The BSD mascot is an actual demon, as opposed to the fake church website posting about how "daemons" in the linux operating system were proof of its innate satanism. And not all home schooled kids have religious backgrounds; some just didn't like the fucked up school system in this country.
Last.fm used to have a setting that was basically like this... they gave you an "obscurity" slider which let you set a preference for stuff that was a good match (via the usual "people who like x also like" algo) but removed the stuff that was over a certain threshold of popularity. I found a ton of bands that I really like this way, but at some point they took away the feature, or hid it in some way.
Long story short, I have found systems like this very useful, and hope to see more of them.
If it were a choice between "buy this" or "pirate this", yes. If it's a choice between "pirate this" or "do something else", no. That's the part that people tend to gloss over or misunderstand.
Did you even read what I wrote? I addressed that exact point. AT MOST I deprive the store of the income resulting from a sale, but not the physical product (which is why it's completely unlike actual theft).
That may not be the choice though. If I value the experience at less than they're charging, the choices are: 1) pirate. 2) go without. In both cases they're "deprived" of income to the exact same degree.
If I steal a beer, the store is deprived of a beer which they paid for and could otherwise sell. If I "steal" a video game the people selling the game are deprived of exactly nothing (except the money from my purchase, and not even that assuming I would rather have nothing than pay for their game).
Except you get promoted MUCH faster if you jump companies every few years compared to sitting in one spot, unless you happen to hitch yourself to a particularly competent and motivated senior engineer early on. Although with the number of top people who are jumping ship from Microsoft in the past year and a half, it wouldn't be a bad time to get in and coast your way up for a while.
So why are we trying to implement policies to combat that change? Do we really think that we can keep the Earth just like it is today? Is that the goal? Should we try to change the climate so that we can return N. America back to its natural, under ice state? Should we try to return the Earth to it's glorious molten past? Should we try our best to strip the atmosphere of all oxygen so to usher in the return of Methanite bacteria? Of course not. And you are correct that we should not "throw in the towel." We should predict where the climate is heading and spend our resources to adapt to the change instead of trying to stop it!
It's interesting that you seem to make no distinction between natural and man-made changes. I would call your argument rational if you were talking about only natural changes (although there's still a decent argument that maintaining the climate at the current state or even improving it to our advantage is worth our energy). However, if you're trying to apply this argument to man-made changes, I absolutely disagree. If our actions are causing a shift that will end up being harmful to us, we shouldn't just "predict what's happening and go with it". This would result in some massive percentage of the world population losing their homes to rising sea levels, not to mention the potential for famine if the arable zones change too drastically from what they are today. How could you possibly justify "just going along with it" if it's man-made?
I'll give you that a bunch of companies are jumping on the "green" bandwagon for the hell of it, but you're going to need at least a little proof for the idea that these particular machines are faulty specifically because they're junk with a "green" label on it, since logic would dictate that they would do at least a little evaluation and testing on the machinery they were going to use for an event with national attention.
Also, you're really going to need a soucre for that bit about "human-generated CO2 is nothing to worry about", since a huge number of credible sources say the exact opposite including the IPCC which you cited as a source for the opposite claim.
Dunno about your specific case, but they are sometimes slow to incorporate various agencies' timetables. It took a couple weeks before they added the new light rail in Seattle. Anything they put in there is better than Bing, though, which has exactly zero public transit schedules...
Until Bing Maps can give me public transit directions, it's completely useless. All their shiny eye-candy, day-night time cycle, star maps, are completely useless (and, honestly, a giant waste of time) when they haven't bothered to match the basic functionality their competitors provide.
It's this willful dismissal of core features that keeps hurting their market share, too. When Google's transit system was on the fritz for 3 hours last week, I tried Bing assuming they would be able to provide an alternative. If they had, I might have been impressed enough with the eye candy to come back again. Instead, I became even less likely to give them another shot, because this one incredibly obvious and useful feature has been ignored in favor of having 4 different angles on every satellite shot, and adding star charts. Total fail.
In cases of specific, isolated algorithms sure. When you're out in the business world, though, very little is that small or that isolated. A lot more of the time, from what I've seen, you're dealing with relatively complex entangled systems, where the data and interaction model is a lot more complicated than manipulating a single array.
Do you create eighty million different forms of life, each with a completely different set of programming, or do you take advantage of code reuse and only change the bits that matter?
Assuming for a second there is a Creator, he not only "took advantage of code reuse", he also scattered the various life-forms around the planet in EXACTLY the right geographical distribution to make it LOOK like evolution happened. So God is either a myth, or intentionally deceptive, take your pick.
A lot of the time bugs are caused by enough new features being tacked on to the system that the model has changed. Which means that the old code that's "working perfectly" happens to no longer describe half the cases you're handling, hence the layers of hacks on top of it. Yeah, you lose the old "working" core when you refactor, but you also lose all the hacks, and hopefully (if you're doing it right) end up with a new core that can describe a more complete set of use cases in a consistent manner, which leads to fewer bugs and less maintenance cost overall.
