>Stop watching TV and reading the newspaper for a while and you will stop having such a warped perspective on reality. By warped, I mean the falacy of thinking that the cases reported on the news are the "normal" case when in fact they are of the "dog bites man" variety.
Just to be clear, you mean 'man bites dog' variety, right?
noun: software program that interferes with another software program's attempt to interfere with the actions of a given user.
symnonyms: see windows, et al
If the Antikythera mechanism was made by different outfits in ancient Greece:
Apollo: The mechanism would be highly polished in a mahogany box with an observation window that would crack due to poor workmanship and high profit margins. Device only works within a 10 sq. mile area around Athens. Anywhere else and it's off.
Microsofticus: The mechanism would be essentially the same as the original, except some planets would be in different locations for 'efficiency' and 'because it runs faster that way.' Pebbles would bounce into the device via conspicuous holes and users would have to purchase a security contract from Symanticus. Not recorded in historical literature because nobody knew how it worked. Re-assembly from rusty bits required legions of scientists.
Zeus Microsystems: The mechanism would be painted purple and lilac and probably have some confetti around a highly stylized Sun logo on the outside. Giant purple globe in center of device would confound scientists for decades. Works, but gets slower with every passing decade, even though the underlying architecture is salvagable.
Linux Maximus: Device was buried with engineering diagrams in air-tight, humidity-controlled box at Delphi. Instructions for re-assembly (which it doesn't need) are also recorded within the device itself in every language known at the time as well as with pictures. Does what it needs to do and little else. Also, device was heavily cited in the historical literature and anyone was free to build one as long as they had access to commmodity blacksmith parts. Can be modified to suit different galactic locations, as well, with little effort.
Hewletticus-Packardus: Originally a papyrus-ink outfit, H.P., decided to get into the astronomy business because its archon, Sappho, wanted to. Ended up building poor version and purchased Compacticus to try and fix things. Didn't happen and Sappho went to Lesbos to become a poet with a zillion Drachma severence pay and H.P. just had to deal.
Oh yeah, those Monorail keyboards are great. I made the mistake of only purchasing 1 back in '98 for $2 at a Computer Renaissance (it later disappeared), but a friend of mine has one that is still working to this day!
The article talks about how business-related interest groups can be developed and how they can help the bottom line, but they don't talk about all the other non-business, 'special-interest' groups and how they function within the corporation and how they help productivity & morale, even if the results are less than fiscally apparent.
Reminds me of this
article that someone linked to yesterday about how companies can do wonders for recruitment if they use low-cost, high-value devices to lure workers (free soda, juice, lunch, etc).
Also, did anyone else read 'Wall Street Journal columnist David Wessel' and think 'nuklear' ?
Blue Origin == Amazon's crazy-ass patents in space.
2015 -- Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos granted a patent today on a system which describes the means of utilizing reusable launch vehicles in order to reach sub-orbital space.
2016 -- Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos granted a patent today involving a system for colonization of non-Earth worlds involving reusable launch vehicles in order to obtain a landing on said planet's surface, Mars for example. Changes name to Vilos Cohaagen.
2017 -- Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos granted a patent today on the distribution of breathable air within an artificial structure.
2050 -- Apparently following the instructions of a chest-bound mutuant, a construction worker from Earth started an hitherto unknown Martian reactor that melts the permafrost, automagically making the air breathable. Bezos' wealth subsequently eliminated, returning peace to the solar system.
3115 -- A study was released today indicating that the willy-nilly patent system, originating in the early 21st century, inhibited innovation more than any other cause in the last 2,000 years (including epidemics, space rocks and bureaucracy).
I'm against unmitigated douchebaggery just as much as the next slashdotter, so I'm going to suggest that someone should really trademark this guy's name.
Then, every time he serves someone with legal papers, the trademarkee can write a C&D filled with flowerly language to him because the real, trademarked Leo "The Marktard" Stoller would never be such a mean person.
