When they test anxiety medication on rats, it's quite common to use cat urine to give them a reflex panic attack, then see if your drug calms them down. The running away is just the result of that panic, nothing more.
That's interesting, I didn't know that. However, when I give my pet rats free time on the bed, and a cat hops up, a rat will run right up to the cat (I guess to see what's this new thing), and the cat will get freaked and run away. In some cases the rat will get close enough to the cat to grab the cat's fur.
So I think there could be something going on in the higher regions of a rat's brain to inhibit the panic reaction. Perhaps a rat raised as a pet learns that new things are nothing to be scared of.
Given how small bacteria are, they've probably been vibrating to our radio waves for the past 100+ years. And they've been mutating ever since to get away!
There is absolutely no reason for the lottery to be the only form of legal gambling, while poker remains illegal.
Actually, there's a very good reason. Half the money made in a lottery is given to the State. Your friendly poker tournament will probably be sponsored by a corporation which would pocket some of the money, while the State might get a small licensing fee -- nothing near the amounts made on casino taxes.
The LA Times reports on a proposal to secretly scan suspects' hard drives which is causing unease in a nation with a history of official surveillance.
At first I thought they were talking about the US. Then the next sentence says it's Germany. Then I thought they meant the US but wrote Germany by mistake.
The intarweb is full of pretty smart people warning that any image or sound in your films is a copyright violation unless you get permission from the copyright holder. One even said if somebody was wearing an identifiable t-shirt, you had to blur it if you couldn't get "clearance." This is all nonsense. People perpetuating this myth are eroding our fair use rights. IANAL, but I am a copyright holder, and I have talked to a few lawyers about it.
It's not just "on teh Intarweb" that people are saying this. This idea is taught in courses on film production, and the reasons are very simple:
1. You can sue anyone for anything, at any time.
2. Copyright is a big stinking swamp filled with alligators and corpses. Nobody knows which way a judge will jump.
Because of these, copyright holders feel free to sue the heck out of anyone using their copyrighted material in any way, even if that way is technically legal -- because who knows? The judge might just side with you and you might get some money. Large corporate holders have plenty of money to burn, so there's no downside to suing for them.
Conversely, users of copyrighted material have a great deal to lose, even if they win. Fighting cases in court costs money, and successfully defending yourself can be Pyrrhic. I suppose if you're a large corporate user, you wouldn't care monetarily if you lose, but it could cause PR issues, I guess.
In any case, the reason people are told to get clearance for everything is that doing so avoids the whole issue. Going back to the stinking swamp analogy, it's clearly best to just go around it. That's why the "myth" of requiring clearance for everything is perpetuated. It's a Pascal's wager.
That's a *heck* of a lot of crashes. I use OSX constantly, too, and on different machines. I've found the ones that crashed most often are the ones that either have very little memory, or use substandard memory sticks. You don't have to use Apple memory, Crucial has memory guaranteed to work. Not a shill, just a very satisfied customer.
Well, then, maybe he should have said, instead of a spoon, it's a hundred spoon-gnomes, each with their own spoon. That would have been not only a better analogy, but amusing as well!
While it is true that evolutionary algorithms can be used to do an end-run around patents, it can also be used for new patents. In my opinion, this is what Genetic Programming, Inc. hopes to do: generate patents through evolutionary algorithms. (See, here, for example, on genetically derived patents -- in section 2). Dr. John Koza, as far as I know, teaches at Stanford and also runs this company, and he is considered the father of genetic programming. He has patents on genetic programming as well.
As far as I know, he has never explicitly given permission for any of his patents to be used license-free commercially or noncommercially.
The reason I have used "as far as I know" and "as far as I know" is that this should be an adequate defense of claims against libel. It is my own opinion and belief that Dr. Koza would not stoop to actually suing based on negative posts such as this one.
Your understanding is wrong. They did examine the hard drive and it did not support their claim.
Sorry about this question -- my knowledge of law is based on TV and slashdot.
Isn't it true that in a civil case, preponderance of evidence, even if circumstantial, decides the case for the jury? So that it wouldn't matter that evidence does not supports plaintiff's claim, as long as that evidence does not also contradict their claim?
As she points out in her research, how are you ever going to look up the band "The The" unless the word "the" is indexed. And if you index it sometimes, shouldn't you index it always?
I didn't even know there was a problem with indexing "the". I thought the rule was, if a title has an article as the first word, ignore it and index from there. Or something like that. By that rule, "The The" would be indexed as "The, The".
As of yet, not a single person I've told about Skype has even downloaded it, let alone used the service. Perhaps people are just afraid to try something new?
I think that nongeeks just will not use the computer as a phone. Now something like Verizon's VoiceWing -- that's something people can get behind. You plug this little box into your router, plug a phone into the little box, and you're done. That's the kind of simplicity Skype would need. Because let's face it. Skype, to most non-techies, is a PHONE SERVICE. Not a COMPUTER PROGRAM, which is how it's being marketed.
