We believe that it is in no one's interest for P2P technology to be used in order to promote unlawful or deceptive activities. Rather, we believe that concrete and meaningful steps can and should be taken to address the problems we have raised in this letter. It is only by taking such steps that P2P networks will be able to realize their innovative potential as a 21st century virtual collaboration and project management tool for regional or nationwide academic, business, home, and governmental activities.
So the guess has always been that you need a whole lot of syntactically stable statements in order to come up with anything interesting. In fact, you need a whole brain's worth - millions. Now, no one has proved this approach works at all, and the #1 advocate for this approach was a man named Doug Lenat of the CYC corporation, who somehow ended up on President Ashcroft's post-coup blacklist as a dangerous intellectual and hasn't been seen since.
Interesting prediction there... but what does it have to do with The Semantic Web? Oh well - guess it's pretty hard to write a fictional future piece without injecting bizzare humor into it. Right? Right?
Strange that this hasn't been posted already... well, here it is:
DX 9.0 compatible 3D card w/ 64MB RAM*
MS Windows 2000/XP
Pentium 4 1.5 GHz or Athlon XP 1500+
384 MB RAM
8x CD-ROM
2.2 GB of HD space
Broadband (for multiplayer)
Something tells me their webserver's suddenly developed a terrible pain in all the diodes down its left hand side.
One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about humans was their habit of continuously stating and repeating the very very obvious, as in It's a nice day, or You're very tall, or Oh dear we seem to have slashdotted the server!
Better talking does not equate smarter! I'm deeply injured by that insidiation. On behalve of every one like me, I would like to make known: Plees have regard for speeking-impared peoples. And also riting-impared. This is an outage!
Does this mean we can expect the whole dating-and-mating process to be reduced to an algorythm?
Nah, if there is an algorithm for that at all, you can bet your a** it's going to be of exponential complexity. Not only that, but if it is ever solved, the universe will implode or something equally nasty. There are some things man is not meant to tinker with. Stick with trying to reduce NP-complete problems to polynomial time, it's much safer and easier. Or you could try solving the good old Collatz Problem.
I honestly don't believe I'm important enough and/or interesting enough to have anybody read my e-mail.
Now here's an interesting bit of apathy. Yes, quite true - most of us are not worthy of being scrutinized like this by the federal government. But what if you're, say, a 'dangerous subversive' who is critical of the government? Certain powerful people would be quite interested in doing a little research on you then, wouldn't you agree? And should they be allowed to? Think about it...
Besides, if your plotting to destroy some building somewhere, why don't you download a good ol' fashioned version of PGP and protect yourself
Yes, if you really are plotting something evil and doing it over the net, you would use something like that, wouldn't you? So doesn't that fact rather defeat the alleged purpose (i.e. combating terrorism) of allowing the government to spy on average people?
If you are doing something that requires you to hide it from the government, your breaking the law, and deserve to be caught.
RED ALERT! RED ALERT! Tell that to the subversives in Soviet Russia or other Ex-Communist countries. Remember, the government is not automatically benevolent. This is why democracies have things like Constitutions and division of power. And they certainly do not have laws that allow indescriminate monitoring of regular people.
Yes, yes, I know all about 9/11 and the horrible tragedy that was inflicted on American then. I am not American myself, so I cannot begin to imagine what it must feel like. But this also gives me the luxury of objectivity. Every American today needs to ask himself: Just who are we protecting ourselves against? And how do we do it? And just how much of what we have gained in the past 200 years are we willing to sacrifice for it?
After installation, BugMeNot supplies an appropriate name and password from a database that seems to include registration info for the vast majority of websites that request registration. The BugMeNot developers note that most people enter false information on registration forms to protect their privacy, so BugMeNot actually cuts down on database pollution. The only problem is that The New York Times may wonder what happened to all those 86-year-old Albanian grandmothers who head up huge technology firms that used to sign up to read the NYT website.
... well, the other problem is: Now that the slashdot crowd has become aware of BugMeNot, NYT will need to prepare for Attack of the Clones: Geek Edition!:P
Contenders for Worst Public Servant are Margaret Hodge for her support for a database of children and "good behaviour" orders for children as young as eight.
So, how come Santa Claus is not on the shortlist? Let's put that #1 record keeper in the world on a list for a change. Let's see how he likes the taste of his own medicine!
I might be way off base here, but I see nothing but buggy plugins and new exploits. Keep your dirty IE plugins away from my shiny FireFox.
Yup, you're pretty well off base here. RTFA and note the complete absence of the word 'Microsoft' in it. Of course the Redmond Boys won't participate in this; why would they? Their share in the browser market is so overwhelming that they could require plugin writers to write their code using an abacus, and they would still be writing away, because if they want their plugins to be widely used, they must be written for IE.
