OK, first of all let's be clear on something: Internet "addiction" isn't addiction. Neither is sex addiction, shopping addiction, and so forth. "Behavioral addictions" are mental in nature. True addiction is physiological.
Secondly, it should be trivially obvious that ALL of these so-called behavioral addictions are SYMPTOMS of some other root cause, often some manifestation of OCD. You can treat heroin addiction by removing the substance and healing the body (i.e. go through withdrawal and detox--nasty business, but fairly effective). You don't treat internet addiction by taking away the internet, you find what is driving the person towards addict-like behaviour, and solve that. Voila--internet addiction is a symptom.
I don't know why the psychiatry field is so determined to label all symptomatic behaviours as diseases, but they're not doing themselves any good.
Basically, the Russian mafia is behind a lot of the botnet activity. They're employing talented but criminal programmers to write this stuff in a number of locations. Staff are paid for their work, and even provided benefits in some cases.
The botnet control servers are spread between a number of (mostly eastern-bloc) countries. Interpol can initiate action, but relies on the local police to carry it to the end, and the local police are...bought and paid for by the crimelords. Furthermore, if one slightly suidical policeman (or force) decides to act against the botnet operation, then all it means is that one of the tentacles is cut off. While it's busy regrowing (i.e. the data centre is being rebuilt a block away), the effect is minimal at best because there are similar systems set up in other countries.
What it would take to legally shut down the botnets is the coordinated effort of interpol and the police forces of several countries, combined with a lack of fear of organised crime. Six months later, they'd need to do the same thing again, probably with different countries. After doing this roughly three times a year for three or four years, the criminals in charge might decide to give up and move into another area--however, after the first attempt, there would be a lot of dead or injured cops showing up, and quite possibly their families as well. If you could pull off a raid like that once, do you think ANYONE would want to take part in a second raid, given the mortality rate (and peripheral damage)?
To shut them down illegally would take a well-funded and heavily armed black-ops team, to go in and start slaughtering the programmers, bombing the data centres, and (ideally) assassinating the crime lords. Basically, an anti-mafia mafia. The CIA has a history of doing this, but generally to depose governments, not criminals.
Yep, you're absolutely right. As I said, biometrics _do_ have their place.
There's a good chance in your scenario that the guard recognises on sight the people who are supposed to be allowed in, which is one authentication factor. Once you're in the secured area, there is no WAY that you'll be able to work on computers without a username and password, so you have (surprise!) a third authentication.
Biometrics works as one level in a multi-layered system, and it should be a fairly late layer to add to the system.
Most of the time, a username/password is a perfectly good access-control method. In some cases (either high-security environments or connections over hostile space), a second authentication method is advised. Now we have a two-factor authentication. Typical example is "log onto the firewall to allow you to log onto a machine inside the firewall." SecureID cards and the like also work as a good second-factor method.
A biometric challenge is arguably an acceptable second-factor when added to a username/password system. It is NOT a substitute for such a system.
However, biometrics are HARD to do correctly! Cheap scanners suck and are generally insecure by design. Expensive scanners suck, but are generally designed better. None are foolproof, yet.
Also, biometric authentication carries a risk. If your username and password are stolen, then you can change your password and stop the damage. If your biometric ID (retinal scan, fingerprint, etc.) are successfully 'stolen,' then you have lost your authentication ability for all time! If your fingerprint is compromised, you can NEVER USE it as an authentication method again! There ain't no resetting fingerprints!
So we have a large expense for an imperfect system with exactly one possible compromise per user per lifetime. This isn't a primary ID method. It's not a good second-factor ID method either. In EXTREME security environments, it might make sense as a third-factor authorization system, along with username/password and a (pseudo-) one-time pad (i.e. SecureID).
If you don't NEED that type of security, then DON'T USE YOUR BIOMETRIC DATA! One compromise, and it's useless. Forever. Period.
Oh yeah, but I forget the most important part: Fingerprint scanners are shiny and cool, just like in the movies. Bah.
