That sounds great. But you say none of them have any DRM anymore. Does that mean they're pirated? What format are they in? Are they in a format that will still be viable years from now?
I'm seriously interested. If I can get non-DRM'd ebooks in a standard format, I'm all for this.
I hate so sound so, "get off my lawn", but I really don't like ebooks or digital readers. I can appreciate having your whole library on a single device, etc. But there are too many disadvantages to ebooks as they currently work.
To illustrate: right now it's looking like Books A Million will be going out of business soon. That is a shame. However, I don't have to worry if that happens because I will still be able to read all the books I've bought from them over the last 20 years if they go out of business. Additionally, short of fire or flood, I do not have to worry much that their pages will get scrambled, lost, or damaged -- at least not in my lifetime. I also don't have to worry that anyone will steal my books, nor do I have to worry that Books A Million will come in my house and take my books back.
The only way I am going to enjoy and use ebooks is if they are in plain ASCII text format, like those in Project Gutenberg.
I do have an open mind. If someone can give me some overwhelming benefits of having ebooks over print books, i would love to hear them.
I'm not talking about unsecured bonds. I'm talking about the fact that practically everything bought or sold in the U.S. comes from China. They don't have to start a war, they just have to stop shipping stuff. Given the fact that nobody keeps inventory any more, we'd run out of a lot of stuff pretty quick. I'm not talking about little plastic gew-gaws either. Tires, tools, electronics parts, appliance parts, light bulbs, and increasingly even food items. So they may not literally OWN us, but the own all our stuff, which is effectively the same thing.
...Ever work with a person who's so good that he/she gets his/her own set of rules?...
Never better illustrated than with the case of the Ohio State football players who were suspended from playing five games next year, but were allowed to play in the Sugar Bowl last night.
I've seen it before too, though not on such a large scale, in SW Missouri. In my case it was a flock of mourning dove. Dove are migratory and need a warmer climate. If cold air moves in quickly, like it did in Arkansas over the weekend, the birds can freeze to death quite suddenly. Red winged blackbirds are migratory too. They just cannot take those sudden temperature dips, especially when they are as sharp as those over the weekend.
I think the fish kill is just coincidental. I do not think the two incidents are related.
Drink your liquor straight. If you want to be a little more wimpy you can add some pure rainwater. Don't allow anything to sap and impurify your precious bodily fluids.
Is there any reason to suspect that inferring somebody's culture, or hardcoding a system to use an extended concept of "locale" that includes modifications to dictionary meanings as well as dictionary spellings and accepted grammatical forms, would be any harder than other challenges in computational linguistics?
Well, let me say that the solution would be impractical, rather than impossible. Like predicting the weather with 100% certainty. You might be able to make a perfect prediction for weather conditions tomorrow -- except it would take you longer than 24 hours to make the calculation.
Because there is more to language than just lexicographical algorithms. There are all sorts of cultural nuances at play. For example: If I were to say "That car is the shit", you might assume I was expressing the fact that it was a lemon, or I might be expressing the exact opposite. Another example: In Pennsylvania, if I offer to carry you to the airport, you might look at me as if I were crazy, but if I make the same offer in Georgia, you would know I was offering to give you a ride. What is really meant can only be understood within the cultural context.
This is why language students do not simply study vocabulary, grammar, and verb conjugation. They also study the culture(s) associated with a language.
Good (not perfect) translation may be eventually reached, but it will certainly not be perfected in ten years. People make the mistake of assuming that language can be boiled down to a collection of algorithms. This is far from the case.
Great statistic... if you can trust it. What would you expect the police to say? Might the crimes have been solved anyway, without the CCTV?
And, more importantly, where does it stop? Hey, if CCTV stops crimes think of how many MORE crimes could be stopped with more CCTV. Hey, I bet a LOT of crimes could be stopped if the police were allowed to just randomly kick in people's doors and search their homes.
I like this sentence:...AT&T faces the extra pressure of overcoming negative perceptions of its wireless network,...
Oh yes. It is merely my perception that I have dropped calls and no service periodically. I am so glad to know that these things don't actually happen. It's all in my imagination.
PJ O'Rourke wrote a great book on politics and economics called Eat The Rich. In his book, he examines a number of different political systems and concludes that so long as there is rule of law and private property rights, almost any political system can function. This is true of capitalism, socialism, communism, and even fascism. Take away either of those two components -- rule of law or private property rights -- and you've got trouble.
This story is just another example of our disappearing private property rights. The basic test of ownership is disposal. If you have the right to dispose of an item in some way, through sale, donation, alteration, or destruction (safely, of course), then you own it. If you are prohibited from doing any of these things, then it is not really yours.
Slashdot Mirror
...I could of kept going...
As a grammar Nazi you are an amateur. It's "could have" or perhaps "could've", not "could of".
That sounds great. But you say none of them have any DRM anymore. Does that mean they're pirated? What format are they in? Are they in a format that will still be viable years from now?
I'm seriously interested. If I can get non-DRM'd ebooks in a standard format, I'm all for this.
I hate so sound so, "get off my lawn", but I really don't like ebooks or digital readers. I can appreciate having your whole library on a single device, etc. But there are too many disadvantages to ebooks as they currently work.
