But for the love of god, don't each escolar. A friend and I both had every symptom listed on the linked site and a few ones not listed. And to think it was at a fancy restaurant in a top resort and recommended by the waitress.
Yes. Assuming he meant (bits/sec) = (bytes/(sec * 8)).
Um, no. It is (bits/sec) = (bytes/sec)*8. You got the second part right: 1 byte/sec = 8 bits/sec. But that's the conversion factor, not the conversion equation. Here's some ways to think about it:
1. Convert the units:
bits/sec = (bits/byte)*(bytes/sec) = 8*(bytes/sec).
Notice that the units properly cancel.
2. As a numberical example, if I'm getting 1 byte/sec, I'm getting 8 bits/sec (as you say). So, I have to take 1 byte/sec and multiply it by 8 to get the number of bits/sec, i.e., (bits/sec) = 8*(bytes/sec).
3. Think about it. The number of bits/sec has to be the bigger number because there's a lot more of them than bytes traveling per second. (Eight times as many, to be exact, ignoring the extra "administrative" bits.) In your equation you divide the number of bytes/sec by 8 thus making it smaller not larger.
Actually, this is an interesting problem, and seems possible. Take the example of two points on a balloon surface. They also follow this "Hubble" equation. To see this imagine three colinear points on the surface (P0, P1, P2) such that P0 and P1 are 10mm apart and P1 and P2 are 10mm apart. Since they are colinear, P0 and P2 are 20mm apart (following the curvature of the surface).
Now blow the balloon up a little more such that P0 and P1 are 1mm further apart, and thus P1 and P2 are also 1mm further apart (P0 and P2 are 2mm further apart). Then (D=distance, dD=change in distance):
i.e., dD/D = constant. Since the dD occured over the same time for the two distances, you can also write this as
(dD/dt)/D = V/D = constant = K
(This is the Hubble equation, where K=H.)
So, in theory, you could blow up a balloon such that two points are moving faster than c relative to each other (V=c=D*K). Let's see how to do this. The distance between any two points on the surface is D = r*Q (r=balloon radius, Q = angle between the points in radians which stays constant as the balloon expands). The change in distance over time is
dD/dt = V = dr/dt*Q.
The furthest two points can get apart is Q=pi (opposite points on the balloon), hence the fastest relative velocity will be between these points. Let V = c and solve:
dr/dt = V/Q = c/pi
In other words, if the radius of the balloon was expanding at a rate of just under 1/3 the speed of light, two points on the balloon would be moving relative to each other at the speed of light. (This would not only take a lot of air, but the rate of air required would go up with the cube of the radius, so you'd want to do this when the radius is very small.)
Applying this 2D analogy to the 3D universe, it doesn't have to be expanding at the speed of light for two distant points to be moving greater than c relative to each other. But it does have to be expanding above a certain rate to achieve this. If it's expanding slower than this critical rate, no two points can be moving faster than light relative to each other. If it's expanding faster, they can. Since the expansion seems to be accelerating, it seems inevitable that it will happen at some point if it hasn't already.
We should also be able to figure out if it has already happened or when it will. We know the constant H (from the Hubble equation H = V/D). (It's easy to calculate anyway, given the distance to any star and it's measured relative velocity.) If we know the history of the expansion rate we know how big the universe is, i.e., this furthest distance Dmax between any two points. We can then solve the Hubble equation V = H*Dmax and see if it is less than or greater than c.
By the way, I don't think this violates relativity, it doesn't say anything about the rate of expansion of the universe. I think this falls into the "warp" concept of traveling faster than the speed of light, i.e., if you can locally expand the universe fast enough, it appears you are moving away faster than the speed of light, and vice-versa if you can contract it fast enough locally it appears that you are approaching faster than the speed of light. I could be wrong about that though.
It's been theorized that space itself is expanding along a fourth, hyperspatial dimension. This would mean there is no "center" of the universe. Think of the galaxies as dots on the surface of a balloon, and the balloon being blown up. Everything moves away from everything else, but there is no real center you can point to.
Yes, and that 4th dimension would be called time. The "center" of the balloon would be the equivalent of the big bang, but as you say there is no "center" in the normal dimensions, i.e., no center of the balloon surface and no center of the 3D universe at any given time.
