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http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1555 690025/qid=1131181257/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl 14/103-8559000-3491026?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

eh, wish I knew of someplace to download it, or buy it on CD.. but there ya go.

It's really too bad the books cover sucks so bad. I would've expected something a little nicer than a compass. And also.... they didn't capitalize all of CISO on the cover. As you would normally do when using an Acronym.

Since when is Ciso a word?

The Ciso Handbook

I really don't get the emotional attachment to tools.

Time to read Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things then. Not the best book on the subject, but one of the most convincing. Norman has been stressing functionality all his live, until he found out that people care less about functionality when the product they are using is nice (funny, or beautiful, or in any other way satisfying) enough.
And remember: basically everything you use is a tool, your car, your aplliances, your clothing, your food. And all these items are primarily sold through branding - emotional attachment.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0849319528

Right, before some one accidently beleives you on this being a fake http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html/ref=sc_fe_r_1 _3435361_1/103-5211148-7135016?_encoding=UTF8&node =15879911&no=3435361&me=A36L942TSJ2AJA Thats the link to the article, on the amazon.com domain name, talking about the turk.

10 years to landon the moon?!?!? How many cows do they have tied up to the booster housing?

I could see 3 to 5 years, but this isn't exactly new rocket science, is it? Is there some matter of the Russians and Americans not sharing with them, or are the Chinese just so proud they want to do it all themselves?

The United States unveiled a $104 billion plan in September to return Americans to the moon by 2018.

I fully don't understand that. NASA already knows how to do it. Why the foot dragging? They got to the Moon practically at Warp Speed compared to this mission. It's a sad day to learn all my Sci-Fi books will be further wrong on projections of lunar colonies, etc.

China was designing a rocket that could carry a payload of 25 tons, up from a present limit of eight tons, the Beijing News reported this week, though it would unlikely be ready for another six-and-a-half years.

Time to chuck the abacus and get some computers in those hands.

They should land just in time for the 100th Starbucks opening.

As i've said before, i took the class years ago and there's no way i can remember the specifics. In general it was the usual things you'd expect to find in archeological digs, pottery shards and walls and anything else they tended to put writing on back then. I asked someone who took the class with me and she happened to remember the name of the textbook we used, so if you're really that interested go check out The Bible and the Ancient Near East. There were also some additional references we used, but the textbook should hopefully have most of it.

You can buy the strategy guide here: Shadow of the Colossus Official Strategy Guide. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!

You can buy the strategy guide here: Shadow of the Colossus Official Strategy Guide. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!

Save yourself some money by buying the book here: The CISO Handbook. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!

Save yourself some money by buying the book here: The CISO Handbook. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!

I feel like I'm trying to be heard over the "me too"s of a million AOL users. Why is this scam still on the /. front page?!?

The /. article points to www.mturk.com. Amazon points to http://mturk.amazon.com./ For those just learning to read, know that these are TWO DIFFERENT SITES. Get it straight. The /. site is NOT Amazon.com. I don't know how this got by Zonk's radar. WTF? G0ddamn scammers.

The A9 thing is pretty neat. Doing a 'virtual drive-by' is helpful so you can see that the place you're looking for is just a few doors down from something that stands out (like a fast food place).

Here's a nice starting point to play with (it's the (Mann) Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollyweird) for the maps.a9.com experience.

Here's an example of the first hit searching for "Sex" in Los Angeles at the Yellow Pages site (yp.a9.com) - I guess the City of Los Angeles keeps track of sex acts in the Hall of Records?

Thats great and all for the digital front, but dont forget about the social front. Thats where most threats come from anyway AFAIK. Art of Deception, covers nearly all social fronts, and how to help defend against social engineers. Not suggesting this as a replacement, but as a supplement.

Or just, you know, look at the fact that the Turk will, by default, display the name and address you've given to Amazon as your contact info, and conclude that yeah, it's an Amazon property

Then tell me, why would Amazon promote it on their site, themselves, as shown here below?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html/ref=sc_fe_c_1 _3435361_1/103-1222474-4643020?_encoding=UTF8&node =15879911&no=3435361&me=A36L942TSJ2AJA

Also, if it's the WHOIS record that's concerning you, remember that it might be out dated. Also take into consideration that this is still a beta project.

