Well, he decided to land in freakin' Kansas. They don't have many people out there, feewer people who give a rat's ass.
Not entirely fair - there is a lot of empty space and relatively low population there, but Kansas also has an extremely active civil aviation crowd. Flying's a big deal in Kansas.
Probably because it beats driving in Kansas, come to think of it.;^)
OTOH, the state is becoming famous for their ongoing support of creationist "science" in schools, so I sorta regret defending them.
Am I the only one who has trouble understanding how a "quantity of light" can be used to define the exact value of a kilogram? I mean, I know my radiometer spins when light hits it, but getting from there to defining the kilogram as a quantity of light makes my head hurt a little. Can somebody explain, please?
Not all games require electricity to play. I'm not sure how different your brother's needs are from my 5-year-old, but you might consider a few games we've found fun & educational. Cribbage is a great game for rudimentary math skills (involves a lot of addition and subtraction of numbers up to about 31). Blackjack would work too, and as he advances, you could probably come up with some good math card-games on your own. (Multiplication War, for example -- like normal War, but instead of highest-card-wins, it's first person to announce the product of the two cards wins. Just made that up myself, right here...)
And for reading, it's been my experience that Boggle or Scrabble played loosely is a great tool. You just accept phonetic spellings at first, so that there are hardly any "wrong" words. As he progresses, you tighten up by first giving extra points for correct spelling, then insisting on it for words of a certain length or less, etc.
Where could this technology lead in a 100 years I wonder? Could it lead to a fax machine for complete living organisms?
At best, it's remote cloning -- you can't expect to print the experiences along with the cells.
Of course, that's based on an unquestioned assumption on my part that either there is no material basis for thoughts & memories, or that the basis is so complex and chaotic that we'll be unable to reproduce on the receiving end of a transporter-style thingy.
Unfortunately, per-view advertising is every bit as vulnerable to fraud as PPC advertising. It simply requires a slightly different action from the trained monkey operating the mouse.
What's different between them is the motive the fraudster (and here, I mean the person paying the click farm, not the individual clickers) has for their actions. In PPC fraud, the intention is to cost the competition money by running up the number of clicks they have to pay for, thereby driving them out of the market and protecting your advertising turf. In CPM/per-view advertising, the "per thousand" factor means that it's much more likely being done to benefit the seller of the ads than to hurt the buyer of the ads.
The only reason the web has problems like this is that we have to deal with the myth of finally having hard numbers about ad performance. The print/broadcast/outdoor advertising industries have always used numbers that ended in at least three zeroes when they describe the exposure your ad provides, because they couldn't be more accurate than that.
I think these two releases indicate that MS realize that they're taking a drubbing WRT the "monoculture promotes disease" argument any/.er is well familiar with, namely "You should not use $microsoft_product because it is so successful that many security flaws have been found." It seems that their corporate response is going to be "We take security seriously and we produce this (apparently kickass) software to allow users to use our software without the security concerns they may have historically had."
(Now, I know that these two releases don't actually make all of the security issues all go away. I'm not saying that MS products are suddenly, magically secure. I'm just saying their record might rapidly get a lot better, enough to weaken our assertion that FOSS is safer/more secure in the eyes of the end user.)
I'm rooting for FOSS, but you have to admit that this approach (and the software behind it) makes the argument for switching away from Windows a little tougher for the average end-user. What if MS starts beating the FOSS community in response time for fixes?
The FOSS community has long claimed that peer review of code prevents many security flaws before they happen. But many flaws (certainly the high-profile ones) are found after release, whether the code is open or not. If Microsoft uses their corporate advantage in resources and organization to beat us (or appear to beat us) on security response, it undermines one of the fundamental justifications for FOSS.
I always thought the ambiguity was intentional, so they could speak more clearly out of both sides of their mouths. It lets them can tell the DMA, "We've passed CAN-SPAM for you!" and then turn around and tell their constituents, "We've passed CAN-SPAM for you!"
We've had decent luck with Newegg, but I really like Monarch Computer. They've got a pretty nice and informative customization process, which helps if you don't spend your weekends reading hardware component reviews. While they're not super fast, they have good, live, native-English-speaking non-outsourced tech support. We've never needed to return anything to them -- they assemble and test-burn systems prior to shipping, even if you're not purchasing an operating system.
