You can get a 60gig hard drive that's physically larger than an iPod, that doesn't have a battery, that doesn't have a screen, and doesn't have any features beyond "I can plug it into a computer and put data on it."... for $320.
How is this a ripoff?
Well, if you're buying 60gig drives for $320, obviously you can't spot a ripoff. I mean, you can get a 7200rpm one for $42. Or maybe you mean a laptop harddrive so that it can be small. Wait, that's $95. Ah, you said plug in to your computer, so I guess you mean a firewire drive. Darn, that's $75
I don't really have anything against ipods, and I do think they're probably worth the price (even though I use my pda for my music playing needs. I'll be the first to admit I'm not a huge music guy though). However, they're not the cheap device you're making them out to be, they are the expensive players of the market. After all, you could be buying a Nomad for $279 $229 with the rebate, but I refuse to count that as the actual price, I don't believe in rebates.
Well...since you can buy ps2's, and they're backward compatible, your argument doesn't hold for psx games.
I'm all in favor for shorter copyright lengths, but not THAT short. I'd be happy with 15-20 years for things which can be played / read on systems still being produced today, and an immediate end when the systems cease being produced. This way, by now there would be ports of every sega cd game to the xbox, and / or my emulator would be legal (and that includes the Saturn and Dreamcast since they don't make the systems anymore).
Actually, both of your examples don't sound bad at all. The fact that a small group of people disagree is a fact, and thus unbiased. As long as that fact is stated in the news. In your case, the headline was "98% of scientists say that evolution occurred...versus a small group of people...". If it were reported LIKE THAT, it would be perfectly unbiased news and be reporting both sides of the issue simultaneously. Unfortunately, some news agencies think that unbiased means giving exactly equal credence to both sides, which appears to be the same thing you dislike about them.
I love your first idea, I think it would be great. I don't really have a problem with equal time, but I have a problem with just letting them speak for equal time without being asked hard questions. Invariably, the people from the questionable side will use wording to try to confuse the less-educated-on-that-particular-issue people. So if you can't have representatives from both sides actually on the show, the reporters should at least do their homework on both sides so they could ask the hard questions. The reporter should ask the scientists about the problems the religious have with evolution (usually they're misconceptions about the theory, which could be explained in a way that would make it clear for the people watching), and the religious group should be asked questions about their justification for not believing certain evidence (you can see my bias in how I phrased that, but I wouldn't phrase it like that when asking the questions...I'm speaking to the audience here).
My problem with the media is that usually they just let whoever they're interviewing get away with things they shouldn't. Reporters should approach every person being interviewed as a someone who will be spouting bs. They should ask the hard questions and let the interviewee prove his knowledge on the subject and explain the reasons for the position he has taken, whether the reporter agrees with the position or not. I think that would make it pretty unbiased and the people who are watching should be able to make an informed decision based on the answers given.
Not only was the nature of your comment disturbing, but now I'm wondering what sorts of bizarre genetic experiments you perform in your home if your dog has tentacles.
In addition, the racketeer must forfeit all ill-gotten gains and interest in any business gained through a pattern of "racketeering activity." The act also contains a civil component that allows plaintiffs to sue for triple damages.
The $25,000 may not be a big deal, but that may stop all future lawsuits.
i hate it when modpoints expire so fast that i don't have any when i see really good posts.
Well, I don't really care about the mod points, but I'm always glad when something I write is funny to someone other than myself.
why don't you send them this quote along with a link to the original post ?;)
Somehow I doubt they'll use it, but just to make whoever's reading the e-mails join in on the laugh, I took your advice and sent them an e-mail linking to the original post. E-mail below:
I wouldn't care about freedom of speech or conscience in Saudi Arabia. Like many, I'd support anyone who would drive a nuclear bomb right into the middle of those fuckers dancing in the streets celebrating "The Great Satan(tm)" getting nuked.
And after that you'd go out in the streets waving the American Flag, celebrating all those fuckers getting nuked?
