Security-wise, voting machines are somewhat tougher than ATMs, because, while ATMs don't trust users, they can at least trust the bank. Voting machines (that are secured properly) can trust neither the government nor the users, while still allowing for some kind of verification. To drive this point home, Diebold is a company that specializes in designing and manufacturing ATMs, so obviously there are problems with voting machines that ATM technology does not currently address.
I hope you don't think that there are actual people that count votes, because that's retarded. Regardless of precisely how you voted, it's some machine somewhere that counted up the votes. At the moment, the vast majority of these machines (100%?) are "black boxes". I fail to see how requiring people to know how to program is worse than requiring them to be able to succesfully engage in corporate espionage.
I like krusader too (in fact, it's my main file manager), but honestly, konqueror has more features and is far more configurable than krusader. The main reason I use krusader is because its dual-pane mode is much better than konq's. Actually, konqueror's dual-pane mode isn't even really "dual-pane". I think it's neat that you can have an arbitrary number of panes and have arbitrary things in each of them, but that's not really what I'm looking for in a file manager.
They already have keyboards that can be projected onto a flat surface. But they suck because there's no tactile feedback. I don't like having to look at my hands to tell where they are (particularly when I'm in the dark); I wouldn't use a virtual keyboard without some decent haptics, but maybe that's just 'cause I'm old-fashioned. Also, the size of the hardware is relevant for some people, particularly those of us that have a hard time keeping track of our stuff, big as it is.
We have plenty of good ways to store solar energy as hydrocarbons (or at least, plants do). The food chain depends on it (except for some unusual examples like thermal ocean vents).
Powerplants and cars don't run on sugar or starch, so I wouldn't call that a "good" way of storing solar energy. You can disagree with me on this, but I'm pretty sure GM isn't cooking up a new sucrose-powered engine.
The bit about algae came up in Chu's talk, in the sense that he brought up a hypothetical bacteria that produced natural gas (evidently he thinks natural is the best target for these things). It seemed like a good idea then, and I've sort of assumed that at some point something like that would become feasible. The big problem is that a bacteria (or algae) that's really good at making usable hydrocarbons (i.e., usable by cars) is an extremely sick bacteria.
On my first read of this, I thought you were mocking the parent (is that the right usage of "parent"?), but I'm stupid like that. My mind works in strange ways, and so it makes more sense to me to define energy source as energy that you "find" somewhere, and energy storage as everything else. But I think that's just semantics, and you're definition is also correct. Keep in mind that most renewable energy sources are solar (e.g., solar cells, wind, hydro-electric).
Our biggest problem with cars is the energy storage. Gasoline has a relatively high energy density, but its combustion releases previously fixated carbon (that is to say, the carbon used to be stuck underground). Hydrogen is clean and has a very high energy density, but it's also very good and exploding (a highly pressurized container with a leak will blow itself up spontaneously). Chemical batteries have attrocious efficiencies and energy densities (hence the work on capacitive batteries). Compressed air is just another storage medium, because you get the energy back out when it expands. It's only as "clean" as whatever powers the air compressor, and it's not obvious to me that the engine is any more efficient than a diesel engine, so I'm not sure what the big deal is.
I heard a talk by Steven Chu (the nobel laureate) a few years ago, and he believed that the solution to our energy problems is to store solar energy (which we currently don't have a good way to store) as hydrocarbons (for which our infrastructure is geared). Also keep in mind that the holy grail of sustainable energy is zero-sum carbon emissions. That is, it's ok to emit carbon so long as we fixated it ourselves, as is the case with biodiesel (though it has some other issues).
Sony's PR department, as I've mentioned above, was just doing its job.
I wouldn't really say they're doing their job. Perhaps two thirds of it, but they seem to be making a miserable failure of "PR thing #3". People keep talking about how journalism is about relationships, and while that's true, it cuts both ways. Clearly, Sony sees Kotaku as more of a liability than a resources, but I don't see how Sony's actions change anything. Kotaku still has their mole, and the story not only got published, it's now on every gaming blog on the internet. Your opinion on this is obvious, but I wonder who will be the worse off for this falling out. Since I don't read Kotaku for their Exclusive Sony Insider Info, I'm not convinced that they'll suffer for it. Maybe it is a big part of what Kotaku is and I just never noticed; it's possible. Either way, we'll have to wait to see.
