It doesn't make sense to ask 'Why not eBooks?' (unless you work for an eBook company). I can't think of a single reason why I would want an eBook instead of a real book. A paperback costs $5 and I can jam it into my pocket and bring it anywhere with me. If I lose it or destroy it, no big deal. The print is at least 16 times better resolution than any electronic screens available today. The user interface is simplicity. Fold a corner to bookmark. Flip through pages. Table of contents. When eInk is available, it will improve the resolution problem, but I still don't see the benefit...
Then again, my PDA is a version of the HIPSTER, so my opinion may be biased...
I understand this thing is going to be travelling alongside our soldiers in dangerous situations, and they don't want it's noise to alert the enemy... but does it really have to blast that annoying Arabic music the whole time?!
> this doesn't care what kind of connection you have, it contacts the creator who installs all you can eat malware.
The creator installs malware? How, does he drive over to my house and sit down next to me while installing the malware? My ridiculous scenario HAS NO CONNECTION to the 'Net. Unless this amazing malware can put floppies in the mail back and forth and have them hop bunny-style from my mailbox into my floppy drive I doubt this could happen.
Why go for slightly better security when you can go all the way?! Forget dial-up. Hand floppies to your friends with instructions on what web pages you'd like to browse. They will return the floppies to you with the pages. You will be extremely secure from viruses... much better than dial-up. Think of it like Netflix for the web.
BellSouth should be paying the big content providers for giving them a reason to sell bandwidth. Without iTunes and Google and all the other content providers why the hell would anyone buy broadband? I'd love to see some big content providers hit BellSouth back by requiring them to pay fees or get cut off from their content. That would kill their ISP business in a hurry.
In exciting news, the Department of Homeland Security has announced that it will follow the lead of the anti-spyware coalition and create a comprehensive list of methods that terrorists may use to infiltrate the United States. Once the list is completed, the DHS need only secure the methods outlined in the guide to effectively halt all threat of terrorist activity on US soil. "We are very excited to be on the brink of winning the war on terrorism," reports one high ranking DHS official.
Congress has announced it will be introducing new legislation to make it illegal for terrorists to use methods not outlined in the DHS guidelines. The new bill will also have provisions for new highway projects, stricter anti-piracy regulations, and a term extension for members of congress.
This is very important work, because as soon as there is an 'official' set of methods for detecting spyware, the spyware authors can get to business writing spyware that avoids detection by the official methods. I'm sure spyware authors are very excited for this document.
Then, of course, the anti-spyware consortium will have to address these new vectors and issue an updated set of anti-spyware methods. Which will, of course, spur the spyware authors to come up with new, undetectable methods. And so on...
I'm so glad this consortium is coming up with an official list of methods to detect spyware, because once they do everything will be totally different than it is now. Kinda.
> I can't comprehend how anyone could actually go along with anything like that and expect the outcome to be positive
Perhaps he is a gay 14 year old who was thinking he could get sex and did. Perhaps the outcome was positive from his point of view, even though it was immoral and illegal from the adults point of view.
I remember being 14. If I could have gotten a woman in her early 20s to have sex with me I would have in a heart-beat! Actually I did try a few times to "hit on" college age girls, only to be shot down of course.
I'm not condoning the adult's terrible predatory behavior. He should (and DOES) know better and should be put away. But that doesn't mean the 14 year old didn't want the same thing the adult wanted. He's 14. He doesn't understand the power difference between himself and an adult and why that can't be allowed because of the potential for bad outcomes.
Ouch... you are hurting my simple decision making process. Despite whatever the groupthink de jour is, could it be that any massive corporate entity that makes more money than some nations and crosses international boundaries has the power and incentive to do 'evil' things in it's own self-interest?
Since these entities can shift production and decision making processes between legal and economic jurisdictions at will, they are pretty much immune to any legal or economic attempts to control them.
This state of affairs was probably inevitable once corporations were given similar legal status as human individuals.
