There's been a lot of talk here about RFIDs lately. Mostly (justifiably) negative talk. However, this is okay, for now, right? Does anyone here have a problem with the use of RFIDs in the warehouses (assuming they don't trickle down to the consumers)?
I do see the privacy problems with RFIDs, but I'm not really worried about it... yet. I don't care if they use RFIDs in their warehouses/stores, as long as any items I buy do not have an active RFID when I leave (not that I shop at, or have ever even seen, a Walmart). RFIDs do have legitimate (anti-theft) uses. They have a use for inventory tracking/control. They could be used in corporate offices to keep track of various items (laptops/desktops [maybe], other electronics, books, etc).
RFIDs also have other uses, outside the traditional business realm, such as in ecology and field biology. They can be used (theoretically) in some tasks in meteorology.
Yes, they have "immoral" uses, but so does P2P software. It should still be legal to manufacture and use RFIDs, just like it should be legal to write and use P2P code. Don't sound like a paranoid kook, be rational about all of this. Write to your local representative what's bad about RFIDs, and what sort of legislation would help curb the privacy invasion that will inevitably come along with widespread use. Better yet, try getting an appointment with any of your local representatives to discuss it in person (not too likely, but it can happen). Now is the time to get this taken care of, because it will soon be too late. Once something gets in motion, it's much much harder to legislate it out (again, this is similar to P2P).
The point is, they have no right to check and see if you have the mp3 (unless they catch you in the act of downloading it. Why should they have extra rights in order to find out if you have the mp3?
I worked with SMIL too, mostly on the Sony-Ericsson phones. As another poster mentioned, the SMIL used for MMS is really just a subset of SMIL. There's a conformance document, which defines what that subset looks like.
Since I worked with the Sony-Ericsson phones, the SMIL on the handsets worked great. My problem was getting it to work on a standard PC. Your standard Windows machine often doesn't support it (unless a recent version of RealPlayer is installed and the mail client is set up correctly). This is pretty problematic when you try to send an MMS from a phone to an email address.
You can't count on users to chase down a SMIL decoder in order to view incoming MMS messages in their email. Most of the time, it was best to just strip out the SMIL and change the wrapper from multipart/related to multipart/mixed.
Hopefully, by them opening the source to this, we'll see SMIL become more widely supported by default.
You would see observations like "Sounds black" or "Probable Prostitute".
Most shitskins have a distinct way of speaking, so someone can certainly "sound black". If someone answers the phone with "What up, dog?", they might be a coon. Whores talk about getting paid for sex. Usually, when someone talks about exchanging sexual favors for money, it's a good sign that they suck dick for dollars.
That sounds like valid data to me. It may just be an opinion, but does that mean it isn't worth knowing? Afterall, the terms "sounds" and "probable" alert you to the fact that these are guesses.
...they really thought these sorts of things were appropriate to store in a database.
These are certainly observations that would be useful to law enforcement personnel. Is it only okay to have politically correct data in databases?
For such a well formatted/written article, this is one of the least focused things ever posted on Slashdot. Pankaj Arora smells like attention deficit disorde to me, that and curry of course. This is a pretty vague, dumb, and useless set of questions. For example, what the fuck is meant by biology-integrated computing? I'll still spout off about them anyway.
In the long run, will biology rewrite computing or will modern day technology concepts and theory be integrated into biology? If both are true, which will have the greater effect?
I don't see biology really rewriting computing. Computing has a pretty solid mathematical foundation, backed by rigorous proofs. We will come up with new algorithms based on observations of biological systems (along the lines of ANNs). Also, we will come up with new algorithms to deal with biological systems, that may later be adapted for other uses. One example of this is my first patent (well, patent disclosure). I patented the use of a gapped alignment algorithm, used to compare DNA sequences, and used it to do conversion of multimedia content in linear time (linear with the media size), regardless of the number of conversion parameters (ie. display size, # of colors, device memory, user preferences, etc).
How will the nature of computing, and how we perceive it, change due to biology integration? More to the point, how much of the theory we learn today may change?
Biology integration... in what sense? The integration of biological systems into computational infrastructure, or the integration of computational infrastructure into biological systems? These are two very different things. Anyway, as I said above, the nature of computation is pretty much fixed. Even the idea of quantum computing can be pretty well covered by modern computational theory (with some serious adjustments, of course). If you mean the addition of computational devices to biological systems, that will just help increase the, already increasing, ubiquitousness of computers.
What will be the biggest issue determining the success of the adoption of biology-integrated computing? Will it be technology factors or will it be societal factors (e.g., rebellion by the Right Wing), or something else? What things must hold true to make the idea succeed?
It sounds like the question is talking about "cyborg-like" implantation of computers into the body. Or, more likely, the use of biological systems to do computations. In general, this isn't good. The problem with biological systems is that they can not be driven too hard (for all you hardware-obsessed jerkoffs, this means you can't overclock meat). They are typically highly specific, and not well adapted to general purpose computing. Even the brain, which does quite a good job at general purpose calculations, is broken into a bunch of pretty specialized areas. Of course, a modern silicon based computer is a collection of highly specialized bits too.
