The primary concern is not if a book or comic is transferred to a theatrical release but rather whether or not it's done well and faithfully based on the original material.
I respectfully beg to differ. The primary concern is whether the final quality level of the resulting transfer is any good. If you start with a piece of crap book/movie/comic, you have a problem. If you botch the transfer, you have a problem.
And the occasional bit of originality might help. Which is why a matinee of Terry Gilliam's Brother's Grim is about to get my first theatrical dollars since HP&TPO-Azkaban came out... although I'm going to see HHGTTG and SinCity at the local dollar house afterwards.
Every other recent megahit has left me going "Eh. I'll grab it when it hits $7 in the DVD clearance bin." However, I've completed my collection of Pratchet's Diskworld paperbacks this summer...
Movie Execs: Yes, the commercials are a problem. (The dollar theatre cut them out. They also found a "We have popcorn!" clip only 10 seconds long somewhere in the attic, dating back to 1947 by the look and sound quality. Word-of-mouth has doubled their average ticket sales. They have since told their distributor to refuse any film where the commercials are contractually required.) OK, ticket prices are moderately larcenous. (ROTK probably got my last full price show ticket this decade. Guess what the other two were.) Yes, popcorn has been ludicrous for years. (I smuggle in a tin of Altoids. FRESH popcorn with REAL butter is for DVDs at home.) Yes, idiots with cell phones should be banned from the theatre, if not from breathing. (The manager should get a polaroid shot of them before throwing them out, and post a rogue's gallery prominently behind the ticket counter: BANNED FROM THIS THEATRE FOR SIX MONTHS DUE TO CELL PHONE USE.) Yes, there is serious competition for my entertainment dollar. (Books are still decent value for the money... oooh, Feast of Crows and Knife of Dreams are both coming out this fall!) I have several quality video games on my computer that I still enjoy playing for a few hours every now and then. (Total Annihilation, anyone? I still haven't finished MOO3, although it would have been nice if they had ever patched it so the interface worked properly....) And increasing gas prices make me less inclined to drive to more distant theatres. (Not a critical issue for me, as one big theatre is next to my regular grocery, and the dollar house is within walking distance, but probably more of a factor for others.)
Oh, and while Jessica Alba in her underwear (and less) makes for nice eye candy, the Internet allows seeing comparably attractive females in far more revealing poses and far less costume. Sex sells -- but there are a lot of sellers.
But the overall wretched plot quality of most of this past year's offerings is the killing blow.
Read TFA! They were NOT busted for spam! They were drug dealers, caught illegally selling narcotics. Spam was how they advertised, but they are getting NO punishment for it.
If they get sent to a Federal PMITA prison for something, do we care exactly why they get to spend the next decade whimpering? Who knows, maybe one of them will get a former customer as a cell mate. "Aren't you lucky I stocked up on that discount Viagra?"
Ask a teenager to hum or whistle their favorite song...
My teenaged niece's favorite song for the last couple of years has been Annie Lennox's "Into The West", from the ROTK soundtrack (IE: since it came out). Go on-- try and hum it. I dare you.
Uh... Domestication of the Horse? Am I missing something?
Think back to the days of the horse-drawn wagon. If you went out for a sunset ride — say, about three hours — on a regular basis with a constant route, a smart horse could learn the route well enough that guidance from the driver was eventually not needed. A few blankets in the back of the wagon, a suitably inclined passenger, and you don't even need to find a parking place for the local sheriff to risk causing a scandal at. Two hours is plenty of time for mischief, although modern contraception availability is an improvement.
No, I'm not quite that old. However, once I hit eighteen, I started hearing the most amazing off-color anecdotes from my ninety year old "maiden" (well, unmarried anyway) great-aunt about the antics perpetrated by various of my relatives from her and my parent's generations during their collective and assortedly misspent youth. Several incidents had circumstantial documentation in the family Bible when I checked... a matter which I pointed out to my Mom when she was working on updating the family tree. She was unamused; however, my siblings and I have noted both the "true" and the "proper" dates in our copies, even if Mom won't.