And how about computer programming's version of ebonics, scottish and everything other dialect with a latin character set? Perl moves like a pyroclastic flow.
"...cognitive technology research done at Microsoft."
Anybody want to BSOD their neurons? Or have Clippy be like, "hello. you would like to create a new memory. let me help you create a new memory. please, select a memory template from the available options:"
1. Good memory
2. Bad memory
3. Romantic memory
[next poster insert memory option here]
REDMOND, WASHINGTON: Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates stated today that he has a rather dismal view of competing operating systems, Linux and Sun Microsystem's Solaris.
"If Torvalds is dismissive of Solaris, then I'm dismissive of Solaris and Linux. We're all emperors, of sorts, you know, it's just that we all have different styles of government," Mr. Gates said.
He continued, "My rule of Microsoft is oligarchical, obviously. I just work to prop up the share value enough so that the peasantry doesn't get uppity. I secretly have better things to do than play with my peons, if you know what I mean."
When pressed to further his analogy for Solaris and Linux, Mr. Gates stated, "Sun Microsystems is like Russia is now, or maybe China. They see that it's beneficial to appeal to...certain kinds of people in order to maintain solvency and growth. It's still autocratic at its root, but there is this illusion of free-market gallantry and an embrace of hitherto unembraced principles that appeals to certain kinds of people. Sort of like, 'do whatever you want, but we still own it and you.'"
Sun Microsystems is open-sourcing its Solaris operating system in a similar manner to Linux.
About Linux, Mr. Gates said, "Linux is like the United States with a small federal government that still retains enough power to break the whole thing up, but usually just stands back and helps the children play. Linux guides its adherents in a Jeffersonian grand experiment in freedom and it will be interesting to see if the ideological descendants continue to steer the ship in the same direction, so to speak."
When asked why he wanted to comment today, Gates said, "I personify my company, so, doesn't it make sense that I don't think too kindly of upstart Linux and grandma Solaris -- operating systems that are little more than pale blue dots in a galaxy of Windows?"
>>Is anyone having trouble getting from San Francisco to Los Angeles in less than 5 hours?
I've heard this from a bunch of people. I'm not experiencing long drives times at all. Could it be my setup? 2004 Porsche 911 GT3 (380 HP) TT & Police Sirens.
Just pay in cash. Then they can't track you and put your info into demographic databases. Those rebates are another matter, but for purchases, cash 'll do it.
Oh, and when you carry that cash, be extra cool and put the money in an aluminum briefcase that's handcuffed to your wrist.
4) Who would win? (Score:5, Funny) - by Call Me Black Cloud
In a fight between you and William Gibson, who would win?
Neal:
You don't have to settle for mere idle speculation. Let me tell you how it came out on the three occasions when we did fight.
The first time was a year or two after SNOW CRASH came out. I was doing a reading/signing at White Dwarf Books in Vancouver. Gibson stopped by to say hello and extended his hand as if to shake. But I remembered something Bruce Sterling had told me. For, at the time, Sterling and I had formed a pact to fight Gibson. Gibson had been regrown in a vat from scraps of DNA after Sterling had crashed an LNG tanker into Gibson's Stealth pleasure barge in the Straits of Juan de Fuca. During the regeneration process, telescoping Carbonite stilettos had been incorporated into Gibson's arms. Remembering this in the nick of time, I grabbed the signing table and flipped it up between us. Of course the Carbonite stilettos pierced it as if it were cork board, but this spoiled his aim long enough for me to whip my wakizashi out from between my shoulder blades and swing at his head. He deflected the blow with a force blast that sprained my wrist. The falling table knocked over a space heater and set fire to the store. Everyone else fled. Gibson and I dueled among blazing stacks of books for a while. Slowly I gained the upper hand, for, on defense, his Praying Mantis style was no match for my Flying Cloud technique. But I lost him behind a cloud of smoke. Then I had to get out of the place. The streets were crowded with his black-suited minions and I had to turn into a swarm of locusts and fly back to Seattle.
