With regard to putting the burden of disproof on us, refer to Russel's Teapot. With regard to statistical odds, I really do not find it surprising that out of the hundreds of trillions of planets and stars that have existed for billions of years that life should spring up on at least one little planet. Hell, it'd surprise me if it didn't.
Well, I was really digging the demonstration because it was a cool little piece showing Kepler and I do rather like watching these sort of simulations, but I had to sigh when the man claimed a "full scale simulation". Andromeda and the Milky Way are a far sight more than just 10 million bodies.
"Oh, look! A pedant on Slashdot!"
Still want a Kepler, however. Unfortunately finances say that my 580 is nowhere near obsolete enough to even come close to justifying it.
Well, I'll concede that I once let the smoke out as well and the stress tuckered me out such that I tried to catch some sleep. The Great Cola showed up, though, and kept me awake for days. To date I can't tell if the smoke, and the Great Cola, was just a hallucination or not.
Stupidity isn't a natively American phenomenon - we just do it better.
I'd rather have the French surrender or the British bad teeth stereotype than the fat, stupid, and violent stereotype we Americans have. It's the silver lining to not being able to afford travel abroad - not having to lie about my nationality in casual conversation.
Some years ago I accidentally fell into a conversation with a colleague's mother regarding a topic similar to this. She had said that she refuses to eat margarine because "it is only one molecule away from being plastic". After explaining in much politer terms that "no, no it's fucking not" I really had to ask the question "...and what if it was?". So what? It's not going to instantly transform into a choking hazard mid-bite into your toast. Did you know that H20 is only FOUR MOLECULES away from the deadly H2S04? Did you know that if you let your kids play in the ocean that you are letting them play in potential fuel for a fusion reactor!?
It can get absolutely ridiculous very quickly. Some people rag on four year universities but if you do it right you get some chemistry, some physics, some math, some art, some poli-sci, and so on. I find this to be very important in the development of a person, instead of only getting their education in the field of their choice. It's OK to not be versed in the latest chemistry, physics, or computer science, especially if those are not your career fields. It is NOT ok to believe that Yellow #5 decreases your sperm count, that radiocarbon dating is an atheist lie, or that your computer runs on "magic smoke".
The reasons for downloading can be greatly varied among people and, of course, some constitute a lost sale and some don't. My roommate actually ended up downloading a copy of the movie after we had seen it the day before. The reason being that there are some lines that we missed because the theater was too loud laughing (particularly after the Hulk scene with Loki) and he wanted to know what was said. He didn't just ask the internet because, well, everyone else seemed to have the same problem as well. So, no, he wasn't going to pay another $9.50 just to catch a couple lines he missed.
Huh, I had never even heard of this (thankfully). Any sort of bias aside I found that while randoming about that it's contents are woefully anemic. Entries such as "library" come with very little at all, and on top of that any history or development on subjects focus solely on American aspects.
I wish I could say that I'd be surprised if anyone decided to use this, but humanity has a knack for letting everyone down.
It's my understanding that the reason many soap operas look and feel so cheesy (outside of the acting, story, etc.) is that they are filmed at a much higher framerate than is typical and many find it jarring, or bizarre.
There was a time that I worked for a video game publishing company and Sony's testing software had ZERO ZIP ZILTCH documentation. Specifically I worked on the online department. Microsoft had its Network Emulator for Windows Toolkit (NEWT) and Sony had its equivalent. It was backwards, awkward, and for a period time didn't event work (this was also around the time of the Sony network being hacked so we couldn't even release our titles if we wanted to). Figuring out how to hook their software up to our PS3s, let alone monitoring, was a GOD-DAMNED-NIGHTMARE.
People dreaded being assigned to work on the PS3 for version reasons just like this (among some others).
In addition to the above comments it is also somewhat common to use a stolen car as a get-away vehicle in robberies and other crimes.
In fact this happened to my family during my childhood. We woke up one morning to find that not only had our Jeep been stolen but that it was used that night to break a number of traffic and safety laws.
From my aforementioned time at a videogame publisher. Not saying that there are ADDITIONAL fees if the patch passes submission, just saying that if they find your patch to be subpar then they throw it back at you, no refunds.
Mind you, this $40k is the SUBMISSION fee. It is entirely possible that whatever patch you submitted just does not pass. If that happens you don't get your money back - fix what they cited and resubmit, cash and all.
I worked for a videogame publishing company for a period of time and we had one submission that actually failed due to botched paperwork by someone higher up. This, of course, led to a week of office wide griping about how a fuck up that cost the company more than a year of our wages was done by someone who got paid more than triple we did and is still around after the fact (soon before this incident someone was fired for accidentally sending an email building wide...). But what can you do? There is a reason I, and most people, leave that company with no intention of going back.
