I am very wary of commissioned sales people at the retail level. Their mentality always degrades to a slash and burn - do whatever is takes to sell the highest commissioned items and who gives a shit if it's the wrong thing or if the customer never comes back.
Eh, at some point the customer needs to have a spine. A small amount of preparedness (good old planning ahead, that thing that seems to have fallen out of fashion) in the form of having already evaluated your needs and chosen your product or service before you ever set foot in a store goes a long way, too. For this, Google is your friend.
That's especially true considering that a 36-month contract for anything (like what the GP mentioned) should not ever be an impulse buy. It's not a pack of gum, it's a signed contract. If such things are not bought by means of thoughtless impulse, then some commissioned hawker is not just going to suddenly talk you into it.
Both the USA and Canada have been relatively capitalist societies for a long time now. It's not like this is a new thing that the public hasn't had time to get used to. For that reason, I am amazed that there seem to be so many people who would not consider what I just said to be bleeding-obvious common knowledge. Perhaps this is another thing that is more than adequately explained by a close look at modern government ("public") schooling.
This is where you need free press that attack like a pack of pitbulls and demand to know who ordered the cancellation and why. Nothing teaches politicians honest like public humiliation.
Unfortunately you need good honest people to become interested in politics too. Otherwise every election is just a "lesser evil" type of choice and you never get anything like the self-correcting system that you describe here. The ability to choose your form of corruption is not real honesty, just like the ability to choose your master is not real freedom.
When corporations have the ability to use government policy as a tool to protect their private interests the correct term is not capitalism - it's called fascism.
This is absolutely correct and when it's in the early stages like this, very few people recognize the danger. They don't seem to grasp that this is not a situation that can improve on its own. On its own, it can only get progressively worse and by the time it's immediately and outwardly obvious that they are living in a fascist state, it's often too late for the people to do much of anything about it other than cower and curse their lack of foresight.
From the summary:
Geist suggests that the major cell carriers lobbied the appropriate public officials to have the program nixed because it would bite into their profit if the general public could make sense out of pricing and fees.
The attempt by the cell carriers to halt this project is all the more reason to go through with it. If anything, that should result in additional effort to not only produce the calculator but also to fund a media campaign so everyone knows it is available. The failure to understand this is all that you need to know in order to realize what a bunch of spineless, useless excuses for human beings (they are puppets really) our so-called leaders actually are.
Novel ideas usually don't live on by themselves unless they become useful. The worst thing the developers did (besides the name) was create a "steep learning curve" for the common web browser. The best thing the developers could do is work with an existing product that already has market share and works great like Chrome (also based on Webkit) and make their additions to it in support of better key bindings.
That depends on whether the goal is to obtain the largest possible marketshare. If that is the goal, or if that is your sole definition of "useful," then what you say does apply. If they don't give a damn about competing head-on with the likes of IE or Firefox then what you say is completely irrelevant. What I don't understand is the (usually) unstated assumption that marketshare numbers are the only reason why anyone creates any piece of software. While it's important in terms of attracting developers and, in the case of browsers, for putting pressure on Microsoft to make IE more standards-compliant, there are many reasons why someone might write a browser and this includes reasons that wouldn't personally motivate you.
I see the same sentiment shown when some people discuss Linux as though its only purpose is to compete with Windows. They then act like Linux is a complete and utter failure if it doesn't bust up the Windows desktop monopoly. I disagree with this; Linux just "is." If it happens to displace Windows, that's great. If it doesn't, that's fine with me too. Though I have happily introduced folks to Linux who showed an interest in it, I'm not out to win converts; I just want something that works for me. There are those of us for whom Linux is a good solution, who have no dependency on any Microsoft products, and who are able to do our computing completely aloof from Microsoft, unaffected by any decision Microsoft makes. It's abundantly possible that this is intended to be a niche browser, designed for the relatively small number of users who are technically inclined and willing to tinker with something like a Web browser and its supporting scripts.
FLV is a flash video format. Mplayer already plays FLVs just fine. This has little to do with flash video sites, which use SWF to create their own players for FLV content (and often the FLV location is obfuscated and keyed, so you need to interpret the SWF to get to it). It is impossible to get YouTube to work with only an FLV player. Crude hacks like using Adobe's plugin to download the video to/tmp and then playing it with mplayer aren't really viable for end-users.
The SWF format was completely closed until May 1, 2008, and even now it's still missing bits and pieces. Gnash devs have had less than a year and a half to work with a real specification, so it's no surprise that they're still quite a ways behind the official Adobe Flash.
If I understand correctly, the obfuscation of the actual video file that you mention is the main reason why major sites like Youtube use such an asinine proprietary format. It seems to me that the solution is to produce better tools for getting around such obfuscation and downloading the video files and then to make them both very easy to use and universally available. When such obfuscation becomes a complete failure, will major sites have any remaining reasons not to just embed a standard file format and let the users' choice of media player take care of it?
I wish there were a Greasemonkey script for Slashdot that would remove from visibility any and all posts containing "XKCD". That way my view of the discussion would look like no such posts existed. While I'd love to endlessly debate the intended message of a guy who draws stick figure comics, it really doesn't have much to do with the latest improvements to the Linux kernel other than mentioning the words. That, and I just don't find XKCD to be endlessly interesting the way a lot of folks here do. It doesn't help that most of the ones mentioned here are quite stereotypical (like the whole "geeks care about things that average users don't, whodathunkit?!" theme). Even if I did find XKCD to be endlessly interesting, I wouldn't bring it up at every possible opportunity. Now go ahead and flame me because I don't think your trendy (around here, anyway) comic is all that clever.
... because an XPI extension is written in XUL and/or Javascript, while a plugin is a compiled DLL that the browser loads up into its address space. they are two different things that work in different ways, even though they both add features to the browser. That's not to say that Flash couldn't be hosted on Mozilla's add-ons site, just that you are unlikely to see it in the form of an XPI file.
Why some people always assume the person that is talking has no knowledge of what he or she is saying?, please take a look at Mozilla Extension reference and you will see that you can package plugins inside an XPI (/plugins/* reference on the exampleExt.xpi sample)
No assumption was intended and I apologize for giving you that impression. I just honestly believed at the time that you had this wrong because I made a mistake. I stand corrected. Thank you for taking the time to point this out, because even when it's a rather inconsequential thing like this, I still don't want to believe things which are false.
