Oh now come on, that's just a silly argument. Just because you keep to a schedule it doesn't mean that you can't have feedback or searchable archives. You are creating a false dichotomy.
No, I'm not the one that's creating the false dichotomy; Nielson is the one that set it up (albeit with "tend to"/"don't tent to" weasel words). I'm just pointing out how silly it is--and that's the part you seem to agree with. I would be quote happy to see news outlets provide richly linked stories with searchable archives showing how they reported on the stories in the past, user comments, etc. Nielson says that that isn't important--what's important is to have them come out on a regular schedule.
I disagree.
a particular news segment can be thought of as covering the time period between the last article and the current one. When you publish news articles on a schedule, there's a reasonable expectation that you are covering a particular time period, but there's no similar expectation when you just read what people publish when they feel like it - you don't know whether they are covering what happened that day or just what happened to be on their mind that day.
It can be though of in that way, but anyone who operates under these assumptions is just asking for trouble. Most periodic reports of time-dependent information trail the subject on which they are reporting by some interval, typically around half the reporting period (so the March report comes out mid-May). Magazines a few decades back decided that this was bad for sales, and started post dating their numbers, extending their shelf life but compounding the problem (the information in the May issue of a magazine, which was on the newsstands in March, often covers the period ending in April).
Conversely, there are established conventions for indicating the interval covered by a particular report (e.g. the BBC's "The Kings of Georgian Britain 1714-1837").
I don't really seen the point in publishing something at a set time or on a particular day, but some people think it's incredibly important.
Who?
Do you know any? Why would they care?
Apart from sources like the guy quoted in the article, do we even have any reason to suppose that such people exist? From the push/supply side (e.g., a newspaper, or TV show with a schedule to keep) it makes a great deal of sense. But from the pull/consumer side? Do you really think there are people who would rather bread that was baked at 6 AM, on the dot, to bread that was as fresh as possible? Yes, the truck stop manager expects the employees to clean the restrooms every hour, on the hour, but the customers just want clean restrooms.
Likewise, I contend, this guy may very well tell his clients that it's important to send your newsletters out on a fixed schedule, and his clients may believe him, but that does not mean that any of their readers would choose "regularly scheduled news" over "the current news, whenever you want it, with searchable archives and the ability to comment on it and read the comments of others".
Certainly you can have blogs that function as newsletters, updated on a regular basis. But they don't tend to do that. They don't tend to have that same sort of publishing discipline: having a publication schedule and surveying this week's or this day's events. They could, of course, but they don't tend to.
What planet is he browsing? Here on Earth, we have blogs that get updated in response to the day's events, often as fast or faster than the MSM. Want to know the latest on the SCO vs. IBM case? Where are you going to look, CNN or GrokLaw? Ditto the Plame leak investigation, the hunt for Mersenne primes and extra-solar planets, cheese making, and on and on... There are blogs on all these subjects updated daily. What newsletter can beat that?
And his subsequent comments about only the "fringe" readers wanting to have a conversation misses a key point: everybody is "fringe" on some subject, and will talk your ear off about it, given the chance.
Combine these two facts and you'll immediately see why blogs took off: rather than everyone waiting around some central font of information for the weekly newsletter that--if it's done right--might touch on a point or to that interests them, they're all going off to have conversations about the things that matter to them.
It's a heck of a lot better than any of the ones on their list (which was mostly high contrast Orange-on-Blue junk, IMHO. This one looks like it was produced by an artist with some color sense.
Here's a write-up. If you truly managed to miss hearing about this, I can only conclude that you have a life. Congratulations. I only wish there were more people like you (myself included). It boggles the mind how many bazillions of braincells must be wasted on this sort of trivia annually.
Or, to quote Andy Prieboy "I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then."
Is it just me, but does anyone else think it's odd that the people who brought us "Hot Coffee" decided to go with an engine specifically designed to model bouncing balls?
I don't see you complaining when articles from Daily Kos are posted. Why is it so bad to hear both sides of a contreversy?
There is a slight difference between people posting political opinions on an openly political web site, and people who try to pass their political opinions off as science. Further, when they aren't actually anybody's political opinion, but rather paid propaganda as part of a lobbying campaign, the difference is even greater.
If they want to have a blog called "Exxon Outgassing" or something like that, and post their spin there, I have no problem with that. Or if this were a case where someone actually had some research to present, that would be fine. But so far as I can see, this is propaganda, pure and simple, and trying to pass it off as "the other side of a controvery" is dishonest.
