Too bad nobody found an exploit in OpenBSD. Then Theo and djb could have a huge public slugfest over who was right. Theo could piss on qmail, and djb could piss on... I dunno, he'd find something. Battle Of The Outsized Egos, Now Playing On Slashdot!
Wireless TV isn't exactly a cutting-edge innovation anyway. In the beginning, all TV was wireless. Then we got cable, which cost more, but it was supposed to be better. Now we're gonna pay even more to go back to wireless.
Flawed doesn't begin to describe it. From the article:
"by using sophisticated climate models and new statistical techniques, this study has been able to separate the human factors from natural ones."
THERE ARE NO SOPHISTICATED CLIMATE MODELS. The climate is far too complicated for such simple generalizations. Real climatologists understand this.
The ability to "separate the human factors from natural ones" does not exist. "New statistical techniques" don't just appear like new flavors of Pop-Tarts.
The ability to suck in journalists seeking scary headlines, though, has been perfected.
Of course, nowhere in the article does it mention any thermodynamic principle by which this is supposed to have occured, another red flag for scientific inquiry. As a matter of fact, if you surf around the web and try to find the thermodynamic principle by which man is supposedly warming the planet, you won't find it. You'll see some "scientists" compare it to a blanket, others who say it has to do with refraction and reflection, others say it has something to do with transparency to UV vs infrared light. One thing you won't find is a consistent thermodynamic theory about what supposedly causes global warming. But you'll see a lot of statistical studies, all of which seem to use the "baseline year" trick to skew the results.
Well, yeah, that damned magic bullshit really is correct. Learning this was a transformational experience for me.
Back around the time of the Oliver Stone movie, I was out of work, and got intrigued by the publicity, so I set out to see if I could figure out what the answer was. I still had access to my old university library, and they had a fantastic collection of literature, including the full Warren Commission report including exhibits, and most of the consiracy books. I also had a friend who was helpful in understanding the ballistics issues.
I started out thinking I'd find the gunman in the bushes in some grainy 8mm film. Most amazing to me was how incredibly disingenuous most of the consiracy writers were. There was that one writer (Lifton?) who claimed there had been 63 (or whatever) witnesses who said the shots came from the front. Thanks to the library, I was able to read the old Ramparts article in which he enumerated them, and compare his claims to the actual testimony. It was amazing, some of the witnesses weren't there, some said different things than he claimed they had (the magic of the elipsis). What it boiled down to was maybe a handful of people who actually claimed to have heard shots from the grassy knoll, and none of them were reliable witnesses.
The ballistic evidence is even more interesting, when one realizes that a "pristine" bullet means one thing in ballistic terms and another thing in conspiracy theories. The much-hyped drawings showing the bullet zig-zagging are completely arbitrary, having originated in a book by Groden, and based on absolutely no recreation.
If somebody wants a real intellectual quest, you can solve this for yourself by spending a few weeks doing some truly open-minded research... at a library, not on the Internet. The real value will be not in learning whodunnit, but in learning how to evaluate loosely thrown around claims that you hear on TV.
What do you think happens here, "after the power goes off"?
Ummm, I know:
1 - Smartass grammar geek figures it's safe to stick his finger in the socket.
2 - Power comes back on.
3 - Clock flashes "12:00-12:00-12:00"
4 - grammar geek says nothing.
I dunno, I think some of the porn that's out there probably *can* kill you. Sure looks painful, anyway.
Love is a beautiful thing, but it makes for some really ugly pictures.
Re:From Joel's blog
on
Joel On Software
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
It's funny, everybody thinks they know to vote for one guy or the other, and they'll somehow prevent software development (or car-building, or steelmaking) from moving overseas.
But did you ever stop to think about the laws that would be necessary, especially for software or services? And could they be effective? If I buy software from a guy in the Netherlands instead of Iowa, are they gonna bust me?
What if I hire an Asian coder I met on a BBS to work on a site? And what if I like the guy's work, and I want to use him to work on 20 more sites? And then he decides to hire first one helper, then another, and his company grows? At what point do I have to stop doing business with him?
