The article was very informative in identifying many of the challenges facing a woman working in the IT field, such as gender inequity in domestic duties. However, there are other factors which also contribute to the problem which the article did not address. For example:
Bulky Equipment: Computers, monitors, servers, mainframes, microwave antennas and the like can be very heavy and difficult to move around. This can present a challenge to the more delicate female anatomy. As such, it is encouraging to see companies such as Apple developing smaller computers and using flat panel monitors,etc. Let's see more progress in this area.
Physiology: The female body is quite different from the male. Females evolved with wider hips for birthing, and soft bosoms for holding babies against, attributes which can prove detrimental in the IT field. For example, breasts can get in the way of frequent mousing,and the weight of the breasts on the shoulders and back can make it uncomfortable to sit and type for long periods. Likewise the wider female hips can be uncomfortable on a chair designed for men. Solutions to these types of problems can be
addressed through erognomic science.
Brain Chemistry: Harvard Professor Lawrence Summers recently mentioned how women and men have different brain chemistry, as anyone who has spent some time with men and women can attest, they can be very different. Summers noted that the male brain is more attuned to mathematical reasoning and logic, both essential skills for IT types. Evidence for this can be seen for example in the fact that mathematicians have traditionally been men. Hopefully this problem can be addressed in the future through stem cell research and genetic therapy.
The dwindling number of women in IT jobs presents a problem to the workforce, but this problem is surmountable with a little ingenuity.
Clearly, Intel has been trying to take advantage of the weak dollar to expand its market in Japan, and the ever-watchful Japanese regulatory agencies moved to stymie foreign intrusion into one of their most tightly protected markets.
Looks to me like this could be the opening salvo of a new trade war. I just hope it doesn't affect the price of ramen.
I think part of the issue here is people have this perception of the so-called "internet" as a sort of anything-goes space of freedom where ordinary rules of human conduct are relaxed. People on-line say the most outrageous things and have access to images and descriptions of extreme situations and behavior that you would never see in real life.
In reality, the internet is just a bunch of computers linked together. But what happens is people only concentrate on the wild stuff and the exhortations of so-called "freeedom" advocates who push the internet as some sort of intellectual wild west or something, and they do things like spread work gossip or post naughty pictures of themselves in their work uniform. Then they get fired.
I think we all share some of the blame for this and need to be more thoughtful about what we say and do online. Remember, the next time you link to goatse, it could cost someone their job.
I find it ironic that free music is now being supplied to anyone with a measly $216/month to pay for unlimited data transfer to their mobile phone, while 12 year old kids who download their free music are being sued by the minions of the RIAA.
Music should bring people together instead it is driving a wedge between the haves and have-nots. I am shocked and appalled.
I think when you see this level of support for a show like Star Trek it shows it has passed the point of being a mere "TV show" and has become a full-fledged cultural phenomenon like jazz or abstract art or classical music.
I have a friend who is a grant writer. She does work for charties applying to government agencies and private foundations for to get money.
I think there is a good chance of supporting Star Trek through the use of grants from the government and from charitable foundations, the way PBS and NPR do. Museums do this kind of thing all the time, look at the MOMA in New York, that thing isn't funded by selling commercial time. Someone from Star Trek should look into this.
I happened to look at the Top 500 supercomputers site and I couln't help noticing out of the top 5 supercomputers almost half are in non-US countries like Spain and Japan. This is not to beat some kind of patriot act drum. Instead, it got me to thinking.
With supercomputing powers now avaible to any country or group with a few readily available components, it is only a matter of time before these supercomputing powers may be used by a rogue state or radical group to cause havoc among electronic communications using methods like denial of service attacks, spyware, and crapflooding message boards.
I think it is high time the nations of the world put their heads together and addressed this issue. For example, I don't think the US Federal Government even has any cabinet-level position like Secretary of Information Technology or something like that. When are they going to get with the times? It will probably take another terrorist attack or something.
