A police officer is able to legally ask anything that an ordinary citizen can ask. Not to nitpick, but a police officer can't ask some things, like "Do you want to buy some pot?" That would be entrapment and it's illegal.:)
I think there is a distinction between the ethics and the morals. Showing a boob might be immoral in certain parts of the US and in some Arab countries, but it surely as 1=1 is not unethical. Porn and gay marriages might be immoral to some people, but there is nothing unethical about it.
On the other hand, prohibiting gay marriages and stopping medical use of pot is moral according to some people, but is really unethical.
I think a 10 year term is much better than a 4 year term Hell, no! What is much better is a limit of one term per president. You can also make impeachment easy with online voting for the general population - 20% of the electorate want to impeach the president, he is out of the office.
But in the end, democracy doesn't work for the simple reason that elected officials are not selected for their intelligence or ability to solve problems. They are selected for their ability to become elected, i.e. sneaky, lying, venal bastards.
It would actually make sense to limit presidency to top scientists with 140+ IQ, a couple of publications in Nature/Science and a spotless reputation. Science seems to be the one area where honesty is still somewhat reasonably maintained.
Do you think it is possible to use a strong flashlight and try to catch the reflection of the code in the surface of the Pepsi? If yes, the purchase may be made completely unnecessary...
I am not saying the United States is evil. I don't believe a country that big can be all evil. Monako or San-Marino, may be, but not United States. There must be something good there.:) The lack of nationalist parties in the US is a good thing, although I can understand perfectly well why they spring up in the EU.
I've heard about the current Dutch problems with the foreigners from some of our friends there, when I pondered over the idea to write my Ph.D. in Delft. Yes, it's hard to solve problems after you neglect them for so long, but eventually it will work out, I hope.
Still, my point was not related to nationalism, but to the prevailing (at least according to the portrayal in the media) notion of jailtime as a universal solution. Returning to this topic, Dutch are indeed very progressive in regards to their penitentiary system, AFAIK. And I don't believe this can change overnight. There is a relatively efficient mechanism in place to reform the criminal, not to isolate them from society for decades.
If you use raytracing, yes. But if you use multi-pass texturing and some other run-off-the-mill features of modern 3D cards, a frame from Finding Nemo can be done in a few seconds at most.
I just checked the trailer and now I will go as far as saying that probably 10-20% of the movie can be done today on top of the line Radeon in real time (say, in 1600x1200, 24fps).
The probl.em is t.hat once th.ese copy.protection controls are in.stalled.everyone. will wan.t to use them. Markus
Kuhn of Ca..mbrid.ge Uni.versi.ty h.as discov.ered one of the patterns.used for de.tection o.f bank notes., know.n as the .
EURio.n Const.ellation. Sure,. it's not.that big o.f a deal
when only bank.notes have the conste.llation, but expect
to see t..h.e constella.tion start showi..ng up in the
darnde.st places.
Soon everyone.and their brother will start printing the .
Constellation onto w.hat.ever th.ey f.e.el needs "copy
pr.otection." Yo.u'll see it printed on pho.tographs and
forms. and al.l kin.ds of junk.. Regular. people will have
their right t.o make copies and t.he abilit.y to use.their
own.equi.pment usurpe.d by others ab.using a mec.hanism
that.was only su.pposed to incon.v.enience coun.terfeit.ers.
You are clearly a USian citizen. Who else would think that a 15-year sentence is a fair punishment for a 15 old prankster...
Come on, if I am doing a parody, regardless of how similar it looks to the real thing, I will use it to have fun, not to buy something for it. And if a 15-old makes a mistake of counterfeiting, a normal (i.e. unamerican) choice would be to give him a lecture and force him do 200 hours of community service, not to place him for 15 years in prison.
Mental note: when forging currency, chose euros, not US dollars or Saudi riyals. Don't want my hands chopped off or spend 15 years in USian prison.:)
Central banks hope free software will put a dent in counterfeiting
Oh, really? Actually I hope that free software will do just the opposite and help keep professional counterfeiting within the reach of amateurs. We must not give "free" the same meaning, though...
