I've seen this type of reasoning posted all over this story, and I can't disagree more strongly.
What is with this masochistic tendency to claim that giving isn't generous unless it is detrimental to oneself? We're lambasting the man for not putting himself in the poorhouse, now? What purpose would that serve? It would just mean that he would eliminate his ability to give more, later.
You yourself obviously haven't followed through on the vows of poverty you're so quick to enforce on others, or you wouldn't be typing away on your pretty little keyboard and posting through your swanky broadband connection. How many vaccinations would your ISP bill provide?
Geez! Hypocrites! Believe it or not, generosity is still generosity if you don't break the bank. In fact, it is good stewardship of your money to maintain enough to fuel future contribution to society. This is also the immature thinking that leads to the idea that I can't take pleasure or pride in my giving. Wrong again!
Remember, inflicting financial damage on oneself does not make a contribution more generous, and taking pleasure in the act of giving does not make it less so.
Still, this took more journalism skill than the rest of the Mac "prediction" rags, combined -- more than a lot of newspapers and magazines I've read. Cultivating accurate sources, assembling stray threads of rumors into a newsworthy story, refraining from publishing information that is wildly inaccurate -- these are some of the marks of a good journalist. To have them at the age of 19, much less 13 -- that's not a feat to be belittled.
I imagine it's more about the molehunt than about the money. Apple's got a leak and they might be having trouble finding it, internally. ThinkSecret's had some pretty accurate predictions. Plus, the kid's a 19-year-old college student. Put those two together and a scary letter from a corporate lawyer might have looked like the easiest way to shake some names out.
Indeed. The mystery and detective work are part of what makes the cult of the Mac fun. It's not like people get so worked up over the next big product from Dell or HP. I think Apple would do better to keep it a little more lighthearted. I don't blame them if they go on a molehunt -- they've got to protect their trade secrets, after all -- but ThinkSecret and rags like it are free publicity. In this case, the publicity could be bad because they're attacking one of the fanatics that make up their customer core. Eating your customer core is never good. When they turn on you, it's ugly.
It wasn't necessarily company policy at the last company I worked, but I learned to insist on a college degree. After hiring people with and without degrees, I learned that in general, there was one difference that was important to me. That was the ability to learn.
I'm not saying that there aren't high-school-educated people with that ability, but the college-educated have proved it. And for some reason, it seems to be something that is learned in the college years. Or at least it is weeded out in the college years after you aren't required by law to go to school any more.
Of course, my policy sucks for those of you that are still in school, but hang in there. You pay your dues. You take your lumps. Eventually things work out. Think about finding a company that you want to work for and getting in at a lower level. Just get your foot in the door so you can start making contacts. My former company was constantly hiring warehouse workers who were in college. Because they had worked for the company for a time, they had a leg up when positions opened up in a more skilled position whether or not they were finished with their degree.
And that would all be fine and good up to the point where she milked the publicity for her own gain: going on the talkshow circuit, getting into magazines, trying to cut movie deals, and now trying to present her new project as some kind of documentary. She may not have presented herself as a journalist in the first place, but when she was mistaken for one, she made no attempt to correct the perception. In fact, she milked it and tried to cover up when her story was shown to be false. For that, she deserves the label "liar" and more. By not immediately admitting that the story was a fantasy, she's romanticizing dangerous and illegal activities that could lead others - more gullible than even your standard/. readers - to harm.
Walmart is not a monopoly - but they have ruined their share of small businesses.
Interestingly enough, they've also made their share of small businesses. I was watching some pseudo-news program that was doing a story on the guy who invented some kind of processed peanut-butter slices (like those processed cheese slices you use on your bologna sandwiches). He invented the formula, came up with a manufacturing process, and began looking for places to sell. Walmart got interested, and the guy was an overnight millionaire.
I'm not saying that I'm a Walmart advocate. I just find it fascinating that they have such make-or-break power. If I can find that one niche invention, Walmart is the first place that I'm going to approach as a retailer. Similarly, if I write a novel, I'm going to try to write one that Oprah likes. Again, not that I care for Oprah or her tastes -- but hey! -- instant NY Times bestseller.
I don't know if this has been mentioned, but there is a great article on the electoral college right on the Federal Election Commission's website. I believe it gives a pretty fair look at the electoral college, taking into account its strengths and weaknesses. You can find a link to the PDF file (among other things) on this page. Look for "A Brief History of the Electoral College."
Futures markets are attractive mostly because the perception of the group is so often accurate. This reminds me of something I heard on NPR a few weeks back. Here's the link
They were interviewing the author of this book about how the average of guesses made by a crowd of normal people compared favorably to those made by lone geniuses.
I imagine that there was similar reasoning behind the Pentagon's recent terrorism futures market. Of course what they didn't predict was that most people would find it disgusting and they would have to shutitdown as a result.
