Extra, extra, read all about it. Disney sells fluffy fairytale DRM that likes to cuddle and sing.
It's not news. It's hype. Disney has always sold fairytales. Disney has always aggressively used DRM. It's the same broken set of ideas that is DRM, packaged yet again for a gullible public. I pay about as much attention to these "announcements" as I do to Nigerian get rich quick spam. No thanks Disney, I don't want to send you my financial details or buy that fairytale bridge that'll make me rich.
Actually I wonder how slashdot arrived at it's headline. The way it's written it sounds like the entire business could be moved over for $2000 (ie not per PC). Now that'd be a bargain wouldn't it?;-)
Maybe we can now just stop all the holy wars and live in peace and harmony while celebrating the diversity of software available. I can dream can't I?:)
It's a pity you didn't have a backup of your documents on another device. The error was not using local storage but the lack of a backup and possibly a second copy of your most important docs on a USB stick or portable hard disk.
I am bemused by your trust in a 3rd party to store your documents. It's just as easy for a 3rd party to lose your data, go offline (temporarily or permanently), change their terms of service to start charging or charge more etc.
You're underplaying the importance of format in a business document while collaborating. Do you have any idea how long it takes to go through a 600+ page document to fix "minor" aesthetic problems? If you're both using the same package, they're kept to a minimum. PDF is a good solution if you're publishing a document, but hand waving and pretending that the collaboration issue doesn't exist because YOU don't have to personally deal with it is somewhat immature.
Sure it does. They can do whatever the crap they want within the limits of the law....and customers can just not buy their product. Simple.
Now your just being hysterical.
I'm hysterical because I don't want to buy a console from a vendor that tries to lock its' users down and treats them badly? The term fanboi comes to mind.
I would hardly compare disallowing 3rd party hardware (with ample warning I might add) with forced body-cavity searches.
Sorry I was extending your rather poor analogy. Suggesting that I was making this comparison in absolute terms without referring to the analogy in context is dishonest. Searching what memory stick you've connected to your console is hardly as transparent as your analogy made out. It's closer to the gross invasion of privacy that I suggested.
That doesn't mean they get to treat customer's badly with zero consequence. If they do something that puts me off going online, I'm not just going to stay away from their online service, I'll also leave the console alone.
They are not required to make it open or even available to everyone. If we don't like we can leave; it's their house and we just get to play in the yard.
In your analogy it's more like they decided to strip search us and throw us out if they find a non-MS-branded USB key.
If you don't want to be updated, don't connect to the online service.
Yep. I'll just go buy a console designed to be online where the best games require the online service, and then not connect to the service. Sounds reasonable to me.
Locking out the competitor's product should be illegal. If you can't compete because your product is overpriced, you shouldn't be propped up. Yes that may mean that people have to pay the true cost of a console or printer or other device, as it isn't subsidised by content/ink etc. It's called honesty. Manufacturers should try it some time.
Don't blame him. Your entire country needs one instead of the watered down ebonics thing you've been getting since Reagan
Your assumption that I'm American is amusing. Not everyone is American. Unless you're meaning to imply that Reagan was responsibile for Australia's education system. I was aiming for funny not political insult.
If you have to ask, then you're probably "weird". One thing about "normal" people is that their grasp of what's normal is instinctive, not reasoned out and deduced. It's a bit like the kids game/song "one of these things is not like the others".
Additionally, I don't think weirdness is ever reducible to one axis, and so it's also a multi-factor value (aka. multi-dimensional vector), where things like weighting them based on their orthogonality to get to the magnitude, come into play. (In other words: What factors make someone weird for you, and how important are those factors?)
"Normal" people wouldn't even think in terms of multi-dimensional arrays of factors. The fact that you are doing so for a social situation flies in the face of the assertion you've made that software programing doesn't make you weird. Trying to apply the techniques you've learnt in software programming to such social situations is a bit like a physicist being given a bat and ball and trying to apply equations to hitting the ball instead dropping the equations and trying to develop muscle memory and hand eye co-ordination.
I was like that. EXACTLY like that. Worst of the kind. I had a huge fear to even *talk* to girls until I was 20+. Seriously!
