*sniff*... I loved the Pets.com mascot. How could you not like this face??
Unfortunately, what Wikipedia doesn't cover is why pets.com ultimately failed. The sock puppet, like many celebrities, turned to hard narcotics after he lost his high of the.com era. This, combined with a heavy spat with Triumph the Wonder Dog, pulled the plug on his career. The puppet got so down and out that he almost sold his Timex collar, just for one last hit (either of the narcotics, or on Triumph's head). Luckily, he discovered the Hakan and Associates rehab center, whom made a vain attempt to rescue his career. Not much detail is provided about his 12-step sponsor, 1-800-BAR-NONE or their brief collaboration on car commercials. The Pets.com mascot dropped off of the public radar soon after those commercials.
I heard from a friend that he's studying Buddhism under the Dalai Lama in Tibet in Exile. Apparently, His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso is training the Pets.com puppet to become a Lama who will wander the hills of Tibet looking for the yang srid. It is suggested that, due to resemblance of the Pets.com mascot to a childs toy, the 15th Lama may recognize the roaming monk as a good friend. Time will tell on that one though.
When I was ten I know I'd much rather watch two guys drive two semis into a small economy car rather than watch Mr. Wizard mix baking soda and vinegar again and again.
Gah! Kids these days don't know their place! When I was that age, I would have rather seen Mr. Wizard, Bill Nye, or 3-2-1 Contact than Mythbusters, and I still would! Uphill, both ways!
There are two slight errors in your post. Teslas are units of Magnetic Flux Density, not capacitance. In addition, Tesla didn't tap energy from the "Earth's motion through the coelestial aether", but Earth's motion through the chronoselestial aether--through the very dimensions of time discussed in TFA. Of course, science shuns the use of the term aether, due to its connexion with Tesla's experiments, so they now discuss the aether as a myriad of "dimensions" (also: mathematical manifolds and/or various branes from string theory).
It's a common mistake to think that Tesla used a great bank of capacitors to store the energy from the "Time Still" experiment you describe. This misinterpretation stems from his use of a Magnetic Flux Capacitor (not a regular capacitor) to store the energy captured during the experiments [1]. Furthermore, Tesla had invented a design that accounted for the loss, but the materials of 1892 couldn't handle the stress of feeding the full 1.21 jigawatts back into the Time Still. The magnetic flux density generated by the alternating current would have ripped Tesla's Flux Capacitor apart, stopping time completely. However, he did manage to feed 1.200925 jigawatts back to the Still, so we only lost 3 days from every 400 years. (The remaining.009075 jigawatts being lost to aetherous drag, as you mentioned).
Whew. The post wasn't supposed to be this long, but, the history and science buff I am, I couldn't help myself. I hope that I've managed to shed some additional light on the potential for Tesla's experiments.:)
[1] As an aside, the Magnetic Flux Capacitor is actually a precursor to the one featured in this documentary. Tesla's was much bulkier and only capable of storing energy from the chronoselestial aether (rather than manipulating it, as in the documentary).
Uhhh... yes. Isn't that the point of a belief system - that following it makes you a better person? Whether it is 'love thy neighbor' or 'death to non-believers' or 'do not go out and shoot 32 people just because your girlfriend dumped you', the whole point is to be a better person.
In a forum such as Slashdot, logical fallacies are generally frowned upon. As a wee bit of nit-picking, your response begs the question. Does the fact that I identified this flaw in your reasoning make me better than you? Note: I am not begging a question, merely asking one.
I disagree that the purpose of a belief system is "to be a better person". IMO, the purpose of ethical beliefs is to set a standard upon which to judge, particularly to judge others. Ethics at large seeks to construct a set of objective and normative rules that can be used to categorize various elements of society. Measuring various elements and activities against this generalized rule then generates societal stratification, indirectly allowing the formation of various power relationships.
For instance, take Christ: a great guy who had some revolutionary ideas in his time. Society took several of those ideas, used them for the foundation of a religion, and over the course of ~300 years developed Christianity. Presently, Christians of all types look to priests, ministers, etc. to serve as paragons of the faith. They hold themselves up against this rule, as a means to communicate with Christ. This allows power relationships to form between the clergy and the parishioner. In Catholicism, this extends itself into an even more formal structure within the Vatican.
As another example, consider the AMA, ADA, ACM, the State Bar, etc.: Each of these organizations consists of a group of Professionals that swear to uphold a particular ethical code. They conduct themselves in a manner similar (not identical) to the Church. Their code of ethics, distilled over thousands of years of philosophical debate, serves a similar purpose to the scripture: they hold each other against the code, and provide benefits to those who support their ideals (knowledge, accreditation, etc). Involvement with a professional organization creates a power relationship between the professional and their customers. In some cases, this extends itself into an even more formal structure... within the Government.
