This op ed from Sunday's Washington Post is worth a read.
The author is sypathetic to NSA, claiming the agency isn't currently spying on Americans or otherwise overreaching it's mandate, but even he worries about the future potential of the technolgies NSA is developing.
... then you can create passwords "that are hard to crack but possible to recall."
Take the first line or two of a song or poem you like and use the first letter of each word to build a password.
For example, take the first two lines of Poe's The Raven:
Once upon a midnight weary While I pondered weak and weary
The first letters of each word give you the seemingly random password ouamwwipwaw. It's easy to remember, easy to type (just recite or sing in your head as you type), but won't be found in any dictionary.
Systems that require non-alpha characters will barf on it, but you can just add a digit or two at the end to fix that.
I do like the comment that says they should "start acting on Internet Time rather than Washington Time".. Struck me as supremely true.
Oh deary, dear. Nothings scarier than a legislative body or agency acting quickly. That's when you know The Fix is in.
Like it or not, governing works best with lots of sunshine, and sunshine adds time to the process. It takes more time to be inclusive, to open the process up to a variety of points of view, and then to try to reconcile those points of view.
Democracy's not at it's best when adapting to rapid change (which explains monstrosities like the CDA). As we settle into our new cyber habits, our elected representatives will eventually catch up. In the mean time, please don't rush them.
will infomarco be scanning their archives to verify the submitted evidence?
I'd restate that: How does the consumer evaluate the quality of the answer he will be paying for? Not every question has a verifiable right or wrong answer. Sometimes you're looking for the best answer -- or at least a better than average answer. The only way most consumers have to verify the quality of an answer is to turn to a trusted source.
I don't think an information market like this will replace the long-used system of brand names with track records.
Now, disabling modem compression is a well known tactic for decreasing ping time, and tools have been out to reconfigure Windows to do thus for years. That doesn't necessarily mean, however, that all these modems have different is a new driver disk.
Heck, new drivers shouldn't even be necessary. If I remember my AT command set, a simple AT&Q0 should kill both error correction and data compression.
Given the latest Slashdot article about IDG's efforts to protect its "For Dummies" trademark from being used in listserv postings, you might want to permission from Eisner before naming servers after Disney characters.
Let's hope Disney lawyers don't get any ideas from this post.
Given the latest Slashdot article about IDG's efforts to protect its "For Dummies" trademark from being used in listserv postings, you might want to permission from Eisner before servers after Disney characters.
Let's hope Disney lawyers don't get any ideas from this post.
Is this a victory for Dell specifically or direct sales generally?
Selling PCs is different from selling dishwashers or shoes, since short product cycles and rapidly-dropping prices makes inventories a millstone around the neck of channel marketers, but if I were a manufacturer in any industry who relied on a sales channel to reach my customers, I'd be looking over my shoulder for a Dell clone.
As an ethical decision on your part, I think this is a great idea.
As a strategy to modify Amazon's behavior, I'm not so sure it's worth the trouble. Even well-publicized boycotts are seldom effective --and if Amazon doesn't even know why you stopped shopping there, there's no chance they'll factor your feelings into their decisions.
At the very least, if you feel this strongly about it, send them an e-mail, make a phone call or write a letter.
And if everyone who agrees with your post sends a similar message, it might even hit Bezos' radar.
Sounds like "franglais" to me. Makes you wonder how good the translation will work when the people writing the translators can't even write in one language (English) without leaving traces of their native language (presumably French).
This may sound snide, but if their translation tools work so well, why haven't they been able to translate their Web site into all 16 supported languages? The site only has English and Japanese versions at the moment.
think the metalanguage would need to carry all of the specific case/gender/tense information for each of the languages that can be embedded in it.
This sounds fine if everything is authored in the metalanguage. But what happens when you begin with a language like Cantonese, which has no verb tenses, or an inconsistent language like English, where "read" can be past or present tense?
Whether I use English or Dutch (or for that matter German, which I hardly do at all), I think in that Language.
