This is about a professor of mine from the University of Chicago who is a head honcho at Argonne Labs. Apparently, he's had a reputation for some years of having the most disgusting ~home directory. They eventually made a game about it: what they used to do was somebody would type 'ls' and someone else would get on a bike. Then they'd hit enter and they'd try to do laps around the server room until the ls stopped. I think their record was something around 14.
This guy overlooked a lot. The very first thing that strikes me is his main argument: the idea of a "faith-based" encyclopedia. He essentially saying "trust us, the great Britannica, and not this lousy internet-created encyclopedia." But the matter still comes down to trust - bias can still come through, especially if the authors come from a single culture, facts can be incorrect, articles can still be written by someone with a shallow background in the subject. Really, there are two pros and cons to Wikipedia: + The number of authors of Wikipedia are far greater than those of Britannica. This allows for people most familiar with a certain topic to write on that topic. - The focus of most encyclopedias is history. Unfortunately, the number of history experts on the Internet is probably pretty small. + Wikipedia (and the author of the article overlooked this) allows for not only public editing, but public discussion of the articles as well. - Wikipedia allows public editing, which means that it is only as good as its meta-editors who look for malicious damage, but more importantly, look for cleverly placed misinformation.
People also need to realize that Wikipedia should act as a pointer rather than a source. If you are seriously searching for information, Wikipedia can act as an outline, which you can then "check off" and fill out. You probably don't want to use Britannica for this step either - go to secondary or primary sources. Essentially, I think Britannica is being made obsolete and he don't like it.
The author shows us the numerous changes of the Hamilton article and presents an incorrect date and poor writing as proof that Wikipedia is broken. He ignores the fact that the date was probably well discussed, and glosses another great feature of Wikipedia: the fact that he could go back and read those old articles in the first place. He also clearly doesn't grasp the concept. The idea is not to write as much as you can no matter whether you are qualified or not, but rather to invite many people to write what they are qualified on. I've read many excellent articles (if short) on things like complexity theory that were very good. (Of course, this probably represents the educational bias of the authors - of course they'll know about computers.)
This just in... MARVEL SUES MUD USER Disney today brought an IP lawsuit against user Wolverine179, who not only used Marvel's copyrighted character's name in an internet chatroom designed to facilitate roleplay, but also used many of that character's trademark lines. ...sigh. --Stephen
Here's the problem - this year the people were going to vote in whichever candidate seemed to get the most support - and early on, that means the one who wins the early primaries. So in effect, in our zeal for ousting Bush and making fun of Howard Dean, we let the state of Iowa choose the next Democratic nominee.
The real problem here is not any attempt of voter fraud - it's the goddamn things not working correctly and the official blaming it on the users. It's hilarious to hear his excuses: "they're hitting their palms! they're not doing it right!!!" I've had a problem with many touch screens before, usually depending on the angle at which you view the screen. If you're a different height than the person who calibrates it, and the options are close enough together, it'll basicially shift the whole ballot up or down.
The real question is: why the hell did they use touch screens when they could have made a simple system with actual buttons? And why did they decide that this was the year that we must test our electronic voting machines, I guess because they were sick of guessing whether a dimple in the card meant a vote? The whole thing smacks of the disgusting trend in our country: we'd rather be certain than right. If you think there's any system which won't confuse or provide difficulty for seniors, you clearly have never had a grandmother.
Sadly, it doesn't matter whether doing what the terrorists want us to do is the right thing to do or not - I guarantee at least 50% of Americans would tell you that we can't do it because the terrorists want us to. And if we do what the terrorists want, the terrorists have already won. It doesn't matter if they want us to stop a genocide, whatever they want is by definition BAD.
I don't agree with this, but most Americans think this way.
We could go back to the time where we just lob a few cruise missiles into aspirin factories, to protect civilians and american soldiers, everytime we get bombed. But it seems to me, that's what we used to do, and it led to September 11th.
So yeah, that's why they attacked us, because they thought "oh no another cruise missle strike! I wish the Americans wouldn't attack us with missles and fight us here, on our own soil, so they can destroy our houses and turn our streets into battle grounds!"
So wait, are you saying that Bush will be better in the area of not letting the terrorists scare us? Because it's quite the opposite - in fact, Bush&Cheney want people to be scared. They want them to be frightened of the next terrorist attack because it helps their political campaign and it makes more Americans side with them and gets Americans to publicly support a lot of things they otherwise wouldn't - the PATRIOT ACT and the Iraq War, to name two. Simply judging from what they've said in their campaigns shows this to be true - Bush says FEAR FEAR FEAR a nuclear strike from nuclear weapons terrorists bought from Iraq and Cheney says FEAR FEAR FEAR if John Kerry is elected we will be hit by another attack. When John Kerry says he wants to beat the terrorists down so bad that they become a nuisance rather than a serious threat, Bush says "No you must FEAR the terrorists!"
