Scott Adams refers to this as a "confusopoly"
Telephone companies and airlines use them. Since you can never tell who has the best price, they can all remain in business.
"...an out-of-state retailer is obligated to collect tax on sales to California customers if it has representatives operating in the state who repair or service property bought from the retailer; it has an ownership interest in a California business; or it sells the same products under the same name as the California business."
That means that, even if your website that sells the stuff is located in another State, they still have to charge taxes on sales to people who live in California. It also means that you can't avoid having a store in California by creating a child company that ONLY manages the website. Nor can you set up a deal with an independent company to run the website for you (Unless they run it under a different name)
GI Joes encounter 4 cobra-trained tribesmen, armed with spears. Angle changes, and there are now 6 of them, armed with rifles. Action starts, and the tribesmen throw spears at them. GI Joes kick their asses, and tie the 5 of them up and take their guns.
"Storage capacity" in conventional RAM chips varies, too. There are always defects and so on, but if you make redundant circuits, and add error correction circuits, you can still sell many of these chips as fully functional and reliable memory. Some studies have shown, for example, that redundancy increases the yield of RAM chips from ~1% to ~51%
You can have quotes from a book when you review it, and you can sell that review, for money, to a magazine or newspaper.
Fair use has many parts. One of these is the right to copy a work that you own for personal use. Another is the right to make a parody, which can be sold commercially. Another is the right to quote for the purpose of review, or for use in a paper, report, or publication. (With proper citation)
Sampling is none of those things, and thus it is not protected. Well, I suppose in some cases, it could be used as a parody, but not in THIS case.
TIPS is a program that encourages US citizens to spy on each other and report anything "suspicious". Saying "TIPS2" was just the poster suggesting that, by creating a system like this, is opening the way for a FUTURE expantion of TIPS, where everybody spys on everybody else with cameras, and reports to the state.
"Earth" by David Brin had some of this. All of the retired people down in Florida had nothing better to do than record everyone and report EVERYTHING to the police. You couldn't walk down the street with 10-20 people taping you.
A friend tells me they already have something like it in Japan. He has several shopping cards that keep track of "points" you have. They are made of laminated paper, and are flexable. When you use it, the numbers written on the paper change to reflect your "point" balance.
Besides, you probably wouldn't like the direction privatization efforts (mostly by conservatives) go here. They're usually geared more towards satisfying the business partners of MPs than making sure that everyone can get proper health care.
The same goes with privitizing other things. In BC the Liberals (Who are actually conservatives) are talking about privitizing BC Hydro (Power company) experts say the price of power would go up by about 4x. They are talking about privitizing ICBC (Car insurance) and they cite some study like "Look, the rates are lower in Washington State, and THEY are private!" but the numbers they gave were NOT IN THE SAME CURRANCY. Seriously, they actually gave the US numbers in USD! If you take Albera as an example, car insurance will double to triple if ICBC goes private, and teenagers will experience even HIGHER rate hikes.
Finally, those who say that health care in Canada is great, are wrong. The waitlists are huge for any sort of surgery, and there isn't enough money for doctors and nurses, especially in small towns. And the system is broken, and people are not getting the services they need. But privitization is NOT the answer. All studies I have seen rank Canadian health care as better that US health care. Because as long as the wait lists are, they are LONGER in the US, unless you are rich. We don't need private hospitals, we need MORE hospitals, and MORE doctors and nurses in them.
I agree with the SARS thing. My room mate was extreamly happy "Oh my God, I just saw on the news, somebody recovered from SARS! That's so great!" and I said "SARS has a fatality rate of about 5%. Most people do."
As a side note, the West Nile Virus, another one that people were getting hystarical about, has a fatality rate of 0.2%! And almost all of those are people with a compromized immune system, such as people with AIDS and the elderly. Influenza not only kills more people, but it also has a higher fatality rate.
Especially with stuff like in that report. "Too concerened with liberties" indeed...
For historical perspective, the reason that Hitler gave for invading Czechoslovakia and Poland was that they were too lax, and were allowing terrorists to sneak into Germany. Thus, it was necessary for Fatherland Security to annex them and secure Germany's boarders. Those who opposed were labeled as unpatriotic.
Also, when the Germans passed the 'Law for Removing the Distress of the People and the Reich.' (The Enabling Act) in 1933, it was only supposed to last for 4 years. It was called that because no true patriot would vote against something with THAT name. And it had been written up FAR in advance of the events that caused them to table it...
So yes, it is quite understandable to be afraid when a neighboring country starts to accuse you of being to lax on terrorism, and allowing terrorists accross the boarder. Especially one so concerned with Homeland Security.