The power relationships that coalesce around ethics are not an end in and of themselves. They are merely the systemic consequence of judgement in general, the consequence of creating such an ethical pedestal. In addition, this power may be used for creative ends. For instance, the ACM creates special interest groups and publishes a great number of papers regularly.
However, when one uses an ethical code explicitly to assert its power, problems begin to crop up. For instance, take Jack Thompson: he uses the stature granted by the Bar Association of Florida to constantly hound Take Two Interactive. To do this, he uses his ethical stature as a lawyer to call Take Two's ethics as a publisher into question. Instead of using his ethics to create something (e.g. use his power to encourage better games), he uses it far more explicitly (e.g. as a means of disrupting business). The confrontation damages credibility (on both fronts, albeit to different audiences), and causes unnecessary strife.
The RIAA participates in a similar practice. Their ethics, as that of most companies, centers around profitability. However, as 'paragons' of profitable ethics (e.g. they make a lot of money), they choose to use their power to destroy new business methods. They judge fledgeling methods against others on the "metric of profitability", and believe that those methods don't generate enough money. After that, they use their money (their power) to kill ideas rather than support them.
Now, in that ideal, theoretical world that occupies our imaginations, each person holds themselves to their own ethical code, and "the point of a belief syst
Note: I have not developed on the Cell Processor, my knowledge is, at this point, theoretical.
I think that the best use of the Cell in the PS3 is not for outbound image & physics processing (as it was hyped), because that support is already provided by the on-board graphics and physics chips. IMHO, the best uses for the SPUs are for inbound image processing and outbound sound processing (albeit that may be best for the physics card as well. I'm not too familiar with its capabilities).
My reasoning for this stems from my understanding of present stream processing in sound cards, which operate using a similar DSP model. I imagine that you could design an algorithm that computes volume as a factor of distance, then send sound and distance data through the SPEs. With so many of them available, and a properly designed algorithm, you may be able to actually reproduce the "cocktail party" effect... taking immersion in multiplayer games to the next level. (Think a MMORPG that doesn't require text chat). You could also use the SPEs to create voice masks, allowing (say) a female playing a male character to actually sound male (or vice versa).
On the inbound image processing aspects, you could use the SPEs to "pre-parse" the image. Essentially, create an algorithm that generates an image with "candidate object" outlines, then use the general purpose CPU to identify which "candidate objects" are useful and/or real. (This boils down to using the SPEs to reduce the search space).
These ideas are somewhat half-baked and likely hard to implement. However, if the PS3 is to take off, this is where I see it going.
Chirac wasn't talking about extending the pillars or jurisdiction of the EU. His mention of The Hague in that speech referenced the physical location where he gave the speech. (See the 12th line down on the transcript, right below the title.)
I'm not well versed with the history of Jacques Chirac's administration of both the Parisian and French governments, nor can I find a note of this assertion via Wikipedia. Can you please substantiate those claims?
This is about as valid an argument as those made nearly 200 yrs ago that some Africans want to be slaves. And most slaves are happy to be in their roles.
Note that the targets of your rebuttal (slave owners) were making a value judgement in lieu of their slaves. I hold that my argument remains valid in the cases where the government upholds human rights. Historically, this has not been true for most totalitarian regimes. However, at least for the example cited, it's valid. I do grant that my reasoning still implies a value judgement (that humans have rights), but it is mandatory considering the mission of the UN. (When the purpose of an agency is to support a given value judgement, its members must agree to those values for the organization to maintain political legitimacy.)
Otherwise, I must assume that all those being persecuted, raped, tortured, killed in Darfur actually want that. I mean, since that is the government and culture they have...it must be what they want right.
This statement takes my assertion concerning cultural imperialism and value judgement out of context. My statement applied to the specific case of political self determination of member states of the UN. Your statement applies my words to a localized event that directly contradicts the principles my statement was operating within (see above). Furthermore, you equate the totalitarian powers granted to the Venezuelan state, which supports the Declaration of Human Rights, to state-sponsored genocide, which directly contradicts that very declaration.
I haven't put much thought into what I'd replace the UN with, as I have yet only dabbled in political science. I do, however, agree with Churchill's words: "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."
True to Slashdot form, I don't read the articles... the comments tend to even themselves out, and are far more entertaining. However, one can shield themselves from contradicting the article by only posting pithy comments as responses that have nothing to do with the original topic.
