#1 there are no such thing as standards for new technology. no one is omnipotent enough to envision all of the popular use cases and all of the platforms. as such, we will code for a tower of babel for many years to come, with some parts of tech ahead of the standards, and different vendors delivering different patchwork solutions
#2 stop complaining about how every browser and every platform has different quirks. if they didn't, your job would be replaced by a script
#3 at some point, as the tech becomes stable enough, books exactly like this become useful. we are approaching that on many parts of web technology, but not on it in total. there WILL come some future date when someone can say "this is the best way to design {xyz}, and it will be the best way to design {xyz} in 10 years, without a doubt" because the tech will be stable
but right now, no one can tell you with a straight face what browsing will look like in 10 years. the tech isn't anywhere near stable. and this is a GOOD thing. it means you are working in a young vibrant field where you can still make important contributions. a young vibrant field is, by definition, messy
1. electronic voting is clearly more expensive than pencil and paper. look at all the costs. stop being disingenuous
2. the point is, whatever subset of exploits that ocr introduces, are exploits native to electronic voting. how can you argue for a system by pointing out its failures?
do you actually want to be so intellectually dishonest as to suggest diebold has a monopoly on electronic exploits? and in the context of what: suggesting ocr introduces those exploits... in order to argue for a voting system which has MORE of the exploits you are referring to? that's not sleight of hand, that's just clumsy
and then you say storing paper votes is expensive. you really want to stack the price of a storage locker against a bunch of electronic voting kiosks?
but in warm weather you will see more close contact cases, cases among families, cases among office workers cube-to-cube
in fact, the flu season in the tropics coincides with the rainy seasons because every one stays indoors in close contact... btw i'm basing that comment on another comment in this thread:
long term, close contact being needed in the warmth, not random walking-by-on-the-sidewalk transmission, like you will get with cold weather
the whole point is not that the summer months will destroy or prevent the swine flu. the problem is it will still spread, but at a lower background noise rate. seeping all around in tiny little clusters
then the weather gets cold, and the flu will suddenly leap out of all of these tiny below the radar clusters, and expand exponentially in a matter of days, and suddenly be everywhere at the same time, with falling temperatures
seriously, worry come october for us in the northern mid-latitudes
or, alternately, if you are in the far north (in a populated area, rare), or in the soutern hemisphere as your winter approaches, worry now
i think anyone who catches the milder form now will have resistance come wintertime
additionally, the health system will be well-prepared and well-stocked to treat you if you catch a severe case this summer
but come winter, when everyone and their uncle gets this, medicine supplies will dwindle and the health system will be swamped, resulting in deaths due to inundated personnel and infrastructure and supplies
catch it now, or catch it next summer
don't catch it this coming winter, when everyone will be catching it
the flu can still spread in warm climates, flu in fact is a regular feature of the tropics. but in warm weather you will see more close contact cases, cases among families, cases among office workers cube-to-cube. long term close contact being needed in the warmth. not random walking-by-on-the-sidewalk transmission, like you will get with cold weather
the whole point is not that the summer months will destroy or prevent the swine flu. the problem is it will still spread, but at a lower background noise rate. seeping all around in tiny little clusters
then the weather gets cold, and the flu will suddenly leap out of all of these tiny below the radar clusters, and expand exponentially in a matter of days, and suddenly be everywhere at the same time, with falling temperatures
seriously, worry come october for us in the northern mid-latitudes
or, alternately, if you are in the far north (in a populated area, rare), or in the soutern hemisphere as your winter approaches, worry now
In 1918, the final year of the savage trench fighting of World War I, something else began felling the soldiers. No one knows for sure when or where the Spanish flu emerged, though it certainly wasn't in Spain. As a neutral country, Spain had no wartime censorship, and the flu apparently got its false pedigree from news reports about outbreaks there in May 1918. In fact the disease was already spreading on both sides of the European front, laying low entire divisions through the spring and early summer. Then it seemed to subside.