They don't seem to have much super-big iron, but we're running just about our entire freaking company on a dual-Athlon machine we got from them, with an SATA RAID and 4G of RAM. It's a solid machine. Oh, and they're cheap.
One last note of particular interest to the/. community is that they have pretty good Linux presence -- I think you can buy SuSe or Redhat machines pre-installed, and they have no problems selling a machine with no OS whatsoever.
Of course, when you compare them to a monster like Newegg, they don't have the selection. But if what you want is not particularly unusual, Monarch's a pretty good choice.
can anyone listen to this an not think of dirk gently? No doubt, sounds like this guy just bought a copy of Anthem 0.6 alpha at an Air Force surplus sale.
The Left Hand of Darkness was great, but I felt that The Lathe of Heaven sucked profoundly, both in concept and execution. If I were Le Guin, I'd cringe at being identified as the author of The Lathe of Heaven. The Disposessed, on the other hand, is something Le Guin should be very, very proud of.
(I'm speaking only of the books, BTW. I haven't seen any TV adaptations.)
We have Gobblet Jr. and my five-year old is a fierce opponent. It's a great game. I think grown-ups have a disadvantage because it feels like tic-tac-toe, but punishes certain tic-tac-toe strategies.
We sell bike tours and have in the past had relationships with web sites that used the model described above. It's not always a case of intentional dishonesty -- it can be really hard to recognize whether a customer came from that site or not. But the most important problem is that it's not Google's fault if someone comes to look at our web site and doesn't buy -- they're being paid to deliver people who click on your ad because it interests them.
At least Google cares about this issue. I've actually received refund checks from Google for fraud reimbursement. Overture just downplays the issue and keeps taking our money. I'd stop using Overture altogether if it were my decision.
PPC advertising is gross, at first glance -- but it's really interesting to compare the ways Google and Overture implement the idea. Google is very good at making it clear what's paid and what's natural, while Overture (and their many affiliate sites) lets the boundary blur. It's that intentional blurring of the boundary between natural and paid results that smells foul. I think it's very similar to the notion of a boundary between editorial and advertising in a journalism setting.
If you're involved with PPC marketing and worried about fraud, make sure you realize who's your friend. I hope Google doesn't get a disproportionate share of the wrath here just because they spoke up about the problem. If it were up to Overture, nothing would ever get done about it.
As a member of the Viridian Curia, I just want to say that you've crossed the wrong secret cabal, Captain Sarcasm!
Just kidding, except for the part about being a Viridian Curia member. I feel I should explain the goal of the Viridians. It was basically a design/social engineering list with the goal of making hi-tech green things (products, services, etc.) "cool" and pollutive things "uncool." The idea was, people won't buy green things because they're green, because people are stupid and short-sighted. They'll even buy unwieldy, expensive things like Hummer H2's because they're status symbols. So why not make the Toyota Prius a status symbol instead? The list consisted mainly of rants by Bruce, with occasional design contests. It's all pretty well archived at the website mentioned in the parent's post. Good, clean fun, mostly.
My favorite Viridian concept? The Wexelblat Disaster - being un-green is not just uncool, it's gross and dangerous!
I've always wanted to start a tortilla company that used a special press to imprint the image of Jesus in, oh, say, every thousandth tortilla. Imagine the word of mouth sales!
it is not really Google that is impacting businesses but rather individuals' choices
Exactly. As an employee at one of the companies mentioned (ExperiencePlus!, please be gentle!) I was annoyed with what the author chose to quote from my boss. The quote that was chosen gives the impression that we're good at tricking Google into liking us, which isn't the case.
Rick knows that Google rewards good content, and he knows that our customers prefer good content. The beauty of Google lies precisely there -- the same methods apply to both human-optimization and SEO, more or less. So Google is making a better web by rewarding sites that feature relevant, informative content. As a matter of fact, we're developing a redesigned site with a large area specifically designed to offer a lot of useful information to travelers, because we know it will be helpful to people and popular with Google.
If you compare our site to that honeymoon site (Unforgettable Honeymoons) that was complaining about being blown away in the rankings, there are a lot of lessons that lady could learn. She sounds like Google is some capricious god that's chosen to smite her, but really, she's just done an imperfect job.
Just work on the quality of your mousetrap, Google will handle telling the world about it.
I'm not sure the auto-everything cameras are that much faster. Once you have something like a K1000 dialed in to where you think the action will be, you can get a picture from it as soon as you stab the shutter.