While it's normal to be fearful of rejection or of overstepping social boundaries if you're romantically interested, I think it's safe to say that most people wouldn't consider it normal to be fearful of even talking to the opposite sex.
Conclusion: No. Software development does NOT make you weird. Not in any known universe! Insecurity, and a environment full of prejudice, since early childhood, make you weird.
That's an ill reasoned excuse and you know it. Two kids in similar circumstances will grow up with one well adjusted and the other considered weird. It's not all due to outside influence.
I'm a software developer / game designer and I am also according to others one of the "coolest guys they know". (Again, I myself am never trying to place myself above someone.)
Man, you just lost me. None of the coolest guys I know had fear talking to girls at age 20.
I have an idea. Let's do the same in Australia. The way our politicians carry on booing, jeering, calling each other names and such is disgraceful. (Actually I'm resisting the urge to suggest a 1 hour meeting under water WITHOUT the scuba gear). I guess it's similar the world over. No wonder we're in the economic, social and environmental crapper.
"Edison... had aptitude in a number of areas that most people don't."
Fine. What's yours?
There are 6 billion people on the planet. Not all of them are going to be some kind of genius.
Just marketing. Right. They didn't actually make products people wanted. They didn't integrate new technologies into cool new devices. They didn't design and create products that featured award-winning industrial design. Nope. "Just marketing." Sorry, but "just" marketing and $5 will get you a latte at Starbucks, and even then they're going to want the cash up front. Plenty of companies have tried to get by on "just" marketing.
Apple products are lame. They aren't more capable. They aren't more stylish. They do have bugs. They don't just work. They often lock you out of doing what you want with your own device. They are sold on marketing rather than fuctionality.
You can win a design by convincing other idiots that it's new. It doesn't mean it is.
Plenty of companies do get by on just marketing. Do you think Nike and Reebok are genuinely better shoes? What about that garbage they sell on late night television? How about fortune telling? Fantastic marketing and no substance, but fools and their money...
Nice straw man, but I wasn't advocating that. But sitting around and waiting for some mystical magical opportunity to walk up and knock on your front door isn't the way to go either.
You was no straw man. YOU asserted that people make their own luck, which is complete nonsense. I didn't see anyone suggest you should sit on your backside and wait for opportunity to come to you. So if anyone can be accused of setting up straw men it's you. Suggesting that anyone can become rich and famous just by "making their own luck" is the position YOU put forward. Then you accused some people you don't know of being lazy and sitting on their backside watching TV.
And of course there's some luck involved in practically any endeavor. But time and again it's been shown that certain people tend to create their own luck.
No one creates their own luck. Luck is by defintion the set of circumstances which you have no control over.
And to insist, as did the GP, that it's ALL luck and that nothing else matters... well, you might as well hand over all your money to the nice man sitting at the poker table and not bother even sitting down, because you've already lost the game.
The GP did no such thing. Making money - enough to be comfortable - requires some luck. Becoming rich and famous requires a lot more. In both cases you still usually have to work for it, and work hard. The difference between rich and mega-rich has a lot to do with luck. The difference between poor loser and making a decent living requires a lot less. In all cases you can improve your situation through working hard and wisely, but in all cases yuo have to be given the opportunity in the first place. If you're born to a starving family in a 3rd world war torn hell hole, not getting shot or starving to death before you're 3 probably has a lot more to do with luck than hard work. I don't see too many people rise above such circumstances and those that do often acknowledge they were lucky.
And thousands WERE in their place, and did not. How many people were in the homebrew computer scene at the time? How many dinked around and wrote their own versions of BASIC? How many started their own companies? How many succeeded? How many had the same exact background and opportunities... and did nothing?
None. No two people have the same experiences and opportunities.
There are things beyond your control that have to fall into place for you to become wildly successful. That is what people call luck. Yeah hard work is usually also required, at least at the start.
Attributing such to "luck" translates into refusing to take responsibility for your own actions and your own choices. "It's not me, it's luck." "Joe got the promotion and not me, the lucky bastard." And so on, and so on.
It just may be that Joe has a quality or did something that you could not have. That's called being a realist, not refusing to take responsibility. Using such circumstances as an excuse not to make an effort to try make the most of the opportunities that come your way is refusing to take responsibility.
