Re:I'm already too plugged in with my iPhone and i
on
Google Glasses Announced
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Just like your iPhone and iPad, you will be able to turn these off/remove them when you don't want things popping up unbidden in your field of vision. More likely they will be configurable enough to manage the balance between unbidden and on demand behavior. If not, there will be a CyanogenMod build that is configurable enough to tweak to you're liking, including compensating for your profound lack of self-discipline if you can't make yourself unplug on your own.
Because the stock answer given to justify the cost of goods and services is that the costs of production (raw materials etc). factor in to the final price. That's why statements like: "If you do , that cost will just be passed along to the customer" are common. What that statement suggests to most people is when the cost of doing business decreases, those savings will be passed along to the customer as well. Swallowing that bitter pill is much less appealing when the explanation is "I just want more money" as opposed to "my costs went up, I have to charge more to break even". Since the current IP rights system encourages monopoly behavior (and the perpetual copyright rightsholder is a monopoly), there is no competitor to turn to when "I want to swim in pools of money like Uncle Scrooge" is the only justification for pricing.
I'm giving up my moderation rights for this discussion to say that the next improvement Slashdot should implement is to allow moderation of the stories themselves. I'd love to be able to browse stories on the main page (or in a personal newsfeed) using a filter setting of my choosing based on the moderated quality of a story rather than topic, submitter etc.
I'm not deeply familiar with the details of incandescent light development, but I was always under the impression that the big challenge was, you know, just making them work at all without burning out in a short time. Did they really work hard to find the optimal "warm color balance" before they were considered successful? I doubt it. I suspect that at the time the critics were going on about the harsh glare of the incandescent lamp and waxing poetic about the superior warm color balance of the candle flame. Fast forward to the modern day, and every advance in lighting technology can't fail to have a discussion about the "unnatural light" emitted by the newer, more efficient technology of the day. Smells like a classic case of change resistence to me.
Personally, I can adjust. Being a pampered westerner, I can't know what it's like to *really* be without light, but I've experienced several long power interruptions, including last year's week-long post-hurricane Irene outage, and I'll take any light I can get, thank you very much. More efficient, brighter, requires less power? Able to produce "normal indoor light levels" from a handheld lantern powered by a battery for a week, but sorry, it's a little on the "blue" side? Who the hell cares?
Personally, I hated the writing style and couldn't get into it. It's nothing like Heinlein's
I think the GP was referring generally to a clipped, appreviated style reflecting the speaking/thinking habits of the respective protagonists, not trying to make a literal and exact comparison. Heinlein chose one variant, Palmer another, but both are clipped, abbreviated styles that take some getting used to. They are alike in kind, but very different in detail.
That said, the contrast between the two is rather interesting.
The style used by Heinlein is a portrayal of 'language drift' as it naturally occurs within a population of people long isolated from the rest of society. It's different from the 'normal style' (represented by the style that 'we' use), but it's still a style used by a population of people communicating amongst each other. As such it's probably a bit more natural and easier to get used to by the reader.
Palmer's style, on the other hand, is a style used by an individual isolated from the rest of society at a young age (even before the events of the story) to record personal thoughts, not to communicate with other people. It's based on a standard (Pitman shorthand) that's been around for nearly 200 years and at the time of writing the novel was one of the most popular forms of shorthand for the English language, so it's been 'debugged' and streamlined, but it's purpose is utilitarian (the efficient capture of information) rather than communication. Granted not many people know shorthand these days, but I'm still a little surprised that people seem to have difficulty adjusting to this style. I would expect it to fit more naturally into the mind of an English speaking reader than it apparently does.
Quite fascinating.
The real point, to bring it back to the subject of the original post, is that both styles fit their stories and characters remarkably well. Both are in their way quite brilliant and thus worthy of mention.
That they could be considered "forgotten" from the perspective of the general reader is a damned shame, but that's a topic for another day.
- Hugo nominated. - One of the best female protagonists since Podkayne Fries (the plot follows a precocious 11-year-old orphan girl, living in a post-apocalyptic United States). - A talking, possibly psychic, parrot companion.
It's been out of print for quite some time, but still seems to be available at a somewhat reasonable price from the usual online booksellers. A better bet might be through your local library, particularly if you have access to a wider lending network.
