Slashdot Mirror

I despise this website, but I COMPLETELY agree with this proposed amendment:

"Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators or Representatives, and Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States."

http://arkansasgopwing.blogspot.com/2009/11/amendment-28-proposed-by-citizens-of.html

That's pointless.

They would claim they apply equally, you just choose to subject yourselves to the more invasive treatment by choosing to fly Commercial instead of picking a private charter.

I despise this website, but I COMPLETELY agree with this proposed amendment:

"Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators or Representatives, and Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States."

http://arkansasgopwing.blogspot.com/2009/11/amendment-28-proposed-by-citizens-of.html

The Washington Coliseum in DC has a thin-shell concrete roof supported by an odd concrete exoskeleton. The construction method is known as the Zeiss-Dywidag process.

The method was somewhat popular in the early 20th-century, but seems to have fallen from favor after WWII. That said, the Coliseum is still standing, despite a great many years of abandonment and deliberate abuse. That said, it's a prime target for historical preservation, given that it's an architectural oddity, has a rich history (the Beatles played there!), and is in dire need of repair.

Google just announced an API for PowerMeter http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2010/03/google-powermeter-api-introduced-for.html , so Adafruit's Tweet-a-Watt can brag to your followers about your home efficiency. http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2010/03/04/google-code-blog-google-powermeter-api-introduced-for-device-manufacturers/

Just yesterday I wrote a short article ( http://goo.gl/dko2 ) after reading about how Facebook are using Mathematics to help with Failure rates in their datastore clusters.

There is a 24 page presentation by Avinash Lakshman and Prashant Malik, which describes (page 17 onwards), how the company are using Probability Theory to help them detect failure in a datastore.

Probability Theory is just one area of Mathematics, and degree level Mathematics would usually include at least one or two modules in Probability.

If I were an Operations Director or Development Team Leader at a large Social Networking company, I would certainly view University Level Mathematics as +1 for anyone applying to join the team.

The short article is here and the clickable link in that article should take you directly to somewhere (slideshare, etc) where you can view the 24 page .pdf

> Why did Google initially agree to censor search results in the first place if this was their philosophy

Straight from the horse's mouth:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/01/google-in-china.html
"Obviously, the situation in China is far different than it is in those other countries; while China has made great strides in the past decades, it remains in many ways closed. We aren't happy about what we had to do this week, and we hope that over time everyone in the world will come to enjoy full access to information. But how is that full access most likely to be achieved? We are convinced that the Internet, and its continued development through the efforts of companies like Google, will effectively contribute to openness and prosperity in the world. Our continued engagement with China is the best (perhaps only) way for Google to help bring the tremendous benefits of universal information access to all our users there."

Google honestly thought that their presence might have a positive effect. It did not. They always knew they were compromising their morals/ethics/goals, in the hopes that they wouldn't have to forever. Unfortunately, it didn't play out that way.

Best Buy is the worst of all the computer/tv/tech stores I've purchased from. They charge for ridiculous 'products' and 'services' that are little more than outright scams. They have been indicted for some of them. Their prices are terrible, and they outright lie about matching others prices. This IS NOT your usual non-techy "I bought the wrong part" or techy "I know better than you" complaint. The complaints against Best Buy have to do with their criminal behavior.

http://consumerist.com/2007/05/best-buy-employee-confesses-to-scams-similar-to-ones-outlined-in-racketeering-lawsuit.html

http://bestbuyscam.blogspot.com/

http://digg.com/tech_news/Yet_just_another_Best_Buy_scam

http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/11/04/best-buy-scams-hdtv.html

http://gizmodo.com/241220/best-buy-admits-they-scam-in+store-customers-with-secret-website

http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/chicago-bar-tender/2009/10/lawsuit-best-buy-lies.html

http://www.gpsmagazine.com/2007/03/buyer_beware_best_buy_caught_t.php

Seriously, Best Buy is evil. Do not shop at Best Buy.

And his feet were the size of halibut. Or so the guy at Got Medieval says.

This is groundbreaking. Insane. I hate it, gonna put me out of my job.

I shant comment on what you do - after all, somebody needs naked midgets inserted into pictures of White House dinners - but looking at that video, I'm struck with the fact they they didn't zoom in at all. In the tiny little YouTube frame on a coarse monitor, you could hide flesh ripping raptors in the repair and it wouldn't be visible. In fact, if you look closely, you can see some bad edges even at this resolution.

