Time Warner in Charlotte, NC advertises "Free HD, for only $9.95 more a month, while out competitors (satellite) charge more than $100 a year for the same service".
Being that my brain hurts whenever I get close to figuring out how $9.95 a month is "free", and being that my soul hurts for paying the fools that would be proud of $9.95 a month compared to $100 per year, I'm not amicable to explanations as to why I should consider $9.95 a month to mean "free".
Ahh, but what's the resolution of that one 'bit'? AFAIK this is an analog device, not at all limited to 1 or 0, but able to be used as such to to the handy-dandy DAC.:-D At first this is a thing for circuit-nerds, but don't despair, as when the circuit-nerds have hand their hands dirty for a minute, computer nerds are going to get to write "programs" for FPGAs, and then not long after that, libraries will emerge that let C nerds (and regular ole' C monkeys) utilize the goodness of these little variable connections.
As for myself, I'm eagerly waiting to see what the FPGA implementation looks like, as I have high hopes for these things (memristors) being useful as 'synapses' in an artificial neural net. I've actually been hoping for something like this for many years, as the switching speed (fast!) might mean I can train nn implementations asynchronously at extremely high speeds... I don't know yet, but like I said, I've got high hopes.:-D
Actually, a couple months ago I got $22 for last years Madden for the Wii at a retail game store. Nice for me because I didn't like the controls, really nice for me because I had bought it for $20 on sale somewhere else.
I have an even worse example of child support system dysfunction, it could apply to any bureaucracy, but the jail-time for owing child support policy of the state in question makes the outcome a bit extreme...
My half-sister's dad was paying child support in the 1980s, directly taken out of his check. For a few of those years he worked 2 jobs fulltime, and for some reason, the child support (full amount) was deducted from BOTH checks. Try as he might, he could not get the problem resolved, as it was always 'Someone Else's' department. The accounting program though, did in fact receive both payments, resulting in him having a net positive balance in the child-support database. By the time my sister turned 18, his balance was just over $30,000.
Try as he might, he has yet to figure out how to get child support to cut him a check. Some of the routes he has taken has even led to people telling him that child support "doesn't do that". That's $30,000 of his own money (that wasn't sent to my sister (mom, really) , she got the prescribed 1x amount, not the 2x deduction) stolen by the state, but it gets worse.
Apparently the function that checks the child support database so that it can automatically issue arrest warrants doesn't expect a positive balance. He's seriously been arrested 5 times for this! His last arrest was about a month and a half ago. As my sister has been an adult for over a decade now, the experience has been tiring to say the least.
If you're reaction to that post was smug superiority as opposed to shock and dismay at the number of non-violent offenders locked up with the vicious ones, then you surely and simply need to pull your head out of your ass.
Yes, you're technically right, but the OPs point has been well made, at least to anyone with any shred of empathy, or even a good sense of scale. The long-term-incarceration level of non-violent offenders is staggering, not to mention the stupefying number of drug offenders in federal prisons, many of which ARE victimless criminals. This is the important fact to take away from this thread, not some random statistic that you pull for to show someone how smart you are.
I REALLY like the Creative Zen Vision M. I know, I know, it's a 'brick', but the battery life is long, the sound quality is just fine, and it (well, MINE) holds 30GB.
Do no evil should probably include not getting all snug with a company that designs network topologies as inverted pentagrams for the summoning bonusus, I mean, 'customer data referencing enhancements'.
I mean, taking a look at Equifax's codebase, you'd expect to see calls to functions but CalltoCthulhu("fhtagn",DATABASEID) and PetitionMammon(CustID,MiracleType) are just plain uncalledfor.
Yeah, I understand. I'm supported Kucinich in the primaries and took crap for it for exactly the same reason. I was just being funny in topical way, not trying to slam anyone's political beliefs.
No, the part that makes people (as the GP put it) morons is repeatedly trusting the same innaccurate sources of information, even in the face of said source's abysmal accuracy rate.
I'm a USAn, and I got 31/33. I missed the one about what Roosevelt threatened the Supreme Court with, and I thought Puritans were pacifists, mistaking them with Quakers, I guess.
