You're right, it does sound lame when presented in that way.
From your comment, I can't tell if you've seen the series or not. At this point, that particular scene is ruined for you, but I do remember that when I saw it I was impressed.
It's all in the details. The way things play out: up till that point, we still don't know the story with River although many details have been revealed. We know the government experimented on her and removed a piece of her brain, we know she's crazy most of the time and childlike other parts of the time. We know she is, or at least was, a supergenius. We know she seems to be able to know things about people she can't know. And she's kind of unpredictable.
So. The crew have just done something which is *out of character* for them which is to be really extra-heroic and go on a mission to rescue the captain from a too-well defended base. (Yeah, yeah ok, so it sounds hokie maybe, but look this isn't episode one this like episode nine or ten or something. The disperate individuals that live on Serenity have been through a lot--they're *not* Star Trek Federation types that just selflessly lay down their lives because it's noble or something)
Ok, so the crew's gone on ahead and left Kaylee, the mechanic, back at the ship to defend the ship's entry ramp so the crew can't get cut off on their way back to the ship.
And these three guys start closing on Kaylee's position. And Kaylee tries to be brave for a moment, but then she just loses it and hides behind the side wall of the entry ramp--she's not a fighter.
And neither is River, but suddenly she's there and she sees what's happening and grabs Kaylee's gun and she's still talking to herself. She's very agitated and nervous and pacing in place, she starts saying, "can't lookcan't look" to herself and her hair falls down in her eyes and we see her aim and fire at the three different locations the guys were coming from.
And now the men are dead. And River looks at Kaylee, smiles and says, "no power in the 'verse can stop me." And that's spooky and eerie because previously that's what Kaylee had said to River when both of them were playing a keep-away sort of game with some apples.
But there's more than one kind of cost. What's the price tag on betraying someone's trust? Especially a good friend's trust?
I'm not exactly trying to say that, that's what Jobs did. I'm just trying to make the point that *only* being interested in the monetary bottom line *isn't* such a great way to run a business, or at least it's not a good way to live one's life.
I used to be into Magic cards. There was a friend of mine that was a real card shark: he could trade cards from one guy, then trade or sell them to someone else and always come out ahead in the trade--sometimes way ahead. But he never screwed over his friends in trades. (or else if he did, he did a *really* good job of covering it up:-) ) It is possible to make a profit *and* have a conscience, the two things are not mutually exclusive.
If you haven't actually *seen* Firefly yet, then I'm going to have to disagree with your last sentence.
Ok, so maybe all Joss's problems with having shows die and having movies yanked away are his own fault for not being able to communicate his ideas to others--I mean, I'm not saying I agree with that necessarily, but it could be true I guess.
Regardless, about 12 episodes of Firefly did get made and in general, IMHO, they're really, really good.
Hmm. I think it might well have been, yeah. I was probably mixing it up with the bit about information on space copied off the back of a breakfast ceral box.
(It took me a long time to realize that the Encyclopedia Galactica thing was a reference to the Foundation Trilogy.)
It's all a time warp thing. You know like the Guide says, "bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes", Guide that slipped back through wormhole says, "bunch of mindless jerks that were the first against the wall when the revolution came". It's like that.
Computers aren't necessarliy "evolving". They're becoming more complex and sophisticated. "Evolve" does not in any way guarantee that the thing in question is becoming or will become more advanced and sophisticated. "Evolve" just means adapting to fit the current environemnt (which doesn't necessarily mean becoming either more advanced or more sophisticated). When are people going to start realizing this?
Can't boot sector viruses still be written? Standardly formatted floppies still have a boot sector.
Isn't the manifold, kludgy bootable CD-ROM suceptable to this sort of thing? Although, I suppose *spreading* the virus to other CD-ROMs would be just a tad complicated.:-)
An axiom is not an axiom because we can't prove it. Rather we don't set about proving it because it as axiom. Axioms are statements we accept as true without proof (by definition). If you wanted to take some statement that had hitherto been an axiom and prove it (turning it into a theorem instead of an axiom in the process), you could quite often do this, but the catch is to make it all work you'd have to conjure some new (probably less intiutive) set of axioms into existence to help you to prove the things that you had previously accepted as true without proof.