Now maybe this is going to be the best thing since sliced bread, but like most of the program's more powerful tools, it's more likely to be featured on Photoshop Disasters than anything else.

http://xkcdsucks.blogspot.com/2010/01/comic-695-in-bad-spirits.html

SPIEGEL: During your career, you have kept your distance from Western style democracy. Are you still convinced that an authoritarian system is the future for Asia?

Mr. Lee: Why should I be against democracy? The British came here, never gave me democracy, except when they were about to leave. But I cannot run my system based on their rules. I have to amend it to fit my people's position. In multiracial societies, you don't vote in accordance with your economic interests and social interests, you vote in accordance with race and religion. Supposing I'd run their system here, Malays would vote for Muslims, Indians would vote for Indians, Chinese would vote for Chinese. I would have a constant clash in my Parliament which cannot be resolved because the Chinese majority would always overrule them. So I found a formula that changes that...

I'm also going to quote from another slashdot poster:

China has a long history of extremely violent and bloody revolutions. The relative political stability of the past 60 years is pretty much unprecedented. If the past is any indication, the transformation to complete freedom in China is not likely to go as peacefully as it did with the Soviet Union.

Sudden change in China usually results in the deaths of millions. They have little history of peaceful change. The government has an obligation to tread cautiously.

I guess the general idea is that the effectiveness of government matters in addition to the process by which it is arrived at, and the idea that a developed country and stable democracy like the US (civil war notwithstanding) will somehow establish itself if only more freedoms are granted is likely naive.

Read up on the labor movement of the early 1900's, or the era of the robber baron, and tell me that capitalists have a good track record with civil rights.

I don't think anyone (including the labor movement) was particularly interested in anyone else's rights - except their own - in the early 1900's. For that matter, it may still be the case. Here is another example.

For those interested, Rocky Mountain Institute loves to creatively play with numbers, just like any other organization created for the purpose of propaganda of a particular idea; so take it all with a grain of sault, and double-check the sources for both numbers and context.

The talented folks jettisoned by IBM are still here, still available, still paying taxes, still buying your products. Perhaps the right response is to engage them, not IBM. http://xibmr.blogspot.com/2010/03/wheres-my-consultant.html

If the batteries in my Garmin go out, I can just use any 747 to go geocaching!

You are FakeSteveC A.I.C.M.F.P.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/new-approach-to-china-update.html

Google just posted to their blog what they're doing.

They're redirecting all their users to http://google.com.hk/ and are maintaining a China service availability page to update on the status of their services in mainland China.

They also plan on maintaining their presence in China for sales and development, though they say that sales will be dependent on whether the .hk page is blocked.

Either text citations from the actual bill or sarcasm flags are needed, in a big way! This is the first I've seen, even the most paranoid screed about this bill, anyone claim HSAs were going to be outlawed. Now my understanding is that they aren't going to be incentivized like some wanted them to, but that's far from outlawing them

They're going to be de facto outlawed, not de jure.

First hit off google:
http://freedomsfreefall.blogspot.com/2010/03/hsas-destroyed-by-obamacare.html

I think you may be confusing pharmaceutical industry with health care insurance industry... i quickly googled, and the first result linked to a blog about economic data: http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2009/08/health-insurance-industry-ranks-86-by.html which is slightly above my previously-referenced figure (3.3) but nowhere near 20-30.

In contrast, the 3 main groups of the most profitable business are oil, banking and pharmaceuticals.

Am I the only one in this world that sees the un-sustainable direction this country is going?

What are you talking about? This totally looks sustainable.

Am I the only one in this world that sees the un-sustainable direction this country is going?

What are you talking about? This totally looks sustainable.

Then you didn't look for more than thirty seconds.

I looked for 5:32. I timed it.

Bullshit. But I guess you'll say your got a degree in Psichology...

Mathematics, with a bit of economics. That's where most of this comes from. In fact, this is an economics problem. Psychology is far too focused on the individual, not on the group, to be useful in these situations.

Also, it's not bullshit. This is more dismissing of arguments. If you think it's bullshit, why not tell me why it's not bullshit, instead of assuming that I'm more qualified to talk about it, and therefore incorrect?

Read the Bern treaty, for example, and you'll see it allows its signatories to include exceptions to allow the making of non-profit, private copies. P2P clearly falls in that category.

