Well, its not exactly how science works. If you roll a dice ten times and it comes up 6 every time, no scientist would conclude from that that dice "always comes up 6". It is quite possible for an even dice to come up 6 ten times in a row. Unlikely, but possible. In science, likewise, you cannot merely conclude that "things fall when you drop them", you can only conclude that, empirically, it seems to be the case that things always fall when you drop them. However, if someone comes along and drops a helium-filled balloon, and it surprises you by going up instead of down, you must re-evaluate your previous conclusions, since someone has shown your theory to be incomplete and/or wrong.
Obviously in social science the lines are a little more fuzzy:/.. but to make a blanket statement that communism can never work is questionable in the extreme, no matter whose methods you are following. Particularly given the apparent lack of actual research or references backing the statement. Even a simple reference to a complete list of all countries that have ever tried communism, demonstrating how and why it failed in every one of those countries, would in this case at least have been a lot better, and would actually have lent some weight to the argument, but as it stands, its very weak.
No, I believe it was the avowed goal of Americans to keep the USSR from creating a worldwide communist reign (with them in charge). It was kill-or-be-killed
I'm sure the Soviets saw it precisely the same way. Remember, from their viewpoint, they were simply against the "threat of capitalism". Regardless of whose political system was better or more right or wrong, there is fundamentally not much difference in the foreign policy attitutes of the 50's US and 50's USSR.
You could almost use your post word for word to express an old USSR opinion, "the threat of the US gaining influence over most of the world was just too much to ignore". This is how they saw it. Somehow you seem convinced that there is some fundamental difference though. Because "America was right"? The US could assasinate foreign leaders and invade countries to prevent the "threat of communism", but the USSR could not do likewise to "prevent the spread of capitalism"? I don't see it. Or is it just that "communism is evil"?
The USSR never invaded China either, even though they were enemies. That doesn't mean anything. I still see plenty of anti-China propaganda coming out of the US all the time.
The fact of the matter is that there has never been a non-corrupt communist regime, which should lead one instantly to deduce that it is communism itself which is the problem
It "should"? No, it most emphatically should NOT lead one instantly to deduce anything of a general nature about communism. That is an invalid logical inference. A fault of reasoning. An incorrect deduction. An unscientific conclusion. You've come to a conclusion but you've left out the part where you explain how you got there.
There has never in the history of humanity been a democratic government that was free of corruption either. What, according to your flawed methodology of reasoning, "should" we deduce about democracy from that?
For the mentally impaired, I'm not advocating communism here at all, I'm just pointing out that ACs method of reasoning is incorrect.
It might well be that communism cannot work, but AC here has not demonstrated that. NOTHING can be concluded from merely pointing to the fact that it hasn't worked anywhere *yet*. That would have been much like stating, around 1880, "The fact of the matter is that man has never flown, which should lead one instantly to deduce that man will never fly, it is impossible". Not a valid logical inference at all.
Furthermore, it was the avowed goal of the Russians to destroy all capitalist countries, and usher in a worldwide communist reign.
Uhm, so what? It was also the avowed goal of the Americans to destroy all communist countries, and "usher in a worldwide capitalist/democratic reign". (To the extent that the US funded many foreign wars against communist and socialist countries (Al Qaeda against the S.U. being one of them) and even assassinated leaders of other countries)
The fact that capitalism+democracy does seem to be a much better political system in no way makes the US morally right in attempting to force its particular preferred political ideology on other countries.
So do search engines like google actually look at the organization header for searches, but ignore other headers? (like X-Complaints-To, or custom headers like X-ISP-Is-RoadRunner). Just asking. What headers are included in searches?
Unfortunately the public is way too forgiving of these companies (short memories perhaps?). Some companies (monopolies or cartels) outrageously gouge and abuse their customers for years (sometimes decades), and then the moment something comes along to force them to deliver better service (e.g. competition), they simply have a massive ad campaign explaining how wonderful their services are now, and the public seems to totally forget the years and years of being fleeced (e.g. Microsoft blatantly puts on the WinXP box something that amounts to "this software is wonderful, the greatest new features is that it doesn't crash as much as previous versions of our software", and people amazingly seem to read stuff like that in a *positive* light, "hey wow thats great".) The cellular network cartels here in SA are just like that also, they've been gouging customers here for years with various schemes (e.g. charge per minute), and the moment it looked like there might be some competition, they're having ad campaigns that basically state stuff like "in the past, you were billed like such, and now you're not going to be billed like that any more" and they make it sound wonderful, and people fall for it. Instead of thinking "you mean you're not going to screw me quite as badly as you have been the last seven years and I'm supposed to be happy about it", people think "hey thats great look at the money I can save, thank you thank you wonderful company".
All of these are part of the existing documented Windows OS APIs, but browsers like Netscape don't use them because they invent their own wheels for portability's sake
Hate to burst your bubble, but back in 95 when browsers like Netscape were "re-inventing the wheel", as you claim, the Win32 API did not have an HTML rendering engine, an internet cache, Internet HTTP/FTP protocol support, URL parsing routines, or system JavaScript. In fact, every single one of those things were built by Microsoft into their APIs in the years following. Remind me again, who was re-inventing the wheel here (and in a platform-dependent manner)?
