When you write press releases, you are not speaking to other scientists, you are speaking to people who don't know anything about the technical aspects of what you're doing. Just like horsepower was a measure that was created purely for the public to better understand how much work an engine can do, lightyears were created for the public to better understand mind-bogglingly large distances.
Look at it this way. The speed of light is the universe's constant. And while a year can only be described from an earth-centered point of view, at the very least we can define time by the vibrations of a Cesium atom. A second is well defined as X number of such vibrations, and a year is a relatively arbitrary Y number of seconds. Once you've established that much, distances can be more easily explained to beings that don't live on Earth. Like theoretical human spacefarers.
Parsecs on the other hand are totally useless in such circumstances, since they're defined by the arbitrary measurement of arcseconds of apparent movement that are observed from half of the arbitrary orbit of an arbitrary planet. Put the observer on Mars, and you screw the whole thing up. Put the telescope in space in a long orbit around the sun, and you can't measure it the same way. Change the definition of the number of arcseconds in a circle, and again, it's meaningless.
Heh. You've never heard of Carmageddon 2, have you?
Why do I play it? Because I like to laugh maniacally while running over cardboard cutouts, that's why.
Or better yet, I think it's outrageously funny when I accidentally ram into the corner of a building at over 150 miles per hour, and it cleanly cleaves my car in two. Or when I do the same to my opponents for that matter.
Better still is the Electro-Bastard Ray. I'll leave its functionality to your imagination.
I have always had a sick, twisted sense of humour and this appeals to it. Just as the movie Army of Darkness does.
Does this make me a sick, twisted individual who tortures rats with a hacksaw and secretly smashes people's heads in with a hammer? Am I so desensitized to violence that I see no value in human life? No. In real life I abbhor driving and I take the train to work instead, just on philosophical grounds.
prison sentences actually do serve as a deterrent here. Remember, spammers are cowards - and greedy cowards, for that matter.
Here's what every criminal thinks before they commit a crime: "I'm not gonna get caught. I didn't get caught last time, I won't get caught next time either. They're never gonna catch me."
That is, if they even think at all. Most of the time, you'd actually have to ask them in person beforehand.
And moreover, they're not cowards, they're sociopaths. Like used car salesmen. Or Dogbert.
So why are companies still trying to push what has been proven time and time again to be a product that nobody wants?
Because they've found a market where they can ram the product down the customer's throat and then beat the crap out of them when they're done. And moreover, the market will be grateful for the 33% discount.
Or something. I don't think that the whole "let's erase your book after 5 months" thing is going to wash.
I think that someone should write an e-book titled "break this DRM". It's certainly an idea that's found it's time.
Add the cost of a laptop if you need to use it anywhere and it is a worse deal.
Like VOIP, it's only less expensive if you already meet the requirements and are using them anyway. If you have to buy a laptop (or a Cable Internet connection) to do X and only use it to do X, then yes, it's more costly. But if you have a laptop already and use it for 1000 other things as well, then hey, what a deal!
And it's worth noting that half or more of college students these days are dragging laptops from class to class.
However, I don't think that 33% is enough of a discount for something that goes away in five months, when in theory you could keep the "real" version around forever. That five month time limit is just stupid and evil.
Just think... explorers in times past gleefully signed up if there was a 10% chance of *surviving*. And all they were doing was travelling to the other side of the world.
Pretty much any technology is trackable, and chances are you don't even know it. While I'm more-or-less referring to things like printers that print invisible serial numbers and exported Pentium chips that double as guided missile beacons, I'm also talking about encryption and anonymizer accounts. All it takes to crack those open is a court order, as the Church of Scientology has been so effective in demonstrating.
But a pen and paper is untracable. Just like pay phones and small bills instead of cell phones and credit cards.
I bet you'll even do something even more crazy and wacky, like suggest that we all not use Windows, or stop using electricity. Or oxygen.
Now, while *I* don't use Internet Explorer, and I suggest at every turn that other people use Mozilla, I can see how this is clearly doing the world a lot of good. What's that? 5% of us use Mozilla (The pedantic would point out it's a whopping 6.25% and growing every day)? Wow. I can see that the good fight is being won one inch at a time.
