but the idea that clicking on a button on your own computer screen binds you to anything is absurd.
So being required to abide by a purchase agreement (say on eBay, or Amazon, or whatever) - which occurred by simply clicking "Purchase" or "Buy Now" or whatever on your own computer screen - is absurd?
You need to be a little less general with that statement.
As for your book example, that's exactly what established the first sale doctrine in the first place.
42.zip is flagged by Avast! as an "archive bomb". Sure, it's not technically a virus, but it's not a useful file (and it's potentially harmful by filling up your hard drive), so I don't have a problem with AV software flagging it.
Avast! apparently stops 34 levels deep in selfgz.gz, but it doesn't flag it. I'd almost prefer that it did.
No, you misunderstand. I don't mean "refuse to acknowledge the submission", I mean "don't say anything to the submitter at all". That is, Alice submits her app to Bob, who replies with a form letter saying it will be processed as soon as possible. Bob gets to it when he can, because he's got a large backlog. If Alice gets impatient, she can ask what's going on; Bob simply replies with another form letter apologizing for the long wait times and explaining that they have a large backlog of applications to process.
See, this is a far better technique than "pester Alice with endless rule revisions, requests to sign legal documents, requirements to give third parties sensitive information, and so on". My suggestion requires just two form letters and almost zero extra effort, while Chyeld's suggested stall tactic requires those new forms to be created, someone to crank through them, someone to write up new rules, etc.
That's fine, but that doesn't mean every person whose priorities are different than yours is wrong.
For example: I would probably choose e-mail as the last thing to go. I am almost never out of reach of another phone (besides my cell) - at work, I'm surrounded by desks full of them; on the train, there are dozens of people with phones; at home, my wife has her cell, or we could jog to a neighbor's house. (I carry a cell phone so other people can reach me at a single number, not so I can always have a phone.)
Yes, you could invent situations in which I'd be screwed if my phone's out of juice. But I could just say the same thing to you - after all, keeping 911 access with a low battery doesn't mean your battery will never run out.
It's also possible that someone who would prioritize e-mail over 911 would choose to not have a phone at all if e-mail weren't available for phones. Are you going to tell them they're morons for not having a cell phone, because there's a theoretical chance they could die by not being able to call 911? We may as well say you're a moron for not carrying a second cell phone, in case your first phone's battery dies.
That's as speculative as saying you're wrong. The truth is, you don't know that, you're assuming it; all we know is that at least some of Palm's requirements are stupid.
You can't seriously be claiming that he's not allowed to complain about idiocies in Palm's process just because he's not perfect, can you?
So true. I guesstimated StarCraft's cost at less than $0.02 per hour (if you bought it when it came out), and I'm certainly not the biggest StarCraft gamer out there.
For the gf -> wife upgrade, all you have to do is procure the right parts when you first start putting together the system.
My wife has always enjoyed Age of Empires II, but after two and a half years of marriage I finally got her to play through Diablo II. It's been a few weeks since she finished it, but she's still not sure whether she liked it. She won't play FPSs, though, and she leaves the room whenever I play Left 4 Dead (zombies of any form, except as in Plants Vs Zombies, are too scary for her). Anyway... she already had the right parts, from that perspective;)
Our daughter is getting a good start, though. Sometimes I sit her in my lap while I play TF2... she gets somewhat mesmerized by the colors. It's almost as good as the bouncing-DVD-symbol screensaver on the TV in the living room.
Sure, you've been able to run them. That's not what he's irritated about.
He's irritated that rather than simply tell him "no, we will not distribute your application", they're giving him all kinds of random, stupid requirements (including signing legal documents!) in order to distribute his free applications. They're dangling a carrot just out of reach, forever implying that he might reach it, and forever moving it a little further away whenever he makes any progress.
So he's not irritated that "Palm won't bend over backwards". He's irritated that Palm wants him not just to bend over backwards, but to pay them $99/year and sign various legal documents while bent over! Some of their requirements are entirely arbitrary and useless. Why should his version number have to be less than 1.0.0? Why would they ever have required that no other website post the app (or its source code), especially when the app itself is open source? (I know they rescinded that requirement. It should never have been a requirement in the first place.)
