I have seen many contrail shadows near my place in Colorado, and that is EXACTLY what they look like.
I recognized it immediately. Note that the light on the clouds indicates that the sun is in the direction of the streak.
Doesn't it seem like an unusual coincidence that a massive, drastic climactic shift correllates with the expansion of human civilization?
1) Expansion of human civilization in Europe occurred 1000 years ago, and is currently undergoing slow contraction. Nice theory, but you made it up.
2) "Correllates with" is the very definition of "coincidence". There are other statistical tests that can properly test a theorized relationship. They require rather large sample sizes, and carefully designed measurement procedures. You can learn about them in books, or google "design of experiments"
3) I don't think anyone seriously doubts that human endeavor has an effect on the environment. The debate is about the magnitude of the effect. Being a chaotic system, statistical studies of the environment are essentially out of their depth. As a result, what would be scientific inquiry has devolved into a religious discussion.
Good news! Peter Jackson is currently producing the story of Tom Bombadil. Unfortunately for us hard-core Tom Bombadil fans, I have heard rumors that the role of Tom is being played by a 60 foot tall ape.
Well, VoiceXML isn't really a voice recognition standard... it's an interactive voice response markup language. It's intended to fill exactly the same role as HTML, but in the telephony space. As such, there is a huge need for a standard... existing web-services infrastructure (and skills) can be used to address IVR problems, but only if there exists a "voice-browser" that can interact with the web-services platforms. Define the markup language and the implementation of the browser is left as an exercise for the student.
Companies with large web presence platforms and disparate IVR/Call Center investments can really benefit from this technology. Think: financial institutions, customer support organizations, etc.
Who is President simply does not affect jobs the way so many state, but I guess it does make some feel better if they have someone to blame for what is likely just bad luck.
Actually, it's not so much bad luck as it is bad choices on the part of Wall Street. The reality: the dot-com boom created unsustainable jobs based on poor business models. For 2 straight years, the economy operated at a few hundred thousand jobs beyond full employment. You all remember it well -- being offered absurd sums to go work for a company that had no product, no customers, and no plan to change that situation. The economy was burning VC money -- and the fed wouldn't step in to fix it.
Now, in the crater of that foolishness, we have finally recovered to near full employment... and folks would like to panic and declare failure. You want to create jobs: great! You do it by being sensible with your money, and demanding the same from your employer, your vendors, and your investments. Anything else is a crap shoot.
The point of SPF was not to eliminate spam, but to eliminate spoofing. If successful, this is enables effective and cheap spam filtering by forcing spammers to use domains that can easily be blacklisted.
In other words, SPF is working correctly, brighter tomorrow expected, move along, nothing to see here.
Which, in a perfect VoIP world, isn't going to even be an option as people are using things like cable modems as their VoIP gateways (so its digital all the way from the house).
Not true... look up the OpenCable standards for "cable telephone". It isn't treated like VOIP end-to-end either, and for the same reasons: wiretap and 911.
What, we already have service in the 20-30mbit range.
I call BS. Some people may have shared bandwidth of 20-30mbit, but it is far from being generally available. Go ahead and spin up every household downloading HDTV streams at 15mbit each and then calculate the bandwidth needed in the network. That's easily 10 years away for 90% of Americans.
And, if you ask around, you'll find out quickly that most people have only one broadband provider available for their household -- without any form of competition to drive an increase in bandwidth/$. As for me and mine, we are still struggling to lure our first broadband provider into the neighborhood -- if we succeed we get to look forward to $49/month for 384 kbps.
"with all the people outrightly dismissing this study?"
Have you not been following this topic for the last 20 years? Every study that reveals a higher disease rate gets the headlines, every study that reveals a lower disease rate gets ignored. In either case, the only important point -- whether there is a statistically significant relationship between exposure and disease is ignored.
Yet, to the scientists, this is the only part that matters. So, I read the article, and do I find any statistically significant relationships established? No!
