If the ICC has a judgement it wants enforced in the UK, it needs to get the approval of the UK government to use the UK police force to do that. Alone, the ICC is impotent.
Ok, so if the ICC is impotent without the help of a nation's own lawmakers and police, then how is that nation ceding sovereignty by agreeing to it? I mean if the ICC asked for something unreasonable, couldn't a country's leaders simply say no? Is there anything in the ICC treaty that says that it can forcibly render judgements inside one member country, using borrowed militaries from other member countries? Under the ICC, if a country refuses to comply with a request for extradition, will that country's wishes be honored if the judged were to step into another ICC country that supported the extradition? Just how gung-ho can the ICC and its members get - could they swoop into a non-ICC country with borrowed military to force an extradition? And just what sort of crimes is the ICC allowed to prosecute under the proposed treaty?
Your argument falls strongly on the side against the ICC, but a few key issues seem to be glossed over, which makes me suspicious. Just how much sovereignty would be lost? I would expect these sorts of issues to be clarified in the treaty, and if they haven't been, then that should be a cause for alarm. Can anyone clarify?
...had a guide on capturing analog video, said to be the part of a 3 part series, going over each capturing, cleaning, and compressing. Only part I ever came out - Ars do you read slashdot? - I am waiting on the last guides for some advice on how to preserve these rotting home VHS tapes.
Meanwhile, does anyone else have advice on capturing and cleaning video since we are already talking about compression? What settings are good for capturing and what sort of software exists to clean up VHS and give it the appearance of more clarity? I am using a WinTV card as Ars recommended it.
So the french government is now dictating what results a search engine can produce? If someone is injecting a query into my system, I would expect that I could return whatever information I want, unless the information in and of itself was illegal. For example when I click "similar pages" link at google for amazon.com and I get an overstock.com link is that illegal? Aren't I free to make whatever associations I want, possibly with the exception of when implying a false relationship? Google ads are marked as such even though many people can't tell the difference - there clearly is no direct relationship between the search query and the ads. Even so, who is to say that by default a search engine's results imply a particular relationship to the search terms?
It is not the fault of the technology, but users that are just plain confused. This ruling will look incredibly dumb in a generation or two when people are generally more saavy.
The car does support multiple keys, so there must be a lookup table mapping physical keys to one time keys in there somewhere. So the car knows who last used the car last. It could make an interesting plot point in an episode of CSI.
The electronic keys from Mercedes are a good example of this done right. The key has an IR transceiver at it's head that exchanges one time codes with the car when the driver begins turning it. The received code is saved for next time and can't be intercepted without getting physically between the head of the key and the transceiver inside the lock. Even then, an intercepted code would have to be used before the victim returned to his car. Who is going to do a complicated install of capture equipment into a fortified lock at location A and then follow the victim to location B to steal the car? It's just far too conspicuous.
Mercedes overhauled security, rather than tacking on a secure by being obscure layer to the existing crackable standard - TI Immobilizer systems don't require advanced physical access, just proximity to the key at least an hour before the moment of a heist. Even worse, once the key is cracked it won't change either, so criminals can wait to strike and further avoid notice. Just wait till a tiny RFID scanner and a usable cracking program show up in the black market. A laid off engineer has too much potential to make dough with the ideas that have been released. The program could even do distributed processing on a broadcast LAN or via P2P.
Now someone is probably going to point out that they'll be laughing when the fancy Mercedes key runs out of batteries and leaves its owner stranded, but this isn't the case. The key can receive power from the car despite not having any visible metal contacts - likely because there is a coil embedded in the plastic key that will get power inductively when the key is inserted - without any wires [slashdot.org]. It's news on slashdot, but it's been shipping since 1997, and much longer before that for other applications.
As if that weren't it, the key doubles as an RF remote for locking/unlocking doors, popping the trunk, and a panic function. But wait there's more - the IR transciever portion of the key, when aimed at the driver door can open, close, or place anywhere in between all the side windows and sunroof at once. Great for getting into the car on a hot day or sealing up all the windows as you leave. Impressive what they they've put usably into a key, albeit oversized.
Finally, despite using a radically different model, Mercedes cleverly applied the familiar form and usage pattern of the existing standard to bridge it with the new one - a nice touch for user comfort without any compromise to security. Well engineered indeed.
The electronic keys from Mercedes are a good example of this done right. The key has an IR transceiver at it's head that exchanges one time codes with the car when the driver begins turning it. The received code is saved for next time and can't be intercepted without getting physically between the head of the key and the transceiver inside the lock. Even then, an intercepted code would have to be used before the victim returned to his car. Who is going to do a complicated install of capture equipment into a fortified lock at location A and then follow the victim to location B to steal the car? It's just far too conspicuous.
