The American society seems to encourage people to be stupid.
Dead on. I don't know where it started (I've been told this book is a good read), but there seems to be an ever increasing drive to seperate our actions from their consequences. This pops up, in different forms, in many different areas of society:
-law - the 'cost' to hold someone responsible for their actions is getting higher and higher
-religion - people *love* religions that tell them there's no (or very limited) consequences for their actions
-free-speech - do I need to explain this one....
What's dangerous about this trend is that there is a certain breaking point (don't know if we've hit it yet or not) where freedoms in a society become meaningless as the actions they afford are trumped by the same society's desire to have no consiquences. Freedom implies responsiblity for one's actions. You can pick and choose between those two.
[pre-rebuttle]Don't take this as a doom-and-gloom post. I'm *not* saying everything about society is terrible. I'm just describing a trend that I notice across several aspects of society that doesn't seem to be going anywhere good.[/pre-rebuttle]
Although, I may have stumbled upon why the IT crowd doesn't "get" upper-management decisions like spending half a grand on the same info you could get by talking to someone in the field over the morning coffee and bagel.
Think of the half grand as the market price people are willing to pay to avoid having a conversation with IT.
Couldn't most of the issues involved in e-voting be solved by producing the voter with a paper 'receipt' as proof of their vote (as well as a corresponding receipt for their precinct)? Taking it a step further, they could then, somehow, verify their vote by showing proof using this receipt. I'm purposely leaving out a lot of details here. But I'm just wondering if the voting system could benefit from the electronic monetary transaction technology and protocols that we interact with on a daily basis. What are your thoughts?
IMHO, it is the level of configuration, post install, that keeps novices from using *nix. The *AVERAGE* computer user (NOT the average slashdot user) wants things to work "out of the box". As long as developers of *nix distros and *nix applications insist on defaulting everything to dumb, near non-functional configurations, we can expect a low adoption rate. Developers need to design specifically with the *AVERAGE* computer user in mind and make it "just work out of the box". I know, much easier said than done. All I'm saying is that the target audience needs to be adjusted. Let the advanced *nix users get offended that X-program went ahead and configured itself. They'll just open the config file(s) and modify them (which they would have had to do anyways). Besides, if you need absolute control over every byte on your system you should be running something like Gentoo (which I will NOT be recommending to a first time *nix user).
Now, I don't mean that *nix distros and applications need to be "dumbed down". They simply just need to DEFAULT TO A WORKING STATE THE USER EXPECTS, then let the advanced users modify the configuration file(s) to make it do whatever they want it to. This is a fine line to walk, but if done correctly will alienate less people and will lead to greater adoption of *nix as a whole.
While I personally find this kind of "public information vandalism" to be quite sad (and a candidate will instantaneously lose my vote if it is prooven they employ such tactics), it just shows how important it is that we, as individuals, must rely on PRIMARY SOURCES for our information. If you want to learn about company x, go to company x's website, *THEN* compare what they said with what others say about them. The problem happens when people go to secondary or tertiary sources with out ever cross checking those with the primary source. I thought this is something we should have learned in High School. If you want to find out if Sally has 14 toes, horns, and eats toads for lunch, ask Sally, NOT every one else.
On another note: Search engines derive part of their success from being (or appearing) unbiased. If Google is smart, it wont have to introduce biases in order to fix this problem. They just need to make sure they differentiate between the *processes* or *strategies* used to "GoogleBomb" and the *instances* of "GoogleBombing". Don't write exceptions specifically for "miserable failure", instead identify *HOW* "miserable failure" exploited their algorithm and fix the algorithm.
The real fix is to revert your entire layout into tables and not use divs and spans. I just put "zoom: 1;" in my style sheet then marked it as "WONT FIX" blaming IE7 and the fact that reverting to tables is a dumb idea (especially when only a fraction of users will depend on the zoom tool).
