(subject line with apologies to Donald Sutherland)
Since the judge ruled on cool factor, the entire public comment can be based around how cool Apple's products are compared to its competitors, and how its competitors have not copied Apple's coolness, and how the court even ruled that Apple's devices are the coolest.
No, I'm not actually. As I said, I don't mind occasional incremental changes. On the other hand, had they never introduced a new system then I wouldn't have felt a need to change when the software on the site worked just fine in my opinion.
I guess if I were to pick a winner, the very simple/. would have been it. I wouldn't even mind if, occasionally, I randomly got "/." in the corner instead of "Slashdot", but only if not animated.
...which is to say, the one we've had for a long, long time.
I'll probably get flamed, but I kind of like it when some things that have reached a fairly high level of developmental maturity don't get dramatically changed. Slashdot, even when it went a little higher tech, still didn't get dramatically changed from the way it's been for years and years. I actually appreciate that when change doesn't seem to actually improve the purpose.
Oh, I know about the resale angle. I was just curious as to how often stolen phones ended up being put into use. I agree with the system blocking the use of reported stolen phones.
It's not that simple. It'd probably be more accurate to say, "in plain smell". If a human can smell cannabis without seeing it and can establish where it's coming from then that might count.
I don't see drug-sniffing dogs as infallible, especially since they're trained by humans and part of that training is to instill a yearning to please the handler, and that the human handler as a police officer, not a disinterested third party, is interpreting the dog's behavior. The dog can't testify in court, so we rely on the officer's testimony that the dog reacted in the circumstances. This allows an officer to perjure himself without any evidence beyond his word as to how he interpreted the dog's reaction.
Even more to the point, are the phones stolen in robberies and other human-confrontations taken because they want the phone, or are they taken so that the victim can't call the authorities instantly?
I'd expect that cell phones stolen face-to-face would fall into the latter more than the former.
That's why I used the term "State-Capitalist" in my original reply to you.
As to Communism, the idea itself is great, but requires vast amounts of resources and requires everyone to accept being on an exactly equal playing field with everyone else. Life itself has found itself in competition for its very existence, so it's not a surprise that we take competition to artificial levels, beyond merely providing each of us with just enough, but to then start hoarding, not just upper-middle-class hoarding either.
That's part of why I support a progressive tax scale, especially when it's designed to not start taxing heavily on personal income until incomes well beyond simply providing a comfortable life are reached. We certainly want everyone to be successful, as we do not put a demarcated upper limit on what someone can earn, but we do expect those who can afford it to pay a percentage more.
I also think that since just about everyone actively making big money is making it off of the labors of those who don't make a lot of money, there's a social obligation to put back into the systems that sustain those who don't make a lot of money. If income and wealth inequality get too extreme then revolution happens. It happened in France in the 1790s, it happened in Russia in the nineteen-teens. If the rich want to remain alive, let alone rich, then they need to do what they can to reduce how poor those poor are. If people get desperate in large enough groups and see a small elite as contributing to their situation then they may just get violent. I like my comfortable life, so it's in my interest to ensure that it doesn't get too out-of-balance.
If the State is willing to imprison you as a middle manager for failure in a State-controlled project, you're inclined to demonstrate "success" even if it's not true. That could mean finding a way to lower the bar to define what had been a failure as a success, or it could be hiding the flaw or failure until it becomes someone else's problem.
Now, say you're the next someone else. You also have to find a way to demonstrate success, and even if you find the flaw you might not be able to push it back on the previous manager for the previous step. That means that you either have to fix the flaw, to attempt to rewrite the definition of success, or to push it and any other flaws in your step along.
Soviet systems and dictatorships (which since we've never actually seen true Marxist Communism anywhere in the world, and I don't think that it's actually achievable) seem to like to blame developers, scientists, and engineers when they don't succeed. In the US they might be fired, or if they actually broke the law by embezzling from a project they might be prosecuted, but generally there are not criminal ramifications for failure. Even Perkin-Elmer, who cost us millions and millions of dollars by screwing up the optics on the Hubble didn't get wiped off the planet, which they probably actually deserved.
So, when flaws are glossed over and passed along, the end product often reflects all the flaws. That can be a farming system, a tank, a plane, a gun, a computer, anything.
It also got me thinking, that since they use some kind of a wrapper that developers interface to, one could just as easily implement a new wrapper to use OpenGL or a hardware solution if one knows the specifications. Hell, maybe someone will write a DirectX wrapper!
Honestly, given the nature of Chinese copying, plus the kind of overstated and shoddy output we've historically seen from State-Capitalist projects from Soviet governments, I think that the burden is more on the Chinese to make this boast a reality.
