Still it would be a nice amount of irony wouldn't it? A wonderful example of what happens when you pass draconian laws -- they come back to bite you in the ass no matter how "good" your intentions were.
You can not grant power for a specific purpose. That is not the nature of power.
It wasn't a report. It wasn't an account. It wasn't an investigation. It wasn't supported by facts. It wasn't supported by logic. It was an opinion piece that, from my view, wasn't well thought or well written.
Unfortunately, it is exactly that type of disingenuousness that is the hallmark of yellow journalism. You don't get to ex post facto decide whether something is a story or journalism. I assure you that there is no field for "story" or "journalism" in any standard bibliographic form. This is how people like Ann Coulter get away with slander, and then take a "ha ha only kidding just my opinion" stance to defend themselves.
As soon as a story is referenced, it becomes a reference, regardless of what the original motivations were.
Capturing Saddam is a good thing. He's a Very Bad Man(tm).
The fact that it has absolutely nothing to do with... Al-Qaeda, making America safer, the War On Terrorism, WMDs, or any of that other stuff aside, yes, he's a Very Bad Man(tm).
Bush &c. will get an approval bump out of this, right up until the next terrorist attack, when it is plainly shown that the whole Iraq boondoggle was an expensive distraction so that W could feel like a man, and so that people wouldn't ask questions about the actual problem.
I suspect that this has very little to do with wanting to keep illegal content off the network, and almost everything to do with not wanting to deal with the administrative load of DMCA takedown notices. Network admins for a large university have much better things to do with their time than file/track/answer notifications w/r/t music that their students are sharing on well-known-and-trackable p2p networks.
The goal is noble, it's just not the one that the RIAA would like to trumpet.
Indeed, perhaps the point is that attempting the "impossible" is a good thing, but realizing that the result might not be much beyond a "working prototype" is also necessary.
The fact that they did nothing to incrementally improve the technology and migate some of it into the mainstream (thus gaining access to economies of scale, etc.) was possibly their greatest error, and thus it remained a toy for rich people, and that was about it.
I would seem that the big lesson to learn out of the history of the Concorde is that you still can't buy your way up a learning curve. If the overall technical infrastructure of the society is only marginally up to the task, you can throw a lot of money at it, and it may work even passably well, but it will be expensive at best, and dangerous at worst. I honestly wonder what would happen if the Concorde was launched even 10 years later.
I'm guessing that the actual purpose of this bill is for it to go down in flames, and get Every Single Republican on the record as voting "no". This will provide a talking point for the election, showing that the Republicans are a bunch of reactionaries who can find the money to hand to Halliburton, but not to actually advance technology.
You can spew all you want about it being "net efficient" for everyone involved, and haul out the iota or three of vocabulary you learned in Microeconomics 101 to prove it, but....
Show me, the consumer, how price discrimination as it would be practiced by businesses (you know, entities looking to increase their profit, because that's what they do) actually has any net benefit for me. I don't really care how businesses save money, unless they pass the cost on (which they have no reason to do).
We're out of Mr. Smith's pin factory, people. Real world, real consumers. Give me a concrete example about how this would benefit me.
This isn't too restrictive. Big players, like Amazon, Yahoo Store, and the major search sites, all work under these restrictions. If your site doesn't, your site is broken.
Q: How do you tell you're speaking with a geek zealot?
A: They use the (unqualified) words "broken" or "wrong" in a technical context.
Having to go through an email gateway to send someone a short message is a gratuitous hack.
The reason SMS gets used so much overseas is because all you need is someone's phone number, as opposed to the knowledge of which provider they're with, that particular provider's number-to-email mapping, etc.
In some ways, it's the old "but we have a gateway" excuse. They can't do it right, but they can put a couple of hacks in place, and it isn't too inconvenient. Right?
Actually, I believe the outward result is a methodical, organized approach. The actual process of getting there requires creativity.
What is playing piano but getting the fingers to the right keys at the right time, with the right pressure?
What is painting but applying pigments to a canvas?
