Thank-you. I was wondering for the life of me, regardless of how unsuccessful the attempt at humour may have been, how anyone could possibly flame me over it (thus deserving the -1 flamebait). Now I know.
Ballmer was supposed to fucking kill Google. He's like Chuck Norris and stuff... only with chairs. No way is this happening. I won't believe it. Slashdot is all lies.
Don't underestimate the appeal of being able to chew someone out for a problem. Even if it is not effective at solving the problem... it sure feels a hell of a lot better.
Speaking of which... my MySQL server is having problems and I'm the admin... so I need someone to yell at. Got a minute ?
"* One of my relatives had a stroke. They live in Ontario. The hospital in Windsor was too full and had no beds left, so they had to go across to Detroit."
I've lived in Windsor my whole life. I've been hospitalized a few times and most of my relatives are over 50 (and thus have had many more hospital visits than myself). I'm not accusing you of lying, but this is the first time that I have ever, in my entire 26 years being alive in Windsor Ontario, heard of someone not being able to be admitted in a Windsor hospital and being forced to cross the border. I've heard of people being sent up north to London or Toronto for a very specialized surgery that Windsor was not equipped for, but never anything related to no vacant beds.
Hell, the last time I was in the hospital was for a kidney stone a couple of years ago (yes I know I'm young but I was overweight at the time and dehydrated). They told me that worst case scenario was a kidney stone but that it was probably muscle pain and made me wait in triage for several hours because I wasn't "crawling up the walls in pain"... but eventually I vomited (hehe who's not in pain now!?) and they instantly gave me a bed, a shot of morphine and scheduled an MRI that I took just a couple of hours later after taking a nice morphine-induced nap. It was quite a pleasant experience and totally contradictory to your horror story. Actually come to think about it, the guy I ended up sharing a room with was in because he had a mild stroke.
I'm a Canadian and I'm not going to tell you that socialized medicine is the problem. However, many doctors here flee to the US where they can charge more, and the ones that stay are forced to take in increased patients if they want to make more money.
So anyway, 2 months to get an appointment with my family doctor sounds about right, and I'm lucky to have one. My daughter was talking before we finally found one, and we only got her because she's my mother's doctor.
Not trying to agrue socialized vs. privatized. It just doesn't seem like there is any side of the fence here where the grass looks greener on this issue.
Agreed. My father and I have extremely thick, curly hair. It would be perfect for a girl but for the both of us it's torture. My father is pushing 60 and has a full head of hair. Safe to say neither of us are going bald.
Anyway I also always wanted long "rock star" hair since I was a kid. For 10 years I had really long, thick curly hair that I spent 2 years growing in high school. I resisted cutting or changing it well into adult hood because the memories of goofy hair cuts while waiting for it to grow long enough to put into a pony tail were quite fresh. Yet I never took care of it, never got it cut and it was a huge pain. So I decided I needed a change, shaved the whole mess clean off and donated it all to a hair for kids charity. It wouldn't bother me in the slightest if someone assumed that I was balding naturally because I shave my head, but they'd be dead wrong.
I think it comes down to what's fun and what attracts girls. Which are somewhat inclusive.
If you're physically inclined you can attract a lot of attention (and thus popularity and girls) in school by becoming a star athlete. If you're not physically inclined then you can do the same by getting into the arts. Pick up an instrument, start doing drugs and attract a different kind of girl and become popular that way.
If you go into math and science most of the girls (and the people having all of the fun) will label you a nerd and want nothing to do with you because you are associated with courses that they find hard and boring.
I didn't know very many kids in high school who really thought about money all that much. Some of them had part time jobs to pay for their weed and dates but thinking ahead to making tons of money and being rich was something that you did via a) fun (playing sports or an instrument) and b) luck. Maybe my position is unique because I went to an arts school and played in bands but most of us figured we'd end up starving junkies trying to "make it". Money just wasn't something that we thought all that much about.
I don't know what the answer is. You're not going to make math and science fun for people who don't like it. The real issue is that it doesn't have mass appeal. I know there's going to people (I'd be one of them) pulling their hair out and screaming "WHO SAYS MATH ISN'T FUN!?"... but the majority of people who I know simply don't like it. And thus it's not culturally popular. Of course this doesn't answer the question of why adults and mainstream media doesn't encourage academic excellence. Only why most kids don't chose to excel at it.
