Great. Now you're going to have all the Google search engineers wondering what's so special about "(47 x 75) Ã 25" that thousands of people are searching for it over a 24-hour period.
This is untrue. There is certainly a nature aspect to it all. For starters, since everybody learns differently, if someone else were to be taught exactly the same way you were taught, they'd most likely either know less, or more than you.
And that's not even talking about genetic dispositions caused by chemical differences.
Obviously, the important thing to remember is that dispositions is not guaranteed. Everyone can be trained to behave in the same manner. It's just that the training is different for everyone, usually subtly, but sometimes drastically.
One of the reasons context-free searches isn't more prevalent in everyday computing is the increase in complexity and thus computation resources needed to process it. If regular grammar was linear, then context-free is closer to linearithmic (n*log(n)).
Regular expressions can handle multi-line searches as easily as it does single-line searches (some people above were saying how the multi-line aspect of this would be real useful). The line delimiter is merely a convenience.
What it can't handle are nested searches where the search criteria involves the attributes of the nesting. For example, while regular expressions can find items with or in between a particular tag, it cannot say, find items x-levels down or say, determine which tags nested to the 5th level are not named "xyz".
It's the same reason most programmers cannot debug their own code. The a priori knowledge of the work defeats any attempt to significantly alter it.
I suspect most writers are more than capable of editing, just as every programmer skilled in programming is capable of debugging. A peer-review process similar to that of code reviews would probably be just as beneficial as having a separate editor.
What keeps the editor employed is the fact that editing takes time away from writing. And writers I think would prefer to keep churing out pages while they still can than interrupt the moment by switching to editing.
The point still stands. When you buy a phone, you're buying the hardware in addition to the software.
Which means that you should be able to swap the software loaded into the hardware at your pleasure.
But that's not necessarily the jailbreaking issue. Jailbreaking is not, say, Rockbox. Jailbreaking entails swapping the software with certain restrictions for a 3rd-party modified form of the software that does not have the same restrictions. The modification of the software is really the core of the jailbreaking debate, not the loading of different software itself (though that needs to be, and IMHO is, concurrently addressed).
So it's a question of whether the purification process of silicon is more expensive than the mining and purification process of molybdenum. Unless the molybdenum doesn't need to be purified to the same degree.
Molybdenite probably won't replace silicon in all cases. Probably, it will be used in select components and chips, where speed and power usage are both equally important factors.
Sure. That's because we know that with sufficient energy, a round cannonball will be able to do that. This is because due to its shape, at each point of impact, not all of the energy is transferred out of the cannonball and into the receptacle.
The only points where it probably lost a significant amount of energy was through the cinder-block wall (which may not be much if the wall just consisted of blocks stacked and not held together by anything), the front door (which again may not be a lot if the door is cheap), the stucco wall, and finally the minivan. And at that time, there either wasn't enough energy to continue bouncing, or it hit the minivan at an angle where the minivan's body absorbed the rest of the energy.
All in all, it's completely feasible. But people napping in the afternoon? It's not Europe you know.
The ridiculous part is, HP tablet PCs from 10 years ago would completely "violate" Apple's design patents. The only difference between them visually was that Apple's iPad had a black bezel and a glossy screen.
Functionally, the iPad is thinner, lighter, and has a capacitive touch screen whereas the HP tablet PCs had a resisitive touch screen and a keyboard underneath the screen that added to the weight and thickness of the overall machine.
Are you all going to vilify Apple the same way for not including the ability to insert SD cards?
Yes.
The difference is, the iPod has been out for nearly a decade now. There's been that many years of complaining about the lack of SD card functionality. It's fairly quiet now because it's clear Apple's not interested in including a memory card slot in the device, and the people who would otherwise be interested in Apple devices are no longer interested in them (meanwhile, everyone else just didn't care enough or caved).
The Vita is a new product, and thus draws in a fresh round of criticism. It will similarly die down in time.
re: #1 - OK, for example, explain consciousness within the atheistic worldview.
Cogito, ergo sum. I think, therefore I am. For an atheist, that's sufficient. There's probably a scientific explanation, and we inch ever so closer to that every day with each study on how the human brain functions. But at the end of the day, there isn't a need to elaborate. There's no need to explain further that this one simple, basic truth. Everything beyond this isn't just purely speculative, but irrelevant and in all respects impractical.
re: #2 - Note that I did qualify what I said in that way. You might find that none match and be theistic, but have to invent or modify an existing religion.
