... if as the operator of some tiny UK web site for some voluntary community group you got a letter in dubious English from some foreign lawyer accusing you of something incomprehensible?
OK, you'd probably ignore it, and quite often, perhaps usually, that would work. But if was serious, and you were actually in the wrong, what then?
Some EU-wide law saying that such notices have to follow certain rules might help actually.
(Last time I saw one of these - a letter in dubious English from some foreign lawyer accusing an organisation of something incomprehensible - it turned out to be cheaper to use Google than to pay our own lawyers to respond. The author of the letter turned out to have an "interesting" history, so the letter was just kept on file, in case it turned out to be useful evidence should the person involved try again using a less "interesting" UK firm.)
... I get a not-very-computer-literate relative asking me "why TF does my new machine keep on and on asking me if I really want to use IE, despite me keeping on telling it yes I do, and please shut up about it?"
Are we expecting that the source code still exists, and that the build system still exists, and that anyone ever wrote down any instructions for how to build it (let alone document the design)? Sure *some* old games will be properly documented and archived, but the way of the world is that this won't include *your* favourite game!
I make my email address widely available. Oh, and being a grown-up, I do have a LinkedIn profile as well... but, being a grown-up, I don't do Facebook or Twitter.
I'm sure that whoever you're going with would appreciate you paying them a little more attention and not spending quite *all* of your time fiddling with gadgets.
Or is it not allowed to let the real world intrude into Planet Slashdot?
My constituents vote me into office to do the work for them.
This evening after a four hour formal public committee meeting I made decisions on two related items, for which I'd had to read and understand a 1,500 page agenda pack, most of which I'd seen (and contributed to) several times before in the various drafting stages over the past few months.
Now, who do you suppose is in a better position to make a good decision:
(a) the elected politician, who has done all the above work (plus many hours of informal private meetings to get to that point)
(b) some random constituent clicking on a couple of buttons on an online poll they don't know, and don't care, anything about?
My council's CCTV system is most certainly under our control and not under any central control. The police do have appropriate access to it, but with council staff (who are more directly subject to democratic accountability than the police) as gatekeepers.
We could close the system down tomorrow if we wanted to, with no need to consult any "central control". It wouldn't do us any good at the next election, of course, as the punters like the cameras and keep asking for more.
"if you lower the price, then you level the playing field"
Well yes, in the UK the price is zero for this reason, but the amount of free time that the TV channels have to give to the candidates is limited to a few minutes - that's a few minutes for the whole campaign, not per day or per hour!
People still get sick of the ads, sorry "party political broadcasts", and nobody much watches them apart from other politicians.
"'By law, television stations offer political candidates advertising rates that are much lower than those offered to other advertisers"
This sounds really bizarre to those of us who live in places where, by law, television statements may not carry political advertising.
We sort-of have this theory that elections should be won, not bought. But only sort-of, mind, because money obviously still makes a difference. In my council ward for example I'm not allowed to spend more than a few hundred pounds getting elected - this is trivial for me, I just write a cheque, but it could be a struggle for others.
Erm... where do you find an editor who works for free? All the ones I know need to do things like feed their children and pay the mortgage, and they get paid appropriately for doing a professional job.
... there are some journal publishers who should be supported, such as CUP.
(Just for anyone who doesn't know... I'm currently without paid employment, and my wife works for CUP (although not in the journals division), so we need the money!)
(2) Decide what application level software will do what you need
(3) Use whatever platform (2) runs on
I would not put my income at risk by playing silly games with the platform I use to earn my living. If I want to use something else for other purposes, then jolly good, I'll buy another box.
... for it to be hacked and broken, given that the entire criminal resources of the world, together with any hostile governments, would be in a race to see who could crack it first? The people at the Cambridge Computer Lab are also quite good at that sort of thing, but I wouldn't put any money on academics winning this race.
I suggest you have never met a mathematician - it is a sure identifying characteristic that they can't do arithmetic.
Just like Real Men Don't Eat Quiche, and Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal, it is also the case that Real Mathematicians Can't Do Arithmetic.
A Real Mathematician knows about the number zero, and several different versions of the "number" infinity, and can probably cope with the number one on a good day, but any other numbers are arithmetic, not maths, and far too applied to be worthy of their attention.
