One of the issues I have with Linux is that it lacks an ABI and drivers can break during an update. Also for 10 years now mp3 and other codecs are removed for copyright reasons making a new install a pain.
Pain?
I wiped a Dell laptop, inserted a generic Ubuntu install CD, and my daughter has been using it for the last year, watching Youtube, playing MP3s, doing her schoolwork with LibreOffice. I just let it update automatically whenever it wants, never an issue. I don't remember if the MP3 codec was installed or if I had to click for it to download, but it was painless and seamless. Meanwhile I spent a few hours disinfecting a Windows laptop she had used, that had been recruited into a spam botnet.
Yeah, there are millions of tons of gold dissolved in the Pacific Ocean. "going to waste" too.
Not a single figure in TFA to say how much it would cost to recover a few grams of gold from each device. Or what toxic sludge would be left and how much it would cost to deal with that.
People dealing with e-waste KNOW THERE IS GOLD IN IT. They're not idiots. If they could recover it and make a profit, they'd be doing it. They don't need some twat to tell them "Hey, you're throwing away gold!".
Slashdot lost its way while Malda was leading it. Long before he left, Slashdot had given up fact checking, spellchecking, dupe checking. The only thing they cared about then, as now, was a headline that drew attention. Didn't matter if the story was true, or had already been posted twice in the previous 24 hours, or was a copy of a press release pasted into a SEO optimised blog. They still look out for any opportunity to bait Creationists and gun nuts into 600 post flame wars though.
'Again, each NMA organizes itself and makes decisions collectively: no commander establishes strategy and gives orders
Bullshit. Some ambitious psychotic will subvert the system and rig the votes so he is making the decisions. Actually, probably several will, and they will set the parts of the 'army" they control against each other.
Even if that didn't happen, the idea of crowd sourcing military strategy is bound to fail. Crowds can't agree on a complex strategy, let alone carry out one that requires discipline and surprise.
This kind of thing can work for guerrilla warfare, small groups harrying an enemy, which is basically what Anonymous does, but not a real war. They could cause chaos, but not take or defend territory.
I'm not sure why there is this strong desire to attach the word "theft" to fraud, fraud is already as bad as theft. What is gained by inaccuracy?
Same reason people like to call copyright infringement "theft". Calling something "theft" lets you hate them more and demand more draconian punishments. Makes it seem a violation of ancient custom and law. It's in the Bible: "Though shalt not steal". Shariah law says to chop off their hands. Maybe they could call it "rustling" and they could string the accused up on the nearest tree.
The source article is on http://www.wnd.com/, which is a pretty wacky looking right wing "news" site. Its top stories currently are :
Gun shop veto draws legal fight Traveler says no to U.S. internal checkpoints Blogger: Why don't blacks behave? Cross-bearing Texas teen arrives In D.C. Reviewer: It doesn't look like we're repenting Poll: Majority favor extending all Bush tax rates
Detecting a trend? Anyway the article in question simply says that 1) Chinese companies make most of the telecom switching gear. 2) Therefore, China's military has backdoored it all and is spying on every byte anyone transmits.
Of course, this is conceivable, but there isn't a shred of evidence. Spying on such a huge scale would require huge infrastructure and data transmission, basically duplicating the entire Internet. That might be detectable.
many pages are a horrible mess to edit. For a quick example, see the source of chapter "Early SSDs using RAM and similar technology"
You would imagine that anyone interested in "Early SSDs using RAM and similar technology" would be pretty geeky and not fazed by the markup. And obviously the page was crested by exactly such people.
99% of 99% of articles are just plain text. If you have some facts to contribute, just wrote plain text and you'll be fine. Quite likely someone will come along later and pretty it up. Or if you're really lost, put a comment on the talk page of the article pointing out what you think should be changed and someone more experienced may do it
Much harder to grasp though are the policies -- verifiability, reliable sourcing -- requiring you to cite sources carefully. People who just know facts and write them can do so, but if anyone reviews it or disagrees, it will be quickly deleted.
