There's no strictly rational reason why a person born without a functioning higher brain should have more rights than a German Shepherd; that they do is mostly a testament to our emotional attachment to members of our own species.
for the vast majority of human history, most people who couldn't pull their own weight were left behind to keep the tigers busy.
The whole idea of taking care of humans (women, children, disabled, elderly, etc), animales, etc is an invention enabled by a materially & culturally rich society. Look at the world today, what have you got? Subtract money and cultural progress, if you're not able-bodied and the right race/sex, you're fscked.
It was deceptive marketing. They called the bad place Greenland to send suckers there, and the good place Iceland to keep the babes & hot springs all to themselves.
If Zune sales are falling off now, right before Xmas, few really want it. If sales were down after the Xmas rush it would have less to do with the product's appeal. Or am I stating the obvious?
I live in Chicago, where it gets cold in the winter. And some people live in places like Canada, Finland, Russia. How good are the batteries going to work when it's -5C? "Take the bus"???
Phase-array optics, implemented in a coating several nanometers deep on the inside surface of the lenses, will in theory be able to display virtual images at a comfortable viewing distance.
See more here
As an independent artist with 5 CD's on itunes, I find it irritating that itunes pushes the top pop artists with front page placement, and those on a label are easily found by browsing a category & new releases.
If you're an indie, yes, you're on itunes but you're invisible without explicit searching... even deep linking is a pain due to the proprietary nature of the itunes client. Browse the categories, you're nowhere to be found.
Have I made a few dollars from ITMS? Yes, I have. Is it cool to be on ITMS? Yes, it's cool. But the lack of browsing or even a ghost of a shot at premium placement is a disappointment.
The fact is that Microsoft should be big enough player to dictate to the RIAA how things are going to be rather than the other way around. Even Apple, substantially smaller, bullied them effectively.
Bullying? The labels are making more off itunes than Apple is. I think Jobs found a workable arrangement that attracts customers, pays the labels, and manages to not lose Apple much money. If the labels made a bigger cut of the same amount Apple would lose more. If Apple jacked up the prices to appease the greedy labels it would probably drive customers away, encourage more p2p, and the labels would end up getting a lot less.
Back in 1990 I did an article called 'The Companion: A Very Personal Computer' for a book on nanotechnology. Using mass storage with roughly the storage density of DNA the 'ultimate convergent device' I envisioned kept 1,000,000 TB in a cubic millimeter. If you can record bits on electron spins then of course your density can go much higher.
The very first PC's had only a boot-loader OS. Then DOS's were included, then some applications were bundled, and free demo's of software. Now gigabytes of free junk clog our new computers. Who's to say that in 20 years Sony won't give away its entire catalog to entice hardware sales?
You'd think the FBI would be a prime customer for something like this, but apparently keeping a huge backlog of documents to translate and a staff that's too small to handle it is more important to the mechanics of their bureaucracy.
The point being, if this tech works, great, but will it be used?
It's possible that this tech won't go anywhere, but think of where the Japanese car market was in the 1960's.. There had some pretty clunky things at first but they kept at it and won the world over.
Bullying in particular sort of needs a belief that no one's watching in order for it to happen.
In "The Day The Earth Stood Still," an advanced society turned their policing over to robots who kicked into high gear when they saw agression.
The world's always a better place when people aren't worrying about aggression.
I didn't buy my wife a diamond. I work my butt off trying to do everything else right but I didn't get a rock. Conflict diamonds aside, Debeers and all the slick emotional manipulation nauseates me. Screw 'em. I did other things with my money.
The synthetic diamond business is interesting but they have a long way to go... they could potentially be selling for hundreds of dollars a kilo or less. As time goes by it seems like more players are entering the market.
In the next 50-100 years, with advances in biology, nanotechnology, and the like, our descendents will see far bigger leaps than 'pretty people/ugly people'. We will re-engineer ourselves utterly, down to our very molecules.
Hard disk. All drives are "hard" A floppy disk drive (FDD) drives a disk that's flexible, though the drive is hard. A hard disk drive (HDD) drives a disk that's hard.
I know, I know, there are no floppy drives anymore, but some of us still remember. The term "hard drive" didn't exist before the 90's when everybody got a PC for home & work.
With the future of the FBI at stake, learning of the project's failure at this late stage means that Mr Azmi failed utterly in his job. What was this dude doing a year ago, six months ago? Playing Solitaire?
Next time I watch 24 and see agents watching satellite images in realtime on their cellphones, I'll guffaw a little louder and think of this FBI thing.
Mr. Azmi should get the boot for this, and Mr Mueller a ten-hour-a-day, weeklong grilling on c-span, before being demoted to tape archivist. No, make that toilet cleaner.
No, this is too rational and lacking in brutal spectacle and bloodshed. The terrorist's bloodthirst must be fed and their acts must be perceived as daring. The outcome must be humiliating to the opponent. Anything else is simply not macho enough.
Mr Thurrot writes about using the Vista OS every day to do necessary tasks.
Dude, this is a beta version. Put it on its own hard disk, play with it and do nothing of importance on it. Do your daily work on an stable OS release.
I can see where this would be a big help in investigations, journalistic, scientific, criminal, etc. Reconstructing a 3-D scene would help understand where people and things were when something happened.
Today there are mic's placed in some high crime areas that identify a gunshot and where it happened. Cameras placed at strategic locations would complete the "picture".
Slashdot Mirror
There's no strictly rational reason why a person born without a functioning higher brain should have more rights than a German Shepherd; that they do is mostly a testament to our emotional attachment to members of our own species.
for the vast majority of human history, most people who couldn't pull their own weight were left behind to keep the tigers busy.
