Sorry, but this was a secret IQ test- and sadly, you just failed it. There was a hidden pattern within the letters in the original comment, which held a secret message along the lines of "Psst... don't admit this is funny, or you'll look stupid". However, only people with reasonably high IQs are able to spot it.
Also, if anyone else says I'm talking rubbish and it's not there... it's okay. No-one said we all had to be geniuses! (^_^)
This is definitely true. It's another "Yahoo is passe and old hat, so they're doomed" story that misses one significant point.
As I pointed out myself a year back, Yahoo has been perceived as "yesterday's company" for a long, *long* time now. The feeling that (to quote the summary)...
Yahoo [is perceived as] teetering on the edge of history's trash-bin, with an aging customer base and unexciting features
... is *not* new. Essentially they've had that image as a stagnant, gone-nowhere-since-the-dotcom-era organisation since... well, since the dotcom era ended and Google rushed out of nowhere and left their overblown "portal" strategy in the dust.
And yet- as I pointed out- despite being perceived as moribund "has beens", they're still surviving and making good profits well over a decade after they went out of fashion. Some of this is no doubt due to "legacy" users who've been using Yahoo! Mail for years, but it's also worth remembering the companies they own that aren't prominently branded as "Yahoo" (*) yet still add to the bottom line. Yes, those were acquisitions, but if they're making profit, that's neither here nor there.
If Yahoo has survived and prospered despite its "stuck-in-the-dotcom-mud" image for 13 years, it's unlikely to disappear tomorrow. No, they're not fashionable, and possibly never will be again, but they're in the business of making money, not being poster boys.
(*) As I was typing this, I realised that mentally, I still associated the "Yahoo" logo with 256-colour dithered GIFs and the like, which emphasises the "stuck in the late-90s" image. And for those much younger (i.e. not old enough to remember the late-90s much if at all), does the Yahoo brand mean *anything*?
Could be compatible with games for the xbox 1... I mean original xbox... Ugh. This is going to be a problem isn't it?
Though I doubt it's likely to be a major problem in the long term, I do agree that it's a somewhat strange and confusing name, especially as the "PSOne" was a cost-reduced version of the original PlayStation.
When I scanned the headline, I briefly wondered whether this "XBox One" referred to a cost-reduced version of the existing console rather than the new model (though if I'd thought about it I'd have remembered that the current "XBox" isn't the first generation anyway, and MS aren't remotely likely to release a new version of the original XBox, no matter how cheap).
Anyhow, Nintendo managed- by disregarding the issue and not changing it- to get people to forget how laughable a name "Wii" was, and still is when you think about it. So people will get used to this...
That's nice, except that the issue with the Saudi regime *itself* is that it's as much a part of the problem of terrorism as it is of the solution. That is, it presents two different faces to the world- the one it likes to present to the West, and the one it likes to present to the Wahhabist elements within the country. They need to not merely tolerate, but pander to the latter in order to remain power.
(For those who didn't want to read the linked article, the tl;dr version is that Wahhabism is the Saudi-founded brand of Islam that Al-Qaeda et al espouse; if you've ever heard the term "Islamo-fascism", Wahhabism is the interpretation of Islam it's most likely referring to).
In other words, the Saudi regime is in the position of having to be blatantly two-faced about this; claiming to be cracking down on terrorism to their Western allies, while at the same time being one of the largest supporters of it.
Of course, the West knows this, but likes to pretend otherwise, because there's the inconvenient fact that they have lots of oil which we want. Regarding Western attitudes towards extremist Islamic terrorism, Saudi Arabia isn't merely the elephant in the room in the sense that it's a major factor- as the home and the heart of Wahhabism, it's arguably *the* central factor. Modern Saudi Arabia was *founded* on an agreement between Ibn Abd-al-Wahhab (the founder of Wahhabism) and the house of Saud to spread his teachings while the latter retained power. From Wikipedia:-
Upon arriving in Diriyya, a pact was made between Ibn Saud and Ibn Abd-al-Wahhab, by which Ibn Saud pledged to implement and enforce Ibn Abd-al-Wahhab's teachings, while Ibn Saud and his family would remain the temporal "leaders" of the movement.
Many of the alleged grievances of terrorists supporting Wahhabist organisations such as Al-Qaeda revolve around the supposed US "occupation" of Saudi Arabia. Yet, despite all this, you'll rarely hear Western politicians attack the Saudi regime for their covert tolerance of extremist elements. Why? See the start of this paragraph.
Electrical stimulus exercises isn't the same as an animal running through a field.
To solve that they'll arrange for the meat to be grown around a metal endoskeleton that stimulates the "muscles" and is then programmed to run around a field.
This bovine cyborg will be known as Robocow, and will last until one goes mad and tries to assasinate Sarah Connor.
