problems that crop up at disadvantageous times tend to absolutely require human intervention despite all our feeble attempts to automate everything
I have a problem with this idea of "absolutely". What if the sysadmin's at his mother's funeral? What if he's in another country? What if he's in a coma? (Add a further thousand what-ifs) There are emergencies and there are emergencies.
There is no such thing as a 24x365-on-call human being. If your business can't get by without relying on a single individual's availability at any time, you'd better find some more people to put on call or find another business.
On a related question about Jewish teachings and technology, I can't seem to get my Golem to work. I've mixed the four elements in the proper proportions and recited all the usual kabbalistic incantations, but the damn thing just won't come to life and smite my enemies.
You've got the latest Shem and incantations, right? You can download patches by writing the correct command line and putting it under your pillow while you sleep. This is important, as some Eastern European developers have reported various crashes due to command conflicts. You have to be really careful here. (There have also been some embarrassing incidents involving denial-of-service attacks with commands from untrusted users - this has been known to cause flooding)
So, what's the proper way to compile a Golem?
The HOWTO is way too long to list here, but I'll give you this tip: Make sure your Perl is up to date.
Collective responsibility, friend. You know, "All that it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing", breaking a single twig vs breaking a bundle of twigs, and all that crap.
Yes, it's a cliche, but it's actually true, and trying to run away from it by saying that a small effect is the same as no effect is just shirking. If you take a stand, people see and take notice. Often, they take stands too. People fundamentally want to believe that they are good, and if you give them enough evidence that what they're doing conflicts with that, who knows, you may even make them think. No, of course it doesn't always work, but I've seen it work with my own eyes enough time to believe it.
As someone smart once said: "Don't believe that a small group of dedicated citizens can't change the world, because they're the only ones who ever have."
Like that bloke who couldn't find a decent free UNIX to run on his 386, so tried writing his own. Never thought it'd be anything big, though. What was his name again?
You're absolutely right, of course. No employer would want an employee with some kind of moral backbone, someone who doesn't know his place as a bunch of skillsets in a body rather than an actual human being, someone who would let something as piddly stupid as "ethics" get in the way of The Righteous Corporate Dream.
(Unless it was an employer who had a remotely human bone in their body, of course.)
As an employee with the right to say no, you have the choice whether you want to be a cog in a larger machine or not. If you don't like what that machine is doing, whether it's selling landmines to India or turning the Internet into a draconian nightmare, you can choose not to play a part. Yes, some potential employers would have a problem with that, but many others (of a kind which I've met and worked for several times in the past) would applaud you.
And, for god's sake, are you seriously suggesting that Alan Cox is not going to be able to get a job because he refused to work for AOL?
But I love whining so much! And I haven't achieved anything actually productive today, but I did boost my karma. So I feel plenty good about myself now. (Better than you feel about yourself, anyway, Mr Anonymous Coward.)
Ha! Oh, I certainly told you there. Now to pick up some chicks.
The original poster was saying that the RIAA (and by extension, the whole music industry, because somehow, in this crowd, RIAA = whole music industry = The Man) only assigns value to music based on its monetary worth. This may be true to a degree with the major labels, certainly, but it's far less true of the thousands and thousands of smaller ones who only produce music that they love but still depend on sales to survive.
There are a whole load of points in this Slashdot discussion being continually raised that I think are just complete bollocks, and offensive bollocks at that. The idea that all commercial music is Britney and N'Sync is clearly stupid and wrong, and said by people who conveniently leave out the hundreds of commercially-produced CDs that they have bought and liked. The idea that all commercial music is made by money-grabbing major labels is also stupid and wrong, and insults those who set up indie labels to promote the music they love.
Furthermore, (and this is the one most people have trouble with) the idea that the music of Britney Spears or Boyzone or any other pop sensation is worthless in terms of quality is also clearly wrong, because people are buying it and they wouldn't buy it if they didn't like it, and who are you to say your taste is better than theirs? Sure, the music may be derivative, the buyers might be lacking the musical education that makes your taste so much better than theirs, but that's what others would say about your taste too. Ultimately it's all subjective, but if Britney's music makes people happy then it's worth something, end of story.
Baking mud pies costs money. That does not mean they are worth anything.
Depends entirely on their demand and supply, doesn't it?
You haven't watched MTV in the last few years, have you?
There's a small amount of music on MTV that I like. There's probably a small amount that you like too, however unwilling you are to admit it.
Is my favourite music played on MTV? No. Did it cost me money to buy the CDs? Yes. Were these CDs produced commercially? Yes. Is there more to commercial music than MTV? Yes.
