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I took a semester of Ruby in college which got me really excited about programming. Fast forward a few years and I saw a need for some tools to eliminate the mind-numbing redundancy in my job. So I took the need - a way to take bits of information (dates, customer IDs, etc.) and build URLs with them automatically - and used my google finger to find an easily, well-documented language that could accomplish my goal. The language I decided to try was Python. It's been around for a long time, it's fairly beginner-friendly, and it had the tools I needed. (Also, if you're interested in free classes, Udacity has online courses.)
Fast forward another year, and I decided what I needed to do was handled more efficiently/pleasantly by HTML/JavaScript and PHP. So I used the same process of 1) identify the goal I'm looking to accomplish and then 2) use google to locate tutorials and examples (usually on stackoverflow).
At first it's difficult to know what you need to accomplish your goals and know what language/keywords to use when searching for solutions online. But if you take a few classes on a language like Python to give you the basic understanding & terminology, then you'll get the hang of it quickly. Then it's just a matter of persistence. If you're the type that sees a problem and isn't satisfied until you have a solutions, you'll do just fine.
As a recommendation for when you get more involved with code: explore writing in pseudo-code. I didn't believe in it when I was first introduced, but I really see the value in writing/thinking out processes in plain English before turning to your computer screen. It cuts the problem into pieces and helps you prioritize your work. |
One legal scholar, Susan Crawford, has argued that “prices are too high and speeds are too slow,” though she supports Mr. Wheeler, a venture capitalist and former telecommunications lobbyist. Other critics have called for new government policies to “fix” the telecommunications industry.
>Such criticisms are misplaced. If he is confirmed, Mr. Wheeler will have the good fortune to be arriving at the F.C.C. at a time when the United States has gained a global leadership position in the marketplace for broadband.
Really?
[According to the FCC the US is ranked 24th in the world for broadband speeds]( and we are ranked 16th as far as cost.
Not to mention all the horseshit telco's like to tout about 'improving their networks' while only leaving stagnant progress and monopolize local markets. |
Music is way, way easier to produce and distribute. If one musician stops working, there are thousands of other possible musicians who have a similar (or better) sound. The average person can't even remotely produce a mainstream TV show. It takes a lot of money, management, direction, writing, more expensive equipment, cast, music, set, props, multiple studios, trailers, advertising, and a network to translate your vision. While musicians only really need a DAW and a few other hardware or a few instruments and a few days at a studio. And publishing on itunes or making cds doesn't cost nearly as much as broadcasting on a television network. More money is invested in tv shows so it makes sense they earn more. Also tv has very, very effective advertising with video commercials. Also supply and demand- there's a trillion songs out there. Also can you really compare cinematic tv to broadway? That's like comparing authors to slam poets. Sitcoms sort of work I guess. |
They are not emails. The article is completely inaccurate. They do look like emails (which has its own issues), but they behave like ads. That means they're displayed at the top of the inbox, they don't go through the normal flow of inbox/deletion etc, they don't persist in your inbox, they won't be fetched by IMAP, etc etc. None of that will happen anymore than it would for a classic display ad. |
Because you missed the sarcasm of my first reply. These are a great idea, and every bar should use them. It'd certainly make my life a hell of a lot easier.
If bars started using them, women could no longer claim they were drugged whenever they do something stupid. Considering the number of women who casually talk about "how they were drugged that one time" is mind bogglingly scary when you look at the statistics and realize they're LYING.
A woman who has actually been drugged and raped will suffer emotionally scarring trauma for the rest of their life. Women who haven't simply use it as an excuse to justify something they regret, like sleeping with the wrong guy or acting like an ass or passing out in an embarrassing way, "Oh I was drugged" is a simple, easy excuse, that is picked over the understandable "I drank too much". |
This is completely false.
The X.Y.Z system works like this:
For Windows, X = the full upgrade (new features, new design, etc.) windows 7 to windows 8, for example, completely changed the design and function of the OS.
The Y = small nuances of features, plus maybe some bug fixes.
The Z = only bug fixes.
Windows 8.1 means they had some fuck ups for windows 8. Fixing windows 8 should be free after you pay over $200 to get windows 8 in the first place.
For Apple, X = the current generation of Operating System.
The Y = the version with all the new features and designs. (Equal to Windows' "8".)
The Z = bug fixes.
Mac OS 10.9 Mavericks is a massive upgrade to the software/hardware relationship, completely redesigning the efficiency of the hardware. We are always so quick to judge things by how they look and constantly forget that OS's genius is tucked away in what we don't see, but rather how our computers stay in tune with the constant software upgrades. |
No middleman. Can't be interdicted, can't have a big bite of handling fees / commission taken out of it. |
That happened to me. I'm now on T-Mobile. And now, instead of having unlimited shitty 3G from Verizon I have incredi-awesome unlimited from T-Mobile. Oh and I pay less. And customer service is way better. From day one Verizon lied to me. They always played it shady. Never clear or strait answers. T-mobile however, the exact opposite. |
I will give you my short story about T-Mobile. I live in Northwestern Ohio. Not in a huge town, but a decently sized one. 2 Walmarts and the such. Ever since I had a cell phone Verizon had been my carrier. I never had any problems with them other than being expensive. I used to have unlimited data until I switched to a 4G phone and they made me give it up. After I started college it got too expensive I couldn't keep up with the bills so I decided something had to change. I looked at different carriers AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile. After weighing my options T-Mobile definitely had THE best deal ever super cheap and I could even get a brand new phone for little down. I checked the coverage map and sure enough, I was covered. I was still skeptical about switching because everyone I had asked personally about T-Mobile said they had no coverage. After talking with some T-Mobile reps I learned I could return the phones and get a full refund back within a certain time.
So we order the service which had 3 lines along with 3 brand new Galaxy S4s. Within the first 3 hours I came to realize we had no service. I tried everything under the sun to make sure it wasn't some error on my part and sure enough it wasn't.
To make a long story shorter I called T-Mobile back the same day and told them everything I sent all the phones back the very next day which originally cost ~$312. I was told I would get a full refund. This is what I really got. They refunded me only the costs of the phones, charging me for shipping and the SIM cards since apparently you can't reuse them which totalled around ~$50. I thought ok whatever a 50$ dollar mistake I won't make again. They told me I would get my refund when the Phones make it back to the warehouse to get checked out. Some time after I had heard no word from them and the tracking information I was given when I sent the package back to T-Mobile said that the packages were at the facility. I call to investigate and was told that the phones are at the "Docking Station" but haven't made their way into the warehouse. It would take 10 days after they get to the warehouse to issue me a refund. They went ahead and expedited my package to the warehouse which took another few days.
Finally after some amount of time I get my refund in the mail and my account gets cancelled. End of story, right? Wrong I get a bill in the mail a few weeks after saying I owe ~$80 to T-Mobile for the activation of the phones, which, if I remember correctly should have been free for one reason or another. I call them to investigate further and they told me that since I had each phone activated and turned on, it was charged an activation fee per line. |
This is completely false however. Verizon Wireless is not authorizing the use of the Google Nexus 5 on their network.
The Nexus 5 has a Qualcomm WTR1605L transceiver used to connect to carrier networks. The WTR1625L can accommodate all cellular modes and 2G, 3G and 4G/LTE frequency bands and band combinations that are either deployed or in commercial planning globally. So Nexus 5 is capable of attaching to Verizon's network, but Verizon chose not to add the IMEI/MEID range into their database, which means Nexus 5 gets rejected from their network the second you try to authenticate... |
Block, degrade, or interfere with the ability of end users to download and utilize applications of their choosing on the licensee’s Block C network, subject to reasonable network management. Wireless service providers subject to this requirement will not be allowed to disable features or functionality in handsets where such action is not related to reasonable network management and protection, or compliance with applicable regulatory requirements . For example, providers may not “lock” handsets to prevent their transfer from one system to another.
•Block Wi-Fi access, MP3 playback ringtone capability, or other services that compete with wireless service providers’ own offerings.
•Exclude applications or devices solely on the basis that such applications or devices would unreasonably increase bandwidth demands.
•Impose any additional discriminatory charges (one-time or recurring) or conditions on customers who seek to use devices or applications outside of those provided by the licensee.
•Deny access to a customer’s device solely because that device makes use of other wireless spectrum bands, such as cellular or PCS spectrum.
Slowing down heavy users during peak times on overloaded towers will fall under reasonable network management. Throttling a user for the entire month based on a usage cap no matter the load on the network is not allowed. |
Consolidation in the cable industry has been expected by analysts, and pushed for by executives. Larger companies, it is claimed, would have a better chance of negotiating with content providers , leading to smaller bills for customers.
Translation: A monopolistic cable company would have websites and content providers at their mercy, and be able to extract fees from them in order to provide high speed access to, "consumers". Of course smaller websites and start-ups could never afford the cable companies premiums, so access to them would be limited and vastly slowed down. Website that offer frowned upon information, like Wikileaks and Pirate Bay, or websites run by grass roots political organizations that oppose corporate dominance would be priced out or merely blocked all together. Not only does this verify everyone's worst fears about the death of the "free" internet, these corporate assholes are actually bragging about it as being somehow beneficial to the people. Sickening. |
e.g. the inability of iOS devices to natively play WebM video
> FTFY.
WebM at one point was declared as the recommended HTML5 video standard, replacing Theora.
>You are also confusing codecs and containers. H.264 and WebM are different things.
>
I'm not confusing it.
