Yeah, I don't understand why we need a reference weight. We have a definition of a meter, and we have water everywhere. Why didn't stick with that definition?
My guess is that the French created a reference weight because they knew they would be the only ones who would have it - i.e. for pride. But it's such a useless definition because: A. it only gets weighed once every ~20 years - it can't be used as a reference B. Every time it's weighed we realize it's changed mass. in 1980 they claimed it gained weight.
The density of water probably hasn't changed in the last billion years. Why can't we stick with that as a definition?
For college students, experience means projects. Take as many project classes as you can, because in interviews for your first full time job (entry level positions), you WILL be asked about what team projects you have done. It is the academic version of work experience. A benefit is that it's hard to get anything worse than a B+ in a high level project class (and GPA helps to get a first job). Project classes are also more fun (e.g. most decent universities have a video game class). I'm sure independent projects are just as good, but they take a lot more work IMO.
I have found summer internships rarely are good enough. Almost no one trusts an intern with anything worth showing off about in an interview for a full-time position.
Simple. The only way he's getting the source if they don't want to give it up is through court. He cannot bring them to court. Therefore, he is not getting the source.
In other words, he is demanding something when he does not have the right to do so. I can ask you for a million dollars, but you probably won't give it to me.
Very true - just because something is GPL'd doesn't mean that everyone "owns" the software. It is still copyrighted by someone, and it is up to that person/group to make sure any derived works are still free and open.
You can ask for the source, but you cannot bring them to court.
"Or even give it arms/legs/options to do anything except communicate via a screen?"
We have already given computers the ability to do all sorts of things by building them into our airplanes/nuclear power plants/factories, etc. Why would we not do the same with "intelligent" machines? The answer is some people might, and others won't.
Now my question is, how significant is ~500 ms for these tests? All I care about is how long it takes to load a typical webpage I surf, and for me, Firefox seems almost instantaneous for most pages. "Smacks silly" my be an overstatement.
"This is what we get for allowing non-technical people to make fundamental decisions about the appropriate use of technology."
That's unfair - I'm a technical person, and I am against *legislation that forces net neutrality.* Here are different reasons why:
From a theoretical point of view, a non-neutral network has more POWER than a neutral one. It is, by definition, more flexible. In other words, it reduces to neutral network if no actual action is taken.
From an economist's point of view, a non-neutral network is more efficient. It gives priority to people who "need" the network more.
From a libertarian's point of view, I am against a government telling a company what it can and can't do with a network it laid down and paid for.
And finally, from an internet user's point of view, I don't want (e.g. pornographic) bittorrent packets to ever have the same priority as an important VOIP call I am making. I realize, as a technical person, that a "neutral" internet would make this request impossible.
Now, as a Slashdot user, I recognize the fear that my fellow users have. Cable companies are jerks who abuse their position. Bush's administration has only made this easier. They want to ruin the internet. Legislation, IMO, is a half-assed way of stopping this. Why? Because a neutral internet is not the optimal state of the internet. There MUST be another way of stopping the evil cable companies without resorting to crippling the potential of the internet.
A religion doesn't become legitimate until the people are persecuted for a little while (see the Jews, Christians, Muslims, Mormons, etc)
Why don't we all just ignore the cult and let it die on it's own? Apparently the 10 million figure is highly exaggerated, which makes people think they are more of a threat than they really are. High up, Scientology WANTS to be persecuted so they can energize their followers and gain the sympathy of others.
You have no idea what I have experienced. Why do you *assume* that you have to be right and that I have to be wrong? Consider that maybe I have seen enough to know that not every authority figure is a bad guy, and that the actual bad guys aren't worth sweating over. I have had A LOT of experiences with cops on power trips (e.g. in college I had to deal with them on an almost weekly basis due to my oversensitive neighbors and our frequent parties), and I think I have come out of those experiences a winner because I didn't let them waste my time or get to me. It wasn't me getting arrested - it was my neighbors who argued with the cops because they knew they were right. An authority on a powertrip is looking for a patsy to abuse, and they almost always choose the guy who thinks he's better than everyone else (the not-so-tough tough-guy.) Kind of like the guy in this story. I admire the fact that he "stuck it to the man" by refusing to show his license, but I also think he's wasting everyone's time. End of my opinion - if you disagree with me then you disagree with me, but that doesn't mean you have to personally attack me (a lot of people on Slashdot don't seem to understand this.)
