Only if you consider writing resumes yours. Getting votes is what gets them the job, but it isn't part of the job.
It would seem that the problem, in this case, is the people.
The discussion about the dissolution of democracy was in 2004. I dimly remember that Bush won and he's busy implementing it according to his plans now.
People need to be more educated
In the USA??? You've gotta be kidding me. Americans don't want to be educated. They want to drive their SUV to their suburban home and spend the evening with TV and beer. I'd bet a years wage that anyone who can guarantee them that for the rest of their lifes would win every election by a huge margin.
It is a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.
I happen to work in a political job. I'm not a politician, but I am in an elected position representing people. Yes, there are politics and sometimes they are dirty. But you don't have to play that game. I was offered very thinly veiled bribes in the beginning - and turned them down. I think it bought me some respect and I'm not sorry about it. Politics on the country level is certainly so dirty that it's very, very hard to be a part of it and not catch the disease. But I'm certain it's possible.
I'm not, however, certain you would be elected that way. In fact, I'm certain that telling people the truth is the best way to destroy your chance at being elected.
the article doesn't say at all that adults will be prevented from accessing those sites.
Except that it also doesn't say how a computer is to know the difference between adults and kids. In some schools they might have individual user accounts that can be used. In libraries? I'm 99% certain they will be set to "err on the side of safety", i.e. reject access, and you have to jump through some hoops to get it enabled. Like, well, showing your new national ID card, maybe?;)
Families are practically becoming prison camps for kids... and you're telling me that the greatest danger are sexual predators on the internet? Are you f*cking kidding me?
No, they're fucking you - over.
There's a lot of studies out there that say that most sexual abuses happen within the extended family. Uncles and other people known to the kids in real life are among the main group. Not to mention that a frightening amount of parents (mostly fathers, but more mothers than you'd think) are among the guilty as well.
The actual effect of this on child abuse will be too low to measure (i.e. within the statistical error margin). But that isn't the effect the law makers care about one inch. The effect on their votes will be higher than the child abuse effect, and that is the one they worry about.
polls say suburban parents are worried about the internet.
Brains say that laws are not a replacement for raising your kids. And teaching them the high-tech equivalent of "don't take candy from strangers" is a part of that.
So either do your job, or stop fucking around making babies if you can't handle them. There are also abortions for that.
Security professionals are enjoying a surge in business and growing salaries
Uh? Since when? Security has been undervalued for years and there are two main reasons why the security of almost every company is shoddy at best: a) not enough budget and b) the human factor (i.e. invent a foolproof system and the world will invent a better fool).
He's either being paid or he is a fool who doesn't know what he's talking about.
A document format doesn't have accessibility issues. If he worries about that, he's barking up the wrong tree. And if he praises MS so much for their work in that area, he should be happy that there is already an ODF plugin for Word.
That, and the fact that even if he were right, I couldn't agree to keeping everyone in the middle ages because a minority is left behind. We don't abolish television because it's less accessible to blind people than radio used to be, do we?
Ok, I know this is/. - news for the socially challenged - but is this one really too hard?
One word: Honesty.
"Dear X, I'm having very serious problems of my own and my mind is elsewhere. I'm sorry, but I can't help you at this time. Ask again when Y is out of hospital."
After the huge success that the PSP is (not!), I'm sure that's the right horse to bet one.
The PSP is great, no questions asked. But it isn't good enough. If Sony can't get it right - what will Microsoft come up with? A 3-pound ugly box that runs out of batteries after 30 minutes of playing the latest DX10 game on a 320x200 screen?
Please ignore Jack Whoever. It's the only way he'll go away. He thrives on every flame, every personal attack, every long rant. I wouldn't be surprised if he masturbated to/. every time something about him is posted. He's an attention whore and that's that.
The field of "human factors" recognized that controls and displays need to be designed so that it's possible for a well trained human to get things right even in a hurry.
And there's your problem right there.
a) Most computer users are not "well trained", even by the widest possible streching of the definition b) For a pilot, flying the thing is his main concern at the time. He might be in a hurry, but he wants to do things, and do them right. For a computer user, security is a nuissance, a distraction from his actual work. He doesn't care, or bother, and if you would pop up a dialog box saying "do you want the system to stop bothering you with security warnings and just allow anything no matter the risk?", I'd say 80% or so of the users would click "yes".