And all of these "alternatives" you mention are hosted where? Unless you are the owner of the network cables, someone stands between you and the internet, whether you're using a "cloud service" or "cloud hosting provider" or "cloud accessible colocated server", or even "business-level internet access" from your local provider. Even the latter can block access to your IP if they decide to honor a DMCA request (or they suspect you violate their terms of service). As long as you have to rely on the good graces of someone else, you're vulnerable. Some less vulnerable than others, I'll grant you, but still vulnerable. And if you have the wherewhithall to have completely independent internet access, you can probably just be sued directly, because you'll be a big enough target to make it worthwhile.
It seems to me the future lies in smarter and less "public" uses of the internet, where the folks likely to post a takedown never see your stuff, because you're sharing with a much smaller and more exclusive audience. I guess that's in part what the darknet is all about. The internet is still pretty darned useful without relying on all the privacy stealing public services that masquerade as a service but are really meant to serve you up as the product. That's possibly what you were advocating.
The alternative is to fully embrace the concept of the cloud for things you want to make public - just throw it out there and make sure it gets dispersed as far and wide as possible into the cloud of information. You'll relinquish all control (can't get it back once it's out there), but it will be hard to take down.
I personally don't live anywhere near Wisconsin...
Geography FIAL. Or perhaps just an inadvertent non-sequitor.
Ann Arbor is in Michigan. In the corner of the state farthest away from Wisconsin.
... and really don't think anyone but those who live in that district should have any say, whatsever, what the FLYING FSCK the people of that community spend on their school system.
Ok, agreed. But perhaps learning about what happens in other school districts can prepare people for similar situations in their own?
What arrogance. this is my last post to Slashdot. Cya. Unbelievable.
I'm not sure where you got the "less private". What I'm saying is that "trust me, I'm not tracking you" means nothing without proof. That includes experts (or governments) saying "trust them - they are not tracking you". I have no proof that is true, so I am most certainly not going to adopt a false sense of complacency and let down my guard on mere assurances. Back in the day there was a word for that: sucker. Search engines that admit they are tracking you don't lull you into a false sense of privacy at least, so you are more likely to take active measures to limit what you divulge. Treat them all the same, and if the privacy-respecting search engines are actually what they claim, you are much better off.
Correction: They CLAIM to not record your IP address or track your searches. Without verified evidence that this is true, all the privacy advocates in the world can enthusiastically endorse them, but that won't make me trust them any more than the other search engines. At least the latter admit freely they track you, so you can be more careful with your searches.
I'm totally cool with misuse of the language to be ironic or whatever, but that requires a degree of cleverness I don't detect here. Please learn language idioms before you try to use them. Just sayin'.
Seconded. The news is available from many sources, and is usually not all that new by the time it hits the/. front page. If one wants breaking news,/. is not the site to use as a primary source. It's the (oft maligned)/. community that is the real attraction here. Just tweak the hidden/abbreviated thresholds to a comfortable setting (2/3 when not moderating, personally) and much of the noise that people complain about is filtered, and what remains is usually of sufficient quality to inform, entertain or enlighten.
Interesting. The Windup Girl doesn't quite work (for me) as a narrative, but I will agree the ideas presented were quite thought provoking. It seemed more a problem of execution than ideas, though, so I can totally buy the idea that the author might come up with some really interesting stories in the short form in this particular make-believe world. I will most certainly read these short stories, based on your recommendation. Thanks.
Agreed. This book received more buzz than was warranted, and the substance was lacking. As you say, it starts off strong, but never really delivers. I slogged through until the end, but more out of stubbornness than because it was a compelling read. I couldn't help but think that in the hands of a more capable writer, this could have been an incredible story, but the reality was less compelling.
That's not a scam - that's honesty. Statins (Lipitor is a statin) do what it says on the box: they lower blood cholesterol. As you've often read on this site, correlation does not equal causation - the statement you find troublesome is an acknowledgement of that. A scam would be an outright claim that statins reduce the risk of heart disease. They actual do in certain cases (reduce risk of cardiac events and stroke in patients with pre-existing cardiac conditions), apparently (http://www.bmj.com/content/326/7404/1423.full). What's not clear is whether they prevent the development of cardiovascular problems, which is probably what you're harping on.
