The Amazon example is a good one. It's really annoying that my first page load on Amazon always presents me with books or videos that are like the books and videos I recently bought. Presumably I already know of an author or director if I have bought a book or film by that person. So I do't want to be given a list of other works by that person--I'm already more or less aware of those works.
What I really want is to be introduced to something new. And this is where filtering totally breaks down. They enforce sameness and fence out novelty or difference.
BASF = Badische Anilin und Soda Fabrik
= (engl.) Aniline (Dye) and Soda Factory of Baden-Wuertemberg. (Badisch is adjectival phrase for Baden-Wuertemberg).
Python is a cleaner language, thus better for larger projects and teamwork.
Granted, if true, that's a worthwhile thing. But's that's precious little to say in the way of discussing a language, and it's quite vague. C'mon, how about some more discussion of features of the language. How about some real comparison, with say, strengths and weaknesses of Perl. My knowledge of Python (almost zero) has increased not one bit after this article.
Basically, the article amounts to: Hey, I wrote Python and I like it. It's better than things I didn't write.
When I encounter discussion of things like the one-click patent, it instantly wears me out. It's exhausting trying to think of ways to argue with people who see all ideas as salable "intellectual property". I don't think science would have made any progress if people in former times had been accustomed to thinking this way. Think if the telescope had been enforcibly patented, or the microscope.
What can you say to someone who thinks this is a good idea? I'm not anti-business. But is there nothing that isn't owned, that isn't property.
I predict that we will soon start patenting philosophies or religions.
At least not in the article cited. Complaints that efforts are focused too much on the PC rather than distributing technology across the household, strike me as being motivated by a certain faddishness and "buzzwordiness" rather than a substantive critique of some deficiency in computer science.
The article sounded to me like some people with a certain technological agenda are unhappy because everyone else in technology does not have that same agenda at the forefront of their minds.
Calling a group that is working against expansions of privacy a "Privacy Alliance" is just too shameless. I know there never will be, but there should be consequences for companies that participate in such deceitfulness.
The Nazi's had a "Charitable Transport Company for the Sick", which was responsible for picking up sick and elderly people and having them euthanized.
I'm not suggesting a moral equivalency betwen the Nazis and the corporations in the Online Privacy Alliance. But if these sorts of deceitful names are loathsome when tyrants use them, it should be made clear that they are just as loathsome when corporations use them.
Re:This ought to really catch on with Americans
on
Fiddler on the RUF
·
· Score: 1
Maybe, just maybe, if we come up with a way for getting SUV's on rails we can get the populace interested. The only problem: some of these vehicles are already wider than trains.
This ought to really catch on with Americans
on
Fiddler on the RUF
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· Score: 4
They're not "Nazis". They've just chosen to go down a path we don't like. Fortunately, there is the alternative of freedb. And if there weren't, some noble soul would soon set one up.
We shouldn't vilify those who seek to make money off of services. They're free to do so. And we're free to go to a free site. And to use free software that goes to a free site.
Amen.
It is not a good piece of software. If I could set the interval to once a day, it maybe would be a good piece of software. I don't want anything on my system that scans my system (that's part of the notification process) and goes out to an external web site every five minutes. That begins to be a noticeable burden on my system.
I see this as an advanced example of Microsoft idiocy. If they were going to hardwire in a value, how about once a day? As it is, they have given sophisticated users (the ones who want the maximum control over their own system) every reason not to use this bit of software.
Fortunately, it's the sophisticated users who are likely to have other means of staying up to date. I'm subscribed to every security mailing list I could find. If something comes through and it's about a vulnerability in a Microsoft product, I go check Update to see if the fix is there. Frequently, it isn't, since there seems to be quite a time lag before things are posted to Windows Update. I usually end up addressing a problem long before the fix is available via Update.
For the casual user, maybe the check every five minutes works, but only because they don't know enough to be bothered by the fact that Microsoft is forcing them to run a task every five minutes. There simply is no reason why it couldn't be a check over a longer interval.
Yeah and that little daemon, "Windows Critical Update Notification", then checks MS for security patches every 5 minutes. If you change the interval in the scheduler to something more sensible, say, once a day, it magically changes the interval back to every 5 minutes.
In knowledge base article QQ230318, Microsoft states "Due to the importance of this component, it is by design that the Windows Critical Update Notification schedule can not be modified or disabled".
