A person's handwriting can also convey personality and emotion behind the written word which is really not possible through set type. When you write with your own hand, you write with your own font - your personality speaks through it. It also shows a degree of effort. It takes a little more focus to write a letter by hand (especially when your trying to stay on the same line, and you aren't using college rule looseleaf), and one may be surprised by how many people appreciate it.
I have pretty bad handwriting, but there have been times where I have painstakingly written something out by hand to people when I felt it truly mattered. Thank you notes, in particular, are very well received when hand written.
In the mid-90's I was in a program called Talented and Gifted - simply called "TAG" for short. Essentially, all the 'smart' kids (recommended by teachers, guidance counselors, and 'anomalous' test scores) were put into a room in middle school for one period (45 minutes) a day. Essentially, all we did was play games. There were occasions where we learned about other cultures and exchanged letters with students in Russia, but for the most part it was a period in middle school devoted specifically to games of all sorts.
However, the games were quite serious, at least as far as games go. I remember one in particular, where our whole class was informed we had 'woken up' in a bomb shelter, supposedly after a nuclear attack. We were given no general background of the setting of our dilemma, only the vague recollection that something *bad* had happened. None of us could quite remember exactly what happened, or how in particular we got there. We remembered our personal histories, but the information was on cards that were given to us by our TAG teacher, and we were not allowed to show them to other students - we had to 'express' what was on the card in interim periods between decisions. A little like a character sheet, if you ask me.
We were then given one direction by the "MC" of the game, the AI programmed into the bomb shelter - choose a leader. The whole game then revolved around a process of negotiation amongst the survivors with said leader , as said leader decided whether or not to enter into different communications with different camps in this post-apocalyptic world, something which the AI explicitly advised against. The climax of the game involved one decision: will you open the door to your shelter past the airlock (i.e, not safe, if the world was irradiated you would die) and check outside? Both the AI and the other camps advise against this through nearly the entire game. However, I remember our team deciding to open the door. We did, and found that not a singular nuclear missile had gone off, and that everyone was in hiding. In the end, what the game 'taught' was that neither the AI nor the other camps could be trusted, and the best conclusions were the ones we came to ourselves.
Obviously, you can't teach Mathematics through a video game. You can, however, clarify some of the more obscure portions of Mathematics through demonstration, and video games are an excellent way to demonstrate.
I think the good people of the Manhattan Public School Department will quickly find, however, that games meant for general consumption (i.e., non-educational purposes) are not fit for the task. For instance, I would not pick EA's "Dante's Inferno" to quickly teach kids in my history class the impact Dante Allegheri had on how people viewed religion, or its relationship to politics. I might opt for something more along the lines of this, which does gloss over some details, but hits the heart of the matter pretty neatly.
Ah, I'm sorry kdawson. Apologies to you as well, David. I wouldn't blame you for your tone, however.
I should have remembered that aspect of the Slashdot system.
Exactly. We are all pretty steamed about this and I would not qualify this behavior as childish sarcasm; I would qualify it as sarcasm generally held by a community reflected through the medium delivered to the community. I think it is pretty safe to say that 80-90% of people here on./ would like to see some serious Software patent reform and we are pretty exasperated about that reform not happening. I am willing to submit that certainly, that is not every./ reader. However, the fact that new businesses are being established which further exploit the broken system could easily anger the./ reader whom is exasperated(I would like to clarify that I don't think that is the intent here). While sarcasm in journalism is generally not called for or necessarily professional (there has been far too much of it lately, I will agree with you there), sometimes it is admissible because it reflects the elevation of tension in the community, and that is really what the reporter's job is - to tell everybody else whats going on on the ground.
It is important to realize that/. is not a pure news site, being in the transient twilit realm of new media. It mostly links 'real' (old media) news, and the rest of its independently generated content mostly consist of reviews, journal entries, and interviews. However, I am not surprised that people expect./ to follow some journalistic standards.
kdawson does lay it on a little thick sometimes, and I wish he would have more discretion in using that particular journalistic device, but I will give him a personal 'pass' on this one.
