"Sure, the subtle long term effects of various micro nutrients are neither well characterized or well understood, but the effects of nutrient deficiencies and outright poisoning are pretty well understood, so we at least have an idea of how much is 'ok'."
I think that just emphasises the OP's point. Despite everything we think we know about food, we still know far to little to create it artificially. Just having "an idea of how much is 'ok'" isn't enough. And the truth is we still have very little idea how the different nutrients react within the body. I remember reading an article recently which basically said "Vitamin so and so which has always been thought to be good for you and is currently sold as pills may actually be bad for you unless combined with mineral so and so. They usually occur together naturally but if you take the dietary pill supplements you might be harming yourself."
If we don't yet know enough about what our food does for us, how can we be sure we know enough to start chopping off bits of our body, or plugging artificial constructs into it?
This arguement keeps coming up. For some reason a group of people seem totally convinced that Solar Cells are a uselss investment as they will never pay for them selves.
First of all, this is obviously a flawed arguement. Afterall, as PV effeciencies rise (and they have been rising for many years) and manufacturing techniques improve, they will inevitably reach the point where PV start to pay for themselves (both in $$ and in energy) will continue to get shorter and shorter!
And secondly, the point is totally wrong!! As many other posters have also pointed out, Solar Panels are usually guaranteed for 20 years of operation and even the worst estimates put them at a break even date of 8-12 years.
And lastly, the argument is self-defeating! If you're worried about the amount of non-renewable energy we as a race are using, shouldn't you be celebrating improvements in efficiency and production? Afterall this makes it more likely that your dreams of 100% renewable energy is more likely to come true. By complaining that all the most promising enrgy break throughs in recent times are not "net efficient" you are discouraging others from doing further work in those areas. That leaves us only with the areas which we already know are unsustainable!
Wow!! It's like I'm in some alternative reality where geeks have suddenly lost all thier brain powers and gone dumb and dumber.
First, someone makes a perfectly reasonable suggestion that it's possible that physical constants as we know them may actually only be constant in the limited space and time where we conduct our observations (Some of them may be different as little as a lightyear away from us). A statement which most physicists will gladly accept as a valid possibility, and he gets beaten down with the arguement that if a litre of water changes size it is still a litre of water!!
How do you argue with that? It's like trying to disagree with someone who says one is equal to two! It's obvious both of you are not speaking the same language, maybe not even living in the same universe. And this arguement isn't brought by just one person but by a host of so calledd "geeks" who argue valiantly to prove that a litre of water my get bigger when heated (or cooled) but its still a litre of water and that's why it still weighs one kg.
So vicious is the attack that our intrepid hypothesiser actually backs down, apologising profusely for daring to assume that if the size changes the volume changes as well!!
Congratulations guys. You've managed to make one kid stupider.
No one demands that you share anyone else's biases or tastes. Obviously there is a significant group of the population that gets off on the misery of others.
So, why don't you all get together, in some remote location, and make each other miserable. That way you'll all be happy!
And the rest of the world will be a happier, and possibly safer, place without any griefers around.
Alternatively if you prefer you could hang around enjoying making trouble for everyone else, but then it's only fair that everyone else gets the opportunity to enjoy themselves by locking you up in an institution somewhere for the troublesome insane.
Or maybe, and this is a really wild idea here, maybe each of us could try to exprience our own pleasure in a way that doesn't reduce the pleasure of others.
Give them the first one cheap (again, it's NOT free!!), when they get hooked and no longer have any alternatives, hike the price! (Afterall, you've been really kind to give it to them soooo cheaply for soooo long!)
If you don't like the way people run thier own politics either offer real help or leave them alone. If you feel they are a threat to you, by all means invade and enslave them if you wish.
But don't pretend to be offering help when you are really just trying to make them totally dependent on you! And then, adding insult to injury, post on a public forum how sad they are for being dependent on you!
And once again, It's NOT free. Most third world countries have to pay for thier 'aid' (non-government organisations may give stuff away for free, but governments don't) either through loans schemes, or at reduced prices. Either way, these countries are paying money for the priviledge of becoming addicts!
So, do I get extra nerdiness credit for printing off this list right now and rushing off to my nearest bookstore? Where exactly can I find this "Dead Parrot Sketch" anyway?
If your going to make a mobile, just make one. I just want my phone to have calling capability, address book, and maybe a browser.
