Just imagine if the senior level executive from Gator is still secretly on the payroll of Claria (Gator) and now the payroll of Microsoft.
Just imagine. The former "Chief Privacy Officer" (that title has got to be an inside joke) of Gator/Claria on the Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee of the Department of Homeland Security. And now his former company is in the hands of Microsoft?
If I get wind of Microsoft landing some huge ass Department of Homeland Security contract I'm heading for the fucking hills.
Pretty soon it's going to be the United Subsidiaries of Haliburton and Microsoft not the USA. (where did I first read that? can't remember or I'd cite)
If you just look at the damn pics you can plainly see they're hacked together images with a purpose similar to concept car drawings. It looks like they pasted a semitransparent clickwheel and LCD display images onto an image of an existing phone as if to say "here's what it might look like, should we make it?" You can even see the damn buttons on the phone through the touchwheel.
Don't get all excited, the thing isn't even vaporware yet.
People will never, ever shift away from "what I can get away with" to "what I need".
This is the reason we have laws, because if there isn't something stopping us we'll take what we can get for as little as possible.
Somewhat tangentially, read Adiamante by L.E. Modesitt Jr. if you want to know more about "the true knowledge" as he calls it. Modesitt is brilliant. He should be deciding government policy, not writing sci-fi novels.
Of course this being/. and me being a bit drunk I didn't RTFA, but I welcome some serious paypal competition. As it stands right now eBay owns Paypal, so when you use paypal to pay for an ebay purchace or worse yet, sell something on ebay and recieve payment through paypal eBay takes two cuts of your money.
However don't get too excited about all the "horror stories" of people having bad experiences with paypal. I've never had a problem with Paypal and I've had the account for over four years. Of course a few people will have problems with a new service (as paypal once was) and being what it is (paypal that is) expect it to be risk and therefore cry all the louder when something goes wrong. In fact I got my money back from a disreputable site when they ripped me off. Sure lots of people complain but a whole lot more have no problems, you just don't hear them complaining because they've got nothing to complain about.
Chemicals that can kill you in seconds I'll buy, but what viruses can kill a human being in mere seconds? Or by "seconds" do you mean 259,200+ of them?
Ok guys I realize the/. audience is not a part of the "cool" crowd, but using asinine words like "boxen" or "virii" does not make you part of the cool subset of the/. crowd, it makes you part of the script kiddie subset of the general populace. Knock it off please.
To me, "boxen" - phonetically pronounced - is how rednecks pronounce boxing.
P.S. Mark me flamebait if you want, I consider the use of "boxen" and "virii" to be flamebait and moderate accordingly.
What are you talking about? The iPod plays freaking mp3s not "iTunes music".
It can play MP4, AAC, and AA (Audible audio book file format) as well.
You don't even have to use iTunes, you can use EphPod (missing some features, like doesn't set the damn clock on the ipod, doesn't preserve Audiobook bookmarks (fucking required)), or that new winamp plugin.
Actually when doing text editing I do a LOT of selection with the keyboard, don't knock the keyboard for even advanced text manipulation.
For example, if I were editing your post starting from the first character I could select the whole thing and delete it in about 200ms ([Ctrl]+[A], [Del]).
Not a very advanced example I know, but say I wanted to delete the word combinatorial starting at line 1, col 1:
Well, if you've ever taken apart a hard drive you'd know that the physical drive head is MUCH wider than the magnetic stripe of data. I don't know exactly but I suspect given hd capacities and the size of even the tiniest print head that the magnetic stripe is hundreds or thousands of times narrower than the drive head. Only a small piece of the tiny, tiny, itty bitty part that touches the drive actually reads the data.
Even then you're still spinning the drive platters.
You got any idea how to fit 50,000 - or hell even 500 - drive heads across a 2" strip of metal? It would be cheaper to build an array of volitile memory and like 6 levels of battery redundancy.
Did you ever stop to consider the possibility that your superhuman reading skillz were BECAUSE of all that busywork rather than IN SPITE of it?
No. Because significant reading was never assigned until I was in high school, several years after I'd developed most of reading comprehension skills. The first full fledged book that was assigned to my class I finished in one day while everyone else read it over the course of two weeks.
Even before that a friend and I would always race to see who could finish reading the assigned section in our science books first. The scary thing is he invariably finished exactly three times faster than I did. If you think my skillz are superhuman imagine someone three times faster. (3600wpm?)
It was useless because I can't remember one single thing I learned as a result of busywork that I use today.
I can remember having to do ridiculous amounts of inane busywork in elementary school especially.
I can remember having to look up definitions of like 50 fucking words and then write them down. I wasn't learning I was being a damn copyist.
1) I hate writing by hand. 2) My handwriting is terrible. 3) Hand written definitions were the requirement.
It was insane. Not much later in life I developed a passion for reading (almost entirely Sci-fi/fantasy) and as a result: 1) I can easily read in excess of 1200wpm (peak speed, short sentences, common words) around 600wpm at worst. 2) My reading comprehension ability is off the charts when compared to the rest of the nation taking the ACTs. 3) I finished the spelling section of the ACT in 2 minutes flat and the only ones I missed were ones with no mistake. 4) I write fairly well.