What is system administration but typing commands at the right time into the right computers, and plugging in cables in the right places?
For all of them, it's everything that happens "in between" that represents the art of the task.
Now, if you want to get into a discussion over range of creative expression, that's a completely different story.
Typically, when they ask for my last name, I say "Doe". When they askfor my first name, I say "John". About two seconds later, they figure out what's going on.
One of my favorite questions to ask is a kind of "Kobayashi Maru" question. There is no explicit solution, and there is no set of right answers. The goal is to find out what troubleshooting skills the interviewee has at their disposal.
It goes something like this... ask them "A user comes up to you and says that file transfers are slow. What do you do?"
As they ask questions to zero in on the problem, tell them what happens each time (outputs of commands, etc.). Kind of a D&D approach. At some point, they're going to throw up their hands and say "I have no idea". The goal is to keep count of how many questions they asked, how soon they got flustered, and how many different avenues of attack they pursued, which will give you some idea of the depth of their knowledge.
Re:The difference between England and the U.S.
on
American Gods
·
· Score: 1
One other major difference I've found between the US and the UK is that people born in the US think that death is optional, whereas in the UK, death is just a reality, much like the weather.
When your country has only been around for a little over three lifetimes, it's hard to get perspective on anything important happening before you or after you.
--Ringel
Me, too. But the most surprising lack of dynamic pricing is for (in-season) ticket sales for sports teams.
There are any number of things that could keep the price of tickets constant for sports events in a certain venue. The two biggest ones are local laws, and desire to have a certain mix of people at the event. Indeed, there is nothing stopping an arena from charging higher prices for tickets in the same area of the venue as demand rose, but then they would risk either not selling tickets, or getting a bunch of people who don't care much about the event, but get the tickets as something to show off around the country club.
Anyone who has gone to a Billy Joel concert where they practically check for your Volvo keys before you enter can attest to this.
Slashdot Mirror
Some wise poker advise: "If you don't know who's the sucker at the table, it's you."
The corrolary is "Even if you know who the sucker at the table is, it can still be you."
"Public safety is more important than public convenience."
FWEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!
False dichotomy.
On the offense.
10 sentences back from the original argument.
Still first down.
FWEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!
It appears that the black box gives data without context. That is my only actual grievance.
Still it would be a nice amount of irony wouldn't it? A wonderful example of what happens when you pass draconian laws -- they come back to bite you in the ass no matter how "good" your intentions were.
You can not grant power for a specific purpose. That is not the nature of power.
It wasn't a report. It wasn't an account. It wasn't an investigation. It wasn't supported by facts. It wasn't supported by logic. It was an opinion piece that, from my view, wasn't well thought or well written.
Unfortunately, it is exactly that type of disingenuousness that is the hallmark of yellow journalism. You don't get to ex post facto decide whether something is a story or journalism. I assure you that there is no field for "story" or "journalism" in any standard bibliographic form. This is how people like Ann Coulter get away with slander, and then take a "ha ha only kidding just my opinion" stance to defend themselves.
As soon as a story is referenced, it becomes a reference, regardless of what the original motivations were.
Capturing Saddam is a good thing. He's a Very Bad Man(tm).
The fact that it has absolutely nothing to do with...
Al-Qaeda,
making America safer,
the War On Terrorism,
WMDs,
or any of that other stuff aside, yes, he's a Very Bad Man(tm).
Bush &c. will get an approval bump out of this, right up until the next terrorist attack, when it is plainly shown that the whole Iraq boondoggle was an expensive distraction so that W could feel like a man, and so that people wouldn't ask questions about the actual problem.
Repeat after me....
Biometrics are unique but not secret.
I suspect that this has very little to do with wanting to keep illegal content off the network, and almost everything to do with not wanting to deal with the administrative load of DMCA takedown notices. Network admins for a large university have much better things to do with their time than file/track/answer notifications w/r/t music that their students are sharing on well-known-and-trackable p2p networks.
The goal is noble, it's just not the one that the RIAA would like to trumpet.