If you're legally an adult, try asking your grandparents about what kind of trouble they (or your parents) got into when they were teenagers. (Great-aunts and great-uncles tend to be even more colorful, if you can track them down; never underestimate the lasting power of sibling rivalry.) It will make your elderly relatives happy for the company, drive your parents mad, educate you a little more about family history, and possibly make you think extra hard about making sure you don't have kids too soon. Good all around fun.
I mean I've seen the dog pictures of coures, but not horse ones.
Well, yes, that too. An un-safe Google Image search on "horse sex" could be... um, instructive. But you might find that conversation with your grandparents much more suprising.
Haven't we been promised this for years? I wanna roll up my computer screen & carry it into my flying car!
Well, judging by a recent episode of SciFi's (mediocre) show Master Blasters, you could do such a thing if you really, really wanted. Of course, the impossiblility of unrolling and using the screen afterwards would be a minor concern compared to the problems of the car's prospects for landing. But I'm sure you'd lead the candidates for the next round of Darwin Awards, so it might not be an entirely bad thing....
There are a few disturbing sides to phishing, but the one that hits me hardest is that people fall for messages that are incredibly poorly written.
I've been noticing the grammar is improving, and have gotten several that are actually free of all spelling and grammar errors. Like many simple anti-phishing tactics, this one won't work for much longer. Go back and re-read your Bierce.
On the common ebay one, if it rejects your credit card as invalid, change the check digit (the last digit of the 16 digit number) until you get the right one.
Alternatively, if you've ever had to cancel a card as lost or stolen, use that number with bogus personal info. This might have a better chance at raising a louder alarm bell if they ever try to use it.
Citi Visa 4128 0032 4259 7154, if anyone wants one. (Cancelled when I left it at a restaurant in 1999.)
I thought a big part of military training was the idea that no soldier is to obey an unlawful order, or a lawful order unlawfully given.
However, an order such as "click this link and fill out the form there with your personal information" may be stupid and/or dangerous, and still remain lawful. On the gripping hand, these officer candidates should also be trained to verify the source of questionable orders, and call superiors attention to clarify doubtful points. (EG: "Is this really Colonel Blake? Is it really appropriate for us to fill out confidential information on a non-secure website form?)
See this nice piece from the US Army's on-line Combined Arms Research Library; look especially for the part on "Phase of Communication".
An order from your superior is an order. It's not if it comes from some colonel Something you have never heard of.
How about if it is forged to appear as coming from <president@whitehouse.gov>? That would be an order from your commander in chief. (Yes, that's not usually a direct superior, and would be monstrously stupid even for a phisherman, but....)
Of course, it's probably not a bad thing to teach officers to consider when questionable orders should be authenticated/confirmed before following them, probably around the same time as they are taught what constitutes a criminal order and how to deal with that. But that kind of thing needs to be given serious thought and care.
They were both phishing attacks. I spent the last few years lying about who I am to build a false identity. I'm no one to be trifled with. That is all you'll ever need know.
These were G3/300 ibooks. Uses PC66 ram. Yes, PC66 . This powerful combination of hardware is the equivalent of a K6/400. A whopping 4mb of VRAM gives you a glorious max of 800x600.
<BZZT>Wrong. According to the Henrico Site, these were G3/500 models. From reliable sources, this means PC100 RAM, 8MB VRAM with 1024x768 resolution, and benchmarks somewhere between a 600-900Mhz x86-type CPU. The Henrico models had 802.11b Wireless, but no optical burner.
It's still not worth a riot over, but it's not total crap. Suitable for someone who just wants a low-end laptop for web browsing, email, word processing, or a secure *nix platform to play with. Not suitable for gaming or video editing, but I could live with that. So could my twelve year old niece.
First, the law only allowed for surplus sale by public auction, fixed price sale to all comers, or sealed bid auction (or internal government sale). They changed the law after the announcement to allow fixed price to county residents prior to all comers; changing the means of sale or price after the problem became clear would not have missed mere riot, but problems for the county board come re-election.
It's not clear whether EBay would qualify as public auction, although it might. There's also the hassle of either shipping 1000 laptops, or running a sale on Ebay with a "must pick up" requirement-- and the hassle of co-ordinating the pick-up. Also add in that Ebay would be getting a piece of the action.
