But legal and moral are not the same thing. Read "Civil Disobedience". The argument is that there are both just and unjust laws, and that we have a moral obligation to disobey unjust laws until they are changed. I think that reasoning applies even more today than it did when the pamphlet was written.
First, please show me the research that indicates that this is the case. I'd love to see it. I don't believe it exists, but I would love to see it. Frankly, it flies in the face of I think is the generally accepted position which is that although there is a genetic tendency for obesity (which also influences metabolism), the behavior trait (and that is what it is, although personality trait might be equally true) of laziness is a heavy mix of both environment and genetics. It is also domain-specific, which is a very important thing to realize.
From a hedonic motivation standpoint (read "A theory of Behavoir in Organizations" by Naylor, Pritchard & Ilgen if you can find it; if not, "Work Motivation" by Victor Vroom (1964) will also be illustrative), domain specificity is very useful in explaining why a person who does not engage in physical activity will spend considerable effort on playing video games. It is simply that they don't feel that their affect (mood, happiness, etc) will be as positively influenced by regular phsyical activity as it will by playing video games. Thus they will not engage in physical activity even though they will spend endless hours playing DDR.
From a purely objective standpoint, however, they are wrong. Regular exercise has been shown to be a very effective treatments of depression, as well as specifically elevating mood at the time of exercise. From a psychological aspect, the average gamer would be much happier if they got an hour or two of exercise each day (in addition to gaming heavily).
As far as personal responsibility goes, I have to take issue with that because you are making some very deep philosophical arguments. First, even if a person were born lazy (which I doubt, as expressed previously), would that mean that they could do nothing to change that? If nothing can be done to change that, then I can mostly accept what you say. If, however, they are born that way, but it can be changed, then it is the responsibility of their parent or relatives to do so, and any blame for failure in this is the parents. Personal responsibility is not the idea that you are responsible only for your actions, but that you are completely responsible for all of your actions, as well as the unintended consequences of them (such as unexpected offspring).
The problem with your argument for socialism (which is what you are defining) is that if enough people decide that they can live comfortably from the system, then they will cease to contribute to the system which sustains the less fortunate. This is to be predicted from almost every theory of behavior which I know. Not all of these people will quit working, but there are a number who would rather do other things, such as writing books of dubious quality (some people who would love to write but aren't any good would try it anyways). Certainly you would end up with a few people of exceptional talent and drive (now there's a word that makes me shudder!) that would always want to work, but the idea of allowing those that are just lazy to just be lazy is unworkable.
The idea of socialized care is noble in many ways--on the face of it, the idea of universal health care is a wonderful thing, but, aside from the much-touted meme of personal responsibility degrading under socialism, there are good reasons why it becomes unsustainable if carried to the extreme. Eventually, especially in the system you are touting, enough people quit contributing to the system and it becomes unstable and collapses.
The only way for socialism or communism to work is if everyone who is possibly able to is contributing to the system in some fashion. For it to really succeed and make everyone rich (which is the goal of true communism: to get rich together), it requires that everyone be working in their optimal endeavor (what they are best at), and to be as productive as they can. There is no room for laziness is this model, however.
Yes, but the faculty have rarely "bought into Blackboard". Instead they use it while holding their nose, cursing and screaming, or with an air of resigned hopelessness. I've NEVER met a professor/faculty member who actually LIKED blackboard.
Clemson uses it, and it really pissed off the professors when it was purchased and the perfectly usable prior interface was abandoned wholesale (developed in house, and not too bad).
Moodle needs to have (if they don't) a "BB Migration Tool" that reads the BB database and migrates all the settings and whatnot into the Moodle way.
Maybe it's just the version of BB that I've seen at my university (and my college before that), but I've never had any trouble using blackboard in Firefox.
That said, I still hate it. Clemson had a reasonably usable system that they developed (and hence could have continued to develop) that they abandoned wholesale in favor of BB, which ALL of the professors I have spoken to either HATE or are indifferent to. None of them actually like it, and a large number refuse to use it on ideological grounds (from what I can tell, anyways). Some use it only while holding their nose, and a few use it while cursing violently (literally, and not just in front of the graduate students, but in front of the undergrads as well).
I wish we had switched to Moodle or another OSS CMS, but that would have been far too easy.
BB, along with others, needs to abandon the idea of software patents. Frankly, patents are a nasty bit of work, and like copyrights they are now doing the opposite of what they were supposed to encourage.
Presumably the cost of deployment, distribution and installation are the same for open source as with closed--provided that you are doing a complete upgrade of everything or a fresh install. In these cases it makes sense to switch.
It is when you are already using software and are not planning to do a massive system overhaul that these issues become important.
Frankly, the licensing may not be the only cost, but it is certainly one of the biggest when you are talking about an entire system.
Okay, so I just bought a compaq v3019 (and, by the way, video performance is a dog).
The things that matter most to me? Reasonable performance, strong battery life and wireless performance. This laptop has what I need. Oh, and weight makes a huge difference. My previous laptop (a Uniwill N258Ka0) was a 15.4" widescreen that weighed a gazillion pounds (okay just 7.3 or so), while my new one is only 14.1" screen, and is much lighter.