My guess is Microsoft didn't want people monkeying with this, so that the Notification would be assured of being run. They achieved the exact opposite. The five minute interval is so annoying I don't run the notification at all, I uninstalled it. I check for updates by hand.
Note: Supposedly, there is a way to change all of this in the registry, so that your change of the interval takes hold. For example, see this. But I've tried that twice and it hasn't worked.
Here is another discussion of this problem at technofile.
dkwright
--------
Microsoft: With friends like these who needs an enema?
MUDShell not really for newbies
on
MUD Shell
·
· Score: 2
If you read the original slashdot thread the idea came from, you'll see that the idea for this type of shell was to help newbies.
MUDShell doesn't really do that, unless the newbies happen to have experience with Adventure style games. Otherwise, a lot of the humor and some of the "logic" of the shell would be lost on the newbie.
MUDShell is probably more entertaining for oldtimers than useful to new users. Nothing wrong with that.
The assistant principal could have easily sued for slander . . .
Not in the US, the principal couldn't. As far as I understand the US libel laws, actionable libel has occurred when the libelous party knowingly represents something which is known to be false as true (or vice versa). So it has to be a knowing misrepresentation of the real facts. In this case, the student was not claiming that the principal truly had sex with a cartoon character, nor would I guess the student truly meant to claim that the asst. principal was a pedophile (but maybe the student did mean that . . . who knows). Unless the student was asserting the web site's claims and representations were factually true, none of it is actionable for slander/libel. It is very difficult to prove libel in the US, and this difficulty is mostly intentional in favor of free speech. Other countries, UK for example, have struck a different balance.
Basically the asst. principal's only recourse was a thick skin and maybe to somehow win the student's respect, which is extraordinarily difficult for any authority figure in this country. But you certainly don't win respect by trying to shut someone up.
That comparison is over-stated, of course. Watching television is, for the most part, a highly passive activity, whereas playing an RT game does engage far more of one's faculties. But I do think the comparison is apt in a number of ways.
One's interaction with a book, in particular a book with a narrative, involves a creative synthesis of the real-world time of the reader with the timeframe of the book. Neither time-frame need be sacrificed for the enjoyment of the medium. In a TB game, your own speed of play is your choice and enjoyment of the game is possible at any chosen speed of play.
One's interaction with TV involves submission to the time-frame of the medium in order to enjoy it. The same is true with RT games, although this isn't absolute; they can be sped up and slowed down and even paused.
Another area in which the comparison holds: RT games tend to be more visually oriented, whereas TB games are more conceptual. This obviously holds for television and books. The type of imagination brought to each is also different. Books (and turn based games) require a more active imagination, whereas television and RT games are more about responding to sense data (with RT games certainly being more active than TV).
All of this leads to the following observation:
Of the diehard TB gamers I encounter, many are also avid readers. Of the more current gamers who are into RT, far fewer are readers, although there are still some readers represented.
Needless to say, I've been getting a lot more reading done, since I now no longer buy new games, since almost all of them RT. The only games I'll consider playing these days are Alpha Centauri, CIV, and MOOII, all of which are at least several years old. I wouldn't pay money for any RT games--for me they're merely stressful and the game play is not nearly as satisfying, since I mainly have to supply reflexes and tactics, not imagination and long term strategy. I will consider updates to CIV and MOO when they come out. Maybe there are enough of us TB types still around that these will sell well enough to send the game makers a message.
I agree that what really needs to be tackled first is the way the record companies own the music. Right now the industry is set up in a way that it is hard for anyone but the most well-known bands to make any money off sales of recordings. The standard kind of contract in the industry specifies that the artist will carry all recording and production costs, so that these are subtracted from any profits going to the artists. Only if these costs are met, do the artists start getting fairly miniscule cuts from sales. Add to this that the record companies retain the rights to the music and you have a very poorly structured industry, in which the vast majority of the poeople doing the creative work make almost nothing for their efforts. These types of problems, which are more pressing, should be addressed first, before forcing record companies into online distribution.
Imagine if the book publishing industry worked this way! You'd have so many fewer books published if authors were forced to pay for the book production costs before getting any share of the profits. And authors can sometimes get fairly decent percentages (20%) on hard covers, which I believe is a lot better than musicians usually get on recordings.
Slashdot Mirror
What's the impact when a plasmoid is being ggenerated in the microwave?
The Amazon example is a good one. It's really annoying that my first page load on Amazon always presents me with books or videos that are like the books and videos I recently bought. Presumably I already know of an author or director if I have bought a book or film by that person. So I do't want to be given a list of other works by that person--I'm already more or less aware of those works.
