Slashdot Mirror

• Wired Story
• Industrial Light & Magic
• Lord of the Rings
• Salon Article

Now you are defining a ghost. Which starts putting you on the right path, sempai. But originally you were making a blanket statement without definitions using absolute judgments.

I am not disagreeing with your case, only with your imprecision in describing it.

And as for another take on what a ghost is, that is likely to be at least partially correct in the long run, take a look at the research being done by Persinger at Laurentian University in neuro psych. Very interesting stuff. Here is a link to a pop article about some of his work.

Excuse me? What was that? FCC NOT able to force shutdown of analog TV?? Havent they already set the date for analog TV phase out?

In a few years you'll only be able to buy digital TVs... and I still can't figure out why that is being done (what good is it for me as a customer that is). I could point out plenty of useful things FCC could do instead of this.

If a site displays well on IE but poorly on Mozilla, it is often the case that the designers of the site focused on developing for IE and gave much less thought to being a standards-compliant site.

This is encouraging - looks like TerraLycos is continuing the work that was done with Wired's conversion to a table-free design. Too bad it doesn't validate, though.

With URL's you can access the entire web. With Google, you can't.

In a free world, 'where do you want to google today' might work.

I bet RMS will be thrilled when he hears this. The FSF will finally be able to propose the .gnu TLD.

I went to www.drudgereport.com shortly after reading this article on /. Turns out this is a very common way to aggravate your opposition. A news reporter ran a story about a government contractor involved with creating a database on all citizens that included name/phone number/address/relatives address and criminal history.

China has become a second rate culture in the 20th-21st century, because they only seem to be able to copy, rather than innovate, whether it is movies or high tech.

But remember, China is a DEVELOPING country, not a DEVELOPED country as American or the rest of the West. Wasn't America in the same stage as the China some 300 years ago: copying/pirating literture and technologies from British and the European. The government was even supporting that by not acknowledge the European copyright and patten. It's only until US has developed strong enough intellecturally that it's more harm than benefitial to ignore the intellectural properties. The same pattern has been emerged in all developing countries.

Yes, it is pitty that the once mighty world power and culture of Chinese has sank as low as it is today. However, there have been a lot of attempts in the past one hundred years trying to wake it up. It has half century of continusous internal conflict and a 40 years isolation from.

However, speaking of high tech, China is likely to have a lead in biotech because much less social controversies involving researches such as stem cell. Wired recently have a good article The First Cloning Superpower.

The few movie directors and actors who do become good migrate to the West anyways. China has tons of great ancient myths that would rival a Lord of the Rings triolgy if they'd put their minds to it.

It's called following the money and fame. It's interesting that you mention this in the context of LOTR. The movies are directed by a New Zeland directors, New Zealand team but who's funding the movie? American studio! We can't denied that Hollywood is the world dominating power of movies and are drawing all the worlds movie talent to it. Why shouldn't the directors/stars not moving to Hollywood from China/Hongkong?

(Marc Andreesen)
I'm an egotistical, talentless hack who's latest
stupid idea, loudcloud, failed, so I sold off half
of the company to a bunch of Unsuspecting, good old boy rubes, since my status as "Internet Goldenboy" is in question.
(/Marc Andreesen)

I used to work for a rather lame start-up, which was run by a member of the aohell/nutscrape
cronie network of good old boys (that racist, ignorant, sexual harassing homophobic prick, The only person I know of to have a wired article about how much of a jerk he is. Opsware was
crap. It was slow, buggy, and caused us downtime
that wasn't really downtime according to loudcloud's incredible staff of marketing and law
employees. We were a startup with low funding, yet we spent $800k a month for service from them that we could have built ourselves at exodus or equinix for $200k a month.

If anybody wants information on a REAL movement
in automated systems administration, go to Infrastructures.org A movement based on Steve Traugott's Usenix presentation Bootstrapping the infrastructure.

According to this Wired article, Ford has developed one of these systems (they're calling it the third age suit), designed to add thirty years to your age so that their designers can get a sense of how old people feel in their cars. The guys that designed the Focus all had to wear these things for a while and play with Ford's other cars when they were in the design stages of teh interior, to get a sens of what worked and what didn't for older people.

I also find it neat that the Toyota Echo was expressely designed for older people (or says the dealer). Personally, I thought older people liked to drive huge cars like Buicks and Caddies (even ones from the eighties), but my grandmother has an Echo and loves it. The seats are high up and the hood is short for more visability, and all the nobs and dials seem bigger than usual for cars that size. Makes me laugh seeing twenty-somethings driving them...

So including information for someone else's benefit, that would have to be researched anyway in order to understand a subject, is unimportant now, just because I'm a busy man?

