I recently had to start a Wiki for 1st year undergraduate students. I found it really hard to make it writable by everybody, since I was sure that it would result in a lot of vandalism. However, if you think about Wikipedia, the vast majority of pages can be edited by anyone and yet you almost never see malicious edits by people just dicking about. In the limit, people who visit Wikipedia prefer order. That's actually quite a comforting idea.
A few years ago, I worked for the head of a major University computer science department in the UK. I was in charge of building the web page for our research project. My boss told me "whatever you do, my main preference in all these things is that it hast to look good."
For inspiration, I visited the home-page of this arch aesthete. I discovered that his page, entirely in an overlarge Times font, used big thick-bordered frames (with scroll bars) a fantastically pixellated jpg of him and big flashing "new!" buttons next to various bits of the page.
Somehow, I managed not to laugh next time I discussed the page with him.
Why are they caving quite so much? I genuinely don't understand it. Politicians are most concerned about re-election and appearing weak in front of the electorate but by capitulating over and over again, they must know that they are making things worse for themselves.
What I also don't quite understand is how much of the country is now spitting nails about just how clueless these dipshits are and yet there is absolutely no movement or change whatever. What do people have to do - march on Capitol hill?
Is this actually going to get any better when (note I don't even bother with "if") there is a Democratic president? You're still going to have an utterly inept congress who take 17 photo-calls with cute children before failing to achieve anything useful.
One of the things I like about the BBC is they are constantly taking a pounding from people over their coverage. They address criticism very directly, and often. As a result, you can have some kind of faith that they're exercising due diligence and trying to get things right.
The BBC isn't perfect and their coverage has been becoming a bit flashy and sensationalist recently. However, I trust them more than any other news source. I might even go so far as to say I trust them full stop, which must be a rarity in the modern media. If that's the only thing the license fee pays for, it might almost be worth it.
Phones running as web servers? Phones serving files to a house? Phones-as-firewalls?
Dare I say it, a Beowulf cluster of phones?
I'm a bit more cynical about Linux than I used to be, but I still think I'd feel a little thrill if I saw a bash prompt on my phone. I actually quite wanted one when I was doing my PhD. I could use ssh to start a big job running and monitor its progress even when away from the lab. I could even set it up to ring me when it was finished, or when it had halted at some critical moment.
It would also get many, many geek points when people see you fiddling with your phone in the pub:
"Are you texting?"
"No, I'm restarting a simulation of liver behaviour on a cluster in the basement at Imperial College"
I guess it goes without saying that democratic politics seems to be something less than the shining beacon of leadership it's meant to be, at the moment. The "left" and the "right" seem to rarely argue from their traditional perspectives anymore (left: more tax, more public services, more rights for gay people and women; right: less tax, more freedom for corporations, "family values") and instead just stick to the party drift. Right: pro-war; left: anti-war.
In the UK, we even have the leader of the right wing Conservative party (David Cameron) saying he will match Labour's spending commitments. There is now nothing to choose between them in terms of policy. The only difference is whichever set of politicians you think is the least idiotic and selfish.
In the US, I guess it's whether you're more sickened by the corruption and incompetence of the Republicans or the cowardice and lack of direction of the Democrats.
Plot idea 1: Near future. Governments completely dependent on their IT infrastructure. Organised crime in control of huge botnet able to hold government to ransom. With hilarious consequences.
Plot idea 2: Now-ish. Script kiddie unleashes attack using enormous botnet. Runs out of control. Becomes so deeply imbedded into internet that it's impossible to shut down without "rebooting" the whole infrastructure. With hilarious consequences.
Plot idea 3: Medium future. Internet and control of botnets becomes so intrinsic to society that governments have less importance than internet societies. Whole "countries" exist as virtual connections of affiliated machines. With hilarious consequences.
Any of the above would work well as a Hollywood movie given Angelina Jolie and lots of gratuitous and incorrect techno-babble.
(I wish I'd never started this conversation, but thanks for your thoughtful remarks)
You're absolutely right that the President does not control every minutiae of the economy, but it is worrying that the US economy seems to be struggling. I read recently that the Chinese have so many US treasury bonds now that if they cash them in it would devalue the dollar. I know these things are always true to some extent, but it's still not something you would have said in the 50s. Your foreign commitments are, in many ways laudable but they're very expensive and the new Asian economies are threatening in all areas.
As for Olbermann, you're quite right that he's biased but I find that worrying too. The US media seems to be so partisan now - either one way or the other - that almost all debates descend into a slanging match. Olbermann's rants are well put together (and I think they carry more of a factual basis than those others you mention), but it's frighteningly agenda driven. How are people supposed to make up their own minds when they're being brain-washed like this?
I'm sure the dangers have been exaggerated, I just think that the planet will suffer without strong leadership from an exemplary democratic nation.
