Even if this is doable and legal, it runs entirely counter to the spirit of the Internet. The Internet on a hard disk is no longer a network, it becomes a passive entity with no possibility of interaction.
At the moment, we are seeing a return to the interactive origins of the Internet, prime examples being blogging, Wikipedia, and even Slashdot! If this projects takes off it will be harmful to interaction and will turn the Net into a glorified television.
However, I find it unlikely that Webaroo will gain currency, precisely because we have become dependent on an interactive and living Internet. When I use the Net, I want to be able to read and respond to my emails, to check my bank balance, shop online, and read the latest news. Why on earth would I want to have a static Internet on my laptop?
There's certainly a way to help with PDFs, namely not to use the plugin at all! You can get Firefox to open the file externally by default. Details on my blog. Alternatively, use the PDF download extension.
I hadn't heard about this new project till I read the article. It's neat that Spaceship One's "White Knight" is being used to haul a DARPA-sponsored project into the Ether! This truly heralds a new age of independent aeronautics.
I don't think the Internet nature of the prank really makes a difference. It would be the same if he'd left an unflattering photograph of himself at school, which was then copied around by his classmates. Really, the accusation of bullying shouldn't just be levelled at the three 'pranksters', but also at those who did the actual taunting.
On a related note, it will be interesting to see if the 'Fat Asian Kid' ends up suing.
01 It 01 is 02 really 03 not taxing 05 to create a Fib, 08 but still they are interesting 13 sequences of numbers. We are familiar with 21 the 'rabbit generation' origins of the sequence, but it can also describe 34 the number of petals on a flower, or the number of curves on a sunflower head, on a pineapple, or even on a pinecone.
As the summary states, Boot Camp is there to enable Windows / Mac OS dual booting on an Intel based Mac. It includes a non-destructive partition tool plus the device drivers Windows XP needs to run on the Mac hardware. More info and the download are available from Apple. Though it's not yet officially supported by Apple, a release version should be included in Mac OS X v10.5, "Leopard".
Nice idea, but this service is already available. See GPS North America. Of course, they'd probably take issue with you using their information to beat the bejesus out of the criminal.
Speed, search, and threading. Thunderbird?
on
Gmail vs Pine
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I'd like to RTFA, but snarfed has been snarfed by Slashdot!
I haven't used Pine for a couple of years now, largely due to the advent of IMAP. My prefered mail client is Thunderbird, but it would be a hard choice between Pine and GMail. Now GMail has some obvious GUI advantages (point and click, drag and drop, images, etc.), but I find its threading to be erratic and searches to be less-than-spot-on. The main advantage of Pine is speed for short emails. This evaporates rapidly if you have to write anything substantial.
I'd argue that the author is probably making the wrong comparison. For most users, the choice is between Thunderbird / Outlook and GMail / Hotmail, especially if IMAP is an option.
Thunderbird is flexible about threading, but it lacks the indexed search of GMail. However, as most users are presumably familiar with text searches (a la grep or even the Window Find tool), Thunderbird search is perfect for my needs.
I enjoy the ability to use multiple accounts and the many useful extensions such as Engmail (for OpenPGP support), my own choice of dictionaries, and RSS support.
There are a few annoyances with Thunderbird, such as less-than-optimal support for multiple accounts, but workarounds are available. I've written about some of the problems and solutions on my blog.
The "impossible to navigate due to random icons and no labels" design technique is informally referred to as mystery meat navigation (presumably in analogy to an unlabelled tin of meat). I used to have semi-mystery meat icons on my homepage too until I realised that it looked like poop.
One of my favourite innovations in recent years has been StumbleUpon. It's a very simple idea — you install a StumbleUpon Firefox toolbar and click the "Thumbs Up" button when you come across sites you like, or the "Thumbs Down" button for sites you don't like. This way, StumbleUpon builds up a profile of the sorts of web surfer you are, and will then offer up a suggested website when you hit the "Stumble" button.
Using StumbleUpon, I've been presented with many really cool websites I woudn't have been able to find using Google, because I wouldn't have known to search for them. It seems my own interests are interactive flash websites, mathematics news, food, and philosophy. You mileage will vary, but will be catered for none the less.
I think it's amusing that an established publication (Britannica) is worried about another established and peer-reviewed publication (Nature) making favourable comparisons with Wikipedia. We should now see Britannica write about the similarities between Nature and the arXiv!
Education is the real key to computer protection, not the purchase of spyware removal tools.
I've only ever had one piece of malware, which was ten years ago (the Tai Pei virus). In the meantime, I've learned good computer habits. These include being cautious about downloading and installing software, using the free firewall which comes with Windows XP, and employing the Mozilla range of browsers / email clients.