Note/Disclaimer: This post should not be interpreted as a defense of the UN, as I, too, am ignorant of most operations of the UN. I wrote this post solely to refute the parent.
I think the U.N. is one of the worst things to happen because it has no requirements that the member nations have decency.
Your argument has potential, but you completely ignore the social and political environment that created the United Nations in 1945. Note in particular that it was created to maintain peace and promote a humanitarian agenda. From the Preamble of the UN charter:
to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and
to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,
Note the focus on peace, human rights, and freedom, and that in no place is governmental structure actually mentioned. One may ask, "Why is this so?" Another may answer, "Because to force your method of governance on another is tantamount to cultural imperialism." Some peoples of this world need and/or want a totalitarian government (e.g. Venezuela), why should we judge them for that? That said, one of the tenants of the Universal Declaration of Human rights promotes democracy and self-determination. However, the declaration itself serves as a "standard of achievement", not formal UN policy:
Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.
As far as Sudan, et. al. are concerned: the UN recently replaced the Commission on Human Rights with a new body, the Human Rights Council. Neither Sudan nor Syria have been granted access to the council, due to their disrespect of human rights.
In a related note, the 'powers that be' of the UN (i.e. the Security Council) have a great deal of control over the policies and agenda of the organization as a whole. Many of those nations see the UN as a means to further their intergovernmental powers rather than as an independent supranational government. Thus, they are constantly brokering for power, in vain of the stated mission of the UN. When one considers this state of affairs, it becomes apparent why the UN does "so little" for the world--the member states are too busy bickering.
The role of the UN as an intergovernmental or supranational body is well beyond the scope of this post. However, if you insist on vilifying the United Nations, at least understand the underlying issues it faces.
So if you spend an hour justifying the second monitor, what happened to your savings?
In theory, he shouldn't need to spend an hour justiying the second monitor. The auditing staff should understand how additional computer equipment changes productivity, or at least be competent enough to comprehend even a basic justification for the additional equipment.
The fact that the question was raised indicates that the questioner fears that the auditors are incompetent. There are two obvious reasons to explain this incompetence:
The auditors are truly idiots, in which case they shouldn't have their job.
The auditors did not receive the proper training to carry out their job, in which case they should be re-trained.
In a related scenario, the company isn't transparent enough for the questioner to understand the process behind an audit. Due to his ignorance, he feels it necessary to defend his equipment. In this scenario, the company should either become more transparent or, if it is already transparent, inform the questioner of such transparency. Regardless of which of these explanations fits his circumstances, he is justified in spending some time "defending his equipment", as the situation was created by business policy, at some level or another.
That said, he should also go a step farther. The cases illustrated above all result from an inefficiency in business policy. Rather than resolve only the fallout of this mechanism (e.g. defend his monitor), he should note the problem as he sees it and recommend a solution to whichever departments are involved. This strengthens his argument rhetorically if done properly: he becomes portrayed as a supporter of the system, who is only interested in the "best" for the company. This introduces a political danger, however. If he doesn't present his argument properly (for instance, say he takes an aggressive stance), then his life may get more difficult. The company may perceive his help as a threat, and take away his monitor out of spite.
This discourse is irrelevant, of course, if the questioner justifies his behavior because he's a selfish ass.;)
The legal status of shrink-wrap licenses in the US is somewhat unclear. At particular issue is the difference in opinion between the courts in Klocek v. Gateway and Brower v. Gateway. Both cases involved a shrink-wrapped license document provided by the online vendor of a computer system. The terms of the shrink-wrapped license were not provided at the time of purchase, but were rather included with the shipped product as a printed document. The license required the customer to return the product within a limited time frame if the license was not agreed to. In Brower, the Supreme Court of New York ruled that the terms of the shrink-wrapped license document were enforceable because the customer's assent was evident by his failure to return the merchandise within the 30 days specified by the document. The U.S. District Court of Kansas in Klocek ruled that the contract of sale was complete at the time of the transaction, and the additional shipped terms contained in a document similar to that in Brower did not constitute a contract, because the customer never agreed to them when the contract of sale was completed.
How can they (iParadigm) enter into a contract with a minor?
Technically speaking, anyone can enter into a contract with a minor. However, such practices are strongly recommended against. Why?
Because minors have "presumed incapacity" under civil law. This means they may disaffirm the contract before they gain capacity (e.g. reach the age of majority) and for a reasonable length of time (usually 3-6 months) afterwards.