The second time was a few years later when Gibson came through Seattle on his IDORU tour. Between doing some drive-by signings at local bookstores, he came and devastated my quarter of the city. I had been in a trance for seven days and seven nights and was unaware of these goings-on, but he came to me in a vision and taunted me, and left a message on my cellphone. That evening he was doing a reading at Kane Hall on the University of Washington campus. Swathed in black, I climbed to the top of the hall, mesmerized his snipers, sliced a hole in the roof using a plasma cutter, let myself into the catwalks above the stage, and then leapt down upon him from forty feet above. But I had forgotten that he had once studied in the same monastery as I, and knew all of my techniques. He rolled away at the last moment. I struck only the lectern, smashing it to kindling. Snatching up one jagged shard of oak I adopted the Mountain Tiger position just as you would expect. He pulled off his wireless mike and began to whirl it around his head. From there, the fight proceeded along predictable lines. As a stalemate developed we began to resort more and more to the use of pure energy, modulated by Red Lotus incantations of the third Sung group, which eventually to the collapse of the building's roof and the loss of eight hundred lives. But as they were only peasants, we did not care.
Our third fight occurred at the Peace Arch on the U.S./Canadian border between Seattle and Vancouver. Gibson wished to retire from that sort of lifestyle that required ceaseless training in the martial arts and sleeping outdoors under the rain. He only wished to sit in his garden brushing out novels on rice paper. But honor dictated that he must fight me for a third time first. Of course the Peace Arch did not remain standing for long. Before long my sword arm hung useless at my side. One of my psi blasts kicked up a large divot of earth and rubble, uncovering a silver metallic object, hitherto buried, that seemed to have been crafted by an industrial designer. It was a nitro-veridian device that had been buried there by Sterling. We were able to fly clear before it detonated. The blast caused a seismic rupture that split off a sizable part of Canada and created what we now know as Vancouver Island. This was the last fight between me and Gibson. F
Yeah, they do. Since this vintage computer festival is in November, I think i'll be the life of the party if I buy my Pentium 4, 3 GHz machine now and bring it to California in a month.
Anyone know if there's an ancient computer festival? I need to do something with my 800 Mhz Thunderbird...
"To prevent abuses of the system, the Markle task force recommended anonymized technology, graduated levels of permission-based access and automated auditing software constantly hunting for abuses."
Who is going to audit the auditing software? Who gets to assign permissions? How can this be anonymized? Why are these just recommendations?
"The proposed network would not look for patterns in data warehouses to attempt to detect terrorist activities, Dempsey said. Instead, an investigator would start with a name and the system would try to see what information is known about that person."
Ok, so it's not a "dragnet," but a "dossier net" that just keeps a file on everybody synthesized from government and commercial data. I fail to see how this could possibly detect someone using a false name, who does not want to be found and probably doesn't use credit cards.
"The next Mohammed Atta is not going to be found in commercial databases," Griffin said, referring to the tactical leader of the 9/11 attacks. "We are going to stop him running a red light somewhere, and we are going to run relationships associations with this guy and we are going to say, gee, you have things in common with guys on watch lists. That's how you are going to find the guy -- not because he has bad credit.""
Riiiight. How many people would match up to these arbitrary watch lists? How many more middle eastern folks are gonna be pulled over again and again and questioned again and again just because their activities look something similar to someone's idea of a potential terrorist?
Slashdot Mirror
>Coffee made from brains? Ewwwww!!! =)
Where's a +5 Zombie when you need it?
"Open your mind, Quaid!!! Start the reactor!!!"
/oblig...or at least it should be.
>Stop watching TV and reading the newspaper for a while and you will stop having such a warped perspective on reality. By warped, I mean the falacy of thinking that the cases reported on the news are the "normal" case when in fact they are of the "dog bites man" variety.