Points all well taken. As I said, over time some differences of opinion (or outright beliefs) can add strength to a relationship, whereas others can destroy it. In a case like this, it often boils down to just how determined you both are in your beliefs. Does she (or he) read their horoscope routinely and try to use it to guide their day a bit, or does she (or he) actively spend their spare time in new-age occult shops selecting crystals for the right energy, and sticking nametags on water jugs? One is must easier to ignore than the other. The thing is, belief (to almost any extreme) in such things DOES NOT PRECLUDE belief in science!!! It's illogical and irrational, but it's also entirely possible given that we are illogical and irrational beings! Strange but true...
For the record, my wife has a technical degree and a love of the sciences and arts, but also sticks labels on water jugs. I occasionally roll my eyes, but I don't have to argue with her about it, because I don't have to be right about every little thing in our relationship. Sometimes I can (and should) just let things lie as they are, no matter how illogical. She does the same for me when I get wound up about totally trivial (to the outside world) problems with computing companies. It's all part of the give and take.
(Also, for the OTHER record, although we had known each other casually for quite a few years, it wasn't until both of us stopped actively hunting for a partner that we noticed each other.)
I was talking to a friend about this very issue last week. He's a Linux user everywhere, I'm a Unix admin with Linux and Windows bouncing into my life intermittently. We ended up coming to a few clear conclusions.
1) People who make the head-first dive into Linux do so KNOWING that they're mostly leaving behind games. Hard-core gamers won't give up Windows, because that's where the games are! 2) Developers are somewhat reluctant to write games for Linux because of the strong 'live free or die' mentality of the open-source community. If it's not difficult then they might port a game to Linux, but writing professional-quality unique games for Linux will equate to closed-source, and are likely to be shunned by much of the potential market.
Way back 'in the day,' the OS/2 community got gaming right (although a bit too late). Galactic Civilizations came out, and was quite a good game. The community clamped down on it like a bulldog with lockjaw, and paid money (cold, hard, cash!) for it in fairly large numbers. If the OS had survived as a desktop platform, it would have done well as a gaming platform.
Major commercial products are by and large going to pass Linux by, because open-source in some cases will be considered inappropriate, whereas closed-source will ostracise the end users. In neither case is there an easy route to generating a profit, which is after all how companies operate.
If you're making dating decisions based on strictly rational/demonstrative criteria, you're likely to have a long and lonely life. You should date someone because you're INTERESTED in them. If you keep it up long enough, you may end up falling in love with someone who likely disagrees with you on certain issues. Astrology may be one, or religion, education, politics, or porn. Guess what? PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT! You have to learn to get along, and decide AS YOU GO whether the differences add to your relationship, are tolerable, or irreconcilable.
Shopping for a date with a checklist seems to be a symptom of a society that is increasingly unable to actually interact in person. Do people talk to strangers on the bus anymore? Generally not unless they're insane dust-lickers, and that's a pity. Human interaction is good for us all.
My advice to finding a healthy relationship: Quit looking for dates that meet certain criteria. Then quit looking for dates. Start talking to people. Make friends. Cook supper for some people. Maybe you'll find someone in that process, and maybe you'll end up with them for the rest of your life. Maybe not, but you'll at least have had a richer life than the person shopping for a perfect match on the internet.
(Although various forms of "modern" dating--internet dating, speed dating, and so forth--can certainly work for some people.)
First of all, let's look at the two main eBay has done so well: (a) First to market, and (b) Greed. Bargain hunters scoured eBay for cheap deals on things they wanted. Sellers found a massive market for weird niche products that might otherwise be garbage.
Now that they're entrenched and dominant in the market, people still go there first to sell things, because they have the biggest market, but they're not putting every-and-anything up for auction, because the newer fees make it no longer worth putting nearly-unsellable items up. On the other side of the house, bargain hunters are spending less and less time shopping on eBay, because bargains are getting harder to find as the "online auction market" matures.
