You assume I didn't pay attention. I realized that I used the word "wage" after I wrote it, and that's not the best word. But even if you include all those other factors, it still seems unlikely.
I wonder if Bill Gates and the rest of the guys at the top were considered in that $300,000 figure. Seems likely, since that wage seems ridiculously high.
This is why statistics are often meaningless, or the meaning isn't clear =).
Starter Edition: We'll get you started on Microsoft so that you'll become just another piglet sucking on the tit of one of the largest corporations in history. Get Starter, click the Start button, and Start giving us your money.
Re:Don't post from a position of ignorance
on
Geeks and Poker?
·
· Score: 0, Flamebait
I'm going reply to your post, since the others are essentially redundant.
Even if there is minimal skill involved in a game, there is enough for professionals to exist and to beat out novices in the long run, thus forming the illusion that it's a game of skill. Poker DOES involve skill, but far, far, far, far, far less than a game such a Chess, other board games, video games, sports, etc where almost all or all of the components to success are dependent directly upon skill and experience instead of luck.
That is all. Please shut up with your pro-gambling garbage =).
And we have a winner... someone who has never played poker and doesn't have a clue about the game. I tell you what - try playing against someone who knows what they are doing for real money for an extended period of time. After you come back having lost everything, tell me its not a game of skill.
You're quite the jackass in your assumption. I have, in fact, been playing poker since I was a kid, but only every-so-often. I know how to play several variations on the game, in fact. I win my fair share of the time when I do play.
I didn't say it had NO skill involved. Just minimal. And that's provable.
It's amazing to me how many people take poker seriously. No matter how good one is at the game, one cannot really control it. There's a very limited degree of skill involved, and that skill is basically just to maximize your probability of not losing everything you throw on the pile.
I avoid the game like the plague, except when it's small-stakes and for fun with a few friends.
The big story here isn't that Intel has done anything "wrong", but they've done something that they haven't done in the past... something that AMD used to do when they were trailing behind Intel.
Now the shoe's on the other foot. AMD has taken one of the signs that used to say Intel was the market leader.
I think that your comments have truth, but I'd like to append some of my own:
This really gets down to the heart of intellectual property ideologies. I, for one, don't believe any human being has the right to declare something ethereal to be "theirs". The entire concept is bogus because of one principle that I especially hold true: Nothing is invented -- only discovered.
And contrary to the seeming philosophy of the white man over the last several millenia, finders != keepers.
Yes...I am aware of this. I'm not going to argue much, except to state that Dartmouth is the smallest Ivy League school, and that most people have never even heard of the fact that we have Ph.D. programs here. I'd say from what I've seen and heard that the *quality* of our program is probably top 20, maybe even top 15, but that the quantity isn't.
We simply don't have enough faculty, and thus not enough papers published each year. Our program is very well organized and has a focus on outputting good professors. Each student has to take four quals(no BS getting out of quals like at other schools), as well as taking a Teaching Seminar so that they'll have a clue what to do at the chalkboard instead of being a pure research monkey =).
The only industry I know thats in Texas is the video game industry."
That's because you are stupid.
Massachusets has less people in it than Houston does.
Texas has Austin, Houston, and Dallas/Ft Worth, which all have significant tech corridors producing a hell of a lot more than video games.
The University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M, and Rice University are all superb schools, and depending on what subject you are talking about, everybit as good in some cases as your vaunted ivy league schools (oops, Rice IS an Ivy League school).
I liked your post until I saw what I quoted in bold-faced type. Rice is in fact NOT a member of the Ivy League. Goddamnit, people, look up your facts before you call someone *else* stupid. Here are the 8 Ivy League schools, in no particular fcsking order.
Harvard
Dartmouth
Cornell
Pennsylvania
Yale
Columbia
Brown
Princeton
Don't argue with me if you don't believe this -- just read the fucking history. The term "Ivy League" has been distorted from it's original(and still valid, in the right circles) meaning. I say this partially because I go to Dartmouth. I'm not a snob, though -- I think that there are several non-Ivy League schools that are better than Dartmouth...MIT, Berkeley, and Rice come to mind. I think all three of those(maybe only two, I can't remember) are ranked higher in Mathematics, which is my area.
