particularly if that exchange is not one that the victim has agreed to.
I'm broadly in agreement with you, and can't condemn the media outlets involved, although I'm not sure I've put all questions to rest in my mind. But let's be clear - an American, especially a reporter, traveling to Afghanistan is in fact agreeing to be kidnapped and killed.
Only on/. could 'just don't answer' be considered Insightful.
I'm'a tempt irony by agreeing with you. If it makes you feel any better, I typed that with my tongue firmly in cheek. I s'pose there's a grain of truth in every joke, tho': It's silly to feel obligated to always answer the phone.
No big deal. Google'd be stupid not to have a procedure to deal with a real attack. The only real consequence of a false positive is that they lost a little revenue, and they got to test their response in exchange. They sorted it out in less than half an hour. Probably they'll try to improve their detection systems as a result, I guess. I can't get excited about one search topic being blocked for half an hour as a result of heavy inquiry unless that topic is "directions to the nearest bomb shelter".
I have a low-cost, public-domain solution I use. It's called "not answering my phone". If I'm working at home or anticipating a call, I keep my phone nearby. Otherwise, I feel no special obligation to answer it. If you have to worry about emergency work/family calls, assign special ringtones to potential callers-with-emergencies. If you are the sort of person that absolutely must answer it regardless, then simply smoke lots of pot until you're no longer that sort of person. Easy!
So your argument is we did support the Taliban, but since we technically did not recognize them as the government of Afghanistan, we had the right to invade that country?
I have to say that's an interesting thing to take away from the phrase "we didn't invade Afghanistan". If you want to talk to the voices in your head, fine, but don't pretend you're replying to me.
So if Israel is ever invaded by a country that doesn't recognize them as a nation -- let's just say Iran -- is that justifiable?
Well, I'm'a ignore the general case and stick with the specific hypothetical. No, because (a) Iran explicitly recognized Israel for years before changing its mind, (b) didn't recognize Palestine until long after the establishment of Israel, (c) Israel is generally recognized, and is a member of the United Nations, and (d) Iran implicitly recognizes Israel by dint of UN membership. (The UN charter requires member nations to recognize one another.)
If not, what magically changed your mind?
It's the magic I call "understanding that different things are not the same".
The case in Afghanistan, unlike Iraq or the things you imagine in your head, is not a matter of cowboy diplomacy. It's a case of (nearly) universally-recognized governments cooperating on the sovereign soil of one to suppress a threat to them both. America's presence in Afghanistan is not an invading force.
Google weakness is their scope. When it comes to information, they are the GM of the 60's.
In house, vertical, total control.
I don't understand this statement, I'm afraid. In what way is information gleaned from pages returned from Googling in-house, vertical, or totally controlled with respect to Google?
Social networks should not be flat but holistic.
Again, no clue here. Flat in what way? Holistic how? They should be looked at as a whole network rather than as individual people? I can dig that, but "flat" doesn't seem to be the contrary case. I'm also not certain what "good design of social networks" has to do with "getting information".
Facebook banks on that a groups people that exchange information that they find _useful_.
Alas, when information is passed primarily through the hands of the masses, what people seem to find useful is that pop-rocks and Coke are deadly, that newts mean water's good to drink, that accepting Jesus is the road to eternal life, and that B1gd1ck5432234 is sooooo drunk. Asking around on a social network is a terrific way to collect anecdotes, recommendations, and more mindless lolling than you can wince at, but is not a good basis for even the lightest and most trivial of research. No, give me a solid search engine paired with critical thinking any day.
Then why did we give them 40 million dollars? Did we make an announcement saying, hey, we support the Taliban... no. But giving them 40 million dollars makes them a client of ours.
Actually, we did announce our support for the Taliban, but didn't recognize it as a national government. So what? We give money to the West Africa AIDS Foundation to do work we support but don't recognize them as a national government. If they organized an attack on the US, we'd ask Ghana to let us bring 'em to justice or destroy them. Doing so with Ghana's permission would not be an invasion.
But will they be able to change US' customers mindset?
