Re:hondas, ferraris and ebay
on
Hondas in Space
·
· Score: 1
Dragon Rojo said: " You really have never seen a woman buying a wedding dress right?"
I am a woman, and my wedding dress is hanging up in the next room! But, it needs altering to suit my shape and tastes, as it is currently as worn by my mother on her wedding day, so I've been buying small Swarovski bicone beads, fabric roses, ribbons and new buttons (the old buttons have lost their pearly sheen) but finding perfectly matching crush satin for the lining is proving to be a challenge.
Luckily, I dreamed about the sort of wedding dress I wanted to get married in when I was a little girl, so now all I have to do is work my tailor silly until it gets just perfect!
Well I'd rather fly into space in a honda than in a ferrari. I mean, sure, you take off alright in both, but then you pretty quickly need to select second gear and the ferrari will only go crunch.
On the other hand, I'd rather fly in either of them than in a contraption of ebay components gaffa-taped into a rocket shape. I mean, I'm reasonably sure those are real swarovski crystals, but quality control is much higher on a rocket than on a wedding dress, right?
Just because you don't sign your name, doesn't mean it's anonymous. If you host it at your house you may find cranky people knocking on your door. Less dramatically, if you identify what city you live in, where you work, then fill in a few personal details, such as your football team, religion, sex, and what movie you went to last night, it gets pretty easy to guess who you are. If you tell your friends about your "anonymous" blog, you may also find your anonymity dripping away amongst friends.
I agree with digitalgimpus: don't mention places and people and expect to stay anonymous. You don't have to sign NDAs, so if you reach an agreement, keep it! It's just basic honour and self-respect.
If you want to mention work and what it's like, you may want to consider your goal. Do you want to publicly announce your dissatisfaction, or just vent a bit? Particularly at risk are people who work as contractors! It's not so much that you shouldn't talk about your own work, but you do your employer a grave disservice if comments about clients can be traced back to you.
Slashdot reported the release of SuSE 9.2 in November. I've been using SuSE 9.2 on my thinkpad since that very week. The difference between versions of SuSE recently has been huge - it's so much more workable in each version. So why oh why is ACA testing SuSE with version 9.1?
I've looked through all the comments for this story and everyone's discounting Gates' contribution. I can only assume it's because you're all feeling guilty about not even donating a lousy $50 to charity from your birthday money.
I think Gates won't miss $750 million, so he's decided that he'll donate it to vaccinations. Well, that's logical because if a disease starts in some isolated backwater and nobody's vaccinated, it could easily turn into a nasty pandemic.
In fact, logically, it makes sense to forego a luxury or two every now and then to make sure that world health is well cared for.
So, stop making excuses and start making contributions! Consider - if we all dig deep, then maybe Billy will be inspired to donate another couple of billion. But remember, the world is a community, and this silly bickering hurts us all (see the above bit about the pandemic).
Linus happens to get the lion's share of attention...
I agree. He wrote a good program, he's got gorgeous boyish charm, he's a natural poster-boy.
Actually, what Linux needs is a new "face". I'm a model: I volunteer my services. Any photographers and graphic designers out there want to rig up some posters?
We'll need some famous people... some role models. Never mind the usual "interview-bait", let's find some cool actors to tell everyone they need linux because it's totally awesome. I don't understand why the whole world of Linux users can't manipulate this better than a handful of advertising/marketing folks. There's just no excuse for the multitude of users of Microsoft out there!
graphing calculators are unnecessary. They cause students to learn how to do a sequence of operations for finding the answer to a question which they'll get on next week's test, not how the problem actually gets solved.
I completely agree with shobadobs. I was at a graphing calculator high school and upgraded to the latest and greatest just before final exams. The first time at university I pulled out my calculator to answer a problem in a physics lecture everyone was like, "oh, a graphing calculator. That's nice. What are you expecting it to do for you?"
I had the mindset that learning maths was about learning to find the answer to the problem, rather than learning skills and techniques and reasoning... and I was really surprised by how weird it was to try and program in maple or scilab (the teacher figured it was only fair) when I was used to just pressing the appropriate menu key.
In conclusion - pencil and paper are definitely the best tools for learning maths. Computers should be used to learn computers skills such as programming in scilab or fortran. Graphing calculators and maths education software that are pretty and shiney are good for playing with from time to time but once you get the idea it's time to get back to pencil and paper.