That doesn't necessarily create a user friendly environment. Is there some sort of firefox skin/mode that has almost no options, big text/graphics, and is intuitive to use for old people that you can install in the virtual machine?
Thanks for the thoughtful reply - I agree with a lot of what you say, but I guess the part we disagree on is whether he is a good person and if his intentions are pure.
I too have refused to show my receipt, usually if there is a line (I am a pretty impatient person). The difference between me and him is that I would never have created a scene like he did; I would have smiled and explained that I am in a rush. No one has ever given me trouble after that. Perhaps the real difference is that I'm not a revolutionary like he is, but I honestly don't think this is it. I think it is respect - I don't see the world as a them vs us situation. I think we are all in the same boat - police, employees of stores, and average people like me. We all have similar wants and needs, and one of those is the need to feel respected. I think that he showed disrespect to both the employee and the police man. I can't quote the blog because it is slashdotted, but as I recall he wasn't kind in refusing to show his receipt or license (along the lines of accusing them of not following the law, and trying to trap them into admitting it).
And to be clear, I am nothing like the policeman or the store employee. Just because I have an opinion on the matter that you disagree with does not make me like other people you dislike. They suspected him of something entirely different than I. I know he wants money out of the situation, and I know he wants people to get fired from it. He says so (and set up a donation system for himself, while trying to get the ACLU to foot any actual costs he will incur).
I did read it. Perhaps you should read it more carefully.
Specifically: "My three siblings sat in the back of the Buick crying their eyes out, which is the only part of today that I regret."
So he doesn't regret that he got arrested? He doesn't regret that his father had to bail him out? He doesn't regret that a family reunion was ruined? Perhaps he should look up the word regret, because the way he used it, he is straight up saying he is not unhappy with the way things turned out.
I honestly think he enjoys the fact that this happened to him, just so he can get some people fired (power trip) and maybe make some money off of it. No one is saying the police officer or the security guard are in the right - I am just saying that he isn't the martyr for freedom that everyone wants him to be.
The key to me is that the person whose rights were violated almost deliberately allowed them to be violated. At every step he knew how they were going to react, and seemed contented when they did.
Do we really live in a society that coddles people like this? I hate Circuit City employees and cops as much as the next Slashdotter, but the deliberate disrespect this man displayed to them *just to prove he could* disgusts me. We live in a society of freedom and rights, but we should live in a society of harmony and forgiveness too.
And now, this guy is going to take a bunch of people to court at the cost of the taxpayer - and for what? To prove he could? My guess is no, he's in it for the money, and he's drumming up support from slashdotters/diggers/bloggers for his own benefit.
That's the whole point - he isn't trustworthy if he is going around editing things he doesn't know about. Theoretically, his edit to Tibetan sovereignty will be removed if he adds something untrue, which will hurt his trustworthiness. Additionally, if he wants his trustworthiness to remain high, he won't be editing too many things he doesn't know about. This trustworthiness number attached to him will pressure him to edit only things he knows about, which is a win for the site.
This metric reminds me a little of Google's pagerank. At the surface, linking to other sites to "vote" for them has a lot of problems - it's easy to list several. But when you look at it at a macro scale, a lot of these problems smooth out and it ends up working better than any other algorithms.
That's beside the point - U of CA would refer to Berkeley, not San Diego. They shouldn't give incorrect information to (try to) make it more clear for non-Americans.
University of California at San Diego is the optimal compromise.
I like how your not so subtle reference to a ridiculous (but awesome) 80s movie was modded "interesting"
Tell you the truth, the truck is, uh, you know, the most important thing for me. I... I don't really... it doesn't matter if I, uh, become the champion or anything. That's, that's not the most important... I... I need this truck.
