I find it irritating that so much of the (massive) media attention on wikipedia right now hinges on a false dichotomy: whether it will (a) render the Encyclopedia Britannica obselete; or (b) implode. Reasonably, the question is not whether wikipedia will succeed, but the extent to which it will succeed.
I predict that within a year, (a) Wikipedia will have adopted a/. or ebay style reputation system; (b) the scope of changes that a user may make will be, to some extent, limited by his reputation level; and (c) anonymous users will be either banned from edits or severely limited.
These changes would, while not solving all problems, solve most of the problems that have been identified to date.
People like these stories (or rather this story, again, and again, and again) because it's like showing your (geeky) gang colors, and because repurposing hardware feels subversive, IMHO. I hope the trend keeps developing, actually; the day I can give the woman in my life a 10gb chunk of flashmemory in lieu of a chunk of crystallized carbon that does fuck all aside from benefit from the machinations of a global crystallized carbon cartel will be a good day.
Mod me -1: absurdly alliterative. It's late, I'm tired.
Gah! Dvorak is not faster. It's an urban myth. I've heard some people suggest that it is more comfortable, but this is largely a matter of presonal preference.
This just confirms what we already suspected: dial-up users are the new lepers in our wired heirarchical society, and they're dissatisfied about it.
Moiche
That's a fascinating interpretation. Only problem I see with it is that it doesn't explain how the Oracle created Agent Smith, when the series pretty strongly indicates that the "rogue" agent was a consquence of Neo's absorption of Smith in the first movie.
An alternative interpretation: Smith addressed the oracle as mom for reasons that the Architect made clear in the second movie -- that if he is the Matrix's father, than she is its mother. He created the technical framework, whereas she donated some human element that allowed it convincingly enrapture humanity, after the failure of the original Matrix. The "dangerous game" comment could have referred either to the Oracle's willingness to allow herself to be absorbed by Agent Smith, or to her manipulation and aid of Neo and the exiles in the first place.
When you said "he does'nt", what did you mean?
--Moiche
Anyone who thought that the Matrix was a literary masterwork must have been deeply confused. It was, however, a cinematic masterwork.
Movies are pretty fundamentally different from books, especially in the way that they get profound. A profound book can delve as deeply and densely into a given subject as the author desires, since the reader -- if properly motivated -- can read, and re-read, and re-re-read, until they feel that they have some insight into the author's intent. Whereas with a movie, at least when seen in a theater (and most movies are crafted with the audience in mind being a theater audience, and not a DVD audience -- although this may change) the audience is given only one try to absorb the work that the screenwriter/director/cast has created, and absorb it through 3 times as many senses as you would a book (4 if you are in an especially fragrant theater). If you take a moment to think about what are generally considered, among many cinephiles, to be the finest works of film, you will see that they are not nearly as thematically complex or challenging as works of literature held in similar esteem. Fellini's 8 1/2, Kubrik's Clockwork Orange, Bergman's The Seventh Seal, from a thematical point of view all pale in contrast with Joyce's Ullyses, and Tolstoy's War and Peace.
The Matrix was a great film, even from a critical perspective (as opposed to a visceral perspective) because it introduced new language in film's visual vocabulary, and because it did implicate interesting themes -- even if it wasn't as revelatory as some of the fanboys suggest, and even if it wasn't as profound as Nietzsche's "Thus Spoke Zarathustra". I think your standards may be a tinch high.
Agreed. But occasionaly even the professionals write a review that starts with: "I'll admit that I loathed this book so profoundly, I could not coax myself into finishing it." Presumably to act as an advisory more than anything else.
To be perfectly honest, what I found most jarring about the review, was the reviewers indication that he had purchased the book in part because it had a promising cover. Gee -- isn't there an aphorism about that?
If memory serves, and it will have to since I don't feel like finding a script, Agent Smith/Oracle indicates that he foresaw Neo's loss, and that his duplicates would therefore stay out because they weren't needed. Thing is -- Smith does win the fight, and only after converting Neo does he explode. Presumably, the Oracle anticipated all of this, and this was her motivation for allowing Agent Smith to infect her in the first place.
That being said, the whole premise of the final movie was internally incoherent. If Neo represented the error factor in the Machine's attempt to create a perfectly captivating cyber-world to enslave humanity, why would he be the key to defeating a rogue agent that was never fighting on the Machine's behalf in the first place? The implication is that the Machines and Neo brokered a peace based on Neo's ability to defeat Agent Smith, but there is never any explanation about how an X factor like Smith fits in with the supposed cyles of defeat/rebirth of the exiled humans. Any attempt at profound analysis of this material beyond the first movie is probably a non-starter.