Both the Today programme and the web site were demonstrating that the relevant BBC people are themselves mathematically illiterate - they go on about how people "can't do maths" but illustrate this with examples of arithmetic!
Of course everybody here will be aware that there is a difference between mathematics and arithmetic, but how to get this through to the arts graduates at the Beeb?
OK, so there are some uses (such as (a) being able to look something up on the internet from the sofa without wasting a few seconds walking to the always-on desktop, and (b) being able to carry all your holiday snaps around to show to people who didn't know they wanted to see them, and (c) there are some cool games for two-year-olds to play with) but none of them apply to me.
So, I use computers for email (fondleslab no use without an add-on keyboard), web (ditto, unless you stick to read-only sites), software development (no idea, can you get Visual Studio on a tablet? - I haven't looked), accounts (can you get Quicken on a tablet? - and even if you could you need a keyboard again) and so on. I haven't felt a need for a fondleslab and haven't acquired one.
I was telling outside a polling station. A car drew up. Someone got out of the car and went into the polling station.
The presiding officer came out and said to us tellers (representing the candidates (I forget whether this was a year when I was also the candidate)):
"There's a disabled lady in that car who would have considerable difficulty getting into the polling station. I have been asked to take her ballot paper out to the car for her to fill in. Do you have any objections?"
This suggestion was of course completely illegal. Naturally, however, I and the tellers for the other candidates said "no problem at all, go ahead" and that's what happened.
A victory for common sense over the boring details of the regulations. I had no idea, and neither did any of the other tellers, who the punter was going to vote for - that wasn't the point.
Slashdot Mirror
... if as the operator of some tiny UK web site for some voluntary community group you got a letter in dubious English from some foreign lawyer accusing you of something incomprehensible?
OK, you'd probably ignore it, and quite often, perhaps usually, that would work. But if was serious, and you were actually in the wrong, what then?
Some EU-wide law saying that such notices have to follow certain rules might help actually.
(Last time I saw one of these - a letter in dubious English from some foreign lawyer accusing an organisation of something incomprehensible - it turned out to be cheaper to use Google than to pay our own lawyers to respond. The author of the letter turned out to have an "interesting" history, so the letter was just kept on file, in case it turned out to be useful evidence should the person involved try again using a less "interesting" UK firm.)
... I get a not-very-computer-literate relative asking me "why TF does my new machine keep on and on asking me if I really want to use IE, despite me keeping on telling it yes I do, and please shut up about it?"
... that it is sane to cycle down Rose Crescent.
Pinch of salt in either case, it seems to me.
Are we expecting that the source code still exists, and that the build system still exists, and that anyone ever wrote down any instructions for how to build it (let alone document the design)? Sure *some* old games will be properly documented and archived, but the way of the world is that this won't include *your* favourite game!
... from diehard slashweenies crying out that "information is born to be free" and arguing for the freedom to pass around open source virus toolkits?
Provided your ISP handles your own email domain, which mine does. I've moved it once already with no trouble at all.
I make my email address widely available. Oh, and being a grown-up, I do have a LinkedIn profile as well ... but, being a grown-up, I don't do Facebook or Twitter.
I'm sure that whoever you're going with would appreciate you paying them a little more attention and not spending quite *all* of your time fiddling with gadgets.
Or is it not allowed to let the real world intrude into Planet Slashdot?
My constituents vote me into office to do the work for them.
This evening after a four hour formal public committee meeting I made decisions on two related items, for which I'd had to read and understand a 1,500 page agenda pack, most of which I'd seen (and contributed to) several times before in the various drafting stages over the past few months.
Now, who do you suppose is in a better position to make a good decision:
(a) the elected politician, who has done all the above work (plus many hours of informal private meetings to get to that point)
(b) some random constituent clicking on a couple of buttons on an online poll they don't know, and don't care, anything about?
My council's CCTV system is most certainly under our control and not under any central control. The police do have appropriate access to it, but with council staff (who are more directly subject to democratic accountability than the police) as gatekeepers.