This has little to do with whether Palm will distribute his apps, and everything to do with the crap they're making him go through without giving him a decision one way or the other. In other words, it's a complaint about the idiotic process, and not a "PALM WON'T DISTRIBUTE MY APP:'(" rant.
You'd know all this if you had read the original article... but this is Slashdot, where so few people actually bother, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
It seems to me like "ignoring the submitter" is a far better stall tactic - and takes far less effort - than asking them to sign forms, provide them with revised rules, provide them with supposedly useful feedback on their application, and so forth.
After all, if you don't hear back for an extra two weeks, you'll just assume they're slow. If you hear back within a reasonable time frame, but get crap like this, you'll assume they're morons... which is pretty much what happened here.
I'm not saying it can't be done wrong, I'm just saying that it can be useful when done right.
In other words, "it can be done wrong" is a stupid reason to ban JS entirely. Banning JS entirely would only be a valid recourse if "it can't be done right" were a true statement, but obviously that's not a true statement, so we're back to what I was saying before: Javascript, when used properly, can increase the usability of websites without introducing excessive delays, and in some cases can reduce potential delays.
I'll agree with you about one thing though - Slashdot certainly isn't a shining example of good Javascript usage. (I also don't understand why it takes a good twenty seconds for the post preview to show up...)
Having a sweet looking computer case isn't going to impress anyone any more than having a sweet comic book collection.
I agree with the rest of your comment, but not this. Imagine you're looking to hire a graphic design company to design your new ads for $NEXT_BIG_THING. Company A has nice, sleek-looking cases and dual-monitor setups on each designer's desk. Company B has yellowed, coffee-stained beige cases and a pair of old 15" CRTs on each desk. Assuming each company produces work of equivalent quality, and both are willing to charge the same price, which would you hire?
Personally, I'd go for company A; nicer-looking machines implies nicer machines, which means that the designers are going to spend less time waiting for their machines to process things, which means that my work will get done faster.
You'll find that most people looking to hire companies like that don't even make decisions based on that much information. They'll choose based solely on nicer-looking cases, because to them it implies that they're wealthier and therefore better at their jobs, with no regard for what the implications might be, and without bothering to investigate further.
You're right in that it doesn't matter for the average gamer. But for a business who's looking to present the best possible image to clients? I can understand making sure every case looks high-end.
(presumably the highest end gamers who have absolutely unlimited budgets)
This. $2000 can get you an essentially top of the line machine these days (at least, it did for me); if I were going to spend $700 on the case, I'd want to scale up the other parts appropriately (getting into you-have-to-be-kidding-me territory), and the machine would cost somewhere in the vicinity of $7000. Granted, it's not hard to put together a parts list far exceeding that cost, but no gamer really needs anything that expensive.
When you're already paying $700 for the case, what's another $100 for shipping? That's like searching for a $10 discount on RAM when you're also buying a $1000 Core i7 Extreme (and then possibly using it for nothing more than Minesweeper). It's all about perspective...
While it's an interesting idea, it has one fatal problem: most end-users don't understand what the browser presents to them, and they'll just do whatever necessary to make it go away. This even applies to a large percentage of otherwise tech-savvy people. The end result will be people allowing everything, because surely their cousin Steve wouldn't send them a malicious link?
Seriously, why would I want "dynamic content" when all that really means is a thousand pauses as more data is fetched? Give me static pages whenever possible.
Well I can think of an example you might accept.
Imagine I'm selecting a username while registering a forum account. Rather than fill out the entire form, submit it, and wait for the entire page to load again only to find that the username has been selected, wouldn't it be nice if it would check that while I fill in other parts of the form?
See, that way, you actually spend less time waiting, since you were doing something useful while the Javascript did a round-trip to the server to make sure the username you selected is available.
All I'm saying is that using Javascript to dynamically alter the web page does not automatically mean you're adding in a thousand extra pauses before the web page is usable.
If your security model is built on everyone else playing nice, you're fucked.
The problem here is in the browser allowing the hijack.
It's not the browser here that's assuming everyone else is playing nice. It's Reddit's site. How were you modded insightful? You're just wrong.
I agree with your sentiment (that you shouldn't assume everyone else is playing nice) but blaming Reddit's problems on browsers misbehaving is like blaming potholes on cars. Sure, nobody crashes if nobody's driving, but potholes are usually caused by ice breaking up the asphalt, not by drivers driving on roads.
