However because those antibiotics depend on difference in the cell structure between human cells and the bacteria cells the bacteria can effectively evolve to be more like human cells in that regard (in general if not in the specific mechanism) until they are no longer affected by the antibiotic either.
However if you can can deliver substances directly to the cells you want to affect then you can use a chemical which is damaging to practically _all_ life. Like bleach. If you started drinking bleach it would kill you long before you got a high enough concentration in your blood to kill unwanted bacteria. However if you could target it finely enough you could deliver just enough molecules of bleach to the cells you wanted to kill them without having an effect on anything else.
Bacteria can't evolve a defense against that for the same reason they haven't already evolved a defense against it despite the fact that bleach has been used as a cleaner for far longer than antibiotics have been around. It would involve such a massive change to the cell structure that it would effectively be a new form of life adapted to live in bleach and wouldn't find a "normal" environment hospitable any longer.
That's seriously disappointing. It seemed like an easy choice when i thought i could install Cyanogen on either version. What with all the good press B&N has been getting the Nook Tablet was even tempting me away from the Transformer Prime. Well, i'll still wait a bit and see. I'm sure _eventually_ someone will manage to crack it, it just depends on how difficult that process ends up being.
The Simple Touch is great if your primary interest is an eReader. My girlfriend just got one and it works great for that. Using Calibre i was even able to transfer over a little more than half the books she'd already bought from Amazon on her phone. (I'm still looking into how to handle the rest of the books.)
On the other hand if you want a more tablet like experience you should go with the Color or Tablet. Given the marginal price difference i think the Tablet is the best buy. It's probably a tough decision for those who already have a Color to decide whether to upgrade or not, but that doesn't seem to be where you're at. In both cases it seems like "rooting" it is a simple case of installing Cyanogen on a SD card and plugging it in, something i think most people on Slashdot can probably handle.
Here's one review i found though it's focused more on the differences between the Nook Tablet and the Amazon Kindle Fire, and gloomily predicting that the Kindle will overshadow despite the Nook's superior hardware.
Slashdot Mirror
It's the theory of constitutional interpretation referred to as "originalism" or "original intent", ie trying to figure out what the founders originally intended.
Given that the US had just finished rebelling against its original government, and in the lead up to that the leaders of that rebellion had to publish their written protests and criticisms of the government pseudonymously in order to avoid persecution by that government, it seems pretty clear to a lot of people that the primary intent of the first amendment was to protect political speech.
Maybe if _all_ the big players suffer enough then there will actually be some support for real patent reform.
(Not to mention of course that it's nice to see Apple get nailed after all the patent crap they've pulled on others.)
"know your audience!"
Exactly! The typical slashdotter isn't even going to be awake before noon, so there will be plenty of time for it to charge in the morning!
Now obviously this wouldn't be an ideal product for the subset that live in the basement, unless their parents are likely to turn the lights on themselves in the morning.
As long as you're not using your mouse for 100% of the daylight (or interior lighting) hours the idea is feasible.
I have no inside knowledge about how things work at Amazon, but i'm pretty sure they don't just pick their "deal of the day" items randomly. There's got to be some kind of selection process, and i suspect that such a process would catch an item that had a lot of complaints about fraud of any kind.
Sarcasm aside, i picked one of those up when Amazon had a sale, and i've been rather amazed. It was an impulse purchase without any prior research done. I figured with both Logitech and Amazon's names attached it couldn't be a complete scam, but i though i'd probably have to be careful to make sure to put it under bright light every so often to keep it charged up or something, or that the signal strength might be a little weak to compensate. Or something anyways, never having to replace the keyboard batteries again just seemed too good to be true, as trivial as that seems.
:)
In actuality the signal strength is fine, better than my wireless mouse certainly, and not once when i've thought to check has it been below full charge despite being kept in our regular living room lighting conditions, which can be pretty dim at times. One of the coolest bonuses is a button you can press to launch a light meter app on your computer, which will tell you the lux level the solar panels are currently being exposed to. It's been great fun to move the keyboard around and vary the lighting conditions to see how the value changes. It really brings home something everyone familiar with SF or photography is intellectually aware of, that the sun delivers a couple more magnitudes of light than we actually need to see comfortably with.
They keyboard is also incredibly light and thin. My only complaints relate solely to the the way some of the keys and their functions are placed/handled, but that's pretty obviously an issue with design choices and nothing to do with the basic hardware. And despite those quibbles it's still leaps and bounds above my previous Microsoft keyboard. (Silly me, when i bought it online as the only wireless keyboard option for my PC package i was putting together i figured "it's just a keyboard, how badly can Microsoft screw it up?")
Of course some people might not like the fact that it's not ergonomically shaped, but i prefer the old fashioned rectangular slabs
I wonder if they could make a solar powered mouse to match? You'd have to use curved solar panels that didn't feel too weird while you were actually using the mouse...
