While the entire chapter is worth a read, at page 389 he observes:
The “do you have evidence” fallacy, mistaking evidence of no harm for no evidence of harm, is similar to the one of misinterpreting NED (no evidence of disease) for evidence of no disease. This is the same error as mistaking absence of evidence for evidence of absence, the one that tends to affect smart and educated people, as if education made people more confirmatory in their responses and more liable to fall into simple logical errors.
That may have been the case here. That is, for years no evidence of harm was mistaken for evidence of no harm.
More generally, Prof. Taleb argues at page 376:
Simple, quite simple decision rules and heuristics emerge from this chapter. Via negativa, of course (by removal of the unnatural): resort to medical techniques when the health payoff is very large (say, saving a life) and visibly exceeds its potential harm, such as incontrovertibly needed surgery or lifesaving medicine (penicillin). It is the same as with government intervention. This is squarely Thalesian, not Aristotelian (that is, decision making based on payoffs, not knowledge). For in these cases medicine has positive asymmetries —convexity effects— and the outcome will be less likely to produce fragility. Otherwise, in situations in which the benefits of a particular medicine, procedure, or nutritional or lifestyle modification appear small—say, those aiming for comfort—we have a large potential sucker problem (hence putting us on the wrong side of convexity effects).
It seems to me that helping them communicate (setting up proxies, opening more tor exit nodes, etc) is helpful, but not particularly open to cries of puppetry. Plenty of people are doing exactly that, and I think it's wonderful that there are simple things a quiet geek can do to help out a bit. Of course, detractors can always claim that open communication is a Western ideal, but it's become quite clear that a lot of Iranians want it as well.
However, TrueSuite goes a step further with the fingerprint reader, also allowing you to log in to Web sites, applications, and networks as well by using just your fingerprints.
Great. So now somebody has an incentive to cut off my fingers.
i clicked the links, and it's a good chance i'm just an idiot, but I couldn't tell if there was going to be anyway to create new stacks. The beauty of hypercard, from what I recall, was that it had a pretty simple interface for creating the stacks. I remember doing an entire multimedia presentation with hypercard back in highschool in the 90s. while everyone else did powerpoint and thought the clip art was cool, i was making stuff move using sound and embedding quicktime video. granted, all that is easy (easier?) to do now, but back then, it was cool stuff.
Essentially TileStack can be thought of as an online playground where people of all ages are free to create neat things that we call 'stacks'. Adapting concepts from the incredibly popular classic HyperCard system from Apple, a stack consists of one or more 'tiles' that take a person who uses the stack down a path leading from one tile to the next. In a simple case, each tile can contain a different picture and text, in effect creating a simple online and shareable slideshow.
You can also add buttons to any tile that respond to something a user does. For example, clicking on a doorway in a picture could display the message "Welcome to My Home" and then go to the next tile in the stack that shows a picture of the inside of the home.
You can add input fields to tiles to create a custom system for storing information. Have a collection of recipes? Would you like to organize your movie collection? Just create a stack that fits what you needs. And of course, after you create something neat, you can publish your creation on TileStack.com for others to use and learn from.
Likewise you can explore the published stacks that others have made. Making it easy to learn new things and pick up cool ideas. And finally, if you happen to have some of classic HyperCard stacks laying around, you can upload them to TileStack.com and use them once again!
So Slashdot joins the anti-homeopathy conspiracy..
on
Science vs. Homeopathy
·
· Score: 4, Funny
Jeff Hawkins and I still believe that the market category defined by Foleo has enormous potential. When we do Foleo II it will be based on our new platform, and we think it will deliver on the promise of this new category.
The Church of Scientology would certainly want this. The Church already has the Scieno Sitter, "a content-control software package created by the Church of Scientology, which, when installed on a computer, blocks certain Web sites critical of Scientology from being viewed." Perhaps, as in the case of the Scieno Sitter, subscribers of MS COS television wouldn't even have to be told about the censorship program. After all, we wouldn't want people finding out about Xenu.
Assume that the major movie studios produced high-quality full-length first run downloadable movies with no DRM whatsoever at a reasonable prices. (You define what is reasonable.) Any DRM-less format you prefer.
How many of you would "share" then with your friends? (By "share" I don't mean watch the movies with friends. I mean make copies of the movies for friends.) If so, how many friends?
Would you see anything wrong with posting your copy to an FTP site or the equivalent?
Would you see anything wrong sending copies to your closest 100 friends?