Probably depends on the price point. People bought Pintos - even used ones. But you're right: If this isn't vaporware, these guys have a lot of social inertia to overcome. I confess I'm surprised at how much resistance there is to the idea here - the general public will probably be much harsher.
Side note: What's wrong with you people?!? One hundred and nine comments and not a single Dr. Schlock reference?
Damnit.. Didn't I watch a video of a guy on the moon test this with a golf ball and a feather and they both hit the (moon) ground at the same time?
Probably you did. As I noted, the effect of the smaller mass is infinitesimally small - it can be discounted entirely unless you start dealing with very massive objects or very high initial speeds.
But you should be aware that the effect is there: For example, say someone drops a white dwarf star over you near a black hole, and you decide that spaghettification is preferable to a fiery death, so you let yourself fall, secure in the knowledge that you'll fall at the same speed. Well, then, you'll be in for a nasty surprise (hint: It's warm!).
The Taliban was a client of ours until the September 11th attacks.
Uh, the US didn't recognize the Taliban as the leader of Afghanistan. Neither did any country except Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, nor did the UN, and Saudi Arabia withdrew their recognition prior to the war. When I refer to the government of Afghanistan, I mean the real one, not the Taliban pretending he's in charge.
Add in the fact that our attacks are, and have always been, assisted by the Afghani Army, and I'd say we were not invading. You might as well claim that the US has been an occupied country for over a century. After all, Congress was dissolved by Emperor Norton, and the standing Army they've formed is therefore clearly a rebel force.
To put it more succinctly, we're not required to acknowledge every insane person with a couple of guns that claims leadership of a nation.
If you rely on a Google for your knowledge, you get plenty of gossip, urban legends, ignorance etc, and worse you don't even know the people it's from, and whether there is any reason to trust them or not.
That's true enough if you're totally indiscriminate and don't use services such as Google Scholar. Let's say I need information on Iran.
First result: Wikipedia. I know it's pretty accurate if you avoid touchy topics. Since this is Iran, I'll poke around the citations for primary information but pass otherwise.
Second stop: CIA World Factbook. This is accurate. Surprisingly, despite your claim to the contrary, I do know who wrote this information and and how much I can trust it.
Third hit: New York Times coverage. Again, I know who it's from and about how much I can trust them (probably, but corroborate).
And that's just from the first few links of plain ol' Google.
Never? Aren't liquids just a bunch of solid particles as well? Sure they are smaller but on an abstract level, where's the difference? Is there any?
I'm not a physicist, so I dunno what I'm talking about, but I don't think so, no. Calling molecules of liquid "solids" doesn't sound right to me, since at a low level we see zero-mass charged particles and lots of empty space. Matter in different states can have wildly different properties. The difference is the state of excitation of the molecules or atoms.
I have one word to say to you and just one word: Galileo.
You might consider reading the article you linked. Galileo was closer to the mark than Aristotle but not fully correct. As it points out, a more massive object does accelerate more quickly in a vacuum. Outside of a vacuum, a larger object encounters more friction and accelerates more slowly. Mind you, both effects are infinitesimally small in terms of this experiment; as usual, BaG's point is worth a moment's thought but fails to apply to the issue at hand.
Corporation will _always_ help whoever has money and is willing to part with it. They don't care for good or evil, or a human concept of "morals".
That isn't a foregone conclusion, although it's true for virtually every corporation today. There's nothing, aside from greed, that prevents corporations from having ethics built into them. Look at Ben & Jerry's, for example; while I don't agree with every stance they take, the corporation honestly tries to be good guys.
Friends, family, colleagues, and peers as my primary offline information sources? Only if I want gossip, urban legends, extemporaneous answers to avoid admissions of ignorance, and rambling anecdotes. If I need actual information offline, I use reference works. I don't want "passion" in my information; I'd rather have facts and data. Thanks just the same, Zuck, but please go back to your tea party and let the grownups deal with information systems.
Pinyin is well-established as the system for representing Chinese in our alphabet. It is not a matter of choice or opinion.
