Brin's analysis of the plot and facts of the movies is not bad, if a bit slanted with that "I could never love a Star Wars movie" attitude.
However, he tries to over analyze Lucas's intenteded "messages" about life and that Lucas is trying to show us how democracy simply dies, despostism is wonderful, and that the moral message is twisted and confusing.
Its a damn space opera, not a morality play, nitwit.
And the fact that he comes to this conclusion shows he has ignored all of the work done in the novels in the star wars universe. Unlike Star Trek, George reviews the novels carefully and approves them as long as they fit into the universal plot. Star Trek trash novels are filled with duplications and inconsistencies with the series they are modelled after because they are just throwaways. However, the Star Wars novels are far tighter. Are they perfect? Of course not, but at least effort is made. And the point is that those novels refute most of his claims about confusing morality and messages in the Star Trek universe.
But then again, this was written by a man who wrote "The Postman." I don't know why I even bothered to even read what this whacko has to say.
An editorial in the WorldTechTribute argues that Sun's education-market giveaway is exactly the sort of behavior that Microsoft has been attacked for in the past.
It may be a little immoral, but there is no argument here. If I were Ford or GMC I could give away any number of cars I want, and they do constantly and they can do it for whatever reason they want.
Microsoft is a monopoly. Under monopoly rules any action taken to strengthen that monopoly is ILLEGAL. Giving away PCs for someone with low market share is legal if they can make money at it. Microsoft giving away PCs that increase their market penetration further and take away from low share competitors and possibly lock those schools into Microsoft products is not legal when you already have 95% of the market.
Microsoft will always do fine, with or without intellectual property laws. They sell certification, training, and support in addition to IP. And Linux's only advantages--better stability and security--are only as safe as its code base. If intellectual property laws are repealed, then Linux as we know it is doomed.
Ummmm... what?
Microsoft's advantages:
1) Selling closed copywrited software at very very high prices. 2) Dominance in a market where everyone thinks they have to buy their software, which is copywrited and you can't modify the source yourself. 3) A system of copywrites that force people to buy their software
Linux's advantages: 1) Its Free, whether or not its copywrited 2) Its expandable by everyone in the world, whether or not its copywrited. 3) Its revenue stream is based on consulting, not software.
Microsoft's revenue stream is based on SOFTWARE. Linux is based on CONSULTING!!! Consulting is not affected by copywrite nearly as much as Software sales are. Linux will be untouched by any changes to any copywrite laws. Isn't freedom from copywrite one of GPL's main tenants?
Instead of fighting for their freedom, food, and a place to live, they can escape their worries and buy cheap DVDs from an overseas conglomerate and ignore the war.
My company sells accounting software. It's assumed that those who buy our software have accounting knowledge. You'd be surprised how many people call me up to simply try to get me to do their job. I also wouldn't be surprised if people call up never having seen a computer before and now that they have one, they didn't bother to attend a basic computer skills class and expect support to train them
You'd also be surprised (maybe you wouldn't) at the number of times you ask a person to be logical and they aren't. Support reps may also be domain experts, but they have a tendency (not always I admit) to be more logical thinkers than the customers.
And finally, you'd be surprised at the number of times people call up to bitch because things don't go their way and they try to screw the company out of something because they want a free lunch or something.
Actually it does make some sense. The problem I had was that when I associate tables, they almost always have foreign keys to the tables I want to work with. It sounds like you are saying these two tables are similar but not referencing each other in any discernable way and you need the data in this format for more data conversion than data mining.
Most of our data conversion in our company is done through excel spreadsheets and text files so thats why I never thought of that. I want all my relational data on the same row/tuple.
And as for the Anonymous Coward, I know what it does... when you can take the next evolutionary step and answer the question "why" you'll be as bright as Noel:)
Perhaps this is my ignorance, but I have not found a query that used the union statement that could not have been better written with a proper ANSI JOIN statement. ANSI JOINs are awesome, so awesome that I wish the UNION command would be written out of the standard.
On one hand, you could do the whole project yourself and then get a pat on the back. But 99 times out of 100, the slackers will be told how good you are, all you get is a pat on the back, and no reprimands for those who do not work.
