A brief plug for my college, claremont mckenna college. Not only do you get free unlimited printing, but also free *color* printing. Not that poppa-west isn't down as much as it's up.
Incidentally, you get put on reduced bandwidth if you exceed 10 gigs of transfer in 24 hours.
Q: Why did the universe come into being?
A: Because God willed it to be.
Q: Why did God come into being?
A: Because He is.
(a quick revision in regards to neccesary beings, i.e. entities that are requisite and eternal if they exist at all; e.g. the number 2, which many people believe exists even if there's nothing to count.)
I don't know.. there are quite a few things I can't understand. Such as the number 137--I mean, I can put a label on it (i.e. "absolute nothingness") and perform functions based on its symbols and recorded properties, but I've nevr been able to imagine 137 seperate obejects at once. In the same way I can imagine a fewer number of things, say 3. I just cant wrap my mind around it.
Not that I'm disagreeing with the results, but did you notice that this washington post article appears to be based exclusively on content googled out from the web? Check out the raw data sources at the bottome on the page[hostcompany100.com].
Most are links to student newspapers, some are random documents, all are bare links. Not even in MLA, sheesh. But it certainly looks nice once extrapolated into a pretty graph.
Grade inflation hurts me in a more direct way than most:
I am a student at the claremont colleges, which are a small group of interconnected schools that share many resources but all have their own grading policies. While I'm registered at one school, I take virtually all my classes (and am majoring through) harvey mudd college, which has managed to stave off grade inflation with an average grade of B-. This puts me at somewhat of a disadvantage as my class rank is determined using HMC grades against the other students of my school, most who have A's. Yay, me.
Sometimes it's reassuring to know that no matter how hard you try, you're going to graduate in the bottom half.
In the sciences: I've often heard student graders complain about how guilty they feel when they give some poor kid a failing grade. But then they say, "I couldn't help it, he got X number of problems wrong."
In the humanities: I've also heard students (sometimes the same students) complain about their grades: "I worked really hard on that essay!"
See, there's a pervasive attitude that there's a scientific right/wrong, but that humanities are a matter of interpretation. Its not a far step from that to students complaining; preofessors questioning their own judgement..
From what I've read, it's not just that Go has so many more possibilities -- it's that even the best players are often stumped to say what makes a good move and what doesn't. Like other intuitive actions, this makes it difficult to program.
Despite the emphasis on "totally harmless to people", it should be obvious that this isn't a true smart weapon either--imagine an accidental flyby over a hospital, airport, pacemaker, or computerized traffic light.
Still, this is a valuable weapon, and better than carpet bombing. I just don't want to see it (like sanctions) become a supposedly "bloodless" way to achieve foriegn policy goals.
It's not about money, but pressuring ISPs to disconnect users or block sites. It's a logical extension of their letter writing campaigns to schools, which were mostly successful at scaring universities into blocking/punishing. Schools are ISPs of a sort, after all.
Honestly, there's a much better source of wasted power. Someone should use all that wasted kinetic energy in fitness centers to do something useful--electricity to power gateway computers, or stair stepping for disabled people. That sort of thing.
As has been said, the HR clauses are nice but unenforceable.
Still, they limit what the issuing group can produce or support in the future without contridiction--that is, they no longer have a goal of "software for anyone to do anything."
And this is going to be *important* in the future--software that tracks people, software that searches unencoded transmissions for key words, software that sends spam or automatically trolls adult-oriented sites for children. Or your local mafia database.
I guess I just want to say that it's time for the industry to grow a concience. ref: guns, tabacco, pharmacuticals.
Perhaps, but ambiguity isn't a reason to abstain from taking a moral stance.
After all, I try to not hurt other people even though we have different ideas of "hurt"; nations pass laws against rape and sexual harrassment even though different communities have different definitions of the same.
You do well to point out that we can't do this perfectly--but we knew that already.
The computer itself isn't anything special, nor is what it can do.
What might be different is the Media Center OS--hopefully, it's as simple as a VCR or a gamecube. Single-button push; illusion of *not being a computer. Better yet, it's limited to the extent of being stable.
That said, I'd be suprised if no one's made a program to emulate push button simplicity on top of an existing OS. (they have them for touchscreen theater controls at my school). Really, I wouldn't be suprised if that's what the media center OS actually is. much cheaper that way.
Ticketmaster.com
on
Add-Ons Add Up
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Indeed.
Today I bought a 25$ ticket from ticketmaster--$6.50 "convenience fee", $4 handling fee, $1.50 shipping charge.
Which would be reasonable except that delivery consisted of generating a pdf for me to download and print.