Ugh, I just got my email response back from senator Dianne Feinstein (CA-D). She was apparently un-phased by her email and phone line being utterly crippled with traffic yesterday in opposition to SOPA/PIPA. The train wreck watcher in me half wants this thing to actually pass. We would have solid proof and precedent that we are not in the least bit represented. Tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people screaming at congress and they just don't care, the money's already in the bank.
If SOPA/PIPA were put to a national referendum, would it pass? If not then does that mean that we have hard proof that congress' actions no longer represent the will of the people? If that's true, then could we actually get popular support for a political revolution? Would we do a recall in every state and completely clean out the government? If we do that we could end up just installing V2.0 of we currently have in place. Could we get popular support for radical changes in the way the officials are elected and the way the government is ran? A lot of people scoff at the idea of such changes. They tell you to "get a life" or to take the tin-foil hat off. At what point do even those people say, "Okay. What. The. Fuck."?
For those who are interested here is the contents of senator Feinstein's email that I assume she mass sent out this morning:
Dear Mr. Didn't Give a Campaign Contribution:
I received your letter expressing opposition to the "Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act," commonly known as the "PROTECT IP Act." I appreciate knowing your views on this matter.
The "PROTECT IP Act" (S. 968) gives both copyright and trademark owners and the U.S. Department of Justice the authority to take action against websites that are "dedicated to infringing activities." These are websites that have "no significant use other than engaging in, enabling, or facilitating" copyright infringement, the sale of goods with a counterfeit trademark, or the evasion of technological measures designed to protect against copying.
The bill does not violate First Amendment rights to free speech because copyright piracy is not speech.
America's copyright industry is an important economic engine, and I believe copyright owners should be able to prevent their works from being illegally duplicated and stolen. The protection of intellectual property is particularly vital to California's thriving film, music, and high-technology industries.
I understand you have concerns about the "PROTECT IP Act." While I voted in favor of this bill when it was before the Senate Judiciary Committee, I have also been working with California high-technology businesses to improve the bill and to address the concerns of high-tech businesses, public interest groups and others. I recognize the bill needs further changes to prevent it from imposing undue burdens on legitimate businesses and activities, and I will be working to make the improvements, either by working with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) or through amendments on the Senate floor.
On May 26, 2011, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the "PROTECT IP Act" for consideration by the full Senate. Please know I will keep your concerns and thoughts in mind should the Senate proceed to a vote on this legislation. As you may be aware, Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) has introduced similar legislation, the "Stop Online Piracy Act" (H.R. 3261), in the House of Representatives.
Once again, thank you for sharing your views. I hope you will continue to keep me informed on issues of importance to you. If you have any additional questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact my Washington, D.C. office at (202) 224-3841.
Wishing you a happy 2012. Sincerely yours,
Dianne Feinstein
United States Senator
There are a lot of comments on how this won't get any point across to most people other than "WTF mate? Oh God dammit I don't give a shit". I'm not so sure about that. There are plenty of people with strong ideals who would vehemently oppose SOPA/PIPA if only the issue ended up on their plate. Sure you can say that "if they had strong ideals they would have been paying attention in the first place" but that's just an empty attack on those people. There are A LOT of a good, honest, intelligent people that are naive about what goes in politics. These are the people that are on political cruise-control.
Again the operative word is naive. A lack of knowledge about SOPA/PIPA/NDAA/etc. does NOT mean a person is completely complacent. Just let them know what their representatives are ACTUALLY trying to do and they'll outrage.
This game was actually on my radar (on my Steam "Wish List" and all). I was planning on picking it up when the price had gone down a bit or when Steam had a special on it. Now no. Never. You lost a sale. Hell, I'm not even going to pirate it. Fuck. You.
I actually just got laid off from exactly this type of employer. Their model is to hire employees at low pay and no benefits (not a single one, not even a paid sick day or two) as "contractors". What this means is that despite being, technically, contractors we worked in an office 6 to 7 days a week, 8 to 12 hours a day - we were full time employees intentionally mislabeled. And after exactly one year of employment? ALMOST guaranteed laid off. I say almost because out of the 120-150 employees they keep in the office each year they actually hire two or three to stay, I assume as a sort of carrot on a stick setup. It's not a very enticing carrot, however. The only difference is you go from barely paid above minimum wage to paid just a little more than barely above minimum wage.
