I think this just goes to show that in most hereditary traits, there are more than just genes going in to those traits. My personal belief is that homosexuality is caused by a combination of "nature" and "nurture"...and by nurture, I mean just general life experiences, and not necessarily the values your parents imprinted on you.
Someone above mentioned a study where they found identical twins where when one of the twins was gay, about 50% of the time the other one was too. Obviously, 1/2 the world isn't gay, so the 50% rate in twins suggests that it's about 1/2 genetics and 1/2 based on your experiences.
To say that genetics doesn't affect behavior and preferences is just stupid. Genetics affects so much of every little detail about us, including behavior. I dare anybody to go stand out on the ledge on the 100th floor and not feel a little bit of fear....it's only natural. Then there are cases where people have always had unnatural fears...Why are some 3 year olds deathly afraid of clowns? Why are some adults deathly afraid of clowns? These people almost certainly didn't have some horrible "clown accident" to make them deathly afraid of clowns, so where did the fear come from? It has to be something pre-programmed in.
Then there is the other side of the coin, where fear is learned. A child gets bitten by a dog, has a bad fall while riding their bike, or almost drowns in a pool...then they can't go near a dog, ride a bike, or go near a pool again without feeling fearful. Even if the event that caused them to learn that fear happened before they can remember, the reaction is still the same.
To sum it all up: I believe that you need to have the "gay" gene, but then you also need to have something happen to activate it. If the study on gay twins is any indication, then about 50% of the time that something to activate the gay gene happens...so that would mean that since about 17% of the population (in america) is homosexual, then that would suggest that the "gay gene" occurs in about 34% (1/3) of the population.
P.S.: I am gay, and I never chose to be gay. Deep down, I always knew that I was. I may have lied to myself for a couple years in highschool, but once I admitted it, and looked back on my childhood, I realized that I was always gay...and could see if in myself even before puberty. None of my 3 brothers are gay (that I know of).
The primary difference between the OEM and the Retail license of windows is portability: The retail license you can move from machine to machine to machine to machine to your heart's content. With the OEM license, the first computer you install it on is the one it's stuck on. You can't move it to another machine.
Now, you _CAN_ move it to another machine, if you call up MS when activation fails and just say you upgraded some hardware, or the HD failed and needed to reinstall...but the extra price you pay for is portability...
there is FREE software going out to all current gen iPods (including the touch) to enable the rental ability with them.
What was not free was the additional apps (maps, stocks, weather, mail, etc.) Those are going to be included in future shipments for free, but current shipments they have to charge something because of accounting reasons...same reason they had to charge for the 802.11n in the macs that had the hardware but not the software to use the 802.11n standard.
iPhone and Apple TV get the software updates for free because they accounted the revenue for those devices differently than they do regular iPods and macs, so they are able to add additional features for free.
netflix didn't have to do this because netflix has no hardware (yet). They are just adding additional services to their subscription model in order to be more competitive.
Either way, it's not apple trying to screw customers out of money for updates...if they were, they would rather you bought a new iPod touch to get the additional features, rather than a moderately priced upgrade.
it depends on the type of transaction. Most in-person "card present" transactions have a fee of about 1.5% plus 25 cents. Most on-line, mail or telephone order transactions "card not present" are about 2.25% + 30 cents, as well as an address verification charge of about 25 cents... I my business, which I accept transactions online, I get nicked for about $0.50 on each transaction for just charging that first penny.
Did he set his Wii to output in widescreen format? You must do this as, by default, it is set to 4:3. All of my graphics on my Wii are excellent on my 37" HDTV. I have to component cables and everything is output in widescreen format.
and i've seen lots of these elevators that simply have no phone in them. The box for the phone is there, but there is simply a wire inside with nothing attached to it.
the problem is, you can't selectively block cell phones with these jammers. The jammers work by flooding the frequency with noise. Any real traffic on the frequency is drowned out by the noise....thereby preventing the call from going through. It's all cell phones get blocked, or none of them do. There are no exceptions able to be made.
Also, you are forgetting the case where someone needs to make a legitimate exception who might not have the special "doctor's clearance". Some woman's husband is having a heart attack, or someone gets stuck in the elevator in a building and has a severe asthma attack.