It's not all fun, I've come across a lot of assholes, vindictive jerks, persistent vandals and just idiots. The system is quite resilient and has evolved mechanisms to cope regardless.
. If the Chinese "try and make good" net net that looks like the Chinese importing vast amounts of American goods. Which brings manufacturing back to the USA.
You don't have any manufacturing any more. You've exported it all.
What goods does the USA have that it can sell to China?
If there were any, you'd already be doing it. Only if you start literally selling the farm (real estate) or massively devalue the USD could you do it. The army is the only thing you've got that's competitive, and that for not much longer. Maybe you can hire out your army as mercenaries and help China invade Taiwan, then say Siberia.
Workers walk out of one failing business model which requires customers to come to them, and walk into a better business model which puts the "shelves" right there in people's homes (on the computer or their phone), and offers same day delivery.
One tenth of the workers may walk into the "better business model" where they are paid minimum wage to stack shelves in a warehouse instead of dealing with customers personally. The rest are just out of a job. The owners of the businesses will probably be bankrupt and lose everything.
I find it hard to imagine how the US economy can sustain itself, with its manufacturing all outsourced overseas, and now the local retail sector being wiped out. You have an economy based on consumption, not production. When the Chinese realise the dollars you are paying them with have nothing behind them, and ask you to make good, you're screwed.
At least in the '419-style' scams, research from Microsoft implies that the bad English is, at least in part, deliberate
I don't believe that. It may be successful, but there is no evidence it's deliberate. This idea it's actually designed to sound dumb to target likely prey is pure conjecture. More likely it's just evolved -- just by cutting and pasting text that has worked in the past without any more analysis than that.
It's really, honestly as simple as adding "Muriel Kane of Raw story writes:" at the start of the paragraph.
Slashdot's style is to credit the submitter, not the actual writer. This is is wrong, but they won't change.
Much worse than this is the increasing tendency to cite and link not the original source, but some plagiarising asshole who copied the story from a real publication, and put it on their spammy blog, and submitted that to Slashdot for the ad hits. Not only is it stealing the story, they often misrepresent or sensationalise it to make it more dramatic.
Point to a "you need to fix your computer page?" is brilliant and obvious. Darn, why didn't I think of that!
The last five times Slashdot has run this story in the last two weeks, 50% of the spots have made that suggestion. Proves that no one reads the articles, the summaries, or anyone else's comments.
"Okay, given that grammar is important - and given that Microsoft have had desktop applications with built-in grammar check since around 1997 - how come Google don't?"
Because MS Office's grammar checker sucks balls. I spellcheck, because I'm fumble fingered, but turn off the lame grammar check as it gives me a raft of false positives while missing the real errors.
Grammar is important, but there is no algorithm that can parse English reliably enough to be worth the hassle.
So we can have 200 posts by smart arses saying "The FBI should have redirected them to a page telling them how to disinfect their PC". Then 400 posts by smart arses saying what a bad idea this would be because.... etc, etc. 90 % of the posts fall in one or the other category, showing that posters rarely read the summary, hardly ever the article, and somehow manage to ignore all the other post that said exactly the same thing over and over.
Its almost as good as a gun nut or creationist-baiting story for generating page hits and posts, except this plays on the deep need for Slashdot posters to demonstrate that they're smarter than the idiots who got infected, or the FBI, and especially other posters. While actually demonstrating the opposite.
I'm generally not a big fan of web apps and "the cloud" as a substitute for native apps, but unless you host your own email server, you're relying on someone else to store your email anyway. Why not use the web interface? Email is simple enough that in my experience there really isn't a lot that a native app can do that a good webmail interface can't.
Until the company you have trusted with 10 years of your mail goes bust and just disappears, and/or loses all your mail. As happened to me more than once.
