Don't buy it. You can't really "satire" your high school principle; they're unlikely to meet the "public figure" criteria that would protect the person who is making fun of them from legal repercussions if anything strayed over the line.
I doubt she was doing it for a public satire. Just an in-joke with her school.
Maybe that doesn't hold up under the legal definition of satire, but that's what the social reasoning is behind creating a page like that.
I'm guessing the privately-run detention centre gets revenue from the government in order to run the facility. Take away the inmates and no more revenue. So it's in their commercial interests to have inmates.
No conspiracy / slave labour theories -- OR SO I AM GUESSING.
Despite a thriving global computer security industry that is projected to reach $79 billion in revenues next year, and the fact that in 2002 Microsoft itself began an intense corporatewide effort to improve the security of its software, Internet security has continued to deteriorate globally.
Let's give up and make a new internet then shall we.
Seriously, what do these two facts prove? In 2002 Microsoft realised that they actually needed to write secure operating systems, and have in the seven years since then added an annoying dialog box to combat the problem.
And a bunch of other companies are making $79 billion revenue by selling products which claim to patch certain flaws in a fundamentally-insecure system, to varying success.
How about instead of blaming the Internet, we build a fucking secure operating system for 98% of the machines on it.
How is it "horribly wrong"? How can POSIX account for all the leap seconds the government decides to make up? Is every program expected to change its algorithm whenever a new leap second is introduced? (For converting the date in Unix time to human time).
That's not how it works. When a leap second occurs, all clocks are moved forwards or backwards by a second, and it's a one-off fix. We don't modify the algorithm every time a leap second occurs. That would be crazy.
Anyone want to buy my fat-jewelcase HL2 disc and code?
That'd better be the only Steam game you own. If you're going to "sell" it, the only way to do it is by trading your Steam login, and then whoever buys it will have to put up with the game being registered under your name, in a separate account to the rest of his Steam games.
My biggest gripe with Steam DRM is being unable to transfer games across accounts.
a) Why would you need to do that if Firefox was so perfect?
Typically the reason one needs to run IE instead of Firefox is because
a) The website they are browsing has been designed solely for IE, which is well-known to make up its own standards instead of following the real ones. Therefore, many sites only work in IE precisely because IE is non-standards-compliant while other browsers are.
b) The website specifically blocks access from any browser other than IE (some banking sites used to do this).
c) You are a web developer and need to test your site in IE, to make sure it works despite horrific standards compliance.
Thankfully (a) and (b) are practically a thing of the past, due to a large uptake in alternative browsers. And (c) should be less of an issue with IE 8, which is a lot more standards-compliant, I hear. But those are the reasons.
I'd like to make some changes to the Britannica article on Wikipedia. As I'm not willing to give out my real name and address just to benefit a company I care little about, I'm just going to post my fixes (really more annotations) here:
This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.
"For many observers of these controversies[weasel words], a troubling difference between Wikipedia and other encyclopaedias lies in the absence of editors and authors who will accept responsibility for the accuracy and quality of their articles[citation needed]. These observers[who?] point out that identifiable individuals are far easier to hold accountable for mistakes, bias, and bad writing than is a community of anonymous volunteers, but other observers[weasel] respond that it is not entirely clear if there is a substantial difference. Regardless of such controversies--perhaps in part because of them[speculation]--Wikipedia has become a model of what the collaborative Internet community can and cannot do."
Where the Britannica guys (may) have the edge is that they claim all submissions will be reviewed by editors, (although not subject experts). Will they be able to keep pace with the volume of submissions?
I suspect they will.
Nobody is going to contribute to a site where they have to give their real names and addresses in order to effectively write articles for a for-profit organisation which will likely take copyright and start selling them*, for no pay, without the possibility that the changes will even be used without going through some editorial process first.
If anyone is in the mood to contribute information to an encyclopedia for free, it will be Wikipedia. There is no question about that.
*I don't know what license terms they are planning to use. Does anyone?
Wow - I've not been to Britannica.com. I am surprised at how crappy it is. The article itself is displayed in an IFRAME about 4/5 of the screen wide, and 3/5 of the screen high. Inside that there are sidebars which are actually useful. Outside of it there's lots of website admin stuff (a top bar and a bottom bar), and a HUGE animated banner ad, as well as a prominent orange button for paying for premium content. To the side there's a huge JavaScript-based section with multimedia content. Inside the article proper there is a sponsored links section after a few paragraphs, and another one at the bottom.
