So, at best it's stamp collecting, along with the other "narrative sciences" (paleontology comes to mind). I speak as a subscriber to The Economist, whose pompous didacticism never ceases to amaze me.
In other words, if it's not grounded in experimental testing of hypotheses, it's not real science, and any inferences or deductions made therefrom will be heavily discounted. That's the message to get across...
what's that old saying "never attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence" or whatever? I mean this is MS we're talking about...
Which makes malice in the guise of incompetence particularly insidious and effective.
In the absence of clear evidence one way or the other, it's best to reserve judgment regarding malice vs incompetence where a recidivist company notorious for its dirty tricks is concerned. The aphorism you quoted (especially the "never" bit) is overridden in this case by Microsoft's track record of cunning malice, mind-boggling incompetence, incompetent malice, and malicious incompetence. It could be any of them.
Fortunately, the lack of common sense is a self correcting problem...
In this instance, the morons are attempting to immolate themselves. Darwin strikes again!
Would that it were... Alas, in this case the targets of their inadvertent attempts at immolation are mostly other persons, rather than themselves. It's a sort-of reverse Darwin (kill the less stupid ones, let the more stupid ones survive), which could contribute to an Idiocracy-style future.
BTW, North America also includes Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and arguably Panama. Also one other country whose name escapes me for the moment, but which all the others find extremely irritating...
I'm not certain how my oldest daughter will react to this, even if it's presented in a neutral way. Pointing this video out to her without giving away my own views will be difficult, as it's so appalling.
Don't. Tell her about Marie Curie instead.
It's not really all that appalling; just silly/stupid. It's not like you're watching Madonna or the Bieber, after all.
Yep. She has heroines as well as heroes. She's well aware of Marie Curie, Maria Goeppert-Mayer, Ingrid Daubechies and many others. The appalling thing is, this video was supposed to inspire females to become scientists, and was made on behalf of the European Commission. Now that really sucks.
Whats wrong with sexy female scientists - they have them in movies.
Movies and real life are not necessarily the same thing, or remotely comparable.
I'm not certain how my oldest daughter will react to this, even if it's presented in a neutral way. Pointing this video out to her without giving away my own views will be difficult, as it's so appalling. We'll find out tomorrow, and I'm not sure whether she'll laugh or snarl at it. Either way, I'll get an ear-full afterwards. BTW, she wants to be an astronaut, and is getting top marks in maths, physics, English, French and Russian to smooth her way (her first language is Finnish), and had completed senior high math while in junior high.
37.5 hours/week, and 7 weeks/year of vacation?!?! Where do you work??!
Finland. The standard is to get 5 weeks of paid vacation, and to get a thirteenth month of salary. Every year, I trade the thirteenth month of salary for an extra two weeks of paid vacation, bringing my total to 7 weeks vacation. This might seem like a loss (4 weeks pay for 2 weeks vacation), until one notices that my marginal deduction rate is substantially more than 50%, so I count it as a sort-of gain - I lose rather less than two weeks equivalent of income after tax in return for the extra two weeks paid vacation.
Today they're tracking us during office hours, tomorrow they're tracking us after-hours. What's next?
Returning to civilized society?
As in switching your work phone on when you get to work, and switching it off when you leave work. That's what I do, because (i) the company's time is 37½ hours per week for 45 weeks of the year [minus a few statutory holidays], with all other time being my own, and (ii) nobody pays me to be "on-call" or available outside work hours, and an offer would have to be very attractive to get me to consent to such an arrangement. If any tracking application is on it, I can only be tracked during working hours. BTW, my job is not at the general lackey level, either.
Basically, scientists say the "supercavitating boat" is basically a bunch of BS and/or not that likely. Hype as usual.
Which scientists? Supercavitating torpedoes go back to the 1970s Shkval for Russian models and the more recent Barracuda for the Germans. Making a catamaran above a pair of them does not seem implausible.
Well, there's your problem right there....why didn't they use a (real) database?
Like Microsoft Excel?
Are you sure it was Microsoft Access the database?
Maybe they used the original Microsoft Access, the serial communication program that failed to compete with Procomm and Qmodem and suchlike back in the late 1980s to early 1990s. It would explain a lot...
Intriguingly, references to the original Microsoft Access have vanished from Wikipedia and from almost everywhere on the web.
What does multiple browsers help when you're browsing from the same IP address? I think Google's smart enough to figure that out.
Actually, our entire household browses from a single IP address. In that case, if we each used one unique browser (or mostly just that one) per user, the multiple browser approach would assist in differentiating people for advertising purposes. As it is, we each use any of 3 PCs which all run Xubuntu, but identifiably unique due to display resolutions, installed fonts, etc. Similarly, even the kids use two or more browsers each while my wife and I use three or four regularly, and everyone knows to clear their cookies after visiting any dodgy sites (cookies are generally cleaned on exit anyway). We probably present a difficult case for analysis, and don't get any particularly well-aimed "targeted" advertising.
