"Elite programmers should be using an environment where they don't have to use the mouse at all"
Programming is 90% thinking/planning, and 10% typing. The idea that using a mouse makes you a worse programmer in any appreciable sense is about as stupid as the idea that the mouse you use matters.
I believe e-mail spoofing (where the spammers spoof the header to make it look like it comes from you) is completely different than sending e-mails to yourself, and gmail knows this. That said, when is the last time a spoofed e-mail actually made it to your inbox?
Have you looked into filters? They added an option to "Never send it to Spam" about a year ago. You can create custom white lists with this, or just include everyone in the filter and totally bypass the spam filter.
"It runs Linux, and isn't locked-down DRM-addled crap like the Kindle or those shoddy Sony efforts."
You don't understand the Kindle at all. First, it runs Linux. You are probably repeating complaints that the software isn't open source, but Linux is not a synonym for open source. Second, its DRM does not prevent you from viewing non-DRM material. The Kindle has a very capable PDF converter, and the resulting files have no DRM in them. The Kindle is a superset of a theoretically identical device without any DRM. I have a Kindle and have never used its DRM.
The Kindle is an impressive piece of hardware, but I agree its software licensing leaves something to be desired.
Maybe I misunderstand what they are saying, but if everything is copied or derived from something else, then I don't see the issue. Want a superhero comic? Just make your own character and Universe that copies the same thing Batman did. There is nothing stopping this type of "innovation".
But I do not think some two bit hack should be able to just create a Batman comic strip without permission. A lot of copyright holders put effort into creating a consistent Universe with high quality story lines. I think weakening what a copyright means can dilute people's creativity in this way.
I personally license everything artistic I do under a creative commons license because I am not personally vested in my works. But I know some people devote their lives to their creations, and I know they would not want to see their works getting lost in a pool of comic strips with Calvin peeing on stuff or Billy from Family Circus telling his mom to do obscene things with that carrot on the table.
I believe "breaking news" means you are the first to report the news story, i.e. "break" that story. In the case of Obama's inauguration, its moot because everyone knew about it at the same time - it was a scheduled event.
Wikipedia, an encyclopedia (which is generally a secondary or tertiary source), cannot report on events like a news source does. It has to cite a news source and establish that the news source has been reliable in the past and can be trusted. This is often a slow process.
I believe strongly in free speech, especially on Wikipedia (I am a semi-active editor there). But this wasn't really Wikipedia's domain. Wikipedia is not a newspaper (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_not_a_newspaper). It's not the job of Wikipedia to report on someone's life until reliable news sources have already done so. In other words, Wikipedia should never contain breaking news.
Then they are coddling us. It is common sense that you are on your own when you buy a third part battery. The camera's manual can easily as as much for legal reasons.
They are clearly doing this to continue overcharging for batteries. I bought this third party battery (http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.2480) for 20% of the price Canon charges. I know if something goes wrong my warranty will be voided, but I took this risk because several other people left good reviews on this dependable site.
I think everywhere I have ever lived was primarily powered by nuclear energy. Not everything has to come from the sun... and let's not forget the prospects of fission: mc^2 is a lot of energy.
Covering the planet with windmills may end up looking barbaric 100 years from now.
"it thought the city had no right to serve people's internet, voice and television needs with its own network"
I think there is an argument to be made that the city shouldn't be serving television, especially anything public access. With internet and phone the user has full control over the service (assuming a non-tampered connection), but the choice of television stations is highly subjective and could be biased by politicians/bureaucrats. Because the city service will likely be (at least indirectly) subsidized by the tax payer, it may put companies that offer a less biased channel selection under a lot of pressure. This is a bad thing.
I would argue that the transition from analog to digital was actually remarkably quick. The last analog camera I bought was in 2000, I think. Also, cell phones and small point and shoots effectively replaced disposable cameras years ago.
My guess is the only people who used film after 2005 are *some* professionals and artists.
At first, I was amazed at how smoothly justices change over time, which makes the plot look very pretty. Then, I clicked on the link for the Martin-Quinn score, and saw this in the description: "The measures are estimated using a dynamic item response theory model, allowing judicial ideology to trend smoothly through time." I haven't looked into the math (all I can find after a quick search on their page is some custom C code), but the smoothing looks pretty severe, i.e. over several years.
There are on the order of 75-150 cases heard a year (it has been decreasing from 150 since the 80s) in the court - these are enough data points that they could bin the plot over a few months and show it without smoothing. My guess is this looks far less pretty.
Actually, magnetic disks have exponentially increased in capacity since the 50s. In fact, the rate of increase has been higher than the growth of transistor count.
I think you're missing the point. This is an AI project - it's research. Presumably, the questions you are typing in haven't been processed by a complicated nest of if-thens written by someone who knows English; instead, statistical models of language and meaning were extracted from the internet. Some people claim this is the equivalent of "teaching" a computer.
The first example, which is what most search engines do, leads to impressive search results but is limited by the logic people can code up. This AI, on the other hand, may be a primitive example of the way Google will work 15 years from now.
