Not as any *corporation*... ICANN is a non-profit sponsored mostly by governmental agencies. So they are blatantly politically motivated rather than monetarily.
Still, I love how opening up TLDs is now somehow expanding "freedom and innovation" on the Internet - as long as you have $175k to apply for it.
Yeah, if there was such thing as a *reliable* portable bomb detector, you'd think US law enforcement would stop detonating people's "suspicious" laptops and grocery bags left on the street.
First I was thinking allowing any corporation to control a TLD seemed stupid and against the spirit of ICANN/"The Internet" - but you make an interesting point. If *.amazon guarantees you are going to an Amazon site and *.amazontypo isn't allowed because TLDs are carefully allocated instead of allowing any phisher to do it on Godaddy, it might be a good thing in that respect, at least...
I think it's more a contextual problem - Plato, Swift and Voltaire didn't publish 20 word quips, so their readers had enough to go on to realise it as satire. Here, it's very easy to come out with a comment - which would be easily detected as sarcasm in verbal conversation - that gives the reader very little to go on.
How about Oscar Wilde, Dorothy Parker, Mae West, WC Fields. Kings and queens of the 1 line satire... in fact I imagine they would all be masters the Twitter quip. Of course, in that case people should *expect* to see satire. But even so, I can't believe the number of nitwits who insist on complaining about posts on The Onion's Facebook page, for example...
Anyway, I agree it's not always easy, but it is possible. Usually (on slashdot, at least) for every person who doesn't get it there are many more who do. I'm ok with that ratio... and in fact the knee jerk misinterpretations usually make the joke better;)
Watch a Friar's Roast on Comedy Central after 10pm if you think basic cable *has* to censor. If they can air Gilbert Gottfried telling The Aristocrats joke without bleeping they can pretty much air anything.
And FX has no comedies? Archer? Louie?? It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia??? And the "let alone HBO" is way off... Dream On, Sex and the City, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Eastbound and Down, Girls, Flight of the Conchords, Mr. Show with Bob and David, and many others...
They are somewhat censored (more self-censored, they let some words of through occasionally) - but it's more a matter of letting them do what they want and censoring the bits they don't like - Breaking Bad has plenty of mature content, they just mute/blur some of it. And that also means it doesn't have to be censored when released on DVD or digital. Another example: try watching Comedy Central after 10pm - a few minutes of a Friar's roast and it's obvious they don't censor late night!
Compare to network shows, which (with very rare exceptions) *write* it for the censors in the first place.
Actually is has a live studio audience. Of course they remix the audio tracks in postprocessing but it's generally the people in the studio laughing. Monty Python also used a live studio audience, big deal.
Though I have to admit while the show was fairly original/unconventional for prime time when it started, like most sitcoms it doesn't take more than a few years before the writers start to run out of steam...
I was thinking about it, and one of the biggest factors contributing towards better TV is the lack of censorship on cable (and the expanded market for the cable shows on DVD/digital download). While it's true some of the small cable networks have made brilliant and risky bets on content that paid off, the fact that AMC, HBO, Showtime, FX, etc can broadcast whatever they want and not just what the prime-time censors let them really opens up the storytelling possibilities. Real life is not a rated TV-PG sitcom...
And for sit-coms, Community, Big Bang Theory, Scrubs, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Family Guy, among other piles of crap. And so as not to forget British contributions to this disastrous decade, there's The IT Crowd, The Office, Coupling, The In Betweeners,...
People keep saying that (and that "there is no way to express irony/satire on the Internet") but literary satire isn't a new thing, it's always been a form of writing that required a bit of thought to process. Plato, Swift, and Voltaire didn't use emoticons and they managed.
For every half-wit who didn't get it there are still many more like you and me who appreciated it as is. Don't dumb it down for those people!
Yeah, but from TFA this isn't an ophthalmologist, it's a $49 per exam optometrist at Costco (a bit of Googling shows they probably make more like $70-100k *gross* per year, not $30k net per month).
Though that did confuse me a bit - does that mean Costco uses independent optometrists in their stores, or are they the ones who are too cheap to spend $10k for new software??
In the US, maybe. In the whole *world*? I wouldn't take that bet.