Ironically, the company that created much of this market and took iron-clad control over it, fails to see the obvious: This maturity is inevitable and inescapable. The initial burst of amateurs buying and selling anything they have lying around is going to subside, and _most_ of the sellers are going to be professional or semiprofessional. The company can either accept this and try to maintain their dominance by staying (or becoming) more attractive than their competitors; OR they can desperately try to squeeze more money out of their biggest customers, even if it means they're going to hasten their own demise. The thing is that there are alternatives to eBay out there, which are getting more established and trusted, and as the need for eBay's universal customer base becomes less important, so will they. Sooner or later, eBay is going to die as a result of stupid short-sighted profit grabs like this.
So after hearing about Clinton winning Texas and Ohio (and Rhode Island, for that matter), the second thing I read about the crazy pre-election election that seems so popular in the US right now was this article: http://www.click2houston.com/news/15492166/detail.html
Seems that someone "helped" seniors register to vote, and then filed absentee ballots in their names.
Thing is, every election, every vote, every ballot that happens in the US seems to be tainted by fraud of some sort. Identity theft, ballot stuffing, turning away voters, rigged machines, middle-of-the-night changes to the law, you name it--it's all going on, and seems to be going on all the time. The worst part is that it hardly ever raises an eyebrow from the voting public or the media. In this example, there is solid evidence of election fraud, and it's getting a few column-inches on a local website. Why isn't this on the front page of the Houston Chronicle?
Don't you people even CARE about the failure of your democracy anymore?
New computer install, IE8 is in 100% full-compliance mode. Everyone is happy. User hits a website with non-compliant (IE6- or IE7-specific) code. A window pops up saying, "The website you are viewing contains extensions to make it more functional. Would you like to enable these extensions? (Y/N)" Of course the user does, and bingo--no more standards compliance. The onus has been shifted to the user, and their (uninformed) decision. Microsoft is in the clear.
Note to Microsoft: My fee for the above scheme is $1 000 000 Cdn. Please don't make the mistake of believing I won't collect.
...and in English class, you were apparently never taught how to spell "definitely."
(Memory hint: The root word is "finite.")
Also, to keep this from being a mere grammar-nazi post, your argument isn't quite relevant. The nature of light is that it is BOTH a wave and a particle--the theories aren't competing or even separate.
First of all, you have to look at your age. Family Guy started out as a cartoon for 35-45 year-olds. TONS of cultural references that just went straight over the heads of the 'youngsters.'
At least for the first 2.? seasons. Somewhere in the middle of the third season, they fell completely apart. Everything became puke, sex, and blood jokes. Nothing about the movements we either grew up with or grew up hearing about, thirty years ago. Now it theoretically appeals to the 17-year-old crowd, but I've got my doubts.
But make no mistake, there WERE some genuinely funny bits early on, at least for us old folks.
OK, go back and read my post again, especially the parts where I say, "Maybe they could even..." and "I know I'm living in a dream world..." Those comments serve to indicate that I'm aware it's not a practical solution. I just wish for the day when ISPs and internet-based companies banded together to fight against their common enemy, rather than take short-term advantage from their opponents' losses. Yes, I KNOW it's not feasible. I KNOW it won't happen. I just like the idea.
It still holds true that Google (and all others) need to concentrate more on their ability to shut down spammers quickly, rather than make legitimate users jump through flaming hoops that the spammers have (or eventually will) automated their way through.
OK, captchas are moderately annoying. Now that they're more-or-less useless, everyone is coming up with alternatives - voice prints, fingerprints, logic questions, and so forth.
The problem is, they'll be broken too. And so will their replacements. And their replacements' replacements. It will JUST KEEP GOING!
The better answer at this point is better incident-response. Google (and they're only one example) needs the ability to shut down blocks of accounts--thousands if necessary--in a matter of minutes if they start sending out spam. Hell, maybe they should shut their service down completely for half a day. It would kill their stock price for half a year or so, but they could say, "The Russian Mafia is trying to destroy the internet with our service, and this is the only option we have left."
I know, I'm living in a dream world. Still, it points to an important point: What we DON'T need is ever more complicated captchas, which inconvenience customers more and more. Sooner or later, people will just stop signing up.
