In fairness to Yahoo it should be mentioned that they do let you create what they call "disposable" e-mail addresses that work on the same principle: base_address-your_salt_here@yahoo.XYZ
That solution may not be as easy or complete as GoogleMail's, but since the other big free e-mail provider out there (Hotmail) doesn't offer it at all, I don't think Yahoo is that bad.
I'm back on XP Pro and I've lost about 18 hours that I'll never get back again.
Oh, boo-hoo. You lost 18 hours of your life playing around with technology – I lost that much again watching The English Patient. Now my g/f wants to watch The Sex & The City movie with me... say, how fast can I get Vista delivered, do you think?
I had the chance to try out a Segway a few years ago, and the salesman told me they were pitching it at three main market segments:
1. The elderly. As has already been mentioned in this discussion, a Segway can be used as a "hipper wheelchair". For elderly folk with limited mobility (i.e. they no longer have the energy required to pedal their bikes through possibly hilly areas) a Segway provides a faster, more elegant, and, yes, cooler alternative to an electronic wheelchair.
2. Large factories / industrial complexes. I don't know how many of you have been on larger industrial sites, but there are some fsking huge complexes out there: BASF's 10 sqkm Ludwigshafen site springs to mind. They get around that having several thousand bikes for the employees to ride, but a high level manager may not want to arrive to his/her next meeting hot and sweaty from having biked from one side of the complex to the other. Plus, a Segway clearly outranks a bike (while still being more convenient / environmentally friendly than a chauffeured car).
3. Celebrities. Seriously, how cool do people look on Segways, huh? Tell me Gob isn't at his sexiest when he makes his entrance on one of these babies.
So, notwithstanding that I made that last reason up, there are at least two valid markets for the Segway as a product.
The main problems, according to the salesman, were – aside from the cost – the unfamiliarity of people with the concept of two-wheeled vehicles that don't require you to do the balancing*, and the ambiguous legal classification: is it a bike? Is it a car? Can you use it on the footpath, or are you relegated to the streets? Given the responsiveness of the Segway and the target market, the makers were hoping to get it allowed on the footpath, but a combination of the its weight and speed nixed that idea, and it's too exposed for the roads. Thus, at least in Australia, Segways are illegal on both footpaths and roads – a wonderful precondition for commercial success!
However, once the regulatory problems are solved, and people get over the "WTF is that?" factor, I foresee a great future in these kind of devices (if not the Segway itself, since it'll probably be outdated by that time). I'm a little baffled by the Segway's negative image, to be honest, but I'm also baffled at the relative unpopularity of Tablet PCs, which I consider to be the bees knees.
The Segway and its ilk provide the short-range mobility of a bicycle, with close to zero effort. And folks – convenience sells.
*Most people get on and immediately try and adjust for the Segway, leaning forwards or backwards. Since the Segway adjusts for the user, and responds to leaning by accelerating in that direction, these people finding themselves on a 'bucking' Segway until they figure out they have to stand still to.. well, stand still. I had very little problems with this, but I've got good balance (and great hair. But never mind that.) What I found insufferable was the way the turning trigger was toggled: roll your left hand forwards and you turn left; roll it backwards, and you turn left. This struck me as being incredibly counter-intuitive, perhaps also because I'd met the salesman in the park when I was riding home from work and your wrists roll the other way on a bicycle (though also on a steering wheel).
Ever try to remember who you bumped into at the store a few days back? Well, you're not alone.
Well, obviously, otherwhise there wouldn't have been anyone to bump into.
Re:Hmm...Giganews and other services are still the
on
R.I.P Usenet: 1980-2008
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
t seems like more and more people are making more and more outrageous predictions & claims.
I guess with all the noise out there people need a way for their blog to stand out.
That's because we don't like moderately phrased, reasoned opinions with facts, or predictions that come with caveats and margins for error. Blogs with that kind of boring realism are only read by accountants and statisticians – two groups that, ironically enough, don't make up a large proportion of news turnover.