Fortunately, I use Eudora and have all my mail for the last 20 years in mbx files on my own PC. Which makes me feel a lot safer.
Every few weeks I back them up to a DVD or a thumb drive. Even 20 years of email isn't that big, if you delete the spam and don't bother with archiving mailing lists.
And I use an ancient version of Eudora, because it does what I need, and is incapable of executing any scripts hidden in mail even if I tried. All I need is 1) text and 2) attached files. There is a built in search, or I can just search through the mbx files as text.
So: I still don't need your agreement to have and exercise a right, and if you think you can ignore my rights because we haven't signed a contract, you really are beyond any concept of civilisation or morality. Which is why we need governments, to protect members of society from predators who think might makes right..
- wrong. If I kill you I am not depriving you of any 'right' to life, because between you and me, we never had any such agreement, I didn't sign a contract, neither did you, that we have any such agreement.
I don't require an agreement with you, or anyone, to have right to life. Otherwise any asshole could deprive me of any right at any time. Doesn't leave much meaning in the word "right" if it's contingent on you allowing me to have it.
Let me guess: you're a libertarian? Anyway, you're clearly an asshole.
That is why the US federal government is no longer legitimate, hasn't been in a long time.
And probably a loonie with a basement full of guns, waiting for a chance to go out in a blaze of glory when the feds come to collect an unpaid parking ticket..
Well stated. I've always thought, if government did its job properly, there'd be no need for unions.
Business have lobbyists to influence government to pass legislation favouring them. They form associations specifically to do this. How are individual workers supposed to have their voice heard, let alone taken notice of if they don't form a collective to speak for them to both government and employers? Without unions continually exerting pressure, workers will lose more and more rights.
- you can't violate somebody's right if you are not a government. Rights are a meaningless concept outside of the relationship between an individual and the collective (gov't).
Complete rubbish.
Individuals can deprive others of rights, and do so frequently.
If you kill me, you have deprived me of my right to life. If you imprison me, you have deprived me of my right to free movement. If a father refuse to send a child to school, he has deprived it of its right to education. Etc, etc.
missed my point. It's no use calling wolf again and again. It'll just cause habituation. When the real deal comes, no one will rise to the oppose it.
If nobody cries "wolf" to raise opposition to it, it can become the real deal. You have to react every time they bring it up. If you get bored after the 10th time, they get it through on the 11th.
I see this happening in local politics all the time, our "representative" keeps proposing stupid projects that damage the environment and line the pockets of companies she is friends with. Community groups oppose it. It's dropped. Next year she tries again. Repeat. Community groups rarely last more than a few years, one year there is nobody watching in the brief window you have to raise an official objection and she gets it through.
Watch out for the government thugs. Don't trust anyone.
Hong Kong civil servants are well-paid, blinkered bureaucrats. Mostly honest and some helpful. Not thugs. Mainland China is still very different from Hong Kong.
Since I got my B.S. and M.S. both in computer science, I have no idea what those 'Wall Street jobs' are like,
And you never will. What makes you think you can get hired in the financial industry with zero knowledge or experience? Just the desire to get rich isn't good enough .
Also, in Hong Kong, foreigners don't get a work visa without the employer making a case you have unique skills that a local doesn't. You seem to have none. Your wife can sponsor you for residency, not employment.
Since you're coming to Hong Kong, hang around in the bars in Lan Kwai Fong and try to ingratiate yourself with some suits, maybe you'll get lucky and get someone to give you a junior position. Or you could just deal drugs to them.
Slashdot Mirror
One of the issues I have with Linux is that it lacks an ABI and drivers can break during an update. Also for 10 years now mp3 and other codecs are removed for copyright reasons making a new install a pain.
Pain?
I wiped a Dell laptop, inserted a generic Ubuntu install CD, and my daughter has been using it for the last year, watching Youtube, playing MP3s, doing her schoolwork with LibreOffice. I just let it update automatically whenever it wants, never an issue. I don't remember if the MP3 codec was installed or if I had to click for it to download, but it was painless and seamless. Meanwhile I spent a few hours disinfecting a Windows laptop she had used, that had been recruited into a spam botnet.
