All censorship is wrong. And it's good to know that UK ISP's are censoring. However, Wikipedia admins are the last people on Earth who should be bleating about it.
Wikipedia is censored by:
1. Wikipedia Admins.
2. Jimbo Wales personally.
3. Cabals.
4. The marketing dept of any, and virtually all, corporations and large businesses.
Why should UK ISP's not get a piece of the action too?
Wikipedia admins need to remember that people in glass houses should not throw stones. Get your own house in order before you whine about others.
As well as a 3D Cheerleader channel, there really needs to be a 3D women's beach volleyball channel. A 2D channel would be a start. The World needs this. Urgently.
Dear editors. Please remove Idle from the RSS feed. Or at least prefix every idle story with the word "IDLE." That way we can avoid reading this crap by accident.
This is only a fair thing to do. Many of us enjoy reading Slashdot. But Idle does not belong on this site. If you want to post this crap, please keep it as separate as possible.
"1-Sick" -- Health Data
"1-Mick" -- Irish Census Data
"1-Dick" -- Porn Movies Database
"1-Lick" -- Lesbian Porn Movies Database
"1-Fick" -- German Porn Movie Database
"1-Hick" -- The George W. Bush Presidential Library catalog.
"1-Kick" -- Pharmaceutical Index
"1-Nick" -- Crime Data
"1-Prick" -- Copyright Law Legal database
"1-Trick" -- List of iKea-nu Reeves Movies.
"1-Tick" -- Camping Places Data set.
"1-Brick" -- The Lego Catalog.
"1-Thick" -- Obesity Index.
The single most boring thing about the new Battlestart Galactica series were all the philosophical / internal-conflict / interpersonal-power-play scenes which were used as cheap filler (no FX = cheap) in between the action scenes.
Not necessarily. It simply that Moore and the show's directors know how to choreograph and direct action. Zoic's excellent FX help enormously. However, Moore has no idea how to use drama and discovery over a long arc. Hence much of the show is tedious, disoriented and lacking drive. Which is a shame because the camerawork and effects are very good, some of the acting is also very good, and some individual scenes are well written. The lack of vision and control of the whole story deeply lets the show down.
It is -- for someone who has better skills working with arc storylines -- very possible to create drama and excitement in dialogue-based scenes. However, that person is not Moore.
They already said there will be less spaceships -- thus, motorcycles is the way to go!
Seriously though, hopefully the writing quality of this is superior to the remake of Battlestar. In that it has far fewer gaping plotholes and some sense of forward momentum. I gave up with this show during the hendrix jumping the shark moment. The scripts had poor dramatic tension up to that point, but hendrix was the final straw.
Wasn't maxthon also discredited because it had spyware in it? Or has that been addressed? It was linked to t35.com which is a known purveyor of spyware.
Incidentally, the maxthon wikipedia entry -- like so many wikipedia entries for products -- is just a PR piece, clearly written by someone with marketing links to the browser. After all, if wikipedia entries also come within the first 10 results on Google, then making sure your message is in the wikipedia entry is the best and easiest form of SEO there is.
Of course you can just cancel the credit card charge.
However, I'm not sure really what you do about Dell's customer service. Or, indeed, the CS from any large corporation if you have a problem.
In such companies, the goal is to reduce customer contact (by fobbing customers off with canned answers) and maintain a satisfaction rate of about 80% (usually through fraudulent stats practices). That means that most customers will either be satisfied or simply give up due to inadequate answers.
Most CS is either outsourced or in a contact center far from the head offices. Most CS staff are looked down on by Head Office staff. Communication is one way -- FROM head office. If you have a complaint about CS, the first person you complain to is from CS. If your complaint is serious, or is a good suggestion as to how to improve the business, then CS staff usually have very little opportunity to pass that to Head office, other than through a heavily bureaucratic process. Often it will get thrown out in the 3rd or 4th tier in the process. It's very unlikely that you will be able to contact someone in head office directly to raise issues with CS. CS has a vested interest in hiding any issues from head office.
Which leads me to wonder why any corporation ever bothers to provide any CS at all. It being such a cost center, and one that bosses clearly don't care about -- otherwise it would never be outsourced.
I'm late Baby boomer, university grad. Authors don't make a huge amount from book sales. Publishers do. And publisher's costs are primarily on the physical logistics -- paper, printing, packaging, distribution and marketing. These don't apply in this case. They are not out of pocket. A print run is really expensive, so it's not worth their while if they won't sell 1,000s of copies. Nor do authors, nor publishers, make any money from secondhand sales anyway.
