Many here will emphasize the dangers of this device. But there is a good (legitimate?) use for it.
In the hands of a few selected intelligent individuals who deeply care about our human society (like myself and others approved by me) this device can finally bring the all so wanted changes in politics. Just point this to some high ranking officials' melon in the government and no more lies and bullshit! Finally, the inside voice in their head will not be motivated by greed and power hunger (masked as voice from their dog), but instead it will be the true voice of the desire to improve the society they sworn to serve.
>...The money wasn't previously allocated to healthcare,...
Actually the money was borrowed from our children. And just because the money was not taken from any other dedicated pool does not mean it was free. No, it was from our tax dollars and future debt obligations. They still should not waste it. Or do you claim that the Iraq war was free of actions resulting in enormous amounts of wasting money compared to intelligent (and equally effective) decisions?
A similar example regarding Katrina: Bush saved 50M by stopping the project fixing the coast line (very promising) so that hurricanes would cause less severe flooding (look up the erosion issue, there was also an excellent documentary on Frontline). This 50M saved cost 1B later on. That was not smart. And yes, people in the scientific community gave the warnings beforehand, however they are routinely ignored by the administration.
>...that wouldn't exist without the Bill&Melinda foundation.
Without arguing the merits of that statement I wished to point out how difficult is such a statement to prove. Those who claim that they established the validity of such statements make very strong assumptions.
Almost always they include the premise that in any alternative world the Foundation would exist. In order to show that the effects of the existence of an entity is positive you cannot start by assuming that it inevitably has to exist. That is a serious logical flaw.
To properly assess the value of the entity you have to consider the costs associated with its establishment. It seems that those unhappy with the Foundation base their arguments around that theory.
Of course a strict proof will be impossible, there are way too many variables and what ifs. However it is crucial to realize the above fallacy in order to have an intelligent discussion about the issue.
I think that it is true that the Foundation has a positive contribution as it operates today; whether its efforts outweigh or even will ever balance out the harm caused by its founder in the past can be up for debate. I invite intelligent arguments supporting either side so I can make up my mind...
ASUS M2N-VM DVI (with integrated video) + AMD64 BE-2300 (45W) plays true 1080p with max 80% cpu (one out of the two cores are used only!!). Tested on a trailer for Pirates of the Caribbean (since I have no Blue-ray player yet).
This is on Linux 2.6, with recent mplayer using the nvidia driver.
The best one in Hungary for math (named after Mihaly Fazekas). This high school consistently provided the winners of the Kurschak and other national math competitions for high school students, as well as Hungarian team members to the Math Olympiad.
This reminds me the story my high school teacher told me:
Some researchers involved in pchycology (social behaviour etc.) came to high schools and drew up the friendship graph of the class. (Maybe school works differently where you live, we had a class of size 30-40 students attending exactly the same lectures.)
They assumed friendship to be mutual (if not, than it was not considered friendship). One clever cookie made the observation that almost always there is a group of 6 students who all friends to each other (a clique), or alternatively a group of 4 students, who do not like each other.
There were excited discussions among the researchers what social forces are the reason that one of the above situations always seemed to occur.
They were somewhat disillusioned when our math teacher explained them Ramsey's theorem. Since R(6, 4) is between 35 and 41, indeed one can expect either a frienship or hateship clique to appear with quite high probability... (This does not mean that properties of the frienship graph worth not examining, but one needs to know the math to do it properly.)
> (1)Unless, of course, you're one of those weird people who enjoys mowing the lawn, but we're assuming for the sake of the analogy that you aren't that warped an individual.
Hello, this is Hank Hill, Strickland propane. Do you need help with mowing your lawn?
(window) Background: DarkSlateGray Foreground: Wheat PointerColor: Orchid (easier to you find the cursor, than if same as foreground) Font: xfonts-terminus
Default xterm: -xos4-terminus-medium-r-normal--17-120-100-100-c-0-iso8859-16 Large xterm and emacs: -xos4-terminus-medium-r-normal--20-200-72-72-c-100-iso8859-16
I use these on 1600x1200 resolution with completely black desktop background.
I was under the impression until now that Google (as a business and its employees) are technically quite savy. Seems quite strange that they are clueless about spam.
