There are parts of atoms that already lend themselves well to binary behavior. Of course, figuring out how to manipulate them would be a challenge. But of course, Moore's law pertains to number of transistors that can economically be put on an IC right? Well, if you had an infinitely big chip, you could put an infinite number of transistors on it, so there is no theoretical limit. It just is a question of economics. Additionally, I don't think we have done much playing in 3D as far as chips go. We have mostly been putting transistors on a flat plane. There is another whole dimension to play with. For example, the latest Sandy Bridge 2600K has nearly 1 billion transistors. For simplicity's sake, assume they are laid out 30,000 X 30,000. Now, what if another dimension were added. Multiply by 30,000 and all of those transistors are still about the same distance away from each other. That is 27 trillion transistors.
Just figuring out how to cool such a chip will keep the economy afloat for a decade or so.
To expand on what you said, in fact, the current office of pastor is not one that is sanctioned by the Bible. The pastor's job is not to reach the lost or help the needy. The pastor's job is to equip the laypeople to reach the lost and help the needy. We have created our own political structure in the Church because we desire structure. We are repeating the same thing that happened back when Moses went up on the mountain. God was like "hey, I want to hang out with you guys down on Earth and get to know you." And the people were like "yeah, great, that will be awesome". So God came down on Mount Sinai and there was smoke and lighting and fire, and the people were like "Hey, God is scary. Moses, you go get familiar with him and then just give us the highlights."
In my town we have several so-called christian churches that tell families if they give money god will bless them.
How dare they? Everyone knows pastors are supposed to work for free, same as game programmers and rock musicians.
I believe that we should give money to the Church, not for the pastor's sake, but because the Church is chartered by the government (via tax-free status) to be charitable to the poor and otherwise needy, and that is what the Church is supposed to do. If they don't then the government will do it, and the government traditionally does a horrible job of administering help to the needy.
Someone should counter by creating an app that aims to make heterosexual people become gay.
As a heterosexual, I have no issue with that. Don't expect me to buy it. Of course, I have never bought an app in my life and never will, but I even more so would not buy a "heterosexual cure" app, just as a homosexual probably would not buy a "gay cure" app.
In theory, a competitive market will result in the price of a commodity or service equalling its marginal cost of production.
Yes, but the credit card industry is not a competitive market. The barriers to entry are prohibitively expensive and there are legislative regulations in place which help to prevent newcomers from entering the market.
Well, the candy store marks the cost of the candies, the apps often purposely attempt to disguise the cost of purchasing items or even the fact that you are purchasing them at all.
Well, what needs to happen is that Apple needs to be treated as what they are, a credit card service, and they need to be held to the same standards by the government. That means that they have to be on YOUR side against the scammers, not siding with the scammers and taking a huge cut to protect the scams.
Yes, and it appears that at the current rate of change of the rotation of the Earth, this was less than 1 days worth of change in the opposite direction.
The correct response if you don't like the price of a non-necessity item is not to obtain it illegally. The correct response is to refrain from it altogether. If people won't buy at their current price, they may lower it, but if people obtain it illegally, they will just say that the pirates are bad people who would have stolen anyway at any price and keep the prices the same.
Well, that depends. Did the owner of the candle have an offer to light your candle for $5 and then you just lit yours from his anyway without paying? This can lead to other people thinking, "well, gee, if he didn't pay to light his candle, why should I?" Of course, someone will undoubtedly see that lighting candles for money is not a viable business model and try to draw the parallel back to the music industry.
So computer programs are art and the programmer should just be happy to know that people are enjoying their work? Why not just go ahead and extend that to everything? Cooking is an art, why shouldn't the people at McDonalds be happy knowing that I am enjoying their craft?
Yes, and the real trick when trying to purchase a product is to try to figure out which specs are lies and which ones are damn lies, and figure out which companies lie about which specs. I recently embarked on a crusade to build my first computer (I have only bought finished systems before), and I am amazed at the reviews I read on Newegg. But what is most troubling is that I read ones where they gave one or two eggs, because they had to RMA it back to the manufacturer at their OWN expense two or three times before they got one to work. Really? The manufacturer made something that shouldn't have even got by QC and they expect the buyer to send it back on their own dime? I don't think so. The people on Newegg had kind of an"oh, well, I'll throw that ($300) item in the trash and try a different brand." attitude.
Reading about memory, I came across all kinds of posts that "2 out of 3 sticks did not post". This is at their RATED clock speed. Back 10 years ago or so, the sticks were GUARANTEED TO POST at their rated speed, and the reviews were all about how this or that brand was able to be overclocked to a certain extent. Now, we consider it acceptable if the product performs as advertised on the second or third RMA. Very, very sad.