H.264 is equivalent to VP8 (and MP4 to WebM), however the recommendation and support is not just for VP8, it is for WebM as a whole.
edit: You added something to your post, so I shall respond to that as well.
>There are good reasons why you'd not want to willy nilly drop and add new codec support as mobile devices often have hardware decoders which greatly improves battery life while playing video. So its advantageous to stick to what you have unless you change up your hardware.
> |
e.g. the inability of iOS devices to natively play WebM video
FTFY.
You are also confusing codecs and containers. H.264 and WebM are different things.
There are good reasons why you'd not want to willy nilly drop and add new codec support as mobile devices often have hardware decoders which greatly improves battery life while playing video. So its advantageous to stick to what you have unless you change up your hardware. |
Considering I'll likely get more upvotes for my one post today than you have gotten in 9 months... here's a protip: It's not everyone else that is wrong... It's you.
You're actually saying you see reddit comment upvotes as personal validation? That is so precious.
Haha, I didn't realize you're actually a teenager. I was poking fun at you above for acting like one, you know, like the "kids on reddit" stereotype. Listen, can you imagine how silly it would be to seek approval from the type of people who just randomly start calling you names when they're unable to understand you? (I'm talking about you, if that's not clear.) |
Forbes is a shameless corporate tabloid. They barely even try at spin these days.
A lot of people don't understand Forbes' online business model. Forbes is a very established brand name, and its columns used to be written by paid professional reporters or they were clearly labeled as opinion pieces. That model is long gone. Forbes has only 50 reporters on staff.
If you see "Contributor" under a columnist's name, they're really just a blogger. Forbes pays them based on the size of the audience they attract. They are not vetted like normal reporters, and as far as I know they don't cede editorial control to Forbes, nor does Forbes fact check their writing. There are over 1,000 of them [as of March of last year]( |
So much FUD in this article...
It's basically a product which makes it easier to finish an 80% lower (a lower receiver of an AR-15 which is only 80% done and needs further machining be considered a firearm. Essentially a piece of metal.) The tools for doing this gave always been available from any hardware store. What this product seems to do is make the effort easier and more straight forward.
The author also misuses the term "assault rifle" which indicates a select fire rifle firing an intermediate cartridge. The AR-15 is not an assault rifle, and manufacturing a weapon capable of full auto fire without the proper federal licenses will land you a long time in federal pound-you-in-the-ass-prison.
The ghost gun hysteria is also a media fuss. Only a small minority of US states require registration of firearms. It is also perfectly legal under federal law to manufacture firearms without any license/permit as long as the firearm is not meant for sale or distribution. |
Not as easy you could a book or watch, but yes. They still must jump through the appropriate hoops to legally own it. Roughly they need a licensed firearms dealer (aka FFL) to process the transfer. All that person needs is for a few things to be engraved on the gun. A name (any name works, you can literally put "supercore23" if you want), a city/state (supposed to be they city it was made in but can legally be any city/state), and a serial # (for example "1"). There are even rules with how deep the engraving must be, but it is obviously a pretty loose system. The FFL will probably charge a transfer fee as well, but really just needs something to put down on paper that says the gun was transferred. |
That erroneously implies that the US government had made some major, direct contribution toward creating the Internet. IT DID NOT.
>Without government funding, the Internet would have still been created;
So did the government contribute to it or not? Make up your mind.
>it was inevitable. It is this property that makes the government's contribution as close to meaningless as possible.
Inevitable perhaps, but having assloads of money available from a government research program certainly speeds things along. How long do you suppose it would have taken for an equivalent to be created? 5 years? 10 years? Considering the typical behavior of businesses it probably would have ended up as some proprietary standard which doesn't benefit anybody except them.
>Government was, as usual, a hindrance:
>>It is considered illegal to use the ARPANet for anything which is not in direct support of Government business
Yes. Because it was a government/military program with, at the time, few practical applications for the average person. Again, the internet was completely commercialized by 1995, I seriously doubt that a private company would have managed to make an equivalent by then. |
The word "monopoly" doesn't really make sense in terms of web search. You can just as easily use bing or yahoo or whatever as Google. A monopoly certainly does require the use of a dominant position to secure a continuing dominant position. Google doesn't really do that, its more that other entrants in that industry suck out loud. If Google used their position to buy out competitors, you might have a point. |
I mean I'm not saying wait for them but I'm saying read fine print before blowing it out of proportion. If you knew the risks and reviewed what you signed up for then maybe you wouldn't have gotten the services to begin with.
At the same time me being in support for my company if you are already having service issues outside of security which is unclear. But if services are already poor and then you signed up for it then you did it to yourself just saying. I've had calls where customers wanted to upgrade their service to fix slow speed when it was a clear issue on the equipment or signals I could see and when I informed them and said they didn't need it they got a real issue and upgrade would do nothing and need a tech they got mad at me. The struggle is real both ways, 90% of the customer base I deal with have no clue on what's going on but when it's not working. God forbid if they use their own equipment they swear up and down not an issue when in the end it was. |
It's not so much the lack of a constitution... we have that. It's a very formal liittle document setting out rules for governing the country. What we DON'T have, is a Bill of Rights. There are no hard and fast rules about what a government can and can't do. Just about how it should do it... whatever 'it' is. The entire concept of a Bill of Rights is very controversial among those Aussies who actually even realise that such a thing might exist (I've heard Aussies complain about their 'First Amendment rights!' without realising they're referencing a document from a different country...)
It was one, of the many controversies that destroyed the last serious republican (ie 'should we become a republic?) debate.
In fact, to segue a bit, it tells you all about the Aussie political climate to realise that the main reason we're a Constitutional Monarchy and not a Republic, is because - and I really wish I was shitting you on this - we didn't think it was worth the effort. Sure there were debates on 'Republican models - majority presidents/party presidents', 'Bill of Rights - Yes or No?' If yes: what?'... But the argument that carried the way in the plebiscite among the average Aussie was: W'ell.. it'd cost money to change the laws, and money and shit, wouldn't it? And lots of work... Fuck it, let the Queen stay.' |
Nothing to see here people. OpenBook isn't tapping into an otherwise hidden resource of personal information.
The "Tweets" available through OpenBook are searchable on the facebook site itself by doing a search and filtering on "Posts by Everyone". |
It'd be nice if that were the case. Facebook pays lip service towards an interest in what its userbase cares about - that's why they pretend to let people vote on ToS changes. Of course, any changes users want require 30% agreement. Not 30% of voters; 30% of everybody signed up for facebook at that time. You couldn't get 30% of the entire facebook population to agree that the sky is blue, let alone vote for a ToS change. Well, unless you promised them some implausible upgrade for their Farmville or something ("Free chicken-panther hybrids for your farm!!!! Just sign up and INVITE ALL YOUR FRIENDS!!" sigh )
Ahem. |
I don't fully understand how this particular car travels faster than the wind, but in principle there is nothing tying the speed of the car to the speed of the wind. All that is necessary is that you extract energy from the wind moving and somehow convert that into forward motion. In this case they did something purely mechanical, but I could also see using a windmill that creates energy for a weak electric motor. |
This is freaking awesome. I spent months going back to this message board the last time this came up.
Turns out it is possible; the earliest thing I could find was from the fifties. It's all detailed on this forum , and information about the guy who inspired the guy with the pdf -- he actually did this with a cart with a rider, just like the guy in this Vimeo video. |
Alright, let me write down a thought experiment, based on the info in FasterThanTheWind.org:
1) You build a tricycle vehicle with the same weight, rolling resistance, and (most importantly) frontal area of the Blackbird. The wheels are not connected to anything, and there is no propeller, but the frontal area is somehow made the same.
What is the maximum possible speed this vehicle can attain running downwind? The maximum speed should be some percentage of downwind windspeed. Say, at 90%, 18 knots in a 20-knot wind.
What is the apparent wind on the vehicle when maximum speed is attained? If I'm not crazy, the apparent wind should be 2 knots in the direction of travel. Let's call this +2 knots.
What prevents the vehicle from going faster? The fact that the vehicle is not frictionless, either at the interface with the ground or within its internal connections, and the imperfect capture of wind energy due to not having an infinite plane frontal area :)
Okay, that makes sense to me. Next up:
2) Build an identical vehicle to #1, but add gearing identical to the Blackbird's. Have the gearing drive a flywheel that weighs as much as the propeller and has similar resistance properties at similar rotational velocities. Add lubricant / remove weight / adjust structure as necessary to keep the weight, rolling resistance, and internal resistance identical to #1.
What is the maximum possible speed this vehicle can attain running downwind? The maximum sustainable speed should be the same, say, 18 knots in a 20-knot wind. The flywheel, geared to the wheels, will make acceleration up to this speed much slower, but since aerodynamically and kinetically this is an identical vehicle, the maximum speed shouldn't differ. By reversing the gear ratio it should be possible to feed the rotational energy of the flywheel back into the wheels to allow acceleration past wind speed briefly, but once that energy is depleted the vehicle will slow. If there is no clutch, the vehicle will slow significantly as the flywheel is sped up again.
What is the apparent wind on the vehicle when maximum speed is attained? Apparent wind at max sustainable speed should be +2 knots in travel direction again. Apparent wind at max speed could easily be -20 knots or more, in the opposite direction, however.
What prevents the vehicle from going faster? The flywheel stores a finite amount of energy and needs to be recharged after use by using the wind to accelerate the wheel back up to speed; that is, by slowing down the vehicle so that the apparent wind causes acceleration. This is the "elastic" effect discussed below, and leads to an average vehicle speed < 100% of the wind speed.
