I've seen all sorts of related articles about Australia, Europe, the UK and a bit of the US. Traffic cameras, tracking automobile movements, national ID cards, ID chips implanted in people, saving search histories etc.
Is this just human nature? Those inclined to taking power, because they can, doing so?
Is there an underlying theme why all of these things are happening in democratic republics all of the sudden ( aside from the technology making it possible ). Why are these lawmakers creating these things? The citizens don't seem to be prompting them to do so.
I agree with you, but would add that good ideas are better than fresh ideas. Fresh ideas just for the sake of being fresh doesn't work. That is a distinction that a number of FOSS UI makers do not appreciate.
People who are computer users and who are not computer enthusiasts do not want to take the pain ( even a trivial amount ) to relearn how to do a task that already know how to do with an existing system.
If a system has a dramatically different UI it had better have some highly visible, highly appreciated...unique, benefits for the user.
Otherwise, there is no point in using it, let alone liking it for the end user.
that money isn't a primary motivation for Zuckerberg, 'a coder more than a CEO, a philosopher more than a businessman, a 26-year-old who has consistently avoided selling out because he sees Facebook as his way to change the world.'
What was the author smoking when he wrote this?
Not out for the money? "avoided selling out"? What about the phrase "monetizing information" that so often comes up in Facebook's conversations?
What the interview with the 19 year old Zuckerberg who called his users "stupid" for making their information available to him? Yes, he was 19, but I have seen articles on the internet claiming he has said similar things like that in what he thought were confidential conversations.
What about Facebook making defaults public, when it is obvious private would be preferred and doing so without notice?
Is that lack of respect for other people consistent with a "philosopher" who wants to change the world for the better?
Since it's been shown that aerobic exercise can improve reaction time, I can't help but wonder how much better of gamers they would be if they also exercised a bit as well. They wouldn't need to go to a gym. Just some running, or crunches, or something on a regular basis would help, I would bet.
Or a copy of DDR ( Dance Dance Revolution ).
I used to read a weight loss success site where some sorry shut in like that got sucked into DDR and lost something like 100 lbs.
Still, while gamers show good reflexes, their health was worse than expected, with one 20-something professional player showing the same aerobic health as a 60-year-old smoker."
Impressive. If I was into something like that I would make sure to cut my junk food, avoid overeating and substitute 30 min of gaming a day for a walk.
I'm glad I read this thread. I just deleted my yahoo address book and my old sent emails.
I've had that yahoo account for over 10 years so I am not going to get rid of it. I still use it, but my main email is gmail. I can get by without those stored addresses.
I don't want the cleaning lady I emailed 3 years ago knowing that I like to read slashdot while wearing pink panties.
Citizens are under electronic surveillance all of the time. Why not the police too?
"If they are not doing anything wrong, then they have nothing to worry about" can be thrown at the police too. Not just citizens wanting to lead their lives out from under a microscope.
I think that is because Twitter STARTED of 100% open and everyone signed up for Twitter with that in mind.
People signed up for Gmail and Yahoo with the expectation of private communication. People signed up for Facebook with the expectation of semi-private and controlled information.
People don't like the rules having changed on them mid-game.
At least Yahoo is not starting off with a shoot first and ask if it hurts policy.
If I was Yahoo or a similar private service wanting to go public, I would make the social media features a completely separate service and release utilities for users to move their information, for themselves afterward, by their choice.
It creeps people out to have their private stuff moved around FOR THEM.
Yahoo is actually informing their users of what will happen, before it happens and yahoo is giving their users the chance to opt out before it happens. Imagine that.
This is called common courtesy.
It isn't new.
From what I have read about Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, he is literally an immature person, being unaware of the importance of such niceties. He is learning it now, in some stressful ways.
My intuition about Google Buzz was that the people who made the decision were similarly immature as Zuckerberg is, not understanding the effects their decision would have. To their credit, they did not make the same public statements Zuckerberg has made, making them look far less arrogant and immature than Zuckerberg. Google, once having learned how their decision was received smartly did a quick 180. Zuckerberg is still trying to push his agenda.
On the upside Zuckerberg is doing a public service by setting himself up as a lightening rod. His spectacle is giving people like him in the IT industry a free education.
Maybe the people at Yahoo are just as bad, but at a minimum it seems they are smart enough to have looked at his spectacle and learned from it.
The study, conducted by the World Health Organization and partially funded by the cellphone industry,
That is why the study was inconclusive.
At least the cell phone industry is settling for a spin of neutral. The US dairy industry routinely settles for nothing less than a complete inversion of the truth such as "cows milk helps you lose weight" and "cows milk helps prevent colon cancer"
For years, if not decades there have been better and easier tools for anything people use VI/VIM/EMACS/Sundry CLI utilities for (mostly).
