Grass on the roof?
on
Project Eden
·
· Score: 3, Funny
So grass on the roof is the latest rage in architecture? There's a house in my neighborhood that has grass growing on the roof, but my roommate and I just figured it was because no one lived there for a a few years. We thought it was an abandoned dump, but apparently the grassy-knoll-on-the-roof feature has made it too expensive for prospective buyers.
Daniel received a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Caltech in 1996. He has worked for Microsoft Corporation and XYZFind Corporation, and currently resides in New York City working for a large investment bank.
I was hoping the contest would create new opportunities for some young unknown, like: "Bob is a high school sophomore and currently resides in his parents' barn in Fargo and earns his keep stocking shelves at Toys 'R Us." Oh well, maybe next year.
We're only about a month away from MacWorld NY, and traditionally Apple has to have something impressive to show the world in July. But what could Steve have up his sleeves? He's already introduced new iBooks, new PowerBooks, the eMac and the xServe since MacWorld SF. Jaguar isn't due to arrive until August, and the company has stopped OS 9 development. Could he be planning to finally announce Gigawire (the rumored term for the 3.2 Gb/s version of FireWire, officially called 1394b)?
I could see Apple giving the trademark to the trade association to improve its visibility in the industry (and stunt USB2's growth while it can), but I can't see it "letting go" of such an important branch of technology unless it has a firm grip on the next branch up the tree.
He's just been spoiled by MacHack. This brief appeared on MacNN.com this morning:
Slashdot's Malda to visit MacHack
In a "rare" public appearance, Slashdot founder Rob Malda is expected to attend the MacHack 2002 annual developers conference in Michigan, this June. Malda is an accomplished programmer, and founded one of the most popular computer news Web sites "for nerds."
<SARCASM>If you live anywhere near Michigan, don't miss this rare opportunity for nerds to see people who matter. Oh, and there will probably be some cool hacks shown off too.</SARCASM>
The government needs to start treating companies that collect sensitive consumer information like banks. They are in fact banks of valuable information that must be protected and regulated.
Banks and financial institutions are subject to strict federal regulations in the U.S. with regard to:
information they disclose to third parties
information (advice/sales pitches) they provide their customers
These institutions are monitored, and employees/institutions who violate the regulations are investigated and prosecuted (slapped with fines or jail time).
At the moment, there are a number of companies that collect sensitive information from consumers, and regardless of what they claim they are doing with that information, no one has any way of knowing if they are honoring those claims. Most public companies would leap at the opportunity to tell consumers whatever they wanted to hear if
the company could profit from it
consumers had no way of knowing the truth
The government needs to define regulations for this industry, it needs to be able to monitor the industry and it must have the power to enforce the regulations through fines and incarceration.
The companies in this industry will oppose regulation, claiming that the costs associated with monitoring and compliance would put them out of business *bullshit-the-cost-of-not-being-able-to-prostitute -your-data-will-put-them-out-of-business* Excuse me; I must be coming down with a cold. As I was saying, they will insist upon being allowed to regulate themselves. They must not be permitted to persuade the politicians of this.
Ask your representative or senator to consider what life would be like today if banks and brokerages were not regulated. Then tell them that this is far more serious, because while money can be refunded, information cannot be stuffed back into Pandora's Box once it is released.
That's just how it goes when you have a governor who needs to bestow favors on those who supported him during his campaign.
I can already see the May 29 headlines: "State Government Flooded with a 124,782% surge in Applications from Unemployed IT Workers: 98.3% list Gov. Davis as a reference; include photocopies of ballots"
Start with a computer, a cool idea for a game that simulates a city and a meager budget to develop and market your game to the masses.
If you're successful, your little software company will be bought by a gaming conglomerate headquartered on a Silicon Valley landfill. Can you keep the corporate types happily rolling in dough while still producing games that please your fans? Can you balance the budget in a recession, survive earthquakes and avert costly developer food riots?
I'd like to play a Simcity game where I could build a car-free city. I want a button for bicycle paths.
That's in the indefinitely-delayed "SimCity Beijing." Do you have any idea how many megs of RAM your video card would need to render millions of people bicycling all over the place? Motorized transportation is environmentally friendly to your system because it's cheaper to render 5 people in a carpool or 50 people on an underground (unseen) subway car.
Where's the button for farm?
SimCity 3000 had farms. If you zoned residential near a rural road with little/no pollution, the land would develop into farms instead of apartments.