That sound you just heard? It's the sound of a million neurons firing in your brain, causing you to finally understand what the motivation behind the actions of those crazy fuckers are. They're idiots just like you who want to act on their immediate emotions rather than reason. With that one sentence you proved that if you had been born elsewhere, you'd be the one strapping explosives to yourself.
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and hope that you can step back, and realize how complex the problem is and that violence alone can't solve it. Military strikes on people and organizations doing something against us: yes. Killing innocents for speaking their minds regardless of whether they actually did anything against us or not makes you as bad as the terrorists.
Dude! Nice rant, but it ignores one salient fact. We ARE out of Saudi Arabia. The United States withdrew all U.S. military forces from Saudi Arabia in 2002.
Well, 2003 actually. The US had troops in Saudi Arabia to enforce the no-fly zone in iraq. Then the Iraq war broke out and we essentially moved those troops (and many more) to Iraq. Yeah...I'm sure that made those muslims who were so protective of their land happy and they have no more reason to feel like they're being invaded, right?
Not that I support removing troops from Iraq now. I was against the war back before it started, but the only thing that would be worse than that ill-conceived invasion would be to now wash our hands of the incident and tell the new government to go deal with their own problems. We dug ourselves into one big hole out of which there's no easy way. Essentially, the grandparent was right though...instead of trying to gain these people's support and stop terrorism by removing the incentive and Osama's excuses, we went and pissed them off more. Now we can't leave, and just have to weather it out until someone smarter than I am can come up with a better solution.
However, if you're thinking the better solution is to go and nuke anyone pre-emptively...well, you're just nuts, and I'm glad you don't have the power to do so (I have to believe even Bush understands that, if for no other reason than optmism).
I always find it funny to analyze the pro-war people, like the one in the post that started all this. They say things like "terrorism is about slaughtering women and children. It is a low-key form of genocide and is beyond mere criminality. A population that supports it and encourages it doesn't deserve to be let off the hook when it unleashes that on another group." while at the same time saying things like "I'd support anyone who would drive a nuclear bomb right into the middle of those fuckers dancing in the streets celebrating "The Great Satan(tm)" getting nuked." Dude, you are obviously NO DIFFERENT. When something disastrous like 9/11 happens, as much as it is painful to us, the virtuous thing to do is to get out of the "we must have our revenge" mindset and into the "how can we prevent this from happening again" one. You can't bring the dead ones back to life, and killing people who didn't have anything to do with it because they bought into the propaganda that we are 'The Great Satan' is just going to enforce the notion that we are indeed 'The Great Satan' to anyone that survives.
Yeah, absolutely right. I did think about the x and y distances, non-intersection occured to me in the case where the ripples die out, but not in the case of where the stones are dropped in the first place. I figure if I were on the competition that would be a completely careless mistake of my part.
Now, you mention that the competition is about mathematical modeling more than computer programming, and I know what you mean by it, but I don't share your definition of what computer programming is. See, I think programming is not about knowing the syntax and memorizing functions and libraries. It's about getting a computer to do the things you want it to do. So even though both the simulation and mathematical solutions are 'programs' obviously one is more elegant and efficient than the other. Thus it surprised me that in a programming competition, most people were trying what is obviously an inferior approach--they can't expect to win. The problem didn't require me to know advanced math...it just required me to think about what's happening. I would have expected almost everyone to have come up with my solution, and the winner would be decided based on what people forget to account for (in my case, I'd lose points for not accounting for two stones dropped in the same place). I think things like that really are programming problems, and the fact that math is used as a tool doesn't make it any less so.
Sorry about the rambling, I didn't get the impression that you disagree with me on that point or anything, but I just wanted to clarify since there was at least one poster that thought the problem wasn't a good problem for a programming competition since it was 'mathematical' in nature.
Solving the "secret" of that problem had nothing to do with programming, and everything to do with mathematics and geometry.
