All they really need to do is implement a mandatory Alias with your Battle.net profile to be displayed in lieu of your real name. You still get recognized as the person that plays X and Y character in game A and B, just without using your real name. It doesn't really help with the whole accountability thing (neither do using real names) as determined trolls will always be lurking about.
I'd be even happier to see them implement controls for explicit authorization to share your real name, akin to one's email, phone, or address, to specific individuals/groups of friends, but simply using a global alias would suffice in the short term.
The concept of "owning" any kind of information once you've given it out is certifiably insane. You might be the creator, but bottom line is once you've given it away (i.e. storing it with something you have little to no control over) the best you can be to that little tidbit of data is a viewer, maintainer, or, if you're very lucky, administrator.
I think most people simply have a problem of mapping physical things (where there's a relatively easy means to establish ownership) to meta-physical things. If I give you one of my cookies, it's yours to do with as you please. The same holds true if I give you my name, address, phone, birthday, etc. You could make your own copies in your own places, or hand that information out, or even modify your versions of that information. It doesn't matter how many instances of that information exist in other people's hands, the only instance that I control is the one in my own hands.
Here's an example of what I'm talking about. I give some website credit card information about me that is stored in my user profile. A few weeks later I cancel that credit card and am issued a new one with a new number. Now last time I checked, credit card companies don't ask you, "Would you like to change all your user profiles everywhere to reflect the canceled status of your old number?" The profiles that have that old credit card number will still have that same old credit card number until you or someone else who has access to that profile goes in and modifies it. Consider this: Sites aren't required to allow you to modify that bit of information. They're not even obligated to allow you to see it again if they didn't want to. In essence, once you gave them that information, they owned that *instance* of information. That information may not have any worth attributed to it, but they do own it. Bottom line, being able to access (in any way) the information you've given to a 3rd party is strictly a privilege granted by that 3rd party should they be so inclined.
Obviously many places that have even an ounce of credibility to their name go through the process of defining terms and conditions of the data they collect and how it can be used. However, even with terms and conditions agreements, it boils down to the trust one can put into a recipient vs. the intrinsic value of the having information to be provided. So everyone out there saying that "their" information has just as many rights to privacy as "they" do should just check themselves into a loony bin for thinking they have any control over something they willingly gave away (regardless of price or even "agreements").
Most security buffs will tell you that if you really value your milk and cookies, then don't hand them out.
Could you explain to me how the end of the universe equates to the end of infinity? Last I checked there isn't one which would make that incredibly long span it took the black hole to finally "form" into existence would still be infinitely smaller than infinity.
As the article points out at the end, if you take that reasoning and assume that a black hole *does* exist then it could not have "formed" into existence... it simply had to be there to begin with (ie. there will never be more than there are now) OR come into existence in some other, likely un-observable, fashion than being "formed" (more may pop up at some point in time, but you'd never be able to watch its formation... one day it's not there, the next it is).
The best way that *I* like to describe black holes are in terms black holes of knowledge. Something *is* happening to make star's change their course, or to bend light, and likely due to the existence of some *thing* that we simply do not have the means or know-how to detect. All we can currently detect are the side-effects of said thing being in existence. Give us enough time (albeit that may be æons) and I'm sure we'll finally hit the nail on the head and the conventional notion of black holes may very well go away.
Yes, to an extent. They're trying to make the claim that penetration/adoption of blue-ray is going faster based on the correlated factoid that X movie shipped more units on the blue-ray platform. Keep in mind that the movie was also released on DVD, so the implication is that more people chose to get it on the newer platform over the older platform.
The problem is the fact that they used a hard solid number to compare the two rather than a percentage per capita for instance. You have the factor of nation/world population changes between when the first number was reached and when the second number was reached. You likely have changes in price per capita income when the first number was reached and when the second number was reached. You likely also have changes in relevance of the "retail milestone of 100,000" when the first number was reached and when the second number was reached.
Ultimately you can place a safe bet that drawing conclusions based solely upon this simple little factoid would be foolish... which also wouldn't surprise most educated people. It's never the experts that make the final decision on important things like this... it's the fools who are willing to buy into such hype and willingly jump on the bandwagon that provides the money (read: survivability) for a format. Simply write this off as clever marketing.
... but i thought that the introduction of the linux and mac user would have to have their critique of Vista (ie. offer their perspective on the competition). This article is really nothing more than four fan-boys of a particular IT community dissection flaunting their collectively underwhelming e-peen in our faces.
I suppose it would be fair to say that there was a level playing field in terms of effectiveness in promoting their respective platforms... if I showed these "articles" to my parents, or some random person at the mall / office, I'd be surprised if any would be the least inclined to try any of the platforms.
I think the problem isn't so much them trying to drive a car so much as them thinking of the computer as similar to a car (ie. limited function tool). They have the mechanics to maintain it (ie. IT dept. / geek son/daughter). The problem is that rather than a simple car, they've been given a "swiss army knife" car that can be a hummer for driving the kids to soccer practice, a speedy sports car to zip through the highways, a golf cart to take them around the course, a micro-machine to entertain the kids, a truck of all trucks that can pull larger trailers than imaginable, among other unimaginable types of vehicles.
Problem is... they just want to get from Point A to Point B, not have to choose which car to drive and learn its many intricacies first. They want to go (turn on computer/application), steer(perform a function), and stop (turn off computer/application).... and occasionally turn on a blinker to let others know of the direction they're taking (automated progress notifications... don't we all wish ^_-).
Even with the open source slogan of "Build something that does just one thing and does it well!", we have managed to jumble together 100 versions of said something and coupled it with 1000 other bits of other somethings. Most users only really care about using 2-3 somethings, perhaps as many as 10 if they're particularly computer savvy. They also don't want to worry about having to update said somethings for another 4-6 years when it makes sense to buy another "car".
This of course assumes that the first chicken was in fact a chicken while in an embryonic state.
</shameless allusion to abortion philosophy>
While we're making assumptions, this also assumes that the first chicken came from an egg to begin with. It could simply be a freak mutation of some universal ancestral creature that reproduced through simple cell division or some such process.
At least *that* would explain why chicken tastes like everything and vice-versa!
The only gripe I have with the argument is that traveling at the speed of light does not alter time, only the perception of time.
Lets assume you had eyes that had the focusing power of an extremely powerful telescope. Now assume you are at the sun (your origin), and looking down on earth you are able to see the daily happenings of a local mall parking lot (your destination). Now assume that you have no mass and begin traveling at the speed of light.