Spirituality is not excluded by reality. Spirituality exists orthogonal to reality. Religion, which projects spirituality into reality in an organized fashion (for starters, it's written down), is however up for grabs. Atheists assert the lack of a greater being or purpose. Religion asserts the presence of such. There is a vast, fertile area in between the two. But it is not a religious one.
Logic itself cannot describe our entire being, because as human beings, we're not creatures of pure logic. But religion does not begin at the end of logic; spirituality does. Religion attempts to fit this spirituality within the logical framework. The closest and best analogy for this is pretty much like trying to force a round peg into a square hole.
re: #3 - what don't you find plausible about Christianity?
Christianity's assertions are no more or less implausible than any other religious assertion. But to name a few specific to Christianity: the assertion that there's an afterlife; the idea that there's some kind of judgment in the afterlife; the idea that there's a good afterlife (heaven) and a bad one (hell), and that belief in Christianity itself is sufficient and necessary for gaining entrance into the good one; the assertion that a diety can and did directly interact with the world, but currently does not; the fact that good things happen to bad people while bad things happen to good people ("mysterious ways" does not qualify as a sufficient explanation for such phenomena), and this I've personally experienced; the fact that any "representative" does not hold any additional powers greater than a normal human being; AND the fact that there exists multiple religions, some with vastly different teachings, opinions, and methods to the good and bad afterlife. If said diety was indeed omnipotent, then there wouldn't be other religions at all, or even drastic offshoots because those would've eventually withered away.
Everything points to one conclusion: religions are created by men. And you can argue the reason for their creation until you're blue in the face, but the effects of religion, in particular Christianity and its offshoots are plain. Religious wars. Genocide. Violent "misinterpretations." Corruption and other abuses of power. And the one I abhor the most: anti-intellectualism.
And what are the benefits? Nothing a good community center wouldn't otherwise provide. Nothing education and strong community values wouldn't produce. Charity is not a thing limited to religions, and quite frankly, to do charity with the intent of promoting religion through it I find disingenuous at best.
Admissions may be at an all-time high, but there's no mention of graduation rates. Just because people want to go into computer science or some other computer-related field out of high school doesn't mean they'll stick to it for four years. Or, for that matter, be any good at it afterwards.
Of course, the visa issues is likely one of cost when all is said and done. But I'd still like to know the graduation rates.
For the past decade, while the tech industry was still in its infancy, and venture capital was being tossed around like toilet paper on Halloween, networking was by and large irrelevant. Sure, you needed to cozy up to some smart people, and sure, you needed the occasional business-type person, but it wasn't that important when the venture capital sought you. So I suspect this particular aspect of a fancy school with a fancy name isn't going to be very convincing here, where most of us grew up in and entered the industry during the boom.
And the industry is still fairly young enough that networking isn't nearly as an important factor. This is changing slowly as the industry matures. It will be a factor perhaps not now (though with the economic downturn, one may argue that it is more important than not), but in four, eight, even ten years into the future, when the big players have established themselves.
Of course, networking creates opportunities to jump right into the IT departments of big companies of other industries. But I'd hardly think that it's someone's dream job to come out of a big-name school just to work in some place where the IT department is just another cost center. Don't get me wrong; it's not necessarily a terrible thing, just not what someone passionate enough to go through the grind of a real theoretical CS curriculum is seeking to do.
The networking will pay off in the long run, maybe ten or fifteen years down the line--if that even happens, considering how introverted CS people tend to be. But there's plenty of time to develop contacts in that ten-, fifteen-year span.
There's no reason a community college couldn't have an excellent CS program either - they cost next to nothing to implement (heck, a fundamentals CS program could be taught on anything with an MMU).
Unfortunately, there's a public perception that CS == programming, while reality is that programming is a means to an end at worst, and working examples at best. Most people don't want to deal with the fundamentals. They want to write games or iPod apps or other applications, and want to do it as quickly as possible.
So what happens is most people who sign up will drop the class mid-way, or sometimes within the first week. By the end of the first semester, there wouldn't be any students left in the department besides the hardcore ones.