On the other hand you could go to your boss and say "Boss I'm doing all the work, this project will NOT get done unless those helping me pull their weight. Without help this project is going in the toilet." Then you have your ass covered because you have a lot of work to show, and then the other coders begin to code and do the work. In the beginning you get praised, but then the lazy coders turn out crap code, the entire group gets blamed, your contribution is diminished, and the project fails anyway because they can't turn out quality code.
In either situation, you get frustrated, angry, and head to Monster.com to search for a new job where the managers know how to higher decent working coders.
Headline is right, but article not about spam
on
Spam Doesn't Work?
·
· Score: 1
Okay the article, as everyone who can click and can read knows, is not truly about spam. The article can very very very very loosely be associated to spam, by a very thin thread.
However, the headline here is right and here is why we need to get more discussion on this topic.
Spam doesn't work. Here's why:
1) Spam thankfully now has a bad reputation. Its something to be ignored and not read. Entire emails are lost in the internet void thanks to spam filters. Most of it isn't getting through. And most of the topics nowadays are for things most people don't want and don't see in snail mail fliers because they are considered taboo or untrustworthy. Penis or breast enlargement is not a common service you'll find in your weekly grocery store mailer.
2) Here's the loose thread you can associate to this article. As with any email, even legitimate emails, they can be very easily IGNORED. I get offers from my credit card companies every so often because I've signed up for online statements and online account management to save paper. They haven't sent me many paper mailers lately. They even started to send me those telemarketing offers in email rather than have someone call me up.
However, I can ignore emails a lot easier than telemarketing. Telemarketing puts a person on the spot and gives a little pressure, while email is received privately with very little bells or whistles. It can even electronically be blocked if the user so desires.
The only reason why things like spam continue to exist is because spam is virtually free to the spammer, especially if they are using quasi legal or illegal methods to send you emails. If just a few people bite on the emails, then they've made money.
Yes there are hardware costs but thats mostly cheap, and they probably obtain bandwidth illegally to send the spams.
Anyone try telling these greedy Cable people that 1% of the US population controls 90% of its wealth? Think about that before you complain about bandwidth.
I smiled, but I'm serious. People are trying to make PDAs smaller and lighter, but the major weight is usually the screen. The screen simply cannot be much smaller or it is unreadable.
Solution? Holographic displays.
You have a small device with all the hardware, and if you want a visual display, you hit a button and you can then work with the display holographically. The screen is 100% portable.
Okay this is far fetched, but we need serious scientific research on holographics to push computer display technology forward, I think. Its one of several revolutions computers need to get out of this current cludge the current machines are in.
At least, not in any form where Luke or Leia or any main characters see her.
For those who are not familiar, star wars has an extensive novelization of the universe too. These books are not just trash novels like the star trek episodes. These novels have real continuity and each one is approved by Lucas so that they fit into a universe. The continuity problems are few and far between, unlike the star trek universe where such continuity problems are rampant since there is no attempt at real control.
In the novels after Jedi, at no point does Padme appear. Also, there is one trilogy where one of the plots is Luke searching for his mother. He never finds his mother in that trilogy either. So the fact remains that Luke does not know his mother and should not know his mother in the movies.
Otherwise Lucas will damage his own universe, destroy a hell of a lot of continuity, ergo bruising his ego far too much and causing him severe mental trauma.
By the way, why are we discussing highly suspect and unconfirmed rumors anyway?
Passwords are to hard to remember in an age when you have five billion numbers you have to remember just to tie your own shoe. SSN, locker combination, voicemail number password, home password, work password, 12 other work passwords on poorly designed networks, slashdot password, passwords to all your favorite protected websites.....
People don't think creatively about their passwords, and most people can't memorize that much information. A computer can't think creatively, so if a person thinks creatively and uses only information they know, they can beat password crackers. Here is the best way I feel to handle passwords.