This guy had access to inside information, given by Sony, in exchange for certain agreements.
The only reason I'm replying to you, coward, is because some idiot thought that this gibberish was insightful. McWhertor got an "anonymous" tip from an insider, not an off-the-record insider tip from Sony proper. There were no agreements (e.g., an NDA) to be broken. Finally, it's not like Kotaku even posted it as fact; it's very obviously labeled as RUMOR (and McWhertor reiterates this repeatedly in the post). While I don't think Sony did anything immoral, I still think it was pretty stupid to react to the story in this way. Certainly, if their intent was to stifle the spread of this rumor, it has failed spectacularly. Or maybe they thought this would be a good way to spread the news?
I mean "free as in speech". The artist has already been paid, and so the works should be free for use. That's sort of the whole point with this idea. Using other people's work to create your own art is a very important part of... well, art, and copyright gets in the way of this in a very serious way. I imagine something like the creative commons would be used. I don't expect the work to be put into the public domain, but there are already a variety of (in some cases) highly restrictive free-as-in-speech licenses.
I should listen to stuff before I buy it. Nonetheless, I have many albums that I didn't listen to more than once, and many games I didn't play for more than half an hour. I'm something of an audiophile, and so it's nice to know whether something was well-mastered or not, and typically that means I need to know someone with the CD, or I need to pirate an mp3 (radio isn't good enough, and neither are most of the streaming samples from online stores, but 128kb/s mp3s are generally good enough to figure this stuff out).
I don't know if I mentioned it already, but I (and most people I've talked about this stuff with) see nothing wrong with rock stars making the same kind of money as other artists. I can see why a pop idol wouldn't see things my way, which is why I say that it'd mostly be a way for indie artists to get more exposure. I'm not saying that any particular way of licensing music should be outlawed, but as a consumer, there are certain systems I would like to promote/support. In the end, I don't think it can work because
You need a critical mass of consumers that are willing to support the system (chicken and egg problem).
It doesn't fix enough problems with the current system (not worth the cost of changing infrastructure).
I'm not sure what you mean by "explain, and not rationalize", but the point of a package repository is convenience, not security. Admittedly, installing (or removing) a.app is pretty painless, but keeping track of updates can be a pain if the program doesn't do it itself. I like just being able to type a single command and have it update everything that needs updating. If you prefer checking for updates manually, that's your choice. I'm lazy, and I'd rather have the computer figure that stuff out for me (it's better at it than I am anyway).
That system would be begging for abuse. Do I get money back if it turns out crap? How likely is it that out of hundreds of thousand of musicians, good ones will be picked out before they actually create any content?
Doesn't this system make more sense: Artists can create whatever they like. Good stuff and crappy stuff. They can devote their own effort to it, or pay people to write their lyrics etc. If people like it, they can buy a copy of their work off them. The better their work is, the more people are interested, and the more they make.
The system I mentioned isn't going to work for mainstream stuff. For things that are going to sell a ton of recordings anyway, it makes more sense to try to get money for every copy.
That said, I don't see how the current system is any different in terms of "abuse". If I buy a CD and find out that it sucks only after I've actually listened to it, do I get my money back? No.
I am assuming here that
The artist in question is interested in being an artist as a career, and
People won't pay for future albums from artists that historically don't make music they like.
And in case you think this is an issue, it's a simple matter to keep the artist from just running off with a bag-o-money (ever heard of escrow?). There is the issue that viable "scams" (i.e., shitty albums) aren't punished until the next album, but it's a trick that will only work once, so it's not something I'm particularly worried about. One's ability to predict future success/quality is not any different regardless of whether you use the current model or the one I proposed. The biggest "problem" with this "patronage-like" system is that it's quite similar to the current system (e.g., popular artists would still have more supporters, and therefore more money than less popular artists). The only things that really change are the facts that music is free (as in speech) after it's produced, and artists need to keep making music to keep making money.
