It would be a really good idea for Apple's PR department to go forward and make some form of public statement about what the company intends to do with this patent. Otherwise, if this story becomes more widely known, it could easily cast a bad light on Apple in the public opinion.
Do you copy, Mr Employee-At-Apple-PR-department By-chance-reading-Slashdot?
Out of curiosity, what makes you opposed to the modern iteration of nuclear reactors? The major accidents have all been Mark I reactors, which have been known to be unsafe since 1972 (warnings ignored, thank GE in the U.S.). For modern reactors, "real science" reveals mostly positives, with almost no chance of a critical meltdown.
Well, as you wrote: "almost no chance...". The thing is, the probability estimates in this regard have a habit of turning out wrong; somehow something comes up that was not included in the estimate. In Chernobyl, well, it was a Russian plant, well, of course communists can't build proper plants. In Fukushima, it was either (a) the reactor design is outdated, or (b) the scale of the natural disaster was so unexpectedly large.
What will it be next time? How about maybe, "My bad, the reactor design was absolutely safe, but of course we didn't anticipate a terrorist attack / software glitch in the controls / human error."
I think it is not too convincing to keep hearing, "of course, in the past we were too stupid to prevent such disasters, but now we got the hang of it, honest"
And I forgot... you suggest "It was suggested that the people screaming might want them in THEIR countries" - you obviously refer to non-american countries. Why wouldn't they take these people?
Well, for one, because they aren't the ones who were illegally holding and torturing them for years on end. It's the duty of the wrongdoer to compensate. How about offering them one of your smaller states?
If they actually carry out illegal acts, prove so in a fair trial and jail them in a plain old prison. No five-star resort involved. If you can't, release them (or don't imprison someone you don't have any reasonable evidence against). No one is forcing you to hold anyone innocent.
You know, standard procedure if you have rule of law.
No, it means "way". Although you can shorten the word "Eisenbahn" (train) to "Bahn" (like you can shorten "hard drive" to "drive" in a computer context even if "drive" alone means, well, "drive").
An aspect that has bothered me but isn't mentioned here yet is that lots of Linux games are multiplayer (or at least start to be developed that way). This is quite understandable, since it's easier to get the basic game mechanics running if you don't have to care about either AI or write a story. However, I don't like multiplayer that much for reasons already stated here (repetitive gameplay, griefers, time investment to leave noob stage). Alas, very few interesting games remain, if you don't want ancient ones like "Return of the Amazon Queen" or the 100th Sokoban clone. There are some exceptions like rocksndiamonds and Battle of Wesnoth, but most games that at first seem interesting to me turned out to be multiplayer-only.
Alas, I mostly don't bother checking the "games" section in the package manager anymore...
Only if all states would be necessary for a simulation. Non-random information (needed for a simulation) can generally be represented using less (compressed) information, and the universe is apparently not "random", but exhibits a great deal of structure. I do not mean to say that simulation would be possible, but I think your argument does not prove otherwise.
Well, in Germany it would be against the law to change early. It has been shown that driving till the end, and then merging as "one from the left lane, one from the right lane" is the most efficient way to handle ending lanes. Therefore the law demands that. It's called "Reissverschlussverfahren" ("zipper procedure").
Now that is an evil word.
Cop: I charge you 20 Euros for violation of the... REISSVERSCHLUSSVERFAHREN!
Eliminate dependence on foreign oil, and it also means we don't have to spend billions sending our kids off to die every time the Middle East hicups. How does THAT trash the economy?
Ever heard of the military-industrial complex? Hmmm...
"It is difficult to estimate the degree of dependence of the U.S. economy on its military and defense spending, but it is clearly enormous, and legislators fiercely resist defense cuts that affect their districts."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_industrial_complex)
Well, you are right and you can't ever reach truly authoritative conclusions (outside the realm of logic, that is). That's why the scientific method is so useful in the real world compared to systems that depend on authoritative knowlege/belief. It's also the fundamental problem with the death sentence, as you pointed out.
Another time-eater at boot that might be eliminated is the routine fsck e.g. with ext3 filesystems at mount. It's unfortunate when, once in a while, it can take 5 minutes (!) or more to boot for a routine check. Granted, you can esc-abort it (a new feature in newer Ubuntus), change the intervals or switch it off altogether, but (a) Joe user doesn't know how to do that, and (b) the checks shouldn't be abandoned, since they actually make sense. Maybe it would be a good idea to find a way to delay the (routine) checks and somehow perform them in the background when the filesystems are already mounted?
