Which is that everyone can run a tracker. When anyone can be a server, you can't really claim that all the negatives of centralized P2P apply. These pirate bittorrent sites run their own trackers so that they can enforce ratios, but bittorrent can be run from virtually anywhere.
The alternative is to develop fixed bittorrent clients (as suprnova has been trying to do). This is a bad idea, because it will require the formalization of the port(s) that bittorrent runs across, making BT easy to track and block. As it stands, the torrent specifies the tracker's port and the tracker manages the clients such that port agnosticism is possible. This, I think, is a big deal. The "compromise" centralized architecture of BT as it stands has a lot of merit.
Following up on the previous story about suprnova's new client... for sites like theirs I can understand the impulse -- move the trackers off the site (and its seeders) to decrease liability.
But one of the best things about bittorrent is that it's port agnostic. The torrent file can specify the tracker on whatever port, so it's tough for industry to IP-scan for torrents. If you create a client with automatic trackers, that won't be the case, and BT traffic will be easily tracked and blocked.
I've been experiencing the exact same phenomenon. So have a few of my friends. I'm sure it's not happening to everybody, but yeah, for me, the PR seemed more stable. On my system the official release goes to 99% CPU utilization and has to be shut down a few times a day, typically.
It doesn't throw errors to report. I'm not savvy enough to know how to get debugging information out of it, and I don't have the time to spend on mozilla forums trying to get someone's attention and then working it out.
So I won't put in the time. I don't expect the firefox people to fix it for me, given that, of course. They've already given me plenty, and it's still a great browser.
But I have been having this problem, and if other people have, too, then I'm glad to see it being discussed. Beyond hoping the problem becomes well-characterized, I think it's worth having a discussion about this because it could have implications for how OSS is perceived by the mass culture. The Firefox campaign is the biggest, most successful open source push in recent memory. Let's not act like it's heresy to talk about it here instead of in a newsgroup somewhere.
I understand what you're saying about subjectivity. But you're acting like it's an absolute; that all bands are equally good since objective measurement is difficult or irrational. But that's not true. Subjective quality is not uniformly.
You might have a real point if airplay correlated with album sales. But there are glaring exceptions. Look at Radiohead. Look at Steely Dan. Look at the Grateful Dead or Phish. There are lots of bands who aren't on the radio, yet have huge album sales. The issue is not radio reflecting the taste of phillistines; it's radio reflecting its own corporate ambitions, and intentionally shaping the preferences of the casual listener.
As a person's devotion to music increases -- i.e., more time is paid to the hobby -- the overwhelming majority turns away from what's on the radio. They may turn to obscure country, or blues, or indie rock, or jazz -- whatever. But very few people who spend a lot of time listening to and reading about music find their love of Britney Spears' artistry deepening.
Is this just en-masse elitism? I'm sure to some extent it is. But I find it hard to believe that solo artists locked into multi-album deals -- the kind of artists that are most profitable to the record companies -- are the "naturally best" solution to serving casual listeners (at least from the listeners' perspective).
You're right that the subjectivity of art means we can argue forever about what ought to be on the radio, but one thing should be clear: whatever it is, it isn't what's on the radio now.
Eh. I've already got a copy preordered. As a result, if I decide to download this, I won't be losing much sleep over the moral ramifications.
I don't mean to downplay the damaging effects of piracy, but keep in mind that pirated xbox games can't be played on XBox Live. For a game like this, I think an early start to piracy won't do much to effect its blockbuster status.
Unfortunately, I now feel compelled to download it and wrestle with the french menus, if only so that I won't get massacred online on its release date.
The poster implicitly assumes that storage requirements are a stationary target. That's not the case. The cost of a 30GB flash drive may be affordable some day, but by then conventional magnetic storage will have much higher capacities than they do today, and the competitive balance will remain as it currently stands. For this tech to outpace traditional drives, it would have to experience some sort of amazing breakthrough relative to those in the rotary drive industry, or will have to wait until we bump up against the limits of each medium as dictated by the laws of physics).