Excellent recall. It was called the war of 1812. It started with Maddison invading Ontario to "liberate" the "opressed" Canadians. They didn't wanted to be liberated, and responded by invading. Canadian forces pushed the invading Americans back into the USA. At the battle of Bladensburg the American forces defending Washington were routed in complete disarray, and the Canadians burned the Whitehouse and the Capitol region to the ground.
People, people, apparently everybody's system is different. Because for me, in Opera, Mozilla, and IE, it loads just as fast as any other web document. Well, except that it is 3.5mb, so it takes a while to get ALL of it. But the first few pages are there pretty much right away.
Oh, I know what it is. The first time you click a PDF document, Acrobat has to load. So if you try Mozilla first, you will get ass load times. If you then try IE it will load right away. On the other hand, if you try IE first it will take forever, and then you try Mozilla it will work right away. You will then feel the urge to post "OMFG LOL IE R TEH SUX!!!1" on/.
Of course, that is MY system. Other people's might have issues with one or more web browser, for some reason, I don't know.
Quite true. My dad was trying to recover some of his old (10 year) data from tapes.
*Pushes the "Go" button in the software*
*WHIRRRRRRRR....SNAP!*
"Good thing I have 2!"
*WHIRRRRRRRR....SNAP!*
"...I didn't need that data, anyways"
On the other hand, (some of) our 70s-80s audio tapes still sound ok:D
Oh, and yeah, I've got some 5 year old CDR's that still work fine, and 10 year old CD's that still work (DOTT! Still works, and I accidently left it out of its case on a pile of dust and grit for 5 years!)
Ummmm, I think he was joking. I mean, I don't think he REALLY thought that voting for a person using a computer would make that person smarter...but thanks for coming out:D
Well, if a person cannot alter his/her genes because it will be inherited, then it follows that adults should not be allowed to do ANYTHING that would cause genetic damage. Such as working in a nuclear power plant, getting x-rayed, and so on...
As for the bit about the "magic undo" I think that if technology advances to the point that specific changes can be made to genes with accuracy (Right now it is pretty much a roll of the dice) then it would be trivial to reverse those changes. Right NOW there is no "undo" but there isn't really a "do" either:D
True true. While HCI principals say that ugly error messages and hex dumps are bad, this is what Nielsen has to say about error messages:
Error messages should help users
recognize, diagnose, and, where possible, recover from errors.
All parts of the system, errors included, should use terms the user understands, not system terms.
Further, if one follows Norman's principal of Feedback, any error messages should attempt to describe the nature of the problem, where it occured, and, if possible, why.
Conclusion: If one took a course in HCI, and studied the writings of the experts in the field, one would NOT recommend error message that don't tell the user anything. Optimally, the error message would be in plain English (Or whatever language the app is in), explaining the nature of the error and so on, along with a button to click that gives technical details for tech support.
But at the same time: It shouldn't have crashed in the first place, and you know what, sometimes it is the programmers' fault.
That's Nielsen's next principal after the good error messages one. "Prevent errors from happening in the first place"
I challenge you to find anyone, hell find an MSCE, who doesn't have experience with Linux to install Apache, mod_perl, PHP, and mod_ssl in three hours.
Hell, trying finding an MSCE who can stop the VCR from flashing 12:00 in 3 hours;)
Mind you, my experiences with MSCE's are based on this one guy I know. He was saying that, in an SMP system, a program has to be specially designed to use multiple CPU's, Here is how it goes:
Me:"Yeah, multi-threaded"
Him:"Nope, multi-threaded won't do it, unless you use special options in MCSVC++.NET, it will only work on one CPU still"
Me:"No, anything that is multi-threaded can utilize both processors."
Him:"Wrong, but I don't care what you think."
I forgot what passed next, but it led to...
Him:"No! No matter how many programs are running at once it will still only use the primary CPU, unless they are all specially built in MCSV++ to use multiple CPU's"
He's also been known to say
Him:"Never change the affinity or priority settings for ANYTHING, as you will probably crash your computer"
Hehe, he's a little crazy. He likes to think that he is smarter than me because he is an MSCE, and I am a mere CompSci major...
Good point. I think the simulation is just to show off that if you DID throw them physically, you would get a valid result, which is, in of itself, nifty. Random algorythms are no good anyways, because you only have a good chance that the result is even anywhere NEAR right, whereas a normal algorythm can gurantee a certain epsilon after howevermany iterations.
In highschool physics we did a lab which involved putting 50 pins in a peatry (sp?) dish, with part of the dish wall coloured in. We were to shake it, remove all of the pins pointing at the coloured part, and repeat. Then we calculated the half-life of the pins. Neat stuff. What I did for fun, because my group finished early, was to measure the circumference of the dish, and the arc length of the coloured area. I then assumed that the pins would be aranged in a perfectly random direction, and that a percentage would be pointing at the coloured part eqaul to the percentage of the arc length to the total circumference. My calculations were exactly the same as the observed results for the first 5 (of a total 6) itterations.