Why do people seem to keep insisting on comparing Internet Explorer as it is in 2002 to Netscape as it was in 1996? A few years has passed inbetween..
Has anyone invested any time in creating language (spanish, arabic, etc.) learning apps?
I was thinking of maybe writing something like this, but I wouldn't know where to start. (I mean I can program, thats not the problem, I just have no idea how such a program should be structured.)
I would also like to hear if anyone else knows of any apps like this.
On a related note, I was also wondering to what extent software could be used to help automate the process of teaching people to read (mainly adult literacy and possibly also child literacy). Anyone know of anything like this?
You know, for all the many many times Microsoft has been caught doing this sort of thing, found guilty in court, etc, I find it interesting that so many people still jump to their defence.
If ever any company has ever showed a "pattern of behaviour", its Microsoft.
There comes a time when you simply *have* to stop giving them the benefit of the doubt.
Actually, that was probably not the best example:). Perhaps I should have said something like "even if you're using 'four years without a remote hole in the default install' OpenBSD."
Heres the analysis of Code Red, 359,000 hosts in under 14 hours.
Some more points to ponder, assuming a hypothetical new Virus ("Outlook worm", to be more accurate) that takes advantage of some new as yet unknown MS exploit:
Could be released while you're sleeping. Or do you post admins at the servers 24 hours a day watching for suspicous mail activity? Should every company have to?
Many people leave their computers running at night, with Outlook open, so the worm would spread during the night.
No AV software currently on the market can intelligently sniff out with 100% accuracy if an email is a new virus, or a legitimate email. How could a mail server possibly always be able to tell the difference between a legit email and a virus? Not all viruses might require obvious things like executable attachments. Only a human can tell the difference reliably, and even then its often far from obvious.
The worms payload could be formatting hard disks, or a simple time-triggered deleting of everything on the computer and all network shares it can find, or it could be to get and/or crack password hashes and post them to an internet site, or it might be that the payload sends out some of your company's most valuable or private intellectual property to 'everyone in the address book' etc.
Obviously every precaution you take as a sysadmin reduces the *risk* of getting hit by a virus, but the probability will NEVER be 0, unless you unplug your computers from the network. Now, given the potential for such huge amounts of damage (depending on the payload), is it worth taking the risk of using software that has a known track record of disaster? No, a good sysadmin should choose software that has the best track record - the risk is just not worth it.
Bullshit. These problems will not occur with proper administration, and it's not as hard as you make it sound
No, its not bullshit. Can you honestly claim that your antivirus WILL protect your servers within a few hours of the release of a new virus? Especially if this hypothetical virus takes advantage of a previously unknown Outlook / HTML exploit?
To claim that these things will NOT happen is just silly, bordering on ridiculous. Nobody who actually understands security would ever make such a claim. It is impossible to be completely protected - even if you're using Linux, but especially if you're using Outlook/Exchange etc.
Do you remember how quickly Code Red spread? In less than 14 hours of release something like 300,000 hosts were infected worldwide (cant remember exact figures but it was something like that). Sure, Code Red was not an Outlook virus but a worm taking advantage of a known, patched IIS exploit, but the principle is the same, and the next virus could easily take advantage of an unknown and/or unpatched exploit. How fast is YOUR anti-virus company? Nobody is that fast. NOBODY. Even the best sysadmin cannot perform miracles.
Some people here are defending MS by saying that people should just "install all Microsoft security patches". Well, sure, in an ideal world, we would all be able to keep up-to-the-minute up to date with MS patches and anti-virus updates, and we would all have 15 minutes to 1 hour a day available to personally dedicate to updating our MS and AV software.
In the real world though it doesn't work that way. We often go through very busy patches at work, and getting the latest AV update or d/ling the latest MS patches fall a few notches on the priority list. Its very easy to go one or two weeks without updating. It is a *practical* impossibility for real people to always keep their stuff up to date; most of us actually have work to get done and don't have the luxury of sitting down every day to do it.
Furthermore, even if everyone did somehow manage to keep their software up to date, miraculous as that would be, it still wouldn't be enough, and it CAN NEVER BE enough, for the simple reason that anyone who discovers yet another exploit in Outlook will always be ahead of the patch writers and anti-virus authors. And downloading the latest updates doesn't always help either: I got hit with an Outlook virus at work in spite of having the AV software 100% up to date with "live update" - the AV auto-updates were at least a few days behind, and sure I was stupid for opening a strange attachment, but I honestly thought that I was safe because my software was up-to-the-minute patched (I did an update right before opening the file, just to be on the safe side, so much for that) (I opened the email because it resembled the sort of email I do sometimes get from foreigners asking me for help..)
