"WE aren't WEird" always stuck with me for some reason. Maybe some kind of "receive spelled weirdly" mneumonic (... er... sp?) would work here.
Re:How did this virus spread so easily?
on
SCO Offline
·
· Score: 1
I think we can fairly, in part, assign the stupidity attribute based on the user's capacity to learn and retain what the dangerous action is, regardless of environment.
In other words, there's not a lot of one-trial learning rats out there. They keep putting their hands on the hot stove. They keep sticking the forks in the electric socket. They keep driving the cars after the oil light comes on.
We can't remove the risky parts that the user can't seem to avoid, because then nothing gets done at all. We can turn off the stove, kill the power, and remove the car engine, and keep the user completely safe... and useless.
Instead, how about acknowleging that some times dangerous things are possible, and that, having done the dangerous thing once and gotten burned by it, the user should learn to NOT DO THE DANGEROUS THING ANYMORE. One trial learning rat.
Me, I'm all for bringing portable hotplates to the workstations when I have to clean up a virus call. If it is determined that somebody opened an attachment when they should have known better, it's five seconds at 400 degrees.
Surely some of it is an interface problem
on
KISS
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· Score: 3, Insightful
"It's a computer, that's what it is. It's got menus and menus. I have to consult a manual anytime I try other features and then I forget how to do it," Sherby said. "If it takes that much effort to learn what to do, forget it."
Of course, people have said this kind of things about lots of products, including amateur 35mm cameras. Strangely enough, some folks went to trouble of learning how to use them anyway. Those folks know how the complicated controls work.
That's when the industry changes the controls in the name of "ease of use", thus alienating not only the beginner, but also the person who knew what they were doing before.
One of the things that pisses me off about my digital camera is that I have to dig through menus to change settings like exposure, f-stop, flash on/off, etc. The camera supports them all in theory, but it is hard to use in practice. Let's see, click here, left, down down down, menu... whoops! Lost the shot.
There are cameras that have these controls now, but in my experience they are unjustifiably more expensive just for that design.
Stick to the metaphor, manufacturing guys. If it's a camera, it should be controlled like a camera, even if there's a computer on the inside. That means knobs and dials and stuff that is quick to get at, makes sense if you know what it does, and can be ignored if you don't. Just like the old days.
It is a question of letting the old dog use the new technology without having to learn the "new trick paradign" too. The functions are the same, why change the controls? What's next, point-and-click blenders?
On the other hand, the next generation of car drivers might need a gamepad instead of a steering wheel...
I had the good fortune to attend a lecture at Local University by Professor Tom Shippey, author of The Road to Middle Earth and Tolkien: Author of the Century. He currently sits in St. Louis, but in times past he held the same chair as Tolkien did academically. The topic of the lecture was exclusively directed at what Tolkien might have thought of Jackson's work. Shippey served an advisory role during the making of the RotK film.
Shippey's treatment was incisive, particular, thoughtful, and thoroughly illuminating. He mentioned a couple of specific points that Tolkien, in his estimation, would have focussed on to judge the quality.
First, Tolkien would have disliked habitual carelessness. Mispellings in the script, etc. Not a big deal in the movie, but there you have it.
Second, Tolkien would have been most concerned with what Shippey called "failing to adhere to the narrative core of the original." He noted that there was a great expansion of Aragorn et al's adventures after the Fellowship split up, but that on the whole the story remained faithful to the core of Frodo, Sam and Gollum's journey.
Third, it was noted that Tolkien had no objection to abridgement, as he understood to some extent the limitations of the different medium of film. Some things work on film, some don't -- internal monologue is one example I can think of. In a book, you can have a lot of it. In a film, you have to do it right, or drop it completely and express the core another way.
In relation #3, Tolkien objected to *compression* -- crushing thousands of years of history into a single chunk, whipping through it for only the sake of mentioning it, and moving on without it having impact. In this case, Shippey thought (and reflecting on it, I agree) that having the ring's history explained at the very start was a really smart move for the films.
This is not to say that Shippey wasn't confused at some of Jackson's inclusions. Legolas skateboarding and the multiple dwarf-tossing jokes were eyebrow raisers for a lot of people, I think. The weird death/ressurrection of Aragorn in TTT was described as a "narrative zag" in that it had no effect on the plot or character. You make a good point on theme, but depending on what you consider to be the vital them of the trilogy... well. Shippey said that one theme that didn't make it was the role of providence. I'd like to go more into that, but this is getting long and I need to wrap it up.
Shippey mentioned Tolkien's observations on the scripts for the animated films. I didn't know he had lived long enough to see them, so that's a new one on me. Something to keep in mind though is that even the medium of film has changed dramatically over the past 30 years. It's hard to take the critique of three-generations-back and apply it to what Jackson did. The scales are just too disperate.
