The biggest bone that I've to pick is that cellphones are no longer merely used for conversations - they are used as navigation systems, directories, and what not. So, how do you know if someone you're pulling over is SMSing or just getting directions? I've the TomTom nav app on my iPhone, and I cannot tell you how useful it is. As a consultant who travels every week, and often to new places, it is worth its weight in gold.
The last thing I need is some idiot small town cop pulling me over cause he saw me using my "cellphone".
Seriously? You link to two posts - one by a blogger and another by someone from the American Trucking Association - on financial derivatives?
Even people who've decried them (think Buffett or Taleb) have used them themselves. Leverage is a useful tool, especially when companies are trying to stretch the dime when they are low on reserves.
Derivatives, speculation, and derivative speculation are merely natural progressions of an increasingly complex financial eco-system.
What made the market insane are government and tax payer subsidized credit and incentives for financial institutions to keep being destructive, and getting rewarded at the end of the day. The things you mention are merely proverbial straws, and have existed in one form or another long before this crisis.
You know, I almost half agreed with your comment, until I came upon that last sentence. Seriously?
A dollar bill can directly translate into a can of coke; the $10 in your wallet directly translates into a DVD; the $300,000 in a bank account into a house.
A representation of worth, perhaps. A convenient exchange mechanism/medium with other social, political, and economic constructs (e.g. fear, value etc) projected on to it, perhaps. But an illusion? Only a fool would think so.
Indeed. I always sleep with my curtains/blinds open, and really enjoy waking up to sunlight (well, more often than not I wake up before sunlight). But yes, it is quite refreshing to wake up early and go to sleep early (even if early is as late as 10 or 11 pm).
And for that very reason, I hate DST - completely screws up my sleeping cycle.
I'm glad I'm in an industry where folks come to work relatively early (~7 am) -- I'd hate to be at a place where everyone shows up at 9 or 10 and leaves at 10 or 11.
I don't necessarily think that writing complex sentences (or using long winded words) is a bad thing. If anything, the push for shorter sentences and easier words (with "flexible" spelling) probably encourages poor language and lowers the bar for everyone.
You should read Joseph Schumpeter -- his writing is complex, and you'd often take a good five minutes to read just one paragraph (his Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy is particularly beastly). But so much was conveyed so well in his one paragraph that you'd come away admiring his writing. The same goes for Amartya Sen, Orhan Pamuk, and many other fantastic writers of our time.
I feel that excessive emphasis on simplicity is often at the expense of elegance. Pithiness is wonderful, but it is quite overrated since not everyone is Saki.
I'll also add this. What was Google's business case for buying YouTube? You think they didn't know that YouTube was rife with pirated content? The article also talks about how little documentation Google produced on the whole deal. Both sides knew what they were doing (*wink*, *wink*).
Some choice excerpts include the YouTube cofounders discussing how 80% of the site traffic depended on pirated videos. So, they pretty much did whatever they had to get a massive user base so that they'd get bought out. From the article -
The basic argument here is a simple one. YouTube's founders hoped to build a massive user base as quickly as possible and then sell the site. "Our dirty little secret... is that we actually just want to sell out quickly," said Karim at one point.
Now, arguably, YouTube at that time does not equal Google, and one could argue that things have changed. However, don't be so quick to decide without hearing both sides of the story.
The people who are being targeted have done a little bit more than leave the country. They've left the country and joined up with enemies of the country who are actively engaged in the process of trying it do it harm.
I'm sorry but if you leave the US, travel to a foreign battlefield and willingly enlist in the service of those who are fighting our country you've committed treason. Why should you be treated any differently than the foreign combatants whom are trying to do us harm?
You could simply be in the wrong place at the wrong time. What if you're a US citizen in an active war zone trying to help people, as a doctor or a nurse? Or what if you're just a part of a watchdog group monitoring the situation?
That's the pesky thing about law - due process. Just because you're some place appearing to do something doesn't mean much -- it is up to the other side to prove that you're guilty of whatever you're accused of.
I think that's ACLU's point -- provide evidence, and treat the miscreants as US citizens with due judicial process before summarily executing them just because.
Yes, because for the last 10 years our national finances and economy have been handled SO WELL./s
Better than if we went back to the gold standard, abolished the fed, killed all free trade agreements, exacerbated our fun race to the bottom with no respect for rights or the environment, piled on isolationism and protectionism, inflamed xenophobia, and pretty much killed globalization. Oh yes.
(But hell - when the only viable alternative was Al "The Carbon King" Gore, and in the next round John "Some Guy? I Dunno" Kerry, I think we were fucked either way. In short, it's your fault for not voting for Ron Paul!)
Fortunately, I understand enough about real-world finance and economics to realize that only idiots will vote for Ron Paul.
