No, it's a complete load of shite. Anyway, Hep B is a real bastard. Hep A is the one that's not too bad, usually oral transmission (faecal-oral to give it its proper term). Hep B and C are blood/body fluid borne, no chance of getting them airborne.
Spam could actually be defeatable if the internet was dying. Imagine a scenario where an 'alternative' internet was set up by people pissed at the increasing commercialisation of the regular internet. The scale would be different (though this could change) - initially, all you would have would be smaller sites - like slashdot, google and other 'unobtrusively advertising' sites - essentially the only difference would be the users just accessing these sites. But added to this, more and more similar sites would spring up, and either 'trusted' (i.e. no pop-ups and other crap) could be shown at the browser level - a crap filter dangerously close to a censor I will admit - until a fair sized network was developed, possibly mostly on private individuals' computers (with muchos bandwidth, which will hopefully be more readily available then).
So in essence you have a smaller internet from ttrusted sources which can grow in the same way as the current internet. The domain names can be whatever you want, the email system too, because with new browsers and software you can re-do any protocols which are broken, and as these would be essentially private networks, big business could do squat..
You could even have search engines which can trawl the regular internet mining for information without showing all the ads.
The danger is it becomes like the current internet, with spam resurfacing in a few years, then it might need to be done again.
There's no reason I can't host a shitload of varied content on my computer (bandwidth and disk space limiting of course) with a new email and IP system, which can only be accessed by those with appropriate browsers. Of course, I could theoretically change your content and all the rest of it, but with a big enough network of these you could find a variety of places you might want to host content if not from your own connection. Or you can fire up IE or Mozilla and brave the old internet once it's a spam and ad wasteland.
Even better than that though, is that the infinite number of monkeys typing "sssssssssssssssssssssssss..." will likely be a bigger number than the infinite number typing the works of Shakespear(e). And the biggest infinite group, while still being just as infinite, will be random letters in a random order, or shit-covered keyboards.
Whether computer keyboards or typewriters is irrelevant (from previous posts) as they were just the available things at the time of the original statement.
It all comes down to the fact that random numbers, in a random order, with a random stop point, can produce any combination, and a theoretical infinity just means that all possible combinations (read: all literature, past and future) will be produced.
Kind of reminds me of another statement: if you accelerate a car from 20-40mph at constant acceleration, for how long are you travelling (US: traveling) at 30mph? As you are at 30 mph for some time, it is non-zero, but as soon as you reach it, with constant acceleration, you are at 30.0000000(....)0001 mph. So for any given speed you are there for 1/infinity units of time (seconds, minutes, doesn't matter).
Not really related in subject matter (other than the concept of infinity) but the same amount of mind-numbing.
I have no idea how practical this would be, but would it be possible to choose at installation to use two (or more, but that would be a total mindfuck) different filesystems? I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to either include all the info in each file's header or whatever, or even using virtual folders with an index somewhere, so that you could either type in/etc/var/some/archaic/file/path/programIwantToRun or/Programs/pornViewer/ProgramIWantToRun and the system would automagically check which filesystem it would have to use for the command to be valid?
With the power of modern computers this would make no difference to execution time, but then those who used the old skool conventions would be happy and newer users could have a more intuitive system.
Either the system could work out what to execute or you could even switch between filesystems with a command.
On top of this, at installation you could pick which system you wanted to use (or even define your own).
Yeah, so was Blue Planet. The investment would still have been unfeasible if it wasn't for the licence fee. I got this from the sleeve of my Blue Planet DVD set and I presume they know more about it than me.
There is still a lot of crap, yes - but I'd say there was more good quality programming (admittedly some of it is stuff, educational, religious and such, that I would personally never watch) than a lot of 'commercial' channels.
Most importantly though is the lack of ads. I don't mind the odd ad break, two or three times in a film, but having one practically every scene (like Friends, other prime time stuff) is just infuriating.
British BBC was previously a publicly owned company. Everyone requires to have a license for their TV, about £120 a year now, to own one, and in exchange you get access to BBC channels, which have no advertising, and the other 2 'terrestrial' channels (actually, there is another, but it is shit; I'm not including local TV channels which are always shit and very recent).
Interestingly, even if you don't watch BBC or even have you TV rigged up to an aerial, you have to pay. This seems a little bit of a legal grey area, but to be honest the general quality of BBC material is exceptional compared to the high filler:real stuff on 'commercial' TV. Films with no ads are great. Also, they have to produce a certain ratio of programming (kids stuff, educational, religious or whatever), so it's very inclusive.