"Private"? How is sharing with thousands of strangers on a public network considered private?

Anyway, this point is not of great importance.

Research the origin of the term and realize you're misusing it. Then come and admit how wrong you were.

http://copyrightsandcampaigns.blogspot.com/2009/04/piracy-as-copyright-infringement.html

Yes, I admit how wrong you were.

As for your method, I don't think I have to tell you what I think about it, and that I'm not going to stop making use of my rights (yes, you read that just fine, I did say "rights") because of what you say.

So be it. However, if you insist on causing the price to rise for us true fans, don't be surprised if we call you (long established) names. You can't continue what you're doing and expect us to treat you with respect.

It's still bullshit. But that doesn't matter, since the probability is about zero.

[citation needed]

Seriously, how do you know the probability is about 0? In aggregate, you honestly don't think that someone with as much music as the average pirate wouldn't want more music had he not had any access to pirated works? Obviously there's some appreciation there, and obviously there's been enough time spent trying to find the next thing to enjoy. What makes you think that a pirate, without access to his extensive library, wouldn't have the same urges?

Your position makes no sense, and your insistence to limit your rebuttals to "bullshit" isn't helping it at all.

Again, you ignore the fact that his fans are indeed paying him.

You're right, I should be more careful. It's your responsibility to pay for what he asks (or not pay or possess at all). Paying him a token amount to ease the pain is not enough to make you and him morally square.

This comes back to what I was saying about the metaphorical pay cut: that not all money amounts are created equal. Paying you 5c a day for your work is not the same as paying you $50 an hour.

So, let's be clear, I'm not ignoring it, however I am claiming that, for the purposes of our discussion, the amount is too small to be significant.

Also, add the rest of the payments that the fans make (concerts, actually buying the album because they first downloaded it and they liked it, etc).

Also, falls under the same argument. Buying a T-shirt at the concert entitles you to a T-shirt and a concert (assuming you actually paid for the ticket). I does not give you full access to the bands catalogue.

Again, to compare it to a paycheque, it would be like an employer deciding every other week that the previous week's paycheque was enough, with no oversight. He pays you for a week's work, he is entitled only for a week work. Not two, not three, but one.

Of course, you could probably survive with every second week's work going unpaid. You wouldn't be h

I agree with you in principle. A good JIT oriented runtime, such as Java, and .Net, can due to their nature (run time optimization, etc) can appraoch and even exceed C++ in many circumstances. in fact a lot of the performance loss in such systems is due to the JRE, and CLRs in built protection mechanisms (such as garbage collection, and bounds checking), which if were used as standard in C++ would make them a lot more equivelent in terms of performance.

I know many seasonsed C++ developers "poo poo" garbage collection, saying that a good developer can manage memory better. This is not always true and actual evidence point the other direction, ie Garbage Collection can IMPROVE performance, even over skilled engineers. the reasons include the fact that garbage collection allows such optimisations such as moving bocks around in memory (defragmentation) without effecting the code. Socondly, highly tuned hand crafted memory management, requires econsiderable development time, and when done as part of a team effort, can lead to the optimisations being not "optimal".

Google around for more infomation, such as this blog:
http://hollycummins.blogspot.com/2008/10/garbage-collection-myths.html

But going back on topic. Multi Core processor support. A good JVM, or CLR type environmrnt can abstract mutithreaded applications quite nicely. Even old applications can utilise different threading mechanisms by just "upgrading" the runtime. On top of that, languages based on these runtimes make programming threads easy, so that developers (Especially average ones) can utilise threads without requiring the knowledge of black arts.

Looks like it's time for me to update my whitepaper on massively parallel OS design again? I admit, due to lack of interest I have let it fall a bit out of date, recently.

Among other things, I'm going with the name "Ironfluid" now, as I've finally deconflated the terms "cloud computing" and "fluid computing". Cloud really just means "run by somebody else", while "fluid computing" implies parallel processing and fault tolerance; decoupling the software completely from the hardware. Google, for example, offers both: but does not offer the tools for the common sysadmin to form their own clouds.

I think I'd like to.

On the contrary, everything in software should be event driven, down to the individual instructions. That is true parallelism, the future of computing.