Stupid busywork taught me absolutely nothing. All the time I spent reading entertaining books in class taught me much, much more.
Thinking back I can't even remember why I was taught to write in cursive. My 6th grade teach said my handwriting "looks like a nazi code". The only time I write in cursive now is when I sign my name.
If the teacher/professor can't teach you what you need to know in class rather than in homework then one or more of the following must be true: 1) The teacher isn't doing their job. 2) There is too much material to cover in the time allotted. 3) You aren't trying. 4) You are stupid.
I got sick and tired of learning and working the easy stuff in class and then the homework is all the hard shit. And you have to do it when you can't ask the fucking teacher that assigned it questions.
I worked for a year at a full time CAD job after I graduated high school and before I started college. While in college I missed working full time because A) I wasn't making any money and more importantly B) I had no fucking time because of all the homework.
The whole concept of education needs rethought. Homework is for the birds. "Test" has developed a new meaning. When you test something, and if doesn't work you fix it or throw it out. In education, you test a student slap a grade on them and move on to new material. What should happen is you test, if they fail you go back and learn it.
A bit rambly but I think I made some good points, no?
At first glance it would seem stepping in for nature and modifying or selecting better offspring before/during gestation would seem like a good idea, but look at it this way:
What everyone starts having "perfect" babies? That is, they're all attractive, naturally fit, very intelligent, etc. Eventually the entire human race (or most of it) would consist of genetically very similar people. Then a nice fat plague hits and kills every single one of them because they're all freaking identical.
I was so unbelievably disgusted when some people some news corp interviewed said something to the effect of, "They need to do something. They need to increase the terror alert level." AS IF IT FUCKING DOES ANYTHING! You think we'll ever see it go below yellow? Not bloody likely. That would be doubleplusungood for the government's control over us.
Slashdot Mirror
Money. Lots of it.
Jesus that is scary.
Just imagine if the senior level executive from Gator is still secretly on the payroll of Claria (Gator) and now the payroll of Microsoft.
Just imagine. The former "Chief Privacy Officer" (that title has got to be an inside joke) of Gator/Claria on the Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee of the Department of Homeland Security. And now his former company is in the hands of Microsoft?
If I get wind of Microsoft landing some huge ass Department of Homeland Security contract I'm heading for the fucking hills.
Pretty soon it's going to be the United Subsidiaries of Haliburton and Microsoft not the USA. (where did I first read that? can't remember or I'd cite)
Here's the answer: No.
If you just look at the damn pics you can plainly see they're hacked together images with a purpose similar to concept car drawings. It looks like they pasted a semitransparent clickwheel and LCD display images onto an image of an existing phone as if to say "here's what it might look like, should we make it?" You can even see the damn buttons on the phone through the touchwheel.
Don't get all excited, the thing isn't even vaporware yet.
Apparently the indian workers make at at most 93% less than us for this to have been an improvement. Great.
People will never, ever shift away from "what I can get away with" to "what I need".
This is the reason we have laws, because if there isn't something stopping us we'll take what we can get for as little as possible.
Somewhat tangentially, read Adiamante by L.E. Modesitt Jr. if you want to know more about "the true knowledge" as he calls it. Modesitt is brilliant. He should be deciding government policy, not writing sci-fi novels.
How in the world did you forget spammers?
You say there is no shortage of suckers in America like there aren't just as many per capita in every other country.
I don't understand why people think people in other countries are somehow fundamentally different.
People are people. Stupid, brilliant, funny, boring, fat, scrawny, beautiful, ugly etc, nationality doesn't enter into it.
Go pick up A Perfect Circle's eMOTIVe and become a dreamer.
Of course this being /. and me being a bit drunk I didn't RTFA, but I welcome some serious paypal competition. As it stands right now eBay owns Paypal, so when you use paypal to pay for an ebay purchace or worse yet, sell something on ebay and recieve payment through paypal eBay takes two cuts of your money.
However don't get too excited about all the "horror stories" of people having bad experiences with paypal. I've never had a problem with Paypal and I've had the account for over four years. Of course a few people will have problems with a new service (as paypal once was) and being what it is (paypal that is) expect it to be risk and therefore cry all the louder when something goes wrong. In fact I got my money back from a disreputable site when they ripped me off. Sure lots of people complain but a whole lot more have no problems, you just don't hear them complaining because they've got nothing to complain about.
Chemicals that can kill you in seconds I'll buy, but what viruses can kill a human being in mere seconds? Or by "seconds" do you mean 259,200+ of them?
It's just human nature: "I want it! I want it NOW!"
Ok guys I realize the /. audience is not a part of the "cool" crowd, but using asinine words like "boxen" or "virii" does not make you part of the cool subset of the /. crowd, it makes you part of the script kiddie subset of the general populace. Knock it off please.
To me, "boxen" - phonetically pronounced - is how rednecks pronounce boxing.
P.S. Mark me flamebait if you want, I consider the use of "boxen" and "virii" to be flamebait and moderate accordingly.
What are you talking about? The iPod plays freaking mp3s not "iTunes music".