I tried getting my parents to use it. They don't. Why? Because (a) their computer is not always on, and (b) you can't hear the program ringing when you're in another room.
After the blast, astronomers from universities across the country were seen wandering dazedly through the halls and campus greens. The sky-gazers did not seem to know where they were, nor what they were doing there. Some astronomers were found in a parking lot below Mt. Palomar, with car keys in their hands, unable to locate their own vehicles. Some had to be given emergency oxygen because, not knowing their altitude, they had forgotten their oxygen masks.
Emergency psychiatrists were called in to deal with the situation.
"I've never seen anything like it," said Dr. Itznada Seegar of the Federal Emergency Psychiatric Adminstration. "These astronomers are, to put it in layman's terms, dazed and confused. You can use that movie reference, right?"
Dr. Adeep S. Komplacs posited a new cosmic psychic ray. Surrounded by clouds of THC byproducts, he remarked, "I've heard of cosmic rays, but this was one cosmic cosmic ray, dude!"
As things slowly return to normal, said one Astronomy Department head, "Thank God the effect is wearing off. Now we can get our astronomers' heads back in the clouds."
I have to agree with this sentiment. As long as humans are biological, our actions will be mainly determined by two emotions: fear and greed.
[Aside: These two emotions are said to rule the stock market. Stock goes up? Greed. Stock goes down? Fear.]
Anyway, I look forward to the technological singularity (greed). Then we'll be able to download and remove those emotions (fear). Or not (fearfearfear).
Simply allow the power generators to choose their preferred technologies. The most economically viable solutions will be popular, the unviable ones will fade away. If nuclear is viable it'll get rolled out. if not, it won't.
Because that worked so well when mortgage lenders chose their preferred borrowers.
These biometrics vary so much from person to person I don't see how this could work very well.
According to TFA, the device measures a personal baseline, and then interprets deviations from the baseline as stress. Although, for someone who is stressed all the time, I'm not sure how that would be useful.
And Apple the new Microsoft, and Microsoft the new IBM. Was there reality before IBM?
I think you'll find that this chain started -- and research confirms this -- with the ancient Romans, where "Gastronomus's House of Fish Sauce" became the new "Wife, Get Me Fish Sauce From The Agora!".
if I write "Hello, world" that runs on Linux, is that a derivative work?
Well, no, but if you were selling your "Hello, world" program WITH a copy of Linux, then yes, I would assume you'd be required to offer the source to Linux. So I doubt the "Hello, world" analogy holds.
Slashdot Mirror
That's interesting, I didn't know that. However, when I give my pet rats free time on the bed, and a cat hops up, a rat will run right up to the cat (I guess to see what's this new thing), and the cat will get freaked and run away. In some cases the rat will get close enough to the cat to grab the cat's fur.
So I think there could be something going on in the higher regions of a rat's brain to inhibit the panic reaction. Perhaps a rat raised as a pet learns that new things are nothing to be scared of.
--Rob
Given how small bacteria are, they've probably been vibrating to our radio waves for the past 100+ years. And they've been mutating ever since to get away!
--Rob
Actually, there's a very good reason. Half the money made in a lottery is given to the State. Your friendly poker tournament will probably be sponsored by a corporation which would pocket some of the money, while the State might get a small licensing fee -- nothing near the amounts made on casino taxes.
--Rob
At first I thought they were talking about the US. Then the next sentence says it's Germany. Then I thought they meant the US but wrote Germany by mistake.
--Rob
The lessons learned from playing adventure games should work well in real life:
1. Take everything that isn't nailed down.
2. Touch everything.
3. Put everything on everything until something happens.
--Rob
If it's warm and fuzzy, it should be "I has a firewall (what I do wif it?)"
Lolz,
--Rob
It's not just "on teh Intarweb" that people are saying this. This idea is taught in courses on film production, and the reasons are very simple:
1. You can sue anyone for anything, at any time.
2. Copyright is a big stinking swamp filled with alligators and corpses. Nobody knows which way a judge will jump.
Because of these, copyright holders feel free to sue the heck out of anyone using their copyrighted material in any way, even if that way is technically legal -- because who knows? The judge might just side with you and you might get some money. Large corporate holders have plenty of money to burn, so there's no downside to suing for them.
Conversely, users of copyrighted material have a great deal to lose, even if they win. Fighting cases in court costs money, and successfully defending yourself can be Pyrrhic. I suppose if you're a large corporate user, you wouldn't care monetarily if you lose, but it could cause PR issues, I guess.
In any case, the reason people are told to get clearance for everything is that doing so avoids the whole issue. Going back to the stinking swamp analogy, it's clearly best to just go around it. That's why the "myth" of requiring clearance for everything is perpetuated. It's a Pascal's wager.
