I agree you have a point here, but I think if you could move an entire country over to Linus, for even a little while, it would be a huge step in the right direction. Even if it is a terrible distro, I think a lot of people would be willing to switch from Linspire to another Linux distro. The switch from a crappy distro to a good one would certainly be easier than individuals switching from Windows to Linux on their own.
Hell, maybe everyone will use it and decide to go back. Fine. Just raising awareness is plenty enough. Most people still don't know what Linux is. "Is it like a computer?" "Is it a program or something?" Hell, I would be willing to bet maybe a quarter of computer users don't know what an "Operating System" is, much less know that there even is one that isn't Windows. Giving the average non-technical user the insight that there is a world outside of Microsoft is a step in the right direction, even if the whole plan turns out to be a disaster.
Next, there are extremely non-technical users. Namely my mom, grandma/grandpa, etc. I'm talking "I don't know, I just click on the e" people. Generally, these people use their computers for email, internet, and maybe instant messaging, but thats about it. Even simple photo editing (I'm talking rotate/crop/save as.jpg) is beyond their realm. All of these users will be more or less indifferent to their operating system as long as it boots up and the internet works.
Sadly, I think the above-named group represents a LOT of people. Not only will they have simpler problems (could you imagine your grandma complaining that she can't install Mathematica?), but will probably ask friends/family members before hounding support techs.
Ultimately, Linspire is probably biting off a bit more than it can chew, and will probably have to pay a lot more support dollars than it was planning on, which may prove to be a fatal flaw. On the other hand, maybe it would get some very, very generous government grants?
The bottom line here is that if they actually pull this off, it'll obviously be a REALLY rocky road for quite some time, but I think it'll be at least feasible. Porting apps (performance-intensive ones that won't run well on WINE or similar) will probably be a disaster for quite some time. But in the long run, it'll probably generate more of a market for Linux apps, which would be huge for the rest of the world.
Why? How do we know there has to be "thousands of much more complex reactions" or that these reactions have to be "simultaneous". My take is that we're pretty ignorant of what happened back then, and that ignorance is poor evidence for concluding something is possible or not.
Actually, for the original strand of RNA (or PNA according to the article), which is suspected to be the least, smallest, and simplest material capable of life, had to be formed from this primidorial soup. That requires literally thousands of reactions, and yes, they do have to happen at the same time, or else the partially formed xNA strand will just break apart (as they tend to do).
Parhaps I wasn't quite clear on the 'thousands of reactions' bit. What I meant to say was that for life to be formed in the way that we suspect it was, there had to a more or less impossible mixture of reactions. When I say "void here which remains to be discovered", I'm saying that the primidorial soup being struck by lightning or whatever is not adequate. I'm guessing that there was some simpler source of life that was a precursor to RNA, and even simpler, which likely has ceased to exist at some point.
Of course even that is speculation, as well as anything ID people will say, but for now, it's the best we can do. Hell, we just discovered recently that dinosaurs weren't reptiles, who knows what we'll find in a few years.
Re:Only a matter of time
on
The Los Alamos Bug
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· Score: 4, Interesting
can we create *intelligence* from scratch?
I think I fundamentally disagree with you in saying that intelligence is hard to create, given life in the first place. At this point in time, science has (almost) undisputedly proved the theory of common descent. I pretty well believe that humans eventually came from single-celled organisms, and so does most of the world.
So assuming that is true, intelligence more or less created itself, through life, by a glorified trial-and-error system. Although it seems surprising at first, if you consider how many many different orananisms there are (were) at any given time, and how many trials (generations) there have been, it becomes much more down to Earth.
Actually I think even 'intelligence' today is still a glorified system of trial and error. Think about solving an elementary algebra problem. What's your first intuition (or was when you were learning)? Isolate the variable, etc? Hell no! Trial and error. It's intuitive and doesn't take much mental 'work'. Example: Mary and Sue have a combined age of 15. Mary is 5 years older than Sue. How old is Mary?
Spit this problem at an average 5th/6th grader and I promise you won't get anything along the lines of x + (x + 5) = 15. You'll just get 3 + 8 = [crossed out], 4 + 9 = [crossed out], 5 + 10 = 15 !! And that's how the problem is solved by a (we'll say) 10 year old.
Now, I know I don't seem to be really getting at anything big, but consider this: the average 10 year old has solved a LOT of 'problems' in his/her lifetime, from how to balance to stand up, how much food to eat so you aren't hungry anymore but don't throw up... I could go on forever, but I will call one example: pouring.
Is it hard to pour water from a pitcher into a cup? I'm pretty sure most of you have figured out how to do this reasonably well by now. To do this problem systematically is EXTREMELY difficult. I'll simplify the problem slightly and boil the problem down to two varibles: The height of water in the cup (we'll say % full), and the tilt on the pitcher (an angle between 0 and 180). There is ABSOLUTELY no simple, one-line algebraic equation to solve this one. You can't simply say, when the cup is 100% full, put the angle to zero. You have to correct for how much water is out of the pitcher already and is about to fall into the cup (a time delay), and also the time it takes to move the pitcher from say, 20 degrees to 0 degrees (more time delay). Even better, the flow of the water within the pitcher depends not only on the angular position (zeroth derivative), and the rate and acceleration (first and second derivatives), but also the "jerk" of the pitcher (third derivative of angular position). Wow. That's hard.
