If you're worried about your monopoly, just pay people to use your service. I mean, COME ON!
Also, it is my understanding that random contests such as this must be open to EVERYONE (i.e. the 'no purcase necessary' that you always hear). Does this qualify as being open to everyone? Not everyone owns a computer...
BTW, I know Rai Weiss, and he is certainly kinetic, but hyperkinetic might be a bit of a stretch.
Actually, the word used in the article is 'hyperactive', which is more accurate. (I worked with him at LIGO Hanford a summer a few years ago) He gives off an aura of being EXTREMELY fast on the uptake and very very sharp, which is probably what the author was trying to articulate.
Additionally, the conspiracy theorist in me thinks that this is the best idea that the government ever had for creating a database of names and numbers and email addresses.
This is called the "White Pages." It's how you get in contact with people.
...FTC's as yet non-existent call center...
It doesn't exist yet because the DNC list doesn't go into effect for 3 more months! It would be kind of silly to have a complaint center that receives complaints about things that aren't yet illegal.
According to the National DNC website, "You must provide either the NAME or the PHONE NUMBER of the COMPANY that called you, as well as the DATE OF THE CALL and YOUR PHONE NUMBER
Currently, under the telecommunications privacy act, you must pursue legal action against law-breaking telemarketers in small claims court, and with all of that information (and more!)
They are trying really hard to obfuscate these words.
I was attempting to buy some concert tickets from a large, evil corporation recently. The letters were so contorted that I simply COULD NOT read it... I got several friends' guesses on what the word was, and each opinion was different. If the problem is really so bad as to necessitate these word games, it might be time to try a different tactic.
For instance, couldn't you simply direct the user to perform a few simple tasks? (e.g. select the bubble with the picture of the fish next to it, then type the last name of the president of the united states in the second box from the left) I doubt AI would be able to cope with as system like this, especially if you had varying combinations of tests. If you had a variety of these tests, you could also make some that accomodated the disabled, too.
While philanthropy is always a good thing, I'm really not sure if this is the way to go about this sort of thing. Yes, the EFF does a lot of absolutely great stuff, and they're a great organization, but they don't produce an actual product - they're an advocacy group. It would be ridiculous to give them more money than actual content providers.
If you want to help break the entertainment industry monopoly, just keeping your money out of their hands isn't enough - for every well-informed person who boycotts them, there are ten morons who are waiting with baited breath for the next XXX movie. We need to use our dollar votes against them.
That doesn't mean abstaining, and it doesn't mean giving away your money - it means supporting small, independent film studios and small, independent recording studios; it means that when you save thousands of dollars moving from MS software to free software, you donate some of your money back into the open source movement. Note that you're going to be getting higher quality entertainment and software anyway.
You can't just support organizations against these big evil corporations - you have to put your money into the alternatives.
We got along just fine as a nation without most of those for over 100 years (sales tax is a state/local issue). I don't see how the government's involvement has done anything other than drive down quality and create a dependency among some on an ever-expanding government that robs the rest of us of our freedoms.
I'm not arguing that these things are bad - I'm saying that by the logic in the parent, these things are all indicative of communism.
Besides, we already have historical proof that a lack of public education does not imply a population of drooling ignoramuses.
Perhaps my public school education fails me, but what proof are you referring to?
You neglected to mention that the flat-tax proposals that have been floated so far usually include a fairly sizable exemption for the first $15k or so of income...they're not truly flat. Your hypothetical $15k earner would pay $0 under most proposals, while your $15M earner would pay a little bit less than $3M.
A flat tax is one that taxes everyone equally. A tax that taxes the poor (i.e. those under $15k) less than the rich (the $15M) is by definition progressive (and hence communist?).
Sounds like the typical debating style of a left-winger...since you have no ideas of your own, you instead attempt to silence those who do.
Good point.
Where's this "tolerance" for diverse opinions I keep hearing about?
I wasn't disagreeing with the opinion - I was taking issue with the invalid analogy "progressive tax = communism = bad". That's what the 'troll' is about - I admit the way I phrased it didn't make that obvious.
I hope everyone noticed that, although the author promised not to give out the spammer's address, he conveniently told us exactly how to find it.
But, you know, it sure would be a shame if some/.er in the Oakland area were to go get that address. . . and a real shame if s/he decided to post that address here. I mean, what good could that possibly serve?
Well, you could draw that same analogy for
public schooling
medica(id/re)
social security
food stamps
income tax
sales tax
The only alternatives to a progressive tax are
A) A regressive tax, where you tax the poor a greater percentage of their income, or
B) a flat tax, where someone who makes $15,000 is left with $12,000 and someone who makes $15 million is left with $12 million.
