And of course I meant IDL (Internet Defense League), and not IDF (Israel Defense Forces). But i had just read this post and had IDF stuck in my mind...
Website owners can sign up on the IDL website to add a bit of code to their sites (or receive code by email at the time of a campaign) that can be triggered in the case of a crisis like SOPA. This would add an "activist call-to-action" to all participating sites - such as a banner asking users to sign petitions, or in extreme cases blackout the site, as proved effective in the SOPA/PIPA protest of January 2012.
Are they nuts? I don't want any outside site having control over my clients' sites. If they are hacked this would give the hackers a quick way to affect any site that signs up with them.
Well intentioned (I hope), but count me out.
I think the summary is wrong about how the system is supposed to work. From the actual IDF site: "First, sign up. If you have a website, we'll send you sample alert code to get working in advance. The next time there's an emergency, we'll tell you and send new code. Then it's your decision to pull the trigger."
Sounds like they give you a sample code in advance so you can make it fit with your site, then if something comes up, they send you a version specific to whatever the issue is. If you don't think it's important, you can just ignore it. If you do want to include a message, you can pop it on your site. And it shouldn't screw anything up because you've previously tested/customized the code for your site. That's slightly (completely?) different than the summary which implies they give you code allowing them to automatically add alerts to your site whenever they want.
I'm still not convinced it's worthwhile, but it's not the "no way in hell I'm doing that" method that the summary describes
The opposite case can be made: If non-GM food is so awesome, why don't the organic folks slap a non-GM label on their stuff? That accomplishes your goal of giving people choice. And they can do it today - no regulations needed - and no one's gonna oppose it. If it were really just about choice, doesn't that accomplish the goal? The fact that "GM free" labels aren't good enough implies it's really not about giving consumers choices.
I am not willing to pay for news. I am also not willing to look at or click on advertising to subsidize the news. I am theoretically willing to pay for long-form journalism, although in practice I don't. I use Readability to share articles with friends. I would never subscribed to a newspaper. I am educated (multiple university degrees; one in science, one in humanities, one in social science) and politically engaged.
I know I'm the face of the problem, and I don't care.
That's an easy position to take and it's one that's probably held by many people. But it's not the ideological stand some like to make it out to be. It's just a reaction to the current reality. At the moment you can opt for a free alternative to the news you're not willing to pay for. So your lack of willingness to pay doesn't have much negative impact on you. If those free alternatives end up being scaled back significantly to the point where they don't meet your needs, then your decision over whether to pay for news would mean something different. Until that happens (if it ever does), your first line might be more correctly written as "I am not willing to pay for news since I can easily access news for free elsewhere.". That is not the same thing.
Actually, there is a difference. A bank will give you a loan and expect you to pay it back with a certain interest rate. When you've paid that back, you just have to pay your other costs, rest of your income goes into your pocket. With a record label you're forever stuck with only getting a small cut, and sometimes they even withhold a part of this to cover costs they think belong to the artist.
This is different. I don't think anyone would ever take a loan from a bank that demands that 90% of all future income from the investment go straight to the bank.
Lots of people would if they believed the investment they made with that loan would make them rich and famous. Especially if they felt (whether correct or not) that they had no other options for getting the loan. And that only counts the people who understand what they are signing. Quite a few others would take it because the loan officer promised them everything they wanted while glossing over the details.
Actually, if there's a silver lining here (which happens to address that very point), it's the 90 day deadline. One thing I've learned is that if something needs to be ready in one year, it is pretty much guaranteed to suck and overrun its deadline (i.e. it won't really be ready in a year) and have its best features neutered and a lot of worthless crap done to it.
OTOH if someone needs something in two weeks, the techs just say "well, we have to do this, and we're already running out of time" and get it done and there aren't any meetings and expansion and nobody gets to add delays to it.
That's a great point. I've noticed that as well. Only objection I'd raise is that injecting a project with a short deadline causes delays in every other ongoing project as people have to stop whatever else they were working on to get this done. Of course if you happen to have people sitting around doing nothing, then you're not interrupting anything.
I remember these. They weren't even electronic - each button on the remote caused a tine to be pulled and released which was tuned to a specific ultrasonic frequency. This is why the early remotes were called "clickers" - releasing the tine made a metallic clicking sound. It also meant that random ambient sounds that matched the target frequency could cause your TV to turn on/off, change channels, etc on its own.