First, I agree that I am stupid. All the post said that different systems have different views as to whether our not the sequence 9/10 + 9/100 + 9/1000 + 9/10000... equals 1. Each item in the sequence is 1 - 1/10^n. Summing the sequence is just a way of restating the question of whether 1/10^n where n approaches and or equals infinite is 0.
I'm sorry if I insulted you, as I was not trying to say that anyone in particular was stupid. I was saying that this *debate* is stupid. What you listed is not a sequence, it is a series. That series does in fact equal 1. PERIOD. The limit of 1/10^n as n goes to infinity is in fact 0. PERIOD. This is partly because we are inherently assuming that all quantities here are real numbers. If they aren't, supply the name of the number system in which you are working and we can further debate =)
There is also differing opinions as to whether or not ellipses means a completed infinity or just an unbound sequence. For that matter you are the first person I have heard claiming that it only means completed infinities. If I were to make the list "Washington, Adams, Jefferson..." most would take that to mean reference to the presidents to the US. They would neither enfer that there is an infinite number of presidents or that the list of presidents is actually complete.
There is no debate over what ellipses mean. In mathematics, they always have a well-understood meaning given the context, or they are not allowed. Sometimes people use expressions like 3.1415926535897932384... And the rest of the digits are in no way obvious, but we can obtain any digit we want of pi, so the meaning is clear. The object in the expression equals pi.
Now as far as that list of presidents goes...that's a stickier idea. Right now there have only been 40 something presidents(IIRC), so that list currently would terminate, and the "..." would be understood to terminate so. In the expression ".999..." the context gives you that it's always 9s on forever, and so it does NOT terminate. Otherwise you could just write the expression as 1 - 10^n where n is some huge-ass natural number.
On the other hand, if we somehow keep having presidents forever, then it's possible that that list with the ellipses would represent an infinite set. Either way, you're comparing apples to oranges, since that list of presidents is either a list, a set, or a sequence -- not a "number."
An infinite decimal is simply a sequence.
No. An infinite decimal could be thought of as a sequence. More properly it's the limit of a sequence. Or you could view it as a series(a sum).
As for the 1/infinity thing, if you take it to mean that 1/x where x approaches infinity, then it is traditional calculus, the stuff tossed asside by Cantorians.
I don't know what you mean by Cantorians.
Conclusion, you are intelligent, I am stupid. I accepted my fate long ago.
Come on, I'm not trying to be that way =). I'm just a Ph.D. student in mathematics and I can't stand to see half-baked, uneducated ideas tossed around so flagrantly on/.. Unfortunately it happens often. Your reasoning shows intelligence, and mal-nourishment.
The answer to the question in this thread is unknown. It is the same question as proving 1/infinity = 0.
In EAM, DFW subtly conceded this point. He mentioned that if you accepted infinitesmal (currently, there are many mathematicians who hold that infinitesmal calculus is consistent) then the answer is a no. 0.99999... != 1. They differ by an infinitesmal. If you hold to the traditional pre-Cantorian view, you are likely to say that 0.99999... approaches 1 but stop before assigning equality.
My personal view is that 0.999... and 1 have essentially the same value, but that 0.999... contains different information than 1. For example 0.9999.... does not belong in the set of numbers that begin with a 1.
In other words, there are equally valid mathematical models which have different answers to this question. There is no way to prove either the view that they are or are not equal.
Wrong. In the Hyperreal numbers(I'm assuming this is what you're referring to DFW referring to, since I have not read EAW), you are forced to use a different notation for "numbers", and hence.99999... as an expression doesn't even make sense. It makes sense, by default, in the real number system, in which is DOES IN FACT equal 1.000... . They are simply two representations for the same element. There are at most two, and sometimes only one representation for elements of the real number line.
Secondly,.999... does not "approach" anything. The ellipses are supposed to indicate that the "approaching" has already been done. You could, on the other hand, say the numbers.9,.99,.999,.9999 etc approach 1, and that would be more mathematically correct.
There are several proofs presented on/. attached to this article, and several of them are valid.
What this comes down to is that people need to understand that these symbolic representations amount to *names* for elements or quantities, and that they themselves aren't the thing they're referring to. That's why we're in this whole mess to begin with. That, and the fact that most people are wholely ignorant of how math really works.
P.S.
The expression 1/infinity has no meaning because infinity is not a real number. If you want that expression to have meaning then you MUST supply the information for what number system you're working in, as otherwise the entire debate is stupid and pointless.(This is directed at you and the person you're responding to.)
