Games addictive? I don't buy it. It sounds to me like your friends don't have an addiction problem, they have a self-discipline problem. They want to forego stuff that is important but hard in favor of stuff that is entertaining and easy. It's a simple matter of short-term gratification (another level) versus long-term satisfaction (a degree). That paper can always be written tomorrow, one can always cram for the next exam, but my guildmates need me NOW!
If I were a betting man, I would wager that if they weren't invovled in Everquest, they would have found some other diversion to consume their time and cause them to drop out of college.
I don't understand why people use microwaves rather than a cheap air popper.
One word: convenience. Sad as it sounds, time isn't so much the factor as effort is. People willingly pay three times as much to reduce a a six- or seven-step process that requires attention to throwing a bag in a microwave, hitting a few buttons, then chowing down. (After all, three times dirt cheap is, well, still cheap.)
I'm not advocating microwave popcorn, just trying to explain. I guess it depends on your priorities. Personally, I don't eat popcorn unless it's already handy (e.g. someone had already made it and has some extra), so I have the most convenience of all with one single step: Eat!
Dude, a rule is a rule, it has nothing to do with semantics. For example, a rule of Civilization might be something like, "You must have researched mapmaking in order to build a Trireme." If the computer is able to make a Trireme before it has researched mapmaking, then it is cheating, pure and simple. Another rule might be something like, "It takes x number of research units to finish researching mapmaking." If the computer allows its AI players to finish researching mapmaking before it has the x number of research units, then it is cheating.
On the surface, maybe it doesn't make a difference to you, it's all just increasing the challenge. It makes a HUGE difference to me, though. When I play a game like Civilization that clearly emphasizes strategy as the main element of winning, I like to win by out-strategizing my opponent, whether it's a human or an AI. Otherwise, it feels cheap whenever I win or lose. When I win, I feel like I didn't outsmart my opponent, I simply was able to make the numbers long enough to catch up. When I lose, I feel like I didn't get outsmarted, I simply didn't make the numbers in time to be overrun by an opponent that got unfair bonuses.
Take the game of chess, for example. I've played a few computer chess games. If I set the level to übermaster, the computer didn't give the opposing AI more pieces, it still had to play by the same rules as I did and either make better moves (not very hard when playing me at chess) or lose. I think it's a reasonable expectation with games like Civilization as well. When you bump the level up, the AI should make better moves, not simply be doled out more resources than the human player. This was the point of the parent, and he was 100% right. It's a lot harder to program a smarter AI than to simply let the computer dole out extra resources, but personal opinion o' me is that it's a cop-out, a willing admission that the developer is either incapable or unwilling to make the AI smarter.
P.S. Artificial Intelligence is the correct term. The fact that the computer doesn't know anything and is only simulating thinking is already taken into account with the word "artificial." It's "fake" intelligence, an illusion created programmatically.
Before you start spouting the latest human origin by intelligent design "evidence..."
The fact that intelligent design is possible in no way suggests that it must be responsible for our existence. Some day in the not-too-inconceivable future, it might be possible to custom-design complex lifeforms. In the way-distant future, maybe it will even be possible to design lifeforms as complicated as human beings from scratch at the atomic level. However, a vast body of scientific evidence strongly points towards that not being the case here.
Hey, I may be wrong, though. If archaeologists someday dig up an atomic instamatic human-maker, I'll certainly seriously reconsider the theory of evolution as the explanation for our origin. I'm only being half facetious; my point is that while I believe the theory of evolution to be true, that belief is based on scientific evidence and is subject may change or be refined based on further scientific research and discoveries.
This is a huge difference between science and non-science. When scientists discover evidence that suggests that theories may be wrong or incomplete, they try to figure out how to resolve the inconsistencies. When evolutionists / intelligent design proponents discover evidence that suggests that the theory of evolution is correct, they either ignore it, dismiss it as false, or accuse those heathen scientists of making it up to protect their reputation.
I've never observed the existence of New York City (I know, I don't travel a lot...), but because I have a LARGE amount of convincing evidence, the vast majority of it non-contradictory, that it does indeed exist, I choose to believe it.
It doesn't take a lot of faith, it just takes a little bit of rationality.
I would show you documented examples of evolution (they're plenty enough easy to find to anyone familiar with Google), but unless you're unlike every other creationist I know, you'll simply dismiss it. Okay, I'll provide one link to whet your appetite for knowledge.
Here's an easy way to tell whether it is worth arguing with someone over evolution: Ask them what possible hard evidence could convince them that creationism (or intelligent design) is wrong. If the answer is none, there is nothing that could possibly convince them, then don't waste your time. They're beyond rational thinking.
As for me, there are many ways to convince me that the theory of evolution is a bunch of hooey. Heck, there have been scientific tests that suddenly disproved commonly accepted theories before and sent scientists back to the drawing boards. The evidence would have to be verifiable, logical, and pretty impressive to overcome the amount of evidence we have today that supports evolution, but at least I'm open-minded enough to admit that it can be done.
