This comment is really damn funny -- unfortunately, I don't have mod points. But yes, seriously, what a sad, pathetic article this is, in both content and execution, and Otter has pretty much summed up the lamest parts of the whole sorry exercise. Kudos to you, small aquatic mammal.
Seriously, folks -- I'm really impressed with these artists for getting it together and doing the right thing. What is it with Canadians, with their superior beer, clean cities, and universal health coverage?! They're just so damn... practical.
Anyway, we should all respond to this development with a hearty YES, YES, PLEASE GOD YES!!! It's about freakin' time some artists made the point that the RIAA et al aren't actually particularly interested in protecting the artists' "right to create"...
Yeah, I really thought so, too! I actually don't understand why the creepiness of the thing isn't more of the story -- it has a strangely living-thing-like quality to its motion (probably because they modeled it that way) which makes it very, very weird to watch. And the forwards-backwards effect with the legs is even weirder. On the other hand, you know, it'll probably really freak out enemy soldiers when our guys show up with headless zombie robodonkeys...
Ya' know, this study is really interesting, but the so-called "journalism" practiced by the folks at Livescience is highly, highly suspect. This article is poorly written, and has implicit conclusions built into the "facts" it reports on -- it makes the whole thing hard to trust. Of course, it's not like this is a heck of a lot better...
Seriously. I'm sure the editors are busy folks and all, but it seems we can't go more than a week without some (usually AC-submitted) "unsolicited testimonial" about some *AMAZING NEW TECHNOLOGY* showing up on the front page. Lame.
Blegh. It's bad enough to have to read this kind of shill on the front page -- just adds insult to injury that it was written by grammatically-challenged chuckleheads...
Not to sound like too much of a conspiracy freak, but I have to say that some of the numbers sound kinda flaky -- e.g. there was supposedly no change in turnout of young voters, but the news was *full* of anecdotal evidence of massive youth voter turnout... Also, the numbers from Florida just look a little... weird.
It's very, very good that these guys are doing this -- it's just too easy to imagine "election hacking" scenarios.
...that what I'd really like in my car is time-shifted:
News
Traffic
Weather
Of course, the radio station's business model depends on my sitting through mind-numbing ads to catch the 20-second blast of traffic info, but with a subscription service, it seems like a perfect fit. I hope this idea goes somewhere.
You know what really fascinates me? Lots and lots of unimaginative, redundant criticism by a pack of nerds-turned-art-critics... Now *that's* fascinating.
Personally, I love the idea of this, even if the results are unpredictable (which is, uh, kind of the point, right?) The oft-touted macro-collaborative nature of the internet, combined with new artistic media (and you thought PHP was just a programming language), should, I hope, inspire new artistic movements and ideas, and here's an example: pseudorandom collaborative art.
Also, I'm not sure I get where the "innovation" is here. Maybe I'm missing something, but aren't we just talking about wake-on-LAN and a little bit of shell scripting? And what the &*@! do they mean, "there's no innovation on Linux"?! Most researchers that I know do their prototypes on Linux, and a lot of really superb apps have been developed on Linux first and (sometimes) ported to Windows after the fact. Apparently the MS minions are assuming that if they say it enough times, people will believe it. (A tried and true axiom, after all.)
Best office I ever had, by far, was at a Swedish university. The highlights:
Very open, airy environment with state-of-the-art air circulation/cleaning system
*Lots* of windows -- even offices/cubes without direct access to windows actually had line-of-sight to common rooms with windows & skylights
Heavy emphasis on ergonomics -- this is a big deal when you spend your whole day sitting
Fresh fruit baskets, refilled every day, and decent coffee/tea machine
That last one actually made more of a difference than you'd think -- I ate ~3 pieces of fruit every day (instead of, say, Twinkies), so you know my energy level and health were much higher than they would otherwise have been.
I'm just impressed -- and grateful -- that this guy bothered to take the time to look so deeply into the whole sorry mess. Now that he's done the legwork, and gotten attention on/., maybe the astonishingly lazy journalistic community will parrot some of this into more mainstream press.
It seems to me that the community has already given this guy a lot more consideration (and free press) than he deserves. The guy is a hack. The "institution", as far as I can see, is an unconvincing sham perpetrated by a couple guys in their basement who were just barely smart enough to realize that, when unencumbered by morals, it's trivially easy to hack the media and make them print whatever BS your "sponsors" want distributed.
It's necessary to respond, of course, and do so in a way the media can understand, but enough is enough. If we ignore him, and persuade the media that he's an uninformed kook, he'll go away.
