When we say "story" in a newspaper context, we suggest a news report. This is an editorial, which is an entirely different section of the newspaper and has an entirely different purpose.
I'm not suggesting any unnecessary bias and haven't even RTFA yet... it's just that we shouldn't confuse news with commentary. There's a world of difference.
I'm actually surprised this isn't categorized as "Your Rights Online" -- seems like any time the awful federal government does anything to keep us from downloading anything we want any way we want, on behalf of the awful "rich," it's a constitutional rights violation, according to slashdot.
Nice to see something properly categorized.
In other news, "Operation Site Down"? They call THAT a code-name? Back in my day we had way better code-names. Like Desert Shield, which became Desert Storm once the bombs started falling. That wasn't bad. Then when we started fighting back after September 11th I knew there was only one code name for the job: "Operation Scorned Eagle" -- but they wimped out and called it "Enduring Freedom". Then the thing in Iraq took a page from the same playbook -- "Iraqi Freedom".
Man, they just took all the fun out of code names. I think they should have called this one "Lounging Caterpillar" or something. Not because it's descriptive (aren't they supposed to NOT be descriptive, since they're "code" names?), but because it's fun to come up with the names.
Please, can we stop e-xperimenting with our kids? I'm an enormous advocate of technology where appropriate, but it is not appropriate in the base education of our children. We do not need to give our children iPods or laptops for "educational" purposes and we do not need to do away with paper, pencils, hole punches, crayons, rubber bands, rubber stamps, finger paint, rollerball pens, Trapper Keepers or any other school supplies (well ok, rubber stamps can go and that's not really a school supply anyway).
Kids will eventually need computer skills to varying degrees as their studies become more specialized and they enter the workforce. But right now, even in high school, they still need to practice reading and writing the old fashioned way (some of them still need to learn it). And yes, they need to know how to use books. How to use a Table of Contents, an index, how to scan text with their eyes to find a passage without an electronic full-text index -- to appreciate the feeling of curling up with a book anywhere they want to read. A BOOK -- not a computer screen.
Ask some veterans from the World Wars or Vietnam whether it was a good opportunity.
Yes, most veterans see their military service as the good opportunity that it was.
Ask the relatives of those who were killed whether it was good for their careers.
I did mention the down side of being in the military. Unfortunately, it is the military who fights our wars, and that is clear to the volunteer serviceman when they sign on the dotted line, as it was clear to me when I signed.
And what happens to your career when the military decide they don't need you anymore and kick you to the curb because you missed your recruitment quota?
Recruitment quotas are imposed on recruiters. Recruiting is a special duty that you volunteer for after you have been in a regular military job for a period of years. Recruiters know going into recruitment that there will be quotas. Those quotas are usually pretty not very difficult. Lately that has not been the case.
Of course, it's only an opportunity for the poor people, in run-down areas with no prospects.
No, it was an opportunity for me also. I am middle class and had higher education opportunities at the time that I enlisted....being ordered to their deaths by officers from rich backgrounds with expensive unearned educations.
Goodness. Expensive unearned educations. Wow. Yes, when I served (by the way, did you?) I had a bit of resentment for the occasional idiot officer. But it would be unreasonable to say that college degress are, in general, unearned. That's ludicrous, actually.
Notice that it's posted in the "Your Rights Online" category, a category that I actually bitch about quite a bit, but which has its moments of propriety. And I think this is one.
A lot of the slashdot crowd gets overly-excited about things that they purport to be their rights but which are actually not rights at all, such an employer "violating" your freedom of speech, which is not possible, since that freedom to speak protects you only from your government, not including when that government is your employer.
This story, however, does qualify for the category, I think, because the Supreme Court decides a lot of issues that have impact on the IT world. And Sandra Day O'Connor is one of the more critical justices on the Court, because she is a moderate and, therefore, a swing voter. Her opinion is usually the opinon of the court. So replace her with a hardliner from either side and the balance of the court will definitely change to favor that side.
Yes, Galaga still rocks. Yes, you can get to a million points without cheating (I've done it) and, yes, there is a stage beyond which the game will not continue -- which is how you "beat" the game. And no, I don't remember what that stage is. But I reached it, I really did -- at a laundromat.
Yeah, but let's not forget that the US Military is a tremendous career opportunity for many people, as an alternative to trade school, minimum wage jobs, unemployment, etc. They take great care of you, the pay is good, and the benefits are extraordinary and last long after you leave the service. I got out almost 10 years ago (having served 5 years) and bought my first house on a VA government-guaranteed mortgage, and will probably buy my second house on another VA mortgage.
