Stupid cop gets the law wrong, picks on priest, gets his own Slashdot story to himself. Obviously there is no law pertaining to laptop use in public, the priest was moved on anyway. The cop got it wrong, and instead of realising and apologising, he did what every authority figure does and simply insist he is right, period, and wait for the other person to back down.
It probably happens all around the world every second, its the nature of law enforcement.
What was a priest doing with the Internet in the back alley that he couldn't do in the open in the public library? I have a vague sense of disquiet when I see seemingly reputable people like teachers and priests take too much interest in dangerous technology like the Internet. Perhaps it's simply prejudice on my part, but as a father of two small boys, I am a bit overprotective when it comes to things like this.
This isn't a good analogy because the performers aren't losing anything from bystanders watching them. A material asset is being used by someone outside in this case, bandwidth.
A better analogy would be if you were watching a movie through an open door, as you are avoiding the cost paid by the people sitting inside.
I, being a rabid linucks zealot, want to destroy Microsoft utterly. But I could not think of the means to do so. Now
**_I know I'm going to lose karma for this_** but I've thought of a simple yet effective way of bankrupting the
company - completely legally. The OpenSourceTM way.
WHY I WANT TO DESTROY MICROSOFT
Microsoft is bad. Not just bad, it is evil. Pure unadulterated evil. It is a monopoly. That is bad because you have to
use it. I don't have to use it at work only home, but that is because McDonalds use SCOsource on their cashier tills, which is
even worse. I can easily present evidence conclusively proving every one of these points. Just point your
browser at Slashdot, which is an OpenSource model based research website dedicated
to exposing the numerous ways in which Microsoft has done harm, and Apple are brilliant. Every poster, under the
many eyes hypothesis, combines to form the worlds largest Microsoft watching network. Don't mess with Open
SourceTM.
HOW TO DESTROY MICROSOFT
It is so simple, I can't believe no other zealot has seen it. In fact it came to me in the ten minutes I had to spare
to surf the web, inbetween getting my Auntie's printer set up on obsolete hardware. I read the following fact: For
every X-box sold, Microsoft loses $100!
Game over Microsoft. Thanks for playing. Linucks was the end of level boss, and you didn't have the right weapon or
figure out the weak points to get past its GPL shield (there are none.) None.
Now if everyone who read this message buys an X-Box but no games or anything Microsoft will be bankrupt in a
day. I heard they had a $50 billion surplus. So if 0.5 billion people bought a X-Box, they'd have no money. Then I
think they'd be dead, because they wouldn't be able to predate on other companies like they always do to steal the
innovation. So go buy a X-box. Beautiful, pouting Rob Malda estimates that 10 billion people visit Slashdot every day
(refreshing the page only once), so if only 50% of you do this, we're set.
Do it for Linucks. It's David v Goliath and this time we are Goliath with 10 billion eyes, and this is REAL, not in some made up book.
Surely an important point missing from any discussion of future trends is the eventual depletion of our nice and transportable instant-energy-in-a-tank natural resources. Assuming this isn't errant nonsense, how exactly are we to achieve a singularity without constant electricity from the burning of oil, coal or gas? It's all very well assuming that science will come up with the answer, but personally I see no reason why that assumption is valid. Current forms of alternate electricity generation are unsatisfactory, either from the long lasting pollution and inherent danger of nuclear power, or the unpredictability of wind, wave or sea power.
To believe in a singularity in 50 years is to ignore the restructuring and jealous guarding of stocks that will increasingly take place in the next 30 years. I'm personally sure that our descendent generations will curse us for squandering our natural resources on flimflam entertainments and unnecessary luxuries like SUVs and computers.
I don't know if she's noticed but Slashdot is moderated. And also, again I'm not sure if she's worked it out - SCO aren't popular around here. So an astroturfing campaign is likely to be moderated to oblivion. (Well, oblivion is a bit harsh. Actually one post will be modded down, then the subnet IP ban will kick in, preventing any other posts, and also preventing the entire eastern seaboard of the USA from making anonymous posts as collatoral damage. Nice one CT.)
A more likely motivation for McBride's praise of Slashdot is that it was an attempt to slime Groklaws system of deleting posts. Trying to suggest some suppression of legitimate viewpoints. In other words, more FUD.Here be post deleters.
I always figured McBride had a screw loose somewhere, after all he is probably headed for what is technically known as a federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison, but to actually praise Slashdot? If I were an investor I'd be breaking into a cold sweat. I wonder if he also eats his own excrement now, and hums tunelessly to himself while rocking back and forth.
..being a molecular biologist. When automated gene sequencers came out, it was possible to screen large numbers of genes for alelles with suspected linkage to various disorders, by comparing large numbers of 'healthy' and 'diseased' sets and hitting the database with various statistical methods. This led to quite a few companies who were doing this patenting whole swathes of genes, but the current opinion is that these patents would not stand up to scrutiny.
