Slashdot Mirror

Seems that misinformation got out of control and a mob mentality amongst authors formed on 1st August.

There were some calmer heads. Keri Ford deserves an honourable mention for actually looking into it, and it's a shame that it's really not a genre I'm interested in.

There's an awesome picture here taken from the MRO of the parachute deployed. This is breath-taking.

Taken from the twitter feed of a somewhat anthropomorphised representation of Curiosity.

Yeah, they also didn't say what time the tweet went out. What lazy reporting. Apparently, this is the twitter feed. The first announcement went out at 9:59am. You can see a price spike a little after 10am (sadly, that link will probably be invalid after today), but the price stays up even after it was revealed as a hoax.

MaddeLisk is possibly the best female Swedish Zerg at the moment. She can obliterate the average US facebook addict in a heartbeat, regardless of gender.

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw/

https://twitter.com/NASA/status/232350219700932608/photo/1 for that very first 64x64 pixels thumbnail. :D

Nuther:

https://twitter.com/NASA/status/232352483492630529/photo/1

This claims to be a landing pic, but it hasn't landed yet. WTF?

https://twitter.com/NASA/status/232350219700932608/photo/1

(an editor at Gizmodo)

And furthermore, Mat Honan works for Wired, not Gizmodo.

This is for everyone

But, the email wasn't posted publicly anywhere by NBC.

Here is the rule in question (I found it in the Twitter Rules, which you also agree to when you also agree to their Terms of Services)

Privacy: You may not publish or post other people's private and confidential information, such as credit card numbers, street address or Social Security/National Identity numbers, without their express authorization and permission.

Already, these rules have been distorted because in my mind at least, "private and confidential" is something that implies a much stronger sense of privacy than the term "non-public". For instance, could you even call the corporate email address on this NBC business card private and confidential? No, right?

And by the way, I did find the part where Twitter does mention the "non-public" thing, but that's buried in an index of 40 different articles, two levels away from the "Twitter rules > Reporting Violations" subheading (which is not even inside the Twitter rules).

And even if it was in the Twitter Rules (which it isn't), it isn't reasonable for a user to read the Terms of Services + the Twitter Rules, and expect them to click on the link to find out how to do "Reporting Violations" -- when they have no such need. In other words, the Twitter legalese is a huge bloody mess that has grown too much over the years. Someone really needs to clean it up.

The question isn't the difficulty of determining the email, but whether the email owner chose to publish it or not. Since they didn't, then Twitter did the right thing here.

That being said, even if for some weird reason, you did consider these "Reporting Violations" guidelines, that the user didn't even agree to, to be applicable. Then your assumption would still be completely wrong about its underlying meaning in this case.

"Keep in mind that although you may consider certain information to be private, not all postings of such information may be a violation of this policy. If information was previously posted or displayed elsewhere on the Internet prior to being put on Twitter, it is not a violation of this policy. "
source [emphasis in bold is mine]

Clearly in this case, Twitter even violated its own policy (whether it did it knowingly, or unknowingly). Now I doubt there will be any legal repercussion because of this. It's not like the journalist was even a paying customer of Twitter (at least, I don't think that he was). But this is clearly a bad Public Relations move for Twitter, and it's one that is inconsistent with the self-image Twitter had of itself of being a champion of freedom. So hopefully, someone at the top of Twitter will reverse this decision quickly and issue a statement that they won't let this kind of thing happen again.

But, the email wasn't posted publicly anywhere by NBC.

Here is the rule in question (I found it in the Twitter Rules, which you also agree to when you also agree to their Terms of Services)

Privacy: You may not publish or post other people's private and confidential information, such as credit card numbers, street address or Social Security/National Identity numbers, without their express authorization and permission.

Already, these rules have been distorted because in my mind at least, "private and confidential" is something that implies a much stronger sense of privacy than the term "non-public". For instance, could you even call the corporate email address on this NBC business card private and confidential? No, right?

And by the way, I did find the part where Twitter does mention the "non-public" thing, but that's buried in an index of 40 different articles, two levels away from the "Twitter rules > Reporting Violations" subheading (which is not even inside the Twitter rules).