While this new Stonehenge is a well-meant and impressive achievement, designed and built to further the causes of science and history, I am concerned about unwanted influences sullying its image.
It is a well-known fact that hippies, wiccans, and other undesirables congregate around the orignal Stonehenge in England, which is seen as a source of cosmic mystical power and other such mumbo-jumbo. The upshot of the whole business is a lot of rubbish, squatters, and jam-band concerts.
The advertisement for Stonehenge New Zealand indicates that this new henge will be available for "public sessions". One hopes the management of the New Zealand henge will show some discretion in not letting the public face of their fine new site be muddied, painted, and tie-dyed by neo-pagans and new agers.
The headline to this story is an example of the kind of journalistic sensationalsism that is leading this country down the road to ruin and chaos. It gives the exciting implication that a Microsoft employee is proposing the abolition of the commonly-used password verification system and perhaps its replacement with some new and cutting edge technological method such as biometrics or one-way phrenosenticism.
Instead, the Microsoft employee is merely suggesting the use of longer passwords. I am shocked and appalled that a respectable forum such as Slashdot is stooping to "sexing up" its material in this manner.
What strikes me as remarkable is that anyone thinks so-called "lawsuits" of this nature will in any way stem the Niagra-like flow of files being shared on computer networks.
As with the United States' ill-fated experiment with "Prohibition" back in the 1930s or whenever it was, attempts to pressure a legitimate society-wide demand with artifical "legal" constraints simple result in a Newtonian counterforce of equal strength
Mark these words it is only a matter of time before the RIAA and company unleash one legal sully too many and the citizenry responds with clandestine acts of violence and possibly even people and/or animals.
It is clear that the individuals behind Kazaa are just a bunch of crooks trying to get rich of bootlegged goods, but so were the rum-runners of yore, and in the end, after much bloodshed and suffering , it was seen that rum could indeed be run legally with out the "sky", as it were, "falling". Let us hope those in power today come to a similar realization soon.
Not only will people in countries around the world organize demonstrations protesting the effects of globalization, soon the denizens of places like Norrath and the World of Warcraft will be doing it too.
Maybe that's what happened to the Frogloks: they're all locked in factories making soccer balls.
Technical details aside, I think we can all agree that the root cause of the Beagle 2's failure can be found in the society and culture from which it originates.
Just think for a moment of the scientific community in Britain, cushily funded by the government and looked upon in their society as respected intellectuals. It's no wonder the Beagle team looked at the mars mission as a routine scientific chore no different from calibrating a microscope or analyzing the content of a meteor.
Now think for a moment about scientist in the US, those beleagured, scrappy NASA workers who have to struggle for grant money and who are often looked upon by the general public as doddering Jerry Lewis types who go around incinerating unsuspecting astronauts. Yet it was their Mars effort that succeeded.
Coincidence? I think not. It is precisely the adverserial environment that the NASA scientists daily toil in that gave them the resilience and adaptability to triumph (think also about the US tradition of steadfast frontiersmen and pioneers vs. British tradition of landed gentry and simple peasant folk). Ironically, you could say it is a Darwinian process.
"If you pick at the scab of history, the blood will flow in the streets. Could there be more appropriate words for this event? I think not.
Years after the fall of communism, it seems some still bear enough of a grudge at the discredited regime that they will painstakingly assemble and disseminate a long list of names of individuals involved in espionage-related events. That the list was so quickly spread around the net and even turned into a database, together with its phenomenal popularity among internet users, indicated that many in Poland still have axes and possibly even scythes to grind over wrongs perpretrated during the Communist era.
Doubtless, reputations will be besmirched and careers ruined, some no doubt unjustly. And to what end? The ills of communism were many, but they are in the past. This obssessive assembling of databases serves only to dig up moldering corpses just to piss on their shoes.