I haven't tested the battery life yet (bought it on Saturday), but I was informed that 5 hours was achievable. I hope so, but I suspect that in six months or so I will want a 12 cell battery instead of the six cell that it came with.
Here's something that needs to be offered, though: a laptop from hp/compaq that has none of the extra crap on it. Oh, and why are people still selling XP Home? It blows.
Perhaps, then, that would explain the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and why it was so quickly forgotten and passed over? Oh wait, it wasn't, now was it. Now, tell me what perceptions of "what is acceptable in society" did this movie challenge?
Sometime it is merely necessary to tell an interesting (possibly original) story and to tell it well. If there is a moral component to the story, or a challenge to the status quo, then fine as long as it is not overdone.
What they teach in Literature classes is true:
Plot, characterizations, and plain old descriptive power are what are needed to make a good story. I would argue that even movement is necessary (not action, per se, but close). If you don't have these then you don't have a story. Instead you have entertainment, action with no goal, movement without direction, and comedy without caring. This ends up feeling hollow. The depth of the plot is what gives the Lord of the Rings its strength and compelling interest, not some challenge to everything society cares about. In many ways this is what the original Star Wars movies had that the last three made did not: sure Mark Hamill wasn't the best actor, but the character was strong and the plot was good so that the movie could be great regardless of who played Luke. By contrast, the last three were so much action, mediocre plotlines, but extremely poor characterization that even great actors could have saved that movie (and I think it had some good actors who did the best they could with the directing and scripts they were given).
In ten years I suspect that Lord of the Rings will remain known as one of the greatest sets of movies ever, while something like (dare I say it) Brokeback Mountain will be relegated to a minority and dwindling fanbase. Movies that do one step worse and sacrifice everything for the message are doomed to failure.
I will say that a well done movie that raises important questions will benefit from it. I think that is one of the reasons that X-Men movies are so popular--they raise important questions about what moral boundaries we may encounter in the future, while leaving it to the viewer to realize that this has implications for our own times. They ask questions about society without being offensive or bashing you over the head with it. THis is important.
[For those that think that LOtR is a moral story, I have two things to say: first, JRR hated allegory, and was a fan of just telling stories, so any 'moral' found is going to be classic heroic traits such as honor, loyalty, bravery, courage, and love; second, the movie does not, via the story, challenge widely held perceptions. Quite the opposite, it reinforces classical ideals. IF you think that JRR had any intention of being a revolutionary with the story, then you probably don't know enough about him.]
Rationality and emotionality are not mutually exclusive. In fact, certain theories of motivation/behavior depend on emotion/affect formation as part of their definition of rational behavior. Expectancy theories are the prime example of this, but there are others. Expectancy theory is a derivation of economic models of rational behavior in dealing with predicting consumer behavior (IIRC).
That does not, however, negate the fact that what you said is true. Humans are not rational. Some people are making arguments for bounded rationality, and that has promise, but overall the evidence indicates that rationality is not only non-existant, but it is also unachievable by humans without external aids.
The real question is if groups of people are able to act rationally. This is what economists and psychologists really need to know. Because if you can predict group behavior, and you know the deviation parameters, you can estimate costs and risks based on that without needing to predict the individual's specific behavior. Of course, from what I know, this hasn't been studied, but I might just do it.
Ubiquitous. Now it makes sense to say that something exists at a certain level of ubiquity--that is it exists in varying degrees of proliferation. For instance, I personally exist at almost zero ubiquity: there is only one of me, and therefore I am highly unique. In dealing with persons, this makes less sense, as every person may said to be unique.
In dealing with traits, however, it makes much more sense. If you have 1000 people and one trait appears in 900, it may said to be very ubiquitous, and not very unique. If, however, it only exists in 3 people, it will be said that it is not very ubiquitous at all--or fairly unique. What if a trait only appears in 1 in every 1,000,000 people--that would be rather unique (although you would currently expect to find about 6,000 people in the world with the trait).
Thus anyone who thinks that unique is a binary condition has made a rather simple logical mistake that should be corrected.
This is very true: as a PhD psychology student, I really wish my matrix algebra and calculus were much stronger. I know basic algebra, and knew the answer to the nice little equation almost immediately, but throw me into anything more complex than basic matrix addition and I'm lost. I am also having trouble remembering certain other things (like geometry) that would be useful when dealing with factor analysis.
Look, psychology is all about statistics and you won't go too far into stats without matrix algebra. The new stuff is much more useful, and requires matrix algebra. Even though the computer does all the work, it is important to be able to do most of it by hand so that you understand it. This is where I am weak, and need to improve my skills.
I know about the stickers, but it is still sometimes easier and quicker to take it through the full-service lane. Besides, I don't remember seeing that on my cucumbers. Not all fruits have the stickers, and even then, I don't like the way self-service lanes generally handle the fruit.
Of course, it's been a long time since I did that, so it might be better now.
THen there is Bloom. Go to one if they are near you. They rock. They give you a scanner at the door (optional, though), and you scan as you shop, and then pay at checkout and move on. It's an interesting solution, but I suspect that they have somewhat higher than usual shrinkage.