Now, maybe you never took design-of-experiments in college, but believe me, the difference between a exciting "70% higher" headline and a demonstrated relationship is immense. "How can this be?" Leukemia is very rare. As a result, any clumping in distribution can swing the numbers dramatically. From the article, please tell me... how many people were included in the sample space? Oh... hmm... they left that part out. If, based on the expected distribution there were 5 people with leukemia in the "watch area" and the expected number is 3, then that would be a headline grabbing "70% increase in leukemia" -- yet it means nothing. Statistical significance requires a numeric relationship that survives the scrutiny of appropriate sample sizes, and takes into consideration other known factors.
More often than not, these headline grabbing "scientists" are just milking the public cow by laying claim to research money that is better spent on real science. There is no better way I know of to get grant money than to threaten the world with unsubstantiated luddite hysteria.
Well, if my employer has ownership over anything I do during my employment, then they are clearly also liable for everything I do during my employment -- the door swings both ways. In some ways, this is a triumph over onerous individual liability insurance. Next time I rear-end some bozo on the road, I'll just honk twice and tell them to bill my employer.
It would be worth it from a business perspective:
- Open up Java via GPL so it can be integrated with Linux distros.
- Migrate Sun users to Linux on PowerPC
- Kill off all of the Sun originated FUD
Another interesting question we might find ourselves facing is: "What if everything that we think is needed for life to appear is/was present, yet no life is found?" This might have an profound downward effect on our estimates for the number of other civilizations in the universe, and cause us to re-evaluate how valuable the life on earth may actually be.
Either life is as common as liquid water throughout the universe, or life is as rare as a diamond on a beach. Which do you believe, and how would your overall values change if your belief was demonstrated to be wrong?
I am waiting for... Web Developers to write code that is compatible with all browsers
I disagree. I think "browser incompatibility" can be used as a proactive solution to the IE situation. If folks would set up their web servers to rewrite any GET request from IE to a page that says "You are running Internet Explorer. This website cannot support users of Internet Explorer due to its inherent security flaws."
Then redirect them to http://www.mozilla.org after 10 seconds.
I typically have four levels deep below my PHOTOS directory, and in some places it's six. Drilling down to the bottom of that would leave me with a lot of desktop clutter, to say the least.
Can I assume you've at least tried the "iconify" button at least once? All of this "open lots of windows", "close lots of windows" hysteria is solved by using it.
I for one am greatly relieved to see the spatial design return after so many years in browser-mode hell.
I had a stop watch in 1985 that had different functions for click (start), double-click (lap) and click-and-hold (reset). Certainly counts a "limited resource computing device."
Same thing for my thermostat, weather station, wristwatch, the odometer on my 1999 Miata, and the stereo in same.
Think about it.. the thing they "invented" is literally everywhere.
But does putting the mass of 3 humans in suborbital flight really make a difference?
Yes. Commericial engineering is only accomplished in small, achievable, individually profitable steps. Only governments can afford to waste money on decades-long boondoggles. Space tourism is seen as a potentially profitable industry... orbital heavy-lifting already has big market players (the governments) and entry into this market is not likely to be overwhelmingly profitable. That is, until you have technology that can significantly lower the price point.
I think you'll find that IBM cares little for mass markets, and is doing quick business in the rack-mounted back-office market.
Instead of comparing "market share" we should compare profitability -- the big money is in corporate sales.
Not trying to troll here: but my experience with "audiophiles" indicates that they are not -- as a group -- generally known for giving real opinion based on facts.
Things I've seen posted in all seriousness on audiophile lists:
- Small conical weight positioned on the amplifier improves sound
- The best bang for the buck in an audiophile system is an upgrade to the gauge of the power cord
- Digital audio played from a firewire drive sounds better than ATA or SCSI
- The biggest difference between the fidelity of different digital audio workstations is in the summing operation. (Yes, summing means what you think it means: a+b=c. Now even arithmetic is open to interpretation...)
