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Comment Re:Great (Score 4, Informative) 1231

I immediately found a very large irritant after upgrading. Previously, I had line-in set to play through to the speakers. There was a simple slider in sound preferences that existed back since at least 6.06. The same option exists under Windows. But suddenly, 9.10 removed this option. Line-in no longer plays through, and the option has been completely removed from the revamped (and somewhat disorganized) sound preference panels. I appreciate the effort to "modernize" the sound options like per-application tuning, but not at the cost of tossing simple, basic options that have existed since the invention of the sound card.

Also, regarding the bootup animations, they've changed for three or four consecutive upgrades now. I don't mind a refresher when appropriate, but "refreshing" every six months tells me that some priorities need some reordering.

Comment Re:Truly Gates now thinks he is God (Score 1) 380

So you say that the work required moving the cold water to the hot water is necessarily equivalent to that of directly heating the water. What if the water is 1mm away? 10m away? 1000 light years away? The work required for each of these is equivalent? Did you just discover a way to move water 1000 light years minus 1mm for free?

The problem with your "basic physics" is that work is equivalent only when the outcomes are exactly the same. Think about why heating x liters of water is not the same outcome as raising x liters of water some height.

Let me offer another example. Suppose that we want to heat 1L of 1-degree-C water to 50 degrees. It just so happens that we could move the 1L of water .00001m into thermal contact with a close-by 1L of water kept at 99 degrees. Now, the outcome of heating 1L of water to 50 degrees is the same, but the outcomes of the universe outside of that narrow scope are not identical. Opting for a 40% (or even far, far less) efficient mechanical pump saves energy over a heat pump heating the water 49 degrees because the work required for the two processes is not equivalent. (And, of course, if .00001m is changed to some obscenely large distance, opting for the the heat pump instead would be more efficient.)

Comment Re:Stop tagging correlationisnotcausation (Score 1) 458

No, it's not incorrect, you just failed to understand my point. You are isolating this study from other research and taking it at face value, whereas I am putting it in the context of substantial previous work and knowledge.

Imagine there were a study that correlated people letting go of things and those things falling to the ground. Taken at face value, as you do with this story, one should ask, for example, whether something else caused both the letting-go and the dropping-to-the-ground. But taken with previous knowledge, that would be an exercise in pointlessness; we all know what gravity is and that it exists, and so we can conclude that letting go of things is in a causal relationship with those things falling to the ground.

In other words, pedantry doesn't do anyone any good here, because we already have substantial evidence applicable to this new work. I appreciate your and the community's attention to correctness, but in this instance, it's being misapplied.

Comment Stop tagging correlationisnotcausation (Score 4, Insightful) 458

People, please stop tagging every study on Slashdot with correlationisnotcausation. I know it's standard here to believe this community is somehow more enlightened than all others, but do you really think that researchers became researchers without being able to ask simple questions? In fact, in an idealized study, it's not even a relevant question!

Moreover, this moronic practice is especially stupid for this story because the neurological effects of lithium salts have been explored for decades. This is not a revolutionary study by any means. So unless years and years of studies have gone horribly wrong, then yes, in this case, correlation does, in fact, imply causation.

Comment Re:Retarded (Score 4, Informative) 874

If you voluntarily incapacitate yourself by getting drunk, you're responsible for any and all contracts you enter into while impaired. See Lucy v. Zehmer, the "heh, sure, I'll sell you my house for $100. I'll even sign a contract. I know you don't have a hundred dollars on you- oh, crap" case.

Erm ... that's not even close to what Lucy was about. Lucy had little to do with intoxication. Straight from the op. Ct., "In was in fact conceded by defendants' counsel in oral argument that under the evidence Zehmer was not too drunk to make a valid contract."

Lucy revolved around whether the contract was valid based on "outward expression" rather than secret intent. Zehmer claimed he was "joking", despite talking for months about it, despite writing it down, despite getting his wife to co-sign it. The Court found that Lucy entered into the contract in good faith. If this contract weren't valid, how could any reasonable person want to enter into a contract ever without mind-reading capabilities?

Not only did Lucy actually believe, but the evidence shows he was warranted in believing, that the contract represented a serious business transaction and a good faith sale and purchase of the farm.

..."We must look to the outward expression of a person as manifesting his intention rather than to his secret and unexpressed intention...."

And that's why Lucy is taught in every contract law intro class.

Comment Re:Trip over beginners? (Score 1) 215

So if you are not held back by external requirements like dependencies on packages or third party software that hasn't been ported to 3.0 yet or working in an environment where everyone else is using another version. If you're learning Python for the first time, 3.0 is a great way to learn the language. There's a couple of things that trip over beginners have been removed.

Like basic grammatical structure, for instance? When did Palin become a Python dev?