And even if it was in the Twitter Rules (which it isn't), it isn't reasonable for a user to read the Terms of Services + the Twitter Rules, and expect them to click on the link to find out how to do "Reporting Violations" -- when they have no such need. In other words, the Twitter legalese is a huge bloody mess that has grown too much over the years. Someone really needs to clean it up.

The question isn't the difficulty of determining the email, but whether the email owner chose to publish it or not. Since they didn't, then Twitter did the right thing here.

That being said, even if for some weird reason, you did consider these "Reporting Violations" guidelines, that the user didn't even agree to, to be applicable. Then your assumption would still be completely wrong about its underlying meaning in this case.

"Keep in mind that although you may consider certain information to be private, not all postings of such information may be a violation of this policy. If information was previously posted or displayed elsewhere on the Internet prior to being put on Twitter, it is not a violation of this policy. "
source [emphasis in bold is mine]

Clearly in this case, Twitter even violated its own policy (whether it did it knowingly, or unknowingly). Now I doubt there will be any legal repercussion because of this. It's not like the journalist was even a paying customer of Twitter (at least, I don't think that he was). But this is clearly a bad Public Relations move for Twitter, and it's one that is inconsistent with the self-image Twitter had of itself of being a champion of freedom. So hopefully, someone at the top of Twitter will reverse this decision quickly and issue a statement that they won't let this kind of thing happen again.

But, the email wasn't posted publicly anywhere by NBC.

Here is the rule in question (I found it in the Twitter Rules, which you also agree to when you also agree to their Terms of Services)

Privacy: You may not publish or post other people's private and confidential information, such as credit card numbers, street address or Social Security/National Identity numbers, without their express authorization and permission.

Already, these rules have been distorted because in my mind at least, "private and confidential" is something that implies a much stronger sense of privacy than the term "non-public". For instance, could you even call the corporate email address on this NBC business card private and confidential? No, right?

And by the way, I did find the part where Twitter does mention the "non-public" thing, but that's buried in an index of 40 different articles, two levels away from the "Twitter rules > Reporting Violations" subheading (which is not even inside the Twitter rules).

And even if it was in the Twitter Rules (which it isn't), it isn't reasonable for a user to read the Terms of Services + the Twitter Rules, and expect them to click on the link to find out how to do "Reporting Violations" -- when they have no such need. In other words, the Twitter legalese is a huge bloody mess that has grown too much over the years. Someone really needs to clean it up.

The question isn't the difficulty of determining the email, but whether the email owner chose to publish it or not. Since they didn't, then Twitter did the right thing here.

That being said, even if for some weird reason, you did consider these "Reporting Violations" guidelines, that the user didn't even agree to, to be applicable. Then your assumption would still be completely wrong about its underlying meaning in this case.

"Keep in mind that although you may consider certain information to be private, not all postings of such information may be a violation of this policy. If information was previously posted or displayed elsewhere on the Internet prior to being put on Twitter, it is not a violation of this policy. "
source [emphasis in bold is mine]

Clearly in this case, Twitter even violated its own policy (whether it did it knowingly, or unknowingly). Now I doubt there will be any legal repercussion because of this. It's not like the journalist was even a paying customer of Twitter (at least, I don't think that he was). But this is clearly a bad Public Relations move for Twitter, and it's one that is inconsistent with the self-image Twitter had of itself of being a champion of freedom. So hopefully, someone at the top of Twitter will reverse this decision quickly and issue a statement that they won't let this kind of thing happen again.

But, the email wasn't posted publicly anywhere by NBC.

Here is the rule in question (I found it in the Twitter Rules, which you also agree to when you also agree to their Terms of Services)

Privacy: You may not publish or post other people's private and confidential information, such as credit card numbers, street address or Social Security/National Identity numbers, without their express authorization and permission.

Already, these rules have been distorted because in my mind at least, "private and confidential" is something that implies a much stronger sense of privacy than the term "non-public". For instance, could you even call the corporate email address on this NBC business card private and confidential? No, right?