Indeed, perhaps the point is that attempting the "impossible" is a good thing, but realizing that the result might not be much beyond a "working prototype" is also necessary.
The fact that they did nothing to incrementally improve the technology and migate some of it into the mainstream (thus gaining access to economies of scale, etc.) was possibly their greatest error, and thus it remained a toy for rich people, and that was about it.
I would seem that the big lesson to learn out of the history of the Concorde is that you still can't buy your way up a learning curve. If the overall technical infrastructure of the society is only marginally up to the task, you can throw a lot of money at it, and it may work even passably well, but it will be expensive at best, and dangerous at worst. I honestly wonder what would happen if the Concorde was launched even 10 years later.
I'm guessing that the actual purpose of this bill is for it to go down in flames, and get Every Single Republican on the record as voting "no". This will provide a talking point for the election, showing that the Republicans are a bunch of reactionaries who can find the money to hand to Halliburton, but not to actually advance technology.
You can spew all you want about it being "net efficient" for everyone involved, and haul out the iota or three of vocabulary you learned in Microeconomics 101 to prove it, but....
Show me, the consumer, how price discrimination as it would be practiced by businesses (you know, entities looking to increase their profit, because that's what they do) actually has any net benefit for me. I don't really care how businesses save money, unless they pass the cost on (which they have no reason to do).
We're out of Mr. Smith's pin factory, people. Real world, real consumers. Give me a concrete example about how this would benefit me.
Q: Why do they call them "audiophiles"?
A: Because calling them "suckers" is too cruel.
As early as 1991, by my recollection, there has been frame-by-frame graffiti animation in NYC subway tunnels that uses the same process.
Specifically, on the D train from Brooklyn, into Manhattan, starting a couple of stops after the Avenue J stop, and going for one full stop.
Look out the right side of the train (w/r/t to the front). It's probably still there.
Q: How do you tell you're speaking with a geek zealot?
A: They use the (unqualified) words "broken" or "wrong" in a technical context.
Having to go through an email gateway to send someone a short message is a gratuitous hack.
The reason SMS gets used so much overseas is because all you need is someone's phone number, as opposed to the knowledge of which provider they're with, that particular provider's number-to-email mapping, etc.
In some ways, it's the old "but we have a gateway" excuse. They can't do it right, but they can put a couple of hacks in place, and it isn't too inconvenient. Right?
What is playing piano but getting the fingers to the right keys at the right time, with the right pressure?
What is painting but applying pigments to a canvas?
What is system administration but typing commands at the right time into the right computers, and plugging in cables in the right places?
For all of them, it's everything that happens "in between" that represents the art of the task. Now, if you want to get into a discussion over range of creative expression, that's a completely different story.
Typically, when they ask for my last name, I say "Doe". When they askfor my first name, I say "John". About two seconds later, they figure out what's going on.
It goes something like this... ask them "A user comes up to you and says that file transfers are slow. What do you do?"
As they ask questions to zero in on the problem, tell them what happens each time (outputs of commands, etc.). Kind of a D&D approach. At some point, they're going to throw up their hands and say "I have no idea". The goal is to keep count of how many questions they asked, how soon they got flustered, and how many different avenues of attack they pursued, which will give you some idea of the depth of their knowledge.
One other major difference I've found between the US and the UK is that people born in the US think that death is optional, whereas in the UK, death is just a reality, much like the weather.
When your country has only been around for a little over three lifetimes, it's hard to get perspective on anything important happening before you or after you. --Ringel
There are any number of things that could keep the price of tickets constant for sports events in a certain venue. The two biggest ones are local laws, and desire to have a certain mix of people at the event. Indeed, there is nothing stopping an arena from charging higher prices for tickets in the same area of the venue as demand rose, but then they would risk either not selling tickets, or getting a bunch of people who don't care much about the event, but get the tickets as something to show off around the country club.
Anyone who has gone to a Billy Joel concert where they practically check for your Volvo keys before you enter can attest to this.
--Ringel