But then, it's not made out of animals. So it's clearly vegetarian food.
No, it is made out of animals. From TFA:
But the meat is produced with materials — including fetal calf serum, used as a medium in which to grow the cells — that eventually would have to be replaced by similar materials of non-animal origin.
Vegetarians love fetal calf serum. It just sounds so tasty, natural and cruelty-free!
Ted: "We're talking about growing meat in a lab without cows."
Linda: "Ugh! That's creepy!... Right?... Oh, I see, we're doing that."
Artificial Beef Taste Tester: "It tastes... familiar..."
Ted: "Beef?"
Taste Tester: "No..."
Linda: "Chicken? We'll take chicken."
Taste Tester: Shakes his head
Ted: "What does it taste like?"
Taste Tester: "Despair?"
Ted: "Is it possible it just needs salt?"
Taste Tester: Shakes his head very slowly
Naming your flying car "Parachute" suggests you expect it to fail and necessitate the use of a parachute. Kind of like Dodge Aries implies your 22 hp hunk of metal is intended to ram into things.
If you throw a crack pipe at the head of a bank robber and distract the robber long enough to subdue the robber, you could say that a crack pipe saved the life of the bank manager.
The effect of a tool depends on how it is used.
Then again, a person carrying a crack pipe at a bank would probably have used the tool for its usual purpose, and would be unable to successfully aim the pipe at the robber's head, so the odds of a crack pipe routinely saving lives are about as slim as the odds of a drone routinely saving lives.
lawmakers are turning up the heat on the Obama administration to auction the 1755-1780 MHz band
I figured it was only a matter of time before Congress pushed to sell off 1776 to the highest bidder. They've been pushing to sell off the Post Office's business for the last 6 years by forcing a financially sound organization into insolvency (see paragraph 3 here). Why not sell off American Independence itself and Common Sense while they're at it? It's like we gave the keys to our house to service employees and they're auctioning off the contents to lobbyists through the front door to the highest bidder, keeping the profits for themselves.
One group was forced to watch 4 minutes from The Rabbits (this could very well be four minutes of watching a creepy Donny Darko-esque rabbit housewife ironing in while listening to lethargic creepy music), while the other group watched an unspecified 4-minute clip from the Simpsons. The result was that the people who took Tylenol thought that a person convicted of theft or vandalism during a riot (hockey, of course, since the study was conducted in Canada) should be subjected to a punishment 23% more severe than normal if they watched the Simpsons, and 26% more severe than normal after watching the Rabbits. The people who took the placebo thought that the punishment should be 26% more severe than normal if they watched the Simpsons, and 42% more severe than normal after watching the Rabbits.
I have to question the judgment of a researcher who would use The Simpsons as a "control," especially when he's not specifying what the clip was about. He says "all clips available upon request." That's like saying "name of the drug given to participants in the study available on request." Knowing the Simpsons, it could have been anything from "If a cow ever got the chance, it would eat you and everyone you ever cared about," to Homer driving the family to Alaska, stopping at the border and hearing, "Welcome to Alaska, here's a thousand dollars!" It could well be that the Rabbits gave the placebo group a headache. See the comments on the rabbits clip on YouTube. Top comment:
"This is creepy as fuck."
Other comments:
"Something's wrong." "you are a madman." "Haunting in the most dream-like will always return to this." "Wow, that horrific scream made me jump." "It's like... they're having a normal conversation, just... not in the right order." "Man, D.A.R.E. would be a lot more successful if they just pointed to shit like this."
All those people sound like they need Tylenol, or Excedrin, or something to make their head stop hurting. Since the placebo group did not have anything to make their head stop hurting, they decided to take it out on the people who rioted over a hockey game...
For more than 26 years, Dell has empowered countries, communities, customers, and people everywhere with the right technologies to realize their dreams.
Blue Coat
Dell is a strategic reseller & global systems integrator for Blue Coat’s products. Blue Coat’s products are available through the Dell Software & Peripherals catalog for a variety of Secure Web Gateway, WAN Optimization & Visibility solutions.