Your[sic] making one mistake: these virtual worlds are supposed to be escapes from reality, not substitutes. If I want reality, I'll go outdoors or to work and get the real thing. I want an escape when I go online, a place were I can escape my normal responisbilities. A place were I can act as who I am and not who I am at work. If they make these virtual worlds mirrors of this one with all the restrictions and censorship as this one, how will it be an escape? It won't be. If these games becomes political where all that has to happen is one person out of 1,000,000 complains and we get instant censorship, then were will we escape too? A video game inside one of these virtual communities? And if these virtual worlds become too restrictive, they won't be fun anymore and who will be paying to play them then?
Interesting perspective. I'd long held views similar to yours, until I ran across systems that had an immense amount of freedom for the users. Inevitably, flamebait and spammers pollute the virtual atmosphere enough to warrant, and in fact *demand* some form of censorship. If you don't think that's the case, simply look at/..
Simple -- censorship [shouldn't] exist in *either* world. Filtering for young people and such, fine, but not censorship. Virtual reality should be just that -- a representation of reality.
This is a very difficult thing to make general statements about. If virtual reality ever gets to the point(and I think it will) that it actually begins to mimic reality itself, and it is used as a replacement for normal reality, THEN the philosophies for censorship, whatever they are in the majority view, should carry over.
Until then, these online games do not constitute enough of a viable replacement for the real world to be considered in the same way in terms of censorship. The content providers who run these worlds should have complete control over their own content. For them not to have control over it would sort of be a strange form of censorship itself, would it not?
3 names that evoke freedom, innovation and the interest of the consummer. ah, we feel so much better now.
No kidding. Maybe this attack won't be the one that finally pushes DRM through to the masses, but when it does, it's going to rape the Internet. I fear the day when my machine is no longer under my full control, and I will NOT buy any hardware that has a fucking Fritz chip in it, or anything else that I deem to be in complete violation of common sense and freedom.
I highly encourage my fellow/. readers to boycott any company that becomes an active part of this DRM movement. Stop buying movies, CDs, or anything else from the RIAA, MPAA, Microsoft, etc etc blah blah (/rant)
As someone who recently acquired a B.S. in mathematics several days ago, I understand how these filters work. They are an excellent way to fight spam over the older methods.
However, I think that ultimately this sort of thing misses the point. Spam needs to be fought in the courts, not in the battlefield. I'm afraid that the success of these filters will cause spam NOT to become illegal, and thus lead to a world where we have a constant trickle of spam, albeit in small amounts.
I think we all agree that we want spam to be gone entirely, as is evidence by the first post being labeled as "troll";)
I think you may be missing the point. In one sense, it's the principle of the thing. Microsoft enjoys lying to the public continually about the necessity for their operating systems to take up so many k/megs/gigs of ram, hard drive space, etc, but it simply isn't true, as this little project is apt to point out. I remember reports of Windows 3.1 being compressed down to fit on 1 floppy.
It's for the humanity, for the struggle -- And I admire the hell out of whoever did this for doing it. Who's with me?
I stand corrected. Obviously a video card would function. I meant generally render with the correct drivers installed (not the default drivers on Windows). My mistake.
It seems like most ATI cards are made this way, and it's really annoying if you don't have the disk or a network connection to download direct X - you're stuck with 16 colors.
That, I whole-heartedly agree with. I think the entire concept of drivers is completely bogus, and should have been aborted long ago. I think firmware is much sexier and reasonable. Does anyone else besides me get a creepy feeling when they realize that their hardware is the slave of the Internet? Standards should be set in place so strongly that the "drivers" are all resident in the motherboard/hardware, so that the programs themselves don't have to waste a ton of time on what amounts to something that should be in ROM anyway. Let's face it, folks. You upgrade your video card within the same order of magnitude of months as your motherboard, I would bet. Think about it;).
When you go with a Microsoft solution, you basically take what they give you - you're the one that gives them the power to make that decision when you chose to use their software.
True. Which is one of the *many* reasons why MS == Plague.
Besides which a lot of video cards now days seem to require Direct X in order to function at all.
