So that's why I keep getting all of those Viagra and Cialis spams. Think yourself lucky... I just get loads of weight-loss spam without so much as an inkling of sexual innuendo. Someone's trying to tell me something.
But when it comes to dealing with large quantities of email, the best tactic I find is to delegate. Reply with the standard "Interesting point, what do you think is the best solution?" and then when they get back... "Great!"
Also, I use Thunderbird - I sorely wish someone would develop an addon which ranks email by historical levels of correspondance, length of correspondance, domain, etc.. Those who you write a lot to at length are bound to be more important, and need immediate attention.
I have to agree - but what really interests me is how ably the RIAA are undermining the whole point of their paltry existence. The ability for young bands to produce their own music is moving along at a fair pace - customers are more able to peruse alternatives music sources online... surely it is just a question of time before the middleman's (and thuggish sidekick the RIAA) become irrelevant? Oh, it's already happening.
So for the RIAA to alienate music listeners (customers) further beggars belief.
Indeed - and one of the more interesting pieces of information they will collect is risk taking attitude. There's a bunch of psychology studies suggesting that risk attitude measured one way (e.g. in a poker game) can explain risk taking in a bunch of other domains. For example, smeone who enjoys gambling would most likely like the odd alcohol drink, or investing in more risky stocks, etc. There are, of course, a lot of other factors which mediate this relationship but when you are aggregating across a large population, as Google are, these predictions can make a lot of sense. But of course, perhaps the simple fact that someone is playing poker on line is enough to say they are risk takers without doing any additional fancy analysis. Still, all very interesting stuff.
The SIM PlanetQuest instrument will be so accurate, it could measure the thickness of a nickel at a distance from Earth to the moon.
This is quite an exciting prospect "quite"?! This is seriously cool... I'm no expert in such things but I am totally amazed by the ability of people to put together such a project. This is the real world, not science *fiction*. Hats off to them and I seriously hope they log into/. to fill us in on their progress.
I've just started using a dSLR, Cannon as it happens, after trying to use a dinky little digital camera last year in Africa. The main reason being that, while the smaller camera was ok from a bore friends and family with repetitive pictures of elephants perspective, I really yearned for a telephoto lens. So my logic was a 10-megapixel dSLR with a telephoto lens would allow me far far better chances of nabbing a decent photo, or cropping one to look decent, in that open air environment (and I need all the help I can get). This is something no mobile phone can ever hope to achieve.
Televised ritualistic testicular hangings as punishment. Two strikes and you're sterile.
News just in:- Female IT workers around the world have breathed a collective sigh of relief.
Seriously though, accountability seems to be the key. It feels like (hands up, I'm no expert in this area) that people can get away with some of the shoddiest practices when it comes to safeguarding other peoples' personal data. I don't think it is enough to expect the market (in that serious breach of security and loss of data will cost that organisation customers) to regulate itself. It's like shutting the gate after the horse has bolted. There needs to be something up front - focusing organisations' minds on making sure this does not happen in the first place. I would say that an organisation that handles, for example, credit card data should be made accountable for any losses directly attributable to mishandling that data plus some compensation in lieu of the time required to close the account, order new cards, etc..
Completely agree with your sentiments on 'real' versus 'pseudo' punk. Punk, as I remember it, was partly a reaction against mainstream... mainstream music ("All that phoney beatlemania has bitten the dust", The Clash), authority, etc.. These days, being a bit anti is the new mainstream so modern punk, if it sticks to the founding philosophy, is, by definition, mainstream. Or something like that.
Now to the topic at hand - so what. Not every test is 100% reliable. False positives exist. This is a headline story for what reason exactly? There's going to be some varience here - some tests are better than others. I guess the problem is where you have sloppy tests in the wrong hands being used ineffectively to adversley affect someone's life.
I see no reason we can't eventually re-create the likes of a Da Vinci.
I would disagree with this point, however. I think we do recreate Da Vinci's every day of every year. But most of these guys don't look right, don't get the right opportunities, are born to parents who don't give a stuff, are born into poverty, etc., etc..
But what if you could, hypothetically, re-create Da Vinci? He might mature, apply his enormous intellect to his creation, realise that the optimum characteristics required to survive our murky world are stupidity and aggression, successfully argue in court that you purposefully set him at a disadvantage and sue you out of existence.
