You've made the argument exactly right for what is "true".
Simply because not everyone believes in the 9/11 Truth movement does not mean that there is not merit in their efforts. And if the people in the movement turn out to be right? What happens then? What would be done about all of the "lie" labels that had been applied to their content if the people making truth determinations had disagreed with their content?
In applying the same logic, anything that isn't universally agreed upon is subject to being called "crap" or lies. Your comment regarding who will be the aribter of truth is the core issue with what is proposed.
How would this rating system apply to those things on which people disagree the most? Religion? Politics? Hell, look at all the things people bicker back and forth about here on Slashdot. And what about news in general? Maybe we should stretch this labeling concept to TV? Have a "truth" stamp on every channel in the lineup as well?
Additionally, what about a punishment system for those who don't abide by the "truth" code. Who should be punished? The content author? The content host? How would this work for things such as forums where anyone/everyone can post? And what about personal blogs where one's version of life and truth would obviously not match those of others? And if you want to stretch it even thinner, think about photos. I'm not referring to things like lolcats images, but photography in general. If you Photoshop something out of a picture, is that picture now considered a lie?
Did you not read the full article? They already are.
But there have been well-documented ways to by-pass China's firewall.
One method involves connecting to a friendly computer outside China and using it as a proxy, to access websites that are banned.
China cannot block every computer outside its borders so this method has proved popular with citizens wanting unfettered access to the net.
I would like to know what else they are using. I might learn a thing or two from it.
As you have likely read in the news media, certain New Jersey election officials have stated that they plan to send to you one or more Sequoia Advantage voting machines for analysis. I want to make you aware that if the County does so, it violates their established Sequoia licensing Agreement for use of the voting system. Sequoia has also retained counsel to stop any infringement of our intellectual properties, including any non-compliant analysis. We will also take appropriate steps to protect against any publication of Sequoia software, its behavior, reports regarding same or any other infringement of our intellectual property.
I love the double-standard here. The government wants to invade the privacy of it's citizens (discussed several times over on these very forums) and one of the typical responses is "Well, if you don't have anything to hide...". But when an independant third party wants to verify that an important piece of hardware used in our political process can actually do the very simple math that it's required to do, the corporation who produces is has laws that it can throw in one's face to prevent verification of data. Shouldn't someone be pressing Sequoia with the "if you don't have anything to hide..." mantra?
Does anyone else here see the obvious double-standard that we've created for ourselves?
FTA: "You only have to look at the DS to realise that it already has the potential to be a PDA. At the moment you can use your DS (via an extra cartridge) to listen to music and browse the Internet over Wi-Fi using an Opera-based browser. Would it be that much of a leap to turn it into a mobile phone?"
But would the DS really be the best competitor for other PDA devices? When one looks at the already existing lineup of converged devices (Blackberries, Treos, nearly the entire lineup of HTC devices that are windows-mobile based), it seems that this market is pretty-well taken care of currently. It only takes one device with some remarkable features to re-invent an entire market's sub-base, but where that "niche" lies for a Nintendophone is what I'm curious to see.
Additionally, I'm not sure how many people would want to have to open the phone to dial. It'd be nice to have the keypad on the outside, and then possibly a qwerty keyboard on the inside for texting and such. But with the well-designed exterior, I'm afraid it would ruin the form factor currently in place.
There's definitely potential for this device. Making sure it includes the features users want most (while keeping the form factor that has made it a success) will be the key to opening up market share if it becomes a reality.
Before everyone points at the iPhone, has anyone stopped to take the user-base into consideration? The iPhone user-base isn't the same as bunch of professionals typing e-mails on their desktops or business users tapping away on their Blackberries.
I bet if the same type of study was done with Sidekick users, we'd see a higher error rate as well.
I'm not saying that the phone interface doesn't have anything to do with it. I would never buy one as it doesn't have a keyboard. I simply think the user-base needs to be taken into consideration.
