The OP reached a "conclusion" without even attempting to reason an argument. There were some vast generalizations and slippery-slope thinking, but not much in the way of thought. You did not so much "articulate" as you did "bloviate". From what I can tell, to OP worried that people want to make a profit at the expense of others. That's nothing new at all. Especially when he/she focuses rage on technology due to anecdotal evidence.
Did we suddenly forget Twitter's role in the middle-east protests? Conveniently overlook the use of the internet in CHINA of all places to organize middle class protests against pollution? I'm delighted to keep in touch with old friends on Facebook, it strengthens enduring relationships because I don't always have the time or money to visit them.
Are we ignoring the fact that no one is putting a gun to your head forcing you to use search engines or social media or free email?
Yes, there have been cases of people accidentally "outed" because of technical glitches on Facebook, but the nightmare scenarios you describe aren't even close to happening because we can simply choose to unplug. ISP records used by the RIAA to police people for illegal sharing records matters mostly to people under 15. If we want to talk about property rights for electronic doodads and files, here's a solution: don't buy them. It's like you never heard of the word "lease." If you don't like the terms of service, DON'T PATRONIZE IT. Quite simple. I blame that ignorance on greedy youth who think everything should be free because they want it, like music. Which is just the nascent greed that drives wall street.
Wake me up when the government tries to pass a law forcing us to sign up for Google+ with our real names and installs cameras in our houses.
Did you see how fucking fast the courts smacked down laws that tried to make it illegal to video record police? Bam! The system works.
Sure, we can slippery-slope all day about Google becoming oppressive Orwellian force that will crush freedom. You know what, "Iran is four years from a nuclear bomb." Been hearing that trope for ~30 years. How about we focus on the positives.
So instead of panicking about people trying to make money, which will never go away, how about we focus on making sure we can watch the watchers. Read the book "The Transparent Society" by Brinn, and "Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace" by Lessig. Those are two great starting points that actually address the concern of the OP.
Both of you need some serious facts in your arguments.
The fact there is not a single argument in favor of TSA, or even re-working TSA policy, promoted to +5 pretty much tells me that (a) it is majority abhorrent (like racism), or (b) no one is really thinking about the issue and just having a knee-jerk reaction.
Even if the hypothetical pro-TSA opinion was irrational but still a reason (e.g. racist logic) I would expect at least ONE +5 for making an attempt, but since there are none, I find it proof that slashdot is not a particularly useful forum for meaningful discussion.
And for my strawman: this may sound like equivalency bias/fallacy in stating all positions are equal. I'm not saying that: I'm saying there isn't even an ATTEMPT to understand the benefits of TSA, and every argument against sounds like an awful Rage Against the Machine song (which is a redundant statement).
Yes yes, we all know teenagers are EXACTLY who they pretend to be on Facebook. No one ever exaggerates or role-plays online.
Just look at the posts on this thread: all the self-righteous self-defenders who talk so goddamn tough about how they've trained to Rambo their way out of any conflict. There was a reply post a few weeks ago about some kid who was bullied so badly that he now has an arsenal of guns and makes his own body armor, or rather that's what he claims because, y'know, internet.
The defense should have access to this data, but any rational person knows it's a kid pretending to be bad ass. Now, getting thrown out of school for starting fights is more accurate, tangible info compared to web bragging from an overinflated sense of self-worth: aka, teenagers.
This is a good example that anything you say online is fair game, and is eternal. Same goes for pictures and dumb youtube videos. I kinda feel bad for all the young girls who post risque vids of themselves the end up on porn aggregators, that shit's out there forever. Note: I said "kinda", I'd also like to thank them from the bottom of my.. uh.. heart.
I used to think Nvidia would buy AMD for the core IP, which would be really funny if nVidia ended up owning ATI because of AMD's past acquisition. However, I suspect a mobile phone co would snap up AMD first.
IMHO, the desktop battle is over, because the desktop is (largely) done. Intel's biggest competition is Oracle and nVidia in the compute server space, and Apple and ARM in the mobile world. Content creation can be done on laptops easily, especially since CPU-intensive creation can always farm out to virtualization or distributed computing, without even investing in a compute center (e.g., Amazon's compute services).
The glory days of Sanders vs Grove is long gone. Sadly. At least Ellison is still carrying the torch of eccentric billionaire, even if he does look like he strangles hookers.
Yeah, I suspect AMD will be acquired by someone unexpected.
If you have any data backing up your claim about intel buying an Israeli company, I would like to read it, because I've never heard this theory before.
