Welcome this whole thing. Way too many distracted, ego-driven, or just plain stupid drivers on the road. Driving a sporty vehicle on a challenging road can be a lot of fun, but that decribes about 0% of my driving, and besides, it's damn dangerous for any other vehicles or critters on the same road. Let's face it, do your race driver imitation in a video game, and leave real world transportation to a very conservative computer program.
One scientist said a trend for delayed parenthood might mean we were heading towards a "society of geniuses" able to solve the world's problems.
For solving many of the world's problems, traits like integrity may be more important than intelligence. For example, once you get above some basic threshold of intelligence, integrity is what you want for police and security work.
But, even for problems where the solution is accumulating more scientific knowledge, it's not clear that intelligence, per se, is the limiting factor. Certainly there's going to be a minimum threshold of intelligence that's necessary - even if you give them a million years, chimpanzees are unlikely to find a cure for cancer.
But, in many cases, knowledge can be accumulated incrementally - like water wearing away at rock. And, when you're really exploring the unknown, there's a strong element of luck - like buying lottery tickets or breaking open a huge pile of boulders to find a diamond in one of the boulders.
And, there are almost certainly plenty of people who have the genetic capability to make extraordinary scientific discoveries who never achieve their potential because of lack of education - or even lack of healthcare and basic nutrition.
Well said. I was going to post a similar comment. Being bright, focused, and individualistic is a lot of fun, and those are the kind of folks I like to hang out with. But solving the world's problems may require other talents and traits, in the social and organizational realms, that geeks may not be so well equipped for.
OK, I'm a nerd, and I do appreciate the empowering qualities of Linux, even if it's a PITA. And I do dislike the bloat and insecurity of Windows. But at the end of the day, I use my computer for 2 things (aside from surfing, email, etc.), and that is pro audio and graphics. Furthermore, I can't afford the Mac universe. So it's Windows for me. I understand the politics, market forces, etc. that prevent a robust audio ecosystem from existing on Linux (even if I wanted to use less capable Linux software, few high end audio hardware manufacturers bother with Linux drivers). And there's no Linux equivalent to the 1-2 punch of Photoshop + Illustrator (which I have managed to acquire without payment). And that's not to mention many other audio and graphics programs I use, none of which have Linux equivalents. So. Do you own/use a computer for the OS, or for the applications?
Right now, electric cars are only for the well-to-do. In my rural area, not only do people have to drive long miles, but many of them couldn't afford a new car anyway, let alone an electric one.
Do you envision battery prices becoming down to the point where an electric vehicle can compete with a gas-powered car at the low end of the income scale as well as at the high end?
I have a Lenovo X131e, that I replaced the HDD with an SSD, that gets more use than my tricked out desktop machine. It runs Win7 x64, is mostly used for browsing, but can handle anything from Word to pro audio just fine. It's not tiny or superlight, but it's just the right size to carry around the house, and it's built like a tank. A tablet is just an oversized phone, but a netbook is really useful.
One more press release about a laboratory demonstration with an undefined time to market. Just about zero technical details, why did I click on it? Haven't we had enough of this stuff, Slashdot?
This link is to a badly written Softpedia article, which has the link to the actual Mozilla report. Why couldn 't Slashdot link to the original report? It's very informative. The Softpedia article adds no information, and sounds like the writer is a non-native English speaker.
I tried it, but it only finds Google-related accounts. Obviously, since your Google email is all it has to go by. There's a ton of accounts and subscriptions that I've got that this app knows nothing about. Why do they assume that all my accounts are necessarily linked to Google?
Less than useful, unless you view the entire internet thru Google, in which case you've got worse problems than a few excessive accounts.