Of course, not using E-bay's "completed sales" search capabilities to get a better idea of fair market value before setting the fixed price indicates abysmal ignorance.
They should have sold them on ebay where they could have gotten much more than $50 without the liability of riots.
The county code prior to the initial sale announcement only allowed for surplus county property to be sold at public auction, sealed bid, or sale to the general public at fixed price, first come first serve. Even the "fixed price to county residents first" required changing the law. Selling on Ebay would require bigger changes to the law, less likely to survive a court challenge.
Public auction of 1000 laptops is impractical for individual sales -- they'd have to do it in lots of however many, which would tend to put more into the hands of dealers, and fewer into the hands of county residents. They'll have less madhouse next time round either going with a sealed bid auction (ideally, using a Vickrey auction for setting the price), or having the bloody fools who set the price doing some research using Ebay's "completed sales" search capability on comparable models to get a better clue as to fair-market value.
I have one of those 2.4 wireless phones I use just for screwing up the neighbor's access point; every time she puts a password on it, I plug in the phone. (My home LAN is all wired anyway.) She's now convinced that passwords seriously degrade reception, and asked me if a shorter password for her email account might help, too....
Why, yes, I am one of the bad guys, but Pavlovian conditioning is only a hobby of mine. Now if I can only convince her that having sex with me regularly will help her network reception; where did I put my BOFH excuse file...?
Government employ is a good place for those with limited disabilities. Many branches are very accomodating. The pay isn't as good as corporate, but it would certainly beat being unable to find anyone to hire you.
My sister was hired by the NRC, coming on with a strong case of Primary MS. They accomodated her for several years (large screen monitor back when those cost a pretty penny, two hour "lunch" so she could nap midday on a cot in her office, etc), until her medical condition compelled retirement-- increased eye tremors left her unable to read a book or computer screen, even with technological assistance.
The government employee pool is large enough to be statistically self-insuring-- the health plan isn't spectacular, but it's far from bad, and a minor thing like Relapsing/Remitting MS isn't even a blip on the radar.
That makes clocks a "circumvention device" under the DMCA. The RIAA and MPAA hereby order everyone to stop using time.
They don't have the power to enforce such orders. However, time is a unit of measure, and thus according to the US Consitition Congress may fix the Standard of Measure thereof... say, by mandating that all computers sold in the US be designed to automatically reset their clocks via the WWVB radio signal.
Watch for this new legislation, coming soon from a legislator near you!
I disagree. For one, we don't know if it is falsifiable. The Anthropic Principle may not be falsifiable either because we may never be able to sample other universes. However, it is still a valid theory.
Umm... b<COUGH>t.
First, see the earlier respondent about falsifiability. For that matter, also see the nice Wikipedia entry. You claim that ID may be falsifiable; however, proponents do not generally admit to any potential observations that would prove ID as wrong. (Brief joke digression here from some silly speculation about God and Humanity made by a housemate when cleaning the house fridge: "Oops, where did THAT come from? I guess it just grew. Well, let's get rid of it...." Yes, God coming along and saying something like that might qualify, but no-one in the ID community is proposing that; besides, God might be lying to cover up his messes before MOM comes around for a visit.)
Second, your use of the term "Anthropic Principle" is ambiguous; there exist Weak, Strong, and Final forms of the Anthropic principle. Only the last is even nominally falsifiable, and unobservedly so.
The Weak Anthropic principle basically boils down to: any theory of the universe must be compatible with the observed fact that human life exists. This is not a theory; this is a criterion for evaluation of other theories. The Scientific Method is a similar example of such a principle. However, taxanomically, it also isn't Science; it is rather the Philisophical foundation on which Science rests. I suppose the WAP might have the value of a scientific lemma, but mathematics uses that term far more.
The Strong Anthropic principle states that the universe developed life because it HAS to. Until such time as we develop the means to experimentally determine the properties of other universes (or — shudder — make them), it is untestable idea — and yes, only philosophy, not science.
The Final Anthropic principle, postulating that not only must intelligence arise, but it must never die out afterwards, is also not overly falsifiable. Extermination of the human race (so to speak) would deal with the non-fanatic proponents. Fanatic proponents would just postulate that intelligent life would just have arisen elsewhere in the universe — which is the sort of inarguable nonsense that leaves me leaning in favor of the experiment.
