If they're complimentary, how can they afford to drive such fancy cars?
Good question! Maybe similar to why a proton and positron can have the same charge but different mass? You raise a good point though - litigation mechanics is not well understood at well. I guess the only way to really understand lawyers' cars would be to study them the way we do particles of matter: accelerate them to high speeds and incuce them to collide with each other and then see what happens. I personally think more experimentation of this sort would be of the utmost benefit to society.
Well, if I remember correctly, tax lawyers and patent lawyers are complimentary (same mass but opposite charge, i.e., a tax lawyer can be seen as a patent lawyer travelling the opposite direction in time), so if they ever do come into contact, they should annihilate each other in a burst of light.
You've probably got a copy of the movie which, like mine, inexplicably skips ahead when Morpheus is explaining all this; but trust me, that's the only way the plot could go which could make thermodynamic sense.
Man, The Matrix was the best sci-fi movie ever, without a single gaping flaw.
Are you being sarcastic?;)
Seriously, though, perhaps philo-fi would be a better term. The Matrix is a religious allegory, so it's going to have more in common with Philip K. Dick or C. S. Lewis (both of whom wrote "sci-fi") than with Robert Heinlen (who wrote science fiction). Anyway, everybody here realizes that The Matrix is, scientifically speaking, pure nonsense, but try to enjoy it for what it is. Cheers.
Actually, I'd like to take a look and see what suggestions there are regarding Extension rollbacks. I know I've had the problem where a poorly-formed or incompatible extension will disfigure Firefox's main view until I wipe the Profile completely. A safety-net backup when extensions are installed would be a nice addition.
Second that. Anything they can do to allow us to undo anything done by an add-on. And for more reasons than just configuration problems (https://addons.mozilla.org/search.php?app=firefox &q=toolbar+anonymous+usage). I'd even go so far as to say require add-ons to be sand-boxed (e.g., Java-only). In addition to solving portability issues, this would really help w/ damage control.
In particular, while Linux is not perfect, it would be much less likely to fall prey to the ills that are epidemic on Windows without much, if any, added cost post transition.
I am not convinced that OSS is really all that more secure than closed-source software. Not saying Windows is not vulnerable (otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion), but let's be realistic here. The cheif advantage to OSS is the peer-review process, but in a large company like MS, peer review is probably mandatory as well. If you actually look at some of the technology coming out of Redmond, it's not a thousand monkeys banging on keyboards.
I think the real reason that you see so many security vulnerabilities is because you have experts (not just script kiddies, but blackhat experts) trying to break into Windows on a daily basis. Now ask yourself, how many people really concentrate on inflitrating Linux? Yeah. Not that many. The main (but certainly not only) reason Linux is so secure is that people just don't bother exploiting it. The same argument people use about Mac security applies here as well. If Linux took over 90% of the world's desktops and was used to in the majority of US government infrastructure, I bet you'd see a disproportionate number of vulnerabilities and exploits of Linux. Brain teaser: Would Windows be more or less secure if malware authors had access to the Windows source code?
Anyway, I'm not trying to start a flame war by saying Linux's security <= Windows' security. Another of Linux's strengths (and a weakness as well) is its diversity. An exploit will probably only work on a fraction of the boxes exposed. But with One Distro To Rule Them All (i.e., Windows XP, with Automatic Updates), you've got near zero diversity in the genepool. To ensure maximum application compatibility, MS has also ensured maximum malware compatibility. So I think the answer to the Fed's (and public's) problem with malware is to diversify the computing environment.
Exams are also unfair because they give an advantage to students who have revised for them.
...Reviewed for them...
FYI, "Reviewed" in US = "Revised" in UK. I too have tried and tried to convince the English that they're speaking the language wrong, but they refuse to listen to reason, so I just thought I'd try to help you decipher their weird code.
Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of more frequent releases, but the prices must reflect shorter games. 1/3 of the gameplay at 2/3 of the cost with no new multiplayer options is a bit of a rip-off IMHO.
Second that. $20 per installment is probably too much for episodic content. I'm the patient type, so I don't usually mind waiting for a game (also lets me hear what the public has to say before I waste my money on it too). I just bought Far Cry (unopened retail) for $10 a couple weeks ago, and I'm feeling mighty good about it. So why should I want to pay $20 for an episode? Lower the barrier to entry down to maybe a $10-15 pricepoint, though, and I'm in.
Probably both, but I'd venture mostly to confuse users. From Symantec:
Symantec Security Response encourages you to ignore any messages regarding this hoax. It is harmless and is intended only to cause unwarranted concern. Please ignore any messages regarding this hoax and do not pass on messages. Passing on messages about the hoax only serves to further propagate it. [emphasis theirs]
Why, any "web savvy" user knows they can safely disregard warnings about virtual cards being viruses. Frankly, I find this a little disturbing (though I guess it was bound to happen eventually)...
How exactly can you lose your privacy by being filmed in a public place?
