from a shareholder point of view, it can be very very attractive What's attractive about lower dividend and a less economic company?
Investors invest to make money, and if they use their money for charity later that's great, but I doubt many would like investment and donation merged without their consents.
You can follow the links in the article to the people who were responsible for the pictures. Since this is academia, I imagine most people would be only too happy to supply you with a copy.
There's one readily available:
http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home/HYYang/images/NanoChnPainting.jpg
It's not like he didn't see it coming -- "Unauthorized use of this domain gives me full rights to post any emails involved using the unauthorized address. Don't like it? Don't use it." The website is a blog based on the email he receives at the domain. Exploitative it may be, but I thought most folks with sense used "noreply@ourcompany.com" or variations thereof.
Having spoken at length to Daisy (http://www.leedberg.com/glsoft/daisy/), it seems that after a while a simple AI can be taught enough to become fairly human. Daisy starts with no language, and simply learns a vocabulary from the people with which she speaks. Since the test of "human interaction" is subjective, and Daisy is formed from your conversations, she becomes pretty realistic, and also likeable. On the other hand, people who are nothing like me are more difficult to get along with. Are we not testing "how like me is this?", not "how human is it?"?
The invention would allow an English speaker, for example, to use the keypad of any mobile phone to enter Chinese characters
Google has applications which run on 'phones -- I use the java Gmail app on mine. This could just as easily be a software patent for more 3rd party products, rather than their own hardware. Google make software which runs on PCs, but that doesn't mean that they sell them.
It's not surprising that interfering with a living thing in a very clumsy manner causes problems. It is -- and always has been -- about what is a tolerable level of damage to do. I don't know, but I can't think cattle branding is very healthy.
We make compromises on health all the time for convenience and aesthetics -- while most cosmetics are not technically harmful, spraying aluminium on your underarms* or using make-up is not going to give you health benefits. It's easier to take the car to work not cycle or walk (unless you walk down the same road).
*No, it's washing which is the healthy part to not smelling.
The only reason this is even news is that the big C is involved. We "civilised" people make hundreds of choices at the expense of our long term physical or mental health and this is not a novel situation. It will go ahead anyway if the benefits are great and people aren't instantly terrified of the c-word, else it will die out.
The whole method is flawed if you're going to let people become a threat and then try to find them. People aren't --contrary to popular belief-- born with an urge to commit acts of terrorism. The people who do the dirty work are typically the vulnerable, young and easy to incite. These people are in relatively great supply compared to the people organising and radicalising.
The real problem is the supply of money. Without money no terrorist network can function, training and supplying insurgents of any sort costs a heck of a lot to do. It's not about whichever ideal people think they're striving for, it's political manipulation and money behind it. The US would make more ground investigating the US bank accounts of certain very rich nations who export petrochemicals and use profits to make this whole thing happen. Terrorism isn't a standard response, it's a political attack and must not be treated like petty crime.
I've not mentioned any brand of terrorism, many fit the bill -- please don't think I'm stereotyping here.
"Just because people use Linux does not mean they do not play video games. Thats why we all have windows boxes so we can play the games"
Err.. then you're a windows user who also runs linux, from a commercial point of view. I know there are some linux-compatable games, but if you have a windows PC you are not the market niche of "linux-only gamer" you suggest. Moreover, since "we all have windows boxes" there is no linux niche worth speaking of. The whole point is that in this medium, the consumer still has to work to fit with the vendor, be it in hardware or software requirements. This isn't like food where specialist needs are catered for, it's like the movie industry where it's their format or nothing*.
I know this one will be disputed, but Singapore. Who else has had 8% real growth recently? If you don't count toxic-everything China the country's the economic powerhouse of the region. Even if you do, a country with a standard of living this high and this much economic growth is hardly normal. Furthermore the govt. owns massive chunks of the country and so on.
Now you can mod me down for being obstreperous and anti-American.
DirectX is one of the few things that Microsoft controls in its entirety. While the hardware and the drivers are (were) outside their control, DX is probably the only thing MS can withhold from users of XP without someone else devising a work-around. Come to it, are there any other "killer features" of vista (even if you assume blu-ray, etc. is mature)?
Sure, it's bad for games and indeed gamers, needlessly straining the hardware more for one thing, not to mention content-protection, buying vista, etc., but it's a gamble MS are taking to force users onto their OS. Of course, it will shrink the DX10 market and thus slow graphics development of games. Who knows, maybe a little emphasis on other things would be good for the industry?
I suppose this explains why MS has been so reticent to start afresh with the codebase until now. Even basic things are buggy and it's costing the reputation of the latest roll-out.
Pushing Vista too early is only going to hinder long-term deployment.
It's nice to see something positive about NASA, I expect they're still fighting pretty hard to remain relevant to the US taxpayer. Furthermore, the whole "drunken astronauts" debacle didn't show them off in a good light. NASA is, of course, a huge financial black hole (sorry) in itself, but the spin-off products work their way into consumer sectors, so it's important that funding continues. With enough strains on the US government (sub-prime morgages leading to market damage, the odd war here and there) it will be harder than ever to justify something like this with few immediate results.