Someone would have leaked this long ago, just as the secret room at the AT&T switch center was leaked within a couple months.
Speaking of the AT&T room, I recently realized the company that allegedly provided the key hardware involved in the NSA's secret rooms is headquartered (Narus, 570 Maude Ct, Sunnyvale, CA) about one block away from the headquarters of Blue Coat (420 N Mary Ave, Sunnyvale, CA), Slashdot's favorite company to hate for providing network monitoring equipment to oppressive governments (mentioned in the summary of today's Syria story, and before that, and before that...). It's less than a block away if you cut through Palm's parking lot. Apparently, it's a great place to poach a certain kind of specialized, discreet talent.
The fact that two companies noted for specializing in helping governments monitor their citizens' communications are so close together lends some credence to the claims that there is a market to support their business.
Of course, if it actually was true, the FBI would probably hire shills to go on Slashdot and spread disinformation, and try to convince everyone that there was no vast conspiracy, so why should you trust me?
You assume the FBI would have to go out and hire people to act as shills, as opposed to already having them on payroll. That seems terribly inefficient for a national intelligence agency. So much so that it might be true.
Step two is to explain what is going to stop Microsoft/Apple/Google from copying incorporating your algorithm (patented or not) into their existing products/services and making you irrelevant. This has been step two since before Web 2.0, though it traditionally referred only to Microsoft.
Step three (optional, but helpful in pitching to VCs) is explaining how you plan to get Microsoft/Apple/Google to buy your company before it reaches maturity (or even adolescence in some states/Valleys) so they can incorporate your algorithm into their existing products/services. Hint: user base. It doesn't matter if your algorithm is the most obvious thing in the world... if you have millions of people using it for free they will want it. This has emerged as step three in the last 5-10 years.
Here's the patent application (can't link directly to it, but you can see it here after you enter the CAPCHA and the patent number 13/068530:
Brueske; David November 15, 2012
Telescoping tripod sprinkler cart
Abstract
A Telescoping Tripod Sprinkler Cart comprising a tripod junction unit, a plurality of support members, a sprinkler support assembly, and a telescoping assembly. In some preferred embodiments, the Telescoping Tripod Sprinkler Cart may also include a carriage assembly to enable the portability of the Telescoping Tripod Sprinkler Cart.
Inventors: Brueske; David; (Olympia, WA)
Serial No.: 068530
Series Code: 13
Filed: May 12, 2011
Current U.S. Class: 239/722
Class at Publication: 239/722
International Class: B05B 3/00 20060101 B05B003/00
Claims
1. A Telescoping Tripod Sprinkler Cart comprising a tripod junction unit, a plurality of support members, a sprinkler support assembly, and a telescoping assembly; the tripod junction unit comprises a first leg, and a second leg, and a hose conduit; the plurality of support members are sized to mate with the legs; the legs comprise a detent orifice sized to mate with a detent on a support member; the support members comprise a detent for the purpose of fastening the support member to the tripod junction; the sprinkler support assembly is disposed upon the hose conduit of the tripod junction.
2. The Telescoping Tripod Sprinkler Cart of claim 1 further comprising a carriage assembly; the carriage assembly comprises an axle, an axle housing, a pair of wheels, and a pair of struts.
Description
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
[0001] The present invention is in the area of lawn sprinklers, and more particularly pertains to an apparatus for irrigation.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0002] One of the most common chores for a homeowner to address is watering or irrigating a lawn. While some people may use a simple lawn hose to manually irrigate their lawns, most people use various irrigation systems. These irrigation systems can be used to cover large swaths of landscape quickly and efficiently.
[0003] However, the problem with sprinkler systems is their relative high cost and attendant installation. Their relative high cost can stem in large part from the installation thereof. Effective installation requires that underground tunnels or troughs be dug. In many instances, these distances can exceed 50 yards in length. As a consequence, this installation can require a substantial amount of back-breaking work.