There's 2 forums that I read a lot, basically lurk on, and occasionally post. One is Slashdot, and the other is Fark. I like Slashdot because sometimes some very smart techie people will post interesting insights into techie issues. Fark, of course, is mostly known for snarky frat-boy humor. But! I'm embarrassed to say that Slashdot users, whom I gave way too much credit for intelligence, are proving to be trolls, knuckle-draggers, and mouth-breathers of the very worst sort. Whereas Fark seems to have some very intelligent and balanced conversations about some of the very same subjects, including politics. Just goes to show, basement-dwellers might know how to hack, but you wouldn't want to hang out with any of them.
I don't think so. Why would I give up a bunch of personal data, or alternately jump thru a bunch of anonymizing hoops, just to try your new product (which aside from the gee-whiz factor isn't something that I would use much)?
If they want to suck me in for purposes of peddling my data, they've got to sweeten the bait a little better than that.
If the new owners are listening, this is exactly the sort of story that doesn't belong on Slashdot. The technical angle (Twitter?) is minimal, the political content is strong, and most of the commenters have big ugly political axes to grind.
Hopefully this is an aberration. If you just want to post clickbait and stir up outrage, this isn't the site for me.
If, on the other hand, you wanted to talk about the algorithm Twitter uses, or the resources and methods required to enforce Twitter policies, you might have a nerdish angle.
But to ask readers whether or not they approve of Trump on Twitter is trolling, and makes me wonder about your "new" direction.
I've got 4 of his circuit cookbooks. There's precious little explanation of how the circuits work, why particular component values were chosen, etc. If you want to duplicate his circuits, fine, but the books sure don't teach anything about how to design your own. The hand drawn and lettered graphics are cool, but the information content is minimal.
So you've come up with a business model that says you need me to view ads to pay your expenses? Not terribly original as business models go, and most definitely not my problem. Go ahead and block me from your site for refusing to view those ads, I don't have a problem with that. No web site is indispensable.
Wait, you don't want to block me from your web site, you need my page views, but you still want me to feel guilty for blocking ads?
Methinks you haven't thought out that business model very well. Have you tried opening a restaurant where paying for the meal is optional? All you have to do is stand near the exit with a sad face and beg your customers to pay on the way out. Now that one ought to make you a bundle!
It isn't just about the technical problem of how to preserve/read digital information.
Back in the day (get off my lawn!) it took a lot more thought and planning to create a document, without instant digital editing etc. Those old letters, books, et. al., took a lot more time and effort to create, and were considerably more difficult to edit and modify, and as a result, tended to have more forethought and planning before putting words down.
As a result, penning a few paragraphs or an essay or two wasn't such a casual endeavor as it is today.
Now that any monkey with a keyboard (and a little cut-and-paste ability) can create volumes of prose, the signal to noise ratio is a lot lower. IMHO, we don't want or need to preserve every piece of text (or image) ever created. The problem is, how do we tell the signal from the noise?
Even if we were able to preserve all digital information across time, nimbly leaping from one format or platform to another, would we want to? And if we did, what a vast amount of garbage! Might as well preserve all our landfills, in case future historians have a desperate need to pick thru them...
Of course, the NSA is probably already doing this, and has just the search algorithm to target YOU, citizen!
Slashdot Mirror
Welcome this whole thing. Way too many distracted, ego-driven, or just plain stupid drivers on the road. Driving a sporty vehicle on a challenging road can be a lot of fun, but that decribes about 0% of my driving, and besides, it's damn dangerous for any other vehicles or critters on the same road. Let's face it, do your race driver imitation in a video game, and leave real world transportation to a very conservative computer program.
One scientist said a trend for delayed parenthood might mean we were heading towards a "society of geniuses" able to solve the world's problems.
For solving many of the world's problems, traits like integrity may be more important than intelligence. For example, once you get above some basic threshold of intelligence, integrity is what you want for police and security work.
But, even for problems where the solution is accumulating more scientific knowledge, it's not clear that intelligence, per se, is the limiting factor. Certainly there's going to be a minimum threshold of intelligence that's necessary - even if you give them a million years, chimpanzees are unlikely to find a cure for cancer.
