The bloggers role in modern political reporting is...
I'd be genuinely impressed if bloggers of any sort were able to do anything more than, infrequent or isolated examples notwithstanding, offer commentary derived from traditional media coverage, or the contents of other blogs. That's a roundabout way of saying that bloggers don't do reporting. In fact, given cut backs or elimination of network news departments in recent years, I'd say the only folks doing real reporting are those working for newspapers.
I do read some blogs, and most of those tend to be political in nature. But then, that's mostly for the quality of writing and opinions. If I wanted to be informed, I'd pick up a newspaper or listen to C-SPAN.
Not sure what market you're referring to, but if it's the retail one, I hear that advertising campaigns featuring retired comedians are considered an ideal solution to such problems.
On a more serious note, I've often wondered why it is that Linux doesn't get advertised given the existence of groups like the Linux Foundation. I'm not suggesting a Super Bowl spot, but if the recent success of Firefox is any example, some form of media coverage could be beneficial. The decision makers subscribing to glossy magazines would take note, as would the general public, and I'd like to think that even long-term users would respond positively. Besides, everyone loves Penguins, right?
I thought that editors were supposed to be steeped in English grammar and should be able to diagram a sentence, thus...
They are. In fact, most writers are able to do the same. The consensus, however, appears to be "This is Slashdot and we like it like it that." meaning that editing is non-existent, being able to write (or type, for that matter) is irrelevant, and that anything else wouldn't be in the spirit of things.
You want cheap comms, the price is eyesores. People put up with telegraph poles and electricity pylons for the benefits (electric power and telephones). If you want your broadband and services at rock-bottom prices, you can't expect the utilities to shell-out for NIMBY-approved landscaping.
I think that is an oversimplification of the issue, as we're talking about for-profit companies taking advantage of what really belongs to the public.
That said, your point about NIMBY types being cheap is perfectly valid. Where I live, for example, the area is quite scenic (surrounded by mountains) and the power lines run between the streets so the poles are effectively behind everyone's house. When the neighbourhood was built, the utility company allocated funds to bury the lines but the agreement required each and every homeowner to contribute a few thousand dollars toward the total cost.
Granted, telephone poles tend to fall in the "acceptable blight" category, but who wouldn't want them buried (thereby increasing their property values, among other things)? Well, it seems my entire neighbourhood doesn't. Why? Because it costs money. And as with most initiatives, irrespective of how enlightened they are, if there's money involved, the knee-jerk reaction is to reject them outright.
The underlying issue, however, is the sad state of broadband in the US. The "let the market take care of everything" folks continue to rule public opinion so no one should be surprised at the ad hoc nature of improvements, warts and all. As for anyone trying to find the middle ground between the free market and NIMBY forces, I'm sure they'd be up against bumper sticker style complaints from all sides.
However I dare say there's enough casually- or accidentally-taken images of crossbeams and information signs and panoramas on Flickr to achieve something striking.
Bah.
I won't be impressed until Photosynth can zoom in and see behind objects. I know it's possible, because I've seen it on TV.
The idea, as he conceived it, was and is completely unworkable. (Which helps to explain why he died penniless.)
I'd recommend reading a book or two (or, at the very least, the Wiki article on Tesla) before offering up such lame-assed comments about a person's life.
If you had done that much, you'd be aware of what he did accomplish and could have avoided making yourself look like a fool, absurd non-sequitors nothwithstanding.
Indeed. They still haven't had much luck in forming a working republic after having their elected leader deposed by the US, suffering under economic sanctions, fighting an over-long brutal war with Iraq, being surrounded by not so friendly Arab states, the nukes in India, the nukes in Pakistan, and now that the US has moved in next door (complementing their previous and continuing efforts elsewhere in the region), they can't seem to win for losing.
And you thought South Central was a bad neighbourhood.
If there's a bright side, it's that their fellow Shia have come to power in Iraq.
The way the summaries are presented makes it pretty clear that they're the editorialised version of the original, interpreted the opinions of the submitter, and I think honestly we all have the critical thinking skills required to handle that, right?
I can't tell whether the irony in striving for the lowest common denominator escapes you, or you actually believe that a "It sucks but it's OK" argument can ever be valid.