Ah yes, I remember the good old days! When a phone was just something you could make calls on, store the names and addresses of everyone you know and some people you don't, check your emails and maybe download a bittorrent or two.
I thought so too.
So I checked on thier website and it says biofuels is just one of the areas they are working on. Thier original estimate for cheaper malaria drugs was roughly four years. TFA does say they are working on biofuels as well. As long as this new research doesn't significantly increase that there should be nothing stopping them from branching into other fields.
From TFA:
Amyris Biotechnologies was born with a $43 million dollar grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to make a more affordable anti-malaria drug through synthetic biology.
combining that with this
Jack Newman, PhD, Amyris Biotechnologies VP: "This was technology that was really great for the current application of making an anti-malarial drug and we said, great, pharmaceuticals, that's a wonderful model and then we realized, our market is in Africa and they make less than a dollar a day."
So they decided to aim for a more lucrative market as well -- bio-fuels -- a clean alternative to petroleum products.
And it sounds like they decided to abandon the malaria reasearch and pursue more profitable reasearch.
Looking at thier website though, it seems the malaria research had a roughly four year lifespan anyway, so it's possible that they are just running both processes simultanauosly.
Although, being a company, it actually is much more likely that they will focus more on the profit angle. All we can do is hope it doesn't squash the anti malaria research (grants usually have cluases in them to prevent such misappropriation of funds).
P.s.
It is much more efficient to stop malaria by quickly curing infected patients (which will break the infection cycle of the plasmodium) rather than attempting to totally wipe out a whole species of insect (which still plays an important part in tropical ecosystems)
However, if you look at it mathematically, every new dimension is just an excuse to introduce a new variable into the equation! And if you add enough unknowns into any function(or formula) you can make it say anything!
For example:
If you drew a 2D square and I wanted to prove that it was also a 2D circle all I have to do is to add another dimension and claim that in 3D it is a cylinder. Voila!! I have "unified" both the circle and square theory! I can now prove the every square is simply a rotated circle**. The fact that we have no evidence of the shape having a third dimension (other than my fancy mathematics) or the fact that, even if it does, we have no proof that it is a cylinder and not a prism doesn't even need to slow me down. Afterall, I've got the fancy numbers to prove it.
In actuality, the fact that you can expres an idea mathematically does not mean it makes sense, or is even useful! All that string theory seems to have done is to throw variables at the equation until it said what they wanted.
However, the problem with this system is that, as well as saying what you want, the final equation can also say a lot of things you don't want(In the same way; some people would have realised that my above proof for the 2D square could also make it a cylinder, a prism, a cube or even, if I add enough dimensions, all of these.). String theory shows this behaviour by predicting a whole host of space topologies and undiscovered particles, as a result of the newly introduced variables/dimensions. As such, from a purely mathematical perspective, it looks like fitting the solution to the answer you want rather than to the problem you observe.
.
**I can put up the mathematical proof for this, but it's a bit long and I'm sure people who are good with geometry will be able to come to it on thier own.
Within a handful of years the probe locates an uninhabited rock and sets up an automated factory to send out a few million miniprobes or microprobes You do realise that this sound like the blueprint for designing the Replicators (or even the Borg).
Did you read the bill? or even any of the other articles on this thread that quote the bill?
here is a random example
Perhaps you should actually read the bill (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:s.00 001:). Note that the part labelled "definitions", a "grassroots lobbying firm" is defined as someone who "is retained by 1 or more clients to engage in paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying on behalf of such clients; and receives income of, or spends or agrees to spend, an aggregate of $25,000 or more for such efforts in any quarterly period."
The "500 person" rule you're concerned about describes the action of influencing, not the influencer. Specifically: "The term `paid attempt to influence the general public or segments thereof' does not include an attempt to influence directed at less than 500 members of the general public."
To be affected, you must be all three of these: An Astroturfer with 1 or more clients
Reaching 500 people
Being paid $100,000 a year
If you follow the link click on the "Text of Legislation", section 220 is the part that was under question. The original TFA itself which yesterdays slashdot article linked to was written by a blogger who gets paid by republicans to support thier views.
If this bill had passed HE would have had to register! I've already gone posted a long explanation of this yesterday as have many others. Please do just a bit of research if you are not clear on any part of this.
any paid attempt in support of lobbying contacts on behalf of a client
the phrase "in support of" applies to the money being paid, not the comments being posted. So if you recieve payments to support you encouraging your readers to contact thier congressmen, then yes you qualify.