If you were to buy a book secondhand and scan it into an ebook by yourself -- something you are perfectly entitled to do for your own use -- neither the publisher, nor the author would gain. In this case, the original uploader, who presumably took the time to scan it, is the one who has incurred any costs.
I fail to understand why the author or the publisher doesn't have electronic copies available to download, even if from their own website. They are obviously missing an opportunity.
By encouraging the pirated ebook, you are only helping them. It will generate more interest in the author and their other work, and perhaps eventually encourage the publisher to reprint the book, or otherwise make it available in some format.
It would prove once and for all that Wikipedia is as bad as everyone says it is. I'd love to see it. We'd all love to see it. Then we can fix it and make sure that your corrections actually get implemented properly.
I hope people do this, to make you realize how skewed and insular your view is. It's certainly not baseless. You will be inundated if they do. It's not as bad as everyone says it is, it's actually worse. But bearing in mind the many corrupt admins, this just seems like wasting more time. It would be like Canute trying to hold back the tide. There's really no point in fighting for truth on Wikipedia.
It's happened to me many times with minor edits. However, I have simply long since avoided using Wikipedia altogether, it just not worth wasting the time, or getting the neo-nazi orange "you have a message" forced to your IP address, when an admin doesn't like your changes, no matter how factual they are. (and sending messages this way to dynamic addresses is a really retarded thing to do anyway -- at best all you do is make new enemies. Every. Single. Time.)
Wikipedia has the bad press and comments it deserves. Unfortunately, it has a Google page rank is really does not deserve.
This won't be something for humanity to celebrate. If and when the day comes, then we'll have to answer the question of what happens when numbers increase but resources decrease?
What will happen? I can answer that in one word -- "rebellion"
Jeez. It seems like every week there is a new alternative energy source that scientists are trying to make. We should develop what we know for sure is going to work. A few examples would be solar, wind and hydro-electric. Once we have these energy sources mastered then we can go onto something new. Like nuclear or hydrogen power.
I have absolutely no understanding why you got modded insightful, considering that is the very last thing your post is.
Do you think there is one team of scientists and engineers who work on "alternative energy"? Such that if we go to research another source, 10 guys have to get pulled off solar power research -- thus diluting it? You do realize that these are wholly different areas, using totally different people, and funded by different organizations.
There is NOTHING to lose by researching new ideas. EVER. IN ANYTHING.
Does this news post contain some kind of subliminal sexy message? First "skirt", then "erector", then "activity on the floor". I am aroused, but I don't know why.
I wonder if they can change his voice synthesizer to pronounce "out" and "about" as "oot" and aboot," and of course add in a few random eh's for good measure.
Also, no customer support. It's a wonder what you can accomplish by not giving a shit who you inconvenience. Just get the job done well enough that it works.
You mean, "by not even trying to appear as though you give a shit about who you inconvenience".
If you've tried to contact Customer Support of any corporation (especially any outsourced CS) you know that that company really only pays lip service to the concept. Most corporations only provide just enough CS to be able to show that (massaged) stats reveal 80% customer satisfaction. There is almost never any genuine attempt to actually support customers.
Most corporations would be as well to just stop providing any customer support whatsoever, there would be little net difference in most cases.
I think the lack of bureaucracy is probably the key factor in the success of the black economy. Anyone who has worked in a corporation knows how many hoops you have to jump through to get anything meaningful done at any level in the organization. It's often best forgetting about anything that's not groundbreaking.
That, and the fact that the bottom feeders in the foodchain who fail to cover their asses often don't get a warning on their permanent record so much as a bullet in the brain.
Even as a Mac fanboy I could care less. I want to use Safari, especially since Firefox is not the best on a Mac. However, no flashblock, no adblock -- no use. I'm reluctantly sticking with Firefox.
Antiphishing technology is of little to no value to me, flashblock and adblock are essential on the web. Steve, call me when Safari is web ready, without these tools it simply is not.
As a user, so what if I know what the problem with my ISP's network is? I still have to call their crappy support lines, and wait the hours it takes their idiot technicians to fix the fucking problem.
At least your ISP fixes things. I was with BT (which I believe is short for Bastard Telecom). They fix nothing. Your call goes to India. A rep there, whom you can barely understand, promises you everything and proceeds to completely ignore anything you say. I gave up after daily, hour-long calls for three weeks -- just switched ISP, it was easier.
