The idea that there will be too much information, too much bandwidth being used is laughable.
There's money to be made in building new servers. There's money to be made in selling bandwidth. Infrastructure is relatively inexpensive compared to the income they can generate. And it gets cheaper everyday. The ISP's are sitting on a gold mine and complaining that gold is too difficult to mine.
That's going a bit far. If you quit, why should they pay you severance? The wages during the non-compete period I could see, but what's to prevent an employee from quitting specifically to exploit this? Hot dog! My employer had me sign a four-year non-compete agreement, time for me to go get a master's degree!
I don't see a problem with people exploiting this. After they've done it enough times, it'll become obvious that they are a scammer and then will become either non-employable or unfit to work with trade secrets. With this heavy of a penalty on companies who insist on non-competes then they'll really put the investment up front to look into things like this. They'll also not throw them around so frivolously.
If you have a non-compete clause on you, you obviously are (or damn well should be) doing something that's important to the company's intellectual property. If so, the company should treat you well and respect you for being in such a position.
Also, if a company wants to prevent me from using my IT knowledge for 5 years, they had better damn well pay me. Five years in computing is a long, long time. If after those 5 years I want to return to the field, I'm going to need education, certifications, etc. to make up for the lost field experience and to get me up to date.
And your finger prints aren't all over the card that you turn in currently?
If the ATM had a firmware upgrade that reported a hash of your bank account number with the vote, that would be sufficient to verify uniqueness and avoid double voting. And it wouldn't be traceable. The only problem I have is that the banks would be facilitating this. I'd have a hard time letting a company, who's main goal is to make money, get involved in the voting process.
The main problem with learning flash is not so much the interface but wrapping your mind around the concepts involved with animation. Timing, graphic design and even some programming can all end up in a finished flash product. As such, I think the biggest learn curve with it is the initial diving in. After a person has been acquainted with one version it's quite easy to shift to a newer version.
As for teaching older programs, I can't think of a single reason why they shouldn't teach those. The skill that should be taught is not how to use program X, but how to create something with the help of program X. So, if they are learning Dreamweaver, let them mess with the HTML. If they're learning photoshop teach them graphic design. If they're learning flash, teach them animation. The application will become second nature if it's any good. None of these programs would have become industry standards, if they didn't have something going for them.
And if they're a little old, who cares? Files created from those programs are out on the web working just as well now as they did when they were first created. I'm still using Photoshop 6 at my work because I've had a hard time justifying the cost of upgrading it.
I had to teach a class that the original poster is talking about. I volunteered some time and went down to the local high school after school let out. It was a lot of fun. I wish him the best at it.
The other situation that I would be concerned with is not so much that Google would want to read and/or misuse my data but rather that the RIAA/MPAA, or some other untrustworthy entity would want to. In the case that the government on behalf of an entity or itself would attempt to compel Google to give up those files, I would like to feel that they aren't handed over on a whim.
Google was the only major search engine that denied the government a copy of their search results about a year ago. They were willing to back that up with lawyers as well. If you feel that you can trust them to do that again and again, I think it makes a case for storing as much as you can on Google's Gdrive.
I agree with a lot of this. I think the biggest thing I would predict is that the record companies will change from being the artists' pimps to being the artists' consultant. The shift in music distribution is allowing the artist to have more flexibility and options. I think it'll eventually come to the point where the artists can tell their labels to fuck off with no repercussions because at some point the record companies will need the artists more than the artists need them.
Now, the recording industry has had it's hands in promotion, sales and distribution for quite some time. When they finally start recognizing what the writing on the wall is saying, they'll likely realize these are really the only assets they have. The artists will come to them or not based on what the label can do for them, not because they are bonded by some blood sucking contract binding them from having any other options.
And I think in the long term this would be a very good thing. Artists will retain ownership of their recordings. Music will be produced much more efficiently with less middlemen humping the album for every red cent. And artists get to call the shots on how they are put out there.
My parents did pass on most life skills to me: cooking, cleaning, leatherworking (Dad's hobby), writing a check (my mom would let me fill out her checks when I was young), sewing, etc. But most parents can't even do this right now. One weekend I went back home I heard that the Home Ec teacher's daughter was Paying people to do her laundry at college because she didn't know how.
The sad part about this is that the Home Ec's daughter paid the kids. When you actually put money forth on something like that, it's like saying, I don't want to bother to learn it.
But, that seems to be the prevailing attitude among the younger generation. My Wife is teaching English and SAT prep right now. During the SAT prep class she used the word "validity" in class. Nobody had a clue as to what it meant. The truly sad part is that nobody thought to take the word apart and make a guess.