They may have to skip the beta this time. I don't think I'd trust a pre-release version of the software to transfer money.
me: I transferred 100$ for his pog collection. Where did it go?
google support: But it's beta! And Beta means we can fuck up from time to time!
Also -- not competing with Paypal because they aren't going to store money? Sure, but won't google add that functionality the moment it becomes commercially advantageous? Not to mention the fact that I think for most people, an instanteous credit to your credit card (or bank account or whatever) when you get paid for you antique pog collection is not such a bad thing.
Final thought -- for every post in this thread complaining about the number of Google stories on/. -- God kills a kitten. What -- prove me wrong.
Not to be too pedantic, but framing the discussion in terms of paid content/no paid content offers two options, neither of which is accurate. "Nail in the coffin of paid content on the internet"? Who is the poster kidding? So CNN is streaming free video. So what. NYTimes, which has long offered its daily paper free after registration (insert slashdot/NYTimes registration meta humor here), is going to start charging for its OP-ed columns, and a few other tasty morsels. Does that mean that we can expect (or have we already seen) a news item on slashdot referring to a "nail in the coffin of free content on the internet" -- because NYT is starting to charge for content?
I mean . . . it's not that hard. Intarweb is new tech, in that society had really integrated phones until about half a century after their invention, and we are still within three decades of the DARPA network. The market hasn't really figured out what works paid and unpaid on the internet -- hence the juicy webcomic discussion/controversy over whether or not micropayments work. But we can count on the fact that there will always be some stuff that is paid content (because the cost of development and provision far exceeds the potential income derived from advertising or marketing while providing the content free) and some stuff that is free. Things like the CNN streaming of live video is just the market settling -- and I guarantee that the streaming video will incorporate advertisements, so by some definitions, it's not exactly free. Seeing anything in the CNN decision regarding the larger issue of charging for content on the internet seems to me like sophomoric thinking -- unless I'm missing something?
Real estate is not a life necessity. Housing is a necessity. Demand for real estate is exceptionally elastic, since most real estate is bought or sold for investment purposes. However, real estate tends to be a good investment, because for the private investor with limited real estate holdings, if the market tanks, you can always live there until the market recovers.
Demand for real estate, pork bellies, and virtual real estate is elastic to some degree or another. My point is that demand for pork bellies is less elastic than demand for virtual real estate. True, demand for pork bellies could drop precipitously for any number of reasons, tomorrow. However, the worth attributed to pork bellies is not a complete social fabrication since you can always do something with them (don't ask me what though). Whereas virtual real estate is like a currency that your neighbour put out -- sure it may be worth something today among a small group of people who know and respect your neighbour, but if your neighbour declares tomorrow that the currency is worthless (or dilutes the market by printing 1,000,000 NeighbourBucks), the currency will most likely become worthless. Same thing with Second Life virtual property. Pull the plug on the servers hosting Second Life, or start offering complementary enormous tracts of land with every 25 cent purchase of Booboo Bites, and the property instantaneously becomes worthless.
Hence my list of criteria for virtual property to start being less like NeighbourBucks and more like pork bellies.
I got an inordinate amount of pleasure out of writing that last sentence.
Ha! You're saying "Enough on this" just when I thought that the conversation was getting interesting. If you haven't already read "Snow Crash", you really must -- Hiro Protagonist (the, ahem, hero and protagonist) lives in a U-Store-It, but owns valuable property in the Metaverse, where he spends most of his time. I find this completely plausible. The moment that a massive multiplayer offers a sensation so immersive that it actually feels like being there, I have no doubt that people who feel land poor but who can afford broadband (i.e., the young and upwordly mobile of Hong Kong, London, Tokyo, and Manhattan) will buying castles and mansions. And yes, I know that for many massive multiplayer fans, it already feels like you are there -- but I'm thinking about people in general, and not the minority that currently games in a massive multiplayer.
Not that I anticipate this brave new world with without hesitations. To paraphrase Dennis Miller, the day an unemployed ironworker can go home, sit in his easy chair, open a beer, put on a headset, and fuck Claudia Schiffer (this was in the early '90s), it's going to make crack look like Sanka. Which leads to another interesting question: when people start investing large proportions of their net worth in virtual real estate, and start to work primarily in the massive multiplayer, are 80 hour weeks spent online going to start to become conventional?
Sorry, I got to go buy some shares in companies that manufacture adult diapers.
A red rash, usually on the chest -- much more common if the person has recently taken the antibiotics ampicillin or amoxicillin (both sold under several brand names)
Abdominal pain
Enlarged spleen
If you suffer from some or all of these symptoms, please consult your GP, and for heaven's sakes don't kiss anyone on the lips.
