I read a figure once that cigarettes and barbequeues combined contributed to about 5% of smog. There was no source given (it was one of those useless fact books), so it may well have come from The Department Of Making Vaguely Plausible Numbers Up.
People counting and reporting paper votes can be audited and observed by all interested parties. Electronic voting machines with trade-secret internals can't. It's hundred-foot-high flaming letters obvious which one is more open to fraud. Perhaps you've seen on the news, in countries where a fraudulent election is suspected, that people get themselves out onto the streets and actually demonstrate. This is part of being a citizen, when somebody steals your vote from you, you do something about it. While current e-voting machines don't actually guarantee fraud, they're so full of security holes, it's like having a fire exit from the bank safe wedged open and hoping nobody runs in to take the loot.
Even if we can, Pepsi can't. I just saw a Pepsi ad in the free paper today which contained dictionary definitions of "zero" and "max", in order to remind us that Pepsi Max is ULTIMATE EXTREME SNOWBOARDING-TYPE COOL or somesuch. Anyway, there was a Pepsi Challenge game which was actually just a re-branded so-so Pacman knock-off. If Pepsi made a game, it would just be a box that pops up asking "Is Coca-Cola stupid and Pepsi cool?" and you have to click Yes.
I'm quite sure hell uses ntl: access, a company notable for getting itself lower customer satisfaction ratings than BT, a paradox which would destroy the universe, except, as Douglas Adams once wrote:
The officer's next point was that I wasn't in the universe, I was in England, a point that has been made to me before.
Don't Sony make a loss on the hardware? Maybe they're banking on the Blu-Ray components dropping sharply in price by the time PS3s start breaking down, but it looks to me more like an attempt to get one bit of good PR not written by Official Sony Fanboy Magazine. Note that Wii will also be always-on, but Nintendo have taken the opposite approach, aiming for minimal standby power usage, waking only to receive downloads of freshly minted swag for your games. So, if there's some evil MTBF conspiracy, two companies had the same idea at once... Let's not dump on Sony's decision too much, this will give the research a nice boost, but it doesn't scream out "Get a PS3!" to me by any stretch.
I'm at the point of encouraging people to Wreck the Vote. I consider all closed-source or non-auditable voting machines to be fraudulent. It is your duty as a citizen to put a brick through them. Certainly, I'll be wielding one down at my local polling station if they ever take away the paper and ballot boxes for something that we're supposed to just trust.
Currently, my Yahoo Mail inbox, an account on every spam-list in the known universe (being old enough to go to school), has 23 junk messages, versus 2,218 caught and put in the junk folder. I'd call a 1% failure rate on a bulk filter pretty good. I suspect they must be using a weaker filter for accounts where there isn't a bulk folder to collect the odd false positive.
Well, it depends on the technology. If you post a humuorous swipe at, say, the iPod, then the vast swathes of raving apple fanboys will pounce on your post, and mod it as Troll, because the iPod really is the best device for 90% of people's use cases, and the suggestion it's in any way a fashion item and that people should consider the (Archos/iAudio/iRiver/Creative) that the poster has is heresy.
Of course, I'll be modded as Troll for saying this, but anyone claiming they'll be modded as Troll is instantly modded Insightful to prove the poster wrong. If real life was like this, everyone would become millionares by going down the bank and telling the manager they had no money.
Slashdot has a high concentration of Linux users. So, where's the counter-fanboying, the cries of OMG PS3 RUNS LINUX IT MUST BE COOL!!!!ONEONEONE? Could it be that just putting Linux in a shiny box isn't enough to impress people these days? Shocking, I know!
Yes, that's why I said the Lexmark case was about the chips... I used it to provide contrast to the current case, and the suggestion the DMCA could be used to fight back; I wasn't suggesting that these (ink not digital, ink patented not copyrighted) are the reasons that Lexmark's case was flawed.
Definition: By "right" here, I mean what I consider to be somebody's rights, rather than what the law considers. I'm not saying I'm the ultimate judge of everything here, just stating my opinion. With that necessary diversion over:
I never quite get this idea that one right, whatever you may pick, say, "freedom of speech", is a total absolute that overrides all other rights. "Free speech" is one right. "A fair trial" is another right. Sometimes, like in this case, the rights conflict. It's clear if all the papers printed headline stories before a trial asserting that the accused is guilty, they wouldn't receive a fair trial. It's hard enough for terror suspects to get a fair trial anyway, given the number of high-profile arrests (on suspicion of being brown) and subsequent low-profile releases without charge.
So, in these situations, you need to compromise. It's not as if we're secretly being censored in these matters - this evening, one of the stories on PM on BBC Radio Four was the police statement to the effect of "reporters are reminded of their duty not to prejudice the trial". So, we know that the Daily Mail has to hold back from its desired Bring Back Hanging For These Sick Terrorist Traitors opinion piece (but is free to change "terrorist" for "pedophile", "illegal immigrant" or "single mother" as required).