To solve this problem analytically, you would need a lot of math. A LOT. In fact, even more than we know today. Using LaPlace transforms and 3rd order differential equation solvers, this can be done, but even the DE solvers are written in trial-and-error form to some extent. If you've read this far, you're probably asking: What exactly am I getting at?
YOU ALREADY SOLVED THIS PROBLEM! Ever fill up a cup and not spill? Not bad. Basically, your mind (body?) has already found at least some solution to this problem without you knowing it. You have subconciously short-circuited hundreds of PhD's worth of math with a magic black-box of trial and error. Remember when you were a kid? You tilt the pitcher little and tilt it back. Not enough. You do it again. Not enough. You tilt the pitcher until the cup is full. Crap. Spilled it. Note to self: stop before the cup is full.
So there you have it. Our 'intelligence' has solved math problems than most college graduates could do (even with Maple) to save their lives. If it works, do it again, and if it doesn't work, do something different. That's all our 'intelligence' is.
I really don't think this whole 'intelligence' thing is a very novel concept at all.
Why not have a rating system? They should make a rating system, so you could add Informative, Incomplete, Biased, etc, and have articles with particularly low ratings flagged for review (do they do something like this already?).
I think they should lock a lot more articles that are known to be complete and accurate. The definition of, say, orange juice hasn't changed all that much in the last 10 years and probably won't in the next 10.
Working these two concepts in together, I think they should have the 'modifiability' of the article be based on how high it's rated. For just a stub, or no article at all, then anyone should be able to modify it. But if the article is long (enough) and complete, then say maybe only a register with many high-rated articles can change it.
I think the main idea here is to promote and protect good content, but I seriously think they should not do anything to restrict an average joe from exlpicitly adding content.
"...but they've gotten so carried away they are overreaching... That's good."
Are you sure about that? I'd like to start by mentioning the industry collapsing won't be good for any artists, established or not. High prices and piracy or not, if there's no one to quickly turn performances into CDs in stores and songs on the radio, I don't think anyone's going to be happy.
On another note, I don't think having their 'greed show' is going to stop them. It's been really clear for a long time that they've been greedy as shit ($13.86 mean anything to you?), but since then, there hasn't been a single crippling lawsuit against the RIAA. They're still getting rediculous royalties (70 cents per iTunes song), they're still cranking out lawsuits left and right, and no one's doing anything about it.
The recording industry is making no secret of being greedy (special thanks Steve Jobs), but it hasn't gotten, or appeared, more or less greedy in the last 5 years or so. If they haven't been stopped already, I don't think that's going to do it.
Unfortunately, it's going to take more than being perceived as a greedy bad guy to take them down (cough, Microsoft). I'm sort of hoping for a 'new generation' of lawmakers. As of now, I'm going to say that most people in positions to pass these laws are in the age range of 35-60, but people that grew up with Napster and successors probably aren't more than 20-25 years old. Maybe when this all cycles through and people that grew up downloading music start to pass these laws, they might be a bit more sympathetic toward the money-starved, music-hungry end user downloader.
I just don't see any real end to all of this. As long as the RIAA (and MPAA) continues to have endless dollars to throw lawyers around, they're probably not going to lose big time. And I have a feeling they'll have plenty of those dollars for a LONG time.
P2P seems to be the light in all of this. Despite flurries of lawsuits and garbage propaganda, efforts thus far to curb piracy have not been extremely effective. Napster lead way to Kazzaa and iMesh, and even the shutting down of the giant Suprnova only lead to sites like IsoHunt that are bigger than SN ever was. As long as music, movies, and music videos are readily available online for free, I don't think the record companies will ever have too much of an edge up. As long as I can put my mp3s (that I didn't pay a dime for) onto my iPod, and watch DivX movies on my modded Xbox, I think I'll be happy.
Now that the kids are cleared of the felony charges, is it time yet to hunt down the school officials and try to get them fired, or see to it that 'an accident' might happen to their cars?
Actually, although the two are somewhat different, they can be related. What's the difference between piracy and stealing?
Piracy makes unwanted duplicates, but otherwise causes no *damage* to the firm. The copies the users make with their own bandwidth costs the company nothing.
So, let's make this analogy. Let's say you find a way to secretly tunnel all the gin you want, for a discounted price, the Cost of Goods Sold. We'll call this 'pirating' gin. You pay COGS and get your gin. The company loses no money.
Now, from the company's perspective, the two are equal. They obviously would like you to buy instead of pirate, and pay retail instead of COGS, but neither is making them *lose* money.
Unless, of course, you all of a sudden, assume they are pirating instead of buying. However, the surveys suggest this is not an accurate model.
Surveys suggest that users pirate music and buy more music than other people. The analogy now would be, that you 'pirate' your gin, then buy two bottles at retail. Compare that to someone else who only buys one bottle.
Despite the fact that you are 'pirating' gin (or music), the company is still better off having you do both.
Obviously, they would rather have you buy three bottles than buy two and pirate one, but they're still doing just fine.
Company makes money. Customer is drunk. Everyone's happy. Why do we need lawyers for this?