If users don't learn to be cautious when using a computer, they're going to run afoul of phishers, which will be much more of an incovenience that a bit of adware.
Re:The funniest thing about penny-arcade EVER is..
on
Penny Arcade Speaks at MIT
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Kids aim low, aim so low that if you succeed nobody will notice - Marge Simpson
Perhaps I'm in the fortunate position to be doing something I love, but I got here through working my butt off. So perhaps a realistic piece of advise is that you can get to do what you love (if you live in the West), but you may have to work damn hard to get it, and you may have to make sacrifices. The point is that our options are wide open, and it's up to the individual to determine whether the hard work and sacrifices are worth 'getting to do what you love'.
more than half of students at four-year colleges [...] lack the literacy to handle complex, real-life tasks such as understanding credit card offers
Why is this supposed to be a test of literacy? It sounds more like they don't have much 'common sense', which is surely a good sign in an academic;)
Note that this research comes from the Pew Charitable Trust, the same institution which told us that the gender gap is alive and well online, claiming that women use the Internet for socialising and that men use it for hunting down information. They are certainly making a lot of bold statements and getting themselves in the news.
Perhaps this is the first step towards bioships, à la species 8472? As well as the ability to heal themselves, I've often thought that deep space vehicles should be able to actively find fuel and even to reproduce. This is largely based on the notion of interstellar unmanned probes, which have to be intelligent enough to make decisions on their own. The best way to do this may be to make use of the amazing systems which Evolution (or the Creator) have provided us with, and have biological elements in our probes. Of course there are serious ethical questions we must ask ourselves before beginning such an endeavour, but this is something to take seriously.
Perhaps even worse are pop-unders, as they present a surprise when closing down your broswer window. It was for this very reason that I stopped reading Dilbert online. At one point, I was even presented with a dialog box which wouldn't go away without clicking on 'OK' (and hence taking me to the advertiser's site).
What I really want to know is — just who is this eldavojohn and where is he getting all these amazingly insightful comments from? If you read his Slashdot User Info page, you'll find many pieces of well-written prose, instead of the usual monkey-typed comments (such as this one). I know this is just speculation, but I smell a good writer here.
I mean that you're focusing on mathematicians who work in the industry. An academic mathematician is responsible to no one, except perhaps the rest of the mathematical community in the sense that they must keep publishing good work in order to maintain their job. Even this responsibility is essentially minor as academic mathematicians choose their career path because they want to publish good work!
Yes, the job is relatively poorly paid, but that is the trade-off for the freedom to pursue your own goals and ambitions instead of being coralled into doing the work of others. There is also the potential to make a lasting impact on the subject, and to have your name echoed for aeons (e.g. Andrew Wiles for his proof of Fermat's Last Theorem).
This may surprise those of you who assumed that the British contraction is older than the N. American one, but the opposite is in fact true.
The first use of 'math' recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary is in 1849, whereas its earliest recorded entry for 'math' is in 1911, penned by the English War Poet Wilfred Owen
1911 W. OWEN Let. 14 Sept. (1967) 81 The Answers to Maths. Ques. were given us all this morning.
The well-known plural form 'mathematics' is to be compared with terms such as physics and metaphysics. In early use, the subjects were often referred to in the singular, as matamatik, fiskyke, and metaphesyk. In plural, they connoted something entirely different. For instance, physics was the title of Aristotle's collected physical treatises. 'Mathematics' would be used to denote the collection of the various branches of mathematics, such as geometry, algebra, etc. In modern usage, 'mathematic' and 'physic' have fallen by the wayside and the plural forms have taken their place.
What does that mean? By 'maximum expected life' you surely mean the expected life of the medium, that is, the mean of the lifetimes of a good sample set of CDs. When a lifetime is quoted, e.g. for lightbulbs, the manufacturer doesn't guarantee that the product will fail when its expected lifetime expires!
That is an extremely lame sentiment (from Card). If I went around with the attitude "my work must be better than the work of X, or I'd rather not do it", I'd end up not doing anything at all. It may be that Card thinks of his novels as being the best in the genre, but who knows what ideas he may have shelved for fear of not besting the novels of others?
What you are suggesting is an extreme form of libertarianism which would be considered unacceptable in most civilised countries. Under your regime, if a bus driver didn't want an African Americian lady to board his bus, he would be quite within his rights to refuse her entry. Personally, I was under the impresssion that this fight was already over.
It is simple-minded to argue that you can limit the application of force (by your definition) to the Government. By your example, you would be forced not to be able to buy a product from someone who doesn't like your skin colour. In this example, you would be made to do something (i.e. leave the shop without making your purchase) with no way out of the situation.