After trapping it in a Burger King and "flame grilling" it to death, our heroes will rest... while, in the background, out of the flames steps the metallic endoskeleton and starts chasing after them again. Though eventually it gets bored of that and starts chewing grass instead.
It's not just a good satire of Facebook. They also got their finger on the irritating tone of present-day consumer-oriented advertising and communications- the faux-chummy, informal, first-names social-media-era style of a corporation pretending to be our best friend. The "Facebook" guy in the video is this personified.
This post isn't specifically about Facebook, though. It's about a far more general trend that's become common in the past decade or so, and particularly the past five years.
The video even got the now-cliched "chummy" guitar and whistling music in the background down pat. An integral part of setting the tone, it now no longer evokes the whimsical, innocent, non-threatening, honest, informal, friendly feel that it's intended to, but has become tainted by association as being manipulative and overused and just as corporate, irritating, phoney and dishonest as previous advertising cliches- ironically, the very associations it was originally meant to dispel. (Well, at least in my opinon- they wouldn't still be using it if everyone thought that).
Ever notice the wording on dialogue boxes that pop up for (e.g.) updating Adobe Flash? You can select "Update Now" or "Remind Me Later". Google do this as well. Lots of companies do it. You're given two responses, often phrased in an informal, friendly manner- but you are *not* given the one that says "No, Thank You". You're put in the position of "replying" to the question in the same faux-friendly manner, and on the terms that suit *them*- it helps them gloss over the fact they're railroading you into the pretence of making a particular "choice", when the real choice most people would make isn't there.
And, make no bones about it, this isn't an oversight- the choice isn't there because it doesn't suit them. Google (for example) are ever more passive-aggressively pushing people into using their "real" identities, bit-by-bit. At present, they still allow some leeway, but present the user with a weaselish, pre-approved list of "reasons" for not changing their name that don't include "because I like to remain anonymous" or anything similar. You're clearly- but implicitly rather than explicitly- made to think about things from the point of view that *they* would like you to. The implication is that those are the only valid reasons for not wanting to surrender more of your privacy to Google, and there's no reason for them to even nudge people in the direction of considering privacy as a legitimate concern if they haven't already started doing so.
Just like "Facebook's" false aimiability in the video phrases itself in terms of "helping" and "improving" the end-user's experience, whether that's the case or not, and without giving them a say in the matter.
In general, this is- as always- just the latest trend in manipulating people, but grates particularly because they're trying to use down-to-earth, informal, would-be-friendliness to do it.
If memory serves, the STASI eventually had about 1/3 of the population involved in informing on someone or something and never came close to be able to analyze all the data they got.
To be blunt, the inclusion of modern computer processing into the equation has totally altered the issue beyond recognition, to the point that the above comment is irrelevant.
Computer processing power has increased exponentially even since East Germany ceased to exist in 1990, making the automatic collection and storage of vast amounts of data- even by the Stasi's standards- possible... but far more importantly, making the automated mining and extraction of useful (for the government) information not just possible but relatively easy.
I'm quite certain that the one that should be fried is the person writing the specs.
I know the system is crap, but that's a bit draconian...:-)
Anyway, in all seriousness, this story is (intentionally) trying to make a mountain out of a molehill, as it relates to a small (and obsolescent) number of benefits and the fact that an old system hasn't been properly updated for the better part of a decade.
Yes, it's utterly shite that the systems were written to be so specific to IE6 (and earlier versions') foibles that they don't even work with the half-decent later versions of IE, let alone any other browsers. Obviously if they hadn't been so short-sighted, they'd still be running (if somewhat dated looking) on modern browsers.
And yes, it sucks if you're one of the people still wanting to claim those benefits.
But it's a story about ancient software designed when IE-specific sites were still (unfortunately) the norm and a system that hasn't been updated for the few people still requiring it. I have to admit I thought at first that this was something about the JobCentre's system to track users' jobseeking using cookies only working on XP/IE6 or older, but it's nothing like that.
It's a fair story, but not the geek outrage article it's presented as.
The "law" [wikipedia.org] states that "Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no." There was a headline. It ended with a question mark. The answer is no. What part of that do you not understand?
Thank you for the selective smartass pedantry. As your quotes imply, this is not a self-encapsulated "law", but an observation you've isolated from its original- and intended- context.
In the same WP article you link to, Betteridge is quoted saying "The reason why journalists use that style of headline is that they know the story is probably bollocks, and don’t actually have the sources and facts to back it up, but still want to run it."
This doesn't have much to say about genuine question headlines... because it's not about that.
[The headline "Did Last.fm Just Hand Over User Listening Data To the RIAA?" is] Daily Mail-style journalism, posing a statement as just “asking questions”.
It's quite clear what the intent and spirit of Betteridge's "Law" was.
