Having stayed at a homeless shelter and having dealt with people recieving those services, I can say it's not that they are violent or even lazy. It may be true of a small percentage of the population. Most of them are there because of bad mistakes or inadequate knowledge. They get hooked up with the wrong people. They aren't skilled enough to balance a checkbook and it finally catches up with them. They turn to substances to solve problems only their heads can.
The average age of a homeless person in the city I live in is 13. A lot of them are single parents who can't make ends meet and be a good parent to their children.
To be frank, interviewing sucks as a method for acquiring new employees. The only reason that it has been used to so extensively across so many companies is because it's a major Cover Your Ass technique.
Psych studies have shown that you get the best candidates for the job through skill and performance tests. However, you get unintential descrimination through it as well. Via certain demographics having better educational opportunities than others.
Interviewing tends to create a culture of similar people. Interviewees tend to like people most like themselves. Also, they can always change their decisions to keep them out of profiling trouble by periodically taking a candidate who may be sub-optimal skill-wise but keeps the company within a certain range in relation to demographics.
While, that's pretty funny, you do have a point. The NSFW tag is not precise or measureable. If something like this is going to work it has to be discrete and objective. NSFW has got a value assessment with it.
A NP (Nude Photos) or PF (Profanity) tag would be functional. Neither of those tags propose any sort of value judgement but when used properly could perfectly describe the content.
Even a MOSA (May Offend Some Audiences) tag would be more useful than NSFW. And given the tags describe the content, it can be used in search engines for people who are interested in that material.
But, I'd go a step further and say, why have this tag on html elements at all? You could just as easily include it in the meta data descriptors and be done with it. All that has to be done then is to set a standard. Hell, if google decided tomorrow that it would single out all "MOSA" sites with a gold star, middle finger icon or whatever that would be incentive enough to get people interested in following the standard.
Actually, once this gets up and running, it would be really easy to search for NSFW links. In which case, it benefits them greatly to have it on their site.
Remember what Bruce says kids: In the classic encryption scenerio, A(lice) encrypts her message to B(ob) to protect it from C(harles). With DRM, Bob and Charles are the same person!
Actually with DRM Bob is your hardware/software and Charles is the user. Charles owns Bob and is responsible for Bob's actions. DRM is an attempt to subvert the relationship between Charles and Bob by getting Bob to not tell Charles about certain things that Bob is doing.
I dislike nitpicking analogies but it's important to know the distinction. Bob (for good or bad) should disclose all of his information to Charles. And any attempt by Alice, Ted, Carol and the rest of the gang to subvert Bob is an issue.
I don't think that it's so much that their lives become meaningless, it's that their lives become meaningful. Reprecussions of failed restraint attempts will have more impact than successful ones.
*He burns CDs and sell them for a couple of bucks on markets to finance Al Quaida thermonuclear program, possible harm: millions of deaths + thousands of billions $ of damages.
Yeah, but consider the probability of this happening into the cost of damages. It's quite likely that those CD sales are crippled by the availability of mp3's on the web. Also consider the likelihood of said financed event happening. Contrary to what the Bush Administration would like you to think, the chances of dying in a terrorist attack are quite low.
I'm confident the profits from your scenerio one would more than make up for the costs of the other scenerios.
It sounds like you have a couple of web developers or at worst one guy dedicated to the task. A lot of smaller shops have just one guy who does it with other "IT" related tasks.
When you've got other tasks or responsibilities at hand it's not easy to find time to organize your notes.
While I agree with you that Microsoft has had the keys forever and that they've never been very encouraging about allowing people to do what they want with Windows, it's a bit different than you detail. It's all about unfair market share. If MS had the market share that Linux or OS X does, then it's all fine and dandy. I'd be the first to tell Symantic and McAfree to stop crying in their beer and go back to work and figure something new out.
But, it's not that way. Microsoft is a monopoly and they are clearly leveraging it here under disguise of securing their OS. The thing I can't get is why Microsoft would want to do this. It's quite clear that a windows computer without a good firewall and an antivirus is useless to the average user. And it's not like Microsoft has been on the spot about patching their OS or building a good built in firewall. Those new boxes will be open season after the first exploit is found.
I read in a Wired article a while back that they intentionally avoided constraints. In fact, I believe it's got a "hack me all you want" software license attached to the firmware.