The popular perception of pharmaceuticals seems to want a simple "miracle drug" that works wonders in all circumstances. That's not how things work - it's complicated, but drugs do actually work, under the right conditions.
Everyone need this kind of storage. A small external HDD is readily identifiable as such, so will be subject to arbitrary search and confiscation at the whim of the border guards. Better to store your data within ordinary items such as a hairbrush, keyfob or the flight-safe Swiss Army Knife. Preferably encrypted and redundantly distributed among as many innocuous items as you can stand to carry. When you have reached your destination, use your most secure device to update and change your security codes so the folks who confiscated your external HDD can't easily get to your personal information.
Pretty much this. The actions of the policymakers don't amount to much when it comes to what vehicles the carmakers produce and what the customers buy, at least based on how much effect they have had to date. When circumstances get to the point where people demand more efficient vehicles (because fuel prices are too high, for example), car makers will produce them, or someone will come up with a better solution that people will actually pay for.
But "many" is not the majority. Most people just want to know whether it works. Google and Canonical aren't really aiming for the FOSS community. They're aiming for the community loosely labeled "people who have money." There's a fair amount of overlap, of course, but there's a lot more people in the second group than the first.
Confusing 80% of the first community to cater to 90% of the second isn't really a good business decision.
You're getting pretty high on the Ladder of Inference (http://gwynteatro.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/climbing-the-ladder-of-inference/). This wouldn't have to be visible at the top level of an App market search/browse (using the most broadly applicable defaults), so the potential for confusion is minimal. Put it somewhere in 'advanced search options' and the people who care can find it.
As an aside, a lot more people may care about more than "it works" than you think, and the influence of the smaller group may be bigger than you think. I think it's just a matter of marketing, really. Look at how many people take "green", "organic", "fair-trade" or "save the planet" into account when purchasing something. You underestimate people - I'm boggled a how much some people know about the carbon footprint of certain things, even when their personal stereotype suggests they shouldn't. People have the potential to care about more than the merely practical and should at least have the opportunity to discover factors they may care about. From personal experience, family, friends and acquaintances don't understand all the nuances of FOSS (or proprietary vs. open, or DRM-free vs. locked down or un-contained vs. walled-garden), but they know that I do. They ask when it matters to them and they weigh what I tell them when making a decision. As a result they understand the larger issues better over time, make more informed decisions as a result and seem satisfied with the outcome regardless of which they chose. That's a win as far as I'm concerned.
I use the software that does what I need most effectively. My needs are rarely served by refusing to use a piece of software just because it's not open source. I often find that the open source software is a better value (for my needs, GIMP is a better choice than Photoshop, and it's starting to look like it's also a better choice than Lightroom), but not always.
The simple fact is, most people just don't care what license their software is. You can complain as much as you want that other people are just uneducated, but it doesn't matter.
I didn't read anything in the OP about refusing to use non-free (as in speech) software. For some the license preference is about ideology, granted, but the license used also says a lot about the nature of the project, the community surrounding it and the ultimate motivations/agendas of the developers.
I suspect that many people (including myself), when searching for an application in an App market would prefer to browse through the FLOSS offerings first, then fall back to free (as in beer) or adware and proprietary apps if nothing suitable (or familiar) is available.
True enough. The original sentence used "is" appropriately. I added a few things at the last minute prior to posting and neglected to adjust the sentence accordingly. Note that you missed the excessive use of "and". Thank you - you have provided proof by your actions that a good editor is essential, particularly when posting articles on the internet for wide consumption. Bravo, sir.
Given the subject matter, I found it ironically frustrating that the article clearly received very little editorial review. Missing words, incorrect words and dubious grammar gave the impression of a hastily dashed off opinion piece rather than a thought-provoking analysis of a disturbing social trend. In fact, the sloppy writing/editing caused me to hit the back button before I had even finished reading the article in its entirety.
IMO, sloppy and imprecise thinking and communication is just as much of a danger for democracy as a "turn from science". In fact, the latter may just be a symptom of the former.