You know, maybe there's a point here. Perhaps if everyone switched to some other language, bugs and exploits would trend down. But there's more to it than this, and this isn't the biggest issue.
If you want to remove the errors from your code you have to dedicate the time to do so. Microsoft have shown that they are not willing to do so - they optimise for speed, integration and good looks rather than security and effectiveness.
And now they're falling apart on their traditional specialty too, because their software is like Swiss cheese. You can use it to make a sandwich, but you can't build on it.
As people have pointed out, Microsoft is not the monolith most laymen assume. Oh, sure, you and I see a Microsoft logo or picture when we turn on our computer, but who knew that most of the Internet was running on Linux, BSD and a handful of related OSes? Who knew that most of the world's fileservers were Novell? These are the real targets in the networked world, yet it's IIS that gets it. It's Windows 2000 Server that gets it.
Duntemann is right - Microsoft don't hire total retards to write their programs. Given the opportunity, they have shown that they can do what they're supposed to do. But they aren't supposed to do security, so they don't.
Microsoft may be changing their minds now. They are certainly marketing in that direction, but who knows? They're one of the most successful marketing companies in the world, but their lies are wearing thin (remember all those blue screen TV ads for Windows XP?)
It's no accident that they're using the languages they are at Microsoft, and it's no accident their work is inefficient and full of holes. They neglected these areas on purpose so that they could focus on "it runs fast and it comes with the computer."
Why am I not surprised that this was posted anonymously? And for the record, I'm raising a baby, so I've got books full of stuff about allergies. The main ones are: shellfish, eggs, milk, peanuts, chocolate, any kind of animal flesh, and then wheat and corn. Wheat and corn are full of vitamins, but the same vitamins are to be found in many less allergenic grains such as spelt, quinoa, amaranth, rice, and so on.
The human organism is a herbivore. But much like chimpanzees, we require trace quantities of vitamin b12. Well so what? Chimps get it from shit - they don't wash their vegetables, and from insects - they don't wash their fruit. I choose to get mine from a supplement but I could eat an egg or a glass of milk every couple of weeks if I didn't think that was GROSS!!
Animal flesh sits in your colon festering. It's really yucky. A carnivore has a really short intestine with really acidic stomach juices to digest it and get it out. Anywho, I eat just fine.
If the land is unsuitable for growing crops then it's about 7 times more unsuitable for grazing animals.
The food with the highest proportion of protein is the nut. Then come the legumes. Then comes (yuck) the animal flesh.
Actually, I'm a vegetarian because I don't want to eat animal flesh AND I DON'T HAVE TO!!! It's quite a relief to know that I don't have to - I was quite concerned until I did enough research.
If you keep eating that crap it won't necessarily kill you... it's not the most dangerous thing people do. But it's pretty bad, actually. But I guess it's your own business.
No really, I'm serious! This is why speakers are so much more popular than headphones: the sound appears to be coming from somewhere! With good headphones, you can still get a reasonable effect (My sennheisers make it seem like the music is right there at the outside of my ears, which is just where I like it) but with direct stimulation it's just not pleasant to have directionless noise coming from outta nowhere!
It's true. And this is how we get bids for the implementation of something that's "essentially free". Somebody has to install the linux on the computers, and assure whoever that it's all set up right. Or, someone may need to offer an entire "solution" with linux on X number of Y type computers with Z software.
Nevertheless, a beaurocrat is a peculiar animal. They will just as easily read a bid where software costs nothing and say "no, we can't go with these shonky dealers", see if they don't!
...how to handle bids on something that's essentially free..
I guess that's why there's now such a market for packaging linux and asking for a small fee for the pretty picture or even a nice cardboard box. SuSE, Redhat, etc are trying to be "enterprise" versions of linux where you get the same stuff but someone actually bothers to put in a bid and gets maybe $50-$100 for their trouble when it hits the buyer that this is a great idea.
"Every sperm is sacred"
You know, it used to be Catholic dogma that the life began at quickening, hence the name.
For me that would be about 12 weeks. They're moving around in there, thinking, listening...
Just think about that, and see where it leads you.