FTA: "iPhone owners also left an average of 2.6 errors/completed message created on the iPhone compared to an average of 0.8 errors/completed message left by hard-key QWERTY phone owners on their own phone."
So is user-laziness a factor here as well? It says that the user "left" errors in the message. I make errors in typing all the time, but I usually correct them. Why not conduct a study to see what the error-rate is without letting the users make corrections. That would be the best way to see just how accurate initial text input was.
From the aricle:
"It seems unlikely that moonlets are remainders of a single catastrophic event that created the whole ring system, because in this case a uniform distribution would emerge"
From the summary:
"...moonlets embedded in Saturn's outer rings that are likely the remains of a larger moon that was shattered by an asteroid or comet."
So the article says that it's unlikely that it was a single event. The summary says that it was a moon being shattered, which of course would fit the definition of a single catastrophic event. What am I overlooking here?
The HTC touch dual is a remarkable phone. Take the iPhone, turn it into a slider so that it has a real keyboard, subtract Apple's single-provider lockdown garbage (along with their updates that "unintentionally render the device useless"), and you have one of the best upcoming phones out there.
The problem with this specific phone is that the European version = no WiFi, but the Japanese version has WiFi.
I'd love to have this phone unlocked and use it on my carrier's network. It's funny that this phone has been out for quite some time now, but to see that Sprint is just now getting the original (non-slider) version of the Touch.
Actually, it's not funny. It's disappointing that it takes this long for the technology to filter over here. It's also disappointing to see WiFi filtered off the device before hit hits Eurpoe (and most likely the US when it makes it's way over here).
I live within 10 miles of a major airport, and within 3 miles of a smaller "business" airport. Three nights ago I was outside on my balcony watching the sky and saw two planes coming from opposite directions converging towards one another. At first I was thinking, "Hmmm, those look like they're at relatively close altitude.". This quickly turned into "Are they really supposed to be flying like that?".
Very quickly thereafter, the planes are close enough that I realize one of them is a jumbo jet and the other is a small business commuter plane.
From what I could see on the ground, the planes passed through what appeared to be the same spot in the sky within about 4 seconds of one another. I was utterly astounded. Could it be that they really weren't communicating because they were from different airports? The biggest surprise is that there weren't any other planes in the area that I could see, so what was the need for their paths to converge like that?
fafalone: Look for more issues to start being decided by the whim of the masses rather than what's best
Pardon my intrusion here, but a democracy/replublic/plutocracy/democratic republic (the debate still rages on) is based upon the majority of said "masses" making the decisions on the country's direction.
Just because you seemingly disagree with the laws on drugs and apparently stem cell research, you are in the minority, and by the quote above, are stating that your opinion is better.
The voice of the minority is not supposed to trump the voice of the majority, yet that is what you are asking for here.
If you feel the system is broken, stand up and try to influence a change in the system. Don't stand up and say that the rest of the "masses" don't know what's best for them. The purpose of a democracy is majority rule. You're doing exactly what the government and corporations are already doing... pushing your agenda/opinions above those of the majority.
When a convicted murderer can get 8 1/3 - 25 for 1st degree manslaughter, yet some computer hackers get 12 1/2 - 25 for inserting/deleting some 1's and 0's in a code stream? Give me a f*cking break. And attempted piracy?
The real problem is, as you called them, "those with power and their minions" aren't the ones with power in this situation. They can have their million dollar homes, their million dollar stock options, and their 12 sports cars in the garage. What they don't and won't have is the ability to keep people from hacking/cracking/reverse engineering. Of course they can't admit that they are powerless in the situation or else it would blow the whole facade they have going for them. So yes, even with as moronic as it is, they will keep paying people to write DRM code and security software than can be broken by 12 yrs olds with a knack for math and logic skills.
You want to see technology hard at work? Look at a gps unit or a pacemaker. Want to see technology one of it's most useless forms? Check out DRM at your local record store.