[0004] Therefore, what is clearly needed in the art is an apparatus which enables someone to irrigate a large lawn, orchard, or garden and cover a large diameter of space.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0005] It is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus to elevate an irrigation sprinkler to increase the surface area to be covered. By manually adjusting the height of the sprinkler head above ground, a person will be enabled to cover wide areas of lawn, landscape, gardens, orchards, or other areas where constant irrigation is required.
[0006] It is an object of the present invention to provide a portable apparatus with pneumatic wheels to place an elevated tripod sprinkler cart in its desired destination. Oftentimes, long hoses can become heavy, and with the wheels, the towing thereof can be made substantially easier.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING FIGURES
[0007] FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a preferred embodiment of the present invention.
[0008] FIG. 2 is a perspective view of a preferred embodiment of the present invention.
[0009] FIG. 3 is a perspective view of a preferred embodiment of the present invention.
[0010] FIG. 4 is a perspective view of a preferred embodiment of the present invention.
(For anyone who doesn't get the Two Minute Hate bit, it's from Orwell's 1984. It's sort of a televised daily propaganda broadcast that gets the audience worked up and involves chanting, screaming and throwing things at the screen.)
-1 Flamebait Title
The coming war? The second paragraph of the article contradicts the title. Against Personal Photography and Video? The first two-thirds of the summary talks about surveillance by the authorities.
-1 Blog posting written like TV news
The author (who is also the submitter, promoting his own blog as a slashdot story) writes in a voice that mimics a TV news personality, asking lots of questions, sometimes answering them, sometimes forgetting to answer them, blusters a lot but doesn't provide any new information.
-1 Blog post makes many expansive claims but does not cite any sources
The author claims there are plans and laws and pushes and a whole lot of other things without citing any sources. It's like listening to the guy at the bar grumbling about how the government's coming for his guns.
-1 Even the author's wikipedia page is sketchy
The wikipedia page for Lauren Weinstein points out it "includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations."
-1 Author says the sky is falling, offers no solutions
Near the end of the blog posting, he says "I don't have a 'magic wand' solution for this situation." In other words, an "OMG! Cameras are everywhere! I don't know what to do about it!" blog post is worthy of consideration by the slashdot masses?
This should replace elections. And elected officials. Measure the real people's publicly-stated opinions and rule from that.
Replace all corrupted clowns chosen by rigged popularity contests with math. Math can be trusted. Public data can be verified.
[sarcasm]Right. Because "liking" a company or product on facebook to get 1,000 VirtuaCoins or 10% off your next purchase means you actually like it. No rigging there. Totally trustworthy. It's absolutely certain that you approved the message you're sending.[/sarcasm]
It's interesting that you were modded down to 0 for thanking me for pointing out Nerval's Lobster's identity. My first post about Nerval's Lobster (April 11) was modded down to 0 as a troll within minutes. Someone modded it up again as insightful, and it was modded back down to 0, despite another 6-digit-UID user's reply "I wish I had mod points to give. Some asshat modded the informative parent post "troll" for some reason." There is apparently still a concerted effort to suppress this -- I wonder why they didn't mod my April 25 post down from 5 to 0... maybe they didn't catch it in time, and it would have been too obvious because it had already generated attention.
That's not to say that the data is without merit or interest. The issue here is that Slashdot's publication of the April 24 post on Wolfram's blog had to wait until afterKolakowski had offered his summary of it on April 26. Why did slashdot readers have to wait a few days for Kolakowski to write his own summary of the blog posting? What value did he add?
Just yesterday I pointed out that Nerval's Lobster (the submitter of this story) is actually a guise for a certain Slashdot "editor" to post his own "Business Intelligence" pieces as user-submitted paid content. This story also follows the pattern. Anything posted by Nerval's Lobster should be treated as a slashvertisement.
