"Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens," which means "Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain." (Talbot, in: The Maid of Orleans (German: Die Jungfrau von Orleans), a tragedy by Friedrich Schille
Some extensions (*cough*Selenium) are REQUIRED for my work. I've had to drop several extensions as the 3->4->5 steamroller moves on. Until Mozilla either takes over extension compatibility maintenance or sets up a compatibility API that will be stable from release to release, Firefox will definitely start losing market share.
In any company, there's always somebody who has the "Sanity Token" and is therefore actually *thinking* about the consequences. Apparently a party or parties unknown in corporate finally realized that sodomizing your developer community is a massively suboptimal long-term strategy.
To quote from the posting: As more customers load their smartphones with debit, credit and loyalty card information, more stores will adopt streamlined checkout technology.
Does anybody else wonder how all that wonderful identity thief fodder will be protected, either from phone theft or loss, or police sucking all the data out of the phone just for the hell of it?
Big deal. Our own government policies have sent millions of JOBS to China, and mostly all we get is cheap crud to fill our garages. I have to admire the enterprise of the scam, though, bypassing the middleman and going straight for cash.
2. New disks with "improved" content controls regularly break players.
3. Unless you've got a huge home theater the "on-screen" benefits are marginal at best. And home theater screens are NOT cheap.
4. More and more extraneous crud on the disks. e.g. forced trailers
5. DVD rentals are still available, and unless it's a hugely great movie *cough* Pixar *cough*, it's just not worth BUYING the content, since, with few exceptions, most movies are see-once, if they're worth watching at all.
Or suggest substitute phrases that are statistically much more likely to be used. You can sound like any average idiot and nobody will be able to tell it's you.:)
In any event, the same techniques, available in open literature, can be used to build a "Free Speech Anonymizer" package which would take and analyze a sample of your emails and then analyze a new one, looking for the patterns you've used in the past and suggesting changes to avoid them. Sort of a spell/grammar-check-in-reverse.
"substantial risk of creating unfair trading, if used by the wrong people"
Of course, Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street trading houses regularly front-run client orders, delaying them a bit while they get in ahead of the wave. They're still regarded as "the right people" to run our financial system.
Thank you. I've always thought the transistor was invented in 49. Still, there weren't too many of them even in 1949. Early manufacturing techniques were a bitch to implement.
Again, science fiction got there first: Vernor Vinge's "Rainbow's End" was published in 2006:
Wearable computers, what a concept. IBM PC meets Epiphany-brand high-fashion. In fact, Robert might have mistaken his new wardrobe for ordinary clothes. True, the shirts and pants were not a style he favored. There were embroidered patterns both inside and out. But the embroidery was more noticeable to the touch than the eye; Juan Orozco had to show him special views to reveal the net of microprocessors and lasers. The main problem was the damn contact lenses. He had to put them on every morning and then wear them all day. There were constant twinkles and flashes in his eyes. But with practice, he got control of that. He felt a moment of pure joy the first time he managed to type a query on a phantom keyboard and view the Google response floating in the air before him. . . . There was a feeling of power in being able to draw answers out of thin air.
I'm pretty sure Brown made up the word "quirtled" to describe some activity that would have been incomprehensible to readers in 1954 but taken for granted in the future.
Two memorable modern examples: "slashdotted," and one of the episodes in season seven of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" where Willow announces "I've googled and googled, until I can't google no more."
Willow's line (Google was officially founded the same year the series started) simply could not have been comprehended by a general audience in the first season, and was taken for granted by all as funny and informative by the seventh.
You are clearly inexperienced, young Jedi. You have yet to know the joys of your (under warranty) computer breaking down on Christmas, or your network connection going dead because some idiot dug up the network cable, or...