I remember a bit about this case. This woman masqueraded as a teenage boy and had "romantic" chats with this girl before telling her that it was all a joke, and that no one could really like her. At some point the woman actually said something to the effect of 'nobody likes you, and I heard that you've talked about suicide, that would probably be a good idea'.
Yeah, if I were on that jury, her best bet would be to get a psychiatrist in there and claim that she's severely emotionally stunted and slightly mentally deficient.
Just to clarify, I'm not an Obama voter, for the very reason you mention (I made myself aware of the man's important attributes via his voting record). I'm one of those silly people that vote their principles even if it means writing in a candidate without a snowball's chance in Hell. Trying to increase the signal-to-noise ratio, so to speak.
Having said that, I am a progressive (which means liberal leaning, as far as U.S. political discourse is concerned) so I do have a dog in this race, so to speak. I don't see my dog gaining much ground with the incoming administration though.
Other than Clinton, could you enlighten me on some of the picks that you think are "fantastic"? I've personally been very disappointed in Obama's nominations thus far, for exactly the reason you say you're happy with them, cronyism.
I don't want to drag this out into a long-winded rant or anything, so I'll just post what I believe to be an excellent summation of just the cronyism I'm leery of. The article I'm talking about is actually about worries over the possibility of a hawkish Obama foreign policy, but when reading that list of names, you'll find Clintonites and others who walk the halls of power both on Capitol Hill and Wall Street.
I'm not trying to bash Obama, just wondering what you see that I don't, and trying to tap into a little of that optimism you have.:-)
Zapping them so that they no longer effect us? Pssh, my source says that the microwaves are needed to ACTIVATE the next generation of chemically generated complacency.
Then again, the same guy swore Ron Paul was going to win the popular vote...
Wait, are you calling someone a racist and then following up with a missive about how dangerous black neighborhoods are to white people?
*applause* You, sir (loose usage of term) are an inspiration to those who suffer from extreme cognitive dissonance.
Oh, and just to give you a little indication of how much a scared little racist you really are, everyone who lives in my household (all white, with the exception of my half-Mexican nephew) feels perfectly safe walking around my (predominantly black) neighborhood at night. Maybe it's because we know the PEOPLE (wow, didn't even need the modifier black, how about that) that live around us, and deal with them as *gasp* PEOPLE.
Actually, I think that limiting the ability to add new words to a lexicon to nonfiction-only would have a strong detrimental effect on the evolution of language. Works of nonfiction are generally comprised exclusively of words that are already in the dictionary. The only cases that I can think of off the top of my head where nonfiction introduces new words are technical or academic in nature, I would think that this would have the effect of limiting lexicon growth to scientific purposes, to the detriment of purely social linguistic evolution.
*shrugs* I was paranoid BEFORE I smoked pot, the pot made me realize my paranoia was actually nothing but undue concern over amazingly improbable events. In other words, it reduced my paranoia.
I also weighed in at about 320 lbs or so before I started smoking pot. A few stoned years later, I was at 200 (I've been stable at 185 now for a while, post-smoking). Before I smoked, I would get bored and eat while watching TV, the pot helped me gain an interest in other more social (and active) pass-times, and seemed to cure my "munchies".
I think your "...facts. Period" are really much closer to personal anecdotes. Its as if you are allergic to strawberries and feel compelled to let everyone know the "fact" that strawberries will kill if you don't have the proper treatment on hand. Okay, maybe that's a bit extreme of an analogy, but the truth is that I've experienced exactly the opposite of what your "facts" would dictate.
The ONLY reason I stopped smoking is the societal pressure. That's right, I'm a non-potsmoker because I succumbed to the influence of others. Kinda puts a twist on those "above the influence" and "live your OWN life" commercials they air, no?
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Time Warner in Charlotte, NC advertises "Free HD, for only $9.95 more a month, while out competitors (satellite) charge more than $100 a year for the same service".
Being that my brain hurts whenever I get close to figuring out how $9.95 a month is "free", and being that my soul hurts for paying the fools that would be proud of $9.95 a month compared to $100 per year, I'm not amicable to explanations as to why I should consider $9.95 a month to mean "free".