What I really want is to be introduced to something new. And this is where filtering totally breaks down. They enforce sameness and fence out novelty or difference.
Actually, compared to other legal documents I've read, the brief is a marvel of clarity and good legal writing.
BASF = Badische Anilin und Soda Fabrik = (engl.) Aniline (Dye) and Soda Factory of Baden-Wuertemberg. (Badisch is adjectival phrase for Baden-Wuertemberg).
What I got from the article:
Python is a cleaner language, thus better for larger projects and teamwork.
Granted, if true, that's a worthwhile thing. But's that's precious little to say in the way of discussing a language, and it's quite vague. C'mon, how about some more discussion of features of the language. How about some real comparison, with say, strengths and weaknesses of Perl. My knowledge of Python (almost zero) has increased not one bit after this article.
Basically, the article amounts to: Hey, I wrote Python and I like it. It's better than things I didn't write.
Is this an interview or a press release?
Can you imagine what would happen if the government of Australia "took back" the internet?
You'd have TCP/IP packets delivered by courier (Fedex?) in the name of security and copyright preservation.
A TV show based on a computer game? What a crappy, stupid idea. Why the next thing you know, they'll be giving Bette Middler her own show.
I forgot about Scientology. Well, pretty soon we'll start patenting philosophies. Or did Ayn Rand take out a patent on Objectivism?
When I encounter discussion of things like the one-click patent, it instantly wears me out. It's exhausting trying to think of ways to argue with people who see all ideas as salable "intellectual property". I don't think science would have made any progress if people in former times had been accustomed to thinking this way. Think if the telescope had been enforcibly patented, or the microscope.
.sig. Just click on it once.
What can you say to someone who thinks this is a good idea? I'm not anti-business. But is there nothing that isn't owned, that isn't property.
I predict that we will soon start patenting philosophies or religions.
-- Purchase this
C'mon. Kids are as alright as the rest of society is or isn't. This does not require proof.
At least not in the article cited. Complaints that efforts are focused too much on the PC rather than distributing technology across the household, strike me as being motivated by a certain faddishness and "buzzwordiness" rather than a substantive critique of some deficiency in computer science.
The article sounded to me like some people with a certain technological agenda are unhappy because everyone else in technology does not have that same agenda at the forefront of their minds.
That's hardly a substantive complaint.
Calling a group that is working against expansions of privacy a "Privacy Alliance" is just too shameless. I know there never will be, but there should be consequences for companies that participate in such deceitfulness.
The Nazi's had a "Charitable Transport Company for the Sick", which was responsible for picking up sick and elderly people and having them euthanized.
I'm not suggesting a moral equivalency betwen the Nazis and the corporations in the Online Privacy Alliance. But if these sorts of deceitful names are loathsome when tyrants use them, it should be made clear that they are just as loathsome when corporations use them.
Maybe, just maybe, if we come up with a way for getting SUV's on rails we can get the populace interested. The only problem: some of these vehicles are already wider than trains.
Small, efficient, non-polluting cars
rails
It'll take America by storm!
That's a good point and it is bad behavior on CDDB's part. I still object to calling them Nazi's, though.
They're not "Nazis". They've just chosen to go down a path we don't like. Fortunately, there is the alternative of freedb. And if there weren't, some noble soul would soon set one up.
We shouldn't vilify those who seek to make money off of services. They're free to do so. And we're free to go to a free site. And to use free software that goes to a free site. Amen.
It is not a good piece of software. If I could set the interval to once a day, it maybe would be a good piece of software. I don't want anything on my system that scans my system (that's part of the notification process) and goes out to an external web site every five minutes. That begins to be a noticeable burden on my system.
I see this as an advanced example of Microsoft idiocy. If they were going to hardwire in a value, how about once a day? As it is, they have given sophisticated users (the ones who want the maximum control over their own system) every reason not to use this bit of software.
Fortunately, it's the sophisticated users who are likely to have other means of staying up to date. I'm subscribed to every security mailing list I could find. If something comes through and it's about a vulnerability in a Microsoft product, I go check Update to see if the fix is there. Frequently, it isn't, since there seems to be quite a time lag before things are posted to Windows Update. I usually end up addressing a problem long before the fix is available via Update.