Many people have been at the helm of Apple, and only one has driven it to success. Twice. Is that luck?
No it's marketing.
Would just anyone have made the same choices? Would just anyone have had the same insights? Would just anyone have the same vision and commitment and drive?
Now you're just playing hero worshiper. If you think it was raw "vision and commitment and drive" with no fortunate circumstance that made Jobs rich you're living in a fantasy world.
Really? Perhaps someone should have mentioned that to Edison? Who definitely made a success out of spending just a "few more hours in the lab".
Lots of people spend all their lives working in a lab or at a computer and don't make it. It's not JUST the time and effort that got Edison anywhere. He had aptitude in a number of areas that most people don't.
But you're not capable of believing that, are you? So go home after work, why don't you? Go home and sit on the couch, or go down to the corner bar. Have a beer, and bitch and moan and complain about how "unlucky" you are. And definitely don't try to "do" anything about it. That's too hard, and with your luck, why bother?
Do you know anything at all about what the GP does in his spare time? Or indeed if he even has any? Do you have a family? Children? Spending all your time at work and neglecting them while persuing some foolish dream of fame and fortune isn't the way to go.
Actually, you're half right. For you, it is luck, because in this case the prophecy is definitely self-fullfilling.
When someone wants to insult you they call it "self-fulfilling prophecy". When they want to praise you they call it "foresight" or "being a realist"
You keep on telling yourself there's no such thing as luck. Keep working yourself into the ground doing things that aren't likely to make you rich or famous. It changes nothing. Certainly not your wealth.
one can attach to a telescope, align against known stars, and then determine where you're pointing afterwards --
If it's accurate enough to then find a specific star, that'd be the first time I'd have been interested in what that over hyped piece of trash phone can do.
Sell! Fucking idiot machine. I'm not stressed, I just have a fucking cold. Oh look the stock is tanking. I was right. Better get out quick. Sell! What do you mean I'm stressed?! I'm not fucking stressed. It's time to get out. Sell! Sell! Sell! Fuck now it's REALLY tanking. Okay now I'm getting stressed for real. Stock is hitting the floor and this is going to wipe me out. Sell now you fucking piece of shit machine! Sell!!!!!! Ah fuck, I'm about to lose my shirt here! Sell!!!!! Anyone want to buy a fucking useless money losing piece of shit machine???
Mythbusters is science. Not particularly rigorous, but science nonetheless. Learning science from Mythbusters is more like learning about cooked food from said McDonalds staffer.
If your definition of science is that crude, religion too is just not very rigorous science.
Don't get me started on small data sets. Edwin Hubble's correlation of radial velocity and distance (Big Bang, to most people) was based on less than 50 data points. Crap, I got started on small data sets. Stop now, http, before
Yet he was considered a genius because he was right (and always told everyone what a genius he was and that he should get the Nobel prize). If he was wrong you'd likely have never heard of him. So what led him to that intuition is itself interesting, but that doesnt' mean his science was sound.
The small data sets isn't even the worst thing the Mythbusters do. The huge leaps of logic and broad generalisations from those data sets along with their rape of the scientific method (especially lack of controls) are far worse.
The McDonalds cook teach gourmet isn't a bad analogy at all if I do say so myself. The Mythbusters are after all special effects guys.
Oh absolutely. Telling people they can't learn science from television is awful. It discourages them from learning while simultaneously giving the big tick to garbage programming which you say they should expect.
You're right, I admit it, I'm a hack. And my lack of credentials is exactly my point.
And my point is that one hack doesn't mean every documentary is made by hacks. You can turn on Discovery channel and sometimes see garbage about ghosts and UFOs - that doesn't mean every documentary on the discovery channel is of similar quality.
And my lack of credentials is exactly my point. In television, visibility equals credibility, regardless of actual expertise. I can say that because, at one time, I had a career in television and film production. Trust me, I know how the medium works. I have friends who work on "respectable" shows like Nova and the BBC documentaries, you know, David Attenborough's old gang. Same story there. Truly.