What does this show? That it is possible for a vehicle with a load on the wheels to accelerate to the same ground speed as one with no load, and maintain rotation of said load at some rotational velocity indefinitely when ground speed is high but apparent wind speed is low. That extracting energy from the load to drive the wheels does cause the vehicle to slow down eventually after the stored energy is exhuasted, but that extracting energy to drive the load does not decrease the maximum sustainable velocity of the vehicle.
So far, so good. With clever engineering it should be possible to spin something using the wheels to drive the load, and we should be able to attain the same speed as a vehicle with slightly worse efficiency but identical weight and frontal area.
3) Replace the flywheel in #2 with a rear-facing propeller. All drag on the drivetrain, frontal area, weight, and rolling resistance remain the same.
What is the maximum possible speed this vehicle can attain running downwind? The maximum sustainable speed should be at least 18 knots in a 20-knot wind, from the previous examples. But now we are adding thrust forward as well. This will not increase drivetrain drag because we have already matched this to the previous cars, and it will not change frontal area drag because the frontal area is the same. Our over-ground velocity is now 18+V, where V some positive amount. This is where it gets tricky to visualize.
What do we know?
We know we can drive the propeller indefinitely because we're not extracting any driving force from it through the wheels (see #2 above). So any thrust we get does not slow down the vehicle, ever, so long as we don't increase our drivetrain drag over those seen by car #1 or #2.
We know it is not the air velocity but the over-ground velocity that determines how fast the propeller spins. Since the power of the propeller varies by the third power of its angular velocity should cube the power increase but only square resistance increase on the drive train, meaning we have a net positive power increase as we move from, say, 18 knots to 20 knots. Even if we do increase drivetrain drag we should get an even-greater increase in power, if we ignore air speed resistance (which we can as the apparent wind speed goes from 2 knots down to 0 knots, at the least).
Fixed propeller efficiency generally increases , so if car #3 uses a fixed-pitch prop, we can expect its efficiency to increase as the apparent wind goes from 2mph (from back to front) up to -50mph (50mph from front to back). This means as the vehicle accelerates away from the apparent wind, its motive force becomes even stronger, not weaker as in #2.
Since the speed of the propeller is dependent on ground speed, and the ground speed is increasing due to the thrust generated by the propeller, which is itself increasing as the apparent wind changes and rotation speed increases, the vehicle should be able to accelerate at least from 18 knots to 20 knots ground speed. At this point there is nothing preventing the vehicle from accelerating further until the apparent windspeed is negative (from front to back), at which point the vehicles frontal area drag will begin to increase as the square of windspeed (not ground speed!), and rolling resistance will increase as well, setting a finite limit on the top speed of the vehicle.
What is the apparent wind on the vehicle when maximum speed is attained? The apparent wind speed on the vehicle goes from 2 (back to front) to 0 at least. As the vehicle accelerates to a ground speed > wind speed, the apparent wind direction reverses and becomes Sg - Swog, where Sg is Speed over ground and Swog is windspeed over ground.
What prevents the vehicle from going faster? The frontal area is the most important factor now, although rolling resistance is also important. Although the propeller drag (as it moves through its own apparent wind, not as frontal drag area) will increase with the square of its linear velocity, as will the transmission drag, I believe aerodynamic drag is the most important limiting factor.
I've seen this problem equated to a drive system that extracts energy from the velocity difference between the ground and a string moving over the ground. The drive system can extract this energy whether or not it is moving along the ground because its speed over the ground does not remove the string/ground velocity differential.
I'm working on a [basic spreadsheet]( but don't have my dynamics book here at work so I can't figure out the power that can be extracted from the wheels at different speeds, which means I can't work out the propeller thrust. If somebody wants to give me some plug-and-play equations, I'd appreciate it. |
I did read the other articles. Even ones not linked by that one. It's a far different filter than what Conroy has proposed.
The "Great Firewall" Conroy proposed is a mandatory filter of refused classification material that is maintained by the ACMA. Whereas the filter that iPrimus, Telstra and Optus have implemented is just filtering URL's maintained by the ACMA and International Watchdog Association. A far more lenient list.
URL's that have been refused classification by ACMA will be allowed through provided they're not on the IWA's list. It's a far different beast than what Conroy proposed. They volunteered to do this filtering.
I'd recommend anyone who is in a position to do so, leave their contract if they're with the big 3 teleco's if they're concerned about this volunteered filter. Swap to someone like Internode (I'm biased, that's who I am with). No filtering to worry about, even if the filter is a non-point, and cheaper. |
Well, I know I'm a little late to this party, but let me just say, regardless of the iPhone, Consumer Reports SUCK at cell phone recommendations. I recall one report that they put out while I worked for AT&T and it recommended both the [Pantech C3]( and Samsung Sync phones as "Top picks" and put some Nokias under Not Recommended. I can tell you first hand from customer response that this was the opposite of what is true, there were some excellent Nokia Phones on the market that they gave poor ranks, and the Pantech C3 was quite possible one of the worst phones they carried. The Samsung Sync wasn't far behind due to problems it had when it would switch from 3G to 2G. |
Well, you should stop buying them. I have an iPhone 3G and have had no problems. I am on my first charger cable. I am not particularly gentle with any of this kit. |
By submitting it to the Apple Store you agree to the Apple Terms of Service, which probably grant Apple additional permissions beyond the GPL -- hence the conflict. In this case, those permissions can't be granted because not every copyright owner has agreed to the Apple ToS.
But if the application is entirely your work (no one else can claim copyright), it's no different than licensing a separate proprietary version of a (L)GPL application. StarOffice (now renamed Oracle Open Office) comes to mind. |
Depends on the sign language. American sign language is pretty easy to do with one hand. A lot of other sign languages (ie british) require two hands (particularly for the alphabet, ASL was the first one handed alphabet if I recall correctly) |
This reminds me of a 'programming' competition my school entered a few of us in, where we had to design a cell phone and a texting application that was innovative and easy to use. We did that, and had a perfectly plausible design by the end of the day. The team that won was all girls (which they did not fail to point out, as it was the first comment of their presentation, along with how much of a disadvantage it gave them, no embellishment, that's what they said) and they managed to dupe the judges into believing that deaf people have trouble texting (their presenter also pointed out that she has a deaf cousin and that their team needed a few more pity points). So they made a phone with sensors to see your hands with 'triangulation lasers' (which they obviously didn't understand, since they explained it wrong) so you could sign at your phone to convert it to text. Because deaf people have trouble hearing buttons. |
What really blew me away one time, and this really blows away any other examples given above, was this thread on reddit in which people were using the same language to one-up each others' stories while undoubtedly paying no attention to others. Blew my fucking mind, man. |
First off, I've heard this exact story somewhere else.
Second, this is total crap. Dogs don't understand languages, they understand cues . A cue to sit can be "sit", "sitz", you waving your hand, a doorbell ringing, coughing loudly, whatever.
Just because the dog was taught some cues in German doesn't mean it couldn't learn cues for those same behaviors in English, or non-verbally, or to various nonsense sounds, or whatever else. Most dogs know several cues for "sit", and much of the time the cues they actually respond to aren't the ones that the handler thinks the dog "knows".
This story is even worse because a dog will learn new cues for old behaviors even faster. The difficulty is in teaching the dog the behavior - teaching the dog the cue is relatively easy. Even the worst dog trainers (99% of humans) manage to teach their dogs a few cues without any understanding of the processes at work. |
I think he's a tech journalist without any knowledge of what he's writing about. |
I hate when bad headlines pervade blog spam... if you're going to boil the news down to a single sentence, please get it right.
Reddit headline: 'World’s lightest material gets lighter'
Lifted from slashgear headline: 'World’s lightest material gets lighter'
Which was borrowed from gizmag headline: 'World's lightest solid material, known as 'frozen smoke', gets even lighter'
Now if you finally get to the original article, which has amazing details of the new material, we find the headline: Ultralight Multiwalled Carbon Nanotube Aerogel.
From the article:
"the lightest ever free-standing MWCNT (multiwalled carbon nanotube) aerogel monolith with a density of 4 mg/cm^3"
Wolfram|Alpha gives density of typical aerogels at 3 mg/cm^3 and a quick google search yielded even lower densities.
[Laboratory’s aerogel, which is listed in Guinness World Records 2004, has a density of only 1.9 milligrams per cubic centimeter.]( |
Apple is so user-friendly it's ridiculous. My 3 year old cousin took an iPhone and was playing games and doing things on it in a few minutes. Android, by comparison, is slightly less user-friendly. Yes, you can do the basic stuff easily, but to get into the meat of it is difficult. I have no problem with Android's complexity, though. I prefer a more PC-like interface and control than the iPhone method of doing things, but others may not.
Personally, I think that Apple deciding what's best for me is terrible. I don't want you to remove flash just because it's buggy, slow, and crashes if you're not careful. I want to have that choice. But for some it's fine.
Android and iOS really are two sides of the same coin. One is great for the lowest common denominator phone/tablet user. It makes everything stupid simple. The other is fun for those of us that like messing with settings that may cause trouble, or tweak the OS how we want to. |
Actually, only Moot (Poole) is right.
Zuckerberg is pretty much against anonymity in social networks at all. Given the chance he'd enforce a single, consistent identity on everyone, everywhere online... like Facebook (in particular, Facebook Connect).