Huh? There's no "edge" or "center". It's like the old points on the surface of a balloon analogy. The surface doesn't have a center or an edge. All points are expanding equally.
The balloon surface analogy is a 2D example. Yes, there's a center and edge to the balloon, but that's in 3D. The surface doesn't have an edge. Similarly in 4D, the universe can have a center and edge, and does when time is the fourth dimension, but that is measured in time and not in 3D space. In that case, current time is the "edge" and the big bang is the "center". And we're definitely not expanding at the speed of light at the current time.
God made the universes expansion a sine wave just to piss scientists off.....
Actually, a step function would more annoying to scientists -- no trends to follow. Plus it would be more consistent with religious beliefs, particularly if there is a step down function coming up.
where (dark)c is the "speed of dark", and we all know the speed of dark is faster than the speed of light. Therefore, (dark)c > (light)c and therefore dark matter holds more (dark) energy than normal matter hold in (light) energy.
The whole problem here is the concept of people who've done nothing wrong being held responsible for the criminal actions of other people.
No, not responsible for their actions, responsible for creating the circumstances which allowed them to commit the crime. It's called criminal negligence: "recklessly acting without reasonable caution and putting another person at risk of injury or death (or failing to do something with the same consequences)"
In other words, you have a certain responsibility to ensure reasonable safety when you are in control of property that can forseeably cause harm, such as a loaded gun or an open pool.
The point is the reasonableness. Leaving a loaded gun lying around a house is not reasonably responsible because people do have visitors and do get burglarized. Stating that burglary is illegal isn't an excuse to not knowing that people do get burglarized. In other words, it is forseeable. Same with kids falling in an open pool and drowning.
This doesn't carry to things such as knives for several reasons: they are far more difficult to accidently harm someone, they are very commonly used around the house and require easy access, and they are so commonly available that a criminal could have gotten one, or any sharp object, anywhere legally. In other words, it wouldn't be reasonable to expect people to lock up their knives.
As for an open network connection, that would probably fall into the forseeable category. If you knew you left it open and you are aware that people hack into these things to do illegal activeity, it is forseeable that it could be used for illegal activity. You might not get charged with commiting the actual illegal activity if you can demonstrate that it probably was someone else, but you probably could still be charged with negligence. (Keeping in mind IANAL.) If you accidently left the network open or didn't know about network security, you might not get charged.
This is also a great idea for a really silent cpu cooler.
Um, not really. Beer does not produce any heat of its own. All you really need to do to keep beer cool is keep out the ambient heat. It just requires a little refrigeration to cool it in the first place. A CPU is constantly generating a lot of heat. It has significantly different requirements.
That isn't to say this sort of technology can't be used for CPU cooling, but it's not even on the same level of application.
When you buy a DVD, you buy a DVD, you don't buy a license.
No, that's the problem. If you actually owned the DVD (including its content) you would be allowed to do whatever you want to it, including backing it up. You own the plastic, and you have a license to view the contents. The plastic is worth almost nothing. The price you pay is for the license to view the content.
This is what all the fuss about bad copyright laws is about, from software to music to movies. We are used to buying products and owning them. Normally if a product breaks (not under warrantee) we are out the cost of the product. But in return for this responsibility, we are allowed to do what we want with the product. In these copyright cases, they want us to take responsibility for the product, meaning if it breaks or can't play anymore we're out the cost, but we don't get the corresponding rights to the product. In other words, we get screwed.
I've heard of a Mexican hat, but not a Canadian hat. We must be one huge hat, being somewhat larger than the U.S. Makes you a little top heavy I would think, but hopefully let you keep a cool head, especially with those hot pants.
Well, in a sense, yes, most Matlab errors would be syntax errors. But it does include errors such as references to cleared variables and such, which I believe would be equivalent to your "myvar" case. It also includes memory errors and numerical errors (e.g., near singular matrices). I think those would qualify as runtime, not syntax.
And yes, it's hard to really compare interpreted vs compiled in this respect.
I don't know if I'd consider it negative. It just recognizes that gays tend to be, or are at least know for being, more "colour coordinated". Might be a bit of a stereotype, but not without some truth to it (e.g., "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy").