Spot on. Facebook has only been available in German for a few months, and it was hardly unforeseeable that of two virtually identical services the one that's available in the country's language first will be more successful.
I, for one, hope FB mount a successful takeover bid and combine the two services.
Being a user of both services, I have no idea why anyone would choose StudiVZ over Facebook. Aside from being able to see who lasted visited your page (which can be toggled by the visiting user), and having the (admittedly cool) functionality of entering what courses you're studying*, StudiVZ has nothing that Facebook doesn't (and has a much crappier interface).
StudiVZ lost a lot of users when they introduced their new privacy-unfriendly terms and conditions, and my anecdotal evidence is that I'm seeing more Germans migrate to Facebook than from it. The main reason StudiVZ caught on here was because it was – surprise – in German, while Facebook (until recently) wasn't.
It's not that Facebook has a worse reputation than StudiVZ, but simply that it's less well known. As such, FB suing SVZ won't hurt their chances in Germany in the slightest.
To respond to other posters saying they've looked at the two sites and can't see many similarities: take it from a user – they are incredibly similar. Just that StudiVZ is worse.
"if the Nazis tapped phones they presumably did it at the exchange, not by having some sinister dude in a leather coat, monacle and jackboots sitting in the spare room taking notes"
Very sadly, you happen to be wrong.
The Stasi (secret people) were incredibly effective at recruiting civilian informers: the generally agreed proportion was about 2% of the East German population, the BBC suggests up to 12% (from the Wik). It was not at all uncommon for family members to spy on each other:-/
If you want to see what it looked like, rent "Das Leben der Anderen" (or, if you're not into subtitles, wait for the Yank remake I believe is in the works). No monocle and jackboots, just a guy in the attic tapping your line.
This result has been in observed other fields
on
The Privacy Paradox
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
This result (of people caring more about something once it's been mentioned) has been observed in economic experiments measuring people's willingness to accept, for example, the construction of a new dangerous waste management facility in their municipality.
When presented with the scenario, "The Federal and Local Governments have agreed that the construction of this facility is necessary, and should be constructed here", about 50% of people voted for the plant. When the scenario was modified to, "The Federal and Local Governments have agreed that the construction of this facility is necessary, and should be constructed here. Each resident will receive 500 Francs per year as compensation.", the rate of acceptance fell to about 20%.
Totally counter-intuitive: same scenario, better conditions, less acceptance. It wasn't a strategic decision about trying exhort more money, but rather, the fact that money was offered prompted the residents to think, "Hang on – if they're willing to compensate me for this, it MUST be dangerous. Bugger this!*"
The same effect looks to be at work in this experiment: presented with the offer of confidentiality, the subjects are prompted to reconsider how sensitive this information actually is, and come to the conclusion that if MUST be sensitive if people feel it necessary to promise not to reveal it to anyone else.
*I'm paraphrasing, obviously. I'm not sure even the French would give answers like that on surveys!
Hmmm. Well, judging by the phrase "researchers have found a way to categorize the type of traffic that is hidden inside an encrypted SSH session to around 90% accuracy" I would venture a guess that the researches can, in fact, separate the P2P traffic from the regular (incl. business traffic). With 90% accuracy, no less.
Honestly, I'd be a little surprised if there were even 10% of businesses whose internet usage through VPN tunnels mirrored that of P2P users.
a Tbps or thereabouts... is more than most people need for the next few decades
Bill? Is that you?
Retirement's tough, buddy, but that's alright. Slashdot is here to listen. Judging by your UID you've been here a while (the Gmail address is a nice red herring, too).
If I enjoy inhaling toxic smoke, then maybe that is the way I want to have the fun in my life, and if me choosing what I want to do for fun doesn't match your "reason" or Big Brother's "reason" then fuck you both.