There are people out there with cybernetic eyes, chips in their arms that transmit feelings to their partners, etc. Some people are bothered by that, some think it's great. There are always technophobes and early-adopters. I don't see much moral debate coming about the replacement of eyes for the blind. If you replace working eyes, that would be a different story, but people learned to accept breast implants, liposuction, and botox injections...
I really have no idea what this question is really trying to ask.
Is there anything inherently wrong with pursuing this avenue? What may be some of the consequences?
No. New shit will get developed, people will use it, laws will be made, people will feel happy/sad/angry, an ice age will come, people will die (some may survive), the sun will scorch all life off the planet.
I'll have some experts from Mayo Clinic contribute some of their expertise to this discussion.
They take the absolute position "against" in the absence of evidence
Um, okay, you go along with the concept of "there are no purple unicorns"... how is that any less absolute than "there are no gods"?
They simply declare there [are] no purple unicorn because they've never seen one.
Not exactly. I've never seen a purple unicorn, and there is no "trustworthy record" of a purple unicorn.
Now, this is a bit tricky, because some godhead might say that the bible is a "trustworthy record". However, you must weigh a number of things when deciding what to trust - the circumstances in which records were created, the reputation of the authors, independently verifiable/verified facts, and so on. The bible, by an athiest's standards, can not stand up to such challenges. A believer, typically, will not even scrutinize the bible, instead they'll blindly accept it (and insist that it MUST be true). Other believers will link it to circumstancial evidence and use other suspect means of validation. You could debate how trustworthy the bible/koran/Juggs (vol. 1, issue 2)/etc is, but people who are educated and rational (note the use of and) do not just blindly trust a source.
There is an inconsistency that they never seem able to explain.
As per my explanation above, I'll trust Apple's press release saying that the iPod is available, much more readily that I'd trust a multi-millenia old self-contradictory book, written by numerous (and sometimes unknown) authors, which is full of fanciful events that do not correspond to the behavior of the world in which I have spent the entirety of my life. Apple has a history of announcing the release of a product, and then that product actually showing up in the market. You see how that works...?
Then you are agnostic, not an atheist.
Yeah, it sounds like he is, but he seems a bit less wishy-washy that some agnostics. The stereotypical agnostic says "I don't know if there's a god." This guy says, "I don't believe in god(s)... I just don't believe it, that's all."
you simply don't believe because you haven't got a reason to believe
Um, isn't that the basis for not believing anything?
Do you believe that the world exists on the shell of a giant turtle (some people do, or at least they did, before we killed them off)? Do you believe in a/an god(s)? Do you believe that I have a monster 36" pudd? I'm guessing you don't believe some (and hopefully all) of those things, because they defy logic, do not coincide with your experiences, are not backed up by valid tangible evidence, were not recorded by a reliable source, and so on.
You assume the world isn't on the back of a turtle, because you can't see the turtle from space and if you dig you won't hit shell. You don't believe in gods because you've never met any. You don't believe I have a 3' dong, because that's 6 times the average and quite a few standard deviations from the mean (I also doubt you've ever seen any human hung like that).
You always start out with a default assumption, based on what you know about the world. The natural/logical default is to believe that there is no god. Afterall, how many supreme beings were carpooling in the lane next to you this morning?
See how that works? It's called not being a gullible idiot.
The problem with 3G, as far as I'm concerned, is that there's very little use for it. I've used some GPRS/UMTS containers, and they've certainly got some purpose, but the average user couldn't give half a hairy shit about that.
The biggest industry in the wireless data market, that I've noticed, is porn (not surprisingly). Especially in Germany, less so in Italy, and it's non-existent here (America) and in Canada. I don't know what services are popular in other countries. The thing is, I doubt porn will really take off on cell phones. People are used to seeing their gaping holes on 17"+ monitors, not 3.5" screens with poor contrast.
The only good use I've made of 2.5G/3G technology involved linking computers into corporate networks from rather remote locations. Once I used a chain of connections that involved a laptop, some Ericsson T68s, a Nokia GPRS node, and a corporate VPN via IR/Bluetooth/GPRS. Other than the associated geekfactor, that's not much fun to use.
I've done plenty of multimedia stuff on cell phones. I could see teenagers and kids having some fun with it, but it's not really worthwhile. Then again, SMS isn't that useful either, when voice calls could do the same in most (not necessarily all) situations.
Nobody needs 3G, nobody needs 4G. The only way either will take off, over 802.11 variants, will be if laptops (put a cellphone card into a laptop) and pdas come with built in access to those networks. People just want their shit to work, and 802.11 has been doing that pretty well so far.
Voice works, and that's what people want phones for. I think most people see voice and data as being completely separate, and they don't care if their cell phone provider can give them data access (outside of the geek community).
If you're not joking, then you're a fucking idiot. If you were kidding/trolling, then just ignore this.
