A couple of months ago I got fed up with the ridiculous amount of spam I was getting at my primary address. I sent a note to the people I give a crap about, telling them that my primary address would henceforth be a new account I had created in my own domain.
I explicitly begged them not to give the new address to "those stupid send this cool page to a friend" sites. Set up filters in my email client to segregate the old address, and so far, so good, although my Mom gave the new address to an e-greeting card site. Fortunately, the site in question doesn't harvest addresses, and I (respectfully but frantically) pointed out to her that e-cards fall into the "stupid" category, and told her how to make up a disposable address for greeting cards, using my domain name.
Having to go to these lengths to to keep my inbox clear of spam makes me homicidal.
something about not being able to move something from ipod to HD
Apple's iTunes won't let you tranfer or sync your MP3s to any computer other than your own, but that's the extent of the "copy protection", and it's simply software and hidden files. Third-party apps allowing you to do that were out within days of the iPod's release.
I can just see it: a worm that turns the output of a Nine Inch Nails show into the treacly slop of Kenny G. The horror, the horror! (Although vice-versa might be interesting...)
I have just set up a system which parses spam email, locates any Web addresses, strips out the parameters, and then visits the Web site. Just think if we ALL did this.
Heh. I use a program called SpamFire to filter my mail. No Bayesian stuff yet, but it has a Revenge menu with an item called Bug the Web Bugs. This scans your spam mail for web bugs, then opens a page in your browser that sends either random garbage or your choice of message, every two seconds, to the server specified by the web bug.
the MacEdition Guide to CSS2 support in Mac-only browsers [macedition.com] has been updated for Safari.
I look forward to your thoughts on it. It's a good start, and they're doing more than giving lip service to standards, but the CSS support is flaky (won't even load the W3C's test pages, let alone render them, but I think that's another issue since it's complaining about a missing plugin for "text/html". Heh).
the coder that was fired for putting a comment on the "help" button
How about the coder that was fired because he left a test name in a database? This guy was working on a mail merge program for some financial house and used "Rich Bastard" as the default name for accounts. Unfortunately, he forgot to remove it and a bunch of letters went out to investors ("Dear Rich Bastard, We value your business blah blah blah").
I have written sites with CSS [w3.org] for layout instead of Tables
Also known as the Ulcer Generating Procedure if you try to exactly position image slices and whatnot. Using CSS for positioning requires the designer to seriously rethink layouts, and accept a bit of cross-browser slop. That's what makes it interesting (he says as he tears out what remains of his hair).
What makes a human's pain important is not the fact that its nerves end in a bundle of neurons. It's the depth of meaning that those neurons have. A chicken doesn't have the resources to even understand, much less communicate, anything even as simple as "could you toss me a napkin? thanks."
Nevertheless, pain in any organism capable of feeling it causes suffering and distress. The fact that chickens are fairly stupid and can't understand the reason for this suffering is immaterial. Pain is pain.
Primates such as chimps and orangutans have emotions, reasoning systems and memory. Are they simply "bundles of instincts" as well? Is it okay to abuse primates? Dogs have memory and emotions (they can become depressed). Is is okay to abuse dogs? Some birds have exhibited tool-using behavior, implying memory and a limited reasoning ability.
Where do you draw the line? We don't fully understand our own brains, let alone those of other animals, so we can't claim that there's no meaning to the suffering of other animals. Your reasoning is solipsitic, and following it to its extreme, you could argue that since one can't truly know what other human beings feel, they could simply be bundles of instincts as well (you already stated "I don't decide the value of things based on how similar they are to me.") I prefer to err on the side of caution and assume that an animal which appears to be suffering, is in fact suffering.
You seem to be a reasonable guy. If you're truly interested in a rational examination of this issue, I suggest you read Animal Liberation by Peter Singer. I don't agree with all of his conclusions, but his arguments have much merit.
I care about as much about the "pain" of a ball of instincts as I would care about a computer programmed to squeal if you formatted the hard drive.
So you don't believe that animals with central nervous systems feel pain? Or you just don't care? In either case, there's really no point to further discussion, is there?
When you think about a (space) ship, you have to think about space efficiency.