Some may argue that we have reached the point of diminishing returns when it comes to consumer storage. They're wrong -- video trading is about to take off, and HDTV is just around the corner. Admittedly, audio and still photograph fidelity is probably about as high as many consumers are likely to require, but in general, storage requirements will continue to increase for the foreseeable future. And of course business *always* needs more space...
The hiptop is a well-designed device. It is a TERRIBLY built device (generation 1, anyway). I've been through four, myself. If you're under warranty (it sounds like you're not, since you've had it for more than a year), call them up and get a replacement. You may have to go through a couple of them.
Fortunately, I finally got a non-flaky one (color, too, when my original was b/w!) and am very happy with it.
It's quasi-push email support isn't really corporate-ready
The "built-in" email box (@tmail.com) receives email instantly when one comes in -- that's the "push" box. If you need your email with no latency, just forward it to that box. That's what I do for my work email.
The inablility to directly connect to POP or IMAP servers stinks IMO
You *can* connect to both POP and IMAP servers.
what do you do if you want to use it on another carrier down the road?
You'd be screwed, but then that's true of almost any handset in the American cellular marketplace.
Besides, this thing looks HUGE to me, not exactly a svelte device to slide in your pocket or clip to your belt.
Fair enough. You get used to it, but it's definitely a little unwieldy to have in your pocket, particularly during the summer when you don't have jacket pockets available.
Ok, so maybee it is a cheap Treo or Blackberry, but if you are buying a device for robust email access and PDA functionality, then the extra money spent would be well worth it, wouldn't it?
Obviously this is a judgment call for everyone, but I got my sidekick for $50 after rebates -- and this was only a few months after its release. The sidekick isn't just trivially cheaper than those devices, it's a LOT cheaper. The build quality on the first one left a lot to be desired, but the device does an awful lot for the money, and has the best keyboard of any cell phone. Use whatever you want, but at its price point the SK is a pretty amazing device.
thanks for the info. Of course, I still wouldn't be surprised if Real considers that "good enough" to satisfy the record companies (who are doubtless the ones insisting on the copy protection).
the ipod can play non-DRMed AACs, can't it? I bet real just recompresses their RMs as you load them onto the iPod, and counts on music files being unretrievable from the iPod (that's the impression I've got -- that data is retrievable from the device in USB/mass storage mode, but that audio media are not. correct me if I'm wrong.). There's no real need for copy protection.
If you feel qualified to lecture me about pharmacology, surely you're aware that the mechanism of delivery is vital to a drug's effects -- or would you care to argue that smoking opium and shooting heroin produces identical results? Both are opioids, after all. They both affect the same neurotransmitter systems.
Crack can withstand heat sufficiently to allow it to be delivered via the lungs. This is important. The high is quicker and more intense than cocaine, as is withdrawal. Addiction tends to be more severe, and consequently so are the social effects.
Well, crack cocaine produces a more extreme high than the powdered form. Wouldn't you agree that crack cocaine is more debilitating?
an increase in demand isn't going to cause the price of cocaine to go down. the physical effects are likely to be the same, assuming that this vaccine works by priming the immune system to attack the drugs. I think this could work.
However, I wouldn't be surprised if some folks experienced a serious anaphilactic reaction. Maybe they're accounting for this somehow...
Uh... there being *some* undocumented API calls does not mean there is an entire parallel "shadow" API, as you call it. The latter would require a massive conspiracy designed to impede others; the former happens ALL THE TIME when complicated APIs are publicly released. It would be nice to have perfect documentation, but not having it does not mean that Bill Gates is skulking around the bushes outside your house.
Besides, you don't need the source to decompile the binaries and see if they're linked with entirely different libraries -- so your crackpot conspiracy theory doesn't hold up at all. Stop spreading FUD.