Once a minor has reached the age of majority, they may ratify a contract. In doing so, they discard their right to disaffirm the contract. Ratification can happen in one of several ways: explicitly (via words) or implicitly (by allowing a reasonable length of time to pass, continuing to execute the contract for a reasonable time, or by making multiple payments).
If a minor disaffirms the contract, they must return their consideration (regardless of its condition) to the other party. The other party must return all consideration (e.g. full restitution) to the minor (regardless of what they get back). There are a bunch of little tweaks that the law applies to minors, depending on the situation. However, they don't apply to this situation.
How can they enter into a contract anyone without asking?
If the student enables the teacher to act as his or her agent, then the teacher may assent to the contract in place of the student. It's been almost 6 years since I left public school. God knows what they make kids do these days.
How does the ToS work for those people who never consented to this abuse?
It doesn't. You cannot assent to a contract you have not seen.
And now my two cents: Disregarding what was said above, the students may be able to argue that they entered into the contract under duress. Failing the course and thus failing a grade could be reasonably interpreted as an imminent threat to their well being. They have no reasonable choice but to submit the paper to this service. Imminent threat to well being + no reasonable alternative = duress. QED. With this argument, capacity doesn't exist, and the contract once again becomes voidable.
Disclaimer: IANAL. Don't be an idiot; hire an attorney instead of taking this text as legal advice.
Got half way down the page... I can't believe no one has mentioned this yet:
Chris Knight: You didn't touch anything, did you?
Mitch: No.
Chris Knight: Good. Because all of my filth is arranged in alphabetical order. This, for instance, is under 'H' for 'toy'.
my "stuff I don't have a specific place for" must be put into boxes. Its only been two years and I am now on 3 shoeboxes and several larger boxes, preventing me from having any idea of what is contained in any of them. That said, the house does look nice....
Sounds like the way I recently "cleaned" my bedroom.
Why is my website presumed public? I have not given out any public notice, not provided any public information, direction, etc.
Your website may be presumed public whenever you do not take reasonable steps to prevent public use. To bring in an example from "real world" law:
Say I own property near a public beach, and I allow my neighbors to take a shortcut through the property to reach this beach. If I do nothing to prevent the neighbors from using this path, it eventually becomes "dedicated to public use". This means that the public may use that portion of my property when they want--it's reasonable to assume that since I have let them through before, I would do it again. As noted above, to prevent them from doing this, I must take reasonable steps to prevent public use.
Example A: Say that I post "No Trespassing" signs in Swahili. This doesn't count as reasonable, because it is not reasonable to assume that my neighbors (in the US) would know Swahili. However, if I post the sign in English (the de facto national language of the US), then it becomes reasonable.
Example B: Say, however, that I pass a chain along the beginning and end of the path once per month. In many jurisdictions this is sufficient notice to the public that I am not dedicating the space. The idea here is the same: By preventing people from using the path once a month, I assert my rights over the property, thus preventing it from becoming dedicated to the public.
Carrying example A between physical and virtual, the no trespassing sign becomes the equivalent of either an explicit warning on the page (for humans) or a robots.txt file (for crawlers). While the explicit warning portion is largely self explanatory, robots.txt requires more explanation.
Robots.txt is a de facto standard for crawlers on the web. Use of this file denotes to most crawlers that they should not scan the site. This is implemented in Google/Yahoo!/etc spiders, wget, archive.org's crawlers, and more. Furthermore, as has been pointed out elsewhere, robots.txt has been used this way since the early days of the Internet. It becomes reasonable to assume that robots.txt functions as a no trespassing sign because it is a long-standing de facto standard. Thus, it is also to reasonable to assume that if you do not wish to dedicate the information to public use (through a bot), this file would exist.
An example similar to example B would be password-protecting your site. It is reasonable to presume that anyone guessing the password knows that they are willfully disobeying your wishes, and that information "protected" in this manner is private.
This leaves us with the burden of proving that a website (by default) is dedicated to the public. This is to say, that a regular person would reasonably assume that a website on the Internet is dedicated to the public. (This is different than saying that the server is owned or controlled by the public).
Under ordinary circumstances, it is reasonable to assume that any internet-accessible website is dedicated to the public. First, most people use the internet to publish content explicitly for others to consume (WWW). Second, a public database exists whose records explicitly map human-readable queries to locations on the internet (DNS/InteNIC/etc). Third, publicly available private databases constantly index and proliferate the information on the internet (search engines). Fourth, there is a well documented means of forbidding someone to access any website, independent of the means described above (HTTP Forbidden). Fifth, this has been standard operating procedure on the Internet for well over a decade (ie. it's quite well established that the above occurs, even to a novice user--they implicitly agree with it every time they visit a web page).