I think the HDTV standard includes 720p and 1080i, but not 1080p. As was already mentioned 1080i->1080p is going to work better than 1080i->720p for obvious reasons, but 720p on a 720p set will look marginally better than 1080i on anything. I don't get HD cable, so I have no clue what the distribution is like WRT what resolution broadcast stations like to use. But I do read gaming news, and it looks like the one resolution every game supports on both the Xbox360 and the PS3 is 720p. Oh, they can upsample all they want, but that isn't terribly different than just sending a 720p signal to your 1080i/p TV without the upsampling.
On the other hand, you might be better off just picking up a 1080p set anyhow (and just so you know, in the US it's closer to a $500 premium [and not $1k]). I have seen 1 (one) 720p set that actually had a native 720p resolution. All the other sets were native WXGA (1366x768), which pretty much need to rescale everything that isn't coming out of a computer. Sets that market themselves as 1080p, however, have uniformly had 1080p native resolution. And can someone please explain to me why plasma TV pixels aren't square? Maybe I'm not understanding something, but every plasma set I've seen is 1024x768, even though they're all widescreen (16:9), which implies 4:3 aspect pixels. In short, most HDTVs will require rescaling a large fraction of the time, so... yeah. It's all kind of a wash. Personally, I wouldn't buy a new TV until the industry gets its act together.
Um. No. I know I said "patronage-style", but I meant, you know, the usable parts of the system; not the retarded parts you have so kindly mentioned. There is no formal aristocracy here in the US so they can't run around dictating what everyone listens to (in principle anyway). Since you can't seem to wrap your mind around it without an explicit explanation, here's how it works: you pay artists to produce music before they make it, and then everyone gets total access to it.
Who pays artists? Whoever wants to. You want another Britney album? Pay her for it up front. Now, I don't expect that you personally have enough money to make Brit happy, but that's what the intarwebs are for! There's actually a website that collects money for indie artists under this model (in fact, that's where I got the idea). But I can't find it. I don't if that's because I suck at searching, or if it's because the business model sucks and they went out of business. If it helps, I actually found out about the place from a post here on slashdot a long time ago.
They don't necessarily have to produce things for free. If we, for instance, went back to a patronage-style system, there wouldn't be any need for copyright. People would have a harder time becoming super-mega-stars, but that isn't something that concerns me.
No paradox here. The copy itself is not illegal, nor does the DMCA strictly prohibit the creation of that copy. All it does is make circumventing the copyprotection itself illegal. The DMCA can't make fair use illegal in principle, but it has made it illegal in practice, which is one of its biggest problems.
I think that's the way it should be, too, but it's kind of a minority viewpoint here.
I'm sorry, but that's totally not the minority viewpoint. I'm pretty sure the overwhelmingly vast majority of posters here don't show up thinking, "I'm going to post some drivel about how my favorite companies can't do anything wrong". I think Dave Barry's quip about drivers is pertinent here:
The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we all believe that we are above average drivers.
And another thing. The only kind of person that announces their "balanced-ness" is a person that's worried that they aren't balanced (and people that like to masturbate; not that there's anything wrong with masturbation, mind you, but it's important to see it for what it is). If you really do post balanced criticisms, then we'll see it in the posts; no need to tell the world that it's a balanced view. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume we're all adults and can figure that shit out on our own thank-you-very-much.
I'm sorry if I'm being a pompous ass, but (ironically, I suppose) I'm sick and tired of these holier-than-thou posts, and you are the unfortunate victim(?) of my nerd-rage. I don't actually think that this post is anything but a waste of my time, but since it's already written I might as well put it up.
You make an interesting point, but I don't think there's a need to invoke trademarks. To extend the analogy (or bring it back?), getting a Weird Al album illicitly is not like getting some Hong Kong rip-off of Ralph Lauren; it's a bit-for-bit copy. The Hong Kong rip-off is more like a cover by someone masquerading as Weird Al. I think the market (and community) response to both is the same. The other problem with equating trademark to copyright is that a trademark is just a label that tells you what company made something (or distributed it or packaged it, or whatever; you get the idea). That's more like authorship, which by default is granted in perpetuity.
But, as I mentioned above, I still think you made an interesting point. Dr Pepper does have some imitators, but if its fans are to be believed (my officemate is a diehard Dr Pepper fan) it is unique in the world of soda. I'm not sure exactly why that is, but I'm pretty sure that it isn't due to trademarks. The point is that there are few products out there that are identical (even neglecting trademarks). Are those differences unlike the differences between artists?
