Actually, I don't mind the wire that much when I'm working from home, I have a very good gaming mouse from Logitech there. My problem is that this mouse (and it's wire) are very bulky when I am traveling, and not only the weight and volume of a full wired mouse impacts me, but the whole process of packing up to leave a place I park myself to work is more annoying with the having to wrap wires.
Although the weight factor might not seem a lot, it's by saving in every small detail when packing that you get a lot less weight in your travel package.
You can get something very similar (in purpose) in the Mac OS, if you hold the control button and scroll, it will zoom in and out of the area under the cursor, no need for fancy mice here.
I have tried a mighty mouse with my mac and can honestly say that I'm not even considering it now, the VX Mice from Logitech, though, are what are enthusing me now.
At least as far as independent publishing of books goes, there is something sort of similar. I found that out when I was trying to find a place to print my thesis. This service called Lulu www.lulu.com which would print your PDF file as a book and also put it up for sale on Amazon (ISBN and all). Now, when I get the corrections from my examiners I do plan to put my thesis at Amazon (just to see how many people would pay to get a hard copy of my research), even if I make the PDF freely available on my website.
Besides that, one thing you will have to have in mind is that you are expected to create novel research in the area, so going into a "hot" area also means that there will be a lot of people doing research in the same area, putting you in a position where it is very likely that someone will scoop your research, or more precisely, creating the thing you thought was brilliant and original before you. So not only you may end up doing research on an area you hate, but the novel thing you thought you had might not be novel anymore by the time you have to defend your thesis.
Let me correct you slightly, it's not "sometimes" a lifetime, it's almost always a lifetime. Any solid organ transplant requires the recipient to take immunosuppressants for as long as the organ lives, which, by the way, is a fixed time, depending on the organ. Well-cared for kidneys are expected to last 20 to 30 years tops, because, and it's a bit ironic, ciclosporin is toxic to the kidney and to the liver.
Well, that's usually the way it works in the market of overhyped games, you create a game that is about the same as all other successful games in the genre, being careful at not attempting anything creative in gameplay, pour a ton of money on marketing to get people to say that this new game will be a breakthrough (even if it's an average game), and people generally buy it. It's a proven formula for the majority of commercially successful console games.
In the case of FPS and RTS games for consoles, you also need to dumb it down a bit, since there's no way you can control these games with a game controller with the same precision and speed that a mouse would afford in a computer.
Maybe that's why they are going bust in Europe (at least Opel), if you read the BBC article on that, it just sounds like they are run by bone heads:
Opel 'should consider insolvency'
Nothing, but it's easier for a government (willing to tackle racism) to assign blame and replace these people than it is when the blame is shared by an entire community.
Some years ago it also meant that a jury composed of racist white people could convict a non-white person of a crime without any solid evidence to that conclusion, and based entirely on irrational preconceptions about behaviour being associated with the levels of melanine in one's skin...
One thing to remember is that the real rise of the American Empire (and I don't mean empire in a bad sense), was mostly during WWII, when the racial policies of Germany and the war in Europe drove the smartest people (who decided to get the hell out of Europe before the crap hit the fan) into America.
That influx of great minds included of course Einstein, von Neumann, Goedel, Fermi among many others that really made a difference as to where the great technologies of the 20th century would be created.
After the war, America got some of the best German scientists as well (like Wernher von Braun), and during the cold war many great Soviet scientists defected to America as well.
I think is undeniable that America's current strength has more than a little influence from immigration.
I am not a doctor, archaeologist, biologist or any other relevant profession, but is there not any shrinkage do body parts and organs as they lose humidity after death? Of course this is not necessarily a good comparison, but all the mummies I saw on museums had clearly shrunk with time, so is it not fair to assume that fossilized brains were larger when the animal was alive?
I would just like to point out that you are all assuming a common law legal system (i.e. the system used by England and it's former colonies), which has a jury in most cases. That is not the case with Sweden (and in fact, in most countries in the world), which uses Roman civil law, which is much less prone to the whims of a jury (although it suffers from other problems).
Or perhaps the correlation of kids who played with legos that turned out to be car engineers in the 80s (you know, with lots of straight angles). Perhaps that explains the stylistic choices of the time...