I'm convinced that it's largely the fault of the 17th amendment that we have lost any desire to maintain a "states rights" kind of system. With the general electorate distracted by national votes on national issues, much fewer people pay attention to their state legislature anymore. If the state legislature were the only way to influence our senate representation, not only would people be forced to care more about local politics, but senators would be beholden to the states rather than the general population, at least a bit more than they are today.
There's a measure in the Washington legislature to repeal it, but it's being viewed as a power play by the Republicans. Which is a shame, because everyone would benefit from a decreased emphasis on federal power. Of course, anything that gives Republicans back the Senate would be a net loss in the short term, because they haven't shown any desire to actually follow through on decreasing the scope of the Federal government, only expanding it in new and terrifying ways. I think it'd take several terms for the states to figure out how to reassert their control over the Senate.
Sure, although to really be a "first class" app store, that doesn't get looked at with distrust, I suspect it's worth the cash. Especially since it's per publisher and can be reused on every app you release.
There are already 3rd party app stores for the Android. Not sure how reputable they are, but they do exist. To release a package you still need a $25 developer certificate from Google so the phone can verify the source of the application, but once the jar is built you can install it from any source you like.
Exactly how do think an "average" user would plan to get the application from the iPhone where they made the purchase over to the Android (since, like all average users, they own 2 cell phones)? I'm pretty sure the "average" user is familiar with the "buy it on this phone, use it on this phone" pattern, which eliminates all of the potential confusion right there.
And they wouldn't refuse to carry the book if the manufacturer shipped it with a sticker on it saying "Voted Best New Author In Amazon.com Awards" or something, which seems like a pretty decent analogy to this case.
I came in here thinking the exact same thing. Looking at the comments on the page though, the author disputes that claim, although he doesn't provide any proof except that "the people involved said that's not what happened". Could just be covering his ass, or the speculation about using some software that intentionally does not allow modification of incoming documents could be correct -- I could imagine that being a legal requirement given the stuff they deal with.
I'm pretty sure that "upside down" in this case means "front to back". So the genius in the article faxed them a bunch of doodles and blank pages, and then posted their response online instead of fixing his own error. Unless the Patent Office is sitting on some technology that can reconstruct letters on the opposite side of a faxed page from trace shadows, this isn't nearly as stupid as you think.
In the context of a discussion about failing grammar in schools, though, don't you think it's just a bit obtuse to point out that some things are proper grammar in other dialects? Of course it's true, but it doesn't address the fact that, while understandable in the "main" dialect, these usages will come across as either undereducated, confusing, or both. If the point of a national education program is to ensure a certain level of competency across our society, learning only the grammar of a relatively socially isolated dialect isn't going to do you any favors.
Slashdot Mirror
The BSD mascot is an actual demon, as opposed to the fake church website posting about how "daemons" in the linux operating system were proof of its innate satanism. And not all home schooled kids have religious backgrounds; some just didn't like the fucked up school system in this country.
Last.fm used to have a setting that was basically like this... they gave you an "obscurity" slider which let you set a preference for stuff that was a good match (via the usual "people who like x also like" algo) but removed the stuff that was over a certain threshold of popularity. I found a ton of bands that I really like this way, but at some point they took away the feature, or hid it in some way.
Long story short, I have found systems like this very useful, and hope to see more of them.
If it were a choice between "buy this" or "pirate this", yes. If it's a choice between "pirate this" or "do something else", no. That's the part that people tend to gloss over or misunderstand.
Did you even read what I wrote? I addressed that exact point. AT MOST I deprive the store of the income resulting from a sale, but not the physical product (which is why it's completely unlike actual theft).
That may not be the choice though. If I value the experience at less than they're charging, the choices are: 1) pirate. 2) go without. In both cases they're "deprived" of income to the exact same degree.
If I steal a beer, the store is deprived of a beer which they paid for and could otherwise sell. If I "steal" a video game the people selling the game are deprived of exactly nothing (except the money from my purchase, and not even that assuming I would rather have nothing than pay for their game).
Except you get promoted MUCH faster if you jump companies every few years compared to sitting in one spot, unless you happen to hitch yourself to a particularly competent and motivated senior engineer early on. Although with the number of top people who are jumping ship from Microsoft in the past year and a half, it wouldn't be a bad time to get in and coast your way up for a while.
Because nothing attracts female viewers like Michael York, cardboard robot costumes, and naked 70s boobs?
It's interesting that you seem to make no distinction between natural and man-made changes. I would call your argument rational if you were talking about only natural changes (although there's still a decent argument that maintaining the climate at the current state or even improving it to our advantage is worth our energy). However, if you're trying to apply this argument to man-made changes, I absolutely disagree. If our actions are causing a shift that will end up being harmful to us, we shouldn't just "predict what's happening and go with it". This would result in some massive percentage of the world population losing their homes to rising sea levels, not to mention the potential for famine if the arable zones change too drastically from what they are today. How could you possibly justify "just going along with it" if it's man-made?
Sorry, I should have specified.
Credible source?