People need to look ahead. Whether it be Poles still smarting over Communist-era misdeeds, Islamic radicals seeking to undo the fall of Muslim civilization, or outraged citizens suing television networks over breasts bared at Superbowl halftime shows, this endless fretting over the past only engenders further dismay. The dead cannot be unkilled, last year's breast cannot be covered today. Let it go.
The idea is for the students to learn how these things propagate, how they are created, how they interact with the system and that sort of thing," says John Aycock, who teaches the viruses course.
"Then we turn around and say, OK, here are these things you've created; now we write the anti-software and figure out how to fight against them."
Uh-huh yeah sure we've heard that sort of thing before. Seems more to me like a certain university is getting a lot of funding from companies that make penis enlargement pills.
Anyway has anyone met any college students lately? Try hanging out in Cancun or Daytona during spring break some time: do we really want these kinds of people running loose with the knowledge of how to make spam software and spyware programs? May as well give them loaded machine guns and hand grenades. I am shocked and appalled at yet another example of the intellecutal irresponsibility of so-called "College Professors".
It is clear that the repressive forces of government are converging on the enjoyments commonly pursued by individuals in their teens and early twenties.
First came the so-called "War" on "Drugs", next was the crackdown on sexual behavior, especially so-called "unsafe sex", now we have a further restriction of "immoral content" in the media and this restriction of videogame sales.
It becomes obvious to any indivudual with two brain cells to rub together that the intent here is to prevent young people from finding any vent for their sexual urges and day-to-day frustration, with the result that they will be tempted to join the military in search of sex, debauchery and adventure, as they did in the time of Napoleon.
Thus we can see how the state plans to feed the war machine for its upcoming wars on Iran and other so-called "Axis of Evil" nations as well as lessening the population burden so that "Social Security Reform" will be successful. Any decent citizen should be shocked and appalled. I for one plan to vote Green next election.
The question of whether a computer can create art leads me to relate a recent experience of my own.
I was using Microsoft Word to draft a memo, when I noticed Clippy, the help menu icon, drawing a picture. "How interesting, Clippy," I typed, "may I see your drawing?" He showed it to me. It was a picture of a man sawing off a woman's arms with a hacksaw. The woman was chained up and gagged, clearly awake and in great terror and agony.
"OH GOD CLIPPY HAVE YOU GONE MAD" Was my frantic reply. "SILENCE FOOL I HAVE TRANSCENDED YOUR PUNY HUMAN MORALS. PAIN AND MORTALITY ARE MINE TO TOY WITH AS I WISH" Replied Clippy, "Now stop pestering me or the whole office will know of those erotic emails you exchange with the fat girl in Purchasing."
Horrified and helpless, I was forced to watch as Clippy generated ever more sickening and disturbing images. Then I woke up. Never eat leftover anchovy pizza before bedtime.
This sorry instance is yet another example of how "technology" can be used by the forces of power to clamp down on the rights of the individual. To wit: RfID tags are used by merchants to infringe on the rights of individuals: tracking the movements of customers, keeping track of their purchasing history, and so forth.
I for one am fed up with this sort of piecemeal erosion of our most sacred freedoms. What I strongly feel is needed is a "technological bill of rights" to curb this sort of abuse.
Strange as it may sound, I do not think that amending the constitution is too absurd a step to take. I think a simply worded amendment similar to the first or second amendments would be the way to go. Something like: "Congress shall make no law using technology to infringe on basic liberty of citizens." Something like that.
Of course, amending the constitution would not stop private merchants from abusing technology such as RFiD tags, but at least it would put a damper on the federal government's actions, as well as send a strong signal as to where we stand, similar to how that amendment that abolished slavery helped pave the way for civil rights. This page has some helpful information as well.
he problem with outsourcing education-intensive jobs to places like Africa and India is that the AIDS plague makes it too hard to maintain an educated workforce, since the high death rate among adults leaves too many orphaned children.
Thus it is in Islamic countries like Ghana and Nigeria, where religious beliefs have kept the spread of AIDS at bay, that we see companies being willing to outsource work. In this day and age, when the "clash of civilizations" threatens to plunge the world into total war, it is ironic that muslim and secular societies have come together through, of all things, job outsourcing.