The problem stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of what CS entails. Unfortunately, there's no fixing it, because most "CS" jobs are programming jobs. The difference between a real computer scientist and some random programmer is that the computer scientist will be able to do anything computer and programming related with a high degree of proficiency, whereas the programmer will largely be restricted to certain languages, paradigms, fields, etc. that they were trained in.
There are two issues in order for such a choice to be possible:
1) People have to know that the parts suppliers are commiting such environmental atrocities.
2) Comparable products whose manfacturing processes are not so damaging to the environment must be priced within reason.
#1 is possible, but unlikely. It's easy to get around public scrutiny by going through shell companies and such. #2 is one major reason inflation has been at a all-time low over the past 12-15 years. The cost of doing this would normalize the cost of products closer to where they should be. And that's not a good thing.
One of the reasons cited for them having not paid dividends for many years (not that I necessary buy the reasoning myself) is because they wanted to have it in reserve in case the antitrust litigation went south and the company got broken up or some other worst-case scenario happened.
Immediately after they settled the antitrust matter without any major negative consequence, they paid off some massive, unheard-of amount of dividend in one go. Perhaps it wasn't enough to make up for the years of not having paid a dime, but it was still significant. And they've been paying a steady dividend since.
Microsoft does still have a fairly large war chest. Last I heard, they can keep doing what they're doing without making a dime for a full three years. And that's not profit, it's revenue. It's fairly impressive in an age when even many (former) blue chips couldn't be bothered to carry cash.
I've been following tech stocks since pre-bubble, and hot stocks like Dell, Yahoo, Ebay, AOL, (and others that have since folded or been bought up) all have had their time in the limelight only to eventually fade back into obscurity once their popularity wore off. Microsoft remains and endures.
Which is actually a strange and funny thought, because their products aren't geeky or cool or anything particularly notable by any standards or in any circles. In fact, they're more often lambasted for being mundane or dated if anything. But somehow, they're sufficiently reliable and more importantly, much like their stock price, consistent.
It also explains why we can just as easily read mispelt words where only some of the letters have been switched around. It's not which letters that get switched, but the resulting shape, that determines whether the word is easily readable or not.
It's also why certain words are constantly spelt incorrectly or mistaken for one another. Not only are the sounds of the variations similar, and sometimes the meaning, but so are the shapes. E.g., you don't see people mistake "they're" for "their", but you see people mistake "there" for "their" and vice versa all the time. Or for that matter, "then" and "than", "effect" and "affect". And at least for myself, the first few times I saw the word "prefect" in Harry Potter, I thought it said "perfect" and kept wondering why they were so arrogant.
Yeah, they're pissed that someone punched a big American business in the nuts. I wouldn't be surprised if B&N suddenly comes under the anti-trust radar for being the only remaining major brick and mortar bookseller out there.
If Apple's gotten away with their iOS arbitrary walled garden for so long (they should've been investigated years ago), I can't imagine the government not similarly favoring Microsoft.
Why are these two companies different than Barnes and Nobles? Those two are major global players on their way up, while B&N is a dinosaur barely scratching its way out of extinction. Or at least, that's how the recent "hip" and "trendy" administration(s) sees it anyway.
Minecraft looks absolutely amazing with a high-resolution texture pack and proper 3D shader code backing the graphics. However, it would make the game inaccessible to a lot of people.
One of an indie developer's goals is to make their game as accessible as possible. It's already obscure enough (at least initially) as it were. That includes as little DRM as possible (note Minecraft just has an initial login screen that you can forgo for single player and even private multiplayer, not to mention there are no restrictions on downloads, login locations, or any such things), and as low system requirements as possible. Minecraft is also written in Java.
Large developers will rehash tried-and-true genres. The real groundbreaking innovation always comes from the independent developers. But it's true of all industries, not just games. The thing is, however, that for every indie hit, there are also a thousand indie failures. And big companies cannot afford a thousand major failures (though they arguably can afford a thousand small ones to arrive at the big hit).
Slashdot Mirror
Great. Now you're going to have all the Google search engineers wondering what's so special about "(47 x 75) Ã 25" that thousands of people are searching for it over a 24-hour period.
Well, there are pet rocks, and then there is pet rock.
I'm not sure I'd prefer being sexually assaulted by either kind.
And if they had just locked the damn cockpit doors, it wouldn't have mattered.