The school in question shall remain nameless because it has a lot of haters (and I understand why it does), but I can assure you that any Linux user who wants full access to all of the university resources that come with a tuition should have few problems. First of all, most Linux users are pretty saavy about getting what they need out of technology anyway. Secondly, most campuses use web services to run the majority of the software that your daughter will actually need to register for classes, interact with her library, and collect necessary course information that is placed in centralized services by professors. This will obviate "college software" as a reason to choose another OS for her work laptop.
Linux labs will be available in almost any decent college. After the tour is over, peek around, and see if you can find the Computer Science and/or Mathematics department, and ask them if you can see their Computer Lab (if they have one). I remember many times the secretary who worked the desk at the department would be more than happy to escort the prospective college candidate downstairs. Most of these labs have dual (or even triple, nowadays) boot machines because hey - CS kids gotta know em all. I would frequently pick Linux unless there was software I would have to use for a specific class that required Windows. Most labs have rules that say "CS students only", but every lab is run by a human - some of whom are students - and they actually don't mind the extra company most of the time if you ask politely. You would be surprised at how empty those labs can get sometimes, especially when the library was packed. The buisness kids would make their way over to us though, and we didn't mind them at all. Just as long as they didn't print out 500+ page presentations. Yikes.
There is a caveat - some course work will require proprietary software. Most colleges avoid it unless absolutely necessary, but it happens. An example for me in my college experience was in Computer Architecture class. While there may be PLD software available for Linux, not every university invests in them for various reasons, and mine choose to go the 'old standard' route, so to speak, because VHDL will drive you up a wall even when it's working. Your daughter may be able to learn on her own on this software, but there is a very good chance the TA or Professor grading the homework will require you to hand over the project in a certain file format. I'm not saying your daughter is going into computer science, but that's the reality of the situation and it will vary greatly depending on what she feels her major may be. I would strongly suggest that you perhaps arrange a situation where she has a dual boot machine.
Don't worry too much about learning Windows. My dad was a computer scientist/mathematician, and he refused (on principle) to let me use a Windows machine, so I ended up using mostly Mac 6-10.5. It's not that bad, once you realize that Microsoft hides all the most important controls in the deepest level of interface because it has an inherent assumption that *all* people are idiots.;)
Just yesterday I was stranded after a wedding (it was a good wedding), without a car or cell phone. Let's just say it was a hell of a time. Anyway, long story short, I wake up one morning in a hotel room without any contact information and I have to let my family know where I am - except they all just got a new iPhone, have changed their number, and I have yet to remember it.
Guess where one of those phone numbers was? Facebook. I found myself a public terminal in the hotel lobby and got all the information I needed to be reuinted with my car, phone, and the road.
We seem to be able to observe that the thieves are intelligent - clearly, theft happens on a daily basis and only truly spectacular examples of it ever make it to the press. We can also be assured of their intelligence through certain elements of their technique - they perhaps, for instance, knew that the Magsafe adapters would make the laptops easy to snag, and that fragments from the front glass door would not harm them (allowing the brick thrower to run full tilt at the door before hurling the brick).
However, the logical conclusion that most Slashdotters seem to be drawing - that the thieves are stealing the laptops to sell them on the black market - contradicts this observation. Which makes me wonder: maybe they aren't planning on selling them, really. They only stole 50k worth of equipment. Maybe they really wanted the *just the laptops* themselves *to use* in a quiet area where Apple will never notice - like, their respective basements.
For the record, I'm not insinuating that these people are terrorists - but what I am insinuating, is perhaps we have seen 'nerd theft'. A low probability, but I think its plausible, and I thought it would be interesting to mention.
It most assuredly works both ways. It is only that women are frequently the party with greater confidence, so they have an easier time of managing their excitement, which makes them appear to be 'smarter'. I really don't know why they needed a research study for this, although I guess there is a point to "proving" everything. (rolls his eyes).
I think that is a very interesting proposition. I don't know how your going to get that suggestion to these researchers, but I would like to see the results of that memory test. My guess is that men will actually do better in the presence of women.
Zordak, you should know (although I'm sure you are a good lawyer), that part of the reason why one doesn't register a patent themselves is that they *cough* need a patent lawyer, and they generally run a little more than 35 bucks an hour. Just letting you know;)
It's not just that. They are trying to build in a whole complex classification system into the network that doesn't base its decisions on content or traffic - it considers both in its analysis. It's trying to shuffle all users into 32 different slots - "Normal People", "High Volume Users", "Bots", and 29 other different 'categories' of user. Honestly, it doesn't sound like *enough* money.