Of course, probably the most convincing way to change my mind would be if God Himself told me burning bush-style that it's not true. Heck, it worked with the apostle Thomas, but I guess that normal guy me just isn't important enough for such an appearance.
Before you start spouting the latest intelligent design "evidence," know that I've already read it. The problem is that all of this evidence is not analyzed to discover the truth, it is gathered with the express purpose of supporting a conclusion that is already assumed to be correct. That's bad science, and doesn't hold water with me.
It's unethical to accept money for publishing? As opposed to what, not being published at all?
If your knowledge isn't shared, what's the point of research? And if traditional academic journals won't publish your research because of a simple lack of space, why shouldn't you seek alternative outlets?
It seems to me that this is a wonderful thing. Persistent knowledge--that's the key to human intellectual evolution, and what makes us so much smarter than those other dumb monkeys. Anything that facilitates this process will only make us collectively smarter.
Maybe I'm just being dense (no pun intended), but if the density of the bits outpaces the read head's ability to keep up with the peaks, couldn't you just add another read head and have each one read every other bit?
Just my anecdotal experience is that hard drives are bigger and more reliable these days than they were back in the days of those old clunkers. Especially when you take into consider the higher demands we're placing on them.
I have nothing against patents for true innovation. What I have contempt for is patents that stifle innovation. This is the antithesis of why the system was created, and a large part of how it works now. Without going into too much depth (plenty of discussion around this already), that is what the modern-day patent system is being used as: a weapon against competitors.
What exactly is the difference? It's hard to say and impossible to spell out in detail. Subjectively, I know that crimping the edges of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich isn't true innovation. Figuring out a way to make toasters may be innovative, depending on what that way is. If it's something stupid like "run my toaster-making machines faster," then it's not.
The thing that gets under our (the god damn geek anti-patent people's) skin is that the patent office now doesn't bother to figure out the difference. They just rubber-stamp anything you come up with and let the courts figure it out later if need be.
Of course, letting the courts figure it out is usually a prohibitively expensive and time-consuming process, but they don't care, and there are not (yet) enough people out there protesting in the streets to change anything. So companies with deep pockets continue to use and abuse the system. The end result is that survival in a competitive marketplace has little to do with how clever you are, but how much money you have backing you.
Yankee Group surveyed executives at over 500 companies, asking them questions on factors that influence TCO such as deployment costs, the cost of downtime, and the time and staff associated with security attacks.
This isn't offtopic, I think the above quote is what the person was trying to draw an analogy with. It sort of brushed me the wrong way, too.
The thing is that in general, executives these days are out of tune with what's going on in IT. I know, it's supposedly their jobs, but it's sadly true. When they say "TCO," most are just referring to the beancounters' bottom lines. They think that they're accounting for deployment costs, the cost of downtime, and the time and staff associated with security attacks, but in reality, they're just looking at the cost of equipment and people's salaries. If you survey the IT personnel themselves, the footsoldiers in the field, you will probably come up with a very different picture.
For example, I've worked at companies where the head of IT refused to provide resources for complete backups. On the bottom line, it looked like the TCO was lower, because we weren't having to buy tapes, backup software, etc. What was not taken into account is that we were skating dangerously close--at times, one hard drive failure--to being out of business due to a total data loss.
This kind of thinking is what leads to things such as massive outsourcing, understaffing, and the like.
So surveying executives about technical matters such as comparing Windows and Linux is about as productive as asking them about the quality of food in a cafeteria in which they never eat. They're asking the wrong people the wrong questions and drawing useless and misleading conclusions from it.
At least, that was my take on this comment. Hang on, let me go survey some plumbers about its relevance on Slashdot...
From the sound of it, I think that the "third to a quarter of students' final grade" is like credit for a homework assignment--doing the first draft and submitting it to be machine-graded. The other 2/3 to 3/4 is probably the grade on the final essay.
I have a Spanish class, and in it, we have to work machine-graded WebCT multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank exercises. It counts for some credit as our homework, but the lion's share of our grade comes from our manually graded written exercises and our test.
My point is, as the parent suggested, it sounds like he's right--the program's assessment of your work is not the grade you receive on the essay. Likely, it is merely credit given for going through the time and effort of having it check your work before you turn in the final product.
Not that I hope multitudes don't buy this, because any support of such and effort is good, but why would anyone buy it when you can just look it up and possibly get better updated results online?
Bravo, I wish I still had my mod point from yesterday.:-)
Daylight Savings Time is one of the most idiotic concepts we have around today. I cannot believe that people actually signed on to the concept of arbitrarily moving clocks around twice a year. If I were around when this idea first started, I would have mocked those people mercilessly.
Several places do not observe Daylight Savings Time at all. In the United States, the entire state of Arizona stays at GMT -7 all year 'round. Funny, I don't read news story about how many more kids are killed from walking to school in the dark in Arizona, how much more energy that state uses relative to the others, or how much more depressed Arizonans are than people in other states! Parts of Indiana are the same way.