Ahh, but what's the resolution of that one 'bit'? AFAIK this is an analog device, not at all limited to 1 or 0, but able to be used as such to to the handy-dandy DAC. :-D At first this is a thing for circuit-nerds, but don't despair, as when the circuit-nerds have hand their hands dirty for a minute, computer nerds are going to get to write "programs" for FPGAs, and then not long after that, libraries will emerge that let C nerds (and regular ole' C monkeys) utilize the goodness of these little variable connections.
As for myself, I'm eagerly waiting to see what the FPGA implementation looks like, as I have high hopes for these things (memristors) being useful as 'synapses' in an artificial neural net. I've actually been hoping for something like this for many years, as the switching speed (fast!) might mean I can train nn implementations asynchronously at extremely high speeds... I don't know yet, but like I said, I've got high hopes. :-D
Actually, a couple months ago I got $22 for last years Madden for the Wii at a retail game store. Nice for me because I didn't like the controls, really nice for me because I had bought it for $20 on sale somewhere else.
I have an even worse example of child support system dysfunction, it could apply to any bureaucracy, but the jail-time for owing child support policy of the state in question makes the outcome a bit extreme...
My half-sister's dad was paying child support in the 1980s, directly taken out of his check. For a few of those years he worked 2 jobs fulltime, and for some reason, the child support (full amount) was deducted from BOTH checks. Try as he might, he could not get the problem resolved, as it was always 'Someone Else's' department. The accounting program though, did in fact receive both payments, resulting in him having a net positive balance in the child-support database. By the time my sister turned 18, his balance was just over $30,000.
Try as he might, he has yet to figure out how to get child support to cut him a check. Some of the routes he has taken has even led to people telling him that child support "doesn't do that". That's $30,000 of his own money (that wasn't sent to my sister (mom, really) , she got the prescribed 1x amount, not the 2x deduction) stolen by the state, but it gets worse.
Apparently the function that checks the child support database so that it can automatically issue arrest warrants doesn't expect a positive balance. He's seriously been arrested 5 times for this! His last arrest was about a month and a half ago. As my sister has been an adult for over a decade now, the experience has been tiring to say the least.
If you're reaction to that post was smug superiority as opposed to shock and dismay at the number of non-violent offenders locked up with the vicious ones, then you surely and simply need to pull your head out of your ass.
Yes, you're technically right, but the OPs point has been well made, at least to anyone with any shred of empathy, or even a good sense of scale. The long-term-incarceration level of non-violent offenders is staggering, not to mention the stupefying number of drug offenders in federal prisons, many of which ARE victimless criminals. This is the important fact to take away from this thread, not some random statistic that you pull for to show someone how smart you are.
I don't know about you, but for MY kids, farts enhance most any experience.
Neural nets.
This setup sounds ideal for a training bed for fann programs. I can't recall if there's a port of fann for CUDA, but I think there might be.
I REALLY like the Creative Zen Vision M. I know, I know, it's a 'brick', but the battery life is long, the sound quality is just fine, and it (well, MINE) holds 30GB.
That's almost exactly what I was thinking.
Do no evil should probably include not getting all snug with a company that designs network topologies as inverted pentagrams for the summoning bonusus, I mean, 'customer data referencing enhancements'.
I mean, taking a look at Equifax's codebase, you'd expect to see calls to functions but CalltoCthulhu("fhtagn",DATABASEID) and PetitionMammon(CustID,MiracleType) are just plain uncalledfor.
Yeah, I understand. I'm supported Kucinich in the primaries and took crap for it for exactly the same reason. I was just being funny in topical way, not trying to slam anyone's political beliefs.
No, the part that makes people (as the GP put it) morons is repeatedly trusting the same innaccurate sources of information, even in the face of said source's abysmal accuracy rate.
I'm a USAn, and I got 31/33. I missed the one about what Roosevelt threatened the Supreme Court with, and I thought Puritans were pacifists, mistaking them with Quakers, I guess.
I remember a bit about this case. This woman masqueraded as a teenage boy and had "romantic" chats with this girl before telling her that it was all a joke, and that no one could really like her. At some point the woman actually said something to the effect of 'nobody likes you, and I heard that you've talked about suicide, that would probably be a good idea'.