I guess, if you don't count the so-called point-and-click adventure games. But in that case, I think you'd be missing the point, since the article is talking about point-and-click adventure games. The last one I enjoyed was Monkey Island 4, but they're still coming out with them (e.g., Broken Sword, Dreamfall, Syberia).
You're right in that penultimate is next to last, but in this context it is synonymous with second best. In all contexts it means, once-removed-from-ultimate. In case you're still wondering, ultimate here is the final, be-all, end-all; the search engine after which it is pointless to make search engines, because a better search engine simply cannot be made. The penultimate search engine is the last one that came before the alleged "ultimate" one. I don't think it's a spot that anyone is really shooting for, but I guess if they want to leave room for improvement, they can't ever release an ultimate search tool.
I would have suggested that the profs make their own homework questions (like mine did), but access to the answer key is always available, in the form of upperclassmen (it'd be really wrong to not return homeworks). You can't keep a student from cheating if he or she really wants to do it. My very limited exposure to this sort of thing is that it isn't even the top scorers in a class that cheat, so it's not like they're affecting non-cheaters chances of success. We're supposed to learn how to think in college, if someone can't figure that out, their degree isn't going to be worth very much when they finish. That said, I don't see why it takes balls to ban Wikipedia as a citation source. As the GP pointed out, who the hell accepts any encyclopedia as a source, online or otherwise?
I second this, with a proviso. I got mine when I graduated from high school (I guess that was 7 years ago... ), because I didn't have one and thought it might be useful in college. It wasn't. With that in mind, I would suggest picking up a TI-32 (or 33 or whatever kids use these days) and using it for whatever tests come your way. If cost is no object, then get a TI-89, since that's as good as it's going to get (it's basically a TI-92 in the allowed upright form-factor). You could try an HP (the 49g was a geek favorite in college), but they're unbelievably slow, or at least they were 7 years ago. I am a big fan of RPN, but most people aren't.
No one is going to let you use a PDA in a test (and when I was in college, they didn't let us use calculators either, so... yeah). When you get to college either pick up a student copy of Matlab/Mathematica/Maple (your school might have a site-license) or use an OSS clone (e.g., Octave). You won't be able to use it in your frosh exams, but hopefully you'll still have that TI-8x lying around somewhere for those rare occasions.
On the other hand, I recently picked up a TI-30X IIB which pretty much does everything I need a calculator for (chief among these, being pocketable). Only thing about it is that it only has true algebraic entry, which is even more irritating than the not-so-algebraic entry you find on most calculators. I guess it's easier for people that know algebra, but don't know how to use a calculator to figure out. or something like that.
Slashdot Mirror
Security-wise, voting machines are somewhat tougher than ATMs, because, while ATMs don't trust users, they can at least trust the bank. Voting machines (that are secured properly) can trust neither the government nor the users, while still allowing for some kind of verification. To drive this point home, Diebold is a company that specializes in designing and manufacturing ATMs, so obviously there are problems with voting machines that ATM technology does not currently address.
I hope you don't think that there are actual people that count votes, because that's retarded. Regardless of precisely how you voted, it's some machine somewhere that counted up the votes. At the moment, the vast majority of these machines (100%?) are "black boxes". I fail to see how requiring people to know how to program is worse than requiring them to be able to succesfully engage in corporate espionage.
I like krusader too (in fact, it's my main file manager), but honestly, konqueror has more features and is far more configurable than krusader. The main reason I use krusader is because its dual-pane mode is much better than konq's. Actually, konqueror's dual-pane mode isn't even really "dual-pane". I think it's neat that you can have an arbitrary number of panes and have arbitrary things in each of them, but that's not really what I'm looking for in a file manager.
They already have keyboards that can be projected onto a flat surface. But they suck because there's no tactile feedback. I don't like having to look at my hands to tell where they are (particularly when I'm in the dark); I wouldn't use a virtual keyboard without some decent haptics, but maybe that's just 'cause I'm old-fashioned. Also, the size of the hardware is relevant for some people, particularly those of us that have a hard time keeping track of our stuff, big as it is.
Powerplants and cars don't run on sugar or starch, so I wouldn't call that a "good" way of storing solar energy. You can disagree with me on this, but I'm pretty sure GM isn't cooking up a new sucrose-powered engine.