To my own suprise, when I read this I thought, "So, MS is striping away a part of its core security to accommodate 3rd party businesses? What would we say if our favorite *nix distribution started doing this?" Perhaps it is time to just let MS be. Let them provide their own security, their own browser, their own IM, etc, that are all tightly interwoven. Let them squelch creativity on their OS to the point that they either blow us away with what they can do when they lock the doors or alienate themselves from the entire software industry. Let them do whatever they want to lock/unlock 3rd party vendors out/in. We all complain about security, but then come unglued when MS tries to take a hard line to improve it because they close holes. Granted, the way they are closing holes may not be the best approach.
I say, let's just let them do whatever they want. A few things could come of this:
-Nothing really changes, we take off our tin foil hats, and life continues just fine
-Vista may actually be more secure and developers become adjusted to developing for it
-Vista becomes so hard to work with (as a software developer) that no software is written for it and everyone keeps using (developing for) XP, or switches OSes (and Vista becomes one of MS's big blunders)
-Vista becomes hard to work with (as a software developer) and we see more software makers moving over to alternative OSes (OSX, *nix, etc)
Really, what is so wrong with the LONG TERM results of these scenarios? Let's let MS make or break itself. Let's let them "test the waters" and see what happens.
We're all used to it by now. Something is wrong with me/society, so who/what is to blame? Of course, myself/us is ALWAYS last on that list and the answer will ALWAYS be, "A lack of a basic moral compass."
I grew up playing Wolfenstien 3D, Doom/Heretic/Quake etc. Admittedly, those are violent games (especially in their own time). I even obtained a copy of my school's blue prints (unthinkable today) so I could make a Doom map of it allowing my friends and I to frag eachother at 'school'. However, throughout my entire gaming experience, I NEVER ONCE had the desire to turn the virtual world into reality (reality into the virtual world, yes). I can't remember a single time when I felt a real desire to inflict violence on others in real life (beyond the feign adolescent "I'm so mad I could kill someone" attitude). Why? Because I also grew up being taught a basic set of morals. For me this was done via my parents and church. However, in my group of friends (remember all fragging eachother in our virtual school) there were members of several faiths and also atheists. Each of us had parents who took the time to instill in their children a basic set of morals.
Now, if the answer is so simple why is it always at the end of the list? Because it requires more effort, and long term attention, than hiring a lawyer and filing a suit. It's sad to see the Blame Game used every time there is a personal/social crisis because all the meanwhile people miss the most obvious, and most effective, answer--teaching your kids basic morals.
...being taught HOW to think, not WHAT to think. That is the value of a college degree when compared to most other forms of education. Anyone can cram a thousand things into their head. However, it will ALWAYS take time to learn HOW to use that information in an intelligent way. There's something about our brain that allows it to, OVER TIME, remap/re-organize information we've accumulated into higher dimensions--often as a result of looking at things in a way that we've never thought of before (read: core set of diverse required classes).
While I congratulate this student for their motivation and drive, I have to leave my warning to stop and smell the roses, you just might learn something.
PS: That doesn't mean taking the 'diverse set of required classes' is always enjoyable. As a recent college graduate, I'll be the fist to point out all the complaining I made while taking these courses. However, in hind sight, they turned out to be more valuable that I realized at the time.
I love the new tabbed personalized homepage feature Google has added. Now, when I go to Google (which is about 12,324 times a day) I get a quick snap shot of the information I commonly go to from RSS feeds I choose. They also have lots of nice little tools/games you can drag onto your homepage as well.
Now when I want to do what I call "the rounds" and check what's new in the world and on sites I'm interested in, I just look at the links from the various RSS feeds on one tab, middle click on ones I'm interested in, go to the next tab, and do the same. At the end, I have around 1-2 dozen tabs open and whole process only takes about 1-2 minutes and I have all the latest information on the topics I care about. This is what RSS feeds are about. Fast and intuitive access to the data you want, when you want it.
