I headed over to AFGA's homepageto read up on exactly what their licensing terms were, just in case something looked obviously wrong or something.
Ironically, the legalese file which states the terms is a pdf...for which they strongly suggest Adobe Acrobat.
Re:Its a rollercoaster.
on
Want Freedom?
·
· Score: 2
Its a hype that will die down with time. Everytime a study is made saying something slightly bad is NOT a time to freak out and get out your tinfoil hats.
It's too bad the parent was modded as flamebait -- I think it's pretty close to on target (well, except for the flame at the bottom..ok, maybe it deserved to be flamebait). I don't think this study is showing a change in trend on what we think of the First Amendment -- I think it's showing the backlash of our fears. Questions can be phrased such that you'll agree with them, even if at the core you don't.
Take, for example, this statement:
48 percent of respondents agreed the government should have the freedom to monitor religious groups in the interest of national security - even if that means infringing upon the religious freedom of the group's members. Forty-two percent said the government should have more authority to monitor Muslims.
With a poll error of +/- 3% this statement basically reflects our fear of radical Muslim attacks. [note, I understand calling them Muslim is a hypocrisy to the Muslim faith, it's just how they've been labeled in the media] Newsflash: no kidding. We know this already. Had the question been phrased "Do you believe YOUR religious activities should be monitored by the government", and specified just how it would be done, I wonder if the answer would be different.
Far more interesting will be to look 20 years down the road and see how the opinions shift. As far as I'm concerned, this is only a blip on the radar -- it may be something, but it's not worth sending out the armed forces yet.
It seems to be far more than political views, and I don't think it's infantile at all.
I think it's very fair to say that these 'games' have grown directly out of political cartoons. In fact, it's quite easy to view them as interactive political cartoons. Just as the political cartoon overstated the nuances of reality, the games are pointing out a piece of the reality -- the only difference is that you get to play it.
I think the most telling point is the end of the article -- it's not supposed to be a a good game. People are just taking advantage of the medium, as they did with cartoons.
After actually reading the article I'm still not satisfied with the explanation. UT is dropping its internet broadcast due to music licensing fees. Ok, I understand the music licensing fee issue.
What I don't understand are the user comments. They complain about losing school news and sports broadcasts. I don't see why the compromise of "stream sports and news, not music" isn't mentioned. Dropping the station just seems to be a gross overreaction to prove the point that the legislation sucks.
Phonics is how to teach reading. Period. Whole language is a failure.
I'm not quite sure what you're thinking about is 'whole language'...I think you're confusing it with 'whole word'. 'Whole word' is a style of teaching reading that teaches kids to read words by recognition -- it bumps up directly against phonics. 'Whole language' is a way of thinking about how to merge reading, spelling, and writing such that the learning has meaning to the kids, rather than making it rote. It also addresses the way kids learn...you don't correct a baby that's learning to speak...you wait until it can use the correction. In the same way, you don't nitpick over a child's spelling errors when they're writing their first essay -- you introduce spelling gradually so you achieve the spelling goal without undue criticism.
I agree that whole word is a pretty poor way to learn to read...you can't introduce new words without being in the proper setting. Whole language has gotten a bad repuation because it has been associated and confused with whole word, when in fact - the two are quite distinct and shouldn't be lumped together.
...mandating open formats will in effect mandate OSS, since there will no longer be any excuse for paying for software
I disagree entirely. HTML is an open format. How many developers pay for products to help the write the markup? It's nothing that they couldn't do with a free text editor. They *paid* for the editor because it's useful, and it saves them time.
That's not to say that there aren't plenty of free editors which do a good job. But I think it's incorrect to assume that an open format means OSS. There is more to picking an editor than cost, and proprietary editors are quite capable of producing open documents. (On a side note, I'd agree that it would hurt Microsoft, as part of their ability to maintain such a market hold rests on the proprietary format. But I do believe that companies will pay for good software if it does what they need)
I think one of the main problem with this issue is that it focuses on the wrong things. I don't think there should be any regulations on what type of software a government entity uses.
