I love how nerds name all of these online phenomena. We give them incredibly goofy names, and by the time they become a real issue, those names are pretty solidified and everybody knows what they mean. Then lawmakers and other serious people have to use them. So funny!
Given the state of disaster that the USA was in around September 7th what with Hurricane Katrina and all, they probably just thought it would be kind of crass to ignore the death and destruction and just pass around the cake and talk about their new index size or whatever. I'm not saying the country's in a completely jolly mood now, but at least most people are feeling a little less like the world's about to end.
Anyway, who really knows the birthday of any corporation? I'd imagine it's pretty arbitrary, since there are a lot of steps to incorporating and they can't really all happen on the same day...I guess it's confusing that they had one day that they designated as the birthday and now they're pulling a change.
Given the infrastructure involved in scanning all those books, I wouldn't call this a "free ride" per se. It'll make the money back in time, but I'd wager Google has put in huge man-hours trying to get the scanning operation underway and useful.
Okay, really, this is true. I was brought up hiking and running around outdoors and I get abjectly miserable if I can't go outside for a few hours a week and just walk around (which as a CS undergrad is sometimes the case). On the other hand, all my friends who have been gaming since birth seem to have no problem with days spent in front of the screen. Thanks, "balance"!
That's really the whole deal, sometimes - the fact that you have a broken product, send it to the company, and they fix it without giving you a whole lot of crap about it. This is such a valuable service and generates brand loyalty better than any single practice I have seen, and it's just shocking that more companies aren't this decent to their customers.
I had a broken iPod mini (it had a defective seal and dust was collecting between the glass and the screen) and took it to the Apple store eight minths into my warranty and within ten minutes I had a new iPod in my hand.
I bought a PowerBook a few months ago because I was so impressed at the level of civility I'd seen when dealing with my iPod problems. It's so refreshing not to be treated like a suspect in a criminal case when taking something broken back to the store that I think it's worth paying a premium.
Actually, I know a lot of people who would prefer the simple TV. Most of them are baby boomers who don't want to be bothered to have to read a manual to operate a relatively basic piece of consumer electronics. In other words, people with money, who have kids for whom they also buy things.
I mean, jesus, have you never heard a joke about the impossibility of programming a VCR? People are so often thankful for simplicity and a lack of a need for training/help with the things they buy. My grandma could work a freaking iPod, and I think that is one of the huge strengths of it and of the Mac model in general.
I might be persuaded to get the complicated TV, but only because I want PC input on any TV I buy. But at least I recognize that I'm in the minority in that opinion.
Bruce Schneier also advocates this method on his website. I don't remember where the article is exactly (read it a little while ago) but he said basically to write them down and keep them where you keep your cash - and protect them as vigilantly. I don't think that was quite complete, myself; if I have $5 cash, I'm not going to try to prevent people from seeing it the way I'd be sure to guard a sheet of passwords from an errant camera.
My suggestion? Pretend that the passwords are a $500 bill and you're in a bad neighborhood.
I keep meaning to do this, but changing passwords is such a hassle...
I saw it at midnight in San Diego and they left the lights on for the first ten minutes and one of the sound channels off for the first half hour - and they sent a security guard in to make sure we weren't going to riot or anything and he told us to, I quote directly, "take a chill pill" when we asked him to turn off the lights. I thought it was pretty insulting - it wasn't like the theater hadn't known we were coming. And they had three hours to prepare for the descent of the nerds.
I'm glad that somebody this high profile made mention of this. It seems like everyone I talk to actually believes that Lucas won't make any more of them. I don't believe it for a second. He'll take a few years off, but eventually I think the money will call to him again and he'll start working on VII.
I think what's REALLY scary about Huffington is seeing how some well known people write. Echos of the transition to Talkies when people actually got to hear favorite actors speak for the first time - now we get to see how they really think.
You should be modded way up for this observation. God, it's ridiculous what poor writers some of these people are. It's mainly because they all think they're goddamn hilarious - because everyone around them has been laughing riotously at every malformed quip that's emerged from their vain mouths under fear of termination for so many years that they don't even understand the concept of wit.
Don't even start thinking about the reasoning some of them use. It's deeply, deeply depressing - and these people own the MSM that's telling our fellow voters how to think.