Just because you can say 'Hey! The communists did that!' doesn't make it inherently bad. Might I suggest -1 Troll to parent?
That's a very observant analogy - but it sounds to me more like they're creating a super-PDA, a all-encompasing digital Franklin Covey day-planner.
The BBC article, in a text caption, says 'What if your memories of your wedding day could last forever?' I don't really see how the technology improves this - my understanding is that the technological "advance" here is making a very robust database manager for personal users. Nice, interesting but I don't think it's going to change much. For me, pulling out a photo album is much easier than pulling up files on the computer, as well as much more relaxing.
If your email inbox looks anything like mine does, do you really think you're going to put in the time needed to keep this thing satiated with the mundane details of your life every single day? Maybe as a utility for important stuff (i.e. PDA), but for personal life management?
The government paid for the copyrights - DOE was making these articles freely available to everyone, legally.
It's as if the North Kentucky Gazette-Tribune decided that it wanted to charge customers for online access to associated press articles - and had the New York Times and Yahoo shut down because they were offering access to AP articles for free.
Umm, that's an old page. The final Super-K results gave an upper bound on the proton lifetime that's a lot longer than anyone expects the universe to last.
No one understands the key issue here-
The Supreme Court must extend copyright so that artists have a reason to create! Otherwise, who'll make sure the artists see the fruits of their work?
ALSO:
If it weren't for those evil little P2Pers, the studio would have made money. But because you shared that little Divx, Billy, you took away Marvel's profits, and you made Stan Lee very sad. I hope you're happy.
I'm sorry, but citing Podkletnov's gravity shield as evidence of anti-gravity is simply ridiculous. Both NASA and Boeing have sunk several million dollars and several years of research into the "gravity shield", and found jack.
It's not that legitimate scientists didn't take his work seriously - it's that they couldn't reproduce a simple effect. Considering that he himself has not shown this result to anyone else . . . Well, the options are:
A) The scientific community is frightened by a discovery that would bring huge $ amounts into research for further work and innovation
OR
B) This guy's a quack.
Actually, it's not. Take a look at Rudin's Fundamentals of Analysis. The only principles he invokes are the existence and ordering of the integers, and the field axioms. Although in practice, calculus is pretty much geometric, the principles are more set theoretic than geometric.
He says there's no 'technical' impetus to switch from Windows to Linux.
Ummm . . . isn't that one of the best reasons to switch? I'm personally not that large of a fan of Linux, but: If the OS is irrelevant, wouldn't you want to base your revolutionary-futuristic-3-d-narrative-data viewer app on a free, stable, open source operating system?
Or perhaps . . . just perhaps . . . he's more concerned with making this product available to the biggest market share. Not really so much concerned with advancing computer science, as with making money? Maybe?
The New York Times: Free advertising space for anyone with a PhD.
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If you're worried about your monopoly, just pay people to use your service. I mean, COME ON!
Also, it is my understanding that random contests such as this must be open to EVERYONE (i.e. the 'no purcase necessary' that you always hear). Does this qualify as being open to everyone? Not everyone owns a computer ...
Actually, the word used in the article is 'hyperactive', which is more accurate. (I worked with him at LIGO Hanford a summer a few years ago) He gives off an aura of being EXTREMELY fast on the uptake and very very sharp, which is probably what the author was trying to articulate.
This is called the "White Pages." It's how you get in contact with people.
It doesn't exist yet because the DNC list doesn't go into effect for 3 more months! It would be kind of silly to have a complaint center that receives complaints about things that aren't yet illegal.
Currently, under the telecommunications privacy act, you must pursue legal action against law-breaking telemarketers in small claims court, and with all of that information (and more!)
I was attempting to buy some concert tickets from a large, evil corporation recently. The letters were so contorted that I simply COULD NOT read it ... I got several friends' guesses on what the word was, and each opinion was different. If the problem is really so bad as to necessitate these word games, it might be time to try a different tactic.
For instance, couldn't you simply direct the user to perform a few simple tasks? (e.g. select the bubble with the picture of the fish next to it, then type the last name of the president of the united states in the second box from the left) I doubt AI would be able to cope with as system like this, especially if you had varying combinations of tests. If you had a variety of these tests, you could also make some that accomodated the disabled, too.
Does this legally qualify as blackmail? I can't think of any other laws that would apply here.
However, nearly all of them spend nearly all of their time trying to right the wrongs that the sleazy rich corporate lawyers have committed.
It would still probably be a net positive effect if we put a little Henry IV into effect.