1) Pick one password for all your secure personal and work information. 2) Pick one password for your nonsecure information (business sites with no personal information on you, gay-pedo-sheep porn sites, news sites) 3) If you can't avoid it, pick a password for your place of work different than the first two. 4) Rotate these passwords every 6 to 12 months. Remember to go back and update as many sites as you can, but keep in the back of your mind those old passwords in case you miss a site or two. 5a) When thinking about the password, pick a word you can think of, not necessarily a dictionary word, something thats easy to remember.or you can associate to yourself that people can't easily guess. For example, if your Name is CmdrTaco, if your password contains the word "Taco" its not a good idea. Maybe two small words will work just as well. 5b) Then think of a number thats easy to remember, something significant that an internet cracker might not know about. 69 and 42 are bad choices, but your old high school sports number might work, especially if you are 40+ years old and no one knows where you went to high school and they aren't singling you out. 5c) Mosh the word(s) and number together in an easy to remember format.
For example, say your high school football number was 88. Say your best sweethearts nickname is "goober." Maybe you could come up with a password called, 88Ngoober, or GooberN88. You could even do 88Goober88. You've come up with an easy to remember password by creating a good mental schema and the password satisfies most password format and length standards (that is if you only have an 8 character standard).
People too often are given passwords like SFTJYADEBAVSDFGHSRTDBDFC and expected to remember them without writing them down. Thats ludicrous.
The article author says they are concerned about about a search tool that allows people to search for cracks on software to make it easier to pirate tools.
Have the user read the slashdot posting about a half a dozen postings behind this one regarding intellectual property, then have him switch to open source.
This is not a "pro-open source rant." This is a comment about the complete lack of useful discussion this slashdot posting has considering slashdot's audience.
Yes you can abolish Copywrite and patent laws
on
Fair IP Laws?
·
· Score: 1
Stop thinking of IP as a "good" to be sold, and start thinking of how to exploit an idea and turn it into a billable SERVICE which cannot be duplicated.
The founding fathers wrote books for people to READ, not buy. Mozart wrote music for people to LISTEN to, not buy. Shakespeare wrote plays for people to WATCH, not buy.
You can easily secure payments for a service.
Perhaps the only law that needs to be written down is that credit needs to be given where credit is due ("This song was written by Billy Joel, but I thought I'd try an interpretation tonight for all my fans").
Microsoft is resorting to desperation tactics... they know they've lost.
ABC/CNN needs to blast this on all their stations so that people get an eyefull and understand what they are running. It would go a long way to defeating this monopoly.
This would be a good reply if it wasn't for the fact that all the things the xBox can do are very insignificant to the primary function of he box... PLAYING GAMES. Both Consoles have nice graphics, both are the same price. The PS2 has more signature games and costs less to produce. The fact that you can hack the xBox and do PC like things on it is pretty insignificant.
You know, they call Spider Man now the highest opening weekend of all time, and Titanic (*puke*) the highest overall grossing movie of all time.
These figures get a lot of attention, but WHY? Ticket prices have been steadily growing and revenues are obviously up because of this... duh. So whats the point in putting these types of stupid figures up when it only satisfies the movie execs? You don't hear how much revenue The Wizard of Oz or Citizen Kane pulled in do you?
How about putting something out there about how many tickets were sold? I bet no movie sold as many tickets as the original Star Wars. THATS something I'd like to see.
That would make sense, if it weren't for the fact that I pointed out this years models and that I also pointed out the phone which includes functionality as a wireless modem is FREE with activation. So for the cost of any other Visor PDA you can turn that PDA into a Treo sans the keyboard for much less money.
The visor Prism is $299. The visor pro is $229. The current Treo is $399, or $299 with a trade up.
Both have rechargable batteries, 16 MB memory, and an expansion slot. And the prism has color when the current Treo 180 does not.
Guess what the expansion slot fits? A Visorphone which is free with activation.
So basically I'm paying $170 or an old PDA for a keyboard on my new PDA. I used to think this thing was cool, but when I got a visorphone for my existing Visor Deluxe (ohhhhh its coming soon!) I got over that real quick.
Yes, my keyboard is full of nasty infectious microbes. Funny thing is that their older brothers and sisters were already killed when they went through my body. Why would I be worried about germs I put on my keyboard that I already killed?
Slashdot Mirror
Brin's analysis of the plot and facts of the movies is not bad, if a bit slanted with that "I could never love a Star Wars movie" attitude.
