I think Google have made a massive error here - by saying they can gauge the quality of a website (and its usefulness) algorithmically is arrogant and short-sighted. I hope they figure this out quickly. I really do hate having to sell stuff, even my own work!
You would not want to use the Google search engine if they did not. You see, there are people out there who create thousands of useless web pages filled with words that describe the things that you search for. The only purpose of these pages is to display advertisements. If Google did not have a algorithm which determined that these pages do not say anything anyone wants to read, Google search results would return pages and pages of this junk. For some queries they return pages and pages of junk _despite_ the algorithm. Would you really want them to turn it off?
So, this is not something new that Google is doing. Google has simply refined its algorithm to detect junk that was slipping through the cracks.
Look, there's nothing Blackberry can do about it and it's not their job.
They are providing a device which boasts security. It is precisely their job. Instead, they've provided the technology for a government to snoop on their citizens communications. Where do i begin with the issues there?
I believe what upset the CEO was the idea that a backdoor given to middle eastern governments could be considered a "security issue". He wanted to separate the issues of the security of the technology from the security of the actually product. He thought it "unfair" to talk about these possible backdoors as if they were defects.
His aggitation is understandable. If there are such backdoors, then extortion was used to convince Blackberry to install them. The fact that a product in which he takes pride is now defective must gall. Of course, this is not the interviewers fault and it was wrong to call his question "unfair".
By "we have dealt with this already" he probably mean "we have already said to the press all that we are going to say".
Counterpoint: Every software tool out there meets that definition, but most people would not call gcc an application.
GCC does not meet my definition of an "application program". Compiling programs is not an application of a computer. It is a necessary step to prepare a computer for use. The whole point of the term "application program" (rather than simply "program") is to distinguish those programs which apply the computer to a task from those which get it ready for use or keep it in good working order.
I believe that the only issue is that it was drawn up for the Neighborhood Association and then submitted, and that if it had been submitted directly it would have been fine. This blurs the line and allows the Assn to say "We had a traffic study performed (included)", etc., which has more weight with the politicians. Its a much grayer area than most blurbs (and/.) will grant it.
I still think that its reasonable in this case to request to have the board review it. Its also very reasonable for the board to say, "Yeah, that's all good, no worries." Its not as if the city engineer actually said something was wrong, simply that something might be wrong. For all we know, it was because of how the report was presented or even how it was received.
You raise an interesting point here. I think it is worthy of discussion.
As I understand the story, Mr. Lacy told the homeowners association that if they disagreed they should hire their own traffic engineer. His view seems to be that since they were "supposed" to hire an engineer to produce an engineering report, what they wrote must be an engineering report. Since it was not prepared by a licensed engineer, there may be a violation.
The point he is missing is that they were not obliged to take his advice. They were perfectly free, as non-expert citizens to tell their congressman that they thought the engineer had made a mistake and explain in detail.
It is understandable that Mr. Lacy would fined this aggravating. I am sure that constituents frequently persuade their elected representatives to ignore the results of expert studies through specious arguments. I am sure the experts hate responding when the representative's office forwards these things to them for comment. The articles seem to indicate that Mr. Lacy filed his complaint after the congressman asked his office to comment on the citizen petition.
You are right that determining whether the letter of the law was violated may be beyond the ability of a non-lawyer. Mr. Lacy may suspect that Mr. Cox did engineering work for the homeowner's association. But even a non-lawyer should have suspected that even though he advised them to hire an engineer, they were probably not doing anything for which they were legally obliged to hire an engineer. (They are not building roads, they are writing to their congressman.) In other words, he should have realized that his case is weak.
Even if Mr. Lacy could show that Mr. Cox had trampled on the edge of the law, he made a terrible public relations blunder by making an issue of it. The public is likely to conclude that he is retaliating against a group which pointed out a mistake made by his department. He now seems to be trampling on first amendment rights by claiming that certain government petitions must be approved by a licensed engineer. If Mr. Cox and company really did find errors in the engineers report, that makes Mr. Cox look even more foolish.
If he honestly thought that he might be obliged to report this, he should have consulted the town's lawyer first. The lawyer would probably have told him that his "reason to believe" that Mr. Cox "may" be practicing engineering without a license is nothing but speculation.
So, I agree with you that Mr. Lacy may be able to stretch the point enough to justify making the complain. I just think he had to try too hard.
No, it's a crime to practice Engineering without a license. As a licensed Engineer, I support the complaint. There is nothing more dangerous than a half-trained or incompetent person that is practicing engineering.
