They can take 3-4 days, often weeks, to reach the carrier that will actually do the charging.
And yet I can ping from the US to Ireland in less than 120 milliseconds.
What technical limitations do you think prevents roaming partners from sharing their billing information (even if solely for fraud detection purposes!) in real-time?
So if I created 10 accounts a year ago, I can now mod you 10 times in one discussion?
Certainly. If you have contributed enough of value to Slashdot's discussions that you accumulated karma to imbue ten accounts with mod points, I don't really have a problem letting you make ten moderations in a row.
If you are abusive with that privilege, metamoderation will take it away from you before long.
I was just gonna leave the thread as it was because I thought it was funnier to let you have the last bewildered, headscratching word.
But since you're intent on dragging it on and on (I commend you for having the courage for a karma suicide of this magnitude), here is a point-by-point explanation.
Whenever anyone mentions causation directly, one/.er or another can always be trusted to repeat this handy tidbit.
But have it your way. If you reject direct causation in this model, then does it work the other way? Did the industrial revolution occur when it did because we were approaching the top of the warming cycle, or are both the cycle and human development both effects of some hidden third cause? I haven't the foggiest clue what that hidden cause could be, to have such disparate repercussions both geoclimatic and anthropological.
it's very unlikely that this brief period of slight warming (that stopped several years ago) is that uncommon.
Well, apparently it's at least 4500 years' worth of uncommon. If this had happened more recently, would the ice which is currently melting be so demonstrably old?
because if it's a 4-5000 year cycle, then we should only see warming events of this sort that often. If that is the timescale we're talking about, then it's highly suspicious that such an infrequent cycle should line up so temporally close with the explosion of human industry in the past century.
Imagine closing your eyes and throwing a dart at a 5000-year timeline. That dart is the industrial revolution. What are the odds that it will land so neatly at the spot on the timeline when climate change symptoms become most noticeable?
If you believe the two events are causally unrelated, then that's the magnitude of the coincidence you're proposing.
Do English people in Japan whine to the government about not being about to read anything on the goddamned menus?
No, but the government of Japan also never signed any treaties with those Anglophones' ancestors promising that their great-grandkids would be allowed to do business in their own language.
I find the backflips just as inconvenient as you do, at times. But these backflips were part of the deal offered in order for Quebec to join the nation in the first place. To renege on it now would be to cancel that deal and ask les Quebecois anew if they want to be part of Canada.
I'd be just as pissed off if I lived in Quebec, and was sold a product only to find out later that I'd have to learn English to get any phone support for it.
I'm not under the impression that the climate has never been like this before, but all the evidence I can find suggests that what we're observing now has no precedent in the past 4 or 5 thousand years at least. This is hardly the first millennia-old piece of ice we've lost.
I have heard lots of theories concerning human-independant drivers of climate change, and they certainly bear further thought. But let me ask you something a little more basic.
Assuming that the Earth is indeed changing due to factors beyond our control, perhaps due to solar fluctuations, or millennia-long cyclical patterns, or so on:
What are the odds that we would hit the inflection point of this graph (and see a bunch of historically unprecedented symptoms, like the loss of ice which has been frozen for thousands of years and whatnot) within a hundred years of our adoption of fossil fuels to power human industry? This is virtually simultaneous from a geoclimactic point of view.
Why should the Arctic be turning slushy now, rather than 1000 years into the past or the future?
Is the timing just a coincidence, or can it be explained away by other means?
I think Lumpy is talking about how much time it takes him. How much unattended work is done by the computer while he's off doing his laundry or whatever is another question.
I guess my objection, then, is the application of this subjective standard (which is completely appropriate for things like art, music and literature) to the products of engineering.
While it's not hard to argue that while two stories may rely on the same underlying plot devices, the difference in their details gives each a distinctive value.
It is not as clear, however, that two differing implementations of the same function in software, make any difference to the user.
F'rinstance, the Lion King was different enough from Hamlet that you could not replace one with the other without the viewer noticing. The same is not true of 'equivalent' functions in software.
