You also claim that's not a monopoly because you think pop-bands are interchangeable. You think that if you want Britney Spears you'd be just as happy with Back Street Boys. I disagree strongly with your counterclaim and I think it says more about your bias against the example I gave than the claim itself.
How did I express any bias against it? All I said is that people who tend to like the one of them tend to like the other, as well. I personally know when I've gone to the store, I've had to choose between a few different CDs, knowing I'd be reasonably happy with any of them. The point is they are substitutes, though not exact.
In this case, one specific problem that should be startingly obvious to everybody is that recordings are not subject to competition. That's a bold statement, so let me clarify what it means. You can get music from multiple musicians, and from multiple record labels, so it seems to have competition, right? Wrong, because the majority of musicians are contractually bound to a single record label. If you want that Britney Spears song then there is a single record label that has monopoly control over her recordings. Back Street Boys is no substitute for Britney Spears; you are forced to buy Britney Spears from a single record label. It is without question that the recording industry is a monopoly market. That means you must immediately discard anything you think you know about supply/demand curves. This is what they call an advanced economics topic and unless you've done Economics 326 then you are not likely to offer any insight.
I don't buy that at all. While Back Street Boys and Britney Spears songs are not exactly the same product, they can still serve as substitutes to some degree. Everyone who likes songs by both of these names would be happy to get a CD from either of them. Sure, if all you're interested in is a particular Britney Spears song, then Backstreet Boys don't come into the picture. But if you're a 13-year-old girl who likes both of them and has a $15 allowance to spend on CDs, you have to make a choice. Realistically, in just about every market there's some degree of product differentiation, even if it's just the brand name (trademarks are monopolies, right?)); but that doesn't mean there's no competition. Consider a different market: Nike has some really cool-looking shoes. Some people may be intent on buying a particular model (e.g., Air Jordan); but does that mean there's no competition in the shoe industry?
Now, it's certainly possible that there's no competition in the popular music industry for other reasons--such as collusion--but your claims are totally bogus. And yes, I have taken a few advanced undergraduate level econ classes, but nothing hardcore like my physics or bio classes. I guess you have to do graduate-level econometrics for that.
Scheme doesn't really have pointers, though it does have references (don't worry about what this means too much for now). Structure and Interpreation of Computer Programs, which I mentioned, is a book which you can buy or access online for free; see http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/. It's also a course at MIT, from which you can download the lecture videos for free at http://swiss.csail.mit.edu/classes/6.001/abelson-s ussman-lectures/.
It's also possible that the original RAM was replaced with the IBM RAM some time during the system's lifetime. This could be either because the original failed, or more RAM was acquired (some of it badged IBM), and whoever was upgrading the machines preferred to put all matching RAM in a single system.
Visual Basic if you must know, although next year I should be getting curriculum on Javascript
I'd recommend you also look into Scheme. It's in many ways very close to the theoretical archetype of programming languages, the Lambda-calculus (nothing to do with integrals and derivatives..). You can download the text and videos of "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" from MIT, and also download Dr. Scheme, a scheme interpreter with a nice graphical front end which allows you to do things like interactively watch expression evaluation to gain a careful understanding of how it works. Check it out!
Sure the phd holders will be making more - but they will be poor and in debt until they get that paper. Having no debt is a lovely thing.
I am MUCH happier since I left the academic system.
The one thing I miss is the girls, because the average non-scientist girl is often too boring even to put up with in a bar, let alone a relationship.
I'm in school doing a PhD, but have no debt. In engineering, they pay you to be a grad student--not a whole lot, but more than I need to get by. As you note about the girls, the social aspect is one of the reasons I'm glad I stayed in school. There are so many opportunities for smart, motivated people, and I think besides providing an interesting social life now, the connections and experience will pay off in the future.
Regardless, I'm glad you found your way aside from that. Hopefully you'll find a way to meet more stimulating girls soon enough. I know some intelligent, fun-to-talk-to girls who took more or less your route, and also some boring, ditzy college girls (but they are in the minority).
But just because some politician lady said that doesn't mean it was true. Maybe the maximum capacity of the recorder was 18 hours, and she was just trying to spin it a certain way? Or maybe actually the first 18 hours of memory got static, but the rest was still cleared to zeroes... does that 100% confirm that it recorded for that long? The words are deceptively simple, but not as authoritative as one might think.
Re:open the API, many sites suddenly become redund
on
Google Base Launches
·
· Score: 1
I can't vouch for the other sites you mentioned, but Orbitz is considerably more than just skinning some static data feeds, and moreover isn't that mainframe-dependent these days. Check out this article by Paul Graham for more information. The pricing engine they use is by ITA Software, and it's actually quite complicated and compute-intensive.