I agree the story seems pretty sketchy... it has the pretentious tone of a 15-year-old's tale of his latest StarCraft conquest mixed with the ambiguity of fiction written for people who want to believe. And no, it doesn't tell us anything new.
On the other hand, The New York Times seems to confirm McIndoe knows something about Echelon (though it doesn't call him the architect): "...Mr. McIndoe, who previously helped develop the National Security Agency's Echelon II program and also founded a company that develops computer intelligence-gathering systems." That seems to me like a pretty major claim (in light of the insistence that Echelon doesn't exist) and the reporter should qualify the source of his info, but he doesn't.
The Washington Post ran one of its standard "check out this company" profiles on iJet, though it makes no mention of Echelon or McIndoe's intelligence background. It's still an interesting read.
Write to The Post, explain the inaccuracy and they'll print a correction. With the massive volume of information that goes into each paper, it's sure to happen every day, but they own up to it when they screw up (and hopefully the reporter/copy editor will get it right next time).
Email:letters@washpost.com Snail:
Jonathan Krim
C/O The Washington Post
1150 15th Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20071
So what symptoms is the "Open a link in a new window" option supposed to affect?
It doesn't disable automated javascript popups and popunders when I enter and leave pages
It doesn't disable javascript popups (that use window.open() as in Yahoo's slideshows) in response to links I click manually.
The reason this concerns me is it appears AOL/Netscape wants to claim that it's providing users with the options they want, but doesn't want to actually provide users with those options. In other words, they can tell reporters that users have the option of disabling popups by referring to this feature. When users try to enable it and it doesn't work, most will simply assume that they have done something wrong.
In the Mac OS X version of Netscape 7 PR1, the Preferences -> Advanced -> Scripts & Windows window offers several options here:
Allow webpages to:
_ Open a link in a new window _ Move or resize existing windows _ Raise or lower windows (and others)
Unfortunately (conveniently?), none of these options work. When I unchecked them and restarted the browser, it took me right to Netscape's portal and popped up an ad. For good measure, it popped up another ad when I left the site for NYTimes.com, which put its own popunder below the window.
The lab is temporarily closed as we deal with an experiment that got slightly out of hand. Nothing to be concerned about, really. All of our engineers are perfectly safe and there was never any real danger of it escaping into the wild.
Please check back in a few hours. Everything should be back to normal then and science will march on once again. We appreciate your patience.
I assume they've sent someone to fetch Stephen Wolfram so science may continue.
This makes me wonder what Google will be like 10 years from now. Will they accidentally release a Lawnmower-Man-like entity onto the Internet and then categorically deny everything? Will they have to contribute to a special SuperFund for Internet pollution? Will we see cartoons of Men In Black spray-burning suspicious goo off the Google logo?
I'm sure Microsoft is right sometimes, but I'm not convinced that this is one of those times. Whenever Microsoft does something apparently benevolent, I sit back and ask myself: "What do they have to gain by doing this?" A huge corporation with shareholders to please and a pocket full of powerful monopolies doesn't do anything that's not in its interest.
Remember Smart Tags? They were designed to give Microsoft the influence and revenue stream RealNames's technology had... but on a broader level. RealNames was confined to the location bar, while Smart Tags could modify the contents of a Web page. Microsoft has a history of getting close to companies that have a hot new idea just long to figure out what makes it tick . Then it incorporates the idea into its products and either acquires the partner (Vermeer, VXtreme, etc.) or drops it like a rock (Novell).
I believe Microsoft dropped RealNames because they sucked all the intellectual lifeblood it could from the company, not because it thought RealNames was a bad idea. Microsoft shelved (turned off) the Smart Tags feature under heavy criticism, but made a point of stating the feature may be released in a future version of IE.
I don't need to explain to the Slashdot reader why RealNames was a poor idea. It is something you feel in your gut.
To our credit, Slashdot readers and editors have mostly thought that RealNames was a foolish and pointless money wasting exercise...
This is the journalistic equivalent of beginning your presentation with the phrase, "if you don't agree with me, you're a moron."
Even lazy reporters aren't rarely so brazen. They try to make up for their lack of research/interest by inserting the word "clearly" at the beginning of a sentence. They think it absolves them of their responsibility to inform -- I call it "intellectual bullying."