I understand what you are trying to say. Companies need to do more to clear personal information out of their records when customers leave their service, and if their aren't laws that expressly enforce this, there damn well should be.
The problem isn't necessarily that DirectTV, in the normal course of business, will actively engage in the pursuit of identity theft of its customers - that is patently absurd. The problem is that employees of DirectTV, when certain customers 'leave' the service of their company, may become aware of social security numbers on file that DirectTV is no longer 'watching'. The SS# is kept for a number of reasons - the one most intimately familiar to readers of./ is probably because its is a convenient primary key that links all other information about the customer together in the database. (They should probably *not* be using a SS number to be doing this, and should be using a dissociated universal identifier tied to a SS# number, but, this is me wishing for a better world.) Then, the SS# just hangs there with all of this other personal identifying information - for various reasons. Sometimes there may be legal concerns, and sometimes there is "in case the customer decides to 'come back'". Then, someone who has had a really bad day notices it.
In fact, I am sorry to say this, but I have seen one employee of a company do this. No damage was done, but they manage to take THOUSANDS of pages of personal information. It was luckily stopped in time.
Some do it for personal gain, some did it for 'revenge' (his case). You have to remember, you are dealing with humans all around, and a SS# gives someone a lot of power over another human being. It can be very dangerous.
... but would this discovery have any potential legal ramifications on DNA testing, potentially casting doubt on its validity? Their testing method has to be accurate, or else they could not observe the differences in DNA between blood and organ cells - but are the differences enough to cause one person's DNA to be mistaken for another, or are they small enough to not risk a false positive? I'm not a lawyer or a biologist, but thats the first thing that popped into my head.
I'm not sure if I agree completely with your rights vs. laws discussion, but I agree with the general sentiment of your conclusion. If they visited the website at the police station and then used the website to conduct or even discuss police business while those discussions contained racist comments, then they are *way* out of line should probably be reprimanded in some way, either by suspension, demotion, or termination.
Even if they didn't post these messages at the station, and did so within their private residences, there seems to be strong evidence that it directly related to their police work and this should trouble everyone. It's fine for everyone to have opinions, and technically its not illegal to have 'racist opinions' or ethnically stereotype people, but hate crimes and discrimination are very much so against the law and that is exactly what the police are charged with upholding. Members of the police force have to be held to a higher standard (just like the Armed Forces) than the common citizen, and as a result must forgo some of the rights the rest of us enjoy - but they understood this sacrafice, or should have, they day they took the badge. If you could call the 'forgoing the right to be racist in your opinions' a sacrifice.
Google has been actively developing a reputation in the corporate world for squeezing the most CPU-bang out of a buck, and a great way to do that is by cutting down on the amount of power a CPU uses.
A few weeks back there was an article on Slashdot which discussed a before-unseen Google innovation concerning its servers - a 12 volt battery that cut the need for an APC (which lowered costs by lowering both the power flowing to the CPU and the power required to cool the APC).
Google is trying to cut power out of the equation here as well, but with a different spin. Google is attempting to see if it can design a data center that does not require a cooling system that can perform satisfyingly within operating temperature range in a temperate climate - without any direct physical intervention (except by software algorithms). The implications are huge.
At least they GET data rather than just basing their opinions what they're fed... personal science involves questioning the status quo, not accepting everything at face value, and figuring out how to answer your questions. Simply because your methods wouldn't stand up to rigorous testing doesn't mean that you can't use it to make good decisions. Ultimately I think that is the role of science in peoples lives, to answer questions and aid in decisions... While I don't always agree with the mythbuster's methods, at least they don't sit around waiting for the talking heads to hand down the truth from on high. The scientific spirit of the program is strong if the flesh is sometimes weak.
You have just accurately described the higher, philosophical purpose of science. Well done.