Yeah, but the math makes the efficiency. Most people were brute forcing it, when there was a much faster way. That's what good programming is all about, right? Finding out how to apply your knowledge (mathematics, obscure functions, previous experience or whatever else) to making a program more elegant and efficient is what good programming is all about.
To me, a true programming contest would use real-world tasks as a basis for the challenges, and would judge the results based on
efficiency,
which was what the above test was all about
documentation,
Yeah, true enough. Finding out no one comments in the real world was a moment of great joy for me because I realized I wouldn't have to comment. And then I realized that in the real world I had to read and learn other people's code (and 'real world' to me is grad school, I can imagine the shock if I ever leave school and actually join the real 'real world'). Makes for difficult grading and long competitions though (as you pointed out yourself), and I guess they try to avoid that.
creativity,
Which brute forcing through the above problem is not, and yet most people reportedly tried it. Seems like they're trying to force people to be creative by giving them problems with obvious but inneficient solutions.
I'm actually sort of disappointed that in a programming competition people would try to brute force something like that as a first option. It doesn't seem that complicated to me (I posted a solution that I think works as reply to the parent, although it's late and I haven't really thought it out, so it might not work...anyway, took me about 10 seconds to think of it, I'd at least try my ideas to see that they work instead of trying to brute force something like that).
huh...since we only have to consider two stones, wouldn't the highest peak always occur in an easy to calculate place? Either the point where the heaviest stone was dropped or the point of first intersection? First find the direction from stone 0 to stone 1 so that you may find the distance along the shortest path.
Now...let's say that stone 1 (weight 12) was dropped at t=3 after stone 0 (weight 15), 20 units away from stone 0. So you subtract 3 from 20, and find the midpoint of the remaining distance of 17, which is 9 units away from stone 1. Calculate the peak at that point at time t=3+9=11. Stone 0: 15-11=4, Stone 1: 12-11=1, peak at intersection = 5, which is less than peak of heaviest stone, which is 15.
Warning: I won't be held responsible for stupid errors in the above. It's late, and I decided to make a quick post before going to sleep:)
I guess you got moderated as flamebait because someone decided you were insulting military intelligence.
Point is, espionage *is* day-to-day business. We know we're being spied upon, they know we're spying upon them. You get the edge not by stopping all espionage on their part, but rather by finding out who is doing it and how. Once you know this, you can use those channels to control what they find out, and start feeding misinformation when it truly matters.
The effect of gravity of the moon (and really all other objects in the solar system, to a smaller scale) on the earth as they rotate. Tidal dragging is the reason why the moon has locked its rotation with the earth (so that it always faces us).
Unfortunately, McDonalds et al have convinced the populace that it is OUR responsibility to clean up our tables, because they have oh-so convenient garbage cans on the way out.
Dude, you don't clean up the table when you go to a restaurant where you're required to live a tip. It's not the case that McDonalds et al have convinced you that it's your responsibility to clean up. They just created a new type of restaurant where you exchange the requirement of leaving a tip for taking up some of the responsibilities you'd be paying for.
The idea is that in a fast food restaurant, there might be a lot of movement, and at certain times of day, it might be darn crowded. Instead of having people wait for a table that is ready and cleaned, everyone moves out quickly with their trash, and you sit your ass down. Fast food.
I don't really want DRM to be done "right". I want it to work horribly so that the non-techies get to experience just how much it interferes with their daily lives. I want to see the day where DRM has such a bad reputation attached to it that vendors will see it as a marketing point to write the words "DRM-less" on the box.
As a teacher I was offended by that statement. *Most* teachers do a great job
Hold on right there. Most teachers suck. Don't take this as an insult, I've had enough great teachers to know that they are out there and you may well be one of them. They are, however, not in the majority.
Most teachers fall into one of three categories.
They're way too easy, and everyone gets A's, who cares if they've learned anything.
They recite all the material to students, but don't actually care to put any effort into finding ways to make them understand it. Those that get it do well, those that don't just don't matter.