I'm not picking on your writing or trolling about your opinion. I happen to agree with your assessment of RealNames, but if you can't present your argument without the bullying your argument doesn't deserve a forum. Slashdot editors, please consider this before accepting/writing features.
The other day this guy clubbed me with a small billboard and took my wallet while I read the advertisement. When I came to my senses, I ran to the patent office to make my fortune. I'd been robbed before, but never in tandem with getting clubbed by a billboard... the space on that board could be worth a fortune to police/bounty hunters/hospitals/etc. Unfortunately, the guy beat me to it.
SOME THINGS never change: death, taxes, Cowboy Neal's hairline. But one that certainly does: the cold profession of the moment. Here are the top ten jobs you definitely don't want tomorrow:
Nobody in the field seriously believes that there exist individual genes for different talents...
That's just the problem. Nobody in the field believes it, but people who don't know will want to believe it. And someone with deep-pockets (or the skill to coax money out of other people's deep pockets) will seize the "market opportunity" to research the genetic selection of talents. What they deliver would more likely be some degree of control over physical attributes, diseases, mental diseases, etc.
Picture this: A couple whose parents have a history of diabetes pays $30,000 to reduce the chance that their child will have be afflicted. While they're at it, they choose the gender of the child, they decide they'd like him to play basketball (the corporation nods and makes a note to select for optimum height) and they want him to become a great philosopher (the company selects for obsessive compulsive disorder).
The company's marketing department has mapped attributes, disorders and diseases to more palatable "talents" for which parents will be willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars. It starts out slowly -- a handful of desperate, hopeful families here and there who pressure their children to love basketball and study philosophy. The child becomes a star on his high school basketball team, spends hours locked up in his room reading, and never develops diabetes. The local TV station (a key tool for programming the uninformed masses who can't be bothered with reading JAMA, Nature or even The New York Times) "reports" on this phenomenon and the apparent "evidence" that you can select for talents. From there it's just the snowball effect married to the placebo effect.
The vast majority of society can believe something that is not true if they want to believe it.
Slashdot Mirror
So grass on the roof is the latest rage in architecture? There's a house in my neighborhood that has grass growing on the roof, but my roommate and I just figured it was because no one lived there for a a few years. We thought it was an abandoned dump, but apparently the grassy-knoll-on-the-roof feature has made it too expensive for prospective buyers.
I could see Apple giving the trademark to the trade association to improve its visibility in the industry (and stunt USB2's growth while it can), but I can't see it "letting go" of such an important branch of technology unless it has a firm grip on the next branch up the tree.
So do you think the RIAA would be stupid enough to come after me if I distribute this song on a Napster-like system?
Banks and financial institutions are subject to strict federal regulations in the U.S. with regard to:
- information they disclose to third parties
- information (advice/sales pitches) they provide their customers
These institutions are monitored, and employees/institutions who violate the regulations are investigated and prosecuted (slapped with fines or jail time).At the moment, there are a number of companies that collect sensitive information from consumers, and regardless of what they claim they are doing with that information, no one has any way of knowing if they are honoring those claims. Most public companies would leap at the opportunity to tell consumers whatever they wanted to hear if
- the company could profit from it
- consumers had no way of knowing the truth
The government needs to define regulations for this industry, it needs to be able to monitor the industry and it must have the power to enforce the regulations through fines and incarceration.The companies in this industry will oppose regulation, claiming that the costs associated with monitoring and compliance would put them out of business *bullshit-the-cost-of-not-being-able-to-prostitute -your-data-will-put-them-out-of-business* Excuse me; I must be coming down with a cold. As I was saying, they will insist upon being allowed to regulate themselves. They must not be permitted to persuade the politicians of this.
Ask your representative or senator to consider what life would be like today if banks and brokerages were not regulated. Then tell them that this is far more serious, because while money can be refunded, information cannot be stuffed back into Pandora's Box once it is released.
Start with a computer, a cool idea for a game that simulates a city and a meager budget to develop and market your game to the masses.
If you're successful, your little software company will be bought by a gaming conglomerate headquartered on a Silicon Valley landfill. Can you keep the corporate types happily rolling in dough while still producing games that please your fans? Can you balance the budget in a recession, survive earthquakes and avert costly developer food riots?
On the other hand, The New York Times seems to confirm McIndoe knows something about Echelon (though it doesn't call him the architect): "...Mr. McIndoe, who previously helped develop the National Security Agency's Echelon II program and also founded a company that develops computer intelligence-gathering systems." That seems to me like a pretty major claim (in light of the insistence that Echelon doesn't exist) and the reporter should qualify the source of his info, but he doesn't.