Mercedes overhauled security, rather than tacking on a secure by being obscure layer to the existing crackable standard - TI Immobilizer systems don't require advanced physical access, just proximity to the key at least an hour before the moment of a heist. Even worse, once the key is cracked it won't change either, so criminals can wait to strike and further avoid notice. Just wait till a tiny RFID scanner and a usable cracking program show up in the black market. A laid off engineer has too much potential to make dough with the ideas that have been released. The program could even do distributed processing on a broadcast LAN or via P2P.
Now someone is probably going to point out that they'll be laughing when the fancy Mercedes key runs out of batteries and leaves its owner stranded, but this isn't the case. The key can receive power from the car despite not having any visible metal contacts - likely because there is a coil embedded in the plastic key that will get power inductively when the key is inserted - without any wires. It's news on slashdot, but it's been shipping since 1997, and much longer before that for other applications.
As if that weren't it, the key doubles as an RF remote for locking/unlocking doors, popping the trunk, and a panic function. But wait there's more - the IR transciever portion of the key, when aimed at the driver door can open, close, or place anywhere in between all the side windows and sunroof at once. Great for getting into the car on a hot day or sealing up all the windows as you leave. Impressive what they they've put usably into a key, albeit oversized.
Finally, despite using a radically different model, Mercedes cleverly applied the familiar form and usage pattern of the existing standard to bridge it with the new one - a nice touch for user comfort without any compromise to security. Well engineered indeed.
Bigger PSU capacitors = a machine less likely to crash or shut down during a brownout. I mean, after all, their job is to buffer power fluctuations. I doubt it had much to do with the OS.
Microsoft has real problems and here is why - they approach the market reactively, "innovating" by relying on surveys, focus groups, market analysis, whatever you want to call it. To sum it up -
if (no complaint)
stick to status quo else
fix complaint
The problem is that complaints are usually symptoms of larger problems, and by tacking on simple fixes, Microsoft usually just ends up with a convoluted framework for whatever product they happen to be fixing.
Your average joe doesn't understand the potential of new technology, he is just reacting to the new-fangled features you just put in. This is why technology design by survey fails miserably. You need someone who fully understands what is at the edge of current technology, and who can creatively apply it in ways that enhance the average joe's life. This is so goddam simple, but Ballmer misses the point. I have heard through the grapevine that this is ingrained in Microsoft company culture, and no one challenges it, because the company is conservatively micro-managed from the top.
Microsoft gets away with this model because the average joe is unaware of innovative concepts while they are new, before Microsoft has copied them. But the software remains clunky, akin to cars of the old days, where you cranked the thing up by hand and put up with the smell, noise, and breakdowns - because there was still a tangible benefit. People thought this was the nature of cars back then, and accepted it because they couldn't see any better. Similar stylistic comparisons can be made between Microsoft and George Lucas, but I digress.
Microsoft hasn't re-invented itself, it has only re-hashed itself into something superficially better. Until the old guard leaves, that isn't likely to happen. This can be witnessed in the company's financials - growth continues, but is slowing in a growing market, despite a monopoly. If you want to make some dough, invest in some Apple stock and short on Microsoft - since it is pretty clear that they will be sticking to their guns with Ballmer. I've never owned an Mac but I've used a few and I see them as the next best thing, especially with the affordable mini model out, a good architecture to boot, and style that drops Microsoft right on its ass.
1) Powder dry herb 2) Place in a jar of 90% isopropyl alcohol 3) Shake vigorously for 2 minutes 4) Strain, filter 5) Evaporate on a plate over a source of steam 6) Scrape up the goodies 7) Profit
And you won't be able to "hide" that in your code. What rock have you been under?
Re:I haven't taken anything like this...
on
IT Literacy Test
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· Score: 1
The idea of this test is fundamentally flawed. If you are good at problem solving, you will be good at problem solving in a technology-rich environment or a technology-poor environment equally.
I don't think this is necessarily true. I would rephrase this to say that those that can solve technology-rich problems are as *capable* of solving similarly difficult technology-poor problems, but they may not be as practiced in the technology-poor problem domain. Given that such tests are timed, familiarity can be almost as important as capability - here is where a capable techie may suffer on a typical problem solving test. This test pulls out individuals with smarts that might otherwise go unnoticed with other forms of testing.
I've always hated technology tests, because they necessarily favor a particular way of doing things, and show a clear bias to the solutions preferred by whoever came up with the test.
This isn't always the case, especially not with the standardized tests the ETS puts out. If there is more than one solution and one is more proper, it is usually more proper for well defined, scientific reasons. Once we find out the standards for the test, we can argue the merits of their standards decisions - and that's only if their problems can potentially have two answers at all.