"This is completely separate from my original point,"
But that is exactly what the post you responded to was about. Reread what I originally said. And most ISPs do NOT shape bittorrent traffic - while it may be an increasing trend, currently a lot of big ISPs (like my AT&T service) don't shape BT.
How about instead of trolling you actually respond to what I said? If the internet is currently neutral (I am pretty sure it is), why should people pay extra for the level of service they currently get? And besides, how can a service provider control the neutrality of the entire internet?
That is their NEW plan, their old plan was to do exactly what Internet explorer or firefox does. I am talking about their old plan.
And I think you underestimate how much firefox is worth. While they don't disclose the exact number, there is speculation that they make many millions of dollars from google referrals. This is money that would be in Opera's pocket if more users had switched over earlier.
In all fairness, it sounds like you aren't the target demographic of facebook/myspace. These sites target young people (under 30) who don't consider their relationships a secret (think dense settings like college campuses, where 100s of people know your network). For these types of users, finding their friends on a site is about as annoying and time consuming as losing a cell-phone and having to replace the numbers.
While you may find these sites to be intrusive and useless, clearly millions of people disagree. And in defense of social networks sites, they have been very useful for me. I don't miss my friends' birthdays nearly as often. It allows me to get in touch with people I normally would lose contact with (especially after college when my friends scattered around the world). This truly has been invaluable.
The only reason why I disagree with this article is that I think being a member of multiple social networks sites is useless. I see no point in being a member of more than one, and I chose facebook.
The problem is building a business model around a product that can so easily be ripped off. Simply doesn't work; Opera realized this too late, allowing firefox to take what could have been their user base.
I mean who the hell was actually willing to use an operating system with adware built into it (or spend 30 dollars)? Not trying to troll, just stating that Opera started off with a terrible strategy, and they are paying for it now in the desktop market.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, I don't understand why we need a reference weight. We have a definition of a meter, and we have water everywhere. Why didn't stick with that definition?
My guess is that the French created a reference weight because they knew they would be the only ones who would have it - i.e. for pride. But it's such a useless definition because:
A. it only gets weighed once every ~20 years - it can't be used as a reference
B. Every time it's weighed we realize it's changed mass. in 1980 they claimed it gained weight.
The density of water probably hasn't changed in the last billion years. Why can't we stick with that as a definition?
http://www.forbes.com/2006/03/31/china-internet-usage-cx_nwp_0403china.html
For college students, experience means projects. Take as many project classes as you can, because in interviews for your first full time job (entry level positions), you WILL be asked about what team projects you have done. It is the academic version of work experience. A benefit is that it's hard to get anything worse than a B+ in a high level project class (and GPA helps to get a first job). Project classes are also more fun (e.g. most decent universities have a video game class). I'm sure independent projects are just as good, but they take a lot more work IMO.
I have found summer internships rarely are good enough. Almost no one trusts an intern with anything worth showing off about in an interview for a full-time position.
I was amazed the internet wasn't on the list. Maybe I misunderstood what the rules of the list?
Simple. The only way he's getting the source if they don't want to give it up is through court. He cannot bring them to court. Therefore, he is not getting the source.
In other words, he is demanding something when he does not have the right to do so. I can ask you for a million dollars, but you probably won't give it to me.
Very true - just because something is GPL'd doesn't mean that everyone "owns" the software. It is still copyrighted by someone, and it is up to that person/group to make sure any derived works are still free and open.
You can ask for the source, but you cannot bring them to court.
"Or even give it arms/legs/options to do anything except communicate via a screen?"
We have already given computers the ability to do all sorts of things by building them into our airplanes/nuclear power plants/factories, etc. Why would we not do the same with "intelligent" machines? The answer is some people might, and others won't.
I'd be surprised if the army doesn't.
without units. 281ms per what? Apparently a bunch of tests listed on http://celtickane.com/projects/jsspeed.php
Now my question is, how significant is ~500 ms for these tests? All I care about is how long it takes to load a typical webpage I surf, and for me, Firefox seems almost instantaneous for most pages. "Smacks silly" my be an overstatement.
"This is what we get for allowing non-technical people to make fundamental decisions about the appropriate use of technology."