...the general public or segments thereof to contact one or more covered legislative... Also this does not apply to political commentary, but to specifically encouraging people to contact government officials.
TFA leaves out so many important pieces of information that it definitely qualifies as FUD (Fear-Uncertainty- Despair)
I view this like I do skinheads: shine the light of day on them and they will scatter like cockroaches. Shine the light on these corporate blogs and no one will believe them.
Exactly, only how will you know which ones are corporate blogs when the blogger is being paid to pretend to be just a concerned citizen?
The same way advertisers shouldn't pretend to be news programs paid bloggers shouldn't pretend to be free agents. That is all this legislation is saying.
It's not at all trying to prevent any one from saying anything. It's just saying: 'Admit that you've been paid to say it!'
And what am I if I onn my own blog and without getting any pay or other enumeration write my congressional reps saying I support a ban on drilling in ANWR? Which btw I do support. Does that make me a lobbyist?
No it does not!
How about if I start a blog opposing said drilling and others sign up, am I still an individual or a lobby?
Neither, you are a grassroots campaign, which is still okay and doesn't require registration
Then what if I can no longer afford my blogging and I accept ads, which are clearly visible on my blog, do I suddenly become a lobbyist even though I write from the same position?
Only if all (or perhaps a significant portion) of your ads (or website income) come from an organisation which is trying to get the government to ban drilling in ANWR. Becuase at that point you are no longer a free agent expressing your opinion, but a tool for another agent trying to push an agenda.
The bill only applies to people who are PAID TO SUPPORT a particular view! Anyone blogging in general will not be affected even if they are making income fron thier site.
The bill defines "grassroots lobbying firms" as any organization that encourages 500 or more members of the general public to contact Congress.
So even they admit it's not at all about political commentary, but about inciting people to action!
From the bill
SEC. 220. DISCLOSURE OF PAID EFFORTS TO STIMULATE GRASSROOTS LOBBYING. . . .
`Lobbying activities include paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying, but do not include grassroots lobbying.'. . .
IN GENERAL- The term `paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying' means any paid attempt in support of lobbying contacts on behalf of a client to influence the general public or segments thereof to contact one or more covered legislative or executive branch officials (or Congress as a whole) to urge such officials (or Congress) to take specific action with respect to a matter described in section 3(8)(A), except that such term does not include any communications by an entity directed to its members, employees, officers, or shareholders.. . .
In other words, if you get paid by a tobacco company and you post a blog asking your readers to call thier congressman and get him to vote to reduce cigarrette tax and your site is usually viewed by more than 500 people, you need to register.
However, if you are an avid smoker and you ask your readers to do exactly the same as above, you don't have to register.
By the bills definition
(17) GRASSROOTS LOBBYING- The term `grassroots lobbying' means the voluntary efforts of members of the general public to communicate their own views on an issue to Federal officials or to encourage other members of the general public to do the same.
So what they are saying is if you get paid to artificially create or enhance (yes, I know you are not forcing anyone so they still have free will) a grassroots lobby. They want to know about it.
This sounds fair to me, afterall a million people who start complaining about a government policy of thier own accord are very different from a million people who do the same becuase a website told them to.
(In case you are wondering what the difference is, a much larger ratio of those who read the website will make the call giving a skewed view of public opinion)
Oh, I believe him. At that time he was researching ways to write a virus in C (in those days all the popular viruses had been written in assembly.) The speed of your code is very important when writing an exe virus (as opposed to the windows viruses script kiddies prefer nowadays) as is the need to strip your code of all excess weight that might be generated by the compiler. So that kind of information was right up his alley.
I on the other hand had learnt 386 assembly and was learning C (which is why I needed a compiler). So i understood what he was talking about. He ended up recommending Watcom C (becuase he thought it was much more versatile) but I went with Microsoft C anyway (It was friendlier to a person who was just learning the language.)
And this was definitely not an "I hate MS" rant, becuase he loved MS and was the first person I knew of who got an MCSD (even before MCSE became so popular).
"MS came late to the seen, then copied everything everyone else was doing, and you call it innovation? gah"
Exactly, they copied EVERYTHING everyone else was doing. Each of the others wanted you to do things thier own way, and they'd give a long list of reasons why thier way was best. Microsoft just included all the ways and let you do things any way you want.
Technically nothing new, but something that wasn't being done by others and was much more friendly to thier users. That's still innovation!