In most cases the patent holders have not demonstrated a use for their patent (because they don't know what the gene does without further study), so would lose it. They got a patent, without knowing what a gene does by comparing it to existing genes, looking for similar domains and guessing a functional role i.e. kinase, src homolgy, DNA binding domains like zinc finger motifs, transmembrane helices etc. etc.
Another point is that they haven't worked on each gene in their portfolio since their patent was awarded. I'm certainly no expert, but if you patent something but never use it, or demonstrate a use for it, after some period of time the patent is easily annulled.
The ownership of the genome is a grey area at present, as few government around the world are keen to meddle in what really is a natural resource in the ownership of everybody. It is currently being left to market forces to determine what level of ownership can be given to someone who has put a lot of R&D money into understanding the genetic basis of disease. It is pretty ludicrous, however, that some part of the DNA in my own cells has an ownership right asserted over it by another company or individual.
Continuing the "Segways in place of horses" idea, how long until we have stagecoaches pulled along desert roads by the harnessed power of 4 nerds on Segways, competitive showjumping featuring Segways, and a circus act where 4 Segways come out into the ring and run round in a circle, then to gasps from the audience, each rider performs a handstand..on the back of a moving Segway?
Not too long, I feel. You read it here first, Slashdot: News for Nerds, Stuff about Segways
Capitalist companies behave as they do because their primary motivation is not ethics, but money. What is the huge surprise here? It is obvious to anyone who has given the matter any thought that search engines and their organisation and display of content are a potent tool of control. Google, despite being a notoriously private company, seems to be laisse faire about other peoples privacy, where it relates to commercial opportunity. I've never seen them as the "white knight" others have, but I use their service because it is currently the best. The interesting question is not, should they accede to censorship demands, but how would we know if they did?
This just goes to show how far the balance of power has gone towards to manufacturer in a land grab of our enshrined consumer rights. It isn't some amazing gift that we can actually use our DVDs as if we own them. Companies get away with this because the individual consumer hasn't got the legal resources to fight it: it is up to governments to deal with the problem, and they have conspicuously failed to do so. It made me so angry that I wrote this poem about how I felt?
What about my rights?
You sit in your fat cat chair and you dare/
to steal whats already mine, to fine
and harass
I had rights
but they were traded away another day past
and now no-one cares
more concerned with company shares
Not content with believing everything you read, you've decided to become the mouthpiece of Apple FUD, inc. Allow me to sum up your URL reference:
Konfabulater got what it deserved because:
It was a resource hog
It was copying an old idea from Apple anyway
Apple improved on the idea, so it wasn't stealing anyway
They look so similar because Konfabulator was copying Apple, not the other way around
Apple are great etc. etc.
All of these points are contemptuous. Apple stole Konfabulators functionality. It doesn't matter where the idea originated: the point was Apple hadn't implemented it, and a talented company provided where they saw a lack. The resource hog argument is a complete red herring. Who knows what improvements the Konfabulator team might have made to their product in the future, had Apple not done what hey did? The next step, the improvement Apple made was obvious!
And as for the similar look: I see it as a complete slap in the face to Konfabulator. The weblog dismisses this as due to fitting in with the overall desktop theme. I do not trust this argument. A similar one was made when Watson's layout and design was duplicated. Are we to believe Apple wasted time and resources on the design of their Dashboard, when they could so easily lift off someone else's hard work? The weblog tries to suggest there is only one way to fit the dashboard/Konfabulator look with the desktop desktop: I respectfully suggest the author's talent at graphic design must be very limited.
No, no matter what you apologists say on your weblogs and websites, we are looking at a policy shift in the new Apple Corp. Watson, Liteswitch and now Konfabulator - all three point to a new, Microsoftian policy. I am dismayed by this trend, but disgusted at the apologists, who are so blinded by their zealotry that they cannot recognise the change. This is such short term thinking, it is sad that a major trumpeted innovation in the Tiger OS is another copycat, whatever happened to Apple, the innovative company? Why did they start chasing the stock market currency over all?
Genuinely interested: are you an Apple employee?
Attention: Important info about Apple
on
Apple Delays New iMac
·
· Score: -1, Flamebait
Offtopic, and I know I'll be modded down as fast as possible, but for anyone who hasn't heard, Apple Inc. have ripped off another developer. Not content with ripping off Watson, they've now stolen the features for another product without proper recompense and included it in their "Tiger" OS. Read the story here.
You know, I remember when Apple used to come up with their own GUI innovations. At least Microsoft tends to buy the companies whose technology it wants, Apple is fast becoming worse even thean them. A hideous creature behind a smiling mask, indeed.
Bad karma from mixing with Apple fanboys. Please, set aside your zealotry and mod fairly for once.
For the non-power user IE *IS* preferable. I came to this conclusion after trying several times to get friends and family to migrate to Firefox from Explorer. Even when I did all the grunt work, installing and setting up the browser and explained the benefits to them, they all went back to IE.