As an aside, I think that the world really needs to know personally just how much of the internet is being held for ransom (either explicitly or implicitly) by the various organised crime syndicates. It's at least an order of magnitude more than most tech savy people realise, and that's a damned shame.
Lots of people are asking why FreeBSD. There's a simple answer. Not comprehensive, not all-encompassing, but a decently accurate and sufficient answer for most cases.
FreeBSD is just plain ol' Unix. No bells, no whistles (except ZFS--Fancy!), just Unix as it always was. And sometimes, that's exactly the right answer to a problem.
Bollocks. Kids are FAR more likely to ignore their parents as adults if they weren't given any restrictions or limits. Lack of caring or outright abuse will alienate kids, NOT actual parenting.
There is no reason a seven-year-old needs absolute privacy from her parents combined with internet access; to the contrary, it's a dangerous and potentially harmful scenario, and it is a parent's primary job to deal with such things. (And no, I'm not advocating a 'padded room' solution to childcare.)
Let's be clear here: privacy for dependents is not absolute. (In fact, privacy is seldom an absolute for anyone, but that's another issue.) Privacy for a seven-year-old should NOT be the same as it is for a 16-year-old or a college student. If your seven-year-old says "I'm going out for a while.", do you ask them where? With who? What time they'll be home? Do you let them go? When they're 16, you can expect different degrees of answer from them, and correspondingly give them more freedom (=privacy). When they're 21, your questions are less of a protective nature, and more concern/interest.
Explaining why they don't have absolute freedom and privacy is a big part of the challenge of being a parent. Kids can be raised (more or less) rationally, and if your reasoning is rational, they'll often go along (although not always, and not always without complaining). Unfortunately, making good decisions for good adult reasons doesn't always translate well to the age of the child. Explaining to a seven-year -old about online pedophiles, credit scams, phishing, and so forth is tough when she hasn't reached puberty or had a net worth more than ten bucks. You can simplify a fair bit, but there are some explanations that ultimately have to wait until she's older. "Because I said so" can actually be the right answer sometimes.
Someone gets it! Someone on/. actually understands clearly that physiological addiction is a BIOCHEMICAL PROCESS, whereas habit-forming 'psychological addiction' is a (surprise!) psychological process.
Drives me nuts when people talk about addiction without knowing what the word means.
OK, the current anti-terrorism bill is set to expire. The Senate passed a replacement for it, and the House refused to vote on it today.
What I don't understand is why the Democrats tried to extend the current bill for three weeks, and the Republicans (along with the most liberal Democrats) were the ones to strike that one down. That seems counter-intuitive to me.
Also, Aside from the potential of a few days (or weeks) of not being able to get warrantless wiretaps, is there any significance to a new law being passed after the current one expires, rather than beforehand?
OK, everyone seems to be talking about THEIR joystick, and for some people it's "analog" whereas for others its "digital."
Both have been around since the dawn of modern gaming, and both had their place.
Digital joysticks, i.e. ones with four (or sometimes eight) discrete position switches, have mostly been replaced by gamepads of some form or keyboards. Really, they were no more than custom-purpose keyboards themselves. Moving in a direction consisted of "hold the button down until you're where you want to be." Most of the continued existence of these 'classic' joysticks is from nostalgia, although modern game controllers certainly can trace their lineage back to them.
Analog joysticks are a different beast entirely, with either pots or digital encoders on two axes, for continuous range-of-motion detection. These are essential for flight sims, and are not at all endangered. As long as we have (good) flight sims, we'll have analog joysticks.
As an aside, stick-less joysticks have been around just about as long as joysticks. Does anyone else remember the Intellivision controllers?
Slashdot Mirror
OK, first of all let's be clear on something: Internet "addiction" isn't addiction. Neither is sex addiction, shopping addiction, and so forth.
"Behavioral addictions" are mental in nature. True addiction is physiological.
Secondly, it should be trivially obvious that ALL of these so-called behavioral addictions are SYMPTOMS of some other root cause, often some manifestation of OCD. You can treat heroin addiction by removing the substance and healing the body (i.e. go through withdrawal and detox--nasty business, but fairly effective). You don't treat internet addiction by taking away the internet, you find what is driving the person towards addict-like behaviour, and solve that. Voila--internet addiction is a symptom.