"MS had not to do any innovative work after IBM made their OS the standard for PC. After that it only had to keep killing any competitive startups whit it's unlimited wallet."
While this is true to a large extent, it does not account for everything. Afterall, IBM PCs were far from a monopoly. In fact, there were many more IBM clones on the market than IBMs.
And in many cases, the OS of choice on these machines was MS-DOS. Not becuase it came pre-installed (Most machines in those days didn't have hard disks and in my experience many clones didn't bother with free disks), but becuase other OSes felt klunky after you'd used MS-DOS. Even when IBM and Microsoft eventually went thier different ways and IBM started packaging it's own PC-DOS with it's machines it wasn't enough to dent MS. I remember the few times I saw an IBM machine with PC-DOS my overwhelming urge was to format the hard disk and install MS-DOS 6.0 .
While it might be inarguable that they've done a lot of things wrong, it doesn't take away the fact that they may have done a few things right.
The origin of bad feeling for microsoft was never it's size but it's actions.
Microsoft was one of the first company to realise that user friendliness may be the single most important aspect of software design in the eyes of the consumer. For example, previously when using various text editors you had to remember loads of different key combinations for each of them to perform common commands like copy and paste. I remember when I first used MS Edit, I had copied something to the clipboard and was trying to figure out which shortcut keys would paste it. The first one I tried (Shift-Ins) worked. I thought I'd been lucky only to find out a few weeks later that a friend, who was used to using a different text editor had found a different shortcut key to do the same thing. MS had included all the different shortcut keys combinations it could so, whichever software it's users came from, they would feel comfortable in MS Edit. This is the kind of innovation (aestetic rather than technical) that made MS grow to such a huge size today.
Now, while having such a large percentage of any major global resource controlled by a single company is enough reason to cause a bit of discomfort, in this case of MS there have been many cases of that power actually being misused. Which serves to justify and multiply that discomfort into distate.
Some examples:-
Mis-use of wide customer base:
In the days of MS-DOS 4 it was said that if you wrote exactly the same program in Microsoft C and in Borland C and ran them on an MS-DOS machine, even if they both compiled into the same machine code, the one written in Borland C would run slower. This is becuase each of the compilers sign the executables they create differently. MS-Dos would simply look at the signature and decide whether to slow it down or not. The result would be that, since most people used MS-DOS, people would assume the MS C compiler was better.
Mis-use of deeper pockets:
One tactic that was very popular with MS in the early days of windows was to add "free" software to windows which the competition was already selling. Since every one with a windows operating system will already have the software, only a tiny fraction of users will bother paying for the one the competitor is selling (no matter how much 'better' or 'more efficient' its product was). Once the competitor has been driven out of business, MS can jack up the price of windows to compensate for the price of the new software plus a whole LOAD of extra profit since, as the Parent said, there is no other option left for the consumers.
Mis-use of inside information:
A third party inspection of MS Office 95 and 97 showed that they were using a lot of undocumented functions in Windows. This is the equivalent of a company that built all the roads and roadmaps in a city, opening a pizza delivery company which constantly arrives with hotter pizzas becuase it's drivers use shortcuts which are hidden to other drivers and don't show up on any of the company maps. This will, of course, give an unfair advantage to it's own pizza delivery company. Not becuase they are better at delivering pizzas, but becuase they have a totally unrelated, and unfair, advantage.
News of breaches like this were all too common in the early days of windows. Now though, most of these have been forgotten but the animosity remains. And it's not helped by the fact that MS seems consistently less interested in producing good software as it does in producing good-looking software.
Perhaps it's becuase I live here but it seems to me that british scientists seem to spend thier grant money researching all sorts of crap.
Blind people can feel like they remember experiencing stuff too! Like..., Wow!
If you divide a number by zero, you get an undefined^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H a range between -infinity and +infinity and if this occurs anywhere in an equation your result will be undefined^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H a range between -infinity and +infinty
When people kiss they tend to tilt thier heads in the same direction as they did when they were in the womb! Now there's something I didn't know, how much did this brilliant piece of research cost!
How about researching something a bit more useful, cheaper drugs, more effecient energy, useful biology?? No wonder they is no grant money for useful stuff!!
complex numbers are an incredibly useful tool in electrical engineering
Complex numbers are useful becuase they are useful in equations and can be used to generate real answers.