A lot of the best things they have produced (Walking with Dinosaurs 'documentary', The Blue Planet) are huge projects and would never have got off the ground if it was't for the funding structure.
My guess is that a grant from the US navy does not come from duplication alone. The screensaver is just eye-candy to raise awareness, do something cool, whatever - the actual aims of the entire project are more wide-ranging.
I would disagree in part - it sounds from the article that this is fairly heavy-duty computational theory, with lot of real-world application in boat manufacture and design.
However, I agree with your criticism of the students themselves
"Fish create vortices, which are like teeny whirlpools," she said. "And the vortices create changes in water pressure that move the fish forward. That's what makes fish so cool."
Sounds sort of like the village idiot speaking.
That's what makes fish so cool? Uber-l33t fish. What next?
Antibiotics resistance develops when bugs are exposed to antibiotics, therefore more antibiotic use = more resistance.
There are STDs that used to be very sensitive to penicillin. The US military gave all the squaddies penicillin when they were going to war (I think WWII) as they shagged all the local farmer's daughters and got the clap. Then they did it again, and again (not sure which wars, I'm sure Vietnam was one) and had to use a higher dose each time. This sort of mass prescribing (which the troops were not aware of) has a much more significant effect on drug resistance than the odd extra prescription for a 5 year old with a cold. As another poster pointed out, using them on livestock is a similar problem. Many countries let you buy antibiotics (esp. third world countries) over the counter without a prescription and this causes a ridiculous amount of resistance to develop as the wrong kinds of antibiotics are used, at the wrong strength, and often when their use is not indicated clinically.
The medical profession used to be responsible for a lot of resistance as antibiotics seemed to be wonder drugs with no problems, but things have shifted in the last few years as resistance has been recognised. The fact that a lot of patients expect a prescription puts pressure on to prescribe as well, but things have changed despite this.
More recently, prescribing patterns have become worse, especially in the US, as rising litigation means that they are shit scared of getting sued and instead use something too powerful. Imagine being in court and the lawyer saying "so you had more powerful antibiotics but didn't give them?".
So the medical profession does have some responsibility, but the issue is much bigger than just that.
Most good ideas are obvious. Does that mean that the bright spark who did think of them should get nothing because as soon as it's been though of, other people think "why didn't I think of that?" and do it with no R&D costs or innovation on their own part? No. If they were truly obvious, they would have been done before. Just because of their hindsight simplicity and 'obviousness', doesn't change the fact that no-one else thought of it.
The problem is that we are applying rigid rules to a wide variety of circumstamces. The laws have become out of control, and the company that makes broad vague claims which are just specific enough to get through the US patent office (i.e. in no way specific) give people ridiculous claims over things which are clearly someone else's work.
Is there a legal solution to the mess? No idea. All I can say for definite is that the current system doesn't work.
But the ability to reverse engineer something is irrespective of its usefulness or value - the problem is protecting the creator's idea but without giving stifling control to anyone.
The only ideal solution, really, is for me to be a benevolent dictator and decide the law on spec.
I was making a joke about what I assumed to be a typo, but now it seems you were serious. The inventor comes up with the idea, and you buy it off him for the same as his expenses. Which is, for him, a loss, as not only did he R&D the thing which you give him back, but he also didn't work elsewhere, so him and his family go hungry because he hasn't benefited from his invention - that's like having someone work for you for free but pay their mileage and give them a uniform. A wage is what's needed.
I'm not saying he needs to be paid muchos moolas, the original point was a joke. The 'evil' comment should have alerted you to this but apparently not.
I don't give a shit about economic theory. That's why I am making jokes about your up until now quite rational and reasonable comments. So explaining it again will not benefit either of us...
I don't see anything in what you are quoting that stops anyone from passing on address details to someone else.
Where do you draw the line? What if I pass a friend's contact details so someone else, in "good faith"? For instance, if a male acquaintance wanted a female acquaintances number to call and ask her out? I would probably feel pretty damn bad if he was to kill or rape her, but I couldn't anticipate it, and I certainly would have a hard time believing myself legally responsible. The lack of monetary exchange does not change anything in legal terms.
Yes, I do think they are dealing in pretty immoral practice - no, I do not think they can be held legally accountable.
I don't think they are stalking simply by collecting information about someone. They may have lied to get some of the information, but again, legally I think they are in the clear. What about credit checks? Do you think they should be illegal too, as they contain a lot more information that could be considered personal?
What about the electoral roll?
Here in the UK, you can check any doctor's registration online (www.gmc-uk.org I think), and many have their home addresses on it. If, like in the US, anti-abortion wackos kill doctors and print their personal details online ( I seem to remember this was ruled legal despite obvious moral objections), the same happened here, would the GMC be responsible for providing the details? The thought is that it is more important to be able to verify that someone is medically qualified before they treat you.