Sorry, but I think the OP was entirely correct. Slashdot readers are invited to "submit" a story. If that invitation is abused, and the reader decides to offer personal opinions, commentary, advocacy, or otherwise offers an editorial in the place of a story, then we should recognise it for what it is (and what it's not), and skip the lame excuses to justify it, irrespective of the abscence (or existence) of real editors.
Personally, I don't how anyone would not be offended or have their intelligence insulted by someone who, quite frankly, has no business submitting anything. It's even more suprising that the submitter doesn't recognise that his lack of objectivity undermines his own commentary and makes him look like a complete ass.
Dunno about everyone else, but when I see a new story, I'd like to be able to choose whether or not I want to read comments; that's what the "read more" link is for. If the submitter wants to offer comments, he can do so just like the rest of us.
I've tried. That, along with mullets and a few other things.;-)
I have a few hundred of them (before you call me old, examine my UID...I'm 17).
Congrats! Since you're old enough to drive, it's time to start saving up for that used Firebird to go with the 8-track tapes. Alternatively, a fully decked-out van would work, though if you live down south, an old pickup truck might be more appropriate.
People in many western countries have an expectation that governments and businesses behave in a mostly honorable manner.
True, but one of the many problems inherent in modern democracies, if you can get past the ill-informed electorate issue, is apathy.
Say, for example, that the document in question wasn't a registration document, but a purchase order. And instead a clever use of a web search engine to discover the disappearing document, we have a trained diplomat (whose wife happens to be a CIA agent) uncovering a forgery. In both cases the government presents the perceived reality as truth, while the rest of us go on about our business.
Maybe the question is not whether we expect such behaviour, but whether we expect anything to change.
It's to do with the safety of the competitors (underdeveloped bones etc.) as gymnastics takes much more of a toll on your body than swimming (being exceedingly hig. I would wager being younger, and lighter, also helps on things like the Asymmetric Bars.
If my recollection of Sanjay Gupta's comments on CNN is of any value, I believe the issue is the opposite, namely that underdeveloped bones confer a real advantage to the athlete (they're more "bendy" in addition to being "lighter").
Hens are awfully dumb. They have an instinctive reaction to images of weasels (panic/run) and to sound (tweeting) of small chickens ("herd/care").
Slashdotters are awfully dumb. They have an instinctive reaction to images of the opposite sex (arousal/enlarged penises) and to sound (heavy breathing) of the their favourite bands ("tribal/belonging"). Don't give them all so much credit.
Employees are awfully dumb. They have an instinctive reaction to the arrival of their boss (panic/run) and to sound (yelling) of anyone in authority ("fear/flight"). Don't give them all so much credit.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Setting aside the hand-wavy theories and taxonomies promoted by those in the social sciences, I'd say that such generalisations, while possibly interesting, are mostly meaningless. If a fairly accurate generalisation can be made, it's that our age-old insistence that we're somehow unique or different is repeatedly proven wrong, and the underlying hubris has interfered with our ability to understand not only ourselves, but the world around us.
On a more general note, having advanced terminal commands is a good thing because they are often better at complex taks than a click and point GUI. Needing to use them for tasks that should be simple (like issuing shutdown commands) is bad.
I'm not sure what an "advanced" command is, but if your argument was correct, Microsoft would have placed a giant REBOOT icon on the desktop, and would have done this by default for every version of Windows released since Win95.
Or are you suggesting that rebooting, arguably the most common task performed by Windows users everywhere, falls into the "complex" or "advanced" category?
I almost never see affect used (properly) as a noun, usually only in very old writing, and it's not terribly common to use effect as a verb these days. For most people, they should just remember "affect is a verb, and effect is a noun".
Fair advice for those taking baby steps toward literacy. However, affect (as a noun) is common enough in non-casual writing and can be invaluable elsewhere: how else to describe someone's lisp in a polite manner? Effect is indeed more common as a noun, but the phrase "effect change" (transitive verb form) is frequent enough to be characterised as cliched. So much for easy to remember rules.;-)
Personally, this reminds me of the folks confusing "lie" and "lay", or the more egregious "lose" and "loose". Is learning what each of the damned words means that difficult? Or is it that non-native English speakers (who rarely make such errors) are just smarter?