If we are all the same, how the fuck can you tell us apart? I can identify a nigger visually, I'll bet you can too.
Keep your liberal hippie jew-style bullshit to yourself. There are different groups of people, not all the same race. There's nothing wrong with segregation or discrimination, since everyone's not the same... and, consequently, everyone is not equal. Case in point: You were born retarded, therefore you are not worth as much as the average person.
Slight correction.
on
Mastering Light
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· Score: 2, Interesting
We call this "redshift" in astronomy...
Don't confuse cosmological redshift with Doppler-induced redshift. In astronomy, the redshift that's talked about is typically not due to the literal motion of the star. It really arises from the space between Earth and the star under observation expanding. It's really quite a neat little effect. I'm not going into the detail here, but I'd recommend reading a little about it.
Anyway, because the redshift comes from the space itself expanding, it's proportional (I think it's a linear effect, I don't remember too well) to the distance between you and the object under observation. Yes, there is some Doppler style redshift, but that is not what's generally meant when an astronomer says "redshift". Also, cosmologists use redshift (z) as their primary variable in many equations. Most cosmologists measure distance in redshift, instead of cgs or mks length units.
This stuff is rather speculative. And, to really understand it, valid or not, takes quite a few years of background. Invariably, when you get the general public reading things like this, it gets them started spouting all kinds of ridiculous shit. They automatically oversimplify, and pretend to actually comprehend it (despite not even knowing what a differential equation is).
I'm all for getting people interested in science. But, is there some way to do that without only getting them to absorb a fraction of the information, and then going on to propogate gross misinformation?
I hate to say that such things shouldn't be written, but they may actually do more harm than good. Afterall, everyone who's read one of Hawking's books thinks they could carry on a conversation with a high level theorist (in topics such as cosmology, quantum mechanics, etc), which is absolutely not the case.
I'll bet that over 50% of the comments for this article will be pseudo-intellectuals espousing their retarded theories, misinformation, and other general stupidity... as opposed to the typical 30-40% of idiocy most/. articles draw.
The things that Lessig talks about are certainly possible, perhaps even likely. However, I don't see the future coming out quite so bad.
The average voter (or non-voter for that matter) doesn't really give half a hairy shit about the DMCA, fair use, divestiture of communications service, spectrum allocation, and so on. They probably never will. Outside of a few key issues (abortion, gun control), people just don't care about politics. Lots of people have their 'pet issue' (ie./. readers and DRM) but most don't know or care about a large portion of the issues.
Taking that into account, when you realize all the money being fed into our representatives, it seems that the laws will be written the way that the corporations want them. Maybe the technology companies will stand up to the media industry, maybe they won't. Let's, for now, assume that they won't. What this means is that consumers will lose all rights, with respect to media.
Even if that does happen, I don't see it being enforced. What will happen is the media companies will push for prosecution of all the new "crimes". That's when people will start to care, because they don't want to be criminals (in general). Plenty of people who don't care about the RIAA/MPAA campaign against P2P found it pretty ridiculous to sue for billions of dollars.
The only way said media conglomerates will be able to heavily prosecute these "crimes" is by convicing the public that they are indeed crimes. So far, they're doing a very poor job of that. Most people feel that they have a right to "steal" content using P2P networks. All the lobbying in the world isn't going to change that feeling. Maybe some clever marketing will help them, but trying to convince someone that they're obtaining 'free stuff' is not an easy task.
Society, and almost any natural system, tends to settle into an equilibrium. There's a certain inertia that needs to be overcome in order to push out into some other stable region. The media industry is pushing really hard, but I just don't think they have the muscle to really pull this off. They can shake things up, but in the end, it'll probably settle back down again. Let's just hope they trow their collective back out in the process...
<Disclamer>
I do, in fact, support the "criminalization" of certain things (ie. drug addicts are criminals).
I do have my own "pet" issues (ie. affirmative action is discrimination against whites).
Just like in a debate between political candidates, the issue isn't so much about what the good questions are. Afterall, they're each pushing an agenda, and will try to get their point across in every question.
The real problem is getting them, specifically Matt Oppenheim, to actually answer the question that is asked. Just like a politician, I assume he's going to go off on a tangent, sidestepping and dodging anything that would make the RIAA smell like shit.
Here's an idea - Give me a camera, a room with a locked door, an RIAA executive (or any politician or lawyer), and I'll show you how it's supposed to be done.
You have to keep pressing them, don't let them change the subject. If they start to go off on a tangent, you need to "violently" (physical violence is good, but just being forceful is enough) bring them back to the point. Also, watch out for doubletalk, make sure they define their terms clearly.
See, you can say anything you want on the Internet... regardless of blacklists or whitelists. Provided, of course, that you host the data you want to distribute (or at least, pay someone else to host it).
Spam doesn't work the same way as something like a webpage (or Usenet, or IRC, etc). With most systems (HTTP for example), you must actively request the data you want. With email, the spammer makes that decision for you. That's the real problem with email, it's the IETF's equivalent of the Windows Messaging system (which, coincidentally, also gets spammed).
