Re:Military promotion is *very* clear cut.
on
The Living Dilbert?
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· Score: 1
"... the appearance standards (which are so insanely detailed it is difficult to believe unless you have been subject to them), maintains a good posture and how well he recieves and issues commands. Oh, and that he doesn't lean against things and never puts his hands in his pockets (you can't make this stuff up).
That's fascintating. It sounds to me, on first analysis, that this is to present an 'air of authority' and capability in whatever situation you are in. If you are leaning against something, perhaps you don't have enough strength or energy to support yourself. If you have your hands in your pockets, you are not ready to deal with whatever situation presents itself immediately before you. I'm thinking about the attitude and comportment of a depressed person, and I wouldn't be too afraid of him, nor would I want him defending the nation;)
Re:Military promotion is *very* clear cut.
on
The Living Dilbert?
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· Score: 1
Allow me to geek out for a moment.
You say, "The rules for promotion in the military are phenomonally well definied. "
Yet,
"Military bearing (a catchall for how well you meet the basic military requirements for behavior and action) for example, is often at least if not more important than your actual job performance at the lower ranks."
So the military promotion process is phenomenally well-defined, yet the major component is "Military Bearing", which sounds to me like "How well you 'Get It'" -- rather ill-defined? Is this contradictory, or is the promotion process in companies that bad?
Hey folks -- I had a similar idea, if there are crystals or some substance that can be tuned to vibrate with musical scales. If they were small enough, you could implant the scale some place on your head -- say, in your lips or under your scalp -- and when you sing and hit the note precisely, you feel a small tingle. Over time, you learn to hit notes based on the tingling.
"presumably everything going to the drive goes through the flash cache."
Doubtful, given the wear-and-tear issue you point out.
I rather think the flash cache is to store the RAM data when the machine goes into hibernation, and to load back in quickly when the machine comes out of hibernation. Without flash, you would have to wait for the hard drive to spin up before it can retrieve the RAM store.
You are right. I agree that usually the truth is something that is widely removed from the public mindshare. ( As an example, look at anything about the nature of the cosmos that science has revealed -- the structure of the solar system, gravity, DNA, etc. ) Anywho, triangulation, or the truth being 'between' two sides, is a false conception. The idea of triangulation just means that you have to pit someone who is more extreme in their views against your adversary. Then, since both sides have to agree to meet in the middle -- where the truth supposedly lies -- you get what you want, which was between your adversary and your extremist buddy. I don't think its part of the current mindset, it's just the way that people have always been.
However, I've painfully discovered that most people, excluding nerds and geeks, care about what truth and reality are. They only believe what they have heard from a 'reputable' consensus source, such as the TV. What that means is that people who are interested in the general public being somewhat aware of truth and reality is that we have to use the techniques that work. I am merely giving lip service to the idea of 'truth in the middle' so I can get my adversary to agree to an under-oath investigation. It is reasonable after all, right?
I agree, it is a compromise. But nobody wants to be unflinchingly truthful. You will never get anywhere as an extreme truthteller. People as a whole live in the gloom between the bright light of truth and the darkness of ignorance.
We know what bombs are and what they do to people.
Now we are talking about a company that makes RFID chips. What are RFID chips and what do they do? Are they like a bar code that is used to track products in a store? Or are they like the serial number tattoos that the Nazis used to track people and process them appropriately?
"Games are not much different but there's a new twist. The user can interact with the story. Sometimes on a very limited basis with no influence at all but, in others, the user feels/is integral to the storyline. A story is often told, some very basic, confusing and short (Tetris, Super Mario Bros, etc.) while others are much more in depth and consuming (Final Fantasy, World of Warcraft, etc).
"
I disagree. When 'stories', or cutscenes, are introduced in video games, they are just attaching two different things together. They have no influence on each other -- the game part has no influence on the story, and the story part has no influence on the game.
In other words, there is no interaction with the story. Your input will not change the story in any way. There is a pre-defined story line, or set of alternative story lines. You will get no other story than the one(s) that the programmers put into the game.