This isn't a Microsoft problem. This is a problem that every company and/or web developer must deal with. If they had created their pages to begin with more than one browser in mind, it would not have been a problem.
Every web developer must make a choice in the beginning which browsers he/she cares to support. IE, Firefox, Mozilla, Opera, Safari, Konqueror... etc. They all render differently. And different version of all of those render differently. However, standards compliance means you can at least depend on some things working all of the time. If you just pick one of those, no matter how big the market share you are shooting yourself in the foot. And IMNSHO, you'd deserve it too.
You see in the first one, it's a fight to the death. So, why was there a sequel?
And if you make sequels, why did so many of the characters make it to the second one and third one? And if they can live through death so casually, why do they take it so personnally?
And the most bugging question of all: Why do they keep making sequels if nobody buys them?
I suspect you are right in that a lot of the power of these groups come from being so well organized. But, is that their only reason for success? I imagine they hoodwink a lot of otherwise intelligent people with "think of the children" type arguments. So, people who are otherwise investigative don't look too far into the issue and just go with the opinion handed to them.
Staying on topic, wikipedia has a fairly organized and dedicated following. I think it could stand up to it. The medium favors the investigative and the tools are all in the hands of the admins. Also, unlike most elected officials, users of wikipedia have a more personal involvement. (It pains me to say that, but I think it's true.) Also this personnal interested is vested from a much larger and not nearly as segregated audience.
As for the truly focused, even they give up the fight eventually. (Usually when they buy the farm.) For evidence, think of Civil Rights and Women's Suffrage.
I'm not sure the cost is as high as you are insinuating. First off, I imagine the evolution page and other pages of similar controversy get hit all the time anyways. So, before Rush, ICR or whomever decides they want to make a public statement by altering it, Wiki is way ahead of them in knowing these pages could be targets. I understand what you are saying about related pages being targetted as well, but that leaves me to point 2.
While the people who listen to these views tend to be very vocal, they are often minorities in the total population segment. I can easily imagine Rush whipping up some interest in changing some article or another, but I cannot imagine that the number of people changing it will out man the number of people who are willing to reverse those changes. Nor will they out gun the administrators on the site. Also, such groups unless truly, truly dedicated to such a task tend to turn their attention quickly when another percieved threat pops up.
So, while the information may change in the short term, there is little doubt that these changes will persist in the long run.
I totally agree. Somebody needs to create an image for a cd key that will hack the diebold machines. And as many of us as possible should use them to vote in a impossible individual mutually agree upon. I would say Tux but, it's gotta be something more neutral and politically symbolic.
This action will be illegal but, I can see it as civil disobedience for a just cause. The press will have no choice but to start asking questions when diebold machines start spitting out "Thomas Paine" (or insert founding father/patriot here) for president at 1,000 times a second.
IIRC, The less of the rest of the facial features you have to look at, the less consistently individuals will agree on the emotion of the subject.
I took a boat load of Psych back in college but, I can't remember any specific experiments with this. On a related note, females are better able to determine emotions by non-verbal cues than men. So, I'd show the picture to a couple of females and see what they agree on.
Speaking of females, shouldn't this be called Big Mother? The picture is female. The lack of the cranial ridge above the eye balls indicates femininity. (So, does the signature "Melissa" but we geeks don't pay attention to the obvious.)
I'll happily agree with the parent here that non-profits are the way to go to find satisfying work.
I work at a much less lucrative non-profit than the poster and the worst I can say about my job is that the pay check is not as large as many of my peers. On the other side, the perks are great. My bosses respect me and they look at decisions in terms of effectiveness and not so much in how much of a profit it will turn. (The difference between the two is subtle but important.) I can freely experiment in a lot of the technologies since the cost of entry into many of them is free.
I get a lot of satisfaction out of my work knowing that any process that I can fascilitate and reduce the time we spend on it helps somebody in the community. And most of the rest of the employees here think I'm a savior for bringing technology into a world that has skimped on it out of a perceived necessity.
The only legitimate complaint I have is in the area of conpensation and even that isn't terrible.
Slashdot Mirror
Having stayed at a homeless shelter and having dealt with people recieving those services, I can say it's not that they are violent or even lazy. It may be true of a small percentage of the population. Most of them are there because of bad mistakes or inadequate knowledge. They get hooked up with the wrong people. They aren't skilled enough to balance a checkbook and it finally catches up with them. They turn to substances to solve problems only their heads can.