I can agree with that. The problem here is that Mr. Cox isn't practicing engineering. To do that, he would need a client. So far, nobody has hired him to design intersections. What he is doing is disagreeing with an engineer. In public. That is exercise of free speech, not the practice of engineering.
If the public prefers the opinions of unqualified persons after they have been informed that those persons are not engineers, that is just too bad. It is the price we pay for free speech.
I talked to a Civil Engineer and I think that THIS is the concern that should have been more well-voiced in the article. Non-professional write-ups like these are not only viewed by actual engineers, but often by elected officials who have no engineering or technical background, but rely on those experts for advice. These officials usually have the final say, and a 'well written' (but wrong) report in those hands can be a menace.
They can indeed be a menace, but that does not make them illegal. Government petitions enjoy first amendment protection. Anyone can demand anything of our elected representatives. There is no requirement that they know what they are talking about or that what they say even be true. If fact, we have an entire profession devoted to misleading elected officials in this manner.
And there is good reason for that law. IT's to help prevent scam artists, and people whoa re trying to give engineering advice that aren't qualified.
Should it have been used in this case? probably not..but if ti was presented as engineering, and used to try to convince the public that it's sound engineering then he may have broke the law.
Yes, this is a consumer protection law. It is to protect the public from unqualified engineers who take their money and give bad (and even dangerous) advice. One cannot have engineering clients if one is not an engineer. However, these laws do not prevent anyone from publishing their opinions about engineering. Publishing is not "offering to the public" within the meaning of these laws.
Note, in particular the part at the end about "It shall be the duty of all duly constituted officers of the State and all political subdivisions of the State to enforce the provisions of this Chapter and to prosecute any persons violating them." The guy may be senior enough to be considered an "officer of the state" and thus essentially be obligated to report anything that appears to be "holding out to the public of any engineering expertise by unlicensed persons."
It is my understanding that "holding out to the public of engineering services" means to encourage the public to become one's clients. What Cox did his congressman a detailed criticism of the work of an engineer. To says that by so doing he offered engineering services to the public is a huge stretch. It would mean that it is illegal for a non-engineer to disagree with an engineer in public.
The risk is that it will appear that they have knowledge, but there's no actual guarantee that they do. That's the danger. Did you know that if a PE creates a detailed report like that, even if they don't seal it, that they can (and will) be held personally liable for the results if anything goes wrong? Not their employer, not the board, not the state, themselves, personally. That's the distinction, and its a damned important one.
Um, yes. Thats why there are engineering licenses, to help us to identify those who actually have the necessary training. Cox produced a report which looks convincing, but he is not (and has not claimed to be) a licensed engineer. That means the state should not act on his conclusions without having an engineer check them out. This situation is not dangerous.
Lacy actually has a valid point here. Without having someone familiar with the codes/regulations review the work there can easily be critical flaws in the analysis. The Board shouldn't have to defend against every crackpot that that can put together a slick looking report.
Perhaps not, but we have this thing called the First Amendment which says that citizens (including crackpots) have the right to petition. In other words, it can never be a crime to file a complaint with a government official. Lacy is claiming that a crime was committed when this petition was filed because it contains material that "should have been prepared by a licensed engineer". It the law really said that, it would be unconstitutional. The government cannot require that one have a license to file a petition.
That was only an example of a law concerning engineering that most people don't have a clue about.
In this case I'm assuming that document was formatted as an engineering report, and was apparently very well written, to the point where it could be taken as written by an engineer. The problem here is that this man has no background in this field. While his report might be well written, there is no real reason to believe it is factually accurate.
It doesn't matter that the man didn't explicitly represent himself as an engineer, the fact that he could be mistaken for one here is enough. It's all about the presentation. An engineering report is WAY more detailed than just some "simple math and reasoning"
I understand the concept of false implication. If he were sending these things to uneducated persons you might have a point. But this was sent to a government official for consideration by the DOT. Do these officials really want to imply that they cannot tell the difference between a detailed petition signed by a group of citizens and a report signed by an engineer?
The fact that the petition "may not be factually accurate" is irrelevant because it (get this) is not the professional opinion of an engineer!
Sure, a static HTML page isn't an app, but I'd say Google is. Slashdot is. YouTube is.
No, none of those are web apps. A web app is a self-contained piece of code that runs on your local machine and queries the web with XMLHttpRequest() to obtain additional data. All of the sites you mentioned, with the exception of Google when live searching is enabled, are traditional CGI-based web sites in which your browser loads a new page to fetch new content. That's the exact opposite of a web app.
