Have to agree with you about Jeff Goldblum -- in a single afternoon -- deciphering the alien equivalent of TCP/IP and hacking up a computer virus capable of running on alien hardware. Beyond ridiculous.
That was absolutely one of the most cringeworthy aspects of the movie, and they could have fixed it with a single scene.
Data: "But it's strange - despite their formidable technology, their computer and communications networks are extremely straightforward - no encryption at all. We've spent years reverse-engineering the command codes for their systems. We've had a lot of success - for all the good it has done us."
Goldblum: "What - an advanced race like this, and the idea of passwords and encryption didn't occur to them?"
Pullman: "No - they're telepaths. They can't lie or hide anything from each other - and we're the only other advanced civilization they're ever encountered. No other race they've destroyed had computers."
Goldblum: "Give me everything you have on their computer systems and command codes. I have an idea..."
Sure, it would have still been a stretch, but a lot easier to swallow.
Ehm. One thing is being sensitive to electromagnetism, another is to actually interpret 54Mbps of wifi traffic in real time, using nothing but your brain. (The guy wouldn't use wifi himself now, would he?)
I assume he borrowed someone's computer to check for wireless networks, or asked someone to check for him. The average person probably wouldn't be savvy enough to use a network sniffer - they'd simply look for SSID names. No SSID = no perceived wireless = no "illness" to an EMS hypochondriac - unless, of course, he spotted her sitting on her balcony or deck, using a laptop.
My guess is that this guy isn't suing because he's a jerk, but because he thinks the issue is real.
He absolutely thinks it is real. Mental illness is as real as any physical illness. On the other hand, the chances of him getting help are essentially nil. In the first place, you can't convince EMS "sufferers" that it's all in their heads, anymore than you can convince a schizophrenic that the voices aren't real. Second, he already has a quack doctor who is more than willing to take his money and tell him, "Oh yes, you have a real physical ailment".
Ok, so the guy filing the suit is a moron and the suit has no technical merit at all. But really? Running a router is now a basic human right? A little melodramatic don't you think?
On the contrary, the right in question is one of the most fundamental rights humans cherish - the right to be left alone and not be harassed by people who try to force you to live the way they do.
As others have pointed out in similar cases, what she could have done was turn off the SSID broadcast on her router. As far as he would be concerned, the wireless signal would be "off" and his symptoms would abate.
On the other hand, it is generally pointless to try to compromise with a crazy person. She might be better off sticking to her guns and countersuing him for harassment.
But windows is a heck of a lot more open than the iPad
You're comparing oranges to apples, so to speak. An operating system is not equivalent to a single product put out by a company.
Tell me, is the Xbox more open than the iPad? Because those two products are the ones you should be comparing. Closed, tightly regulated ecosystems in both cases, although I'd still give the iPad the edge for ease of developer access.
On the other hand, is Windows more open than OS X? Clearly, the answer to that is a resounding NO, as you quickly realize as you jump through Microsoft's "Genuine Advantage" license code hoops.
'It turned out the long tail was much more important,' said Bing's Yusuf Mehdi.
Someone should tell Medhi that it also helps when you don't game the search results to fit your corporate agenda.
From time to time, I try out the following query on Bing: "Why is Windows so expensive?"
The day that the first result returned is NOT a site about Macs being expensive is the day I'll start to take Bing seriously. Until then, I'm sticking with Google, which is at least honest enough to properly index anti-Google queries.
For the personal traveling at that speed, it most certainly WILL be a single lifetime. In fact, the trip would seem to them to be instantaneous.
And that's the point that so many people miss. Faster-than-light travel is absolutely possible from the viewpoint of the traveler, given sufficient energy. At a velocity close enough to light, you could cross the galaxy in a matter of days, and visit thousands of different stars and planets in a subjective lifetime. You could even travel to another galaxy. It's all a function of your maximum velocity and maximum acceleration.
The only drawback is that you can never go home. Every leg of the trip would be one-way.
If a ball falls down it is because of gravity. If it bounces back up it is because of gravity.