I can get to Wikipedia articles by typing them into the URL bar, or by setting Firefox to quick-search "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%s". With Britannica I need to use their search box which uses a mind-numbing amount of JavaScript and is extremely cumbersome. (The site does work without JavaScript but I think it's more of a mistake than by design. Things are sized incorrectly and it flickers when it scrolls, and you can access "premium content" without logging in -- their security mechanism is a retarded JavaScript popover). Note that the number in the URL (ie. "410919") actually identifies the page, if you just change the title part of the URL it will redirect you back, so there is no possibility of guessing.
And... what the hell. While I was browsing, a popover window appeared and asked me if I would like a popup window to appear when I leave the site so it can ask me a survey of what I thought of the site. Talk about invasive. Well I said no; they can read Slashdot if they want to know what people think.
The whole thing is just a mess. I come looking for information and I've got so many distractions thrown at me. This is one of the crappiest "professional" websites I've seen this decade. I understand they need advertising revenue, but they could do it more subtly. They really could take a page out of Wikipedia's book when it comes to design and simplicity -- let's not even get started on editorial process.
Is it possible that the phrase "in the world of scripting" is an important quantifier and not just informative?
"In the world of scripting, nearly 18% of projects chose to use Perl". This could mean that 18% of the projects which used scripting used Perl, not 18% of all projects. This could get us under 100%.
However I agree, it still doesn't really add up - still C + Java + JavaScript = 95%.
Also it's interesting that the summary moved the "in scripting" quantifier without changing the numbers.
Service packs from Microsoft doesn't come with new features on the scale of new task bar systems
Sorry, I almost laughed at that before I realised you were serious.
It is quite amazing to me that everybody is so enthusiastic about this frigging awesome new operating system, SO SO MUCH IMPROVED over that dung-hole that is Vista.
And the first and pretty-much only thing they have to say: Wow. New task bar system.
Well I guess the article is quite right. We don't judge operating systems on merit, just image. It's in that arena that Windows 7 has a major edge on Vista.
Well I can't comment on Macs because I don't use them. But I have been using Ubuntu since nearly the beginning, and watched it grow into a "needs-command-line-to-mount-a-drive" platform into a fully human-usable operating system.
Software Choices? Please see the apt repository system. Ubuntu has a much wider choice of free software than Windows, and it's all there. It's actually much easier for the average person to install software than on Windows.
Anyway, whether or not other platforms are as usable as Windows, are you actually saying that if Microsoft stopped selling Windows in Europe, the populace would simply stop using computers and the entire digital revolution would stop in Europe, rather than switching to another readily-available platform?
The only reason other platforms *do not* catch on is because Microsoft aggressively out-markets them. If Microsoft disappeared, the market would instantly open up to competitors. It wouldn't kill the industry.
That would be fun. MS stops selling software in the EU. An entire continent switches to Mac or Ubuntu. Suddenly the rest of the world is thinking, "hey, what, computers don't need Windows to run?? My friend in Europe is running this thing called Ubuntu."
gg monopoly.
This should bring computer sales to a screeching halt until software companies can manage to offer anywhere close to the depth of software that is available for Windows.
You're either trolling or you've never used Mac OR Ubuntu.
Another thing is that while (AFAIK) Ubuntu doesn't come with any other browser than Firefox installed by default, it does have dozens of other browsers in its apt repository system, which are technically part of the operating system.
This means you don't need to use Firefox to download another browser in Ubuntu, you use apt-get or Synaptic. Whereas in Windows you would have to use IE to download another browser.
Inertia goes backwards if you're travelling backwards through time. So if you travel 2 years into the past, rather than your inertia continuing to drag you where you were going, it drags you into the past, since time is going backwards.
Slashdot Mirror
Next on Slashdot: Steve Ballmer authorizes a large shipment of office chairs for his meeting rooms.
At least Google does things the Unix way. Their list of domains that are not properly supported is "/".
