Agreed, this news is tough to read on the same day that I hear Andy Hertzfeld describe Xerox PARC being managed by PHBs who only wanted to sell paper and toner, and therefore not acting on innovations that have become the digital equivalent of ink and paper thanks to Apple and Microsoft.
Every holder of an EE/CS degree of any type, or who makes money employing EE's, should be praying three times a day in the direction of Murray Hills. Among many other things, the transister, the MOSFET, the C programming language, and the laser were first conceived there. It truly is the Mecca of the information age.
For those who aren't yet aware of it, Glen Greenwald at Salon.com has been making a rather thorough analysis of the holes in the DOJ's case against Ivins, and is not sparing the media coverage, either.
"Slow" id users get so many mod points, they don't need to post. Someone else usually posts essentially what we were gonna say, and we mostly just mod those folks up.
I tend to agree with orzetto -- it was entertainment and art, from beginning to end. The slippery slope argument in this case is, I'm afraid, a fallacy.
Now, if the faked images had been associated with real news -- war, human rights, natural disaster, etc. -- then there would be grounds for a scandal. But this? It was a spectacle even without the "digital pyrotechnics."
I've worked for NASA and DoD contractors for 20+ years, and starting sometime in the late 1908's / early 1990's, it became a requirement for companies holding federal contracts to implement some sort of drug screening. Most of the employers I've encountered use urinalysis during the pre-employment physical. However some require random screening for part or all of their workforce.
When I was working for Hughes in 1992 a memo circulated announcing their new random screening policy. Immediately one of my cow orkers headed straight for the cafeteria and bought five lemon poppy seed muffins. I found him sitting in the dining area, pounding his muffins, and said "Dude, what's with the muffins?"
He said he just wanted to yield a positive on their testing and make it as expensive as possible for them. Especially if they terminated him.
I donated, regretted, and attempted to Undo. The money instead goes to a campaign which has already demonstrated that it agrees with my positions (which is what I thought I did in the first place, and then learned otherwise).
What part of legal political contributions do you not understand?
On June 16, I wrote a check for $100 to Obama for America.
On June 23, I learned that Obama would not oppose this bill, and regretted my donation.
On June 24, I called Obama for America and asked for my donation to be returned, and that I would reinstate the donation once I saw Sen. Obama "take effective steps to protect our 4th amendment rights." Needless to say, I was forwarded to a voice mailbox.
On July 9, I still have not received my refund, nor even the courtesy of a return phone call. But I went ahead and donated the $100 to Courage Campaign instead.
Well, at least if we're nabbed for sedition because we Godwined George Dubya on the phone with our grandma, we'll have a right to address the charges in front of a Judge.
Yea, but remember that the difference between a slob and a virtuoso is that the virtuoso spent many, many years learning the rules so that they may choose which to break, while a slob is just, well, sloppy.
If you haven't quite seen the significance of this, imagine overclocking your calculator and matching the performance of a workstation. Or polishing up the 3 inch reflector in your attic and outclassing Hubble with your images.
I'd say it's more like finding out your "workstation" is an overpriced, overcomplicated Rube Goldberg device that in reality has the same performance as a Razor scooter.
Up to this point, photon counters were elaborate devices with scintillation media, anticoincidence detctors, veto logic, and complex timing and biasing requirements.
Now you can just apply 9.8V and an instrumentation amp and a couple analog filter/comparator chains, and off you go counting.
Aye, I played both, and recall them fondly. I played GS3 on AOL back when it was a nickel a minute, running up $400/mo AOL bills. In fact, it was AOL's conversion to flat-rate pricing that broke my addiction. I couldn't get a dialup connection for weeks, despite near constant redialing.
And now, when I play WoW, I regularly lament the fact that Blizzard spent so much on graphics and so little on gameplay, and wonder how much they could do if they attempted the same kind of immersive quests that DR and GS3 offered.
It'd be nice if the experiment had taken a more practical approach.