That's unfair - I'm a technical person, and I am against *legislation that forces net neutrality.* Here are different reasons why:
From a theoretical point of view, a non-neutral network has more POWER than a neutral one. It is, by definition, more flexible. In other words, it reduces to neutral network if no actual action is taken.
From an economist's point of view, a non-neutral network is more efficient. It gives priority to people who "need" the network more.
From a libertarian's point of view, I am against a government telling a company what it can and can't do with a network it laid down and paid for.
And finally, from an internet user's point of view, I don't want (e.g. pornographic) bittorrent packets to ever have the same priority as an important VOIP call I am making. I realize, as a technical person, that a "neutral" internet would make this request impossible.
Now, as a Slashdot user, I recognize the fear that my fellow users have. Cable companies are jerks who abuse their position. Bush's administration has only made this easier. They want to ruin the internet. Legislation, IMO, is a half-assed way of stopping this. Why? Because a neutral internet is not the optimal state of the internet. There MUST be another way of stopping the evil cable companies without resorting to crippling the potential of the internet.
A religion doesn't become legitimate until the people are persecuted for a little while (see the Jews, Christians, Muslims, Mormons, etc)
Why don't we all just ignore the cult and let it die on it's own? Apparently the 10 million figure is highly exaggerated, which makes people think they are more of a threat than they really are. High up, Scientology WANTS to be persecuted so they can energize their followers and gain the sympathy of others.
You have no idea what I have experienced. Why do you *assume* that you have to be right and that I have to be wrong? Consider that maybe I have seen enough to know that not every authority figure is a bad guy, and that the actual bad guys aren't worth sweating over. I have had A LOT of experiences with cops on power trips (e.g. in college I had to deal with them on an almost weekly basis due to my oversensitive neighbors and our frequent parties), and I think I have come out of those experiences a winner because I didn't let them waste my time or get to me. It wasn't me getting arrested - it was my neighbors who argued with the cops because they knew they were right. An authority on a powertrip is looking for a patsy to abuse, and they almost always choose the guy who thinks he's better than everyone else (the not-so-tough tough-guy.) Kind of like the guy in this story. I admire the fact that he "stuck it to the man" by refusing to show his license, but I also think he's wasting everyone's time. End of my opinion - if you disagree with me then you disagree with me, but that doesn't mean you have to personally attack me (a lot of people on Slashdot don't seem to understand this.)
That doesn't necessarily create a user friendly environment. Is there some sort of firefox skin/mode that has almost no options, big text/graphics, and is intuitive to use for old people that you can install in the virtual machine?
Thanks for the thoughtful reply - I agree with a lot of what you say, but I guess the part we disagree on is whether he is a good person and if his intentions are pure.
I too have refused to show my receipt, usually if there is a line (I am a pretty impatient person). The difference between me and him is that I would never have created a scene like he did; I would have smiled and explained that I am in a rush. No one has ever given me trouble after that. Perhaps the real difference is that I'm not a revolutionary like he is, but I honestly don't think this is it. I think it is respect - I don't see the world as a them vs us situation. I think we are all in the same boat - police, employees of stores, and average people like me. We all have similar wants and needs, and one of those is the need to feel respected. I think that he showed disrespect to both the employee and the police man. I can't quote the blog because it is slashdotted, but as I recall he wasn't kind in refusing to show his receipt or license (along the lines of accusing them of not following the law, and trying to trap them into admitting it).
And to be clear, I am nothing like the policeman or the store employee. Just because I have an opinion on the matter that you disagree with does not make me like other people you dislike. They suspected him of something entirely different than I. I know he wants money out of the situation, and I know he wants people to get fired from it. He says so (and set up a donation system for himself, while trying to get the ACLU to foot any actual costs he will incur).
I did read it. Perhaps you should read it more carefully.
Specifically:
"My three siblings sat in the back of the Buick crying their eyes out, which is the only part of today that I regret."
So he doesn't regret that he got arrested? He doesn't regret that his father had to bail him out? He doesn't regret that a family reunion was ruined? Perhaps he should look up the word regret, because the way he used it, he is straight up saying he is not unhappy with the way things turned out.
