We seem to be in irrelevent cliche mode on Slashdot lately. Nobody's trying to ban anything. If you'd read TFA a little more carefully, you'd notice that people are not telling kids they can't use social networking sites. They're telling kids they have to be careful about what they put on social networking sites. Which strikes me as simple common sense.
Scenario: A sexual predator trolls MySpace until he sees a choice target that's spending the summer at Camp Runamuck. He gains the target's confidence, then persuades them to sneak away from the camp for a little "adventure"...
I don't know how often this scenario happens in real life — but it's not that farfetched. You can hardly blame the camp staff for wanting to prevent it from happening on their watch.
Anyway, why should kids spend their time at camp logging in to social networking sites? Isn't the main point of summer camp to do stuff with other kids in the real world?
Nitpick: Woit teaches math, but that's just something he does to pay the rent. His doctorate is in Theoretical Physics. Now, there are always more PhDs in any given field than there are faculty openings. Still, it seems likely that he'd be working in the field he trained for if he were less skeptical about String Theory. Note that I'm just making an observation, not accusing him of sour grapes: his opinions should stand or fall on their own.
To recap, you can now transfer your TiVo shows to your laptop, desktop, and portable, as well as burn them to DVD. Time for me to subscribe to HBO."
Let's see, $50 for basic cable, $20 extra for HBO, $15 for your Tivo subscription. That's a really big recurring cost. You could go to a lot of movies and rent a lot of DVDs for that much. Perhaps you're willing to pay a huge premium just to see the latest ep of The Sopranos without waiting for it come out on DVD. Or maybe you (shudder) spend so much time in front of the tube that it's a bargain.
But most likely, you're like most consumers: you've been programmed to shell out big money for little bits of entertainment. Now that is really a sad though.
He said string theory can, indeed, exactly match reality. It can also match quite a lot of things that aren't reality, and by 'quite a lot of things' we're talking trillions.
Which is precisely what makes String Theory untestable. If it's not testable, it's not science.
RTFA, damnit. For that matter, RTF headline. According to this author, ST cannot be proved wrong, because it proponent are able to explain away any contrary evidence.
I don't understand ST well enough to know if that's true. But if it is true, then String Theory is very bad science indeed. The only thing that separates science from superstition is the fact that scientific theory is subject to invalidation.
This illustrates an important fact. When you talk to a call center you have the illusion you are conversing with a human being. This is not the case. The carbon-based unit is just a front end for a procedure somebody has designed. Intelligent action by a call-center drone is about as likely as Eliza actually figuring out what your problems are.
The purpose of this procedure, obviously, is to make it as difficult for the user to cancel as possible. Otherwise AOL would just automate it. More obnoxious than most call-center procedures, but not by much. The sad thing is that AOL dealt with the bad press by firing the poor schmo who just did what he was paid to do. The people who designed this stupid procedure are still working there. For now.
Correct. But this is just one aspect of a wider problem: many companies have plunged into telecomuting without proper planning. Scoping out good security procedures is important, but only part of what you need to do.
One aspect I've really seen neglected is providing a decent communication infrastructure. Software people use shared whiteboards a lot, yet it doesn't occur to companies that their telecommuters need whiteboard software. And then there's teleconferencing: the last big meeting I went to was missed by a lot of employees because they didn't allocate enough slots with AT&T. Then again, with so many people involved, it would have made more sense to provide a audio stream and take questions over IM. But that didn't occur to anybody.
And let's be realistic about folks who telecommute from the other side of the planet. Fine, Indians and Russians work a lot cheaper, and are (sometimes) just as good as their North American counterparts. But you can't arbitrarily fill slots from the other side of the planet: people who work together have to be awake at the same time!
Spare us the regurgitated political crap. "Class warfare" is a stupid phrase in the best of circumstances, never mind charging a fair price for a service. If Craigslist started asking for $20 to list high-end real-estate, the people who would have to pay would shrug and say, "Hey, that's cheap for what they do."
The CSS specs are full of totally cool features that I can't use because IE doesn't implement them, or doesn't implement them correctly. (Not that Firefox is perfect either, but with 10% of the market, it doesn't dictate what people can and can't use.) What can we do to get browser implementors, or rather Microsoft, to support CSS properly?
Let's see. Craigslist turned its back on a half billion dollars because they don't like Google ads. Exactly when did Koch Industries do something even vaguely similar?
Well, I didn't mean to imply that Craigslist is extremely good software. I have many issues with it. But it's not that bad either. I'd give it a 7 out of 10, whereas most classified ads sites are a 2 or a 3.
Which gets us to a related issue. Newspapers are all convinced that they have to move onto the web, stat. Yet none of them seems able to figure out even the basics of good web site design. Which is why Craigslist would still be stealing all their classified customers, even if they charged the same rates.
Timing was the factor. As it almost always is with any high-tech startup.
