We all know you can find a lot of information on the net if you really search for it.
Actually I'd question this. True, you and I and the slashdot crowd know this, but joe public, my parents and the very, very vast majority of people who use the internet - the same people who think the internet is a big blue e - simply are not aware how much private information is available if you look for it. And, even more worryingly, it doesn't take an expert to find it, just someone who is a little clued up.
The average internet user thinks nothing of emailing credit card information, filling in random web forms with their internet banking information, putting their actual email address in every single form. They don't check for a secure connection when giving out all their payment details, they don't read security certificates etc, etc, etc. Highlighting that this information is available so easily may actually be a good thing.
Google is located in California, which does not allow non-compete agreements. I'm no lawyer, but I've read this in about half a dozen different places that discussed the current case.
Just a wild guess, but what are the chances that google employees working outside california signed non-compete agreements? Cynical maybe, but this is business.
It's worth noting that doing clinical research is very difficult, and that the error bars will always be quite large. It's also important to keep in mind that sometimes clinical research may be unduly influenced by financial pressures... and that clinical research undergoes very heavy scrutiny.
Having read the full article, you make some excellent points. I think one of the contributing factors is that often the first research appearing on a particular product/device/treatment is usually not really properly independent, and sometimes the real funding sources can be obscured. By it's very nature, the company bringing a product to market first will usually publish the first clinical trials/results. You often find the later research is more independent, especially in a financial funding sense, and also can include longer term follow up data.
RuneQuest's 2nd and 3rd edition rules were brilliant in their simplicity. Mechanics were skill-based, combat had a realistic feel but proceeded rapidly, and the system was so flexible and easy to use that GMs could adapt on the fly.
The RQ rules were great, and pretty realistic. In fact, so realistic that combat mostly ended in whoever was hit first being stone cold dead. Very realistic, but not much for adding gameplay - it kind of limits fantasy setting stories somewhat when the players actively try to avoid combat all of the time because they quickly realise how deadly it is, even for experienced characters.
I'm not in London (in Leeds), but have just heard back from friends/family who are. Everyone is pretty shaken in London, but surprisingly, under the circumstances, calm and controlled. Yes, london is gridlocked, but from what I'm told the emergency forces seem to be in control.
There is no punishment sufficient for the bastards (I refuse to call them people) that did this. My thoughts are with everyone in london.
I've started to think for a while now that maybe George's huge mistake was that he chose to make Ep1-3, rather than Episodes 7-9. I mean, we all know how it's going to end, and we all know the points the plot HAS to pass through, we all know who HAS to survive, etc, etc. There's no real freedom in there, except to fill in the minor details which don't advance the overall plot. The only "wow" factor he has up his sleeve is "wow the CG looks good".
If he had made 7-9 instead, the story could go and end where he wanted, where the movie took it, where a logically paced movie naturally ended.
It's also a space western, which is a pretty tough theme to like,... The old-west themes of cattle rustling and smuggling just add to the charm and the outlaw atmosphere.
I picked up the season 1 DVD recently based on recommendations (plus it was on special and I had enjoyed Buffy & Angel!). I really really liked it, the characters, humour, SFX, plots are great. But it took a few shows to get into and I have to admit that my very first impressions were that it was not as good as everyone said. The only off-putting factor for me was that whole wild-west-meets-space theme, and I just never got completely used to it and I can't say why, but I suspect it will put joe public off much more ("cowboys in space - how stupid!". Too much wild west and not enough space for my liking, but then I can see that if it was toned down there would be comparisons made to Star Wars (Mos Eisley) so it's a bit of a catch-22.
"WHY THE HELL ARE YOU GOING INTO SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, WE DON'T HIRE THOSE KIND OF PEOPLE HERE!!!!"
And even if we do hire a few, we won't pay them very well because they spend too much time in their ivory towers/parents' basement/the dark so their experience isn't relevant to "business"(TM).
I know it's overstating things, but the perception is definitely there. Traditional engineering (no-IT) roles have been going this way for some time.
From my experience, outside of the US (and Canada too I think), very few other places in the world use the "Mr Blah, PhD" notation. Everywhere else in the world the general convention is just to use Dr Blah, which is assumed to mean they've got a PhD (or MD). The only people I know who use the US convention are those who have regular dealings with US (companies, universities, academics).
