Back in the late 90's up to about 2001, I worked as a web author/web developer at a not so huge newspaper... we in the web department (Known as Electronic Publishing internally) had a pretty free hand to try and figure out how to keep the paper on top of technology.
We were pretty innovative for the time - we got our classifieds and real estate and obits online and we were able to publish breaking stories immediately and get our content online before it was in the physical paper... a bunch of neat stuff.
Then, sometime in mid 2000, our paper got bought by a big conglomerate.... they had their own very cookie cutter online approach and gutted the soul of our department - there was no innovation - hell, we lost a huge number of features that we had been doing for a couple years, but they didn't have equivalents for in their system.
They homogenized their "online strategy" and threw out the baby with the bathwater... Now, I think they're still struggling with trying to stay relevant as the world moves farther and farther away from paper - they are too big and too stuck in their ways to have the kind of entrepreneurial innovation that our smaller paper had...
Ok, sorry for rambling on - the point is that some papers - the ones who "got" the web may have been able to innovate and stay relevant... but the big media behemoths have had a much harder time adjusting... they're simply not agile enough and not willing to embrace "disruptive technologies" (tech that threatens their current business model)
It's more likely the reduction in carbs that did it - but the direct side effect of Paleo is that you're likely cutting way back on those anyway.
You see it as "I went gluten free and I feel better" but that's just confirmation bias - you don't objectively know that it was gluten itself.
(Not trying to pick on you, but merely to illustrate how easy it is to fall victim to the same type of logical reasoning errors that lead (also) to these "mass hysteria" outbreaks.
... and then sell my compromised one on eBay... to pay for the cost of replacement... no way that one I just bought from someone else who had the same idea.... Just sayin'.
It's great they've had promising tests in mice, but journalists always go on to make some fabulous claim for how the future wonder cure/thing is right around the corner.
Yes, this is interesting, and maybe there is some good science/medicine that will come out of it - but we're FAR down the road from an exercise pill. I know the article isn't saying it's right around the corner either but it just feels like a lot of speculation and hyperbole at this point.
I have NoScript set to not allow Google Analytics and other client-side stuff for ad tracking (block Doubleclick and such too), and not allowing them doesn't appreciably slow things down.
I guess that allowing them and having the browser timing out on requests is a bit of a different story though - or having any back end dependency on them.
I'm the type that loves my MP3s but still likes that I have my CD collection in a binder as a backup. I love Netflix and Amazon Instant video, but I still have my DVD collection for stuff that I watch over and over, so I guess I'm just already primed to be a "cloud stuff is nice, but I like having my offline backups" kind of person.
Actually I would think the Chinese government would JUMP at the chance to take over the updating of Chinese XP computers - they could fix patches, remove the CIA malware as you suggested and and insert extra monitoring / censorship software very conveniently then.
I wouldn't object if the BBC chose a woman or a person of color, etc... however, I DO object to such a strong American Point of View on this summary and in the article.
"""
'Maybe it was the election of Barack Obama that made it seem, fleetingly, as if there were no more glass ceilings, for offices from president to pontiff,' writes Boylan. """
yeah, because this completely USA-centric view of the universe is topmost on the BBC's and series creators minds.
Seriously people, I've been a Dr. Who fan since Tom Baker was still playing the role, and I've loved and cherished it for all its quirky British sensibilities, and I for one believe that the show's been doing fine for the better part of 50 years (Colin Baker's run notwithstanding)
I just would hate to see more US-Centric views spilling over onto the show.
Take, for instance the BBC America version of the show openers during Amy Pond's run - if you were new to the series, the opening would make you think that it was the Amy Pond show and that the Doctor was just the Mad Man with a Blue Box as a plot device for her. That was BBC America "Americanizing" it a bit to try and appear to the US audience.
Good gods, have any of you seen the American version of Top Gear? It's rubbish... completely and utterly fails to capture the charm and wit of the British version.
American IT Crowd? The Office? Coupling? Maybe I'm going to piss some folks off, but I think that Americanizing British stuff simply never ends well.
I left the world of systems administration and network management in 2006 when I took a position as a software engineer... I've kept my hands wet with managing my personal web servers and those of a few hosting customers, but I do admit to missing those sysadmin/network admin days.