I think it happens because professors push these free as in beer tools on students (rightly) for their education, the students get used to them, they get an unjustified sense of pride from learning to use something that *looks* scary and then they are too lazy to learn new things.
A few years ago I almost got my head put on a pike in the ubuntuforums by suggesting that Ubuntu, keeping with its mission of making linux user friendly, remove VI from a default install.
Desktop users will never miss it. Network people looking to quickly touch up config files could be redirected to simplier CLI editors for the job like "nice editor/NE editor" and programmers who STILL develop in a pure CLI environment could download it easily.
IMHO there is a streak of OCD in the tech field and the VI thing is just one of them.
Is it fair to ask if a software project has "jumped the shark" when they are copying innovations (instead of making innovations ) off of a competing piece of software?
'Vim Can Do Everything' but configuring it to do so is sometimes daunting.
Then why use it in the first place?
It is 2010, not 1990. You do not have to develop on *nix using CLI tools only. There are also many small and simple (i.e. NE http://ne.dsi.unimi.it/ ) CLI editors for network admins who just want to touch up config files.
People say that by learning VI you learn more unix, since much of VI is just a wrapper program for sundry *nix utilities. True, but if you invest in a good multipurpose editor centric IDE like Visual Slick Edit you will never need those things. I've been happily using Slickedit for 11 years on two different operating systems and on about half a dozen different languages.
All professionals have professional expenses. Students have to pay as much for books. I would spend a few hundred dollars to a tool that will let you do your work without adding work to be able to use the tool.
That has always been the crux of issue of why the FSF has not been more prominent then it is. It is long on making ideals short on making software that someone who is not a computer enthusiast would be enthusiastic about using.
Slashdot Mirror
I've seen all sorts of related articles about Australia, Europe, the UK and a bit of the US. Traffic cameras, tracking automobile movements, national ID cards, ID chips implanted in people, saving search histories etc.
Is this just human nature? Those inclined to taking power, because they can, doing so?
Is there an underlying theme why all of these things are happening in democratic republics all of the sudden ( aside from the technology making it possible ). Why are these lawmakers creating these things? The citizens don't seem to be prompting them to do so.
Companies whose main business is FOSS products are likely tied to selling services, not products.
Selling products is harder when anyone can see/compile/redistribute the source code, binaries etc.
Maybe it is hard to earn as much money providing services rather than selling software.
Those companies are hybrids. They also make money from selling their own proprietary products.
"Webkit in konqueror"
If a browser uses webkit does that automatically make it compatible ( javascript, CSS, etc ) with other browsers that use web kit?
I agree with you, but would add that good ideas are better than fresh ideas. Fresh ideas just for the sake of being fresh doesn't work. That is a distinction that a number of FOSS UI makers do not appreciate.
People who are computer users and who are not computer enthusiasts do not want to take the pain ( even a trivial amount ) to relearn how to do a task that already know how to do with an existing system.
If a system has a dramatically different UI it had better have some highly visible, highly appreciated...unique, benefits for the user.
Otherwise, there is no point in using it, let alone liking it for the end user.
What was the author smoking when he wrote this?
Not out for the money? "avoided selling out"? What about the phrase "monetizing information" that so often comes up in Facebook's conversations?
What the interview with the 19 year old Zuckerberg who called his users "stupid" for making their information available to him? Yes, he was 19, but I have seen articles on the internet claiming he has said similar things like that in what he thought were confidential conversations.
What about Facebook making defaults public, when it is obvious private would be preferred and doing so without notice?
Is that lack of respect for other people consistent with a "philosopher" who wants to change the world for the better?
I wish I could mod your post up another point! LOL!
Since it's been shown that aerobic exercise can improve reaction time, I can't help but wonder how much better of gamers they would be if they also exercised a bit as well. They wouldn't need to go to a gym. Just some running, or crunches, or something on a regular basis would help, I would bet.
Or a copy of DDR ( Dance Dance Revolution ).
I used to read a weight loss success site where some sorry shut in like that got sucked into DDR and lost something like 100 lbs.
Still, while gamers show good reflexes, their health was worse than expected, with one 20-something professional player showing the same aerobic health as a 60-year-old smoker."
Impressive. If I was into something like that I would make sure to cut my junk food, avoid overeating and substitute 30 min of gaming a day for a walk.
I wouldn't be happy if either traditional news sources or news from the web went away. They are both needed to balance out each others shortcomings.
Web sources of the news has forced mainstream media to cover stories that otherwise would have been buried.
Mainstream media provides a base of credibility against the web where anyone can write anything.
What happens if the power goes out, so you can't look up a number on the internet?
Why did you have to confuse the thread with facts?