The same thing that's their incentive to maintain all the other things local government provides: did the municiapal fire department become lazy because they've driven the private fire brigades of the 19th century out of business? Contrary to what they seem to teach in US schools, the profit motive is not the sole force for good in the known universe.
The media believes it is above the law, and from a practical sense it often is.
NBC may have been setting themselves up for a possible lawsuit for invasion of privacy. They could follow in the footsteps of ABC:
Sanders v. American Broadcasting Companies (1999) 20 Cal.4th 907 , 85 Cal.Rptr.2d 909; 978 P.2d 67 [No. S059692. Jun 24, 1999.]
MARK SANDERS, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. AMERICAN BROADCASTING COMPANIES, INC., et al., Defendants and Appellants.
NARAS F. KERSIS, Plaintiff, v.
CAPITAL CITIES/ABC, INC., et al., Defendants.
(Superior Court of Los Angeles County, No. BC077553, Bruce R. Geernaert, Judge.)
(Opinion by Werdegar, J., expressing the unanimous view of the court.)
COUNSEL
Johnson & Rishwain, Neville L. Johnson, Brian A. Rishwain; and David A. Elder for Plaintiff and Appellant.
Christensen, White, Miller, Fink, Jacobs, Glaser & Shapiro, Shari Cohen Rosenman, Joie Marie Gallo; White O'Connor Curry Gatti & Avanzado, Andrew M. White, Michael J. O'Connor, Jonathan H. Anschell and David E. Fink for Defendants and Appellants.
James E. Grossberg for the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Cable News Network, Inc., California Newspaper Publishers Association, CBS Broadcasting Inc., the Copley Press, Inc., Freedom Communications, Inc., the Hearst Corporation, King World Productions, Inc., Magazine Publishers of America, Inc., the McClatchy Company, National Association of Broadcasters, National Broadcasting Company, Inc., Newspaper Association of America, Paramount Pictures Corp., the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, San Jose Mercury News, Inc., and Univision Communications Inc., as Amici Curiae on behalf of Defendants and Appellants.
OPINION
WERDEGAR, J.-
Defendant Stacy Lescht, a reporter employed by defendant American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. (ABC), obtained employment as a "telepsychic" with the Psychic Marketing Group (PMG), which also employed plaintiff Mark Sanders in that same capacity. While she worked in PMG's Los Angeles office, Lescht, who wore a small video camera hidden in her hat, covertly videotaped her conversations with several coworkers, including Sanders.
Sanders sued Lescht and ABC for, among other causes of action, the tort of invasion of privacy by intrusion. Although a jury found for Sanders on the [20 Cal.4th 911] intrusion cause of action, the Court of Appeal reversed the resulting judgment in his favor on the ground that the jury finding for the defense on another cause of action, violation of Penal Code section 632, established Sanders could have had no reasonable expectation of privacy in his workplace conversations because such conversations could be overheard by others in the shared office space. [1a] We granted review to determine whether the fact that a workplace interaction might be witnessed by others on the premises necessarily defeats, for purposes of tort law, any reasonable expectation of privacy the participants have against covert videotaping by a journalist. We conclude it does not: In an office or other workplace to which the general public does not have unfettered access, employees may enjoy a limited, but legitimate, expectation that their conversations and other interactions will not be secretly videotaped by undercover television reporters, even though those conversations may not have been completely private from the participants' coworkers. For this reason, contrary to the Court of Appeal's holding, the jury's finding as to Penal Code section 632 did not require the trial court to enter nonsuit on, or otherwise dispose of, Sanders's cause of action for tortious intrusion. Nor, we also conclude, were the jury instructions on the intrusion cause of action prejudicially erroneous.
Although we reverse, for these reasons, the Court of Appeal's judgment for defendants, we do not hold or imply that investigative journalists necessarily commit a tort by secretly recording events and conve
Corsell, 28, estimates that his device will shave a business's electric bill by about 15%. Assuming monthly charges of $2,500, the system would pay for itself in less than four years.
What makes me think the warranty on the device is three years?:)
Yes, but if Microsoft didn't *own* IE then the OEMs (like Dell or HP) would be the ones that decided how the browser was configured.
The "ownership" of IE versus licensing another browser, such as Firefox, doesn't make any difference. It is a matter of contract between MS and the OEM. I'm sure Dell or HP would happily change the default home and search pages in IE on their computers but for a provision in their contract with MS. The same provision could be apply to a Firefox or other browser bundled, licensed, but not owned, by MS.
Indeed, Firefox would be perfect for this because MS would not have to worry about negotiating a deal with the browser provider (i.e. Opera). The terms of the licensing agreement are already set in concrete.