I think some people (myself among them) feel that the addition of cameras really expands just how much of "public place" really is public. To use an analogy - I don't mind you watching my back, but I don't want you peering over my shoulder the whole time. Before cameras were everywhere, people could go off and find a little privacy, even in a public setting. Put the cameras there, though, and that goes away. So yes, it is really encroaching on privacy. I think you stand more of a shot convincing folks they don't have the right to privacy in public (which is, I think, how US courts handle it).
Don't tell anyone I told you this, but I haven't had to change the battery in my watch for over a year.
My lips are sealed! I remember that lady who called GM about her car getting 500 miles to the gallon, then a "mechanic" came to her house to service her car and suddenly it was back to 12 mpg. It's true, too! It happened to a friend of my aunt's hairdresser's cousin. If word of this ever got to Casio, they might send a "watch repairman" to your house!
I also heard there's this car, man, that runs on water, man! On water!
Tell me how many man-hours it takes to amass the resources necessary for a spaceship, and we'll talk about how full of rhetoric I am. You have a very limited view of how much energy expenditure goes into things. And if you in fact have a degree of some sort, maybe you should call the school and ask for your money back, because all they did was teach you to think linearly very quickly. Which I think gnats can do, and they don't receive much of an education usually.
Well, despite the fact that you basically compared my level of thinking to a gnat (though considering the Ralph Nader comment, I might have had it coming), I can now acknowledge that you did put some thought into your views after all, but I still think you're missing the forest for the trees. You're right about closed energy systems, so obviously you realize the energy is stuck here (net, anyway). There's only so much to go around, but it's not like it's really being used up. You can't really expend energy, you can only move it around. And that was more my point: yes, energy feeds starving kids, but we lack the ability to directly convert this particular energy into food (I'll come back to this in a moment). However, we do have the ability to spend it in areas of research that might a) open up the system (space exploration), or b) move energy around in new ways (scientific research that results in advances in medicine, biology, etc.).
Now I promised I'd get back to food. Unfortunately, at this point in history, hunger is a political problem -- we have the ability to produce enough food, and it logistically possible to distribute it (still inconvenient but by all means possible). It is getting it past corrupt government officials, warlords, and other bad guys that presents a problem. As the war in Iraq testifies, we could make short work of them, though there is a big question as to whether politics would allow us to remain in those countries long enough to set up a stable decomacracy/republic. Regretably, conservatives lack the will to force change in those governments over something like hunger, and liberals lack the will to follow through on war efforts to ensure that any changes that occur actually last. So like I said, it's not energy that's the problem, it's politics that prevents us from channeling it into something in that direction. Like electrical current, the energy expended to feed the world's hungry will follow the path of least resistance, and that's the space program. If you can put it into the heads of the nations governments that we need to do something about it, then maybe we can, but until that happens, let's send people into space.
ask yourself if it's really worth burning up the resources of a million starving children to get there.
The space shuttle doesn't run on beans and rice. It runs on hydrogen and oxygen, which you can't eat, so why not use it to send astronauts in space to research things that might help those kids some day?
Ralph Nader's calling. He wants his rhetoric back.
Heh:) Yeah, I thought about mentioning that fiasco. I really dug the whole rechargeable thing, supposed to save me a lot of money. Doesn't work quite so well when family members throw away $20-$30 worth of batteries every time they borrow the digital camera. I would all but write it down: "These are rechargeable. They cost me a lot of money. Please don't throw them away!" I get the camera back: "Hey, where are my batteries?" "Uh, they died so I threw them out. Don't worry, I put new ones in..."
Not that it matters now, though. We have a rugrat and a toddler so we'll have to wait until they're older to do rechargeables again... assuming Big Battery is still even selling them;p
No kidding. 100 times the power is useful, but I'd like something with 100 times the life. Meh, it is probably like Hyde (That 70's Show) says, "There's this car, man, that runs on water, man! On water!" I believe the technology is out there to make a battery that can last longer than a week. It's just a conspiracy to get more money from me when all my gizmos run out of juice on a weekly basis.
Slashdot Mirror
Good question! Maybe similar to why a proton and positron can have the same charge but different mass? You raise a good point though - litigation mechanics is not well understood at well. I guess the only way to really understand lawyers' cars would be to study them the way we do particles of matter: accelerate them to high speeds and incuce them to collide with each other and then see what happens. I personally think more experimentation of this sort would be of the utmost benefit to society.
Wait, I'm confused. What does logic have to do with lawyers? ;)
Well, if I remember correctly, tax lawyers and patent lawyers are complimentary (same mass but opposite charge, i.e., a tax lawyer can be seen as a patent lawyer travelling the opposite direction in time), so if they ever do come into contact, they should annihilate each other in a burst of light.
Heh, earlier nitpick withdrawn :)
Cheers
Are you being sarcastic? ;)
Seriously, though, perhaps philo-fi would be a better term. The Matrix is a religious allegory, so it's going to have more in common with Philip K. Dick or C. S. Lewis (both of whom wrote "sci-fi") than with Robert Heinlen (who wrote science fiction). Anyway, everybody here realizes that The Matrix is, scientifically speaking, pure nonsense, but try to enjoy it for what it is. Cheers.