But, in many cases, knowledge can be accumulated incrementally - like water wearing away at rock. And, when you're really exploring the unknown, there's a strong element of luck - like buying lottery tickets or breaking open a huge pile of boulders to find a diamond in one of the boulders.
And, there are almost certainly plenty of people who have the genetic capability to make extraordinary scientific discoveries who never achieve their potential because of lack of education - or even lack of healthcare and basic nutrition.
Well said. I was going to post a similar comment.
Being bright, focused, and individualistic is a lot of fun, and those are the kind of folks I like to hang out with.
But solving the world's problems may require other talents and traits, in the social and organizational realms, that geeks may not be so well equipped for.
Exactly how do lower ratings result from pirated versions? Is that because the public learns just how crappy the movie is even before it's released?
So much this. We're talking here about analyzing the user more thoroughly, in order to better manipulate her.
OK, I'm a nerd, and I do appreciate the empowering qualities of Linux, even if it's a PITA. And I do dislike the bloat and insecurity of Windows.
But at the end of the day, I use my computer for 2 things (aside from surfing, email, etc.), and that is pro audio and graphics.
Furthermore, I can't afford the Mac universe.
So it's Windows for me.
I understand the politics, market forces, etc. that prevent a robust audio ecosystem from existing on Linux (even if I wanted to use less capable Linux software, few high end audio hardware manufacturers bother with Linux drivers).
And there's no Linux equivalent to the 1-2 punch of Photoshop + Illustrator (which I have managed to acquire without payment).
And that's not to mention many other audio and graphics programs I use, none of which have Linux equivalents.
So. Do you own/use a computer for the OS, or for the applications?
Advances in interoperability, but still a horror show in privacy or autonomy.
Let me see, would that be Oculus?
Prof. Goodenough,
Right now, electric cars are only for the well-to-do. In my rural area, not only do people have to drive long miles, but many of them couldn't afford a new car anyway, let alone an electric one.
Do you envision battery prices becoming down to the point where an electric vehicle can compete with a gas-powered car at the low end of the income scale as well as at the high end?
I have a Lenovo X131e, that I replaced the HDD with an SSD, that gets more use than my tricked out desktop machine. It runs Win7 x64, is mostly used for browsing, but can handle anything from Word to pro audio just fine. It's not tiny or superlight, but it's just the right size to carry around the house, and it's built like a tank.
A tablet is just an oversized phone, but a netbook is really useful.
One more press release about a laboratory demonstration with an undefined time to market.
Just about zero technical details, why did I click on it?
Haven't we had enough of this stuff, Slashdot?
This link is to a badly written Softpedia article, which has the link to the actual Mozilla report.
Why couldn 't Slashdot link to the original report? It's very informative.
The Softpedia article adds no information, and sounds like the writer is a non-native English speaker.
I tried it, but it only finds Google-related accounts. Obviously, since your Google email is all it has to go by.
There's a ton of accounts and subscriptions that I've got that this app knows nothing about.
Why do they assume that all my accounts are necessarily linked to Google?
Less than useful, unless you view the entire internet thru Google, in which case you've got worse problems than a few excessive accounts.
Don't Remember Observe Never Enjoy. That will definitely help me remember those rules.
There's 2 forums that I read a lot, basically lurk on, and occasionally post. One is Slashdot, and the other is Fark.
I like Slashdot because sometimes some very smart techie people will post interesting insights into techie issues.
Fark, of course, is mostly known for snarky frat-boy humor.
But! I'm embarrassed to say that Slashdot users, whom I gave way too much credit for intelligence, are proving to be trolls, knuckle-draggers, and mouth-breathers of the very worst sort.
Whereas Fark seems to have some very intelligent and balanced conversations about some of the very same subjects, including politics.
Just goes to show, basement-dwellers might know how to hack, but you wouldn't want to hang out with any of them.
Feds' argument:
"It should be kept secret because it's supposed to be a secret, otherwise it won't be kept secret, and then it won't be a secret any more."