The first thing you would notice is that it still takes some small amount of time to reach your destination (rougly 8 minutes). During the trip if you looked back at the place on the sun where you originated, time will have seemed to stop, suggesting time itself has stopped. However, since you're traveling at the speed of light the reason is actually just because you are absorbing the same light particle/wave that you did in the beginning (if that's possible, otherwise you're just looking at a black blob of nothingness i'd imagine), the others particles/waves just behind it just can't catch up to your eyes to be absorbed into perception. Looking to your destination now, you would perceive time has actually accelerated to double-time, but this is just because you are now absorbing twice the amount of light reflecting off your destination as you were before you started the trip.
These two perceptions are enough to invalidate the statement "time stops when travelling at the speed of light" because time can not stand still (0t) when it is simultaneously moving double-time (2t) unless time itself does not exist (t=0).
(0t=2t iff t=0)
And now we're faced with the problem that it took us 8 minutes to get from the sun to the mall parking lot. According to the last equation, time doesn't exist and therefore the 8 minutes must have simply been a figment of our imagination (8m!=0). From this we can conclude that we are in fact insane and that our observations have questionable authority, and the parking lot security will subsequently beat you to death when they can't stop you from flailing at them from your speed of light induced insanity.
Back to the land of reality, time is a constant and only the perception of time can be altered. Therefore, whether or not the neutrino experiences time does not dictate its ability to change flavor. I'd still agree that it determines whether it has mass or not, but the injection of perception of time is a bit beyond weird and probably inserted into that show to "wow" the uninformed masses (pun intended) into accepting something they still don't understand.
You assume that just because they cannot be disproven now, with current knowledge and tools, that they never will be. Dealing in such absolutes is what disqualifies such a theory from being science and moreso as a belief... much like those that would make up a religion. Scientific theory is and always will be only as good as what we "know" and "have" prior to stating said theory.
Big difference - with Linux, the international help *helps* me with my job - with Microsoft the international help *competes* with me for my job.
... but isn't it this very slashdot crowd that cries "competition is a good thing!" Having to compete for your job means you have to do better at it, do it for less, do it faster, etc. all in an effort to add value to the service you are paid for. If there is no competition, many will simply settle for stagnation and small to no income raises. On the other hand when competition exists, the smart ones will step it up a notch and in the long run be better off for it due to their own maintenance/increase in standard of living through pay/benefits, but also because when a company's employees produce more with less there tend to be increased profits... which in turn can be used to bolster the company as well as reward those that help to make it happen.
Complaining about outsourcing and how it will steal our jobs isn't going to change the fact that right now the people overseas are likely doing their job cheaper, faster, and in many cases better than the 'equivalent' US worker. Instead, get off your ass, find opportunities to make yourself shine, and add value to your company in ways that distinguish you from your overseas counterparts... other than the tremendously more expensive cost for service that is.
This article actually doesn't surprise me in the least.
Most police investigators of the digital forensics flavor, have little to no business doing the work they do because they're simply not qualified to do so. The vast majority of them are NOT techies, let alone have intimate knowledge of the internals of any given system or know of ways to find out. I think most important thing that I learned in my Computer Forensics class at Mississippi State was that few police departments can actually offer competitive pay for a forensics expert when compared to corporate America.
The few people that they do have that are qualified are mostly locked up in state labs with a case load such that you end up with rookie criminal psychologists with a book of computer forensics for dummies under their arms handling the vast majority of the investigations.
This is not to say that I think non-standard (ie. non-Microsoft) in any way are intentionally thwarting law enforcement. Rather, I think the investigation tools should become more comprehensive and the information to be an effective forensics expert on various non-standard systems to be more accessible to those that might not be as tech saavy as the typical slashdot geek.
The GP was saying that the problem is people have in the past tended to believe whatever they read
I've not seen anything that would indicate this has changed at all, no matter what lines have been blended. Sure, people have become more cynical, but only because this blending of barriers has made people create their own barriers and mini-communities of mob-think. It is my opinion that the majority of the cynicism you're lauding as a benefit of the internet blending authoritative barriers comes more from mob-think rather than rational thought. A simple example is how we here at/. have a tendency to classify certain authors as MS goons and such. What happens when said MS goon comes along and actually writes something of worth? As if/. will actually pay attention to it... it couldn't POSSIBLY have anything factual or thought provoking in it whatsoever given the author's record. We're becoming less and less concerned about what people have to say and more and more concerned about which mob they belong to and whether or not that mob is an enemy.
No, it is my belief that the "blending of boundaries" has actually done more to polarize opinions and suppress rational thought than benefit free speech and the genuine person with a mission to inform. This is not to say that opinions weren't polarized and rational thought wasn't supressed before... much like everything else, its just been made more extreme, thus my reference to the only worth of anything on the net these days being its entertainment value. Reading all these articles and rebuttals is like watching two troglodytes with infinitely thick skulls trying to break the skull of the other one with an infinitely insignificant twig... and of course, it is always funnier to envision them doing it while on fire ^_^
You're right that we couldn't discern between the loonies and the genuine guys back in the day, just as many are discovering that they cannot do so today in the internet age. However there are also plenty such as myself that already realized this back in the day and the only effect we have seen is that the useless noise has become louder and more wide-spread to such a degree that the 'good stuff' is largely getting drowned out. That doesn't exactly sound like a good thing in my opinion.
... then again, who's to say I'm not just spouting out the rhetoric of my particular mob.
I think the more important point to make here is that when code is deemed 'trusted' then the existence of the signature is really moot in any case. Who cares if you're running a piece of software that has a/no certificate to authenticate its authorship if the code works as intended? Granted, the system was never designed to track down offenders. It is meant to be a precautionary "before you download" or "before you run" measure of whether you trust the code to come from its owner, and by proxy whether you trust that owner to have written secure code.
However, IMO trust, whether warranted or not, engenders a feeling of security. If the system in place does not guarantee that security (or some acceptable level of security) then entrusting a piece of code is valueless. It makes me wonder whether a concept such as trust is even appropriate for internet consumption.
The problem is (and long has been) the degree to which we've tended to believe the printed word, no matter the source. The Internet's gradually improving that situation.
I was under the impression that it was just/. that was gradually improving in that situation... and is still largely dismal. Most of the rest of the written word out there still isn't worth the bandwidth required to transmit it.
In fact, I might even contest your argument that it is gradually improving. The only merit I can give to the vast majority of content I peruse through is based solely on its entertainment value (including what I read here on/.)... and even that has largely degenerated over the years.