In the end, I think Shippey's opinion was favorable overall.
Finally -- I appreciate the Silmarillion quote. But you should remember yourself that no artist creates in a vaccuum. Tolkien claimed, twisted, adjusted, and applied numerous myths and themes from stories past in order to create LotR. I find LotR to be a more engaging read than, say, Beowulf or the Viking Sagas, so I guess you can count me as one of those detracting voices in the song. I guess it depends on which song you sing first.
Thanks to recent educational initiatives and minimum standards testing, I only had to know "I before E." The "Except after" stuff was for advanced placement.
I work for Local University (TM) at the medical library, which handles tech support for the campus. With the recent outbreak of the worm of the day, I've taken it upon myself to create a web page for our users on best computing practices. I'm still putting it together, so mostly it's just getting blocked out for structuring the content.
Here's one of the sections that I wrote more out of catharsis than actual informative intent. It certainly won't make the web, but it got my point across.
Don't Put Strange Things in Your Mouth
It doesn't take fancy book-learnin' to catch on when you recieve an emailed attachment that you didn't ask for -- especially when it starts turning up from lots of different addresses in a short period of time. Opening an unrequested email attachment is about as hygenic as chewing on a urinal cake, and you should know better. That means you, Doctor Six-Years-in-Medical-School.
If you really want to mess with some heads, be sure to answer "yes" when they ask if you're going to hijack the plane. Note: This only works if you're convinced you're not going to hijack the plane.
If the device registers a false response, how much do you think they'd trust it?
But by declining to hear the lower court's case and allowing the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 to stay intact, the court has effectively sanctioned an unintended consequence of the law that has ensnared many businesses in a legal web of fines, threats and a lot of aggravation.
Er... no, I'd say that was actually the point of the law. It's like the cockroches are shocked at the idea of having to scatter when the light comes on. "But-but-but... but the dark was so NICE!"
Fine by me. Speak up loudly, guys, it makes you easier to target and squish. Fax marketer, meet boot. Boot, fax marketer. I'm sure you'll get along famously.
A week or two ago my neighbor came by. At a loss for anything to do, we all sat down and played a game of Before I Kill You, Mister Bond -- a simple card game with simple rules, devious gameplay, and a lot of humor. That's a happy memory indeed.
It's enough to make me want to declare a weekly card night. Cheapass Games makes some fine ones -- check 'em out.
In fact, now that I think of it, Cheapass has a GREAT business model. They sell you content, not cruft, so you don't end up with loads of board game bits and peices all over the place. Just just sell you what you need, allowing you to recycle bits from elsewhere. If you need the bits, you can buy them too, but only if you need them. And the games themselves are, well, CHEAP. Like, inexpensive.
Sorry to shill. I have no business relation, etc, etc, etc. Just a good time.
He's also been quite successful on the stage. A CNN article a few months back had him saying that he was very happy with the distance he's created between Star Wars and the rest of his very-well established career as an entertainer. Not that he's not proud of his earlier work, but it's not the kind of thing an actor wants to hang his hat on forever.
I don't know about anybody else, but after reading through this entire article and all the replies, when I ran across the phrase "required product activation" I didn't apply it to Photoshop...
I imagined having to call a toll-free number every time I cashed a paycheck and reading off the serial numbers on the bills to "activate" them. And for one scary moment, it didn't seem so far-fetched. GMFTatsujin
The team works more and its remaining work declined. The team then met with the Product Owner and the Scrum Master to determine what tasks could be reduced or removed while still meeting the goals of the Sprint. Some Sprint backlog was dropped; other estimates were lowered because not as much functionality had to be supported. Overall estimated work remaining reduced to 1400 hours. If all this work is completed, the team will still meet the Sprint Goal, although with functionality implemented less completely.
Following that, the Thetans will be clensed by the operator, and everyone will finish off with a nice glass of kool-aid.
Seriously... what the fuck gwan on with all this jibber-jabber?
The Solution of the Voynich Manuscript by Leo Levitov was published by the Aegean Press in 1987. Links to Amazon.com are left as an exercise to the Slashdot readership.
Levitov provides methodology for extracting the linguistic model that the book encodes. Many examples and translations are provided, and there is plenty of work for the reader to do if he wants to prove the system to himself.
Levitov proposes that his solution reveals a manual of heretical text regarding the ease and assistance of the mortally ill into death -- euthenasia, basically. To my knowledge, his work has not been discredited, only ignored.
For the definitive hoax-type artificial reality book, check out the amazing Codex Seraphinianus.