If you have the mental faculties to be able to properly weigh the risks of the actions you choose against their benefits to you – whether that be using a computer all day or smoking – and there are no social costs inherent in your actions, then by all means, do what you want.
But society has decided that if you are under a certain age you do not have these required decision making capabilities, and so you are restricted from making the choice. That is all.
If a child really wanted to inhale toxic fumes its parents could make that choice by going to the cigarette machine and buying the fags, but the child itself can't. Seems reasonable to me.
(This post restricts itself to the narrow issue of age restrictions and ignores facets such as taxes on "undesireable" goods)
That may very well be the GGP's position, but that doesn't change my position: I still think it's bollocks.
I'm quite sympathetic to many of the ideals of libertarianism, but some of the hard-line stuff just leaves me shaking my head. To pluck an example out of Wikipedia: "many [Libertarians] believe that the United States Food and Drug Administration shouldn't ban unproven medical treatments, that any decisions on treatment be left to patient and doctor only." Well, sure, that would be fine... if the patient and the doctor had perfect information. But they don't, so they can't make properly informed decisions about undertaking the treatment. "Will it kill me?" I dunno. "Will I grow antlers?" I dunno. That's the whole point of banning untested treatments: they get tested, and the information asymmetry reduces. Giving people the "right" to do stupid things doesn't seem very.. well, I think (some) libertarianists take it to far. I don't think it's societally efficient.
Oh hey, a troll! Or did you just read my sig and feel personally addressed?
Well, for the gallery: you're partially right - companies can raise their prices to offset the higher costs caused by pollution permits... and then? Oh, right -- consumers will buy less! And that means? Less production, very good. And less production of a good involving pollution results in... less pollution, hurrah!
Alternatively, companies can keep their prices the same (to stay competitive against their rivals) and invest in pollution reducing technology. The gains from this technology will differ depending on how much pollution the production involves (since permits would otherwise have to be bought to offset this pollution), so the dirtiest producers have the biggest incentive to innovate.
But hey, I just have degrees in Economics and Commerce with a specialisation in Environmental Economics, what do I know...
the first and only goal of the government should be to uphold the rights of its citizenry. (Emphasis added)
Bollocks. What about the provision public goods (e.g. national defence)? Market regulation? Wealth redistribution? Welfare isn't a "right", you know. What about representation on an international level?
Your characterisation of a government's primary role may be (well, is) closer to the truth than that of the GP, but your oversimplification hasn't helped any.
Pithy, frightening scenarios backed up by no evidence or rationale whatsoever should be disregarded no matter how frightening.
Blanket rejections backed up by no evidence or rationale whatsoever should be disregarded, _because_ they lead to false rejections of scenarios that may be true. How about some critical thought here?
If wealthy, polluting industries "pay to pollute", does that actually reduce emissions?
Err... yes. "Pay to pollute" => pollution costs money => you can make a bigger profit by lowering costs, in the form of pollution => Profit! Oh, and Environmental Quality! Economics 101, hello?
Where does the money go?
That depends on the scheme. Some governments issue the certificates for free and let the industry trade amongst itself. The money then goes to whoever sells their certificates i.e. whoever pollutes the least. How much is polluted then depends primarily on how many certificates are issued. Alternatively the goverment can sell the certificates. This isn't a bad idea, because that way the Gov't gets the money and can fund environmental cleanups (or minister junkets, whatever). Biggest problem is the fact that the government may set a too low or too high price.
You can get the benefits of both by having the government sell a fixed number of certificates (who gets to buy them is another issue) and letting the secondary market take care of the process of marginal cost/benefit equalisation. The issue price would have to be below the market equilibrium price, but with a bit of practice the government can figure it out.
Current practice in the EU, AFAIK, is Model 1: issue the the certificates, let the market trade. In the last few years there were far too many permits on the market, so that the costs for a ton of CO2 were somewhere around 0.26â, but this year it's around 20â, I think (haven't checked the market recently).