The link in the summary goes to the International Business Times, which links to a copy of the 11-second audio clip on Soundcloud that requires flash to run. The IBT article links to the originalarticles at the Smithsonian. Here's a direct link to the MP3 file on the Smithsonian site.
This week at EA, a green-haired guy with glasses appears on your computer screen against a red background, waving his arms wildly:
FIRE!
Yowwza! A fire has broken out! If it continues to burn, it will spread through the company. Bulldoze the cubicles around the fire to stop it from spreading. Have you put in your 80 hours this week yet or do you have sufficient firing protection?
Hello! I'm Dr. Wright. You must be the new H-1B worker! Let's practice our teambuilding techniques by building a Power Plant and then adding Residential, Commercial, and Industrial zones to your cubicle. Next, connect all the zones with CAT5 and then add power strips so you can work from any zone of your cubicle and get ahead in the race to not get downsized and deported!
Slashdot's book review guidelines (linked above in the summary) state:
Important: If you have a relationship (other than as an ordinary reader) to the author or publisher of a book you're reviewing, disclose that relationship. This means not only cases like "My brother, the author, has given me a million dollars to type this review, and is holding me at gunpoint, while dictating to me from the Amazon review he himself wrote," but also "I used to work at this book's publisher, and was a technical reviewer for this book's three chapters on networking," or "The author is a good friend of mine." Better to disclose more than you think necessary (it can always be edited out if sensible; we'll let you know if we think there's an inappropriate conflict of interest) than less than actually necessary. If in doubt, please speak up.
Yet the author of the review is a "Senior Editor at Slashdot," Nick Kolakowski (Twitter, Literary Gun For Hire), who writes articles for Slashdot (and other places) and apparently submits them under the guise of a "user" named Nerval's Lobster. Nerval's Lobster's submissions are "accepted" by the editors nearly every day, and always link to Slashdot's "Business Intelligence" or "Cloud" content... effectively passing off paid content as normal, user-submitted content.
Two of the three links in the review are to Kolakowski's own "Business Intelligence" articles. The link to the book itself goes to Amazon and contains Slashdot's "Associates ID" (slashdot0c-20) to ensure Slashdot gets a cut of any sales this review drives.
Piece it together:
1. A Slashdot employee writes a favorable (7/10) review of a book
2. The same employee submits it under the guise of a normal reader (see the summary which ends with "Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here...")
3. The editors post the review (because nearly everything "Nerval's Lobster" submits gets accepted by the editors, and it all links back to Slashdot paid content)
4. Readers believe the review was submitted by a regular reader, and the huge wave of traffic invariably-driven by any Slashdot story results in a fair number of click throughs and purchases
5. Slashdot gets a referral fee from Amazon for getting people to buy the book from them
I have no problem with Slashdot staff writing a book review, as long as the relationship is disclosed, per Slashdot's own guidelines. I have no problem with a regular user writing a review and Slashdot making a few bucks by pointing readers to Amazon to buy that book. But he way they did it today makes it look like Kolakowski only wrote the review and the editors only accepted it because their employer is getting a kickback from Amazon. Making money is OK, but disguising paid content as user-submitted content is not. That's not what people come to Slashdot to find--it's a sleight of hand.
Before you mod me down as a troll, consider that Kolakowski's review points out that one should take the business motivations of the book's authors into account when weighing what they have to say:
Of course, Schmidt and Cohen extolling the virtues of the cloud is like two corporate board-members of McDonald's insisting that burgers are delicious and everyone in the world should eat them three times a day.
Slashdot readers should be able to do the same with the authorship of stories and book reviews.
It's north of Oreon. Slashdot is running short on the Gs today. That's why they otta run the slashverts, yo. You want your Gs with your headlines, otta watch the slashvertisements. Timothy otta et paid or someone be droppin the Gs!
Slashdot Mirror
and a delicious source of free-range meat products.
No, you have that backwards. This meat is "range-free," not "free-range."
Shimata, I just realized how the food companies are going to market this.
But then, it's not made out of animals. So it's clearly vegetarian food.