"Metro apps are a bonus."
A bonus? O RLY?
I'm waiting for the update to add the menu button back to the bottom row (does that set of buttons have an official name?)
I admit that i haven't actually had the chance to try ICS yet, but since hearing that the menu button was going to be removed i've been keeping track of how often i use it, and it's a lot. I'm not looking forward to figuring out where each app keeps its own menu button when they get updated to the "proper" method for ICS. And from the reviews i've read some people have indeed had issues with that. And certainly the lack of a menu button has been rather aggravating on my Nook Tablet.
I can't even figure out why it got removed. They obviously had enough room for four buttons. I guess i can understand wanting to make the task switch function it's own button rather than holding down on the home button, if you assume that most users are uninformed at least. But they didn't need to ditch two buttons, and of the two that they got rid of i use Menu a lot more than Search.
I'd just belatedly started listening to Kat Bailey's "new" Roleplayers' Realm podcast on GamePro, after she moved there from 1UP's "ATB" podcast. I guess there's still RPGFan's podcast to try and fill that niche, but i hope that she and everyone else at GamePro manage to land on their feet =/
I think you're both exaggerating and misunderstanding the statements and claims made by the patent?
First, in a simplified sense mod points are given to every user. You can lose the right to get mod points by being enough of an ass, but in general mod points are available to all.
Second, they are not trying to steal Slashdot's mod system by lying in a patent, they are using Slashdot as an example and then moving on to propose the exact opposite kind of mod system.
In Slashdot everyone gets to moderate (again, presuming you don't act like an ass) and it is hoped that in general the "correct" mods will outweigh the "incorrect" mods. Then there's the meta-mod system, but again anyone who wants to participate (and again, isn't acting like an ass) generally can. And again it's hoped that the "correct" meta-mods will outweigh the "incorrect" meta-mods.
The proposed system presumes there's someone in charge who knows what's "correct." They then get to choose some buddies who they also know have "correct" beliefs. Those buddies then get to choose their own buddies who have "correct" beliefs.
So in short it's the difference between a democratic system and an aristocratic system. In one everyone gets to vote (presuming you haven't recently been convicted of a felony) and ideally the best people/ideas get pushed to the top. As long as the general populace is well educated and not easily misled, it works great. In the other authority descends from the top in a feudal system of vassals. As long as the person at the top is completely fair and 100% infallible, it works great.
So no, what they describe is not "exactly the slashdot modding system", it is in fact almost the direct opposite.
Not 30 years in my case, but i worked on a software project in 2000-2001 that used Macrovision's DRM. It was a pain in the ass to deal with and i argued that we could come up with our own simple CD check in a couple days that would accomplish the only practical goal of DRM, keeping joe six-pack from making twenty copies of the game and handing them out to his friends. (And that notably wouldn't require us to pay Macrovision $1 for every CD we shipped.) I didn't argue it very loudly though because management was clearly set on the Macrovision route. I think GameStop at the time had some policy about requiring PC games to have "real" DRM?
So we went with Macrovision, and because we'd used the very latest version it took the pirates a couple days, maybe even an entire week to crack the game and post it online. Yay?
I worked at EA as a programmer from late 1999 to late 2001, or rather at a company that had been been bought by EA a year or two before i started working there and was gradually brought more and more under the EA umbrella during the entire time i was there.
I was one of eleven programmers on a millon+ unit game and its expansion. Only seven of us were actually working on the game full time, though admittedly we had the benefit(?) of a lot of legacy code from the previous game in the series.
I got paid considerably less than a six figure salary. I don't remember the exact number, but i believe i started out slightly below the median five figure salary and ended up slightly above the median five figure salary by the time i and a lot of other people were laid off, shortly after finishing the expansion.
I don't remember exactly which point we started working 80+ hour weeks, i might be able to dig up some old references in emails and such if i start checking, but i know it was for several months before the release of the main game and at least a month before the release of the expansion.
After getting laid off by EA i then went to work at another game company that wasn't as successful but had pretty much the same practices. After getting laid off by that company (again after finishing up two products in two years) i ended up getting a "boring" job working on business software. Except now i'm an hourly employee and i get paid more than i did in the games industry (though still not six figures) and i've been here for over five years without a single round of layoffs. On the two occasions where overtime has been required it was for _far_ less than 80 hours a week and and it was only for a week or two each time. And wonder of wonders, i got paid time and a half for that overtime! (Funny the correlation there, the company demands less overtime when it means paying me more.)
It was announced just last week that GOG is no longer focusing exclusively on old games.
I'm not assuming one way or the other, i just find it hard to believe that they didn't notice it. Logically i therefore find it easy to believe that they did notice it.
And if I could weight other people's ratings by raters who rate similarly to how I rate, then I might better find crap that I'd like anyway.
