You know, at first I was not going to dignify your comment with a real response, on grounds of your personal attack.
But I've been thinking a bit, and you are right when you say that I have myself insulted a large number of people without any real justification.
I am from Europe and have lived in North America for two years (seven years ago), and the biggest culture shock I experienced was with the media: I found it impossible to get any kind of clear picture of anything of importance by watching the news, the information content and especially the focus were so miserable. And I remember Fox as being the worst channel in this respect, to the point where it almost made me throw up that this should be labelled as news.
I have since given up on Fox, and of course many things may have happened over the years. In that respect I am guilty of hearsay about the current quality of the outlet.
However I still think it is not a good idea to choose as your news source the battlehorse of the News Corporation, this humongous and amorphous conglomerate so likely governed by vested interests that it is entirely incompatible with independant journalism.
If everybody around here are sheep, how come it took only a few hours to sort this thing out then? I agree that the research was insufficient, but the fact is that the error was quickly discarded. One should also note that slashdot does not actually do journalism, THE STORIES ARE SUBMITTED BY READERS. This kind of slip-up is bound to happen.
I'd be hard pressed to say that slashdot is above average on the whole.
Perhaps I went overboard on the intellect bit:) The main difference I do see is that people are trying to think about things here, and discuss them. Not just passively intake anything they are being fed.
And a walk through blogsphere might convince you that if slashdot is not the crème de la crème, it certainly does have relative grey matter to it.
I haven't actually been around for that long, but I'd say that if there are many articles which are critical of the U.S., it's probably because that's representative of the general opinion among slashdot readers.
Its existence is the apology.
That's the way it's done in any news. If the New York Times prints something on the first page, and on the next day they print the opposite, that's one hell of an apology, even if they don't say "I'm sorry". The best you might hope for is "erratum".
Slashdot is slowly turning into a left-wing version of Fox.
Yes, excellent comparison. Fox also allows critical discussion of the news in situ. Fox also updates erroneus news with immediate apologies. Last but not least, Fox viewers are also of above-average intellect and critical judgment.
the original story was just a ploy by Taco to bash US policy Who had the tendency towards conspiracy theories again?:)
It strikes me as very funny that the U.S., otherwise very keen on keeping centralized regulations out of everything, are the main proponents of regulating something which is apparently unregulateable (for lack of a better word:)
I love this kind of patent because it's self-defeating. I mean, how many blunders like this can the patent office endulge in before it gets torn down by an angry (and justified) mob?
Did you also happen to come accross the concept of "total energy assessment" in that physics course of yours. We often marvel at how economically solar cells function, forgetting to include in energy calculations the energy required to construct/maintain the magical apparatus. Do you have any idea how many windmills it would take to provide the U.S. with even a tenth of its consumption? How much energy (not to mention materials and labor) will go into this incomparable armada?
Where do you read commercial? I said u-n-w-a-n-t-e-d. The fact is that spammers use it to commercial ends. The bulk mail tool in itself can also be used to communicate important information without commercial purpose. Suppose alternate means are cut off, news are censored and so on. Then you'll be glad this wacky russian has a version handy to bypass all obfuscation.
Ah, but it should. Whereas virii are malicious, unwanted bulk mail (while unwanted) still constitutes only communication, arguably protected by free speech.
This is likely because of the great number of Linux servers,
Indeed. I wonder about the relevance of absolute figures in such a study. I mean, I can top all these amateurs with my own home-made kernel Skimpy, 0 breaches recorded (fact that I am the sole user intentionally omitted)
The main fear is that of a catastrophe occuring. That is a catastrophe in the mathematical sense. A very good way to familiarise yourself with the concept is by going through the first chapter of James Murray's Mathematical Biology, an Introduction.
In this, Murray discusses mainly the equilibria in population dynamics, i.e. what concentrations of foxes and rabbits are likely to be able to coexist in a regular pattern.
When a catastrophe occurs, the equilibrium has been so perturbed that the system is unpredictable until it finds a new one. Once this new equilibrium has been reached, it is not possible to "go back". This is called a hysteresis effect.
Population dynamics is very similar to weather in that sense.
If you're wondering why global warming is bad, suppose we produce a sufficient ripple in the system (e.g. through rapid increase in carbon monoxyde concentrations) to initiate a catastrophe, which brings to say five degrees centigrade hotter or lower on average. This would have such monstruous consequences for the planet it's very hard to imagine.
For some extreme predictions, see Hubert Reeves' three scenarii (unfortunately I was unable to find this information in english, apparently Reeves' book Mal de Terre (Earthake) has not been translated into English)
From what I gather of the (contradictory) reports, it seems that those servers were pulled upon request of the swiss authorities because they contained compromising information about undercover police. Since this did not happen on swiss soil, it has no impact on the freedom of press within Switzerland. A few years back there was a huge outrage when the swiss learned that they had a secret service which was gathering information about citizens, so I am pretty confident that such an operation would have been more problematic at home:)
Slashdot Mirror
Half a second would do as well. That leaves the spammer with half a million seconds, also known as 138 hours. That's quite a step up from nil.
You know, at first I was not going to dignify your comment with a real response, on grounds of your personal attack.
But I've been thinking a bit, and you are right when you say that I have myself insulted a large number of people without any real justification.
I am from Europe and have lived in North America for two years (seven years ago), and the biggest culture shock I experienced was with the media: I found it impossible to get any kind of clear picture of anything of importance by watching the news, the information content and especially the focus were so miserable. And I remember Fox as being the worst channel in this respect, to the point where it almost made me throw up that this should be labelled as news.