I like this idea. Instead of changing the SSL protocol we implement an encrypted but non-authenticated http protocol. The trick to adoption would be the browsers. Servers can be updated easily and web sites that support httpe can change their links. Sites that support httpe can even redirect their http traffic to httpe, same way banks do when you visit their login page through http rather than https.
The only problem is browsers. Browsers need to support it and sites can't switch over entirely until their users all upgrade their browsers. But it seems like once a protocol is accepted and finalized that it would be one of the easier things to change. I would personally use httpe for everything and https for banking and shopping, and see no reason why browsers couldn't use it by default.
Before I respond, let me say that I'm independent. I actually like a lot of republican policies (small government, low taxes, let the private sector fill needs etc.) and if it weren't for Palin there is a strong possibility that I would be for McCain over Obama. Obama has far too many socialist views for my tastes. Though the democrats have a lot of policies on privacy, civil liberties, net neutrality etc. that I agree with. So I'm pretty much fscked. Both parties will have an equal amount of pros and cons to me.
Anyway, your points sound extremely typical of the republican party. It's a lot of character attack with no talk about policies or any issues. Talking about the type of crowds that the candidates speak to... please. Maybe Obama just wants to reach a larger audience ? I've followed both campaigns with much interest and both have different strategies and both can be faulted.
As far as postponing the debate is concerned, I thought Obama had a very good reason. He felt that with all of the panic surrounding the economy that it was the perfect time for the people to hear what each candidate had to bring to the table. He said that he would be anywhere at any time if he thought that it would help, but that he didn't feel that postponing the debates would do anything. And the debate committee happened to agree. Of course now I expect you to accuse the debate committee of being full of biased democrats in typical republican fashion.
Those methods you mentioned don't seem like they'd be all that fool proof. A team can easily communicate via skype, IRC, IM or even old fashioned telephone (so you don't need to use screen scrapers). There's easy ways to get around always having the same IP (Internet cafe, Wifi, dial-up, proxies etc.) As for the same accounts playing at the same table all the time it seems like it's a matter of having a large enough team, decent record keeping to keep track of who won what and many accounts. If organized teams have ripped off Casinos in Vegas (the MIT blackjack team comes to mind) then surely online casinos get hit all the time and don't know.
Of course being someone who has never once gambled online and thinking along those lines, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that they've got all kinds of ways to counter it.
"but I think the TV industry (whoever they may be) would be running a whole lot of PSAs on what is going to happen and how to make sure your TV still works."
Yes, they are.
There are commercials on almost every channel, many done by the local news stations and tons by cable and satellite companies that are educating people about the switchover, what they'll need to do and where to go to get more info. Obviously in the cable and satellite cases the solution is buying cable or satellite, though some are surprisingly honest. "You'll either have to buy a converter box OR you can buy our wonderful product and it'll be so much better!" Wouldn't have expected them to even mention the converter box option.
The compression is done first on the master and then finally even further at the radio station.
So yeah it's not entirely incorrect to say that engineers are to blame, after all the mastering engineer is called such for a reason. BUT a general rule of good practice is that the mastering engineer not be involved in any of the recording, mixing or production process at all until the final master. The reason behind this is that it's considered to be a very good idea to have a completely fresh set of ears on the mastering. When you listen to an album over and over and over again your ears start putting on all kinds of filters and your objectivity goes down the toilet. It's one of the many reasons that mastering engineers (as a specialty) exist.
But yeah, of course professionals can do a bad job. I'm not disagreeing with your post. Just trying to point out that compression is almost never performed before mastering (which has nothing to do with recording or mixing). The only exception being on a track-by-track basis where compression is deemed required to achieve a particular effect on a particular instrument. Only the mastering compresses the entire recording. Then radio stations compress it even further for playback.
Do you also produce your own clothes ? How do you get around ? If you ride a bicycle to avoid paying for gas and a vehicle do you produce it yourself ?
What DO you live in ? You said you can't get a mortgage so I assume you rent. Your landlord still needs to pay for the maintenance to the property and his costs get passed on to your rent.