I don't know why the psychiatry field is so determined to label all symptomatic behaviours as diseases, but they're not doing themselves any good.
Here's a one-word answer: Jurisdiction.
Basically, the Russian mafia is behind a lot of the botnet activity. They're employing talented but criminal programmers to write this stuff in a number of locations. Staff are paid for their work, and even provided benefits in some cases.
The botnet control servers are spread between a number of (mostly eastern-bloc) countries. Interpol can initiate action, but relies on the local police to carry it to the end, and the local police are...bought and paid for by the crimelords. Furthermore, if one slightly suidical policeman (or force) decides to act against the botnet operation, then all it means is that one of the tentacles is cut off. While it's busy regrowing (i.e. the data centre is being rebuilt a block away), the effect is minimal at best because there are similar systems set up in other countries.
What it would take to legally shut down the botnets is the coordinated effort of interpol and the police forces of several countries, combined with a lack of fear of organised crime. Six months later, they'd need to do the same thing again, probably with different countries. After doing this roughly three times a year for three or four years, the criminals in charge might decide to give up and move into another area--however, after the first attempt, there would be a lot of dead or injured cops showing up, and quite possibly their families as well. If you could pull off a raid like that once, do you think ANYONE would want to take part in a second raid, given the mortality rate (and peripheral damage)?
To shut them down illegally would take a well-funded and heavily armed black-ops team, to go in and start slaughtering the programmers, bombing the data centres, and (ideally) assassinating the crime lords. Basically, an anti-mafia mafia. The CIA has a history of doing this, but generally to depose governments, not criminals.
Yep, you're absolutely right. As I said, biometrics _do_ have their place.
There's a good chance in your scenario that the guard recognises on sight the people who are supposed to be allowed in, which is one authentication factor. Once you're in the secured area, there is no WAY that you'll be able to work on computers without a username and password, so you have (surprise!) a third authentication.
Biometrics works as one level in a multi-layered system, and it should be a fairly late layer to add to the system.
Biometrics has its place. This isn't it.
Most of the time, a username/password is a perfectly good access-control method. In some cases (either high-security environments or connections over hostile space), a second authentication method is advised. Now we have a two-factor authentication. Typical example is "log onto the firewall to allow you to log onto a machine inside the firewall." SecureID cards and the like also work as a good second-factor method.
A biometric challenge is arguably an acceptable second-factor when added to a username/password system. It is NOT a substitute for such a system.
However, biometrics are HARD to do correctly! Cheap scanners suck and are generally insecure by design. Expensive scanners suck, but are generally designed better. None are foolproof, yet.
Also, biometric authentication carries a risk. If your username and password are stolen, then you can change your password and stop the damage. If your biometric ID (retinal scan, fingerprint, etc.) are successfully 'stolen,' then you have lost your authentication ability for all time! If your fingerprint is compromised, you can NEVER USE it as an authentication method again! There ain't no resetting fingerprints!
So we have a large expense for an imperfect system with exactly one possible compromise per user per lifetime. This isn't a primary ID method. It's not a good second-factor ID method either. In EXTREME security environments, it might make sense as a third-factor authorization system, along with username/password and a (pseudo-) one-time pad (i.e. SecureID).
If you don't NEED that type of security, then DON'T USE YOUR BIOMETRIC DATA! One compromise, and it's useless. Forever. Period.
Oh yeah, but I forget the most important part: Fingerprint scanners are shiny and cool, just like in the movies. Bah.
You want more blades? Gillette has your answer, and you'd BETTER like it!!!
Occam's Razor trumps Hanlon's Razor.
For a volunteer-run project, $4.6M seems like a large chunk of cash. Can anyone shed some light on roughly how this number works out?
