That's not true, and I can tell you this from first hand experience using neurofeedback. I have ADD (clinically diagnosed) and have been taking treatment with first Straterra and then Adderall for some time now, and I was actually a part of some of the earlier testing of this exact system (the SMART system). When I was using it, it was somewhat buggy - the helmet with the sensors had some conductivity issues, and the hardware was incredibly annoying - but I still definitely reaped benefits from it. The brain is a marvelous thing, and claiming that anything about it can only be changed through one type of intervention (chemical) is pretty naïve.
I personally found that the Need for Speed series worked well with the SMART system, as did other racing games, because the system was able to modify the responsiveness of the accelerator in relation to my level of concentration. Honestly I didn't even like doing it that much because I get bored with racing games - I'm much more of a First Person Shooter or strategy game type of guy, but those don't work with the SMART system very well. I've learned now how to force my brain into that state, and now I only take my Adderall at certain times, like finals week. I stopped using the system when I left for college four years ago because, frankly, I didn't want to be "that kid" who sits in his dorm with a contraption attached to his head as an experimental treatment, but now that I'm about to graduate and get my own place I might look into what advances they've made in the technology and pick it back up again. Maybe eventually game developers will include support for systems like this in their games, so that more genres will work with it - rather than just turning the level of input from the X button up and down, the system could directly modify the rate of unit production in a strategy game or the speed at which your character heals in an FPS.
Knowing that they switched to OSS makes me love Ernie Ball Musicman basses even more! Seriously, those things are sick.
One interesting thing I noticed is that the article (well, slashdot in general) contrasts the cumbersome intricacies licenses of regular software with the simplicity of OSS. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of OSS because of the freedom, but the licenses aren't exactly easy to understand. You know that whole GPLv3 debate? A lot of those provisions (and a lot of the provisions in GPLv2) are pretty funky and wouldn't be something you'd assume unless you were familiar with the GPL. Now, the OSS folks aren't nearly as bad as the BSA because we don't go balls out to get money from companies in violation of our licenses, but I think it's fair to say that everyone could do with a little more simplicity and a lot less legal tangles when it comes to software licensing.
Say what!? Killing DRM is bad for the iTunes/iPod lockin, it means that iTunes tracks can now be played on any MP3 player out there! Apple's already subverting their own monopoly, what more do you want them to do, start supporting Microsoft's DRM on iPods?
The sound coming from the strings would be different, and the feel of the fretboard wouldn't be right. If my guitar is significantly out of tune, I can tell just from the feel of the string tension. If it gets bad enough, the strings rattle against the frets. A strum on a guitar is not just a set of six pure tones, it's a complex and beautiful thing.
I absolutely agree. I went to a math and science charter school aimed at gifted students (our average SAT was by far the best in the state, and we were up in the top ten nationally in a lot of academic competitions), and the school district that we were affiliated with absolutely HATED giving us money. In fact, the governor even hated us until she realized she could make herself look better by including Charter schools as public schools in statistics, giving the state's average SAT a ten point boost (from a school of less than 1000 students). The claims made against us were that we were "stealing" all the good students from the public schools, meaning, apparently, that students are not in school to learn, but they are in school to make their schools look better. If the public schools could have given us as good an education, Charter wouldn't exist.
This is still different from the MS "monopoly" because with Windows there's some sort of lock-in, a reason you would need to use Windows over any other operating system, and that is compatibility. That means competition isn't totally fair because someone could have a better product, but since most programs are written for Windows a lot of people won't be able to switch to the better OS. This sort of lock-in wouldn't be the case with a Google phone, unless they did something ridiculous like only let people call Google phones with a Google phone. Which they won't. So it's not even a "monopoly" in the MS pseudo-monopoly sense.
No, it's not surprising at all, but it sure is infuriating, especially considering that my school (University of Delaware) is on that list. Thankfully I don't live in the dorms or use the campus network for sharing, so I'm not worried, but it's still horribly wrong if they cooperate. I plan on writing the president a letter about this, maybe even getting a petition going.
Thus far, two of my friends have been accused of file sharing by the University and neither of them even do it. Most of my friends DO share music, and those ones haven't gotten caught yet. Of course, neither of my friends who did get "caught" were allowed to appeal the decision so they both had to pay IT services $100 to "clean" their computers (the cost was regardless of whether or not anything was found) and they lost their internet access for a month.