Not that the Bush administration is the only one employing this - Kerry says FEAR the draft and FEAR not having a job.
Now if you trying to say John Kerry wouldn't be as effective at preventing another attack, that's another subject for debate. I'm not entirely sure about this whole idea that somehow Kerry won't be as tough because he's not as guns-a-blazin and cowboy-vigilante as Bush. It's a pretty simple idea, and most Americans resound with that idea. You can make the case that if we don't attack these nations that are threatening to us when we can, then they will stew and gain power and eventually help people attack us. You can also make the case that invading every country that sneezes the wrong way will worsen the situation - the situation, of course, being that people in the Middle East WANT US THE HELL OUT OF THEIR COUNTRIES. (not to mention they want us not to fund any countries that attack them but that's another story)
This happened months ago on my account. I shoulda took a picture of it and sent it in. I think they're upgrading in chronological order (I got mine way back in '97).
Human: The A.L.I.C.E. chatbot won the 2004 Loebner Prize contest for most human computer. ALICE: I have never heard about it. Human: The contest, held on September 19 in New York City, is based on the Turing Test for artificial intelligence. ALICE: What are your goals in life? Human: The non-profit ALICE A. I. Foundation was awarded the Bronze Loebner medal and a cash prize of $2000. ALICE: Is that a fact.
Human: The A.L.I.C.E. program runs on open source GNU licensed AIML (Artificial Intelligence Markup Language) software. ALICE: I have never heard about it. Human: This was the third Loebner prize win for the ALICE and AIML software. ALICE: What does "this" refer to? Human: the 2004 Loebner Prize ALICE: Oh I get it.
Actually English seems to have inherited all of the problems of French in ADDITION to its own. Kind of like how Windows has all the same problems as UNIX PLUS some of its own.
Comparisons in the sister thread to Nazis aside, I'm pretty much sure that's the definition of a "wimp" as used here - someone who is afraid to stand up for the Right Thing for fear of what the wimp caller deems as trivial or acceptable negative consequences to the wimp callee.
I don't think there's an out this time. Usually, when you get posts saying "Microsoft patents clicking!!" there's usually something in the patent that says "clicking on an icon by using a joystick, underwater, over the internet" or something ridiculous that means the patent doesn't have prior art, but the idea itself does, and will probably be used to try and stretch the patent as far as the courts will let it.
But this time, it looks like they are doing exactly what sudoes. Maybe finally all the anti-Slashdot-stereotype trolls will be wrong. Here's my read:
CLAIMS:
1. Processing a request from a non-admin user to do admin tasks. check. 2. Determining if the user can do such a request. Check. 3. Checking a data source to do #2. Check. (etc/passwd, others) 4. Checking a data source to see which one of many admin tasks the user can do. This might be a bit iffy, because I'm not incredibly familiar with sudo. I would assume it's possible to restrict the usage of sudo for different tasks, and if so, Check. 5. Multiple users. Check. 6. Groups. Check. 7. Using it for Methods. I think the Linux kernel might allow only certain system calls to be done by an administrator. If so, check. 8. Groups for #7. Check-maybe. 9,10. Combining classes and methods. Here it seems they get really specific, and it doesn't look like they define "class" or "method." Maybe. 11-13. Passwords. Check. 14-23. A computer to do the above. Check. 24-34. A security framework to do the above. Check. 35-49. Doing it over a network. Check. Now, here, a network seems to involve "hyperlinked documents creating a user interface." Certainly this idea is older than 2000. Check. 50-62. Again, having a computer to do 1-49. 63-end. Yeesh. Having a computer to do everything from 1-62. I guess they are covering every single combination.
So there's the claims. There's nothing in there that sudo really doesn't do, because I think the vauge language MS is using can be applied to a lot of different methods of unix-style security.
So who's going to care? No one, especially not at the Patent Office.
A local "nutjob" "speaking out" isn't playing the game right. That's why they're viewed as local nutjobs. It's pretty hard to break into the mainstream political world, but not impossible - look at Michael Moore. He was some fat putz that decided to make a documentary about political issues (Roger and Me) and now look - his opinions are worth a lot more than one vote. I'm not saying everyone can be big and famous like Moore, but you see my point. Granted, a lot of people still think Moore is a nutjob, but he's not a local nutjob anymore.