There are a 1001 VERY good reasons to not block cell phone signals and blocking them only serves for the peace and quiet of individuals. Any one of those 1001 reasons would be reason enough to ban the blocking devices.
As soon as any business sets up one of these jammers, it's now just become a ticking time bomb for some emergency to happen and someone isn't going to be able to call for help. When that time bomb goes off, the business is going to get sued.
Although, it shouldn't take long for these devices to end a quick death...minutes after the first multi-million dollar judgement against the business is handed down, which shouldn't take more than a couple months, the insurance companies will ban them outright, and that will be the end of it.
I think the issue is that government contracts typically go to the lowest bidder and not necessarily the best person for the job. Not the best way to handle your security infrastructure.
In the advanced version of that map...the turrets are in these cage things that basically make it so you can't knock them over, pick them up, etc. They are where they are and they can't be killed.
it wasn't terribly difficult. The hardest part was the room with the button with 3 turrets. But there is a big cache of weighted companion cubes...just drop those in FRONT of the turrets via portals in the ceiling and then you can just walk right in to the room! It took me a couple tries to get everything just right, but it worked out...
Halo isn't particularly violent...I mean yeah...there is guns, and shooting, and death, and destruction...but it's still nothing more than cartoon violence...It's been a while since i've played Halo, and Halo 2, but I don't remember there being blood on the screen. Perhaps there is now in Halo 3?
I think the cartoon violence makes it PG-13...but no blood, in a game that is clearly fantasy with no sexual or adult themes...just taking down an alien race...Certainly he has better games to go after... Halo 3 is just one of the biggest ones there are.
I would think that this could be modified to do that...just point some more sensors down towards the walker's feet and it could detect changes in ground elevation caused by not only hills, but curbs, stairs, etc.
This seems to make sense for those who are blind. Instead of using the walking stick/cane (not sure what it's called). Just strap one of these things to their head/chest/belt and let them walk on. It could vibrate to indicate steps, objects, drop offs, etc.
I don't know why this hasn't been thought of before...perhaps it has been, but not that i've heard of.
I'd say the RFID chips are more invasive than a helmet cam. Atleast with a helmet cam, someone has to sit there and watch your boring life. With RFID, the machines do that for you and can be programed with rules that spit out a nice daily report of "suspect activities" amongst employees. Also you're MUCH less likely to forget a camera strapped to your head than you would a chip in your hand (or ass cheeks, or wherever).
Imagine this: Put RFID readers and scanners EVERYWHERE. Not just at work, but EVERYWHERE. Suddenly a centralized database can track your personal movements everywhere. Very accurately. where did he go for breakfast? what did he order (since he paid with his chip)? which subway train is he on? He walked in the door for work 3 minutes late, flag him for disciplinary review. If someone wanted to follow you, and had the means, just flag your chip in the database, and hook it up to google earth. They could track you with the street cams as you walk down the street...a stalker's wet dream...they wouldn't even have to put pants on as they watch you eat a bagel.
RFID Sensors could be installed on the highways and they can see exactly how many times you've driven to that strip/sex shop on the "other" side of town. Maybe your boss has a friend at the DMV (or whatever agency is tracking us) and pulls some reports on his employees and sees that you've been spending a lot of time at the building that your company's competitor is at during lunch (even though it's just you visiting a sandwich shop you like in the same building) and he just quietly fires you without saying why.
Atleast with cameras on the street, they have to be motivated enough to track you, they must already be suspicious and there are ways to stay off them (stay inside) if you really wanted. And the tapes can't be searched, cross-referenced, and/or sorted in any meaningful way...at least until face recognition becomes much more mature.
The FCC rules allow you to place a dish or antenna, or attach the dish or antenna to any part of the building structure to which you have "exclusive use to". So, even though you may not technically own the balcony...if there is only one door to that balcony, and that door leads to your unit, then it's considered exclusive use, and you can place the dish wherever you want.
The DMCA doesn't apply to circumventing copyrighted software. It applies to circumventing technical measures put in place to prevent the copying of copyrighted works (software, music, movies, etc.).