Points all well taken. As I said, over time some differences of opinion (or outright beliefs) can add strength to a relationship, whereas others can destroy it. In a case like this, it often boils down to just how determined you both are in your beliefs. Does she (or he) read their horoscope routinely and try to use it to guide their day a bit, or does she (or he) actively spend their spare time in new-age occult shops selecting crystals for the right energy, and sticking nametags on water jugs? One is must easier to ignore than the other. The thing is, belief (to almost any extreme) in such things DOES NOT PRECLUDE belief in science!!! It's illogical and irrational, but it's also entirely possible given that we are illogical and irrational beings! Strange but true...
For the record, my wife has a technical degree and a love of the sciences and arts, but also sticks labels on water jugs. I occasionally roll my eyes, but I don't have to argue with her about it, because I don't have to be right about every little thing in our relationship. Sometimes I can (and should) just let things lie as they are, no matter how illogical. She does the same for me when I get wound up about totally trivial (to the outside world) problems with computing companies. It's all part of the give and take.
(Also, for the OTHER record, although we had known each other casually for quite a few years, it wasn't until both of us stopped actively hunting for a partner that we noticed each other.)
I was talking to a friend about this very issue last week. He's a Linux user everywhere, I'm a Unix admin with Linux and Windows bouncing into my life intermittently. We ended up coming to a few clear conclusions.
1) People who make the head-first dive into Linux do so KNOWING that they're mostly leaving behind games. Hard-core gamers won't give up Windows, because that's where the games are!
2) Developers are somewhat reluctant to write games for Linux because of the strong 'live free or die' mentality of the open-source community. If it's not difficult then they might port a game to Linux, but writing professional-quality unique games for Linux will equate to closed-source, and are likely to be shunned by much of the potential market.
Way back 'in the day,' the OS/2 community got gaming right (although a bit too late). Galactic Civilizations came out, and was quite a good game. The community clamped down on it like a bulldog with lockjaw, and paid money (cold, hard, cash!) for it in fairly large numbers. If the OS had survived as a desktop platform, it would have done well as a gaming platform.
Major commercial products are by and large going to pass Linux by, because open-source in some cases will be considered inappropriate, whereas closed-source will ostracise the end users. In neither case is there an easy route to generating a profit, which is after all how companies operate.
(Yes, we do exist on /.!)
If you're making dating decisions based on strictly rational/demonstrative criteria, you're likely to have a long and lonely life. You should date someone because you're INTERESTED in them. If you keep it up long enough, you may end up falling in love with someone who likely disagrees with you on certain issues. Astrology may be one, or religion, education, politics, or porn. Guess what? PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT! You have to learn to get along, and decide AS YOU GO whether the differences add to your relationship, are tolerable, or irreconcilable.
Shopping for a date with a checklist seems to be a symptom of a society that is increasingly unable to actually interact in person. Do people talk to strangers on the bus anymore? Generally not unless they're insane dust-lickers, and that's a pity. Human interaction is good for us all.
My advice to finding a healthy relationship: Quit looking for dates that meet certain criteria. Then quit looking for dates. Start talking to people. Make friends. Cook supper for some people. Maybe you'll find someone in that process, and maybe you'll end up with them for the rest of your life. Maybe not, but you'll at least have had a richer life than the person shopping for a perfect match on the internet.
(Although various forms of "modern" dating--internet dating, speed dating, and so forth--can certainly work for some people.)
First of all, let's look at the two main eBay has done so well: (a) First to market, and (b) Greed.
Bargain hunters scoured eBay for cheap deals on things they wanted. Sellers found a massive market for weird niche products that might otherwise be garbage.
Now that they're entrenched and dominant in the market, people still go there first to sell things, because they have the biggest market, but they're not putting every-and-anything up for auction, because the newer fees make it no longer worth putting nearly-unsellable items up. On the other side of the house, bargain hunters are spending less and less time shopping on eBay, because bargains are getting harder to find as the "online auction market" matures.