Oh well.
Oh, and for those that mentioned the standardization--thanks. I had no idea, but this will help. I can now start memorizing the codes i use the most.
What a waste of programming. At least that channel gives certain companies a solid outlet for ads.
FWIW, why does anyone make feminine hygeine commercials? Men hate them, women ignore them mostly. My wife's quote: "You already know you need it, you have to have it, and you learn what you like pretty early. It is pointless". Obviously Kotex disagrees, but generally it is true.
They probably didn't see you there. They should have, but likely did not.
The only time I avoid the self-checkout is if I have fresh fruits or veggies: I hate dealing with the special codes, the crazy schemes and trying to remember if I am buying Galas or Fujis this time. That's what the cashier gets paid for--to remember those codes.
Oh, and if I see anyone approach self-checkout with a cart, then I move on: Hand baskets or carried items only, thank you very much.
They would only have to reveal the code under NDA to independent reviewers mutually agreed upon by both parties. If you did that, you still wouldn't get access to the code.
Furthermore, the countersuit when you lose (and presumably you would if there was not any code from linux) would not be worth the risk. Let's do the math.
Probability of Winning:.1 (and I'm being generous) Gain of winning: $100,000,000 (again, making up numbers, but lets just assume) Total value of winning:.1 * 100,000,000= 1,000,000
Probability of Losing CounterSuit:.85 (just for arguments sake: note it is _not_ the opposite of the probability of winning--just because you lost the suit doesn't guarantee that they will win the countersuit) Gain of Losing Countersuit: -$10,000,000 Total value of Losing Coutersuit:.85 * -10,000,000= -8,500,000
Adding the suit, we see the overall value of pursuing this is about -7.5 million dollars. Of course I did just pull numbers out of a warm dark place, but you get the picture: there is no value to engaging in the suit, and significant risk. Other potential outcomes and costs should also be considered, such as:
P of Losing:.9 Gain of Losing: -$5,000,000 (and this is likely to be low, but it is essentially court costs plus lawyer fees and a few other things) Total value of Losing:.9*-5,000,000= -4,500,000 This puts the total value of the action at -12 million.
P of Winning Countersuit:.15 Gain of WInning Countersuit: -$5,000,000 (note that this is also negative because you are still going to have to pay your own lawyers, court costs, provide documents etc). Total value of Winning Countersuit:.15 * -5,000,000 = -750,000
The total value of the action is now at -$12.75 million, with other potential outcomes (most of them negative) still available (but not readily coming to mind).
Even at all that, there is the potential for appeals, all of which lower the probability of you winning, if only by a little. In the end, there is little potential for a positive outcome.
This is why these tactics can't be used against proprietary vendors. Of course, someone who is better at law might adjust my numbers, but the idea is the same, and the overall risk is far above any gain.
Pays no dividends? How then do you have stocks? Please provide proof.
If that is true, however, it essentially makes google stocks valuable only in a speculative sense, and it is unlikely that they will maintain the incredibly high cost per share.
There are situations that would violate that even with the most sophisticated sensor.
That said, the place I work has a 'no unscanned bags' policy. I am certain that carrying a weapon into the area would cause all types of alarms to go off (unless you had a plastic or ceramic gun, but that's another story). Weigth sensors could record your weight and allow you in within a certain tolerance (say 25%), which would prevent an intruder from gaining access.
In truly sensitive areas, bringing a guest to work isn't an option. For any areas where identification is the main concern, then a security guard is the best bet. For data access, there is no way to design a perfect system using current technology. Biometric is better than a lot of other methods. Bio+passcode is even better (yes, you might be dead, but if they haven't broken your code, then stealing your finger isn't going to be enough either).
He completely discounts the gaming aspect. Folks, I can't get the drivers to do jack for 3d acceleration, and that's a deal-breaker in my mind. Short of fixing this, there is nothing that will convince me to buy another ATI-based laptop. I have an AMD 3400+ with 1GB of RAM and an ATI 9700 Mobility Radeon. The thing has amazing performance for windows and gaming, handling the native resolution of 1280x800 for almost every game that I've tried without much trouble (no it doesn't do 180 fps, but it is solid). I can't get more than just a few fps (say 10) under linux (Ubuntu 6.x), and installing the drivers also screwed up my resolution settings. I plan to reinstall in a few weeks, and will, at that time, try out Gentoo to see if I can get any further. Maybe I'll try Fedora as well.
The point is, without solid support for gaming, I don't care much about the drivers as long as I get a good display and reasonable 2d performance. But when I start gaming, I need the performance to just be there. There is no excuse for it not to be really freaking easy!
SVG, the W3C standard for xml-based vector graphics is a wonderful development. Inkscape, which implements SVG for non-animated graphics, is a neat little tool.
Here's the rub about SVG vs. PNG, BMP. I have a file, created in SVG, that zips down to about 800k. Natively SVG is about 4MB. The image is 7200x7200 pixels, and so in PNG it takes about 19MB, while in windows BMP it takes an enormous 158+MB.