If comet flies into the solar system it is because of gravity. If the comet slingshots around jupiter and permanently exits the solar system it is because of gravity.
If the tide rises it is because of gravity. If the tide recedes it is because of gravity.
The difference is that all of those behaviors are predictable according to the theory of gravity. You can precisely predict how that ball will bounce, and how that comet will travel through the solar system, given sufficient data.
If the theory of gravity was like the theory of AGW, you couldn't be sure a ball would fall down or up when you let go of it.
So my question is this: For a theory to be Science it must be falsifiable; so what would it take for one of you True Believers to reconsider your theory?
Or to put it another way: AGW is the theory that explains everything and predicts nothing.
If the U.S. was currently having a warm winter with a snowfall deficit, rest assured that the mantra would not change: "AGW is real, you deniers!" If this year's data contradicts last year's model, just change the model to fit the new data. The only thing that will not change is the conclusions: "AGW is real, we must all be punished to save the earth, all political and economic power must be handed over to us to prevent disaster."
I remember how after the terrible hurricane season of 2005, we were told in no uncertain terms that global warming was leading to "super-hurricane" seasons, and we could expect things to get even worse. Now we've had five consecutive seasons of minimal hurricane activity. Oops, let's just ignore that little fact - but don't worry, AGW is still real!
Pick any climate-related topic. If the observations match the AGW predictions, wonderful. If they contradict them, just change the predictions, and keep right on talking. As others have pointed out, that kind of thinking isn't science, it's religion.
The MBA's just can not conceive that people will pay for quality and innovation.
What really destroyed Motorola, IMO, was Six Sigma. Motorola was one of the the first U.S. companies to get sucked into that MBA fad, and it ruined them.
Six Sigma, if left unchecked, quickly becomes the all-consuming passion of every mid-level manager. All of management's efforts go into the bean-counting involved in keeping track of how corporate processes are constantly "improving". You stop watching the competition, and what's happening outside the company, and turn inward instead. Motorola was blindsided by the introduction of digital cellular technology while focused on Six Sigma, and never recovered.
You can begin to track Motorola's decline from the year they won the Malcolm Baldrige Award (1988). Go look at the Wikepedia entry on the Baldrige Award, and you'll see that the list of winners is practically a "Who's Who" of failed and underperforming U.S. companies.
IMO people are worrying far too much about an exploit mechanism that is simply not needed if the Chinese want to spy on the West, or anyone else for that matter.
The problem with building backdoors into the hardware or firmware is that such backdoors are traceable. You know where it was made. The right forensics people can probably tell you the exact factory it came out of. And how many people would buy chips from a Chinese fab once someone found a hardware backdoor inserted into a product? The Chinese want to make money first and foremost, not shoot themselves in the foot adding a backdoor that might have a one-in-a-million shot of giving them access to a system they even cared about, but would destroy an entire industry if they were caught. It's not worth the risk.
The smart thing to do is what they (and everyone else) are doing right now - use software exploits over the net to gain access. The attack can be targeted, the attackers can easily hide their tracks, the attacks can be modified as needed, and you have plausible deniability if you're caught. That's the smart way to subvert your enemies, and as long as governments and businesses keep running Windows, it's the way that they'll keep using.
And as they say; If you can't open it, you don't own it.
Hmm... I can't reprogram the computer built into my new car - by your logic, I don't own my car, and Toyota hates tinkerers.
And I can't reprogram the computer in my flat-screen TV - clearly, by your logic, I don't own my TV, and Vizio hates tinkerers.
Same with my Roku box, and my digital thermostats in my home, and the appliances in my kitchen, and everything else I own with an embedded microprocessor. I don't own any of them, by your logic, and all those manufacturers hate tinkerers.
The Apple iPad isn't being marketed as a general-purpose computer by Apple. They sell Macbooks, Macbook Pros, iMacs, Mac Minis, etc., for that. The iPad is being marketed as an information appliance that just happens to contain a computer - just like my car, and my TV, and almost everything else I own. And if you don't like it, you'll perfectly free not to buy it.