I'm not really sure I see what the big deal is. While $1.1 million might seem like an excessive amount to spend on security for one person, it isn't compensation to Bezos. It's an expenditure for security of a company official while he's conducting company business, not a paycheck.
I don't think that is correct. The linked Schedule 14A states:
1,100,000 (2)
(2) Represents the approximate incremental cost of security arrangements for Mr. Bezos in addition to security arrangements provided at business facilities and for business travel. The Company believes that all Company-incurred security costs are for the Company's benefit.
A first reading of the ToS suggests that it is just journal *owners* who are banned from using styles etc to hide the ads from everyone. There's nothing to say that people *reading* the journal can't be running ad-blocking.
You sure?
The relevant clause:
17. Employ tactics and/or technologies to prevent the full and complete delivery or display of advertisements on LiveJournal pages. These include, but are not limited to, the following:
1. Making journal style changes, customizations, or overrides that effectively block or substantially impair the display of advertisements on a Sponsored+ account's Content or other pages within the Service.
2. Employing and/or providing software programs, browser scripts, or other technologies that serve to block or substantially impair the display of advertisements on LiveJournal pages.
You have to read the entire contract. It appears from the first several paragraphs that these limitations apply only to journal *owners* and not to readers:
I. ACCEPTANCE OF TERMS
LiveJournal, Inc., dba LiveJournal.com, ("LiveJournal") provides the following service to you, subject to these Terms of Service ("TOS"), which may be updated periodically without prior notice. You can review the current version of the TOS at: http://www.livejournal.com/legal/tos.bml. Failure to comply with these TOS may result in account revocation.
II. DESCRIPTION OF SERVICE
LiveJournal is a web-based service that allows its users to create and update online journals (herein referred to as "LiveJournal", or the "Service"). The Service may be used through a web browser or by the use of downloadable clients (the "Software"). Once registered with LiveJournal, each user receives his or her own journal space to post text, data, messages, or information concerning or linked to software, music, sound, photography, graphics, and video (the "Content"). This Content may reside on LiveJournal's servers or on the servers of a third party.
There is a 100 mpg carburetor patent that an oil company is sitting on. Dozens of batteries patents are sat on by automotives, oil and petrochemical industries.
Well, it cuts both ways, if you're running all your applications on one server, and that one machine goes down, you're fucked, but you only have to maintain one machine, not the multitudes of machines running your application. In the end, which setup makes the most sense depends on what type of application you're using.
Who is this "you" that is being referred to? It certainly isn't me. I'm a "mere user." I don't have to maintain the multitudes of machines running my applications. Somebody else does.
And yes, that is part of my compensation package.:)
* Access applications from nearly any location on the internet over a secure connection without specialized hardware
Sweet!
* Reduce costs by centralizing management of users and applications
To tell you the truth, I really don't care, but if it helps save money, leading to me getting a raise....
* Enable auditing of application usage
What??? Oh oh... I don't like this. How can I use the software for my *own* work... and play... after hours, of course.
* Dramatically reduce the time to securely deliver applications
Well, ok.
* Ensure users can access only applications they are authorized to use
And this is supposed to be an advantage? I guess I better update my resume on Monster.com... from the Starbucks down the street.
* Increase resiliency by housing application sessions at the data center and not on individual PCs
Lord knows, I'm not a techie, but it *increases* "reliliency" by having the applications located at the data center and not my PC??? And if I can't access the Data Center? Or if the application there becomes corrupt, virus infected, etc.?
More seriously, part of my compensation package, whether my employer realizes it or not, is access to applications and a modicum of control over my PC, applications, and user experience. Take those away, and I'm less than a happy camper.
This is another 'blame the tool, not the user' type of mentality.
Guns are evil, drugs are bad, rootkits are bad, P2P is evil, etc... We've heard this all before.
Concrete is bad because it could be used to make a shoe and keep a victim from struggling whilst they are dropped at the bottom of a lake. Knives are bad because they may be used to kill someone. 2x4 pieces of lumber are bad because you could use it to knock someone off a motorcycle. Baseball bats are really evil becuase gangs can use them for intimidation. Crowbars, they should be illegal anyway, who uses them? We need to have nails that dissolve with water instead of trying to pry them up with this lethal weapon.
Yes, but some tools tend, statistically, to have more harmful uses than beneficial ones, or to be more often used harmfully than benefically, or, perhaps more importantly, to have significantly greater harmful effects than beneficial effects.
