I could be convinced that charging.06 cents per email (or something on that magnitude) would decrease the amount of spam that was sent. It would also drastically reduce the profitability of the spam that was still going around.
The assumption that spammers are the only ones regularly emailling millions of addresses is mostly correct. There may be better anti-spam techniques out there (such as forcing the sender to elapse a certain amount of CPU time before sending to each address), but I think that this one has some merit. If Google concocts a bank system robust enough to easily transfer micropayments on a huge scale I might sign on to this.
First, no matter how fast the processor, people will be typing and clicking stuff that makes the computer do things that the have to wait for. And if we are going to count millions of people using millions of computers for decades, the amount of time spent waiting adds up to a huge hit to quality of life.
Second, Moore's Law may not be the kind of thing that you can just take for granted on a five year timescale. There are laws of physics that are starting to interfere. And so far we haven't come up with a way to make an atom of silicon any smaller, or an electron any less charged. So the speed we have at our disposal shouldn't be considered unlimited.
In truth, my expectation is that we'll get quantum computers running that will perform far in excess of the Moore's Law benchmark. But, I still feel strongly about my first point, that it nonetheless makes sense to compile things as efficiently as possible.
This entire debate is made obsolete by VoteHere's (open source) software that creates an encrypted serial number for each vote. After you vote your code can be printed on a receipt and you can use the code online to verify that your vote was counted correctly. There are also analytical tools that can be used by election officials to search for fraud. This approach takes out the tedious, inaccurate hand-counting and gives mistakes a far better chance of being noticed. On top of that, it gives voters a privlege they have never before enjoyed - the right to certainty of their vote's integrity.
The software is designed to be installed on third-party touch screen voting machines. VoteHere has opened the source so that the public can be confident that nothing fishy is happening on that front.
VoteHere has all the advantages of any other system, together with no drawbacks. At least that's how it seems to me. I can't understand why it hasn't caught on more strongly.
Under the electoral college, everyone in, for example, New York state, all twenty million or something, knows that their vote won't count AT ALL. Because whether or not they vote, the state will go to the democrat. And yet your post assumes that the set of people who vote is the same with or without the EC. That is a mistake.
States have enough representation already. We shouldn't let states take this decision out of our hands as well. Please don't rationalize this ridiculous system.
The look isn't all they're trying to copy - also the performance. Remember that they are using the G5 chip for this little toy. Three of them if I'm not mistaken. But if they are hoping to play the library of existing Apple games natively, then I must say that that seems a bizarre strategy. Of course this is absurd and I don't know why I even bring it up.
Compare that 'pretty good clip' to this year, when there are enough significant scientific advances that Slashdot can post one every day.
The federal government is clearly the easiest source for scientific funding because the width of their tax base allows them to have large wads at their discretion. By contrast, state governments have many local expenses that they are directly responsible for, and citizens who have more direct control over how much they pay and whatnot. Their budget is more strained in several ways, and they don't generally have millions left over to use in ways that don't affect the state individually (hence California is borrowing). The feds, responsible to all the citizens of this country, and (in theory) more responsible to the citizens of other countries than any other official branch, have a clear duty to spend their tax income in ways that will promote the well-being of everyone under them. Scientific, and medical, research tends to be a cost-effective way to do so in the long run. The tax scheme used by the feds, which ideally takes more from those who can afford it, or those who indulge in certain luxuries or vices, is also a fairer way to fund non-essential initiatives, compared to the property taxes and sales taxes used by other tax authorities.
And remember, the reasons that federal politicians give for banning funds for stem cells are not economic, but dogmatic in nature. The possibility that someone could be compelled to abort their child so that the fetus' stem cells could be used for research is apparently very frightening to many of them. But there are other, better, ways to prevent this possibility than banning funding, especially since that scenario could theoritically still happen under the current scenario of state funding for the research.
But I think that while relief of disease and suffering is an excellent application for the growing knowledge of stem cells, I think our researchers should also be pursuing applications such as growing steaks and milk-generating cells without having to use actual livestock, and customizing organs for use in things like circuitry and plumbing. Maybe even vocal chords for my Mac so that it doesn't use those fake voices anymore.
The reason Microsoft is having so many virus problems seems to me that they were so obsessed with monopolizing and making their stuff all work as a unit and block out other products that they made their unit-program too flexible and allowed it to do things like having one program install monsters that have access to and control of many of the other programs. Of course, Apple stuff works as a nice unit too, but they understand networking well enough to keep it under control.