Maybe nobody will notice your comment.
I'm glad I read this thread. I just deleted my yahoo address book and my old sent emails.
I've had that yahoo account for over 10 years so I am not going to get rid of it. I still use it, but my main email is gmail. I can get by without those stored addresses.
I don't want the cleaning lady I emailed 3 years ago knowing that I like to read slashdot while wearing pink panties.
I have a really novel Idea, you guys.
What if they implemented this as a feature you can turn on?
Because everyone knows that most people would not turn it on.
Facebook and Google gambled on the idea that the blow-back would be weak. They were wrong.
Citizens are under electronic surveillance all of the time. Why not the police too?
"If they are not doing anything wrong, then they have nothing to worry about" can be thrown at the police too. Not just citizens wanting to lead their lives out from under a microscope.
Anyone notice there isn't any anger at Twitter?
I think that is because Twitter STARTED of 100% open and everyone signed up for Twitter with that in mind.
People signed up for Gmail and Yahoo with the expectation of private communication. People signed up for Facebook with the expectation of semi-private and controlled information.
People don't like the rules having changed on them mid-game.
At least Yahoo is not starting off with a shoot first and ask if it hurts policy.
If I was Yahoo or a similar private service wanting to go public, I would make the social media features a completely separate service and release utilities for users to move their information, for themselves afterward, by their choice.
It creeps people out to have their private stuff moved around FOR THEM.
Yahoo is actually informing their users of what will happen, before it happens and yahoo is giving their users the chance to opt out before it happens. Imagine that.
This is called common courtesy.
It isn't new.
From what I have read about Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, he is literally an immature person, being unaware of the importance of such niceties. He is learning it now, in some stressful ways.
My intuition about Google Buzz was that the people who made the decision were similarly immature as Zuckerberg is, not understanding the effects their decision would have. To their credit, they did not make the same public statements Zuckerberg has made, making them look far less arrogant and immature than Zuckerberg. Google, once having learned how their decision was received smartly did a quick 180. Zuckerberg is still trying to push his agenda.
On the upside Zuckerberg is doing a public service by setting himself up as a lightening rod. His spectacle is giving people like him in the IT industry a free education.
Maybe the people at Yahoo are just as bad, but at a minimum it seems they are smart enough to have looked at his spectacle and learned from it.
Thanks for posting this. I had a similar thought and "why is this news?"
The study, conducted by the World Health Organization and partially funded by the cellphone industry,
That is why the study was inconclusive.
At least the cell phone industry is settling for a spin of neutral. The US dairy industry routinely settles for nothing less than a complete inversion of the truth such as "cows milk helps you lose weight" and "cows milk helps prevent colon cancer"
For years, if not decades there have been better and easier tools for anything people use VI/VIM/EMACS/Sundry CLI utilities for (mostly).
I think it happens because professors push these free as in beer tools on students (rightly) for their education, the students get used to them, they get an unjustified sense of pride from learning to use something that *looks* scary and then they are too lazy to learn new things.
A few years ago I almost got my head put on a pike in the ubuntuforums by suggesting that Ubuntu, keeping with its mission of making linux user friendly, remove VI from a default install.
Desktop users will never miss it. Network people looking to quickly touch up config files could be redirected to simplier CLI editors for the job like "nice editor/NE editor" and programmers who STILL develop in a pure CLI environment could download it easily.
IMHO there is a streak of OCD in the tech field and the VI thing is just one of them.
Is it fair to ask if a software project has "jumped the shark" when they are copying innovations (instead of making innovations ) off of a competing piece of software?
It's really intuitive, once you get to know how to use it.
Isn't that true for anything?
If it was really intuitive a book like this wouldn't have been necessary.
"Vim Can Do Everything' but configuring it to do so is sometimes daunting."
That was one argument people made in school for using VI instead of EMACS......and they were right.
'Vim Can Do Everything' but configuring it to do so is sometimes daunting.
Then why use it in the first place?
It is 2010, not 1990. You do not have to develop on *nix using CLI tools only. There are also many small and simple (i.e. NE http://ne.dsi.unimi.it/ ) CLI editors for network admins who just want to touch up config files.
People say that by learning VI you learn more unix, since much of VI is just a wrapper program for sundry *nix utilities. True, but if you invest in a good multipurpose editor centric IDE like Visual Slick Edit you will never need those things. I've been happily using Slickedit for 11 years on two different operating systems and on about half a dozen different languages.
All professionals have professional expenses. Students have to pay as much for books.
I would spend a few hundred dollars to a tool that will let you do your work without adding work to be able to use the tool.
That has always been the crux of issue of why the FSF has not been more prominent then it is. It is long on making ideals short on making software that someone who is not a computer enthusiast would be enthusiastic about using.