f you've got a little time, read this 1996 interview with Steve Jobs. [wired.com] Look at how much he got right: "The most exciting things happening today are objects and the Web. The Web is exciting for two reasons. One, it's ubiquitous. There will be Web dial tone everywhere. [emphasis added] And anything that's ubiquitous gets interesting. Two, I don't think Microsoft will figure out a way to own it."
That's your example of Steve Jobs' vision? Dude, by 1996 you could have asked my mother that and she would have told you the same thing, even though she fits the stereotype of the computer illiterate mom fairly well.
By 1993, when the massive influx of people started getting AOL service with their windows 3.1 machines and connecting to the net, if you couldn't see that future you were daft. By 1996 we already had cable companies offering unlimited broadband access and the whole AOL-style private shell from ISPs was waning, making it quite clear that nobody was going to "own" the net. The future he was talking about was pretty much already there.
To be clear, I'm not saying Steve Jobs isn't a visionary. I'm just saying that's a damn poor example.
But only one copy of each game. So while it may be the same money for Sony, the game's developer/publisher may think they're getting a raw deal. One company may think their game was the best and that they should have had 5 sales, rather than getting one sale along with 4 other developers.
They can think that, but they're not entitled to it. When I buy a disc-based game, I play it through, then I let my friends borrow the disc, and it makes the rounds. This isn't illegal or unethical. They do the same when they buy the games, and I play it without having to buy it.
The digital distribution that locks it to my account prevents this type of sharing from going on, which has always been part of the gaming experience, and I consider it a right. I did understand that they would limit this to a small number to prevent it from becoming piracy and spreading beyond a network of friends, and this is what made me originally think this form of DRM was fair. However, they don't get to remove this right from me, while still convincing me to part with my money, so no more.
The other issues you mention are more related to disk-based piracy.
No, it is not. Frankly, if Sony stopped trying to lock Linux behind the hypervisor and prevent it from accessing the RSX, I might agree with you, since under that situation, there would be no need to bypass their security system other than piracy. However, as it was, there was a legitimate reason to doing so.
This leads to people sharing an account amongst themselves so that everyone can have the games but they are only payed for once.
The actual console you make the download with needs to register. Sony specifically allowed 5 different consoles to have the games, so that's not really "pirating." In fact, the reasonable DRM they used to have was the only reason that I actually decided it wasn't that bad, and bought playstation games. Other people I shared account with decided they needed to "pay me back" for the games I was allowing them to play, and bought additional games. All of this resulted in our sharing network buying more and more games, leading to more profit for Sony.
In the end, I now realize that I was stupid for not realizing that any DRM, regardless of how permissive it appears to be, is still evil and unacceptable. They can always change how permissive they are after they already have your money, and then you're fucked. Now that Sony has gone back to their completely evil ways and are removing OtherOS support and allowing stricter DRM after a few years of being rather nice with their PS3 (you can easily replace your hard-drive with any laptop SATA drive, controllers are standard bluetooth, ports are USB, OtherOS support, etc.), they already got the money I used to purchase the PS3, AND the PS3 games I bought.
I agree with you 100%. I thought that Spock, McCoy & Kirk were done just fine. I don't think that they were overdone at all.
Scotty seemed to be a bit of a stupid guy.
I agree, but I don't think it's the actor's fault. The writers, in their infinite idiocy, decided to make Scotty the comedy relief. In between getting stuck in the Enterprise's series of tubes, which inexplicably led to a gigantic blender (I get the possible need of water pipes in engineering, what the hell is the giant blender used for?) to lines such as, "I like this ship, it's exciting!" and finally having an alien midget sidekick...
Well, Scotty sucked, but there's no way Simon Pegg could possibly make what he was given to work with any good.
Gmail is WAY better than dedicated clients, if you have more than one machine/device
It's called imap. And gmail allows imap access, which is awesome.
or use public terminals a lot.
When using public terminals, the web interface is better, obviously. That's the only time I ever use the web interface, though. It's not that we're saying we don't like the availability of the web interface. It's just that given the option, some of us prefer their own mail clients.
In some cases competition would actually be harmful, for instance, it makes no sense to have multiple lines delivering electricity or for that matter Internet service to the same household, especially when there are other unconnected places that would be much better served with a connection.
Competition isn't harmful, that's just a case of bad planning, which specifically created a lack of competition. Power lines / fiber / water pipes / etc all flow through public land. That means the people should own those (controlled by the government, and the government should build the infrastructure). The government, however, should not supply what flows through that medium. They should give access to multiple power companies to supply electricity to the grid, water companies to supply water, ISPs to supply the connections at the endpoints. The money to build / maintain those structures could come from a tax on the bill for each one of those utilities. This is perfectly fair, as only the people using it will pay for it. In addition, you get the advantage of lower barrier to entry on that market, and don't have to give anyone monopoly rights to give them an incentive to build the infrastructure.
In the end, we end up paying for the infrastructure anyway, since the government tends to give these companies a lot of money to help them build the infrastructure, along with the monopoly rights. Might as well own what we paid for.
(Wine in Ubuntu used to set the minimum mmap address to zero, I'm not sure whether it still does)
Okay that's scary. Seriously reenabling a known exploit is not a workaround any distro should be using. I checked my box and it was set to 0 with up to date karmic w/ wine, not anymore.
I've ran across that, and it was never set by default. I think support for running 16-bit programs required it (and might still require, but most people wouldn't come across it). When you tried running it, it would give you a message that you needed to set the minimum mmap address to zero to get it to work, along with a message explaining that it was a bad idea to do so.