I don't know what the GP meant with his "two largest emerging world economy haven't signed the Kyoto protocol" statement: Brazil, China, and India have all ratified it.
Answers to the OP's further questions can be found in the Kyoto protocol itself: Full Text Layman's guide
Slashdot Mirror
The crew all know there are holes. But this is a cruise ship, and you're worried about the passengers panicking.
In fairness to Yahoo it should be mentioned that they do let you create what they call "disposable" e-mail addresses that work on the same principle: base_address-your_salt_here@yahoo.XYZ
That solution may not be as easy or complete as GoogleMail's, but since the other big free e-mail provider out there (Hotmail) doesn't offer it at all, I don't think Yahoo is that bad.
Now, if only they'd offer free IMAP *sigh*
Oh, boo-hoo. You lost 18 hours of your life playing around with technology – I lost that much again watching The English Patient. Now my g/f wants to watch The Sex & The City movie with me... say, how fast can I get Vista delivered, do you think?
Why would anyone want to hack your Slashdot account? Are there people out there just clamouring for the geek credibility of a mid-6-digit UID?
I had the chance to try out a Segway a few years ago, and the salesman told me they were pitching it at three main market segments:
1. The elderly. As has already been mentioned in this discussion, a Segway can be used as a "hipper wheelchair". For elderly folk with limited mobility (i.e. they no longer have the energy required to pedal their bikes through possibly hilly areas) a Segway provides a faster, more elegant, and, yes, cooler alternative to an electronic wheelchair.
2. Large factories / industrial complexes. I don't know how many of you have been on larger industrial sites, but there are some fsking huge complexes out there: BASF's 10 sqkm Ludwigshafen site springs to mind. They get around that having several thousand bikes for the employees to ride, but a high level manager may not want to arrive to his/her next meeting hot and sweaty from having biked from one side of the complex to the other. Plus, a Segway clearly outranks a bike (while still being more convenient / environmentally friendly than a chauffeured car).
3. Celebrities. Seriously, how cool do people look on Segways, huh? Tell me Gob isn't at his sexiest when he makes his entrance on one of these babies.
So, notwithstanding that I made that last reason up, there are at least two valid markets for the Segway as a product.
The main problems, according to the salesman, were – aside from the cost – the unfamiliarity of people with the concept of two-wheeled vehicles that don't require you to do the balancing*, and the ambiguous legal classification: is it a bike? Is it a car? Can you use it on the footpath, or are you relegated to the streets? Given the responsiveness of the Segway and the target market, the makers were hoping to get it allowed on the footpath, but a combination of the its weight and speed nixed that idea, and it's too exposed for the roads. Thus, at least in Australia, Segways are illegal on both footpaths and roads – a wonderful precondition for commercial success!
However, once the regulatory problems are solved, and people get over the "WTF is that?" factor, I foresee a great future in these kind of devices (if not the Segway itself, since it'll probably be outdated by that time). I'm a little baffled by the Segway's negative image, to be honest, but I'm also baffled at the relative unpopularity of Tablet PCs, which I consider to be the bees knees.
The Segway and its ilk provide the short-range mobility of a bicycle, with close to zero effort. And folks – convenience sells.
*Most people get on and immediately try and adjust for the Segway, leaning forwards or backwards. Since the Segway adjusts for the user, and responds to leaning by accelerating in that direction, these people finding themselves on a 'bucking' Segway until they figure out they have to stand still to.. well, stand still. I had very little problems with this, but I've got good balance (and great hair. But never mind that.)
What I found insufferable was the way the turning trigger was toggled: roll your left hand forwards and you turn left; roll it backwards, and you turn left. This struck me as being incredibly counter-intuitive, perhaps also because I'd met the salesman in the park when I was riding home from work and your wrists roll the other way on a bicycle (though also on a steering wheel).
Well, obviously, otherwhise there wouldn't have been anyone to bump into.