FYI, I've had the same kind of totally positive experience with IBM tech support. I called them, told them my laptop's hard drive is making a high-pitched whine and I'm on travel, and they overnighted me a replacement with prepaid return shipping. The guy laughed when I offered to hold the phone up to the computer, saying no, that's fine, we need to get your drive replaced so you can go about your business. Of course, a while later I dropped it and cracked the screen, which wasn't covered under warranty.
Indeed, Rambus could be considered a standard "patent factory" -- a company that produces nothing and relies on the patent system to siphon profits from the people who do actual development.
Rambus did not produce nothing; they designed and implemented a very high performance memory bus architecture. This technology was matured to the point that it was practical and stable to implement on high-volume, quality products such as the Sony PlayStation 2 and a variety of higher-end Intel chipsets and motherboards. I won't dispute that they had some bad patent practices, too, but to claim they're a worthless patent factory is disrespectful to all of the highly skilled and dedicated engineers at Rambus.
Unfortunately, this is what you get when you pretend to support capitalism but actually have your government artificially subsidize all sorts of companies (through patents, tax breaks, and freedom from the responsibilities individual humans have). The successful companies are the ones who maximize their profits, and if there are minimal negative consequences for some vile act, they'll perform it eagerly. [end of rant]
Oh, cut the nonsense, will you? Capitalism as a means to an end, not an absolute goal in itself. It's not some magical solution to all the world's problems. I agree that the patent system is in many regards messed up, but going for pure laissez-faire capitalism without any government controls would in many ways make things worse. The key is moderation.
They were hard drives, and it turned out the hard drives were never purchased in the first place, and hence not lost at all. Still bad accounting, nonetheless.
Think of it like a computer. The meaning of a program depends not only on the code of the program, but the semantics of the instruction set, the libraries it is linked with, and the I/O behavior of other devices. DNA, here, is the code, but other parts of hte cell are like linked libraries, their basic chemistry the underlying semantics, and other parts of the environment the I/O devices. You cannot determine cell development and behavior without at least a partial model of each of these aspects.
This so-called study was thought up by a well-known campus political player who recently completed a masters in library science and programmed by a friend who graduated a while a go, I think with a bachelor's in CS. I bet the whole thing was hacked up to try to get Cheney a job at Google.
Do you know people who are at least moderately religious whose opinions (outside of religion) you respect? I would assume so.
Indeed, I respect their opinions on non-religious matters--but I cannot simultaneously respect them as a person and respect their opinions on religion. They're either a good person who's been bogged down with religious nonsense or a fool who happens to sometimes hit on the right points anyway.
Religion goes in this little "exception" category of assertions. Blind assertions tend to reflect negatively on people, with the exception of religion.
I don't see why it should be an exception. Sure, I understand how it's useful in day-to-day activities, since you don't want everything to devolve into religious wars, but the fact of the matter is, religion is the end justification for any of the many religious war which have been waged since antiquity.
Furthermore, it's something that is so ingrained in people from their birth that the fact that they haven't shaken their belief without any proof that they're wrong shouldn't reflect negatively on anyone... unless, of course, you think poorly of virtually the entire world.
Well then I suppose I do think poorly of virtually the entire world. Everyone has their problems, but we shouldn't try to hide an issue just because it's common, we should try to move forward so our descendents' minds are not cluttered with these incomprehensible notions of a magical man in the sky.
I'm sorry, different people use different definitions of atheism. The poster above was referring to atheism as the claim "i believe not(got exists)" whereas you're probably saying "not(i believe god exists)", which is often associated with agnostics.
Faith, by definition, is a baseless assertion. That's why it's called faith. And I mean all faith - atheism, too, is a baseless assertion. But it's all about how you word things.
I agree, atheism is a faith. But one does not have to have any faith at all; I do not. If you're going to take someone's assertions seriously, how can you take them seriously, and if you take them seriously, how can you take their assertions seriously?
So what if you have no faith? Then you can talk about why you're atheist / agnostic / whatever. It was given as an example of how you can be different from those around you, not hide those differences, and not be critical of others.
But what if your viewpoint implies that others are making baseless assertions?
The problem is that "intelligent design" doesn't tell us anything useful. How can you use that theory to make predictions and then confirm they are reasonably accurate? As far as I know, you cannot; hence ID is of little interest in the realm of scientific study.
I think it's fair to say that ID people can have reasonable beliefs as well evolutionists.
Listen, it's fine if you subscribe to a particular philosophy regarding what you believe to be the truth, but science isn't about the truth, it's about explanations that seem to have reasonable predictive power. Personally, I don't believe the notion of "truth" is ever really attainable, hence I shy away from religion.