From Wikipedia: "Since these messages were not solicited by the recipients, are substantially similar to each other, and are delivered in bulk quantities, they themselves can qualify as unsolicited bulk email or spam. As such, systems that generate e-mail backscatter can end up being listed on various DNSBLs and be in violation of ISPs Terms-of-Service for being abusive."
So please help Google get a clue: look in your (spam) folder and if you find any of the emails mentioned, report it to spamcop.com. If everyone just submits one report, I am sure this will get resolved (Google will not let themselves be blacklisted for long for non-complience).
By the way, backscatter spam is a serious problem, and I am quite appeled when even ivy league school admins have no clue about it... There should be a shamelist for sysadmins as well who do not cooperate with efforts against spam (even if only out of ignorance/stupidity or even more so).
They should have built the LHC on the Moon to begin with. Just another reason to colonize (at least for research) the Moon. (The main reason being: stepping stone for space travel.)
We should be really started moving ahead with two projects: space elevator and permanent Moon base. While both challenging, they do not appear to be insurmountable problems. The biggest challenge actually is to achieve the global cooperation necesssary in order to direct our resources towards the right projects. If I were heading a secret underground science society I would come up with a very definite commet or asteroid threat (in 200 years) that may unify us humans. Maybe they could 'detect' said asteroid from very far and only with Hubble (not from Earth) and due to some astronomical event or reason the observance of the asteroid is impossible for another 100 years...
Oh, and I hope that Clarke did not really die, just ascended and will pull some strings to get us humans back on the right track.
I have to innovate constantly. I invent new algorithms and cannot sit on my past achievments for 20 years. It seems to me companies want to invent maybe 1 thing and milk at forever, by applying for new patents which only marginally add to the prior art and 99.9% of the time should be obvious for those skilled in the art.
But I have a question to someone with some legal insight. (I know why to ask it on slashdot....)
What if I custom order from company X a solid state disk? I specify exactly the technical specs. Can company X say they just know how to manufacture stuff and it is me who brought the specs to the product. If my specs violate a patent of Seagate, WD etc., will I be sued or company X?
It is even better with source code. What if a company writes/develops code according to exact specifications supplied by a customer? Say the exact specification is almost C code, we call it pseudocode. Here is the setup:
Company X writes (machine specific and efficient, or portable whatever) C code given a very detailed pseudocode spec.
Company Y produces pseudocode, which is mostly algorithmic descriptions and not directly runnable on any machine (say it runs on an imaginery machine like a Turing machine with n *infinite* tapes).
Customer buys the *consulting* services of company Y to produce pseudocode: a spec. Question 1: can the pseudocode violate a software patent? Most patent claims talk about a hardware device running some code, so this may escape the patent.
Customer takes spec to company X and asks them to implement it exactly in C. Company X does know nothing about the algorithm, in fact if they are clever they will probably use some automated tool to help generate the C code from the spec. Company X is concerned about dividing up the spec to source files, picking the right compiler switches and libraries (I/O, GUI for example) needed etc. Question: since the customer gave an exact spec to company X would company X violate any patents if the resulting code uses a patented algorithm? Could they argue that the algorithm was ordered as coded by the customer?
Question: Could the customer be sued for using the spec produced by company Y?
An obvious extension: Do patent laws apply to AI programs? (Good sci-fi topic!) What if I develop an AI program writing algorithms conforming to specs? Imagine for example that I give the AI my bubble sort algorithm and specify the storage access behaviour in some language the AI understands. The AI gives back quicksort or mergesort as applicable depending on which is more efficient.
> That is the point: the auction doesn't force you to sell, because obviously you can afford to pay yourself ANY amount. It does however establish a fair marketprice.
The value established should be the *second* largest offer in the auction. There is a name for this auction pricing (winner pays the second offer) that I do not remember from the top of my head.
> In what way is depression *not* all in your head?
One needs to be careful with the expression "in your head" because not everyone will understand the same thing when you say it that way.
Let me give you an example. Suppose your computer acts weird, and you take it in for diagnostics. You are told the problem occurs in the CPU (versus hard drive, graphics card etc.). However there are still significant differences between a hardware or a software error.