Slashdot Mirror
All censorship is wrong. And it's good to know that UK ISP's are censoring. However, Wikipedia admins are the last people on Earth who should be bleating about it.
Wikipedia is censored by:
1. Wikipedia Admins.
2. Jimbo Wales personally.
3. Cabals.
4. The marketing dept of any, and virtually all, corporations and large businesses.
Why should UK ISP's not get a piece of the action too?
Wikipedia admins need to remember that people in glass houses should not throw stones. Get your own house in order before you whine about others.
As well as a 3D Cheerleader channel, there really needs to be a 3D women's beach volleyball channel. A 2D channel would be a start. The World needs this. Urgently.
Dear editors. Please remove Idle from the RSS feed. Or at least prefix every idle story with the word "IDLE." That way we can avoid reading this crap by accident.
This is only a fair thing to do. Many of us enjoy reading Slashdot. But Idle does not belong on this site. If you want to post this crap, please keep it as separate as possible.
Expect a new slew of Amazon patents...
"1-Sick" -- Health Data
"1-Mick" -- Irish Census Data
"1-Dick" -- Porn Movies Database
"1-Lick" -- Lesbian Porn Movies Database
"1-Fick" -- German Porn Movie Database
"1-Hick" -- The George W. Bush Presidential Library catalog.
"1-Kick" -- Pharmaceutical Index
"1-Nick" -- Crime Data
"1-Prick" -- Copyright Law Legal database
"1-Trick" -- List of iKea-nu Reeves Movies.
"1-Tick" -- Camping Places Data set.
"1-Brick" -- The Lego Catalog.
"1-Thick" -- Obesity Index.
Not necessarily. It simply that Moore and the show's directors know how to choreograph and direct action. Zoic's excellent FX help enormously. However, Moore has no idea how to use drama and discovery over a long arc. Hence much of the show is tedious, disoriented and lacking drive. Which is a shame because the camerawork and effects are very good, some of the acting is also very good, and some individual scenes are well written. The lack of vision and control of the whole story deeply lets the show down.
It is -- for someone who has better skills working with arc storylines -- very possible to create drama and excitement in dialogue-based scenes. However, that person is not Moore.
or worse... Like Galactica 1980.
They already said there will be less spaceships -- thus, motorcycles is the way to go!
Seriously though, hopefully the writing quality of this is superior to the remake of Battlestar. In that it has far fewer gaping plotholes and some sense of forward momentum. I gave up with this show during the hendrix jumping the shark moment. The scripts had poor dramatic tension up to that point, but hendrix was the final straw.
or...
A man walks up to the reception desk at Microsoft.
Man: "Hello, I have an appointment with Mr Ballmer"
MissClippy: "Hi, It looks like you want meet with Mr Ballmer... I can help you with that..."
A man walks up to the reception desk at Microsoft.
Man: "Hello, I have an appointment with Mr Ballmer"
Receptionbot: "Dear Aunt, Kill Delete Select All... must kill, must kill, must kill..."
Does the electronic table come with an autoeject for the chairs around it?
Wasn't maxthon also discredited because it had spyware in it? Or has that been addressed? It was linked to t35.com which is a known purveyor of spyware.
Incidentally, the maxthon wikipedia entry -- like so many wikipedia entries for products -- is just a PR piece, clearly written by someone with marketing links to the browser. After all, if wikipedia entries also come within the first 10 results on Google, then making sure your message is in the wikipedia entry is the best and easiest form of SEO there is.
No it isn't.
Of course you can just cancel the credit card charge.
However, I'm not sure really what you do about Dell's customer service. Or, indeed, the CS from any large corporation if you have a problem.
In such companies, the goal is to reduce customer contact (by fobbing customers off with canned answers) and maintain a satisfaction rate of about 80% (usually through fraudulent stats practices). That means that most customers will either be satisfied or simply give up due to inadequate answers.
Most CS is either outsourced or in a contact center far from the head offices. Most CS staff are looked down on by Head Office staff. Communication is one way -- FROM head office. If you have a complaint about CS, the first person you complain to is from CS. If your complaint is serious, or is a good suggestion as to how to improve the business, then CS staff usually have very little opportunity to pass that to Head office, other than through a heavily bureaucratic process. Often it will get thrown out in the 3rd or 4th tier in the process. It's very unlikely that you will be able to contact someone in head office directly to raise issues with CS. CS has a vested interest in hiding any issues from head office.