The bit about algae came up in Chu's talk, in the sense that he brought up a hypothetical bacteria that produced natural gas (evidently he thinks natural is the best target for these things). It seemed like a good idea then, and I've sort of assumed that at some point something like that would become feasible. The big problem is that a bacteria (or algae) that's really good at making usable hydrocarbons (i.e., usable by cars) is an extremely sick bacteria.
On my first read of this, I thought you were mocking the parent (is that the right usage of "parent"?), but I'm stupid like that. My mind works in strange ways, and so it makes more sense to me to define energy source as energy that you "find" somewhere, and energy storage as everything else. But I think that's just semantics, and you're definition is also correct. Keep in mind that most renewable energy sources are solar (e.g., solar cells, wind, hydro-electric).
Our biggest problem with cars is the energy storage. Gasoline has a relatively high energy density, but its combustion releases previously fixated carbon (that is to say, the carbon used to be stuck underground). Hydrogen is clean and has a very high energy density, but it's also very good and exploding (a highly pressurized container with a leak will blow itself up spontaneously). Chemical batteries have attrocious efficiencies and energy densities (hence the work on capacitive batteries). Compressed air is just another storage medium, because you get the energy back out when it expands. It's only as "clean" as whatever powers the air compressor, and it's not obvious to me that the engine is any more efficient than a diesel engine, so I'm not sure what the big deal is.
I heard a talk by Steven Chu (the nobel laureate) a few years ago, and he believed that the solution to our energy problems is to store solar energy (which we currently don't have a good way to store) as hydrocarbons (for which our infrastructure is geared). Also keep in mind that the holy grail of sustainable energy is zero-sum carbon emissions. That is, it's ok to emit carbon so long as we fixated it ourselves, as is the case with biodiesel (though it has some other issues).
Not only isn't it final, it's a cliche.
Funny you should mention that.
I wouldn't really say they're doing their job. Perhaps two thirds of it, but they seem to be making a miserable failure of "PR thing #3". People keep talking about how journalism is about relationships, and while that's true, it cuts both ways. Clearly, Sony sees Kotaku as more of a liability than a resources, but I don't see how Sony's actions change anything. Kotaku still has their mole, and the story not only got published, it's now on every gaming blog on the internet. Your opinion on this is obvious, but I wonder who will be the worse off for this falling out. Since I don't read Kotaku for their Exclusive Sony Insider Info, I'm not convinced that they'll suffer for it. Maybe it is a big part of what Kotaku is and I just never noticed; it's possible. Either way, we'll have to wait to see.
The only reason I'm replying to you, coward, is because some idiot thought that this gibberish was insightful. McWhertor got an "anonymous" tip from an insider, not an off-the-record insider tip from Sony proper. There were no agreements (e.g., an NDA) to be broken. Finally, it's not like Kotaku even posted it as fact; it's very obviously labeled as RUMOR (and McWhertor reiterates this repeatedly in the post). While I don't think Sony did anything immoral, I still think it was pretty stupid to react to the story in this way. Certainly, if their intent was to stifle the spread of this rumor, it has failed spectacularly. Or maybe they thought this would be a good way to spread the news?
I mean "free as in speech". The artist has already been paid, and so the works should be free for use. That's sort of the whole point with this idea. Using other people's work to create your own art is a very important part of ... well, art, and copyright gets in the way of this in a very serious way. I imagine something like the creative commons would be used. I don't expect the work to be put into the public domain, but there are already a variety of (in some cases) highly restrictive free-as-in-speech licenses.
I should listen to stuff before I buy it. Nonetheless, I have many albums that I didn't listen to more than once, and many games I didn't play for more than half an hour. I'm something of an audiophile, and so it's nice to know whether something was well-mastered or not, and typically that means I need to know someone with the CD, or I need to pirate an mp3 (radio isn't good enough, and neither are most of the streaming samples from online stores, but 128kb/s mp3s are generally good enough to figure this stuff out).