It is like watching part of a play, then playing a round of poker, and then watching another scene, and playing another round. No one believes that the card game influences or is related in any way to the play. You are just joining to different things together arbitrarily.
I mean, seriously, c'mon. There is absolutely no story in Tetris. It's simply a game.
"Google is not in the software as service business. They are in the advertising business, just as a billboard company is not in the real estate business, even though they must interact with the real estate market in order to sell their advertising product."
I disagree. Google is in the software business, they just finance it through advertising. They employ more programmers and developers than advertisers and marketers, and produce far more data than they do ads. They must interact with the advertising market, but far and away, their product is data.
What you're saying is that radio stations are not in the radio business, they are in the advertising business because they finance their operation by ads rather than charging their consumers directly.
"The government should live in constant fear of the populace, not the other way around."
They do. That's exactly why the government pulls crap like this. They are motivated out of fear, and nothing else.
Our society is based on co-operation, and nothing else. This is a tenuous relationship. If the masses decide to support some other system en massse, then these people are out of jobs, power, and influence.
There are not enough soldiers, guns, or bombs to kill people into submission. If you do decide to utilize violence to maintain power, you have to utilize a lot of finesse to make yourself look legitimate. If you are clumsy, it will easily backfire, because nobody wants to live under tyranny.
Our government currently exists by providing a basic level of service and protection from harm, but also by propaganda extolling its vitures and proclaiming alternatives as some form of insanity.
"Ha! Are you being even remotely serious? [references google search for 'lazy french']"
I think that's more anti-French sentiment, than anything. Germans, Brits, Swedes, etc. get the same amount of vacation and have the same hours per week, but they have no such 'lazy' stereotype. They are the Northern European countries, where the Protestant work ethic developed. They looked disdainfully at the southern European countries, who were mostly Catholic, calling them lazy because they had their main meal at lunch and rested in the noon-day heat, but usually worked later into the evening.
To be fair, I think he's talking about identify theft for jobs.
He realizes we aren't going to have a DNA check for crossing the border or for buying groceries. However, when you apply for a job, and 4 weeks on when your DNA test comes back as someone else, you are fired. Or, you are sent to a prison labor camp for the fraud you have committed.
"I'm sure there are those people out there who looooove their toolbars."
I doubt it. I think it's people who don't understand computers that well, and wait on the genius computer experts to give them the next great computer thing that will make their lives happier. Right now the answer is the toolbar.
Most people don't understand computers well enough to apprehend the potential. They can't fully understand the UI problems they face, and therefore they also can't think of creative solutions to those problems.
So the management of companies like Yahoo! and eBay, in the effort to increase marketshare and make more money, tell their developers to create newer and better toolbars, which are just devices to improve the marketshare of the toolbar owners. Mom & Pop computer users hear about the great new toolbars that are in the pipeline, and think all their problems will be solved in short order.
We are still in the glow of the vast communications improvements that computers have afforded the average person -- email, websites, online banking. That revolution hasn't yet been fully co-opted by marketers who aren't making new revolutionary technology, but instead just fight for existing marketshare. So people still see computers as having the potential to revolutionize their life, and haven't yet become jaded to the constant barrage of marketing and sales pitches that will eventually take over computers, too.
"Such a "contract" would be as illegal as the paper that it was written on."
What the hell kind of illegal paper did they write it on? Marijuana paper?
Sorry to make a snarky joke about your serious comment, but I couldn't pass it up;)
Re:By the sound of it, they will be using optics
on
Looking for Life in Light
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I just realized a mistake --
When the planet is in front of the star, the total luminosity will increase, but it the star's light that gets beamed through the atmosphere of the planet will show absorption lines of the planet's elements. So, conveniently, that kind of works as a check -- when we see both the planet and the star, we will see extra bands in the spectrum corresponding to the planet's makeup, and when the planet is in front of the star, we should see absorption in those bands. Finally, when the planet is behind the star, we should see a regular star-like spectrum.
Re:By the sound of it, they will be using optics
on
Looking for Life in Light
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I am no expert in this either, but I think it must be a little more nuanced to be accurate.
