This can't really be called incompetence, as anyone capable of the lengths necessary to do this probably is capable of pretty much anything web-related. This here was a case of bad web design philosophy. The people who do this are highly-educated, technically-skilled, not-incompetent, fucking idiots.
Quite well said, I must say. In my experience, these people are quite intelligent, as you mention, and are completely clueless w.r.t. why people wouldn't "just use the latest and greatest?"
I have a cable modem -- I don't design my website arounda cable modem. I've tried to make my page browser-friendly with a mix of javascript and <noscript> tags.
I went to a site that had used an animated GIF for an intro screen (ACC Telecommunications - no longer there) that was over 80k and I optimised it down to 22k (same quality) with Gifsicle. I E-mailed it to them and they actually used it.
Fox, on the other hand, doesn't even seem to notice its E-mail (as the reporter mentions re: their phone calls to the technical people in the article). Not paying attention to customers is going to kill any company, on any front.
Technical (in)competance aside, I think we (the community) should be trying to get the attention of the major web design firms and authors (websites re: design, like Webmonkey) to realise the truths of webdesign that we've mentioned.
I've got a couple comments on my new web design page, but nothing sophisticated enough. Yet.
Unlike some more pure geeks (I guess), I enjoy some good animations and well designed eye candy on a web site. I like to be given the option of skipping animations and whatnot, but I usually let them load and watch them (the first time;-).
The first time I visited the Vigilance game site, I found the introduction informative, interesting and even a little fun. Considering Fox is a television network and aims for visual pleasure of its viewers in general, I don't see why they wouldn't use lots of eye candy on their website.
I have a problem, as I reported to them twice by E-mail, with their limiting of the possibility of even viewing their site without certain technologies / platforms. I do not have a problem with the use of Flash animations or any other kind of eye-catching material. The web is not, as some may try to purport, all about "information". Yes, its a great information source, but its also about entertainment.
I enjoy being entertained, and some days, I even enjoy being advertised to... I'm a real person;-).
Well, I was visiting their site with JavaScript shut off (so that their detection code wouldn't work). I quite enjoy their content (on the X-files site) and I just think their web designers went "over the top" with the creation of the page.
For instance, the opening splash screen REQUIRES javascript to click-through... (to skip the intro).
I sent them two notices about three weeks apart about why I couldn't see their page and how to fix it properly. It seems that enough of us were nice this time (as opposed to the slashdot effect on the GIF patents).
Just because a Canadian company did something like this doesn't make Canadians bad, does it? Or are you just being bigoted?
At any rate, some Canadian Slashdotters happen to have already stated that they doubt icravetv will win this case.
I don't side with icravetv (as a Canadian) because they are violating Copyright. There are specific laws in Canada (visit the CRTC) protecting broadcasters, etc. This is also fairly well covered by International Copyright Law.
The networks have to get rights to distribute the content. The cable companies often state that you can't resell their content. It would seem to me that presenting content with revenue from the hits would be at least profiting off of the content.
What we need are some good Slashdot polls with reviews of why each distribution is good or bad with respect to these items of importance. I wouldn't want to see any "but KDE's not REALLY free" or "the installer sucks" comments. More like "Redhat doesn't offer a 'remove all beta software' option" or "Slackware's hard to upgrade" or "Redhat replaces configuration files and its hard to migrate..." etc.
A real distro discussion would be welcome, I'm sure.
This is the "Save our Science / Save our Schools" campaign. It is to eliminate Creationism from school curricula (as it is currently being introduced).
Linux lacks organized and official testing, and it lacks paid engineers who make their living improving it. People are expected to fix bugs for free. But this is the real world, and people only do so much bona fide work.
Do a poll: if network admins could fix bugs as they came up, would they? The people who did the 3D water effects for the Titanic movie used a huge Linux cluster for processing. The kernel had limitations on the Alpha platform that prevented it from working right, but considering the money they'd saved over an NT based solution, they just put some ressources into making it work properly (and better than NT). Everyone now has a more stable Alpha platform.
As for documentation and some of the other comments you've made, the man pages and other Linux documentation are often more complete and more TRUE than MS' documentation on any given issue.
Have you actually read any science texts or even popular books in the last 30 years? They almost universally begin by assuming that evolution is a fact, even when they actually say "theory", then scrabble around trying to support their assumption. Many of them have phrases like "the fact of evolution" dotted around.
