Actually, isn't most recycled paper pre-consumer? Like cut ends and thing that wouldn't have ink on them and don't need to be recollected? If you look at the back of recycled paper items they usually list the post-consumer percentage and it's usually in the range of like 1-5%.
Actually, I think the same thing. Not only because it is stupid to spend money on value-less rocks for no reason, but also because I just find them really neat. Not to mention, we're both engineers, so I find something really...I dunno...symbolic about it. Wave of the future, power of technology, all that jazz.
I don't know about your university, but where I went, university professors had three components to there job - research, teaching and administrative. Granted, the administrative was something like 10% of the tenure evaluations, so clearly it wasn't the most important, but it was there. Every faculty member sat on the department faculty council, and every department had representatives to senate etc. Prof email addresses are used for every part of their job, not academic alone. They may be annoyed at having to deal with it, but work email was the correct place to send it.
Mostly for transient sounds. Ex, if there's a bird chip in 1 clip, it might not be in others. Ditto for stuff like clinking dinnerwear, footsteps, person laughing etc. etc. The base sounds are constant, it's the stuff on top that's a pain.
Oh, agreed...it's totally a business move for them, wrapped in the veneer of a good deed. On the other hand...if this is implemented correctly, it could be amazing. I say this as a researcher who has spent more time than necessary gathering data sets. Just as a quick (and painful) example...during my Master's degree, I was doing CI research for a hearing aid application. Without boring you with the details, the idea was to create a system to classify the audio background environment so it could be more effectively removed. For this, I needed a large set of ~1-sec clips of background noise with as much variety as possible. I didn't want to use what we normally call a "toy" data set because this was intended to be actually used. So I wanted variety, but I also wanted combo sounds - it's easy to tell a highway from a room of people, but what about a cityscape, with cars AND people AND a bah-zillion other sounds. Anyway, the result was that I spent MONTHS in a sound booth splitting audio files and listening to EACH 1-sec clip individually and recording exactly what sounds were in the clip and then parsing audio features. It SUCKED.
Anyway, now that it's done, putting something like this on Amazon would be great (if I had the rights to the original clips). Not only would it save someone else the work, but researchers would be using a real, tough data set. Plus, it might get corrections (no way I didn't make at least a few mistakes in all those clips), and it might get added to (there are so many different sounds in this world, no way is this data set complete). Alternately, if I was a researcher now and I got my hands on this, it would save months of work, months of pay to an RA, a semester's tuition, even I did have to pay for cycles.
On the other hand, I think there are a few places that do this, possibly for free. I want to say...Wolfram maybe? Plus, there's specialty ones. I think there's a big facial recognition set etc.
I'm not so sure it's divided evenly...there seem to be lumps and valleys depending on the person. I'm not even talking gender-wise here. It just seems like some people click with programing, and some just don't. I think pretty much everyone's met people who just doesn't seem to get it no matter how much you try. On the other side, there's those people who just seem to understand. You gear up to give the big explanation and two seconds in you see the "click" and they've got it. Although I agree that there's probably a lot of naturals who are untapped.
Quick anecdote (with all the anectdote!=data disclaimers attached).... I used to TA a comp sci service course for arts students. To be honest, we were cruel to these kids. They came in expecting word 101 and ended up learning everything from HTML and CSS to binary addressing and unix sytems, with an optional programming assignment at the end. Anyway, this one student comes in the first day and I've asked them to reboot and she doesn't know where the reboot button is - she asks if it's the one in the middle of the mouse. As a TA, this terrifies me somewhat because I'm pretty sure this is going to be a disaster. How wrong I was....by the end of the term, she's in my office asking about something for the optional programming assignment, blazing through the unix system like she's lived in it for her whole life and tosses off the tidbit that she didn't have to worry about file transfer from Windows 'cause she wrote the assignment in VI. To say this girl was a natural is an understatement to say the least. But she never considered CS, probably because at the beginning of the term she hadn't even reset her own computer.
Ok, don't consider that story some grand comment on gender and computer knowledge - I had just as many students who dropped out because the word assignment went so badly. But I do think there are naturals, and they're clearly not all working in the area right now. So...my long post in a nutshell....I agree.
Are you seriously attempting to make a generalization about an entire half of the population based on a group of your friends? Hell, half my male friends look at me like I'm a nutjob when I talk to them about computers. It doesn't mean males as a whole aren't interested.