I'd be curious to see the political/national/corporate affiliations of the 13 that voted for it. Maybe publish the details, to let people know how these folks were *cough* looking out for their "interests".
I'm always surprised when a minority votes for something that most unequivocally consider at the very least bad, if not downright evil.
Well, it is kdawson -- what were you expecting? Just be thankful that he's better than jon katz or michael.
Anyway, back to the topic at hand -- all these creators of botnets and worms need deterring sentences. Having had to just replace a hard drive and having lost a lot of data because of a recent infection (despite backups), I have the overwhelming urge to shove these bastards into the electric chair. But since we're civilized, we'll settle for hours of lost productivity and psychological damage, and give them a few hundred years instead.
If someone broke into your house and settled in, and had access to all your stuff without your permission, you throw them into jail. Well, if you had a botnet of a million computers, you broke into a million personal houses. Sum it all up, baby.
There needs to be a slashdot poll to see how many people still wear watches. It has to be a dwindling number.
Going by the increasing number of fans at places like TimeZone, Watchuseek, and Styleforum, I would say that it's not.
Besides, a lot of folks do not wear watches for time, but more as a piece of jewelry. Besides, a good watch goes with a good outfit -- there is no denying the aesthetic value of a watch.
I also travel and move around between time zones a lot (i.e. multiple times a week). So, for one, my cellphone doesn't work everywhere I go. For another, even if it does work, my cellphone tells me the local time while my watch tells me the time at home.
Well, actually I did - but that's because my roommate was Spanish. Well, actually he was from Cataluña (Barcelona), but we did talk a lot about Spanish history.:)
But anyway, I wasn't meaning to phrase that question out of incredulity; I just wasn't sure if the question was sarcastic or not.
Back to the topic at hand, funnily enough Ted Kennedy cheated in Spanish at Harvard and asked a friend to take the exam for him. He was kicked out, but after spending a couple of years in the US Army, he was readmitted for demonstrating "good behavior".
Then again, some schools are well known for their grade inflation, and letting people back in even after suspension because they're caught cheating. A recently deceased Kennedy comes to mind.
I dunno, man. Some people don't like to fucking cuss, alright? Give the douchebag a break, for cryin' out loud. And stop being such an asshole. Now fuck off.
Slashdot Mirror
Indeed.
The biggest bone that I've to pick is that cellphones are no longer merely used for conversations - they are used as navigation systems, directories, and what not. So, how do you know if someone you're pulling over is SMSing or just getting directions? I've the TomTom nav app on my iPhone, and I cannot tell you how useful it is. As a consultant who travels every week, and often to new places, it is worth its weight in gold.
The last thing I need is some idiot small town cop pulling me over cause he saw me using my "cellphone".
Seriously? You link to two posts - one by a blogger and another by someone from the American Trucking Association - on financial derivatives?
Even people who've decried them (think Buffett or Taleb) have used them themselves. Leverage is a useful tool, especially when companies are trying to stretch the dime when they are low on reserves.
Derivatives, speculation, and derivative speculation are merely natural progressions of an increasingly complex financial eco-system.
What made the market insane are government and tax payer subsidized credit and incentives for financial institutions to keep being destructive, and getting rewarded at the end of the day. The things you mention are merely proverbial straws, and have existed in one form or another long before this crisis.
It would have been even better if you'd linked/referenced the facts. Just sayin'! :)
You know, I almost half agreed with your comment, until I came upon that last sentence. Seriously?
A dollar bill can directly translate into a can of coke; the $10 in your wallet directly translates into a DVD; the $300,000 in a bank account into a house.
A representation of worth, perhaps. A convenient exchange mechanism/medium with other social, political, and economic constructs (e.g. fear, value etc) projected on to it, perhaps. But an illusion? Only a fool would think so.
You mean, the Harvard Divnity School?
Indeed. I always sleep with my curtains/blinds open, and really enjoy waking up to sunlight (well, more often than not I wake up before sunlight). But yes, it is quite refreshing to wake up early and go to sleep early (even if early is as late as 10 or 11 pm).
And for that very reason, I hate DST - completely screws up my sleeping cycle.
I'm glad I'm in an industry where folks come to work relatively early (~7 am) -- I'd hate to be at a place where everyone shows up at 9 or 10 and leaves at 10 or 11.
I don't necessarily think that writing complex sentences (or using long winded words) is a bad thing. If anything, the push for shorter sentences and easier words (with "flexible" spelling) probably encourages poor language and lowers the bar for everyone.
You should read Joseph Schumpeter -- his writing is complex, and you'd often take a good five minutes to read just one paragraph (his Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy is particularly beastly). But so much was conveyed so well in his one paragraph that you'd come away admiring his writing. The same goes for Amartya Sen, Orhan Pamuk, and many other fantastic writers of our time.