--MarkusQ
P.S. The odd thing is, I used to be a HCGW skeptic, until the sheer duplicity of the oil lobby convinced me to look into it more. So in my case, at least, their money backfired on them.
...then the resolution should be more than sufficient. (And before anyone cries that they would never do these sorts of things, they already do them. They just haven't gotten around to doing them to white US taxpayers. Yet.)
How would you know? Blackmail is most sucessful when it goes unreported. If the blackmailer is some shadowy arm of government or the police who are you going to report it to?
Are you telling me you've never heard of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI? Thanks to the FOIA, we now at least know some of what was done in the past. And yes, it does include blackmail. The great thing about evil bureaucracies (as opposed to, say, most evil individuals) is they tend to keep a copious paper trail.
whether it would be accurate enough for their purposes is unknown to me as well.
For example, if they want to know what room you're in at the Budget-99 Motel, probably not.
But if they want to
Produce "proof" that you've done something naughty because you were in a neighborhood where "naughty" is just one of many fine services they offer, in order to blackmail you
Drop a half ton of explosives on you, to kill you and anyone else who might be near you
Provide "credible intelligence" that you agree with / are working with someone because you were in the same large building as they were, and use it as an excuse to seize your assets
Etc.
...then the resolution should be more than sufficient. (And before anyone cries that they would never do these sorts of things, they already do them. They just haven't gotten around to doing them to white US taxpayers. Yet.)
Thanks, I knew I'd seen it somewhere, just couldn't remember where. It's been...a while...since I read that (Ronald Regan was still alive, and still an actor--though he may have been playing the part of "Governor" by then).
Now at least I know which box to look in, when I get back to the states.
we have no evidence that the author IS the primary breadwinner.
there is plenty of evidence, the company is willing to pay for him to fly or he can afford to fly to his work. That happens to less than 1% of people in the world. The chances of his wife making more are slim to none.
We don't have any evidence that the author is male, either.
I think it might well be. That link, by the way, was very interesting (though I'll admit I didn't read all of it, by a long shot).
And while I agree that it may be the same person, I'm not sure if he/she/it is a "kook" or not. The problem with posts like that is that it takes too long to sort out the "here's a kook making invalid points" people from the "here's a reasonable person making detailed but valid points about something I don't have time to care about at the moment" people.
I guess the upshot is, I'm glad I wasted a little time glancing through the post you linked to, and even more glad that I didn't waste even more time reading it in depth.
Ok, I just had a great idea that I don't have time to follow up on. So I'll offer it here for anyone who wants to to run with, with my blessing.
From today:
300 PackBot Tactical Mobile Robots deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan to open doors in urban combat, lay fiber-optic cable, defuse bombs and perform other hazardous duties previously done by humans alone.
From day before yesterday:
A recent post on the CERIAS weblogs examines the risks associated with reporting vulnerabilities. In the end, he advises that the risks (in one situation, at least) were almost not worth the trouble, and gives advice on how to stay out of trouble. Is it worth it to report vulnerabilities despite the risks, or is the chilling effect demonstrated here too much?
and:
The NY Times is reporting on a statement from US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales declaring that journalists may be prosecuted by the federal government for publishing classified information. On the 1st amendment ramifications: "'But it can't be the case that that right trumps over the right that Americans would like to see, the ability of the federal government to go after criminal activity,' he said. 'And so those two principles have to be accommodated.'" So our 1st amendment rights don't trump the right of the federal government to violate them?
See where I'm going with this? Somebody needs to develop are robot that can tell the truth even when powerful people want the truth kept secret. I can think of a ton of uses for it already.
Give every processor a different instruction set. So if you want code to run on a particular machine, it has to be compiled for that particular machine. In practice that's likely to mean compiled on that machine. Then there's next to no chance of "foreign" code {viruses, worms, trojans, whatever} running on your machine.
That doesn't follow at all. It just means that they will have to distribute themselves in source form and compile themselves on the target machine--or rather, trick the target machine into compiling and loading them. This is already close to what macro-malware does, and is exactly what the old pine worm did (the subject line tricked users into pressing two keys which would save it to a file, compile, and run it on most systems). It worked on any processor that had a roughly-posix OS with good C compiler called "C".
I think in times of war solidarity may become more important
I would guess that there was a pretty random mix of red-team, blue-team, green-team, etc. partisans on flight 93. Yet, by all accounts, when push came to shove they all stood together. I also recall that in WWII, a group of pacifists volunteered to be infected with various battlefield diseases so that the doctors could test experimental cures on them.