If I may revise my answer to your question, I would speculate that they don't produce an XPI for the Flash plugin because it would be incompatible with IE, which still has a large marketshare. So to Adobe, this would represent one more separate thing to have to keep track of and maintain. I doubt that they would do this in the absence of overwhelming demand for it. I also speculate that someone else would not be able to package an XPI for them because they probably don't permit others to redistribute their copyrighted software.
I would rather legally install the latest Ubuntu than steal windows 7. If you steal windows 7, you are still supporting (even if only indirectly) the company that you feel ripped you off.
I forgot who it was, but there is a guy on the Gentoo forums who has a sig similar to this:
"Linux: because I'd rather use a free OS than pirate one that's not worth stealing."
I do agree with this. A lot of folks don't consider that even pirate software adds to a vendor's marketshare, and that's pretty important when you're talking about a vendor like Microsoft. I also agree with it for a more personal reason -- I don't use Linux because I don't want to pay for Windows. I use Linux because I don't like Windows very much. There's a big difference.
>>>If a company is able to screw me, it's because I trusted someone I should not have trusted. That is my fault,
So if Comcast suddenly turns-off your TV or net access, even though you've already paid for this month, you really truly believe that's your own fault? Riiiight. Sure. Yep. Whatever you say pal. I call such actions "theft" or "scamming" whether it's they guy on the street who sold you a Ralex watch or a magacorporation.
It is a higher standard, and no I don't expect you to understand it. I expect you to invent facetious and downright silly "counterexamples" like this one in order to further miss my point. You have not disappointed me. I suppose all of that is much easier than admitting that I showed the error of your belief in revenge, a subject you are strangely quiet about considering that most of my reply to you was devoted to it.
I never understood that style of "discussion" where you pretend like any inconvenient points made by the other person didn't happen and so you ignore them and go on to narrowly discuss only the thing or two about which you are most confident. It seems like a gross misunderstanding of the "put your best foot forward" sentiment. It's surprising to me that so many techniques like this are so easy to see through, yet they are used everywhere so apparently they do work on many people.
For the hell of it, not really expecting that it will change anything, I'll explain why your little counter-example there doesn't work. If Comcast (or anyone else) suddenly fails to provide the services they have agreed by contract to provide to me, and I have not failed to uphold my end of the contract, then I have recourse so I'm not actually screwed. In fact, this would be a very stupid move on Comcast's part and they know it.
I'm not screwed unless I agree to abide by something that is not really in my interests. Then they really got me because then I have no recourse. DRM-encumbered media is a great example of this; trusting unknown or unaccountable third parties with my data in the name of "cloud computing" is another example of this. If a company can get me to accept such things, it's not their fault for asking, it's my fault for accepting.
This applies to scams as well. A Nigerian scam, for example, cannot possibly work on me unless I first believe that there are random strangers in overseas countries who honestly want to give me millions of dollars for little or no effort on my part. The "evilness" or the deceitfulness of the scammer has nothing to do with it, although if I lacked the inner fortitude to evaluate my own weaknesses, then I might use those qualities as scapegoats.
It's alright. What this boils down to is the reality of personal responsibility, which is a true Big Scary to a lot of people. You'd rather believe that there are just bad people in the world and that's that, because it's so much easier than understanding why you have personal weaknesses that such people must first exploit before they can do anything to you. People will perform all sorts of mental gymnastics when you confront them with something they would rather deny. This includes turning a blind eye to the obvious flaws in their "counter-examples." That's why you invent a scenario that is easily shown to be invalid and then you act like you've really made a point.
I am happy too see an open source developer dropping the attitude that if the bug is not in their code, then it's not their problem.
They're only having to do that because Adobe refuses to fix Flash. By that I do not mean the current approach of patch after patch. I mean really fix it, which would probably require reimplementing it from scratch using secure programming practices from the very beginning. Right now, the security history of Flash is a complete joke compared to anything else except maybe early Sendmail. At any rate, this amounts to Mozilla trying to help clean up Adobe's mess because Adobe is too lazy to do so without a significant amount of pressure.
The next step would be to make sure that at least the most popular extensions work with a new version of Firefox when it is released.
The next step would be to scrap Flash and make it go the way of the dinosaur. The immediate next step after that would be to recognize that using Adobe was not the mistake that was made here. Using any closed standard controlled by any single vendor was the mistake. What we need is an open standard that anyone can implement with no concern about patents or other encumberences. Then and only then, if Adobe can make the fastest/most secure implementation of that open standard, they remain relevant. If not, they quietly disappear. It's obvious they are afraid of such a level playing field.
Mozilla has provided the tools to do it with extensions, I do not know the reason why Adobe is afraid to build an XPI with Flash and publish all updates on Mozilla Add-ons site. They already do a yum repository for us, users of RPM based Linux dsitributions
... because an XPI extension is written in XUL and/or Javascript, while a plugin is a compiled DLL that the browser loads up into its address space. they are two different things that work in different ways, even though they both add features to the browser. That's not to say that Flash couldn't be hosted on Mozilla's add-ons site, just that you are unlikely to see it in the form of an XPI file.
The real reason why you probably will never see it hosted on a non-Adobe server is simple enough. Nothing remotely resembling a "web standard" should be controlled by a single vendor, nor should it be anything other than an open standard with available source code for several working implementations. Almost everything that is or ever was wrong with Flash could have been fixed by someone else (since Adobe does not seem interested) if the above conditions were true.
Gentoo jokes are hardly funny anymore, since it seems most users have taken its issues to heart and moved on to Ubuntu. I tried to migrate my home "everything" server and gave up somewhere - gdm, lirc, imapd, exim, I don't remember, none of them worked the same. Due to different versions of things and distro-specific configuration, copying/etc/ files rarely works like one would hope. But don't get me wrong, a plain-vanilla fresh install of Ubuntu is incredibly simple, if you are reasonably lucky.
I use Gentoo and I am very satisfied with it. However, I like to tinker and I like to fine-tune and I want to learn and better understand the system I am using. I recognize that this does not suit everyone's tastes and I personally wouldn't recommend Gentoo to someone who just wants to get up and running with as little effort as possible. For that, Ubuntu and its variants are ideal as they were designed for this purpose. I believe in using the right tool for the job. In other words, I use Gentoo and I really like it but I am not a fanboy, nor can I easily understand people who use something and assume that it must be perfect for everyone because just because they personally use it.