No, it is made out of animals. From TFA:
But the meat is produced with materials — including fetal calf serum, used as a medium in which to grow the cells — that eventually would have to be replaced by similar materials of non-animal origin.
Vegetarians love fetal calf serum. It just sounds so tasty, natural and cruelty-free!
Ted: "We're talking about growing meat in a lab without cows."
Linda: "Ugh! That's creepy!... Right?... Oh, I see, we're doing that."
Artificial Beef Taste Tester: "It tastes... familiar..."
Ted: "Beef?"
Taste Tester: "No..."
Linda: "Chicken? We'll take chicken."
Taste Tester: Shakes his head
Ted: "What does it taste like?"
Taste Tester: "Despair?"
Ted: "Is it possible it just needs salt?"
Taste Tester: Shakes his head very slowly
Better Off Ted, Season 1 Episode 2
Naming your flying car "Parachute" suggests you expect it to fail and necessitate the use of a parachute. Kind of like Dodge Aries implies your 22 hp hunk of metal is intended to ram into things.
If you throw a crack pipe at the head of a bank robber and distract the robber long enough to subdue the robber, you could say that a crack pipe saved the life of the bank manager.
The effect of a tool depends on how it is used.
Then again, a person carrying a crack pipe at a bank would probably have used the tool for its usual purpose, and would be unable to successfully aim the pipe at the robber's head, so the odds of a crack pipe routinely saving lives are about as slim as the odds of a drone routinely saving lives.
lawmakers are turning up the heat on the Obama administration to auction the 1755-1780 MHz band
I figured it was only a matter of time before Congress pushed to sell off 1776 to the highest bidder. They've been pushing to sell off the Post Office's business for the last 6 years by forcing a financially sound organization into insolvency (see paragraph 3 here). Why not sell off American Independence itself and Common Sense while they're at it? It's like we gave the keys to our house to service employees and they're auctioning off the contents to lobbyists through the front door to the highest bidder, keeping the profits for themselves.
I have to question the judgment of a researcher who would use The Simpsons as a "control," especially when he's not specifying what the clip was about. He says "all clips available upon request." That's like saying "name of the drug given to participants in the study available on request." Knowing the Simpsons, it could have been anything from "If a cow ever got the chance, it would eat you and everyone you ever cared about," to Homer driving the family to Alaska, stopping at the border and hearing, "Welcome to Alaska, here's a thousand dollars!" It could well be that the Rabbits gave the placebo group a headache. See the comments on the rabbits clip on YouTube. Top comment:
"This is creepy as fuck."
Other comments:
"Something's wrong."
"you are a madman."
"Haunting in the most dream-like will always return to this."
"Wow, that horrific scream made me jump."
"It's like... they're having a normal conversation, just... not in the right order."
"Man, D.A.R.E. would be a lot more successful if they just pointed to shit like this."
All those people sound like they need Tylenol, or Excedrin, or something to make their head stop hurting. Since the placebo group did not have anything to make their head stop hurting, they decided to take it out on the people who rioted over a hockey game...
Narus
For more than 26 years, Dell has empowered countries, communities, customers, and people everywhere with the right technologies to realize their dreams.
Blue Coat
Dell is a strategic reseller & global systems integrator for Blue Coat’s products. Blue Coat’s products are available through the Dell Software & Peripherals catalog for a variety of Secure Web Gateway, WAN Optimization & Visibility solutions.
Dell's Sunnyvale offices are at 909 Hermosa Ct Sunnyvale, CA... not on the same street, but physically adjacent to Blue Coat's campus. Its building is about 40 feet from Blue Coat's... for Dell employees, it's a shorter walk to Blue Coat than it is to some of their own cars in the parking lot.
Spelled out: Blue Coat and Dell work together to sell governments equipment to monitor their citizens' communications. And so do Narus and Dell.
Someone would have leaked this long ago, just as the secret room at the AT&T switch center was leaked within a couple months.