I think the thought that Apple is going to be a software company isn't quite on target. I'm pretty damn sure there are going to be a ton of mac lifers that will buy mac hardware, and buy a mac, from Apple, that "just works".
Of course, there would be changes. On the other hand, there is stuff they'll always have good hardware sales in. Hell, the iPod is doing just fine; but you don't need an Apple computer to run it. Sure there are cheaper alternatives, but people want expensive but cool Apple hardware. The Dell and iRiver mp3 players don't cut it. Nothing is as cool as the iPod.
However, I think they will see changes is some other hardware departments. For example, their DVD burners. $250 for a DVD+-RW. You can call it a SuperDrive if you want, but there's really nothing special about it. Mine actually stopped working a few months ago (CD/DVD gets stuck and it ejects). Searching forums, I found this is a rather common problem. The "super" drives definitely don't have exceptional quality. I just bought a burner for my PC for $40. Works great, installed easy. Why pay $250 for the apple one? It definitely doesn't look that cool. Does it cost them $210 to make it slot loading?
Apple defnitely has a lot of hardware cash cows that aren't going to be around for long, but I have a feeling it'll be better in the long run. I was reluctant to switch to Apple for two reasons. (A) it's expensive. (B) it's theirs. If I hate Apple and want to switch back, I have one useless, expensive computer.
Now, a transition to Apple could be much easier. I can just install it on my current hardware, and if I don't like it, I can switch back. Hell, Apple could even start to milk that as another advantage of switching.
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If not, they could always push their hardware with "support" packages. Offer a promise that if you buy from Apple, everything will "just work", and only offer limited support to "software only customers" such as only offering phone support for a brief period, such as 90 days (cough).
I really think this will catch on, and it will be a big change for Apple no matter what. As long as they don't start manhunting/prosecuting OSx86 users, I think we might even see a more switch-to-able Apple in the future.
You don't want to alienate those users by trying to make them pay.
I would seriously suggest seeing if M$'s anti-piracy division shares the same view. How are people going to alienate them? Most people can't make the switch (training costs, support, etc) normally, why would they all of a sudden be able to out of spite?
Oh, I didn't get rich by writing a lot of checks!
Microsoft makes everyone pay. That's the bottom line.
Actually, this is not a completely unreasonable number. According an article from Netscape.com a few weeks ago, it says that 10% of people have bought something from a spam email. So, there's at least some basis, even if it's misinterpreted.
Of course, even the dumbest of the dumb get thousands of spams and probably only make one or two orders for a total of maybe $100 total.
According to Paul Graham in Hackers and Painters (IIRC), there is about either a 0.1% to 0.01% success rate per spam.
Generally, the cost of a spam (for bandwidth usage, the inconvenience of finding a hackable server, etc), runs about 0.1 to 0.01 cents per email.
Unfortunately (well, fortuneately for them), barring getting caught, this still makes sending spam a very profitable process.
I am getting somewhat tired of hearing about Macs costing an arm and a leg + other things. For many purposes, Macs aren't incredibly more expensive than PCs, particularly in the laptop market. Price out a typical laptop from Dell or IBM, with a good sized hard drive, Gig of RAM, DVD+-RW, solid video card, Firewire, etc. It will come out to just about $2000. Price out a similar Powerbook 15", you'll get about $2700. Take out the 20% educational discount, you're all of a sudden pretty damn close to the $2000 mark.
Next, there is the issue of software. Apple offers much more useful software integrated with their OS. Consider the following:
iMovie vs. Windows Movie Maker
iTunes vs. Windows Media Player
Safari vs. Internet Explorer
Smooth.pdf handling vs. Crap.pdf handling
OS integrated CD burning that works vs. one that doesn't
Obviously, Mac OS X is much more useful out of the box. Then, add to that much better hardware design, much better OS design, and no asinine 'take a tour of windows xp' or 'help make office better' garbage.
On top of that, probably due to ease of use, Mac OS X Server has the cheapest overall cost of ownership between hardware/software licensing and support (more support and license costs on M$, MUCH more support costs for Linux).
Overall, Apple has its shortcomings (hardware price, integrated ftp/smb clients, Superdrives that break), but it really doesn't deserve to be discounted so quickly.
No, this is obviously bad for end users. Consider two cases:
Case A: There are no restrictions.
As an end user, you can always (A) buy a PC and run M$/FreeBSD/Linux, (B) buy an Apple and run Mac OSX. But, without restrictions, you can also (C) buy an Apple and run M$/FreeBSD/Linux on it, or (D) buy a PC and run Mac OSX on it.
Now, Case B: Apple sets hardware restrictions.
You now cannot (D) buy a PC and run Mac OSX. There is no added benefit for you as an end user.
With that out of the way, I suppose it is Apple's decision, as it is their OS (well, their GUI), although it is a faggoty decision.
Based on how the iPod works (or doesn't work, ie can't copy songs from an iPod to a computer), one could have seen this coming from a mile away, but how possible would it be to get around this? It didn't take long for xPod to come along. Any chance of a cracked Mac OS X anytime soon?
Makes enough sense. But, that is the exact opposite of what the agreement says when you install it, right?
