For historical purposes (recognizing that "historical" means "20th century" here), why not? For historical purposes, fire is an element and a totally random subset of seeds are called "nuts." Sure, Pluto was a tiny object known only because it was discovered completely by chance. But humans are super arbitrary.
Alternatively, I propose we just name the new planet "Pluto" and the current Pluto "Old Pluto." Problem solved.
In 2004, Sega was merged into Sammy, a gambling/arcade machine company, which then all but renamed itself to Sega. They have totally different business goals from the previous Sega. Any discussion about the direction Sega is going now should be framed in that context. Current Sega is working a different market. Nintendo is doing about as well at arcades as Sega is doing at console hardware. But it is interesting to consider what happened long before the merger with the Dreamcast and how it could have been prevented.
When the U.S. first began minting our fabulous decimal currency, the lowest denomination—the half-penny—was worth a little more than today's dime. Anything less than a dime represents a value so low it wasn't worth dealing with in 1792, and it certainly isn't worth dealing with now. There are many big advantages in switching to a dimes-only coinage versus any other system:
-Dimes are an established coin in American society, and an extremely light coin, making a dimes-only system an easy plan to adopt, and easy to use.
-10 dimes to a dollar, not much is simpler than that. Any transaction would only require between 0 and 9 dimes, and only using a single coin makes counting a much simpler process.
-Rather than rounding to nickels like Australia, we can simply get rid of that pesky second decimal place. E.g. $9.5
There are a thousand arguments for other systems, and this is an arbitrary idea. But I would argue it's the cleanest arbitrary idea we've got. The dime is inefficient, and the dollar bill is inefficient, but these problems pale in comparison to the clusterfuck cause by the penny, the nickel, and everything else. The true primary hurdles would be solved by:
-Making dimes out of zinc, to appease the stupid zinc lobby.
-Putting Lincoln on it.
Then, a hundred years from now, that god we trust in willing, we ditch the dime for the dollar coin.
Isn't that an assumption that itself warrants extensive experimentation before you can base another experiment entirely on it? Besides, if the unused information is, say, musical tones instead of words, experience tells me you're probably going to see less of an effect on memory. But by this "all distractions effect you equally" model it should be the same as shouting out numbers while you're doing math, etc., which I have known from 2nd grade not to have the same effect as random background noise.
It seems to me that they're comparing two different attention tasks. In multi-tasking, you would be concerned with how the brain juggles two or more things you're [i]trying[/i] to focus on, while this one is talking about how you deal with meaningless distraction. Related, maybe, but how is it multi-tasking?
Take the gamepad, for instance. You do all the movement control that requires dexterity with your left hand, and use the right to simply bash buttons. For a couple of the very-hard fighting game maneuvers, I find myself crossing my right hand over.
This. It's just an accessible, well-known game you can kill time/trance out with. People are freaking out about it being some kind of amazing formula to make millions but really it's just what Windows Solitaire has been for so many years. This time someone was able to monetize it, but at this point that lesson isn't useful until the next big platform shift, and even then you'll probably be headed off at the pass by Angry Birds' momentum.
If there's one thing I wish for all laptop power supplies, it's that they would license from Apple (or work around, patent-wise) the magnet attachment system that makes cable--tripping far less dangerous to man or beast, compared to a few years ago.
Also just wear and tear on the connector. I've seen laptops become unusable just because the power socket is stupidly designed and ends up getting loose. Even some sort of less-patented snap design or something would be better. Van der Waals force, I dunno. Hell, even just something that isn't a cylinder that goes over a small bendable pin, maybe something totally solid like the Apple one only it goes in further, that would be nice...
For just one low payment of $35 (Canadians add $10 S&H) you can get this SPECIAL flashlight (retail value 54.95!!) that can, uh... "run up and down mathematical equations". If you program a chip. Which you could probably do with any flashlight if you know how to do that. I kinda feel bad for all the exploited nerds funding this...
I know, and actually Stargate Universe takes the name in exactly this direction. Naming something "Project Icarus" is like calling it "Project What Could Possibly Go Wrong".
Sony said on Wednesday that Anonymous targeted it several weeks ago using a denial of service attack in protest of Sony defending itself against a hacker in federal court in San Francisco.
