I didn't want to bring up gun control per se, but rather in keeping with the spirit of TFA, I suggest that this:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
is pretty darn ambiguous, and had the founders run it through a test phase whereby people could have asked (as beta tester might have asked the developers), "umm, what does the first part of the sentence have to do with the second?" We could thereby have avoided having the Supremes try to decipher what the hell the authors were thinking.
The whole school of "Strict Constructionism," as it is commonly used, whereby the justices try to ascertain what the original intent of the authors was, might be rendered moot if we really could test drive a law and see how it works in practice.
But it would never work, as many of the philophers here point out, the Law of Unintended Consequences remains the law of the land.
I got the radio-silence from their support even before the Google deal went down. No emailed response, the voice mail box was full. I ended up writing a snail-mail letter to Urchin's president pleading with him to have someone at least respond to one of my emails so that I knew I was getting through. I got a letter from him where he declared the circumstance was "unacceptable" and I finally got a response on the trouble ticket.
I'm still waiting for the upgrade we were supposed to get.
That said, I still like the product. Its reports are better than WebTrends, it's cheaper, and it runs on Unix.
Um, yeah, but I've been hearing from users (mostly sales guys who always have to have the latest) that my sites--which are IE6, Netscape, Firefox, Safari, and Opera happy--break with IE7. Quoth The Who, "meet the new boss, same as the old boss."
Umm, RTFA.
The "safer to birds" assertion is partially because it spins at windspeed. This better because in a propeller turbine, the ends of the blades spin much faster than wind speed--up to 200 mph according to the article. The birds don't see the fast blade and get caught by it.
The other part of safer is the tower looks solid to birds, and they don't fly into it.
OpenDoc is a compound document technology ala Micsoft's OLE (think embedding a spreadsheet in a word processor document that dynamically changes).
OpenDocument is an XML based document format.
Fuck Peter Jackson and his abuse of the Tolkien stories. I hate hate hate hate the his movie version of LOTR. Great visuals, but apparently Tolkien's story wan't good enuf for him. Had to write his own version now, didn't he?
If he never makes the Hobbit, I would rate that as a good thing.
Thank you, I feel much better now.
Why was this story, with zero facts and only the opionions of some lawyer posted. We have Groklaw to tell us the status of the EU software patent wars, and that source will also more realistically what it all means without the FUD.
Read the text. The image is not digitally enhanced. The frame is one of a series for looking at the changes in cloud formation. There is no streak or flash in the frames immediately before or after. Therefore, something wrong with the lens would show up in all frames.
Oh please there are much more important things for people in education to focus on then some planet hundreds of light years away. What practical reason would they have for teaching (what little they know) about the contants of a planet's atmosphere in another galaxy.
That was meant to be sarcastic, I hope. If we force education on our childrent to focus solely on the exactly what they need to know to be another cog in the machine, and not a thing more, we will be turning out a generation of proles. Things like "No Child Left Behind" and its emphasis on standardized testing are likely to do just that.
Cosmology teaches us about the joy and wonder of the universe, and impresses us that we are able to gain even a glimmer of an understanding of it. That's enough "practicality" for me, and I sure do hope my little boy learns this in school and not just from me.
I bought a 2004 Civic Hybrid about 2 months ago and I'm halfway through my third tank of gas. The first tank got 33mpg, the second 36mpg. The current tank is getting about 37mpg. My commute is about 3.5 miles. I attribute the increase to the weather getting warmer.
Huh?
Yeah, one of the most important technologies in these cars is the stopping of the engine when you stop in traffic. A feature Honda calls "auto-stop." Problem is, the car won't auto-stop when the engine is cold. Once the engine warms up, it'll auto-stop even when I pause to take a turn. Back in February when the temps were in the 30s and 40s in the morning the car wouldn't warm up enough to auto-stop until I pulled into my parking space. On my city-only commute I go through 14 stop lights, some of which can take 5 minutes or more. Now that the weather is warm, the car will auto-stop at the end of my street, and I auto-stop at every light. Sitting in at these lights and listening to all the other engines idle around me tells me why my mileage is better.
By way of comparison, the conventional Honda Civic the hybrid replaced was getting about 25mpg on this commute and just shy of 300 miles on tank. Three tanks in I'm averaging 35mpg and 400 miles on the same size tank, so I'd rate the hybrid a success. It didn't cost much more than a conventional Civic (particularly after the tax deduction) and I can't say I've sacrificed any performance. As I drive by gas stations showing regular getting real close to two bucks a gallon I do believe the car will be worth it.
Let's imaging a common free wifi access scenario: the local Starbucks. They're offering the access so I'll park my butt in one their chairs and suck down their overpriced coffee. It should be a loss-leader for them. Except now, some smart MBA at Starbucks will sell them on this so they can recoup the cost of offering the wifi, and maybe even make some money to boot.