But here's what boycotting - well, anything - does: it gives *you* warm fuzzies. It doesn't fix the gushing head wounds that afflict the world, it doesn't make the Evil People of the world that put them there take notice, and it certainly doesn't fix anything. It's just a lazy way to protest, and it's horribly ineffective. The people whose minds need changing won't notice.
You want to change the world? Spend some money and start giving out stacks of slicked-up free Mozilla CDs at computer stores. The only reason that people use IE at all is because it's free and it comes with their computers (which most people hardly ever upgrade, either).
and turning it into the world's best operating system.' Could this ever happen?
No, because they don't give a damn about making the world's best operating system. Because they made a monopoly out of the world's worst operating system, so really, why bother?
As much as Microsoft would love a BIOS/Firmware that permits only Windows to boot on a PC, it will never happen.
Oh yeah. Who in this consortium would stop them from doing that? Intel? IBM? HP? Dell? They're all in bed with Microsoft, whether willingly or not. Oppose Microsoft in this and suddenly the new version of Windows doesn't support Dell hardware. They've made threats like that before and for some odd reason, Dell and Intel and HP all fell back in line.
"Tome" generally implies that a book is more-or-less comprehensive and rather thick. Learning Perl is more like a quick introduction. "Code Complete" is a tome. "Life with Qmail" is a tome. And "The C Programming Language", now *that's* a tome. "Learning Perl" is not in this class at all.
he was probably killed in a robbery or confrontation over some other reason.
Or because he owed money to the wrong people.
Or because he stole from the wrong people.
Or because he otherwise pissed off the wrong guy.
Spammers are scum. Russian spammers tend to associate with people who make money by robbing, stealing, loansharking, and pimping. To find one beaten to death in his home is of so little surprise that I wonder why it doesn't happen more often.
Americans, especially, are totally obnoxious when it comes to languages: many of them refuse to speak any other language unless they REALLY have to
No, actually Americans completely refuse to speak anything but English EVEN IF they really have to. Like when they're in foreign countries where English is not spoken. And then they wonder why people get all pissy when they're visiting.
The result,[...] is a situation where the digital communications that were supposed to make working lives run more smoothly are actually preventing people from getting critical tasks accomplished.
That's because the digital communications aren't for you, the recipient, they're for the sender. Most often, the sender is a customer who wants to give you money. As such, making it easier for them to get in touch with you increases the amount of money you can collect.
It doesn't mean that you can get more work done, it just means that people who need to get in touch with you, can. The problem is that now that it's so easy for them to get in touch with you, people abuse the privilege and interrupt you for trivial reasons without thinking for themselves first.
Eventually I started telling them things like "you're number 3 in the queue. It's gonna be awhile."
It was about two years into the sysadminning job I have now that I started doing that. But it didn't start to sink in with other people until I put my lengthy to-do list on a whiteboard that everyone could see just as soon as they started talking to me. Not only was I saying "I'm busy" I had a demonstration that made it very, very clear. And this isn't a list of things that need to be done today... things tend to stay up there for weeks.
Remember that after the liberation, you can expect a few riots here and there. Some people just don't want to be free of oppression and subjugation, and are willing to fight the invaders^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hotherwise welcome liberators.
Birds have brains. Birds use those brains to stay alive, and they work remarkably well.
Like for instance how ducks know that people that live in cities are cool and give you bread, but people that live in the country carry shotguns, and are best avoided by a margin of 100 yards or more.
If they can figure that much out, then they can figure out that fast-moving machinery making loud noises is best avoided too.
Since the BBC (radio and TV) broadcast their programming for free and without advertising, all their works, past and present, constitute "unfair government competition."
Nevermind that they are essentially the vanguards of British culture the world over. That's not important at all.
Slashdot Mirror
So in essence, they've turned the latest TI calculator into a palm pilot?
What's wrong with making a program for palm pilots that make them into TI calculators?
When you write press releases, you are not speaking to other scientists, you are speaking to people who don't know anything about the technical aspects of what you're doing. Just like horsepower was a measure that was created purely for the public to better understand how much work an engine can do, lightyears were created for the public to better understand mind-bogglingly large distances.