Definitely. A family friend gave me a tour of Apple when I was younger and I was sold on the place from lunch onward. Very, very impressive cafeteria. I was one of those kids who wasn't sure I wanted to go into CS, but was sure I wanted to go into an industry where I could work someplace with a better cafeteria than my middle school.
But Apple ignored my internship applications for this summer, whereas Google offered me a position. So, I guess I'll be basking in the glory of the top rated caf in the region.
I'm actually in the opposite situation, although the effect ends up being the same - I'm in college and very rarely watch TV. When I do, ads strike me as absolutely hilarious...I love the exaggerated facial expressions and bright colors (not to mention the hilarious voices! Okay, so I'm essentially a newborn baby in terms of what I find amusing) and tend to fall over laughing while the commercials are on. But only rarely do I look past the surface ("Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!") and actually notice what they're trying to sell me. Or, if I do, it's generally a generic "That was a commercial for men who need help to get erections" rather than any kind of memory of a brand name.
The end result is that I often find commercials more entertaining than scheduled programming. Either way, I rarely remember what was being sold. I'm too busy chuckling to notice the logo at the end.
I never thought I'd see someone write a parody of a une demoyselle malade dedicated to a sci-fi squid in a bathing suit, but I suppose such are the times in which we live. You ought to send that to Doug Hofstadter - I'm sure he'd be delightfully horrified.
I appreciate your clarification. I read the quote from TFA that you cited above to mean that the class had several papers, only the final one of which was read by an actual professor, the rest of which were entirely graded by computer. Your version makes more sense (pedagogically and grammatically) and I am happy to believe it. So it's more like having a compiler with verbose options turned on than an autograding program. I've always kind of wanted a compiler for my papers.
I was required to take a lot of writing classes for my college (and still haven't finished them all) and I've observed the quality of my writing go up appreciably since I began school. However, the reason I've become a better writer is because my essay graders write copious comments about where I'm going wrong in my papers and what I should do to improve - and they read the next paper I write for the class with those things in mind, and tell me whether I've improved sicne the last one.
The article didn't say anything about what kind of feedback the program provides, but I can't imagine it's anywhere near as helpful as the paragraph-long evaluations of my logic, style, and structure, which I got back with every paper I ever turned in, and I'd be impressed but surprised if his program took each student's previous weaknesses into account in the course of the evaluation. In writing, practicing can only do so much - the real help is in constructive feedback, and I just can't imagine where these students are getting it if not from the human graders of their papers.
I don't generally do this, but I had to tell you that I thought this comment was laugh-out-loud funny. I wish I had mod points, but I guess you're already +5 anyway. Good one, thanks a lot.
The problem with using DNA is that if somebody figures out a way to spoof your DNA, you have absolutely no way to change it. It's not like a thumbprint where you can say, "Okay, my thumb's not a valid key anymore; I'd like to change all my records so my left index finger is now the print I use". There's no backup DNA for you to fall back on if someone steals a blood sample from you or something and uses it to break into your bank account.
Basically, the reason why passwords and other knowledge key based locks are good is because they're easy to change. That's one of their weaknesses, too, but I'd rather know I have a second chance if somebody nabs my credit card number to get rid of that credit card and get another one.
I was on the phone with my boyfriend when I read the story, and since he is also a UC alum, I thought it would be of interest to him. His reaction: "Whoa. She? Hot!"
So, no, you weren't the only one. I thought it was pretty savvy myself right up until I saw she did the trick fro her home computer. If UCSB is anything like my UC campus, there are plenty of public computers that require no personal identifiers to log in - she would have been right out in the open, but this doesn't sound like something that would have taken more than a few minutes to do, and I don't think she would have been traceable - could wear sunglasses and a hat for good measure, perhaps.
I wonder what UCSB is going to do about this. If they don't act quickly I'm sure there will be copycat incidents soon, and this time the kids won't do it from home.
A caution, though; as a woman who lists a few writing prizes on her resume alongside her math and computer science degrees-in-progress, I have found that a least one interviewer I spoke to tried to pigeonhole me as a technical writer. Now, I'm good at writing, but I'm not in CS to be a goddamn technical writer and the fact that I've got CS research and hardcore electronics jobs on my resume can attest to that. I don't know if this is just because the guy who interviewed me was more comfortable thinking of me as a girl writer than as a girl coder or what, but it can definitely be dangerous.
