That's true of every single software patent ever issued. They're all bullshit because they're not inventions, they're mathematical discoveries.

...The bigger problem with the IPv6 address representation is is use of colons...

That would be part of the jarring change I'm referring to, yes.

Right...I get the pro-change argument, I just (still) think it was arbitrary and jarring.

It may seem trivial, but something as simple as keeping the decimal notation would probably have gone a long way in spurring adoption of IPv6.

I know that representing numbers in hex doesn't make them different, and takes up less screen real estate, but they *look* different. I think everyone talking about reasons for low adoption vastly underestimates the psychological impact of the way addresses are represented in v6.

Your explanation is good, but I agree with the sentiment expressed by the OP. I don't have a problem with hex, per-se, but I have a harder time memorizing MAC addresses (or IPv6 addresses) than IPv4 addresses.

The decision to switch from decimal to hexadecimal notation was arbitrary and jarring...not at all unlike switching phone numbers from decimal to alphanumeric notation would be.

I agree that what the organizers told the judges (which should have been nothing whatsoever) is important, and that independent reproduction is important. Whether this dude is a bullshitter generally doesn't matter.

In what way do you believe that the goal of the Turing test is *not* to fool people?

What should the program have claimed to have been? If it was a human extraneously telling the judges that the program was a person with language skills, then I would agree, but the task is to fool humans into thinking a program is a person, and that's what happened, isn't it?

The entire exercise is always one of trickery, regardless of how sophisticated the program is. I think the illustration is that it's not necessarily that difficult to fool people (which we already knew).

They thought it was a child, and not a machine imitating a child with limited language skills? What's everyone quibbling about? You either think it's a machine, or you think it's a person. 1 in 3 people thought it was a person. That's a "pass".

We bought ours because of the titles...all of the gamers in my family are fans of the various Mario titles, and those were great on the Wii. The controller worked well and let you do things easily that would have been hard without the ability to point at stuff with the controller or shake it, etc.

The console had some big problems, though...most notably no real online community, a lack of HDMI support, not enough graphics processing power, and a shitty disc drive that failed in two units we owned, even though we treated the units pretty carefully. At the price they were charging for the original Wii, I could deal with all of it.

We have a pair of Xbox 360's that mainly get used for multiplayer shooters. I'm fine with that. I'd really love to play Mario Kart 8 with the family, but not at the price they want to charge for the Wii U...it's a system refresh with a new controller that I'm not interested in, not because it's not a decent console, but because it's not enough of an improvement to be worth the extra cash.

...were it still available, I could have done a quick "fuckapple" tag and been done with it.

Of course, I read that first sentence and dismissed it because it was irrelevant...

A point on which we disagree because we had different reasons for responding.

...You "should have let it go" because you were wrong...

I understand that you think so.

...(you might recall a whooshing noise about that time), yes I decided that I might join you in your colossal waste of time but at least be correct, unlike the two of you...

I believe I mentioned something about irony before...I wasn't being pedantic, I made what should have been a humorous observation (not unlike your own failed attempt at mirth) that you decided was some sort of "oh no he DIDN'T!!!" bandwagon-jumping and took issue with.

I get it. I irritated you for what you believe to be no good reason. You are deliberately ignoring my stated reason for saying what I said (which was not pedantry), and that's fine...just understand two things about this exchange:

• I don't agree that my observation was wrong...it had nothing to do with the point you were making...it was a comment at right angles to your own
• Every single conversation on slashdot is a waste of time

If I ever need to find something to do for a few minutes, I'll google MILFish and USian...sounds...enlightening?

You must not have read the first sentence of my last post, if you're asking why I said it's a bad fit. Again, technically, you're 100% correct, and I should have just kept quiet, but I didn't (for reasons I already mentioned and you brushed aside). You were, indeed, being pedantic, obnoxious, and accurate. I was not being anything other than compulsive on a particular point that I thought ironic and you did not.

I was associating the GP's comment about not extending acronyms to the original extended acronym in question (USian), which was an attempt to extend an acronym that referred to a nation. I should have let it go, as you are technically correct (I've never heard anyone use the extended acronym "MILFish", but I will stipulate that enough people are likely to have done so that it could be a valid example). I didn't let it go, because (as far as the one-level-previous discussion went) it was a bad fit for an example.

MILF isn't a nation, so MILFish isn't a nationality.

You're probably right...I dunno about me being a "kid", though, I've been able to legally buy beer for 22 years...depends on your frame of reference.