Neither of them is looking out for us. Google is no way doing this to make sure prices are low for broadband. They are doing it for profits and their shareholders. I would bet any benefit for users is temporary. I disagree. Remember, Google's business model is based on advertising, and their ads are EVERYWHERE, so it's in their best interest to get more people using the internet. If they give us cheap broadband, we browse the web and inevitably come across tons of Google ads. For most companies, this effect would seem far-fetched, but Google is ubiquitous enough that I bet it would pay for itself. So basically, it's not in Google's interest to squeeze us dry. They'd rather have people browse all they can.
Not to mention that the primary hope and dream of most startups these days is - you guessed it - be be bought by Google. I don't see why most Google employees would WANT to take out the empire when it's far easier and almost definitely more profitable to just work for it.
I think we agree, I think forcing their hand to only suicide bombers isn't a small thing. It's a lot harder to hide an entire person than it is to hide a bit of C4, so provided they've blocked all radio bands (I don't see why they wouldn't) this should make the secret service's job a lot easier.
Yea, seriously. If you want biased, you can just read the summary. To be honest, it's an opinion piece, and the purpose of an opinion piece is to be biased, and seriously, can anything that makes any sort of conclusion on such a complex/subjective topic as this NOT be biased?
Why do slashdotters have this attitude that it's morally wrong for a publicly traded company to try to make profits? I mean seriously guys, that's their JOB! If they bother to do it and be nice to geeks at the same time, we should be thankful that they're going out of their way at all.
Open Source will never do much good for mankind unless it can first do some good for the investors. Please people, wrap your hippie minds around that concept.
I agree, for a variety of reasons. For one, there's security, but for me the biggest problem with web-based apps is that they don't go everywhere my computer does. When I'm at my friend's beach house, there's no internet connection. What am I supposed to do if I need to finish up a paper or something like that? Web based apps are great because of their portability in other ways (I can access them from any computer) but personally, I will never use them exclusively. Anything saved on the web will always be copied to my local hard drive too.
I'm really hesitant to click that link because I feel like it would be totally in-character for/. editors to point a link entitled anything like "nude Britney Spears pictures" to an actual virus, just for kicks.
AAC-format supporters include some notable names, including Microsoft's Zune. So come May, the 16 people who own one will be able to buy EMI tracks from iTunes and presumably play them on that device.
Your claim basically says that all science is moot and we should instead just assume everything around us is not what it seems since we cannot verify that our senses are actually correct.
Quite the contrary. I'm claiming that even though we can't prove that our senses are correct, it's not ridiculous to trust them, and in the same way, it isn't ridiculous to believe something on faith.
No, it doesn't defy logic, it defies the legitimacy of our experience. Scientists base all of their findings on the assumption that our senses can be trusted - that when they read 46.5 mL on that burette that the liquid inside 1) exists and 2) is where they see it. Can they prove that their senses can be trusted, or that the outside world actually exists? Hell, can you prove that logic is valid? How would you go about that? By using logic, it's the only way we know of proving things, but that's circular. So everyone assumes on faith that the rules of logic are right - that if Fido is a dog and all dogs are mammals, then Fido is a mammal. We can't prove it, we assume it. So faith, of one sort or another, underlies EVERYTHING we believe, even things as basic as our belief that the world exists.
Scientists believe that our senses can be trusted, and that the material world exists and isn't just some sort of illusion. Otherwise, all measurements are meaningless. Can you prove that? Good frickin' luck.
The point is that absolutely EVERYTHING is based on some sort of faith at one level or another, and it's ridiculous to claim somebody is irrational for believing in something that can't be proven.
What I really love is how the article doesn't even allow for the possibility of a supernatural being actually existing.
"Which is the better biological explanation for a belief in God -- evolutionary adaptation or neurological accident?"
While science can't validly answer questions about the supernatural, to not even consider the "God put it there" possibility is creating a false dichotomy, and is just plain bad reasoning, which in turn is bad science. We need to stop pretending that all our questions can be answered through science. I guess I'm biased as a philosophy major, but still... closed-mindedness hasn't gotten society anywhere, whether it's being closed against science in Galileo's time or being closed against religion today.
I love the idea of zero day patches, it's very... at the risk of being labeled a fanboi, Apple-ish. I know a lot of people are going to be calling for Microsoft to do something similar, but that's not going to happen just because of the sheer number of patches M$ has to put out. That makes the idea of a zero-day response team even more advantageous to Apple because it would give them yet another advantage over Microsoft that Gates just can't match. Definitely a good move on Apple's part, both for its users and for its marketing.
