Just when I think the nerd community cannot surprise me any more, along comes something like this article. Not only is there a CAD system for building with LEGO, there are enough of them to justify a common graphic interface for them. Jeez Louise.
Reminds me of that program those guys were building in Douglas Coupland's "Microserfs".
Basically, the story is that Michael Zalewski started feeding randomly malformed HTML into Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Opera, Lynx, and Links and watching what happened. Bottom line: 'All browsers but Microsoft Internet Explorer kept crashing on a regular basis
That's great! Now I can finally read all those randomly malformed sites I've been bookmarking lately.
Anyone remember when the privacy hounds were out about GMail perpetually storing your mail, and that a *gasp* computer would actually read it! Reminds me exactly of this. Of course, they'll come out and clarify it later, but by then the damage will be done. Oh well.
Well, that is a problem if you believe Google is already being run exclusively by machines, all profits from the company being used to build this huge machine city smack dab in the middle of Israel, which would grow so badly that we'd have to kill the sky and live one last rave party underground in the caves of Zion.
I agree, but for my point it is irrelevant whether the story is distorted or not - it is a fact that this has been reported in such a way and this correlates pretty directly to increased sales.
Even if the killing itself was a lie, it's still a fact that in this case, the negative publicity helped sales.
Interesting that the given example of blog-based advertising seems to employ reverse psychology:
On it's surface the Beta-7 blog was the mental meanderings of a beta tester ranting about Sega's ESPN NFL 2K5. He claimed the game made him suffer blackouts and uncontrollable fits of violence. After battling the gamemaker through online diatribes for four months, he disappeared.
It gives you seizures and blackouts? Why, then it must be good! See also how copies of Manhunt are "flying off the shelves" after some youth who happened to have played the game killed someone. Is it just the case of media being so saturated with advertising messages that all publicity becomes good, or is there something antisocial in video games after all? Methinks, a bit of both.
Also, here is the (very probable) reason for the seizure. Apparently, photos of two swiss cops or something. Only now that it's on Cryptome, the cat is out of the bag. Funny how the things someone would like to conceal suddenly get the undivided attention of the entire Internet.
"This is not unprecedented. Some years ago several US ISPs removed material on sites at the request of foreign governments. They acted unilaterally, without court order, merely upon the request of the governments. Some of these incidents were made public, competing ISPs offered to refuse to abide such requests, and customers abandoned those who cooperated with the authorities.
This method can be used against Rackspace. Indeed, it is likely that Rackspace awaits public outcry, and customers leaving, in order to have grounds to resist the thinly justified action in this case.
Recall that the US DoJ is regularly bluffing and faking its attack on alleged terrorist suspects and political dissidents. Other countries are following the US in this vile practice. They cover for each other with these obnoxious mutual assistance treaties, in which fingers are pointed after the dirty deeds are done."
I admit that I find this development baffling -- not only does AOL already own a browser, but why on earth would a non-AOL user want to use an AOL-branded version of IE?
It's a kind of extreme sport. Why surf safe and comfy when you can fear JPEGs, juggle a dozen windows and risk getting beaten as a lamer for AOL branding. Same as with bungee jumping - some people just can't get WHY, but don't diss it unless you've tried it yourself.
Dick waving contests are important, primate. Whether or not nations are respected on the international stage has everything to do with technological prowess. India stands to gain a great deal of leverage when they prove they have the technical cahones to actually land something on the moon. From that moment forward, no one will be the slightest bit confused about whether or not India can put a warhead on Los Angeles or Paris; it will be perfectly crystal fucking clear they can.
Political leverage, certainly - I failed to appraise it from the perspective of ol' Blicero and his toy.
I guess you would rather spend it on conquering some poor nation for it's oil and natural resources, and brand it progress, rather than have a developing nation take steps to not merely enhance the quality of living of its people, but also it's science. FYI -- any progress is progress.
You guess wrong, actually, and you are trying to pin opinions on me which are not mine. Also, I disagree re: progress is progress. Things have been labelled "progress" wrongly before; hell, one could argue that the entire western world is currently not progressing, as we are wasting our limited energy resources without a clear idea of what to do when they run out. We are progressing like a hypothetical man who is trying to master chess while falling from a building - he would be better off trying to invent a parachute.
You are very harsh in your criticism of my comments, but I can well see and understand what you are saying.