I have definitely gotten some pictures with my K-1000 that others with auto-focus cameras missed because I did exactly this. The strictly mechanical shutter is faster than anything electronic I've ever used.
OTOH, I've probably missed far more shots because I was unable to set up ahead of time. It can take way too long to set up posed snapshots, because of the manual focus/exposure issue; that's certainly led to "missed shots" in the sense that people are reluctant to let me take the time. I've also missed shots because the curtain shutter was too slow for my flash, or because my light meter keeps failing me. (They're supposed to be tanks, but I've spent close to two hundred dollars on repairs for mine.)
Bottom line is that I'd rather have both manual and AF capabilities so you can choose which is appropriate. And I've come to love digital for the instant feedback -- if you mess up a shot, you can tell, and you can take it again.
Slashdot Mirror
Not entirely fair - there is a lot of empty space and relatively low population there, but Kansas also has an extremely active civil aviation crowd. Flying's a big deal in Kansas.
Probably because it beats driving in Kansas, come to think of it. ;^)
OTOH, the state is becoming famous for their ongoing support of creationist "science" in schools, so I sorta regret defending them.
Am I the only one who has trouble understanding how a "quantity of light" can be used to define the exact value of a kilogram? I mean, I know my radiometer spins when light hits it, but getting from there to defining the kilogram as a quantity of light makes my head hurt a little. Can somebody explain, please?
And for reading, it's been my experience that Boggle or Scrabble played loosely is a great tool. You just accept phonetic spellings at first, so that there are hardly any "wrong" words. As he progresses, you tighten up by first giving extra points for correct spelling, then insisting on it for words of a certain length or less, etc.
At best, it's remote cloning -- you can't expect to print the experiences along with the cells.
Of course, that's based on an unquestioned assumption on my part that either there is no material basis for thoughts & memories, or that the basis is so complex and chaotic that we'll be unable to reproduce on the receiving end of a transporter-style thingy.
What's different between them is the motive the fraudster (and here, I mean the person paying the click farm, not the individual clickers) has for their actions. In PPC fraud, the intention is to cost the competition money by running up the number of clicks they have to pay for, thereby driving them out of the market and protecting your advertising turf. In CPM/per-view advertising, the "per thousand" factor means that it's much more likely being done to benefit the seller of the ads than to hurt the buyer of the ads.
The only reason the web has problems like this is that we have to deal with the myth of finally having hard numbers about ad performance. The print/broadcast/outdoor advertising industries have always used numbers that ended in at least three zeroes when they describe the exposure your ad provides, because they couldn't be more accurate than that.
(Now, I know that these two releases don't actually make all of the security issues all go away. I'm not saying that MS products are suddenly, magically secure. I'm just saying their record might rapidly get a lot better, enough to weaken our assertion that FOSS is safer/more secure in the eyes of the end user.)
I'm rooting for FOSS, but you have to admit that this approach (and the software behind it) makes the argument for switching away from Windows a little tougher for the average end-user. What if MS starts beating the FOSS community in response time for fixes?
The FOSS community has long claimed that peer review of code prevents many security flaws before they happen. But many flaws (certainly the high-profile ones) are found after release, whether the code is open or not. If Microsoft uses their corporate advantage in resources and organization to beat us (or appear to beat us) on security response, it undermines one of the fundamental justifications for FOSS.
They may be amoral, but they're not stupid.
They don't seem to have much super-big iron, but we're running just about our entire freaking company on a dual-Athlon machine we got from them, with an SATA RAID and 4G of RAM. It's a solid machine. Oh, and they're cheap.
One last note of particular interest to the /. community is that they have pretty good Linux presence -- I think you can buy SuSe or Redhat machines pre-installed, and they have no problems selling a machine with no OS whatsoever.
Of course, when you compare them to a monster like Newegg, they don't have the selection. But if what you want is not particularly unusual, Monarch's a pretty good choice.
Ow, my aching eyeballs. At least I have finally seen the infamous goatse.cx picture.
can anyone listen to this an not think of dirk gently?
No doubt, sounds like this guy just bought a copy of Anthem 0.6 alpha at an Air Force surplus sale.
The Left Hand of Darkness was great, but I felt that The Lathe of Heaven sucked profoundly, both in concept and execution. If I were Le Guin, I'd cringe at being identified as the author of The Lathe of Heaven.