Slashdot Mirror
That's not true, and I can tell you this from first hand experience using neurofeedback. I have ADD (clinically diagnosed) and have been taking treatment with first Straterra and then Adderall for some time now, and I was actually a part of some of the earlier testing of this exact system (the SMART system). When I was using it, it was somewhat buggy - the helmet with the sensors had some conductivity issues, and the hardware was incredibly annoying - but I still definitely reaped benefits from it. The brain is a marvelous thing, and claiming that anything about it can only be changed through one type of intervention (chemical) is pretty naïve.
I personally found that the Need for Speed series worked well with the SMART system, as did other racing games, because the system was able to modify the responsiveness of the accelerator in relation to my level of concentration. Honestly I didn't even like doing it that much because I get bored with racing games - I'm much more of a First Person Shooter or strategy game type of guy, but those don't work with the SMART system very well. I've learned now how to force my brain into that state, and now I only take my Adderall at certain times, like finals week. I stopped using the system when I left for college four years ago because, frankly, I didn't want to be "that kid" who sits in his dorm with a contraption attached to his head as an experimental treatment, but now that I'm about to graduate and get my own place I might look into what advances they've made in the technology and pick it back up again. Maybe eventually game developers will include support for systems like this in their games, so that more genres will work with it - rather than just turning the level of input from the X button up and down, the system could directly modify the rate of unit production in a strategy game or the speed at which your character heals in an FPS.
Knowing that they switched to OSS makes me love Ernie Ball Musicman basses even more! Seriously, those things are sick.
One interesting thing I noticed is that the article (well, slashdot in general) contrasts the cumbersome intricacies licenses of regular software with the simplicity of OSS. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of OSS because of the freedom, but the licenses aren't exactly easy to understand. You know that whole GPLv3 debate? A lot of those provisions (and a lot of the provisions in GPLv2) are pretty funky and wouldn't be something you'd assume unless you were familiar with the GPL. Now, the OSS folks aren't nearly as bad as the BSA because we don't go balls out to get money from companies in violation of our licenses, but I think it's fair to say that everyone could do with a little more simplicity and a lot less legal tangles when it comes to software licensing.
Say what!? Killing DRM is bad for the iTunes/iPod lockin, it means that iTunes tracks can now be played on any MP3 player out there! Apple's already subverting their own monopoly, what more do you want them to do, start supporting Microsoft's DRM on iPods?
The sound coming from the strings would be different, and the feel of the fretboard wouldn't be right. If my guitar is significantly out of tune, I can tell just from the feel of the string tension. If it gets bad enough, the strings rattle against the frets. A strum on a guitar is not just a set of six pure tones, it's a complex and beautiful thing.
I absolutely agree. I went to a math and science charter school aimed at gifted students (our average SAT was by far the best in the state, and we were up in the top ten nationally in a lot of academic competitions), and the school district that we were affiliated with absolutely HATED giving us money. In fact, the governor even hated us until she realized she could make herself look better by including Charter schools as public schools in statistics, giving the state's average SAT a ten point boost (from a school of less than 1000 students). The claims made against us were that we were "stealing" all the good students from the public schools, meaning, apparently, that students are not in school to learn, but they are in school to make their schools look better. If the public schools could have given us as good an education, Charter wouldn't exist.
This is still different from the MS "monopoly" because with Windows there's some sort of lock-in, a reason you would need to use Windows over any other operating system, and that is compatibility. That means competition isn't totally fair because someone could have a better product, but since most programs are written for Windows a lot of people won't be able to switch to the better OS. This sort of lock-in wouldn't be the case with a Google phone, unless they did something ridiculous like only let people call Google phones with a Google phone. Which they won't. So it's not even a "monopoly" in the MS pseudo-monopoly sense.
No, it's not surprising at all, but it sure is infuriating, especially considering that my school (University of Delaware) is on that list. Thankfully I don't live in the dorms or use the campus network for sharing, so I'm not worried, but it's still horribly wrong if they cooperate. I plan on writing the president a letter about this, maybe even getting a petition going.
Thus far, two of my friends have been accused of file sharing by the University and neither of them even do it. Most of my friends DO share music, and those ones haven't gotten caught yet. Of course, neither of my friends who did get "caught" were allowed to appeal the decision so they both had to pay IT services $100 to "clean" their computers (the cost was regardless of whether or not anything was found) and they lost their internet access for a month.