First off, if the planet is partially obscuring the star, most of what we are seeing is the dark side of the planet. So, all we should see is a reduction in the total amount of light from the star, but not much change in the apparent percentage of constituent molecules of the star. Some of the light we are seeing is the star beaming through the planet's atmosphere, which might change the apparent spectrum signature of the star, but I think that would be a small percentage compared to the total volume or star light.
However, there are also times when the planet is kind of on either side of the star. In that case, we are looking at all the light of the star, plus a partial reflection of the star's light off of the planet. So in that case, we would see the most amount of light, plus probably more of the chemical signatures of the planet in the spectrum. So at this time we are getting extra light with a complex spectrum
Finally there will be times when the star totally obscures the planet. In that case, we should see a more 'starry' spectrum, and a normal amount of light.
To wrap up, there are four 'phases' we should see:
When the planet is behind the star, we will see a more typical spectrum, and we will get the same amount of light from the star for a period of time.
When the planet starts peaking around the star's edge, we will be getting more total light, plus some extra elements in the spectrum -- probably some stuff we don't normally find in stars. The planet is most luminous when it first emerges from behind the planet and then later on when it goes back behind it.
When the planet works its way around to the front of the star, it's shadow will decrease the total amount of light we are getting from the star. We might see some of the planet's elements from the light that the star beams through the planet's atmosphere.
Finally, the planet will reach the other side of the star, where it will again add to the total luminosity and the signature of its chemical elements. This will look like phase two, until it finally recedes behind the planet and we are at stage one again.
Perhaps a real astronomer can correct my mistakes.;)
There are millions of dollars that the lawyers for the plantiffs stand to gain if they are successful in this class action suit. Apple settles to pay the damages for millions of iPod users, which is millions of dollars. Divided out,
every nano owner gets some three dollars and fourty-three cents, and the lawyers get 30% of the settlement, which is 3 million dollars.
This figures are totally bogus, but they're in the ballpark. That's why this law firm is so interested in pursuing this case -- millions of dollars.
This is great that the project is advancing, but I was dissappointed that the laptop wasn't capable of changing to other modes as was originally planned. Check out the image in the wikipedia article -- there is a carrying mode, a theater mode, a laptop mode, and a tablet mode. However, this first prototype has only the laptop modes we are familiar with.
Certainly the telecommunications industry has a vested interest in not seeing this come to fruition. However, given the recent efforts by the government to build massive data-mining operations, we now have the government emerging as a player not interested in seeing this happen.
If we have a VOIP cell phone that has secure communications, then the government has no way of listening in on calls ( with or without a warrant). If we have some kind of onion-based routing of calls, the government is no longer able to do its social network mapping (who called who, how often, and how long) that it purportedly uses to detect terrorist cells.
So, while it's a great idea, it's unlikely to happen. The future is looking more and more dystopian, at least in this country.
For interested slashdotters, Toby's post seems to be at least partially influenced by Marshall McLuhan, who is probably best known for his theories about media in the modern age. The quote "the medium is the message" is attributed to him. He posited that is was the form of the medium, not its content, that affected people. From the wikipedia article:
"McLuhan posits that a light bulb has no content, yet it creates space; that is, a light bulb enables people to create spaces during nighttime that would otherwise be enveloped by darkness. McLuhan states that a light bulb creates an environment by its mere presence. (UM page 8) More controversially, he postulates that content had little effect on society -- in other words, it did not matter if television broadcasts children's shows or violent programming, to illustrate one example -- the effect of television on society would be identical."
The idea that I was trying to convey was that, since GB was directly threatened by Naziism at one time, there might be a greater public consciousness about what facism is, how it came to power in its various historical incarnations, and a general impression that it was bad and unwelcome. 'Overrun' is basically a synonym for a successful invasion. Dictionary.com says it means "1. a. To seize the positions of and defeat conclusively: The position of the forward infantry was overrun by large numbers of enemy troops at dawn." It certainly doesn't mean peaceful political transition
I apologize for not being clear.