Since when does taking a hardhacker to court constitute "defending yourself"? They might be defending their DRM or EULA or something but the article makes it sound objectively unreasonable for anyone to be upset with them...
Bad article, worse summary. Google isn't, like, quantizing your habits or anything. Or, maybe they do, but at the very least that isn't what the emails say.
"I cannot stress enough how important Google's wifi location database is to our Android and mobile product strategy," Google location manager Steve Lee told founder Page in the memo. "We absolutely do care about this because we need wifi data collection in order to maintain and improve our wifi location service."
It's not a database of your location, it's a crowd-sourced database of positioning information used to help users determine their location. When you encounter a previously unrecorded wifi network or somesuch and you're using this feature (it has a disclaimer about this), you anonymously add it to Google's database so other users using the feature can triangulate their position that much faster. There's a concern in the article that someone could hijack this process on Google's end and record personal information, but as far as we know from these emails and what they've said publicly, this information isn't being kept, in fact there's an encryption scheme to protect it. It's different from the Apple issue where the information was a) unencrypted b) identifiable (because it's on your phone) c) timestamped (and therefore more useful than "here's everywhere I've been in my life!") There's certainly the issue of privacy for the wifi network owners, but my point is the summary's misrepresenting the story here.
Additionally there are Android apps (for instance OpenWNN, which handles the Japanese input I mentioned), that already exist, that are free, and are included with some distributions but not available on the Market as anything but "enhanced" bloatware. Yes when I have some time I'll be happy to distribute it myself (I already said "do it yourself" is an option), my point is that this hasn't been done, instead there are multiple repackagings.
Except the thing that annoys me is that in many cases this software exists and is free, it's just not ported or in the store. There's no reason to pay for it, but this choice doesn't reach end users. I'm sure the FOSS community will adapt sooner or later to the app store model, but I wonder if by that point anyone will be dumping their favorite app for the more private and ad-free equivalent.
I don't think so. Everyone I know regularly uses all sorts of Android apps that require permissions they don't need. Last I checked you can't even find a free Japanese input program or even an emulator on the marketplace that doesn't require internet access. And at least one of these isn't much more than a privacy-invasive wrapper of gpl code. There was that article a while back about how the vast majority of apps send back user information, and with this as the norm there's often nothing a user can do except port their own apps. What we really need is more effort on the developer side to release clean free apps, but unfortunately there's little personal benefit to doing that.
The information may be "anonymous" but it's still your exact position. They need to find you and pull you over anyway. It's anonymous in the same way a radar blip is anonymous.
To reiterate: Yes this is more work, but apparently it takes more work to make a cache not be a log. If you indiscriminately recorded all information, that would be a gross breach of privacy, regardless of how inconvenient it would be for the programmers to do something else. This is an example of the same kind of thing. The information can be used to track a user. This has already happened. Apple is expected to avoid this, if possible. It's possible. Hence outrage. A few extra instructions in this process will not affect performance.
We're both asserting our points. You're doing so with provocative language and an attitude. Therefore I'm the troll.
Here's one way the timestamp could be helpful:
"Hmm. I don't have any of the towers in range cached. I don't have any clue where I am. I better do two things:
1) Assemble a list of towers & hotspots in range, and query for their locations;
2) Look back at the most recent towers & hotspots in my cache, and assume I'm near them for the purposes of beginning map data retrieval."
Cell network connections are high latency, and not always high speed. Minimizing the time required before you can start displaying usable information to the user is a feature, not a bug.
You don't need a timestamp for that. You can just number cache batches in the order they were fetched. You know, 1, 2, 3...
Than to sit there saying "Today is Wednesday the 27th of April. Find and purge all entries in the cache that were created before April 20th!", due to the existence of month boundaries, and the simple fact that extra calculation is required every time you do this - making for less efficient software.
It's a bit shift. Nothing is simpler than a single ARM instruction. If you do that you're working with more like 3/4 of a day, but that's good enough for our purposes here.
I'm sorry that you're confined to your home, but not all of us must - or wish to - operate under those constraints.
Slashdot Mirror
For historical purposes (recognizing that "historical" means "20th century" here), why not? For historical purposes, fire is an element and a totally random subset of seeds are called "nuts." Sure, Pluto was a tiny object known only because it was discovered completely by chance. But humans are super arbitrary. Alternatively, I propose we just name the new planet "Pluto" and the current Pluto "Old Pluto." Problem solved.