However, I *do* think it's important to focus on the format of the public data. Anything that is public property should not require proprietary software to access. I shouldn't have to buy MicroSoft products to read public documents.
Looking at it from that angle, Open Source is just one aspect of the solution. Documents could be produced in text, postscript, pdf, html -- there are plenty of formats with free readers (accessors) - which I think is the important part. That way, those creating the docs can use whatever tools they feel are best for the job, but those reading the documents aren't locked into those same tools.
I think the whole point was that the 'experiment' per say would be out-of-print catalogs only. So let's be a little realistic; these catalogs are making *NO* money right now. You can't buy 'em.
Personally, there's about 10 albums that I'm hunting down that are out of print. I couldn't find them in completion on Napster even at its best. Instead, my current attempts consist of the half.com and amazon.com used pre-orders in the hopes that someone shows up to sell it. I've gotten 1.
If I could grab the rest at.25 a song I wouldn't think twice. Hunting down a song on a P2P network is easy. Hunting down several albums worth is a pain in the ass, especially if you want them all at the same rate.
Of course, there will be people who set up P2P networks, just as people copied tapes. But the fact is, nobody has ever had cheap, searchable, and complete access to the catalogs - they'd get about $20 from me in 1 day. And that's just from what I know I'm missing...
No kidding. Put in a Boston zip, you get a Boston meeting. Put in a Cambridge zip, and you get a "North Boston Suburbs" meeting...which is stupid. Andover is a North Boston Suburb. Cambridge is a city that didn't want to get conglomerated into Boston.
Someone's got their map all wrong...They ought to have the Boston/Cambridge/Brookline/Somerville mess as one, and then North/South/West by 128 as the others.
I shouldn't complain, since I can't go to this one, but it is a shame that it's not 100 person par-tay.
Re:Why do interviewers use "riddles"?
on
Tech-Interview Riddles
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
My answer:I don't know, I'd probably check a search engine.
Funny, I had a similar interview for a question at a consulting company. It was basically another 'estimation' type question.
My first answer was that I'd check google. They didn't like that at all, saying that they needed to be able to come up with these stats quickly, and that an employee shouldn't have to rely on anything. I said that part of solving a problem is knowing when to NOT reinvent the wheel and using information that's readily available.
Didn't get a second interview either. Not even a phone call saying thanks for interviewing.
Personally, I love interview puzzles and riddles. But I HATE people who refuse to accept an answer different from the one they have written down. That's not the point. An interview puzzle's supposed to give you an idea of how a person solves problems...not how quickly they solve it the "right" (*snicker*) way.
So, apparently any soveriegn nation has this type of jurisdiction over ICANN. So, when ICANN goes out and does something stupid (such as this decision), the courts of the nation(s) affected can correct the problem.
Which begs the question, what the hell does ICANN do now anyway? If two people have a dispute over a domain, ICANN will rule, and then the loser will take the winner to court. Why not skip the ICANN step, and head straight to court?
Unless the loser is a little guy who can't afford to take a big company to court... But then, wouldn't it be better if said little guy just got bought out rather than lost through arbitration?
I'm not sure what the point of an arbitrator is if the arbitration is mostly meaningless...
While maybe not to the Quake extent, this has been done before.
At CHI '99 in Pittsburgh two computer scientists from the University of Chile presented work on an acoustical version of Doom which they created for blind children. Parts of their study focused on the cognitive spatial structures that the kids created, but it was basically the same -- they created an aural-based world with different sounds for bullets, monsters, doors, etc.
The talk was pretty interesting - it's a neat read.
Citation for the interested:
Interactive 3D Sound Hyperstories for Blind Children M. Lumberas and J Sanchez Proceedings of CHI 1999, Pittsburgh, PA ACM Press, New York, NY pp 318-325
Actually, I thought it was kind of funny to read Katz's story, because I knew that I read it before...many times.