If you want to bleat the literal wording of Betteridge's law in isolation while missing its clear spirit and intent (and whole raison d'etre) because you don't actually get what it's about and simply want to appear clever by kneejerk invocation of this year's off-the-shelf Slashdot cliche- which misses the entire point of that cliche!- then defend your ignorance with shallow pedantry, though, be my guest.
The headline here *is* an actual, legitimate question (whether sensible or not) and not just an excuse to weasel through a poorly-supported assertion in the guise of a fake "question".
The household survey on which unemployment figures are based has nothing whatsoever to do with benefit claims.
Huh? I was making a generalised, *hypothetical* example of how politicians (in general) could- and have in the past- manipulated a particular statistic while the underlying "maths" is still correct. I gave no indication of referring to a specific case, because I wasn't.
I said nothing about "benefit claims", and I've no idea which "household survey" you think I'm referring to. I don't even know which *country* this alleged survey is meant to relate to, though I'd guess (possibly) the US, since that's often the assumed default. At any rate, I don't live there, so I'm probably not even aware of whatever polarising domestic hot-button issue you seem to think I'm talking about, let alone taking sides on it.
Please stop.
Please stop jumping to conclusions- and put that bee back in your bonnet while you're at it.
Replace all corrupted clowns chosen by rigged popularity contests with math. Math can be trusted.
Lies, damned lies, and statistics.
I talk about open data, not manipulated results of undisclosed calculations.
The parent poster said exactly what I was going to.
If you think that the famous comment "lies, damned lies and statistics" refers only to concealed and rigged calculations, then you're wrong.
But back to what you said originally; your "math can be trusted" comment struck me as blinkered idealism meets dangerously inexperienced naivity.
It's quite possible (and common) to use and abuse publicly-available data- via technically-correct use of statistics- to argue many different cases. Unemployment has gone down? Yes, because the definition of "unemployed" has been changed, and people (say) choosing to accept another benefit are no longer counted as unemployed. Or maybe lots of people have part time jobs for five hours a week, but they're not "unemployed".
Maths is perfect, in itself? Yes, we know that. It doesn't solve all the problems if you're proposing running the real world that way. Opinion is not mathematical. How exactly do you propose to correlate and translate people's opinions into a mathematical system? That in itself is subject to interpretation of some sort, whether via manual means or automatic.
Wolfram's system might be useful and insightful, but how do you translate that into democratic representation? And politicians- or their equivalents- will find a way to manipulate people's perceived or stated opinions if it suits them. And they'll find a way to manipulate the opinion-based system.
Maybe it's realised that by convincing a small number of people to feel very strongly about something, or talk about it more, that their opinion carries more weight. Let's radicalise some people and/or foster extremist opinion and behaviour to achieve our ends.
So, the current opinion-translated-into-pseudo-maths system is being manipulated and needs changed? Who decides if it's to be changed? The people? Ah... the measure of the people's opinion says that they don't want the system changed. Of course, that "measure" is via the current, manipulable system, so it supports itself. Unfortunately.
Democracy and voting are- to some extent- already attempts to translate opinion into a solid mathematical representation. The vote is- essentially- a translation of an opinion into a mathematical entity. Of course, it's not perfect, but at least the person making it gets to decide how their opinion translates.
Your system- abandoning voting for more "direct" means- would actually be less direct, because it would be imposing someone else's chosen interpretation of that person's opinion. Well, I say "your system", but actually, you didn't propose a system at all beyond using mathematics. Which we're doing anyway; the hard bit is choosing the most appropriate mathematical system to represent people as a whole, and translating people's opinions into input for that system.
EA has basically sucked ass ever since their first day in business.
That's odd. Almost everyone who actually *knows* anything about EA's early years (i.e. from the early 1980s to around the early 1990s) would say that they were generally held in pretty high regard back then.
So would you care to clarify your position, or am I correct in assuming you don't know what you're talking about and just made a half-baked kneejerk post?
He's been posting these emails in almost every thread for the last few days. He's the "my fast pc" spammer for some unknown Linux website. If you check his Contact page [linuxadvocates.com] you'll see I am not him as he doesn't like his email address displayed in a scrape-able way
Are you really that dim? I already linked "joe job" and you still managed to miss the entire point.
Let me explain it in *very* *simple* *words*. The person that posted the original "spam" above is probably *not* "Dieter T. Schmitz" as they claim, but someone else who is (a) trying to make him look bad (b) trolling, and/or (c) stirring up trouble by pretending to post spam under his identity.
Your logic is circular- you're already assuming that "he" posted the original comment, when in fact "he" probably didn't and "he" isn't the same person.
Good grief...
He's the "my fast pc" spammer for some unknown Linux website.
This *does* explain a lot... about you. If you're one of the idiots that genuinely believed the "My Clean PC" comments were spam- even long after anyone with half a brain could see it was being kept going by trolls- then you're even more gullible and blinkered than I thought you were.