I've read his "technical" paper and all it says, in a lot of mathematical jargon, is that once you divide by zero anywhere in an equation the result is 'undefined' only he has now given 'undefined' a new mathematical symbol and a funky name.
Unlike an imaginary number which can give a real single value when used in an equation (e.g. 2i^2+4 = 2) once you divide by zero anywhere in an equation you result can be anywhere in an undefined space between infinity and negative infinity. He calls this space Nullity
So his invention is actually not a mathematical one, it is a gramatic one. Nullity = Undefined, Undefined = Nullity.
Slashdot Mirror
"Sure, the subtle long term effects of various micro nutrients are neither well characterized or well understood, but the effects of nutrient deficiencies and outright poisoning are pretty well understood, so we at least have an idea of how much is 'ok'."
I think that just emphasises the OP's point. Despite everything we think we know about food, we still know far to little to create it artificially. Just having "an idea of how much is 'ok'" isn't enough. And the truth is we still have very little idea how the different nutrients react within the body.
I remember reading an article recently which basically said "Vitamin so and so which has always been thought to be good for you and is currently sold as pills may actually be bad for you unless combined with mineral so and so. They usually occur together naturally but if you take the dietary pill supplements you might be harming yourself."
If we don't yet know enough about what our food does for us, how can we be sure we know enough to start chopping off bits of our body, or plugging artificial constructs into it?
This arguement keeps coming up. For some reason a group of people seem totally convinced that Solar Cells are a uselss investment as they will never pay for them selves.
p an/pvpayback.htm
First of all, this is obviously a flawed arguement. Afterall, as PV effeciencies rise (and they have been rising for many years) and manufacturing techniques improve, they will inevitably reach the point where PV start to pay for themselves (both in $$ and in energy) will continue to get shorter and shorter!
And secondly, the point is totally wrong!! As many other posters have also pointed out, Solar Panels are usually guaranteed for 20 years of operation and even the worst estimates put them at a break even date of 8-12 years.
Here is an example of the numbers you've requested.
http://www.csudh.edu/oliver/smt310-handouts/solar
And lastly, the argument is self-defeating! If you're worried about the amount of non-renewable energy we as a race are using, shouldn't you be celebrating improvements in efficiency and production?
Afterall this makes it more likely that your dreams of 100% renewable energy is more likely to come true. By complaining that all the most promising enrgy break throughs in recent times are not "net efficient" you are discouraging others from doing further work in those areas. That leaves us only with the areas which we already know are unsustainable!
Is that what you'd prefer?
Wow!!
It's like I'm in some alternative reality where geeks have suddenly lost all thier brain powers and gone dumb and dumber.
First, someone makes a perfectly reasonable suggestion that it's possible that physical constants as we know them may actually only be constant in the limited space and time where we conduct our observations (Some of them may be different as little as a lightyear away from us). A statement which most physicists will gladly accept as a valid possibility, and he gets beaten down with the arguement that if a litre of water changes size it is still a litre of water!!
How do you argue with that? It's like trying to disagree with someone who says one is equal to two! It's obvious both of you are not speaking the same language, maybe not even living in the same universe.
And this arguement isn't brought by just one person but by a host of so calledd "geeks" who argue valiantly to prove that a litre of water my get bigger when heated (or cooled) but its still a litre of water and that's why it still weighs one kg.
So vicious is the attack that our intrepid hypothesiser actually backs down, apologising profusely for daring to assume that if the size changes the volume changes as well!!
Congratulations guys. You've managed to make one kid stupider.
So, why don't you all get together, in some remote location, and make each other miserable. That way you'll all be happy!
And the rest of the world will be a happier, and possibly safer, place without any griefers around.
Alternatively if you prefer you could hang around enjoying making trouble for everyone else, but then it's only fair that everyone else gets the opportunity to enjoy themselves by locking you up in an institution somewhere for the troublesome insane.
Or maybe, and this is a really wild idea here, maybe each of us could try to exprience our own pleasure in a way that doesn't reduce the pleasure of others.
It's not for free!
This is a standard drug dealer marketing policy.
Give them the first one cheap (again, it's NOT free!!), when they get hooked and no longer have any alternatives, hike the price! (Afterall, you've been really kind to give it to them soooo cheaply for soooo long!)
If you don't like the way people run thier own politics either offer real help or leave them alone. If you feel they are a threat to you, by all means invade and enslave them if you wish.
But don't pretend to be offering help when you are really just trying to make them totally dependent on you! And then, adding insult to injury, post on a public forum how sad they are for being dependent on you!