I did some development of push technologies for wireless devices. Preventing unwanted (from the network operator's point of view) push traffic out was a big priority. Email is, essentially, a push service as it's currently implemented, anyway.
Personally, I am leaning towards using a "web of trust" system, with confirmed authentication to prevent relaying of spoofed email. Sure, open relays should be legal, but that doesn't mean anyone has to accept mail from them.
Anyway, the point is, if you say something on your website (such as "niggers are great"), I do not have to read it. However, if you send me a nice big jpeg, with a smiling porch-monkey, that says "niggers are great", I end up having to deal with it. If I felt the need for a larger penis and an unaccredited degree, I'll bet Google could help me find places to get that... I don't need someone telling me shit I don't want to know.
While I'm vehemently against philosophical discussions based upon The Matrix, I will say that it is a pretty open framework for ideas. Taking that into account, any religious douchebag will be attracted to it, like a moth to a flame (like a jew to a dollar, like a fly to shit,...), as a platform from which to prosyletize [sic?].
You can bend the concept to support just about any argument. Bullshit spiritual arguments rely heavily on things like this, since they don't have any real legs to stand on.
There is nothing insightful about anything anyone has written about "the philosophy" of this movie. It's just a movie. Enjoy it, move on, have a real life.
<Note target="fanboy's with modpoints">
You're a geek. You have no life. I know this. I'm not picking on you. Don't get so upset, just because I (and most people, for that matter) find the things you base your life around to be rather meaningless.
It's just a movie. I know it seems really important to you... but, it's not. Go get laid. Not by some fat girl either. Have some real sex (even if you have to pay for it), then you'll see my point of view.
</Note>
Is there a serious market for this?
on
TiVo For Radio?
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· Score: 0
I wouldn't buy one of these. I really see no point, for myself. In fact, I can't see that many consumers being interested in this. Once you go outside of the geek-world, even TiVo isn't that well-known. Now they expect to do it for radio...
Radio isn't big on the minds of the American public. It's thought of as 'been there, done that'. Take the lessons learned from satellite radio... people don't really care. If they did, why didn't satellite radio catch on like cable/satellite tv? Just because the idea of radio being free is too deeply ingrained?
Investing in consumer electronics can be pretty risky. The margins are tight, and not getting any better. Not to mention the fact that a poor economy is not a good place to be introducing new products.
Does anyone see the catching on? Does anyone think it will actually turn a profit?
Personally, I think some venture capitalists are about to take it in the butt on this one.
For most people, these entertainment systems in cars seem useless. I don't know about you, but I don't hang out in my car. There are much more comfortable places to be. So, if I'm driving, what good is an X-Box?
For parents, it might make sense, to keep the kids busy. Other than that, it's just more geekiness for geekiness' sake (not that that's really bad, it's just useless). Unless you're a showy bitch with a ridiculous stereo and shiny wheels, then it's a genetic defect.
I haven't read the article, but I do have a degree in astrophysics, so I can guide you in how to calculate it.
There are a few different ways of measuring magnitude (apparent, bolometric, etc). Bolometric is essentially the integral over all wavelengths. I'm guessing they didn't do a real bolometric measurement, but I could be wrong.
Anyway, the relationship between intensity (I) and apparent magnitude (m) is
m = -[19 + (2.5).log(I)]
Intensity is in units of power/area, such as W/m^2 or ergs/cm^2 (cgs units are oddly popular in astronomy).
If they did do a bolometric measurement, you can pretty easily manipulate this relationship to reflect that.
Now, from the power, knowing the wavelength(s), and using the fact that the energy per photon is the frequency times Planck's constant... and thus you can find the number of photons per unit time per unit area. Which, when coupled with the known exposure time, will give you the total number of photons.
Try comparing them based on mileage per capita and/or mileage per ton.
Also, let's not forget, the environment in which the shuttle functions is far more extreme than any commercial aircraft. You can't compare a regular NY-->London flight with a trip into orbit.
Then, just factor in some of the extra capabilities (which, in safety terms, are really liabilities), such as deploying equipment in vacuum.
Sure, the shuttle's not perfect. It is certainly not cost effective. But, I would say that it has a rather outstanding safety record.
What is an acceptable risk?
on
Shuttle Politics
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Just wondering, what do people here feel is an acceptable risk?
I would easily say that 1/62.5 is acceptable. In fact, I'm quite impressed that it's not 1/2. It's a really amazing accomplishment to do it at all. Back in the early days (even well into the Apollo program) it was pretty much given that this is a major risk to the lives of the astronauts.
Could it possibly be that we've just gotten soft, and started to take space flight for granted (which would be good in it's own way)? Is it just that the fucking baby-boomers have no spine? If so, will this only get worse in time? For example, I just heard on Howard Stern this morning that the average person doesn't really consider someone an adult until around 26 years old. Are we just becoming less and less responsible and, consequently, less willing to accept the consequences of our actions (including death)?