Anyway, even if you manage to educate users to never open strange attachments (which is an annoying enough notion in itself, simply because there is a legimate reason for the existence of email attachments, now some servers/companies dont even allow them at all), it still wouldn't be enough, as history has already shown us that some Outlook exploits don't even require user intervention at all, the email simply needs to drop into the inbox and it will execute. Sure, these are rare, but they exist, and the possibility for more of them is fair to good.
The point is, no matter WHAT you do, as long as you use Outlook, you are NOT safe. And I remember when I used to use Outlook, there was always this constant, nagging 'fear' in the back of my mind whenever I checked my mail, knowing that I might be about to become yet another victim of the next Outlook-flavour-of-the-week virus. Probably what I like most about having switched to Pegasus is the peace of mind that is now possible when checking mail. Somewhat comparable to having protected vs unprotected sex, in the latter case the risk is in the back of your mind the whole time.
Science seldom just happens to coincide with what the human mind think is "intuitive". No matter how unintuitive something may seem to us, if it holds up to the scientific method, we have to basically accept it. Following this method, we must surely be doing something right, given the 'amazing order' we see around us - linux boxes, 747s, laser surgery, mars landers - all of these things made possible by the efforts of scientists.
Science is rarely intuitive; relativity certainly isn't, and even F=ma (which seems obvious enough to us now) can not have seemed obvious back when Newton figured it out, otherwise every Joe and his dog would have known it already.
Our brains evolved essentially for entirely different purposes than figuring out how the universe works (survival was basically priority no 1), so the fact that our brains don't naturally 'intuit' physics shouldn't come as a surprise anyway. In fact, it should be more of indication that attempting to rely on our intuition to figure out the universe is probably a bad idea; we should focus on what works scientifically, not what "feels right".
Hmm.. this whole thing reminds me of the word "Linux" being used to refer both to the kernel itself, as well as to an entire Linux-kernel-based distribution which includes tonnes of other GNU software.
Occasionally, some people will jump up and get anal when people use "Linux" to refer to the latter, saying stuff like "Linux is a kernel you dolt".
The fact of the matter is, words CAN and OFTEN DO have more than one meaning (in fact, the word "run" in English, for example, has over 100 different particular subtle or non-subtle variations in meaning).
In the vast majority of cases, the particular meaning that a speaker/writer intends is amply evident from the context in which it occurs to anyone with half a brain, that is, there is very seldom room for confusion. We can all usually tell when someone means Linux the kernel, or Linux a distribution. Likewise, we can all (most of the time:) tell when someone means free-as-in-beer or free-as-in-speech.
In this case, the word "American" is used sometimes to refer to anyone from either the North American or South American continents, and other times (more often, simply for historical reasons) to refer to someone from the US of A. This isn't necessarily because "USians" believe that they are the only Americans, its most likely simply because its convenient to speak that way, and because of the abundance of American ("USian") media, has become commonly accepted as a meaning for the word, and it has to a large degree "crowded out" the more general meaning of "American".
The point is that when someone says "American" on slashdot, but actually means "USian", everyone here is intelligent enough to understand which meaning of "American" was implied. So to complain about it is really a bit anal. Language is a dynamic, constantly evolving thing, and it is very often the case that logically "wrong" words get chosen for something (e.g. "atom" is a misnomer), or that words change in meaning through usage (e.g. "hack"). People should just get over it, and not take it so personally.. things are the way they are, "American" has come to imply "USian" (which really is a horrible 'word'), and people should accept it and move on.
And South Africa is a wreck anyway. A slight breeze brings down the government, so don't go bragging about some boycott
"brings down the government"? Could you back that up with some specific incidents, or are you just talking about something you actually don't really know anything about?
I think you might perhaps be confusing South Africa and Zimbabwe. South Africa's government has been more stable since 1994 than it has probably ever been, less violence than there has ever been, the economy is stable and has been steadily growing, the average standard of living in South Africa has been steadily increasing since 1994, the level and reach of education has been steadily improving (in *spite* of a 'brain drain' problem).. please, if you don't KNOW anything about something, rather just keep quiet.
It sounds like you're not crazy about the mainstream crap that is so common on TV.
Problem is, if everyone had these devices, it would simply confirm to the networks that the majority of people liked that mainstream crap, and that people like you are in a tiny minority. Hence, they wouldnt waste money on creating non-mainstream, decent shows - they would spend their money on catering to mainstream tastes, to maximize profits, and niche markets be damned.
This same trend it evident in the music industry - the record companies don't bother taking risks with esoteric, semi-decent music - they stick to generating the sort of cliched tripe that they know will sell en masse (n sync, limp bizkit etc).
I trust that the TV companies won't misuse the information they receive
I honestly can't say for a moment that I trust any large corporation not to misuse the information they'd receive. In fact I can't think of any big corporations that wouldn't eagerly engage in something scummy if it means making more money. As an example, I have fairly strong evidence that a local very large, reputable financial firm that I have an investment policy with illegally sold my personal information - to a bulk emailing company, of all places (and thats just the one I know about). From Enron to Microsoft to Oracle, corporate execs will obviously do anything for a quick buck.