This limitation is one reason why these are refered as Anthropic principles: they are not testable hypotheses nor tested theories, but rather principles by which hypotheses and theories may be evaluated. The Anthropic Principle is Philosophy, not Science.
Analogies to the Choamsky heirarchy of languages are left as an exercise for the bored.
If Indimedia was not a managed backup service customer Rackspace would have had to install the agent first.
Which, however, might cause a problem with the court order-- it's (minor) alteration of the requested evidence. Before doing such in that position, you would really want to check with the requesting agency that it was acceptable.
Downtime to create a forensic-grade duplicate, and handing the original over to the authorities, would be a better choice. I have a read-only WiebeTech dock on the shelf for just such a crisis, in the unlikely case it's ever required. It mostly gets used for hard drive backups — ever since I shot myself in the foot once by copying the partition from drive F: to G: when I meant to copy from G: to F: (oops). I don't generally recommend the product (due to price) unless you're routinely that absent minded, or routinely get court orders for drives.
Furthermore, successful prediction of expermental results is what allows a Hypothesis to advance to being considered a Theory. I have never heard anyone trying to use the concept of ID to make testable experimental predictions. This means that the Flying Spaghetti Monster Hypothesis is markedly superior to the Intelligent Design Hypothesis, as the FSMH allows the prediction that the number of pirates on the high seas will continue to fall as Global warming continues to rise — a testable proposition which might allow the FSM to be considered a theory in the next few decades. Really.
Evolution, on the other hand, has among other things been used to successfully predict that intermediate forms (such as archaeopteryx) would be discovered in gaps in the fossil record.
I repeat: ID is not science. I will elaborate: ID should not be taught in science classes. (It might be suitable for mention in modern American government high school classes in Junior or Senior year, as this is usually about as early as you can get students to intelligently reflect on the WHY and HOW of their education, and on whether this is how they SHOULD be educated.) I will also add: if intelligent design is in fact true, the Watchmaker is not only Blind, but a drunken Idiot with a perverse sense of humor to boot.
Yes, I am saying it may be Proven, but is still Invalid. It's not science. Science can be wrong — the Thompson "Plum Pudding" model of the atom springs to mind. Science, however, after tripping over an inconvenient counterexample, tends to dust itself off, examine the stumbling block, pick it up and add it to the collection, and continue on an adjusted course. Religion merely pretends that there's no problem there, even after tripping over the stumbling block, until someone picks the stumbling block up and tries to use it the beat religion's head in — at which point Religion says it's being "persecuted".
Newegg, per se, isn't bad. I can live with their returns policy , but do read it before you buy.
The problem is that they prevent posting of negative reviews. I've attempted several times to post about the IOGear GME322R Phaser trackball. It's not completely bad, but has a couple of weaknesses; to wit, a tendency to roll over depressing the top laser trigger and burning out batteries and/or laser quickly, and insufficient durability for carrying around — it needs to be treated gently and kept in one place. My department has purchased a total of five; after 18 months, two survive, although both have needed minor (soldering iron) internal repairs; I expect one more to fail permanently soon, and am looking for replacements.
Despite my recommending another Newegg-carried product for presentation control, and noted where the IOGear model would be suitable to use, they've refused the posting several times, with no details as to why beyond the standard notice.
If Bush believes Intelligent Design, why aren't any of his goverment agencies providing any funding to study it?
Because the Constitution dictates that bills for funding must originate in the House of Representatives — Article one, section seven, clause one — and the House of Representatives isn't quite as nitwit infested as the White House.
Intelligent Design is not just unproven, it is inherently unprovable.
It is potentially provable. Imagine, for example, we live in an universe similar to that of Brin's Uplift Series. If aliens have been tampering with the course of evolution on Earth and directing it towards producing sapience, any without revealing so to the prospective client species (IE, humanity), then that would be a form of Intelligent design. Furthermore, if such aliens revealed themselves, along with details of how they've been tampering with evolution over the last couple hundred million years, then intelligent design could be proven by current scientific standards.