De Bono advocates the use of the Red Thinking Hat. This is where you stop thinking logically for a moment and stop being cool and sophisticated and say how you really feel: "This freaks me out". Or somehting like: "If I had an abortion I wouldn't mind them using the cells but I get a really unpleasant feeling in my chest at the idea of some part of what might have been my baby, living on, growing on..."
Yes, it's illogical, but that's hardly the point. Ask any mathematician if logic can provide all the answers. Well as a maths student (undergrad 2nd year) I'm well informed that it can't.
Even the most utilitarian morality cannot be formulated on logical principles because it requires judgements to be made to put a level on suffering or utility, and this is subjective.
There's very little to be learnt from making bad copies of people, and if I had money to invest in humanity, I'd give it to some other scientist. In philosophy of science we learnt about how it's impossible to tell the difference between an accurate theory and an "empirically adequate" one. Well, scientists keep pushing the envelope and it's not necessarily always the best idea. If science is supposed to be for the benefit of humanity then why do we push it so far we keep losing humanity?
Tests like the LD50 are sadly well out of date, yet we keep pumping animals full of drugs to see how much it takes to make them die.
And now this lot wants to make bad copies of people when they were just embryos to learn what they're made of. So that people like superman can walk again.
You know, I have this dilemma every time I take a drug. I think of all the rats and mice that died so I could take the drug. Then I think of the monkeys that died so I could take the drug. And I think of how they suffered before they died. Then I think "well, they're doing the best they know how and later I'll do my best to find better solutions." Although humanity suffers from this kind of research, it also gains years. A net gain for humanity, and a who knows what for the world. Maybe some kind of break-even.
If I meet a clone I have to be friendly -- clones are people too, poor copies though they be. Clones aren't monsters any more than frankenstein's monster was a monster. If you read the book, he was a vegetarian and just wanted to find a way to be happy. A nice guy who wouldn't hurt a cow.
But there's an obvious line here (do we clone people or not?) and I don't know where the next obvious line is at all (cloning up to a certain age, for example is not a line. It's a fuzzy blob that will be moved). A lot of people have a lot of emotion tied up in this, and you can't deny it, argue though you may.
Enlightenment values can bring us to a certain stage and then we have to decide what we value about our humanity and how we are going to behave. And for me... I'm not convinced that human cloning has any benefits that can't be found from a concentrated effort elsewhere. I don't like the idea of starting down that road. And it gives me the creeps.
Hmm, Australia has a similar issue. Studied this in law school. New Zealand has completely changed their personal injury policy. These are seen to be accidents, publicly insured and paid out by need. Not sure to what degree it covers medical malpractice, but if you have a car crash, the government just takes care of you.
Now, if our American cousins have a problem, I'd say it is that you've no public health insurance at all. I can go to the doctor with a sniffle and pay nothing at all for the consultation. I can then get a prescription subsidised (if I need it) so that it comes in under $20. And that's it! Even contraceptives are subsidised.
It's a good question, but too specific IMHO (and remember that I'm not a yank, so take my opinion or leave it). The issues are personal injury/negligence and health insurance.
Australian games have been rated forever. OK so a 15 rating won't stop a 13yo playing but it keeps the age of players much more reasonable. Books are rated too (some very naughty ones even get R or possibly X). I think this is great - even if it doesn't work perfectly and some teenager sees naked boobies, it's good to have the information available, right? What I object to is banned literature. Just mark it D for "don't watch this" and I won't! I realize that some weirdos will seek out this stuff, but it's still wrong to tell me what I can and can't handle, once I'm all grown up. As for the weirdos, well, there are many objections to a psychologist state, but.....
when will you tech boys learn? I have dozens of pairs of earrings! Now supposing I switch to the earring phone: this means I have to buy dozens of phones! And they'll still be dodgy looking if current phone design is anything to go by. So when I go out, I wear my ordinary earrings, and now I have to carry a phone anyway. More phones! Any wearable technology suffers from this limitation: I have 3 watches, 7 handbags and even a couple of wallets.
Oddly enough, since I practically live in my Mary Janes, perhaps a shoe phone is in order...? "Hello.. Chief?"
Yay! ST topic for/.! I want my ST news and gossip and I want it in its own category! When I check out my news for nerds, this is what I am looking for!
In many countries, shrink-wrap licenses are not legal, or at least must be stated on the outside of the box in full. In this case, it will be very illegal to install malware at random.