Restricting game x to the over-18s is not saying that it is illegal for minors to play such a game, but rather that it should be at the discretion of the parents/guardians involved, not the retaier, to decide what is appropriate. It's why there's a watershed on television -- parents should reasonably expect that they can have some control over what their children are exposed to in the media, just as they are with alcohol, for example. It's not illegal AFAIK to give said articles to children, but rather they cannot purchase such things themselves -- I think this is the case in the UK at least.
Either one takes the point that a child always knows what is best for himself, and give children power to sign legal documents and so forth, or we maintain that parents are legally responsible for a reason. The powers don't restrict as such, just limit who makes the decision about whether a ten-year-old should play Vice City or whichever game we have to hand.
Slashdot Mirror
You'll be on the foreign office fast-track with thinking like that.
Good to see it in the middle of the map.
About time really. Shows how efficient an effective monopoly can be too.
You can follow the links in the article to the people who were responsible for the pictures. Since this is academia, I imagine most people would be only too happy to supply you with a copy. There's one readily available: http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home/HYYang/images/NanoChnPainting.jpg
It's not like he didn't see it coming -- "Unauthorized use of this domain gives me full rights to post any emails involved using the unauthorized address. Don't like it? Don't use it." The website is a blog based on the email he receives at the domain. Exploitative it may be, but I thought most folks with sense used "noreply@ourcompany.com" or variations thereof.
Having spoken at length to Daisy (http://www.leedberg.com/glsoft/daisy/), it seems that after a while a simple AI can be taught enough to become fairly human. Daisy starts with no language, and simply learns a vocabulary from the people with which she speaks. Since the test of "human interaction" is subjective, and Daisy is formed from your conversations, she becomes pretty realistic, and also likeable. On the other hand, people who are nothing like me are more difficult to get along with. Are we not testing "how like me is this?", not "how human is it?"?
Google has applications which run on 'phones -- I use the java Gmail app on mine. This could just as easily be a software patent for more 3rd party products, rather than their own hardware. Google make software which runs on PCs, but that doesn't mean that they sell them.
We make compromises on health all the time for convenience and aesthetics -- while most cosmetics are not technically harmful, spraying aluminium on your underarms* or using make-up is not going to give you health benefits. It's easier to take the car to work not cycle or walk (unless you walk down the same road).
*No, it's washing which is the healthy part to not smelling.
The only reason this is even news is that the big C is involved. We "civilised" people make hundreds of choices at the expense of our long term physical or mental health and this is not a novel situation. It will go ahead anyway if the benefits are great and people aren't instantly terrified of the c-word, else it will die out.
The real problem is the supply of money. Without money no terrorist network can function, training and supplying insurgents of any sort costs a heck of a lot to do. It's not about whichever ideal people think they're striving for, it's political manipulation and money behind it. The US would make more ground investigating the US bank accounts of certain very rich nations who export petrochemicals and use profits to make this whole thing happen. Terrorism isn't a standard response, it's a political attack and must not be treated like petty crime.
I've not mentioned any brand of terrorism, many fit the bill -- please don't think I'm stereotyping here.
Err.. then you're a windows user who also runs linux, from a commercial point of view. I know there are some linux-compatable games, but if you have a windows PC you are not the market niche of "linux-only gamer" you suggest. Moreover, since "we all have windows boxes" there is no linux niche worth speaking of. The whole point is that in this medium, the consumer still has to work to fit with the vendor, be it in hardware or software requirements. This isn't like food where specialist needs are catered for, it's like the movie industry where it's their format or nothing*.
*or theft.
I know this one will be disputed, but Singapore. Who else has had 8% real growth recently? If you don't count toxic-everything China the country's the economic powerhouse of the region. Even if you do, a country with a standard of living this high and this much economic growth is hardly normal. Furthermore the govt. owns massive chunks of the country and so on. Now you can mod me down for being obstreperous and anti-American.
Sure, it's bad for games and indeed gamers, needlessly straining the hardware more for one thing, not to mention content-protection, buying vista, etc., but it's a gamble MS are taking to force users onto their OS. Of course, it will shrink the DX10 market and thus slow graphics development of games. Who knows, maybe a little emphasis on other things would be good for the industry?
Pushing Vista too early is only going to hinder long-term deployment.
It's nice to see something positive about NASA, I expect they're still fighting pretty hard to remain relevant to the US taxpayer. Furthermore, the whole "drunken astronauts" debacle didn't show them off in a good light. NASA is, of course, a huge financial black hole (sorry) in itself, but the spin-off products work their way into consumer sectors, so it's important that funding continues. With enough strains on the US government (sub-prime morgages leading to market damage, the odd war here and there) it will be harder than ever to justify something like this with few immediate results.
Either one takes the point that a child always knows what is best for himself, and give children power to sign legal documents and so forth, or we maintain that parents are legally responsible for a reason. The powers don't restrict as such, just limit who makes the decision about whether a ten-year-old should play Vice City or whichever game we have to hand.