Building massive, highly functional supercomputers is not child's play, regardless of your beowulf clusters of hot grits down Natalie Portman's pants experience. It's one thing to cluster a few computers together and to have very specific programs that do very specific kinds of jobs, it's another matter entirely to have hundreds or thousands of microprocessors working in tandem and to be able to simply even allocate their tasks, let alone program for them. There's a reason why every city government has their own supercomputer, they're difficult.
The Chinese government has the resources to build such a computer, but only if they work against corruption and don't delude themselves when they have difficulties in an effort for every middle manager to safe face.
But they're matted widescreen Laserdisc rips. They're literally 4:3 ratio with the black bars at the top and bottom as part of the image itself. If you show them on a 16:9 screen you have to use the zoom feature to get the film to fit the width of the screen, which means that you are only using a very small portion of the 480 rows available in DVD format, as most of the image is spent on those useless black bars.
I think that it's an actual roadblock. I'm not strong enough of a student of physics to calculate it, but one could calculate the total energy shining on a surface at any given moment. I expect that quantity of energy will be less than necessary to provide lift.
Why aren't there more datacenters in Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, etc.? Surely the threat from Tornados could be mitigated and the electrical infrastructure built out more cheaply than the losses due to coastal disasters, no?
Probably because, first, more transmission lines are required to establish a backbone to there instead of just putting them where the bulk of the users already are, second, high tech work generally pays well, and thus high tech workers want to live somewhere exciting or with a lot to do, and third, large-scale coastal disasters have happened much less frequently than some of the midwest natural disasters.
Some startups are getting smarter and including lower-cost cities to make it more affordable for the business, and some bigger companies do eventually place operations in less expensive places.
I don't think that the entire surface area, even with a truly 100% efficient panel, would produce the power needed to propel the aircraft.
So, I guess that you could say that physics gets in the way.
yes, there are solar-powered flying wings. They are not man-rated, they fly very slowly, they are very fragile, and they carry only the most minimal payload/cargo, usually a miniaturized electronics package for a very specific purpose. They're analogous to the folding two-wheel luggage dolly as compared to the crew-cab pickup truck.
If you're feeling adventurous, put in conduit for all of this ethernet cable so that it can be upgraded or added to later. Probably 3/4" or bigger given the size of Cat6a.
At some of my sites we've had to route around rat-chewed fiber by using four pair out of a 100 pair cat3 voice cable that ran the phones, and that's at gigabit speeds over about a 150' length. It actually does work and until they get their rat problem solved that's the way we're leaving it. The point of this is that for fairly short runs, one can sometimes find the cabling able to handle more than it's specked for. I suspect that they'll be able to push 40G over Cat6a in lengths of 100' or less, so even if they just hard-install it, they've probably got 30 years of usage before it becomes an issue. Also why I suggested single-mode fiber.
That's fairly easy to do with a simple closet off to one side with a tinted glass or plexi door. I actually use a 5' telecom cabinet that was designed with some fairly nice wood paneled sides. Friends of ours have a pseudo wine fridge for their large collection of reds in the form of a closet with an AC duct into it. You could combine these, add a baffle to close it off in the winter from the heat, and have such.
I would suggest multiple Cat6a ethernet cables to each room. Two per wall, and if a wall is particularly long, possibly more sets. I would pull four into each entertainment center, and pull them in behind where each of the kitchen appliances goes, into every curio cabinet, where the laundry is, where the hot water heaters and air conditioning units are, and even to where the doorbell is, though that last one might remain unterminated in the wall. The beautiful thing about four-pair twisted pair wiring is that it can be used for not only ethernet and computers/appliances, but for telephones, intercom systems, security cameras, and all other manner of low voltage devices. Pick a nice closet as the concentration point and be sure to label everything so that you can figure out what it all is later. If you're feeling adventurous, put in conduit for all of this ethernet cable so that it can be upgraded or added to later. Probably 3/4" or bigger given the size of Cat6a. Yes, I know that everyone carries on about wireless, but wired really is the way to go for anything high bandwidth, like when all of the TVs are on and streaming different content at the same time.
Consider putting single-mode fiber in too. That could be a bit pricier though, and my guess is that it would be less essential than the copper.
In each room that will have any chance of having an entertainment center, put 2" conduit from the entertainment center location to the rough middle of the ceiling, terminate the conduit in doublegang boxes. That'll be for video signal cables. Or use a triplegang box at the entertainment center end and run eight speaker wires- front left, front center, front right, rear left, rear center, rear right, side left and side right. That way you can use a 4 way, a 5 way, a 6 way, or an 8 way surround sound system without having to change the cabling.
Slashdot Mirror
Hipsters don't have rules, only guidelines.
If Hipsters had consistent rules they'd be using Windows phones or else Kyocera PDQ smartphones from Palm.