Am I alone in finding this kind of topic - "The state of X in the year 2050" - really, incredibly pointless?
Probably not, but I disagree. It isn't pointless. It isn't immediately practical, yes. But there are many good reasons to dare a guess into the far future. And that doesn't mean you can't at the same time plan for next year.
Also, there are things that will change a lot and in ways we can not yet imagine within the next 50 years. And there are things that will very probably not change very much, like the humans involved or the fact that there are always implementation issues in technology and no tech is ever 100% safe and secure.
>>...You're right, OO doesn't have Clippy. It's got a talking paperclip... >Ick! It does? Damn. At least it seems to be turned -off- by default.
No, it isn't. It's less obnoxious, however. Shows up in the right-bottom corner. And I'm not 100% sure it's a paperclip, I think it might be a lightbulb or something.
Oh, there are lots of features only found in MS Word that aren't in OpenOffice.
Maybe you should try OO.org 2 for a change
These are things like their document wizard, Called "Assistant" in OO2 and "Autopilot" in OO 1.1
VBA scripting Not VBA (thank all the gods ever invented!) but you have scripting in OO. Quite nifty scripting actually, there are some advanced examples floating around the web to show it off.
object insertion Same as windos office: You can insert objects from other OO applications and it works very well.
watermarking Not 100% sure about this one.
cross-referencing, index marking check, used both of those already.
and our favorite, Clippy the paperclip. Oh Oh yeah Well, you got me there. You're right, OO doesn't have Clippy. It's got a talking paperclip, but it ain't called Clippy, so you're right on this. No Clippy. OO will never be ready for the secretary market.
I'm curious if the commenting/version-tracking stuff is in there. This is one area where Word really shines, and has noticably improved in the past few versions.
Can I get some of what you're smoking? The commenting is one hell of a mess. Oh yeah, it looks all shiney and look! colours! on the surface, but have you ever tried to really _work_ with it? The only use is within small workgroups where a little bit of improved communication would make it superfluous anyways.
I've tried working with both commenting and versioning in a non-trivial environment where several different - and at times hostile - parties are involved. You can forget about it. We're currently using.rtf because.doc contains too much hidden information the parties don't want revealed to each other, just as one example. In.odf I could at worst write a small script to get it out, if it were stored at all (I've done scripts to touch-up.sxi files before, it's easier than it sounds).
And let's not even speak about versioning. 20 year old CVS beats it with one arm tied behind its back.
Almost all of Words advanced features are half-assed at best. I'll celebrate the day its market share plummets to insignificance.
I'm pretty sure that Google faces bogus lawsuits like this every other month. The US justice system is a big, fat, ugly "get-rich-quick" scheme for a lucky few, so it isn't much of a surprise that many are trying.
Just another idiot who - my personal belief - should be shot as a service to mankind.
So much money - for what? Where are the "innovations" they claim? What is Microsoft Research doing all day?
Their homepage is slow and not very expressive. There's a lot of blabla that reads like your average university summary, and then there's these huuuugly innovative ideas, like in the hardware section:
We're working on devices which will allow you to use novel forms of input, such as a gesture, a wink, a voice command, or a pen. Did someone forgot to update the page after, say, 1980 or so?
We're also exploring new ways to use the keyboard, for instance, sliders set between the keypads of a split keyboard that will give you the ability to scroll or move around the document without lifting your hands to grab your mouse. Which actually is a nice idea. Where's the prototype? Can't take more than a year to get it done.
Their crypto research looks cool at first glance, but when you dig deeper into the papers, you'll see that there's very little that wasn't already part of "Applied Cryptography" - the bible of crypto-for-geeks, published 10 years ago.
There's tons of stuff there. But 90% of it are straight trashcan material. Every research institute has its share of failures, but MS Research has brought us, well, what exactly? MS fanboys, here's your chance, please list the ten greatest inventions that have come out of MS Research.