Then you've been reading some pretty crappy books, is all I can say.:) Actually, I can say one more thing.. Because of the stigma about the word "theory", some scientists may occassionally use the word "fact" to refer to scientific theories.. nonetheless, these "facts" are still as subject to scientific inquiry as anything else.
Mind you, the whole point of this thread was that teachers need to be given better materials to work with or else them being up to date will not be relevant to the students reading these text books. If you think the books are pretty bad... good; say so to someone who can change what kind of science books are in grade schools, high schools, etc. They just don't bother with accuracy or intelligence any more, they take the books with the best pictures, etc.
Have you ever actually read something about Scientology? They are quite serious -- (the Scientologists are very strong minded and those opposed to them are equally so).
See some of these links to understand some of the views...
I would love to see a "statement of Linux use" on websites for companies that supposedly promote or support Linux. I would like to know if they are putting official ressources into the promotion of, or the development of Linux itself, not just apps for them to sell on top of Linux. I know SGI and SCO at least have put real code into the kernel. There are many others that don't come to mind right now. ATI is opening some of their specs to us as well.
I deal with PICK on a day to day basis and although they've recently ported their database system to Linux, I've yet to see them do any work on the kernel to make it any better. For instance, they've griped for ages about the 2G file size limitation; well, do they have any of their programmers trying to help with new filesystems, etc?
This is what I want to know: are you promoting the use of Linux and/or making it a better platform, or are you just soaking it as a free platform for your products?
Re:Some URLs you may or may not have seen
on
LinuxPDA EPOCH 32?
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· Score: 2
Of course, it helps that Epoch32 is the operating system that currently runs on Psion architechture (which runs on StrongARM processors).
You obviously need to re-read the post a few times. The reporting of historical truth that they measured the diameter at one length and the circumferance at that length * 3 may indeed be accurate. The Bible teaches that those were the measurements made by those people at that time, using the tools they had...
... like he said, go grab a piece of play-doh and mould it into a hand-made circle... (without modern tools!) and then measure... give us measurements using a piece of string 1 inch long (for scale's sake... unless you want a 30 cubit piece of play-doh... ).
We all understand significant digits here? Why would the people reporting the measurements have been concerned about measurements beyond the significance they were dealing with? We're measuiring in CUBITS... that's like "how many miles between NYC and TORONTO?"... well, better get it to a meter's precision!:)
No, the Bible teaches a historical situation in which those are the measurements given. Unless Moses got up and said "God has taught us the concept of CIRCLE!... listen!... it is to be 3 times further around than it is wide!..." it is not "Bible teaching"...
... ask a Bible scholar.
And, BTW, for the philosophers out there... you don't attack a system without using that system's presuppositions... because those being attacked take all of their presuppositions to be true, not just that one plus all of your own:-). If ALL presuppositions are considered, do the facts still end up making a falsehood? No, not in this case.
Umm, no the Bible does not say PI is 3... it uses dimensions that have enough precision to be considered correct (seeing as no-one making the criticism can give me the exact value of PI... oops, wrong number to pick an argument about). Considering the time period, an estimated value of 3 for the sake of making measurements and not transcribing values in decimal form (which didn't exist for Hebrew numbering) is perfectly acceptable.
We're talking a historical narrative people, has no one here studied Hermeneutics as much as Insolence?:-)... the accuracy of the Bible is debated on the valid levels of historical truth, claim accuracy, etc. However, because it reports that a measurement was made, and these are the numbers within the system given does not make it inaccurate, but thanks for starting an off-topic thread:-).
Yes, semantics. And scientists should care as much about how they use terms as anyone else. You cannot discount a creationist's comment that "evolution is just a theory" (of how things got to be how they are) by saying "gravity is just a theory too" when in fact, it isn't.
We KNOW that things are how they are (although not everything about them... like the exact density of Jupiter... )
We KNOW that things are attracted to each other on large-mass scale... (gravity).
We don't know WHY either of these things is the way it is... but we theorise about them. To throw out "just semantics" is discounting the point.
I enjoyed your lecture, but none of it was directed at me, but rather the persona you gave me before beginning. I understand who your intended audience was, but I am not a member of the given audience.