I just want to make sure you are aware that depression is *not* considered to be a 'software' error. You cannot fix it by 'rebooting with a clean disk'. It is a hardware error manifested with chemical changes in your brain which were not known to be reversible by meditation, will power etc. (for every patient at least). These factors were assumed to affect the speed of your recovery, but the consesus until now was that counteracting the chemical imbalance may be necessary to start the healing.
Now these findings indicate that the belief that the patient will get better has more effect than previously thought, maybe that is the only thing that is at work.
If you meant to say that: 'You see I told you so, it is in their thoughts only!', then however arrogant that may sound to researchers in the field, you may actually turn out to be right. But I would take a closer look at these studies first, there could be many reasons why they were not out in the open until now.
My first (summer) job was to write a software carrying out some water pressure calculations (for pipe engineering) running on a commodore 64. (I was 16.)
I second the parent. I am about to buy a new Thinkpad and again it is not possible to get it without the Windows OS. (Also note that Vista is cheaper than XP.)
This is one of the top issues where the justice department dropped the ball. OEM-s still appear to be penalized for not putting Windows on their machines.
The CEO-s and owners of the window building companies will come out ahead, compared to spending the resources on "better endeavors". Are you sure that the people deserve more than better windows? After all, in many democracies the politicians who cave in to the window builders are properly elected. (I hope that those who cannot elect their own leaders today will win their fight for freedom.) You do not have to be a genius to figure politics and politicians out, it is just that a lot of people out there appear to voting against their interest.
My favourite example is the mexican(latino,...) community in Texas. They very reliably vote for a party that brings one of the highest rates of child uninsurance and highest taxes (no income tax + high sales tax + high property tax = high tax for poor people, school segregation etc.) They appearently do this because of religious reasons, they fail to realize that they can ensure the religious values themselves, they do not need the government to interfere. Or maybe they really want better windows only and not better health care.
You are probably right about the IT costs being a small fraction.
The advantage is in avoiding the vendor lock in of the current Windows based "solutions". Hopefully, better (maybe open source) systems/tools will be developed on top of Linux. The new players will bring competition and that is good. May improve quality by freeing up resources now spent on IT stuff (I have friends working in Pharmacy).
Keeping the employee for the period of notice wrapping up work makes a lot of sense IMO. If the employee knows that he/she will have to come in for a couple more weeks (facing coworkers and mgmt), it is unlikely that they will inflict damage. (Formatting the drives on Tuesday and come in for work Wednesday , who would do that?)
Access to some sensitive information, use of copiers and fax machines etc. could be restricted starting immediately, and then the mgmt may decide a few days (weeks) before the period of notice ends to change passwords, invalidate badges etc. during a lunch break (in a planned manner) and tell the employee he/she needs not to come in the next day. This way the employee does not know when is the last day, mgmt does.
I am a little surprised that in the US the mgmt have not figured the above out for themselves, it is not rocket science...
The only reason to escort the employee out are: 1. Make the employee feel bad with this show of authority and lack of trust. (Like the employer expects that the employee will start throwing chairs...) 2. The company compensation and/or work conditions are so bad that they want the leaving employee have minimal personal contact with the remaining staff to avoid losing other people. (Does not work.)
Your above two posts were insightful, and I understand that the cable company may be in a tight squeeze here. However, some assume and I cannot contradict this from where I sit, that the cable companies could do more in fighting the content providers. The point of the lawsuit could be to make sure that if the cable company goes against the least resistence, than it is not the viewers interest from now on.
All in all, if no solution is possible, then yes cable companies may be destroyed. This may take a decade in my opinion.
I have cable, but only for internet, not TV. I am considering satellite. With a la carte cable programming I would get it today!
Slashdot Mirror
Many here will emphasize the dangers of this device. But there is a good (legitimate?) use for it.
In the hands of a few selected intelligent individuals who deeply care about our human society (like myself and others approved by me) this device can finally bring the all so wanted changes in politics. Just point this to some high ranking officials' melon in the government and no more lies and bullshit! Finally, the inside voice in their head will not be motivated by greed and power hunger (masked as voice from their dog), but instead it will be the true voice of the desire to improve the society they sworn to serve.