I'll give you that a bunch of companies are jumping on the "green" bandwagon for the hell of it, but you're going to need at least a little proof for the idea that these particular machines are faulty specifically because they're junk with a "green" label on it, since logic would dictate that they would do at least a little evaluation and testing on the machinery they were going to use for an event with national attention.
Also, you're really going to need a soucre for that bit about "human-generated CO2 is nothing to worry about", since a huge number of credible sources say the exact opposite including the IPCC which you cited as a source for the opposite claim.
Source?
Hilarious.
Dunno about your specific case, but they are sometimes slow to incorporate various agencies' timetables. It took a couple weeks before they added the new light rail in Seattle. Anything they put in there is better than Bing, though, which has exactly zero public transit schedules...
Until Bing Maps can give me public transit directions, it's completely useless. All their shiny eye-candy, day-night time cycle, star maps, are completely useless (and, honestly, a giant waste of time) when they haven't bothered to match the basic functionality their competitors provide.
It's this willful dismissal of core features that keeps hurting their market share, too. When Google's transit system was on the fritz for 3 hours last week, I tried Bing assuming they would be able to provide an alternative. If they had, I might have been impressed enough with the eye candy to come back again. Instead, I became even less likely to give them another shot, because this one incredibly obvious and useful feature has been ignored in favor of having 4 different angles on every satellite shot, and adding star charts. Total fail.
In cases of specific, isolated algorithms sure. When you're out in the business world, though, very little is that small or that isolated. A lot more of the time, from what I've seen, you're dealing with relatively complex entangled systems, where the data and interaction model is a lot more complicated than manipulating a single array.
Assuming for a second there is a Creator, he not only "took advantage of code reuse", he also scattered the various life-forms around the planet in EXACTLY the right geographical distribution to make it LOOK like evolution happened. So God is either a myth, or intentionally deceptive, take your pick.
Yes, they are. Anyone claiming otherwise is either really bad at science, or completely misusing the term 'intelligent design'.
A lot of the time bugs are caused by enough new features being tacked on to the system that the model has changed. Which means that the old code that's "working perfectly" happens to no longer describe half the cases you're handling, hence the layers of hacks on top of it. Yeah, you lose the old "working" core when you refactor, but you also lose all the hacks, and hopefully (if you're doing it right) end up with a new core that can describe a more complete set of use cases in a consistent manner, which leads to fewer bugs and less maintenance cost overall.
I'm convinced that it's largely the fault of the 17th amendment that we have lost any desire to maintain a "states rights" kind of system. With the general electorate distracted by national votes on national issues, much fewer people pay attention to their state legislature anymore. If the state legislature were the only way to influence our senate representation, not only would people be forced to care more about local politics, but senators would be beholden to the states rather than the general population, at least a bit more than they are today.
There's a measure in the Washington legislature to repeal it, but it's being viewed as a power play by the Republicans. Which is a shame, because everyone would benefit from a decreased emphasis on federal power. Of course, anything that gives Republicans back the Senate would be a net loss in the short term, because they haven't shown any desire to actually follow through on decreasing the scope of the Federal government, only expanding it in new and terrifying ways. I think it'd take several terms for the states to figure out how to reassert their control over the Senate.
Sure, although to really be a "first class" app store, that doesn't get looked at with distrust, I suspect it's worth the cash. Especially since it's per publisher and can be reused on every app you release.
There are already 3rd party app stores for the Android. Not sure how reputable they are, but they do exist. To release a package you still need a $25 developer certificate from Google so the phone can verify the source of the application, but once the jar is built you can install it from any source you like.
Exactly how do think an "average" user would plan to get the application from the iPhone where they made the purchase over to the Android (since, like all average users, they own 2 cell phones)? I'm pretty sure the "average" user is familiar with the "buy it on this phone, use it on this phone" pattern, which eliminates all of the potential confusion right there.
And they wouldn't refuse to carry the book if the manufacturer shipped it with a sticker on it saying "Voted Best New Author In Amazon.com Awards" or something, which seems like a pretty decent analogy to this case.
I came in here thinking the exact same thing. Looking at the comments on the page though, the author disputes that claim, although he doesn't provide any proof except that "the people involved said that's not what happened". Could just be covering his ass, or the speculation about using some software that intentionally does not allow modification of incoming documents could be correct -- I could imagine that being a legal requirement given the stuff they deal with.
I'm pretty sure that "upside down" in this case means "front to back". So the genius in the article faxed them a bunch of doodles and blank pages, and then posted their response online instead of fixing his own error. Unless the Patent Office is sitting on some technology that can reconstruct letters on the opposite side of a faxed page from trace shadows, this isn't nearly as stupid as you think.
In the context of a discussion about failing grammar in schools, though, don't you think it's just a bit obtuse to point out that some things are proper grammar in other dialects? Of course it's true, but it doesn't address the fact that, while understandable in the "main" dialect, these usages will come across as either undereducated, confusing, or both. If the point of a national education program is to ensure a certain level of competency across our society, learning only the grammar of a relatively socially isolated dialect isn't going to do you any favors.