Or, as stated in the/. writeup, is this just another DC windbag looking to make some cash for his cronies?
In any case, 2 crashes in 20 years is a very very good record. You'd be hard pressed to make the airline industry perform so well. Sure, the people on board the shuttle are worth more than those aboard commercial flights and the shuttle is worth more than a plane... still, it's quite impressive.
Pro: He promotes porn on the Internet.
Pro: He will sue a few people into not using pop-ups, at least for a little while.
Con: He "created" annoying pop-up ads.
The situation would be similar if Hillary Rosen, remaining the bitch that she is, was really hot and liked to give me blowjobs...
Okay, well, the blowjobs would easily win out. But you get the idea.
Do you think most anyone without an serious technical degree knows that it's not necessarily the thing cash comes out of?
Yes, lots of technician-types. Most of the guys who service network equipment in the field are not exceptionally well educated or smart.
How about the 9-layer OSI networking standard, which has many of it's layers "merged" in practical use? Does anyone really need to know the names of all 9 layers?
No, what's your point?
Why do you think engineers are entitled to a whole slew of terms that the public at large can't understand that have VERY SPECIFIC meanings within engineering, but lawyers are not?
Because, they regularly deal with things that the general public does not. Everyone deals with the law every day... if you can't understand it, how could you keep from violating it?
...law has to deal with a very complex set of situations.
Not especially. Day to day situations are not complicated. If the laws were more properly designed, they wouldn't be nearly as complicated.
IANAL, but I've tried to be one in traffic court. I should have hired the real thing.
Yeah? And I knew a physics student who got out of his ticket by explaining the inherent error of the far-field approximation to the judge. It's a bullshit argument, but the law-educated judge was not nearly educated enough to follow the argument, so he just accepted it.
I suppose we should make TCP/IP headers all text so non-engineers can understand them, right?
Hmm... don't they call that XML?
Seriously, people don't have to understand TCP/IP, because it just works. They use it and never know it. The law is different, they need to understand it... and it doesn't work so well anyway.
Now, just to make it clear, being an "engineer" and understanding TCP/IP doesn't make anyone very special either. Plenty of degree-mill fodder does this every day. When I say "smart people" I'm not necessarily talking about anyone involved in IT (sure some "IT" people are smart, but many are not).
Slashdot Mirror
There's been a lot of talk here about RFIDs lately. Mostly (justifiably) negative talk. However, this is okay, for now, right? Does anyone here have a problem with the use of RFIDs in the warehouses (assuming they don't trickle down to the consumers)?
I do see the privacy problems with RFIDs, but I'm not really worried about it... yet. I don't care if they use RFIDs in their warehouses/stores, as long as any items I buy do not have an active RFID when I leave (not that I shop at, or have ever even seen, a Walmart). RFIDs do have legitimate (anti-theft) uses. They have a use for inventory tracking/control. They could be used in corporate offices to keep track of various items (laptops/desktops [maybe], other electronics, books, etc).
RFIDs also have other uses, outside the traditional business realm, such as in ecology and field biology. They can be used (theoretically) in some tasks in meteorology.
Yes, they have "immoral" uses, but so does P2P software. It should still be legal to manufacture and use RFIDs, just like it should be legal to write and use P2P code. Don't sound like a paranoid kook, be rational about all of this. Write to your local representative what's bad about RFIDs, and what sort of legislation would help curb the privacy invasion that will inevitably come along with widespread use. Better yet, try getting an appointment with any of your local representatives to discuss it in person (not too likely, but it can happen). Now is the time to get this taken care of, because it will soon be too late. Once something gets in motion, it's much much harder to legislate it out (again, this is similar to P2P).
Note: I didn't read the article.
The point is, they have no right to check and see if you have the mp3 (unless they catch you in the act of downloading it. Why should they have extra rights in order to find out if you have the mp3?
I worked with SMIL too, mostly on the Sony-Ericsson phones. As another poster mentioned, the SMIL used for MMS is really just a subset of SMIL. There's a conformance document, which defines what that subset looks like.
Since I worked with the Sony-Ericsson phones, the SMIL on the handsets worked great. My problem was getting it to work on a standard PC. Your standard Windows machine often doesn't support it (unless a recent version of RealPlayer is installed and the mail client is set up correctly). This is pretty problematic when you try to send an MMS from a phone to an email address.
You can't count on users to chase down a SMIL decoder in order to view incoming MMS messages in their email. Most of the time, it was best to just strip out the SMIL and change the wrapper from multipart/related to multipart/mixed.
Hopefully, by them opening the source to this, we'll see SMIL become more widely supported by default.
That sounds like valid data to me. It may just be an opinion, but does that mean it isn't worth knowing? Afterall, the terms "sounds" and "probable" alert you to the fact that these are guesses.
These are certainly observations that would be useful to law enforcement personnel. Is it only okay to have politically correct data in databases?