As a teaching tool, getting a Gentoo system up and running by manual installation is one of the best ways I have found to introduce my friends to Linux in a way that gives them a real understanding of how it works and how to administer it (most were migrating from Windows). That's because from the ground up, the manual install of Gentoo requires active involvement in all of the decision-making. The learning curve is something they tackle head-on and it's mostly downhill from there. This has worked well because I was willing to take the time to help them and to explain all of the options to them. Also, my friends generally have enough initiative to value real understanding so I try to honor their willingness to learn by showing my willingness to be there and help out. Just giving them a Gentoo installation CD and saying "there, now you go figure it out" would not have been very helpful to them at all and very well may have turned them off not only to Gentoo but to Linux in general.
In terms of my own tastes, I will add that I have seen plenty of odd "quirks" on Kubuntu that just don't seem to ever happen on a system for which I have built a custom kernel and have manually configured the system software. Most of these quirks are sound-related but have also involved network settings and application behavior. I also like the fact that on Gentoo, I have almost never wanted to install something that wasn't immediately available in the package manager with no need to concern myself about multiple repositories or additional hassles related to non-GPL software such as the nVidia binary driver. Additionally, the Gentoo Hardened project is a good example of something you can do with a source-based distribution that is generally only partially implemented by binary distros.
>>>asinine software EULAs which not only state the standard fact that you don't really own anything despite having paid for it, but also state that the vendor has no liability no matter what happens, not even when the software fails to perform as advertised (I think they call it "suitability for purpose" and expressly disclaim it).
>>>
The only reasonable response when a company screws you, is to screw them back.
i.e. If MS Vista cost you $200, and it refused to operate on your 1/2 gig machine even though it was advertised to work, then don't get mad. Get back your $200 or the equivalent. Steal Windows 7. "Revenge is a dish best served cold."
If a company is able to screw me, it's because I trusted someone I should not have trusted. That is my fault, and any losses I incur because of it are Nature's way of providing an incentive to use better discernment. That's because I am no one's victim and I refuse to play the part. What you suggest is not revenge at all, but rather, a justification for sacrificing my dignity in order to become just like the company I should have avoided in the first place. This will not reduce the number of people who want to deceive others; it can only make more of them.
No insult is intended here, but I am forced to reject both your suggestion and the perspective from which it came.
Oh for fucks sake, it was a genuine question, not an attempt to flame. WHY is this guy's opinion given so much weight? I mean Stallman, ESR, Linus etc... Yep, those guys I get. But Cory?
WHY is all I'm asking. (And no doubt another idiot mod will mod me down, which just confirms everything people say about mods on here.)
What they say about them is quite true. The easiest way to find this out is to question anything which has a large fanboy following. They could celebrate the individualism required to do so, but they are far too cowardly for this and will therefore get upset at you for "personally attacking" (objectively questioning) "their guy" (someone they've never met). Cowards and prey animals have one thing in common: they love the safety of a large herd. The prey animals are more noble by far, as they didn't have a choice in the matter.
Yea, no, I'm not doing that. I'd rather keep my computer and not run a thin client and "trust" that the company isn't monitoring what I'm using "their" server cluster for.
The exception I have to that rule is Google docs.
Agreed. Sorry, but when I read that the first thing that occurred to me was "all of this because the average person thinks Windows is too hard, or otherwise refuses to get a clue." What concerns me is that buzzword-ridden ideas like cloud computing will probably appeal to the non-technical masses (addicts to convenience that they are), to the point that the rest of us may be forced to partially or wholly accept them. I really don't care to give up even a small fraction of my privacy merely because Joe Sixpack couldn't be bothered to read a book or two. There's no justice in it.
This reminds me of the more asinine software EULAs which not only state the standard fact that you don't really own anything despite having paid for it, but also state that the vendor has no liability no matter what happens, not even when the software fails to perform as advertised (I think they call it "suitability for purpose" and expressly disclaim it). If the cloud computing vendors decide to implement a TOS like that, then your data is effectively held hostage and you have no recourse if something happens to it. What would be their real incentive not to do things that way? An informed, technically literate public which fully understands all of these issues? Yeah, right.
Like any and all proposals to do for you what you can easily do for yourself while charging you for the privilege, this has "bad idea" written all over it. As though all of the buzzwords didn't tip you off...
It's lazy, dangerous, and ineffective to force-fit physical world rules to other realms. We should insist that they throw away rules of physical evidence and create reasonable rules for digital evidence.
Too often that means "reasonable because the cops can snoop around and violate the privacy of other people, regardless of whether those other people don't want that like I do." I'll give an analogy that involves only physical evidence.
At least in my country, an officer is not allowed to just randomly pull over a vehicle for no reason and then search that vehicle. They are supposed to have probable cause; they can't just go search someoneone to see what they can find. Unless they have a dog, that is. That's right. A police dog can decide your vehicle has drugs or whatever else they're looking for and when the dog starts barking, suddenly the officer has a perfectly legal search. Yes, it would be illegal and a violation of civil rights if that officer used his hands and eyes to locate the same drugs. However, the same search performed with a dog's nose instead of a human officer's hands and eyes is suddenly legal and constitutional. Isn't that amazing, how you can take an unconstitutional act, filter it through the nervous system of the lowly dog, and suddenly it becomes legal and has the court's blessing?
Declaring additional records (i.e. those which were not specified in a search warrant or subpoena) as "in plain sight" and legal to search is worse than this. It's worse because it disposes of even the pretense that using a dog to conduct a search is somehow fundamentally different than using your hands and eyes to conduct the same search. It's like declaring everything up-for-grabs so long as the cops can get their hands on it. It's not "in plain sight", it's residing on privately owned hardware on private property. The cops confiscated it by force or by threat of force (what do you suppose a warrant or a subpoena is?) and now that they've dragged it back to their offices and loaded it up on their hardware it's in "plain sight" to them. That sure is a strange definition of "plain sight." This is something that WILL be abused, though I imagine that when this happens a lot of you are going to act surprised. The sad thing is that the surprise will often be sincere.
Yeah right. But god forbid those total retards would actually having to stop stuffing their ugly fat faces with truckloads of sugar and other trash. Noo, we can't have that! The sugar industry would lose jobs, when all those junkies would stop getting their fix.