Half a Century of Crappy Computing

The Problem with Threads (UC Berkeley's Prof Edward Lee)
How to Solve the Parallel Programming Crisis
Half a Century of Crappy Computing

The computer industry will have to wake up to reality sooner or later. We must reinvent the computer; there is no getting around this. The old paradigms from the 20th century do not work anymore because they were not designed for parallel processing.

The Problem with Threads (UC Berkeley's Prof Edward Lee)
How to Solve the Parallel Programming Crisis
Half a Century of Crappy Computing

The computer industry will have to wake up to reality sooner or later. We must reinvent the computer; there is no getting around this. The old paradigms from the 20th century do not work anymore because they were not designed for parallel processing.

"Virtual entertainment." What a weird choice of words. Can I be virtually entertained by a simulated song?

You can try porting the entire system over to a virtual machine, using dd to copy the entire system, then booting it up in qemu... Here's a link to someone who's had success with this approach... http://virtuallyfun.blogspot.com/2007/05/running-xenix-on-qemu.html Good luck!

glad to be helpful... See this blog for a quick guide w' screenshots, and use VisualSVN Server to create the repo - its 'teh win' for Windows server based subversion repos.

Hey everybody,

thank you very much for your contributions. I really appreciate the time you spend to discuss that question.
Some clarification:

• My kids are 10 and go to the Catholic High Primary School in Singapore, Primary 4 level.
• They speak Chinese to their grand parents who don't speak English.
• What they are learning is "higher Chinese" (AFAIK a term not used outside the Singaporean educational system) that is supposed to put them on equal footing with native speakers on university level at end of Secondary 4.
• They learn Chinese since Kindergarten.

So we are beyond the stage of the first 500 chars -- and it is still a chore. Therefor I was asking.
Summing up responses so far (in no particular order):

• Flash cards (the physical thing)
• Rosetta Stone
• Anki
• Nciku
• Buzan
• Dating Chinese girls (I like that one)
• Mnemosyne
• Zon (the MMO to learn Chinese while playing) read a review
• Found some nice books: Fun with Chinese Characters
• iFlash for Mac (I wonder is there a Linux or OLPC version too)
• PinYin Info
• ByKi
• Zhong Wen (for unaware readers: that means Chinese in PinYin notation)
• WenLin Software
• SuperMemo (with a comparison to Anki and a store to buy Chinese content
• VeryPracticalChinese (found via this blog
• Skritter
• I found ChinesePod. Not sure what to make of it
• Lao Shi (Chinese for "Teacher") - OpenSource

Again, thx a lot! (and sorry for the caveman English -- don't get it? Read the comments)

There is a great children's book, "The Chinese word for Horse and other stories" by John Lewis ( http://www.librarything.com/work/1564984 )which shows the structure of some (very few) Chinese characters. (Charles E. Tuttle co. published a small paperback that illustrated some basic Kanji in the same way, but I can't find my copy and I can't remember the name.) Look for a Chinese calligraphy guide that describes the meaning of the radicals as derived from pictures and you will be well on your way to binding the character with the meaning.

It can take as much as 15 years for something to go from short-term memory to long-term memory. (See "Brain Rules" by John Medina http://brainrules.net/ ) A program that helps bridge the gap between initial learning and structured recall is SuperMemo http://www.supermemo.com/ . Ignore the cruddy website and look at the idea behind it and the history.

Flashcards are good, too.

Major practice for writing Chinese is provided in "copy sheets" which can be found at Chinese shops that sell calligraphy supplies and school supplies. They have blocks with faint outlines of Chinese characters and you practice your calligraphy by tracing the character with your brush tip.

You might find "A practical English-Chinese Pronouncing Dictionary" by Janey Chen http://www.amazon.com/Practical-English-Chinese-Pronouncing-Dictionary-Language/dp/0804818770 . This book give an International Phonetics pronunciation (both Mandarin and Cantonese) next to the Chinese words. This is VERY important: One slight change in sound utterance and you've said something different from what you intended!

When learning Chinese, learn some patterns. I suggest "Chiang's Practical Chinese Language Patterns" http://www.amazon.com/Chiangs-Practical-Language-Patterns-Self-Learners/dp/9579727236 , "Practical Chinese Reader" (and the associated workbooks) http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0887271871/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_2?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=9579727236&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=14FXWRGNRW203JQ3QYZC , and an advanced monograph: http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED280308&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED280308 .