Congress needs to repeal everything that has to do with Daylight Savings Time and pass a law prohibiting it (to keep states from doing it themselves). If companies care about when it's daylight, let them adjust their hours accordingly. My company already does that in the summer, even WITH Daylight Savings Time.
If you don't like when the sun comes up and goes down, too bad. Complain to God for making it that way. I don't like having to get up and leave my house before dawn to go to work. The way I see it, at least I have nature and thousands of years of human history on my side.
I wonder how much productivity is lost each year at the beginning of DST because of people forgetting to dink around with their clocks? Or as is most likely the case, people CLAIMING to forget? It's the one day a year when everyone has an automatic excuse for being late to work and everyone's bosses say, "Oh yeah, that's understandable." About half my office showed up late.
Nice reference to the redefinition of pi, by the way. It certainly does apply here. And I really like your thoughts about how DST redefines arbitrarily what noon means. I hadn't thought about that, but it makes a LOT of sense. And to the other poster, making a law mandating when businesses open and close IS kind of silly. I think that is the parent's point--it's less silly than the concept of Daylight Savings Time, yet we still foolishly screw around with our clocks twice a year.
If you haven't learned anything since the 6th grade, then I pity you.
I didn't say I haven't learned anything since 6th grade, I said that I've KNOWN this since 6th grade. Did anyone else misunderstand this? And I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply that all liberals think the same thing I do, so I take back the comment that I'm a liberal.
it has nothing to do with geography or the size of the states
I was referring to the geography of where one lives, and to small POPULATION states, of course. I thought that would have been obvious by my reference to Wyoming, Montana, and especially Alaska as small states. And it is only PARTLY based on population, which is my probem with the system. The other part of the equation is that every state gets an extra two electors regardless of its population.
Munch on these simple examples: In 2000, Wyoming's population was 6.0% of Georgia's (where I live), but they have 20% of the electoral vote of Georgia's. Wyoming accounts for 0.18% of the U.S. population, but 0.56% of the electoral vote. If you happen to live in Wyoming, your vote counts over three times what it should based on your state's population because of the skew in how the number of electors is based on factors other than population.
I think that idea is un-Constitutional at best.
No, it's not. As I said, some states do it already. Since you won't take my word for it, I had to go and look it up. The two states that do it now are Maine and Nebraska. The Constitution simply leaves it up to the states to decide how to select electors. In theory, a state could just appoint them without even HAVING a presidential election. (Though I doubt that would go over so well in the next state legislative election.)
Candidates hit every state, with Hawaii and Alaska getting visits from VP candidates
I reiterate, they HARDLY ever visit small (population) states now. Maybe an hour or two here or there. Doing away with the electoral college wouldn't change that, it would be pretty much the same.
And I still don't see any convincing argument as to what is wrong with this concept: If more voters vote for a Republican presidential candidate (as they did in 2004), then that Republican should be President. If more voters vote for a Democratic presidential candidate (as they did in 2000), then that Democrat should be President. It doesn't matter whether those voters live in New York, Texas, Alaska, Wyoming, or a U.S. military base in Germany. This is a NATIONAL election; if you are an eligible voter and choose to exercise that right, then your vote for President should count just like any other.
That kind of system--everyone's vote counting equally--IS unConstitutional, and it needs to be changed. But as long as people don't feel like they're being screwed, it won't. In 2000, the Democrats (rightfully) felt like they were screwed out of the election, but it didn't do any good since the Republicans were in control. If Kerry had won the electoral vote and Bush the popular vote in 2004, then the Republicans would have (rightfully) felt like they were screwed out of the election. With almost everyone feeling screwed, the system would have finally been fixed. But no, the Republicans eeked by in Ohio, and because most don't have the brains to realize how close they were to being bitten (nor do most Democrats, but they now have firsthand knowledge), everyone has to keep living with this harebrained idea until yet more people get screwed.:-(
How about getting good candidates to run before you try to fix a non-broken system to elect them.
Well, as long as I'm arguing and off-topic, I might as well be arguing and way off-topic. Wow, that first replier is RIGHT on the money! For real, if more people want a Democrat to lead us than a Republican, what the hell does it matter where they live!?
doing away with the electoral college would heavily favor the Democrats
How do you figure? First of all, if more people vote for a Democratic candidate, are you suggesting that he or she shouldn't have a "favored" outcome? Why? Because they live in a big state? If all the Democrats dispersed themselves geographically across the country, does that mean that their votes are for some reason now more valid? That's ridiculous, and only a thinly veiled excuse for the real reason: you think they should lose because he or she is a Democrat, the will of the people be damned.
Second of all, as incomprehensible as it still is to me, George W. won the popular vote in 2004. It seems to me that doing away with the electoral college doesn't favor anything except the will of the people.
First, there is something philosophically nice about the person who gets the most votes winning an election. The electoral college is an obstacle to that. I am a liberal, but I've been saying that ever since sixth grade or so when someone first explained to me what the electoral college was. I would still say it even if Kerry had won the electoral vote and Bush the popular vote. In fact, I was really rooting for that outcome. It will probably never be changed unless both parties get burned in quick succession.