Well, if you're missing the point, let me join you. I don't see any relevance for blogs at all. I've never even seen or read a blog I found interesting enough to stay on for more than 30 seconds and the only thing they seem to be good for is completely saturating the useful pages out of any internet search. Yeh, I know it's an exaggeration, but I just don't see the point of a blog.
It seems to be a repeat of the trend from about 5-7 years ago when websites became accessible to people without some html knowledge (yahoo, geocities, etc) and suddenly everyone who was anyone had a website of their travels, recipes, baby photos etc.
Re:What's a good alternative for people stuck with
on
Winamp Down for the Count
·
· Score: 4, Informative
I've tried lots, but none have been as satisfying as winamp. I wouldn't pretend to be an audiophile, but from a purely user perspective the best (windows) alternatives I found were
iTunes - great, I love the library/sorting features. It just works and works well. Uses a lot of memory though and not the most responsive app in the world. Ogg support through an experimental quiktime codec extension (I think).
Foobar2000 seemed very powerful and very customiseable, but I didn't really have the time to invest to get it set up like I wanted. The interface style sheets were very powerful, but it lacked volume control at the time - which was just a pain. Seemed to support every codec I've ever heard of (and lots I haven't).
everything else seemed to be a wmp/realplayer/jukebox ripoff.
... the cheaters (that I see, at least) seem to be as bad at cheating as they are at doing the work.
What always amused me was that when you stop and think about the lengths most cheaters go to it would have taken far less time to just do the assignment on their own in the first place. And they would have gotten a better mark too!
Australian mateship will never die. Don't ask me to define what it is - "friends" or even "best friends" just doesn't even really come close - but I can tell you it's still well and truly alive and as long as there is an ANZAC spirit or equivalent it always will be. Sorry, small attack of extreme patriotism there, it won't happen again your honour, honest:)
I'm gonna completely disagree with you there - the keyboard shortcuts are there (OK, not easy to find sometimes), and you can fully customise them too.
Here's a couple of very useful links (first and third highly recommended): http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/S hortcuts.htm http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/Co mmandsList.htm http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/UsingOLView .h tm
I rarely use the mouse at all, though it's quite difficult to break the habit and I imagine for the average Mum/Dad home user it's more of a pain to learn all the keyboard commands. BUT - and this is the caveat - word wants to be used in a certain way and wants you to work with it. If you work the way word wants you to it's fantastic, but work another way and it will struggle with you all the way. Word wants you to spend time setting up the whole document and laying it out, then just enter all the text and finally edit it.
I think this is one of the problems for power users of other word processors - you're continually fighting with word because you're used to doing things a certain way (a good eg is the wordperfect "reveal codes" - use word "properly" and you don't need it, but try and use word like wordperfect and it will make your life a misery).
The irony of this entire concept being that if the online coverage is anything like the BBC1/2 TV coverage, you will see nothing but totally biased coverage of british athletes. This isn't a bad thing, I know coverage in Oz, USA, etc media is just as bad, but why anyone else would want to watch it I don't know.
Of course, if you can actually choose what to watch (yes, I haven't RTA'd), then this a great thing.
Re:News for Nerds. Stuff that matters.
on
Latest SP2 News
·
· Score: 1
Possibly the most insightful, informative and interesting post I've seen on slashdot for the last few weeks - I just wish I had mod points. Couldn't agree more with everything you've said.
Just in sports in general - facilities, training, coaching. And in identifying and nurturing young athletes. many countries are great at grass-roots level and professional level, but the in between steps are not so good - promoting and encouraging promising youngsters to become professional athletes.
The weather helps too - more incentive to be outdoors. and there's also the fact that sportsmen(women) are held in high regard in society, so being seen as a professional athlete/sportman(woman) is considered a career, not a hobby.
"[...] To be quite honest, I went on Hawking's reputation."
I doubt there are few if any other scientists who could so influence his peers.
Playing devil's advocate, is it a good thing? Shouldn't all work be taken on merit and nnot hearsay? Admittedly this is a lightly different situation since Stephen Hawking undoubtedly does actually know what he is talking about in this field, but I can't help feeling that it undermines some of the fundamental scientific principles?
Actually, reading after his biography (sorry can't remember which one) I got the feeling he was not really a very nice person at all. He came across as extremely arrogant and intolerant. True, he's been through and overcome a lot, but the way he treated people around him was not very nice at all.