My exact words, as you quoted them, were that the average... scientist believes in evolution. I did not make the faulty claim that all scientists take evolution to be fact but rather the former. We both understand that there are conflicting theories about many things. String theory is one of many theories of meta(-ish-)physics going around today but many of these are difficult to prove (as is evolution).
My request was not that only facts be taught but rather that if a theory is a theory, not fact, that it be taught as a theory (sorry to quote myself again).
I always thought that a good scientist would also be good at sourcing his or her material, but I guess you're neither as you misrepresented me twice.
I was a member of several normal nets (including SFnet) but also DEADNET, BOMNET and BGRNET... "hacker" networks which were, at the time, what we now would call boring;-)... we discussed real 'hacks'... how to get a coffee for $0.05 from a $0.75 machine (see l0pht.com), problems with FTP protocols, programming in C vs. Pascal...:-)
What this book really needs is a companion; advanced Linux programming... to go into more depth in some more esoteric areas. It would be nice to have a reference guide too, but for me that's just the PERL man pages and the developer.gnome.org site.
I feel like we've lost that sense of community as well. The environment is huge... so its easy to get lost. I see the wave of the future as having been the ICQs and AOL IMs which allow people to track each other without forums. I miss the permanent record of forums though... and the membership that came with being a part of a certain system. I think a good use of some of the PHP and MySQL tools we have would be to build a generic BBS system for HTML...
... a very similar system could grow, run by a backend (but small) database (like Slashdot, etc.) but with the BBS feel to it... and no anonymous access for non-members:-).
Just my $0.02 worth...
PS. I ran a BBS in Ontario, Canada for several years on a 2400 baud modem up to the first 19.2k modems then 28.8k. We were part of international Fido-type nets... it was fun:).
But no one would know it was dangerous if it weren't for government institutions or funding proving that it was. My dad works in research and testing for the Canadian Safety Council branch of Canadian Health Services. You can't imagine how many dangerous products try to get to market so the creator can save some money and consumers have no way of knowing about it. Can you imagine if lead paint was labelled like cigarettes, instead of being banned for household use, etc.?
"Use of this paint may cause insanity, sickness and death"
I enjoyed your hidden agenda slam against creationists. They of course would say that you have to be careful of the textbooks that claim that any theory is proven unless it actually is. Just because the average humanist scientist believes in evolution doesn't mean it should be taught as fact, but rather as a plausible theory.
Part of the problem with education these days is the filling of any agenda, rather than focussing on good education; teaching kids to think. We have focussed for years on making people learn well, rather than making them think well. The average person in college can do research if they have to, but they can't process it into new and useful information.
Thinking is valuable... but its a danger to the establishment.
.... Oh no, a creationist who is anti-establishment?
Re:God this section of Slashdot gets old quick...
on
Copyright!
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· Score: 2
Well, since unsigned bands aren't represented by the RIAA, I'm sure they don't care about those MP3s. Obviously they are going after pirated music, which is their right under the law. So some kids who are stupid enough to put their music warez or whatever they call them are going to get smacked. Good. Just becuase you disagree with the concept of IP doesn't mean you can ignore the law.
I've noticed that you don't like to keep all the issues in mind when you reply to things. For instance, the RIAA did not go to court and charge a student with having illegal MP3s on the school network. The RIAA did not call the FBI and request an investigation. The RIAA did not get a search warrant to go through the school's networked computers and check for illegal material. These are all due process of the law. The RIAA instead threatened (implied) lawsuits and scared the schools into doing police work on the students. It wasn't ever shown that many of these persons had illegal MP3s; if they were.MP3, they got deleted. Read the news.
Silly me, I thought private companies had the right to make whatever agreements between each other they wanted to. If a company is making products that don't fail some legal test, why shouldn't they go to court to stop those items from being distributed?
Your comment is almost true -- but out of context again. The question was:
What is their case for demanding that products with legitimate, legal uses be pulled from the market or crippled because they "might" be used to illegally copy copyrighted material?
... which you didn't answer. There is no implied agreement here between companies. The question is whether one company or association (the RIAA) can force another "free" company (as you pointed out) such as, for instance, Diamond multimedia, to change their software because it -MIGHT- be used to pirate music. Isn't it illegal for the user of the software to use it illegally? There isn't even a clause on my hammer at home telling me to not use it to smash peoples' car windows.