Heh...nevermind, I'm wrong. Apparently that used to be the case in the beginning, now they place a script (/etc/sysctl.d/30-wine.conf) that sets it to zero by default. Grandparent was right, that's scary.
(Wine in Ubuntu used to set the minimum mmap address to zero, I'm not sure whether it still does)
Okay that's scary. Seriously reenabling a known exploit is not a workaround any distro should be using. I checked my box and it was set to 0 with up to date karmic w/ wine, not anymore.
I've ran across that, and it was never set by default. I think support for running 16-bit programs required it (and might still require, but most people wouldn't come across it). When you tried running it, it would give you a message that you needed to set the minimum mmap address to zero to get it to work, along with a message explaining that it was a bad idea to do so.
The trouble with this is that using a hands free phone while driving is just as dangerous as using a normal phone.
Has any of these studies compared this effect to having other people in the car who you are chatting with? Because I've sure as hell done some stupid stuff because I was paying attention to a conversation happening inside the car, and not to my driving (luckily nothing too dangerous...basically, missing a turn and stuff like that).
The increased "cognitive workload" involved in holding a conversation, not the use of hands, causes the increased risk.[17][18][19]
That would seem to imply the effect is the same. In which case, governments will be justified in prohibiting cell phone use if and only if they also prohibit passengers in your car (or at least prohibit talking while inside a moving vehicle. I'm sure even if the passengers talk among themselves, and not to you, it's going to be hard for you to not pay attention to their conversation).
If we, as a society, are willing to accept the risk of one, we must be willing to accept the risk of the other.
The opposite will happen. They'll find their laptops and computer languishing in disuse, and their iPads carried with them around the house all the time. The era of the heavy, stationary computer needing a desk for hours-long use (whether you mean desktop or laptop) is over.
Do you know why you're wrong? Because nobody uses a computer for anything LESS than hours-long use. We've already switched to other devices for that. Just need to check your e-mail, do a quick wikipedia search? Pull out your smart-phone. The only thing we use computers for now are things that take a while...and you don't want to be there holding the ipad in your hand while you watch a movie because the desk is a better choice, leaving your hands free. You don't want to use the ipad to type up a report because a real keyboard is a better choice than the virtual one for anything that is more than one or two paragraphs.
The portable devices for quick use already exist, and they are way better than the iPad, because they're portable enough to fit in your pocket. For everything else you want a desk-bound (or lap-bound), full keyboard solution.
As a member of the PS3Cluster team I would like to say that Sony's cutting off of 3rd party OSes from their platform is going to impact the Air Force, UMass Dartmouth and other organizations using PS3 hardware as massively parallel clusters for scientific computing. This goes far beyond the home-brew market.
No it won't. It definitely impacts the home-brew market because people like me have linux installed AND like to play games. The Air Force and those universities and organizations using the PS3 for scientific computing only can simply opt not to install the firmware update (it's doubtful they ever install the firmware updates anyway, what would be the point?)
That said, I can't see how it's legal for Sony to do this. I paid retail price for my PS3 under the understanding that I could both use the playstation network and run Linux. Now they're telling me that I have to choose one or the other after they already have my money.
Think about watching video on this. You have half the screen and turned sideways.
I do. And I think it's a huge advantage, similar to what I do with dual monitor. Video on one screen, while I still get to do other things on the device on the other screen. If I just want to dedicate my entire time to watching the video, I'll watch it on my 60" screen, thank you very much.
Now it might be good for a few things where you can flick it between the two small screens, BUT you could easily do the same thing on one bigger screen by creating a software split between the halves.
But now you've lost the ability to fold it, which is a nice feature for a portable device.
Despite the fact that I ordered and paid for the pizza ahead of time, on the web, he told me that he "needed an imprint" of the card. Then he starts making the imprint with... his key? And then (and this is really where I kick myself), I take the original receipt and he goes, "Oh, nope, I need that one" and swaps with me. Of course, the carbon copy (which I am supposed to take but which he took) has the nicest key-imprint on it.
First of all, as somebody else already replied to, card imprints from pizza deliveries are the norm. It's not a scam, it's something they do.
About 45 minutes after this happened, my CC company calls me to check on purchases that were made not five minutes ago at a "discount clothing store in the Bronx" (I live in Boston). Now, I am certain that this is the source of the theft, because prior to that, I had not used the card in several months.
Then it can't possibly be the dude. 45-minutes is nowhere near enough time. You think if the pizza delivery guy is running a scam getting credit card imprints that he's just going to get ONE and then run off and start using it? And at a store? Do you think he just took your receipt and handed it over to the cashier when she told him how much the purchase was?
The actual imprinting scams involving scanning the magnetic strip, and making cards that people can use by actually scanning it at stores. I had my debit card skimmed (and so did a bunch of my friends, at the same time). The police eventually tracked it down to a waiter at a Ruby Tuesday restaurant. Apparently he would scan customers cards when he took our checks. It took months from the time he did so for the first purchases to occur, because the people doing the skimming are rarely the same people using the cards. They sell the information, other people make the cards, other people use them.
I briefly asked myself, if this guy, who was Hispanic, and given his choice of profession, probably poor, deserved some sympathy when it came to CC theft, and I quickly decided: no.
I'm going to assume you're not a racist moron, but I am wondering what the fuck him being Hispanic has anything at all with either being a thief or with a reason why a thief would deserve sympathy. Why did you even bother mentioning that factoid?
While technically this correct, in practice you cannot always de-authorize your consoles.