> ...The money wasn't previously allocated to healthcare, ...
Actually the money was borrowed from our children. And just because
the money was not taken from any other dedicated pool does not mean it
was free. No, it was from our tax dollars and future debt obligations.
They still should not waste it. Or do you claim that the Iraq war was
free of actions resulting in enormous amounts of wasting money compared
to intelligent (and equally effective) decisions?
A similar example regarding Katrina: Bush saved 50M by stopping the project
fixing the coast line (very promising) so that hurricanes would cause less
severe flooding (look up the erosion issue, there was also an excellent documentary on Frontline). This 50M saved cost 1B later on. That was not
smart. And yes, people in the scientific community gave the warnings beforehand, however they are routinely ignored by the administration.
> ...that wouldn't exist without the Bill&Melinda foundation.
Without arguing the merits of that statement I wished to point out how
difficult is such a statement to prove. Those who claim that they
established the validity of such statements make very strong assumptions.
Almost always they include the premise that in any alternative world the
Foundation would exist. In order to show that the effects of the existence
of an entity is positive you cannot start by assuming that it inevitably has to exist. That is a serious logical flaw.
To properly assess the value of the entity you have to consider the costs
associated with its establishment. It seems that those unhappy with the Foundation base their arguments around that theory.
Of course a strict proof will be impossible, there are way too many variables and what ifs. However it is crucial to realize the above fallacy
in order to have an intelligent discussion about the issue.
I think that it is true that the Foundation has a positive contribution
as it operates today; whether its efforts outweigh or even will ever
balance out the harm caused by its founder in the past can be up for
debate. I invite intelligent arguments supporting either side so I can
make up my mind...
RTFA, they are also willing to pay 8M euros to someone writing the language test application instead.
Seems like a good price...
Sorry, reading the onion too much...
IANAL so could you explain why could you ask money for indexing and paper etc? Could the subpoena not ask for it specifically in that format?
I have not been in a similar situation, but want to be prepared, and have information about the process.
Thanks.
Regarding full HD playback:
ASUS M2N-VM DVI (with integrated video) + AMD64 BE-2300 (45W) plays true 1080p with max 80% cpu (one out of the two cores are used only!!). Tested on a trailer for Pirates of the Caribbean (since I have no Blue-ray player yet).
This is on Linux 2.6, with recent mplayer using the nvidia driver.
Quite happy with it!
>Where the hell did you go to high school?
The best one in Hungary for math (named after Mihaly Fazekas). This high school consistently provided the winners of the Kurschak and other national math competitions for high school students, as well as Hungarian team members to the Math Olympiad.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fazekas_Mih%C3%A1ly_Gimn%C3%A1zium
This reminds me the story my high school teacher told me:
Some researchers involved in pchycology (social behaviour etc.) came to high schools and drew up the friendship graph of the class. (Maybe school works differently where you live, we had a class of size 30-40 students attending exactly the same lectures.)
They assumed friendship to be mutual (if not, than it was not considered friendship). One clever cookie made the observation that almost always there is a group of 6 students who all friends to each other (a clique), or alternatively a group of 4 students, who do not like each other.
There were excited discussions among the researchers what social forces are the reason that one of the above situations always seemed to occur.
They were somewhat disillusioned when our math teacher explained them Ramsey's theorem. Since R(6, 4) is between 35 and 41, indeed one can expect either a frienship or hateship clique to appear with quite high probability... (This does not mean that properties of the frienship graph worth not examining, but one needs to know the math to do it properly.)
> (1)Unless, of course, you're one of those weird people who enjoys mowing the lawn, but we're assuming for the sake of the analogy that you aren't that warped an individual.
Hello, this is Hank Hill, Strickland propane. Do you need help with mowing your lawn?
(window) Background: DarkSlateGray
Foreground: Wheat
PointerColor: Orchid (easier to you find the cursor, than if same as foreground)
Font: xfonts-terminus
Default xterm:
-xos4-terminus-medium-r-normal--17-120-100-100-c-0-iso8859-16
Large xterm and emacs:
-xos4-terminus-medium-r-normal--20-200-72-72-c-100-iso8859-16
I use these on 1600x1200 resolution with completely black desktop background.