This comment, my friend, makes you a fucking moron. Anyone with even a modium of knowledge about video card hardware would know this to be undeniably false and born of ignorance. DirectX is a software layer that allows Windows programs to access video/sound hardware "directly," and has nothing whatsoever to do with the video cards themselves functioning. If that were true, then you wouldn't even have a bootup screen, CMOS setup, "Windows XP is loading" screen, Linux shell session, X session, or anything else. Please don't post to/. unless you have somewhat of a clue.
Copyright protection prevents recordings from being copied to the PC
No it doesn't. The thing has an analogue out. Possibly even RGB if it has a SCART conector. Nothing is ever going to stop you copying from that, without also stopping you watching it on a TV set.
Have you had any actual experience with this phenomenon? Because I have, and you're completely wrong. There is copy protection built into many analogue outputs and inputs nowadays that prevents copying. How do you think they copy-protect VHS tapes and DVDs? Even when you try to feed the RCA video connector(*analogue*) into a recording device(read: vhs recorder, video capture board for PC), it chokes on the first frame or so if it has the copy-protection. I have gone through unheard of frustration with this, which is why I know about it. I tried copying various video game systems into a USB video capture device(which is dumb for me to have bought, because USB has such low bandwidth), and both the SNES and N64 choked. The Playstation 2 didn't. I guess Sony is more compassionate than most.
Also, I have an old TV that does not have RCA inputs, so I couldn't route my PS2 directly to the TV. I had to hook it up through a VCR first, but guess what happens if you do that? Everything is fine until you try to actually play a copy-protected DVD, and then the scrambling kicks in and screws up the picture. However, if you hook it up through an old Beta player from the 80s(I used a Sanyo, I think), it will strip out the copy-protection and then after that you can record all you want -- or in my case, hook up the PS2 to the Beta, and then to the TV, just so you can watch it, independent of any intended "theft." It really sucks that I don't have the power to route signals in my own damn hardware as I please, and have to play these geek games to get what I want. I want copy-protection advocates to all fall into a pit.
From what I understand, the Sega(/MS) Dreamcast had a similar method. The data is written from the outside inward. You can pick up a random Dreamcast disc and see the obvious difference.
Slashdot Mirror
You assume I didn't pay attention. I realized that I used the word "wage" after I wrote it, and that's not the best word. But even if you include all those other factors, it still seems unlikely.
I wonder if Bill Gates and the rest of the guys at the top were considered in that $300,000 figure. Seems likely, since that wage seems ridiculously high.
This is why statistics are often meaningless, or the meaning isn't clear =).
Starter Edition: We'll get you started on Microsoft so that you'll become just another piglet sucking on the tit of one of the largest corporations in history. Get Starter, click the Start button, and Start giving us your money.
No.
I'm going reply to your post, since the others are essentially redundant.
Even if there is minimal skill involved in a game, there is enough for professionals to exist and to beat out novices in the long run, thus forming the illusion that it's a game of skill. Poker DOES involve skill, but far, far, far, far, far less than a game such a Chess, other board games, video games, sports, etc where almost all or all of the components to success are dependent directly upon skill and experience instead of luck. That is all. Please shut up with your pro-gambling garbage =).
And we have a winner... someone who has never played poker and doesn't have a clue about the game. I tell you what - try playing against someone who knows what they are doing for real money for an extended period of time. After you come back having lost everything, tell me its not a game of skill.
You're quite the jackass in your assumption. I have, in fact, been playing poker since I was a kid, but only every-so-often. I know how to play several variations on the game, in fact. I win my fair share of the time when I do play.
I didn't say it had NO skill involved. Just minimal. And that's provable.
It's amazing to me how many people take poker seriously. No matter how good one is at the game, one cannot really control it. There's a very limited degree of skill involved, and that skill is basically just to maximize your probability of not losing everything you throw on the pile.
I avoid the game like the plague, except when it's small-stakes and for fun with a few friends.
Where did that quote in your sig come from?
The big story here isn't that Intel has done anything "wrong", but they've done something that they haven't done in the past... something that AMD used to do when they were trailing behind Intel. Now the shoe's on the other foot. AMD has taken one of the signs that used to say Intel was the market leader.
I think that your comments have truth, but I'd like to append some of my own:
This really gets down to the heart of intellectual property ideologies. I, for one, don't believe any human being has the right to declare something ethereal to be "theirs". The entire concept is bogus because of one principle that I especially hold true: Nothing is invented -- only discovered.