I'm as close to a 2nd Amendment purist as one is likely to find in that I believe it protects an individual, as opposed to a collective or "militia," right to bear arms. But even for me, there are limits. Should people be allowed to own fully automatic weapons? RPGs? Artillary? Landmines? All without any sort of license requirements, background checks, etc. After all, one mustn't blame the tool, but only the user.
Take a more mundane example -- lockpicks. Laws criminalizing the posession of lockpicks by anyone other than a licensed locksmith are obviously wrong because they "blame the tool and not the user." Hell, I might lose my house keys, and need to pick my own lock! And even if it were shown that 99.99% of the use of lockpicks by unlicensed persons was for the purpose of burglary and auto theft -- well, tough, blame the user, not the tool. We have to preserve the unlicensed and unregulated use of that tool for the 0.01% of the uses that are beneficial.
Now, does the above reasoning apply to open source rootkits? I don't think so. (To be clear, I don't think that open source rootkits should be licensed, regulated or prohibited in any way.) I just think that it is wrong to state that regulation of a tool is never appropriate regardless of how dangerous the tool is, or how, statistically, the tool is in fact being used.
It probably should be, but I have a feeling that the switch only goes one way: cellular to wifi.
all of this raises an interesting question. Is the NSA currently tapping / sniffing the Interenet for voice? That is, tapping / sniffing VOIP?
And if not, will this hasten the day when NASA does so? I can hear it now. "All of these people are now connected end to end via WIFI and VOIP through their cell phones. We must be able to tap / sniff those conversations.
Besides, the summary says they didn't hire him; they bought the rights to use an algorithm he invented.
No, the summary doesn't say that "they didn't hire him." In any event, the article states:
Mr Andrew Stead, the business development manager at UNSW's NewSouth Innovations agency confirmed that Mr Allon left Australia six weeks ago and was now working at Google's headquarters at Mountain View, California.
Slashdot Mirror
If Apple can sell 5 million expensive computers with no low-end offering at all, then why can't Dell?
Because Apple is selling 5 million expensive computers with no low-end offering at all.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the author of The Black Swan and Fooled by Randomness, has a book chapter coming out that addresses this danger. Prof. Teleb's draft chapter on Medicine, Convexity, and Opacity from his upcoming book, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder, can be found at:
http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/medicine.pdf
While the entire chapter is worth a read, at page 389 he observes:
That may have been the case here. That is, for years no evidence of harm was mistaken for evidence of no harm.
More generally, Prof. Taleb argues at page 376:
This has already caught the attention of Anonymous.
Perhaps Anonymous will respond.
Agreed.
See Anonymous Iran.
http://iran.whyweprotest.net/
Interesting video:
Anonymous Message to Iranian Government.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hUFv5c4lFg&
Actually, no. Good luck in the next 15 years.
and the suppression of homeopathy.
Xenu - Wikipedia
OT III Scholarship Page
Fishman Affidavit - OT3, summary and comments
DMCA complaint
The Church of Scientology would certainly want this. The Church already has the Scieno Sitter, "a content-control software package created by the Church of Scientology, which, when installed on a computer, blocks certain Web sites critical of Scientology from being viewed." Perhaps, as in the case of the Scieno Sitter, subscribers of MS COS television wouldn't even have to be told about the censorship program. After all, we wouldn't want people finding out about Xenu.
Assume that the major movie studios produced high-quality full-length first run downloadable movies with no DRM whatsoever at a reasonable prices. (You define what is reasonable.) Any DRM-less format you prefer.
How many of you would "share" then with your friends? (By "share" I don't mean watch the movies with friends. I mean make copies of the movies for friends.) If so, how many friends?
Would you see anything wrong with posting your copy to an FTP site or the equivalent?
Would you see anything wrong sending copies to your closest 100 friends?
Just curious.
NBC may have been setting themselves up for a possible lawsuit for invasion of privacy. They could follow in the footsteps of ABC:
Sanders v. American Broadcasting Companies (1999) 20 Cal.4th 907 , 85 Cal.Rptr.2d 909; 978 P.2d 67
[No. S059692. Jun 24, 1999.]
MARK SANDERS, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. AMERICAN BROADCASTING COMPANIES, INC., et al., Defendants and Appellants.
NARAS F. KERSIS, Plaintiff, v.
CAPITAL CITIES/ABC, INC., et al., Defendants.
(Superior Court of Los Angeles County, No. BC077553, Bruce R. Geernaert, Judge.)
(Opinion by Werdegar, J., expressing the unanimous view of the court.)
COUNSEL
Johnson & Rishwain, Neville L. Johnson, Brian A. Rishwain; and David A. Elder for Plaintiff and Appellant.
