To extend, the problem the SSA mentions: using them as identifiers?
That's not what's causing all the trouble. You can do that all you like, and the only people you'll piss off are privacy advocates, worried about unwanted cross-correlation.
The *real* problem, as I note in a piece I wrote for RISKS DIgest last month, is people using knowledge of an SSN (or a mother's maiden name, or any other answer not *made up by the customer*) as an authenticator.
If it is discoverable, and you force a customer to use it, *you* ought to be responsible when someone does, and defrauds the customer, cause you were an accessory before, and now you're on notice; it's been posted here.
Have fun, retail authentication system designers.;-)
I don't, actually, agree with that in this case. As several people point out when asked to justify the cost of the moon program, we didn't pay for the *hardware*, that was incidental.
We *paid* for *the knowledge we got by using the hardware*. Now, while, admittedly, this bit of lost knowledge is not as important as the *warehouses full of 7-track tape with data from {Voyager,Pioneer} that has never even been read* since being written, mush less converted to DVD/BD, and made available to the public -- because reading it requires machining new headwheels for the only *two* remaining drives which can read it (do you sense a pattern here?)... it's still important, and I think it would be a bit shortsighted to say "ah, hell, it's only the pictures from the vacation".
Watching that happen created a whole new generation of engineers.
It's not completely unreasonable to think that if they did find it, and they do release it -- oh, say, at the 40th anniversary celebration on 18-Jul at the Kennedy Center -- that seeing the coverage on the net, or on TV, might not inspire that 1 or 2% of teenagers left who aren't too cynical to care about *anything at all* into wanting to go to space...
Bales made the call, but it was Jack Garman who actually "recognized that it was ok to go ahead", and that was mostly because he had a Krantz-inspired list in front of him of go-nogo calls by alarm number.
I was merely accurately characterizing TFA, in valiant, but ultimately misguided and useless attempt to head off postings like "well, TFA doesn't actually say that they were found".
In fact there is *one* remaining tape deck which can play those tapes; at Goddard, I think; and there's one guy (a retiree) who lovingly maintains that deck, waiting paitently for these tapes to surface.
In fact, oddly enough, I *just the other day* wrote a note to the author of the Wired piece, asking about an update.
And, credit where due, I got the Express link from half a dozen twitterers this morning.
> but nowhere near the $20+ per pill mark that most prescription drugs hit
*most*?
About 15 years ago, I got prescribed Tagamet. Its fourth generation child, Famotidine, is now 130 for $9 at Sam's Club, but at the time, it was $1/pill bid.
That was fairly expensive as drugs went, at the time.
If you have handy even *10* examples of $20 *per pill* for something one takes, say, daily, I'd be interested to hear them.
Ridiculous hyperbole against things like Big Pharma makes their life *easier*...
Spider Robinson didn't either, but he still managed to win a Hugo with a story on this topic, "By Any Other Name", which was expanded into a novel called _Telempath_.
No, what becomes apparent is that a) the writer didn't *know* about the contraction "Could've" and b) the editor wasn't aware of the journalistic convention that you *fix* bad grammar in transcribing, to the extent that you can without screwing up the meaning, unless you're trying to make a very special kind of point (i.e.: "this speaker is clueless").
Because we're all indoctrinated in that convention, more or less explicitly, we make that assumption.
I personally *prefer* to get the page I asked for, even if it's non-mobile, but I don't mind a site forcing me to the mobile page as long as a) it gives me a link there to the non-mobile version, and b) it takes me *to the page I asked for*, and not some mobile portal page -- I'm looking at *you*, Crisp and mDog, and all the sites that use you (now, alas, including my hometown St Pete Times, which I can no longer reasonably read from my Blackberry <sigh>).
Fourth posting attempt. Sorry; if this looks like shit, it's Neal's fault.
Only the second real new electronic toy I've... well, ever gotten -- I work the secondary market *hard*...
It's on Sprint, which is the carrier I've been on anyway for the last 10 years... well, ok, Nextel, but what can you do. My initial impression?
B-
Here's why:
The ringer isn't loud enough, by 30db or more; I need that thing to be audible in a machine room with 39 servers going, or a car with no A/C. The ringtones that come with it are these piddly-ass little things that are probably ok in a boardroom, but aren't gonna make it in the real world - UPDATE: No, it's the hardware. I took uniphone.wav -- the Universal Studios default WECo300 phone ring (you heard it in the opening of The Rockford Files, among other places) -- and converted it to MP3 and dropped it in the phone (which isn't a phone while you're USB-Driving it; LAME) and set it to that. No louder. I've *heard* that speaker be louder; I don't know what the hell they're doing with it that it can't ring at a ring-y volume...
