At what point did we assume the extra-terrestrials are an interplanetary civilization? Furthermore if the aliens were capable of hearing and interpreting radio signals using their own natural biological structure then it would be a means of telepathy, for them. Just because we can't project thoughts into OUR brains via radio doesn't mean that there couldn't be a race out there in the universe that can interpret and "hear" radio signals naturally.
Sounds like some of that brainwashing seven-step nonsense to me. Personally I fail to see the difference between playing too much and an addiction. Something is not really an addiction unless it significantly disrupts the person's life. For an example let us consider someone who drinks too much; they drink 2-3 times a day. We would consider them an alcoholic. However if they can learn to drink less without quitting cold-turkey, and only drink on weekends, their life will improve and we would probably not call them an alcoholic. Overcoming an addiction is learning how to control how often they indulge in the activity, regardless of how that happens.
Covers are legal in copyright law (at least as I have heard, IANAL). You can keep someone from reproducing your song, but you can't stop them from memorizing the lyrics and playing it themselves.
What if the Therapist played the game and socialized with people, maybe even joined a raid guild, but instead of encouraging them to quit he encouraged them to simply play less and achieve more elsewhere in life?
After all WoW will only destroy your life if you allow it to.
So, if the mono-culture of Windows goes away, do you really think it will be replaced by diversity? Or will all of the computer illiterate users gravitate towards the same system, creating a similar environment?
I think what they are hoping to avoid is a situation where any one ship is clearly superior over all other ships, leading to a homogeneous environment wherein all players are only flying one kind of ship. If there are several different viable strategies, or some ships that work better against other ships, the game will have more variety (and be more fun) because there will be more balance between the choices.
So I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt. It would totally suck if all fights were "fair" to the point of being a simple coin toss, but I just don't see that happening. Who would be that stupid?
The game can still be balanced while offering the opportunity for creative and dedicated players to dominate in PvP with their strategies.
The difference between something resembling telepathy and your deliberately condescending "teapot" is that we are already aware of many technologies and biological phenomenon which do resemble telepathy, such as radio waves, infrared signals, sonic whale songs projected through dense fluid, or scent pheromones. Nothing that I know of suggests that it would be impossible for a biological structure to imitate these forms of communication.
Yes, science doesn't jump to conclusions, congratulations. That doesn't mean that we still shouldn't brainstorm various possible explanations for the things we observe (or don't observe). If we immediately discounted every theory that didn't have evidence yet, then when would we ever decide to investigate for evidence?
In my opinion, you're really going out of your way to be a cock-mongler here for no real reason. If the OP suggested that humans have telepathic abilities, or that there is beyond any doubt a form of alien out there which has telepathic abilities, then I think you could criticize him for not adhering to the scientific method. However merely suggesting it as a possibility isn't unscientific, it's simply considering the possibilities.
I don't see what is unscientific about making a hypothesis. It's entirely possible that extraterrestrials with different brain structures ("life but not-as-we-know-it") could have a form of communication that resembled telepathy.
Surely you realize that the likelihood of picking up malicious code through the sneakernet (and especially through a device with limited functionality such as a barcode scanner) is incredibly low.
Is there a confounding variable? Are users of unix servers typically more technically proficient? Does the widespread proliferation of PCs and consumer internet change the game?
I'm not offtopic here. Some drug war shill has modded me down because he doesn't like what I have to say, even though it's a very valid point. Smoking marijuana is not wrong. Nobody should go to jail for smoking marijuana. This country is fucked up. Actually, so is the world.
Awesome, then after we drive MS into the ground we can brace ourselves for the new wave of malware that will inevitably strike the new common standard of operating systems!
The real source of the majority of spam is from hackers who develop botnets. They only target windows because it's a widely accepted standard used by people who are not technically proficient. Furthermore you might be able to sue the spammers but you would have hard time suing Microsoft. So you either need to get rid of all the hackers or educate people on how to keep their machines free of infection. Simply getting everyone to change operating systems will not do a thing for anyone.
