Clearly it was the researchers who won. They get a bunch of press over the some expensive advertisements paid for by other people. Very smart, those research people.
I'm not a fan of American football (as opposed to soccer, which the rest of the world calls football), but SuperBowl parties are generally worth attending. So my wife and I went to one. We walked in and asked, "So who do you think will win -- the Knicks or the Blue Jays?"
Does this cover animated ASCII art? If so, I've got some work from the 1980s (maybe even 70s?) that would probably count as prior art. (And yes it was available ONLINE.) What about the graphical interface for online services such as Prodigy and... what was that Apple service again? eWorld? How about when we could play HyperCard stacks in Quicktime (in web pages!) during the mid-1990s?
According to CNN's article on this topic, Edmundson "originally said he had received a Bachelor of Science degree, but now says he believes -- but cannot document -- that he received a ThG diploma, awarded for completing a three-year degree in theology."
Call it academic theology: "I believe that I got the degree, but cannot document it." Intelligent design, anyone?
So when Discovery and Endeavor are mysteriously trapped in space and/or unable to respond to a global space-related emergency, an astronaut crew will be pulled from retirement (or useless promotion) to pilot Atlantis to the rescue! (...and possibly destroy it/themselves in the process of saving the world)
Mark my words: it will be on television if not in the movie theatres.
Prof. Bialystok first noticed bilingual children were proficient in blocking out irrelevant information about 20 years ago. When asked to identify a grammatically correct sentence, for example, both bilinguals and monolinguals are, by age 5, able to choose, "Apples grow on trees," over "Apple trees on grow" as the correct one.
But when it came to asking "Apples grow on noses" versus "Apples nose on grow," only the bilingual children were able to choose the right answer. Although the first sentence is grammatically correct, monolingual children could not get over its silliness. "That's crazy," they'd shout, "You can't say that!"
"We have been able to show on a huge range of cognitive tests that bilinguals are always better at problems with tricky, misleading information," Prof. Bialystok said.
Uh... let's see, the monolingual children were more adept at recognizing that the task at hand was stupid, instead of instinctively solving a task without questioning its value? I would count "sensibility" as intelligence. Just maybe not the kind the researchers are trying to measure.
I don't use Windows systems often, but most of my colleagues and friends do. How exactly has Microsoft warned its users? Pop-up windows? Ads in the local paper? Public service announcements on cable television? Are the requirements for Microsoft repairing computer-disabling software bugs the same as, say, General Motor's obligations for repairing automobile-disabling engineering mistakes (e.g. recalls)?
From the article: "The single-player game is a strange mutant monster which has only existed for 21 years and is about to go away because it is unnatural and abnormal."
Let's see, solitaire has apparently existed since at least 1674, with other single-person "games" possibly as old as 1535. Seems older than 21 years.
This reminds me of a guy I worked with couple of years ago. He was a research scientist for a large technology company. The only programming language he knew was LISP. For some reason I don't remember, he was eventually told that he had to begin writing his projects in Java. So he learned just enough to write a LISP interpreter in Java -- and then continued to write all his projects in LISP.
This is kind of like my father's insistence on maintaining his 1972 Cadillac (at a ridiculous annual cost) instead of purchasing a newer vehicle (say, a Honda) that gets three times the mileage and has much lower support costs. Of course, it just isn't as big or masculine... that's probably what this is all about.
From the article: Like all the mammals found in the area, it was completely unafraid of humans and could be easily picked up, suggesting its previous contact with man was negligible.
I suppose it would be impossible for humans to interact with animals in such kind or friendly ways that the animals wouldn't learn to be frightened of them, eh? That's too bad.
From the article: The headline issue that VeriSign was going to be able to raise dotcom prices by seven percent every year has been reduced to the fact that it can only raise them for four of the next six years and that it needs to demonstrate evidence of the fact that the price rise comes as a result of additional expense on its network to make it more secure.... Without that issue to get angry about, much of the fire against the agreement will be quenched.
A 7% increase every year for six years comes out to roughly 150% of today's price. If it's only four out of six years, that's around 131% of today's price. I'm sure this is being posited as a 19% reduction in price over the next six years, but it is merely a reduction in a proposed and rather egregious price hike. I don't see how this quenches the fire. They still look like money grubbers.