In late summer, though, the Spanish flu returned, and this time its virulence was unmistakable. The sick took to their beds with fever, piercing headache, and joint pain. Many were young adults, exactly the group that normally shrugs off the flu. About 5 percent of the victims died, some in just two or three days, their faces turning a ghastly purple as they essentially suffocated to death. Doctors who opened the chests of the dead were horrified: The lungs, normally light and elastic, were as heavy as waterlogged sponges, clogged with bloody fluid.
then the cold weather came, and it came down like a scythe. we will experience media hype for a month or two, the swine flu will be forgotten, then it will suddenly resurge like crazy in october. the reason is the flu virus actually survives better in the cold air than the warm air, and travels greater distances. the warm summer air will help us fight the flu, for now. there was science a few months ago that proved that:
The virus's outer membrane is composed chiefly of molecules known as lipids, such as oils, fats and cholesterol.
The researchers found that at temperatures slightly above freezing, this lipid covering solidified into a gel.
However, as temperatures approached 15.6C (60F) , the covering gradually thawed, eventually melting to a soupy mix.
The researchers concluded that temperatures in the spring and summer were too high to allow the viral membrane to enter its gel state.
As a result, at these temperatures the individual flu viruses would dry out and weaken - accounting for the end of the flu season.
thats why flu is always a cold month thing
so the thing to do is not worry now, worry later. the warm weather will mitigate the flu. then we should all keep a very wary eye come october, that's when the swine flu will prove if it is a superkiller or not
this explains why those who died of the spanish flu, and are dying of swine flu now, are young, healthy adults. perversely, the healthier you are, the more you will be prone to die of the swine flu: your body overreacts, like anaphylactic shock. less healthy immune systems mean you underreact, and your lungs aren't flooded to death by your won body. the very young, and the very old, they should be able to weather the swine flu. the worst case scenario (hopefully this just fizzles out like SARS), it is us in the prime of life, 25-45, who will bear the brunt of mortality when everyone gets it this fall, hospitals are swamped, and the tamiflu runs out. then you have children and elderly with no breadwinners to take care of them
prepare now, you have until fall until the scythe comes (hopefully, it won't, it could still fizzle out)
if you increase the complexity of a system, you increase the number of attack vectors. yes, election cheating is possible in all systems. it is just that with mechanical voting, there are 100x more schemes you can cook up than paper voting, and with electronic voting there are 100x moreschemes than even that
now fi there were some sort of proven ebenfit from doing electronoc voting over paper voting, maybe that would outweigh the security detriments of electronic voting. but there aren't any. you ocr the paper, end of story, its just about as good
electronic voting is inherently less secure than paper voting, and offers nothing better in return, and is a hell of a lot more expensive
i describe an intellectually dishonest point of view, and you come in with a comment which is exactly that point of view i am trying to describe
if you are trying to be slyly humorous: haha
if you are actually so dense as to miss the irony: it is perfectly appropriate to criticize china from a point of view of principles, having nothing whatsoever to do with western nationalistic agendas
so when taiwan and hong kong go apeshit over jackie chan's remarks, which are clearly pandering to the regime in beijing, are the hong kong and the taiwanese merely puppets of western nationalism in your point of view? or are they angry at jackie chan out of their own independent principles?
actually, its funny, because your words are exactly what the propaganda mouthpieces in beijing say all the time when someone tries to criticize beijing from inside china: they are stool pigeons of the west and they are serving china's enemies. as if you can't criticize china, even if you are fucking chinese, without being some sort of secret agent. that any criticism of beijing only weakens china: as if internal debate within china can't actually STRENGTHEN china. no, there's only one point of view from beijing, and it can never be wrong and it can never be questioned. pfffffft
why is it impossible for you to perceive that you can criticize china on the grounds of purely principles, having nothing whatsoever to do with western nationalism? maybe even what motivates you is love of china when you criticize beijing? imagine fucking that!
do you believe the slashdot editors are serving secret masters at the cia? or perhaps the slashdot editors are neocon dick cheney sympathisers? gee, maybe the editors see a genuine issue, and report it, out of purely principled reasons? naah.. impossible! secret nationalist agendas EVERYWHERE!!!;-P
in your worldview, everyone is just acting on a nationalistic agenda. no one can be motivated on principles. you're fucking retarded
what would al qaeda and its sympathizers do? celebrate and become pastoral sheep farmers?