The same commentary showed up in the Milwaukee Journal in early June. (note, not from Milwaukee, I think an Elizabeth Smart article actually had the link, but I can't find it)
This isn't really insightful. It's doesn't really have a/. slant to it, or any new information - quite a few people have said it before. A Google search for alexis patterson media coverage pretty much tells all. I'm sure you could get more by playing with the search terms.
I'd much rather travel by train, but it's always been much too slow. Even though these new trains are still slower than flying, they make up the difference quite a bit.
Actually, due to all the fun airport security, there are places where the train is faster now (i.e. Boston to New York, since Amtrak runs straight into Penn Station)
'Cause I hate flying too.:) And the train has bigger seats, so when people fall asleep, they don't fall on me.
As much as we hear about our rights being taken away, I'm optimistic about the direction that this particular situation is moving. The CDA was declared unconsitutional, COPA is being challenged as unconstitutional due to its vagueness, and now CIPA is going down the same path.
Just as you won't find pr0n is a kids' bookstore, I'd much prefer to see these lawmakers focusing on the.kids.us domain and other proactive measures, rather than trying to limit what already is.
this is a technological solution to a moral, social, and legal problem
Exactly.
Technological solutions can't ever really fix problems that aren't technological in nature. At best, they can slow or mask the problem. At worst, they piss off a whole lot of technologically inclined people who proceed to make mincemeat of said solution, regardless of penalty.
The recording industry has a huge mess on its hands. They've irritated the consumer to the point where even the well-meaning consumer won't pay $17.99 a CD to see only $.08 go to the artist. No amount of copy protection is going to change that.
-A decent pocket knife -Duct Tape -A decent baby-sized tool box -- with a good hammer, screwdrivers (flat & philips head), pliers, and all the other little goodies. -Earplugs -A beer..err...soda cozy -Quarters, quarters, and more quarters
Considering that COPA just got sent back for review, this is probably a good time for a discussion like this. It's important that it NOT be a call for additional legislation -- COPA may have harmed kid-sites more than it did pr0n sites, and it'd be nice to see some people with their heads on straight when it comes to protecting kids vs. rights as adults.
Some of the first things discussed in a network security class are the things that are very hard to protect against, one of them being 'the man with the gun' attack.
Simply put, it's very hard to keep something secure when a person's well-being is threatened. If someone held me up at an ATM, building entrance, anything with password access, you'd bet I'd most likely give up the information to survive.
It's interesting to note that the article mostly focuses on malicious intent on the part of employee. That's not surprising, but far more surprising are the holes left by the everyday user. Take a look around the non-development areas of your company. How many have passwords on post-its? How much good will a secure network do if the front door to the building isn't locked down just as tight?
Slashdot Mirror
Ironically, the legalese file which states the terms is a pdf...for which they strongly suggest Adobe Acrobat.
Everytime a study is made saying something slightly bad is NOT a time to freak out and get out your tinfoil hats.
It's too bad the parent was modded as flamebait -- I think it's pretty close to on target (well, except for the flame at the bottom..ok, maybe it deserved to be flamebait). I don't think this study is showing a change in trend on what we think of the First Amendment -- I think it's showing the backlash of our fears. Questions can be phrased such that you'll agree with them, even if at the core you don't.
Take, for example, this statement:
With a poll error of +/- 3% this statement basically reflects our fear of radical Muslim attacks. [note, I understand calling them Muslim is a hypocrisy to the Muslim faith, it's just how they've been labeled in the media] Newsflash: no kidding. We know this already. Had the question been phrased "Do you believe YOUR religious activities should be monitored by the government", and specified just how it would be done, I wonder if the answer would be different.Far more interesting will be to look 20 years down the road and see how the opinions shift. As far as I'm concerned, this is only a blip on the radar -- it may be something, but it's not worth sending out the armed forces yet.
I think it's very fair to say that these 'games' have grown directly out of political cartoons. In fact, it's quite easy to view them as interactive political cartoons. Just as the political cartoon overstated the nuances of reality, the games are pointing out a piece of the reality -- the only difference is that you get to play it.