My techniques are rarely the "industry standard" techniques, so I often find myself on tech assessment tests choosing the answers I know the test creators think are right, even if in my experience they aren't the best or most efficient way to do things.
*shrug* - I'd need an example. Usually skipping industry standards requires more than casual justification.
It does promote open discussion to release a questionable story rather than wait for a decision from less informed editorial staff. But look at the submissions that are often picked!
A story over at Linuxworld states that IBM has been less than forthcoming with its bits and pieces of source code SCO is demanding. SCO is alleging in its 3rd Amended Complaint that 'IBM put SCO-owned SVR4 code in System 3-based AIX for its proprietary Power chip architecture.' The problem? IBM 'can't find' that source code. Does IBM have something to hide?"
This submission was picked based on how well it pandered to the slashdot crowd, regardless the unknowns that have changed that sentiment. Is there nothing wrong with that? Isn't this an insult to the intelligence of an average slashdotter?
I suspect slashdot editors do this because advertising revenue does have it's influence. After all, click-through rates on the individual stories is an important marketting bullet for selling.... ads. They aim to shock, I'll often click on a pandering, mis-informed submission to see if things get corrected in the commentary. Sometimes things don't get corrected till 100 to 200 or so comments down, with many of the earlier comments being knee-jerk karma-whoring that mirrors the pandering sentiment of the submission. But often I wonder what effect Slashdot's pandering headlines have on people that don't read the comments through? It comes at a cost - but hey, if CmdrTaco gets a bigger, brighter, thinner, shinier new color television at the end of the year, what's the big deal?
Ok, my mistake, they didn't cancel the Parhelia drivers. They are just really dated - no 2.6 kernel support and it has been almost a year since they have been updated. Will they be updated?
We were asked to wait a long time for the capture board drivers until they decided that the next generation was out and that the old drivers were not worth pursuing.
I think they are just cutting costs at our expense. I remember buying a video card, video capture daughterboard, and an integrated PCI TV tuner card as a bundle from them, when such a thing cost upwards of $300. This was a big investment for me at the time, but I was itching to edit video and DV wasn't big yet. These cards had excellent capture quality with hardware compression, so I invested big time in the whole Matrox system. Win2k came out a month later and they decided not to support it. Win2k was a leap ahead of 98, so many ditched the hardware.
Hundreds of calls and emails went to Matrox, especially on the part of people simply trying to get them to release specs on a single chip (MGA-VC064SFB-C) so linux drivers could be written. The 4 non-matrox chips on the board, including the Zoran capture chip - had publicly available datasheets. This wasn't a big part that was missing, but was necessary. Two open source projects started, and made progress, but halted or decided not to support the older generation of hardware, due to lack of specifications! Matrox even ignored a petition with nearly 400 signatures!
Other people were willing to do the work that would have given real value to the Matrox name - as a maker of rock solid hardware that continued to be a workhorse, even years after purchase. All they had to do was release some specs - the hardware was impossible to beat in price/performance at the time and the linux community would looked to Matrox with appreciation because a solid capture board that did hardware based compression wasn't easy to find or afford for linux. An asinine move if I'd ever seen one.
This was before they released open source drivers for a newer generation of cards, and it showed their true character before they cancelled open source drivers for the Parhelia line.
Simply put, don't buy closed source Matrox. They have a history of cutting development early for closed source drivers and not releasing specs!
New York Times OQO article
on
OQO For Sale
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· Score: 1
The New York Times is running and article on the OQO. It should shed some more light on the specifics of the device, assuming they got one for review.
I also thought bittorrent was safe, until I received a letter from my ISP, Optimum Online. Paramount wanted them to warn me. Subsequently I installed an IP blocker (Blocklist Manager + Protowall) and I thought I'd be safe till I saw your posting.
So I got to thinking, this download information that the tracker gives, is it necessary? Would there be a way to seed that list with random cable modem ip addresses and torrents, without screwing up the bittorrent network too much? Then the people using IP blockers couldn't be distinguised from some grandpa who randomly ended up on the list.
Lo and behold, looky who is writing for MSN Slate. None other than Slashdot's beloved Jon Katz. Writing the same half-informed stuff, and as always with the misrepresentative tone of having first hand experience with the subject at hand.
The slashdot blip about the article is misleading as usual. The author's main point is that it takes time for all systems to be patched, such that someone will reverse engineer the patch and release a rapidly spreading worm/virus before a majority of systems are patched. Simply slowing down the release of patches won't really help unless all vendors pick a regular patch release interval that people actually follow. This is what Microsoft appears to be trying, but the system is too dependent on people staying on schedule. The author says a fundamental change is needed, perhaps allowing encrypted patch downloads for some time, and having the patch installer wait for a key to install those patches simultaneously at a later date. This is clever and leads me to expand on the idea.