IIRC, mental illness can only be used to forcibly restrain someone under the following conditions: 1) a competent medical/psychiatric professional declares someone to have a mental ilness; 2) that person be judged by competent professionals to be a danger to themself or others.
This is for the long term. A police officer may temporarily detain someone to determine their mental health and their danger, but if a mental health professional says they are mentally stable OR not a threat to themself or others, then there is no grounds for continued restraint. This advice must be sought immediately--not days or weeks down the road, but within a few hours (overnight at worst).
I am not a medical doctor, nor a lawyer, but i do know more than a little about this topic: I worked for about 1 year as a Mental Health Assistant in a long-term mental health care facility, and I am pursuing a degree in non-clinical psychology (that year convinced me that it wasn't much fun to work with mentally unstable folks every day--the patients weren't too bad though). I feel bad for you if an officer has abused this law, and I hope everything works out.
FWIW, you should get yourself a lawyer--even if it is only a court-appointed guy. He has to help you, and you can force that by asking endless questions. Eventually he'll tell you what you need to know even if he turns out to be a jerk. Best case scenario you actually get a good public defender. They are, from what I've heard, something of a rare thing, but they do exist.
In perhaps your tiny world, but think how many *nix freaks would love to run OSX on beigebox pcs. I know I would. I suspect that it wouldn't even really damage their hardware business all that much.
Think about it--how many people would buy the hardware just for the added support, comfort and perceived (and at this point, only perceived) superior reliability? I know a lot of folks would. A good portion of their market wouldn't really even understand what this option meant. Others would, but they are the cost-conscious type who would very likely never purchase a Mac in the first place. They might, however, purchase OSX at a reasonable price (that is, lower than Windows!).
I think that offering their software could only increase their profits. It would very likely seriously damage their relationship with MS, and that is very likely the real reason that the cost/benefit ratio doesn't quite pay off just yet. One day it will, however, and then MS needs to watch out.
I think that as a group the LDS ('Mormons') are incredibly aware of the effect of reactionary laws designed to garner political power: witness the Extermination Order signed by Governor Boggs of Missouri in the 1800's. It essentially made it legal to kill Mormons without any type of reason other than their religion. Wholly unconstitutional, and even if you are a religion-bashing atheist, you should recognize that this is a very dangerous thing to do.
Now to clear up a few points: Marriage is, as stated, a socio-religious construct and should be treated as such. The only value to having government recognize it is if there is a benefit to society. Some people (including many in the church I attend) will argue that children raised in a two-parent heterosexual home are more psychologically healthy than those who are not. Although there have been 'scientific' studies of this topic, I have yet to see one that really had a handle on the topic because the heart of the matter lies not in determining the effects of environment on one particular child, but in the following problems: 1) separating environment from genetics (this may be impossible, truth be told); 2) defining psychological health in a non-binary method (harder than it sounds--I don't think anyone has yet done this beyond the GAF (Global Assessment of Functioning), which has serious limitations and was developed for use with mentally ill patients, not to rank order normal humans); 3) removing researcher bias (all researchers have a bias--if you meet someone researching a socially or politcally charged issue that claims otherwise, they are likely lying; learn the bias of every researcher before you take their research at any value); 4) controlling all of the other relevant variables and still have a sample size worth mentioning (it is easy in some studies to examine more variables than you have participants, especially if you have a really tough question like this one where getting participants can be tricky--too small of a sample and you are essentially defining each participant as a predictor of their own behavior, which is not a good situation).
In the end the only solution I can see for the question of gay marriage is to remove government from the question of marriage. Ultimately it comes down to a question of religion: if you can find a religion that advocates gay marriage then you are free to get married under the auspices of that church. Otherwise, form a civil union and the government should (but doesn't yet) recognize that as legally binding. The same should apply to heterosexual marriages: these are non-binding in the legal sense, if you want to have the state recognize your legal status, you will need a civil union as well. Of course this requires changing the law in a wholly undramatic and logical manner, so it is unlikely to happen anytime soon. More likely is that gay marriage will be legalized, and those of us who are religious will have to accept something that we find morally offensive, even though there exists a perfectly logical and sane alternative that actually provides more equality to those who are clamoring for gay marriage in the first place.
Prohibition serves us in no way, and likewise the war on drugs in largely ineffective. Are there some who would use crack and herione if _only_ they were legal? Sure, but they are a minority, and I suspect that many companies would continue to use drug testing as a part of the employment agreement, thus making it impractical for a good number of people (think airline pilots: show up high and you're fired, no questions--show evidence of using recreational pharmaceuticals, and you're fired).
Religion in government will never work. The only time it could work is if it were so obvious that the religion represented the truth of the universe that no one could logically or reasonably deny that it were true. This has never happened, although some Christians predict that this will be the exact situation whe
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But legal and moral are not the same thing. Read "Civil Disobedience". The argument is that there are both just and unjust laws, and that we have a moral obligation to disobey unjust laws until they are changed. I think that reasoning applies even more today than it did when the pamphlet was written.
That is the funniest thing I have read this week, maybe month. Thanks. I almost lost it.