Just to be clear, you mean 'man bites dog' variety, right?
mootkit.
noun: software program that interferes with another software program's attempt to interfere with the actions of a given user.
symnonyms: see windows, et al
If the Antikythera mechanism was made by different outfits in ancient Greece:
Apollo: The mechanism would be highly polished in a mahogany box with an observation window that would crack due to poor workmanship and high profit margins. Device only works within a 10 sq. mile area around Athens. Anywhere else and it's off.
Microsofticus: The mechanism would be essentially the same as the original, except some planets would be in different locations for 'efficiency' and 'because it runs faster that way.' Pebbles would bounce into the device via conspicuous holes and users would have to purchase a security contract from Symanticus. Not recorded in historical literature because nobody knew how it worked. Re-assembly from rusty bits required legions of scientists.
Zeus Microsystems: The mechanism would be painted purple and lilac and probably have some confetti around a highly stylized Sun logo on the outside. Giant purple globe in center of device would confound scientists for decades. Works, but gets slower with every passing decade, even though the underlying architecture is salvagable.
Linux Maximus: Device was buried with engineering diagrams in air-tight, humidity-controlled box at Delphi. Instructions for re-assembly (which it doesn't need) are also recorded within the device itself in every language known at the time as well as with pictures. Does what it needs to do and little else. Also, device was heavily cited in the historical literature and anyone was free to build one as long as they had access to commmodity blacksmith parts. Can be modified to suit different galactic locations, as well, with little effort.
Hewletticus-Packardus: Originally a papyrus-ink outfit, H.P., decided to get into the astronomy business because its archon, Sappho, wanted to. Ended up building poor version and purchased Compacticus to try and fix things. Didn't happen and Sappho went to Lesbos to become a poet with a zillion Drachma severence pay and H.P. just had to deal.
This is a really important subject topic, especially given the case of the guy that was sued for an idea in his own and head and lost.
Oh yeah, those Monorail keyboards are great. I made the mistake of only purchasing 1 back in '98 for $2 at a Computer Renaissance (it later disappeared), but a friend of mine has one that is still working to this day!
The article talks about how business-related interest groups can be developed and how they can help the bottom line, but they don't talk about all the other non-business, 'special-interest' groups and how they function within the corporation and how they help productivity & morale, even if the results are less than fiscally apparent.
Reminds me of this article that someone linked to yesterday about how companies can do wonders for recruitment if they use low-cost, high-value devices to lure workers (free soda, juice, lunch, etc).
Also, did anyone else read 'Wall Street Journal columnist David Wessel' and think 'nuklear' ?
Blue Origin == Amazon's crazy-ass patents in space.
2015 -- Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos granted a patent today on a system which describes the means of utilizing reusable launch vehicles in order to reach sub-orbital space.
2016 -- Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos granted a patent today involving a system for colonization of non-Earth worlds involving reusable launch vehicles in order to obtain a landing on said planet's surface, Mars for example. Changes name to Vilos Cohaagen.
2017 -- Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos granted a patent today on the distribution of breathable air within an artificial structure.
2050 -- Apparently following the instructions of a chest-bound mutuant, a construction worker from Earth started an hitherto unknown Martian reactor that melts the permafrost, automagically making the air breathable. Bezos' wealth subsequently eliminated, returning peace to the solar system.
3115 -- A study was released today indicating that the willy-nilly patent system, originating in the early 21st century, inhibited innovation more than any other cause in the last 2,000 years (including epidemics, space rocks and bureaucracy).
Yeah, it's news and it's one of the first battles in the nascent war between Microsoft and Google.
Who's gonna win? Any guesses? Why?
I'm against unmitigated douchebaggery just as much as the next slashdotter, so I'm going to suggest that someone should really trademark this guy's name.
Then, every time he serves someone with legal papers, the trademarkee can write a C&D filled with flowerly language to him because the real, trademarked Leo "The Marktard" Stoller would never be such a mean person.
Just sleep and make sure someone wakes you up after the third or fourth release of said technology.
And how about computer programming's version of ebonics, scottish and everything other dialect with a latin character set? Perl moves like a pyroclastic flow.
"...cognitive technology research done at Microsoft."