There are people out there with cybernetic eyes, chips in their arms that transmit feelings to their partners, etc. Some people are bothered by that, some think it's great. There are always technophobes and early-adopters. I don't see much moral debate coming about the replacement of eyes for the blind. If you replace working eyes, that would be a different story, but people learned to accept breast implants, liposuction, and botox injections...
I really have no idea what this question is really trying to ask. No. New shit will get developed, people will use it, laws will be made, people will feel happy/sad/angry, an ice age will come, people will die (some may survive), the sun will scorch all life off the planet. Will you have any of them lick my balls?
Now, this is a bit tricky, because some godhead might say that the bible is a "trustworthy record". However, you must weigh a number of things when deciding what to trust - the circumstances in which records were created, the reputation of the authors, independently verifiable/verified facts, and so on. The bible, by an athiest's standards, can not stand up to such challenges. A believer, typically, will not even scrutinize the bible, instead they'll blindly accept it (and insist that it MUST be true). Other believers will link it to circumstancial evidence and use other suspect means of validation. You could debate how trustworthy the bible/koran/Juggs (vol. 1, issue 2)/etc is, but people who are educated and rational (note the use of and) do not just blindly trust a source. As per my explanation above, I'll trust Apple's press release saying that the iPod is available, much more readily that I'd trust a multi-millenia old self-contradictory book, written by numerous (and sometimes unknown) authors, which is full of fanciful events that do not correspond to the behavior of the world in which I have spent the entirety of my life. Apple has a history of announcing the release of a product, and then that product actually showing up in the market. You see how that works...?
Yeah, it sounds like he is, but he seems a bit less wishy-washy that some agnostics. The stereotypical agnostic says "I don't know if there's a god." This guy says, "I don't believe in god(s)... I just don't believe it, that's all." Um, isn't that the basis for not believing anything?
Do you believe that the world exists on the shell of a giant turtle (some people do, or at least they did, before we killed them off)? Do you believe in a/an god(s)? Do you believe that I have a monster 36" pudd? I'm guessing you don't believe some (and hopefully all) of those things, because they defy logic, do not coincide with your experiences, are not backed up by valid tangible evidence, were not recorded by a reliable source, and so on.
You assume the world isn't on the back of a turtle, because you can't see the turtle from space and if you dig you won't hit shell. You don't believe in gods because you've never met any. You don't believe I have a 3' dong, because that's 6 times the average and quite a few standard deviations from the mean (I also doubt you've ever seen any human hung like that).
You always start out with a default assumption, based on what you know about the world. The natural/logical default is to believe that there is no god. Afterall, how many supreme beings were carpooling in the lane next to you this morning?
See how that works? It's called not being a gullible idiot.
The problem with 3G, as far as I'm concerned, is that there's very little use for it. I've used some GPRS/UMTS containers, and they've certainly got some purpose, but the average user couldn't give half a hairy shit about that.
/., fuck a goat....
The biggest industry in the wireless data market, that I've noticed, is porn (not surprisingly). Especially in Germany, less so in Italy, and it's non-existent here (America) and in Canada. I don't know what services are popular in other countries. The thing is, I doubt porn will really take off on cell phones. People are used to seeing their gaping holes on 17"+ monitors, not 3.5" screens with poor contrast.
The only good use I've made of 2.5G/3G technology involved linking computers into corporate networks from rather remote locations. Once I used a chain of connections that involved a laptop, some Ericsson T68s, a Nokia GPRS node, and a corporate VPN via IR/Bluetooth/GPRS. Other than the associated geekfactor, that's not much fun to use.
I've done plenty of multimedia stuff on cell phones. I could see teenagers and kids having some fun with it, but it's not really worthwhile. Then again, SMS isn't that useful either, when voice calls could do the same in most (not necessarily all) situations.
Nobody needs 3G, nobody needs 4G. The only way either will take off, over 802.11 variants, will be if laptops (put a cellphone card into a laptop) and pdas come with built in access to those networks. People just want their shit to work, and 802.11 has been doing that pretty well so far.
Voice works, and that's what people want phones for. I think most people see voice and data as being completely separate, and they don't care if their cell phone provider can give them data access (outside of the geek community).
Anyway, I'm fucking rambling... fuck 3G, fuck 4G, fuck niggers, fuck
- I'm not exactly sure why a cheap slut is better than a hooker though, it's not very logical, but it is true...
- You do have to admit that charging a $15 hamburger to your expense account is rather satisfying.
Of course, such a room certainly wouldn't belong to Marion Barry.If you're not joking, then you're a fucking idiot. If you were kidding/trolling, then just ignore this.
If we are all the same, how the fuck can you tell us apart? I can identify a nigger visually, I'll bet you can too.
Keep your liberal hippie jew-style bullshit to yourself. There are different groups of people, not all the same race. There's nothing wrong with segregation or discrimination, since everyone's not the same... and, consequently, everyone is not equal. Case in point: You were born retarded, therefore you are not worth as much as the average person.
