That's a good point - but what wasn't mentioned in the TFS was that the cost of the ads (as mentioned in the Wired blog) goes up to almost $2000. How many people are going to pay that kind of money to get this ad on the air? And that was for a spot on CNN (between 6PM and midnight - how much you want to be it gets shown closer to midnight?), not during American Idle* or some other popular show - which would probably cost much more, as well as being much more effective.
Maybe they could go both routes - have a link to "go here to get the ad played yourself" and a link to "go here to contribute to our fund to play the ad during popular primetime shows"?
* - No, I didn't misspell it. I meant it that way.
The link is to a Wired blog. The direct link is http://getfisaright.net/promote. And they're not asking for donations of $6, they're asking people to pay to run the ad - which might be $6, or could be a lot more, depending on the market and time of day. I think it would be a lot more efficient if they set up a fund to accept donations and ran the campaign from there.
Apparently they know how to get FISA right, but not how to get their advertising campaign right.
No no no. First they are going to filibuster it. Then, when the filibuster fails to stop it from passing, they are going to put it on trial. (The submitter is dyslexic, you see, that's why the order is backwards.) I haven't actually read the text of the bill, but I'm not sure how they've worded it so that it won't be considered an ex post facto bill, but hopefully they haven't done a good enough job and it will be struck down as unconstitutional.
I can see your point, but I don't agree 100%, and here's why: Contactless payment piracy and counterfeiting have the same differences as P2P filesharing piracy and physical media piracy - in the contactless and P2P, you get set up once and can pirate as many individual items as you can get your hands on; while in counterfeiting and physical media piracy, you still have to acquire supplies (blanks) to make your end product.
No, you've got that backwards. The 1's, being skinny, can make it through the narrow spots where the cable is kinked, but the 0's, being fatter, can't. And this is why you should always strive to maintain straight cable runs for digital signals.
You can run multi-threaded processes without having a multi-core CPU, but it's only efficient for processes that do a lot of waiting for I/O to complete. I remember a Usenet binaries downloading program called Newsbin that could be configured to run, I think, eight thread simultaneously. You're right about multi-core allowing multi-threaded processes that need lots of number crunching, though.
Yes. They could combine social networking and MMS, allowing people to send movies that auto-play to your mobile phone. I'm sure there are geniuses out there that will come up with something even more annoying than my suggestion, though.
See? Never say "How could this be any worse?" because, inevitably, you WILL find out.
Do you really think that people who are too ignorant to change the SSID of their router are going to think to go look at the logs to see if anyone else has been using it? As long as you don't do anything illegal that results in their computer equipment getting seized by the police, chances of them noticing are incredibly slim - unless you hang around outside to do some surfing, which is not what the original poster was talking about. I seem to recall one of the cases that you couldn't be bothered to Google was based on someone seen sitting in a car with no apparent reason to be in that location. But if you've got a portable device that's just receiving e-mail as you travel past - well, it's like speeding: It may be illegal, but your chance of getting in trouble for it are very low.
My point about having a standard was: You can call it a Linux distribution whether or not you follow the Linux Standards Base, so long as you use the Linux kernel. Until there is a REQUIREMENT to follow the LSB in order to use the name Linux, it will always be confusing to new users, and the confusion will drive many of the would-be Linux users back to Windows.
Oh, and as for Windows crashing while running games using the latest drivers: Sometimes the latest drivers are crap. As an example, the latest XP drivers for my mom's HP PhotoSmart printer won't even install on her computer - but the drivers on the CD included with the printer still work just fine.
Yes, there are many cases where some flavor of Linux is as good (or better) than Windows - I will not deny this - but there are also cases where Windows comes out on top, and there are only a few cases where there is a compelling reason to switch to Linux.
"Yes, but other than being useful, usable, reliable, extensible, free, and unencumbered, what does Linux have going for it?" - Hamilcar Barca
Linux is useful: To most users, no more so than a computer with any other operating system installed; and often less so because the programs that they rely on to get their daily work done are not available. Linux is usable: Did you read the part of the article where searching for a directory is mentioned? There are a large number of things that could be done to increase the usability of Linux - but these are not tasks which programmers find "interesting", so they don't get done. Linux is reliable: No operating system can be any more reliable than the hardware it runs on. Linux will crash just as often as Windows on shitty hardware; Windows can have multi-week uptimes on quality hardware. And let's face it: Most people buy cheap computers, which implies shitty hardware. (I know there are Linux systems with uptimes of months, even years. Only nerds care. Most people turn their computers off when not using them.) What is not reliable on Linux, but is on Windows, is how to configure things - different distributions (which are being developed concurrently) have different configuration systems; Windows only has one configuration system and effectively only one system in development at any time. Linux is extensible: Every operating system is extensible - that's what computer programs do, they extend the capabilities of your computer by giving it new sets of instructions. And if you think Windows is not extensible, check out a program called Oscar's Multi-Monitor Taskbar - it beats the hell out of x2x. Linux is free: No argument there. But it's not worth paying for, either. Linux is unencumbered: Sure - but given all of the above, who cares?