*You must MANUALLY deauthorize your PSN account on EACH PS3 which you have ever logged in.*
That means:
If your PS3 crashed and you were unable to get to the deauthorize menu item, you lose that "slot" forever.
If you reformat YOUR OWN PS3 without deauthorizing your PSN account, you lose that "slot" forever.
If you have shared your PSN account with someone and they don't deauthorize the account, you lose that "slot" forever.
Citation: I've read this on the official Sony FAQ some time in the past but I can't find it right now, so here is another link that explains how things work: http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=158147
Once all your slots have been used up, if you log on to your playstation account on the web, there'll be a button available to deauthorize all of them simultaneously. At least that used to be the case, I'm not sure if they changed it.
Most likely not. With their current setup, you're allowed 5 downloads of a game that you purchase over the PSN. After 5 downloads and reinstalls though, you're required to purchase again.
No, you're not. You're allowed to de-authorize previous consoles and get that download back.
Sony's store is fairly sane with regards to their policy. However, I still don't like the trend to sell us half of a game, and then force you to buy the additional content digitally.
No, it does not. There is absolutely no reason why someone without a PhD could not have read, studied and understood climatology better than one with a PhD.
Whose word do I take that they understand the material well? Their own? People with a degree (from accredited institutions, who have published in reputable journals) have a committee of other knowledgeable people to evaluate the understanding of the candidates.
And are more honest.
I'm not arguing honesty. Someone who thinks they understand the material well can be perfectly honest and still be wrong.
You want to complain about the evidence of faked data and warped statistics in order to drive an agenda? Be my guest, you are right...these things shouldn't happen. What you want to do is request that other well trained scientists, trained in that field, not some other random field re-evaluate the known good information and collect new data. Demand that the original collected data and procedures be kept open. This is good. However, random people who claim to have become experts by reading up material on their own are not evidence against the scientific consensus. They have nothing backing up their knowledge, and they probably don't even know enough to realize that they are wrong. The world is full of people who read about electromagnetism and now think they came up with a design for a perpetual motion machine.
Why don't you just go and claim that only those who graduated PhD from University of East Anglia CRU are proficient enough and everybody else is just a bunch of idiots and should STFU.
No, I just think people who think they know more than others who spent a significant portion of their life studying a subject and have had their knowledge and understanding validated by a group of other people who have gone through the same process are idiots and should STFU.
Not being an expert in a subject doesn't say anything about your intelligence. Arguing against people who are experts when your own knowledge has gaps does mean you're an idiot. I have read plenty of information about Quantum Mechanics and Relativity because I'm interested in the subject, but I'm not about to argue with a physicist and claim he's wrong when my ideas and his don't mesh. I'm smart enough to know he's drawing upon information I do not have, regardless of our comparative IQ's.
There is absolutely nothing in structural engineering someone without a degree cannot understand that someone with one magically does.
Everything about structural engineering does require education to understand, however. The degree is the modern proof you went through the education. If you just grab a few books and think you understand, you probably don't. It's the curse of knowledge. A little knowledge about a subject is often worse than not knowing anything at all about it. If you don't know anything, you're more likely to know about your ignorance. If you know a little bit, you have all sorts of gaps in your knowledge that you don't even realize are there.
No doctor fresh out of the school can do medical surgery alone without assisting - i.e. learning in practice - first. Could someone without the school learn it? During war a few have...
They learn specific things, they don't learn to be doctors. It's very much like the construction workers building a bridge. Often they'll change the design and scoff at the just-out-of-school engineer who's overseeing the build and complains. "I've been doing this for 20 years." The correct answer is, "you've been doing it wrong for 20 years." Education does not replace experience, but experience sure as hell does not replace education.
There is nothing in climate science that somehow makes the owner of a paper which says "PhD" magically smarter than someone without one.
It makes the owner more knowledgeable than someone without a PhD on the subject in question. That's the whole point of the extra years in school...reading and understanding the literature; collecting new data and performing research. There's nothing magical about it...knowing more about something makes you more qualified to give your opinion.
9000 is such a big number that it raises some questions.
9000 is not a big number. If you search for it, you can find that many people willing to deny that the Earth is round.
This time he was on standby and there was no double seat for him. To prevent the person next to him from suffering the overflow they made him take the next flight and gave him $100 for his trouble.
He knew the rules, this just makes a whining, self-entitled asshole.
He's not complaining about the fact that the rules exist. Obviously he didn't mind, since he consistently buys double seats. He's complaining that they let him board the plane and THEN kicked him out. They could have just not seated him and it would be fine.
According to this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1 , it better happen before 2025 or the probes power will run out. (We never did get to six such probes).
Why would that matter? It's not like it's going to stop moving after the power runs out. The alien civilization that builds an entire freaking ship around the probe and fixes its programming so that it can continue on a far bigger exploration mission can probably manage to add a power source.
That is 100% correct, and we really ought to be actively working towards that goal. If when AI arises we treat it kindly and give it legal rights it is _likely_ that it will "grow up" to think kindly of its human predecessors. If we try to lobotomize it, contain it, restrict it or destroy it then it's not going to be too happy with us.
They're not evolving via natural selection here. We're programming them. If we were to program emotions into them, we'd make sure that nothing would make them happier than doing our slave-work.
That was the password Data used in the episode "Brothers" to lock all command functions when he took over the ship, and I just typed it from memory. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I rest my case.
However, isn't that a state that is capable of giving you everything you want from it? If they're strong enough to protect you, they're strong enough to abuse you.
Maybe in your world. In my world, everyone would be part of the military, like Switzerland or Israel. Keeping and bearing arms would be a requirement of full citizenship.