In 2004, Sega was merged into Sammy, a gambling/arcade machine company, which then all but renamed itself to Sega. They have totally different business goals from the previous Sega. Any discussion about the direction Sega is going now should be framed in that context. Current Sega is working a different market. Nintendo is doing about as well at arcades as Sega is doing at console hardware. But it is interesting to consider what happened long before the merger with the Dreamcast and how it could have been prevented.
1.5" seems awfully small for touch, but I don't want to live in a world where every jackass on the train is shouting at their wrist.
When the U.S. first began minting our fabulous decimal currency, the lowest denomination—the half-penny—was worth a little more than today's dime. Anything less than a dime represents a value so low it wasn't worth dealing with in 1792, and it certainly isn't worth dealing with now. There are many big advantages in switching to a dimes-only coinage versus any other system:
-Dimes are an established coin in American society, and an extremely light coin, making a dimes-only system an easy plan to adopt, and easy to use.
-10 dimes to a dollar, not much is simpler than that. Any transaction would only require between 0 and 9 dimes, and only using a single coin makes counting a much simpler process.
-Rather than rounding to nickels like Australia, we can simply get rid of that pesky second decimal place. E.g. $9.5
There are a thousand arguments for other systems, and this is an arbitrary idea. But I would argue it's the cleanest arbitrary idea we've got. The dime is inefficient, and the dollar bill is inefficient, but these problems pale in comparison to the clusterfuck cause by the penny, the nickel, and everything else. The true primary hurdles would be solved by:
-Making dimes out of zinc, to appease the stupid zinc lobby.
-Putting Lincoln on it.
Then, a hundred years from now, that god we trust in willing, we ditch the dime for the dollar coin.
Isn't that an assumption that itself warrants extensive experimentation before you can base another experiment entirely on it? Besides, if the unused information is, say, musical tones instead of words, experience tells me you're probably going to see less of an effect on memory. But by this "all distractions effect you equally" model it should be the same as shouting out numbers while you're doing math, etc., which I have known from 2nd grade not to have the same effect as random background noise.
It seems to me that they're comparing two different attention tasks. In multi-tasking, you would be concerned with how the brain juggles two or more things you're [i]trying[/i] to focus on, while this one is talking about how you deal with meaningless distraction. Related, maybe, but how is it multi-tasking?
Take the gamepad, for instance. You do all the movement control that requires dexterity with your left hand, and use the right to simply bash buttons. For a couple of the very-hard fighting game maneuvers, I find myself crossing my right hand over.
Next thing you know they'll make a show about the Monty Hall problem. Oh wai-
Go all T.S. Elliot on their asses and build your posts entirely out of things other people have said. First post overlord gritsneal!
This. It's just an accessible, well-known game you can kill time/trance out with. People are freaking out about it being some kind of amazing formula to make millions but really it's just what Windows Solitaire has been for so many years. This time someone was able to monetize it, but at this point that lesson isn't useful until the next big platform shift, and even then you'll probably be headed off at the pass by Angry Birds' momentum.
If there's one thing I wish for all laptop power supplies, it's that they would license from Apple (or work around, patent-wise) the magnet attachment system that makes cable--tripping far less dangerous to man or beast, compared to a few years ago.
Also just wear and tear on the connector. I've seen laptops become unusable just because the power socket is stupidly designed and ends up getting loose. Even some sort of less-patented snap design or something would be better. Van der Waals force, I dunno. Hell, even just something that isn't a cylinder that goes over a small bendable pin, maybe something totally solid like the Apple one only it goes in further, that would be nice...
It's called "sarcasm", it's this hip new way of expressing yourself. It works best over the internet.
For just one low payment of $35 (Canadians add $10 S&H) you can get this SPECIAL flashlight (retail value 54.95!!) that can, uh... "run up and down mathematical equations". If you program a chip. Which you could probably do with any flashlight if you know how to do that. I kinda feel bad for all the exploited nerds funding this...
Oblig. Penny Arcade on Kickstarter
I know, and actually Stargate Universe takes the name in exactly this direction. Naming something "Project Icarus" is like calling it "Project What Could Possibly Go Wrong".