Is there a downside to all of these benefits? Well certainly. The purpose of the military, of course, is to fight wars. But if these kids study in school and can do well enough on the ASVAB test, they can get into the Air Force or the Navy, where their lives will be in much less immediate peril and where they can learn extremely useful technical skills.
As Americans, we're spoiled -- and it's easy to forget what actual poverty is like. In many countries, the poorest kids are the ones who cannot go to school because they can't afford it or because they must work to support their families. In America, most of the poor kids are excused from doing well in school because they're from disfunctional families, and that is called poverty. Do they have a TV? Of course. Telephone? Yes. Cable? Very often. Satellite? Big-screen? Designer clothes? You'd be surprised.
Ah, but do they have a part-time job and carry books home in hopes of maybe moving on to something better one day? Some do. But many don't. Military recruiters recognize the more limited future of these kids and that they have something to offer them. Military recruitment is usually a win/win proposition. Let's not forget how much service personnel GET from the US government. I'm one of them and I can attest to it.
This isn't really an answer to the question, but how many opportunities do you get to comment on your rugged mini-DV camera?
Back in January of 2000, I made an semi-impulse buy of a discontinued model from the JVC CyberCam line. My wife was in the hospital about to have our second child, and I ran out to the camera shop to buy a digital video camera. It was a pretty good camera and I liked the DV format and all that -- and it served us well for the birth and beyond.
Then one day I put it on top of our Explorer to help get the kids in the car, and you know what happened. I pulled out onto the road (a busy road) and accelerated up a hill, and I heard such a clatter, I looked in the rear-view to see what was the matter. Then what to my horrified eyes should appear but an accidental slip into holiday rhyme -- which just ended. Seriously dude, I saw my -- what was it? -- $800 -- video camera tumbling off the back of my car and into the road, with traffic coming to run it over. It was horrifying.
I stopped and got out (I think I actually pulled over) and I went running back with my hands in the air. "My baby! My baby! I lost a contact! There's a land mine in the road!" I don't remember what I said, but I sure did want them to stop. I went out into the road -- I guess they did stop, I don't really remember. I picked up the camera, absolutely positive that it was toast.
I got back in the car and started driving and, while driving, I turned it on and took it through it's paces. It was scratched and the preview screen was a little loose around the hinges, but it worked.
And it still works today. It's a champ, a real workhorse. The switch is now broken to the point that I have to use a pen or something else pointy to turn on the recording, but it takes good video and it's always been great with iMovie, with the firewire out and all that -- and it has RCA outs as well. It's a great little camera and we've gotten good use out of it.
The title of this story is a throwback to a regular skit on The Muppet Show called Pigs in Space, which was a takeoff on Star Trek. It took place on the USS Swinetrek and starred Miss Piggy and some other characters that I believe were only in that skit. The skit was announced on each show by an announcer who exaggerated the "Space" in the title in that way.
Interestingly, there is currently a USS Swinetreak playset available. How weird. Heck, maybe more people know about Pigs in Space than I thought. I wasn't aware that The Muppet Show was airing in syndication anywhere.
the issues so far have still had a heavy bias toward the whole casemod/ipod/gaming end
They're only on the second issue. I have the first one and the feature story was about making a camera rig to hang from a kite. And the second most detailed story, as I recall, was the camera stabilizer that was featured on slashdot many months ago.
My point is that neither of these are computer-centric at all. They're the kind of traditional DIY projects that geeks of all sorts can sink their teeth into. I think they also got into the backyard monorail thing and, yeah, there was some computer stuff bunched together in the back, mostly OS X in nature, which I found interesting.
Yeah, that's a good point. For example, Apple's GarageBand software stores it's data in an XML file, but the real interesting part is in a tag, hundreds of lines of encoded gibberish. So just having an XML file doesn't mean it's open. You have to be able to read the data in the XML.
Here we go again. When this story broke a few days ago, the news kept saying "triple-x rated". I think not. What, these machines are actually going to show passengers in sexually explicit behaviors? No, at WORST they're going to be standing there naked which, in the right context, can even get you on PBS during primetime -- this is completely nonsexual in nature.
It's NUDITY folks. Not artistic, not even medical. Is this necessary for airline travel? Well that's a different point than the one I'm arguing. Let's understand the ratings system before we start throwing it around as criticism.
I can't seem to figure out where I stand on issues, which I guess makes me a moderate. My first impression was that this was a really unfortunate anti-encryption story and that we, as a community really need to work on public perception of encryption. Because encryption is just a tool and just because somebody has duct tape doesn't mean they used it to bind a victim and that was where I came around to a different perspective...