Second, in most states (all but one or two), there's no provision for splitting up the electoral vote. For example, Georgia has 13 electoral votes. It doesn't matter whether 50.1% or 99.9% of Georgia votes for George Bush, he gets all 13 electoral votes. Why does he not get 7 with the loser in Georgia getting 6? Because it's a dumb idea.
The problem is that small states have too much power. There is already a provision to balance it out in Congress with each state having two senators. As for the presidency, I don't like the idea that someone's vote being worth more or less collectively than mine just because of our respective geographic locations.
And you're complaining that candidates would never visit small states? They hardly ever do now. How many trips did the candidates make to small states such as Wyoming, Montana, Alaska, etc. in 2004? And is it really better the way it is now, where candidates never visit non-battleground states?
What files? I can't find anything indicating what you claim, and given that Windows XP N hasn't been released yet, I can't imagine that anyone has actually tested this.
I'm sure that comparing the installations image-to-image would yield a few differences, but based solely on what I've read, I would expect that a Windows XP Home Edition N installation + Windows Media Player would be functionally identical to a Windows XP Home Edition installation.
He makes money from doing something illegal. Drug dealers probably make more money than me, too, but that's not a good thing.
Plus, as pointed out, at least I'm pretty sure that my money-making method (i.e. working at a so-called legitimate job) will sustain me through the rest of my life. His money-making method will get him sued into bankrupcy (case in point) and perhaps even thrown in jail.
Censoring and controlling one kind of speech IS very different from blocking other types of content. This is another case of thinking that the right to free speech is completely unlimited.
First of all, you do NOT have the right to force your way into someone's house and MAKE them listen to you. This is what spammers effectively do by using such fradulent practices such as bogus opt-out links, spoofing legitimate Web sites, etc.
Second, you do NOT have the right to hide behind the First Amendment to commit crimes, such as phishing for personal information, stealing bank account numbers by telling people they will get money for aiding financial transfers, advertising pirated software, etc.
Spam IS a problem, even if you don't give your e-mail address to spammers. Why? Because as long as you give your e-mail address to ANYONE, there is a risk that it will get to spammers. I've told all my friends and family to please not give my e-mail address out to people, yet I still occasionally receive crap like e-birthday cards and such, which is how it gets distributed. Also, people I know occasionally get viruses and/or worms on their computers which steals their contact list (including my e-mail address). Or, they CC me on an e-mail that also goes to a third party I don't even know who has a virus or worm that distributes my e-mail address. The only way to protect against this kind of thing is keep your e-mail address completely to yourself, at which time you have rendered your e-mail address completely useless.
I don't see how Microsoft going after spammers has anything to do with DRM. The former is trying to build a better relationship with their customers by improving their service. The second is trying to screw their customers by improving their relationship with another big industry. Ideally, Microsoft would like a reputation of being big business-friendly AND customer-friendly, which is why they're doing both at the same time.
I don't like your real solution to spam. My ISP provides a means of using unlimited throwaway addresses by using aliases that can easily be changed. But this takes a few minutes to do each time which is an unreasonable demand to protect what should be private information to begin with. And it also is unreasonable to expect Joe Normal who isn't a computer guru to jump through these hoops every time he wants to buy something over the Internet. Plus, given the means of e-mail address distribution that I just listed, how would that help? Am I supposed to create a throwaway e-mail address to give to each of my friends?
Some big companies DO care about protecting privacy because it is in their best interest to foster good relationship with their customers (yes, even Microsoft). But given the total lack of willingness to comply with any code of law or moral standards by spammers, these companies are fighting an uphill battle. Anything they can do within the law to make that fight easier is worthwhile in my book.
The article mentions that there were several name alternatives. The Windows XP Home Edition N was a compromise between Microsoft and the EU. I assume that there were probably more descriptive names on the list the Microsoft rejected, and it sounds like the EU didn't like the Reduced Media Edition name because it would effectively be steering consumers away from buying it in favor of the edition with Media Player.
And the N version isn't crippled--Windows Media Player can be easily and freely downloaded and installed from Microsoft's site. If anything, I wish the EU had forced the N edition to have even more de-integration of the OS and its applications so that people would have more choice. Have an edition that is nothing but the OS and simple utilities (text editor, calculator, and configuration tools), and everything else optionally installable via the Web site or a second disc.
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Games addictive? I don't buy it. It sounds to me like your friends don't have an addiction problem, they have a self-discipline problem. They want to forego stuff that is important but hard in favor of stuff that is entertaining and easy. It's a simple matter of short-term gratification (another level) versus long-term satisfaction (a degree). That paper can always be written tomorrow, one can always cram for the next exam, but my guildmates need me NOW!
If I were a betting man, I would wager that if they weren't invovled in Everquest, they would have found some other diversion to consume their time and cause them to drop out of college.