The Windows Classic settings are very dull and grey in comparison to the flashy colours of the default XP, so I don't see it as a big leap, or being negative, to call it "gayified". I would think it would be a bigger negative to suggest that "dull and grey" is better (although I prefer the Classic as well).
Just a thought. Not every gay reference is automatically negative.
Well, I'm not really a programmer, so someone can correct me if this doesn't qualify, but Matlab has been able to state which filename and line number a failure occured for as long as I can remember. As far as I know, this feature pre-dates Java.
(Some may argue that Matlab is not a programming language, but that would just be semantics in this context.)
This all sounds like an arguement about whether the Waterfall approach (Requirements->Design->Code>Test&Validat e) is better than the Rational Unified Process (iterative) or similar. I'm not a coder, but I think each one has their place.
In my experience, RUP seems far better. The customer rarely knows exactly what they want. At best they'll have an idea of what they want it to do and can visualize how they think it might work. So you start with a loose set of requirements, do some quick high-level design, and code it. Then show the customer what you've got. They can identify what is different from what they want and see some of the issues they may not have thought about. This defines some lower level requirements and designs. Repeat this process on a regular basis and you will get good, well-written, and efficiently created software.
I've had nightmares with the Waterfall process. I've had to spend 6 months writing requirements and design docs, formally releasing them, then have 2 weeks left to write the code so the software wasn't nearly as good as it should have (or could have) been. In the end, the requirements and design had some inconsistencies that could not be foreseen until you try to code them.
On another project (that I was not involved in) all of the money went into the requirements and design process and the end software was crap, wasn't user friendly, and didn't get used. But it did meet the requirements.
The problem with writing requirements completely before coding is that you have to basically do the design and coding in your head as you write the requirements, otherwise you can end up with things that are inconsistent. Written language doesn't have to be self-consistent, software does.
On the otherhand, writing software without following any guidance from the customer is definitely worse.
Um, yes, but most of that water is not near the surface. If water at the surface increases by 1 degree, much deeper water will only increase a negligible amount. Overall, the net effect would be minimal compared to water from melting (landlocked) ice.
Let's back up a sec and look at the comments from the parent post as a whole:
"None, since [the U.S.] wasn't pissing on anyone's roses, except for the terrorists. Get real." "What made the US right was that it WAS right. Not "because it was the US", but because the actions tended to be rather positive." "Nor is it a useful solution to say we are wrong when we really are not."
This shows an incredible ignorance of the U.S. foreign policy, interference, and actions in the Middle East over the last 60 years. From oil interests to arms deals, from interference in political conflicts to opposition to neutrality in the cold war, from intervention in the Iran-Iraq war (including first siding with Iraq, then switching to side with Iran and Syria) to both Gulf wars, the U.S. has a long history of destructive intervention in the Middle East, all in the name of its own interests. Rather than list it all, why don't you just read about it. This is "made up" stuff, it's well documented, well known (except, apparently, to many U.S. citizens) history.
Even now, the U.S. has invaded Iraq in the name of world security from WMDs, despite the fact that
they had no credible evidence that there were any, as many countries pointed out (and big surprise, they didn't find any),
the U.N. weapons inspectors were doing an effective job of weapons inspections,
the U.S. basically pissed off it's allies by telling them "You're either with us or against us" and punishing them if they didn't come on side.
the U.S. has become an occupying entity without an exit strategy, exactly what Bush's own father would happen and why they didn't invade in the last Gulf war.
the U.S. is "selling" the Iraq war as part of the "war against terrorism" despite the fact that there is no link with Iraq (including Saddam Hussein) and terrorist activities, Al Quaeda, Bin Laden, or Sept. 11th (almost all of the Sept. 11th terrorists were from Saudia Arabia, who the U.S. won't be hostile with because they are "oil friends").
>"The opposite is, in fact, the case right now, where "digging in our heels" and refusing to make any changes has invited more terrorism."
"How so?"
Um, despite years of U.S. "digging in", terrorism hasn't stopped and in fact has increased against the U.S. Haven't you watched the news in the last 20 years?