Seriously, in light of the recent news I have made a decision not to buy any hardware/software with these user-limiting features. That includes xeroxes, printers and scanners, as well as image editing software. I am not a counterfeiter, nor am I likely to become one. I understand perfectly well that counterfeiting harms ordinary people, including myself. But I also do realise that the economic effect of counterfeiting is miniscule compared with other factors, like stupidity and corruptness of our political leaders (not that I would be voluntarily led anywhere by those scumbags), and that the loss of our freedom is much greater anyway.
And there are probably billions of billions of insects and billions of billions of billions of bacteria, who do not speak either. But does anyone care?
No offence to Chinese people, but frankly it doesn't matter how many users a language has. What matters is how widely it is used in various contexts, such as scientific publications, global business negotations, news wire services, Usenet FAQs, etc.
I do not decide which language to use based on how popular it is in raw numbers. I decide it based upon its ubiquity in the areas which are important to me - Slashdot, Hollywood movies and Science/Nature magazines among others.:) So far, I have decided that English is the best choice for me, seconded by my mother tongue. I learned a bit of other languages, French, Finnish and Japanese mostly, but ultimately decided it isn't worth it.
It's all sounds great, but now we need to finally make a decision. In order to make an informed one, may I ask you to prepare a brief summary of costs and benefits related to preserving the Middle Chulym language.
Please list and estimate in monetary terms the main benefits from preserving it (per year for the next cetury). Please also indicate what people or groups of people will benefit mostly. Do the same for the main costs related to preserving it (up front and annual for the next century). Based on that data we shall make a decision about preserving it or not.
Look, I am not racist, nationalist or anything, but I couldn't care less if the whole New Guinea sunk to the bottom of the ocean tomorrow.
I have never been there, I haven't heard about it often, I haven't read about it much. And it's not like it has a huge influence on the global politics, technological progress or something like that. For all practical purposes it doesn't exist.
I do not lose anything when a language dies (unless its my mother tongue or one of the world's most popular languages - but these are unlikely to die, being most popular and stuff). I can't lose something, which I never had. Worrying about it is like worrying about a particular girl dying from hunger in Somalia because of the miniscule chance that one day you may sleep with her.
The article (which I proudly ignored) is yet another example of a common journalistic practice - throwing a bunch of words together with the hope that they will somehow self-assemble to make a resemblance of being sensible and slapping a sensationalist conclusion (and a catchy headline) on top. Needless to say, there is no point worth mentioning. Sad that this practice appears to be spreading to popular science magazines.
To elaborate: 1) loss of languages doesn't mean loss of our thoughts and ideas 2) it is unprofitable to mine these languages for ideas anyway, otherwise MS would be doing it (potential payoff is miniscule) 3) why would a language evolved in a society of hunters and gatherers be useful for programming I don't know (other than by sheer luck) 4) by the end of the 21st century I expect some progress to happen in computer science anyway. I doubt we will miss those languages then.:) 5) a forecast like this completely ignores any developments in AI which are likely to happen in the coming decades
Conclusion: don't waste your time on that article, it's likely to be crap.:-) Although it might be entertaining crap, who knows...
Second, watch Finding Nemo again (or at least one of the trailers) and pay attention to the seagulls. Pixar does scatalogical humor too.:(
P.S. The reason film companies use scatological humor is that no matter how much shit, crap and gas you put into the movie, it can still be rated PG. But if you show as little as a tit for a second, use "fuck" once or show a drop of blood, it's instant PG-13 or even R. I would actually appreciate if Pixar (or Dreamworks) movies showed some skin (And hot steamy sex as well. Why not? It's natural!). But that stupid Dreamworks even butchered sexy Fiona and turned her into an ogre monster. Fuck it, no matter how good the story is, it won't compensate the loss of a cute female lead...
What I am really surprised by is why would any rich Californian marry a relatively poor woman. Couldn't Lucas just live together with that chick, no strings attached?
Actually, most of the rendering can be done on a simple PC with the help from a graphics accelerator. Especially if you don't have to do it in realtime. You might lose a little bit in the quality, but overall that would hardly be noticeable.
Assuming we are talking about 4 17" LCD displays, the price will be over $1000. Getting a projector instead of two displays might be a little bit more pricey, but the end result is much better both in terms of picture quality, fun and compatibility.