The average age of a homeless person in the city I live in is 13. A lot of them are single parents who can't make ends meet and be a good parent to their children.
To be frank, interviewing sucks as a method for acquiring new employees. The only reason that it has been used to so extensively across so many companies is because it's a major Cover Your Ass technique.
Psych studies have shown that you get the best candidates for the job through skill and performance tests. However, you get unintential descrimination through it as well. Via certain demographics having better educational opportunities than others.
Interviewing tends to create a culture of similar people. Interviewees tend to like people most like themselves. Also, they can always change their decisions to keep them out of profiling trouble by periodically taking a candidate who may be sub-optimal skill-wise but keeps the company within a certain range in relation to demographics.
While, that's pretty funny, you do have a point. The NSFW tag is not precise or measureable. If something like this is going to work it has to be discrete and objective. NSFW has got a value assessment with it.
A NP (Nude Photos) or PF (Profanity) tag would be functional. Neither of those tags propose any sort of value judgement but when used properly could perfectly describe the content.
Even a MOSA (May Offend Some Audiences) tag would be more useful than NSFW. And given the tags describe the content, it can be used in search engines for people who are interested in that material.
But, I'd go a step further and say, why have this tag on html elements at all? You could just as easily include it in the meta data descriptors and be done with it. All that has to be done then is to set a standard. Hell, if google decided tomorrow that it would single out all "MOSA" sites with a gold star, middle finger icon or whatever that would be incentive enough to get people interested in following the standard.
Actually, once this gets up and running, it would be really easy to search for NSFW links. In which case, it benefits them greatly to have it on their site.
Remember what Bruce says kids: In the classic encryption scenerio, A(lice) encrypts her message to B(ob) to protect it from C(harles). With DRM, Bob and Charles are the same person!
Actually with DRM Bob is your hardware/software and Charles is the user. Charles owns Bob and is responsible for Bob's actions. DRM is an attempt to subvert the relationship between Charles and Bob by getting Bob to not tell Charles about certain things that Bob is doing.
I dislike nitpicking analogies but it's important to know the distinction. Bob (for good or bad) should disclose all of his information to Charles. And any attempt by Alice, Ted, Carol and the rest of the gang to subvert Bob is an issue.
Where's my +1 Nerd mod when I need it?
Education is power.
I don't think that it's so much that their lives become meaningless, it's that their lives become meaningful. Reprecussions of failed restraint attempts will have more impact than successful ones.
Yeah, but consider the probability of this happening into the cost of damages. It's quite likely that those CD sales are crippled by the availability of mp3's on the web. Also consider the likelihood of said financed event happening. Contrary to what the Bush Administration would like you to think, the chances of dying in a terrorist attack are quite low.
I'm confident the profits from your scenerio one would more than make up for the costs of the other scenerios.
It sounds like you have a couple of web developers or at worst one guy dedicated to the task. A lot of smaller shops have just one guy who does it with other "IT" related tasks.
When you've got other tasks or responsibilities at hand it's not easy to find time to organize your notes.
I couldn't help it, she chewed through the restraints.
Can someone do this in the US please? The only way the US public pays attention to things like this is if there is a scandal.
These things clearly need to be critically looked at.
While I agree with you that Microsoft has had the keys forever and that they've never been very encouraging about allowing people to do what they want with Windows, it's a bit different than you detail. It's all about unfair market share. If MS had the market share that Linux or OS X does, then it's all fine and dandy. I'd be the first to tell Symantic and McAfree to stop crying in their beer and go back to work and figure something new out.
But, it's not that way. Microsoft is a monopoly and they are clearly leveraging it here under disguise of securing their OS. The thing I can't get is why Microsoft would want to do this. It's quite clear that a windows computer without a good firewall and an antivirus is useless to the average user. And it's not like Microsoft has been on the spot about patching their OS or building a good built in firewall. Those new boxes will be open season after the first exploit is found.
I read in a Wired article a while back that they intentionally avoided constraints. In fact, I believe it's got a "hack me all you want" software license attached to the firmware.
t &words=legOS.
That is, if you can get it to do something they don't care. There are already some alternate OS's for it already here: http://sourceforge.net/search/?type_of_search=sof
The Internet
This isn't a Microsoft problem. This is a problem that every company and/or web developer must deal with. If they had created their pages to begin with more than one browser in mind, it would not have been a problem.