I like his new word. It seems to me he's angling for a spot on wordspy, but it's a good word and I think it deserves a spot alongside kiddiot and packet monkey.
I have to say, the whole of this so-called "Institute" is starting to look pretty damned suspicious. Certainly, the world is not wanting for fools, and they do tend to organize into groups, but adti, with its history of poorly-produced, error-ridden, false & inflammatory "studies", really has all the markings of a couple of guys in their basement, making shit up, and then playing on the news media's tendency to spew out whatever is fed to them.
For example, their staff page lists a dozen or so people, including a "webmaster". Try clicking around the site, and notice that:
It's ugly
A lot of it is broken
A lot of it is unfinished
The parts that are finished are rife with spelling and grammatical errors
So the best conclusion you could draw about their "webmaster" (assuming he exists) is that he is about as smart and competent as Ken Brown, the "President" of adti. I'm appalled that Yahoo! parroted this press release as legitimate news -- I think they are being suckered.
What the hell kind of half-ass "think tank" publishes a paper with two flagrant spelling errors ("hobbiest", presumably meaning "most hobby", and "eying") in the first two paragraphs?! Microsoft needs to invest in higher quality FUD.
Disclaimer: I didn't read the article, probably it mentions this...
Actually, the part about this that seems a little funny is the "cannot be found" part of that excerpt. Two of the artists that "couldn't be found" were Dave Matthews and Dolly Parton. Putting aside for a moment the RIAA's claims that "extraorinary measures" were taken to locate the artists, how hard could the recording labels have been looking...? They have websites for God's sake! They give concerts regularly!
Slashdot Mirror
This comment is really damn funny -- unfortunately, I don't have mod points. But yes, seriously, what a sad, pathetic article this is, in both content and execution, and Otter has pretty much summed up the lamest parts of the whole sorry exercise. Kudos to you, small aquatic mammal.
Seriously, folks -- I'm really impressed with these artists for getting it together and doing the right thing. What is it with Canadians, with their superior beer, clean cities, and universal health coverage?! They're just so damn... practical.
Anyway, we should all respond to this development with a hearty YES, YES, PLEASE GOD YES!!! It's about freakin' time some artists made the point that the RIAA et al aren't actually particularly interested in protecting the artists' "right to create"...
It looks really creepy...
Yeah, I really thought so, too! I actually don't understand why the creepiness of the thing isn't more of the story -- it has a strangely living-thing-like quality to its motion (probably because they modeled it that way) which makes it very, very weird to watch. And the forwards-backwards effect with the legs is even weirder. On the other hand, you know, it'll probably really freak out enemy soldiers when our guys show up with headless zombie robodonkeys...
"...my intuition says that 1000 unsecured laptops will take more work to support than 300 locked-down desktops..."
... ...hee hee... ...hah...
um... heh... heheh...
BWAAAAAA-HA-HA-HAHAHAAAAAAA!
*sigh*
sorry.
Ya' know, this study is really interesting, but the so-called "journalism" practiced by the folks at Livescience is highly, highly suspect. This article is poorly written, and has implicit conclusions built into the "facts" it reports on -- it makes the whole thing hard to trust. Of course, it's not like this is a heck of a lot better...
"Hey, what's this funny laser-emitter-looking thing on my can of Coke?" BZZAP! "Mmmm. Soda."
1.) This legislation is despicable.
2.) Don't take my word for it. Listen to Prof. Lessig's first podcast for a thoroughly considered explanation of why this is not in our best interest.
Yeah, then I could be as clever in real life as in IM sessions:
TOTOsFrnd: Hey, have you seen the new <thing-that-TOTO-has-never-heard-of>?
[GoogleGoogleGoogle]
TOTO: Oh, yeah, man, that's really cool, but the phlognotignomicator interface looks a little clunky.
TOTOsFrnd: Wow, TOTO, you're really awesome and knowledgable.
I concur -- WOW! I predict Mapquest will have closed up shop by lunchtime.
Seriously. I'm sure the editors are busy folks and all, but it seems we can't go more than a week without some (usually AC-submitted) "unsolicited testimonial" about some *AMAZING NEW TECHNOLOGY* showing up on the front page. Lame.
No, I disagree! I think it *WOULD* be cool!
Blegh. It's bad enough to have to read this kind of shill on the front page -- just adds insult to injury that it was written by grammatically-challenged chuckleheads...