Another resource, associating the sound with the character by typing it, can be found here: http://vpc-mandarin.blogspot.com/2009/04/how-and-why-to-write-chinese-by-typing.html

My ex-girlfriend and I used to watch a lot of Chinese movies together with the captioning on. The right channel would be Cantonese and the left channel would be Mandarin and the characters would change color as the actors pronounced them. You can find a switch to change the audio channel in most Chinese video stores. This is a good way to associate the sound visually with the language. Cartoons are great for kids and beginning adults because the language is syntactically correct but not too complicated. (Watch out though!; Jackie Chan has lousy Mandarin pronunciation and Zhang Ziyi has lousy Cantonese pronunciation.)

Side note: Japanese Kanji are derived from Chinese characters, b

is something to save us from Glyn Moody. This wormy-looking prick once wrote a piece praising Stallman for giving us "magic bread". As you might of guessed, it's a modified version of Jesus's "feeding of the multitude".

I've never understood how targetted advertising == invasion of privacy.

When you frequent a bar regularly, the barman gets to know your favorite drink(s). You'll arrive one everning, and he'll say "Hello Dave, the usual ?". I have never felt the need to respond "How dare you invade my privacy with your targetted sales".

If we have to endure adverts on the web, then at least let them be relevant to what I enjoy.

It's not that I am against advertisement being relevant in general, but if you need to break into my house and kidnap me for an MRI to deliver a relevant ad then I will take offense.

Your barman analogy would be apt if Google did that only on their sites. That's what the original idea behind tracking cookies was supposed to be about. I'd still be concerned if todays search for Airfare, combined with yesterday's search for composting chemicals, combined with the day before that searching for a gift for my muslim girlfriend lead some overzealous data analyzer to put me on a terrorist list: but that's peanuts compared to the real issue.

The real issue is that a huge portion of the web is served by Google's ads, and Google is collecting demographic data about you EVERYWHERE YOU BROWSE where you tread past one of their ads. The huge issue is that ad publishers can elect not to display targeted ads, but they CANNOT ELECT not to collect data on Google's behalf.

This puts Google on equal footing with Facebook in terms of disregard to user privacy. You see, it's one thing for Google to be capable of collecting this volume of data on it's users. So's my ISP, for example. However my ISP would be violating Federal Wiretapping laws if they tried to take any action based on such data, or in any way made clear they had been snooping. Google somehow skirts beyond such protection, and can ostensibly not only know nearly every website you visit (including referal data when you arive in their sphere of influence from non-participating sites) via adsense *and* urchin beacons, but openly share this data with unknown third parties to deliver their "service".

"Luckily", you can opt out of this profiling program by being branded with a special "cookie" that stores a unique hash, indexed into their black box database, which they promise only tells their data miners to stop mining. (despite the fact this is a hash, similar to a UPC code, not a simple directive such as "google_tracking=no") They also have a clearinghouse where you can view the data they (admit to) keep on you, and you can even erase or prune it... that is, if you are man enough to log into a google account, tying your activity to your Gmail account et al, and then you still can't see data tied up in cookies on browsers that have not yet been cross referenced to your google account.

So, in short, in case you don't trust their intentions with your data, you are asked to instead trust their flimsy opt-out policy and trust that they honor it, and will continue honoring it in perpetuity instead of "accidentally" forgetting and collecting your data anyhow.

Late to this party.. Similar thoughts on how to pull something like this off here.

http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2010/03/broadcast-yourself.html

"Pirating" is such a slanted, unhelpful framing of using and sharing digital material without permission.

Seems that the good ol' Limuxwatch troll woke up again:

http://limuxwatch.blogspot.com/

Except in the UK where people are apparently dying of thirst and/or left sitting in their own shit (due to government neglect): http://www.google.com/search?q=UK+patients+die+of+thirst

That's reported badly in the Daily Mail (which has been copied by lots of US Republican/whatever websites) and different case is reported in The TImes. Neither case is anything like as simple as dying of thirst -- both have complicated medical problems. Both say a coroner is to investigate what happened, but the result didn't seem to make the news. Don't you think that's strange?

Or dying of cancer because they are denied the right of preventative care (PAP smears).

Maybe read this (in the results of your search). You'll see she refused the treatment (the person that died), and the doctors decided screening very low risk people did more harm than good.