BTW, it's interesting to see what your browser might reveal when your visit a site, even neglecting cookies. Quite often, your browser reveals enough to identify it uniquely.
Why did this get modded down? I came in here to say pretty much exactly the same thing.
Personally, I use Video DownloadHelper because it applies more generally than just to YouTube; But search the FF addons for "YouTube" and you'll see at least a dozen plugins that will let you download whatever the hell you want.
And one extension to download/convert stuff from Youtube for Google's Chrome browser (and the FOSS Chromium browser it's derived from) is even supplied by Google/Youtube itself.
Where are the alleged 32GB and 64GB versions? They were announced along with the 16GB versions, but may be no more than attractive vapor to draw in customers (it nearly worked on me, but all the vendors say they only have 16GB models).
My god, could you imagine what will happen when instead of windows having to conform and support all the various different hardware it has to run on, the manufactures will have to conform to one hardware standard, and windows will become a much simpler piece of software, a much more stable and secure platform.
Sounds like a complete rewrite, and I mean complete - starting with the specifications if you want decent security. And that would mean a more-or-less complete rewrite for all those third party applications, too, since their behavior and the APIs they access would necessarily change. Other than some of the FLOSS stuff, only the bigger fish or the specialized ones would survive.
Timothy is an Excellent Editor and deserves a Pay Raise
"That's all right - he tried. That's the important thing. I think he should get a nice big raise for trying so hard." - Hazel Bergeron (in the short movie 2081).
Slashdot Mirror
So, at best it's stamp collecting, along with the other "narrative sciences" (paleontology comes to mind). I speak as a subscriber to The Economist, whose pompous didacticism never ceases to amaze me.
In other words, if it's not grounded in experimental testing of hypotheses, it's not real science, and any inferences or deductions made therefrom will be heavily discounted. That's the message to get across...
Don't be such a tight-ass. It's funny.
Especially since I left out Nicaragua (nobody noticed), a country which the others may or may not find irritating...
what's that old saying "never attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence" or whatever? I mean this is MS we're talking about...
Which makes malice in the guise of incompetence particularly insidious and effective.
In the absence of clear evidence one way or the other, it's best to reserve judgment regarding malice vs incompetence where a recidivist company notorious for its dirty tricks is concerned. The aphorism you quoted (especially the "never" bit) is overridden in this case by Microsoft's track record of cunning malice, mind-boggling incompetence, incompetent malice, and malicious incompetence. It could be any of them.
Fortunately, the lack of common sense is a self correcting problem... In this instance, the morons are attempting to immolate themselves. Darwin strikes again!
Would that it were... Alas, in this case the targets of their inadvertent attempts at immolation are mostly other persons, rather than themselves. It's a sort-of reverse Darwin (kill the less stupid ones, let the more stupid ones survive), which could contribute to an Idiocracy-style future.
Dude what's wrong with your P's???
He needs a little p on his keyboard, but it got a big P instead...
A certain North American country said "never, never, never!", and it wasn't the Canadians nor Mexico.
Are you accusing the French of being responsible?
BTW, North America also includes Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and arguably Panama. Also one other country whose name escapes me for the moment, but which all the others find extremely irritating...
"Believe nothing until it has been officially denied" - Claud Cockburn. And it's especially believable when it has been denied with such weasel words.
BTW, she snarled...
I'm not certain how my oldest daughter will react to this, even if it's presented in a neutral way. Pointing this video out to her without giving away my own views will be difficult, as it's so appalling.
Don't. Tell her about Marie Curie instead.
It's not really all that appalling; just silly/stupid. It's not like you're watching Madonna or the Bieber, after all.
Yep. She has heroines as well as heroes. She's well aware of Marie Curie, Maria Goeppert-Mayer, Ingrid Daubechies and many others. The appalling thing is, this video was supposed to inspire females to become scientists, and was made on behalf of the European Commission. Now that really sucks.
Whats wrong with sexy female scientists - they have them in movies.
Movies and real life are not necessarily the same thing, or remotely comparable.
I'm not certain how my oldest daughter will react to this, even if it's presented in a neutral way. Pointing this video out to her without giving away my own views will be difficult, as it's so appalling. We'll find out tomorrow, and I'm not sure whether she'll laugh or snarl at it. Either way, I'll get an ear-full afterwards. BTW, she wants to be an astronaut, and is getting top marks in maths, physics, English, French and Russian to smooth her way (her first language is Finnish), and had completed senior high math while in junior high.
37.5 hours/week, and 7 weeks/year of vacation?!?! Where do you work??!