What is the point of that story? Well, I think it shows that the assumption that throwing/shaking pins around gives a random direction vector is a fairly good assumption. Either that or two bad assumption canceled. I hate it when that happens;)
Slashdot Mirror
Scott Adams refers to this as a "confusopoly" Telephone companies and airlines use them. Since you can never tell who has the best price, they can all remain in business.
That means that, even if your website that sells the stuff is located in another State, they still have to charge taxes on sales to people who live in California. It also means that you can't avoid having a store in California by creating a child company that ONLY manages the website. Nor can you set up a deal with an independent company to run the website for you (Unless they run it under a different name)
GI Joes encounter 4 cobra-trained tribesmen, armed with spears. Angle changes, and there are now 6 of them, armed with rifles. Action starts, and the tribesmen throw spears at them. GI Joes kick their asses, and tie the 5 of them up and take their guns.
They sure don't make cartoons like THAT anymore
"Storage capacity" in conventional RAM chips varies, too. There are always defects and so on, but if you make redundant circuits, and add error correction circuits, you can still sell many of these chips as fully functional and reliable memory. Some studies have shown, for example, that redundancy increases the yield of RAM chips from ~1% to ~51%
You can have quotes from a book when you review it, and you can sell that review, for money, to a magazine or newspaper.
Fair use has many parts. One of these is the right to copy a work that you own for personal use. Another is the right to make a parody, which can be sold commercially. Another is the right to quote for the purpose of review, or for use in a paper, report, or publication. (With proper citation)
Sampling is none of those things, and thus it is not protected. Well, I suppose in some cases, it could be used as a parody, but not in THIS case.
IANAL
Or, draw them on paper and scan them in later
TIPS is a program that encourages US citizens to spy on each other and report anything "suspicious". Saying "TIPS2" was just the poster suggesting that, by creating a system like this, is opening the way for a FUTURE expantion of TIPS, where everybody spys on everybody else with cameras, and reports to the state.
"Earth" by David Brin had some of this. All of the retired people down in Florida had nothing better to do than record everyone and report EVERYTHING to the police. You couldn't walk down the street with 10-20 people taping you.
A friend tells me they already have something like it in Japan. He has several shopping cards that keep track of "points" you have. They are made of laminated paper, and are flexable. When you use it, the numbers written on the paper change to reflect your "point" balance.
I havn't seem it for myself though.
They'd never get away with it. There would be a HUGE investigation! Just like after 9/11.....oh....wait
Heh, there are about 4 patents on lettuce. Not GM lettuce, just normal breeds of lettuce.
The same goes with privitizing other things. In BC the Liberals (Who are actually conservatives) are talking about privitizing BC Hydro (Power company) experts say the price of power would go up by about 4x. They are talking about privitizing ICBC (Car insurance) and they cite some study like "Look, the rates are lower in Washington State, and THEY are private!" but the numbers they gave were NOT IN THE SAME CURRANCY. Seriously, they actually gave the US numbers in USD! If you take Albera as an example, car insurance will double to triple if ICBC goes private, and teenagers will experience even HIGHER rate hikes.
Finally, those who say that health care in Canada is great, are wrong. The waitlists are huge for any sort of surgery, and there isn't enough money for doctors and nurses, especially in small towns. And the system is broken, and people are not getting the services they need. But privitization is NOT the answer. All studies I have seen rank Canadian health care as better that US health care. Because as long as the wait lists are, they are LONGER in the US, unless you are rich. We don't need private hospitals, we need MORE hospitals, and MORE doctors and nurses in them.
; )
I agree with the SARS thing. My room mate was extreamly happy "Oh my God, I just saw on the news, somebody recovered from SARS! That's so great!" and I said "SARS has a fatality rate of about 5%. Most people do."
As a side note, the West Nile Virus, another one that people were getting hystarical about, has a fatality rate of 0.2%! And almost all of those are people with a compromized immune system, such as people with AIDS and the elderly. Influenza not only kills more people, but it also has a higher fatality rate.
Especially with stuff like in that report. "Too concerened with liberties" indeed...
For historical perspective, the reason that Hitler gave for invading Czechoslovakia and Poland was that they were too lax, and were allowing terrorists to sneak into Germany. Thus, it was necessary for Fatherland Security to annex them and secure Germany's boarders. Those who opposed were labeled as unpatriotic.
Also, when the Germans passed the 'Law for Removing the Distress of the People and the Reich.' (The Enabling Act) in 1933, it was only supposed to last for 4 years. It was called that because no true patriot would vote against something with THAT name. And it had been written up FAR in advance of the events that caused them to table it...
So yes, it is quite understandable to be afraid when a neighboring country starts to accuse you of being to lax on terrorism, and allowing terrorists accross the boarder. Especially one so concerned with Homeland Security.