Re:Changed the view of the US?
on
Bobby Fischer Found
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Actually Utimate, when played at a high level, involves a lot of strategy. There are a number of different defenses and offenses. Interestingly, the entire defensive team needs to react in unison when the disc changes hands on the offensive side -- the person doing the guarding tries to force the thrower to one side or the other (to either a conventional backhand throw or a 'flick', depending on that thrower's individual strength). Everyone else needs to adjust the defense they're playing to anticipate the disc arriving from that direction. It's quite a trick.
Certainly it's not as complicated as American football, but I'd say it could give basketball a run for its money (in terms of complexity) once fully developed.
But I only played college ultimate for one semester six years ago -- I'm sure there's a lot more to it than I picked up, and that the strategy has advanced since then. In fact, the reason I stopped playing (besides not being physically competitive with the amazing athletes that succeed at the sport) was that there was too much strategy -- I had learned Ultimate in basic pickup games, with lots of quick cuts and flashy plays. Played at a high level, the sport was too disciplined and complex for me to find it much fun.
I realize there are a lot of physics problems with the movie (although, like others, I was impressed with the motion of Ock's arms -- particularly how they braced themselves whenever he moved something heavy). This one really bugged me, though:
When fighting atop the train, Doc Ock throws Spiderman forward (relative to the train). Spidey makes himself fit neatly through slats in the pedestrian bridge he was aimed at -- and lands back on the train, right next to Doctor Octopus, at the point from which he was thrown! Being thrown forward would mean Spiderman's position should change with respect to the train. The only explanations to mitigate this that I can think of are that air resistance slowed Spiderman down, completely cancelling his forward motion relative to the train, or that Doc Ock moved forward very quickly while Spiderman was airborn. Both of these explanations seem improbable.
I agree completely. Pitchfork writers frequently try to make their reviews inventive by abandoning traditional music writing. Their large base of staff, inconsistent point rating scale, and weird "concept reviews" make it pretty worthless as a data source for analysis.
I love Pitchfork, but this is a dumb idea. Well, an objectively dumb idea. It seems to be working as a publicity stunt.
Glad somebody mentioned this. I guess the prof mentioned in the story put the red shift radiation through some signal processing, but that just makes it prettier. We've all heard the universe before: it sounds like someone tripped on a cable.
Enough with the Dick Tracy fantasies! The idea of a TV watch is asinine. Practical considerations about size aside, there's no point to it. The point of a wristwatch is that it can be looked at immediately at any time. If you feel like checking the time, your wristwatch allows you to do it immediately, anywhere. The operation takes about half a second.
These attributes do not apply to watching television. Whatever video you watch will probably be of sufficient length that the time wasted fishing a larger, more useful device out of your pocket is negligible. This is why wristphones are stupid, too. If the device's use takes more than a split second and/or it doesn't need to be accessible on an instant whim, there is no reason to put it on your wrist. I'm all for video-enabled cell phones. I see no reason why my portable electronics need to reside somewhere other than my pockets. Hey, why not attach an ipod to a headband? The controls would be SUPER accessible!
Now can we please forget these stupid wristwatch gadgets and get on with the flying cars?
I think the submitter may just not be familiar with how economists think. I have little doubt that the author is pretty serious about his ludicrous assertions.
my original reaction to this post follows, copied from its original location here:
It's articles like this one
that make me think we should round up all the economists, stuff them in
burlap sacks and throw them into the nearest convenient river. Allow me to explain. Slate's latest journalistic atrocity
claims that, after a diligent consideration of all the relevant
make-believe economic factors, one must inescapably conclude that it
makes more sense to execute the authors of computer virii, trojans and
worms than it does to execute murderers.
Now, put aside the fact that this article's fourth-and-a-half
sentence is "What do we get out of executing a murderer? Deterrence."
(oh really?)
Further, ignore how conveniently round all the numbers are (people
deterred by an execution? 10. Value of a human life? $10 million.