Why not have a standard piece of software that scans your system for different programs you have installed, one that registers the programs as well as your machine's ip address with a server? There could be a centralized server system or each vendor could have their own server to allay privacy concerns. Encrypted patches then could be auto-downloaded upon release and then held until some point in the future. Then simple UDP packets containing decryption keys could be sent to all registered systems - at least once enough of them have downloaded the patch - allowing near simultaneous installation.
An added bonus would be that if a worm/virus is reported in the wild, patching can commence immediately. This would really put a damper on the ridiculous rate of infection we usually see, currently so rapid in fact that anyone not patched is usually hit within a day. I'm glad most of these worms don't carry destructive payloads, the recent destructive witty worm killed my weekend. Try recovering data after random parts of the drive have been overwritten.
Now this isn't a troll, because common sense tells me that spyware should not be allowed to operate the way it does today, but... From legal perspective, don't users agree to install spyware and accept its activities via those click-through EULAs that come with various "free" downloads?
The issue seems not to be spyware, but not adequately warning users of what is being installed on their systems. It would seem to make more sense to pass legislation that requires standard, plainly and prominently shown notification of what habits a program tracks and what sort of advertising it does, shown on its own page before installation. A blanket ban seems a bit extreme.
On another note, spyware seems to invade my system even though I am pretty saavy and do all I can to avoid it. It would appear some companies take advantage of IE exploits to stick these things on my system, but I can't say for sure.
My god, I just visited Haxxxor.com. What I thought could only exist as a sick joke is real. Why would you teach "hacking"... i.e. using nmap and the like through porn? Obviously no one buys these videos to learn "hacking," but they don't even work as a parody, because the element of "hacking" is taken way too seriously, rather than being approached lustfully.
The girls are seriously trying to be uber-hacker (read: not feminine) in their technical language while talking like high school cheerleaders, chiming in sometimes with "watch me squeeze my tits," or something just as cliched. The dichotomy is terrible, it neither passes as porn nor as a technical guide. This is just terrible, the production must either go full parody or not, otherwise it just manages to be worst than what it intends to parody.
In any other profession people watching these videos would recoil in horror. Haxxxor videos aren't so bad that they are good, they don't quite make the loop. They are simply bad.
There are literally dozens of utilities written for every platform to go through any number of mp3s and take information from the filename and construct usable ID3 tags out of it. Again, just because you didn't know about it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Ignorance is funny like that. They're fairly smart in the translation, too, in case you're going to say some shit like "all my mp3 files are named in a different format with different symbols separating all the artists and titles and blah blah oh my god it's hopeless."
Naturally, like the many people who have researched this predicament through the forums at ipodlounge, I have downloaded these fancy taggers, taking similar suggestions from ipodlounge in good faith. Yeah, the ones that use heuristic techniques and also let you select multiple mp3s to tag common information quickly. You overestimate these tools and underestimate the labor you have put into them. If my file and directory names were consistent a fancy tagger would be fine - but they aren't and I don't want them to be. Sometimes the artist is named just in the folder, sometimes the album, or sometimes just the category. Artist and song name appear in the filename only sometimes. Sometimes meta-data is visible over 2-3 directory levels, sometimes not. This is dependant on a lot of factors, but put simply, it makes sense when you browse. Consistency isn't always desirable in a UI, different kinds of music call for different organizational schemes. To recap and conclude - my mp3 collection's file and directory names are by no means consistent, so forget the heuristic tagger - I'd have to do some hand editing for most tags anyway. It kind of defeats the purpose.
Also as you said, it would take tagging mp3s with keywords and setting up dynamic playlists to achieve anything like what I have now. So I'd have to hand tag anyway! Don't simplify the tagging problem, it isn't so. Sure tagging is a consistent way to store meta-data, but it is very tedious and would still require me to make special rule sets just to maintain the optimally usable structure I have developed for myself.
I'm simply suggesting that you FIX YOUR PROBLEM, instead of resorting to ridiculous methods of kludgingly organizing your masses of broken files into a semi-useable format, and then criticizing well-designed software for not supporting your horrible method of organization.
Yes it is kludgery, but sometimes you need kludgery to support a legacy system. The costs of moving to and maintaining the new system are too high! And you know what, the old system is a lot more than semi-usable. It is good for my needs, and requires what is within the range of a reasonable effort. And again, I am not "criticizing" or "against" apple's organizational scheme - it is good, but my situation warrants an easily implementable legacy alternative. I would use apple's present organizational system if all my mp3s came from iTunes or were ripped from CDDB listed albums. Then the added effort would be more reasonable. Stop painting things in black and white. It is a simple fact of life that my ID3 tags have and will continue to come as a mess. This is true for a sizeable minority of ipod users and they need an alternative.