It's illegal to copy commercial music and distribute it to those who have no right to that music. It doesn't matter if the tools are available; you're just not allowed to do it.
Did you decide to take this quote out of context on purpose? The original text mentions that this proposed embargo is because of possible NSA involvement -- oh, wait, the NSA IS a branch of government.
Slashdot Mirror
Quite well said, I must say. In my experience, these people are quite intelligent, as you mention, and are completely clueless w.r.t. why people wouldn't "just use the latest and greatest?"
I have a cable modem -- I don't design my website arounda cable modem. I've tried to make my page browser-friendly with a mix of javascript and <noscript> tags.
I went to a site that had used an animated GIF for an intro screen (ACC Telecommunications - no longer there) that was over 80k and I optimised it down to 22k (same quality) with Gifsicle. I E-mailed it to them and they actually used it.
Fox, on the other hand, doesn't even seem to notice its E-mail (as the reporter mentions re: their phone calls to the technical people in the article). Not paying attention to customers is going to kill any company, on any front.
Technical (in)competance aside, I think we (the community) should be trying to get the attention of the major web design firms and authors (websites re: design, like Webmonkey) to realise the truths of webdesign that we've mentioned.
I've got a couple comments on my new web design page, but nothing sophisticated enough. Yet.
Lets win this by making awareness
Unlike some more pure geeks (I guess), I enjoy some good animations and well designed eye candy on a web site. I like to be given the option of skipping animations and whatnot, but I usually let them load and watch them (the first time ;-).
... I'm a real person ;-).
...
The first time I visited the Vigilance game site, I found the introduction informative, interesting and even a little fun.
Considering Fox is a television network and aims for visual pleasure of its viewers in general, I don't see why they wouldn't use lots of eye candy on their website.
I have a problem, as I reported to them twice by E-mail, with their limiting of the possibility of even viewing their site without certain technologies / platforms. I do not have a problem with the use of Flash animations or any other kind of eye-catching material. The web is not, as some may try to purport, all about "information". Yes, its a great information source, but its also about entertainment.
I enjoy being entertained, and some days, I even enjoy being advertised to
Have a nice day all
Well, I was visiting their site with JavaScript shut off (so that their detection code wouldn't work). I quite enjoy their content (on the X-files site) and I just think their web designers went "over the top" with the creation of the page.
... (to skip the intro).
For instance, the opening splash screen REQUIRES javascript to click-through
I sent them two notices about three weeks apart about why I couldn't see their page and how to fix it properly. It seems that enough of us were nice this time (as opposed to the slashdot effect on the GIF patents).
:-)
Enlightenment lets you assign so many shortcuts to so many things that I can effectively work without a mouse most of the day.
Just because a Canadian company did something like this doesn't make Canadians bad, does it? Or are you just being bigoted?
At any rate, some Canadian Slashdotters happen to have already stated that they doubt icravetv will win this case.
I don't side with icravetv (as a Canadian) because they are violating Copyright. There are specific laws in Canada (visit the CRTC) protecting broadcasters, etc. This is also fairly well covered by International Copyright Law.
The networks have to get rights to distribute the content. The cable companies often state that you can't resell their content. It would seem to me that presenting content with revenue from the hits would be at least profiting off of the content.
What we need are some good Slashdot polls with reviews of why each distribution is good or bad with respect to these items of importance. I wouldn't want to see any "but KDE's not REALLY free" or "the installer sucks" comments. More like "Redhat doesn't offer a 'remove all beta software' option" or "Slackware's hard to upgrade" or "Redhat replaces configuration files and its hard to migrate ..." etc.
A real distro discussion would be welcome, I'm sure.
http://www.campusfreethought.org/sos/
This is the "Save our Science / Save our Schools" campaign. It is to eliminate Creationism from school curricula (as it is currently being introduced).
- Michael T. Babcock <homepage>
Do a poll: if network admins could fix bugs as they came up, would they? The people who did the 3D water effects for the Titanic movie used a huge Linux cluster for processing. The kernel had limitations on the Alpha platform that prevented it from working right, but considering the money they'd saved over an NT based solution, they just put some ressources into making it work properly (and better than NT). Everyone now has a more stable Alpha platform.
