Except when somebody runs it anyway, blows their tires, and manages to flip over in the process. Then you have a traffic mess and nobody's going anywhere.
I think it's absurd to force people into obeying traffic laws all the time anyway. Certain things are dangerous (like driving the wrong way down a one-way street) and shouldn't be done except in the most dire circumstances. But those "dire" circumstances when it's worth it to risk a minor collision (because a head-on collision isn't likely unless the road curves), when it's worth it to get a ticket, should be left to the driver's discretion. Granted, not everybody makes good choices and even those who do don't necessarily do it all the time. But the ability to choose is important.
You don't want to be stopping at every stop sign on your way to the hospital when your pregnant wife is about to give birth. Sure, you can enlist the help of a local squad car in those circumstances, but you'd have to find one first because as you know, making phone calls while driving is far more dangerous than blowing a few stop signs where there's nobody else around.
What's even worse are the stop signs and red lights placed before an on ramp. That's when you know the guy who's designing your roads is actually working for the company contracted to put signs and lights up.
Short of some algorithmic breakthrough, it does imply that older implementations are necessarily faster.
The answer is that most of the newer methods are merely bloat, developed not for speed and efficiency, but for ease of development and maintenance.
In the past, successful developers were all highly skilled. It was a necessary trait for success both because development was difficult, and because there were so few ways to make money developing software. Unsuccessful developers stopped developing, and their code does not persist until today.
Today, anybody and everybody who knows how to write "Hello World" is considered a developer. Thus, the bar for entry, and the bar for success is much lower. Hence, code written today on a "modern" programming language is necessarily less efficient, because the language itself was written for an overall less capable group of people.
That is not to say that code developed today cannot be as efficient as code written in the old days, nor is it to say that all of the code written back then is necessarily more efficient as the code written today. But as there hasn't really been any algorithmic breakthroughs in many years for most of the computing science field, the upper limit of the efficiency of the code written today is the same as the upper limit of the efficiency of the code written in the past. And chances are, those upper limits have already been hit.
It comes down to the affirmation of self. It is the justification of existence. It is the rationalization of an otherwise meager, minute, insignificant, uninteresting existence. Because they believe themselves to be unique in some way, their existence has some meaning and purpose. Only, by being "rebellious" they are merely being another member of the pack that is not the member of the pack from which they originally started.
This problem doesn't plague those who already have another means to affirm oneself. But human beings are delusional regardless of the object of their delusion, be it the self or the other. That is truly the human condition. That is the curse and gift of self-awareness.
For Americans, quality of life is not as important as freedom. The freedom to do as the individual wants is more important than the good of the collective, which is what socialism is about. It is built upon the idea that the individual can do anything with enough blood and sweat, and thus not only is state assistance unnecessary, but the state shouldn't help.
At least, that's the ideal. It assumes an educated, enlightened populace who will weigh their every act that benefits the individual against how it will affect society, and will moderate any extremes and choose appropriately. What actaully happens is that people somehow interpret personal freedom to mean they can do anything they want without repercussions. Hence laws are enacted to stop such behavior, and government intrusion becomes necessary. The founding fathers understood this, and tried to enforce moderation of government intrusion through the constitution. Unfortunately, if the government is of the people and the majority of the people are uneducated and unenlightened, then it's only a matter of time before the whole elaborate system falls on its head.
One can say that the ideal of personal freedom itself is cognitively dissonant from reality, and that the compromises of socialism makes for an overall healthier society. But that's a separate discussion altogether.
The legality of interception depends on juristiction. Wiretapping laws may or may not apply, as wiretapping is usually with respect to landlines.
I think there's also an expectation of privacy in play. I wouldn't expect privacy at a black hat convention unless I crashed it while drunk thinking it was E3 or something.
If the EFF says it's ok, they've probably checked the local laws already. And, there's probably fine print in the contract that attendees have to sign that makes it all legal.
Incidentally, should they fire it up in 2012 because they completed the necessary maintenance earlier than expected, that's when we know the world's going to end.
Watch the hand until the moment you grab it. Then quickly look back up at the person. If you do it quickly enough, nobody'd notice that you're not making eye contact while grabbing their hand.
I think that's untrue. Microsoft can continue to improve their office suite and operating system and generate sales through their traditional method of upgrades. Given that they already have a monopoly, it's not that difficult to compel users to buy the next shiny (TM).
The part they got wrong is in actually creating a product that people want to upgrade to. Office 2k7 was a pretty good attempt (personally, I like it and I find the ribbon interface more intuitive and easier to use than the old one), but Vista (and 7) was a solution looking for a problem. I know it wasn't supposed to be like that, but with all the major features cut, and all of the existing functionality unnecessarily additionally encumbered, that's how it turned out.