It's like there is this general incuriousness about the world around them. I wish I knew what specifically causes that. I can't help but wonder how something works every time I see something new.
You could run it on the command line. Then it runs like a perl script. But, I was thinking the same thing. If you want to use PHP for what it is meant to be used for you kind of need the HTML fluff. With a strong likelihood of needing that CSS fluff, some javascript fluff and a bit of image editing fluff.
I think it's funny because it's a bit insane. Legal, ethical, but a bit insane.
Code is built on code which is built on code.
In modern programing, just using built in libraries means you're reusing somebody's code. And that library may be referencing another library which may or may not have snippets of code that some programmer copied out of a book 20 years ago. The point is there is no sane way to be completely sure that all of your code is written above board with all the licenses known. This especially includes proprietary code. You have to make a reasonable trust at some point. But, how can you really be sure?
There are plenty of mentally ill/disturbed people around people desperate for anyone to tell them what to do.
There are plenty of sane ones too. It just takes a bit of desperation. There are plenty of cases where people do some crazy things because they thought it would fix there problems. Most suicides are an attempt to make the hurting/loneliness/pain stop.
The US's internal policies have a huge effect on the world. Why wouldn't it? We as a nation have our noses in every other country's businesses and we have the attitude that it's the right thing to do. Whether that's the correct attitude, I'll leave to another flamefest.
I would think that "I like this" and "This is a good movie" are two different measurements on a film.
I must be a pessimist, but I don't believe the average Joe would agree with that statement. I think most people would see the two statements as synonymous. That is, if they even think about the distinction. Mostly I think they'd just grab their "gut" feeling and go with it.
I suppose we could test the argument by comparing movies that are ranked high on quality with total movie rentals or some other more precise measurement of watching frequency.
I think what they were referring to as unlikely was not so much the subject matter but the actual art itself. Soviet Russia wasn't the most artistically permissive regime.
Why are you using Windows Media Player? I wonder if that's not half your problem. The other half being the codecs that were previously mentioned by other posters. Try VLC on the file and see if that will play it.
I think some people just aren't capable of seeing past the surface of things. That is, they break down their environments to personal archetypes often with themselves as some important player in the event. So for example "the car the cuts them off" is seen as "the guy who purposely cut me off because he's a jerk" instead of "the teenager who doesn't know how to drive well and is rushing to the mall."
Given the lack of context clues or even the unwillingness to look for them, toss in a little insecurity and the world can look like it's out to get you. I suspect most people live this way. It goes a long way to explaining things like the general public's desire to give up freedom for security.
Maybe there are more context clues in a face to face. We're hard wired to recognize faces and draw a lot of conclusions from them such as emotional states, age, race, and sex. All of which are states we can't help but relate to. Maybe only when we have that recognition does it become hard for people not to be empathetic.
I highly doubt the original copies would be devalued by this. There is some novelty in owning those rare items. To make an analogy of it, reprints of the Mona Lisa are nearly worthless, the original is priceless. Not that I think that _Amazing Spiderman_ #1 is a Mona Lisa, but I'm sure many somebodies would disagree with me.
As for the digital back prints, I find that a very fascinating prospect. I was always curious about how those original series kicked off but never so curious to spend the time and shell out the cash to collect even reprints of those old books. This is convenient and relatively cheap.
Also, you forgot the drag queens. How do you determine when to call them he or she, since their obvious preferred pronoun has more to do with clothing and personality than actual plumbing?
And deities? Is the Flying Spaghetti Monster a he or a she? Or is the correct pronoun something altogether different?
And let's not forget people with multiple personalities, zombie hordes, occult cabals, microsoft fanboys and other entities that only think in groups for whom the singular pronoun will forever be a bad fit for.
His Majesty and/or they and/or it and/or he and/or she demand(s) equal consideration here.
Screw two languages. I'd love to have one language that actually works on all the browsers. Javascript as it's implemented by Microsoft is worlds different from any implementation outside of it. It's only by hacking together the common bits between the implementations that web pages are actually capable of working on multiple browsers.
It's not the government's (nor the judicial branch IMHO) job to decide who can and can't run as a candidate for the parties.
While I agree with this, it makes me ask the question: Is it the Government's job to ensure fair elections? It seems to me that the Republican and Democratic parties have managed to stomp out any other party's chances for winning. In doing so, the only candidates who make it into office have become ones that have the blessing of one of those two parties.
If this were the market place and those parties were companies, anti-trust suits would be filed against them. So what protection does the public get against such a caustic system?
And to those who reply saying, well, you should vote third party, you miss my point. I'm all in favor of a third (or a fourth, or a fifth) party, but the system has biased itself against such a possibility. Voting for such a party does nothing to fix the bias. It just promotes the party despite the bias.