Total nonsense. There's commercial reality, but that does not mean everything is rubbish. When someone goes on one of these shows and is a full time professional scientist they are sticking their neck out. Their colleagues know about and see these shows too. Without some of these programs how much would most adults know about dinosaurs, astronomy, wildlife, weather science, physics, archaeology etc. etc.? Most people know Einstein as that weird mad scientist. Get them to watch a snippet about time dialation and provided you hold their interest you've actually accomplished something.
The secret to successful documentaries *and game shows* is to make the audience *feel* as smart, or smarter than the people they're watching. It's all a big psych job
Cynical nonsense. But even so if you make people feel smarter because you've informed them or taught them a new concept that's not such a bad thing.
I dunno about you, but I got a whole lot more out of the book than I ever did from the movie. I stand by my original statement. If you really want to learn something, read the book. If you want to be entertained, watch TV.
For most people it's not either/or. I'm not saying don't read. I'm just saying documentaries have their place. I'm much more likely to watch a documentary while I'm exhausted than to dig into a book, and I'll still absorb it if it's interesting. However if you REALLY want to get to know something, do a course somewhere credible. Although if you see some of the lecture series I've been talking about it's _almost_ as good as doing a course. A popular book fits somewhere in between the TV documentary and the course.
And for those people too lazy to read a book, I've found that by the next day, they've forgotten everything in the TV show anyway. It's really amusing and disgusting at the same time. One of my shows will come on, and the next day someone will stop me - "Hey! I saw your show!" then they proceed to retell the whole thing back to me, and they never, ever get it right. Usually, not even close.
So you're criticising your friends for not understanding an in depth topic from a half hour or one hour show. Brilliant. Let me suggest two things. Your shows might stink - not explain things well, and allow misunderstandings. Since you're a hack and proud of it that's quite likely. Or your friends aren't very intelligent, in which case get new friends.
Insult me all you wish. I'm made of tougher stuff than you know. And I won't respond again.
It's not about hurling insults at some random stranger. It's about diffusing such blatantly cynical misinformation. I've learnt plenty from documentaries. I choose what I watch. If it's repedative, treats me like an idiot, is boring, or mundane I'll move on. But even having done an astronomy degree I've picked up new insights from Universe and I've always loved Carl Sagan's Cosmos. I've watched lectures on the train on Dark Matter and Dark Energy that were full of information I hadn
I'm sorry you don't like the fact that Mythbusters isn't science. It's the kind of "entertainment" the GP was talking about - completely unscientific trash. What they do to the scientific method, most wouldn't do to their worst enemy. They aren't teaching anyone the scientific method - they're teaching people that controls in an experiment are optional, and that you can generalise from a tiny data sample. Learning science from the Mythbusters shows is like learning gourmet cooking from a burger flipper at MacDonalds.
But if I'm off-line, I simply have to trust the certs in my possession.
You are way too focused on the cers. If you're off line and your certs have been compromised, so could your code. In which case game over. Any test can be bypassed. If you don't trust your register is secure, require it to be online.
Yes a HSM is the best test you can have. It provides non-repudiation provided you're willing to do forensics to prove the POS terminal hasn't been compromised. So it's a very partial solution. As soon as you go on line, you can authenticate the certificate definitively, but if you're saying by then it's too late, you shouldn't be accepting the transaction. So as you said for soda, perhaps. For a Rolls Royce, certainly not.
Don't be so quick to take offense if you don't understand the way someone else is going with a conversation.
Take a look into my initial message and your response. You made the first attack on what I'd said.
It was completely over the top for humour value. No one is taking this seriously. No one in their right mind anyway. So there's no secret agenda to oppress women here.
The same women that complain about these jokes as being sexist usually have no problem with jokes about men. Get a grip. I'm a fat guy but I still laugh at some fat jokes. It's called having a sense of humour.
Slashdot Mirror
Extra, extra, read all about it. Disney sells fluffy fairytale DRM that likes to cuddle and sing.
It's not news. It's hype. Disney has always sold fairytales. Disney has always aggressively used DRM. It's the same broken set of ideas that is DRM, packaged yet again for a gullible public. I pay about as much attention to these "announcements" as I do to Nigerian get rich quick spam. No thanks Disney, I don't want to send you my financial details or buy that fairytale bridge that'll make me rich.