What Linux needs is NOT a "killer app". What it needs is a standard that is required to use "Linux" or "Linux compatible" on a product, so that every app and distribution have configuration options in the same place, cut/copy/paste works everywhere, and installing a new app never EVER requires compiling.
HDTVs may be selling more than SDTVs, but there's a lot of SDTVs out there. Until there's a significant percentage of HDTVs in people's homes, DVDs will be fine for most TVs and DVDs will have a much higher marketshare than any HD format.
I think the "official" versions count from the first version of Windows NT (which was 3 point something because the marketroids pointed out that people would think "Windows NT 1.0" was less advanced than "Windows 3.1"). So the list should be:
Windows 1 - 2 (when NT didn't exist) Windows NT 3.x (3) Windows NT 4.0 (4) Windows XP (5) Windows Vista (6) Windows 7
In which case, Windows 7 would be the correct designation. Of course, Microsoft will come up with a name for it instead of leaving it as a version number. Maybe "Windows Altavista"? "Alta" means "high", and "vista" means "view"; and just about any other operating system could be considered better than, or above, Windows Vista, right?
If that's what you paid for your TV/Blu-Ray combo, you were overcharged for your television. By just slightly more than the production cost of a Blu-Ray player, I'd say.
The idea that having a better ID will prevent any type of crime is ridiculous. You mentioned check fraud - doing so under this system would require the government to give access to Real ID data to private parties, and those private parties to develop methods to use that data. Do you really think that your local grocery store is going to invest in color displays so that their checkout clerks can compare the photo on file to the photo on the ID card to the face in front of them, or compare the address listed on your checks to the one listed in the other two places? Do you think they want to invest the money that that will take to develop these systems when three quarters of the time, the minimum wage clerks won't actually bother with looking at ANY of it? The same argument applies to using fake IDs to commit any kind of fraud where the entity being defrauded is a private party. I don't know the numbers, but I doubt most of the fraud against the government is of a variety where a fake ID is useful - tax fraud and welfare fraud both involve cooked numbers and underreporting by the people on one or both sides of a transaction.
Possibly there is a small benefit to law enforcement, because the national database could include some fields for "there is a warrant for this person's arrest in the following states..." However, that is a very small benefit for a very big amount of money - and it could be done much more simply and cheaply simply by mandating an interconnection protocol between all the state databases.
No. But there is a major economic difference: If a car stereo costs $200 at retail, chances are that divides up as something like $125 for parts and assembly cost, $25 transportation costs, and $50 profit divided among manufacturer, middle-men, and retail outlet. For a digital download, "parts and assembly" costs (payment for studio time, session musicians, etc.) are a few thousand dollars ONCE, then never needs to be paid again, transport is dirt-cheap (on the order of pennies per track, even lower in volume), and once the initial costs are recouped, close to 100% of the consumer's cost is profit to the record company. (iTunes has a lower profit margin for the record companies as Apple gets a cut as well.) You will NEVER find that with a physical product.
And I would happily buy a car stereo (or GPS device) that retails new for $200 for $50 at a pawn shop - assuming that I'm fairly certain the owner of the pawn shop was not knowingly in receipt of stolen goods.
my boss has a dell running with a high-end intel core 2 duo (3ghz, i believe), 4gb ram, and ati x1k. it is a Ferrari among computers, and vista makes it run like an overloaded Yugo making it's way up San Francisco's Lombard Street.
There are 19 Representatives listed as "Not Voting" on the thomas.loc.gov. They also break it down by individual representatives, so you can find out if your representative voted yea or nay. Just search for "impeach Cheney" - the one you want will be the second result.
That "free phone" IS NOT free. It doesn't come with a new plan, they give you a rebate if you sign a new contract. You know, a legal document that says you agree to pay them a certain amount of money every month for two years, and spells out how much money you owe them if you decide to terminate the service before then? That "early termination fee" is there because phones aren't free.
Stop salivating over the fact that "zOMG they'll give me a phone for NOTHING!" and read the goddamn fine print. Remember: The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away.