Americans doing pray-ins for lower gas prices is a recent example... the sad thing is, obviously this was just (obviously?) a bunch of morons, but hey, their government is relying on divine revelation and assistance too. What could you be doing wrong, if God is on your side?
I read a thought experiment by, I think, Arthur C. Clarke that went something like this: suppose you're an astronaut, you are stranded on Mars with your spaceship wrecked, but your teleporter is still functional, so you can beam back home. Unfortunately, the part of the process that erases the original does not work. So you will return back to your loved ones and live happily ever after, and simultaneously die a miserable death alone on Mars.
Actually, it's not a "gaping flaw". I think the idea is just to prevent re-entry of people that do not conform to the rules. Sure, you can submit the slip without really leaving the country (whereafter you are an illegal alien), and if you leave sometime later, the mismatch can be detected if any data comparison is made with the actual flight data, which is available -> re-entry denied. If you just leave (and entirely fail to submit the slip in the time of your visa), you will also be denied re-entry.
Should this research be correct, the only question left will be: "This?" Now and always and forever, this? Sounds awfully like what a Zen person might ask;-)
In principle, yes. However, I think your numbers are a bit off. You assume not only that there is one PC per Japanese citizen, but that every one of them gets a brand new copy of Windows every year, which clearly is not the case (I rather think that, like everywhere, the number of Windows sold in the private sector roughly equals the number of PCs sold). For the same reason, these sales would be at the Microsoft Tax level. Further excluding small children and the elderly (not so many non-tech people have more than one PC in active use), I'd reckon the estimate may be off by up to an order of magnitude, which would mean 2% (or maybe 4%) instead of 20%.
Funny you call this a "mythical" statement. I've read an assertion to that effect in the seminal book "The Mythical Man-Month" by Frederick Brooks, who apparently knows a thing or two about coders (having been development manager of OS/360, no less). Although, he didn't tie it to being an "expert", just stated that output and efficiency of programmers varies by orders of magnitude.
Yeah, right. Microsoft could however counter this by offering a version where the interface language is restricted to chinese-language only, while still including support for international fontsets (to enable the user to write office documents in english, for example):-/
It would not sell on the gray market, except in China or possibly Taiwan.
Slashdot Mirror
Do you copy, Mr Employee-At-Apple-PR-department By-chance-reading-Slashdot?
to quote Snow Crash, "you can't argue with Reason".
Out of curiosity, what makes you opposed to the modern iteration of nuclear reactors? The major accidents have all been Mark I reactors, which have been known to be unsafe since 1972 (warnings ignored, thank GE in the U.S.). For modern reactors, "real science" reveals mostly positives, with almost no chance of a critical meltdown.
Well, as you wrote: "almost no chance...". The thing is, the probability estimates in this regard have a habit of turning out wrong; somehow something comes up that was not included in the estimate. In Chernobyl, well, it was a Russian plant, well, of course communists can't build proper plants. In Fukushima, it was either (a) the reactor design is outdated, or (b) the scale of the natural disaster was so unexpectedly large.
What will it be next time? How about maybe, "My bad, the reactor design was absolutely safe, but of course we didn't anticipate a terrorist attack / software glitch in the controls / human error."
I think it is not too convincing to keep hearing, "of course, in the past we were too stupid to prevent such disasters, but now we got the hang of it, honest"
All of these externalities (and maybe some more I have not thought of) should be factored into the price. But they are not.
I honestly don't know how the figures would work out then, but the Germans may be correct in recognizing this.
Well, for one, because they aren't the ones who were illegally holding and torturing them for years on end. It's the duty of the wrongdoer to compensate. How about offering them one of your smaller states?
If they actually carry out illegal acts, prove so in a fair trial and jail them in a plain old prison. No five-star resort involved. If you can't, release them (or don't imprison someone you don't have any reasonable evidence against). No one is forcing you to hold anyone innocent.
You know, standard procedure if you have rule of law.