You can buy a general-purpose computer for less money than the cheapest iPad - how is the world any poorer for Apple selling something that is targeted to a completely different market than tinkerers and programmers?
I noticed that as well, apparently the blog is here. It'd be laughable were it not so sad. The human capacity for clinging to ignorance in spite of well-known facts really is an amazing thing.
A bit of information: I've followed the Tilley story from the day he and Doug Littlefield announced their first "free energy" machine. Yes, Doug Littlefield, the guy who provided the evidence against Tilley, was initially his partner. Once Tilley realized what a gold mine he had stumbled on with "free energy", he went his own way, created the Tilley Electric Vehicle, and began selling bogus stock. By most accounts, Carl Tilley scammed at least $500,000 from various individuals in Tennessee until he fled the state. I actually saw his demo at the Nashville Superspeedway. I went there because I was curious how he was going to back out of proving the TEV actually worked. The bogus wheel bearing failure on the 13th lap was absolutely no surprise.
As for Sterling Allan, he is a "true believer" in every sense of the word, in terms of his religious beliefs and his belief in free energy. He's never met a free energy claimant he didn't like, and will bend over backwards to give even the most bizarre claims every possible benefit of the doubt. If Doug Littlefield hadn't provided Allan with such an overwhelming amount of evidence that Tilley was a two-bit check-kiting con man, to this day Allan would still be writing hopeful articles about Tilley's "technology". You just about have to hit Sterling Allan over the head with a two-by-four to make him change his mind. Even now, if you look on Allan's web site, you can find him giving publicity to guys just like Tilley, but with a slightly more sophisticated sales job.
The power of self-delusion is enormous, and nowhere will you find it stronger than in the free energy community.
Unobtanium was silly - the entire theater laughed out loud on that one.
Too bad Cameron didn't think of something like "bardeenium" to honor John Bardeen, two-time winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics, co-inventor of the transistor and co-creator of the BCS theory of superconductivity. He would have honored a truly great (and unappreciated) physicist and eliminated a jarringly stupid bit of terminology from his movie.
And do you have any amusing anecdotes about other civic duties you dodged such as paying taxes or helping injured people by the side of the road?
I'm waiting for the amusing anecdote about how he was wrongly sued by someone, and a jury of bigoted uneducated idiots found in favor for the plaintiff, because all of the intelligent educated jurors dodged jury duty and then smugly posted about it on Slashdot.
Or maybe the story of how he was wrongfully accused of rape or child abuse, and then a jury of idiots convicted him because all the "smart" people had better things to do with their time than sit in a trial.
It is always interesting to me how the people who complain the loudest about unjust laws and convictions are so often the ones who can't be bothered to participate in the very system that metes out justice to their fellow citizens.
I've only served on one jury in my life. It was a pain in the butt to reschedule my life around it, but I would not hesitate to serve again. If I were wrongfully accused, I would pray that intelligent and educated people in that jury box would listen to facts and not emotional blather when deciding my fate.
You want a high tech cure for distracted driving? Easy. Get rid of the driver.
Getting rid of the driver is the only practical high tech cure. Not only does it solve distracted driving, it also solves the problems of drunk driving, falling asleep at the wheel, and getting too old to drive safely. On top of that, it will prevent nearly 40,000 deaths, 2.5 million injuries, and $240 million a year in accident costs in the U.S. alone.
Look at the features on high end cars like the Lexus LS - lane assist, automatic parking, collision avoidance, etc. In ten to fifteen years, we'll start seeing the first autonomous vehicles. Thirty years from now, we'll all be wondering how we could have ever been so crazy as to let humans actually do the driving.
This entire anti-texting movement makes no sense whatsoever. We've been fighting drunk driving ever since cars were invented, and we've barely made any progress in that area, much less distracted driving. The main thing that has reduced fatalities is better auto safety design, but people are still getting behind the wheel when they're impaired. If we can't stop people from driving drunk, how can we possibly expect them to drive "undistracted"?