I haven't read the whole thing, but just having taken a quick look at it, I have to agree with the posters who said that Google purposefully tried to cover any conceivable technique to index and rank pages. The application discusses multiple implementations of the various techniques that could be used to rank a page. Therefore analysis of the patent application is probably of limited utility for those trying to game PageRank (which was certainly a factor that Google's very competent IP lawyers considered before prosecuting the patent).
For those who are worried that Google is doing evil with this patent application, given the breadth of the patent and the fact that it discusses a plethora of techniques which Google may or may not be using, I will be surprised to see Google try to use this patent (or be able to use this patent) to push another search engine out of the market. More likely, I think, is that this will constitute prior art to enable Google to withstand challenges from other patent applicants for infringement. Of course, if you know anything about PageRank, you know that it was getting published in Scientific American long before Google was the dominant search engine. So this patent application is probably more to prevent allegations that Google infringed by adding on all the other checks and balances to the original PageRank technology to discourage spam sites.
Apparently, the point you were making was that most people in Japan, China, and the Phillipines are priced out of the real estate market, so they might enjoy some virtual real estate. While it is true that the percentage of people who own land is much higher in the United States, I think you will find that a significant factor behind this is that per capita wealth is higher in the States than in China or the Phillipines, and land tends to be expensive. In which case, titling your post "Western vs. Eastern" was misleading, since this is really a difference between the developed world and the developing world.
Now this is an interesting point since it ties in with Hernando de Soto's "The Mystery of Capital", which was referenced in TFA as one of the inspirations behind offering a virtual real estate market in the first place. Only De Soto didn't focus on feelings of self-worth derived from land ownership; his thesis was that the poor in developing countries existed out of the legal market entirely, and could not enter it because (a) by and large the poor in developing countries are squatters; and (b) bureaucracy. De Soto suggested that squatters be granted ownership rights in the land they squatted upon, so that they could use their equity to enter the legal market, start businesses, etc.
One problem with applying De Soto's thesis: you can't live on virtual property. (Apologies to WOW addicts everywhere).
Pardon me, you're quite correct. The point I was trying to make was that derivatives will tend to be less volatile than investments in virtual property in massive multiplayers like Second Life because derivatives tend to have some (extenuated relationship) to real world goods with fixed supplies and (often) inelastic demands, whereas the value of virtual property is entirely a figment in the imagination of the market or user base.
To bring it back to pork bellies, a call option in pork bellies can be expected to be less volatile than a stake in virtual property in Second Life because the market for pork bellies is more predictable.
I strongly disagree. Your claim that land ownership is beyond fathoming for many people in China, Japan, and the Phillipines is objectively verifiable as incorrect. Japan, in particular, has a real estate market that has been over the past 20 years more volatile and widely held among Japanese than the American real estate market. Japanese real estate reached such a height of speculation in the late '80s that the Imperial Gardens in the center of Tokyo were valued at an amount greater than all the land in the United States at the time. About $60 billion USD was invested in Chinese real estate speculation in 2001 (private purchase and sale of real estate in China has been legal for decades despite the communist government). The Phillipines has operated on a thorougly Americanized capitalist model since WWII, and your inclusion of it is bizarre.
Where you got the idea that these countries are characterized by an inability to fathom land ownership is difficult for me to fathom. Perhaps you are perpetuating absurdly out of date stereotypes about attitudes toward material possessions among adherents to Buddhism, Shintoism, Communism in South-East Asia? If that is the case, please read up. Buddhism is officially suppressed in China, Shinto is on the wane in Japan, both religions have a vast majority of adherents who do not find accumulating material possessions to conflict with their religious beliefs, and the Phillipines is a majority Catholic country! Also -- as I already pointed out, the communist government in China has permitted private transactions such as real estate sales since Deng Xiaping's reforms -- which began 30 years ago.
Finally, your contention that virtual land, through appealing to the self-worth of the peoples you've pigeonholed as not being able to understand land ownership, borders on the absurd. Why would ownership at all contribute to self-worth among people who supposedly can't contemplate it in the first place? Wouldn't feelings of self-worth just be derived from accumulation of material possessions -- which in turn would require virtual land to be worth something?
Your entire line of reasoning smacks of the "Mysteries of the Orient" trope which was (barely) excusable in the 1870's, but is no longer. Spend some time in China, Japan, or the Phillipines, and you will find millions of savvy, throughougly capitalistic and materialistic businesspeople more than willing to buy and trade things worth money. Sure they may extract feelings of worth from accumulating an ass load of land -- but then again so does Donald Trump, and last I looked he lives in the East.