The Disposessed, on the other hand, is something Le Guin should be very, very proud of. (I'm speaking only of the books, BTW. I haven't seen any TV adaptations.)
That's informative stuff. Is it possible (not knowing Moz real well) that it's an effect isolated to a certain operating system, or some other quirk?
We have Gobblet Jr. and my five-year old is a fierce opponent. It's a great game. I think grown-ups have a disadvantage because it feels like tic-tac-toe, but punishes certain tic-tac-toe strategies.
We sell bike tours and have in the past had relationships with web sites that used the model described above. It's not always a case of intentional dishonesty -- it can be really hard to recognize whether a customer came from that site or not. But the most important problem is that it's not Google's fault if someone comes to look at our web site and doesn't buy -- they're being paid to deliver people who click on your ad because it interests them.
At least Google cares about this issue. I've actually received refund checks from Google for fraud reimbursement. Overture just downplays the issue and keeps taking our money. I'd stop using Overture altogether if it were my decision.
PPC advertising is gross, at first glance -- but it's really interesting to compare the ways Google and Overture implement the idea. Google is very good at making it clear what's paid and what's natural, while Overture (and their many affiliate sites) lets the boundary blur. It's that intentional blurring of the boundary between natural and paid results that smells foul. I think it's very similar to the notion of a boundary between editorial and advertising in a journalism setting.
If you're involved with PPC marketing and worried about fraud, make sure you realize who's your friend. I hope Google doesn't get a disproportionate share of the wrath here just because they spoke up about the problem. If it were up to Overture, nothing would ever get done about it.
As a member of the Viridian Curia, I just want to say that you've crossed the wrong secret cabal, Captain Sarcasm!
Just kidding, except for the part about being a Viridian Curia member. I feel I should explain the goal of the Viridians. It was basically a design/social engineering list with the goal of making hi-tech green things (products, services, etc.) "cool" and pollutive things "uncool." The idea was, people won't buy green things because they're green, because people are stupid and short-sighted. They'll even buy unwieldy, expensive things like Hummer H2's because they're status symbols. So why not make the Toyota Prius a status symbol instead? The list consisted mainly of rants by Bruce, with occasional design contests. It's all pretty well archived at the website mentioned in the parent's post. Good, clean fun, mostly.
My favorite Viridian concept? The Wexelblat Disaster - being un-green is not just uncool, it's gross and dangerous!
--Rich Young ^^^^^^^^^^*?I've always wanted to start a tortilla company that used a special press to imprint the image of Jesus in, oh, say, every thousandth tortilla. Imagine the word of mouth sales!
Exactly. As an employee at one of the companies mentioned (ExperiencePlus!, please be gentle!) I was annoyed with what the author chose to quote from my boss. The quote that was chosen gives the impression that we're good at tricking Google into liking us, which isn't the case.
Rick knows that Google rewards good content, and he knows that our customers prefer good content. The beauty of Google lies precisely there -- the same methods apply to both human-optimization and SEO, more or less. So Google is making a better web by rewarding sites that feature relevant, informative content. As a matter of fact, we're developing a redesigned site with a large area specifically designed to offer a lot of useful information to travelers, because we know it will be helpful to people and popular with Google.
If you compare our site to that honeymoon site (Unforgettable Honeymoons) that was complaining about being blown away in the rankings, there are a lot of lessons that lady could learn. She sounds like Google is some capricious god that's chosen to smite her, but really, she's just done an imperfect job.
Just work on the quality of your mousetrap, Google will handle telling the world about it.
I have definitely gotten some pictures with my K-1000 that others with auto-focus cameras missed because I did exactly this. The strictly mechanical shutter is faster than anything electronic I've ever used.
OTOH, I've probably missed far more shots because I was unable to set up ahead of time. It can take way too long to set up posed snapshots, because of the manual focus/exposure issue; that's certainly led to "missed shots" in the sense that people are reluctant to let me take the time. I've also missed shots because the curtain shutter was too slow for my flash, or because my light meter keeps failing me. (They're supposed to be tanks, but I've spent close to two hundred dollars on repairs for mine.)
Bottom line is that I'd rather have both manual and AF capabilities so you can choose which is appropriate. And I've come to love digital for the instant feedback -- if you mess up a shot, you can tell, and you can take it again.
first post, btw.
--Rich