It probably wouldn't surprise anyone if North Korea's uranium enrichment program is run on pirated copies of Windows 98, let alone their medical software.
Not quite as relevant for dental software (where there aren't as many lab tests that need to be sent out for processing) but I know the veterinary software my Dad's office uses allows them to communicate directly with test labs for results, reference non-local databases/expert systems, reorder various supplies and medications, allow them to share results/x-rays with specialists, remote backup files to secure backup facilities, etc.
As another poster mentioned - you don't see the problem because you don't have the first clue about what the software really does, you're just making uneducated guesses...
Actually, I think that interface does exist on phones, as well. I see lots of people using it in their car when they talk and text while swerving randomly between lanes on the highway every day.
Given most household breakers are 15-20A, before I read that bit in the article I was thinking "am I going to have to upgrade my electrical just to charge my phone!?";)
"So with this new specification, you can go from very small devices with 5 volts, 2 amps or 10 watts -- where USB starts -- up to 20 volts 5 amps and 100 watts,"
It's no worse than a current laptop charger (bit better, actually, MB chargers are only 16.5v).
They were worse than the movies?? Ugh. Those movies are the reason I didn't bother watching the new episodes.
Though at least this means it will never get as embarrassing as the Simpsons. Homer has jumped the shark so many times now the only plot point they haven't rehashed is Homer *literally* jumping a shark. And they almost did that one in a clip show a decade ago that was so bad many ironically reference it as the figurative shark-jumping moment as well.
I guess you are either too young to have actually experienced real small businesses in a town or from a really crappy area. Also, who gives a shit when all you are buying is a silly adapter where you already know what you want? The point of expertise and customer service is when you DON'T know what you want...
1) electronics/stereo stores (Radio Shack doesn't count, are you kidding me?). Last time I went into a decent stereo/home theater store the salesman spent about 20 minutes showing me their cool demo rooms, his favorite hardware, etc. And that was all *after* I had made my purchase. Only reason they are still around is because it's a high end shop that the box box stores don't directly compete with. But there used to be many places like this. Now you want the mass market electronics you can get a great deal but don't expect the Walmart workers to be able to answer any questions beyond "how much?" and if you are lucky "is is actually in stock?"
2) record stores: you used to be able to go to a record store (sometimes even into the CD era) and browse, listen, even hang out as long as you want, and the employees would be music lovers who could pretty much answer any question you could think of, or just shoot the shit with other music lovers. Later, some stores (Tower Records, etc) expanded to movies and other media, but eventually a combination of big box stores and digital music killed most of them off...
3) pharmacy (not even going to go there, but the rare experiences I have had with the Walmart pharmacy have made me feel lucky I even got the right prescription filled. Of course after standing there waiting for a half hour with the acrid smell of McDonald's french fry oil in my nose I almost needed more drugs.
4) optometrist (similar to above) Their exam, frames, and lenses are cheaper. But you really do get what you pay for...
5) hardware. Just TRY to find a single employee in the average Walmart who can tell you anything useful about plumbing, electrical, woodworking, whatever.
6) gardening/nursery. Same as 5.
I could go on forever with this! And I don't blame the employees at Walmart - you hire a minimum wage worker, how can you expect an expert in a field? Well, unless they used to have their own business for 20 years and had to get a job at Walmart after it went under...
Yeah, claiming that focusing on one thing means you somehow have an advantage at *selling* that thing (vs. providing the "best" product regardless of sales) is pure CEO babble.
Case in point - Walmart. They don't really do anything well except being price competitive and stocking about a quarter million SKUs in one store. Compare to local businesses that usually have great service and do one thing really well. And we all know how that's turning out...
The problem is the solutions that may do a bit better catching the 0-day malware are also the ones that are so heavyweight they noticeably affect the performance of your system. There is a tradeoff at some point between resource usage and coverage. One thing MSE definitely has going for it is it doesn't badly degrade performance like McAfee, Norton, recent AVG, etc do.
Slashdot Mirror
Not as any *corporation*... ICANN is a non-profit sponsored mostly by governmental agencies. So they are blatantly politically motivated rather than monetarily.
Still, I love how opening up TLDs is now somehow expanding "freedom and innovation" on the Internet - as long as you have $175k to apply for it.