For instance, the experiment would have been potentially useful if Penelope Retch had a few honeypot credit cards and bank accounts to give out to spammers and phishing websites.
Also of interest (at least to/.ers), the address I formerly used in my usenet sig still gets a TON of pornographic spam, promising some rather graphic scenery... and apparently I'm not all that uncommon. Did any of her volunteers reply to the pr0n spam? Did they get a deluge of pornographic material on their doorsteps?
No kidding. I bought a MBP almost two years ago, and a few weeks after I bought it, I got into the nightly habit of using it on my lap in front of the TV to browse the web and play games while my wife watched her programs.
A few weeks after that [this is in January mind you] I began waking up in the mornings with an especially acute itchy rash in my groin area, which I had never suffered from before. After a couple of weeks of being unable to cure myself of it, and the rash becoming angry and painful, I finally went to the doctor and was diagnosed with Tinea Cruris. The doctor asked me if I had begun using a sauna or spa regularly, to which I replied negatively...
He then asked me if I had recently purchased a laptop computer. And that's when the lightbulb went on.
After four weeks of twice daily showers, blow drying the affected area, and applying Lotrimin, the rash went away. And I no longer rest my laptop on my lap when in use.
I wouldn't call it ineptitude, either. It's more like apathy and/or laziness.
It takes some clicking and some data entry just to set up a secondary profile. Not a lot, but enough to create a barrier.
Additionally, if a family is already sharing one queue, then it *is* a lot of work to distribute the primary queue entries among the secondary profile queues. This creates another disincentive to adding a secondary profile. Netflix doesn't have a tool for moving queues between profiles.
They should have made one, however, before announcing this. I don't know a single netflix user who is happy about this.
See, now you're not just telling me it needs to be removed because it's "inconvenient." That's a cost/benefit analysis, and I'll listen. With interest.
In response, I'll probably tell you to go back and give me another estimate for rewriting it so that it *includes* affordably-managed profiles so that I can make a fully informed decision. If your first estimate has any accuracy, then even if you double it in order to offer profiles, it can still be justified in the long run, and show a return on investment in about a year.
And if you want my admiration, in addition to simple respect, you'll also make a recommendation that is supported by a quantitative comparative analysis using valid assumptions and estimates. I'll even give you the credit for the idea when I pitch it to *my* boss.
First you'll have to prove that it's a "massive" degrading of the users experiance.
A manager's next response: "Pardon Me?? You have the burden of proof here, not marketing. If you continue to demonstrate such arrogance, you'll be out of work."
I'm an engineering manager, and agree with the grandparent. We're not in business for the convenience of the engineers. If you can provide a marketing analysis to support your argument, I'll listen. If you can produce a cost/benefit analysis to support your position, I'll listen. If you can produce an ethical/moral/legal justification, I'll listen. If you're whinging because "it's not convenient," all you will do is piss me off.
This seems like a rather poor move, marketing wise. I'm annoyed that I have to move my wife's 200+ movie list over to my main profile, which is never used. But if its simply for the "convenience" of the engineers, I'll be royally pissed.
Another cool idea is kind of a "digital fishbowl" -- get an old tablet PC or iMac (or even just a digital photo frame) and have it run Golly cases (or in the case of the photo frame, a sequence of Golly generations).
In my university computing lab, circa 1985, someone had posted a photocopy of a poem and illustration from the July 1982 issue of BYTE magazine.
The title of the poem was "Datawocky" [a clear satire of Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky"], and it had a rather surreal illustration that I am still looking for.
The infinite series of tubes has preserved the poem, sans fictional attribution, but I can not find the illustration.
