Agreed. By the way, what is the article writer's evidence for this apparent repetition? I see no mention of it on Professor Rugg's Web site, nor in the few pages of the text itself.
An interesting theory, but nonsense, for several reasons.
Consider for example, the poem. If a poem is incorrectly copied, it no longer rhymes, or the meter is disrupted. This simple mechanism not only ensures easy memorization, but provides a security against unintended alteration. In much the same manner, the "Bible codes" have provided scholars a way of discerning the accuracy of a copy of scripture. In fact, some of scripture is indeed poetic, further reinforcing the confidence in the original scriptures.
Most rhyme schemes (especially end-rhymes, like "The rain in Spain...") are easy to preserve even if the rest of the phrases are garbled. And meter is easy to preserve, since there can exist substitute phrases that convey the same meaning and have the same meter. In fact, this is exactly what Milman Parry and his progeny have demonstrated in the works of epic poets.
I find it somewhat interesting that lossless copying was available long before digital electronics were invented.
Pre-electronic lossless copying is impossible. Not even DNA duplication is guaranteed to be lossless.
Anyone who's had even two or three semesters of a (written) ancient language knows about stemmata, the conjectured "family trees" of copying errors from one manuscript to another. Orally-transmitted information would have been subject to an even greater degree of change--thus the invention of writing, of course. Besides, the notion of preserving exact copies of text is a relatively recent (i.e. in the last 1500 years of so, in the West) phenomenon.
For anyone who doesn't know Latin, or for anyone who isn't familiar with inflected languages in general, here's a detailed morphological breakdown of this poem.
malo: I had rather be
First-person, present indicative active form of the irregular verb malle, "to prefer, wish". It takes an infinitive (most likely esse, "to be"), which is often, as here, dropped.
malo: in an apple tree
The locative form of malus, -i (feminine noun), "apple tree").
malo: than a naughty boy
Dative of comparison (as dictated by malle) of the adjective malus, -a, -um, "bad, evil". This is the masculine (or neuter) form, hence the translation "boy".
malo: in adversity
Ablative of the neuter noun (really a substantive adjective) malum, -i "evil".
In short, we have a verb, a noun, an adjective, and a homonymic noun.
(Thanks to the original poster for the poem--I've never heard this one.)
Too bad WriteNow went to the software afterlife... if it had been under a friendlier license, perhaps it would have led directly to a clean, fast word processor today;)
My understanding was that WriteNow was written almost entirely in 680x0 assembly, which not only explained its speed, but also its lack of significant updates after the Mac line shifted to PowerPC chips. Too bad, though, since it was one of the best programs ever written, on any platform. (Well, 'cept for vi.);^)
And speaking of bloat, it's interesting to note that the version of SimpleText that shipped with Mac OS 8 was bigger, in kBs, than the original MacWrite (which had more features). That's progress!
I remember an anecdote (in Richard Feynman's Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, I think) that Los Alamos's security was pretty lax even during the Manhattan Project. Apparently there were a few places in the gate where local Indians were occasionally let through by the scientists and workers to watch movies and hang out.
If I'm not mistaken, Los Alamos is also where Feynman got his reputation for lockpicking, since he taught himself how to break into the safes where classified documents were stored and prove to the higher-ups that security wasn't as tight as they'd wanted to believe.
Or, pay an actual human being to do your taxes. I've never done it but I understand they know all about the loopholes and stuff.
Amen to that! My wife and her family haven't filled out their own tax forms for many years. I used to laugh at their willingness to throw away Good Money, but after we got married and bought a house, I decided to do a bake-off between using TurboTax myself vs. their long-time wetware tax preparer. The result? TurboTax cost me $70 ($30 fed. + $20/each for two states), took about three hours to go through (and another couple of hours or so to print and proofread) and I got a refund of $x. The tax preparer cost $120, took 40 minutes, and got us a refund of $x + $400 via legit "loopholes" (things like moving costs, higher ed credits, etc.).
If you need to fill out only a 1040EZ form, you definitely don't need TurboTax or a preparer, but if you have dependents or itemize deductions, I highly recommend going to a live person. (And no, IANATP.)
If the region control is in the drive firmware, how can it be bypassed by a software only solution? Don't all read requests go through the drive firmware?
According to the FAQ they believe with 20k supporters they could control a state with a population of 1.5M or less. How 20k votes outweigh 1.5M is one of the small details they don't explain.
Hey, if they can't do this an any of the United States, they can always pick a state in Mexico. It looks like Baja California Sur, for example, sports only a third of a million residents. Figure that, oh, 50% of the population is registered to vote (just a guess--I'm having a tough time finding Mexican demographic information on Google), and 50% of those actually get off of their asses and vote. 20k out of a potential 100k (=80k + the 20k liberty-seekers who moved down there) votes, and your odds aren't too horrible. Besides, even if they lose and decide to stay, the fishing and diving are second to none. Sure as hell beats North Dakota!;^)
Apple used to have the best warranty in the computer business (3 years parts and labor, I believe).