Where do I start? People are born lazy? Wow...
First, please show me the research that indicates that this is the case. I'd love to see it. I don't believe it exists, but I would love to see it. Frankly, it flies in the face of I think is the generally accepted position which is that although there is a genetic tendency for obesity (which also influences metabolism), the behavior trait (and that is what it is, although personality trait might be equally true) of laziness is a heavy mix of both environment and genetics. It is also domain-specific, which is a very important thing to realize.
From a hedonic motivation standpoint (read "A theory of Behavoir in Organizations" by Naylor, Pritchard & Ilgen if you can find it; if not, "Work Motivation" by Victor Vroom (1964) will also be illustrative), domain specificity is very useful in explaining why a person who does not engage in physical activity will spend considerable effort on playing video games. It is simply that they don't feel that their affect (mood, happiness, etc) will be as positively influenced by regular phsyical activity as it will by playing video games. Thus they will not engage in physical activity even though they will spend endless hours playing DDR.
From a purely objective standpoint, however, they are wrong. Regular exercise has been shown to be a very effective treatments of depression, as well as specifically elevating mood at the time of exercise. From a psychological aspect, the average gamer would be much happier if they got an hour or two of exercise each day (in addition to gaming heavily).
As far as personal responsibility goes, I have to take issue with that because you are making some very deep philosophical arguments. First, even if a person were born lazy (which I doubt, as expressed previously), would that mean that they could do nothing to change that? If nothing can be done to change that, then I can mostly accept what you say. If, however, they are born that way, but it can be changed, then it is the responsibility of their parent or relatives to do so, and any blame for failure in this is the parents. Personal responsibility is not the idea that you are responsible only for your actions, but that you are completely responsible for all of your actions, as well as the unintended consequences of them (such as unexpected offspring).
The problem with your argument for socialism (which is what you are defining) is that if enough people decide that they can live comfortably from the system, then they will cease to contribute to the system which sustains the less fortunate. This is to be predicted from almost every theory of behavior which I know. Not all of these people will quit working, but there are a number who would rather do other things, such as writing books of dubious quality (some people who would love to write but aren't any good would try it anyways). Certainly you would end up with a few people of exceptional talent and drive (now there's a word that makes me shudder!) that would always want to work, but the idea of allowing those that are just lazy to just be lazy is unworkable.
The idea of socialized care is noble in many ways--on the face of it, the idea of universal health care is a wonderful thing, but, aside from the much-touted meme of personal responsibility degrading under socialism, there are good reasons why it becomes unsustainable if carried to the extreme. Eventually, especially in the system you are touting, enough people quit contributing to the system and it becomes unstable and collapses.
The only way for socialism or communism to work is if everyone who is possibly able to is contributing to the system in some fashion. For it to really succeed and make everyone rich (which is the goal of true communism: to get rich together), it requires that everyone be working in their optimal endeavor (what they are best at), and to be as productive as they can. There is no room for laziness is this model, however.
In fact, being non-produ
Here's your sign....
(if you don't get it, hit google)
Yes, but the faculty have rarely "bought into Blackboard". Instead they use it while holding their nose, cursing and screaming, or with an air of resigned hopelessness. I've NEVER met a professor/faculty member who actually LIKED blackboard.
Clemson uses it, and it really pissed off the professors when it was purchased and the perfectly usable prior interface was abandoned wholesale (developed in house, and not too bad).
Moodle needs to have (if they don't) a "BB Migration Tool" that reads the BB database and migrates all the settings and whatnot into the Moodle way.
Maybe it's just the version of BB that I've seen at my university (and my college before that), but I've never had any trouble using blackboard in Firefox.
That said, I still hate it. Clemson had a reasonably usable system that they developed (and hence could have continued to develop) that they abandoned wholesale in favor of BB, which ALL of the professors I have spoken to either HATE or are indifferent to. None of them actually like it, and a large number refuse to use it on ideological grounds (from what I can tell, anyways). Some use it only while holding their nose, and a few use it while cursing violently (literally, and not just in front of the graduate students, but in front of the undergrads as well).
I wish we had switched to Moodle or another OSS CMS, but that would have been far too easy.
BB, along with others, needs to abandon the idea of software patents. Frankly, patents are a nasty bit of work, and like copyrights they are now doing the opposite of what they were supposed to encourage.
Presumably the cost of deployment, distribution and installation are the same for open source as with closed--provided that you are doing a complete upgrade of everything or a fresh install. In these cases it makes sense to switch.
It is when you are already using software and are not planning to do a massive system overhaul that these issues become important.
Frankly, the licensing may not be the only cost, but it is certainly one of the biggest when you are talking about an entire system.
Okay, so I just bought a compaq v3019 (and, by the way, video performance is a dog).
The things that matter most to me? Reasonable performance, strong battery life and wireless performance. This laptop has what I need. Oh, and weight makes a huge difference. My previous laptop (a Uniwill N258Ka0) was a 15.4" widescreen that weighed a gazillion pounds (okay just 7.3 or so), while my new one is only 14.1" screen, and is much lighter.