Conversely, Moot is promoting the possibility of anonymity. Even 4chan allows users to post with an identity (IIRC it uses [tripcodes]( if they want to... it just so happens that most users don't. |
This is the second time you've posted this, but I'd also like to make my point again here (so others following this specific thread get my answer). If the cable was unplugged, and Microsoft failed to detect it, that means one thing. Sure, a cable was unplugged... but it most definitely wasn't the cable that was plugged directly into your computer. If a cable is unplugged AFTER a hub/switch/router/etc... there's no possible way for an OS to detect this. It just senses a network with no internet connectivity and will most likely just switch to an Auto-IP state. |
You seem to be confused about how the judicial process works; the "problem" is that the burden of proof lies on the state... but criminals have become more knowledgeable about the legal system so it is much more difficult to prove that there is probably cause to get a warrant. This is the reaction to a system that continually allows criminals to walk free on a daily basis. It's unfortunate, it's overkill and it's an invasion of privacy and a clear violation of the 4th amendment. |
God, I want a new Sean Connery Bond film so bad.
It'd be absolutely AMAZING.
Especially because, you know, he's old.
The implication?
FAR FUTURE BOND!!!
The craziest tech ever and just pure Sean Connery ass-kicking.
Check this scene:
Fade in
Cut to:
Close-up of a gorgeous Bond girl
Girl
Moans in ecstasy
She writhes, deep in pleasure
Pan-out
She's alone
She continues moaning, her hips gyrating in the air.
Bond
"I'm invisible" |
Thanks for the article, record keeping text here:
The hardcore tracking bits come from U.S. Code title 18 Part 1 Chapter 121 Section 2703
(2) A provider of electronic communication service or remote computing service shall disclose to a governmental entity the— (A) name; (B) address; (C) local and long distance telephone connection records, or records of session times and durations; (D) length of service (including start date) and types of service utilized; (E) telephone or instrument number or other subscriber number or identity, including any temporarily assigned network address; and (F) means and source of payment for such service (including any credit card or bank account number),
source:
Please note: they get this info IF (and only if):
(1) A governmental entity may require a provider of electronic communication service or remote computing service to disclose a record or other information pertaining to a subscriber to or customer of such service (not including the contents of communications) only when the governmental entity— .... (E) seeks information under paragraph (2).
(2) A provider of electronic communication service or remote computing service shall disclose to a governmental entity the— (A) name; (B) address; (C) local and long distance telephone connection records, or records of session times and durations; (D) length of service (including start date) and types of service utilized; (E) telephone or instrument number or other subscriber number or identity, including any temporarily assigned network address; and (F) means and source of payment for such service (including any credit card or bank account number),
(3) A governmental entity receiving records or information under this subsection is not required to provide notice to a subscriber or customer. |
I'm so glad that we're at a point in society where we can be jaded about superconducting levitation. Only about a hundred years ago this stuff would be indiscernable from goddamn magic. |
Protect the children', eh? Perhaps the children would be protected if parents kept an eye on the kids....or if the kids knew enough to not do something stupid in the first place? It's like regulating toaster use because some kid stuck a fork onto one and got electrocuted, and therefore ALL kids will stick forks into toasters at the first opportunity. Know before you go, people, why don't we teach that?
And on the topic of 'survey ALL THE COMPUTERS to stop CP'...it almost implies the stance of 'guilty (of crime N) until proven innocent (by highly invasive privacy searches)'. By that logic, if I own a car, I will smuggle drugs in it every day UNLESS there is a cop right next to me every day...or on another note, if I read a book in my room, it is assumed to be about anarchy/getting away with murder/input bad thing here, UNLESS there is a camera watching my every page-flip.
...But what if I'm just reading an Atheist book, and in the process of recording me, this fact gets out to my extremely religious family?...not good, at best. (Substitute in any other action where no privacy = disaster as needed). Not good at all, and whatever negative outcome that happens to the 99.999% has occurred just because someone was trying to catch the .001% that was doing something legitimantly illegal. |
You're a douche. Every real windows IT knows that they release "stable" then "experimental". Win7 will be the enterprise OS based off the traditional XP meets Vista standards.
I work in an enterprise company and were about to adopt 7 because the IT crowd raves about it (including myself with 2 years use). Were upgrading after over a decade of use of XP. I'll stop here.. |
Have you ever worked on a startup? Patents are key to the success of startups, because they are critical for getting funding. VCs like to see that your innovations are covered by patents, because that's one way to prevent bigger competitors from copying what you're doing and then putting you under. |
You're right, only a fanboy could possibly say something in defense of the most successful technology company in the world. Any one else should clearly support Google, who sells your personal information, by the way.
Android was a completely separate entity until the iPhone became more well known and then Google bought Android when it saw the potential for the market.
A company is not required to seek a licensing agreement and this is actually not that common. Cease and desists are usually used first, and Apple mostly skips those because they will rarely work against major companies. Cease and desists are typically used against smaller companies and individuals who cannot afford to be involved in expensive lawsuits that could last for years, but a larger company that makes millions from the product can afford to defend their revenue stream.
Even if Apple did seek a licensing agreement, you really think Google would say yes? I doubt it, it would still end up as a lawsuit regardless.
For that matter, who's to say Apple hasn't gone for licensing agreements in the past and failed? Not everything is made public.
Google does own Motorola which has several thousand patents. They bought Motorola last year and Motorola has since been involved in a number of patent related lawsuits both as the plaintiff and as the defendant both involving Apple as well as many other companies. |
I have been following this from the beginning. I am posting this 11 hours after the initial post, so I will probably be stuck at the bottom but let's get this out there...
Tim Arnold has a few points, and he keeps playing the victim. He says that he was trying to help students, and that UCF is shooting down his creativity. The issue is he is breaking policy. [A policy that I pointed out on reddit as soon as he posted his announcement thread.](
UCF clearly states that you can not profit off the content of their websites. [He responded that it was "vague" when we told him in the reddit thread.]( It is a catch all clause, let's be honest, but it covers what he was doing.
His response to everyone about this, has been that he didn't know about it. Whether he knew about it or not, he has never fully taken responsibility for breaking the rules. He just sticks with saying he didn't know. [If you read the reports from his hearing you will see the reason for the punishment was that he did not accept responsibility, or think about the implications his service would have on everyone.](
Tim did NOT design the system, he simply had an idea, and paid someone to implement it. It is a good idea in theory, and I will give him credit for that. The only numbers he seems to quote are the ones UCF gave him. He at one point said his numbers didn't match up, but I haven't seen anything provided by him proving what UCF says is wrong.
Here in lies the issue. Since Tim (from what I have seen), is not a programmer, he keeps explaining the bandwidth should be minimal for UCF. That is true. UCF has a very fast connection (not sure what kind, but you can see people posting results on /r/ucf). The person that programmed Tim's service made it so it would not request the CSS files and other unnecessary files only used to display a webpage, and to simply request the class information. The problem Tim hasn't grasped yet, and is part of why I think they are asking him to write an essay is that UCF uses PeopleSoft. PeopleSoft is slow. No matter what hardware you run it on, when you have data for millions of students (anyone that was ever accepted to UCF is in there I believe) and so on... it takes a while to process that data.
UCF noticed the spike, and quickly blocked it. Tim has argued that his previous service that scanned every 15 minutes was never noticed before. He mentioned a key point though, it took his service 14 minutes... 14 minutes.. to access every class. For 14 minutes he was getting the system to process seats for EVERY class. The fact it took that long should have been a sign that the system can easy get bogged down with so many requests if it takes 14 minutes for it to process all the data. Again this probably a minimally UCF's fault, and more the software they use. Another user commented already that there is probably a contract or policy in place to use the software they do, also anyone in IT knows the hassle of converting from system to another, especially in a higher education environment where there is no down time.
I think UCF could look into improving the speed of their program, but clearly Tim's program put an unexpected strain on it.
Let's get back to Tim's intent. He is a good marketing major. He keeps implying he was almost giving away his service for free. He has been quoted multiple places saying something similar. In the [UCF student paper]( Tim has made a comment about how a student paid 150 dollars for someone to drop a course so they could sign up. Tim wanted a piece of that money. Tim's service cost up to 9 dollars a class. Go to /r/ucf and look at students complaining about tuition. This guy wants to charge them another 9 dollars to "help them out".
Why would he risk almost 1,000 dollars building all this if he didn't anticipate to make money from it? He keeps saying he hasn't, which is true because they shut him down so fast. The point is, Tim is about the bottom dollar and making money off his fellow students, not helping them out so much. His whole system could be designed for free. The only part I see actually costing money is for server hosting, which could have been partly covered by ads if not completely. Also companies around UCF typically offer free services or heavily discounted services, web hosting is one of them.
While Tim's service did help students that padded his pockets, everyone trying to use the site normally had to deal with the slowdowns his system caused. UCF was trying to be smart and block his service before Fall hit, when the site does experience noticeable slowdowns.
Tim is now trying to "defend" himself with a "factual timeline". This timeline shows that even after being told in a private message from someone claiming to be part of the CS&T (networking) team at UCF, he continued to ignore the policies/concerns everyone brought up and ran his service anyways. Not once in the timeline does he ever admit he broke policy, or does he accept that he doesn't fully understand the burden his service puts on UCF as he doesn't know what happens internally.