In any case, most people would already accept that certain things cannot be defended under free speech. Few would argue that banning contract killings interfered with the "free speech" of the orderer, as they had to use words to make the contract. Again, I suspect little support for perjury being swept away as a free speech issue. If perjury is wrong because it damages the cause of justice, then printing newspaper stories that ruin somebody's chance of a fair trial is also wrong.
The problem I've found with MMORPGs with a lack of classes is kids can level up all day in the school holidays while I'm at work, and if I ever dare wander near a PK area, I'm instantly slaughtered by a 12-year-old.
Turnabout, maybe not - Lexmark already tried to invoke the DMCA over the chips in cartridges. I don't see how ink is digital, and in any case, this is a patent issue, not a copyright one. The patents will be on specific formulation details of ink, not the concept of ink. I don't know enough about ink or their formulas to comment on the obviousness of a given formula, but you're achieving the impossible of underestimating the ability of patent examiners when you suggest they didn't notice this "ink" stuff wasn't a new invention.
This is happening with all printer makes. I used to trust Epson printers - our C42UX is a complete joke. The heads clog all the time, and all printouts are for some reason "dirty", with smears and marks all over them. It *feels* cheap. The supposedly premium Xerox at work has bugs in the print system that cause image corruption, colour "correction" that fixes photos to give people bright red faces, jams if you try to print forms on it (using regular paper), and a display that's supposed to report how far a print job's done, but always reports you're on page 0.
Take, for example, DS vs PSP. Any look at sales charts will tell you that the DS is ahead, but PSP is ahead in searches. Unless there's a whole load of Paint Shop Pro fans skewing the results.
What about the jobs at everyone from Digital Research onwards that Microsoft crushed? If "That's just business", then so is this. If businesses should play nicely, then it's time Microsoft did so. Nobody cares when somebody finally hits the playground bully back. I'm sure the people at Microsoft are smart enough to cope.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd like the powersaving feature of harnessing the energy of the Aurora Borealis, a fantastic idea by Ted Stevens which sadly remains unimplemented in current OSes.
I read a figure once that cigarettes and barbequeues combined contributed to about 5% of smog. There was no source given (it was one of those useless fact books), so it may well have come from The Department Of Making Vaguely Plausible Numbers Up.
People counting and reporting paper votes can be audited and observed by all interested parties. Electronic voting machines with trade-secret internals can't. It's hundred-foot-high flaming letters obvious which one is more open to fraud. Perhaps you've seen on the news, in countries where a fraudulent election is suspected, that people get themselves out onto the streets and actually demonstrate. This is part of being a citizen, when somebody steals your vote from you, you do something about it. While current e-voting machines don't actually guarantee fraud, they're so full of security holes, it's like having a fire exit from the bank safe wedged open and hoping nobody runs in to take the loot.
Even if we can, Pepsi can't. I just saw a Pepsi ad in the free paper today which contained dictionary definitions of "zero" and "max", in order to remind us that Pepsi Max is ULTIMATE EXTREME SNOWBOARDING-TYPE COOL or somesuch. Anyway, there was a Pepsi Challenge game which was actually just a re-branded so-so Pacman knock-off. If Pepsi made a game, it would just be a box that pops up asking "Is Coca-Cola stupid and Pepsi cool?" and you have to click Yes.
Don't Sony make a loss on the hardware? Maybe they're banking on the Blu-Ray components dropping sharply in price by the time PS3s start breaking down, but it looks to me more like an attempt to get one bit of good PR not written by Official Sony Fanboy Magazine. Note that Wii will also be always-on, but Nintendo have taken the opposite approach, aiming for minimal standby power usage, waking only to receive downloads of freshly minted swag for your games. So, if there's some evil MTBF conspiracy, two companies had the same idea at once... Let's not dump on Sony's decision too much, this will give the research a nice boost, but it doesn't scream out "Get a PS3!" to me by any stretch.
I'm at the point of encouraging people to Wreck the Vote. I consider all closed-source or non-auditable voting machines to be fraudulent. It is your duty as a citizen to put a brick through them. Certainly, I'll be wielding one down at my local polling station if they ever take away the paper and ballot boxes for something that we're supposed to just trust.
Dear vistic,
We haven't been looking at Blu-Ray sales. Nobody knew they were out - we lost all track of time as our watches broke.
Signed, Timex.
Dear [electronics manufacturer],
Wonder why [new format with uncertain future] isn't selling?
Remember [format that flopped]? We do.
Signed, the buying public.
Currently, my Yahoo Mail inbox, an account on every spam-list in the known universe (being old enough to go to school), has 23 junk messages, versus 2,218 caught and put in the junk folder. I'd call a 1% failure rate on a bulk filter pretty good. I suspect they must be using a weaker filter for accounts where there isn't a bulk folder to collect the odd false positive.