Actually, I noticed that after Service Pack 2, you needed to download a new version of Windows Update, just do download the updates. Is this "new version" just French for "new, more imposing license agreement?" That would probably be the best way to change the contract terms without drawing much attention to the specific change.
Anyway, what I'm more so worried about is if they start squealing if you have pirated versions of AutoCAD, MATLAB, etc. Cause believe me, even at a 'discounted price', you still cannot afford those. Of course, in any other industry, if any company started pulling this crap, all their customers would simply switch to a competitor. Sigh. Oh well, I think I'll just stop downloading Windows Updates. I actually haven't updated my system since last fall, and haven't been running Antivirus in quite some time. Good old trusty Peerguardian 2 has been keeping me afloat for these last 10 months. Long live the king!
Yeah, that's right, I'm sure they're using this to break apart people that are peacefully assembling. It's definitley the long-term goal of the government (particularly in America) so slowly restrict our rights and take over our lives with their hateful policies. And it's just the Republicans too. If it wasn't for them, there would be no evil people in the world. Ever.
from article "we rarely hear of companies doing wide-scale migrations from IE."
Actually, I disagree with that. A lot of places use firefox, and have specific settings/features specifically for netscape-based browsers. I go to Lehigh University, where firefox is standard on every computer.
Somehow, I just don't feel like "migrate" is quite the right word. Obvoiusly, if a company put Linux on every one of it's computers, it'd be pretty damn migrated. However, since you obviously can't have a Windows box that doesn't run IE, it's still hanging on every computer. But the IT guys push it and tell all the professors/staff to use it for security issues, and all the Mail is Thunderbird.
I really feel like Firefox and Thunderbird are a lot more "migrated" than it seems like, but it's just not a complete move away from IE becuase you could still use it if you absolutely wanted to.
So the owner of the store is at fault for storing his customers valuables somewhere that it is easy to steal?
Yes. As I recall from my Law professor, "If you take someone's dog for a walk, and it gets hit by a meteor, you ARE responsible for injury to the dog, because you took the dog to a place that was susceptible to meteor showers."
That's pretty much how the system works.
Is that the kind of laws we want?
Um, no. Take that up with your Representative, President, etc.
and I am to blame for not replacing the locks?
Yes.
What if the Jewlery store did not want any locks?
Then he's probably a dumbass. And an optimistic one at that.
What if all they wanted was for people to obey the law?
Aw. How sweet. Wouldn't that be nice. Maybe in Demolition Man. But even that system wasn't quite perfect.
Are we living in a society with no honor? Um. Yes. Money is our new form of honor. Money and lawyers.
Are we living in a time when everything that is wrong is okay, the "poor me" I did not mean to do it, but it was too tempting?
This kind of reminds me of the story of the guy and the girl that both get wasted and both decide to hook up. For some reason the next morning, the guy is at fault, and the girl is a 'victim'.
Many fewer people stole, lied, and cheated.
Now we have computers, cooler cars, and all in all more cool shit to steal. It's more tempting.
It seems like every deviant lifestyle is being accepted as normal.
Yeah. And it sucks. We need to bring back corporal punishment.
Try working in laptop repair for a COLLEGE that has the laptop lease program (Babson College namely, also UNC, etc). It's really not much better...
My Screen is broken I dropped it I lost it It won't turn on, etc
now, add in even more fun:
My keyboard is typing all numbers How do you turn NumLock off I spilled beer on my laptop My roomate spilled beer on my laptop I PUKED ON MY LAPTOP
I'm not kidding. It happened. More than once. Puke on a laptop. Maybe it might actually be good to help dumbass kids get this kind of thing out of their systems earlier in life.
I really don't see how this is supporting 'file sharing' at all. The idea of sharing is you can put up whatever stuff you have on your computer, be it songs/movies you downloaded, songs you ripped yourself, hell, songs you sung youself. You can put up your own pictures or ebooks, and TV shows.
This service really isn't supporting much of anything directly p2p related. I mean, it looks attractive because you can download songs from anyone, but that's only songs they downloaded via the service. You can't serve up just any mp3's on your computer, so when it comes down to it, it's only the songs that were on a central server in the first place.
When it comes down to it, all this is is an iTunes where you download from someone else instead of a central server. This method brags that (a) you can 'share' your music, (b) earn credits, and (c) get faster downloads.
Well, (c) I never seem to have a problem with iTunes downloads going slow. As for (a) no one really gives a crap what music you have. It's the same damn song you could buy from the next guy, or a central server on iTunes, so it's not like it's really your music. And (b) this is annoying as crap. As if I don't get enough solicitations for 'visit my webcam site' and 'sign up for a free ipod', now I have to listen to AIM people blab about this too? Well, let's ignore that for now. You get a limit of 10% on each song! So I'm going to go through all the trouble of pushing this stupid program for a lousy 10 (9.9) cents on every song?
What a rip. I'll still to iTunes. Or better yet, Bittorrent and Soulseek.
Slashdot Mirror
Selling recorded music is a multi-million dollar industry,
I think you have a good point here, but might wanna add a couple zeros to that figure.
Violations would carry fines of $250-$500. But on the other hand, Public Drunkenness is a $250-$500 fine, and I do that all the time.
(despite being Linspire)
.jpg) is beyond their realm. All of these users will be more or less indifferent to their operating system as long as it boots up and the internet works.