I think the most telling point is the end of the article -- it's not supposed to be a a good game. People are just taking advantage of the medium, as they did with cartoons.
What I don't understand are the user comments. They complain about losing school news and sports broadcasts. I don't see why the compromise of "stream sports and news, not music" isn't mentioned. Dropping the station just seems to be a gross overreaction to prove the point that the legislation sucks.
Am I missing something?
I'm not quite sure what you're thinking about is 'whole language'...I think you're confusing it with 'whole word'. 'Whole word' is a style of teaching reading that teaches kids to read words by recognition -- it bumps up directly against phonics. 'Whole language' is a way of thinking about how to merge reading, spelling, and writing such that the learning has meaning to the kids, rather than making it rote. It also addresses the way kids learn...you don't correct a baby that's learning to speak...you wait until it can use the correction. In the same way, you don't nitpick over a child's spelling errors when they're writing their first essay -- you introduce spelling gradually so you achieve the spelling goal without undue criticism.
I agree that whole word is a pretty poor way to learn to read...you can't introduce new words without being in the proper setting. Whole language has gotten a bad repuation because it has been associated and confused with whole word, when in fact - the two are quite distinct and shouldn't be lumped together.
I disagree entirely. HTML is an open format. How many developers pay for products to help the write the markup? It's nothing that they couldn't do with a free text editor. They *paid* for the editor because it's useful, and it saves them time.
That's not to say that there aren't plenty of free editors which do a good job. But I think it's incorrect to assume that an open format means OSS. There is more to picking an editor than cost, and proprietary editors are quite capable of producing open documents. (On a side note, I'd agree that it would hurt Microsoft, as part of their ability to maintain such a market hold rests on the proprietary format. But I do believe that companies will pay for good software if it does what they need)
However, I *do* think it's important to focus on the format of the public data. Anything that is public property should not require proprietary software to access. I shouldn't have to buy MicroSoft products to read public documents.
Looking at it from that angle, Open Source is just one aspect of the solution. Documents could be produced in text, postscript, pdf, html -- there are plenty of formats with free readers (accessors) - which I think is the important part. That way, those creating the docs can use whatever tools they feel are best for the job, but those reading the documents aren't locked into those same tools.
Personally, there's about 10 albums that I'm hunting down that are out of print. I couldn't find them in completion on Napster even at its best. Instead, my current attempts consist of the half.com and amazon.com used pre-orders in the hopes that someone shows up to sell it. I've gotten 1.
If I could grab the rest at .25 a song I wouldn't think twice. Hunting down a song on a P2P network is easy. Hunting down several albums worth is a pain in the ass, especially if you want them all at the same rate.
Of course, there will be people who set up P2P networks, just as people copied tapes. But the fact is, nobody has ever had cheap, searchable, and complete access to the catalogs - they'd get about $20 from me in 1 day. And that's just from what I know I'm missing...
Last I checked, there wasn't really a way to figure out what you purchased until you already bought it!
Someone's got their map all wrong...They ought to have the Boston/Cambridge/Brookline/Somerville mess as one, and then North/South/West by 128 as the others.
I shouldn't complain, since I can't go to this one, but it is a shame that it's not 100 person par-tay.
Funny, I had a similar interview for a question at a consulting company. It was basically another 'estimation' type question.
My first answer was that I'd check google. They didn't like that at all, saying that they needed to be able to come up with these stats quickly, and that an employee shouldn't have to rely on anything. I said that part of solving a problem is knowing when to NOT reinvent the wheel and using information that's readily available.
Didn't get a second interview either. Not even a phone call saying thanks for interviewing.
Personally, I love interview puzzles and riddles. But I HATE people who refuse to accept an answer different from the one they have written down. That's not the point. An interview puzzle's supposed to give you an idea of how a person solves problems...not how quickly they solve it the "right" (*snicker*) way.
Which begs the question, what the hell does ICANN do now anyway? If two people have a dispute over a domain, ICANN will rule, and then the loser will take the winner to court. Why not skip the ICANN step, and head straight to court?