My own observations over the years have led me to conclude that most common spelling errors are attributable to bad pronunciation. The words "effect" and "affect" are, or at least should be, pronounced very differently. At least for those who regional dialect doesn't preclude from them pronouncing a soft "a" as just that, rather than "ugh", or better yet, "duh"!
Haven't they heard the news in the BSD camps? Scripting in csh is considered harmful.
Probably true, but then again, I've never seen anyone actually doing so. I'd suggest that a more widespread problem is the assumption that Linux represents the entire *nix world, that scripts should be written in bash, and bash-isms are something to be encouraged.
In the BSD world, scripts are invariably written in/bin/sh. Platform independence (to the extent possible), consistency and speed are not something to be sneezed at.
Bash and friends are, generally, best reserved for interactive use. So while it's true that the default shell on BSD is csh, it's fairly common to see bash installed. On my own systems, I compile bash statically but despite that long held habit, I've never chosen to rely on it or write scripts that did the same.
but the blue [Enter] keys and the 1" thick bezel just remind me of an 1970's IBM BYTE advert with a geek with thick square politburo glasses standing beside an IBM mainframe/line printer.
Ah, but didja notice the IBM geek wore a white shirt and a tie? Ok, so it was usually a short-sleeved white shirt and tie, but still. I'll even go so far as to suggest he probably liked it!
Now before I ask you to get off my lawn, I'll direct your attention to the geek starring in the Verizon TV ads. It seems that politburo-style glasses are de rigeur for conveying a modern, stylish and professional image these days, particularly for those in the technical or literary fields. Surprised? I'll bet Elvis "I've been wearing them since the 70's" Costello is, too.
For the record, I prefer wearing a white shirt and tie to work, but I insist on removing the distracting red nipples from all my Thinkpads, right after I remove the Intel stickers, and tape over the IBM logo. I prefer to think of it as sortofkindof like owning a MacBook, but more corporate looking. Not having to add the requisite black turtlenecks to my wardrobe helps, too.
Because of 25 years of being in front of a monitor, at the age of 33 I now require bifocals.
Hope you're enjoying things as they are because in a few more years, your vision will change again, and you'll discover that you need trifocals, two pairs of bifocals, or a motley collection of glasses in various prescriptions.
This typically happens anytime after 40. For people whose sight was 20/20 their entire life, they suddenly discover they need reading glasses because their eye muscles can't cope with the demands of focusing on objects near and far. In the words of my ophthalmologist, "Your arms won't be long enough to hold what you want to read." Complicating the issue are two things: first, reading is done at a different distance than a monitor screen, and secondly, the traditional bifocal approach doesn't work as well because computer screens are positioned very differently than a book lying flat on a desk.
Me, I wear contacts day and night, but wear glasses when in front of a computer which, ironically, is also day and night. Reading books with any comfort requires I take off one pair of glasses and put on another.
The ideal solution for someone who already has corrected vision is Lasik surgery in combination with the "occasional" use of reading and/or computer glasses. While I would wholeheartedly agree that contacts are generally superiour in every respect, opthalmologists tend to discourage their use as you get older.
Given such clouds, you drop silver iodide into them and you'll increase the chance of the rain event happening now rather than a bit later, and probably increase the volume of rain too.
I'm wondering, from a purely technical point of view, whether this technique would be appropriate for the smug clouds known to exist over parts of Los Angeles. And if so, would you get rain, or an increase in the smugness index?
Slashdot Mirror
how many geeks does it take to muster a first-world class military?
That's a divide by zero problem, so it's a trick question.
The bloggers role in modern political reporting is ...
I'd be genuinely impressed if bloggers of any sort were able to do anything more than, infrequent or isolated examples notwithstanding, offer commentary derived from traditional media coverage, or the contents of other blogs. That's a roundabout way of saying that bloggers don't do reporting. In fact, given cut backs or elimination of network news departments in recent years, I'd say the only folks doing real reporting are those working for newspapers.
