I'm as much for interesting research as the next guy, but I think the species will be fine even if we don't begin looking for the Higgs Boson or whatever they're doing over at the LHC for a few more months.
It's kind of funny because you are being picky about me saying there were a few spelling and grammar errors:) That wasn't my main point at all. Anyway, I guess you are alright. I had you on my foes list for a minute there XD
First paragraph: "each author brings their own unique insights" should be "each author brings his or her own unique insights."
Fourth paragraph: "in defense to how security is often perceived" should be "in defense against how security is often perceived."
Sixth paragraph: "online-advertising" should be "online advertising."
Eighth paragraph: "Chapter 7 is about the PGP" should be "Chapter 7 is about PGP." In "web of trust model, and recent enhancements bring PGP's web of trust up to date" the comma should be removed and "bring" should be changed to "bringing."
Tenth paragraph: "a fascinating an enjoyable read" should be "a fascinating and enjoyable read."
Eleventh paragraph: In "It is a good book for those whose who think information security" the word "whose" should be removed.
Obviously this isn't the New York Times. I've devoted enough time to this. If you can't find the grammatical and spelling errors yourself, I suggest picking up a copy of Hodge's Harbrace Handbook or checking it out from your local library.
For the record, Ben Rothke's book (the one mentioned in the article) looks like it's well written for reading the preview. I'm not trying to dog on anyone. I really just want to see better book reviews on Slashdot.
Like I said, there weren't too many errors. IIRC, there were some missing letters in a few words (an/and) and some awkward grammar. Nothing major, but it tripped me up reading it anyway. I think I'm done proofing this text though!
Well, I wouldn't say I critique everything, AC, I always put in a good word when I see a well written review... I'm trying to help people write better. So sue me! And if I find a book to review, then god dammit maybe I will submit something (:
Oh leave me alone. I think I'm being pretty clear:) Style is the way you write - the words you use, sentence structure, etc. Good writing does more than simply tell you something, and it is entirely separate from style. Good writing puts information in context, targets its audience, and is more than an extended table of contents.
Anyone can tell you what's in a book. A good reviewer will explain why you may want to read it, which requires going deeper than saying "Chapter 1 explains this. Chapter 3 explains this. Etc." It's a stylistic issue whether one wants to mention individual chapters, sure, but it is usually unnecessary and doesn't add much to the review. A good review needs to put the information presented in context. Saying "Chapter X explains Y. This is important because of Z." gives both an explanation and the context to understand the importance of the topic. If we take a made-up book called "JSON Web Services," a good review is not going to only say "Chapter 1 explains JSON syntax. Chapter 2 explains different JSON frameworks, etc." A good review should look more like, we can even leave the chapters in since you like that:), "The book begins with an introduction to JSON syntax, then moves on to the differences between JSON frameworks in chapter 2. The overview of the frameworks is important because there are multiple implementations for various programming languages. Not all of them are created equally. If you are planning to create a JSON web service, the comparison chart listed in this chapter will be invaluable because it explains various differences such as speed, customization options, and license, etc." The review should start off with a brief explanation of web services, why they are becoming popular, JSON, why JSON may preferred over XML, etc. (5 sentences or so nothing huge.) In either style, you would not need to specifically mention chapter 1, because knowing that chapter 1 is entitled "JSON syntax" is pretty much useless information by itself. It is important to know what is in a book, but not really to know the titles of chapters. Knowing what's in chapters of note is important, but it's only half of a good review.
To summarize is to report what's in a chapter or book. To review is to explain what's in a chapter or book. There's nothing wrong with talking about individual chapters, but a list like "Chapter 1 talks about this. Chapter 3 talks about this." is what tables of contents are for.
While the parent is obviously wrong (not even trojans can work on OS X, wow!), I wonder if what you say isn't just a small bit biased too. I mean, I honestly do wonder. Obviously, OS X or Linux would have plenty of security problems, but I bet they would be less dangerous or meaningful than the vulnerabilities in Windows. I haven't been following that debate for a while, but IIRC OS X has had far fewer remote code execution exploits than Windows has... Anyway, maybe you or someone else will prove me wrong and enlighten this discussion a bit more.