Doesn't it theoretically do that already? I know it gives star rating estimations for stuff that we haven't watched yet based on past ratings. I thought that was done via the ratings of people similar to us, but i admit that i haven't really looked into it much.
I agree. Heinlein was the first SF i ever read, and he's one of my favorite authors, but only for his early books and a couple of his middle books. The rest of the middle books and all of the late books are only of interest as a curiosity and a sad example of the decline of an author. "The Door Into Summer", "Double Star", "Citizen of the Galaxy", "The Star Beast", "Tunnel in the Sky", "Starship Troopers", "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", those are where it's at.
I really liked the Talent series, at least the early ones. "The Rowan" was interesting, though more so as a short story before it got fleshed out to a novel to try and merge it with the Pegasus books, but after that the series started seeming a bit formulaic and repetitive to me, particularly in regards to the romance aspect. In general it suffered from the same flaw as the Pern series and which many an author has grappled with in the past. Starting a new series out strong but not knowing how to continue it past a certain point and not knowing when to quit. Sometimes it happens because the publishers want to keep the cash cow going, sometimes it's because the author loves the world too much and doesn't want to give it up, and sometimes it's a bit of both.
Lots of people? I have one friend who has a large pile of cash in a safe. Personally i have a couple thousand in a simple savings account which is effectively the same thing (the "ST Investments" bit in "Cash and ST Investments") That's aside from the couple hundred i get paid in cash every month from my roommate, which sits on my desk and is only slowly transferred to my literal pockets as needed. And when you're speaking of approximately five times their current annual profit it's not pocket change anymore no matter where you keep it. You seem to be confusing the literal interpretation of a phrase with its actual meaning.
From the site you linked: "Google Cash and ST Investments: 42.56B." I don't think "practically every bit of cash you have on hand" equates to "pocket change."
It would never get approved because of that, not after the Motorola deal anyways, but i think it would be a great thing, or at least better than the alternatives. It would keep T-Mobile alive as a GSM alternative to AT&T at least and i don't think vertical integration is all that bad as long as you've got plenty of horizontal competition at all the levels.
But even aside from the regulatory approval, $40 billion is a pretty large chunk of change, even for Google.
T-Mobile has a banging-hot chick in their advertisements.
And i find it hard to believe that when they were filming their latest commercial they didn't notice what it actually sounds like when they're singing "walking in a 4g wonderland."
Okay, i was simplifying a bit on that part, yes. The point is they kill bacteria but not your own human cells. Exactly how is the rest of the post utter nonsense? It's certainly not a college level biology course but as far as i'm aware it's more or less accurate. If you wish to offer a better explanation feel free, just muttering "utter nonsense" and walking away is of no service to anyone.
To elaborate on what the other responder said, antibiotics work because we've discovered chemicals which don't damage human cells but attack specific weaknesses particular to the bacteria we want to kill. That way we can ingest high doses that will affect the bacteria without damaging ourselves.
However because those antibiotics depend on difference in the cell structure between human cells and the bacteria cells the bacteria can effectively evolve to be more like human cells in that regard (in general if not in the specific mechanism) until they are no longer affected by the antibiotic either.
However if you can can deliver substances directly to the cells you want to affect then you can use a chemical which is damaging to practically _all_ life. Like bleach. If you started drinking bleach it would kill you long before you got a high enough concentration in your blood to kill unwanted bacteria. However if you could target it finely enough you could deliver just enough molecules of bleach to the cells you wanted to kill them without having an effect on anything else.
Bacteria can't evolve a defense against that for the same reason they haven't already evolved a defense against it despite the fact that bleach has been used as a cleaner for far longer than antibiotics have been around. It would involve such a massive change to the cell structure that it would effectively be a new form of life adapted to live in bleach and wouldn't find a "normal" environment hospitable any longer.
That's seriously disappointing. It seemed like an easy choice when i thought i could install Cyanogen on either version. What with all the good press B&N has been getting the Nook Tablet was even tempting me away from the Transformer Prime. Well, i'll still wait a bit and see. I'm sure _eventually_ someone will manage to crack it, it just depends on how difficult that process ends up being.
The Simple Touch is great if your primary interest is an eReader. My girlfriend just got one and it works great for that. Using Calibre i was even able to transfer over a little more than half the books she'd already bought from Amazon on her phone. (I'm still looking into how to handle the rest of the books.)
On the other hand if you want a more tablet like experience you should go with the Color or Tablet. Given the marginal price difference i think the Tablet is the best buy. It's probably a tough decision for those who already have a Color to decide whether to upgrade or not, but that doesn't seem to be where you're at. In both cases it seems like "rooting" it is a simple case of installing Cyanogen on a SD card and plugging it in, something i think most people on Slashdot can probably handle.
Here's one review i found though it's focused more on the differences between the Nook Tablet and the Amazon Kindle Fire, and gloomily predicting that the Kindle will overshadow despite the Nook's superior hardware.