It is relatively content-free, but highlights that Apple has just revamped its lineup. At the end of the day, the most likely thing a person will remember in a few days is that Apple has new computers out.
A company changes some of its lineup of products with other, slightly different products, and we need not one but two front page stories to commemorate this momentus news?
It's not like they are really manufacturing any of these components other than a few proprietary bits and pieces - so this story is basically just 'company builds okish computers using standard intel and ATI parts'.
I look forward to more exciting stories about Apple's new lineup as the week progresses:
- New Apples use 'mouse' to receive user input - New Apples run on standard AC power - Hardness testing reveals new Apple cases 0.05% harder than old models - Steve Jobs tells: "I love free advertising"
And he is right, you are not really going to see a vast improvement in the games on the Xbox over the next years. Developers are already trying to max out the hardware.
You're right - we won't see that, but instead we're going to see an entirely new XBox which will wipe the floor with a PS3 and still cost less.
So the real issue is this: is it better to make a hyper-advanced piece of hardware which no-one can properly utilise for 3-4 years after its release, or a current-gen piece of hardware which can immediately be utilised 100% followed by another current-gen piece of hardware in 3-4 years time which can again be 100% utilised?
In other words, if by the time the PS3 is being used "properly" by developers MS has released the XBOX3, and the XBOX3 is more powerful than the PS3, then haven't Sony just spent 4 years asking people to pay too much for something which they can't use anyway, only to be undercut again by cheaper, better hardware? It just doesn't make sense as a business strategy.
It's the same with PC hardware: there is no point in dropping $4000 on an uber fast system to play games - by the time games can actually use your hardware to its full potential, the same power can be obtained by spending $1500 on a mid-range machine with DDR7 RAM, a 16 core CPU and a Radeon 6870 (or whatever is around in 2011).
If true, does this mean that I will be allowed to open my media files with the program of my choosing, without Apple's hideously bloated, GUI-non-compliant piece of crapware trying to intercede and take control?
God I loathe Apple. Not for their own hardware (fanboys can do what they want on their white plasticy boxes, I guess), but for the appalling software they put out for Windows. Example: why the fuck can't I use my iPod on Windows without both iTunes and Craptime installed? WHY? My Creative Zen works absolutely fine with no Creative software installed at all. Which is why I bought it, to replace my ipod.
This was also bloody annoying if you used 'auto-hide' taskbar - e.g. I have XP set up with auto-hide and the taskbar up the side of the screen, stretched relatively wide so I can easily read the text for each running application. But whenever some god-damned program tries to steal the focus, even though XP doesn't let it any more, it still slides the taskbar out from hidden to visible over the top of whatever I'm doing. The amount of time it takes to go away again is a seemingly random number betwee 0 and 30 seconds.
Yeah, those Restatement authors have no idea what they're talking about.
You may be a lawyer, but you're about a hundred years out of date. Are you an American lawyer or are you in some other jurisdiction?
I'm in another (common law) jurisdiction, but I'd be curious to see any case which says that a person who lacks the mental capacity to contract is bound by reason of the "voluntariness" of that state.
... yeah, and while we're add it, we should also talk about lawyers who advise that where the other party reasonably does not suspect, that voluntary intoxication somehow makes a contract voidable. But I guess that would be too embarrassing for some people.
So you're just slipping in a crucial addition there (in bold) and then saying I'm wrong in relation to a different proposition? Bravo! You have truly shown me the error in my original statement.
At the same time, if she's luring it there with bits of food or whatever, then that's (in my mind) her effectively agreeing to it. Now, if she set this thing up, and the cat just happened to walk on it at some point, I could maybe see that, but I don't know that a judge would see it that way.
This needs to be rigged up so that when the cat walks on it it might accept the agreement or then again it might hit cancel, and I think it's looking a bit better. If the only possibility is that the cat will accept the agreement then I don't think the cat being the one to click will help you much (especially if you're luring it).
I'm pretty sure that actually IS the case, at least here in Australia - if you can't read it before opening the packaging, then opening the packaging cannot prevent you from returning the software.
I've been following the development of DX3, and despite myself those Canadian bastard developers have given me hope for the future again.