DATAWOCKY - by Jack Stack
'Twas global and the megabytes
Did gyre and gimbal on the disk
All mimsy were the prompts and codes
And the software was brisk
Beware the microchip my son
The bits, the bytes and bauds and such
Beware the CRT and shun
The qwerty keyboard's clutch
He took his self-pace book in hand
Long time the menu key he sought
Then wrestled he with the toaster drive
And sat a while in thought
Then as he sought that glitchy bug
The microchip, with gates aflame,
Came whiffling through its I/O plug
And processed as it came
Asynch, Bisynch, all protocols,
His binary went snicker snack,
He felt it crash, and with a dash
He came galumphing back
And dids't thou tame the microchip
Come interface my beamish boy
O frabjous day, Caloo! Callay!
O database, O Joy
'Twas global and the megabytes
Did gyre and gimbal on the disk
All mimsy were the prompts and codes
And the software was brisk
As a standalone poem, it's a bit insipid. But a copy of the original article, with illustration, is a work of art that I have been searching for, unsuccessfully, for years now.
$300M is the contract value for option 1, and it's spread over 5 years -- mind you, that's the price to design, validate, and test it -- it is not the cost of a suit. Adding in option 2, and you get a tad over $560M. Furthermore, Option 2 is an "ID/IQ" contract, meaning that NASA is not obligated to actually give them a dime unless they feel like it.
From looking at the concept, I'd make a SWAG order of magnitude estimate of $2M for the "per suit" recurring cost. Wouldn't be surprised if that is as high as $10M, though, especially by 2012.
Considering the cost of one F-22 Raptor ($62Gig NRE, $140Meg recurring), I think it's quite affordable. We could buy just one less F-22 and it would pay for an adequate supply of Lunar suits.
Slashdot Mirror
Agreed, this news is tough to read on the same day that I hear Andy Hertzfeld describe Xerox PARC being managed by PHBs who only wanted to sell paper and toner, and therefore not acting on innovations that have become the digital equivalent of ink and paper thanks to Apple and Microsoft.
Every holder of an EE/CS degree of any type, or who makes money employing EE's, should be praying three times a day in the direction of Murray Hills. Among many other things, the transister, the MOSFET, the C programming language, and the laser were first conceived there. It truly is the Mecca of the information age.
No, assuming she's a Rolemaster grognard, those are her Presence, Self Discipline, and Empathy stats.
The permanents, at that.
For those who aren't yet aware of it, Glen Greenwald at Salon.com has been making a rather thorough analysis of the holes in the DOJ's case against Ivins, and is not sparing the media coverage, either.
Read and judge for yourself.
Mostly.
Now, if the faked images had been associated with real news -- war, human rights, natural disaster, etc. -- then there would be grounds for a scandal. But this? It was a spectacle even without the "digital pyrotechnics."
When I was working for Hughes in 1992 a memo circulated announcing their new random screening policy. Immediately one of my cow orkers headed straight for the cafeteria and bought five lemon poppy seed muffins. I found him sitting in the dining area, pounding his muffins, and said "Dude, what's with the muffins?"
He said he just wanted to yield a positive on their testing and make it as expensive as possible for them. Especially if they terminated him.
The expression on my face said, "Riiiiight..."
Agreed - a fantastic piece. NYCL is the internet MVP of the day.
From my perspective as a consumer, this holds true universally across all internet and cable/satellite TV providers.
Nothin' like regretting the first time, eh?
What part of legal political contributions do you not understand?
On June 23, I learned that Obama would not oppose this bill, and regretted my donation.
On June 24, I called Obama for America and asked for my donation to be returned, and that I would reinstate the donation once I saw Sen. Obama "take effective steps to protect our 4th amendment rights." Needless to say, I was forwarded to a voice mailbox.
On July 9, I still have not received my refund, nor even the courtesy of a return phone call. But I went ahead and donated the $100 to Courage Campaign instead.
Right?
Right?
Hello?
Yea, but remember that the difference between a slob and a virtuoso is that the virtuoso spent many, many years learning the rules so that they may choose which to break, while a slob is just, well, sloppy.
That's what "analog filter/comparator chains" do... so you are correct.
I'd say it's more like finding out your "workstation" is an overpriced, overcomplicated Rube Goldberg device that in reality has the same performance as a Razor scooter.