I feel you have also accurately summarized why MythBusters is so popular - it captures the scientific spirit without diluting it in rigor, while catering to an audience that is constantly seeking for its own answers and the associated reasons behind them. In a popular culture that provides fewer clear messages as information becomes more partisan, the individual reacts naturally in their own self interest by becoming more individual in the acquisition of their own information. MythBusters might be the lowest common denominator of this process among the 'technically minded', but how the hell are you going to accurately test 'if a playing card can actually kill a human being?'. Seriously.
I would refine your observation with the following: European Newspapers aren't just trying to establish ownership of the underlying information, they are trying to:
fundamentally change the way it is packaged to their proposal, after a free market decided against said proposal
fundamentally change the medium of delivery, and then force everyone else to use it a la 1)
foist all the costs onto either a) the search engine companies b) the taxpayer or c) the government (which ultimately leads to a or b anyway)
.
The main problem with the ACAP system is that you cannot accurately index the content (or index the content as well) because bizarre restrictions may in be place given the media in question, causing incorrect evaluation. I'm not sure if the execs understand that their system will decrease their content's visibility, or if they expect search companies to foot the bill for the erection of a third meta-index to interface with proprietary content - both of which are equally asinine.
(apologies to any newspaper execs in the audience)/cheeky
This is why developing using a framework that takes database migrations into account will make your life much easier. Either that, or just roll your own migration script. It really isn't that bad, especially if your writing for only one target database. Then you hook up your versioning system to your framework, and presto, most of your problems will solved.
(Unless of course, you never implemented a versioning system, and never built on or developed your own framework. Then you've got some work to do)
Also , SQL was never designed to be a natural language search tool for business people. IBM is not in the 'friendly computing' business.
I don't seem to understand why you couldn't simply change the properties of standard HTML tags to fit your needs with a simple CSS sheet. HTML, after all, was designed with the explicit purpose of representing a document.
Otherwise, if you want special tags, use LaTEX.
Otherwise, I'm sorry, its really a crazy idea.
It's also important to discover which species in our planet can actually construct a biosocial structure which matches ours in terms of geographical scope, spanning great oceans without any loss of social integrity. It's one thing to migrate across an ocean - its another thing to migrate across an ocean and not mutate to your environment, which would "cut" you off from the colony. I'm no ant-man, but its my assumption that colonies are identified by sets of pheromones, and I'm assuming that evolution or genetic mutation would impact these pheromones. The fact that these ants can survive nearly anywhere in the world , and also maintain a social bond, is pretty astonishing - and well worth studying.
Slashdot Mirror
A person's handwriting can also convey personality and emotion behind the written word which is really not possible through set type. When you write with your own hand, you write with your own font - your personality speaks through it. It also shows a degree of effort. It takes a little more focus to write a letter by hand (especially when your trying to stay on the same line, and you aren't using college rule looseleaf), and one may be surprised by how many people appreciate it.
I have pretty bad handwriting, but there have been times where I have painstakingly written something out by hand to people when I felt it truly mattered. Thank you notes, in particular, are very well received when hand written.
In the mid-90's I was in a program called Talented and Gifted - simply called "TAG" for short. Essentially, all the 'smart' kids (recommended by teachers, guidance counselors, and 'anomalous' test scores) were put into a room in middle school for one period (45 minutes) a day. Essentially, all we did was play games. There were occasions where we learned about other cultures and exchanged letters with students in Russia, but for the most part it was a period in middle school devoted specifically to games of all sorts.
However, the games were quite serious, at least as far as games go. I remember one in particular, where our whole class was informed we had 'woken up' in a bomb shelter, supposedly after a nuclear attack. We were given no general background of the setting of our dilemma, only the vague recollection that something *bad* had happened. None of us could quite remember exactly what happened, or how in particular we got there. We remembered our personal histories, but the information was on cards that were given to us by our TAG teacher, and we were not allowed to show them to other students - we had to 'express' what was on the card in interim periods between decisions. A little like a character sheet, if you ask me.
We were then given one direction by the "MC" of the game, the AI programmed into the bomb shelter - choose a leader. The whole game then revolved around a process of negotiation amongst the survivors with said leader , as said leader decided whether or not to enter into different communications with different camps in this post-apocalyptic world, something which the AI explicitly advised against. The climax of the game involved one decision: will you open the door to your shelter past the airlock (i.e, not safe, if the world was irradiated you would die) and check outside? Both the AI and the other camps advise against this through nearly the entire game. However, I remember our team deciding to open the door. We did, and found that not a singular nuclear missile had gone off, and that everyone was in hiding. In the end, what the game 'taught' was that neither the AI nor the other camps could be trusted, and the best conclusions were the ones we came to ourselves.