And by the way, I did find the part where Twitter does mention the "non-public" thing, but that's buried in an index of 40 different articles, two levels away from the "Twitter rules > Reporting Violations" subheading (which is not even inside the Twitter rules).

And even if it was in the Twitter Rules (which it isn't), it isn't reasonable for a user to read the Terms of Services + the Twitter Rules, and expect them to click on the link to find out how to do "Reporting Violations" -- when they have no such need. In other words, the Twitter legalese is a huge bloody mess that has grown too much over the years. Someone really needs to clean it up.

The question isn't the difficulty of determining the email, but whether the email owner chose to publish it or not. Since they didn't, then Twitter did the right thing here.

That being said, even if for some weird reason, you did consider these "Reporting Violations" guidelines, that the user didn't even agree to, to be applicable. Then your assumption would still be completely wrong about its underlying meaning in this case.

"Keep in mind that although you may consider certain information to be private, not all postings of such information may be a violation of this policy. If information was previously posted or displayed elsewhere on the Internet prior to being put on Twitter, it is not a violation of this policy. "
source [emphasis in bold is mine]

Clearly in this case, Twitter even violated its own policy (whether it did it knowingly, or unknowingly). Now I doubt there will be any legal repercussion because of this. It's not like the journalist was even a paying customer of Twitter (at least, I don't think that he was). But this is clearly a bad Public Relations move for Twitter, and it's one that is inconsistent with the self-image Twitter had of itself of being a champion of freedom. So hopefully, someone at the top of Twitter will reverse this decision quickly and issue a statement that they won't let this kind of thing happen again.

Does it make sense that hundreds or thousands of professionals would have so little respect for their fellow citizens that they would systematically violate the letter and spirit of the Constitution? Yep, pretty much. See here for quotable examples: http://www.twitter.com/gselevator

Is there a Facebook account from anyone from North Korea? I wonder what the first North Korean Facebook account is gonna be? The Supreme Leader?
Now, wouldn't that be funny as fuck?
UPDATE! Kim Jong-Un has a tweeter account! http://twitter.com/groriousreader

Some do interoperate; my instance of StatusNet sent and received messages from Identi.ca just fine.

The problem is that no one is there, and thsoe who were, left. Compare:

http://identi.ca/timbl with https://twitter.com/timberners_lee

Yup, Twitter's engineers are on it, apparently : http://status.twitter.com/

Twitter seems to have gone down too

http://status.twitter.com/

Mass internet implosion?

Looks like he's flattered over being slashdotted:
"Seriously considering adding "Have been called a 'tantrum-throwing butthurt loser' on Slashdot" to my business cards."

http://twitter.com/mattgemmell/status/227896276618993665

the "Young Talent" companies only make up a small part of the tech industry out here. Silicon valley still has the largest and most successful of the tech industry at the moment in Software (Apple, Google) and even the older struggling giants (Yahoo), which represent a MAJOR force for employment, Apple's new campus in cupertino will hire and bring in more bodies to the valley then the next 100 SF startups (even assuming that by the time 100 startups have formed 50 of them haven't flopped).

Years ago when I moved to Silicon Valley the ratio and rate was the same. There were "artsy" or "fun" gaming startup jobs (a few) available in SF, and there were startup jobs available here in SV. But the real hiring was being done by the big players, and those guys will never move to SF. The hub will remain. There is no "tipping point". Article is an opinion puff piece by a hipster looking San Francisco dweller - https://twitter.com/cscott_idg who is obviously as biased about the subject as I am.

Moving on.

Put your Minecraft fanboyism aside, Mojang isn't even at 100m USD in revenue yet. The guy himself may be 'hideously rich' but the company isn't some juggernaut.

They definitely have over 100 million in revenue now. Minecraft has built 80 million in sales since March

The XBox 360 version came out in May, and has sold over 3 million units. The Xbox 360 version costs $20 USD (1600 MS Points). Simple arithmetic gives me $60 million in XBLA sales. Mojang gets at least 1/3rd of that, which is enough too push them over the $100 million mark.