So, maybe it's just a girl thing, and maybe it isn't, but if you've got anything remotely fuzzy on your resume, people might try to steer you away from coding and into something more customer or documentation oriented. If that isn't your sup of tea, think twice.
How new is this change? I flew out of SJC earlier this month on Southwest. It would be awesome if I didn't have to fumble around for it anymore (I'm in and out of SJC a lot). What airline were you flying? I really would consider paying more to know I didn't have to produce ID, especially if SAN (my home airport) got around to doing the same thing - my only valid ID is my passport and I prefer not to carry it if I don't have to.
I'm just asking for clarification, because it seems like the different sites linked are displaying very different numbers for the amount of capital these protestors have amassed. Wired seemed to think that someone was claiming they'd give $3mil, but had not actually handed it over yet. Reuters said they had $48,000 or so. I'm just wondering whether the $3 million is in the hands of the fans right now or if there's just someone out there claiming to have a few million to spend on Enterprise. I mean, it certainly helps the cause get attention. I'm just wondering whether this money has actually been ponied up or not. Anyone have more details? Is there something I'm not seeing?
I'll tell you right now that having heard comments like this since I was about 13 years old is one of the things that's turned me off a lot about IT. "Hell, I'd love more women in computer science - then I'll have someone to have sex with! No fatties need apply!" Wow, thanks. It's nice to know that even if I have qualifications equivalent to a man in my field, I'll constantly be made to feel as if I had been hired to "spice up" the office.
I know people say this stuff to be funny, but it seems every goddamn week I hear a crack to this effect, and it gets tiresome. It's not terribly welcoming to know that I'll probably be objectified like crazy for my entire career in CS.
Extremely good point. It's the kind of blog that people stop reading because the attempts at humor are all thinly disguised insults, and they fall flat anyway.
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I love how nerds name all of these online phenomena. We give them incredibly goofy names, and by the time they become a real issue, those names are pretty solidified and everybody knows what they mean. Then lawmakers and other serious people have to use them. So funny!
Given the state of disaster that the USA was in around September 7th what with Hurricane Katrina and all, they probably just thought it would be kind of crass to ignore the death and destruction and just pass around the cake and talk about their new index size or whatever. I'm not saying the country's in a completely jolly mood now, but at least most people are feeling a little less like the world's about to end.
Anyway, who really knows the birthday of any corporation? I'd imagine it's pretty arbitrary, since there are a lot of steps to incorporating and they can't really all happen on the same day...I guess it's confusing that they had one day that they designated as the birthday and now they're pulling a change.
Given the infrastructure involved in scanning all those books, I wouldn't call this a "free ride" per se. It'll make the money back in time, but I'd wager Google has put in huge man-hours trying to get the scanning operation underway and useful.
Okay, really, this is true. I was brought up hiking and running around outdoors and I get abjectly miserable if I can't go outside for a few hours a week and just walk around (which as a CS undergrad is sometimes the case). On the other hand, all my friends who have been gaming since birth seem to have no problem with days spent in front of the screen. Thanks, "balance"!
That's really the whole deal, sometimes - the fact that you have a broken product, send it to the company, and they fix it without giving you a whole lot of crap about it. This is such a valuable service and generates brand loyalty better than any single practice I have seen, and it's just shocking that more companies aren't this decent to their customers.
I had a broken iPod mini (it had a defective seal and dust was collecting between the glass and the screen) and took it to the Apple store eight minths into my warranty and within ten minutes I had a new iPod in my hand.
I bought a PowerBook a few months ago because I was so impressed at the level of civility I'd seen when dealing with my iPod problems. It's so refreshing not to be treated like a suspect in a criminal case when taking something broken back to the store that I think it's worth paying a premium.