I was under the impression until now that Google (as a business and its employees) are technically quite savy. Seems quite strange that they are clueless about spam.
From Wikipedia:
"Since these messages were not solicited by the recipients, are substantially similar to each other, and are delivered in bulk quantities, they themselves can qualify as unsolicited bulk email or spam. As such, systems that generate e-mail backscatter can end up being listed on various DNSBLs and be in violation of ISPs Terms-of-Service for being abusive."
So please help Google get a clue: look in your (spam) folder and if you find any of the emails mentioned, report it to spamcop.com. If everyone just submits one report, I am sure this will get resolved (Google will not let themselves be blacklisted for long for non-complience).
By the way, backscatter spam is a serious problem, and I am quite appeled when even ivy league school admins have no clue about it... There should be a shamelist for sysadmins as well who do not cooperate with efforts against spam (even if only out of ignorance/stupidity or even more so).
They should have built the LHC on the Moon to begin with. Just another reason to colonize (at least for research) the Moon. (The main reason being: stepping stone for space travel.)
We should be really started moving ahead with two projects: space elevator and permanent Moon base. While both challenging, they do not appear to be insurmountable problems. The biggest challenge actually is to achieve the global cooperation necesssary in order to direct our resources towards the right projects. If I were heading a secret underground science society I would come up with a very definite commet or asteroid threat (in 200 years) that may unify us humans. Maybe they could 'detect' said asteroid from very far and only with Hubble (not from Earth) and due to some astronomical event or reason the observance of the asteroid is impossible for another 100 years...
Oh, and I hope that Clarke did not really die, just ascended and will pull some strings to get us humans back on the right track.
I have to innovate constantly. I invent new algorithms and cannot sit on my past achievments for 20 years. It seems to me companies want to invent maybe 1 thing and milk at forever, by applying for new patents which only marginally add to the prior art and 99.9% of the time should be obvious for those skilled in the art.
But I have a question to someone with some legal insight. (I know why to ask it on slashdot....)
What if I custom order from company X a solid state disk? I specify exactly the technical specs. Can company X say they just know how to manufacture stuff and it is me who brought the specs to the product. If my specs violate a patent of Seagate, WD etc., will I be sued or company X?
It is even better with source code. What if a company writes/develops code according to exact specifications supplied by a customer? Say the exact specification is almost C code, we call it pseudocode. Here is the setup:
Company X writes (machine specific and efficient, or portable whatever) C code given a very detailed pseudocode spec.
Company Y produces pseudocode, which is mostly algorithmic descriptions and not directly runnable on any machine (say it runs on an imaginery machine like a Turing machine with n *infinite* tapes).
Customer buys the *consulting* services of company Y to produce pseudocode: a spec.
Question 1: can the pseudocode violate a software patent? Most patent claims talk about a hardware device running some code, so this may escape the patent.
Customer takes spec to company X and asks them to implement it exactly in C. Company X does know nothing about the algorithm, in fact if they are clever they will probably use some automated tool to help generate the C code from the spec. Company X is concerned about dividing up the spec to source files, picking the right compiler switches and libraries (I/O, GUI for example) needed etc.
Question: since the customer gave an exact spec to company X would company X violate any patents if the resulting code uses a patented algorithm? Could they argue that the algorithm was ordered as coded by the customer?
Question: Could the customer be sued for using the spec produced by company Y?
An obvious extension: Do patent laws apply to AI programs? (Good sci-fi topic!) What if I develop an AI program writing algorithms conforming to specs? Imagine for example that I give the AI my bubble sort algorithm and specify the storage access behaviour in some language the AI understands. The AI gives back quicksort or mergesort as applicable depending on which is more efficient.
> That is the point: the auction doesn't force you to sell, because obviously you can afford to pay yourself ANY amount. It does however establish a fair marketprice.
The value established should be the *second* largest offer in the auction. There is a
name for this auction pricing (winner pays the second offer) that I do not remember from the top of my head.
> In what way is depression *not* all in your head?
One needs to be careful with the expression "in your head" because not everyone will understand the same thing when you say it that way.