Like Dutch Tulip Bulbs, virtual real estate on Second Life will continue to have customers as long as it looks like there may be a greater fool to pay more for it down the line. The moment that purchasers cease to believe they will be able to sell their properties at a profit (or at all), we will see bubble-bursting, where everyone tries to sell their property at the same time, and the property instantaneously becomes valueless.
What is particularly scary about virtual property in a massive multiplayer is that the good is so completely unlinked to reality that virtually anything could burst the bubble. An executive in the company hosting is accused of embezzlement -- *pow*. The hosting company enters Chapter 11 -- *pow*. A new fad massive multiplayer starts up -- *pow*.
This is why the comparisons against derivatives are misguided. True derivatives are not physical things, but still, an option to buy pork bellies at a certian price in the future will not become worthless without pork bellies themselves becoming worthless. Whereas property on Second Life can become worthless for an infinite set of reasons.
I believe that the idea of objectively valuable virtual property, as explored by Neal Stephenson in Snow Crash (The Street), will someday become a reality. But not until: (1) hosting the massive multiplayer is distributed among organizations that can't go bankrupt; (2)the massive multiplayer is either continuously upgraded or technology independent (perhaps a standard forum that will be interpreted in different ways depending upon the users client; (3) the massive multiplayer somehow guarantees scarcity, at least of more and less desirability property (perhaps by having a hotspot located near the hubs where avatars log on as seen in Snow Crash); (4) accounts are protected by really, really, really good user authentification programs (or else victims of a dictionary attack could lose 20k over night); (5) at least some of the user base is able to access the universe of the massive multiplayer in a thorougly immersive way.
I think it's just a matter of time before these conditions are met, and spending real money on virutal property starts to make sense. But I don't think we are there yet, and those who are looking at virtual property less as a game and more as an investment are playing with tulip bulbs.
True, the Z Machine is not a gun -- it's a giant magnetic field generator. I guess referring to a giant magnetic field generator as a "gun" works better from a journalistic prespective.
However -- rail guns are on the cusp of military viability. The University of Texas at Austin's Institute of Advanced Technology got 10 million dollars to develop viable rail guns. Just a month ago Janes reported that a prototype of the military rail gun had been tested, and that it was nearing viability.
UT-IAT has devised a common low-cost projectile concept for both naval surface-fire support and army non line-of-sight (NLOS) engagements using an EM gun launcher. It has a flight mass of 15 kg and contains either multiple kinetic-energy flechettes or a smaller number of sub penetrators made of tungsten. In its naval guise it has a muzzle energy of 64 MJ; a muzzle velocity of 2,500 m/s; a maximum range in excess of 500 km and an impact velocity of 1,600 m/s. From a more size-constrained land tactical platform it would be expected to have a muzzle energy of 20 MJ; a muzzle velocity of 1,400 m/s and an impact velocity of 700 m/s out to ranges in excess of 100 km.
That article really made me wish I had a Jane's subscription. Apparently, the limiting factor is the size of the capacitor -- if they can get this down than naval applications within a few years are plausible.
Incidentally, a fun game, if you're ever bored, is to imagine what would happen to the human body if one were to hold and fire a rail gun (even a wimpy one that shot at a mere 1,600m/s and not at "near the speed of light"), and the law of conservation of momentum actually worked. Really! Try at parties!
I agree with all of what you said. I should make clear that it was not my intention to imply that every attempt to review emails is legally grey. Indeed, as you point out, there are certain instances where employer review is clearly legal or clearly illegal. However, and this was my point, it is impossible to make a blanket statement regarding the legality of reviewing employees emails without first considering any number of significant details -- some of which you mention.
With reference to the various privileges you mention, generally speaking (and the operative word here is generally), the IT professional reviewing the emails operates as the agent either of the client or of the corporation, and therefore privilege would not be broken. Of course, this assumes that the parties to the sensitive communication are the employer and the law firm, and that the individual lawyer and employee are also acting on behalf of their law firm and employer respectively.
In response to the numerous posters wondering whether the practice of monitoring employee email is legal: the one thing you can be sure of is that anyone who tells you straight yes or straight no doesn't know what they are talking about.