Now, in order to give this post any merit I suppose I have to add in some humor, so come back later tonight after you've had a few drinks and then imagine a bald monkey slipping on a banana only to fall off the empire state building... on FIRE! (everything's funnier on fire ^_^)
Not to undermine the argument that heavier atmospheric insulation produces a profound effect on nighttime temperatures, but saying that higher sun temperatures do not is a bit unfair.
Consider this thought exercise: You have two pies (for arguments sake assume they are identical and at room temperature). You place them in the oven. Pie #1 is cooked at 300 degrees. Pie #2 is cooked at 400 degrees. Both are cooked for 30 minutes. When you take them out of the oven and place them on the pie rack record their temperatures for the next 30 minutes as they cool.
You will find that Pie #2 takes longer to return to room temperature. The composition of the pie, as well as the earth, gives it a certain capacity to 'retain' heat for a lack of a better word. Therefore if you heat the earth (particularly the water bodies) to a higher temperature the result is that the night time temperatures will actually be marginally higher because of the transfer of heat from earth to air / atmosphere. This is essentially the same case for why summer nights are much warmer than winter nights.
The argument that should then ensue is not whether or not atmospheric insulation or sun temperature trends has an effect on global temperature trends, but which one has more effect.
For that matter, all the other elements for altering global climate should also be incorporated into the "which has the greater effect" argument. However, to my knowledge (and correct me if I am incorrect) the only elements that we can effect change to are those that are man-made in any case (ie. CO2, HCOs, blah blah blah). Also if research is to be believed, trends would suggest that another ice age is "just around the corner" in geologeese. As such the real questions to ask ourselves are as follows:
1. Will continued or increased levels of these man-controlled elements prematurely trigger such a cataclysm?
2. Will decreased levels effectiviely mitigate/postpone such a cataclysm?
3. If so, how much longer will we have compared to the premature triggering?
4. Is the length of cataclysm postponement worth the costs of putting the postponement into realization?
I just figure that postponement or not, I plan on moving to the equator to enjoy a nice n' easy paradise on a secluded island basking in the sun on those slightly windy, sizzling hot 30 below 0 days.
Agreed. If I were to sell the software I was working on, I would provide not only the latest builds, but probably all the previous builds, all code revisions, blah blah blah. If they are buying the software they're buying the past and future development process ownership as well. Otherwise, they're just paying me royalties, for lack of a better term, for my allowing them to use the software within the terms of service and usage stated in a license agreement. Also, just because money has not exchanged hands does not mean that the licensor is no longer bound by an agreement. It just means that the price paid for X license is $0. Which means that unless the license gives freedom to do so, you're still bound to its terms as far as the usage (ie. no custom development / experimentation). A shame? Perhaps, in the name of innovation. But then business by and large exist to make money. Innovation is just something that every once in a while gets injected into a product to add to the value or competitive edge... rarely for innovation's sake.
If this lens is made of liquid, then why is this story under hardware?
The last time I did a belly flop off a high dive, 'soft' was not an adjective I would've attributed to water... let alone other liquids.
But now that I think about it, I can't imagine doing a belly flop off a high dive into a pool of code any softer as I'd likely fall right through the nothingness and be promptly introduced to the pool floor... yeouch.
Regardless of whether they were listening to the FUD that SCO shat out their ass or not is not so important as if they recognized the time and money used to take part in IP violation cases to begin with. Combine that with the possible liability if they use said project as one of their own offerings in some form or fashion and you're looking at a situation that has potential high risk.
And as we all know, risk is the bane of an established company's management (ie. don't fix something that not broke... just make it cheaper or more productive)
The problem with this view however is that it is the polar opposite of the literal view. Any intelligent bible scholar that's worth his snuff will tell you that the good book is a combination of history (with varying degrees of accuracy and assumptions), storytelling (Job / Parables / etc.), and instruction (Law in the OT and the letters in the NT... ie. the literal stuff for the most part).
There's obvious problems with taking everything as literal... especially since the only stuff we have to work with is a translated work... and if the number of translations available in English is any kind of hint... you really need to have a mastery of the original languages if you REALLY want to know the context. For instance, the word 'day' used in the creation story really has nothing to do with an earth day... just a succinct description for passage of a phase of time. There's no way of knowing exactly how long that 'day' was, or even if each 'day' was the same length of time. In fact there are plenty of verses throughout the bible that suggest that time is of no import to God. For all we know, God's instruments of creation could have included long spans of evolution and erosion among other things... we really can't know.
But to go to the other extreme by saying that since there's so much non-literal in the book it means that NOTHING should be taken literally is absurd... it is thinking only befitting of lazy people who want all reward and no effort or accountability (ie. study and adherence to moral code).
And just as a side note, why does 'compatibility' with modern society matter, espcecially when it pertains to the OT? I'm sure you must realize that with the death and ressurection of christ the old ways to salvation (ie. adherence to OT law) was abolished and replaced with the more accessible (most importantly: available to Gentiles) access to salvation outlined in the NT. Therefore, the OT really serves as nothing more than a tool to investigate the origins of the church and insights to who God is and what he likes/dislikes among many other things.
Furthermore, to suggest that the state of the modern society dictates what a religion IS is to suggest that methods of worship are nothing more than a really popular fad that people go through, much like the fashion of clothing. I think you fail to realize that it is not the religion that serves us so as to fit our needs... it is us who serve the religion, more specifically the object of worship. True worship and faith is not wavered by being 'uncomfortable', or not being popular with society, or even being persecuted to the point of death. Constantly 'adapting' a religion to meet the desires of its constituents simply means that the religion is being used as a guise so that they can do things God might find deplorable, but point to the church building and say "But they said it was OK!"
Take homosexuality for instance. It's pretty plain that God doesn't approve of it... i mean, cmon. HE DESTROYED AN ENTIRE TWO CITIES BECAUSE OF IT! But hey, now that 'society' finds it acceptable our religions have to as well. Give me a friggin break! Like I said before, they just want all the glory of going to heaven without having to make the sacrifices of self (time, lifestyle, friends, etc.) to get there. This is not to say that God hates those who are predisposed to homosexuality, it just means that they're going to make sacrifices like most of the rest of us. It isn't God that should bend backwards to meet our desires, it is our responsibility to bend over backwards to remain faithful to him (ie. his desire).
I'd rather just not see someone beating the shit out of a prostitute at all... and if I *was* subjected to seeing it, I'd rather be the one beating the shit out of the criminal that just beat the shit out of a prostitute, and then helping the prostitute with getting medical attention or even a way out of her lifestyle (maybe she's trapped via blackmail and abuse to be a prostitute against her will).