I agree you have a point here, but I think if you could move an entire country over to Linus, for even a little while, it would be a huge step in the right direction. Even if it is a terrible distro, I think a lot of people would be willing to switch from Linspire to another Linux distro. The switch from a crappy distro to a good one would certainly be easier than individuals switching from Windows to Linux on their own.
Hell, maybe everyone will use it and decide to go back. Fine. Just raising awareness is plenty enough. Most people still don't know what Linux is. "Is it like a computer?" "Is it a program or something?" Hell, I would be willing to bet maybe a quarter of computer users don't know what an "Operating System" is, much less know that there even is one that isn't Windows. Giving the average non-technical user the insight that there is a world outside of Microsoft is a step in the right direction, even if the whole plan turns out to be a disaster.
Next, there are extremely non-technical users. Namely my mom, grandma/grandpa, etc. I'm talking "I don't know, I just click on the e" people. Generally, these people use their computers for email, internet, and maybe instant messaging, but thats about it. Even simple photo editing (I'm talking rotate/crop/save as
Sadly, I think the above-named group represents a LOT of people. Not only will they have simpler problems (could you imagine your grandma complaining that she can't install Mathematica?), but will probably ask friends/family members before hounding support techs.
Ultimately, Linspire is probably biting off a bit more than it can chew, and will probably have to pay a lot more support dollars than it was planning on, which may prove to be a fatal flaw. On the other hand, maybe it would get some very, very generous government grants?
The bottom line here is that if they actually pull this off, it'll obviously be a REALLY rocky road for quite some time, but I think it'll be at least feasible. Porting apps (performance-intensive ones that won't run well on WINE or similar) will probably be a disaster for quite some time. But in the long run, it'll probably generate more of a market for Linux apps, which would be huge for the rest of the world.
Now, we wait and see. Go Roh Moo-hyun.
Why? How do we know there has to be "thousands of much more complex reactions" or that these reactions have to be "simultaneous". My take is that we're pretty ignorant of what happened back then, and that ignorance is poor evidence for concluding something is possible or not.
Actually, for the original strand of RNA (or PNA according to the article), which is suspected to be the least, smallest, and simplest material capable of life, had to be formed from this primidorial soup. That requires literally thousands of reactions, and yes, they do have to happen at the same time, or else the partially formed xNA strand will just break apart (as they tend to do).
Parhaps I wasn't quite clear on the 'thousands of reactions' bit. What I meant to say was that for life to be formed in the way that we suspect it was, there had to a more or less impossible mixture of reactions. When I say "void here which remains to be discovered", I'm saying that the primidorial soup being struck by lightning or whatever is not adequate. I'm guessing that there was some simpler source of life that was a precursor to RNA, and even simpler, which likely has ceased to exist at some point.
Of course even that is speculation, as well as anything ID people will say, but for now, it's the best we can do. Hell, we just discovered recently that dinosaurs weren't reptiles, who knows what we'll find in a few years.
can we create *intelligence* from scratch?
I think I fundamentally disagree with you in saying that intelligence is hard to create, given life in the first place. At this point in time, science has (almost) undisputedly proved the theory of common descent. I pretty well believe that humans eventually came from single-celled organisms, and so does most of the world.
So assuming that is true, intelligence more or less created itself, through life, by a glorified trial-and-error system. Although it seems surprising at first, if you consider how many many different orananisms there are (were) at any given time, and how many trials (generations) there have been, it becomes much more down to Earth.
Actually I think even 'intelligence' today is still a glorified system of trial and error. Think about solving an elementary algebra problem. What's your first intuition (or was when you were learning)? Isolate the variable, etc? Hell no! Trial and error. It's intuitive and doesn't take much mental 'work'. Example: Mary and Sue have a combined age of 15. Mary is 5 years older than Sue. How old is Mary?
Spit this problem at an average 5th/6th grader and I promise you won't get anything along the lines of x + (x + 5) = 15. You'll just get 3 + 8 = [crossed out], 4 + 9 = [crossed out], 5 + 10 = 15 !! And that's how the problem is solved by a (we'll say) 10 year old.
Now, I know I don't seem to be really getting at anything big, but consider this: the average 10 year old has solved a LOT of 'problems' in his/her lifetime, from how to balance to stand up, how much food to eat so you aren't hungry anymore but don't throw up... I could go on forever, but I will call one example: pouring.
Is it hard to pour water from a pitcher into a cup? I'm pretty sure most of you have figured out how to do this reasonably well by now. To do this problem systematically is EXTREMELY difficult. I'll simplify the problem slightly and boil the problem down to two varibles: The height of water in the cup (we'll say % full), and the tilt on the pitcher (an angle between 0 and 180). There is ABSOLUTELY no simple, one-line algebraic equation to solve this one. You can't simply say, when the cup is 100% full, put the angle to zero. You have to correct for how much water is out of the pitcher already and is about to fall into the cup (a time delay), and also the time it takes to move the pitcher from say, 20 degrees to 0 degrees (more time delay). Even better, the flow of the water within the pitcher depends not only on the angular position (zeroth derivative), and the rate and acceleration (first and second derivatives), but also the "jerk" of the pitcher (third derivative of angular position). Wow. That's hard.