Lastly, UCF has shown that they have a system in design (a wait list similar to other universities) to handle open seats. UCF has stated it was concerned that his service gave an unfair advantage students that might not be be able to afford his service. More or less it isn't fair to students that are working full time already to support going to school, or ones that are only able to afford school through scholarships and don't have the luxury to pay for such a service. |
Its not the web server load, its the db server load. They are not the same thing.
If you are causing 250 hits in less then a minute via automation thats far above what using the standard user would be generating manually. Compounded it could cause dramatic effects on the DBE.
Bandwidth isn't the only thing you need to be concerned about when quering data, even via API each of those searches need to go the DBE to be processed and returned. Each query has overhead attached to it as well.
The loading of images is really quite insignificant because the WFEs can serve images all day without breaking a sweat. Database engines do not have that luxury. |
That sent from tag is bad, and you should feel bad.
Edit: your point is valid and I do not in anyway disagree. It adds to the conversation, and I did not downvote you.
Regarding the tag: I'm against it. The service does look fascinating, and I'm definitely going to check it out when I'm not on my phone, but I think that tags like this are a terrible idea. There are ways of spreading the word that are more effective and do not fill comments with spam. |
Which is why you will never control it, and it will be used to control you.
It's not some big conspiracy. It is just human nature amplified to incredible levels by wealth (power). Just like you, they want more for them, which necessarily comes from you. The difference between you and them is they have the power to take it and you don't. |
Basically the new system has a bunch of fail-safes. Meaning that if one part fails (read, is taken down), the system will protect itself. I will try to break down the moving parts a little.
The new system flows like this:
Transit Router -> Load Balancer -> Cloud Server
The Pirate Bay owns the first two pieces of hardware.
The transit router acts as as the gatekeeper. All incoming connections are encrypted and passed on to the load balancer in a different country. This is so no information about the user can be passed on to any of the cloud server hosts.
The load balancer then distributes the connections to one of at least two cloud hosts that are hosting the actual website/content. This helps decentralize the website.
The cloud servers are basically just servers in a server farm that TPB leases out under a pseudonym of some kind. Meaning that the hosts don't know what exactly they are hosting for TPB or even who they are.
There are really two main things that could happen and here is how the fail-safes deal with them.
>One of the two pieces of hardware TPB owns is taken down.
The hardware TPB owns do not have any kind of hard-drive in them, they run off of ram. Information running in ram is lost when a machine is shut down. This means that none of the information from the machines could be recovered if they were seized. No user info, no server info, nothing. But, if the cloud servers lose connection the TBP hardware for more than 8 hours, they shut themselves down and can only be accessed by an encrypted password. So, if the authorities were able to track down one of the cloud hosts after seizing hardware, the data would be useless.
>Server host find out what they are hosting for TPB or someone forces a cloud host to shut down the server they are hosting.
All that would need to happen is they would set a new server up with a different host, upload a new copy of the site, and tell the load balancer where that server is. There would be little or no downtime unless both hosts, from different countries were taken down at the same time. |
Speaking in the U.S. context.)
Strictly speaking, entrapment is when the government entices a citizen to commit a crime for the purpose of prosecuting it. The defense in such cases is showing that if the government hadn't done this, the accused wouldn't have committed a crime. So an officer dressed as a hooker walking up to you and offering sex is entrapment because you arguably mightn't have initiated the exchange without the inducement of that rockin' body being explicitly offered for rent; however, courts consider seeking out the illegal activity proof of criminal intent, regardless of how "helpful" officers may be in response to advances for illegal assistance. So long as you ask for their help, officers can even help you plan and execute a multi-decade crime ring if they are willing to wait to initiate prosecution. |
When I was 17 I got my first cell phone, a pay as you go flip phone from t-mobile. I was far too poor to afford a monthly contract, and I only used the phone sparingly. Every text I received incurred a $0.05 charge.
One time, me and my then-girlfriend were fighting right before we broke up. She knew my phone situation and decided to spam me text messages for about an hour wasting me money and there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop her. It was so frustrating that not only was I getting charged for bullshit (a few hundred bytes of data) but they gave me no preventative measures for something like that. I could turn my phone off, but the text messages would just come through when I turned it back on. |
In an attempt to give customers high speeds for the short times that they needed it, balanced against the high cost of upgrading the last mile for millions of customers. |
Actually, the BS line that my ISP feeds me is that they cap data to preserve bandwidth across the network, and they claim that a few customers going over the limit, if they didn't restrict it, would cause every other customer's internet to slow down. So, according to my ISP, the cost of delivering data has nothing to do with bandwidth caps. However, I'm sure network technology has advanced in such a way that a large ISP can handle a lot more bandwidth, but they still limit us (Hughes Net) customers to 800 MB/ day. |
New Zealand Citizen here.
Moved to the country five years ago and whilst it is truly the most beautiful place I have ever been, it's economy and tech is lacking quite a bit. Without a doubt, it was quite a shock to go from unlimited broadband in the UK to find capped plans at sub standard speeds.
Currently the service providers are being forced to improve the experience as to accommodate growing Internet presence and usage by the nation but I don't think the government is seeing the potential. Dotcom is however.
He made a valid point when discussing the Internet cable he hopes to fund to the states and Aussie - Nz has cheap energy due to the renewable plans (Hydroelectric and thermal) which provides cheap infrastructure for firms that use a lot of technology.
I think one of the biggest benefits of having him in the country is that even though when compared with someone like Gates or Branson, in a small country and acting proactively, he can actually change a lot.
I must admit, after the Christchurch Earthquakes, the economy is still quite weak, yet if we have a larger tech capability, we could be attracting server farms, software developers and the like. I'm so glad he didn't decide to jump the country and find peace in some other small nation. |
Assuming that the Glasses will be similar to Android in terms of openness (I haven't followed their development enough to know, so someone correct me if I'm mistaken), I can definitely imagine an app that allows you to see an individual's criminal past through online searches. As for SSN, that likely could not be obtained legally, and any app that allowed it would have to exist as an independent application (i.e. not sold through Google Play since they would/should ban it).
What particularly concerns me is the opportunity to aggregate data from Glasses devices. Given face recognition and a set of servers that receives the facial recognition data, it would be relatively trivial to create a comprehensive tracking system. Google is already (in)famous for its ability to predict behavior; if they could also track your movements throughout the day through Glasses devices' ability to recognize you, they'd be going a few steps further towards having a comprehensive dossier on nearly everyone. While that's not evil in itself, it does concern me, and at the least it gives governments the opportunity to demand that data from Google under the pretenses of pursuing an investigation or criminal trial.
This short film is a pretty interesting look at one possible future for something like Google Glasses. |
You don't know much about Google, I take it. Yes, they have a choice. They flat-out told their investors how they're monetizing Chromium (data mining). Why would they suddenly start lying to their investors now?
Now, I'm not saying Google is your friend. Google looks out for its own best interest first and foremost. However, trivially transparent lies are not in Google's play-book.
Glass comes from Google-X labs, the part of Google that is explicitly trying to find new funding sources besides ads. That's what they tell investors, and they've never given us any reason to doubt that. Same with Smart Cars, another Google-X project: they plan to make money on that by selling smart cars , not from ads. Ads would never pay for the insane cost of the project, or even put a tiny dent in it, and it would turn people off, so they can skip that part and just charge people for the car. |
Upgradeable by Mac only unless you want to void your warranty to save money. and not all Macs are 100% upgradeable or easy to upgrade yourself, they solder their processor and even their ram sticks. |
If you'd actually try the UX Nightly or the Australis complete theme (the complete theme is old, so UX is ideal), you'd notice that only the tab that is being hovered over or is selected is rounded. So I have a reddit tab, and I am on that. ONLY the reddit tab is curved. The rest are rectangled . If I mouse over another tab, say Amazon, it will become rounded, and go back to being a rectangle when I move my mouse away. |
Sad for the employees, but I want to say fuck you blackberry. I patiently used inferior mobile devices for years and when I finally decide to get a "smartphone" it was the Blackberry Torch. Yep, I was excited and happy about the phone because at the time blackberry's still had some sort of reputation as good phones. Fast forward 6 months... I slide it open to answer a call and the display never turns on again. Yay! It wasn't until a year and a half later that I could get a new phone but got a great one (galaxy s4). |
Since you have 2 replys on why you should try it I'll tell you why you shouldn't unrelated to the App Store. I worked for verizon for 6 years and tried everything at least for a few months. The z10 was the last phone I tested before I quit.
P.s. The Vzw complaint about how other companies are consumer centric is indicative of the entire Vzw culture.
Auto correct is awful. Yes the predictive word select is neat but it doesn't work well.
The send key is where the enter key would be. So after the autocorrect fucked up what you were trying to say or even before you were finished typing you will send a half written message.
The ui is slow and quirky. It made me twitch every time I used it. Namely, its recent apps screen. Every single time you open an app it has to jump to the recent apps screen before it opens the app.
The unified inbox is broken. I had every blackberry from the original curve on to the storm2 unified inbox was the only thing any of these phones had going for them. I loved bb because of it, it was also the reason why I was excited for the z10. On the old phones I set my soft key to jump to it and I was set. On the z10 no soft key to start. it incorporates too much junk in the unified inbox and the things it does include like Facebook don't work. Very specifically if would notify me of a reply to a post in a Facebook group. Tap the notification and it would say access denied. So then I would have to get the access denied to clear the notification, go back out to the home screen. Find Facebook and watch while it jumped to the recent apps screen before it opened, wait, and then check what the reply was.