But surely, to the inexperienced, anything can look "safe" e.g. www.urbank.safe. As others have already suggested above, it's better to educate than attempt structural changes to protect the naive.
I would welcome a site which outlawed anonymous accounts and might even join one. I also like the idea that I can post anonymously, send anonymous emails, blow whistles and so forth. I really don't think that there's much fruitful discussion in arguing whether some such site should or shouldn't allow anonymity - there's a market for both perspectives and people will go where they feel most comfortable.
In the academic world, for example, discussion is mostly open and the discussants can be easily identified. This doesn't mean that some junior academic shouldn't be allowed to post about some prof's misdemeanors anonymously on caughtintheact.blogspot.com or wherever. What would be wrong is to have blanket regulations outlawing anonymity across the interweb - that would both undermine civil liberties and be unworkable.
As a parent my reaction to violent games comes from the generic processes governing a lot of emotional reactions. If I get stung by a wasp (bear with me on this) then I learn to fear wasps. I also show fear to other, similar, winged insects and the intensity of that fear is proportional to the similarity between the wasp and that other winged insect. Similarly, with games, my concern grows as their similarity to real violence increases. Pacman? No problem. A (hypothetical) 3D virtual environment with realistic weapons, 'enemies' and gore that mirrors Friday night in casualty? No, I don't think kids should have access.
One reason why access, imho, should be prohibited is that, according to the psychology I've read, children are born 'beasts' and learn to inhibit their violent urges (rather than born naive and become corrupted). A realistically violent video game does not, inho, provide a positive learning experience and, if anything, amplifies the cult of the gun, knife and diminishes the value of human life. Worse, they do not teach an important aspect of morality, empathy.
Now I'm pretty certain that most parents can and will bring their children up to be upstanding citizens, I also think there's a fair few people in this thread with some excellent thoughts on the matter, on both sides of the argument (there's also a few who clearly have no experience of bringing up children, but who will most likely do well as a parent). The people I worry about are the not particularly intelligent, not that bothered, don't post on/., couldn't care less kind of people. The people who breed because they can't work out how to use prophylactics. There's balance between our freedom to enjoy whatever leisure activity we choose and the possibility that we might be educating a bunch of kids to shoot first think later. Educating kids that it's cool to carry a knife or a gun.
Ok - so, above, we've also heard from a bunch of people extolling the virtues of pacman, and other innocuous games. What would we miss out on and what benefits would we see if realistically violent games were outlawed? I think we wouldn't lose anything but might gain something. So personally I would outlaw games which enabled players to use realistic weapons to inflict harm and/or kill realistic enemies. It is the similarity with 'real life' that's the problem, in my mind.
Advances in technology can have a very important and positive impact on the lives of the visually impaired. Take, for example, the recent advent of home delivery which has caught on in the UK. The blind can now phone up supermarkets and have groceries delivered to their door - they no longer need the services of sighted folks. Email, as well, means that they have another means of communicating. There are readers which can take text and convert it to either voice or braille - again, they do not require sighted folks input and can manage personal affairs with some privacy. All this is great and it is wonderful to see the tech world take greater interest in helping the visually impaired. But, there are two problems. First, cost. Browse a few sights which sell aids for the blind and you'll see that the prices are extortionate - well beyond the means of most blind people.
But the most important issue, and the one that makes this idea founder, is that mostly it's sighted folks implementing their ideas on what would make the world a better place for the blind. No blind person would likely find themselves wandering an unknown city without some assistance from either a guidedog or sighted assistant. Why? It's not the walls and what not that are the problem... its the idiots who park their cars on pavements, the morons who let their dogs foul the pavements, it's town planners who let trees grow over pavements putting overhanging branches in the way. And so on, and so on. Disrespect is one of the biggest barriers and something that cannot be easily resoved with 'force-fields'.
Absolutely - I get the feeling here that 'wolf' has acted as judge and jury in his own mind in deciding that the video in question contains nothing of relevance. I can understand why someone would protect the identity of a whistle-blower, political activist, etc.. particularly where revealing their identity could put them in danger (e.g. chinese activists, etc.). but ptotecting the identity of someone who physically assaults another person? I find the crime abhorrent and the desire to protect the perpetrator questionable.