The statement "use it or lose it" really is true - I still have all the troubleshooting skills and nowadays, a LOT more insight into the software side of things, but I'm sure I'm rusty as hell with IOS and such. It's also a significantly more hairy security landscape today than back then, so I guess I can reminisce about "the good old days" from the safety of my bunker - er, home office.
We need a new right - the right NOT to be advertised to.
I'm sick of being a product.. I mean, ok the old model of Television and Radio where you the viewer gets something of value (the programming/entertainment) without directly paying for it, then it's a reasonable tradeoff that it's paid for by advertising
However, when you're paying for a train fare, you've paid for the transit... it's not like you're given the option of "pay full price to not be subjected to adversising, or get a discount for being advertised to"
I know I'm unrealistic, but damnit I'm sick of being monetized against my will.
but yeah, it feels like some dystopian SF novel just got closer to reality - uber rich folks having virtual immortality by having their brains transplanted into new, fresh bodies - folks selling their (or others) bodies in some twisted Max Headroom "body bank" style.
As others have said, "What could possibly go wrong"
In my (old phart) opinion, change for the sake of change is what sucks.
For instance, I really hate the MS ribbon, it actually gets in my way... There was nothing wrong with classic menus. They're efficient - especially for "I don't know what I want, but I'll know it when I see it"... the Ribbon makes me have to hunt for everything. That was change for the sake of change. It was MS trying to make Office seem like it was somehow new and exciting... because, let's face it, their flagship product has been feature complete since Office 97 - sure, there have been a few improvements here and there, but Office XP wasn't that big of an improvement worth shelling out big bucks for the upgrade from 97... and 2003 - well, in retrospect, it was MS Office's finest hour, but it was an incremental improvement...... 2007 added the ribbon to some stuff, and 2010 completely replaced the menus. Yeah, it works just as good and has a few nice features, but I fight with the UI so much that my general perception is that it stinks. I use it cuz I have to (at work).
Be careful not to get labeled as a stick in the mud. Work with the stuff that you get stuck with, but always keep an eye out for actual good change - accept those good changes wholeheartedly, and laugh as others spin their wheels on the thing of the moment... but only to yourself - when nobody's looking.:p
I couldn't agree more. Although I'm not the skydiving type, I've found that the longer I stay away from WOW, the less it matters to me. I honestly can't understand what had me held in Thrall (pun intended) for so many hours of my life.
Granted, I do miss some of my guildmates - we had a great casual guild where we cared more about playing with each other than about being BESTEST RAID GUILD, but we had fun.
When Cata came out, several of us just didn't like the direction the devs were taking game mechanics changes. I tried for a bit and fell out - came back for Pandaria, leveled some toons, did some pickup raids and realized that I've completely lost interest in the shiny things... or more to the point, I've realized they weren't that shiny to begin with.
Anyway, I've been going on more walks, and doing more stuff around the house, and ~gasp~ getting out of the house some... it's a lot better for me.
I miss my guildmates - they're genuinely a good bunch of folks, but I still pop into their ventrillo to say hi now and then.
Since ethanol has about 70% of the energy density of gasoline, I would expect to see a 3% loss of fuel efficiency just to start with.
I know I don't get my car's rated MPG just because... well, I own a car that's fun to drive, so I tend to accelerate a bit faster than I'd bet they test with, and I tend to drive a bit higher than the speed they are likely to test at.
Last time I was in Virginia, I found a gas station that made a big deal about having 100% gasoline (no Ethanol) and I wanted to try filling up with it and seeing if I do indeed get my 3% increase... unfortunately, my tank was already full when I saw it.
Seriously, wireless is great for when I'm out and about and all I have is my cell phone or when I'm making a quick, temporary connection with the laptop, but I would not feel comfortable living somewhere I couldn't have a physical last mile connection - fiber or cable is fine, (though I'd pay for BOTH to have redundant last mile connections)
I get that it's cheaper to go wireless, but there appears to be a great divide between Internet reliability and speed - those with last mile wired connections and those with only wireless options (satellite of local wireless carriers) and in our mad rush to make things more convenient, we're also making them slower and less reliable than they could be.