Anybody want to BSOD their neurons? Or have Clippy be like, "hello. you would like to create a new memory. let me help you create a new memory. please, select a memory template from the available options:"
1. Good memory
2. Bad memory
3. Romantic memory
[next poster insert memory option here]
REDMOND, WASHINGTON: Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates stated today that he has a rather dismal view of competing operating systems, Linux and Sun Microsystem's Solaris.
"If Torvalds is dismissive of Solaris, then I'm dismissive of Solaris and Linux. We're all emperors, of sorts, you know, it's just that we all have different styles of government," Mr. Gates said.
He continued, "My rule of Microsoft is oligarchical, obviously. I just work to prop up the share value enough so that the peasantry doesn't get uppity. I secretly have better things to do than play with my peons, if you know what I mean."
When pressed to further his analogy for Solaris and Linux, Mr. Gates stated, "Sun Microsystems is like Russia is now, or maybe China. They see that it's beneficial to appeal to...certain kinds of people in order to maintain solvency and growth. It's still autocratic at its root, but there is this illusion of free-market gallantry and an embrace of hitherto unembraced principles that appeals to certain kinds of people. Sort of like, 'do whatever you want, but we still own it and you.'"
Sun Microsystems is open-sourcing its Solaris operating system in a similar manner to Linux.
About Linux, Mr. Gates said, "Linux is like the United States with a small federal government that still retains enough power to break the whole thing up, but usually just stands back and helps the children play. Linux guides its adherents in a Jeffersonian grand experiment in freedom and it will be interesting to see if the ideological descendants continue to steer the ship in the same direction, so to speak."
When asked why he wanted to comment today, Gates said, "I personify my company, so, doesn't it make sense that I don't think too kindly of upstart Linux and grandma Solaris -- operating systems that are little more than pale blue dots in a galaxy of Windows?"
C'mon, of course Torvalds is a Solaris skeptic!:)
I detest those ads too. Here's what I do to get back at them:
Caption:Movies. They're worth it.
Me [yelling]: YEAH! WORTH DOWNLOADING!!!
Always gets a laugh and makes me feel better.
>>Is anyone having trouble getting from San Francisco to Los Angeles in less than 5 hours?
I've heard this from a bunch of people. I'm not experiencing long drives times at all. Could it be my setup? 2004 Porsche 911 GT3 (380 HP) TT & Police Sirens.
EA: Challenge Everything...except our market share.
Everytime I load Burnout 3, I say this.
And now I know why.
Just pay in cash. Then they can't track you and put your info into demographic databases. Those rebates are another matter, but for purchases, cash 'll do it.
Oh, and when you carry that cash, be extra cool and put the money in an aluminum briefcase that's handcuffed to your wrist.
Is like shooting a .22 at Godzilla.
Lucky:
"Would you like a Squishie?"
Unlucky (as the next patient walks up):
"OK, paper mache mix, pipe cleaners, pig intestines and sparkle paint."
Really Unlucky:
"Be careful when we capture him! We cannot claim the reward unless we have 51% of the carcass."
4) Who would win? (Score:5, Funny) - by Call Me Black Cloud
In a fight between you and William Gibson, who would win?
Neal:
You don't have to settle for mere idle speculation. Let me tell you how it came out on the three occasions when we did fight.
The first time was a year or two after SNOW CRASH came out. I was doing a reading/signing at White Dwarf Books in Vancouver. Gibson stopped by to say hello and extended his hand as if to shake. But I remembered something Bruce Sterling had told me. For, at the time, Sterling and I had formed a pact to fight Gibson. Gibson had been regrown in a vat from scraps of DNA after Sterling had crashed an LNG tanker into Gibson's Stealth pleasure barge in the Straits of Juan de Fuca. During the regeneration process, telescoping Carbonite stilettos had been incorporated into Gibson's arms. Remembering this in the nick of time, I grabbed the signing table and flipped it up between us. Of course the Carbonite stilettos pierced it as if it were cork board, but this spoiled his aim long enough for me to whip my wakizashi out from between my shoulder blades and swing at his head. He deflected the blow with a force blast that sprained my wrist. The falling table knocked over a space heater and set fire to the store. Everyone else fled. Gibson and I dueled among blazing stacks of books for a while. Slowly I gained the upper hand, for, on defense, his Praying Mantis style was no match for my Flying Cloud technique. But I lost him behind a cloud of smoke. Then I had to get out of the place. The streets were crowded with his black-suited minions and I had to turn into a swarm of locusts and fly back to Seattle.