I don't understand why people use microwaves rather than a cheap air popper.
One word: convenience. Sad as it sounds, time isn't so much the factor as effort is. People willingly pay three times as much to reduce a a six- or seven-step process that requires attention to throwing a bag in a microwave, hitting a few buttons, then chowing down. (After all, three times dirt cheap is, well, still cheap.)
I'm not advocating microwave popcorn, just trying to explain. I guess it depends on your priorities. Personally, I don't eat popcorn unless it's already handy (e.g. someone had already made it and has some extra), so I have the most convenience of all with one single step: Eat!
Dude, a rule is a rule, it has nothing to do with semantics. For example, a rule of Civilization might be something like, "You must have researched mapmaking in order to build a Trireme." If the computer is able to make a Trireme before it has researched mapmaking, then it is cheating, pure and simple. Another rule might be something like, "It takes x number of research units to finish researching mapmaking." If the computer allows its AI players to finish researching mapmaking before it has the x number of research units, then it is cheating.
On the surface, maybe it doesn't make a difference to you, it's all just increasing the challenge. It makes a HUGE difference to me, though. When I play a game like Civilization that clearly emphasizes strategy as the main element of winning, I like to win by out-strategizing my opponent, whether it's a human or an AI. Otherwise, it feels cheap whenever I win or lose. When I win, I feel like I didn't outsmart my opponent, I simply was able to make the numbers long enough to catch up. When I lose, I feel like I didn't get outsmarted, I simply didn't make the numbers in time to be overrun by an opponent that got unfair bonuses.
Take the game of chess, for example. I've played a few computer chess games. If I set the level to übermaster, the computer didn't give the opposing AI more pieces, it still had to play by the same rules as I did and either make better moves (not very hard when playing me at chess) or lose. I think it's a reasonable expectation with games like Civilization as well. When you bump the level up, the AI should make better moves, not simply be doled out more resources than the human player. This was the point of the parent, and he was 100% right. It's a lot harder to program a smarter AI than to simply let the computer dole out extra resources, but personal opinion o' me is that it's a cop-out, a willing admission that the developer is either incapable or unwilling to make the AI smarter.
P.S. Artificial Intelligence is the correct term. The fact that the computer doesn't know anything and is only simulating thinking is already taken into account with the word "artificial." It's "fake" intelligence, an illusion created programmatically.
Perhaps I should clarify:
Before you start spouting the latest human origin by intelligent design "evidence..."
The fact that intelligent design is possible in no way suggests that it must be responsible for our existence. Some day in the not-too-inconceivable future, it might be possible to custom-design complex lifeforms. In the way-distant future, maybe it will even be possible to design lifeforms as complicated as human beings from scratch at the atomic level. However, a vast body of scientific evidence strongly points towards that not being the case here.
Hey, I may be wrong, though. If archaeologists someday dig up an atomic instamatic human-maker, I'll certainly seriously reconsider the theory of evolution as the explanation for our origin. I'm only being half facetious; my point is that while I believe the theory of evolution to be true, that belief is based on scientific evidence and is subject may change or be refined based on further scientific research and discoveries.
This is a huge difference between science and non-science. When scientists discover evidence that suggests that theories may be wrong or incomplete, they try to figure out how to resolve the inconsistencies. When evolutionists / intelligent design proponents discover evidence that suggests that the theory of evolution is correct, they either ignore it, dismiss it as false, or accuse those heathen scientists of making it up to protect their reputation.
I've never observed the existence of New York City (I know, I don't travel a lot...), but because I have a LARGE amount of convincing evidence, the vast majority of it non-contradictory, that it does indeed exist, I choose to believe it.
It doesn't take a lot of faith, it just takes a little bit of rationality.
I would show you documented examples of evolution (they're plenty enough easy to find to anyone familiar with Google), but unless you're unlike every other creationist I know, you'll simply dismiss it. Okay, I'll provide one link to whet your appetite for knowledge.
Here's an easy way to tell whether it is worth arguing with someone over evolution: Ask them what possible hard evidence could convince them that creationism (or intelligent design) is wrong. If the answer is none, there is nothing that could possibly convince them, then don't waste your time. They're beyond rational thinking.
As for me, there are many ways to convince me that the theory of evolution is a bunch of hooey. Heck, there have been scientific tests that suddenly disproved commonly accepted theories before and sent scientists back to the drawing boards. The evidence would have to be verifiable, logical, and pretty impressive to overcome the amount of evidence we have today that supports evolution, but at least I'm open-minded enough to admit that it can be done.
Of course, probably the most convincing way to change my mind would be if God Himself told me burning bush-style that it's not true. Heck, it worked with the apostle Thomas, but I guess that normal guy me just isn't important enough for such an appearance.
Before you start spouting the latest intelligent design "evidence," know that I've already read it. The problem is that all of this evidence is not analyzed to discover the truth, it is gathered with the express purpose of supporting a conclusion that is already assumed to be correct. That's bad science, and doesn't hold water with me.