I suppose I could look at it another way - it would cost WAY MORE than the phone company could hope to make back to re-run copper, so from a business sense, I guess this works for them.
However, if I were Verizon, I'd be rolling out the fiber to premises, and give Comcast something to worry about... but instead, they're abandoning FIOS... go figure.
I have a hosting customer (who is also a friend) who is a very small manufacturing business - they hand make jewelry and sell it on their web site.
They are a mom-and-pop operation and have no hope of being able to track 50 states worth of sales tax obligations and file 50 states worth of forms... never-mind that others have mentioned elsewhere that there are some 10,000 distinct sales tax jurisdictions in the US.
If they're actually required to track even just 50 states worth and file those forms, they're not going to be able to comply. Their business is close enough on margins that this could quite seriously push them over the edge and make them close up shop should it be too onerous.
If the fed wanted to jsut say "5% sales tax on all Internet sales apportioned to the states by share of gdp" that would be one thing, but keepint track of that many moving targets would be too much for mom and pop shops.... big retailers have accounting firms or departments to handle it - one more way the little guy is getting destroyed.
Funny that - I started using mp3.com to upload (verify) my CDs, but when they stopped allowing that due to legal issues, I started exploring the original artists/music on there, and I was truly enlightened.
There were a LOT of really great unknown/unsigned artists on mp3.com... I started buying quite a few of their DAM CDs and was a regular listener. I even hosted my own original music (no delusions of adequacy here... just saying I was a consumer AND a contributor). I think THIS is what the music industry was REALLY afraid of with mp3.com - that they were showing you could make a new music business that wasn't based on scarcity of resources (expensive studios, and expensive production/duplication facilities) and wasn't based on screwing artists (so many artists sold LOTS of records but never got out of hawk for the initial outlay that he studios charged back to them)
I also think that their fingerprinting was quite reasonable - if you have the physical disk to shove in the machine, then you already had access to it whether you bought it or copied it, so mp3.com wasn't actually helping you pirate - you had provde you had physical possession, so they unlocked the streaming... I thought it was brilliant, but I guess the music industry was able to convince non-tech judges that this was "piracy" grrr.
If I had an option for GigaBit, I'd take it - but only if it was priced correctly and was free of onerous TOS. There is most certainly a demand for fast, free (as in speech) Internet connections - and a willingness to pay for them, but not $$stupid$$ amounts and not with a zillion strings attached.
I love how the cable cos were advertising things like "your speed is X which means you could download Y whole movies in Z time" but if you actually USE the bandwidth, they cap you... and maybe even send you sharing violation notices or whatever... and they tell you you can't "run any kind of server"
I pay several hundred dollars a month for a dedicated physical server at a commercial datacenter hosting a number of VPS instances for my web hosting needs... the right "business level" connectivity for my home might tempt me, but not with all the strings that local ISPs seem to have. (also, I don't have N+1 Power redundancy at home, so maybe it's not really such a good idea)/meh//but I want GigabitInternet///just not enough to be willing to move for it
My thought exactly.... not that we're likely to actually get to that point, but the idea of insulating the populace from the "hell of war" will tend to remove the internal political pressures to avoid/end warfare.
On the plus side, maybe John Q. Public will still feel the crunch at tax time. That leads to some hope that even if we're (collectively) ok with the slaughter of countless "other people" (not us) that somewhere we'll get tired of paying for all the bullets.
Then again, it's easy enough for politicians and their big business keepers to misdirect and hide how we're spending taxpayer money to kill/destroy others, so most likely, they will be able to keep manufacturing outrage about BS stuff to distract us from the real evils afoot.
Great, that's depressing as hell. Maybe I'll go re-read 1984 to cheer myself up.
Slashdot Mirror
Back in the late 90's up to about 2001, I worked as a web author/web developer at a not so huge newspaper... we in the web department (Known as Electronic Publishing internally) had a pretty free hand to try and figure out how to keep the paper on top of technology.
We were pretty innovative for the time - we got our classifieds and real estate and obits online and we were able to publish breaking stories immediately and get our content online before it was in the physical paper ... a bunch of neat stuff.
