And that's precisely what happens with android apps, for the most part (see other messages in this thread for known bugs with older APIs). An android application is bundled with a manifest file that provides all sorts of information about the package. The developer of an app must specify in the manifest file what permissions it is requesting for the various activities and applications provided by the package.
When a user installs the android app from the market, they are presented with a list of the operations the app may need permission to do. In initial versions of the API, the permissions list was pretty coarse, but later APIs have added much finer grained control.
So, as a user, if a desktop background application tells me that it needs read/write access to my contacts, the ability to access the internet, read/write access to my SD card storage, GPS device access, then my first question is: why does it need access to my contacts and to my GPS? It doesn't seem reasonable, so I don't install it.
This system doesn't 100% protect users from a malicious application sending personal data back to a database somewhere, but it does allow them to know what an application is capable of and make semi-informed decisions.
And after years of using that Microsoft Borg logo we really need an Apple Borg logo as well.
I think an Apple Lemming logo would be more appropriate. The Borg assimilated people by force - people didn't really want to become borg. Many people don't really want to use microsoft products, but must due to various factors, such as work.
On the other hand, people who use Apple products generally do so because they want to use Apple products, even if they're slowly assimilating into a computing culture that they would have abhorred had it come from Microsoft.
There's some broad brushing going on here, but I think my point is relatively clear.
Skill in statistics is essential. CS curriculums tend to have heavy Calc, Discrete Math, and Logic components. Statistics is usually relegated to a small component of the math requirements, poorly taught, and poorly understood. If I had my way, Statistics would be weighted as much as calculus in terms of importance.
I use it for two purposes mainly. (1) To refresh my memory on a subject I've not touched in a while, (2) As a jump off point for an area of research I'm unfamiliar with. As long as you realize that you need to cross-check the wikipedia article, you should be fine.
11 years ago, when I started doing research, breaking into a new field was a bit more work. Instead of being able to look up high-level overviews via wikipedia, I'd spend a lot of time trawling publications looking for possibly relevant articles. I'd read the articles - often not having a clue what was going on because I lacked sufficient background knowledge - grab a few more seemingly relevant references, and repeat. Occasionally, I'd hit upon a survey paper, and would be able to find all the seminal works in the bibliography, but survey papers are not constantly coming out, and much of the time it was hunt and peck. Building up a good overview of the particular field could take a long time. Wikipedia has made the process much faster.
I recently needed to look up some information about some different performance measures. I was unfamiliar with what would be applicable to my problem, so I did some poking around on wikipedia, found the overviews, and then went to the library to look up the primary sources. I spent a bit of time verifying that the wikipedia article was accurate and gaining deeper insight into the measures, and went along my merry way.
I would never, on the other hand, cite wikipedia in my research papers - it's not a primary source and it can be edited by everyone.
Re:And yet they do nothing to discourage the car
on
The Fresca Rebellion
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· Score: 1
"First, I agree with you in spirit... I fully believe that the US having such poor pedestrian and cycling accommodations largely ties in with the current obesity epidemic (though I would point out that the latter doesn't exist solely as a US phenomenon).
That said, you have to understand that American cyclists, for the most part, ride like complete assholes."
Sorry, this is true no matter what form of transportation is being used. I've commuted to work by walking, biking, public transportation, and car. And the mode of transportation rarely matters - people do not pay attention to what they're doing and they cause headaches for those of us who do. If they're walking, they're blocking traffic, crossing roads when the light is red, or when there is not cross walk. If they're biking, they're running red lights, speeding down side walks (I had one blow around a corner at 15 miles per hour and crash into me when I was jogging), or going the wrong way down the few bike paths that are available. If you're on public transportation, then folks block the doors, shove people into the train, and don't allow people to exit. And if they're driving, they don't yield to pedestrians in crosswalks, don't use their turn signals, don't merge until the last minute, go 45 in a 65 zone, tailgate at 80mph, all while talking on their cell phone.