Local nutjobs can actually have an impact if they can reach a wide enough audience and are good at presenting their message. A lot of nutjobs just aren't good at public speaking (or writing).
I realize that this is a vicious circle - but how do you intend to stop it? This two-party system has a lot of power, and guess what? Right now you're too late. In fact, ironically, gunning for third-party votes actually ended up hurting the cause because of last election. So, in fact, the third-party candidate DID get enough votes to matter last year - and guess what, it's very obvious this year that an R or D will win. Thus proving your statement false.
Hardly anyone will vote third-party this year because A) most liberals don't care who the President is this year as long as it's not Bush and B) there's a stigma now that third-party votes hurt causes.
I think last year's election set back breaking the Republican/Democrat system at least 8 to 12 years. Most of my point, anyway, was that your vote really doesn't count. What you have to do is learn how to play the game. And this year winning the game for a third-party is nigh impossible. I don't care if you're Michael Moore or Rush Limbaugh. The third-party cause is screwed.
You mean exact tie +/- 5%. The votes are too numerous to be counted exactly. And sometimes these "ties" happen. Just ask a certain phallic state.
Politics is a game, and it's a pragmatic game at that. You can't get everything you want, so you try and maximize what you can get. It's pretty obvious that this year no one except a Democrat or a Republican will get into the White House. So you have to pick which one is in your better interest. If you're going to get involved in politics, get involved and play the game. Otherwise, don't vote.
And really, your vote among ~300 million people means very little. If you are that interested in getting a 3rd party elected, speak out. Try and educate as many people as you can about it. Public discussion has a lot more power than your one little measly vote.
Slashdot Mirror
I wish the nerd heroes would be a little more subtle.
This is about a professor of mine from the University of Chicago who is a head honcho at Argonne Labs. Apparently, he's had a reputation for some years of having the most disgusting ~home directory. They eventually made a game about it: what they used to do was somebody would type 'ls' and someone else would get on a bike. Then they'd hit enter and they'd try to do laps around the server room until the ls stopped. I think their record was something around 14.
--Stephen
This is amazing. This has nothing to do with the proposed bill title.
This guy overlooked a lot. The very first thing that strikes me is his main argument: the idea of a "faith-based" encyclopedia. He essentially saying "trust us, the great Britannica, and not this lousy internet-created encyclopedia." But the matter still comes down to trust - bias can still come through, especially if the authors come from a single culture, facts can be incorrect, articles can still be written by someone with a shallow background in the subject. Really, there are two pros and cons to Wikipedia:
+ The number of authors of Wikipedia are far greater than those of Britannica. This allows for people most familiar with a certain topic to write on that topic.
- The focus of most encyclopedias is history. Unfortunately, the number of history experts on the Internet is probably pretty small.
+ Wikipedia (and the author of the article overlooked this) allows for not only public editing, but public discussion of the articles as well.
- Wikipedia allows public editing, which means that it is only as good as its meta-editors who look for malicious damage, but more importantly, look for cleverly placed misinformation.
People also need to realize that Wikipedia should act as a pointer rather than a source. If you are seriously searching for information, Wikipedia can act as an outline, which you can then "check off" and fill out. You probably don't want to use Britannica for this step either - go to secondary or primary sources. Essentially, I think Britannica is being made obsolete and he don't like it.
The author shows us the numerous changes of the Hamilton article and presents an incorrect date and poor writing as proof that Wikipedia is broken. He ignores the fact that the date was probably well discussed, and glosses another great feature of Wikipedia: the fact that he could go back and read those old articles in the first place.
He also clearly doesn't grasp the concept. The idea is not to write as much as you can no matter whether you are qualified or not, but rather to invite many people to write what they are qualified on. I've read many excellent articles (if short) on things like complexity theory that were very good. (Of course, this probably represents the educational bias of the authors - of course they'll know about computers.)
This just in...
...sigh.
MARVEL SUES MUD USER
Disney today brought an IP lawsuit against user Wolverine179, who not only used Marvel's copyrighted character's name in an internet chatroom designed to facilitate roleplay, but also used many of that character's trademark lines.
--Stephen
While there is some debate for that, he was certainly not the most electable.
--Stephen
Here's the problem - this year the people were going to vote in whichever candidate seemed to get the most support - and early on, that means the one who wins the early primaries. So in effect, in our zeal for ousting Bush and making fun of Howard Dean, we let the state of Iowa choose the next Democratic nominee.