Unless the loser is a little guy who can't afford to take a big company to court... But then, wouldn't it be better if said little guy just got bought out rather than lost through arbitration?
I'm not sure what the point of an arbitrator is if the arbitration is mostly meaningless...
Marque_Off...Markov....
Wow. I'm slow.
Yeah, I was really hoping for at LEAST a good joke about the Darwin award question. It was the perfect setup.
I suppose though, that people with a sense of humor might only joke about launching themselves in a homemade rocket rather than actually doing it...
While maybe not to the Quake extent, this has been done before.
At CHI '99 in Pittsburgh two computer scientists from the University of Chile presented work on an acoustical version of Doom which they created for blind children. Parts of their study focused on the cognitive spatial structures that the kids created, but it was basically the same -- they created an aural-based world with different sounds for bullets, monsters, doors, etc.
The talk was pretty interesting - it's a neat read.
Citation for the interested:
Interactive 3D Sound Hyperstories for Blind Children
M. Lumberas and J Sanchez
Proceedings of CHI 1999, Pittsburgh, PA
ACM Press, New York, NY
pp 318-325
The same commentary showed up in the Milwaukee Journal in early June. (note, not from Milwaukee, I think an Elizabeth Smart article actually had the link, but I can't find it)
The Washington Post wrote about ittwo weeks ago.
This isn't really insightful. It's doesn't really have a /. slant to it, or any new information - quite a few people have said it before. A Google search for alexis patterson media coverage pretty much tells all. I'm sure you could get more by playing with the search terms.
Actually, due to all the fun airport security, there are places where the train is faster now (i.e. Boston to New York, since Amtrak runs straight into Penn Station)
'Cause I hate flying too. :) And the train has bigger seats, so when people fall asleep, they don't fall on me.
Just as you won't find pr0n is a kids' bookstore, I'd much prefer to see these lawmakers focusing on the .kids.us domain and other proactive measures, rather than trying to limit what already is.
Exactly.
Technological solutions can't ever really fix problems that aren't technological in nature. At best, they can slow or mask the problem. At worst, they piss off a whole lot of technologically inclined people who proceed to make mincemeat of said solution, regardless of penalty.
The recording industry has a huge mess on its hands. They've irritated the consumer to the point where even the well-meaning consumer won't pay $17.99 a CD to see only $.08 go to the artist. No amount of copy protection is going to change that.
..I wished I had brought
-A decent pocket knife
-Duct Tape
-A decent baby-sized tool box -- with a good hammer, screwdrivers (flat & philips head), pliers, and all the other little goodies.
-Earplugs
-A beer..err...soda cozy
-Quarters, quarters, and more quarters
No date for you, whiny moderator!
Let us pause while my karma sacrifices yet another of its bretheren just to be obnoxious...
Ssshhhhh! Don't teach the whiny geeks how to date.
No kidding! Otherwise, how can a girlie sort out the non-whiny geeks from the whiny geeks? The "Woe is Me" filter is the best one we've got.
She is right though...complaining about the quality of women makes us want to go away...
Considering that COPA just got sent back for review, this is probably a good time for a discussion like this. It's important that it NOT be a call for additional legislation -- COPA may have harmed kid-sites more than it did pr0n sites, and it'd be nice to see some people with their heads on straight when it comes to protecting kids vs. rights as adults.
And even funnier...
It's amazingly professional to follow up a remark about being unprofessional by describing it as "lame".
Pot. Kettle. Black.
Optimus to the rescue...
Simply put, it's very hard to keep something secure when a person's well-being is threatened. If someone held me up at an ATM, building entrance, anything with password access, you'd bet I'd most likely give up the information to survive.
It's interesting to note that the article mostly focuses on malicious intent on the part of employee. That's not surprising, but far more surprising are the holes left by the everyday user. Take a look around the non-development areas of your company. How many have passwords on post-its? How much good will a secure network do if the front door to the building isn't locked down just as tight?