I doubt Smith would do anything other than PG-13 with his son, or without... his days of doing anything edgy vanished with Six Degrees of Separation. In my opinion, he's on the Adam Sandler plan of "make a bazillion dollars doing the least challenging acting roles possible."
ah, and there is the "sustainability" question. i do not believe [no citiation] that we can ramp organic beef to conventional beef levels, given that organic requires things that don't scale: grazing pastures, smaller herds to limit disease, individual attention.
so yes, it can scale, but not sustainably, so it defeats the purpose. just look at organic mexican tomatoes: 5x the resources to grow organic in terms of land [again, no citation, pulling from memory] so massive deforestation to meet market demand.
"How is eating less meat and having what little you do eat be grassfed/organic hurting the environment?"
"How is eating local grassfed beef hurting the environment?"
You are right in spirit, the downside is determining what constitutes "less". If everyone switched to local organic grassfed beef, we'd run out of beef in a day. Industrial farming was invented because we eat a lot of meat as a nation, too much than can be grown on an organic scale (IMHO). Even with the best practices for sustainable cattle, American's eat a colossal amount of beef. So the question is: how much is "less?" I don't have an answer, but if I had a gun to my head I would guess 1oz per year would be the limit to feed everyone beef sustainable, based on: the avereage american diet of 62lbs [1], 63,280 organic cows in 2008 [2], and 96m head of beef cattle in the USA in 2008 [3]. That's.07% of beef cattle in the US as organic, so 62lbs*16oz/lb *0.07%=992oz *.07% =.7oz round to 1oz.
Huh, my math seems wrong, but assuming we could sustainable multiply local organic by 10x, that's still 7oz of beef per year.
I like how some comments in the article follow this logic : eew! a cow turns gummy worms into beef and we eat the beef! but -I- am ok eating gummy worms that my body turns into me...
Part of having a validation team is to approach the code without the biases of the developer. The developer is too intimate with their software, and on top of the two primary methods for code coverage (random and directed tests), there is still the human element that a validation team brings.
On the other hand, it is also useful for a developer to "eat their own dogfood". I wrote CAD tools for a decade, and when I finally became a designer and actually USED them I was like, "Dafuq did I code this stupid feature X for, when I really needed feature Y?!?!?"
There's a fine balance, but they definitely should be involved beyond kicking their latest drop over the fence to the validation team (or end users, if there is no team).
I'm always sensitive to any claims of "mutation X gave humans power Y" because mutations are so rarely beneficial, the majority of evolution comes from sexual inheritance and selection pressure.
So how do they know it was a mutation? Its not like suddenly humans got a hunkering for plants one day. It had to happen gradually, so this gene must have been kicking around for ages, and must have appeared in multiple tribes; one mutated birth isn't going to suddenly diffuse across an entire species.
Basically, I don't understand this article.
Any experts out there want to demystify this for me a little more? How one random gene in one birth suddenly afflicts an entire population?
There are many aspects to low cost hardware, from boutique graphics cards and expensive cooling rigs, to other parts of the system. One aspect is low cost peripherals, like mice and keyboards. I worry that in the race to a $1 mouse, mice became cheap and disposable. I see a lot of un-recycled computer and electronic hardware at the transfer station (aka, a dump) I go to once a month. If cheap hardware was more reliable and a little more expensive, there wouldn't be tons of it going into the landfills.
So this aspect is a double edged sword: yay cheap mice! boo, mice that break easy and are thrown into pits in the ground too frequently.
Hmm.. i disagree. tossing my phone on to the couch is a lot easier than lining up the dastardly adapter in the fragile charging stand, or having to dink with cables and find an outlet. maybe i'm just super lazy, but i really like the sound of not having to fuss with adapters, and i'm over 40.
Slashdot Mirror
The OP reached a "conclusion" without even attempting to reason an argument. There were some vast generalizations and slippery-slope thinking, but not much in the way of thought. You did not so much "articulate" as you did "bloviate". From what I can tell, to OP worried that people want to make a profit at the expense of others. That's nothing new at all. Especially when he/she focuses rage on technology due to anecdotal evidence.
Did we suddenly forget Twitter's role in the middle-east protests? Conveniently overlook the use of the internet in CHINA of all places to organize middle class protests against pollution? I'm delighted to keep in touch with old friends on Facebook, it strengthens enduring relationships because I don't always have the time or money to visit them.
Are we ignoring the fact that no one is putting a gun to your head forcing you to use search engines or social media or free email?
Yes, there have been cases of people accidentally "outed" because of technical glitches on Facebook, but the nightmare scenarios you describe aren't even close to happening because we can simply choose to unplug. ISP records used by the RIAA to police people for illegal sharing records matters mostly to people under 15. If we want to talk about property rights for electronic doodads and files, here's a solution: don't buy them. It's like you never heard of the word "lease." If you don't like the terms of service, DON'T PATRONIZE IT. Quite simple. I blame that ignorance on greedy youth who think everything should be free because they want it, like music. Which is just the nascent greed that drives wall street.