Actually, I know a lot of people who would prefer the simple TV. Most of them are baby boomers who don't want to be bothered to have to read a manual to operate a relatively basic piece of consumer electronics. In other words, people with money, who have kids for whom they also buy things. I mean, jesus, have you never heard a joke about the impossibility of programming a VCR? People are so often thankful for simplicity and a lack of a need for training/help with the things they buy. My grandma could work a freaking iPod, and I think that is one of the huge strengths of it and of the Mac model in general. I might be persuaded to get the complicated TV, but only because I want PC input on any TV I buy. But at least I recognize that I'm in the minority in that opinion.
Bruce Schneier also advocates this method on his website. I don't remember where the article is exactly (read it a little while ago) but he said basically to write them down and keep them where you keep your cash - and protect them as vigilantly. I don't think that was quite complete, myself; if I have $5 cash, I'm not going to try to prevent people from seeing it the way I'd be sure to guard a sheet of passwords from an errant camera.
My suggestion? Pretend that the passwords are a $500 bill and you're in a bad neighborhood.
I keep meaning to do this, but changing passwords is such a hassle...
I saw it at midnight in San Diego and they left the lights on for the first ten minutes and one of the sound channels off for the first half hour - and they sent a security guard in to make sure we weren't going to riot or anything and he told us to, I quote directly, "take a chill pill" when we asked him to turn off the lights. I thought it was pretty insulting - it wasn't like the theater hadn't known we were coming. And they had three hours to prepare for the descent of the nerds.
I'm glad that somebody this high profile made mention of this. It seems like everyone I talk to actually believes that Lucas won't make any more of them. I don't believe it for a second. He'll take a few years off, but eventually I think the money will call to him again and he'll start working on VII.
A lot of Western European countries also have privacy laws that are actually enforced.
I think what's REALLY scary about Huffington is seeing how some well known people write. Echos of the transition to Talkies when people actually got to hear favorite actors speak for the first time - now we get to see how they really think.
You should be modded way up for this observation. God, it's ridiculous what poor writers some of these people are. It's mainly because they all think they're goddamn hilarious - because everyone around them has been laughing riotously at every malformed quip that's emerged from their vain mouths under fear of termination for so many years that they don't even understand the concept of wit.
Don't even start thinking about the reasoning some of them use. It's deeply, deeply depressing - and these people own the MSM that's telling our fellow voters how to think.
Definitely. A family friend gave me a tour of Apple when I was younger and I was sold on the place from lunch onward. Very, very impressive cafeteria. I was one of those kids who wasn't sure I wanted to go into CS, but was sure I wanted to go into an industry where I could work someplace with a better cafeteria than my middle school.
But Apple ignored my internship applications for this summer, whereas Google offered me a position. So, I guess I'll be basking in the glory of the top rated caf in the region.
I'm actually in the opposite situation, although the effect ends up being the same - I'm in college and very rarely watch TV. When I do, ads strike me as absolutely hilarious...I love the exaggerated facial expressions and bright colors (not to mention the hilarious voices! Okay, so I'm essentially a newborn baby in terms of what I find amusing) and tend to fall over laughing while the commercials are on. But only rarely do I look past the surface ("Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!") and actually notice what they're trying to sell me. Or, if I do, it's generally a generic "That was a commercial for men who need help to get erections" rather than any kind of memory of a brand name.
The end result is that I often find commercials more entertaining than scheduled programming. Either way, I rarely remember what was being sold. I'm too busy chuckling to notice the logo at the end.
I never thought I'd see someone write a parody of a une demoyselle malade dedicated to a sci-fi squid in a bathing suit, but I suppose such are the times in which we live. You ought to send that to Doug Hofstadter - I'm sure he'd be delightfully horrified.
I appreciate your clarification. I read the quote from TFA that you cited above to mean that the class had several papers, only the final one of which was read by an actual professor, the rest of which were entirely graded by computer. Your version makes more sense (pedagogically and grammatically) and I am happy to believe it. So it's more like having a compiler with verbose options turned on than an autograding program. I've always kind of wanted a compiler for my papers.
I was required to take a lot of writing classes for my college (and still haven't finished them all) and I've observed the quality of my writing go up appreciably since I began school. However, the reason I've become a better writer is because my essay graders write copious comments about where I'm going wrong in my papers and what I should do to improve - and they read the next paper I write for the class with those things in mind, and tell me whether I've improved sicne the last one.