So far everything they have said and done has been consistent with the philosophy and design behind DX1, and they have explicitly said that they recognise the mistakes of DX:IW and intend to undo them and bring back the goodness of the original.
Couple that with unbelievable looking environments (it's a sort of Baroque/Cyberpunk hybrid) and super-cool weapons and I am, sadly, excited once more. Please Eidos, don't beat me like a mean drunk again...
If you voluntarily incapacitate yourself by getting drunk, you're responsible for any and all contracts you enter into while impaired. See Lucy v. Zehmer, the "heh, sure, I'll sell you my house for $100. I'll even sign a contract. I know you don't have a hundred dollars on you- oh, crap" case.
IAAL and that is not even close to correct.
The essence of a contract is the meeting of the minds between the parties. If you are too drunk to know what you are doing, it is impossible for there to be such a meeting of the minds. The cause of your intoxication is completely irrelevant - contract law is not in any sense about punishing parties for reckless conduct, only about holding them to terms they voluntarily and intentionally agree to.
On the other hand it is increasingly correct to say that if you deliberately get drunk you may have tortious or criminal liability for anything you do. There has been a gradual erosion of the ability of parties to use the 'drunk's defence' to escape liability for wrongs.
Time to go and read that YANAL blog from the other day, I think...
+1 for Stalker - one of the very best, and definitely one of the scariest and most atmospheric, games I have played. Insanely huge and eerie environments, art direction beyond compare, inherently bizarre Russian-ness, excellent sound, excellent guns, interesting and challenging enemies, great storyline.
Also featuring an actual good FPS engine used in an RPG-type way - Deus Ex 1 is close to my favourite game ever, but I will readily admit that the FPS side of it does not compare to a dedicated FPS, whereas Stalker probably exceeds most current gen FPS games.
It's a pity Stalker: Clear Sky seems to have turned some of the games pros into cons.
IAAL, and I disagree. We don't spend our time making stuff up and convincing our client's it's what they want.
You can rest assured that this is exactly what Facebook was after, and that their instructions to their reflect it. If you tell lawyers to make something as favourable as possible, that's exactly what they'll do.
He chose to run the PS installer with an admin account, and the installer made programmatic changes to the firewall config.
I'm fairly sure programs can't do this in XP. Like most people here on Windows I run XP on an administrator account by default, and every single program which has tried to modify firewall settings has caused Windows to ask me if that's ok.
It shouldn't be up to the program to decide, irrespective of its user level. Running as "administrator" in a Windows desktop environment has different connotations to *nix.
However, there is no definition of life that fire cannot meet, which the mule can. In other words, any non-contrived definition of life that includes the mule must also include fire.
Rubbish.
Can fire respond to environmental stimulus in a way which is not entirely governed by the direct physical effect of that stimulus on it? In fact, can fire actually "move"? I do not believe it can in the relevant sense.
Does fire have any capacity to seek out the things it needs to continue "living"?
Can fire pass on traits to its "offspring"? Is a given fire descended from something which is 'genetically' related to that fire, rather than any fire?
Mules can reproduce in the relevant sense, in that they are part of a chain of reproduction and inheritence. They just happen to be at the end of that particular chain due to an error which arises from their particular parents. Just like anything else which is alive and dies without reproducing.
In addition, your definition of "alive" is based on a wikipedia article which says "Something is often said to be alive if...". Hardly the most definitive source.
What about something like this as a definition? (this is just an example of more relevant criteria, IMHO):
1. has a physical existence composed at least partially of physical solids which is non-transient on a millisecond timescale
2. is capable of sustaining a continuous process composed of more than one simultaneous chemical or physical reaction beyond the raw materials currently comprising it
3. cannot arbitrarily be divided into fractional parts then restored
4. is a member of a chain of successive instances of itself wherein members of the chain can be differentiated from other instances of the same type of thing
5. has a form derived from coded information stored redundantly throughout itself, but which is more than that information alone
I'm sure there are Socratic counter-examples which will show this to be inadequate, but let's try your examples:
When you have good evidence of correlation and an apparently rational way to relate the variables in question then correlation can certainly strongly imply causation.