Believe or not there are actually at least four different bases on which you could (but probably won't be able to successfully) argue for a right to privacy with regard to email communications sent from work:
(i) The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which reads: "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures" -- but which only applies toward government action (although some pretty surprising apparently private actions can qualify as "governmental");
(ii) the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), which covers email, and prohibits "(1) unauthorized and intentional 'interception' of wire, oral, and electronic communications during the transmission phase, and (2) unauthorized 'accessing' of electronically stored wire or electronic communications." -- but allows exceptions for companies which provide internet service, and does not apply if the employee consents to ECPA violations;
(iii) State statutes, which obviously vary wildly from state to state. The article that I'm using as my primary source notes that "
Members of state legislatures have attempted to pass bills that would strengthen the protections of workers against electronic monitoring in the workplace, but they have generally failed because of sustained and effective corporate lobbying." (*mweheheheheh*).
(iv) Common law (which also varies from state to state) which sometimes recognizes an "actionable right to privacy" -- but under different caveats in each state.
Ummm . . . so yah -- it's complicated, so much so in fact that it's an open question in various states whether or not its legal. Also -- not surprisingly -- the legality of the monitoring will often depend on the purpose of monitoring, the purpose of the communication, sometimes even the industry you're working in, etc. Good luck figuring it out -- especially if you signed a (now practically standard) agreement allowing your employer to snoop through your work emails at will.
Generally, when the law is this fuzzy, corps will do whatever is in their best interest, and count on their lawyers being better than your lawyer if you sue. They're generally right. So assume that your workplace email communications are being monitored. We are the point now that it is never a good idea to send via email something you wouldn't mind all your colleagues seeing. Use Yahoo! or Gmail and at least make it a challenge for BigBroCorp to keep tracking of your on the job dicta. Of course, sending risque stuff from your workplace email may be your chance to befamous. Hehe.
By this rationale, obese jedi would be god-like. Hmmmmm. . . . That would have been a much better movie.
I think most slashdotters who disliked ROTS (the smart ones), were thinking the same thing as they waited for the movie to end: "If Fox had (i) played Firefly sequentially in its main time slot; (ii) marketed Firefly; and (iii) not moved its time slot repeatedly, it would still be on in new episodes.
I give up. New plan. Joss Whedon makes shows in his living room with shadow puppets, sends me mpegs, and I send him money in a box.
I do the business professional thing. We all dock our laptops and attach big honkin' external LCD monitors to the docks. We all have desktops at home, and software to emulate our work desktop environment from home. The laptop is only useful during travel, and that's when we want them as small and as light as possible. Quite frankly, when we can start editing ".doc"s on our Blackberries, a lot of us will probably stop taking laptops on business trips altogether.
For business purposes, the 19'' integrated monitor is inane. LCD screens are fragile, and they become more fragile the larger they get. The last thing you want when you're running to make a flight is to see your $2k 19'' integrated LCD laptop screen hit the ground and get pixel ebola. Not to mention the comments already made about the autoclave like heat coming off this monstrosity, and the inevitable hernias.
Not to say people won't buy 'em. There are enough people around for some small minority to make incredibly useless purchases. But from a business point of view, this laptop is absurd -- and certainly doesn't fit in the new business tech chic. Around here -- smaller is better. Lighter too.
The only purpose I can come up for one of these beauties? LAN parties. I guess someone should tell Dell about WOW.
Slashdot Mirror
I find it irritating that so much of the (massive) media attention on wikipedia right now hinges on a false dichotomy: whether it will (a) render the Encyclopedia Britannica obselete; or (b) implode. Reasonably, the question is not whether wikipedia will succeed, but the extent to which it will succeed. I predict that within a year, (a) Wikipedia will have adopted a /. or ebay style reputation system; (b) the scope of changes that a user may make will be, to some extent, limited by his reputation level; and (c) anonymous users will be either banned from edits or severely limited.
These changes would, while not solving all problems, solve most of the problems that have been identified to date.
Mod me -1: absurdly alliterative. It's late, I'm tired.
--Moiche
Moiche
--Moiche
This just confirms what we already suspected: dial-up users are the new lepers in our wired heirarchical society, and they're dissatisfied about it. Moiche
An alternative interpretation: Smith addressed the oracle as mom for reasons that the Architect made clear in the second movie -- that if he is the Matrix's father, than she is its mother. He created the technical framework, whereas she donated some human element that allowed it convincingly enrapture humanity, after the failure of the original Matrix. The "dangerous game" comment could have referred either to the Oracle's willingness to allow herself to be absorbed by Agent Smith, or to her manipulation and aid of Neo and the exiles in the first place.