The fatal flaw is not that ID is unprovable, but that it is unfalsifiable . In the above situation, a proponent might always say "ah, but the aliens have not revealed themselves yet; they're more clever than we are, and still hiding until we are ready." This makes intelligent design a question of religion, faith, or perhaps philosophy, but is not Science.
In other words, the "Theory" of Intelligent design is not only not right, it's not even wrong.
If title spamming increases the rate of sales, and possibly the final bid price, it's actually in eBay's financial interest to turn a blind eye.
Short term only. Not trying to deal with such practices that degrade the customer experience (by, for example, making searches harder) makes it easier for competing services that figures out how to address those problems to establish themselves. Of course, barring a software or business methods patent, Ebay could simply re-implement the technique themselves.
The two fundamental reasons that Ebay doesn't deal with this are
No-one's figured out how to do so effectively yet.
Once they do figure out how to, people will start gaming the new system.
Slashdot Mirror
I respectfully beg to differ. The primary concern is whether the final quality level of the resulting transfer is any good. If you start with a piece of crap book/movie/comic, you have a problem. If you botch the transfer, you have a problem.
And the occasional bit of originality might help. Which is why a matinee of Terry Gilliam's Brother's Grim is about to get my first theatrical dollars since HP&TPO-Azkaban came out... although I'm going to see HHGTTG and SinCity at the local dollar house afterwards.
Every other recent megahit has left me going "Eh. I'll grab it when it hits $7 in the DVD clearance bin." However, I've completed my collection of Pratchet's Diskworld paperbacks this summer...
Movie Execs: Yes, the commercials are a problem. (The dollar theatre cut them out. They also found a "We have popcorn!" clip only 10 seconds long somewhere in the attic, dating back to 1947 by the look and sound quality. Word-of-mouth has doubled their average ticket sales. They have since told their distributor to refuse any film where the commercials are contractually required.) OK, ticket prices are moderately larcenous. (ROTK probably got my last full price show ticket this decade. Guess what the other two were.) Yes, popcorn has been ludicrous for years. (I smuggle in a tin of Altoids. FRESH popcorn with REAL butter is for DVDs at home.) Yes, idiots with cell phones should be banned from the theatre, if not from breathing. (The manager should get a polaroid shot of them before throwing them out, and post a rogue's gallery prominently behind the ticket counter: BANNED FROM THIS THEATRE FOR SIX MONTHS DUE TO CELL PHONE USE.) Yes, there is serious competition for my entertainment dollar. (Books are still decent value for the money... oooh, Feast of Crows and Knife of Dreams are both coming out this fall!) I have several quality video games on my computer that I still enjoy playing for a few hours every now and then. (Total Annihilation, anyone? I still haven't finished MOO3, although it would have been nice if they had ever patched it so the interface worked properly....) And increasing gas prices make me less inclined to drive to more distant theatres. (Not a critical issue for me, as one big theatre is next to my regular grocery, and the dollar house is within walking distance, but probably more of a factor for others.)
Oh, and while Jessica Alba in her underwear (and less) makes for nice eye candy, the Internet allows seeing comparably attractive females in far more revealing poses and far less costume. Sex sells -- but there are a lot of sellers.
But the overall wretched plot quality of most of this past year's offerings is the killing blow.
If they get sent to a Federal PMITA prison for something, do we care exactly why they get to spend the next decade whimpering? Who knows, maybe one of them will get a former customer as a cell mate. "Aren't you lucky I stocked up on that discount Viagra?"
Yes, I have. This is only one of many warning signs showing under the perspective of hindsight that our breaking up was a very good thing.
My teenaged niece's favorite song for the last couple of years has been Annie Lennox's "Into The West", from the ROTK soundtrack (IE: since it came out). Go on-- try and hum it. I dare you.
Think back to the days of the horse-drawn wagon. If you went out for a sunset ride — say, about three hours — on a regular basis with a constant route, a smart horse could learn the route well enough that guidance from the driver was eventually not needed. A few blankets in the back of the wagon, a suitably inclined passenger, and you don't even need to find a parking place for the local sheriff to risk causing a scandal at. Two hours is plenty of time for mischief, although modern contraception availability is an improvement.