Speaking of the AT&T room, I recently realized the company that allegedly provided the key hardware involved in the NSA's secret rooms is headquartered (Narus, 570 Maude Ct, Sunnyvale, CA) about one block away from the headquarters of Blue Coat (420 N Mary Ave, Sunnyvale, CA), Slashdot's favorite company to hate for providing network monitoring equipment to oppressive governments (mentioned in the summary of today's Syria story, and before that, and before that...). It's less than a block away if you cut through Palm's parking lot. Apparently, it's a great place to poach a certain kind of specialized, discreet talent.
The fact that two companies noted for specializing in helping governments monitor their citizens' communications are so close together lends some credence to the claims that there is a market to support their business.
Of course, if it actually was true, the FBI would probably hire shills to go on Slashdot and spread disinformation, and try to convince everyone that there was no vast conspiracy, so why should you trust me?
You assume the FBI would have to go out and hire people to act as shills, as opposed to already having them on payroll. That seems terribly inefficient for a national intelligence agency. So much so that it might be true.
how it will make them money.
This. This is step one. Always has been.
Step two is to explain what is going to stop Microsoft/Apple/Google from copying incorporating your algorithm (patented or not) into their existing products/services and making you irrelevant. This has been step two since before Web 2.0, though it traditionally referred only to Microsoft.
Step three (optional, but helpful in pitching to VCs) is explaining how you plan to get Microsoft/Apple/Google to buy your company before it reaches maturity (or even adolescence in some states/Valleys) so they can incorporate your algorithm into their existing products/services. Hint: user base. It doesn't matter if your algorithm is the most obvious thing in the world... if you have millions of people using it for free they will want it. This has emerged as step three in the last 5-10 years.
Attorney/Agent Information
LAW OFFICES OF ANDREW SCHROEDER
P.O. Box 6731
Santa Maria CA 93454
310-256-0925
Reg # 53565
Now you know who not to use to file your patents.
Brueske; David November 15, 2012
Telescoping tripod sprinkler cart
Abstract
A Telescoping Tripod Sprinkler Cart comprising a tripod junction unit, a plurality of support members, a sprinkler support assembly, and a telescoping assembly. In some preferred embodiments, the Telescoping Tripod Sprinkler Cart may also include a carriage assembly to enable the portability of the Telescoping Tripod Sprinkler Cart.
Inventors: Brueske; David; (Olympia, WA)
Serial No.: 068530
Series Code: 13
Filed: May 12, 2011
Current U.S. Class: 239/722
Class at Publication: 239/722
International Class: B05B 3/00 20060101 B05B003/00
Claims
1. A Telescoping Tripod Sprinkler Cart comprising a tripod junction unit, a plurality of support members, a sprinkler support assembly, and a telescoping assembly; the tripod junction unit comprises a first leg, and a second leg, and a hose conduit; the plurality of support members are sized to mate with the legs; the legs comprise a detent orifice sized to mate with a detent on a support member; the support members comprise a detent for the purpose of fastening the support member to the tripod junction; the sprinkler support assembly is disposed upon the hose conduit of the tripod junction.
2. The Telescoping Tripod Sprinkler Cart of claim 1 further comprising a carriage assembly; the carriage assembly comprises an axle, an axle housing, a pair of wheels, and a pair of struts.
Description
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
[0001] The present invention is in the area of lawn sprinklers, and more particularly pertains to an apparatus for irrigation.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0002] One of the most common chores for a homeowner to address is watering or irrigating a lawn. While some people may use a simple lawn hose to manually irrigate their lawns, most people use various irrigation systems. These irrigation systems can be used to cover large swaths of landscape quickly and efficiently.
[0003] However, the problem with sprinkler systems is their relative high cost and attendant installation. Their relative high cost can stem in large part from the installation thereof. Effective installation requires that underground tunnels or troughs be dug. In many instances, these distances can exceed 50 yards in length. As a consequence, this installation can require a substantial amount of back-breaking work.