Yeah, I wouldn't say 'hideously rich'. While Mojang's revenue is relatively high, their EBITDA is relatively low. I believe they are making a much higher margin on their pocket editions and XBox 360 version (linked article is before these) so that's good. If it was just Notch still working on these then I'd agree but he's got a fair-sized business running now with all the associated costs. Not to say he's poor, I think he's just in the 'extremely comfortable' zone right now.

Put your Minecraft fanboyism aside, Mojang isn't even at 100m USD in revenue yet. The guy himself may be 'hideously rich' but the company isn't some juggernaut.

They definitely have over 100 million in revenue now. Minecraft has built 80 million in sales since March

The XBox 360 version came out in May, and has sold over 3 million units. The Xbox 360 version costs $20 USD (1600 MS Points). Simple arithmetic gives me $60 million in XBLA sales. Mojang gets at least 1/3rd of that, which is enough too push them over the $100 million mark.

i would love to see them analyze the goddamn batman https://twitter.com/god_damn_batman

oh dear, I wonder what would happen if they ran the model against loudbot - http://twitter.com/loudbot -- it'd probably score off the charts

Of course, Facebook is doing more or less the same thing. You probably just don't care as much, because Facebook was always doing it. You weren't using it anonymously in 1998, so your expectations are different.

One way to read that passage is that he got his dates horribly wrong (theFacebook started in 2004). I'm inclined to think it's a hint to another (anti)social networking site.

That aside, have you ever noticed that mass-shootings like this are almost invariably done by white men?

Check on my 401k or shoot up a theatre? #whitepeopleproblems

Neckbeard Hacker would like a word with you.

The American MacDonalds has stated they're looking into the matter:
https://twitter.com/McDonaldsCorp/status/225074195590156290
http://www.technolog.msnbc.msn.com/technology/technolog/cyborg-steve-mann-details-alleged-mcdonalds-assault-889595

McDonald's responded via twitter, if that counts as acknowledging the bad press:

https://twitter.com/McDonaldsCorp/status/225074195590156290

And it's on: famous french blogger Maitre Eolas relayed the news much earlier this morning (does the guy even sleep ?), which then was picked up by L'Express (national newspaper) half an hour ago. It will be all over french social networks for the next couple days. Apparently the restaurant is not owned by McDonald's, it is a franchise owned by the limited-liability society Elyrest.

Currently, Jolla has stated plans to use a MeeGo derivative called Mer Project (http://merproject.org/) which uses RPM. This makes sense because MeeGo proper is still encumbered by an untold number of Nokia and Intel patents that have yet to be unraveled, and the former core MeeGo team has stated that the Harmattan user interface is all Nokia and can't form the basis for Jolla's MeeGo-based platform. It should be also be noted that MeeGo/Mer Project does not feature any user interface of its own, it's just a microkernel with modular support for hardware and support for any user interface desired, which Jolla is developing from the ground up.

As far as the previous assumption that Nokia handed over MeeGo patents, that was proven to be false and a result of a mistranslation from an interview. What is true at this point is that Nokia provided incubator support for Jolla via the Bridge incubator program within Nokia before officially incorporating last year. This is all of the extent of Nokia's involvement besides additional support that has yet to be specified, and there's no real evidence to suggest any remaining MeeGo patents will be handed over, at least without some sort of monetary exchange given Nokia's precarious position at the moment.

Currently, Jolla has stated plans to use a MeeGo derivative called Mer Project (http://merproject.org/) which uses RPM. This makes sense because MeeGo proper is still encumbered by an untold number of Nokia and Intel patents that have yet to be unraveled, and the former core MeeGo team has stated that the Harmattan user interface is all Nokia and can't form the basis for Jolla's MeeGo-based platform. It should be also be noted that MeeGo/Mer Project does not feature any user interface of its own, it's just a microkernel with modular support for hardware and support for any user interface desired, which Jolla is developing from the ground up.

As far as the previous assumption that Nokia handed over MeeGo patents, that was proven to be false and a result of a mistranslation from an interview. What is true at this point is that Nokia provided incubator support for Jolla via the Bridge incubator program within Nokia before officially incorporating last year. This is all of the extent of Nokia's involvement besides additional support that has yet to be specified, and there's no real evidence to suggest any remaining MeeGo patents will be handed over, at least without some sort of monetary exchange given Nokia's precarious position at the moment.