And contrary to the seeming philosophy of the white man over the last several millenia, finders != keepers.
Yes...I am aware of this. I'm not going to argue much, except to state that Dartmouth is the smallest Ivy League school, and that most people have never even heard of the fact that we have Ph.D. programs here. I'd say from what I've seen and heard that the *quality* of our program is probably top 20, maybe even top 15, but that the quantity isn't.
We simply don't have enough faculty, and thus not enough papers published each year. Our program is very well organized and has a focus on outputting good professors. Each student has to take four quals(no BS getting out of quals like at other schools), as well as taking a Teaching Seminar so that they'll have a clue what to do at the chalkboard instead of being a pure research monkey =).
~jared
I'm aware of the distinction between "it's" and "its", it's just that I made a typo. Confusion over college affiliations is not a typo =). ~jared
The only industry I know thats in Texas is the video game industry." That's because you are stupid. Massachusets has less people in it than Houston does. Texas has Austin, Houston, and Dallas/Ft Worth, which all have significant tech corridors producing a hell of a lot more than video games. The University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M, and Rice University are all superb schools, and depending on what subject you are talking about, everybit as good in some cases as your vaunted ivy league schools (oops, Rice IS an Ivy League school).
I liked your post until I saw what I quoted in bold-faced type. Rice is in fact NOT a member of the Ivy League. Goddamnit, people, look up your facts before you call someone *else* stupid. Here are the 8 Ivy League schools, in no particular fcsking order.
Harvard
Dartmouth
Cornell
Pennsylvania
Yale
Columbia
Brown
Princeton
Don't argue with me if you don't believe this -- just read the fucking history. The term "Ivy League" has been distorted from it's original(and still valid, in the right circles) meaning. I say this partially because I go to Dartmouth. I'm not a snob, though -- I think that there are several non-Ivy League schools that are better than Dartmouth...MIT, Berkeley, and Rice come to mind. I think all three of those(maybe only two, I can't remember) are ranked higher in Mathematics, which is my area.
~jared
First, I agree that I am stupid. All the post said that different systems have different views as to whether our not the sequence 9/10 + 9/100 + 9/1000 + 9/10000 ... equals 1. Each item in the sequence is 1 - 1/10^n. Summing the sequence is just a way of restating the question of whether 1/10^n where n approaches and or equals infinite is 0.
..." most would take that to mean reference to the presidents to the US. They would neither enfer that there is an infinite number of presidents or that the list of presidents is actually complete.
/.. Unfortunately it happens often. Your reasoning shows intelligence, and mal-nourishment.
I'm sorry if I insulted you, as I was not trying to say that anyone in particular was stupid. I was saying that this *debate* is stupid. What you listed is not a sequence, it is a series. That series does in fact equal 1. PERIOD. The limit of 1/10^n as n goes to infinity is in fact 0. PERIOD. This is partly because we are inherently assuming that all quantities here are real numbers. If they aren't, supply the name of the number system in which you are working and we can further debate =)
There is also differing opinions as to whether or not ellipses means a completed infinity or just an unbound sequence. For that matter you are the first person I have heard claiming that it only means completed infinities. If I were to make the list "Washington, Adams, Jefferson
There is no debate over what ellipses mean. In mathematics, they always have a well-understood meaning given the context, or they are not allowed. Sometimes people use expressions like 3.1415926535897932384... And the rest of the digits are in no way obvious, but we can obtain any digit we want of pi, so the meaning is clear. The object in the expression equals pi.
Now as far as that list of presidents goes...that's a stickier idea. Right now there have only been 40 something presidents(IIRC), so that list currently would terminate, and the "..." would be understood to terminate so. In the expression ".999..." the context gives you that it's always 9s on forever, and so it does NOT terminate. Otherwise you could just write the expression as 1 - 10^n where n is some huge-ass natural number.
On the other hand, if we somehow keep having presidents forever, then it's possible that that list with the ellipses would represent an infinite set. Either way, you're comparing apples to oranges, since that list of presidents is either a list, a set, or a sequence -- not a "number."
An infinite decimal is simply a sequence.
No. An infinite decimal could be thought of as a sequence. More properly it's the limit of a sequence. Or you could view it as a series(a sum).
As for the 1/infinity thing, if you take it to mean that 1/x where x approaches infinity, then it is traditional calculus, the stuff tossed asside by Cantorians.