Besides, there's no one forcing anything here. I mean, there's a shortage of male teachers in Ontario with definite programs to reduce the gender gap...was anyone here forced into being a teacher? I mean, it's theoretically possible, but I hardly think it's a normal scenario. You make it sound like the CS mafia is going around forcing girls to program at gunpoint. In reality, most programs are based around the carrot than the stick.
I'm not so sure that's a gender-based problem. I've seen more than my fair share of male students as well who clearly were not interested in actually being in computer engineering and suffered from the same problems. I'm not sure apathy is tied to gender in any discipline.
Absolutely. I missed that by about 4 years, but my school decided to implement a gradual 10-hours per year lead-in. So to graduate, I had to do 10 hours in my last year. Theoretically, this wasn't a problem - I had been volunteering for probably about 10 hours a week since grade 7. Any one of the people there would have signed the form for me, but I flat-out refused to get it signed because it made me feel cheap and dirty, like I was only there to fill some quota.
On the last day to get the forms in, they called me in for a meeting with the guidance councilor and the principal to basically tell me that if I didn't have the form that they would raise hell about me graduating. Of course, I didn't and they gave me 1 day to get it signed or I'd have to skip grad. So I asked who was qualified to sign the form and they rattled off a list of people include...aha...the president of the youth group or a member of the board of directors. Since I fit the bill myself for both of those things, I signed it right there on the spot and left the room with the two of them standing there gaping at me. They never mentioned it again.
Does it have to be one or the other? Can't things be good for both? We've clearly seen there's such a thing as a lose-lose situation for countries, what about a win-win? Not only that, but what about measures that are good for people in general?
Like it or not the US does have a lot of power and sway over other countries. If there's something the president feels strongly about, how long until the rest of the world is also encouraged to go along? US citizen or no, it's better to have someone you like in Washington, both because you hope they will do well for the US and because it is also likely to be of a benefit to your own country not to fundamentally disagree with US policy and to have to oppose them.
I'm not sure I agree that they should get the money back. Depending on how they set the requirements for these machines, the companies may have delivered exactly what was paid for. Not that it wouldn't have been nice of these companies to think a little and make some suggestions, but I'm not sure that entitles them to their money back. Just imagine if every customer who came to you with some ridiculous set of requirements and no desire to change was entitled to get their money back when they realized that what they ordered wasn't ever going to work.
Actually, I thought his most recent work was on "In my life", trying to figure out who wrote it. I just think maybe he doesn't have too many results for that research yet, but people were interested, so they started talking about his old stuff too.
OK now there...how does wandering a network translate into no ethics? Especially if it's some place I should logically be able to wander, like work (or school in this kid's case). Never had someone share a file with you and forget whether it's in folderA or folderB? Never got the login popup and tried your username because you figured it was an external security measure? I mean, do I really have to call up IT every time I want to read something and make sure they REALLY meant it when they opened the folder up? I should hope not. It's a different type of situation than a physical space.
That's all fine and good, but analogies can really only take you so far. The fact remains that physical space and a network are not the same thing. We can argue for days about the laws surrounding pushing open doors, but they don't necessarily apply. Look, I'm not a lawyer, and I don't know anything really about B&E vs. tresspass or how that relates to a computer. But common sense-wise...this seems like a dangerous precedent. Personally, I'm not in the habit of going about pushing open or trying my key in unlocked doors. But, I am in the habit of opening folders on shares, (especially if I can't remember where something is). If it requests a password, I'll try the one I have, with the idea that if my password works, I have permission to open the folder. It seems like something totally different. I'd hate to go to jail because I can't remember where the damn install guide is and my password opens some folder that was meant to be private but that my password opens.
Not to compare cats and girlfriends, but my cat gets cranky about it too. He gets fed at a specific time at night, so he doesn't start whining too early in the morning. Now that it gets darker way earlier, he starts bugging me to feed him just about 1h earlier than normal. It would be great if animals could tell time.
Re:blah the emporer has his new clothes on again.
on
The Walking House
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I know you're joking, but ever tried to sail into a marina in a 25' boat? Not as easy as it sounds. Some of the marinas around us don't even allow you to come in with sails up because you can smack into the docks too easily. Not that it's impossible to do with a motor, just somewhat less risky.