The way some people parrot the phrase above, you'd think that NO correlation was better evidence of causation...
Slashdot Mirror
It is relatively content-free, but highlights that Apple has just revamped its lineup. At the end of the day, the most likely thing a person will remember in a few days is that Apple has new computers out.
So yes.
And what if I like Apple articles which are actually relevant and interesting, but do not like non-stop pro-Apple slashvertisements?
A company changes some of its lineup of products with other, slightly different products, and we need not one but two front page stories to commemorate this momentus news?
It's not like they are really manufacturing any of these components other than a few proprietary bits and pieces - so this story is basically just 'company builds okish computers using standard intel and ATI parts'.
I look forward to more exciting stories about Apple's new lineup as the week progresses:
- New Apples use 'mouse' to receive user input
- New Apples run on standard AC power
- Hardness testing reveals new Apple cases 0.05% harder than old models
- Steve Jobs tells: "I love free advertising"
...for the front page Slashdot stories when Dell, Lenovo and Sony modestly update their current lineup of computers!
Oh wait...
You're right - we won't see that, but instead we're going to see an entirely new XBox which will wipe the floor with a PS3 and still cost less.
So the real issue is this: is it better to make a hyper-advanced piece of hardware which no-one can properly utilise for 3-4 years after its release, or a current-gen piece of hardware which can immediately be utilised 100% followed by another current-gen piece of hardware in 3-4 years time which can again be 100% utilised?
In other words, if by the time the PS3 is being used "properly" by developers MS has released the XBOX3, and the XBOX3 is more powerful than the PS3, then haven't Sony just spent 4 years asking people to pay too much for something which they can't use anyway, only to be undercut again by cheaper, better hardware? It just doesn't make sense as a business strategy.
It's the same with PC hardware: there is no point in dropping $4000 on an uber fast system to play games - by the time games can actually use your hardware to its full potential, the same power can be obtained by spending $1500 on a mid-range machine with DDR7 RAM, a 16 core CPU and a Radeon 6870 (or whatever is around in 2011).
Huzzah!
If true, does this mean that I will be allowed to open my media files with the program of my choosing, without Apple's hideously bloated, GUI-non-compliant piece of crapware trying to intercede and take control?
God I loathe Apple. Not for their own hardware (fanboys can do what they want on their white plasticy boxes, I guess), but for the appalling software they put out for Windows. Example: why the fuck can't I use my iPod on Windows without both iTunes and Craptime installed? WHY? My Creative Zen works absolutely fine with no Creative software installed at all. Which is why I bought it, to replace my ipod.
This was also bloody annoying if you used 'auto-hide' taskbar - e.g. I have XP set up with auto-hide and the taskbar up the side of the screen, stretched relatively wide so I can easily read the text for each running application. But whenever some god-damned program tries to steal the focus, even though XP doesn't let it any more, it still slides the taskbar out from hidden to visible over the top of whatever I'm doing. The amount of time it takes to go away again is a seemingly random number betwee 0 and 30 seconds.
Ah, slashdot. Where astounding technical brilliance meets an understanding of gender relations based on "Two and a Half Men".
I'm in another (common law) jurisdiction, but I'd be curious to see any case which says that a person who lacks the mental capacity to contract is bound by reason of the "voluntariness" of that state.
So you're just slipping in a crucial addition there (in bold) and then saying I'm wrong in relation to a different proposition? Bravo! You have truly shown me the error in my original statement.
Har har
Pay me $300/hour and I'll give you correct spelling
In this scenario however I believe both you and the cat will be guilty of purr-jury and cat-tempted fraud.
This needs to be rigged up so that when the cat walks on it it might accept the agreement or then again it might hit cancel, and I think it's looking a bit better. If the only possibility is that the cat will accept the agreement then I don't think the cat being the one to click will help you much (especially if you're luring it).
I'm pretty sure that actually IS the case, at least here in Australia - if you can't read it before opening the packaging, then opening the packaging cannot prevent you from returning the software.
I've been following the development of DX3, and despite myself those Canadian bastard developers have given me hope for the future again.