Too late now. Sit back and enjoy your mocha-latte.
> so what happens when spambots start calling that number and trying to convince the operator to give them accounts?
They will fail the simple Turing test given by any operator who asks "how's the weather over there" or "can you believe that game last night?"
It's a person. A human being. How do you suppose a bot is going to do this?
REGISTERBOT: "Hello. I would like to sign up for an account." OPERATOR: "Ok, No problem. What's your name?" REGISTERBOT: "John Doe." OPERATOR: "Hey, my in-laws are named Doe, are you any relation to the Piscataway Does?" REGISTERBOT: "How does it make you feel when I are you any relation to the Piscataway Does?"
Pretty simple really. For the incredibly small percentage of the population that is both deaf and blind you supply a phone number to a braille tele-type service (whatever the standard is for deaf-blind communications). You hire one person to handle all the calls, and give him something else to do while he's waiting for the teletype to ring. Perhaps do this as a service for ALL interested web sites to share.
Sometimes we geeks forget that everthing doesn't have to be solved by high-tech wizardry.
> I think if that mess were made even a bit more consistent, Java would have a significantly faster development cycle
Here here! That is exactly why I despise Java. It takes forever to get anything done when you start with an object of type StringThatCanHaveBellsOnItsToes and have to convert it to ArbitrarilyLongString and convert that to FunkyStringThatCanDynamicallyGrowAndShrink to feed it to a method that only takes that type.
I'm hoping these A-Holes (no relation to the new legislation) legislate and lock up their product so much that some percentage of people get sick of the hassle and choose instead of entertain themselves in other ways. Talk to friends, sing, play an instrument, play tag, play soccer, have sex, paint a painting, play with clay, play cards... wow the list seems endless. Who knew all these forms of entertainment existed?!
And no, I am not one of those people without a TV. I have a TV and every few days I watch something my TIVO has waiting for me.
> we will just blacklist all of china traffic at the backbones
That's pretty naiive. Off the top of my head I can think of severals ways around that... modem dial long distance into another country, or buy a T-1 into a neutral country into another neutral country etc etc, you know... like how countries on our 'naughty' list buy weapons now, from USA to Great Britain to Germany to Sub-Saharan Africa to the Middle East, etc.
Now, a clever man would post anonymously, because he would know that only a great fool would post his name on such an insult. I am not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose to post my name. But you must have known I was not a great fool, you would have counted on it, so I can clearly choose to not post anonymously.
I think what bothers so many people about Wikipedia's dynamic nature of truth is the important AND TRUE fact that all of our information sources are biased by the authors and editors that created them. Until recently most people blindly assumed that 'everything in print is true'.
I know that I personally had my eyes opened when a reporter talked to me at a Unix Expo trade show and the following week all of my opinions were printed as fact in a very popular weekly IT news magazine.
This anecdote is the rule, not the exception. There isn't an article in existence that isn't colored by somebody's opinion and biases.
Wikipedia is good for us, not bad for us. It forces us to understand the subjective nature of all of our sources.
Oh hell, you don't need to image any of that weaponry. All they'd have to do is fling rocks at us from orbit and pretty much wipe us out. You know what kind of bang rocks make when they hit at 28,000 miles an hour?
Slashdot Mirror
It doesn't make sense to ask 'Why not eBooks?' (unless you work for an eBook company). I can't think of a single reason why I would want an eBook instead of a real book. A paperback costs $5 and I can jam it into my pocket and bring it anywhere with me. If I lose it or destroy it, no big deal. The print is at least 16 times better resolution than any electronic screens available today. The user interface is simplicity. Fold a corner to bookmark. Flip through pages. Table of contents.
When eInk is available, it will improve the resolution problem, but I still don't see the benefit...
Then again, my PDA is a version of the HIPSTER, so my opinion may be biased...
The cure for the 11 lb pencil is the one ounce Hipster PDA.