It's unethical to accept money for publishing? As opposed to what, not being published at all?
If your knowledge isn't shared, what's the point of research? And if traditional academic journals won't publish your research because of a simple lack of space, why shouldn't you seek alternative outlets?
It seems to me that this is a wonderful thing. Persistent knowledge--that's the key to human intellectual evolution, and what makes us so much smarter than those other dumb monkeys. Anything that facilitates this process will only make us collectively smarter.
Maybe I'm just being dense (no pun intended), but if the density of the bits outpaces the read head's ability to keep up with the peaks, couldn't you just add another read head and have each one read every other bit?
Just my anecdotal experience is that hard drives are bigger and more reliable these days than they were back in the days of those old clunkers. Especially when you take into consider the higher demands we're placing on them.
This is pretty old news (C|Net, January 2003).
I have nothing against patents for true innovation. What I have contempt for is patents that stifle innovation. This is the antithesis of why the system was created, and a large part of how it works now. Without going into too much depth (plenty of discussion around this already), that is what the modern-day patent system is being used as: a weapon against competitors.
What exactly is the difference? It's hard to say and impossible to spell out in detail. Subjectively, I know that crimping the edges of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich isn't true innovation. Figuring out a way to make toasters may be innovative, depending on what that way is. If it's something stupid like "run my toaster-making machines faster," then it's not.
The thing that gets under our (the god damn geek anti-patent people's) skin is that the patent office now doesn't bother to figure out the difference. They just rubber-stamp anything you come up with and let the courts figure it out later if need be.
Of course, letting the courts figure it out is usually a prohibitively expensive and time-consuming process, but they don't care, and there are not (yet) enough people out there protesting in the streets to change anything. So companies with deep pockets continue to use and abuse the system. The end result is that survival in a competitive marketplace has little to do with how clever you are, but how much money you have backing you.
I didn't get locked up, but I once had a cashier get their supervisor's approval before she would accept some Susan B. Anthony dollar coins from me.
I also often get $2 bills from the bank. They make great tips for lunch. It's just a little something to stand out.
Contrary to popular belief, $2 bills are still in circulation. You can ask for them at the bank and get as many as you want.
Here's a link (registration required) to the source at the Baltimore Sun.
Yankee Group surveyed executives at over 500 companies, asking them questions on factors that influence TCO such as deployment costs, the cost of downtime, and the time and staff associated with security attacks.
This isn't offtopic, I think the above quote is what the person was trying to draw an analogy with. It sort of brushed me the wrong way, too.
The thing is that in general, executives these days are out of tune with what's going on in IT. I know, it's supposedly their jobs, but it's sadly true. When they say "TCO," most are just referring to the beancounters' bottom lines. They think that they're accounting for deployment costs, the cost of downtime, and the time and staff associated with security attacks, but in reality, they're just looking at the cost of equipment and people's salaries. If you survey the IT personnel themselves, the footsoldiers in the field, you will probably come up with a very different picture.
For example, I've worked at companies where the head of IT refused to provide resources for complete backups. On the bottom line, it looked like the TCO was lower, because we weren't having to buy tapes, backup software, etc. What was not taken into account is that we were skating dangerously close--at times, one hard drive failure--to being out of business due to a total data loss.
This kind of thinking is what leads to things such as massive outsourcing, understaffing, and the like.
So surveying executives about technical matters such as comparing Windows and Linux is about as productive as asking them about the quality of food in a cafeteria in which they never eat. They're asking the wrong people the wrong questions and drawing useless and misleading conclusions from it.
At least, that was my take on this comment. Hang on, let me go survey some plumbers about its relevance on Slashdot...
From the sound of it, I think that the "third to a quarter of students' final grade" is like credit for a homework assignment--doing the first draft and submitting it to be machine-graded. The other 2/3 to 3/4 is probably the grade on the final essay.
I have a Spanish class, and in it, we have to work machine-graded WebCT multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank exercises. It counts for some credit as our homework, but the lion's share of our grade comes from our manually graded written exercises and our test.
My point is, as the parent suggested, it sounds like he's right--the program's assessment of your work is not the grade you receive on the essay. Likely, it is merely credit given for going through the time and effort of having it check your work before you turn in the final product.
Post my real name, are you crazy? As if I don't get enough spam, junk mail, and telemarketing calls already!?
Not that I hope multitudes don't buy this, because any support of such and effort is good, but why would anyone buy it when you can just look it up and possibly get better updated results online?
It doesn't return answers for the world's most important questions: "Who is your daddy?"...
Weird, when I put that it, it told me exactly who your father is. I'd be concerned if I were you...
Bravo, I wish I still had my mod point from yesterday. :-)
Daylight Savings Time is one of the most idiotic concepts we have around today. I cannot believe that people actually signed on to the concept of arbitrarily moving clocks around twice a year. If I were around when this idea first started, I would have mocked those people mercilessly.