When you realize that I think the "Government" is "we the people", then understanding the responsibility of all the citizens to a COMMON good is a REQUIREMENT of good governance. When you have 60% of the people opposed to something, and the "Government" officials thinking they know better, you have a problem.
60% is a really small majority. So in your world, if you're keeping government in check with your personal weapons, now you've got a really bloody civil war in your hands. You don't want anybody else to have welfare, the other sides wants everyone to have it. You can't come to an agreement, so you're going to start shooting each other regardless of whose side the government takes.
That's why I said small local governments are the way to go. The people who want lots of government services can live in states that supply those government services. If you don't like, you move to one that doesn't.
And while many on Slashdot make fun of the "tea baggers", they are just expressing the disdain for elitism that has taken over the world.
I want a LIMITED government because unrestrained government is ruled by a small cadre who think the rest of us are too stupid to know what's best for us.
When one realizes that Government is a NECESSARY evil, then one always is fighting to limit it. That is where I am.
You still don't get it. Everyone thinks that. They disagree on what is NECESSARY. Some people think high surveillance is absolutely NECESSARY otherwise we're at the mercy of criminals. Other people think welfare is absolutely NECESSARY because people shouldn't suffer. Some people think the military is NOT NECESSARY because we should all be able to get along with diplomacy. The only fair way for everyone to get the government they think is limited to only their version of NECESSARY is to keep it so that most of it is only governing small groups. Otherwise, it invariably gets too big for everyone, but still too small in the parts that matter for some. Nobody is happy, except the small cadre you're talking about.
You don't like it when the police have guns and camera's pointed at your privacy any more than I like having guns pointed at my wallet.
The argument is exactly the same. The sad thing is, you're unable to realize it.
A state that is capable of giving you everything you want, is capable of taking everything you have. Which is why a limited government is best.
That's funny. I agree it's the same argument, but then you went and said "limited government" instead of "no government."
I understand that you think there are good reasons for a government. They can provide for the common defense and things like that. However, isn't that a state that is capable of giving you everything you want from it? If they're strong enough to protect you, they're strong enough to abuse you.
I have a simple question I ask people like yourself. Who gets to decide what level of "Welfare" is appropriate and why? Your answer will betray your own cause (and it doesn't matter what you say).
Everybody wants a "limited" government, people just disagree on where the limits lie. So the answer to your question is, "however much the people electing their representatives believe there should be." The solution is having most of the power in local governments. This way if you don't like your government, and everyone else disagrees with you about what the government should or should not provide (and thus you can't change it by voting), you can at least move someplace else where the community shares more of your views.
When Dawkins asserts that evolution disproves God's existence, he's warmly welcomed by science. Nevermind the fact that he can't distinguish between science and philosophy, nor understand the limitations of the former.
I've actually been to a talk by Dawkins and he addressed this. He's not saying that science has proof God does not exist, he's saying the burden of proof shouldn't be on proving the non-existence of God. Given that there are no documented case of paranormal activity of any kind under proper observing conditions (and if you can offer anything like that, feel free to claim the Randi foundation's prize), the burden of proof should be on the religious group to prove that He does exist. After all, very few people bother trying to find proof that Xenu or Zeus don't exist, but many get all defensive when you don't take their religion of choice for granted (the Xenu believers included).
When Behe answers by pointing out that evolution doesn't have answers for some of the most basic questions, he's treated like a moron and shunned.
There are two separate issues here:
1. Often there are actual answers to the 'basic questions' Behe claims there are no answers for. Every example he managed to come up with irreducible complexity has eventually had a counter-example that managed to reduce said complexity into more basic useful forms. Not to mention that the argument is a bit flawed to begin with. If you develop random gene mutations that have absolutely no use, unless there are actual environmental pressures against them there's no reason they would get selected out. If the presence of said useless mutation is in the same population as organisms with a beneficial quality, they're even likely to increase in number. At some point if further mutations occur that make them useful, they need not have had a more basic use in the past, they just needed to have ridden along in the population, acquiring further mutations.
2. Lack of answers, even when they legitimately exist (and they do), is not evidence of the paranormal. You've heard the expression 'god of the gaps.' In the past, people have attributed the hand of God to various natural phenomena we have a perfect model for today.
That, to me, sounds more like religion than science. At least a religion admits when they ask you to believe something on faith.
Actually, science does not claim, nor has any mechanism for proving a theory correct. Every accepted theory is simply the one that currently best fits observations. When observations disagree with a theory's predictions, you either modify your theory to fit them and give better predictions, or you switch to another completely different theory that gives said better predictions. The 'truth' in the way you want it is not the realm of science. The observations are truth, the predictions can be verified with the observations, but if you can't observe it, a model is the best you can do. Here's an example. You see a black box program that you can only analyze by giving it input and observing the output. You notice that when you type '10' you get '8' back. You type '100' you get '98' back. You type '257', you get '255' back. You do this hundreds of times and come up with a model. "The black box subtracts 2 from your input." Now let's say you can actually look at the code, and find out that what's actually happening is that it's adding 25 and subtracting 27. You can't tell the difference between the inputs and your model was 'wrong' as a model for the actual internal operations. You shouldn't care though, because the predictions from your theory will always exactly match observations anyway.
That, by the way, is the crux of Occam's Razor. It's not that the simpler theory is more correct. It's that if you have two theories which give the same predictions, but one of them has more variables, you mi
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f you've got a little time, read this 1996 interview with Steve Jobs. [wired.com] Look at how much he got right: "The most exciting things happening today are objects and the Web. The Web is exciting for two reasons. One, it's ubiquitous. There will be Web dial tone everywhere. [emphasis added] And anything that's ubiquitous gets interesting. Two, I don't think Microsoft will figure out a way to own it."