Slashdot Mirror
Just like your iPhone and iPad, you will be able to turn these off/remove them when you don't want things popping up unbidden in your field of vision. More likely they will be configurable enough to manage the balance between unbidden and on demand behavior. If not, there will be a CyanogenMod build that is configurable enough to tweak to you're liking, including compensating for your profound lack of self-discipline if you can't make yourself unplug on your own.
Because the stock answer given to justify the cost of goods and services is that the costs of production (raw materials etc). factor in to the final price. That's why statements like: "If you do , that cost will just be passed along to the customer" are common. What that statement suggests to most people is when the cost of doing business decreases, those savings will be passed along to the customer as well. Swallowing that bitter pill is much less appealing when the explanation is "I just want more money" as opposed to "my costs went up, I have to charge more to break even". Since the current IP rights system encourages monopoly behavior (and the perpetual copyright rightsholder is a monopoly), there is no competitor to turn to when "I want to swim in pools of money like Uncle Scrooge" is the only justification for pricing.
I'm giving up my moderation rights for this discussion to say that the next improvement Slashdot should implement is to allow moderation of the stories themselves. I'd love to be able to browse stories on the main page (or in a personal newsfeed) using a filter setting of my choosing based on the moderated quality of a story rather than topic, submitter etc.
I'm not deeply familiar with the details of incandescent light development, but I was always under the impression that the big challenge was, you know, just making them work at all without burning out in a short time. Did they really work hard to find the optimal "warm color balance" before they were considered successful? I doubt it. I suspect that at the time the critics were going on about the harsh glare of the incandescent lamp and waxing poetic about the superior warm color balance of the candle flame. Fast forward to the modern day, and every advance in lighting technology can't fail to have a discussion about the "unnatural light" emitted by the newer, more efficient technology of the day. Smells like a classic case of change resistence to me.
Personally, I can adjust. Being a pampered westerner, I can't know what it's like to *really* be without light, but I've experienced several long power interruptions, including last year's week-long post-hurricane Irene outage, and I'll take any light I can get, thank you very much. More efficient, brighter, requires less power? Able to produce "normal indoor light levels" from a handheld lantern powered by a battery for a week, but sorry, it's a little on the "blue" side? Who the hell cares?
Please, bring it on.
I hate to break it to you, but reel-to-reel and cassette decks (to put them in the right chronological order) did have recording capabilities.
Apart from that - totally enjoyed your post.
Personally, I hated the writing style and couldn't get into it. It's nothing like Heinlein's
I think the GP was referring generally to a clipped, appreviated style reflecting the speaking/thinking habits of the respective protagonists, not trying to make a literal and exact comparison. Heinlein chose one variant, Palmer another, but both are clipped, abbreviated styles that take some getting used to. They are alike in kind, but very different in detail.
That said, the contrast between the two is rather interesting.
The style used by Heinlein is a portrayal of 'language drift' as it naturally occurs within a population of people long isolated from the rest of society. It's different from the 'normal style' (represented by the style that 'we' use), but it's still a style used by a population of people communicating amongst each other. As such it's probably a bit more natural and easier to get used to by the reader.
Palmer's style, on the other hand, is a style used by an individual isolated from the rest of society at a young age (even before the events of the story) to record personal thoughts, not to communicate with other people. It's based on a standard (Pitman shorthand) that's been around for nearly 200 years and at the time of writing the novel was one of the most popular forms of shorthand for the English language, so it's been 'debugged' and streamlined, but it's purpose is utilitarian (the efficient capture of information) rather than communication. Granted not many people know shorthand these days, but I'm still a little surprised that people seem to have difficulty adjusting to this style. I would expect it to fit more naturally into the mind of an English speaking reader than it apparently does.
Quite fascinating.
The real point, to bring it back to the subject of the original post, is that both styles fit their stories and characters remarkably well. Both are in their way quite brilliant and thus worthy of mention.
That they could be considered "forgotten" from the perspective of the general reader is a damned shame, but that's a topic for another day.
- Hugo nominated.
- One of the best female protagonists since Podkayne Fries (the plot follows a precocious 11-year-old orphan girl, living in a post-apocalyptic United States).
- A talking, possibly psychic, parrot companion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence_(novel)
It's been out of print for quite some time, but still seems to be available at a somewhat reasonable price from the usual online booksellers. A better bet might be through your local library, particularly if you have access to a wider lending network.