This is all meant in the best spirit of camaraderie. To summarize is not the purpose of a book review. The purpose is to explain to the reader why they should (or should not) read the book. Furthermore, chapter summaries are almost always redundant. Write concisely. Good opening. Informative. Understandable. Few spelling or grammar mistakes, though they were fairly noticeable and detracted from the tone of the piece.
Compare to the following reworking of your review. Basically, you have a short paragraph of content:
Books that collect chapters from expert authors often fail to do more than present disjointed ideas. "Beautiful Security: Leading Security Experts Explain How They Think" is an exception: the book provides an interesting overview of security, risk and privacy and is comprised of 16 essays, each showing how fascinating information security can be. Each of the essays is written by an established security expert and is organized and well-argued. With chapters from industry luminaries such as Mark Cuphrey, Jim Routh, Randy Sabett, Anton Chuvakin and others, "Beautiful Security" is required reading. The book highlights the importance of security metrics, with author Elizabeth Nichols explaining why the security profession should change to more emulate the medical profession in that a system of vital signs and accepted metrics should be adopted. Author Benjamin Edelman reports a problem with the online supply chain, in that it does not have long-established practices to confirm legitimacy of vendors. This has created an avenue for fraud. He has uncovered hundreds of online advertising scams defrauding hundreds of thousands of users, in addition to the merchants themselves, and provides details of these scams. In a welcome and long absent authoritative appearance by PGP creator Phil Zimmerman, as well as current PGP CTO Jon Callas, the pair highlight substantial inaccuracies in other writing on PGP, and provide insight into the history and use of cryptography, the PGP web of trust model, and recent enhancements to that model. The book details the need to get people, processes and technology to work together to make better security decisions. It also details emerging security topics relating to cloud computing, social networks, and the economics of security. For those that have an interest in information security, or those that are frustrated by it, "Beautiful Security" will be an entertaining yet challenging read.
A better review would briefly explain why these ideas are important, giving the separate highlighted ideas their own paragraph or two. A good rule of thumb is to explain an idea rather than only present it; the explanation presents the idea in context so the reader will not only know what is in the book but know why they may want to read it.
I would disagree that it was an interesting story, but to each his own. I had to stop reading when I got to this shit:
...Even though 44% of the 27 people with "excellent" math skills said the man did violate the law, when you look at the 58 people who self-reported "very good" math skills, 74% of them said he violated the law. This would appear to confound my original hypothesis... But I suspect that many people with... "very good" math grades were probably just good students who studied hard... but without necessarily having the insight that makes someone an "excellent" math student. Without that insight, there was no reason to expect them to be better than average at answering a question that has no resemblance to their textbook's practice problems.
Nice jump in logic there. He jumps from assumption to stating there is "no reason" to expect them to be better than average. Also, he is obviously not an expert in math education or math text books, nor is there any reason to assume any of this, except that the groups below excellent disagree with him. And a good math student who studies hard... isn't very good at math? I don't even know what kind of twisted logic could be used to support that line of thinking!
To translate: self-evaluation worked for those that reported excellent math skills and agreed with the author, but it did not work in the case when people reported very good math skills. It apparently worked well enough for all levels of English ability (by implication).
Not to mention small sample size, numerous other assumptions, and all the reasons you highlighted.
I saw a fire, sorry about all that, don't know what happened to the fire
but you would still be an irresponsible douche:) We have to take responsibility for our actions. If you're caring for a blind person and tell them there are no cars in the road and they get run over, you are responsible (and that is obviously wrong to do). You wouldn't be charged for what you said though, but for your negligence and recklessness with another human life. It's not the words that are of concern here; it is your responsibility for the results of all your actions, including speech. I hope you wouldn't defend fraud and libel on the basis of free speech. On the other hand, I don't think any of the above conflicts with the statement "your right to not be offended ends where my right to free speech begins." That's the true spirit of freedom of speech. Pure speech should always be 100% protected. Your responsibility for your actions doesn't magically dissapear, however. P.S. Greetings from Missouri, y'all.
are we 'too in love with the hacker ideal of the 1980s to produce programmers who are truly prepared for today's real-life business environment?'"