Yeah, if there was such thing as a *reliable* portable bomb detector, you'd think US law enforcement would stop detonating people's "suspicious" laptops and grocery bags left on the street.
Still, he's correct that it's only *open* to US institutions. It's just that anyone who managed to get a domain before 2001 were grandfathered in.
First I was thinking allowing any corporation to control a TLD seemed stupid and against the spirit of ICANN/"The Internet" - but you make an interesting point. If *.amazon guarantees you are going to an Amazon site and *.amazontypo isn't allowed because TLDs are carefully allocated instead of allowing any phisher to do it on Godaddy, it might be a good thing in that respect, at least...
Actually, that describes him pretty accurately...
I think you need to brush up on your logic statements... a converse is not equivalent ;)
"If you have installed Silverlight, you must watch Netflix" != "if you watch Netflix, you must have installed Silverlight"...
I think it's more a contextual problem - Plato, Swift and Voltaire didn't publish 20 word quips, so their readers had enough to go on to realise it as satire. Here, it's very easy to come out with a comment - which would be easily detected as sarcasm in verbal conversation - that gives the reader very little to go on.
How about Oscar Wilde, Dorothy Parker, Mae West, WC Fields. Kings and queens of the 1 line satire... in fact I imagine they would all be masters the Twitter quip. Of course, in that case people should *expect* to see satire. But even so, I can't believe the number of nitwits who insist on complaining about posts on The Onion's Facebook page, for example...
Anyway, I agree it's not always easy, but it is possible. Usually (on slashdot, at least) for every person who doesn't get it there are many more who do. I'm ok with that ratio... and in fact the knee jerk misinterpretations usually make the joke better ;)
Watch a Friar's Roast on Comedy Central after 10pm if you think basic cable *has* to censor. If they can air Gilbert Gottfried telling The Aristocrats joke without bleeping they can pretty much air anything.
And FX has no comedies? Archer? Louie?? It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia??? And the "let alone HBO" is way off... Dream On, Sex and the City, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Eastbound and Down, Girls, Flight of the Conchords, Mr. Show with Bob and David, and many others...
They are somewhat censored (more self-censored, they let some words of through occasionally) - but it's more a matter of letting them do what they want and censoring the bits they don't like - Breaking Bad has plenty of mature content, they just mute/blur some of it. And that also means it doesn't have to be censored when released on DVD or digital. Another example: try watching Comedy Central after 10pm - a few minutes of a Friar's roast and it's obvious they don't censor late night!
Compare to network shows, which (with very rare exceptions) *write* it for the censors in the first place.
Actually is has a live studio audience. Of course they remix the audio tracks in postprocessing but it's generally the people in the studio laughing. Monty Python also used a live studio audience, big deal.
Though I have to admit while the show was fairly original/unconventional for prime time when it started, like most sitcoms it doesn't take more than a few years before the writers start to run out of steam...
I was thinking about it, and one of the biggest factors contributing towards better TV is the lack of censorship on cable (and the expanded market for the cable shows on DVD/digital download). While it's true some of the small cable networks have made brilliant and risky bets on content that paid off, the fact that AMC, HBO, Showtime, FX, etc can broadcast whatever they want and not just what the prime-time censors let them really opens up the storytelling possibilities. Real life is not a rated TV-PG sitcom...
And for sit-coms, Community, Big Bang Theory, Scrubs, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Family Guy, among other piles of crap. And so as not to forget British contributions to this disastrous decade, there's The IT Crowd, The Office, Coupling, The In Betweeners, ...
People keep saying that (and that "there is no way to express irony/satire on the Internet") but literary satire isn't a new thing, it's always been a form of writing that required a bit of thought to process. Plato, Swift, and Voltaire didn't use emoticons and they managed.
For every half-wit who didn't get it there are still many more like you and me who appreciated it as is. Don't dumb it down for those people!
Yeah, but from TFA this isn't an ophthalmologist, it's a $49 per exam optometrist at Costco (a bit of Googling shows they probably make more like $70-100k *gross* per year, not $30k net per month).
Though that did confuse me a bit - does that mean Costco uses independent optometrists in their stores, or are they the ones who are too cheap to spend $10k for new software??
In the US, maybe. In the whole *world*? I wouldn't take that bet.