Yes, but finding an image in the training set is different than finding a person whose image is in the data set. Depending on how the distance is judged, 2 images of the same person might not be the closest neighbours, even if it intuitively seems like they should. That's the problem with face recognition - if you were guaranteed to match to your image every time, it would be a trivial problem.
I'm not certain I agree that the software itself is what should be released. Software is just a tool, the algorithm is really what is important. There's no reason it would be different for software than any other process. Chemistry papers aren't released with samples, the description of the process is sufficient. Similarly, describing the algorithm used to write a piece of software should be sufficient, provided the detail is enough that the process can be repeated. In fact, most of the time, the software itself is insufficient to repeat the process, it's the input parameters for the algorithm that are most important. I mean, releasing the software is nice, it's a bonus, but I wouldn't say it's key to having acceptable results. There's a certain amount of trust implicit in the academic world - we trust people to do what they said they did. I think the same trust should be applied to computer researchers, provided they meet the same standards for reporting.
Agreed, sir. I, too, am no stranger to the everyday non-angry swear. I mean, I'm not a crazy person, but I'm one of those people who's...well...not good around children. Anyway, I found that you can often tell when I'm really upset by the number of swear words that are strung together into one giant swear combination. Get me REALLY mad, and I'm like an eloquent swear-poet, stringing together phrases that no one would ever think would go together, and yet they do.
My bank calls every once in a while to offer new crap I don't need. It's a person on the other end, but an auto dialer. Unfortunately, they are not well connected, and if the person picks up, but there's no telemarketer to talk to you, it hangs up. Well, I guess the auto dialer went a bit nuts, or everyone quit or something 'cause for like 3 straight weeks I'd get multiple calls a day (started at about 3, ended up being about 8) where it was a hang up on the other end. Finally hit up the reverse lookup, found out who it was and went it to the bank. Told a teller, told the customer service rep, emailed the people on the website and nothing. It finally took a really nasty email to one of their corporate drones threatening to move all my accounts and report them before the calls stopped. Man, in those few weeks, what I wouldn't have given for once nice recorded message that I could hang up on and be done with....
If that is really the case, and you're not just accidentally ingesting more calories or burning fewer than you think, then you might be one of these lucky bacteria holders.
Of course the article makes it sound like every overweight person could just blame bacteria, but in fact it's rare. But you never know, right?
Even with all its problems, I'd have given just about anything to have the table support in LaTeX that they have in Word. Latex has no wrap support whatsoever. I guess the theory was to give the user absolute control over the look of the table. But since it's not wysiwyg, it's a crap shoot whether or not your table is going to even fit on the page. And if you're off by a bit, you have to go in and re-edit each row by hand. Best part? If your table is too big, it will just go right ahead and write that thing directly off the page. Like that helps me. Splitting tables between pages? Be prepared for hours of excruciating detail work. Even the packages that claim to support that are dubius at best. Thanks supertabular, I really don't need two pages of tables with completely different column sizing. And editing those things? It's just lines and lines of data and \'s and & symbols. It's like reading ancient code.
Now don't get me wrong - in many ways I'd be very lost without latex - the ability to just dump writing into a style sheet is a godsend. But spending frantic hours fiddling with sizing did not exactly make my thesis writing less stressful.
If we're talking science here, I would like to see the SCIENTIFIC evidence that men are better than women at science. You can't believe in statistics. Either the numbers support it or they don't. Can you point to a study? I do hear this claim a lot, so I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying that if you're going to make a claim and call it statistically based, show the numbers.
Apparantly you've never had the police respond to a break-in at your house. Around our area, they couldn't possibly care less. When our break-in happened, it was the middle of the day and there was a half hour between when my roommate left and when the police were called because someone saw the broken window. My roommate saw three kids out front before she left. Kids were spotted running out back like 20 mins later. These were not the slickest criminals either - we gave the police the soda bottle and various other items that they LEFT in our house (reverse theft I guess) and an address. Hell, they even manged to CASH a cheque they took and even that netted no resonse. Hours spent on the case to date? Zero. People questioned? Zero. Items recovered? Zero.
Now, I'm not saying that a laptop would get a better response, but the main problem we had was that I was not able to prove that the total amount taken was >$1000, and hence it was not considered grand theft. I can SAY that my guitar was woth x-hundred dollars, but until you hit that magic number and it's PROVEABLE, no one cares. I think a laptop would be over that amount almost by default.