DVD copy protection is covered under the DMCA, Windows Activation is covered under the DMCA, however unlocking a cell phone isn't...simply because you aren't copying any copyrighted software. You are modifying software that you already have already paid for.
Also, the whole DMCA discussion is pointless anyway: The DMCA has given the copyright office the authority to define exceptions to the DMCA, and they have already listed that unlocking cell phones for use with other carriers is exempt from the DMCA. Therefor, neither Apple nor AT&T can use the DMCA as a basis for a successful lawsuit.
Apple's Mighty mouse, which comes with all new desktop Apple PCs, has 4 buttons...they are customizable in their functions.
Left click, right click, middle click, and "squeeze".
Laptops have one button, but you can left and right click with it. Right click by holding two fingers on the pad and clicking...or tapping with two fingers on the pad.
Desktop mighty mouse has a scroll ball which allows for 360 degree scrolling. Laptops have the two finger scroll, where you can drag with two fingers to scroll.
the antibody test is just a cheap and easy method to actually rule out the majority of samples. Why bother putting the sample under a microscope when you can squirt it with some color changing juice to say "maybe" or "no".
You then throw away all the no's and actually look at the maybes.
I remember HyperCard! I used to write bad games in it all the time! It was how I taught myself to code!
Hypercard is an excellent engine for doing a game like Myst. Myst was basically a 3D rendered slideshow presentation with a story. Hypercard is just that...it was marketed as a presentation software, not a development environment. But it was presentation software that had an entire programming language to drive it...it was a wildly popular cult software development program for Mac. I honestly wish that Apple would resurrect it...it was simple enough that I (as a 10 year old child with no software development experience at all) could learn and write pretty complex stuff with nothing but the software, a 200 page manual that listed commands, and a couple of programs I downloaded from other people to see "how they did things".
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is that people aren't patenting "a device on a stick with a handle to turn a screw"...which would cover a screw driver
People are patenting "a device to turn a screw" which would cover the screw driver, the penny, the paper clip, the motorized screw driver, etc.
no...it's not.
E is meaningless...There aint no E in All that and a bag of potato chips!
I think this just goes to show that in most hereditary traits, there are more than just genes going in to those traits. My personal belief is that homosexuality is caused by a combination of "nature" and "nurture"...and by nurture, I mean just general life experiences, and not necessarily the values your parents imprinted on you.
Someone above mentioned a study where they found identical twins where when one of the twins was gay, about 50% of the time the other one was too. Obviously, 1/2 the world isn't gay, so the 50% rate in twins suggests that it's about 1/2 genetics and 1/2 based on your experiences.
To say that genetics doesn't affect behavior and preferences is just stupid. Genetics affects so much of every little detail about us, including behavior. I dare anybody to go stand out on the ledge on the 100th floor and not feel a little bit of fear....it's only natural. Then there are cases where people have always had unnatural fears...Why are some 3 year olds deathly afraid of clowns? Why are some adults deathly afraid of clowns? These people almost certainly didn't have some horrible "clown accident" to make them deathly afraid of clowns, so where did the fear come from? It has to be something pre-programmed in.
Then there is the other side of the coin, where fear is learned. A child gets bitten by a dog, has a bad fall while riding their bike, or almost drowns in a pool...then they can't go near a dog, ride a bike, or go near a pool again without feeling fearful. Even if the event that caused them to learn that fear happened before they can remember, the reaction is still the same.
To sum it all up: I believe that you need to have the "gay" gene, but then you also need to have something happen to activate it. If the study on gay twins is any indication, then about 50% of the time that something to activate the gay gene happens...so that would mean that since about 17% of the population (in america) is homosexual, then that would suggest that the "gay gene" occurs in about 34% (1/3) of the population.
P.S.: I am gay, and I never chose to be gay. Deep down, I always knew that I was. I may have lied to myself for a couple years in highschool, but once I admitted it, and looked back on my childhood, I realized that I was always gay...and could see if in myself even before puberty. None of my 3 brothers are gay (that I know of).
The primary difference between the OEM and the Retail license of windows is portability: The retail license you can move from machine to machine to machine to machine to your heart's content. With the OEM license, the first computer you install it on is the one it's stuck on. You can't move it to another machine.