Ironically, the company that created much of this market and took iron-clad control over it, fails to see the obvious: This maturity is inevitable and inescapable. The initial burst of amateurs buying and selling anything they have lying around is going to subside, and _most_ of the sellers are going to be professional or semiprofessional. The company can either accept this and try to maintain their dominance by staying (or becoming) more attractive than their competitors; OR they can desperately try to squeeze more money out of their biggest customers, even if it means they're going to hasten their own demise. The thing is that there are alternatives to eBay out there, which are getting more established and trusted, and as the need for eBay's universal customer base becomes less important, so will they. Sooner or later, eBay is going to die as a result of stupid short-sighted profit grabs like this.
So after hearing about Clinton winning Texas and Ohio (and Rhode Island, for that matter), the second thing I read about the crazy pre-election election that seems so popular in the US right now was this article:
http://www.click2houston.com/news/15492166/detail.html
Seems that someone "helped" seniors register to vote, and then filed absentee ballots in their names.
Thing is, every election, every vote, every ballot that happens in the US seems to be tainted by fraud of some sort. Identity theft, ballot stuffing, turning away voters, rigged machines, middle-of-the-night changes to the law, you name it--it's all going on, and seems to be going on all the time. The worst part is that it hardly ever raises an eyebrow from the voting public or the media. In this example, there is solid evidence of election fraud, and it's getting a few column-inches on a local website. Why isn't this on the front page of the Houston Chronicle?
Don't you people even CARE about the failure of your democracy anymore?
Here's the scenario:
New computer install, IE8 is in 100% full-compliance mode. Everyone is happy.
User hits a website with non-compliant (IE6- or IE7-specific) code. A window pops up saying, "The website you are viewing contains extensions to make it more functional. Would you like to enable these extensions? (Y/N)"
Of course the user does, and bingo--no more standards compliance. The onus has been shifted to the user, and their (uninformed) decision. Microsoft is in the clear.
Note to Microsoft: My fee for the above scheme is $1 000 000 Cdn. Please don't make the mistake of believing I won't collect.
Agreed, as long as we make explicit your implicit condition:
"People should be able to contradict it with valid scientific evidence."
Ultimately, too much of the opposing theories start with the premise of:
"I don't understand this theory, therefore I reject it."
...and in English class, you were apparently never taught how to spell "definitely."
(Memory hint: The root word is "finite.")
Also, to keep this from being a mere grammar-nazi post, your argument isn't quite relevant. The nature of light is that it is BOTH a wave and a particle--the theories aren't competing or even separate.
Wow!
/. in months. Intelligent, thoughtful, and informed.
Your post is honestly the most intelligent thing I've read on
Good work.
First of all, you have to look at your age. Family Guy started out as a cartoon for 35-45 year-olds. TONS of cultural references that just went straight over the heads of the 'youngsters.'
At least for the first 2.? seasons. Somewhere in the middle of the third season, they fell completely apart. Everything became puke, sex, and blood jokes. Nothing about the movements we either grew up with or grew up hearing about, thirty years ago. Now it theoretically appeals to the 17-year-old crowd, but I've got my doubts.
But make no mistake, there WERE some genuinely funny bits early on, at least for us old folks.
OK, go back and read my post again, especially the parts where I say, "Maybe they could even..." and "I know I'm living in a dream world..." Those comments serve to indicate that I'm aware it's not a practical solution. I just wish for the day when ISPs and internet-based companies banded together to fight against their common enemy, rather than take short-term advantage from their opponents' losses. Yes, I KNOW it's not feasible. I KNOW it won't happen. I just like the idea.
It still holds true that Google (and all others) need to concentrate more on their ability to shut down spammers quickly, rather than make legitimate users jump through flaming hoops that the spammers have (or eventually will) automated their way through.
WRONG!
The obvious answer is bullets. Bullets and support for an internet Black Ops.
OK, captchas are moderately annoying. Now that they're more-or-less useless, everyone is coming up with alternatives - voice prints, fingerprints, logic questions, and so forth.
The problem is, they'll be broken too. And so will their replacements. And their replacements' replacements. It will JUST KEEP GOING!