But are they responsible? I think it's a bit harsh to hold them accountable for someone else's actions. I do agree that there is something a little seedy about selling contact details to anyone who asks, but a lot of this information is freely available if you are interested. What about private investigators? Are they accountable if they are asked to trace someone and they do? What if one of they "honeytrap" 'PIs' that get an attractive lady to chat up your spouse? If the wife then killed the cheating husband, would the PI be held responsible for providing information that led to the killing?
There are too many ramifications to this to just say they were in the wrong, and they should be sued. The killer would most likely have killed someone even if that person had been somone else, regardless of how he got that person's information, if at all. Ultimately, the only person responsible for the killing was the murderer.
My contact details are available should someone want to find them. There is a tiny risk that some weirdo will get them, but it is far more useful to me to have those who might want to contact me having access to that information.
What you call your 'right' to privacy has been effectively relinquished to an 'opt-out' system by society wanting to keep in touch, not business of government wanting to pry. It would be a nuisance to get unlisted from all the sources out there, and I doubt anyone is seriously going to consider it anyway, even after this.
At the end of the day, they are dealing with freely available information, and they could be seen as seedy and morally questionable, but I don't think they did anything illegal; a similar sort of opinion I have to the porn industry, traffic wardens, and middle management.
Slashdot Mirror
I know, karma whore, sorry.
No, it's a complete load of shite. Anyway, Hep B is a real bastard. Hep A is the one that's not too bad, usually oral transmission (faecal-oral to give it its proper term). Hep B and C are blood/body fluid borne, no chance of getting them airborne.
Cholera from a mosquito? This man's a medical marvel!
Obviously we need to colonise less planets. If we can limit ourselves to a fraction of a planet, or a really small moon, we will be much safer.
Read it and weep, dipshit.
Easy. To get laid. I bet I could get laid all the time if I could tell chicks I was an astronaut.
So in essence you have a smaller internet from ttrusted sources which can grow in the same way as the current internet. The domain names can be whatever you want, the email system too, because with new browsers and software you can re-do any protocols which are broken, and as these would be essentially private networks, big business could do squat..
You could even have search engines which can trawl the regular internet mining for information without showing all the ads.
The danger is it becomes like the current internet, with spam resurfacing in a few years, then it might need to be done again.
There's no reason I can't host a shitload of varied content on my computer (bandwidth and disk space limiting of course) with a new email and IP system, which can only be accessed by those with appropriate browsers. Of course, I could theoretically change your content and all the rest of it, but with a big enough network of these you could find a variety of places you might want to host content if not from your own connection. Or you can fire up IE or Mozilla and brave the old internet once it's a spam and ad wasteland.
Whether computer keyboards or typewriters is irrelevant (from previous posts) as they were just the available things at the time of the original statement.
It all comes down to the fact that random numbers, in a random order, with a random stop point, can produce any combination, and a theoretical infinity just means that all possible combinations (read: all literature, past and future) will be produced.
Kind of reminds me of another statement: if you accelerate a car from 20-40mph at constant acceleration, for how long are you travelling (US: traveling) at 30mph? As you are at 30 mph for some time, it is non-zero, but as soon as you reach it, with constant acceleration, you are at 30.0000000(....)0001 mph. So for any given speed you are there for 1/infinity units of time (seconds, minutes, doesn't matter).
Not really related in subject matter (other than the concept of infinity) but the same amount of mind-numbing.
With the power of modern computers this would make no difference to execution time, but then those who used the old skool conventions would be happy and newer users could have a more intuitive system.
Either the system could work out what to execute or you could even switch between filesystems with a command.
On top of this, at installation you could pick which system you wanted to use (or even define your own).
There is still a lot of crap, yes - but I'd say there was more good quality programming (admittedly some of it is stuff, educational, religious and such, that I would personally never watch) than a lot of 'commercial' channels.
Most importantly though is the lack of ads. I don't mind the odd ad break, two or three times in a film, but having one practically every scene (like Friends, other prime time stuff) is just infuriating.
Secondly, why can't they pirate MP3s? There'd be squat point admittedly as they can't hear the damn things, but stop being so prejudiced.
Interestingly, even if you don't watch BBC or even have you TV rigged up to an aerial, you have to pay. This seems a little bit of a legal grey area, but to be honest the general quality of BBC material is exceptional compared to the high filler:real stuff on 'commercial' TV. Films with no ads are great. Also, they have to produce a certain ratio of programming (kids stuff, educational, religious or whatever), so it's very inclusive.