So far everything they have said and done has been consistent with the philosophy and design behind DX1, and they have explicitly said that they recognise the mistakes of DX:IW and intend to undo them and bring back the goodness of the original.
Couple that with unbelievable looking environments (it's a sort of Baroque/Cyberpunk hybrid) and super-cool weapons and I am, sadly, excited once more. Please Eidos, don't beat me like a mean drunk again...
IAAL and that is not even close to correct.
The essence of a contract is the meeting of the minds between the parties. If you are too drunk to know what you are doing, it is impossible for there to be such a meeting of the minds. The cause of your intoxication is completely irrelevant - contract law is not in any sense about punishing parties for reckless conduct, only about holding them to terms they voluntarily and intentionally agree to.
On the other hand it is increasingly correct to say that if you deliberately get drunk you may have tortious or criminal liability for anything you do. There has been a gradual erosion of the ability of parties to use the 'drunk's defence' to escape liability for wrongs.
Time to go and read that YANAL blog from the other day, I think...
+1 for Stalker - one of the very best, and definitely one of the scariest and most atmospheric, games I have played. Insanely huge and eerie environments, art direction beyond compare, inherently bizarre Russian-ness, excellent sound, excellent guns, interesting and challenging enemies, great storyline.
Also featuring an actual good FPS engine used in an RPG-type way - Deus Ex 1 is close to my favourite game ever, but I will readily admit that the FPS side of it does not compare to a dedicated FPS, whereas Stalker probably exceeds most current gen FPS games.
It's a pity Stalker: Clear Sky seems to have turned some of the games pros into cons.
Fark, "clients" not "client's"
IAAL, and I disagree. We don't spend our time making stuff up and convincing our client's it's what they want.
You can rest assured that this is exactly what Facebook was after, and that their instructions to their reflect it. If you tell lawyers to make something as favourable as possible, that's exactly what they'll do.
I'm fairly sure programs can't do this in XP. Like most people here on Windows I run XP on an administrator account by default, and every single program which has tried to modify firewall settings has caused Windows to ask me if that's ok.
It shouldn't be up to the program to decide, irrespective of its user level. Running as "administrator" in a Windows desktop environment has different connotations to *nix.
Rubbish.
Can fire respond to environmental stimulus in a way which is not entirely governed by the direct physical effect of that stimulus on it? In fact, can fire actually "move"? I do not believe it can in the relevant sense.
Does fire have any capacity to seek out the things it needs to continue "living"?
Can fire pass on traits to its "offspring"? Is a given fire descended from something which is 'genetically' related to that fire, rather than any fire?
Mules can reproduce in the relevant sense, in that they are part of a chain of reproduction and inheritence. They just happen to be at the end of that particular chain due to an error which arises from their particular parents. Just like anything else which is alive and dies without reproducing.
In addition, your definition of "alive" is based on a wikipedia article which says "Something is often said to be alive if...". Hardly the most definitive source.
What about something like this as a definition? (this is just an example of more relevant criteria, IMHO):
1. has a physical existence composed at least partially of physical solids which is non-transient on a millisecond timescale
2. is capable of sustaining a continuous process composed of more than one simultaneous chemical or physical reaction beyond the raw materials currently comprising it
3. cannot arbitrarily be divided into fractional parts then restored
4. is a member of a chain of successive instances of itself wherein members of the chain can be differentiated from other instances of the same type of thing
5. has a form derived from coded information stored redundantly throughout itself, but which is more than that information alone
I'm sure there are Socratic counter-examples which will show this to be inadequate, but let's try your examples:
Fire: 1. Fails; 2. Fails; 3. Fails; 4. Fails; 5. Fails
Mule: 1. Succeeds; 2. Succeeds; 3. Succeeds; 4. Succeeds; 5. Succeeds
In fact, in Australia we formally abolished the distinction several years ago for that exact reason.
Correct - Hitler said:
Lenin had earlier said:
Jesus, I am so sick of this fucking truism.
When you have good evidence of correlation and an apparently rational way to relate the variables in question then correlation can certainly strongly imply causation.
The way some people parrot the phrase above, you'd think that NO correlation was better evidence of causation...
Would be "Nobody doesn't like molten boron!"