The biggest problem with Chernobyl was that it was a shitty plant that wasn't designed to meet anything even modestly resembling the safety standards to which plants in the US and Canada were/are designed. Unfortunately, it's been held up as an example of how horrible nuclear power is. But what happened in Chernobyl would almost certainly never happen in a Western plant.
Apple's AAC implementation uses ABR rather than a purely VBR implementation. Look at the bitrate distributions. Ogg's bitrate was significantly higher than iTunes' in the majority of listening tests.
My phone has a nifty little feature where I can set it separate notifications for when it's plugged into the charger vs. when it is not plugged in. When not plugged in, it vibrates. When plugged in, it rings with the standard ringer. I have yet to encounter a problem with my system. Yes it's true that some people look at me funny when I randomly reach for my phone without it having played a ring-tone, but when I start talking into it, they'll either get the fact that someone called me or presume that I'm insane.
Since when is the elevation of pseudoscience a good thing? People actually think that Star Trek's garbage is "realistic science fiction" when it's just as implausible as every other sci-fi series out there. TNG practically made a culture out of using bullshit science and fancy techno-terms to resolve the Problem of the Week.
Are you some sort of fucking retard? The principal photography on Episode III was done well before Return of the King came out. You think Lucas just saw it and called everyone back to do a massive lava battle shot?
I'm too lazy to try and implement this, but what you could do is write an AppleScript to receive all calls to the help protocol. So whenever there's a help: URL, your little AppleScript goes up, notifying you that something is trying to open a help: URL, which is a security vulnerability. Then either allow or deny. If the user allows it, pass the URL along to Help Viewer.app. Then just use something like MoreInternet to point the help: protocol to that script.
Like I said though, I'm too lazy to try it right now.
Yeah, gun-toting rednecks are going to retake the government. Sure. The people of Iraq had the right to bear arms; why did Saddam stay in power for so long if all that was required was for everyone with a gun to rally against the government?
His statement was that Apple could, in the future, make more songs non-burnable. As I showed previously, there is nothing false about this. It is misleading, becuase it implies that Apple currently distributes some non-burnable cd's, but there is nothing false, blatently or otherwise, about it. I have no idea what the distinction between burning a song and a playlist has to do with it, since the statement is about what Apple could do in the future, not what it does now.
Oh give me a fucking break. You admitted that his statement implied that songs were now non-burnable, and that I was right to criticize him for it. Apple could, in the future, give every god damn song away for free. Does that mean I can use that as grounds to sing the praises of iTMS?
I never said innacurate statements should be modded up. I said that people should not lose their moderation rights for modding an innacurate statement. They are two totally different things. Surely you can see the difference?
Yet you don't have a problem with inaccurate statements being modded up.
Why do you write this after I wen't through a long discussion of how his post was misleading, not false? If you can find something in his post that is false, then I will retract my accusation of slander. Otherwise, calling his post blatently false, when it is merely misleading is slander.
He said that they'd flag "more and more files as non-burnable." For fuck's sake, the implication is clear to anyone with a brain. All you're doing now is playing semantics bullshit to cover your position. His statement was false, because it clearly implied that they were already doing it.
I never admitted that his statements were incorrect, merely misleading. All of this is beside the point though, which is whether someone should lose the ability to moderate if they modded up a post that was incorrect. Forget I ever used the slander line, because I could care less whether you slandered him or not.
Yes, my position is that people who mod posts up without bothering to double-check the contents of those posts shouldn't have mod points.
'I downloaded the file in the hope that perhaps Microsoft had released some sort of
public beta. The file unzipped, and to my delight the Microsoft icon looked genuine and trustworthy.'
1) Was your interpertation of his post accurate? Yes. When he claimed that Apple would make more songs non-burnable, you were right to point out this implied that some were currently non-burnable, which was not true.
2) Were you right in saying that his post was "blatently false"? No. Technically, Apple going from no non-burnable songs to some non-burnable songs could be considered "making more songs non-burnable". Therefore, his post was not "blatently false". It was misleading, and, again, you were right to correct this misleading aspect.
Except that it's not technically correct. Apple only restricts the burning of a single playlist. iTunes doesn't keep track of how often you burn a single song; you can burn that song as many times as you want in as many different playlist combinations as you want. So yes, it was blatantly false, as in obviously false. What do you think "blatantly" means, exactly?
