This is what always confuses me about the environmentalist movement in the United States. On the one hand, global warming weighs heavy on the movement's mind (and rightly so). But then cleaner sources of energy are actively denied by groups like NIMBY.
It's fairly impossible for the US to remain a global economic superpower and at the same time decrease its energy consumption. Something has to give.
I see anthroprogenic global warming predictors on CNN and MSNBC with notable frequency, at least once a month. I see debunkers on FOX news and other smaller media outlets with nearly as much frequency.
This issue is highly politicized. Please do not pretend that any one side is somehow aloof from that, it gets in the way of separating science from politics.
While I agree with the general sentiment, I have to say: "It's just the skin, dude." There is definitely a lot in common between all the iApps, up to the point where it makes sense and generally the lessons learned in one app move to the next. That's aside from the extreme consistency that the OS X environment itself provides. In general, paste works across applications, Drag'N'Drop is supported, context menus and scrolling are handled consistently.
Would it be nice if all the iApps had a similar look? Yes. Is it more important that they all have a similar "feel"? Yes.
Nor should you. Make it happen. Make sure your friends and relatives know, and know how they can help, and know what things are red herrings (ethanol) and what is a good long term goal (fuel cells).
Don't be so sure we're out. If energy costs fail to fall, and/or continue to rise, then the cost of goods and services will continue to rise, and if you think wages will follow with anything like promptness, you're delusional.
Yet strangely, people aren't cutting back on gas usage. It's up to $3/gal and above, but out consumption in aggregate doesn't fall. And despite the price rise, since the 1970's the average % of american's income that goes to energy is falling, not rising.
We need to take the energy issue very seriously, and we are. Fuel Cell vehicles are within this decade's grasp. We need to relax environmental restrictions so that we can build more power plants, and continue research on making our nuclear power plants more efficient. Continuing our space program and working towards off-world waste disposal is also crucial for the next century.
But in the span of our lifetimes, as long as we consider future obligations, the energy issue is well in hand.
I am not sure if you mean to praise me or scold me. Did you mean to say, "Thank you for challenging a very distorted view of the US?"
Ahh well. Either way, we just came out of a major economic recession in the last two years, so it's only natural that over the last few years median household income is down. However, with the recent cut to the captial gains tax, the economy surged with growth. Barring the threat of sudden inflation, it sounds like that census bureau graph may start to rebound from it's early 2k state.
Personally, I look at where American culture has gone as a result of technology and I see bad things. Close to the advent of this nation we were less of a powerhouse, but we had a system that allowed personal freedom, actually rewarded hard work rather than simply demanding it, and that was based on cottage industry, providing endless opportunity for citizens.
Startups are getting smaller and smaller, and more numerous. Technology is getting more approachable as hardware gets better. It's possible for 5 people to make millions with a web site. The "cottage industry" has just moved to different areas, which aren't "solved problems." Hard work is still rewarded. I'm not sure why people think the economy is depressed given how much growth its experienced recently, but in general people are making more money, not less.
Quite frankly, people complain about how hard work is "demanded", but the average American's quality of life is way up from say, 50 years ago. Hard work is demanded from people who want to succeed. If you think your job pays unfairly for the amount of work it demands, then find a new job.
From my perspective, America's problems are more cultural than economical. We have a culture that seems to believe that successful people deserve penalty (tax the rich!), foolish people deserve special treatment via a culture of litigation (I spilled your hot coffee!), and a profound belief in entitlement (Welfare State). We also have a culture that seems to revile intelligence and study, instead focusing almost solely on attributes like a quality singing voice, physical attractiveness, and scandalous dealings.
But strangely enough, despite all that, America seems to be popualted with a very large number of quiet and somewhat industrious people who continue to drive its economy. Look at the numbers, we're in the middle of an economic boom.
In my opinion, this nation has gone straight to hell, and it's time to leave. Too bad I can't afford to - yet.
Where would you go that isn't profoundly worse in one way or another?