no, they would go right on with their murderous agenda, because it is not centered on the usa. it is an agenda wholly of their own creation based on their own retarded interpretation of otherwise valuable and sacred texts, used to justify a fascist fanaticism not seen since nazi germany. is nazi germany chamberlain's fault? chamberlain certainly fucked up in his dealings with hitler, big time. and his share of the blame for nazi germany's existence?: 0%
furthermore, if the usa had handled their dealings with al qaeda 1,000x worse than it already has, it would not in any way mean the usa shares any culpability for al qaeda's actions. and if the usa had dealt with al qaeda 1,000x better, people like you would still be hyperfocused on the west, because your mind is ossified. all you know is obsessive kneejerk hypercriticism of the usa. its as if your mind can't even perceive of other players in the world capable of their own independent behavior. everyone in the world, in your mind, is some derivative of an american action. your thinking is more usa-centered and ethnocentric than that of a blatantly ultranationalist neocon!
when al qaeda or a sympathiser does something evil in the world, the blame falls to... drum roll please... al qaeda and its sympathizers. can you believe that! i know, really wacky far out thinking there, i'm really quite radical in my groundbreaking hypothesis (snicker)
you can't understand that your criticism should be pointed at them. maybe if you learned to udnerstand there are other players in the world than the usa, that don't take their orders via backdoor cia mind control devices a la a retarded b-grade hollywood movie, or via incredibly convoluted and creative thinking that harkens back to cold war crimes from a half a century ago, maybe then you'd actually be some of use to the subject matter you involve yourself in
"I am in no way justifying the parasitic behavior that you speak of."
well that's a lot words for no justification of parasitism (snicker)
"You seem to feel that you are superior to the "parasites". You aren't."
the host organism can exist without the parasites. the parasites cannot exist without feeding off the host organism. sounds like superiority to me
for example, superiority: i am now leaving this retarded conversation and forgetting all about you, while you can ruminate and feed some more off my words. seeing as i was able to extract so many paragraphs from you, i obviously was able to elicit some sort of higher cognition in that dim bulb. good luck on your future maturity. you'll get there kid, i got faith in you! (snicker)
only exists parasitically on someone else who actually tries to make meaning of their existence. you've only enunciated the philosophy of the parasite
someone who believes in meaning, meanwhile, is creating something that serves their survival. someone who believes as you wrote, meanwhile, is only rationalizing their parasitical existence on someone else's product
the philosophy you expound above would not exist by itself. in other words, the philosophy you've expouinded above is incomplete. it does not explain the world or human existence in totality. it merely justifies an empty parasitical subset of humans who only exist because someone ELSE believes in some sort of meaning
don't worry about it though, you'll grow up someday
wtf? its disturbing to be modded insightful for this. who the hell thinks i was being insightful? why?!
its like going fishing and catching a dead baby. you made the joke for a little fun, and instead you get a horrible line of thought: someone out there is deadly serious about light hearted mirth
if you can enunciate what you just wrote above, how you are able to believe in the ascendancy of catholic dogma? the words you just wrote above is a refutation of catholic dogma
"I just think it's bad form to blanket bash any group and put the responsibility on them."
again, i don't understand. you are saying what i am saying. maybe you think like this: i am the one who is pointing at prideful groups and throwing responsibility at their feet for various failings in the world. except i ask you what these groups are basing their pride on. and what they are basing their pride on IS THIS BLANKET BASHING AND RESPONSIBILTY PUT OFF YOU ARE REFERRING TO
i am asking for balance: have pride, and know its limits. that your common humanity trumps your pride, and be aware of that. that's not easy. whoever said the right thing was easy?