The whole idea of taking care of humans (women, children, disabled, elderly, etc), animales, etc is an invention enabled by a materially & culturally rich society. Look at the world today, what have you got? Subtract money and cultural progress, if you're not able-bodied and the right race/sex, you're fscked.
It was deceptive marketing.
They called the bad place Greenland to send suckers there, and the good place Iceland to keep the babes & hot springs all to themselves.
If Zune sales are falling off now, right before Xmas, few really want it. If sales were down after the Xmas rush it would have less to do with the product's appeal. Or am I stating the obvious?
I live in Chicago, where it gets cold in the winter. And some people live in places like Canada, Finland, Russia. How good are the batteries going to work when it's -5C? "Take the bus"???
Phase-array optics, implemented in a coating several nanometers deep on the inside surface of the lenses, will in theory be able to display virtual images at a comfortable viewing distance. See more here
As an independent artist with 5 CD's on itunes, I find it irritating that itunes pushes the top pop artists with front page placement, and those on a label are easily found by browsing a category & new releases.
If you're an indie, yes, you're on itunes but you're invisible without explicit searching... even deep linking is a pain due to the proprietary nature of the itunes client. Browse the categories, you're nowhere to be found.
Have I made a few dollars from ITMS? Yes, I have. Is it cool to be on ITMS? Yes, it's cool. But the lack of browsing or even a ghost of a shot at premium placement is a disappointment.
Consider, for instance, the Zune. Beyond being a potential flop,
I think if it fails, it will because they waited way too long till the market was saturated
poor products are irrelevant
market saturation is irrelevant
you will be assimilated
you will learn to service us
The fact is that Microsoft should be big enough player to dictate to the RIAA how things are going to be rather than the other way around. Even Apple, substantially smaller, bullied them effectively.
Bullying? The labels are making more off itunes than Apple is. I think Jobs found a workable arrangement that attracts customers, pays the labels, and manages to not lose Apple much money. If the labels made a bigger cut of the same amount Apple would lose more. If Apple jacked up the prices to appease the greedy labels it would probably drive customers away, encourage more p2p, and the labels would end up getting a lot less.
Back in 1990 I did an article called 'The Companion: A Very Personal Computer' for a book on nanotechnology. Using mass storage with roughly the storage density of DNA the 'ultimate convergent device' I envisioned kept 1,000,000 TB in a cubic millimeter. If you can record bits on electron spins then of course your density can go much higher.
The very first PC's had only a boot-loader OS. Then DOS's were included, then some applications were bundled, and free demo's of software. Now gigabytes of free junk clog our new computers. Who's to say that in 20 years Sony won't give away its entire catalog to entice hardware sales?
You'd think the FBI would be a prime customer for something like this, but apparently keeping a huge backlog of documents to translate and a staff that's too small to handle it is more important to the mechanics of their bureaucracy.
The point being, if this tech works, great, but will it be used?
It's possible that this tech won't go anywhere, but think of where the Japanese car market was in the 1960's.. There had some pretty clunky things at first but they kept at it and won the world over.
Bullying in particular sort of needs a belief that no one's watching in order for it to happen.
In "The Day The Earth Stood Still," an advanced society turned their policing over to robots who kicked into high gear when they saw agression.
The world's always a better place when people aren't worrying about aggression.
I didn't buy my wife a diamond. I work my butt off trying to do everything else right but I didn't get a rock. Conflict diamonds aside, Debeers and all the slick emotional manipulation nauseates me. Screw 'em. I did other things with my money.
The synthetic diamond business is interesting but they have a long way to go... they could potentially be selling for hundreds of dollars a kilo or less. As time goes by it seems like more players are entering the market.
In the next 50-100 years, with advances in biology, nanotechnology, and the like, our descendents will see far bigger leaps than 'pretty people/ugly people'. We will re-engineer ourselves utterly, down to our very molecules.
Richter 4.0 as corresponding to 1kT and 4.5 as 5.1kT (richter is a log scale)
If this is true, what's the odds that they just blew up a big stockpile of TNT as a ruse?
it's about time someone named an institute after Clay Aiken
Reprogram ATM's to tabulate votes.
Problem solved.
Hard disk.
All drives are "hard"
A floppy disk drive (FDD) drives a disk that's flexible, though the drive is hard.
A hard disk drive (HDD) drives a disk that's hard.
I know, I know, there are no floppy drives anymore, but some of us still remember.
The term "hard drive" didn't exist before the 90's when everybody got a PC for home & work.
The worst part is, M$ is counting on & exploiting the ignorance of the average PC user for a buck - again. Most folks will think this is a good idea.
With the future of the FBI at stake, learning of the project's failure at this late stage means that Mr Azmi failed utterly in his job. What was this dude doing a year ago, six months ago? Playing Solitaire?
Next time I watch 24 and see agents watching satellite images in realtime on their cellphones, I'll guffaw a little louder and think of this FBI thing.
Mr. Azmi should get the boot for this, and Mr Mueller a ten-hour-a-day, weeklong grilling on c-span, before being demoted to tape archivist. No, make that toilet cleaner.
No, this is too rational and lacking in brutal spectacle and bloodshed. The terrorist's bloodthirst must be fed and their acts must be perceived as daring. The outcome must be humiliating to the opponent. Anything else is simply not macho enough.
Mr Thurrot writes about using the Vista OS every day to do necessary tasks.
Dude, this is a beta version. Put it on its own hard disk, play with it and do nothing of importance on it. Do your daily work on an stable OS release.
Another application for software like this - doing reconstruction work on historical/artistic/cultural sites.
Or take a picture of anyone you really fancy and find out where they live....
I can see where this would be a big help in investigations, journalistic, scientific, criminal, etc. Reconstructing a 3-D scene would help understand where people and things were when something happened.
Today there are mic's placed in some high crime areas that identify a gunshot and where it happened. Cameras placed at strategic locations would complete the "picture".