For the record, I use windows most of the time, and I keep my machine squeaky-clean simply by browsing intelligently, using Firefox, and running a third-party anti-virus program. So you can keep a windows machine clean. Windows isn't the problem... PEBKAC.
So, basically, the program can be crashed by a specially-crafted malicious update package, and the designers of the program are asking you to update the program in order to shield yourself from exploitation by updates.
I think there's a joke in there somewhere. Anybody want to give it a shot?
I can't help feeling that the people who keep propangandising for the right to anonymity in everything they do, have reasons to be ashamed of themselves.
Maybe we are ashamed of our government's laws. If we can't legalize marijuana (since the drug war is a wasteful failure) we can campaign for the right to privacy instead. Anonymity helps criminals but not all criminals are "bad guys." Anne Frank was a criminal once, for being a jew. Think of what the right to privacy could have done for her.
Yes, no statistic is perfect. Some are better than others. It is up to the consumer of a statistic to determine whether or not it is valid. When you are gathering data you must consider confounding variables. The people performing this study used only brick & mortar sales of pre-assembled OEM machines for their data. There are some obvious holes to poke into that, such as online sales and hobbyists who assemble their own machines. So for this statistic to be taken seriously by consumers it needs to be more rigorous, otherwise it will just be perceived as marketing FUD. Which it is.
The fact that gathering data is hard does not mean that we are not entitled to evaluate the legitimacy of any given data set. That is an important aspect of maintaining a scientific viewpoint.
So clearly you have never been involved in analyzing real data objectively, or you would understand that these sort of criticisms are valid and occur with many studies. Producing valid data is the job of those producing the statistics. Yes, it is a hard job, but someone must do it, and if a sloppy job is done, then the job will be called sloppy by the consumers of the statistics. So deal with it and stop whining.
Sure, if those developers are too stupid to realize that people willing to spend more than $1000 on a PC are more likely to build it from parts, and would rather believe this thinly-veiled Apple marketing crap instead.
Don't ignore the many people who would rather assemble a PC from various components instead of just buying the whole computer at once. I'm sure the statisticians conveniently forgot this demographic. Yes, this article totally reeks of Apple marketing FUD. Apple executives would love these kind of bullshit statistics as they drive up the stock price through good publicity.
Yes. Most people who want a $1,000+ PC are hobbyists who are willing to assemble the PC themselves, and they'd be embarrassed to get caught by their friends buying an OEM-made computer. Buying a bunch of individual parts and getting them shipped to your door is a piece of cake.
91% of the $1,000+ computer market? I don't buy it. Not for one damn second, and here's why.
Most people who want a high-end PC (not a mac) are hobbyists. As a hobbyist, I know that I like to assemble my computer myself in order to save money, have fun and gain experience. So when I invested about $1,500 into my last machine, I didn't go out and buy it all at once. I bought all of the parts separately on Newegg and assembled them when they arrived. So even though I spent $1,500, the most expensive individual item I bought only cost $400.
These statistics are highly skewed, I'm sure. All this tells us for sure is that macs are dominating the niche market of people who aren't computer savvy, don't want to assemble their own computer, but are still willing to pay $1,000+ for a "premium" machine. Which, when you think about it, shouldn't be surprising at all.
This article is total FUD. I'm sure Apple loves it though, this sort of rhetoric drives up the stock price.
Furthermore if people saved money by spending less on telecom fees they would have more money to spend elsewhere, on things like food, clothes, basic utilities, computers, and so on. This move to save telecom profits is just plain Luddite, it holds up progress to support some fat rent-seeking leeches on society (I mean "businessmen").
Large-scale natural selection and your pet breeding projects are two entirely different ballparks. You're working in a highly controlled environment and deliberately guiding the evolution of the plant. Natural selection isn't so discerning.