Several places do not observe Daylight Savings Time at all. In the United States, the entire state of Arizona stays at GMT -7 all year 'round. Funny, I don't read news story about how many more kids are killed from walking to school in the dark in Arizona, how much more energy that state uses relative to the others, or how much more depressed Arizonans are than people in other states! Parts of Indiana are the same way.
Congress needs to repeal everything that has to do with Daylight Savings Time and pass a law prohibiting it (to keep states from doing it themselves). If companies care about when it's daylight, let them adjust their hours accordingly. My company already does that in the summer, even WITH Daylight Savings Time.
If you don't like when the sun comes up and goes down, too bad. Complain to God for making it that way. I don't like having to get up and leave my house before dawn to go to work. The way I see it, at least I have nature and thousands of years of human history on my side.
I wonder how much productivity is lost each year at the beginning of DST because of people forgetting to dink around with their clocks? Or as is most likely the case, people CLAIMING to forget? It's the one day a year when everyone has an automatic excuse for being late to work and everyone's bosses say, "Oh yeah, that's understandable." About half my office showed up late.
Nice reference to the redefinition of pi, by the way. It certainly does apply here. And I really like your thoughts about how DST redefines arbitrarily what noon means. I hadn't thought about that, but it makes a LOT of sense. And to the other poster, making a law mandating when businesses open and close IS kind of silly. I think that is the parent's point--it's less silly than the concept of Daylight Savings Time, yet we still foolishly screw around with our clocks twice a year.
If you haven't learned anything since the 6th grade, then I pity you.
I didn't say I haven't learned anything since 6th grade, I said that I've KNOWN this since 6th grade. Did anyone else misunderstand this? And I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply that all liberals think the same thing I do, so I take back the comment that I'm a liberal.
it has nothing to do with geography or the size of the statesI was referring to the geography of where one lives, and to small POPULATION states, of course. I thought that would have been obvious by my reference to Wyoming, Montana, and especially Alaska as small states. And it is only PARTLY based on population, which is my probem with the system. The other part of the equation is that every state gets an extra two electors regardless of its population.
Munch on these simple examples: In 2000, Wyoming's population was 6.0% of Georgia's (where I live), but they have 20% of the electoral vote of Georgia's. Wyoming accounts for 0.18% of the U.S. population, but 0.56% of the electoral vote. If you happen to live in Wyoming, your vote counts over three times what it should based on your state's population because of the skew in how the number of electors is based on factors other than population.I think that idea is un-Constitutional at best.
No, it's not. As I said, some states do it already. Since you won't take my word for it, I had to go and look it up. The two states that do it now are Maine and Nebraska. The Constitution simply leaves it up to the states to decide how to select electors. In theory, a state could just appoint them without even HAVING a presidential election. (Though I doubt that would go over so well in the next state legislative election.)
Candidates hit every state, with Hawaii and Alaska getting visits from VP candidates
I reiterate, they HARDLY ever visit small (population) states now. Maybe an hour or two here or there. Doing away with the electoral college wouldn't change that, it would be pretty much the same.
And I still don't see any convincing argument as to what is wrong with this concept: If more voters vote for a Republican presidential candidate (as they did in 2004), then that Republican should be President. If more voters vote for a Democratic presidential candidate (as they did in 2000), then that Democrat should be President. It doesn't matter whether those voters live in New York, Texas, Alaska, Wyoming, or a U.S. military base in Germany. This is a NATIONAL election; if you are an eligible voter and choose to exercise that right, then your vote for President should count just like any other.
That kind of system--everyone's vote counting equally--IS unConstitutional, and it needs to be changed. But as long as people don't feel like they're being screwed, it won't. In 2000, the Democrats (rightfully) felt like they were screwed out of the election, but it didn't do any good since the Republicans were in control. If Kerry had won the electoral vote and Bush the popular vote in 2004, then the Republicans would have (rightfully) felt like they were screwed out of the election. With almost everyone feeling screwed, the system would have finally been fixed. But no, the Republicans eeked by in Ohio, and because most don't have the brains to realize how close they were to being bitten (nor do most Democrats, but they now have firsthand knowledge), everyone has to keep living with this harebrained idea until yet more people get screwed. :-(
How about getting good candidates to run before you try to fix a non-broken system to elect them.
Is there any particular reason we can't do both?
Well, as long as I'm arguing and off-topic, I might as well be arguing and way off-topic. Wow, that first replier is RIGHT on the money! For real, if more people want a Democrat to lead us than a Republican, what the hell does it matter where they live!?
doing away with the electoral college would heavily favor the Democrats
How do you figure? First of all, if more people vote for a Democratic candidate, are you suggesting that he or she shouldn't have a "favored" outcome? Why? Because they live in a big state? If all the Democrats dispersed themselves geographically across the country, does that mean that their votes are for some reason now more valid? That's ridiculous, and only a thinly veiled excuse for the real reason: you think they should lose because he or she is a Democrat, the will of the people be damned.
Second of all, as incomprehensible as it still is to me, George W. won the popular vote in 2004. It seems to me that doing away with the electoral college doesn't favor anything except the will of the people.