First off, Hanyu Pinyin does not romanize into the English alphabet: It comes close, but used strictly it returns words which the untrained - but literate - American cannot pronounce.
As far as "no choice" goes, there's Hanyu Pinyin, EFEO, Gwoyeu Romatzyh, Latinxua Sin Wenz, Chinese Postal Map Romanization, Tongyong Pinyin, Wade-Giles, Yale, Legge romanization, and Simplified Wade. And that's just for Standard Mandarin romanization. A transliteration from Cantonese or Chinese Mandarin, for example, will likely return a different result.
While Hanyu Pinyin is the system officially adopted by the ISO and China for Mandarin romanization, its use in the United States is spotty at best. The press generally uses an Anglicized bastardization of it, but actual Chinese people who studied it before immigrating often find it useless and burdensome. (Which is why we had that uproar in Texas some months ago.) The inability of Pinyin to render speakable English words makes it, essentially, China's government masturbating in a hot tub next to the UN, with the press taking photos which it edits heavily before release.
Hm, lets see... perhaps because Facebook and Amazon are niche markets?
-Maybe-. Even if they are a niche market, they're a big enough one to hold the attention of the big chipmakers.
A traditional business model might use large orders, especially advance orders, to offset or defray the cost of setting up a production line or facility, and get most of the profit from smaller sales. Or they may choose only to do production runs for large, inherently profitable orders. Even in a firing-from-the-hip model, large customers cost less per unit in marketing and sales than do smaller ones, very much so when compared to the general public. And of course there's plenty of wiggle room between extremes. So depending on the diversity of the market and the choice of business model, big customers range from important to desirable. Naturally, in a niche market large customers have a greater importance, since smaller sales are fewer.
Presumably, AMD and Intel are selling servers to the likes of Amazon and Facebook 'cause they think it's profitable. If it is a niche market, keeping those guys happy is paramount to profitability.
(I don't think the server farm market is really a niche, tho'. But I dunno; I don't keep up with such things.)
And really, why is a VP complaining about this stuff? That he can't either afford custom solutions or spend the money buying more servers?
Well, because we asked. Well, not "we" as such, but someone asked him and he answered. It sounds like he was answering honestly and openly. I've no problem with that.
Of course they'll say he was unbiased. If he was biased in this case they'll have to review ALL the previous cases to make sure that he wasn't influenced for those.It was the only call they could make.
Don't be silly. I don't know Swedish law, but in America judges are found to be interested reasonably often and nobody reviews all previous cases. Even if they did, it's really, really hard to get an untimely appeal granted. Now, I'll admit that the bases for Swedish law are unusual, but I'd be extremely surprised if they passed a law or rule that would place such a burden.
Unless you can point me to the clause I missed that specifically grants the US government that power the 10th Amendment forbids it. Again, good luck finding five Supremes who can read.
That's not the case. A clause that grants powers generally is as good as one that grants it specifically. Congress has the power to pass laws which are necessary and proper to promote the general welfare. Now, you might disagree that the loan to automakers is not necessary and proper, but surprisingly, the Constitution doesn't require Congress to get your opinion. Instead, it provides for other ways to determine when Congress has overstepped its bounds.
Re:A good translation for default to other languag
on
On the Humble Default
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· Score: 2, Informative
Don't most Indians speak English too?
About 10% of them do, which is enough to make them numerically the country with the second-most English speakers. Of those, about a third speak it as a third language. My experience tells me that about half (with a very wide margin of error) of Indian English speakers can read it well but not have a functional conversation with a native English speaker. About a third of the population is entirely illiterate.
I suspect English language skills correlate fairly well with computer literacy, since both are the product of the higher education not available to many of the population. Since it's certainly not a one-to-one correlation, I'd stick with Hindi.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know much about New York, but I suspect your $50,000 figure is for apartments in Manhattan.
A glance at craigslist confirms your skepticism. 50K a year will get a nice three-bedroom apartment in Manhattan; prices are often lower elsewhere.
particularly if that exchange is not one that the victim has agreed to.
