“We empathize with consumers about the emotional nature of dealing with computer problems. As the leader in computer problem resolution for nearly 10 years, we have a distinct advantage in helping consumers quickly and conveniently solve their frustrating computer problems,” said Josh Pickus, CEO of SupportSoft.
SupportSoft sells support; so they're interested in a dystopian state of affairs. (For my part, I'm still not convinced we're not dealing with a slashvertisement.)
That said, computers play some yet-to-be-determined role in the splintering of society; as the space-time-continuum is warped, and proximity becomes irrelevant: neighbours become irrelevant.
A real dystopia, therefore, might be the flattening of human relationships into one indifferent, indistinguishable mass.
But since Europeans and European-Americans aren't breeding anymore, it doesn't matter: you'll all be dead within a generation.
Although the no-follow move is certainly understandable from a spam-fighting perspective, it turns Wikipedia into something of a black hole on the Net. It sucks up vast quantities of link energy but never releases any.
The situation is a classic tragedy of the commons: does the interest of malificent spammers outweigh Wikipedia's rôle as a semantic mediator between alien but related nodes?
Should Wikipedia transition to leaf from cut-point, it may have significant and unforeseen effects on internet-topology.
[DRM-free music] could change the equation for Apple, which has dominated the sales of both Internet music and digital music players.
Makes me wonder if they're not motivated to undermine Apple, who fought tooth and nail to maintain $0.99/download against the industry's will.
The record industry views the Occident, paradoxically, with more suspicion than the Orient, though we're their biggest customers; it wouldn't surprise me, therefore, if they began to roll this out first in the East:
EMI Group last week said it would offer free streaming music on Baidu.com, the leading Web site and search engine in China, where 90 percent of music is pirated.
Contrary to claims made in the paper, the content protection mechanisms do not make Windows Vista PCs less reliable than they would be otherwise -- if anything they will have the opposite effect, for example because they will lead to better driver quality control.
That Microsoft needs to engage in counter-propaganda is already suspicious: it means they've abandoned elegance for ad hoc-ery; transparence for evasion; and trust for tyranny.
I'm putting my money on the knaves and crackers to dispatch* their “content-constaint” in months, not years.
_____________ * 1600 HOLLAND Livy XXII. vi. 435 The heat of the sunne had broken and dispatched the mist.
The missing information is a minuscule portion of the overall file that does not affect video quality, according to Bjarnason, but does allow the company to discover who purchased a particular file.
I'll assume the people working on Streamburst are clever; but I wonder how susceptible the ghost-stream is to translation and recompression: whether it's possible to corrupt the signature-stream while retaining watchable quality.
I think you're confusing the government with those who abuse it. . ..
Hmm; I guess that's the converse of “hate the sin, love the sinner.” Realistically speaking, however, the will to power is so congenitally irresistable that differentiating between government and the abuse thereof is academic.
No: government and its abuse are selfsame (or can be modeled as such with reasonable success).
Even a baby step in the right direction counts at this point.
I think you're being too soft on your own government. Government isn't a child in need of coddling: it's a cynical and self-aware machine that studies to persist at your expense.
It sounded, prima facie, like progress was being made; but quoth TFA:
Currently, laboratories are using proprietary test methods and test cases to determine that a voting system meets existing federal standards. . . . By law, NIST must protect proprietary information. This includes details of a laboratory's specific testing methods and protocols.
Call me cynical, but auditing opaque processes with equally opaque tests doesn't change much; I foresee a holographic sticker labelled “certified.”
I'd wager, furthermore, they expect us to buy it at face value.
Harvard may have achieved very high production of scientific research at the expense of quality at the top-end.
I attended Harvard for Ph.D. work, and can say that there has been a feminization of science; which is characterized, above all, by a gatherer-mentality (quantity over quality).
My peers at MIT, I remember, were doing risky and testosterone-laden work; they are the hunters.
Mr Umashankar . . . said all the ELCOT servers were on Redhat Linus.
Sounds painful.
In good sadness, though, India's push for OSS seems to be in direct proportion to its Microsoft-olatry: last I heard, most institutions there prostrate before Redmond.
Promiscuity and Windows must go hand in hand (bad joke there, anyone?); why the hell wouldn't he set up a dæmon that received URLs by email instead of arbitrary binaries?!
So the next time you find yourself stuck in bumper to bumper traffic, it's very possible that the jackass that caused it is already at home watching the latest episode of American Idol[...].
I like the idea of a single blameworthy agent to bear the brunt of my hideous imprecations: a Christ of traffic, if you will; except I'm the Romans, and it's Mel Gibson's Passion all over again.
Kim Jong Il has almost zero funds, and yet retains power by personality.
Kim's funds may be insignificant in absolute terms; but relatively speaking, while the rest of North Korea is totally dark, he has enough money left over after his cognac, Segways and iPods to fund a nuclear program.
The effect of money is more insidious and less visible than “blind devotion;” instances:
“Anti-capitalist?” American capital seeks the continuation of power at the expense of its subjects (viz. by preferential treatment of aliens); it's a classic case of governmental degenerescence.
Degeneration into tyranny, however, is not peculiar to capitalism.
If I do ever want to play back premium content, I'll wait a few years and then buy a $50 Chinese-made set-top player to do it, not a $1000 Windows PC. It's somewhat bizarre that I have to go to Communist China in order to find vendors who actually understand the consumer's needs.