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Actually, isn't most recycled paper pre-consumer? Like cut ends and thing that wouldn't have ink on them and don't need to be recollected? If you look at the back of recycled paper items they usually list the post-consumer percentage and it's usually in the range of like 1-5%.
Actually, I think the same thing. Not only because it is stupid to spend money on value-less rocks for no reason, but also because I just find them really neat. Not to mention, we're both engineers, so I find something really...I dunno...symbolic about it. Wave of the future, power of technology, all that jazz.
I don't know about your university, but where I went, university professors had three components to there job - research, teaching and administrative. Granted, the administrative was something like 10% of the tenure evaluations, so clearly it wasn't the most important, but it was there. Every faculty member sat on the department faculty council, and every department had representatives to senate etc. Prof email addresses are used for every part of their job, not academic alone. They may be annoyed at having to deal with it, but work email was the correct place to send it.
Mostly for transient sounds. Ex, if there's a bird chip in 1 clip, it might not be in others. Ditto for stuff like clinking dinnerwear, footsteps, person laughing etc. etc. The base sounds are constant, it's the stuff on top that's a pain.
Oh, agreed...it's totally a business move for them, wrapped in the veneer of a good deed. On the other hand...if this is implemented correctly, it could be amazing. I say this as a researcher who has spent more time than necessary gathering data sets. Just as a quick (and painful) example...during my Master's degree, I was doing CI research for a hearing aid application. Without boring you with the details, the idea was to create a system to classify the audio background environment so it could be more effectively removed. For this, I needed a large set of ~1-sec clips of background noise with as much variety as possible. I didn't want to use what we normally call a "toy" data set because this was intended to be actually used. So I wanted variety, but I also wanted combo sounds - it's easy to tell a highway from a room of people, but what about a cityscape, with cars AND people AND a bah-zillion other sounds. Anyway, the result was that I spent MONTHS in a sound booth splitting audio files and listening to EACH 1-sec clip individually and recording exactly what sounds were in the clip and then parsing audio features. It SUCKED.
Anyway, now that it's done, putting something like this on Amazon would be great (if I had the rights to the original clips). Not only would it save someone else the work, but researchers would be using a real, tough data set. Plus, it might get corrections (no way I didn't make at least a few mistakes in all those clips), and it might get added to (there are so many different sounds in this world, no way is this data set complete). Alternately, if I was a researcher now and I got my hands on this, it would save months of work, months of pay to an RA, a semester's tuition, even I did have to pay for cycles.
On the other hand, I think there are a few places that do this, possibly for free. I want to say...Wolfram maybe? Plus, there's specialty ones. I think there's a big facial recognition set etc.
I'm not so sure it's divided evenly...there seem to be lumps and valleys depending on the person. I'm not even talking gender-wise here. It just seems like some people click with programing, and some just don't. I think pretty much everyone's met people who just doesn't seem to get it no matter how much you try. On the other side, there's those people who just seem to understand. You gear up to give the big explanation and two seconds in you see the "click" and they've got it. Although I agree that there's probably a lot of naturals who are untapped.
Quick anecdote (with all the anectdote!=data disclaimers attached).... I used to TA a comp sci service course for arts students. To be honest, we were cruel to these kids. They came in expecting word 101 and ended up learning everything from HTML and CSS to binary addressing and unix sytems, with an optional programming assignment at the end. Anyway, this one student comes in the first day and I've asked them to reboot and she doesn't know where the reboot button is - she asks if it's the one in the middle of the mouse. As a TA, this terrifies me somewhat because I'm pretty sure this is going to be a disaster. How wrong I was....by the end of the term, she's in my office asking about something for the optional programming assignment, blazing through the unix system like she's lived in it for her whole life and tosses off the tidbit that she didn't have to worry about file transfer from Windows 'cause she wrote the assignment in VI. To say this girl was a natural is an understatement to say the least. But she never considered CS, probably because at the beginning of the term she hadn't even reset her own computer.
Ok, don't consider that story some grand comment on gender and computer knowledge - I had just as many students who dropped out because the word assignment went so badly. But I do think there are naturals, and they're clearly not all working in the area right now. So...my long post in a nutshell....I agree.
Are you seriously attempting to make a generalization about an entire half of the population based on a group of your friends? Hell, half my male friends look at me like I'm a nutjob when I talk to them about computers. It doesn't mean males as a whole aren't interested.