Anyway, I only posted my original comment as a heads up to those so lacking in common sense that they might have planned on harassing the alleged "spammer".
I normally mod down both trolls *and* the people stupid enough- or with too little self-control- to be lured into replying to them.
However, given that at least three ****wits have already modded you "informative" for this post, I feel obliged to point out that the original comment is more than likely a Joe job (as well as a troll), and pretty obvious one.
Matter of fact, I wouldn't discount the possibility that "your" comment was made by the same person as the original, but the fact it was modded up shows that at least some people believe otherwise.
Seriously, I can't believe that there are Slashdotters stupid enough to take this crap at face value.
How is at-work entertainment a fad? At Netscape, we had foosball, ping-pong, pool, and arcade machines. It builds camaraderie and is a great way to blow off some stress when you need to clear your mind for ten minutes.
Go back and read what I said. I didn't say "at work" entertainment was a fad.
It was *specifically* (and clearly) a criticism of the overuse of foosball as the lazy man/company's superficial choice of showing what a "fun" place they were to work at (i.e. it wasn't even really a criticism of foosball in itself).
It's become a cliche since the dotcom era (which, I assume, is the time you worked at Netscape.) Yeah, we get it- the fortysomething guy in charge wanted to make this a "cooler" place to work, so he got his secretary to buy a foosball machine and paint the walls in bright, funky (*) colours. Bingo, we're cool- end of story. Also, I hear that "Friends" is popular with young people!
Is foosball really *that* blooming great?!
(*) To paraphrase Alexei Sayle, anyone who uses the word "funky" that isn't in the music industry is a right ****!:-)
What is it with computer crime that gets any police force involved to wildly exaggerate everything to do with it. From the skills of the accused, the claimed crimes committed, the damage caused, the global impact or the justification for promotions. The bullshit desire for massive headlines only to have it all deflate as the internet picks over the story as the slowly collapsing prosecution proceeds to a rather minor event.
Because this is a standard example of geeks forgetting that they're not typical. A proportionately small number of geeks watch the story "all deflate as the internet picks over the story as the slowly collapsing prosecution proceeds to a rather minor event".
The great unwashed masses just saw (and remember) the initial headlines, and have moved on to the next oversold story, rather than following the increasingly mundane details of the true story behind the original headlines. After all, "previously hyped computer crime turns out to be mundane" isn't as good a headline as the next exaggerated crime.
Whats his position on Foosball ? No Foosball, no work, seriously.
1999 called, they want their overused dotcom-era fads back. (*) Seriously, at this point, a foosball table is probably a negative sign, the cliched, almost obligatory easy-choice symbol a company would choose if they wanted to make themselves appear a (superficially) fun and exciting place to gullible young programmers.
(*) Then again, the 1990s probably want their "[year] called, they want their [subject] back" cliche back, but they're not getting it:-P
In theory it should also be doing some kind of negotiation before pushing power, such as ensuring that it has a connection to something that speaks USB on the other end (as opposed to, say, your finger, which doesn't)
Speak for yourself... I'm so smart, my finger *does* speak USB.:-P
The point isn't that the BTC isn't stable with respect to dollars, it's that it isn't stable with respect to purchasing power.
Yes, I agree that the US Dollar is more stable. However, that's not what he actually said, and not the point I was arguing.
What he actually said was "The basic reason: [Bitcoin] has no fixed value". This is true, of course, but by implication he's saying that the thing it's being compared against- i.e. the US Dollar- *is* fixed (else why bother making the point?)... which isn't the case.
More stable? Undeniably. But it's certainly *not* "fixed" against anything else, and even its buying power in real terms falls significantly over the long haul.
Bollocks. Bitcoins are incredibly unstable compared to any major currency.
I didn't say that they weren't.
When the price of Bitcoins is doubling and halving in a day, you could try to claim that Bitcoins are fine
Someone could *try* to claim that. I certainly didn't.
and the problem is that the USD is halving and doubling in value, but the fact that no businesses are changing their USD prices makes it hard to sustain this.
Well, yeah. The US dollar *is* more obviously a stable measure of exchange... that'd be why I said "Granted, in the real world the dollar is almost certainly a better measure of "absolute" value than the Bitcoin is at present."
Evidently you were unable to understand the point that was being made. It wasn't that the dollar isn't more stable than Bitcoin by any reasonable measure- of course it is (hence the quote in bold above).
It was that it's still not fixed in terms of value- and that by criticising Bitcoin for not being "fixed", he's implying a fundamental difference from the US dollar. Which, obviously, isn't the case- the US dollar is more stable, but it's still not "fixed" to any absolute meaningful value. Except itself, of course- but one could use the same argument in favour of Bitcoin (in principle, at least).
Slashdot Mirror
Now that's funny, I don't care who you are.