Let's place blame where blame is due, ok? It's not the browser's job to police what content can be posted to websites, it's the website's job.
This. I pay $30/month for unlimited messaging across five lines - that includes both MMS and SMS messages.
The iPhone already gets unlimited data. MMS messages are sent on the same data channels as other data - at least, they are on my phone. I don't really understand why they never allowed MMS messages for iPhones (until now). The only explanation I can think of is "we don't get enough money from iPhone users yet".
The qwerty-style keyboard is only an issue for the TI-92; the TI-89 is essentially the same, but it uses a more normal calculator keyboard (using an alt key for letters). Both use the same OS, as far as I'm aware; both are banned on the ACT, but I'd guess only the TI-92 is banned on the SAT.
Well sure, and that's sort of my point. It can be (and has been) done incorrectly, allowing the calculator to replace the tiniest hint of effort. That's the wrong way.
I maintain that math can be taught in such a way as to teach students the concepts while allowing them to use calculators on homework and tests. (Even merely requiring students to show intermediate work would suffice to show they know how to do it by hand, while allowing them to check their answer on the calculator.)
It provides an explicit "text" file type (rather than just BASIC program files), and its screen resolution is more friendly for note-taking than the 83 series calculators.
I'm not saying calculators would have completely eliminated my mistakes. I'm saying they would have greatedly reduced the number of mistakes.
And yes, I completely agree with this:
In addition there is also the pedagogical aspect. How can you understand what calculus is if you have no idea how to actually do it?
I think the solution is not to ban calculators from courses entirely. The solution is to teach students to do it by hand first, and then teach them how to use calculators to do the same thing. Yes, that requires changing the course. That's why most teachers don't do it - they're lazy, and don't want to redo something that they think works fine.
Slashdot Mirror
but the idea that clicking on a button on your own computer screen binds you to anything is absurd.
So being required to abide by a purchase agreement (say on eBay, or Amazon, or whatever) - which occurred by simply clicking "Purchase" or "Buy Now" or whatever on your own computer screen - is absurd?
You need to be a little less general with that statement.
As for your book example, that's exactly what established the first sale doctrine in the first place.
42.zip is flagged by Avast! as an "archive bomb". Sure, it's not technically a virus, but it's not a useful file (and it's potentially harmful by filling up your hard drive), so I don't have a problem with AV software flagging it.
Avast! apparently stops 34 levels deep in selfgz.gz, but it doesn't flag it. I'd almost prefer that it did.
No, you misunderstand. I don't mean "refuse to acknowledge the submission", I mean "don't say anything to the submitter at all". That is, Alice submits her app to Bob, who replies with a form letter saying it will be processed as soon as possible. Bob gets to it when he can, because he's got a large backlog. If Alice gets impatient, she can ask what's going on; Bob simply replies with another form letter apologizing for the long wait times and explaining that they have a large backlog of applications to process.
See, this is a far better technique than "pester Alice with endless rule revisions, requests to sign legal documents, requirements to give third parties sensitive information, and so on". My suggestion requires just two form letters and almost zero extra effort, while Chyeld's suggested stall tactic requires those new forms to be created, someone to crank through them, someone to write up new rules, etc.
That's fine, but that doesn't mean every person whose priorities are different than yours is wrong.
For example: I would probably choose e-mail as the last thing to go. I am almost never out of reach of another phone (besides my cell) - at work, I'm surrounded by desks full of them; on the train, there are dozens of people with phones; at home, my wife has her cell, or we could jog to a neighbor's house. (I carry a cell phone so other people can reach me at a single number, not so I can always have a phone.)
Yes, you could invent situations in which I'd be screwed if my phone's out of juice. But I could just say the same thing to you - after all, keeping 911 access with a low battery doesn't mean your battery will never run out.
It's also possible that someone who would prioritize e-mail over 911 would choose to not have a phone at all if e-mail weren't available for phones. Are you going to tell them they're morons for not having a cell phone, because there's a theoretical chance they could die by not being able to call 911? We may as well say you're a moron for not carrying a second cell phone, in case your first phone's battery dies.
That's as speculative as saying you're wrong. The truth is, you don't know that, you're assuming it; all we know is that at least some of Palm's requirements are stupid.
