Let's not forget the use of the word 'lensing' instead of 'filming' or 'shooting.' Pretty ridiculous. Is this really even Hollywood-speak, or is this an attempt at neologism?
One of my problems with the "There's no way to catch everybody unless we put up with some false positives" argument is that it's a half-truth. The other half of that statement is that statement is of course the fact that they don't catch everybody. The knicker-bomber proved that.
Until they publish some data on true positives (where they actually caught a bomber in the airport using these methods), there's no way to do a proper economic analysis of hits and misses. For all we know, there could be no true positives. In which case, the single false negative that occurred means the true value of all this screening is nil. That would mean that every day we're wasting hundreds (thousands?) of thousands of dollars on nothing more than the appearance of security. Add to that the negative effects on civil rights and the airline industry.
I just did a little digging. It looks like the Government Accountability Office did some studies a couple of years ago and found that the true positive rate is about 10%. TSA claims it's more like 90%. Not very reassuring, either way. With the highest number, you just need to send 10 guys. One gets through and blows up whatever, and the other nine get stuck in security, and just blow up the airport instead. Maybe it's time to admit the whole system is broken and stupid and just let people get on planes. Let's divert the rest of that money somewhere useful.
You're saying the same thing as Youngblood, that the system worked. It didn't. This is a false positive and it is indicative of a broken system. In fact, you have listed the precise failures. First, the luggage swab failed with a false positive. Second, the visual inspection of the luggage failed with a false positive. Third, the olfactory test failed with a false positive. Not only did the system fail, it failed THREE times! Is that supposed to make me feel better? The other option is that this is the system working "as it should," like you claim. If that's the case, then I'd say we need a new system altogether. It may be time for a beer, but it's also time to fix a broken system.
What's that line Wally says to Dilbert when PHB announces a cash reward for finding and fixing bugs in their own projects? "I'm going to code myself a new minivan." Or something like that.
As a long-time fan of yours, I have to say I'm surprised that you would take this stance. It sounds like you have fallen victim to the "intellectual property" logical fallacy. Dick's estate says, "We feel this is a clear infringement of our intellectual-property rights," but they don't say which rights. There are only four that I know of: patent, trade secret, copyright, and trademark. This falls under none of these categories. Obviously patent and trade secret do not apply.
You cannot copyright a name (although apparently characters like Holden Caufield can be copyrighted). Even if you could, the name in question would be Nexus, which is not even a name, but a word meaning "a connected group" or "the center of a connection." Seems like a very appropriate thing to name a phone connected to a network. Does Gene Roddenberry's estate have grounds to sue DataOne Software or DataPaq? For that matter, does Dr. Spock have grounds to sue Gene Roddenberry's estate?
The Dick estate has no Nexus trademark that I can find. There are 202 hits when you search for Nexus in the USPTO database, searching for live marks. There's even a Nexus 21, 220, and 5001. Even if they had a trademark, it would be on a novel character, not a phone.
This is just whiny heirs looking to squeeze every dime out of something they had no part in creating. Google is not "borrowing" anything from a novel. They trademarked the use of a word that has to do with networking and a specific number, only in the realm cell phones. There's nothing "infringing" about that. Had they named it the "Phillip K. Dick Nexus-6" or maybe even the "Electric Sheep Dream" I could see what the fuss was about. But this is just a standard Latin-based word and a number.
Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood said, "It's encouraging that the system did work, because something is not right there."
What?!? First of all, since when is a false positive the same as the system working? Secondly, what's "not right" about wanting to travel with honey? Thirdly, the article says TSA officials got nauseated by the fumes. What fumes? It's honey! These people need to be fired, not treated like heroes.
Here's what the good sheriff should have said: "Why in this day and age would we have explosives detection equipment that cannot tell honey from TNT? Why in this day and age would a human think that honey is TNT, don't they know what TNT is? Why in this day and age is shutting down an airport for no good reason considered a good thing? Why in this day and age are we still saying 'in this day and age'? It sounds stupid."
Am I missing something? Isn't a contract a blank form for you to sign? If it's a blank form, it's not subject to copyright. If it is deemed not to be a blank form, it would still be possible to publish the information. Fair use may be claimed if the publication of the work is just a small part of a larger critical work. Additionally, a paragraph-by-paragraph recap would still be allowed, as would small direct quotations from the text.
That being said, somebody needs to smack this judge with a clue stick. There's not a single justifiable reason to take down an entire domain, much less three, because of something like this.
I wonder why they didn't try something like Dasher. This uses simple two-axis control to choose letters as they fly by. I would think this kind of method would be better than having to train for each individual letter.
Pure (evil) genius! We should let the punishment fit the crime for all these banker/fraudsters. We could have them pushed from an airplane with an actual golden parachute!
Interesting idea, but you'll never get enough people to agree to report themselves. It would make for an interesting short story, though. I wonder if the same would work for speed limit laws. Millions of people break them every day. Will a cop even give you a ticket if you just pull up beside him, roll down your window and confess? "Hey I just ran a stop sign back there, and I'm feeling guilty about it."