The Israelis have been doing this for years. How many hijackings have they had in the past 20, heck, 30 years?
This is untrue. There is certainly a nature aspect to it all. For starters, since everybody learns differently, if someone else were to be taught exactly the same way you were taught, they'd most likely either know less, or more than you.
And that's not even talking about genetic dispositions caused by chemical differences.
Obviously, the important thing to remember is that dispositions is not guaranteed. Everyone can be trained to behave in the same manner. It's just that the training is different for everyone, usually subtly, but sometimes drastically.
what's the single insurmountable obstacle to returning to our nearest solar neighbour?
Patrick Dempsey.
One of the reasons context-free searches isn't more prevalent in everyday computing is the increase in complexity and thus computation resources needed to process it. If regular grammar was linear, then context-free is closer to linearithmic (n*log(n)).
Regular expressions can handle multi-line searches as easily as it does single-line searches (some people above were saying how the multi-line aspect of this would be real useful). The line delimiter is merely a convenience.
What it can't handle are nested searches where the search criteria involves the attributes of the nesting. For example, while regular expressions can find items with or in between a particular tag, it cannot say, find items x-levels down or say, determine which tags nested to the 5th level are not named "xyz".
It's the same reason most programmers cannot debug their own code. The a priori knowledge of the work defeats any attempt to significantly alter it.
I suspect most writers are more than capable of editing, just as every programmer skilled in programming is capable of debugging. A peer-review process similar to that of code reviews would probably be just as beneficial as having a separate editor.
What keeps the editor employed is the fact that editing takes time away from writing. And writers I think would prefer to keep churing out pages while they still can than interrupt the moment by switching to editing.
...a good place for the Pirate Party to start running candidates.
The point still stands. When you buy a phone, you're buying the hardware in addition to the software.
Which means that you should be able to swap the software loaded into the hardware at your pleasure.
But that's not necessarily the jailbreaking issue. Jailbreaking is not, say, Rockbox. Jailbreaking entails swapping the software with certain restrictions for a 3rd-party modified form of the software that does not have the same restrictions. The modification of the software is really the core of the jailbreaking debate, not the loading of different software itself (though that needs to be, and IMHO is, concurrently addressed).
So it's a question of whether the purification process of silicon is more expensive than the mining and purification process of molybdenum. Unless the molybdenum doesn't need to be purified to the same degree.
Molybdenite probably won't replace silicon in all cases. Probably, it will be used in select components and chips, where speed and power usage are both equally important factors.
Sure. That's because we know that with sufficient energy, a round cannonball will be able to do that. This is because due to its shape, at each point of impact, not all of the energy is transferred out of the cannonball and into the receptacle.
The only points where it probably lost a significant amount of energy was through the cinder-block wall (which may not be much if the wall just consisted of blocks stacked and not held together by anything), the front door (which again may not be a lot if the door is cheap), the stucco wall, and finally the minivan. And at that time, there either wasn't enough energy to continue bouncing, or it hit the minivan at an angle where the minivan's body absorbed the rest of the energy.
All in all, it's completely feasible. But people napping in the afternoon? It's not Europe you know.
the vast majority of the people who live in the area are unaware of the existence of the range.
Until now.
The ridiculous part is, HP tablet PCs from 10 years ago would completely "violate" Apple's design patents. The only difference between them visually was that Apple's iPad had a black bezel and a glossy screen.
Functionally, the iPad is thinner, lighter, and has a capacitive touch screen whereas the HP tablet PCs had a resisitive touch screen and a keyboard underneath the screen that added to the weight and thickness of the overall machine.
Are you all going to vilify Apple the same way for not including the ability to insert SD cards?
Yes.
The difference is, the iPod has been out for nearly a decade now. There's been that many years of complaining about the lack of SD card functionality. It's fairly quiet now because it's clear Apple's not interested in including a memory card slot in the device, and the people who would otherwise be interested in Apple devices are no longer interested in them (meanwhile, everyone else just didn't care enough or caved).
The Vita is a new product, and thus draws in a fresh round of criticism. It will similarly die down in time.
it uses legos to illustrate sex in a few of the images
Great. LEGO porn. What's next, a magazine with centerfolds of the latest LEGO minifigure in candid poses?
re: #1 - OK, for example, explain consciousness within the atheistic worldview.