I think this gets to the root of the problem with the metalanguage method for translation.
It seems to me that the attempt to build a metalanguage is based on the theoretical assumption that words are a representation some more basic element that the brain uses. Which is to say the translation to a metalanguage would be an approximation of a process the brain conducts when interpreting language.
I don't think the brain works that way. Words are the building blocks of thought, and "thinking" in another language means that the brain trades one set of building blocks for another.
This explains why multilingual people often intermingle words and phrases from different languages in the same sentence: While two words from different languages may be similar in meaning, they often don't mean precisely the same thing, so the speaker will substitute a more appropriate word from another language to communicate the precise nuance intended.
This also explains the often heard phrase, "Well, that doesn't translate well." One can almost always translate the words, but that doesn't necessarily convey the same meaning.
No matter what language a person uses, the grammar, vocabulary and syntax of that language is directly wired into the brain of the speaker. The brain has no metalanguage of its own. Which, of course, is why the use of language by children is such an important component of brain development. And why, althought it might sound snobbish, people with small vocabularies don't think great thoughts.
There are a bunch of parties that could rate Web sites, in declining order of authoritarianism:
Governments
Industry groups of some sort (like MPAA)
Web publishers themselves
The new television rating system is, I think, an example of the third option. The networks rate their own shows to give a very rough indication of the audience the show was intended for.
True, the TV ratings system was set up under strong pressure from Congress, and it ain't perfect, but it does eliminate some of the politics & hypocrisy of last minute edits to films to satisfy MPAA censors.
I think most Web publishers -- even small ones -- would be willing to take the 5 minutes required to code their site to indicate the intended audience. The coding scheme could be set up to deal with the gray areas intelligently. For example, it could include a category for news and let parents decide whether or not "news" is appropriate for their children. And, yes, I think even porn site operators would code honestly.
The devil is in the details, of course, especially when one has to design a coding system that is relevant across cultures yet can be understood well enough by Web publishers to code accurately. But as self-policing goes, I think we're better off giving responsibility to publishers themselves than to some industry group's unofficial bureaucracy.
Not in the finance industry, I guess. The loan officer for my mortgage (who was working on commission) taught me how to, ahem, overstate my assets without getting caught by her colleagues on the loan approval committee.
I got the loan, and seven years later, I haven't defaulted yet.
Didn't he know those were the terms when he accepted the assignment?
I think the issue here is that many workers today feel like they can effectively bargain with employers on their own because they have other employment options.
By and large, workers in the Rust Belt in bygone years felt like the labor market was a buyer's market. Any one individual who tried to play hardball with the boss ended up out on his ass. And in a one- or two-industry town, this might mean several months or years without work. The only solution to that problem is for all workers to "collectively bargain" to get a better deal for all workers.
Workers in many industries today feel the labor market is tight enough that they don't need to pool their interests to get the bossman's attention. If you don't like working the long hours, then go find a job where you don't have to, is the current sentiment. They may be kidding themselves, but many workers today leave jobs chuckling to themselves, "Good luck finding someone to replace me." So many of the folks who are working 70-100 hours/week consider this their own choice, not a mandate from management.
In addition, collective bargaining only works if workers are willing to pool their interests -- which often means fighting for the lowest common denominator everyone can agree on. Working in a non-union shop frees the worker to fight for his own interests, however he conceives them. For many people today that means accepting long hours in return for additional responsibility, stock options, prestige, etc., a choice no union would be willing to accept for all workers.
I'll only argue with one small point: The Japanese do not control the record industry. MCA/Universal was the content company Matsushita purchased. They since sold it to Seagrams (a Canadian company), which I think has since bought Polygram (which was previously Dutch-owned).
Just as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, North Americans still overwhelimingly own & run the entertainment content business (Sony's ownership of Columbia being the big exception), while Japanese (and to some extent Korean) companies overwhelmingly own & run the entertainment hardware business.