However, he tries to over analyze Lucas's intenteded "messages" about life and that Lucas is trying to show us how democracy simply dies, despostism is wonderful, and that the moral message is twisted and confusing.
Its a damn space opera, not a morality play, nitwit.
And the fact that he comes to this conclusion shows he has ignored all of the work done in the novels in the star wars universe. Unlike Star Trek, George reviews the novels carefully and approves them as long as they fit into the universal plot. Star Trek trash novels are filled with duplications and inconsistencies with the series they are modelled after because they are just throwaways. However, the Star Wars novels are far tighter. Are they perfect? Of course not, but at least effort is made. And the point is that those novels refute most of his claims about confusing morality and messages in the Star Trek universe.
But then again, this was written by a man who wrote "The Postman." I don't know why I even bothered to even read what this whacko has to say.
An editorial in the WorldTechTribute argues that Sun's education-market giveaway is exactly the sort of behavior that Microsoft has been attacked for in the past.
It may be a little immoral, but there is no argument here. If I were Ford or GMC I could give away any number of cars I want, and they do constantly and they can do it for whatever reason they want.
Microsoft is a monopoly. Under monopoly rules any action taken to strengthen that monopoly is ILLEGAL. Giving away PCs for someone with low market share is legal if they can make money at it. Microsoft giving away PCs that increase their market penetration further and take away from low share competitors and possibly lock those schools into Microsoft products is not legal when you already have 95% of the market.
Microsoft will always do fine, with or without intellectual property laws. They sell certification, training, and support in addition to IP. And Linux's only advantages--better stability and security--are only as safe as its code base. If intellectual property laws are repealed, then Linux as we know it is doomed.
Ummmm... what?
Microsoft's advantages:
1) Selling closed copywrited software at very very high prices.
2) Dominance in a market where everyone thinks they have to buy their software, which is copywrited and you can't modify the source yourself.
3) A system of copywrites that force people to buy their software
Linux's advantages:
1) Its Free, whether or not its copywrited
2) Its expandable by everyone in the world, whether or not its copywrited.
3) Its revenue stream is based on consulting, not software.
Microsoft's revenue stream is based on SOFTWARE. Linux is based on CONSULTING!!! Consulting is not affected by copywrite nearly as much as Software sales are. Linux will be untouched by any changes to any copywrite laws. Isn't freedom from copywrite one of GPL's main tenants?
Instead of fighting for their freedom, food, and a place to live, they can escape their worries and buy cheap DVDs from an overseas conglomerate and ignore the war.
Common sense isn't very common.
My company sells accounting software. It's assumed that those who buy our software have accounting knowledge. You'd be surprised how many people call me up to simply try to get me to do their job. I also wouldn't be surprised if people call up never having seen a computer before and now that they have one, they didn't bother to attend a basic computer skills class and expect support to train them
You'd also be surprised (maybe you wouldn't) at the number of times you ask a person to be logical and they aren't. Support reps may also be domain experts, but they have a tendency (not always I admit) to be more logical thinkers than the customers.
And finally, you'd be surprised at the number of times people call up to bitch because things don't go their way and they try to screw the company out of something because they want a free lunch or something.
Than you Noel!
:)
Actually it does make some sense. The problem I had was that when I associate tables, they almost always have foreign keys to the tables I want to work with. It sounds like you are saying these two tables are similar but not referencing each other in any discernable way and you need the data in this format for more data conversion than data mining.
Most of our data conversion in our company is done through excel spreadsheets and text files so thats why I never thought of that. I want all my relational data on the same row/tuple.
And as for the Anonymous Coward, I know what it does... when you can take the next evolutionary step and answer the question "why" you'll be as bright as Noel
Perhaps this is my ignorance, but I have not found a query that used the union statement that could not have been better written with a proper ANSI JOIN statement. ANSI JOINs are awesome, so awesome that I wish the UNION command would be written out of the standard.
I'm sorry, but nothing is more valuable than a case of Guinness :)
On one hand, you could do the whole project yourself and then get a pat on the back. But 99 times out of 100, the slackers will be told how good you are, all you get is a pat on the back, and no reprimands for those who do not work.