I had them charging for premium text services on a phone that had no SMS capability and a line that had data blocking turned on. Like you said, I called them and it got corrected, but why should we have to call on a line that is supposed to block all this stuff?
What I have noticed is that every time you make a change to your account, change your phone, click your mouse button, or whatever, that triggers premium blocking to be turned back off, and so at least every couple of months I am back on the phone asking them to turn it off again.
The upshot is, that the cell phone companies are acting just like your credit card company, allowing you to put charges on your phone bill. However, unlike your credit card company, they have no regulation. And unlike your credit card company, they get to keep about 1/3 of the money, so they are VERY interested in allowing the scams and frauds to continue.
That might be true in the general case. But in my case, I just want to make sure everyone who was on the question is also on the answer. As evidence for this, I have no facebook account, nor mySpace.
I think I know how the welfare system works. I have relatives who have been on various programs. I have renters who are on these programs. My sister lived with me for awhile and she got food stamps. Thanks to her food stamps, she was able to spend $400 a month on food. At the time, that was something like 4 times my food budget for the month.
One of my renters is also a close friend from high school and he has the gift of gab and is also close friends with the couple I mentioned. He is always grousing about how they got this or that new thing. He has even more reason to grouse about it because he is quite definitely in the barely scraping by category and works very hard to have a much lower lifestyle than his neighbors on the government dole. He complains that he would like to quit his job, but then the state would throw him in jail because it is illegal to quit your job when you have to pay child support (that is probably not true, but then, knowing our government, maybe it is. He is one of these kinds who goes above and beyond for his ex, even helping her fix her car, paying more than the agreed child support, and so forth. I'm sure the government would rather go after him than one of these deadbeat dads who might actually be dangerous).
I agree with you. In fact I think we have too many "Here have a fish" programs, and not nearly enough "How to Fish" programs. Heck if we at least gave them a "How to fish" pamphlet along with their fish, then we could employ someone to clean up the pamphlets thrown on the floor right outside the door. One job created. The system works!
We've made it too easy to live off of the government. I know one couple in their 30s who live rent free in a two bedroom house, have no children, have not had a job in years, have two newer model cars, big screen TV, game systems, and can afford to go out drinking and eating.
Meanwhile, my wife is worried about whether we will have grocery money, my car is pushing $120k and I can not afford to get a new (used) one, because the government needs so much of my paycheck to support these peoples' lifestyle which is more affluent than mine. If it wasn't for my pride of doing my part and my desire not to be an unfair burden on society, I would just quit and let the government support me.
The welfare system ought to be graduated just like the tax system. Basic welfare ought to only cover the necessities (no cable TV, no big screen TV, no new car). Then if you earn money, they reduce it by about 1/4 of what you earn until you reach a point where there is no welfare paid. This makes your increase in income cause an increase of lifestyle. The way it works now, you can have a better lifestyle on welfare than as a lower (and sometimes middle) income wage earner.
One of my kids came home with a poll which the clever school teacher probably thought would expose the general ignorance of the American public. The question was "Which one describes the American system of government?" and the two possible answers were Democracy and Republic. Before hearing the two possible answers, I replied "Democratic Republic". Unfortunately, my child was not able to bring back a suitable answer to the teacher because the right answer was not one of the possibilities.
I almost exclusively use "reply all" unless it was a one on one e-mail. About 99% of the time, the people that were originally included on the e-mail that I got also are the exact same ones that need to be aware of the response to that e-mail. In fact, sometimes I add another person to the list, for example if my boss should be aware and is not on the list.
In fact, the ONLY instance in which I would NOT use Reply All is if it was a distribution list, and again, for the distribution lists we have set up in my company, 99% of the time, all of the people on that list do need to be on that reply.
And as far as accidentally ranting to Reply All, well, I do that on purpose, and I will even add people to the list.
I'm pretty sure it is impossible for a computer to be random as well.
It can be very close to random, but to really screw things up requires a human, or at least some outside intervention (probably caused by a human).
A game between a human and a computer can be almost infinitely random, as you can reseed the random number generator based on the amount of time that the human takes to respond.In fact, if you allow unlimited response time, then it is truly random.
If the premise is that humans can't play randomly,
Why not? Can't find any dice? Worst case is, if the computer is any good, it will be able to tell you the bias of your dice.
I also only carried books when necessary. I would just bring the book or books necessary for each class and store the others in the locker. I would only bring home the books that were necessary for homework or studying, which meant maybe a maximum of four during my entire high school career and an average of probably one.
I am not sure when it became a federal mandate that every child has to have a backpack. When I was in school, I think there were two people I knew of who carried backpacks, and two of those two people had a physical handicap that made it difficult for them to carry books.