Whether or not they have the right to does not appear to be related to whether or not they are capable of doing it. It seems to me there is an underlying assumption that they are inherently not, which I disagree with. Perhaps in general they are not, I don't know, I speak from my own experiences - when I was 13, I knew damn well that it was stupid to smoke, and no amount of advertising/media influence affected that. OK, in general, 13-year olds should not have the right to make life and death decisions for themselves, but not because they are inherently incapable of making such decisions; more like, they don't necessarily have the experience to always make good decisions and should have a certain amount of protection. Nonetheless, there is only one way to get experience. A naive, gullible 13-year old, who is heavily protected by immediate society around him, quickly grows up to be an equally naive, gullible adult.
So if I understand you, the bottom line is, in American business, its OK to lie to your customers, as long as its in the name of making $$$, because the goal of making money supercedes all other goals? I guess thats the "American Way" (TM). And people wonder why not everyone aspires to it..
If you'd read my other post in this sub-thread, you'd see I agree that if people choose to smoke its their own stupidity.
Hard work doesn't inherently "deserve" to be rewarded, btw. The world owes nobody anything, no matter how hard they worked.
I have to agree. Actually, I think that even your average 13 year old cannot possibly claim to not understand and be aware of the fact that smoking is very bad for you, there is just so much information fed directly to teens and pre-teens on this. Perhaps it wasn't like that 50 years ago, I don't know, but no child growing up today can claim to not be at least vaguely aware of the harmful consequences of smoking. Kids are capable of understanding that their decisions have consequences, and adults supposedly even more so. If you smoke, its your own stupidity. Doesn't make the tobacco companies any less scummy though:)
No, the big tobacco companies have had all of them beat for a long time now. Their products directly kill people.
They've been trying for years to claim that there is no evidence that smoking causes diseases such as lung cancer, bringing in their own paid "scientists" into "debates" in an attempt to legitimize their "viewpoint". Now I suppose we're going to start hearing that they should be allowed to make such claims as a free speech issue.
I remember when internal documents of a tobacco company were brought up in court stating that their primary market to advertise to to get new recruits was the "13 to 25" age group. Their defence? "Its a typo". Riiight. (Studies have shown that if you haven't started smoking by age 20, you're pretty much never going to start smoking).
Philip Morris ("Phillip"?) recently published a report on the "indirect positive economic effects of early death". Thats sickening.
Article: "Road Runner will not provide tech support for XP". ChuckX: "I do Road Runner tech support, and here's a bit more info on why Road Runner will not provide tech support for XP". Moderator: "Offtopic"! WTF!? If there was still any doubt that/. moderation is a bit screwy, there can't be any left now.
Don't worry, you're not alone. I also don't see why its fortunate that this news comes well after the "meteorite blast" movie fad. Perhaps mfarah is suggesting that had the news come shortly before the movies then there would have been a lot more annoying public hype about meteorites, and that that would have been annoying to endure? I don't know. On the other hand, had the news come out shortly before the movies, it might have been more fortunate because the general public (and decision-making politicians) might have actually realised that there really is a potential threat and actually done something about it, instead of just going back into "it won't happen to us" self-denial mode.
Actually, the outlook is probably worse than the simple linear random probability in your example, because meteorites/asteroids do NOT have a uniform random distribution throughout the Universe. Rather (since they must have been formed by some process), they tend to often be in groups (which is the reason we have meteor storms). So if we're hit by a relatively big one tomorrow, it is more likely than just linear-random that there might be a few more big ones following behind it.
Of course, either way, you are completely correct that JJ's reasoning is completely incorrect:) We've got just as big a chance of being hit on any one day as on any other day. The fact is, the scenario *is* a real *potential* threat to our survival, and if we actually have the technology to scan for and destroy such threats, then there is no excuse for not using the technology, its just plain stupid not to. But the whole world seems to have fallen into the global equivalent of the "it can't happen to me" syndrome that occurs with individuals regarding accidents; a global "it won't happen to us" sort of self-denial. Why wouldn't it? As you say, it could be tomorrow.
No.. cognitive dissonance is "a person's disquieting perception of a mismatch between her or his attitudes (cognitions) and her or his behaviour". Essentially, its the vague "anxiety" experienced when your behaviour isn't consistent with your ideals/thoughts. That doesn't really map to the example of someone shelling out money etc. The example in the link you point to involves money, but the example doesn't map to this one. (a case of seeing a false analogy because of similarity of content, called "transparency" by Gentner). The mentioned phenomenon would more likely be attributed to the "availability heuristic" (if someones just bought something sound-related, it is called to mind more easily in a sound-related discussion). Its also probably that people make over-broad deductions about things that they've only learned a very *small* amount about (I can't remember what this is called, but you see it all the time on slashdot (no matter what the topic of discussion is), e.g. people who have picked up a *tiny* bit of information about some particular topic, but then go right ahead and not only form strong opinions about that topic but vocalise them very loudly too (for example on another current/. thread about preemptive kernel support, people make loud statements about windows and preemptiveness, but actually they're confusing preemptive multitasking with preemptive kernel, a totally different thing -- also, much like I'm doing right now with psychology terms and my limited psy 101 background;)). So people who've learned a little bit about sound equipment suddenly (for example) like to think that they're now qualified to make broad statements about sound equipment on/. Theres a name for it..:/ can't think of it at the moment.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, its not exactly how science works. If you roll a dice ten times and it comes up 6 every time, no scientist would conclude from that that dice "always comes up 6". It is quite possible for an even dice to come up 6 ten times in a row. Unlikely, but possible. In science, likewise, you cannot merely conclude that "things fall when you drop them", you can only conclude that, empirically, it seems to be the case that things always fall when you drop them. However, if someone comes along and drops a helium-filled balloon, and it surprises you by going up instead of down, you must re-evaluate your previous conclusions, since someone has shown your theory to be incomplete and/or wrong.