A few points: firstly, my bad for not realizing that their space program also includes satellites with concrete and very useful purposes. It's a huge semantic hole in my comment, and one that I am aware of now. Secondly, my "pompous, ignorant, half-assed" comment was, as the question mark indicated, a question. Several people besides you answered it for me adequately, and I am grateful.
However, I am still not convinced:
a) that their mission to the moon has scientific value which will justify the cost
b) that their brilliant healthcare system, which as you noted is becoming an export product, is actually benefitting the many poor people of India
and c) (which I am aware is largely irrelevant to this discussion and also makes me seem a luddite, but it is a part of what made me comment that way) - that mankind has any future away from Earth.
India is a country in which a veritable sea of people is living in appaling conditions. OK, the mission is only ~80 million dollars, bravo for them. But what is the point? Are they going to get any crucial new data on what the Moon rock is made of?
Or is this solely a demonstration of power? A sort of an international dick-waving contest? You are not grown up until you send some expensive junk to the moon or something? Those eighty million might have bought the country one more university or one more hospital - which, I believe, have a better chance of saving / educating a person which makes an important scientific discovery than that pile of junk has of making a good return on its moon trip.
It's the only valid response to all this "me-too" opportunism which has all but replaced innovation and quality. All of the big boys, bloated with their money and responsibility towards shareholders, with their rigid corporate mentality... they have no option but to leave their slimy trail behind the likes of Apple and Google.
Apple has succeeded at its iTunes+iPod combo because of all the things the follow-ups are (most probably) going to lack: high quality hardware and software which does not try to force itself on its user or treat him like an idiot.
...being valued based on how 1337 they are or what other distribution they have spawned from and how politically correct its roots are re: OS ideology.
Modern distribution should focus on a system for upgrading / installing which handles dependencies well, a base of hand-picked packages covering as many functions with quality software, making the installation process as easy and transparent as possible, building a community and encouraging its members to provide well-written documentation and lobbying with hardware vendors for open drivers (e.g. ATI).
Also, some professional-quality design work for the website and visual presentation wouldn't hurt.
Most everyone is going to use Linux in another 10 years (barring a totalitarian world government which bans it as a tool of terrorism) - so get on with the program, people.
Feel free to rate this "obvious", but I feel that the combination of market forces and oil wealth has slowed the rate of innovation in the transport industry to a crawl. There aren't really any competing systems - each year companies offer slight overall improvements and a new look.
I see two possible factors which might bring some real innovation - one is the looming peak oil (even the optimists place it no further than 50 years in the future) and the other is increasing traffic congestion in urban areas.
What I hope to see are small, light, preferably vehicles which combine the use of solar / wind / any power from an ecologically sound power source and our own strength. I personally feel that widespread bicycles would make for happier communities (don't point me to eastern Asia, where they are widespread not as a choice, but because of poverty). The sociology of Segway (building cities around it, yadda yadda) seems to me basically sound, if for nothing else simply because modern cars are such polluting space-eaters that make environments dangerous for kids and essentially serve as a mobile extension of people's separation. Ranting now, sorry.
You are obviously an amateur. Try getting her one of the following (ordered by cost): 1. Atomica Deluxe and/or Bookworm 2. The Sims (+ all expansions) 3. A Gamecube and "Animal Crossing".
However, it is a proven fact that people rating pretty much anything (academic performance, produce quality, car safety) become wildly inconsistent when rating on a scale above 3-point-something.
Percentage as game review score is not only flawed, it's supremely stupid. A 50% rated game in this system is most likely garbage of the highest order, while 100% score is routinely saved for Duke Nukem Forever, the final game, that is to be brought unto us by Jesus on the Day of Reckoning.
I think 1-10 scale, with 10 actually given to games which satisfy with supreme quality and/or innovation would be the most acceptable system. 1-5 would be better scientifically, but it just doesn't allow for enough "color" for a game magazine.
Unless you listen to a lot of tracker format music, you can just delete the in_mod.dll and you can probably just use a newer version of that extension anyway, even if you are a big fan of repetitive 8-bit samples.
Slashdot Mirror
But this one plays for sure!!!11!!
Just when I think the nerd community cannot surprise me any more, along comes something like this article. Not only is there a CAD system for building with LEGO, there are enough of them to justify a common graphic interface for them. Jeez Louise.
Reminds me of that program those guys were building in Douglas Coupland's "Microserfs".