An example would be the set of natural numbers. I'm generally used to accepting them without proof, but for some reason in axiomatic set theory, they like to sort of prove the natural numbers exist by building them out of sets of sets of sets . . . of sets of the empty set. Seems pretty hollow if you ask me.;-)
Yeah, it's sort of sadly funny when it gets to the point where you just can't tell if it's supposed to be serious or not. When it gets to that point (which seems to happen more and more often the older I get--a lot of the fake commercials in GTA VC could be on the radio with only minor modification), that's when I decide I no longer care what the person is saying.
In other words: if I can't tell if the person is trying to do parody or trying to be serious, I don't really care what they're saying anymore. Unless they're trying to nail me to a tree or something--then I'd care. And there in lies the danger of hysteria.
A telephone service that doesn't offer E911 service in this day and age isn't really complete. It's like a car with no emergency brake--you don't hardly ever use it, but boy are you gonna miss it if you're on the steep mountain, your brakes are fading, and you don't have it.
Ok. So how do I get a phone or some other box that has a CPN display on it?:-) I mean, since Caller ID is so easily blocked or spoofed by any random spammer that wants to call me, it would be nice to have a mechanism that bypasses this and lets me know where they're calling from.:-)
And yet, all customers who sign up with Vonage get a copy of the letter below.
You're making the assumption that the family in question got their letter--maybe they didn't.
Sorry, but these people were well-informed about how 911 dialing works for Vonage, and were just plain too lazy to set the service up.
You're making several assumptions here: 1) that they got their letter, 2) that they read it, 3) that they were lazy. You don't know any of these things with certainty. (Unless you know this family personally or something. You don't, do you?)
You claim that everyone that signs up with Vonage gets a copy of the letter and yet in the letter itself it says, "Thank you for requesting 911 Dialing for phone number xxxxxxxxxxxxx." This implies that this letter might only be sent to people that have requested 911 service on thier phone. Did you not notice this?
I notice a strong pro-Vonage / anti-traditional phone theme in this thread. Someone else in this thread mentioned that the Texas Attourney General may be in the back pocket of the big boys in the POTS phone game. While I cannot deny this, I find it annoying and sad that many people at slashdot are practically chomping at the bit to jump to Vonage's defence. And presumably, Vonage has gotten all this support from all of you not by buying you, but simply by being the underdog.
But the underdog is not always right. Believe me, I'd love to see VOIP succeed and I'd love to see the Huge Evil Corporations get knocked down by a peg or ten. I can even understand Vonage's reluctance to blair out about their service's limitations (this is assuming that the Attourney General's claims are at least partly true, which they may not be). However, if Vonage really did gloss over that whole "no 911 service" thing which they may have then they did something stupid and if they get burned for it, it's their own fault.
Wait, isn't that just about what you just said about the family with the wounded parent? Interesting.
With all due respect, I think you're missing the point here. As far as I can understand, the call didn't go through. If the call had gone through, and the callcenter didn't know where the girl was, they could have *asked* her. This is not just a problem of not knowing a location--and Vonage probably really *should* have made it clear that 911 might not work. It's rather extremely important, doncha think? Even if they're not the right person to sue, it's something probably everyone should be made aware of.
And knowing the location of the place the 911 call is coming from is great, but it should *not* be a necessary pre-condition for access to the 911 callcenter via the 911 phone number. If they wanna get someone in trouble for making a bogus call they can go back to the billing statement. (getting the *phone number* of the person making the phone call *should* be a necessary pre-condition for access to a 911 callcenter) ---- In case that wasn't clear: the clever bit where the 911 callcenter is able to automatically identify where you're calling from is great and important, but if you're trying to say that I can't talk to the 911 people in the event of a real emergency because they're unable to identify *where* I am, you're insane. OTOH, if you're saying they won't talk to me because they can't at least get my phone's phone number... well ok then you could have a point. But if Vonage knows my phone number, then they should be able to electronically share that info with the 911 callcenters. (duh)
Really, it just seems like Vonage is being negligent--trying to show off their phone system as if it were as good as POTS when it isn't yet. And they *forgot* to *mention* it to anybody. --- Sorry if that still wasn't clear--and sorry if it came off like a flame--it wasn't meant to. I'm just a little annoyed that you're comment made Score 5 and at the top of the page when it seems... wrongheaded to me.
nvestment managers don't actually have much concept of the technology that tech stock companies are hawking.