On top of that, how do you prove that texting caused an accident? With a drunk driver, you can perform sobriety tests. If a person is talking on a cellphone and has an accident, you can pull the cell phone records and correlate the connection time to the accident time. But texting is an asynchronous means of communication by its very nature; you can be composing a message, have an accident, and no one will be able to prove a thing.
There's no social solution to this problem, but there is a technological solution, and that is to take control of the car away from the human being. Within twenty years the first autonomous vehicles will be hitting the roads, and eventually drunk driving and distracted driving will become moot issues. People will be able to do exactly what they're doing on the roads right now; eat, drink alcohol, smoke, talk on the phone, text their friends, play games, read a newspaper, apply makeup, etc. The only difference is that they won't be killing innocents when they do it.
The MIcrosoft retail experience is going to suck, and regardless of the higher pay, I don't think those employees who jump ship are going to have any fun working there.
What makes Apple a unique (and generally more pleasant) experience for both shopper and seller is the vertical integration of hardware and software for Apple products. For example, when you take a broken Apple product to the Genius bar, most of the time the employees can fix it or swap it out on the spot. And if they can't fix it themselves, they'll ship it to the people who can. Everything is taken care of for you. That is a huge advantage over your typical big box experience.
By contrast, too many of Microsoft's products are used on the hardware of other companies. I can only imagine how frustrating it will be for both employee and customer when a buyer brings in his broken Dell or HP or Toshiba or Asus and is told "Sorry, you have to contact the manufacturer." "But it runs Windows!" "Sorry, not our problem." It doesn't matter whose fault it is - people are going to be unhappy when that happens.
And software support will be a nightmare. Imagine the long, long lines of people with worm- and spyware-riddled Windows machines looking for help. Imagine telling a customer: "Yes, Windows is broken, but it's not our fault. You have to reinstall the operating system and fix it yourself. NEXT!"
About the only thing a Microsoft store will be able to do better is repair or swap out broken Zunes and Xboxen on the spot. In every other respect, I predict it will be a hellish experience for the people who work there.
After seeing what the new Nano is capable of, I can't help but think how easy it would be to turn it on and let it just record your life for 8 or 16 hours at a time. It's so small that you could easily carry it in such a way that the camera lens would be exposed, but the rest of the Nano would be hidden.
I've had plenty of incidents in my life when something interesting happens and afterwards I say "If only I'd had a videocamera with me." So now with the Nano, why not just record my entire day, download anything of interest, then start all over again the next morning? That way I'm never caught off guard. Anything I see, my Nano sees, and I have a permanent record.
The new Nano isn't just an MP3 player - it is a very inexpensive and compact video surveillance device. For a lot of people it will be worth buying just for that feature alone. The only questions are how long the battery will last in video record mode, and whether the screen can be shut off during recording.
>>officers advised Bungie officials to transport the gun more discretely in the future.
No. Read the Constitution mister cop (you know, that thing you pledged to protect, but apparently never read). Carrying a flag, sign, or other item is considered "symbolic speech" according to the Supreme Court and therefore protected.
There's such a thing as being right, and there's such a thing as being stupidly right.
Sure, I have the right to do lots of things. I can stand up in a PTA meeting and say: "I think we ought to reconsider if sexual relationships between students and teachers are really such a bad thing." I can walk up to a group of Hispanics and say: "I really think this country would be better off if you moved to Mexico." According to the Constitution if have the right to do it, but having that right, and dealing with the consequences of exercising that right, are two entirely different things.
Walking down a street carrying what looks like an assault weapon to the average guy on the street is just begging for trouble. Notice that the cop didn't say "Don't carry the replica." He said: "Be discreet. Don't cause people to panic." There is a big difference between the two.
When it comes to exercising and fighting for your rights, choose your battles intelligently. A mature adult chooses discretion and consideration when dealing with his fellow man, not meaningless confrontation just to prove a point.
Not a problem. Dual boot windows and linux. Set grub to default to boot windows and hide the menu. Encrypt your entire linux partition. Problem solved. No security issues, and no OS support needed. You should have a dummy partition set up anyway, if you ever want to cross the border with your laptop.