Whenever I propose a controlled A/B test to verify these claims I'm immediately routed as a jerk with "bad ears". As a result, "audiophile" has acquired a new definition for me: "Irrational behavior coupled with deep pockets." and has spawned a law that I now see in operation in all areas of human endeavor:
Spending Induced Lobotomy: the act of spending large amounts of money on an endeavor permanently cripples the spender's ability to think rationally about the endeavor.
That's why hams are inducting 802.11b/g into Part 97 with the aid of 2.4gHz amplifiers. Just make sure you have WEP disabled, and are on the right channels.
The point is that printshops accept files only with specific formats, namely with CMYK color separation, the appropriate resolution, and in "well-known" file formats: Quark, Illustrator, et al.
Scribus PDF output is apparently acceptable to our printshop, and I would be suspicious of any printshop who refused it. We are using Scribus 1.1.6 for a 28-page event handout, and it seems to be doing the job just fine.
QuarkXpress may be fine for big corporations, but a 501c3 like ours can't really afford the 5 seats of it that we need. Scribus works well for us. Yes, there are some quirks, but they have been disappearing with every revision.
Slashdot Mirror
I have seen many contrail shadows near my place in Colorado, and that is EXACTLY what they look like. I recognized it immediately. Note that the light on the clouds indicates that the sun is in the direction of the streak.
The light pole flash is totally unrelated.
1) Expansion of human civilization in Europe occurred 1000 years ago, and is currently undergoing slow contraction. Nice theory, but you made it up.
2) "Correllates with" is the very definition of "coincidence". There are other statistical tests that can properly test a theorized relationship. They require rather large sample sizes, and carefully designed measurement procedures. You can learn about them in books, or google "design of experiments"
3) I don't think anyone seriously doubts that human endeavor has an effect on the environment. The debate is about the magnitude of the effect. Being a chaotic system, statistical studies of the environment are essentially out of their depth. As a result, what would be scientific inquiry has devolved into a religious discussion.
Look at those numbers: you've just proven that a short duration 4PPM increase in C02 can be explained by an increase in volcanic activity.
*gasp*
Good news! Peter Jackson is currently producing the story of Tom Bombadil. Unfortunately for us hard-core Tom Bombadil fans, I have heard rumors that the role of Tom is being played by a 60 foot tall ape.
Companies with large web presence platforms and disparate IVR/Call Center investments can really benefit from this technology. Think: financial institutions, customer support organizations, etc.
It's also very cheap to implement.
Actually, it's not so much bad luck as it is bad choices on the part of Wall Street. The reality: the dot-com boom created unsustainable jobs based on poor business models. For 2 straight years, the economy operated at a few hundred thousand jobs beyond full employment. You all remember it well -- being offered absurd sums to go work for a company that had no product, no customers, and no plan to change that situation. The economy was burning VC money -- and the fed wouldn't step in to fix it.
Now, in the crater of that foolishness, we have finally recovered to near full employment... and folks would like to panic and declare failure. You want to create jobs: great! You do it by being sensible with your money, and demanding the same from your employer, your vendors, and your investments. Anything else is a crap shoot.
The President doesn't move the economy -- you do.
The point of SPF was not to eliminate spam, but to eliminate spoofing. If successful, this is enables effective and cheap spam filtering by forcing spammers to use domains that can easily be blacklisted.
In other words, SPF is working correctly, brighter tomorrow expected, move along, nothing to see here.
And, if you ask around, you'll find out quickly that most people have only one broadband provider available for their household -- without any form of competition to drive an increase in bandwidth/$. As for me and mine, we are still struggling to lure our first broadband provider into the neighborhood -- if we succeed we get to look forward to $49/month for 384 kbps.
"with all the people outrightly dismissing this study?"
Have you not been following this topic for the last 20 years? Every study that reveals a higher disease rate gets the headlines, every study that reveals a lower disease rate gets ignored. In either case, the only important point -- whether there is a statistically significant relationship between exposure and disease is ignored.
