True story. I'm not sure if there's a lesson in there somewhere, but it seemed like a relevant story.
Seems on the button to me. I can totally relate to this story. When I've asked users to demonstrate a problem they're having they'll often carefully recreate the scenario step by step, allowing for discussion along the way. But when an alert of some kind appears during it, they dismiss it without so much as a glance and continue on without comment as if it never happened. When you pull them up about it, and get actually get them to stop clicking OK (which isn't always easy), they say something like, "Oh, it always does that." at which point you'll discover the computer has been complaining about this error for weeks, it's only now that it has become critical and stopped things working.
It's a Pavlovian response even amongst some of the most experienced of users. Stimulus; Annoying error message, Response; click OK. Result; Problem goes away, at least for the moment.
Designers of all kinds (software, machinery, cars, road signs, household appliances, etc, etc) will spend hours on end debating how to stop this kind of behaviour, but the simple answer is you can't. It's just how people behave and the more effort you put in to prevent it, the more they become desensitised to your efforts.
Testing on my new device starts tomorrow. It has a remarkable 98% accuracy in identifying people told to dress completely in purple and sing "I Love You, You Love Me". Even at a distance. As long as the terrorists play along (and who wouldn't?) we'll win this war on terror any time soon. And even if they don't, think of all the Barney impersonators we'll get off the streets. It's an everybody-wins scenario.
You are confusing external linking with article inclusion.
The danger of cruft is that it is ever expanding and near impossible to keep in good order. Unchecked you'd pretty soon find visiting Wikipedia a chore of filtering the good factual content from the dross.
1.) Just because content is not interesting *to you*, does not make it not interesting *in general*.
If you refer to Wikipedia guidelines for inclusion you'll note that "interesting", according to anyone's opinion, doesn't feature. I was just adding the fact that it was uninteresting as a cumulative cherry on the cake.
2.) Just because content was not *cited or verified*, does not make it *unverifiable*.
This is a gambit often used by those who wish cruft added to articles. Basically they want their little factual nugget added, but can't find anything to show that it isn't a total fiction they made up themselves. This in itself is usually a very good indication that it is not important enough to mention, because no-one already has. Remember, Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia. Encyclopaedias do not publish new and original content. But rather than forgo adding their cruft, the editor decides that it should instead be a challenge. "Here's a fact, don't be so lazy, you go and either prove or disprove it by finding a cite yourself"
The way these things work is that if you wish the fact in, particularly if it has the appearance of insignificant or dubious trivia, then you cite it. It shouldn't be up to others to waste their time investigating something that may turn out to either be impossible to verify or complete BS.
And even if it is cited, this doesn't stop it being cruft.
Also, im just sick of reading a general topic, something unrelated to sci-fi and then seeing links like "He also shares the name of a popular Anime character" or "Nuclear aggression was also a topic on this episode of Star Trek."
Absolutely.
A definite pet peeve of mine is the cancerous In popular culture sections that sprout out of innocent articles of all kinds. Invariably they are a random mess of trivia informing us where this subject has been mentioned in various editors' favourite music/tv show/film. Of absolutely no interest to anyone else, completely unreferenced and unverifiable, and of zero significance to the actual subject of the article. It's almost as if people believe that some subjects require a passing mentioned by Homer Simpson to back up their notability.
I honestly don't get the whole hate that Wikipedia seems to have against sci-fi and geeky topics...
You have the cause and effect the wrong way around here. It's not that Wikipedia hates sci-fi and geeky topics, it's that sci-fi fans and geeks love Wikipedia. Consequently they are willing to spend hour upon hour of detailing fancruft into Wikipedia articles. Wikipedia doesn't want fancruft, of any sort. Wikipedia is not a fansite. It doesn't care about minor Stargate SG-1 plotline discrepancies that a single obsessive thinks he has noticed and simply must tell the world about. It's not interested in a list of all the different t-shirts that have appeared on Family Guy. Yet Wikipedia gets piles of that kind of crud entered into it all the time.
So it's no surprise that these topics feature heavily in deletions. If, for example, baseball or cricket fans were just as keen to get their fancruft into Wikipedia the result would be the same. But they aren't.
Just thought that needed emphasised. The HHGTTG books got progressively worse. It's almost as if with each volume after "Restaurant" Adams set out to bury the story further into an inconsistent mess in order to prevent another sequel.
You don't know much about the data protect act then.
The very significant difference between Topware Interactive's endevours, and the tale of your brother's glasses, is that your story doesn't involve a High Court Order. If you had sent one of these to your brother's opticians you would have his prescription details double quick. Same laws apply.