Excellent book. Well worth tracking down.
Sites you "own" can be taken down too, if you've been paying attention to the news lately.
And all of these "alternatives" you mention are hosted where? Unless you are the owner of the network cables, someone stands between you and the internet, whether you're using a "cloud service" or "cloud hosting provider" or "cloud accessible colocated server", or even "business-level internet access" from your local provider. Even the latter can block access to your IP if they decide to honor a DMCA request (or they suspect you violate their terms of service). As long as you have to rely on the good graces of someone else, you're vulnerable. Some less vulnerable than others, I'll grant you, but still vulnerable. And if you have the wherewhithall to have completely independent internet access, you can probably just be sued directly, because you'll be a big enough target to make it worthwhile.
It seems to me the future lies in smarter and less "public" uses of the internet, where the folks likely to post a takedown never see your stuff, because you're sharing with a much smaller and more exclusive audience. I guess that's in part what the darknet is all about. The internet is still pretty darned useful without relying on all the privacy stealing public services that masquerade as a service but are really meant to serve you up as the product. That's possibly what you were advocating.
The alternative is to fully embrace the concept of the cloud for things you want to make public - just throw it out there and make sure it gets dispersed as far and wide as possible into the cloud of information. You'll relinquish all control (can't get it back once it's out there), but it will be hard to take down.
I personally don't live anywhere near Wisconsin ...
Geography FIAL. Or perhaps just an inadvertent non-sequitor.
Ann Arbor is in Michigan. In the corner of the state farthest away from Wisconsin.
Ok, agreed. But perhaps learning about what happens in other school districts can prepare people for similar situations in their own?
What arrogance. this is my last post to Slashdot. Cya. Unbelievable.
So long. Thanks for all the ghoti.
I'm not sure where you got the "less private". What I'm saying is that "trust me, I'm not tracking you" means nothing without proof. That includes experts (or governments) saying "trust them - they are not tracking you". I have no proof that is true, so I am most certainly not going to adopt a false sense of complacency and let down my guard on mere assurances. Back in the day there was a word for that: sucker. Search engines that admit they are tracking you don't lull you into a false sense of privacy at least, so you are more likely to take active measures to limit what you divulge. Treat them all the same, and if the privacy-respecting search engines are actually what they claim, you are much better off.
It's funny because it's true.
Correction: They CLAIM to not record your IP address or track your searches. Without verified evidence that this is true, all the privacy advocates in the world can enthusiastically endorse them, but that won't make me trust them any more than the other search engines. At least the latter admit freely they track you, so you can be more careful with your searches.
BATED breath. http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-bai1.htm
I'm totally cool with misuse of the language to be ironic or whatever, but that requires a degree of cleverness I don't detect here. Please learn language idioms before you try to use them. Just sayin'.
Seconded. The news is available from many sources, and is usually not all that new by the time it hits the /. front page. If one wants breaking news, /. is not the site to use as a primary source. It's the (oft maligned) /. community that is the real attraction here. Just tweak the hidden/abbreviated thresholds to a comfortable setting (2/3 when not moderating, personally) and much of the noise that people complain about is filtered, and what remains is usually of sufficient quality to inform, entertain or enlighten.
Interesting. The Windup Girl doesn't quite work (for me) as a narrative, but I will agree the ideas presented were quite thought provoking. It seemed more a problem of execution than ideas, though, so I can totally buy the idea that the author might come up with some really interesting stories in the short form in this particular make-believe world. I will most certainly read these short stories, based on your recommendation. Thanks.
Agreed. This book received more buzz than was warranted, and the substance was lacking. As you say, it starts off strong, but never really delivers. I slogged through until the end, but more out of stubbornness than because it was a compelling read. I couldn't help but think that in the hands of a more capable writer, this could have been an incredible story, but the reality was less compelling.
What would Rorschach's journal read if it turns out to be really good?
That's not a scam - that's honesty. Statins (Lipitor is a statin) do what it says on the box: they lower blood cholesterol. As you've often read on this site, correlation does not equal causation - the statement you find troublesome is an acknowledgement of that. A scam would be an outright claim that statins reduce the risk of heart disease. They actual do in certain cases (reduce risk of cardiac events and stroke in patients with pre-existing cardiac conditions), apparently (http://www.bmj.com/content/326/7404/1423.full). What's not clear is whether they prevent the development of cardiovascular problems, which is probably what you're harping on.