And I have a hard time figuring out how their security costs are going to go up by 30% in the next few years... shouldn't they have a security budget that can be reviewed by ICANN?
When an X-prize is issued using this wording, it really makes me think twice if they really even know what they want done to win the prize.
For what it is worth... in the article, the X-prize folks did NOT use the word "decode" when referring to DNA; they said "sequence". Only the LiveScience.com article writer used the word "decode".
From what I know from these alternative providers it is more likely that they are selling you standard energy but guarantee that they invest part of their profits into producing the same amount of energy they sell you with clean technology.
That may be true for some. The providers I use claim (at least in my contract) that they exclusively use their own wind farms and hydro dams in upstate NY. Of course I am still using mostly dirty-power Niagara Mohawk for "electricity delivery" -- which I have zero choice about.
Here in New York (USA), the energy sector has been decentralized, so we can choose our suppliers for electricity. I've chosen one that is entirely based on wind and hydro power. Sure, it costs me an extra $10-$20/month, but it is one small thing that _I_ can do.
We keep looking to governments to impose a change on us, but what are we doing about it for ourselves?
Talking out of both sides of his mouth
on
Buy Vista or Else
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
"Even if they are not into home entertainment or in any of the specialty areas, they are just going to feel safer and more secure by using it."
"...[Alchin] demonstrated a collaboration tool that uses a "People Near Me" feature, which searches over a Wi-Fi connection for other Vista users nearby and then sets up a peer-to-peer network with them."
Your computer must be more secure -- it can automatically network wirelessly with other computers to share your files.
Millions of people may now be turning away from Google in disgust....
Who are they turning to? Haven't ALL the major search engines "caved in" (e.g. MSN, Yahoo) to the Chinese Government's pressures? The open source answer should be something like: "You don't like it? Build your own search engine, then!"
I agree that illegally copied music is, well, illegal. Shouldn't there be a warning, though, so that the individual being sued has the opportunity to legally purchase the songs in question? 600 songs = $600US on iTunes, more or less.
The link in the Slashdot summary goes to someone's blog (yeah, I wonder who "anonymously" submitted it). Here is the actual news item... err, press release... (as linked to from that blog).
But it's nice to see that yet another company is telling off the RIAA.
From the article: Initially, these raids may place a damper on spread of pirated material, however the allure of public recognition is simply too great for many to avoid. With time, their role in the online warez community will most likely be replaced.
This is news? It's been like this since way, way, way before the World Wide Web was invented. (Yes, children, there was software piracy back in the days of 5.25" floppy disks.)
Of course, with the Internet, all the other warez sites on the planet can easily fill the void left by the ones that were just shut down.
It's not a question of how you define "solved" but how you define the problem. If you mean "much less spam in my inbox" then filters are doing a good job. If you mean "zero spam in my inbox, and no wanted mail in my spam box, and spam isn't consuming 50% of the world's bandwidth" then we have a long, long way to go.
From the article: "1. IT problems - 30%... 2. Change in financial status/personal injury - 24%" Then later: "Over two thirds thought stress was simply having a 'bad day', 63% said it was dealing with difficult people and 58% saw stress as having too much to do." Okay, so which is it? 30% said IT problems were the top problem, but 63% said dealing with difficult people? Maybe the IT problems are caused by difficult people...?
Elsewhere: Considering that most people - 79% - believe they have been stressed in the last year.... ONLY 79%?! Who are these 21% of people who haven't felt stressed in the last 365 days?
TA's are told be the professor that the students by definition do not give a "wrong" answer. Instead, students should simply discuss their results and it does not matter what their results are.
From the article: "The children were more highly motivated to read a talking story than a conventional book."
Shouldn't she have said "listen to a talking story"? Apparently the teachers need some help. If nothing else, they should try reading stories to the kids.
Also: "the vast spending on information and communication technology has had little or no impact on standards."
That's true in the corporate world, too. I guess we truly are preparing the kiddies for real life!
Slashdot Mirror
Clearly it was the researchers who won. They get a bunch of press over the some expensive advertisements paid for by other people. Very smart, those research people.