OK, perhaps slashdot is not the right place to put this kind of joke, but I cannot help myself.
This "electronic toilet" reminded me of an old joke with similar circumstances, it goes more or less like this (pardon for the brit slang, but I think it adds a nice touch to the joke):
A man (let's call him Colin) goes in a posh restaurant, and in the middle of the meal he needs a loo stop, so he goes to the toilet where a toilet attendant starts explaining these new brilliantly modern toilets, that he should start pressing the buttons from left to right when he is done to get the complete cleansing. The only problem is that these wonder toilets is that they only manufacture the unissex version of it, so he warns Colin that under no circumstance should he press the red button, because that button was designed for female use.
So Colin goes about to do his business and when he is done he starts pressing the buttons as instructed, which causes wonderfully warm water to wash him, after which a dryer at a very comfortable temperature dries him followed by some moisturiser. After this brilliant experience, Colin is awfully curious about the red button. He ponders for a couple of minutes and thinks, bollocks, I'm gonna use it. He presses the button, and a hideous scream is heard throughout the restaurant.
A couple of days later he wakes up in hospital, bandages on his crotch. The doctors explain to him that the red button was the tampon extractor function, and he should have never had pressed it.
I think that these companies might actually be very interested in a fair patent process, especially the large ones. My reasoning is the following: even if it would be in their individual interest to try and exploit the patent process, they also know that their ability to exploit this process will be similar to that of the other companies.
The benefits of a large company being able to jeopardize another are clearly offset by the fact that they can be pushed back. This translates into every company spending large sums of money to maintain a legal team just to handle the "patent fast-talk". This is not in their best interest, and in the end this will probably escalate ad infinitum. So, if they all agree to use the system fairly, they can put that extra "lawyer money" into doing actual research, improving their chances to survive, rather than simply waste effort legally fighting other companies.
If I may add my two cents to the discussion (bearing in mind I have no experience in movie production whatsoever), I see two possible good outcomes to this project:
The first one would be if novice (but formally trained) actors would volunteer to take part on this project to try and project themselves into the entertainment industry. I think that this is much more likely on a Star Wars fan movie than for a Star Trek one, since SW has much more popular appeal I dont't see that as an impossibility (BTW, I'm a fan of Star Trek, but as I understand it, its fan base is much more restricted).
The second scenario is the project to work even with untrained actors. There are movies that actually worked that way, for example City of God, and it might even work with Star Wars as well.
Religion following appart, the Bible and most other worship books are the result of a kind of "collective knowledge" that mankind has carried throughout the ages. If you read them with a grain of salt (as all books should be read), religious writings do provide a lot of insight into how mankind has evolved culturally, socially and intelectually.
Which is, in my opinion, exactly why religion has always been a constant trait in organized societies, because in one way or another, it has helped to teach people some basic rules of collective survival that have been generalized and described through allegories in those books. It's too bad that some people have managed to turn an otherwise helpful thing into a tool for controlling the masses...
On a more serious note, if you are shooting a laser at a device that contains explosives within it, you need much less power to detonate it (or at least seriously damage its detonation mechanism) than to shoot down an airliner. SAM missiles are not built like tanks, especially the shoulder-fired variety, so the idea, in principle, does not sound that dangerous to me.
Nevertheless, the idea another slashdotter has posted about putting countermeasures on the airplanes, sounds much cheaper and safe than the laser thing. As far as I know, the Israelis are already using this in El Al planes, and I heard stories about them actually having to use this (and being successful).
Well, I wonder what kind of background would be required to apply for such a position?
In any case, if Vista fails from a security point of view, I'd advise Microsoft to go for the likes of Ron Jeremy, after all, that guy has years of experience in the penetration business.
Sorry for the silly joke, but I could not avoid thinking of stupid names for very "specialized" movies stemming from M$ projects. Like "Debby does Vista" or "Developers gone wild"...
Once again, sorry for my teenage rants...