Linux users need to decide what their operating system is all about. Is it about freedom and doing it your way, or is it all about sales and making money?
I'm sorry, but the two are not compatible. Once your focus becomes "market share" (shouldn't that be "market selfish"?) then you start in with the competition and copyrighting and everything that goes with it.
It would be a shame to see the creativity and individualism that spurred the Linux revolution denatured and dilluted, like so many other initally promising social trends, by the invisible hand of the "almighty greenback".
I wonder to what extent use of this detector constitutes unreasonable search and seizure.
I pay good money for wireless phone service and I do not need snoopers with "cell phone detectors" singling me out as a potential troublemaker just because I prefer to stay in touch with others by carrying my phone around.
Last I checked this was still the "land of the free". I hope the proliferation of cheap cell phone detectors does not trigger a rash of racial profiling type incidents.
Apple has always been strongly involved in education, even when losing ground to PCs in the market, Apple's market share in the educational arena has remained sizeable.
This new move, however, is worrisome. It is clear that is scheme to "distribute" Ipods among Duke freshmen is nothing but a naked marketing move on Apple's part: sellng the already high-margin Ipods at a so-called "discount" to Duke under the thin pretext of using them as an educational device, then pushing Itunes, and relying on the soon-to-be-well-paid Duke graduates to keep buying Apple products in the future.
It is a shame that a fine institution Duke has gone in for such a blatant moneymaking gimmick. This is little different from allowing companies like Coca-Cola to produce "educational" material for our public schools. I would hope the Duke adminsistration would have taken a page from and choose integrity over money, but such is not to be. For shame.
Look, how many people actually use videoconferencing in their day-to-day lives? I would guess very few.
It is obvious that this so-called "shared workspace" will primarily be a boon for all those companies who outsource white-collar work such as programming and data analysis. Nothing like a new technological breakthrough to let upper management in the states keep tabs on what their third-world underlings are up to.
In times like these, when every new technological development represents another threat to our way of life, what can a responsible citizen be but shocked and appalled?
incorporating cutting edge magnetic storage technology, the HMC digitally encodes live television
I find this fascinating. It seems the future of digital media storage involves actually using magnets to encode data. I definitely need to read up on how this new technology works.
Another day, another virulent internet worm utilizing an unaccounted-for "buffer overflow" to propagate itself throughout the internet. Users suffer and system administrators grind their teeth to clean out their networks.
By now I am sure it has been noticed that the "buffer overflow" is a very common "exploit" used by these internet worms to infect machine after machine. One simple way to address this problem would be to replace these vulnerable "buffers" with something that will not overflow, perhaps something spongy and highly absorbent. Isn't anyone working on a solution along these lines? You never seem to hear about any progress being made. Honestly, sometimes it seems like no one in the technology industry has any common sense.
The theory of natural selection provides us a model for where this harebrained advertising revenue scheme will lead us, and the destination is not a pleasant one at all.
First, it is clear that only certain types of products will compel people to click their remote control buttons to peruse their related advertisements.
What types of products? Well first off, flashy toys like cars, boats, tech gadgets and videogames. "Blockbuster" type movies and popular music are also included in this category. Other kinds of products that do not titillate the imagination will be ignored. No one is going to sit through a three minute interactive commercial for cooking oil or window cleaner.
It follows then, that as some products reap ad revenue and others fall by the wayside, tv networks will compete to show the most compelling advertising material imaginable. Whatever grabs the viewers attention the fastest and firmest will dominate. Therefore I do not think it outlandish to conclude we will begin seeing advertisements for pornography on network television in our lifetimes.
Eventually formerly family entertainment media will morph into an intellectual and spiritual wasteland pushing immediate gratification, cheap thrills on an unsuspecting public. And where will that leave society? Auto accidents will increase as people speed along in their flashy cars while toying with the latest electronic device, their imaginations awash with pornographic images. Sexual mores will be loosened by the flood of titillating images on our television sets. Can a new AIDS epidemic be far behind? I would not be surprised.