1. #! (Shebang). Google uses it for some AJAX purpose. I've had people post links with shebangs in them, thinking it would take me to a page. Instead, it took me to the homepage becasue IE is using # for its intended purpose--to take you to a subsection within a page. Since there is no ! section, it just takes you to the base URL. AFAIK, Google is out of compliance, didn't run this by any kind of standards committee, and just hacked it in. Feel free to correct me on that if I'm wrong.

Ohh this is uncomfortable for me, because IMHO you are kind of wrong, but it's also not a practice I'm very happy with.... It's not that IE does anything different, all browsers with Javascript turned off would behave like it on those sites. But if Javascript is turned on (and the scripts on the site don't break with IE, as they might have in your case), then it does the whole dynamic page loading thing. It doesn't have to do with standards as much as with Javascript, or as you said, testing in IE :P

But it's not Google who started with this, Twitter was, and they're now reconsidering haha:

http://engineering.twitter.com/2012/05/improving-performance-on-twittercom.html

From what I can tell, the only thing Google has to do with it (other than using it themselves) is recognizing the "bang" (exclamation mark) when crawling: http://www.socialmagnet.co.uk/2011/03/what-is-the-shebang-hashbang/

2. I don't know what you mean by "no programmer lost on me".

It wasn't meant as an insult, it's just I never heard of a programmer that uses Internet Explorer as their default, and surely not as their only browser. And any aspiring programmer surely would JUMP on the opportunity to have a "better, cleaner, faster" viewer of the web, by using a modern browser, when it's just a click and a download away. It's just I kind of associate curiosity and early adoption with the whole coder thing.

Writing cross-platform code is what real programmers do.

Exactly! Which is why real "programmers" (some would frown on calling HTML/CSS code, but personally I say bleh to all that, it's "codified stuff" for sure) code to web standards, not browsers.

If the site is correct HTML and CSS and doesn't work in Internet Explorer, then it's the fault of Internet Explorer. If you use an old browser, it's your responsibilty to either upgrade, or just accept that you're doing this to yourself.

I couldn't live with myself as a programmer if I lost 50% of potential users because my code was insufficiently portable.

IE is the only browser that only runs on Windows. So yeah, how can they live with themselves, right? :P

And they're not loosing 50% of potential users. They're loosing those of their potential users who are too lazy to check back after work with their own computer, which, as I already said, hopefully will not only have IE on it. So they're loosing 50% of onlookers maybe, but not because anything is wrong with their code.

Ironicly, the web is supposed to be platform neutral, and it is now, IMHO, less platform neutral in practice than C which is supposed to be just one step above assembly.

I'm not saying Webkit or Mozilla are saints, I hate vendor prefixes for example. But still: if you write valid HTML4/5 and CSS3, it will either show up correctly, or degrade gracefully recent versions of all other browsers. Not in IE.

And what you are asking for, that people bend over backwards to make all sorts of duct-tape fixes behind the scenes, just to get IE to render properly, leads to the problem, the expectation of people that they "should" be able to browse the web with a shitty browser. (An

Why yes, there were ponies and girls. I know, it's hard to believe so here's a photo from Comic-Con proving both: http://twitter.com/bonniegrrl/status/223841022533304321/photo/1/large

Do females have any idea how incredibly shallow and stupid "grrl" is?

Why yes, there were ponies and girls. I know, it's hard to believe so here's a photo from Comic-Con proving both: http://twitter.com/bonniegrrl/status/223841022533304321/photo/1/large

"I'm really surprised that Yahoo leaked 450,000 user passwords. I had no idea Yahoo still had that many users." (link)

"Had another look at the latest Yahoo password leak. There are two users with the password 'hunter2'. (See QDB: http://bash.org/?244321)" (link).