Audio profiles were broken or turned into what someone lovingly called cripple ware. The other thing I loved about bb back in the day was the ability to customize profiles. While it's still there the list of 200 notification sounds was more like 12. That wasn't as big of a deal as I like my phones in silent mode but I do also use a lg tone+ Bluetooth headset often for music and it has a built in vibrate for notifications. If the phone was in silent mode or in an audio profile with the volume turned all the way down it would not transmit audio to the headset. Music or phone calls.
Memory card indexing. I have a 16 gb memory card that has gone from phone to phone (excluding iPhone and droid DNA ) and every time I got a new phone I pop it in and all my pictures are there sorted by date. The z10, wouldn't allow access to a few of my picture folders. It took several steps to get to the memory card and to top off not being allowed to access everything all the files were jumbled and slow to load. Pictures I took 3 years before were listed next to the ones I took the day before I switched phones.
While we're talking about pictures, every phone with a front facing camera has a flip camera button right on the screen. Not the z10. You had to gesture to menu, scroll and then flip.
The predictive keystrokes thought I spoke Spanglish. Meaning the next word up would often be Spanish even though every single word before was English.
The hardware is not attractive. In a market where edge to edge screens are the norm, they put a 4 inch screen on a 4.7 inch chassis. Seriously. It's the same size as a htc one.
This may have been carrier controlled but bing was default search engine. Nuff said.
Windows was slightly more tolerable. And I do mean slightly. Crippleware defines that entire platform. If iOS is jail, windows is life in solitary confinement. |
I agree that it is not the paragon of journalism, but I felt it will do to get this story out here, with its incendiary headline and approachable language. I could have put up the yellow alert that the SANS Internet Storm Center posted weeks ago on this same subject, but i doubt it would have gotten attention on /r/technology by virtue of its unrelatable language. I try to vary the technical detail of my submissions between /r/technology and /r/malware, for instance. |
Sigh . That, my friend, is an [ad hominem fallacy]( a [genetic fallacy]( and arguably an [appeal to emotion]( Pretty impressive to pack that much shitty reasoning into a single sentence. |
overall agree except the youtube bit. see [my comment below]( but basically youtube is extremely active against copyright infringement whereas isohunt not only wasn't but also basically actively encouraged copyright infringement. it was a website solely for that purpose, youtube is not.
actually edit: i dont overall agree. you think youtube deserves to be shutdown and isohunt is a well-meaning, harmless entity?
"To be totally honest, I rarely find any form of digital entertainment worth my money at all. The problem isn't piracy it's that they are charging too much and now there are other options."
"If it isn't worth me seeing it in theaters for the experience it's not worth my money AT ALL. It's sad the best movie I've seen in theaters in months has been Gravity which was mediocre. I'm not saying Gravity was bad, it just wasn't a great movie"
so basically, all movies should be free because you don't like them. right? you basically have stated that you refuse to pay for a movie no matter what, unless it was some majestic mind blowing movie more unique and innovative than Gravity - yet until they make that movie, they deserve no money and anything they produce should be free to the public. so the reason for piracy is that movies are bad... that's bogus. because if movies were really freakin awesome, they will be pirated even more. especially if nothing ever happens to websites that distribute them for free well, what money then will they use to pay for such unheard of theatrics that you demand? also most movies are available to rent in HD within months of being in theaters for like 4.99, besides the HUGE and growing amount that are available on demand the day they are released.
so what did you do back in the 90's, steal from video stores? or were movies so much better back then that you felt you deserved to pay. or were they just as shitty and you didnt get a chance to see any movies until napster came around?
edit: |
This post is very uninformed. On the off chance that you want to know the difference between youtube and isohunt:
One of the rules guaranteeing safe harbor from copyright infringement in the DMCA is that the content host has to not have requisite knowledge of the infringement. What this means is that the copyright infringement will be 'allowed' if the host doesn't know for sure that it is infringing.
Lets say I upload Bohemian Rhapsody to youtube. Youtube is now hosting copyrighted material and that is a crime. But, Youtubes content is at he discretion of users, and Youtubes owners didn't know I uploaded something copyrighted. This means that Youtube qualifies for the safe harbor as specified in the DMCA. This means that as long as Youtube doesn't know they are infringing copyright, they are safe.
Now imagine a hypothetical youtube employee who manually goes through videos to see if they are copyrighted. He sees Bohemian Rhapsody, and he knows that I don't own the rights to Bohemian Rhapsody. From now on, youtube has requisite knowledge of infringement. This means that from the point they find out that there is infringement, its not just me to blame but they are to blame as well. They take down the video, and youtube is in the clear.
Now lets turn to isohunt. Isohunt knew they had copyrighted material and they disclosed it to their advertisers. This means that they were also responsible for that infringement.
Now to Megaupload. Megaupload did this nifty thing where if two different people upload the same file, that file is only stored once on their servers. What this means is that both people get a different link to the same file. What this also means is that megaupload has a list of files which they have, and whenever someone uploads a new file they can see whether they already have it. Megaupload used this list for weeding out child porn. So lets say I am guy nr2 uploading the same child porn as guy number one, megaupload would know I uploaded child porn because they found out from law enforcement that guy nr1 uploaded child porn. This means they could know for certain which files were which if they got a complaint about one. They did exactly that for child porn. Even though they had a list of all files and a list of all files which had gotten a DMCA complaint, they never checked the one against the other. This would take a very short amount of time and effort, and they basically already cross reference every newly uploaded file to every file they have. They knew which files were pirated and where they had those files. They didn't stop it as soon as they knew, hence they lose the safe harbor. |
Not really.
An investor takes some money and invests it in an opportunity. In this case, the investor is often a studio, and the investment often movies, but the money could just as easily come from oil, or hippo sales.
Further, if movies weren't a GREAT investment, the studios would take their money and invest them in something better. |
I think there is good research that indicates that torrents/pirating stimulates media demand and in the end results in more revenue for the studios, that is, when they decide to get off their asses and make the media accesible through revenue making sources.
Basically, without these services, the media companies wouldn't be enjoying the significantly larger demand over what they had a decade ago. This demand is what stimulates new independent studios (like netflix and hulu dropping their hat in the game) to appear and large networks to keep marginal shows around.
The same thing happened when TiVo first appeared, every provider out there thought it would be the death of their revenues if people can skip ads, then they realized that people with DVR's watch, on average, more ads than those without DVR's and now every major provider gives you DVR's with your service. |
Rovio is still responsible for this breach if they did not use encryption.
It is one thing for a desktop application to submit information via a non-SSL API. You're on a local connection attached to Time Warner who is attached to the backbone. While it is still possible for the NSA to intercept, it is unlikely to be breached by lower level players.
A mobile device like a phone or tablet is much much different . Even if you discount the extremely weak 56bit (Yes, 56bit. Not 256bit) encryption of GSM or the "upgraded" version on 3G/4G, there are still public WIFI networks, and other potentially leaky connections to deal with. |
Sort of. I have read a couple of things that say if you are going to speed read, you should have an idea about what the text says before you actually read it - like a summary or introduction to what the text is actually going to say. Researchers say this helps to comprehend text because it is preparing your brain for understanding. It's like reading a book before watching the movie, or vice versa, which is one of the many reasons a number of school textbooks have a "this is what you are going to learn" section in the beginning of each chapter. But even that depends on how much you actually understand the summary.
Speed reading is like skimming something (and is good to do before you actually dive into the text). But the problem is how much you read and how good you read are measurements of quantity and quality respectively, which have always been on opposite sides of the learning spectrum. Is typing 100 wpm with 20/30/40 mistakes better than typing 60 wpm with 0 mistakes? The end answer I have always felt depends on the objective you are trying to achieve. And in reading, your objective should be to understand text, not to say that you have read more books than I have.
Another problem is comprehension, or quality, is a subjective measurement that is often hard to determine. When you read Huck Finn, did you understand that Mark Twain was also very interested in the bad boy era of the late 1800's as much (and debatably more) as his critique on racism? Do you remember the hilarious take on gender-roles in chapter 10, or do you remember the importance that luck played to Jim? Does this matter for comprehension? Schools would obviously put questions about racism and gender-role reversal on top of the comprehension list. But who knows?
And this measurement is different for everybody depending on the topic being read. I can read literature/philosophy well because I have actively trained my brain throughout the years to do so, but put me in front of a organic chemistry textbook and I would fall into tears trying to understand the first paragraph. |
Imagine this on reddit. |
After reading most of the comments in this thread, I think most of the negative comments are pretty spot-on, so I'm just going to add my own thoughts:
Personally, I like to read slowly and portray the right emotion to the scene. I like to back up a sentence or two just so I have the scene set correctly in my head. Not to say that I can't read quickly -- because I can. I just like reading at a pace that is comfortable with my processing speed. |
This sounds too good to be true. That's because it is. RSVP (rapid serial visual presentation --- the technology being showcased here) doesn't work.
This technique was a massive field of research in military neuroscience in the 1970s, and scientists have tested reading speed and comprehension using RSVP [1]. I'm just going to summarize their findings here:
(a) RSVP feels as though it works because we can see all of the words. At no point do we feel we are missing anything. But this doesn't mean that we actually can process the words.
(b) RSVP doesn't increase rate of comprehension of the materials involved. The primary limitation on reading speed is not the rate at which we read words, but the rate at which we process the information. When you read faster, you don't remember as much of what you read.
