There's a whole lot of stuff out there that takes it too seriously. This Salon article is just another example.
I love Star Wars. I had all the toys as a kid. I played the video games (X-Wing/TIE Fighter, JediKnight, etc) in college. I saw The Phantom Menace on the day it opened (without camping out or waiting in some huge-ass line).
It's still just a movie. I liked watching the movie. I will see Attack of the Clones. Maybe it will be suprisingly good. Maybe it will be a little disappointing. For me , it will still be fun. Entertainment. If you don't find it fun then don't go watch it. If you don't find it fun then why waste a bunch of time publishing an article to convince everyone else of its flaws?
I didn't really like The Matrix. It wasn't bad, I just didn't like it. So I didn't go see it again. I did not spend a lot of time trying to convince people that did like The Matrix that it sucked simply because I didn't like it.
When I read about the two releases (regular first, super extra special version later) I was immediately reminded of the Star Wars video/DVD release.
Of course, for Star Wars, all I saw was people crying about what a money-grabbing jerk Lucas was for releasing two versions. Now everyone seems happy that the same thing is being done for FotR.
It does have legal uses
on
Spy v. Spy
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· Score: 2
The spyware does have a legal use. It is for people who want to monitor the use of their machines. If I own some computers and want to monitor what my kids/employees/whoever does on my computer I have a right to purchase spyware and install it to monitor their use.
Once again, this is not referring to the marketing spyware that is bundled with free downloads. It is referring to application/web monitoring type spyware that you purchase.
I think you have a case in the first issue (the guy who installed the spyware) but probably not the second (the spyware itself). At least, that's the way I hope it works. The spyware is simply software meant to perform a task. If someone uses a video camera to spy on someone, is the video camera manufacturer liable?
Note for those who didn't read the article: the spyware in question is actual spyware applications that are purposely installed (like something the FBI or a suspicious spouse/employer might use). It is not referring to the third-party marketing spyware crap that gets attached to downloads.
There's nothing wrong with doing it "the right way". There is a problem if that way interferes with the end goal (shipping products).
Documentation wasn't invented by some lunatic who liked to file things. I have seen many projects and organizations who were failing because they lacked documentation. The key, I think, is to keep the ultimate goal in mind. Don't generate documentation simply because that's the way it is "supposed to be done". If it will help you, then do it. If it is interfering with actually building the product, then don't do it.
I often disagreed with the people in the second group-- those who actually cared and educated themselves on the issues. I still respected their efforts and opinions.
I did not respect the cause du jour voters because they were not really interested in the organization as a whole. They would scream, literally scream, at meetings. Occasionally it got to bad that we would hire a third-party mediator. When the mediator told them that they had to let everyone speak they screamed at the mediator for being "unfair" and "biased". In one instance they got a few of them elected to the Board of Directors. They then realized that they couldn't effect the one issue that they were screaming about (it had been dead for a year), so they stopped showing up for meetings. They didn't even have the courtesy to formally resign.
Typically, people only vote when they're pissed off about something. If ICANN is supporting the little guy, few little guys show up to vote because everything is going well for them. Then the corporations hate it and vote in someone who will help them out.
It can work, but only when the voters are interested and informed.
I am a member of the Board of Directors of a non-profit corporation. At our last annual meeting we elminiated the ability for our membership to elect members of the board. In fact, because they used to have this power, we got them to vote away their authority to elect future boards.
We aren't control freaks. We don't have some sinister motive. We thought that it was in the best interests of the organization that this be done. Why?
In our situation we had three types of voters. The first type was the people who just didn't care. They represented the majority of eligible voters. They didn't really understand the issues that board dealt with, primarily because they just didn't care.
The second type was a small group of concerned individuals who actually cared and educated themselves on the issues. Unfortunately their numbers were very small.
The last group was the cause du jour voters. They were voting because of one particular issue. They often engaged in relentless political attacks to get their one small issue recognized. They were quick to villify and eliminate anyone who wasn't blindly supportive of their cause. They could quickly destroy years of work. I'm not including those dedicated people who believed in an issue in this group. This group consists of people who, after causing everyone a lot of pain, simply disappear and leave others to pick up the pieces of the organization and move forward.