I feel that excessive emphasis on simplicity is often at the expense of elegance. Pithiness is wonderful, but it is quite overrated since not everyone is Saki.
I'll also add this. What was Google's business case for buying YouTube? You think they didn't know that YouTube was rife with pirated content? The article also talks about how little documentation Google produced on the whole deal. Both sides knew what they were doing (*wink*, *wink*).
It's not as cut and dry as you might think. YouTube has done its share of dirty deeds in this whole fiasco.
Some choice excerpts include the YouTube cofounders discussing how 80% of the site traffic depended on pirated videos. So, they pretty much did whatever they had to get a massive user base so that they'd get bought out. From the article -
Now, arguably, YouTube at that time does not equal Google, and one could argue that things have changed. However, don't be so quick to decide without hearing both sides of the story.
You could simply be in the wrong place at the wrong time. What if you're a US citizen in an active war zone trying to help people, as a doctor or a nurse? Or what if you're just a part of a watchdog group monitoring the situation?
That's the pesky thing about law - due process. Just because you're some place appearing to do something doesn't mean much -- it is up to the other side to prove that you're guilty of whatever you're accused of.
I think that's ACLU's point -- provide evidence, and treat the miscreants as US citizens with due judicial process before summarily executing them just because.
Funny, I remember reading that quote re: IRC, back in the day.
Better than if we went back to the gold standard, abolished the fed, killed all free trade agreements, exacerbated our fun race to the bottom with no respect for rights or the environment, piled on isolationism and protectionism, inflamed xenophobia, and pretty much killed globalization. Oh yes.
Fortunately, I understand enough about real-world finance and economics to realize that only idiots will vote for Ron Paul.
I'd be curious to see the political/national/corporate affiliations of the 13 that voted for it. Maybe publish the details, to let people know how these folks were *cough* looking out for their "interests".
I'm always surprised when a minority votes for something that most unequivocally consider at the very least bad, if not downright evil.
Or stealing helmets. ;)
Well, it is kdawson -- what were you expecting? Just be thankful that he's better than jon katz or michael.
Anyway, back to the topic at hand -- all these creators of botnets and worms need deterring sentences. Having had to just replace a hard drive and having lost a lot of data because of a recent infection (despite backups), I have the overwhelming urge to shove these bastards into the electric chair. But since we're civilized, we'll settle for hours of lost productivity and psychological damage, and give them a few hundred years instead.
If someone broke into your house and settled in, and had access to all your stuff without your permission, you throw them into jail. Well, if you had a botnet of a million computers, you broke into a million personal houses. Sum it all up, baby.
Going by the increasing number of fans at places like TimeZone, Watchuseek, and Styleforum, I would say that it's not.
Besides, a lot of folks do not wear watches for time, but more as a piece of jewelry. Besides, a good watch goes with a good outfit -- there is no denying the aesthetic value of a watch.
I also travel and move around between time zones a lot (i.e. multiple times a week). So, for one, my cellphone doesn't work everywhere I go. For another, even if it does work, my cellphone tells me the local time while my watch tells me the time at home.
Well, actually I did - but that's because my roommate was Spanish. Well, actually he was from Cataluña (Barcelona), but we did talk a lot about Spanish history. :)
But anyway, I wasn't meaning to phrase that question out of incredulity; I just wasn't sure if the question was sarcastic or not.
Back to the topic at hand, funnily enough Ted Kennedy cheated in Spanish at Harvard and asked a friend to take the exam for him. He was kicked out, but after spending a couple of years in the US Army, he was readmitted for demonstrating "good behavior".
I'm hoping you're joking -- are you serious?
Ted Kennedy got kicked out for cheating, spent some time in the military, and was accepted back.
Just look it up.
Yeah, TFs have always been a pain to deal with.
Then again, some schools are well known for their grade inflation, and letting people back in even after suspension because they're caught cheating. A recently deceased Kennedy comes to mind.
No. You're wrong. The Internet is a series of tubes.
I dunno, man. Some people don't like to fucking cuss, alright? Give the douchebag a break, for cryin' out loud. And stop being such an asshole. Now fuck off.
Yes, there is poverty - but guess what? It's a lot less than what it once was.
In fact, India and China liberalizing their economies and the flood of FDI and FII that came in has lifted hundreds of millions out of abject poverty.
Go explore some data before playing the poverty card every time a developing country is brought up.
Ignoring growth and citing poverty without seeing the progress is disingenuous at best.
Meh, frames.
http://www.finmin.nic.in/stats_data/nsdp_sdds/index.html
Only an idiot would consider an economy with almost 7% growth in a global downturn to be a lumbering, stagnant market.
Apparently, neither do you.