There were also remotes that weren't even wireless, with a 10' long tether wire to the unit. The advertised "advantage" of these was that they didn't need batteries.
They should have advertised the advantage as "never lose your remote again".
Can we collectively stop using Ubuntu/Linux downloads as an argument point to extoll the virtues of bittorrent? Lets use an example that people are familiar with.
Such as? How many non copyright infringing uses are there for bittorrent that (non-geek) people are familiar? How many of those represent more than an insignificant fraction of bittorrent usage?
I enjoyed this spam but I found it unconvincing. It starts out with a guy admitting he's a moron who knows nothing about computers - basically the last person you'd want to take computer advice from. Then it concludes with him giving computer advice. Having previously established that he's unqualified to give such advice, why would he expect us to heed it?
LookAtThatCleanBooty, I'd be eager to hear your response to my criticism.
I'm not sure how successful a computer would be at generating the tag lines like "from the kicking-newspaper-writers-when-they're-down dept.", but the rest seems doable.
so composing and abstract is "already done" and a tag line is "would be?". you haven't thought a lot about this, did you?
Do you understand the difference between extracting a quote from an existing text vs. creating new completely text intended to be humorous?
Could a Computer Write Better Stories on Slashdot?
Slashdot summaries would be fairly well suited to being done by computer. They are usually taken from existing articles available on the web. They follow a straightforward format that is largely a quote/summary of the article. Occasionally they provide links to previous stories on the same topic. Computers can already do those things. You could even have an algorithm to put in random typos. I'm not sure how successful a computer would be at generating the tag lines like "from the kicking-newspaper-writers-when-they're-down dept.", but the rest seems doable. If slashdot were run by a bunch of geeks with the desire to do so, the story process could probably be automated, including the process of finding and rating interesting stories by by scanning various sites.
The only time manufacturers generally get forced to take responsibility for bad product design is when people get hurt or killed as a result of their negligence. Software isn't physical, so no one gets hurt when it fails. The only exception to this is mission-critical software like that used in avionics, but that's an entirely different market with serious liability concerns; there's no Adobe (or Microsoft) software running in a jetliner.
Sure there is - it's on the laptops the pilots are looking at while the plane flys on autpilot.:)
Or we'll have scroller ads that take the bottom 10% of the screen (the TV networks are getting particularly obnoxious about this).
I don't know who decided those were a good idea. I don't really mind commercials, but blocking part of the screen while the show is on is obnoxious. And anytime a show has dialogue in a foreign language, they put the translation at the bottom of the screen - where it's blocked by an ad reminding me about some stupid show or special. I don't know why they think the best way to get me to watch some other show on their network is to ruin the show i'm currently watching on their network. My sympathy for networks is pretty low because they pull stunts like that.
scientist 1: "We figured out the secret to human intelligence!"
scientist 2: "Let try it on those animals in the cage and see if we can make them super smart!"
scientist 1: "Good idea! I can't imagine any scenario where that could go wrong."
scientist 1&2: "Yay!"
in the background:
chimp 1: "Pass me some more smart drink"
chimp 2: "You got it buddy. Once we're smart enough to get this cage open, we are so gonna fuck them up..."
You don't think it's naive to believe that a bunch of dogs are going to let a group of strangers bust up their home without doing anything? Don't answer that. Just feel free to ignore all evidence that doesn't fit the story you made up in your mind about how things happened.
His dog didn't do anything! I wouldn't be shocked to read that members of PETA shot someone from the GSU in the next few days.
Well, a different article on the same site claims:
"And in regards to the fatally wounded man’s best friend, the GSU says that three of the eleven dogs on the premises attacked and bit one of the officers on his right thigh. The same dog then attacked a B.D.F. soldier who responded by fatally wounded the dog."
Probably because they didn't make a public statement about it.
Anytime a government agency does something, ideally they should state publicly wtf they're doing.
Absolutely! They're spending our tax money, they ought to be telling us how their using it. If someone returns a server, I want to know about. Send out a press release, that way camera crews can be there to ensure it's done properly. And the FBI agent files sends a memo about the return, send out a press release. Then we'll all be able to sleep well knowing that there's no out standing paperwork.