The video was so popular that the third X-Men movie put the line in as a homage. That makes it quite a bit more notable than if it was "just" a Youtube video.
That doesn't change his point. His point was that the only content concerning the video was the video itself. There is little more besides the video that needs to be explained or expounded upon. So, what would the article contain? A link to the video? What encyclopedia (the media of which wikipedia is trying to aspire to) would just have one listing with merely a link about it?
The homage is of minor notoriety. There are lots of things purposely put into movies with less societal impact than a You Tube video. I've sat on a set as an extra before. Whole scenes and dialog can change literally in seconds. It's quite possible that if Juggernaut was played by a more uptight actor, the line would have been dropped without a second thought.
Slashdot Mirror
The idea that there will be too much information, too much bandwidth being used is laughable.
There's money to be made in building new servers. There's money to be made in selling bandwidth. Infrastructure is relatively inexpensive compared to the income they can generate. And it gets cheaper everyday. The ISP's are sitting on a gold mine and complaining that gold is too difficult to mine.
This is one of my favorite responses to that comic.
If you have a non-compete clause on you, you obviously are (or damn well should be) doing something that's important to the company's intellectual property. If so, the company should treat you well and respect you for being in such a position.
Also, if a company wants to prevent me from using my IT knowledge for 5 years, they had better damn well pay me. Five years in computing is a long, long time. If after those 5 years I want to return to the field, I'm going to need education, certifications, etc. to make up for the lost field experience and to get me up to date.
And your finger prints aren't all over the card that you turn in currently?
If the ATM had a firmware upgrade that reported a hash of your bank account number with the vote, that would be sufficient to verify uniqueness and avoid double voting. And it wouldn't be traceable. The only problem I have is that the banks would be facilitating this. I'd have a hard time letting a company, who's main goal is to make money, get involved in the voting process.
The main problem with learning flash is not so much the interface but wrapping your mind around the concepts involved with animation. Timing, graphic design and even some programming can all end up in a finished flash product. As such, I think the biggest learn curve with it is the initial diving in. After a person has been acquainted with one version it's quite easy to shift to a newer version.
As for teaching older programs, I can't think of a single reason why they shouldn't teach those. The skill that should be taught is not how to use program X, but how to create something with the help of program X. So, if they are learning Dreamweaver, let them mess with the HTML. If they're learning photoshop teach them graphic design. If they're learning flash, teach them animation. The application will become second nature if it's any good. None of these programs would have become industry standards, if they didn't have something going for them.
And if they're a little old, who cares? Files created from those programs are out on the web working just as well now as they did when they were first created. I'm still using Photoshop 6 at my work because I've had a hard time justifying the cost of upgrading it.
I had to teach a class that the original poster is talking about. I volunteered some time and went down to the local high school after school let out. It was a lot of fun. I wish him the best at it.
Wrong again! According to The Tick, you only need a used tissue to make a clone. Now, granted said clone will be green and slightly weird.
The other situation that I would be concerned with is not so much that Google would want to read and/or misuse my data but rather that the RIAA/MPAA, or some other untrustworthy entity would want to. In the case that the government on behalf of an entity or itself would attempt to compel Google to give up those files, I would like to feel that they aren't handed over on a whim.
Google was the only major search engine that denied the government a copy of their search results about a year ago. They were willing to back that up with lawyers as well. If you feel that you can trust them to do that again and again, I think it makes a case for storing as much as you can on Google's Gdrive.
I agree with a lot of this. I think the biggest thing I would predict is that the record companies will change from being the artists' pimps to being the artists' consultant. The shift in music distribution is allowing the artist to have more flexibility and options. I think it'll eventually come to the point where the artists can tell their labels to fuck off with no repercussions because at some point the record companies will need the artists more than the artists need them.
Now, the recording industry has had it's hands in promotion, sales and distribution for quite some time. When they finally start recognizing what the writing on the wall is saying, they'll likely realize these are really the only assets they have. The artists will come to them or not based on what the label can do for them, not because they are bonded by some blood sucking contract binding them from having any other options.
And I think in the long term this would be a very good thing. Artists will retain ownership of their recordings. Music will be produced much more efficiently with less middlemen humping the album for every red cent. And artists get to call the shots on how they are put out there.
But, that seems to be the prevailing attitude among the younger generation. My Wife is teaching English and SAT prep right now. During the SAT prep class she used the word "validity" in class. Nobody had a clue as to what it meant. The truly sad part is that nobody thought to take the word apart and make a guess.
It's like there is this general incuriousness about the world around them. I wish I knew what specifically causes that. I can't help but wonder how something works every time I see something new.