MOD PARENT +5 INSIGHTFUL!
Geez, where did we get this idea that turning a profit is a crime?
Oh, right. Marx.
Not to mention that the primary hope and dream of most startups these days is - you guessed it - be be bought by Google. I don't see why most Google employees would WANT to take out the empire when it's far easier and almost definitely more profitable to just work for it.
I think we agree, I think forcing their hand to only suicide bombers isn't a small thing. It's a lot harder to hide an entire person than it is to hide a bit of C4, so provided they've blocked all radio bands (I don't see why they wouldn't) this should make the secret service's job a lot easier.
Yea, seriously. If you want biased, you can just read the summary. To be honest, it's an opinion piece, and the purpose of an opinion piece is to be biased, and seriously, can anything that makes any sort of conclusion on such a complex/subjective topic as this NOT be biased?
Why do slashdotters have this attitude that it's morally wrong for a publicly traded company to try to make profits? I mean seriously guys, that's their JOB! If they bother to do it and be nice to geeks at the same time, we should be thankful that they're going out of their way at all.
Open Source will never do much good for mankind unless it can first do some good for the investors. Please people, wrap your hippie minds around that concept.
I'm sure you won't have to, they'll either keep Yahoo email separate for a while or integrate it smoothly enough that they won't lose any customers.
I agree, for a variety of reasons. For one, there's security, but for me the biggest problem with web-based apps is that they don't go everywhere my computer does. When I'm at my friend's beach house, there's no internet connection. What am I supposed to do if I need to finish up a paper or something like that? Web based apps are great because of their portability in other ways (I can access them from any computer) but personally, I will never use them exclusively. Anything saved on the web will always be copied to my local hard drive too.
I'm really hesitant to click that link because I feel like it would be totally in-character for /. editors to point a link entitled anything like "nude Britney Spears pictures" to an actual virus, just for kicks.
I love this guy!
Haha, good call. At least I don't live in Massachusetts.
Or just move to Delaware!!! Haha, I love my state.
For those not in the know, DE doesn't have any sales tax.
Your claim basically says that all science is moot and we should instead just assume everything around us is not what it seems since we cannot verify that our senses are actually correct.
Quite the contrary. I'm claiming that even though we can't prove that our senses are correct, it's not ridiculous to trust them, and in the same way, it isn't ridiculous to believe something on faith.
No, it doesn't defy logic, it defies the legitimacy of our experience. Scientists base all of their findings on the assumption that our senses can be trusted - that when they read 46.5 mL on that burette that the liquid inside 1) exists and 2) is where they see it. Can they prove that their senses can be trusted, or that the outside world actually exists? Hell, can you prove that logic is valid? How would you go about that? By using logic, it's the only way we know of proving things, but that's circular. So everyone assumes on faith that the rules of logic are right - that if Fido is a dog and all dogs are mammals, then Fido is a mammal. We can't prove it, we assume it. So faith, of one sort or another, underlies EVERYTHING we believe, even things as basic as our belief that the world exists.
Scientists believe that our senses can be trusted, and that the material world exists and isn't just some sort of illusion. Otherwise, all measurements are meaningless. Can you prove that? Good frickin' luck.
The point is that absolutely EVERYTHING is based on some sort of faith at one level or another, and it's ridiculous to claim somebody is irrational for believing in something that can't be proven.
And before someone corrects me and points out that the article did mention that possibility, I meant to say "study," not "article". My bad.
What I really love is how the article doesn't even allow for the possibility of a supernatural being actually existing.
"Which is the better biological explanation for a belief in God -- evolutionary adaptation or neurological accident?"
While science can't validly answer questions about the supernatural, to not even consider the "God put it there" possibility is creating a false dichotomy, and is just plain bad reasoning, which in turn is bad science. We need to stop pretending that all our questions can be answered through science. I guess I'm biased as a philosophy major, but still... closed-mindedness hasn't gotten society anywhere, whether it's being closed against science in Galileo's time or being closed against religion today.
I love the idea of zero day patches, it's very... at the risk of being labeled a fanboi, Apple-ish. I know a lot of people are going to be calling for Microsoft to do something similar, but that's not going to happen just because of the sheer number of patches M$ has to put out. That makes the idea of a zero-day response team even more advantageous to Apple because it would give them yet another advantage over Microsoft that Gates just can't match. Definitely a good move on Apple's part, both for its users and for its marketing.