The popular perception of pharmaceuticals seems to want a simple "miracle drug" that works wonders in all circumstances. That's not how things work - it's complicated, but drugs do actually work, under the right conditions.
Everyone need this kind of storage. A small external HDD is readily identifiable as such, so will be subject to arbitrary search and confiscation at the whim of the border guards. Better to store your data within ordinary items such as a hairbrush, keyfob or the flight-safe Swiss Army Knife. Preferably encrypted and redundantly distributed among as many innocuous items as you can stand to carry. When you have reached your destination, use your most secure device to update and change your security codes so the folks who confiscated your external HDD can't easily get to your personal information.
Pretty much this. The actions of the policymakers don't amount to much when it comes to what vehicles the carmakers produce and what the customers buy, at least based on how much effect they have had to date. When circumstances get to the point where people demand more efficient vehicles (because fuel prices are too high, for example), car makers will produce them, or someone will come up with a better solution that people will actually pay for.
But "many" is not the majority. Most people just want to know whether it works. Google and Canonical aren't really aiming for the FOSS community. They're aiming for the community loosely labeled "people who have money." There's a fair amount of overlap, of course, but there's a lot more people in the second group than the first.
Confusing 80% of the first community to cater to 90% of the second isn't really a good business decision.
You're getting pretty high on the Ladder of Inference (http://gwynteatro.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/climbing-the-ladder-of-inference/). This wouldn't have to be visible at the top level of an App market search/browse (using the most broadly applicable defaults), so the potential for confusion is minimal. Put it somewhere in 'advanced search options' and the people who care can find it.
As an aside, a lot more people may care about more than "it works" than you think, and the influence of the smaller group may be bigger than you think. I think it's just a matter of marketing, really. Look at how many people take "green", "organic", "fair-trade" or "save the planet" into account when purchasing something. You underestimate people - I'm boggled a how much some people know about the carbon footprint of certain things, even when their personal stereotype suggests they shouldn't. People have the potential to care about more than the merely practical and should at least have the opportunity to discover factors they may care about. From personal experience, family, friends and acquaintances don't understand all the nuances of FOSS (or proprietary vs. open, or DRM-free vs. locked down or un-contained vs. walled-garden), but they know that I do. They ask when it matters to them and they weigh what I tell them when making a decision. As a result they understand the larger issues better over time, make more informed decisions as a result and seem satisfied with the outcome regardless of which they chose. That's a win as far as I'm concerned.
...but here's what I do:
I use the software that does what I need most effectively. My needs are rarely served by refusing to use a piece of software just because it's not open source. I often find that the open source software is a better value (for my needs, GIMP is a better choice than Photoshop, and it's starting to look like it's also a better choice than Lightroom), but not always.
The simple fact is, most people just don't care what license their software is. You can complain as much as you want that other people are just uneducated, but it doesn't matter.
I didn't read anything in the OP about refusing to use non-free (as in speech) software. For some the license preference is about ideology, granted, but the license used also says a lot about the nature of the project, the community surrounding it and the ultimate motivations/agendas of the developers.
I suspect that many people (including myself), when searching for an application in an App market would prefer to browse through the FLOSS offerings first, then fall back to free (as in beer) or adware and proprietary apps if nothing suitable (or familiar) is available.
True enough. The original sentence used "is" appropriately. I added a few things at the last minute prior to posting and neglected to adjust the sentence accordingly. Note that you missed the excessive use of "and". Thank you - you have provided proof by your actions that a good editor is essential, particularly when posting articles on the internet for wide consumption. Bravo, sir.
Given the subject matter, I found it ironically frustrating that the article clearly received very little editorial review. Missing words, incorrect words and dubious grammar gave the impression of a hastily dashed off opinion piece rather than a thought-provoking analysis of a disturbing social trend. In fact, the sloppy writing/editing caused me to hit the back button before I had even finished reading the article in its entirety.
IMO, sloppy and imprecise thinking and communication is just as much of a danger for democracy as a "turn from science". In fact, the latter may just be a symptom of the former.