I am aware that the US fought against Nazi Germany, but I don't think that Americans felt directly threatened by Germany -- at least not in the near term. Americans felt protected by oceans, and that whatever was going on in Europe would never really affect us. We eventually did declare war on Japan after they attatcked us, and then in turn entered into war with the Axis powers. So my point is that I don't think Americans ever felt too threatened by Facism because we never felt directly threatened by it. So, since it was never taken seriously as a threat, we never learn about it in school. But, since GB was directly threatened by Nazi take-over at one time, I imagined there would be more education about facism, and in turn, greater awareness of its methods and hostility towards those methods. As an example, here in the US, there has been near-hysteria about communist take-over for most of the last century. Because of that, there was a lot of talk and education about what communism is and why it doesn't work. And any kind of proposed idea that bore the slightest resemblance to communism was ridiculed as delusional -- such as welfare, national health insurance, etc. I figured the same hostility would exist in Britain, but against facism, too.
"Some of these things _really_ sound like a bad acid trip to me."
Actually, I think there's only one symptom that sounds like a bad acid trip, and that's Formication, or delusional parasitosis. It's the feeling of bugs crawling on your skin when there's actually not any bugs crawling on your skin.
I doubt it would be any kind of hallucinogenic drug. The main reason is that there are no other mind-altering symptoms, such as change of body perception (i.e. being a giant, having wings, etc), change of perception of time, hallucinations, other kinds of delusions, and so forth . I would be very surprised if there were some kind of chemical agent that *only* cause formication.
I actually suspect this could be a parasite. The thing about parasitic skin infections is that you actually feel like things are crawling inside your skin. The difference between delusional parasitosis and actually having parasites in your skin is that a delusional person doesn't really have parasites -- otherwise both feel that they have bugs crawling in their skin. Here in the relatively developed United States, people rarely get skin parasites, so the common perception is that the feeling of bugs on your skin is a a symptom of craziness.
The sores that open up on peoples' skin and the strands or fibers could be the method of reproduction. Similiar to how small pox spreads through the germ in small pox sores.
" Didn't the U.K. defeat Facism that threatened to overrun the country?"
"Huh? I think you've either confused us with another country, or you've confused fiction with fact. Not counting the present day, the UK has never been anywhere near fascism. Or are you one of those people that use 'fascism' as a synonym for 'something I don't like'? "
Am I mistaken in thinking that Nazi Germnay had plans to conquer Great Britain, like it had done to the rest of Europe? And didn't GB succesfully repel the invasion?
While I personally dispise Naziism, I think it can be reasonably considered facism by any objective definition.
Thanks for the explanation. But can you tell me how the Labour party is able to push their agenda so freely? In the parliamentary system, aren't there a greater variety of parties that have at least some measure of say in what goes on?
THe UK seems to be following the same track that the US is. Which confounds me, because I think 9/11 put America into a state of almost fanaticism, and provided political cover for a facist agenda. However, what is going on in Britain that provides cover for the same kinds of things? Surely 9/11 can't have affected the mindset of Brits as it has Amercans?
"so the hugely profitable and popular TV show "That 70's show" was a failure for not having "star power" but used no name actors."
TV shows are totally different. The audience doesn't have to go out of their way and drive to the theater, spend money, and be in a theater for 1.5 hours. With TV shows, you just sit at the TV, flip through channels, and if you see something you like, you watch it, for free. You aren't obliged to watch the whole thing to the end just to get your money's worth. That 70s show has run for years now, and those actors are now stars themselves.
"And that Mission Impossible III is the biggest complete flop in history because of the retarted moron that is the star of the show but is a "mega-STAR" in every sence of the word."
It's true that having stars won't guarantee the success of a movie, but a movie without stars is very unlikely to have success anywhere near a typical Hollywood film.
"How about the fact that "Happy Madison" films almost NEVER use a big name star, but typically use has-beens and ends up the most profitable movie studio on the planet right now?? Yes kids, He is making more money per dollar spent than all the others combined right now and is KILLING on DVD sales."
"
No big name star?! How about Adam Sandler? A guy who already had an audience from a 5 year career at SNL. Hardly a nobody.