They think that giving hundreds of problems of the same type to students until they've learned how to do them by rote memorization and then test them by having they work out the same types of problems on a test is "teaching." Students in these types of classes can do extremely well without understanding what they're doing (they know number A needs to be multiplied by number B and the result must be subtracted from number C). In addition, students who do understand the concept, end up getting poor grades on homework (even though they ace tests), because they're too bored to work through what is essentially the same problem over and over again.
students that want to learn, DO learn
Whenever people say that to defend a teacher's work it just boggles my mind. Demonstrating that some students in your class have learned the material doesn't say anything about you as a teacher. Of course those who want to learn will learn. They don't need a teacher for that, they need a book. If they're motivated, they'll search out the information and do whatever they have to in order to learn it. It isn't the teacher's job to recite information: the challenge is in finding out why the students who don't get it aren't getting it and rephrase the information or provide examples in such a way that they do get it. If you're teaching children, it's also your job to present the information in such a way that will stimulate their curiosity so that they will want to learn.
I'm not saying every child will become interested and learn with a good teacher, but with good teachers most of them do. If you have more than 2 or 3 problem students in a class of 30, you need to find someone else to blame other than the children.
Actually, I'm a Linux guy who knows a good deal about Windows.
Gotcha. When I replied to you, I wasn't sure if by "end users need full privs on their boxes," you meant that they need it in Windows or that they need it in general. Thus I replied to let anyone who might be confused about it that there are systems that do work without giving end users full priveleges. As it turns out you already know that, but hopefully I was able to clear it up for others.
For what it's worth, I agree with you that, in Windows, you just can't have a limited privileges account. As someone who likes to occasionally play games, I dual boot and share your friend's frustrations. Seems like every security feature Microsoft implements is intended to confuse the heck out of the end-user. The limited privileges account don't let them do anything. The firewall is good, but that same feature I talked about in my earlier post also has issues (when it pops up for java programs, it suggests putting 'javaw' in the exceptions list--allowing a clueless user to open the firewall to ALL java programs). The NX protection breaks some old programs, and the exception list for NX doesn't seem to work for the programs I tried, so I had to disable it completely. Even with NX disabled completely, the mobile device emulator that comes with the Microsoft mobile SDK doesn't work, even though the knowledge base tells me it should with it disabled. They need to get their act together.
Sorry for the rambling, but you sounded like you'd understand given your background:)
Most people just don't want to have to deal with the hassle of switching between two user accounts or learning to use "runas". It will always be this way. End users need full privs on their boxes.
Well, you appear to pretty knowledgeable about windows, but I'm going to guess you don't have much linux experience (and there's nothing wrong with that).
I'm not going to claim linux user-friendliness for end users, but at least you can still run every program you need under the non-admin accounts (and the programs still can't do system-level damage due to file permissions). You don't even need to be switching to the other admin account if you set up a sudoers file. I don't have a mac, but I hear OS X does this in a user-friendly way.
Oh, and about your friend and the windows firewall preventing him from running games. Since Service Pack 2, you can add programs to the exception list, and the ports that program is listening to will get opened up. That means that those ports will be nice and closed when he's not gaming (or more speficially, hosting a game), and will open up when he needs them.
posters on/. seem unable to distinguish between two mediums/metaphors as visibly distinguishable as film and book. The experiences are distinctly different enjoy each according to its merits.
You and every other slashdot poster that keeps giving this excuse for when movies based on books look nothing like the book need to realize one thing: if you're going to make a different story, don't claim it's a movie version of the book.
Understandably, most of the time the movie can't be exactly like the book. More attention need to be paid to the visuals, the visuals represent the director's view of the images in the book so they might not match yours, there are time limitations, etc. So you get lord of the rings. There are a few changes, a few characters have been left out, but it does follow the books closely enough.
Now, people may complain about the absence of Tom Bombadil all they want, but I haven't met a lotr novel fan that doesn't like the movies. So what we're afraid of isn't that the movie won't be exactly like the book. We're afraid of bastardizations like "The Count of Monte Cristo". The very moral of the story in the book was replaced by a hollywood happy ending...what happened there?