But why stop there. Why not just run across the street in full traffic, and demand a replacement body, when it's ripped to parts then? Why not kill your liver with alcohol, and demand a replacement liver instead of dying like natural selection would have demanded it. Oh wait, we're already there.
Why not demand to stop thinking and do every wrong thing in the world, because yo have a right not to think. A right to get your ass wiped when you took a shit. A right to get you food and information pre-chewed. A right to become a total useless blob of fat, lying in bed 24/7, needing 7 men to turn you around, and a *fuckin' right* to get the 2 1/2 cases of big coke bottles delivered right to your bed, that you consume *PER DAY*!
Yes, I am bursting with anger. Yes you can stay in your mode of denial and mod me whatever you like. But you still know that I'm fuckin' right! This shit is so freakin' *wrong*, it boggles the mind! And you know it!
Or you can simply start eating like a human, instead of like a trashcan for cheap industrial waste, and stop listening to those pseudo-experts actually trying to convince you that the human tooth would also not be able to stand the very thing that it is made for (real food).
Your observations are quite correct. What's much harder to realize is that anger is part of the problem and will never lead you to the detachment, compassionate understanding, and agape love that would allow you to understand that the people who do these things do so out of profound ignorance, and that this ignorance makes them suffer much more than anything your rage would ever wish to do to them. Your anger has no power whatsoever to effect any kind of meaningful change; it just makes you suffer in a less material way than the practices about which you are upset. I want neither you nor them to suffer. The whole problem with evil or ignorance or whatever you want to call it is that it's infectious, and so we as human beings have a very hard time seeing it or dealing with it or suffering because of it without becoming negative ourselves.
Re-reading your post, I'm still finding a fundamental assumption that it's successful based on the emotional appeal of its marketing, and not out of any inherent usefulness of the service itself. Am I wrong in seeing this assumption?
I never claimed that it was a neverending stream of wisdom that passed through twitter. Rather, that just because a lot of crap/does/ pass through, that's no reason to discount it as a service with inherent value. Babies and bathwater and all that.
For most of this (sub)thread I was responding to the AC who said "supposedly intelligent people are repeatedly surprised that marketing works." That was a broad statement applicable to marketing and advertising in general and was not at all exclusive to Twitter. Otherwise I definitely agree with you. Personally, that people suddenly flock to a new brand seemingly overnight and the reasons why they act this way in large groups in short periods of time is much more interesting than the brand itself and what it has to offer. It's the group-think or the herd mentality I am looking at, as opposed to whether the stream from which the herd is drinking is clean.
Not fond of replying to myself, but I should add that I am not without my opinions on the general utility of Twitter and I have certainly stated them throughout this thread. They are, however, opinions.
Re-reading your post, I'm still finding a fundamental assumption that it's successful based on the emotional appeal of its marketing, and not out of any inherent usefulness of the service itself. Am I wrong in seeing this assumption?
I never claimed that it was a neverending stream of wisdom that passed through twitter. Rather, that just because a lot of crap/does/ pass through, that's no reason to discount it as a service with inherent value. Babies and bathwater and all that.
For most of this (sub)thread I was responding to the AC who said "supposedly intelligent people are repeatedly surprised that marketing works." That was a broad statement applicable to marketing and advertising in general and was not at all exclusive to Twitter. Otherwise I definitely agree with you. Personally, that people suddenly flock to a new brand seemingly overnight and the reasons why they act this way in large groups in short periods of time is much more interesting than the brand itself and what it has to offer. It's the group-think or the herd mentality I am looking at, as opposed to whether the stream from which the herd is drinking is clean.
I mentioned the Electric Universe in passing and it was not the crux of my argument. You have chosen to get fixated on that because it's apparently some kind of push-button keyword for you. I can't be responsible for that.
Don't try to mark me as misunderstanding what you said, you made an assertion regarding scientific progress, then tried to tie it into an unrelated point about EU (which was factually incorrect).
Well, when I never once spoke about the criteria for something to be accepted as "truth" and you respond talking about the criteria needed for something to be accepted as truth, what am I supposed to think? That you fully understood what I was saying? Yeah, sure. Look, you made an easy mistake and I pointed that out. Deal. I was neither rude nor disrespectful in pointing it out so this defensiveness of yours and outright denial of an obvious mistake is rather unbecoming.
It's a wonderful tactic if you want to feel persecuted.
While I appreciate the attempt to make this into a personal issue, it's quite useless. You may think whatever you like about me as a person. It still has no bearing whatsoever on anything I've said about science.
To be fair, I thought you were crtiicizing the existence of twitter in general, not just this app, which I agree seems a bit absurd, except maybe for the fact that some people's updates seem mostly to be of the "okay, I'm there" type.
As you say, that really is a separate question. Personally I don't use it because it doesn't appeal to me. While this is not nearly as true of Twitter as it is of Myspace and Facebook, I still think a great deal of the appeal of these sites is personal vanity. The way most people would feel excited about "being on TV" is similar to what is being indulged on those sites. For these reasons, I've never shared the willingness of those users to inform random strangers of their personal lives, names, hobbies, interests, personal or personally identifying photos, and general location. I view that activity as something that could not possibly benefit me in any meaningful way but could enable some malicious individual to harm me or an employer to reject me who otherwise might not have. Anytime I encounter "no possible gains, but possible losses" the decision-making is quite simple. For other individuals, perhaps the ego-boost or perhaps the ease-of-use outweigh these concerns, but the vanity does not appeal to me and I am technically inclined so this is not the case for me.
That's not to say I don't like to communicate with people. I just like to do so on my terms, using my equipment and the software/protocols of my choice, rather than having to use someone else's systems and follow someone else's rules for how I may or may not do so.
Its not about lowering the standards for the definition of race. Its that there IS no accepted definition of race.
I question that there is no accepted definition of race, though I agree there is not a universally accepted definition. For the sake of argument let's assume that this is correct and there is no way to define "race." There exists a very easy-to-understand definition of "nationality," however. There's still no question that "Mexican" is a nationality as the AC has pointed out. So, knowing that it is a nationality, referring to it as something other than a nationality is clearly inaccurate and using weasel words to dispute the meaning of "race" doesn't change that.
The conclusion of all of this is that a person who doesn't understand what these words mean and chooses to use them anyway is speaking of something he knows little or nothing about, which definitely affects whether that person is worth listening to. That's what I meant about the low signal-to-noise ratio that seems to surround this subject.