Nobody would complain if Windows Vista or 7 had been something incredibly revolutionary and game-changing, if it was faster, securer (safer from adware and such), and kept the Windows look and feel but made slight improvements. It didn't even have to be compatible with XP, so long as they included an XP compatibility layer, like they did with DOS programs.
But instead, it turned out to be a bloated lump of poorly-polished turd. It looked like Windows (XP), but it was different in many subtle and frustrating ways, i.e. configuration options that were hidden behind five layers of dialog boxes were suddenly hidden by two more layers. And having nothing new and exciting to offer to at least attempt to compensate, nobody wanted it. It may be easier for a beginner to pick up, but the power users, the sysadmins, the people recommending and installing PCs for their friends and family, sure as hell wouldn't touch it.
It's a management issue. Without a solid, cohesive vision from the top, everything ends up being decided by committee. And we all know that whatever comes out of the committee is going to be half-assed from all the compromises, a thing that can do a bit of everything but nothing well. Just look at the difference between Office 2k7 and Windows Vista/7. If there had been a visionary at the top, the look and (more importantly) feel would be the same across all Microsoft products. Instead, it's completely disjointed.
To top it all off, Microsoft has to then kick out their one visionary (yes, I'm talking about the Kin debacle)--the same guy who made the XBox what it is today--and replace him with a PHB because kissing butt and pushing paper is more valued than having interesting new ideas. So it's no surprise that people want Ballmer out. If he can't recognize top talent for what it is, and retain those people while getting rid of the leeching yes-men, then he's better off being replaced by somebody who can.
And an overall short-sightedness that seems to be incredibly pervasive these days. The culture of instant-gratification is eventually going to backfire, and the so-called digital revolution, when/if it completes, is only going to pave the way for a new dark age.
It's not merely DRM or closed file formats, but the reliance on technology itself, that makes things unable to last. Even your mention of cheap paper on hardcover books indicates even distribution over a physical medium is becoming unreliable. DRM and closed file formats just make things expire that much quicker.
Anyone who expects artists to work without compensation would be a hypocrite if they didn't similarly offer their labor pro bono.
Just FYI, you're posting on slashdot here.
In one word: FOSS. Free, open-source software? Hello? You may not expect people to work for free, but there sure as hell are a lot of people doing it here and making a decent living. Anywhere else, and everybody would eat up your words, but here, nobody's going to take you seriously because that's exactly what they do.
Realistically, you're correct. You can't expect everybody to work for free. But then again, artists are not entitled to money for producing art either. Without copyright, producing art and expecting the dough to roll in is nothing more than a failed business plan.
Besides which, society may suffer if nobody produces art, but I'm certain that's never going to happen. Even if nobody makes music professionally anymore, there'll always be amateurs to take over. And maybe people might even be motivated enough to learn to play an instrument and maybe make their own...
a frosted glass filter on your camera gives you more accurate pictures.
Not sure about frosted glass, but a polarizing filter can do that. By reducing reflective glare, the results can be said to be more accurate, i.e. it shows what would otherwise have been covered up by reflective glare.
Of course, it all depends on your definition of accuracy. If yours is to represent the scene as it is to the human eye, then the polarizing filter will not be accurate. if your definition of accuracy is to represent the scene as it actually is, then it it will produce more accurate pictures.
The headline and summary make it sound like utterly frivolous bullshit, when it's actually important research into motion and balance techniques in living creatures that can be applied to robotics.
And to add insult to injury, it's on Idle. I think/. needs roles for their editors, i.e. Science Editor, Civil Rights Editor, Gaming Editor, Book Review Editor, etc.
There is research to back up the notion that too many product choices can lead to people just walking away and buying nothing. Benchmark comparisons and other review material are useful, but given the questionable impartiality of some of these hardware review sites (you have to be reading the site long enough to detect bias), it still ends up being a lot more work than it's worth.
Personally, I'm not interested in how many CPU cores can fit into a CPU. I'm far more interested in when they're going to come out with affordable multi-cpu configurations. All this multi-core stuff is just a bunch of hand-waving as far as I'm concerned.
Slashdot Mirror
Except when somebody runs it anyway, blows their tires, and manages to flip over in the process. Then you have a traffic mess and nobody's going anywhere.
I think it's absurd to force people into obeying traffic laws all the time anyway. Certain things are dangerous (like driving the wrong way down a one-way street) and shouldn't be done except in the most dire circumstances. But those "dire" circumstances when it's worth it to risk a minor collision (because a head-on collision isn't likely unless the road curves), when it's worth it to get a ticket, should be left to the driver's discretion. Granted, not everybody makes good choices and even those who do don't necessarily do it all the time. But the ability to choose is important.