I don't know if I mentioned it already, but I (and most people I've talked about this stuff with) see nothing wrong with rock stars making the same kind of money as other artists. I can see why a pop idol wouldn't see things my way, which is why I say that it'd mostly be a way for indie artists to get more exposure. I'm not saying that any particular way of licensing music should be outlawed, but as a consumer, there are certain systems I would like to promote/support. In the end, I don't think it can work because
I'm not sure what you mean by "explain, and not rationalize", but the point of a package repository is convenience, not security. Admittedly, installing (or removing) a .app is pretty painless, but keeping track of updates can be a pain if the program doesn't do it itself. I like just being able to type a single command and have it update everything that needs updating. If you prefer checking for updates manually, that's your choice. I'm lazy, and I'd rather have the computer figure that stuff out for me (it's better at it than I am anyway).
The system I mentioned isn't going to work for mainstream stuff. For things that are going to sell a ton of recordings anyway, it makes more sense to try to get money for every copy.
That said, I don't see how the current system is any different in terms of "abuse". If I buy a CD and find out that it sucks only after I've actually listened to it, do I get my money back? No.
I am assuming here that
And in case you think this is an issue, it's a simple matter to keep the artist from just running off with a bag-o-money (ever heard of escrow?). There is the issue that viable "scams" (i.e., shitty albums) aren't punished until the next album, but it's a trick that will only work once, so it's not something I'm particularly worried about. One's ability to predict future success/quality is not any different regardless of whether you use the current model or the one I proposed. The biggest "problem" with this "patronage-like" system is that it's quite similar to the current system (e.g., popular artists would still have more supporters, and therefore more money than less popular artists). The only things that really change are the facts that music is free (as in speech) after it's produced, and artists need to keep making music to keep making money.
I think the HDTV standard includes 720p and 1080i, but not 1080p. As was already mentioned 1080i->1080p is going to work better than 1080i->720p for obvious reasons, but 720p on a 720p set will look marginally better than 1080i on anything. I don't get HD cable, so I have no clue what the distribution is like WRT what resolution broadcast stations like to use. But I do read gaming news, and it looks like the one resolution every game supports on both the Xbox360 and the PS3 is 720p. Oh, they can upsample all they want, but that isn't terribly different than just sending a 720p signal to your 1080i/p TV without the upsampling.
On the other hand, you might be better off just picking up a 1080p set anyhow (and just so you know, in the US it's closer to a $500 premium [and not $1k]). I have seen 1 (one) 720p set that actually had a native 720p resolution. All the other sets were native WXGA (1366x768), which pretty much need to rescale everything that isn't coming out of a computer. Sets that market themselves as 1080p, however, have uniformly had 1080p native resolution. And can someone please explain to me why plasma TV pixels aren't square? Maybe I'm not understanding something, but every plasma set I've seen is 1024x768, even though they're all widescreen (16:9), which implies 4:3 aspect pixels. In short, most HDTVs will require rescaling a large fraction of the time, so ... yeah. It's all kind of a wash. Personally, I wouldn't buy a new TV until the industry gets its act together.
Um. No. I know I said "patronage-style", but I meant, you know, the usable parts of the system; not the retarded parts you have so kindly mentioned. There is no formal aristocracy here in the US so they can't run around dictating what everyone listens to (in principle anyway). Since you can't seem to wrap your mind around it without an explicit explanation, here's how it works: you pay artists to produce music before they make it, and then everyone gets total access to it.
Who pays artists? Whoever wants to. You want another Britney album? Pay her for it up front. Now, I don't expect that you personally have enough money to make Brit happy, but that's what the intarwebs are for! There's actually a website that collects money for indie artists under this model (in fact, that's where I got the idea). But I can't find it. I don't if that's because I suck at searching, or if it's because the business model sucks and they went out of business. If it helps, I actually found out about the place from a post here on slashdot a long time ago.
They don't necessarily have to produce things for free. If we, for instance, went back to a patronage-style system, there wouldn't be any need for copyright. People would have a harder time becoming super-mega-stars, but that isn't something that concerns me.
No paradox here. The copy itself is not illegal, nor does the DMCA strictly prohibit the creation of that copy. All it does is make circumventing the copyprotection itself illegal. The DMCA can't make fair use illegal in principle, but it has made it illegal in practice, which is one of its biggest problems.