It's akin to slapping billboards on golf carts at the muni. Nobody's going to not use the golf cart because of the billboard. But the carts, and the wifi, would still be available without it.
So I agree the advertising is a bad thing, and the poster shouldn't be excoriated for saying so.
I beleive that insurance companies are some of the most exploitive organizations around, draining resources from society with very little positive return
While I can't claim to love insurance companies--institutions that plays with lots of money and produces little in the way of tangible products tend to spawn greedy bastards--you can point to some returns to society that they have made. Here's and example: Do you look for little tags or stickers that say "UL" on electrical devices you buy? You should. UL is Underwriters Laboratory, a lab sponsored by the industry (Underwriters) is in place to guarantee things like christmas lights won't burn your house down if you leave them on overnight. It's enlightened self-interest, of course, since if your house burns down the Insurance companies have to pay.
Oh, and having someone pick up the tab if your house burns down is probably a positive return to at least yourself, if not society.
I think OSS insurance is a good thing for this very reason: it means some institution actually thinks it's insurable. The way you make money selling insurance is covering things that are likely to NOT burst into flames.
Re:Too expensive...
on
TiVo Will Die
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· Score: 2, Informative
While these acedemics may be doing the hero's task of rethinking IP, I'm also concerned about this comment by a copyright professor who read the report:
Jane C. Ginsburg, a law professor at Columbia University and a copyright expert, had a more mixed view of the report.....it "makes unsubstantiated, misleading, or misinformed statements about copyright law." In fact, she said, "A little less preaching to the technologist 'choir' might have made this a better 'sell' to copyright owners and, perhaps, to lawmakers."
Sloppy scholarship helps no one. Given how much bad research, lack of fact-checking, and fabricated hearsay (Jane Fonda and John Kerry photos anyone?) floats around on the net, the moment I encounter anything that I know is untrue or wrong in any piece, I stop reading and file the whole thing in the Intellectually Suspect folder.
The Committee for Economic Development has a spotty track record. Marshall Plan: Good. World Bank and IMF: iffy. Setting standards for public schools through testing: bad (and, yes, I am a parent).
That said, Groklaw pretty much solely exists because of the SCO mess (PJ Interview). But groklaw is perhpas is the best thing to come out of said mess. We should perhaps start a thread for suggestions for what courtroom drama PJ should follow next.
This line--that Windows has the largest market share in worms and viruses because Windows has the largest market share--was trotted out in the last few weeks during the peak of the Sobig and Blaster activity, and routinely shot down. The problem is inherent design flaws, not market share. Many have pointed out that unix-type OSes run the majority of critical Internet services, and by the market-share argument, these services should be the subject of continual attack. And yet they are not.
In short, this argument that greater adoption of unix-type OSes by the masses will result in more unix-type worms and viruses is nothing short of FUD.
Have a look at Mac's Immunity to Recent Virus Attacks which came about in response to an article posted on MacCentral on this topic. In sum, some columnist repeated the assertion that "Macs have "no more inherent security" than their PC counterparts, it's just that they've failed "to capture interest" among the creators of these viruses."
This post is fairly representative of many, and makes clear the vulnerabilities of Windows are real, stem from technical reasons, and not just market share.
Mac OS X is the subject of the links above because that is where my interests lie, but the jist of the arguements could apply to any unix-type OS
MS has been trying to add "helpful features that learn to adapt to how the user works" for years, clippy being the most notorious example. I hate them all. Many times my colleagues have heard me yell at some office program, "don't be so damn helpful!" I really don't want everything I type that has an atmark in it turned into a clickable email link.
This company will likely be purchased by MS shortly, and their overhelpful time wasters incorporated into the operating system (along with a few egregious security holes, of course). And once that happens, my first question to MS tech support will be, "how do I turn this useless feature off." Shortly after win2k machines started becoming common in my office, a "how to turn off personalized menus" FAQ became very popular."
Whyizzit smart people are wasting time and money on projects like these? Computers should behave like Forest Gump, and do "whatever the hell it is I tell them to" and no more.
Don't think so? I'll show you the receipt for the money I send to the phone company to rent the number. As such, calling me to sell me something is nothing short of trespassing--it is using my property without my permission.
Howizzit telemarketers don't grasp this concept? Howizzit the lawmakers fail to? Whyizzit we have to finely craft laws such as the don't-call-list to leave loopholes so I still have to hang up on the statetroopers whoopee fund. It is so demonstrably clear that my phone number is mine and using it is not free speech. Leaving the loophole is like leaving a loophole that says it is okay for the local repugnican party to put "elect tusch" signs in my yard.
And same argument goes for my email address. It's mine, I pay good money to my cable company to have it.
Oddly, snail mail doesn't trespass in the same way. The marketer has to pay to for their soon-to-be-trash to be brought to my house. Then again, I do have to pay to have it hauled away.