"No, it is because that doing what the terrorists want is extremely wrong. "
Again, this doesn't differentiate between complying with demands (to appease the terrorist) versus stopping doing the wrong things (see above history) which happen to coincide with their demands. If you were about to eat your ham sandwich for lunch and a terrorist came up and said he'd blow you up if you didn't eat your ham sandwich, are you saying you'd actually refuse to eat it? You were going to anyway. Refusing to do something because it is a demand is just dumb, spiteful, and dangerous.
Now we come to the funny-sounding point:
"Their demands are entirely outrageous and evil-minded."
This is just classic propaganda-esque that it's hard not to laugh. It's like the "evil-doers" quotes. It makes it very apparent that whoever said it doesn't even know what "their" demands are.
Given the history lesson above, "their" demands are basically "leave us alone". They are tired of being interfered with, toyed with, subject to broken promises, and suffering from U.S. foreign policy in the region. They are quite tired of the U.S. "pissing on their roses".
Yes, this does not excuse the actions of terrorists. There is no question that their type of thinking and action needs to stop. And yes, there is unrest in the area outside of U.S. intervention, largely due to religious and cultural difference. The region needs to grow up in terms of tolerance for others. However, this does not excuse the U.S. policies and
You almost had me beleiving you were that dumb but now I can tell it's a troll, especially the "Their demands are entirely outrageous and evil-minded." line. It even sounds like you're spoofing some generic dumb hick who swallows the Bush's crap. (Now there's an image.)
You piss on my roses, I call the cops and have your ass thrown in jail, end of story.
Right. So since the U.S. has been "pissing on their roses" in the Middle East for years via U.S. foreign policy and activities, what police should they have called on the U.S.? What jail should the U.S. government been put in?
The response of the terrorists is obviously very wrong, no question, just as you threatening and attacking me in my analogy is wrong (which you agreed with, since your response would be to call the police). But that doesn't make the U.S. right, just as me pissing on your roses isn't right.
Digging in our heels and not budging an inch when somebody wrongs us is not a useful solution. Recognizing when you've made mistakes and correcting them is the right thing to do, regardless of what the other side does. It is incredibly stupid to continue to do wrong things because somebody got pissed off at you doing them, so you continue so as not to appear as "backing down". That's just dumb. It's why accidently bumping ends up in bar fights and sometime death. It's machismo gone overboard, where neither side is willing to admit it has done anything wrong.
It also annoys me when people perpetuate the myth that doing something that might appear to comply with the desires of the terrorists would just invite more terrorism. Show me some examples. The opposite is, in fact, the case right now, where "digging in our heels" and refusing to make any changes has invited more terrorism.
Do you honestly think it's a good thing to be in a country where the terrorists are setting the foreign policy?
You don't seem able to differentiate between "caving" to demands and "correcting" mistakes. The former means you are doing something wrong for the purpose of complying with their demands so they'll stop. The latter is doing something right because you recognized you were doing something wrong, regardless of what they're demands are.
So let me get this straight. If I have a policy to go piss on your rose garden every morning, and you respond by threats and occasionally assaulting me, my proper response would be for me to go on an all out war on you (or in this analogy, on your neighbour who has nothing to do with it)??? If instead I simply re-evaluated my policy of pissing on your rose garden and determined that perhaps I shouldn't be doing that, you would call that surrendering?
Curious. So it's better to stand your ground or up the ante regardless of whether what you were doing was wrong in the first place or not. That seems to be what you are saying.
download slashcode, and apply it to online journals
There are several problems with this. Ranking is not the same thing as peer review. Slashdot ranking might be better than the way citation indeces are used nowadays, but it is not a "review" in the same sense. Peer review is both a judgement in quality as to whether it is worthy to be published, and also performs "editor" and "critic" functions. All of these functions are pre-publication, i.e., give the author a chance to fix up the paper before publication.
Any slashcode application would be post-publication. The author has missed the chance to "correct" their paper before letting the public see it.
I think a better model is "beta" software. In this model, authors could deposit their "beta" (draft) papers for public examination that provides feedback like beta software. Then the author fixes the "bugs" and releases the "1.0" paper. For it to work, beta papers can't be referenced (since they aren't considered finished works).
At this point of release perhaps your "slashcode" idea would be useful for ranking the quality of work, the way citations are often used nowadays. (Which has many complaints since it isn't a good way to judge the quality or importance of work.)