It's legit. The url is strange for amazon, and the whois looks dodgy, but this is from Amazon's website.

Mechanical Turk info

Much of this legislation is driven trying to protect a dying business model. Every week you will hear on E! or whatever show does the movie numbers and hear that a movie did 50M or whatever. The higher ticket prices mask a trend that has been happening since the early 80's. Less people are going to the movies. Part of the problem is demographics, at least in California. 80% movie audience in the theater is between 15-30. The group that is behind the bady boomers is smaller, not the same or larger in size. When you build you business model on assumption that your business will grow, at minimum, with the population, your are now getting rude shock. This is true in the US/Canada and the EU. Oddly enough, the Economist has asked whether it is the governments place to protect business models that are dying?

This of course is just one of several problems facing the MIAA and RIAA. There is also a the issue of other devices, media (internet, obviously) competing for our leisure time. This has been discussed here in the past.

There are a number of Slashdot stories dating back as far as the 1998 speaking to the lack of quality product being delivered. One the contributing factors that brought done Heath Insurance in 2001 was the insuring of some really bad movies. Given how much money the studios are spending on movie, the reality is, that nobody is going to take chances. The largest most cynical difference between what is slowly happening to the movie business and what HAS happened in IT, they have great lobbyist and lots of money to protect their business model. In the http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0374 292884/qid=1131120891/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/103- 1240697-8592637?v=glance&s=booksThe World is Flat", Friedman makes a case that in the new flat earth, it is innovate, adapt or perish (ok he said, get left behind).

A URL on amazon.com's site about this is here

There is reference to this from amzon's site. On the left hand sidebar, uner the "Make Money" heading, there is a "web services" link. Click on this and you will see reference to the Mechanical Turk service.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html/104-3920625-1 620764?node=3435361

"Announcing Amazon Mechanical Turk (November 02, 2005)
Today, humans still significantly outperform the most powerful computers at completing such simple tasks as identifying objects in photographs - something children can do even before they learn to speak. However, ..."

Ok, nevermind. Follow this path:

Go to http://www.amazon.com/

Scroll way down, and on the left hand side under "Make Money" and click "Web Services". On the resulting page, you'll see MTurk being advertised.

At last, here is an official page on the Amazon site:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html/ref=sc_fe_r_1 _3435361_1/103-6895399-1861459?_encoding=UTF8&node =15879911&no=3435361&me=A36L942TSJ2AJA [amazon.com]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html/104-1026772-4 777552?node=15879911

"If you are a software developer and would like to learn more about using Amazon Mechanical Turk APIs, click here."

The link ultimately goes to:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html/104-7108086-1 879910?node=15879911

Which has links back to www.mturk.com

Looks legitimate, unless someone has really managed to pull one over on Amazon (and if so, why put it on its own domain?)

"If you are a software developer and would like to learn more about using Amazon Mechanical Turk APIs, click here."

The link ultimately goes to:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html/104-7108086-1 879910?node=15879911

Which has links back to www.mturk.com

Looks legitimate, unless someone has really managed to pull one over on Amazon (and if so, why put it on its own domain?)

I had lunch with a guy yesterday who works at Amazon and said "Hey we just launched this cool web service called Mechanical Turk."

There is an announcement from Amazon.

It is on amazon right here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html/ref=sc_fe_l_2 /104-0856920-6487152?_encoding=UTF8&node=15879911& no=3435361&me=A36L942TSJ2AJA

When you try to login, the login page is amazon's genuine page sitting on https://www.amazon.com./ You can verify for yourself but there's nothing phishy here (pun intended). I have to admit the whois record is not very enticing though.

It looks like it's legit: there's a write up and link about it on Amazon's developer site: http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html/ref=sc_fe_c_1 _3435361_1/104-2932488-4463107?_encoding=UTF8&node =15879911&no=3435361&me=A36L942TSJ2AJA

Amazon has a page on their site about MTurk

Debugging the Development Process by Steve Maguire has some interesting insight (mostly as asides or side-bars) into the cross-platform nature of Office, in particular Excel, because Maguire was one of the driving forces between getting the core functionality to be cross-platform. Before that there was a constant disparity in features between the Mac and Windows versions.