This is frequently true, but implementation details are not what make a program an application program. It is an application program if it is an application (from the word apply) of computer technology. In old-school speak, it is an application program if it can be used to computerize a task. So, a web page which asks for the terms of a mortgage and then prints an amortization table is (or provides access to) an application program. The exact web technologies used to implement it are totally irrelevant.
Is the term getting abused now? It's debatable. A relevant definition for "application" is "a type of job or problem that lends itself to processing or solution by computer". A "computer application" is the program that does that job and "app" is a shortened form of the term. Certainly a website that does the job can also said to be an "app".
You have a strange understanding of what an application is it seems. Any bit of code that applies the power of the CPU, period, is an application. Does not matter whether or not it is solving an "internal" or "external" problem - ones and zeros don't care so much about that distinction.
A CPU does not care. But users do. If in 1990 I had told someone: "You should buy a computer to replace your typewriter (apply your computer to creating documents)." he might have listened. If I had said, "You should buy a computer so that you can format floppy disks," he would have correctly concluded that I was nuts.
The distinction is that a word processing program would convert the computer from an expensive toy into an useful device. Using it is an application of the computer. The format command is a necessary part of the computer, but cannot by itself elevate it from toy status.
So I have to call winamp an 'uti' now? (pronounced, uhtee)
No, because Winamp is an application. It allows you to use a computer (instead of a phonograph, tape recorder, or CD player) to play back recorded music.
The phrase "application program" is intended to distinguish the "useful" programs from the mass of other programs, mainly those that are necessary to operate the computer but do not really do anything that would mean anything to a computer-illiterate person.
Imagine they took away your computer and all of its programs. If the loss of a particular program meant you would have to find a new way to perform its task, then it is an application program. If however, the loss of the computer meant the program's task no longer needed to be performed, then it is not an application program.
This makes sense: I have been forbidden to use computers for a year. I need to buy a CD player.
This sentence does not: I have been forbidden to use computers for a year. I need to buy a virus scanner.
Damn right. An "app" is just an application program. A bit of code that helps you solve a particular problem. It doesn't matter how big it is or where it runs.
Indeed, an application need not be large. It is my understanding that both "app" and "application" are short for "application program". I believe an application program is one which applies the power of the computer to some problem or task which has meaning outside the computer, even if the task is trivial. Programs which are used to repair the computer itself, adjust it, or organize its data are generally not application programs. They are utility programs.
So, calculators, media players, word processors, and stock tickers are all application programs. Virus scanners, disk defragmenters, file managers, etc. are not.
Something happened shortly after Wolfire Games released "Lugaru HD"
Wolfire Games thought they saw double
It was possible to forgive them for thinking that they saw double
The thing that happened happened shortly after it was possible to forgive them for seeing double
The sentence ends before we find out what happened.
You see, if you parse the sentence according to grammatical rules it consists simply of two qualifiers (one of them absurd) which claim to explain the time of the action described by the missing verb. The author meant to say:
If shortly after releasing animal martial arts game "Lugaru HD" on the Mac App Store Wolfire Games thought they were seeing double, they could be forgiven.
If, he hasnt used 'period' and 'full stop' and created enough dramatic pause, i wouldnt have believed him.
but now, i believe him, despite bing has been caught red handed, denied it without showing ANY proof, and then went on to accuse google of something totally irrelevant.
When he adds "period, full stop" he risks turning a half-truth into an outright lie. They are not accused of copying Google's results wholesale. They are accused of copying only those Google results which their users thought worthy. In other words, a filtered version of Google's results is said to be one of the inputs to their algorithm. But, by saying "period, full stop" he indicates that his denial does not need to be qualified in any way. He denies that Google results are copied into Bing results in any way or to any degree.
Let me be clear. His fundamental insight was just a facade, a mathematical lie. He never had or will have a choice in which ticket he receives; hence, it does not matter what the ticket says on the front, back, or even under the grayed out areas. He will always be a loser and a liar.
Unless, of course, your information is wrong. It appears that in several Canadian provinces it is wrong, purchasers are allowed to pick the ticket from some kind of a tray. It is (ironically) a gimmick intended to give players the impression that it is a game of skill. The irony is that this mathematician has found that it really is a game of skill.