Your last statement is more accurate as, "That said, you have to understand the American commuters, for the most part, travel like complete assholes."
implies that it destroyed all life on the planet (the "life it was sent to find"). Instead, it sounds like its life detector merely destroys signs of life in the samples it's testing.
The misleading, screaming headline keeps Slashdot's servers warm.
How about going to Amazon (they have a website) and looking for yourself? Andrew Sullivan's book, Virtually Normal, which is NOT erotica or adult themed has no ranking.
Nothing he said contradicts the new TOS and his post generally boils down to: "trust us not to enforce the plain language of the TOS."
That's how I read it too.
What I do not understand is, if that is truly the position of the company, why they don't write it into the TOS? There's all sorts of language in there detailing the precise ways in which Facebook plans to give their users a swift rogering, why not spell out what facebook will not do as well?
The only explanation that would make sense is that doing so ties their hands for using your data... unless they decide to arbitrarily force everyone to agree to a new TOS again.
So why does it seem, to me, that these nursing mothers feel they have a right to change facebook's policies? This isn't a public venue where the debate is an interesting one. This is facebook's business policies -- so isn't it over-stepping the bounds to insist on such a change? Are these nursing mothers even share-holders?
They don't have a right to change facebook's policies, but they do have a right to protest those policies in an effort to get them to change their policies. Facebook can can choose to ignore these protests at the risk of losing a chunk of business (nursing moms and those who support them enough to delete their account). Or they can change their TOS and risk losing another chunk of business (people offended by nursing moms).
My opinion is that facebook should loosen up, but they've drawn their line in the sand.
Now, the question is if public or consumer pressure will cause Facebook to change their policy.
I think it's interesting that what is normally a dry subject is generating so much public interest. I'm glad to see the American public sitting up and taking notice of important things for a change instead of just vegetating in front of reality TV and celebrity gossip while politicians try to take money out of the public's pockets to cover their own failure to properly regulate the finance industry. Maybe there's hope for American democracy yet.
Average people really sit up and take notice when they clearly perceive that their way of life is being threatened. If that's not happening, most people just go on about their lives without paying too much attention. That's why when people were warning about this stuff LONG before, it wasn't a big deal for the average person. Unable to meet mortgage payments? People said, "Well, that's not me and it's not most people, so why should I worry?" Now that stuff has gotten to the point where the average person is threatened, they're suddenly saying, "Wait, bailout? huh? wtf?"
And no, I'm not an economist or financial guy, so my explanation is simplistic and incomplete. But I don't think I'm too far off base.
Then again, the criticism of these emails is that Gov Palin mixed personal and government business by using a yahoo account.
Using the name gov.palin doesn't help either, because that indicates she intended to use the account for government business, which may very well have been a No-no. But I'm not knowledgeable on email regulations for government officials, so I can't definitively say.
Well, to be fair, the particular manual WikiLeaks posted was restricted on 5 DEC 2003 to Army personnel only. So, while it's not classified, it's not generally meant for public consumption. That doesn't mean you can't find it with a little searching.
What is currently available on Amazon's website is the Operational Techniques (link) Manual. This is more of a "what sf does" type of book. The WikiLeaks article links to a TTP which is like a "HOW TO" manual. And in reality, while it's no secret what SF or any other type of Army unit does, specific TTP are sensitive because they have pretty specific guidelines and checklists on how certain tasks are accomplished.
They're not classified, but they're also not something an Army unit would necessarily want widely distributed.
Oh, and for people complaining about the format of the manual - this is what Army manuals look like. They have lousy formatting, and it's pretty common to find typos and other errors.
WikiLeaks didn't really scoop anything, so it's not some sort of coup.
That's not really peer-review though. Because you have no way of establishing the credentials of people who feel the articles in Firehose are worthy of more wide-spread distribution. When an article for a journal gets peer-reviewed, it's usually by people who have published articles in a similar or the same field, and have some knowledge and understanding of the topic. When an article makes it into a prominent journal, it's generally because that article has something useful and true to say, according to other experts in the field.