I simply don't buy the argument that people play games to do the bad things they can't do in real life, because I don't believe that most people play real life only to do good things. No, they're not criminals, but they're not saints either. How often has anyone here taken down a criminal drug ring, or saved the world from alien invasion, or a myriad of other things that can be considered *good*. Games exist to let people do the things they can't (or probably wouldn't if they could) do in real life. Notice the omission of the word "bad". So then, if a developer chooses to create a game that lets someone do the bad things as opposed to a game that lets someone do the good things, what does that say about them?
I'm not saying that banning a game for violence or whatnot is appropriate... that's honestly outside the jurisdiction of the government IMO. However in the case of Rockstar, defending the games without acknowledging that the motives of its developers are despicable at best is equally deplorable.
My feelings... he was working for the mob... and one of their addresses somehow got on his list. 1000 emails later, the originator was beaten to death by 1000 blows to the head with one of the advertised dildos in his spam mails.
Just because you shell out some money for something, doesn't necessarily mean you own that something to the extent that you can "do whatever you want" with it.
You don't honestly believe that buying a ticket to see a ballgame entitles you to going behind the scenes with a camera and sell the footage. Or buying a car and being entitled to drive on the sidewalk. Or buying a pot and soil and be entitled to grow weed in your house. The examples could go on an on ranging from the ludicrous uses of things you bought to the normal use of something you bought in a situation that is deemed inappropriate.
In most cases, the use of something you purchase is governed by something called common sense. However, in the cases where something is created for a particular purpose, but its parts inherently enable it to be used as a 'general purpose' device (ie. most electronics) it is often the case that licenses are created to describe the intent and approved use of said creation. When you buy this item, you're also buying the agreement to stay within bounds of the license whether you signed anything or not... the monetary transaction counts in most cases whether you knew about the technology or not (those who want to know, generally can find out).
DRM is not about a manufacturer, developer, distributor trying to prevent anything. DRM is simply a mechanism that attempts to enforce the rules bound to whatever you bought. Screw innovation and all that, this is about businesses trying to survive. If you're that concerned about innovation and freedom of use and all that, build your own damn device that mimics the behaviour you want... without any of the prescribed restrictions that you'd have if you bought it off the shelf... and then innovate off of that.
This is not to say that there aren't abuses of DRM here and there. To think otherwise would be naive, but I've yet to see any real doom and gloom come about because DRM was brought into the picture. But then again, I don't look at the world through a FOSS bias-filtered looking glass.
This is somewhat a misnomer. Many crimes can be set up in such a way to implicate an innocent person. When this innocent person is convicted because all (or most / the most influential) the evidence points to him, does this still mean that it is "proven" that he did it? In the same instance, what happens when a criminal gets caught red handed doing something, but because of a foulup in following procedures the criminal actually gets off. Does this mean that the criminal has been "proven" to not have committed the crime?
In all cases, any judgement is based upon the 'evidence' at hand... in some cases not all 'evidence' is actually admitted for one reason or another as well as the occasion where irrelevant / false 'evidence' is actually admitted into the case. At best, a verdict can be considered a very educated hypothesis.
Proven implies that the judgement is made upon facts that are incontrovertible... like the fact that 1 + 1 = 2, arithmetically speaking. Since the vast majority of 'evidence' submitted to the court rarely fits this criteria, there almost always exists room (even inside the room of "without reasonable doubt") for the verdict to be flawed.
Therefore, it would still be correct to consider the crimes alleged even when a person if "found guilty" of committing them.
I'd be careful going down this line of reasoning. Perhaps you learned in gradeschool differently than I, but when I was learning the basics it was taught in a fashion that would easily allow for rote memorization. There were single digit addition, subtraction, and multiplication tables. Even if you didn't know multiplication tables by heart you could very easily do some fairly advanced arithmetic through the repititions of regurgitated answers to small sub-problems.
Sure you'd have to recognize how to divide everything up into the smaller sub-problems, but the funny thing there is that you don't go straight from learning your single digit addition to multiple digit multiplication. It takes a while to train yourself to do the bigger stuff, but the funny thing about that is that many of the 2nd stage problems fall into the realm of rote memorization after a while. For instance I don't have to think for even a second to know that 8x9=72. Its just something i've memorized over the years. My brother is even an 'over-achiever' in this realm as he has actually memorized the entire multiplication table for up to 4 digit numbers... don't ask why... nobody really knows... but it is very scary the speed at which he can spit out the answer to 8377x1959.
The point I'm trying to make is that not only can the 'math capability' that the bird is exhibiting can be accounted for through rote memorization based on a rewards/punishment model. I haven't read enough into this research to know the methods used, but that's really irrelevant as I'm simply trying to prove the point for an 'in general' case.
Further along these lines... your argument that the research has a long track record and can be repeatable is actually more of an aid to the rote memorization argument than what you were trying to argue if you think about it a bit. This is especially the case if there are multiple birds exhibiting the same or similar behavior over the 15 years.
As to grammar tricks... i'm not sure how valid your basis is. I'll agree that a bird being able to get correct answers after change-ups in grammar, adjectives, and nouns being able to discern patterns... but then I'd pretty much expect that capability from any animal that has a communication system. Assuming that this is a 'duh' situation the problems still lie in the realm of being able to learn the arithemtic of said patterns through rote memorization.
I'm not so naive to recognize that this bird in particular does exhibit peculiar behavior as well... maybe it's intelligence... maybe not. However I'm not so sure that it can be generalized to all parrots or birds as a whole for that matter. Think about us as humans... it is very clear that some of us are super-geniuses and others are complete dolts who deserve to get beaten severely in an effert to jolt their brain back to life.
To me, the real test for intelligence would not be based on simple manipulation of patterns, but actually reasoning around those patterns. For instance, tell me how many bottles you need in order to completely contain 10oz. of fluid if each bottle has a capacity of 3oz. Even if we got this parrot to do division (which I seriously doubt we will) it would have to discern that you would need an extra bottle to contain the excess liquid even though the patterns do not evenly divide.
An interesting test might also be to test their creativity as well without the use limited patterns as tools. For instance, teach the parrot using a reward/punishment method to only move to the right. Then place a reward to its left and see if it is creative enough turn around and then move right in order to claim its prize. This example isn't exactly what I'd consider a great test of creativity, only something that popped off the top of my head.