Both you and the author of the article have made the same mistake: you have both assumed that lottery tickets are sold in the same way everywhere. Because he assumes that the buyers are allowed to pick everywhere, he does not mention the fact that the mathematician was allowed to pick. Because you assume that they are nowhere allowed to pick, you erroneously decided that the metamathematical is a fool.
Can somebody please explain me what he is trying to do? i just watched some wgets which downloaded some.tar.gz files and that perl is not installed so he couldn't run some scripts. that's it? or do i missed something?
He has already broken into a machine. Now he is trying to install some kind of server software. (Perhaps he wants to host a multiplayer game.) He downloads the software, unpacks it (using wget), but then he can't figure out how to run it, so he downloads more software, unpacks it, and tries to run it again. He does this over and over again.
Ignorance of the law is NEVER an excuse that will work in court. You might argue it's not fair, which is what your post is (a great big whine), but that doesn't change the fact that you are using a system and are completely unaware of how that system works. That should scare you, and it should scare you even more that you think someone else is somehow responsible to tell you how the system you are using works when it's a published standard.
While I believe the client has some responsibility to be well informed about the nature of the services he is using, the professional (in the case the banker) has some responsibility too. In this case it is the banker who is not allowed to be 'ignorant of the law'. It is the banker who as a professional must conform his conduct to technical and ethical standards. He also has a responsibility to deal honestly and frankly with his client. It is not proper for him to use excuses such as, "If you had read the relevant technical standards governing my conduct, you would have known that what I said could not have meant what it sounded like I said."
Many of those commenting here believe that if the bank really did use words which would lead a reasonable person to believe that the bank on which the check was drawn had received it and accepted it as genuine, then the bank should bear the loss. This is not a wholly unreasonable position. After all, if you can't trust your banker, whom can you trust?
As to the implied suggestion that we should all have read the NACHA standard, I don't know what to say. Should we, before shopping at a store, investigation all of the possible laws and regulations that the owner may be obeying just to make sure none of them adversely affect our interests? Do we have to read and understand the National Electric Code before accepting a bid from an electrician? If I hire a lawyer when buying a house, do I have to double-check his work too? Where does it stop?
Yes. The other reason this kind of talk goes through automatic translators so well is that it is all buzzwords. The thing about buzzwords is that you can't pin down what they mean. What does "enterprise class" really mean? What activities are included in "developing our information economy"? The result is that executives in each country have to use the same rigidly translated version of the word or phrase. Otherwise, the listener would not recognize them as buzzwords and might start asking what they mean. Their whole purpose is to stir emotions while suppressing thinking about specific issues.
Google translated that sentence perfectly. He actually used the phrase "life cycle". The rest of the translation has minor errors and obfuscations, but overall is not too bad. Automatic translators do much better when translating formal writing since the grammar is more regular.
Since you asked, here is a human translation which you can compare to the Google translation:
"Microsoft Corporation defends technological neutrality and is of the opinion that the choice of OS should be predicated solely on the characteristics of the OS itself, on bang-for-the-buck, on the actual real-world problems to be solved, on security, and not on ideological considerations."
From our point of view, the most effective way to develop the country's innovation economy is not to create an equivalent of an existing OS, the cost of which would be enormous in time and resources, but to start with the most widely OS, which has been tested by the Russian special services, in order to create our own applications and solutions, while at the same time investing resources in Russian scientific projects which have a future. One should remember that Linux is not a Russian OS, and moreover it is at the end of its life cycle.
(You will note that he is contradicting himself: To use Linux is to create a new OS (at great trouble and expense). But we should not use it because it is at the end of its life cycle.
So, when we try something it is a trial and when we do a trial we are trialling? Got it. This has possibilities:
"I am trialling on a new hat." "The trialling of the accused starts tomorrow." "Trial this cookie, you'll like it." "I am trialling to open a bank account."
Parallel example: One who administers is an administrator. What does an administrator do? He administrates.
NTP solved this ages ago by distributing atomic clock accuracy through the network.
The only problem this will solve is where it is a private network not connected to public NTP servers (or organizations that do not trust public NTP). In that case, they would most likely be able to afford a atomic clock.
If one reads the explanation at the beginning of the article literally (as the person who wrote the summary did), the article does seem to say that this system averages the time from the cheap quartz crystal clocks in all of the computers in order to arrive at a highly accurate estimate of the true time of day. This of course is absurd. If all of the clocks start out between one and five minutes fast, they will converge on a time that is about three minutes fast. So much for microsecond accuracy!