Besides, there's no one forcing anything here. I mean, there's a shortage of male teachers in Ontario with definite programs to reduce the gender gap...was anyone here forced into being a teacher? I mean, it's theoretically possible, but I hardly think it's a normal scenario. You make it sound like the CS mafia is going around forcing girls to program at gunpoint. In reality, most programs are based around the carrot than the stick.
I'm not so sure that's a gender-based problem. I've seen more than my fair share of male students as well who clearly were not interested in actually being in computer engineering and suffered from the same problems. I'm not sure apathy is tied to gender in any discipline.
Absolutely. I missed that by about 4 years, but my school decided to implement a gradual 10-hours per year lead-in. So to graduate, I had to do 10 hours in my last year. Theoretically, this wasn't a problem - I had been volunteering for probably about 10 hours a week since grade 7. Any one of the people there would have signed the form for me, but I flat-out refused to get it signed because it made me feel cheap and dirty, like I was only there to fill some quota.
On the last day to get the forms in, they called me in for a meeting with the guidance councilor and the principal to basically tell me that if I didn't have the form that they would raise hell about me graduating. Of course, I didn't and they gave me 1 day to get it signed or I'd have to skip grad. So I asked who was qualified to sign the form and they rattled off a list of people include...aha...the president of the youth group or a member of the board of directors. Since I fit the bill myself for both of those things, I signed it right there on the spot and left the room with the two of them standing there gaping at me. They never mentioned it again.
Does it have to be one or the other? Can't things be good for both? We've clearly seen there's such a thing as a lose-lose situation for countries, what about a win-win? Not only that, but what about measures that are good for people in general?
Like it or not the US does have a lot of power and sway over other countries. If there's something the president feels strongly about, how long until the rest of the world is also encouraged to go along? US citizen or no, it's better to have someone you like in Washington, both because you hope they will do well for the US and because it is also likely to be of a benefit to your own country not to fundamentally disagree with US policy and to have to oppose them.
I'm not sure I agree that they should get the money back. Depending on how they set the requirements for these machines, the companies may have delivered exactly what was paid for. Not that it wouldn't have been nice of these companies to think a little and make some suggestions, but I'm not sure that entitles them to their money back. Just imagine if every customer who came to you with some ridiculous set of requirements and no desire to change was entitled to get their money back when they realized that what they ordered wasn't ever going to work.
Actually, I thought his most recent work was on "In my life", trying to figure out who wrote it. I just think maybe he doesn't have too many results for that research yet, but people were interested, so they started talking about his old stuff too.
OK now there...how does wandering a network translate into no ethics? Especially if it's some place I should logically be able to wander, like work (or school in this kid's case). Never had someone share a file with you and forget whether it's in folderA or folderB? Never got the login popup and tried your username because you figured it was an external security measure? I mean, do I really have to call up IT every time I want to read something and make sure they REALLY meant it when they opened the folder up? I should hope not. It's a different type of situation than a physical space.
That's all fine and good, but analogies can really only take you so far. The fact remains that physical space and a network are not the same thing. We can argue for days about the laws surrounding pushing open doors, but they don't necessarily apply. Look, I'm not a lawyer, and I don't know anything really about B&E vs. tresspass or how that relates to a computer. But common sense-wise...this seems like a dangerous precedent. Personally, I'm not in the habit of going about pushing open or trying my key in unlocked doors. But, I am in the habit of opening folders on shares, (especially if I can't remember where something is). If it requests a password, I'll try the one I have, with the idea that if my password works, I have permission to open the folder. It seems like something totally different. I'd hate to go to jail because I can't remember where the damn install guide is and my password opens some folder that was meant to be private but that my password opens.
Not to compare cats and girlfriends, but my cat gets cranky about it too. He gets fed at a specific time at night, so he doesn't start whining too early in the morning. Now that it gets darker way earlier, he starts bugging me to feed him just about 1h earlier than normal. It would be great if animals could tell time.
I know you're joking, but ever tried to sail into a marina in a 25' boat? Not as easy as it sounds. Some of the marinas around us don't even allow you to come in with sails up because you can smack into the docks too easily. Not that it's impossible to do with a motor, just somewhat less risky.