This may be a little off topic but, in light of the recent political situation, I've decided that in future electinos I am going to gague how I vote based on how canidates treat me (read: the general population), THEN on the issues they stand for. Frankly, I'm sick and tired of being treated like an idiot by many current politicians who seem to be interested only in telling me to shut up, stop thinking, and keep fearing for my life. If I ever meet another politician that I see using those tatics, they will immediately lose my vote. From now on, politicians must EARN my respect and vote not by what policies they have but by how they treat ME as an everyday average citizen.
That is what makes this topic so difficult. The answer is that you block (yes I mean censor) media that is deemed heinous in nature by the vast majority of your society (yes, this can change as your society changes). The rest of the gray area is left up to the individual to avoid or indulge in. Some will avoid it, others will indulge in it, others will push the boundaries, and others will pass the boundary, possibly causing harm to others. It's an imperfect answer for an imperfect world.
The sad part is that pornography is a slippery slope, it DOES hurt people (whether in the producing or viewing of it--emotionally/socially/spiritually), and most are unable to indulge in it without being drawn to more. Thus there is a natural tendency to redefine heinous as the vast majority of society becomes more and more desensitized to it.
...how important intelligent communication is. While a topic like 'TV Culture, Myth and Star Trek', in my opinion, does not provide a revolutionary breakthrough in the study of humanities, the fact that she intelligently and effectively enumerates and supports her argument is enough to merit the award she received.
This highlights a more fundamental problem than the fact that Wikipedia is vulnerable to edit wars, and that is people's/company's/political party's disregard for truth. I have a good friend who was part of a recent high-profile gubernatorial race. I was surprised to hear from him that they had to constantly guard the wikipedia page about their candidate as it would constantly be vandalized. Is it just me, or do you also get a kind-of "sick" feeling when you hear about these kind of things? This is especially true when you take a step back and think about what the potential Wikipedia (and other sites like it) holds for improving the lives of people all over the world. When you look at it from this perspective, well written, unbiased articles, in my opinion, hold a certain level of sacredness. And when you see it being defiled you can't help but to feel disgust.
Now, I know, this example is "small peanuts" in the grand scheme of things. However, it just makes me sick when I see this kind of intentionally malicious behavior focused on something with a primary goal to improve the lives of all.
Let's get somthing straight here. We are not declaring war on the Caps Lock key, we are merely DEFENDING ourselves from the war IT started. How many of you have ever been attacked by the Caps Lock key in VI? Nothing brings your coding to a screeching halt like trying to move the cursor down ('j') only to have a dozen or two lines smashed together ('J').
While were at it we need to declare war on the Insert key. Seriously, who ACTUALLY USES that key...EVER!?
Since private domain is ever decreasing these days, it seems that the answer to providing security for your personal data lies less and less with encryption as it does with where your encrypted data physically is. Encrypt the data (providing one LEGAL layer of security) then store THE ONLY COPY/COPIES with entities that provide more LEGAL layers of security ( bank safe deposit / server farm ). Maybe keep a hard drive at a bank's safe deposit box and visit it when you need the data (taking a laptop with you). If you can find a server farm with a robust, enforceable privacy policy, and a good track record, then that may be the way to go. This provides more legal loop holes for others to jump through to get to your information. It would be nice if simply encrypting your information would be enough. But, alas, we must press on and play the legal game.
To get a little philosophical, the sad part is that like every tool/technology mankind is blessed with, it can be used for both good and evil. But, it is NEVER the right answer to attack the tool/technology. The only thing we can do is to correct the problems that cause individuals to use the given tool/technology for evil rather than good.
Slashdot Mirror
If anyone owns the trademark to the letter 'i' it should be Sesame Street.
What this photo doesn't show is the large army of killer robots just off frame.
-law - the 'cost' to hold someone responsible for their actions is getting higher and higher
-religion - people *love* religions that tell them there's no (or very limited) consequences for their actions
-free-speech - do I need to explain this one....
What's dangerous about this trend is that there is a certain breaking point (don't know if we've hit it yet or not) where freedoms in a society become meaningless as the actions they afford are trumped by the same society's desire to have no consiquences. Freedom implies responsiblity for one's actions. You can pick and choose between those two.