The browser needs a "right-click" menu on objects such as embedded images, click-and-hold on the navigation buttons to move more than one page at a time in the history, and an *easy* way to turn off all that nifty CSS rendering and get information on the screen in a size my 43 year old eyes can actually *see*. I'm happy for you that you can render pretty pages. On a phone, I'm not generally interested in pretty pages; I'm interested in *information*.
And the global font size doesn't seem adjustable either, which will also get it sent back
At least the audio is good... and my partner and I are both picky...
I come from a 5-column BlackBerry SureType hard-keyboard background--and Grafitti before that--and I'm pretty happy with the keyboard. It's got enough tack to it that, as shiny as it is (and I'm worried about that cause the keytops are convex and glossy, which causes glare problems), your fingers catch on the keys pretty decently. I just hope it's double-shot molded, so the labels don't wear off.
That said, it needs the auto-punctuation and abbreviation facilities of the BlackBerries.
On the other hand, in their rush to make it have as few buttons as possible -- you know, cause style trumps functionality -- they didn't put a hard-button on the side for the *camera shutter*... which means that not only is it difficult to frame pictures of yourself, it's impossible to *take* them, cause your hands won't bend around that far.
Oh, Christ Jeezus... it's not a Nextel phone: it roams. Like, at my office desk. No *wonder* I got an Alltel intercept message. That's fatal, right there. If it doesn't get a signal, in all the places I spend my time, it's going right on back.
The more I use it, the more I decide that it's just really not all that comfortable to hold and use. I'm not talking about the shape of the body; I mean that if you want to do anything besides hold it in one hand and gesture at it with the other, you're screwed: there are no edges to hook your fingers on; it's uncomfortable to try to drive one handed, and so much of the front is active that if you try to hold it in your off hand for, say, reading while lying on your back, you're going to *do* things you didn't intend; a problem neither my Blackberry 7100i nor my Nokia n800 presents me with
There is one gripe everyone else seems to have that I want to counter: until you can't get through a day with it, would you quit bitching about the battery life? Really...
More to follow here, as I screw around with it
And, on another related note, I should say that I picked up a Plantronics Voyager Pro headset to go with it -- the newer, even geekier looking version of the Voyager 510 I used to use -- and I'm even happier with its fit and audio quality than I was with the 510. Recommended.
Try as they might, they don't seem to quite ever be able to keep us from recording the content we wanna record, if we're willing to pay enough for the privilege... though cumulatively, it's probaby less expensive than the DRM fees...
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is that you're trying.
To extend, the problem the SSA mentions: using them as identifiers?
That's not what's causing all the trouble. You can do that all you like, and the only people you'll piss off are privacy advocates, worried about unwanted cross-correlation.
The *real* problem, as I note in a piece I wrote for RISKS DIgest last month, is people using knowledge of an SSN (or a mother's maiden name, or any other answer not *made up by the customer*) as an authenticator.
If it is discoverable, and you force a customer to use it, *you* ought to be responsible when someone does, and defrauds the customer, cause you were an accessory before, and now you're on notice; it's been posted here.
Have fun, retail authentication system designers. ;-)
I don't, actually, agree with that in this case. As several people point out when asked to justify the cost of the moon program, we didn't pay for the *hardware*, that was incidental.
We *paid* for *the knowledge we got by using the hardware*. Now, while, admittedly, this bit of lost knowledge is not as important as the *warehouses full of 7-track tape with data from {Voyager,Pioneer} that has never even been read* since being written, mush less converted to DVD/BD, and made available to the public -- because reading it requires machining new headwheels for the only *two* remaining drives which can read it (do you sense a pattern here?)... it's still important, and I think it would be a bit shortsighted to say "ah, hell, it's only the pictures from the vacation".
Watching that happen created a whole new generation of engineers.
It's not completely unreasonable to think that if they did find it, and they do release it -- oh, say, at the 40th anniversary celebration on 18-Jul at the Kennedy Center -- that seeing the coverage on the net, or on TV, might not inspire that 1 or 2% of teenagers left who aren't too cynical to care about *anything at all* into wanting to go to space...
No, no, no, actually I'm Maajikthise.
OMG, that was actually accurate.