By eliminating member voting we have allowed the Board-- a group of people who understand the issues and care about the organization, do their job. There is an obvious danger, of course, because the Board has lost oversight by the membership, but it has made the organization a whole lot better.
I'm not saying I support ICANN's decision 100%. At some level the oversight is needed. In our case, if the Board screws up people can always go to another company. The ICANN situation is not nearly so simple. I'm just trying to show a peek at the other side of the fence.
Like the other poster said, there's plenty of nature to be found. Along the river is a great place, not just by the Stone Arch Bridge either. There's a trail system along both side of the river through most of the city. Then there's the Fort Snelling State Park, the lakes, and the Minnehaha Parkway. When I lived near downtown I rode by bike through the Grand Rounds nearly every day.
First of all... screw global warming. I have not used my snowmobile at all this year. I was so sad I had to go out and buy a new motorcycle on one of those 50-degree February days.
Secondly, your winters in North Dakota are worse than ours here in Minneapolis. You're out on the prarie and get all that blowing and drifting. The interstate never gets closed in this part of Minnesota.
While having more jobs and money is nice, I hate all the idiots from the coast moving here. It ruins all the good things about the midwest. Stay out of "fly-over country"! It's dull and boring... and people are nice and no pollution and lots of open space and nature... I mean it sucks! Stay in LA!
If you want people to read the site, then browser compatability and ease of use have to be the top considerations. If people cannot read the site, then they will move on.
Compare the web sites of companies that make their money on the web (Google, Amazon, etc) to companies that make their money off the web (Ford, Pepsi, etc). You will notice how the web-based companies have sites that do not use Flash, big images, or anything else that makes it harder or slower to read their sites. The companies that make their money off the web will typically have sites designed by their marketing department to include the "coolest" features possible, regardless of how hard it makes the site to use.
I'll pay $15,000 for the script that finds one non-fake Britney porn pic!
We (probably) won't ever actually ACHIEVE AI
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Arguing A.I.
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· Score: 5, Insightful
The problem with AI is that it always seems unsuccsessful. Any time an AI technology matures and becomes useful it is no longer considered "AI". Computer vision (face recognition), expert systems, even many modern strategy games would be considered amazing AI advances a few decades ago. They all arose because of AI research. Once they matured, however, they were no longer considered AI.
AI won't be considered successful until we build HAL or Data, but the journey so far has been very useful.
Exactly. The court said that woman did not have a right to sue onder the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) It did not say that she was not disabled or that she could perform her job. She simply does not have a claim under the ADA.
Before everyone rants about how terrible that is, you must consider the ADA. If CTS is a disability under the ADA, then a lot of things will have to be rebuilt to accomodate people with CTS (just like buildings have to add ramps, elevators, handicap-accessable bathrooms, etc). The ADA is to provide for people whose lives have been significantly impacted. I don't imagine that CTS is fun, and she probably has a claim under workman's comp, but it isn't an ADA issue.
In the article, the author describes his own institution as a "third-level educational establishment". This is not a university and these students have had (according to the article) exposure to Windows exclusively at school.
These are not the system administrators or NASA programmers of tomorrow. They're getting a 2-year tech degree and then they'll be on the news bitching about how there are no good jobs in IT.
"Nothing gets done by committee" means that nothing gets done by committee. It is not a hidden message to steal control. It is fine for a group to agree on an agenda and review progress. Once there is work to be done, individuals get it done.
Try this experiment: get together with someone else, sit down at the same computer, and try to write a piece of software together. Try to write an essay together. Try to fill out a spreadsheet together.
I've been on plenty of committees. The good ones realize that a meeting is to review progress and make sure everyone is clear on the plan. The bad ones think that the meeting itself is the productive work (instead of overhead to get work done).
Exactly. This isn't only true of starting a software project, but of most things in life. Some once said, "nothing gets done by committee".