Oh yeah, we do consider tools as evidence, even if those tools can be used for other-than-criminal activies. Duct tape, rope, a shovel, a knife, a gun (which is also a legal tool), a cell phone, a pair of binoculars -- heck, anything relevant can be used as evidence.
Now, had they said that encryption software was grounds for conviction in lieu of any actual evidence, using the theory that the reason you can't find any evidence is because the defendant encrypted it all -- THAT would be a tragedy for encryption. But as it stands, it sounds reasonable to me
Interesting story, yes... but once again, the "Your Rights Online" category helps slashdot to not just report interesting tech news, but to comment on it. This has nothing to do with my rights. If I find myself in prison, they can track me however the heck they want. You don't see a story about how there's no door in front of the toilet, do you? Privacy violation! What about screening prisoners' mail? Guess what -- it's prison.
They could have benefited from a DIY steadicam knockoff. But the staging of this video was impressive, considering the relatively large cast and the timing of it all.
How silly is that. Make it a preference and default it to inactive. I think that's what Safari does. So the users who don't care about tabs or don't want them don't ever even have to know, and the users who have a clue do care will be able to browse with a bit of decency, even if they are using IE.
A choice would be great. You can either have a lossless file that you can't burn to CD or a lossy file that you can burn to an audio CD. Before I got my iPod, I needed to be able to burn tracks to an audio CD to take them with me. Now, with my iPod, I no longer have that need.
Of course, I do burn them to a data CD for backup purposes, but that CD can't be ripped -- so that's something different and that right should be protected.
The point is that DRM licenses can be customized quite a bit. It shouldn't be hard for that to be a preference in the store. Seems to me that lossless quality should be that kind of an option.
Completely unnecessary. Apple should definitely not go this way, and I'm sure they won't, because they clearly do not need anybody's permission to continue their demonstrated trend of using animals from the cat family to name major releases of OS X.
Slashdot Mirror
When we say "story" in a newspaper context, we suggest a news report. This is an editorial, which is an entirely different section of the newspaper and has an entirely different purpose.
I'm not suggesting any unnecessary bias and haven't even RTFA yet... it's just that we shouldn't confuse news with commentary. There's a world of difference.
RP
vi
I'm actually surprised this isn't categorized as "Your Rights Online" -- seems like any time the awful federal government does anything to keep us from downloading anything we want any way we want, on behalf of the awful "rich," it's a constitutional rights violation, according to slashdot.
Nice to see something properly categorized.
In other news, "Operation Site Down"? They call THAT a code-name? Back in my day we had way better code-names. Like Desert Shield, which became Desert Storm once the bombs started falling. That wasn't bad. Then when we started fighting back after September 11th I knew there was only one code name for the job: "Operation Scorned Eagle" -- but they wimped out and called it "Enduring Freedom". Then the thing in Iraq took a page from the same playbook -- "Iraqi Freedom".
Man, they just took all the fun out of code names. I think they should have called this one "Lounging Caterpillar" or something. Not because it's descriptive (aren't they supposed to NOT be descriptive, since they're "code" names?), but because it's fun to come up with the names.
RP
I believe it is lower than 100 -- some non-round number like 147 or 174 or something.
RP
Please, can we stop e-xperimenting with our kids? I'm an enormous advocate of technology where appropriate, but it is not appropriate in the base education of our children. We do not need to give our children iPods or laptops for "educational" purposes and we do not need to do away with paper, pencils, hole punches, crayons, rubber bands, rubber stamps, finger paint, rollerball pens, Trapper Keepers or any other school supplies (well ok, rubber stamps can go and that's not really a school supply anyway).
Kids will eventually need computer skills to varying degrees as their studies become more specialized and they enter the workforce. But right now, even in high school, they still need to practice reading and writing the old fashioned way (some of them still need to learn it). And yes, they need to know how to use books. How to use a Table of Contents, an index, how to scan text with their eyes to find a passage without an electronic full-text index -- to appreciate the feeling of curling up with a book anywhere they want to read. A BOOK -- not a computer screen.
Argh!
RP
Ask some veterans from the World Wars or Vietnam whether it was a good opportunity.
...being ordered to their deaths by officers from rich backgrounds with expensive unearned educations.
Yes, most veterans see their military service as the good opportunity that it was.
Ask the relatives of those who were killed whether it was good for their careers.
I did mention the down side of being in the military. Unfortunately, it is the military who fights our wars, and that is clear to the volunteer serviceman when they sign on the dotted line, as it was clear to me when I signed.
And what happens to your career when the military decide they don't need you anymore and kick you to the curb because you missed your recruitment quota?