No, I'm not quite that old. However, once I hit eighteen, I started hearing the most amazing off-color anecdotes from my ninety year old "maiden" (well, unmarried anyway) great-aunt about the antics perpetrated by various of my relatives from her and my parent's generations during their collective and assortedly misspent youth. Several incidents had circumstantial documentation in the family Bible when I checked... a matter which I pointed out to my Mom when she was working on updating the family tree. She was unamused; however, my siblings and I have noted both the "true" and the "proper" dates in our copies, even if Mom won't.
If you're legally an adult, try asking your grandparents about what kind of trouble they (or your parents) got into when they were teenagers. (Great-aunts and great-uncles tend to be even more colorful, if you can track them down; never underestimate the lasting power of sibling rivalry.) It will make your elderly relatives happy for the company, drive your parents mad, educate you a little more about family history, and possibly make you think extra hard about making sure you don't have kids too soon. Good all around fun.
I mean I've seen the dog pictures of coures, but not horse ones.
Well, yes, that too. An un-safe Google Image search on "horse sex" could be... um, instructive. But you might find that conversation with your grandparents much more suprising.
Well, judging by a recent episode of SciFi's (mediocre) show Master Blasters, you could do such a thing if you really, really wanted. Of course, the impossiblility of unrolling and using the screen afterwards would be a minor concern compared to the problems of the car's prospects for landing. But I'm sure you'd lead the candidates for the next round of Darwin Awards, so it might not be an entirely bad thing....
Carpal tunnel?
I've been noticing the grammar is improving, and have gotten several that are actually free of all spelling and grammar errors. Like many simple anti-phishing tactics, this one won't work for much longer. Go back and re-read your Bierce.
Alternatively, if you've ever had to cancel a card as lost or stolen, use that number with bogus personal info. This might have a better chance at raising a louder alarm bell if they ever try to use it.
Citi Visa 4128 0032 4259 7154, if anyone wants one. (Cancelled when I left it at a restaurant in 1999.)
However, an order such as "click this link and fill out the form there with your personal information" may be stupid and/or dangerous, and still remain lawful. On the gripping hand, these officer candidates should also be trained to verify the source of questionable orders, and call superiors attention to clarify doubtful points. (EG: "Is this really Colonel Blake? Is it really appropriate for us to fill out confidential information on a non-secure website form?)
See this nice piece from the US Army's on-line Combined Arms Research Library; look especially for the part on "Phase of Communication".
How about if it is forged to appear as coming from <president@whitehouse.gov>? That would be an order from your commander in chief. (Yes, that's not usually a direct superior, and would be monstrously stupid even for a phisherman, but....)
Of course, it's probably not a bad thing to teach officers to consider when questionable orders should be authenticated/confirmed before following them, probably around the same time as they are taught what constitutes a criminal order and how to deal with that. But that kind of thing needs to be given serious thought and care.
<THUD!>
They were both phishing attacks. I spent the last few years lying about who I am to build a false identity. I'm no one to be trifled with. That is all you'll ever need know.
<BZZT>Wrong. According to the Henrico Site, these were G3/500 models. From reliable sources, this means PC100 RAM, 8MB VRAM with 1024x768 resolution, and benchmarks somewhere between a 600-900Mhz x86-type CPU. The Henrico models had 802.11b Wireless, but no optical burner.
It's still not worth a riot over, but it's not total crap. Suitable for someone who just wants a low-end laptop for web browsing, email, word processing, or a secure *nix platform to play with. Not suitable for gaming or video editing, but I could live with that. So could my twelve year old niece.
It's not clear whether EBay would qualify as public auction, although it might. There's also the hassle of either shipping 1000 laptops, or running a sale on Ebay with a "must pick up" requirement-- and the hassle of co-ordinating the pick-up. Also add in that Ebay would be getting a piece of the action.
Of course, not using E-bay's "completed sales" search capabilities to get a better idea of fair market value before setting the fixed price indicates abysmal ignorance.
The county code prior to the initial sale announcement only allowed for surplus county property to be sold at public auction, sealed bid, or sale to the general public at fixed price, first come first serve. Even the "fixed price to county residents first" required changing the law. Selling on Ebay would require bigger changes to the law, less likely to survive a court challenge.