Successful projects always start out with someone (or occasionally a few people) doing a bunch of work. General George Patton once said, "It's better to have a bad plan now than a perfect plan tomorrow." Someone has to go ahead and start doing some work. Make it available, be open to accepting help. Do not, however, wait for some magic moment for everything to be perfect and have dozens of people ready to go. That moment won't ever happen.
Aviation is one of those areas where, if it ain't broke, don't fix it [insert Concorde crash joke here]. People's lives are at stake with the equipment in an aircraft, so you don't want to upgrade simply to make everything look cool.
For the average person, biotechnology, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence do not have a lot of real meaning. They can't see any examples in their everyday life.
Global climate change is something people can understand. Everyone has been through a warm winter, a dry summer, a flood, a severe storm. They have seen it affect their comfort, their recreation, perhaps even their income (for people in agriculture).
I'm not saying that carbon dioxide emissions are the cause of every extraordinary weather event lately. When people hear that global warming can cause these events, people take notice. It is something they can understand.
A regulator on the engine simply limits the speed at all times. It's a safety device to keep you from killing yourself (like doing 120 mph in an Escort) or destroying the engine.
The proposed system in England is a active system. If you're in a 30 zone, then you can't go above 30. If you're in a 55 zone, then you can't go above 55.
I work for a transportation research laboratory. One of our scientists just came from England, where there's a project to limit the speed of vehicles. Here's a link to information on the project.
Slashdot Mirror
I love Star Wars. I had all the toys as a kid. I played the video games (X-Wing/TIE Fighter, JediKnight, etc) in college. I saw The Phantom Menace on the day it opened (without camping out or waiting in some huge-ass line).
It's still just a movie. I liked watching the movie. I will see Attack of the Clones. Maybe it will be suprisingly good. Maybe it will be a little disappointing. For me , it will still be fun. Entertainment. If you don't find it fun then don't go watch it. If you don't find it fun then why waste a bunch of time publishing an article to convince everyone else of its flaws?
I didn't really like The Matrix. It wasn't bad, I just didn't like it. So I didn't go see it again. I did not spend a lot of time trying to convince people that did like The Matrix that it sucked simply because I didn't like it.
If you have to read the books to enjoy/understand the movie then the movie, as a movie, isn't very good.
Of course, for Star Wars, all I saw was people crying about what a money-grabbing jerk Lucas was for releasing two versions. Now everyone seems happy that the same thing is being done for FotR.
Once again, this is not referring to the marketing spyware that is bundled with free downloads. It is referring to application/web monitoring type spyware that you purchase.
Note for those who didn't read the article: the spyware in question is actual spyware applications that are purposely installed (like something the FBI or a suspicious spouse/employer might use). It is not referring to the third-party marketing spyware crap that gets attached to downloads.
Documentation wasn't invented by some lunatic who liked to file things. I have seen many projects and organizations who were failing because they lacked documentation. The key, I think, is to keep the ultimate goal in mind. Don't generate documentation simply because that's the way it is "supposed to be done". If it will help you, then do it. If it is interfering with actually building the product, then don't do it.
I did not respect the cause du jour voters because they were not really interested in the organization as a whole. They would scream, literally scream, at meetings. Occasionally it got to bad that we would hire a third-party mediator. When the mediator told them that they had to let everyone speak they screamed at the mediator for being "unfair" and "biased". In one instance they got a few of them elected to the Board of Directors. They then realized that they couldn't effect the one issue that they were screaming about (it had been dead for a year), so they stopped showing up for meetings. They didn't even have the courtesy to formally resign.
It can work, but only when the voters are interested and informed.
We aren't control freaks. We don't have some sinister motive. We thought that it was in the best interests of the organization that this be done. Why?
In our situation we had three types of voters. The first type was the people who just didn't care. They represented the majority of eligible voters. They didn't really understand the issues that board dealt with, primarily because they just didn't care.
The second type was a small group of concerned individuals who actually cared and educated themselves on the issues. Unfortunately their numbers were very small.
The last group was the cause du jour voters. They were voting because of one particular issue. They often engaged in relentless political attacks to get their one small issue recognized. They were quick to villify and eliminate anyone who wasn't blindly supportive of their cause. They could quickly destroy years of work. I'm not including those dedicated people who believed in an issue in this group. This group consists of people who, after causing everyone a lot of pain, simply disappear and leave others to pick up the pieces of the organization and move forward.