To solve this problem analytically, you would need a lot of math. A LOT. In fact, even more than we know today. Using LaPlace transforms and 3rd order differential equation solvers, this can be done, but even the DE solvers are written in trial-and-error form to some extent. If you've read this far, you're probably asking: What exactly am I getting at?
YOU ALREADY SOLVED THIS PROBLEM! Ever fill up a cup and not spill? Not bad. Basically, your mind (body?) has already found at least some solution to this problem without you knowing it. You have subconciously short-circuited hundreds of PhD's worth of math with a magic black-box of trial and error. Remember when you were a kid? You tilt the pitcher little and tilt it back. Not enough. You do it again. Not enough. You tilt the pitcher until the cup is full. Crap. Spilled it. Note to self: stop before the cup is full.
So there you have it. Our 'intelligence' has solved math problems than most college graduates could do (even with Maple) to save their lives. If it works, do it again, and if it doesn't work, do something different. That's all our 'intelligence' is.
I really don't think this whole 'intelligence' thing is a very novel concept at all.
Why not have a rating system? They should make a rating system, so you could add Informative, Incomplete, Biased, etc, and have articles with particularly low ratings flagged for review (do they do something like this already?).
I think they should lock a lot more articles that are known to be complete and accurate. The definition of, say, orange juice hasn't changed all that much in the last 10 years and probably won't in the next 10.
Working these two concepts in together, I think they should have the 'modifiability' of the article be based on how high it's rated. For just a stub, or no article at all, then anyone should be able to modify it. But if the article is long (enough) and complete, then say maybe only a register with many high-rated articles can change it.
I think the main idea here is to promote and protect good content, but I seriously think they should not do anything to restrict an average joe from exlpicitly adding content.
Anyone else there think I'm on the right track?
"...but they've gotten so carried away they are overreaching... That's good."
Are you sure about that? I'd like to start by mentioning the industry collapsing won't be good for any artists, established or not. High prices and piracy or not, if there's no one to quickly turn performances into CDs in stores and songs on the radio, I don't think anyone's going to be happy.
On another note, I don't think having their 'greed show' is going to stop them. It's been really clear for a long time that they've been greedy as shit ($13.86 mean anything to you?), but since then, there hasn't been a single crippling lawsuit against the RIAA. They're still getting rediculous royalties (70 cents per iTunes song), they're still cranking out lawsuits left and right, and no one's doing anything about it.
The recording industry is making no secret of being greedy (special thanks Steve Jobs), but it hasn't gotten, or appeared, more or less greedy in the last 5 years or so. If they haven't been stopped already, I don't think that's going to do it.
Unfortunately, it's going to take more than being perceived as a greedy bad guy to take them down (cough, Microsoft). I'm sort of hoping for a 'new generation' of lawmakers. As of now, I'm going to say that most people in positions to pass these laws are in the age range of 35-60, but people that grew up with Napster and successors probably aren't more than 20-25 years old. Maybe when this all cycles through and people that grew up downloading music start to pass these laws, they might be a bit more sympathetic toward the money-starved, music-hungry end user downloader.
I just don't see any real end to all of this. As long as the RIAA (and MPAA) continues to have endless dollars to throw lawyers around, they're probably not going to lose big time. And I have a feeling they'll have plenty of those dollars for a LONG time.
P2P seems to be the light in all of this. Despite flurries of lawsuits and garbage propaganda, efforts thus far to curb piracy have not been extremely effective. Napster lead way to Kazzaa and iMesh, and even the shutting down of the giant Suprnova only lead to sites like IsoHunt that are bigger than SN ever was. As long as music, movies, and music videos are readily available online for free, I don't think the record companies will ever have too much of an edge up. As long as I can put my mp3s (that I didn't pay a dime for) onto my iPod, and watch DivX movies on my modded Xbox, I think I'll be happy.
Happiness = Beer and Pot. They don't make you happy forever, but they make you happy long enough to get more Beer and Pot!
Who rated this informative?
Now that the kids are cleared of the felony charges, is it time yet to hunt down the school officials and try to get them fired, or see to it that 'an accident' might happen to their cars?
Where's the "Trust buster" when you need him?
Actually, although the two are somewhat different, they can be related. What's the difference between piracy and stealing?
Piracy makes unwanted duplicates, but otherwise causes no *damage* to the firm. The copies the users make with their own bandwidth costs the company nothing.
So, let's make this analogy. Let's say you find a way to secretly tunnel all the gin you want, for a discounted price, the Cost of Goods Sold. We'll call this 'pirating' gin. You pay COGS and get your gin. The company loses no money.
Now, from the company's perspective, the two are equal. They obviously would like you to buy instead of pirate, and pay retail instead of COGS, but neither is making them *lose* money.
Unless, of course, you all of a sudden, assume they are pirating instead of buying. However, the surveys suggest this is not an accurate model.
Surveys suggest that users pirate music and buy more music than other people. The analogy now would be, that you 'pirate' your gin, then buy two bottles at retail. Compare that to someone else who only buys one bottle.
Despite the fact that you are 'pirating' gin (or music), the company is still better off having you do both.
Obviously, they would rather have you buy three bottles than buy two and pirate one, but they're still doing just fine.