But the investment bankers don't necessarily have to understand the technology to adequately predict what the stock will do because what the technology actually does, and how advanced and cool it is, is only one factor in determining how the company will do.
Surely you're familiar with examples where a company had a great technology but died anyway? Yes of course the technology matters, but it's very often not the deciding factor in determining how well a company's going to do. Example: Microsoft.
This article should be in the no-shit-sherlock department or maybe the duh-fucking-obvious department.
I've *always* heard it said that the weakest link in the chain of security is the user. And, with the possible exceptions of Microsoft Bob and a couple other dain bramaged programs and systems throughout the ages, it's always true.
You know that thing where someone, off to the edge, says that they don't like what you're doing--but you don't care because their opinion carrys no weight whatsoever? This is that.
So some guy from the ALA (didn't even know what that was until the article told me) doesn't like bloggers or blogging, huh? Wooptie f*ckin' doo.
I mean--blogging... gee, wow. I guess the reason I don't care is I neither love nor loath blogging. It's a thing. People do it. It has its place. Probably some people overestimate its importance just as Mr. ALA-guy is probably underestimating the new possibilities blogging opens up. (yawn)
It does count as a strategy game, but I wasn't including it because it involves hidden information. (I.e. you don't know how your oppoenent's pieces are laid out.)
The games I was counting are all public information (in a Game Theory sense).
Actually, I think most of the popular two player strategy games other than chess (like checkers, othello, mancalla, go) are harder to become good at than chess. Reason: In Chess, different pieces look different and are worth different amounts, strategically speaking. In all the other strategy games, all the pieces are worth the same, in and of themselves--so it's the position and the patterns that mean *everything* in those strategy games.
But even if the above line of reasoning is flawed, standard 19x19 Go is uber-crazy-hard compared to 8x8 Chess. If you don't believe me, go study it and find out for yourself.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
I think that says more about the softness of TV/movie SF than it does about the hardness of Firefly's stuff.
:-)
uh, but don't get me wrong--I'm not meaning to diss Firefly in anyway--I think it's totally, totally cool.
You're right, it does sound lame when presented in that way.
From your comment, I can't tell if you've seen the series or not. At this point, that particular scene is ruined for you, but I do remember that when I saw it I was impressed.
It's all in the details. The way things play out: up till that point, we still don't know the story with River although many details have been revealed. We know the government experimented on her and removed a piece of her brain, we know she's crazy most of the time and childlike other parts of the time. We know she is, or at least was, a supergenius. We know she seems to be able to know things about people she can't know. And she's kind of unpredictable.
So. The crew have just done something which is *out of character* for them which is to be really extra-heroic and go on a mission to rescue the captain from a too-well defended base. (Yeah, yeah ok, so it sounds hokie maybe, but look this isn't episode one this like episode nine or ten or something. The disperate individuals that live on Serenity have been through a lot--they're *not* Star Trek Federation types that just selflessly lay down their lives because it's noble or something)
Ok, so the crew's gone on ahead and left Kaylee, the mechanic, back at the ship to defend the ship's entry ramp so the crew can't get cut off on their way back to the ship.
And these three guys start closing on Kaylee's position. And Kaylee tries to be brave for a moment, but then she just loses it and hides behind the side wall of the entry ramp--she's not a fighter.
And neither is River, but suddenly she's there and she sees what's happening and grabs Kaylee's gun and she's still talking to herself. She's very agitated and nervous and pacing in place, she starts saying, "can't lookcan't look" to herself and her hair falls down in her eyes and we see her aim and fire at the three different locations the guys were coming from.