Or hospitalization/drugs are rationed by an organization called NICE that is now nicknamed "nasty" - http://www.google.com/search?q=UK+NHS+NICE

And? You can't provide everything unless you're willing to pay for everything. I think you'll find your health insurer does the same, except it's decisions aren't open for debate.

Anyway, what happened to the American we-can-always-do-better attitude?

Also, what happened to actually being aware of the issue, and realising that the NHS is nothing like any of the systems that have been proposed (or even advocated) in the USA, and is mostly irrelevant to your argument?

People can get free care simply by walking into the ER

Oh? Including follow-up care? Preventative care? A check-up, and an investigation by the appropriate medical specialist? There's more to public health than sticking people back together.

I think that's a good system, and certainly better than if Uncle Sam Care was run like Uncle Sam Amtrak or Uncle Sam Postal Service (both nearly-bankrupt).

Why should a public service make a profit?

These sorts of comparisons between operating systems are always pointless. I just had a look at the major improvements of the various OS X editions and there was quite a lot of new features that were already in Windows. But in the Windows releases over the same time you will find features that already existed on the Mac.

The biggest problem occurs where people just don't know about the features of the other operating system. In your post, there were examples of this. Various Unix shells have been available from Microsoft since 1999 for NT 4.0 and up. NTFS is a journaling filesystem. The Windows Indexing Service was released in 1996 for Windows NT 4.0. IPv6 was released in Windows XP SP1 a year before the Mac, although the first unsupported version was released for NT 4.0 in 1998. And while Vista was the first Windows to not run as root by default, the ability to run as a normal user has been around since the very first version of Windows NT 3.1. Despite what people say it is not impossible to be a limited user under old Windows, but some third party programs do stuff up (which is why it wasn't the default until Vista - it certainly wasn't Microsoft's choice).

Other things are just not that relevent or required in Windows. The tendency of Windows users to run everything in maximized mode (which irritates me) means that things like Exposé and multiple desktops were not a great priority. The lack of DVD playing was no problems because every DVD player (and lots of video cards) came with their own software for Windows.

Finally, there are some things that they would not be allowed to do. Adobe would have something to say if Microsoft tried to include PDF viewing/creating in Windows.

I always play it safe.

I always dress at work in the approved uniform of a well respected, world wide religion. And my employer has not given me any trouble.

However, I'm always having to explain to the public why I'm working at Walmart in full Papal vestments...
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_71ZPiLxOVfU/SSP61-ZYj3I/AAAAAAAACFE/pXYWqJbW0bg/s400/ParamentePiusXII.jpg

First off... only about 10 are known to have fought for Germany.

Secondly...They were actively hostile on a battle field.It makes sense for a soldier to shoot at the people shooting at you.

Third...the only American who was Captured was tried for treason and sentenced to 25 years.

http://thepoormouth.blogspot.com/2006/06/americans-in-ss.html

actually there are ways Viacom could have generated online activity without resorting to sock puppets.

ClamAV is using Amazons EC2 Cloud. Real-time (upon execution) scanning, scanning on install, and scanning on service startup, as well as removal/quarantine. You do have to be connected however for the hash and heuristics checks to work. But best practices are much better than any AV any day. Don't use IE, don't run as admin, it is that simple: http://richrumble.blogspot.com/2006/08/anti-admin-vs-anti-virus.html -rich

Those supporting Theora argue that, unless Theora is the video codec for the Net, some people (e.g. Linux users in U.S. not willing to break the law) will be restricted from large parts of the Net that will go H.264-only.

You don't understand the issue. It's not about Theora versus H.264. It's about open video versus closed video. The web is built on open formats and open protocols. There is no reason for video to be any different. YouTube will move to open video sooner rather than later. Here's an excerpt from Google's point of view on open standards:

"So if you are trying to grow an entire industry as broadly as possible, open systems trump closed. And that is exactly what we are trying to do with the Internet. Our commitment to open systems is not altruistic. Rather it's good business, since an open Internet creates a steady stream of innovations that attracts users and usage and grows the entire industry."

Google is one of the biggest technology companies because they understand the value an open internet. You'll come to understand this too.