Not a single figure in TFA to say how much it would cost to recover a few grams of gold from each device. Or what toxic sludge would be left and how much it would cost to deal with that.
People dealing with e-waste KNOW THERE IS GOLD IN IT. They're not idiots. If they could recover it and make a profit, they'd be doing it. They don't need some twat to tell them "Hey, you're throwing away gold!".
Slashdot lost its way while Malda was leading it. Long before he left, Slashdot had given up fact checking, spellchecking, dupe checking. The only thing they cared about then, as now, was a headline that drew attention. Didn't matter if the story was true, or had already been posted twice in the previous 24 hours, or was a copy of a press release pasted into a SEO optimised blog. They still look out for any opportunity to bait Creationists and gun nuts into 600 post flame wars though.
'Again, each NMA organizes itself and makes decisions collectively: no commander establishes strategy and gives orders
Bullshit. Some ambitious psychotic will subvert the system and rig the votes so he is making the decisions. Actually, probably several will, and they will set the parts of the 'army" they control against each other.
Even if that didn't happen, the idea of crowd sourcing military strategy is bound to fail. Crowds can't agree on a complex strategy, let alone carry out one that requires discipline and surprise.
This kind of thing can work for guerrilla warfare, small groups harrying an enemy, which is basically what Anonymous does, but not a real war. They could cause chaos, but not take or defend territory.
I'm not sure why there is this strong desire to attach the word "theft" to fraud, fraud is already as bad as theft. What is gained by inaccuracy?
Same reason people like to call copyright infringement "theft". Calling something "theft" lets you hate them more and demand more draconian punishments. Makes it seem a violation of ancient custom and law. It's in the Bible: "Though shalt not steal". Shariah law says to chop off their hands. Maybe they could call it "rustling" and they could string the accused up on the nearest tree.
(See also: "terrorism", "pedophilia".)
The source article is on http://www.wnd.com/, which is a pretty wacky looking right wing "news" site. Its top stories currently are :
Gun shop veto draws legal fight
Traveler says no to U.S. internal checkpoints
Blogger: Why don't blacks behave?
Cross-bearing Texas teen arrives In D.C.
Reviewer: It doesn't look like we're repenting
Poll: Majority favor extending all Bush tax rates
Detecting a trend?
Anyway the article in question simply says that 1) Chinese companies make most of the telecom switching gear. 2) Therefore, China's military has backdoored it all and is spying on every byte anyone transmits.
Of course, this is conceivable, but there isn't a shred of evidence. Spying on such a huge scale would require huge infrastructure and data transmission, basically duplicating the entire Internet. That might be detectable.
many pages are a horrible mess to edit. For a quick example, see the source of chapter "Early SSDs using RAM and similar technology"
You would imagine that anyone interested in "Early SSDs using RAM and similar technology" would be pretty geeky and not fazed by the markup. And obviously the page was crested by exactly such people.
99% of 99% of articles are just plain text. If you have some facts to contribute, just wrote plain text and you'll be fine. Quite likely someone will come along later and pretty it up. Or if you're really lost, put a comment on the talk page of the article pointing out what you think should be changed and someone more experienced may do it
Much harder to grasp though are the policies -- verifiability, reliable sourcing -- requiring you to cite sources carefully. People who just know facts and write them can do so, but if anyone reviews it or disagrees, it will be quickly deleted.
It's not all fun, I've come across a lot of assholes, vindictive jerks, persistent vandals and just idiots. The system is quite resilient and has evolved mechanisms to cope regardless.
. If the Chinese "try and make good" net net that looks like the Chinese importing vast amounts of American goods. Which brings manufacturing back to the USA.
You don't have any manufacturing any more. You've exported it all.