Economic theory states that in an ideal capitalist system, all industries' profit margins will approach 0. They will make enough money to pay off their costs, employees, research, etc, but nothing else. This is because if company A is making a high profit, company B will come in with a competing product/service and undercut them.
Of course, this isn't entirely true because of several factors, like: barriers to entry (as Palm has proven, spending 100s of millions of dollars to make its "iPhone killer"), patents, and psychological consumer effects (e.g. "oooh, iPods are so cool!"). But still, in highly mature industries much IP, like discount department stores, you will see this in action.
"When Arrington first visualized the project he was shooting for a $200 price point, then discovered that a $299 price was more realistic"
Why do so many people make this same mistake? I think it is hubris - the idea that "I'm smarter than everyone else in the industry, and I have ideas that none of them do". One of the worst PR moves is to drastically raise your estimated price, in this case by 50%. And in the end, the promised price point of 200 dollars was necessary; for 300 dollars, I can get a fully-featured netbook or iPod touch.
And I'd like to add that there are several examples of companies promising a great price, and then actually delivering on it (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Nano)
I think COFFEE is different. COFFEE basically just creates log of a bunch of stuff that will be erased if the computer is turned off, like processes running, temporary files, etc. The idea is you run COFFEE before turning off a computer to take it into the police station.
What the UK wants is something you plug into a computer, perhaps one that has already been seized, and it tells you quickly and easily if something illegal is on there.
COFFEE and what the UK wants could potentially compliment each other; if the tool tells the police something illegal exists on the computer, they can use COFFEE before seizing the computer to get a full snapshot of what was going on.
No, that is not real competition. The two types of newspapers serve two different niches. One is about state politics, national and international events, etc. The other is about local (read: county and small town) politics and who's kids got caught vandalizing walls that week. You could read both and have very little overlap.
If two products are not meant to take business away from each other, they aren't truly competing. It's analogous to saying the ford f350 competes with the civic, or Debian and Vista compete.
Slashdot Mirror
"Elite programmers should be using an environment where they don't have to use the mouse at all"
Programming is 90% thinking/planning, and 10% typing. The idea that using a mouse makes you a worse programmer in any appreciable sense is about as stupid as the idea that the mouse you use matters.
"It sounds like a solution in search of a problem."
Welcome to the world of academia :)
I believe e-mail spoofing (where the spammers spoof the header to make it look like it comes from you) is completely different than sending e-mails to yourself, and gmail knows this. That said, when is the last time a spoofed e-mail actually made it to your inbox?
"there is NO way to disable or bypass it"
Have you looked into filters? They added an option to "Never send it to Spam" about a year ago. You can create custom white lists with this, or just include everyone in the filter and totally bypass the spam filter.
Tell him to look up the definition of "whitelist".
My guess is the system runs much more optimally when your entire address book is whitelisted.
You can just download this software, which Amazon owns: http://www.mobipocket.com/en/HomePage/default.asp?Language=EN
Their free e-mail service just runs this on their servers, for people who don't want to deal with software.
Also, the Kindle DX allows you to put PDFs directly onto the device.
"It runs Linux, and isn't locked-down DRM-addled crap like the Kindle or those shoddy Sony efforts."
You don't understand the Kindle at all. First, it runs Linux. You are probably repeating complaints that the software isn't open source, but Linux is not a synonym for open source. Second, its DRM does not prevent you from viewing non-DRM material. The Kindle has a very capable PDF converter, and the resulting files have no DRM in them. The Kindle is a superset of a theoretically identical device without any DRM. I have a Kindle and have never used its DRM.
The Kindle is an impressive piece of hardware, but I agree its software licensing leaves something to be desired.
Maybe I misunderstand what they are saying, but if everything is copied or derived from something else, then I don't see the issue. Want a superhero comic? Just make your own character and Universe that copies the same thing Batman did. There is nothing stopping this type of "innovation".
But I do not think some two bit hack should be able to just create a Batman comic strip without permission. A lot of copyright holders put effort into creating a consistent Universe with high quality story lines. I think weakening what a copyright means can dilute people's creativity in this way.
I personally license everything artistic I do under a creative commons license because I am not personally vested in my works. But I know some people devote their lives to their creations, and I know they would not want to see their works getting lost in a pool of comic strips with Calvin peeing on stuff or Billy from Family Circus telling his mom to do obscene things with that carrot on the table.
I believe "breaking news" means you are the first to report the news story, i.e. "break" that story. In the case of Obama's inauguration, its moot because everyone knew about it at the same time - it was a scheduled event.
Wikipedia, an encyclopedia (which is generally a secondary or tertiary source), cannot report on events like a news source does. It has to cite a news source and establish that the news source has been reliable in the past and can be trusted. This is often a slow process.
I believe strongly in free speech, especially on Wikipedia (I am a semi-active editor there). But this wasn't really Wikipedia's domain. Wikipedia is not a newspaper (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_not_a_newspaper). It's not the job of Wikipedia to report on someone's life until reliable news sources have already done so. In other words, Wikipedia should never contain breaking news.