If you get yourself a notebook with a Wacom pen tablet or something like that, you could probably use handwriting (with recognition added somehow), drawing, etc. And you still will have a notebook with all the advantages of it.
I think a tablet PC would rock if it used a low-power CPU, no HDD, no CD/DVD and no sound/videocards (a chip, may be, but not a heavy/bulky card). With that it must be possible to make a lightweight device. I am thinking of something along the lines of a PalmOS or a stripped down Linux with a custom working environment (running on something like 30MHz CPU and 64Mb of RAM) with a 12" low-power LCD (may be, without backlight and monochrome to improve battery life, but who will use it...). Fill the rest with batteries.
A pickup truck, because the third team actually uses a 4WD. DAPRA said that the race can be traversed in a pickup (with a human driver), but the article doesn't say any team will actually use a pickup.
See the first part of my message. The idea of spending $10,000 advertising your quality as a mate is an evolutionary stable strategy. It makes sense for your genes, so it isn't a big surprise that many humans follow it and many species of animals do too. But it doesn't necessarily makes sense for you personally, despite your ability to rationalise it (just like people rationalise other things the genes force them to do).
The utility of a diamond is precisely zero. Actually the main point of buying a diamond for your girl is proving that you are so successful that you can waste $10,000 on something completely useless (on advertisement). In addition to that it is useful to prove that you follow a strategy of commitment and she can be relatively sure you will help raise the offspring (so that her genes survive).
In conclusion, I understand perfectly well why people give diamonds to their girls, but I also understand that from the selfish point of view of these people it doesn't make sense. Genes force you to follow similar strategies, DeBeers forces you to buy diamonds and society forces you to do like everyone does. But if you think for a second what is best for you, for a unique intelligent and independent individual, you have no choice but to realise - spending money on diamonds is bad for you. In simple terms, it decreases your personal chances for survival.
Slashdot Mirror
A police officer is able to legally ask anything that an ordinary citizen can ask. :)
Not to nitpick, but a police officer can't ask some things, like "Do you want to buy some pot?" That would be entrapment and it's illegal.
I think the only solution to this would be removing officer discretion from the enforcement process.
That's a good idea...
I think there is a distinction between the ethics and the morals. Showing a boob might be immoral in certain parts of the US and in some Arab countries, but it surely as 1=1 is not unethical. Porn and gay marriages might be immoral to some people, but there is nothing unethical about it.
On the other hand, prohibiting gay marriages and stopping medical use of pot is moral according to some people, but is really unethical.
I think a 10 year term is much better than a 4 year term
Hell, no! What is much better is a limit of one term per president. You can also make impeachment easy with online voting for the general population - 20% of the electorate want to impeach the president, he is out of the office.
But in the end, democracy doesn't work for the simple reason that elected officials are not selected for their intelligence or ability to solve problems. They are selected for their ability to become elected, i.e. sneaky, lying, venal bastards.
It would actually make sense to limit presidency to top scientists with 140+ IQ, a couple of publications in Nature/Science and a spotless reputation. Science seems to be the one area where honesty is still somewhat reasonably maintained.
Do you think it is possible to use a strong flashlight and try to catch the reflection of the code in the surface of the Pepsi? If yes, the purchase may be made completely unnecessary...
Can someone please confirm if it is possible?
I am not saying the United States is evil. I don't believe a country that big can be all evil. Monako or San-Marino, may be, but not United States. There must be something good there. :) The lack of nationalist parties in the US is a good thing, although I can understand perfectly well why they spring up in the EU.
I've heard about the current Dutch problems with the foreigners from some of our friends there, when I pondered over the idea to write my Ph.D. in Delft. Yes, it's hard to solve problems after you neglect them for so long, but eventually it will work out, I hope.
Still, my point was not related to nationalism, but to the prevailing (at least according to the portrayal in the media) notion of jailtime as a universal solution. Returning to this topic, Dutch are indeed very progressive in regards to their penitentiary system, AFAIK. And I don't believe this can change overnight. There is a relatively efficient mechanism in place to reform the criminal, not to isolate them from society for decades.
If you use raytracing, yes. But if you use multi-pass texturing and some other run-off-the-mill features of modern 3D cards, a frame from Finding Nemo can be done in a few seconds at most.