What goods does the USA have that it can sell to China? If there were any, you'd already be doing it. Only if you start literally selling the farm (real estate) or massively devalue the USD could you do it. The army is the only thing you've got that's competitive, and that for not much longer. Maybe you can hire out your army as mercenaries and help China invade Taiwan, then say Siberia.
Workers walk out of one failing business model which requires customers to come to them, and walk into a better business model which puts the "shelves" right there in people's homes (on the computer or their phone), and offers same day delivery.
One tenth of the workers may walk into the "better business model" where they are paid minimum wage to stack shelves in a warehouse instead of dealing with customers personally. The rest are just out of a job. The owners of the businesses will probably be bankrupt and lose everything.
I find it hard to imagine how the US economy can sustain itself, with its manufacturing all outsourced overseas, and now the local retail sector being wiped out. You have an economy based on consumption, not production. When the Chinese realise the dollars you are paying them with have nothing behind them, and ask you to make good, you're screwed.
At least in the '419-style' scams, research from Microsoft implies that the bad English is, at least in part, deliberate
I don't believe that. It may be successful, but there is no evidence it's deliberate. This idea it's actually designed to sound dumb to target likely prey is pure conjecture. More likely it's just evolved -- just by cutting and pasting text that has worked in the past without any more analysis than that.
PIN number
Crappy remake
It's really, honestly as simple as adding "Muriel Kane of Raw story writes:" at the start of the paragraph.
Slashdot's style is to credit the submitter, not the actual writer. This is is wrong, but they won't change.
Much worse than this is the increasing tendency to cite and link not the original source, but some plagiarising asshole who copied the story from a real publication, and put it on their spammy blog, and submitted that to Slashdot for the ad hits. Not only is it stealing the story, they often misrepresent or sensationalise it to make it more dramatic.
For example, yesterday: Paul Vixie On DNS Changer: We're Dealing With Malware the Wrong Way That story is credited to ibtimes.co.uk on the same day, but it actually is a dumbed down and mangled version of a blog post made 4 months ago.
Point to a "you need to fix your computer page?" is brilliant and obvious. Darn, why didn't I think of that!
The last five times Slashdot has run this story in the last two weeks, 50% of the spots have made that suggestion. Proves that no one reads the articles, the summaries, or anyone else's comments.
"Okay, given that grammar is important - and given that Microsoft have had desktop applications with built-in grammar check since around 1997 - how come Google don't?"
Because MS Office's grammar checker sucks balls. I spellcheck, because I'm fumble fingered, but turn off the lame grammar check as it gives me a raft of false positives while missing the real errors.
Grammar is important, but there is no algorithm that can parse English reliably enough to be worth the hassle.
Yes, yes we are. So why are you telling us again?
So we can have 200 posts by smart arses saying "The FBI should have redirected them to a page telling them how to disinfect their PC". Then 400 posts by smart arses saying what a bad idea this would be because.... etc, etc. 90 % of the posts fall in one or the other category, showing that posters rarely read the summary, hardly ever the article, and somehow manage to ignore all the other post that said exactly the same thing over and over.
Its almost as good as a gun nut or creationist-baiting story for generating page hits and posts, except this plays on the deep need for Slashdot posters to demonstrate that they're smarter than the idiots who got infected, or the FBI, and especially other posters. While actually demonstrating the opposite.
"DSNChanger"?
And this is yet another dupe of this tedious "story", last just two days ago.
FBI To Shut Down DNSChanger Servers Monday -- But Should It Cut Off 300k PCs?
Posted by Soulskill on Thu Jul 05, '12 04:18 AM
I'm generally not a big fan of web apps and "the cloud" as a substitute for native apps, but unless you host your own email server, you're relying on someone else to store your email anyway. Why not use the web interface? Email is simple enough that in my experience there really isn't a lot that a native app can do that a good webmail interface can't.