How do you write a law like that without being incredibly ambiguous, or leave numerous loopholes, or ways to work around it (not to mention the paid-for loopholes, similarly pitched in the name of "job protection").
Folks have been promising protection from overseas competition since... well, forever. And it should be blessedly obvious by now that it just doesn't work. Trying to regulate software and services in that manner is a civil liberties nightmare.
Looks more like a list of the most IGNORED stories. And rightfully so.
I'm struck lately by how sad it is that the American left has slipped from the wonkishness of the Clinton adminsitration to shouting recycled Marxist polemics. From Robert Ruben, Ira Magaziner, and Lani Guinier to facile rants from the likes of Michael Moore, and the incisive wisdom of rich actresses.
If anybody wonders why the country is turning to the right, perhaps the answer lies on the left.
Well, according to the eWeek article, it may or may not be tomorrow, it may or may not be related to cyber-terrorism, it may or may not happen at all, and it may or may not be simply an excuse for a security company to get some free publicity. Other than that, I think the report was as clear as possible.
I may or may not go harden my servers in preparation.
I recall a quote by one of them that went, "I hate conservatives. But I really fucking hate liberals."
Seems to jive precisely with what I see on South Park, and what I see in the trailer. Some on the right complain about the language and such, but most conservative pundits seem to like the show's message.
That's so stupid, it doesn't merit a reply, except to point it out.
Amazingly, Slashdot was once a place where intelligent people could discuss some issues, it was pretty evenly split between the left-leaning and more libertarian ideologies.
Now, it's simply a gathering spot for people who believe such nonsense as the notion that Israel, a tiny nation that can barely protect itself, is somehow secretly running the United States. There's always been an element of "Whee, I'm smart because I regurgitate political propaganda". But now it's the norm.
It's been a couple of years since I've heard anything thought-provoking from those who disagree with me. Now it's all sloganeering.
Yeah, right. Problem is, this started five years before the Patriot Act. It's fascinating how so many otherwise intelligent people simply shout "Patriot Act" as if it were actually a watershed infringement on civil liberties thought up by Bush and Ashcroft. But it's just another bipartisan slip down the slippery slope. Reason has an interesting piece:
http://www.reason.com/hod/jb072604.shtml
Which reminds us that Kerry used the Patriot Act to enact numerous anti-privacy banking provisions that had failed a few years earlier. It also notes that Kerry was an advocate of encrytption export restrictions, while John Ashcroft and the ACLU led the fight against them. How quickly we forget.
Those who think that electing Kerry will usher in a new era of freedom are fooling themselves... it will continue to get worse, not better. Unfortunately, the level of political debate in the US has sunk to the level of totemism, so a lot of people will uncritically accept the notion that the Dems are somehow better on civil rights than Repubs. Only difference I can see is that the Dems are better at hiding what they do.
Saw a bumper sticker this weekend that said, "Two parties, zero choice, vote Libertarian." Not sure there's any value in casting my vote that way, but geez, it's getting ridiculous how the two parties are more similar than ever. Yet each continues to paint the other as the second coming of of totalitarianism, while supporting the same policies. Worse, people still fall for it.
If the stupid people are in power, you get Nazism. If the smart people are in power, you get Communism. If nobody's in power, you get America.
Well, of course, one issue is that as women go into technology, most become drab dreary nerds just like us. Eventually, you'd reach a point where there wouldn't be enough remaining wild women to maintain the porn supply.
No foolin'. And since computers get cheaper every year, that particular "divide" will be bridged fastest by simply waiting.
A more real division, though, is between people who know how to effectively use computers and people who don't. But it's not an economic issue. I can think of only two ways to solve it... make computers easier to use, or make people smarter. The former, though difficult and elusive, is a much better bet than the latter.
At the same time, being unable to use computers doesn't seem to be an obstacle to prosperity or happiness. In fact, it doesn't even seem to disqualify you from becoming CIO.
Those problems weren't so much a quirk of AT&T so much as the result of regulation. I mean, I'm sure AT&T lobbied for those rules, but Congress and regulators bit on it, the blame deserves to be shared.