If solidarity is needed, it will appear on its own.
My dream-team government is an honest, intelligent, committed and articulate president of one party facing a legislature of his or her peers from the other party(s), and a judiciary that fiercely defends the people from government malfeasance.
If they can collectively agree on anything, I'll support it too, but otherwise I'd rather they bicker amongst themselves.
A simpler metric might be: Who thinks that Clinton is better than Bush? Who thinks that Bush is better than Clinton?
Or if that is unfair, who was better Regan or Clinton? Both men seemed to be very popular with their constituancies - where do you think slashdot would fall?
I'll bite. I'd rate "woodshed" Regan over "meaning of is" Clinton, but "meaning of is" Clinton over both Bushes. Of the Bushes, I'd take the no-new-taxes liar over the Sadam-has-WMD liar, who's tied in my book with "Ms. Triangulation" Clinton.
And I'd trust Jon Stewart, Russ Fiengold or Warren Buffet over any of 'em.
Maurene O'Gara is evil. She lies constantly. I've never seen anyone who is as sick and twisted as she is. I despise her.
I have nothing to add. I just laughed at this paragraph so much, I wanted to see it on the screen twice. Hatred this pure should be rewarded with repetition.:)
You call that hatred? I'd call it an fair and objective assessment. Heck, I was almost wondering why he was going so easy on her.
And as for your subject line about "killing interest" in the course, you've got that backwards. It's much easier to get people involved and engaged with each other than with an IDE. For instance, divide them up into teams that have to write bits code which the other team has to check for bugs. Keep score. When they get good at this, make the challenge to be for the coders to slip security holes through. It gets interesting early and can stay interesting for a lifetime.
One of the most important things when you are starting out (and, actually, when you are experienced as well, but that's less obvious) is to get feedback on what you are doing wrong as quickly as possible. Don't throw this away lightly.
I disagree. One of the most important things when you are starting out is to not fall into the trap of thinking that you will get feedback on what you are doing wrong quickly. Because the computer quickly and reliably reposts some kinds of syntax errors (and because beginners lack a sophisticated taxonomy of errors) it's easy for them to think that the computer will report all syntax errors--in fact, all errors--when this is not true.
It's quite easy for students to work very long and hard doing something _completely and utterly wrong._ This does _not_ make them better programmers than if they got immediate feedback on what was wrong; it just frustrates them
Yes, exactly. But an IDE is going to make the problem worse by guiding their attention to the wrong level of detail. They could easily spend hours in the IDE getting the details right on a wrong headed approach that they would have caught (or a classmate would have caught for them) if they'd tried to defend it standing at a whiteboard.
Slashdot Mirror
No, I'm not the one that's creating the false dichotomy; Nielson is the one that set it up (albeit with "tend to"/"don't tent to" weasel words). I'm just pointing out how silly it is--and that's the part you seem to agree with. I would be quote happy to see news outlets provide richly linked stories with searchable archives showing how they reported on the stories in the past, user comments, etc. Nielson says that that isn't important--what's important is to have them come out on a regular schedule.
I disagree.
It can be though of in that way, but anyone who operates under these assumptions is just asking for trouble. Most periodic reports of time-dependent information trail the subject on which they are reporting by some interval, typically around half the reporting period (so the March report comes out mid-May). Magazines a few decades back decided that this was bad for sales, and started post dating their numbers, extending their shelf life but compounding the problem (the information in the May issue of a magazine, which was on the newsstands in March, often covers the period ending in April).
Conversely, there are established conventions for indicating the interval covered by a particular report (e.g. the BBC's "The Kings of Georgian Britain 1714-1837").
--MarkusQ
Who?
Do you know any? Why would they care?
Apart from sources like the guy quoted in the article, do we even have any reason to suppose that such people exist? From the push/supply side (e.g., a newspaper, or TV show with a schedule to keep) it makes a great deal of sense. But from the pull/consumer side? Do you really think there are people who would rather bread that was baked at 6 AM, on the dot, to bread that was as fresh as possible? Yes, the truck stop manager expects the employees to clean the restrooms every hour, on the hour, but the customers just want clean restrooms.
Likewise, I contend, this guy may very well tell his clients that it's important to send your newsletters out on a fixed schedule, and his clients may believe him, but that does not mean that any of their readers would choose "regularly scheduled news" over "the current news, whenever you want it, with searchable archives and the ability to comment on it and read the comments of others".