Sorry, but this was a secret IQ test- and sadly, you just failed it. There was a hidden pattern within the letters in the original comment, which held a secret message along the lines of "Psst... don't admit this is funny, or you'll look stupid". However, only people with reasonably high IQs are able to spot it.
Also, if anyone else says I'm talking rubbish and it's not there... it's okay. No-one said we all had to be geniuses! (^_^)
As I pointed out myself a year back, Yahoo has been perceived as "yesterday's company" for a long, *long* time now. The feeling that (to quote the summary)...
Yahoo [is perceived as] teetering on the edge of history's trash-bin, with an aging customer base and unexciting features
... is *not* new. Essentially they've had that image as a stagnant, gone-nowhere-since-the-dotcom-era organisation since... well, since the dotcom era ended and Google rushed out of nowhere and left their overblown "portal" strategy in the dust.
And yet- as I pointed out- despite being perceived as moribund "has beens", they're still surviving and making good profits well over a decade after they went out of fashion. Some of this is no doubt due to "legacy" users who've been using Yahoo! Mail for years, but it's also worth remembering the companies they own that aren't prominently branded as "Yahoo" (*) yet still add to the bottom line. Yes, those were acquisitions, but if they're making profit, that's neither here nor there.
If Yahoo has survived and prospered despite its "stuck-in-the-dotcom-mud" image for 13 years, it's unlikely to disappear tomorrow. No, they're not fashionable, and possibly never will be again, but they're in the business of making money, not being poster boys.
(*) As I was typing this, I realised that mentally, I still associated the "Yahoo" logo with 256-colour dithered GIFs and the like, which emphasises the "stuck in the late-90s" image. And for those much younger (i.e. not old enough to remember the late-90s much if at all), does the Yahoo brand mean *anything*?
I myself am not a fan lotus.
Never played 1, and 3 was a disappointment, but Lotus 2 f*****g ruled!
Could be compatible with games for the xbox 1... I mean original xbox... Ugh. This is going to be a problem isn't it?
Though I doubt it's likely to be a major problem in the long term, I do agree that it's a somewhat strange and confusing name, especially as the "PSOne" was a cost-reduced version of the original PlayStation.
When I scanned the headline, I briefly wondered whether this "XBox One" referred to a cost-reduced version of the existing console rather than the new model (though if I'd thought about it I'd have remembered that the current "XBox" isn't the first generation anyway, and MS aren't remotely likely to release a new version of the original XBox, no matter how cheap).
Anyhow, Nintendo managed- by disregarding the issue and not changing it- to get people to forget how laughable a name "Wii" was, and still is when you think about it. So people will get used to this...
(Final line) Why? See the start of this paragraph.
That's what I get for over-editing; this was originally part of the paragraph that started:-
Of course, the West knows this, but likes to pretend otherwise, because there's the inconvenient fact that they have lots of oil which we want.
(For those who didn't want to read the linked article, the tl;dr version is that Wahhabism is the Saudi-founded brand of Islam that Al-Qaeda et al espouse; if you've ever heard the term "Islamo-fascism", Wahhabism is the interpretation of Islam it's most likely referring to).
In other words, the Saudi regime is in the position of having to be blatantly two-faced about this; claiming to be cracking down on terrorism to their Western allies, while at the same time being one of the largest supporters of it.
Of course, the West knows this, but likes to pretend otherwise, because there's the inconvenient fact that they have lots of oil which we want. Regarding Western attitudes towards extremist Islamic terrorism, Saudi Arabia isn't merely the elephant in the room in the sense that it's a major factor- as the home and the heart of Wahhabism, it's arguably *the* central factor. Modern Saudi Arabia was *founded* on an agreement between Ibn Abd-al-Wahhab (the founder of Wahhabism) and the house of Saud to spread his teachings while the latter retained power. From Wikipedia:-
Upon arriving in Diriyya, a pact was made between Ibn Saud and Ibn Abd-al-Wahhab, by which Ibn Saud pledged to implement and enforce Ibn Abd-al-Wahhab's teachings, while Ibn Saud and his family would remain the temporal "leaders" of the movement.
Many of the alleged grievances of terrorists supporting Wahhabist organisations such as Al-Qaeda revolve around the supposed US "occupation" of Saudi Arabia. Yet, despite all this, you'll rarely hear Western politicians attack the Saudi regime for their covert tolerance of extremist elements. Why? See the start of this paragraph.
"Icahn has Dell?"
Electrical stimulus exercises isn't the same as an animal running through a field.
To solve that they'll arrange for the meat to be grown around a metal endoskeleton that stimulates the "muscles" and is then programmed to run around a field.
This bovine cyborg will be known as Robocow, and will last until one goes mad and tries to assasinate Sarah Connor.
After trapping it in a Burger King and "flame grilling" it to death, our heroes will rest... while, in the background, out of the flames steps the metallic endoskeleton and starts chasing after them again. Though eventually it gets bored of that and starts chewing grass instead.