On the other hand you could go to your boss and say "Boss I'm doing all the work, this project will NOT get done unless those helping me pull their weight. Without help this project is going in the toilet." Then you have your ass covered because you have a lot of work to show, and then the other coders begin to code and do the work. In the beginning you get praised, but then the lazy coders turn out crap code, the entire group gets blamed, your contribution is diminished, and the project fails anyway because they can't turn out quality code.
In either situation, you get frustrated, angry, and head to Monster.com to search for a new job where the managers know how to higher decent working coders.
Okay the article, as everyone who can click and can read knows, is not truly about spam. The article can very very very very loosely be associated to spam, by a very thin thread.
However, the headline here is right and here is why we need to get more discussion on this topic.
Spam doesn't work. Here's why:
1) Spam thankfully now has a bad reputation. Its something to be ignored and not read. Entire emails are lost in the internet void thanks to spam filters. Most of it isn't getting through. And most of the topics nowadays are for things most people don't want and don't see in snail mail fliers because they are considered taboo or untrustworthy. Penis or breast enlargement is not a common service you'll find in your weekly grocery store mailer.
2) Here's the loose thread you can associate to this article. As with any email, even legitimate emails, they can be very easily IGNORED. I get offers from my credit card companies every so often because I've signed up for online statements and online account management to save paper. They haven't sent me many paper mailers lately. They even started to send me those telemarketing offers in email rather than have someone call me up.
However, I can ignore emails a lot easier than telemarketing. Telemarketing puts a person on the spot and gives a little pressure, while email is received privately with very little bells or whistles. It can even electronically be blocked if the user so desires.
The only reason why things like spam continue to exist is because spam is virtually free to the spammer, especially if they are using quasi legal or illegal methods to send you emails. If just a few people bite on the emails, then they've made money.
Yes there are hardware costs but thats mostly cheap, and they probably obtain bandwidth illegally to send the spams.
The 1% of users use 16% of bandwidth?
Anyone try telling these greedy Cable people that 1% of the US population controls 90% of its wealth? Think about that before you complain about bandwidth.
I smiled, but I'm serious. People are trying to make PDAs smaller and lighter, but the major weight is usually the screen. The screen simply cannot be much smaller or it is unreadable.
Solution? Holographic displays.
You have a small device with all the hardware, and if you want a visual display, you hit a button and you can then work with the display holographically. The screen is 100% portable.
Okay this is far fetched, but we need serious scientific research on holographics to push computer display technology forward, I think. Its one of several revolutions computers need to get out of this current cludge the current machines are in.
sliiiiiiiiiiiiipping????
At least, not in any form where Luke or Leia or any main characters see her.
For those who are not familiar, star wars has an extensive novelization of the universe too. These books are not just trash novels like the star trek episodes. These novels have real continuity and each one is approved by Lucas so that they fit into a universe. The continuity problems are few and far between, unlike the star trek universe where such continuity problems are rampant since there is no attempt at real control.
In the novels after Jedi, at no point does Padme appear. Also, there is one trilogy where one of the plots is Luke searching for his mother. He never finds his mother in that trilogy either. So the fact remains that Luke does not know his mother and should not know his mother in the movies.
Otherwise Lucas will damage his own universe, destroy a hell of a lot of continuity, ergo bruising his ego far too much and causing him severe mental trauma.
By the way, why are we discussing highly suspect and unconfirmed rumors anyway?
Yes, Mozilla succeeded despite JWZ.
;)
And now they are going to his lounge, partying hard, celebrate success right in front of him, and throw the whole project in his face.
Its very appropriate!
Passwords are to hard to remember in an age when you have five billion numbers you have to remember just to tie your own shoe. SSN, locker combination, voicemail number password, home password, work password, 12 other work passwords on poorly designed networks, slashdot password, passwords to all your favorite protected websites.....
.or you can associate to yourself that people can't easily guess. For example, if your Name is CmdrTaco, if your password contains the word "Taco" its not a good idea. Maybe two small words will work just as well.
People don't think creatively about their passwords, and most people can't memorize that much information. A computer can't think creatively, so if a person thinks creatively and uses only information they know, they can beat password crackers. Here is the best way I feel to handle passwords.