Thus, a reasonable person would assume that they have a right to access any site reachable on the WWW given that it has a DNS record or is indexed by a search engine
By definition, then, a business that focuses on a niche market is addressing a need for a product or service that is not being addressed by mainstream providers. A niche market may be thought of as a narrowly defined group of potential customers.
As an experienced eve miner, I can say with a modicum of certainty that he's leaving something out. Either the OP quoted an aggregate value of all training before that (including the high Mining and Astrogeo skills to use the Strip Miners), or he doesn't have his learning skills up to par. I did Barge V (required for covetor) in just under 26 days (tier 1 learning skills to 5, tier 2 to 4, +1 implants across the board). The whole array of skills required to get that far took 40 days at most.
I agree that he should get into combat if he wants more excitement. For new players, it appears that you are SOL for money unless you do mining or hauling. However, I find that running combat missions, deadspace complexes, and (if you are truly badass) COSMOS installations provides more than enough money to burn through. In addition, it acquaints you to battle and ship loss while gradually increasing the resources you have for ships.
Another hint: Sometimes its good to drop your subscription for a month or two while to let long skills train. I picked up Barge V, Gallante Industrial V, and (recently) Cruiser V all while "on vacation". As soon as I replace my deadbeat computer, I can get back on and cruise the galaxy in a HAC.:D
Slashdot Mirror
*sniff*... I loved the Pets.com mascot. How could you not like this face??
Unfortunately, what Wikipedia doesn't cover is why pets.com ultimately failed. The sock puppet, like many celebrities, turned to hard narcotics after he lost his high of the .com era. This, combined with a heavy spat with Triumph the Wonder Dog, pulled the plug on his career. The puppet got so down and out that he almost sold his Timex collar, just for one last hit (either of the narcotics, or on Triumph's head). Luckily, he discovered the Hakan and Associates rehab center, whom made a vain attempt to rescue his career. Not much detail is provided about his 12-step sponsor, 1-800-BAR-NONE or their brief collaboration on car commercials. The Pets.com mascot dropped off of the public radar soon after those commercials.
I heard from a friend that he's studying Buddhism under the Dalai Lama in Tibet in Exile. Apparently, His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso is training the Pets.com puppet to become a Lama who will wander the hills of Tibet looking for the yang srid. It is suggested that, due to resemblance of the Pets.com mascot to a childs toy, the 15th Lama may recognize the roaming monk as a good friend. Time will tell on that one though.
When I was ten I know I'd much rather watch two guys drive two semis into a small economy car rather than watch Mr. Wizard mix baking soda and vinegar again and again.
Gah! Kids these days don't know their place! When I was that age, I would have rather seen Mr. Wizard, Bill Nye, or 3-2-1 Contact than Mythbusters, and I still would! Uphill, both ways!
There are two slight errors in your post. Teslas are units of Magnetic Flux Density, not capacitance. In addition, Tesla didn't tap energy from the "Earth's motion through the coelestial aether", but Earth's motion through the chronoselestial aether--through the very dimensions of time discussed in TFA. Of course, science shuns the use of the term aether, due to its connexion with Tesla's experiments, so they now discuss the aether as a myriad of "dimensions" (also: mathematical manifolds and/or various branes from string theory).
It's a common mistake to think that Tesla used a great bank of capacitors to store the energy from the "Time Still" experiment you describe. This misinterpretation stems from his use of a Magnetic Flux Capacitor (not a regular capacitor) to store the energy captured during the experiments [1]. Furthermore, Tesla had invented a design that accounted for the loss, but the materials of 1892 couldn't handle the stress of feeding the full 1.21 jigawatts back into the Time Still. The magnetic flux density generated by the alternating current would have ripped Tesla's Flux Capacitor apart, stopping time completely. However, he did manage to feed 1.200925 jigawatts back to the Still, so we only lost 3 days from every 400 years. (The remaining .009075 jigawatts being lost to aetherous drag, as you mentioned).
Whew. The post wasn't supposed to be this long, but, the history and science buff I am, I couldn't help myself. I hope that I've managed to shed some additional light on the potential for Tesla's experiments. :)
[1] As an aside, the Magnetic Flux Capacitor is actually a precursor to the one featured in this documentary. Tesla's was much bulkier and only capable of storing energy from the chronoselestial aether (rather than manipulating it, as in the documentary).