The code's available on slashcode.com, so implement away. (Of course, there's no guarantee that it will ever be merged back into the Slash codebase, but you can at least try. Which brings to me to my second point...)
Alternatively, you could probably create a Greasemonkey script to do that (assuming someone hasn't already). If I was aware of such a thing, it would probably prompt me to actually install Greasemonkey, something that I have so far avoided.
Actual transcript of a PC support call (from when I worked for a certain ISP well-known for sending out unsolicited copies of the software needed to connect to them):
Me: What version of Windows are you using? Customer: Dell.
I'm not denying the basic premise of either the first or second paragraph of your earlier post. I'm pointing out that the second paragraph was asking the wrong question. You dropped a man (one we all acknowledge as a genius) who was used to living in what we call "civilization" and dropped him in a roadless rain forest. It doesn't matter whether the person you drop into that jungle has an intelligence that is smarter than average, stupider than average, or exactly average in intelligence: If you are not trained to survive in that environment, you will not survive there. But the stupid people who are trained will just barely survive; the average people will survive and perhaps improve their situation a little; the geniuses will find better ways to do everything. Of course, a certain percentage of all of them will be eaten, or killed off by other hazards. And, to your point, I do suspect that a higher percentage of both the stupid and the geniuses will be killed off, though for different reasons. But a surplus of intelligence is not necessarily a problem in a low technology (or, in your example, a no-technology) environment. So I gave a counter-example: Someone of the same intelligence, but born into that environment - call him Jungle Einstein. Being raised in a way that makes him aware of the dangers, he has a much better chance of surviving them. Being intelligent, Jungle Einstinin will use his spare time and energy in improving the situation of himself and his family or clan.
I don't believe that excellence is universal, or that geniuses will be good at everything. And I do agree with everything in the second paragraph of the post I'm responding to now. I merely wished to point that Einstein's ability to think at a high level of abstractness was as much a product of an environment in which he could exercise that ability on the topic of physics as it was a product of a brain capable of it. Had he been a different situation, he would have concentrated on different problems.
Slashdot Mirror
That's a good point - but what wasn't mentioned in the TFS was that the cost of the ads (as mentioned in the Wired blog) goes up to almost $2000. How many people are going to pay that kind of money to get this ad on the air? And that was for a spot on CNN (between 6PM and midnight - how much you want to be it gets shown closer to midnight?), not during American Idle* or some other popular show - which would probably cost much more, as well as being much more effective.
Maybe they could go both routes - have a link to "go here to get the ad played yourself" and a link to "go here to contribute to our fund to play the ad during popular primetime shows"?
* - No, I didn't misspell it. I meant it that way.
I'm at work, where the site hosting the actual video is blocked. Otherwise I probably would have commented on that as well.
The link is to a Wired blog. The direct link is http://getfisaright.net/promote. And they're not asking for donations of $6, they're asking people to pay to run the ad - which might be $6, or could be a lot more, depending on the market and time of day. I think it would be a lot more efficient if they set up a fund to accept donations and ran the campaign from there.
Apparently they know how to get FISA right, but not how to get their advertising campaign right.
No no no. First they are going to filibuster it. Then, when the filibuster fails to stop it from passing, they are going to put it on trial. (The submitter is dyslexic, you see, that's why the order is backwards.) I haven't actually read the text of the bill, but I'm not sure how they've worded it so that it won't be considered an ex post facto bill, but hopefully they haven't done a good enough job and it will be struck down as unconstitutional.
I can see your point, but I don't agree 100%, and here's why: Contactless payment piracy and counterfeiting have the same differences as P2P filesharing piracy and physical media piracy - in the contactless and P2P, you get set up once and can pirate as many individual items as you can get your hands on; while in counterfeiting and physical media piracy, you still have to acquire supplies (blanks) to make your end product.
No, you've got that backwards. The 1's, being skinny, can make it through the narrow spots where the cable is kinked, but the 0's, being fatter, can't. And this is why you should always strive to maintain straight cable runs for digital signals.
You can run multi-threaded processes without having a multi-core CPU, but it's only efficient for processes that do a lot of waiting for I/O to complete. I remember a Usenet binaries downloading program called Newsbin that could be configured to run, I think, eight thread simultaneously. You're right about multi-core allowing multi-threaded processes that need lots of number crunching, though.
Yes. They could combine social networking and MMS, allowing people to send movies that auto-play to your mobile phone. I'm sure there are geniuses out there that will come up with something even more annoying than my suggestion, though.