And now the men are dead. And River looks at Kaylee, smiles and says, "no power in the 'verse can stop me." And that's spooky and eerie because previously that's what Kaylee had said to River when both of them were playing a keep-away sort of game with some apples.
But there's more than one kind of cost. What's the price tag on betraying someone's trust? Especially a good friend's trust?
:-) ) It is possible to make a profit *and* have a conscience, the two things are not mutually exclusive.
I'm not exactly trying to say that, that's what Jobs did. I'm just trying to make the point that *only* being interested in the monetary bottom line *isn't* such a great way to run a business, or at least it's not a good way to live one's life.
I used to be into Magic cards. There was a friend of mine that was a real card shark: he could trade cards from one guy, then trade or sell them to someone else and always come out ahead in the trade--sometimes way ahead. But he never screwed over his friends in trades. (or else if he did, he did a *really* good job of covering it up
If you haven't actually *seen* Firefly yet, then I'm going to have to disagree with your last sentence.
Ok, so maybe all Joss's problems with having shows die and having movies yanked away are his own fault for not being able to communicate his ideas to others--I mean, I'm not saying I agree with that necessarily, but it could be true I guess.
Regardless, about 12 episodes of Firefly did get made and in general, IMHO, they're really, really good.
Hmm. I think it might well have been, yeah. I was probably mixing it up with the bit about information on space copied off the back of a breakfast ceral box.
(It took me a long time to realize that the Encyclopedia Galactica thing was a reference to the Foundation Trilogy.)
Unless Netflix puts back the "buy now" button only now it sends you off to amazon's site to handle actual purchasing.
And, while you're browsing DVDs on amazon's site, they could add a "rent now" button that links over to Netflix.
I mean, yeah it probably won't happen, but it could.
Please don't misuse the word "innovation" the way Bill Gates often does. Thanks.
It's all a time warp thing. You know like the Guide says, "bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes", Guide that slipped back through wormhole says, "bunch of mindless jerks that were the first against the wall when the revolution came". It's like that.
Hey, that's pretty cool. Thanks. :-)
Computers aren't necessarliy "evolving". They're becoming more complex and sophisticated. "Evolve" does not in any way guarantee that the thing in question is becoming or will become more advanced and sophisticated. "Evolve" just means adapting to fit the current environemnt (which doesn't necessarily mean becoming either more advanced or more sophisticated). When are people going to start realizing this?
http://www.vmyths.com
Can't boot sector viruses still be written? Standardly formatted floppies still have a boot sector.
:-)
Isn't the manifold, kludgy bootable CD-ROM suceptable to this sort of thing? Although, I suppose *spreading* the virus to other CD-ROMs would be just a tad complicated.
An axiom is not an axiom because we can't prove it. Rather we don't set about proving it because it as axiom. Axioms are statements we accept as true without proof (by definition). If you wanted to take some statement that had hitherto been an axiom and prove it (turning it into a theorem instead of an axiom in the process), you could quite often do this, but the catch is to make it all work you'd have to conjure some new (probably less intiutive) set of axioms into existence to help you to prove the things that you had previously accepted as true without proof.
An example would be the set of natural numbers. I'm generally used to accepting them without proof, but for some reason in axiomatic set theory, they like to sort of prove the natural numbers exist by building them out of sets of sets of sets . . . of sets of the empty set. Seems pretty hollow if you ask me. ;-)
Proper Bill Gates-speak would have you replace the word "borrowed" with "innovated".
ah-ah--an "unconditional" format will be the long, slow kind. A quick format, if the option is available will be the fast kind.
But why do either of those things when you can just write zeroes to the partition table?
Yeah, it's sort of sadly funny when it gets to the point where you just can't tell if it's supposed to be serious or not. When it gets to that point (which seems to happen more and more often the older I get--a lot of the fake commercials in GTA VC could be on the radio with only minor modification), that's when I decide I no longer care what the person is saying.