I just wanted you to know that I really appreciated the site you link to in your sig, a-human-right.com. It's rare that I see such good accurate information about the gun-control issue and rarer still that I see such a strong love of freedom. Thank you for sharing this. It's an excellent reference, especially for people who are undecided about gun-control or who don't understand the full political implications of it.
Slashdot Mirror
Eh, at some point the customer needs to have a spine. A small amount of preparedness (good old planning ahead, that thing that seems to have fallen out of fashion) in the form of having already evaluated your needs and chosen your product or service before you ever set foot in a store goes a long way, too. For this, Google is your friend.
That's especially true considering that a 36-month contract for anything (like what the GP mentioned) should not ever be an impulse buy. It's not a pack of gum, it's a signed contract. If such things are not bought by means of thoughtless impulse, then some commissioned hawker is not just going to suddenly talk you into it.
Both the USA and Canada have been relatively capitalist societies for a long time now. It's not like this is a new thing that the public hasn't had time to get used to. For that reason, I am amazed that there seem to be so many people who would not consider what I just said to be bleeding-obvious common knowledge. Perhaps this is another thing that is more than adequately explained by a close look at modern government ("public") schooling.
This is where you need free press that attack like a pack of pitbulls and demand to know who ordered the cancellation and why. Nothing teaches politicians honest like public humiliation.
Unfortunately you need good honest people to become interested in politics too. Otherwise every election is just a "lesser evil" type of choice and you never get anything like the self-correcting system that you describe here. The ability to choose your form of corruption is not real honesty, just like the ability to choose your master is not real freedom.
When corporations have the ability to use government policy as a tool to protect their private interests the correct term is not capitalism - it's called fascism.
This is absolutely correct and when it's in the early stages like this, very few people recognize the danger. They don't seem to grasp that this is not a situation that can improve on its own. On its own, it can only get progressively worse and by the time it's immediately and outwardly obvious that they are living in a fascist state, it's often too late for the people to do much of anything about it other than cower and curse their lack of foresight.
From the summary:
The attempt by the cell carriers to halt this project is all the more reason to go through with it. If anything, that should result in additional effort to not only produce the calculator but also to fund a media campaign so everyone knows it is available. The failure to understand this is all that you need to know in order to realize what a bunch of spineless, useless excuses for human beings (they are puppets really) our so-called leaders actually are.
Novel ideas usually don't live on by themselves unless they become useful. The worst thing the developers did (besides the name) was create a "steep learning curve" for the common web browser. The best thing the developers could do is work with an existing product that already has market share and works great like Chrome (also based on Webkit) and make their additions to it in support of better key bindings.
That depends on whether the goal is to obtain the largest possible marketshare. If that is the goal, or if that is your sole definition of "useful," then what you say does apply. If they don't give a damn about competing head-on with the likes of IE or Firefox then what you say is completely irrelevant. What I don't understand is the (usually) unstated assumption that marketshare numbers are the only reason why anyone creates any piece of software. While it's important in terms of attracting developers and, in the case of browsers, for putting pressure on Microsoft to make IE more standards-compliant, there are many reasons why someone might write a browser and this includes reasons that wouldn't personally motivate you.
I see the same sentiment shown when some people discuss Linux as though its only purpose is to compete with Windows. They then act like Linux is a complete and utter failure if it doesn't bust up the Windows desktop monopoly. I disagree with this; Linux just "is." If it happens to displace Windows, that's great. If it doesn't, that's fine with me too. Though I have happily introduced folks to Linux who showed an interest in it, I'm not out to win converts; I just want something that works for me. There are those of us for whom Linux is a good solution, who have no dependency on any Microsoft products, and who are able to do our computing completely aloof from Microsoft, unaffected by any decision Microsoft makes. It's abundantly possible that this is intended to be a niche browser, designed for the relatively small number of users who are technically inclined and willing to tinker with something like a Web browser and its supporting scripts.
FLV is a flash video format. Mplayer already plays FLVs just fine. This has little to do with flash video sites, which use SWF to create their own players for FLV content (and often the FLV location is obfuscated and keyed, so you need to interpret the SWF to get to it). It is impossible to get YouTube to work with only an FLV player. Crude hacks like using Adobe's plugin to download the video to /tmp and then playing it with mplayer aren't really viable for end-users.
The SWF format was completely closed until May 1, 2008, and even now it's still missing bits and pieces. Gnash devs have had less than a year and a half to work with a real specification, so it's no surprise that they're still quite a ways behind the official Adobe Flash.
If I understand correctly, the obfuscation of the actual video file that you mention is the main reason why major sites like Youtube use such an asinine proprietary format. It seems to me that the solution is to produce better tools for getting around such obfuscation and downloading the video files and then to make them both very easy to use and universally available. When such obfuscation becomes a complete failure, will major sites have any remaining reasons not to just embed a standard file format and let the users' choice of media player take care of it?
I wish there were a Greasemonkey script for Slashdot that would remove from visibility any and all posts containing "XKCD". That way my view of the discussion would look like no such posts existed. While I'd love to endlessly debate the intended message of a guy who draws stick figure comics, it really doesn't have much to do with the latest improvements to the Linux kernel other than mentioning the words. That, and I just don't find XKCD to be endlessly interesting the way a lot of folks here do. It doesn't help that most of the ones mentioned here are quite stereotypical (like the whole "geeks care about things that average users don't, whodathunkit?!" theme). Even if I did find XKCD to be endlessly interesting, I wouldn't bring it up at every possible opportunity. Now go ahead and flame me because I don't think your trendy (around here, anyway) comic is all that clever.
... because an XPI extension is written in XUL and/or Javascript, while a plugin is a compiled DLL that the browser loads up into its address space. they are two different things that work in different ways, even though they both add features to the browser. That's not to say that Flash couldn't be hosted on Mozilla's add-ons site, just that you are unlikely to see it in the form of an XPI file.
Why some people always assume the person that is talking has no knowledge of what he or she is saying?, please take a look at Mozilla Extension reference and you will see that you can package plugins inside an XPI (/plugins/* reference on the exampleExt.xpi sample)
No assumption was intended and I apologize for giving you that impression. I just honestly believed at the time that you had this wrong because I made a mistake. I stand corrected. Thank you for taking the time to point this out, because even when it's a rather inconsequential thing like this, I still don't want to believe things which are false.