The article suggests that NTP did indeed solve this problem. Reading between the lines I gather that these researchers are developing the next generation protocol to replace NTP. This will allow all of the nodes to synchronize more tightly with whatever time source (such as an atomic clock) is used.
Slashdot Mirror
I think Google have made a massive error here - by saying they can gauge the quality of a website (and its usefulness) algorithmically is arrogant and short-sighted. I hope they figure this out quickly. I really do hate having to sell stuff, even my own work!
You would not want to use the Google search engine if they did not. You see, there are people out there who create thousands of useless web pages filled with words that describe the things that you search for. The only purpose of these pages is to display advertisements. If Google did not have a algorithm which determined that these pages do not say anything anyone wants to read, Google search results would return pages and pages of this junk. For some queries they return pages and pages of junk _despite_ the algorithm. Would you really want them to turn it off?
So, this is not something new that Google is doing. Google has simply refined its algorithm to detect junk that was slipping through the cracks.
Look, there's nothing Blackberry can do about it and it's not their job.
They are providing a device which boasts security.
It is precisely their job.
Instead, they've provided the technology for a government to snoop on their citizens communications.
Where do i begin with the issues there?
I believe what upset the CEO was the idea that a backdoor given to middle eastern governments could be considered a "security issue". He wanted to separate the issues of the security of the technology from the security of the actually product. He thought it "unfair" to talk about these possible backdoors as if they were defects.
His aggitation is understandable. If there are such backdoors, then extortion was used to convince Blackberry to install them. The fact that a product in which he takes pride is now defective must gall. Of course, this is not the interviewers fault and it was wrong to call his question "unfair".
By "we have dealt with this already" he probably mean "we have already said to the press all that we are going to say".
Counterpoint: Every software tool out there meets that definition, but most people would not call gcc an application.
GCC does not meet my definition of an "application program". Compiling programs is not an application of a computer. It is a necessary step to prepare a computer for use. The whole point of the term "application program" (rather than simply "program") is to distinguish those programs which apply the computer to a task from those which get it ready for use or keep it in good working order.
I believe that the only issue is that it was drawn up for the Neighborhood Association and then submitted, and that if it had been submitted directly it would have been fine. This blurs the line and allows the Assn to say "We had a traffic study performed (included)", etc., which has more weight with the politicians. Its a much grayer area than most blurbs (and /.) will grant it.
I still think that its reasonable in this case to request to have the board review it. Its also very reasonable for the board to say, "Yeah, that's all good, no worries." Its not as if the city engineer actually said something was wrong, simply that something might be wrong. For all we know, it was because of how the report was presented or even how it was received.
You raise an interesting point here. I think it is worthy of discussion.
As I understand the story, Mr. Lacy told the homeowners association that if they disagreed they should hire their own traffic engineer. His view seems to be that since they were "supposed" to hire an engineer to produce an engineering report, what they wrote must be an engineering report. Since it was not prepared by a licensed engineer, there may be a violation.
The point he is missing is that they were not obliged to take his advice. They were perfectly free, as non-expert citizens to tell their congressman that they thought the engineer had made a mistake and explain in detail.
It is understandable that Mr. Lacy would fined this aggravating. I am sure that constituents frequently persuade their elected representatives to ignore the results of expert studies through specious arguments. I am sure the experts hate responding when the representative's office forwards these things to them for comment. The articles seem to indicate that Mr. Lacy filed his complaint after the congressman asked his office to comment on the citizen petition.
You are right that determining whether the letter of the law was violated may be beyond the ability of a non-lawyer. Mr. Lacy may suspect that Mr. Cox did engineering work for the homeowner's association. But even a non-lawyer should have suspected that even though he advised them to hire an engineer, they were probably not doing anything for which they were legally obliged to hire an engineer. (They are not building roads, they are writing to their congressman.) In other words, he should have realized that his case is weak.
Even if Mr. Lacy could show that Mr. Cox had trampled on the edge of the law, he made a terrible public relations blunder by making an issue of it. The public is likely to conclude that he is retaliating against a group which pointed out a mistake made by his department. He now seems to be trampling on first amendment rights by claiming that certain government petitions must be approved by a licensed engineer. If Mr. Cox and company really did find errors in the engineers report, that makes Mr. Cox look even more foolish.
If he honestly thought that he might be obliged to report this, he should have consulted the town's lawyer first. The lawyer would probably have told him that his "reason to believe" that Mr. Cox "may" be practicing engineering without a license is nothing but speculation.
So, I agree with you that Mr. Lacy may be able to stretch the point enough to justify making the complain. I just think he had to try too hard.