Christensen, White, Miller, Fink, Jacobs, Glaser & Shapiro, Shari Cohen Rosenman, Joie Marie Gallo; White O'Connor Curry Gatti & Avanzado, Andrew M. White, Michael J. O'Connor, Jonathan H. Anschell and David E. Fink for Defendants and Appellants.
James E. Grossberg for the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Cable News Network, Inc., California Newspaper Publishers Association, CBS Broadcasting Inc., the Copley Press, Inc., Freedom Communications, Inc., the Hearst Corporation, King World Productions, Inc., Magazine Publishers of America, Inc., the McClatchy Company, National Association of Broadcasters, National Broadcasting Company, Inc., Newspaper Association of America, Paramount Pictures Corp., the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, San Jose Mercury News, Inc., and Univision Communications Inc., as Amici Curiae on behalf of Defendants and Appellants.
OPINION
WERDEGAR, J.-
Defendant Stacy Lescht, a reporter employed by defendant American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. (ABC), obtained employment as a "telepsychic" with the Psychic Marketing Group (PMG), which also employed plaintiff Mark Sanders in that same capacity. While she worked in PMG's Los Angeles office, Lescht, who wore a small video camera hidden in her hat, covertly videotaped her conversations with several coworkers, including Sanders.
Sanders sued Lescht and ABC for, among other causes of action, the tort of invasion of privacy by intrusion. Although a jury found for Sanders on the [20 Cal.4th 911] intrusion cause of action, the Court of Appeal reversed the resulting judgment in his favor on the ground that the jury finding for the defense on another cause of action, violation of Penal Code section 632, established Sanders could have had no reasonable expectation of privacy in his workplace conversations because such conversations could be overheard by others in the shared office space. [1a] We granted review to determine whether the fact that a workplace interaction might be witnessed by others on the premises necessarily defeats, for purposes of tort law, any reasonable expectation of privacy the participants have against covert videotaping by a journalist. We conclude it does not: In an office or other workplace to which the general public does not have unfettered access, employees may enjoy a limited, but legitimate, expectation that their conversations and other interactions will not be secretly videotaped by undercover television reporters, even though those conversations may not have been completely private from the participants' coworkers. For this reason, contrary to the Court of Appeal's holding, the jury's finding as to Penal Code section 632 did not require the trial court to enter nonsuit on, or otherwise dispose of, Sanders's cause of action for tortious intrusion. Nor, we also conclude, were the jury instructions on the intrusion cause of action prejudicially erroneous.
Although we reverse, for these reasons, the Court of Appeal's judgment for defendants, we do not hold or imply that investigative journalists necessarily commit a tort by secretly recording events and conve
there are separate downloads for Ubuntu, Debian and Fedora? Well, ok, there are actually two different downloads for Fedora.
....
And if one is running Mandriva? Suse?
Indeed, Firefox would be perfect for this because MS would not have to worry about negotiating a deal with the browser provider (i.e. Opera). The terms of the licensing agreement are already set in concrete.
And yes, that is part of my compensation package.
More seriously, part of my compensation package, whether my employer realizes it or not, is access to applications and a modicum of control over my PC, applications, and user experience. Take those away, and I'm less than a happy camper.
I'm as close to a 2nd Amendment purist as one is likely to find in that I believe it protects an individual, as opposed to a collective or "militia," right to bear arms. But even for me, there are limits. Should people be allowed to own fully automatic weapons? RPGs? Artillary? Landmines? All without any sort of license requirements, background checks, etc. After all, one mustn't blame the tool, but only the user.
Take a more mundane example -- lockpicks. Laws criminalizing the posession of lockpicks by anyone other than a licensed locksmith are obviously wrong because they "blame the tool and not the user." Hell, I might lose my house keys, and need to pick my own lock! And even if it were shown that 99.99% of the use of lockpicks by unlicensed persons was for the purpose of burglary and auto theft -- well, tough, blame the user, not the tool. We have to preserve the unlicensed and unregulated use of that tool for the 0.01% of the uses that are beneficial.
Now, does the above reasoning apply to open source rootkits? I don't think so. (To be clear, I don't think that open source rootkits should be licensed, regulated or prohibited in any way.) I just think that it is wrong to state that regulation of a tool is never appropriate regardless of how dangerous the tool is, or how, statistically, the tool is in fact being used.
And if not, will this hasten the day when NASA does so? I can hear it now. "All of these people are now connected end to end via WIFI and VOIP through their cell phones. We must be able to tap / sniff those conversations.