Economic benefit of executing a murderer? $100 million). And disregard
when the author unabashedly says "...I take my stand with the president
of the United States, who, in a 2000 debate against Al Gore, said quite
explicitly that nothing other than deterrence can justify the death
penalty," despite the fact that President's resume isn't exactly
burgeoning with the names of states known for their nuanced
philosophical consideration of capital punishment.
No, all you have to know about this article is that the author, Steven E. Landsburg, writes the following:
Compare that to the benefit of executing the author
of a computer worm, virus, or Trojan. There seems to be no good name
for such people, so I'll make one up--at least until some reader sends
in a better suggestion, I'll call them "vermiscripters."
First, Steve, there are names for these sorts of people. This
oversight can perhaps be forgiven -- sure, it reveals that you did
absolutely no research or background reading prior to declaring a
number of misguided teenagers fit for death, but this pales in
comparison with your second offense: implying that "vermiscripter"
constitutes a "good name."
Ladies and gentlement, if you should run into Steven Landsburg on
the street, do not make eye contact. Keep him away from your children.
And for god's sake, don't let him start to draw any graphs.
check out the lirc project. You can use any remote with it, and make it do just about anything. Hell, you could make it execute a perl script for each button! Windows flavors are available, too. I'm using it with mythtv, a homebrew IR receiver (plans linked from the lirc project homepage), and a $15 sony universal remote programmed to act like a TiVo remote.
Admittedly, this setup takes quite a bit of configuration, and can be a pain in the ass if you don't know what you're doing (I didn't). But it makes for a VERY nice solution -- much better than having an ugly, bulky keyboard kicking around your sofa.
Aren't we nerds supposed to feel a sense of antipathy toward horrible marketingspeak like this? You can't "trial" something. You can't "task" someone. Stop verbing nouns.
he said brain chemistry changes. Not brain damage. A compound does not have to be neurotoxic to have profoundly negative effects on your brain.
You bring up LSD. You're right, it probably does no or at most a negligible amount of brain damage (due to its extremely low dosage). However, you concede that it produces semi-permanent effects. Those effects are not always benign as the visual impairments you describe.
I'm not going to lecture you on drugs. Take whatever you want. However: do NOT bring this junk to a conversation about mental illness. Mood- or consciousness-altering drugs are SEVERELY CONTRAINDICATED FOR ALL SERIOUS MENTAL ILLNESSES. You should not risk implying their safety to people reading this discussion.
Slashdot Mirror
Which is that everyone can run a tracker. When anyone can be a server, you can't really claim that all the negatives of centralized P2P apply. These pirate bittorrent sites run their own trackers so that they can enforce ratios, but bittorrent can be run from virtually anywhere.
The alternative is to develop fixed bittorrent clients (as suprnova has been trying to do). This is a bad idea, because it will require the formalization of the port(s) that bittorrent runs across, making BT easy to track and block. As it stands, the torrent specifies the tracker's port and the tracker manages the clients such that port agnosticism is possible. This, I think, is a big deal. The "compromise" centralized architecture of BT as it stands has a lot of merit.
Following up on the previous story about suprnova's new client... for sites like theirs I can understand the impulse -- move the trackers off the site (and its seeders) to decrease liability.
But one of the best things about bittorrent is that it's port agnostic. The torrent file can specify the tracker on whatever port, so it's tough for industry to IP-scan for torrents. If you create a client with automatic trackers, that won't be the case, and BT traffic will be easily tracked and blocked.
bad idea!
I've been experiencing the exact same phenomenon. So have a few of my friends. I'm sure it's not happening to everybody, but yeah, for me, the PR seemed more stable. On my system the official release goes to 99% CPU utilization and has to be shut down a few times a day, typically.
It doesn't throw errors to report. I'm not savvy enough to know how to get debugging information out of it, and I don't have the time to spend on mozilla forums trying to get someone's attention and then working it out.
So I won't put in the time. I don't expect the firefox people to fix it for me, given that, of course. They've already given me plenty, and it's still a great browser.