OK well there are no bugs in the Ubuntu Genuine Advantage DRM as far as I know. The Ubuntu servers have never accidentally mistaken me for a pirate.
That's what passes for news these days?
Anonymous Coward Deletes Facebook Account
Values Privacy. Won't Get Latitude
I doubt she was doing it for a public satire. Just an in-joke with her school.
Maybe that doesn't hold up under the legal definition of satire, but that's what the social reasoning is behind creating a page like that.
I'm guessing the privately-run detention centre gets revenue from the government in order to run the facility. Take away the inmates and no more revenue. So it's in their commercial interests to have inmates.
No conspiracy / slave labour theories -- OR SO I AM GUESSING.
Who will police the police?
Police police police police!
But who will police the police police?
Police police police police police police!
Let's give up and make a new internet then shall we.
Seriously, what do these two facts prove? In 2002 Microsoft realised that they actually needed to write secure operating systems, and have in the seven years since then added an annoying dialog box to combat the problem.
And a bunch of other companies are making $79 billion revenue by selling products which claim to patch certain flaws in a fundamentally-insecure system, to varying success.
How about instead of blaming the Internet, we build a fucking secure operating system for 98% of the machines on it.
Why aren't iiNet participating in the trial?
They have been the most vocal in agreeing to the trail since it was announced, specifically so they can use the results to show how stupid this is!
Have they been banned from the trial because of this attitude?
How is it "horribly wrong"? How can POSIX account for all the leap seconds the government decides to make up? Is every program expected to change its algorithm whenever a new leap second is introduced? (For converting the date in Unix time to human time).
That's not how it works. When a leap second occurs, all clocks are moved forwards or backwards by a second, and it's a one-off fix. We don't modify the algorithm every time a leap second occurs. That would be crazy.
For your amusement, I put up a bit of Python code which displays the epoch time in realtime on the command-line.
Useful for counting to things! Get it at Launchpad (branch).
That'd better be the only Steam game you own. If you're going to "sell" it, the only way to do it is by trading your Steam login, and then whoever buys it will have to put up with the game being registered under your name, in a separate account to the rest of his Steam games.
My biggest gripe with Steam DRM is being unable to transfer games across accounts.
Typically the reason one needs to run IE instead of Firefox is because
a) The website they are browsing has been designed solely for IE, which is well-known to make up its own standards instead of following the real ones. Therefore, many sites only work in IE precisely because IE is non-standards-compliant while other browsers are.
b) The website specifically blocks access from any browser other than IE (some banking sites used to do this).
c) You are a web developer and need to test your site in IE, to make sure it works despite horrific standards compliance.
Thankfully (a) and (b) are practically a thing of the past, due to a large uptake in alternative browsers. And (c) should be less of an issue with IE 8, which is a lot more standards-compliant, I hear. But those are the reasons.
How does this hold up when applied to, eg, music. Surely if I have a legal copy of a song, I don't "own" it, from a Copyright standpoint...
I'd like to make some changes to the Britannica article on Wikipedia. As I'm not willing to give out my real name and address just to benefit a company I care little about, I'm just going to post my fixes (really more annotations) here:
"For many observers of these controversies[ weasel words ], a troubling difference between Wikipedia and other encyclopaedias lies in the absence of editors and authors who will accept responsibility for the accuracy and quality of their articles[ citation needed ]. These observers[ who? ] point out that identifiable individuals are far easier to hold accountable for mistakes, bias, and bad writing than is a community of anonymous volunteers, but other observers[ weasel ] respond that it is not entirely clear if there is a substantial difference. Regardless of such controversies--perhaps in part because of them[ speculation ]--Wikipedia has become a model of what the collaborative Internet community can and cannot do."
I suspect they will.
Nobody is going to contribute to a site where they have to give their real names and addresses in order to effectively write articles for a for-profit organisation which will likely take copyright and start selling them*, for no pay, without the possibility that the changes will even be used without going through some editorial process first.
If anyone is in the mood to contribute information to an encyclopedia for free, it will be Wikipedia. There is no question about that.
*I don't know what license terms they are planning to use. Does anyone?
Props to you for pointing all this out.