Now, we have a system that is bent on eliminating our every freedom in the name of profits, which demands hard work just to keep afloat, and which is based on sending our money to other countries that actually manufacture things.
I'm not sure what "freedoms" are "eliminated" in the "name of profit." Nothing makes you stay at a job. I hated working for Lockheed, the corporate culture was greedy and didn't respect its engineers. So I worked hard, published open source software (skipping sleep more than a few nights in a row), and got into web startups as a result of the reputation gained. American dream in progress, to be continued.
My family has computer users of varying skill. I am a profersional, my father is literate, my mother can browse the net and that's about it. Each of us has an account, and each account has its own Mighty Mouse settings. My father wants two mouse buttons, as do I, but my mother chokes up in terror at the idea of more than one mouse button. Mighty Mouse to the rescue! We all use the same mouse, but it can accomodate us all on our own terms.
It's a very clever design. It's actually a 4 button mouse with 2D scroll wheel. I just wish the scroll ball was easier to clean, that's the real weakness of the design.
they also dont need their $200 shoes, or their multi million dollar homes, or their $60k cars.
their $500 clothes sets, their personal shoppers, their $100 hair cuts.
but hey this is america, the land of capitalism.
If economies were only based on need, then they wouldn't be economies. They'd be the mechanism of a welfare state. America rewards those who have money, and in general you get money by doing something successfully, or being the relative of a successful person.
This is captialism. Got a problem with it? Check out how the alternatives fare.
overindulgence is expected here.
They should be wearing sackcloth! They are guilty of being successful! Damn those Hollywood actors for receiving a small portion on the proceeds from movies that most of america goes to see, then using them to hire someone to do their errands so that they don't get molested by creepy fans. Damn them to hell!
shame we are now the fatest, laziest, most uneducated country in the world but at least you have that 50" plasma TV right?
"Fattest"? Maybe. "Laziest?" Definitely not. Hang out in Europe for awhile. I am positive you can find a lazier country.
But when you say, "most uneducated" I must take issue. Do you live in some sort of fantasy world? Do you realize that the US literacy rate is one of the top 10 highest in the world? That even people without highschool educations know how to do simple math? America has education problems, but they are on a completley different scale from other parts of the world. It's grossly insulting to countries that are struggling with genuine basic education problems when you say crap like this.
If America is such an uneducated country, why do people come from around the world to study technical disciplines here? Most masters programs are full of foreigners on a student visa. They aren't doing it for the life-experience, they're doing it because America has some of the best higher education the world has to offer.
thats all that matters, you have more "stuff" than somebody else.
Maybe for you. I dunno about you, but I look at where American culture has gone as a result of the proliferation of computing power and I see good things. Even poor school districts have computers that let children browse wikipedia (if they ever wanted to). We have realtime news and entertainment. Relatives can communicate with their families on a much more personal level even if they are spread across the country.
Americans now communicate on a broader scale, and are more aware of world events in a much more education fashion than even 25 years ago. Hell, my cousin knows every capital in Europe, because he talks to people online from other countries and considers it important. When was the last time you met an American who cared about Geography?
make no mistake, those are certainly not the only way to easily pierce through a NAT.
What other ways were you talking about? Did you explain them in other Slashdot comments?
NAT is attackable with a variety of active and passive techniques. NAT is also very obnoxious because it requires packet rewriting, making it hard to use with things that verify packet integrity like IPSEC. NAT has served us well, but it's only needed because we have an IP address limitation.
In order to get FTP to work properly through a NAT, you need stateful inspection and/or rewriting of packets. By the time you've implemented this, you can get a basic stateful firewall for "free", right?
No. There is "just enough state to fake FTP" and then there is a stateful firewall. Even then, Firewalls themselves are often circumvented by clever protocol tricks, our outright bypassed by masquerading as legit traffic.