IE has enough features for them to deal with. They don't need the fancy "bells and whistles" of Mozilla, in fact they didn't even use the extra features. IE has the Microsoft look and feel they are used to. It's free, it's preinstalled, so they get used to the feel of it from the outset and don't have to download and install, a task many find daunting. And as most of the extra functionality Firefox has over IE comes from extensions, which they can't even work out anyway, then it seems pointless for me to try to force them to use it.
I don't blame most users for using IE. For them it is "good enough". I see a lot of snobbishness on this site, and maybe some of it is fair enough. I also see a lot of silly arguments with extrapolation from a small sample set "My sister uses Mozilla all the time now!" to big conclusions. As a scientist, I know enough not to make those errors. Anyway I just wanted to say most users don't need Firefox despite what you might read. I guess this is pretty obvious, it accounts for a fraction of 1% of browser usage after all.
For the average user, using Mozilla is like using a 4x4 to go shopping. It is needed one time in a million, and the rest of the time it is woefully underused.
It is an abomination which should be banned, not just because it degrades and exploits Mother-Woman, but because it prevents i's user from living a normal life.
Ask any woman you know. They can tell the guys who abuse p0rn, because of the way they look at them, and behave. A female friend of mine likened it to a feeling like "a carcass on a meat hook." That could be your mother. That could have been my mother.
A recent trend I've noticed in games like Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness and CM4 is to release way before they are even nearly ready and patch them six months later to make them playable. It seems as long as companies will get away with this they'll do it.
CM4 in particular was a fucking disgrace. It took six seperate patches, euphemistically called "Enhancement Packs" to get a playable game, about a year after I'd bought the game. And there were still issues, major ones, being reported when they said they were drawing the line under the release to concentrate on the next one. I didn't buy the new CM game because of this.
Driv3r seems to fall into this same catagory, where the game developers seem more concerned in throwing some beta level game out and patching later to stay in line with some overly optimistic timeline than actually worry about the player experience on first encountering the game. I mean, if you're playing what should be a polished gameand you get all these bugs, then it's like watching a badly cut movie, or an early audience test screening: it ruins the experience no matter how much better it is once fixed. The first impression, the first play through, is when games give you the most pleasure, when they're still fresh and can surprise you.
These people must be punished in falling sales, through a boycott or something, because in any other industry without an all encompassing EULA of dubious illegality, they would be in violation of consumer laws. Disgusting.
The ISPs are the people with the real power here. They are the people who can truly clear up spammers as they control the access for the spammers, and the distribution. It just shows what a serious problem spam has become that these competing rivals have to group together to fight it, like crime fighters!!
Just on a side note, AOL have to be one of the worst ISPs I've ever had a service from. I wrote an e-mail, and phoned one of their (premium rate) helplines about a faulty modem, and recieved nothing but abuse. Basically, it's a long story, but my supposed 56 kilobytes-per-second modem was giving me a really low transfer rate of only 4kbps on average.
Anyway the Tech support didn't even understand the problem, so I cancelled my AOL account (though I had a hard time getting their software totally off my system) and am happy with the service at my current ISP. They connect me at 49.2, which is close enough. I suppose some packets get lost through error.
So anyway, don't go with AOL if you're looking for a flat rate ISP. They suck.
Am I alone in feeling somewhat disquieted in the military in this country associating itself with the entertainment industry? Is this the thin end of the wedge?
The apparatus of state is separated from the church, because it is harmful. It should likewise be seperated from the entertainment industry, because of the propaganda possibilities, shaping the next generation of Americans.
3 recent Michael stories, with corrections in bold and comments, ellipsis in (brackets):
schnarff writes "Space.com has obtained a sneak preview of the Moon-To-Mars commission report, which will be officially released ON June THE 16TH. The report calls for THE spinning off OF NASA centers as FFRDCs, establishing an independent cost estimation bureau, and (otherwise) streamlining NASA's bureaucracy."
Mz6 writes "Microsoft has launched its 'Get The Facts' road show (--); the tech equivalent of a political battle bus (--); to tour the country and convince the wavering that Redmond is (as) at least AS cheap and (as) secure as its (o)Open(-)(s)Source rival. (and to spread the word that Windows is better than Linux. REDUNDANT) Nick McGrath, Microsoft's head of platform strategy(CAPITALISE), described the campaign as "(')a reality check we're bringing out(')"(PROPER QUOTATION MARKS WILL DISTINGUISH ACTUAL QUOTES FROM 'IRONIC' QUOTES), aiming to tackle the 'myths'(SEE?) surrounding Linux. Microsoft's road show will be in Edinburgh on June THE 17TH, IN Manchester on June THE 29TH and IN Newport on July THE 7TH."
ctwxman writes "For most of the United States (sorry West Coast), this is the season for lightning. It is as powerful as it is spectacular to look at. It is destructive too - by itSelf or (through)DUE TO the hail, straight line winds and tornadoes that often accompany it(REVISE WHOLE SENTENCE). (As someone who forecasts the weather) As a weather forecaster, I'm often asked about lightning. As you might imagine, there's plenty to (see)READ about lightning on the Internet. The conditions necessary and a little bit of the physics behind lightning are explained by Jeff Haby, a meteorologist (one of my professors actually) at Mississippi State University (REVISE SENTENCE). Once forecasters get a handle on what's going on, they put the word out through the Storm Prediction Center.(REVISE SENTENCE) Regular outlooks are issued by SPC for severe storms. Once those storms rear their ugly heads(CLICHE), they're followed with mesoscale discussions looking at the active areas. The Storm Prediction Center is also the place where Severe Thunderstorm and Tornado Watches are issued and storm related damage reports are compiled. Lots of hobbyists like to track lightning strikes on their own, and there's equipment available to do just that. Getting hit by lightning is never fun, though not always fatal. National Geographic chronicled an amazing story of a lightning strike, and rescue, on Grand Teton."