But I have been having this problem, and if other people have, too, then I'm glad to see it being discussed. Beyond hoping the problem becomes well-characterized, I think it's worth having a discussion about this because it could have implications for how OSS is perceived by the mass culture. The Firefox campaign is the biggest, most successful open source push in recent memory. Let's not act like it's heresy to talk about it here instead of in a newsgroup somewhere.
It's not just his name... it's the whole Shawn Fanning package!
(By which I mean poorly written software and/or a godawful UI)
I understand what you're saying about subjectivity. But you're acting like it's an absolute; that all bands are equally good since objective measurement is difficult or irrational. But that's not true. Subjective quality is not uniformly.
You might have a real point if airplay correlated with album sales. But there are glaring exceptions. Look at Radiohead. Look at Steely Dan. Look at the Grateful Dead or Phish. There are lots of bands who aren't on the radio, yet have huge album sales. The issue is not radio reflecting the taste of phillistines; it's radio reflecting its own corporate ambitions, and intentionally shaping the preferences of the casual listener.
As a person's devotion to music increases -- i.e., more time is paid to the hobby -- the overwhelming majority turns away from what's on the radio. They may turn to obscure country, or blues, or indie rock, or jazz -- whatever. But very few people who spend a lot of time listening to and reading about music find their love of Britney Spears' artistry deepening.
Is this just en-masse elitism? I'm sure to some extent it is. But I find it hard to believe that solo artists locked into multi-album deals -- the kind of artists that are most profitable to the record companies -- are the "naturally best" solution to serving casual listeners (at least from the listeners' perspective).
You're right that the subjectivity of art means we can argue forever about what ought to be on the radio, but one thing should be clear: whatever it is, it isn't what's on the radio now.
Eh. I've already got a copy preordered. As a result, if I decide to download this, I won't be losing much sleep over the moral ramifications.
I don't mean to downplay the damaging effects of piracy, but keep in mind that pirated xbox games can't be played on XBox Live. For a game like this, I think an early start to piracy won't do much to effect its blockbuster status.
Unfortunately, I now feel compelled to download it and wrestle with the french menus, if only so that I won't get massacred online on its release date.
The poster implicitly assumes that storage requirements are a stationary target. That's not the case. The cost of a 30GB flash drive may be affordable some day, but by then conventional magnetic storage will have much higher capacities than they do today, and the competitive balance will remain as it currently stands. For this tech to outpace traditional drives, it would have to experience some sort of amazing breakthrough relative to those in the rotary drive industry, or will have to wait until we bump up against the limits of each medium as dictated by the laws of physics).
Some may argue that we have reached the point of diminishing returns when it comes to consumer storage. They're wrong -- video trading is about to take off, and HDTV is just around the corner. Admittedly, audio and still photograph fidelity is probably about as high as many consumers are likely to require, but in general, storage requirements will continue to increase for the foreseeable future. And of course business *always* needs more space...
The hiptop is a well-designed device. It is a TERRIBLY built device (generation 1, anyway). I've been through four, myself. If you're under warranty (it sounds like you're not, since you've had it for more than a year), call them up and get a replacement. You may have to go through a couple of them. Fortunately, I finally got a non-flaky one (color, too, when my original was b/w!) and am very happy with it.
It's quasi-push email support isn't really corporate-ready
The "built-in" email box (@tmail.com) receives email instantly when one comes in -- that's the "push" box. If you need your email with no latency, just forward it to that box. That's what I do for my work email.
The inablility to directly connect to POP or IMAP servers stinks IMO
You *can* connect to both POP and IMAP servers.
what do you do if you want to use it on another carrier down the road?
You'd be screwed, but then that's true of almost any handset in the American cellular marketplace.
Besides, this thing looks HUGE to me, not exactly a svelte device to slide in your pocket or clip to your belt.
Fair enough. You get used to it, but it's definitely a little unwieldy to have in your pocket, particularly during the summer when you don't have jacket pockets available.