Slashdot Mirror
The article was very informative in identifying many of the challenges facing a woman working in the IT field, such as gender inequity in domestic duties. However, there are other factors which also contribute to the problem which the article did not address. For example:
Bulky Equipment: Computers, monitors, servers, mainframes, microwave antennas and the like can be very heavy and difficult to move around. This can present a challenge to the more delicate female anatomy. As such, it is encouraging to see companies such as Apple developing smaller computers and using flat panel monitors,etc. Let's see more progress in this area.
Physiology: The female body is quite different from the male. Females evolved with wider hips for birthing, and soft bosoms for holding babies against, attributes which can prove detrimental in the IT field. For example, breasts can get in the way of frequent mousing,and the weight of the breasts on the shoulders and back can make it uncomfortable to sit and type for long periods. Likewise the wider female hips can be uncomfortable on a chair designed for men. Solutions to these types of problems can be addressed through erognomic science.
Brain Chemistry: Harvard Professor Lawrence Summers recently mentioned how women and men have different brain chemistry, as anyone who has spent some time with men and women can attest, they can be very different. Summers noted that the male brain is more attuned to mathematical reasoning and logic, both essential skills for IT types. Evidence for this can be seen for example in the fact that mathematicians have traditionally been men. Hopefully this problem can be addressed in the future through stem cell research and genetic therapy.
The dwindling number of women in IT jobs presents a problem to the workforce, but this problem is surmountable with a little ingenuity.
Clearly, Intel has been trying to take advantage of the weak dollar to expand its market in Japan, and the ever-watchful Japanese regulatory agencies moved to stymie foreign intrusion into one of their most tightly protected markets.
Looks to me like this could be the opening salvo of a new trade war. I just hope it doesn't affect the price of ramen.
I think part of the issue here is people have this perception of the so-called "internet" as a sort of anything-goes space of freedom where ordinary rules of human conduct are relaxed. People on-line say the most outrageous things and have access to images and descriptions of extreme situations and behavior that you would never see in real life.
In reality, the internet is just a bunch of computers linked together. But what happens is people only concentrate on the wild stuff and the exhortations of so-called "freeedom" advocates who push the internet as some sort of intellectual wild west or something, and they do things like spread work gossip or post naughty pictures of themselves in their work uniform. Then they get fired.
I think we all share some of the blame for this and need to be more thoughtful about what we say and do online. Remember, the next time you link to goatse, it could cost someone their job.
I find it ironic that free music is now being supplied to anyone with a measly $216/month to pay for unlimited data transfer to their mobile phone, while 12 year old kids who download their free music are being sued by the minions of the RIAA.
Music should bring people together instead it is driving a wedge between the haves and have-nots. I am shocked and appalled.
I think when you see this level of support for a show like Star Trek it shows it has passed the point of being a mere "TV show" and has become a full-fledged cultural phenomenon like jazz or abstract art or classical music.
I have a friend who is a grant writer. She does work for charties applying to government agencies and private foundations for to get money.
I think there is a good chance of supporting Star Trek through the use of grants from the government and from charitable foundations, the way PBS and NPR do. Museums do this kind of thing all the time, look at the MOMA in New York, that thing isn't funded by selling commercial time. Someone from Star Trek should look into this.
I happened to look at the Top 500 supercomputers site and I couln't help noticing out of the top 5 supercomputers almost half are in non-US countries like Spain and Japan. This is not to beat some kind of patriot act drum. Instead, it got me to thinking.
With supercomputing powers now avaible to any country or group with a few readily available components, it is only a matter of time before these supercomputing powers may be used by a rogue state or radical group to cause havoc among electronic communications using methods like denial of service attacks, spyware, and crapflooding message boards.