Company makes money. Customer is drunk. Everyone's happy. Why do we need lawyers for this?
the people with the worst driving records are almost always men
Yeah, but that doesn't include mailboxes.
Can I get this from my desktop? This might give new meaning to the Apple iSight.
I think the thought that Apple is going to be a software company isn't quite on target. I'm pretty damn sure there are going to be a ton of mac lifers that will buy mac hardware, and buy a mac, from Apple, that "just works".
Of course, there would be changes. On the other hand, there is stuff they'll always have good hardware sales in. Hell, the iPod is doing just fine; but you don't need an Apple computer to run it. Sure there are cheaper alternatives, but people want expensive but cool Apple hardware. The Dell and iRiver mp3 players don't cut it. Nothing is as cool as the iPod.
However, I think they will see changes is some other hardware departments. For example, their DVD burners. $250 for a DVD+-RW. You can call it a SuperDrive if you want, but there's really nothing special about it. Mine actually stopped working a few months ago (CD/DVD gets stuck and it ejects). Searching forums, I found this is a rather common problem. The "super" drives definitely don't have exceptional quality. I just bought a burner for my PC for $40. Works great, installed easy. Why pay $250 for the apple one? It definitely doesn't look that cool. Does it cost them $210 to make it slot loading?
Apple defnitely has a lot of hardware cash cows that aren't going to be around for long, but I have a feeling it'll be better in the long run. I was reluctant to switch to Apple for two reasons. (A) it's expensive. (B) it's theirs. If I hate Apple and want to switch back, I have one useless, expensive computer.
Now, a transition to Apple could be much easier. I can just install it on my current hardware, and if I don't like it, I can switch back. Hell, Apple could even start to milk that as another advantage of switching.
. If not, they could always push their hardware with "support" packages. Offer a promise that if you buy from Apple, everything will "just work", and only offer limited support to "software only customers" such as only offering phone support for a brief period, such as 90 days (cough).
I really think this will catch on, and it will be a big change for Apple no matter what. As long as they don't start manhunting/prosecuting OSx86 users, I think we might even see a more switch-to-able Apple in the future.
You don't want to alienate those users by trying to make them pay.
I would seriously suggest seeing if M$'s anti-piracy division shares the same view. How are people going to alienate them? Most people can't make the switch (training costs, support, etc) normally, why would they all of a sudden be able to out of spite?
Oh, I didn't get rich by writing a lot of checks!
Microsoft makes everyone pay. That's the bottom line.
Actually, this is not a completely unreasonable number. According an article from Netscape.com a few weeks ago, it says that 10% of people have bought something from a spam email. So, there's at least some basis, even if it's misinterpreted.
Of course, even the dumbest of the dumb get thousands of spams and probably only make one or two orders for a total of maybe $100 total.
According to Paul Graham in Hackers and Painters (IIRC), there is about either a 0.1% to 0.01% success rate per spam.
Generally, the cost of a spam (for bandwidth usage, the inconvenience of finding a hackable server, etc), runs about 0.1 to 0.01 cents per email.
Unfortunately (well, fortuneately for them), barring getting caught, this still makes sending spam a very profitable process.
I am getting somewhat tired of hearing about Macs costing an arm and a leg + other things. For many purposes, Macs aren't incredibly more expensive than PCs, particularly in the laptop market. Price out a typical laptop from Dell or IBM, with a good sized hard drive, Gig of RAM, DVD+-RW, solid video card, Firewire, etc. It will come out to just about $2000. Price out a similar Powerbook 15", you'll get about $2700. Take out the 20% educational discount, you're all of a sudden pretty damn close to the $2000 mark.
.pdf handling vs. Crap .pdf handling
Next, there is the issue of software. Apple offers much more useful software integrated with their OS. Consider the following:
iMovie vs. Windows Movie Maker
iTunes vs. Windows Media Player
Safari vs. Internet Explorer
Smooth
OS integrated CD burning that works vs. one that doesn't
Obviously, Mac OS X is much more useful out of the box. Then, add to that much better hardware design, much better OS design, and no asinine 'take a tour of windows xp' or 'help make office better' garbage.
On top of that, probably due to ease of use, Mac OS X Server has the cheapest overall cost of ownership between hardware/software licensing and support (more support and license costs on M$, MUCH more support costs for Linux).
Overall, Apple has its shortcomings (hardware price, integrated ftp/smb clients, Superdrives that break), but it really doesn't deserve to be discounted so quickly.
No, this is obviously bad for end users. Consider two cases:
Case A: There are no restrictions.
As an end user, you can always (A) buy a PC and run M$/FreeBSD/Linux, (B) buy an Apple and run Mac OSX. But, without restrictions, you can also (C) buy an Apple and run M$/FreeBSD/Linux on it, or (D) buy a PC and run Mac OSX on it.
Now, Case B: Apple sets hardware restrictions.
You now cannot (D) buy a PC and run Mac OSX. There is no added benefit for you as an end user.
With that out of the way, I suppose it is Apple's decision, as it is their OS (well, their GUI), although it is a faggoty decision.
Based on how the iPod works (or doesn't work, ie can't copy songs from an iPod to a computer), one could have seen this coming from a mile away, but how possible would it be to get around this? It didn't take long for xPod to come along. Any chance of a cracked Mac OS X anytime soon?