You can't seriously be claiming that he's not allowed to complain about idiocies in Palm's process just because he's not perfect, can you?
So true. I guesstimated StarCraft's cost at less than $0.02 per hour (if you bought it when it came out), and I'm certainly not the biggest StarCraft gamer out there.
For the gf -> wife upgrade, all you have to do is procure the right parts when you first start putting together the system.
My wife has always enjoyed Age of Empires II, but after two and a half years of marriage I finally got her to play through Diablo II. It's been a few weeks since she finished it, but she's still not sure whether she liked it. She won't play FPSs, though, and she leaves the room whenever I play Left 4 Dead (zombies of any form, except as in Plants Vs Zombies, are too scary for her). Anyway... she already had the right parts, from that perspective ;)
Our daughter is getting a good start, though. Sometimes I sit her in my lap while I play TF2... she gets somewhat mesmerized by the colors. It's almost as good as the bouncing-DVD-symbol screensaver on the TV in the living room.
(Also see my latest blog post for my comments about video game cost.)
*ahem* </shamless-blog-plug>
Sure, you've been able to run them. That's not what he's irritated about.
He's irritated that rather than simply tell him "no, we will not distribute your application", they're giving him all kinds of random, stupid requirements (including signing legal documents!) in order to distribute his free applications. They're dangling a carrot just out of reach, forever implying that he might reach it, and forever moving it a little further away whenever he makes any progress.
So he's not irritated that "Palm won't bend over backwards". He's irritated that Palm wants him not just to bend over backwards, but to pay them $99/year and sign various legal documents while bent over! Some of their requirements are entirely arbitrary and useless. Why should his version number have to be less than 1.0.0? Why would they ever have required that no other website post the app (or its source code), especially when the app itself is open source? (I know they rescinded that requirement. It should never have been a requirement in the first place.)
This has little to do with whether Palm will distribute his apps, and everything to do with the crap they're making him go through without giving him a decision one way or the other. In other words, it's a complaint about the idiotic process, and not a "PALM WON'T DISTRIBUTE MY APP :'(" rant.
You'd know all this if you had read the original article... but this is Slashdot, where so few people actually bother, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
It seems to me like "ignoring the submitter" is a far better stall tactic - and takes far less effort - than asking them to sign forms, provide them with revised rules, provide them with supposedly useful feedback on their application, and so forth.
After all, if you don't hear back for an extra two weeks, you'll just assume they're slow. If you hear back within a reasonable time frame, but get crap like this, you'll assume they're morons... which is pretty much what happened here.
Honestly that joke is getting pretty old... Crysis runs fine at max settings on a computer with slightly lower specs than mine.
I'm not saying it can't be done wrong, I'm just saying that it can be useful when done right.
In other words, "it can be done wrong" is a stupid reason to ban JS entirely. Banning JS entirely would only be a valid recourse if "it can't be done right" were a true statement, but obviously that's not a true statement, so we're back to what I was saying before: Javascript, when used properly, can increase the usability of websites without introducing excessive delays, and in some cases can reduce potential delays.
I'll agree with you about one thing though - Slashdot certainly isn't a shining example of good Javascript usage. (I also don't understand why it takes a good twenty seconds for the post preview to show up...)
Having a sweet looking computer case isn't going to impress anyone any more than having a sweet comic book collection.
I agree with the rest of your comment, but not this. Imagine you're looking to hire a graphic design company to design your new ads for $NEXT_BIG_THING. Company A has nice, sleek-looking cases and dual-monitor setups on each designer's desk. Company B has yellowed, coffee-stained beige cases and a pair of old 15" CRTs on each desk. Assuming each company produces work of equivalent quality, and both are willing to charge the same price, which would you hire?
Personally, I'd go for company A; nicer-looking machines implies nicer machines, which means that the designers are going to spend less time waiting for their machines to process things, which means that my work will get done faster.
You'll find that most people looking to hire companies like that don't even make decisions based on that much information. They'll choose based solely on nicer-looking cases, because to them it implies that they're wealthier and therefore better at their jobs, with no regard for what the implications might be, and without bothering to investigate further.
You're right in that it doesn't matter for the average gamer. But for a business who's looking to present the best possible image to clients? I can understand making sure every case looks high-end.
