Absolutely. The only difference is that IGT makes machines that are purely based on chance (AFAIK), but this shady place has machines that are not based on chance at all (well, a 0% chance).
The point is that IGT doesn't set up machines to ever give you a 0% chance - you always have the same chance (perhaps a 49.9% chance) of winning. So, with IGT it's possible (highly improbable, I would like to emphasize, but still possible) to win 100% (or, say, 58%) of the games you play, purely thanks to chance.
So, while their machines are designed to give you a ~49% chance of winning, it's possible for you to win far more or far less often.
With the other company, there are no 'odds,' really... If you play for enough time, you will get back exactly N% (where N is the number that they predetermined) of the money you gamble.
I'm a longtime Nevada resident and agree with the entire point of your post. However, your point of contention is somewhat unrelated to the point of the article. The article is stating that the machines are rigged in a quite different way than Nevada slot machines.
It's saying that these slot machines are programmed for you to lose. For example, say you have a '2' onscreen and you have to choose between higher (up to 10) and lower (down to 1). If you pick 'lower', you lose, and if you pick 'higher', you lose as well. These machines have no winning possibilities in certain situations, which is NOT something that IGT does!
In my Bioethics class at Yale I was informed that, in order to be patentable, the information coding a gene cannot be natural.
For instance, if I manually create a new gene that exists nowhere in nature (as far as we know) then I am free to patent that, but if I merely discover a gene that already exists, I may not patent it.
I will say nothing, though, about the patenting of techniques, which I will leave to abler minds.
It strikes me as being somewhat unethical to put ants into such extreme conditions (high temperature and lots of vibration) without any purpose other than 'looking cool'. At least when we send them up to outer space we have a scientific goal in mind. When you have them on the side of your case you are just causing them harm for no real gain.
Honestly, NASA will probably never learn that - it's impossible to learn such a negative. For instance, it's impossible to 'learn' that there is no God - you cannot scientifically disprove God's existence.
On that same token, it's impossible for NASA to 'learn' that there is no life outside of Earth until it has visited all of the other planets throughout the Universe.
So, no, NASA will never learn that there is no life outside our planet - but in their quest, they will probably learn many other things (perhaps even useful ones).
If life had existed in the presumable oceans on Mars back in the day, then it is possible that there is life in the water vapor in the atmosphere (just as there is life in our atmosphere). Of course, I'm not sure that there is much (any?) water in the atmosphere on Mars.
Furthermore, Mars didn't overheat, and there is not as much water in the polar ice caps as we had expected. To me this indicated that most of the water must have gone down below the surface; it could have easily brought microbial life down with it, as Earth has much microbial life beneath the earth.
I have noticed that some people are complaining, "But if I always have the same phone number, then I can't avoid all those pesky telemarketers/ex-girlfriends/stalkers/parents/lawy ers/etc."
What these people are ignoring is that you merely have the choice to keep the same number - not an obligation. If it behooves you to keep the same number, you may do so; if not, you can drop the number just like you do now.
Besides the fact that we haven't been able to get fusion to work yet, I haven't heard of any other problems with it.
Fusion's main byproduct is helium... Safe enough to fill balloons with, possibly. Anyways, if we can 'do' fusion, we won't need to build any more bird-killing windfarms or local-air-current-disturbing solar plants.
Fusion is a panacea. (At least, as long as we can figure it all out.)
I mirrored this article, including the images, on my website (a quick one hosted with Yale.edu bandwidth) in case the main link goes down:
Here is the Mirror
I envision a future.
I envision a future in which the Universities, so plagued by the massive fileswapping in which its students partake, decide to institute internal p2p networks (or at least turn a blind eye).
I envision a future in which the Universities, so sick and tired of receiving 'ceast and desist' letters from the RIAA, firewall off all IP addresses known to be RIAA-owned.
Eat a dick, RIAA.
Mod parent up; alwayslurking's post here better explains the point that my post was originally trying to get at: that Watson and Crick virtually stole Franklin's findings.
Let's not forget Rosalind Franklin - the woman who actually took the X-ray photographs of the DNA molecule. Without her, Watson and Crick would not have been able to discern the DNA structure!
This is a malformed question. Asking, "Are they engineers or code monkeys" is tantamount to asking "Are you an apple, or are you a corvette?"
As you can see, the problem with this line of questioning is that it leaves no room for reasonable alternatives. So, perhaps I'm neither a corvette nor an apple, but I'm a dolphin. You see where I'm going with this.
That idea is very tenable and useful. However, I would argue against this as a potential use, at least in universities, because most universities have central servers, to which the students can write data. These servers, in a RAID or similar configuration, would have a smaller chance of failure than a CD-ROM.
Hispanics are largely Catholic. Thus, they would probably support the 'religious right'. However, the politics about which you speak do not concern things within the religious right's purview.
It's important that the religious right does not become confused with 'conservatism' as a whole - they can be immensely separate!
Slashdot Mirror
Absolutely. The only difference is that IGT makes machines that are purely based on chance (AFAIK), but this shady place has machines that are not based on chance at all (well, a 0% chance).
The point is that IGT doesn't set up machines to ever give you a 0% chance - you always have the same chance (perhaps a 49.9% chance) of winning. So, with IGT it's possible (highly improbable, I would like to emphasize, but still possible) to win 100% (or, say, 58%) of the games you play, purely thanks to chance.