Intel, as well as other large chip manufacturers, should be able to expand the benefits of Moore's Law, named for Gordon Moore, a founder of Intel, which accurately predicted decades ago that computer chips would continue to double in capacity roughly every 18 months, while their price would continue to fall.
Can we please, please, PLEASE stop mentioning Moore's Law in every single freaking article about Intel?
What are they going to do: make televisions cost half as much and go twice as fast after 18 months?
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Why, oh why, couldn't that have been Samuel L. Jackson?
"I refute it THUS, motherfucker!" BANG.
"WE aren't WEird" always stuck with me for some reason. Maybe some kind of "receive spelled weirdly" mneumonic (... er... sp?) would work here.
I think we can fairly, in part, assign the stupidity attribute based on the user's capacity to learn and retain what the dangerous action is, regardless of environment.
In other words, there's not a lot of one-trial learning rats out there. They keep putting their hands on the hot stove. They keep sticking the forks in the electric socket. They keep driving the cars after the oil light comes on.
We can't remove the risky parts that the user can't seem to avoid, because then nothing gets done at all. We can turn off the stove, kill the power, and remove the car engine, and keep the user completely safe... and useless.
Instead, how about acknowleging that some times dangerous things are possible, and that, having done the dangerous thing once and gotten burned by it, the user should learn to NOT DO THE DANGEROUS THING ANYMORE. One trial learning rat.
Me, I'm all for bringing portable hotplates to the workstations when I have to clean up a virus call. If it is determined that somebody opened an attachment when they should have known better, it's five seconds at 400 degrees.
Of course, people have said this kind of things about lots of products, including amateur 35mm cameras. Strangely enough, some folks went to trouble of learning how to use them anyway. Those folks know how the complicated controls work.
That's when the industry changes the controls in the name of "ease of use", thus alienating not only the beginner, but also the person who knew what they were doing before.
One of the things that pisses me off about my digital camera is that I have to dig through menus to change settings like exposure, f-stop, flash on/off, etc. The camera supports them all in theory, but it is hard to use in practice. Let's see, click here, left, down down down, menu... whoops! Lost the shot.
There are cameras that have these controls now, but in my experience they are unjustifiably more expensive just for that design.
Stick to the metaphor, manufacturing guys. If it's a camera, it should be controlled like a camera, even if there's a computer on the inside. That means knobs and dials and stuff that is quick to get at, makes sense if you know what it does, and can be ignored if you don't. Just like the old days.
It is a question of letting the old dog use the new technology without having to learn the "new trick paradign" too. The functions are the same, why change the controls? What's next, point-and-click blenders?
On the other hand, the next generation of car drivers might need a gamepad instead of a steering wheel...
I had the good fortune to attend a lecture at Local University by Professor Tom Shippey, author of The Road to Middle Earth and Tolkien: Author of the Century. He currently sits in St. Louis, but in times past he held the same chair as Tolkien did academically. The topic of the lecture was exclusively directed at what Tolkien might have thought of Jackson's work. Shippey served an advisory role during the making of the RotK film.
Shippey's treatment was incisive, particular, thoughtful, and thoroughly illuminating. He mentioned a couple of specific points that Tolkien, in his estimation, would have focussed on to judge the quality.
First, Tolkien would have disliked habitual carelessness. Mispellings in the script, etc. Not a big deal in the movie, but there you have it.
Second, Tolkien would have been most concerned with what Shippey called "failing to adhere to the narrative core of the original." He noted that there was a great expansion of Aragorn et al's adventures after the Fellowship split up, but that on the whole the story remained faithful to the core of Frodo, Sam and Gollum's journey.
Third, it was noted that Tolkien had no objection to abridgement, as he understood to some extent the limitations of the different medium of film. Some things work on film, some don't -- internal monologue is one example I can think of. In a book, you can have a lot of it. In a film, you have to do it right, or drop it completely and express the core another way.
In relation #3, Tolkien objected to *compression* -- crushing thousands of years of history into a single chunk, whipping through it for only the sake of mentioning it, and moving on without it having impact. In this case, Shippey thought (and reflecting on it, I agree) that having the ring's history explained at the very start was a really smart move for the films.
This is not to say that Shippey wasn't confused at some of Jackson's inclusions. Legolas skateboarding and the multiple dwarf-tossing jokes were eyebrow raisers for a lot of people, I think. The weird death/ressurrection of Aragorn in TTT was described as a "narrative zag" in that it had no effect on the plot or character. You make a good point on theme, but depending on what you consider to be the vital them of the trilogy... well. Shippey said that one theme that didn't make it was the role of providence. I'd like to go more into that, but this is getting long and I need to wrap it up.