I'm broadly in agreement with you, and can't condemn the media outlets involved, although I'm not sure I've put all questions to rest in my mind. But let's be clear - an American, especially a reporter, traveling to Afghanistan is in fact agreeing to be kidnapped and killed.
Only on /. could 'just don't answer' be considered Insightful.
I'm'a tempt irony by agreeing with you. If it makes you feel any better, I typed that with my tongue firmly in cheek. I s'pose there's a grain of truth in every joke, tho': It's silly to feel obligated to always answer the phone.
No big deal. Google'd be stupid not to have a procedure to deal with a real attack. The only real consequence of a false positive is that they lost a little revenue, and they got to test their response in exchange. They sorted it out in less than half an hour. Probably they'll try to improve their detection systems as a result, I guess. I can't get excited about one search topic being blocked for half an hour as a result of heavy inquiry unless that topic is "directions to the nearest bomb shelter".
I have a low-cost, public-domain solution I use. It's called "not answering my phone". If I'm working at home or anticipating a call, I keep my phone nearby. Otherwise, I feel no special obligation to answer it. If you have to worry about emergency work/family calls, assign special ringtones to potential callers-with-emergencies. If you are the sort of person that absolutely must answer it regardless, then simply smoke lots of pot until you're no longer that sort of person. Easy!
Back *waaaaay* off, man. I'm an *extreme* scientist!
Oh, yeah? Where's your badge?
So your argument is we did support the Taliban, but since we technically did not recognize them as the government of Afghanistan, we had the right to invade that country?
I have to say that's an interesting thing to take away from the phrase "we didn't invade Afghanistan". If you want to talk to the voices in your head, fine, but don't pretend you're replying to me.
So if Israel is ever invaded by a country that doesn't recognize them as a nation -- let's just say Iran -- is that justifiable?
Well, I'm'a ignore the general case and stick with the specific hypothetical. No, because (a) Iran explicitly recognized Israel for years before changing its mind, (b) didn't recognize Palestine until long after the establishment of Israel, (c) Israel is generally recognized, and is a member of the United Nations, and (d) Iran implicitly recognizes Israel by dint of UN membership. (The UN charter requires member nations to recognize one another.)
If not, what magically changed your mind?
It's the magic I call "understanding that different things are not the same".
The case in Afghanistan, unlike Iraq or the things you imagine in your head, is not a matter of cowboy diplomacy. It's a case of (nearly) universally-recognized governments cooperating on the sovereign soil of one to suppress a threat to them both. America's presence in Afghanistan is not an invading force.
Google weakness is their scope. When it comes to information, they are the GM of the 60's. In house, vertical, total control.
I don't understand this statement, I'm afraid. In what way is information gleaned from pages returned from Googling in-house, vertical, or totally controlled with respect to Google?
Social networks should not be flat but holistic.
Again, no clue here. Flat in what way? Holistic how? They should be looked at as a whole network rather than as individual people? I can dig that, but "flat" doesn't seem to be the contrary case. I'm also not certain what "good design of social networks" has to do with "getting information".
Facebook banks on that a groups people that exchange information that they find _useful_.
Alas, when information is passed primarily through the hands of the masses, what people seem to find useful is that pop-rocks and Coke are deadly, that newts mean water's good to drink, that accepting Jesus is the road to eternal life, and that B1gd1ck5432234 is sooooo drunk. Asking around on a social network is a terrific way to collect anecdotes, recommendations, and more mindless lolling than you can wince at, but is not a good basis for even the lightest and most trivial of research. No, give me a solid search engine paired with critical thinking any day.
Then why did we give them 40 million dollars? Did we make an announcement saying, hey, we support the Taliban... no. But giving them 40 million dollars makes them a client of ours.
Actually, we did announce our support for the Taliban, but didn't recognize it as a national government. So what? We give money to the West Africa AIDS Foundation to do work we support but don't recognize them as a national government. If they organized an attack on the US, we'd ask Ghana to let us bring 'em to justice or destroy them. Doing so with Ghana's permission would not be an invasion.