Check those facts, please.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/24/nyregion/24FEAT. html?ex=1038978000&en=5e68a294ddda428c&ei=5062&par tner=goatse.cx
If you want to help break the entertainment industry monopoly, just keeping your money out of their hands isn't enough - for every well-informed person who boycotts them, there are ten morons who are waiting with baited breath for the next XXX movie. We need to use our dollar votes against them.
That doesn't mean abstaining, and it doesn't mean giving away your money - it means supporting small, independent film studios and small, independent recording studios; it means that when you save thousands of dollars moving from MS software to free software, you donate some of your money back into the open source movement. Note that you're going to be getting higher quality entertainment and software anyway.
You can't just support organizations against these big evil corporations - you have to put your money into the alternatives.
In that first non-italicized paragraph, s/bad/good/. That would make a little more sense.
I'm not arguing that these things are bad - I'm saying that by the logic in the parent, these things are all indicative of communism.
Besides, we already have historical proof that a lack of public education does not imply a population of drooling ignoramuses.
Perhaps my public school education fails me, but what proof are you referring to?
You neglected to mention that the flat-tax proposals that have been floated so far usually include a fairly sizable exemption for the first $15k or so of income...they're not truly flat. Your hypothetical $15k earner would pay $0 under most proposals, while your $15M earner would pay a little bit less than $3M.
A flat tax is one that taxes everyone equally. A tax that taxes the poor (i.e. those under $15k) less than the rich (the $15M) is by definition progressive (and hence communist?).
Sounds like the typical debating style of a left-winger...since you have no ideas of your own, you instead attempt to silence those who do.
Good point.
Where's this "tolerance" for diverse opinions I keep hearing about?
I wasn't disagreeing with the opinion - I was taking issue with the invalid analogy "progressive tax = communism = bad". That's what the 'troll' is about - I admit the way I phrased it didn't make that obvious.
But, you know, it sure would be a shame if some /.er in the Oakland area were to go get that address. . . and a real shame if s/he decided to post that address here. I mean, what good could that possibly serve?
Well, you could draw that same analogy for
public schooling
medica(id/re)
social security
food stamps
income tax
sales tax
The only alternatives to a progressive tax are
A) A regressive tax, where you tax the poor a greater percentage of their income, or
B) a flat tax, where someone who makes $15,000 is left with $12,000 and someone who makes $15 million is left with $12 million.
Just because you can say 'Hey! The communists did that!' doesn't make it inherently bad. Might I suggest -1 Troll to parent?
The BBC article, in a text caption, says 'What if your memories of your wedding day could last forever?' I don't really see how the technology improves this - my understanding is that the technological "advance" here is making a very robust database manager for personal users. Nice, interesting but I don't think it's going to change much. For me, pulling out a photo album is much easier than pulling up files on the computer, as well as much more relaxing.
If your email inbox looks anything like mine does, do you really think you're going to put in the time needed to keep this thing satiated with the mundane details of your life every single day? Maybe as a utility for important stuff (i.e. PDA), but for personal life management?
It's as if the North Kentucky Gazette-Tribune decided that it wanted to charge customers for online access to associated press articles - and had the New York Times and Yahoo shut down because they were offering access to AP articles for free.
Umm, that's an old page. The final Super-K results gave an upper bound on the proton lifetime that's a lot longer than anyone expects the universe to last.
No one understands the key issue here-
The Supreme Court must extend copyright so that artists have a reason to create! Otherwise, who'll make sure the artists see the fruits of their work?
ALSO:
If it weren't for those evil little P2Pers, the studio would have made money. But because you shared that little Divx, Billy, you took away Marvel's profits, and you made Stan Lee very sad. I hope you're happy.
It's not that legitimate scientists didn't take his work seriously - it's that they couldn't reproduce a simple effect. Considering that he himself has not shown this result to anyone else . . . Well, the options are:
A) The scientific community is frightened by a discovery that would bring huge $ amounts into research for further work and innovation
OR
B) This guy's a quack.
I invite you to apply Occam's razor.
Actually, it's not. Take a look at Rudin's Fundamentals of Analysis. The only principles he invokes are the existence and ordering of the integers, and the field axioms. Although in practice, calculus is pretty much geometric, the principles are more set theoretic than geometric.
'Well, yeah. That's the whole point.'
I sincerely apologize for my dirty mind.
Or perhaps . . . just perhaps . . . he's more concerned with making this product available to the biggest market share. Not really so much concerned with advancing computer science, as with making money? Maybe?
The New York Times: Free advertising space for anyone with a PhD.