Apple's free apps are some of the best programs I've used in terms of doing what they're supposed to and nothing more.
Couldn't agree more - iTunes is a brilliant example. Does exactly what it is supposed to do. All of the major functions are a single click away. Want to copy songs to your computer from your own CDs? Click the "import" button and it just works. If you want to change the encoding type and bitrate etc, go to the preferences and you can, but for Mum & Dad and Joe Average they're not interested in these things. The library is a breeze to browse and sort, and very very intuitive. Sure, it's not as powerful as foobar2000 (say), but for the average non-tech user (and they outnumber the tech user by a very big number) it's just not accessible.
Everything else is wherever the designer thought they'd look nice
There's an unbelievable amount of work that goes into car interface design (ergonomics). Sometimes it doesn't work, but it's definitely not a case of "wherever the designer thought they'd look nice".
What with the spate of professionally PR-generated FUD coming out of Redmond about Linux not being open source, or Windows having a lower TCO, and - believe it or not - even a claim that Windows is more reliable,...
Is there any reason at all to include this statement in the headline of this submission? Does it seriously achieve anything other than reflect negatively on (particularly) the poster and, unfortunately (once again), the entire linux/os community? This submission is interesting in it's own right, it doesn't need to be put up in the fight against the Great Big Evil (TM).
In fact, for all you moderators, it perfectly illustrates the difference between (+1, interesting) and (-1, troll).
Yeh, "The Office" was very good, in a very cringe-worthy way. It's horrible to watch a second time around, but you just can't stop yourself. I have heard that it is being changed for showing in the US, which I'm pretty convinced will completely ruin it.
"Peter Kay's Phoenix Nights" is very very funny (better than the office IMO). Not sure how the premise will translate outside the UK though and I'm not sure if there will be another series.
"Little Britain" is also quite good. Not sure it would translate though.
"Black Books" is good from what little I've seen - it gets an awful lot of good press, but I just haven't seen that much of it.
Slashdot Mirror
We all know you can find a lot of information on the net if you really search for it.
Actually I'd question this. True, you and I and the slashdot crowd know this, but joe public, my parents and the very, very vast majority of people who use the internet - the same people who think the internet is a big blue e - simply are not aware how much private information is available if you look for it. And, even more worryingly, it doesn't take an expert to find it, just someone who is a little clued up.
The average internet user thinks nothing of emailing credit card information, filling in random web forms with their internet banking information, putting their actual email address in every single form. They don't check for a secure connection when giving out all their payment details, they don't read security certificates etc, etc, etc. Highlighting that this information is available so easily may actually be a good thing.
It sounds like this might be a university environment. The correct answer should be grad students .
The original poster is doing IT admin/support for academics, so they're probably one themselves!
Google is located in California, which does not allow non-compete agreements. I'm no lawyer, but I've read this in about half a dozen different places that discussed the current case.
Just a wild guess, but what are the chances that google employees working outside california signed non-compete agreements? Cynical maybe, but this is business.
It's worth noting that doing clinical research is very difficult, and that the error bars will always be quite large. It's also important to keep in mind that sometimes clinical research may be unduly influenced by financial pressures... and that clinical research undergoes very heavy scrutiny.
Having read the full article, you make some excellent points. I think one of the contributing factors is that often the first research appearing on a particular product/device/treatment is usually not really properly independent, and sometimes the real funding sources can be obscured. By it's very nature, the company bringing a product to market first will usually publish the first clinical trials/results. You often find the later research is more independent, especially in a financial funding sense, and also can include longer term follow up data.
RuneQuest's 2nd and 3rd edition rules were brilliant in their simplicity. Mechanics were skill-based, combat had a realistic feel but proceeded rapidly, and the system was so flexible and easy to use that GMs could adapt on the fly.
The RQ rules were great, and pretty realistic. In fact, so realistic that combat mostly ended in whoever was hit first being stone cold dead. Very realistic, but not much for adding gameplay - it kind of limits fantasy setting stories somewhat when the players actively try to avoid combat all of the time because they quickly realise how deadly it is, even for experienced characters.
2. Advanced dnd, in which it seemed like the goal was to cram as many rules into a system as possible.
Heh, you obviously never played rolemaster!