I'm not sure if it'd be good or bad to allow versions beyond 1.0. On the one hand, they could update mistakes or from feedback, and not screw up references to it because they'd refer to the reference number as well. On the other hand, at version 5.0 would it really be the same paper anymore or a different paper?
That's quite interesting, because the photocopier could be used for illegal use. Since downloading is legal in Canada, placing them in the shared folder cannot be used for illegal purposes. It was the act of placing them in the shared folder that was illegal.
I understood this ruling was that names didn't have to be given out by ISPs, but I didn't realize the judge basically said sharing was (effectively) legal. Very interesting.
Radio stations actually pay licensing royalties when a given song is played.
FYI, they only pay royalties to the writer(s) of the song. Not to the performer, producer, manufacturer, distributer, or promoter. Since the costs of the song are in the production, manufacture, distribution, and promotion, none of these costs are recouped through radio play. Radio is purely a marketing medium for the music, not income generating.
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But for the love of god, don't each escolar. A friend and I both had every symptom listed on the linked site and a few ones not listed. And to think it was at a fancy restaurant in a top resort and recommended by the waitress.
Um, no. It is (bits/sec) = (bytes/sec)*8. You got the second part right: 1 byte/sec = 8 bits/sec. But that's the conversion factor, not the conversion equation. Here's some ways to think about it:
1. Convert the units:
bits/sec = (bits/byte)*(bytes/sec) = 8*(bytes/sec).
Notice that the units properly cancel.
2. As a numberical example, if I'm getting 1 byte/sec, I'm getting 8 bits/sec (as you say). So, I have to take 1 byte/sec and multiply it by 8 to get the number of bits/sec, i.e., (bits/sec) = 8*(bytes/sec).
3. Think about it. The number of bits/sec has to be the bigger number because there's a lot more of them than bytes traveling per second. (Eight times as many, to be exact, ignoring the extra "administrative" bits.) In your equation you divide the number of bytes/sec by 8 thus making it smaller not larger.
Now blow the balloon up a little more such that P0 and P1 are 1mm further apart, and thus P1 and P2 are also 1mm further apart (P0 and P2 are 2mm further apart). Then (D=distance, dD=change in distance):
dD01/D01 = 1mm/10mm=0.1
dD12/D12 = 1mm/10mm=0.1
dD02/D02 = 2mm/20mm=0.1
i.e., dD/D = constant. Since the dD occured over the same time for the two distances, you can also write this as
(dD/dt)/D = V/D = constant = K
(This is the Hubble equation, where K=H.)
So, in theory, you could blow up a balloon such that two points are moving faster than c relative to each other (V=c=D*K). Let's see how to do this. The distance between any two points on the surface is D = r*Q (r=balloon radius, Q = angle between the points in radians which stays constant as the balloon expands). The change in distance over time is
dD/dt = V = dr/dt*Q.
The furthest two points can get apart is Q=pi (opposite points on the balloon), hence the fastest relative velocity will be between these points. Let V = c and solve:
dr/dt = V/Q = c/pi
In other words, if the radius of the balloon was expanding at a rate of just under 1/3 the speed of light, two points on the balloon would be moving relative to each other at the speed of light. (This would not only take a lot of air, but the rate of air required would go up with the cube of the radius, so you'd want to do this when the radius is very small.)
Applying this 2D analogy to the 3D universe, it doesn't have to be expanding at the speed of light for two distant points to be moving greater than c relative to each other. But it does have to be expanding above a certain rate to achieve this. If it's expanding slower than this critical rate, no two points can be moving faster than light relative to each other. If it's expanding faster, they can. Since the expansion seems to be accelerating, it seems inevitable that it will happen at some point if it hasn't already.
We should also be able to figure out if it has already happened or when it will. We know the constant H (from the Hubble equation H = V/D). (It's easy to calculate anyway, given the distance to any star and it's measured relative velocity.) If we know the history of the expansion rate we know how big the universe is, i.e., this furthest distance Dmax between any two points. We can then solve the Hubble equation V = H*Dmax and see if it is less than or greater than c.