See? Never say "How could this be any worse?" because, inevitably, you WILL find out.
Do you really think that people who are too ignorant to change the SSID of their router are going to think to go look at the logs to see if anyone else has been using it? As long as you don't do anything illegal that results in their computer equipment getting seized by the police, chances of them noticing are incredibly slim - unless you hang around outside to do some surfing, which is not what the original poster was talking about. I seem to recall one of the cases that you couldn't be bothered to Google was based on someone seen sitting in a car with no apparent reason to be in that location. But if you've got a portable device that's just receiving e-mail as you travel past - well, it's like speeding: It may be illegal, but your chance of getting in trouble for it are very low.
My point about having a standard was: You can call it a Linux distribution whether or not you follow the Linux Standards Base, so long as you use the Linux kernel. Until there is a REQUIREMENT to follow the LSB in order to use the name Linux, it will always be confusing to new users, and the confusion will drive many of the would-be Linux users back to Windows.
Oh, and as for Windows crashing while running games using the latest drivers: Sometimes the latest drivers are crap. As an example, the latest XP drivers for my mom's HP PhotoSmart printer won't even install on her computer - but the drivers on the CD included with the printer still work just fine.
Yes, there are many cases where some flavor of Linux is as good (or better) than Windows - I will not deny this - but there are also cases where Windows comes out on top, and there are only a few cases where there is a compelling reason to switch to Linux.
Linux is useful: To most users, no more so than a computer with any other operating system installed; and often less so because the programs that they rely on to get their daily work done are not available.
Linux is usable: Did you read the part of the article where searching for a directory is mentioned? There are a large number of things that could be done to increase the usability of Linux - but these are not tasks which programmers find "interesting", so they don't get done.
Linux is reliable: No operating system can be any more reliable than the hardware it runs on. Linux will crash just as often as Windows on shitty hardware; Windows can have multi-week uptimes on quality hardware. And let's face it: Most people buy cheap computers, which implies shitty hardware. (I know there are Linux systems with uptimes of months, even years. Only nerds care. Most people turn their computers off when not using them.) What is not reliable on Linux, but is on Windows, is how to configure things - different distributions (which are being developed concurrently) have different configuration systems; Windows only has one configuration system and effectively only one system in development at any time.
Linux is extensible: Every operating system is extensible - that's what computer programs do, they extend the capabilities of your computer by giving it new sets of instructions. And if you think Windows is not extensible, check out a program called Oscar's Multi-Monitor Taskbar - it beats the hell out of x2x.
Linux is free: No argument there. But it's not worth paying for, either.
Linux is unencumbered: Sure - but given all of the above, who cares?
What Linux needs is NOT a "killer app". What it needs is a standard that is required to use "Linux" or "Linux compatible" on a product, so that every app and distribution have configuration options in the same place, cut/copy/paste works everywhere, and installing a new app never EVER requires compiling.
HDTVs may be selling more than SDTVs, but there's a lot of SDTVs out there. Until there's a significant percentage of HDTVs in people's homes, DVDs will be fine for most TVs and DVDs will have a much higher marketshare than any HD format.
I think the "official" versions count from the first version of Windows NT (which was 3 point something because the marketroids pointed out that people would think "Windows NT 1.0" was less advanced than "Windows 3.1"). So the list should be:
Windows 1 - 2 (when NT didn't exist)
Windows NT 3.x (3)
Windows NT 4.0 (4)
Windows XP (5)
Windows Vista (6)
Windows 7
In which case, Windows 7 would be the correct designation. Of course, Microsoft will come up with a name for it instead of leaving it as a version number. Maybe "Windows Altavista"? "Alta" means "high", and "vista" means "view"; and just about any other operating system could be considered better than, or above, Windows Vista, right?
Nearly a decade later and that "petrified Natalie Portman with hot grits down her pants" meme is coming back? Wow. Everything old really is new again!
If that's what you paid for your TV/Blu-Ray combo, you were overcharged for your television. By just slightly more than the production cost of a Blu-Ray player, I'd say.
Zero. If I got any of that shit, I'd turn around and walk out without another word to that merchant.
The idea that having a better ID will prevent any type of crime is ridiculous. You mentioned check fraud - doing so under this system would require the government to give access to Real ID data to private parties, and those private parties to develop methods to use that data. Do you really think that your local grocery store is going to invest in color displays so that their checkout clerks can compare the photo on file to the photo on the ID card to the face in front of them, or compare the address listed on your checks to the one listed in the other two places? Do you think they want to invest the money that that will take to develop these systems when three quarters of the time, the minimum wage clerks won't actually bother with looking at ANY of it? The same argument applies to using fake IDs to commit any kind of fraud where the entity being defrauded is a private party. I don't know the numbers, but I doubt most of the fraud against the government is of a variety where a fake ID is useful - tax fraud and welfare fraud both involve cooked numbers and underreporting by the people on one or both sides of a transaction.