1) Pick one password for all your secure personal and work information.
2) Pick one password for your nonsecure information (business sites with no personal information on you, gay-pedo-sheep porn sites, news sites)
3) If you can't avoid it, pick a password for your place of work different than the first two.
4) Rotate these passwords every 6 to 12 months. Remember to go back and update as many sites as you can, but keep in the back of your mind those old passwords in case you miss a site or two.
5a) When thinking about the password, pick a word you can think of, not necessarily a dictionary word, something thats easy to remember
5b) Then think of a number thats easy to remember, something significant that an internet cracker might not know about. 69 and 42 are bad choices, but your old high school sports number might work, especially if you are 40+ years old and no one knows where you went to high school and they aren't singling you out.
5c) Mosh the word(s) and number together in an easy to remember format.
For example, say your high school football number was 88. Say your best sweethearts nickname is "goober." Maybe you could come up with a password called, 88Ngoober, or GooberN88. You could even do 88Goober88. You've come up with an easy to remember password by creating a good mental schema and the password satisfies most password format and length standards (that is if you only have an 8 character standard).
People too often are given passwords like SFTJYADEBAVSDFGHSRTDBDFC and expected to remember them without writing them down. Thats ludicrous.
The article author says they are concerned about about a search tool that allows people to search for cracks on software to make it easier to pirate tools.
Have the user read the slashdot posting about a half a dozen postings behind this one regarding intellectual property, then have him switch to open source.
This is not a "pro-open source rant." This is a comment about the complete lack of useful discussion this slashdot posting has considering slashdot's audience.
Stop thinking of IP as a "good" to be sold, and start thinking of how to exploit an idea and turn it into a billable SERVICE which cannot be duplicated.
The founding fathers wrote books for people to READ, not buy. Mozart wrote music for people to LISTEN to, not buy. Shakespeare wrote plays for people to WATCH, not buy.
You can easily secure payments for a service.
Perhaps the only law that needs to be written down is that credit needs to be given where credit is due ("This song was written by Billy Joel, but I thought I'd try an interpretation tonight for all my fans").
Lets think...
Microsoft is resorting to desperation tactics... they know they've lost.
ABC/CNN needs to blast this on all their stations so that people get an eyefull and understand what they are running. It would go a long way to defeating this monopoly.
This would be a good reply if it wasn't for the fact that all the things the xBox can do are very insignificant to the primary function of he box... PLAYING GAMES. Both Consoles have nice graphics, both are the same price. The PS2 has more signature games and costs less to produce. The fact that you can hack the xBox and do PC like things on it is pretty insignificant.
You know, they call Spider Man now the highest opening weekend of all time, and Titanic (*puke*) the highest overall grossing movie of all time.
These figures get a lot of attention, but WHY? Ticket prices have been steadily growing and revenues are obviously up because of this... duh. So whats the point in putting these types of stupid figures up when it only satisfies the movie execs? You don't hear how much revenue The Wizard of Oz or Citizen Kane pulled in do you?
How about putting something out there about how many tickets were sold? I bet no movie sold as many tickets as the original Star Wars. THATS something I'd like to see.
That would make sense, if it weren't for the fact that I pointed out this years models and that I also pointed out the phone which includes functionality as a wireless modem is FREE with activation. So for the cost of any other Visor PDA you can turn that PDA into a Treo sans the keyboard for much less money.
The visor Prism is $299. The visor pro is $229. The current Treo is $399, or $299 with a trade up.
Both have rechargable batteries, 16 MB memory, and an expansion slot. And the prism has color when the current Treo 180 does not.
Guess what the expansion slot fits? A Visorphone which is free with activation.
So basically I'm paying $170 or an old PDA for a keyboard on my new PDA. I used to think this thing was cool, but when I got a visorphone for my existing Visor Deluxe (ohhhhh its coming soon!) I got over that real quick.
Yes, my keyboard is full of nasty infectious microbes. Funny thing is that their older brothers and sisters were already killed when they went through my body. Why would I be worried about germs I put on my keyboard that I already killed?
nt