Aside from being run by Google?
In contrast, Sony called it "enforcing."
Sony said on Wednesday that Anonymous targeted it several weeks ago using a denial of service attack in protest of Sony defending itself against a hacker in federal court in San Francisco.
Since when does taking a hardhacker to court constitute "defending yourself"? They might be defending their DRM or EULA or something but the article makes it sound objectively unreasonable for anyone to be upset with them...
"I cannot stress enough how important Google's wifi location database is to our Android and mobile product strategy," Google location manager Steve Lee told founder Page in the memo. "We absolutely do care about this because we need wifi data collection in order to maintain and improve our wifi location service."
It's not a database of your location, it's a crowd-sourced database of positioning information used to help users determine their location. When you encounter a previously unrecorded wifi network or somesuch and you're using this feature (it has a disclaimer about this), you anonymously add it to Google's database so other users using the feature can triangulate their position that much faster. There's a concern in the article that someone could hijack this process on Google's end and record personal information, but as far as we know from these emails and what they've said publicly, this information isn't being kept, in fact there's an encryption scheme to protect it. It's different from the Apple issue where the information was a) unencrypted b) identifiable (because it's on your phone) c) timestamped (and therefore more useful than "here's everywhere I've been in my life!") There's certainly the issue of privacy for the wifi network owners, but my point is the summary's misrepresenting the story here.
I honestly wasn't aware of that because I haven't tried yet. What restrictions are at play in Google's marketplace?
Additionally there are Android apps (for instance OpenWNN, which handles the Japanese input I mentioned), that already exist, that are free, and are included with some distributions but not available on the Market as anything but "enhanced" bloatware. Yes when I have some time I'll be happy to distribute it myself (I already said "do it yourself" is an option), my point is that this hasn't been done, instead there are multiple repackagings.
Except the thing that annoys me is that in many cases this software exists and is free, it's just not ported or in the store. There's no reason to pay for it, but this choice doesn't reach end users. I'm sure the FOSS community will adapt sooner or later to the app store model, but I wonder if by that point anyone will be dumping their favorite app for the more private and ad-free equivalent.
I don't think so. Everyone I know regularly uses all sorts of Android apps that require permissions they don't need. Last I checked you can't even find a free Japanese input program or even an emulator on the marketplace that doesn't require internet access. And at least one of these isn't much more than a privacy-invasive wrapper of gpl code. There was that article a while back about how the vast majority of apps send back user information, and with this as the norm there's often nothing a user can do except port their own apps. What we really need is more effort on the developer side to release clean free apps, but unfortunately there's little personal benefit to doing that.
The information may be "anonymous" but it's still your exact position. They need to find you and pull you over anyway. It's anonymous in the same way a radar blip is anonymous.
To reiterate: Yes this is more work, but apparently it takes more work to make a cache not be a log. If you indiscriminately recorded all information, that would be a gross breach of privacy, regardless of how inconvenient it would be for the programmers to do something else. This is an example of the same kind of thing. The information can be used to track a user. This has already happened. Apple is expected to avoid this, if possible. It's possible. Hence outrage. A few extra instructions in this process will not affect performance.
We're both asserting our points. You're doing so with provocative language and an attitude. Therefore I'm the troll.
Here's one way the timestamp could be helpful: "Hmm. I don't have any of the towers in range cached. I don't have any clue where I am. I better do two things: 1) Assemble a list of towers & hotspots in range, and query for their locations; 2) Look back at the most recent towers & hotspots in my cache, and assume I'm near them for the purposes of beginning map data retrieval." Cell network connections are high latency, and not always high speed. Minimizing the time required before you can start displaying usable information to the user is a feature, not a bug.
You don't need a timestamp for that. You can just number cache batches in the order they were fetched. You know, 1, 2, 3...
Than to sit there saying "Today is Wednesday the 27th of April. Find and purge all entries in the cache that were created before April 20th!", due to the existence of month boundaries, and the simple fact that extra calculation is required every time you do this - making for less efficient software.
It's a bit shift. Nothing is simpler than a single ARM instruction. If you do that you're working with more like 3/4 of a day, but that's good enough for our purposes here.
I'm sorry that you're confined to your home, but not all of us must - or wish to - operate under those constraints.
Stay classy.