I wonder how IBM arrived at the result of $2000.
Actually I wonder how slashdot arrived at it's headline. The way it's written it sounds like the entire business could be moved over for $2000 (ie not per PC). Now that'd be a bargain wouldn't it? ;-)
Maybe we can now just stop all the holy wars and live in peace and harmony while celebrating the diversity of software available. I can dream can't I? :)
Only if by dream you mean smoke weed.
It's a pity you didn't have a backup of your documents on another device. The error was not using local storage but the lack of a backup and possibly a second copy of your most important docs on a USB stick or portable hard disk.
I am bemused by your trust in a 3rd party to store your documents. It's just as easy for a 3rd party to lose your data, go offline (temporarily or permanently), change their terms of service to start charging or charge more etc.
You're underplaying the importance of format in a business document while collaborating. Do you have any idea how long it takes to go through a 600+ page document to fix "minor" aesthetic problems? If you're both using the same package, they're kept to a minimum. PDF is a good solution if you're publishing a document, but hand waving and pretending that the collaboration issue doesn't exist because YOU don't have to personally deal with it is somewhat immature.
Sure it does. They can do whatever the crap they want within the limits of the law. ...and customers can just not buy their product. Simple.
Now your just being hysterical.
I'm hysterical because I don't want to buy a console from a vendor that tries to lock its' users down and treats them badly? The term fanboi comes to mind.
I would hardly compare disallowing 3rd party hardware (with ample warning I might add) with forced body-cavity searches.
Sorry I was extending your rather poor analogy. Suggesting that I was making this comparison in absolute terms without referring to the analogy in context is dishonest. Searching what memory stick you've connected to your console is hardly as transparent as your analogy made out. It's closer to the gross invasion of privacy that I suggested.
XBOX Live is not a public utility.
That doesn't mean they get to treat customer's badly with zero consequence. If they do something that puts me off going online, I'm not just going to stay away from their online service, I'll also leave the console alone.
They are not required to make it open or even available to everyone. If we don't like we can leave; it's their house and we just get to play in the yard.
In your analogy it's more like they decided to strip search us and throw us out if they find a non-MS-branded USB key.
If you don't want to be updated, don't connect to the online service.
Yep. I'll just go buy a console designed to be online where the best games require the online service, and then not connect to the service. Sounds reasonable to me.
Also, syousef, you could launch your own game platform company and open up you game console to 3rd party storage.
Yes I'll just quit my job, risk my family income etc. No problem. Why didn't I think of that?
Locking out the competitor's product should be illegal. If you can't compete because your product is overpriced, you shouldn't be propped up. Yes that may mean that people have to pay the true cost of a console or printer or other device, as it isn't subsidised by content/ink etc. It's called honesty. Manufacturers should try it some time.
Don't blame him. Your entire country needs one instead of the watered down ebonics thing you've been getting since Reagan
Your assumption that I'm American is amusing. Not everyone is American. Unless you're meaning to imply that Reagan was responsibile for Australia's education system. I was aiming for funny not political insult.
Exactly. What do you define as "weird"?
If you have to ask, then you're probably "weird". One thing about "normal" people is that their grasp of what's normal is instinctive, not reasoned out and deduced. It's a bit like the kids game/song "one of these things is not like the others".
Additionally, I don't think weirdness is ever reducible to one axis, and so it's also a multi-factor value (aka. multi-dimensional vector), where things like weighting them based on their orthogonality to get to the magnitude, come into play. (In other words: What factors make someone weird for you, and how important are those factors?)
"Normal" people wouldn't even think in terms of multi-dimensional arrays of factors. The fact that you are doing so for a social situation flies in the face of the assertion you've made that software programing doesn't make you weird. Trying to apply the techniques you've learnt in software programming to such social situations is a bit like a physicist being given a bat and ball and trying to apply equations to hitting the ball instead dropping the equations and trying to develop muscle memory and hand eye co-ordination.
I was like that. EXACTLY like that. Worst of the kind. I had a huge fear to even *talk* to girls until I was 20+. Seriously!
While it's normal to be fearful of rejection or of overstepping social boundaries if you're romantically interested, I think it's safe to say that most people wouldn't consider it normal to be fearful of even talking to the opposite sex.