[0004] Therefore, what is clearly needed in the art is an apparatus which enables someone to irrigate a large lawn, orchard, or garden and cover a large diameter of space.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0005] It is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus to elevate an irrigation sprinkler to increase the surface area to be covered. By manually adjusting the height of the sprinkler head above ground, a person will be enabled to cover wide areas of lawn, landscape, gardens, orchards, or other areas where constant irrigation is required.
[0006] It is an object of the present invention to provide a portable apparatus with pneumatic wheels to place an elevated tripod sprinkler cart in its desired destination. Oftentimes, long hoses can become heavy, and with the wheels, the towing thereof can be made substantially easier.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING FIGURES
[0007] FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a preferred embodiment of the present invention.
[0008] FIG. 2 is a perspective view of a preferred embodiment of the present invention.
[0009] FIG. 3 is a perspective view of a preferred embodiment of the present invention.
[0010] FIG. 4 is a perspective view of a preferred embodiment of the present invention.
Mod parent up, please. It pretty much sums up what anyone needs to know about TFA.
(For anyone who doesn't get the Two Minute Hate bit, it's from Orwell's 1984. It's sort of a televised daily propaganda broadcast that gets the audience worked up and involves chanting, screaming and throwing things at the screen.)
-1 Flamebait Title
The coming war? The second paragraph of the article contradicts the title. Against Personal Photography and Video? The first two-thirds of the summary talks about surveillance by the authorities.
-1 Blog posting written like TV news
The author (who is also the submitter, promoting his own blog as a slashdot story) writes in a voice that mimics a TV news personality, asking lots of questions, sometimes answering them, sometimes forgetting to answer them, blusters a lot but doesn't provide any new information.
-1 Blog post makes many expansive claims but does not cite any sources
The author claims there are plans and laws and pushes and a whole lot of other things without citing any sources. It's like listening to the guy at the bar grumbling about how the government's coming for his guns.
-1 Even the author's wikipedia page is sketchy
The wikipedia page for Lauren Weinstein points out it "includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations."
-1 Author says the sky is falling, offers no solutions
Near the end of the blog posting, he says "I don't have a 'magic wand' solution for this situation." In other words, an "OMG! Cameras are everywhere! I don't know what to do about it!" blog post is worthy of consideration by the slashdot masses?
then there will never be a short supply of witnesses to any potential police misconduct
Like in Russia, where misconduct by the authorities has been eliminated due to the fact that everyone has a dashcam?
This should replace elections. And elected officials. Measure the real people's publicly-stated opinions and rule from that.
Replace all corrupted clowns chosen by rigged popularity contests with math. Math can be trusted. Public data can be verified.
[sarcasm]Right. Because "liking" a company or product on facebook to get 1,000 VirtuaCoins or 10% off your next purchase means you actually like it. No rigging there. Totally trustworthy. It's absolutely certain that you approved the message you're sending.[/sarcasm]
It's interesting that you were modded down to 0 for thanking me for pointing out Nerval's Lobster's identity. My first post about Nerval's Lobster (April 11) was modded down to 0 as a troll within minutes. Someone modded it up again as insightful, and it was modded back down to 0, despite another 6-digit-UID user's reply "I wish I had mod points to give. Some asshat modded the informative parent post "troll" for some reason." There is apparently still a concerted effort to suppress this -- I wonder why they didn't mod my April 25 post down from 5 to 0... maybe they didn't catch it in time, and it would have been too obvious because it had already generated attention.
As previously noted, "Slashdot Editor" Nick Kolakowski is once again promoting his own "Business Intelligence" opinion pieces under the guise of the fake user Nerval's Lobster.
That's not to say that the data is without merit or interest. The issue here is that Slashdot's publication of the April 24 post on Wolfram's blog had to wait until after Kolakowski had offered his summary of it on April 26. Why did slashdot readers have to wait a few days for Kolakowski to write his own summary of the blog posting? What value did he add?