Slashdot Mirror
There are parts of atoms that already lend themselves well to binary behavior. Of course, figuring out how to manipulate them would be a challenge. But of course, Moore's law pertains to number of transistors that can economically be put on an IC right? Well, if you had an infinitely big chip, you could put an infinite number of transistors on it, so there is no theoretical limit. It just is a question of economics. Additionally, I don't think we have done much playing in 3D as far as chips go. We have mostly been putting transistors on a flat plane. There is another whole dimension to play with. For example, the latest Sandy Bridge 2600K has nearly 1 billion transistors. For simplicity's sake, assume they are laid out 30,000 X 30,000. Now, what if another dimension were added. Multiply by 30,000 and all of those transistors are still about the same distance away from each other. That is 27 trillion transistors.
Just figuring out how to cool such a chip will keep the economy afloat for a decade or so.
To expand on what you said, in fact, the current office of pastor is not one that is sanctioned by the Bible. The pastor's job is not to reach the lost or help the needy. The pastor's job is to equip the laypeople to reach the lost and help the needy. We have created our own political structure in the Church because we desire structure. We are repeating the same thing that happened back when Moses went up on the mountain. God was like "hey, I want to hang out with you guys down on Earth and get to know you." And the people were like "yeah, great, that will be awesome". So God came down on Mount Sinai and there was smoke and lighting and fire, and the people were like "Hey, God is scary. Moses, you go get familiar with him and then just give us the highlights."
In my town we have several so-called christian churches that tell families if they give money god will bless them.
How dare they? Everyone knows pastors are supposed to work for free, same as game programmers and rock musicians.
I believe that we should give money to the Church, not for the pastor's sake, but because the Church is chartered by the government (via tax-free status) to be charitable to the poor and otherwise needy, and that is what the Church is supposed to do. If they don't then the government will do it, and the government traditionally does a horrible job of administering help to the needy.
Someone should counter by creating an app that aims to make heterosexual people become gay.
As a heterosexual, I have no issue with that. Don't expect me to buy it. Of course, I have never bought an app in my life and never will, but I even more so would not buy a "heterosexual cure" app, just as a homosexual probably would not buy a "gay cure" app.
In theory, a competitive market will result in the price of a commodity or service equalling its marginal cost of production.
Yes, but the credit card industry is not a competitive market. The barriers to entry are prohibitively expensive and there are legislative regulations in place which help to prevent newcomers from entering the market.
Wait, what? Your kid has an iphone? If they are old enough for an iphone, they are old enough to be responsible for their own spending.
Well, the candy store marks the cost of the candies, the apps often purposely attempt to disguise the cost of purchasing items or even the fact that you are purchasing them at all.
Well, what needs to happen is that Apple needs to be treated as what they are, a credit card service, and they need to be held to the same standards by the government. That means that they have to be on YOUR side against the scammers, not siding with the scammers and taking a huge cut to protect the scams.
People without children always have such interesting theories on how parenting ought to work.
Yes, and it appears that at the current rate of change of the rotation of the Earth, this was less than 1 days worth of change in the opposite direction.
The correct response if you don't like the price of a non-necessity item is not to obtain it illegally. The correct response is to refrain from it altogether. If people won't buy at their current price, they may lower it, but if people obtain it illegally, they will just say that the pirates are bad people who would have stolen anyway at any price and keep the prices the same.
Well, that depends. Did the owner of the candle have an offer to light your candle for $5 and then you just lit yours from his anyway without paying? This can lead to other people thinking, "well, gee, if he didn't pay to light his candle, why should I?" Of course, someone will undoubtedly see that lighting candles for money is not a viable business model and try to draw the parallel back to the music industry.
So computer programs are art and the programmer should just be happy to know that people are enjoying their work? Why not just go ahead and extend that to everything? Cooking is an art, why shouldn't the people at McDonalds be happy knowing that I am enjoying their craft?
Yes, and the real trick when trying to purchase a product is to try to figure out which specs are lies and which ones are damn lies, and figure out which companies lie about which specs. I recently embarked on a crusade to build my first computer (I have only bought finished systems before), and I am amazed at the reviews I read on Newegg. But what is most troubling is that I read ones where they gave one or two eggs, because they had to RMA it back to the manufacturer at their OWN expense two or three times before they got one to work. Really? The manufacturer made something that shouldn't have even got by QC and they expect the buyer to send it back on their own dime? I don't think so. The people on Newegg had kind of an"oh, well, I'll throw that ($300) item in the trash and try a different brand." attitude.
Reading about memory, I came across all kinds of posts that "2 out of 3 sticks did not post". This is at their RATED clock speed. Back 10 years ago or so, the sticks were GUARANTEED TO POST at their rated speed, and the reviews were all about how this or that brand was able to be overclocked to a certain extent. Now, we consider it acceptable if the product performs as advertised on the second or third RMA. Very, very sad.