As well as 100% buzzword compliant.
I've been hanging out at Language Log too long...
Oh, *puhleeze*, let's not start that thread again; we just did it last week. :-)
I read the piece, too.
Bales made the call, but it was Jack Garman who actually "recognized that it was ok to go ahead", and that was mostly because he had a Krantz-inspired list in front of him of go-nogo calls by alarm number.
Ah: -1, Troll. So I wouldn't have seen it, since I'm cruising at +3. Got it. Silly me. Tnx
I was merely accurately characterizing TFA, in valiant, but ultimately misguided and useless attempt to head off postings like "well, TFA doesn't actually say that they were found".
Yes, I know that; did you read my slug?
I'm going to assume that whatever you're going on about here is a posting that someone has already deleted...
America... fuck yeah.
In fact there is *one* remaining tape deck which can play those tapes; at Goddard, I think; and there's one guy (a retiree) who lovingly maintains that deck, waiting paitently for these tapes to surface.
In fact, oddly enough, I *just the other day* wrote a note to the author of the Wired piece, asking about an update.
And, credit where due, I got the Express link from half a dozen twitterers this morning.
> but nowhere near the $20+ per pill mark that most prescription drugs hit
*most*?
About 15 years ago, I got prescribed Tagamet. Its fourth generation child, Famotidine, is now 130 for $9 at Sam's Club, but at the time, it was $1/pill bid.
That was fairly expensive as drugs went, at the time.
If you have handy even *10* examples of $20 *per pill* for something one takes, say, daily, I'd be interested to hear them.
Ridiculous hyperbole against things like Big Pharma makes their life *easier*...
Not particularly.
Spider Robinson didn't either, but he still managed to win a Hugo with a story on this topic, "By Any Other Name", which was expanded into a novel called _Telempath_.
No, what becomes apparent is that a) the writer didn't *know* about the contraction "Could've" and b) the editor wasn't aware of the journalistic convention that you *fix* bad grammar in transcribing, to the extent that you can without screwing up the meaning, unless you're trying to make a very special kind of point (i.e.: "this speaker is clueless").
Because we're all indoctrinated in that convention, more or less explicitly, we make that assumption.
Sloppy editing FTW!
I personally *prefer* to get the page I asked for, even if it's non-mobile, but I don't mind a site forcing me to the mobile page as long as a) it gives me a link there to the non-mobile version, and b) it takes me *to the page I asked for*, and not some mobile portal page -- I'm looking at *you*, Crisp and mDog, and all the sites that use you (now, alas, including my hometown St Pete Times, which I can no longer reasonably read from my Blackberry <sigh>).
He says we'll find out.
Cock-a-doodle-Jeezus, Slashdot's code sucks.
Fourth posting attempt. Sorry; if this looks like shit, it's Neal's fault.
Only the second real new electronic toy I've ... well, ever gotten -- I work the secondary market *hard*...
It's on Sprint, which is the carrier I've been on anyway for the last 10 years... well, ok, Nextel, but what can you do. My initial impression?
B-
Here's why:
And, on another related note, I should say that I picked up a Plantronics Voyager Pro headset to go with it -- the newer, even geekier looking version of the Voyager 510 I used to use -- and I'm even happier with its fit and audio quality than I was with the 510. Recommended.
I can hear the scores in my head. At least well enough to be able to point out to you where the artists are improvising when playing live.
I've always been an arrangement geek.
It's really frustrating when going to see touring productions of Broadway shows with soundtrack albums...
Yeah, that's what MythTV is for.
Try as they might, they don't seem to quite ever be able to keep us from recording the content we wanna record, if we're willing to pay enough for the privilege... though cumulatively, it's probaby less expensive than the DRM fees...
And Brian Eno composed The Windows Sound -- the boot 'music' for Windows 95 and 98.
No, really: go find the WAV and check the properties. There was press coverage.
Anyone who downloads *binaries* off the net and runs them on their computers deserves everything they will eventually get.
Media is one thing... but active content? Yeah, good luck with that.
Just lately, Slashdot's preview engine has taken to eating the empty lines in paragraph breaks; they do show up in the final posting, though.
It is annoying, yes.
Could you vague that up for us?
(Or would I understand if I hung out here more, to the exclusion of an actual life?)
Yes, but those are all $2000 devices. Not $200 devices.
I'm right behind him in line to use it in semi-embedded implementations.
Oh, ghod... I miss him still...