--MarkusQ
What planet is he browsing? Here on Earth, we have blogs that get updated in response to the day's events, often as fast or faster than the MSM. Want to know the latest on the SCO vs. IBM case? Where are you going to look, CNN or GrokLaw? Ditto the Plame leak investigation, the hunt for Mersenne primes and extra-solar planets, cheese making, and on and on... There are blogs on all these subjects updated daily. What newsletter can beat that?
And his subsequent comments about only the "fringe" readers wanting to have a conversation misses a key point: everybody is "fringe" on some subject, and will talk your ear off about it, given the chance.
Combine these two facts and you'll immediately see why blogs took off: rather than everyone waiting around some central font of information for the weekly newsletter that--if it's done right--might touch on a point or to that interests them, they're all going off to have conversations about the things that matter to them.
Short response: This guy is clueless.
-- MarkusQ
Agreed, though I'm partial to "Wine Red and TV Blue" and "Maybe It's Not Her Head" myself.
Don't ask me why.
--MarkusQ
It's a heck of a lot better than any of the ones on their list (which was mostly high contrast Orange-on-Blue junk, IMHO. This one looks like it was produced by an artist with some color sense.
--MarkusQ
No, "Big Rock Finish"
--MarkusQ
Here's a write-up. If you truly managed to miss hearing about this, I can only conclude that you have a life. Congratulations. I only wish there were more people like you (myself included). It boggles the mind how many bazillions of braincells must be wasted on this sort of trivia annually.
Or, to quote Andy Prieboy "I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then."
--MarkusQ
Is it just me, but does anyone else think it's odd that the people who brought us "Hot Coffee" decided to go with an engine specifically designed to model bouncing balls?
--MarkusQ
I don't see you complaining when articles from Daily Kos are posted. Why is it so bad to hear both sides of a contreversy?
There is a slight difference between people posting political opinions on an openly political web site, and people who try to pass their political opinions off as science. Further, when they aren't actually anybody's political opinion, but rather paid propaganda as part of a lobbying campaign, the difference is even greater.
If they want to have a blog called "Exxon Outgassing" or something like that, and post their spin there, I have no problem with that. Or if this were a case where someone actually had some research to present, that would be fine. But so far as I can see, this is propaganda, pure and simple, and trying to pass it off as "the other side of a controvery" is dishonest.
--MarkusQ
P.S. The odd thing is, I used to be a HCGW skeptic, until the sheer duplicity of the oil lobby convinced me to look into it more. So in my case, at least, their money backfired on them.
Are you telling me you've never heard of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI? Thanks to the FOIA, we now at least know some of what was done in the past. And yes, it does include blackmail. The great thing about evil bureaucracies (as opposed to, say, most evil individuals) is they tend to keep a copious paper trail.
--MarkusQ
For example, if they want to know what room you're in at the Budget-99 Motel, probably not.
But if they want to
--MarkusQ
Since this appears to be the official joke thread for the article, I'll throw in my two cents:
the sensor revealed the wrinkles in President Lincoln's clothing and the letters TY in liberty.
I'm glad they've got a device that can still detect some of our liberty. I was starting to get worried.
--MarkusQ
Thanks, I knew I'd seen it somewhere, just couldn't remember where. It's been...a while...since I read that (Ronald Regan was still alive, and still an actor--though he may have been playing the part of "Governor" by then).
Now at least I know which box to look in, when I get back to the states.
--MarkusQ
This is way off topic, but it's been driving me nuts. Where is your sig from?
--MarkusQ
Why isn't anyone talking about the girl that got transformed into a blueberry?
Actually, she was turned into a Blackberry. The reason no one is talking about it is that they're still trying to unravel the IP issues.
--MarkusQ
We don't have any evidence that the author is male, either.
--MarkusQ
I think it might well be. That link, by the way, was very interesting (though I'll admit I didn't read all of it, by a long shot).
And while I agree that it may be the same person, I'm not sure if he/she/it is a "kook" or not. The problem with posts like that is that it takes too long to sort out the "here's a kook making invalid points" people from the "here's a reasonable person making detailed but valid points about something I don't have time to care about at the moment" people.
I guess the upshot is, I'm glad I wasted a little time glancing through the post you linked to, and even more glad that I didn't waste even more time reading it in depth.
--MarkusQ
Ok, I just had a great idea that I don't have time to follow up on. So I'll offer it here for anyone who wants to to run with, with my blessing.