That's your example of Steve Jobs' vision? Dude, by 1996 you could have asked my mother that and she would have told you the same thing, even though she fits the stereotype of the computer illiterate mom fairly well.
By 1993, when the massive influx of people started getting AOL service with their windows 3.1 machines and connecting to the net, if you couldn't see that future you were daft. By 1996 we already had cable companies offering unlimited broadband access and the whole AOL-style private shell from ISPs was waning, making it quite clear that nobody was going to "own" the net. The future he was talking about was pretty much already there.
To be clear, I'm not saying Steve Jobs isn't a visionary. I'm just saying that's a damn poor example.
But only one copy of each game. So while it may be the same money for Sony, the game's developer/publisher may think they're getting a raw deal. One company may think their game was the best and that they should have had 5 sales, rather than getting one sale along with 4 other developers.
They can think that, but they're not entitled to it. When I buy a disc-based game, I play it through, then I let my friends borrow the disc, and it makes the rounds. This isn't illegal or unethical. They do the same when they buy the games, and I play it without having to buy it.
The digital distribution that locks it to my account prevents this type of sharing from going on, which has always been part of the gaming experience, and I consider it a right. I did understand that they would limit this to a small number to prevent it from becoming piracy and spreading beyond a network of friends, and this is what made me originally think this form of DRM was fair. However, they don't get to remove this right from me, while still convincing me to part with my money, so no more.
The other issues you mention are more related to disk-based piracy.
No, it is not. Frankly, if Sony stopped trying to lock Linux behind the hypervisor and prevent it from accessing the RSX, I might agree with you, since under that situation, there would be no need to bypass their security system other than piracy. However, as it was, there was a legitimate reason to doing so.
This leads to people sharing an account amongst themselves so that everyone can have the games but they are only payed for once.
The actual console you make the download with needs to register. Sony specifically allowed 5 different consoles to have the games, so that's not really "pirating." In fact, the reasonable DRM they used to have was the only reason that I actually decided it wasn't that bad, and bought playstation games. Other people I shared account with decided they needed to "pay me back" for the games I was allowing them to play, and bought additional games. All of this resulted in our sharing network buying more and more games, leading to more profit for Sony.
In the end, I now realize that I was stupid for not realizing that any DRM, regardless of how permissive it appears to be, is still evil and unacceptable. They can always change how permissive they are after they already have your money, and then you're fucked. Now that Sony has gone back to their completely evil ways and are removing OtherOS support and allowing stricter DRM after a few years of being rather nice with their PS3 (you can easily replace your hard-drive with any laptop SATA drive, controllers are standard bluetooth, ports are USB, OtherOS support, etc.), they already got the money I used to purchase the PS3, AND the PS3 games I bought.
Fuck me and my naivity. Oh well, lesson learned.
I agree with you 100%. I thought that Spock, McCoy & Kirk were done just fine. I don't think that they were overdone at all.
Scotty seemed to be a bit of a stupid guy.
I agree, but I don't think it's the actor's fault. The writers, in their infinite idiocy, decided to make Scotty the comedy relief. In between getting stuck in the Enterprise's series of tubes, which inexplicably led to a gigantic blender (I get the possible need of water pipes in engineering, what the hell is the giant blender used for?) to lines such as, "I like this ship, it's exciting!" and finally having an alien midget sidekick...
Well, Scotty sucked, but there's no way Simon Pegg could possibly make what he was given to work with any good.
Gmail is WAY better than dedicated clients, if you have more than one machine/device
It's called imap. And gmail allows imap access, which is awesome.
or use public terminals a lot.
When using public terminals, the web interface is better, obviously. That's the only time I ever use the web interface, though. It's not that we're saying we don't like the availability of the web interface. It's just that given the option, some of us prefer their own mail clients.
In some cases competition would actually be harmful, for instance, it makes no sense to have multiple lines delivering electricity or for that matter Internet service to the same household, especially when there are other unconnected places that would be much better served with a connection.
Competition isn't harmful, that's just a case of bad planning, which specifically created a lack of competition. Power lines / fiber / water pipes / etc all flow through public land. That means the people should own those (controlled by the government, and the government should build the infrastructure). The government, however, should not supply what flows through that medium. They should give access to multiple power companies to supply electricity to the grid, water companies to supply water, ISPs to supply the connections at the endpoints. The money to build / maintain those structures could come from a tax on the bill for each one of those utilities. This is perfectly fair, as only the people using it will pay for it. In addition, you get the advantage of lower barrier to entry on that market, and don't have to give anyone monopoly rights to give them an incentive to build the infrastructure.
In the end, we end up paying for the infrastructure anyway, since the government tends to give these companies a lot of money to help them build the infrastructure, along with the monopoly rights. Might as well own what we paid for.
(Wine in Ubuntu used to set the minimum mmap address to zero, I'm not sure whether it still does)
Okay that's scary. Seriously reenabling a known exploit is not a workaround any distro should be using. I checked my box and it was set to 0 with up to date karmic w/ wine, not anymore.
I've ran across that, and it was never set by default. I think support for running 16-bit programs required it (and might still require, but most people wouldn't come across it). When you tried running it, it would give you a message that you needed to set the minimum mmap address to zero to get it to work, along with a message explaining that it was a bad idea to do so.
Heh...nevermind, I'm wrong. Apparently that used to be the case in the beginning, now they place a script (/etc/sysctl.d/30-wine.conf) that sets it to zero by default. Grandparent was right, that's scary.