At first, I shared some cognitive dissonance with Gutman; China, however, is governed by Chinese and for Chinese: they're allowed to act in their own best interests.
The U.S., on the other hand, is beholden to parasites and corporations; and compelled into an unnecessary decline.
Perhaps you are one of the rogue intelligent people who actually vote Republican.
Actually, AC: I rebuke the false dichotomy of Republican/Democrat. The false dichotomy of Republican/Democrat is for those "thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root."*
Slashdot Mirror
From TFA:
SupportSoft sells support; so they're interested in a dystopian state of affairs. (For my part, I'm still not convinced we're not dealing with a slashvertisement.)
That said, computers play some yet-to-be-determined role in the splintering of society; as the space-time-continuum is warped, and proximity becomes irrelevant: neighbours become irrelevant.
A real dystopia, therefore, might be the flattening of human relationships into one indifferent, indistinguishable mass.
But since Europeans and European-Americans aren't breeding anymore, it doesn't matter: you'll all be dead within a generation.
From TFA:
The situation is a classic tragedy of the commons: does the interest of malificent spammers outweigh Wikipedia's rôle as a semantic mediator between alien but related nodes?
Should Wikipedia transition to leaf from cut-point, it may have significant and unforeseen effects on internet-topology.
From TFA:
Makes me wonder if they're not motivated to undermine Apple, who fought tooth and nail to maintain $0.99/download against the industry's will.
The record industry views the Occident, paradoxically, with more suspicion than the Orient, though we're their biggest customers; it wouldn't surprise me, therefore, if they began to roll this out first in the East:
Can someone say, “chutzpah?”
From TFA:
That Microsoft needs to engage in counter-propaganda is already suspicious: it means they've abandoned elegance for ad hoc-ery; transparence for evasion; and trust for tyranny.
I'm putting my money on the knaves and crackers to dispatch* their “content-constaint” in months, not years.
_____________
* 1600 HOLLAND Livy XXII. vi. 435 The heat of the sunne had broken and dispatched the mist.
Moko has an unfortunate homonym “moco”; if it manages to live that one down, however, here's hoping it has ssh.
From TFA:
I'll assume the people working on Streamburst are clever; but I wonder how susceptible the ghost-stream is to translation and recompression: whether it's possible to corrupt the signature-stream while retaining watchable quality.
Hmm; I guess that's the converse of “hate the sin, love the sinner.” Realistically speaking, however, the will to power is so congenitally irresistable that differentiating between government and the abuse thereof is academic.
No: government and its abuse are selfsame (or can be modeled as such with reasonable success).
I think you're being too soft on your own government. Government isn't a child in need of coddling: it's a cynical and self-aware machine that studies to persist at your expense.
It sounded, prima facie, like progress was being made; but quoth TFA:
Call me cynical, but auditing opaque processes with equally opaque tests doesn't change much; I foresee a holographic sticker labelled “certified.”
I'd wager, furthermore, they expect us to buy it at face value.
From TFS:
You don't seem to appreciate the kind of despotism you're dealing with; let's play a game called “name the common denominator:”
Here's a clue: the players are both slaves and tyrants.
From TFS:
I attended Harvard for Ph.D. work, and can say that there has been a feminization of science; which is characterized, above all, by a gatherer-mentality (quantity over quality).
My peers at MIT, I remember, were doing risky and testosterone-laden work; they are the hunters.
Ah, but that's the double sens of “dead man's mechanism:” herald and agent of your unmaking.
(At the very least, she unmade me a bachelor.)
From TFS:
I'll counter with my own ask-ask-slashdot: why would you use MySQL? It's only one more component to fail after you've expired.
My advice: lose the extraneous components; and get a wife, too: they come with a redundant dead man's mechanism.
From TFA:
Sounds painful.
In good sadness, though, India's push for OSS seems to be in direct proportion to its Microsoft-olatry: last I heard, most institutions there prostrate before Redmond.
Résumé of TFA:
Promiscuity and Windows must go hand in hand (bad joke there, anyone?); why the hell wouldn't he set up a dæmon that received URLs by email instead of arbitrary binaries?!
Elegance may well be a UNIX thing.
From TFA:
I like the idea of a single blameworthy agent to bear the brunt of my hideous imprecations: a Christ of traffic, if you will; except I'm the Romans, and it's Mel Gibson's Passion all over again.
Kim's funds may be insignificant in absolute terms; but relatively speaking, while the rest of North Korea is totally dark, he has enough money left over after his cognac, Segways and iPods to fund a nuclear program.
The effect of money is more insidious and less visible than “blind devotion;” instances:
“Anti-capitalist?” American capital seeks the continuation of power at the expense of its subjects (viz. by preferential treatment of aliens); it's a classic case of governmental degenerescence.
Degeneration into tyranny, however, is not peculiar to capitalism.
From TFA:
At first, I shared some cognitive dissonance with Gutman; China, however, is governed by Chinese and for Chinese: they're allowed to act in their own best interests.
The U.S., on the other hand, is beholden to parasites and corporations; and compelled into an unnecessary decline.
I don't know; do I pass the Turing Test?
Actually, AC: I rebuke the false dichotomy of Republican/Democrat. The false dichotomy of Republican/Democrat is for those "thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root."*
No, I vote Nationalist.
_____________
Thoreau, Walden, 1-E.