So you have to maintain a pure capitalist model for health-care even though it's really inefficient, but if you try to do that for cars you get punished? I know cognitive dissonance in government is common, but this is mental.
Does anybody else wonder whether the US government has been taken over by somebody (possibly giant alien lizards) who are deliberately trying to ruin the country? I honestly can't see how they could do a worse job if they tried. It's even more amazing how much congress and the senate sit back and watch them piss all over 50 years of dominating the world, pushing the nox button on the hand-basket heading towards hell.
As a Brit, I feel grateful that our Empire went out in a blaze of glory. Yours is just imploding. My sympathies.
Heh. Good point. Are Quakers the ones who have entirely unplanned services, where they just stand up and start talking about whatever they feel like? If so, my misspelling was entirely intentional.
This may not be true in all cases, but people who actually know what they're talking about don't usually need the law to back up what they say.
The other case of this was "Dr" Gillian McKeith a "nutritionist" who sells a lot of books about how you should eat less chips and more salad. This is all very well, but of course it also includes a bunch of quakery about eating leaves so that their photosynthesis can oxegenate your gut. As the article I link points out, that wouldn't work too well unless you had a torch up your arse.
Naturally, McKeith is mighty litigious at people who point out that she bought her doctorate from the web.
Slashdot Mirror
the plaudits do not go to those who have the great idea - they go to those who persuade everybody else that it's a great idea.
I don't know who said this, but it's dead right.
Peter
I recently had to start a Wiki for 1st year undergraduate students. I found it really hard to make it writable by everybody, since I was sure that it would result in a lot of vandalism. However, if you think about Wikipedia, the vast majority of pages can be edited by anyone and yet you almost never see malicious edits by people just dicking about. In the limit, people who visit Wikipedia prefer order. That's actually quite a comforting idea.
Obviously the more subtle stuff is harder to protect against.
A few years ago, I worked for the head of a major University computer science department in the UK. I was in charge of building the web page for our research project. My boss told me "whatever you do, my main preference in all these things is that it hast to look good."
For inspiration, I visited the home-page of this arch aesthete. I discovered that his page, entirely in an overlarge Times font, used big thick-bordered frames (with scroll bars) a fantastically pixellated jpg of him and big flashing "new!" buttons next to various bits of the page.
Somehow, I managed not to laugh next time I discussed the page with him.
Why are they caving quite so much? I genuinely don't understand it. Politicians are most concerned about re-election and appearing weak in front of the electorate but by capitulating over and over again, they must know that they are making things worse for themselves.
What I also don't quite understand is how much of the country is now spitting nails about just how clueless these dipshits are and yet there is absolutely no movement or change whatever. What do people have to do - march on Capitol hill?
Is this actually going to get any better when (note I don't even bother with "if") there is a Democratic president? You're still going to have an utterly inept congress who take 17 photo-calls with cute children before failing to achieve anything useful.
Utterly, utterly bonkers.
And by funny and stupid I would say "probably doing their job".
I repeat: not perfect, probably some bias in there, mistakes made, but overall much better than everybody else.
Peter
One of the things I like about the BBC is they are constantly taking a pounding from people over their coverage. They address criticism very directly, and often. As a result, you can have some kind of faith that they're exercising due diligence and trying to get things right.
The BBC isn't perfect and their coverage has been becoming a bit flashy and sensationalist recently. However, I trust them more than any other news source. I might even go so far as to say I trust them full stop, which must be a rarity in the modern media. If that's the only thing the license fee pays for, it might almost be worth it.
Peter
Dude, how can you *not* be angry at what Fox News has done to America? And how can you fix this problem without parading it in public?
Peter
According to this comment, Carly feasted on the souls of thousands of decent tech workers at HP. Where is she going to find a soul at Fox News?
I have visions of her, the arch-liche and Bill O'Reilly, some kind of undead bear, chucking mega spells at each other across the office.
Peter
Is this actually news, or just another excuse to play number 7 on the pub-jukebox that is the recurring conversations of Slashdot?
Blah blah, MS stifles innovation, blah blah, everything invented by OSS anyway, blah blah America too obsessed with corporate appeasement.
Next up: Which Linux distro should you install? Why the RIAA is in league with Satan! Is Linux ready for the desktop?
Peter
Phones running as web servers? Phones serving files to a house? Phones-as-firewalls?
Dare I say it, a Beowulf cluster of phones?
I'm a bit more cynical about Linux than I used to be, but I still think I'd feel a little thrill if I saw a bash prompt on my phone. I actually quite wanted one when I was doing my PhD. I could use ssh to start a big job running and monitor its progress even when away from the lab. I could even set it up to ring me when it was finished, or when it had halted at some critical moment.
It would also get many, many geek points when people see you fiddling with your phone in the pub:
"Are you texting?"