Yet, to the scientists, this is the only part that matters. So, I read the article, and do I find any statistically significant relationships established? No!
Now, maybe you never took design-of-experiments in college, but believe me, the difference between a exciting "70% higher" headline and a demonstrated relationship is immense. "How can this be?" Leukemia is very rare. As a result, any clumping in distribution can swing the numbers dramatically. From the article, please tell me... how many people were included in the sample space? Oh... hmm... they left that part out. If, based on the expected distribution there were 5 people with leukemia in the "watch area" and the expected number is 3, then that would be a headline grabbing "70% increase in leukemia" -- yet it means nothing. Statistical significance requires a numeric relationship that survives the scrutiny of appropriate sample sizes, and takes into consideration other known factors.
More often than not, these headline grabbing "scientists" are just milking the public cow by laying claim to research money that is better spent on real science. There is no better way I know of to get grant money than to threaten the world with unsubstantiated luddite hysteria.
Well, if my employer has ownership over anything I do during my employment, then they are clearly also liable for everything I do during my employment -- the door swings both ways. In some ways, this is a triumph over onerous individual liability insurance. Next time I rear-end some bozo on the road, I'll just honk twice and tell them to bill my employer.
Yeah, that'll work.
It would be worth it from a business perspective: - Open up Java via GPL so it can be integrated with Linux distros. - Migrate Sun users to Linux on PowerPC - Kill off all of the Sun originated FUD
Another interesting question we might find ourselves facing is: "What if everything that we think is needed for life to appear is/was present, yet no life is found?" This might have an profound downward effect on our estimates for the number of other civilizations in the universe, and cause us to re-evaluate how valuable the life on earth may actually be.
Either life is as common as liquid water throughout the universe, or life is as rare as a diamond on a beach. Which do you believe, and how would your overall values change if your belief was demonstrated to be wrong?
It's a very important question.
Then redirect them to http://www.mozilla.org after 10 seconds.
I for one am greatly relieved to see the spatial design return after so many years in browser-mode hell.
I had a stop watch in 1985 that had different functions for click (start), double-click (lap) and click-and-hold (reset). Certainly counts a "limited resource computing device."
Same thing for my thermostat, weather station, wristwatch, the odometer on my 1999 Miata, and the stereo in same.
Think about it.. the thing they "invented" is literally everywhere.
Oh... that's why whales are extinct.
I think you'll find that IBM cares little for mass markets, and is doing quick business in the rack-mounted back-office market. Instead of comparing "market share" we should compare profitability -- the big money is in corporate sales.
Things I've seen posted in all seriousness on audiophile lists:
- Small conical weight positioned on the amplifier improves sound
- The best bang for the buck in an audiophile system is an upgrade to the gauge of the power cord
- Digital audio played from a firewire drive sounds better than ATA or SCSI
- The biggest difference between the fidelity of different digital audio workstations is in the summing operation. (Yes, summing means what you think it means: a+b=c. Now even arithmetic is open to interpretation...)
Whenever I propose a controlled A/B test to verify these claims I'm immediately routed as a jerk with "bad ears". As a result, "audiophile" has acquired a new definition for me: "Irrational behavior coupled with deep pockets." and has spawned a law that I now see in operation in all areas of human endeavor:
So in the universe you live in, the Post-9/11 Bush Administration is responsible for the DMCA anti-circumvention provision?
Sorry, no. The sad truth is that corrupt government exists on both sides of the aisle.
I get 37 mpg on every tank commuting in my Mazda Miata, and I regularly run it up to the rev limiter and drift the corners.
Your argument lacks merit. Any modern car can get good mileage if you drive "sedately". Hybrids claim to be more efficient by design... they are not.
QuarkXpress may be fine for big corporations, but a 501c3 like ours can't really afford the 5 seats of it that we need. Scribus works well for us. Yes, there are some quirks, but they have been disappearing with every revision.