Yeah, if I were on that jury, her best bet would be to get a psychiatrist in there and claim that she's severely emotionally stunted and slightly mentally deficient.
Just to clarify, I'm not an Obama voter, for the very reason you mention (I made myself aware of the man's important attributes via his voting record). I'm one of those silly people that vote their principles even if it means writing in a candidate without a snowball's chance in Hell. Trying to increase the signal-to-noise ratio, so to speak.
Having said that, I am a progressive (which means liberal leaning, as far as U.S. political discourse is concerned) so I do have a dog in this race, so to speak. I don't see my dog gaining much ground with the incoming administration though.
Didn't Rush tell you? It's because he's a crazy mixed-breed half A-Rab half Aztec TER'RIST! *waves hands spookily* Boogety boogety boogety!
Other than Clinton, could you enlighten me on some of the picks that you think are "fantastic"? I've personally been very disappointed in Obama's nominations thus far, for exactly the reason you say you're happy with them, cronyism.
I don't want to drag this out into a long-winded rant or anything, so I'll just post what I believe to be an excellent summation of just the cronyism I'm leery of. The article I'm talking about is actually about worries over the possibility of a hawkish Obama foreign policy, but when reading that list of names, you'll find Clintonites and others who walk the halls of power both on Capitol Hill and Wall Street.
I'm not trying to bash Obama, just wondering what you see that I don't, and trying to tap into a little of that optimism you have. :-)
Zapping them so that they no longer effect us? Pssh, my source says that the microwaves are needed to ACTIVATE the next generation of chemically generated complacency.
Then again, the same guy swore Ron Paul was going to win the popular vote...
I love 1980s propaganda, it kinda makes me feel like I'm watching Knight Rider or something (the original, not the new Ford commercial).
Wait, are you calling someone a racist and then following up with a missive about how dangerous black neighborhoods are to white people?
*applause* You, sir (loose usage of term) are an inspiration to those who suffer from extreme cognitive dissonance.
Oh, and just to give you a little indication of how much a scared little racist you really are, everyone who lives in my household (all white, with the exception of my half-Mexican nephew) feels perfectly safe walking around my (predominantly black) neighborhood at night. Maybe it's because we know the PEOPLE (wow, didn't even need the modifier black, how about that) that live around us, and deal with them as *gasp* PEOPLE.
Far left? I love entertaining revisionism as the next guy, but you sounded like you actually meant that. Wow.
Here's a reminder.
Heh, all I know is that these are gonna make one hell of an addition to some botnets, amiright?
I love how people set comments to be viewed in threaded mode and then promptly assign some kind of temporal ordinance to the order of the posts.
Read the timestamps, this appears to be one of the first such jokes in the thread, if you're counting actual time instead of thread order.
Actually, I think that limiting the ability to add new words to a lexicon to nonfiction-only would have a strong detrimental effect on the evolution of language. Works of nonfiction are generally comprised exclusively of words that are already in the dictionary. The only cases that I can think of off the top of my head where nonfiction introduces new words are technical or academic in nature, I would think that this would have the effect of limiting lexicon growth to scientific purposes, to the detriment of purely social linguistic evolution.
*shrugs* I was paranoid BEFORE I smoked pot, the pot made me realize my paranoia was actually nothing but undue concern over amazingly improbable events. In other words, it reduced my paranoia.
I also weighed in at about 320 lbs or so before I started smoking pot. A few stoned years later, I was at 200 (I've been stable at 185 now for a while, post-smoking). Before I smoked, I would get bored and eat while watching TV, the pot helped me gain an interest in other more social (and active) pass-times, and seemed to cure my "munchies".
I think your "...facts. Period" are really much closer to personal anecdotes. Its as if you are allergic to strawberries and feel compelled to let everyone know the "fact" that strawberries will kill if you don't have the proper treatment on hand. Okay, maybe that's a bit extreme of an analogy, but the truth is that I've experienced exactly the opposite of what your "facts" would dictate.
The ONLY reason I stopped smoking is the societal pressure. That's right, I'm a non-potsmoker because I succumbed to the influence of others. Kinda puts a twist on those "above the influence" and "live your OWN life" commercials they air, no?