I do read some blogs, and most of those tend to be political in nature. But then, that's mostly for the quality of writing and opinions. If I wanted to be informed, I'd pick up a newspaper or listen to C-SPAN.
There was no market for it.
Not sure what market you're referring to, but if it's the retail one, I hear that advertising campaigns featuring retired comedians are considered an ideal solution to such problems.
On a more serious note, I've often wondered why it is that Linux doesn't get advertised given the existence of groups like the Linux Foundation. I'm not suggesting a Super Bowl spot, but if the recent success of Firefox is any example, some form of media coverage could be beneficial. The decision makers subscribing to glossy magazines would take note, as would the general public, and I'd like to think that even long-term users would respond positively. Besides, everyone loves Penguins, right?
I thought that editors were supposed to be steeped in English grammar and should be able to diagram a sentence, thus ...
They are. In fact, most writers are able to do the same. The consensus, however, appears to be "This is Slashdot and we like it like it that." meaning that editing is non-existent, being able to write (or type, for that matter) is irrelevant, and that anything else wouldn't be in the spirit of things.
It's a written medium. Go figure.
You want cheap comms, the price is eyesores. People put up with telegraph poles and electricity pylons for the benefits (electric power and telephones). If you want your broadband and services at rock-bottom prices, you can't expect the utilities to shell-out for NIMBY-approved landscaping.
I think that is an oversimplification of the issue, as we're talking about for-profit companies taking advantage of what really belongs to the public.
That said, your point about NIMBY types being cheap is perfectly valid. Where I live, for example, the area is quite scenic (surrounded by mountains) and the power lines run between the streets so the poles are effectively behind everyone's house. When the neighbourhood was built, the utility company allocated funds to bury the lines but the agreement required each and every homeowner to contribute a few thousand dollars toward the total cost.
Granted, telephone poles tend to fall in the "acceptable blight" category, but who wouldn't want them buried (thereby increasing their property values, among other things)? Well, it seems my entire neighbourhood doesn't. Why? Because it costs money. And as with most initiatives, irrespective of how enlightened they are, if there's money involved, the knee-jerk reaction is to reject them outright.
The underlying issue, however, is the sad state of broadband in the US. The "let the market take care of everything" folks continue to rule public opinion so no one should be surprised at the ad hoc nature of improvements, warts and all. As for anyone trying to find the middle ground between the free market and NIMBY forces, I'm sure they'd be up against bumper sticker style complaints from all sides.
However I dare say there's enough casually- or accidentally-taken images of crossbeams and information signs and panoramas on Flickr to achieve something striking.
Bah.
I won't be impressed until Photosynth can zoom in and see behind objects. I know it's possible, because I've seen it on TV.
Anyone know how that's done?
The idea, as he conceived it, was and is completely unworkable. (Which helps to explain why he died penniless.)
I'd recommend reading a book or two (or, at the very least, the Wiki article on Tesla) before offering up such lame-assed comments about a person's life.
If you had done that much, you'd be aware of what he did accomplish and could have avoided making yourself look like a fool, absurd non-sequitors nothwithstanding.
Iran has a serious case of "little man" syndrome.
Indeed. They still haven't had much luck in forming a working republic after having their elected leader deposed by the US, suffering under economic sanctions, fighting an over-long brutal war with Iraq, being surrounded by not so friendly Arab states, the nukes in India, the nukes in Pakistan, and now that the US has moved in next door (complementing their previous and continuing efforts elsewhere in the region), they can't seem to win for losing.
And you thought South Central was a bad neighbourhood.
If there's a bright side, it's that their fellow Shia have come to power in Iraq.
The way the summaries are presented makes it pretty clear that they're the editorialised version of the original, interpreted the opinions of the submitter, and I think honestly we all have the critical thinking skills required to handle that, right?
I can't tell whether the irony in striving for the lowest common denominator escapes you, or you actually believe that a "It sucks but it's OK" argument can ever be valid.
Sorry, but I think the OP was entirely correct. Slashdot readers are invited to "submit" a story. If that invitation is abused, and the reader decides to offer personal opinions, commentary, advocacy, or otherwise offers an editorial in the place of a story, then we should recognise it for what it is (and what it's not), and skip the lame excuses to justify it, irrespective of the abscence (or existence) of real editors.