The irony of that whole situation was that AT&T was a monopoly by law, but that it was broken up while leaving the enabling laws in place... so instead of one big monopoly, we had a handful of smaller ones. Worse, the distinction between "local" and "long-distance" calling was always an arbitrary one... government tried to structure the industry to fit their regulatory tariff scheme. Should anybody be surprised that it didn't work?
AT&T's problems seems to be that it was built for the regulatory age. When it tried to compete in the newer, less-regulated markets, it was just another player, not as hungry as the newcomers, and burdened with old business that it had to protect.
PBS Feels Thrill Of Screaming "Censorship," gains free publicity for lame cop show.
Re:You are missing the point
on
Why I.T. Matters
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
IT is important to FedEx and UPS, but few people will choose one or the other based on technology. More likely, some other factor will be more important.... lowest price, who has the nearest dropff, which one screwed up on you.
Likewise, technology doesn't give either one a cost advantage over the other, they're both pretty equal.
Five or ten years ago, things were evolving so quickly that a company that was year ahead of the curve had a huge advantage over a company that was a year behind the curve. Now, in most (but not all) industries, technology has evolved to the point where all companies in a certain industry are on roughly equal footing. In that sense, the original "IT Doesn't Matter" article is spot on. Of course, IT does still matter, but you now have to be a lot more selective and realistic about the returns.
You can already find out a lot of that stuff through a county property appraiser's web site. Many now include GIS links to aerial photos of the properties. While recently house-shopping, I was able to view amazing details about a house even before I went and saw it... one family had a trampoline, you could see the roof was replaced between one year and the next, all kinds of interesting stuff.
Of concern to me was that they also include links to all the public title documents, some of which included social security numbers, at least on some of the records that I browsed through.
Slashdot Mirror
Too bad nobody found an exploit in OpenBSD. Then Theo and djb could have a huge public slugfest over who was right. Theo could piss on qmail, and djb could piss on... I dunno, he'd find something. Battle Of The Outsized Egos, Now Playing On Slashdot!
Wireless TV isn't exactly a cutting-edge innovation anyway. In the beginning, all TV was wireless. Then we got cable, which cost more, but it was supposed to be better. Now we're gonna pay even more to go back to wireless.
What's next, cable cell phones?
Flawed doesn't begin to describe it. From the article:
"by using sophisticated climate models and new statistical techniques, this study has been able to separate the human factors from natural ones."
THERE ARE NO SOPHISTICATED CLIMATE MODELS. The climate is far too complicated for such simple generalizations. Real climatologists understand this.
The ability to "separate the human factors from natural ones" does not exist. "New statistical techniques" don't just appear like new flavors of Pop-Tarts.
The ability to suck in journalists seeking scary headlines, though, has been perfected.
Of course, nowhere in the article does it mention any thermodynamic principle by which this is supposed to have occured, another red flag for scientific inquiry. As a matter of fact, if you surf around the web and try to find the thermodynamic principle by which man is supposedly warming the planet, you won't find it. You'll see some "scientists" compare it to a blanket, others who say it has to do with refraction and reflection, others say it has something to do with transparency to UV vs infrared light. One thing you won't find is a consistent thermodynamic theory about what supposedly causes global warming. But you'll see a lot of statistical studies, all of which seem to use the "baseline year" trick to skew the results.
Y'know what sucks? Having to tell your father to be more careful about visiting porn sites.
Well, yeah, that damned magic bullshit really is correct. Learning this was a transformational experience for me.
Back around the time of the Oliver Stone movie, I was out of work, and got intrigued by the publicity, so I set out to see if I could figure out what the answer was. I still had access to my old university library, and they had a fantastic collection of literature, including the full Warren Commission report including exhibits, and most of the consiracy books. I also had a friend who was helpful in understanding the ballistics issues.
I started out thinking I'd find the gunman in the bushes in some grainy 8mm film. Most amazing to me was how incredibly disingenuous most of the consiracy writers were. There was that one writer (Lifton?) who claimed there had been 63 (or whatever) witnesses who said the shots came from the front. Thanks to the library, I was able to read the old Ramparts article in which he enumerated them, and compare his claims to the actual testimony. It was amazing, some of the witnesses weren't there, some said different things than he claimed they had (the magic of the elipsis). What it boiled down to was maybe a handful of people who actually claimed to have heard shots from the grassy knoll, and none of them were reliable witnesses.