What's more insulting is that to try to distract the employees from the fact that they're working an IT job with a 98% turnover rate they would do a "Beer Friday" two to three times a year. Beer Friday meant management gives you a beer and lets you slack for the last hour of the day (unless your project was shipping in a month, in which case get back to work).
Absolutely NO electronics allowed into the office (phones, thumb drives, laptops, etc.), absolutely NO internet access, NO opening of the window blinds, clocking in literally one minute too late OR early several times lands you with a warning, scheduling tactics that manipulate the technical work week to avoid paying chunks of OT, and the ONLY time off request I have ever heard of being approved was a VERY reluctant approval to allow an employee time to have surgery on his hernia. All tips of the iceberg.
My parents always instilled in me a sense of employee/employer loyalty and respect and to work such that "you are in-disposable". Each time I find myself describing my work with that company to older generations the response tends to be fairly consistent - a look of dread and a story of how companies use to treat their employees right and in turn the employees worked their butts off. The conversation always ends with them hoping that this isn't where American companies are going these days.
But I suppose the idea behind this is that if you are building enriching facilities WHILE receiving fuel from this bank, that's suspicious. As opposed to the situation of, "Oh well, they have facilities but they say it's just for fuel but let's get a UN committee to herp a derp a didalee derp....in case it's for weapons".
Now here is an entire people FREE from the nagging thought "I should go to the gym today" and these scientists want to take that AWAY from them? Those insensitive bastards!
Several of the graphs show the frequency response of the different sound chips. I reckon it's SUPPOSE to demonstrate a short coming of the integrated Realtek chip because it falls off much sooner than the much more expensive expansion card, but it drops off at 20kHz - approximately the ceiling of human hearing. It's great that your $200+ card can output at 50kHz, but I personally wouldn't pay even $1 extra for the feature.
As an aside, I'd be much more interested in a card that comes as part of a recording suite with some high end MIDI capabilities. If I could get some sort of card + Finale/Pro Tools/Vienna Symphonic Library (not necessarily all together...that'd be ridiculously expensive) that'd be heavenly.
Slashdot Mirror
With regard to putting the burden of disproof on us, refer to Russel's Teapot. With regard to statistical odds, I really do not find it surprising that out of the hundreds of trillions of planets and stars that have existed for billions of years that life should spring up on at least one little planet. Hell, it'd surprise me if it didn't.
Well, I was really digging the demonstration because it was a cool little piece showing Kepler and I do rather like watching these sort of simulations, but I had to sigh when the man claimed a "full scale simulation". Andromeda and the Milky Way are a far sight more than just 10 million bodies.
"Oh, look! A pedant on Slashdot!"
Still want a Kepler, however. Unfortunately finances say that my 580 is nowhere near obsolete enough to even come close to justifying it.
Huh. While reading that article you linked I also happen to be listening to ELO's "The Way Life's Meant To Be". Yeesh.
Well, I'll concede that I once let the smoke out as well and the stress tuckered me out such that I tried to catch some sleep. The Great Cola showed up, though, and kept me awake for days. To date I can't tell if the smoke, and the Great Cola, was just a hallucination or not.
Can't tell if this was just a setup to the ASS joke, but "substances" would probably be even worse considering its connotation with illegal drugs.
Stupidity isn't a natively American phenomenon - we just do it better.
I'd rather have the French surrender or the British bad teeth stereotype than the fat, stupid, and violent stereotype we Americans have. It's the silver lining to not being able to afford travel abroad - not having to lie about my nationality in casual conversation.
Some years ago I accidentally fell into a conversation with a colleague's mother regarding a topic similar to this. She had said that she refuses to eat margarine because "it is only one molecule away from being plastic". After explaining in much politer terms that "no, no it's fucking not" I really had to ask the question "...and what if it was?". So what? It's not going to instantly transform into a choking hazard mid-bite into your toast. Did you know that H20 is only FOUR MOLECULES away from the deadly H2S04? Did you know that if you let your kids play in the ocean that you are letting them play in potential fuel for a fusion reactor!?
It can get absolutely ridiculous very quickly. Some people rag on four year universities but if you do it right you get some chemistry, some physics, some math, some art, some poli-sci, and so on. I find this to be very important in the development of a person, instead of only getting their education in the field of their choice. It's OK to not be versed in the latest chemistry, physics, or computer science, especially if those are not your career fields. It is NOT ok to believe that Yellow #5 decreases your sperm count, that radiocarbon dating is an atheist lie, or that your computer runs on "magic smoke".