Obviously, you can't teach Mathematics through a video game. You can, however, clarify some of the more obscure portions of Mathematics through demonstration, and video games are an excellent way to demonstrate.
I think the good people of the Manhattan Public School Department will quickly find, however, that games meant for general consumption (i.e., non-educational purposes) are not fit for the task. For instance, I would not pick EA's "Dante's Inferno" to quickly teach kids in my history class the impact Dante Allegheri had on how people viewed religion, or its relationship to politics. I might opt for something more along the lines of this, which does gloss over some details, but hits the heart of the matter pretty neatly.
Ah, I'm sorry kdawson. Apologies to you as well, David. I wouldn't blame you for your tone, however.
I should have remembered that aspect of the Slashdot system.
Exactly. We are all pretty steamed about this and I would not qualify this behavior as childish sarcasm; I would qualify it as sarcasm generally held by a community reflected through the medium delivered to the community. I think it is pretty safe to say that 80-90% of people here on ./ would like to see some serious Software patent reform and we are pretty exasperated about that reform not happening. I am willing to submit that certainly, that is not every ./ reader. However, the fact that new businesses are being established which further exploit the broken system could easily anger the ./ reader whom is exasperated(I would like to clarify that I don't think that is the intent here). While sarcasm in journalism is generally not called for or necessarily professional (there has been far too much of it lately, I will agree with you there), sometimes it is admissible because it reflects the elevation of tension in the community, and that is really what the reporter's job is - to tell everybody else whats going on on the ground.
It is important to realize that /. is not a pure news site, being in the transient twilit realm of new media. It mostly links 'real' (old media) news, and the rest of its independently generated content mostly consist of reviews, journal entries, and interviews. However, I am not surprised that people expect ./ to follow some journalistic standards.
kdawson does lay it on a little thick sometimes, and I wish he would have more discretion in using that particular journalistic device, but I will give him a personal 'pass' on this one.
Mod parent up. That is a fairly accurate historical summary of the dialog of the error.
The school in question shall remain nameless because it has a lot of haters (and I understand why it does), but I can assure you that any Linux user who wants full access to all of the university resources that come with a tuition should have few problems. First of all, most Linux users are pretty saavy about getting what they need out of technology anyway. Secondly, most campuses use web services to run the majority of the software that your daughter will actually need to register for classes, interact with her library, and collect necessary course information that is placed in centralized services by professors. This will obviate "college software" as a reason to choose another OS for her work laptop.
Linux labs will be available in almost any decent college. After the tour is over, peek around, and see if you can find the Computer Science and/or Mathematics department, and ask them if you can see their Computer Lab (if they have one). I remember many times the secretary who worked the desk at the department would be more than happy to escort the prospective college candidate downstairs. Most of these labs have dual (or even triple, nowadays) boot machines because hey - CS kids gotta know em all. I would frequently pick Linux unless there was software I would have to use for a specific class that required Windows. Most labs have rules that say "CS students only", but every lab is run by a human - some of whom are students - and they actually don't mind the extra company most of the time if you ask politely. You would be surprised at how empty those labs can get sometimes, especially when the library was packed. The buisness kids would make their way over to us though, and we didn't mind them at all. Just as long as they didn't print out 500+ page presentations. Yikes.
There is a caveat - some course work will require proprietary software. Most colleges avoid it unless absolutely necessary, but it happens. An example for me in my college experience was in Computer Architecture class. While there may be PLD software available for Linux, not every university invests in them for various reasons, and mine choose to go the 'old standard' route, so to speak, because VHDL will drive you up a wall even when it's working. Your daughter may be able to learn on her own on this software, but there is a very good chance the TA or Professor grading the homework will require you to hand over the project in a certain file format. I'm not saying your daughter is going into computer science, but that's the reality of the situation and it will vary greatly depending on what she feels her major may be. I would strongly suggest that you perhaps arrange a situation where she has a dual boot machine.