As for having a life - yes, I've got one, and I don't spend it organizing my thousands of mp3s into neat little directories on disk. Although that's what I used to do _six_ years ago, and I feel your pain.
Well I am glad you have gotten a life since six years ago. Unfortunately I am in a position where I presently have a life, and will have one for the foreseeable future. My mp3s don't come tagged, so the tagging situation here is a akin to what you were doing six years ago, and even worse with the rule sets and keywords you suggest for dynamic playlists. It would take serious time to make something as nice as what I have now based in the new system, and I would
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, so if the ICC is impotent without the help of a nation's own lawmakers and police, then how is that nation ceding sovereignty by agreeing to it? I mean if the ICC asked for something unreasonable, couldn't a country's leaders simply say no? Is there anything in the ICC treaty that says that it can forcibly render judgements inside one member country, using borrowed militaries from other member countries? Under the ICC, if a country refuses to comply with a request for extradition, will that country's wishes be honored if the judged were to step into another ICC country that supported the extradition? Just how gung-ho can the ICC and its members get - could they swoop into a non-ICC country with borrowed military to force an extradition? And just what sort of crimes is the ICC allowed to prosecute under the proposed treaty?
Your argument falls strongly on the side against the ICC, but a few key issues seem to be glossed over, which makes me suspicious. Just how much sovereignty would be lost? I would expect these sorts of issues to be clarified in the treaty, and if they haven't been, then that should be a cause for alarm. Can anyone clarify?
...had a guide on capturing analog video, said to be the part of a 3 part series, going over each capturing, cleaning, and compressing. Only part I ever came out - Ars do you read slashdot? - I am waiting on the last guides for some advice on how to preserve these rotting home VHS tapes.
Meanwhile, does anyone else have advice on capturing and cleaning video since we are already talking about compression? What settings are good for capturing and what sort of software exists to clean up VHS and give it the appearance of more clarity? I am using a WinTV card as Ars recommended it.
So the french government is now dictating what results a search engine can produce? If someone is injecting a query into my system, I would expect that I could return whatever information I want, unless the information in and of itself was illegal. For example when I click "similar pages" link at google for amazon.com and I get an overstock.com link is that illegal? Aren't I free to make whatever associations I want, possibly with the exception of when implying a false relationship? Google ads are marked as such even though many people can't tell the difference - there clearly is no direct relationship between the search query and the ads. Even so, who is to say that by default a search engine's results imply a particular relationship to the search terms?
It is not the fault of the technology, but users that are just plain confused. This ruling will look incredibly dumb in a generation or two when people are generally more saavy.
The car does support multiple keys, so there must be a lookup table mapping physical keys to one time keys in there somewhere. So the car knows who last used the car last. It could make an interesting plot point in an episode of CSI.
The electronic keys from Mercedes are a good example of this done right. The key has an IR transceiver at it's head that exchanges one time codes with the car when the driver begins turning it. The received code is saved for next time and can't be intercepted without getting physically between the head of the key and the transceiver inside the lock. Even then, an intercepted code would have to be used before the victim returned to his car. Who is going to do a complicated install of capture equipment into a fortified lock at location A and then follow the victim to location B to steal the car? It's just far too conspicuous.
Mercedes overhauled security, rather than tacking on a secure by being obscure layer to the existing crackable standard - TI Immobilizer systems don't require advanced physical access, just proximity to the key at least an hour before the moment of a heist. Even worse, once the key is cracked it won't change either, so criminals can wait to strike and further avoid notice. Just wait till a tiny RFID scanner and a usable cracking program show up in the black market. A laid off engineer has too much potential to make dough with the ideas that have been released. The program could even do distributed processing on a broadcast LAN or via P2P.
Now someone is probably going to point out that they'll be laughing when the fancy Mercedes key runs out of batteries and leaves its owner stranded, but this isn't the case. The key can receive power from the car despite not having any visible metal contacts - likely because there is a coil embedded in the plastic key that will get power inductively when the key is inserted - without any wires [slashdot.org]. It's news on slashdot, but it's been shipping since 1997, and much longer before that for other applications.
As if that weren't it, the key doubles as an RF remote for locking/unlocking doors, popping the trunk, and a panic function. But wait there's more - the IR transciever portion of the key, when aimed at the driver door can open, close, or place anywhere in between all the side windows and sunroof at once. Great for getting into the car on a hot day or sealing up all the windows as you leave. Impressive what they they've put usably into a key, albeit oversized.
Finally, despite using a radically different model, Mercedes cleverly applied the familiar form and usage pattern of the existing standard to bridge it with the new one - a nice touch for user comfort without any compromise to security. Well engineered indeed.