(subject line with apologies to Donald Sutherland)
Since the judge ruled on cool factor, the entire public comment can be based around how cool Apple's products are compared to its competitors, and how its competitors have not copied Apple's coolness, and how the court even ruled that Apple's devices are the coolest.
Yes, I felt a little dirty writing that...
No, I'm not actually. As I said, I don't mind occasional incremental changes. On the other hand, had they never introduced a new system then I wouldn't have felt a need to change when the software on the site worked just fine in my opinion.
/. would have been it. I wouldn't even mind if, occasionally, I randomly got "/." in the corner instead of "Slashdot", but only if not animated.
I guess if I were to pick a winner, the very simple
I think that many readers would be fine with a Nexus. Especially a 6. Like Rachel.
...which is to say, the one we've had for a long, long time.
I'll probably get flamed, but I kind of like it when some things that have reached a fairly high level of developmental maturity don't get dramatically changed. Slashdot, even when it went a little higher tech, still didn't get dramatically changed from the way it's been for years and years. I actually appreciate that when change doesn't seem to actually improve the purpose.
Hell, I had a 14" Daytek by Daewoo tube monitor that could handle 1600x1200 in 1996. It's disappointing that it hasn't gotten better.
It's been used a lot. It sticks out obviously when going through a lot of raw data, so it makes for a good catch string on green-bar paper.
Shhhh... Don't let Peta find out about this...
Were the Hex strings loaded with DEADBEEF or B00B135 or something?
Oh, I know about the resale angle. I was just curious as to how often stolen phones ended up being put into use. I agree with the system blocking the use of reported stolen phones.
It's not that simple. It'd probably be more accurate to say, "in plain smell". If a human can smell cannabis without seeing it and can establish where it's coming from then that might count.
I don't see drug-sniffing dogs as infallible, especially since they're trained by humans and part of that training is to instill a yearning to please the handler, and that the human handler as a police officer, not a disinterested third party, is interpreting the dog's behavior. The dog can't testify in court, so we rely on the officer's testimony that the dog reacted in the circumstances. This allows an officer to perjure himself without any evidence beyond his word as to how he interpreted the dog's reaction.
Even more to the point, are the phones stolen in robberies and other human-confrontations taken because they want the phone, or are they taken so that the victim can't call the authorities instantly?
I'd expect that cell phones stolen face-to-face would fall into the latter more than the former.
That's why I used the term "State-Capitalist" in my original reply to you.
As to Communism, the idea itself is great, but requires vast amounts of resources and requires everyone to accept being on an exactly equal playing field with everyone else. Life itself has found itself in competition for its very existence, so it's not a surprise that we take competition to artificial levels, beyond merely providing each of us with just enough, but to then start hoarding, not just upper-middle-class hoarding either.
That's part of why I support a progressive tax scale, especially when it's designed to not start taxing heavily on personal income until incomes well beyond simply providing a comfortable life are reached. We certainly want everyone to be successful, as we do not put a demarcated upper limit on what someone can earn, but we do expect those who can afford it to pay a percentage more.
I also think that since just about everyone actively making big money is making it off of the labors of those who don't make a lot of money, there's a social obligation to put back into the systems that sustain those who don't make a lot of money. If income and wealth inequality get too extreme then revolution happens. It happened in France in the 1790s, it happened in Russia in the nineteen-teens. If the rich want to remain alive, let alone rich, then they need to do what they can to reduce how poor those poor are. If people get desperate in large enough groups and see a small elite as contributing to their situation then they may just get violent. I like my comfortable life, so it's in my interest to ensure that it doesn't get too out-of-balance.
Devo?
If the State is willing to imprison you as a middle manager for failure in a State-controlled project, you're inclined to demonstrate "success" even if it's not true. That could mean finding a way to lower the bar to define what had been a failure as a success, or it could be hiding the flaw or failure until it becomes someone else's problem.
Now, say you're the next someone else. You also have to find a way to demonstrate success, and even if you find the flaw you might not be able to push it back on the previous manager for the previous step. That means that you either have to fix the flaw, to attempt to rewrite the definition of success, or to push it and any other flaws in your step along.
Soviet systems and dictatorships (which since we've never actually seen true Marxist Communism anywhere in the world, and I don't think that it's actually achievable) seem to like to blame developers, scientists, and engineers when they don't succeed. In the US they might be fired, or if they actually broke the law by embezzling from a project they might be prosecuted, but generally there are not criminal ramifications for failure. Even Perkin-Elmer, who cost us millions and millions of dollars by screwing up the optics on the Hubble didn't get wiped off the planet, which they probably actually deserved.
So, when flaws are glossed over and passed along, the end product often reflects all the flaws. That can be a farming system, a tank, a plane, a gun, a computer, anything.
That's what I was thinking.
It also got me thinking, that since they use some kind of a wrapper that developers interface to, one could just as easily implement a new wrapper to use OpenGL or a hardware solution if one knows the specifications. Hell, maybe someone will write a DirectX wrapper!