A lot of the best things they have produced (Walking with Dinosaurs 'documentary', The Blue Planet) are huge projects and would never have got off the ground if it was't for the funding structure.
However, I agree with your criticism of the students themselves
"Fish create vortices, which are like teeny whirlpools," she said. "And the vortices create changes in water pressure that move the fish forward. That's what makes fish so cool."
Sounds sort of like the village idiot speaking.
That's what makes fish so cool? Uber-l33t fish. What next?
Antibiotics resistance develops when bugs are exposed to antibiotics, therefore more antibiotic use = more resistance.
There are STDs that used to be very sensitive to penicillin. The US military gave all the squaddies penicillin when they were going to war (I think WWII) as they shagged all the local farmer's daughters and got the clap. Then they did it again, and again (not sure which wars, I'm sure Vietnam was one) and had to use a higher dose each time. This sort of mass prescribing (which the troops were not aware of) has a much more significant effect on drug resistance than the odd extra prescription for a 5 year old with a cold. As another poster pointed out, using them on livestock is a similar problem. Many countries let you buy antibiotics (esp. third world countries) over the counter without a prescription and this causes a ridiculous amount of resistance to develop as the wrong kinds of antibiotics are used, at the wrong strength, and often when their use is not indicated clinically.
The medical profession used to be responsible for a lot of resistance as antibiotics seemed to be wonder drugs with no problems, but things have shifted in the last few years as resistance has been recognised. The fact that a lot of patients expect a prescription puts pressure on to prescribe as well, but things have changed despite this.
More recently, prescribing patterns have become worse, especially in the US, as rising litigation means that they are shit scared of getting sued and instead use something too powerful. Imagine being in court and the lawyer saying "so you had more powerful antibiotics but didn't give them?".
So the medical profession does have some responsibility, but the issue is much bigger than just that.
The problem is that we are applying rigid rules to a wide variety of circumstamces. The laws have become out of control, and the company that makes broad vague claims which are just specific enough to get through the US patent office (i.e. in no way specific) give people ridiculous claims over things which are clearly someone else's work.
Is there a legal solution to the mess? No idea. All I can say for definite is that the current system doesn't work.
But the ability to reverse engineer something is irrespective of its usefulness or value - the problem is protecting the creator's idea but without giving stifling control to anyone.
The only ideal solution, really, is for me to be a benevolent dictator and decide the law on spec.
I'm not saying he needs to be paid muchos moolas, the original point was a joke. The 'evil' comment should have alerted you to this but apparently not.
I don't give a shit about economic theory. That's why I am making jokes about your up until now quite rational and reasonable comments. So explaining it again will not benefit either of us...
That's just plain mean.
Where do you draw the line? What if I pass a friend's contact details so someone else, in "good faith"? For instance, if a male acquaintance wanted a female acquaintances number to call and ask her out? I would probably feel pretty damn bad if he was to kill or rape her, but I couldn't anticipate it, and I certainly would have a hard time believing myself legally responsible. The lack of monetary exchange does not change anything in legal terms.
Yes, I do think they are dealing in pretty immoral practice - no, I do not think they can be held legally accountable.
I don't think they are stalking simply by collecting information about someone. They may have lied to get some of the information, but again, legally I think they are in the clear. What about credit checks? Do you think they should be illegal too, as they contain a lot more information that could be considered personal?
What about the electoral roll?
Here in the UK, you can check any doctor's registration online (www.gmc-uk.org I think), and many have their home addresses on it. If, like in the US, anti-abortion wackos kill doctors and print their personal details online ( I seem to remember this was ruled legal despite obvious moral objections), the same happened here, would the GMC be responsible for providing the details? The thought is that it is more important to be able to verify that someone is medically qualified before they treat you.
There are too many ramifications to this to just say they were in the wrong, and they should be sued. The killer would most likely have killed someone even if that person had been somone else, regardless of how he got that person's information, if at all. Ultimately, the only person responsible for the killing was the murderer.
My contact details are available should someone want to find them. There is a tiny risk that some weirdo will get them, but it is far more useful to me to have those who might want to contact me having access to that information.
What you call your 'right' to privacy has been effectively relinquished to an 'opt-out' system by society wanting to keep in touch, not business of government wanting to pry. It would be a nuisance to get unlisted from all the sources out there, and I doubt anyone is seriously going to consider it anyway, even after this.
At the end of the day, they are dealing with freely available information, and they could be seen as seedy and morally questionable, but I don't think they did anything illegal; a similar sort of opinion I have to the porn industry, traffic wardens, and middle management.