Conclusion: No. Software development does NOT make you weird. Not in any known universe! Insecurity, and a environment full of prejudice, since early childhood, make you weird.
That's an ill reasoned excuse and you know it. Two kids in similar circumstances will grow up with one well adjusted and the other considered weird. It's not all due to outside influence.
I'm a software developer / game designer and I am also according to others one of the "coolest guys they know". (Again, I myself am never trying to place myself above someone.)
Man, you just lost me. None of the coolest guys I know had fear talking to girls at age 20.
so don't nothing phase me.
'Ceptin' maybes an Eng'lish Coarse.
I have an idea. Let's do the same in Australia. The way our politicians carry on booing, jeering, calling each other names and such is disgraceful. (Actually I'm resisting the urge to suggest a 1 hour meeting under water WITHOUT the scuba gear). I guess it's similar the world over. No wonder we're in the economic, social and environmental crapper.
2. Couldn't this say $40,000,000 USD (FORTY MILLION UNITED STATES DOLLARS) to be more dramatic?
You'd prefer they imply the reader is innumerate?
"Edison ... had aptitude in a number of areas that most people don't."
Fine. What's yours?
There are 6 billion people on the planet. Not all of them are going to be some kind of genius.
Just marketing. Right. They didn't actually make products people wanted. They didn't integrate new technologies into cool new devices. They didn't design and create products that featured award-winning industrial design. Nope. "Just marketing." Sorry, but "just" marketing and $5 will get you a latte at Starbucks, and even then they're going to want the cash up front. Plenty of companies have tried to get by on "just" marketing.
Apple products are lame. They aren't more capable. They aren't more stylish. They do have bugs. They don't just work. They often lock you out of doing what you want with your own device. They are sold on marketing rather than fuctionality.
You can win a design by convincing other idiots that it's new. It doesn't mean it is.
Plenty of companies do get by on just marketing. Do you think Nike and Reebok are genuinely better shoes? What about that garbage they sell on late night television? How about fortune telling? Fantastic marketing and no substance, but fools and their money...
Nice straw man, but I wasn't advocating that. But sitting around and waiting for some mystical magical opportunity to walk up and knock on your front door isn't the way to go either.
You was no straw man. YOU asserted that people make their own luck, which is complete nonsense. I didn't see anyone suggest you should sit on your backside and wait for opportunity to come to you. So if anyone can be accused of setting up straw men it's you. Suggesting that anyone can become rich and famous just by "making their own luck" is the position YOU put forward. Then you accused some people you don't know of being lazy and sitting on their backside watching TV.
And of course there's some luck involved in practically any endeavor. But time and again it's been shown that certain people tend to create their own luck.
No one creates their own luck. Luck is by defintion the set of circumstances which you have no control over.
And to insist, as did the GP, that it's ALL luck and that nothing else matters... well, you might as well hand over all your money to the nice man sitting at the poker table and not bother even sitting down, because you've already lost the game.
The GP did no such thing. Making money - enough to be comfortable - requires some luck. Becoming rich and famous requires a lot more. In both cases you still usually have to work for it, and work hard. The difference between rich and mega-rich has a lot to do with luck. The difference between poor loser and making a decent living requires a lot less. In all cases you can improve your situation through working hard and wisely, but in all cases yuo have to be given the opportunity in the first place. If you're born to a starving family in a 3rd world war torn hell hole, not getting shot or starving to death before you're 3 probably has a lot more to do with luck than hard work. I don't see too many people rise above such circumstances and those that do often acknowledge they were lucky.
And thousands WERE in their place, and did not. How many people were in the homebrew computer scene at the time? How many dinked around and wrote their own versions of BASIC? How many started their own companies? How many succeeded? How many had the same exact background and opportunities... and did nothing?
None. No two people have the same experiences and opportunities.
There are things beyond your control that have to fall into place for you to become wildly successful. That is what people call luck. Yeah hard work is usually also required, at least at the start.
Attributing such to "luck" translates into refusing to take responsibility for your own actions and your own choices. "It's not me, it's luck." "Joe got the promotion and not me, the lucky bastard." And so on, and so on.