You grow your own food, great. So do I. I'm a hobby-chef and my retirement dream is to live on a farm where I can raise my own livestock. Now consider animal feed, soil to grow vegetables in (if you're fortunate enough to live on land with great soil and smart enough to have a compost to produce your own fertilizer then great, I need to buy good soil though because my house sits on mostly clay). How about all of the tools that you need to tend to your garden ?
Thanks for baring with me and yes I am getting to a point. When the US economy collapses the US dollar goes to shit. The price of imports increases and thus the cost of every day goods goes way up. It is nearly impossible to be 100% self-sufficient. It is a worthy goal to strive for but it almost can't be done. There are micro-societies that have experts that grow all of their trees and livestock and produce all of their own basic items for every day survival but a single family just can't do it. They can get close but you'll always need to buy SOMETHING for day to day living. And so you're absolutely wrong if you think that the greater economy does not affect you.
Thought exercise: does it cost society when a driver runs a red light even though there are no other cars at the intersection ? What if the driver comes to a complete stop to make sure, and then runs the red (treating it just like a stop sign) ?
I agree with a lot of what you're saying and I'm not trying to troll. My position is that there are some laws which are too restrictive because they don't have any clear benefit to the public. I'm not saying that traffic lights are one of them, but I would perfectly happy if red lights became stop signs during hours of light traffic (and in cases of collisions caused by running a red the runner is at fault by default, such as the case when backing out of a drive way or hitting someone from behind), and I don't favour punishing people who have not actually harmed anyone.
What bothers me the most, and what I don't think most people understand / are aware of, is how international treaties can be signed, thus becoming laws which supersede the most supreme law of the country (constitution, charter, bill of rights etc.) all without public knowledge or involvement.
I think every single democratic country desperately needs to update their charters with clauses requiring that all international agreements be signed with public knowledge, consent and involvement and to clearly make available avenues for referendums so that the public can force their governments to withdraw if the majority of the population wishes (without replacing their government obviously).
Also, the questioner is wrong that other fields don't test. In any good restaurant, for example, a new cook is asked to prepare something as part of the interview process (that's not to say anything for the exec chef who is usually partnered with the owner(s) but in the case when he/she isn't it would be unheard of for the owner to hire the chef without tasting the whole menu that will be served).
Fire fighters need to take physical tests to ensure that they're in appropriate physical shape. I'm pretty sure the same is true of police officers.
To put it in other words, if it can be tested it will be. And should be.
"I'm not really sure what's the way to go on it, but I know posting some BS FUD on Amazon like "SONY ROOTKITTED ME OMG!" and claiming victory when they raise the install limit to 5 is not the way to go."
I buy from Amazon a lot.. and I've also been waiting anxiously for Spore. So I went on over to Amazon the other day to pre-order it and was a little shocked to see 1 star ratings. So I read the reviews. They were a very far cry from "SONY ROOTKITTED ME OMG!". They were thorough, intelligent, well thought-out and actually educated me on the whole securom thing as I haven't been on/. that much lately and missed the article(s) about Spore's DRM.
Anyway, the comments actually persuaded me to not buy the game. I don't feel like paying hard-earned money for something that will only install X number of times (even if the number is 1,000 I don't care. Like other people I've still got games that are 15+ years old that I install every once in a while for old-time's sake) and will phone home and require an Internet connection every time I play it etc.
Customer feedback is the single most important thing that a business needs to pay attention to in order to succeed. Restaurants can not grow without reading comment cards and responding to their customers complaints and suggestions. Game companies can not grow by pissing off their customers. If EA ignores the negative feedback about this DRM then they deserve to be out of business in a couple of years. I was going to e-mail them to explain why I decided not to buy Spore but I couldn't find a contact address. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Slashdot Mirror
Thank-you. I was wondering for the life of me, regardless of how unsuccessful the attempt at humour may have been, how anyone could possibly flame me over it (thus deserving the -1 flamebait). Now I know.
Ballmer was supposed to fucking kill Google. He's like Chuck Norris and stuff ... only with chairs. No way is this happening. I won't believe it. Slashdot is all lies.
Don't underestimate the appeal of being able to chew someone out for a problem. Even if it is not effective at solving the problem ... it sure feels a hell of a lot better.