I'm not a fan of American football (as opposed to soccer, which the rest of the world calls football), but SuperBowl parties are generally worth attending. So my wife and I went to one. We walked in and asked, "So who do you think will win -- the Knicks or the Blue Jays?"
Does this cover animated ASCII art? If so, I've got some work from the 1980s (maybe even 70s?) that would probably count as prior art. (And yes it was available ONLINE.) What about the graphical interface for online services such as Prodigy and... what was that Apple service again? eWorld? How about when we could play HyperCard stacks in Quicktime (in web pages!) during the mid-1990s?
According to CNN's article on this topic, Edmundson "originally said he had received a Bachelor of Science degree, but now says he believes -- but cannot document -- that he received a ThG diploma, awarded for completing a three-year degree in theology."
Call it academic theology: "I believe that I got the degree, but cannot document it." Intelligent design, anyone?
So when Discovery and Endeavor are mysteriously trapped in space and/or unable to respond to a global space-related emergency, an astronaut crew will be pulled from retirement (or useless promotion) to pilot Atlantis to the rescue! (...and possibly destroy it/themselves in the process of saving the world)
Mark my words: it will be on television if not in the movie theatres.
Prof. Bialystok first noticed bilingual children were proficient in blocking out irrelevant information about 20 years ago. When asked to identify a grammatically correct sentence, for example, both bilinguals and monolinguals are, by age 5, able to choose, "Apples grow on trees," over "Apple trees on grow" as the correct one.
But when it came to asking "Apples grow on noses" versus "Apples nose on grow," only the bilingual children were able to choose the right answer. Although the first sentence is grammatically correct, monolingual children could not get over its silliness. "That's crazy," they'd shout, "You can't say that!"
"We have been able to show on a huge range of cognitive tests that bilinguals are always better at problems with tricky, misleading information," Prof. Bialystok said.
Uh... let's see, the monolingual children were more adept at recognizing that the task at hand was stupid, instead of instinctively solving a task without questioning its value? I would count "sensibility" as intelligence. Just maybe not the kind the researchers are trying to measure.
Microsoft warned users...
I don't use Windows systems often, but most of my colleagues and friends do. How exactly has Microsoft warned its users? Pop-up windows? Ads in the local paper? Public service announcements on cable television? Are the requirements for Microsoft repairing computer-disabling software bugs the same as, say, General Motor's obligations for repairing automobile-disabling engineering mistakes (e.g. recalls)?
From the article: "The single-player game is a strange mutant monster which has only existed for 21 years and is about to go away because it is unnatural and abnormal."
Let's see, solitaire has apparently existed since at least 1674, with other single-person "games" possibly as old as 1535. Seems older than 21 years.
This reminds me of a guy I worked with couple of years ago. He was a research scientist for a large technology company. The only programming language he knew was LISP. For some reason I don't remember, he was eventually told that he had to begin writing his projects in Java. So he learned just enough to write a LISP interpreter in Java -- and then continued to write all his projects in LISP.
So we're spending billions of dollars to preserve old spaceships, when things like SpaceShipOne only cost tens or hundreds of millions for test flights?
This is kind of like my father's insistence on maintaining his 1972 Cadillac (at a ridiculous annual cost) instead of purchasing a newer vehicle (say, a Honda) that gets three times the mileage and has much lower support costs. Of course, it just isn't as big or masculine... that's probably what this is all about.
From the article: Like all the mammals found in the area, it was completely unafraid of humans and could be easily picked up, suggesting its previous contact with man was negligible.
I suppose it would be impossible for humans to interact with animals in such kind or friendly ways that the animals wouldn't learn to be frightened of them, eh? That's too bad.
From the article: The headline issue that VeriSign was going to be able to raise dotcom prices by seven percent every year has been reduced to the fact that it can only raise them for four of the next six years and that it needs to demonstrate evidence of the fact that the price rise comes as a result of additional expense on its network to make it more secure.... Without that issue to get angry about, much of the fire against the agreement will be quenched.
A 7% increase every year for six years comes out to roughly 150% of today's price. If it's only four out of six years, that's around 131% of today's price. I'm sure this is being posited as a 19% reduction in price over the next six years, but it is merely a reduction in a proposed and rather egregious price hike. I don't see how this quenches the fire. They still look like money grubbers.