I think the biggest problem I have with the types of testing for intelligence is that it is based on assumptions of how we as humans learn and recognize intelligence. Going back to complex arithmetic, there are a great man
Slashdot Mirror
All they really need to do is implement a mandatory Alias with your Battle.net profile to be displayed in lieu of your real name. You still get recognized as the person that plays X and Y character in game A and B, just without using your real name. It doesn't really help with the whole accountability thing (neither do using real names) as determined trolls will always be lurking about.
I'd be even happier to see them implement controls for explicit authorization to share your real name, akin to one's email, phone, or address, to specific individuals/groups of friends, but simply using a global alias would suffice in the short term.
The concept of "owning" any kind of information once you've given it out is certifiably insane. You might be the creator, but bottom line is once you've given it away (i.e. storing it with something you have little to no control over) the best you can be to that little tidbit of data is a viewer, maintainer, or, if you're very lucky, administrator.
I think most people simply have a problem of mapping physical things (where there's a relatively easy means to establish ownership) to meta-physical things. If I give you one of my cookies, it's yours to do with as you please. The same holds true if I give you my name, address, phone, birthday, etc. You could make your own copies in your own places, or hand that information out, or even modify your versions of that information. It doesn't matter how many instances of that information exist in other people's hands, the only instance that I control is the one in my own hands.
Here's an example of what I'm talking about. I give some website credit card information about me that is stored in my user profile. A few weeks later I cancel that credit card and am issued a new one with a new number. Now last time I checked, credit card companies don't ask you, "Would you like to change all your user profiles everywhere to reflect the canceled status of your old number?" The profiles that have that old credit card number will still have that same old credit card number until you or someone else who has access to that profile goes in and modifies it. Consider this: Sites aren't required to allow you to modify that bit of information. They're not even obligated to allow you to see it again if they didn't want to. In essence, once you gave them that information, they owned that *instance* of information. That information may not have any worth attributed to it, but they do own it. Bottom line, being able to access (in any way) the information you've given to a 3rd party is strictly a privilege granted by that 3rd party should they be so inclined.
Obviously many places that have even an ounce of credibility to their name go through the process of defining terms and conditions of the data they collect and how it can be used. However, even with terms and conditions agreements, it boils down to the trust one can put into a recipient vs. the intrinsic value of the having information to be provided. So everyone out there saying that "their" information has just as many rights to privacy as "they" do should just check themselves into a loony bin for thinking they have any control over something they willingly gave away (regardless of price or even "agreements").
Most security buffs will tell you that if you really value your milk and cookies, then don't hand them out.
Could you explain to me how the end of the universe equates to the end of infinity? Last I checked there isn't one which would make that incredibly long span it took the black hole to finally "form" into existence would still be infinitely smaller than infinity.
As the article points out at the end, if you take that reasoning and assume that a black hole *does* exist then it could not have "formed" into existence... it simply had to be there to begin with (ie. there will never be more than there are now) OR come into existence in some other, likely un-observable, fashion than being "formed" (more may pop up at some point in time, but you'd never be able to watch its formation... one day it's not there, the next it is).
The best way that *I* like to describe black holes are in terms black holes of knowledge. Something *is* happening to make star's change their course, or to bend light, and likely due to the existence of some *thing* that we simply do not have the means or know-how to detect. All we can currently detect are the side-effects of said thing being in existence. Give us enough time (albeit that may be æons) and I'm sure we'll finally hit the nail on the head and the conventional notion of black holes may very well go away.
Yes, to an extent. They're trying to make the claim that penetration/adoption of blue-ray is going faster based on the correlated factoid that X movie shipped more units on the blue-ray platform. Keep in mind that the movie was also released on DVD, so the implication is that more people chose to get it on the newer platform over the older platform.
The problem is the fact that they used a hard solid number to compare the two rather than a percentage per capita for instance. You have the factor of nation/world population changes between when the first number was reached and when the second number was reached. You likely have changes in price per capita income when the first number was reached and when the second number was reached. You likely also have changes in relevance of the "retail milestone of 100,000" when the first number was reached and when the second number was reached.
Ultimately you can place a safe bet that drawing conclusions based solely upon this simple little factoid would be foolish... which also wouldn't surprise most educated people. It's never the experts that make the final decision on important things like this... it's the fools who are willing to buy into such hype and willingly jump on the bandwagon that provides the money (read: survivability) for a format. Simply write this off as clever marketing.
Touche!
... but i thought that the introduction of the linux and mac user would have to have their critique of Vista (ie. offer their perspective on the competition). This article is really nothing more than four fan-boys of a particular IT community dissection flaunting their collectively underwhelming e-peen in our faces.
I suppose it would be fair to say that there was a level playing field in terms of effectiveness in promoting their respective platforms... if I showed these "articles" to my parents, or some random person at the mall / office, I'd be surprised if any would be the least inclined to try any of the platforms.
I think the problem isn't so much them trying to drive a car so much as them thinking of the computer as similar to a car (ie. limited function tool). They have the mechanics to maintain it (ie. IT dept. / geek son/daughter). The problem is that rather than a simple car, they've been given a "swiss army knife" car that can be a hummer for driving the kids to soccer practice, a speedy sports car to zip through the highways, a golf cart to take them around the course, a micro-machine to entertain the kids, a truck of all trucks that can pull larger trailers than imaginable, among other unimaginable types of vehicles.
Problem is... they just want to get from Point A to Point B, not have to choose which car to drive and learn its many intricacies first. They want to go (turn on computer/application), steer(perform a function), and stop (turn off computer/application).... and occasionally turn on a blinker to let others know of the direction they're taking (automated progress notifications... don't we all wish ^_-).
Even with the open source slogan of "Build something that does just one thing and does it well!", we have managed to jumble together 100 versions of said something and coupled it with 1000 other bits of other somethings. Most users only really care about using 2-3 somethings, perhaps as many as 10 if they're particularly computer savvy. They also don't want to worry about having to update said somethings for another 4-6 years when it makes sense to buy another "car".
This of course assumes that the first chicken was in fact a chicken while in an embryonic state.
</shameless allusion to abortion philosophy>
While we're making assumptions, this also assumes that the first chicken came from an egg to begin with. It could simply be a freak mutation of some universal ancestral creature that reproduced through simple cell division or some such process.
At least *that* would explain why chicken tastes like everything and vice-versa!
The only gripe I have with the argument is that traveling at the speed of light does not alter time, only the perception of time.
Lets assume you had eyes that had the focusing power of an extremely powerful telescope. Now assume you are at the sun (your origin), and looking down on earth you are able to see the daily happenings of a local mall parking lot (your destination). Now assume that you have no mass and begin traveling at the speed of light.