In a forum such as Slashdot, logical fallacies are generally frowned upon. As a wee bit of nit-picking, your response begs the question. Does the fact that I identified this flaw in your reasoning make me better than you? Note: I am not begging a question, merely asking one.
I disagree that the purpose of a belief system is "to be a better person". IMO, the purpose of ethical beliefs is to set a standard upon which to judge, particularly to judge others. Ethics at large seeks to construct a set of objective and normative rules that can be used to categorize various elements of society. Measuring various elements and activities against this generalized rule then generates societal stratification, indirectly allowing the formation of various power relationships.
For instance, take Christ: a great guy who had some revolutionary ideas in his time. Society took several of those ideas, used them for the foundation of a religion, and over the course of ~300 years developed Christianity. Presently, Christians of all types look to priests, ministers, etc. to serve as paragons of the faith. They hold themselves up against this rule, as a means to communicate with Christ. This allows power relationships to form between the clergy and the parishioner. In Catholicism, this extends itself into an even more formal structure within the Vatican.
As another example, consider the AMA, ADA, ACM, the State Bar, etc.: Each of these organizations consists of a group of Professionals that swear to uphold a particular ethical code. They conduct themselves in a manner similar (not identical) to the Church. Their code of ethics, distilled over thousands of years of philosophical debate, serves a similar purpose to the scripture: they hold each other against the code, and provide benefits to those who support their ideals (knowledge, accreditation, etc). Involvement with a professional organization creates a power relationship between the professional and their customers. In some cases, this extends itself into an even more formal structure... within the Government.
The power relationships that coalesce around ethics are not an end in and of themselves. They are merely the systemic consequence of judgement in general, the consequence of creating such an ethical pedestal. In addition, this power may be used for creative ends. For instance, the ACM creates special interest groups and publishes a great number of papers regularly.
However, when one uses an ethical code explicitly to assert its power, problems begin to crop up. For instance, take Jack Thompson: he uses the stature granted by the Bar Association of Florida to constantly hound Take Two Interactive. To do this, he uses his ethical stature as a lawyer to call Take Two's ethics as a publisher into question. Instead of using his ethics to create something (e.g. use his power to encourage better games), he uses it far more explicitly (e.g. as a means of disrupting business). The confrontation damages credibility (on both fronts, albeit to different audiences), and causes unnecessary strife.
The RIAA participates in a similar practice. Their ethics, as that of most companies, centers around profitability. However, as 'paragons' of profitable ethics (e.g. they make a lot of money), they choose to use their power to destroy new business methods. They judge fledgeling methods against others on the "metric of profitability", and believe that those methods don't generate enough money. After that, they use their money (their power) to kill ideas rather than support them.
Now, in that ideal, theoretical world that occupies our imaginations, each person holds themselves to their own ethical code, and "the point of a belief syst
Ah. The picture becomes more apparent now. Thanks. :)
Note: I have not developed on the Cell Processor, my knowledge is, at this point, theoretical.
I think that the best use of the Cell in the PS3 is not for outbound image & physics processing (as it was hyped), because that support is already provided by the on-board graphics and physics chips. IMHO, the best uses for the SPUs are for inbound image processing and outbound sound processing (albeit that may be best for the physics card as well. I'm not too familiar with its capabilities).
My reasoning for this stems from my understanding of present stream processing in sound cards, which operate using a similar DSP model. I imagine that you could design an algorithm that computes volume as a factor of distance, then send sound and distance data through the SPEs. With so many of them available, and a properly designed algorithm, you may be able to actually reproduce the "cocktail party" effect... taking immersion in multiplayer games to the next level. (Think a MMORPG that doesn't require text chat). You could also use the SPEs to create voice masks, allowing (say) a female playing a male character to actually sound male (or vice versa).
On the inbound image processing aspects, you could use the SPEs to "pre-parse" the image. Essentially, create an algorithm that generates an image with "candidate object" outlines, then use the general purpose CPU to identify which "candidate objects" are useful and/or real. (This boils down to using the SPEs to reduce the search space).
These ideas are somewhat half-baked and likely hard to implement. However, if the PS3 is to take off, this is where I see it going.
Chirac wasn't talking about extending the pillars or jurisdiction of the EU. His mention of The Hague in that speech referenced the physical location where he gave the speech. (See the 12th line down on the transcript, right below the title.)
I'm not well versed with the history of Jacques Chirac's administration of both the Parisian and French governments, nor can I find a note of this assertion via Wikipedia. Can you please substantiate those claims?