Obviously in social science the lines are a little more fuzzy :/ .. but to make a blanket statement that communism can never work is questionable in the extreme, no matter whose methods you are following. Particularly given the apparent lack of actual research or references backing the statement. Even a simple reference to a complete list of all countries that have ever tried communism, demonstrating how and why it failed in every one of those countries, would in this case at least have been a lot better, and would actually have lent some weight to the argument, but as it stands, its very weak.
No, I believe it was the avowed goal of Americans to keep the USSR from creating a worldwide communist reign (with them in charge). It was kill-or-be-killed
I'm sure the Soviets saw it precisely the same way. Remember, from their viewpoint, they were simply against the "threat of capitalism". Regardless of whose political system was better or more right or wrong, there is fundamentally not much difference in the foreign policy attitutes of the 50's US and 50's USSR.
You could almost use your post word for word to express an old USSR opinion, "the threat of the US gaining influence over most of the world was just too much to ignore". This is how they saw it. Somehow you seem convinced that there is some fundamental difference though. Because "America was right"? The US could assasinate foreign leaders and invade countries to prevent the "threat of communism", but the USSR could not do likewise to "prevent the spread of capitalism"? I don't see it. Or is it just that "communism is evil"?
The USSR never invaded China either, even though they were enemies. That doesn't mean anything. I still see plenty of anti-China propaganda coming out of the US all the time.
The fact of the matter is that there has never been a non-corrupt communist regime, which should lead one instantly to deduce that it is communism itself which is the problem
It "should"? No, it most emphatically should NOT lead one instantly to deduce anything of a general nature about communism. That is an invalid logical inference. A fault of reasoning. An incorrect deduction. An unscientific conclusion. You've come to a conclusion but you've left out the part where you explain how you got there.
There has never in the history of humanity been a democratic government that was free of corruption either. What, according to your flawed methodology of reasoning, "should" we deduce about democracy from that?
For the mentally impaired, I'm not advocating communism here at all, I'm just pointing out that ACs method of reasoning is incorrect.
It might well be that communism cannot work, but AC here has not demonstrated that. NOTHING can be concluded from merely pointing to the fact that it hasn't worked anywhere *yet*. That would have been much like stating, around 1880, "The fact of the matter is that man has never flown, which should lead one instantly to deduce that man will never fly, it is impossible". Not a valid logical inference at all.
Furthermore, it was the avowed goal of the Russians to destroy all capitalist countries, and usher in a worldwide communist reign.
Uhm, so what? It was also the avowed goal of the Americans to destroy all communist countries, and "usher in a worldwide capitalist/democratic reign". (To the extent that the US funded many foreign wars against communist and socialist countries (Al Qaeda against the S.U. being one of them) and even assassinated leaders of other countries)
The fact that capitalism+democracy does seem to be a much better political system in no way makes the US morally right in attempting to force its particular preferred political ideology on other countries.
So do search engines like google actually look at the organization header for searches, but ignore other headers? (like X-Complaints-To, or custom headers like X-ISP-Is-RoadRunner). Just asking. What headers are included in searches?
Unfortunately the public is way too forgiving of these companies (short memories perhaps?). Some companies (monopolies or cartels) outrageously gouge and abuse their customers for years (sometimes decades), and then the moment something comes along to force them to deliver better service (e.g. competition), they simply have a massive ad campaign explaining how wonderful their services are now, and the public seems to totally forget the years and years of being fleeced (e.g. Microsoft blatantly puts on the WinXP box something that amounts to "this software is wonderful, the greatest new features is that it doesn't crash as much as previous versions of our software", and people amazingly seem to read stuff like that in a *positive* light, "hey wow thats great".) The cellular network cartels here in SA are just like that also, they've been gouging customers here for years with various schemes (e.g. charge per minute), and the moment it looked like there might be some competition, they're having ad campaigns that basically state stuff like "in the past, you were billed like such, and now you're not going to be billed like that any more" and they make it sound wonderful, and people fall for it. Instead of thinking "you mean you're not going to screw me quite as badly as you have been the last seven years and I'm supposed to be happy about it", people think "hey thats great look at the money I can save, thank you thank you wonderful company".