If I wrote a program like that, it would no doubt take a long time to get anything done.
"Can neither confirm nor deny" doesn't sound good.
What's better than a geo-tracking device every citizen carries that also allows access to phone conversations, texts, and emails?
An audio feed of everything that happens inside the citizen's house, that's what.
Orwell was prescient, but he didn't foresee that his surveillance state would be sold to "consumers" as the latest shiny toy.
I don't think so. Why would I give up a bunch of personal data, or alternately jump thru a bunch of anonymizing hoops, just to try your new product (which aside from the gee-whiz factor isn't something that I would use much)?
If they want to suck me in for purposes of peddling my data, they've got to sweeten the bait a little better than that.
500 dates in 3 years is about 3-4 dates a week. Are each of them with different guys? Sounds exhausting.
If the new owners are listening, this is exactly the sort of story that doesn't belong on Slashdot. The technical angle (Twitter?) is minimal, the political content is strong, and most of the commenters have big ugly political axes to grind.
Hopefully this is an aberration. If you just want to post clickbait and stir up outrage, this isn't the site for me.
If, on the other hand, you wanted to talk about the algorithm Twitter uses, or the resources and methods required to enforce Twitter policies, you might have a nerdish angle.
But to ask readers whether or not they approve of Trump on Twitter is trolling, and makes me wonder about your "new" direction.
I'm glad for their policy against patent trolls, but I buy from them as little as possible.
Reason? Not prices, not selection, but return policy. Even if you receive a defective item, you have to pay return shipping.
Newegg's excuse? "It's not our fault if the product's defective." Honest, look it up on their site, that's their published excuse.
Well, if I get a defective product from Newegg, it's not my fault either. They can go suck Eggs.
I've got 4 of his circuit cookbooks. There's precious little explanation of how the circuits work, why particular component values were chosen, etc. If you want to duplicate his circuits, fine, but the books sure don't teach anything about how to design your own. The hand drawn and lettered graphics are cool, but the information content is minimal.
So you've come up with a business model that says you need me to view ads to pay your expenses? Not terribly original as business models go, and most definitely not my problem. Go ahead and block me from your site for refusing to view those ads, I don't have a problem with that. No web site is indispensable.
Wait, you don't want to block me from your web site, you need my page views, but you still want me to feel guilty for blocking ads?
Methinks you haven't thought out that business model very well. Have you tried opening a restaurant where paying for the meal is optional? All you have to do is stand near the exit with a sad face and beg your customers to pay on the way out. Now that one ought to make you a bundle!
That a computer can beat humans at a computer game.
The real question is, can a computer beat a human at a human game? Chess, yeah. Go, not so much.
Hasn't reverse engineering been around for a while now? If a computer wasn't better and faster at that than a human, that would be the true surprise.
This just in -- maybe it doesn 't require "intelligence" to win most computer games, just good memory and fast reflexes.
It isn't just about the technical problem of how to preserve/read digital information.
Back in the day (get off my lawn!) it took a lot more thought and planning to create a document, without instant digital editing etc. Those old letters, books, et. al., took a lot more time and effort to create, and were considerably more difficult to edit and modify, and as a result, tended to have more forethought and planning before putting words down.
As a result, penning a few paragraphs or an essay or two wasn't such a casual endeavor as it is today.
Now that any monkey with a keyboard (and a little cut-and-paste ability) can create volumes of prose, the signal to noise ratio is a lot lower. IMHO, we don't want or need to preserve every piece of text (or image) ever created. The problem is, how do we tell the signal from the noise?
Even if we were able to preserve all digital information across time, nimbly leaping from one format or platform to another, would we want to? And if we did, what a vast amount of garbage! Might as well preserve all our landfills, in case future historians have a desperate need to pick thru them...
Of course, the NSA is probably already doing this, and has just the search algorithm to target YOU, citizen!
If this turns into one more out of control video site, I'm outta here.