We could close the system down tomorrow if we wanted to, with no need to consult any "central control". It wouldn't do us any good at the next election, of course, as the punters like the cameras and keep asking for more.
Not a lot else to say really.
"if you lower the price, then you level the playing field"
Well yes, in the UK the price is zero for this reason, but the amount of free time that the TV channels have to give to the candidates is limited to a few minutes - that's a few minutes for the whole campaign, not per day or per hour!
People still get sick of the ads, sorry "party political broadcasts", and nobody much watches them apart from other politicians.
"'By law, television stations offer political candidates advertising rates that are much lower than those offered to other advertisers"
This sounds really bizarre to those of us who live in places where, by law, television statements may not carry political advertising.
We sort-of have this theory that elections should be won, not bought. But only sort-of, mind, because money obviously still makes a difference. In my council ward for example I'm not allowed to spend more than a few hundred pounds getting elected - this is trivial for me, I just write a cheque, but it could be a struggle for others.
Erm ... where do you find an editor who works for free? All the ones I know need to do things like feed their children and pay the mortgage, and they get paid appropriately for doing a professional job.
... there are some journal publishers who should be supported, such as CUP.
(Just for anyone who doesn't know ... I'm currently without paid employment, and my wife works for CUP (although not in the journals division), so we need the money!)
A language from the last century. Survives in odd corners, eg some embedded applications which haven't worked out how to use C++.
(1) Decide what you're trying to do
(2) Decide what application level software will do what you need
(3) Use whatever platform (2) runs on
I would not put my income at risk by playing silly games with the platform I use to earn my living. If I want to use something else for other purposes, then jolly good, I'll buy another box.
... grow out of thinking that stuff is important when you get married?
... for it to be hacked and broken, given that the entire criminal resources of the world, together with any hostile governments, would be in a race to see who could crack it first? The people at the Cambridge Computer Lab are also quite good at that sort of thing, but I wouldn't put any money on academics winning this race.
(1) Print out your code
(2) White out all the actual code, using Tipp-Ex, leaving just the comments visible
(3) Give the result to one of your fellow students, and ask him to rewrite your code in a different language.
If s/he fails, you didn't write enough comments.
I suggest you have never met a mathematician - it is a sure identifying characteristic that they can't do arithmetic.
Just like Real Men Don't Eat Quiche, and Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal, it is also the case that Real Mathematicians Can't Do Arithmetic.
A Real Mathematician knows about the number zero, and several different versions of the "number" infinity, and can probably cope with the number one on a good day, but any other numbers are arithmetic, not maths, and far too applied to be worthy of their attention.
Both the Today programme and the web site were demonstrating that the relevant BBC people are themselves mathematically illiterate - they go on about how people "can't do maths" but illustrate this with examples of arithmetic!
Of course everybody here will be aware that there is a difference between mathematics and arithmetic, but how to get this through to the arts graduates at the Beeb?
OK, so there are some uses (such as (a) being able to look something up on the internet from the sofa without wasting a few seconds walking to the always-on desktop, and (b) being able to carry all your holiday snaps around to show to people who didn't know they wanted to see them, and (c) there are some cool games for two-year-olds to play with) but none of them apply to me.
So, I use computers for email (fondleslab no use without an add-on keyboard), web (ditto, unless you stick to read-only sites), software development (no idea, can you get Visual Studio on a tablet? - I haven't looked), accounts (can you get Quicken on a tablet? - and even if you could you need a keyboard again) and so on. I haven't felt a need for a fondleslab and haven't acquired one.
What am I missing?
I was telling outside a polling station. A car drew up. Someone got out of the car and went into the polling station.
The presiding officer came out and said to us tellers (representing the candidates (I forget whether this was a year when I was also the candidate)):
"There's a disabled lady in that car who would have considerable difficulty getting into the polling station. I have been asked to take her ballot paper out to the car for her to fill in. Do you have any objections?"
This suggestion was of course completely illegal. Naturally, however, I and the tellers for the other candidates said "no problem at all, go ahead" and that's what happened.
A victory for common sense over the boring details of the regulations. I had no idea, and neither did any of the other tellers, who the punter was going to vote for - that wasn't the point.
... the gods themselves contend in vain."
Er ... ... well, that's it, really.