So, while their machines are designed to give you a ~49% chance of winning, it's possible for you to win far more or far less often.
With the other company, there are no 'odds,' really... If you play for enough time, you will get back exactly N% (where N is the number that they predetermined) of the money you gamble.
I'm a longtime Nevada resident and agree with the entire point of your post. However, your point of contention is somewhat unrelated to the point of the article. The article is stating that the machines are rigged in a quite different way than Nevada slot machines.
It's saying that these slot machines are programmed for you to lose. For example, say you have a '2' onscreen and you have to choose between higher (up to 10) and lower (down to 1). If you pick 'lower', you lose, and if you pick 'higher', you lose as well. These machines have no winning possibilities in certain situations, which is NOT something that IGT does!
Who the fuck cares about the 26th birthday of a transistor board?
In my Bioethics class at Yale I was informed that, in order to be patentable, the information coding a gene cannot be natural.
For instance, if I manually create a new gene that exists nowhere in nature (as far as we know) then I am free to patent that, but if I merely discover a gene that already exists, I may not patent it.
I will say nothing, though, about the patenting of techniques, which I will leave to abler minds.
Twin primes are two prime numbers that differ by a value of two - for instance, 17 and 19, or 29 and 31.
It strikes me as being somewhat unethical to put ants into such extreme conditions (high temperature and lots of vibration) without any purpose other than 'looking cool'. At least when we send them up to outer space we have a scientific goal in mind. When you have them on the side of your case you are just causing them harm for no real gain.
Honestly, NASA will probably never learn that - it's impossible to learn such a negative. For instance, it's impossible to 'learn' that there is no God - you cannot scientifically disprove God's existence.
On that same token, it's impossible for NASA to 'learn' that there is no life outside of Earth until it has visited all of the other planets throughout the Universe.
So, no, NASA will never learn that there is no life outside our planet - but in their quest, they will probably learn many other things (perhaps even useful ones).
If life had existed in the presumable oceans on Mars back in the day, then it is possible that there is life in the water vapor in the atmosphere (just as there is life in our atmosphere). Of course, I'm not sure that there is much (any?) water in the atmosphere on Mars. Furthermore, Mars didn't overheat, and there is not as much water in the polar ice caps as we had expected. To me this indicated that most of the water must have gone down below the surface; it could have easily brought microbial life down with it, as Earth has much microbial life beneath the earth.
By the way, for everyone who doesn't program, != means 'is not equal to'.
Hint: Learn how to format lines of code before insulting... well... anything.
I have noticed that some people are complaining, "But if I always have the same phone number, then I can't avoid all those pesky telemarketers/ex-girlfriends/stalkers/parents/lawy ers/etc."
What these people are ignoring is that you merely have the choice to keep the same number - not an obligation. If it behooves you to keep the same number, you may do so; if not, you can drop the number just like you do now.
Giving the public more options is a "Good Thing."
The story read, "Paul Allen Proposes Shrine to Himself" I think ;-)
Wouldn't the cops nail you for possessing Thermite anyways??? =)
Besides the fact that we haven't been able to get fusion to work yet, I haven't heard of any other problems with it.
Fusion's main byproduct is helium... Safe enough to fill balloons with, possibly. Anyways, if we can 'do' fusion, we won't need to build any more bird-killing windfarms or local-air-current-disturbing solar plants.
Fusion is a panacea. (At least, as long as we can figure it all out.)
I mirrored this article, including the images, on my website (a quick one hosted with Yale.edu bandwidth) in case the main link goes down: Here is the Mirror
To do so in writing would have constituted a license.
I envision a future. I envision a future in which the Universities, so plagued by the massive fileswapping in which its students partake, decide to institute internal p2p networks (or at least turn a blind eye). I envision a future in which the Universities, so sick and tired of receiving 'ceast and desist' letters from the RIAA, firewall off all IP addresses known to be RIAA-owned. Eat a dick, RIAA.
Mod parent up; alwayslurking's post here better explains the point that my post was originally trying to get at: that Watson and Crick virtually stole Franklin's findings.
Let's not forget Rosalind Franklin - the woman who actually took the X-ray photographs of the DNA molecule. Without her, Watson and Crick would not have been able to discern the DNA structure!
This is a malformed question. Asking, "Are they engineers or code monkeys" is tantamount to asking "Are you an apple, or are you a corvette?"
As you can see, the problem with this line of questioning is that it leaves no room for reasonable alternatives. So, perhaps I'm neither a corvette nor an apple, but I'm a dolphin. You see where I'm going with this.
College textbooks are chosen for the class by the professor WHO WROTE THE BOOK.
Good call! We'd finally have a good reason to steal the ethanol out of chem lab ;-)
That idea is very tenable and useful. However, I would argue against this as a potential use, at least in universities, because most universities have central servers, to which the students can write data. These servers, in a RAID or similar configuration, would have a smaller chance of failure than a CD-ROM.
Hispanics are largely Catholic. Thus, they would probably support the 'religious right'. However, the politics about which you speak do not concern things within the religious right's purview.
It's important that the religious right does not become confused with 'conservatism' as a whole - they can be immensely separate!
Is this not a complete breach of the TOS that Microsoft offers when you sign up for Windows Update?
If not, it's at least a huge breach of trust, and users should not stand for it.