But it won't be long until everyone laughs at the idiot sliding off the track in his car made out of railway tracks and fibreglass.
Brand loyalty can go a long way as when a lowered Honda gets passed by a hot Volvo but the Volvo gets laughed at when everyone's doing laps of a Friday evening.
"RISC architecture is going to change everything"
As usual, the reason most people are getting upset is because this seems so difficult to limit. I couldn't agree more. For example:
What is a database? What are we talking about here? A list of facts? A list of associations? A tree of definitions? Well how do you define it precisely for the purposes of legislation? What is database structure? Is it the entries or just the shape?
What is a "significant portion" of a database? What if Alice lists all the health benefits of coffee and Bob reports them all? What if Candice compiles a list of restaurants and David provides links to all the vegan ones? What if Ella has a database of 3000 entries? How many would Frank have to steal to be breaking the law? What if it was a 3 entries database?
What are the criteria for economic loss due to the database being copied in part? What is significant economic disadvantage? Example: Yahoo reports on the sports score and NBA claims... what? That people might have visited their website and saw their ads?
And then there's a bit in there saying that "reasonable" use is OK. Well, we don't really have any precedent for "reasonable" use of databases and so again this should really be defined. Is it "reasonable" for me to copy out a large chunk of my organization's email list and distribute it? What if I removed all the pretty pictures and formatting and went to a simple text document? I was making things easier for myself, I could claim. You ruined all our hard work and undermined our corporate image, they would reply.
So I fear this bill, even though I am in a different country (the Internet makes national borders disappear under certain circumstances) because it doesn't tell me exactly what I can get away with, and will probably be quite unevenly applied until a few precedents are created. And then... well it could be OK, or it could be horrible. It just depends on the judges in question.
OK Eric I think you're getting a bit carried away here. It's an article designed to describe the process and its possible future outcomes. As other posters have mentioned, it could be easy enough to attach a solar panel giving you an energy surplus, thus negating the "perpetual motion" argument. I would argue that what the article describes as "virtually unlimited range" simply means a lot longer than aeroplanes. TThe technology is definitely lagging in this case, but just because it's only slow and sucks power now, doesn't mean it won't work better eventually.
The most important point to be made is that this article wasn't written by the guy who invented the device. He probably read it and cringed at the way his toy was portrayed and could be reading these comments with dismay. It's just a cool idea, and one in its very early stages of development. I for one would like to see the wings flap!
Slashdot Mirror
I am a woman, and my wedding dress is hanging up in the next room! But, it needs altering to suit my shape and tastes, as it is currently as worn by my mother on her wedding day, so I've been buying small Swarovski bicone beads, fabric roses, ribbons and new buttons (the old buttons have lost their pearly sheen) but finding perfectly matching crush satin for the lining is proving to be a challenge.
Luckily, I dreamed about the sort of wedding dress I wanted to get married in when I was a little girl, so now all I have to do is work my tailor silly until it gets just perfect!
Does that answer your question?
Well I'd rather fly into space in a honda than in a ferrari. I mean, sure, you take off alright in both, but then you pretty quickly need to select second gear and the ferrari will only go crunch.
On the other hand, I'd rather fly in either of them than in a contraption of ebay components gaffa-taped into a rocket shape. I mean, I'm reasonably sure those are real swarovski crystals, but quality control is much higher on a rocket than on a wedding dress, right?
right?
Just because you don't sign your name, doesn't mean it's anonymous. If you host it at your house you may find cranky people knocking on your door. Less dramatically, if you identify what city you live in, where you work, then fill in a few personal details, such as your football team, religion, sex, and what movie you went to last night, it gets pretty easy to guess who you are. If you tell your friends about your "anonymous" blog, you may also find your anonymity dripping away amongst friends.
I agree with digitalgimpus: don't mention places and people and expect to stay anonymous. You don't have to sign NDAs, so if you reach an agreement, keep it! It's just basic honour and self-respect.
If you want to mention work and what it's like, you may want to consider your goal. Do you want to publicly announce your dissatisfaction, or just vent a bit? Particularly at risk are people who work as contractors! It's not so much that you shouldn't talk about your own work, but you do your employer a grave disservice if comments about clients can be traced back to you.