Precisely. The contributor of this story and the doofus who wrote the article are only displaying their complete lack of development experience. The very fact that this is on slashdot's front page is an embarrassment. This is the kind of clueless analysis I expect from end-users.
Further analysis to follow; half built house has poor insulation! Half-baked cookies don't taste anyway near as good as last batch! Undelivered sofa has cheap plastic covering attached!
Replies like this make me wonder why people think ISPs apply caps. Do they think they do it for fun? They like annoying their customers? And do you think they worry about losing your account if you refuse the cap?
In every customer-business relationship there is always a point where the customer can stop being an asset and become a liability. If you turn up at the all-you-can-eat buffet and fill your plate with 90% of the available food, don't expect the management to lose any sleep if you take your custom elsewhere in future.
It's called perspective. He could see the pictures when they were far away because that makes them much smaller. But if they were downloaded onto his own computer they would be much closer, and therefore too big for it.
I use this same principle to cache the entire internet on a USB key that I keep on the moon.
You get the banned page if you are unfortunate enough to lie behind a proxy, and someone else has been hammering slashdot through the same proxy.
The reference to psychics is where the page suggests you include the banned IP address in any email you send to slashdot admins, asking them to lift the ban. Because they're not psychic.
This is nothing. CSI manage magnification way better than this every week. I think it is achieved through the combined technology of inadequately lit laboratories and music by The Who.
Unfortunately those few billion humans think that is what's wrong with science and what makes religion so great. Seems that people prefer irrefutable certainties, even when they're wrong.
It's not the same thing. In most cases of Nigerian scams the victim believes they are colluding in something illegal, or at best shady. They rely on the victim's willingness to enter into a deal that ultimately involves ripping off someone else, even if it is government, faceless corporation, or some other oblivious third party. Hence the need for utmost secrecy; don't tell your family, don't tell your bank.
There's a saying "It's hard to con an honest man" for a reason. If you are honest you would begin by questioning the legality of it. The victims that fall for it don't.
Do the scam victims deserve jail? Probably not, unless of course it wasn't their money they lost. But otherwise their own loss and stupidity is punishment enough.
convinces me there is a god up there and he was looking after me for I was not born in China.
So, following your logic, the god up there wasn't looking after those born in China. Does this mean he doesn't care about them in the same way as he cares about you? What exactly did you do to deserve this preferential treatment? How did you manage to do this prior to even being born?
If something is publicly visible, and yet sensitive enough to have people worried about it being photographed, I'd suggest that who ever owns it either starts hiding it from sight, changes what makes it so sensitive, or simply gets used to the idea.
We are not far from the time where it will be technologically possible to take as many photographs you wish, of whatever you can see, at what ever resolution you wish. And Mr Security drone will be none the wiser or be able to stop you.
Authorities need to face up to the fact that soon it will be a case if you can see it; you can film it. And they'll never know.
There's a point in which after a person accumulates enough money, the promise of more money to throw on top of the heap really stops becoming a motivating factor and one starts looking at the other niceties of life instead.
Very true. And I'd be willing to bet that if asked, Mr Miyamoto's would say his #1 hobby is "working for Nintendo". If he no longer needs the money then why is he there?
It's amazing what people will put up with if they're paid enough. I image that Mr Miyamoto is very well paid by Nintendo, so much in fact that the outrageous imposition of not being able to discuss his hobbies with people is bearable.
What pisses me off to no end about that is that they'd rather let a rare piece of art vanish into oblivion rather than have it digitized and spread to preserve its existance.
Who has said this and who is doing it? In TFA it says that no-one has complained and no-one has told him he can't do it. So who exactly is pissing you off doing these imaginary things?
Do you often get so heated about events that are entirely in your own head?
Well quite. But the idea about this is it's a good way of keeping passwords for the clueless, who don't tend to have ssh key files. And with a ssh key file you know exactly what it is and why it's important to keep safe. It's a key.
I'm not saying it's a bad idea. But all you're really doing is changing your MP3/JPEG file into a key file. It stops being an unassuming media file and becomes a security file. And that means users need to treat it like a security file. If they could be trusted with this kind of security methodology to begin with, they would need the MP3/JPEG trick.
Slashdot Mirror
Rapping well actually has a lot of skills in common with 'real' singing
I'll give you that. But they say that a professional working a chainsaw is also pretty skilful, and I don't listen to that for fun either.
True story. I'm not sure if there's a lesson in there somewhere, but it seemed like a relevant story.