And any forklift driver with a pair of bolt cutters can take it from you. These things will normally be sited in industrial areas. You are one forklift or truck driver away from losing that asset, ether physically or because of an accident.
This is a really important point - anything portable can be stolen and a box loaded with computer hardware is going to pretty desireable. So there may be advantages in more localised systems but there's going to be some security costs as well.
If I'm out and about and need to look something up on the web I no longer try and use my mobo... call me lazy if you want, but I ring someone up who is most likely sat in front of a machine and kindly as them to do it for me. I don't know if it's me, my eyesight or what (ok, enough of the porn gags) but I just find it really hard to anything useful on such a small screen. Particularly as I usually carry a tablet and can usually find a wireless network. Surfing the net on my phone is a neat idea, I just can't see anyone using it a great deal. Am I alone here?
As you rightly say, there is a group of 'problem, persistent offenders' in the UK. however, their number is relatively small. For example, in one (small) UK city the top ten offenders accounted for an estimated 80% of reported crime. These people have problems with authority and may also have problems of a more psychiatric nature. In the UK there's currently some considerable interest in what might be used to address the behaviour of this small minority. And, yep, talking CCTV cameras will most likely not work.
These CCTV cameras are best used at tackling crime/disorder which goes unreported. For example, graffiti, littering, public urination, etc. These behaviours have a pretty negative impact on residents' sense of security, fears and so forth and are notoriously hard to police. For example, one of the strongest causes of residents' fear of crime is graffiti. The talking CCTV cameras can help prevent these minor crimes, saving money in clear-up costs, stopping cities becoming run down, etc..
So, yes, there may well be important issues regarding privacy. But these cameras do seem to work in addressing problems that are pretty difficult to address in other ways.
Nothing beats giving a cow a jolly good orking, I say.
As for the original idea of giving chimps human rights... first of all, it's probably a leftover April fools story. Even so, imho, you can't give primates human rights in the same way you can't give primates bowler hats and umbrellas, they just don't fit. Sure, develop primate rights and model them on human rights but blurring this species barrier to this extent is, imho, just plain daft. What next? Equal ops and positive discrimination?
Here in Portugal the 3 major channels (RTP, SIC, TVI) use to roll out ads for 15, 20 minutes, for goodness sake!
Seriously?! I guess we are kind of lucky here in the UK as we have the BBC. But it would be interesting to see channels' market share by %adverts (controlling for content, etc.) to see if the intangible cost to viewers can be worked out... i.e. how much extra would you pay for a reduction in x minutes of advertising? My worry is that content providers are working under the assumption that more ads does not equal less viewing pleasure - which might mean we are all heading for the Portugese model.
True - and good point - but animal studies do show the brain adapts to external stimulation so the point is valid. Didn't someone win the Ignobel prize for this taxi driver study?
While the idea of boosting our sensory abilities is appealing I'm not sure that it is something that I would like to play with. The brain is malleable and can rewire itself as it learns (plasticity). This happens most obviously when we learn... and a great example is that the a London taxi driver's hippocampus is significantly larger than non-taxi-driving controls. The hippocampus helps process spatial information, hence the increased size in taxi drivers.
But these changes through experience are fairly permanent and coupled with the brains finite computational power this would mean devoting brain resources to specific extra-sensory processing. This, firstly, takes processing power from existing processes and, secondly, means any upgrades would need to be relearnt over time. In other words, by the time you've learnt how to use smelly-vision(tm) version 1, version 2 will be released and you'll have to start the whole learning thing all over again.
Slashdot Mirror
But when it comes to dealing with large quantities of email, the best tactic I find is to delegate. Reply with the standard "Interesting point, what do you think is the best solution?" and then when they get back... "Great!"
Also, I use Thunderbird - I sorely wish someone would develop an addon which ranks email by historical levels of correspondance, length of correspondance, domain, etc.. Those who you write a lot to at length are bound to be more important, and need immediate attention.