No, I don't like it either.
--Rob
...otherwise his mustache will become huge and go on a rampage!
If the document is meant to be read only, I save as PDF. If the document is meant for editing, DOC, because my office uses Microsoft.
BTW, it's also for this reason that I don't use OOo, because of the hideous round-trip capabilities of OOo -> Word -> OOo -> Word -> OOo...
--Rob
That's a *heck* of a lot of crashes. I use OSX constantly, too, and on different machines. I've found the ones that crashed most often are the ones that either have very little memory, or use substandard memory sticks. You don't have to use Apple memory, Crucial has memory guaranteed to work. Not a shill, just a very satisfied customer.
Anyway... look into your memory.
--Rob
Well, then, maybe he should have said, instead of a spoon, it's a hundred spoon-gnomes, each with their own spoon. That would have been not only a better analogy, but amusing as well!
--Rob
Warning: Objects in telescope are closer than they appear.
--Rob
There, I fixed your summary for you!
--Rob
While it is true that evolutionary algorithms can be used to do an end-run around patents, it can also be used for new patents. In my opinion, this is what Genetic Programming, Inc. hopes to do: generate patents through evolutionary algorithms. (See, here, for example, on genetically derived patents -- in section 2). Dr. John Koza, as far as I know, teaches at Stanford and also runs this company, and he is considered the father of genetic programming. He has patents on genetic programming as well.
As far as I know, he has never explicitly given permission for any of his patents to be used license-free commercially or noncommercially.
The reason I have used "as far as I know" and "as far as I know" is that this should be an adequate defense of claims against libel. It is my own opinion and belief that Dr. Koza would not stoop to actually suing based on negative posts such as this one.
--Rob
Sorry about this question -- my knowledge of law is based on TV and slashdot.
Isn't it true that in a civil case, preponderance of evidence, even if circumstantial, decides the case for the jury? So that it wouldn't matter that evidence does not supports plaintiff's claim, as long as that evidence does not also contradict their claim?
--Rob
I didn't even know there was a problem with indexing "the". I thought the rule was, if a title has an article as the first word, ignore it and index from there. Or something like that. By that rule, "The The" would be indexed as "The, The".
--Rob
I think that nongeeks just will not use the computer as a phone. Now something like Verizon's VoiceWing -- that's something people can get behind. You plug this little box into your router, plug a phone into the little box, and you're done. That's the kind of simplicity Skype would need. Because let's face it. Skype, to most non-techies, is a PHONE SERVICE. Not a COMPUTER PROGRAM, which is how it's being marketed.
I tried getting my parents to use it. They don't. Why? Because (a) their computer is not always on, and (b) you can't hear the program ringing when you're in another room.
--Rob
After the blast, astronomers from universities across the country were seen wandering dazedly through the halls and campus greens. The sky-gazers did not seem to know where they were, nor what they were doing there. Some astronomers were found in a parking lot below Mt. Palomar, with car keys in their hands, unable to locate their own vehicles. Some had to be given emergency oxygen because, not knowing their altitude, they had forgotten their oxygen masks.
Emergency psychiatrists were called in to deal with the situation.
"I've never seen anything like it," said Dr. Itznada Seegar of the Federal Emergency Psychiatric Adminstration. "These astronomers are, to put it in layman's terms, dazed and confused. You can use that movie reference, right?"
Dr. Adeep S. Komplacs posited a new cosmic psychic ray. Surrounded by clouds of THC byproducts, he remarked, "I've heard of cosmic rays, but this was one cosmic cosmic ray, dude!"
As things slowly return to normal, said one Astronomy Department head, "Thank God the effect is wearing off. Now we can get our astronomers' heads back in the clouds."
I have to agree with this sentiment. As long as humans are biological, our actions will be mainly determined by two emotions: fear and greed.
[Aside: These two emotions are said to rule the stock market. Stock goes up? Greed. Stock goes down? Fear.]
Anyway, I look forward to the technological singularity (greed). Then we'll be able to download and remove those emotions (fear). Or not (fearfearfear).
--Rob
Traffic tickets may be given for speeds more than 15 mph above the norm [citation given].
Because that worked so well when mortgage lenders chose their preferred borrowers.
--Rob
According to TFA, the device measures a personal baseline, and then interprets deviations from the baseline as stress. Although, for someone who is stressed all the time, I'm not sure how that would be useful.
--Rob
I think you'll find that this chain started -- and research confirms this -- with the ancient Romans, where "Gastronomus's House of Fish Sauce" became the new "Wife, Get Me Fish Sauce From The Agora!".
--Rob
Well, no, but if you were selling your "Hello, world" program WITH a copy of Linux, then yes, I would assume you'd be required to offer the source to Linux. So I doubt the "Hello, world" analogy holds.
--Rob
Linus, is that you?
j/k :)
--Rob