Actually, several of these nav systems have mode to get directions when walking about. So I don't see why it would be a bad idea to make this more accessible for blind people. Providing a touchable map of the area could prove quite useful. Also, raised buttons would let them know where to press.
Read it again. He says Eufloria is a real-time strategy game. Then he says the Eufloria game mechanics are not in the style of Civilization. Those two statements do not imply that Civilization is a real-time strategy game. He later says Eufloria reminds him of Risk. Would you say then that he is implying that Spore is a board game?
Two of the ones I tried seemed very bizarre at first, but when I actually followed the link, they made sense.
What are... these strawberries doing on my nipples, I need them for my fruit salad It's a book. Why is... there a dead pakistani on my couch Something to do with "Lost."
I would like to point out that going into labor is not very clear cut, and using peroxide in your ear is a common method to help loosen wax buildup. You can also gargle with it (peroxide, not ear wax).
We had one prof who would start out with about five chalkboards worth of notes. If you didn't get to class about five minutes early, you'd never catch up before he/she (we weren't quite sure) started erasing stuff. Eventually, one of the more entrepreneurial students brought a Polaroid to class and took pictures of the chalkboards. Don't remember what the rate was... maybe $5 per class. Of course kids these days could just bring their iPhone and take all the pictures they wanted and record the lecture, too. The only reason many of us got an A in that class was because anybody who helped him/her move apartments at the end of the semester got an A.
I read that, too. I hope you get modded up for pointing it out. I guess our habit to paint all these RIAA guys with the same brush is not quite called for. It makes you wonder if this guy knows the guy that likes suing dead grandmothers. Although, I guess the "I hope you are doing well" wouldn't quite be appropriate then.
I think the popularity of the Guitar Hero / Rock Band / DDR / Madden Football games show that you are not alone in your lament for our collectively devolved creativity. I would say that these types of games are a middle ground in which we have a sufficiently simplified version of a creative act. This way people still get to feel like they are enriching themselves somewhat, while not having to go whole hog by actually learning how to play a guitar or throw a football. Whether this represents a step forward or backward depends on your point of view, but I certainly think these games go a long way to doing the same thing culturally that sheet music does.
Slashdot Mirror
depends on the bumper stickers.
Shows you how often I read Variety. I guess all trade magazines have their own dialect. It's just a bit jarring when you're not accustomed to it.
Let's not forget the use of the word 'lensing' instead of 'filming' or 'shooting.' Pretty ridiculous. Is this really even Hollywood-speak, or is this an attempt at neologism?
One of my problems with the "There's no way to catch everybody unless we put up with some false positives" argument is that it's a half-truth. The other half of that statement is that statement is of course the fact that they don't catch everybody. The knicker-bomber proved that.
Until they publish some data on true positives (where they actually caught a bomber in the airport using these methods), there's no way to do a proper economic analysis of hits and misses. For all we know, there could be no true positives. In which case, the single false negative that occurred means the true value of all this screening is nil. That would mean that every day we're wasting hundreds (thousands?) of thousands of dollars on nothing more than the appearance of security. Add to that the negative effects on civil rights and the airline industry.
I just did a little digging. It looks like the Government Accountability Office did some studies a couple of years ago and found that the true positive rate is about 10%. TSA claims it's more like 90%. Not very reassuring, either way. With the highest number, you just need to send 10 guys. One gets through and blows up whatever, and the other nine get stuck in security, and just blow up the airport instead. Maybe it's time to admit the whole system is broken and stupid and just let people get on planes. Let's divert the rest of that money somewhere useful.
You're saying the same thing as Youngblood, that the system worked. It didn't. This is a false positive and it is indicative of a broken system. In fact, you have listed the precise failures. First, the luggage swab failed with a false positive. Second, the visual inspection of the luggage failed with a false positive. Third, the olfactory test failed with a false positive. Not only did the system fail, it failed THREE times! Is that supposed to make me feel better? The other option is that this is the system working "as it should," like you claim. If that's the case, then I'd say we need a new system altogether. It may be time for a beer, but it's also time to fix a broken system.
What's that line Wally says to Dilbert when PHB announces a cash reward for finding and fixing bugs in their own projects? "I'm going to code myself a new minivan." Or something like that.
As a long-time fan of yours, I have to say I'm surprised that you would take this stance. It sounds like you have fallen victim to the "intellectual property" logical fallacy. Dick's estate says, "We feel this is a clear infringement of our intellectual-property rights," but they don't say which rights. There are only four that I know of: patent, trade secret, copyright, and trademark. This falls under none of these categories. Obviously patent and trade secret do not apply.
You cannot copyright a name (although apparently characters like Holden Caufield can be copyrighted). Even if you could, the name in question would be Nexus, which is not even a name, but a word meaning "a connected group" or "the center of a connection." Seems like a very appropriate thing to name a phone connected to a network. Does Gene Roddenberry's estate have grounds to sue DataOne Software or DataPaq? For that matter, does Dr. Spock have grounds to sue Gene Roddenberry's estate?