The ballistic evidence is even more interesting, when one realizes that a "pristine" bullet means one thing in ballistic terms and another thing in conspiracy theories. The much-hyped drawings showing the bullet zig-zagging are completely arbitrary, having originated in a book by Groden, and based on absolutely no recreation.
If somebody wants a real intellectual quest, you can solve this for yourself by spending a few weeks doing some truly open-minded research... at a library, not on the Internet. The real value will be not in learning whodunnit, but in learning how to evaluate loosely thrown around claims that you hear on TV.
What do you think happens here, "after the power goes off"?
Ummm, I know:
1 - Smartass grammar geek figures it's safe to stick his finger in the socket.
2 - Power comes back on.
3 - Clock flashes "12:00-12:00-12:00"
4 - grammar geek says nothing.
That's all well and good, but I'll bet it still flashes "12:00-12:00-12:00" after the power goes off.
I dunno, I think some of the porn that's out there probably *can* kill you. Sure looks painful, anyway.
Love is a beautiful thing, but it makes for some really ugly pictures.
It's funny, everybody thinks they know to vote for one guy or the other, and they'll somehow prevent software development (or car-building, or steelmaking) from moving overseas.
But did you ever stop to think about the laws that would be necessary, especially for software or services? And could they be effective? If I buy software from a guy in the Netherlands instead of Iowa, are they gonna bust me?
What if I hire an Asian coder I met on a BBS to work on a site? And what if I like the guy's work, and I want to use him to work on 20 more sites? And then he decides to hire first one helper, then another, and his company grows? At what point do I have to stop doing business with him?
How do you write a law like that without being incredibly ambiguous, or leave numerous loopholes, or ways to work around it (not to mention the paid-for loopholes, similarly pitched in the name of "job protection").
Folks have been promising protection from overseas competition since... well, forever. And it should be blessedly obvious by now that it just doesn't work. Trying to regulate software and services in that manner is a civil liberties nightmare.
Let me see if I understand this right. This anonymous woman is complaining that her husband is "working late at the office" too much?
I mean, just becasue she believes him doesn't mean we have to.
And you thought your COMPUTER crashes were annoying.
Holy cow! Microsoft is going to start using agressive tactics? How will we ever survive?
For those old enough to remember Firesign Theater, yet immature enough to read /. (which apparently includes me):
"Antelope Freewway, 1/2 mile"
"Antelope Freewway, 1/4 mile"
"Antelope Freewway, 1/8 mile"
"Antelope Freewway, 1/16 mile"
"Antelope Freewway, 1/32 mile"
etc...
Looks more like a list of the most IGNORED stories. And rightfully so.
I'm struck lately by how sad it is that the American left has slipped from the wonkishness of the Clinton adminsitration to shouting recycled Marxist polemics. From Robert Ruben, Ira Magaziner, and Lani Guinier to facile rants from the likes of Michael Moore, and the incisive wisdom of rich actresses.
If anybody wonders why the country is turning to the right, perhaps the answer lies on the left.
Well, according to the eWeek article, it may or may not be tomorrow, it may or may not be related to cyber-terrorism, it may or may not happen at all, and it may or may not be simply an excuse for a security company to get some free publicity. Other than that, I think the report was as clear as possible.
I may or may not go harden my servers in preparation.
I recall a quote by one of them that went, "I hate conservatives. But I really fucking hate liberals."
Seems to jive precisely with what I see on South Park, and what I see in the trailer. Some on the right complain about the language and such, but most conservative pundits seem to like the show's message.
That's so stupid, it doesn't merit a reply, except to point it out.
Amazingly, Slashdot was once a place where intelligent people could discuss some issues, it was pretty evenly split between the left-leaning and more libertarian ideologies.
Now, it's simply a gathering spot for people who believe such nonsense as the notion that Israel, a tiny nation that can barely protect itself, is somehow secretly running the United States. There's always been an element of "Whee, I'm smart because I regurgitate political propaganda". But now it's the norm.