And resource efficiency. A soybean crop would not only provide food, but would also scrub the air and transform waste products. Probably not practical on a short trip to Mars, but any long voyage will require space-efficient, resource efficient food supplies.
Would any vegetarians out there consider eating this type of meat?
Sure, as long as an animal wasn't killed to produce the seed culture. I'd happily provide a few starter cells of my own. Talk about your cosmic closure...
Is it worse to become food then to never have existed?
Well, yes it is. This is the second-lamest argument omnivores make (the lamest being "It was already dead when I bought it in the store").
Which is worse for a laying hen:
a) to have its beak cut off, to be forced to live in a cage where its feet grow into the wires because the cage is too small to permit movement, to be periodically starved and force-molted in order to increase its output, and, once it can no longer produce, to be hung upside down on a hook, have its throat slit and bleed out and die; or
b) never exist in the first place?
It's not like we're going to lose the cure for cancer because a particular food animal never existed.
Jef states that he doesn't see the need for User Groups.
He doesn't like the idea that people that own computers
get together to help each other out.
I wasn't at the conference, but I'm guessing what he meant was that there shouldn't be a need for user groups. The ideal interface would be so straightforward that consultation with others won't be required, at least for normal operations. Possibly an unattainable goal, but certainly a worthy one.
Seems like an ineffective way to communicate key-presses
In his book he uses up- and down-arrow graphics to indicate keypresses. It's actually pretty obvious. Since arrows are not standard ASCII, slashes are a decent solution for plaintext.
Slashdot Mirror
send link to a friend
A couple of months ago I got fed up with the ridiculous amount of spam I was getting at my primary address. I sent a note to the people I give a crap about, telling them that my primary address would henceforth be a new account I had created in my own domain.
I explicitly begged them not to give the new address to "those stupid send this cool page to a friend" sites. Set up filters in my email client to segregate the old address, and so far, so good, although my Mom gave the new address to an e-greeting card site. Fortunately, the site in question doesn't harvest addresses, and I (respectfully but frantically) pointed out to her that e-cards fall into the "stupid" category, and told her how to make up a disposable address for greeting cards, using my domain name.
Having to go to these lengths to to keep my inbox clear of spam makes me homicidal.
we programmed with ones and with zeros
You had zeroes? We had to use the letter "O".
(Yeah, I stole this from Dilbert)
These things are blank looking, with a few sparse buttons....They all look equally boring.
I think the term you're searching for is elegant:
something about not being able to move something from ipod to HD
Apple's iTunes won't let you tranfer or sync your MP3s to any computer other than your own, but that's the extent of the "copy protection", and it's simply software and hidden files. Third-party apps allowing you to do that were out within days of the iPod's release.
WHAT THE HELL is the POINT of a decaf skim-milk latte?
Some comic said he went to Baskin-Robbins and had a non-fat, sugar-free frozen yogurt and thought, "I just bought a bowl of Cold."
According to some talking head on the news, the crew can use the Soyuz "lifeboat" to return if necessary.
I can just see it: a worm that turns the output of a Nine Inch Nails show into the treacly slop of Kenny G. The horror, the horror! (Although vice-versa might be interesting...)
Watch out for Mr. Bank's non-SF output, which is not up to the level of his SF
Agreed. It's easy to avoid, since his SF books are written by "Iain M. Banks" and his other stuff is written by "Iain Banks" (no middle initial).
you're not going to overload their server if it just sends static images/pages.
The idea is not to overload their server, but to fill their harvested address log with junk. Maybe it'll screw up their log analyzer.
I have just set up a system which parses spam email, locates any Web addresses, strips out the parameters, and then visits the Web site. Just think if we ALL did this.
Heh. I use a program called SpamFire to filter my mail. No Bayesian stuff yet, but it has a Revenge menu with an item called Bug the Web Bugs. This scans your spam mail for web bugs, then opens a page in your browser that sends either random garbage or your choice of message, every two seconds, to the server specified by the web bug.
News story [icnetwork.co.uk]
Finally, some Information. Thanks. Where are mod points when I need them?
the MacEdition Guide to CSS2 support in Mac-only browsers [macedition.com] has been updated for Safari.