User: (Touches 4 key) Phone: You have touched the 4 key. Allow? User: (presses yes button) Phone: You have touched the yes button. Allow? User: (presses yes button) Phone: You originally pressed the 4 key. Were you pressing the 4 key, or using our new counter-intuitive software that would allow you to really be pressing the 1 key? User: (touches the 4 key in response) Phone: You have touched the 4 key again. Allow? User: (presses yes button) Phone: Please stop picking on the 4 key. It doesn't like being touched like that.
To extract a barrel of oil from the ground in the Middle East? $3 Cost to refine said barrel of oil in a US refinery? $8 Ass-raping passed along to the American public? Priceless
For rolling in your Escalade on 22's, there's Saudi oil. For being indebted to the US banking system for life? There's Mastercard (R) (TM) (/.)
I'm not sure how many of the/. crowd are familiar with the concept of service level, so I figured I'd pass this along:
For any company that is worth a flip, they measure a statistic called service level. When you call a customer service number for a company, all of the calls are tracked on their telephony switches. I'm sure everyone is familiar with having to wait on hold to talk to someone. The actual metric of service level is "the target of answering X percent of calls in X seconds or less". So to measure this, if Company A has a service level goal of 80% answered in 45 seconds, and by chance they answered all of their calls for the day in 45 seconds or less, they have achieved 100% for the day. (This would technically be cost inefficient because they had too many people answering the phones, but I'll save that for another day). In this example, the company wants to end up at an 80% achievement for the day. They hit 100%, so they overserviced. Good for the customer, bad for the company's budget.
Depending on the industry, service level targets range anywhere from 80%/45 seconds for credit cards, home/cell phones, etc. Industries like sales, product activations, etc. have a much higher percentage, such as 90%/20 seconds... If the user is trying to buy something, a long wait time makes the customer impatient and they'll hang up resulting in a lost sale opportunity. For industries like computer tech support, the service levels are much, much different. A call for a computer user is going to be much longer than someone who calls their credit card company to complain about an over-the-limit fee. For tech support type calls, the service level will usually be something in the neighborhood of 70%/240 seconds.
You may be wondering how this relates to the Dell story? Last bit of information I received (approx. a month ago), Dell's computer tech support service level was 60%/20 MINUTES. Yes, that is minutes, not seconds. This means that if they answer 60% of their tech calls in 20 minutes or less, they feel they are providing a proper service to their customer.
I'm not surprised in the slightest to see this lawsuit. I'm actually surprised to see that is has taken this long.
If Valve wants user input so badly, when why didn't they listen to their users of CS 1.6 then? Valve was retarded and decided to put in-game ads into CS 1.6, and they don't fully support it any longer.
It sounds like they want the users to give them the good ideas to build the game off of so they can sell more copies. I don't think that most users want to give their work away to Valve for nothing. They'd rather give it to the gaming community as a whole for use. Maybe Valve should truly accecpt input from users and have a set price they pay out to those who submit ideas that are actually used. Wait, nevermind... they could change the ideas just enough to claim originality and then not pay.
Sounds like the user-created aftermarket is still the best alternative.
That was back in my AOL days when I was a teenager and it was the coolest thing on the planet. I've taught all the people in my family who use email how to use it, how to open attachments (properly scanned for virii), and well as getting my parents hooked on gmail (they love the read email anywhere concept).
Wisdom really does come with age, so no shame on me... well, not anymore anyway;)
I know that I have embedded images in emails before, used hyperlinks, etc. All of my traffic was legitimate but is still falls within the same avenues of data transfer that spammers use.
Beyond that, some of the funny looking "philosophy" I have received in my spam inbox (courtesy of gmail) is actually more well-spoken than some of the legitimate emails I've seen. (courtesy of the public school system)
In short, it's obviously problem, but we seem awfully short on solutions.
Slashdot Mirror
... will it blend?
(Your PC or Crisis 3... take your pick.)
Looks like they are part of the presentation & demo sessions at the UIST (User Interface Software and Technology) being hosted by ACM next week.