"I'm really surprised that Yahoo leaked 450,000 user passwords. I had no idea Yahoo still had that many users." (link)

"Had another look at the latest Yahoo password leak. There are two users with the password 'hunter2'. (See QDB: http://bash.org/?244321)" (link).

http://www.linux.org/ -> http://twitter.com/LinuxDotOrg -> http://twitter.com/rlsteelman/status/197909427179884544 -> http://twitter.com/@rlsteelman (Ronald Steelman) -> http://www.ronaldsteelman.com/

"Welcome to CodeIgniter! The page you are looking at is being generated dynamically by CodeIgniter. If you would like to edit this page you'll find it located at: application/views/welcome_message.php"

Maybe his first article should be about setting up a site with CodeIgniter...or not!

http://www.linux.org/ -> http://twitter.com/LinuxDotOrg -> http://twitter.com/rlsteelman/status/197909427179884544 -> http://twitter.com/@rlsteelman (Ronald Steelman) -> http://www.ronaldsteelman.com/

"Welcome to CodeIgniter! The page you are looking at is being generated dynamically by CodeIgniter. If you would like to edit this page you'll find it located at: application/views/welcome_message.php"

Maybe his first article should be about setting up a site with CodeIgniter...or not!

http://www.linux.org/ -> http://twitter.com/LinuxDotOrg -> http://twitter.com/rlsteelman/status/197909427179884544 -> http://twitter.com/@rlsteelman (Ronald Steelman) -> http://www.ronaldsteelman.com/

"Welcome to CodeIgniter! The page you are looking at is being generated dynamically by CodeIgniter. If you would like to edit this page you'll find it located at: application/views/welcome_message.php"

Maybe his first article should be about setting up a site with CodeIgniter...or not!

I'll just leave this here

Here are directions from someone on the Android team: http://twitter.com/arubin/status/27808662429

Kidding aside, I think Jobs was right on this one. Because phones are locked and drivers for the phone devices are difficult obtain, the closed vs open source OS is a moot point. Android might be open but there are real hurdles to updating the Android firmware on phones-- handset manufactures just don't want you to do it.

I have a Virgin Mobile LG phone running Android 2.2. I am still waiting for the 2.3 upgrade promised sometime in 2010. I've thought about installing one of the cyanogenmod firmwares but the lack of support for all phone features gives me pause-- oh and the risk of bricking my phone. I like tinkering with electronics but I like my phone to phone.

They are actually already based on Mer:
https://twitter.com/JollaMobile/status/221688205672595456
I guess they are just using the MeeGo name for publicity. :)

He's quite tweet active on the issue.

Of course I suspect he is just envious that there is another organization even more toxic than Fox News.

He seems to have written a post on how this works and then later made an account. Sorta verified here. His post is very informative and might answer a lot of questions and generate more meaningful ones.

Law enforcement can already get a search warrant to come in my home any time they want, given sufficient justification in the eyes of a judge. Make accessing smart meter data no different than tearing your house apart, and you've basically solved that problem. If your power usage were REALLY interesting, I'm sure they could get a warrant to put a measuring device at the utility pole today. Frankly, I doubt they care; there are far easier ways to investigate you.

Criminals can tear apart my house without a search warrant anyway. Or they can walk onto my property and look at my meter to see if I'm currently using power or not. Or drive by and see that the lights are off and the lawn is unmowed. Criminals will be criminals, whatever the technology may be. Again, I doubt they'll care either; it's far easier to just wait for some moron to post a picture of their credit card online than to analyze your power usage to figure out that you have a 56" plasma TV and you are on vacation.

I remain confident that Theresa May will re-open the case in light of the public outcry. Rumors that she has told me no are false.

https://twitter.com/jimmy_wales/status/220153861007081472

> But a Manhattan judge ruled that users have no expectation of privacy for their Twitter data."

I realize that most users don't read the fine print, but you'd think the published Privacy Policy might lead someone to believe that there's a clear agreement betwee Twitter and the users that there's at least some stuff considered "private"...

best bot on twitter. http://twitter.com/#!/StealthMountain

/etc/init.d/ntpd stop; date; date `date +"%m%d%H%M%C%y.%S"`; date;

Fixed the issues I was having. Credit goes to https://twitter.com/SilvioSantoZ/status/219250677522767872. I didn't have to restart anything after running it. YMMV