Look, everyone knows that opening your source is a double-edged sword. It's not like your intent to open source summons the Buffer Overflow Fairy who magically waves their Valgrind wand and your code is perfect. The whole point is to get the bugs out in the open so that everyone can see them and patches can be submitted by a larger number of contributors. The idea is that it gets rid of the bugs faster.
The fact that Mitnik says this doesn't damage the case for open source at all. The Captain Obvious comments are just pointing out that Mitnik is just saying, "I like easier work over harder work." Or maybe, "It's really fucking tedious to analyze a binary without the source." Does that stop people from finding bizzare bugs in closed source code? Absolutely not.
Speaking of dumptrucks full of money, I still don't understand why are so many resourses being poured into HIV/AIDS research? I would think all that money could go into educating people and focusing on prevention. AIDS seems to be a completely preventable disease -- all that needs to change is sexual behavior and blood transfusion methods. It is not a disease that someone gets from shaking hands or riding on a bus with others, or eating contaminated food, not even by being bitten by insects. In other words the individuals, except in very rare circumstances have control whether will get HIV/AIDS or not. I understand that the infants born with it have no choice -- but the mothers do. Educating the children or the mothers could help stop the spread.
HIV is an unusual virus with a lot of strange behavior. The fact that it's taken so long to image should show that. It should also show that by studying a well-known example of this sort of virus, we're learning how to discover and image viruses that we may not even yet be aware of because normally used techniques destroy evidence of their infection.
Information we gather to treat HIV is invaluable in dealing with other diseases.
Good solution, but I don't think Apple anticipated the "ZOMG THEY ARE SPYING" response that people seemed to gleefully leap on. The entire issue was so rapidly distorted and blown out of proportion that the complaints towards the later half of the slashdot thread seem to assume every iSight is now taking pictures of you showering.
Who cares if people know what you are listening to? Most people put that kind of information in their AIM messages anyways.
So yes, it's quite simple to avoid having your play history sent (if that is indeed what is happening), but unless you have a third party egress firewall running (or have been quite ruthless with ipfw in the past), it will start sending out data before an otherwise knowledgeable user can disable it.
First, it doesn't have anything to do with your play history. Examine the behavior and the amount of data sent. It just requests info on whatever song is currently selected. So at worst, it might "disclose" one song in your collection.
Considering that many people put that sort of information in their IM status messages (indeed, even iChat now lets you do it automagically), this can't be that bad.
But it can be disabled trivially.
on
iTunes is Malware?
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· Score: 5, Informative
This new feature puts up a little pane in the iTunes window that shows songs related to the song you are currently playing. There is no indication that I can find that the iTunes Music Store is actually storing that information. It's unlikely that Apple could store that kind of volume of information, given that it happens on selection, not on playing.
But I don't think people should worry. You can simply press one button and iTunes stops doing it (the disclosure button on the left side of the bottom button bar). It's pretty simple to verify that your computer isn't sending any data on track selection or play when that window is not added, so in general you only get this information when you ask for it. Further, all it has to go on are the identifying tags in the music, and these can be easily changed, so it's not something that could ever hold up in any sane court if someone came at you with a lawsuit. Then again, sanity doesn't seem to be a prerequisite these days, so our milage may vary.
Don't get me wrong, I am not to happy about this feature because it's effectively embedding ads in iTunes. They're pretty well targeted, but they're ads. Still, the article seemed to overreact to what iTunes is doing.
That's easy enough for you to say, but some of us are required to use IE-only sites to do our jobs. I can't even fill out my timesheet without loading an IE-only site and our help desk system (Remedy) requires IE on Windows the way they have it setup.
And that'd be a terrific and well-thought-out reason, except that IE5Mac is such a radically different beast from IE6.0 in terms of rendering and javascript support. While it may make sense for a company to choose one browser to support for their internal tools (or, that is to say, it did in 1998), if your company/university has cross-platform goals, IE is not the browser to choose for this.
IE5.5mac is not a compatible browser solution, most of the time.