Microsoft is of course quite happy with this state of affairs; changing their browser to conform some outside standard would not benefit them in any way. In fact, it could even be harmful, since standards tend to make switching to a different program less difficult, which is certainly not what they want people to do.
Yup, of course advertisers will use this stuff. Here's proof from the article:
... The implication is electrifying, especially to economists: an abstract, mathematically derived formula appears to be literally hard-wired into the primate brain.
And that, in turn, is a step toward the holy grail of marketing: being able to figure out how people will make choices that haven't been offered yet. The same tools that can answer deep questions about primate behavior can also be used to get people to sign up for more cell-phone minutes than there actually are in a month. A handful of researchers in the United States and Europe are already using fMRIs to test how product brands are represented in the brain. The goal of every consumer marketer is to have people "identify" with a brand, to develop the kind of loyalty that goes far beyond a utilitarian preference for, say, one kind of pickup truck over another. Emory University psychologist Clint Kilts scanned subjects as they looked at a variety of products, from cars to soft drinks, and found that this sense of brand identification elicited a strong response in the medial prefrontal cortex. This is the brain area associated with what psychologists call the "sense of self," one's self-constructed identity. His insights are now being offered to the corporations of the world through the BrightHouse Neurostrategies Group in Atlanta, a pioneer in the emerging field of neuromarketing.
Neuromarketing, huh? Whee - there's even a name for this field. I think this is quite creepy; it often seems to me that the bulk of psychological research is centered on advertising, i.e. on the pragmatic goal of manipulating people's choices. Where's the good ol' interest in knowledge for knowledge's sake? And what about actually trying to help people better themselves and finding cures for psychological disorders? If my ever-growing fear that money is the major influence in modern psychology is correct, it's an absolute tragedy that needs immediate correction.
Re:Sure but does it require new equipment
on
IEEE Approves 802.11i
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Well, since encryption only involves standard processing, a firmware upgrade should be all that's required. Don't see any reason why a device would need to be created specifically for 802.11i. This is also interesting (taken from here):
Cisco, one of the largest providers of enterprise APs, said AES is supported in hardware on the IEEE 802.11g versions of AP models 1100, 1200, and the newly announced 1300 outdoor AP/bridge. However, a software upgrade for those devices will be required. Software upgrades will also be available for 802.11a, b and g card-bus and NIC cards.
Although they don't state it explicitly, it's a pretty fair bet that firmware upgrades for Linksys APs will be available at some point.
What I fail to understand is why Microsoft is so zealously advocating its browser and email client, even going so far as to make repeated attempts to embed these apps as firmly as possible into the architecture of Windows.
Since these apps are free, and are by definition not an integral part of any normal operating system, why can't they simply just accept the fact that having such a uniform 'fauna' of applications on their platform is simply bad for security? Even if IE and Outlook were the most secure applications in their field, the fact that they are used by 90%+ of all Windows users is enough to cause problems in itself.
I think this is a big part of the reason why Microsoft is disliked so greatly by those who know about other OS's. It lies in Microsoft's naive ideal that they should supply everything the Average Joe user needs all by themselves, for whatever strange reason. To me, this is nothing more than plain arrogance.
Re:The sound of one hand clapping...
on
Meet Joe Blog
·
· Score: 3, Funny
The parent of this comment is a troll. It contains the spurious phrase: 'Michael Sims reports a large opening in his backdoor for all to use', which is certainly not in the original article.
Got that? Read the parent, see the line (it is the second to last line in the parent). Did you mod that comment as Informative? Then you should be ashamed of yourself.
Why do people mod comments if they haven't read them? Seems like a very perversive kind of logic indeed.
The writer of the review is quite the humorist. For instance:
Sacrificing my public image in the name of science, I wore it as a watch for about an hour at the local mall. If you're into female repellant, wearing it this way will give you better results than a wet spot on the front of your pants.
In light of this, I propose that slashdot's motto be changed to: News for Nerds. Stuff That Repels Females.
Hmmm... maybe not. Don't see it catching on, somehow.
Just enter the recall code. Mandrake has told us it's a variation of the letters POE, which probably stands for 'Purity Of Essence' or 'Peace On Earth'. Just try all the variations, and the launch will be aborted. Hooray!
Slashdot Mirror
We believe that it is in no one's interest for P2P technology to be used in order to promote unlawful or deceptive activities. Rather, we believe that concrete and meaningful steps can and should be taken to address the problems we have raised in this letter. It is only by taking such steps that P2P networks will be able to realize their innovative potential as a 21st century virtual collaboration and project management tool for regional or nationwide academic, business, home, and governmental activities.