Excellent recall. It was called the war of 1812. It started with Maddison invading Ontario to "liberate" the "opressed" Canadians. They didn't wanted to be liberated, and responded by invading. Canadian forces pushed the invading Americans back into the USA. At the battle of Bladensburg the American forces defending Washington were routed in complete disarray, and the Canadians burned the Whitehouse and the Capitol region to the ground.
People, people, apparently everybody's system is different. Because for me, in Opera, Mozilla, and IE, it loads just as fast as any other web document. Well, except that it is 3.5mb, so it takes a while to get ALL of it. But the first few pages are there pretty much right away.
Oh, I know what it is. The first time you click a PDF document, Acrobat has to load. So if you try Mozilla first, you will get ass load times. If you then try IE it will load right away. On the other hand, if you try IE first it will take forever, and then you try Mozilla it will work right away. You will then feel the urge to post "OMFG LOL IE R TEH SUX!!!1" on /.
Of course, that is MY system. Other people's might have issues with one or more web browser, for some reason, I don't know.
Quite true. My dad was trying to recover some of his old (10 year) data from tapes.
:D
*Pushes the "Go" button in the software*
*WHIRRRRRRRR....SNAP!*
"Good thing I have 2!"
*WHIRRRRRRRR....SNAP!*
"...I didn't need that data, anyways"
On the other hand, (some of) our 70s-80s audio tapes still sound ok
Oh, and yeah, I've got some 5 year old CDR's that still work fine, and 10 year old CD's that still work (DOTT! Still works, and I accidently left it out of its case on a pile of dust and grit for 5 years!)
Ummmm, I think he was joking. I mean, I don't think he REALLY thought that voting for a person using a computer would make that person smarter...but thanks for coming out :D
Well, if a person cannot alter his/her genes because it will be inherited, then it follows that adults should not be allowed to do ANYTHING that would cause genetic damage. Such as working in a nuclear power plant, getting x-rayed, and so on...
:D
As for the bit about the "magic undo" I think that if technology advances to the point that specific changes can be made to genes with accuracy (Right now it is pretty much a roll of the dice) then it would be trivial to reverse those changes. Right NOW there is no "undo" but there isn't really a "do" either
True true. While HCI principals say that ugly error messages and hex dumps are bad, this is what Nielsen has to say about error messages:
Further, if one follows Norman's principal of Feedback, any error messages should attempt to describe the nature of the problem, where it occured, and, if possible, why.
Conclusion: If one took a course in HCI, and studied the writings of the experts in the field, one would NOT recommend error message that don't tell the user anything. Optimally, the error message would be in plain English (Or whatever language the app is in), explaining the nature of the error and so on, along with a button to click that gives technical details for tech support.
That's Nielsen's next principal after the good error messages one. "Prevent errors from happening in the first place"
The third option is that the police system is superior, and thus catches a higher percentage of dangerous criminals...
Not saying that is the case, but it IS another possible explanation
But you can get the trailer off of their site
SARS is a virus, antibiotics wouldn't effect it anyways, and overuse of antibiotics isn't responsible for it.
Me:"Yeah, multi-threaded"
Him:"Nope, multi-threaded won't do it, unless you use special options in MCSVC++.NET, it will only work on one CPU still"
Me:"No, anything that is multi-threaded can utilize both processors."
Him:"Wrong, but I don't care what you think."
I forgot what passed next, but it led to...
Him:"No! No matter how many programs are running at once it will still only use the primary CPU, unless they are all specially built in MCSV++ to use multiple CPU's"
He's also been known to say
Him:"Never change the affinity or priority settings for ANYTHING, as you will probably crash your computer"
Hehe, he's a little crazy. He likes to think that he is smarter than me because he is an MSCE, and I am a mere CompSci major...
Good point. I think the simulation is just to show off that if you DID throw them physically, you would get a valid result, which is, in of itself, nifty. Random algorythms are no good anyways, because you only have a good chance that the result is even anywhere NEAR right, whereas a normal algorythm can gurantee a certain epsilon after howevermany iterations.
In highschool physics we did a lab which involved putting 50 pins in a peatry (sp?) dish, with part of the dish wall coloured in. We were to shake it, remove all of the pins pointing at the coloured part, and repeat. Then we calculated the half-life of the pins. Neat stuff. What I did for fun, because my group finished early, was to measure the circumference of the dish, and the arc length of the coloured area. I then assumed that the pins would be aranged in a perfectly random direction, and that a percentage would be pointing at the coloured part eqaul to the percentage of the arc length to the total circumference. My calculations were exactly the same as the observed results for the first 5 (of a total 6) itterations.
What is the point of that story? Well, I think it shows that the assumption that throwing/shaking pins around gives a random direction vector is a fairly good assumption. Either that or two bad assumption canceled. I hate it when that happens ;)