NOTE: The latter is one of the worst Slashdot story summaries I have ever, brow furrowed, attempted to read. It should have been revised, tightened up and resubmitted. That is, after all, the function of an Editor is it not? The final sentences read poorly, and do not flow logically from subject to subject. A number of the hyperlinks should have been discarded or revised into a single sentence. It is not the fault of the author, it is the editor's job, and it is not being done.
Michael, if you're reading this, there are many very fine adult education courses to fill in the gaps in your education. It isn't difficult to read through submissions and spell check them before you post them. This would improve the reading experience of a huge number of people. Please sort it out.
Michael, I shall continue to analyse your performance, and I might begin posting "translations" early in comments if the situation does not improve.
I'll tell you why: because burning hot lap tops aren't a BUG, they're a FEATURE. Tests show that the ordinary human leg (male or female) covered in a semi insulating nylon based cloth such as a trouser or skirt are incredibly efficient dissipaters of excess heat.
You can either have cool thighs, and a shorter lap top lifespan, or the status quo: a warm toasty lap and an efficient lap top.
This is only really a problem with Windows XP users anyway. Most cases of modern day spontaneous combustion were caused by confined airport passengers using Windows XP until their laptops melted, or formed new Supernovae.
Warm lap tops have saved lives too: here in Canada a wired up Bear Trapper, who was caught in a snow storm, managed to keep his head from freezing like the rest of his body by placing his lap top on top of it until rescuers arrived. He survived this experience since his intact head was grafted onto a monkey's body, although his wife divorced him shortly after. I read it on The Register a couple of weeks ago.
It struck me yesterday that the answer to making secure and difficult to guess passwords that are immune to dictionary attacks is staring us all in the face. Let's recap:
A good password is:
Greater than 6 letters long
Composed of numbers and letters
Easy to remember, easy to reremember when changed.
Now it struck me that ideally we needed to create a new language that was innovative and imaginative which people could talk in, and use as passwords. Then it struck me: we already have it: L33T SPEEK.
Passwords such as OMGN00BSUXSROR! and ROFLGH3YB0ISTFU and almost impossible to guess, are immune to dictionary attacks, and are perfectly memorable. Perhaps L33T language classes could be started at major institutions, and a Creative Commons licenced dictionary created.
It's about time someone started talking sense - password security is a problem which needs innovative solutions.
I'm not sure Ben Goodger is the type of guy I want running my favourite browser. His homepage (and the Firefox Texturiser default bookmark page) offers his extension "Magpie" (I'm not giving the URL) which should more accurately be called "MagPorn" or "Shagpie" perhaps.
It is an extension to ease allow the downloading of particular file extensions to time stamped folders...particularly streamlined for the downloading of vast amounts of images from online picture galleries. Now what do you think *THAT'S* going to be used for?? Hmmm...I wonder...NOT!
Mr Goodger is helping people degrade women. He is feeding abnormal psyches by helping them amass vast collections of pr0n. Women instinctively know which men are using porn. That's why you can't get a girlfriend. It's obvious in the way you look at them.
Goodger is helping the violation of women, and I for one think it's morally degrading and physically disgusting. I don't know him, perhaps he's merely a naive, sweet young man. But he should stop development of this psychologically damaging extension.
I was goofing around for a school published magazine. I made a 4D crossword by making a 3D crossword with clues for "Morning", "Afternoon" and "Evening". I solved the display problem by making it very simple, I think about 30 clues for each time point. Then I exploded the crossword 3D model, printing 1 vertical row stretching back in 3D, with pull out text boxes with the clue number. The horizontal clues extruded from the surface, and I worked it out so they didn't occlude clue boxes too much behind, and the "other side" was printed just below.
It's hard to explain, a diagram would make it pretty obvious. There were 3 verticals printed across the page. I couldn't create a 4D crossword you could actually write clues in, so they had to list the answers in a boring list below.
I'm a pretty neat writer so it came out fine, but the photocopies were not perfect. The generation of the clues was an arduous task as I had to do it three times for the different time periods.
Advice for creating the 3d grid initially- lego blocks are your friend. The whole thing took several nights effort, but got quite a laugh, most people thought I was taking the piss. Not sure if anyone actually completed it, but as an intellectual exercise, I enjoyed it.