but you seems to be saying this balance is impossible. i think this is just mindless cynicism on your part
howabout this: propose to me an alternative, better idea than mine
right now i see these ideas in play:
1. subsumation of all pride: what you refer to as the problem
2. blind pride in race, religion, nation, etc: my identification of the problem
3. be proud, but limit it when shared humanity is involved: my solution, which you reject on grounds i understand as nothing more than cynicism
now, propose a superior solution than #3, or you are just being an empty cynic. it is not good enough to merely tear down someone else's argument. you must propose a better argument yourself, or we are left with the argument whose flaws you point out as still the best solution
Slashdot Mirror
#1 there are no such thing as standards for new technology. no one is omnipotent enough to envision all of the popular use cases and all of the platforms. as such, we will code for a tower of babel for many years to come, with some parts of tech ahead of the standards, and different vendors delivering different patchwork solutions
#2 stop complaining about how every browser and every platform has different quirks. if they didn't, your job would be replaced by a script
#3 at some point, as the tech becomes stable enough, books exactly like this become useful. we are approaching that on many parts of web technology, but not on it in total. there WILL come some future date when someone can say "this is the best way to design {xyz}, and it will be the best way to design {xyz} in 10 years, without a doubt" because the tech will be stable
but right now, no one can tell you with a straight face what browsing will look like in 10 years. the tech isn't anywhere near stable. and this is a GOOD thing. it means you are working in a young vibrant field where you can still make important contributions. a young vibrant field is, by definition, messy
the spanish flu irony inquisition!
1. electronic voting is clearly more expensive than pencil and paper. look at all the costs. stop being disingenuous
2. the point is, whatever subset of exploits that ocr introduces, are exploits native to electronic voting. how can you argue for a system by pointing out its failures?
do you actually want to be so intellectually dishonest as to suggest diebold has a monopoly on electronic exploits? and in the context of what: suggesting ocr introduces those exploits... in order to argue for a voting system which has MORE of the exploits you are referring to? that's not sleight of hand, that's just clumsy
and then you say storing paper votes is expensive. you really want to stack the price of a storage locker against a bunch of electronic voting kiosks?
what's your point?
flu in fact is a regular feature of the tropics
but in warm weather you will see more close contact cases, cases among families, cases among office workers cube-to-cube
in fact, the flu season in the tropics coincides with the rainy seasons because every one stays indoors in close contact... btw i'm basing that comment on another comment in this thread:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1212387&cid=27725019
long term, close contact being needed in the warmth, not random walking-by-on-the-sidewalk transmission, like you will get with cold weather
the whole point is not that the summer months will destroy or prevent the swine flu. the problem is it will still spread, but at a lower background noise rate. seeping all around in tiny little clusters
then the weather gets cold, and the flu will suddenly leap out of all of these tiny below the radar clusters, and expand exponentially in a matter of days, and suddenly be everywhere at the same time, with falling temperatures
seriously, worry come october for us in the northern mid-latitudes
or, alternately, if you are in the far north (in a populated area, rare), or in the soutern hemisphere as your winter approaches, worry now
optical character recognition
those little ovals on your SAT test
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_character_recognition
that's funny someone noticed
thank you
depends upon how much the strains "drift" i suppose. but the flu is so nasty and polymorphic we should probably be pessimistic
i think anyone who catches the milder form now will have resistance come wintertime
additionally, the health system will be well-prepared and well-stocked to treat you if you catch a severe case this summer
but come winter, when everyone and their uncle gets this, medicine supplies will dwindle and the health system will be swamped, resulting in deaths due to inundated personnel and infrastructure and supplies
catch it now, or catch it next summer
don't catch it this coming winter, when everyone will be catching it
the flu can still spread in warm climates, flu in fact is a regular feature of the tropics. but in warm weather you will see more close contact cases, cases among families, cases among office workers cube-to-cube. long term close contact being needed in the warmth. not random walking-by-on-the-sidewalk transmission, like you will get with cold weather
the whole point is not that the summer months will destroy or prevent the swine flu. the problem is it will still spread, but at a lower background noise rate. seeping all around in tiny little clusters