That being the case, I think we're forced into a dichotomy. Either a patent must cover only a particular implementation of a function, in which case the patent is so easy to circumvent that it might as well carry no legal force, or the patent must cover the function itself, denying everyone the right to implement their own version of a program which already exists.
That is exactly why DRM has been taking so long to die. This arms race may be unwinnable, but it can sure make a few more arms dealers(read: "programmers") rich before we explain it all to the suits.
Well, yeah. But the tricky word is "substantial", and its moving goalposts.
If a particular implementation A of a function M is patented, but M is the type of thing that other software developers need to accomplish too, then I will need another implementation B of that same function.
But since B can differ from A as much or as little as I like, the question is "how much is substantial?" I could just take A, add a NOP at the end, and call it a distinct function. That probably doesn't meet the definition.
Now what about two NOPs? What if I unroll all the loops, or switch around register names, or swap the operands of all the 'Add' instructions?
Turing-Church essentially promises that regardless of a little bit of obfuscation, or a lot, or none at all, the underlying computation going on in B is isometric to that in implementation A.
That there are an infinite number of alternative implementations, will just be used as a slippery slope argument by a good lawyer. "Why, if we allowed the defendant to publish implementation B, because it's a different algorithm, then we'd have to allow every software patent to be violated by anyone who knows how to obfuscate an algorithm! Nazis would once again ride on dinosaurs!"
Slashdot Mirror
I have done so before.
They wouldn't.
They can take 3-4 days, often weeks, to reach the carrier that will actually do the charging.
And yet I can ping from the US to Ireland in less than 120 milliseconds.
What technical limitations do you think prevents roaming partners from sharing their billing information (even if solely for fraud detection purposes!) in real-time?
They will get as much money out of the family as they can, and send them off thinking they've been done a favour by not demanding the full amount.
They will do nothing to implement better notifications and limits, because misunderstandings like this are very profitable for them.
Agreed. This billing scheme is nothing more or less than a predatory loan.
I was too slow! Goddamn this lousy con wifi access!
So if I created 10 accounts a year ago, I can now mod you 10 times in one discussion?
Certainly. If you have contributed enough of value to Slashdot's discussions that you accumulated karma to imbue ten accounts with mod points, I don't really have a problem letting you make ten moderations in a row.
If you are abusive with that privilege, metamoderation will take it away from you before long.
Has it occurred to you that maybe the moderation system worked perfectly here because you're being a dick?
COME ON MODS, FIGHT ME YOU FAGGOTS
What? Trying to pick a fight? Moi? Clearly you have no idea what picking a fight means, YOU DAMN FAGGOTS
I was just gonna leave the thread as it was because I thought it was funnier to let you have the last bewildered, headscratching word.
But since you're intent on dragging it on and on (I commend you for having the courage for a karma suicide of this magnitude), here is a point-by-point explanation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamebait
I would characterize calling the admins retards as consistent with the above definition.
You said "Nearly every downmodding that occurs on Slashdot is 100% invalid."
But your flamebait was correctly modded as such.
100% valid.
Now post an angry reply to this so you can lose 3 more points.
This is fantastic. Your comment disproves itself!
Correlation is not causation.
Whenever anyone mentions causation directly, one /.er or another can always be trusted to repeat this handy tidbit.
But have it your way. If you reject direct causation in this model, then does it work the other way? Did the industrial revolution occur when it did because we were approaching the top of the warming cycle, or are both the cycle and human development both effects of some hidden third cause? I haven't the foggiest clue what that hidden cause could be, to have such disparate repercussions both geoclimatic and anthropological.
it's very unlikely that this brief period of slight warming (that stopped several years ago) is that uncommon.
Well, apparently it's at least 4500 years' worth of uncommon. If this had happened more recently, would the ice which is currently melting be so demonstrably old?
because if it's a 4-5000 year cycle, then we should only see warming events of this sort that often. If that is the timescale we're talking about, then it's highly suspicious that such an infrequent cycle should line up so temporally close with the explosion of human industry in the past century.