I just checked the trailer and now I will go as far as saying that probably 10-20% of the movie can be done today on top of the line Radeon in real time (say, in 1600x1200, 24fps).
The probl.em is t.hat once th.ese copy .protection controls are in.stalled .everyone. will wan.t to use them. Markus
Kuhn of Ca..mbrid.ge Uni.versi.ty h.as discov.ered one of the patterns .used for de.tection o.f bank notes., know.n as the .
EURio.n Const.ellation. Sure,. it's not .that big o.f a deal
when only bank .notes have the conste.llation, but expect
to see t..h.e constella.tion start showi..ng up in the
darnde.st places.
Soon everyone .and their brother will start printing the .
Constellation onto w.hat.ever th.ey f.e.el needs "copy
pr.otection." Yo.u'll see it printed on pho.tographs and
forms. and al.l kin.ds of junk.. Regular. people will have
their right t.o make copies and t.he abilit.y to use .their
own .equi.pment usurpe.d by others ab.using a mec.hanism
that .was only su.pposed to incon.v.enience coun.terfeit.ers.
Please report for termination.
Reason:
Thinkcrime 197: your post contained words advocating terrorism.
You are clearly a USian citizen. Who else would think that a 15-year sentence is a fair punishment for a 15 old prankster...
:)
Come on, if I am doing a parody, regardless of how similar it looks to the real thing, I will use it to have fun, not to buy something for it. And if a 15-old makes a mistake of counterfeiting, a normal (i.e. unamerican) choice would be to give him a lecture and force him do 200 hours of community service, not to place him for 15 years in prison.
Mental note: when forging currency, chose euros, not US dollars or Saudi riyals. Don't want my hands chopped off or spend 15 years in USian prison.
Fortunately, we still can order high-resolution scans from online photobanks. :)
http://www.fotosearch.com/PHD431/96011/
Central banks hope free software will put a dent in counterfeiting
Oh, really? Actually I hope that free software will do just the opposite and help keep professional counterfeiting within the reach of amateurs. We must not give "free" the same meaning, though...
Seriously, in light of the recent news I have made a decision not to buy any hardware/software with these user-limiting features. That includes xeroxes, printers and scanners, as well as image editing software. I am not a counterfeiter, nor am I likely to become one. I understand perfectly well that counterfeiting harms ordinary people, including myself. But I also do realise that the economic effect of counterfeiting is miniscule compared with other factors, like stupidity and corruptness of our political leaders (not that I would be voluntarily led anywhere by those scumbags), and that the loss of our freedom is much greater anyway.
And which 'english' with that be?
why, teh inet english, of course lol
And there are probably billions of billions of insects and billions of billions of billions of bacteria, who do not speak either. But does anyone care?
:) So far, I have decided that English is the best choice for me, seconded by my mother tongue. I learned a bit of other languages, French, Finnish and Japanese mostly, but ultimately decided it isn't worth it.
No offence to Chinese people, but frankly it doesn't matter how many users a language has. What matters is how widely it is used in various contexts, such as scientific publications, global business negotations, news wire services, Usenet FAQs, etc.
I do not decide which language to use based on how popular it is in raw numbers. I decide it based upon its ubiquity in the areas which are important to me - Slashdot, Hollywood movies and Science/Nature magazines among others.
It's all sounds great, but now we need to finally make a decision. In order to make an informed one, may I ask you to prepare a brief summary of costs and benefits related to preserving the Middle Chulym language.
Please list and estimate in monetary terms the main benefits from preserving it (per year for the next cetury). Please also indicate what people or groups of people will benefit mostly. Do the same for the main costs related to preserving it (up front and annual for the next century). Based on that data we shall make a decision about preserving it or not.
Look, I am not racist, nationalist or anything, but I couldn't care less if the whole New Guinea sunk to the bottom of the ocean tomorrow.
I have never been there, I haven't heard about it often, I haven't read about it much. And it's not like it has a huge influence on the global politics, technological progress or something like that. For all practical purposes it doesn't exist.
