If we're talking about what information a corporation is allowed to collect, sell, etc from its customers without authorization, then IP addresses are not personally identifiable.
If, on the other hand, we're talking about the ability of RIAA or MPAA plaintiffs to identify someone as engaging in copyright infringement, then IP addresses always identify a particular person who is responsible.
To be fair, the Mythbusters usually only engage in a single experiment to test a hypothesis. A full-blown study would require repeating that test with lots of different subjects, reaching a cross section of ages, genders, education level, etc. It would also require corroborating studies by other organizations.
That's not to say that Mythbusters isn't a great show: as xkcd says it demonstrates the very essence of science, by taking ideas and seeing if they work in the real world. Too bad the Discovery Channel seems to think that what makes them popular is simply the explosions.
Official: furrydave, son of Deuteronomy of Gath... furrydave: (to Official's Helper): Do I say "Yes"? Official's Helper: Yes. furrydave: Yes. Official: You have been found guilty by the elders of the town of uttering the name of our Lord and so as a blasphemer you are to be stoned to death. furrydave: Look, I'd had a lovely supper and all I said to my wife was, "That piece of halibut was good enough for God" Official: Blasphemy! He's said it again. Crowd: Yes, he did. Official: Did you hear him? Crowd: Yes we did. Really.
Reminds me of the old saw: Heaven - Where the police are British, the lovers Italian, the chefs French, the cars German, all organized by the Swiss. Hell - Where the police are German, the lovers Swiss, the chefs British, the cars French, all organized by the Italians.
Portia won not by appealing to mercy but because she understood the fine print better than Shylock: Shylock wanted his pound of flesh, but Portia pointed out that he was entitled to exactly a pound, and if he took any more or less he'd be guilty of murder.
The RIAA may not understand mercy, but they should definitely understand weaseling out of a deal be finding a loophole. After all, these guys do that sort of thing to musicians as a matter of course.
This sounds like a segment from "The Root of All Evil", where a comedian would try and convince Lewis Black that, say, Oprah would destroy the universe.
No. In other news, 40 years ago, NASA staged the Apollo 11 liftoff as part of a big effort to fool the Ruskies, and then secreted Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong to a sound stage to film the moon landing. Get it right!
And of course the reduced amount of oil needed to keep your sub fleet running, if the country you're fighting (e.g. Iran) just happens to be sitting on the last easily-accessible oil reserves.
Hey, the Bush administration was over two years ago. Now it's Obama's problem...
Oh, wait, you were talking about India. Sorry, got a bit confused there for a second.
Re:Software Projects vs. Traditional Projects
on
Why New Systems Fail
·
· Score: 1
In contrast, when a company's software project fails, the only people who learn from it are some of the ones involved with the project.
You make an incorrect assumption, namely that all those involved in the project will learn anything. Least of all the guy who decided to start the (possibly completely doomed) project with insufficient time available for things to go wrong, who has managed to successfully blame the failures completely on his most junior subordinate.
Seriously, can we institute some kind of comprehension requirement before people are allowed to vote? And I don't just mean in phone polls.
We did that back in 1917. It was removed in 1965 as part of the Voting Rights Act, largely because certain areas of the country were determining who was literate enough to vote based not on their ability to read and comprehend but based on how much melanin was in their skin. There was no real way to ensure that the test was applied fairly when the test existed, which is why it went away.
The most likely real meaning of this poll: about 50% of those surveyed have no clue what the pollster is talking about, but since the poll question says "customers are treated fairly", respondents think that it's reasonable to be fair.
For instance, "Would you be in favor or against reasonable restrictions of the use of DHMO?" often returns an answer that approves of the restrictions not because the respondent knows anything about the restrictions or DHMO but because those restrictions were described as "reasonable" in the question. That's sort of thing is one of the standard techniques for getting polls with the answer you want.
Happy to: More than half of economists think the New Deal didn't help.
Sorry to reopen an old thread here, but could you provide a citation on that? I'm not saying you're wrong, but I would like to know where you're getting that data from.
That's close, but not quite broad enough: For a lot of voters the word "child" is enough to shut down the rational part of their brain.
It's basically an appeal to parents' base instinct to protect their children. An instinct that gave mammals a significant evolutionary advantage (due to the relative difficulty of mammals bearing young), but not one that engages the rational part of the brain. That's why any organization trying to get an otherwise rational adult to part with their money or give political support makes as many appeals to children as possible.
Introducing complexity into the areas around one's job is an excellent way to prevent yourself from being moved from that job. If you're someone who's still heading up the corporate ladder, that's a foolish thing to do (because that effect prevents you from being promoted), but once you reach the point where the Peter Principle starts being a factor, this becomes known as "job security". It's one of those instances where what's good for an employee is bad for a company, and it's pretty close to impossible to prevent in a large organization.
This goes for code as well: the best programmers are the ones who simplify their code as much as possible, throwing away bad code left and right. The worst programmers are the ones who use incredibly complex processes to do incredibly simple tasks (these folks are even worse than programmers who produce no code at all because of the damage they do to good programmers' productivity).
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If we're talking about what information a corporation is allowed to collect, sell, etc from its customers without authorization, then IP addresses are not personally identifiable.
If, on the other hand, we're talking about the ability of RIAA or MPAA plaintiffs to identify someone as engaging in copyright infringement, then IP addresses always identify a particular person who is responsible.
To be fair, the Mythbusters usually only engage in a single experiment to test a hypothesis. A full-blown study would require repeating that test with lots of different subjects, reaching a cross section of ages, genders, education level, etc. It would also require corroborating studies by other organizations.