Basically, the story is that Michael Zalewski started feeding randomly malformed HTML into Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Opera, Lynx, and Links and watching what happened. Bottom line: 'All browsers but Microsoft Internet Explorer kept crashing on a regular basis
That's great! Now I can finally read all those randomly malformed sites I've been bookmarking lately.
I will make no other comment.
Now, isn't that a pretty clear comment?
Anyone remember when the privacy hounds were out about GMail perpetually storing your mail, and that a *gasp* computer would actually read it! Reminds me exactly of this. Of course, they'll come out and clarify it later, but by then the damage will be done. Oh well.
Well, that is a problem if you believe Google is already being run exclusively by machines, all profits from the company being used to build this huge machine city smack dab in the middle of Israel, which would grow so badly that we'd have to kill the sky and live one last rave party underground in the caves of Zion.
...that might have played at the moment I read this, Foobar2000 and his randomness generator chose this.
"And every dream, hope and desire
Is just a flicker in the fire
And that fire it will consume
The crack of doom
Is coming soon"
I agree, but for my point it is irrelevant whether the story is distorted or not - it is a fact that this has been reported in such a way and this correlates pretty directly to increased sales.
Even if the killing itself was a lie, it's still a fact that in this case, the negative publicity helped sales.
Interesting that the given example of blog-based advertising seems to employ reverse psychology:
On it's surface the Beta-7 blog was the mental meanderings of a beta tester ranting about Sega's ESPN NFL 2K5. He claimed the game made him suffer blackouts and uncontrollable fits of violence. After battling the gamemaker through online diatribes for four months, he disappeared.
It gives you seizures and blackouts?
Why, then it must be good! See also how copies of Manhunt are "flying off the shelves" after some youth who happened to have played the game killed someone. Is it just the case of media being so saturated with advertising messages that all publicity becomes good, or is there something antisocial in video games after all? Methinks, a bit of both.
Also, here is the (very probable) reason for the seizure. Apparently, photos of two swiss cops or something. Only now that it's on Cryptome, the cat is out of the bag. Funny how the things someone would like to conceal suddenly get the undivided attention of the entire Internet.
John Young of Cryptome.org says:
"This is not unprecedented. Some years ago several US ISPs removed material on sites at the request of foreign governments. They acted unilaterally, without court order, merely upon the request of the governments. Some of these incidents were made public, competing ISPs offered to refuse to abide such requests, and customers abandoned those who cooperated with the authorities.
This method can be used against Rackspace. Indeed, it is likely that Rackspace awaits public outcry, and customers leaving, in order to have grounds to resist the thinly justified action in this case.
Recall that the US DoJ is regularly bluffing and faking its attack on alleged terrorist suspects and political dissidents. Other countries are following the US in this vile practice. They cover for each other with these obnoxious mutual assistance treaties, in which fingers are pointed after the dirty deeds are done."
It's here
Dude, they had this Linux mail server which just went and ate all that sensitive e-mail.
I admit that I find this development baffling -- not only does AOL already own a browser, but why on earth would a non-AOL user want to use an AOL-branded version of IE?
It's a kind of extreme sport. Why surf safe and comfy when you can fear JPEGs, juggle a dozen windows and risk getting beaten as a lamer for AOL branding. Same as with bungee jumping - some people just can't get WHY, but don't diss it unless you've tried it yourself.
...stockpile enough stones for WW4.
Dick waving contests are important, primate. Whether or not nations are respected on the international stage has everything to do with technological prowess. India stands to gain a great deal of leverage when they prove they have the technical cahones to actually land something on the moon. From that moment forward, no one will be the slightest bit confused about whether or not India can put a warhead on Los Angeles or Paris; it will be perfectly crystal fucking clear they can.
Political leverage, certainly - I failed to appraise it from the perspective of ol' Blicero and his toy.
I guess you would rather spend it on conquering some poor nation for it's oil and natural resources, and brand it progress, rather than have a developing nation take steps to not merely enhance the quality of living of its people, but also it's science. FYI -- any progress is progress.
You guess wrong, actually, and you are trying to pin opinions on me which are not mine. Also, I disagree re: progress is progress. Things have been labelled "progress" wrongly before; hell, one could argue that the entire western world is currently not progressing, as we are wasting our limited energy resources without a clear idea of what to do when they run out. We are progressing like a hypothetical man who is trying to master chess while falling from a building - he would be better off trying to invent a parachute.