Put plainly, some things transcend the market. These include honour, integrity, duty, and morality.
Slashdot Mirror
Even if this is doable and legal, it runs entirely counter to the spirit of the Internet. The Internet on a hard disk is no longer a network, it becomes a passive entity with no possibility of interaction.
At the moment, we are seeing a return to the interactive origins of the Internet, prime examples being blogging, Wikipedia, and even Slashdot! If this projects takes off it will be harmful to interaction and will turn the Net into a glorified television.
However, I find it unlikely that Webaroo will gain currency, precisely because we have become dependent on an interactive and living Internet. When I use the Net, I want to be able to read and respond to my emails, to check my bank balance, shop online, and read the latest news. Why on earth would I want to have a static Internet on my laptop?
There's certainly a way to help with PDFs, namely not to use the plugin at all! You can get Firefox to open the file externally by default. Details on my blog. Alternatively, use the PDF download extension.
I hadn't heard about this new project till I read the article. It's neat that Spaceship One's "White Knight" is being used to haul a DARPA-sponsored project into the Ether! This truly heralds a new age of independent aeronautics.
I don't think the Internet nature of the prank really makes a difference. It would be the same if he'd left an unflattering photograph of himself at school, which was then copied around by his classmates. Really, the accusation of bullying shouldn't just be levelled at the three 'pranksters', but also at those who did the actual taunting.
On a related note, it will be interesting to see if the 'Fat Asian Kid' ends up suing.
01 It
01 is
02 really
03 not taxing
05 to create a Fib,
08 but still they are interesting
13 sequences of numbers. We are familiar with
21 the 'rabbit generation' origins of the sequence, but it can also describe
34 the number of petals on a flower, or the number of curves on a sunflower head, on a pineapple, or even on a pinecone.
As the summary states, Boot Camp is there to enable Windows / Mac OS dual booting on an Intel based Mac. It includes a non-destructive partition tool plus the device drivers Windows XP needs to run on the Mac hardware. More info and the download are available from Apple. Though it's not yet officially supported by Apple, a release version should be included in Mac OS X v10.5, "Leopard".
Nice idea, but this service is already available. See GPS North America. Of course, they'd probably take issue with you using their information to beat the bejesus out of the criminal.
I'd like to RTFA, but snarfed has been snarfed by Slashdot!
I haven't used Pine for a couple of years now, largely due to the advent of IMAP. My prefered mail client is Thunderbird, but it would be a hard choice between Pine and GMail. Now GMail has some obvious GUI advantages (point and click, drag and drop, images, etc.), but I find its threading to be erratic and searches to be less-than-spot-on. The main advantage of Pine is speed for short emails. This evaporates rapidly if you have to write anything substantial.
I'd argue that the author is probably making the wrong comparison. For most users, the choice is between Thunderbird / Outlook and GMail / Hotmail, especially if IMAP is an option.
Thunderbird is flexible about threading, but it lacks the indexed search of GMail. However, as most users are presumably familiar with text searches (a la grep or even the Window Find tool), Thunderbird search is perfect for my needs.
I enjoy the ability to use multiple accounts and the many useful extensions such as Engmail (for OpenPGP support), my own choice of dictionaries, and RSS support.
There are a few annoyances with Thunderbird, such as less-than-optimal support for multiple accounts, but workarounds are available. I've written about some of the problems and solutions on my blog.
The "impossible to navigate due to random icons and no labels" design technique is informally referred to as mystery meat navigation (presumably in analogy to an unlabelled tin of meat). I used to have semi-mystery meat icons on my homepage too until I realised that it looked like poop.
One of my favourite innovations in recent years has been StumbleUpon. It's a very simple idea — you install a StumbleUpon Firefox toolbar and click the "Thumbs Up" button when you come across sites you like, or the "Thumbs Down" button for sites you don't like. This way, StumbleUpon builds up a profile of the sorts of web surfer you are, and will then offer up a suggested website when you hit the "Stumble" button.
Using StumbleUpon, I've been presented with many really cool websites I woudn't have been able to find using Google, because I wouldn't have known to search for them. It seems my own interests are interactive flash websites, mathematics news, food, and philosophy. You mileage will vary, but will be catered for none the less.
I think it's amusing that an established publication (Britannica) is worried about another established and peer-reviewed publication (Nature) making favourable comparisons with Wikipedia. We should now see Britannica write about the similarities between Nature and the arXiv!
Education is the real key to computer protection, not the purchase of spyware removal tools.
I've only ever had one piece of malware, which was ten years ago (the Tai Pei virus). In the meantime, I've learned good computer habits. These include being cautious about downloading and installing software, using the free firewall which comes with Windows XP, and employing the Mozilla range of browsers / email clients.