All of these are part of the existing documented Windows OS APIs, but browsers like Netscape don't use them because they invent their own wheels for portability's sake
Hate to burst your bubble, but back in 95 when browsers like Netscape were "re-inventing the wheel", as you claim, the Win32 API did not have an HTML rendering engine, an internet cache, Internet HTTP/FTP protocol support, URL parsing routines, or system JavaScript. In fact, every single one of those things were built by Microsoft into their APIs in the years following. Remind me again, who was re-inventing the wheel here (and in a platform-dependent manner)?
Why do people seem to keep insisting on comparing Internet Explorer as it is in 2002 to Netscape as it was in 1996? A few years has passed inbetween..
Has anyone invested any time in creating language (spanish, arabic, etc.) learning apps?
I was thinking of maybe writing something like this, but I wouldn't know where to start. (I mean I can program, thats not the problem, I just have no idea how such a program should be structured.)
I would also like to hear if anyone else knows of any apps like this.
On a related note, I was also wondering to what extent software could be used to help automate the process of teaching people to read (mainly adult literacy and possibly also child literacy). Anyone know of anything like this?
You know, for all the many many times Microsoft has been caught doing this sort of thing, found guilty in court, etc, I find it interesting that so many people still jump to their defence.
If ever any company has ever showed a "pattern of behaviour", its Microsoft.
There comes a time when you simply *have* to stop giving them the benefit of the doubt.
That time passed long ago already.
even if you're using Linux
Actually, that was probably not the best example :). Perhaps I should have said something like "even if you're using 'four years without a remote hole in the default install' OpenBSD."
Heres the analysis of Code Red, 359,000 hosts in under 14 hours.
Some more points to ponder, assuming a hypothetical new Virus ("Outlook worm", to be more accurate) that takes advantage of some new as yet unknown MS exploit:
Obviously every precaution you take as a sysadmin reduces the *risk* of getting hit by a virus, but the probability will NEVER be 0, unless you unplug your computers from the network. Now, given the potential for such huge amounts of damage (depending on the payload), is it worth taking the risk of using software that has a known track record of disaster? No, a good sysadmin should choose software that has the best track record - the risk is just not worth it.
Bullshit. These problems will not occur with proper administration, and it's not as hard as you make it sound
No, its not bullshit. Can you honestly claim that your antivirus WILL protect your servers within a few hours of the release of a new virus? Especially if this hypothetical virus takes advantage of a previously unknown Outlook / HTML exploit?
To claim that these things will NOT happen is just silly, bordering on ridiculous. Nobody who actually understands security would ever make such a claim. It is impossible to be completely protected - even if you're using Linux, but especially if you're using Outlook/Exchange etc.
Do you remember how quickly Code Red spread? In less than 14 hours of release something like 300,000 hosts were infected worldwide (cant remember exact figures but it was something like that). Sure, Code Red was not an Outlook virus but a worm taking advantage of a known, patched IIS exploit, but the principle is the same, and the next virus could easily take advantage of an unknown and/or unpatched exploit. How fast is YOUR anti-virus company? Nobody is that fast. NOBODY. Even the best sysadmin cannot perform miracles.
Some people here are defending MS by saying that people should just "install all Microsoft security patches". Well, sure, in an ideal world, we would all be able to keep up-to-the-minute up to date with MS patches and anti-virus updates, and we would all have 15 minutes to 1 hour a day available to personally dedicate to updating our MS and AV software.
In the real world though it doesn't work that way. We often go through very busy patches at work, and getting the latest AV update or d/ling the latest MS patches fall a few notches on the priority list. Its very easy to go one or two weeks without updating. It is a *practical* impossibility for real people to always keep their stuff up to date; most of us actually have work to get done and don't have the luxury of sitting down every day to do it.
Furthermore, even if everyone did somehow manage to keep their software up to date, miraculous as that would be, it still wouldn't be enough, and it CAN NEVER BE enough, for the simple reason that anyone who discovers yet another exploit in Outlook will always be ahead of the patch writers and anti-virus authors. And downloading the latest updates doesn't always help either: I got hit with an Outlook virus at work in spite of having the AV software 100% up to date with "live update" - the AV auto-updates were at least a few days behind, and sure I was stupid for opening a strange attachment, but I honestly thought that I was safe because my software was up-to-the-minute patched (I did an update right before opening the file, just to be on the safe side, so much for that) (I opened the email because it resembled the sort of email I do sometimes get from foreigners asking me for help ..)
Anyway, even if you manage to educate users to never open strange attachments (which is an annoying enough notion in itself, simply because there is a legimate reason for the existence of email attachments, now some servers/companies dont even allow them at all), it still wouldn't be enough, as history has already shown us that some Outlook exploits don't even require user intervention at all, the email simply needs to drop into the inbox and it will execute. Sure, these are rare, but they exist, and the possibility for more of them is fair to good.