He's quite right about the tacile. This is why I still have an IBM model M (actually manufactured before I was born).
Can you imagine this fine product, working from underneath a two-inch deep tray of semi-liquid gel? Better yet, along the lines of silly putty, where resistance is proportional to force exerted against. Not only would it be amazingly crazy looking, but there would be a very direct (if analog) feedback and would feel like a constant hand massage / heated bath. Ultimate in RSI treatment, perhaps.
The gel could be modded to different colors and lit with leds, of course. Different consistancies too. You could do it in the kitchen.
A bit messy though, unless it was some sort of high-cohesive low-adhesive sillyness. And it doesn't exist. But that's what chemists are for.
-jon
PS. this would be even better if the programmer was sitting in a hottub. Powered by overclocked celerons.
Where to begin? Oh heck, I'll do all of it.
Their languages are stupid. They weren't well-planned or thoughtout at all.
Er.. no. With the exceptions of klingon, esperanto, and elvish, no language is planned--especially one over 4000 years old.
The languages haven't evolved from their "one unique character per object" aspect in hundreds of years.
Actually, chinese is composed of a number of radicals (around 200), which forms the basis for a particularly advanced form of character input. On a computer with decent algorithms, a skilled radical typist can easily type an order of magnitude faster than a western typist--no "word" should take more than three strokes.
Personally, I think that Chinese is dying as a written language since more and more Chinese are becoming functionally illiterate as their birth rate increases.
a) chinese literacy in increasing as income increases.
b) chinese birthrates... the one child policy? Stop watching O'Reilly.
The government of China should create a new language.
a) And we should switch to metric.
b) They already did, it's called simplified chinese and is much easier to learn.
-jon
A lot of the discussion is about the allowabilty of defending your machine by hacking an attacker. But what M. actually talks about is attacking another _victim_ to minimize your own losses. Just because you know how to do it.
Robert Nozick once asked if it was moral to use a ray gun to vaporize an innocent victem who had been thrown at you at 10m/s squared. Sortof. Damn, I love that idea.
Well, this is more like having innocent victims thrown at your front lawn and vaporizing them to protect the imported roses. Because you have a ray gun.
-jon
Slashdot Mirror
A brief plug for my college, claremont mckenna college. Not only do you get free unlimited printing, but also free *color* printing. Not that poppa-west isn't down as much as it's up.
Incidentally, you get put on reduced bandwidth if you exceed 10 gigs of transfer in 24 hours.
Q: Why did the universe come into being?
A: Because God willed it to be.
Q: Why did God come into being?
A: Because He is.
(a quick revision in regards to neccesary beings, i.e. entities that are requisite and eternal if they exist at all; e.g. the number 2, which many people believe exists even if there's nothing to count.)
I believe this too, though in further reflection, it means nothing to me.
I don't know.. there are quite a few things I can't understand. Such as the number 137--I mean, I can put a label on it (i.e. "absolute nothingness") and perform functions based on its symbols and recorded properties, but I've nevr been able to imagine 137 seperate obejects at once. In the same way I can imagine a fewer number of things, say 3. I just cant wrap my mind around it.
"Jexious! I am desperate your knowledge of magical weapon smithy!"
It's amazing how prices of products aren't cheaper despite outsourcing to foreign countries.
Who still pays $500 for a hard drive?
Not that I'm disagreeing with the results, but did you notice that this washington post article appears to be based exclusively on content googled out from the web? Check out the raw data sources at the bottome on the page[hostcompany100.com].
Most are links to student newspapers, some are random documents, all are bare links. Not even in MLA, sheesh. But it certainly looks nice once extrapolated into a pretty graph.
Grade inflation hurts me in a more direct way than most:
I am a student at the claremont colleges, which are a small group of interconnected schools that share many resources but all have their own grading policies. While I'm registered at one school, I take virtually all my classes (and am majoring through) harvey mudd college, which has managed to stave off grade inflation with an average grade of B-. This puts me at somewhat of a disadvantage as my class rank is determined using HMC grades against the other students of my school, most who have A's. Yay, me.
Sometimes it's reassuring to know that no matter how hard you try, you're going to graduate in the bottom half.
In the sciences: I've often heard student graders complain about how guilty they feel when they give some poor kid a failing grade. But then they say, "I couldn't help it, he got X number of problems wrong."
In the humanities: I've also heard students (sometimes the same students) complain about their grades: "I worked really hard on that essay!"
See, there's a pervasive attitude that there's a scientific right/wrong, but that humanities are a matter of interpretation. Its not a far step from that to students complaining; preofessors questioning their own judgement..