That the/. nerds selected an under tested cold-fusion experiment to promote to the front page doesn't mean there's anything useful in that article. It just means they thought it was "neato-o."
Not really. It only shows one way that life and intelligence is possible. Even then, you get into that thorny little question of how you are definining intelligence.
Don't misconstrue me, I'm closer in belief to your thoughts on this. But it doesn't prove the big questions you're alluding to in your post. It simply brings us one step closer to showing that all the amazing properties of life are not dependent on some mystical, impossible to fully comprehend entity, but can be mechanistically created.
Even then, you'd have people claiming that these sorts of "artificial" creations have no genuine soul or self.
People are whining with the default detailed billing system, so whether or not to default to that system is a flip of the coin.
A little common sense would indicate that the default billing option should be an electronic version, with the option of requesting a hard copy of the detailed billing records. You'd still have people whining (there will always be people who complain), and there would be a positive environmental impact from the paper that was spared.
2. None, but my point was not about censoring email or blogs. It was in response to your statement that "It could happen to anyone who takes a long trip." "It" referring to rumor control and damages to family relations due to blogs. My point was that you will not find a job with the same kind of tension as the Army (or Marines, for that matter). You may spend a long time away from your family on an extended business trip, but you're not getting shot at or blown up. That changes the equation dramatically. I don't know how to articulate it well, but it's much different.
3. I take exception to any excuse for shitty conditions that begins with "You volunteered, so suck it up." It's been my experience that when someone uses that excuse, it means that someone screwed up and are unwilling to cop to it. Much better to say, "Yeah guys, this sucks, things got screwed up, but we have a mission to do, so let's get it done."
As to your last statement. I agree, I think it's a stupid policy.
I just got a bug up my arse about the "You volunteered." Sorry, wrong answer for me. If there's not a decent "Why?" for the situation, then I've got to seriously question the plan. I'm a pain in the ass when it comes to stupid and unnecessary sh!t. Which makes me real fun for staff officers.
I didn't realize that the army was charged with regulating greiving, affiars, and marriages...
No, but a commander IS responsible for the well-being of a soldier and his family. Problems at home affect a soldier's ability to function at their peak. Any good commander will help a soldier out who is struggling.
As for grieving... yes, that is a commander's responsibility. Ever watch or read "We were soldiers once...and young"? The taxis showing up with telegrams announcing the death of their husbands. The military wants to avoid that from happening again. That's hard to do with blogs and email.
I can attest to the damage that lack of rumor control can do to soldiers and their families back home. It's not pretty. A number of my soldiers' marriages ended due to rumors not controlled by their previous commander.
And while soldiers on leave have problems in these areas, so does anyone who may need to travel for extended periods to work.
Name me one other job in the world that requires an unspecified length of absence from home, 24/7 duty hours, with a high probability of permanent harm or death.
It is a volunteer army.
That means we should expect to get sh!t on? We joined to serve the country, not to be treated like animals. Your attitude is part of the reason for compulsory service. Everyone gets a taste of what it is like to serve and everyone has a "dog in the fight" so to speak.
Peter becomes a REMF and pushes paper, not getting the soldier the resources needed to do the soldier's job on time, in the correct quantity, or even the right supplies.
REMF is an outdated term - unless you're talking about Kuwait. Then you have a point. The preferred nomenclature is "Fobbit"
Joking aside, some of that support is neccessary. A commander does need a staff. Granted, most staff are powerpoint bitches (a reason to detest microsoft), but good staff understand that the important thing isn't the slide. It's the analysis of the information. You don't get good intel or civil analysis, and you get dead soldiers and unhappy local nationals. A commander has way too much to attend to do that analysis himself.
Slashdot Mirror
No mod points available, so you'll just have to get a "Good job!" instead.