It just may be that Joe has a quality or did something that you could not have. That's called being a realist, not refusing to take responsibility. Using such circumstances as an excuse not to make an effort to try make the most of the opportunities that come your way is refusing to take responsibility.
Many people have been at the helm of Apple, and only one has driven it to success. Twice. Is that luck?
No it's marketing.
Would just anyone have made the same choices? Would just anyone have had the same insights? Would just anyone have the same vision and commitment and drive?
Now you're just playing hero worshiper. If you think it was raw "vision and commitment and drive" with no fortunate circumstance that made Jobs rich you're living in a fantasy world.
Really? Perhaps someone should have mentioned that to Edison? Who definitely made a success out of spending just a "few more hours in the lab".
Lots of people spend all their lives working in a lab or at a computer and don't make it. It's not JUST the time and effort that got Edison anywhere. He had aptitude in a number of areas that most people don't.
But you're not capable of believing that, are you? So go home after work, why don't you? Go home and sit on the couch, or go down to the corner bar. Have a beer, and bitch and moan and complain about how "unlucky" you are. And definitely don't try to "do" anything about it. That's too hard, and with your luck, why bother?
Do you know anything at all about what the GP does in his spare time? Or indeed if he even has any? Do you have a family? Children? Spending all your time at work and neglecting them while persuing some foolish dream of fame and fortune isn't the way to go.
Actually, you're half right. For you, it is luck, because in this case the prophecy is definitely self-fullfilling.
When someone wants to insult you they call it "self-fulfilling prophecy". When they want to praise you they call it "foresight" or "being a realist"
You keep on telling yourself there's no such thing as luck. Keep working yourself into the ground doing things that aren't likely to make you rich or famous. It changes nothing. Certainly not your wealth.
one can attach to a telescope, align against known stars, and then determine where you're pointing afterwards --
If it's accurate enough to then find a specific star, that'd be the first time I'd have been interested in what that over hyped piece of trash phone can do.
Sell! Fucking idiot machine. I'm not stressed, I just have a fucking cold. Oh look the stock is tanking. I was right. Better get out quick. Sell! What do you mean I'm stressed?! I'm not fucking stressed. It's time to get out. Sell! Sell! Sell! Fuck now it's REALLY tanking. Okay now I'm getting stressed for real. Stock is hitting the floor and this is going to wipe me out. Sell now you fucking piece of shit machine! Sell!!!!!! Ah fuck, I'm about to lose my shirt here! Sell!!!!! Anyone want to buy a fucking useless money losing piece of shit machine???
I certainly meant no offense with that first posting. It was not intended as an attack. I'm sorry it came across that way.
I think for the most part we agree and I'm also sorry if I defended my position too vigorously and made it more personal than it needed to be.
Mythbusters is science. Not particularly rigorous, but science nonetheless. Learning science from Mythbusters is more like learning about cooked food from said McDonalds staffer.
If your definition of science is that crude, religion too is just not very rigorous science.
Don't get me started on small data sets. Edwin Hubble's correlation of radial velocity and distance (Big Bang, to most people) was based on less than 50 data points. Crap, I got started on small data sets. Stop now, http, before
Yet he was considered a genius because he was right (and always told everyone what a genius he was and that he should get the Nobel prize). If he was wrong you'd likely have never heard of him. So what led him to that intuition is itself interesting, but that doesnt' mean his science was sound.
The small data sets isn't even the worst thing the Mythbusters do. The huge leaps of logic and broad generalisations from those data sets along with their rape of the scientific method (especially lack of controls) are far worse.
The McDonalds cook teach gourmet isn't a bad analogy at all if I do say so myself. The Mythbusters are after all special effects guys.
Aw geez. Looks like I've struck a nerve.
Oh absolutely. Telling people they can't learn science from television is awful. It discourages them from learning while simultaneously giving the big tick to garbage programming which you say they should expect.
You're right, I admit it, I'm a hack. And my lack of credentials is exactly my point.
And my point is that one hack doesn't mean every documentary is made by hacks. You can turn on Discovery channel and sometimes see garbage about ghosts and UFOs - that doesn't mean every documentary on the discovery channel is of similar quality.