Very smart move. It allows the office workers to continue as if nothing had changed, for the moment. But when M$ comes knocking and tries to sell them an upgrade to Office200x, the answer will be "if we have to upgrade anyways, as you have just elaborately shown, then we'll upgrade to OpenOffice, thank you".
Especially if the new Office they release with Vista changes the interface considerably, and requires re-training anyways.
Of course, the next Office update will break the plugin. It'll be a cold day in hell before M$ can let this stand unchallenged.
except for the fact that it IS possible and EASY to change the search engine used.
You miss the point.
Microsoft is a convicted criminal. They should be prevented from breaking into my house again, even though "it IS possible and EASY" to install an additional lock.
People don't walk around with boners 24/7, nor do they eat, sleep, defecate or any other activity just anywhere or anytime. Visual cues provided in this kind of material trick the body into thinking that a sexually available person is ready and so the body ramps up all the things it needs to do to make it happen.
Good point. And games still aren't the problem. You see more sexually exciting material walking down your average shopping street than you do by playing any game, including Pornstar 3D.
Advertisement is using sex much more aggressively than games. They just do it in a way that no tits or pussies are immediately visible. But our brains being what they are, you clearly see in your mind's eye what you just barely can't see with your physical eyes.
way too graphic for a little kid. Decomposing bodies with a noose around their neck hanging from the ceiling?
Oh, there's nothing wrong with decomposing bodies, according to the ESRB. But look, one of them has the tits hanging out. And you can almost see the nipple! OMG! Think of the chiiildren!
Slashdot Mirror
but isn't getting votes their job?
Only if you consider writing resumes yours. Getting votes is what gets them the job, but it isn't part of the job.
It would seem that the problem, in this case, is the people.
The discussion about the dissolution of democracy was in 2004. I dimly remember that Bush won and he's busy implementing it according to his plans now.
People need to be more educated
In the USA??? You've gotta be kidding me. Americans don't want to be educated. They want to drive their SUV to their suburban home and spend the evening with TV and beer. I'd bet a years wage that anyone who can guarantee them that for the rest of their lifes would win every election by a huge margin.
It is a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.
I happen to work in a political job. I'm not a politician, but I am in an elected position representing people. Yes, there are politics and sometimes they are dirty. But you don't have to play that game. I was offered very thinly veiled bribes in the beginning - and turned them down. I think it bought me some respect and I'm not sorry about it.
Politics on the country level is certainly so dirty that it's very, very hard to be a part of it and not catch the disease. But I'm certain it's possible.
I'm not, however, certain you would be elected that way. In fact, I'm certain that telling people the truth is the best way to destroy your chance at being elected.
No, but there's a balance. You don't want to be breathing down your kids necks all the time do you?
Part of raising kids is making sure they can function on their own, when mommy is not around. Because sooner or later, they'll have to anyways.
Overprotective parents are just as bad as "leave everything to someone else" parents. Both shouldn't get kids in the first place.
the article doesn't say at all that adults will be prevented from accessing those sites.
;)
Except that it also doesn't say how a computer is to know the difference between adults and kids. In some schools they might have individual user accounts that can be used. In libraries? I'm 99% certain they will be set to "err on the side of safety", i.e. reject access, and you have to jump through some hoops to get it enabled. Like, well, showing your new national ID card, maybe?
Families are practically becoming prison camps for kids... and you're telling me that the greatest danger are sexual predators on the internet? Are you f*cking kidding me?
No, they're fucking you - over.
There's a lot of studies out there that say that most sexual abuses happen within the extended family. Uncles and other people known to the kids in real life are among the main group. Not to mention that a frightening amount of parents (mostly fathers, but more mothers than you'd think) are among the guilty as well.
The actual effect of this on child abuse will be too low to measure (i.e. within the statistical error margin). But that isn't the effect the law makers care about one inch. The effect on their votes will be higher than the child abuse effect, and that is the one they worry about.
polls say suburban parents are worried about the internet.
Brains say that laws are not a replacement for raising your kids. And teaching them the high-tech equivalent of "don't take candy from strangers" is a part of that.
So either do your job, or stop fucking around making babies if you can't handle them. There are also abortions for that.