That's not to say that Mythbusters isn't a great show: as xkcd says it demonstrates the very essence of science, by taking ideas and seeing if they work in the real world. Too bad the Discovery Channel seems to think that what makes them popular is simply the explosions.
So bad you'd have to be stoned on pot in order to think of smoking it.
Official: furrydave, son of Deuteronomy of Gath ...
furrydave: (to Official's Helper): Do I say "Yes"?
Official's Helper: Yes.
furrydave: Yes.
Official: You have been found guilty by the elders of the town of uttering the name of our Lord and so as a blasphemer you are to be stoned to death.
furrydave: Look, I'd had a lovely supper and all I said to my wife was, "That piece of halibut was good enough for God"
Official: Blasphemy! He's said it again.
Crowd: Yes, he did.
Official: Did you hear him?
Crowd: Yes we did. Really.
This diagram (a few years old but still fairly accurate) really tells you what the media business looks like:
http://www.thenation.com/special/2006_entertainment.pdf
So yes, nearly all of the big media companies are both RIAA and MPAA members.
Reminds me of the old saw:
Heaven - Where the police are British, the lovers Italian, the chefs French, the cars German, all organized by the Swiss.
Hell - Where the police are German, the lovers Swiss, the chefs British, the cars French, all organized by the Italians.
Thank you, I stand corrected. It's been about 15 years since I studied Merchant of Venice, so my memory was a little fuzzy.
Of course, my point still stands: Portia is not an example of a successful appeal to mercy.
Portia won not by appealing to mercy but because she understood the fine print better than Shylock: Shylock wanted his pound of flesh, but Portia pointed out that he was entitled to exactly a pound, and if he took any more or less he'd be guilty of murder.
The RIAA may not understand mercy, but they should definitely understand weaseling out of a deal be finding a loophole. After all, these guys do that sort of thing to musicians as a matter of course.
(whether or not they legitimately earned it)
Informational film at 11.
Which makes this almost obligatory:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nigRT2KmCE
From everyone's favorite nerdcore rapper, MC Frontalot.
This sounds like a segment from "The Root of All Evil", where a comedian would try and convince Lewis Black that, say, Oprah would destroy the universe.
But that's even faster than Ludicrous Speed!
No. In other news, 40 years ago, NASA staged the Apollo 11 liftoff as part of a big effort to fool the Ruskies, and then secreted Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong to a sound stage to film the moon landing. Get it right!
And of course the reduced amount of oil needed to keep your sub fleet running, if the country you're fighting (e.g. Iran) just happens to be sitting on the last easily-accessible oil reserves.
Hey, the Bush administration was over two years ago. Now it's Obama's problem ...
Oh, wait, you were talking about India. Sorry, got a bit confused there for a second.
In contrast, when a company's software project fails, the only people who learn from it are some of the ones involved with the project.
You make an incorrect assumption, namely that all those involved in the project will learn anything. Least of all the guy who decided to start the (possibly completely doomed) project with insufficient time available for things to go wrong, who has managed to successfully blame the failures completely on his most junior subordinate.
Seriously, can we institute some kind of comprehension requirement before people are allowed to vote? And I don't just mean in phone polls.
We did that back in 1917. It was removed in 1965 as part of the Voting Rights Act, largely because certain areas of the country were determining who was literate enough to vote based not on their ability to read and comprehend but based on how much melanin was in their skin. There was no real way to ensure that the test was applied fairly when the test existed, which is why it went away.
I'm glad I'm not in Canada, because Rogers is either phenomonally stupid or a bunch of lying asshats.
Thankfully, that's an "or", not an "xor", because there's no reason to think that they aren't both true.
The most likely real meaning of this poll: about 50% of those surveyed have no clue what the pollster is talking about, but since the poll question says "customers are treated fairly", respondents think that it's reasonable to be fair.
For instance, "Would you be in favor or against reasonable restrictions of the use of DHMO?" often returns an answer that approves of the restrictions not because the respondent knows anything about the restrictions or DHMO but because those restrictions were described as "reasonable" in the question. That's sort of thing is one of the standard techniques for getting polls with the answer you want.
Happy to: More than half of economists think the New Deal didn't help.
Sorry to reopen an old thread here, but could you provide a citation on that? I'm not saying you're wrong, but I would like to know where you're getting that data from.
The invasion of Beetles was German. The invasion of the Beatles was British. Get your facts straight.
Okay back to plan B of being crap at sports we invent but quite polite about losing.
Have you been to a football match? Those guys are anything but "quite polite".
That's close, but not quite broad enough: For a lot of voters the word "child" is enough to shut down the rational part of their brain.
It's basically an appeal to parents' base instinct to protect their children. An instinct that gave mammals a significant evolutionary advantage (due to the relative difficulty of mammals bearing young), but not one that engages the rational part of the brain. That's why any organization trying to get an otherwise rational adult to part with their money or give political support makes as many appeals to children as possible.
Introducing complexity into the areas around one's job is an excellent way to prevent yourself from being moved from that job. If you're someone who's still heading up the corporate ladder, that's a foolish thing to do (because that effect prevents you from being promoted), but once you reach the point where the Peter Principle starts being a factor, this becomes known as "job security". It's one of those instances where what's good for an employee is bad for a company, and it's pretty close to impossible to prevent in a large organization.
This goes for code as well: the best programmers are the ones who simplify their code as much as possible, throwing away bad code left and right. The worst programmers are the ones who use incredibly complex processes to do incredibly simple tasks (these folks are even worse than programmers who produce no code at all because of the damage they do to good programmers' productivity).
Obviously, his next call with that particular message ought to be to Dick Cheney.