Slashdot Mirror
You also claim that's not a monopoly because you think pop-bands are interchangeable. You think that if you want Britney Spears you'd be just as happy with Back Street Boys. I disagree strongly with your counterclaim and I think it says more about your bias against the example I gave than the claim itself.
How did I express any bias against it? All I said is that people who tend to like the one of them tend to like the other, as well. I personally know when I've gone to the store, I've had to choose between a few different CDs, knowing I'd be reasonably happy with any of them. The point is they are substitutes, though not exact.
In this case, one specific problem that should be startingly obvious to everybody is that recordings are not subject to competition. That's a bold statement, so let me clarify what it means. You can get music from multiple musicians, and from multiple record labels, so it seems to have competition, right? Wrong, because the majority of musicians are contractually bound to a single record label. If you want that Britney Spears song then there is a single record label that has monopoly control over her recordings. Back Street Boys is no substitute for Britney Spears; you are forced to buy Britney Spears from a single record label. It is without question that the recording industry is a monopoly market. That means you must immediately discard anything you think you know about supply/demand curves. This is what they call an advanced economics topic and unless you've done Economics 326 then you are not likely to offer any insight.
I don't buy that at all. While Back Street Boys and Britney Spears songs are not exactly the same product, they can still serve as substitutes to some degree. Everyone who likes songs by both of these names would be happy to get a CD from either of them. Sure, if all you're interested in is a particular Britney Spears song, then Backstreet Boys don't come into the picture. But if you're a 13-year-old girl who likes both of them and has a $15 allowance to spend on CDs, you have to make a choice. Realistically, in just about every market there's some degree of product differentiation, even if it's just the brand name (trademarks are monopolies, right?)); but that doesn't mean there's no competition. Consider a different market: Nike has some really cool-looking shoes. Some people may be intent on buying a particular model (e.g., Air Jordan); but does that mean there's no competition in the shoe industry?
Now, it's certainly possible that there's no competition in the popular music industry for other reasons--such as collusion--but your claims are totally bogus. And yes, I have taken a few advanced undergraduate level econ classes, but nothing hardcore like my physics or bio classes. I guess you have to do graduate-level econometrics for that.
Scheme doesn't really have pointers, though it does have references (don't worry about what this means too much for now). Structure and Interpreation of Computer Programs, which I mentioned, is a book which you can buy or access online for free; see http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/. It's also a course at MIT, from which you can download the lecture videos for free at http://swiss.csail.mit.edu/classes/6.001/abelson-s ussman-lectures/.
It's also possible that the original RAM was replaced with the IBM RAM some time during the system's lifetime. This could be either because the original failed, or more RAM was acquired (some of it badged IBM), and whoever was upgrading the machines preferred to put all matching RAM in a single system.
Visual Basic if you must know, although next year I should be getting curriculum on Javascript
I'd recommend you also look into Scheme. It's in many ways very close to the theoretical archetype of programming languages, the Lambda-calculus (nothing to do with integrals and derivatives..). You can download the text and videos of "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" from MIT, and also download Dr. Scheme, a scheme interpreter with a nice graphical front end which allows you to do things like interactively watch expression evaluation to gain a careful understanding of how it works. Check it out!
Sure the phd holders will be making more - but they will be poor and in debt until they get that paper. Having no debt is a lovely thing. I am MUCH happier since I left the academic system. The one thing I miss is the girls, because the average non-scientist girl is often too boring even to put up with in a bar, let alone a relationship.
I'm in school doing a PhD, but have no debt. In engineering, they pay you to be a grad student--not a whole lot, but more than I need to get by. As you note about the girls, the social aspect is one of the reasons I'm glad I stayed in school. There are so many opportunities for smart, motivated people, and I think besides providing an interesting social life now, the connections and experience will pay off in the future.
Regardless, I'm glad you found your way aside from that. Hopefully you'll find a way to meet more stimulating girls soon enough. I know some intelligent, fun-to-talk-to girls who took more or less your route, and also some boring, ditzy college girls (but they are in the minority).
But just because some politician lady said that doesn't mean it was true. Maybe the maximum capacity of the recorder was 18 hours, and she was just trying to spin it a certain way? Or maybe actually the first 18 hours of memory got static, but the rest was still cleared to zeroes... does that 100% confirm that it recorded for that long? The words are deceptively simple, but not as authoritative as one might think.
So tell us about this PLOAF business.
I can't vouch for the other sites you mentioned, but Orbitz is considerably more than just skinning some static data feeds, and moreover isn't that mainframe-dependent these days. Check out this article by Paul Graham for more information. The pricing engine they use is by ITA Software, and it's actually quite complicated and compute-intensive.