I have to agree - but what really interests me is how ably the RIAA are undermining the whole point of their paltry existence. The ability for young bands to produce their own music is moving along at a fair pace - customers are more able to peruse alternatives music sources online... surely it is just a question of time before the middleman's (and thuggish sidekick the RIAA) become irrelevant? Oh, it's already happening. So for the RIAA to alienate music listeners (customers) further beggars belief.
Here you go - all your facial hair needs addressed, and no need for expensive gene therapy!
Indeed - and one of the more interesting pieces of information they will collect is risk taking attitude. There's a bunch of psychology studies suggesting that risk attitude measured one way (e.g. in a poker game) can explain risk taking in a bunch of other domains. For example, smeone who enjoys gambling would most likely like the odd alcohol drink, or investing in more risky stocks, etc. There are, of course, a lot of other factors which mediate this relationship but when you are aggregating across a large population, as Google are, these predictions can make a lot of sense. But of course, perhaps the simple fact that someone is playing poker on line is enough to say they are risk takers without doing any additional fancy analysis. Still, all very interesting stuff.
RC4; Base64 Encoding; Key = "pwned" _u1vwUPCo9UmFlqaft"mEfCZOvJ6zB4V2JL6Nk5qU0_LRh8dTF "6S0JsNk8g
nGc
I've just started using a dSLR, Cannon as it happens, after trying to use a dinky little digital camera last year in Africa. The main reason being that, while the smaller camera was ok from a bore friends and family with repetitive pictures of elephants perspective, I really yearned for a telephoto lens. So my logic was a 10-megapixel dSLR with a telephoto lens would allow me far far better chances of nabbing a decent photo, or cropping one to look decent, in that open air environment (and I need all the help I can get). This is something no mobile phone can ever hope to achieve.
I love Indian cuisine. And now I rejoice in the knowledge that should I ever make it into orbit I can send for a curry!
News just in:- Female IT workers around the world have breathed a collective sigh of relief.
Seriously though, accountability seems to be the key. It feels like (hands up, I'm no expert in this area) that people can get away with some of the shoddiest practices when it comes to safeguarding other peoples' personal data. I don't think it is enough to expect the market (in that serious breach of security and loss of data will cost that organisation customers) to regulate itself. It's like shutting the gate after the horse has bolted. There needs to be something up front - focusing organisations' minds on making sure this does not happen in the first place. I would say that an organisation that handles, for example, credit card data should be made accountable for any losses directly attributable to mishandling that data plus some compensation in lieu of the time required to close the account, order new cards, etc..
I see no reason we can't eventually re-create the likes of a Da Vinci.
I would disagree with this point, however. I think we do recreate Da Vinci's every day of every year. But most of these guys don't look right, don't get the right opportunities, are born to parents who don't give a stuff, are born into poverty, etc., etc..
But what if you could, hypothetically, re-create Da Vinci? He might mature, apply his enormous intellect to his creation, realise that the optimum characteristics required to survive our murky world are stupidity and aggression, successfully argue in court that you purposefully set him at a disadvantage and sue you out of existence.
But surely, to the inexperienced, anything can look "safe" e.g. www.urbank.safe. As others have already suggested above, it's better to educate than attempt structural changes to protect the naive.
In the academic world, for example, discussion is mostly open and the discussants can be easily identified. This doesn't mean that some junior academic shouldn't be allowed to post about some prof's misdemeanors anonymously on caughtintheact.blogspot.com or wherever. What would be wrong is to have blanket regulations outlawing anonymity across the interweb - that would both undermine civil liberties and be unworkable.
One reason why access, imho, should be prohibited is that, according to the psychology I've read, children are born 'beasts' and learn to inhibit their violent urges (rather than born naive and become corrupted). A realistically violent video game does not, inho, provide a positive learning experience and, if anything, amplifies the cult of the gun, knife and diminishes the value of human life. Worse, they do not teach an important aspect of morality, empathy.
Now I'm pretty certain that most parents can and will bring their children up to be upstanding citizens, I also think there's a fair few people in this thread with some excellent thoughts on the matter, on both sides of the argument (there's also a few who clearly have no experience of bringing up children, but who will most likely do well as a parent). The people I worry about are the not particularly intelligent, not that bothered, don't post on /., couldn't care less kind of people. The people who breed because they can't work out how to use prophylactics. There's balance between our freedom to enjoy whatever leisure activity we choose and the possibility that we might be educating a bunch of kids to shoot first think later. Educating kids that it's cool to carry a knife or a gun.