Facebook updates in real life. [youtube.com]
It's not just a good satire of Facebook. They also got their finger on the irritating tone of present-day consumer-oriented advertising and communications- the faux-chummy, informal, first-names social-media-era style of a corporation pretending to be our best friend. The "Facebook" guy in the video is this personified.
This post isn't specifically about Facebook, though. It's about a far more general trend that's become common in the past decade or so, and particularly the past five years.
The video even got the now-cliched "chummy" guitar and whistling music in the background down pat. An integral part of setting the tone, it now no longer evokes the whimsical, innocent, non-threatening, honest, informal, friendly feel that it's intended to, but has become tainted by association as being manipulative and overused and just as corporate, irritating, phoney and dishonest as previous advertising cliches- ironically, the very associations it was originally meant to dispel. (Well, at least in my opinon- they wouldn't still be using it if everyone thought that).
Ever notice the wording on dialogue boxes that pop up for (e.g.) updating Adobe Flash? You can select "Update Now" or "Remind Me Later". Google do this as well. Lots of companies do it. You're given two responses, often phrased in an informal, friendly manner- but you are *not* given the one that says "No, Thank You". You're put in the position of "replying" to the question in the same faux-friendly manner, and on the terms that suit *them*- it helps them gloss over the fact they're railroading you into the pretence of making a particular "choice", when the real choice most people would make isn't there.
And, make no bones about it, this isn't an oversight- the choice isn't there because it doesn't suit them. Google (for example) are ever more passive-aggressively pushing people into using their "real" identities, bit-by-bit. At present, they still allow some leeway, but present the user with a weaselish, pre-approved list of "reasons" for not changing their name that don't include "because I like to remain anonymous" or anything similar. You're clearly- but implicitly rather than explicitly- made to think about things from the point of view that *they* would like you to. The implication is that those are the only valid reasons for not wanting to surrender more of your privacy to Google, and there's no reason for them to even nudge people in the direction of considering privacy as a legitimate concern if they haven't already started doing so.
Just like "Facebook's" false aimiability in the video phrases itself in terms of "helping" and "improving" the end-user's experience, whether that's the case or not, and without giving them a say in the matter.
In general, this is- as always- just the latest trend in manipulating people, but grates particularly because they're trying to use down-to-earth, informal, would-be-friendliness to do it.
Weasels.
hunter2
You can go hunter2 my hunter2-ing hunter2
If memory serves, the STASI eventually had about 1/3 of the population involved in informing on someone or something and never came close to be able to analyze all the data they got.
To be blunt, the inclusion of modern computer processing into the equation has totally altered the issue beyond recognition, to the point that the above comment is irrelevant.
Computer processing power has increased exponentially even since East Germany ceased to exist in 1990, making the automatic collection and storage of vast amounts of data- even by the Stasi's standards- possible... but far more importantly, making the automated mining and extraction of useful (for the government) information not just possible but relatively easy.
I'm quite certain that the one that should be fried is the person writing the specs.
I know the system is crap, but that's a bit draconian... :-)
Anyway, in all seriousness, this story is (intentionally) trying to make a mountain out of a molehill, as it relates to a small (and obsolescent) number of benefits and the fact that an old system hasn't been properly updated for the better part of a decade.
Yes, it's utterly shite that the systems were written to be so specific to IE6 (and earlier versions') foibles that they don't even work with the half-decent later versions of IE, let alone any other browsers. Obviously if they hadn't been so short-sighted, they'd still be running (if somewhat dated looking) on modern browsers.
And yes, it sucks if you're one of the people still wanting to claim those benefits.
But it's a story about ancient software designed when IE-specific sites were still (unfortunately) the norm and a system that hasn't been updated for the few people still requiring it. I have to admit I thought at first that this was something about the JobCentre's system to track users' jobseeking using cookies only working on XP/IE6 or older, but it's nothing like that.
It's a fair story, but not the geek outrage article it's presented as.
The "law" [wikipedia.org] states that "Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no." There was a headline. It ended with a question mark. The answer is no. What part of that do you not understand?
Thank you for the selective smartass pedantry. As your quotes imply, this is not a self-encapsulated "law", but an observation you've isolated from its original- and intended- context.
In the same WP article you link to, Betteridge is quoted saying "The reason why journalists use that style of headline is that they know the story is probably bollocks, and don’t actually have the sources and facts to back it up, but still want to run it."
This doesn't have much to say about genuine question headlines... because it's not about that.
In the original article itself, Betteridge states that
[The headline "Did Last.fm Just Hand Over User Listening Data To the RIAA?" is] Daily Mail-style journalism, posing a statement as just “asking questions”.
It's quite clear what the intent and spirit of Betteridge's "Law" was.