Do you think your show draws interest to science?
on
Ask The Mythbusters
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· Score: 1
Lately we've been hearing a lot about how America is starting to produce fewer graduates in the sciences and falling behind in the development of new technology.
Do you think your show is helping to correct this problem? Do you ever deliberately try and choose myths that might excite your younger audience towards a career in science r technology?
Not according to you. Remember, if a buzzword is vague, then it needs replacing. That's the complaint you made against, DHTML, was it not?
Given that I have said buzzwords are by definition vague and abusable in this very thread, I think you're deliberately misquoting me to try and extend an argument. I don't care if it's slashdot, it's not okay. Don't do it.
I agree completely. Which is why attempting to rename DHTML to something a hell of a lot of people won't accept is such a bad idea.
It's happened. "Ajax" is all over the media. If you wanted to stop this from happening, you're too late. MS used it in thier press, Google's used it in their press. It has thoroughly entered the groupspeak at O'Reilly. Rails calls it Ajax. The major players in the Async Javascript/Javascript Effects libraries (notably Prototype and Dojo) also refer to it as Ajax. Months ago, it was JJG that was being devisive by renaming DHTML. Now, it used to be called DHTML.
I need to go get some work done. I have a web application to code. I'll call it whatever my clients feel most comfortable with, and right now that's "AJAX." Hopefully, you realize it's in your best interests to do the same.
You don't like the fact that mindshare is split amongst two buzzwords, so splitting it between three buzzwords is your answer? That doesn't make sense. That and your double-standards above make it seem a lot like you've decided AJAX is the good one on an irrational basis, and are now trying to rationalise it after the fact.
The only reason it's split away from Ajax these days is because bitter people fight against it. The media calls it Ajax, and Ajax is as reasonable a descriptor as any, and one that people seem eager to leap on. We should be encouraging terminology to converge, not harping about the specifics. We did need a new word to describe this new proliferation of javascript effects, async javascript coms, and CSS heavy web applications. "DHTML" carries too much baggage, which is probably why it's not the word everyone is using.
I mean, so what if people use a goofy word for it!? I'd rather hear one goofy word rather than 15 different accurate ones.
The same criticism applies equally to AJAX. The things people call "AJAX" often don't use XMLHttpRequest or XML at all. It's basically just DHTML by another name. You might argue that these people are using the term incorrectly, but you'd be wrong - even the original article that coined the term describes applications that don't use XMLHttpRequest or XML as "AJAX".
All AJAX is being used to mean is "that thing like google mail and google maps." The specifics are something that web developers care about. Maybe your clients are different, but our clients don't much care about the specifics of how we do what we do. They want certain UI features, interactivity, browser compatibility, and standards compliance (in rare cases). If we're using element.innerHTML=... instead of manipulating XML and making DOM nodes, it hardly matters.
So if you are ready to argue that DHTML is too vague a buzzword to use, surely you must think the same thing about AJAX?
Actually, I don't care what we call it, so long as we all call it more-or-less the same thing. It's a buzzword, by it's very nature it's abusable and imprecise. What I am objecting to is the fact that people are fighting so bitterly against "AJAX" when they don't have as widely-adopted a term to replace it. Look at the responses to my post. Within the first hour, we had "DHMTL" and "remote scripting" (even worse).
Dynamic web pages were just as good a term, and the big thing is that the term existed before AJAX. Then some clueless tech press bought a buzzword and spread AJAX, so that managers could make money off it.
I don't particularly care how or why the term came into existence, to be honest. What I do care about is meeting my customer's needs. Like it or not, Ajax has entered the collective consciousness of web clients. Bitching and moaning about it will not get you any money, and correcting your clients over such a small issue ("My acronym is better because it's older!") may actually net you less money.
Besides, it's not managers that are making more money with this stuff. At least in my case, it's actual web designers, developers, and their support structure that do it. Given the recent popularity of small teams handling web development, a unified and well-publicised set of terms means we have everything to gain by falling in line.
The point is that this is not new, but based on hype from Gmail it's been rebranded to appear as new, and people are buying into it.