And here is another quite interesting history of Word, in case you think it's a latecomer to Windows.

http://mturk.amazon.com/ redirects to it

Well, mturk.amazon.com redirects you to www.mturk.com... seems to imply something.

Then buy this book, file the storyline patents and let the licensing fees come rolling in.

Wait - did we just find Step 2?

And what's the problem here?

That it's OK with anybody to take away someone's belongings simply because they have them and they think they have a better idea of what to do with them. This goes against basic human nature. A bonobo would rip another's nuts off for that kind of behavior.

Shift the assets into productive assets to generate tax-free income.

So, "invest our way or we're taking away your property?" Sounds like there will be dancing on Wall Street.

Even a conservative investor should be able to find something that beats the tax rate (IMHO granting that I haven't nailed down a tax rate here). ...or accounted for a bear market or a down period or a market crash. I can't imagine your rate will be lower than a CD (1.7% @ 5 years at my bank). If it's lower than treasuries than the government will lose money in the net.

I should mention that if there is a valid problem with people having to sell homes to pay taxes, then one could set up a tax exemption for a certain value from a first home.

Who cares - you've already taken away everything inside the widow's home so it's of no real use to her now. Or would you let her keep her couch and stove too? What if the value of her house and its belongings were $1.2M? Let's make her move? Who's going to go through her house and decide what she can keep and what she has to hawk? As life extension technologies become commonplace this is just going to get worse - we want old people to have wealth so they don't drain our pockets when they're 118.

But someone who has benefited from the US economy to the point that they have a large amount of non-productive wealth should be paying taxes.

They've already paid taxes in order to accumulate this wealth according to their social contract.

I won't argue this point. Any asset tax will diminish the value of wealth particularly non-productive wealth.

Thereby bringing the bourgeoisie down to the level of the proletariat... smells familiar.

OTOH, it aligns government with the goal of increasing wealth accumulation. After all, tax revenue goes down if the government can't grow the value of the assets it is taxing.

Actually, tax revenues go up if the government reduces the amount of assets it's taxing. Look at the effect of the recent tax cuts on revenues from personal income in the 2004 tax year. Remember how the tax cuts were going to further drive the country into debt? Instead, the receipts went up, what, $200B? Because the money is more productive in the private sector, creating more income, thereby creating more revenues for the treasury at the same rate of GDP growth. We tested it experimentally, and found the Laffer curve is real, at least at the tested levels.

In today's world, the US is more interested in increasing "consumer" spending than in increasing wealth.

You say that like it's a good thing.

Lots of people have done this type of analysis, and it is quite valuable. That doesn't mean that the subject matter is without merit, however. EVERY Simpsons episode has followed roughly the same structure for ten years, and it still captivates audiences. Ever notice that the first 5 minutes have nothing to do with the next 25? Yup, that's the one.

Someone is going to mod me up for saying this, then mod me down for being obvious, but read The Hero with a Thousand Faces. It goes into painstaking detail about the idealized hero story, and yet the structure fits tons of popular and historical media such as Terminator 2, Heart of Darkness, Cowboy Bebop, Tarzan, Blade, Odysseus, the new testament in the Bible, etc, etc.

There are several other structures out there, and nearly infinite variants, but if you look at media with a critical eye you will find that all good films, books, shows, and games fall into set patterns of challenges, setbacks, losses, and eventual triumph (or not). If I may be so bold, most truly great pieces of media aren't made by artists, but by craftsmen. An artist explores their feelings as they create, producing something which is generally more intellectually engaging than emotionally so. A craftsman knows every tool of their trade, and hones their skills, tricks, and abilities towards controlling the viewer's reaction. Spielberg is a master craftsman. Vonnegut is a craftsman. Even in artistic pieces like Y Tu Mama Tambien, the craftsmanship is present and in the forefront.