Easier still, just have a non-admin guest account without a password, all ready for the thief to use. As long as the thief can login to Facebook, use webmail, login to Skype, etc., he'll probably do it. And that's when your tracking software has a chance to work.
If you use a software tracking approach, thieves will learn to put tape over the webcam, and not use it until they ask someone in the black market to reinstall the operating system for a fee, or learn to reinstall operating system by themselves. This is just like how thieves learned to use the credit card immediately after they steal it before you have a chance to cancel the card.
The percentage of laptop owners who have any sort of anti-theft software on their laptops is so small that the average thief probably isn't even aware that such a thing exists. It's so rare that it still makes national news when a laptop is recovered using tracking software.
I've written an open source remote tracking application for Mac laptops myself, and one thing I've learned is that most laptop owners can't even be bothered to disable auto-login, much less install a software tracker, even when the software is free. It is human nature to be careless until you become a victim, and only then do you start taking steps to protect yourself.
So unless laptop manufacturers begin installing tracking software / hardware at the factory, and this becomes universally known, I doubt that the average thief will take any sort of precautions. Tracking software may not recover your stolen laptop, but on the other hand it certainly won't hurt to have it installed.
Slashdot Mirror
That was absolutely one of the most cringeworthy aspects of the movie, and they could have fixed it with a single scene.
Data: "But it's strange - despite their formidable technology, their computer and communications networks are extremely straightforward - no encryption at all. We've spent years reverse-engineering the command codes for their systems. We've had a lot of success - for all the good it has done us."
Goldblum: "What - an advanced race like this, and the idea of passwords and encryption didn't occur to them?"
Pullman: "No - they're telepaths. They can't lie or hide anything from each other - and we're the only other advanced civilization they're ever encountered. No other race they've destroyed had computers."
Goldblum: "Give me everything you have on their computer systems and command codes. I have an idea ..."
Sure, it would have still been a stretch, but a lot easier to swallow.
I assume he borrowed someone's computer to check for wireless networks, or asked someone to check for him. The average person probably wouldn't be savvy enough to use a network sniffer - they'd simply look for SSID names. No SSID = no perceived wireless = no "illness" to an EMS hypochondriac - unless, of course, he spotted her sitting on her balcony or deck, using a laptop.
He absolutely thinks it is real. Mental illness is as real as any physical illness. On the other hand, the chances of him getting help are essentially nil. In the first place, you can't convince EMS "sufferers" that it's all in their heads, anymore than you can convince a schizophrenic that the voices aren't real. Second, he already has a quack doctor who is more than willing to take his money and tell him, "Oh yes, you have a real physical ailment".
On the contrary, the right in question is one of the most fundamental rights humans cherish - the right to be left alone and not be harassed by people who try to force you to live the way they do.
As others have pointed out in similar cases, what she could have done was turn off the SSID broadcast on her router. As far as he would be concerned, the wireless signal would be "off" and his symptoms would abate.
On the other hand, it is generally pointless to try to compromise with a crazy person. She might be better off sticking to her guns and countersuing him for harassment.
You're comparing oranges to apples, so to speak. An operating system is not equivalent to a single product put out by a company.
Tell me, is the Xbox more open than the iPad? Because those two products are the ones you should be comparing. Closed, tightly regulated ecosystems in both cases, although I'd still give the iPad the edge for ease of developer access.
On the other hand, is Windows more open than OS X? Clearly, the answer to that is a resounding NO, as you quickly realize as you jump through Microsoft's "Genuine Advantage" license code hoops.
Someone should tell Medhi that it also helps when you don't game the search results to fit your corporate agenda.
From time to time, I try out the following query on Bing: "Why is Windows so expensive?"
The day that the first result returned is NOT a site about Macs being expensive is the day I'll start to take Bing seriously. Until then, I'm sticking with Google, which is at least honest enough to properly index anti-Google queries.
Trivially done.
IF OS_VERSION = "Windows XP/Vista/7" then MALWARE_FOUND = TRUE.