The reasons for downloading can be greatly varied among people and, of course, some constitute a lost sale and some don't. My roommate actually ended up downloading a copy of the movie after we had seen it the day before. The reason being that there are some lines that we missed because the theater was too loud laughing (particularly after the Hulk scene with Loki) and he wanted to know what was said. He didn't just ask the internet because, well, everyone else seemed to have the same problem as well. So, no, he wasn't going to pay another $9.50 just to catch a couple lines he missed.
Huh, I had never even heard of this (thankfully). Any sort of bias aside I found that while randoming about that it's contents are woefully anemic. Entries such as "library" come with very little at all, and on top of that any history or development on subjects focus solely on American aspects.
I wish I could say that I'd be surprised if anyone decided to use this, but humanity has a knack for letting everyone down.
Yes, but can I loli rape mod it? If not then it's dead in the water for the PC TES community.
It's my understanding that the reason many soap operas look and feel so cheesy (outside of the acting, story, etc.) is that they are filmed at a much higher framerate than is typical and many find it jarring, or bizarre.
It is a joy to see a representative that you voted for actually vote in-line with your views.
There was a time that I worked for a video game publishing company and Sony's testing software had ZERO ZIP ZILTCH documentation. Specifically I worked on the online department. Microsoft had its Network Emulator for Windows Toolkit (NEWT) and Sony had its equivalent. It was backwards, awkward, and for a period time didn't event work (this was also around the time of the Sony network being hacked so we couldn't even release our titles if we wanted to). Figuring out how to hook their software up to our PS3s, let alone monitoring, was a GOD-DAMNED-NIGHTMARE.
People dreaded being assigned to work on the PS3 for version reasons just like this (among some others).
I was interested by this and believe I found the relevant film spliced into sections and with extra commentary: Monetary Economics and Ducks
Neat little episode.
In addition to the above comments it is also somewhat common to use a stolen car as a get-away vehicle in robberies and other crimes.
In fact this happened to my family during my childhood. We woke up one morning to find that not only had our Jeep been stolen but that it was used that night to break a number of traffic and safety laws.
From my aforementioned time at a videogame publisher. Not saying that there are ADDITIONAL fees if the patch passes submission, just saying that if they find your patch to be subpar then they throw it back at you, no refunds.
Mind you, this $40k is the SUBMISSION fee. It is entirely possible that whatever patch you submitted just does not pass. If that happens you don't get your money back - fix what they cited and resubmit, cash and all.
I worked for a videogame publishing company for a period of time and we had one submission that actually failed due to botched paperwork by someone higher up. This, of course, led to a week of office wide griping about how a fuck up that cost the company more than a year of our wages was done by someone who got paid more than triple we did and is still around after the fact (soon before this incident someone was fired for accidentally sending an email building wide...). But what can you do? There is a reason I, and most people, leave that company with no intention of going back.
Ugh, I just got my email response back from senator Dianne Feinstein (CA-D). She was apparently un-phased by her email and phone line being utterly crippled with traffic yesterday in opposition to SOPA/PIPA. The train wreck watcher in me half wants this thing to actually pass. We would have solid proof and precedent that we are not in the least bit represented. Tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people screaming at congress and they just don't care, the money's already in the bank.
If SOPA/PIPA were put to a national referendum, would it pass? If not then does that mean that we have hard proof that congress' actions no longer represent the will of the people? If that's true, then could we actually get popular support for a political revolution? Would we do a recall in every state and completely clean out the government? If we do that we could end up just installing V2.0 of we currently have in place. Could we get popular support for radical changes in the way the officials are elected and the way the government is ran? A lot of people scoff at the idea of such changes. They tell you to "get a life" or to take the tin-foil hat off. At what point do even those people say, "Okay. What. The. Fuck."?
For those who are interested here is the contents of senator Feinstein's email that I assume she mass sent out this morning:
Dear Mr. Didn't Give a Campaign Contribution:
I received your letter expressing opposition to the "Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act," commonly known as the "PROTECT IP Act." I appreciate knowing your views on this matter.
The "PROTECT IP Act" (S. 968) gives both copyright and trademark owners and the U.S. Department of Justice the authority to take action against websites that are "dedicated to infringing activities." These are websites that have "no significant use other than engaging in, enabling, or facilitating" copyright infringement, the sale of goods with a counterfeit trademark, or the evasion of technological measures designed to protect against copying.
The bill does not violate First Amendment rights to free speech because copyright piracy is not speech.
America's copyright industry is an important economic engine, and I believe copyright owners should be able to prevent their works from being illegally duplicated and stolen. The protection of intellectual property is particularly vital to California's thriving film, music, and high-technology industries.