You are very harsh in your criticism of my comments, but I can well see and understand what you are saying.
A few points: firstly, my bad for not realizing that their space program also includes satellites with concrete and very useful purposes. It's a huge semantic hole in my comment, and one that I am aware of now. Secondly, my "pompous, ignorant, half-assed" comment was, as the question mark indicated, a question. Several people besides you answered it for me adequately, and I am grateful.
However, I am still not convinced:
a) that their mission to the moon has scientific value which will justify the cost
b) that their brilliant healthcare system, which as you noted is becoming an export product, is actually benefitting the many poor people of India
and c) (which I am aware is largely irrelevant to this discussion and also makes me seem a luddite, but it is a part of what made me comment that way) - that mankind has any future away from Earth.
I really believe that India shouldn't even have a space program. It's both amoral and shortsighted to spend money on it in such conditions.
India is a country in which a veritable sea of people is living in appaling conditions. OK, the mission is only ~80 million dollars, bravo for them. But what is the point? Are they going to get any crucial new data on what the Moon rock is made of?
Or is this solely a demonstration of power? A sort of an international dick-waving contest? You are not grown up until you send some expensive junk to the moon or something? Those eighty million might have bought the country one more university or one more hospital - which, I believe, have a better chance of saving / educating a person which makes an important scientific discovery than that pile of junk has of making a good return on its moon trip.
It's the only valid response to all this "me-too" opportunism which has all but replaced innovation and quality. All of the big boys, bloated with their money and responsibility towards shareholders, with their rigid corporate mentality... they have no option but to leave their slimy trail behind the likes of Apple and Google.
Apple has succeeded at its iTunes+iPod combo because of all the things the follow-ups are (most probably) going to lack: high quality hardware and software which does not try to force itself on its user or treat him like an idiot.
...being valued based on how 1337 they are or what other distribution they have spawned from and how politically correct its roots are re: OS ideology.
Modern distribution should focus on a system for upgrading / installing which handles dependencies well, a base of hand-picked packages covering as many functions with quality software, making the installation process as easy and transparent as possible, building a community and encouraging its members to provide well-written documentation and lobbying with hardware vendors for open drivers (e.g. ATI).
Also, some professional-quality design work for the website and visual presentation wouldn't hurt.
Most everyone is going to use Linux in another 10 years (barring a totalitarian world government which bans it as a tool of terrorism) - so get on with the program, people.
Feel free to rate this "obvious", but I feel that the combination of market forces and oil wealth has slowed the rate of innovation in the transport industry to a crawl. There aren't really any competing systems - each year companies offer slight overall improvements and a new look.
I see two possible factors which might bring some real innovation - one is the looming peak oil (even the optimists place it no further than 50 years in the future) and the other is increasing traffic congestion in urban areas.
What I hope to see are small, light, preferably vehicles which combine the use of solar / wind / any power from an ecologically sound power source and our own strength. I personally feel that widespread bicycles would make for happier communities (don't point me to eastern Asia, where they are widespread not as a choice, but because of poverty). The sociology of Segway (building cities around it, yadda yadda) seems to me basically sound, if for nothing else simply because modern cars are such polluting space-eaters that make environments dangerous for kids and essentially serve as a mobile extension of people's separation. Ranting now, sorry.
You are obviously an amateur. Try getting her one of the following (ordered by cost):
1. Atomica Deluxe and/or Bookworm
2. The Sims (+ all expansions)
3. A Gamecube and "Animal Crossing".
However, it is a proven fact that people rating pretty much anything (academic performance, produce quality, car safety) become wildly inconsistent when rating on a scale above 3-point-something.
Percentage as game review score is not only flawed, it's supremely stupid. A 50% rated game in this system is most likely garbage of the highest order, while 100% score is routinely saved for Duke Nukem Forever, the final game, that is to be brought unto us by Jesus on the Day of Reckoning.
I think 1-10 scale, with 10 actually given to games which satisfy with supreme quality and/or innovation would be the most acceptable system. 1-5 would be better scientifically, but it just doesn't allow for enough "color" for a game magazine.
As long as the monitoring is "passive" and my GMail inbox is only being read by machines...
Unless you listen to a lot of tracker format music, you can just delete the in_mod.dll and you can probably just use a newer version of that extension anyway, even if you are a big fan of repetitive 8-bit samples.