So what? Lots of things are like that. DHTML may be more literal, but I fail to see where you get it as more or less descriptive. Both are greek to clients, and you can find books about "DHTML" starting as early as 1999, detailing techniques that are neither platform generic nor terribly useful compared to today's techniques.
Ajax means Web2.0 means whatever-term-they-use-next-week means Better Web Apps and leaving behind legacy browsers. I'm all for it, whatever people want to call it.
It should be DHTML. DHTML, goddammit! Dynamic HTML! Just call it a dynamic web page!
Look, I know some people are unhappy with the name Ajax. I understand that. I am not a huge fan of the word as used, myself.
But we need to get over it. That's the name we're using. There is no other word for it now. We can rant and rave all we want about how it should be called DHTML or DXHTML, or Dynamic Web Pages, or whatever. Truth be told, the word we use is almost entirely irrelevant so long as we are on the same page as everyone else.
In any case, we did need a need a new word. DHTML has been used for a long time, and describes such a huge variety of techniques that it's not terribly useful when we want to talk about the use of XMLHttpRequest usage and the recent movement towards more complex Javascript effects that abandon the dark-age IE5.5 and other early browsers.
Ajax is as good a word as any, and it's better that web developers have an identifiable term for that kind of tech, so that customers can refer to that general level of interactivity easily. Even if you don't use the exact "AJAX" model as described, when someone says "Ajax" we all know that we think about Prototype, Dojo, Google Maps and other apps along that vein.
Seriously, if you have enough spare energy to rant and rave about the terminology used in the web hype, then you need to find a better outlet for your energy.
I've studied the new UI quite a bit, and you, sir, are clueless.
Are they keeping things like "OK" and "Cancel? Yes. Are you able to change the look back to Windows 2000 (well, sort of). Yes. They do things like this so people don't need to totally retrain.
I don't think anyone was saying MS is going to alter things as fundamental as the dialog box. What they are altering is the control panels, directory layout (somewhat), the names of some settings, and the functions of other settings (not to mention adding a bunch of stuff). Anyone can retrain themselves to a new dialog box given a day or so. What's not as easy as getting used to yet-another entirely different control and configuration palette for your machine.
Is the user interface anything like Windows XP, under the hood? No. God no.
Since when does this matter to users? Does a clean architecture for your UI make your entire system more usable? Maybe slightly, but overall I think that's an issue for developers, and outside the scope of the grandparent post's complaint. I mean, hoo-fscking-ray. Microsoft has finally achieved a UI framework that doesn't bend its developers over a chair. Congratulations for Microsoft, they can now join Sun, Apple, Be, NeXT, and the GTK+ and KDE developer communities, along with the other companies who've made usable UI's.
The entire thing has been rewritten from the ground up. Everything is a.NET object, everything inherits from another object. The entire thing is texture based, like OS X.
What this means is they CAN make drastic changes down the road by simply changing a few objects. Everything will inherit down. Ever notice that buttons can be totally dissimilar from one app to the next, and all MS has been able to do is (for example) but a blue highlight around them? That's because the UI has been so cripped.
This is probably not the case. Anyone with experience in object-oriented programming will tell you that the "change one, change many" promise of OO is, at best, of limited applicability. How many people will inherit from the classes in a way that would break if those classes were changed? Probably more than just a few. C# is a good language, but no language can prevent that kind of scenario.
Besides, I'm still skeptical of any UI framework designed by Microsoft. My ass still is smarting from working with MFC. I'm not going to easily forget or forgive that.
Slashdot Mirror
This is what always confuses me about the environmentalist movement in the United States. On the one hand, global warming weighs heavy on the movement's mind (and rightly so). But then cleaner sources of energy are actively denied by groups like NIMBY.
It's fairly impossible for the US to remain a global economic superpower and at the same time decrease its energy consumption. Something has to give.
