Comment Makes sense (Score 5, Interesting) 192
They probably noticed that scientists can do things like prove that Russian elections are rigged.
They probably noticed that scientists can do things like prove that Russian elections are rigged.
Of course, they can do whatever they want. It's not like anybody's going to read their book.
The OED is widely considered to the finest and most authoritative dictionary of the English language. Every serious English language scholar has access to and consults the OED.
That's not the OED definition. This is the OED definition:
1. a. A book which explains or translates, usually in alphabetical order, the words of a language or languages (or of a particular category of vocabulary)
"Particular category of vocabulary" is understood to include phrases.
A phrase doesn't deserve its own entry
So you would exclude "fait accompli" and "juste milieu" from the dictionary?
You go from on the order of 170,000 words to practically damn uncountable
Wikipedia says that the OED has about 750,000 entries.
They should add
Twerk'); DROP TABLE Verbs; --
Read Brett Victor's A Brief Rant on the Future of Interactive Design if you want to understand why haptic feedback designs are superior.
This gem was written about Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science":
Why you are reading this review
I can only imagine how fortunate you must feel to be reading my review. This review is the product of my lifetime of experience in meeting important people and thinking deep thoughts. This is a new kind of review, and will no doubt influence the way you
think about the world around you and the way you think of yourself.
Bigger than infinity
Although my review deserves thousands of pages to articulate, I am limiting many of my deeper thoughts to only single characters. I encourage readers of my review to dedicate the many years required to fully absorb the significance of what I am writing here. Fortunately, we live in exactly the time when my review can be widely disseminated by "internet" technology and stored on "digital media", allowing current and future scholars to delve more deeply into my original and insightful use of commas, numbers, and letters.
My place in history
My review allows, for the first time, a complete and total understanding not only of this but *every single*
book ever written. I call this "the principle of book equivalence." Future generations will decide the relative merits of this review compared with, for example, the works of Shakespeare. This effort will open new realms of scholarship.
I am the author of all things
It is staggering to contemplate that all the great works of literature can be derived from the letters I use in writing this review. I am pleased to have shared them with you, and hereby grant you the liberty to use up to twenty (20) of them consecutively without attribution. Any use of additional characters in print must acknowledge this review as source material since it contains, implicitly or explicitly, all future written documents.
This story was in the Washington Post back in April.
The term "weapon of mass destruction" has a legal definition, which you can find here. The definition of a "destructive device" is here, which I'll quote parts of.
Relevant part of 18 USC 2332a:
(2) the term “weapon of mass destruction” means—
(A) any destructive device as defined in section 921 of this title;
(B) any weapon that is designed or intended to cause death or serious bodily injury through the release, dissemination, or impact of toxic or poisonous chemicals, or their precursors;
(C) any weapon involving a biological agent, toxin, or vector (as those terms are defined in section 178 of this title); or
(D) any weapon that is designed to release radiation or radioactivity at a level dangerous to human life; and
(3) the term “property” includes all real and personal property.
Relevant part of 18 USC 921
(4) The term “destructive device” means—
(A) any explosive, incendiary, or poison gas—
(i) bomb,
(ii) grenade,
(iii) rocket having a propellant charge of more than four ounces,
(iv) missile having an explosive or incendiary charge of more than one-quarter ounce,
(v) mine, or
(vi) device similar to any of the devices described in the preceding clauses;
(B) any type of weapon (other than a shotgun or a shotgun shell which the Attorney General finds is generally recognized as particularly suitable for sporting purposes) by whatever name known which will, or which may be readily converted to, expel a projectile by the action of an explosive or other propellant, and which has any barrel with a bore of more than one-half inch in diameter; and
(C) any combination of parts either designed or intended for use in converting any device into any destructive device described in subparagraph (A) or (B) and from which a destructive device may be readily assembled.
The term “destructive device” shall not include any device which is neither designed nor redesigned for use as a weapon; any device, although originally designed for use as a weapon, which is redesigned for use as a signaling, pyrotechnic, line throwing, safety, or similar device; surplus ordnance sold, loaned, or given by the Secretary of the Army pursuant to the provisions of section 4684 (2), 4685, or 4686 of title 10; or any other device which the Attorney General finds is not likely to be used as a weapon, is an antique, or is a rifle which the owner intends to use solely for sporting, recreational or cultural purposes.
The reason ZTE and Huawei aren't allowed to sell to US Government is because they (the US) can't wire-tap that gear.
That doesn't make sense. If the equipment already belong to the U.S government then they don't need to wiretap it; it would just be called "logging" of their own hardware. ZTE and Huawei are banned from selling to the U.S because of the way the Chinese government spies. Chinese spying isn't limited to attempts to break into corporate networks; their attempts are usually much more subtle. The Chinese government's approach to spying, unlike the U.S or Russian approach, doesn't use highly trained agents, because they don't need to.
What usually happens is that they will ask a person that still has relatives in China who has access to secret information to find out one small, minor thing for them. In exchange, the Chinese government will take care of your relatives back in China. If you don't comply, then the government might make things more difficult for your relatives. If the person is caught, then the espionage penalty will not be harsh because the information stolen is insignificant, and they won't reveal anything about the larger spying effort because they truthfully don't know. Then the stolen information is slowly pieced together to reveal something more significant.
Chinese companies that have branches in foreign countries that conduct legitimate business but are also used to fund and abet this kind of spying with the profits that they make. Its sort of like Los Pollos Hermanos from Breaking Bad, except that the company has an allegiance to a Latin American country and sells state secrets, not methamphetamine.
Actually, this is a good example of how wearing Google Glass can protect you from the police. If you have a video recording of the incident, it is much less like that the police BS will work in court. Unless they suppress it, of course.
> With the machines well and truly taking over, will we be using them or will they be controlling us?
The machines run Unix or Unix descendents. They'll crash, dump core and reboot before they can take over the world.
Its as if someone from the government physically followed you wherever you went and wrote down the places where you made a cell phone call and how long you talked on the phone. The also record when and where you send a text message. Almost everyone would find this unbelievably creepy.
Of course, no human actually does this for regular citizens, and no human looks at it — unless you are being investigated, which the government don't need probable cause to do (according to their interpretation of Section 215 of the PATRIOT act.) Then it really is as if someone had followed you and recorded all of this information.
sensors like accelerometers will be able to collect and report much more detailed information.
Hmm — a computing device that can collect information about the speed, acceleration, position and temperature of its host or another object, modify its host's parameters accordingly and communicate this information to another computer. We've had "killer apps" like these for years — they're called "guided missiles".
Didn't you get the memo? It wasn't a "war", it was a "police action." On a related note, the mass incarceration of peace loving, non-violent pot smokers isn't a "police action", but a "War on Drugs." God Bless America.
The moon is made of green cheese. -- John Heywood