It can play MP4, AAC, and AA (Audible audio book file format) as well.
You don't even have to use iTunes, you can use EphPod (missing some features, like doesn't set the damn clock on the ipod, doesn't preserve Audiobook bookmarks (fucking required)), or that new winamp plugin.
All that stuff you mentioned doesn't interfere with the 2% radio band that is reserved for astronomers, the cell phones do.
Actually when doing text editing I do a LOT of selection with the keyboard, don't knock the keyboard for even advanced text manipulation.
... [->] [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [->] [Del]
... [->] section may be as small as 0 keystrokes.
For example, if I were editing your post starting from the first character I could select the whole thing and delete it in about 200ms ([Ctrl]+[A], [Del]).
Not a very advanced example I know, but say I wanted to delete the word combinatorial starting at line 1, col 1:
[Ctrl] + [->] (hold [->])....(release [->]) [->]
Takes about 200ms if you time the hold right. The [->]
Well, if you've ever taken apart a hard drive you'd know that the physical drive head is MUCH wider than the magnetic stripe of data. I don't know exactly but I suspect given hd capacities and the size of even the tiniest print head that the magnetic stripe is hundreds or thousands of times narrower than the drive head. Only a small piece of the tiny, tiny, itty bitty part that touches the drive actually reads the data.
Even then you're still spinning the drive platters.
You got any idea how to fit 50,000 - or hell even 500 - drive heads across a 2" strip of metal? It would be cheaper to build an array of volitile memory and like 6 levels of battery redundancy.
I was thinking that if they're one of the few that survived the dotcom bubble then maybe they really are worth what they seem to be.
Exactly what other activities are there where you can be under ten meteres of water that aren't diving?
I agree that users should be responsible and it should be the ISP's responsibility to enforce that responsibility but....
It's not "boxen", it's not "virii".
It's "boxes" and "viruses".
Stop contributing the stupidification of the world. (please note the irony)
No. Because significant reading was never assigned until I was in high school, several years after I'd developed most of reading comprehension skills. The first full fledged book that was assigned to my class I finished in one day while everyone else read it over the course of two weeks.
Even before that a friend and I would always race to see who could finish reading the assigned section in our science books first. The scary thing is he invariably finished exactly three times faster than I did. If you think my skillz are superhuman imagine someone three times faster. (3600wpm?)
It was useless because I can't remember one single thing I learned as a result of busywork that I use today.
MIDI is still in version 1.0. Maybe you don't consider it to be complex.
Why did I immediately think vibrators when I saw this?
It's MY computer, not Bill's.
I can remember having to do ridiculous amounts of inane busywork in elementary school especially.
I can remember having to look up definitions of like 50 fucking words and then write them down. I wasn't learning I was being a damn copyist.
1) I hate writing by hand.
2) My handwriting is terrible.
3) Hand written definitions were the requirement.
It was insane. Not much later in life I developed a passion for reading (almost entirely Sci-fi/fantasy) and as a result:
1) I can easily read in excess of 1200wpm (peak speed, short sentences, common words) around 600wpm at worst.
2) My reading comprehension ability is off the charts when compared to the rest of the nation taking the ACTs.
3) I finished the spelling section of the ACT in 2 minutes flat and the only ones I missed were ones with no mistake.
4) I write fairly well.
Stupid busywork taught me absolutely nothing. All the time I spent reading entertaining books in class taught me much, much more.
Thinking back I can't even remember why I was taught to write in cursive. My 6th grade teach said my handwriting "looks like a nazi code". The only time I write in cursive now is when I sign my name.
If the teacher/professor can't teach you what you need to know in class rather than in homework then one or more of the following must be true:
1) The teacher isn't doing their job.
2) There is too much material to cover in the time allotted.
3) You aren't trying.
4) You are stupid.
I got sick and tired of learning and working the easy stuff in class and then the homework is all the hard shit. And you have to do it when you can't ask the fucking teacher that assigned it questions.
I worked for a year at a full time CAD job after I graduated high school and before I started college. While in college I missed working full time because A) I wasn't making any money and more importantly B) I had no fucking time because of all the homework.
The whole concept of education needs rethought. Homework is for the birds. "Test" has developed a new meaning. When you test something, and if doesn't work you fix it or throw it out. In education, you test a student slap a grade on them and move on to new material. What should happen is you test, if they fail you go back and learn it.
A bit rambly but I think I made some good points, no?
At first glance it would seem stepping in for nature and modifying or selecting better offspring before/during gestation would seem like a good idea, but look at it this way:
What everyone starts having "perfect" babies? That is, they're all attractive, naturally fit, very intelligent, etc. Eventually the entire human race (or most of it) would consist of genetically very similar people. Then a nice fat plague hits and kills every single one of them because they're all freaking identical.
Woops.
The terror alert level isn't a placebo!
It......fine, it is a placebo...
I was so unbelievably disgusted when some people some news corp interviewed said something to the effect of, "They need to do something. They need to increase the terror alert level." AS IF IT FUCKING DOES ANYTHING! You think we'll ever see it go below yellow? Not bloody likely. That would be doubleplusungood for the government's control over us.