I see anthroprogenic global warming predictors on CNN and MSNBC with notable frequency, at least once a month. I see debunkers on FOX news and other smaller media outlets with nearly as much frequency.
This issue is highly politicized. Please do not pretend that any one side is somehow aloof from that, it gets in the way of separating science from politics.
While I agree with the general sentiment, I have to say: "It's just the skin, dude." There is definitely a lot in common between all the iApps, up to the point where it makes sense and generally the lessons learned in one app move to the next. That's aside from the extreme consistency that the OS X environment itself provides. In general, paste works across applications, Drag'N'Drop is supported, context menus and scrolling are handled consistently.
Would it be nice if all the iApps had a similar look? Yes. Is it more important that they all have a similar "feel"? Yes.
Nor should you. Make it happen. Make sure your friends and relatives know, and know how they can help, and know what things are red herrings (ethanol) and what is a good long term goal (fuel cells).
Yet strangely, people aren't cutting back on gas usage. It's up to $3/gal and above, but out consumption in aggregate doesn't fall. And despite the price rise, since the 1970's the average % of american's income that goes to energy is falling, not rising.
We need to take the energy issue very seriously, and we are. Fuel Cell vehicles are within this decade's grasp. We need to relax environmental restrictions so that we can build more power plants, and continue research on making our nuclear power plants more efficient. Continuing our space program and working towards off-world waste disposal is also crucial for the next century.
But in the span of our lifetimes, as long as we consider future obligations, the energy issue is well in hand.
I am not sure if you mean to praise me or scold me. Did you mean to say, "Thank you for challenging a very distorted view of the US?"
Ahh well. Either way, we just came out of a major economic recession in the last two years, so it's only natural that over the last few years median household income is down. However, with the recent cut to the captial gains tax, the economy surged with growth. Barring the threat of sudden inflation, it sounds like that census bureau graph may start to rebound from it's early 2k state.
Startups are getting smaller and smaller, and more numerous. Technology is getting more approachable as hardware gets better. It's possible for 5 people to make millions with a web site. The "cottage industry" has just moved to different areas, which aren't "solved problems." Hard work is still rewarded. I'm not sure why people think the economy is depressed given how much growth its experienced recently, but in general people are making more money, not less.
Quite frankly, people complain about how hard work is "demanded", but the average American's quality of life is way up from say, 50 years ago. Hard work is demanded from people who want to succeed. If you think your job pays unfairly for the amount of work it demands, then find a new job.
From my perspective, America's problems are more cultural than economical. We have a culture that seems to believe that successful people deserve penalty (tax the rich!), foolish people deserve special treatment via a culture of litigation (I spilled your hot coffee!), and a profound belief in entitlement (Welfare State). We also have a culture that seems to revile intelligence and study, instead focusing almost solely on attributes like a quality singing voice, physical attractiveness, and scandalous dealings.
But strangely enough, despite all that, America seems to be popualted with a very large number of quiet and somewhat industrious people who continue to drive its economy. Look at the numbers, we're in the middle of an economic boom.
Where would you go that isn't profoundly worse in one way or another?
I'm not sure what "freedoms" are "eliminated" in the "name of profit." Nothing makes you stay at a job. I hated working for Lockheed, the corporate culture was greedy and didn't respect its engineers. So I worked hard, published open source software (skipping sleep more than a few nights in a row), and got into web startups as a result of the reputation gained. American dream in progress, to be continued.
What's the point?
My family has computer users of varying skill. I am a profersional, my father is literate, my mother can browse the net and that's about it. Each of us has an account, and each account has its own Mighty Mouse settings. My father wants two mouse buttons, as do I, but my mother chokes up in terror at the idea of more than one mouse button. Mighty Mouse to the rescue! We all use the same mouse, but it can accomodate us all on our own terms.
It's a very clever design. It's actually a 4 button mouse with 2D scroll wheel. I just wish the scroll ball was easier to clean, that's the real weakness of the design.