(c) Reading with RSVP can cause problems parsing sentences. In normal reading, our eyes scan around the page, looking back and forth across the sentences. This is not possible with RSVP, and the lack of ability to do that limits the rate of comprehension. Furthermore, RSVP suffers from attentional blink problems more then normal reading, which is the inability to process words or ideas that are repeated within ~100ms of the first instance.
(d) The net result is that reading with RSVP is no better than skimming the material using normally presented text. In fact, they perform almost exactly as well.
With that said, there are a few things you should know with regard to this RSVP app or RSVP in general.
First, the examples they present are misleading. They provide us with very short sentences and the reason that we can process them is because the sentences are so short. We can keep them in memory and then finish parsing what they said after the animation finishes. If the RSVP stream continues, like in a novel, we wouldn't have that time.
Second, RSVP does have some valuable uses, just not for reading quickly. RSVP can be very useful for people with peripheral vision or peripheral memory issues where having the words presented in the same space compensates for these limitations. RSVP can be useful with small display devices, where very few words can be shown on screen at the same time.
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I totally it. Without I it that! This amazing I wait use for like. really has the which I things, and going to one first I know at this future. so easy and grasp written I'm literally it.
First, they are . They very short sentences reason process them are so. We can memory and parsing they said after the animation. If the like in a, we wouldn't that.
does have some, just not quickly. can be very people vision or memory issues having the presented space compensates these. RSVP can be small display , where very be shown on the same time.
[ |
Basically he is sarcastically getting at the point that America often operates in a bribed and corrupt system, and the masses often don't know what their products are produced for, why they are priced as such, and often don't have alternatives in some cases. Often they are so uninformed that they believe this to be "the way it SHOULD be" and would defend it as their patriotic right. |
OK... I'm going to chime in here because I feel I'm old enough to give an opinion that's slightly relevant to this comment.
First, I grew up when 56K first came out and when we got it we were so damn excited to have it in the first place that we didn't mind waiting ten minutes for a webpage that was graphic-heavy to load. We sat back, patiently, and waited. Sure, the waiting wasn't that fun, but our excitement could not be contained and it dampened any frustration we might have felt. That's how most 56K users felt when it first came out: HOLY SHIT THIS IS AWESOME... IF ONLY IT WERE FASTER BUT THAT'S OK! WE DON'T MIND MUCH!!!! (All caps because, yes... we were that excited.)
Cue the next advancement for our household: DSL. At first, we had the opinion of 'our 56K is fine as is. It would be nice to have something faster, but we don't really see a need for it right now as we don't mind being patient and waiting for pages to load.'
So... for six months after DSL became available to us, we just waited and kept our 56K. After a while, though, we saw our friends and family all hopping on the DSL bandwagon. We watched as they had a huge speed difference in comparison to our crappy 56K connection and we realized, after seeing it in action for ourselves (instead of just hearing about it) that... HOLY SHIT WE'VE BEEN ROBBED! It only took six months for our family to break down and get DSL and ditch our 56K modem. And immediately after that, we were content just like we were with our old 56K connection. Are you starting to see a pattern here?
That is the point I'm making here: When you have what's currently available and it's just decent enough you become complacent with it and feel that it's exactly what you need and that you don't mind waiting an extra X seconds for something to load. However, when you see everyone else's super-fast speeds in action and you realize the huge differential between your connection speeds and theirs your eyes are open on the issue and you want it for yourself . Your previous assertions to yourself that your current connection speeds are perfect for you only are there because you're ignorant to seeing the results for yourself over a period of time that allows you to experience the major differences between connection speeds in a long-term format. Only seeing speed differences on Site A and Site B are not going to impact your decision, especially if you only visit two sites and spend a grand total of five minutes using a computer that has fiber. You (the average customer) have to use the connection for at least a week before you start to realize that that connection is far superior and that, yes, yes, you are used to it now and YOU WANT IT. (I'm speaking of the average middle-aged user here, not tech savvy users that can spot the major differences as soon as the page loads. Fiber and Cable are majorly different in the speed department, but most users that are over 40 don't see a huge difference at first, at least that's what my experience with older users has taught me.)
You're using the ignorance card for this and to tell the truth, I don't like it. Of course most customers are content with their own connection speeds. They're ignorant to anything better and so why would they think they need something better? That's simply how progression works: Everyone's content until a newer, faster, better technology comes around that they see with their own two eyes and then they HAVE to have it ! Telcos refusing to expose their customers to something better without insane-cock-bag-prices is a sure recipe to keep the status quo exactly that: the status quo.
Why do you think customers are so damn happy when Google Fiber comes to town and they wish to keep their Google Fiber plans after trying it out for a few months? Mostly because the speeds are amazing and the prices are fair . Customer service surely plays a large part in that, but it's mostly due to speed and prices. They now know what better looks like and they never want to go back to their old connection speeds. That's just how technology works and the fact that the telcos are dithering on making a better network is what allows companies like Google Fiber to totally annihilate them in the areas they build in. |
Alright, you incredible dunce. I'll explain this once. Pay attention.
> And free men don't want their governments involved in our market,workplace,bedroom,churches, in our private lives.
Of course you don't. Until someone steals from you, assaults you, kills someone you love, pollutes your property/water, etc... Then you're all about having government involved. Know why?
Because you live in a society. One which makes it possible for all those things you want kept private to actually exist. One which makes up the structures of civilization. What you want is to be able to get away with any fucking thing you want because of "my sacred rights and freedoms", but the first time someone fucks you over, you want the full force of the law brought down on them. Or, like the MtGOX Bitcoin idiots, you stand outside a building with your signs impotently, looking pathetic.
"But," you say, "if we just got rid of that pesky government involvement, everyone would work together fairly as honest brokers bla bla bla..." Sure thing. Because that's worked so well throughout history. Bottom line is, without that society and that government that makes sure everyone has opportunities and keeps the assholes in check (theoretically) there's nothing to stop anyone from simply shooting you and taking what you have. Or far worse.
Tell you what, since you seem to hate the society we have here, Mr. Free Man, why not go to another country which runs the way you like, with government out of everythiing? Like Somalia? I'm sure when you scream about being a Free Man and your Inalienable Rights the warlord who's raping your ass repeatedly will find it incredibly amusing.
Get some real life experience. Then come back and tell me how well that Libertarian bullshit works for you. |
I once 3d printed your mom and didn't call her after.
Years later I felt bad about what that must have done to her and tried to call her to apologize. Turns out she gave me a fake number. |
I resent your insulting of my intelligence.
My paper books never need charged, which means that when I leave the country I don't need to worry about power adapters. My paper books can never have a case of corrupted files, and will never lose things due to DRM. A paper book can be easily lent to a friend, with my name written on the inside flap so that it can be returned. It has no "boot-up" time, and never will. In addition to being able to take notes in it with a pencil, drawings can also be added (I find this helpful with textbooks). |
I might get some hate on here for saying this, but just get a macbook pro or air if you have the money. There's a reason that people are willing to shell out the money for them, and this is coming from a person that was 100% against them. I still have a desktop PC that I built and can't even imagine replacing it with an apple device, but Macbooks are great laptops.
So why is it so good when you can get another laptop with better specs for less money? Well, there's a few reasons, but first I want to talk about the trackpad because that's the biggest selling point. It's amazing. I've used a lot of laptops, and nothing comes close to the trackpad on the macbook. It makes working without a mouse easy rather than frustrating. I really can't stress enough how good the trackpad is.
So now the other reasons: The build quality is great. My Macbook fell out of my backback and landed on a solid tile floor on the first day of class. The drop was so hard that it bent the aluminum on the corner. I was 100% sure that the laptop was dead. Nope. Absolutely no damage other than cosmetic damage. Next, OSX works really well as a mobile platform on a laptop. It's hard to describe, but you can just tell that the laptop and OS were built to work seamlessly with one another.
This is getting kinda long, so I'll just wrap it up: |
I used Windows for years and made the switch about 7 years ago. I still have a Windows machine for gaming but everyday use I love my MacBook pro. The build quality is exceptional, specifically the trackpad. The directory structure seems cleaner to me. I find finder much easier to navigate compared to explorer. Installing majority of applications requires a drag and drop majority of the time. All the Applications work together so if you want a photo from iPhoto you can drag and drop it on top of an application on your dock that supports photos. Overall drag and dropping files on a Mac is very fluid. When it came to connecting to my printer OS X just saw it hanging around and downloaded the drivers but I had to manually do it on Windows.
Maybe some of the things I posted work on windows but I always found it easy or faster on Mac OS X. Some one also mentioned you can't customize which is just plain wrong. It may be more difficult to customize but your average user doesn't need that. There is a very simple feature known as Gatekeeper which stops users from installing crapware and malware. You can easily turn it off to install whatever Applications you like. I've never needed to customize my Mac as much as I needed to with Windows to make it work right.
For everyday use Im using my Mac but for gaming I'm using my PC I built. I'm guessing a majority of people will disagree with me but I'm going to say majority of the things I do just work. |
I'm indifferent in this whole Mac/PC discussion but I'm legitimately curious - why in the world were you doing so much work? It sounds like 99% of it was nothing more than placebo and/or just plain bad practice.
Again, I'm 100% indifferent (I'm glad that you found what you enjoy) I just think it's a bit misleading to others if your selling points for switching to a Mac includes things that simply weren't necessary to begin with. Even the average gamer wouldn't need to take a majority of those steps, and absolutely no one should do some of them because they do more damage than good a large percentage of the time. |
It is an extremely bad idea to purchase a product like that because it's $100 - $200 cheaper. You're going to be having that device for a while. All that time you're working with a restricted feature set. The couple of hundred bucks that you did not spend you're going to feel in the performance. Over the course of having the unit that extra bit of money doesn't make a difference. If it does make a difference, and for some people it will, you have other issues than buying a computer and you want to address those first. |
If your going to say "you ran some tests", back up your statement by actually posting a link to that shit.