Until the company you have trusted with 10 years of your mail goes bust and just disappears, and/or loses all your mail. As happened to me more than once. Fortunately, I use Eudora and have all my mail for the last 20 years in mbx files on my own PC. Which makes me feel a lot safer.
Every few weeks I back them up to a DVD or a thumb drive. Even 20 years of email isn't that big, if you delete the spam and don't bother with archiving mailing lists.
And I use an ancient version of Eudora, because it does what I need, and is incapable of executing any scripts hidden in mail even if I tried. All I need is 1) text and 2) attached files. There is a built in search, or I can just search through the mbx files as text.
Since we don't speak the same language, we will never be able to communicate, let alone agree. So we're done here.
If you think that concept of 'rights' exists between 2 people, then you clearly don't understand what this concept means and where it came from.
So it seems you think that the concept of "rights" only exists as defined by the American constitution. And thus, only for Americans since 1776.
Guess what, we're not all Americans, and the concept exists elsewhere. See for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_rights .
So: I still don't need your agreement to have and exercise a right, and if you think you can ignore my rights because we haven't signed a contract, you really are beyond any concept of civilisation or morality. Which is why we need governments, to protect members of society from predators who think might makes right..
- wrong. If I kill you I am not depriving you of any 'right' to life, because between you and me, we never had any such agreement, I didn't sign a contract, neither did you, that we have any such agreement.
I don't require an agreement with you, or anyone, to have right to life. Otherwise any asshole could deprive me of any right at any time. Doesn't leave much meaning in the word "right" if it's contingent on you allowing me to have it.
Let me guess: you're a libertarian? Anyway, you're clearly an asshole.
That is why the US federal government is no longer legitimate, hasn't been in a long time.
And probably a loonie with a basement full of guns, waiting for a chance to go out in a blaze of glory when the feds come to collect an unpaid parking ticket..
Well stated. I've always thought, if government did its job properly, there'd be no need for unions.
Business have lobbyists to influence government to pass legislation favouring them. They form associations specifically to do this. How are individual workers supposed to have their voice heard, let alone taken notice of if they don't form a collective to speak for them to both government and employers? Without unions continually exerting pressure, workers will lose more and more rights.
- you can't violate somebody's right if you are not a government. Rights are a meaningless concept outside of the relationship between an individual and the collective (gov't).
Complete rubbish.
Individuals can deprive others of rights, and do so frequently.
If you kill me, you have deprived me of my right to life. If you imprison me, you have deprived me of my right to free movement. If a father refuse to send a child to school, he has deprived it of its right to education. Etc, etc.
missed my point. It's no use calling wolf again and again. It'll just cause habituation. When the real deal comes, no one will rise to the oppose it.
If nobody cries "wolf" to raise opposition to it, it can become the real deal. You have to react every time they bring it up. If you get bored after the 10th time, they get it through on the 11th.
I see this happening in local politics all the time, our "representative" keeps proposing stupid projects that damage the environment and line the pockets of companies she is friends with. Community groups oppose it. It's dropped. Next year she tries again. Repeat. Community groups rarely last more than a few years, one year there is nobody watching in the brief window you have to raise an official objection and she gets it through.
Watch out for the government thugs. Don't trust anyone.
Hong Kong civil servants are well-paid, blinkered bureaucrats. Mostly honest and some helpful. Not thugs. Mainland China is still very different from Hong Kong.
Since I got my B.S. and M.S. both in computer science, I have no idea what those 'Wall Street jobs' are like,
And you never will. What makes you think you can get hired in the financial industry with zero knowledge or experience? Just the desire to get rich isn't good enough .
Also, in Hong Kong, foreigners don't get a work visa without the employer making a case you have unique skills that a local doesn't. You seem to have none. Your wife can sponsor you for residency, not employment.
Since you're coming to Hong Kong, hang around in the bars in Lan Kwai Fong and try to ingratiate yourself with some suits, maybe you'll get lucky and get someone to give you a junior position. Or you could just deal drugs to them.