[pre-rebuttle]Don't take this as a doom-and-gloom post. I'm *not* saying everything about society is terrible. I'm just describing a trend that I notice across several aspects of society that doesn't seem to be going anywhere good.[/pre-rebuttle]
....I think I just had a great idea for a new cereal brand. Sorry, I'm hungry.
This has huge implications for mank-ind. -Jack Handey
Couldn't most of the issues involved in e-voting be solved by producing the voter with a paper 'receipt' as proof of their vote (as well as a corresponding receipt for their precinct)? Taking it a step further, they could then, somehow, verify their vote by showing proof using this receipt. I'm purposely leaving out a lot of details here. But I'm just wondering if the voting system could benefit from the electronic monetary transaction technology and protocols that we interact with on a daily basis. What are your thoughts?
IMHO, it is the level of configuration, post install, that keeps novices from using *nix. The *AVERAGE* computer user (NOT the average slashdot user) wants things to work "out of the box". As long as developers of *nix distros and *nix applications insist on defaulting everything to dumb, near non-functional configurations, we can expect a low adoption rate. Developers need to design specifically with the *AVERAGE* computer user in mind and make it "just work out of the box". I know, much easier said than done. All I'm saying is that the target audience needs to be adjusted. Let the advanced *nix users get offended that X-program went ahead and configured itself. They'll just open the config file(s) and modify them (which they would have had to do anyways). Besides, if you need absolute control over every byte on your system you should be running something like Gentoo (which I will NOT be recommending to a first time *nix user).
Now, I don't mean that *nix distros and applications need to be "dumbed down". They simply just need to DEFAULT TO A WORKING STATE THE USER EXPECTS, then let the advanced users modify the configuration file(s) to make it do whatever they want it to. This is a fine line to walk, but if done correctly will alienate less people and will lead to greater adoption of *nix as a whole.
While I personally find this kind of "public information vandalism" to be quite sad (and a candidate will instantaneously lose my vote if it is prooven they employ such tactics), it just shows how important it is that we, as individuals, must rely on PRIMARY SOURCES for our information. If you want to learn about company x, go to company x's website, *THEN* compare what they said with what others say about them. The problem happens when people go to secondary or tertiary sources with out ever cross checking those with the primary source. I thought this is something we should have learned in High School. If you want to find out if Sally has 14 toes, horns, and eats toads for lunch, ask Sally, NOT every one else.
On another note:
Search engines derive part of their success from being (or appearing) unbiased. If Google is smart, it wont have to introduce biases in order to fix this problem. They just need to make sure they differentiate between the *processes* or *strategies* used to "GoogleBomb" and the *instances* of "GoogleBombing". Don't write exceptions specifically for "miserable failure", instead identify *HOW* "miserable failure" exploited their algorithm and fix the algorithm.
Can I get an "AMEN" from the slashdot congregation?
I ran into a nasty bug the other day on a site I'm developing at work. The gist of it is that certain tags ([span] and [a href] tags) shift around strangely when zooming in and out. For an example, go to www.flickr.com, search for something that returns several pages, scroll to the bottom where the pagination links are, and zoom out to 90% (CTRL mousewheel). As of the last IE7 release before this one, IE7 zoom renders flickr's pagination links virtually useless. The work around, which only partially works around the problem, is to define a site wide CSS style of "zoom: 1;" for your tags. This is only a partial fix and causes other irregularities on your site when zooming. Seeing how this occurs on the latest release of IE7, I doubt they've since fixed the problem. Way to go IE team!
The real fix is to revert your entire layout into tables and not use divs and spans. I just put "zoom: 1;" in my style sheet then marked it as "WONT FIX" blaming IE7 and the fact that reverting to tables is a dumb idea (especially when only a fraction of users will depend on the zoom tool).