Wow - I've not been to Britannica.com. I am surprised at how crappy it is. The article itself is displayed in an IFRAME about 4/5 of the screen wide, and 3/5 of the screen high. Inside that there are sidebars which are actually useful. Outside of it there's lots of website admin stuff (a top bar and a bottom bar), and a HUGE animated banner ad, as well as a prominent orange button for paying for premium content. To the side there's a huge JavaScript-based section with multimedia content. Inside the article proper there is a sponsored links section after a few paragraphs, and another one at the bottom.
The URLs are appalling.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/410919/neutron
versus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron
I can get to Wikipedia articles by typing them into the URL bar, or by setting Firefox to quick-search "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%s". With Britannica I need to use their search box which uses a mind-numbing amount of JavaScript and is extremely cumbersome. (The site does work without JavaScript but I think it's more of a mistake than by design. Things are sized incorrectly and it flickers when it scrolls, and you can access "premium content" without logging in -- their security mechanism is a retarded JavaScript popover). Note that the number in the URL (ie. "410919") actually identifies the page, if you just change the title part of the URL it will redirect you back, so there is no possibility of guessing.
And ... what the hell. While I was browsing, a popover window appeared and asked me if I would like a popup window to appear when I leave the site so it can ask me a survey of what I thought of the site. Talk about invasive. Well I said no; they can read Slashdot if they want to know what people think.
The whole thing is just a mess. I come looking for information and I've got so many distractions thrown at me. This is one of the crappiest "professional" websites I've seen this decade. I understand they need advertising revenue, but they could do it more subtly. They really could take a page out of Wikipedia's book when it comes to design and simplicity -- let's not even get started on editorial process.
I was promised cake!
I guess it's clear now ... the lies are always exposed as soon as they get into office.
Is it possible that the phrase "in the world of scripting" is an important quantifier and not just informative?
"In the world of scripting, nearly 18% of projects chose to use Perl". This could mean that 18% of the projects which used scripting used Perl, not 18% of all projects. This could get us under 100%.
However I agree, it still doesn't really add up - still C + Java + JavaScript = 95%.
Also it's interesting that the summary moved the "in scripting" quantifier without changing the numbers.
I suppose we could just ignore it ;)
Sorry, I almost laughed at that before I realised you were serious.
It is quite amazing to me that everybody is so enthusiastic about this frigging awesome new operating system, SO SO MUCH IMPROVED over that dung-hole that is Vista.
And the first and pretty-much only thing they have to say: Wow. New task bar system.
Well I guess the article is quite right. We don't judge operating systems on merit, just image. It's in that arena that Windows 7 has a major edge on Vista.
Well I can't comment on Macs because I don't use them. But I have been using Ubuntu since nearly the beginning, and watched it grow into a "needs-command-line-to-mount-a-drive" platform into a fully human-usable operating system.
Software Choices? Please see the apt repository system. Ubuntu has a much wider choice of free software than Windows, and it's all there. It's actually much easier for the average person to install software than on Windows.
Anyway, whether or not other platforms are as usable as Windows, are you actually saying that if Microsoft stopped selling Windows in Europe, the populace would simply stop using computers and the entire digital revolution would stop in Europe, rather than switching to another readily-available platform?
The only reason other platforms *do not* catch on is because Microsoft aggressively out-markets them. If Microsoft disappeared, the market would instantly open up to competitors. It wouldn't kill the industry.
That would be fun. MS stops selling software in the EU. An entire continent switches to Mac or Ubuntu. Suddenly the rest of the world is thinking, "hey, what, computers don't need Windows to run?? My friend in Europe is running this thing called Ubuntu."
gg monopoly.
You're either trolling or you've never used Mac OR Ubuntu.
Another thing is that while (AFAIK) Ubuntu doesn't come with any other browser than Firefox installed by default, it does have dozens of other browsers in its apt repository system, which are technically part of the operating system.
This means you don't need to use Firefox to download another browser in Ubuntu, you use apt-get or Synaptic. Whereas in Windows you would have to use IE to download another browser.
Inertia goes backwards if you're travelling backwards through time. So if you travel 2 years into the past, rather than your inertia continuing to drag you where you were going, it drags you into the past, since time is going backwards.
It looks like you are trying to make a standard Slashdot joke at Clippy's expense.
Would you like help?