Slashdot Mirror
"... the appearance standards (which are so insanely detailed it is difficult to believe unless you have been subject to them), maintains a good posture and how well he recieves and issues commands. Oh, and that he doesn't lean against things and never puts his hands in his pockets (you can't make this stuff up).
;)
That's fascintating. It sounds to me, on first analysis, that this is to present an 'air of authority' and capability in whatever situation you are in. If you are leaning against something, perhaps you don't have enough strength or energy to support yourself. If you have your hands in your pockets, you are not ready to deal with whatever situation presents itself immediately before you. I'm thinking about the attitude and comportment of a depressed person, and I wouldn't be too afraid of him, nor would I want him defending the nation
Allow me to geek out for a moment.
You say, "The rules for promotion in the military are phenomonally well definied. "
Yet, "Military bearing (a catchall for how well you meet the basic military requirements for behavior and action) for example, is often at least if not more important than your actual job performance at the lower ranks."
So the military promotion process is phenomenally well-defined, yet the major component is "Military Bearing", which sounds to me like "How well you 'Get It'" -- rather ill-defined? Is this contradictory, or is the promotion process in companies that bad?
Hey folks -- I had a similar idea, if there are crystals or some substance that can be tuned to vibrate with musical scales. If they were small enough, you could implant the scale some place on your head -- say, in your lips or under your scalp -- and when you sing and hit the note precisely, you feel a small tingle. Over time, you learn to hit notes based on the tingling.
Could this work?
"presumably everything going to the drive goes through the flash cache."
Doubtful, given the wear-and-tear issue you point out.
I rather think the flash cache is to store the RAM data when the machine goes into hibernation, and to load back in quickly when the machine comes out of hibernation. Without flash, you would have to wait for the hard drive to spin up before it can retrieve the RAM store.
You are right. I agree that usually the truth is something that is widely removed from the public mindshare. ( As an example, look at anything about the nature of the cosmos that science has revealed -- the structure of the solar system, gravity, DNA, etc. ) Anywho, triangulation, or the truth being 'between' two sides, is a false conception. The idea of triangulation just means that you have to pit someone who is more extreme in their views against your adversary. Then, since both sides have to agree to meet in the middle -- where the truth supposedly lies -- you get what you want, which was between your adversary and your extremist buddy. I don't think its part of the current mindset, it's just the way that people have always been.
However, I've painfully discovered that most people, excluding nerds and geeks, care about what truth and reality are. They only believe what they have heard from a 'reputable' consensus source, such as the TV. What that means is that people who are interested in the general public being somewhat aware of truth and reality is that we have to use the techniques that work. I am merely giving lip service to the idea of 'truth in the middle' so I can get my adversary to agree to an under-oath investigation. It is reasonable after all, right?
I agree, it is a compromise. But nobody wants to be unflinchingly truthful. You will never get anywhere as an extreme truthteller. People as a whole live in the gloom between the bright light of truth and the darkness of ignorance.
"9/11 was done not by the US government but by Saddam Hussein! Wait that's not right either.
Couldn't there be some sort of middle-ground? Truth, maybe?"
I like the way you think! I am interested in finding this truthy middle-ground.
How about a real investigation, where high-ranking folks like Bush and Cheney testify under oath?
We know what bombs are and what they do to people.
Now we are talking about a company that makes RFID chips. What are RFID chips and what do they do? Are they like a bar code that is used to track products in a store? Or are they like the serial number tattoos that the Nazis used to track people and process them appropriately?
"Games are not much different but there's a new twist. The user can interact with the story. Sometimes on a very limited basis with no influence at all but, in others, the user feels/is integral to the storyline. A story is often told, some very basic, confusing and short (Tetris, Super Mario Bros, etc.) while others are much more in depth and consuming (Final Fantasy, World of Warcraft, etc). "
I disagree. When 'stories', or cutscenes, are introduced in video games, they are just attaching two different things together. They have no influence on each other -- the game part has no influence on the story, and the story part has no influence on the game.