Yes, but finding an image in the training set is different than finding a person whose image is in the data set. Depending on how the distance is judged, 2 images of the same person might not be the closest neighbours, even if it intuitively seems like they should. That's the problem with face recognition - if you were guaranteed to match to your image every time, it would be a trivial problem.
I'm not certain I agree that the software itself is what should be released. Software is just a tool, the algorithm is really what is important. There's no reason it would be different for software than any other process. Chemistry papers aren't released with samples, the description of the process is sufficient. Similarly, describing the algorithm used to write a piece of software should be sufficient, provided the detail is enough that the process can be repeated. In fact, most of the time, the software itself is insufficient to repeat the process, it's the input parameters for the algorithm that are most important. I mean, releasing the software is nice, it's a bonus, but I wouldn't say it's key to having acceptable results. There's a certain amount of trust implicit in the academic world - we trust people to do what they said they did. I think the same trust should be applied to computer researchers, provided they meet the same standards for reporting.
...you tell us, Mr. "anonymous".
Agreed, sir. I, too, am no stranger to the everyday non-angry swear. I mean, I'm not a crazy person, but I'm one of those people who's...well...not good around children. Anyway, I found that you can often tell when I'm really upset by the number of swear words that are strung together into one giant swear combination. Get me REALLY mad, and I'm like an eloquent swear-poet, stringing together phrases that no one would ever think would go together, and yet they do.
My bank calls every once in a while to offer new crap I don't need. It's a person on the other end, but an auto dialer. Unfortunately, they are not well connected, and if the person picks up, but there's no telemarketer to talk to you, it hangs up. Well, I guess the auto dialer went a bit nuts, or everyone quit or something 'cause for like 3 straight weeks I'd get multiple calls a day (started at about 3, ended up being about 8) where it was a hang up on the other end. Finally hit up the reverse lookup, found out who it was and went it to the bank. Told a teller, told the customer service rep, emailed the people on the website and nothing. It finally took a really nasty email to one of their corporate drones threatening to move all my accounts and report them before the calls stopped. Man, in those few weeks, what I wouldn't have given for once nice recorded message that I could hang up on and be done with....
If that is really the case, and you're not just accidentally ingesting more calories or burning fewer than you think, then you might be one of these lucky bacteria holders.
Of course the article makes it sound like every overweight person could just blame bacteria, but in fact it's rare. But you never know, right?
Even with all its problems, I'd have given just about anything to have the table support in LaTeX that they have in Word. Latex has no wrap support whatsoever. I guess the theory was to give the user absolute control over the look of the table. But since it's not wysiwyg, it's a crap shoot whether or not your table is going to even fit on the page. And if you're off by a bit, you have to go in and re-edit each row by hand. Best part? If your table is too big, it will just go right ahead and write that thing directly off the page. Like that helps me. Splitting tables between pages? Be prepared for hours of excruciating detail work. Even the packages that claim to support that are dubius at best. Thanks supertabular, I really don't need two pages of tables with completely different column sizing. And editing those things? It's just lines and lines of data and \'s and & symbols. It's like reading ancient code.
Now don't get me wrong - in many ways I'd be very lost without latex - the ability to just dump writing into a style sheet is a godsend. But spending frantic hours fiddling with sizing did not exactly make my thesis writing less stressful.
If we're talking science here, I would like to see the SCIENTIFIC evidence that men are better than women at science. You can't believe in statistics. Either the numbers support it or they don't. Can you point to a study? I do hear this claim a lot, so I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying that if you're going to make a claim and call it statistically based, show the numbers.
Apparantly you've never had the police respond to a break-in at your house. Around our area, they couldn't possibly care less. When our break-in happened, it was the middle of the day and there was a half hour between when my roommate left and when the police were called because someone saw the broken window. My roommate saw three kids out front before she left. Kids were spotted running out back like 20 mins later. These were not the slickest criminals either - we gave the police the soda bottle and various other items that they LEFT in our house (reverse theft I guess) and an address. Hell, they even manged to CASH a cheque they took and even that netted no resonse. Hours spent on the case to date? Zero. People questioned? Zero. Items recovered? Zero.
Now, I'm not saying that a laptop would get a better response, but the main problem we had was that I was not able to prove that the total amount taken was >$1000, and hence it was not considered grand theft. I can SAY that my guitar was woth x-hundred dollars, but until you hit that magic number and it's PROVEABLE, no one cares. I think a laptop would be over that amount almost by default.