If users don't learn to be cautious when using a computer, they're going to run afoul of phishers, which will be much more of an incovenience that a bit of adware.
Links to pictures:
"Tycho" (a.k.a. Jerry Holkins)
"Gabe" (a.k.a. Mike Krahulik)
Couldn't find pictures of better halves though.
Perhaps I'm in the fortunate position to be doing something I love, but I got here through working my butt off. So perhaps a realistic piece of advise is that you can get to do what you love (if you live in the West), but you may have to work damn hard to get it, and you may have to make sacrifices. The point is that our options are wide open, and it's up to the individual to determine whether the hard work and sacrifices are worth 'getting to do what you love'.
Why is this supposed to be a test of literacy? It sounds more like they don't have much 'common sense', which is surely a good sign in an academic ;)
Note that this research comes from the Pew Charitable Trust, the same institution which told us that the gender gap is alive and well online, claiming that women use the Internet for socialising and that men use it for hunting down information. They are certainly making a lot of bold statements and getting themselves in the news.
Perhaps this is the first step towards bioships, à la species 8472? As well as the ability to heal themselves, I've often thought that deep space vehicles should be able to actively find fuel and even to reproduce. This is largely based on the notion of interstellar unmanned probes, which have to be intelligent enough to make decisions on their own. The best way to do this may be to make use of the amazing systems which Evolution (or the Creator) have provided us with, and have biological elements in our probes. Of course there are serious ethical questions we must ask ourselves before beginning such an endeavour, but this is something to take seriously.
Perhaps even worse are pop-unders, as they present a surprise when closing down your broswer window. It was for this very reason that I stopped reading Dilbert online. At one point, I was even presented with a dialog box which wouldn't go away without clicking on 'OK' (and hence taking me to the advertiser's site).
What I really want to know is — just who is this eldavojohn and where is he getting all these amazingly insightful comments from? If you read his Slashdot User Info page, you'll find many pieces of well-written prose, instead of the usual monkey-typed comments (such as this one). I know this is just speculation, but I smell a good writer here.
Let me be a little more verbose ;)
I mean that you're focusing on mathematicians who work in the industry. An academic mathematician is responsible to no one, except perhaps the rest of the mathematical community in the sense that they must keep publishing good work in order to maintain their job. Even this responsibility is essentially minor as academic mathematicians choose their career path because they want to publish good work!
Yes, the job is relatively poorly paid, but that is the trade-off for the freedom to pursue your own goals and ambitions instead of being coralled into doing the work of others. There is also the potential to make a lasting impact on the subject, and to have your name echoed for aeons (e.g. Andrew Wiles for his proof of Fermat's Last Theorem).
Unless you're an academic.
This may surprise those of you who assumed that the British contraction is older than the N. American one, but the opposite is in fact true.
The first use of 'math' recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary is in 1849, whereas its earliest recorded entry for 'math' is in 1911, penned by the English War Poet Wilfred Owen
The well-known plural form 'mathematics' is to be compared with terms such as physics and metaphysics. In early use, the subjects were often referred to in the singular, as matamatik, fiskyke, and metaphesyk. In plural, they connoted something entirely different. For instance, physics was the title of Aristotle's collected physical treatises. 'Mathematics' would be used to denote the collection of the various branches of mathematics, such as geometry, algebra, etc. In modern usage, 'mathematic' and 'physic' have fallen by the wayside and the plural forms have taken their place.
This really should be modded +10 Funny.
Damned funniest thing I've read in a long time.
What does that mean? By 'maximum expected life' you surely mean the expected life of the medium, that is, the mean of the lifetimes of a good sample set of CDs. When a lifetime is quoted, e.g. for lightbulbs, the manufacturer doesn't guarantee that the product will fail when its expected lifetime expires!
That is an extremely lame sentiment (from Card). If I went around with the attitude "my work must be better than the work of X, or I'd rather not do it", I'd end up not doing anything at all. It may be that Card thinks of his novels as being the best in the genre, but who knows what ideas he may have shelved for fear of not besting the novels of others?
What you are suggesting is an extreme form of libertarianism which would be considered unacceptable in most civilised countries. Under your regime, if a bus driver didn't want an African Americian lady to board his bus, he would be quite within his rights to refuse her entry. Personally, I was under the impresssion that this fight was already over.
It is simple-minded to argue that you can limit the application of force (by your definition) to the Government. By your example, you would be forced not to be able to buy a product from someone who doesn't like your skin colour. In this example, you would be made to do something (i.e. leave the shop without making your purchase) with no way out of the situation.
Put plainly, some things transcend the market. These include honour, integrity, duty, and morality.