Ok - so, above, we've also heard from a bunch of people extolling the virtues of pacman, and other innocuous games. What would we miss out on and what benefits would we see if realistically violent games were outlawed? I think we wouldn't lose anything but might gain something. So personally I would outlaw games which enabled players to use realistic weapons to inflict harm and/or kill realistic enemies. It is the similarity with 'real life' that's the problem, in my mind.
But the most important issue, and the one that makes this idea founder, is that mostly it's sighted folks implementing their ideas on what would make the world a better place for the blind. No blind person would likely find themselves wandering an unknown city without some assistance from either a guidedog or sighted assistant. Why? It's not the walls and what not that are the problem... its the idiots who park their cars on pavements, the morons who let their dogs foul the pavements, it's town planners who let trees grow over pavements putting overhanging branches in the way. And so on, and so on. Disrespect is one of the biggest barriers and something that cannot be easily resoved with 'force-fields'.
Sorry to rant, it's a nice idea...
Absolutely - I get the feeling here that 'wolf' has acted as judge and jury in his own mind in deciding that the video in question contains nothing of relevance. I can understand why someone would protect the identity of a whistle-blower, political activist, etc.. particularly where revealing their identity could put them in danger (e.g. chinese activists, etc.). but ptotecting the identity of someone who physically assaults another person? I find the crime abhorrent and the desire to protect the perpetrator questionable.
Neat - hadn't thought of that - so which model is best suited for seduction? I think I should research this angle...
This is a really important point - anything portable can be stolen and a box loaded with computer hardware is going to pretty desireable. So there may be advantages in more localised systems but there's going to be some security costs as well.
If I'm out and about and need to look something up on the web I no longer try and use my mobo... call me lazy if you want, but I ring someone up who is most likely sat in front of a machine and kindly as them to do it for me. I don't know if it's me, my eyesight or what (ok, enough of the porn gags) but I just find it really hard to anything useful on such a small screen. Particularly as I usually carry a tablet and can usually find a wireless network. Surfing the net on my phone is a neat idea, I just can't see anyone using it a great deal. Am I alone here?
These CCTV cameras are best used at tackling crime/disorder which goes unreported. For example, graffiti, littering, public urination, etc. These behaviours have a pretty negative impact on residents' sense of security, fears and so forth and are notoriously hard to police. For example, one of the strongest causes of residents' fear of crime is graffiti. The talking CCTV cameras can help prevent these minor crimes, saving money in clear-up costs, stopping cities becoming run down, etc..
So, yes, there may well be important issues regarding privacy. But these cameras do seem to work in addressing problems that are pretty difficult to address in other ways.
Nothing beats giving a cow a jolly good orking, I say.
As for the original idea of giving chimps human rights... first of all, it's probably a leftover April fools story. Even so, imho, you can't give primates human rights in the same way you can't give primates bowler hats and umbrellas, they just don't fit. Sure, develop primate rights and model them on human rights but blurring this species barrier to this extent is, imho, just plain daft. What next? Equal ops and positive discrimination?
Seriously?! I guess we are kind of lucky here in the UK as we have the BBC. But it would be interesting to see channels' market share by %adverts (controlling for content, etc.) to see if the intangible cost to viewers can be worked out... i.e. how much extra would you pay for a reduction in x minutes of advertising? My worry is that content providers are working under the assumption that more ads does not equal less viewing pleasure - which might mean we are all heading for the Portugese model.
True - and good point - but animal studies do show the brain adapts to external stimulation so the point is valid. Didn't someone win the Ignobel prize for this taxi driver study?
That would be Steve Mann. AFAIK - he once wired up a radar to assist his bike rides.
But these changes through experience are fairly permanent and coupled with the brains finite computational power this would mean devoting brain resources to specific extra-sensory processing. This, firstly, takes processing power from existing processes and, secondly, means any upgrades would need to be relearnt over time. In other words, by the time you've learnt how to use smelly-vision(tm) version 1, version 2 will be released and you'll have to start the whole learning thing all over again.