The first thing you would notice is that it still takes some small amount of time to reach your destination (rougly 8 minutes). During the trip if you looked back at the place on the sun where you originated, time will have seemed to stop, suggesting time itself has stopped. However, since you're traveling at the speed of light the reason is actually just because you are absorbing the same light particle/wave that you did in the beginning (if that's possible, otherwise you're just looking at a black blob of nothingness i'd imagine), the others particles/waves just behind it just can't catch up to your eyes to be absorbed into perception. Looking to your destination now, you would perceive time has actually accelerated to double-time, but this is just because you are now absorbing twice the amount of light reflecting off your destination as you were before you started the trip.
These two perceptions are enough to invalidate the statement "time stops when travelling at the speed of light" because time can not stand still (0t) when it is simultaneously moving double-time (2t) unless time itself does not exist (t=0).
(0t=2t iff t=0)
And now we're faced with the problem that it took us 8 minutes to get from the sun to the mall parking lot. According to the last equation, time doesn't exist and therefore the 8 minutes must have simply been a figment of our imagination (8m!=0). From this we can conclude that we are in fact insane and that our observations have questionable authority, and the parking lot security will subsequently beat you to death when they can't stop you from flailing at them from your speed of light induced insanity.
Back to the land of reality, time is a constant and only the perception of time can be altered. Therefore, whether or not the neutrino experiences time does not dictate its ability to change flavor. I'd still agree that it determines whether it has mass or not, but the injection of perception of time is a bit beyond weird and probably inserted into that show to "wow" the uninformed masses (pun intended) into accepting something they still don't understand.
You assume that just because they cannot be disproven now, with current knowledge and tools, that they never will be. Dealing in such absolutes is what disqualifies such a theory from being science and moreso as a belief... much like those that would make up a religion. Scientific theory is and always will be only as good as what we "know" and "have" prior to stating said theory.
Big difference - with Linux, the international help *helps* me with my job - with Microsoft the international help *competes* with me for my job.
... but isn't it this very slashdot crowd that cries "competition is a good thing!" Having to compete for your job means you have to do better at it, do it for less, do it faster, etc. all in an effort to add value to the service you are paid for. If there is no competition, many will simply settle for stagnation and small to no income raises. On the other hand when competition exists, the smart ones will step it up a notch and in the long run be better off for it due to their own maintenance/increase in standard of living through pay/benefits, but also because when a company's employees produce more with less there tend to be increased profits... which in turn can be used to bolster the company as well as reward those that help to make it happen.
Complaining about outsourcing and how it will steal our jobs isn't going to change the fact that right now the people overseas are likely doing their job cheaper, faster, and in many cases better than the 'equivalent' US worker. Instead, get off your ass, find opportunities to make yourself shine, and add value to your company in ways that distinguish you from your overseas counterparts... other than the tremendously more expensive cost for service that is.
This article actually doesn't surprise me in the least.
Most police investigators of the digital forensics flavor, have little to no business doing the work they do because they're simply not qualified to do so. The vast majority of them are NOT techies, let alone have intimate knowledge of the internals of any given system or know of ways to find out. I think most important thing that I learned in my Computer Forensics class at Mississippi State was that few police departments can actually offer competitive pay for a forensics expert when compared to corporate America.
The few people that they do have that are qualified are mostly locked up in state labs with a case load such that you end up with rookie criminal psychologists with a book of computer forensics for dummies under their arms handling the vast majority of the investigations.
This is not to say that I think non-standard (ie. non-Microsoft) in any way are intentionally thwarting law enforcement. Rather, I think the investigation tools should become more comprehensive and the information to be an effective forensics expert on various non-standard systems to be more accessible to those that might not be as tech saavy as the typical slashdot geek.
The GP was saying that the problem is people have in the past tended to believe whatever they read
/. have a tendency to classify certain authors as MS goons and such. What happens when said MS goon comes along and actually writes something of worth? As if /. will actually pay attention to it... it couldn't POSSIBLY have anything factual or thought provoking in it whatsoever given the author's record. We're becoming less and less concerned about what people have to say and more and more concerned about which mob they belong to and whether or not that mob is an enemy.
... then again, who's to say I'm not just spouting out the rhetoric of my particular mob.
I've not seen anything that would indicate this has changed at all, no matter what lines have been blended. Sure, people have become more cynical, but only because this blending of barriers has made people create their own barriers and mini-communities of mob-think. It is my opinion that the majority of the cynicism you're lauding as a benefit of the internet blending authoritative barriers comes more from mob-think rather than rational thought. A simple example is how we here at
No, it is my belief that the "blending of boundaries" has actually done more to polarize opinions and suppress rational thought than benefit free speech and the genuine person with a mission to inform. This is not to say that opinions weren't polarized and rational thought wasn't supressed before... much like everything else, its just been made more extreme, thus my reference to the only worth of anything on the net these days being its entertainment value. Reading all these articles and rebuttals is like watching two troglodytes with infinitely thick skulls trying to break the skull of the other one with an infinitely insignificant twig... and of course, it is always funnier to envision them doing it while on fire ^_^
You're right that we couldn't discern between the loonies and the genuine guys back in the day, just as many are discovering that they cannot do so today in the internet age. However there are also plenty such as myself that already realized this back in the day and the only effect we have seen is that the useless noise has become louder and more wide-spread to such a degree that the 'good stuff' is largely getting drowned out. That doesn't exactly sound like a good thing in my opinion.
I think the more important point to make here is that when code is deemed 'trusted' then the existence of the signature is really moot in any case. Who cares if you're running a piece of software that has a/no certificate to authenticate its authorship if the code works as intended? Granted, the system was never designed to track down offenders. It is meant to be a precautionary "before you download" or "before you run" measure of whether you trust the code to come from its owner, and by proxy whether you trust that owner to have written secure code.
However, IMO trust, whether warranted or not, engenders a feeling of security. If the system in place does not guarantee that security (or some acceptable level of security) then entrusting a piece of code is valueless. It makes me wonder whether a concept such as trust is even appropriate for internet consumption.
The problem is (and long has been) the degree to which we've tended to believe the printed word, no matter the source. The Internet's gradually improving that situation.
/. that was gradually improving in that situation... and is still largely dismal. Most of the rest of the written word out there still isn't worth the bandwidth required to transmit it.
/.)... and even that has largely degenerated over the years.