That they're not valuable? Apparently it's just because you don't like them.
Okay, let's have a couple of very basic lessons which most of the "Of COURSE I should be given it for free, DUH!" bozos around here seem to need.
1: Does recording a new Britney Spears (or another artist you may actually like) album cost money? You betcha. Recording time, session musicians, studio staff, blah blah blah, not to mention all the promotion for the album, design costs, etc. It all adds up to thousands or even hundreds of thousands in many cases.
2: Is a new Britney Spears album in demand? Maybe not for you, but several million teenagers think you're wrong, and who are you to say you've got better taste than them? First lesson of economics: demand = value. Amazing how many people forget this.
3: The way you talk, you'd think that all commercial music was Britney and Spice Girls. Oh, right, I'm sorry, I forgot that there are no commercially-produced CDs in your collection. Well, if I'm wrong, surely those CDs have some value? Right? Or are you going to say that the tons of good work that gets produced by thousands of recording artists every year is worth nothing?
As much as I hate what the RIAA is doing, arguments like yours make me want to side with them. I care about music because it makes my life better. If music has no value to you, I don't know why you even care whether you can download it for free or not.
No, because rather than resorting that meaningless hand-waving, I'm calling upon those who read this to look to their reasonable experience of Internet usage at different access speeds and realise why anyone who says that moving from 28.8 to 384 "isn't a big enough leap" is clearly talking arse. You have the evidence. That's my argument. Well, one of them, anyway.
I mean, really. Negroponte's always been so long on handwaving and short on actual technical pragmatism. And it's not like people have actually listened to a word the man said since "Being Digital".
Why is broadband good? "Different rhythm, different response time, different way of dealing with the web itself." Yeah, I bet that was your reasoning for getting DSL, too (if you happened to be stoned at the time). Except apparently you wouldn't want DSL because the order-of-magnitude speed increase over a modem "isn't giving the consumer enough difference". Apparently being able to stream live video to a handset isn't worth anything.
Well, thanks a lot, Nicholas. You can go back in your box for another five years.
Er, yeah, that all sounds very well, until you get screwed by the Baby Bells in exactly the same way that the others were. As this mess has proved, there's very little you can do about it.
It's really nice. TONS of docs about the way the system works. An SDK to download. Some example code. Still some holes (no tutorial up yet) but I'm sure they'll get filled if this thing takes off. The only major omission is the hardware spec.
... at least, not to compete with X-Box/PS2/Gamecube/whatever. That market's way too crowded already and Nokia aren't nearly stupid enough to go for it. Maybe far off in the future, if this thing gets enough dev work on it, but certainly not now.
The games they're thinking of are the sorts of things you see on websites or interactive TV - silly but fun Shockwave games, Minesweeper, that kind of thing. It's icing on the cake rather than a major feature drive.
Firstly, Indrema was a perfect example of shotgun marketing, absolutely terrible. It's an MP3 player! And a games console! And a chocolate! And a surprise! And a toy! There was no way that thing was going to fly, however good.
Nokia actually know how to build and market consumer products. They have ins with all the major retailers, especially in Europe. Half of the mobile phones over here are Nokias.
Secondly, don't confuse this thing with a games console. Game apps are going to be much more like Shockwave games than Quake 3 - they're aiming at little bits of fun in between TV shows rather than PS2 competition.
You don't have to have a non-linear storyline in a game to be both interactive and engrossing.
You don't need a full-motion video intro to a game to be impressive.
Really effective AI code isn't about how clever it is - it's about how clever it looks. The soldiers in Half-Life are individually stupid, but the fact that they work as a team is already way better than most games.
There are points in Half-Life where the designers came up with a completely fantastic idea. They used it once to full effect, and then never again. Rather than making you utterly bored of it, that one point really sticks in your memory. There's also amazing subtlety in the soundtrack.
Oh, and the point about mods and Counterstrike and stuff.
VR Experiences: Char Davies's Osmose. Probably the most affecting thing you can don a head-mounted display for. If you ever get the chance to try it...
Slashdot Mirror
problems that crop up at disadvantageous times tend to absolutely require human intervention despite all our feeble attempts to automate everything
I have a problem with this idea of "absolutely". What if the sysadmin's at his mother's funeral? What if he's in another country? What if he's in a coma? (Add a further thousand what-ifs) There are emergencies and there are emergencies.
There is no such thing as a 24x365-on-call human being. If your business can't get by without relying on a single individual's availability at any time, you'd better find some more people to put on call or find another business.
fuck i've been a reform jew for 24 years and i never heard that be used (of course, i never had a bar mitzvah either)...