Note that the targets of your rebuttal (slave owners) were making a value judgement in lieu of their slaves. I hold that my argument remains valid in the cases where the government upholds human rights. Historically, this has not been true for most totalitarian regimes. However, at least for the example cited, it's valid. I do grant that my reasoning still implies a value judgement (that humans have rights), but it is mandatory considering the mission of the UN. (When the purpose of an agency is to support a given value judgement, its members must agree to those values for the organization to maintain political legitimacy.)
This statement takes my assertion concerning cultural imperialism and value judgement out of context. My statement applied to the specific case of political self determination of member states of the UN. Your statement applies my words to a localized event that directly contradicts the principles my statement was operating within (see above). Furthermore, you equate the totalitarian powers granted to the Venezuelan state, which supports the Declaration of Human Rights, to state-sponsored genocide, which directly contradicts that very declaration.
I haven't put much thought into what I'd replace the UN with, as I have yet only dabbled in political science. I do, however, agree with Churchill's words: "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."
True to Slashdot form, I don't read the articles... the comments tend to even themselves out, and are far more entertaining. However, one can shield themselves from contradicting the article by only posting pithy comments as responses that have nothing to do with the original topic.
Best of both worlds, folks. :D
I didn't see any portion of Chirac's speech that makes that assertion.
Note/Disclaimer: This post should not be interpreted as a defense of the UN, as I, too, am ignorant of most operations of the UN. I wrote this post solely to refute the parent.
Charter of the United Nations (See Art. 2, 5, and 6), Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Your argument has potential, but you completely ignore the social and political environment that created the United Nations in 1945. Note in particular that it was created to maintain peace and promote a humanitarian agenda. From the Preamble of the UN charter:
Note the focus on peace, human rights, and freedom, and that in no place is governmental structure actually mentioned. One may ask, "Why is this so?" Another may answer, "Because to force your method of governance on another is tantamount to cultural imperialism." Some peoples of this world need and/or want a totalitarian government (e.g. Venezuela), why should we judge them for that? That said, one of the tenants of the Universal Declaration of Human rights promotes democracy and self-determination. However, the declaration itself serves as a "standard of achievement", not formal UN policy:
As far as Sudan, et. al. are concerned: the UN recently replaced the Commission on Human Rights with a new body, the Human Rights Council. Neither Sudan nor Syria have been granted access to the council, due to their disrespect of human rights.
In a related note, the 'powers that be' of the UN (i.e. the Security Council) have a great deal of control over the policies and agenda of the organization as a whole. Many of those nations see the UN as a means to further their intergovernmental powers rather than as an independent supranational government. Thus, they are constantly brokering for power, in vain of the stated mission of the UN. When one considers this state of affairs, it becomes apparent why the UN does "so little" for the world--the member states are too busy bickering.
The role of the UN as an intergovernmental or supranational body is well beyond the scope of this post. However, if you insist on vilifying the United Nations, at least understand the underlying issues it faces.
(not a troll) What, exactly, is so scary about that?
In theory, he shouldn't need to spend an hour justiying the second monitor. The auditing staff should understand how additional computer equipment changes productivity, or at least be competent enough to comprehend even a basic justification for the additional equipment.
The fact that the question was raised indicates that the questioner fears that the auditors are incompetent. There are two obvious reasons to explain this incompetence:
In a related scenario, the company isn't transparent enough for the questioner to understand the process behind an audit. Due to his ignorance, he feels it necessary to defend his equipment. In this scenario, the company should either become more transparent or, if it is already transparent, inform the questioner of such transparency. Regardless of which of these explanations fits his circumstances, he is justified in spending some time "defending his equipment", as the situation was created by business policy, at some level or another.
That said, he should also go a step farther. The cases illustrated above all result from an inefficiency in business policy. Rather than resolve only the fallout of this mechanism (e.g. defend his monitor), he should note the problem as he sees it and recommend a solution to whichever departments are involved. This strengthens his argument rhetorically if done properly: he becomes portrayed as a supporter of the system, who is only interested in the "best" for the company. This introduces a political danger, however. If he doesn't present his argument properly (for instance, say he takes an aggressive stance), then his life may get more difficult. The company may perceive his help as a threat, and take away his monitor out of spite.
This discourse is irrelevant, of course, if the questioner justifies his behavior because he's a selfish ass. ;)
It's not a new computer, but 10.5 comes out in June :D
Technically speaking, anyone can enter into a contract with a minor. However, such practices are strongly recommended against. Why?
Because minors have "presumed incapacity" under civil law. This means they may disaffirm the contract before they gain capacity (e.g. reach the age of majority) and for a reasonable length of time (usually 3-6 months) afterwards.