More details here:
http://www.acm.org/uist/uist2008/
And a schedule of events:
http://www.acm.org/uist/uist2008/program/index.html
I hope to see additional project details and possibly some additional demonstration videos come from this event.
You've made the argument exactly right for what is "true".
Simply because not everyone believes in the 9/11 Truth movement does not mean that there is not merit in their efforts. And if the people in the movement turn out to be right? What happens then? What would be done about all of the "lie" labels that had been applied to their content if the people making truth determinations had disagreed with their content?
In applying the same logic, anything that isn't universally agreed upon is subject to being called "crap" or lies. Your comment regarding who will be the aribter of truth is the core issue with what is proposed.
How would this rating system apply to those things on which people disagree the most? Religion? Politics? Hell, look at all the things people bicker back and forth about here on Slashdot. And what about news in general? Maybe we should stretch this labeling concept to TV? Have a "truth" stamp on every channel in the lineup as well?
Additionally, what about a punishment system for those who don't abide by the "truth" code. Who should be punished? The content author? The content host? How would this work for things such as forums where anyone/everyone can post? And what about personal blogs where one's version of life and truth would obviously not match those of others? And if you want to stretch it even thinner, think about photos. I'm not referring to things like lolcats images, but photography in general. If you Photoshop something out of a picture, is that picture now considered a lie?
Just food for thought...
I would like to know what else they are using. I might learn a thing or two from it.
I love the double-standard here. The government wants to invade the privacy of it's citizens (discussed several times over on these very forums) and one of the typical responses is "Well, if you don't have anything to hide...".
But when an independant third party wants to verify that an important piece of hardware used in our political process can actually do the very simple math that it's required to do, the corporation who produces is has laws that it can throw in one's face to prevent verification of data. Shouldn't someone be pressing Sequoia with the "if you don't have anything to hide..." mantra?
Does anyone else here see the obvious double-standard that we've created for ourselves?
... it's about damn time.
FTA: "You only have to look at the DS to realise that it already has the potential to be a PDA. At the moment you can use your DS (via an extra cartridge) to listen to music and browse the Internet over Wi-Fi using an Opera-based browser. Would it be that much of a leap to turn it into a mobile phone?"
But would the DS really be the best competitor for other PDA devices? When one looks at the already existing lineup of converged devices (Blackberries, Treos, nearly the entire lineup of HTC devices that are windows-mobile based), it seems that this market is pretty-well taken care of currently. It only takes one device with some remarkable features to re-invent an entire market's sub-base, but where that "niche" lies for a Nintendophone is what I'm curious to see.
Additionally, I'm not sure how many people would want to have to open the phone to dial. It'd be nice to have the keypad on the outside, and then possibly a qwerty keyboard on the inside for texting and such. But with the well-designed exterior, I'm afraid it would ruin the form factor currently in place.
There's definitely potential for this device. Making sure it includes the features users want most (while keeping the form factor that has made it a success) will be the key to opening up market share if it becomes a reality.
Before everyone points at the iPhone, has anyone stopped to take the user-base into consideration? The iPhone user-base isn't the same as bunch of professionals typing e-mails on their desktops or business users tapping away on their Blackberries.
I bet if the same type of study was done with Sidekick users, we'd see a higher error rate as well.
I'm not saying that the phone interface doesn't have anything to do with it. I would never buy one as it doesn't have a keyboard. I simply think the user-base needs to be taken into consideration.
FTA: "iPhone owners also left an average of 2.6 errors/completed message created on the iPhone compared to an average of 0.8 errors/completed message left by hard-key QWERTY phone owners on their own phone."
So is user-laziness a factor here as well? It says that the user "left" errors in the message. I make errors in typing all the time, but I usually correct them. Why not conduct a study to see what the error-rate is without letting the users make corrections. That would be the best way to see just how accurate initial text input was.