Not to sound like too much of a conspiracy freak, but I have to say that some of the numbers sound kinda flaky -- e.g. there was supposedly no change in turnout of young voters, but the news was *full* of anecdotal evidence of massive youth voter turnout... Also, the numbers from Florida just look a little... weird.
It's very, very good that these guys are doing this -- it's just too easy to imagine "election hacking" scenarios.
FYR: Some very good analysis of the problem, with resources, from Bruce Schneier: http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0312.html#9
...that what I'd really like in my car is time-shifted:
Of course, the radio station's business model depends on my sitting through mind-numbing ads to catch the 20-second blast of traffic info, but with a subscription service, it seems like a perfect fit. I hope this idea goes somewhere.
You know what really fascinates me? Lots and lots of unimaginative, redundant criticism by a pack of nerds-turned-art-critics... Now *that's* fascinating.
Personally, I love the idea of this, even if the results are unpredictable (which is, uh, kind of the point, right?) The oft-touted macro-collaborative nature of the internet, combined with new artistic media (and you thought PHP was just a programming language), should, I hope, inspire new artistic movements and ideas, and here's an example: pseudorandom collaborative art.
Think you can do better? Good! Let's see it!
Also, I'm not sure I get where the "innovation" is here. Maybe I'm missing something, but aren't we just talking about wake-on-LAN and a little bit of shell scripting? And what the &*@! do they mean, "there's no innovation on Linux"?! Most researchers that I know do their prototypes on Linux, and a lot of really superb apps have been developed on Linux first and (sometimes) ported to Windows after the fact. Apparently the MS minions are assuming that if they say it enough times, people will believe it. (A tried and true axiom, after all.)
(From the article): Perhaps future elections will be held using secure quantum voting.
Gives new meaning to the term "spin doctor".
Best office I ever had, by far, was at a Swedish university. The highlights:
That last one actually made more of a difference than you'd think -- I ate ~3 pieces of fruit every day (instead of, say, Twinkies), so you know my energy level and health were much higher than they would otherwise have been.
I'm just impressed -- and grateful -- that this guy bothered to take the time to look so deeply into the whole sorry mess. Now that he's done the legwork, and gotten attention on /., maybe the astonishingly lazy journalistic community will parrot some of this into more mainstream press.
It seems to me that the community has already given this guy a lot more consideration (and free press) than he deserves. The guy is a hack. The "institution", as far as I can see, is an unconvincing sham perpetrated by a couple guys in their basement who were just barely smart enough to realize that, when unencumbered by morals, it's trivially easy to hack the media and make them print whatever BS your "sponsors" want distributed.
It's necessary to respond, of course, and do so in a way the media can understand, but enough is enough. If we ignore him, and persuade the media that he's an uninformed kook, he'll go away.
I like his new word. It seems to me he's angling for a spot on wordspy, but it's a good word and I think it deserves a spot alongside kiddiot and packet monkey.
I have to say, the whole of this so-called "Institute" is starting to look pretty damned suspicious. Certainly, the world is not wanting for fools, and they do tend to organize into groups, but adti, with its history of poorly-produced, error-ridden, false & inflammatory "studies", really has all the markings of a couple of guys in their basement, making shit up, and then playing on the news media's tendency to spew out whatever is fed to them.
For example, their staff page lists a dozen or so people, including a "webmaster". Try clicking around the site, and notice that:
So the best conclusion you could draw about their "webmaster" (assuming he exists) is that he is about as smart and competent as Ken Brown, the "President" of adti. I'm appalled that Yahoo! parroted this press release as legitimate news -- I think they are being suckered.
P.S. Groklaw rocks. Happy Birthday Groklaw
What the hell kind of half-ass "think tank" publishes a paper with two flagrant spelling errors ("hobbiest", presumably meaning "most hobby", and "eying") in the first two paragraphs?! Microsoft needs to invest in higher quality FUD.
Disclaimer: I didn't read the article, probably it mentions this...
Actually, the part about this that seems a little funny is the "cannot be found" part of that excerpt. Two of the artists that "couldn't be found" were Dave Matthews and Dolly Parton. Putting aside for a moment the RIAA's claims that "extraorinary measures" were taken to locate the artists, how hard could the recording labels have been looking...? They have websites for God's sake! They give concerts regularly!
Hm. I wasn't mad when I started writing this...
Capitalist bastards.
"Search engine company Google is suing themselves"
"If you Google on 'A9', you get a listing for one of our competitors," said a company spokesperson. "It's an outrage!"
So why the hell would anyone want to overclock their gameboy...?