If you want to bleat the literal wording of Betteridge's law in isolation while missing its clear spirit and intent (and whole raison d'etre) because you don't actually get what it's about and simply want to appear clever by kneejerk invocation of this year's off-the-shelf Slashdot cliche- which misses the entire point of that cliche!- then defend your ignorance with shallow pedantry, though, be my guest.
No.
Bzzt! Sorry, you lose; that's not what Betteridge is about.
The headline here *is* an actual, legitimate question (whether sensible or not) and not just an excuse to weasel through a poorly-supported assertion in the guise of a fake "question".
The household survey on which unemployment figures are based has nothing whatsoever to do with benefit claims.
Huh? I was making a generalised, *hypothetical* example of how politicians (in general) could- and have in the past- manipulated a particular statistic while the underlying "maths" is still correct. I gave no indication of referring to a specific case, because I wasn't.
I said nothing about "benefit claims", and I've no idea which "household survey" you think I'm referring to. I don't even know which *country* this alleged survey is meant to relate to, though I'd guess (possibly) the US, since that's often the assumed default. At any rate, I don't live there, so I'm probably not even aware of whatever polarising domestic hot-button issue you seem to think I'm talking about, let alone taking sides on it.
Please stop.
Please stop jumping to conclusions- and put that bee back in your bonnet while you're at it.
Replace all corrupted clowns chosen by rigged popularity contests with math. Math can be trusted.
Lies, damned lies, and statistics.
I talk about open data, not manipulated results of undisclosed calculations.
The parent poster said exactly what I was going to.
If you think that the famous comment "lies, damned lies and statistics" refers only to concealed and rigged calculations, then you're wrong.
But back to what you said originally; your "math can be trusted" comment struck me as blinkered idealism meets dangerously inexperienced naivity. It's quite possible (and common) to use and abuse publicly-available data- via technically-correct use of statistics- to argue many different cases. Unemployment has gone down? Yes, because the definition of "unemployed" has been changed, and people (say) choosing to accept another benefit are no longer counted as unemployed. Or maybe lots of people have part time jobs for five hours a week, but they're not "unemployed".
Maths is perfect, in itself? Yes, we know that. It doesn't solve all the problems if you're proposing running the real world that way. Opinion is not mathematical. How exactly do you propose to correlate and translate people's opinions into a mathematical system? That in itself is subject to interpretation of some sort, whether via manual means or automatic.
Wolfram's system might be useful and insightful, but how do you translate that into democratic representation? And politicians- or their equivalents- will find a way to manipulate people's perceived or stated opinions if it suits them. And they'll find a way to manipulate the opinion-based system.
Maybe it's realised that by convincing a small number of people to feel very strongly about something, or talk about it more, that their opinion carries more weight. Let's radicalise some people and/or foster extremist opinion and behaviour to achieve our ends.
So, the current opinion-translated-into-pseudo-maths system is being manipulated and needs changed? Who decides if it's to be changed? The people? Ah... the measure of the people's opinion says that they don't want the system changed. Of course, that "measure" is via the current, manipulable system, so it supports itself. Unfortunately.
Democracy and voting are- to some extent- already attempts to translate opinion into a solid mathematical representation. The vote is- essentially- a translation of an opinion into a mathematical entity. Of course, it's not perfect, but at least the person making it gets to decide how their opinion translates.
Your system- abandoning voting for more "direct" means- would actually be less direct, because it would be imposing someone else's chosen interpretation of that person's opinion. Well, I say "your system", but actually, you didn't propose a system at all beyond using mathematics. Which we're doing anyway; the hard bit is choosing the most appropriate mathematical system to represent people as a whole, and translating people's opinions into input for that system.
EA has basically sucked ass ever since their first day in business.
That's odd. Almost everyone who actually *knows* anything about EA's early years (i.e. from the early 1980s to around the early 1990s) would say that they were generally held in pretty high regard back then.
So would you care to clarify your position, or am I correct in assuming you don't know what you're talking about and just made a half-baked kneejerk post?
He's been posting these emails in almost every thread for the last few days. He's the "my fast pc" spammer for some unknown Linux website. If you check his Contact page [linuxadvocates.com] you'll see I am not him as he doesn't like his email address displayed in a scrape-able way
Are you really that dim? I already linked "joe job" and you still managed to miss the entire point.
Let me explain it in *very* *simple* *words*. The person that posted the original "spam" above is probably *not* "Dieter T. Schmitz" as they claim, but someone else who is (a) trying to make him look bad (b) trolling, and/or (c) stirring up trouble by pretending to post spam under his identity.
Your logic is circular- you're already assuming that "he" posted the original comment, when in fact "he" probably didn't and "he" isn't the same person.
Good grief...
He's the "my fast pc" spammer for some unknown Linux website.