When you said "he does'nt", what did you mean? --Moiche
Movies are pretty fundamentally different from books, especially in the way that they get profound. A profound book can delve as deeply and densely into a given subject as the author desires, since the reader -- if properly motivated -- can read, and re-read, and re-re-read, until they feel that they have some insight into the author's intent. Whereas with a movie, at least when seen in a theater (and most movies are crafted with the audience in mind being a theater audience, and not a DVD audience -- although this may change) the audience is given only one try to absorb the work that the screenwriter/director/cast has created, and absorb it through 3 times as many senses as you would a book (4 if you are in an especially fragrant theater). If you take a moment to think about what are generally considered, among many cinephiles, to be the finest works of film, you will see that they are not nearly as thematically complex or challenging as works of literature held in similar esteem. Fellini's 8 1/2, Kubrik's Clockwork Orange, Bergman's The Seventh Seal, from a thematical point of view all pale in contrast with Joyce's Ullyses, and Tolstoy's War and Peace.
The Matrix was a great film, even from a critical perspective (as opposed to a visceral perspective) because it introduced new language in film's visual vocabulary, and because it did implicate interesting themes -- even if it wasn't as revelatory as some of the fanboys suggest, and even if it wasn't as profound as Nietzsche's "Thus Spoke Zarathustra". I think your standards may be a tinch high.
Moiche
To be perfectly honest, what I found most jarring about the review, was the reviewers indication that he had purchased the book in part because it had a promising cover. Gee -- isn't there an aphorism about that?
Moiche
That being said, the whole premise of the final movie was internally incoherent. If Neo represented the error factor in the Machine's attempt to create a perfectly captivating cyber-world to enslave humanity, why would he be the key to defeating a rogue agent that was never fighting on the Machine's behalf in the first place? The implication is that the Machines and Neo brokered a peace based on Neo's ability to defeat Agent Smith, but there is never any explanation about how an X factor like Smith fits in with the supposed cyles of defeat/rebirth of the exiled humans. Any attempt at profound analysis of this material beyond the first movie is probably a non-starter.
Moiche
--Moiche
me: I transferred 100$ for his pog collection. Where did it go?
google support: But it's beta! And Beta means we can fuck up from time to time!
Also -- not competing with Paypal because they aren't going to store money? Sure, but won't google add that functionality the moment it becomes commercially advantageous? Not to mention the fact that I think for most people, an instanteous credit to your credit card (or bank account or whatever) when you get paid for you antique pog collection is not such a bad thing.
Final thought -- for every post in this thread complaining about the number of Google stories on /. -- God kills a kitten. What -- prove me wrong.
--Moiche
I mean . . . it's not that hard. Intarweb is new tech, in that society had really integrated phones until about half a century after their invention, and we are still within three decades of the DARPA network. The market hasn't really figured out what works paid and unpaid on the internet -- hence the juicy webcomic discussion/controversy over whether or not micropayments work. But we can count on the fact that there will always be some stuff that is paid content (because the cost of development and provision far exceeds the potential income derived from advertising or marketing while providing the content free) and some stuff that is free. Things like the CNN streaming of live video is just the market settling -- and I guarantee that the streaming video will incorporate advertisements, so by some definitions, it's not exactly free. Seeing anything in the CNN decision regarding the larger issue of charging for content on the internet seems to me like sophomoric thinking -- unless I'm missing something?
Regards,
Moiche
Demand for real estate, pork bellies, and virtual real estate is elastic to some degree or another. My point is that demand for pork bellies is less elastic than demand for virtual real estate. True, demand for pork bellies could drop precipitously for any number of reasons, tomorrow. However, the worth attributed to pork bellies is not a complete social fabrication since you can always do something with them (don't ask me what though). Whereas virtual real estate is like a currency that your neighbour put out -- sure it may be worth something today among a small group of people who know and respect your neighbour, but if your neighbour declares tomorrow that the currency is worthless (or dilutes the market by printing 1,000,000 NeighbourBucks), the currency will most likely become worthless. Same thing with Second Life virtual property. Pull the plug on the servers hosting Second Life, or start offering complementary enormous tracts of land with every 25 cent purchase of Booboo Bites, and the property instantaneously becomes worthless.
Hence my list of criteria for virtual property to start being less like NeighbourBucks and more like pork bellies.
I got an inordinate amount of pleasure out of writing that last sentence.
--Moiche
Not that I anticipate this brave new world with without hesitations. To paraphrase Dennis Miller, the day an unemployed ironworker can go home, sit in his easy chair, open a beer, put on a headset, and fuck Claudia Schiffer (this was in the early '90s), it's going to make crack look like Sanka. Which leads to another interesting question: when people start investing large proportions of their net worth in virtual real estate, and start to work primarily in the massive multiplayer, are 80 hour weeks spent online going to start to become conventional?
Sorry, I got to go buy some shares in companies that manufacture adult diapers.