I haven't tested the battery life yet (bought it on Saturday), but I was informed that 5 hours was achievable. I hope so, but I suspect that in six months or so I will want a 12 cell battery instead of the six cell that it came with.
Here's something that needs to be offered, though: a laptop from hp/compaq that has none of the extra crap on it. Oh, and why are people still selling XP Home? It blows.
Now to install linux.
(BTW, Turion X2 is awesome)
Perhaps, then, that would explain the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and why it was so quickly forgotten and passed over? Oh wait, it wasn't, now was it. Now, tell me what perceptions of "what is acceptable in society" did this movie challenge?
Sometime it is merely necessary to tell an interesting (possibly original) story and to tell it well. If there is a moral component to the story, or a challenge to the status quo, then fine as long as it is not overdone.
What they teach in Literature classes is true:
Plot, characterizations, and plain old descriptive power are what are needed to make a good story. I would argue that even movement is necessary (not action, per se, but close). If you don't have these then you don't have a story. Instead you have entertainment, action with no goal, movement without direction, and comedy without caring. This ends up feeling hollow. The depth of the plot is what gives the Lord of the Rings its strength and compelling interest, not some challenge to everything society cares about. In many ways this is what the original Star Wars movies had that the last three made did not: sure Mark Hamill wasn't the best actor, but the character was strong and the plot was good so that the movie could be great regardless of who played Luke. By contrast, the last three were so much action, mediocre plotlines, but extremely poor characterization that even great actors could have saved that movie (and I think it had some good actors who did the best they could with the directing and scripts they were given).
In ten years I suspect that Lord of the Rings will remain known as one of the greatest sets of movies ever, while something like (dare I say it) Brokeback Mountain will be relegated to a minority and dwindling fanbase. Movies that do one step worse and sacrifice everything for the message are doomed to failure.
I will say that a well done movie that raises important questions will benefit from it. I think that is one of the reasons that X-Men movies are so popular--they raise important questions about what moral boundaries we may encounter in the future, while leaving it to the viewer to realize that this has implications for our own times. They ask questions about society without being offensive or bashing you over the head with it. THis is important.
[For those that think that LOtR is a moral story, I have two things to say: first, JRR hated allegory, and was a fan of just telling stories, so any 'moral' found is going to be classic heroic traits such as honor, loyalty, bravery, courage, and love; second, the movie does not, via the story, challenge widely held perceptions. Quite the opposite, it reinforces classical ideals. IF you think that JRR had any intention of being a revolutionary with the story, then you probably don't know enough about him.]
Rationality and emotionality are not mutually exclusive. In fact, certain theories of motivation/behavior depend on emotion/affect formation as part of their definition of rational behavior. Expectancy theories are the prime example of this, but there are others. Expectancy theory is a derivation of economic models of rational behavior in dealing with predicting consumer behavior (IIRC).
That does not, however, negate the fact that what you said is true. Humans are not rational. Some people are making arguments for bounded rationality, and that has promise, but overall the evidence indicates that rationality is not only non-existant, but it is also unachievable by humans without external aids.
The real question is if groups of people are able to act rationally. This is what economists and psychologists really need to know. Because if you can predict group behavior, and you know the deviation parameters, you can estimate costs and risks based on that without needing to predict the individual's specific behavior. Of course, from what I know, this hasn't been studied, but I might just do it.
The opposite of unique is what?
Ubiquitous. Now it makes sense to say that something exists at a certain level of ubiquity--that is it exists in varying degrees of proliferation. For instance, I personally exist at almost zero ubiquity: there is only one of me, and therefore I am highly unique. In dealing with persons, this makes less sense, as every person may said to be unique.
In dealing with traits, however, it makes much more sense. If you have 1000 people and one trait appears in 900, it may said to be very ubiquitous, and not very unique. If, however, it only exists in 3 people, it will be said that it is not very ubiquitous at all--or fairly unique. What if a trait only appears in 1 in every 1,000,000 people--that would be rather unique (although you would currently expect to find about 6,000 people in the world with the trait).
Thus anyone who thinks that unique is a binary condition has made a rather simple logical mistake that should be corrected.
This is very true: as a PhD psychology student, I really wish my matrix algebra and calculus were much stronger. I know basic algebra, and knew the answer to the nice little equation almost immediately, but throw me into anything more complex than basic matrix addition and I'm lost. I am also having trouble remembering certain other things (like geometry) that would be useful when dealing with factor analysis.
Look, psychology is all about statistics and you won't go too far into stats without matrix algebra. The new stuff is much more useful, and requires matrix algebra. Even though the computer does all the work, it is important to be able to do most of it by hand so that you understand it. This is where I am weak, and need to improve my skills.
I know about the stickers, but it is still sometimes easier and quicker to take it through the full-service lane. Besides, I don't remember seeing that on my cucumbers. Not all fruits have the stickers, and even then, I don't like the way self-service lanes generally handle the fruit.
Of course, it's been a long time since I did that, so it might be better now.
THen there is Bloom. Go to one if they are near you. They rock. They give you a scanner at the door (optional, though), and you scan as you shop, and then pay at checkout and move on. It's an interesting solution, but I suspect that they have somewhat higher than usual shrinkage.