If only we were more in love! The thing is... the "cowboys" who can't shoot straight (e.g. write scalable, maintainable code) aren't real hackers anyway. It's a lot easier to be able to bang something together with glue and nails than it is to truly hack development. Any responsible hacker is going to know all about best practices, when to break them, and when to find new ones. There is beauty in simplicity as well as in obscure complexity. Whatever. Let the next generation all take classes in SharePoint or some crap like that and the good programmers among us may have even better job security than we had hoped for!
"We" is a decent book. More interesting to see a sample from the prototype stage of the dystopian genre than to read the story, but there are some really excellent passages and the plot is fairly compelling. Er, if anyone wants to know.
I'm sure the lawyers would have to come up with some legal definition (if there isn't a precedent already in Western law). On the other hand it's not like we don't know the definition of "parody" or "satire":)
Parody - an imitation of the style of a particular writer, artist, or genre with deliberate exaggeration for comic effect.
Satire - the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.
What is illegal is not necessarily wrong. I'm tired of the corporate nobility taking our natural rights from us. Natural rights like parodying those in power. As far as I'm concerned all parody should be 100% protected from IP concerns.
I'm no battery scientist, but I wonder if these batteries will be more or less safe compared to the lithium-ion batteries. I guess I could go read the article but...
The ridiculousness of your comment directly corresponds to how astronomically expensive it would be to GM one human child. Let's say initially it cost $500,000 per child over the program's lifetime (this is assuming you aren't advocating stealing the children's mothers against their will and forcing them to undergo modification - that would be much cheaper, I'm sure). Modifying 1000 children to be "better researchers" would cost $500,000,000. Assuming even a quarter of those chosen children decide to become researchers (if you will allow personal liberty still on the table), that's $2,000,000,000 per 1,000 researchers. That's $2,000,000 per enhanced researcher. How many researchers are even going to make $2mil extra for their employers over their research lifetime? Certainly not all of them.
This doesn't even address the moral and social problems of your idea. You said this was a necessary discussion, but you're aren't thinking about it very hard. I did pull the $500,000 out of my ass, but I think if you will allow for paperwork, yearly medical checkups, plus the insurance nightmare that would be involved, I am guessing it's a low-ball amount.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm as much for interesting research as the next guy, but I think the species will be fine even if we don't begin looking for the Higgs Boson or whatever they're doing over at the LHC for a few more months.
It's kind of funny because you are being picky about me saying there were a few spelling and grammar errors :) That wasn't my main point at all. Anyway, I guess you are alright. I had you on my foes list for a minute there XD
First paragraph: "each author brings their own unique insights" should be "each author brings his or her own unique insights."
Fourth paragraph: "in defense to how security is often perceived" should be "in defense against how security is often perceived."
Sixth paragraph: "online-advertising" should be "online advertising."
Eighth paragraph: "Chapter 7 is about the PGP" should be "Chapter 7 is about PGP." In "web of trust model, and recent enhancements bring PGP's web of trust up to date" the comma should be removed and "bring" should be changed to "bringing."
Tenth paragraph: "a fascinating an enjoyable read" should be "a fascinating and enjoyable read."
Eleventh paragraph: In "It is a good book for those whose who think information security" the word "whose" should be removed.
There you go :)
It's pretty easy to see that you don't actually care what they are.
Obviously this isn't the New York Times. I've devoted enough time to this. If you can't find the grammatical and spelling errors yourself, I suggest picking up a copy of Hodge's Harbrace Handbook or checking it out from your local library.
Obviously.
You challenge me, I explain myself, you dismiss my explanation and make your previous claim over. Not exactly a discussion!
For the record, Ben Rothke's book (the one mentioned in the article) looks like it's well written for reading the preview. I'm not trying to dog on anyone. I really just want to see better book reviews on Slashdot.
Like I said, there weren't too many errors. IIRC, there were some missing letters in a few words (an/and) and some awkward grammar. Nothing major, but it tripped me up reading it anyway. I think I'm done proofing this text though!
Well, I wouldn't say I critique everything, AC, I always put in a good word when I see a well written review... I'm trying to help people write better. So sue me! And if I find a book to review, then god dammit maybe I will submit something (:
Oh leave me alone. I think I'm being pretty clear :) Style is the way you write - the words you use, sentence structure, etc. Good writing does more than simply tell you something, and it is entirely separate from style. Good writing puts information in context, targets its audience, and is more than an extended table of contents.