Recruitment quotas are imposed on recruiters. Recruiting is a special duty that you volunteer for after you have been in a regular military job for a period of years. Recruiters know going into recruitment that there will be quotas. Those quotas are usually pretty not very difficult. Lately that has not been the case.
Of course, it's only an opportunity for the poor people, in run-down areas with no prospects.
No, it was an opportunity for me also. I am middle class and had higher education opportunities at the time that I enlisted.
Goodness. Expensive unearned educations. Wow. Yes, when I served (by the way, did you?) I had a bit of resentment for the occasional idiot officer. But it would be unreasonable to say that college degress are, in general, unearned. That's ludicrous, actually.
RP
Notice that it's posted in the "Your Rights Online" category, a category that I actually bitch about quite a bit, but which has its moments of propriety. And I think this is one.
A lot of the slashdot crowd gets overly-excited about things that they purport to be their rights but which are actually not rights at all, such an employer "violating" your freedom of speech, which is not possible, since that freedom to speak protects you only from your government, not including when that government is your employer.
This story, however, does qualify for the category, I think, because the Supreme Court decides a lot of issues that have impact on the IT world. And Sandra Day O'Connor is one of the more critical justices on the Court, because she is a moderate and, therefore, a swing voter. Her opinion is usually the opinon of the court. So replace her with a hardliner from either side and the balance of the court will definitely change to favor that side.
RP
Yes, Galaga still rocks. Yes, you can get to a million points without cheating (I've done it) and, yes, there is a stage beyond which the game will not continue -- which is how you "beat" the game. And no, I don't remember what that stage is. But I reached it, I really did -- at a laundromat.
RP
That's a funny story. Yeah, it would have been some neat video if you recorded it.
RP
Yeah, but let's not forget that the US Military is a tremendous career opportunity for many people, as an alternative to trade school, minimum wage jobs, unemployment, etc. They take great care of you, the pay is good, and the benefits are extraordinary and last long after you leave the service. I got out almost 10 years ago (having served 5 years) and bought my first house on a VA government-guaranteed mortgage, and will probably buy my second house on another VA mortgage.
Is there a downside to all of these benefits? Well certainly. The purpose of the military, of course, is to fight wars. But if these kids study in school and can do well enough on the ASVAB test, they can get into the Air Force or the Navy, where their lives will be in much less immediate peril and where they can learn extremely useful technical skills.
As Americans, we're spoiled -- and it's easy to forget what actual poverty is like. In many countries, the poorest kids are the ones who cannot go to school because they can't afford it or because they must work to support their families. In America, most of the poor kids are excused from doing well in school because they're from disfunctional families, and that is called poverty. Do they have a TV? Of course. Telephone? Yes. Cable? Very often. Satellite? Big-screen? Designer clothes? You'd be surprised.
Ah, but do they have a part-time job and carry books home in hopes of maybe moving on to something better one day? Some do. But many don't. Military recruiters recognize the more limited future of these kids and that they have something to offer them. Military recruitment is usually a win/win proposition. Let's not forget how much service personnel GET from the US government. I'm one of them and I can attest to it.
RP
This isn't really an answer to the question, but how many opportunities do you get to comment on your rugged mini-DV camera?
:)
Back in January of 2000, I made an semi-impulse buy of a discontinued model from the JVC CyberCam line. My wife was in the hospital about to have our second child, and I ran out to the camera shop to buy a digital video camera. It was a pretty good camera and I liked the DV format and all that -- and it served us well for the birth and beyond.
Then one day I put it on top of our Explorer to help get the kids in the car, and you know what happened. I pulled out onto the road (a busy road) and accelerated up a hill, and I heard such a clatter, I looked in the rear-view to see what was the matter. Then what to my horrified eyes should appear but an accidental slip into holiday rhyme -- which just ended. Seriously dude, I saw my -- what was it? -- $800 -- video camera tumbling off the back of my car and into the road, with traffic coming to run it over. It was horrifying.
I stopped and got out (I think I actually pulled over) and I went running back with my hands in the air. "My baby! My baby! I lost a contact! There's a land mine in the road!" I don't remember what I said, but I sure did want them to stop. I went out into the road -- I guess they did stop, I don't really remember. I picked up the camera, absolutely positive that it was toast.
I got back in the car and started driving and, while driving, I turned it on and took it through it's paces. It was scratched and the preview screen was a little loose around the hinges, but it worked.
And it still works today. It's a champ, a real workhorse. The switch is now broken to the point that I have to use a pen or something else pointy to turn on the recording, but it takes good video and it's always been great with iMovie, with the firewire out and all that -- and it has RCA outs as well. It's a great little camera and we've gotten good use out of it.