To my own suprise, when I read this I thought, "So, MS is striping away a part of its core security to accommodate 3rd party businesses? What would we say if our favorite *nix distribution started doing this?" Perhaps it is time to just let MS be. Let them provide their own security, their own browser, their own IM, etc, that are all tightly interwoven. Let them squelch creativity on their OS to the point that they either blow us away with what they can do when they lock the doors or alienate themselves from the entire software industry. Let them do whatever they want to lock/unlock 3rd party vendors out/in. We all complain about security, but then come unglued when MS tries to take a hard line to improve it because they close holes. Granted, the way they are closing holes may not be the best approach.
I say, let's just let them do whatever they want. A few things could come of this:
-Nothing really changes, we take off our tin foil hats, and life continues just fine
-Vista may actually be more secure and developers become adjusted to developing for it
-Vista becomes so hard to work with (as a software developer) that no software is written for it and everyone keeps using (developing for) XP, or switches OSes (and Vista becomes one of MS's big blunders)
-Vista becomes hard to work with (as a software developer) and we see more software makers moving over to alternative OSes (OSX, *nix, etc)
Really, what is so wrong with the LONG TERM results of these scenarios? Let's let MS make or break itself. Let's let them "test the waters" and see what happens.
We're all used to it by now. Something is wrong with me/society, so who/what is to blame? Of course, myself/us is ALWAYS last on that list and the answer will ALWAYS be, "A lack of a basic moral compass."
I grew up playing Wolfenstien 3D, Doom/Heretic/Quake etc. Admittedly, those are violent games (especially in their own time). I even obtained a copy of my school's blue prints (unthinkable today) so I could make a Doom map of it allowing my friends and I to frag eachother at 'school'. However, throughout my entire gaming experience, I NEVER ONCE had the desire to turn the virtual world into reality (reality into the virtual world, yes). I can't remember a single time when I felt a real desire to inflict violence on others in real life (beyond the feign adolescent "I'm so mad I could kill someone" attitude). Why? Because I also grew up being taught a basic set of morals. For me this was done via my parents and church. However, in my group of friends (remember all fragging eachother in our virtual school) there were members of several faiths and also atheists. Each of us had parents who took the time to instill in their children a basic set of morals.
Now, if the answer is so simple why is it always at the end of the list? Because it requires more effort, and long term attention, than hiring a lawyer and filing a suit. It's sad to see the Blame Game used every time there is a personal/social crisis because all the meanwhile people miss the most obvious, and most effective, answer--teaching your kids basic morals.
...being taught HOW to think, not WHAT to think. That is the value of a college degree when compared to most other forms of education. Anyone can cram a thousand things into their head. However, it will ALWAYS take time to learn HOW to use that information in an intelligent way. There's something about our brain that allows it to, OVER TIME, remap/re-organize information we've accumulated into higher dimensions--often as a result of looking at things in a way that we've never thought of before (read: core set of diverse required classes).
While I congratulate this student for their motivation and drive, I have to leave my warning to stop and smell the roses, you just might learn something.
PS: That doesn't mean taking the 'diverse set of required classes' is always enjoyable. As a recent college graduate, I'll be the fist to point out all the complaining I made while taking these courses. However, in hind sight, they turned out to be more valuable that I realized at the time.
In unrelated news, Chinese P2P traffic and writable CD/DVD sales both sky-rocket.
I love the new tabbed personalized homepage feature Google has added. Now, when I go to Google (which is about 12,324 times a day) I get a quick snap shot of the information I commonly go to from RSS feeds I choose. They also have lots of nice little tools/games you can drag onto your homepage as well.
Now when I want to do what I call "the rounds" and check what's new in the world and on sites I'm interested in, I just look at the links from the various RSS feeds on one tab, middle click on ones I'm interested in, go to the next tab, and do the same. At the end, I have around 1-2 dozen tabs open and whole process only takes about 1-2 minutes and I have all the latest information on the topics I care about. This is what RSS feeds are about. Fast and intuitive access to the data you want, when you want it.