For the casual user, maybe the check every five minutes works, but only because they don't know enough to be bothered by the fact that Microsoft is forcing them to run a task every five minutes. There simply is no reason why it couldn't be a check over a longer interval.
Yeah and that little daemon, "Windows Critical Update Notification", then checks MS for security patches every 5 minutes. If you change the interval in the scheduler to something more sensible, say, once a day, it magically changes the interval back to every 5 minutes.
In knowledge base article QQ230318, Microsoft states "Due to the importance of this component, it is by design that the Windows Critical Update Notification schedule can not be modified or disabled".
My guess is Microsoft didn't want people monkeying with this, so that the Notification would be assured of being run. They achieved the exact opposite. The five minute interval is so annoying I don't run the notification at all, I uninstalled it. I check for updates by hand.
Note: Supposedly, there is a way to change all of this in the registry, so that your change of the interval takes hold. For example, see this. But I've tried that twice and it hasn't worked. Here is another discussion of this problem at technofile.
dkwright
--------
Microsoft: With friends like these who needs an enema?
MUDShell doesn't really do that, unless the newbies happen to have experience with Adventure style games. Otherwise, a lot of the humor and some of the "logic" of the shell would be lost on the newbie.
MUDShell is probably more entertaining for oldtimers than useful to new users. Nothing wrong with that.
It's called ROT13
Apparently, despite the built-in compass they all veered left.
Not in the US, the principal couldn't. As far as I understand the US libel laws, actionable libel has occurred when the libelous party knowingly represents something which is known to be false as true (or vice versa). So it has to be a knowing misrepresentation of the real facts. In this case, the student was not claiming that the principal truly had sex with a cartoon character, nor would I guess the student truly meant to claim that the asst. principal was a pedophile (but maybe the student did mean that . . . who knows). Unless the student was asserting the web site's claims and representations were factually true, none of it is actionable for slander/libel. It is very difficult to prove libel in the US, and this difficulty is mostly intentional in favor of free speech. Other countries, UK for example, have struck a different balance.
Basically the asst. principal's only recourse was a thick skin and maybe to somehow win the student's respect, which is extraordinarily difficult for any authority figure in this country. But you certainly don't win respect by trying to shut someone up.
One's interaction with a book, in particular a book with a narrative, involves a creative synthesis of the real-world time of the reader with the timeframe of the book. Neither time-frame need be sacrificed for the enjoyment of the medium. In a TB game, your own speed of play is your choice and enjoyment of the game is possible at any chosen speed of play.
One's interaction with TV involves submission to the time-frame of the medium in order to enjoy it. The same is true with RT games, although this isn't absolute; they can be sped up and slowed down and even paused.
Another area in which the comparison holds: RT games tend to be more visually oriented, whereas TB games are more conceptual. This obviously holds for television and books. The type of imagination brought to each is also different. Books (and turn based games) require a more active imagination, whereas television and RT games are more about responding to sense data (with RT games certainly being more active than TV).
All of this leads to the following observation: Of the diehard TB gamers I encounter, many are also avid readers. Of the more current gamers who are into RT, far fewer are readers, although there are still some readers represented.
Needless to say, I've been getting a lot more reading done, since I now no longer buy new games, since almost all of them RT. The only games I'll consider playing these days are Alpha Centauri, CIV, and MOOII, all of which are at least several years old. I wouldn't pay money for any RT games--for me they're merely stressful and the game play is not nearly as satisfying, since I mainly have to supply reflexes and tactics, not imagination and long term strategy. I will consider updates to CIV and MOO when they come out. Maybe there are enough of us TB types still around that these will sell well enough to send the game makers a message.
I agree that what really needs to be tackled first is the way the record companies own the music. Right now the industry is set up in a way that it is hard for anyone but the most well-known bands to make any money off sales of recordings. The standard kind of contract in the industry specifies that the artist will carry all recording and production costs, so that these are subtracted from any profits going to the artists. Only if these costs are met, do the artists start getting fairly miniscule cuts from sales. Add to this that the record companies retain the rights to the music and you have a very poorly structured industry, in which the vast majority of the poeople doing the creative work make almost nothing for their efforts. These types of problems, which are more pressing, should be addressed first, before forcing record companies into online distribution.
Imagine if the book publishing industry worked this way! You'd have so many fewer books published if authors were forced to pay for the book production costs before getting any share of the profits. And authors can sometimes get fairly decent percentages (20%) on hard covers, which I believe is a lot better than musicians usually get on recordings.