Then, sometime in mid 2000, our paper got bought by a big conglomerate.... they had their own very cookie cutter online approach and gutted the soul of our department - there was no innovation - hell, we lost a huge number of features that we had been doing for a couple years, but they didn't have equivalents for in their system.
They homogenized their "online strategy" and threw out the baby with the bathwater... Now, I think they're still struggling with trying to stay relevant as the world moves farther and farther away from paper - they are too big and too stuck in their ways to have the kind of entrepreneurial innovation that our smaller paper had...
Ok, sorry for rambling on - the point is that some papers - the ones who "got" the web may have been able to innovate and stay relevant ... but the big media behemoths have had a much harder time adjusting... they're simply not agile enough and not willing to embrace "disruptive technologies" (tech that threatens their current business model)
The bigger they are, the more slowly they turn.
It's more likely the reduction in carbs that did it - but the direct side effect of Paleo is that you're likely cutting way back on those anyway.
You see it as "I went gluten free and I feel better" but that's just confirmation bias - you don't objectively know that it was gluten itself.
(Not trying to pick on you, but merely to illustrate how easy it is to fall victim to the same type of logical reasoning errors that lead (also) to these "mass hysteria" outbreaks.
... and then sell my compromised one on eBay... to pay for the cost of replacement... no way that one I just bought from someone else who had the same idea.... Just sayin'.
It's great they've had promising tests in mice, but journalists always go on to make some fabulous claim for how the future wonder cure/thing is right around the corner.
Yes, this is interesting, and maybe there is some good science/medicine that will come out of it - but we're FAR down the road from an exercise pill. I know the article isn't saying it's right around the corner either but it just feels like a lot of speculation and hyperbole at this point.
I know, I know - total Debbie Downer - sorry.
I have NoScript set to not allow Google Analytics and other client-side stuff for ad tracking (block Doubleclick and such too), and not allowing them doesn't appreciably slow things down.
I guess that allowing them and having the browser timing out on requests is a bit of a different story though - or having any back end dependency on them.
I'm the type that loves my MP3s but still likes that I have my CD collection in a binder as a backup. I love Netflix and Amazon Instant video, but I still have my DVD collection for stuff that I watch over and over, so I guess I'm just already primed to be a "cloud stuff is nice, but I like having my offline backups" kind of person.
Actually I would think the Chinese government would JUMP at the chance to take over the updating of Chinese XP computers - they could fix patches, remove the CIA malware as you suggested and and insert extra monitoring / censorship software very conveniently then.
I wouldn't object if the BBC chose a woman or a person of color, etc... however, I DO object to such a strong American Point of View on this summary and in the article.
"""
'Maybe it was the election of Barack Obama that made it seem, fleetingly, as if there were no more glass ceilings, for offices from president to pontiff,' writes Boylan.
"""
yeah, because this completely USA-centric view of the universe is topmost on the BBC's and series creators minds.
Seriously people, I've been a Dr. Who fan since Tom Baker was still playing the role, and I've loved and cherished it for all its quirky British sensibilities, and I for one believe that the show's been doing fine for the better part of 50 years (Colin Baker's run notwithstanding)
I just would hate to see more US-Centric views spilling over onto the show.
Take, for instance the BBC America version of the show openers during Amy Pond's run - if you were new to the series, the opening would make you think that it was the Amy Pond show and that the Doctor was just the Mad Man with a Blue Box as a plot device for her. That was BBC America "Americanizing" it a bit to try and appear to the US audience.
Good gods, have any of you seen the American version of Top Gear? It's rubbish... completely and utterly fails to capture the charm and wit of the British version.
American IT Crowd? The Office? Coupling? Maybe I'm going to piss some folks off, but I think that Americanizing British stuff simply never ends well.
I left the world of systems administration and network management in 2006 when I took a position as a software engineer... I've kept my hands wet with managing my personal web servers and those of a few hosting customers, but I do admit to missing those sysadmin/network admin days.
The statement "use it or lose it" really is true - I still have all the troubleshooting skills and nowadays, a LOT more insight into the software side of things, but I'm sure I'm rusty as hell with IOS and such. It's also a significantly more hairy security landscape today than back then, so I guess I can reminisce about "the good old days" from the safety of my bunker - er, home office.