This should really apply to all government agencies. How else are we to know that our money is being well spent? Do you know how much money gets blown on "black" programs by the CIA? I think it'd be better for everyone if they told us what they were doing in all those projects. That agency is sorely in need of some more transparency and openness. With all the money they are spending, they ought to be sending out press releases all day long telling us what they're up to.
The benefits go beyond keeping track of taxpayer money. Think of the bin Laden raid. If they had sent out a press release about it the week before, news agencies could have sent reporters over to interview bin Laden to find out how he felt about his impending demise. And then they'd have film crews there to record the action as it happened. With a week's notice, Osama's crew probably could put together some Bollywood number to perform during the raid while the SEALs were taking a timeout to update their facebook status letting us know they were blowing up that crashed helicopter.
A picayune was a Spanish coin, worth half a real. Its name derives from the French picaillon, which is itself from the Provençal picaioun, meaning "small coin." By extension, picayune can mean "trivial" or "of little value." (from wikipedia)
It's definitely cool to see this in development, but there's a lot of suspect claims going on. And of course no talk of the downsides of being electric.
The GT4 uses an array of 236 off-the-shelf lithium-polymer batteries weighing 900 pounds. The company says the battery pack and 600 hp (peak) electric motor weigh less than the internal combustion engine on a comparable plane,
so 900 pounds of batteries + ? pounds the electric motor (i guess we're ignoring the weight of the backup gas engine plus the 140 pounds of gas to fuel it) weighs less than the engine on a "comparable plane". Here are some planes and engines:
Full fuel for most of them is would add ~550 pounds, so total ~1000lbs, barely more than the batteries alone on the electric one. It seems like they pulled this weight savings out of their ass.
Volta Volare says low maintenance costs will be a big attraction. The gas engine on a private plane needs an annual inspection that could cost several thousand dollars. In comparison, the GT4 could get by with a simple diagnostic checkup by laptop: Just plug in a USB cable to the electric motor.
Not in the USA it won't, at least if they want the FAA to certify it. I wish I could be there when they propose that just to see them get laughed out of the building. This is the same agency that will declare a plane unairworthy because it doesn't have a sticker saying what kind of fuel it uses. And again, they are ignoring the backup gas engine. Even if they let the USB thing slide, the backup gas engine's gotta be inspected just like every other gas engine. I'm doubtful of the massive savings they are implying
Some of the electricity-not-gasoline savings are nice but still dwarfed by the purchase price that is likely to be over $500,000.
That sounds like a lot, but new planes are expensive. The cost (new) of the planes listed above, not including various optional equipment:
Cirrus SR22: $600K-$700K
Cessna 182: $400K-$450K
Cessna 210: out of production, but likely around $550K-$600K
Diamond DA40: $350K
We use Google Apps at our school and while I love the mail, contacts, calendar, and free storage part, migrating Office docs is very poor. The converter does a bad job with tables and images. I tried to create a table layout with different column spans in a Google doc and gave up. I almost got it going in their spreadsheet doc but soon found out that you can one have one font style per cell.
I've had the same experience. Trying to handle documents created in other programs frequently doesn't work right, giving a messed up layout. Working with spreadsheets is frustrating due to random little annoyances. It's enough of a hassle that I won't use google spreadsheets for anything more than simple tables of data.
I like Google Apps, it's not at the point where it works well enough that I'm willing to move to using it. I have noticed that many of my complaints have been getting fixed over time, so maybe someday.
Perhaps. But raising objections in the form of plausible counter theories is valid science. Even if those counter theories are later disproved, that's all part of the scientific process. You can't just ignore an argument that may have merit simply because you don't trust the motives of the people making the argument. If someone has a reasonable alternate interpretation of the evidence, that needs to be considered (and I suspect a lot of things have been learned in the process of refuting alternate ideas). You can't just claim that your right because everyone agrees with you and they are wrong because the are stupid.... Well you can, but that's not science.
Slashdot Mirror
And of course I meant IDL (Internet Defense League), and not IDF (Israel Defense Forces). But i had just read this post and had IDF stuck in my mind...
Website owners can sign up on the IDL website to add a bit of code to their sites (or receive code by email at the time of a campaign) that can be triggered in the case of a crisis like SOPA. This would add an "activist call-to-action" to all participating sites - such as a banner asking users to sign petitions, or in extreme cases blackout the site, as proved effective in the SOPA/PIPA protest of January 2012.