No, it's a crime to practice Engineering without a license. As a licensed Engineer, I support the complaint. There is nothing more dangerous than a half-trained or incompetent person that is practicing engineering.
I can agree with that. The problem here is that Mr. Cox isn't practicing engineering. To do that, he would need a client. So far, nobody has hired him to design intersections. What he is doing is disagreeing with an engineer. In public. That is exercise of free speech, not the practice of engineering.
If the public prefers the opinions of unqualified persons after they have been informed that those persons are not engineers, that is just too bad. It is the price we pay for free speech.
I talked to a Civil Engineer and I think that THIS is the concern that should have been more well-voiced in the article. Non-professional write-ups like these are not only viewed by actual engineers, but often by elected officials who have no engineering or technical background, but rely on those experts for advice. These officials usually have the final say, and a 'well written' (but wrong) report in those hands can be a menace.
They can indeed be a menace, but that does not make them illegal. Government petitions enjoy first amendment protection. Anyone can demand anything of our elected representatives. There is no requirement that they know what they are talking about or that what they say even be true. If fact, we have an entire profession devoted to misleading elected officials in this manner.
And there is good reason for that law. IT's to help prevent scam artists, and people whoa re trying to give engineering advice that aren't qualified.
Should it have been used in this case? probably not..but if ti was presented as engineering, and used to try to convince the public that it's sound engineering then he may have broke the law.
Yes, this is a consumer protection law. It is to protect the public from unqualified engineers who take their money and give bad (and even dangerous) advice. One cannot have engineering clients if one is not an engineer. However, these laws do not prevent anyone from publishing their opinions about engineering. Publishing is not "offering to the public" within the meaning of these laws.
Note, in particular the part at the end about "It shall be the duty of all duly constituted officers of the State and all political subdivisions of the State to enforce the provisions of this Chapter and to prosecute any persons violating them." The guy may be senior enough to be considered an "officer of the state" and thus essentially be obligated to report anything that appears to be "holding out to the public of any engineering expertise by unlicensed persons."
It is my understanding that "holding out to the public of engineering services" means to encourage the public to become one's clients. What Cox did his congressman a detailed criticism of the work of an engineer. To says that by so doing he offered engineering services to the public is a huge stretch. It would mean that it is illegal for a non-engineer to disagree with an engineer in public.
The risk is that it will appear that they have knowledge, but there's no actual guarantee that they do. That's the danger. Did you know that if a PE creates a detailed report like that, even if they don't seal it, that they can (and will) be held personally liable for the results if anything goes wrong? Not their employer, not the board, not the state, themselves, personally. That's the distinction, and its a damned important one.
Um, yes. Thats why there are engineering licenses, to help us to identify those who actually have the necessary training. Cox produced a report which looks convincing, but he is not (and has not claimed to be) a licensed engineer. That means the state should not act on his conclusions without having an engineer check them out. This situation is not dangerous.
Lacy actually has a valid point here. Without having someone familiar with the codes/regulations review the work there can easily be critical flaws in the analysis. The Board shouldn't have to defend against every crackpot that that can put together a slick looking report.
Perhaps not, but we have this thing called the First Amendment which says that citizens (including crackpots) have the right to petition. In other words, it can never be a crime to file a complaint with a government official. Lacy is claiming that a crime was committed when this petition was filed because it contains material that "should have been prepared by a licensed engineer". It the law really said that, it would be unconstitutional. The government cannot require that one have a license to file a petition.
That was only an example of a law concerning engineering that most people don't have a clue about.
In this case I'm assuming that document was formatted as an engineering report, and was apparently very well written, to the point where it could be taken as written by an engineer. The problem here is that this man has no background in this field. While his report might be well written, there is no real reason to believe it is factually accurate.
It doesn't matter that the man didn't explicitly represent himself as an engineer, the fact that he could be mistaken for one here is enough. It's all about the presentation. An engineering report is WAY more detailed than just some "simple math and reasoning"
I understand the concept of false implication. If he were sending these things to uneducated persons you might have a point. But this was sent to a government official for consideration by the DOT. Do these officials really want to imply that they cannot tell the difference between a detailed petition signed by a group of citizens and a report signed by an engineer?
The fact that the petition "may not be factually accurate" is irrelevant because it (get this) is not the professional opinion of an engineer!