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, I don't mind the wire that much when I'm working from home, I have a very good gaming mouse from Logitech there. My problem is that this mouse (and it's wire) are very bulky when I am traveling, and not only the weight and volume of a full wired mouse impacts me, but the whole process of packing up to leave a place I park myself to work is more annoying with the having to wrap wires. Although the weight factor might not seem a lot, it's by saving in every small detail when packing that you get a lot less weight in your travel package.
You can get something very similar (in purpose) in the Mac OS, if you hold the control button and scroll, it will zoom in and out of the area under the cursor, no need for fancy mice here.
I have tried a mighty mouse with my mac and can honestly say that I'm not even considering it now, the VX Mice from Logitech, though, are what are enthusing me now.
At least as far as independent publishing of books goes, there is something sort of similar. I found that out when I was trying to find a place to print my thesis. This service called Lulu www.lulu.com which would print your PDF file as a book and also put it up for sale on Amazon (ISBN and all). Now, when I get the corrections from my examiners I do plan to put my thesis at Amazon (just to see how many people would pay to get a hard copy of my research), even if I make the PDF freely available on my website.
Besides that, one thing you will have to have in mind is that you are expected to create novel research in the area, so going into a "hot" area also means that there will be a lot of people doing research in the same area, putting you in a position where it is very likely that someone will scoop your research, or more precisely, creating the thing you thought was brilliant and original before you. So not only you may end up doing research on an area you hate, but the novel thing you thought you had might not be novel anymore by the time you have to defend your thesis.
Yes, it would, it is called Graft-versus-host disease GVHD
Let me correct you slightly, it's not "sometimes" a lifetime, it's almost always a lifetime. Any solid organ transplant requires the recipient to take immunosuppressants for as long as the organ lives, which, by the way, is a fixed time, depending on the organ. Well-cared for kidneys are expected to last 20 to 30 years tops, because, and it's a bit ironic, ciclosporin is toxic to the kidney and to the liver.
Well, that's usually the way it works in the market of overhyped games, you create a game that is about the same as all other successful games in the genre, being careful at not attempting anything creative in gameplay, pour a ton of money on marketing to get people to say that this new game will be a breakthrough (even if it's an average game), and people generally buy it. It's a proven formula for the majority of commercially successful console games. In the case of FPS and RTS games for consoles, you also need to dumb it down a bit, since there's no way you can control these games with a game controller with the same precision and speed that a mouse would afford in a computer.
Maybe that's why they are going bust in Europe (at least Opel), if you read the BBC article on that, it just sounds like they are run by bone heads: Opel 'should consider insolvency'
Nothing, but it's easier for a government (willing to tackle racism) to assign blame and replace these people than it is when the blame is shared by an entire community.
I agree with you entirely, that's why I prefer trained people to do this kind of job that has an impact on the lives of people.
Some years ago it also meant that a jury composed of racist white people could convict a non-white person of a crime without any solid evidence to that conclusion, and based entirely on irrational preconceptions about behaviour being associated with the levels of melanine in one's skin...
One thing to remember is that the real rise of the American Empire (and I don't mean empire in a bad sense), was mostly during WWII, when the racial policies of Germany and the war in Europe drove the smartest people (who decided to get the hell out of Europe before the crap hit the fan) into America. That influx of great minds included of course Einstein, von Neumann, Goedel, Fermi among many others that really made a difference as to where the great technologies of the 20th century would be created. After the war, America got some of the best German scientists as well (like Wernher von Braun), and during the cold war many great Soviet scientists defected to America as well. I think is undeniable that America's current strength has more than a little influence from immigration.
I am not a doctor, archaeologist, biologist or any other relevant profession, but is there not any shrinkage do body parts and organs as they lose humidity after death? Of course this is not necessarily a good comparison, but all the mummies I saw on museums had clearly shrunk with time, so is it not fair to assume that fossilized brains were larger when the animal was alive?
And we all ended up Copulated
I believe there are some situations in which the Roman system uses a jury, but I think it works differently than in the English system.
I would just like to point out that you are all assuming a common law legal system (i.e. the system used by England and it's former colonies), which has a jury in most cases. That is not the case with Sweden (and in fact, in most countries in the world), which uses Roman civil law, which is much less prone to the whims of a jury (although it suffers from other problems).