I found it more convenient to post my thoughts on my blog, but basically it wraps down to this: Google will support an open codec or they are a traitor to the community they say they support. Here is the rest: http://fossstudent.blogspot.com/2010/03/googleyoutube-and-h264.html

Anyone who's paid attention to the UFO phenomenon can tell you that the existence of 'something' out there has been well known by the US military since the 1940s. The problem is nobody really seems to understand the first thing about just what 'they' are, so it's embarassing to talk about and best brushed under the table. Whatever 'they' are they're NOT classical little green men with antennae... and I highly doubt that any 'crash debris' was ever retrieved.. all the best incidents indicate something much weirder, transient, and more in control of the parameters of the encounters than we are.

There's a few good reviews of the classic UFO material online: Michael Swords is good, as is the Daily Kos blogger Two Roads. I also recommend the Society for Scientific Exploration. The rest of the stuff is out there for anyone with Google.

The apparent failure of radio SETI is a very interesting data point to put against the apparent reality (yet weirdness) of the UFO phenomenon. But then, we've moved so far beyond analog broadcast radio in the last 50 years, why wouldn't ET civilisations' communications move equally fast? What if there were some way of, eg, modulating gravity or quantum entanglement? Should we expect to still be detecting legacy technologies just because that's the detectors we happen to have right now?

Knowing is half of the battle.

I don' understand why Slashdot keeps linking to Computer World. They have been outed as encouraging trolling by their writers.

http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/02/21/2329249/Windows-7-Memory-Usage-Critic-Outed-As-Fraud

http://exo-blog.blogspot.com/2010/02/editorial-confessions-of-internet-shock.html

http://exo-blog.blogspot.com/2010/03/editorial-incriminating-email-sinks.html

But eventually, things changed. Eric settled in as Editor in Chief, and a new Executive Editor, Galen Gruman, emerged to forever change my life. For starters, Galen took a liking to the xpnet.com idea. He began championing the idea internally, working with me to refine the messaging and coordinate with the various sales and marketing groups to achieve buy-in. At the same time, Galen took it upon himself to become the primary editor of my now paid blogging gig. He helped me to identify which topic areas were having the most impact – and thus started me on my descent into internet “Shock Jock”hell.

You see, what Galen and I discovered was that the topics that were most effective in drawing readers were also those that skirted the edges of both legitimacy and taste. For example, if I wrote an entry detailing some deeply held belief about a particular IT vendor or technology, nobody paid any attention. However, if I simply vented about something that was bugging me – a mysterious crash in Vista or some piece of VDI “marchitecture” coming out of VMware – the attention level shot through the roof.

Eventually, I found myself enjoying the buzz that my “angry missives” would generate. Little did I realize how quickly such a model could deteriorate or how much it could damage me, personally, once it fell apart.

This guy was behind half the bullshit stories that Slashdot reported against Vista and Windows 7. Of course, the antiMS brigade on here just lapped it and would recite the same BS ad infinitum in posts.

I don' understand why Slashdot keeps linking to Computer World. They have been outed as encouraging trolling by their writers.

http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/02/21/2329249/Windows-7-Memory-Usage-Critic-Outed-As-Fraud

http://exo-blog.blogspot.com/2010/02/editorial-confessions-of-internet-shock.html

http://exo-blog.blogspot.com/2010/03/editorial-incriminating-email-sinks.html

But eventually, things changed. Eric settled in as Editor in Chief, and a new Executive Editor, Galen Gruman, emerged to forever change my life. For starters, Galen took a liking to the xpnet.com idea. He began championing the idea internally, working with me to refine the messaging and coordinate with the various sales and marketing groups to achieve buy-in. At the same time, Galen took it upon himself to become the primary editor of my now paid blogging gig. He helped me to identify which topic areas were having the most impact – and thus started me on my descent into internet “Shock Jock”hell.

You see, what Galen and I discovered was that the topics that were most effective in drawing readers were also those that skirted the edges of both legitimacy and taste. For example, if I wrote an entry detailing some deeply held belief about a particular IT vendor or technology, nobody paid any attention. However, if I simply vented about something that was bugging me – a mysterious crash in Vista or some piece of VDI “marchitecture” coming out of VMware – the attention level shot through the roof.

Eventually, I found myself enjoying the buzz that my “angry missives” would generate. Little did I realize how quickly such a model could deteriorate or how much it could damage me, personally, once it fell apart.

This guy was behind half the bullshit stories that Slashdot reported against Vista and Windows 7. Of course, the antiMS brigade on here just lapped it and would recite the same BS ad infinitum in posts.

tempers flare The threat of Open Source indeed.