This *does* explain a lot... about you. If you're one of the idiots that genuinely believed the "My Clean PC" comments were spam- even long after anyone with half a brain could see it was being kept going by trolls- then you're even more gullible and blinkered than I thought you were.
Anyway, I only posted my original comment as a heads up to those so lacking in common sense that they might have planned on harassing the alleged "spammer".
I normally mod down both trolls *and* the people stupid enough- or with too little self-control- to be lured into replying to them.
However, given that at least three ****wits have already modded you "informative" for this post, I feel obliged to point out that the original comment is more than likely a Joe job (as well as a troll), and pretty obvious one.
Matter of fact, I wouldn't discount the possibility that "your" comment was made by the same person as the original, but the fact it was modded up shows that at least some people believe otherwise.
Seriously, I can't believe that there are Slashdotters stupid enough to take this crap at face value.
How is at-work entertainment a fad? At Netscape, we had foosball, ping-pong, pool, and arcade machines. It builds camaraderie and is a great way to blow off some stress when you need to clear your mind for ten minutes.
Go back and read what I said. I didn't say "at work" entertainment was a fad.
:-)
It was *specifically* (and clearly) a criticism of the overuse of foosball as the lazy man/company's superficial choice of showing what a "fun" place they were to work at (i.e. it wasn't even really a criticism of foosball in itself).
It's become a cliche since the dotcom era (which, I assume, is the time you worked at Netscape.) Yeah, we get it- the fortysomething guy in charge wanted to make this a "cooler" place to work, so he got his secretary to buy a foosball machine and paint the walls in bright, funky (*) colours. Bingo, we're cool- end of story. Also, I hear that "Friends" is popular with young people!
Is foosball really *that* blooming great?!
(*) To paraphrase Alexei Sayle, anyone who uses the word "funky" that isn't in the music industry is a right ****!
What is it with computer crime that gets any police force involved to wildly exaggerate everything to do with it. From the skills of the accused, the claimed crimes committed, the damage caused, the global impact or the justification for promotions. The bullshit desire for massive headlines only to have it all deflate as the internet picks over the story as the slowly collapsing prosecution proceeds to a rather minor event.
Because this is a standard example of geeks forgetting that they're not typical. A proportionately small number of geeks watch the story "all deflate as the internet picks over the story as the slowly collapsing prosecution proceeds to a rather minor event".
The great unwashed masses just saw (and remember) the initial headlines, and have moved on to the next oversold story, rather than following the increasingly mundane details of the true story behind the original headlines. After all, "previously hyped computer crime turns out to be mundane" isn't as good a headline as the next exaggerated crime.
Whats his position on Foosball ? No Foosball, no work, seriously.
1999 called, they want their overused dotcom-era fads back. (*) Seriously, at this point, a foosball table is probably a negative sign, the cliched, almost obligatory easy-choice symbol a company would choose if they wanted to make themselves appear a (superficially) fun and exciting place to gullible young programmers.
:-P
(*) Then again, the 1990s probably want their "[year] called, they want their [subject] back" cliche back, but they're not getting it
In theory it should also be doing some kind of negotiation before pushing power, such as ensuring that it has a connection to something that speaks USB on the other end (as opposed to, say, your finger, which doesn't)
Speak for yourself... I'm so smart, my finger *does* speak USB. :-P
The point isn't that the BTC isn't stable with respect to dollars, it's that it isn't stable with respect to purchasing power.
Yes, I agree that the US Dollar is more stable. However, that's not what he actually said, and not the point I was arguing.
What he actually said was "The basic reason: [Bitcoin] has no fixed value". This is true, of course, but by implication he's saying that the thing it's being compared against- i.e. the US Dollar- *is* fixed (else why bother making the point?)... which isn't the case.
More stable? Undeniably. But it's certainly *not* "fixed" against anything else, and even its buying power in real terms falls significantly over the long haul.
Bollocks. Bitcoins are incredibly unstable compared to any major currency.
I didn't say that they weren't.
When the price of Bitcoins is doubling and halving in a day, you could try to claim that Bitcoins are fine
Someone could *try* to claim that. I certainly didn't.
and the problem is that the USD is halving and doubling in value, but the fact that no businesses are changing their USD prices makes it hard to sustain this.
Well, yeah. The US dollar *is* more obviously a stable measure of exchange... that'd be why I said "Granted, in the real world the dollar is almost certainly a better measure of "absolute" value than the Bitcoin is at present."
Evidently you were unable to understand the point that was being made. It wasn't that the dollar isn't more stable than Bitcoin by any reasonable measure- of course it is (hence the quote in bold above).
It was that it's still not fixed in terms of value- and that by criticising Bitcoin for not being "fixed", he's implying a fundamental difference from the US dollar. Which, obviously, isn't the case- the US dollar is more stable, but it's still not "fixed" to any absolute meaningful value. Except itself, of course- but one could use the same argument in favour of Bitcoin (in principle, at least).