No, none of those are web apps. A web app is a self-contained piece of code that runs on your local machine and queries the web with XMLHttpRequest() to obtain additional data. All of the sites you mentioned, with the exception of Google when live searching is enabled, are traditional CGI-based web sites in which your browser loads a new page to fetch new content. That's the exact opposite of a web app.
This is frequently true, but implementation details are not what make a program an application program. It is an application program if it is an application (from the word apply) of computer technology. In old-school speak, it is an application program if it can be used to computerize a task. So, a web page which asks for the terms of a mortgage and then prints an amortization table is (or provides access to) an application program. The exact web technologies used to implement it are totally irrelevant.
Is the term getting abused now? It's debatable. A relevant definition for "application" is "a type of job or problem that lends itself to processing or solution by computer". A "computer application" is the program that does that job and "app" is a shortened form of the term. Certainly a website that does the job can also said to be an "app".
This is a good definition.
You have a strange understanding of what an application is it seems. Any bit of code that applies the power of the CPU, period, is an application. Does not matter whether or not it is solving an "internal" or "external" problem - ones and zeros don't care so much about that distinction.
A CPU does not care. But users do. If in 1990 I had told someone: "You should buy a computer to replace your typewriter (apply your computer to creating documents)." he might have listened. If I had said, "You should buy a computer so that you can format floppy disks," he would have correctly concluded that I was nuts.
The distinction is that a word processing program would convert the computer from an expensive toy into an useful device. Using it is an application of the computer. The format command is a necessary part of the computer, but cannot by itself elevate it from toy status.
So I have to call winamp an 'uti' now? (pronounced, uhtee)
No, because Winamp is an application. It allows you to use a computer (instead of a phonograph, tape recorder, or CD player) to play back recorded music.
The phrase "application program" is intended to distinguish the "useful" programs from the mass of other programs, mainly those that are necessary to operate the computer but do not really do anything that would mean anything to a computer-illiterate person.
Imagine they took away your computer and all of its programs. If the loss of a particular program meant you would have to find a new way to perform its task, then it is an application program. If however, the loss of the computer meant the program's task no longer needed to be performed, then it is not an application program.
This makes sense: I have been forbidden to use computers for a year. I need to buy a CD player.
This sentence does not: I have been forbidden to use computers for a year. I need to buy a virus scanner.
Damn right. An "app" is just an application program. A bit of code that helps you solve a particular problem. It doesn't matter how big it is or where it runs.
Indeed, an application need not be large. It is my understanding that both "app" and "application" are short for "application program". I believe an application program is one which applies the power of the computer to some problem or task which has meaning outside the computer, even if the task is trivial. Programs which are used to repair the computer itself, adjust it, or organize its data are generally not application programs. They are utility programs.
So, calculators, media players, word processors, and stock tickers are all application programs. Virus scanners, disk defragmenters, file managers, etc. are not.
It means what it says.
I hope not. It says:
You see, if you parse the sentence according to grammatical rules it consists simply of two qualifiers (one of them absurd) which claim to explain the time of the action described by the missing verb. The author meant to say:
If shortly after releasing animal martial arts game "Lugaru HD" on the Mac App Store Wolfire Games thought they were seeing double, they could be forgiven.
If, he hasnt used 'period' and 'full stop' and created enough dramatic pause, i wouldnt have believed him.
but now, i believe him, despite bing has been caught red handed, denied it without showing ANY proof, and then went on to accuse google of something totally irrelevant.
When he adds "period, full stop" he risks turning a half-truth into an outright lie. They are not accused of copying Google's results wholesale. They are accused of copying only those Google results which their users thought worthy. In other words, a filtered version of Google's results is said to be one of the inputs to their algorithm. But, by saying "period, full stop" he indicates that his denial does not need to be qualified in any way. He denies that Google results are copied into Bing results in any way or to any degree.
Let me be clear. His fundamental insight was just a facade, a mathematical lie. He never had or will have a choice in which ticket he receives; hence, it does not matter what the ticket says on the front, back, or even under the grayed out areas. He will always be a loser and a liar.
Unless, of course, your information is wrong. It appears that in several Canadian provinces it is wrong, purchasers are allowed to pick the ticket from some kind of a tray. It is (ironically) a gimmick intended to give players the impression that it is a game of skill. The irony is that this mathematician has found that it really is a game of skill.
Both you and the author of the article have made the same mistake: you have both assumed that lottery tickets are sold in the same way everywhere. Because he assumes that the buyers are allowed to pick everywhere, he does not mention the fact that the mathematician was allowed to pick. Because you assume that they are nowhere allowed to pick, you erroneously decided that the metamathematical is a fool.