Slashdot Mirror
Who collected his juice in a bucket...
Stupid cop gets the law wrong, picks on priest, gets his own Slashdot story to himself. Obviously there is no law pertaining to laptop use in public, the priest was moved on anyway. The cop got it wrong, and instead of realising and apologising, he did what every authority figure does and simply insist he is right, period, and wait for the other person to back down.
It probably happens all around the world every second, its the nature of law enforcement.
RTFA, fool. The policeman had a wireless laptop which was logged into CIA spy satellites through the library.
What was a priest doing with the Internet in the back alley that he couldn't do in the open in the public library? I have a vague sense of disquiet when I see seemingly reputable people like teachers and priests take too much interest in dangerous technology like the Internet. Perhaps it's simply prejudice on my part, but as a father of two small boys, I am a bit overprotective when it comes to things like this.
This isn't a good analogy because the performers aren't losing anything from bystanders watching them. A material asset is being used by someone outside in this case, bandwidth.
A better analogy would be if you were watching a movie through an open door, as you are avoiding the cost paid by the people sitting inside.
I, being a rabid linucks zealot, want to destroy Microsoft utterly. But I could not think of the means to do so. Now **_I know I'm going to lose karma for this_** but I've thought of a simple yet effective way of bankrupting the company - completely legally. The OpenSourceTM way.
WHY I WANT TO DESTROY MICROSOFT
Microsoft is bad. Not just bad, it is evil. Pure unadulterated evil. It is a monopoly. That is bad because you have to use it. I don't have to use it at work only home, but that is because McDonalds use SCOsource on their cashier tills, which is even worse. I can easily present evidence conclusively proving every one of these points. Just point your browser at Slashdot, which is an OpenSource model based research website dedicated to exposing the numerous ways in which Microsoft has done harm, and Apple are brilliant. Every poster, under the many eyes hypothesis, combines to form the worlds largest Microsoft watching network. Don't mess with Open SourceTM.
HOW TO DESTROY MICROSOFT
It is so simple, I can't believe no other zealot has seen it. In fact it came to me in the ten minutes I had to spare to surf the web, inbetween getting my Auntie's printer set up on obsolete hardware. I read the following fact: For every X-box sold, Microsoft loses $100!
Game over Microsoft. Thanks for playing. Linucks was the end of level boss, and you didn't have the right weapon or figure out the weak points to get past its GPL shield (there are none.) None.
Now if everyone who read this message buys an X-Box but no games or anything Microsoft will be bankrupt in a day. I heard they had a $50 billion surplus. So if 0.5 billion people bought a X-Box, they'd have no money. Then I think they'd be dead, because they wouldn't be able to predate on other companies like they always do to steal the innovation. So go buy a X-box. Beautiful, pouting Rob Malda estimates that 10 billion people visit Slashdot every day (refreshing the page only once), so if only 50% of you do this, we're set.
Do it for Linucks. It's David v Goliath and this time we are Goliath with 10 billion eyes, and this is REAL, not in some made up book.
Surely an important point missing from any discussion of future trends is the eventual depletion of our nice and transportable instant-energy-in-a-tank natural resources. Assuming this isn't errant nonsense, how exactly are we to achieve a singularity without constant electricity from the burning of oil, coal or gas? It's all very well assuming that science will come up with the answer, but personally I see no reason why that assumption is valid. Current forms of alternate electricity generation are unsatisfactory, either from the long lasting pollution and inherent danger of nuclear power, or the unpredictability of wind, wave or sea power.
To believe in a singularity in 50 years is to ignore the restructuring and jealous guarding of stocks that will increasingly take place in the next 30 years. I'm personally sure that our descendent generations will curse us for squandering our natural resources on flimflam entertainments and unnecessary luxuries like SUVs and computers.
I don't know if she's noticed but Slashdot is moderated. And also, again I'm not sure if she's worked it out - SCO aren't popular around here. So an astroturfing campaign is likely to be moderated to oblivion. (Well, oblivion is a bit harsh. Actually one post will be modded down, then the subnet IP ban will kick in, preventing any other posts, and also preventing the entire eastern seaboard of the USA from making anonymous posts as collatoral damage. Nice one CT.)
A more likely motivation for McBride's praise of Slashdot is that it was an attempt to slime Groklaws system of deleting posts. Trying to suggest some suppression of legitimate viewpoints. In other words, more FUD.Here be post deleters.
I always figured McBride had a screw loose somewhere, after all he is probably headed for what is technically known as a federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison, but to actually praise Slashdot? If I were an investor I'd be breaking into a cold sweat. I wonder if he also eats his own excrement now, and hums tunelessly to himself while rocking back and forth.
They'll have a hard time matching the simplistic brilliance of .::FISHY!::.
..being a molecular biologist. When automated gene sequencers came out, it was possible to screen large numbers of genes for alelles with suspected linkage to various disorders, by comparing large numbers of 'healthy' and 'diseased' sets and hitting the database with various statistical methods. This led to quite a few companies who were doing this patenting whole swathes of genes, but the current opinion is that these patents would not stand up to scrutiny.