3) Should people who give positive moderation to posts like this lose their moderation priviledges? No. The point in moderation is to facilitate an interesting and informative discussion. It is not to vote on the right answer, and it is not to actively promote one position. Even if he had made a factually false statement, moderators still should not lose their mod rights for modding it up. That punishment should be reserved for those who actively sabatoge a discussion, not for those who, in attempting to factilitate a discussion, make a mistake.
Ah, so if someone posts a litany of lies regarding Apple, Microsoft or Linux, it should be modded up as "interesting" or "insightful" to encourage discussion instead of modded down? This gets better and better all the time. Maybe I'll post something about how OpenOffice is $50 more retail than Microsoft Office and has compatibility issues, so only morons would buy it. I'll try and act surprised when I get modded down.
That is not a difficult position to defend. Why have a moderation system at all if only "enlightened" people get to mod?
Because those people have better judgment and insight. Why do you think good karma is required to get mod points?
A system like that is invariable skewed towards the view of the "enlightened," which may not represent the views of the unwashed masses at all. If the point of moderation was to pick out the right answer, a system like that might work. However, the point in moderation is to produce interesting discussions. Besides, if you are willing to go that far, why allow the "non-enlightened" to post at all? Why not just give posting rights to those who can pass a computer test or who have a college degree?
Mod points judge a post based on content, not on whether or not the masses like it. If a post contains false statements presented as if they were true, then it's a negative contribution, because not everyone will bother to read the posts correcting it. I can't believe I'm actually arguing with you. Lying and making uninformed and/or false statements is not only okay, but should be rewarded as long as it stimulates discussion? Are you on crack?
I have never backpeddled. My veiw from the start has been that you were right to correct him, and wrong to insist that people should lose moderation rights for modding him up. That is still my view.
Except that you accused me of slandering and therefore misrepresenting his statements. Whoops. Keep backpedaling; make sure you don't trip.
Not true. You slandered him when you said that his post was "blatently false," which is independent of your interpertation of his post. Therefore, the rest of that paragraph of yours is meaningless.
What a load of horse shit. You yourself admitted that his statements were incorrect. Your big beef appears to be with my use of the word "blatantly," which is a matter of subjective opinion as to how obvious the falsity of his statements were. For some reason, you seem to think that the word "blatant" means something other than what it means -- obvious and conspicuous. I thought it was fairly obvious; you didn't.
I have not disputed your interpertation of his post, nor have I ever expressed any desire to do so. As I have said repeatedly, you were right to correct him. My objection is only to your insistence that those who modded him up should lose mod rights.
So you're not disputing my statement that he lied; you're just disputing my statement that people who mod up posts which contain mistruths as "insightful" should not be given mod powers? Give me a break; people who can't differentiate mistruths and FUD from facts should be given moderation points? That's a difficult position to defend. As to your backpedaling on your prior statements...
You explicitly accused me of slandering, meaning that you took issue with how I interpreted what he said. In the same breath, you claimed that there was nothing blatantly false in his statements, even though now you admit that he did make false statements and that I was right to point that out. You also said that all of my objections dealt with the implications and tone of what he said, not "the facts themselves," as if the implications of his statements were completely irrelevant.
Ok, lets change them to be the same quantity.
An unprotected CD can be copied say ten thousand times before it wears out. So in units of 'copy' then this would be
+2 - 3*10000 = -29998
Does that look better? Of course not.
You forgot one thing: you can make copies of that CD directly and therefore never have to use iTunes to burn that same playlist again. So, by your conversion factor, having just one burn of a single playlist is every bit as useful as 7 or 10.
The rest of your argument is just insults without substance.
Aw, did I hurt poor baby's feelings?
just because you call it a fallacy doesn't make it so, I've pointed to 3 steps we've already taken on this slope: DRM, Copy protected CDs, copies reduce from 10 to 7. You've put no evidence forward.
Except for being able to authorize another two machines to play the damn songs, retard. Even if you were right, the ability to authorize another two machines is not magically canceled out by the loss of an ability, which by your own logic, is completely trivial.
See the 29998 comment above. You've put no evidence forward.
Your deficiencies in math and quantification haven't proven shit. Please stop deluding yourself into thinking they have.
There was nothing blatently false in the post you slandered.
Except for the claims that Apple sold songs which could not be burned to CD. I didn't slander anything.
All of your objections were to the tone or the implications of what he said, not the facts themselves. If you had intelligently corrected him, I would have had no problem.
The implications of what he said are perfectly open to criticism and correction. If you're going to dispute my interpretation of his statements, feel free to do so. Here is the one in particular.