It probably wouldn't surprise anyone if North Korea's uranium enrichment program is run on pirated copies of Windows 98, let alone their medical software.
Not quite as relevant for dental software (where there aren't as many lab tests that need to be sent out for processing) but I know the veterinary software my Dad's office uses allows them to communicate directly with test labs for results, reference non-local databases/expert systems, reorder various supplies and medications, allow them to share results/x-rays with specialists, remote backup files to secure backup facilities, etc.
As another poster mentioned - you don't see the problem because you don't have the first clue about what the software really does, you're just making uneducated guesses...
Actually, I think that interface does exist on phones, as well. I see lots of people using it in their car when they talk and text while swerving randomly between lanes on the highway every day.
Given most household breakers are 15-20A, before I read that bit in the article I was thinking "am I going to have to upgrade my electrical just to charge my phone!?" ;)
From TFA:
"So with this new specification, you can go from very small devices with 5 volts, 2 amps or 10 watts -- where USB starts -- up to 20 volts 5 amps and 100 watts,"
It's no worse than a current laptop charger (bit better, actually, MB chargers are only 16.5v).
This 100w power standard is pretty stupid, though. We're talking power levels where fires will definitely be possible from damaged USB cables.
As opposed to all of the current laptop chargers, AC power cords, DC converter bricks, etc out there now?
Sounds like that would make devices and cables larger and more expensive by requiring two completely different interfaces in one connector...
They were worse than the movies?? Ugh. Those movies are the reason I didn't bother watching the new episodes.
Though at least this means it will never get as embarrassing as the Simpsons. Homer has jumped the shark so many times now the only plot point they haven't rehashed is Homer *literally* jumping a shark. And they almost did that one in a clip show a decade ago that was so bad many ironically reference it as the figurative shark-jumping moment as well.
I guess you are either too young to have actually experienced real small businesses in a town or from a really crappy area. Also, who gives a shit when all you are buying is a silly adapter where you already know what you want? The point of expertise and customer service is when you DON'T know what you want...
1) electronics/stereo stores (Radio Shack doesn't count, are you kidding me?). Last time I went into a decent stereo/home theater store the salesman spent about 20 minutes showing me their cool demo rooms, his favorite hardware, etc. And that was all *after* I had made my purchase. Only reason they are still around is because it's a high end shop that the box box stores don't directly compete with. But there used to be many places like this. Now you want the mass market electronics you can get a great deal but don't expect the Walmart workers to be able to answer any questions beyond "how much?" and if you are lucky "is is actually in stock?"
2) record stores: you used to be able to go to a record store (sometimes even into the CD era) and browse, listen, even hang out as long as you want, and the employees would be music lovers who could pretty much answer any question you could think of, or just shoot the shit with other music lovers. Later, some stores (Tower Records, etc) expanded to movies and other media, but eventually a combination of big box stores and digital music killed most of them off...
3) pharmacy (not even going to go there, but the rare experiences I have had with the Walmart pharmacy have made me feel lucky I even got the right prescription filled. Of course after standing there waiting for a half hour with the acrid smell of McDonald's french fry oil in my nose I almost needed more drugs.
4) optometrist (similar to above) Their exam, frames, and lenses are cheaper. But you really do get what you pay for...
5) hardware. Just TRY to find a single employee in the average Walmart who can tell you anything useful about plumbing, electrical, woodworking, whatever.
6) gardening/nursery. Same as 5.
I could go on forever with this! And I don't blame the employees at Walmart - you hire a minimum wage worker, how can you expect an expert in a field? Well, unless they used to have their own business for 20 years and had to get a job at Walmart after it went under...
Yeah, claiming that focusing on one thing means you somehow have an advantage at *selling* that thing (vs. providing the "best" product regardless of sales) is pure CEO babble.
Case in point - Walmart. They don't really do anything well except being price competitive and stocking about a quarter million SKUs in one store. Compare to local businesses that usually have great service and do one thing really well. And we all know how that's turning out...
The problem is the solutions that may do a bit better catching the 0-day malware are also the ones that are so heavyweight they noticeably affect the performance of your system. There is a tradeoff at some point between resource usage and coverage. One thing MSE definitely has going for it is it doesn't badly degrade performance like McAfee, Norton, recent AVG, etc do.