Run for the hills! The PHB's are taking over P2P!
Interesting prediction there ... but what does it have to do with The Semantic Web? Oh well - guess it's pretty hard to write a fictional future piece without injecting bizzare humor into it. Right? Right?
Let me guess - you could tell me, but then you'd have to kill me, right?
Never mind ...
My brain hurts ...
Sorry, but the cute eyes that you drew are looking down at your sig. It's only natural that my own eyes should follow them ...
DX 9.0 compatible 3D card w/ 64MB RAM*
MS Windows 2000/XP
Pentium 4 1.5 GHz or Athlon XP 1500+
384 MB RAM
8x CD-ROM
2.2 GB of HD space
Broadband (for multiplayer)
*Supported 3D Graphics chipsets:
ATI: Radeon 8500, 9000, 9200, 9500, 9600, 9700, 9800
NVIDIA: GeForce 3, GeForce 4MX, GeForce 4 Titanium, GeForce FX, GeForce 6
One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about humans was their habit of continuously stating and repeating the very very obvious, as in It's a nice day, or You're very tall, or Oh dear we seem to have slashdotted the server!
Sounds like a pastry or something. Better look it up ...
organelle n.
A differentiated structure within a cell, such as a mitochondrion, vacuole, or chloroplast, that performs a specific function.
Great, that sure clears things up! The submitter should have said mitochondrion, vacuole, or chloroplast in the first place though ...
Better talking does not equate smarter! I'm deeply injured by that insidiation. On behalve of every one like me, I would like to make known: Plees have regard for speeking-impared peoples. And also riting-impared. This is an outage!
Does this mean we can expect the whole dating-and-mating process to be reduced to an algorythm?
Nah, if there is an algorithm for that at all, you can bet your a** it's going to be of exponential complexity. Not only that, but if it is ever solved, the universe will implode or something equally nasty. There are some things man is not meant to tinker with. Stick with trying to reduce NP-complete problems to polynomial time, it's much safer and easier. Or you could try solving the good old Collatz Problem.
Yes, I'm single ... why do you ask?
Jackpot!
I honestly don't believe I'm important enough and/or interesting enough to have anybody read my e-mail.
Now here's an interesting bit of apathy. Yes, quite true - most of us are not worthy of being scrutinized like this by the federal government. But what if you're, say, a 'dangerous subversive' who is critical of the government? Certain powerful people would be quite interested in doing a little research on you then, wouldn't you agree? And should they be allowed to? Think about it ...
Besides, if your plotting to destroy some building somewhere, why don't you download a good ol' fashioned version of PGP and protect yourself
Yes, if you really are plotting something evil and doing it over the net, you would use something like that, wouldn't you? So doesn't that fact rather defeat the alleged purpose (i.e. combating terrorism) of allowing the government to spy on average people?
If you are doing something that requires you to hide it from the government, your breaking the law, and deserve to be caught.
RED ALERT! RED ALERT! Tell that to the subversives in Soviet Russia or other Ex-Communist countries. Remember, the government is not automatically benevolent. This is why democracies have things like Constitutions and division of power. And they certainly do not have laws that allow indescriminate monitoring of regular people.
Yes, yes, I know all about 9/11 and the horrible tragedy that was inflicted on American then. I am not American myself, so I cannot begin to imagine what it must feel like. But this also gives me the luxury of objectivity. Every American today needs to ask himself: Just who are we protecting ourselves against? And how do we do it? And just how much of what we have gained in the past 200 years are we willing to sacrifice for it?
After installation, BugMeNot supplies an appropriate name and password from a database that seems to include registration info for the vast majority of websites that request registration. The BugMeNot developers note that most people enter false information on registration forms to protect their privacy, so BugMeNot actually cuts down on database pollution. The only problem is that The New York Times may wonder what happened to all those 86-year-old Albanian grandmothers who head up huge technology firms that used to sign up to read the NYT website.
... well, the other problem is: Now that the slashdot crowd has become aware of BugMeNot, NYT will need to prepare for Attack of the Clones: Geek Edition! :P
Contenders for Worst Public Servant are Margaret Hodge for her support for a database of children and "good behaviour" orders for children as young as eight.
So, how come Santa Claus is not on the shortlist? Let's put that #1 record keeper in the world on a list for a change. Let's see how he likes the taste of his own medicine!
Ok, this is the last time I try to post a literary reference on slashdot. Don't you people read books?
Check this out. Good book. Read it.
And stop modding stuff down just because you don't get the reference.
I want to see pictures of the Sirens! Where are they??
I might be way off base here, but I see nothing but buggy plugins and new exploits. Keep your dirty IE plugins away from my shiny FireFox.