The electronic keys from Mercedes are a good example of this done right. The key has an IR transceiver at it's head that exchanges one time codes with the car when the driver begins turning it. The received code is saved for next time and can't be intercepted without getting physically between the head of the key and the transceiver inside the lock. Even then, an intercepted code would have to be used before the victim returned to his car. Who is going to do a complicated install of capture equipment into a fortified lock at location A and then follow the victim to location B to steal the car? It's just far too conspicuous.
Mercedes overhauled security, rather than tacking on a secure by being obscure layer to the existing crackable standard - TI Immobilizer systems don't require advanced physical access, just proximity to the key at least an hour before the moment of a heist. Even worse, once the key is cracked it won't change either, so criminals can wait to strike and further avoid notice. Just wait till a tiny RFID scanner and a usable cracking program show up in the black market. A laid off engineer has too much potential to make dough with the ideas that have been released. The program could even do distributed processing on a broadcast LAN or via P2P.
Now someone is probably going to point out that they'll be laughing when the fancy Mercedes key runs out of batteries and leaves its owner stranded, but this isn't the case. The key can receive power from the car despite not having any visible metal contacts - likely because there is a coil embedded in the plastic key that will get power inductively when the key is inserted - without any wires. It's news on slashdot, but it's been shipping since 1997, and much longer before that for other applications.
As if that weren't it, the key doubles as an RF remote for locking/unlocking doors, popping the trunk, and a panic function. But wait there's more - the IR transciever portion of the key, when aimed at the driver door can open, close, or place anywhere in between all the side windows and sunroof at once. Great for getting into the car on a hot day or sealing up all the windows as you leave. Impressive what they they've put usably into a key, albeit oversized.
Finally, despite using a radically different model, Mercedes cleverly applied the familiar form and usage pattern of the existing standard to bridge it with the new one - a nice touch for user comfort without any compromise to security. Well engineered indeed.
Bigger PSU capacitors = a machine less likely to crash or shut down during a brownout. I mean, after all, their job is to buffer power fluctuations. I doubt it had much to do with the OS.
Microsoft has real problems and here is why - they approach the market reactively, "innovating" by relying on surveys, focus groups, market analysis, whatever you want to call it. To sum it up -
if (no complaint)
stick to status quo
else
fix complaint
The problem is that complaints are usually symptoms of larger problems, and by tacking on simple fixes, Microsoft usually just ends up with a convoluted framework for whatever product they happen to be fixing.
Your average joe doesn't understand the potential of new technology, he is just reacting to the new-fangled features you just put in. This is why technology design by survey fails miserably. You need someone who fully understands what is at the edge of current technology, and who can creatively apply it in ways that enhance the average joe's life. This is so goddam simple, but Ballmer misses the point. I have heard through the grapevine that this is ingrained in Microsoft company culture, and no one challenges it, because the company is conservatively micro-managed from the top.
Microsoft gets away with this model because the average joe is unaware of innovative concepts while they are new, before Microsoft has copied them. But the software remains clunky, akin to cars of the old days, where you cranked the thing up by hand and put up with the smell, noise, and breakdowns - because there was still a tangible benefit. People thought this was the nature of cars back then, and accepted it because they couldn't see any better. Similar stylistic comparisons can be made between Microsoft and George Lucas, but I digress.
Microsoft hasn't re-invented itself, it has only re-hashed itself into something superficially better. Until the old guard leaves, that isn't likely to happen. This can be witnessed in the company's financials - growth continues, but is slowing in a growing market, despite a monopoly. If you want to make some dough, invest in some Apple stock and short on Microsoft - since it is pretty clear that they will be sticking to their guns with Ballmer. I've never owned an Mac but I've used a few and I see them as the next best thing, especially with the affordable mini model out, a good architecture to boot, and style that drops Microsoft right on its ass.
Well, that was suppose to be anonymous. Ahh well.
You need a special table to make hash?
Here is s simpler way -
1) Powder dry herb
2) Place in a jar of 90% isopropyl alcohol
3) Shake vigorously for 2 minutes
4) Strain, filter
5) Evaporate on a plate over a source of steam
6) Scrape up the goodies
7) Profit
And you won't be able to "hide" that in your code. What rock have you been under?
I don't think this is necessarily true. I would rephrase this to say that those that can solve technology-rich problems are as *capable* of solving similarly difficult technology-poor problems, but they may not be as practiced in the technology-poor problem domain. Given that such tests are timed, familiarity can be almost as important as capability - here is where a capable techie may suffer on a typical problem solving test. This test pulls out individuals with smarts that might otherwise go unnoticed with other forms of testing.
This isn't always the case, especially not with the standardized tests the ETS puts out. If there is more than one solution and one is more proper, it is usually more proper for well defined, scientific reasons. Once we find out the standards for the test, we can argue the merits of their standards decisions - and that's only if their problems can potentially have two answers at all.