I suppose that joke was ... inevitable.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
I am not convinced that OSS is really all that more secure than closed-source software. Not saying Windows is not vulnerable (otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion), but let's be realistic here. The cheif advantage to OSS is the peer-review process, but in a large company like MS, peer review is probably mandatory as well. If you actually look at some of the technology coming out of Redmond, it's not a thousand monkeys banging on keyboards.
I think the real reason that you see so many security vulnerabilities is because you have experts (not just script kiddies, but blackhat experts) trying to break into Windows on a daily basis. Now ask yourself, how many people really concentrate on inflitrating Linux? Yeah. Not that many. The main (but certainly not only) reason Linux is so secure is that people just don't bother exploiting it. The same argument people use about Mac security applies here as well. If Linux took over 90% of the world's desktops and was used to in the majority of US government infrastructure, I bet you'd see a disproportionate number of vulnerabilities and exploits of Linux. Brain teaser: Would Windows be more or less secure if malware authors had access to the Windows source code?
Anyway, I'm not trying to start a flame war by saying Linux's security <= Windows' security. Another of Linux's strengths (and a weakness as well) is its diversity. An exploit will probably only work on a fraction of the boxes exposed. But with One Distro To Rule Them All (i.e., Windows XP, with Automatic Updates), you've got near zero diversity in the genepool. To ensure maximum application compatibility, MS has also ensured maximum malware compatibility. So I think the answer to the Fed's (and public's) problem with malware is to diversify the computing environment.
It's not. Go read the box for HL2:Ep1, you do not need to own HL2 to play Ep1.
I think the word you're thinking of is yeehaw. The word yahoo was coined by Jonathan Swift in Gulliver's Travels (wiki), not by cowboys.
Coming this fall to BBC 4.
This is Myspace we're talking about. How many of their users know what a dictionary is?
Heh! Agreed!
My lips are sealed! I remember that lady who called GM about her car getting 500 miles to the gallon, then a "mechanic" came to her house to service her car and suddenly it was back to 12 mpg. It's true, too! It happened to a friend of my aunt's hairdresser's cousin. If word of this ever got to Casio, they might send a "watch repairman" to your house!
I also heard there's this car, man, that runs on water, man! On water!
Well, despite the fact that you basically compared my level of thinking to a gnat (though considering the Ralph Nader comment, I might have had it coming), I can now acknowledge that you did put some thought into your views after all, but I still think you're missing the forest for the trees. You're right about closed energy systems, so obviously you realize the energy is stuck here (net, anyway). There's only so much to go around, but it's not like it's really being used up. You can't really expend energy, you can only move it around. And that was more my point: yes, energy feeds starving kids, but we lack the ability to directly convert this particular energy into food (I'll come back to this in a moment). However, we do have the ability to spend it in areas of research that might a) open up the system (space exploration), or b) move energy around in new ways (scientific research that results in advances in medicine, biology, etc.).
Now I promised I'd get back to food. Unfortunately, at this point in history, hunger is a political problem -- we have the ability to produce enough food, and it logistically possible to distribute it (still inconvenient but by all means possible). It is getting it past corrupt government officials, warlords, and other bad guys that presents a problem. As the war in Iraq testifies, we could make short work of them, though there is a big question as to whether politics would allow us to remain in those countries long enough to set up a stable decomacracy/republic. Regretably, conservatives lack the will to force change in those governments over something like hunger, and liberals lack the will to follow through on war efforts to ensure that any changes that occur actually last. So like I said, it's not energy that's the problem, it's politics that prevents us from channeling it into something in that direction. Like electrical current, the energy expended to feed the world's hungry will follow the path of least resistance, and that's the space program. If you can put it into the heads of the nations governments that we need to do something about it, then maybe we can, but until that happens, let's send people into space.
The space shuttle doesn't run on beans and rice. It runs on hydrogen and oxygen, which you can't eat, so why not use it to send astronauts in space to research things that might help those kids some day?
Ralph Nader's calling. He wants his rhetoric back.
Heh :) Yeah, I thought about mentioning that fiasco. I really dug the whole rechargeable thing, supposed to save me a lot of money. Doesn't work quite so well when family members throw away $20-$30 worth of batteries every time they borrow the digital camera. I would all but write it down: "These are rechargeable. They cost me a lot of money. Please don't throw them away!" I get the camera back: "Hey, where are my batteries?" "Uh, they died so I threw them out. Don't worry, I put new ones in..."
Not that it matters now, though. We have a rugrat and a toddler so we'll have to wait until they're older to do rechargeables again... assuming Big Battery is still even selling them
Black helicopters!
No kidding. 100 times the power is useful, but I'd like something with 100 times the life. Meh, it is probably like Hyde (That 70's Show) says, "There's this car, man, that runs on water, man! On water!" I believe the technology is out there to make a battery that can last longer than a week. It's just a conspiracy to get more money from me when all my gizmos run out of juice on a weekly basis.