Bretai writes, "Both MS and RealMedia want to give away the players for free, and then make bank selling the servers."
Don't know about the MS product, but for years, RealNetworks has had a free version of their server. You have to hunt for it, but it's there. Its specs vary, but the version I grabbed some time ago permits up to 60 streams, which is plenty for anyone except for those simulcasting a TV station or something.
I think everyone in this market has realized that there's no money to be made in small servers. The small servers are most useful in grabbing marketshare & mindshare. I.e, if I downloaded RealPlayer so that I could listen to something on a Geocities site, RealNetworks gains a seat for its player.
In addition, Real does offer a "Plus" version of the player, just as Apple has QT "Pro."
So it seems the business model is to offer free versions of both server- and client-side apps (to build up market share), holding back enough features on both sides so that "serious" customers will be willing to pay for licenses to enhanced products.
I wouldn't doubt Apple left itself some wiggle room in the server license to create a "Plus" version of the server some day which they can charge for.
Either that or Apple has decided that on the server side the money is to be made in services, not licensing. Which is to say the Red Hat business model of charging installation support, etc., may be migrating from OSes to other apps. Which would be interesting.
Not because they didn't want it. The courts ruled long ago that phone directories are public domain info. They don't have to help others access their data, but they can't stop other parties from keying in phone book data & repurposing it.
Not sure what the legal basis of this decision was, but I'm sure it can & will be used as a precedent if & when NSI decides to sue someone.
Slashdot Mirror
It's been years since I've heard it, but I heard it more than once back in the DOS 3.2, DOS 4.0, DOS 5.0 days.
I'm guessing it'll pop up in searches of 8-to-10-year-old issues of Byte or PC Magazine.
"Old tricks" is right. Years ago, they used to say, "DOS isn't done until Lotus doesn't run."
This op ed from Sunday's Washington Post is worth a read.
The author is sypathetic to NSA, claiming the agency isn't currently spying on Americans or otherwise overreaching it's mandate, but even he worries about the future potential of the technolgies NSA is developing.
... then you can create passwords "that are hard to crack but possible to recall."
Take the first line or two of a song or poem you like and use the first letter of each word to build a password.
For example, take the first two lines of Poe's The Raven:
The first letters of each word give you the seemingly random password ouamwwipwaw. It's easy to remember, easy to type (just recite or sing in your head as you type), but won't be found in any dictionary.
Systems that require non-alpha characters will barf on it, but you can just add a digit or two at the end to fix that.
I do like the comment that says they should "start acting on Internet Time rather than Washington Time".. Struck me as supremely true.
Oh deary, dear. Nothings scarier than a legislative body or agency acting quickly. That's when you know The Fix is in.
Like it or not, governing works best with lots of sunshine, and sunshine adds time to the process. It takes more time to be inclusive, to open the process up to a variety of points of view, and then to try to reconcile those points of view.
Democracy's not at it's best when adapting to rapid change (which explains monstrosities like the CDA). As we settle into our new cyber habits, our elected representatives will eventually catch up. In the mean time, please don't rush them.
-- Posted from Inside the Beltway
will infomarco be scanning their archives to verify the submitted evidence?
I'd restate that: How does the consumer evaluate the quality of the answer he will be paying for? Not every question has a verifiable right or wrong answer. Sometimes you're looking for the best answer -- or at least a better than average answer. The only way most consumers have to verify the quality of an answer is to turn to a trusted source.
I don't think an information market like this will replace the long-used system of brand names with track records.
Now, disabling modem compression is a well known tactic for decreasing ping time, and tools have been out to reconfigure Windows to do thus for years. That doesn't necessarily mean, however, that all these modems have different is a new driver disk.
Heck, new drivers shouldn't even be necessary. If I remember my AT command set, a simple AT&Q0 should kill both error correction and data compression.
Given the latest Slashdot article about IDG's efforts to protect its "For Dummies" trademark from being used in listserv postings, you might want to permission from Eisner before naming servers after Disney characters.