Security professionals are enjoying a surge in business and growing salaries
Uh? Since when? Security has been undervalued for years and there are two main reasons why the security of almost every company is shoddy at best: a) not enough budget and b) the human factor (i.e. invent a foolproof system and the world will invent a better fool).
He's either being paid or he is a fool who doesn't know what he's talking about.
A document format doesn't have accessibility issues. If he worries about that, he's barking up the wrong tree. And if he praises MS so much for their work in that area, he should be happy that there is already an ODF plugin for Word.
That, and the fact that even if he were right, I couldn't agree to keeping everyone in the middle ages because a minority is left behind. We don't abolish television because it's less accessible to blind people than radio used to be, do we?
Ok, I know this is /. - news for the socially challenged - but is this one really too hard?
One word: Honesty.
"Dear X, I'm having very serious problems of my own and my mind is elsewhere. I'm sorry, but I can't help you at this time. Ask again when Y is out of hospital."
Or something like that.
After the huge success that the PSP is (not!), I'm sure that's the right horse to bet one.
The PSP is great, no questions asked. But it isn't good enough. If Sony can't get it right - what will Microsoft come up with? A 3-pound ugly box that runs out of batteries after 30 minutes of playing the latest DX10 game on a 320x200 screen?
Please ignore Jack Whoever. It's the only way he'll go away. He thrives on every flame, every personal attack, every long rant. I wouldn't be surprised if he masturbated to /. every time something about him is posted. He's an attention whore and that's that.
The field of "human factors" recognized that controls and displays need to be designed so that it's possible for a well trained human to get things right even in a hurry.
And there's your problem right there.
a) Most computer users are not "well trained", even by the widest possible streching of the definition
b) For a pilot, flying the thing is his main concern at the time. He might be in a hurry, but he wants to do things, and do them right. For a computer user, security is a nuissance, a distraction from his actual work. He doesn't care, or bother, and if you would pop up a dialog box saying "do you want the system to stop bothering you with security warnings and just allow anything no matter the risk?", I'd say 80% or so of the users would click "yes".
Am I alone in finding this kind of topic - "The state of X in the year 2050" - really, incredibly pointless?
Probably not, but I disagree. It isn't pointless. It isn't immediately practical, yes. But there are many good reasons to dare a guess into the far future. And that doesn't mean you can't at the same time plan for next year.
Also, there are things that will change a lot and in ways we can not yet imagine within the next 50 years. And there are things that will very probably not change very much, like the humans involved or the fact that there are always implementation issues in technology and no tech is ever 100% safe and secure.
>> ...You're right, OO doesn't have Clippy. It's got a talking paperclip...
>Ick! It does? Damn. At least it seems to be turned -off- by default.
No, it isn't. It's less obnoxious, however. Shows up in the right-bottom corner. And I'm not 100% sure it's a paperclip, I think it might be a lightbulb or something.
It isn't a frontend to rrdtools. IOW: It's a different application for a similar purpose, but it ain't the same.
Also, I very much enjoyed the fact that on a single machine you have it up and running in 5 min. tops.
Oh, there are lots of features only found in MS Word that aren't in OpenOffice.
Maybe you should try OO.org 2 for a change
These are things like their document wizard,
Called "Assistant" in OO2 and "Autopilot" in OO 1.1
VBA scripting
Not VBA (thank all the gods ever invented!) but you have scripting in OO. Quite nifty scripting actually, there are some advanced examples floating around the web to show it off.
object insertion
Same as windos office: You can insert objects from other OO applications and it works very well.
watermarking
Not 100% sure about this one.
cross-referencing, index marking
check, used both of those already.
and our favorite, Clippy the paperclip.
Oh
Oh yeah
Well, you got me there.
You're right, OO doesn't have Clippy. It's got a talking paperclip, but it ain't called Clippy, so you're right on this. No Clippy. OO will never be ready for the secretary market.
I'm curious if the commenting/version-tracking stuff is in there. This is one area where Word really shines, and has noticably improved in the past few versions.