And that's the point that so many people miss. Faster-than-light travel is absolutely possible from the viewpoint of the traveler, given sufficient energy. At a velocity close enough to light, you could cross the galaxy in a matter of days, and visit thousands of different stars and planets in a subjective lifetime. You could even travel to another galaxy. It's all a function of your maximum velocity and maximum acceleration.
The only drawback is that you can never go home. Every leg of the trip would be one-way.
The difference is that all of those behaviors are predictable according to the theory of gravity. You can precisely predict how that ball will bounce, and how that comet will travel through the solar system, given sufficient data.
If the theory of gravity was like the theory of AGW, you couldn't be sure a ball would fall down or up when you let go of it.
Or to put it another way: AGW is the theory that explains everything and predicts nothing.
If the U.S. was currently having a warm winter with a snowfall deficit, rest assured that the mantra would not change: "AGW is real, you deniers!" If this year's data contradicts last year's model, just change the model to fit the new data. The only thing that will not change is the conclusions: "AGW is real, we must all be punished to save the earth, all political and economic power must be handed over to us to prevent disaster."
I remember how after the terrible hurricane season of 2005, we were told in no uncertain terms that global warming was leading to "super-hurricane" seasons, and we could expect things to get even worse. Now we've had five consecutive seasons of minimal hurricane activity. Oops, let's just ignore that little fact - but don't worry, AGW is still real!
Pick any climate-related topic. If the observations match the AGW predictions, wonderful. If they contradict them, just change the predictions, and keep right on talking. As others have pointed out, that kind of thinking isn't science, it's religion.
What really destroyed Motorola, IMO, was Six Sigma. Motorola was one of the the first U.S. companies to get sucked into that MBA fad, and it ruined them.
Six Sigma, if left unchecked, quickly becomes the all-consuming passion of every mid-level manager. All of management's efforts go into the bean-counting involved in keeping track of how corporate processes are constantly "improving". You stop watching the competition, and what's happening outside the company, and turn inward instead. Motorola was blindsided by the introduction of digital cellular technology while focused on Six Sigma, and never recovered.
You can begin to track Motorola's decline from the year they won the Malcolm Baldrige Award (1988). Go look at the Wikepedia entry on the Baldrige Award, and you'll see that the list of winners is practically a "Who's Who" of failed and underperforming U.S. companies.
IMO people are worrying far too much about an exploit mechanism that is simply not needed if the Chinese want to spy on the West, or anyone else for that matter.
The problem with building backdoors into the hardware or firmware is that such backdoors are traceable. You know where it was made. The right forensics people can probably tell you the exact factory it came out of. And how many people would buy chips from a Chinese fab once someone found a hardware backdoor inserted into a product? The Chinese want to make money first and foremost, not shoot themselves in the foot adding a backdoor that might have a one-in-a-million shot of giving them access to a system they even cared about, but would destroy an entire industry if they were caught. It's not worth the risk.
The smart thing to do is what they (and everyone else) are doing right now - use software exploits over the net to gain access. The attack can be targeted, the attackers can easily hide their tracks, the attacks can be modified as needed, and you have plausible deniability if you're caught. That's the smart way to subvert your enemies, and as long as governments and businesses keep running Windows, it's the way that they'll keep using.
Hmm ... I can't reprogram the computer built into my new car - by your logic, I don't own my car, and Toyota hates tinkerers.
And I can't reprogram the computer in my flat-screen TV - clearly, by your logic, I don't own my TV, and Vizio hates tinkerers.
Same with my Roku box, and my digital thermostats in my home, and the appliances in my kitchen, and everything else I own with an embedded microprocessor. I don't own any of them, by your logic, and all those manufacturers hate tinkerers.
The Apple iPad isn't being marketed as a general-purpose computer by Apple. They sell Macbooks, Macbook Pros, iMacs, Mac Minis, etc., for that. The iPad is being marketed as an information appliance that just happens to contain a computer - just like my car, and my TV, and almost everything else I own. And if you don't like it, you'll perfectly free not to buy it.
You can buy a general-purpose computer for less money than the cheapest iPad - how is the world any poorer for Apple selling something that is targeted to a completely different market than tinkerers and programmers?