Let's hope Disney lawyers don't get any ideas from this post.
Given the latest Slashdot article about IDG's efforts to protect its "For Dummies" trademark from being used in listserv postings, you might want to permission from Eisner before servers after Disney characters.
Let's hope Disney lawyers don't get any ideas from this post.
Both Atlantic Monthly and U.S. News have had thought-provoking articles on this topic recently.
Is this a victory for Dell specifically or direct sales generally?
Selling PCs is different from selling dishwashers or shoes, since short product cycles and rapidly-dropping prices makes inventories a millstone around the neck of channel marketers, but if I were a manufacturer in any industry who relied on a sales channel to reach my customers, I'd be looking over my shoulder for a Dell clone.
As an ethical decision on your part, I think this is a great idea.
As a strategy to modify Amazon's behavior, I'm not so sure it's worth the trouble. Even well-publicized boycotts are seldom effective --and if Amazon doesn't even know why you stopped shopping there, there's no chance they'll factor your feelings into their decisions.
At the very least, if you feel this strongly about it, send them an e-mail, make a phone call or write a letter.
And if everyone who agrees with your post sends a similar message, it might even hit Bezos' radar.
There is a new online database here: http://www.uspto.gov/tmdb/index.html. USPTO says there are "limitations" to it, but it's better than nothing.
There are also 70 trademark libraries around the U.S. Here's a list: http://www.uspto.gov/web/of fices/ac/ido/ptdl/index.html.
You'll miss out on the ambiance of Crystal City's concrete canyons, but then maybe that's a benefit.
Sounds like "franglais" to me. Makes you wonder how good the translation will work when the people writing the translators can't even write in one language (English) without leaving traces of their native language (presumably French).
This may sound snide, but if their translation tools work so well, why haven't they been able to translate their Web site into all 16 supported languages? The site only has English and Japanese versions at the moment.
think the metalanguage would need to carry all of the specific case/gender/tense information for each of the languages that can be embedded in it.
This sounds fine if everything is authored in the metalanguage. But what happens when you begin with a language like Cantonese, which has no verb tenses, or an inconsistent language like English, where "read" can be past or present tense?
Whether I use English or Dutch (or for that matter German, which I hardly do at all), I think in that Language.
I think this gets to the root of the problem with the metalanguage method for translation.
It seems to me that the attempt to build a metalanguage is based on the theoretical assumption that words are a representation some more basic element that the brain uses. Which is to say the translation to a metalanguage would be an approximation of a process the brain conducts when interpreting language.
I don't think the brain works that way. Words are the building blocks of thought, and "thinking" in another language means that the brain trades one set of building blocks for another.
This explains why multilingual people often intermingle words and phrases from different languages in the same sentence: While two words from different languages may be similar in meaning, they often don't mean precisely the same thing, so the speaker will substitute a more appropriate word from another language to communicate the precise nuance intended.
This also explains the often heard phrase, "Well, that doesn't translate well." One can almost always translate the words, but that doesn't necessarily convey the same meaning.
No matter what language a person uses, the grammar, vocabulary and syntax of that language is directly wired into the brain of the speaker. The brain has no metalanguage of its own. Which, of course, is why the use of language by children is such an important component of brain development. And why, althought it might sound snobbish, people with small vocabularies don't think great thoughts.
There are a bunch of parties that could rate Web sites, in declining order of authoritarianism:
The new television rating system is, I think, an example of the third option. The networks rate their own shows to give a very rough indication of the audience the show was intended for.
True, the TV ratings system was set up under strong pressure from Congress, and it ain't perfect, but it does eliminate some of the politics & hypocrisy of last minute edits to films to satisfy MPAA censors.
I think most Web publishers -- even small ones -- would be willing to take the 5 minutes required to code their site to indicate the intended audience. The coding scheme could be set up to deal with the gray areas intelligently. For example, it could include a category for news and let parents decide whether or not "news" is appropriate for their children. And, yes, I think even porn site operators would code honestly.