I don't know what you mean by Cantorians.
Conclusion, you are intelligent, I am stupid. I accepted my fate long ago.
Come on, I'm not trying to be that way =). I'm just a Ph.D. student in mathematics and I can't stand to see half-baked, uneducated ideas tossed around so flagrantly on
The answer to the question in this thread is unknown. It is the same question as proving 1/infinity = 0.
.99999... as an expression doesn't even make sense. It makes sense, by default, in the real number system, in which is DOES IN FACT equal 1.000... . They are simply two representations for the same element. There are at most two, and sometimes only one representation for elements of the real number line.
.999... does not "approach" anything. The ellipses are supposed to indicate that the "approaching" has already been done. You could, on the other hand, say the numbers .9, .99, .999, .9999 etc approach 1, and that would be more mathematically correct.
/. attached to this article, and several of them are valid.
In EAM, DFW subtly conceded this point. He mentioned that if you accepted infinitesmal (currently, there are many mathematicians who hold that infinitesmal calculus is consistent) then the answer is a no. 0.99999... != 1. They differ by an infinitesmal. If you hold to the traditional pre-Cantorian view, you are likely to say that 0.99999... approaches 1 but stop before assigning equality.
My personal view is that 0.999... and 1 have essentially the same value, but that 0.999... contains different information than 1. For example 0.9999.... does not belong in the set of numbers that begin with a 1.
In other words, there are equally valid mathematical models which have different answers to this question. There is no way to prove either the view that they are or are not equal.
Wrong. In the Hyperreal numbers(I'm assuming this is what you're referring to DFW referring to, since I have not read EAW), you are forced to use a different notation for "numbers", and hence
Secondly,
There are several proofs presented on
What this comes down to is that people need to understand that these symbolic representations amount to *names* for elements or quantities, and that they themselves aren't the thing they're referring to. That's why we're in this whole mess to begin with. That, and the fact that most people are wholely ignorant of how math really works.
P.S.
The expression 1/infinity has no meaning because infinity is not a real number. If you want that expression to have meaning then you MUST supply the information for what number system you're working in, as otherwise the entire debate is stupid and pointless.(This is directed at you and the person you're responding to.)
Your[sic] making one mistake: these virtual worlds are supposed to be escapes from reality, not substitutes. If I want reality, I'll go outdoors or to work and get the real thing. I want an escape when I go online, a place were I can escape my normal responisbilities. A place were I can act as who I am and not who I am at work. If they make these virtual worlds mirrors of this one with all the restrictions and censorship as this one, how will it be an escape? It won't be. If these games becomes political where all that has to happen is one person out of 1,000,000 complains and we get instant censorship, then were will we escape too? A video game inside one of these virtual communities? And if these virtual worlds become too restrictive, they won't be fun anymore and who will be paying to play them then?
/..
Interesting perspective. I'd long held views similar to yours, until I ran across systems that had an immense amount of freedom for the users. Inevitably, flamebait and spammers pollute the virtual atmosphere enough to warrant, and in fact *demand* some form of censorship. If you don't think that's the case, simply look at
Simple -- censorship [shouldn't] exist in *either* world. Filtering for young people and such, fine, but not censorship. Virtual reality should be just that -- a representation of reality.
This is a very difficult thing to make general statements about. If virtual reality ever gets to the point(and I think it will) that it actually begins to mimic reality itself, and it is used as a replacement for normal reality, THEN the philosophies for censorship, whatever they are in the majority view, should carry over.
Until then, these online games do not constitute enough of a viable replacement for the real world to be considered in the same way in terms of censorship. The content providers who run these worlds should have complete control over their own content. For them not to have control over it would sort of be a strange form of censorship itself, would it not?
3 names that evoke freedom, innovation and the interest of the consummer. ah, we feel so much better now.
/. readers to boycott any company that becomes an active part of this DRM movement. Stop buying movies, CDs, or anything else from the RIAA, MPAA, Microsoft, etc etc blah blah (/rant)
No kidding. Maybe this attack won't be the one that finally pushes DRM through to the masses, but when it does, it's going to rape the Internet. I fear the day when my machine is no longer under my full control, and I will NOT buy any hardware that has a fucking Fritz chip in it, or anything else that I deem to be in complete violation of common sense and freedom.