In most cases the patent holders have not demonstrated a use for their patent (because they don't know what the gene does without further study), so would lose it. They got a patent, without knowing what a gene does by comparing it to existing genes, looking for similar domains and guessing a functional role i.e. kinase, src homolgy, DNA binding domains like zinc finger motifs, transmembrane helices etc. etc.
Another point is that they haven't worked on each gene in their portfolio since their patent was awarded. I'm certainly no expert, but if you patent something but never use it, or demonstrate a use for it, after some period of time the patent is easily annulled.
The ownership of the genome is a grey area at present, as few government around the world are keen to meddle in what really is a natural resource in the ownership of everybody. It is currently being left to market forces to determine what level of ownership can be given to someone who has put a lot of R&D money into understanding the genetic basis of disease. It is pretty ludicrous, however, that some part of the DNA in my own cells has an ownership right asserted over it by another company or individual.
Continuing the "Segways in place of horses" idea, how long until we have stagecoaches pulled along desert roads by the harnessed power of 4 nerds on Segways, competitive showjumping featuring Segways, and a circus act where 4 Segways come out into the ring and run round in a circle, then to gasps from the audience, each rider performs a handstand..on the back of a moving Segway?
Not too long, I feel. You read it here first, Slashdot: News for Nerds, Stuff about Segways
Capitalist companies behave as they do because their primary motivation is not ethics, but money. What is the huge surprise here? It is obvious to anyone who has given the matter any thought that search engines and their organisation and display of content are a potent tool of control. Google, despite being a notoriously private company, seems to be laisse faire about other peoples privacy, where it relates to commercial opportunity. I've never seen them as the "white knight" others have, but I use their service because it is currently the best. The interesting question is not, should they accede to censorship demands, but how would we know if they did?
This just goes to show how far the balance of power has gone towards to manufacturer in a land grab of our enshrined consumer rights. It isn't some amazing gift that we can actually use our DVDs as if we own them. Companies get away with this because the individual consumer hasn't got the legal resources to fight it: it is up to governments to deal with the problem, and they have conspicuously failed to do so. It made me so angry that I wrote this poem about how I felt?
/
What about my rights?
You sit in your fat cat chair and you dare
to steal whats already mine, to fine
and harass
I had rights
but they were traded away another day past
and now no-one cares
more concerned with company shares
Where does the power lie?
Konfabulater got what it deserved because:
It was a resource hog
It was copying an old idea from Apple anyway
Apple improved on the idea, so it wasn't stealing anyway
They look so similar because Konfabulator was copying Apple, not the other way around
Apple are great etc. etc.
All of these points are contemptuous. Apple stole Konfabulators functionality. It doesn't matter where the idea originated: the point was Apple hadn't implemented it, and a talented company provided where they saw a lack. The resource hog argument is a complete red herring. Who knows what improvements the Konfabulator team might have made to their product in the future, had Apple not done what hey did? The next step, the improvement Apple made was obvious!
And as for the similar look: I see it as a complete slap in the face to Konfabulator. The weblog dismisses this as due to fitting in with the overall desktop theme. I do not trust this argument. A similar one was made when Watson's layout and design was duplicated. Are we to believe Apple wasted time and resources on the design of their Dashboard, when they could so easily lift off someone else's hard work? The weblog tries to suggest there is only one way to fit the dashboard/Konfabulator look with the desktop desktop: I respectfully suggest the author's talent at graphic design must be very limited.
No, no matter what you apologists say on your weblogs and websites, we are looking at a policy shift in the new Apple Corp. Watson, Liteswitch and now Konfabulator - all three point to a new, Microsoftian policy. I am dismayed by this trend, but disgusted at the apologists, who are so blinded by their zealotry that they cannot recognise the change. This is such short term thinking, it is sad that a major trumpeted innovation in the Tiger OS is another copycat, whatever happened to Apple, the innovative company? Why did they start chasing the stock market currency over all?
Genuinely interested: are you an Apple employee?
Offtopic, and I know I'll be modded down as fast as possible, but for anyone who hasn't heard, Apple Inc. have ripped off another developer. Not content with ripping off Watson, they've now stolen the features for another product without proper recompense and included it in their "Tiger" OS. Read the story here.
You know, I remember when Apple used to come up with their own GUI innovations. At least Microsoft tends to buy the companies whose technology it wants, Apple is fast becoming worse even thean them. A hideous creature behind a smiling mask, indeed.
Bad karma from mixing with Apple fanboys. Please, set aside your zealotry and mod fairly for once.
For the non-power user IE *IS* preferable. I came to this conclusion after trying several times to get friends and family to migrate to Firefox from Explorer. Even when I did all the grunt work, installing and setting up the browser and explained the benefits to them, they all went back to IE.