Honestly, given the nature of Chinese copying, plus the kind of overstated and shoddy output we've historically seen from State-Capitalist projects from Soviet governments, I think that the burden is more on the Chinese to make this boast a reality.
Building massive, highly functional supercomputers is not child's play, regardless of your beowulf clusters of hot grits down Natalie Portman's pants experience. It's one thing to cluster a few computers together and to have very specific programs that do very specific kinds of jobs, it's another matter entirely to have hundreds or thousands of microprocessors working in tandem and to be able to simply even allocate their tasks, let alone program for them. There's a reason why every city government has their own supercomputer, they're difficult.
The Chinese government has the resources to build such a computer, but only if they work against corruption and don't delude themselves when they have difficulties in an effort for every middle manager to safe face.
But they're matted widescreen Laserdisc rips. They're literally 4:3 ratio with the black bars at the top and bottom as part of the image itself. If you show them on a 16:9 screen you have to use the zoom feature to get the film to fit the width of the screen, which means that you are only using a very small portion of the 480 rows available in DVD format, as most of the image is spent on those useless black bars.
I think that it's an actual roadblock. I'm not strong enough of a student of physics to calculate it, but one could calculate the total energy shining on a surface at any given moment. I expect that quantity of energy will be less than necessary to provide lift.
Probably because, first, more transmission lines are required to establish a backbone to there instead of just putting them where the bulk of the users already are, second, high tech work generally pays well, and thus high tech workers want to live somewhere exciting or with a lot to do, and third, large-scale coastal disasters have happened much less frequently than some of the midwest natural disasters.
Some startups are getting smarter and including lower-cost cities to make it more affordable for the business, and some bigger companies do eventually place operations in less expensive places.
I don't think that the entire surface area, even with a truly 100% efficient panel, would produce the power needed to propel the aircraft.
So, I guess that you could say that physics gets in the way.
yes, there are solar-powered flying wings. They are not man-rated, they fly very slowly, they are very fragile, and they carry only the most minimal payload/cargo, usually a miniaturized electronics package for a very specific purpose. They're analogous to the folding two-wheel luggage dolly as compared to the crew-cab pickup truck.
At some of my sites we've had to route around rat-chewed fiber by using four pair out of a 100 pair cat3 voice cable that ran the phones, and that's at gigabit speeds over about a 150' length. It actually does work and until they get their rat problem solved that's the way we're leaving it. The point of this is that for fairly short runs, one can sometimes find the cabling able to handle more than it's specked for. I suspect that they'll be able to push 40G over Cat6a in lengths of 100' or less, so even if they just hard-install it, they've probably got 30 years of usage before it becomes an issue. Also why I suggested single-mode fiber.
That's fairly easy to do with a simple closet off to one side with a tinted glass or plexi door. I actually use a 5' telecom cabinet that was designed with some fairly nice wood paneled sides. Friends of ours have a pseudo wine fridge for their large collection of reds in the form of a closet with an AC duct into it. You could combine these, add a baffle to close it off in the winter from the heat, and have such.
I would suggest multiple Cat6a ethernet cables to each room. Two per wall, and if a wall is particularly long, possibly more sets. I would pull four into each entertainment center, and pull them in behind where each of the kitchen appliances goes, into every curio cabinet, where the laundry is, where the hot water heaters and air conditioning units are, and even to where the doorbell is, though that last one might remain unterminated in the wall. The beautiful thing about four-pair twisted pair wiring is that it can be used for not only ethernet and computers/appliances, but for telephones, intercom systems, security cameras, and all other manner of low voltage devices. Pick a nice closet as the concentration point and be sure to label everything so that you can figure out what it all is later. If you're feeling adventurous, put in conduit for all of this ethernet cable so that it can be upgraded or added to later. Probably 3/4" or bigger given the size of Cat6a. Yes, I know that everyone carries on about wireless, but wired really is the way to go for anything high bandwidth, like when all of the TVs are on and streaming different content at the same time.
Consider putting single-mode fiber in too. That could be a bit pricier though, and my guess is that it would be less essential than the copper.
In each room that will have any chance of having an entertainment center, put 2" conduit from the entertainment center location to the rough middle of the ceiling, terminate the conduit in doublegang boxes. That'll be for video signal cables. Or use a triplegang box at the entertainment center end and run eight speaker wires- front left, front center, front right, rear left, rear center, rear right, side left and side right. That way you can use a 4 way, a 5 way, a 6 way, or an 8 way surround sound system without having to change the cabling.
I think that when these stories come out, they need to publish the names of the aggressors, even moreso than the victims.
Eh, they used to have some term for software designed for somebody's mom... Hopefully that concept wasn't integrated...