And I have a hard time figuring out how their security costs are going to go up by 30% in the next few years... shouldn't they have a security budget that can be reviewed by ICANN?
When an X-prize is issued using this wording, it really makes me think twice if they really even know what they want done to win the prize.
For what it is worth... in the article, the X-prize folks did NOT use the word "decode" when referring to DNA; they said "sequence". Only the LiveScience.com article writer used the word "decode".
That may be true for some. The providers I use claim (at least in my contract) that they exclusively use their own wind farms and hydro dams in upstate NY. Of course I am still using mostly dirty-power Niagara Mohawk for "electricity delivery" -- which I have zero choice about.
Here in New York (USA), the energy sector has been decentralized, so we can choose our suppliers for electricity. I've chosen one that is entirely based on wind and hydro power. Sure, it costs me an extra $10-$20/month, but it is one small thing that _I_ can do.
We keep looking to governments to impose a change on us, but what are we doing about it for ourselves?
"Even if they are not into home entertainment or in any of the specialty areas, they are just going to feel safer and more secure by using it."
"...[Alchin] demonstrated a collaboration tool that uses a "People Near Me" feature, which searches over a Wi-Fi connection for other Vista users nearby and then sets up a peer-to-peer network with them."
Your computer must be more secure -- it can automatically network wirelessly with other computers to share your files.
Millions of people may now be turning away from Google in disgust....
Who are they turning to? Haven't ALL the major search engines "caved in" (e.g. MSN, Yahoo) to the Chinese Government's pressures? The open source answer should be something like: "You don't like it? Build your own search engine, then!"
There is no point in linking to the blog instead of the article unless the blog offers additional insights, regardless of Geist's expertise.
I agree that illegally copied music is, well, illegal. Shouldn't there be a warning, though, so that the individual being sued has the opportunity to legally purchase the songs in question? 600 songs = $600US on iTunes, more or less.
The link in the Slashdot summary goes to someone's blog (yeah, I wonder who "anonymously" submitted it). Here is the actual news item... err, press release... (as linked to from that blog).
But it's nice to see that yet another company is telling off the RIAA.
However, even further back, in the days of 8" floppy disks there was hardly any piracy because it was mostly all Free Software to begin with.
Quite true. And disks made better frisbees back then, too.
From the article: Initially, these raids may place a damper on spread of pirated material, however the allure of public recognition is simply too great for many to avoid. With time, their role in the online warez community will most likely be replaced.
This is news? It's been like this since way, way, way before the World Wide Web was invented. (Yes, children, there was software piracy back in the days of 5.25" floppy disks.)
Of course, with the Internet, all the other warez sites on the planet can easily fill the void left by the ones that were just shut down.
It's not a question of how you define "solved" but how you define the problem. If you mean "much less spam in my inbox" then filters are doing a good job. If you mean "zero spam in my inbox, and no wanted mail in my spam box, and spam isn't consuming 50% of the world's bandwidth" then we have a long, long way to go.
From the article: "1. IT problems - 30% ... 2. Change in financial status/personal injury - 24%" Then later: "Over two thirds thought stress was simply having a 'bad day', 63% said it was dealing with difficult people and 58% saw stress as having too much to do." Okay, so which is it? 30% said IT problems were the top problem, but 63% said dealing with difficult people? Maybe the IT problems are caused by difficult people...?
Elsewhere: Considering that most people - 79% - believe they have been stressed in the last year.... ONLY 79%?! Who are these 21% of people who haven't felt stressed in the last 365 days?
TA's are told be the professor that the students by definition do not give a "wrong" answer. Instead, students should simply discuss their results and it does not matter what their results are.
Sounds appropriate to philosophy, not science.
From the article: "The children were more highly motivated to read a talking story than a conventional book."
Shouldn't she have said "listen to a talking story"? Apparently the teachers need some help. If nothing else, they should try reading stories to the kids.
Also: "the vast spending on information and communication technology has had little or no impact on standards."
That's true in the corporate world, too. I guess we truly are preparing the kiddies for real life!