That's because we don't like moderately phrased, reasoned opinions with facts, or predictions that come with caveats and margins for error. Blogs with that kind of boring realism are only read by accountants and statisticians – two groups that, ironically enough, don't make up a large proportion of news turnover.
Spot on. Facebook has only been available in German for a few months, and it was hardly unforeseeable that of two virtually identical services the one that's available in the country's language first will be more successful.
I, for one, hope FB mount a successful takeover bid and combine the two services.
Being a user of both services, I have no idea why anyone would choose StudiVZ over Facebook. Aside from being able to see who lasted visited your page (which can be toggled by the visiting user), and having the (admittedly cool) functionality of entering what courses you're studying*, StudiVZ has nothing that Facebook doesn't (and has a much crappier interface).
StudiVZ lost a lot of users when they introduced their new privacy-unfriendly terms and conditions, and my anecdotal evidence is that I'm seeing more Germans migrate to Facebook than from it. The main reason StudiVZ caught on here was because it was – surprise – in German, while Facebook (until recently) wasn't.
It's not that Facebook has a worse reputation than StudiVZ, but simply that it's less well known. As such, FB suing SVZ won't hurt their chances in Germany in the slightest.
To respond to other posters saying they've looked at the two sites and can't see many similarities: take it from a user – they are incredibly similar. Just that StudiVZ is worse.
*so can find, you know.. fellows students.
It was a joke. Playing on the regular and heavy bleeding thing... never mind :-P
+2, Interesting – wtf?!
I'm pro nazi-slavery, you insensitve clod!
What are you, a woman?
Stasi = secret police, not secret people.
Very sadly, you happen to be wrong.
The Stasi (secret people) were incredibly effective at recruiting civilian informers: the generally agreed proportion was about 2% of the East German population, the BBC suggests up to 12% (from the Wik). It was not at all uncommon for family members to spy on each other :-/
If you want to see what it looked like, rent "Das Leben der Anderen" (or, if you're not into subtitles, wait for the Yank remake I believe is in the works). No monocle and jackboots, just a guy in the attic tapping your line.
This result (of people caring more about something once it's been mentioned) has been observed in economic experiments measuring people's willingness to accept, for example, the construction of a new dangerous waste management facility in their municipality.
When presented with the scenario, "The Federal and Local Governments have agreed that the construction of this facility is necessary, and should be constructed here", about 50% of people voted for the plant. When the scenario was modified to, "The Federal and Local Governments have agreed that the construction of this facility is necessary, and should be constructed here. Each resident will receive 500 Francs per year as compensation.", the rate of acceptance fell to about 20%.
Totally counter-intuitive: same scenario, better conditions, less acceptance. It wasn't a strategic decision about trying exhort more money, but rather, the fact that money was offered prompted the residents to think, "Hang on – if they're willing to compensate me for this, it MUST be dangerous. Bugger this!*"
The same effect looks to be at work in this experiment: presented with the offer of confidentiality, the subjects are prompted to reconsider how sensitive this information actually is, and come to the conclusion that if MUST be sensitive if people feel it necessary to promise not to reveal it to anyone else.
*I'm paraphrasing, obviously. I'm not sure even the French would give answers like that on surveys!
Hmmm. Well, judging by the phrase "researchers have found a way to categorize the type of traffic that is hidden inside an encrypted SSH session to around 90% accuracy" I would venture a guess that the researches can, in fact, separate the P2P traffic from the regular (incl. business traffic). With 90% accuracy, no less.
Honestly, I'd be a little surprised if there were even 10% of businesses whose internet usage through VPN tunnels mirrored that of P2P users.
Bill? Is that you?
Retirement's tough, buddy, but that's alright. Slashdot is here to listen. Judging by your UID you've been here a while (the Gmail address is a nice red herring, too).