The article didn't say anything about what kind of feedback the program provides, but I can't imagine it's anywhere near as helpful as the paragraph-long evaluations of my logic, style, and structure, which I got back with every paper I ever turned in, and I'd be impressed but surprised if his program took each student's previous weaknesses into account in the course of the evaluation. In writing, practicing can only do so much - the real help is in constructive feedback, and I just can't imagine where these students are getting it if not from the human graders of their papers.
I don't generally do this, but I had to tell you that I thought this comment was laugh-out-loud funny. I wish I had mod points, but I guess you're already +5 anyway. Good one, thanks a lot.
The problem with using DNA is that if somebody figures out a way to spoof your DNA, you have absolutely no way to change it. It's not like a thumbprint where you can say, "Okay, my thumb's not a valid key anymore; I'd like to change all my records so my left index finger is now the print I use". There's no backup DNA for you to fall back on if someone steals a blood sample from you or something and uses it to break into your bank account.
Basically, the reason why passwords and other knowledge key based locks are good is because they're easy to change. That's one of their weaknesses, too, but I'd rather know I have a second chance if somebody nabs my credit card number to get rid of that credit card and get another one.
I was on the phone with my boyfriend when I read the story, and since he is also a UC alum, I thought it would be of interest to him. His reaction: "Whoa. She? Hot!"
So, no, you weren't the only one. I thought it was pretty savvy myself right up until I saw she did the trick fro her home computer. If UCSB is anything like my UC campus, there are plenty of public computers that require no personal identifiers to log in - she would have been right out in the open, but this doesn't sound like something that would have taken more than a few minutes to do, and I don't think she would have been traceable - could wear sunglasses and a hat for good measure, perhaps.
I wonder what UCSB is going to do about this. If they don't act quickly I'm sure there will be copycat incidents soon, and this time the kids won't do it from home.
A caution, though; as a woman who lists a few writing prizes on her resume alongside her math and computer science degrees-in-progress, I have found that a least one interviewer I spoke to tried to pigeonhole me as a technical writer. Now, I'm good at writing, but I'm not in CS to be a goddamn technical writer and the fact that I've got CS research and hardcore electronics jobs on my resume can attest to that. I don't know if this is just because the guy who interviewed me was more comfortable thinking of me as a girl writer than as a girl coder or what, but it can definitely be dangerous.
So, maybe it's just a girl thing, and maybe it isn't, but if you've got anything remotely fuzzy on your resume, people might try to steer you away from coding and into something more customer or documentation oriented. If that isn't your sup of tea, think twice.
How new is this change? I flew out of SJC earlier this month on Southwest. It would be awesome if I didn't have to fumble around for it anymore (I'm in and out of SJC a lot). What airline were you flying? I really would consider paying more to know I didn't have to produce ID, especially if SAN (my home airport) got around to doing the same thing - my only valid ID is my passport and I prefer not to carry it if I don't have to.
Details please! This development intrigues me.
I'm just asking for clarification, because it seems like the different sites linked are displaying very different numbers for the amount of capital these protestors have amassed. Wired seemed to think that someone was claiming they'd give $3mil, but had not actually handed it over yet. Reuters said they had $48,000 or so. I'm just wondering whether the $3 million is in the hands of the fans right now or if there's just someone out there claiming to have a few million to spend on Enterprise. I mean, it certainly helps the cause get attention. I'm just wondering whether this money has actually been ponied up or not. Anyone have more details? Is there something I'm not seeing?
Yeah, I kind of tried that for a while, and what ended up happening was that I did a lot of chuckling that I didn't feel comfortable explaining.
I'll tell you right now that having heard comments like this since I was about 13 years old is one of the things that's turned me off a lot about IT. "Hell, I'd love more women in computer science - then I'll have someone to have sex with! No fatties need apply!" Wow, thanks. It's nice to know that even if I have qualifications equivalent to a man in my field, I'll constantly be made to feel as if I had been hired to "spice up" the office.
I know people say this stuff to be funny, but it seems every goddamn week I hear a crack to this effect, and it gets tiresome. It's not terribly welcoming to know that I'll probably be objectified like crazy for my entire career in CS.
Extremely good point. It's the kind of blog that people stop reading because the attempts at humor are all thinly disguised insults, and they fall flat anyway.