And there was no "business philosophy". Craig Newmark didn't set out to found a business. He just started the site as a free service, paying all costs out of his own pocket. He resisted making any of his advertisers pay for a long time. Finally, the thing grew to point were he had to choose between developing some revenue and shutting the thing down.
You're picking stupid nits. Most of their real-estate ads are still free. If you'd followed the links I'd provided, you see free ads for million-dollar house, and rentals that go for $10,000 a month.
Slashdot Mirror
We seem to be in irrelevent cliche mode on Slashdot lately. Nobody's trying to ban anything. If you'd read TFA a little more carefully, you'd notice that people are not telling kids they can't use social networking sites. They're telling kids they have to be careful about what they put on social networking sites. Which strikes me as simple common sense.
Scenario: A sexual predator trolls MySpace until he sees a choice target that's spending the summer at Camp Runamuck. He gains the target's confidence, then persuades them to sneak away from the camp for a little "adventure"...
I don't know how often this scenario happens in real life — but it's not that farfetched. You can hardly blame the camp staff for wanting to prevent it from happening on their watch.
Anyway, why should kids spend their time at camp logging in to social networking sites? Isn't the main point of summer camp to do stuff with other kids in the real world?
Nitpick: Woit teaches math, but that's just something he does to pay the rent. His doctorate is in Theoretical Physics. Now, there are always more PhDs in any given field than there are faculty openings. Still, it seems likely that he'd be working in the field he trained for if he were less skeptical about String Theory. Note that I'm just making an observation, not accusing him of sour grapes: his opinions should stand or fall on their own.
Let's see, $50 for basic cable, $20 extra for HBO, $15 for your Tivo subscription. That's a really big recurring cost. You could go to a lot of movies and rent a lot of DVDs for that much. Perhaps you're willing to pay a huge premium just to see the latest ep of The Sopranos without waiting for it come out on DVD. Or maybe you (shudder) spend so much time in front of the tube that it's a bargain.
But most likely, you're like most consumers: you've been programmed to shell out big money for little bits of entertainment. Now that is really a sad though.
I don't understand ST well enough to know if that's true. But if it is true, then String Theory is very bad science indeed. The only thing that separates science from superstition is the fact that scientific theory is subject to invalidation.
Bad vibes, man!
Call center people don't rate that much consideration.
The purpose of this procedure, obviously, is to make it as difficult for the user to cancel as possible. Otherwise AOL would just automate it. More obnoxious than most call-center procedures, but not by much. The sad thing is that AOL dealt with the bad press by firing the poor schmo who just did what he was paid to do. The people who designed this stupid procedure are still working there. For now.
One aspect I've really seen neglected is providing a decent communication infrastructure. Software people use shared whiteboards a lot, yet it doesn't occur to companies that their telecommuters need whiteboard software. And then there's teleconferencing: the last big meeting I went to was missed by a lot of employees because they didn't allocate enough slots with AT&T. Then again, with so many people involved, it would have made more sense to provide a audio stream and take questions over IM. But that didn't occur to anybody.
And let's be realistic about folks who telecommute from the other side of the planet. Fine, Indians and Russians work a lot cheaper, and are (sometimes) just as good as their North American counterparts. But you can't arbitrarily fill slots from the other side of the planet: people who work together have to be awake at the same time!
Spare us the regurgitated political crap. "Class warfare" is a stupid phrase in the best of circumstances, never mind charging a fair price for a service. If Craigslist started asking for $20 to list high-end real-estate, the people who would have to pay would shrug and say, "Hey, that's cheap for what they do."
But on the plus side, it sticks to people and causes disfigurement and excruciating pain. A great way to win friends and influence people!
The CSS specs are full of totally cool features that I can't use because IE doesn't implement them, or doesn't implement them correctly. (Not that Firefox is perfect either, but with 10% of the market, it doesn't dictate what people can and can't use.) What can we do to get browser implementors, or rather Microsoft, to support CSS properly?
You're talking $250+ a listing. If they charged that much, people would switch back to classified ads. $25 would be more on target.
Thanks, Osama.
Yeah, extortion is so funny.
I can only ask you the same question I asked the other guy.
Let's see. Craigslist turned its back on a half billion dollars because they don't like Google ads. Exactly when did Koch Industries do something even vaguely similar?
Which gets us to a related issue. Newspapers are all convinced that they have to move onto the web, stat. Yet none of them seems able to figure out even the basics of good web site design. Which is why Craigslist would still be stealing all their classified customers, even if they charged the same rates.
If I have to explain that to you, you haven't been following the discussion.
Who's talking about soaking? I'm talking about charging them a reasonable fee for a service they find valuable.
And there was no "business philosophy". Craig Newmark didn't set out to found a business. He just started the site as a free service, paying all costs out of his own pocket. He resisted making any of his advertisers pay for a long time. Finally, the thing grew to point were he had to choose between developing some revenue and shutting the thing down.
You're picking stupid nits. Most of their real-estate ads are still free. If you'd followed the links I'd provided, you see free ads for million-dollar house, and rentals that go for $10,000 a month.