(Wine in Ubuntu used to set the minimum mmap address to zero, I'm not sure whether it still does)
Okay that's scary. Seriously reenabling a known exploit is not a workaround any distro should be using. I checked my box and it was set to 0 with up to date karmic w/ wine, not anymore.
I've ran across that, and it was never set by default. I think support for running 16-bit programs required it (and might still require, but most people wouldn't come across it). When you tried running it, it would give you a message that you needed to set the minimum mmap address to zero to get it to work, along with a message explaining that it was a bad idea to do so.
The trouble with this is that using a hands free phone while driving is just as dangerous as using a normal phone.
Has any of these studies compared this effect to having other people in the car who you are chatting with? Because I've sure as hell done some stupid stuff because I was paying attention to a conversation happening inside the car, and not to my driving (luckily nothing too dangerous...basically, missing a turn and stuff like that).
The increased "cognitive workload" involved in holding a conversation, not the use of hands, causes the increased risk.[17][18][19]
That would seem to imply the effect is the same. In which case, governments will be justified in prohibiting cell phone use if and only if they also prohibit passengers in your car (or at least prohibit talking while inside a moving vehicle. I'm sure even if the passengers talk among themselves, and not to you, it's going to be hard for you to not pay attention to their conversation).
If we, as a society, are willing to accept the risk of one, we must be willing to accept the risk of the other.
You know that there's a checkbox in that dialog saying "don't annoy me any more"?
It stops annoying you about that one update. After they release a new one, it pops up again.
The opposite will happen. They'll find their laptops and computer languishing in disuse, and their iPads carried with them around the house all the time. The era of the heavy, stationary computer needing a desk for hours-long use (whether you mean desktop or laptop) is over.
Do you know why you're wrong? Because nobody uses a computer for anything LESS than hours-long use. We've already switched to other devices for that. Just need to check your e-mail, do a quick wikipedia search? Pull out your smart-phone. The only thing we use computers for now are things that take a while...and you don't want to be there holding the ipad in your hand while you watch a movie because the desk is a better choice, leaving your hands free. You don't want to use the ipad to type up a report because a real keyboard is a better choice than the virtual one for anything that is more than one or two paragraphs.
The portable devices for quick use already exist, and they are way better than the iPad, because they're portable enough to fit in your pocket. For everything else you want a desk-bound (or lap-bound), full keyboard solution.
As a member of the PS3Cluster team I would like to say that Sony's cutting off of 3rd party OSes from their platform is going to impact the Air Force, UMass Dartmouth and other organizations using PS3 hardware as massively parallel clusters for scientific computing. This goes far beyond the home-brew market.
We've been covered here before: http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/17/2251232
No it won't. It definitely impacts the home-brew market because people like me have linux installed AND like to play games. The Air Force and those universities and organizations using the PS3 for scientific computing only can simply opt not to install the firmware update (it's doubtful they ever install the firmware updates anyway, what would be the point?)
That said, I can't see how it's legal for Sony to do this. I paid retail price for my PS3 under the understanding that I could both use the playstation network and run Linux. Now they're telling me that I have to choose one or the other after they already have my money.
Think about watching video on this. You have half the screen and turned sideways.
I do. And I think it's a huge advantage, similar to what I do with dual monitor. Video on one screen, while I still get to do other things on the device on the other screen. If I just want to dedicate my entire time to watching the video, I'll watch it on my 60" screen, thank you very much.
Now it might be good for a few things where you can flick it between the two small screens, BUT you could easily do the same thing on one bigger screen by creating a software split between the halves.
But now you've lost the ability to fold it, which is a nice feature for a portable device.
Despite the fact that I ordered and paid for the pizza ahead of time, on the web, he told me that he "needed an imprint" of the card. Then he starts making the imprint with... his key? And then (and this is really where I kick myself), I take the original receipt and he goes, "Oh, nope, I need that one" and swaps with me. Of course, the carbon copy (which I am supposed to take but which he took) has the nicest key-imprint on it.
First of all, as somebody else already replied to, card imprints from pizza deliveries are the norm. It's not a scam, it's something they do.
About 45 minutes after this happened, my CC company calls me to check on purchases that were made not five minutes ago at a "discount clothing store in the Bronx" (I live in Boston). Now, I am certain that this is the source of the theft, because prior to that, I had not used the card in several months.
Then it can't possibly be the dude. 45-minutes is nowhere near enough time. You think if the pizza delivery guy is running a scam getting credit card imprints that he's just going to get ONE and then run off and start using it? And at a store? Do you think he just took your receipt and handed it over to the cashier when she told him how much the purchase was?
The actual imprinting scams involving scanning the magnetic strip, and making cards that people can use by actually scanning it at stores. I had my debit card skimmed (and so did a bunch of my friends, at the same time). The police eventually tracked it down to a waiter at a Ruby Tuesday restaurant. Apparently he would scan customers cards when he took our checks. It took months from the time he did so for the first purchases to occur, because the people doing the skimming are rarely the same people using the cards. They sell the information, other people make the cards, other people use them.
I briefly asked myself, if this guy, who was Hispanic, and given his choice of profession, probably poor, deserved some sympathy when it came to CC theft, and I quickly decided: no.
I'm going to assume you're not a racist moron, but I am wondering what the fuck him being Hispanic has anything at all with either being a thief or with a reason why a thief would deserve sympathy. Why did you even bother mentioning that factoid?
While technically this correct, in practice you cannot always de-authorize your consoles.