And once again, It's NOT free.
Most third world countries have to pay for thier 'aid' (non-government organisations may give stuff away for free, but governments don't) either through loans schemes, or at reduced prices.
Either way, these countries are paying money for the priviledge of becoming addicts!
So, do I get extra nerdiness credit for printing off this list right now and rushing off to my nearest bookstore?
Where exactly can I find this "Dead Parrot Sketch" anyway?
I'm less than 70% nerd!!! Woe is me!!
Ah yes, I remember the good old days! When a phone was just something you could make calls on, store the names and addresses of everyone you know and some people you don't, check your emails and maybe download a bittorrent or two.
Whatever happened to pure simplicity?
Man, I LOVED that game. Somehow none of the new ones seem to pack the same raw fun into it, even if they do pack a much better challenge.
Okay, okayyy..., I know I'm off topic
I thought so too.
So I checked on thier website and it says biofuels is just one of the areas they are working on.
Thier original estimate for cheaper malaria drugs was roughly four years. TFA does say they are working on biofuels as well.
As long as this new research doesn't significantly increase that there should be nothing stopping them from branching into other fields.
combining that with this
Jack Newman, PhD, Amyris Biotechnologies VP: "This was technology that was really great for the current application of making an anti-malarial drug and we said, great, pharmaceuticals, that's a wonderful model and then we realized, our market is in Africa and they make less than a dollar a day."So they decided to aim for a more lucrative market as well -- bio-fuels -- a clean alternative to petroleum products.
And it sounds like they decided to abandon the malaria reasearch and pursue more profitable reasearch.
Looking at thier website though, it seems the malaria research had a roughly four year lifespan anyway, so it's possible that they are just running both processes simultanauosly.
Although, being a company, it actually is much more likely that they will focus more on the profit angle. All we can do is hope it doesn't squash the anti malaria research (grants usually have cluases in them to prevent such misappropriation of funds).
P.s.
It is much more efficient to stop malaria by quickly curing infected patients (which will break the infection cycle of the plasmodium) rather than attempting to totally wipe out a whole species of insect (which still plays an important part in tropical ecosystems)
However, if you look at it mathematically, every new dimension is just an excuse to introduce a new variable into the equation! And if you add enough unknowns into any function(or formula) you can make it say anything!
For example:
If you drew a 2D square and I wanted to prove that it was also a 2D circle all I have to do is to add another dimension and claim that in 3D it is a cylinder. Voila!! I have "unified" both the circle and square theory! I can now prove the every square is simply a rotated circle**. The fact that we have no evidence of the shape having a third dimension (other than my fancy mathematics) or the fact that, even if it does, we have no proof that it is a cylinder and not a prism doesn't even need to slow me down. Afterall, I've got the fancy numbers to prove it.
In actuality, the fact that you can expres an idea mathematically does not mean it makes sense, or is even useful! All that string theory seems to have done is to throw variables at the equation until it said what they wanted.
However, the problem with this system is that, as well as saying what you want, the final equation can also say a lot of things you don't want(In the same way; some people would have realised that my above proof for the 2D square could also make it a cylinder, a prism, a cube or even, if I add enough dimensions, all of these.). String theory shows this behaviour by predicting a whole host of space topologies and undiscovered particles, as a result of the newly introduced variables/dimensions. As such, from a purely mathematical perspective, it looks like fitting the solution to the answer you want rather than to the problem you observe.
.
**I can put up the mathematical proof for this, but it's a bit long and I'm sure people who are good with geometry will be able to come to it on thier own.
Coincidence!
here is a random example
Perhaps you should actually read the bill (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:s.0The "500 person" rule you're concerned about describes the action of influencing, not the influencer. Specifically: "The term `paid attempt to influence the general public or segments thereof' does not include an attempt to influence directed at less than 500 members of the general public."
To be affected, you must be all three of these:
An Astroturfer with 1 or more clients
Reaching 500 people
Being paid $100,000 a year
If you follow the link click on the "Text of Legislation", section 220 is the part that was under question. The original TFA itself which yesterdays slashdot article linked to was written by a blogger who gets paid by republicans to support thier views.
If this bill had passed HE would have had to register! I've already gone posted a long explanation of this yesterday as have many others. Please do just a bit of research if you are not clear on any part of this.
the phrase "in support of" applies to the money being paid, not the comments being posted. So if you recieve payments to support you encouraging your readers to contact thier congressmen, then yes you qualify.