The point is, no matter WHAT you do, as long as you use Outlook, you are NOT safe. And I remember when I used to use Outlook, there was always this constant, nagging 'fear' in the back of my mind whenever I checked my mail, knowing that I might be about to become yet another victim of the next Outlook-flavour-of-the-week virus. Probably what I like most about having switched to Pegasus is the peace of mind that is now possible when checking mail. Somewhat comparable to having protected vs unprotected sex, in the latter case the risk is in the back of your mind the whole time.
Science seldom just happens to coincide with what the human mind think is "intuitive". No matter how unintuitive something may seem to us, if it holds up to the scientific method, we have to basically accept it. Following this method, we must surely be doing something right, given the 'amazing order' we see around us - linux boxes, 747s, laser surgery, mars landers - all of these things made possible by the efforts of scientists.
Science is rarely intuitive; relativity certainly isn't, and even F=ma (which seems obvious enough to us now) can not have seemed obvious back when Newton figured it out, otherwise every Joe and his dog would have known it already.
Our brains evolved essentially for entirely different purposes than figuring out how the universe works (survival was basically priority no 1), so the fact that our brains don't naturally 'intuit' physics shouldn't come as a surprise anyway. In fact, it should be more of indication that attempting to rely on our intuition to figure out the universe is probably a bad idea; we should focus on what works scientifically, not what "feels right".
Hmm .. this whole thing reminds me of the word "Linux" being used to refer both to the kernel itself, as well as to an entire Linux-kernel-based distribution which includes tonnes of other GNU software.
:) tell when someone means free-as-in-beer or free-as-in-speech.
.. things are the way they are, "American" has come to imply "USian" (which really is a horrible 'word'), and people should accept it and move on.
Occasionally, some people will jump up and get anal when people use "Linux" to refer to the latter, saying stuff like "Linux is a kernel you dolt".
The fact of the matter is, words CAN and OFTEN DO have more than one meaning (in fact, the word "run" in English, for example, has over 100 different particular subtle or non-subtle variations in meaning).
In the vast majority of cases, the particular meaning that a speaker/writer intends is amply evident from the context in which it occurs to anyone with half a brain, that is, there is very seldom room for confusion. We can all usually tell when someone means Linux the kernel, or Linux a distribution. Likewise, we can all (most of the time
In this case, the word "American" is used sometimes to refer to anyone from either the North American or South American continents, and other times (more often, simply for historical reasons) to refer to someone from the US of A. This isn't necessarily because "USians" believe that they are the only Americans, its most likely simply because its convenient to speak that way, and because of the abundance of American ("USian") media, has become commonly accepted as a meaning for the word, and it has to a large degree "crowded out" the more general meaning of "American".
The point is that when someone says "American" on slashdot, but actually means "USian", everyone here is intelligent enough to understand which meaning of "American" was implied. So to complain about it is really a bit anal. Language is a dynamic, constantly evolving thing, and it is very often the case that logically "wrong" words get chosen for something (e.g. "atom" is a misnomer), or that words change in meaning through usage (e.g. "hack"). People should just get over it, and not take it so personally
And South Africa is a wreck anyway. A slight breeze brings down the government, so don't go bragging about some boycott
"brings down the government"? Could you back that up with some specific incidents, or are you just talking about something you actually don't really know anything about?
I think you might perhaps be confusing South Africa and Zimbabwe. South Africa's government has been more stable since 1994 than it has probably ever been, less violence than there has ever been, the economy is stable and has been steadily growing, the average standard of living in South Africa has been steadily increasing since 1994, the level and reach of education has been steadily improving (in *spite* of a 'brain drain' problem) .. please, if you don't KNOW anything about something, rather just keep quiet.
It sounds like you're not crazy about the mainstream crap that is so common on TV.
Problem is, if everyone had these devices, it would simply confirm to the networks that the majority of people liked that mainstream crap, and that people like you are in a tiny minority. Hence, they wouldnt waste money on creating non-mainstream, decent shows - they would spend their money on catering to mainstream tastes, to maximize profits, and niche markets be damned.
This same trend it evident in the music industry - the record companies don't bother taking risks with esoteric, semi-decent music - they stick to generating the sort of cliched tripe that they know will sell en masse (n sync, limp bizkit etc).
I trust that the TV companies won't misuse the information they receive
I honestly can't say for a moment that I trust any large corporation not to misuse the information they'd receive. In fact I can't think of any big corporations that wouldn't eagerly engage in something scummy if it means making more money. As an example, I have fairly strong evidence that a local very large, reputable financial firm that I have an investment policy with illegally sold my personal information - to a bulk emailing company, of all places (and thats just the one I know about). From Enron to Microsoft to Oracle, corporate execs will obviously do anything for a quick buck.
Whether or not they have the right to does not appear to be related to whether or not they are capable of doing it. It seems to me there is an underlying assumption that they are inherently not, which I disagree with. Perhaps in general they are not, I don't know, I speak from my own experiences - when I was 13, I knew damn well that it was stupid to smoke, and no amount of advertising/media influence affected that. OK, in general, 13-year olds should not have the right to make life and death decisions for themselves, but not because they are inherently incapable of making such decisions; more like, they don't necessarily have the experience to always make good decisions and should have a certain amount of protection. Nonetheless, there is only one way to get experience. A naive, gullible 13-year old, who is heavily protected by immediate society around him, quickly grows up to be an equally naive, gullible adult.