I say this because too many people try to create media from the heart, without realizing that you really need to engage your head thoroughly in order to focus on how to effect the heart of your audience. These people are master magicians: they conjure up images and emotions using smoke and mirrors. And like master magicians, they have to know the routines, and know how to work the routines so that they don't seem like routines. Part of the magic is taking something that was slaved over for years, with every detail hashed out and revised in painstaking detail, and making it look completley natural and unintended.

But there is magic, there is structure. And if you want to become a magician, you need to give up the magic and learn how it is done.

Probably one of the big mistakes they made was marginalizing Jim Clark, who founded the company. Michael Lewis's book on Clark, The New New Thing is well worth reading.

Posted this somewhere else, copied in cause I don't feel like typing it all up again:

"I was reading around online earlier today on a tech website and ran across a post about 33hz (a frequency of sound) and women having orgasms. The thought of using sound for pleasureable sensations had never occurred to me. Instantly I was once again envying women for their wonderful ratio of low input (handsfree vibrator) to pleasure. Obviously in this case, the girl would sit on top of my subwoofer. But what about for a guy?

Well my sound system is a Logitech z5500. Its subwoofer is 187 Watts, has a 10" driver, and is has INCREDIBLE bass. If you love music I'd highly recommend picking this up (well also for the reason of this thread lol), as its usually $275-300. Here it is:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002WPSBC/002-33 47844-8097620?v=glance&n=541966&n=507846&s=pc&v=gl ance

So I thought: "How in the world I could get some stimulation without the direct speaker->clothing->genitals contact that women can have (through sitting...gosh I am jealous...good car sound system..._fun_ driving...)?" Well I came up with an idea...that hole in the side of the subwoofer is there to ensure no bass gets muffled. When you turn up the volume on a song with bass and put your hand by the hole, you can feel a TON of air moving with the beats...as is the nature of bass.

So I'll need a good song, or better, a program that simply produces bass, and tons of it. So I googled some and found AudioTester:
http://www.audiotester.de/
After playing around with my sound system and the program, I found anything from 20-30 hertz to be optimal...The actual range of the system is 33 hertz, but it does go lower, it just needs more power to do so. I chose 26 (although 23 might have been better).

Well sticking myself in there of course didn't work...vibrating air doesn't do anything. So I kept thinking...I usually use some soft clothing (like pajamas) when I masturbate (great results)...so why don't I wrap myself up as usual and try that way? While I couldn't absorb the air vibrations by myself, the clothing did the trick and picked up all the vibrations and transfered them to me. Even better, I was able to catch all the bass coming out of the whole and muffle it, which greatly decreased the noise (not much sound from the diaphram on the face of the speaker). I was able to do this without cranking it up that high at all, which was good, considering I'm in a dorm room and didn't want people interrupting me.

IT WORKS! I've found an effortless way to enjoy myself! Hurray for sound systems! Not only were the vibrations transfered to my shaft, but with all the cloth quickly contacting/leaving my skin as a result of the pulsating air, the sensation was awesome! I don't know how long it took me, but it was rather quick. I'm so excited now! You other guys should go get this system, some pajamas and have some fun! I think it would work for you women as well...either sitting on top of the subwoofer or turning it on its side and sitting on the hole/maybe using a tshirt as a diaphram to pick up of the vibrations, get some momentum/force, and hit you.

I'll have to come up with a way to make the bass pulsate for more effect, maybe replace the bass of a good song with this 23hz stuff and turn down the rest so that the volume level is proportional.

Let me know if anyone else tries this!
"

What the guy who just shot your brains to the wall did wasn't a murder.

You also failed to mention that gun was actually labelled "may cause harm to target" (the CD was explicitly said to have hostile intent against its users, therefore whatever foreign code it contained, could be assumed to do something bad). It wasn't accidental suicide, it was either deliberate, or at best, due to extreme recklessness/carelessness (e.g. someone pointed a gun at their own head and pulled the trigger, thinking it wasn't loaded -- oops).

When it comes to deliberate suicide, hell yes I blame the "victim."