Look at it this way. The speed of light is the universe's constant. And while a year can only be described from an earth-centered point of view, at the very least we can define time by the vibrations of a Cesium atom. A second is well defined as X number of such vibrations, and a year is a relatively arbitrary Y number of seconds. Once you've established that much, distances can be more easily explained to beings that don't live on Earth. Like theoretical human spacefarers.
Parsecs on the other hand are totally useless in such circumstances, since they're defined by the arbitrary measurement of arcseconds of apparent movement that are observed from half of the arbitrary orbit of an arbitrary planet. Put the observer on Mars, and you screw the whole thing up. Put the telescope in space in a long orbit around the sun, and you can't measure it the same way. Change the definition of the number of arcseconds in a circle, and again, it's meaningless.
Please let there not be a packet dropped during my laser eye surgery!
Yeah, but the article is written in Engrish. You'll probably also have to translate it for him.
Heh. You've never heard of Carmageddon 2, have you?
Why do I play it? Because I like to laugh maniacally while running over cardboard cutouts, that's why.
Or better yet, I think it's outrageously funny when I accidentally ram into the corner of a building at over 150 miles per hour, and it cleanly cleaves my car in two. Or when I do the same to my opponents for that matter.
Better still is the Electro-Bastard Ray. I'll leave its functionality to your imagination.
I have always had a sick, twisted sense of humour and this appeals to it. Just as the movie Army of Darkness does.
Does this make me a sick, twisted individual who tortures rats with a hacksaw and secretly smashes people's heads in with a hammer? Am I so desensitized to violence that I see no value in human life? No. In real life I abbhor driving and I take the train to work instead, just on philosophical grounds.
prison sentences actually do serve as a deterrent here. Remember, spammers are cowards - and greedy cowards, for that matter.
Here's what every criminal thinks before they commit a crime: "I'm not gonna get caught. I didn't get caught last time, I won't get caught next time either. They're never gonna catch me."
That is, if they even think at all. Most of the time, you'd actually have to ask them in person beforehand.
And moreover, they're not cowards, they're sociopaths. Like used car salesmen. Or Dogbert.
So why are companies still trying to push what has been proven time and time again to be a product that nobody wants?
Because they've found a market where they can ram the product down the customer's throat and then beat the crap out of them when they're done. And moreover, the market will be grateful for the 33% discount.
Or something. I don't think that the whole "let's erase your book after 5 months" thing is going to wash.
I think that someone should write an e-book titled "break this DRM". It's certainly an idea that's found it's time.
Add the cost of a laptop if you need to use it anywhere and it is a worse deal.
Like VOIP, it's only less expensive if you already meet the requirements and are using them anyway. If you have to buy a laptop (or a Cable Internet connection) to do X and only use it to do X, then yes, it's more costly. But if you have a laptop already and use it for 1000 other things as well, then hey, what a deal!
And it's worth noting that half or more of college students these days are dragging laptops from class to class.
However, I don't think that 33% is enough of a discount for something that goes away in five months, when in theory you could keep the "real" version around forever. That five month time limit is just stupid and evil.
Just think... explorers in times past gleefully signed up if there was a 10% chance of *surviving*. And all they were doing was travelling to the other side of the world.
Pretty much any technology is trackable, and chances are you don't even know it. While I'm more-or-less referring to things like printers that print invisible serial numbers and exported Pentium chips that double as guided missile beacons, I'm also talking about encryption and anonymizer accounts. All it takes to crack those open is a court order, as the Church of Scientology has been so effective in demonstrating.
But a pen and paper is untracable. Just like pay phones and small bills instead of cell phones and credit cards.
hehehehehe.
Haaaaa. Man, that's funny.
I bet you'll even do something even more crazy and wacky, like suggest that we all not use Windows, or stop using electricity. Or oxygen.
Now, while *I* don't use Internet Explorer, and I suggest at every turn that other people use Mozilla, I can see how this is clearly doing the world a lot of good. What's that? 5% of us use Mozilla (The pedantic would point out it's a whopping 6.25% and growing every day)? Wow. I can see that the good fight is being won one inch at a time.