Government

Submission + - Colorado Decertifies Electronic Voting Machines (denverpost.com)

CUShane writes: "Colorado's looming primary and presidential elections were thrown into turmoil Monday when many of the state's electronic voting machines were deemed unreliable and unsecure by Secretary of State Mike Coffman," according to the Denver Post. Coffman has decertified voting machines made by three of the four manufacturers operating in Colorado: Sequoia Voting System, Hart InterCivic, and Election Systems & Software. The decision affects 53 counties in Colorado. The only company to pass the certification is Premier Election Systems (formerly Diebold Election Systems).
Privacy

Submission + - Dodd beats telecom spying immunity

cleetus writes: Earlier this evening Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pulled the FISA bill which had retroactive immunity for spying telecoms from consideration on the US Senate floor. This bill, discussed on /. earlier today, would have shielded telecoms who turned data over to the government from lawsuits over 4th Amendment rights violations. The threat of a full scale filibuster from Senator Chris Dodd (which was partially underway already) was enough to force Reid to pull the bill. While the fight over immunity is over for now, but the bill will be brought up again at some point next month so vigilance it still required.
PC Games (Games)

Submission + - Chinese MMO Bans Males From Playing Female Charact

Cap'n.Brownbeard writes: ""Players of the Chinese MMORPG, King of the World, may have found themselves unable to log into their accounts this past weekend. The game's publisher, Aurora Technology, has apparently frozen the accounts of all male players choosing to play as a female characters. Now, only female players can play female characters, and they're required to prove their gender via a webcam. Females wanting to play males are still allowed though." http://news.filefront.com/chinese-mmo-bans-males-from-playing-female-characters/"
The Internet

Submission + - Leaks Prove MediaDefender's Deception (arstechnica.com)

Who will defend the defenders? writes: "Ars Technica has posted the first installment in their analysis of the leaked MediaDefender emails and found some very interesting things. Apparently, the New York Attorney General's office is working on a big anti-piracy sting and they were working on finding viable targets. It also discusses how some of the emails show MediaDefender trying to spy on their competitors, sanitize their own Wikipedia entry, deal with the hackers targeting their systems, and to quash the MiiVi story even while they were rebuilding it as Viide. Oh yes, they definitely read "techie, geek web sites where everybody already hates us" like Slashdot, too."
Music

Submission + - Trent Reznor Says "Steal My Music" (youtube.com)

THX-1138 writes: A few months ago, Trent Reznor (frontman of the band Nine Inch Nails), was in Australia doing an interview when he commented on the outrageous prices of CDs there. Apparently now his label, Universal Media Group is angry at him for having said that. During a concert last night , he told this to fans, "...Has anyone seen the price come down? Okay, well, you know what that means — STEAL IT. Steal away. Steal and steal and steal some more and give it to all your friends and keep on stealin'. Because one way or another these mother**** will get it through their head that they're ripping people off and that that's not right."

The YouTube link contains a video recorded by a fan that shows his full speech during the concert.

Privacy

Submission + - Symantec: warrants good "for the gumshoe days& (www.cbc.ca)

An anonymous reader writes: The (Conservative) Canadian government appears to have reversed itself, and now says that "We have not and we will not be proposing legislation to grant police the power to get information from internet companies without a warrant." But for some security experts, warrants are too 'old school': Michael Murphy, Canadian VP of Symantec, said "It might work in the gumshoe days, but things are different now".
The Courts

Submission + - RIAA Complaint Dismissed as "Boilerplate"

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "The decision many lawyers had been expecting — that the RIAA's "boilerplate" complaint fails to state a claim for relief under the Copyright Act — has indeed come down, but from an unlikely source. While the legal community has been looking towards a Manhattan case, Elektra v. Barker, for guidance, a case in which amicus briefs had been submitted by various industry groups and the US Department of Justice (see case file, and from Warner v. Cassin, a similar motion in the same Court's Westchester division, the decision instead came from Senior District Court Judge Rudi M. Brewster of the US District Court for the Southern District of California, in a decision denying a default judgment (i.e. the defendant had not even appeared in the action). Judge Brewster not only denied the default judgment motion but dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim. Echoing the words of Judge Karas at the oral argument in Barker , Judge Brewster held (pdf) that "Plaintiff here must present at least some facts to show the plausibility of their allegations of copyright infringement against the Defendant. However, other than the bare conclusory statement that on "information and belief" Defendant has downloaded, distributed and/or made available for distribution to the public copyrighted works, Plaintiffs have presented no facts that would indicate that this allegation is anything more than speculation. The complaint is simply a boilerplate listing of the elements of copyright infringement without any facts pertaining specifically to the instant Defendant. The Court therefore finds that the complaint fails to sufficiently state a claim upon which relief can be granted and entry of default judgment is not warranted.""

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