This deviation from expectations has nothing to do with the medium. It has to do with the idea we formed of the universe, and it can't, I repeat...can't be violated. A few facts and experiences may be changed, but you can't change them if they will change the very message they're intended to convey. You don't have to change mediums to see that happen, all you need to do is look at Star Wars. When Lucas made Greedo shoot first, Han Solo went from the badass scoundral we all pictured him as to an incredibly lucky individual who managed not to get shot from across a frigging small table.
Changes are inevitable. Changes in the very nature of the story are inexcusable, and I don't care that DNA himself believed that there should be a different story for every medium. I'm the one that's going to see the movie, and if it doesn't match my expectations for that story, I won't enjoy th movie. In the end, all that matters to *me* is that *I* enjoy the movie regardless of whatever you, Lucas, Adams, or McLuhan tells me I'm supposed to like.
Over the past few years, observations of the motions of galaxies have shown that some 70% the Universe seems to be composed of a strange 'dark energy' that is driving the Universe's accelerating expansion
Not there's anything wrong with having different theories, we'll let observational data sort it out later. Could a physicist around here explain how these proposed dark energy stars could explain the expansion of the universe if they behave exactly like black holes outside the event horizon?
Slashdot Mirror
How is this a ripoff?
Well, if you're buying 60gig drives for $320, obviously you can't spot a ripoff. I mean, you can get a 7200rpm one for $42. Or maybe you mean a laptop harddrive so that it can be small. Wait, that's $95. Ah, you said plug in to your computer, so I guess you mean a firewire drive. Darn, that's $75
I don't really have anything against ipods, and I do think they're probably worth the price (even though I use my pda for my music playing needs. I'll be the first to admit I'm not a huge music guy though). However, they're not the cheap device you're making them out to be, they are the expensive players of the market. After all, you could be buying a Nomad for $279 $229 with the rebate, but I refuse to count that as the actual price, I don't believe in rebates.
I'm all in favor for shorter copyright lengths, but not THAT short. I'd be happy with 15-20 years for things which can be played / read on systems still being produced today, and an immediate end when the systems cease being produced. This way, by now there would be ports of every sega cd game to the xbox, and / or my emulator would be legal (and that includes the Saturn and Dreamcast since they don't make the systems anymore).
I love your first idea, I think it would be great. I don't really have a problem with equal time, but I have a problem with just letting them speak for equal time without being asked hard questions. Invariably, the people from the questionable side will use wording to try to confuse the less-educated-on-that-particular-issue people. So if you can't have representatives from both sides actually on the show, the reporters should at least do their homework on both sides so they could ask the hard questions. The reporter should ask the scientists about the problems the religious have with evolution (usually they're misconceptions about the theory, which could be explained in a way that would make it clear for the people watching), and the religious group should be asked questions about their justification for not believing certain evidence (you can see my bias in how I phrased that, but I wouldn't phrase it like that when asking the questions...I'm speaking to the audience here).
My problem with the media is that usually they just let whoever they're interviewing get away with things they shouldn't. Reporters should approach every person being interviewed as a someone who will be spouting bs. They should ask the hard questions and let the interviewee prove his knowledge on the subject and explain the reasons for the position he has taken, whether the reporter agrees with the position or not. I think that would make it pretty unbiased and the people who are watching should be able to make an informed decision based on the answers given.
Do you also have a monkey with four asses? :)
The $25,000 may not be a big deal, but that may stop all future lawsuits.
Well, I don't really care about the mod points, but I'm always glad when something I write is funny to someone other than myself.
why don't you send them this quote along with a link to the original post ? ;)
Somehow I doubt they'll use it, but just to make whoever's reading the e-mails join in on the laugh, I took your advice and sent them an e-mail linking to the original post. E-mail below:
Your ads were a subject at slashdot today, and at least two people believe that the truthful opinion of a particular poster (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=162138&cid=13 554103) would make a great ad.