Oh well.
Oh, and for those that mentioned the standardization--thanks. I had no idea, but this will help. I can now start memorizing the codes i use the most.
If that's true, can I cut just lifetime? PLEASE!?
What a waste of programming. At least that channel gives certain companies a solid outlet for ads.
FWIW, why does anyone make feminine hygeine commercials? Men hate them, women ignore them mostly. My wife's quote: "You already know you need it, you have to have it, and you learn what you like pretty early. It is pointless". Obviously Kotex disagrees, but generally it is true.
They probably didn't see you there. They should have, but likely did not.
The only time I avoid the self-checkout is if I have fresh fruits or veggies: I hate dealing with the special codes, the crazy schemes and trying to remember if I am buying Galas or Fujis this time. That's what the cashier gets paid for--to remember those codes.
Oh, and if I see anyone approach self-checkout with a cart, then I move on: Hand baskets or carried items only, thank you very much.
They would only have to reveal the code under NDA to independent reviewers mutually agreed upon by both parties. If you did that, you still wouldn't get access to the code.
.1 (and I'm being generous) .1 * 100,000,000= 1,000,000
.85 (just for arguments sake: note it is _not_ the opposite of the probability of winning--just because you lost the suit doesn't guarantee that they will win the countersuit) .85 * -10,000,000= -8,500,000
.9 .9*-5,000,000= -4,500,000
.15 .15 * -5,000,000 = -750,000
Furthermore, the countersuit when you lose (and presumably you would if there was not any code from linux) would not be worth the risk. Let's do the math.
Probability of Winning:
Gain of winning: $100,000,000 (again, making up numbers, but lets just assume)
Total value of winning:
Probability of Losing CounterSuit:
Gain of Losing Countersuit: -$10,000,000
Total value of Losing Coutersuit:
Adding the suit, we see the overall value of pursuing this is about -7.5 million dollars. Of course I did just pull numbers out of a warm dark place, but you get the picture: there is no value to engaging in the suit, and significant risk. Other potential outcomes and costs should also be considered, such as:
P of Losing:
Gain of Losing: -$5,000,000 (and this is likely to be low, but it is essentially court costs plus lawyer fees and a few other things)
Total value of Losing:
This puts the total value of the action at -12 million.
P of Winning Countersuit:
Gain of WInning Countersuit: -$5,000,000 (note that this is also negative because you are still going to have to pay your own lawyers, court costs, provide documents etc).
Total value of Winning Countersuit:
The total value of the action is now at -$12.75 million, with other potential outcomes (most of them negative) still available (but not readily coming to mind).
Even at all that, there is the potential for appeals, all of which lower the probability of you winning, if only by a little. In the end, there is little potential for a positive outcome.
This is why these tactics can't be used against proprietary vendors. Of course, someone who is better at law might adjust my numbers, but the idea is the same, and the overall risk is far above any gain.
Pays no dividends? How then do you have stocks? Please provide proof.
If that is true, however, it essentially makes google stocks valuable only in a speculative sense, and it is unlikely that they will maintain the incredibly high cost per share.
There are situations that would violate that even with the most sophisticated sensor.
That said, the place I work has a 'no unscanned bags' policy. I am certain that carrying a weapon into the area would cause all types of alarms to go off (unless you had a plastic or ceramic gun, but that's another story). Weigth sensors could record your weight and allow you in within a certain tolerance (say 25%), which would prevent an intruder from gaining access.
In truly sensitive areas, bringing a guest to work isn't an option. For any areas where identification is the main concern, then a security guard is the best bet. For data access, there is no way to design a perfect system using current technology. Biometric is better than a lot of other methods. Bio+passcode is even better (yes, you might be dead, but if they haven't broken your code, then stealing your finger isn't going to be enough either).
He completely discounts the gaming aspect. Folks, I can't get the drivers to do jack for 3d acceleration, and that's a deal-breaker in my mind. Short of fixing this, there is nothing that will convince me to buy another ATI-based laptop. I have an AMD 3400+ with 1GB of RAM and an ATI 9700 Mobility Radeon. The thing has amazing performance for windows and gaming, handling the native resolution of 1280x800 for almost every game that I've tried without much trouble (no it doesn't do 180 fps, but it is solid). I can't get more than just a few fps (say 10) under linux (Ubuntu 6.x), and installing the drivers also screwed up my resolution settings. I plan to reinstall in a few weeks, and will, at that time, try out Gentoo to see if I can get any further. Maybe I'll try Fedora as well.
The point is, without solid support for gaming, I don't care much about the drivers as long as I get a good display and reasonable 2d performance. But when I start gaming, I need the performance to just be there. There is no excuse for it not to be really freaking easy!
SVG, the W3C standard for xml-based vector graphics is a wonderful development. Inkscape, which implements SVG for non-animated graphics, is a neat little tool.
Here's the rub about SVG vs. PNG, BMP. I have a file, created in SVG, that zips down to about 800k. Natively SVG is about 4MB. The image is 7200x7200 pixels, and so in PNG it takes about 19MB, while in windows BMP it takes an enormous 158+MB.