I do not lose anything when a language dies (unless its my mother tongue or one of the world's most popular languages - but these are unlikely to die, being most popular and stuff). I can't lose something, which I never had. Worrying about it is like worrying about a particular girl dying from hunger in Somalia because of the miniscule chance that one day you may sleep with her.
The article (which I proudly ignored) is yet another example of a common journalistic practice - throwing a bunch of words together with the hope that they will somehow self-assemble to make a resemblance of being sensible and slapping a sensationalist conclusion (and a catchy headline) on top. Needless to say, there is no point worth mentioning. Sad that this practice appears to be spreading to popular science magazines.
:)
:-) Although it might be entertaining crap, who knows...
To elaborate:
1) loss of languages doesn't mean loss of our thoughts and ideas
2) it is unprofitable to mine these languages for ideas anyway, otherwise MS would be doing it (potential payoff is miniscule)
3) why would a language evolved in a society of hunters and gatherers be useful for programming I don't know (other than by sheer luck)
4) by the end of the 21st century I expect some progress to happen in computer science anyway. I doubt we will miss those languages then.
5) a forecast like this completely ignores any developments in AI which are likely to happen in the coming decades
Conclusion: don't waste your time on that article, it's likely to be crap.
First, Shrek is a Dreamworks movie.
:(
Second, watch Finding Nemo again (or at least one of the trailers) and pay attention to the seagulls. Pixar does scatalogical humor too.
P.S. The reason film companies use scatological humor is that no matter how much shit, crap and gas you put into the movie, it can still be rated PG. But if you show as little as a tit for a second, use "fuck" once or show a drop of blood, it's instant PG-13 or even R. I would actually appreciate if Pixar (or Dreamworks) movies showed some skin (And hot steamy sex as well. Why not? It's natural!). But that stupid Dreamworks even butchered sexy Fiona and turned her into an ogre monster. Fuck it, no matter how good the story is, it won't compensate the loss of a cute female lead...
What I am really surprised by is why would any rich Californian marry a relatively poor woman. Couldn't Lucas just live together with that chick, no strings attached?
Actually, most of the rendering can be done on a simple PC with the help from a graphics accelerator. Especially if you don't have to do it in realtime. You might lose a little bit in the quality, but overall that would hardly be noticeable.
Assuming we are talking about 4 17" LCD displays, the price will be over $1000. Getting a projector instead of two displays might be a little bit more pricey, but the end result is much better both in terms of picture quality, fun and compatibility.
If you get yourself a notebook with a Wacom pen tablet or something like that, you could probably use handwriting (with recognition added somehow), drawing, etc. And you still will have a notebook with all the advantages of it.
I think a tablet PC would rock if it used a low-power CPU, no HDD, no CD/DVD and no sound/videocards (a chip, may be, but not a heavy/bulky card). With that it must be possible to make a lightweight device. I am thinking of something along the lines of a PalmOS or a stripped down Linux with a custom working environment (running on something like 30MHz CPU and 64Mb of RAM) with a 12" low-power LCD (may be, without backlight and monochrome to improve battery life, but who will use it...). Fill the rest with batteries.
A pickup truck, because the third team actually uses a 4WD. DAPRA said that the race can be traversed in a pickup (with a human driver), but the article doesn't say any team will actually use a pickup.
See the first part of my message. The idea of spending $10,000 advertising your quality as a mate is an evolutionary stable strategy. It makes sense for your genes, so it isn't a big surprise that many humans follow it and many species of animals do too. But it doesn't necessarily makes sense for you personally, despite your ability to rationalise it (just like people rationalise other things the genes force them to do).
The utility of a diamond is precisely zero. Actually the main point of buying a diamond for your girl is proving that you are so successful that you can waste $10,000 on something completely useless (on advertisement). In addition to that it is useful to prove that you follow a strategy of commitment and she can be relatively sure you will help raise the offspring (so that her genes survive).
In conclusion, I understand perfectly well why people give diamonds to their girls, but I also understand that from the selfish point of view of these people it doesn't make sense. Genes force you to follow similar strategies, DeBeers forces you to buy diamonds and society forces you to do like everyone does. But if you think for a second what is best for you, for a unique intelligent and independent individual, you have no choice but to realise - spending money on diamonds is bad for you. In simple terms, it decreases your personal chances for survival.