Robert A. Heinlein, in his 1950 essay "Where to?" mentioned as a law of nature that a nine-day wonder is taken as a matter of course on the tenth day, and Frederic Brown, in his 1954 story "Preposterous" told of a man who lives in a future so advanced even we haven't gotten there, and that man took for granted things like the "Fourth Martian War" and the "Immortality Center" who ridiculed science fiction and at the end of the story, "he quirtled."
Consider this: I was born in 1949, the year the transistor was invented. A few years ago, I realized I had on my person 1. a cell phone. 2. A PalmPilot and 3: a 60Gigabyte iPod. I suddenly realized that all of that represented more transistors, more raw digital storage, and more raw computer processing power put together than existed on all Earth the year I was born, and probably for several years after that.
What surprised me wasn't that I took these items for granted, but that, essentially, I was wearing them as part of my clothing.
5-10 years is wildly optimistic. The studios tried 3D in the fifties. It bombed. They tried again (Jaws 3D) it bombed. "Avatar" is a rare outlier, it's still bombing and the latest version of 3D includes a free migraine included for a premium price.
Believe me, if they applied "three strikes" to the studios, they'd be getting "cease and desist all commerce" orders.
UPDATE 20.09.2010 First of all, we apologize everyone for the whole situation and closing GOG.com. We do understand the timing for taking down the site caused confusion and many users didn't manage to download all their games. Unfortunately we had to close the service due to business and technical reasons.
At the same time we guarantee that every user who bought any game on GOG.com will be able to download all their games with bonus materials, DRM-free and as many times as they need starting this Thursday.
The official statement from GOG.com's management concerning the ongoing events is planned on Wednesday. If you want to receive further information about GOG.com, please send an email to update_media@gog.com if you're a media representative or to update_users@gog.com if you're a user without a GOG account.
Slashdot Mirror
"Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens," which means "Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain." (Talbot, in: The Maid of Orleans (German: Die Jungfrau von Orleans), a tragedy by Friedrich Schille
There has got to be an idea for a game in there somewhere.
Some extensions (*cough*Selenium) are REQUIRED for my work. I've had to drop several extensions as the 3->4->5 steamroller moves on. Until Mozilla either takes over extension compatibility maintenance or sets up a compatibility API that will be stable from release to release, Firefox will definitely start losing market share.
In any company, there's always somebody who has the "Sanity Token" and is
therefore actually *thinking* about the consequences. Apparently a party or parties
unknown in corporate finally realized that sodomizing your developer community
is a massively suboptimal long-term strategy.
To quote from the posting: As more customers load their smartphones with debit, credit and loyalty card information, more stores will adopt streamlined checkout technology.
Does anybody else wonder how all that wonderful identity thief fodder will be protected, either from phone theft or loss, or police sucking all the data out of the phone just for the hell of it?
Big deal. Our own government policies have sent millions of JOBS to China, and mostly all we get is cheap crud to fill our garages. I have to admire the enterprise of the scam, though, bypassing the middleman and going straight for cash.
Benefits? What benefits?
1. Disks cost almost twice as much.
2. New disks with "improved" content controls regularly break players.
3. Unless you've got a huge home theater the "on-screen" benefits are marginal at best. And home theater screens are NOT cheap.
4. More and more extraneous crud on the disks. e.g. forced trailers
5. DVD rentals are still available, and unless it's a hugely great movie *cough* Pixar *cough*, it's just not worth BUYING the content,
since, with few exceptions, most movies are see-once, if they're worth watching at all.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle killed off Sherlock Holmes at Reichenbach Falls but later "resurrected" him in response to audience pressure.
(just sayin)
Or suggest substitute phrases that are statistically much more likely to be used. You can sound like any average idiot and nobody will be able to tell it's you. :)
In any event, the same techniques, available in open literature, can be used to build a
"Free Speech Anonymizer" package which would take and analyze a sample of your
emails and then analyze a new one, looking for the patterns you've used in the past
and suggesting changes to avoid them. Sort of a spell/grammar-check-in-reverse.
Ain't that right, Floyd?