Cogito, ergo sum. I think, therefore I am. For an atheist, that's sufficient. There's probably a scientific explanation, and we inch ever so closer to that every day with each study on how the human brain functions. But at the end of the day, there isn't a need to elaborate. There's no need to explain further that this one simple, basic truth. Everything beyond this isn't just purely speculative, but irrelevant and in all respects impractical.
re: #2 - Note that I did qualify what I said in that way. You might find that none match and be theistic, but have to invent or modify an existing religion.
Spirituality is not excluded by reality. Spirituality exists orthogonal to reality. Religion, which projects spirituality into reality in an organized fashion (for starters, it's written down), is however up for grabs. Atheists assert the lack of a greater being or purpose. Religion asserts the presence of such. There is a vast, fertile area in between the two. But it is not a religious one.
Logic itself cannot describe our entire being, because as human beings, we're not creatures of pure logic. But religion does not begin at the end of logic; spirituality does. Religion attempts to fit this spirituality within the logical framework. The closest and best analogy for this is pretty much like trying to force a round peg into a square hole.
re: #3 - what don't you find plausible about Christianity?
Christianity's assertions are no more or less implausible than any other religious assertion. But to name a few specific to Christianity: the assertion that there's an afterlife; the idea that there's some kind of judgment in the afterlife; the idea that there's a good afterlife (heaven) and a bad one (hell), and that belief in Christianity itself is sufficient and necessary for gaining entrance into the good one; the assertion that a diety can and did directly interact with the world, but currently does not; the fact that good things happen to bad people while bad things happen to good people ("mysterious ways" does not qualify as a sufficient explanation for such phenomena), and this I've personally experienced; the fact that any "representative" does not hold any additional powers greater than a normal human being; AND the fact that there exists multiple religions, some with vastly different teachings, opinions, and methods to the good and bad afterlife. If said diety was indeed omnipotent, then there wouldn't be other religions at all, or even drastic offshoots because those would've eventually withered away.
Everything points to one conclusion: religions are created by men. And you can argue the reason for their creation until you're blue in the face, but the effects of religion, in particular Christianity and its offshoots are plain. Religious wars. Genocide. Violent "misinterpretations." Corruption and other abuses of power. And the one I abhor the most: anti-intellectualism.
And what are the benefits? Nothing a good community center wouldn't otherwise provide. Nothing education and strong community values wouldn't produce. Charity is not a thing limited to religions, and quite frankly, to do charity with the intent of promoting religion through it I find disingenuous at best.
Admissions may be at an all-time high, but there's no mention of graduation rates. Just because people want to go into computer science or some other computer-related field out of high school doesn't mean they'll stick to it for four years. Or, for that matter, be any good at it afterwards.
Of course, the visa issues is likely one of cost when all is said and done. But I'd still like to know the graduation rates.
For the past decade, while the tech industry was still in its infancy, and venture capital was being tossed around like toilet paper on Halloween, networking was by and large irrelevant. Sure, you needed to cozy up to some smart people, and sure, you needed the occasional business-type person, but it wasn't that important when the venture capital sought you. So I suspect this particular aspect of a fancy school with a fancy name isn't going to be very convincing here, where most of us grew up in and entered the industry during the boom.
And the industry is still fairly young enough that networking isn't nearly as an important factor. This is changing slowly as the industry matures. It will be a factor perhaps not now (though with the economic downturn, one may argue that it is more important than not), but in four, eight, even ten years into the future, when the big players have established themselves.
Of course, networking creates opportunities to jump right into the IT departments of big companies of other industries. But I'd hardly think that it's someone's dream job to come out of a big-name school just to work in some place where the IT department is just another cost center. Don't get me wrong; it's not necessarily a terrible thing, just not what someone passionate enough to go through the grind of a real theoretical CS curriculum is seeking to do.
The networking will pay off in the long run, maybe ten or fifteen years down the line--if that even happens, considering how introverted CS people tend to be. But there's plenty of time to develop contacts in that ten-, fifteen-year span.
There's no reason a community college couldn't have an excellent CS program either - they cost next to nothing to implement (heck, a fundamentals CS program could be taught on anything with an MMU).
Unfortunately, there's a public perception that CS == programming, while reality is that programming is a means to an end at worst, and working examples at best. Most people don't want to deal with the fundamentals. They want to write games or iPod apps or other applications, and want to do it as quickly as possible.