A bit of information: I've followed the Tilley story from the day he and Doug Littlefield announced their first "free energy" machine. Yes, Doug Littlefield, the guy who provided the evidence against Tilley, was initially his partner. Once Tilley realized what a gold mine he had stumbled on with "free energy", he went his own way, created the Tilley Electric Vehicle, and began selling bogus stock. By most accounts, Carl Tilley scammed at least $500,000 from various individuals in Tennessee until he fled the state. I actually saw his demo at the Nashville Superspeedway. I went there because I was curious how he was going to back out of proving the TEV actually worked. The bogus wheel bearing failure on the 13th lap was absolutely no surprise.
As for Sterling Allan, he is a "true believer" in every sense of the word, in terms of his religious beliefs and his belief in free energy. He's never met a free energy claimant he didn't like, and will bend over backwards to give even the most bizarre claims every possible benefit of the doubt. If Doug Littlefield hadn't provided Allan with such an overwhelming amount of evidence that Tilley was a two-bit check-kiting con man, to this day Allan would still be writing hopeful articles about Tilley's "technology". You just about have to hit Sterling Allan over the head with a two-by-four to make him change his mind. Even now, if you look on Allan's web site, you can find him giving publicity to guys just like Tilley, but with a slightly more sophisticated sales job.
The power of self-delusion is enormous, and nowhere will you find it stronger than in the free energy community.
Too bad Cameron didn't think of something like "bardeenium" to honor John Bardeen, two-time winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics, co-inventor of the transistor and co-creator of the BCS theory of superconductivity. He would have honored a truly great (and unappreciated) physicist and eliminated a jarringly stupid bit of terminology from his movie.
I'm waiting for the amusing anecdote about how he was wrongly sued by someone, and a jury of bigoted uneducated idiots found in favor for the plaintiff, because all of the intelligent educated jurors dodged jury duty and then smugly posted about it on Slashdot.
Or maybe the story of how he was wrongfully accused of rape or child abuse, and then a jury of idiots convicted him because all the "smart" people had better things to do with their time than sit in a trial.
It is always interesting to me how the people who complain the loudest about unjust laws and convictions are so often the ones who can't be bothered to participate in the very system that metes out justice to their fellow citizens.
I've only served on one jury in my life. It was a pain in the butt to reschedule my life around it, but I would not hesitate to serve again. If I were wrongfully accused, I would pray that intelligent and educated people in that jury box would listen to facts and not emotional blather when deciding my fate.
Getting rid of the driver is the only practical high tech cure. Not only does it solve distracted driving, it also solves the problems of drunk driving, falling asleep at the wheel, and getting too old to drive safely. On top of that, it will prevent nearly 40,000 deaths, 2.5 million injuries, and $240 million a year in accident costs in the U.S. alone.
Look at the features on high end cars like the Lexus LS - lane assist, automatic parking, collision avoidance, etc. In ten to fifteen years, we'll start seeing the first autonomous vehicles. Thirty years from now, we'll all be wondering how we could have ever been so crazy as to let humans actually do the driving.
This entire anti-texting movement makes no sense whatsoever. We've been fighting drunk driving ever since cars were invented, and we've barely made any progress in that area, much less distracted driving. The main thing that has reduced fatalities is better auto safety design, but people are still getting behind the wheel when they're impaired. If we can't stop people from driving drunk, how can we possibly expect them to drive "undistracted"?
On top of that, how do you prove that texting caused an accident? With a drunk driver, you can perform sobriety tests. If a person is talking on a cellphone and has an accident, you can pull the cell phone records and correlate the connection time to the accident time. But texting is an asynchronous means of communication by its very nature; you can be composing a message, have an accident, and no one will be able to prove a thing.
There's no social solution to this problem, but there is a technological solution, and that is to take control of the car away from the human being. Within twenty years the first autonomous vehicles will be hitting the roads, and eventually drunk driving and distracted driving will become moot issues. People will be able to do exactly what they're doing on the roads right now; eat, drink alcohol, smoke, talk on the phone, text their friends, play games, read a newspaper, apply makeup, etc. The only difference is that they won't be killing innocents when they do it.