The second time was a few years later when Gibson came through Seattle on his IDORU tour. Between doing some drive-by signings at local bookstores, he came and devastated my quarter of the city. I had been in a trance for seven days and seven nights and was unaware of these goings-on, but he came to me in a vision and taunted me, and left a message on my cellphone. That evening he was doing a reading at Kane Hall on the University of Washington campus. Swathed in black, I climbed to the top of the hall, mesmerized his snipers, sliced a hole in the roof using a plasma cutter, let myself into the catwalks above the stage, and then leapt down upon him from forty feet above. But I had forgotten that he had once studied in the same monastery as I, and knew all of my techniques. He rolled away at the last moment. I struck only the lectern, smashing it to kindling. Snatching up one jagged shard of oak I adopted the Mountain Tiger position just as you would expect. He pulled off his wireless mike and began to whirl it around his head. From there, the fight proceeded along predictable lines. As a stalemate developed we began to resort more and more to the use of pure energy, modulated by Red Lotus incantations of the third Sung group, which eventually to the collapse of the building's roof and the loss of eight hundred lives. But as they were only peasants, we did not care.
Our third fight occurred at the Peace Arch on the U.S./Canadian border between Seattle and Vancouver. Gibson wished to retire from that sort of lifestyle that required ceaseless training in the martial arts and sleeping outdoors under the rain. He only wished to sit in his garden brushing out novels on rice paper. But honor dictated that he must fight me for a third time first. Of course the Peace Arch did not remain standing for long. Before long my sword arm hung useless at my side. One of my psi blasts kicked up a large divot of earth and rubble, uncovering a silver metallic object, hitherto buried, that seemed to have been crafted by an industrial designer. It was a nitro-veridian device that had been buried there by Sterling. We were able to fly clear before it detonated. The blast caused a seismic rupture that split off a sizable part of Canada and created what we now know as Vancouver Island. This was the last fight between me and Gibson. F
Yeah, they do. Since this vintage computer festival is in November, I think i'll be the life of the party if I buy my Pentium 4, 3 GHz machine now and bring it to California in a month.
Anyone know if there's an ancient computer festival? I need to do something with my 800 Mhz Thunderbird...
"To prevent abuses of the system, the Markle task force recommended anonymized technology, graduated levels of permission-based access and automated auditing software constantly hunting for abuses."
Who is going to audit the auditing software? Who gets to assign permissions? How can this be anonymized? Why are these just recommendations?
"The proposed network would not look for patterns in data warehouses to attempt to detect terrorist activities, Dempsey said. Instead, an investigator would start with a name and the system would try to see what information is known about that person."
Ok, so it's not a "dragnet," but a "dossier net" that just keeps a file on everybody synthesized from government and commercial data. I fail to see how this could possibly detect someone using a false name, who does not want to be found and probably doesn't use credit cards.
"The next Mohammed Atta is not going to be found in commercial databases," Griffin said, referring to the tactical leader of the 9/11 attacks. "We are going to stop him running a red light somewhere, and we are going to run relationships associations with this guy and we are going to say, gee, you have things in common with guys on watch lists. That's how you are going to find the guy -- not because he has bad credit.""
Riiiight. How many people would match up to these arbitrary watch lists? How many more middle eastern folks are gonna be pulled over again and again and questioned again and again just because their activities look something similar to someone's idea of a potential terrorist?
Is it worth it?