Ok, so maybee it is a cheap Treo or Blackberry, but if you are buying a device for robust email access and PDA functionality, then the extra money spent would be well worth it, wouldn't it?
Obviously this is a judgment call for everyone, but I got my sidekick for $50 after rebates -- and this was only a few months after its release. The sidekick isn't just trivially cheaper than those devices, it's a LOT cheaper. The build quality on the first one left a lot to be desired, but the device does an awful lot for the money, and has the best keyboard of any cell phone. Use whatever you want, but at its price point the SK is a pretty amazing device.
thanks for the info. Of course, I still wouldn't be surprised if Real considers that "good enough" to satisfy the record companies (who are doubtless the ones insisting on the copy protection).
the ipod can play non-DRMed AACs, can't it? I bet real just recompresses their RMs as you load them onto the iPod, and counts on music files being unretrievable from the iPod (that's the impression I've got -- that data is retrievable from the device in USB/mass storage mode, but that audio media are not. correct me if I'm wrong.). There's no real need for copy protection.
If you feel qualified to lecture me about pharmacology, surely you're aware that the mechanism of delivery is vital to a drug's effects -- or would you care to argue that smoking opium and shooting heroin produces identical results? Both are opioids, after all. They both affect the same neurotransmitter systems.
Crack can withstand heat sufficiently to allow it to be delivered via the lungs. This is important. The high is quicker and more intense than cocaine, as is withdrawal. Addiction tends to be more severe, and consequently so are the social effects.
Well, crack cocaine produces a more extreme high than the powdered form. Wouldn't you agree that crack cocaine is more debilitating?
an increase in demand isn't going to cause the price of cocaine to go down. the physical effects are likely to be the same, assuming that this vaccine works by priming the immune system to attack the drugs. I think this could work.
However, I wouldn't be surprised if some folks experienced a serious anaphilactic reaction. Maybe they're accounting for this somehow...
Uh... there being *some* undocumented API calls does not mean there is an entire parallel "shadow" API, as you call it. The latter would require a massive conspiracy designed to impede others; the former happens ALL THE TIME when complicated APIs are publicly released. It would be nice to have perfect documentation, but not having it does not mean that Bill Gates is skulking around the bushes outside your house. Besides, you don't need the source to decompile the binaries and see if they're linked with entirely different libraries -- so your crackpot conspiracy theory doesn't hold up at all. Stop spreading FUD.
Actually Utimate, when played at a high level, involves a lot of strategy. There are a number of different defenses and offenses. Interestingly, the entire defensive team needs to react in unison when the disc changes hands on the offensive side -- the person doing the guarding tries to force the thrower to one side or the other (to either a conventional backhand throw or a 'flick', depending on that thrower's individual strength). Everyone else needs to adjust the defense they're playing to anticipate the disc arriving from that direction. It's quite a trick.
Certainly it's not as complicated as American football, but I'd say it could give basketball a run for its money (in terms of complexity) once fully developed.
But I only played college ultimate for one semester six years ago -- I'm sure there's a lot more to it than I picked up, and that the strategy has advanced since then. In fact, the reason I stopped playing (besides not being physically competitive with the amazing athletes that succeed at the sport) was that there was too much strategy -- I had learned Ultimate in basic pickup games, with lots of quick cuts and flashy plays. Played at a high level, the sport was too disciplined and complex for me to find it much fun.
I realize there are a lot of physics problems with the movie (although, like others, I was impressed with the motion of Ock's arms -- particularly how they braced themselves whenever he moved something heavy). This one really bugged me, though:
When fighting atop the train, Doc Ock throws Spiderman forward (relative to the train). Spidey makes himself fit neatly through slats in the pedestrian bridge he was aimed at -- and lands back on the train, right next to Doctor Octopus, at the point from which he was thrown! Being thrown forward would mean Spiderman's position should change with respect to the train. The only explanations to mitigate this that I can think of are that air resistance slowed Spiderman down, completely cancelling his forward motion relative to the train, or that Doc Ock moved forward very quickly while Spiderman was airborn. Both of these explanations seem improbable.
but it should be pointed out that while bikes get great mileage, their exhaust is considerably dirtier than that of larger engines.