It's been a couple of years since I've heard anything thought-provoking from those who disagree with me. Now it's all sloganeering.
Yeah, right. Problem is, this started five years before the Patriot Act. It's fascinating how so many otherwise intelligent people simply shout "Patriot Act" as if it were actually a watershed infringement on civil liberties thought up by Bush and Ashcroft. But it's just another bipartisan slip down the slippery slope. Reason has an interesting piece:
http://www.reason.com/hod/jb072604.shtml
Which reminds us that Kerry used the Patriot Act to enact numerous anti-privacy banking provisions that had failed a few years earlier. It also notes that Kerry was an advocate of encrytption export restrictions, while John Ashcroft and the ACLU led the fight against them. How quickly we forget.
Those who think that electing Kerry will usher in a new era of freedom are fooling themselves... it will continue to get worse, not better. Unfortunately, the level of political debate in the US has sunk to the level of totemism, so a lot of people will uncritically accept the notion that the Dems are somehow better on civil rights than Repubs. Only difference I can see is that the Dems are better at hiding what they do.
Saw a bumper sticker this weekend that said, "Two parties, zero choice, vote Libertarian." Not sure there's any value in casting my vote that way, but geez, it's getting ridiculous how the two parties are more similar than ever. Yet each continues to paint the other as the second coming of of totalitarianism, while supporting the same policies. Worse, people still fall for it.
If the stupid people are in power, you get Nazism.
If the smart people are in power, you get Communism.
If nobody's in power, you get America.
I know which I prefer.
It wasn't so much a personal reference as a lament.
Well, of course, one issue is that as women go into technology, most become drab dreary nerds just like us. Eventually, you'd reach a point where there wouldn't be enough remaining wild women to maintain the porn supply.
No foolin'. And since computers get cheaper every year, that particular "divide" will be bridged fastest by simply waiting.
A more real division, though, is between people who know how to effectively use computers and people who don't. But it's not an economic issue. I can think of only two ways to solve it... make computers easier to use, or make people smarter. The former, though difficult and elusive, is a much better bet than the latter.
At the same time, being unable to use computers doesn't seem to be an obstacle to prosperity or happiness. In fact, it doesn't even seem to disqualify you from becoming CIO.
Those problems weren't so much a quirk of AT&T so much as the result of regulation. I mean, I'm sure AT&T lobbied for those rules, but Congress and regulators bit on it, the blame deserves to be shared.
The irony of that whole situation was that AT&T was a monopoly by law, but that it was broken up while leaving the enabling laws in place... so instead of one big monopoly, we had a handful of smaller ones. Worse, the distinction between "local" and "long-distance" calling was always an arbitrary one... government tried to structure the industry to fit their regulatory tariff scheme. Should anybody be surprised that it didn't work?
AT&T's problems seems to be that it was built for the regulatory age. When it tried to compete in the newer, less-regulated markets, it was just another player, not as hungry as the newcomers, and burdened with old business that it had to protect.
PBS Feels Thrill Of Screaming "Censorship," gains free publicity for lame cop show.
IT is important to FedEx and UPS, but few people will choose one or the other based on technology. More likely, some other factor will be more important.... lowest price, who has the nearest dropff, which one screwed up on you.
Likewise, technology doesn't give either one a cost advantage over the other, they're both pretty equal.
Five or ten years ago, things were evolving so quickly that a company that was year ahead of the curve had a huge advantage over a company that was a year behind the curve. Now, in most (but not all) industries, technology has evolved to the point where all companies in a certain industry are on roughly equal footing. In that sense, the original "IT Doesn't Matter" article is spot on. Of course, IT does still matter, but you now have to be a lot more selective and realistic about the returns.
You can already find out a lot of that stuff through a county property appraiser's web site. Many now include GIS links to aerial photos of the properties. While recently house-shopping, I was able to view amazing details about a house even before I went and saw it... one family had a trampoline, you could see the roof was replaced between one year and the next, all kinds of interesting stuff.
Of concern to me was that they also include links to all the public title documents, some of which included social security numbers, at least on some of the records that I browsed through.