My laptop and Palm have been sitting in a drawer since I started using a Hipster...
I understand this thing is going to be travelling alongside our soldiers in dangerous situations, and they don't want it's noise to alert the enemy... but does it really have to blast that annoying Arabic music the whole time?!
> give the j**k what he wants
Do you think hiding letters with '*'s hides the offensive nature of your foul language?!
Please refrain from polluting this community with your obscene gutter-speak!
> You think railfans have problems? You should ask some planespotters some times!!!
You think planespotters have problems? You should ask some militarybasefans some time!!!
> this doesn't care what kind of connection you have, it contacts the creator who installs all you can eat malware.
The creator installs malware? How, does he drive over to my house and sit down next to me while installing the malware? My ridiculous scenario HAS NO CONNECTION to the 'Net. Unless this amazing malware can put floppies in the mail back and forth and have them hop bunny-style from my mailbox into my floppy drive I doubt this could happen.
+1 insightful? Sheesh...
Why go for slightly better security when you can go all the way?!
Forget dial-up. Hand floppies to your friends with instructions on what web pages you'd like to browse. They will return the floppies to you with the pages. You will be extremely secure from viruses... much better than dial-up. Think of it like Netflix for the web.
BellSouth should be paying the big content providers for giving them a reason to sell bandwidth. Without iTunes and Google and all the other content providers why the hell would anyone buy broadband? I'd love to see some big content providers hit BellSouth back by requiring them to pay fees or get cut off from their content. That would kill their ISP business in a hurry.
Sheesh. At least SOMEONE got the analogy.
Moderator: Um... This says terrorism; Um... The article says spyware; Um... Buzzwords don't match; Um... Must be offtopic.
In exciting news, the Department of Homeland Security has announced that it will follow the lead of the anti-spyware coalition and create a comprehensive list of methods that terrorists may use to infiltrate the United States. Once the list is completed, the DHS need only secure the methods outlined in the guide to effectively halt all threat of terrorist activity on US soil.
"We are very excited to be on the brink of winning the war on terrorism," reports one high ranking DHS official.
Congress has announced it will be introducing new legislation to make it illegal for terrorists to use methods not outlined in the DHS guidelines. The new bill will also have provisions for new highway projects, stricter anti-piracy regulations, and a term extension for members of congress.
This is very important work, because as soon as there is an 'official' set of methods for detecting spyware, the spyware authors can get to business writing spyware that avoids detection by the official methods. I'm sure spyware authors are very excited for this document.
Then, of course, the anti-spyware consortium will have to address these new vectors and issue an updated set of anti-spyware methods. Which will, of course, spur the spyware authors to come up with new, undetectable methods. And so on...
I'm so glad this consortium is coming up with an official list of methods to detect spyware, because once they do everything will be totally different than it is now. Kinda.
Get a dog. Name him 'little-d'.
Dress yourself up as a giant '@' sign.
Approach your girlfriend and let the fun begin.
If she jumps your bones, all is well.
If she attacks you, don't worry, the dog will jump in and protect you.
> I can't comprehend how anyone could actually go along with anything like that and expect the outcome to be positive
Perhaps he is a gay 14 year old who was thinking he could get sex and did. Perhaps the outcome was positive from his point of view, even though it was immoral and illegal from the adults point of view.
I remember being 14. If I could have gotten a woman in her early 20s to have sex with me I would have in a heart-beat! Actually I did try a few times to "hit on" college age girls, only to be shot down of course.
I'm not condoning the adult's terrible predatory behavior. He should (and DOES) know better and should be put away. But that doesn't mean the 14 year old didn't want the same thing the adult wanted. He's 14. He doesn't understand the power difference between himself and an adult and why that can't be allowed because of the potential for bad outcomes.
> NATURE'S HARMONIC
SIMULTANEOUS 4-DAY
TIME CUBE
Hey, if you set this to music it could be as good as the Terrible Secret Of Space!
Pak Chooie Unf!