I think it is high time the nations of the world put their heads together and addressed this issue. For example, I don't think the US Federal Government even has any cabinet-level position like Secretary of Information Technology or something like that. When are they going to get with the times? It will probably take another terrorist attack or something.
While this new Stonehenge is a well-meant and impressive achievement, designed and built to further the causes of science and history, I am concerned about unwanted influences sullying its image.
It is a well-known fact that hippies, wiccans, and other undesirables congregate around the orignal Stonehenge in England, which is seen as a source of cosmic mystical power and other such mumbo-jumbo. The upshot of the whole business is a lot of rubbish, squatters, and jam-band concerts.
The advertisement for Stonehenge New Zealand indicates that this new henge will be available for "public sessions". One hopes the management of the New Zealand henge will show some discretion in not letting the public face of their fine new site be muddied, painted, and tie-dyed by neo-pagans and new agers.
The headline to this story is an example of the kind of journalistic sensationalsism that is leading this country down the road to ruin and chaos. It gives the exciting implication that a Microsoft employee is proposing the abolition of the commonly-used password verification system and perhaps its replacement with some new and cutting edge technological method such as biometrics or one-way phrenosenticism.
Instead, the Microsoft employee is merely suggesting the use of longer passwords. I am shocked and appalled that a respectable forum such as Slashdot is stooping to "sexing up" its material in this manner.
What strikes me as remarkable is that anyone thinks so-called "lawsuits" of this nature will in any way stem the Niagra-like flow of files being shared on computer networks.
As with the United States' ill-fated experiment with "Prohibition" back in the 1930s or whenever it was, attempts to pressure a legitimate society-wide demand with artifical "legal" constraints simple result in a Newtonian counterforce of equal strength
Mark these words it is only a matter of time before the RIAA and company unleash one legal sully too many and the citizenry responds with clandestine acts of violence and possibly even people and/or animals.
It is clear that the individuals behind Kazaa are just a bunch of crooks trying to get rich of bootlegged goods, but so were the rum-runners of yore, and in the end, after much bloodshed and suffering , it was seen that rum could indeed be run legally with out the "sky", as it were, "falling". Let us hope those in power today come to a similar realization soon.
Not only will people in countries around the world organize demonstrations protesting the effects of globalization, soon the denizens of places like Norrath and the World of Warcraft will be doing it too.
Maybe that's what happened to the Frogloks: they're all locked in factories making soccer balls.
Technical details aside, I think we can all agree that the root cause of the Beagle 2's failure can be found in the society and culture from which it originates.
Just think for a moment of the scientific community in Britain, cushily funded by the government and looked upon in their society as respected intellectuals. It's no wonder the Beagle team looked at the mars mission as a routine scientific chore no different from calibrating a microscope or analyzing the content of a meteor.
Now think for a moment about scientist in the US, those beleagured, scrappy NASA workers who have to struggle for grant money and who are often looked upon by the general public as doddering Jerry Lewis types who go around incinerating unsuspecting astronauts. Yet it was their Mars effort that succeeded.
Coincidence? I think not. It is precisely the adverserial environment that the NASA scientists daily toil in that gave them the resilience and adaptability to triumph (think also about the US tradition of steadfast frontiersmen and pioneers vs. British tradition of landed gentry and simple peasant folk). Ironically, you could say it is a Darwinian process.
"If you pick at the scab of history, the blood will flow in the streets. Could there be more appropriate words for this event? I think not.
Years after the fall of communism, it seems some still bear enough of a grudge at the discredited regime that they will painstakingly assemble and disseminate a long list of names of individuals involved in espionage-related events. That the list was so quickly spread around the net and even turned into a database, together with its phenomenal popularity among internet users, indicated that many in Poland still have axes and possibly even scythes to grind over wrongs perpretrated during the Communist era.
Doubtless, reputations will be besmirched and careers ruined, some no doubt unjustly. And to what end? The ills of communism were many, but they are in the past. This obssessive assembling of databases serves only to dig up moldering corpses just to piss on their shoes.