And my lack of credentials is exactly my point. In television, visibility equals credibility, regardless of actual expertise. I can say that because, at one time, I had a career in television and film production. Trust me, I know how the medium works. I have friends who work on "respectable" shows like Nova and the BBC documentaries, you know, David Attenborough's old gang. Same story there. Truly.
Total nonsense. There's commercial reality, but that does not mean everything is rubbish. When someone goes on one of these shows and is a full time professional scientist they are sticking their neck out. Their colleagues know about and see these shows too. Without some of these programs how much would most adults know about dinosaurs, astronomy, wildlife, weather science, physics, archaeology etc. etc.? Most people know Einstein as that weird mad scientist. Get them to watch a snippet about time dialation and provided you hold their interest you've actually accomplished something.
The secret to successful documentaries *and game shows* is to make the audience *feel* as smart, or smarter than the people they're watching. It's all a big psych job
Cynical nonsense. But even so if you make people feel smarter because you've informed them or taught them a new concept that's not such a bad thing.
I dunno about you, but I got a whole lot more out of the book than I ever did from the movie. I stand by my original statement. If you really want to learn something, read the book. If you want to be entertained, watch TV.
For most people it's not either/or. I'm not saying don't read. I'm just saying documentaries have their place. I'm much more likely to watch a documentary while I'm exhausted than to dig into a book, and I'll still absorb it if it's interesting. However if you REALLY want to get to know something, do a course somewhere credible. Although if you see some of the lecture series I've been talking about it's _almost_ as good as doing a course. A popular book fits somewhere in between the TV documentary and the course.
And for those people too lazy to read a book, I've found that by the next day, they've forgotten everything in the TV show anyway. It's really amusing and disgusting at the same time. One of my shows will come on, and the next day someone will stop me - "Hey! I saw your show!" then they proceed to retell the whole thing back to me, and they never, ever get it right. Usually, not even close.
So you're criticising your friends for not understanding an in depth topic from a half hour or one hour show. Brilliant. Let me suggest two things. Your shows might stink - not explain things well, and allow misunderstandings. Since you're a hack and proud of it that's quite likely. Or your friends aren't very intelligent, in which case get new friends.
Insult me all you wish. I'm made of tougher stuff than you know. And I won't respond again.
It's not about hurling insults at some random stranger. It's about diffusing such blatantly cynical misinformation. I've learnt plenty from documentaries. I choose what I watch. If it's repedative, treats me like an idiot, is boring, or mundane I'll move on. But even having done an astronomy degree I've picked up new insights from Universe and I've always loved Carl Sagan's Cosmos. I've watched lectures on the train on Dark Matter and Dark Energy that were full of information I hadn
I'm sorry you don't like the fact that Mythbusters isn't science. It's the kind of "entertainment" the GP was talking about - completely unscientific trash. What they do to the scientific method, most wouldn't do to their worst enemy. They aren't teaching anyone the scientific method - they're teaching people that controls in an experiment are optional, and that you can generalise from a tiny data sample. Learning science from the Mythbusters shows is like learning gourmet cooking from a burger flipper at MacDonalds.
But if I'm off-line, I simply have to trust the certs in my possession.
You are way too focused on the cers. If you're off line and your certs have been compromised, so could your code. In which case game over. Any test can be bypassed. If you don't trust your register is secure, require it to be online.
Yes a HSM is the best test you can have. It provides non-repudiation provided you're willing to do forensics to prove the POS terminal hasn't been compromised. So it's a very partial solution. As soon as you go on line, you can authenticate the certificate definitively, but if you're saying by then it's too late, you shouldn't be accepting the transaction. So as you said for soda, perhaps. For a Rolls Royce, certainly not.
Don't be so quick to take offense if you don't understand the way someone else is going with a conversation.
Take a look into my initial message and your response. You made the first attack on what I'd said.
It was completely over the top for humour value. No one is taking this seriously. No one in their right mind anyway. So there's no secret agenda to oppress women here.
The same women that complain about these jokes as being sexist usually have no problem with jokes about men. Get a grip. I'm a fat guy but I still laugh at some fat jokes. It's called having a sense of humour.