Once a minor has reached the age of majority, they may ratify a contract. In doing so, they discard their right to disaffirm the contract. Ratification can happen in one of several ways: explicitly (via words) or implicitly (by allowing a reasonable length of time to pass, continuing to execute the contract for a reasonable time, or by making multiple payments).
If a minor disaffirms the contract, they must return their consideration (regardless of its condition) to the other party. The other party must return all consideration (e.g. full restitution) to the minor (regardless of what they get back). There are a bunch of little tweaks that the law applies to minors, depending on the situation. However, they don't apply to this situation.
If the student enables the teacher to act as his or her agent, then the teacher may assent to the contract in place of the student. It's been almost 6 years since I left public school. God knows what they make kids do these days.
It doesn't. You cannot assent to a contract you have not seen.
And now my two cents: Disregarding what was said above, the students may be able to argue that they entered into the contract under duress. Failing the course and thus failing a grade could be reasonably interpreted as an imminent threat to their well being. They have no reasonable choice but to submit the paper to this service. Imminent threat to well being + no reasonable alternative = duress. QED. With this argument, capacity doesn't exist, and the contract once again becomes voidable.
Disclaimer: IANAL. Don't be an idiot; hire an attorney instead of taking this text as legal advice.
The going rate appears to be $3600 at Drexel University. (Full disclosure: Soon to be an alum at Drexel)
Look who's talking? Hold up, John Travolta's on the other line...
Your website may be presumed public whenever you do not take reasonable steps to prevent public use. To bring in an example from "real world" law:
Carrying example A between physical and virtual, the no trespassing sign becomes the equivalent of either an explicit warning on the page (for humans) or a robots.txt file (for crawlers). While the explicit warning portion is largely self explanatory, robots.txt requires more explanation.
Robots.txt is a de facto standard for crawlers on the web. Use of this file denotes to most crawlers that they should not scan the site. This is implemented in Google/Yahoo!/etc spiders, wget, archive.org's crawlers, and more. Furthermore, as has been pointed out elsewhere, robots.txt has been used this way since the early days of the Internet. It becomes reasonable to assume that robots.txt functions as a no trespassing sign because it is a long-standing de facto standard. Thus, it is also to reasonable to assume that if you do not wish to dedicate the information to public use (through a bot), this file would exist.
An example similar to example B would be password-protecting your site. It is reasonable to presume that anyone guessing the password knows that they are willfully disobeying your wishes, and that information "protected" in this manner is private.
This leaves us with the burden of proving that a website (by default) is dedicated to the public. This is to say, that a regular person would reasonably assume that a website on the Internet is dedicated to the public. (This is different than saying that the server is owned or controlled by the public).
Under ordinary circumstances, it is reasonable to assume that any internet-accessible website is dedicated to the public. First, most people use the internet to publish content explicitly for others to consume (WWW). Second, a public database exists whose records explicitly map human-readable queries to locations on the internet (DNS/InteNIC/etc). Third, publicly available private databases constantly index and proliferate the information on the internet (search engines). Fourth, there is a well documented means of forbidding someone to access any website, independent of the means described above (HTTP Forbidden). Fifth, this has been standard operating procedure on the Internet for well over a decade (ie. it's quite well established that the above occurs, even to a novice user--they implicitly agree with it every time they visit a web page).
Thus, a reasonable person would assume that they have a right to access any site reachable on the WWW given that it has a DNS record or is indexed by a search engine
As an experienced eve miner, I can say with a modicum of certainty that he's leaving something out. Either the OP quoted an aggregate value of all training before that (including the high Mining and Astrogeo skills to use the Strip Miners), or he doesn't have his learning skills up to par. I did Barge V (required for covetor) in just under 26 days (tier 1 learning skills to 5, tier 2 to 4, +1 implants across the board). The whole array of skills required to get that far took 40 days at most.
I agree that he should get into combat if he wants more excitement. For new players, it appears that you are SOL for money unless you do mining or hauling. However, I find that running combat missions, deadspace complexes, and (if you are truly badass) COSMOS installations provides more than enough money to burn through. In addition, it acquaints you to battle and ship loss while gradually increasing the resources you have for ships.
Another hint: Sometimes its good to drop your subscription for a month or two while to let long skills train. I picked up Barge V, Gallante Industrial V, and (recently) Cruiser V all while "on vacation". As soon as I replace my deadbeat computer, I can get back on and cruise the galaxy in a HAC. :D
- Zaaq (14 million+ SP)