That's incredible. Thanks for reinforcing all the Orthodox stereotypes of Reform Jews.
On a related question about Jewish teachings and technology, I can't seem to get my Golem to work. I've mixed the four elements in the proper proportions and recited all the usual kabbalistic incantations, but the damn thing just won't come to life and smite my enemies.
You've got the latest Shem and incantations, right? You can download patches by writing the correct command line and putting it under your pillow while you sleep. This is important, as some Eastern European developers have reported various crashes due to command conflicts. You have to be really careful here.
(There have also been some embarrassing incidents involving denial-of-service attacks with commands from untrusted users - this has been known to cause flooding)
So, what's the proper way to compile a Golem?
The HOWTO is way too long to list here, but I'll give you this tip: Make sure your Perl is up to date.
-- Yoz
With full 3D conventions here now, can a holodeck really be that far off?
Yes.
Next question?
The video to The White Stripes' "Fell In Love With A Girl" is done entirely as animated Lego - it's fantastic.
See it here.
Collective responsibility, friend. You know, "All that it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing", breaking a single twig vs breaking a bundle of twigs, and all that crap.
Yes, it's a cliche, but it's actually true, and trying to run away from it by saying that a small effect is the same as no effect is just shirking. If you take a stand, people see and take notice. Often, they take stands too. People fundamentally want to believe that they are good, and if you give them enough evidence that what they're doing conflicts with that, who knows, you may even make them think. No, of course it doesn't always work, but I've seen it work with my own eyes enough time to believe it.
As someone smart once said: "Don't believe that a small group of dedicated citizens can't change the world, because they're the only ones who ever have."
Like that bloke who couldn't find a decent free UNIX to run on his 386, so tried writing his own. Never thought it'd be anything big, though. What was his name again?
You're absolutely right, of course. No employer would want an employee with some kind of moral backbone, someone who doesn't know his place as a bunch of skillsets in a body rather than an actual human being, someone who would let something as piddly stupid as "ethics" get in the way of The Righteous Corporate Dream.
(Unless it was an employer who had a remotely human bone in their body, of course.)
As an employee with the right to say no, you have the choice whether you want to be a cog in a larger machine or not. If you don't like what that machine is doing, whether it's selling landmines to India or turning the Internet into a draconian nightmare, you can choose not to play a part. Yes, some potential employers would have a problem with that, but many others (of a kind which I've met and worked for several times in the past) would applaud you.
And, for god's sake, are you seriously suggesting that Alan Cox is not going to be able to get a job because he refused to work for AOL?
-- Yoz
In addition, I hope goes without saying that this site is a (very silly) parody.
(Although some of the Media Lab's real projects are frequently just as bonkers)
-- Yoz
Slashdotted... so web.archive.org to the rescue!
e cg.media.mit.edu/
http://web.archive.org/web/20011201213554/http://
-- Yoz
But I love whining so much! And I haven't achieved anything actually productive today, but I did boost my karma. So I feel plenty good about myself now. (Better than you feel about yourself, anyway, Mr Anonymous Coward.)
Ha! Oh, I certainly told you there. Now to pick up some chicks.
Artists get most of their money from concerts. Albums are basically just advertising.
IANAM, but from what I've heard it's the other way around, though it depends very much on the band in question.
The original poster was saying that the RIAA (and by extension, the whole music industry, because somehow, in this crowd, RIAA = whole music industry = The Man) only assigns value to music based on its monetary worth. This may be true to a degree with the major labels, certainly, but it's far less true of the thousands and thousands of smaller ones who only produce music that they love but still depend on sales to survive.
There are a whole load of points in this Slashdot discussion being continually raised that I think are just complete bollocks, and offensive bollocks at that. The idea that all commercial music is Britney and N'Sync is clearly stupid and wrong, and said by people who conveniently leave out the hundreds of commercially-produced CDs that they have bought and liked. The idea that all commercial music is made by money-grabbing major labels is also stupid and wrong, and insults those who set up indie labels to promote the music they love.
Furthermore, (and this is the one most people have trouble with) the idea that the music of Britney Spears or Boyzone or any other pop sensation is worthless in terms of quality is also clearly wrong, because people are buying it and they wouldn't buy it if they didn't like it, and who are you to say your taste is better than theirs? Sure, the music may be derivative, the buyers might be lacking the musical education that makes your taste so much better than theirs, but that's what others would say about your taste too. Ultimately it's all subjective, but if Britney's music makes people happy then it's worth something, end of story.
Baking mud pies costs money. That does not mean they are worth anything.
Depends entirely on their demand and supply, doesn't it?
You haven't watched MTV in the last few years, have you?