then the weather gets cold, and the flu will suddenly leap out of all of these tiny below the radar clusters, and expand exponentially in a matter of days, and suddenly be everywhere at the same time, with falling temperatures
seriously, worry come october for us in the northern mid-latitudes
or, alternately, if you are in the far north (in a populated area, rare), or in the soutern hemisphere as your winter approaches, worry now
recall that the spanish flu of 1918 came out in the summer, and was mild
http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/health-and-human-body/human-diseases/next-killer-flu.html
then the cold weather came, and it came down like a scythe. we will experience media hype for a month or two, the swine flu will be forgotten, then it will suddenly resurge like crazy in october. the reason is the flu virus actually survives better in the cold air than the warm air, and travels greater distances. the warm summer air will help us fight the flu, for now. there was science a few months ago that proved that:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7276447.stm
thats why flu is always a cold month thing
so the thing to do is not worry now, worry later. the warm weather will mitigate the flu. then we should all keep a very wary eye come october, that's when the swine flu will prove if it is a superkiller or not
one more concern:
the cytokine storm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokine_storm
this explains why those who died of the spanish flu, and are dying of swine flu now, are young, healthy adults. perversely, the healthier you are, the more you will be prone to die of the swine flu: your body overreacts, like anaphylactic shock. less healthy immune systems mean you underreact, and your lungs aren't flooded to death by your won body. the very young, and the very old, they should be able to weather the swine flu. the worst case scenario (hopefully this just fizzles out like SARS), it is us in the prime of life, 25-45, who will bear the brunt of mortality when everyone gets it this fall, hospitals are swamped, and the tamiflu runs out. then you have children and elderly with no breadwinners to take care of them
prepare now, you have until fall until the scythe comes (hopefully, it won't, it could still fizzle out)
throw the expensive, fundamentally insecure electronic machine in the garbage, and use paper ballots. ocr them. save money to boot. end of story
fact: show me a way to cheat on paper, i'll show you 100 ways to cheat electronically
that, and the ridiculous expense
its a no brainer
if you increase the complexity of a system, you increase the number of attack vectors. yes, election cheating is possible in all systems. it is just that with mechanical voting, there are 100x more schemes you can cook up than paper voting, and with electronic voting there are 100x moreschemes than even that
now fi there were some sort of proven ebenfit from doing electronoc voting over paper voting, maybe that would outweigh the security detriments of electronic voting. but there aren't any. you ocr the paper, end of story, its just about as good
electronic voting is inherently less secure than paper voting, and offers nothing better in return, and is a hell of a lot more expensive
i describe an intellectually dishonest point of view, and you come in with a comment which is exactly that point of view i am trying to describe
if you are trying to be slyly humorous: haha
if you are actually so dense as to miss the irony: it is perfectly appropriate to criticize china from a point of view of principles, having nothing whatsoever to do with western nationalistic agendas
lookie here:
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/controlling-the-chinese-people/
so when taiwan and hong kong go apeshit over jackie chan's remarks, which are clearly pandering to the regime in beijing, are the hong kong and the taiwanese merely puppets of western nationalism in your point of view? or are they angry at jackie chan out of their own independent principles?
actually, its funny, because your words are exactly what the propaganda mouthpieces in beijing say all the time when someone tries to criticize beijing from inside china: they are stool pigeons of the west and they are serving china's enemies. as if you can't criticize china, even if you are fucking chinese, without being some sort of secret agent. that any criticism of beijing only weakens china: as if internal debate within china can't actually STRENGTHEN china. no, there's only one point of view from beijing, and it can never be wrong and it can never be questioned. pfffffft
why is it impossible for you to perceive that you can criticize china on the grounds of purely principles, having nothing whatsoever to do with western nationalism? maybe even what motivates you is love of china when you criticize beijing? imagine fucking that!
do you believe the slashdot editors are serving secret masters at the cia? or perhaps the slashdot editors are neocon dick cheney sympathisers? gee, maybe the editors see a genuine issue, and report it, out of purely principled reasons? naah.. impossible! secret nationalist agendas EVERYWHERE!!! ;-P
in your worldview, everyone is just acting on a nationalistic agenda. no one can be motivated on principles. you're fucking retarded
as if humor is somehow less important on a website which is essentially nothing more than a giant time waster
a giant lake
what would al qaeda and its sympathizers do? celebrate and become pastoral sheep farmers?
