I used to hate the fact that people would put on their turn signal only _after_ they started to turn. Then I realized that it was just a dialect problem: these people obvious call it the "turned signal."

By the way, I haven't posted for some time and I see that I can no longer insert any HTML tags in postings. Do I need to enable one of the giant swarm of domains that Noscript is blocking on the page or go to some obscure prefs page or what?

<blockquote>If we gather all material of our solar system I doubt we would be able to make a reasonable sized Dyson Sphere which is a single atom thick.</blockquote>

I didn't know atoms were so big. As a back-of-envelope thing, I worked out the area of a sphere around one A.U. in radius. It's around 108686793600000000 square miles (I live in the U.S., so sue me). The volume of the earth, assuming a radius of 4000 miles, is around 268083199987 cubic miles. Now, if we divide that by the area, we get a thickness of around 0.15 inch. And that's just using the material making up the earth.

Of course, maybe I dropped a zero or something somewhere.
</blockquote>

The last time I seriously tried to use the map app was in November. I wanted to visit a Volkswagen dealer that I knew was in the area, but not its exact location. I searched for "Volkswagen" and it showed me six hits around the metro area. None of them were the VW dealer, though one did include the string "Volkswagen" in its name. All of them were further away than the dealership, too. At other times, searching shows me locations in the San Francisco Bay area when I am in Minnesota. As far as I can tell, the "side effects of an early launch" are still there and the map app has been demoted to the back page of my phone again.

Apparently the editors assume people read Slashdot all day long. I caught this at 1000 CST on the 17th (it was posted at around 1800 on the 16th)--long after it was of any interest. A day or two ahead of time would be more useful.

I'm not sure if you're agreeing with me or not, but if you aren't, then how does this not mean that you're obliged to open the source? You're obliged to follow the law, and if you don't you'll get punished for it. Am I misinterpreting the word obliged? Because that to me is a perfect usage of the word obliged. Correct me if I'm wrong but is everybody thinking I'm saying forced? Because I'm not. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/obliged

I did not read the whole report but there is absolutely no mention of severity in that press release... nor does it mention how they counted them. Are these defects that have been acknowledged and fixed? From what I can see it's entirely possible that they've counted the THOUSANDS of trivial defects that Firefox discloses and fixes as a matter of course while Microsoft will only disclose the severe ones.

Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I must say, it leaves me somewhat perplexed, because on the one hand, you seem to be a selective advocate of torture, and on the other hand, you seem to have some insight into when torture is not right.

I am confused. Who decides when torture is right, and when torture is wrong? You? pudge? the supremes? congress? George for 8 years? precedence?

What are the rules in the handbook of allowable torture?

You do seem to know the chorus to "Alice's Restaurant". The chorus is not really what I was asking you about. I think the message in that song is rather more timeless than the Vietnam War, or a restaurant. In fact, I do not even think the Vietnam War is mentioned. But there are cops, and father rapers, and shrinks, and draft exams, and getting bailed out of jail, and 8 by 10 color glossy photos.

Arlo is a pretty interesting person.

Ciao,

James

I should also proof read. Apologies. :D

I'm reading that book, too, after I finished "Coders At Work" by Peter Seibel. Ken Thompson is one of the coders interviewed in that book, so it's worth the read if you're interested in what he's working on at Google.

Fine! You've chosen to do business with authors who have decided that they're not worried if you make a million of your anonymous internet friends reproductions of what you've purchased. That's working for you, and the authors involved seem to think, so far, that it's working for them. What's not to like?

In the meantime, other authors have chosen to be more picky about their copyrights. If you find that to be wrong-headed, then don't do business with them. But don't encourage ripping them off, either, as so many people do.

As someone who does a lot of lifting I hear this a lot. I tell people when they say this that there are a few types of people at the gym using the free weights. You have those that are trying to build strength, those that are trying to "get in shape", and those that are showing off. Those that are there to get in shape may be to lose weight, or get ripped take you pick. But the only people that are problematic are those that are there to show off. They are easy to spot as they are the ones who tend to make the most noise by banging weights, grunting and just in general trying to draw attention to either their physique or the amount they lift. These people tend to not be the most ripped, or the strongest. Those that are actually there to really build strength or get in shape won't look down at someone just starting out as they view them as at least they are trying. If you ask one of the people who is building strength or getting in shape (not those showing off) for help on how to do a lift or for a spot they will usually help out so you learn how to do it correctly. I fall into the strength category when I go to they gym and have been asked numerous time how did I get so strong which is I have been lifting hard for 3 years. The way to get to start off light and get the technique down first. If you haven't lifted before the next day you will be sore but after about 2 weeks you should stop being sore after working out as you body is now starting to get back into shape.

Glenn Beck long ago gave up any right to make that argument. In fact, that was the whole point of the website in question.

He creates rumor and slander on his shows and in his writing, and defends it with his First Amendment rights. For him to then turn around and whine(or sue) when someone gives him a taste of his own medicine is entirely hypocritical. Not that it's surprising that he's a hypocrite, it's really the only way to be as ideological as he tries to be.

Sometimes the lecturers are forced to do this kind of inane crap, especially if they're new. My wife's friend has been teaching at a community college for a couple years, and apparently the school mandated that, since they installed these fancy computers in all the classrooms, the lecturers better either get tenure or start using the computers for all their teaching aides.

I generally notice that the professors that know their material the most are the ones that feel comfortable writing on the chalkboard, maybe with just a few notes in front of them. The best ones are the ones that just walk in and start talking about the material as if it were their life story. The best example I can think of is my thermodynamics professor who went straight through things as complicated as the Grand Canonical Partition Function with just a page or two of notes.

The truth is, a professor that really knows his/her material can teach it in any manner. And it doesn't just take command of the subject, but they also have to have good oration skills, good communication, a good presence in front of a crowd.... Then again, most universities in the US hire you based on your research credentials, so why does anyone really care if a Professor can teach?

Bloom filters give constant time probablistic answers to set membership questions in a very space efficient manner. Moreover set union and intersection for the filters can be computed by simple AND and OR operations--also in constant time. The downside is that delete is hard. That union and intersection property means that it's easy to distribute query's over an arbitrary number of machines. Sounds kind of perfect to me for implementing a distributed index for searching, no?