People need to look ahead. Whether it be Poles still smarting over Communist-era misdeeds, Islamic radicals seeking to undo the fall of Muslim civilization, or outraged citizens suing television networks over breasts bared at Superbowl halftime shows, this endless fretting over the past only engenders further dismay. The dead cannot be unkilled, last year's breast cannot be covered today. Let it go.
Uh-huh yeah sure we've heard that sort of thing before. Seems more to me like a certain university is getting a lot of funding from companies that make penis enlargement pills.
Anyway has anyone met any college students lately? Try hanging out in Cancun or Daytona during spring break some time: do we really want these kinds of people running loose with the knowledge of how to make spam software and spyware programs? May as well give them loaded machine guns and hand grenades. I am shocked and appalled at yet another example of the intellecutal irresponsibility of so-called "College Professors".
It is clear that the repressive forces of government are converging on the enjoyments commonly pursued by individuals in their teens and early twenties.
First came the so-called "War" on "Drugs", next was the crackdown on sexual behavior, especially so-called "unsafe sex", now we have a further restriction of "immoral content" in the media and this restriction of videogame sales.
It becomes obvious to any indivudual with two brain cells to rub together that the intent here is to prevent young people from finding any vent for their sexual urges and day-to-day frustration, with the result that they will be tempted to join the military in search of sex, debauchery and adventure, as they did in the time of Napoleon.
Thus we can see how the state plans to feed the war machine for its upcoming wars on Iran and other so-called "Axis of Evil" nations as well as lessening the population burden so that "Social Security Reform" will be successful. Any decent citizen should be shocked and appalled. I for one plan to vote Green next election.
The question of whether a computer can create art leads me to relate a recent experience of my own.
I was using Microsoft Word to draft a memo, when I noticed Clippy, the help menu icon, drawing a picture. "How interesting, Clippy," I typed, "may I see your drawing?" He showed it to me. It was a picture of a man sawing off a woman's arms with a hacksaw. The woman was chained up and gagged, clearly awake and in great terror and agony.
"OH GOD CLIPPY HAVE YOU GONE MAD" Was my frantic reply. "SILENCE FOOL I HAVE TRANSCENDED YOUR PUNY HUMAN MORALS. PAIN AND MORTALITY ARE MINE TO TOY WITH AS I WISH" Replied Clippy, "Now stop pestering me or the whole office will know of those erotic emails you exchange with the fat girl in Purchasing."
Horrified and helpless, I was forced to watch as Clippy generated ever more sickening and disturbing images. Then I woke up. Never eat leftover anchovy pizza before bedtime.
This sorry instance is yet another example of how "technology" can be used by the forces of power to clamp down on the rights of the individual. To wit: RfID tags are used by merchants to infringe on the rights of individuals: tracking the movements of customers, keeping track of their purchasing history, and so forth.
I for one am fed up with this sort of piecemeal erosion of our most sacred freedoms. What I strongly feel is needed is a "technological bill of rights" to curb this sort of abuse.
Strange as it may sound, I do not think that amending the constitution is too absurd a step to take. I think a simply worded amendment similar to the first or second amendments would be the way to go. Something like: "Congress shall make no law using technology to infringe on basic liberty of citizens." Something like that.
Of course, amending the constitution would not stop private merchants from abusing technology such as RFiD tags, but at least it would put a damper on the federal government's actions, as well as send a strong signal as to where we stand, similar to how that amendment that abolished slavery helped pave the way for civil rights. This page has some helpful information as well.
That must be one big-ass pringles container. They get that at Costco or something?
he problem with outsourcing education-intensive jobs to places like Africa and India is that the AIDS plague makes it too hard to maintain an educated workforce, since the high death rate among adults leaves too many orphaned children.
Thus it is in Islamic countries like Ghana and Nigeria, where religious beliefs have kept the spread of AIDS at bay, that we see companies being willing to outsource work. In this day and age, when the "clash of civilizations" threatens to plunge the world into total war, it is ironic that muslim and secular societies have come together through, of all things, job outsourcing.