Personally, I don't how anyone would not be offended or have their intelligence insulted by someone who, quite frankly, has no business submitting anything. It's even more suprising that the submitter doesn't recognise that his lack of objectivity undermines his own commentary and makes him look like a complete ass.
Dunno about everyone else, but when I see a new story, I'd like to be able to choose whether or not I want to read comments; that's what the "read more" link is for. If the submitter wants to offer comments, he can do so just like the rest of us.
Someone with a collection of burned CDs that are still readable?
Forget not the humble 8-track tape!
I've tried. That, along with mullets and a few other things. ;-)
I have a few hundred of them (before you call me old, examine my UID...I'm 17).
Congrats! Since you're old enough to drive, it's time to start saving up for that used Firebird to go with the 8-track tapes. Alternatively, a fully decked-out van would work, though if you live down south, an old pickup truck might be more appropriate.
Why are bug reports on the iPhone always blown way the hell out of proportion?
Maybe it's because some are insisting that a phone should be able to make phone calls, while other are using a metric based on "user experience"?
People in many western countries have an expectation that governments and businesses behave in a mostly honorable manner.
True, but one of the many problems inherent in modern democracies, if you can get past the ill-informed electorate issue, is apathy.
Say, for example, that the document in question wasn't a registration document, but a purchase order. And instead a clever use of a web search engine to discover the disappearing document, we have a trained diplomat (whose wife happens to be a CIA agent) uncovering a forgery. In both cases the government presents the perceived reality as truth, while the rest of us go on about our business.
Maybe the question is not whether we expect such behaviour, but whether we expect anything to change.
It's to do with the safety of the competitors (underdeveloped bones etc.) as gymnastics takes much more of a toll on your body than swimming (being exceedingly hig. I would wager being younger, and lighter, also helps on things like the Asymmetric Bars.
If my recollection of Sanjay Gupta's comments on CNN is of any value, I believe the issue is the opposite, namely that underdeveloped bones confer a real advantage to the athlete (they're more "bendy" in addition to being "lighter").
Don't give them all so much credit.
Hens are awfully dumb. They have an instinctive reaction to images of weasels (panic/run) and to sound (tweeting) of small chickens ("herd/care").
Slashdotters are awfully dumb. They have an instinctive reaction to images of the opposite sex (arousal/enlarged penises) and to sound (heavy breathing) of the their favourite bands ("tribal/belonging"). Don't give them all so much credit.
Employees are awfully dumb. They have an instinctive reaction to the arrival of their boss (panic/run) and to sound (yelling) of anyone in authority ("fear/flight"). Don't give them all so much credit.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Setting aside the hand-wavy theories and taxonomies promoted by those in the social sciences, I'd say that such generalisations, while possibly interesting, are mostly meaningless. If a fairly accurate generalisation can be made, it's that our age-old insistence that we're somehow unique or different is repeatedly proven wrong, and the underlying hubris has interfered with our ability to understand not only ourselves, but the world around us.
mutt -f imaps://imap.gmail.com
On a more general note, having advanced terminal commands is a good thing because they are often better at complex taks than a click and point GUI. Needing to use them for tasks that should be simple (like issuing shutdown commands) is bad.
I'm not sure what an "advanced" command is, but if your argument was correct, Microsoft would have placed a giant REBOOT icon on the desktop, and would have done this by default for every version of Windows released since Win95.
Or are you suggesting that rebooting, arguably the most common task performed by Windows users everywhere, falls into the "complex" or "advanced" category?
I almost never see affect used (properly) as a noun, usually only in very old writing, and it's not terribly common to use effect as a verb these days. For most people, they should just remember "affect is a verb, and effect is a noun".
Fair advice for those taking baby steps toward literacy. However, affect (as a noun) is common enough in non-casual writing and can be invaluable elsewhere: how else to describe someone's lisp in a polite manner? Effect is indeed more common as a noun, but the phrase "effect change" (transitive verb form) is frequent enough to be characterised as cliched. So much for easy to remember rules. ;-)
Personally, this reminds me of the folks confusing "lie" and "lay", or the more egregious "lose" and "loose". Is learning what each of the damned words means that difficult? Or is it that non-native English speakers (who rarely make such errors) are just smarter?