You could run it on the command line. Then it runs like a perl script. But, I was thinking the same thing. If you want to use PHP for what it is meant to be used for you kind of need the HTML fluff. With a strong likelihood of needing that CSS fluff, some javascript fluff and a bit of image editing fluff.
I think it's funny because it's a bit insane. Legal, ethical, but a bit insane.
Code is built on code which is built on code.
In modern programing, just using built in libraries means you're reusing somebody's code. And that library may be referencing another library which may or may not have snippets of code that some programmer copied out of a book 20 years ago. The point is there is no sane way to be completely sure that all of your code is written above board with all the licenses known. This especially includes proprietary code. You have to make a reasonable trust at some point. But, how can you really be sure?
How did this get marked as a troll?
The US's internal policies have a huge effect on the world. Why wouldn't it? We as a nation have our noses in every other country's businesses and we have the attitude that it's the right thing to do. Whether that's the correct attitude, I'll leave to another flamefest.
That's why you got to check first. It goes something like this:
*ring, ring*
Home Owner: Hello?
You: Dent? Arthur Dent?
HO: Yes, that's me.
You: Arther Phillip Dent?
HO: Yes?
You: You're an arse hole!
*hang up*
I would think that "I like this" and "This is a good movie" are two different measurements on a film.
I must be a pessimist, but I don't believe the average Joe would agree with that statement. I think most people would see the two statements as synonymous. That is, if they even think about the distinction. Mostly I think they'd just grab their "gut" feeling and go with it.
I suppose we could test the argument by comparing movies that are ranked high on quality with total movie rentals or some other more precise measurement of watching frequency.
I think what they were referring to as unlikely was not so much the subject matter but the actual art itself. Soviet Russia wasn't the most artistically permissive regime.
Why are you using Windows Media Player? I wonder if that's not half your problem. The other half being the codecs that were previously mentioned by other posters. Try VLC on the file and see if that will play it.
I think some people just aren't capable of seeing past the surface of things. That is, they break down their environments to personal archetypes often with themselves as some important player in the event. So for example "the car the cuts them off" is seen as "the guy who purposely cut me off because he's a jerk" instead of "the teenager who doesn't know how to drive well and is rushing to the mall."
Given the lack of context clues or even the unwillingness to look for them, toss in a little insecurity and the world can look like it's out to get you. I suspect most people live this way. It goes a long way to explaining things like the general public's desire to give up freedom for security.
Maybe there are more context clues in a face to face. We're hard wired to recognize faces and draw a lot of conclusions from them such as emotional states, age, race, and sex. All of which are states we can't help but relate to. Maybe only when we have that recognition does it become hard for people not to be empathetic.
Yeah, let's get those bastards! I'm so going to vote for y... ooooh... iPod!
I highly doubt the original copies would be devalued by this. There is some novelty in owning those rare items. To make an analogy of it, reprints of the Mona Lisa are nearly worthless, the original is priceless. Not that I think that _Amazing Spiderman_ #1 is a Mona Lisa, but I'm sure many somebodies would disagree with me.
As for the digital back prints, I find that a very fascinating prospect. I was always curious about how those original series kicked off but never so curious to spend the time and shell out the cash to collect even reprints of those old books. This is convenient and relatively cheap.
Also, you forgot the drag queens. How do you determine when to call them he or she, since their obvious preferred pronoun has more to do with clothing and personality than actual plumbing?
And deities? Is the Flying Spaghetti Monster a he or a she? Or is the correct pronoun something altogether different?
And let's not forget people with multiple personalities, zombie hordes, occult cabals, microsoft fanboys and other entities that only think in groups for whom the singular pronoun will forever be a bad fit for.
His Majesty and/or they and/or it and/or he and/or she demand(s) equal consideration here.
Screw two languages. I'd love to have one language that actually works on all the browsers. Javascript as it's implemented by Microsoft is worlds different from any implementation outside of it. It's only by hacking together the common bits between the implementations that web pages are actually capable of working on multiple browsers.
If this were the market place and those parties were companies, anti-trust suits would be filed against them. So what protection does the public get against such a caustic system?
And to those who reply saying, well, you should vote third party, you miss my point. I'm all in favor of a third (or a fourth, or a fifth) party, but the system has biased itself against such a possibility. Voting for such a party does nothing to fix the bias. It just promotes the party despite the bias.
The homage is of minor notoriety. There are lots of things purposely put into movies with less societal impact than a You Tube video. I've sat on a set as an extra before. Whole scenes and dialog can change literally in seconds. It's quite possible that if Juggernaut was played by a more uptight actor, the line would have been dropped without a second thought.