This may be a little off topic but, in light of the recent political situation, I've decided that in future electinos I am going to gague how I vote based on how canidates treat me (read: the general population), THEN on the issues they stand for. Frankly, I'm sick and tired of being treated like an idiot by many current politicians who seem to be interested only in telling me to shut up, stop thinking, and keep fearing for my life. If I ever meet another politician that I see using those tatics, they will immediately lose my vote. From now on, politicians must EARN my respect and vote not by what policies they have but by how they treat ME as an everyday average citizen.
Don't you mean GOING to Australia? ;)
An anonymous reader writes to mention...
Anyone else find it interesting that the author of a post about Chinese government policies is Anonymous?
patients who were more likely to get cut, and work to alter their environment or diet to try and help.
Wow! Altering their diet prevented them from getting cuts? What kind of food were you feeding them!?
But where do you stop?
That is what makes this topic so difficult. The answer is that you block (yes I mean censor) media that is deemed heinous in nature by the vast majority of your society (yes, this can change as your society changes). The rest of the gray area is left up to the individual to avoid or indulge in. Some will avoid it, others will indulge in it, others will push the boundaries, and others will pass the boundary, possibly causing harm to others. It's an imperfect answer for an imperfect world.
The sad part is that pornography is a slippery slope, it DOES hurt people (whether in the producing or viewing of it--emotionally/socially/spiritually), and most are unable to indulge in it without being drawn to more. Thus there is a natural tendency to redefine heinous as the vast majority of society becomes more and more desensitized to it.
...how important intelligent communication is. While a topic like 'TV Culture, Myth and Star Trek', in my opinion, does not provide a revolutionary breakthrough in the study of humanities, the fact that she intelligently and effectively enumerates and supports her argument is enough to merit the award she received.
This highlights a more fundamental problem than the fact that Wikipedia is vulnerable to edit wars, and that is people's/company's/political party's disregard for truth. I have a good friend who was part of a recent high-profile gubernatorial race. I was surprised to hear from him that they had to constantly guard the wikipedia page about their candidate as it would constantly be vandalized. Is it just me, or do you also get a kind-of "sick" feeling when you hear about these kind of things? This is especially true when you take a step back and think about what the potential Wikipedia (and other sites like it) holds for improving the lives of people all over the world. When you look at it from this perspective, well written, unbiased articles, in my opinion, hold a certain level of sacredness. And when you see it being defiled you can't help but to feel disgust.
Now, I know, this example is "small peanuts" in the grand scheme of things. However, it just makes me sick when I see this kind of intentionally malicious behavior focused on something with a primary goal to improve the lives of all.
Let's get somthing straight here. We are not declaring war on the Caps Lock key, we are merely DEFENDING ourselves from the war IT started. How many of you have ever been attacked by the Caps Lock key in VI? Nothing brings your coding to a screeching halt like trying to move the cursor down ('j') only to have a dozen or two lines smashed together ('J').
While were at it we need to declare war on the Insert key. Seriously, who ACTUALLY USES that key...EVER!?
Since private domain is ever decreasing these days, it seems that the answer to providing security for your personal data lies less and less with encryption as it does with where your encrypted data physically is. Encrypt the data (providing one LEGAL layer of security) then store THE ONLY COPY/COPIES with entities that provide more LEGAL layers of security ( bank safe deposit / server farm ). Maybe keep a hard drive at a bank's safe deposit box and visit it when you need the data (taking a laptop with you). If you can find a server farm with a robust, enforceable privacy policy, and a good track record, then that may be the way to go. This provides more legal loop holes for others to jump through to get to your information. It would be nice if simply encrypting your information would be enough. But, alas, we must press on and play the legal game.
To get a little philosophical, the sad part is that like every tool/technology mankind is blessed with, it can be used for both good and evil. But, it is NEVER the right answer to attack the tool/technology. The only thing we can do is to correct the problems that cause individuals to use the given tool/technology for evil rather than good.