Anyone can tell you what's in a book. A good reviewer will explain why you may want to read it, which requires going deeper than saying "Chapter 1 explains this. Chapter 3 explains this. Etc." It's a stylistic issue whether one wants to mention individual chapters, sure, but it is usually unnecessary and doesn't add much to the review. A good review needs to put the information presented in context. Saying "Chapter X explains Y. This is important because of Z." gives both an explanation and the context to understand the importance of the topic. If we take a made-up book called "JSON Web Services," a good review is not going to only say "Chapter 1 explains JSON syntax. Chapter 2 explains different JSON frameworks, etc." A good review should look more like, we can even leave the chapters in since you like that :), "The book begins with an introduction to JSON syntax, then moves on to the differences between JSON frameworks in chapter 2. The overview of the frameworks is important because there are multiple implementations for various programming languages. Not all of them are created equally. If you are planning to create a JSON web service, the comparison chart listed in this chapter will be invaluable because it explains various differences such as speed, customization options, and license, etc." The review should start off with a brief explanation of web services, why they are becoming popular, JSON, why JSON may preferred over XML, etc. (5 sentences or so nothing huge.) In either style, you would not need to specifically mention chapter 1, because knowing that chapter 1 is entitled "JSON syntax" is pretty much useless information by itself. It is important to know what is in a book, but not really to know the titles of chapters. Knowing what's in chapters of note is important, but it's only half of a good review.
To summarize is to report what's in a chapter or book. To review is to explain what's in a chapter or book. There's nothing wrong with talking about individual chapters, but a list like "Chapter 1 talks about this. Chapter 3 talks about this." is what tables of contents are for.
Considering it's over two thirds shorter than the entire original review, I don't particularly see your point...
While the parent is obviously wrong (not even trojans can work on OS X, wow!), I wonder if what you say isn't just a small bit biased too. I mean, I honestly do wonder. Obviously, OS X or Linux would have plenty of security problems, but I bet they would be less dangerous or meaningful than the vulnerabilities in Windows. I haven't been following that debate for a while, but IIRC OS X has had far fewer remote code execution exploits than Windows has... Anyway, maybe you or someone else will prove me wrong and enlighten this discussion a bit more.
This is all meant in the best spirit of camaraderie. To summarize is not the purpose of a book review. The purpose is to explain to the reader why they should (or should not) read the book. Furthermore, chapter summaries are almost always redundant. Write concisely. Good opening. Informative. Understandable. Few spelling or grammar mistakes, though they were fairly noticeable and detracted from the tone of the piece.
Compare to the following reworking of your review. Basically, you have a short paragraph of content:
Books that collect chapters from expert authors often fail to do more than present disjointed ideas. "Beautiful Security: Leading Security Experts Explain How They Think" is an exception: the book provides an interesting overview of security, risk and privacy and is comprised of 16 essays, each showing how fascinating information security can be. Each of the essays is written by an established security expert and is organized and well-argued. With chapters from industry luminaries such as Mark Cuphrey, Jim Routh, Randy Sabett, Anton Chuvakin and others, "Beautiful Security" is required reading. The book highlights the importance of security metrics, with author Elizabeth Nichols explaining why the security profession should change to more emulate the medical profession in that a system of vital signs and accepted metrics should be adopted. Author Benjamin Edelman reports a problem with the online supply chain, in that it does not have long-established practices to confirm legitimacy of vendors. This has created an avenue for fraud. He has uncovered hundreds of online advertising scams defrauding hundreds of thousands of users, in addition to the merchants themselves, and provides details of these scams. In a welcome and long absent authoritative appearance by PGP creator Phil Zimmerman, as well as current PGP CTO Jon Callas, the pair highlight substantial inaccuracies in other writing on PGP, and provide insight into the history and use of cryptography, the PGP web of trust model, and recent enhancements to that model. The book details the need to get people, processes and technology to work together to make better security decisions. It also details emerging security topics relating to cloud computing, social networks, and the economics of security. For those that have an interest in information security, or those that are frustrated by it, "Beautiful Security" will be an entertaining yet challenging read.
A better review would briefly explain why these ideas are important, giving the separate highlighted ideas their own paragraph or two. A good rule of thumb is to explain an idea rather than only present it; the explanation presents the idea in context so the reader will not only know what is in the book but know why they may want to read it.
