Several vendors, who I will kindly not name (you know who you are), have a nasty habit of using secret questions that are based around the concept of one's "favorite" things. It never occurs to them that one's preferences and favorites might actually change over time! What happens to the usefulness of such questions when what you favor has changed a year after you originally chose the question and its answer? Then it becomes a headache of trying to recall your past state of mind, similar to trying to recall former e-mail addresses used to set up online accounts.
At the very least, if vendors feel a need to rely upon such secret questions as a security tool, the questions chosen should be OBJECTIVE and not dependent upon a person's emotions or state of mind. State of mind is malleable.
The Martian surface isn't much more hospitable than the Moon, with respect to radiation. Its atmosphere is of no consequence, but it's really the absence of a magnetosphere that matters. Earth's magnetosphere is really what holds the life-blood of this planet in place, INCLUDING the atmosphere... without it, the solar wind would long ago have stripped our atmosphere away, just as happened to Mars. (That, BTW, is why it's so funny when people muse about terraforming Mars and recreating an atmosphere, because any such effort would have to start with the creation of a magnetosphere like Earth's, which we have no chance in Hell of doing.)
This planet's magnetosphere - those pretty shimmers in the night sky - is really the ONE thing that made life (in the forms it's taken) possible here.
future interplanetary travelers may one day need to grow crops to withstand space radiation."
This may be needed planet-side on occasion, as well, since not all planetary bodies we might consider as a home have the same aggressive magnetosphere that our own homeworld does: Mars has no better than a patchwork magnetosphere, and what of our own Moon? If we expect to grow plants in "biodomes" for food and use natural sunlight for photosynthesis, then those plants may have to be adapted to accepting something closer to the full brunt of that radiation than they have to endure on the face of this rather well-shielded marble.
I've been referring to ASCAP in the same breath as the RIAA, MPAA, and IFPI for some time now. I hadn't actually heard of any specific misbehavior on its part, but it was inevitable that it would emulate its siblings and try to expand the reach of its extortion. Now I have a specific instance I can quote finally.
The very notion of a gender-specific computer sales Web site in this era - regardless of the specifics how it was implemented - is pig-headed and doomed to failure on the face of it. Apple is no doubt breathing a sigh of relief that they now get to learn from Dell's mistake rather than making it first themselves.
It just goes to show you: there's still a wealth of zombie-like stupid ideas that haven't yet been buried deep enough to keep them buried.
This is the sort of wanton pointless destruction that I cannot comprehend. For a person motivated to inflict this sort of tangible destruction with not even a tangible reward for doing so, I would strongly recommend the death penalty, or at least forced sterilization. Whatever it is that is damaged in such a person, we don't need that Destruction Gene being carried forward. Teen vandalism has always frankly mystified me, too, the sort involving destruction of things with no reward other than the act itself. Hitler actually had a good idea promoting eugenics, but he had the (seriously) wrong focus. People that feel this need to destroy need to BE destroyed.
I'm frankly more curious about how many farms are operated by Archer Daniel Midlands and Cargill. I'd like to know where my food is coming from and how it's being managed. It's the farms serving my food that interest me more.
I know I heard of it before I moved where I live now, and that would place it more than three years ago. I don't think I heard it from Slashdot the first time around. The source might have been my uncle (well-connected aerospace engineer, worked @ China Lake, Lockheed, JPL).
Plenty of people anticipated this, but nobody has given a shit enough about it to do anything substantial. I was first hearing warnings about this years ago. As a programmer, I anticipated the Millenium Bug almost 20 years beforehand, and refused to take those shortcuts that everyone else thought were wise. Back on the GPS Ranch, meanwhile, the EU is busy putting its own superior system in place, in part because they don't want to be dependent upon our system, esp. if and when we fuck up and fail to keep it operational.
Don't forget that these extra circuits and sensors will use power themselves, so the savings will be a bit less than you might hope. Also don't forget that this new bling will drive up the cost of NYM (Next Year's Model), so you'll be saving some money in one bookkeeping column by spending it in another....
No counter-arguments here, not even vis-a-vis Obama. He ain't no messiah, and he's not really even a reformer. He's a MEDIATOR, a true politician's politician. He'll dissemble and twist and manipulate just like Bush, though we may not catch him red-handed at it quite so often.
Well, I didn't sob tears when Princess Diana died, and I thought it was weird that so many people who never even met the woman could wail buckets. I definitely get angry when I observe injustices, but then I've been training myself for decades to override my limbic impulses. Good ethics are only possible when the demands of the limbic system are ignored; there is other research that has demonstrated that removing emotional input from the decision-making process, by damaging or removing the VMPC region, leads to more consistently correct ethical decisions when the situation has highly emotional ("think of the children!") conundrums.
I read about that research and claims, but I'm not ready to concede they are factual.
I used to have fridge duty when I worked at Quarterdeck, and one of my coworkers with an artistic flair and a wicked sense of humor sketched this cartoon of me:
Slashdot Mirror
You're wearing one already. It's so high-res and light that you forgot you put it on while you were buzzed outta yer mind last Friday night....
... for my mobile porn data center.
Several vendors, who I will kindly not name (you know who you are), have a nasty habit of using secret questions that are based around the concept of one's "favorite" things. It never occurs to them that one's preferences and favorites might actually change over time! What happens to the usefulness of such questions when what you favor has changed a year after you originally chose the question and its answer? Then it becomes a headache of trying to recall your past state of mind, similar to trying to recall former e-mail addresses used to set up online accounts.