I run a brick-and-mortar business that is profitable, growing, and even has actual physical assets, yet I can't raise a few hundred grand to open some new stores. I must be doing something terribly wrong if these guys can get money for an idea for a program that they'll give away once it's complete (or if it's ever completed).

In case you haven't heard of this book: The Portable MBA in Entrepreneurship

I think that book will help you with jumping through the hoops in getting money. In nutshell, have a written plan on how you'll use the money or better yet, a business plan and have plenty of evidence that opening those stores will generate the extra $$$ to pay off the loan. I'd advise staying away from VCs. They'll want an ROI of at least 40% a year and then they'll fuck you.

Some amplification:

It is true that if you compare the base-level architecture of VAX VMS to NT 3.1, you *will* see striking similarities, including the mutation of the RPC to an "LPC" using the precursor to Named Pipes in NT 3.1; however, as a former member of the NT 3.1 DevTeam under Ken Gregg and S. Somassegar I can make certain categorical statements:

1) There is no VMS code within NT, as far back as NT 3.1

2) The *only* bits of OS/2 that were included in NT 3.1 were for the OS/2 Subsystem to provide for the running of OS/2 Character-mode applications, just as there are POSIX bits to provide for NT 3.1's support for POSIX & POSIX-compliant applications.

3) NT was *not* developed from OS/2, but were developed in-parallel - which caused the rift between IBM and Microsoft and the dropping of Microsoft's involvement in OS/2.

4) "NT" stood for "New Technology", which is exactly what NT was within the PC Industry. The ideas may have migrated when Dave and his team moved to Microsoft from DEC, but NT was totally new from the ground up.

Regarding Mr. Russinovich's "analysis"; he's about as far off the target as the linux-fanboys make their yearly claim that "Linux will be fully accepted by regular computers users this year".

If you *really* want the whole story about NT and it's development, read "SHOWSTOPPER" - available at Amazon via this URL:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0029 356717/qid=1131056728/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-8665 403-3011016?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Enjoy!

--ScottKin

The additional population will have much larger impact than you think; more than just 50%

I did. I couldn't find anyone. The only two promising candidates I did find don't qualify:

- Lee Spetner (a Nobel Prize-winning biophysicist with a PhD from MIT) attacks Darwinian evolution, but at no point endorses Intelligent Design as a theory. In fact, on closer examination he argues that macroevolution does in fact occur - just not in the Darwinian fashion (see the 'From the Author' section).

- Frank Tipler (a mathematical physicist, currently a professor at Tulane) may believe in intelligent design, but I have been unable to find any evidence that he believes this is a scientific theory and should be taught in schools. The Wikipedia article on the ID movement states that he sympathises with the aims of the Discovery Institute, but I have been unable to find any quote or statement from him to this effect and for this reason I believe the article is inaccurate. Furthermore, his one generally publicised work on the subject of creation (The Anthropomorphic Cosmology Principle) focuses not on conventional ID but a similar argument unrelated to evolution (that the constants of the universe appear to be finely tuned to allow intelligent life to arise).

I haven't read the books, so correct me if I'm wrong.

That said, intelligent design is a very recent version of creationism that does not require that the Christian God is the 'intelligence' in question, since that part of the equation would be very difficult to prove (as per your complaint).

It doesn't require the Christian God, true, but the presence of any intelligence at all in the process makes no falsifiable predictions that I can see.

I'd like to digress here too -- much of the complaint by those who wish to have these other ideas pointed out in said science classrooms is simply that much of evolutionary theory (in terms of 'origin of the species', or what creationists often call 'macro-evolution') has numerous problems and holes (no I'm not going to enumerate here, this is Slashdot) despite its various predictions.

Speaking as someone who hasn't made a detailed study of the evidence in support as macroevolution, I can't truthfully say I know the theory's without holes - even gaping holes. I believe it is, because the principle makes sense and the scientists who have examined the evidence mostly believe it, but I acknowledge that belief without full examination of the evidence is worth very little.

However, evolution does at least have a good deal of evidence in favour of it, in the form of microevolution, statistical data and paleontological finds. I haven't seen any evidence in favour of intelligent design - all of the arguments in favour of it seem to focus exclusively on attacking evolution rather than proving intelligent design. In other words, even if evolution is false, it does not follow that intelligent design is true and there is no evidence to support the idea. I could be wrong here - tell me if you know any arguments.