*shrug* - I'd need an example. Usually skipping industry standards requires more than casual justification.
A very spirited reader submitted 'Do a Lynndie' pose, if I don't say so myself.
This one has seeds. Parent had 0 seeds
It does promote open discussion to release a questionable story rather than wait for a decision from less informed editorial staff. But look at the submissions that are often picked!
A story over at Linuxworld states that IBM has been less than forthcoming with its bits and pieces of source code SCO is demanding. SCO is alleging in its 3rd Amended Complaint that 'IBM put SCO-owned SVR4 code in System 3-based AIX for its proprietary Power chip architecture.' The problem? IBM 'can't find' that source code. Does IBM have something to hide?"
This submission was picked based on how well it pandered to the slashdot crowd, regardless the unknowns that have changed that sentiment. Is there nothing wrong with that? Isn't this an insult to the intelligence of an average slashdotter?
I suspect slashdot editors do this because advertising revenue does have it's influence. After all, click-through rates on the individual stories is an important marketting bullet for selling.... ads. They aim to shock, I'll often click on a pandering, mis-informed submission to see if things get corrected in the commentary. Sometimes things don't get corrected till 100 to 200 or so comments down, with many of the earlier comments being knee-jerk karma-whoring that mirrors the pandering sentiment of the submission. But often I wonder what effect Slashdot's pandering headlines have on people that don't read the comments through? It comes at a cost - but hey, if CmdrTaco gets a bigger, brighter, thinner, shinier new color television at the end of the year, what's the big deal?
Ok, my mistake, they didn't cancel the Parhelia drivers. They are just really dated - no 2.6 kernel support and it has been almost a year since they have been updated. Will they be updated?
We were asked to wait a long time for the capture board drivers until they decided that the next generation was out and that the old drivers were not worth pursuing.
I think they are just cutting costs at our expense. I remember buying a video card, video capture daughterboard, and an integrated PCI TV tuner card as a bundle from them, when such a thing cost upwards of $300. This was a big investment for me at the time, but I was itching to edit video and DV wasn't big yet. These cards had excellent capture quality with hardware compression, so I invested big time in the whole Matrox system. Win2k came out a month later and they decided not to support it. Win2k was a leap ahead of 98, so many ditched the hardware.
Hundreds of calls and emails went to Matrox, especially on the part of people simply trying to get them to release specs on a single chip (MGA-VC064SFB-C) so linux drivers could be written. The 4 non-matrox chips on the board, including the Zoran capture chip - had publicly available datasheets. This wasn't a big part that was missing, but was necessary. Two open source projects started, and made progress, but halted or decided not to support the older generation of hardware, due to lack of specifications! Matrox even ignored a petition with nearly 400 signatures!
Other people were willing to do the work that would have given real value to the Matrox name - as a maker of rock solid hardware that continued to be a workhorse, even years after purchase. All they had to do was release some specs - the hardware was impossible to beat in price/performance at the time and the linux community would looked to Matrox with appreciation because a solid capture board that did hardware based compression wasn't easy to find or afford for linux. An asinine move if I'd ever seen one.
This was before they released open source drivers for a newer generation of cards, and it showed their true character before they cancelled open source drivers for the Parhelia line.
Simply put, don't buy closed source Matrox. They have a history of cutting development early for closed source drivers and not releasing specs!
The New York Times is running and article on the OQO. It should shed some more light on the specifics of the device, assuming they got one for review.
Here
No I didn't read the article. Yes I wanted to be the first to post it. So there.
I also thought bittorrent was safe, until I received a letter from my ISP, Optimum Online. Paramount wanted them to warn me. Subsequently I installed an IP blocker (Blocklist Manager + Protowall) and I thought I'd be safe till I saw your posting.
So I got to thinking, this download information that the tracker gives, is it necessary? Would there be a way to seed that list with random cable modem ip addresses and torrents, without screwing up the bittorrent network too much? Then the people using IP blockers couldn't be distinguised from some grandpa who randomly ended up on the list.
Lo and behold, looky who is writing for MSN Slate. None other than Slashdot's beloved Jon Katz. Writing the same half-informed stuff, and as always with the misrepresentative tone of having first hand experience with the subject at hand.
The slashdot blip about the article is misleading as usual. The author's main point is that it takes time for all systems to be patched, such that someone will reverse engineer the patch and release a rapidly spreading worm/virus before a majority of systems are patched. Simply slowing down the release of patches won't really help unless all vendors pick a regular patch release interval that people actually follow. This is what Microsoft appears to be trying, but the system is too dependent on people staying on schedule. The author says a fundamental change is needed, perhaps allowing encrypted patch downloads for some time, and having the patch installer wait for a key to install those patches simultaneously at a later date. This is clever and leads me to expand on the idea.