Informed Customers would rather wax their butt cracks with an angry wasp than buy a Dell. On the other hand, they like our dual power supplies.
And after that you'd go out in the streets waving the American Flag, celebrating all those fuckers getting nuked?
That sound you just heard? It's the sound of a million neurons firing in your brain, causing you to finally understand what the motivation behind the actions of those crazy fuckers are. They're idiots just like you who want to act on their immediate emotions rather than reason. With that one sentence you proved that if you had been born elsewhere, you'd be the one strapping explosives to yourself.
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and hope that you can step back, and realize how complex the problem is and that violence alone can't solve it. Military strikes on people and organizations doing something against us: yes. Killing innocents for speaking their minds regardless of whether they actually did anything against us or not makes you as bad as the terrorists.
Well, 2003 actually. The US had troops in Saudi Arabia to enforce the no-fly zone in iraq. Then the Iraq war broke out and we essentially moved those troops (and many more) to Iraq. Yeah...I'm sure that made those muslims who were so protective of their land happy and they have no more reason to feel like they're being invaded, right?
Not that I support removing troops from Iraq now. I was against the war back before it started, but the only thing that would be worse than that ill-conceived invasion would be to now wash our hands of the incident and tell the new government to go deal with their own problems. We dug ourselves into one big hole out of which there's no easy way. Essentially, the grandparent was right though...instead of trying to gain these people's support and stop terrorism by removing the incentive and Osama's excuses, we went and pissed them off more. Now we can't leave, and just have to weather it out until someone smarter than I am can come up with a better solution.
However, if you're thinking the better solution is to go and nuke anyone pre-emptively...well, you're just nuts, and I'm glad you don't have the power to do so (I have to believe even Bush understands that, if for no other reason than optmism).
I always find it funny to analyze the pro-war people, like the one in the post that started all this. They say things like "terrorism is about slaughtering women and children. It is a low-key form of genocide and is beyond mere criminality. A population that supports it and encourages it doesn't deserve to be let off the hook when it unleashes that on another group." while at the same time saying things like "I'd support anyone who would drive a nuclear bomb right into the middle of those fuckers dancing in the streets celebrating "The Great Satan(tm)" getting nuked." Dude, you are obviously NO DIFFERENT. When something disastrous like 9/11 happens, as much as it is painful to us, the virtuous thing to do is to get out of the "we must have our revenge" mindset and into the "how can we prevent this from happening again" one. You can't bring the dead ones back to life, and killing people who didn't have anything to do with it because they bought into the propaganda that we are 'The Great Satan' is just going to enforce the notion that we are indeed 'The Great Satan' to anyone that survives.
Now, you mention that the competition is about mathematical modeling more than computer programming, and I know what you mean by it, but I don't share your definition of what computer programming is. See, I think programming is not about knowing the syntax and memorizing functions and libraries. It's about getting a computer to do the things you want it to do. So even though both the simulation and mathematical solutions are 'programs' obviously one is more elegant and efficient than the other. Thus it surprised me that in a programming competition, most people were trying what is obviously an inferior approach--they can't expect to win. The problem didn't require me to know advanced math...it just required me to think about what's happening. I would have expected almost everyone to have come up with my solution, and the winner would be decided based on what people forget to account for (in my case, I'd lose points for not accounting for two stones dropped in the same place). I think things like that really are programming problems, and the fact that math is used as a tool doesn't make it any less so.
Sorry about the rambling, I didn't get the impression that you disagree with me on that point or anything, but I just wanted to clarify since there was at least one poster that thought the problem wasn't a good problem for a programming competition since it was 'mathematical' in nature.
Yeah, but the math makes the efficiency. Most people were brute forcing it, when there was a much faster way. That's what good programming is all about, right? Finding out how to apply your knowledge (mathematics, obscure functions, previous experience or whatever else) to making a program more elegant and efficient is what good programming is all about.