Now, you _CAN_ move it to another machine, if you call up MS when activation fails and just say you upgraded some hardware, or the HD failed and needed to reinstall...but the extra price you pay for is portability...
there is FREE software going out to all current gen iPods (including the touch) to enable the rental ability with them.
What was not free was the additional apps (maps, stocks, weather, mail, etc.) Those are going to be included in future shipments for free, but current shipments they have to charge something because of accounting reasons...same reason they had to charge for the 802.11n in the macs that had the hardware but not the software to use the 802.11n standard.
iPhone and Apple TV get the software updates for free because they accounted the revenue for those devices differently than they do regular iPods and macs, so they are able to add additional features for free.
netflix didn't have to do this because netflix has no hardware (yet). They are just adding additional services to their subscription model in order to be more competitive.
Either way, it's not apple trying to screw customers out of money for updates...if they were, they would rather you bought a new iPod touch to get the additional features, rather than a moderately priced upgrade.
GSM, or atleast AT&Ts version of GSM doesn't support aGPS.
If it were Verizon or Sprint, it would have aGPS in it.
it depends on the type of transaction. Most in-person "card present" transactions have a fee of about 1.5% plus 25 cents. Most on-line, mail or telephone order transactions "card not present" are about 2.25% + 30 cents, as well as an address verification charge of about 25 cents... I my business, which I accept transactions online, I get nicked for about $0.50 on each transaction for just charging that first penny.
Did he set his Wii to output in widescreen format? You must do this as, by default, it is set to 4:3. All of my graphics on my Wii are excellent on my 37" HDTV. I have to component cables and everything is output in widescreen format.
Mac refers to the Hardware. OSX is the operating system that runs on Macs...hence it's name: "Operating System 10"
and i've seen lots of these elevators that simply have no phone in them. The box for the phone is there, but there is simply a wire inside with nothing attached to it.
the problem is, you can't selectively block cell phones with these jammers. The jammers work by flooding the frequency with noise. Any real traffic on the frequency is drowned out by the noise....thereby preventing the call from going through. It's all cell phones get blocked, or none of them do. There are no exceptions able to be made.
Also, you are forgetting the case where someone needs to make a legitimate exception who might not have the special "doctor's clearance". Some woman's husband is having a heart attack, or someone gets stuck in the elevator in a building and has a severe asthma attack.
There are a 1001 VERY good reasons to not block cell phone signals and blocking them only serves for the peace and quiet of individuals. Any one of those 1001 reasons would be reason enough to ban the blocking devices.
As soon as any business sets up one of these jammers, it's now just become a ticking time bomb for some emergency to happen and someone isn't going to be able to call for help. When that time bomb goes off, the business is going to get sued.
Although, it shouldn't take long for these devices to end a quick death...minutes after the first multi-million dollar judgement against the business is handed down, which shouldn't take more than a couple months, the insurance companies will ban them outright, and that will be the end of it.
I think the issue is that government contracts typically go to the lowest bidder and not necessarily the best person for the job. Not the best way to handle your security infrastructure.
In the advanced version of that map...the turrets are in these cage things that basically make it so you can't knock them over, pick them up, etc. They are where they are and they can't be killed.
it wasn't terribly difficult. The hardest part was the room with the button with 3 turrets. But there is a big cache of weighted companion cubes...just drop those in FRONT of the turrets via portals in the ceiling and then you can just walk right in to the room! It took me a couple tries to get everything just right, but it worked out...
Halo isn't particularly violent...I mean yeah...there is guns, and shooting, and death, and destruction...but it's still nothing more than cartoon violence...It's been a while since i've played Halo, and Halo 2, but I don't remember there being blood on the screen. Perhaps there is now in Halo 3?
I think the cartoon violence makes it PG-13...but no blood, in a game that is clearly fantasy with no sexual or adult themes...just taking down an alien race...Certainly he has better games to go after... Halo 3 is just one of the biggest ones there are.
I would think that this could be modified to do that...just point some more sensors down towards the walker's feet and it could detect changes in ground elevation caused by not only hills, but curbs, stairs, etc.