I'm not in London (in Leeds), but have just heard back from friends/family who are. Everyone is pretty shaken in London, but surprisingly, under the circumstances, calm and controlled. Yes, london is gridlocked, but from what I'm told the emergency forces seem to be in control.
There is no punishment sufficient for the bastards (I refuse to call them people) that did this. My thoughts are with everyone in london.
I've started to think for a while now that maybe George's huge mistake was that he chose to make Ep1-3, rather than Episodes 7-9. I mean, we all know how it's going to end, and we all know the points the plot HAS to pass through, we all know who HAS to survive, etc, etc. There's no real freedom in there, except to fill in the minor details which don't advance the overall plot. The only "wow" factor he has up his sleeve is "wow the CG looks good".
If he had made 7-9 instead, the story could go and end where he wanted, where the movie took it, where a logically paced movie naturally ended.
It's also a space western, which is a pretty tough theme to like, ... The old-west themes of cattle rustling and smuggling just add to the charm and the outlaw atmosphere.
I picked up the season 1 DVD recently based on recommendations (plus it was on special and I had enjoyed Buffy & Angel!). I really really liked it, the characters, humour, SFX, plots are great. But it took a few shows to get into and I have to admit that my very first impressions were that it was not as good as everyone said. The only off-putting factor for me was that whole wild-west-meets-space theme, and I just never got completely used to it and I can't say why, but I suspect it will put joe public off much more ("cowboys in space - how stupid!". Too much wild west and not enough space for my liking, but then I can see that if it was toned down there would be comparisons made to Star Wars (Mos Eisley) so it's a bit of a catch-22.
"WHY THE HELL ARE YOU GOING INTO SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, WE DON'T HIRE THOSE KIND OF PEOPLE HERE!!!!"
And even if we do hire a few, we won't pay them very well because they spend too much time in their ivory towers/parents' basement/the dark so their experience isn't relevant to "business"(TM).
I know it's overstating things, but the perception is definitely there. Traditional engineering (no-IT) roles have been going this way for some time.
From my experience, outside of the US (and Canada too I think), very few other places in the world use the "Mr Blah, PhD" notation. Everywhere else in the world the general convention is just to use Dr Blah, which is assumed to mean they've got a PhD (or MD). The only people I know who use the US convention are those who have regular dealings with US (companies, universities, academics).
Well, if you're missing the point, let me join you. I don't see any relevance for blogs at all. I've never even seen or read a blog I found interesting enough to stay on for more than 30 seconds and the only thing they seem to be good for is completely saturating the useful pages out of any internet search. Yeh, I know it's an exaggeration, but I just don't see the point of a blog.
It seems to be a repeat of the trend from about 5-7 years ago when websites became accessible to people without some html knowledge (yahoo, geocities, etc) and suddenly everyone who was anyone had a website of their travels, recipes, baby photos etc.
I've tried lots, but none have been as satisfying as winamp. I wouldn't pretend to be an audiophile, but from a purely user perspective the best (windows) alternatives I found were
iTunes - great, I love the library/sorting features. It just works and works well. Uses a lot of memory though and not the most responsive app in the world. Ogg support through an experimental quiktime codec extension (I think).
Foobar2000 seemed very powerful and very customiseable, but I didn't really have the time to invest to get it set up like I wanted. The interface style sheets were very powerful, but it lacked volume control at the time - which was just a pain. Seemed to support every codec I've ever heard of (and lots I haven't).
everything else seemed to be a wmp/realplayer/jukebox ripoff.
What always amused me was that when you stop and think about the lengths most cheaters go to it would have taken far less time to just do the assignment on their own in the first place. And they would have gotten a better mark too!
Australian mateship is dead
:)
Australian mateship will never die. Don't ask me to define what it is - "friends" or even "best friends" just doesn't even really come close - but I can tell you it's still well and truly alive and as long as there is an ANZAC spirit or equivalent it always will be. Sorry, small attack of extreme patriotism there, it won't happen again your honour, honest
heavily depends on use of mice
S hortcuts.htmo mmandsList.htm w .h tm
I'm gonna completely disagree with you there - the keyboard shortcuts are there (OK, not easy to find sometimes), and you can fully customise them too.