You don't want to be stopping at every stop sign on your way to the hospital when your pregnant wife is about to give birth. Sure, you can enlist the help of a local squad car in those circumstances, but you'd have to find one first because as you know, making phone calls while driving is far more dangerous than blowing a few stop signs where there's nobody else around.
What's even worse are the stop signs and red lights placed before an on ramp. That's when you know the guy who's designing your roads is actually working for the company contracted to put signs and lights up.
is the actual project any more compelling?
To that, I have one thing to say:
Leonardo DiCaprio.
So the answer is yes, it is slightly more compelling. Unless he's narrating.
Short of some algorithmic breakthrough, it does imply that older implementations are necessarily faster.
The answer is that most of the newer methods are merely bloat, developed not for speed and efficiency, but for ease of development and maintenance.
In the past, successful developers were all highly skilled. It was a necessary trait for success both because development was difficult, and because there were so few ways to make money developing software. Unsuccessful developers stopped developing, and their code does not persist until today.
Today, anybody and everybody who knows how to write "Hello World" is considered a developer. Thus, the bar for entry, and the bar for success is much lower. Hence, code written today on a "modern" programming language is necessarily less efficient, because the language itself was written for an overall less capable group of people.
That is not to say that code developed today cannot be as efficient as code written in the old days, nor is it to say that all of the code written back then is necessarily more efficient as the code written today. But as there hasn't really been any algorithmic breakthroughs in many years for most of the computing science field, the upper limit of the efficiency of the code written today is the same as the upper limit of the efficiency of the code written in the past. And chances are, those upper limits have already been hit.
It comes down to the affirmation of self. It is the justification of existence. It is the rationalization of an otherwise meager, minute, insignificant, uninteresting existence. Because they believe themselves to be unique in some way, their existence has some meaning and purpose. Only, by being "rebellious" they are merely being another member of the pack that is not the member of the pack from which they originally started.
This problem doesn't plague those who already have another means to affirm oneself. But human beings are delusional regardless of the object of their delusion, be it the self or the other. That is truly the human condition. That is the curse and gift of self-awareness.
"I'll show how rebellious and unique I am by dressing, acting, and talking like all the other rebels."
Most people want to be rebels and say their different, but can't overcome the human instinct of conforming and being a member of society.
The ones who can, well, let's just say it's not always a good thing.
For Americans, quality of life is not as important as freedom. The freedom to do as the individual wants is more important than the good of the collective, which is what socialism is about. It is built upon the idea that the individual can do anything with enough blood and sweat, and thus not only is state assistance unnecessary, but the state shouldn't help.
At least, that's the ideal. It assumes an educated, enlightened populace who will weigh their every act that benefits the individual against how it will affect society, and will moderate any extremes and choose appropriately. What actaully happens is that people somehow interpret personal freedom to mean they can do anything they want without repercussions. Hence laws are enacted to stop such behavior, and government intrusion becomes necessary. The founding fathers understood this, and tried to enforce moderation of government intrusion through the constitution. Unfortunately, if the government is of the people and the majority of the people are uneducated and unenlightened, then it's only a matter of time before the whole elaborate system falls on its head.
One can say that the ideal of personal freedom itself is cognitively dissonant from reality, and that the compromises of socialism makes for an overall healthier society. But that's a separate discussion altogether.
You know, that's just security by obscurity, and you know what they say about that...
(IANAL)
The legality of interception depends on juristiction. Wiretapping laws may or may not apply, as wiretapping is usually with respect to landlines.
I think there's also an expectation of privacy in play. I wouldn't expect privacy at a black hat convention unless I crashed it while drunk thinking it was E3 or something.
If the EFF says it's ok, they've probably checked the local laws already. And, there's probably fine print in the contract that attendees have to sign that makes it all legal.
Seriously! The kids these days! Sheesh...
Incidentally, should they fire it up in 2012 because they completed the necessary maintenance earlier than expected, that's when we know the world's going to end.
Watch the hand until the moment you grab it. Then quickly look back up at the person. If you do it quickly enough, nobody'd notice that you're not making eye contact while grabbing their hand.
When use requires copying (to memory), the question becomes, which one trumps the other, use or copy?
I would think that use trumps copy, but it's only from a common sense perspective. I don't know if there's actually precedent for that.
I think that's untrue. Microsoft can continue to improve their office suite and operating system and generate sales through their traditional method of upgrades. Given that they already have a monopoly, it's not that difficult to compel users to buy the next shiny (TM).
The part they got wrong is in actually creating a product that people want to upgrade to. Office 2k7 was a pretty good attempt (personally, I like it and I find the ribbon interface more intuitive and easier to use than the old one), but Vista (and 7) was a solution looking for a problem. I know it wasn't supposed to be like that, but with all the major features cut, and all of the existing functionality unnecessarily additionally encumbered, that's how it turned out.