By eliminating member voting we have allowed the Board-- a group of people who understand the issues and care about the organization, do their job. There is an obvious danger, of course, because the Board has lost oversight by the membership, but it has made the organization a whole lot better.
I'm not saying I support ICANN's decision 100%. At some level the oversight is needed. In our case, if the Board screws up people can always go to another company. The ICANN situation is not nearly so simple. I'm just trying to show a peek at the other side of the fence.
Like the other poster said, there's plenty of nature to be found. Along the river is a great place, not just by the Stone Arch Bridge either. There's a trail system along both side of the river through most of the city. Then there's the Fort Snelling State Park, the lakes, and the Minnehaha Parkway. When I lived near downtown I rode by bike through the Grand Rounds nearly every day.
Secondly, your winters in North Dakota are worse than ours here in Minneapolis. You're out on the prarie and get all that blowing and drifting. The interstate never gets closed in this part of Minnesota.
While having more jobs and money is nice, I hate all the idiots from the coast moving here. It ruins all the good things about the midwest. Stay out of "fly-over country"! It's dull and boring... and people are nice and no pollution and lots of open space and nature... I mean it sucks! Stay in LA!
Compare the web sites of companies that make their money on the web (Google, Amazon, etc) to companies that make their money off the web (Ford, Pepsi, etc). You will notice how the web-based companies have sites that do not use Flash, big images, or anything else that makes it harder or slower to read their sites. The companies that make their money off the web will typically have sites designed by their marketing department to include the "coolest" features possible, regardless of how hard it makes the site to use.
I'll pay $15,000 for the script that finds one non-fake Britney porn pic!
AI won't be considered successful until we build HAL or Data, but the journey so far has been very useful.
Before everyone rants about how terrible that is, you must consider the ADA. If CTS is a disability under the ADA, then a lot of things will have to be rebuilt to accomodate people with CTS (just like buildings have to add ramps, elevators, handicap-accessable bathrooms, etc). The ADA is to provide for people whose lives have been significantly impacted. I don't imagine that CTS is fun, and she probably has a claim under workman's comp, but it isn't an ADA issue.
These are not the system administrators or NASA programmers of tomorrow. They're getting a 2-year tech degree and then they'll be on the news bitching about how there are no good jobs in IT.
SIPRNET
Try this experiment: get together with someone else, sit down at the same computer, and try to write a piece of software together. Try to write an essay together. Try to fill out a spreadsheet together.
I've been on plenty of committees. The good ones realize that a meeting is to review progress and make sure everyone is clear on the plan. The bad ones think that the meeting itself is the productive work (instead of overhead to get work done).
Successful projects always start out with someone (or occasionally a few people) doing a bunch of work. General George Patton once said, "It's better to have a bad plan now than a perfect plan tomorrow." Someone has to go ahead and start doing some work. Make it available, be open to accepting help. Do not, however, wait for some magic moment for everything to be perfect and have dozens of people ready to go. That moment won't ever happen.
Much more annoying is having every new application try and make itself the default for a million other filetypes.
Actually, the B-2 bombers are named. Probablu because they're as expensive as a ship.
Aviation is one of those areas where, if it ain't broke, don't fix it [insert Concorde crash joke here]. People's lives are at stake with the equipment in an aircraft, so you don't want to upgrade simply to make everything look cool.
Global climate change is something people can understand. Everyone has been through a warm winter, a dry summer, a flood, a severe storm. They have seen it affect their comfort, their recreation, perhaps even their income (for people in agriculture).
I'm not saying that carbon dioxide emissions are the cause of every extraordinary weather event lately. When people hear that global warming can cause these events, people take notice. It is something they can understand.
The proposed system in England is a active system. If you're in a 30 zone, then you can't go above 30. If you're in a 55 zone, then you can't go above 55.
I work for a transportation research laboratory. One of our scientists just came from England, where there's a project to limit the speed of vehicles. Here's a link to information on the project.