Yeah, Apple looks reall "fair" to slashbots right now. But they're slowly but surely tightening the noose. More and more files will be flagged as not-burnable to CD, more and more restrictions will be placed.
If you honestly dispute the implication that they're already flagging files as non-burnable, then please have your head examined. It's clear to anyone what he was trying to say.
My objection is that you feel that anyone who thought his post was worth reading should lose their moderation privlidges.
I think that anyone who considers lying and FUD-mongering to be "insightful" should lose moderation privileges, yes. I stand by that statement.
Not because he was wrong, but because he was too negative towards Apple.
Oh puh-fucking-leeze. I've been critical of Apple many, many times in the past, and I have no problems with people legitimately criticizing them, but this wasn't a legitimate criticism. It was lying, a slippery slope and FUD-mongering.
"And Apple hasn't tightened the noose; it's loosened it probably in response to PlayFair. They allowed for authorization on 2 additional machines, but took away 3 burns"
+2-3 = -1
Maybe you should learn some math. You can't add and subtract numbers which describe completely different quantities. You might as well try subtracting kilograms from the number of DVDs in my room. Then again, knowing that would presuppose some intelligence on your part. No, we need to describe things in terms of usefulness. Let me sum it up for you: 2 more machines authorized is far more useful than three burns of a single playlist to a CD (which can be copied directly after it is burned by applications like Nero or Toast).
Oh boohoo like I'm going to burn the same playlist 3 times.
Oh boohoo like I'm going to burn the playlist once.
Oh boohoo, like I'm going to play it on 5 machines at once.
Oh boohoo, like I'm going to play it on 2 machine at once.
Oh boohoo, like I'm going to play the same music 10 years from now.
Oh boohoo, like I'm going to play the same music 1 year from now.
Oh boohoo.
Slippery slope fallacy.
"I hope I can see the moderation of your post in the meta-mod panel just so I can make sure whatever imbecile modded you as "insightful" never gets mod points again."
The people modding down are using 'Overrated' to try to avoid meta mod penalties.
That's a little difficult when you're participating in a discussion, hence not allowed to moderate it, dumb-ass.
Good counter points are being modded down to avoid discussion.
Except that it's not a good counter-point. It's a fucking lie. Apple has not "tightened the noose" in any appreciable way, nor have they distributed songs that cannot be burned to a CD.
I hope I see the people who modded you up in meta mod.
So your policy is that only people who agree with you should be able to moderate? I bet that would generate a real interesting discussion.
No, you blithering idiot. The policy is that people who mod posts up which contain blatantly false information shouldn't be mods. Is that such a difficult concept for you to grasp?
It's about appeasing the RIAA. Do you think that they'd continue to do business with Apple if Apple just let their DRM be cracked without ever bothering to change it? Apple's a business, and they have to play by the rules. I'd be willing to bet that there's a clause in their contracts with the RIAA members that obliges them to make a reasonable effort to keep their DRM ahead of the crackers.
Yeah, Apple looks reall "fair" to slashbots right now. But they're slowly but surely tightening the noose. More and more files will be flagged as not-burnable to CD, more and more restrictions will be placed.
There are no non-burnable files on iTMS. The same contract applies to every song. You can make 7 burns of the same playlist, and authorize music on up to 4 additional computers. And Apple hasn't tightened the noose; it's loosened it, probably in response to PlayFair. They allowed for authorization on 2 additional machines, but took away 3 burns (oh boohoo, like I'm going to burn the same playlist 7 times). Apple's working a compromise between the music lovers and the RIAA, and so far, it looks like their model is working well. "Tightening the noose" my ass. Get your facts straight. I hope I can see the moderation of your post in the meta-mod panel just so I can make sure whatever imbecile modded you as "insightful" never gets mod points again.
Can anyone say, "oversimplification"? Rambus memory was a dismal failure because of a combination of things. It was stupidly expensive to manufacture with the price being passed on to the distributors and then consumers, no one wanted to pay the idiotic royalties, it was made by a shady, asinine company whose tax forms probably include more in legal fees than R&D and you had to buy it in pairs, thus doubling the cost of your memory upgrade. Meanwhile, DDR is cheap and available in both single- and dual-channel specifications.
Rambus simply wasn't going anywhere. Would you buy memory from a company that spent all its time suing people? It might have been fast then, but I due to its high manufacturing costs and Rambus' obsession with court rooms, I seriously doubt they'd have gone anywhere with it. DDR, on the other hand, is an open standard that evolves through cooperation and competition, not legal strong-arming.