.rtf because .doc contains too much hidden information the parties don't want revealed to each other, just as one example. .odf I could at worst write a small script to get it out, if it were stored at all (I've done scripts to touch-up .sxi files before, it's easier than it sounds).
Can I get some of what you're smoking? The commenting is one hell of a mess. Oh yeah, it looks all shiney and look! colours! on the surface, but have you ever tried to really _work_ with it? The only use is within small workgroups where a little bit of improved communication would make it superfluous anyways.
I've tried working with both commenting and versioning in a non-trivial environment where several different - and at times hostile - parties are involved. You can forget about it. We're currently using
In
And let's not even speak about versioning. 20 year old CVS beats it with one arm tied behind its back.
Almost all of Words advanced features are half-assed at best. I'll celebrate the day its market share plummets to insignificance.
I'm pretty sure that Google faces bogus lawsuits like this every other month. The US justice system is a big, fat, ugly "get-rich-quick" scheme for a lucky few, so it isn't much of a surprise that many are trying.
Just another idiot who - my personal belief - should be shot as a service to mankind.
So much money - for what? Where are the "innovations" they claim? What is Microsoft Research doing all day?
Their homepage is slow and not very expressive. There's a lot of blabla that reads like your average university summary, and then there's these huuuugly innovative ideas, like in the hardware section:
We're working on devices which will allow you to use novel forms of input, such as a gesture, a wink, a voice command, or a pen.
Did someone forgot to update the page after, say, 1980 or so?
We're also exploring new ways to use the keyboard, for instance, sliders set between the keypads of a split keyboard that will give you the ability to scroll or move around the document without lifting your hands to grab your mouse.
Which actually is a nice idea. Where's the prototype? Can't take more than a year to get it done.
Their crypto research looks cool at first glance, but when you dig deeper into the papers, you'll see that there's very little that wasn't already part of "Applied Cryptography" - the bible of crypto-for-geeks, published 10 years ago.
There's tons of stuff there. But 90% of it are straight trashcan material. Every research institute has its share of failures, but MS Research has brought us, well, what exactly? MS fanboys, here's your chance, please list the ten greatest inventions that have come out of MS Research.
Very smart move. It allows the office workers to continue as if nothing had changed, for the moment. But when M$ comes knocking and tries to sell them an upgrade to Office200x, the answer will be "if we have to upgrade anyways, as you have just elaborately shown, then we'll upgrade to OpenOffice, thank you".
Especially if the new Office they release with Vista changes the interface considerably, and requires re-training anyways.
Of course, the next Office update will break the plugin. It'll be a cold day in hell before M$ can let this stand unchallenged.
except for the fact that it IS possible and EASY to change the search engine used.
You miss the point.
Microsoft is a convicted criminal. They should be prevented from breaking into my house again, even though "it IS possible and EASY" to install an additional lock.
People don't walk around with boners 24/7, nor do they eat, sleep, defecate or any other activity just anywhere or anytime. Visual cues provided in this kind of material trick the body into thinking that a sexually available person is ready and so the body ramps up all the things it needs to do to make it happen.
Good point.
And games still aren't the problem. You see more sexually exciting material walking down your average shopping street than you do by playing any game, including Pornstar 3D.
Advertisement is using sex much more aggressively than games. They just do it in a way that no tits or pussies are immediately visible. But our brains being what they are, you clearly see in your mind's eye what you just barely can't see with your physical eyes.
Is there *ever* going to be a point when the xxAA reports good news again?
Was there ever? They are an industry association. It's their job to whine, cry, lament and announce the end of the world.
way too graphic for a little kid. Decomposing bodies with a noose around their neck hanging from the ceiling?
Oh, there's nothing wrong with decomposing bodies, according to the ESRB. But look, one of them has the tits hanging out. And you can almost see the nipple! OMG! Think of the chiiildren!
Because, you know, you can't possibly confront young people with images of something they've sucked on 10 years ago.
As long as you have the option to override the default search engine, I don't see what the problem is.
Microsoft
Ok, that was the one-word-answer. Here's your one-sentence-alternative:
Microsoft, because they are a convicted criminal in a related area and have shown exactly zero evidence for a change in behaviour.