If I may revise my answer to your question, I would speculate that they don't produce an XPI for the Flash plugin because it would be incompatible with IE, which still has a large marketshare. So to Adobe, this would represent one more separate thing to have to keep track of and maintain. I doubt that they would do this in the absence of overwhelming demand for it. I also speculate that someone else would not be able to package an XPI for them because they probably don't permit others to redistribute their copyrighted software.
I would rather legally install the latest Ubuntu than steal windows 7. If you steal windows 7, you are still supporting (even if only indirectly) the company that you feel ripped you off.
I forgot who it was, but there is a guy on the Gentoo forums who has a sig similar to this:
"Linux: because I'd rather use a free OS than pirate one that's not worth stealing."
I do agree with this. A lot of folks don't consider that even pirate software adds to a vendor's marketshare, and that's pretty important when you're talking about a vendor like Microsoft. I also agree with it for a more personal reason -- I don't use Linux because I don't want to pay for Windows. I use Linux because I don't like Windows very much. There's a big difference.
>>>If a company is able to screw me, it's because I trusted someone I should not have trusted. That is my fault,
So if Comcast suddenly turns-off your TV or net access, even though you've already paid for this month, you really truly believe that's your own fault? Riiiight. Sure. Yep. Whatever you say pal. I call such actions "theft" or "scamming" whether it's they guy on the street who sold you a Ralex watch or a magacorporation.
It is a higher standard, and no I don't expect you to understand it. I expect you to invent facetious and downright silly "counterexamples" like this one in order to further miss my point. You have not disappointed me. I suppose all of that is much easier than admitting that I showed the error of your belief in revenge, a subject you are strangely quiet about considering that most of my reply to you was devoted to it.
I never understood that style of "discussion" where you pretend like any inconvenient points made by the other person didn't happen and so you ignore them and go on to narrowly discuss only the thing or two about which you are most confident. It seems like a gross misunderstanding of the "put your best foot forward" sentiment. It's surprising to me that so many techniques like this are so easy to see through, yet they are used everywhere so apparently they do work on many people.
For the hell of it, not really expecting that it will change anything, I'll explain why your little counter-example there doesn't work. If Comcast (or anyone else) suddenly fails to provide the services they have agreed by contract to provide to me, and I have not failed to uphold my end of the contract, then I have recourse so I'm not actually screwed. In fact, this would be a very stupid move on Comcast's part and they know it.
I'm not screwed unless I agree to abide by something that is not really in my interests. Then they really got me because then I have no recourse. DRM-encumbered media is a great example of this; trusting unknown or unaccountable third parties with my data in the name of "cloud computing" is another example of this. If a company can get me to accept such things, it's not their fault for asking, it's my fault for accepting.
This applies to scams as well. A Nigerian scam, for example, cannot possibly work on me unless I first believe that there are random strangers in overseas countries who honestly want to give me millions of dollars for little or no effort on my part. The "evilness" or the deceitfulness of the scammer has nothing to do with it, although if I lacked the inner fortitude to evaluate my own weaknesses, then I might use those qualities as scapegoats.
It's alright. What this boils down to is the reality of personal responsibility, which is a true Big Scary to a lot of people. You'd rather believe that there are just bad people in the world and that's that, because it's so much easier than understanding why you have personal weaknesses that such people must first exploit before they can do anything to you. People will perform all sorts of mental gymnastics when you confront them with something they would rather deny. This includes turning a blind eye to the obvious flaws in their "counter-examples." That's why you invent a scenario that is easily shown to be invalid and then you act like you've really made a point.
They're only having to do that because Adobe refuses to fix Flash. By that I do not mean the current approach of patch after patch. I mean really fix it, which would probably require reimplementing it from scratch using secure programming practices from the very beginning. Right now, the security history of Flash is a complete joke compared to anything else except maybe early Sendmail. At any rate, this amounts to Mozilla trying to help clean up Adobe's mess because Adobe is too lazy to do so without a significant amount of pressure.
The next step would be to scrap Flash and make it go the way of the dinosaur. The immediate next step after that would be to recognize that using Adobe was not the mistake that was made here. Using any closed standard controlled by any single vendor was the mistake. What we need is an open standard that anyone can implement with no concern about patents or other encumberences. Then and only then, if Adobe can make the fastest/most secure implementation of that open standard, they remain relevant. If not, they quietly disappear. It's obvious they are afraid of such a level playing field.
Mozilla has provided the tools to do it with extensions, I do not know the reason why Adobe is afraid to build an XPI with Flash and publish all updates on Mozilla Add-ons site. They already do a yum repository for us, users of RPM based Linux dsitributions
... because an XPI extension is written in XUL and/or Javascript, while a plugin is a compiled DLL that the browser loads up into its address space. they are two different things that work in different ways, even though they both add features to the browser. That's not to say that Flash couldn't be hosted on Mozilla's add-ons site, just that you are unlikely to see it in the form of an XPI file.
The real reason why you probably will never see it hosted on a non-Adobe server is simple enough. Nothing remotely resembling a "web standard" should be controlled by a single vendor, nor should it be anything other than an open standard with available source code for several working implementations. Almost everything that is or ever was wrong with Flash could have been fixed by someone else (since Adobe does not seem interested) if the above conditions were true.
Gentoo jokes are hardly funny anymore, since it seems most users have taken its issues to heart and moved on to Ubuntu. I tried to migrate my home "everything" server and gave up somewhere - gdm, lirc, imapd, exim, I don't remember, none of them worked the same. Due to different versions of things and distro-specific configuration, copying /etc/ files rarely works like one would hope. But don't get me wrong, a plain-vanilla fresh install of Ubuntu is incredibly simple, if you are reasonably lucky.
I use Gentoo and I am very satisfied with it. However, I like to tinker and I like to fine-tune and I want to learn and better understand the system I am using. I recognize that this does not suit everyone's tastes and I personally wouldn't recommend Gentoo to someone who just wants to get up and running with as little effort as possible. For that, Ubuntu and its variants are ideal as they were designed for this purpose. I believe in using the right tool for the job. In other words, I use Gentoo and I really like it but I am not a fanboy, nor can I easily understand people who use something and assume that it must be perfect for everyone because just because they personally use it.