I was under the impression that it was just
In fact, I might even contest your argument that it is gradually improving. The only merit I can give to the vast majority of content I peruse through is based solely on its entertainment value (including what I read here on
Now, in order to give this post any merit I suppose I have to add in some humor, so come back later tonight after you've had a few drinks and then imagine a bald monkey slipping on a banana only to fall off the empire state building... on FIRE! (everything's funnier on fire ^_^)
Not to undermine the argument that heavier atmospheric insulation produces a profound effect on nighttime temperatures, but saying that higher sun temperatures do not is a bit unfair.
Consider this thought exercise: You have two pies (for arguments sake assume they are identical and at room temperature). You place them in the oven. Pie #1 is cooked at 300 degrees. Pie #2 is cooked at 400 degrees. Both are cooked for 30 minutes. When you take them out of the oven and place them on the pie rack record their temperatures for the next 30 minutes as they cool.
You will find that Pie #2 takes longer to return to room temperature. The composition of the pie, as well as the earth, gives it a certain capacity to 'retain' heat for a lack of a better word. Therefore if you heat the earth (particularly the water bodies) to a higher temperature the result is that the night time temperatures will actually be marginally higher because of the transfer of heat from earth to air / atmosphere. This is essentially the same case for why summer nights are much warmer than winter nights.
The argument that should then ensue is not whether or not atmospheric insulation or sun temperature trends has an effect on global temperature trends, but which one has more effect.
For that matter, all the other elements for altering global climate should also be incorporated into the "which has the greater effect" argument. However, to my knowledge (and correct me if I am incorrect) the only elements that we can effect change to are those that are man-made in any case (ie. CO2, HCOs, blah blah blah). Also if research is to be believed, trends would suggest that another ice age is "just around the corner" in geologeese. As such the real questions to ask ourselves are as follows:
1. Will continued or increased levels of these man-controlled elements prematurely trigger such a cataclysm?
2. Will decreased levels effectiviely mitigate/postpone such a cataclysm?
3. If so, how much longer will we have compared to the premature triggering?
4. Is the length of cataclysm postponement worth the costs of putting the postponement into realization?
I just figure that postponement or not, I plan on moving to the equator to enjoy a nice n' easy paradise on a secluded island basking in the sun on those slightly windy, sizzling hot 30 below 0 days.
Agreed. If I were to sell the software I was working on, I would provide not only the latest builds, but probably all the previous builds, all code revisions, blah blah blah. If they are buying the software they're buying the past and future development process ownership as well. Otherwise, they're just paying me royalties, for lack of a better term, for my allowing them to use the software within the terms of service and usage stated in a license agreement. Also, just because money has not exchanged hands does not mean that the licensor is no longer bound by an agreement. It just means that the price paid for X license is $0. Which means that unless the license gives freedom to do so, you're still bound to its terms as far as the usage (ie. no custom development / experimentation). A shame? Perhaps, in the name of innovation. But then business by and large exist to make money. Innovation is just something that every once in a while gets injected into a product to add to the value or competitive edge... rarely for innovation's sake.
If this lens is made of liquid, then why is this story under hardware?
The last time I did a belly flop off a high dive, 'soft' was not an adjective I would've attributed to water... let alone other liquids.
But now that I think about it, I can't imagine doing a belly flop off a high dive into a pool of code any softer as I'd likely fall right through the nothingness and be promptly introduced to the pool floor... yeouch.
Regardless of whether they were listening to the FUD that SCO shat out their ass or not is not so important as if they recognized the time and money used to take part in IP violation cases to begin with. Combine that with the possible liability if they use said project as one of their own offerings in some form or fashion and you're looking at a situation that has potential high risk.
And as we all know, risk is the bane of an established company's management (ie. don't fix something that not broke... just make it cheaper or more productive)
The problem with this view however is that it is the polar opposite of the literal view. Any intelligent bible scholar that's worth his snuff will tell you that the good book is a combination of history (with varying degrees of accuracy and assumptions), storytelling (Job / Parables / etc.), and instruction (Law in the OT and the letters in the NT... ie. the literal stuff for the most part).
There's obvious problems with taking everything as literal... especially since the only stuff we have to work with is a translated work... and if the number of translations available in English is any kind of hint... you really need to have a mastery of the original languages if you REALLY want to know the context. For instance, the word 'day' used in the creation story really has nothing to do with an earth day... just a succinct description for passage of a phase of time. There's no way of knowing exactly how long that 'day' was, or even if each 'day' was the same length of time. In fact there are plenty of verses throughout the bible that suggest that time is of no import to God. For all we know, God's instruments of creation could have included long spans of evolution and erosion among other things... we really can't know.
But to go to the other extreme by saying that since there's so much non-literal in the book it means that NOTHING should be taken literally is absurd... it is thinking only befitting of lazy people who want all reward and no effort or accountability (ie. study and adherence to moral code).
And just as a side note, why does 'compatibility' with modern society matter, espcecially when it pertains to the OT? I'm sure you must realize that with the death and ressurection of christ the old ways to salvation (ie. adherence to OT law) was abolished and replaced with the more accessible (most importantly: available to Gentiles) access to salvation outlined in the NT. Therefore, the OT really serves as nothing more than a tool to investigate the origins of the church and insights to who God is and what he likes/dislikes among many other things.
Furthermore, to suggest that the state of the modern society dictates what a religion IS is to suggest that methods of worship are nothing more than a really popular fad that people go through, much like the fashion of clothing. I think you fail to realize that it is not the religion that serves us so as to fit our needs... it is us who serve the religion, more specifically the object of worship. True worship and faith is not wavered by being 'uncomfortable', or not being popular with society, or even being persecuted to the point of death. Constantly 'adapting' a religion to meet the desires of its constituents simply means that the religion is being used as a guise so that they can do things God might find deplorable, but point to the church building and say "But they said it was OK!"
Take homosexuality for instance. It's pretty plain that God doesn't approve of it... i mean, cmon. HE DESTROYED AN ENTIRE TWO CITIES BECAUSE OF IT! But hey, now that 'society' finds it acceptable our religions have to as well. Give me a friggin break! Like I said before, they just want all the glory of going to heaven without having to make the sacrifices of self (time, lifestyle, friends, etc.) to get there. This is not to say that God hates those who are predisposed to homosexuality, it just means that they're going to make sacrifices like most of the rest of us. It isn't God that should bend backwards to meet our desires, it is our responsibility to bend over backwards to remain faithful to him (ie. his desire).
I'd rather just not see someone beating the shit out of a prostitute at all... and if I *was* subjected to seeing it, I'd rather be the one beating the shit out of the criminal that just beat the shit out of a prostitute, and then helping the prostitute with getting medical attention or even a way out of her lifestyle (maybe she's trapped via blackmail and abuse to be a prostitute against her will).