To me, a true programming contest would use real-world tasks as a basis for the challenges, and would judge the results based on
efficiency,
which was what the above test was all about
documentation,
Yeah, true enough. Finding out no one comments in the real world was a moment of great joy for me because I realized I wouldn't have to comment. And then I realized that in the real world I had to read and learn other people's code (and 'real world' to me is grad school, I can imagine the shock if I ever leave school and actually join the real 'real world'). Makes for difficult grading and long competitions though (as you pointed out yourself), and I guess they try to avoid that.
creativity,
Which brute forcing through the above problem is not, and yet most people reportedly tried it. Seems like they're trying to force people to be creative by giving them problems with obvious but inneficient solutions.
I'm actually sort of disappointed that in a programming competition people would try to brute force something like that as a first option. It doesn't seem that complicated to me (I posted a solution that I think works as reply to the parent, although it's late and I haven't really thought it out, so it might not work...anyway, took me about 10 seconds to think of it, I'd at least try my ideas to see that they work instead of trying to brute force something like that).
Now...let's say that stone 1 (weight 12) was dropped at t=3 after stone 0 (weight 15), 20 units away from stone 0. So you subtract 3 from 20, and find the midpoint of the remaining distance of 17, which is 9 units away from stone 1. Calculate the peak at that point at time t=3+9=11. Stone 0: 15-11=4, Stone 1: 12-11=1, peak at intersection = 5, which is less than peak of heaviest stone, which is 15.
Warning: I won't be held responsible for stupid errors in the above. It's late, and I decided to make a quick post before going to sleep :)
Point is, espionage *is* day-to-day business. We know we're being spied upon, they know we're spying upon them. You get the edge not by stopping all espionage on their part, but rather by finding out who is doing it and how. Once you know this, you can use those channels to control what they find out, and start feeding misinformation when it truly matters.
joke, but a good point. I meant to say "same side is always facing us"
The effect of gravity of the moon (and really all other objects in the solar system, to a smaller scale) on the earth as they rotate. Tidal dragging is the reason why the moon has locked its rotation with the earth (so that it always faces us).
Dude, you don't clean up the table when you go to a restaurant where you're required to live a tip. It's not the case that McDonalds et al have convinced you that it's your responsibility to clean up. They just created a new type of restaurant where you exchange the requirement of leaving a tip for taking up some of the responsibilities you'd be paying for.
The idea is that in a fast food restaurant, there might be a lot of movement, and at certain times of day, it might be darn crowded. Instead of having people wait for a table that is ready and cleaned, everyone moves out quickly with their trash, and you sit your ass down. Fast food.
After the Doc leaves the room saying that it can't be done, Marty goes after him yelling, "what the hell is a jigawatt??"
I don't really want DRM to be done "right". I want it to work horribly so that the non-techies get to experience just how much it interferes with their daily lives. I want to see the day where DRM has such a bad reputation attached to it that vendors will see it as a marketing point to write the words "DRM-less" on the box.
Hold on right there. Most teachers suck. Don't take this as an insult, I've had enough great teachers to know that they are out there and you may well be one of them. They are, however, not in the majority.
Most teachers fall into one of three categories.
students that want to learn, DO learn
Whenever people say that to defend a teacher's work it just boggles my mind. Demonstrating that some students in your class have learned the material doesn't say anything about you as a teacher. Of course those who want to learn will learn. They don't need a teacher for that, they need a book. If they're motivated, they'll search out the information and do whatever they have to in order to learn it. It isn't the teacher's job to recite information: the challenge is in finding out why the students who don't get it aren't getting it and rephrase the information or provide examples in such a way that they do get it. If you're teaching children, it's also your job to present the information in such a way that will stimulate their curiosity so that they will want to learn.
I'm not saying every child will become interested and learn with a good teacher, but with good teachers most of them do. If you have more than 2 or 3 problem students in a class of 30, you need to find someone else to blame other than the children.
Gotcha. When I replied to you, I wasn't sure if by "end users need full privs on their boxes," you meant that they need it in Windows or that they need it in general. Thus I replied to let anyone who might be confused about it that there are systems that do work without giving end users full priveleges. As it turns out you already know that, but hopefully I was able to clear it up for others.