Slashdot Mirror
University of Cincinnati article about frog foam and photsynthesis.
I didn't want to bring up gun control per se, but rather in keeping with the spirit of TFA, I suggest that this:
is pretty darn ambiguous, and had the founders run it through a test phase whereby people could have asked (as beta tester might have asked the developers), "umm, what does the first part of the sentence have to do with the second?" We could thereby have avoided having the Supremes try to decipher what the hell the authors were thinking.
The whole school of "Strict Constructionism," as it is commonly used, whereby the justices try to ascertain what the original intent of the authors was, might be rendered moot if we really could test drive a law and see how it works in practice.
But it would never work, as many of the philophers here point out, the Law of Unintended Consequences remains the law of the land.
...is the second amendment!
I got the radio-silence from their support even before the Google deal went down. No emailed response, the voice mail box was full. I ended up writing a snail-mail letter to Urchin's president pleading with him to have someone at least respond to one of my emails so that I knew I was getting through. I got a letter from him where he declared the circumstance was "unacceptable" and I finally got a response on the trouble ticket. I'm still waiting for the upgrade we were supposed to get. That said, I still like the product. Its reports are better than WebTrends, it's cheaper, and it runs on Unix.
Um, yeah, but I've been hearing from users (mostly sales guys who always have to have the latest) that my sites--which are IE6, Netscape, Firefox, Safari, and Opera happy--break with IE7. Quoth The Who, "meet the new boss, same as the old boss."
Umm, RTFA. The "safer to birds" assertion is partially because it spins at windspeed. This better because in a propeller turbine, the ends of the blades spin much faster than wind speed--up to 200 mph according to the article. The birds don't see the fast blade and get caught by it. The other part of safer is the tower looks solid to birds, and they don't fly into it.
OpenDoc is a compound document technology ala Micsoft's OLE (think embedding a spreadsheet in a word processor document that dynamically changes). OpenDocument is an XML based document format.
Fuck Peter Jackson and his abuse of the Tolkien stories. I hate hate hate hate the his movie version of LOTR. Great visuals, but apparently Tolkien's story wan't good enuf for him. Had to write his own version now, didn't he? If he never makes the Hobbit, I would rate that as a good thing. Thank you, I feel much better now.
Why was this story, with zero facts and only the opionions of some lawyer posted. We have Groklaw to tell us the status of the EU software patent wars, and that source will also more realistically what it all means without the FUD.
Read the text. The image is not digitally enhanced. The frame is one of a series for looking at the changes in cloud formation. There is no streak or flash in the frames immediately before or after. Therefore, something wrong with the lens would show up in all frames.
One word: Eclipse
IBM took a different tack than Microsoft, yes. They wrote an app that didn't suck and made it open source to boot.
Oh please there are much more important things for people in education to focus on then some planet hundreds of light years away. What practical reason would they have for teaching (what little they know) about the contants of a planet's atmosphere in another galaxy.
That was meant to be sarcastic, I hope. If we force education on our childrent to focus solely on the exactly what they need to know to be another cog in the machine, and not a thing more, we will be turning out a generation of proles. Things like "No Child Left Behind" and its emphasis on standardized testing are likely to do just that.
Cosmology teaches us about the joy and wonder of the universe, and impresses us that we are able to gain even a glimmer of an understanding of it. That's enough "practicality" for me, and I sure do hope my little boy learns this in school and not just from me.
I bought a 2004 Civic Hybrid about 2 months ago and I'm halfway through my third tank of gas. The first tank got 33mpg, the second 36mpg. The current tank is getting about 37mpg. My commute is about 3.5 miles. I attribute the increase to the weather getting warmer.
Huh?
Yeah, one of the most important technologies in these cars is the stopping of the engine when you stop in traffic. A feature Honda calls "auto-stop." Problem is, the car won't auto-stop when the engine is cold. Once the engine warms up, it'll auto-stop even when I pause to take a turn. Back in February when the temps were in the 30s and 40s in the morning the car wouldn't warm up enough to auto-stop until I pulled into my parking space. On my city-only commute I go through 14 stop lights, some of which can take 5 minutes or more. Now that the weather is warm, the car will auto-stop at the end of my street, and I auto-stop at every light. Sitting in at these lights and listening to all the other engines idle around me tells me why my mileage is better.
By way of comparison, the conventional Honda Civic the hybrid replaced was getting about 25mpg on this commute and just shy of 300 miles on tank. Three tanks in I'm averaging 35mpg and 400 miles on the same size tank, so I'd rate the hybrid a success. It didn't cost much more than a conventional Civic (particularly after the tax deduction) and I can't say I've sacrificed any performance. As I drive by gas stations showing regular getting real close to two bucks a gallon I do believe the car will be worth it.