I highly encourage my fellow
I'm probably the only person(or one of a few) who got the aleph null reference ;)
As someone who recently acquired a B.S. in mathematics several days ago, I understand how these filters work. They are an excellent way to fight spam over the older methods.
;)
However, I think that ultimately this sort of thing misses the point. Spam needs to be fought in the courts, not in the battlefield. I'm afraid that the success of these filters will cause spam NOT to become illegal, and thus lead to a world where we have a constant trickle of spam, albeit in small amounts.
I think we all agree that we want spam to be gone entirely, as is evidence by the first post being labeled as "troll"
I think you may be missing the point. In one sense, it's the principle of the thing. Microsoft enjoys lying to the public continually about the necessity for their operating systems to take up so many k/megs/gigs of ram, hard drive space, etc, but it simply isn't true, as this little project is apt to point out. I remember reports of Windows 3.1 being compressed down to fit on 1 floppy.
It's for the humanity, for the struggle -- And I admire the hell out of whoever did this for doing it. Who's with me?
This statement is false.
I stand corrected. Obviously a video card would function. I meant generally render with the correct drivers installed (not the default drivers on Windows). My mistake. It seems like most ATI cards are made this way, and it's really annoying if you don't have the disk or a network connection to download direct X - you're stuck with 16 colors.
;).
That, I whole-heartedly agree with. I think the entire concept of drivers is completely bogus, and should have been aborted long ago. I think firmware is much sexier and reasonable. Does anyone else besides me get a creepy feeling when they realize that their hardware is the slave of the Internet? Standards should be set in place so strongly that the "drivers" are all resident in the motherboard/hardware, so that the programs themselves don't have to waste a ton of time on what amounts to something that should be in ROM anyway. Let's face it, folks. You upgrade your video card within the same order of magnitude of months as your motherboard, I would bet. Think about it
When you go with a Microsoft solution, you basically take what they give you - you're the one that gives them the power to make that decision when you chose to use their software.
/. unless you have somewhat of a clue.
True. Which is one of the *many* reasons why MS == Plague.
Besides which a lot of video cards now days seem to require Direct X in order to function at all.
This comment, my friend, makes you a fucking moron. Anyone with even a modium of knowledge about video card hardware would know this to be undeniably false and born of ignorance. DirectX is a software layer that allows Windows programs to access video/sound hardware "directly," and has nothing whatsoever to do with the video cards themselves functioning. If that were true, then you wouldn't even have a bootup screen, CMOS setup, "Windows XP is loading" screen, Linux shell session, X session, or anything else. Please don't post to
Copyright protection prevents recordings from being copied to the PC
No it doesn't. The thing has an analogue out. Possibly even RGB if it has a SCART conector. Nothing is ever going to stop you copying from that, without also stopping you watching it on a TV set.
Have you had any actual experience with this phenomenon? Because I have, and you're completely wrong. There is copy protection built into many analogue outputs and inputs nowadays that prevents copying. How do you think they copy-protect VHS tapes and DVDs? Even when you try to feed the RCA video connector(*analogue*) into a recording device(read: vhs recorder, video capture board for PC), it chokes on the first frame or so if it has the copy-protection. I have gone through unheard of frustration with this, which is why I know about it. I tried copying various video game systems into a USB video capture device(which is dumb for me to have bought, because USB has such low bandwidth), and both the SNES and N64 choked. The Playstation 2 didn't. I guess Sony is more compassionate than most.
Also, I have an old TV that does not have RCA inputs, so I couldn't route my PS2 directly to the TV. I had to hook it up through a VCR first, but guess what happens if you do that? Everything is fine until you try to actually play a copy-protected DVD, and then the scrambling kicks in and screws up the picture. However, if you hook it up through an old Beta player from the 80s(I used a Sanyo, I think), it will strip out the copy-protection and then after that you can record all you want -- or in my case, hook up the PS2 to the Beta, and then to the TV, just so you can watch it, independent of any intended "theft." It really sucks that I don't have the power to route signals in my own damn hardware as I please, and have to play these geek games to get what I want. I want copy-protection advocates to all fall into a pit.
Russell's paradox, eh?
From what I understand, the Sega(/MS) Dreamcast had a similar method. The data is written from the outside inward. You can pick up a random Dreamcast disc and see the obvious difference.