I understand you have concerns about the "PROTECT IP Act." While I voted in favor of this bill when it was before the Senate Judiciary Committee, I have also been working with California high-technology businesses to improve the bill and to address the concerns of high-tech businesses, public interest groups and others. I recognize the bill needs further changes to prevent it from imposing undue burdens on legitimate businesses and activities, and I will be working to make the improvements, either by working with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) or through amendments on the Senate floor.
On May 26, 2011, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the "PROTECT IP Act" for consideration by the full Senate. Please know I will keep your concerns and thoughts in mind should the Senate proceed to a vote on this legislation. As you may be aware, Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) has introduced similar legislation, the "Stop Online Piracy Act" (H.R. 3261), in the House of Representatives.
Once again, thank you for sharing your views. I hope you will continue to keep me informed on issues of importance to you. If you have any additional questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact my Washington, D.C. office at (202) 224-3841.
Wishing you a happy 2012.
Sincerely yours,
Dianne Feinstein
United States Senator
There are a lot of comments on how this won't get any point across to most people other than "WTF mate? Oh God dammit I don't give a shit". I'm not so sure about that. There are plenty of people with strong ideals who would vehemently oppose SOPA/PIPA if only the issue ended up on their plate. Sure you can say that "if they had strong ideals they would have been paying attention in the first place" but that's just an empty attack on those people. There are A LOT of a good, honest, intelligent people that are naive about what goes in politics. These are the people that are on political cruise-control.
Again the operative word is naive. A lack of knowledge about SOPA/PIPA/NDAA/etc. does NOT mean a person is completely complacent. Just let them know what their representatives are ACTUALLY trying to do and they'll outrage.
This game was actually on my radar (on my Steam "Wish List" and all). I was planning on picking it up when the price had gone down a bit or when Steam had a special on it. Now no. Never. You lost a sale. Hell, I'm not even going to pirate it. Fuck. You.
I actually just recently worked for a large US software publisher that gave zero - ZERO - days of sick or vacation days.
Was NOT heart broken to get laid off from that shit show.
I actually just got laid off from exactly this type of employer. Their model is to hire employees at low pay and no benefits (not a single one, not even a paid sick day or two) as "contractors". What this means is that despite being, technically, contractors we worked in an office 6 to 7 days a week, 8 to 12 hours a day - we were full time employees intentionally mislabeled. And after exactly one year of employment? ALMOST guaranteed laid off. I say almost because out of the 120-150 employees they keep in the office each year they actually hire two or three to stay, I assume as a sort of carrot on a stick setup. It's not a very enticing carrot, however. The only difference is you go from barely paid above minimum wage to paid just a little more than barely above minimum wage.
What's more insulting is that to try to distract the employees from the fact that they're working an IT job with a 98% turnover rate they would do a "Beer Friday" two to three times a year. Beer Friday meant management gives you a beer and lets you slack for the last hour of the day (unless your project was shipping in a month, in which case get back to work).
Absolutely NO electronics allowed into the office (phones, thumb drives, laptops, etc.), absolutely NO internet access, NO opening of the window blinds, clocking in literally one minute too late OR early several times lands you with a warning, scheduling tactics that manipulate the technical work week to avoid paying chunks of OT, and the ONLY time off request I have ever heard of being approved was a VERY reluctant approval to allow an employee time to have surgery on his hernia. All tips of the iceberg.
My parents always instilled in me a sense of employee/employer loyalty and respect and to work such that "you are in-disposable". Each time I find myself describing my work with that company to older generations the response tends to be fairly consistent - a look of dread and a story of how companies use to treat their employees right and in turn the employees worked their butts off. The conversation always ends with them hoping that this isn't where American companies are going these days.
But I suppose the idea behind this is that if you are building enriching facilities WHILE receiving fuel from this bank, that's suspicious. As opposed to the situation of, "Oh well, they have facilities but they say it's just for fuel but let's get a UN committee to herp a derp a didalee derp....in case it's for weapons".
Now here is an entire people FREE from the nagging thought "I should go to the gym today" and these scientists want to take that AWAY from them? Those insensitive bastards!
Several of the graphs show the frequency response of the different sound chips. I reckon it's SUPPOSE to demonstrate a short coming of the integrated Realtek chip because it falls off much sooner than the much more expensive expansion card, but it drops off at 20kHz - approximately the ceiling of human hearing. It's great that your $200+ card can output at 50kHz, but I personally wouldn't pay even $1 extra for the feature.
As an aside, I'd be much more interested in a card that comes as part of a recording suite with some high end MIDI capabilities. If I could get some sort of card + Finale/Pro Tools/Vienna Symphonic Library (not necessarily all together...that'd be ridiculously expensive) that'd be heavenly.