Public auction of 1000 laptops is impractical for individual sales -- they'd have to do it in lots of however many, which would tend to put more into the hands of dealers, and fewer into the hands of county residents. They'll have less madhouse next time round either going with a sealed bid auction (ideally, using a Vickrey auction for setting the price), or having the bloody fools who set the price doing some research using Ebay's "completed sales" search capability on comparable models to get a better clue as to fair-market value.
I have one of those 2.4 wireless phones I use just for screwing up the neighbor's access point; every time she puts a password on it, I plug in the phone. (My home LAN is all wired anyway.) She's now convinced that passwords seriously degrade reception, and asked me if a shorter password for her email account might help, too....
Why, yes, I am one of the bad guys, but Pavlovian conditioning is only a hobby of mine. Now if I can only convince her that having sex with me regularly will help her network reception; where did I put my BOFH excuse file...?
My sister was hired by the NRC, coming on with a strong case of Primary MS. They accomodated her for several years (large screen monitor back when those cost a pretty penny, two hour "lunch" so she could nap midday on a cot in her office, etc), until her medical condition compelled retirement-- increased eye tremors left her unable to read a book or computer screen, even with technological assistance.
The government employee pool is large enough to be statistically self-insuring-- the health plan isn't spectacular, but it's far from bad, and a minor thing like Relapsing/Remitting MS isn't even a blip on the radar.
They don't have the power to enforce such orders. However, time is a unit of measure, and thus according to the US Consitition Congress may fix the Standard of Measure thereof... say, by mandating that all computers sold in the US be designed to automatically reset their clocks via the WWVB radio signal.
Watch for this new legislation, coming soon from a legislator near you!
Umm... b<COUGH>t.
First, see the earlier respondent about falsifiability. For that matter, also see the nice Wikipedia entry. You claim that ID may be falsifiable; however, proponents do not generally admit to any potential observations that would prove ID as wrong. (Brief joke digression here from some silly speculation about God and Humanity made by a housemate when cleaning the house fridge: "Oops, where did THAT come from? I guess it just grew. Well, let's get rid of it...." Yes, God coming along and saying something like that might qualify, but no-one in the ID community is proposing that; besides, God might be lying to cover up his messes before MOM comes around for a visit.)
Second, your use of the term "Anthropic Principle" is ambiguous; there exist Weak, Strong, and Final forms of the Anthropic principle. Only the last is even nominally falsifiable, and unobservedly so.
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The Weak Anthropic principle basically boils down to: any theory of the universe must be compatible with the observed fact that human life exists. This is not a theory; this is a criterion for evaluation of other theories. The Scientific Method is a similar example of such a principle. However, taxanomically, it also isn't Science; it is rather the Philisophical foundation on which Science rests. I suppose the WAP might have the value of a scientific lemma, but mathematics uses that term far more.
-
The Strong Anthropic principle states that the universe developed life because it HAS to. Until such time as we develop the means to experimentally determine the properties of other universes (or — shudder — make them), it is untestable idea — and yes, only philosophy, not science.
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The Final Anthropic principle, postulating that not only must intelligence arise, but it must never die out afterwards, is also not overly falsifiable. Extermination of the human race (so to speak) would deal with the non-fanatic proponents. Fanatic proponents would just postulate that intelligent life would just have arisen elsewhere in the universe — which is the sort of inarguable nonsense that leaves me leaning in favor of the experiment.
This limitation is one reason why these are refered as Anthropic principles: they are not testable hypotheses nor tested theories, but rather principles by which hypotheses and theories may be evaluated. The Anthropic Principle is Philosophy, not Science.Analogies to the Choamsky heirarchy of languages are left as an exercise for the bored.
Which, however, might cause a problem with the court order-- it's (minor) alteration of the requested evidence. Before doing such in that position, you would really want to check with the requesting agency that it was acceptable.
Downtime to create a forensic-grade duplicate, and handing the original over to the authorities, would be a better choice. I have a read-only WiebeTech dock on the shelf for just such a crisis, in the unlikely case it's ever required. It mostly gets used for hard drive backups — ever since I shot myself in the foot once by copying the partition from drive F: to G: when I meant to copy from G: to F: (oops). I don't generally recommend the product (due to price) unless you're routinely that absent minded, or routinely get court orders for drives.