For those basement-dwelling geeks who don't occasionally get up to the garage/shop, Honduran Mahogany (aka Genuine Mahogany, aka Swietenia Macrophylla) has some properties that make it incredibly desirable to the consumer as well as the woodworker. It naturally darkens with age. It has tight, smooth grains which make it easy to turn and carve, but it is hard enough to make sturdy furniture out of. Because of this, much of the wild-growing Honduran Mahogany from Central and South America was consumed and shipped worldwide. However, there are still many countries who have a bit more restraint. There are huge sustainable Honduran Mahogany plantations.
Also, there are several species of wood which have begun to replace its use including African Mahogany (Khaya ivorensis).
Of course, all that being said, it is still difficult and expensive to obtain Honduran Mahogany. And Chippendale furniture is jolly expensive.
But it's not quite the case that "there's no such thing as mahogany any more. Not growing at least." It grows. Not so much in the wild, any more. Of course that will just be nitpicking to some people.
Allow me to point you to Folding@Home. This is Stanford's distributed computing project. Their goal: to understand protein folding, protein aggregation, and related diseases.
I'm sure they've been mentioned before, but they seem to meet your four criteria nicely:
c) A Linux Console version is listed on theirDownload Page along with Windows and Mac OS X versions.
b) In my experience, I've had to do nothing but install and let the software do its thing. It only takes up unused cycles and is completely non-intrusive. For Mac OS X users, I recommend checking out TeamMacOSX's website for some free software downloads that make it easy to maintain clients for multiple processors.
Combine it with the increasingly popular act of Garden Gnome Theft and I think you have something. Steal garden gnome, send owner web links of all the cams the gnome has visited.
Slashdot Mirror
I've seen this type of reasoning posted all over this story, and I can't disagree more strongly.
What is with this masochistic tendency to claim that giving isn't generous unless it is detrimental to oneself? We're lambasting the man for not putting himself in the poorhouse, now? What purpose would that serve? It would just mean that he would eliminate his ability to give more, later.
You yourself obviously haven't followed through on the vows of poverty you're so quick to enforce on others, or you wouldn't be typing away on your pretty little keyboard and posting through your swanky broadband connection. How many vaccinations would your ISP bill provide?
Geez! Hypocrites! Believe it or not, generosity is still generosity if you don't break the bank. In fact, it is good stewardship of your money to maintain enough to fuel future contribution to society. This is also the immature thinking that leads to the idea that I can't take pleasure or pride in my giving. Wrong again!
Remember, inflicting financial damage on oneself does not make a contribution more generous, and taking pleasure in the act of giving does not make it less so.
SharkJumper
Still, this took more journalism skill than the rest of the Mac "prediction" rags, combined -- more than a lot of newspapers and magazines I've read. Cultivating accurate sources, assembling stray threads of rumors into a newsworthy story, refraining from publishing information that is wildly inaccurate -- these are some of the marks of a good journalist. To have them at the age of 19, much less 13 -- that's not a feat to be belittled.
SharkJumper
I imagine it's more about the molehunt than about the money. Apple's got a leak and they might be having trouble finding it, internally. ThinkSecret's had some pretty accurate predictions. Plus, the kid's a 19-year-old college student. Put those two together and a scary letter from a corporate lawyer might have looked like the easiest way to shake some names out.
SharkJumper
Indeed. The mystery and detective work are part of what makes the cult of the Mac fun. It's not like people get so worked up over the next big product from Dell or HP. I think Apple would do better to keep it a little more lighthearted. I don't blame them if they go on a molehunt -- they've got to protect their trade secrets, after all -- but ThinkSecret and rags like it are free publicity. In this case, the publicity could be bad because they're attacking one of the fanatics that make up their customer core. Eating your customer core is never good. When they turn on you, it's ugly.
SharkJumper
It wasn't necessarily company policy at the last company I worked, but I learned to insist on a college degree. After hiring people with and without degrees, I learned that in general, there was one difference that was important to me. That was the ability to learn.
I'm not saying that there aren't high-school-educated people with that ability, but the college-educated have proved it. And for some reason, it seems to be something that is learned in the college years. Or at least it is weeded out in the college years after you aren't required by law to go to school any more.
Of course, my policy sucks for those of you that are still in school, but hang in there. You pay your dues. You take your lumps. Eventually things work out. Think about finding a company that you want to work for and getting in at a lower level. Just get your foot in the door so you can start making contacts. My former company was constantly hiring warehouse workers who were in college. Because they had worked for the company for a time, they had a leg up when positions opened up in a more skilled position whether or not they were finished with their degree.
SharkJumper
Look on the bright side. Maybe the US will have fixed Social Security by then!