--Moiche
Symptoms include:
- Sore throat
- Enlarged lymph nodes
- Chills
- Joint aches
- Loss of appetite and slight weight loss
- Nausea and vomiting, occasionally
- A red rash, usually on the chest -- much more common if the person has recently taken the antibiotics ampicillin or amoxicillin (both sold under several brand names)
- Abdominal pain
- Enlarged spleen
If you suffer from some or all of these symptoms, please consult your GP, and for heaven's sakes don't kiss anyone on the lips.Moiche
Just look at the patent application yourself.
I haven't read the whole thing, but just having taken a quick look at it, I have to agree with the posters who said that Google purposefully tried to cover any conceivable technique to index and rank pages. The application discusses multiple implementations of the various techniques that could be used to rank a page. Therefore analysis of the patent application is probably of limited utility for those trying to game PageRank (which was certainly a factor that Google's very competent IP lawyers considered before prosecuting the patent).
For those who are worried that Google is doing evil with this patent application, given the breadth of the patent and the fact that it discusses a plethora of techniques which Google may or may not be using, I will be surprised to see Google try to use this patent (or be able to use this patent) to push another search engine out of the market. More likely, I think, is that this will constitute prior art to enable Google to withstand challenges from other patent applicants for infringement. Of course, if you know anything about PageRank, you know that it was getting published in Scientific American long before Google was the dominant search engine. So this patent application is probably more to prevent allegations that Google infringed by adding on all the other checks and balances to the original PageRank technology to discourage spam sites.
Moiche
Now this is an interesting point since it ties in with Hernando de Soto's "The Mystery of Capital", which was referenced in TFA as one of the inspirations behind offering a virtual real estate market in the first place. Only De Soto didn't focus on feelings of self-worth derived from land ownership; his thesis was that the poor in developing countries existed out of the legal market entirely, and could not enter it because (a) by and large the poor in developing countries are squatters; and (b) bureaucracy. De Soto suggested that squatters be granted ownership rights in the land they squatted upon, so that they could use their equity to enter the legal market, start businesses, etc.
One problem with applying De Soto's thesis: you can't live on virtual property. (Apologies to WOW addicts everywhere).
Moiche
To bring it back to pork bellies, a call option in pork bellies can be expected to be less volatile than a stake in virtual property in Second Life because the market for pork bellies is more predictable.
--Moiche
Where you got the idea that these countries are characterized by an inability to fathom land ownership is difficult for me to fathom. Perhaps you are perpetuating absurdly out of date stereotypes about attitudes toward material possessions among adherents to Buddhism, Shintoism, Communism in South-East Asia? If that is the case, please read up. Buddhism is officially suppressed in China, Shinto is on the wane in Japan, both religions have a vast majority of adherents who do not find accumulating material possessions to conflict with their religious beliefs, and the Phillipines is a majority Catholic country! Also -- as I already pointed out, the communist government in China has permitted private transactions such as real estate sales since Deng Xiaping's reforms -- which began 30 years ago.
Finally, your contention that virtual land, through appealing to the self-worth of the peoples you've pigeonholed as not being able to understand land ownership, borders on the absurd. Why would ownership at all contribute to self-worth among people who supposedly can't contemplate it in the first place? Wouldn't feelings of self-worth just be derived from accumulation of material possessions -- which in turn would require virtual land to be worth something?
Your entire line of reasoning smacks of the "Mysteries of the Orient" trope which was (barely) excusable in the 1870's, but is no longer. Spend some time in China, Japan, or the Phillipines, and you will find millions of savvy, throughougly capitalistic and materialistic businesspeople more than willing to buy and trade things worth money. Sure they may extract feelings of worth from accumulating an ass load of land -- but then again so does Donald Trump, and last I looked he lives in the East.
Come on people, we are better than this.
Moiche
What is particularly scary about virtual property in a massive multiplayer is that the good is so completely unlinked to reality that virtually anything could burst the bubble. An executive in the company hosting is accused of embezzlement -- *pow*. The hosting company enters Chapter 11 -- *pow*. A new fad massive multiplayer starts up -- *pow*.
This is why the comparisons against derivatives are misguided. True derivatives are not physical things, but still, an option to buy pork bellies at a certian price in the future will not become worthless without pork bellies themselves becoming worthless. Whereas property on Second Life can become worthless for an infinite set of reasons.