Don't worry too much about learning Windows. My dad was a computer scientist/mathematician, and he refused (on principle) to let me use a Windows machine, so I ended up using mostly Mac 6-10.5. It's not that bad, once you realize that Microsoft hides all the most important controls in the deepest level of interface because it has an inherent assumption that *all* people are idiots. ;)
Just yesterday I was stranded after a wedding (it was a good wedding), without a car or cell phone. Let's just say it was a hell of a time. Anyway, long story short, I wake up one morning in a hotel room without any contact information and I have to let my family know where I am - except they all just got a new iPhone, have changed their number, and I have yet to remember it.
Guess where one of those phone numbers was? Facebook. I found myself a public terminal in the hotel lobby and got all the information I needed to be reuinted with my car, phone, and the road.
It is actually quite useful.
iPhone Application Development? ;)
Which makes me wonder...
We seem to be able to observe that the thieves are intelligent - clearly, theft happens on a daily basis and only truly spectacular examples of it ever make it to the press. We can also be assured of their intelligence through certain elements of their technique - they perhaps, for instance, knew that the Magsafe adapters would make the laptops easy to snag, and that fragments from the front glass door would not harm them (allowing the brick thrower to run full tilt at the door before hurling the brick).
However, the logical conclusion that most Slashdotters seem to be drawing - that the thieves are stealing the laptops to sell them on the black market - contradicts this observation. Which makes me wonder: maybe they aren't planning on selling them, really. They only stole 50k worth of equipment. Maybe they really wanted the *just the laptops* themselves *to use* in a quiet area where Apple will never notice - like, their respective basements.
For the record, I'm not insinuating that these people are terrorists - but what I am insinuating, is perhaps we have seen 'nerd theft'. A low probability, but I think its plausible, and I thought it would be interesting to mention.
It most assuredly works both ways. It is only that women are frequently the party with greater confidence, so they have an easier time of managing their excitement, which makes them appear to be 'smarter'. I really don't know why they needed a research study for this, although I guess there is a point to "proving" everything. (rolls his eyes).
I think that is a very interesting proposition. I don't know how your going to get that suggestion to these researchers, but I would like to see the results of that memory test. My guess is that men will actually do better in the presence of women.
Zordak, you should know (although I'm sure you are a good lawyer), that part of the reason why one doesn't register a patent themselves is that they *cough* need a patent lawyer, and they generally run a little more than 35 bucks an hour. Just letting you know ;)
It's not just that. They are trying to build in a whole complex classification system into the network that doesn't base its decisions on content or traffic - it considers both in its analysis. It's trying to shuffle all users into 32 different slots - "Normal People", "High Volume Users", "Bots", and 29 other different 'categories' of user. Honestly, it doesn't sound like *enough* money.
Smooth catch.
I understand what you are trying to say. Companies need to do more to clear personal information out of their records when customers leave their service, and if their aren't laws that expressly enforce this, there damn well should be.
./ is probably because its is a convenient primary key that links all other information about the customer together in the database. (They should probably *not* be using a SS number to be doing this, and should be using a dissociated universal identifier tied to a SS# number, but, this is me wishing for a better world.) Then, the SS# just hangs there with all of this other personal identifying information - for various reasons. Sometimes there may be legal concerns, and sometimes there is "in case the customer decides to 'come back'". Then, someone who has had a really bad day notices it.
The problem isn't necessarily that DirectTV, in the normal course of business, will actively engage in the pursuit of identity theft of its customers - that is patently absurd. The problem is that employees of DirectTV, when certain customers 'leave' the service of their company, may become aware of social security numbers on file that DirectTV is no longer 'watching'. The SS# is kept for a number of reasons - the one most intimately familiar to readers of
In fact, I am sorry to say this, but I have seen one employee of a company do this. No damage was done, but they manage to take THOUSANDS of pages of personal information. It was luckily stopped in time.
Some do it for personal gain, some did it for 'revenge' (his case). You have to remember, you are dealing with humans all around, and a SS# gives someone a lot of power over another human being. It can be very dangerous.