*You must MANUALLY deauthorize your PSN account on EACH PS3 which you have ever logged in.*
That means: If your PS3 crashed and you were unable to get to the deauthorize menu item, you lose that "slot" forever. If you reformat YOUR OWN PS3 without deauthorizing your PSN account, you lose that "slot" forever. If you have shared your PSN account with someone and they don't deauthorize the account, you lose that "slot" forever.
Citation: I've read this on the official Sony FAQ some time in the past but I can't find it right now, so here is another link that explains how things work: http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=158147
Once all your slots have been used up, if you log on to your playstation account on the web, there'll be a button available to deauthorize all of them simultaneously. At least that used to be the case, I'm not sure if they changed it.
Most likely not. With their current setup, you're allowed 5 downloads of a game that you purchase over the PSN. After 5 downloads and reinstalls though, you're required to purchase again.
No, you're not. You're allowed to de-authorize previous consoles and get that download back.
Sony's store is fairly sane with regards to their policy. However, I still don't like the trend to sell us half of a game, and then force you to buy the additional content digitally.
No, it does not. There is absolutely no reason why someone without a PhD could not have read, studied and understood climatology better than one with a PhD.
Whose word do I take that they understand the material well? Their own? People with a degree (from accredited institutions, who have published in reputable journals) have a committee of other knowledgeable people to evaluate the understanding of the candidates.
And are more honest.
I'm not arguing honesty. Someone who thinks they understand the material well can be perfectly honest and still be wrong.
You want to complain about the evidence of faked data and warped statistics in order to drive an agenda? Be my guest, you are right...these things shouldn't happen. What you want to do is request that other well trained scientists, trained in that field, not some other random field re-evaluate the known good information and collect new data. Demand that the original collected data and procedures be kept open. This is good. However, random people who claim to have become experts by reading up material on their own are not evidence against the scientific consensus. They have nothing backing up their knowledge, and they probably don't even know enough to realize that they are wrong. The world is full of people who read about electromagnetism and now think they came up with a design for a perpetual motion machine.
Why don't you just go and claim that only those who graduated PhD from University of East Anglia CRU are proficient enough and everybody else is just a bunch of idiots and should STFU.
No, I just think people who think they know more than others who spent a significant portion of their life studying a subject and have had their knowledge and understanding validated by a group of other people who have gone through the same process are idiots and should STFU.
Not being an expert in a subject doesn't say anything about your intelligence. Arguing against people who are experts when your own knowledge has gaps does mean you're an idiot. I have read plenty of information about Quantum Mechanics and Relativity because I'm interested in the subject, but I'm not about to argue with a physicist and claim he's wrong when my ideas and his don't mesh. I'm smart enough to know he's drawing upon information I do not have, regardless of our comparative IQ's.
There is absolutely nothing in structural engineering someone without a degree cannot understand that someone with one magically does.
Everything about structural engineering does require education to understand, however. The degree is the modern proof you went through the education. If you just grab a few books and think you understand, you probably don't. It's the curse of knowledge. A little knowledge about a subject is often worse than not knowing anything at all about it. If you don't know anything, you're more likely to know about your ignorance. If you know a little bit, you have all sorts of gaps in your knowledge that you don't even realize are there.
No doctor fresh out of the school can do medical surgery alone without assisting - i.e. learning in practice - first. Could someone without the school learn it? During war a few have ...
They learn specific things, they don't learn to be doctors. It's very much like the construction workers building a bridge. Often they'll change the design and scoff at the just-out-of-school engineer who's overseeing the build and complains. "I've been doing this for 20 years." The correct answer is, "you've been doing it wrong for 20 years." Education does not replace experience, but experience sure as hell does not replace education.
There is nothing in climate science that somehow makes the owner of a paper which says "PhD" magically smarter than someone without one.
It makes the owner more knowledgeable than someone without a PhD on the subject in question. That's the whole point of the extra years in school...reading and understanding the literature; collecting new data and performing research. There's nothing magical about it...knowing more about something makes you more qualified to give your opinion.
9000 is such a big number that it raises some questions.
9000 is not a big number. If you search for it, you can find that many people willing to deny that the Earth is round.
He normally buys double seats due to his width.
This time he was on standby and there was no double seat for him. To prevent the person next to him from suffering the overflow they made him take the next flight and gave him $100 for his trouble.
He knew the rules, this just makes a whining, self-entitled asshole.
He's not complaining about the fact that the rules exist. Obviously he didn't mind, since he consistently buys double seats. He's complaining that they let him board the plane and THEN kicked him out. They could have just not seated him and it would be fine.
According to this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1 , it better happen before 2025 or the probes power will run out. (We never did get to six such probes).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V'ger
Why would that matter? It's not like it's going to stop moving after the power runs out. The alien civilization that builds an entire freaking ship around the probe and fixes its programming so that it can continue on a far bigger exploration mission can probably manage to add a power source.
That is 100% correct, and we really ought to be actively working towards that goal. If when AI arises we treat it kindly and give it legal rights it is _likely_ that it will "grow up" to think kindly of its human predecessors. If we try to lobotomize it, contain it, restrict it or destroy it then it's not going to be too happy with us.
They're not evolving via natural selection here. We're programming them. If we were to program emotions into them, we'd make sure that nothing would make them happier than doing our slave-work.
Nerds do not memorize meaningless trivia without good reason.
::ahem::
"173467321476-Charlie-32789777643-Tango-732-Victor-73117888732476789764376-Lock"
That was the password Data used in the episode "Brothers" to lock all command functions when he took over the ship, and I just typed it from memory. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I rest my case.