Let's imaging a common free wifi access scenario: the local Starbucks. They're offering the access so I'll park my butt in one their chairs and suck down their overpriced coffee. It should be a loss-leader for them. Except now, some smart MBA at Starbucks will sell them on this so they can recoup the cost of offering the wifi, and maybe even make some money to boot.
It's akin to slapping billboards on golf carts at the muni. Nobody's going to not use the golf cart because of the billboard. But the carts, and the wifi, would still be available without it.
So I agree the advertising is a bad thing, and the poster shouldn't be excoriated for saying so.
One word: Storage. Also, the hydrogen is used as a fuel source for cooking and heating.
While I can't claim to love insurance companies--institutions that plays with lots of money and produces little in the way of tangible products tend to spawn greedy bastards--you can point to some returns to society that they have made. Here's and example: Do you look for little tags or stickers that say "UL" on electrical devices you buy? You should. UL is Underwriters Laboratory, a lab sponsored by the industry (Underwriters) is in place to guarantee things like christmas lights won't burn your house down if you leave them on overnight. It's enlightened self-interest, of course, since if your house burns down the Insurance companies have to pay.
Oh, and having someone pick up the tab if your house burns down is probably a positive return to at least yourself, if not society.
I think OSS insurance is a good thing for this very reason: it means some institution actually thinks it's insurable. The way you make money selling insurance is covering things that are likely to NOT burst into flames.
Lifetime fee is $300, not $400.
While these acedemics may be doing the hero's task of rethinking IP, I'm also concerned about this comment by a copyright professor who read the report:
Sloppy scholarship helps no one. Given how much bad research, lack of fact-checking, and fabricated hearsay (Jane Fonda and John Kerry photos anyone?) floats around on the net, the moment I encounter anything that I know is untrue or wrong in any piece, I stop reading and file the whole thing in the Intellectually Suspect folder.
The Committee for Economic Development has a spotty track record. Marshall Plan: Good. World Bank and IMF: iffy. Setting standards for public schools through testing: bad (and, yes, I am a parent).
That said, Groklaw pretty much solely exists because of the SCO mess (PJ Interview). But groklaw is perhpas is the best thing to come out of said mess. We should perhaps start a thread for suggestions for what courtroom drama PJ should follow next.
This line--that Windows has the largest market share in worms and viruses because Windows has the largest market share--was trotted out in the last few weeks during the peak of the Sobig and Blaster activity, and routinely shot down. The problem is inherent design flaws, not market share. Many have pointed out that unix-type OSes run the majority of critical Internet services, and by the market-share argument, these services should be the subject of continual attack. And yet they are not.
In short, this argument that greater adoption of unix-type OSes by the masses will result in more unix-type worms and viruses is nothing short of FUD.
Have a look at Mac's Immunity to Recent Virus Attacks which came about in response to an article posted on MacCentral on this topic. In sum, some columnist repeated the assertion that "Macs have "no more inherent security" than their PC counterparts, it's just that they've failed "to capture interest" among the creators of these viruses." This post is fairly representative of many, and makes clear the vulnerabilities of Windows are real, stem from technical reasons, and not just market share.
Mac OS X is the subject of the links above because that is where my interests lie, but the jist of the arguements could apply to any unix-type OS
MS has been trying to add "helpful features that learn to adapt to how the user works" for years, clippy being the most notorious example. I hate them all. Many times my colleagues have heard me yell at some office program, "don't be so damn helpful!" I really don't want everything I type that has an atmark in it turned into a clickable email link.
This company will likely be purchased by MS shortly, and their overhelpful time wasters incorporated into the operating system (along with a few egregious security holes, of course). And once that happens, my first question to MS tech support will be, "how do I turn this useless feature off." Shortly after win2k machines started becoming common in my office, a "how to turn off personalized menus" FAQ became very popular."
Whyizzit smart people are wasting time and money on projects like these? Computers should behave like Forest Gump, and do "whatever the hell it is I tell them to" and no more.
Don't think so? I'll show you the receipt for the money I send to the phone company to rent the number. As such, calling me to sell me something is nothing short of trespassing--it is using my property without my permission.
Howizzit telemarketers don't grasp this concept? Howizzit the lawmakers fail to? Whyizzit we have to finely craft laws such as the don't-call-list to leave loopholes so I still have to hang up on the statetroopers whoopee fund. It is so demonstrably clear that my phone number is mine and using it is not free speech. Leaving the loophole is like leaving a loophole that says it is okay for the local repugnican party to put "elect tusch" signs in my yard.
And same argument goes for my email address. It's mine, I pay good money to my cable company to have it.
Oddly, snail mail doesn't trespass in the same way. The marketer has to pay to for their soon-to-be-trash to be brought to my house. Then again, I do have to pay to have it hauled away.