Anyway, because the redshift comes from the space itself expanding, it's proportional (I think it's a linear effect, I don't remember too well) to the distance between you and the object under observation. Yes, there is some Doppler style redshift, but that is not what's generally meant when an astronomer says "redshift". Also, cosmologists use redshift (z) as their primary variable in many equations. Most cosmologists measure distance in redshift, instead of cgs or mks length units.
Great, so now the RIAA doesn't need to hunt people down, they can just subscribe for listings of all the evil pirates.
This stuff is rather speculative. And, to really understand it, valid or not, takes quite a few years of background. Invariably, when you get the general public reading things like this, it gets them started spouting all kinds of ridiculous shit. They automatically oversimplify, and pretend to actually comprehend it (despite not even knowing what a differential equation is).
/. articles draw.
I'm all for getting people interested in science. But, is there some way to do that without only getting them to absorb a fraction of the information, and then going on to propogate gross misinformation?
I hate to say that such things shouldn't be written, but they may actually do more harm than good. Afterall, everyone who's read one of Hawking's books thinks they could carry on a conversation with a high level theorist (in topics such as cosmology, quantum mechanics, etc), which is absolutely not the case.
I'll bet that over 50% of the comments for this article will be pseudo-intellectuals espousing their retarded theories, misinformation, and other general stupidity... as opposed to the typical 30-40% of idiocy most
The average voter (or non-voter for that matter) doesn't really give half a hairy shit about the DMCA, fair use, divestiture of communications service, spectrum allocation, and so on. They probably never will. Outside of a few key issues (abortion, gun control), people just don't care about politics. Lots of people have their 'pet issue' (ie.
Taking that into account, when you realize all the money being fed into our representatives, it seems that the laws will be written the way that the corporations want them. Maybe the technology companies will stand up to the media industry, maybe they won't. Let's, for now, assume that they won't. What this means is that consumers will lose all rights, with respect to media.
Even if that does happen, I don't see it being enforced. What will happen is the media companies will push for prosecution of all the new "crimes". That's when people will start to care, because they don't want to be criminals (in general). Plenty of people who don't care about the RIAA/MPAA campaign against P2P found it pretty ridiculous to sue for billions of dollars.
The only way said media conglomerates will be able to heavily prosecute these "crimes" is by convicing the public that they are indeed crimes. So far, they're doing a very poor job of that. Most people feel that they have a right to "steal" content using P2P networks. All the lobbying in the world isn't going to change that feeling. Maybe some clever marketing will help them, but trying to convince someone that they're obtaining 'free stuff' is not an easy task.
Society, and almost any natural system, tends to settle into an equilibrium. There's a certain inertia that needs to be overcome in order to push out into some other stable region. The media industry is pushing really hard, but I just don't think they have the muscle to really pull this off. They can shake things up, but in the end, it'll probably settle back down again. Let's just hope they trow their collective back out in the process...
<Disclamer>
- I do, in fact, support the "criminalization" of certain things (ie. drug addicts are criminals).
- I do have my own "pet" issues (ie. affirmative action is discrimination against whites).
</Disclaimer>Just like in a debate between political candidates, the issue isn't so much about what the good questions are. Afterall, they're each pushing an agenda, and will try to get their point across in every question.
The real problem is getting them, specifically Matt Oppenheim, to actually answer the question that is asked. Just like a politician, I assume he's going to go off on a tangent, sidestepping and dodging anything that would make the RIAA smell like shit.
Here's an idea - Give me a camera, a room with a locked door, an RIAA executive (or any politician or lawyer), and I'll show you how it's supposed to be done.
You have to keep pressing them, don't let them change the subject. If they start to go off on a tangent, you need to "violently" (physical violence is good, but just being forceful is enough) bring them back to the point. Also, watch out for doubletalk, make sure they define their terms clearly.
See, you can say anything you want on the Internet... regardless of blacklists or whitelists. Provided, of course, that you host the data you want to distribute (or at least, pay someone else to host it).
Spam doesn't work the same way as something like a webpage (or Usenet, or IRC, etc). With most systems (HTTP for example), you must actively request the data you want. With email, the spammer makes that decision for you. That's the real problem with email, it's the IETF's equivalent of the Windows Messaging system (which, coincidentally, also gets spammed).
I did some development of push technologies for wireless devices. Preventing unwanted (from the network operator's point of view) push traffic out was a big priority. Email is, essentially, a push service as it's currently implemented, anyway.
Personally, I am leaning towards using a "web of trust" system, with confirmed authentication to prevent relaying of spoofed email. Sure, open relays should be legal, but that doesn't mean anyone has to accept mail from them.
Anyway, the point is, if you say something on your website (such as "niggers are great"), I do not have to read it. However, if you send me a nice big jpeg, with a smiling porch-monkey, that says "niggers are great", I end up having to deal with it. If I felt the need for a larger penis and an unaccredited degree, I'll bet Google could help me find places to get that... I don't need someone telling me shit I don't want to know.
You can bend the concept to support just about any argument. Bullshit spiritual arguments rely heavily on things like this, since they don't have any real legs to stand on.