As for documentation and some of the other comments you've made, the man pages and other Linux documentation are often more complete and more TRUE than MS' documentation on any given issue.
- Michael T. Babcock <homepage>
Mind you, the whole point of this thread was that teachers need to be given better materials to work with or else them being up to date will not be relevant to the students reading these text books. If you think the books are pretty bad
- Michael T. Babcock <homepage>
See some of these links to understand some of the views
I would love to see a "statement of Linux use" on websites for companies that supposedly promote or support Linux. I would like to know if they are putting official ressources into the promotion of, or the development of Linux itself, not just apps for them to sell on top of Linux. I know SGI and SCO at least have put real code into the kernel. There are many others that don't come to mind right now. ATI is opening some of their specs to us as well.
I deal with PICK on a day to day basis and although they've recently ported their database system to Linux, I've yet to see them do any work on the kernel to make it any better. For instance, they've griped for ages about the 2G file size limitation; well, do they have any of their programmers trying to help with new filesystems, etc?
This is what I want to know: are you promoting the use of Linux and/or making it a better platform, or are you just soaking it as a free platform for your products?
Of course, it helps that Epoch32 is the operating system that currently runs on Psion architechture (which runs on StrongARM processors).
You obviously need to re-read the post a few times. The reporting of historical truth that they measured the diameter at one length and the circumferance at that length * 3 may indeed be accurate. The Bible teaches that those were the measurements made by those people at that time, using the tools they had ...
... (without modern tools!) and then measure ... give us measurements using a piece of string 1 inch long (for scale's sake ... unless you want a 30 cubit piece of play-doh ... ).
... that's like "how many miles between NYC and TORONTO?" ... well, better get it to a meter's precision! :)
... listen! ... it is to be 3 times further around than it is wide! ..." it is not "Bible teaching" ...
... you don't attack a system without using that system's presuppositions ... because those being attacked take all of their presuppositions to be true, not just that one plus all of your own :-). If ALL presuppositions are considered, do the facts still end up making a falsehood? No, not in this case.
... like he said, go grab a piece of play-doh and mould it into a hand-made circle
We all understand significant digits here? Why would the people reporting the measurements have been concerned about measurements beyond the significance they were dealing with? We're measuiring in CUBITS
No, the Bible teaches a historical situation in which those are the measurements given. Unless Moses got up and said "God has taught us the concept of CIRCLE!
... ask a Bible scholar.
And, BTW, for the philosophers out there
- Michael T. Babcock <homepage>
Umm, no the Bible does not say PI is 3 ... it uses dimensions that have enough precision to be considered correct (seeing as no-one making the criticism can give me the exact value of PI ... oops, wrong number to pick an argument about). Considering the time period, an estimated value of 3 for the sake of making measurements and not transcribing values in decimal form (which didn't exist for Hebrew numbering) is perfectly acceptable.
:-) ... the accuracy of the Bible is debated on the valid levels of historical truth, claim accuracy, etc. However, because it reports that a measurement was made, and these are the numbers within the system given does not make it inaccurate, but thanks for starting an off-topic thread :-).
We're talking a historical narrative people, has no one here studied Hermeneutics as much as Insolence?
- Michael T. Babcock <homepage>
Yes, semantics. And scientists should care as much about how they use terms as anyone else. You cannot discount a creationist's comment that "evolution is just a theory" (of how things got to be how they are) by saying "gravity is just a theory too" when in fact, it isn't.
... like the exact density of Jupiter ... )
... (gravity).
... but we theorise about them. To throw out "just semantics" is discounting the point.
We KNOW that things are how they are (although not everything about them
We KNOW that things are attracted to each other on large-mass scale
We don't know WHY either of these things is the way it is
- Michael T. Babcock <homepage>
I'm surprised people even consider themselves to be scientific when they discount theories with such staunch and dogmatic comments as your own.
... with "reality".
Have fun
- Michael T. Babcock <homepage>
I enjoyed your lecture, but none of it was directed at me, but rather the persona you gave me before beginning. I understand who your intended audience was, but I am not a member of the given audience.
... scientist believes in evolution. I did not make the faulty claim that all scientists take evolution to be fact but rather the former. We both understand that there are conflicting theories about many things. String theory is one of many theories of meta(-ish-)physics going around today but many of these are difficult to prove (as is evolution).