Or perhaps the correlation of kids who played with legos that turned out to be car engineers in the 80s (you know, with lots of straight angles). Perhaps that explains the stylistic choices of the time...
OK, perhaps slashdot is not the right place to put this kind of joke, but I cannot help myself. This "electronic toilet" reminded me of an old joke with similar circumstances, it goes more or less like this (pardon for the brit slang, but I think it adds a nice touch to the joke):
A man (let's call him Colin) goes in a posh restaurant, and in the middle of the meal he needs a loo stop, so he goes to the toilet where a toilet attendant starts explaining these new brilliantly modern toilets, that he should start pressing the buttons from left to right when he is done to get the complete cleansing. The only problem is that these wonder toilets is that they only manufacture the unissex version of it, so he warns Colin that under no circumstance should he press the red button, because that button was designed for female use.
So Colin goes about to do his business and when he is done he starts pressing the buttons as instructed, which causes wonderfully warm water to wash him, after which a dryer at a very comfortable temperature dries him followed by some moisturiser. After this brilliant experience, Colin is awfully curious about the red button. He ponders for a couple of minutes and thinks, bollocks, I'm gonna use it. He presses the button, and a hideous scream is heard throughout the restaurant.
A couple of days later he wakes up in hospital, bandages on his crotch. The doctors explain to him that the red button was the tampon extractor function, and he should have never had pressed it.
I think that these companies might actually be very interested in a fair patent process, especially the large ones. My reasoning is the following: even if it would be in their individual interest to try and exploit the patent process, they also know that their ability to exploit this process will be similar to that of the other companies.
The benefits of a large company being able to jeopardize another are clearly offset by the fact that they can be pushed back. This translates into every company spending large sums of money to maintain a legal team just to handle the "patent fast-talk". This is not in their best interest, and in the end this will probably escalate ad infinitum. So, if they all agree to use the system fairly, they can put that extra "lawyer money" into doing actual research, improving their chances to survive, rather than simply waste effort legally fighting other companies.
If I may add my two cents to the discussion (bearing in mind I have no experience in movie production whatsoever), I see two possible good outcomes to this project:
The first one would be if novice (but formally trained) actors would volunteer to take part on this project to try and project themselves into the entertainment industry. I think that this is much more likely on a Star Wars fan movie than for a Star Trek one, since SW has much more popular appeal I dont't see that as an impossibility (BTW, I'm a fan of Star Trek, but as I understand it, its fan base is much more restricted).
The second scenario is the project to work even with untrained actors. There are movies that actually worked that way, for example City of God, and it might even work with Star Wars as well.
Religion following appart, the Bible and most other worship books are the result of a kind of "collective knowledge" that mankind has carried throughout the ages. If you read them with a grain of salt (as all books should be read), religious writings do provide a lot of insight into how mankind has evolved culturally, socially and intelectually. Which is, in my opinion, exactly why religion has always been a constant trait in organized societies, because in one way or another, it has helped to teach people some basic rules of collective survival that have been generalized and described through allegories in those books. It's too bad that some people have managed to turn an otherwise helpful thing into a tool for controlling the masses...
Oops, I slipped on my writing and rewriting the acronym or it's long version. Read it as SAMs or Surface-to-Air Missiles. My bad.
On a more serious note, if you are shooting a laser at a device that contains explosives within it, you need much less power to detonate it (or at least seriously damage its detonation mechanism) than to shoot down an airliner. SAM missiles are not built like tanks, especially the shoulder-fired variety, so the idea, in principle, does not sound that dangerous to me.
Nevertheless, the idea another slashdotter has posted about putting countermeasures on the airplanes, sounds much cheaper and safe than the laser thing. As far as I know, the Israelis are already using this in El Al planes, and I heard stories about them actually having to use this (and being successful).
Well, I wonder what kind of background would be required to apply for such a position? In any case, if Vista fails from a security point of view, I'd advise Microsoft to go for the likes of Ron Jeremy, after all, that guy has years of experience in the penetration business. Sorry for the silly joke, but I could not avoid thinking of stupid names for very "specialized" movies stemming from M$ projects. Like "Debby does Vista" or "Developers gone wild"... Once again, sorry for my teenage rants...