Whatchew talkin' 'bout, Willis? In the eight+ years that I've owned Macs, they've never come with anything other than a one-year warranty (and the first iPods came with a pathetic 90-day warranty). However, Apple has been selling 3-year warranties (=2 extra years) for $150 to $250, depending on the model. You're correct that Best Buy probably couldn't sell many of their own EOFs because of Apple's offerings, but that may also have something to do with the fact that AppleCare gives you diagnostic software and better phone support. Best Buy gives you a friggin' piece of paper that most customers will simply lose anyway.
It's one of those "how did I ever manage without it" features, and a punch in the stomach of anyone who says free software isn't innovating.
Now, I won't quibble with the belief that this is an example of free software's innovation, but type-ahead (well, vi-style, anyway) has been a feature of at least one even older free Web browser for a while now, if not others.
(For the record, the feature Without Which I Cannot Do has to be mouse gestures. Just click and drag to the left to go back a page!)
For those who don't support Slashdot's Amazon embargo, here's their link to the book. Not only are they selling the book for $35, they have 25 sample pages, including the entire index and the first half of the first chapter. (And no, I'm not in Amazon's affiliates program and don't make a dime if you buy the book using the link that I provided, as a quick glance at the URL will prove.)
might as well mention it: the little $30 camera attachment is just a novelty. Its postage stamp sized pictures are amusing, but practically worthless
My boss just bought a Sidekick yesterday at the local CompUSA, and he says that the camera was included for free. So the crappy images may not justify a $30 price tag, but they probably will justify a $0 one.
This may be entirely coincidental, but the copy of When I Was Cruel that I purchased (sic) in its first week of release refused to play well in my recent-vintage Mac G4 tower. The first two songs sounded as though they'd been recorded using the same deck used to record the Watergate tapes, and the rest had mysteriously long bits drop out suddenly. Nowhere did the package or disk itself state that whether it was copy-protected in any way. So did I return it as defective? Nah, 'cause I was too lazy--and it's not such a great album that I absolutely, positively need to have MP3 copies of it for my own use. Sic transeunt iura digitalia.
How are sites selected for each story?
on
Google Does the News
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
The headlines that appear on Google news are selected entirely by computer algorithms, based on how and where the stories appear elsewhere on the web. There are no human editors at Google selecting or grouping the headlines and no individual decides which stories get top placement. This occasionally results in some articles appearing to be out of context.
This is an interesting development for Google. Ruling out the possibility of paid placement (for now), it seems as though PageRank doesn't apply to the news aggregator. (And how would it? Stories are updated continuously.) It's not likely to be completely random, either, although such an approach could lead to some very interesting story angles.
when Google will start placing sponsored news sites' pages at the top of the each article listing. In other words, when will we see CNN's stories appearing regularly in the top billing?
That's why I included the direct link to the printable version. Don't trumpet this "hole" too loudly, though; it'd be a shame for NYT to take away the ability to go directly to the printable page. At the same time, maybe this isn't as great as it looks, since I can't find any way to go directly from the home page to the printable story links without manually massaging the URLs...
Slashdot Mirror
Agreed. By the way, what is the article writer's evidence for this apparent repetition? I see no mention of it on Professor Rugg's Web site, nor in the few pages of the text itself.
This book was already reviewed on Slashdot.
Okay, okay, that was five years ago (to the day!), but how much can really have changed?
(p.s. I call shenanigans on this review's author! Take a look at that collar in her profile! Can you say Apple shill? ;^) )
Folks, this is a Good Thing. Think of it as a Do-Not-Call list, but for bulk mail.
Come to think of it, how can I get my name on it?
(Offtopic, but indulge me.)
For anyone who doesn't know Latin, or for anyone who isn't familiar with inflected languages in general, here's a detailed morphological breakdown of this poem.
First-person, present indicative active form of the irregular verb malle, "to prefer, wish". It takes an infinitive (most likely esse, "to be"), which is often, as here, dropped.
The locative form of malus, -i (feminine noun), "apple tree").
Dative of comparison (as dictated by malle) of the adjective malus, -a, -um, "bad, evil". This is the masculine (or neuter) form, hence the translation "boy".
Ablative of the neuter noun (really a substantive adjective) malum, -i "evil".
In short, we have a verb, a noun, an adjective, and a homonymic noun.
(Thanks to the original poster for the poem--I've never heard this one.)
My understanding was that WriteNow was written almost entirely in 680x0 assembly, which not only explained its speed, but also its lack of significant updates after the Mac line shifted to PowerPC chips. Too bad, though, since it was one of the best programs ever written, on any platform. (Well, 'cept for vi.) ;^)
And speaking of bloat, it's interesting to note that the version of SimpleText that shipped with Mac OS 8 was bigger, in kBs, than the original MacWrite (which had more features). That's progress!
I remember an anecdote (in Richard Feynman's Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, I think) that Los Alamos's security was pretty lax even during the Manhattan Project. Apparently there were a few places in the gate where local Indians were occasionally let through by the scientists and workers to watch movies and hang out.