But think of how many CDs people would buy if they cost $5. Or how many movies, if you could buy them for the rental price. As long as the new formats aren't cracked too quickly, I think media sellers can continue to profit if they price their product correctly. Even if downloads are good enough for home, cars and cell phones might still provide good reason to throw down a few dollars for media.
Honestly, if CDs cost $5, I don't think the RIAA would be having a problem with downloading, especially now that kaZaa and Bit Torrent have been dealt such blows by the feds. But rather that change their prices, they are suing us for not wanting to pay them, and for what: they put repetitive bullshit on the radio and don't give us a chance to hear the music we care about!
I'm psyched that safari will now inform me of when new stories are broken - so I don't have to check the sites myself. This seems like it will save me a lot of time; unless I end up subscribing to rss feeds from hundreds of sites.
I mean, nearly every Slashdotter has been boycotting Microsoft for years, and it hasn't made them do anything!
well, they have made some feeble attempts to look like they're down with open source and whatnot. And they dis Linux. But mostly it seems like you're right.
I would love to see radical christians boycott microsoft!!!!!!!
Would they all get Macs and refer to the boycott as 'the greatest revelation in a thousand years', or would someone put out a linux disto catered to their obsession with God, or would they just stop updating their computers and get even crankier?
yeah, the last one would suck. But that linux theory is a mind-job, isn't it?
I am terrified of having to tiptoe around with my blu-rays in bubble wrap because I am sick of losing optical discs to a few scratches. Why can't they enclose them in something that isn't so damn fragile? The psp approach is far better in this regard. I hope to heaven that this blu-ray coalition will realize that these media shouldn't be disposable. And if I'm not mistaken, smaller resolution for the data means that even more minute scratches will ruin everything. Bring back the minidisc casing, that stuff is unbreakable.
The ps3 could conceivably read both encased discs and naked ones, so sony could protect their games even if movie-sellers chose not to.
What I want to know is whether it could be profitable to lease computing time on one of these clusters - because that could be a cool job if you ask me.
I didn't imply that the DVD was available for free, just that I'm not going to buy it. And I also didn't imply that we can't donate. Maybe your brain was hurting for some other reason, silly goose.
Good advice - but is it possible to get your songs on the iTunes MS without going through a third party? What if my University wanted to become such a third party for the school's music groups? How should I go about setting that up?
Well, 'entirely lacking' may be unfair. I like the look of the wireless ipod they drew. But after revisions gained these devices Jobs' approval, they could be a lot of fun even if they don't compare to the straightforward 'perfection' of the iPod and the iMac. I mean, few tasks are as straightforward as playing music. My point is just that I think Apple would do great by selling more electronics, even though they may not live up to the recent past, they'd still probably be better than almost any competitor.
There's no way to know exactly how similar different people's perception of the same scenes is;
Quantum-level variations resulting from observation and whatever else are not likely to make a noticable difference in these scenes.
The idea that trees are tending to appear the same way because their particles find their way back to the same place after being displaced by observations isn't implausible, but without further establishing the potential for a contrary situation it seems like overkill!
Good thing they "mathematically proved" that they're right, heh heh.
If the price is low and the browser is top notch there's hope. IE has security problems galore, and Safari and Firefox still seem to have trouble displaying a certain group of web sites. If Opera can overcome these problems, and incorporate viavoice in a cool way, and people find out about it, they'll throw a few bucks at it. Or ask for it for their birthday.
The more data they have about me, the more precisely they can meet my needs. When I walk in, they can detect my RFID and make a pile of the things I might want. I'll choose which I'm willing to pay for and walk through an RFID portal which adds up my bill and auto-deducts it from my debit account.
If I call them, their caller ID will recognize me and present me with some things they think I want (press 1 to pay 4.50 for a basketball; press 2 to pay a dollar for a kilo of ramen noodles; press 3 to pay 250 for an xbox with four controllers and Halo 2). I'll make my selections, authorize payment, and wait for delivery to my archived address.
If they're so damn efficient why not let them supply us with everything?
quality, productively, and timely processing of patent applications, which is the basis of their performance evaluation.
Let's focus on quality and get timeliness out of the evaluation of patent reviewers.
This is not acceptable in a country that has so much latent brain power and business. The Patent Office needs to change and undo many of their screw-ups. We should draft a repeal of the DMCA that makes appropriate amendments to the legal code defining the role of the office - and their criteria for patents. Then we can publicize and bug congressmen to pass it.
What knows the names and urls of all the relevant federal codes?
Slashdot Mirror
I could be convinced that charging .06 cents per email (or something on that magnitude) would decrease the amount of spam that was sent. It would also drastically reduce the profitability of the spam that was still going around.