Yes, soon to be two ... Comcast is going to buy AT&T Internet Broadband. Sound like even MORE of a monopoly.

Let's count:
mainline connections:

1. dialup
2. isdn (a phone service)
3. DSL on copper (a phone service, or on their wires)
4. Cable

other options

1. phone services/HIGH cap (t1,t3, oc3 etc)
2. satelite
3. direct lines (HA :>)

upcoming / limited

1. local wireless
2. Others?

SO ... Everything that the government has done about wiring the US has forced the growth of monopolistic bohemoth providing entities. What ever they may have tried to achive, this is what we HAVE.

SkessekS

I have seen some really tricky, innovative CSS designs that challange those complex designs created using tables and such... for example:

Wired.com
http://www.wired.com/

Joe Gillespie's Box of
tricks
http://www.wpdfd.com/editorial/wpd1102 .htm
See the sample sites he created in this article.

Botbomb
http://www.botbomb.com/

CSS/edge
http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/

And there's undoubtedly more out there...

Accessible pages don't have to be boring - it just depends on the skills of the CSS coder.

Progressive scan is a sophisticated laser method for reading DVDs. Usually, products with progressive scan will display cleaner images than those without it, but Kevorkian said the feature is "over-hyped."

Now, we all know what progressive scan is, and it has nothing to do with a "sophisticated laser method for reading DVDs." See for yourself

Let's all send email to Wired and tell them to fire Elisa Batista!

I still think that the story of the guy who tracked down his sisters stolen iMac using timbuktu. here: Mac Thief Caught Thanks To Applescript & Timbuktu [slashdot] and here: Turning Macs on Thievery [wired.com]

http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,56409,00.html

The WELL might not be as important or unique as it once was, and it may be true that it gets more press than it deserves, and it is true that at times it may be insular and navel-gazingly self-contratulatory, but to dismissively lump it in as one more BBS is completely unfair and even deeply ignorant.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation was organized and founded at the WELL. The annual Computers, Freedom and Privacy conferences were started and are still ran at the WELL. Wired Magazine was partially organized on the WELL. The infamous and frauduluent cyberporn Time cover story that made passage of the CDA a foregone conclusion was systematically demolished and exposed and opposition organized at the WELL. And these are just the most salient examples.

Look, I'll make this very simple. Plain text webpages are ugly. XHTML compatable pages are ugly. HTML 1.1 compatable pages are ugly. Leaving the border around your image link is ugly. Not using tables is ugly.

Stop trolling and have a look at Wired's new web site. It's done in XHTML/CSS and doesn't use tables for layout. It also works in older browsers which doesn't use CSS and XHTML (looks very plain in them, but that's exactly how it should be; reasonably graceful degradation)

Also, you don't seem to know that there are different "levels" of XHTML. Strict pretty much forces you to use CSS if you want to control (or rather, suggest) the appearance of your pages. Transitional is the same as HTML 4.01 with small modifications to make it XML compliant.

Using JavaScript, Java, Flash etc. is also perfectly legal in XHTML web pages.

That explains why Microsoft puts all those bugs in their software. To protect their intellectual property and prevent their software from being used for military implementations.

Oh wait... it didn't work.

Moore's law is finally coming to an end. Seriously, continous and rapid advance of processing power is the one thing that's holding back affordable universal and pervasive computing in schools. These cash strapped schools cannot afford to replace text books every two years, let alone computers that cost hundreds more. Things are better now because relatively useful computers can be had for very cheaply, compared to just a few years ago, but scrapping Moore's law altogether is even better. Steve Wazniak also agrees

Wired has an article on this and how this augmenting of machine ability may be a glimpse of the future.

"...then just hire a human being to do it."

It's already being done.

Don't try to build a computer to act like a human, just plug a human in!

an interesting link off that article, the techno-bra. If you jump out in front of a girl and yell "BOO!" then she'll have to start hitting her boobs for the manual over-ride, or the cops'll come!

This article in Wired from 1999 describes an airbag vest developed by Japanese construction giant Kajima to protect construction workers from falls.

From THIS article...

...At the request of Microsoft, Adobe Systems, other members of the Business Software Alliance (BSA) and nearly 70 local court officials in Gothenburg, Sweden, swept through MindArk's offices, temporarily shutting down company operations while the bailiffs catalogued every piece of software in the place. ...

I submitted this to /. back in June with a note on my thoughts regarding established big biz hijacking and controling any developing net based economy.
I wish I saved the rant in ascii and still can't believe it was rejected. (What? I must be new here)

Many many months ago... Of course, the story was rejected, but, hey, that's Slashdot. Anyway, here's a story on it from (ironically) Wired. Makes me kinda wish I still went there... well, maybe not.