By the way, I don't think this violates relativity, it doesn't say anything about the rate of expansion of the universe. I think this falls into the "warp" concept of traveling faster than the speed of light, i.e., if you can locally expand the universe fast enough, it appears you are moving away faster than the speed of light, and vice-versa if you can contract it fast enough locally it appears that you are approaching faster than the speed of light. I could be wrong about that though.
Yes, and that 4th dimension would be called time. The "center" of the balloon would be the equivalent of the big bang, but as you say there is no "center" in the normal dimensions, i.e., no center of the balloon surface and no center of the 3D universe at any given time.
The balloon surface analogy is a 2D example. Yes, there's a center and edge to the balloon, but that's in 3D. The surface doesn't have an edge. Similarly in 4D, the universe can have a center and edge, and does when time is the fourth dimension, but that is measured in time and not in 3D space. In that case, current time is the "edge" and the big bang is the "center". And we're definitely not expanding at the speed of light at the current time.
Actually, a step function would more annoying to scientists -- no trends to follow. Plus it would be more consistent with religious beliefs, particularly if there is a step down function coming up.
That's not quite right, it should be:
(dark)E = (dark)m * (dark)c^2
where (dark)c is the "speed of dark", and we all know the speed of dark is faster than the speed of light. Therefore, (dark)c > (light)c and therefore dark matter holds more (dark) energy than normal matter hold in (light) energy.
No, not responsible for their actions, responsible for creating the circumstances which allowed them to commit the crime. It's called criminal negligence: "recklessly acting without reasonable caution and putting another person at risk of injury or death (or failing to do something with the same consequences)"
In other words, you have a certain responsibility to ensure reasonable safety when you are in control of property that can forseeably cause harm, such as a loaded gun or an open pool.
The point is the reasonableness. Leaving a loaded gun lying around a house is not reasonably responsible because people do have visitors and do get burglarized. Stating that burglary is illegal isn't an excuse to not knowing that people do get burglarized. In other words, it is forseeable. Same with kids falling in an open pool and drowning.
This doesn't carry to things such as knives for several reasons: they are far more difficult to accidently harm someone, they are very commonly used around the house and require easy access, and they are so commonly available that a criminal could have gotten one, or any sharp object, anywhere legally. In other words, it wouldn't be reasonable to expect people to lock up their knives.
As for an open network connection, that would probably fall into the forseeable category. If you knew you left it open and you are aware that people hack into these things to do illegal activeity, it is forseeable that it could be used for illegal activity. You might not get charged with commiting the actual illegal activity if you can demonstrate that it probably was someone else, but you probably could still be charged with negligence. (Keeping in mind IANAL.) If you accidently left the network open or didn't know about network security, you might not get charged.
Um, not really. Beer does not produce any heat of its own. All you really need to do to keep beer cool is keep out the ambient heat. It just requires a little refrigeration to cool it in the first place. A CPU is constantly generating a lot of heat. It has significantly different requirements.
That isn't to say this sort of technology can't be used for CPU cooling, but it's not even on the same level of application.
No, that's the problem. If you actually owned the DVD (including its content) you would be allowed to do whatever you want to it, including backing it up. You own the plastic, and you have a license to view the contents. The plastic is worth almost nothing. The price you pay is for the license to view the content.
This is what all the fuss about bad copyright laws is about, from software to music to movies. We are used to buying products and owning them. Normally if a product breaks (not under warrantee) we are out the cost of the product. But in return for this responsibility, we are allowed to do what we want with the product. In these copyright cases, they want us to take responsibility for the product, meaning if it breaks or can't play anymore we're out the cost, but we don't get the corresponding rights to the product. In other words, we get screwed.
I've heard of a Mexican hat, but not a Canadian hat. We must be one huge hat, being somewhat larger than the U.S. Makes you a little top heavy I would think, but hopefully let you keep a cool head, especially with those hot pants.
Hmm, I guess not. (Watch some moderator increase your points just to make me look like an idiot.)
And yes, it's hard to really compare interpreted vs compiled in this respect.
The Windows Classic settings are very dull and grey in comparison to the flashy colours of the default XP, so I don't see it as a big leap, or being negative, to call it "gayified". I would think it would be a bigger negative to suggest that "dull and grey" is better (although I prefer the Classic as well).