For what it's worth, I agree with you that, in Windows, you just can't have a limited privileges account. As someone who likes to occasionally play games, I dual boot and share your friend's frustrations. Seems like every security feature Microsoft implements is intended to confuse the heck out of the end-user. The limited privileges account don't let them do anything. The firewall is good, but that same feature I talked about in my earlier post also has issues (when it pops up for java programs, it suggests putting 'javaw' in the exceptions list--allowing a clueless user to open the firewall to ALL java programs). The NX protection breaks some old programs, and the exception list for NX doesn't seem to work for the programs I tried, so I had to disable it completely. Even with NX disabled completely, the mobile device emulator that comes with the Microsoft mobile SDK doesn't work, even though the knowledge base tells me it should with it disabled. They need to get their act together.
Sorry for the rambling, but you sounded like you'd understand given your background :)
Well, you appear to pretty knowledgeable about windows, but I'm going to guess you don't have much linux experience (and there's nothing wrong with that).
I'm not going to claim linux user-friendliness for end users, but at least you can still run every program you need under the non-admin accounts (and the programs still can't do system-level damage due to file permissions). You don't even need to be switching to the other admin account if you set up a sudoers file. I don't have a mac, but I hear OS X does this in a user-friendly way.
Oh, and about your friend and the windows firewall preventing him from running games. Since Service Pack 2, you can add programs to the exception list, and the ports that program is listening to will get opened up. That means that those ports will be nice and closed when he's not gaming (or more speficially, hosting a game), and will open up when he needs them.
be careful what you prove next or zebra crossings might become dangerous.
I think people stopped arguing that the moment they realized what more star wars actually meant.
"Awesome! The Star Wars trilogy in theaters again!" Greedo shoots first? What??
"Whoa...episode I will be great...check out the trailer's fight scene!" Turn to the dark side already kid, and kill this Jar Jar
You and every other slashdot poster that keeps giving this excuse for when movies based on books look nothing like the book need to realize one thing: if you're going to make a different story, don't claim it's a movie version of the book.
Understandably, most of the time the movie can't be exactly like the book. More attention need to be paid to the visuals, the visuals represent the director's view of the images in the book so they might not match yours, there are time limitations, etc. So you get lord of the rings. There are a few changes, a few characters have been left out, but it does follow the books closely enough.
Now, people may complain about the absence of Tom Bombadil all they want, but I haven't met a lotr novel fan that doesn't like the movies. So what we're afraid of isn't that the movie won't be exactly like the book. We're afraid of bastardizations like "The Count of Monte Cristo". The very moral of the story in the book was replaced by a hollywood happy ending...what happened there?
This deviation from expectations has nothing to do with the medium. It has to do with the idea we formed of the universe, and it can't, I repeat...can't be violated. A few facts and experiences may be changed, but you can't change them if they will change the very message they're intended to convey. You don't have to change mediums to see that happen, all you need to do is look at Star Wars. When Lucas made Greedo shoot first, Han Solo went from the badass scoundral we all pictured him as to an incredibly lucky individual who managed not to get shot from across a frigging small table.
Changes are inevitable. Changes in the very nature of the story are inexcusable, and I don't care that DNA himself believed that there should be a different story for every medium. I'm the one that's going to see the movie, and if it doesn't match my expectations for that story, I won't enjoy th movie. In the end, all that matters to *me* is that *I* enjoy the movie regardless of whatever you, Lucas, Adams, or McLuhan tells me I'm supposed to like.
Over the past few years, observations of the motions of galaxies have shown that some 70% the Universe seems to be composed of a strange 'dark energy' that is driving the Universe's accelerating expansion
Ah, but I at least one theory exists that says dark energy isn't really needed.
Not there's anything wrong with having different theories, we'll let observational data sort it out later. Could a physicist around here explain how these proposed dark energy stars could explain the expansion of the universe if they behave exactly like black holes outside the event horizon?