Wired had a few stories about this, here is one of the article, and there are (I believe) five stories total written about this by the author. Check it out, it's actually quite interesting. The entire series of articles chronicals the early deployment of the program to the present. Seems like the program is somewhat successful. The Maine website with info about this program can be found here.

For a little more detail, my attempted submission from a few weeks ago is below. I just bought his book and the latest Hacking Exposed, now I'm just waiting for a friendly visit from the fed.

The first chapter of Kevin Mitnick's new book, The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security, was removed by the publisher, but his girlfriend has now published it online. She gives credit to the Yahoo discussion group Kevin's Story for first posting the chapter. In the related Wired article, Mitnick claims that his girlfriend's blog is the first site he'll check out when his eight year federally mandated moratorium expires in January. The chapter covers Mitnicks initial forays into social engineering as well as alleging that John Markoff, stung by a failed book deal, used his position at the NYT to become rich by painting Mitnick as public enemy number one.

Would this be newsworthy if it wasn't an iBook? It seems that /. has joined Wired in the practice of publishing articles that are not newsworthy as long as Macs are involved. Would this be news if they were giving away Dell's? If they were giving away free M$ software this would be a warning article but since it is Apple, the university can push Apple's platform by giving away free hardware and software without the tiniest bit of dissent on /.. If MS made a laptop and this university gave away MS laptops preloaded with windowsXP, people would be screaming that the world is going to end.

Wired has introduced a new layout, which is xhtml compliant (and looks quite sophisticated too). See this interview for more info.

I think you may be missing the point. Manhattan is an island. What better way to prevent a nuclear bomb from hitting Manhattan than detecting it as it comes in?

In terms of access to Manhattan, there are only four tunnels, and 11 bridges ... but there are at least 21 subway tunnels. (7 from the north, 14 from the east, and the PATH from NJ). The people protecting the city would be neglegent to only secure the bridges and tunnels of the city.

An interesting article you may want to read about the topic is here.

Let's see Bill match this one!

Are you sure this wasn't discovered by Jan Hendrik Schon?

It amazes me that there is so much difference between USA and some other countries...

Back in Russia and Korea (slashdot reported this wired article a while ago, look for baang word) they are so popular.
In fact, I used to work in one in Moscow. They are called gaming clubs back there. Huge market.

The funny thing is the economy... I mean one hour costs from 0.5 to 1.5 US$ back there and there are always people there (some regulars too), even if they have computer at home. Most of the market is covered by small clubs though, 20 or so computers with average hardware (for a gaming machine) and internet access.

Back here in USA all you have is internet cafes, and you really can't find one... people do LAN parties, but that's it.

I am not sure if that is the reason for World Computer Games results (if you even know what that is)

[insert obvious RMS reference here]

Don't you mean "Insert obvious Bill Joy reference here"? Anyone who wishes to discuss nanotech has to take into account this essay. I'm not completely convinced, but it's a chilling cautionary exposition. Nanotech can be our salvation or our doom. Pessimist that I am, I'm expecting the latter but hoping for the former.

Besides, I remember seeing almost exactly what was presented in the article on a show on the Discovery channel a couple of years ago.

Oh yes, and while you're there, do a little distillery visiting. Seven single malts on one island.

Slainte!

Anyone notice this co-incidence before? http://www.archives.gov/digital_classroom/lessons/ zimmermann_telegram/zimmermann_telegram.html

You're the first!

You could always visit Singapore. They have a brand new airport which is even bigger and badder than Denver's new airport.

Singapore also is a huge shipping hub. I've heard stories about mile after mile of huge transport ships moored off the coast and connected with floating catwalks. Reminds me of the Raft out of Snowcrash. International shipping is fascinating -- did you know there are still piracy problems, particularly in Malacca Straight off of Singapore? Most of the boats are almost fully automated. [Piracy Article], [piracy stats]

Another good place would be Iceland. They've got some of the highest per capita tech adoption rates in the world. They've also got a vibrant electronic music scene with plenty of commonly known and underground artists.

Finally there is Russia (St. Petersburg or Moscow). Here is another similar Sterling article. I was in Moscow and surrouding cities in 95. It was crazy. You would literally see black Mercedes E class sedans driving the wrong way down the street and everyone rushing to get out of the way (the mob). You would see the 24 hour mini mart in the corner of an old KGB building with an armed guard outside. Some of the old "closed cities" where they did secret military research are now open. Russia is a crazy, chaotic place.