In other words, there is no interaction with the story. Your input will not change the story in any way. There is a pre-defined story line, or set of alternative story lines. You will get no other story than the one(s) that the programmers put into the game.
It is like watching part of a play, then playing a round of poker, and then watching another scene, and playing another round. No one believes that the card game influences or is related in any way to the play. You are just joining to different things together arbitrarily.
I mean, seriously, c'mon. There is absolutely no story in Tetris. It's simply a game.
"Google is not in the software as service business. They are in the advertising business, just as a billboard company is not in the real estate business, even though they must interact with the real estate market in order to sell their advertising product."
I disagree. Google is in the software business, they just finance it through advertising. They employ more programmers and developers than advertisers and marketers, and produce far more data than they do ads. They must interact with the advertising market, but far and away, their product is data.
What you're saying is that radio stations are not in the radio business, they are in the advertising business because they finance their operation by ads rather than charging their consumers directly.
"The government should live in constant fear of the populace, not the other way around."
They do. That's exactly why the government pulls crap like this. They are motivated out of fear, and nothing else.
Our society is based on co-operation, and nothing else. This is a tenuous relationship. If the masses decide to support some other system en massse, then these people are out of jobs, power, and influence.
There are not enough soldiers, guns, or bombs to kill people into submission. If you do decide to utilize violence to maintain power, you have to utilize a lot of finesse to make yourself look legitimate. If you are clumsy, it will easily backfire, because nobody wants to live under tyranny.
Our government currently exists by providing a basic level of service and protection from harm, but also by propaganda extolling its vitures and proclaiming alternatives as some form of insanity.
"Ha! Are you being even remotely serious? [references google search for 'lazy french']"
I think that's more anti-French sentiment, than anything. Germans, Brits, Swedes, etc. get the same amount of vacation and have the same hours per week, but they have no such 'lazy' stereotype. They are the Northern European countries, where the Protestant work ethic developed. They looked disdainfully at the southern European countries, who were mostly Catholic, calling them lazy because they had their main meal at lunch and rested in the noon-day heat, but usually worked later into the evening.
To be fair, I think he's talking about identify theft for jobs.
He realizes we aren't going to have a DNA check for crossing the border or for buying groceries. However, when you apply for a job, and 4 weeks on when your DNA test comes back as someone else, you are fired. Or, you are sent to a prison labor camp for the fraud you have committed.
"I'm sure there are those people out there who looooove their toolbars."
I doubt it. I think it's people who don't understand computers that well, and wait on the genius computer experts to give them the next great computer thing that will make their lives happier. Right now the answer is the toolbar.
Most people don't understand computers well enough to apprehend the potential. They can't fully understand the UI problems they face, and therefore they also can't think of creative solutions to those problems.
So the management of companies like Yahoo! and eBay, in the effort to increase marketshare and make more money, tell their developers to create newer and better toolbars, which are just devices to improve the marketshare of the toolbar owners. Mom & Pop computer users hear about the great new toolbars that are in the pipeline, and think all their problems will be solved in short order.
We are still in the glow of the vast communications improvements that computers have afforded the average person -- email, websites, online banking. That revolution hasn't yet been fully co-opted by marketers who aren't making new revolutionary technology, but instead just fight for existing marketshare. So people still see computers as having the potential to revolutionize their life, and haven't yet become jaded to the constant barrage of marketing and sales pitches that will eventually take over computers, too.
"Such a "contract" would be as illegal as the paper that it was written on."
;)
What the hell kind of illegal paper did they write it on? Marijuana paper?
Sorry to make a snarky joke about your serious comment, but I couldn't pass it up
I just realized a mistake --
When the planet is in front of the star, the total luminosity will increase, but it the star's light that gets beamed through the atmosphere of the planet will show absorption lines of the planet's elements. So, conveniently, that kind of works as a check -- when we see both the planet and the star, we will see extra bands in the spectrum corresponding to the planet's makeup, and when the planet is in front of the star, we should see absorption in those bands. Finally, when the planet is behind the star, we should see a regular star-like spectrum.