The complaint leads to 'why are uneducated teachers refering to evolution as a factual account of the origin of life on earth when so many people disagree?' Again, cf. the poll by (CNN?) showing that a vast majority of americans believe a 'god' created the planet and humanity as it is now.

The fact that a large number of people disagree with a statement doesn't make it false. Counterexample for the American population: "America won Vietnam". I could also argue that the lack of belief simply reflects a lack of education, or poor education, about the concept of evolution. For example, the m

My personal preferred tax system is the Flat Rate system, assuming it's applied properly (ie get rid of exemptions) and to companies, as in use in some Eastern European countries (eg Estonia). In this one you set a flat rate that every one pays, at a level that means overall tax income is the same, but gets rid of thousands of bureaucrats and puts millions of lawyers out of work. One ExxonMobil sized company paying 18% instead of 11% would probably allow everyone's tax bill to drop a couple of percentage points.

No doubt there are problems with it, but a simple system always works better than complex one.

You think you're tardy!

I've only just begun to play with the idea of religion as a mental illness. The recent moves on the part of Intelligent Design advocates caused me to consider a range of responses.
I'll grant you that a lot of Intelligent Design advocates are probably guilty of at least a modicum of schizophrenia. I certainly don't think it's appropriate to tar all religious or spiritual people with that brush.

I've read Freud advocated approaching religion as a mental illness
I can't say I've ever heard any references to Freud that made me want to find out more about the man's psychological theories. They pretty well usually sounded to me like flimsy hand-waving at best, harmful claptrap at worst. Jung' theories I can at least occasionally swallow.

so I asked myself what characteristics would induce a psychosis along the lines of religious belief, most especially, the Judaic-Christian belief system. My initial sketch is set out in my recent journal entry, the sketch is very tentative and perhaps not worth reading at this point but feel free to read and have a laugh or pick it apart.
Susan Blackmore lays out a reasonable basis in The Meme Machine for suspecting that susceptibility to religious belief is an inherited genetic trait. If such is the case, then two people, Pope Gregory VII and Nicholas Machievelli, are probably the most responsible for the secularisation of Western Europe. The former is responsible for formally enforcing the tradition that priests and bishops must be celibate, thus taking the strongest believers out of the reproducing gene pool (and selecting for priests with unusual sexual preferences as the strong believers become more rare). Machiavelli, in my opinion, participated by providing the political theory that led to the formation of professional armies that did not rape in conquered lands.

I recommend this graphics system, it is much less expensive than the VTech and Leapfrog systems, has an infinite variety of software available, has a low learning curve, and kids enjoy it tremendously.

Sure, SD cable is horrible. SD off the air is far better. Both are only 480i, though, and will pale when compared to a true 480p DVD (plus DVDs have been greatly cleaned up compared to a standard broadcast). Plus, the TheaterTek software I mentioned before is a miracle working when it comes to all of this stuff. Incredible software. I pipe all of this through a Media Center Edition PC that is upscaling the picture to 1920x1080p. Additionally, the latest Catalyst drivers for ATI are performing image enhancements within the GPU itself. Switching back and forth between the TV's tuner and the MCEPC is hugely different.

As for serious, I have spent over 6 hours calibrating my TV with the AVIA disk (which doesn't make me a huge fanatic, but I believe I am pretty serious about it). Any serious Home Theatre person wouldn't be caugth dead without one....

I actually met the man last year at the Clearwater Folk Festival in Croton, NY. He is very old but I wonder if he knows/what he thinks about this... I doubt he would be very happy with the situation. I also agree that this is the surest way to put Sony in a pinch. Let the artists know that you aren't buying their album because Sony has 'infected it with DRM.' If artists (especially well established ones like Seeger) complain that is certainly more powerful than me telling Sony they have lost a customer.

I also dug up one of Seeger's famous quotes:
"Plagiarism is the basis of all culture." Seeger quoting his father. (not completely applicable in this case but close)