We need a new right - the right NOT to be advertised to.
I'm sick of being a product.. I mean, ok the old model of Television and Radio where you the viewer gets something of value (the programming/entertainment) without directly paying for it, then it's a reasonable tradeoff that it's paid for by advertising
However, when you're paying for a train fare, you've paid for the transit... it's not like you're given the option of "pay full price to not be subjected to adversising, or get a discount for being advertised to"
I know I'm unrealistic, but damnit I'm sick of being monetized against my will.
OH GODS NO!
but yeah, it feels like some dystopian SF novel just got closer to reality - uber rich folks having virtual immortality by having their brains transplanted into new, fresh bodies - folks selling their (or others) bodies in some twisted Max Headroom "body bank" style.
As others have said, "What could possibly go wrong"
I use NoScript to browse with JS disabled and only turn it on for sites I trust/want to get something done with.
If this change breaks NoScript, I'l switch to Chrome.
In my (old phart) opinion, change for the sake of change is what sucks.
For instance, I really hate the MS ribbon, it actually gets in my way... There was nothing wrong with classic menus. They're efficient - especially for "I don't know what I want, but I'll know it when I see it"... the Ribbon makes me have to hunt for everything. That was change for the sake of change. It was MS trying to make Office seem like it was somehow new and exciting... because, let's face it, their flagship product has been feature complete since Office 97 - sure, there have been a few improvements here and there, but Office XP wasn't that big of an improvement worth shelling out big bucks for the upgrade from 97... and 2003 - well, in retrospect, it was MS Office's finest hour, but it was an incremental improvement...... 2007 added the ribbon to some stuff, and 2010 completely replaced the menus. Yeah, it works just as good and has a few nice features, but I fight with the UI so much that my general perception is that it stinks. I use it cuz I have to (at work).
Be careful not to get labeled as a stick in the mud. Work with the stuff that you get stuck with, but always keep an eye out for actual good change - accept those good changes wholeheartedly, and laugh as others spin their wheels on the thing of the moment... but only to yourself - when nobody's looking. :p
I couldn't agree more. Although I'm not the skydiving type, I've found that the longer I stay away from WOW, the less it matters to me. I honestly can't understand what had me held in Thrall (pun intended) for so many hours of my life.
Granted, I do miss some of my guildmates - we had a great casual guild where we cared more about playing with each other than about being BESTEST RAID GUILD, but we had fun.
When Cata came out, several of us just didn't like the direction the devs were taking game mechanics changes. I tried for a bit and fell out - came back for Pandaria, leveled some toons, did some pickup raids and realized that I've completely lost interest in the shiny things... or more to the point, I've realized they weren't that shiny to begin with.
Anyway, I've been going on more walks, and doing more stuff around the house, and ~gasp~ getting out of the house some... it's a lot better for me.
I miss my guildmates - they're genuinely a good bunch of folks, but I still pop into their ventrillo to say hi now and then.
Most gasoline I can find contains 10% ethanol.
Since ethanol has about 70% of the energy density of gasoline, I would expect to see a 3% loss of fuel efficiency just to start with.
I know I don't get my car's rated MPG just because ... well, I own a car that's fun to drive, so I tend to accelerate a bit faster than I'd bet they test with, and I tend to drive a bit higher than the speed they are likely to test at.
Last time I was in Virginia, I found a gas station that made a big deal about having 100% gasoline (no Ethanol) and I wanted to try filling up with it and seeing if I do indeed get my 3% increase... unfortunately, my tank was already full when I saw it.
Seriously, wireless is great for when I'm out and about and all I have is my cell phone or when I'm making a quick, temporary connection with the laptop, but I would not feel comfortable living somewhere I couldn't have a physical last mile connection - fiber or cable is fine, (though I'd pay for BOTH to have redundant last mile connections)
I get that it's cheaper to go wireless, but there appears to be a great divide between Internet reliability and speed - those with last mile wired connections and those with only wireless options (satellite of local wireless carriers) and in our mad rush to make things more convenient, we're also making them slower and less reliable than they could be.
I suppose I could look at it another way - it would cost WAY MORE than the phone company could hope to make back to re-run copper, so from a business sense, I guess this works for them.