Strictly manogamous people don't need any contraceptives - by definition ;-)
"Bahn" means "train"
No, it means "way". Although you can shorten the word "Eisenbahn" (train) to "Bahn" (like you can shorten "hard drive" to "drive" in a computer context even if "drive" alone means, well, "drive").
An aspect that has bothered me but isn't mentioned here yet is that lots of Linux games are multiplayer (or at least start to be developed that way). This is quite understandable, since it's easier to get the basic game mechanics running if you don't have to care about either AI or write a story. However, I don't like multiplayer that much for reasons already stated here (repetitive gameplay, griefers, time investment to leave noob stage). Alas, very few interesting games remain, if you don't want ancient ones like "Return of the Amazon Queen" or the 100th Sokoban clone. There are some exceptions like rocksndiamonds and Battle of Wesnoth, but most games that at first seem interesting to me turned out to be multiplayer-only. Alas, I mostly don't bother checking the "games" section in the package manager anymore...
Only if all states would be necessary for a simulation. Non-random information (needed for a simulation) can generally be represented using less (compressed) information, and the universe is apparently not "random", but exhibits a great deal of structure. I do not mean to say that simulation would be possible, but I think your argument does not prove otherwise.
Don't forget Poland!
+1 Lyrical ;-)
This really produced a nice impression of the lone icy astronomer from "Ridge A" singing his song in my imagination
Well, in Germany it would be against the law to change early. It has been shown that driving till the end, and then merging as "one from the left lane, one from the right lane" is the most efficient way to handle ending lanes. Therefore the law demands that. It's called "Reissverschlussverfahren" ("zipper procedure").
Now that is an evil word.
Cop: I charge you 20 Euros for violation of the ... REISSVERSCHLUSSVERFAHREN!
or
fixed that for you.
Eliminate dependence on foreign oil, and it also means we don't have to spend billions sending our kids off to die every time the Middle East hicups. How does THAT trash the economy?
Ever heard of the military-industrial complex? Hmmm...
"It is difficult to estimate the degree of dependence of the U.S. economy on its military and defense spending, but it is clearly enormous, and legislators fiercely resist defense cuts that affect their districts." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_industrial_complex)
Well, you are right and you can't ever reach truly authoritative conclusions (outside the realm of logic, that is). That's why the scientific method is so useful in the real world compared to systems that depend on authoritative knowlege/belief. It's also the fundamental problem with the death sentence, as you pointed out.
Another time-eater at boot that might be eliminated is the routine fsck e.g. with ext3 filesystems at mount. It's unfortunate when, once in a while, it can take 5 minutes (!) or more to boot for a routine check. Granted, you can esc-abort it (a new feature in newer Ubuntus), change the intervals or switch it off altogether, but (a) Joe user doesn't know how to do that, and (b) the checks shouldn't be abandoned, since they actually make sense. Maybe it would be a good idea to find a way to delay the (routine) checks and somehow perform them in the background when the filesystems are already mounted?
640k ought to be enough for everybody!
Except He isn't.
Well...
Actually, it's not a "gaping flaw". I think the idea is just to prevent re-entry of people that do not conform to the rules. Sure, you can submit the slip without really leaving the country (whereafter you are an illegal alien), and if you leave sometime later, the mismatch can be detected if any data comparison is made with the actual flight data, which is available -> re-entry denied. If you just leave (and entirely fail to submit the slip in the time of your visa), you will also be denied re-entry.
In principle, yes. However, I think your numbers are a bit off. You assume not only that there is one PC per Japanese citizen, but that every one of them gets a brand new copy of Windows every year, which clearly is not the case (I rather think that, like everywhere, the number of Windows sold in the private sector roughly equals the number of PCs sold). For the same reason, these sales would be at the Microsoft Tax level. Further excluding small children and the elderly (not so many non-tech people have more than one PC in active use), I'd reckon the estimate may be off by up to an order of magnitude, which would mean 2% (or maybe 4%) instead of 20%.
Funny you call this a "mythical" statement. I've read an assertion to that effect in the seminal book "The Mythical Man-Month" by Frederick Brooks, who apparently knows a thing or two about coders (having been development manager of OS/360, no less). Although, he didn't tie it to being an "expert", just stated that output and efficiency of programmers varies by orders of magnitude.
It would not sell on the gray market, except in China or possibly Taiwan.