Slashdot Mirror
At what point did we assume the extra-terrestrials are an interplanetary civilization? Furthermore if the aliens were capable of hearing and interpreting radio signals using their own natural biological structure then it would be a means of telepathy, for them. Just because we can't project thoughts into OUR brains via radio doesn't mean that there couldn't be a race out there in the universe that can interpret and "hear" radio signals naturally.
Sounds like some of that brainwashing seven-step nonsense to me. Personally I fail to see the difference between playing too much and an addiction. Something is not really an addiction unless it significantly disrupts the person's life. For an example let us consider someone who drinks too much; they drink 2-3 times a day. We would consider them an alcoholic. However if they can learn to drink less without quitting cold-turkey, and only drink on weekends, their life will improve and we would probably not call them an alcoholic. Overcoming an addiction is learning how to control how often they indulge in the activity, regardless of how that happens.
Covers are legal in copyright law (at least as I have heard, IANAL). You can keep someone from reproducing your song, but you can't stop them from memorizing the lyrics and playing it themselves.
What if the Therapist played the game and socialized with people, maybe even joined a raid guild, but instead of encouraging them to quit he encouraged them to simply play less and achieve more elsewhere in life?
After all WoW will only destroy your life if you allow it to.
They were awesome videogames, though.
Granted, but couldn't they call it a "system key" instead of a "windows key?"
So, if the mono-culture of Windows goes away, do you really think it will be replaced by diversity? Or will all of the computer illiterate users gravitate towards the same system, creating a similar environment?
I think what they are hoping to avoid is a situation where any one ship is clearly superior over all other ships, leading to a homogeneous environment wherein all players are only flying one kind of ship. If there are several different viable strategies, or some ships that work better against other ships, the game will have more variety (and be more fun) because there will be more balance between the choices.
So I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt. It would totally suck if all fights were "fair" to the point of being a simple coin toss, but I just don't see that happening. Who would be that stupid?
The game can still be balanced while offering the opportunity for creative and dedicated players to dominate in PvP with their strategies.
The difference between something resembling telepathy and your deliberately condescending "teapot" is that we are already aware of many technologies and biological phenomenon which do resemble telepathy, such as radio waves, infrared signals, sonic whale songs projected through dense fluid, or scent pheromones. Nothing that I know of suggests that it would be impossible for a biological structure to imitate these forms of communication.
Yes, science doesn't jump to conclusions, congratulations. That doesn't mean that we still shouldn't brainstorm various possible explanations for the things we observe (or don't observe). If we immediately discounted every theory that didn't have evidence yet, then when would we ever decide to investigate for evidence?
In my opinion, you're really going out of your way to be a cock-mongler here for no real reason. If the OP suggested that humans have telepathic abilities, or that there is beyond any doubt a form of alien out there which has telepathic abilities, then I think you could criticize him for not adhering to the scientific method. However merely suggesting it as a possibility isn't unscientific, it's simply considering the possibilities.
I don't see what is unscientific about making a hypothesis. It's entirely possible that extraterrestrials with different brain structures ("life but not-as-we-know-it") could have a form of communication that resembled telepathy.
Surely you realize that the likelihood of picking up malicious code through the sneakernet (and especially through a device with limited functionality such as a barcode scanner) is incredibly low.
I would be highly surprised if there was an exploit you could perform by scanning in a malicious barcode.
Is there a confounding variable? Are users of unix servers typically more technically proficient? Does the widespread proliferation of PCs and consumer internet change the game?
I'm not offtopic here. Some drug war shill has modded me down because he doesn't like what I have to say, even though it's a very valid point. Smoking marijuana is not wrong. Nobody should go to jail for smoking marijuana. This country is fucked up. Actually, so is the world.
Awesome, then after we drive MS into the ground we can brace ourselves for the new wave of malware that will inevitably strike the new common standard of operating systems!
The real source of the majority of spam is from hackers who develop botnets. They only target windows because it's a widely accepted standard used by people who are not technically proficient. Furthermore you might be able to sue the spammers but you would have hard time suing Microsoft. So you either need to get rid of all the hackers or educate people on how to keep their machines free of infection. Simply getting everyone to change operating systems will not do a thing for anyone.