I had them charging for premium text services on a phone that had no SMS capability and a line that had data blocking turned on. Like you said, I called them and it got corrected, but why should we have to call on a line that is supposed to block all this stuff?
What I have noticed is that every time you make a change to your account, change your phone, click your mouse button, or whatever, that triggers premium blocking to be turned back off, and so at least every couple of months I am back on the phone asking them to turn it off again.
The upshot is, that the cell phone companies are acting just like your credit card company, allowing you to put charges on your phone bill. However, unlike your credit card company, they have no regulation. And unlike your credit card company, they get to keep about 1/3 of the money, so they are VERY interested in allowing the scams and frauds to continue.
That might be true in the general case. But in my case, I just want to make sure everyone who was on the question is also on the answer. As evidence for this, I have no facebook account, nor mySpace.
I think I know how the welfare system works. I have relatives who have been on various programs. I have renters who are on these programs. My sister lived with me for awhile and she got food stamps. Thanks to her food stamps, she was able to spend $400 a month on food. At the time, that was something like 4 times my food budget for the month.
One of my renters is also a close friend from high school and he has the gift of gab and is also close friends with the couple I mentioned. He is always grousing about how they got this or that new thing. He has even more reason to grouse about it because he is quite definitely in the barely scraping by category and works very hard to have a much lower lifestyle than his neighbors on the government dole. He complains that he would like to quit his job, but then the state would throw him in jail because it is illegal to quit your job when you have to pay child support (that is probably not true, but then, knowing our government, maybe it is. He is one of these kinds who goes above and beyond for his ex, even helping her fix her car, paying more than the agreed child support, and so forth. I'm sure the government would rather go after him than one of these deadbeat dads who might actually be dangerous).
I agree with you. In fact I think we have too many "Here have a fish" programs, and not nearly enough "How to Fish" programs. Heck if we at least gave them a "How to fish" pamphlet along with their fish, then we could employ someone to clean up the pamphlets thrown on the floor right outside the door. One job created. The system works!
We've made it too easy to live off of the government. I know one couple in their 30s who live rent free in a two bedroom house, have no children, have not had a job in years, have two newer model cars, big screen TV, game systems, and can afford to go out drinking and eating.
Meanwhile, my wife is worried about whether we will have grocery money, my car is pushing $120k and I can not afford to get a new (used) one, because the government needs so much of my paycheck to support these peoples' lifestyle which is more affluent than mine. If it wasn't for my pride of doing my part and my desire not to be an unfair burden on society, I would just quit and let the government support me.
The welfare system ought to be graduated just like the tax system. Basic welfare ought to only cover the necessities (no cable TV, no big screen TV, no new car). Then if you earn money, they reduce it by about 1/4 of what you earn until you reach a point where there is no welfare paid. This makes your increase in income cause an increase of lifestyle. The way it works now, you can have a better lifestyle on welfare than as a lower (and sometimes middle) income wage earner.
One of my kids came home with a poll which the clever school teacher probably thought would expose the general ignorance of the American public. The question was "Which one describes the American system of government?" and the two possible answers were Democracy and Republic. Before hearing the two possible answers, I replied "Democratic Republic". Unfortunately, my child was not able to bring back a suitable answer to the teacher because the right answer was not one of the possibilities.
I almost exclusively use "reply all" unless it was a one on one e-mail. About 99% of the time, the people that were originally included on the e-mail that I got also are the exact same ones that need to be aware of the response to that e-mail. In fact, sometimes I add another person to the list, for example if my boss should be aware and is not on the list.
In fact, the ONLY instance in which I would NOT use Reply All is if it was a distribution list, and again, for the distribution lists we have set up in my company, 99% of the time, all of the people on that list do need to be on that reply.
And as far as accidentally ranting to Reply All, well, I do that on purpose, and I will even add people to the list.
I'm pretty sure it is impossible for a computer to be random as well.
It can be very close to random, but to really screw things up requires a human, or at least some outside intervention (probably caused by a human). A game between a human and a computer can be almost infinitely random, as you can reseed the random number generator based on the amount of time that the human takes to respond.In fact, if you allow unlimited response time, then it is truly random.
If the premise is that humans can't play randomly,
Why not? Can't find any dice? Worst case is, if the computer is any good, it will be able to tell you the bias of your dice.
I'll gladly do the work and let you reap the reward.
I also only carried books when necessary. I would just bring the book or books necessary for each class and store the others in the locker. I would only bring home the books that were necessary for homework or studying, which meant maybe a maximum of four during my entire high school career and an average of probably one. I am not sure when it became a federal mandate that every child has to have a backpack. When I was in school, I think there were two people I knew of who carried backpacks, and two of those two people had a physical handicap that made it difficult for them to carry books.
Agreed. What we have here is a politician performing a task in less than the most efficient manner simply because it can be done this way.