The ironic thing is the anti-American flavor of liberals like the GP can be just as Americentric as the neo-conservatives they hate.
Everyone should study some history and periodically keep in touch with world news so they can keep things in perspective.
Then they are coddling us. It is common sense that you are on your own when you buy a third part battery. The camera's manual can easily as as much for legal reasons.
They are clearly doing this to continue overcharging for batteries. I bought this third party battery (http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.2480) for 20% of the price Canon charges. I know if something goes wrong my warranty will be voided, but I took this risk because several other people left good reviews on this dependable site.
Sorry I meant fusion, not fission.
I think everywhere I have ever lived was primarily powered by nuclear energy. Not everything has to come from the sun... and let's not forget the prospects of fission: mc^2 is a lot of energy.
Covering the planet with windmills may end up looking barbaric 100 years from now.
"it thought the city had no right to serve people's internet, voice and television needs with its own network"
I think there is an argument to be made that the city shouldn't be serving television, especially anything public access. With internet and phone the user has full control over the service (assuming a non-tampered connection), but the choice of television stations is highly subjective and could be biased by politicians/bureaucrats. Because the city service will likely be (at least indirectly) subsidized by the tax payer, it may put companies that offer a less biased channel selection under a lot of pressure. This is a bad thing.
"digital cameras are slowly phasing out analog"
I would argue that the transition from analog to digital was actually remarkably quick. The last analog camera I bought was in 2000, I think. Also, cell phones and small point and shoots effectively replaced disposable cameras years ago.
My guess is the only people who used film after 2005 are *some* professionals and artists.
At first, I was amazed at how smoothly justices change over time, which makes the plot look very pretty. Then, I clicked on the link for the Martin-Quinn score, and saw this in the description: "The measures are estimated using a dynamic item response theory model, allowing judicial ideology to trend smoothly through time." I haven't looked into the math (all I can find after a quick search on their page is some custom C code), but the smoothing looks pretty severe, i.e. over several years.
There are on the order of 75-150 cases heard a year (it has been decreasing from 150 since the 80s) in the court - these are enough data points that they could bin the plot over a few months and show it without smoothing. My guess is this looks far less pretty.
Actually, magnetic disks have exponentially increased in capacity since the 50s. In fact, the rate of increase has been higher than the growth of transistor count.
See: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=kryders-law
I think you're missing the point. This is an AI project - it's research. Presumably, the questions you are typing in haven't been processed by a complicated nest of if-thens written by someone who knows English; instead, statistical models of language and meaning were extracted from the internet. Some people claim this is the equivalent of "teaching" a computer.
The first example, which is what most search engines do, leads to impressive search results but is limited by the logic people can code up. This AI, on the other hand, may be a primitive example of the way Google will work 15 years from now.
The size of the Universe is entirely an unknown. As such, scientists don't talk about it much.
My guess is they are targeting business users, because 99% of normal users don't understand why this is good.
"what company isn't all about profit margin?"
Economic theory states that in an ideal capitalist system, all industries' profit margins will approach 0. They will make enough money to pay off their costs, employees, research, etc, but nothing else. This is because if company A is making a high profit, company B will come in with a competing product/service and undercut them.
Of course, this isn't entirely true because of several factors, like: barriers to entry (as Palm has proven, spending 100s of millions of dollars to make its "iPhone killer"), patents, and psychological consumer effects (e.g. "oooh, iPods are so cool!"). But still, in highly mature industries much IP, like discount department stores, you will see this in action.
"When Arrington first visualized the project he was shooting for a $200 price point, then discovered that a $299 price was more realistic"
Why do so many people make this same mistake? I think it is hubris - the idea that "I'm smarter than everyone else in the industry, and I have ideas that none of them do". One of the worst PR moves is to drastically raise your estimated price, in this case by 50%. And in the end, the promised price point of 200 dollars was necessary; for 300 dollars, I can get a fully-featured netbook or iPod touch.
And I'd like to add that there are several examples of companies promising a great price, and then actually delivering on it (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Nano)
I think COFFEE is different. COFFEE basically just creates log of a bunch of stuff that will be erased if the computer is turned off, like processes running, temporary files, etc. The idea is you run COFFEE before turning off a computer to take it into the police station.
What the UK wants is something you plug into a computer, perhaps one that has already been seized, and it tells you quickly and easily if something illegal is on there.
COFFEE and what the UK wants could potentially compliment each other; if the tool tells the police something illegal exists on the computer, they can use COFFEE before seizing the computer to get a full snapshot of what was going on.
No, that is not real competition. The two types of newspapers serve two different niches. One is about state politics, national and international events, etc. The other is about local (read: county and small town) politics and who's kids got caught vandalizing walls that week. You could read both and have very little overlap.
If two products are not meant to take business away from each other, they aren't truly competing. It's analogous to saying the ford f350 competes with the civic, or Debian and Vista compete.