Just a thought. Not every gay reference is automatically negative.
(Some may argue that Matlab is not a programming language, but that would just be semantics in this context.)
In my experience, RUP seems far better. The customer rarely knows exactly what they want. At best they'll have an idea of what they want it to do and can visualize how they think it might work. So you start with a loose set of requirements, do some quick high-level design, and code it. Then show the customer what you've got. They can identify what is different from what they want and see some of the issues they may not have thought about. This defines some lower level requirements and designs. Repeat this process on a regular basis and you will get good, well-written, and efficiently created software.
I've had nightmares with the Waterfall process. I've had to spend 6 months writing requirements and design docs, formally releasing them, then have 2 weeks left to write the code so the software wasn't nearly as good as it should have (or could have) been. In the end, the requirements and design had some inconsistencies that could not be foreseen until you try to code them.
On another project (that I was not involved in) all of the money went into the requirements and design process and the end software was crap, wasn't user friendly, and didn't get used. But it did meet the requirements.
The problem with writing requirements completely before coding is that you have to basically do the design and coding in your head as you write the requirements, otherwise you can end up with things that are inconsistent. Written language doesn't have to be self-consistent, software does.
On the otherhand, writing software without following any guidance from the customer is definitely worse.
Um, yes, but most of that water is not near the surface. If water at the surface increases by 1 degree, much deeper water will only increase a negligible amount. Overall, the net effect would be minimal compared to water from melting (landlocked) ice.
"None, since [the U.S.] wasn't pissing on anyone's roses, except for the terrorists. Get real."
"What made the US right was that it WAS right. Not "because it was the US", but because the actions tended to be rather positive."
"Nor is it a useful solution to say we are wrong when we really are not."
This shows an incredible ignorance of the U.S. foreign policy, interference, and actions in the Middle East over the last 60 years. From oil interests to arms deals, from interference in political conflicts to opposition to neutrality in the cold war, from intervention in the Iran-Iraq war (including first siding with Iraq, then switching to side with Iran and Syria) to both Gulf wars, the U.S. has a long history of destructive intervention in the Middle East, all in the name of its own interests. Rather than list it all, why don't you just read about it. This is "made up" stuff, it's well documented, well known (except, apparently, to many U.S. citizens) history.
Even now, the U.S. has invaded Iraq in the name of world security from WMDs, despite the fact that
they had no credible evidence that there were any, as many countries pointed out (and big surprise, they didn't find any),
the U.N. weapons inspectors were doing an effective job of weapons inspections,
the U.S. basically pissed off it's allies by telling them "You're either with us or against us" and punishing them if they didn't come on side.
the U.S. has become an occupying entity without an exit strategy, exactly what Bush's own father would happen and why they didn't invade in the last Gulf war.
the U.S. is "selling" the Iraq war as part of the "war against terrorism" despite the fact that there is no link with Iraq (including Saddam Hussein) and terrorist activities, Al Quaeda, Bin Laden, or Sept. 11th (almost all of the Sept. 11th terrorists were from Saudia Arabia, who the U.S. won't be hostile with because they are "oil friends").
>"The opposite is, in fact, the case right now, where "digging in our heels" and refusing to make any changes has invited more terrorism."
"How so?"
Um, despite years of U.S. "digging in", terrorism hasn't stopped and in fact has increased against the U.S. Haven't you watched the news in the last 20 years?
"No, it is because that doing what the terrorists want is extremely wrong. "
Again, this doesn't differentiate between complying with demands (to appease the terrorist) versus stopping doing the wrong things (see above history) which happen to coincide with their demands. If you were about to eat your ham sandwich for lunch and a terrorist came up and said he'd blow you up if you didn't eat your ham sandwich, are you saying you'd actually refuse to eat it? You were going to anyway. Refusing to do something because it is a demand is just dumb, spiteful, and dangerous.
Now we come to the funny-sounding point:
"Their demands are entirely outrageous and evil-minded."
This is just classic propaganda-esque that it's hard not to laugh. It's like the "evil-doers" quotes. It makes it very apparent that whoever said it doesn't even know what "their" demands are.
Given the history lesson above, "their" demands are basically "leave us alone". They are tired of being interfered with, toyed with, subject to broken promises, and suffering from U.S. foreign policy in the region. They are quite tired of the U.S. "pissing on their roses".