Finland. The standard is to get 5 weeks of paid vacation, and to get a thirteenth month of salary. Every year, I trade the thirteenth month of salary for an extra two weeks of paid vacation, bringing my total to 7 weeks vacation. This might seem like a loss (4 weeks pay for 2 weeks vacation), until one notices that my marginal deduction rate is substantially more than 50%, so I count it as a sort-of gain - I lose rather less than two weeks equivalent of income after tax in return for the extra two weeks paid vacation.
Today they're tracking us during office hours, tomorrow they're tracking us after-hours. What's next?
Returning to civilized society?
As in switching your work phone on when you get to work, and switching it off when you leave work. That's what I do, because (i) the company's time is 37½ hours per week for 45 weeks of the year [minus a few statutory holidays], with all other time being my own, and (ii) nobody pays me to be "on-call" or available outside work hours, and an offer would have to be very attractive to get me to consent to such an arrangement. If any tracking application is on it, I can only be tracked during working hours. BTW, my job is not at the general lackey level, either.
Basically, scientists say the "supercavitating boat" is basically a bunch of BS and/or not that likely. Hype as usual.
Which scientists? Supercavitating torpedoes go back to the 1970s Shkval for Russian models and the more recent Barracuda for the Germans. Making a catamaran above a pair of them does not seem implausible.
Well, there's your problem right there....why didn't they use a (real) database?
Like Microsoft Excel?
Are you sure it was Microsoft Access the database?
Maybe they used the original Microsoft Access, the serial communication program that failed to compete with Procomm and Qmodem and suchlike back in the late 1980s to early 1990s. It would explain a lot...
Intriguingly, references to the original Microsoft Access have vanished from Wikipedia and from almost everywhere on the web.
What does multiple browsers help when you're browsing from the same IP address? I think Google's smart enough to figure that out.
Actually, our entire household browses from a single IP address. In that case, if we each used one unique browser (or mostly just that one) per user, the multiple browser approach would assist in differentiating people for advertising purposes. As it is, we each use any of 3 PCs which all run Xubuntu, but identifiably unique due to display resolutions, installed fonts, etc. Similarly, even the kids use two or more browsers each while my wife and I use three or four regularly, and everyone knows to clear their cookies after visiting any dodgy sites (cookies are generally cleaned on exit anyway). We probably present a difficult case for analysis, and don't get any particularly well-aimed "targeted" advertising.
BTW, it's interesting to see what your browser might reveal when your visit a site, even neglecting cookies. Quite often, your browser reveals enough to identify it uniquely.
Why did this get modded down? I came in here to say pretty much exactly the same thing.
Personally, I use Video DownloadHelper because it applies more generally than just to YouTube; But search the FF addons for "YouTube" and you'll see at least a dozen plugins that will let you download whatever the hell you want.
And one extension to download/convert stuff from Youtube for Google's Chrome browser (and the FOSS Chromium browser it's derived from) is even supplied by Google/Youtube itself.
Besides, Israel itself has described cyberattacks as terrorism.
So that implies Stuxnet was "state-sponsored terrorism". In which case, the US should add itself to that list it keeps...
Where are the alleged 32GB and 64GB versions? They were announced along with the 16GB versions, but may be no more than attractive vapor to draw in customers (it nearly worked on me, but all the vendors say they only have 16GB models).
Microsoft will ensure that every tablet is infested by MyCleanPC, straight from the factory!
7% of android devices are running ICS 7 months after it was released, compared to Apples 80%.
Can you substantiate your claim that 80% of Apple's devices are running ICS? I thought it would take a lot longer than 7 months for that to happen...
My god, could you imagine what will happen when instead of windows having to conform and support all the various different hardware it has to run on, the manufactures will have to conform to one hardware standard, and windows will become a much simpler piece of software, a much more stable and secure platform.
Sounds like a complete rewrite, and I mean complete - starting with the specifications if you want decent security. And that would mean a more-or-less complete rewrite for all those third party applications, too, since their behavior and the APIs they access would necessarily change. Other than some of the FLOSS stuff, only the bigger fish or the specialized ones would survive.
A relevant link from yesterday's news.
"...the NSA is the *only* intelligence agency that, as a group, gives a damn about our rights."
So, you're saying that to save the village they had to destroy it?
But they did not quite succeed in its destruction. Or in "saving" it, in the long term.
Timothy is an Excellent Editor and deserves a Pay Raise
"That's all right - he tried. That's the important thing. I think he should get a nice big raise for trying so hard." - Hazel Bergeron (in the short movie 2081).
Rational people do not disclose PRIVATE things in PUBLIC places.
Well, my private things are in pubic places, and rarely exhibited in public places (other than public toilets)....
This June 16th is also the 49th anniversary of Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova's trip to space.
It's also Bloomsday.