Imagine closing your eyes and throwing a dart at a 5000-year timeline. That dart is the industrial revolution. What are the odds that it will land so neatly at the spot on the timeline when climate change symptoms become most noticeable?
If you believe the two events are causally unrelated, then that's the magnitude of the coincidence you're proposing.
The religious.
Do English people in Japan whine to the government about not being about to read anything on the goddamned menus?
No, but the government of Japan also never signed any treaties with those Anglophones' ancestors promising that their great-grandkids would be allowed to do business in their own language.
I find the backflips just as inconvenient as you do, at times. But these backflips were part of the deal offered in order for Quebec to join the nation in the first place. To renege on it now would be to cancel that deal and ask les Quebecois anew if they want to be part of Canada.
OMG. I just realized.
The real-estate market is just the most insidious Internet vendor lock-in ever devised.
I'd be just as pissed off if I lived in Quebec, and was sold a product only to find out later that I'd have to learn English to get any phone support for it.
As a consumer, I would call that "bad for me".
and the consumer.
[citation needed]
I'm not under the impression that the climate has never been like this before, but all the evidence I can find suggests that what we're observing now has no precedent in the past 4 or 5 thousand years at least. This is hardly the first millennia-old piece of ice we've lost.
If your Frist Pots had been made out of exotic particles, you could have sent it retrocausally back in time and posted it before the OP.
I have heard lots of theories concerning human-independant drivers of climate change, and they certainly bear further thought. But let me ask you something a little more basic.
Assuming that the Earth is indeed changing due to factors beyond our control, perhaps due to solar fluctuations, or millennia-long cyclical patterns, or so on:
What are the odds that we would hit the inflection point of this graph (and see a bunch of historically unprecedented symptoms, like the loss of ice which has been frozen for thousands of years and whatnot) within a hundred years of our adoption of fossil fuels to power human industry? This is virtually simultaneous from a geoclimactic point of view.
Why should the Arctic be turning slushy now, rather than 1000 years into the past or the future?
Is the timing just a coincidence, or can it be explained away by other means?
I think Lumpy is talking about how much time it takes him. How much unattended work is done by the computer while he's off doing his laundry or whatever is another question.
I guess my objection, then, is the application of this subjective standard (which is completely appropriate for things like art, music and literature) to the products of engineering.
While it's not hard to argue that while two stories may rely on the same underlying plot devices, the difference in their details gives each a distinctive value.
It is not as clear, however, that two differing implementations of the same function in software, make any difference to the user.
F'rinstance, the Lion King was different enough from Hamlet that you could not replace one with the other without the viewer noticing. The same is not true of 'equivalent' functions in software.
That being the case, I think we're forced into a dichotomy. Either a patent must cover only a particular implementation of a function, in which case the patent is so easy to circumvent that it might as well carry no legal force, or the patent must cover the function itself, denying everyone the right to implement their own version of a program which already exists.
You're modded funny, but I say Insightful.
That is exactly why DRM has been taking so long to die. This arms race may be unwinnable, but it can sure make a few more arms dealers(read: "programmers") rich before we explain it all to the suits.
Your comment rests on the tacit assumption that the public at large is not deaf too.
Well, yeah. But the tricky word is "substantial", and its moving goalposts.
If a particular implementation A of a function M is patented, but M is the type of thing that other software developers need to accomplish too, then I will need another implementation B of that same function.
But since B can differ from A as much or as little as I like, the question is "how much is substantial?" I could just take A, add a NOP at the end, and call it a distinct function. That probably doesn't meet the definition.
Now what about two NOPs? What if I unroll all the loops, or switch around register names, or swap the operands of all the 'Add' instructions?
Turing-Church essentially promises that regardless of a little bit of obfuscation, or a lot, or none at all, the underlying computation going on in B is isometric to that in implementation A.
That there are an infinite number of alternative implementations, will just be used as a slippery slope argument by a good lawyer. "Why, if we allowed the defendant to publish implementation B, because it's a different algorithm, then we'd have to allow every software patent to be violated by anyone who knows how to obfuscate an algorithm! Nazis would once again ride on dinosaurs!"