They should be wearing sackcloth! They are guilty of being successful! Damn those Hollywood actors for receiving a small portion on the proceeds from movies that most of america goes to see, then using them to hire someone to do their errands so that they don't get molested by creepy fans. Damn them to hell!
"Fattest"? Maybe. "Laziest?" Definitely not. Hang out in Europe for awhile. I am positive you can find a lazier country.But when you say, "most uneducated" I must take issue. Do you live in some sort of fantasy world? Do you realize that the US literacy rate is one of the top 10 highest in the world? That even people without highschool educations know how to do simple math? America has education problems, but they are on a completley different scale from other parts of the world. It's grossly insulting to countries that are struggling with genuine basic education problems when you say crap like this.
Maybe for you. I dunno about you, but I look at where American culture has gone as a result of the proliferation of computing power and I see good things. Even poor school districts have computers that let children browse wikipedia (if they ever wanted to). We have realtime news and entertainment. Relatives can communicate with their families on a much more personal level even if they are spread across the country.If America is such an uneducated country, why do people come from around the world to study technical disciplines here? Most masters programs are full of foreigners on a student visa. They aren't doing it for the life-experience, they're doing it because America has some of the best higher education the world has to offer.
Americans now communicate on a broader scale, and are more aware of world events in a much more education fashion than even 25 years ago. Hell, my cousin knows every capital in Europe, because he talks to people online from other countries and considers it important. When was the last time you met an American who cared about Geography?
My domain address was stolen by doteasy and they would never relinquish it. Thanks for reminding me to change it here.
Look, everyone knows that opening your source is a double-edged sword. It's not like your intent to open source summons the Buffer Overflow Fairy who magically waves their Valgrind wand and your code is perfect. The whole point is to get the bugs out in the open so that everyone can see them and patches can be submitted by a larger number of contributors. The idea is that it gets rid of the bugs faster.
The fact that Mitnik says this doesn't damage the case for open source at all. The Captain Obvious comments are just pointing out that Mitnik is just saying, "I like easier work over harder work." Or maybe, "It's really fucking tedious to analyze a binary without the source." Does that stop people from finding bizzare bugs in closed source code? Absolutely not.
HIV is an unusual virus with a lot of strange behavior. The fact that it's taken so long to image should show that. It should also show that by studying a well-known example of this sort of virus, we're learning how to discover and image viruses that we may not even yet be aware of because normally used techniques destroy evidence of their infection.
Information we gather to treat HIV is invaluable in dealing with other diseases.
Good solution, but I don't think Apple anticipated the "ZOMG THEY ARE SPYING" response that people seemed to gleefully leap on. The entire issue was so rapidly distorted and blown out of proportion that the complaints towards the later half of the slashdot thread seem to assume every iSight is now taking pictures of you showering.
Who cares if people know what you are listening to? Most people put that kind of information in their AIM messages anyways.
Considering that many people put that sort of information in their IM status messages (indeed, even iChat now lets you do it automagically), this can't be that bad.
This new feature puts up a little pane in the iTunes window that shows songs related to the song you are currently playing. There is no indication that I can find that the iTunes Music Store is actually storing that information. It's unlikely that Apple could store that kind of volume of information, given that it happens on selection, not on playing.
But I don't think people should worry. You can simply press one button and iTunes stops doing it (the disclosure button on the left side of the bottom button bar). It's pretty simple to verify that your computer isn't sending any data on track selection or play when that window is not added, so in general you only get this information when you ask for it. Further, all it has to go on are the identifying tags in the music, and these can be easily changed, so it's not something that could ever hold up in any sane court if someone came at you with a lawsuit. Then again, sanity doesn't seem to be a prerequisite these days, so our milage may vary.
Don't get me wrong, I am not to happy about this feature because it's effectively embedding ads in iTunes. They're pretty well targeted, but they're ads. Still, the article seemed to overreact to what iTunes is doing.
IE5.5mac is not a compatible browser solution, most of the time.
Lately we've been hearing a lot about how America is starting to produce fewer graduates in the sciences and falling behind in the development of new technology.