But here's what boycotting - well, anything - does: it gives *you* warm fuzzies. It doesn't fix the gushing head wounds that afflict the world, it doesn't make the Evil People of the world that put them there take notice, and it certainly doesn't fix anything. It's just a lazy way to protest, and it's horribly ineffective. The people whose minds need changing won't notice.
You want to change the world? Spend some money and start giving out stacks of slicked-up free Mozilla CDs at computer stores. The only reason that people use IE at all is because it's free and it comes with their computers (which most people hardly ever upgrade, either).
Maybe so, but that doesn't make you immune from a slashdotting. :)
and turning it into the world's best operating system.' Could this ever happen?
No, because they don't give a damn about making the world's best operating system. Because they made a monopoly out of the world's worst operating system, so really, why bother?
As much as Microsoft would love a BIOS/Firmware that permits only Windows to boot on a PC, it will never happen.
Oh yeah. Who in this consortium would stop them from doing that? Intel? IBM? HP? Dell? They're all in bed with Microsoft, whether willingly or not. Oppose Microsoft in this and suddenly the new version of Windows doesn't support Dell hardware. They've made threats like that before and for some odd reason, Dell and Intel and HP all fell back in line.
"Tome" generally implies that a book is more-or-less comprehensive and rather thick. Learning Perl is more like a quick introduction. "Code Complete" is a tome. "Life with Qmail" is a tome. And "The C Programming Language", now *that's* a tome. "Learning Perl" is not in this class at all.
he was probably killed in a robbery or confrontation over some other reason.
Or because he owed money to the wrong people.
Or because he stole from the wrong people.
Or because he otherwise pissed off the wrong guy.
Spammers are scum. Russian spammers tend to associate with people who make money by robbing, stealing, loansharking, and pimping. To find one beaten to death in his home is of so little surprise that I wonder why it doesn't happen more often.
Americans, especially, are totally obnoxious when it comes to languages: many of them refuse to speak any other language unless they REALLY have to
No, actually Americans completely refuse to speak anything but English EVEN IF they really have to. Like when they're in foreign countries where English is not spoken. And then they wonder why people get all pissy when they're visiting.
The result,[...] is a situation where the digital communications that were supposed to make working lives run more smoothly are actually preventing people from getting critical tasks accomplished.
That's because the digital communications aren't for you, the recipient, they're for the sender. Most often, the sender is a customer who wants to give you money. As such, making it easier for them to get in touch with you increases the amount of money you can collect.
It doesn't mean that you can get more work done, it just means that people who need to get in touch with you, can. The problem is that now that it's so easy for them to get in touch with you, people abuse the privilege and interrupt you for trivial reasons without thinking for themselves first.
Eventually I started telling them things like "you're number 3 in the queue. It's gonna be awhile."
It was about two years into the sysadminning job I have now that I started doing that. But it didn't start to sink in with other people until I put my lengthy to-do list on a whiteboard that everyone could see just as soon as they started talking to me. Not only was I saying "I'm busy" I had a demonstration that made it very, very clear. And this isn't a list of things that need to be done today... things tend to stay up there for weeks.
Remember that after the liberation, you can expect a few riots here and there. Some people just don't want to be free of oppression and subjugation, and are willing to fight the invaders^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hotherwise welcome liberators.
is participating in a DDOS attack the way to bring spammers to their knees?
No, but a chainsaw to the legs sure will.
I don't know if you've noticed, but this guy doesn't exactly live "in town", as they like to put it.
Or did you actually read the article? Or look at the pictures?
I love that argument. "What about the birds!?!"
Birds have brains. Birds use those brains to stay alive, and they work remarkably well.
Like for instance how ducks know that people that live in cities are cool and give you bread, but people that live in the country carry shotguns, and are best avoided by a margin of 100 yards or more.
If they can figure that much out, then they can figure out that fast-moving machinery making loud noises is best avoided too.
Since the BBC (radio and TV) broadcast their programming for free and without advertising, all their works, past and present, constitute "unfair government competition."
Nevermind that they are essentially the vanguards of British culture the world over. That's not important at all.