I agree completely. Pitchfork writers frequently try to make their reviews inventive by abandoning traditional music writing. Their large base of staff, inconsistent point rating scale, and weird "concept reviews" make it pretty worthless as a data source for analysis. I love Pitchfork, but this is a dumb idea. Well, an objectively dumb idea. It seems to be working as a publicity stunt.
Glad somebody mentioned this. I guess the prof mentioned in the story put the red shift radiation through some signal processing, but that just makes it prettier. We've all heard the universe before: it sounds like someone tripped on a cable.
These attributes do not apply to watching television. Whatever video you watch will probably be of sufficient length that the time wasted fishing a larger, more useful device out of your pocket is negligible. This is why wristphones are stupid, too. If the device's use takes more than a split second and/or it doesn't need to be accessible on an instant whim, there is no reason to put it on your wrist. I'm all for video-enabled cell phones. I see no reason why my portable electronics need to reside somewhere other than my pockets. Hey, why not attach an ipod to a headband? The controls would be SUPER accessible!
Now can we please forget these stupid wristwatch gadgets and get on with the flying cars?
my original reaction to this post follows, copied from its original location here:
It's articles like this one that make me think we should round up all the economists, stuff them in burlap sacks and throw them into the nearest convenient river. Allow me to explain. Slate's latest journalistic atrocity claims that, after a diligent consideration of all the relevant make-believe economic factors, one must inescapably conclude that it makes more sense to execute the authors of computer virii, trojans and worms than it does to execute murderers.
Now, put aside the fact that this article's fourth-and-a-half sentence is "What do we get out of executing a murderer? Deterrence." (oh really?) Further, ignore how conveniently round all the numbers are (people deterred by an execution? 10. Value of a human life? $10 million. Economic benefit of executing a murderer? $100 million). And disregard when the author unabashedly says "...I take my stand with the president of the United States, who, in a 2000 debate against Al Gore, said quite explicitly that nothing other than deterrence can justify the death penalty," despite the fact that President's resume isn't exactly burgeoning with the names of states known for their nuanced philosophical consideration of capital punishment.
No, all you have to know about this article is that the author, Steven E. Landsburg, writes the following:
First, Steve, there are names for these sorts of people. This oversight can perhaps be forgiven -- sure, it reveals that you did absolutely no research or background reading prior to declaring a number of misguided teenagers fit for death, but this pales in comparison with your second offense: implying that "vermiscripter" constitutes a "good name."
Ladies and gentlement, if you should run into Steven Landsburg on the street, do not make eye contact. Keep him away from your children. And for god's sake, don't let him start to draw any graphs.
Admittedly, this setup takes quite a bit of configuration, and can be a pain in the ass if you don't know what you're doing (I didn't). But it makes for a VERY nice solution -- much better than having an ugly, bulky keyboard kicking around your sofa.
Aren't we nerds supposed to feel a sense of antipathy toward horrible marketingspeak like this? You can't "trial" something. You can't "task" someone. Stop verbing nouns.
well, since becoming tax-exempt, scientologists are technically subsidized as well...
regardless, your original point is nonsense. see my other post.
You bring up LSD. You're right, it probably does no or at most a negligible amount of brain damage (due to its extremely low dosage). However, you concede that it produces semi-permanent effects. Those effects are not always benign as the visual impairments you describe.
I'm not going to lecture you on drugs. Take whatever you want. However: do NOT bring this junk to a conversation about mental illness. Mood- or consciousness-altering drugs are SEVERELY CONTRAINDICATED FOR ALL SERIOUS MENTAL ILLNESSES. You should not risk implying their safety to people reading this discussion.