To illustrate: right now it's looking like Books A Million will be going out of business soon. That is a shame. However, I don't have to worry if that happens because I will still be able to read all the books I've bought from them over the last 20 years if they go out of business. Additionally, short of fire or flood, I do not have to worry much that their pages will get scrambled, lost, or damaged -- at least not in my lifetime. I also don't have to worry that anyone will steal my books, nor do I have to worry that Books A Million will come in my house and take my books back.
The only way I am going to enjoy and use ebooks is if they are in plain ASCII text format, like those in Project Gutenberg.
I do have an open mind. If someone can give me some overwhelming benefits of having ebooks over print books, i would love to hear them.
The plot doesn't really sound like my cup of tea, however I give you kudos for sharing your story.
Um, yeah. I think you need to do a little field research.
I'm not talking about unsecured bonds. I'm talking about the fact that practically everything bought or sold in the U.S. comes from China. They don't have to start a war, they just have to stop shipping stuff. Given the fact that nobody keeps inventory any more, we'd run out of a lot of stuff pretty quick. I'm not talking about little plastic gew-gaws either. Tires, tools, electronics parts, appliance parts, light bulbs, and increasingly even food items. So they may not literally OWN us, but the own all our stuff, which is effectively the same thing.
In a way that's true. There is no need for a war, because they already own us.
I thought the F-22 was built in China. Everything else is.
Heh, we're not only funding our own military, we're funding theirs too, indirectly.
...'scrambling to keep systems up and running with budgets that barely cover the basics'...
How is this different than it's ever been?
...Ever work with a person who's so good that he/she gets his/her own set of rules?...
Never better illustrated than with the case of the Ohio State football players who were suspended from playing five games next year, but were allowed to play in the Sugar Bowl last night.
...Moore's law is fucking stupid.
There, I said it.
In all seriousness, this is not like some sort of law of physics or something. It is just bloody stupid to keep quoting it all the time.
BTW, I want to add that I don't think Gordon Moore is stupid, only that the myth of this "law" is perpetuated.
Mine goes to 1011.
I've seen it before too, though not on such a large scale, in SW Missouri. In my case it was a flock of mourning dove. Dove are migratory and need a warmer climate. If cold air moves in quickly, like it did in Arkansas over the weekend, the birds can freeze to death quite suddenly. Red winged blackbirds are migratory too. They just cannot take those sudden temperature dips, especially when they are as sharp as those over the weekend.
I think the fish kill is just coincidental. I do not think the two incidents are related.
Drink your liquor straight. If you want to be a little more wimpy you can add some pure rainwater. Don't allow anything to sap and impurify your precious bodily fluids.
This never works.
Besides, it looks like the goal is to keep an unpopular president in office. How is this good for the nation?
I think it would be better to lobby for the choice "None of the above". Given an Obama vs Palin slate, that is how I would like to vote.
Is there any reason to suspect that inferring somebody's culture, or hardcoding a system to use an extended concept of "locale" that includes modifications to dictionary meanings as well as dictionary spellings and accepted grammatical forms, would be any harder than other challenges in computational linguistics?
Well, let me say that the solution would be impractical, rather than impossible. Like predicting the weather with 100% certainty. You might be able to make a perfect prediction for weather conditions tomorrow -- except it would take you longer than 24 hours to make the calculation.
Because there is more to language than just lexicographical algorithms. There are all sorts of cultural nuances at play. For example: If I were to say "That car is the shit", you might assume I was expressing the fact that it was a lemon, or I might be expressing the exact opposite. Another example: In Pennsylvania, if I offer to carry you to the airport, you might look at me as if I were crazy, but if I make the same offer in Georgia, you would know I was offering to give you a ride. What is really meant can only be understood within the cultural context.
This is why language students do not simply study vocabulary, grammar, and verb conjugation. They also study the culture(s) associated with a language.
Language only appears to be logical. It isn't.
Good (not perfect) translation may be eventually reached, but it will certainly not be perfected in ten years. People make the mistake of assuming that language can be boiled down to a collection of algorithms. This is far from the case.
Language purity is a myth. What makes a language identifiable is its oddities and idiosyncracies. Language "mashups" tend to enrich all sides.
Great statistic... if you can trust it. What would you expect the police to say? Might the crimes have been solved anyway, without the CCTV?
And, more importantly, where does it stop? Hey, if CCTV stops crimes think of how many MORE crimes could be stopped with more CCTV. Hey, I bet a LOT of crimes could be stopped if the police were allowed to just randomly kick in people's doors and search their homes.
This is probably politically motivated. Getting away from American-based Microsoft.
Next to come: using Linux will be considered anti-American.
I can't decide if this guy is trying to be funny, or if he's a member of Insane Clown Posse.
I don't know about the article in question, but the ZipBuds girl has reminded me that I need to check the air in my tires.
I like this sentence: ...AT&T faces the extra pressure of overcoming negative perceptions of its wireless network,...
Oh yes. It is merely my perception that I have dropped calls and no service periodically. I am so glad to know that these things don't actually happen. It's all in my imagination.
PJ O'Rourke wrote a great book on politics and economics called Eat The Rich. In his book, he examines a number of different political systems and concludes that so long as there is rule of law and private property rights, almost any political system can function. This is true of capitalism, socialism, communism, and even fascism. Take away either of those two components -- rule of law or private property rights -- and you've got trouble.
This story is just another example of our disappearing private property rights. The basic test of ownership is disposal. If you have the right to dispose of an item in some way, through sale, donation, alteration, or destruction (safely, of course), then you own it. If you are prohibited from doing any of these things, then it is not really yours.