Speaking of which ... my MySQL server is having problems and I'm the admin ... so I need someone to yell at. Got a minute ?
"* One of my relatives had a stroke. They live in Ontario. The hospital in Windsor was too full and had no beds left, so they had to go across to Detroit."
I've lived in Windsor my whole life. I've been hospitalized a few times and most of my relatives are over 50 (and thus have had many more hospital visits than myself). I'm not accusing you of lying, but this is the first time that I have ever, in my entire 26 years being alive in Windsor Ontario, heard of someone not being able to be admitted in a Windsor hospital and being forced to cross the border. I've heard of people being sent up north to London or Toronto for a very specialized surgery that Windsor was not equipped for, but never anything related to no vacant beds.
Hell, the last time I was in the hospital was for a kidney stone a couple of years ago (yes I know I'm young but I was overweight at the time and dehydrated). They told me that worst case scenario was a kidney stone but that it was probably muscle pain and made me wait in triage for several hours because I wasn't "crawling up the walls in pain" ... but eventually I vomited (hehe who's not in pain now!?) and they instantly gave me a bed, a shot of morphine and scheduled an MRI that I took just a couple of hours later after taking a nice morphine-induced nap. It was quite a pleasant experience and totally contradictory to your horror story. Actually come to think about it, the guy I ended up sharing a room with was in because he had a mild stroke.
I'm a Canadian and I'm not going to tell you that socialized medicine is the problem. However, many doctors here flee to the US where they can charge more, and the ones that stay are forced to take in increased patients if they want to make more money.
So anyway, 2 months to get an appointment with my family doctor sounds about right, and I'm lucky to have one. My daughter was talking before we finally found one, and we only got her because she's my mother's doctor.
Not trying to agrue socialized vs. privatized. It just doesn't seem like there is any side of the fence here where the grass looks greener on this issue.
"Sentiments like yours make it sound like someone who vote third-party are to blame for Bush."
That was not only the sentiment on /. in 2000 and 2004 but a straight forward accusation by many.
" ... while they are actually on the phone, and most calls don't last the whole trip."
You haven't met my wife and her moronic teenager-in-an-adult-body friends :(
Agreed. My father and I have extremely thick, curly hair. It would be perfect for a girl but for the both of us it's torture. My father is pushing 60 and has a full head of hair. Safe to say neither of us are going bald.
Anyway I also always wanted long "rock star" hair since I was a kid. For 10 years I had really long, thick curly hair that I spent 2 years growing in high school. I resisted cutting or changing it well into adult hood because the memories of goofy hair cuts while waiting for it to grow long enough to put into a pony tail were quite fresh. Yet I never took care of it, never got it cut and it was a huge pain. So I decided I needed a change, shaved the whole mess clean off and donated it all to a hair for kids charity. It wouldn't bother me in the slightest if someone assumed that I was balding naturally because I shave my head, but they'd be dead wrong.
I think it comes down to what's fun and what attracts girls. Which are somewhat inclusive.
If you're physically inclined you can attract a lot of attention (and thus popularity and girls) in school by becoming a star athlete. If you're not physically inclined then you can do the same by getting into the arts. Pick up an instrument, start doing drugs and attract a different kind of girl and become popular that way.
If you go into math and science most of the girls (and the people having all of the fun) will label you a nerd and want nothing to do with you because you are associated with courses that they find hard and boring.
I didn't know very many kids in high school who really thought about money all that much. Some of them had part time jobs to pay for their weed and dates but thinking ahead to making tons of money and being rich was something that you did via a) fun (playing sports or an instrument) and b) luck. Maybe my position is unique because I went to an arts school and played in bands but most of us figured we'd end up starving junkies trying to "make it". Money just wasn't something that we thought all that much about.
I don't know what the answer is. You're not going to make math and science fun for people who don't like it. The real issue is that it doesn't have mass appeal. I know there's going to people (I'd be one of them) pulling their hair out and screaming "WHO SAYS MATH ISN'T FUN!?" ... but the majority of people who I know simply don't like it. And thus it's not culturally popular. Of course this doesn't answer the question of why adults and mainstream media doesn't encourage academic excellence. Only why most kids don't chose to excel at it.