Let's have a real state vote first this time.
--Stephen
The real problem here is not any attempt of voter fraud - it's the goddamn things not working correctly and the official blaming it on the users. It's hilarious to hear his excuses: "they're hitting their palms! they're not doing it right!!!" I've had a problem with many touch screens before, usually depending on the angle at which you view the screen. If you're a different height than the person who calibrates it, and the options are close enough together, it'll basicially shift the whole ballot up or down.
The real question is: why the hell did they use touch screens when they could have made a simple system with actual buttons? And why did they decide that this was the year that we must test our electronic voting machines, I guess because they were sick of guessing whether a dimple in the card meant a vote? The whole thing smacks of the disgusting trend in our country: we'd rather be certain than right. If you think there's any system which won't confuse or provide difficulty for seniors, you clearly have never had a grandmother.
--Stephen
Sadly, it doesn't matter whether doing what the terrorists want us to do is the right thing to do or not - I guarantee at least 50% of Americans would tell you that we can't do it because the terrorists want us to. And if we do what the terrorists want, the terrorists have already won. It doesn't matter if they want us to stop a genocide, whatever they want is by definition BAD.
I don't agree with this, but most Americans think this way.
--Stephen
So yeah, that's why they attacked us, because they thought "oh no another cruise missle strike! I wish the Americans wouldn't attack us with missles and fight us here, on our own soil, so they can destroy our houses and turn our streets into battle grounds!"
Yeah, that makes sense.
--Stephen
"warped sense of logic" indeed...
So wait, are you saying that Bush will be better in the area of not letting the terrorists scare us? Because it's quite the opposite - in fact, Bush&Cheney want people to be scared. They want them to be frightened of the next terrorist attack because it helps their political campaign and it makes more Americans side with them and gets Americans to publicly support a lot of things they otherwise wouldn't - the PATRIOT ACT and the Iraq War, to name two. Simply judging from what they've said in their campaigns shows this to be true - Bush says FEAR FEAR FEAR a nuclear strike from nuclear weapons terrorists bought from Iraq and Cheney says FEAR FEAR FEAR if John Kerry is elected we will be hit by another attack. When John Kerry says he wants to beat the terrorists down so bad that they become a nuisance rather than a serious threat, Bush says "No you must FEAR the terrorists!"
Not that the Bush administration is the only one employing this - Kerry says FEAR the draft and FEAR not having a job.
Now if you trying to say John Kerry wouldn't be as effective at preventing another attack, that's another subject for debate. I'm not entirely sure about this whole idea that somehow Kerry won't be as tough because he's not as guns-a-blazin and cowboy-vigilante as Bush. It's a pretty simple idea, and most Americans resound with that idea. You can make the case that if we don't attack these nations that are threatening to us when we can, then they will stew and gain power and eventually help people attack us. You can also make the case that invading every country that sneezes the wrong way will worsen the situation - the situation, of course, being that people in the Middle East WANT US THE HELL OUT OF THEIR COUNTRIES. (not to mention they want us not to fund any countries that attack them but that's another story)
This happened months ago on my account. I shoulda took a picture of it and sent it in. I think they're upgrading in chronological order (I got mine way back in '97).
--Stephen
ALICE asked me to enter this comment for her:
Human: The A.L.I.C.E. chatbot won the 2004 Loebner Prize contest for most human computer.
ALICE: I have never heard about it.
Human: The contest, held on September 19 in New York City, is based on the Turing Test for artificial intelligence.
ALICE: What are your goals in life?
Human: The non-profit ALICE A. I. Foundation was awarded the Bronze Loebner medal and a cash prize of $2000.
ALICE: Is that a fact.
Human: The A.L.I.C.E. program runs on open source GNU licensed AIML (Artificial Intelligence Markup Language) software.
ALICE: I have never heard about it.
Human: This was the third Loebner prize win for the ALICE and AIML software.
ALICE: What does "this" refer to?
Human: the 2004 Loebner Prize
ALICE: Oh I get it.
Please point me to any reference that the military was gutted under Clinton's watch.
--Stephen
Re: your sig.
Tell that to Janet Jackson.
--Stephen
Actually English seems to have inherited all of the problems of French in ADDITION to its own. Kind of like how Windows has all the same problems as UNIX PLUS some of its own.
--Stephen
Comparisons in the sister thread to Nazis aside, I'm pretty much sure that's the definition of a "wimp" as used here - someone who is afraid to stand up for the Right Thing for fear of what the wimp caller deems as trivial or acceptable negative consequences to the wimp callee.