Honestly folks, do we really need a front page story every time a new version of Mozilla is realeased? I'm sure there's other applications that are more deserving than a web browser.

Mozilla 1.2.1 Released

Mozilla 1.2 Unleashed

Mozilla 1.2 Beta Released

Mozilla 1.2 Betas Start Flowing

Mozilla 1.1 Hits The Street

Mozilla 1.1 Beta Out And About

And that's just from the first two pages of search results. I know we all love our Mozilla, but I'm sure there's something else a little more newsworthy going on today.

A 1997 Wired story early described how analysts get paid for being quoted (Forrester denies this, sort of).

A 2000 Salon article.

NYT 12/1999 ($$$): The original magazine article titled "$6 Billion in Online Holiday Sales by the End of This Month! $24 Billion in Internet Ads by 2003! 2.3 Trillion E-Biz Predictions by 2010!". :)

NYT 5/2002 ($$$): Jupiter "crumbles" (uh-oh! better get some quotes out)

And yesterday the Times parroted the Reuters story.

Parenthetically the Jupiter founder Josh Harris went on to another interesting project you may have heard of. (Sadly, it's long since disbanded.)

A 1997 Wired story early described how analysts get paid for being quoted (Forrester denies this, sort of).

A 2000 Salon article.

NYT 12/1999 ($$$): The original magazine article titled "$6 Billion in Online Holiday Sales by the End of This Month! $24 Billion in Internet Ads by 2003! 2.3 Trillion E-Biz Predictions by 2010!". :)

NYT 5/2002 ($$$): Jupiter "crumbles" (uh-oh! better get some quotes out)

And yesterday the Times parroted the Reuters story.

Parenthetically the Jupiter founder Josh Harris went on to another interesting project you may have heard of. (Sadly, it's long since disbanded.)

I don't think you full understand the goals of W3C specs. They're actually aimed towards accessibility.

If you make your site "accessible", you're helping everyone access the content of your site, even if they're using screen readers, have poor eyesight or have a legacy browser such as Netscape 4 or even Mosaic.

Just because it's a "newfangled" CSS layout based website means it's somehow less accessible. In fact, it's the other way around. All your content is still there. If coded properly (proper semantics, and use of structure... not just endless amounts of DIVs with CSS classes), it's even a lot easier for, say, screen readers to use since they'll see the structure (Hn tags, ULs, etc...). That's a lot better than wading through a bunch of TD tags and spacers gifs that are used for layouts. In fact, you should only use table tags for tabular data.

Check out Wired.com for instance. It has a table-less layout. If you remove the CSS (Opera's user pages, or one of many CSS toggle bookmarklets for Moz) all the content remains easy to read and is accessible.

Now is the time to pursue full compliance with W3C specs.

Are you implying that Apple is a "gay" corporation? If so I fail to see the relevance.

I think he's referring to the fact that the people in the article act like they're in some sort of club together. They see the apple sticker, and they have an "instant friend", like gay people and the rainbow sticker, or neo-nazis and the swastika.

It's all sheepish bullshit if you ask me, I pick my friends based on their merits as human beings, not what OS they use, or their sexual orientation, or the fact that they hate black people.

The more you label yourself (Machead, liberal, conservative, fascist, whatever), the easier it is for your point of view to be written off as biased, much like the way nobody here takes Leander Kahney seriously as a real journalist.

There needs to a psychosexual analysis of the Mac community.

It's been done.

To put it bluntly, in this regard, Slashdot sucks.

The site is absolutely littered with horrible, nonstandard HTML, broken tags, tables, markup hacks, and other things that would confuse the bejesus out of any web accessibility tools.

Of course, the first step to solving this problem would be to overhaul Slashdot to resemble SOME form of web standards-compliance. That single step would improve accessibility tenfold. Instead, Slashdot has decided to ignore the problem and pretend it doesn't exist. I noticed they actually went so far as to block the w3c's validator from accessing Slashdot. (When you try to validate it, the validator complains that it received a 403.)

For such a widely popular website, Slashdot is poorly constructed, and has made no effort whatsoever to rectify the problem. For an example of a really nicely created site, take a look at Wired sometime. Run a page or two of theirs through the validator. View their source. They've learned to favor div tags over tables for formatting, and their pages actually validate properly.

The first step to accessibility is valid HTML. If you want to go further, there are some good resources available.

Fetishists Really Love Their Macs

At least it's less creepy than the recent one about Mac users having sexual fantasies about their computers. (Which, in turn, was at least less creepy than the Salon article on the sex lives of Richard Stallman and other free software figures...)

Yes, technically. But they don't have Jobi-Wan Stevnobi on their side.