Slashdot reported the release of SuSE 9.2 in November. I've been using SuSE 9.2 on my thinkpad since that very week. The difference between versions of SuSE recently has been huge - it's so much more workable in each version. So why oh why is ACA testing SuSE with version 9.1?
I've looked through all the comments for this story and everyone's discounting Gates' contribution. I can only assume it's because you're all feeling guilty about not even donating a lousy $50 to charity from your birthday money.
I think Gates won't miss $750 million, so he's decided that he'll donate it to vaccinations. Well, that's logical because if a disease starts in some isolated backwater and nobody's vaccinated, it could easily turn into a nasty pandemic.
In fact, logically, it makes sense to forego a luxury or two every now and then to make sure that world health is well cared for.
So, stop making excuses and start making contributions! Consider - if we all dig deep, then maybe Billy will be inspired to donate another couple of billion. But remember, the world is a community, and this silly bickering hurts us all (see the above bit about the pandemic).
I agree. He wrote a good program, he's got gorgeous boyish charm, he's a natural poster-boy.
Actually, what Linux needs is a new "face". I'm a model: I volunteer my services. Any photographers and graphic designers out there want to rig up some posters?
We'll need some famous people... some role models. Never mind the usual "interview-bait", let's find some cool actors to tell everyone they need linux because it's totally awesome. I don't understand why the whole world of Linux users can't manipulate this better than a handful of advertising/marketing folks. There's just no excuse for the multitude of users of Microsoft out there!
So who is with me?
I completely agree with shobadobs. I was at a graphing calculator high school and upgraded to the latest and greatest just before final exams. The first time at university I pulled out my calculator to answer a problem in a physics lecture everyone was like, "oh, a graphing calculator. That's nice. What are you expecting it to do for you?"
I had the mindset that learning maths was about learning to find the answer to the problem, rather than learning skills and techniques and reasoning... and I was really surprised by how weird it was to try and program in maple or scilab (the teacher figured it was only fair) when I was used to just pressing the appropriate menu key.
In conclusion - pencil and paper are definitely the best tools for learning maths. Computers should be used to learn computers skills such as programming in scilab or fortran. Graphing calculators and maths education software that are pretty and shiney are good for playing with from time to time but once you get the idea it's time to get back to pencil and paper.
You know, maybe there's a point here. Perhaps if everyone switched to some other language, bugs and exploits would trend down. But there's more to it than this, and this isn't the biggest issue.
If you want to remove the errors from your code you have to dedicate the time to do so. Microsoft have shown that they are not willing to do so - they optimise for speed, integration and good looks rather than security and effectiveness.
And now they're falling apart on their traditional specialty too, because their software is like Swiss cheese. You can use it to make a sandwich, but you can't build on it.
As people have pointed out, Microsoft is not the monolith most laymen assume. Oh, sure, you and I see a Microsoft logo or picture when we turn on our computer, but who knew that most of the Internet was running on Linux, BSD and a handful of related OSes? Who knew that most of the world's fileservers were Novell? These are the real targets in the networked world, yet it's IIS that gets it. It's Windows 2000 Server that gets it.
Duntemann is right - Microsoft don't hire total retards to write their programs. Given the opportunity, they have shown that they can do what they're supposed to do. But they aren't supposed to do security, so they don't.
Microsoft may be changing their minds now. They are certainly marketing in that direction, but who knows? They're one of the most successful marketing companies in the world, but their lies are wearing thin (remember all those blue screen TV ads for Windows XP?)
It's no accident that they're using the languages they are at Microsoft, and it's no accident their work is inefficient and full of holes. They neglected these areas on purpose so that they could focus on "it runs fast and it comes with the computer."
Why am I not surprised that this was posted anonymously? And for the record, I'm raising a baby, so I've got books full of stuff about allergies. The main ones are: shellfish, eggs, milk, peanuts, chocolate, any kind of animal flesh, and then wheat and corn. Wheat and corn are full of vitamins, but the same vitamins are to be found in many less allergenic grains such as spelt, quinoa, amaranth, rice, and so on.
The human organism is a herbivore. But much like chimpanzees, we require trace quantities of vitamin b12. Well so what? Chimps get it from shit - they don't wash their vegetables, and from insects - they don't wash their fruit. I choose to get mine from a supplement but I could eat an egg or a glass of milk every couple of weeks if I didn't think that was GROSS!!