Are they nuts? I don't want any outside site having control over my clients' sites. If they are hacked this would give the hackers a quick way to affect any site that signs up with them. Well intentioned (I hope), but count me out.
I think the summary is wrong about how the system is supposed to work. From the actual IDF site: "First, sign up. If you have a website, we'll send you sample alert code to get working in advance. The next time there's an emergency, we'll tell you and send new code. Then it's your decision to pull the trigger."
Sounds like they give you a sample code in advance so you can make it fit with your site, then if something comes up, they send you a version specific to whatever the issue is. If you don't think it's important, you can just ignore it. If you do want to include a message, you can pop it on your site. And it shouldn't screw anything up because you've previously tested/customized the code for your site. That's slightly (completely?) different than the summary which implies they give you code allowing them to automatically add alerts to your site whenever they want.
I'm still not convinced it's worthwhile, but it's not the "no way in hell I'm doing that" method that the summary describes
Maybe the smart money recognized hype when they saw it and is starting to think that hype isn't a safe investment?
The opposite case can be made: If non-GM food is so awesome, why don't the organic folks slap a non-GM label on their stuff? That accomplishes your goal of giving people choice. And they can do it today - no regulations needed - and no one's gonna oppose it. If it were really just about choice, doesn't that accomplish the goal? The fact that "GM free" labels aren't good enough implies it's really not about giving consumers choices.
I am not willing to pay for news. I am also not willing to look at or click on advertising to subsidize the news. I am theoretically willing to pay for long-form journalism, although in practice I don't. I use Readability to share articles with friends. I would never subscribed to a newspaper. I am educated (multiple university degrees; one in science, one in humanities, one in social science) and politically engaged.
I know I'm the face of the problem, and I don't care.
That's an easy position to take and it's one that's probably held by many people. But it's not the ideological stand some like to make it out to be. It's just a reaction to the current reality. At the moment you can opt for a free alternative to the news you're not willing to pay for. So your lack of willingness to pay doesn't have much negative impact on you. If those free alternatives end up being scaled back significantly to the point where they don't meet your needs, then your decision over whether to pay for news would mean something different. Until that happens (if it ever does), your first line might be more correctly written as "I am not willing to pay for news since I can easily access news for free elsewhere.". That is not the same thing.
IOW a copy to one out of ever 100 living Americans?
I think I see the problem.
If only they were smart enough to also sell it to non Americans...
Actually, there is a difference. A bank will give you a loan and expect you to pay it back with a certain interest rate. When you've paid that back, you just have to pay your other costs, rest of your income goes into your pocket. With a record label you're forever stuck with only getting a small cut, and sometimes they even withhold a part of this to cover costs they think belong to the artist. This is different. I don't think anyone would ever take a loan from a bank that demands that 90% of all future income from the investment go straight to the bank.
Lots of people would if they believed the investment they made with that loan would make them rich and famous. Especially if they felt (whether correct or not) that they had no other options for getting the loan. And that only counts the people who understand what they are signing. Quite a few others would take it because the loan officer promised them everything they wanted while glossing over the details.
Actually, if there's a silver lining here (which happens to address that very point), it's the 90 day deadline. One thing I've learned is that if something needs to be ready in one year, it is pretty much guaranteed to suck and overrun its deadline (i.e. it won't really be ready in a year) and have its best features neutered and a lot of worthless crap done to it.
OTOH if someone needs something in two weeks, the techs just say "well, we have to do this, and we're already running out of time" and get it done and there aren't any meetings and expansion and nobody gets to add delays to it.
That's a great point. I've noticed that as well. Only objection I'd raise is that injecting a project with a short deadline causes delays in every other ongoing project as people have to stop whatever else they were working on to get this done. Of course if you happen to have people sitting around doing nothing, then you're not interrupting anything.
I remember these. They weren't even electronic - each button on the remote caused a tine to be pulled and released which was tuned to a specific ultrasonic frequency. This is why the early remotes were called "clickers" - releasing the tine made a metallic clicking sound. It also meant that random ambient sounds that matched the target frequency could cause your TV to turn on/off, change channels, etc on its own.
There were also remotes that weren't even wireless, with a 10' long tether wire to the unit. The advertised "advantage" of these was that they didn't need batteries.