I look forward to your thoughts on it. It's a good start, and they're doing more than giving lip service to standards, but the CSS support is flaky (won't even load the W3C's test pages, let alone render them, but I think that's another issue since it's complaining about a missing plugin for "text/html". Heh).
FUBAR = Fucked up beyond all repair
I always heard it meant "beyond all recognition".
1970 vintage, 4-function pocket calculator that cost him $400 new
It was probably a "5-function" device: the square root key was the thing that had geeks tossing out their slide rules en masse.
Ooops. I could have sworn I read this (long ago) in a reputable magazine. Thanks for setting me straight.
the coder that was fired for putting a comment on the "help" button
How about the coder that was fired because he left a test name in a database? This guy was working on a mail merge program for some financial house and used "Rich Bastard" as the default name for accounts. Unfortunately, he forgot to remove it and a bunch of letters went out to investors ("Dear Rich Bastard, We value your business blah blah blah").
I have written sites with CSS [w3.org] for layout instead of Tables
Also known as the Ulcer Generating Procedure if you try to exactly position image slices and whatnot. Using CSS for positioning requires the designer to seriously rethink layouts, and accept a bit of cross-browser slop. That's what makes it interesting (he says as he tears out what remains of his hair).
MacEdition has a good writer who tirelessly flogs web standards. She has several guides to cross-browser CSS support at the bottom of the page.
What makes a human's pain important is not the fact that its nerves end in a bundle of neurons. It's the depth of meaning that those neurons have. A chicken doesn't have the resources to even understand, much less communicate, anything even as simple as "could you toss me a napkin? thanks."
Nevertheless, pain in any organism capable of feeling it causes suffering and distress. The fact that chickens are fairly stupid and can't understand the reason for this suffering is immaterial. Pain is pain.
Primates such as chimps and orangutans have emotions, reasoning systems and memory. Are they simply "bundles of instincts" as well? Is it okay to abuse primates? Dogs have memory and emotions (they can become depressed). Is is okay to abuse dogs? Some birds have exhibited tool-using behavior, implying memory and a limited reasoning ability.
Where do you draw the line? We don't fully understand our own brains, let alone those of other animals, so we can't claim that there's no meaning to the suffering of other animals. Your reasoning is solipsitic, and following it to its extreme, you could argue that since one can't truly know what other human beings feel, they could simply be bundles of instincts as well (you already stated "I don't decide the value of things based on how similar they are to me.") I prefer to err on the side of caution and assume that an animal which appears to be suffering, is in fact suffering.
You seem to be a reasonable guy. If you're truly interested in a rational examination of this issue, I suggest you read Animal Liberation by Peter Singer. I don't agree with all of his conclusions, but his arguments have much merit.
I care about as much about the "pain" of a ball of instincts as I would care about a computer programmed to squeal if you formatted the hard drive.
So you don't believe that animals with central nervous systems feel pain? Or you just don't care? In either case, there's really no point to further discussion, is there?
When you think about a (space) ship, you have to think about space efficiency.
And resource efficiency. A soybean crop would not only provide food, but would also scrub the air and transform waste products. Probably not practical on a short trip to Mars, but any long voyage will require space-efficient, resource efficient food supplies.
Would any vegetarians out there consider eating this type of meat?
Sure, as long as an animal wasn't killed to produce the seed culture. I'd happily provide a few starter cells of my own. Talk about your cosmic closure...
Is it worse to become food then to never have existed?
Well, yes it is. This is the second-lamest argument omnivores make (the lamest being "It was already dead when I bought it in the store").
Which is worse for a laying hen:
It's not like we're going to lose the cure for cancer because a particular food animal never existed.
Jef states that he doesn't see the need for User Groups. He doesn't like the idea that people that own computers get together to help each other out.
I wasn't at the conference, but I'm guessing what he meant was that there shouldn't be a need for user groups. The ideal interface would be so straightforward that consultation with others won't be required, at least for normal operations. Possibly an unattainable goal, but certainly a worthy one.
Seems like an ineffective way to communicate key-presses
In his book he uses up- and down-arrow graphics to indicate keypresses. It's actually pretty obvious. Since arrows are not standard ASCII, slashes are a decent solution for plaintext.