First off, if the planet is partially obscuring the star, most of what we are seeing is the dark side of the planet. So, all we should see is a reduction in the total amount of light from the star, but not much change in the apparent percentage of constituent molecules of the star. Some of the light we are seeing is the star beaming through the planet's atmosphere, which might change the apparent spectrum signature of the star, but I think that would be a small percentage compared to the total volume or star light.
However, there are also times when the planet is kind of on either side of the star. In that case, we are looking at all the light of the star, plus a partial reflection of the star's light off of the planet. So in that case, we would see the most amount of light, plus probably more of the chemical signatures of the planet in the spectrum. So at this time we are getting extra light with a complex spectrum
Finally there will be times when the star totally obscures the planet. In that case, we should see a more 'starry' spectrum, and a normal amount of light.
To wrap up, there are four 'phases' we should see:
- When the planet is behind the star, we will see a more typical spectrum, and we will get the same amount of light from the star for a period of time.
- When the planet starts peaking around the star's edge, we will be getting more total light, plus some extra elements in the spectrum -- probably some stuff we don't normally find in stars. The planet is most luminous when it first emerges from behind the planet and then later on when it goes back behind it.
- When the planet works its way around to the front of the star, it's shadow will decrease the total amount of light we are getting from the star. We might see some of the planet's elements from the light that the star beams through the planet's atmosphere.
- Finally, the planet will reach the other side of the star, where it will again add to the total luminosity and the signature of its chemical elements. This will look like phase two, until it finally recedes behind the planet and we are at stage one again.
Perhaps a real astronomer can correct my mistakes.There are millions of dollars that the lawyers for the plantiffs stand to gain if they are successful in this class action suit. Apple settles to pay the damages for millions of iPod users, which is millions of dollars. Divided out, every nano owner gets some three dollars and fourty-three cents, and the lawyers get 30% of the settlement, which is 3 million dollars.
This figures are totally bogus, but they're in the ballpark. That's why this law firm is so interested in pursuing this case -- millions of dollars.
This is great that the project is advancing, but I was dissappointed that the laptop wasn't capable of changing to other modes as was originally planned. Check out the image in the wikipedia article -- there is a carrying mode, a theater mode, a laptop mode, and a tablet mode. However, this first prototype has only the laptop modes we are familiar with.
Certainly the telecommunications industry has a vested interest in not seeing this come to fruition. However, given the recent efforts by the government to build massive data-mining operations, we now have the government emerging as a player not interested in seeing this happen.
If we have a VOIP cell phone that has secure communications, then the government has no way of listening in on calls ( with or without a warrant). If we have some kind of onion-based routing of calls, the government is no longer able to do its social network mapping (who called who, how often, and how long) that it purportedly uses to detect terrorist cells.
So, while it's a great idea, it's unlikely to happen. The future is looking more and more dystopian, at least in this country.
For interested slashdotters, Toby's post seems to be at least partially influenced by Marshall McLuhan, who is probably best known for his theories about media in the modern age. The quote "the medium is the message" is attributed to him. He posited that is was the form of the medium, not its content, that affected people. From the wikipedia article:
"McLuhan posits that a light bulb has no content, yet it creates space; that is, a light bulb enables people to create spaces during nighttime that would otherwise be enveloped by darkness. McLuhan states that a light bulb creates an environment by its mere presence. (UM page 8) More controversially, he postulates that content had little effect on society -- in other words, it did not matter if television broadcasts children's shows or violent programming, to illustrate one example -- the effect of television on society would be identical."
The idea that I was trying to convey was that, since GB was directly threatened by Naziism at one time, there might be a greater public consciousness about what facism is, how it came to power in its various historical incarnations, and a general impression that it was bad and unwelcome. 'Overrun' is basically a synonym for a successful invasion. Dictionary.com says it means "1. a. To seize the positions of and defeat conclusively: The position of the forward infantry was overrun by large numbers of enemy troops at dawn." It certainly doesn't mean peaceful political transition
I apologize for not being clear.