And that's precisely what happens with android apps, for the most part (see other messages in this thread for known bugs with older APIs). An android application is bundled with a manifest file that provides all sorts of information about the package. The developer of an app must specify in the manifest file what permissions it is requesting for the various activities and applications provided by the package.
When a user installs the android app from the market, they are presented with a list of the operations the app may need permission to do. In initial versions of the API, the permissions list was pretty coarse, but later APIs have added much finer grained control.
So, as a user, if a desktop background application tells me that it needs read/write access to my contacts, the ability to access the internet, read/write access to my SD card storage, GPS device access, then my first question is: why does it need access to my contacts and to my GPS? It doesn't seem reasonable, so I don't install it.
This system doesn't 100% protect users from a malicious application sending personal data back to a database somewhere, but it does allow them to know what an application is capable of and make semi-informed decisions.
I think an Apple Lemming logo would be more appropriate. The Borg assimilated people by force - people didn't really want to become borg. Many people don't really want to use microsoft products, but must due to various factors, such as work.
On the other hand, people who use Apple products generally do so because they want to use Apple products, even if they're slowly assimilating into a computing culture that they would have abhorred had it come from Microsoft.
There's some broad brushing going on here, but I think my point is relatively clear.
Skill in statistics is essential. CS curriculums tend to have heavy Calc, Discrete Math, and Logic components. Statistics is usually relegated to a small component of the math requirements, poorly taught, and poorly understood. If I had my way, Statistics would be weighted as much as calculus in terms of importance.
I use it for two purposes mainly. (1) To refresh my memory on a subject I've not touched in a while, (2) As a jump off point for an area of research I'm unfamiliar with. As long as you realize that you need to cross-check the wikipedia article, you should be fine.
11 years ago, when I started doing research, breaking into a new field was a bit more work. Instead of being able to look up high-level overviews via wikipedia, I'd spend a lot of time trawling publications looking for possibly relevant articles. I'd read the articles - often not having a clue what was going on because I lacked sufficient background knowledge - grab a few more seemingly relevant references, and repeat. Occasionally, I'd hit upon a survey paper, and would be able to find all the seminal works in the bibliography, but survey papers are not constantly coming out, and much of the time it was hunt and peck. Building up a good overview of the particular field could take a long time. Wikipedia has made the process much faster.
I recently needed to look up some information about some different performance measures. I was unfamiliar with what would be applicable to my problem, so I did some poking around on wikipedia, found the overviews, and then went to the library to look up the primary sources. I spent a bit of time verifying that the wikipedia article was accurate and gaining deeper insight into the measures, and went along my merry way.
I would never, on the other hand, cite wikipedia in my research papers - it's not a primary source and it can be edited by everyone.
"First, I agree with you in spirit... I fully believe that the US having such poor pedestrian and cycling accommodations largely ties in with the current obesity epidemic (though I would point out that the latter doesn't exist solely as a US phenomenon).
That said, you have to understand that American cyclists, for the most part, ride like complete assholes."
Sorry, this is true no matter what form of transportation is being used. I've commuted to work by walking, biking, public transportation, and car. And the mode of transportation rarely matters - people do not pay attention to what they're doing and they cause headaches for those of us who do. If they're walking, they're blocking traffic, crossing roads when the light is red, or when there is not cross walk. If they're biking, they're running red lights, speeding down side walks (I had one blow around a corner at 15 miles per hour and crash into me when I was jogging), or going the wrong way down the few bike paths that are available. If you're on public transportation, then folks block the doors, shove people into the train, and don't allow people to exit. And if they're driving, they don't yield to pedestrians in crosswalks, don't use their turn signals, don't merge until the last minute, go 45 in a 65 zone, tailgate at 80mph, all while talking on their cell phone.
Your last statement is more accurate as, "That said, you have to understand the American commuters, for the most part, travel like complete assholes."
Indeed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QDv4sYwjO0
The misleading, screaming headline keeps Slashdot's servers warm.