Yup, you're pretty well off base here. RTFA and note the complete absence of the word 'Microsoft' in it. Of course the Redmond Boys won't participate in this; why would they? Their share in the browser market is so overwhelming that they could require plugin writers to write their code using an abacus, and they would still be writing away, because if they want their plugins to be widely used, they must be written for IE.
Microsoft is of course quite happy with this state of affairs; changing their browser to conform some outside standard would not benefit them in any way. In fact, it could even be harmful, since standards tend to make switching to a different program less difficult, which is certainly not what they want people to do.
Yup, of course advertisers will use this stuff. Here's proof from the article:
... The implication is electrifying, especially to economists: an abstract, mathematically derived formula appears to be literally hard-wired into the primate brain.
And that, in turn, is a step toward the holy grail of marketing: being able to figure out how people will make choices that haven't been offered yet. The same tools that can answer deep questions about primate behavior can also be used to get people to sign up for more cell-phone minutes than there actually are in a month. A handful of researchers in the United States and Europe are already using fMRIs to test how product brands are represented in the brain. The goal of every consumer marketer is to have people "identify" with a brand, to develop the kind of loyalty that goes far beyond a utilitarian preference for, say, one kind of pickup truck over another. Emory University psychologist Clint Kilts scanned subjects as they looked at a variety of products, from cars to soft drinks, and found that this sense of brand identification elicited a strong response in the medial prefrontal cortex. This is the brain area associated with what psychologists call the "sense of self," one's self-constructed identity. His insights are now being offered to the corporations of the world through the BrightHouse Neurostrategies Group in Atlanta, a pioneer in the emerging field of neuromarketing.
Neuromarketing, huh? Whee - there's even a name for this field. I think this is quite creepy; it often seems to me that the bulk of psychological research is centered on advertising, i.e. on the pragmatic goal of manipulating people's choices. Where's the good ol' interest in knowledge for knowledge's sake? And what about actually trying to help people better themselves and finding cures for psychological disorders? If my ever-growing fear that money is the major influence in modern psychology is correct, it's an absolute tragedy that needs immediate correction.
Well, since encryption only involves standard processing, a firmware upgrade should be all that's required. Don't see any reason why a device would need to be created specifically for 802.11i. This is also interesting (taken from here):
Cisco, one of the largest providers of enterprise APs, said AES is supported in hardware on the IEEE 802.11g versions of AP models 1100, 1200, and the newly announced 1300 outdoor AP/bridge. However, a software upgrade for those devices will be required. Software upgrades will also be available for 802.11a, b and g card-bus and NIC cards.
Although they don't state it explicitly, it's a pretty fair bet that firmware upgrades for Linksys APs will be available at some point.
What I fail to understand is why Microsoft is so zealously advocating its browser and email client, even going so far as to make repeated attempts to embed these apps as firmly as possible into the architecture of Windows.
Since these apps are free, and are by definition not an integral part of any normal operating system, why can't they simply just accept the fact that having such a uniform 'fauna' of applications on their platform is simply bad for security? Even if IE and Outlook were the most secure applications in their field, the fact that they are used by 90%+ of all Windows users is enough to cause problems in itself.
I think this is a big part of the reason why Microsoft is disliked so greatly by those who know about other OS's. It lies in Microsoft's naive ideal that they should supply everything the Average Joe user needs all by themselves, for whatever strange reason. To me, this is nothing more than plain arrogance.
Finally, now I know Sid's slashdot ID!
Whaddya mean he's not a real person ??
So that's what the question was!
'By how many percentile points will US Broadband usage increase in 2003?'
Ok, everyone read the following carefully:
The parent of this comment is a troll. It contains the spurious phrase: 'Michael Sims reports a large opening in his backdoor for all to use', which is certainly not in the original article.
Got that? Read the parent, see the line (it is the second to last line in the parent). Did you mod that comment as Informative? Then you should be ashamed of yourself.
Why do people mod comments if they haven't read them? Seems like a very perversive kind of logic indeed.
The writer of the review is quite the humorist. For instance:
Sacrificing my public image in the name of science, I wore it as a watch for about an hour at the local mall. If you're into female repellant, wearing it this way will give you better results than a wet spot on the front of your pants.
In light of this, I propose that slashdot's motto be changed to: News for Nerds. Stuff That Repels Females.
Hmmm ... maybe not. Don't see it catching on, somehow.
Just enter the recall code. Mandrake has told us it's a variation of the letters POE, which probably stands for 'Purity Of Essence' or 'Peace On Earth'. Just try all the variations, and the launch will be aborted. Hooray!
Now stop fighting in the War Room!