They should have advertised the advantage as "never lose your remote again".
so the summary was updated?
Maybe, but who cares? I'm not going to bother reading the summary, or even the first 13 words of it, to find out what the title is talking about.
Face it, the summary is the new article. No one reads it. It's all about the title now.
Can we collectively stop using Ubuntu/Linux downloads as an argument point to extoll the virtues of bittorrent? Lets use an example that people are familiar with.
Such as? How many non copyright infringing uses are there for bittorrent that (non-geek) people are familiar? How many of those represent more than an insignificant fraction of bittorrent usage?
I enjoyed this spam but I found it unconvincing. It starts out with a guy admitting he's a moron who knows nothing about computers - basically the last person you'd want to take computer advice from. Then it concludes with him giving computer advice. Having previously established that he's unqualified to give such advice, why would he expect us to heed it?
LookAtThatCleanBooty, I'd be eager to hear your response to my criticism.
I'm not sure how successful a computer would be at generating the tag lines like "from the kicking-newspaper-writers-when-they're-down dept.", but the rest seems doable.
so composing and abstract is "already done" and a tag line is "would be?". you haven't thought a lot about this, did you?
Do you understand the difference between extracting a quote from an existing text vs. creating new completely text intended to be humorous?
Could a Computer Write Better Stories on Slashdot?
Slashdot summaries would be fairly well suited to being done by computer. They are usually taken from existing articles available on the web. They follow a straightforward format that is largely a quote/summary of the article. Occasionally they provide links to previous stories on the same topic. Computers can already do those things. You could even have an algorithm to put in random typos. I'm not sure how successful a computer would be at generating the tag lines like "from the kicking-newspaper-writers-when-they're-down dept.", but the rest seems doable. If slashdot were run by a bunch of geeks with the desire to do so, the story process could probably be automated, including the process of finding and rating interesting stories by by scanning various sites.
The only time manufacturers generally get forced to take responsibility for bad product design is when people get hurt or killed as a result of their negligence. Software isn't physical, so no one gets hurt when it fails. The only exception to this is mission-critical software like that used in avionics, but that's an entirely different market with serious liability concerns; there's no Adobe (or Microsoft) software running in a jetliner.
Sure there is - it's on the laptops the pilots are looking at while the plane flys on autpilot. :)
Or we'll have scroller ads that take the bottom 10% of the screen (the TV networks are getting particularly obnoxious about this).
I don't know who decided those were a good idea. I don't really mind commercials, but blocking part of the screen while the show is on is obnoxious. And anytime a show has dialogue in a foreign language, they put the translation at the bottom of the screen - where it's blocked by an ad reminding me about some stupid show or special. I don't know why they think the best way to get me to watch some other show on their network is to ruin the show i'm currently watching on their network. My sympathy for networks is pretty low because they pull stunts like that.
So the summary notes there was already a similar bill. What happened to that? What's different/better/more-likely -to-get-passed about this one?
scientist 1: "We figured out the secret to human intelligence!"
scientist 2: "Let try it on those animals in the cage and see if we can make them super smart!"
scientist 1: "Good idea! I can't imagine any scenario where that could go wrong."
scientist 1&2: "Yay!"
in the background:
chimp 1: "Pass me some more smart drink"
chimp 2: "You got it buddy. Once we're smart enough to get this cage open, we are so gonna fuck them up..."
You don't think it's naive to believe that a bunch of dogs are going to let a group of strangers bust up their home without doing anything? Don't answer that. Just feel free to ignore all evidence that doesn't fit the story you made up in your mind about how things happened.
His dog didn't do anything! I wouldn't be shocked to read that members of PETA shot someone from the GSU in the next few days.
Well, a different article on the same site claims:
"And in regards to the fatally wounded man’s best friend, the GSU says that three of the eleven dogs on the premises attacked and bit one of the officers on his right thigh. The same dog then attacked a B.D.F. soldier who responded by fatally wounded the dog."
Probably because they didn't make a public statement about it.
Anytime a government agency does something, ideally they should state publicly wtf they're doing.
Absolutely! They're spending our tax money, they ought to be telling us how their using it. If someone returns a server, I want to know about. Send out a press release, that way camera crews can be there to ensure it's done properly. And the FBI agent files sends a memo about the return, send out a press release. Then we'll all be able to sleep well knowing that there's no out standing paperwork.
