Downloading, will read. Note: last time I found a free ebook online from an author I didn't know, it was Accelerando and I ended up subsequently reading every other book by Stross, some borrowed, some purchased. So giving away a free sample like this can indeed by worthwhile.

Just a note on formatting: I initially downloaded the PDF, but saw that it's in an awful Arial font which is frankly terrible for eBooks. I downloaded the epub now and will probably spend just a few minutes running it through Pandoc and Latex to get a nicely formatted PDF.

+5 Informative.

Damn, I haven't had mod points since the update.

Agreed. But they're still going to fight for it. Clearly it's worth it to them financially speaking.

Downloading.. haven't watched the second yet (didn't know it was out) but the first episode was actually pretty intriguing. It pretty much had no effects, no stunt shots, just actors doing a good job of making us believe that something curious was happening.

It's nice to see homegrown sci-fi being done, since I have no doubt they'll manage to at least equal or even best what we've been seeing out of the networks lately, minus their over-reliance on special effects to "wow" their audience. Good stories can be told without a big budget. Considering the absolutely terrible job that television has been doing lately at making science fiction, it really reinforces the notion that good stories require good writing, above and beyond anything else that goes into a show; although editing, direction, production, etc., are all important, good writing and good acting are more important, and it happens that if you find some good talent, these can be had at low cost if you're careful about how you run things. Often the best art is made under difficult budget constraints.

> Problem for who?

Problem for competition, the foundation of capitalism, on which our economy purportedly depends.

It's not a problem for users. It's certainly not a problem for Apple. It's a problem for independent developers, who now need to seek approval from a central middle-man in order to distribute and sell their work. This centralization of the decision-making behind what you can use on what devices enables anti-competitive behaviour, it enables censorship, and generally enables all sorts of things we usually consider "bad" in Western schools of thought.

The idea being promoted by those against the App Store model is not that we should not make computers easier to use; clearly an App Store does that. But it's a value judgement: the loss of freedom and competition inherent in this model are not trade-offs that are worth the increase in usability, however good it might be. We think "free" (in the sense of "freedom to develop and sell what you want") is more important to the economy and society as a whole than making things easier for end users. These are principles worth fighting for.

If an App Store-like ease of use experience can be designed that does not have these trade-offs in terms of centralization of distribution, then we can talk.

I clicked on the blind listening test link expecting to see some statistics, but instead we just got a bunch of opinions that may or may not mean anything. (And some admission of non-blindness in the case of detectable hiss, meaning they listened to the cards before starting the blind test.)

You can't do a blind listening test without taking down some numbers and comparing them to the probability of 50%. If the results are more significantly likely than chance, you can't conclude anything.

Frankly, I'm disappointed, since this could have been the most useful part of the discussion.

That script looks super useful, thanks!

Firstly, it's too bad the military-industrial climate in the US means that the first "application" of such technology is towards "the soldier of the future". I see such a "strength-enhancing" technology as more useful in contexts like warehouse management, replacing forklifts, rather than soldiering, where I'd think that "small, quick and light" would be virtues. As mentioned in other comments, "helping old people" is how they think of this kind of thing in Japan. (Though it makes me laugh to think about a grandfather type wearing such a gigantic exoskeleton to do the groceries..)

Anyways, the real point of my post was to think about safety issues. Every time I see exoskeleton technology, it makes me think about the fact that acceleration-based positive feedback control has a tendency to "explode" if you're not very careful. I'd be afraid of putting such a suit on for fear of it ripping my arm off if something malfunctioned. What kind of safety restrictions are in place on this thing?

By positive feedback, I mean: In a typical control situation, you'd have sensors that can tell you, 'hey you're pulling really hard on the arm right now and there is a lot of resistance, so stop.' However in this case, I'd imagine the logic is more like 'hey you're pulling really hard on the arm right now, and there is a lot of resistance, meaning the guy needs more help, so pull harder!'

This may or may not be his thing, depending on what kind of a person he is, but try to get him into graphics coding. Introduce him to Processing for example, or one of the many similar projects. (It's certainly no replacement for someone who wants to do "hands on" art, but it's a suggestion that fits your requirement of enabling graphic arts without requiring input precision.)

And yet, you are posting on Slashdot.

I don't know.. I hate advertising too, but think about it.. all the books I could read, legally free, and all I have to do is skip a few pages every now and then? This doesn't sound like a bad deal at all. Just like reading magazines, in fact, which everyone's already pretty accustomed to. If this means more books for everyone, bring it on!

Speaking of magazines, it only makes sense that mags would eventually start encroaching on the ebook platform. Heck, the fact that I currently can't read magazines on my reader kind of sucks, so again, bring it on!

I would argue that even from the most hard-right libertarian point of view, the only job of the government is to ensure that markets stay free. This includes preventing the purchase of monopolies, so that small businesses have a chance to provide equal or better service than the big players. Net neutrality should be in the interests of anyone who believes in the free market.

The idea that the right has gotten into its head that government regulation should stay out of the market is wrong, not because regulation is some kind of socialist mindset, but because in the hard-right view of things, the only role of the government is to play "cop", to catch cheaters and make sure the market always runs smoothly and is an even playing field for all.

Just one more reason to watch what you post, folks.

But won't "watching what we post" only serve to lessen the dilution of social media "behaviour", making it even easier for classifiers to pick out outliers?

Put another way, if we act ashamed of ourselves and play cards close to the chest, won't this simply encourage conformal social behaviour and help to undo the social upheaval of the 60's?

In other words, while I agree that making yourself look stupid on the internet is not the smartest move, I would also say that asking everyone to "watch what they say" for fear of future repercussion sounds somewhat doubleplusungood to me.

In other words, we need to figure how to let teenagers be teenagers. It scares me, but I agree with Eric Schmidt that it might one day be necessary to let people change their name when they get to a certain age, similar to how we let people clean their criminal record at 18.

Legend Of The Bouncing Beholder

Tiny chess

Tetris with sound

WOLF1K and the rainbow characters

Binary clock

Mother fucking lasers

Graphical layout engine

Crazy multiplayer 2-sided Pong

Morse code generator

Pulsing 3d wires