As a teaching tool, getting a Gentoo system up and running by manual installation is one of the best ways I have found to introduce my friends to Linux in a way that gives them a real understanding of how it works and how to administer it (most were migrating from Windows). That's because from the ground up, the manual install of Gentoo requires active involvement in all of the decision-making. The learning curve is something they tackle head-on and it's mostly downhill from there. This has worked well because I was willing to take the time to help them and to explain all of the options to them. Also, my friends generally have enough initiative to value real understanding so I try to honor their willingness to learn by showing my willingness to be there and help out. Just giving them a Gentoo installation CD and saying "there, now you go figure it out" would not have been very helpful to them at all and very well may have turned them off not only to Gentoo but to Linux in general.
In terms of my own tastes, I will add that I have seen plenty of odd "quirks" on Kubuntu that just don't seem to ever happen on a system for which I have built a custom kernel and have manually configured the system software. Most of these quirks are sound-related but have also involved network settings and application behavior. I also like the fact that on Gentoo, I have almost never wanted to install something that wasn't immediately available in the package manager with no need to concern myself about multiple repositories or additional hassles related to non-GPL software such as the nVidia binary driver. Additionally, the Gentoo Hardened project is a good example of something you can do with a source-based distribution that is generally only partially implemented by binary distros.
>>>asinine software EULAs which not only state the standard fact that you don't really own anything despite having paid for it, but also state that the vendor has no liability no matter what happens, not even when the software fails to perform as advertised (I think they call it "suitability for purpose" and expressly disclaim it). >>>
The only reasonable response when a company screws you, is to screw them back.
i.e. If MS Vista cost you $200, and it refused to operate on your 1/2 gig machine even though it was advertised to work, then don't get mad. Get back your $200 or the equivalent. Steal Windows 7. "Revenge is a dish best served cold."
If a company is able to screw me, it's because I trusted someone I should not have trusted. That is my fault, and any losses I incur because of it are Nature's way of providing an incentive to use better discernment. That's because I am no one's victim and I refuse to play the part. What you suggest is not revenge at all, but rather, a justification for sacrificing my dignity in order to become just like the company I should have avoided in the first place. This will not reduce the number of people who want to deceive others; it can only make more of them.
No insult is intended here, but I am forced to reject both your suggestion and the perspective from which it came.
Oh for fucks sake, it was a genuine question, not an attempt to flame. WHY is this guy's opinion given so much weight? I mean Stallman, ESR, Linus etc... Yep, those guys I get. But Cory?
WHY is all I'm asking. (And no doubt another idiot mod will mod me down, which just confirms everything people say about mods on here.)
What they say about them is quite true. The easiest way to find this out is to question anything which has a large fanboy following. They could celebrate the individualism required to do so, but they are far too cowardly for this and will therefore get upset at you for "personally attacking" (objectively questioning) "their guy" (someone they've never met). Cowards and prey animals have one thing in common: they love the safety of a large herd. The prey animals are more noble by far, as they didn't have a choice in the matter.
Yea, no, I'm not doing that. I'd rather keep my computer and not run a thin client and "trust" that the company isn't monitoring what I'm using "their" server cluster for. The exception I have to that rule is Google docs.
Agreed. Sorry, but when I read that the first thing that occurred to me was "all of this because the average person thinks Windows is too hard, or otherwise refuses to get a clue." What concerns me is that buzzword-ridden ideas like cloud computing will probably appeal to the non-technical masses (addicts to convenience that they are), to the point that the rest of us may be forced to partially or wholly accept them. I really don't care to give up even a small fraction of my privacy merely because Joe Sixpack couldn't be bothered to read a book or two. There's no justice in it.
This reminds me of the more asinine software EULAs which not only state the standard fact that you don't really own anything despite having paid for it, but also state that the vendor has no liability no matter what happens, not even when the software fails to perform as advertised (I think they call it "suitability for purpose" and expressly disclaim it). If the cloud computing vendors decide to implement a TOS like that, then your data is effectively held hostage and you have no recourse if something happens to it. What would be their real incentive not to do things that way? An informed, technically literate public which fully understands all of these issues? Yeah, right.
Like any and all proposals to do for you what you can easily do for yourself while charging you for the privilege, this has "bad idea" written all over it. As though all of the buzzwords didn't tip you off...
And here I thought Martian dog pee could be refined into a motor fuel. My mistake.
Well yeah, but you wouldn't drink motor fuel. It's pure poison!
Too often that means "reasonable because the cops can snoop around and violate the privacy of other people, regardless of whether those other people don't want that like I do." I'll give an analogy that involves only physical evidence.
At least in my country, an officer is not allowed to just randomly pull over a vehicle for no reason and then search that vehicle. They are supposed to have probable cause; they can't just go search someoneone to see what they can find. Unless they have a dog, that is. That's right. A police dog can decide your vehicle has drugs or whatever else they're looking for and when the dog starts barking, suddenly the officer has a perfectly legal search. Yes, it would be illegal and a violation of civil rights if that officer used his hands and eyes to locate the same drugs. However, the same search performed with a dog's nose instead of a human officer's hands and eyes is suddenly legal and constitutional. Isn't that amazing, how you can take an unconstitutional act, filter it through the nervous system of the lowly dog, and suddenly it becomes legal and has the court's blessing?
Declaring additional records (i.e. those which were not specified in a search warrant or subpoena) as "in plain sight" and legal to search is worse than this. It's worse because it disposes of even the pretense that using a dog to conduct a search is somehow fundamentally different than using your hands and eyes to conduct the same search. It's like declaring everything up-for-grabs so long as the cops can get their hands on it. It's not "in plain sight", it's residing on privately owned hardware on private property. The cops confiscated it by force or by threat of force (what do you suppose a warrant or a subpoena is?) and now that they've dragged it back to their offices and loaded it up on their hardware it's in "plain sight" to them. That sure is a strange definition of "plain sight." This is something that WILL be abused, though I imagine that when this happens a lot of you are going to act surprised. The sad thing is that the surprise will often be sincere.
Yeah right. But god forbid those total retards would actually having to stop stuffing their ugly fat faces with truckloads of sugar and other trash. Noo, we can't have that! The sugar industry would lose jobs, when all those junkies would stop getting their fix.