Which leads me to wonder why any corporation ever bothers to provide any CS at all. It being such a cost center, and one that bosses clearly don't care about -- otherwise it would never be outsourced.
I'm late Baby boomer, university grad. Authors don't make a huge amount from book sales. Publishers do. And publisher's costs are primarily on the physical logistics -- paper, printing, packaging, distribution and marketing. These don't apply in this case. They are not out of pocket. A print run is really expensive, so it's not worth their while if they won't sell 1,000s of copies. Nor do authors, nor publishers, make any money from secondhand sales anyway.
If you were to buy a book secondhand and scan it into an ebook by yourself -- something you are perfectly entitled to do for your own use -- neither the publisher, nor the author would gain. In this case, the original uploader, who presumably took the time to scan it, is the one who has incurred any costs.
I fail to understand why the author or the publisher doesn't have electronic copies available to download, even if from their own website. They are obviously missing an opportunity.
By encouraging the pirated ebook, you are only helping them. It will generate more interest in the author and their other work, and perhaps eventually encourage the publisher to reprint the book, or otherwise make it available in some format.
I hope people do this, to make you realize how skewed and insular your view is. It's certainly not baseless. You will be inundated if they do. It's not as bad as everyone says it is, it's actually worse. But bearing in mind the many corrupt admins, this just seems like wasting more time. It would be like Canute trying to hold back the tide. There's really no point in fighting for truth on Wikipedia.
It's happened to me many times with minor edits. However, I have simply long since avoided using Wikipedia altogether, it just not worth wasting the time, or getting the neo-nazi orange "you have a message" forced to your IP address, when an admin doesn't like your changes, no matter how factual they are. (and sending messages this way to dynamic addresses is a really retarded thing to do anyway -- at best all you do is make new enemies. Every. Single. Time.)
Wikipedia has the bad press and comments it deserves. Unfortunately, it has a Google page rank is really does not deserve.
What will happen? I can answer that in one word -- "rebellion"
The rich may not age, but they will still bleed.
I have absolutely no understanding why you got modded insightful, considering that is the very last thing your post is.
Do you think there is one team of scientists and engineers who work on "alternative energy"? Such that if we go to research another source, 10 guys have to get pulled off solar power research -- thus diluting it? You do realize that these are wholly different areas, using totally different people, and funded by different organizations.
There is NOTHING to lose by researching new ideas. EVER. IN ANYTHING.
You may be thinking of SpaceXXX.
I wonder if they can change his voice synthesizer to pronounce "out" and "about" as "oot" and aboot," and of course add in a few random eh's for good measure.
Francs. The currency of Switzerland is the Franc. Not in the Eurozone, not in the EU, not in much at all actually.
Though, some of the LHC's funding does come from some Eurozone countries. (and part of the LHC is in France too)
You mean, "by not even trying to appear as though you give a shit about who you inconvenience".
If you've tried to contact Customer Support of any corporation (especially any outsourced CS) you know that that company really only pays lip service to the concept. Most corporations only provide just enough CS to be able to show that (massaged) stats reveal 80% customer satisfaction. There is almost never any genuine attempt to actually support customers.
Most corporations would be as well to just stop providing any customer support whatsoever, there would be little net difference in most cases.
I think the lack of bureaucracy is probably the key factor in the success of the black economy. Anyone who has worked in a corporation knows how many hoops you have to jump through to get anything meaningful done at any level in the organization. It's often best forgetting about anything that's not groundbreaking.
That, and the fact that the bottom feeders in the foodchain who fail to cover their asses often don't get a warning on their permanent record so much as a bullet in the brain.
Even as a Mac fanboy I could care less. I want to use Safari, especially since Firefox is not the best on a Mac. However, no flashblock, no adblock -- no use. I'm reluctantly sticking with Firefox.
Antiphishing technology is of little to no value to me, flashblock and adblock are essential on the web. Steve, call me when Safari is web ready, without these tools it simply is not.
At least your ISP fixes things. I was with BT (which I believe is short for Bastard Telecom). They fix nothing. Your call goes to India. A rep there, whom you can barely understand, promises you everything and proceeds to completely ignore anything you say. I gave up after daily, hour-long calls for three weeks -- just switched ISP, it was easier.
The Earl of Sandwich called, and he wants a slice.
... or what the spiders call "Phase III" of the Grand Plan.