Every web developer must make a choice in the beginning which browsers he/she cares to support. IE, Firefox, Mozilla, Opera, Safari, Konqueror... etc. They all render differently. And different version of all of those render differently. However, standards compliance means you can at least depend on some things working all of the time. If you just pick one of those, no matter how big the market share you are shooting yourself in the foot. And IMNSHO, you'd deserve it too.
You know what bugs me? Mortal Kombat.
You see in the first one, it's a fight to the death. So, why was there a sequel?
And if you make sequels, why did so many of the characters make it to the second one and third one? And if they can live through death so casually, why do they take it so personnally?
And the most bugging question of all: Why do they keep making sequels if nobody buys them?
Very good points there.
I suspect you are right in that a lot of the power of these groups come from being so well organized. But, is that their only reason for success? I imagine they hoodwink a lot of otherwise intelligent people with "think of the children" type arguments. So, people who are otherwise investigative don't look too far into the issue and just go with the opinion handed to them.
Staying on topic, wikipedia has a fairly organized and dedicated following. I think it could stand up to it. The medium favors the investigative and the tools are all in the hands of the admins. Also, unlike most elected officials, users of wikipedia have a more personal involvement. (It pains me to say that, but I think it's true.) Also this personnal interested is vested from a much larger and not nearly as segregated audience.
As for the truly focused, even they give up the fight eventually. (Usually when they buy the farm.) For evidence, think of Civil Rights and Women's Suffrage.
I'm not sure the cost is as high as you are insinuating. First off, I imagine the evolution page and other pages of similar controversy get hit all the time anyways. So, before Rush, ICR or whomever decides they want to make a public statement by altering it, Wiki is way ahead of them in knowing these pages could be targets. I understand what you are saying about related pages being targetted as well, but that leaves me to point 2.
While the people who listen to these views tend to be very vocal, they are often minorities in the total population segment. I can easily imagine Rush whipping up some interest in changing some article or another, but I cannot imagine that the number of people changing it will out man the number of people who are willing to reverse those changes. Nor will they out gun the administrators on the site. Also, such groups unless truly, truly dedicated to such a task tend to turn their attention quickly when another percieved threat pops up.
So, while the information may change in the short term, there is little doubt that these changes will persist in the long run.
I for one, want my brushed metal "Any Key."
I totally agree. Somebody needs to create an image for a cd key that will hack the diebold machines. And as many of us as possible should use them to vote in a impossible individual mutually agree upon. I would say Tux but, it's gotta be something more neutral and politically symbolic.
This action will be illegal but, I can see it as civil disobedience for a just cause. The press will have no choice but to start asking questions when diebold machines start spitting out "Thomas Paine" (or insert founding father/patriot here) for president at 1,000 times a second.
You should follow that up by dropping an internet in a tube. He may get it in 5 days but, he'll know you thought of him.
I thought it would be funny to replace images from known porn domains with images of their parents.
You gotta hand it to them they are trying. Natural weapons like snake venom cost a hand and a leg these days.
IIRC, The less of the rest of the facial features you have to look at, the less consistently individuals will agree on the emotion of the subject.
I took a boat load of Psych back in college but, I can't remember any specific experiments with this. On a related note, females are better able to determine emotions by non-verbal cues than men. So, I'd show the picture to a couple of females and see what they agree on.
Speaking of females, shouldn't this be called Big Mother? The picture is female. The lack of the cranial ridge above the eye balls indicates femininity. (So, does the signature "Melissa" but we geeks don't pay attention to the obvious.)
I'll happily agree with the parent here that non-profits are the way to go to find satisfying work.
I work at a much less lucrative non-profit than the poster and the worst I can say about my job is that the pay check is not as large as many of my peers. On the other side, the perks are great. My bosses respect me and they look at decisions in terms of effectiveness and not so much in how much of a profit it will turn. (The difference between the two is subtle but important.) I can freely experiment in a lot of the technologies since the cost of entry into many of them is free.
I get a lot of satisfaction out of my work knowing that any process that I can fascilitate and reduce the time we spend on it helps somebody in the community. And most of the rest of the employees here think I'm a savior for bringing technology into a world that has skimped on it out of a perceived necessity.
The only legitimate complaint I have is in the area of conpensation and even that isn't terrible.