I simply don't buy the argument that people play games to do the bad things they can't do in real life, because I don't believe that most people play real life only to do good things. No, they're not criminals, but they're not saints either. How often has anyone here taken down a criminal drug ring, or saved the world from alien invasion, or a myriad of other things that can be considered *good*. Games exist to let people do the things they can't (or probably wouldn't if they could) do in real life. Notice the omission of the word "bad". So then, if a developer chooses to create a game that lets someone do the bad things as opposed to a game that lets someone do the good things, what does that say about them?
I'm not saying that banning a game for violence or whatnot is appropriate... that's honestly outside the jurisdiction of the government IMO. However in the case of Rockstar, defending the games without acknowledging that the motives of its developers are despicable at best is equally deplorable.
I'm not saying they shoulda killed the bastard...
... but I understand.
My feelings... he was working for the mob... and one of their addresses somehow got on his list. 1000 emails later, the originator was beaten to death by 1000 blows to the head with one of the advertised dildos in his spam mails.
Just because you shell out some money for something, doesn't necessarily mean you own that something to the extent that you can "do whatever you want" with it.
You don't honestly believe that buying a ticket to see a ballgame entitles you to going behind the scenes with a camera and sell the footage. Or buying a car and being entitled to drive on the sidewalk. Or buying a pot and soil and be entitled to grow weed in your house. The examples could go on an on ranging from the ludicrous uses of things you bought to the normal use of something you bought in a situation that is deemed inappropriate.
In most cases, the use of something you purchase is governed by something called common sense. However, in the cases where something is created for a particular purpose, but its parts inherently enable it to be used as a 'general purpose' device (ie. most electronics) it is often the case that licenses are created to describe the intent and approved use of said creation. When you buy this item, you're also buying the agreement to stay within bounds of the license whether you signed anything or not... the monetary transaction counts in most cases whether you knew about the technology or not (those who want to know, generally can find out).
DRM is not about a manufacturer, developer, distributor trying to prevent anything. DRM is simply a mechanism that attempts to enforce the rules bound to whatever you bought. Screw innovation and all that, this is about businesses trying to survive. If you're that concerned about innovation and freedom of use and all that, build your own damn device that mimics the behaviour you want... without any of the prescribed restrictions that you'd have if you bought it off the shelf... and then innovate off of that.
This is not to say that there aren't abuses of DRM here and there. To think otherwise would be naive, but I've yet to see any real doom and gloom come about because DRM was brought into the picture. But then again, I don't look at the world through a FOSS bias-filtered looking glass.
This is somewhat a misnomer. Many crimes can be set up in such a way to implicate an innocent person. When this innocent person is convicted because all (or most / the most influential) the evidence points to him, does this still mean that it is "proven" that he did it? In the same instance, what happens when a criminal gets caught red handed doing something, but because of a foulup in following procedures the criminal actually gets off. Does this mean that the criminal has been "proven" to not have committed the crime?
In all cases, any judgement is based upon the 'evidence' at hand... in some cases not all 'evidence' is actually admitted for one reason or another as well as the occasion where irrelevant / false 'evidence' is actually admitted into the case. At best, a verdict can be considered a very educated hypothesis.
Proven implies that the judgement is made upon facts that are incontrovertible... like the fact that 1 + 1 = 2, arithmetically speaking. Since the vast majority of 'evidence' submitted to the court rarely fits this criteria, there almost always exists room (even inside the room of "without reasonable doubt") for the verdict to be flawed.
Therefore, it would still be correct to consider the crimes alleged even when a person if "found guilty" of committing them.
I'd be careful going down this line of reasoning. Perhaps you learned in gradeschool differently than I, but when I was learning the basics it was taught in a fashion that would easily allow for rote memorization. There were single digit addition, subtraction, and multiplication tables. Even if you didn't know multiplication tables by heart you could very easily do some fairly advanced arithmetic through the repititions of regurgitated answers to small sub-problems.
Sure you'd have to recognize how to divide everything up into the smaller sub-problems, but the funny thing there is that you don't go straight from learning your single digit addition to multiple digit multiplication. It takes a while to train yourself to do the bigger stuff, but the funny thing about that is that many of the 2nd stage problems fall into the realm of rote memorization after a while. For instance I don't have to think for even a second to know that 8x9=72. Its just something i've memorized over the years. My brother is even an 'over-achiever' in this realm as he has actually memorized the entire multiplication table for up to 4 digit numbers... don't ask why... nobody really knows... but it is very scary the speed at which he can spit out the answer to 8377x1959.
The point I'm trying to make is that not only can the 'math capability' that the bird is exhibiting can be accounted for through rote memorization based on a rewards/punishment model. I haven't read enough into this research to know the methods used, but that's really irrelevant as I'm simply trying to prove the point for an 'in general' case.
Further along these lines... your argument that the research has a long track record and can be repeatable is actually more of an aid to the rote memorization argument than what you were trying to argue if you think about it a bit. This is especially the case if there are multiple birds exhibiting the same or similar behavior over the 15 years.
As to grammar tricks... i'm not sure how valid your basis is. I'll agree that a bird being able to get correct answers after change-ups in grammar, adjectives, and nouns being able to discern patterns... but then I'd pretty much expect that capability from any animal that has a communication system. Assuming that this is a 'duh' situation the problems still lie in the realm of being able to learn the arithemtic of said patterns through rote memorization.
I'm not so naive to recognize that this bird in particular does exhibit peculiar behavior as well... maybe it's intelligence... maybe not. However I'm not so sure that it can be generalized to all parrots or birds as a whole for that matter. Think about us as humans... it is very clear that some of us are super-geniuses and others are complete dolts who deserve to get beaten severely in an effert to jolt their brain back to life.
To me, the real test for intelligence would not be based on simple manipulation of patterns, but actually reasoning around those patterns. For instance, tell me how many bottles you need in order to completely contain 10oz. of fluid if each bottle has a capacity of 3oz. Even if we got this parrot to do division (which I seriously doubt we will) it would have to discern that you would need an extra bottle to contain the excess liquid even though the patterns do not evenly divide.
An interesting test might also be to test their creativity as well without the use limited patterns as tools. For instance, teach the parrot using a reward/punishment method to only move to the right. Then place a reward to its left and see if it is creative enough turn around and then move right in order to claim its prize. This example isn't exactly what I'd consider a great test of creativity, only something that popped off the top of my head.
I think the biggest problem I have with the types of testing for intelligence is that it is based on assumptions of how we as humans learn and recognize intelligence. Going back to complex arithmetic, there are a great man