(presumably the highest end gamers who have absolutely unlimited budgets)
This. $2000 can get you an essentially top of the line machine these days (at least, it did for me); if I were going to spend $700 on the case, I'd want to scale up the other parts appropriately (getting into you-have-to-be-kidding-me territory), and the machine would cost somewhere in the vicinity of $7000. Granted, it's not hard to put together a parts list far exceeding that cost, but no gamer really needs anything that expensive.
I'd also point out that, in addition to slashdot, this is also the 21st century.
Exactly. Neither of us bother to dust.
When you're already paying $700 for the case, what's another $100 for shipping? That's like searching for a $10 discount on RAM when you're also buying a $1000 Core i7 Extreme (and then possibly using it for nothing more than Minesweeper). It's all about perspective...
While it's an interesting idea, it has one fatal problem: most end-users don't understand what the browser presents to them, and they'll just do whatever necessary to make it go away. This even applies to a large percentage of otherwise tech-savvy people. The end result will be people allowing everything, because surely their cousin Steve wouldn't send them a malicious link?
Seriously, why would I want "dynamic content" when all that really means is a thousand pauses as more data is fetched? Give me static pages whenever possible.
Well I can think of an example you might accept.
Imagine I'm selecting a username while registering a forum account. Rather than fill out the entire form, submit it, and wait for the entire page to load again only to find that the username has been selected, wouldn't it be nice if it would check that while I fill in other parts of the form?
See, that way, you actually spend less time waiting, since you were doing something useful while the Javascript did a round-trip to the server to make sure the username you selected is available.
All I'm saying is that using Javascript to dynamically alter the web page does not automatically mean you're adding in a thousand extra pauses before the web page is usable.
If your security model is built on everyone else playing nice, you're fucked.
The problem here is in the browser allowing the hijack.
It's not the browser here that's assuming everyone else is playing nice. It's Reddit's site. How were you modded insightful? You're just wrong.
I agree with your sentiment (that you shouldn't assume everyone else is playing nice) but blaming Reddit's problems on browsers misbehaving is like blaming potholes on cars. Sure, nobody crashes if nobody's driving, but potholes are usually caused by ice breaking up the asphalt, not by drivers driving on roads.
Let's place blame where blame is due, ok? It's not the browser's job to police what content can be posted to websites, it's the website's job.
This. I pay $30/month for unlimited messaging across five lines - that includes both MMS and SMS messages.
The iPhone already gets unlimited data. MMS messages are sent on the same data channels as other data - at least, they are on my phone. I don't really understand why they never allowed MMS messages for iPhones (until now). The only explanation I can think of is "we don't get enough money from iPhone users yet".
The qwerty-style keyboard is only an issue for the TI-92; the TI-89 is essentially the same, but it uses a more normal calculator keyboard (using an alt key for letters). Both use the same OS, as far as I'm aware; both are banned on the ACT, but I'd guess only the TI-92 is banned on the SAT.
Well sure, and that's sort of my point. It can be (and has been) done incorrectly, allowing the calculator to replace the tiniest hint of effort. That's the wrong way.
I maintain that math can be taught in such a way as to teach students the concepts while allowing them to use calculators on homework and tests. (Even merely requiring students to show intermediate work would suffice to show they know how to do it by hand, while allowing them to check their answer on the calculator.)
How is the 89 suited to taking notes?
It provides an explicit "text" file type (rather than just BASIC program files), and its screen resolution is more friendly for note-taking than the 83 series calculators.
I agree with you; teaching with the available tools can be done incorrectly. That doesn't mean it can't be done correctly.
I'm not saying calculators would have completely eliminated my mistakes. I'm saying they would have greatedly reduced the number of mistakes.
And yes, I completely agree with this:
In addition there is also the pedagogical aspect. How can you understand what calculus is if you have no idea how to actually do it?
I think the solution is not to ban calculators from courses entirely. The solution is to teach students to do it by hand first, and then teach them how to use calculators to do the same thing. Yes, that requires changing the course. That's why most teachers don't do it - they're lazy, and don't want to redo something that they think works fine.
Ah. I haven't checked their website for several years (when I stopped using my TIs regularly).
So... that makes my point even stronger :)