That depends on what you're doing at Cornell. Freshman in agriculture? CS prof? Something in between?
Sounds good. Just e-mail it to me.
FYI, I've had the same kind of totally positive experience with IBM tech support. I called them, told them my laptop's hard drive is making a high-pitched whine and I'm on travel, and they overnighted me a replacement with prepaid return shipping. The guy laughed when I offered to hold the phone up to the computer, saying no, that's fine, we need to get your drive replaced so you can go about your business. Of course, a while later I dropped it and cracked the screen, which wasn't covered under warranty.
Or maybe RAMBUS prices were fixed higher. Sorry, I don't know what the hell I'm talking about.
In this case, prices were fixed lower to try to gain a market share advantage.
Indeed, Rambus could be considered a standard "patent factory" -- a company that produces nothing and relies on the patent system to siphon profits from the people who do actual development.
Rambus did not produce nothing; they designed and implemented a very high performance memory bus architecture. This technology was matured to the point that it was practical and stable to implement on high-volume, quality products such as the Sony PlayStation 2 and a variety of higher-end Intel chipsets and motherboards. I won't dispute that they had some bad patent practices, too, but to claim they're a worthless patent factory is disrespectful to all of the highly skilled and dedicated engineers at Rambus.Unfortunately, this is what you get when you pretend to support capitalism but actually have your government artificially subsidize all sorts of companies (through patents, tax breaks, and freedom from the responsibilities individual humans have). The successful companies are the ones who maximize their profits, and if there are minimal negative consequences for some vile act, they'll perform it eagerly. [end of rant]
Oh, cut the nonsense, will you? Capitalism as a means to an end, not an absolute goal in itself. It's not some magical solution to all the world's problems. I agree that the patent system is in many regards messed up, but going for pure laissez-faire capitalism without any government controls would in many ways make things worse. The key is moderation.They were hard drives, and it turned out the hard drives were never purchased in the first place, and hence not lost at all. Still bad accounting, nonetheless.
It's just some cars with neat beds of grass growing on them.
Think of it like a computer. The meaning of a program depends not only on the code of the program, but the semantics of the instruction set, the libraries it is linked with, and the I/O behavior of other devices. DNA, here, is the code, but other parts of hte cell are like linked libraries, their basic chemistry the underlying semantics, and other parts of the environment the I/O devices. You cannot determine cell development and behavior without at least a partial model of each of these aspects.
This so-called study was thought up by a well-known campus political player who recently completed a masters in library science and programmed by a friend who graduated a while a go, I think with a bachelor's in CS. I bet the whole thing was hacked up to try to get Cheney a job at Google.
Do you know people who are at least moderately religious whose opinions (outside of religion) you respect? I would assume so.
Indeed, I respect their opinions on non-religious matters--but I cannot simultaneously respect them as a person and respect their opinions on religion. They're either a good person who's been bogged down with religious nonsense or a fool who happens to sometimes hit on the right points anyway.
Religion goes in this little "exception" category of assertions. Blind assertions tend to reflect negatively on people, with the exception of religion.
I don't see why it should be an exception. Sure, I understand how it's useful in day-to-day activities, since you don't want everything to devolve into religious wars, but the fact of the matter is, religion is the end justification for any of the many religious war which have been waged since antiquity.
Furthermore, it's something that is so ingrained in people from their birth that the fact that they haven't shaken their belief without any proof that they're wrong shouldn't reflect negatively on anyone... unless, of course, you think poorly of virtually the entire world.
Well then I suppose I do think poorly of virtually the entire world. Everyone has their problems, but we shouldn't try to hide an issue just because it's common, we should try to move forward so our descendents' minds are not cluttered with these incomprehensible notions of a magical man in the sky.
I'm sorry, different people use different definitions of atheism. The poster above was referring to atheism as the claim "i believe not(got exists)" whereas you're probably saying "not(i believe god exists)", which is often associated with agnostics.
I agree, atheism is a faith. But one does not have to have any faith at all; I do not. If you're going to take someone's assertions seriously, how can you take them seriously, and if you take them seriously, how can you take their assertions seriously?
But what if your viewpoint implies that others are making baseless assertions?
What if you have no faith?
I think it's fair to say that ID people can have reasonable beliefs as well evolutionists.
Listen, it's fine if you subscribe to a particular philosophy regarding what you believe to be the truth, but science isn't about the truth, it's about explanations that seem to have reasonable predictive power. Personally, I don't believe the notion of "truth" is ever really attainable, hence I shy away from religion.