IE has enough features for them to deal with. They don't need the fancy "bells and whistles" of Mozilla, in fact they didn't even use the extra features. IE has the Microsoft look and feel they are used to. It's free, it's preinstalled, so they get used to the feel of it from the outset and don't have to download and install, a task many find daunting. And as most of the extra functionality Firefox has over IE comes from extensions, which they can't even work out anyway, then it seems pointless for me to try to force them to use it.
I don't blame most users for using IE. For them it is "good enough". I see a lot of snobbishness on this site, and maybe some of it is fair enough. I also see a lot of silly arguments with extrapolation from a small sample set "My sister uses Mozilla all the time now!" to big conclusions. As a scientist, I know enough not to make those errors. Anyway I just wanted to say most users don't need Firefox despite what you might read. I guess this is pretty obvious, it accounts for a fraction of 1% of browser usage after all.
For the average user, using Mozilla is like using a 4x4 to go shopping. It is needed one time in a million, and the rest of the time it is woefully underused.
P0rn != free speech, for chrissakes!
It is an abomination which should be banned, not just because it degrades and exploits Mother-Woman, but because it prevents i's user from living a normal life.
Ask any woman you know. They can tell the guys who abuse p0rn, because of the way they look at them, and behave. A female friend of mine likened it to a feeling like "a carcass on a meat hook." That could be your mother. That could have been my mother.
A recent trend I've noticed in games like Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness and CM4 is to release way before they are even nearly ready and patch them six months later to make them playable. It seems as long as companies will get away with this they'll do it.
CM4 in particular was a fucking disgrace. It took six seperate patches, euphemistically called "Enhancement Packs" to get a playable game, about a year after I'd bought the game. And there were still issues, major ones, being reported when they said they were drawing the line under the release to concentrate on the next one. I didn't buy the new CM game because of this.
Driv3r seems to fall into this same catagory, where the game developers seem more concerned in throwing some beta level game out and patching later to stay in line with some overly optimistic timeline than actually worry about the player experience on first encountering the game. I mean, if you're playing what should be a polished gameand you get all these bugs, then it's like watching a badly cut movie, or an early audience test screening: it ruins the experience no matter how much better it is once fixed. The first impression, the first play through, is when games give you the most pleasure, when they're still fresh and can surprise you.
These people must be punished in falling sales, through a boycott or something, because in any other industry without an all encompassing EULA of dubious illegality, they would be in violation of consumer laws. Disgusting.
The ISPs are the people with the real power here. They are the people who can truly clear up spammers as they control the access for the spammers, and the distribution. It just shows what a serious problem spam has become that these competing rivals have to group together to fight it, like crime fighters!!
Just on a side note, AOL have to be one of the worst ISPs I've ever had a service from. I wrote an e-mail, and phoned one of their (premium rate) helplines about a faulty modem, and recieved nothing but abuse. Basically, it's a long story, but my supposed 56 kilobytes-per-second modem was giving me a really low transfer rate of only 4kbps on average.
Anyway the Tech support didn't even understand the problem, so I cancelled my AOL account (though I had a hard time getting their software totally off my system) and am happy with the service at my current ISP. They connect me at 49.2, which is close enough. I suppose some packets get lost through error.
So anyway, don't go with AOL if you're looking for a flat rate ISP. They suck.
Am I alone in feeling somewhat disquieted in the military in this country associating itself with the entertainment industry? Is this the thin end of the wedge?
The apparatus of state is separated from the church, because it is harmful. It should likewise be seperated from the entertainment industry, because of the propaganda possibilities, shaping the next generation of Americans.
3 recent Michael stories, with corrections in bold and comments, ellipsis in (brackets):
schnarff writes "Space.com has obtained a sneak preview of the Moon-To-Mars commission report, which will be officially released ON June THE 16TH. The report calls for THE spinning off OF NASA centers as FFRDCs, establishing an independent cost estimation bureau, and (otherwise) streamlining NASA's bureaucracy."
Mz6 writes "Microsoft has launched its 'Get The Facts' road show (--); the tech equivalent of a political battle bus (--); to tour the country and convince the wavering that Redmond is (as) at least AS cheap and (as) secure as its (o)Open(-)(s)Source rival. (and to spread the word that Windows is better than Linux. REDUNDANT) Nick McGrath, Microsoft's head of platform strategy(CAPITALISE), described the campaign as "(')a reality check we're bringing out(')"(PROPER QUOTATION MARKS WILL DISTINGUISH ACTUAL QUOTES FROM 'IRONIC' QUOTES), aiming to tackle the 'myths'(SEE?) surrounding Linux. Microsoft's road show will be in Edinburgh on June THE 17TH, IN Manchester on June THE 29TH and IN Newport on July THE 7TH."
ctwxman writes "For most of the United States (sorry West Coast), this is the season for lightning. It is as powerful as it is spectacular to look at. It is destructive too - by itSelf or (through)DUE TO the hail, straight line winds and tornadoes that often accompany it(REVISE WHOLE SENTENCE). (As someone who forecasts the weather) As a weather forecaster, I'm often asked about lightning. As you might imagine, there's plenty to (see)READ about lightning on the Internet. The conditions necessary and a little bit of the physics behind lightning are explained by Jeff Haby, a meteorologist (one of my professors actually) at Mississippi State University (REVISE SENTENCE). Once forecasters get a handle on what's going on, they put the word out through the Storm Prediction Center.(REVISE SENTENCE) Regular outlooks are issued by SPC for severe storms. Once those storms rear their ugly heads(CLICHE), they're followed with mesoscale discussions looking at the active areas. The Storm Prediction Center is also the place where Severe Thunderstorm and Tornado Watches are issued and storm related damage reports are compiled. Lots of hobbyists like to track lightning strikes on their own, and there's equipment available to do just that. Getting hit by lightning is never fun, though not always fatal. National Geographic chronicled an amazing story of a lightning strike, and rescue, on Grand Teton."