If you have the mental faculties to be able to properly weigh the risks of the actions you choose against their benefits to you – whether that be using a computer all day or smoking – and there are no social costs inherent in your actions, then by all means, do what you want.
But society has decided that if you are under a certain age you do not have these required decision making capabilities, and so you are restricted from making the choice. That is all.
If a child really wanted to inhale toxic fumes its parents could make that choice by going to the cigarette machine and buying the fags, but the child itself can't. Seems reasonable to me.
(This post restricts itself to the narrow issue of age restrictions and ignores facets such as taxes on "undesireable" goods)
That may very well be the GGP's position, but that doesn't change my position: I still think it's bollocks.
I'm quite sympathetic to many of the ideals of libertarianism, but some of the hard-line stuff just leaves me shaking my head. To pluck an example out of Wikipedia: "many [Libertarians] believe that the United States Food and Drug Administration shouldn't ban unproven medical treatments, that any decisions on treatment be left to patient and doctor only."
Well, sure, that would be fine... if the patient and the doctor had perfect information. But they don't, so they can't make properly informed decisions about undertaking the treatment. "Will it kill me?" I dunno. "Will I grow antlers?" I dunno.
That's the whole point of banning untested treatments: they get tested, and the information asymmetry reduces. Giving people the "right" to do stupid things doesn't seem very.. well, I think (some) libertarianists take it to far. I don't think it's societally efficient.
Oh hey, a troll! Or did you just read my sig and feel personally addressed?
Well, for the gallery: you're partially right - companies can raise their prices to offset the higher costs caused by pollution permits... and then? Oh, right -- consumers will buy less! And that means? Less production, very good. And less production of a good involving pollution results in... less pollution, hurrah!
Alternatively, companies can keep their prices the same (to stay competitive against their rivals) and invest in pollution reducing technology. The gains from this technology will differ depending on how much pollution the production involves (since permits would otherwise have to be bought to offset this pollution), so the dirtiest producers have the biggest incentive to innovate.
But hey, I just have degrees in Economics and Commerce with a specialisation in Environmental Economics, what do I know...
Bollocks. What about the provision public goods (e.g. national defence)? Market regulation? Wealth redistribution? Welfare isn't a "right", you know. What about representation on an international level?
Your characterisation of a government's primary role may be (well, is) closer to the truth than that of the GP, but your oversimplification hasn't helped any.
Blanket rejections backed up by no evidence or rationale whatsoever should be disregarded, _because_ they lead to false rejections of scenarios that may be true. How about some critical thought here?
He said what I was saying, but took the time to say it properly :-)
No Euro symbol support? WTF?
Err... yes. "Pay to pollute" => pollution costs money => you can make a bigger profit by lowering costs, in the form of pollution => Profit! Oh, and Environmental Quality! Economics 101, hello?
That depends on the scheme. Some governments issue the certificates for free and let the industry trade amongst itself. The money then goes to whoever sells their certificates i.e. whoever pollutes the least. How much is polluted then depends primarily on how many certificates are issued.
Alternatively the goverment can sell the certificates. This isn't a bad idea, because that way the Gov't gets the money and can fund environmental cleanups (or minister junkets, whatever). Biggest problem is the fact that the government may set a too low or too high price.
You can get the benefits of both by having the government sell a fixed number of certificates (who gets to buy them is another issue) and letting the secondary market take care of the process of marginal cost/benefit equalisation. The issue price would have to be below the market equilibrium price, but with a bit of practice the government can figure it out.
Current practice in the EU, AFAIK, is Model 1: issue the the certificates, let the market trade. In the last few years there were far too many permits on the market, so that the costs for a ton of CO2 were somewhere around 0.26â, but this year it's around 20â, I think (haven't checked the market recently).
I don't know what the GP meant with his "two largest emerging world economy haven't signed the Kyoto protocol" statement: Brazil, China, and India have all ratified it.
Answers to the OP's further questions can be found in the Kyoto protocol itself:
Full Text
Layman's guide