...the general public or segments thereof to contact one or more covered legislativeTFA leaves out so many important pieces of information that it definitely qualifies as FUD (Fear-Uncertainty- Despair)
Exactly, only how will you know which ones are corporate blogs when the blogger is being paid to pretend to be just a concerned citizen?
The same way advertisers shouldn't pretend to be news programs paid bloggers shouldn't pretend to be free agents. That is all this legislation is saying.
It's not at all trying to prevent any one from saying anything. It's just saying: 'Admit that you've been paid to say it!'
No it does not!
How about if I start a blog opposing said drilling and others sign up, am I still an individual or a lobby?Neither, you are a grassroots campaign, which is still okay and doesn't require registration
Then what if I can no longer afford my blogging and I accept ads, which are clearly visible on my blog, do I suddenly become a lobbyist even though I write from the same position?Only if all (or perhaps a significant portion) of your ads (or website income) come from an organisation which is trying to get the government to ban drilling in ANWR. Becuase at that point you are no longer a free agent expressing your opinion, but a tool for another agent trying to push an agenda.
This link http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/1/15/155547/607 has even more information on it.
From the complaint of those against the bill
The bill defines "grassroots lobbying firms" as any organization that encourages 500 or more members of the general public to contact Congress.So even they admit it's not at all about political commentary, but about inciting people to action! From the bill
SEC. 220. DISCLOSURE OF PAID EFFORTS TO STIMULATE GRASSROOTS LOBBYING.`Lobbying activities include paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying, but do not include grassroots lobbying.'
IN GENERAL- The term `paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying' means any paid attempt in support of lobbying contacts on behalf of a client to influence the general public or segments thereof to contact one or more covered legislative or executive branch officials (or Congress as a whole) to urge such officials (or Congress) to take specific action with respect to a matter described in section 3(8)(A), except that such term does not include any communications by an entity directed to its members, employees, officers, or shareholders.
In other words, if you get paid by a tobacco company and you post a blog asking your readers to call thier congressman and get him to vote to reduce cigarrette tax and your site is usually viewed by more than 500 people, you need to register.
However, if you are an avid smoker and you ask your readers to do exactly the same as above, you don't have to register.
By the bills definition
(17) GRASSROOTS LOBBYING- The term `grassroots lobbying' means the voluntary efforts of members of the general public to communicate their own views on an issue to Federal officials or to encourage other members of the general public to do the same.So what they are saying is if you get paid to artificially create or enhance (yes, I know you are not forcing anyone so they still have free will) a grassroots lobby. They want to know about it.
This sounds fair to me, afterall a million people who start complaining about a government policy of thier own accord are very different from a million people who do the same becuase a website told them to.
(In case you are wondering what the difference is, a much larger ratio of those who read the website will make the call giving a skewed view of public opinion)
Oh, I believe him.
At that time he was researching ways to write a virus in C (in those days all the popular viruses had been written in assembly.) The speed of your code is very important when writing an exe virus (as opposed to the windows viruses script kiddies prefer nowadays) as is the need to strip your code of all excess weight that might be generated by the compiler. So that kind of information was right up his alley.
I on the other hand had learnt 386 assembly and was learning C (which is why I needed a compiler). So i understood what he was talking about. He ended up recommending Watcom C (becuase he thought it was much more versatile) but I went with Microsoft C anyway (It was friendlier to a person who was just learning the language.)
And this was definitely not an "I hate MS" rant, becuase he loved MS and was the first person I knew of who got an MCSD (even before MCSE became so popular).
This is information I got when I was shopping for a compiler, from someone who had both compilers and claimed to have heard about it and tested it.
"MS came late to the seen, then copied everything everyone else was doing, and you call it innovation? gah"
Exactly, they copied EVERYTHING everyone else was doing. Each of the others wanted you to do things thier own way, and they'd give a long list of reasons why thier way was best. Microsoft just included all the ways and let you do things any way you want.
Technically nothing new, but something that wasn't being done by others and was much more friendly to thier users. That's still innovation!
"MS had not to do any innovative work after IBM made their OS the standard for PC. After that it only had to keep killing any competitive startups whit it's unlimited wallet."
While this is true to a large extent, it does not account for everything. Afterall, IBM PCs were far from a monopoly. In fact, there were many more IBM clones on the market than IBMs.