If that's the case, it's time to get the hell off the planet/outta Dodge.
Quoting from the article:
"substantial risk of creating unfair trading, if used by the wrong people"
Of course, Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street trading houses regularly front-run client orders, delaying them a bit
while they get in ahead of the wave. They're still regarded as "the right people" to run our financial system.
Thank you. I've always thought the transistor was invented in 49. Still, there weren't too many of them even in 1949. Early manufacturing techniques were a bitch to implement.
Inconvenient? I can read information on my Palm while I'm talking to my wife at the same time. Where's your iPhone the noo?
Again, science fiction got there first: Vernor Vinge's "Rainbow's End" was published in 2006:
I'm pretty sure Brown made up the word "quirtled" to describe some activity that would have been incomprehensible to readers in 1954 but taken for granted in the future.
Two memorable modern examples: "slashdotted," and one of the episodes in season seven of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" where Willow announces "I've googled and googled, until I can't google no more."
Willow's line (Google was officially founded the same year the series started) simply could not have been comprehended by a general audience in the first season, and was taken for granted by all as funny and informative by the seventh.
You're saying hardware can break?
dont you have a warranty and a cloud for that?
You are clearly inexperienced, young Jedi. You have yet to know the joys of your (under warranty) computer breaking down on Christmas, or your network connection going dead because some idiot dug up the network cable, or...
Remember, the Demon Murphy never sleeps.
And if ONE of them breaks, ALL of them are broken.
There's a saying, youngster, that dates from long before either of us was born. Something about eggs and baskets.
At the very least, if my Palm breaks, I can phone my wife and ask her to bring me my backup unit.
If the phone breaks, I've got my wife's numbers in my Palm and can borrow somebody's phone for a quick call.
And I gave up on the iPod because the hard drive kept dying.
Robert A. Heinlein, in his 1950 essay "Where to?" mentioned as a law of nature that a nine-day wonder is taken as a matter of course on the tenth day, and Frederic Brown, in his 1954 story "Preposterous" told of a man who lives in a future so advanced even we haven't gotten there, and that man took for granted things like the "Fourth Martian War" and the "Immortality Center" who ridiculed science fiction and at the end of the story, "he quirtled."
Consider this: I was born in 1949, the year the transistor was invented. A few years ago, I realized I had on my person 1. a cell phone. 2. A PalmPilot and 3: a 60Gigabyte iPod. I suddenly realized that all of that represented more transistors, more raw digital storage, and more raw computer processing power put together than existed on all Earth the year I was born, and probably for several years after that.
What surprised me wasn't that I took these items for granted, but that, essentially, I was wearing them as part of my clothing.
As has been noted elsewhere, a number of the sites seized were, in fact, quite legitimate ones.
Bypassing due process is quick and cheap in the (very) short term, but an expensive disaster over the long haul.
Home taping is killing ATMs.
5-10 years is wildly optimistic. The studios tried 3D in the fifties. It bombed. They tried again (Jaws 3D) it bombed. "Avatar" is a rare outlier, it's still bombing and the latest version of 3D includes a free migraine included for a premium price.
Believe me, if they applied "three strikes" to the studios, they'd be getting "cease and desist all commerce" orders.
Yeah, you get to re-see a really cruddy movie in 3D, but at least they'll throw in the usual free migraine!
Here's the text:
UPDATE 20.09.2010
First of all, we apologize everyone for the whole situation and closing GOG.com. We do understand the timing for taking down the site caused confusion and many users didn't manage to download all their games. Unfortunately we had to close the service due to business and technical reasons.
At the same time we guarantee that every user who bought any game on GOG.com will be able to download all their games with bonus materials, DRM-free and as many times as they need starting this Thursday.
The official statement from GOG.com's management concerning the ongoing events is planned on Wednesday. If you want to receive further information about GOG.com, please send an email to update_media@gog.com if you're a media representative or to update_users@gog.com if you're a user without a GOG account.