Seems on the button to me. I can totally relate to this story. When I've asked users to demonstrate a problem they're having they'll often carefully recreate the scenario step by step, allowing for discussion along the way. But when an alert of some kind appears during it, they dismiss it without so much as a glance and continue on without comment as if it never happened. When you pull them up about it, and get actually get them to stop clicking OK (which isn't always easy), they say something like, "Oh, it always does that." at which point you'll discover the computer has been complaining about this error for weeks, it's only now that it has become critical and stopped things working.
It's a Pavlovian response even amongst some of the most experienced of users. Stimulus; Annoying error message, Response; click OK. Result; Problem goes away, at least for the moment.
Designers of all kinds (software, machinery, cars, road signs, household appliances, etc, etc) will spend hours on end debating how to stop this kind of behaviour, but the simple answer is you can't. It's just how people behave and the more effort you put in to prevent it, the more they become desensitised to your efforts.
Does this sound idiotic to anyone else?
Yes indeed it does.
Testing on my new device starts tomorrow. It has a remarkable 98% accuracy in identifying people told to dress completely in purple and sing "I Love You, You Love Me". Even at a distance. As long as the terrorists play along (and who wouldn't?) we'll win this war on terror any time soon. And even if they don't, think of all the Barney impersonators we'll get off the streets. It's an everybody-wins scenario.
You are confusing external linking with article inclusion.
The danger of cruft is that it is ever expanding and near impossible to keep in good order. Unchecked you'd pretty soon find visiting Wikipedia a chore of filtering the good factual content from the dross.
1.) Just because content is not interesting *to you*, does not make it not interesting *in general*.
If you refer to Wikipedia guidelines for inclusion you'll note that "interesting", according to anyone's opinion, doesn't feature. I was just adding the fact that it was uninteresting as a cumulative cherry on the cake.
2.) Just because content was not *cited or verified*, does not make it *unverifiable*.
This is a gambit often used by those who wish cruft added to articles. Basically they want their little factual nugget added, but can't find anything to show that it isn't a total fiction they made up themselves. This in itself is usually a very good indication that it is not important enough to mention, because no-one already has. Remember, Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia. Encyclopaedias do not publish new and original content. But rather than forgo adding their cruft, the editor decides that it should instead be a challenge. "Here's a fact, don't be so lazy, you go and either prove or disprove it by finding a cite yourself"
The way these things work is that if you wish the fact in, particularly if it has the appearance of insignificant or dubious trivia, then you cite it. It shouldn't be up to others to waste their time investigating something that may turn out to either be impossible to verify or complete BS.
And even if it is cited, this doesn't stop it being cruft.
Also, im just sick of reading a general topic, something unrelated to sci-fi and then seeing links like "He also shares the name of a popular Anime character" or "Nuclear aggression was also a topic on this episode of Star Trek."
Absolutely.
A definite pet peeve of mine is the cancerous In popular culture sections that sprout out of innocent articles of all kinds. Invariably they are a random mess of trivia informing us where this subject has been mentioned in various editors' favourite music/tv show/film. Of absolutely no interest to anyone else, completely unreferenced and unverifiable, and of zero significance to the actual subject of the article. It's almost as if people believe that some subjects require a passing mentioned by Homer Simpson to back up their notability.
I honestly don't get the whole hate that Wikipedia seems to have against sci-fi and geeky topics...
You have the cause and effect the wrong way around here. It's not that Wikipedia hates sci-fi and geeky topics, it's that sci-fi fans and geeks love Wikipedia. Consequently they are willing to spend hour upon hour of detailing fancruft into Wikipedia articles. Wikipedia doesn't want fancruft, of any sort. Wikipedia is not a fansite. It doesn't care about minor Stargate SG-1 plotline discrepancies that a single obsessive thinks he has noticed and simply must tell the world about. It's not interested in a list of all the different t-shirts that have appeared on Family Guy. Yet Wikipedia gets piles of that kind of crud entered into it all the time.
So it's no surprise that these topics feature heavily in deletions. If, for example, baseball or cricket fans were just as keen to get their fancruft into Wikipedia the result would be the same. But they aren't.
No, No, No.
Just thought that needed emphasised. The HHGTTG books got progressively worse. It's almost as if with each volume after "Restaurant" Adams set out to bury the story further into an inconsistent mess in order to prevent another sequel.
We do not need another book.
I swear this contravenes the Data Protection Act.
You don't know much about the data protect act then.
The very significant difference between Topware Interactive's endevours, and the tale of your brother's glasses, is that your story doesn't involve a High Court Order. If you had sent one of these to your brother's opticians you would have his prescription details double quick. Same laws apply.