I believe that the idea of objectively valuable virtual property, as explored by Neal Stephenson in Snow Crash (The Street), will someday become a reality. But not until: (1) hosting the massive multiplayer is distributed among organizations that can't go bankrupt; (2)the massive multiplayer is either continuously upgraded or technology independent (perhaps a standard forum that will be interpreted in different ways depending upon the users client; (3) the massive multiplayer somehow guarantees scarcity, at least of more and less desirability property (perhaps by having a hotspot located near the hubs where avatars log on as seen in Snow Crash); (4) accounts are protected by really, really, really good user authentification programs (or else victims of a dictionary attack could lose 20k over night); (5) at least some of the user base is able to access the universe of the massive multiplayer in a thorougly immersive way.
I think it's just a matter of time before these conditions are met, and spending real money on virutal property starts to make sense. But I don't think we are there yet, and those who are looking at virtual property less as a game and more as an investment are playing with tulip bulbs.
Moiche
However -- rail guns are on the cusp of military viability. The University of Texas at Austin's Institute of Advanced Technology got 10 million dollars to develop viable rail guns. Just a month ago Janes reported that a prototype of the military rail gun had been tested, and that it was nearing viability.
That article really made me wish I had a Jane's subscription. Apparently, the limiting factor is the size of the capacitor -- if they can get this down than naval applications within a few years are plausible.Incidentally, a fun game, if you're ever bored, is to imagine what would happen to the human body if one were to hold and fire a rail gun (even a wimpy one that shot at a mere 1,600m/s and not at "near the speed of light"), and the law of conservation of momentum actually worked. Really! Try at parties!
Fond wishes,
Moiche
With reference to the various privileges you mention, generally speaking (and the operative word here is generally), the IT professional reviewing the emails operates as the agent either of the client or of the corporation, and therefore privilege would not be broken. Of course, this assumes that the parties to the sensitive communication are the employer and the law firm, and that the individual lawyer and employee are also acting on behalf of their law firm and employer respectively.
Regards,
Moiche
Believe or not there are actually at least four different bases on which you could (but probably won't be able to successfully) argue for a right to privacy with regard to email communications sent from work:
(i) The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which reads: "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures" -- but which only applies toward government action (although some pretty surprising apparently private actions can qualify as "governmental");
(ii) the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), which covers email, and prohibits "(1) unauthorized and intentional 'interception' of wire, oral, and electronic communications during the transmission phase, and (2) unauthorized 'accessing' of electronically stored wire or electronic communications." -- but allows exceptions for companies which provide internet service, and does not apply if the employee consents to ECPA violations;
(iii) State statutes, which obviously vary wildly from state to state. The article that I'm using as my primary source notes that " Members of state legislatures have attempted to pass bills that would strengthen the protections of workers against electronic monitoring in the workplace, but they have generally failed because of sustained and effective corporate lobbying." (*mweheheheheh*).
(iv) Common law (which also varies from state to state) which sometimes recognizes an "actionable right to privacy" -- but under different caveats in each state.
Ummm . . . so yah -- it's complicated, so much so in fact that it's an open question in various states whether or not its legal. Also -- not surprisingly -- the legality of the monitoring will often depend on the purpose of monitoring, the purpose of the communication, sometimes even the industry you're working in, etc. Good luck figuring it out -- especially if you signed a (now practically standard) agreement allowing your employer to snoop through your work emails at will.
Generally, when the law is this fuzzy, corps will do whatever is in their best interest, and count on their lawyers being better than your lawyer if you sue. They're generally right. So assume that your workplace email communications are being monitored. We are the point now that it is never a good idea to send via email something you wouldn't mind all your colleagues seeing. Use Yahoo! or Gmail and at least make it a challenge for BigBroCorp to keep tracking of your on the job dicta. Of course, sending risque stuff from your workplace email may be your chance to be famous. Hehe.
Regards,
Moiche
I think most slashdotters who disliked ROTS (the smart ones), were thinking the same thing as they waited for the movie to end: "If Fox had (i) played Firefly sequentially in its main time slot; (ii) marketed Firefly; and (iii) not moved its time slot repeatedly, it would still be on in new episodes.
I give up. New plan. Joss Whedon makes shows in his living room with shadow puppets, sends me mpegs, and I send him money in a box.
For business purposes, the 19'' integrated monitor is inane. LCD screens are fragile, and they become more fragile the larger they get. The last thing you want when you're running to make a flight is to see your $2k 19'' integrated LCD laptop screen hit the ground and get pixel ebola. Not to mention the comments already made about the autoclave like heat coming off this monstrosity, and the inevitable hernias.
Not to say people won't buy 'em. There are enough people around for some small minority to make incredibly useless purchases. But from a business point of view, this laptop is absurd -- and certainly doesn't fit in the new business tech chic. Around here -- smaller is better. Lighter too.
The only purpose I can come up for one of these beauties? LAN parties. I guess someone should tell Dell about WOW.
--Moiche