Why not have a standard piece of software that scans your system for different programs you have installed, one that registers the programs as well as your machine's ip address with a server? There could be a centralized server system or each vendor could have their own server to allay privacy concerns. Encrypted patches then could be auto-downloaded upon release and then held until some point in the future. Then simple UDP packets containing decryption keys could be sent to all registered systems - at least once enough of them have downloaded the patch - allowing near simultaneous installation.
An added bonus would be that if a worm/virus is reported in the wild, patching can commence immediately. This would really put a damper on the ridiculous rate of infection we usually see, currently so rapid in fact that anyone not patched is usually hit within a day. I'm glad most of these worms don't carry destructive payloads, the recent destructive witty worm killed my weekend. Try recovering data after random parts of the drive have been overwritten.
Now this isn't a troll, because common sense tells me that spyware should not be allowed to operate the way it does today, but... From legal perspective, don't users agree to install spyware and accept its activities via those click-through EULAs that come with various "free" downloads?
The issue seems not to be spyware, but not adequately warning users of what is being installed on their systems. It would seem to make more sense to pass legislation that requires standard, plainly and prominently shown notification of what habits a program tracks and what sort of advertising it does, shown on its own page before installation. A blanket ban seems a bit extreme.
On another note, spyware seems to invade my system even though I am pretty saavy and do all I can to avoid it. It would appear some companies take advantage of IE exploits to stick these things on my system, but I can't say for sure.
My god, I just visited Haxxxor.com. What I thought could only exist as a sick joke is real. Why would you teach "hacking"... i.e. using nmap and the like through porn? Obviously no one buys these videos to learn "hacking," but they don't even work as a parody, because the element of "hacking" is taken way too seriously, rather than being approached lustfully.
The girls are seriously trying to be uber-hacker (read: not feminine) in their technical language while talking like high school cheerleaders, chiming in sometimes with "watch me squeeze my tits," or something just as cliched. The dichotomy is terrible, it neither passes as porn nor as a technical guide. This is just terrible, the production must either go full parody or not, otherwise it just manages to be worst than what it intends to parody.
In any other profession people watching these videos would recoil in horror. Haxxxor videos aren't so bad that they are good, they don't quite make the loop. They are simply bad.
Nazi.. it was a metaphor. An "apple nazi" - not quite as harsh as being called a real Nazi. Note the distinction. It isn't a small one.
If further instruction is necessary, seek the definition of "hyperbole" at dictionary.com.
Naturally, like the many people who have researched this predicament through the forums at ipodlounge, I have downloaded these fancy taggers, taking similar suggestions from ipodlounge in good faith. Yeah, the ones that use heuristic techniques and also let you select multiple mp3s to tag common information quickly. You overestimate these tools and underestimate the labor you have put into them. If my file and directory names were consistent a fancy tagger would be fine - but they aren't and I don't want them to be. Sometimes the artist is named just in the folder, sometimes the album, or sometimes just the category. Artist and song name appear in the filename only sometimes. Sometimes meta-data is visible over 2-3 directory levels, sometimes not. This is dependant on a lot of factors, but put simply, it makes sense when you browse. Consistency isn't always desirable in a UI, different kinds of music call for different organizational schemes. To recap and conclude - my mp3 collection's file and directory names are by no means consistent, so forget the heuristic tagger - I'd have to do some hand editing for most tags anyway. It kind of defeats the purpose.
Also as you said, it would take tagging mp3s with keywords and setting up dynamic playlists to achieve anything like what I have now. So I'd have to hand tag anyway! Don't simplify the tagging problem, it isn't so. Sure tagging is a consistent way to store meta-data, but it is very tedious and would still require me to make special rule sets just to maintain the optimally usable structure I have developed for myself.
Yes it is kludgery, but sometimes you need kludgery to support a legacy system. The costs of moving to and maintaining the new system are too high! And you know what, the old system is a lot more than semi-usable. It is good for my needs, and requires what is within the range of a reasonable effort. And again, I am not "criticizing" or "against" apple's organizational scheme - it is good, but my situation warrants an easily implementable legacy alternative. I would use apple's present organizational system if all my mp3s came from iTunes or were ripped from CDDB listed albums. Then the added effort would be more reasonable. Stop painting things in black and white. It is a simple fact of life that my ID3 tags have and will continue to come as a mess. This is true for a sizeable minority of ipod users and they need an alternative.
Well I am glad you have gotten a life since six years ago. Unfortunately I am in a position where I presently have a life, and will have one for the foreseeable future. My mp3s don't come tagged, so the tagging situation here is a akin to what you were doing six years ago, and even worse with the rule sets and keywords you suggest for dynamic playlists. It would take serious time to make something as nice as what I have now based in the new system, and I would