... but would this discovery have any potential legal ramifications on DNA testing, potentially casting doubt on its validity? Their testing method has to be accurate, or else they could not observe the differences in DNA between blood and organ cells - but are the differences enough to cause one person's DNA to be mistaken for another, or are they small enough to not risk a false positive? I'm not a lawyer or a biologist, but thats the first thing that popped into my head.
I'm not sure if I agree completely with your rights vs. laws discussion, but I agree with the general sentiment of your conclusion. If they visited the website at the police station and then used the website to conduct or even discuss police business while those discussions contained racist comments, then they are *way* out of line should probably be reprimanded in some way, either by suspension, demotion, or termination.
Even if they didn't post these messages at the station, and did so within their private residences, there seems to be strong evidence that it directly related to their police work and this should trouble everyone. It's fine for everyone to have opinions, and technically its not illegal to have 'racist opinions' or ethnically stereotype people, but hate crimes and discrimination are very much so against the law and that is exactly what the police are charged with upholding. Members of the police force have to be held to a higher standard (just like the Armed Forces) than the common citizen, and as a result must forgo some of the rights the rest of us enjoy - but they understood this sacrafice, or should have, they day they took the badge. If you could call the 'forgoing the right to be racist in your opinions' a sacrifice.
...by the reassurance that one is indeed greater than zero.
Yes , but not because of the bill itself.
Google has been actively developing a reputation in the corporate world for squeezing the most CPU-bang out of a buck, and a great way to do that is by cutting down on the amount of power a CPU uses.
A few weeks back there was an article on Slashdot which discussed a before-unseen Google innovation concerning its servers - a 12 volt battery that cut the need for an APC (which lowered costs by lowering both the power flowing to the CPU and the power required to cool the APC).
Google is trying to cut power out of the equation here as well, but with a different spin. Google is attempting to see if it can design a data center that does not require a cooling system that can perform satisfyingly within operating temperature range in a temperate climate - without any direct physical intervention (except by software algorithms). The implications are huge.
You have just accurately described the higher, philosophical purpose of science. Well done.
I feel you have also accurately summarized why MythBusters is so popular - it captures the scientific spirit without diluting it in rigor, while catering to an audience that is constantly seeking for its own answers and the associated reasons behind them. In a popular culture that provides fewer clear messages as information becomes more partisan, the individual reacts naturally in their own self interest by becoming more individual in the acquisition of their own information. MythBusters might be the lowest common denominator of this process among the 'technically minded', but how the hell are you going to accurately test 'if a playing card can actually kill a human being?'. Seriously.
I would refine your observation with the following: European Newspapers aren't just trying to establish ownership of the underlying information, they are trying to:
.
The main problem with the ACAP system is that you cannot accurately index the content (or index the content as well) because bizarre restrictions may in be place given the media in question, causing incorrect evaluation. I'm not sure if the execs understand that their system will decrease their content's visibility, or if they expect search companies to foot the bill for the erection of a third meta-index to interface with proprietary content - both of which are equally asinine.
(apologies to any newspaper execs in the audience) /cheeky
This is why developing using a framework that takes database migrations into account will make your life much easier. Either that, or just roll your own migration script. It really isn't that bad, especially if your writing for only one target database. Then you hook up your versioning system to your framework, and presto, most of your problems will solved.
(Unless of course, you never implemented a versioning system, and never built on or developed your own framework. Then you've got some work to do)
Also , SQL was never designed to be a natural language search tool for business people. IBM is not in the 'friendly computing' business.
I don't seem to understand why you couldn't simply change the properties of standard HTML tags to fit your needs with a simple CSS sheet. HTML, after all, was designed with the explicit purpose of representing a document.
Otherwise, if you want special tags, use LaTEX.
Otherwise, I'm sorry, its really a crazy idea.
It's also important to discover which species in our planet can actually construct a biosocial structure which matches ours in terms of geographical scope, spanning great oceans without any loss of social integrity. It's one thing to migrate across an ocean - its another thing to migrate across an ocean and not mutate to your environment, which would "cut" you off from the colony. I'm no ant-man, but its my assumption that colonies are identified by sets of pheromones, and I'm assuming that evolution or genetic mutation would impact these pheromones. The fact that these ants can survive nearly anywhere in the world , and also maintain a social bond, is pretty astonishing - and well worth studying.