Makes enough sense. But, that is the exact opposite of what the agreement says when you install it, right?
Actually, I noticed that after Service Pack 2, you needed to download a new version of Windows Update, just do download the updates. Is this "new version" just French for "new, more imposing license agreement?" That would probably be the best way to change the contract terms without drawing much attention to the specific change.
Anyway, what I'm more so worried about is if they start squealing if you have pirated versions of AutoCAD, MATLAB, etc. Cause believe me, even at a 'discounted price', you still cannot afford those. Of course, in any other industry, if any company started pulling this crap, all their customers would simply switch to a competitor. Sigh.
Oh well, I think I'll just stop downloading Windows Updates. I actually haven't updated my system since last fall, and haven't been running Antivirus in quite some time. Good old trusty Peerguardian 2 has been keeping me afloat for these last 10 months. Long live the king!
Yeah, that's right, I'm sure they're using this to break apart people that are peacefully assembling. It's definitley the long-term goal of the government (particularly in America) so slowly restrict our rights and take over our lives with their hateful policies. And it's just the Republicans too. If it wasn't for them, there would be no evil people in the world. Ever.
Dumbass
from article "we rarely hear of companies doing wide-scale migrations from IE." Actually, I disagree with that. A lot of places use firefox, and have specific settings/features specifically for netscape-based browsers. I go to Lehigh University, where firefox is standard on every computer.
Somehow, I just don't feel like "migrate" is quite the right word. Obvoiusly, if a company put Linux on every one of it's computers, it'd be pretty damn migrated. However, since you obviously can't have a Windows box that doesn't run IE, it's still hanging on every computer. But the IT guys push it and tell all the professors/staff to use it for security issues, and all the Mail is Thunderbird.
I really feel like Firefox and Thunderbird are a lot more "migrated" than it seems like, but it's just not a complete move away from IE becuase you could still use it if you absolutely wanted to.
Long live Firefox!
So the owner of the store is at fault for storing his customers valuables somewhere that it is easy to steal?
Yes. As I recall from my Law professor, "If you take someone's dog for a walk, and it gets hit by a meteor, you ARE responsible for injury to the dog, because you took the dog to a place that was susceptible to meteor showers."
That's pretty much how the system works.
Is that the kind of laws we want?
Um, no. Take that up with your Representative, President, etc.
and I am to blame for not replacing the locks?
Yes.
What if the Jewlery store did not want any locks?
Then he's probably a dumbass. And an optimistic one at that.
What if all they wanted was for people to obey the law?
Aw. How sweet. Wouldn't that be nice. Maybe in Demolition Man. But even that system wasn't quite perfect.
Are we living in a society with no honor?
Um. Yes. Money is our new form of honor. Money and lawyers.
Are we living in a time when everything that is wrong is okay, the "poor me" I did not mean to do it, but it was too tempting?
This kind of reminds me of the story of the guy and the girl that both get wasted and both decide to hook up. For some reason the next morning, the guy is at fault, and the girl is a 'victim'.
Many fewer people stole, lied, and cheated.
Now we have computers, cooler cars, and all in all more cool shit to steal. It's more tempting.
It seems like every deviant lifestyle is being accepted as normal.
Yeah. And it sucks. We need to bring back corporal punishment.
I dunno what to tell you. Life's a bitch.
Try working in laptop repair for a COLLEGE that has the laptop lease program (Babson College namely, also UNC, etc). It's really not much better...
My Screen is broken
I dropped it
I lost it
It won't turn on, etc
now, add in even more fun:
My keyboard is typing all numbers
How do you turn NumLock off
I spilled beer on my laptop
My roomate spilled beer on my laptop
I PUKED ON MY LAPTOP
I'm not kidding. It happened. More than once. Puke on a laptop. Maybe it might actually be good to help dumbass kids get this kind of thing out of their systems earlier in life.
I really don't see how this is supporting 'file sharing' at all. The idea of sharing is you can put up whatever stuff you have on your computer, be it songs/movies you downloaded, songs you ripped yourself, hell, songs you sung youself. You can put up your own pictures or ebooks, and TV shows.
This service really isn't supporting much of anything directly p2p related. I mean, it looks attractive because you can download songs from anyone, but that's only songs they downloaded via the service. You can't serve up just any mp3's on your computer, so when it comes down to it, it's only the songs that were on a central server in the first place.
When it comes down to it, all this is is an iTunes where you download from someone else instead of a central server. This method brags that (a) you can 'share' your music, (b) earn credits, and (c) get faster downloads.
Well, (c) I never seem to have a problem with iTunes downloads going slow. As for (a) no one really gives a crap what music you have. It's the same damn song you could buy from the next guy, or a central server on iTunes, so it's not like it's really your music. And (b) this is annoying as crap. As if I don't get enough solicitations for 'visit my webcam site' and 'sign up for a free ipod', now I have to listen to AIM people blab about this too? Well, let's ignore that for now. You get a limit of 10% on each song! So I'm going to go through all the trouble of pushing this stupid program for a lousy 10 (9.9) cents on every song?
What a rip. I'll still to iTunes. Or better yet, Bittorrent and Soulseek.