Can somebody please explain me what he is trying to do? i just watched some wgets which downloaded some .tar.gz files and that perl is not installed so he couldn't run some scripts. that's it? or do i missed something?
He has already broken into a machine. Now he is trying to install some kind of server software. (Perhaps he wants to host a multiplayer game.) He downloads the software, unpacks it (using wget), but then he can't figure out how to run it, so he downloads more software, unpacks it, and tries to run it again. He does this over and over again.
Ignorance of the law is NEVER an excuse that will work in court. You might argue it's not fair, which is what your post is (a great big whine), but that doesn't change the fact that you are using a system and are completely unaware of how that system works. That should scare you, and it should scare you even more that you think someone else is somehow responsible to tell you how the system you are using works when it's a published standard.
While I believe the client has some responsibility to be well informed about the nature of the services he is using, the professional (in the case the banker) has some responsibility too. In this case it is the banker who is not allowed to be 'ignorant of the law'. It is the banker who as a professional must conform his conduct to technical and ethical standards. He also has a responsibility to deal honestly and frankly with his client. It is not proper for him to use excuses such as, "If you had read the relevant technical standards governing my conduct, you would have known that what I said could not have meant what it sounded like I said."
Many of those commenting here believe that if the bank really did use words which would lead a reasonable person to believe that the bank on which the check was drawn had received it and accepted it as genuine, then the bank should bear the loss. This is not a wholly unreasonable position. After all, if you can't trust your banker, whom can you trust?
As to the implied suggestion that we should all have read the NACHA standard, I don't know what to say. Should we, before shopping at a store, investigation all of the possible laws and regulations that the owner may be obeying just to make sure none of them adversely affect our interests? Do we have to read and understand the National Electric Code before accepting a bid from an electrician? If I hire a lawyer when buying a house, do I have to double-check his work too? Where does it stop?
Yes. The other reason this kind of talk goes through automatic translators so well is that it is all buzzwords. The thing about buzzwords is that you can't pin down what they mean. What does "enterprise class" really mean? What activities are included in "developing our information economy"? The result is that executives in each country have to use the same rigidly translated version of the word or phrase. Otherwise, the listener would not recognize them as buzzwords and might start asking what they mean. Their whole purpose is to stir emotions while suppressing thinking about specific issues.
Google translated that sentence perfectly. He actually used the phrase "life cycle". The rest of the translation has minor errors and obfuscations, but overall is not too bad. Automatic translators do much better when translating formal writing since the grammar is more regular.
Since you asked, here is a human translation which you can compare to the Google translation:
"Microsoft Corporation defends technological neutrality and is of the opinion that the choice of OS should be predicated solely on the characteristics of the OS itself, on bang-for-the-buck, on the actual real-world problems to be solved, on security, and not on ideological considerations."
From our point of view, the most effective way to develop the country's innovation economy is not to create an equivalent of an existing OS, the cost of which would be enormous in time and resources, but to start with the most widely OS, which has been tested by the Russian special services, in order to create our own applications and solutions, while at the same time investing resources in Russian scientific projects which have a future. One should remember that Linux is not a Russian OS, and moreover it is at the end of its life cycle.
(You will note that he is contradicting himself: To use Linux is to create a new OS (at great trouble and expense). But we should not use it because it is at the end of its life cycle.
So, when we try something it is a trial and when we do a trial we are trialling? Got it. This has possibilities:
"I am trialling on a new hat."
"The trialling of the accused starts tomorrow."
"Trial this cookie, you'll like it."
"I am trialling to open a bank account."
Parallel example: One who administers is an administrator. What does an administrator do? He administrates.
NTP solved this ages ago by distributing atomic clock accuracy through the network.
The only problem this will solve is where it is a private network not connected to public NTP servers (or organizations that do not trust public NTP). In that case, they would most likely be able to afford a atomic clock.
If one reads the explanation at the beginning of the article literally (as the person who wrote the summary did), the article does seem to say that this system averages the time from the cheap quartz crystal clocks in all of the computers in order to arrive at a highly accurate estimate of the true time of day. This of course is absurd. If all of the clocks start out between one and five minutes fast, they will converge on a time that is about three minutes fast. So much for microsecond accuracy!
The article suggests that NTP did indeed solve this problem. Reading between the lines I gather that these researchers are developing the next generation protocol to replace NTP. This will allow all of the nodes to synchronize more tightly with whatever time source (such as an atomic clock) is used.