>They could have saved a lot of time and harsh words if they let Northern Ireland vote on independence!

They did. Northern Ireland voted to stay in the UK, almost immediately upon the Irish winning their independence from the UK.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

This.

I read through the comments to find this comment so that I didn't just post a duplicate if someone else had covered the ground.

Let me be really blunt about the amount of time you are intending to invest in this project. If you were taking a college course, you should expect to spend 2 hours out of class for each hour you spend in class, and given that you only have 10 hours to dedicate to the idea, that's effectively 3 credit hours for every interval. So if you picked a community college, and they offered all the classes you needed, you should expect to have your Bachelor's of Science in any given degree field in about 23 years. That gets you to the necessary 210 credit hours for an Astronomy degree.

Let's say, though that you are a super genius, and can do 1:1 instead of 1:2 for in/out of class. That only cuts your time by 1/3, which means that you get that degree in 15 years instead.

Now add to this that most major contributions in any scientific field occur before someone hits their mid 20's; there are exceptions, but let's say again that you are exceptional. What contributions do you expect to be able to make after age 61 / 53, with your shiny new Bachelor's, since you're unlikely to find someone to hire you at that age, and you're unlikely to be able to afford instrument time on the necessary equipment on your own?

This is true of your thermostat, your fridge, and pretty much anything else which is a part of this "internet of things".

Every aspect about what these devices does will be analyzed, used for marketing information, handed over to law enforcement, or your insurance company, or anybody who hacks into it.

For some of us, this whole IoT is a privacy nightmare waiting to happen, and we have no interest whatsoever in it.

Unfortunately, a lot of people like to see that as a sign that you're paranoid and getting alarmist about things which will never happen.

And then, like the widespread surveillance being misused (which they swore would never happen), parallel construction (which is perjury in my books), or the scope creep we see all around us ... almost inevitably this comes true and people act surprised.

Sorry, but I for one will not be enabling this crap. It just seems like technology for the sake of it, and by the time people realize that those among us who have been saying this will be a problem were right, it's too damned late.

Unless there are laws governing how a company can use the information, and some controls over law enforcement to prevent them from getting this and misusing it ... the internet of things is a terrible idea, and will not make your life better. The sheer amount of information about every aspect of your life which will be in someone else's hands is staggering.

In the end, I predict it will make our lives far worse, and usher in even more of this surveillance society we've been seeing.

We can't trust them with the information they have now, let alone from another bunch of sources in your life.

You really think the government won't insist on getting all this data without a warrant? And they won't claim you have no reasonable expectation of privacy and that they should be entitled to know where everybody is at all times? Or that corporations won't sell this for marketing purposes? Or to deny you service?

Hell no. Now, pass the tin foil please.

And, the corollary to the parent post is ... even if you will never come up with some breakthrough or advancement in the field ... do it anyway.

So, you may not get published, or find something which rocks the community. Who gives a damn?

Do it for yourself. Have fun with it. You're old enough to understand that the reward doesn't come from anything but you.

After a bunch of years, who knows where you'll end up?

Past honorees have included:*A study about homosexual necrophilia in ducks

Now that is something I could have done without knowing about.

I can't give you any specific advice, but maybe a local astronomy club?

I know one of the people who discovered Hale-Bopp is a gifted amateur, and I'm quite certain lots of stuff by amateurs happens which is pretty cool.

In fact, I get the impression lots of amateurs can give coverage which the "pros" can't really do just because of the sheer number of amateurs.

Good luck with it. Hopefully people can point you at more concrete stuff, but you'd hardly be the first amateur who contributed something to the field if you get there.

I would say you have it right.

Apple initially didn't open up the iPhone to Apps at all because Steve was deathly afraid of building another Newton.

Then they wanted to open them up, but there was not rational set of APIs, there was just an internal morass, because it had never been designed with the idea of hardening one app on the iPhone from interference by another app on the phone, or hardening the phones functions against a malicious app.

This is a single App on a single use, incomplete, API, one which was built only to host this App and nothing else. Could that API be exposed, and used for other applications? Yeah. Would that enable all possible NFC applications which you might want to implement in the future? Not a chance in hell.

This is just Apple wanting some bake time so that they can rationally support an API that they happily demonstrated opening hotel doors and other things which they are not prepared to open up at this point in time.

Why?

With a Linux desktop you don't need to know more about computers than a typical Windows user yet have a safer environment.

the Trojan gets delivered to users via the Rig exploit kit, which uses Flash and Silverlight exploits. The victims get saddled with the malware when they unknowingly visit a website hosting the exploit kit

Say it isn't so! Flash and Silverlight got used as a security hole? Well, I'm truly shoc ... oh, fuck it ... this is exactly why I don't install this shit in my browsers, and why I don't let strange websites run scripts.

Flash has been a gaping security hole about as long as it has existed.

I can only assume Silverlight is little better, but the only browser I have it in is IE on a work machine because we need it to run some in-house software.

But I don't let that browser touch the real internet. Because I don't let IE access the internet unless every other browser has failed.

I'm afraid I no longer have any sympathy when I hear people got hacked via Flash. Because at this point, it's hardly surprising.

You *do* know IOS has a search, right? Makes it kind of difficult to fail to find an app you're actually looking for.

As for the rest, different strokes, etc. I have no objection if you choose not to use such a feature (for that matter, perhaps the OS could contain a switch to turn it off for those who are unable to manage more than a single level of folders.

As for not being useful, you're not qualified to say what's useful to me.

Would you care to explain how, or point the way to a howto?

Thanks.

Missed this, sorry:

Perhaps they have never even thought about the topic at all (no thoughts == no knowledge). Nor do they form their identity through comparison with others.

These are not the issue, though. If they hold a belief in a god or gods, they are theist. If they don't, they are atheist. You can change from one to the other, in fact many times, but at any point in time, you *are* one or the other.

That's all the theism / atheism issue addresses. Belief in a god or gods -- or not. Has nothing to do with why, how, which or one's idea of identity. It's a state of being, like being alive, or not, or being able to hear, or not.

Is there a difference between knowledge and belief

Yes. Always.

Knowledge is based, either directly or through a proxy, upon known facts that are some combination of repeatable, consensually experiential, and testable. Sound travels at a particular speed in our atmosphere. This is knowledge.

Beliefs are based upon faith, and cannot be proven, although they can be described and so passed along. Animals cross the rainbow bridge when they die. This is belief.

Either one can be mischaracterized as the other, but examining the issue at hand for the required elements of knowledge will very quickly determine just what it is you're dealing with. Likewise, conviction isn't the issue.

The thing to remember is that just because you have an idea in your head, that doesn't qualify it as knowledge.

My palm TX sees your blackberry and drops the bar several inches all at once. :)

Did they enable nested folders yet? The current single level folders are limiting and create unnecessary clutter.

For instance, it'd be nice to have one games folder, inside which might be a folder for board games, one for shooters, one for tower defense, etc.

One that would be of interest to me would be arranged around photography. One main folder, then one for editors, one for astrophoto conditions and apps, one for auroral conditions and apps, one for IR work, one for special effects, etc., one for a DB of my lenses and cameras, one with my portfolio, one with links to photography websites, etc.

Folders within folders is a very natural way to arrange things in a hierarchy; I have never understood Apple's resistance to giving its customers tools they can use to make using IOS easier. In the case of nested folders, you don't *have* to use the feature if you don't want to, anyway... but if you need it, you probably *really* need it.

So here's hoping.