This should really apply to all government agencies. How else are we to know that our money is being well spent? Do you know how much money gets blown on "black" programs by the CIA? I think it'd be better for everyone if they told us what they were doing in all those projects. That agency is sorely in need of some more transparency and openness. With all the money they are spending, they ought to be sending out press releases all day long telling us what they're up to.
The benefits go beyond keeping track of taxpayer money. Think of the bin Laden raid. If they had sent out a press release about it the week before, news agencies could have sent reporters over to interview bin Laden to find out how he felt about his impending demise. And then they'd have film crews there to record the action as it happened. With a week's notice, Osama's crew probably could put together some Bollywood number to perform during the raid while the SEALs were taking a timeout to update their facebook status letting us know they were blowing up that crashed helicopter.
A picayune was a Spanish coin, worth half a real. Its name derives from the French picaillon, which is itself from the Provençal picaioun, meaning "small coin." By extension, picayune can mean "trivial" or "of little value." (from wikipedia)
The GT4 uses an array of 236 off-the-shelf lithium-polymer batteries weighing 900 pounds. The company says the battery pack and 600 hp (peak) electric motor weigh less than the internal combustion engine on a comparable plane,
so 900 pounds of batteries + ? pounds the electric motor (i guess we're ignoring the weight of the backup gas engine plus the 140 pounds of gas to fuel it) weighs less than the engine on a "comparable plane". Here are some planes and engines:
Cirrus SR22 (4 person, 180 knot cruise) engine: Continental IO-550-N (~450-500? pounds)
Cessna 182 (4 person, 140 knot cruise) engine: Lycoming IO-540-AB1A5 (~450 pounds)
Cessna 210 (6 person, 190 knot cruise) engine: Continental Motors TSIO-520-R (~450 pounds)
Diamond DA40 (4 person, 150 knot cruise) engine: Lycoming IO-360-M1A (~300 pounds)
Full fuel for most of them is would add ~550 pounds, so total ~1000lbs, barely more than the batteries alone on the electric one. It seems like they pulled this weight savings out of their ass.
Volta Volare says low maintenance costs will be a big attraction. The gas engine on a private plane needs an annual inspection that could cost several thousand dollars. In comparison, the GT4 could get by with a simple diagnostic checkup by laptop: Just plug in a USB cable to the electric motor.
Not in the USA it won't, at least if they want the FAA to certify it. I wish I could be there when they propose that just to see them get laughed out of the building. This is the same agency that will declare a plane unairworthy because it doesn't have a sticker saying what kind of fuel it uses. And again, they are ignoring the backup gas engine. Even if they let the USB thing slide, the backup gas engine's gotta be inspected just like every other gas engine. I'm doubtful of the massive savings they are implying
Some of the electricity-not-gasoline savings are nice but still dwarfed by the purchase price that is likely to be over $500,000.
That sounds like a lot, but new planes are expensive. The cost (new) of the planes listed above, not including various optional equipment:
Cirrus SR22: $600K-$700K
Cessna 182: $400K-$450K
Cessna 210: out of production, but likely around $550K-$600K
Diamond DA40: $350K
We use Google Apps at our school and while I love the mail, contacts, calendar, and free storage part, migrating Office docs is very poor. The converter does a bad job with tables and images. I tried to create a table layout with different column spans in a Google doc and gave up. I almost got it going in their spreadsheet doc but soon found out that you can one have one font style per cell.
I've had the same experience. Trying to handle documents created in other programs frequently doesn't work right, giving a messed up layout. Working with spreadsheets is frustrating due to random little annoyances. It's enough of a hassle that I won't use google spreadsheets for anything more than simple tables of data.
I like Google Apps, it's not at the point where it works well enough that I'm willing to move to using it. I have noticed that many of my complaints have been getting fixed over time, so maybe someday.
Perhaps. But raising objections in the form of plausible counter theories is valid science. Even if those counter theories are later disproved, that's all part of the scientific process. You can't just ignore an argument that may have merit simply because you don't trust the motives of the people making the argument. If someone has a reasonable alternate interpretation of the evidence, that needs to be considered (and I suspect a lot of things have been learned in the process of refuting alternate ideas). You can't just claim that your right because everyone agrees with you and they are wrong because the are stupid. ... Well you can, but that's not science.