My exact words, as you quoted them, were that the average
My request was not that only facts be taught but rather that if a theory is a theory, not fact, that it be taught as a theory (sorry to quote myself again).
I always thought that a good scientist would also be good at sourcing his or her material, but I guess you're neither as you misrepresented me twice.
- Michael T. Babcock <homepage>
I was a member of several normal nets (including SFnet) but also DEADNET, BOMNET and BGRNET ... "hacker" networks which were, at the time, what we now would call boring ;-) ... we discussed real 'hacks' ... how to get a coffee for $0.05 from a $0.75 machine (see l0pht.com), problems with FTP protocols, programming in C vs. Pascal ... :-)
What this book really needs is a companion; advanced Linux programming ... to go into more depth in some more esoteric areas. It would be nice to have a reference guide too, but for me that's just the PERL man pages and the developer.gnome.org site.
I feel like we've lost that sense of community as well. The environment is huge ... so its easy to get lost. I see the wave of the future as having been the ICQs and AOL IMs which allow people to track each other without forums. I miss the permanent record of forums though ... and the membership that came with being a part of a certain system. I think a good use of some of the PHP and MySQL tools we have would be to build a generic BBS system for HTML ...
... and no anonymous access for non-members :-).
...
... it was fun :).
... a very similar system could grow, run by a backend (but small) database (like Slashdot, etc.) but with the BBS feel to it
Just my $0.02 worth
PS. I ran a BBS in Ontario, Canada for several years on a 2400 baud modem up to the first 19.2k modems then 28.8k. We were part of international Fido-type nets
But no one would know it was dangerous if it weren't for government institutions or funding proving that it was. My dad works in research and testing for the Canadian Safety Council branch of Canadian Health Services. You can't imagine how many dangerous products try to get to market so the creator can save some money and consumers have no way of knowing about it. Can you imagine if lead paint was labelled like cigarettes, instead of being banned for household use, etc.?
"Use of this paint may cause insanity, sickness and death"
People still smoke, don't they?
- Michael T. Babcock <homepage>
I enjoyed your hidden agenda slam against creationists. They of course would say that you have to be careful of the textbooks that claim that any theory is proven unless it actually is. Just because the average humanist scientist believes in evolution doesn't mean it should be taught as fact, but rather as a plausible theory.
... but its a danger to the establishment.
Part of the problem with education these days is the filling of any agenda, rather than focussing on good education; teaching kids to think. We have focussed for years on making people learn well, rather than making them think well. The average person in college can do research if they have to, but they can't process it into new and useful information.
Thinking is valuable
....
Oh no, a creationist who is anti-establishment?
- Michael T. Babcock <homepage>
So, unlike your comments w.r.t. MP3 copying, you now believe that certain companies don't have the right to do anything they wish (utilities)?
...
At any rate, you ignored my comments outright -- no, consumers would buy lead paint because they did long before it was banned
- Michael T. Babcock <homepage>
I've noticed that you don't like to keep all the issues in mind when you reply to things. For instance, the RIAA did not go to court and charge a student with having illegal MP3s on the school network. The RIAA did not call the FBI and request an investigation. The RIAA did not get a search warrant to go through the school's networked computers and check for illegal material. These are all due process of the law. The RIAA instead threatened (implied) lawsuits and scared the schools into doing police work on the students. It wasn't ever shown that many of these persons had illegal MP3s; if they were
Your comment is almost true -- but out of context again. The question was:
... which you didn't answer. There is no implied agreement here between companies. The question is whether one company or association (the RIAA) can force another "free" company (as you pointed out) such as, for instance, Diamond multimedia, to change their software because it -MIGHT- be used to pirate music. Isn't it illegal for the user of the software to use it illegally? There isn't even a clause on my hammer at home telling me to not use it to smash peoples' car windows.
It's illegal to copy commercial music and distribute it to those who have no right to that music. It doesn't matter if the tools are available; you're just not allowed to do it.
- Michael T. Babcock <homepage>
Did you decide to take this quote out of context on purpose? The original text mentions that this proposed embargo is because of possible NSA involvement -- oh, wait, the NSA IS a branch of government.
- Michael T. Babcock <homepage>