Wake me up when the government tries to pass a law forcing us to sign up for Google+ with our real names and installs cameras in our houses.
Did you see how fucking fast the courts smacked down laws that tried to make it illegal to video record police? Bam! The system works.
Sure, we can slippery-slope all day about Google becoming oppressive Orwellian force that will crush freedom. You know what, "Iran is four years from a nuclear bomb." Been hearing that trope for ~30 years. How about we focus on the positives.
So instead of panicking about people trying to make money, which will never go away, how about we focus on making sure we can watch the watchers. Read the book "The Transparent Society" by Brinn, and "Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace" by Lessig. Those are two great starting points that actually address the concern of the OP.
Both of you need some serious facts in your arguments.
The fact there is not a single argument in favor of TSA, or even re-working TSA policy, promoted to +5 pretty much tells me that (a) it is majority abhorrent (like racism), or (b) no one is really thinking about the issue and just having a knee-jerk reaction.
Even if the hypothetical pro-TSA opinion was irrational but still a reason (e.g. racist logic) I would expect at least ONE +5 for making an attempt, but since there are none, I find it proof that slashdot is not a particularly useful forum for meaningful discussion.
And for my strawman: this may sound like equivalency bias/fallacy in stating all positions are equal. I'm not saying that: I'm saying there isn't even an ATTEMPT to understand the benefits of TSA, and every argument against sounds like an awful Rage Against the Machine song (which is a redundant statement).
To be fair, MIT undergrads are by-and-large fucking brilliant, like top of the human race brilliant. Grad students, not so much.
RPI 1990 grad here. MIT laughed at my application (well, I imagine they did).
Yes yes, we all know teenagers are EXACTLY who they pretend to be on Facebook. No one ever exaggerates or role-plays online.
Just look at the posts on this thread: all the self-righteous self-defenders who talk so goddamn tough about how they've trained to Rambo their way out of any conflict. There was a reply post a few weeks ago about some kid who was bullied so badly that he now has an arsenal of guns and makes his own body armor, or rather that's what he claims because, y'know, internet.
The defense should have access to this data, but any rational person knows it's a kid pretending to be bad ass. Now, getting thrown out of school for starting fights is more accurate, tangible info compared to web bragging from an overinflated sense of self-worth: aka, teenagers.
This is a good example that anything you say online is fair game, and is eternal. Same goes for pictures and dumb youtube videos. I kinda feel bad for all the young girls who post risque vids of themselves the end up on porn aggregators, that shit's out there forever. Note: I said "kinda", I'd also like to thank them from the bottom of my .. uh .. heart.
stop caring what I think, for starters.
your need for intellectual validation is astonishing.
Congratulations on being so bad ass.
You've dodged herd mentality so, so very well, you had to brag about your accomplishment on /.!
I have two words for you:
Baaa.
and
Baaa.
Welcome to the flock.
I used to think Nvidia would buy AMD for the core IP, which would be really funny if nVidia ended up owning ATI because of AMD's past acquisition. However, I suspect a mobile phone co would snap up AMD first.
IMHO, the desktop battle is over, because the desktop is (largely) done. Intel's biggest competition is Oracle and nVidia in the compute server space, and Apple and ARM in the mobile world. Content creation can be done on laptops easily, especially since CPU-intensive creation can always farm out to virtualization or distributed computing, without even investing in a compute center (e.g., Amazon's compute services).
The glory days of Sanders vs Grove is long gone. Sadly. At least Ellison is still carrying the torch of eccentric billionaire, even if he does look like he strangles hookers.
Yeah, I suspect AMD will be acquired by someone unexpected.
If you have any data backing up your claim about intel buying an Israeli company, I would like to read it, because I've never heard this theory before.
yeah, that was a bit harsh.
i've never seen the fresh prince make a fart joke.
of course, i've only seen like 10% of Smith's movies because I can't stand watching the guy's one-dimensional affectations, but hey, i'm a dick.
I doubt Smith would do anything other than PG-13 with his son, or without ... his days of doing anything edgy vanished with Six Degrees of Separation. In my opinion, he's on the Adam Sandler plan of "make a bazillion dollars doing the least challenging acting roles possible."
The actual website indicates it hasn't even been done yet, and is lighter on details than white bread.
It is complete BS, the website has no details and tons of press releases. Here is how much work they have done so far, about a dozen lines of text:
http://puffin.eu.org/WP1.html
http://puffin.eu.org/WP2.html
http://puffin.eu.org/WP3.html
I think they posted the release in hopes of letting the online community discuss ideas, and will then harvest those.