I like this idea. Instead of changing the SSL protocol we implement an encrypted but non-authenticated http protocol. The trick to adoption would be the browsers. Servers can be updated easily and web sites that support httpe can change their links. Sites that support httpe can even redirect their http traffic to httpe, same way banks do when you visit their login page through http rather than https.
The only problem is browsers. Browsers need to support it and sites can't switch over entirely until their users all upgrade their browsers. But it seems like once a protocol is accepted and finalized that it would be one of the easier things to change. I would personally use httpe for everything and https for banking and shopping, and see no reason why browsers couldn't use it by default.
Before I respond, let me say that I'm independent. I actually like a lot of republican policies (small government, low taxes, let the private sector fill needs etc.) and if it weren't for Palin there is a strong possibility that I would be for McCain over Obama. Obama has far too many socialist views for my tastes. Though the democrats have a lot of policies on privacy, civil liberties, net neutrality etc. that I agree with. So I'm pretty much fscked. Both parties will have an equal amount of pros and cons to me.
Anyway, your points sound extremely typical of the republican party. It's a lot of character attack with no talk about policies or any issues. Talking about the type of crowds that the candidates speak to... please. Maybe Obama just wants to reach a larger audience ? I've followed both campaigns with much interest and both have different strategies and both can be faulted.
As far as postponing the debate is concerned, I thought Obama had a very good reason. He felt that with all of the panic surrounding the economy that it was the perfect time for the people to hear what each candidate had to bring to the table. He said that he would be anywhere at any time if he thought that it would help, but that he didn't feel that postponing the debates would do anything. And the debate committee happened to agree. Of course now I expect you to accuse the debate committee of being full of biased democrats in typical republican fashion.
"or dunked in a vat of whale spunk."
That's what I get for slacking off on /. when I'm supposed to be working. Thanks :(
"You can always choose not to read them."
Damn. I wish someone had told me that 20 minutes ago :(
Are you Canadian by any chance ? I am in Canada and if I follow that arrow for a really long time I'll end up right back where I am.
How freakin' cool is that ? As you said, spot on!
Those methods you mentioned don't seem like they'd be all that fool proof. A team can easily communicate via skype, IRC, IM or even old fashioned telephone (so you don't need to use screen scrapers). There's easy ways to get around always having the same IP (Internet cafe, Wifi, dial-up, proxies etc.) As for the same accounts playing at the same table all the time it seems like it's a matter of having a large enough team, decent record keeping to keep track of who won what and many accounts. If organized teams have ripped off Casinos in Vegas (the MIT blackjack team comes to mind) then surely online casinos get hit all the time and don't know.
Of course being someone who has never once gambled online and thinking along those lines, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that they've got all kinds of ways to counter it.
I wouldn't have even bothered typing out the reply if I had a digital stream. I've got rabbit ears only and I'm seeing tons of these PSAs.
"but I think the TV industry (whoever they may be) would be running a whole lot of PSAs on what is going to happen and how to make sure your TV still works."
Yes, they are.
There are commercials on almost every channel, many done by the local news stations and tons by cable and satellite companies that are educating people about the switchover, what they'll need to do and where to go to get more info. Obviously in the cable and satellite cases the solution is buying cable or satellite, though some are surprisingly honest. "You'll either have to buy a converter box OR you can buy our wonderful product and it'll be so much better!" Wouldn't have expected them to even mention the converter box option.
The compression is done first on the master and then finally even further at the radio station.
So yeah it's not entirely incorrect to say that engineers are to blame, after all the mastering engineer is called such for a reason. BUT a general rule of good practice is that the mastering engineer not be involved in any of the recording, mixing or production process at all until the final master. The reason behind this is that it's considered to be a very good idea to have a completely fresh set of ears on the mastering. When you listen to an album over and over and over again your ears start putting on all kinds of filters and your objectivity goes down the toilet. It's one of the many reasons that mastering engineers (as a specialty) exist.
But yeah, of course professionals can do a bad job. I'm not disagreeing with your post. Just trying to point out that compression is almost never performed before mastering (which has nothing to do with recording or mixing). The only exception being on a track-by-track basis where compression is deemed required to achieve a particular effect on a particular instrument. Only the mastering compresses the entire recording. Then radio stations compress it even further for playback.