I have since given up on Fox, and of course many things may have happened over the years. In that respect I am guilty of hearsay about the current quality of the outlet.
However I still think it is not a good idea to choose as your news source the battlehorse of the News Corporation, this humongous and amorphous conglomerate so likely governed by vested interests that it is entirely incompatible with independant journalism.
Thank you.
Please forgive me, I'm starting to see that it is a mistake to resort to sarcasm and I will never do it again.
I think I got modded because of the sarcasm. I'm starting to get a bit scared over here though.
If everybody around here are sheep, how come it took only a few hours to sort this thing out then? I agree that the research was insufficient, but the fact is that the error was quickly discarded. One should also note that slashdot does not actually do journalism, THE STORIES ARE SUBMITTED BY READERS. This kind of slip-up is bound to happen.
I may indeed be overestimating average intellect here if people can't identify the most blatantly obvious sarcasm...
I'd be hard pressed to say that slashdot is above average on the whole.
:) The main difference I do see is that people are trying to think about things here, and discuss them. Not just passively intake anything they are being fed.
And a walk through blogsphere might convince you that if slashdot is not the crème de la crème, it certainly does have relative grey matter to it.
Perhaps I went overboard on the intellect bit
I haven't actually been around for that long, but I'd say that if there are many articles which are critical of the U.S., it's probably because that's representative of the general opinion among slashdot readers.
I see no hint of an apology in this article.
Its existence is the apology.
That's the way it's done in any news. If the New York Times prints something on the first page, and on the next day they print the opposite, that's one hell of an apology, even if they don't say "I'm sorry". The best you might hope for is "erratum".
Slashdot is slowly turning into a left-wing version of Fox.
:)
Yes, excellent comparison. Fox also allows critical discussion of the news in situ. Fox also updates erroneus news with immediate apologies. Last but not least, Fox viewers are also of above-average intellect and critical judgment.
the original story was just a ploy by Taco to bash US policy
Who had the tendency towards conspiracy theories again?
Unless you don't actually need the money because you have no staff to pay and you're sort of doing it for fun.
It strikes me as very funny that the U.S., otherwise very keen on keeping centralized regulations out of everything, are the main proponents of regulating something which is apparently unregulateable (for lack of a better word :)
I love this kind of patent because it's self-defeating. I mean, how many blunders like this can the patent office endulge in before it gets torn down by an angry (and justified) mob?
Did you also happen to come accross the concept of "total energy assessment" in that physics course of yours.
We often marvel at how economically solar cells function, forgetting to include in energy calculations the energy required to construct/maintain the magical apparatus. Do you have any idea how many windmills it would take to provide the U.S. with even a tenth of its consumption? How much energy (not to mention materials and labor) will go into this incomparable armada?
Why exactly is this modded "funny"?
There is one of those at my school (Chalmers in Göteborg). Try not to think of it too much :)
Where do you read commercial? I said u-n-w-a-n-t-e-d. The fact is that spammers use it to commercial ends. The bulk mail tool in itself can also be used to communicate important information without commercial purpose. Suppose alternate means are cut off, news are censored and so on. Then you'll be glad this wacky russian has a version handy to bypass all obfuscation.
Ah, but it should. Whereas virii are malicious, unwanted bulk mail (while unwanted) still constitutes only communication, arguably protected by free speech.
This is likely because of the great number of Linux servers,
Indeed. I wonder about the relevance of absolute figures in such a study. I mean, I can top all these amateurs with my own home-made kernel Skimpy, 0 breaches recorded (fact that I am the sole user intentionally omitted)
Ouch. That's a bit versatile, wouldn't you say?
Funny you didn't use the terms "top-down" and "bottom-up" :)
And no, we will probably never settle this argument, that's what makes it so fun! Start screaming!
I thought Dawkins basically pulverised the "intelligent design" thesis in his "Climbing mount improbable". Maybe I didn't read it right.
LOL! Love it!
The main fear is that of a catastrophe occuring. That is a catastrophe in the mathematical sense. A very good way to familiarise yourself with the concept is by going through the first chapter of James Murray's Mathematical Biology, an Introduction.
In this, Murray discusses mainly the equilibria in population dynamics, i.e. what concentrations of foxes and rabbits are likely to be able to coexist in a regular pattern.
When a catastrophe occurs, the equilibrium has been so perturbed that the system is unpredictable until it finds a new one. Once this new equilibrium has been reached, it is not possible to "go back". This is called a hysteresis effect.
Population dynamics is very similar to weather in that sense.
If you're wondering why global warming is bad, suppose we produce a sufficient ripple in the system (e.g. through rapid increase in carbon monoxyde concentrations) to initiate a catastrophe, which brings to say five degrees centigrade hotter or lower on average. This would have such monstruous consequences for the planet it's very hard to imagine.
For some extreme predictions, see Hubert Reeves' three scenarii (unfortunately I was unable to find this information in english, apparently Reeves' book Mal de Terre (Earthake) has not been translated into English)
From what I gather of the (contradictory) reports, it seems that those servers were pulled upon request of the swiss authorities because they contained compromising information about undercover police. Since this did not happen on swiss soil, it has no impact on the freedom of press within Switzerland. :)
A few years back there was a huge outrage when the swiss learned that they had a secret service which was gathering information about citizens, so I am pretty confident that such an operation would have been more problematic at home