I honestly think he enjoys the fact that this happened to him, just so he can get some people fired (power trip) and maybe make some money off of it. No one is saying the police officer or the security guard are in the right - I am just saying that he isn't the martyr for freedom that everyone wants him to be.
The key to me is that the person whose rights were violated almost deliberately allowed them to be violated. At every step he knew how they were going to react, and seemed contented when they did.
Do we really live in a society that coddles people like this? I hate Circuit City employees and cops as much as the next Slashdotter, but the deliberate disrespect this man displayed to them *just to prove he could* disgusts me. We live in a society of freedom and rights, but we should live in a society of harmony and forgiveness too.
And now, this guy is going to take a bunch of people to court at the cost of the taxpayer - and for what? To prove he could? My guess is no, he's in it for the money, and he's drumming up support from slashdotters/diggers/bloggers for his own benefit.
That's the whole point - he isn't trustworthy if he is going around editing things he doesn't know about. Theoretically, his edit to Tibetan sovereignty will be removed if he adds something untrue, which will hurt his trustworthiness. Additionally, if he wants his trustworthiness to remain high, he won't be editing too many things he doesn't know about. This trustworthiness number attached to him will pressure him to edit only things he knows about, which is a win for the site.
This metric reminds me a little of Google's pagerank. At the surface, linking to other sites to "vote" for them has a lot of problems - it's easy to list several. But when you look at it at a macro scale, a lot of these problems smooth out and it ends up working better than any other algorithms.
That's beside the point - U of CA would refer to Berkeley, not San Diego. They shouldn't give incorrect information to (try to) make it more clear for non-Americans.
University of California at San Diego is the optimal compromise.
I like how your not so subtle reference to a ridiculous (but awesome) 80s movie was modded "interesting"
Tell you the truth, the truck is, uh, you know, the most important thing for me. I... I don't really... it doesn't matter if I, uh, become the champion or anything. That's, that's not the most important... I... I need this truck.
"This is completely separate from my original point,"
But that is exactly what the post you responded to was about. Reread what I originally said. And most ISPs do NOT shape bittorrent traffic - while it may be an increasing trend, currently a lot of big ISPs (like my AT&T service) don't shape BT.
How about instead of trolling you actually respond to what I said? If the internet is currently neutral (I am pretty sure it is), why should people pay extra for the level of service they currently get? And besides, how can a service provider control the neutrality of the entire internet?
Because the internet is currently neutral (at least by most ISPs). I won't pay more for something I already get - I'm not an idiot.
Another example of a businessman using internet buzzwords to make a quick buck.
That is their NEW plan, their old plan was to do exactly what Internet explorer or firefox does. I am talking about their old plan.
And I think you underestimate how much firefox is worth. While they don't disclose the exact number, there is speculation that they make many millions of dollars from google referrals. This is money that would be in Opera's pocket if more users had switched over earlier.
In all fairness, it sounds like you aren't the target demographic of facebook/myspace. These sites target young people (under 30) who don't consider their relationships a secret (think dense settings like college campuses, where 100s of people know your network). For these types of users, finding their friends on a site is about as annoying and time consuming as losing a cell-phone and having to replace the numbers.
While you may find these sites to be intrusive and useless, clearly millions of people disagree. And in defense of social networks sites, they have been very useful for me. I don't miss my friends' birthdays nearly as often. It allows me to get in touch with people I normally would lose contact with (especially after college when my friends scattered around the world). This truly has been invaluable.
The only reason why I disagree with this article is that I think being a member of multiple social networks sites is useless. I see no point in being a member of more than one, and I chose facebook.
The problem is building a business model around a product that can so easily be ripped off. Simply doesn't work; Opera realized this too late, allowing firefox to take what could have been their user base.
I mean who the hell was actually willing to use an operating system with adware built into it (or spend 30 dollars)? Not trying to troll, just stating that Opera started off with a terrible strategy, and they are paying for it now in the desktop market.
I like how you still list the awards ;)
http://www.mosasciim2.com/index.php?page=links