But why stop there. Why not just run across the street in full traffic, and demand a replacement body, when it's ripped to parts then? Why not kill your liver with alcohol, and demand a replacement liver instead of dying like natural selection would have demanded it. Oh wait, we're already there.
Why not demand to stop thinking and do every wrong thing in the world, because yo have a right not to think. A right to get your ass wiped when you took a shit. A right to get you food and information pre-chewed. A right to become a total useless blob of fat, lying in bed 24/7, needing 7 men to turn you around, and a *fuckin' right* to get the 2 1/2 cases of big coke bottles delivered right to your bed, that you consume *PER DAY*!
Yes, I am bursting with anger. Yes you can stay in your mode of denial and mod me whatever you like. But you still know that I'm fuckin' right! This shit is so freakin' *wrong*, it boggles the mind! And you know it!
Or you can simply start eating like a human, instead of like a trashcan for cheap industrial waste, and stop listening to those pseudo-experts actually trying to convince you that the human tooth would also not be able to stand the very thing that it is made for (real food).
Your observations are quite correct. What's much harder to realize is that anger is part of the problem and will never lead you to the detachment, compassionate understanding, and agape love that would allow you to understand that the people who do these things do so out of profound ignorance, and that this ignorance makes them suffer much more than anything your rage would ever wish to do to them. Your anger has no power whatsoever to effect any kind of meaningful change; it just makes you suffer in a less material way than the practices about which you are upset. I want neither you nor them to suffer. The whole problem with evil or ignorance or whatever you want to call it is that it's infectious, and so we as human beings have a very hard time seeing it or dealing with it or suffering because of it without becoming negative ourselves.
Re-reading your post, I'm still finding a fundamental assumption that it's successful based on the emotional appeal of its marketing, and not out of any inherent usefulness of the service itself. Am I wrong in seeing this assumption?
I never claimed that it was a neverending stream of wisdom that passed through twitter. Rather, that just because a lot of crap /does/ pass through, that's no reason to discount it as a service with inherent value. Babies and bathwater and all that.
For most of this (sub)thread I was responding to the AC who said "supposedly intelligent people are repeatedly surprised that marketing works." That was a broad statement applicable to marketing and advertising in general and was not at all exclusive to Twitter. Otherwise I definitely agree with you. Personally, that people suddenly flock to a new brand seemingly overnight and the reasons why they act this way in large groups in short periods of time is much more interesting than the brand itself and what it has to offer. It's the group-think or the herd mentality I am looking at, as opposed to whether the stream from which the herd is drinking is clean.
Not fond of replying to myself, but I should add that I am not without my opinions on the general utility of Twitter and I have certainly stated them throughout this thread. They are, however, opinions.
Re-reading your post, I'm still finding a fundamental assumption that it's successful based on the emotional appeal of its marketing, and not out of any inherent usefulness of the service itself. Am I wrong in seeing this assumption?
I never claimed that it was a neverending stream of wisdom that passed through twitter. Rather, that just because a lot of crap /does/ pass through, that's no reason to discount it as a service with inherent value. Babies and bathwater and all that.
For most of this (sub)thread I was responding to the AC who said "supposedly intelligent people are repeatedly surprised that marketing works." That was a broad statement applicable to marketing and advertising in general and was not at all exclusive to Twitter. Otherwise I definitely agree with you. Personally, that people suddenly flock to a new brand seemingly overnight and the reasons why they act this way in large groups in short periods of time is much more interesting than the brand itself and what it has to offer. It's the group-think or the herd mentality I am looking at, as opposed to whether the stream from which the herd is drinking is clean.
Well, when I never once spoke about the criteria for something to be accepted as "truth" and you respond talking about the criteria needed for something to be accepted as truth, what am I supposed to think? That you fully understood what I was saying? Yeah, sure. Look, you made an easy mistake and I pointed that out. Deal. I was neither rude nor disrespectful in pointing it out so this defensiveness of yours and outright denial of an obvious mistake is rather unbecoming.
While I appreciate the attempt to make this into a personal issue, it's quite useless. You may think whatever you like about me as a person. It still has no bearing whatsoever on anything I've said about science.
To be fair, I thought you were crtiicizing the existence of twitter in general, not just this app, which I agree seems a bit absurd, except maybe for the fact that some people's updates seem mostly to be of the "okay, I'm there" type.
As you say, that really is a separate question. Personally I don't use it because it doesn't appeal to me. While this is not nearly as true of Twitter as it is of Myspace and Facebook, I still think a great deal of the appeal of these sites is personal vanity. The way most people would feel excited about "being on TV" is similar to what is being indulged on those sites. For these reasons, I've never shared the willingness of those users to inform random strangers of their personal lives, names, hobbies, interests, personal or personally identifying photos, and general location. I view that activity as something that could not possibly benefit me in any meaningful way but could enable some malicious individual to harm me or an employer to reject me who otherwise might not have. Anytime I encounter "no possible gains, but possible losses" the decision-making is quite simple. For other individuals, perhaps the ego-boost or perhaps the ease-of-use outweigh these concerns, but the vanity does not appeal to me and I am technically inclined so this is not the case for me.
That's not to say I don't like to communicate with people. I just like to do so on my terms, using my equipment and the software/protocols of my choice, rather than having to use someone else's systems and follow someone else's rules for how I may or may not do so.
Its not about lowering the standards for the definition of race. Its that there IS no accepted definition of race.
I question that there is no accepted definition of race, though I agree there is not a universally accepted definition. For the sake of argument let's assume that this is correct and there is no way to define "race." There exists a very easy-to-understand definition of "nationality," however. There's still no question that "Mexican" is a nationality as the AC has pointed out. So, knowing that it is a nationality, referring to it as something other than a nationality is clearly inaccurate and using weasel words to dispute the meaning of "race" doesn't change that.
The conclusion of all of this is that a person who doesn't understand what these words mean and chooses to use them anyway is speaking of something he knows little or nothing about, which definitely affects whether that person is worth listening to. That's what I meant about the low signal-to-noise ratio that seems to surround this subject.
I picked the "useful tool" option so I didn't see that one :-).
Firethorn,
I just wanted you to know that I really appreciated the site you link to in your sig, a-human-right.com. It's rare that I see such good accurate information about the gun-control issue and rarer still that I see such a strong love of freedom. Thank you for sharing this. It's an excellent reference, especially for people who are undecided about gun-control or who don't understand the full political implications of it.