The Washington Post ran one of its standard "check out this company" profiles on iJet, though it makes no mention of Echelon or McIndoe's intelligence background. It's still an interesting read.
Email: letters@washpost.com
Snail:
Jonathan Krim
C/O The Washington Post
1150 15th Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20071
- It doesn't disable automated javascript popups and popunders when I enter and leave pages
- It doesn't disable javascript popups (that use window.open() as in Yahoo's slideshows) in response to links I click manually.
The reason this concerns me is it appears AOL/Netscape wants to claim that it's providing users with the options they want, but doesn't want to actually provide users with those options. In other words, they can tell reporters that users have the option of disabling popups by referring to this feature. When users try to enable it and it doesn't work, most will simply assume that they have done something wrong.This makes me wonder what Google will be like 10 years from now. Will they accidentally release a Lawnmower-Man-like entity onto the Internet and then categorically deny everything? Will they have to contribute to a special SuperFund for Internet pollution? Will we see cartoons of Men In Black spray-burning suspicious goo off the Google logo?
Remember Smart Tags? They were designed to give Microsoft the influence and revenue stream RealNames's technology had... but on a broader level. RealNames was confined to the location bar, while Smart Tags could modify the contents of a Web page. Microsoft has a history of getting close to companies that have a hot new idea just long to figure out what makes it tick . Then it incorporates the idea into its products and either acquires the partner (Vermeer, VXtreme, etc.) or drops it like a rock (Novell).
I believe Microsoft dropped RealNames because they sucked all the intellectual lifeblood it could from the company, not because it thought RealNames was a bad idea. Microsoft shelved (turned off) the Smart Tags feature under heavy criticism, but made a point of stating the feature may be released in a future version of IE.
Even lazy reporters aren't rarely so brazen. They try to make up for their lack of research/interest by inserting the word "clearly" at the beginning of a sentence. They think it absolves them of their responsibility to inform -- I call it "intellectual bullying."
I'm not picking on your writing or trolling about your opinion. I happen to agree with your assessment of RealNames, but if you can't present your argument without the bullying your argument doesn't deserve a forum. Slashdot editors, please consider this before accepting/writing features.
The other day this guy clubbed me with a small billboard and took my wallet while I read the advertisement. When I came to my senses, I ran to the patent office to make my fortune. I'd been robbed before, but never in tandem with getting clubbed by a billboard... the space on that board could be worth a fortune to police/bounty hunters/hospitals/etc. Unfortunately, the guy beat me to it.
Keyword Clicks/ Cost-Per- Cost/
Day Click Day
---
flash 660.0 $0.19 $123.42
crack 690.0 $0.12 $77.55
porn 1600.0 $0.24 $368.12
sex 1600.0 $0.24 $376.00
cowboy neal 0.1 $0.08 $0.02
flash mx crack <0.1 $0.11 $0.00
By that logic, I would have more success buying the keywords "cowboy neal" than with "flash mx crack." That's what scares me. Try it yourself.
- reverse gravity
- send the tightly-controlled, stable market into a state of chaos
- put thousands of people out of work (how could MS pay its employees if they gave their products away?)
- bring back Elvis (in the form of MP3s distributed by the masses who were previously restricted by MS DRM)
- cause the judge's personal computer to automatically download pornography every day
Didn't we see this in Ghostbusters?Picture this: A couple whose parents have a history of diabetes pays $30,000 to reduce the chance that their child will have be afflicted. While they're at it, they choose the gender of the child, they decide they'd like him to play basketball (the corporation nods and makes a note to select for optimum height) and they want him to become a great philosopher (the company selects for obsessive compulsive disorder).
The company's marketing department has mapped attributes, disorders and diseases to more palatable "talents" for which parents will be willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars. It starts out slowly -- a handful of desperate, hopeful families here and there who pressure their children to love basketball and study philosophy. The child becomes a star on his high school basketball team, spends hours locked up in his room reading, and never develops diabetes. The local TV station (a key tool for programming the uninformed masses who can't be bothered with reading JAMA, Nature or even The New York Times) "reports" on this phenomenon and the apparent "evidence" that you can select for talents. From there it's just the snowball effect married to the placebo effect.
The vast majority of society can believe something that is not true if they want to believe it.