Me too.
The word you're looking for is there, not their.
Maybe the Slashdot editors do have StyleWriter; I hear that it doesn't catch everything. Sorry, that just struck me as funny. ;-)
It is crap for a couple of reasons.
First, there is something philosophically nice about the person who gets the most votes winning an election. The electoral college is an obstacle to that. I am a liberal, but I've been saying that ever since sixth grade or so when someone first explained to me what the electoral college was. I would still say it even if Kerry had won the electoral vote and Bush the popular vote. In fact, I was really rooting for that outcome. It will probably never be changed unless both parties get burned in quick succession.
Second, in most states (all but one or two), there's no provision for splitting up the electoral vote. For example, Georgia has 13 electoral votes. It doesn't matter whether 50.1% or 99.9% of Georgia votes for George Bush, he gets all 13 electoral votes. Why does he not get 7 with the loser in Georgia getting 6? Because it's a dumb idea.
The problem is that small states have too much power. There is already a provision to balance it out in Congress with each state having two senators. As for the presidency, I don't like the idea that someone's vote being worth more or less collectively than mine just because of our respective geographic locations.
And you're complaining that candidates would never visit small states? They hardly ever do now. How many trips did the candidates make to small states such as Wyoming, Montana, Alaska, etc. in 2004? And is it really better the way it is now, where candidates never visit non-battleground states?
What files? I can't find anything indicating what you claim, and given that Windows XP N hasn't been released yet, I can't imagine that anyone has actually tested this.
I'm sure that comparing the installations image-to-image would yield a few differences, but based solely on what I've read, I would expect that a Windows XP Home Edition N installation + Windows Media Player would be functionally identical to a Windows XP Home Edition installation.
Do you know something different?
He makes money from doing something illegal. Drug dealers probably make more money than me, too, but that's not a good thing.
Plus, as pointed out, at least I'm pretty sure that my money-making method (i.e. working at a so-called legitimate job) will sustain me through the rest of my life. His money-making method will get him sued into bankrupcy (case in point) and perhaps even thrown in jail.
Yeah, I like my way better, too.
Censoring and controlling one kind of speech IS very different from blocking other types of content. This is another case of thinking that the right to free speech is completely unlimited.
First of all, you do NOT have the right to force your way into someone's house and MAKE them listen to you. This is what spammers effectively do by using such fradulent practices such as bogus opt-out links, spoofing legitimate Web sites, etc.
Second, you do NOT have the right to hide behind the First Amendment to commit crimes, such as phishing for personal information, stealing bank account numbers by telling people they will get money for aiding financial transfers, advertising pirated software, etc.
Spam IS a problem, even if you don't give your e-mail address to spammers. Why? Because as long as you give your e-mail address to ANYONE, there is a risk that it will get to spammers. I've told all my friends and family to please not give my e-mail address out to people, yet I still occasionally receive crap like e-birthday cards and such, which is how it gets distributed. Also, people I know occasionally get viruses and/or worms on their computers which steals their contact list (including my e-mail address). Or, they CC me on an e-mail that also goes to a third party I don't even know who has a virus or worm that distributes my e-mail address. The only way to protect against this kind of thing is keep your e-mail address completely to yourself, at which time you have rendered your e-mail address completely useless.
I don't see how Microsoft going after spammers has anything to do with DRM. The former is trying to build a better relationship with their customers by improving their service. The second is trying to screw their customers by improving their relationship with another big industry. Ideally, Microsoft would like a reputation of being big business-friendly AND customer-friendly, which is why they're doing both at the same time.
I don't like your real solution to spam. My ISP provides a means of using unlimited throwaway addresses by using aliases that can easily be changed. But this takes a few minutes to do each time which is an unreasonable demand to protect what should be private information to begin with. And it also is unreasonable to expect Joe Normal who isn't a computer guru to jump through these hoops every time he wants to buy something over the Internet. Plus, given the means of e-mail address distribution that I just listed, how would that help? Am I supposed to create a throwaway e-mail address to give to each of my friends?
Some big companies DO care about protecting privacy because it is in their best interest to foster good relationship with their customers (yes, even Microsoft). But given the total lack of willingness to comply with any code of law or moral standards by spammers, these companies are fighting an uphill battle. Anything they can do within the law to make that fight easier is worthwhile in my book.
The article mentions that there were several name alternatives. The Windows XP Home Edition N was a compromise between Microsoft and the EU. I assume that there were probably more descriptive names on the list the Microsoft rejected, and it sounds like the EU didn't like the Reduced Media Edition name because it would effectively be steering consumers away from buying it in favor of the edition with Media Player.
And the N version isn't crippled--Windows Media Player can be easily and freely downloaded and installed from Microsoft's site. If anything, I wish the EU had forced the N edition to have even more de-integration of the OS and its applications so that people would have more choice. Have an edition that is nothing but the OS and simple utilities (text editor, calculator, and configuration tools), and everything else optionally installable via the Web site or a second disc.