However, if I were Verizon, I'd be rolling out the fiber to premises, and give Comcast something to worry about... but instead, they're abandoning FIOS... go figure.
Thank you! That needed to be said.
New Icelandic pickup line:
Nice gen, langar aà skrÃfa?
(Nice genes, wanna screw?)
One.
Marvin.
With all the diodes down his left side aching.
I'm keeping an eye on this, and if it's for real, I may just have a new phone carrier!
I'm not particularly UNHAPPY with my cell carrier, but I really may just need to vote with my wallet.
I have a hosting customer (who is also a friend) who is a very small manufacturing business - they hand make jewelry and sell it on their web site.
They are a mom-and-pop operation and have no hope of being able to track 50 states worth of sales tax obligations and file 50 states worth of forms... never-mind that others have mentioned elsewhere that there are some 10,000 distinct sales tax jurisdictions in the US.
If they're actually required to track even just 50 states worth and file those forms, they're not going to be able to comply. Their business is close enough on margins that this could quite seriously push them over the edge and make them close up shop should it be too onerous.
If the fed wanted to jsut say "5% sales tax on all Internet sales apportioned to the states by share of gdp" that would be one thing, but keepint track of that many moving targets would be too much for mom and pop shops.... big retailers have accounting firms or departments to handle it - one more way the little guy is getting destroyed.
Funny that - I started using mp3.com to upload (verify) my CDs, but when they stopped allowing that due to legal issues, I started exploring the original artists/music on there, and I was truly enlightened.
There were a LOT of really great unknown/unsigned artists on mp3.com... I started buying quite a few of their DAM CDs and was a regular listener. I even hosted my own original music (no delusions of adequacy here... just saying I was a consumer AND a contributor). I think THIS is what the music industry was REALLY afraid of with mp3.com - that they were showing you could make a new music business that wasn't based on scarcity of resources (expensive studios, and expensive production/duplication facilities) and wasn't based on screwing artists (so many artists sold LOTS of records but never got out of hawk for the initial outlay that he studios charged back to them)
I also think that their fingerprinting was quite reasonable - if you have the physical disk to shove in the machine, then you already had access to it whether you bought it or copied it, so mp3.com wasn't actually helping you pirate - you had provde you had physical possession, so they unlocked the streaming... I thought it was brilliant, but I guess the music industry was able to convince non-tech judges that this was "piracy" grrr.
If I had an option for GigaBit, I'd take it - but only if it was priced correctly and was free of onerous TOS. There is most certainly a demand for fast, free (as in speech) Internet connections - and a willingness to pay for them, but not $$stupid$$ amounts and not with a zillion strings attached.
I love how the cable cos were advertising things like "your speed is X which means you could download Y whole movies in Z time" but if you actually USE the bandwidth, they cap you... and maybe even send you sharing violation notices or whatever... and they tell you you can't "run any kind of server"
I pay several hundred dollars a month for a dedicated physical server at a commercial datacenter hosting a number of VPS instances for my web hosting needs... the right "business level" connectivity for my home might tempt me, but not with all the strings that local ISPs seem to have. (also, I don't have N+1 Power redundancy at home, so maybe it's not really such a good idea) /meh //but I want GigabitInternet ///just not enough to be willing to move for it
My thought exactly. ... not that we're likely to actually get to that point, but the idea of insulating the populace from the "hell of war" will tend to remove the internal political pressures to avoid/end warfare.
On the plus side, maybe John Q. Public will still feel the crunch at tax time. That leads to some hope that even if we're (collectively) ok with the slaughter of countless "other people" (not us) that somewhere we'll get tired of paying for all the bullets.
Then again, it's easy enough for politicians and their big business keepers to misdirect and hide how we're spending taxpayer money to kill/destroy others, so most likely, they will be able to keep manufacturing outrage about BS stuff to distract us from the real evils afoot.
Great, that's depressing as hell. Maybe I'll go re-read 1984 to cheer myself up.
Sorry for the craptastic spelling.
Sriously - I think I'd rather wear Stimpy's Happy Helmet than this thing.
I may think that the Google Glass is a bit overhyped, but at least it doesn't look like you just strapped your Canon Point and Shoot to your forehead.