The assumption that spammers are the only ones regularly emailling millions of addresses is mostly correct. There may be better anti-spam techniques out there (such as forcing the sender to elapse a certain amount of CPU time before sending to each address), but I think that this one has some merit. If Google concocts a bank system robust enough to easily transfer micropayments on a huge scale I might sign on to this.
First, no matter how fast the processor, people will be typing and clicking stuff that makes the computer do things that the have to wait for. And if we are going to count millions of people using millions of computers for decades, the amount of time spent waiting adds up to a huge hit to quality of life.
Second, Moore's Law may not be the kind of thing that you can just take for granted on a five year timescale. There are laws of physics that are starting to interfere. And so far we haven't come up with a way to make an atom of silicon any smaller, or an electron any less charged. So the speed we have at our disposal shouldn't be considered unlimited.
In truth, my expectation is that we'll get quantum computers running that will perform far in excess of the Moore's Law benchmark. But, I still feel strongly about my first point, that it nonetheless makes sense to compile things as efficiently as possible.
This entire debate is made obsolete by VoteHere's (open source) software that creates an encrypted serial number for each vote. After you vote your code can be printed on a receipt and you can use the code online to verify that your vote was counted correctly. There are also analytical tools that can be used by election officials to search for fraud. This approach takes out the tedious, inaccurate hand-counting and gives mistakes a far better chance of being noticed. On top of that, it gives voters a privlege they have never before enjoyed - the right to certainty of their vote's integrity.
The software is designed to be installed on third-party touch screen voting machines. VoteHere has opened the source so that the public can be confident that nothing fishy is happening on that front.
VoteHere has all the advantages of any other system, together with no drawbacks. At least that's how it seems to me. I can't understand why it hasn't caught on more strongly.
OK- bad bad assumptions here!
Under the electoral college, everyone in, for example, New York state, all twenty million or something, knows that their vote won't count AT ALL. Because whether or not they vote, the state will go to the democrat. And yet your post assumes that the set of people who vote is the same with or without the EC. That is a mistake.
States have enough representation already. We shouldn't let states take this decision out of our hands as well. Please don't rationalize this ridiculous system.
The look isn't all they're trying to copy - also the performance. Remember that they are using the G5 chip for this little toy. Three of them if I'm not mistaken. But if they are hoping to play the library of existing Apple games natively, then I must say that that seems a bizarre strategy. Of course this is absurd and I don't know why I even bring it up.
Compare that 'pretty good clip' to this year, when there are enough significant scientific advances that Slashdot can post one every day.
The federal government is clearly the easiest source for scientific funding because the width of their tax base allows them to have large wads at their discretion. By contrast, state governments have many local expenses that they are directly responsible for, and citizens who have more direct control over how much they pay and whatnot. Their budget is more strained in several ways, and they don't generally have millions left over to use in ways that don't affect the state individually (hence California is borrowing). The feds, responsible to all the citizens of this country, and (in theory) more responsible to the citizens of other countries than any other official branch, have a clear duty to spend their tax income in ways that will promote the well-being of everyone under them. Scientific, and medical, research tends to be a cost-effective way to do so in the long run. The tax scheme used by the feds, which ideally takes more from those who can afford it, or those who indulge in certain luxuries or vices, is also a fairer way to fund non-essential initiatives, compared to the property taxes and sales taxes used by other tax authorities.
And remember, the reasons that federal politicians give for banning funds for stem cells are not economic, but dogmatic in nature. The possibility that someone could be compelled to abort their child so that the fetus' stem cells could be used for research is apparently very frightening to many of them. But there are other, better, ways to prevent this possibility than banning funding, especially since that scenario could theoritically still happen under the current scenario of state funding for the research.
But I think that while relief of disease and suffering is an excellent application for the growing knowledge of stem cells, I think our researchers should also be pursuing applications such as growing steaks and milk-generating cells without having to use actual livestock, and customizing organs for use in things like circuitry and plumbing. Maybe even vocal chords for my Mac so that it doesn't use those fake voices anymore.
The reason Microsoft is having so many virus problems seems to me that they were so obsessed with monopolizing and making their stuff all work as a unit and block out other products that they made their unit-program too flexible and allowed it to do things like having one program install monsters that have access to and control of many of the other programs. Of course, Apple stuff works as a nice unit too, but they understand networking well enough to keep it under control.