Animal flesh sits in your colon festering. It's really yucky. A carnivore has a really short intestine with really acidic stomach juices to digest it and get it out. Anywho, I eat just fine.
If the land is unsuitable for growing crops then it's about 7 times more unsuitable for grazing animals.
The food with the highest proportion of protein is the nut. Then come the legumes. Then comes (yuck) the animal flesh.
Actually, I'm a vegetarian because I don't want to eat animal flesh AND I DON'T HAVE TO!!! It's quite a relief to know that I don't have to - I was quite concerned until I did enough research.
If you keep eating that crap it won't necessarily kill you... it's not the most dangerous thing people do. But it's pretty bad, actually. But I guess it's your own business.
No really, I'm serious! This is why speakers are so much more popular than headphones: the sound appears to be coming from somewhere! With good headphones, you can still get a reasonable effect (My sennheisers make it seem like the music is right there at the outside of my ears, which is just where I like it) but with direct stimulation it's just not pleasant to have directionless noise coming from outta nowhere!
It's true. And this is how we get bids for the implementation of something that's "essentially free". Somebody has to install the linux on the computers, and assure whoever that it's all set up right. Or, someone may need to offer an entire "solution" with linux on X number of Y type computers with Z software.
Nevertheless, a beaurocrat is a peculiar animal. They will just as easily read a bid where software costs nothing and say "no, we can't go with these shonky dealers", see if they don't!
I guess that's why there's now such a market for packaging linux and asking for a small fee for the pretty picture or even a nice cardboard box. SuSE, Redhat, etc are trying to be "enterprise" versions of linux where you get the same stuff but someone actually bothers to put in a bid and gets maybe $50-$100 for their trouble when it hits the buyer that this is a great idea.
Aaaaargh! I HATE webct! It always breaks and it never gets fixed! I'm talking to YOU, ANU!!!
surely not!
"Every sperm is sacred" You know, it used to be Catholic dogma that the life began at quickening, hence the name. For me that would be about 12 weeks. They're moving around in there, thinking, listening... Just think about that, and see where it leads you.
De Bono advocates the use of the Red Thinking Hat. This is where you stop thinking logically for a moment and stop being cool and sophisticated and say how you really feel: "This freaks me out". Or somehting like: "If I had an abortion I wouldn't mind them using the cells but I get a really unpleasant feeling in my chest at the idea of some part of what might have been my baby, living on, growing on..."
Yes, it's illogical, but that's hardly the point. Ask any mathematician if logic can provide all the answers. Well as a maths student (undergrad 2nd year) I'm well informed that it can't.
Even the most utilitarian morality cannot be formulated on logical principles because it requires judgements to be made to put a level on suffering or utility, and this is subjective.
There's very little to be learnt from making bad copies of people, and if I had money to invest in humanity, I'd give it to some other scientist. In philosophy of science we learnt about how it's impossible to tell the difference between an accurate theory and an "empirically adequate" one. Well, scientists keep pushing the envelope and it's not necessarily always the best idea. If science is supposed to be for the benefit of humanity then why do we push it so far we keep losing humanity?
Tests like the LD50 are sadly well out of date, yet we keep pumping animals full of drugs to see how much it takes to make them die.
And now this lot wants to make bad copies of people when they were just embryos to learn what they're made of. So that people like superman can walk again.
You know, I have this dilemma every time I take a drug. I think of all the rats and mice that died so I could take the drug. Then I think of the monkeys that died so I could take the drug. And I think of how they suffered before they died. Then I think "well, they're doing the best they know how and later I'll do my best to find better solutions." Although humanity suffers from this kind of research, it also gains years. A net gain for humanity, and a who knows what for the world. Maybe some kind of break-even.
If I meet a clone I have to be friendly -- clones are people too, poor copies though they be. Clones aren't monsters any more than frankenstein's monster was a monster. If you read the book, he was a vegetarian and just wanted to find a way to be happy. A nice guy who wouldn't hurt a cow.
But there's an obvious line here (do we clone people or not?) and I don't know where the next obvious line is at all (cloning up to a certain age, for example is not a line. It's a fuzzy blob that will be moved). A lot of people have a lot of emotion tied up in this, and you can't deny it, argue though you may.