Just yesterday I pointed out that Nerval's Lobster (the submitter of this story) is actually a guise for a certain Slashdot "editor" to post his own "Business Intelligence" pieces as user-submitted paid content. This story also follows the pattern. Anything posted by Nerval's Lobster should be treated as a slashvertisement.
The link in the summary goes to the International Business Times, which links to a copy of the 11-second audio clip on Soundcloud that requires flash to run. The IBT article links to the original articles at the Smithsonian. Here's a direct link to the MP3 file on the Smithsonian site.
FIRE!
Yowwza! A fire has broken out! If it continues to burn, it will spread through the company. Bulldoze the cubicles around the fire to stop it from spreading. Have you put in your 80 hours this week yet or do you have sufficient firing protection?
Next week at EA, the same green-haired guy appears, a little more pleasant:
Hello! I'm Dr. Wright. You must be the new H-1B worker! Let's practice our teambuilding techniques by building a Power Plant and then adding Residential, Commercial, and Industrial zones to your cubicle. Next, connect all the zones with CAT5 and then add power strips so you can work from any zone of your cubicle and get ahead in the race to not get downsized and deported!
Important: If you have a relationship (other than as an ordinary reader) to the author or publisher of a book you're reviewing, disclose that relationship. This means not only cases like "My brother, the author, has given me a million dollars to type this review, and is holding me at gunpoint, while dictating to me from the Amazon review he himself wrote," but also "I used to work at this book's publisher, and was a technical reviewer for this book's three chapters on networking," or "The author is a good friend of mine." Better to disclose more than you think necessary (it can always be edited out if sensible; we'll let you know if we think there's an inappropriate conflict of interest) than less than actually necessary. If in doubt, please speak up.
Yet the author of the review is a "Senior Editor at Slashdot," Nick Kolakowski (Twitter, Literary Gun For Hire), who writes articles for Slashdot (and other places) and apparently submits them under the guise of a "user" named Nerval's Lobster. Nerval's Lobster's submissions are "accepted" by the editors nearly every day, and always link to Slashdot's "Business Intelligence" or "Cloud" content... effectively passing off paid content as normal, user-submitted content.
Two of the three links in the review are to Kolakowski's own "Business Intelligence" articles. The link to the book itself goes to Amazon and contains Slashdot's "Associates ID" (slashdot0c-20) to ensure Slashdot gets a cut of any sales this review drives.
Piece it together:
1. A Slashdot employee writes a favorable (7/10) review of a book
2. The same employee submits it under the guise of a normal reader (see the summary which ends with "Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here...")
3. The editors post the review (because nearly everything "Nerval's Lobster" submits gets accepted by the editors, and it all links back to Slashdot paid content)
4. Readers believe the review was submitted by a regular reader, and the huge wave of traffic invariably-driven by any Slashdot story results in a fair number of click throughs and purchases
5. Slashdot gets a referral fee from Amazon for getting people to buy the book from them
I have no problem with Slashdot staff writing a book review, as long as the relationship is disclosed, per Slashdot's own guidelines. I have no problem with a regular user writing a review and Slashdot making a few bucks by pointing readers to Amazon to buy that book. But he way they did it today makes it look like Kolakowski only wrote the review and the editors only accepted it because their employer is getting a kickback from Amazon. Making money is OK, but disguising paid content as user-submitted content is not. That's not what people come to Slashdot to find--it's a sleight of hand.
Before you mod me down as a troll, consider that Kolakowski's review points out that one should take the business motivations of the book's authors into account when weighing what they have to say:
Of course, Schmidt and Cohen extolling the virtues of the cloud is like two corporate board-members of McDonald's insisting that burgers are delicious and everyone in the world should eat them three times a day.
Slashdot readers should be able to do the same with the authorship of stories and book reviews.
It's north of Oreon. Slashdot is running short on the Gs today. That's why they otta run the slashverts, yo. You want your Gs with your headlines, otta watch the slashvertisements. Timothy otta et paid or someone be droppin the Gs!