This seems to make sense for those who are blind. Instead of using the walking stick/cane (not sure what it's called). Just strap one of these things to their head/chest/belt and let them walk on. It could vibrate to indicate steps, objects, drop offs, etc.
I don't know why this hasn't been thought of before...perhaps it has been, but not that i've heard of.
I'd say the RFID chips are more invasive than a helmet cam. Atleast with a helmet cam, someone has to sit there and watch your boring life. With RFID, the machines do that for you and can be programed with rules that spit out a nice daily report of "suspect activities" amongst employees. Also you're MUCH less likely to forget a camera strapped to your head than you would a chip in your hand (or ass cheeks, or wherever).
Imagine this: Put RFID readers and scanners EVERYWHERE. Not just at work, but EVERYWHERE. Suddenly a centralized database can track your personal movements everywhere. Very accurately. where did he go for breakfast? what did he order (since he paid with his chip)? which subway train is he on? He walked in the door for work 3 minutes late, flag him for disciplinary review. If someone wanted to follow you, and had the means, just flag your chip in the database, and hook it up to google earth. They could track you with the street cams as you walk down the street...a stalker's wet dream...they wouldn't even have to put pants on as they watch you eat a bagel.
RFID Sensors could be installed on the highways and they can see exactly how many times you've driven to that strip/sex shop on the "other" side of town. Maybe your boss has a friend at the DMV (or whatever agency is tracking us) and pulls some reports on his employees and sees that you've been spending a lot of time at the building that your company's competitor is at during lunch (even though it's just you visiting a sandwich shop you like in the same building) and he just quietly fires you without saying why.
Atleast with cameras on the street, they have to be motivated enough to track you, they must already be suspicious and there are ways to stay off them (stay inside) if you really wanted. And the tapes can't be searched, cross-referenced, and/or sorted in any meaningful way...at least until face recognition becomes much more mature.
Put it on a pole in the ground...the pole's cost about $20.
The FCC rules allow you to place a dish or antenna, or attach the dish or antenna to any part of the building structure to which you have "exclusive use to". So, even though you may not technically own the balcony...if there is only one door to that balcony, and that door leads to your unit, then it's considered exclusive use, and you can place the dish wherever you want.
The DMCA doesn't apply to circumventing copyrighted software. It applies to circumventing technical measures put in place to prevent the copying of copyrighted works (software, music, movies, etc.).
DVD copy protection is covered under the DMCA, Windows Activation is covered under the DMCA, however unlocking a cell phone isn't...simply because you aren't copying any copyrighted software. You are modifying software that you already have already paid for.
Also, the whole DMCA discussion is pointless anyway: The DMCA has given the copyright office the authority to define exceptions to the DMCA, and they have already listed that unlocking cell phones for use with other carriers is exempt from the DMCA. Therefor, neither Apple nor AT&T can use the DMCA as a basis for a successful lawsuit.
Apple's Mighty mouse, which comes with all new desktop Apple PCs, has 4 buttons...they are customizable in their functions.
Left click, right click, middle click, and "squeeze".
Laptops have one button, but you can left and right click with it. Right click by holding two fingers on the pad and clicking...or tapping with two fingers on the pad.
Desktop mighty mouse has a scroll ball which allows for 360 degree scrolling. Laptops have the two finger scroll, where you can drag with two fingers to scroll.
the antibody test is just a cheap and easy method to actually rule out the majority of samples. Why bother putting the sample under a microscope when you can squirt it with some color changing juice to say "maybe" or "no".
You then throw away all the no's and actually look at the maybes.
I remember HyperCard! I used to write bad games in it all the time! It was how I taught myself to code!
Hypercard is an excellent engine for doing a game like Myst. Myst was basically a 3D rendered slideshow presentation with a story. Hypercard is just that...it was marketed as a presentation software, not a development environment. But it was presentation software that had an entire programming language to drive it...it was a wildly popular cult software development program for Mac. I honestly wish that Apple would resurrect it...it was simple enough that I (as a 10 year old child with no software development experience at all) could learn and write pretty complex stuff with nothing but the software, a 200 page manual that listed commands, and a couple of programs I downloaded from other people to see "how they did things".