"It seems unlikely that moonlets are remainders of a single catastrophic event that created the whole ring system, because in this case a uniform distribution would emerge"
From the summary:
"...moonlets embedded in Saturn's outer rings that are likely the remains of a larger moon that was shattered by an asteroid or comet."
So the article says that it's unlikely that it was a single event. The summary says that it was a moon being shattered, which of course would fit the definition of a single catastrophic event. What am I overlooking here?
The HTC touch dual is a remarkable phone. Take the iPhone, turn it into a slider so that it has a real keyboard, subtract Apple's single-provider lockdown garbage (along with their updates that "unintentionally render the device useless"), and you have one of the best upcoming phones out there.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/01/htcs-3g-touch-dual-slider-with-hsdpa-arrives-in-europe/
The problem with this specific phone is that the European version = no WiFi, but the Japanese version has WiFi.
I'd love to have this phone unlocked and use it on my carrier's network. It's funny that this phone has been out for quite some time now, but to see that Sprint is just now getting the original (non-slider) version of the Touch.
Actually, it's not funny. It's disappointing that it takes this long for the technology to filter over here. It's also disappointing to see WiFi filtered off the device before hit hits Eurpoe (and most likely the US when it makes it's way over here).
I live within 10 miles of a major airport, and within 3 miles of a smaller "business" airport. Three nights ago I was outside on my balcony watching the sky and saw two planes coming from opposite directions converging towards one another. At first I was thinking, "Hmmm, those look like they're at relatively close altitude.". This quickly turned into "Are they really supposed to be flying like that?".
Very quickly thereafter, the planes are close enough that I realize one of them is a jumbo jet and the other is a small business commuter plane.
From what I could see on the ground, the planes passed through what appeared to be the same spot in the sky within about 4 seconds of one another. I was utterly astounded. Could it be that they really weren't communicating because they were from different airports? The biggest surprise is that there weren't any other planes in the area that I could see, so what was the need for their paths to converge like that?
JACK: I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
Is that a nano in your pocket...
... or are you just happy to see me?
Just because you seemingly disagree with the laws on drugs and apparently stem cell research, you are in the minority, and by the quote above, are stating that your opinion is better.
The voice of the minority is not supposed to trump the voice of the majority, yet that is what you are asking for here.
If you feel the system is broken, stand up and try to influence a change in the system. Don't stand up and say that the rest of the "masses" don't know what's best for them. The purpose of a democracy is majority rule. You're doing exactly what the government and corporations are already doing... pushing your agenda/opinions above those of the majority.
RIAA: "All your MP3 are belong to us"
User: "ORLY"
RIAA: "YA RLY"
USER: "NO WAI"
(Owned by formatting)
RIAA: "All your MP3 are belong to us" User: "ORLY" RIAA" "YA RLY" USER: "NO WAI"
So the tree didn't make a sound when it crashed in the forest and nobody was around to hear it?
Or did it just quantumly entangle itself from standing upright to laying over?
You're kidding, right?
When a convicted murderer can get 8 1/3 - 25 for 1st degree manslaughter, yet some computer hackers get 12 1/2 - 25 for inserting/deleting some 1's and 0's in a code stream? Give me a f*cking break. And attempted piracy?
The real problem is, as you called them, "those with power and their minions" aren't the ones with power in this situation. They can have their million dollar homes, their million dollar stock options, and their 12 sports cars in the garage. What they don't and won't have is the ability to keep people from hacking/cracking/reverse engineering. Of course they can't admit that they are powerless in the situation or else it would blow the whole facade they have going for them. So yes, even with as moronic as it is, they will keep paying people to write DRM code and security software than can be broken by 12 yrs olds with a knack for math and logic skills.
You want to see technology hard at work? Look at a gps unit or a pacemaker. Want to see technology one of it's most useless forms? Check out DRM at your local record store.
... with Windows Mobile 6:
User: (Touches 4 key)
Phone: You have touched the 4 key. Allow?
User: (presses yes button)
Phone: You have touched the yes button. Allow?