Nobody would complain if Windows Vista or 7 had been something incredibly revolutionary and game-changing, if it was faster, securer (safer from adware and such), and kept the Windows look and feel but made slight improvements. It didn't even have to be compatible with XP, so long as they included an XP compatibility layer, like they did with DOS programs.
But instead, it turned out to be a bloated lump of poorly-polished turd. It looked like Windows (XP), but it was different in many subtle and frustrating ways, i.e. configuration options that were hidden behind five layers of dialog boxes were suddenly hidden by two more layers. And having nothing new and exciting to offer to at least attempt to compensate, nobody wanted it. It may be easier for a beginner to pick up, but the power users, the sysadmins, the people recommending and installing PCs for their friends and family, sure as hell wouldn't touch it.
It's a management issue. Without a solid, cohesive vision from the top, everything ends up being decided by committee. And we all know that whatever comes out of the committee is going to be half-assed from all the compromises, a thing that can do a bit of everything but nothing well. Just look at the difference between Office 2k7 and Windows Vista/7. If there had been a visionary at the top, the look and (more importantly) feel would be the same across all Microsoft products. Instead, it's completely disjointed.
To top it all off, Microsoft has to then kick out their one visionary (yes, I'm talking about the Kin debacle)--the same guy who made the XBox what it is today--and replace him with a PHB because kissing butt and pushing paper is more valued than having interesting new ideas. So it's no surprise that people want Ballmer out. If he can't recognize top talent for what it is, and retain those people while getting rid of the leeching yes-men, then he's better off being replaced by somebody who can.
convenience
And an overall short-sightedness that seems to be incredibly pervasive these days. The culture of instant-gratification is eventually going to backfire, and the so-called digital revolution, when/if it completes, is only going to pave the way for a new dark age.
It's not merely DRM or closed file formats, but the reliance on technology itself, that makes things unable to last. Even your mention of cheap paper on hardcover books indicates even distribution over a physical medium is becoming unreliable. DRM and closed file formats just make things expire that much quicker.
Different? Different!?
Conform, you mindless sheep drone! If you don't conform, you don't belong!
Anyone who expects artists to work without compensation would be a hypocrite if they didn't similarly offer their labor pro bono.
Just FYI, you're posting on slashdot here.
In one word: FOSS. Free, open-source software? Hello? You may not expect people to work for free, but there sure as hell are a lot of people doing it here and making a decent living. Anywhere else, and everybody would eat up your words, but here, nobody's going to take you seriously because that's exactly what they do.
Realistically, you're correct. You can't expect everybody to work for free. But then again, artists are not entitled to money for producing art either. Without copyright, producing art and expecting the dough to roll in is nothing more than a failed business plan.
Besides which, society may suffer if nobody produces art, but I'm certain that's never going to happen. Even if nobody makes music professionally anymore, there'll always be amateurs to take over. And maybe people might even be motivated enough to learn to play an instrument and maybe make their own...
Open Pork!
Spice it up, cure it, and you've got youself some government-funded spam!
It's probably a step up from Windows 7.
OJ got out not because he wasn't guilty, but because the other side was playing dirty. I think that's pretty fair.
a frosted glass filter on your camera gives you more accurate pictures.
Not sure about frosted glass, but a polarizing filter can do that. By reducing reflective glare, the results can be said to be more accurate, i.e. it shows what would otherwise have been covered up by reflective glare.
Of course, it all depends on your definition of accuracy. If yours is to represent the scene as it is to the human eye, then the polarizing filter will not be accurate. if your definition of accuracy is to represent the scene as it actually is, then it it will produce more accurate pictures.
I just changed my password to: Refudiate
The headline and summary make it sound like utterly frivolous bullshit, when it's actually important research into motion and balance techniques in living creatures that can be applied to robotics.
And to add insult to injury, it's on Idle. I think /. needs roles for their editors, i.e. Science Editor, Civil Rights Editor, Gaming Editor, Book Review Editor, etc.
So, it's not surprising that they're not making a profit on this switch, because frankly, they're probably not trying to.
The industry's watching from the fence. If they don't make a profit, nobody else is going to switch.
There is research to back up the notion that too many product choices can lead to people just walking away and buying nothing. Benchmark comparisons and other review material are useful, but given the questionable impartiality of some of these hardware review sites (you have to be reading the site long enough to detect bias), it still ends up being a lot more work than it's worth.
Personally, I'm not interested in how many CPU cores can fit into a CPU. I'm far more interested in when they're going to come out with affordable multi-cpu configurations. All this multi-core stuff is just a bunch of hand-waving as far as I'm concerned.