Disagreed. IMNSHO, a "valid theory" requires falsifiablity. ID is at best a hypothesis with a modest amount of evidence against it, such as inefficiencies in metabolic biochemistry, the existance of a blind spot in the human eye (which is not the case in some marine species), not to mention the classic joke that God is a Civil Engineer.
Furthermore, successful prediction of expermental results is what allows a Hypothesis to advance to being considered a Theory. I have never heard anyone trying to use the concept of ID to make testable experimental predictions. This means that the Flying Spaghetti Monster Hypothesis is markedly superior to the Intelligent Design Hypothesis, as the FSMH allows the prediction that the number of pirates on the high seas will continue to fall as Global warming continues to rise — a testable proposition which might allow the FSM to be considered a theory in the next few decades. Really.
Evolution, on the other hand, has among other things been used to successfully predict that intermediate forms (such as archaeopteryx) would be discovered in gaps in the fossil record.
I repeat: ID is not science. I will elaborate: ID should not be taught in science classes. (It might be suitable for mention in modern American government high school classes in Junior or Senior year, as this is usually about as early as you can get students to intelligently reflect on the WHY and HOW of their education, and on whether this is how they SHOULD be educated.) I will also add: if intelligent design is in fact true, the Watchmaker is not only Blind, but a drunken Idiot with a perverse sense of humor to boot.
Yes, I am saying it may be Proven, but is still Invalid. It's not science. Science can be wrong — the Thompson "Plum Pudding" model of the atom springs to mind. Science, however, after tripping over an inconvenient counterexample, tends to dust itself off, examine the stumbling block, pick it up and add it to the collection, and continue on an adjusted course. Religion merely pretends that there's no problem there, even after tripping over the stumbling block, until someone picks the stumbling block up and tries to use it the beat religion's head in — at which point Religion says it's being "persecuted".
Newegg, per se, isn't bad. I can live with their returns policy , but do read it before you buy.
The problem is that they prevent posting of negative reviews. I've attempted several times to post about the IOGear GME322R Phaser trackball. It's not completely bad, but has a couple of weaknesses; to wit, a tendency to roll over depressing the top laser trigger and burning out batteries and/or laser quickly, and insufficient durability for carrying around — it needs to be treated gently and kept in one place. My department has purchased a total of five; after 18 months, two survive, although both have needed minor (soldering iron) internal repairs; I expect one more to fail permanently soon, and am looking for replacements.
Despite my recommending another Newegg-carried product for presentation control, and noted where the IOGear model would be suitable to use, they've refused the posting several times, with no details as to why beyond the standard notice.
Because the Constitution dictates that bills for funding must originate in the House of Representatives — Article one, section seven, clause one — and the House of Representatives isn't quite as nitwit infested as the White House.
It is potentially provable. Imagine, for example, we live in an universe similar to that of Brin's Uplift Series. If aliens have been tampering with the course of evolution on Earth and directing it towards producing sapience, any without revealing so to the prospective client species (IE, humanity), then that would be a form of Intelligent design. Furthermore, if such aliens revealed themselves, along with details of how they've been tampering with evolution over the last couple hundred million years, then intelligent design could be proven by current scientific standards.
The fatal flaw is not that ID is unprovable, but that it is unfalsifiable . In the above situation, a proponent might always say "ah, but the aliens have not revealed themselves yet; they're more clever than we are, and still hiding until we are ready." This makes intelligent design a question of religion, faith, or perhaps philosophy, but is not Science.
In other words, the "Theory" of Intelligent design is not only not right, it's not even wrong.
Short term only. Not trying to deal with such practices that degrade the customer experience (by, for example, making searches harder) makes it easier for competing services that figures out how to address those problems to establish themselves. Of course, barring a software or business methods patent, Ebay could simply re-implement the technique themselves.
The two fundamental reasons that Ebay doesn't deal with this are
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No-one's figured out how to do so effectively yet.
- Once they do figure out how to, people will start gaming the new system.
It's an old problem.