The devil is in the details, of course, especially when one has to design a coding system that is relevant across cultures yet can be understood well enough by Web publishers to code accurately. But as self-policing goes, I think we're better off giving responsibility to publishers themselves than to some industry group's unofficial bureaucracy.
> Details are in the story, but does this whole thing
> strike everyone else as tired PR stunts now?
Yes.
Doesn't anyone value honesty anymore?
Not in the finance industry, I guess. The loan officer for my mortgage (who was working on commission) taught me how to, ahem, overstate my assets without getting caught by her colleagues on the loan approval committee.
I got the loan, and seven years later, I haven't defaulted yet.
Didn't he know those were the terms when he accepted the assignment?
I think the issue here is that many workers today feel like they can effectively bargain with employers on their own because they have other employment options.
By and large, workers in the Rust Belt in bygone years felt like the labor market was a buyer's market. Any one individual who tried to play hardball with the boss ended up out on his ass. And in a one- or two-industry town, this might mean several months or years without work. The only solution to that problem is for all workers to "collectively bargain" to get a better deal for all workers.
Workers in many industries today feel the labor market is tight enough that they don't need to pool their interests to get the bossman's attention. If you don't like working the long hours, then go find a job where you don't have to, is the current sentiment. They may be kidding themselves, but many workers today leave jobs chuckling to themselves, "Good luck finding someone to replace me." So many of the folks who are working 70-100 hours/week consider this their own choice, not a mandate from management.
In addition, collective bargaining only works if workers are willing to pool their interests -- which often means fighting for the lowest common denominator everyone can agree on. Working in a non-union shop frees the worker to fight for his own interests, however he conceives them. For many people today that means accepting long hours in return for additional responsibility, stock options, prestige, etc., a choice no union would be willing to accept for all workers.
Very well put and thought-provoking
I'll only argue with one small point: The Japanese do not control the record industry. MCA/Universal was the content company Matsushita purchased. They since sold it to Seagrams (a Canadian company), which I think has since bought Polygram (which was previously Dutch-owned).
Just as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, North Americans still overwhelimingly own & run the entertainment content business (Sony's ownership of Columbia being the big exception), while Japanese (and to some extent Korean) companies overwhelmingly own & run the entertainment hardware business.
VCRs were going to put the movie studios out of business, as well.
The only explanation I can think of for their paranoia and short-sightedness: The entertainment industry must be run by former telco executives.
Bretai writes, "Both MS and RealMedia want to give away the players for free, and then make bank selling the servers."
Don't know about the MS product, but for years, RealNetworks has had a free version of their server. You have to hunt for it, but it's there. Its specs vary, but the version I grabbed some time ago permits up to 60 streams, which is plenty for anyone except for those simulcasting a TV station or something.
I think everyone in this market has realized that there's no money to be made in small servers. The small servers are most useful in grabbing marketshare & mindshare. I.e, if I downloaded RealPlayer so that I could listen to something on a Geocities site, RealNetworks gains a seat for its player.
In addition, Real does offer a "Plus" version of the player, just as Apple has QT "Pro."
So it seems the business model is to offer free versions of both server- and client-side apps (to build up market share), holding back enough features on both sides so that "serious" customers will be willing to pay for licenses to enhanced products.
I wouldn't doubt Apple left itself some wiggle room in the server license to create a "Plus" version of the server some day which they can charge for.
Either that or Apple has decided that on the server side the money is to be made in services, not licensing. Which is to say the Red Hat business model of charging installation support, etc., may be migrating from OSes to other apps. Which would be interesting.
Not because they didn't want it. The courts ruled long ago that phone directories are public domain info. They don't have to help others access their data, but they can't stop other parties from keying in phone book data & repurposing it.
Not sure what the legal basis of this decision was, but I'm sure it can & will be used as a precedent if & when NSI decides to sue someone.