Cheers and good luck!
...Even though 44% of the 27 people with "excellent" math skills said the man did violate the law, when you look at the 58 people who self-reported "very good" math skills, 74% of them said he violated the law. This would appear to confound my original hypothesis ... But I suspect that many people with ... "very good" math grades were probably just good students who studied hard ... but without necessarily having the insight that makes someone an "excellent" math student. Without that insight, there was no reason to expect them to be better than average at answering a question that has no resemblance to their textbook's practice problems.
Nice jump in logic there. He jumps from assumption to stating there is "no reason" to expect them to be better than average. Also, he is obviously not an expert in math education or math text books, nor is there any reason to assume any of this, except that the groups below excellent disagree with him. And a good math student who studies hard ... isn't very good at math? I don't even know what kind of twisted logic could be used to support that line of thinking!
To translate: self-evaluation worked for those that reported excellent math skills and agreed with the author, but it did not work in the case when people reported very good math skills. It apparently worked well enough for all levels of English ability (by implication).
Not to mention small sample size, numerous other assumptions, and all the reasons you highlighted.
I saw a fire, sorry about all that, don't know what happened to the fire
but you would still be an irresponsible douche :) We have to take responsibility for our actions. If you're caring for a blind person and tell them there are no cars in the road and they get run over, you are responsible (and that is obviously wrong to do). You wouldn't be charged for what you said though, but for your negligence and recklessness with another human life. It's not the words that are of concern here; it is your responsibility for the results of all your actions, including speech. I hope you wouldn't defend fraud and libel on the basis of free speech. On the other hand, I don't think any of the above conflicts with the statement "your right to not be offended ends where my right to free speech begins." That's the true spirit of freedom of speech. Pure speech should always be 100% protected. Your responsibility for your actions doesn't magically dissapear, however. P.S. Greetings from Missouri, y'all.
are we 'too in love with the hacker ideal of the 1980s to produce programmers who are truly prepared for today's real-life business environment?'"
If only we were more in love! The thing is... the "cowboys" who can't shoot straight (e.g. write scalable, maintainable code) aren't real hackers anyway. It's a lot easier to be able to bang something together with glue and nails than it is to truly hack development. Any responsible hacker is going to know all about best practices, when to break them, and when to find new ones. There is beauty in simplicity as well as in obscure complexity. Whatever. Let the next generation all take classes in SharePoint or some crap like that and the good programmers among us may have even better job security than we had hoped for!
"We" is a decent book. More interesting to see a sample from the prototype stage of the dystopian genre than to read the story, but there are some really excellent passages and the plot is fairly compelling. Er, if anyone wants to know.
I'm sure the lawyers would have to come up with some legal definition (if there isn't a precedent already in Western law). On the other hand it's not like we don't know the definition of "parody" or "satire" :)
Parody - an imitation of the style of a particular writer, artist, or genre with deliberate exaggeration for comic effect.
Satire - the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.
(Oxford American Dictionary)
Wow. That's actually pretty interesting.
What is illegal is not necessarily wrong. I'm tired of the corporate nobility taking our natural rights from us. Natural rights like parodying those in power. As far as I'm concerned all parody should be 100% protected from IP concerns.
I'm no battery scientist, but I wonder if these batteries will be more or less safe compared to the lithium-ion batteries. I guess I could go read the article but...
The ridiculousness of your comment directly corresponds to how astronomically expensive it would be to GM one human child. Let's say initially it cost $500,000 per child over the program's lifetime (this is assuming you aren't advocating stealing the children's mothers against their will and forcing them to undergo modification - that would be much cheaper, I'm sure). Modifying 1000 children to be "better researchers" would cost $500,000,000. Assuming even a quarter of those chosen children decide to become researchers (if you will allow personal liberty still on the table), that's $2,000,000,000 per 1,000 researchers. That's $2,000,000 per enhanced researcher. How many researchers are even going to make $2mil extra for their employers over their research lifetime? Certainly not all of them.
This doesn't even address the moral and social problems of your idea. You said this was a necessary discussion, but you're aren't thinking about it very hard. I did pull the $500,000 out of my ass, but I think if you will allow for paperwork, yearly medical checkups, plus the insurance nightmare that would be involved, I am guessing it's a low-ball amount.