If I'm not mistaken, Los Alamos is also where Feynman got his reputation for lockpicking, since he taught himself how to break into the safes where classified documents were stored and prove to the higher-ups that security wasn't as tight as they'd wanted to believe.
Amen to that! My wife and her family haven't filled out their own tax forms for many years. I used to laugh at their willingness to throw away Good Money, but after we got married and bought a house, I decided to do a bake-off between using TurboTax myself vs. their long-time wetware tax preparer. The result? TurboTax cost me $70 ($30 fed. + $20/each for two states), took about three hours to go through (and another couple of hours or so to print and proofread) and I got a refund of $x. The tax preparer cost $120, took 40 minutes, and got us a refund of $x + $400 via legit "loopholes" (things like moving costs, higher ed credits, etc.).
If you need to fill out only a 1040EZ form, you definitely don't need TurboTax or a preparer, but if you have dependents or itemize deductions, I highly recommend going to a live person. (And no, IANATP.)
Suffice it to say that whatever it was that they were doing, there wasn't enough time left over to do any one-handed surfing or IMing.
No. All but the earliest rev. G4 Tower model have software-based decoders. I think that this is also true for all other post-2000 Mac models, but I'm too lazy to look it up.
Hey, if they can't do this an any of the United States, they can always pick a state in Mexico. It looks like Baja California Sur, for example, sports only a third of a million residents. Figure that, oh, 50% of the population is registered to vote (just a guess--I'm having a tough time finding Mexican demographic information on Google), and 50% of those actually get off of their asses and vote. 20k out of a potential 100k (=80k + the 20k liberty-seekers who moved down there) votes, and your odds aren't too horrible. Besides, even if they lose and decide to stay, the fishing and diving are second to none. Sure as hell beats North Dakota! ;^)
From the link's left rail:
Wow! Slow updates. Actually, a more accurate date might be something like December 20, 1860.
Whatchew talkin' 'bout, Willis? In the eight+ years that I've owned Macs, they've never come with anything other than a one-year warranty (and the first iPods came with a pathetic 90-day warranty). However, Apple has been selling 3-year warranties (=2 extra years) for $150 to $250, depending on the model. You're correct that Best Buy probably couldn't sell many of their own EOFs because of Apple's offerings, but that may also have something to do with the fact that AppleCare gives you diagnostic software and better phone support. Best Buy gives you a friggin' piece of paper that most customers will simply lose anyway.
Wow! In light of recent events, that really would be impossible!
Now, I won't quibble with the belief that this is an example of free software's innovation, but type-ahead (well, vi-style, anyway) has been a feature of at least one even older free Web browser for a while now, if not others.
(For the record, the feature Without Which I Cannot Do has to be mouse gestures. Just click and drag to the left to go back a page!)
For those who don't support Slashdot's Amazon embargo, here's their link to the book. Not only are they selling the book for $35, they have 25 sample pages, including the entire index and the first half of the first chapter. (And no, I'm not in Amazon's affiliates program and don't make a dime if you buy the book using the link that I provided, as a quick glance at the URL will prove.)
For those of us under 50, here's some history of the granddaddy of all high-level programming languages.
IIRC, my former graduate advisor and professor was on the team that wrote a very early Fortran compilers at MIT in the late 50s, written entirely on punch cards. We've come a long way in ~50 years.
My boss just bought a Sidekick yesterday at the local CompUSA, and he says that the camera was included for free. So the crappy images may not justify a $30 price tag, but they probably will justify a $0 one.
This may be entirely coincidental, but the copy of When I Was Cruel that I purchased (sic) in its first week of release refused to play well in my recent-vintage Mac G4 tower. The first two songs sounded as though they'd been recorded using the same deck used to record the Watergate tapes, and the rest had mysteriously long bits drop out suddenly. Nowhere did the package or disk itself state that whether it was copy-protected in any way. So did I return it as defective? Nah, 'cause I was too lazy--and it's not such a great album that I absolutely, positively need to have MP3 copies of it for my own use. Sic transeunt iura digitalia.
From Google's "About Google News" link:
This is an interesting development for Google. Ruling out the possibility of paid placement (for now), it seems as though PageRank doesn't apply to the news aggregator. (And how would it? Stories are updated continuously.) It's not likely to be completely random, either, although such an approach could lead to some very interesting story angles.
when Google will start placing sponsored news sites' pages at the top of the each article listing. In other words, when will we see CNN's stories appearing regularly in the top billing?
From banky's bio:
OMG! George W. Bush is a low-UID Slashdotter!?! Who knew?
That's why I included the direct link to the printable version. Don't trumpet this "hole" too loudly, though; it'd be a shame for NYT to take away the ability to go directly to the printable page. At the same time, maybe this isn't as great as it looks, since I can't find any way to go directly from the home page to the printable story links without manually massaging the URLs...
No coincidence, either, since Pepsi owned Pizza Hut at the time. (The Hut, KFC, and Taco Bell were later sold as a unit and became Tricon in 1997.)