The MIcrosoft retail experience is going to suck, and regardless of the higher pay, I don't think those employees who jump ship are going to have any fun working there.
What makes Apple a unique (and generally more pleasant) experience for both shopper and seller is the vertical integration of hardware and software for Apple products. For example, when you take a broken Apple product to the Genius bar, most of the time the employees can fix it or swap it out on the spot. And if they can't fix it themselves, they'll ship it to the people who can. Everything is taken care of for you. That is a huge advantage over your typical big box experience.
By contrast, too many of Microsoft's products are used on the hardware of other companies. I can only imagine how frustrating it will be for both employee and customer when a buyer brings in his broken Dell or HP or Toshiba or Asus and is told "Sorry, you have to contact the manufacturer." "But it runs Windows!" "Sorry, not our problem." It doesn't matter whose fault it is - people are going to be unhappy when that happens.
And software support will be a nightmare. Imagine the long, long lines of people with worm- and spyware-riddled Windows machines looking for help. Imagine telling a customer: "Yes, Windows is broken, but it's not our fault. You have to reinstall the operating system and fix it yourself. NEXT!"
About the only thing a Microsoft store will be able to do better is repair or swap out broken Zunes and Xboxen on the spot. In every other respect, I predict it will be a hellish experience for the people who work there.
Personally I prefer the inorganic produce - you know, the stuff that's that's made from rocks and minerals.
Crunchy and filling, but a bit hard on the teeth.
After seeing what the new Nano is capable of, I can't help but think how easy it would be to turn it on and let it just record your life for 8 or 16 hours at a time. It's so small that you could easily carry it in such a way that the camera lens would be exposed, but the rest of the Nano would be hidden.
I've had plenty of incidents in my life when something interesting happens and afterwards I say "If only I'd had a videocamera with me." So now with the Nano, why not just record my entire day, download anything of interest, then start all over again the next morning? That way I'm never caught off guard. Anything I see, my Nano sees, and I have a permanent record.
The new Nano isn't just an MP3 player - it is a very inexpensive and compact video surveillance device. For a lot of people it will be worth buying just for that feature alone. The only questions are how long the battery will last in video record mode, and whether the screen can be shut off during recording.
There's such a thing as being right, and there's such a thing as being stupidly right.
Sure, I have the right to do lots of things. I can stand up in a PTA meeting and say: "I think we ought to reconsider if sexual relationships between students and teachers are really such a bad thing." I can walk up to a group of Hispanics and say: "I really think this country would be better off if you moved to Mexico." According to the Constitution if have the right to do it, but having that right, and dealing with the consequences of exercising that right, are two entirely different things.
Walking down a street carrying what looks like an assault weapon to the average guy on the street is just begging for trouble. Notice that the cop didn't say "Don't carry the replica." He said: "Be discreet. Don't cause people to panic." There is a big difference between the two.
When it comes to exercising and fighting for your rights, choose your battles intelligently. A mature adult chooses discretion and consideration when dealing with his fellow man, not meaningless confrontation just to prove a point.
Easier still, just have a non-admin guest account without a password, all ready for the thief to use. As long as the thief can login to Facebook, use webmail, login to Skype, etc., he'll probably do it. And that's when your tracking software has a chance to work.
The percentage of laptop owners who have any sort of anti-theft software on their laptops is so small that the average thief probably isn't even aware that such a thing exists. It's so rare that it still makes national news when a laptop is recovered using tracking software.
I've written an open source remote tracking application for Mac laptops myself, and one thing I've learned is that most laptop owners can't even be bothered to disable auto-login, much less install a software tracker, even when the software is free. It is human nature to be careless until you become a victim, and only then do you start taking steps to protect yourself.
So unless laptop manufacturers begin installing tracking software / hardware at the factory, and this becomes universally known, I doubt that the average thief will take any sort of precautions. Tracking software may not recover your stolen laptop, but on the other hand it certainly won't hurt to have it installed.