What, you actually think senators and congressmen care about you? They care about scratching the backs of those that donate to their campaigns. That's it. Congress was bought and paid for a long time ago. We had a chance to change things with campaign finance reform, but apparently shoveling money into a senator's campaign fund is a protected form of free speech.
Slashdot Mirror
The biggest problem with Chernobyl was that it was a shitty plant that wasn't designed to meet anything even modestly resembling the safety standards to which plants in the US and Canada were/are designed. Unfortunately, it's been held up as an example of how horrible nuclear power is. But what happened in Chernobyl would almost certainly never happen in a Western plant.
Apple's AAC implementation uses ABR rather than a purely VBR implementation. Look at the bitrate distributions. Ogg's bitrate was significantly higher than iTunes' in the majority of listening tests.
My phone has a nifty little feature where I can set it separate notifications for when it's plugged into the charger vs. when it is not plugged in. When not plugged in, it vibrates. When plugged in, it rings with the standard ringer. I have yet to encounter a problem with my system. Yes it's true that some people look at me funny when I randomly reach for my phone without it having played a ring-tone, but when I start talking into it, they'll either get the fact that someone called me or presume that I'm insane.
Since when is the elevation of pseudoscience a good thing? People actually think that Star Trek's garbage is "realistic science fiction" when it's just as implausible as every other sci-fi series out there. TNG practically made a culture out of using bullshit science and fancy techno-terms to resolve the Problem of the Week.
"Misfortunate"? I didn't know George W. Bush posted on Slashdot. ;)
Are you some sort of fucking retard? The principal photography on Episode III was done well before Return of the King came out. You think Lucas just saw it and called everyone back to do a massive lava battle shot?
I ran those commands, and sudo asked me for a password, just like it always has. I think that these problems might be exclusive to your setup.
I'm too lazy to try and implement this, but what you could do is write an AppleScript to receive all calls to the help protocol. So whenever there's a help: URL, your little AppleScript goes up, notifying you that something is trying to open a help: URL, which is a security vulnerability. Then either allow or deny. If the user allows it, pass the URL along to Help Viewer.app. Then just use something like MoreInternet to point the help: protocol to that script.
Like I said though, I'm too lazy to try it right now.
Yeah, gun-toting rednecks are going to retake the government. Sure. The people of Iraq had the right to bear arms; why did Saddam stay in power for so long if all that was required was for everyone with a gun to rally against the government?
Most of the Mac users I support don't even know their administrator password.
You explicitly accused me of slandering, meaning that you took issue with how I interpreted what he said. In the same breath, you claimed that there was nothing blatantly false in his statements, even though now you admit that he did make false statements and that I was right to point that out. You also said that all of my objections dealt with the implications and tone of what he said, not "the facts themselves," as if the implications of his statements were completely irrelevant.
So which is it?
It's about appeasing the RIAA. Do you think that they'd continue to do business with Apple if Apple just let their DRM be cracked without ever bothering to change it? Apple's a business, and they have to play by the rules. I'd be willing to bet that there's a clause in their contracts with the RIAA members that obliges them to make a reasonable effort to keep their DRM ahead of the crackers.
Can anyone say, "oversimplification"? Rambus memory was a dismal failure because of a combination of things. It was stupidly expensive to manufacture with the price being passed on to the distributors and then consumers, no one wanted to pay the idiotic royalties, it was made by a shady, asinine company whose tax forms probably include more in legal fees than R&D and you had to buy it in pairs, thus doubling the cost of your memory upgrade. Meanwhile, DDR is cheap and available in both single- and dual-channel specifications.
Rambus simply wasn't going anywhere. Would you buy memory from a company that spent all its time suing people? It might have been fast then, but I due to its high manufacturing costs and Rambus' obsession with court rooms, I seriously doubt they'd have gone anywhere with it. DDR, on the other hand, is an open standard that evolves through cooperation and competition, not legal strong-arming.
Yes, and Apache is off by default. You can stop feeling "insightful" any time now.
What, you actually think senators and congressmen care about you? They care about scratching the backs of those that donate to their campaigns. That's it. Congress was bought and paid for a long time ago. We had a chance to change things with campaign finance reform, but apparently shoveling money into a senator's campaign fund is a protected form of free speech.
Oh Christ, it was a joke, man.
Then of course, there was Otto ... "I told you I was a dude." CHOP!