How about going to Amazon (they have a website) and looking for yourself? Andrew Sullivan's book, Virtually Normal, which is NOT erotica or adult themed has no ranking.
Same for Same-sex Marriage: A Pro and Con Reader. Which is, as the title suggests, a book concerning the arguments for and against gay marriage.
Same for Love Undetectable.
But his book The Conservative Soul: Fundamentalism, Freedom, and the Future of the Righ has a ranking, so the delisting is not targeting specific authors, but almost any title that isn't openly hostile to gays has been delisted.
Consider:
101 Frequently Asked Questions About Homosexuality. No sales rank.
What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality. No sales rank.
Homosexuality and Civilization. No sales rank.
When Homosexuality Hits Home: What to Do When a Loved One Says They're Gay. No sales rank.
Some more well-known books:
Conduct Unbecoming: Gays and Lesbians in the US Military. No sales rank. This is one of the definitive histories of gays and lesbians in the US military.
Don't Ask, Don't Tell: Debating the Gay Ban in the Military. No sales rank.
Major Conflict: One Gay Man's Life in the Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell Military. No sales rank.
Dont: A Readers Guide to the Militarys Anti-Gay Policy. No sales rank.
NONE of these have adult themes.
But it's not universal... for example:
A book such as A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality. Has a sales rank.
Can Homosexuality be Healed?. Has a sales rank.
You Don't Have to be Gay. Has a sales rank.
Now, perhaps there is a perfectly rational explanation, but looking at the evidence, I smell something funny.
That's how I read it too.
What I do not understand is, if that is truly the position of the company, why they don't write it into the TOS? There's all sorts of language in there detailing the precise ways in which Facebook plans to give their users a swift rogering, why not spell out what facebook will not do as well?
The only explanation that would make sense is that doing so ties their hands for using your data... unless they decide to arbitrarily force everyone to agree to a new TOS again.
Make sure their fingers are not crossed behind their back.
So why does it seem, to me, that these nursing mothers feel they have a right to change facebook's policies? This isn't a public venue where the debate is an interesting one. This is facebook's business policies -- so isn't it over-stepping the bounds to insist on such a change? Are these nursing mothers even share-holders?
They don't have a right to change facebook's policies, but they do have a right to protest those policies in an effort to get them to change their policies. Facebook can can choose to ignore these protests at the risk of losing a chunk of business (nursing moms and those who support them enough to delete their account). Or they can change their TOS and risk losing another chunk of business (people offended by nursing moms).
My opinion is that facebook should loosen up, but they've drawn their line in the sand.
Now, the question is if public or consumer pressure will cause Facebook to change their policy.
I think this is also called being well-balanced. Baldness is honestly not important.
Average people really sit up and take notice when they clearly perceive that their way of life is being threatened. If that's not happening, most people just go on about their lives without paying too much attention. That's why when people were warning about this stuff LONG before, it wasn't a big deal for the average person. Unable to meet mortgage payments? People said, "Well, that's not me and it's not most people, so why should I worry?" Now that stuff has gotten to the point where the average person is threatened, they're suddenly saying, "Wait, bailout? huh? wtf?" And no, I'm not an economist or financial guy, so my explanation is simplistic and incomplete. But I don't think I'm too far off base.
Not if they're a personal account.
Then again, the criticism of these emails is that Gov Palin mixed personal and government business by using a yahoo account.
Using the name gov.palin doesn't help either, because that indicates she intended to use the account for government business, which may very well have been a No-no. But I'm not knowledgeable on email regulations for government officials, so I can't definitively say.
The article says the authorities were responding to a fire on the second floor.
IANAL, but I think if they saw the chemicals in the course of responding to the fire, then the warrant is not needed.
Well, to be fair, the particular manual WikiLeaks posted was restricted on 5 DEC 2003 to Army personnel only. So, while it's not classified, it's not generally meant for public consumption. That doesn't mean you can't find it with a little searching.