Your bank uses flash? I wouldn't touch that with a 50' pole.
IIRC, mental illness can only be used to forcibly restrain someone under the following conditions:
1) a competent medical/psychiatric professional declares someone to have a mental ilness;
2) that person be judged by competent professionals to be a danger to themself or others.
This is for the long term. A police officer may temporarily detain someone to determine their mental health and their danger, but if a mental health professional says they are mentally stable OR not a threat to themself or others, then there is no grounds for continued restraint. This advice must be sought immediately--not days or weeks down the road, but within a few hours (overnight at worst).
I am not a medical doctor, nor a lawyer, but i do know more than a little about this topic: I worked for about 1 year as a Mental Health Assistant in a long-term mental health care facility, and I am pursuing a degree in non-clinical psychology (that year convinced me that it wasn't much fun to work with mentally unstable folks every day--the patients weren't too bad though). I feel bad for you if an officer has abused this law, and I hope everything works out.
FWIW, you should get yourself a lawyer--even if it is only a court-appointed guy. He has to help you, and you can force that by asking endless questions. Eventually he'll tell you what you need to know even if he turns out to be a jerk. Best case scenario you actually get a good public defender. They are, from what I've heard, something of a rare thing, but they do exist.
I am in a similar position at my workplace: the standalone works until you actually try to do something and then the proxy/firewall kills it.
meh.
Not so lucrative?
In perhaps your tiny world, but think how many *nix freaks would love to run OSX on beigebox pcs. I know I would. I suspect that it wouldn't even really damage their hardware business all that much.
Think about it--how many people would buy the hardware just for the added support, comfort and perceived (and at this point, only perceived) superior reliability? I know a lot of folks would. A good portion of their market wouldn't really even understand what this option meant. Others would, but they are the cost-conscious type who would very likely never purchase a Mac in the first place. They might, however, purchase OSX at a reasonable price (that is, lower than Windows!).
I think that offering their software could only increase their profits. It would very likely seriously damage their relationship with MS, and that is very likely the real reason that the cost/benefit ratio doesn't quite pay off just yet. One day it will, however, and then MS needs to watch out.
To back you up: another one of those 'Mormons'.
I think that as a group the LDS ('Mormons') are incredibly aware of the effect of reactionary laws designed to garner political power: witness the Extermination Order signed by Governor Boggs of Missouri in the 1800's. It essentially made it legal to kill Mormons without any type of reason other than their religion. Wholly unconstitutional, and even if you are a religion-bashing atheist, you should recognize that this is a very dangerous thing to do.
Now to clear up a few points: Marriage is, as stated, a socio-religious construct and should be treated as such. The only value to having government recognize it is if there is a benefit to society. Some people (including many in the church I attend) will argue that children raised in a two-parent heterosexual home are more psychologically healthy than those who are not. Although there have been 'scientific' studies of this topic, I have yet to see one that really had a handle on the topic because the heart of the matter lies not in determining the effects of environment on one particular child, but in the following problems:
1) separating environment from genetics (this may be impossible, truth be told);
2) defining psychological health in a non-binary method (harder than it sounds--I don't think anyone has yet done this beyond the GAF (Global Assessment of Functioning), which has serious limitations and was developed for use with mentally ill patients, not to rank order normal humans);
3) removing researcher bias (all researchers have a bias--if you meet someone researching a socially or politcally charged issue that claims otherwise, they are likely lying; learn the bias of every researcher before you take their research at any value);
4) controlling all of the other relevant variables and still have a sample size worth mentioning (it is easy in some studies to examine more variables than you have participants, especially if you have a really tough question like this one where getting participants can be tricky--too small of a sample and you are essentially defining each participant as a predictor of their own behavior, which is not a good situation).
In the end the only solution I can see for the question of gay marriage is to remove government from the question of marriage. Ultimately it comes down to a question of religion: if you can find a religion that advocates gay marriage then you are free to get married under the auspices of that church. Otherwise, form a civil union and the government should (but doesn't yet) recognize that as legally binding. The same should apply to heterosexual marriages: these are non-binding in the legal sense, if you want to have the state recognize your legal status, you will need a civil union as well. Of course this requires changing the law in a wholly undramatic and logical manner, so it is unlikely to happen anytime soon. More likely is that gay marriage will be legalized, and those of us who are religious will have to accept something that we find morally offensive, even though there exists a perfectly logical and sane alternative that actually provides more equality to those who are clamoring for gay marriage in the first place.
Prohibition serves us in no way, and likewise the war on drugs in largely ineffective. Are there some who would use crack and herione if _only_ they were legal? Sure, but they are a minority, and I suspect that many companies would continue to use drug testing as a part of the employment agreement, thus making it impractical for a good number of people (think airline pilots: show up high and you're fired, no questions--show evidence of using recreational pharmaceuticals, and you're fired).
Religion in government will never work. The only time it could work is if it were so obvious that the religion represented the truth of the universe that no one could logically or reasonably deny that it were true. This has never happened, although some Christians predict that this will be the exact situation whe