I am aware that the US fought against Nazi Germany, but I don't think that Americans felt directly threatened by Germany -- at least not in the near term. Americans felt protected by oceans, and that whatever was going on in Europe would never really affect us. We eventually did declare war on Japan after they attatcked us, and then in turn entered into war with the Axis powers. So my point is that I don't think Americans ever felt too threatened by Facism because we never felt directly threatened by it. So, since it was never taken seriously as a threat, we never learn about it in school. But, since GB was directly threatened by Nazi take-over at one time, I imagined there would be more education about facism, and in turn, greater awareness of its methods and hostility towards those methods. As an example, here in the US, there has been near-hysteria about communist take-over for most of the last century. Because of that, there was a lot of talk and education about what communism is and why it doesn't work. And any kind of proposed idea that bore the slightest resemblance to communism was ridiculed as delusional -- such as welfare, national health insurance, etc. I figured the same hostility would exist in Britain, but against facism, too.
"Some of these things _really_ sound like a bad acid trip to me."
Actually, I think there's only one symptom that sounds like a bad acid trip, and that's Formication, or delusional parasitosis. It's the feeling of bugs crawling on your skin when there's actually not any bugs crawling on your skin.
I doubt it would be any kind of hallucinogenic drug. The main reason is that there are no other mind-altering symptoms, such as change of body perception (i.e. being a giant, having wings, etc), change of perception of time, hallucinations, other kinds of delusions, and so forth . I would be very surprised if there were some kind of chemical agent that *only* cause formication.
I actually suspect this could be a parasite. The thing about parasitic skin infections is that you actually feel like things are crawling inside your skin. The difference between delusional parasitosis and actually having parasites in your skin is that a delusional person doesn't really have parasites -- otherwise both feel that they have bugs crawling in their skin. Here in the relatively developed United States, people rarely get skin parasites, so the common perception is that the feeling of bugs on your skin is a a symptom of craziness.
The sores that open up on peoples' skin and the strands or fibers could be the method of reproduction. Similiar to how small pox spreads through the germ in small pox sores.
" Didn't the U.K. defeat Facism that threatened to overrun the country?"
"Huh? I think you've either confused us with another country, or you've confused fiction with fact. Not counting the present day, the UK has never been anywhere near fascism. Or are you one of those people that use 'fascism' as a synonym for 'something I don't like'? "
Am I mistaken in thinking that Nazi Germnay had plans to conquer Great Britain, like it had done to the rest of Europe? And didn't GB succesfully repel the invasion?
While I personally dispise Naziism, I think it can be reasonably considered facism by any objective definition.
Thanks for the explanation. But can you tell me how the Labour party is able to push their agenda so freely? In the parliamentary system, aren't there a greater variety of parties that have at least some measure of say in what goes on?
THe UK seems to be following the same track that the US is. Which confounds me, because I think 9/11 put America into a state of almost fanaticism, and provided political cover for a facist agenda. However, what is going on in Britain that provides cover for the same kinds of things? Surely 9/11 can't have affected the mindset of Brits as it has Amercans?
"so the hugely profitable and popular TV show "That 70's show" was a failure for not having "star power" but used no name actors."
TV shows are totally different. The audience doesn't have to go out of their way and drive to the theater, spend money, and be in a theater for 1.5 hours. With TV shows, you just sit at the TV, flip through channels, and if you see something you like, you watch it, for free. You aren't obliged to watch the whole thing to the end just to get your money's worth. That 70s show has run for years now, and those actors are now stars themselves.
"And that Mission Impossible III is the biggest complete flop in history because of the retarted moron that is the star of the show but is a "mega-STAR" in every sence of the word."
It's true that having stars won't guarantee the success of a movie, but a movie without stars is very unlikely to have success anywhere near a typical Hollywood film.
"How about the fact that "Happy Madison" films almost NEVER use a big name star, but typically use has-beens and ends up the most profitable movie studio on the planet right now?? Yes kids, He is making more money per dollar spent than all the others combined right now and is KILLING on DVD sales." "
No big name star?! How about Adam Sandler? A guy who already had an audience from a 5 year career at SNL. Hardly a nobody.