Possibly there is a small benefit to law enforcement, because the national database could include some fields for "there is a warrant for this person's arrest in the following states..." However, that is a very small benefit for a very big amount of money - and it could be done much more simply and cheaply simply by mandating an interconnection protocol between all the state databases.
No. But there is a major economic difference: If a car stereo costs $200 at retail, chances are that divides up as something like $125 for parts and assembly cost, $25 transportation costs, and $50 profit divided among manufacturer, middle-men, and retail outlet. For a digital download, "parts and assembly" costs (payment for studio time, session musicians, etc.) are a few thousand dollars ONCE, then never needs to be paid again, transport is dirt-cheap (on the order of pennies per track, even lower in volume), and once the initial costs are recouped, close to 100% of the consumer's cost is profit to the record company. (iTunes has a lower profit margin for the record companies as Apple gets a cut as well.) You will NEVER find that with a physical product.
And I would happily buy a car stereo (or GPS device) that retails new for $200 for $50 at a pawn shop - assuming that I'm fairly certain the owner of the pawn shop was not knowingly in receipt of stolen goods.
What you're suggesting is the right place to PUNCH. They should be cut right below the chin.
Let me translate for you:
my boss has a dell running with a high-end intel core 2 duo (3ghz, i believe), 4gb ram, and ati x1k. it is a Ferrari among computers, and vista makes it run like an overloaded Yugo making it's way up San Francisco's Lombard Street .
Does that clear it up for you?
There are 19 Representatives listed as "Not Voting" on the thomas.loc.gov. They also break it down by individual representatives, so you can find out if your representative voted yea or nay. Just search for "impeach Cheney" - the one you want will be the second result.
Ender
That "free phone" IS NOT free. It doesn't come with a new plan, they give you a rebate if you sign a new contract. You know, a legal document that says you agree to pay them a certain amount of money every month for two years, and spells out how much money you owe them if you decide to terminate the service before then? That "early termination fee" is there because phones aren't free.
Stop salivating over the fact that "zOMG they'll give me a phone for NOTHING!" and read the goddamn fine print. Remember: The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away.
The code's available on slashcode.com, so implement away. (Of course, there's no guarantee that it will ever be merged back into the Slash codebase, but you can at least try. Which brings to me to my second point...)
Alternatively, you could probably create a Greasemonkey script to do that (assuming someone hasn't already). If I was aware of such a thing, it would probably prompt me to actually install Greasemonkey, something that I have so far avoided.
--Ender
Actual transcript of a PC support call (from when I worked for a certain ISP well-known for sending out unsolicited copies of the software needed to connect to them):
Me: What version of Windows are you using?
Customer: Dell.
I'm not denying the basic premise of either the first or second paragraph of your earlier post. I'm pointing out that the second paragraph was asking the wrong question. You dropped a man (one we all acknowledge as a genius) who was used to living in what we call "civilization" and dropped him in a roadless rain forest. It doesn't matter whether the person you drop into that jungle has an intelligence that is smarter than average, stupider than average, or exactly average in intelligence: If you are not trained to survive in that environment, you will not survive there. But the stupid people who are trained will just barely survive; the average people will survive and perhaps improve their situation a little; the geniuses will find better ways to do everything. Of course, a certain percentage of all of them will be eaten, or killed off by other hazards. And, to your point, I do suspect that a higher percentage of both the stupid and the geniuses will be killed off, though for different reasons. But a surplus of intelligence is not necessarily a problem in a low technology (or, in your example, a no-technology) environment. So I gave a counter-example: Someone of the same intelligence, but born into that environment - call him Jungle Einstein. Being raised in a way that makes him aware of the dangers, he has a much better chance of surviving them. Being intelligent, Jungle Einstinin will use his spare time and energy in improving the situation of himself and his family or clan.
I don't believe that excellence is universal, or that geniuses will be good at everything. And I do agree with everything in the second paragraph of the post I'm responding to now. I merely wished to point that Einstein's ability to think at a high level of abstractness was as much a product of an environment in which he could exercise that ability on the topic of physics as it was a product of a brain capable of it. Had he been a different situation, he would have concentrated on different problems.
--Ender