Wow. Don't follow international politics much, do you?
Precisely. The contributor of this story and the doofus who wrote the article are only displaying their complete lack of development experience. The very fact that this is on slashdot's front page is an embarrassment. This is the kind of clueless analysis I expect from end-users.
Further analysis to follow; half built house has poor insulation! Half-baked cookies don't taste anyway near as good as last batch! Undelivered sofa has cheap plastic covering attached!
Replies like this make me wonder why people think ISPs apply caps. Do they think they do it for fun? They like annoying their customers? And do you think they worry about losing your account if you refuse the cap?
In every customer-business relationship there is always a point where the customer can stop being an asset and become a liability. If you turn up at the all-you-can-eat buffet and fill your plate with 90% of the available food, don't expect the management to lose any sleep if you take your custom elsewhere in future.
It makes complete sense.
It's called perspective. He could see the pictures when they were far away because that makes them much smaller. But if they were downloaded onto his own computer they would be much closer, and therefore too big for it.
I use this same principle to cache the entire internet on a USB key that I keep on the moon.
You get the banned page if you are unfortunate enough to lie behind a proxy, and someone else has been hammering slashdot through the same proxy.
The reference to psychics is where the page suggests you include the banned IP address in any email you send to slashdot admins, asking them to lift the ban. Because they're not psychic.
This is nothing. CSI manage magnification way better than this every week. I think it is achieved through the combined technology of inadequately lit laboratories and music by The Who.
I was thinking it's more like a series of tubes.
Unfortunately those few billion humans think that is what's wrong with science and what makes religion so great. Seems that people prefer irrefutable certainties, even when they're wrong.
It's not the same thing. In most cases of Nigerian scams the victim believes they are colluding in something illegal, or at best shady. They rely on the victim's willingness to enter into a deal that ultimately involves ripping off someone else, even if it is government, faceless corporation, or some other oblivious third party. Hence the need for utmost secrecy; don't tell your family, don't tell your bank.
There's a saying "It's hard to con an honest man" for a reason. If you are honest you would begin by questioning the legality of it. The victims that fall for it don't.
Do the scam victims deserve jail? Probably not, unless of course it wasn't their money they lost. But otherwise their own loss and stupidity is punishment enough.
convinces me there is a god up there and he was looking after me for I was not born in China.
So, following your logic, the god up there wasn't looking after those born in China. Does this mean he doesn't care about them in the same way as he cares about you? What exactly did you do to deserve this preferential treatment? How did you manage to do this prior to even being born?
Yes, I am being melodramatic
Just a tad.
If something is publicly visible, and yet sensitive enough to have people worried about it being photographed, I'd suggest that who ever owns it either starts hiding it from sight, changes what makes it so sensitive, or simply gets used to the idea.
We are not far from the time where it will be technologically possible to take as many photographs you wish, of whatever you can see, at what ever resolution you wish. And Mr Security drone will be none the wiser or be able to stop you.
Authorities need to face up to the fact that soon it will be a case if you can see it; you can film it. And they'll never know.
The Register has two recent articles about similar stories and general photography paranoia in the UK.
The war on photographers - you're all al Qaeda suspects now
UK clamps down on bus-spotting terror menace
There's a point in which after a person accumulates enough money, the promise of more money to throw on top of the heap really stops becoming a motivating factor and one starts looking at the other niceties of life instead.
Very true. And I'd be willing to bet that if asked, Mr Miyamoto's would say his #1 hobby is "working for Nintendo". If he no longer needs the money then why is he there?
It's amazing what people will put up with if they're paid enough. I image that Mr Miyamoto is very well paid by Nintendo, so much in fact that the outrageous imposition of not being able to discuss his hobbies with people is bearable.
What pisses me off to no end about that is that they'd rather let a rare piece of art vanish into oblivion rather than have it digitized and spread to preserve its existance.
Who has said this and who is doing it? In TFA it says that no-one has complained and no-one has told him he can't do it. So who exactly is pissing you off doing these imaginary things?
Do you often get so heated about events that are entirely in your own head?
Well quite. But the idea about this is it's a good way of keeping passwords for the clueless, who don't tend to have ssh key files. And with a ssh key file you know exactly what it is and why it's important to keep safe. It's a key.
I'm not saying it's a bad idea. But all you're really doing is changing your MP3/JPEG file into a key file. It stops being an unassuming media file and becomes a security file. And that means users need to treat it like a security file. If they could be trusted with this kind of security methodology to begin with, they would need the MP3/JPEG trick.