SharkJumper
And that would all be fine and good up to the point where she milked the publicity for her own gain: going on the talkshow circuit, getting into magazines, trying to cut movie deals, and now trying to present her new project as some kind of documentary. She may not have presented herself as a journalist in the first place, but when she was mistaken for one, she made no attempt to correct the perception. In fact, she milked it and tried to cover up when her story was shown to be false. For that, she deserves the label "liar" and more. By not immediately admitting that the story was a fantasy, she's romanticizing dangerous and illegal activities that could lead others - more gullible than even your standard /. readers - to harm.
SharkJumper
Simple. The car simply automatically switches from Jetsons mode to Flintstones mode.
SharkJumper
Walmart is not a monopoly - but they have ruined their share of small businesses.
Interestingly enough, they've also made their share of small businesses. I was watching some pseudo-news program that was doing a story on the guy who invented some kind of processed peanut-butter slices (like those processed cheese slices you use on your bologna sandwiches). He invented the formula, came up with a manufacturing process, and began looking for places to sell. Walmart got interested, and the guy was an overnight millionaire.
I'm not saying that I'm a Walmart advocate. I just find it fascinating that they have such make-or-break power. If I can find that one niche invention, Walmart is the first place that I'm going to approach as a retailer. Similarly, if I write a novel, I'm going to try to write one that Oprah likes. Again, not that I care for Oprah or her tastes -- but hey! -- instant NY Times bestseller.
SharkJumper
And they've aready announced the next phase of the X-Prize, the X-Prize Cup. CNN covers it here.
SharkJumper
6kT is just a scosh? Thats an interesting defintion of scosh...
It's a metric scosh.
I don't know if this has been mentioned, but there is a great article on the electoral college right on the Federal Election Commission's website. I believe it gives a pretty fair look at the electoral college, taking into account its strengths and weaknesses. You can find a link to the PDF file (among other things) on this page. Look for "A Brief History of the Electoral College."
SharkJumper
Why CANT we do research on human enhancement?
Behold the evils of your human-enhancement, devil science! Behold and shudder in shame and terror!
SharkJumper
Is a message allowed to read itself?
Yes. But unfortunately, it has to be fed through a punchcard reader to extract the information. You first.
SharkJumper
This will never work. Some PC, animal-loving, left-wing jerk will throw a wrench in the works.
SharkJumper
Futures markets are attractive mostly because the perception of the group is so often accurate. This reminds me of something I heard on NPR a few weeks back. Here's the link
They were interviewing the author of this book about how the average of guesses made by a crowd of normal people compared favorably to those made by lone geniuses.
I imagine that there was similar reasoning behind the Pentagon's recent terrorism futures market. Of course what they didn't predict was that most people would find it disgusting and they would have to shut it down as a result.
SharkJumper
Either that, or it toughens them up ala Boy Named Sue.
SharkJumper
You insensitive clod!
SharkJumper
Bit of an exaggeration, there.
For those basement-dwelling geeks who don't occasionally get up to the garage/shop, Honduran Mahogany (aka Genuine Mahogany, aka Swietenia Macrophylla) has some properties that make it incredibly desirable to the consumer as well as the woodworker. It naturally darkens with age. It has tight, smooth grains which make it easy to turn and carve, but it is hard enough to make sturdy furniture out of. Because of this, much of the wild-growing Honduran Mahogany from Central and South America was consumed and shipped worldwide. However, there are still many countries who have a bit more restraint. There are huge sustainable Honduran Mahogany plantations.
Also, there are several species of wood which have begun to replace its use including African Mahogany (Khaya ivorensis).
Of course, all that being said, it is still difficult and expensive to obtain Honduran Mahogany. And Chippendale furniture is jolly expensive.
But it's not quite the case that "there's no such thing as mahogany any more. Not growing at least." It grows. Not so much in the wild, any more. Of course that will just be nitpicking to some people.
Allow me to point you to Folding@Home. This is Stanford's distributed computing project. Their goal: to understand protein folding, protein aggregation, and related diseases.
I'm sure they've been mentioned before, but they seem to meet your four criteria nicely:
a) The second question in their FAQ is "Who owns the results"
c) A Linux Console version is listed on theirDownload Page along with Windows and Mac OS X versions.
b) In my experience, I've had to do nothing but install and let the software do its thing. It only takes up unused cycles and is completely non-intrusive. For Mac OS X users, I recommend checking out TeamMacOSX's website for some free software downloads that make it easy to maintain clients for multiple processors.
d) Science!
SharkJumper
Combine it with the increasingly popular act of Garden Gnome Theft and I think you have something. Steal garden gnome, send owner web links of all the cams the gnome has visited.
SharkJumper
Yes! SharkJumper
Exactly. It's the Woody Allen phenomenon.
SharkJumper
Happy workers == productive workers.
"Let the fools have their tar-tar sauce."
SharkJumper
Which is worse? To feed trolls by posting replies, or to reply to any story posted on Slashdot on April 1?
To have mod points on April 1.
SharkJumper