Yes, this does not excuse the actions of terrorists. There is no question that their type of thinking and action needs to stop. And yes, there is unrest in the area outside of U.S. intervention, largely due to religious and cultural difference. The region needs to grow up in terms of tolerance for others. However, this does not excuse the U.S. policies and
You almost had me beleiving you were that dumb but now I can tell it's a troll, especially the "Their demands are entirely outrageous and evil-minded." line. It even sounds like you're spoofing some generic dumb hick who swallows the Bush's crap. (Now there's an image.)
Right. So since the U.S. has been "pissing on their roses" in the Middle East for years via U.S. foreign policy and activities, what police should they have called on the U.S.? What jail should the U.S. government been put in?
The response of the terrorists is obviously very wrong, no question, just as you threatening and attacking me in my analogy is wrong (which you agreed with, since your response would be to call the police). But that doesn't make the U.S. right, just as me pissing on your roses isn't right.
Digging in our heels and not budging an inch when somebody wrongs us is not a useful solution. Recognizing when you've made mistakes and correcting them is the right thing to do, regardless of what the other side does. It is incredibly stupid to continue to do wrong things because somebody got pissed off at you doing them, so you continue so as not to appear as "backing down". That's just dumb. It's why accidently bumping ends up in bar fights and sometime death. It's machismo gone overboard, where neither side is willing to admit it has done anything wrong.
It also annoys me when people perpetuate the myth that doing something that might appear to comply with the desires of the terrorists would just invite more terrorism. Show me some examples. The opposite is, in fact, the case right now, where "digging in our heels" and refusing to make any changes has invited more terrorism.
Do you honestly think it's a good thing to be in a country where the terrorists are setting the foreign policy?
You don't seem able to differentiate between "caving" to demands and "correcting" mistakes. The former means you are doing something wrong for the purpose of complying with their demands so they'll stop. The latter is doing something right because you recognized you were doing something wrong, regardless of what they're demands are.
So let me get this straight. If I have a policy to go piss on your rose garden every morning, and you respond by threats and occasionally assaulting me, my proper response would be for me to go on an all out war on you (or in this analogy, on your neighbour who has nothing to do with it)??? If instead I simply re-evaluated my policy of pissing on your rose garden and determined that perhaps I shouldn't be doing that, you would call that surrendering?
Curious. So it's better to stand your ground or up the ante regardless of whether what you were doing was wrong in the first place or not. That seems to be what you are saying.
There are several problems with this. Ranking is not the same thing as peer review. Slashdot ranking might be better than the way citation indeces are used nowadays, but it is not a "review" in the same sense. Peer review is both a judgement in quality as to whether it is worthy to be published, and also performs "editor" and "critic" functions. All of these functions are pre-publication, i.e., give the author a chance to fix up the paper before publication.
Any slashcode application would be post-publication. The author has missed the chance to "correct" their paper before letting the public see it.
I think a better model is "beta" software. In this model, authors could deposit their "beta" (draft) papers for public examination that provides feedback like beta software. Then the author fixes the "bugs" and releases the "1.0" paper. For it to work, beta papers can't be referenced (since they aren't considered finished works).
At this point of release perhaps your "slashcode" idea would be useful for ranking the quality of work, the way citations are often used nowadays. (Which has many complaints since it isn't a good way to judge the quality or importance of work.)
I'm not sure if it'd be good or bad to allow versions beyond 1.0. On the one hand, they could update mistakes or from feedback, and not screw up references to it because they'd refer to the reference number as well. On the other hand, at version 5.0 would it really be the same paper anymore or a different paper?
Just some thoughts.
I understood this ruling was that names didn't have to be given out by ISPs, but I didn't realize the judge basically said sharing was (effectively) legal. Very interesting.
It's not a "downloading" case, it's an "uploading" (distribution) case. Downloading is legal in Canada.
FYI, they only pay royalties to the writer(s) of the song. Not to the performer, producer, manufacturer, distributer, or promoter. Since the costs of the song are in the production, manufacture, distribution, and promotion, none of these costs are recouped through radio play. Radio is purely a marketing medium for the music, not income generating.