So what happens is most people who sign up will drop the class mid-way, or sometimes within the first week. By the end of the first semester, there wouldn't be any students left in the department besides the hardcore ones.
The problem stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of what CS entails. Unfortunately, there's no fixing it, because most "CS" jobs are programming jobs. The difference between a real computer scientist and some random programmer is that the computer scientist will be able to do anything computer and programming related with a high degree of proficiency, whereas the programmer will largely be restricted to certain languages, paradigms, fields, etc. that they were trained in.
Sorry, it's been patented already.
There are two issues in order for such a choice to be possible:
1) People have to know that the parts suppliers are commiting such environmental atrocities.
2) Comparable products whose manfacturing processes are not so damaging to the environment must be priced within reason.
#1 is possible, but unlikely. It's easy to get around public scrutiny by going through shell companies and such. #2 is one major reason inflation has been at a all-time low over the past 12-15 years. The cost of doing this would normalize the cost of products closer to where they should be. And that's not a good thing.
One of the reasons cited for them having not paid dividends for many years (not that I necessary buy the reasoning myself) is because they wanted to have it in reserve in case the antitrust litigation went south and the company got broken up or some other worst-case scenario happened.
Immediately after they settled the antitrust matter without any major negative consequence, they paid off some massive, unheard-of amount of dividend in one go. Perhaps it wasn't enough to make up for the years of not having paid a dime, but it was still significant. And they've been paying a steady dividend since.
Microsoft does still have a fairly large war chest. Last I heard, they can keep doing what they're doing without making a dime for a full three years. And that's not profit, it's revenue. It's fairly impressive in an age when even many (former) blue chips couldn't be bothered to carry cash.
I've been following tech stocks since pre-bubble, and hot stocks like Dell, Yahoo, Ebay, AOL, (and others that have since folded or been bought up) all have had their time in the limelight only to eventually fade back into obscurity once their popularity wore off. Microsoft remains and endures.
Which is actually a strange and funny thought, because their products aren't geeky or cool or anything particularly notable by any standards or in any circles. In fact, they're more often lambasted for being mundane or dated if anything. But somehow, they're sufficiently reliable and more importantly, much like their stock price, consistent.
It also explains why we can just as easily read mispelt words where only some of the letters have been switched around. It's not which letters that get switched, but the resulting shape, that determines whether the word is easily readable or not.
It's also why certain words are constantly spelt incorrectly or mistaken for one another. Not only are the sounds of the variations similar, and sometimes the meaning, but so are the shapes. E.g., you don't see people mistake "they're" for "their", but you see people mistake "there" for "their" and vice versa all the time. Or for that matter, "then" and "than", "effect" and "affect". And at least for myself, the first few times I saw the word "prefect" in Harry Potter, I thought it said "perfect" and kept wondering why they were so arrogant.
really get the justice department hopping mad.
Yeah, they're pissed that someone punched a big American business in the nuts. I wouldn't be surprised if B&N suddenly comes under the anti-trust radar for being the only remaining major brick and mortar bookseller out there.
If Apple's gotten away with their iOS arbitrary walled garden for so long (they should've been investigated years ago), I can't imagine the government not similarly favoring Microsoft.
Why are these two companies different than Barnes and Nobles? Those two are major global players on their way up, while B&N is a dinosaur barely scratching its way out of extinction. Or at least, that's how the recent "hip" and "trendy" administration(s) sees it anyway.
worlds of aesthetically pleasing art
Minecraft looks absolutely amazing with a high-resolution texture pack and proper 3D shader code backing the graphics. However, it would make the game inaccessible to a lot of people.
One of an indie developer's goals is to make their game as accessible as possible. It's already obscure enough (at least initially) as it were. That includes as little DRM as possible (note Minecraft just has an initial login screen that you can forgo for single player and even private multiplayer, not to mention there are no restrictions on downloads, login locations, or any such things), and as low system requirements as possible. Minecraft is also written in Java.
Large developers will rehash tried-and-true genres. The real groundbreaking innovation always comes from the independent developers. But it's true of all industries, not just games. The thing is, however, that for every indie hit, there are also a thousand indie failures. And big companies cannot afford a thousand major failures (though they arguably can afford a thousand small ones to arrive at the big hit).