NOTE: The latter is one of the worst Slashdot story summaries I have ever, brow furrowed, attempted to read. It should have been revised, tightened up and resubmitted. That is, after all, the function of an Editor is it not? The final sentences read poorly, and do not flow logically from subject to subject. A number of the hyperlinks should have been discarded or revised into a single sentence. It is not the fault of the author, it is the editor's job, and it is not being done.
Michael, if you're reading this, there are many very fine adult education courses to fill in the gaps in your education. It isn't difficult to read through submissions and spell check them before you post them. This would improve the reading experience of a huge number of people. Please sort it out.
Michael, I shall continue to analyse your performance, and I might begin posting "translations" early in comments if the situation does not improve.
I'll tell you why: because burning hot lap tops aren't a BUG, they're a FEATURE. Tests show that the ordinary human leg (male or female) covered in a semi insulating nylon based cloth such as a trouser or skirt are incredibly efficient dissipaters of excess heat.
You can either have cool thighs, and a shorter lap top lifespan, or the status quo: a warm toasty lap and an efficient lap top.
This is only really a problem with Windows XP users anyway. Most cases of modern day spontaneous combustion were caused by confined airport passengers using Windows XP until their laptops melted, or formed new Supernovae.
Warm lap tops have saved lives too: here in Canada a wired up Bear Trapper, who was caught in a snow storm, managed to keep his head from freezing like the rest of his body by placing his lap top on top of it until rescuers arrived. He survived this experience since his intact head was grafted onto a monkey's body, although his wife divorced him shortly after. I read it on The Register a couple of weeks ago.
Women, eh??
It struck me yesterday that the answer to making secure and difficult to guess passwords that are immune to dictionary attacks is staring us all in the face. Let's recap:
A good password is:
Greater than 6 letters long
Composed of numbers and letters
Easy to remember, easy to reremember when changed.
.
Now it struck me that ideally we needed to create a new language that was innovative and imaginative which people could talk in, and use as passwords. Then it struck me: we already have it: L33T SPEEK
Passwords such as OMGN00BSUXSROR! and ROFLGH3YB0ISTFU and almost impossible to guess, are immune to dictionary attacks, and are perfectly memorable. Perhaps L33T language classes could be started at major institutions, and a Creative Commons licenced dictionary created.
It's about time someone started talking sense - password security is a problem which needs innovative solutions.
I'm not sure Ben Goodger is the type of guy I want running my favourite browser. His homepage (and the Firefox Texturiser default bookmark page) offers his extension "Magpie" (I'm not giving the URL) which should more accurately be called "MagPorn" or "Shagpie" perhaps.
It is an extension to ease allow the downloading of particular file extensions to time stamped folders...particularly streamlined for the downloading of vast amounts of images from online picture galleries. Now what do you think *THAT'S* going to be used for?? Hmmm...I wonder...NOT!
Mr Goodger is helping people degrade women. He is feeding abnormal psyches by helping them amass vast collections of pr0n. Women instinctively know which men are using porn. That's why you can't get a girlfriend. It's obvious in the way you look at them.
Goodger is helping the violation of women, and I for one think it's morally degrading and physically disgusting. I don't know him, perhaps he's merely a naive, sweet young man. But he should stop development of this psychologically damaging extension.
I was goofing around for a school published magazine. I made a 4D crossword by making a 3D crossword with clues for "Morning", "Afternoon" and "Evening". I solved the display problem by making it very simple, I think about 30 clues for each time point. Then I exploded the crossword 3D model, printing 1 vertical row stretching back in 3D, with pull out text boxes with the clue number. The horizontal clues extruded from the surface, and I worked it out so they didn't occlude clue boxes too much behind, and the "other side" was printed just below.
It's hard to explain, a diagram would make it pretty obvious. There were 3 verticals printed across the page. I couldn't create a 4D crossword you could actually write clues in, so they had to list the answers in a boring list below.
I'm a pretty neat writer so it came out fine, but the photocopies were not perfect. The generation of the clues was an arduous task as I had to do it three times for the different time periods.
Advice for creating the 3d grid initially- lego blocks are your friend. The whole thing took several nights effort, but got quite a laugh, most people thought I was taking the piss. Not sure if anyone actually completed it, but as an intellectual exercise, I enjoyed it.