In other words: if I can't tell if the person is trying to do parody or trying to be serious, I don't really care what they're saying anymore. Unless they're trying to nail me to a tree or something--then I'd care. And there in lies the danger of hysteria.
A telephone service that doesn't offer E911 service in this day and age isn't really complete. It's like a car with no emergency brake--you don't hardly ever use it, but boy are you gonna miss it if you're on the steep mountain, your brakes are fading, and you don't have it.
Ok. So how do I get a phone or some other box that has a CPN display on it? :-) I mean, since Caller ID is so easily blocked or spoofed by any random spammer that wants to call me, it would be nice to have a mechanism that bypasses this and lets me know where they're calling from. :-)
With all due respect, I think you're missing the point here. As far as I can understand, the call didn't go through. If the call had gone through, and the callcenter didn't know where the girl was, they could have *asked* her. This is not just a problem of not knowing a location--and Vonage probably really *should* have made it clear that 911 might not work. It's rather extremely important, doncha think? Even if they're not the right person to sue, it's something probably everyone should be made aware of.
And knowing the location of the place the 911 call is coming from is great, but it should *not* be a necessary pre-condition for access to the 911 callcenter via the 911 phone number. If they wanna get someone in trouble for making a bogus call they can go back to the billing statement. (getting the *phone number* of the person making the phone call *should* be a necessary pre-condition for access to a 911 callcenter)
----
In case that wasn't clear: the clever bit where the 911 callcenter is able to automatically identify where you're calling from is great and important, but if you're trying to say that I can't talk to the 911 people in the event of a real emergency because they're unable to identify *where* I am, you're insane. OTOH, if you're saying they won't talk to me because they can't at least get my phone's phone number... well ok then you could have a point. But if Vonage knows my phone number, then they should be able to electronically share that info with the 911 callcenters. (duh)
Really, it just seems like Vonage is being negligent--trying to show off their phone system as if it were as good as POTS when it isn't yet. And they *forgot* to *mention* it to anybody.
---
Sorry if that still wasn't clear--and sorry if it came off like a flame--it wasn't meant to. I'm just a little annoyed that you're comment made Score 5 and at the top of the page when it seems... wrongheaded to me.
But the investment bankers don't necessarily have to understand the technology to adequately predict what the stock will do because what the technology actually does, and how advanced and cool it is, is only one factor in determining how the company will do.
Surely you're familiar with examples where a company had a great technology but died anyway? Yes of course the technology matters, but it's very often not the deciding factor in determining how well a company's going to do. Example: Microsoft.
This article should be in the no-shit-sherlock department or maybe the duh-fucking-obvious department.
I've *always* heard it said that the weakest link in the chain of security is the user. And, with the possible exceptions of Microsoft Bob and a couple other dain bramaged programs and systems throughout the ages, it's always true.
You know that thing where someone, off to the edge, says that they don't like what you're doing--but you don't care because their opinion carrys no weight whatsoever? This is that.
So some guy from the ALA (didn't even know what that was until the article told me) doesn't like bloggers or blogging, huh? Wooptie f*ckin' doo.
I mean--blogging... gee, wow. I guess the reason I don't care is I neither love nor loath blogging. It's a thing. People do it. It has its place. Probably some people overestimate its importance just as Mr. ALA-guy is probably underestimating the new possibilities blogging opens up. (yawn)
Kinda reminds me of Katz.
It does count as a strategy game, but I wasn't including it because it involves hidden information. (I.e. you don't know how your oppoenent's pieces are laid out.)
The games I was counting are all public information (in a Game Theory sense).
Actually, I think most of the popular two player strategy games other than chess (like checkers, othello, mancalla, go) are harder to become good at than chess. Reason: In Chess, different pieces look different and are worth different amounts, strategically speaking. In all the other strategy games, all the pieces are worth the same, in and of themselves--so it's the position and the patterns that mean *everything* in those strategy games.
:-)
But even if the above line of reasoning is flawed, standard 19x19 Go is uber-crazy-hard compared to 8x8 Chess. If you don't believe me, go study it and find out for yourself.