Here's a couple of very useful links (first and third highly recommended):
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/C
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/UsingOLVie
I rarely use the mouse at all, though it's quite difficult to break the habit and I imagine for the average Mum/Dad home user it's more of a pain to learn all the keyboard commands. BUT - and this is the caveat - word wants to be used in a certain way and wants you to work with it. If you work the way word wants you to it's fantastic, but work another way and it will struggle with you all the way. Word wants you to spend time setting up the whole document and laying it out, then just enter all the text and finally edit it.
I think this is one of the problems for power users of other word processors - you're continually fighting with word because you're used to doing things a certain way (a good eg is the wordperfect "reveal codes" - use word "properly" and you don't need it, but try and use word like wordperfect and it will make your life a misery).
The irony of this entire concept being that if the online coverage is anything like the BBC1/2 TV coverage, you will see nothing but totally biased coverage of british athletes. This isn't a bad thing, I know coverage in Oz, USA, etc media is just as bad, but why anyone else would want to watch it I don't know.
Of course, if you can actually choose what to watch (yes, I haven't RTA'd), then this a great thing.
Possibly the most insightful, informative and interesting post I've seen on slashdot for the last few weeks - I just wish I had mod points. Couldn't agree more with everything you've said.
[Australia] only about 30million compared
actually just under 19million in the 2001 census
invest allot in sports psychology
Just in sports in general - facilities, training, coaching. And in identifying and nurturing young athletes. many countries are great at grass-roots level and professional level, but the in between steps are not so good - promoting and encouraging promising youngsters to become professional athletes.
The weather helps too - more incentive to be outdoors. and there's also the fact that sportsmen(women) are held in high regard in society, so being seen as a professional athlete/sportman(woman) is considered a career, not a hobby.
"[...] To be quite honest, I went on Hawking's reputation."
I doubt there are few if any other scientists who could so influence his peers.
Playing devil's advocate, is it a good thing? Shouldn't all work be taken on merit and nnot hearsay? Admittedly this is a lightly different situation since Stephen Hawking undoubtedly does actually know what he is talking about in this field, but I can't help feeling that it undermines some of the fundamental scientific principles?
It shows the character of the man
Actually, reading after his biography (sorry can't remember which one) I got the feeling he was not really a very nice person at all. He came across as extremely arrogant and intolerant. True, he's been through and overcome a lot, but the way he treated people around him was not very nice at all.
Apple's free apps are some of the best programs I've used in terms of doing what they're supposed to and nothing more.
Couldn't agree more - iTunes is a brilliant example. Does exactly what it is supposed to do. All of the major functions are a single click away. Want to copy songs to your computer from your own CDs? Click the "import" button and it just works. If you want to change the encoding type and bitrate etc, go to the preferences and you can, but for Mum & Dad and Joe Average they're not interested in these things. The library is a breeze to browse and sort, and very very intuitive. Sure, it's not as powerful as foobar2000 (say), but for the average non-tech user (and they outnumber the tech user by a very big number) it's just not accessible.
Everything else is wherever the designer thought they'd look nice
There's an unbelievable amount of work that goes into car interface design (ergonomics). Sometimes it doesn't work, but it's definitely not a case of "wherever the designer thought they'd look nice".
...you can take solice that we'll never run out of inventive ways to kill each other
or reasons, sadly.
What with the spate of professionally PR-generated FUD coming out of Redmond about Linux not being open source, or Windows having a lower TCO, and - believe it or not - even a claim that Windows is more reliable,...
Is there any reason at all to include this statement in the headline of this submission? Does it seriously achieve anything other than reflect negatively on (particularly) the poster and, unfortunately (once again), the entire linux/os community? This submission is interesting in it's own right, it doesn't need to be put up in the fight against the Great Big Evil (TM).
In fact, for all you moderators, it perfectly illustrates the difference between (+1, interesting) and (-1, troll).
Yeh, "The Office" was very good, in a very cringe-worthy way. It's horrible to watch a second time around, but you just can't stop yourself. I have heard that it is being changed for showing in the US, which I'm pretty convinced will completely ruin it.
"Peter Kay's Phoenix Nights" is very very funny (better than the office IMO). Not sure how the premise will translate outside the UK though and I'm not sure if there will be another series.
"Little Britain" is also quite good. Not sure it would translate though.
"Black Books" is good from what little I've seen - it gets an awful lot of good press, but I just haven't seen that much of it.