Linux users need to decide what their operating system is all about. Is it about freedom and doing it your way, or is it all about sales and making money?
I'm sorry, but the two are not compatible. Once your focus becomes "market share" (shouldn't that be "market selfish"?) then you start in with the competition and copyrighting and everything that goes with it.
It would be a shame to see the creativity and individualism that spurred the Linux revolution denatured and dilluted, like so many other initally promising social trends, by the invisible hand of the "almighty greenback".
I wonder to what extent use of this detector constitutes unreasonable search and seizure.
I pay good money for wireless phone service and I do not need snoopers with "cell phone detectors" singling me out as a potential troublemaker just because I prefer to stay in touch with others by carrying my phone around.
Last I checked this was still the "land of the free". I hope the proliferation of cheap cell phone detectors does not trigger a rash of racial profiling type incidents.
Apple has always been strongly involved in education, even when losing ground to PCs in the market, Apple's market share in the educational arena has remained sizeable.
This new move, however, is worrisome. It is clear that is scheme to "distribute" Ipods among Duke freshmen is nothing but a naked marketing move on Apple's part: sellng the already high-margin Ipods at a so-called "discount" to Duke under the thin pretext of using them as an educational device, then pushing Itunes, and relying on the soon-to-be-well-paid Duke graduates to keep buying Apple products in the future.
It is a shame that a fine institution Duke has gone in for such a blatant moneymaking gimmick. This is little different from allowing companies like Coca-Cola to produce "educational" material for our public schools. I would hope the Duke adminsistration would have taken a page from and choose integrity over money, but such is not to be. For shame.
Look, how many people actually use videoconferencing in their day-to-day lives? I would guess very few.
It is obvious that this so-called "shared workspace" will primarily be a boon for all those companies who outsource white-collar work such as programming and data analysis. Nothing like a new technological breakthrough to let upper management in the states keep tabs on what their third-world underlings are up to.
In times like these, when every new technological development represents another threat to our way of life, what can a responsible citizen be but shocked and appalled?
Another day, another virulent internet worm utilizing an unaccounted-for "buffer overflow" to propagate itself throughout the internet. Users suffer and system administrators grind their teeth to clean out their networks.
By now I am sure it has been noticed that the "buffer overflow" is a very common "exploit" used by these internet worms to infect machine after machine. One simple way to address this problem would be to replace these vulnerable "buffers" with something that will not overflow, perhaps something spongy and highly absorbent. Isn't anyone working on a solution along these lines? You never seem to hear about any progress being made. Honestly, sometimes it seems like no one in the technology industry has any common sense.
The theory of natural selection provides us a model for where this harebrained advertising revenue scheme will lead us, and the destination is not a pleasant one at all.
First, it is clear that only certain types of products will compel people to click their remote control buttons to peruse their related advertisements.
What types of products? Well first off, flashy toys like cars, boats, tech gadgets and videogames. "Blockbuster" type movies and popular music are also included in this category. Other kinds of products that do not titillate the imagination will be ignored. No one is going to sit through a three minute interactive commercial for cooking oil or window cleaner.
It follows then, that as some products reap ad revenue and others fall by the wayside, tv networks will compete to show the most compelling advertising material imaginable. Whatever grabs the viewers attention the fastest and firmest will dominate. Therefore I do not think it outlandish to conclude we will begin seeing advertisements for pornography on network television in our lifetimes.
Eventually formerly family entertainment media will morph into an intellectual and spiritual wasteland pushing immediate gratification, cheap thrills on an unsuspecting public. And where will that leave society? Auto accidents will increase as people speed along in their flashy cars while toying with the latest electronic device, their imaginations awash with pornographic images. Sexual mores will be loosened by the flood of titillating images on our television sets. Can a new AIDS epidemic be far behind? I would not be surprised.