Enlightenment values can bring us to a certain stage and then we have to decide what we value about our humanity and how we are going to behave. And for me... I'm not convinced that human cloning has any benefits that can't be found from a concentrated effort elsewhere. I don't like the idea of starting down that road. And it gives me the creeps.
Thanks for your patience.
Hmm, Australia has a similar issue. Studied this in law school. New Zealand has completely changed their personal injury policy. These are seen to be accidents, publicly insured and paid out by need. Not sure to what degree it covers medical malpractice, but if you have a car crash, the government just takes care of you. Now, if our American cousins have a problem, I'd say it is that you've no public health insurance at all. I can go to the doctor with a sniffle and pay nothing at all for the consultation. I can then get a prescription subsidised (if I need it) so that it comes in under $20. And that's it! Even contraceptives are subsidised. It's a good question, but too specific IMHO (and remember that I'm not a yank, so take my opinion or leave it). The issues are personal injury/negligence and health insurance.
Australian games have been rated forever. OK so a 15 rating won't stop a 13yo playing but it keeps the age of players much more reasonable. Books are rated too (some very naughty ones even get R or possibly X). I think this is great - even if it doesn't work perfectly and some teenager sees naked boobies, it's good to have the information available, right? What I object to is banned literature. Just mark it D for "don't watch this" and I won't! I realize that some weirdos will seek out this stuff, but it's still wrong to tell me what I can and can't handle, once I'm all grown up. As for the weirdos, well, there are many objections to a psychologist state, but .....
when will you tech boys learn? I have dozens of pairs of earrings! Now supposing I switch to the earring phone: this means I have to buy dozens of phones! And they'll still be dodgy looking if current phone design is anything to go by. So when I go out, I wear my ordinary earrings, and now I have to carry a phone anyway. More phones! Any wearable technology suffers from this limitation: I have 3 watches, 7 handbags and even a couple of wallets. Oddly enough, since I practically live in my Mary Janes, perhaps a shoe phone is in order...? "Hello.. Chief?"
Yay! ST topic for /.! I want my ST news and gossip and I want it in its own category! When I check out my news for nerds, this is what I am looking for!
In many countries, shrink-wrap licenses are not legal, or at least must be stated on the outside of the box in full. In this case, it will be very illegal to install malware at random.
But it won't be long until everyone laughs at the idiot sliding off the track in his car made out of railway tracks and fibreglass. Brand loyalty can go a long way as when a lowered Honda gets passed by a hot Volvo but the Volvo gets laughed at when everyone's doing laps of a Friday evening. "RISC architecture is going to change everything"
As usual, the reason most people are getting upset is because this seems so difficult to limit. I couldn't agree more. For example:
What is a database? What are we talking about here? A list of facts? A list of associations? A tree of definitions? Well how do you define it precisely for the purposes of legislation? What is database structure? Is it the entries or just the shape?
What is a "significant portion" of a database? What if Alice lists all the health benefits of coffee and Bob reports them all? What if Candice compiles a list of restaurants and David provides links to all the vegan ones? What if Ella has a database of 3000 entries? How many would Frank have to steal to be breaking the law? What if it was a 3 entries database?
What are the criteria for economic loss due to the database being copied in part? What is significant economic disadvantage? Example: Yahoo reports on the sports score and NBA claims... what? That people might have visited their website and saw their ads?
And then there's a bit in there saying that "reasonable" use is OK. Well, we don't really have any precedent for "reasonable" use of databases and so again this should really be defined. Is it "reasonable" for me to copy out a large chunk of my organization's email list and distribute it? What if I removed all the pretty pictures and formatting and went to a simple text document? I was making things easier for myself, I could claim. You ruined all our hard work and undermined our corporate image, they would reply.
So I fear this bill, even though I am in a different country (the Internet makes national borders disappear under certain circumstances) because it doesn't tell me exactly what I can get away with, and will probably be quite unevenly applied until a few precedents are created. And then... well it could be OK, or it could be horrible. It just depends on the judges in question.
The most important point to be made is that this article wasn't written by the guy who invented the device. He probably read it and cringed at the way his toy was portrayed and could be reading these comments with dismay. It's just a cool idea, and one in its very early stages of development. I for one would like to see the wings flap!
Thankyou for the tip! I've been looking out for this in 2nd hand bookshops with of course no luck. Now I will read it all!