> Who is more evil?
Ouch... you are hurting my simple decision making process. Despite whatever the groupthink de jour is, could it be that any massive corporate entity that makes more money than some nations and crosses international boundaries has the power and incentive to do 'evil' things in it's own self-interest?
Since these entities can shift production and decision making processes between legal and economic jurisdictions at will, they are pretty much immune to any legal or economic attempts to control them.
This state of affairs was probably inevitable once corporations were given similar legal status as human individuals.
Too late now. Sit back and enjoy your mocha-latte.
> so what happens when spambots start calling that number and trying to convince the operator to give them accounts?
They will fail the simple Turing test given by any operator who asks "how's the weather over there" or "can you believe that game last night?"
It's a person. A human being. How do you suppose a bot is going to do this?
REGISTERBOT: "Hello. I would like to sign up for an account."
OPERATOR: "Ok, No problem. What's your name?"
REGISTERBOT: "John Doe."
OPERATOR: "Hey, my in-laws are named Doe, are you any relation to the Piscataway Does?"
REGISTERBOT: "How does it make you feel when I are you any relation to the Piscataway Does?"
Pretty simple really. For the incredibly small percentage of the population that is both deaf and blind you supply a phone number to a braille tele-type service (whatever the standard is for deaf-blind communications). You hire one person to handle all the calls, and give him something else to do while he's waiting for the teletype to ring.
Perhaps do this as a service for ALL interested web sites to share.
Sometimes we geeks forget that everthing doesn't have to be solved by high-tech wizardry.
> I think if that mess were made even a bit more consistent, Java would have a significantly faster development cycle
Here here!
That is exactly why I despise Java.
It takes forever to get anything done when you start with an object of type StringThatCanHaveBellsOnItsToes and have to convert it to ArbitrarilyLongString and convert that to FunkyStringThatCanDynamicallyGrowAndShrink to feed it to a method that only takes that type.
I'm hoping these A-Holes (no relation to the new legislation) legislate and lock up their product so much that some percentage of people get sick of the hassle and choose instead of entertain themselves in other ways. Talk to friends, sing, play an instrument, play tag, play soccer, have sex, paint a painting, play with clay, play cards... wow the list seems endless. Who knew all these forms of entertainment existed?!
And no, I am not one of those people without a TV. I have a TV and every few days I watch something my TIVO has waiting for me.
> we will just blacklist all of china traffic at the backbones
That's pretty naiive. Off the top of my head I can think of severals ways around that... modem dial long distance into another country, or buy a T-1 into a neutral country into another neutral country etc etc, you know... like how countries on our 'naughty' list buy weapons now, from USA to Great Britain to Germany to Sub-Saharan Africa to the Middle East, etc.
Now, a clever man would post anonymously, because he would know that only a great fool would post his name on such an insult. I am not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose to post my name. But you must have known I was not a great fool, you would have counted on it, so I can clearly choose to not post anonymously.
I think what bothers so many people about Wikipedia's dynamic nature of truth is the important AND TRUE fact that all of our information sources are biased by the authors and editors that created them.
Until recently most people blindly assumed that 'everything in print is true'.
I know that I personally had my eyes opened when a reporter talked to me at a Unix Expo trade show and the following week all of my opinions were printed as fact in a very popular weekly IT news magazine.
This anecdote is the rule, not the exception. There isn't an article in existence that isn't colored by somebody's opinion and biases.
Wikipedia is good for us, not bad for us. It forces us to understand the subjective nature of all of our sources.
> My ASCII Porn! 40 seconds isn't nearly enough!
Unfortunately, it is for me...
> I *will* barricade myself in my office with the South facing windows and lovely view if they try to move me
And hold on tight to your swingline stapler1
Oh hell, you don't need to image any of that weaponry. All they'd have to do is fling rocks at us from orbit and pretty much wipe us out. You know what kind of bang rocks make when they hit at 28,000 miles an hour?