But will they be able to change US' customers mindset?
Probably depends on the price point. People bought Pintos - even used ones. But you're right: If this isn't vaporware, these guys have a lot of social inertia to overcome. I confess I'm surprised at how much resistance there is to the idea here - the general public will probably be much harsher.
Side note: What's wrong with you people?!? One hundred and nine comments and not a single Dr. Schlock reference?
Damnit.. Didn't I watch a video of a guy on the moon test this with a golf ball and a feather and they both hit the (moon) ground at the same time?
Probably you did. As I noted, the effect of the smaller mass is infinitesimally small - it can be discounted entirely unless you start dealing with very massive objects or very high initial speeds.
But you should be aware that the effect is there: For example, say someone drops a white dwarf star over you near a black hole, and you decide that spaghettification is preferable to a fiery death, so you let yourself fall, secure in the knowledge that you'll fall at the same speed. Well, then, you'll be in for a nasty surprise (hint: It's warm!).
The Taliban was a client of ours until the September 11th attacks.
Uh, the US didn't recognize the Taliban as the leader of Afghanistan. Neither did any country except Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, nor did the UN, and Saudi Arabia withdrew their recognition prior to the war. When I refer to the government of Afghanistan, I mean the real one, not the Taliban pretending he's in charge.
Add in the fact that our attacks are, and have always been, assisted by the Afghani Army, and I'd say we were not invading. You might as well claim that the US has been an occupied country for over a century. After all, Congress was dissolved by Emperor Norton, and the standing Army they've formed is therefore clearly a rebel force.
To put it more succinctly, we're not required to acknowledge every insane person with a couple of guns that claims leadership of a nation.
If you rely on a Google for your knowledge, you get plenty of gossip, urban legends, ignorance etc, and worse you don't even know the people it's from, and whether there is any reason to trust them or not.
That's true enough if you're totally indiscriminate and don't use services such as Google Scholar. Let's say I need information on Iran.
First result: Wikipedia. I know it's pretty accurate if you avoid touchy topics. Since this is Iran, I'll poke around the citations for primary information but pass otherwise.
Second stop: CIA World Factbook. This is accurate. Surprisingly, despite your claim to the contrary, I do know who wrote this information and and how much I can trust it.
Third hit: New York Times coverage. Again, I know who it's from and about how much I can trust them (probably, but corroborate).
And that's just from the first few links of plain ol' Google.
Never? Aren't liquids just a bunch of solid particles as well? Sure they are smaller but on an abstract level, where's the difference? Is there any?
I'm not a physicist, so I dunno what I'm talking about, but I don't think so, no. Calling molecules of liquid "solids" doesn't sound right to me, since at a low level we see zero-mass charged particles and lots of empty space. Matter in different states can have wildly different properties. The difference is the state of excitation of the molecules or atoms.
I have one word to say to you and just one word: Galileo.
You might consider reading the article you linked. Galileo was closer to the mark than Aristotle but not fully correct. As it points out, a more massive object does accelerate more quickly in a vacuum. Outside of a vacuum, a larger object encounters more friction and accelerates more slowly. Mind you, both effects are infinitesimally small in terms of this experiment; as usual, BaG's point is worth a moment's thought but fails to apply to the issue at hand.
Quicksand is rather a colloidal suspension requiring an underground water source
Not necessarily.
We are still in Afghanistan, not matter how much we want to forget.
But we didn't invade Afghanistan. We're there with the permission and support of the nation's government.
Corporation will _always_ help whoever has money and is willing to part with it. They don't care for good or evil, or a human concept of "morals".
That isn't a foregone conclusion, although it's true for virtually every corporation today. There's nothing, aside from greed, that prevents corporations from having ethics built into them. Look at Ben & Jerry's, for example; while I don't agree with every stance they take, the corporation honestly tries to be good guys.