The better answer at this point is better incident-response. Google (and they're only one example) needs the ability to shut down blocks of accounts--thousands if necessary--in a matter of minutes if they start sending out spam. Hell, maybe they should shut their service down completely for half a day. It would kill their stock price for half a year or so, but they could say, "The Russian Mafia is trying to destroy the internet with our service, and this is the only option we have left."
I know, I'm living in a dream world. Still, it points to an important point: What we DON'T need is ever more complicated captchas, which inconvenience customers more and more. Sooner or later, people will just stop signing up.
As an aside, I think that the world really needs to know personally just how much of the internet is being held for ransom (either explicitly or implicitly) by the various organised crime syndicates. It's at least an order of magnitude more than most tech savy people realise, and that's a damned shame.
Lots of people are asking why FreeBSD. There's a simple answer. Not comprehensive, not all-encompassing, but a decently accurate and sufficient answer for most cases.
FreeBSD is just plain ol' Unix. No bells, no whistles (except ZFS--Fancy!), just Unix as it always was. And sometimes, that's exactly the right answer to a problem.
Bollocks. Kids are FAR more likely to ignore their parents as adults if they weren't given any restrictions or limits. Lack of caring or outright abuse will alienate kids, NOT actual parenting.
There is no reason a seven-year-old needs absolute privacy from her parents combined with internet access; to the contrary, it's a dangerous and potentially harmful scenario, and it is a parent's primary job to deal with such things. (And no, I'm not advocating a 'padded room' solution to childcare.)
Let's be clear here: privacy for dependents is not absolute. (In fact, privacy is seldom an absolute for anyone, but that's another issue.) Privacy for a seven-year-old should NOT be the same as it is for a 16-year-old or a college student. If your seven-year-old says "I'm going out for a while.", do you ask them where? With who? What time they'll be home? Do you let them go? When they're 16, you can expect different degrees of answer from them, and correspondingly give them more freedom (=privacy). When they're 21, your questions are less of a protective nature, and more concern/interest.
Explaining why they don't have absolute freedom and privacy is a big part of the challenge of being a parent. Kids can be raised (more or less) rationally, and if your reasoning is rational, they'll often go along (although not always, and not always without complaining). Unfortunately, making good decisions for good adult reasons doesn't always translate well to the age of the child. Explaining to a seven-year -old about online pedophiles, credit scams, phishing, and so forth is tough when she hasn't reached puberty or had a net worth more than ten bucks. You can simplify a fair bit, but there are some explanations that ultimately have to wait until she's older. "Because I said so" can actually be the right answer sometimes.
YESSSSS!!!!!!!!
/. actually understands clearly that physiological addiction is a BIOCHEMICAL PROCESS, whereas habit-forming 'psychological addiction' is a (surprise!) psychological process.
Someone gets it! Someone on
Drives me nuts when people talk about addiction without knowing what the word means.
OK, the current anti-terrorism bill is set to expire. The Senate passed a replacement for it, and the House refused to vote on it today.
What I don't understand is why the Democrats tried to extend the current bill for three weeks, and the Republicans (along with the most liberal Democrats) were the ones to strike that one down. That seems counter-intuitive to me.
Also, Aside from the potential of a few days (or weeks) of not being able to get warrantless wiretaps, is there any significance to a new law being passed after the current one expires, rather than beforehand?
OK, everyone seems to be talking about THEIR joystick, and for some people it's "analog" whereas for others its "digital."
Both have been around since the dawn of modern gaming, and both had their place.
Digital joysticks, i.e. ones with four (or sometimes eight) discrete position switches, have mostly been replaced by gamepads of some form or keyboards. Really, they were no more than custom-purpose keyboards themselves. Moving in a direction consisted of "hold the button down until you're where you want to be." Most of the continued existence of these 'classic' joysticks is from nostalgia, although modern game controllers certainly can trace their lineage back to them.
Analog joysticks are a different beast entirely, with either pots or digital encoders on two axes, for continuous range-of-motion detection. These are essential for flight sims, and are not at all endangered. As long as we have (good) flight sims, we'll have analog joysticks.
As an aside, stick-less joysticks have been around just about as long as joysticks. Does anyone else remember the Intellivision controllers?