And in many cases, the OS of choice on these machines was MS-DOS. Not becuase it came pre-installed (Most machines in those days didn't have hard disks and in my experience many clones didn't bother with free disks), but becuase other OSes felt klunky after you'd used MS-DOS. Even when IBM and Microsoft eventually went thier different ways and IBM started packaging it's own PC-DOS with it's machines it wasn't enough to dent MS. I remember the few times I saw an IBM machine with PC-DOS my overwhelming urge was to format the hard disk and install MS-DOS 6.0 .
While it might be inarguable that they've done a lot of things wrong, it doesn't take away the fact that they may have done a few things right.
The origin of bad feeling for microsoft was never it's size but it's actions.
Microsoft was one of the first company to realise that user friendliness may be the single most important aspect of software design in the eyes of the consumer. For example, previously when using various text editors you had to remember loads of different key combinations for each of them to perform common commands like copy and paste.
I remember when I first used MS Edit, I had copied something to the clipboard and was trying to figure out which shortcut keys would paste it. The first one I tried (Shift-Ins) worked. I thought I'd been lucky only to find out a few weeks later that a friend, who was used to using a different text editor had found a different shortcut key to do the same thing. MS had included all the different shortcut keys combinations it could so, whichever software it's users came from, they would feel comfortable in MS Edit.
This is the kind of innovation (aestetic rather than technical) that made MS grow to such a huge size today.
Now, while having such a large percentage of any major global resource controlled by a single company is enough reason to cause a bit of discomfort, in this case of MS there have been many cases of that power actually being misused. Which serves to justify and multiply that discomfort into distate.
Some examples:-
Mis-use of wide customer base:
In the days of MS-DOS 4 it was said that if you wrote exactly the same program in Microsoft C and in Borland C and ran them on an MS-DOS machine, even if they both compiled into the same machine code, the one written in Borland C would run slower. This is becuase each of the compilers sign the executables they create differently. MS-Dos would simply look at the signature and decide whether to slow it down or not. The result would be that, since most people used MS-DOS, people would assume the MS C compiler was better.
Mis-use of deeper pockets:
One tactic that was very popular with MS in the early days of windows was to add "free" software to windows which the competition was already selling. Since every one with a windows operating system will already have the software, only a tiny fraction of users will bother paying for the one the competitor is selling (no matter how much 'better' or 'more efficient' its product was). Once the competitor has been driven out of business, MS can jack up the price of windows to compensate for the price of the new software plus a whole LOAD of extra profit since, as the Parent said, there is no other option left for the consumers.
Mis-use of inside information:
A third party inspection of MS Office 95 and 97 showed that they were using a lot of undocumented functions in Windows. This is the equivalent of a company that built all the roads and roadmaps in a city, opening a pizza delivery company which constantly arrives with hotter pizzas becuase it's drivers use shortcuts which are hidden to other drivers and don't show up on any of the company maps.
This will, of course, give an unfair advantage to it's own pizza delivery company. Not becuase they are better at delivering pizzas, but becuase they have a totally unrelated, and unfair, advantage.
News of breaches like this were all too common in the early days of windows. Now though, most of these have been forgotten but the animosity remains. And it's not helped by the fact that MS seems consistently less interested in producing good software as it does in producing good-looking software.
Blind people can feel like they remember experiencing stuff too! Like..., Wow!
If you divide a number by zero, you get an undefined^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H a range between -infinity and +infinity and if this occurs anywhere in an equation your result will be undefined^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H a range between -infinity and +infinty
When people kiss they tend to tilt thier heads in the same direction as they did when they were in the womb! Now there's something I didn't know, how much did this brilliant piece of research cost!
How about researching something a bit more useful, cheaper drugs, more effecient energy, useful biology?? No wonder they is no grant money for useful stuff!!
Complex numbers are useful becuase they are useful in equations and can be used to generate real answers.
I've read his "technical" paper and all it says, in a lot of mathematical jargon, is that once you divide by zero anywhere in an equation the result is 'undefined' only he has now given 'undefined' a new mathematical symbol and a funky name.
Unlike an imaginary number which can give a real single value when used in an equation (e.g. 2i^2+4 = 2) once you divide by zero anywhere in an equation you result can be anywhere in an undefined space between infinity and negative infinity. He calls this space Nullity
So his invention is actually not a mathematical one, it is a gramatic one. Nullity = Undefined, Undefined = Nullity.