Friends, family, colleagues, and peers as my primary offline information sources? Only if I want gossip, urban legends, extemporaneous answers to avoid admissions of ignorance, and rambling anecdotes. If I need actual information offline, I use reference works. I don't want "passion" in my information; I'd rather have facts and data. Thanks just the same, Zuck, but please go back to your tea party and let the grownups deal with information systems.
Want proof?
Forgetting something? Maybe half-forgetting something?
Pinyin is well-established as the system for representing Chinese in our alphabet. It is not a matter of choice or opinion.
First off, Hanyu Pinyin does not romanize into the English alphabet: It comes close, but used strictly it returns words which the untrained - but literate - American cannot pronounce.
As far as "no choice" goes, there's Hanyu Pinyin, EFEO, Gwoyeu Romatzyh, Latinxua Sin Wenz, Chinese Postal Map Romanization, Tongyong Pinyin, Wade-Giles, Yale, Legge romanization, and Simplified Wade. And that's just for Standard Mandarin romanization. A transliteration from Cantonese or Chinese Mandarin, for example, will likely return a different result.
While Hanyu Pinyin is the system officially adopted by the ISO and China for Mandarin romanization, its use in the United States is spotty at best. The press generally uses an Anglicized bastardization of it, but actual Chinese people who studied it before immigrating often find it useless and burdensome. (Which is why we had that uproar in Texas some months ago.) The inability of Pinyin to render speakable English words makes it, essentially, China's government masturbating in a hot tub next to the UN, with the press taking photos which it edits heavily before release.
Hm, lets see... perhaps because Facebook and Amazon are niche markets?
-Maybe-. Even if they are a niche market, they're a big enough one to hold the attention of the big chipmakers.
A traditional business model might use large orders, especially advance orders, to offset or defray the cost of setting up a production line or facility, and get most of the profit from smaller sales. Or they may choose only to do production runs for large, inherently profitable orders. Even in a firing-from-the-hip model, large customers cost less per unit in marketing and sales than do smaller ones, very much so when compared to the general public. And of course there's plenty of wiggle room between extremes. So depending on the diversity of the market and the choice of business model, big customers range from important to desirable. Naturally, in a niche market large customers have a greater importance, since smaller sales are fewer.
Presumably, AMD and Intel are selling servers to the likes of Amazon and Facebook 'cause they think it's profitable. If it is a niche market, keeping those guys happy is paramount to profitability.
(I don't think the server farm market is really a niche, tho'. But I dunno; I don't keep up with such things.)
And really, why is a VP complaining about this stuff? That he can't either afford custom solutions or spend the money buying more servers?
Well, because we asked. Well, not "we" as such, but someone asked him and he answered. It sounds like he was answering honestly and openly. I've no problem with that.
Of course they'll say he was unbiased. If he was biased in this case they'll have to review ALL the previous cases to make sure that he wasn't influenced for those.It was the only call they could make.
Don't be silly. I don't know Swedish law, but in America judges are found to be interested reasonably often and nobody reviews all previous cases. Even if they did, it's really, really hard to get an untimely appeal granted. Now, I'll admit that the bases for Swedish law are unusual, but I'd be extremely surprised if they passed a law or rule that would place such a burden.
Unless you can point me to the clause I missed that specifically grants the US government that power the 10th Amendment forbids it. Again, good luck finding five Supremes who can read.
That's not the case. A clause that grants powers generally is as good as one that grants it specifically. Congress has the power to pass laws which are necessary and proper to promote the general welfare. Now, you might disagree that the loan to automakers is not necessary and proper, but surprisingly, the Constitution doesn't require Congress to get your opinion. Instead, it provides for other ways to determine when Congress has overstepped its bounds.
Don't most Indians speak English too?
About 10% of them do, which is enough to make them numerically the country with the second-most English speakers. Of those, about a third speak it as a third language. My experience tells me that about half (with a very wide margin of error) of Indian English speakers can read it well but not have a functional conversation with a native English speaker. About a third of the population is entirely illiterate.
I suspect English language skills correlate fairly well with computer literacy, since both are the product of the higher education not available to many of the population. Since it's certainly not a one-to-one correlation, I'd stick with Hindi.