So I recommend JVC
RP
The title of this story is a throwback to a regular skit on The Muppet Show called Pigs in Space, which was a takeoff on Star Trek. It took place on the USS Swinetrek and starred Miss Piggy and some other characters that I believe were only in that skit. The skit was announced on each show by an announcer who exaggerated the "Space" in the title in that way.
Interestingly, there is currently a USS Swinetreak playset available. How weird. Heck, maybe more people know about Pigs in Space than I thought. I wasn't aware that The Muppet Show was airing in syndication anywhere.
RP
the issues so far have still had a heavy bias toward the whole casemod/ipod/gaming end
They're only on the second issue. I have the first one and the feature story was about making a camera rig to hang from a kite. And the second most detailed story, as I recall, was the camera stabilizer that was featured on slashdot many months ago.
My point is that neither of these are computer-centric at all. They're the kind of traditional DIY projects that geeks of all sorts can sink their teeth into. I think they also got into the backyard monorail thing and, yeah, there was some computer stuff bunched together in the back, mostly OS X in nature, which I found interesting.
RP
After all these years, it will finally be possible to find adult content online. Hooray!
RP
Yeah, that's a good point. For example, Apple's GarageBand software stores it's data in an XML file, but the real interesting part is in a tag, hundreds of lines of encoded gibberish. So just having an XML file doesn't mean it's open. You have to be able to read the data in the XML.
RP
Here we go again. When this story broke a few days ago, the news kept saying "triple-x rated". I think not. What, these machines are actually going to show passengers in sexually explicit behaviors? No, at WORST they're going to be standing there naked which, in the right context, can even get you on PBS during primetime -- this is completely nonsexual in nature.
It's NUDITY folks. Not artistic, not even medical. Is this necessary for airline travel? Well that's a different point than the one I'm arguing. Let's understand the ratings system before we start throwing it around as criticism.
RP
I can't seem to figure out where I stand on issues, which I guess makes me a moderate. My first impression was that this was a really unfortunate anti-encryption story and that we, as a community really need to work on public perception of encryption. Because encryption is just a tool and just because somebody has duct tape doesn't mean they used it to bind a victim and that was where I came around to a different perspective...
Oh yeah, we do consider tools as evidence, even if those tools can be used for other-than-criminal activies. Duct tape, rope, a shovel, a knife, a gun (which is also a legal tool), a cell phone, a pair of binoculars -- heck, anything relevant can be used as evidence.
Now, had they said that encryption software was grounds for conviction in lieu of any actual evidence, using the theory that the reason you can't find any evidence is because the defendant encrypted it all -- THAT would be a tragedy for encryption. But as it stands, it sounds reasonable to me
RP
The problem, of course, is that they used petrol, whatever the hell that is. They should have used good ol' American gasoline.
English: If it was good enough fer Jesus, it's good enough fer you.
RP
Reminds me of my favorite slashdot poll of all time: "Netscape 6 is out. Do you care?" The resounding winner was "no," as I recall.
Well I can't find it in the poll archives. I was pretty sure it was a slashdot poll. Funny anyway.
RP
Interesting story, yes... but once again, the "Your Rights Online" category helps slashdot to not just report interesting tech news, but to comment on it. This has nothing to do with my rights. If I find myself in prison, they can track me however the heck they want. You don't see a story about how there's no door in front of the toilet, do you? Privacy violation! What about screening prisoners' mail? Guess what -- it's prison.
RP
I thought it was CRASH us now... too late
RP
They could have benefited from a DIY steadicam knockoff. But the staging of this video was impressive, considering the relatively large cast and the timing of it all.
RP
How silly is that. Make it a preference and default it to inactive. I think that's what Safari does. So the users who don't care about tabs or don't want them don't ever even have to know, and the users who have a clue do care will be able to browse with a bit of decency, even if they are using IE.
RP
A choice would be great. You can either have a lossless file that you can't burn to CD or a lossy file that you can burn to an audio CD. Before I got my iPod, I needed to be able to burn tracks to an audio CD to take them with me. Now, with my iPod, I no longer have that need.
Of course, I do burn them to a data CD for backup purposes, but that CD can't be ripped -- so that's something different and that right should be protected.
The point is that DRM licenses can be customized quite a bit. It shouldn't be hard for that to be a preference in the store. Seems to me that lossless quality should be that kind of an option.
RP
Completely unnecessary. Apple should definitely not go this way, and I'm sure they won't, because they clearly do not need anybody's permission to continue their demonstrated trend of using animals from the cat family to name major releases of OS X.
RP