Well, it depends on the technology. If you post a humuorous swipe at, say, the iPod, then the vast swathes of raving apple fanboys will pounce on your post, and mod it as Troll, because the iPod really is the best device for 90% of people's use cases, and the suggestion it's in any way a fashion item and that people should consider the (Archos/iAudio/iRiver/Creative) that the poster has is heresy.
Of course, I'll be modded as Troll for saying this, but anyone claiming they'll be modded as Troll is instantly modded Insightful to prove the poster wrong. If real life was like this, everyone would become millionares by going down the bank and telling the manager they had no money.
Slashdot has a high concentration of Linux users. So, where's the counter-fanboying, the cries of OMG PS3 RUNS LINUX IT MUST BE COOL!!!!ONEONEONE? Could it be that just putting Linux in a shiny box isn't enough to impress people these days? Shocking, I know!
It sounds as likely as the story that 3" disks were invented because 3.5" disks didn't fit into standard Japanese envelopes.
3" disks were clearly invented because who needs 800k, 178k should be enough for anyone!
Yes, that's why I said the Lexmark case was about the chips... I used it to provide contrast to the current case, and the suggestion the DMCA could be used to fight back; I wasn't suggesting that these (ink not digital, ink patented not copyrighted) are the reasons that Lexmark's case was flawed.
Well, I'll let you off this time then!
I was making a joke based on the two meanings of the word "class", in the game, and in school.
Seriously, do I have to write OMG DYSWIDT? LOL! every time I make a joke?
Wait, don't answer that.
Definition: By "right" here, I mean what I consider to be somebody's rights, rather than what the law considers. I'm not saying I'm the ultimate judge of everything here, just stating my opinion. With that necessary diversion over:
I never quite get this idea that one right, whatever you may pick, say, "freedom of speech", is a total absolute that overrides all other rights. "Free speech" is one right. "A fair trial" is another right. Sometimes, like in this case, the rights conflict. It's clear if all the papers printed headline stories before a trial asserting that the accused is guilty, they wouldn't receive a fair trial. It's hard enough for terror suspects to get a fair trial anyway, given the number of high-profile arrests (on suspicion of being brown) and subsequent low-profile releases without charge.
So, in these situations, you need to compromise. It's not as if we're secretly being censored in these matters - this evening, one of the stories on PM on BBC Radio Four was the police statement to the effect of "reporters are reminded of their duty not to prejudice the trial". So, we know that the Daily Mail has to hold back from its desired Bring Back Hanging For These Sick Terrorist Traitors opinion piece (but is free to change "terrorist" for "pedophile", "illegal immigrant" or "single mother" as required).
In any case, most people would already accept that certain things cannot be defended under free speech. Few would argue that banning contract killings interfered with the "free speech" of the orderer, as they had to use words to make the contract. Again, I suspect little support for perjury being swept away as a free speech issue. If perjury is wrong because it damages the cause of justice, then printing newspaper stories that ruin somebody's chance of a fair trial is also wrong.
The problem I've found with MMORPGs with a lack of classes is kids can level up all day in the school holidays while I'm at work, and if I ever dare wander near a PK area, I'm instantly slaughtered by a 12-year-old.
Turnabout, maybe not - Lexmark already tried to invoke the DMCA over the chips in cartridges. I don't see how ink is digital, and in any case, this is a patent issue, not a copyright one. The patents will be on specific formulation details of ink, not the concept of ink. I don't know enough about ink or their formulas to comment on the obviousness of a given formula, but you're achieving the impossible of underestimating the ability of patent examiners when you suggest they didn't notice this "ink" stuff wasn't a new invention.
This is happening with all printer makes. I used to trust Epson printers - our C42UX is a complete joke. The heads clog all the time, and all printouts are for some reason "dirty", with smears and marks all over them. It *feels* cheap. The supposedly premium Xerox at work has bugs in the print system that cause image corruption, colour "correction" that fixes photos to give people bright red faces, jams if you try to print forms on it (using regular paper), and a display that's supposed to report how far a print job's done, but always reports you're on page 0.
A loss of $2.60? Surely some worker could save the company by skipping lunch!
Well, not quite (sometimes you have to press B or C), but here you go. It appears to work with DOSbox if needs be.
KSnakeRace or GNibbles anyone?
Take, for example, DS vs PSP. Any look at sales charts will tell you that the DS is ahead, but PSP is ahead in searches. Unless there's a whole load of Paint Shop Pro fans skewing the results.
What about the jobs at everyone from Digital Research onwards that Microsoft crushed? If "That's just business", then so is this. If businesses should play nicely, then it's time Microsoft did so. Nobody cares when somebody finally hits the playground bully back. I'm sure the people at Microsoft are smart enough to cope.