Shippey mentioned Tolkien's observations on the scripts for the animated films. I didn't know he had lived long enough to see them, so that's a new one on me. Something to keep in mind though is that even the medium of film has changed dramatically over the past 30 years. It's hard to take the critique of three-generations-back and apply it to what Jackson did. The scales are just too disperate.
In the end, I think Shippey's opinion was favorable overall.
Finally -- I appreciate the Silmarillion quote. But you should remember yourself that no artist creates in a vaccuum. Tolkien claimed, twisted, adjusted, and applied numerous myths and themes from stories past in order to create LotR. I find LotR to be a more engaging read than, say, Beowulf or the Viking Sagas, so I guess you can count me as one of those detracting voices in the song. I guess it depends on which song you sing first.
Thanks to recent educational initiatives and minimum standards testing, I only had to know "I before E." The "Except after" stuff was for advanced placement.
Here's one of the sections that I wrote more out of catharsis than actual informative intent. It certainly won't make the web, but it got my point across.
OS9 is dead! Long live BSD!
Media outlets are only as liberal as the giant corporations that own them.
Thanks GE! Thanks Disney! Thank you all!
Talk about self-referencial. They got a copyright on an uncopiable design. I'm laughing my ass off.
If you really want to mess with some heads, be sure to answer "yes" when they ask if you're going to hijack the plane. Note: This only works if you're convinced you're not going to hijack the plane.
If the device registers a false response, how much do you think they'd trust it?
How much concussive force are we expecting, here? Mmm-hmm, I see...
Is it enough to, say, implode a human skull?
Just curious.
How much were these glasses again? Can I buy them in bulk? Say, about (quick civics recollection) 500 of them?
Er... no, I'd say that was actually the point of the law. It's like the cockroches are shocked at the idea of having to scatter when the light comes on. "But-but-but... but the dark was so NICE!"
Fine by me. Speak up loudly, guys, it makes you easier to target and squish. Fax marketer, meet boot. Boot, fax marketer. I'm sure you'll get along famously.
A week or two ago my neighbor came by. At a loss for anything to do, we all sat down and played a game of Before I Kill You, Mister Bond -- a simple card game with simple rules, devious gameplay, and a lot of humor. That's a happy memory indeed.
It's enough to make me want to declare a weekly card night. Cheapass Games makes some fine ones -- check 'em out.
In fact, now that I think of it, Cheapass has a GREAT business model. They sell you content, not cruft, so you don't end up with loads of board game bits and peices all over the place. Just just sell you what you need, allowing you to recycle bits from elsewhere. If you need the bits, you can buy them too, but only if you need them. And the games themselves are, well, CHEAP. Like, inexpensive.
Sorry to shill. I have no business relation, etc, etc, etc. Just a good time.
He's also been quite successful on the stage. A CNN article a few months back had him saying that he was very happy with the distance he's created between Star Wars and the rest of his very-well established career as an entertainer. Not that he's not proud of his earlier work, but it's not the kind of thing an actor wants to hang his hat on forever.
Don't mistake the messenger for the message.
Those jobs aren't God-given either.
They're inheirited.
I don't know about anybody else, but after reading through this entire article and all the replies, when I ran across the phrase "required product activation" I didn't apply it to Photoshop...
I imagined having to call a toll-free number every time I cashed a paycheck and reading off the serial numbers on the bills to "activate" them. And for one scary moment, it didn't seem so far-fetched.
GMFTatsujin
What if they ported it to an XBox?
Standard hardware, x86 core...
Following that, the Thetans will be clensed by the operator, and everyone will finish off with a nice glass of kool-aid.
Seriously... what the fuck gwan on with all this jibber-jabber?
The Solution of the Voynich Manuscript by Leo Levitov was published by the Aegean Press in 1987. Links to Amazon.com are left as an exercise to the Slashdot readership.
Levitov provides methodology for extracting the linguistic model that the book encodes. Many examples and translations are provided, and there is plenty of work for the reader to do if he wants to prove the system to himself.
Levitov proposes that his solution reveals a manual of heretical text regarding the ease and assistance of the mortally ill into death -- euthenasia, basically. To my knowledge, his work has not been discredited, only ignored.
For the definitive hoax-type artificial reality book, check out the amazing Codex Seraphinianus.
I, for one, welcome them!
if you keep putting it off, you'll never buy anything.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Can we please, please, PLEASE stop mentioning Moore's Law in every single freaking article about Intel?
What are they going to do: make televisions cost half as much and go twice as fast after 18 months?
Disintigrations! They're useful to me dead!
Oh please oh please oh please