But think of how many CDs people would buy if they cost $5. Or how many movies, if you could buy them for the rental price. As long as the new formats aren't cracked too quickly, I think media sellers can continue to profit if they price their product correctly. Even if downloads are good enough for home, cars and cell phones might still provide good reason to throw down a few dollars for media. Honestly, if CDs cost $5, I don't think the RIAA would be having a problem with downloading, especially now that kaZaa and Bit Torrent have been dealt such blows by the feds. But rather that change their prices, they are suing us for not wanting to pay them, and for what: they put repetitive bullshit on the radio and don't give us a chance to hear the music we care about!
I'm psyched that safari will now inform me of when new stories are broken - so I don't have to check the sites myself. This seems like it will save me a lot of time; unless I end up subscribing to rss feeds from hundreds of sites.
I mean, nearly every Slashdotter has been boycotting Microsoft for years, and it hasn't made them do anything!
well, they have made some feeble attempts to look like they're down with open source and whatnot. And they dis Linux. But mostly it seems like you're right.
I would love to see radical christians boycott microsoft!!!!!!!
Would they all get Macs and refer to the boycott as 'the greatest revelation in a thousand years', or would someone put out a linux disto catered to their obsession with God, or would they just stop updating their computers and get even crankier?
yeah, the last one would suck. But that linux theory is a mind-job, isn't it?
I am terrified of having to tiptoe around with my blu-rays in bubble wrap because I am sick of losing optical discs to a few scratches. Why can't they enclose them in something that isn't so damn fragile? The psp approach is far better in this regard. I hope to heaven that this blu-ray coalition will realize that these media shouldn't be disposable. And if I'm not mistaken, smaller resolution for the data means that even more minute scratches will ruin everything. Bring back the minidisc casing, that stuff is unbreakable. The ps3 could conceivably read both encased discs and naked ones, so sony could protect their games even if movie-sellers chose not to.
What I want to know is whether it could be profitable to lease computing time on one of these clusters - because that could be a cool job if you ask me.
Which actor was worst to work with? Which was sexiest?
The CS department lab at Yale runs SuSe. Most of our public computers are either Mac or Windows, though.
I didn't imply that the DVD was available for free, just that I'm not going to buy it. And I also didn't imply that we can't donate. Maybe your brain was hurting for some other reason, silly goose.
Because you gotta love it when people get paid while continuing to give you their stuff for free. Everybody wins.
Good advice - but is it possible to get your songs on the iTunes MS without going through a third party? What if my University wanted to become such a third party for the school's music groups? How should I go about setting that up?
Well, 'entirely lacking' may be unfair. I like the look of the wireless ipod they drew. But after revisions gained these devices Jobs' approval, they could be a lot of fun even if they don't compare to the straightforward 'perfection' of the iPod and the iMac. I mean, few tasks are as straightforward as playing music. My point is just that I think Apple would do great by selling more electronics, even though they may not live up to the recent past, they'd still probably be better than almost any competitor.
How do they address this:
There's no way to know exactly how similar different people's perception of the same scenes is;
Quantum-level variations resulting from observation and whatever else are not likely to make a noticable difference in these scenes.
The idea that trees are tending to appear the same way because their particles find their way back to the same place after being displaced by observations isn't implausible, but without further establishing the potential for a contrary situation it seems like overkill!
Good thing they "mathematically proved" that they're right, heh heh.
If the price is low and the browser is top notch there's hope. IE has security problems galore, and Safari and Firefox still seem to have trouble displaying a certain group of web sites. If Opera can overcome these problems, and incorporate viavoice in a cool way, and people find out about it, they'll throw a few bucks at it. Or ask for it for their birthday.
The more data they have about me, the more precisely they can meet my needs. When I walk in, they can detect my RFID and make a pile of the things I might want. I'll choose which I'm willing to pay for and walk through an RFID portal which adds up my bill and auto-deducts it from my debit account.
If I call them, their caller ID will recognize me and present me with some things they think I want (press 1 to pay 4.50 for a basketball; press 2 to pay a dollar for a kilo of ramen noodles; press 3 to pay 250 for an xbox with four controllers and Halo 2). I'll make my selections, authorize payment, and wait for delivery to my archived address.
If they're so damn efficient why not let them supply us with everything?
quality, productively, and timely processing of patent applications, which is the basis of their performance evaluation. Let's focus on quality and get timeliness out of the evaluation of patent reviewers.
Is the Description with cited patents all written by the authors? Is any of the text at that link written by the patent office?
This is not acceptable in a country that has so much latent brain power and business. The Patent Office needs to change and undo many of their screw-ups. We should draft a repeal of the DMCA that makes appropriate amendments to the legal code defining the role of the office - and their criteria for patents. Then we can publicize and bug congressmen to pass it. What knows the names and urls of all the relevant federal codes?