Maybe in your world. In my world, everyone would be part of the military, like Switzerland or Israel. Keeping and bearing arms would be a requirement of full citizenship.
When you realize that I think the "Government" is "we the people", then understanding the responsibility of all the citizens to a COMMON good is a REQUIREMENT of good governance. When you have 60% of the people opposed to something, and the "Government" officials thinking they know better, you have a problem.
60% is a really small majority. So in your world, if you're keeping government in check with your personal weapons, now you've got a really bloody civil war in your hands. You don't want anybody else to have welfare, the other sides wants everyone to have it. You can't come to an agreement, so you're going to start shooting each other regardless of whose side the government takes.
That's why I said small local governments are the way to go. The people who want lots of government services can live in states that supply those government services. If you don't like, you move to one that doesn't.
And while many on Slashdot make fun of the "tea baggers", they are just expressing the disdain for elitism that has taken over the world.
I want a LIMITED government because unrestrained government is ruled by a small cadre who think the rest of us are too stupid to know what's best for us.
When one realizes that Government is a NECESSARY evil, then one always is fighting to limit it. That is where I am.
You still don't get it. Everyone thinks that. They disagree on what is NECESSARY. Some people think high surveillance is absolutely NECESSARY otherwise we're at the mercy of criminals. Other people think welfare is absolutely NECESSARY because people shouldn't suffer. Some people think the military is NOT NECESSARY because we should all be able to get along with diplomacy. The only fair way for everyone to get the government they think is limited to only their version of NECESSARY is to keep it so that most of it is only governing small groups. Otherwise, it invariably gets too big for everyone, but still too small in the parts that matter for some. Nobody is happy, except the small cadre you're talking about.
You don't like it when the police have guns and camera's pointed at your privacy any more than I like having guns pointed at my wallet.
The argument is exactly the same. The sad thing is, you're unable to realize it.
A state that is capable of giving you everything you want, is capable of taking everything you have. Which is why a limited government is best.
That's funny. I agree it's the same argument, but then you went and said "limited government" instead of "no government."
I understand that you think there are good reasons for a government. They can provide for the common defense and things like that. However, isn't that a state that is capable of giving you everything you want from it? If they're strong enough to protect you, they're strong enough to abuse you.
I have a simple question I ask people like yourself. Who gets to decide what level of "Welfare" is appropriate and why? Your answer will betray your own cause (and it doesn't matter what you say).
Everybody wants a "limited" government, people just disagree on where the limits lie. So the answer to your question is, "however much the people electing their representatives believe there should be." The solution is having most of the power in local governments. This way if you don't like your government, and everyone else disagrees with you about what the government should or should not provide (and thus you can't change it by voting), you can at least move someplace else where the community shares more of your views.
When Dawkins asserts that evolution disproves God's existence, he's warmly welcomed by science. Nevermind the fact that he can't distinguish between science and philosophy, nor understand the limitations of the former.
I've actually been to a talk by Dawkins and he addressed this. He's not saying that science has proof God does not exist, he's saying the burden of proof shouldn't be on proving the non-existence of God. Given that there are no documented case of paranormal activity of any kind under proper observing conditions (and if you can offer anything like that, feel free to claim the Randi foundation's prize), the burden of proof should be on the religious group to prove that He does exist. After all, very few people bother trying to find proof that Xenu or Zeus don't exist, but many get all defensive when you don't take their religion of choice for granted (the Xenu believers included).
When Behe answers by pointing out that evolution doesn't have answers for some of the most basic questions, he's treated like a moron and shunned.
There are two separate issues here:
1. Often there are actual answers to the 'basic questions' Behe claims there are no answers for. Every example he managed to come up with irreducible complexity has eventually had a counter-example that managed to reduce said complexity into more basic useful forms. Not to mention that the argument is a bit flawed to begin with. If you develop random gene mutations that have absolutely no use, unless there are actual environmental pressures against them there's no reason they would get selected out. If the presence of said useless mutation is in the same population as organisms with a beneficial quality, they're even likely to increase in number. At some point if further mutations occur that make them useful, they need not have had a more basic use in the past, they just needed to have ridden along in the population, acquiring further mutations.
2. Lack of answers, even when they legitimately exist (and they do), is not evidence of the paranormal. You've heard the expression 'god of the gaps.' In the past, people have attributed the hand of God to various natural phenomena we have a perfect model for today.
That, to me, sounds more like religion than science. At least a religion admits when they ask you to believe something on faith.
Actually, science does not claim, nor has any mechanism for proving a theory correct. Every accepted theory is simply the one that currently best fits observations. When observations disagree with a theory's predictions, you either modify your theory to fit them and give better predictions, or you switch to another completely different theory that gives said better predictions. The 'truth' in the way you want it is not the realm of science. The observations are truth, the predictions can be verified with the observations, but if you can't observe it, a model is the best you can do. Here's an example. You see a black box program that you can only analyze by giving it input and observing the output. You notice that when you type '10' you get '8' back. You type '100' you get '98' back. You type '257', you get '255' back. You do this hundreds of times and come up with a model. "The black box subtracts 2 from your input." Now let's say you can actually look at the code, and find out that what's actually happening is that it's adding 25 and subtracting 27. You can't tell the difference between the inputs and your model was 'wrong' as a model for the actual internal operations. You shouldn't care though, because the predictions from your theory will always exactly match observations anyway.
That, by the way, is the crux of Occam's Razor. It's not that the simpler theory is more correct. It's that if you have two theories which give the same predictions, but one of them has more variables, you mi