Do you think your show is helping to correct this problem? Do you ever deliberately try and choose myths that might excite your younger audience towards a career in science r technology?
It's happened. "Ajax" is all over the media. If you wanted to stop this from happening, you're too late. MS used it in thier press, Google's used it in their press. It has thoroughly entered the groupspeak at O'Reilly. Rails calls it Ajax. The major players in the Async Javascript/Javascript Effects libraries (notably Prototype and Dojo) also refer to it as Ajax. Months ago, it was JJG that was being devisive by renaming DHTML. Now, it used to be called DHTML.
I need to go get some work done. I have a web application to code. I'll call it whatever my clients feel most comfortable with, and right now that's "AJAX." Hopefully, you realize it's in your best interests to do the same.
The only reason it's split away from Ajax these days is because bitter people fight against it. The media calls it Ajax, and Ajax is as reasonable a descriptor as any, and one that people seem eager to leap on. We should be encouraging terminology to converge, not harping about the specifics. We did need a new word to describe this new proliferation of javascript effects, async javascript coms, and CSS heavy web applications. "DHTML" carries too much baggage, which is probably why it's not the word everyone is using.
I mean, so what if people use a goofy word for it!? I'd rather hear one goofy word rather than 15 different accurate ones.
Actually, I don't care what we call it, so long as we all call it more-or-less the same thing. It's a buzzword, by it's very nature it's abusable and imprecise. What I am objecting to is the fact that people are fighting so bitterly against "AJAX" when they don't have as widely-adopted a term to replace it. Look at the responses to my post. Within the first hour, we had "DHMTL" and "remote scripting" (even worse).
Actually, Jesse James Garrett of Adaptive Path coined the term. Say what you will about Adaptive Path and their self-important website, but clueless they are not.
I don't particularly care how or why the term came into existence, to be honest. What I do care about is meeting my customer's needs. Like it or not, Ajax has entered the collective consciousness of web clients. Bitching and moaning about it will not get you any money, and correcting your clients over such a small issue ("My acronym is better because it's older!") may actually net you less money.
Besides, it's not managers that are making more money with this stuff. At least in my case, it's actual web designers, developers, and their support structure that do it. Given the recent popularity of small teams handling web development, a unified and well-publicised set of terms means we have everything to gain by falling in line.
So what? Lots of things are like that. DHTML may be more literal, but I fail to see where you get it as more or less descriptive. Both are greek to clients, and you can find books about "DHTML" starting as early as 1999, detailing techniques that are neither platform generic nor terribly useful compared to today's techniques.
Ajax means Web2.0 means whatever-term-they-use-next-week means Better Web Apps and leaving behind legacy browsers. I'm all for it, whatever people want to call it.
Look, I know some people are unhappy with the name Ajax. I understand that. I am not a huge fan of the word as used, myself.
But we need to get over it. That's the name we're using. There is no other word for it now. We can rant and rave all we want about how it should be called DHTML or DXHTML, or Dynamic Web Pages, or whatever. Truth be told, the word we use is almost entirely irrelevant so long as we are on the same page as everyone else.
In any case, we did need a need a new word. DHTML has been used for a long time, and describes such a huge variety of techniques that it's not terribly useful when we want to talk about the use of XMLHttpRequest usage and the recent movement towards more complex Javascript effects that abandon the dark-age IE5.5 and other early browsers.
Ajax is as good a word as any, and it's better that web developers have an identifiable term for that kind of tech, so that customers can refer to that general level of interactivity easily. Even if you don't use the exact "AJAX" model as described, when someone says "Ajax" we all know that we think about Prototype, Dojo, Google Maps and other apps along that vein.
Seriously, if you have enough spare energy to rant and rave about the terminology used in the web hype, then you need to find a better outlet for your energy.
Besides, I'm still skeptical of any UI framework designed by Microsoft. My ass still is smarting from working with MFC. I'm not going to easily forget or forgive that.