The Dick estate has no Nexus trademark that I can find. There are 202 hits when you search for Nexus in the USPTO database, searching for live marks. There's even a Nexus 21, 220, and 5001. Even if they had a trademark, it would be on a novel character, not a phone.
This is just whiny heirs looking to squeeze every dime out of something they had no part in creating. Google is not "borrowing" anything from a novel. They trademarked the use of a word that has to do with networking and a specific number, only in the realm cell phones. There's nothing "infringing" about that. Had they named it the "Phillip K. Dick Nexus-6" or maybe even the "Electric Sheep Dream" I could see what the fuss was about. But this is just a standard Latin-based word and a number.
Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood said, "It's encouraging that the system did work, because something is not right there."
What?!? First of all, since when is a false positive the same as the system working? Secondly, what's "not right" about wanting to travel with honey? Thirdly, the article says TSA officials got nauseated by the fumes. What fumes? It's honey! These people need to be fired, not treated like heroes.
Here's what the good sheriff should have said: "Why in this day and age would we have explosives detection equipment that cannot tell honey from TNT? Why in this day and age would a human think that honey is TNT, don't they know what TNT is? Why in this day and age is shutting down an airport for no good reason considered a good thing? Why in this day and age are we still saying 'in this day and age'? It sounds stupid."
Judging from the bright red color, I'm guessing you have to turn it upside-down and shake it to reboot. (Apologies to Scott Adams)
Electing Obama was a precondition of improving on things, not a magical wand to roll back the clock before Bush.
Obama is also held back by the democrats, the "lesser evil" party.
To paraphrase another president: "If Obama had a magic wand -- but the president doesn't have a magic wand. You just can't say, 'low evil.'"
The sad part is, I only changed two words.
Back in 2000, he tied for fifth worst family judge in New Jersey. Good to see he got a promotion!
That being said, somebody needs to smack this judge with a clue stick. There's not a single justifiable reason to take down an entire domain, much less three, because of something like this.
I wonder why they didn't try something like Dasher. This uses simple two-axis control to choose letters as they fly by. I would think this kind of method would be better than having to train for each individual letter.
Pure (evil) genius! We should let the punishment fit the crime for all these banker/fraudsters. We could have them pushed from an airplane with an actual golden parachute!
Interesting idea, but you'll never get enough people to agree to report themselves. It would make for an interesting short story, though. I wonder if the same would work for speed limit laws. Millions of people break them every day. Will a cop even give you a ticket if you just pull up beside him, roll down your window and confess? "Hey I just ran a stop sign back there, and I'm feeling guilty about it."
So you're saying we should hijack the teabaggers?
Sorry, but a book review is no place for grammatical errors.
...
I knw this isn't really a forum for critique of your ...
A rant about grammatical errors is probably not the place for spelling errors, either.
So, a WOMBATintosh?
A microwave that works shockingly? Now that's what I call killer.
Actually, several of these nav systems have mode to get directions when walking about. So I don't see why it would be a bad idea to make this more accessible for blind people. Providing a touchable map of the area could prove quite useful. Also, raised buttons would let them know where to press.
Read it again. He says Eufloria is a real-time strategy game. Then he says the Eufloria game mechanics are not in the style of Civilization. Those two statements do not imply that Civilization is a real-time strategy game. He later says Eufloria reminds him of Risk. Would you say then that he is implying that Spore is a board game?
Two of the ones I tried seemed very bizarre at first, but when I actually followed the link, they made sense. ... these strawberries doing on my nipples, I need them for my fruit salad ... there a dead pakistani on my couch
What are
It's a book.
Why is
Something to do with "Lost."
I would like to point out that going into labor is not very clear cut, and using peroxide in your ear is a common method to help loosen wax buildup. You can also gargle with it (peroxide, not ear wax).
We had one prof who would start out with about five chalkboards worth of notes. If you didn't get to class about five minutes early, you'd never catch up before he/she (we weren't quite sure) started erasing stuff. Eventually, one of the more entrepreneurial students brought a Polaroid to class and took pictures of the chalkboards. Don't remember what the rate was... maybe $5 per class. Of course kids these days could just bring their iPhone and take all the pictures they wanted and record the lecture, too. The only reason many of us got an A in that class was because anybody who helped him/her move apartments at the end of the semester got an A.
I read that, too. I hope you get modded up for pointing it out. I guess our habit to paint all these RIAA guys with the same brush is not quite called for. It makes you wonder if this guy knows the guy that likes suing dead grandmothers. Although, I guess the "I hope you are doing well" wouldn't quite be appropriate then.
I think the popularity of the Guitar Hero / Rock Band / DDR / Madden Football games show that you are not alone in your lament for our collectively devolved creativity. I would say that these types of games are a middle ground in which we have a sufficiently simplified version of a creative act. This way people still get to feel like they are enriching themselves somewhat, while not having to go whole hog by actually learning how to play a guitar or throw a football. Whether this represents a step forward or backward depends on your point of view, but I certainly think these games go a long way to doing the same thing culturally that sheet music does.