Do you also produce your own clothes ? How do you get around ? If you ride a bicycle to avoid paying for gas and a vehicle do you produce it yourself ?
What DO you live in ? You said you can't get a mortgage so I assume you rent. Your landlord still needs to pay for the maintenance to the property and his costs get passed on to your rent.
You grow your own food, great. So do I. I'm a hobby-chef and my retirement dream is to live on a farm where I can raise my own livestock. Now consider animal feed, soil to grow vegetables in (if you're fortunate enough to live on land with great soil and smart enough to have a compost to produce your own fertilizer then great, I need to buy good soil though because my house sits on mostly clay). How about all of the tools that you need to tend to your garden ?
Thanks for baring with me and yes I am getting to a point. When the US economy collapses the US dollar goes to shit. The price of imports increases and thus the cost of every day goods goes way up. It is nearly impossible to be 100% self-sufficient. It is a worthy goal to strive for but it almost can't be done. There are micro-societies that have experts that grow all of their trees and livestock and produce all of their own basic items for every day survival but a single family just can't do it. They can get close but you'll always need to buy SOMETHING for day to day living. And so you're absolutely wrong if you think that the greater economy does not affect you.
Thought exercise: does it cost society when a driver runs a red light even though there are no other cars at the intersection ? What if the driver comes to a complete stop to make sure, and then runs the red (treating it just like a stop sign) ?
I agree with a lot of what you're saying and I'm not trying to troll. My position is that there are some laws which are too restrictive because they don't have any clear benefit to the public. I'm not saying that traffic lights are one of them, but I would perfectly happy if red lights became stop signs during hours of light traffic (and in cases of collisions caused by running a red the runner is at fault by default, such as the case when backing out of a drive way or hitting someone from behind), and I don't favour punishing people who have not actually harmed anyone.
What bothers me the most, and what I don't think most people understand / are aware of, is how international treaties can be signed, thus becoming laws which supersede the most supreme law of the country (constitution, charter, bill of rights etc.) all without public knowledge or involvement.
I think every single democratic country desperately needs to update their charters with clauses requiring that all international agreements be signed with public knowledge, consent and involvement and to clearly make available avenues for referendums so that the public can force their governments to withdraw if the majority of the population wishes (without replacing their government obviously).
Agreed.
Also, the questioner is wrong that other fields don't test. In any good restaurant, for example, a new cook is asked to prepare something as part of the interview process (that's not to say anything for the exec chef who is usually partnered with the owner(s) but in the case when he/she isn't it would be unheard of for the owner to hire the chef without tasting the whole menu that will be served).
Fire fighters need to take physical tests to ensure that they're in appropriate physical shape. I'm pretty sure the same is true of police officers.
To put it in other words, if it can be tested it will be. And should be.
"I'm not really sure what's the way to go on it, but I know posting some BS FUD on Amazon like "SONY ROOTKITTED ME OMG!" and claiming victory when they raise the install limit to 5 is not the way to go."
I buy from Amazon a lot.. and I've also been waiting anxiously for Spore. So I went on over to Amazon the other day to pre-order it and was a little shocked to see 1 star ratings. So I read the reviews. They were a very far cry from "SONY ROOTKITTED ME OMG!". They were thorough, intelligent, well thought-out and actually educated me on the whole securom thing as I haven't been on /. that much lately and missed the article(s) about Spore's DRM.
Anyway, the comments actually persuaded me to not buy the game. I don't feel like paying hard-earned money for something that will only install X number of times (even if the number is 1,000 I don't care. Like other people I've still got games that are 15+ years old that I install every once in a while for old-time's sake) and will phone home and require an Internet connection every time I play it etc.
Customer feedback is the single most important thing that a business needs to pay attention to in order to succeed. Restaurants can not grow without reading comment cards and responding to their customers complaints and suggestions. Game companies can not grow by pissing off their customers. If EA ignores the negative feedback about this DRM then they deserve to be out of business in a couple of years. I was going to e-mail them to explain why I decided not to buy Spore but I couldn't find a contact address. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
No offense but you are completely wrong in every possible way.
Seinfeld was a HORRIBLE show! :(
Slashdot ... you win first prize. You just fell for, and greatly aided, Microsoft's viral marketing campaign.