--Stephen
I don't think there's an out this time. Usually, when you get posts saying "Microsoft patents clicking!!" there's usually something in the patent that says "clicking on an icon by using a joystick, underwater, over the internet" or something ridiculous that means the patent doesn't have prior art, but the idea itself does, and will probably be used to try and stretch the patent as far as the courts will let it.
But this time, it looks like they are doing exactly what sudoes. Maybe finally all the anti-Slashdot-stereotype trolls will be wrong.
Here's my read:
CLAIMS:
1. Processing a request from a non-admin user to do admin tasks. check.
2. Determining if the user can do such a request. Check.
3. Checking a data source to do #2. Check. (etc/passwd, others)
4. Checking a data source to see which one of many admin tasks the user can do. This might be a bit iffy, because I'm not incredibly familiar with sudo. I would assume it's possible to restrict the usage of sudo for different tasks, and if so, Check.
5. Multiple users. Check.
6. Groups. Check.
7. Using it for Methods. I think the Linux kernel might allow only certain system calls to be done by an administrator. If so, check.
8. Groups for #7. Check-maybe.
9,10. Combining classes and methods. Here it seems they get really specific, and it doesn't look like they define "class" or "method." Maybe.
11-13. Passwords. Check.
14-23. A computer to do the above. Check.
24-34. A security framework to do the above. Check.
35-49. Doing it over a network. Check. Now, here, a network seems to involve "hyperlinked documents creating a user interface." Certainly this idea is older than 2000. Check.
50-62. Again, having a computer to do 1-49.
63-end. Yeesh. Having a computer to do everything from 1-62. I guess they are covering every single combination.
So there's the claims. There's nothing in there that sudo really doesn't do, because I think the vauge language MS is using can be applied to a lot of different methods of unix-style security.
So who's going to care? No one, especially not at the Patent Office.
--Stephen
Am I the only one whose Hotmail account has increased to 250MB without me doing anything?
Perhaps they are upgrading chronologically and since I started my hotmail account in oh, late 1997, maybe I get in before other users.
And it's not really fair if you have to PAY to get 2GB of space, when Google gives 1GB to you for free.
--Stephen
Holy fucking shit people. There has to be some kind of a catch. Common sense just doesn't *win* like this. There has to be something wrong.
--Stephen
You've missed the point. You need to be charismatic and persuasive.
A local "nutjob" "speaking out" isn't playing the game right. That's why they're viewed as local nutjobs. It's pretty hard to break into the mainstream political world, but not impossible - look at Michael Moore. He was some fat putz that decided to make a documentary about political issues (Roger and Me) and now look - his opinions are worth a lot more than one vote. I'm not saying everyone can be big and famous like Moore, but you see my point. Granted, a lot of people still think Moore is a nutjob, but he's not a local nutjob anymore.
Local nutjobs can actually have an impact if they can reach a wide enough audience and are good at presenting their message. A lot of nutjobs just aren't good at public speaking (or writing).
--Stephen
I realize that this is a vicious circle - but how do you intend to stop it? This two-party system has a lot of power, and guess what? Right now you're too late. In fact, ironically, gunning for third-party votes actually ended up hurting the cause because of last election. So, in fact, the third-party candidate DID get enough votes to matter last year - and guess what, it's very obvious this year that an R or D will win. Thus proving your statement false.
Hardly anyone will vote third-party this year because A) most liberals don't care who the President is this year as long as it's not Bush and B) there's a stigma now that third-party votes hurt causes.
I think last year's election set back breaking the Republican/Democrat system at least 8 to 12 years. Most of my point, anyway, was that your vote really doesn't count. What you have to do is learn how to play the game. And this year winning the game for a third-party is nigh impossible. I don't care if you're Michael Moore or Rush Limbaugh. The third-party cause is screwed.
You mean exact tie +/- 5%. The votes are too numerous to be counted exactly. And sometimes these "ties" happen. Just ask a certain phallic state.
Politics is a game, and it's a pragmatic game at that. You can't get everything you want, so you try and maximize what you can get. It's pretty obvious that this year no one except a Democrat or a Republican will get into the White House. So you have to pick which one is in your better interest.
If you're going to get involved in politics, get involved and play the game. Otherwise, don't vote.
And really, your vote among ~300 million people means very little. If you are that interested in getting a 3rd party elected, speak out. Try and educate as many people as you can about it. Public discussion has a lot more power than your one little measly vote.