There is nothing insightful about anything anyone has written about "the philosophy" of this movie. It's just a movie. Enjoy it, move on, have a real life.
<Note target="fanboy's with modpoints"> </Note>
I wouldn't buy one of these. I really see no point, for myself. In fact, I can't see that many consumers being interested in this. Once you go outside of the geek-world, even TiVo isn't that well-known. Now they expect to do it for radio...
Radio isn't big on the minds of the American public. It's thought of as 'been there, done that'. Take the lessons learned from satellite radio... people don't really care. If they did, why didn't satellite radio catch on like cable/satellite tv? Just because the idea of radio being free is too deeply ingrained?
Investing in consumer electronics can be pretty risky. The margins are tight, and not getting any better. Not to mention the fact that a poor economy is not a good place to be introducing new products.
Does anyone see the catching on? Does anyone think it will actually turn a profit?
Personally, I think some venture capitalists are about to take it in the butt on this one.
Other than to just do it, what's the point?
For most people, these entertainment systems in cars seem useless. I don't know about you, but I don't hang out in my car. There are much more comfortable places to be. So, if I'm driving, what good is an X-Box?
For parents, it might make sense, to keep the kids busy. Other than that, it's just more geekiness for geekiness' sake (not that that's really bad, it's just useless). Unless you're a showy bitch with a ridiculous stereo and shiny wheels, then it's a genetic defect.
There are a few different ways of measuring magnitude (apparent, bolometric, etc). Bolometric is essentially the integral over all wavelengths. I'm guessing they didn't do a real bolometric measurement, but I could be wrong.
Anyway, the relationship between intensity (I) and apparent magnitude (m) is Intensity is in units of power/area, such as W/m^2 or ergs/cm^2 (cgs units are oddly popular in astronomy).
If they did do a bolometric measurement, you can pretty easily manipulate this relationship to reflect that.
Now, from the power, knowing the wavelength(s), and using the fact that the energy per photon is the frequency times Planck's constant... and thus you can find the number of photons per unit time per unit area. Which, when coupled with the known exposure time, will give you the total number of photons.
Try comparing them based on mileage per capita and/or mileage per ton.
Also, let's not forget, the environment in which the shuttle functions is far more extreme than any commercial aircraft. You can't compare a regular NY-->London flight with a trip into orbit.
Then, just factor in some of the extra capabilities (which, in safety terms, are really liabilities), such as deploying equipment in vacuum.
Sure, the shuttle's not perfect. It is certainly not cost effective. But, I would say that it has a rather outstanding safety record.
Just wondering, what do people here feel is an acceptable risk?
/. writeup, is this just another DC windbag looking to make some cash for his cronies?
I would easily say that 1/62.5 is acceptable. In fact, I'm quite impressed that it's not 1/2. It's a really amazing accomplishment to do it at all. Back in the early days (even well into the Apollo program) it was pretty much given that this is a major risk to the lives of the astronauts.
Could it possibly be that we've just gotten soft, and started to take space flight for granted (which would be good in it's own way)? Is it just that the fucking baby-boomers have no spine? If so, will this only get worse in time? For example, I just heard on Howard Stern this morning that the average person doesn't really consider someone an adult until around 26 years old. Are we just becoming less and less responsible and, consequently, less willing to accept the consequences of our actions (including death)?
Or, as stated in the
In any case, 2 crashes in 20 years is a very very good record. You'd be hard pressed to make the airline industry perform so well. Sure, the people on board the shuttle are worth more than those aboard commercial flights and the shuttle is worth more than a plane... still, it's quite impressive.
Do I like this man or hate him?
Pro: He promotes porn on the Internet.
Pro: He will sue a few people into not using pop-ups, at least for a little while.
Con: He "created" annoying pop-up ads.
The situation would be similar if Hillary Rosen, remaining the bitch that she is, was really hot and liked to give me blowjobs...
Okay, well, the blowjobs would easily win out. But you get the idea.
Hillary Rosen feels like a total dumbass right now!
That skanky bitch really needs to be anally violated with some object that's larger than a fist and less loving than a dildo...
No, what's your point? Because, they regularly deal with things that the general public does not. Everyone deals with the law every day... if you can't understand it, how could you keep from violating it?
Not especially. Day to day situations are not complicated. If the laws were more properly designed, they wouldn't be nearly as complicated.
Yeah? And I knew a physics student who got out of his ticket by explaining the inherent error of the far-field approximation to the judge. It's a bullshit argument, but the law-educated judge was not nearly educated enough to follow the argument, so he just accepted it.
Hmm... don't they call that XML?
Seriously, people don't have to understand TCP/IP, because it just works. They use it and never know it. The law is different, they need to understand it... and it doesn't work so well anyway.
Now, just to make it clear, being an "engineer" and understanding TCP/IP doesn't make anyone very special either. Plenty of degree-mill fodder does this every day. When I say "smart people" I'm not necessarily talking about anyone involved in IT (sure some "IT" people are smart, but many are not).