There's a small amount of music on MTV that I like. There's probably a small amount that you like too, however unwilling you are to admit it.
Is my favourite music played on MTV? No. Did it cost me money to buy the CDs? Yes. Were these CDs produced commercially? Yes. Is there more to commercial music than MTV? Yes.
Do you own any music CDs? Do you like them?
Are they good music?
Yes?
So what are you talking about?
Okay, you've only bought one CD. How many MP3s have you downloaded?
That they're not valuable? Apparently it's just because you don't like them.
Okay, let's have a couple of very basic lessons which most of the "Of COURSE I should be given it for free, DUH!" bozos around here seem to need.
1: Does recording a new Britney Spears (or another artist you may actually like) album cost money? You betcha. Recording time, session musicians, studio staff, blah blah blah, not to mention all the promotion for the album, design costs, etc. It all adds up to thousands or even hundreds of thousands in many cases.
2: Is a new Britney Spears album in demand? Maybe not for you, but several million teenagers think you're wrong, and who are you to say you've got better taste than them? First lesson of economics: demand = value. Amazing how many people forget this.
3: The way you talk, you'd think that all commercial music was Britney and Spice Girls. Oh, right, I'm sorry, I forgot that there are no commercially-produced CDs in your collection. Well, if I'm wrong, surely those CDs have some value? Right? Or are you going to say that the tons of good work that gets produced by thousands of recording artists every year is worth nothing?
As much as I hate what the RIAA is doing, arguments like yours make me want to side with them. I care about music because it makes my life better. If music has no value to you, I don't know why you even care whether you can download it for free or not.
-- Yoz
No, because rather than resorting that meaningless hand-waving, I'm calling upon those who read this to look to their reasonable experience of Internet usage at different access speeds and realise why anyone who says that moving from 28.8 to 384 "isn't a big enough leap" is clearly talking arse. You have the evidence. That's my argument. Well, one of them, anyway.
-- Yoz
I mean, really. Negroponte's always been so long on handwaving and short on actual technical pragmatism. And it's not like people have actually listened to a word the man said since "Being Digital".
Why is broadband good? "Different rhythm, different response time, different way of dealing with the web itself." Yeah, I bet that was your reasoning for getting DSL, too (if you happened to be stoned at the time). Except apparently you wouldn't want DSL because the order-of-magnitude speed increase over a modem "isn't giving the consumer enough difference". Apparently being able to stream live video to a handset isn't worth anything.
Well, thanks a lot, Nicholas. You can go back in your box for another five years.
-- Yoz
Er, yeah, that all sounds very well, until you get screwed by the Baby Bells in exactly the same way that the others were. As this mess has proved, there's very little you can do about it.
Is here: www.ostdev.net
It's really nice. TONS of docs about the way the system works. An SDK to download. Some example code. Still some holes (no tutorial up yet) but I'm sure they'll get filled if this thing takes off. The only major omission is the hardware spec.
-- Yoz
... at least, not to compete with X-Box/PS2/Gamecube/whatever. That market's way too crowded already and Nokia aren't nearly stupid enough to go for it. Maybe far off in the future, if this thing gets enough dev work on it, but certainly not now.
The games they're thinking of are the sorts of things you see on websites or interactive TV - silly but fun Shockwave games, Minesweeper, that kind of thing. It's icing on the cake rather than a major feature drive.
-- Yoz
Firstly, Indrema was a perfect example of shotgun marketing, absolutely terrible. It's an MP3 player! And a games console! And a chocolate! And a surprise! And a toy! There was no way that thing was going to fly, however good.
Nokia actually know how to build and market consumer products. They have ins with all the major retailers, especially in Europe. Half of the mobile phones over here are Nokias.
Secondly, don't confuse this thing with a games console. Game apps are going to be much more like Shockwave games than Quake 3 - they're aiming at little bits of fun in between TV shows rather than PS2 competition.
-- Yoz
Lessons taught:
Other games: Deus Ex Machina, Starship Titanic (disclaimer: I worked for the company that made it), Shenmue.
Sites: Metababy, Unweb, Heavy, Placing, DIRK, Requiem For A Dream
VR Experiences: Char Davies's Osmose. Probably the most affecting thing you can don a head-mounted display for. If you ever get the chance to try it...
-- Yoz
After much hunting (with the same export aims in mind) I finally tripped over this:
:)
http://upsong.hypermart.net/format/icq.txt
ICQ2XML is just the kind of thing I'd love too, but I don't fancy coding it on my own.
Er, yeah, but a big sign on the front page would have sufficed... taking the entire site offline's a bit extreme.