User: (presses yes button)
Phone: You originally pressed the 4 key. Were you pressing the 4 key, or using our new counter-intuitive software that would allow you to really be pressing the 1 key?
User: (touches the 4 key in response)
Phone: You have touched the 4 key again. Allow?
User: (presses yes button)
Phone: Please stop picking on the 4 key. It doesn't like being touched like that.
Dead on point.
To extract a barrel of oil from the ground in the Middle East? $3
Cost to refine said barrel of oil in a US refinery? $8
Ass-raping passed along to the American public? Priceless
For rolling in your Escalade on 22's, there's Saudi oil. For being indebted to the US banking system for life? There's Mastercard (R) (TM) (/.)
I'm not sure how many of the /. crowd are familiar with the concept of service level, so I figured I'd pass this along:
For any company that is worth a flip, they measure a statistic called service level. When you call a customer service number for a company, all of the calls are tracked on their telephony switches. I'm sure everyone is familiar with having to wait on hold to talk to someone. The actual metric of service level is "the target of answering X percent of calls in X seconds or less". So to measure this, if Company A has a service level goal of 80% answered in 45 seconds, and by chance they answered all of their calls for the day in 45 seconds or less, they have achieved 100% for the day. (This would technically be cost inefficient because they had too many people answering the phones, but I'll save that for another day). In this example, the company wants to end up at an 80% achievement for the day. They hit 100%, so they overserviced. Good for the customer, bad for the company's budget.
Depending on the industry, service level targets range anywhere from 80%/45 seconds for credit cards, home/cell phones, etc. Industries like sales, product activations, etc. have a much higher percentage, such as 90%/20 seconds... If the user is trying to buy something, a long wait time makes the customer impatient and they'll hang up resulting in a lost sale opportunity. For industries like computer tech support, the service levels are much, much different. A call for a computer user is going to be much longer than someone who calls their credit card company to complain about an over-the-limit fee. For tech support type calls, the service level will usually be something in the neighborhood of 70%/240 seconds.
You may be wondering how this relates to the Dell story? Last bit of information I received (approx. a month ago), Dell's computer tech support service level was 60%/20 MINUTES. Yes, that is minutes, not seconds. This means that if they answer 60% of their tech calls in 20 minutes or less, they feel they are providing a proper service to their customer.
I'm not surprised in the slightest to see this lawsuit. I'm actually surprised to see that is has taken this long.
What I would like to know:
If Valve wants user input so badly, when why didn't they listen to their users of CS 1.6 then? Valve was retarded and decided to put in-game ads into CS 1.6, and they don't fully support it any longer.
It sounds like they want the users to give them the good ideas to build the game off of so they can sell more copies. I don't think that most users want to give their work away to Valve for nothing. They'd rather give it to the gaming community as a whole for use. Maybe Valve should truly accecpt input from users and have a set price they pay out to those who submit ideas that are actually used. Wait, nevermind... they could change the ideas just enough to claim originality and then not pay.
Sounds like the user-created aftermarket is still the best alternative.
Or should I say WoW? Can you imagine all the WoW players using a treadmill to run through the game?
When they switch into pet mode, would they be required to run on all fours?
That was back in my AOL days when I was a teenager and it was the coolest thing on the planet. I've taught all the people in my family who use email how to use it, how to open attachments (properly scanned for virii), and well as getting my parents hooked on gmail (they love the read email anywhere concept).
;)
Wisdom really does come with age, so no shame on me... well, not anymore anyway
Is there truly a way to stop this though?
I know that I have embedded images in emails before, used hyperlinks, etc. All of my traffic was legitimate but is still falls within the same avenues of data transfer that spammers use.
Beyond that, some of the funny looking "philosophy" I have received in my spam inbox (courtesy of gmail) is actually more well-spoken than some of the legitimate emails I've seen. (courtesy of the public school system)
In short, it's obviously problem, but we seem awfully short on solutions.