For the record, I use windows most of the time, and I keep my machine squeaky-clean simply by browsing intelligently, using Firefox, and running a third-party anti-virus program. So you can keep a windows machine clean. Windows isn't the problem ... PEBKAC.
So, basically, the program can be crashed by a specially-crafted malicious update package, and the designers of the program are asking you to update the program in order to shield yourself from exploitation by updates.
I think there's a joke in there somewhere. Anybody want to give it a shot?
I can't help feeling that the people who keep propangandising for the right to anonymity in everything they do, have reasons to be ashamed of themselves.
Maybe we are ashamed of our government's laws. If we can't legalize marijuana (since the drug war is a wasteful failure) we can campaign for the right to privacy instead. Anonymity helps criminals but not all criminals are "bad guys." Anne Frank was a criminal once, for being a jew. Think of what the right to privacy could have done for her.
Yes, no statistic is perfect. Some are better than others. It is up to the consumer of a statistic to determine whether or not it is valid. When you are gathering data you must consider confounding variables. The people performing this study used only brick & mortar sales of pre-assembled OEM machines for their data. There are some obvious holes to poke into that, such as online sales and hobbyists who assemble their own machines. So for this statistic to be taken seriously by consumers it needs to be more rigorous, otherwise it will just be perceived as marketing FUD. Which it is.
The fact that gathering data is hard does not mean that we are not entitled to evaluate the legitimacy of any given data set. That is an important aspect of maintaining a scientific viewpoint.
So clearly you have never been involved in analyzing real data objectively, or you would understand that these sort of criticisms are valid and occur with many studies. Producing valid data is the job of those producing the statistics. Yes, it is a hard job, but someone must do it, and if a sloppy job is done, then the job will be called sloppy by the consumers of the statistics. So deal with it and stop whining.
Sure, if those developers are too stupid to realize that people willing to spend more than $1000 on a PC are more likely to build it from parts, and would rather believe this thinly-veiled Apple marketing crap instead.
Don't ignore the many people who would rather assemble a PC from various components instead of just buying the whole computer at once. I'm sure the statisticians conveniently forgot this demographic. Yes, this article totally reeks of Apple marketing FUD. Apple executives would love these kind of bullshit statistics as they drive up the stock price through good publicity.
Yes. Most people who want a $1,000+ PC are hobbyists who are willing to assemble the PC themselves, and they'd be embarrassed to get caught by their friends buying an OEM-made computer. Buying a bunch of individual parts and getting them shipped to your door is a piece of cake.
91% of the $1,000+ computer market? I don't buy it. Not for one damn second, and here's why.
Most people who want a high-end PC (not a mac) are hobbyists. As a hobbyist, I know that I like to assemble my computer myself in order to save money, have fun and gain experience. So when I invested about $1,500 into my last machine, I didn't go out and buy it all at once. I bought all of the parts separately on Newegg and assembled them when they arrived. So even though I spent $1,500, the most expensive individual item I bought only cost $400.
These statistics are highly skewed, I'm sure. All this tells us for sure is that macs are dominating the niche market of people who aren't computer savvy, don't want to assemble their own computer, but are still willing to pay $1,000+ for a "premium" machine. Which, when you think about it, shouldn't be surprising at all.
This article is total FUD. I'm sure Apple loves it though, this sort of rhetoric drives up the stock price.
You summed up the internet in a sentence.
Furthermore if people saved money by spending less on telecom fees they would have more money to spend elsewhere, on things like food, clothes, basic utilities, computers, and so on. This move to save telecom profits is just plain Luddite, it holds up progress to support some fat rent-seeking leeches on society (I mean "businessmen").
Large-scale natural selection and your pet breeding projects are two entirely different ballparks. You're working in a highly controlled environment and deliberately guiding the evolution of the plant. Natural selection isn't so discerning.