What is currently available on Amazon's website is the Operational Techniques (link) Manual. This is more of a "what sf does" type of book. The WikiLeaks article links to a TTP which is like a "HOW TO" manual. And in reality, while it's no secret what SF or any other type of Army unit does, specific TTP are sensitive because they have pretty specific guidelines and checklists on how certain tasks are accomplished.
They're not classified, but they're also not something an Army unit would necessarily want widely distributed.
Oh, and for people complaining about the format of the manual - this is what Army manuals look like. They have lousy formatting, and it's pretty common to find typos and other errors.
WikiLeaks didn't really scoop anything, so it's not some sort of coup.
That's not really peer-review though. Because you have no way of establishing the credentials of people who feel the articles in Firehose are worthy of more wide-spread distribution. When an article for a journal gets peer-reviewed, it's usually by people who have published articles in a similar or the same field, and have some knowledge and understanding of the topic. When an article makes it into a prominent journal, it's generally because that article has something useful and true to say, according to other experts in the field.
/. nerds selected an under tested cold-fusion experiment to promote to the front page doesn't mean there's anything useful in that article. It just means they thought it was "neato-o."
That the
Not really. It only shows one way that life and intelligence is possible. Even then, you get into that thorny little question of how you are definining intelligence.
Don't misconstrue me, I'm closer in belief to your thoughts on this. But it doesn't prove the big questions you're alluding to in your post. It simply brings us one step closer to showing that all the amazing properties of life are not dependent on some mystical, impossible to fully comprehend entity, but can be mechanistically created.
Even then, you'd have people claiming that these sorts of "artificial" creations have no genuine soul or self.
People are whining with the default detailed billing system, so whether or not to default to that system is a flip of the coin.
A little common sense would indicate that the default billing option should be an electronic version, with the option of requesting a hard copy of the detailed billing records. You'd still have people whining (there will always be people who complain), and there would be a positive environmental impact from the paper that was spared.
2. None, but my point was not about censoring email or blogs. It was in response to your statement that "It could happen to anyone who takes a long trip." "It" referring to rumor control and damages to family relations due to blogs. My point was that you will not find a job with the same kind of tension as the Army (or Marines, for that matter). You may spend a long time away from your family on an extended business trip, but you're not getting shot at or blown up. That changes the equation dramatically. I don't know how to articulate it well, but it's much different.
3. I take exception to any excuse for shitty conditions that begins with "You volunteered, so suck it up." It's been my experience that when someone uses that excuse, it means that someone screwed up and are unwilling to cop to it. Much better to say, "Yeah guys, this sucks, things got screwed up, but we have a mission to do, so let's get it done."
As to your last statement. I agree, I think it's a stupid policy.
I just got a bug up my arse about the "You volunteered." Sorry, wrong answer for me. If there's not a decent "Why?" for the situation, then I've got to seriously question the plan. I'm a pain in the ass when it comes to stupid and unnecessary sh!t. Which makes me real fun for staff officers.
Not really. A couple of the biggest offenders I've heard about were LTCs.
That's Lieutenant Colonel, 2 pay grades down from Brigadier General, for those of you who don't know.
Doesn't mean I agree with the new OPSEC regs, but one thing I learned from my service is that rank is not equivalent to competence or common sense.
I personally trust the SpecOps bubba posting to know what is and isn't sensitive material. It's the numbnut in Illinois that concerns me.
REMF is an outdated term - unless you're talking about Kuwait. Then you have a point. The preferred nomenclature is "Fobbit"
Joking aside, some of that support is neccessary. A commander does need a staff. Granted, most staff are powerpoint bitches (a reason to detest microsoft), but good staff understand that the important thing isn't the slide. It's the analysis of the information. You don't get good intel or civil analysis, and you get dead soldiers and unhappy local nationals. A commander has way too much to attend to do that analysis himself.