Otherwise all you're telling me is that you're yet another dumbass either too ignorant or too stupid to admit that yes, you can easily differentiate between 30 and 60fps. |
You must work with computers at lot... /s
the XPS is the equivalent of the Inspiron/Studio line and is made with poor quality parts. Look up what a comparable Dell Precision model would be and then get back to me.
You're clearly inexperienced with computers or just trying to troll, please don't speak unless you know what you're talking about. |
They can. But--
With the current patent system (particularly in software), the patent office issues far more patents for extremely vague things. Occasionally, patent trolls will then sue people down the line. Most recently this happened to a ton of podcasters, and it's been very problematic.
The issue is that court cases are prohibitively expensive for your average "little guy." Patent trolls don't go after Google or Apple, they go after the person making a game or a podcast or a utility in their basement. They threaten a large amount of damages and offer a settlement of several thousand dollars. It's extortion.
The thing is that if a lot of these ever went to court, the patent would be invalidated and the case would be thrown out due to the patented idea having existed before the patent holder patented it. Generally, though, the slowness of the court system and legal fees keep people from fighting it. |
Hi Sacrix, I actually forgot to write the other part. I'm not promoting, I'm just praising it (see my post history). I could honestly not give two shits if anyone changes over. I'm just a sales rep and make money off commission, so if people change over or not doesn't make a difference to me. I tend to be kind and helpful after I smoke. Admittedly, it does look like I'm promoting T-Mobile, but that was not my intentions. There are definitely situations where I would advise AVOIDING T-Mobile all together (coverage, existing discounts, cheaper grandfathered plans, etc)
EDIT: In a rush because I'm getting ready for class, but |
I had to stop using FireFox. It crashed one day and will not relaunch. I click the icon and nothing happens except resources being eaten up. I look in the task manager and there is a "plugin extension" process running. The actual browser never opens. I spent a day trying to fix it and nothing works. You can't even "really" uninstall FireFox. Every time I would (based on the advice of various Internet threads) I would then find out later that the way I tried doesn't REALLY uninstall FireFox and I need to try it using THEIR method, which didn't work either. |
For example, if you're not admin, you can't edit the PATH variable
there is a system path, and a user path. Obviously, you do not need administrative rights to edit the user path. |
article
this isn't an article, it's a blog post that happens to be on a major "news" site. calling it an article gives it more credibility and value than it deserves. it doesn't raise any new points, it has nothing of value to say, it will have no impact on anything. a blog post. no major developments have recently taken place that makes firefox better or chrome worse. it's this one guy posting his stories about why chrome has been sucking for him lately.
people have done the firefox vs. chrome debate to death. everyone always brings up the same points, these same exact points actually, and nobody ever changes their mind. this blog post could easily be a forum post #44 in a topic on some random forum and nobody would know the difference. everyone would just say |
Ohhh! Thanks for this... Vivaldi looks pretty!
Since I'm lazy, care to share the |
U Series are "better" silicon allowing higher clock speed at lower wattage.
I'm assuming you meant the i7-4600M versus the i5-5200U. The i7 is better when it comes to clock speed, turbo clock speed, and cache. Even though the i5 is a newer generation of processor, the clock-for-clock efficiency gains are nothing in comparison to the clock speed advantage of the i7. The i7 also supports 32GB of RAM where the i5 maxes out at 16GB.
The i7 uses over twice as much power as the i5, but if you are gaming it will be plugged in anyways. The i5 will get better battery life, but I don't see it making a massive difference.
The final thing is the iGPU. You really should be getting something with a discrete GPU for gaming, if you are then the following doesn't matter:
As crappy as the HD5500 in the 5200U is, it still beats the shit out of the 4600M's HD4400. So, if you are using iGPU, then the i5 becomes the easy option as the other factors wont matter nearly as much as the crippled GPU. |
For me, the first thing that came was the smell and the sound. Then the pain. I got ripped up pretty bad all over the place, but it was the air bag that I first noticed. There's just something about your head that overcomes even radical damage elsewhere.
I totally agree about the smell though. I'd actually forgotten about the white cloud until you mentioned it though. |
WHY THIS IS SIGNIFICANT (for lay people) :
Transistors are the backbone of digital devices. They're basically little switches that can be used in different configurations to make digital logic devices (i.e. that operate on 1's and 0's), so the number of transistors you can fit on a chip determines the number of operations the chip can perform or the amount of data it can store.
In the 60's a computer scientist popularized "Moore's Law" which said that on average about every two years the number of transistors the industry can cheaply fit into a given space will double. This law has been relatively accurate, and has been used to describe the rate at which processor technology progresses (i.e. how often a newer, faster processor goes to market) and also the progression of memory storage technology (a few years ago, a 2TB hard drive in a laptop would've been preposterous).
Moore's law basically works because researchers are constantly trying to make smaller transistors: the smaller they can make them, the more transistors you can fit in one place. The limitation here is obvious: the smallest possible transistor is a single atom. The development described here is the industry approaching a serious limitation to development, which could result in the rate of computer hardware development slowing down or even plateauing.
Researchers foresaw this problem years ago since it is a logical consequence of moore's law. To combat the space limitation, a school of computer scientists have been researching ways to take advantage of the bizarre probabilistic phenomena observed by electrons at the quantum level to develop new kinds of transistors that can handle more than 2-bits at a time (in a "qbit"), which would push computer development forward significantly. Another alternative solution has been the ddevelopment of 3-dimensional circuits, which are already being used in a limited capacity but whose development will also have a profound effect on the industry (for the most part, circuits today are flat). The third alternative is a device called a "memristor," which is a computer component that only existed in theory until a few years ago. Its discovery is believed to be especailly significant to the study of AI because it is believed the device will allow scientists to more accurately model neurons, but once it is significantly developed to be used in PC applications it may have a profound effect on the industry.
The transistor described here is a 'quantum' transistor. This development specifically effects quantum computing. Quantum computing hopes to allow for faster processing by usingthe very strange math that arises when in addition to 1's and 0's you have overlaps in these states (a bit that can be both at the same time). Quantum computing was completely theoretical until only very recently, but the field has very far to go. One of the problems encountered by the field is how to observe the phenomena necessary to make a calculation without affecting the states in the computer: electrons are very testy about being observed. Consequently, most quantum computers are huge and rely on lasers and very cold temperatures. The significance of this development is that it sounds like the researchers have discovered a pretty stable way of storing a qbit, which will make quantum computers more viable.
for the |
The first rule of usenet is that you don't talk about usenet." This has been expanded to regularly making comments about how shitty usenet is, to deter new converts from attracting too much attention to the method. No one actually believes that this works; it's just a meme of sorts. In reality, the learning curve and the fact that a premium usenet provider isn't free more or less keeps usenet a fairly rare thing (compared to torrents and other p2p). |
We anticipated that people would attempt to unlock the phones and explore the underlying operating >system. We encourage people to use their Windows Phone as supplied by the manufacturer to ensure the >best possible user experience. Attempting to unlock a device could void the warranty, disable phone >functionality, interrupt access to Windows Phone 7 services or render the phone permanently unusable.”
How does this = "We can't stop you." ??
Geek.com is trying to read too far between the lines. All Microsoft said is that they saw it coming, don't want people to do it, and doing so could possibly leave you with a useless piece of metal and no warranty.
This does not give a definitive perspective on Microsoft's motivations and any speculation based on this statement is invalid at this point. |
The fact that HP is number one in the market contradicts your statement that they aren't the juggernaught they once were.
Dell is also on both our lists. Compaq an IBM are both still in business as HP/Compaq and Lenovo. As a matter of fact, HP and Dell are number one and two in the market with Apple not making the list in worldwide sales and making number 4 in the US. PC sales are one of the few sectors in the marketplace that have consistently grown market share. Even with the iPad projected to take sales away from the low end PC market this year the personal computer market is still expected to grow by 14% in 2011. Not bad for a sector that Microsoft has destroyed. There are also the companies that are growing like Acer. That doesn't happen in a 'destroyed' market. I would say your zeal for Apple products has blinded you to the good Microsoft has done and the evil that Apple is now adopting as their business model.
In the last couple of years Apple has been found guilty of anti trust by the EU, they have closed the Apple marketplace and denied apps that they found threatening to their market, they have banned Flash development, they have had numerous quality problems, the workers in their factories have had a suicide problem due to the slave like working conditions, and they have fallen first at the pwn to own competition three years running which proves that security through obscurity is their only reason for having a better security record than Microsoft products.
The netbook manufacturers tried to run Linux but the consumers wanted Microsoft operating system on them and the marketplace responded. Microsoft helped grow the netbook segment after it almost perished on the vine by offering only Linux distros. |
There was significant talk about this on the Tesla Motors Club forum a while ago and I think it's a pretty bad idea. There was a video on YouTube (that I can no longer find my bookmark for) that showed that the general sounds of locomotion (tire noise, etc) were enough at speeds greater than 30kph to alert people to the presence of a vehicle and under 30kph, the distance to stop is generally low enough that it isn't an issue.
Someone even said that the group advocating for the Blind had ties to Oil or something. |
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