So if I understand you, the bottom line is, in American business, its OK to lie to your customers, as long as its in the name of making $$$, because the goal of making money supercedes all other goals? I guess thats the "American Way" (TM). And people wonder why not everyone aspires to it ..
If you'd read my other post in this sub-thread, you'd see I agree that if people choose to smoke its their own stupidity.
Hard work doesn't inherently "deserve" to be rewarded, btw. The world owes nobody anything, no matter how hard they worked.
I have to agree. Actually, I think that even your average 13 year old cannot possibly claim to not understand and be aware of the fact that smoking is very bad for you, there is just so much information fed directly to teens and pre-teens on this. Perhaps it wasn't like that 50 years ago, I don't know, but no child growing up today can claim to not be at least vaguely aware of the harmful consequences of smoking. Kids are capable of understanding that their decisions have consequences, and adults supposedly even more so. If you smoke, its your own stupidity. Doesn't make the tobacco companies any less scummy though :)
No, the big tobacco companies have had all of them beat for a long time now. Their products directly kill people.
They've been trying for years to claim that there is no evidence that smoking causes diseases such as lung cancer, bringing in their own paid "scientists" into "debates" in an attempt to legitimize their "viewpoint". Now I suppose we're going to start hearing that they should be allowed to make such claims as a free speech issue.
I remember when internal documents of a tobacco company were brought up in court stating that their primary market to advertise to to get new recruits was the "13 to 25" age group. Their defence? "Its a typo". Riiight. (Studies have shown that if you haven't started smoking by age 20, you're pretty much never going to start smoking).
Philip Morris ("Phillip"?) recently published a report on the "indirect positive economic effects of early death". Thats sickening.
Article: "Road Runner will not provide tech support for XP". ChuckX: "I do Road Runner tech support, and here's a bit more info on why Road Runner will not provide tech support for XP". Moderator: "Offtopic"! WTF!? If there was still any doubt that /. moderation is a bit screwy, there can't be any left now.
Don't worry, you're not alone. I also don't see why its fortunate that this news comes well after the "meteorite blast" movie fad. Perhaps mfarah is suggesting that had the news come shortly before the movies then there would have been a lot more annoying public hype about meteorites, and that that would have been annoying to endure? I don't know. On the other hand, had the news come out shortly before the movies, it might have been more fortunate because the general public (and decision-making politicians) might have actually realised that there really is a potential threat and actually done something about it, instead of just going back into "it won't happen to us" self-denial mode.
Actually, the outlook is probably worse than the simple linear random probability in your example, because meteorites/asteroids do NOT have a uniform random distribution throughout the Universe. Rather (since they must have been formed by some process), they tend to often be in groups (which is the reason we have meteor storms). So if we're hit by a relatively big one tomorrow, it is more likely than just linear-random that there might be a few more big ones following behind it.
Of course, either way, you are completely correct that JJ's reasoning is completely incorrect :) We've got just as big a chance of being hit on any one day as on any other day. The fact is, the scenario *is* a real *potential* threat to our survival, and if we actually have the technology to scan for and destroy such threats, then there is no excuse for not using the technology, its just plain stupid not to. But the whole world seems to have fallen into the global equivalent of the "it can't happen to me" syndrome that occurs with individuals regarding accidents; a global "it won't happen to us" sort of self-denial. Why wouldn't it? As you say, it could be tomorrow.
Hmm .. OK .. I see the connection now :) I didn't look at it that way.
No .. cognitive dissonance is "a person's disquieting perception of a mismatch between her or his attitudes (cognitions) and her or his behaviour". Essentially, its the vague "anxiety" experienced when your behaviour isn't consistent with your ideals/thoughts. That doesn't really map to the example of someone shelling out money etc. The example in the link you point to involves money, but the example doesn't map to this one. (a case of seeing a false analogy because of similarity of content, called "transparency" by Gentner). The mentioned phenomenon would more likely be attributed to the "availability heuristic" (if someones just bought something sound-related, it is called to mind more easily in a sound-related discussion). Its also probably that people make over-broad deductions about things that they've only learned a very *small* amount about (I can't remember what this is called, but you see it all the time on slashdot (no matter what the topic of discussion is), e.g. people who have picked up a *tiny* bit of information about some particular topic, but then go right ahead and not only form strong opinions about that topic but vocalise them very loudly too (for example on another current /. thread about preemptive kernel support, people make loud statements about windows and preemptiveness, but actually they're confusing preemptive multitasking with preemptive kernel, a totally different thing -- also, much like I'm doing right now with psychology terms and my limited psy 101 background ;)). So people who've learned a little bit about sound equipment suddenly (for example) like to think that they're now qualified to make broad statements about sound equipment on /. Theres a name for it .. :/ can't think of it at the moment.