At the very least, if vendors feel a need to rely upon such secret questions as a security tool, the questions chosen should be OBJECTIVE and not dependent upon a person's emotions or state of mind. State of mind is malleable.
That's your job! I'm just sowing seeds of wisdom (or FUD). I'm not your instructor nor are you my editor, dude. ;-)
... that meteorological ship will have already sailed....
From TOFA:
Exactly how many are there?
The Martian surface isn't much more hospitable than the Moon, with respect to radiation. Its atmosphere is of no consequence, but it's really the absence of a magnetosphere that matters. Earth's magnetosphere is really what holds the life-blood of this planet in place, INCLUDING the atmosphere... without it, the solar wind would long ago have stripped our atmosphere away, just as happened to Mars. (That, BTW, is why it's so funny when people muse about terraforming Mars and recreating an atmosphere, because any such effort would have to start with the creation of a magnetosphere like Earth's, which we have no chance in Hell of doing.)
This planet's magnetosphere - those pretty shimmers in the night sky - is really the ONE thing that made life (in the forms it's taken) possible here.
This may be needed planet-side on occasion, as well, since not all planetary bodies we might consider as a home have the same aggressive magnetosphere that our own homeworld does: Mars has no better than a patchwork magnetosphere, and what of our own Moon? If we expect to grow plants in "biodomes" for food and use natural sunlight for photosynthesis, then those plants may have to be adapted to accepting something closer to the full brunt of that radiation than they have to endure on the face of this rather well-shielded marble.
I'm confused!
I've been referring to ASCAP in the same breath as the RIAA, MPAA, and IFPI for some time now. I hadn't actually heard of any specific misbehavior on its part, but it was inevitable that it would emulate its siblings and try to expand the reach of its extortion. Now I have a specific instance I can quote finally.
The very notion of a gender-specific computer sales Web site in this era - regardless of the specifics how it was implemented - is pig-headed and doomed to failure on the face of it. Apple is no doubt breathing a sigh of relief that they now get to learn from Dell's mistake rather than making it first themselves.
It just goes to show you: there's still a wealth of zombie-like stupid ideas that haven't yet been buried deep enough to keep them buried.
This is the sort of wanton pointless destruction that I cannot comprehend. For a person motivated to inflict this sort of tangible destruction with not even a tangible reward for doing so, I would strongly recommend the death penalty, or at least forced sterilization. Whatever it is that is damaged in such a person, we don't need that Destruction Gene being carried forward. Teen vandalism has always frankly mystified me, too, the sort involving destruction of things with no reward other than the act itself. Hitler actually had a good idea promoting eugenics, but he had the (seriously) wrong focus. People that feel this need to destroy need to BE destroyed.
I'm frankly more curious about how many farms are operated by Archer Daniel Midlands and Cargill. I'd like to know where my food is coming from and how it's being managed. It's the farms serving my food that interest me more.
I know I heard of it before I moved where I live now, and that would place it more than three years ago. I don't think I heard it from Slashdot the first time around. The source might have been my uncle (well-connected aerospace engineer, worked @ China Lake, Lockheed, JPL).
Plenty of people anticipated this, but nobody has given a shit enough about it to do anything substantial. I was first hearing warnings about this years ago. As a programmer, I anticipated the Millenium Bug almost 20 years beforehand, and refused to take those shortcuts that everyone else thought were wise. Back on the GPS Ranch, meanwhile, the EU is busy putting its own superior system in place, in part because they don't want to be dependent upon our system, esp. if and when we fuck up and fail to keep it operational.
Just one more reason to move to Europe.
... go talk to Cory Doctorow.
Don't forget that these extra circuits and sensors will use power themselves, so the savings will be a bit less than you might hope. Also don't forget that this new bling will drive up the cost of NYM (Next Year's Model), so you'll be saving some money in one bookkeeping column by spending it in another....
... using a mood ring to control the CPU? The hippies will love it!
No counter-arguments here, not even vis-a-vis Obama. He ain't no messiah, and he's not really even a reformer. He's a MEDIATOR, a true politician's politician. He'll dissemble and twist and manipulate just like Bush, though we may not catch him red-handed at it quite so often.
Agreed! Isn't that the whole point of artificial intelligence, that it should also be independent? Well, with the exception of groupthink, anyway?
Well, I didn't sob tears when Princess Diana died, and I thought it was weird that so many people who never even met the woman could wail buckets. I definitely get angry when I observe injustices, but then I've been training myself for decades to override my limbic impulses. Good ethics are only possible when the demands of the limbic system are ignored; there is other research that has demonstrated that removing emotional input from the decision-making process, by damaging or removing the VMPC region, leads to more consistently correct ethical decisions when the situation has highly emotional ("think of the children!") conundrums.
I read about that research and claims, but I'm not ready to concede they are factual.
Not TODAY, at least. It'll mean different when I'm sober tomorrow.
... drinking the corporate Kool-Aid. It's institutionalized groupthink.
Just say no to that shit, and yes to freethought, honesty, and full disclosure.
Without the Scientologist actor in tow, of course.
I used to have fridge duty when I worked at Quarterdeck, and one of my coworkers with an artistic flair and a wicked sense of humor sketched this cartoon of me:
http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll264/VulcanTourist/OKCupid/HastaLaPizzaBaby.jpg