"No, I'm restarting a simulation of liver behaviour on a cluster in the basement at Imperial College"
Peter
Does this mean that you can do crazy-ass things like setup an ssh server on your phone and then call yourself remotely?
Peter
Must be willing to wear a diaper on long drives?
Peter
Because of course they've got a real chance of winning.
(Note: I vote Liberal Democrat. I know I'm throwing my vote away)
Peter
I guess it goes without saying that democratic politics seems to be something less than the shining beacon of leadership it's meant to be, at the moment. The "left" and the "right" seem to rarely argue from their traditional perspectives anymore (left: more tax, more public services, more rights for gay people and women; right: less tax, more freedom for corporations, "family values") and instead just stick to the party drift. Right: pro-war; left: anti-war.
In the UK, we even have the leader of the right wing Conservative party (David Cameron) saying he will match Labour's spending commitments. There is now nothing to choose between them in terms of policy. The only difference is whichever set of politicians you think is the least idiotic and selfish.
In the US, I guess it's whether you're more sickened by the corruption and incompetence of the Republicans or the cowardice and lack of direction of the Democrats.
Peter
Diablo in ASCII baby!
Peter
Thanks - I figured most of these would already be covered.
I'm not about to read the backs of a thousand sci-fi books before I make a Slashdot post, no.
Peter
Plot idea 1: Near future. Governments completely dependent on their IT infrastructure. Organised crime in control of huge botnet able to hold government to ransom. With hilarious consequences.
Plot idea 2: Now-ish. Script kiddie unleashes attack using enormous botnet. Runs out of control. Becomes so deeply imbedded into internet that it's impossible to shut down without "rebooting" the whole infrastructure. With hilarious consequences.
Plot idea 3: Medium future. Internet and control of botnets becomes so intrinsic to society that governments have less importance than internet societies. Whole "countries" exist as virtual connections of affiliated machines. With hilarious consequences.
Any of the above would work well as a Hollywood movie given Angelina Jolie and lots of gratuitous and incorrect techno-babble.
Peter
That should totally be the new tag-line for Slashdot.
Peter
That's nothing.
Peter
(I wish I'd never started this conversation, but thanks for your thoughtful remarks)
You're absolutely right that the President does not control every minutiae of the economy, but it is worrying that the US economy seems to be struggling. I read recently that the Chinese have so many US treasury bonds now that if they cash them in it would devalue the dollar. I know these things are always true to some extent, but it's still not something you would have said in the 50s. Your foreign commitments are, in many ways laudable but they're very expensive and the new Asian economies are threatening in all areas.
As for Olbermann, you're quite right that he's biased but I find that worrying too. The US media seems to be so partisan now - either one way or the other - that almost all debates descend into a slanging match. Olbermann's rants are well put together (and I think they carry more of a factual basis than those others you mention), but it's frighteningly agenda driven. How are people supposed to make up their own minds when they're being brain-washed like this?
I'm sure the dangers have been exaggerated, I just think that the planet will suffer without strong leadership from an exemplary democratic nation.
Peter
I'll start by saying that I don't *want* the US to be in decline. I much prefer a US hegemony to a Chinese hegemony.
I'm just a bit worried about your economy, your human rights and your leader. Oh, and your economy. Oh, and your economy.
By the way, ad hominem attacks are fun, but if a hippy says something true, it's still true no matter what kind of hair they have.
Peter
So you have to maintain a pure capitalist model for health-care even though it's really inefficient, but if you try to do that for cars you get punished? I know cognitive dissonance in government is common, but this is mental.
Does anybody else wonder whether the US government has been taken over by somebody (possibly giant alien lizards) who are deliberately trying to ruin the country? I honestly can't see how they could do a worse job if they tried. It's even more amazing how much congress and the senate sit back and watch them piss all over 50 years of dominating the world, pushing the nox button on the hand-basket heading towards hell.
As a Brit, I feel grateful that our Empire went out in a blaze of glory. Yours is just imploding. My sympathies.
Peter
All techy people from Chicago will find what they want in the historic English city of Norwich.
Peter
Heh. Good point. Are Quakers the ones who have entirely unplanned services, where they just stand up and start talking about whatever they feel like? If so, my misspelling was entirely intentional.
Peter
This may not be true in all cases, but people who actually know what they're talking about don't usually need the law to back up what they say.
The other case of this was "Dr" Gillian McKeith a "nutritionist" who sells a lot of books about how you should eat less chips and more salad. This is all very well, but of course it also includes a bunch of quakery about eating leaves so that their photosynthesis can oxegenate your gut. As the article I link points out, that wouldn't work too well unless you had a torch up your arse.
Naturally, McKeith is mighty litigious at people who point out that she bought her doctorate from the web.
Peter