I'm sorry, but that's totally not the minority viewpoint. I'm pretty sure the overwhelmingly vast majority of posters here don't show up thinking, "I'm going to post some drivel about how my favorite companies can't do anything wrong". I think Dave Barry's quip about drivers is pertinent here:
And another thing. The only kind of person that announces their "balanced-ness" is a person that's worried that they aren't balanced (and people that like to masturbate; not that there's anything wrong with masturbation, mind you, but it's important to see it for what it is). If you really do post balanced criticisms, then we'll see it in the posts; no need to tell the world that it's a balanced view. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume we're all adults and can figure that shit out on our own thank-you-very-much.
I'm sorry if I'm being a pompous ass, but (ironically, I suppose) I'm sick and tired of these holier-than-thou posts, and you are the unfortunate victim(?) of my nerd-rage. I don't actually think that this post is anything but a waste of my time, but since it's already written I might as well put it up.
You make an interesting point, but I don't think there's a need to invoke trademarks. To extend the analogy (or bring it back?), getting a Weird Al album illicitly is not like getting some Hong Kong rip-off of Ralph Lauren; it's a bit-for-bit copy. The Hong Kong rip-off is more like a cover by someone masquerading as Weird Al. I think the market (and community) response to both is the same. The other problem with equating trademark to copyright is that a trademark is just a label that tells you what company made something (or distributed it or packaged it, or whatever; you get the idea). That's more like authorship, which by default is granted in perpetuity.
But, as I mentioned above, I still think you made an interesting point. Dr Pepper does have some imitators, but if its fans are to be believed (my officemate is a diehard Dr Pepper fan) it is unique in the world of soda. I'm not sure exactly why that is, but I'm pretty sure that it isn't due to trademarks. The point is that there are few products out there that are identical (even neglecting trademarks). Are those differences unlike the differences between artists?
I guess, if you don't count the so-called point-and-click adventure games. But in that case, I think you'd be missing the point, since the article is talking about point-and-click adventure games. The last one I enjoyed was Monkey Island 4, but they're still coming out with them (e.g., Broken Sword, Dreamfall, Syberia).
You're right in that penultimate is next to last, but in this context it is synonymous with second best. In all contexts it means, once-removed-from-ultimate. In case you're still wondering, ultimate here is the final, be-all, end-all; the search engine after which it is pointless to make search engines, because a better search engine simply cannot be made. The penultimate search engine is the last one that came before the alleged "ultimate" one. I don't think it's a spot that anyone is really shooting for, but I guess if they want to leave room for improvement, they can't ever release an ultimate search tool.
I would have suggested that the profs make their own homework questions (like mine did), but access to the answer key is always available, in the form of upperclassmen (it'd be really wrong to not return homeworks). You can't keep a student from cheating if he or she really wants to do it. My very limited exposure to this sort of thing is that it isn't even the top scorers in a class that cheat, so it's not like they're affecting non-cheaters chances of success. We're supposed to learn how to think in college, if someone can't figure that out, their degree isn't going to be worth very much when they finish. That said, I don't see why it takes balls to ban Wikipedia as a citation source. As the GP pointed out, who the hell accepts any encyclopedia as a source, online or otherwise?
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I second this, with a proviso. I got mine when I graduated from high school (I guess that was 7 years ago ... ), because I didn't have one and thought it might be useful in college. It wasn't. With that in mind, I would suggest picking up a TI-32 (or 33 or whatever kids use these days) and using it for whatever tests come your way. If cost is no object, then get a TI-89, since that's as good as it's going to get (it's basically a TI-92 in the allowed upright form-factor). You could try an HP (the 49g was a geek favorite in college), but they're unbelievably slow, or at least they were 7 years ago. I am a big fan of RPN, but most people aren't.
No one is going to let you use a PDA in a test (and when I was in college, they didn't let us use calculators either, so ... yeah). When you get to college either pick up a student copy of Matlab/Mathematica/Maple (your school might have a site-license) or use an OSS clone (e.g., Octave). You won't be able to use it in your frosh exams, but hopefully you'll still have that TI-8x lying around somewhere for those rare occasions.
On the other hand, I recently picked up a TI-30X IIB which pretty much does everything I need a calculator for (chief among these, being pocketable). Only thing about it is that it only has true algebraic entry, which is even more irritating than the not-so-algebraic entry you find on most calculators. I guess it's easier for people that know algebra, but don't know how to use a calculator to figure out. or something like that.