My own observations over the years have led me to conclude that most common spelling errors are attributable to bad pronunciation. The words "effect" and "affect" are, or at least should be, pronounced very differently. At least for those who regional dialect doesn't preclude from them pronouncing a soft "a" as just that, rather than "ugh", or better yet, "duh"!
From most of the blogs I've seen, I think "clouded thinking" would be more appropriate.
my American friends are 'worldly' enough to be able to understand the rather British-centric comedy
I've always understood the difference between American and British humour to be that British humour makes you laugh. No worldliness required.
Haven't they heard the news in the BSD camps? Scripting in csh is considered harmful.
Probably true, but then again, I've never seen anyone actually doing so. I'd suggest that a more widespread problem is the assumption that Linux represents the entire *nix world, that scripts should be written in bash, and bash-isms are something to be encouraged.
In the BSD world, scripts are invariably written in /bin/sh. Platform independence (to the extent possible), consistency and speed are not something to be sneezed at.
Bash and friends are, generally, best reserved for interactive use. So while it's true that the default shell on BSD is csh, it's fairly common to see bash installed. On my own systems, I compile bash statically but despite that long held habit, I've never chosen to rely on it or write scripts that did the same.
but the blue [Enter] keys and the 1" thick bezel just remind me of an 1970's IBM BYTE advert with a geek with thick square politburo glasses standing beside an IBM mainframe/line printer.
Ah, but didja notice the IBM geek wore a white shirt and a tie? Ok, so it was usually a short-sleeved white shirt and tie, but still. I'll even go so far as to suggest he probably liked it!
Now before I ask you to get off my lawn, I'll direct your attention to the geek starring in the Verizon TV ads. It seems that politburo-style glasses are de rigeur for conveying a modern, stylish and professional image these days, particularly for those in the technical or literary fields. Surprised? I'll bet Elvis "I've been wearing them since the 70's" Costello is, too.
For the record, I prefer wearing a white shirt and tie to work, but I insist on removing the distracting red nipples from all my Thinkpads, right after I remove the Intel stickers, and tape over the IBM logo. I prefer to think of it as sortofkindof like owning a MacBook, but more corporate looking. Not having to add the requisite black turtlenecks to my wardrobe helps, too.
Because of 25 years of being in front of a monitor, at the age of 33 I now require bifocals.
Hope you're enjoying things as they are because in a few more years, your vision will change again, and you'll discover that you need trifocals, two pairs of bifocals, or a motley collection of glasses in various prescriptions.
This typically happens anytime after 40. For people whose sight was 20/20 their entire life, they suddenly discover they need reading glasses because their eye muscles can't cope with the demands of focusing on objects near and far. In the words of my ophthalmologist, "Your arms won't be long enough to hold what you want to read." Complicating the issue are two things: first, reading is done at a different distance than a monitor screen, and secondly, the traditional bifocal approach doesn't work as well because computer screens are positioned very differently than a book lying flat on a desk.
Me, I wear contacts day and night, but wear glasses when in front of a computer which, ironically, is also day and night. Reading books with any comfort requires I take off one pair of glasses and put on another.
The ideal solution for someone who already has corrected vision is Lasik surgery in combination with the "occasional" use of reading and/or computer glasses. While I would wholeheartedly agree that contacts are generally superiour in every respect, opthalmologists tend to discourage their use as you get older.
It's the Chinese Olympics. What do you think?
Actually, the reality is just as funny:
When you can't or don't need to "embrace, extend, and extinguish", sponsor!
My own opinion is that not anticipating a blue screen is like attending a Budweiser-sponsored sporting event and expecting to get real beer.
Given such clouds, you drop silver iodide into them and you'll increase the chance of the rain event happening now rather than a bit later, and probably increase the volume of rain too.
I'm wondering, from a purely technical point of view, whether this technique would be appropriate for the smug clouds known to exist over parts of Los Angeles. And if so, would you get rain, or an increase in the smugness index?