From what I've read, it's not just that Go has so many more possibilities -- it's that even the best players are often stumped to say what makes a good move and what doesn't. Like other intuitive actions, this makes it difficult to program.
False Dichot. Between environment and genes, you've left out free will!
Despite the emphasis on "totally harmless to people", it should be obvious that this isn't a true smart weapon either--imagine an accidental flyby over a hospital, airport, pacemaker, or computerized traffic light.
Still, this is a valuable weapon, and better than carpet bombing. I just don't want to see it (like sanctions) become a supposedly "bloodless" way to achieve foriegn policy goals.
It's not about money, but pressuring ISPs to disconnect users or block sites. It's a logical extension of their letter writing campaigns to schools, which were mostly successful at scaring universities into blocking/punishing. Schools are ISPs of a sort, after all.
Honestly, there's a much better source of wasted power. Someone should use all that wasted kinetic energy in fitness centers to do something useful--electricity to power gateway computers, or stair stepping for disabled people. That sort of thing.
As has been said, the HR clauses are nice but unenforceable.
Still, they limit what the issuing group can produce or support in the future without contridiction--that is, they no longer have a goal of "software for anyone to do anything."
And this is going to be *important* in the future--software that tracks people, software that searches unencoded transmissions for key words, software that sends spam or automatically trolls adult-oriented sites for children. Or your local mafia database.
I guess I just want to say that it's time for the industry to grow a concience. ref: guns, tabacco, pharmacuticals.
Perhaps, but ambiguity isn't a reason to abstain from taking a moral stance.
After all, I try to not hurt other people even though we have different ideas of "hurt"; nations pass laws against rape and sexual harrassment even though different communities have different definitions of the same.
You do well to point out that we can't do this perfectly--but we knew that already.
The computer itself isn't anything special, nor is what it can do.
What might be different is the Media Center OS--hopefully, it's as simple as a VCR or a gamecube. Single-button push; illusion of *not being a computer. Better yet, it's limited to the extent of being stable.
That said, I'd be suprised if no one's made a program to emulate push button simplicity on top of an existing OS. (they have them for touchscreen theater controls at my school). Really, I wouldn't be suprised if that's what the media center OS actually is. much cheaper that way.
Indeed.
Today I bought a 25$ ticket from ticketmaster--$6.50 "convenience fee", $4 handling fee, $1.50 shipping charge.
Which would be reasonable except that delivery consisted of generating a pdf for me to download and print.
He's quite right about the tacile. This is why I still have an IBM model M (actually manufactured before I was born). Can you imagine this fine product, working from underneath a two-inch deep tray of semi-liquid gel? Better yet, along the lines of silly putty, where resistance is proportional to force exerted against. Not only would it be amazingly crazy looking, but there would be a very direct (if analog) feedback and would feel like a constant hand massage / heated bath. Ultimate in RSI treatment, perhaps. The gel could be modded to different colors and lit with leds, of course. Different consistancies too. You could do it in the kitchen. A bit messy though, unless it was some sort of high-cohesive low-adhesive sillyness. And it doesn't exist. But that's what chemists are for. -jon PS. this would be even better if the programmer was sitting in a hottub. Powered by overclocked celerons.
Where to begin? Oh heck, I'll do all of it. Their languages are stupid. They weren't well-planned or thoughtout at all. Er.. no. With the exceptions of klingon, esperanto, and elvish, no language is planned--especially one over 4000 years old. The languages haven't evolved from their "one unique character per object" aspect in hundreds of years. Actually, chinese is composed of a number of radicals (around 200), which forms the basis for a particularly advanced form of character input. On a computer with decent algorithms, a skilled radical typist can easily type an order of magnitude faster than a western typist--no "word" should take more than three strokes. Personally, I think that Chinese is dying as a written language since more and more Chinese are becoming functionally illiterate as their birth rate increases. a) chinese literacy in increasing as income increases. b) chinese birthrates... the one child policy? Stop watching O'Reilly. The government of China should create a new language. a) And we should switch to metric. b) They already did, it's called simplified chinese and is much easier to learn. -jon
A lot of the discussion is about the allowabilty of defending your machine by hacking an attacker. But what M. actually talks about is attacking another _victim_ to minimize your own losses. Just because you know how to do it. Robert Nozick once asked if it was moral to use a ray gun to vaporize an innocent victem who had been thrown at you at 10m/s squared. Sortof. Damn, I love that idea. Well, this is more like having innocent victims thrown at your front lawn and vaporizing them to protect the imported roses. Because you have a ray gun. -jon