Up to this point, photon counters were elaborate devices with scintillation media, anticoincidence detctors, veto logic, and complex timing and biasing requirements.
Now you can just apply 9.8V and an instrumentation amp and a couple analog filter/comparator chains, and off you go counting.
And now, when I play WoW, I regularly lament the fact that Blizzard spent so much on graphics and so little on gameplay, and wonder how much they could do if they attempted the same kind of immersive quests that DR and GS3 offered.
For instance, the experiment would have been potentially useful if Penelope Retch had a few honeypot credit cards and bank accounts to give out to spammers and phishing websites.
Also of interest (at least to /.ers), the address I formerly used in my usenet sig still gets a TON of pornographic spam, promising some rather graphic scenery... and apparently I'm not all that uncommon. Did any of her volunteers reply to the pr0n spam? Did they get a deluge of pornographic material on their doorsteps?
A few weeks after that [this is in January mind you] I began waking up in the mornings with an especially acute itchy rash in my groin area, which I had never suffered from before. After a couple of weeks of being unable to cure myself of it, and the rash becoming angry and painful, I finally went to the doctor and was diagnosed with Tinea Cruris . The doctor asked me if I had begun using a sauna or spa regularly, to which I replied negatively...
He then asked me if I had recently purchased a laptop computer. And that's when the lightbulb went on.
After four weeks of twice daily showers, blow drying the affected area, and applying Lotrimin, the rash went away. And I no longer rest my laptop on my lap when in use.
It takes some clicking and some data entry just to set up a secondary profile. Not a lot, but enough to create a barrier.
Additionally, if a family is already sharing one queue, then it *is* a lot of work to distribute the primary queue entries among the secondary profile queues. This creates another disincentive to adding a secondary profile. Netflix doesn't have a tool for moving queues between profiles.
They should have made one, however, before announcing this. I don't know a single netflix user who is happy about this.
(I bet I will soon, however...)
In response, I'll probably tell you to go back and give me another estimate for rewriting it so that it *includes* affordably-managed profiles so that I can make a fully informed decision. If your first estimate has any accuracy, then even if you double it in order to offer profiles, it can still be justified in the long run, and show a return on investment in about a year.
And if you want my admiration, in addition to simple respect, you'll also make a recommendation that is supported by a quantitative comparative analysis using valid assumptions and estimates. I'll even give you the credit for the idea when I pitch it to *my* boss.
I'm an engineering manager, and agree with the grandparent. We're not in business for the convenience of the engineers. If you can provide a marketing analysis to support your argument, I'll listen. If you can produce a cost/benefit analysis to support your position, I'll listen. If you can produce an ethical/moral/legal justification, I'll listen. If you're whinging because "it's not convenient," all you will do is piss me off.
This seems like a rather poor move, marketing wise. I'm annoyed that I have to move my wife's 200+ movie list over to my main profile, which is never used. But if its simply for the "convenience" of the engineers, I'll be royally pissed.
Another cool idea is kind of a "digital fishbowl" -- get an old tablet PC or iMac (or even just a digital photo frame) and have it run Golly cases (or in the case of the photo frame, a sequence of Golly generations).
The title of the poem was "Datawocky" [a clear satire of Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky"], and it had a rather surreal illustration that I am still looking for.
The infinite series of tubes has preserved the poem, sans fictional attribution, but I can not find the illustration.
As a standalone poem, it's a bit insipid. But a copy of the original article, with illustration, is a work of art that I have been searching for, unsuccessfully, for years now.From looking at the concept, I'd make a SWAG order of magnitude estimate of $2M for the "per suit" recurring cost. Wouldn't be surprised if that is as high as $10M, though, especially by 2012.
Considering the cost of one F-22 Raptor ($62Gig NRE, $140Meg recurring), I think it's quite affordable. We could buy just one less F-22 and it would pay for an adequate supply of Lunar suits.