Let me give you an example. Suppose your computer acts weird, and you take it in for diagnostics. You are told the problem occurs in the CPU (versus hard drive, graphics card etc.). However there are still significant differences between a hardware or a software error.
I just want to make sure you are aware that depression is *not* considered to be a 'software' error. You cannot fix it by 'rebooting with a clean disk'. It is a hardware error manifested with chemical changes in your brain which were not known to be reversible by meditation, will power etc. (for every patient at least). These factors were assumed to affect the speed of your recovery, but the consesus until now was that counteracting the chemical imbalance may be necessary to start the healing.
Now these findings indicate that the belief that the patient will get better has more effect than previously thought, maybe that is the only thing that is at work.
If you meant to say that: 'You see I told you so, it is in their thoughts only!', then however arrogant that may sound to researchers in the field, you may actually turn out to be right. But I would take a closer look at these studies first, there could be many reasons why they were not out in the open until now.
My first (summer) job was to write a software carrying out some water pressure calculations (for pipe engineering) running on a commodore 64. (I was 16.)
My credit union just did a wire transfer for $15. Directly from my account to an account at another bank.
Internet creates experts according to pedophiles.
www.cheapDVD.ag
:~)
Will work soon.
I second the parent. I am about to buy a new Thinkpad and again it is not possible to get it without the Windows OS. (Also note that Vista is cheaper than XP.)
This is one of the top issues where the justice department dropped the ball. OEM-s still appear to be penalized for not putting Windows on their machines.
The CEO-s and owners of the window building companies will come out ahead, compared to spending the resources on "better endeavors". Are you sure that the people deserve more than better windows? After all, in many democracies the politicians who cave in to the window builders are properly elected. (I hope that those who cannot elect their own leaders today will win their fight for freedom.) You do not have to be a genius to figure politics and politicians out, it is just that a lot of people out there appear to voting against their interest.
My favourite example is the mexican(latino,...) community in Texas. They very reliably vote for a party that brings one of the highest rates of child uninsurance and highest taxes (no income tax + high sales tax + high property tax = high tax for poor people, school segregation etc.) They appearently do this because of religious reasons, they fail to realize that they can ensure the religious values themselves, they do not need the government to interfere. Or maybe they really want better windows only and not better health care.
You are probably right about the IT costs being a small fraction.
The advantage is in avoiding the vendor lock in of the current Windows based "solutions". Hopefully, better (maybe open source) systems/tools will be developed on top of Linux. The new players will bring competition and that is good. May improve quality by freeing up resources now spent on IT stuff (I have friends working in Pharmacy).
Keeping the employee for the period of notice wrapping up work makes a lot of sense IMO. If the employee knows that he/she will have to come in for a couple more weeks (facing coworkers and mgmt), it is unlikely that they will inflict damage. (Formatting the drives on Tuesday and come in for work Wednesday , who would do that?)
Access to some sensitive information, use of copiers and fax machines etc. could be restricted starting immediately, and then the mgmt may decide a few days (weeks) before the period of notice ends to change passwords, invalidate badges etc. during a lunch break (in a planned manner) and tell the employee he/she needs not to come in the next day. This way the employee does not know when is the last day, mgmt does.
I am a little surprised that in the US the mgmt have not figured the above out for themselves, it is not rocket science...
The only reason to escort the employee out are:
1. Make the employee feel bad with this show of authority and lack of trust. (Like the employer expects that the employee will start throwing chairs...)
2. The company compensation and/or work conditions are so bad that they want the leaving employee have minimal personal contact with the remaining staff to avoid losing other people. (Does not work.)
If I understand what you say, then currently NFL is subsidized by those who do not watch football?
Your above two posts were insightful, and I understand that the cable company may be in a tight squeeze here. However, some assume and I cannot contradict this from where I sit, that the cable companies could do more in fighting the content providers. The point of the lawsuit could be to make sure that if the cable company goes against the least resistence, than it is not the viewers interest from now on.
All in all, if no solution is possible, then yes cable companies may be destroyed. This may take a decade in my opinion.
I have cable, but only for internet, not TV. I am considering satellite. With a la carte cable programming I would get it today!