Lame.
ah, and there is the "sustainability" question. i do not believe [no citiation] that we can ramp organic beef to conventional beef levels, given that organic requires things that don't scale: grazing pastures, smaller herds to limit disease, individual attention.
so yes, it can scale, but not sustainably, so it defeats the purpose. just look at organic mexican tomatoes: 5x the resources to grow organic in terms of land [again, no citation, pulling from memory] so massive deforestation to meet market demand.
"How is eating less meat and having what little you do eat be grassfed/organic hurting the environment?"
"How is eating local grassfed beef hurting the environment?"
You are right in spirit, the downside is determining what constitutes "less". If everyone switched to local organic grassfed beef, we'd run out of beef in a day. Industrial farming was invented because we eat a lot of meat as a nation, too much than can be grown on an organic scale (IMHO). Even with the best practices for sustainable cattle, American's eat a colossal amount of beef. So the question is: how much is "less?" I don't have an answer, but if I had a gun to my head I would guess 1oz per year would be the limit to feed everyone beef sustainable, based on: the avereage american diet of 62lbs [1], 63,280 organic cows in 2008 [2], and 96m head of beef cattle in the USA in 2008 [3]. That's .07% of beef cattle in the US as organic, so 62lbs*16oz/lb *0.07%=992oz *.07% = .7oz round to 1oz.
Huh, my math seems wrong, but assuming we could sustainable multiply local organic by 10x, that's still 7oz of beef per year.
Yeah, we eat a lot of effing beef.
[1] http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_pound_of_beef_does_the_average_American_consume_each_year
[2] http://www.agmrc.org/commodities__products/livestock/beef/organic-beef/
[3] http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/animal-products/cattle-beef/statistics-information.aspx
mind = blown
remind me never to play "Six Degrees to Kevin Bacon" with you!
I like how some comments in the article follow this logic : eew! a cow turns gummy worms into beef and we eat the beef! but -I- am ok eating gummy worms that my body turns into me...
Part of having a validation team is to approach the code without the biases of the developer. The developer is too intimate with their software, and on top of the two primary methods for code coverage (random and directed tests), there is still the human element that a validation team brings.
On the other hand, it is also useful for a developer to "eat their own dogfood". I wrote CAD tools for a decade, and when I finally became a designer and actually USED them I was like, "Dafuq did I code this stupid feature X for, when I really needed feature Y?!?!?"
There's a fine balance, but they definitely should be involved beyond kicking their latest drop over the fence to the validation team (or end users, if there is no team).
I'm always sensitive to any claims of "mutation X gave humans power Y" because mutations are so rarely beneficial, the majority of evolution comes from sexual inheritance and selection pressure.
So how do they know it was a mutation? Its not like suddenly humans got a hunkering for plants one day. It had to happen gradually, so this gene must have been kicking around for ages, and must have appeared in multiple tribes; one mutated birth isn't going to suddenly diffuse across an entire species.
Basically, I don't understand this article.
Any experts out there want to demystify this for me a little more? How one random gene in one birth suddenly afflicts an entire population?
i'd be more than footsore if i tried to walk the earth my friend!
fortunately we have google earth to view the world, which is the exact metaphor of the google eath overlay!
only got a fraction of the way through it when my index and middle finger started to seize up like an engine without oil.
needs a zoom function!
Three cheers for 15 years of pedantic trolls like you who fail to understand context and higher-level thought patterns!
Hip hip! Yawn....
Is there a way to see when I joined based on my ID? I think it was some time in 1997.
It'd be cool to see how membership has grown....
User Ids:
1995 : 0 - 1000
1996: 1001 - 50000
1997; 50,000 - 200,000
etc...
Fiancees who reject the diamond industry!
Yay for rejecting the marketing that every engagement needs a big sparkly rock!
There are many aspects to low cost hardware, from boutique graphics cards and expensive cooling rigs, to other parts of the system. One aspect is low cost peripherals, like mice and keyboards. I worry that in the race to a $1 mouse, mice became cheap and disposable. I see a lot of un-recycled computer and electronic hardware at the transfer station (aka, a dump) I go to once a month. If cheap hardware was more reliable and a little more expensive, there wouldn't be tons of it going into the landfills.
So this aspect is a double edged sword: yay cheap mice! boo, mice that break easy and are thrown into pits in the ground too frequently.
Hmm.. i disagree. tossing my phone on to the couch is a lot easier than lining up the dastardly adapter in the fragile charging stand, or having to dink with cables and find an outlet. maybe i'm just super lazy, but i really like the sound of not having to fuss with adapters, and i'm over 40.
Selective vision. I wanted to rant so my brain decided to ignore the data to satisfy that need. Happens all the damn time.