no, they would go right on with their murderous agenda, because it is not centered on the usa. it is an agenda wholly of their own creation based on their own retarded interpretation of otherwise valuable and sacred texts, used to justify a fascist fanaticism not seen since nazi germany. is nazi germany chamberlain's fault? chamberlain certainly fucked up in his dealings with hitler, big time. and his share of the blame for nazi germany's existence?: 0%
furthermore, if the usa had handled their dealings with al qaeda 1,000x worse than it already has, it would not in any way mean the usa shares any culpability for al qaeda's actions. and if the usa had dealt with al qaeda 1,000x better, people like you would still be hyperfocused on the west, because your mind is ossified. all you know is obsessive kneejerk hypercriticism of the usa. its as if your mind can't even perceive of other players in the world capable of their own independent behavior. everyone in the world, in your mind, is some derivative of an american action. your thinking is more usa-centered and ethnocentric than that of a blatantly ultranationalist neocon!
when al qaeda or a sympathiser does something evil in the world, the blame falls to... drum roll please... al qaeda and its sympathizers. can you believe that! i know, really wacky far out thinking there, i'm really quite radical in my groundbreaking hypothesis (snicker)
you can't understand that your criticism should be pointed at them. maybe if you learned to udnerstand there are other players in the world than the usa, that don't take their orders via backdoor cia mind control devices a la a retarded b-grade hollywood movie, or via incredibly convoluted and creative thinking that harkens back to cold war crimes from a half a century ago, maybe then you'd actually be some of use to the subject matter you involve yourself in
you're kneejerk thinking is tired. give it up
"I am in no way justifying the parasitic behavior that you speak of."
well that's a lot words for no justification of parasitism (snicker)
"You seem to feel that you are superior to the "parasites". You aren't."
the host organism can exist without the parasites. the parasites cannot exist without feeding off the host organism. sounds like superiority to me
for example, superiority: i am now leaving this retarded conversation and forgetting all about you, while you can ruminate and feed some more off my words. seeing as i was able to extract so many paragraphs from you, i obviously was able to elicit some sort of higher cognition in that dim bulb. good luck on your future maturity. you'll get there kid, i got faith in you! (snicker)
i can only begin to speculate at the weird logical degenerations that would allow you to ascribe to my pov the very thing i'm arguing against
or even better
INSIGHTFUL and INFORMATIVE ;-)
only exists parasitically on someone else who actually tries to make meaning of their existence. you've only enunciated the philosophy of the parasite
someone who believes in meaning, meanwhile, is creating something that serves their survival. someone who believes as you wrote, meanwhile, is only rationalizing their parasitical existence on someone else's product
the philosophy you expound above would not exist by itself. in other words, the philosophy you've expouinded above is incomplete. it does not explain the world or human existence in totality. it merely justifies an empty parasitical subset of humans who only exist because someone ELSE believes in some sort of meaning
don't worry about it though, you'll grow up someday
telling a joke and being taken seriously
happened to me yesterday: i make a stupid joke about skynet, and apparently someone thinks i was insightful
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1209623&cid=27693127
wtf? its disturbing to be modded insightful for this. who the hell thinks i was being insightful? why?!
its like going fishing and catching a dead baby. you made the joke for a little fun, and instead you get a horrible line of thought: someone out there is deadly serious about light hearted mirth
if you can enunciate what you just wrote above, how you are able to believe in the ascendancy of catholic dogma? the words you just wrote above is a refutation of catholic dogma
"I just think it's bad form to blanket bash any group and put the responsibility on them."
again, i don't understand. you are saying what i am saying. maybe you think like this: i am the one who is pointing at prideful groups and throwing responsibility at their feet for various failings in the world. except i ask you what these groups are basing their pride on. and what they are basing their pride on IS THIS BLANKET BASHING AND RESPONSIBILTY PUT OFF YOU ARE REFERRING TO
i am asking for balance: have pride, and know its limits. that your common humanity trumps your pride, and be aware of that. that's not easy. whoever said the right thing was easy?
but you seems to be saying this balance is impossible. i think this is just mindless cynicism on your part
howabout this: propose to me an alternative, better idea than mine
right now i see these ideas in play:
1. subsumation of all pride: what you refer to as the problem
2. blind pride in race, religion, nation, etc: my identification of the problem
3. be proud, but limit it when shared humanity is involved: my solution, which you reject on grounds i understand as nothing more than cynicism
now, propose a superior solution than #3, or you are just being an empty cynic. it is not good enough to merely tear down someone else's argument. you must propose a better argument yourself, or we are left with the argument whose flaws you point out as still the best solution