From today:
300 PackBot Tactical Mobile Robots deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan to open doors in urban combat, lay fiber-optic cable, defuse bombs and perform other hazardous duties previously done by humans alone.
From day before yesterday:
A recent post on the CERIAS weblogs examines the risks associated with reporting vulnerabilities. In the end, he advises that the risks (in one situation, at least) were almost not worth the trouble, and gives advice on how to stay out of trouble. Is it worth it to report vulnerabilities despite the risks, or is the chilling effect demonstrated here too much?
and:
The NY Times is reporting on a statement from US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales declaring that journalists may be prosecuted by the federal government for publishing classified information. On the 1st amendment ramifications: "'But it can't be the case that that right trumps over the right that Americans would like to see, the ability of the federal government to go after criminal activity,' he said. 'And so those two principles have to be accommodated.'" So our 1st amendment rights don't trump the right of the federal government to violate them?
See where I'm going with this? Somebody needs to develop are robot that can tell the truth even when powerful people want the truth kept secret. I can think of a ton of uses for it already.
--MarkusQ
Give every processor a different instruction set. So if you want code to run on a particular machine, it has to be compiled for that particular machine. In practice that's likely to mean compiled on that machine. Then there's next to no chance of "foreign" code {viruses, worms, trojans, whatever} running on your machine.
That doesn't follow at all. It just means that they will have to distribute themselves in source form and compile themselves on the target machine--or rather, trick the target machine into compiling and loading them. This is already close to what macro-malware does, and is exactly what the old pine worm did (the subject line tricked users into pressing two keys which would save it to a file, compile, and run it on most systems). It worked on any processor that had a roughly-posix OS with good C compiler called "C".
--MarkusQ
I think in times of war solidarity may become more important
I would guess that there was a pretty random mix of red-team, blue-team, green-team, etc. partisans on flight 93. Yet, by all accounts, when push came to shove they all stood together. I also recall that in WWII, a group of pacifists volunteered to be infected with various battlefield diseases so that the doctors could test experimental cures on them.
If solidarity is needed, it will appear on its own.
--MarkusQ
Obviously, you are an obstructionist
You got it in one. I'm an obstructionist.
My dream-team government is an honest, intelligent, committed and articulate president of one party facing a legislature of his or her peers from the other party(s), and a judiciary that fiercely defends the people from government malfeasance.
If they can collectively agree on anything, I'll support it too, but otherwise I'd rather they bicker amongst themselves.
--MarkusQ
A simpler metric might be: Who thinks that Clinton is better than Bush? Who thinks that Bush is better than Clinton?
Or if that is unfair, who was better Regan or Clinton? Both men seemed to be very popular with their constituancies - where do you think slashdot would fall?
I'll bite. I'd rate "woodshed" Regan over "meaning of is" Clinton, but "meaning of is" Clinton over both Bushes. Of the Bushes, I'd take the no-new-taxes liar over the Sadam-has-WMD liar, who's tied in my book with "Ms. Triangulation" Clinton.
And I'd trust Jon Stewart, Russ Fiengold or Warren Buffet over any of 'em.
So pigeonhole me.
--MarkusQ
You call that hatred? I'd call it an fair and objective assessment. Heck, I was almost wondering why he was going so easy on her.
--MarkusQ
And as for your subject line about "killing interest" in the course, you've got that backwards. It's much easier to get people involved and engaged with each other than with an IDE. For instance, divide them up into teams that have to write bits code which the other team has to check for bugs. Keep score. When they get good at this, make the challenge to be for the coders to slip security holes through. It gets interesting early and can stay interesting for a lifetime.
--MarkusQ
I disagree. One of the most important things when you are starting out is to not fall into the trap of thinking that you will get feedback on what you are doing wrong quickly. Because the computer quickly and reliably reposts some kinds of syntax errors (and because beginners lack a sophisticated taxonomy of errors) it's easy for them to think that the computer will report all syntax errors--in fact, all errors--when this is not true.
It's quite easy for students to work very long and hard doing something _completely and utterly wrong._ This does _not_ make them better programmers than if they got immediate feedback on what was wrong; it just frustrates them
Yes, exactly. But an IDE is going to make the problem worse by guiding their attention to the wrong level of detail. They could easily spend hours in the IDE getting the details right on a wrong headed approach that they would have caught (or a classmate would have caught for them) if they'd tried to defend it standing at a whiteboard.
--MarkusQ