...the reasoning is... incomplete because it is based on an undefined variable ("knows twice as much as" (that itself is no easy task to measure)), and excludes the reasoning that, if a test is on the single subject the testee's 'level of knowlege' is "calculated" on, he with more knowledge/experience in that subject and its workings as a whole would have a greater chance of "guesstimating" correctly on the questions he was unable to answer with 100% certainty. Even more so if the test isn't a fixed set of true/false questions.
I'm sure it is possible to reduce such questions to mathamatical formulae, but the algorithm would be m~u~c~h more complicated, and even then I think we could only be hitting at "closest averages".
My first reaction to anything they covertly include in my recording is to find a way to detect/get rid of it. I would also be inclined to stop recording in that way altogether, should there be another "meddle-free" means of recording the same media.
Might I add here that I don't see any reason to have high-quality content for free... shows such as "Lost" must pay for themselves somehow, and I (for one) am only all to willing to contribute in order to make sure that such content continue. Need we rely on ad revenue for this?
Yes, I know, RTFA. No, I don't think that DVR will do the same that streaming will... It's just your old VCR all over again: If advertisers could never find a way to "get at you" with that machine, nor will they with this one.
I can only imagine shows "coded" to let a server know which ads should go where at playback... but that would mean having a (very turn-offable) connection to the show's server. Would they try to scramble show content (with a 'playback' key) to make you have to connect to their server? I don't see that flying either.
The future will be (albeit maybe DVR-recorded) "à la carte" streaming. It's the only way advertisers can get at you when you watch what you want.
No, Really. I just posted to a thread on "à la carte" cable television on this subject - it's good news for everyone, as monopolies over "viewing slots" will be no more. To a user with a remote control, a stream or a channel is exactly the same thing, but the beauty is that he can watch what he wants, when he wants.
This will also throw the TV advertising market into chaos... will ad spots become something like Google's adSense, but in visual?
Ditto for the "indecency" reservations. Who decides what is "Indecent"?
"Indecent" has a different meaning for practically every individual. If we were to go about defining indecency in an honest and democratic way in a way applicable to a whole group (let's say, oh, the entire U.S.), we would have to sound out what "a majority of people find indecent" and draw the lines somewhere around there.
Yet those who decide what is "indecent" 'for us' (groups such as the MPAA) rarely follow the above process, rarely represent a cross-section of us everyday working joes (who have no time to deal with the above process), and as an empowered group open themselves to targeted meddling by those who DO have the capital and time for shenanigans aimed to manipulate the working majority to their own ends - lobbyists and the religious right for example - so I would mistrust ANY "indecency-deciding" body whose member list is not open to the democratic process, and even less if that body has the right to draw up laws.
I hear now arguments for 'protecting' those "young minds" out there - yes, a proper education is important, but only parents should be responsible for what their children see at home, and make their own rules and blocking ("à la carte 'indecency list', anyone?). I see problems in "over-sheltering", as it makes mystery out of all the often quite banal words or acts deemed offensive (by others), and can create an ignorance that can be exploited by not-so-well-intentioned parties (such as lobbyists and the religious right). Anything outside of the home should be subject to (the above) democratic process.
"A la carte" should actually eliminate the "need" (careful defining that word too) for an "indecency-deciding" body, and will open cable to the "level playing field" laws of commerce - if the public finds a certain content to be bad or offensive (*cough* - 'indecent'), then no-one will order it and the show won't survive. The à la carte system can actually be compared to... the www as it is today. If it's free and I find it offensive, I won't look at it - but if I have to pay for it, even less.
Thanks, but there's not a shred of fact in anything you write - neither opinion nor taste is a replacement for this.
I use mac because it works in a simple, ergonomic way that doesn't try to take centre stage in the work/creative process. If windows did this I would say the same. Mac's entire existence is this, not "being better than Windows", and it is exactly for this that Microsoft copies them.
Microsoft is "quality"? No security issues? No bloat? No crashing? No vulnerabilities? Easy to manage? Most innovative? Your affirmation sounds like flamebait more than anything.
I really don't see how it is possible to argue about which OS is "better", especially when the goals/specialities of their respective companies are different in so many ways. Windows and Linux, although in the same "software-only" field, are exact opposites: Linux's foremost goal is making a system that works based on its own trials and experience; Microsoft's goal is exploiting the naivité of first-time computer users to make a profit based on an OS based on the re-engineered ideas of others, and this often to a sloppy end. Mac - although in another league, 'ratio ex machina' - has been guilty of idea-lifting as well, but at least they bring it all together to a high-quality end that the end user can both understand easily and appreciate - Mac's speciality, if I may, is ergonomics more than anything.
Because of the above, the user experience is different as well: Mac users are Mac users because they choose to be; Windows users have been led by the nose since the very first time they bought and turned on their first 'anything but mac' PC. Linux/Unix users are, granted, the "ÜberGeek", almost a race of their own... network workhorses, their work is often their trade. To the other end of the user spectrum, Mac users use their computer to do their 'own' thing - photo retouching, whatever - and don't see the OS as something central to everything they do - rather the opposite. Windows users, on the other hand, are 'trained' by the very OS they use, and for this hesitate to drop it for another OS for fear of returning to the bottom of another (not) shallow learning curve.
But to the money made out of all this? I agree with the above: Mac at least is putting its profits to building a better OS/computer. Microsoft isn't. Linux is in another league!
Friendly companies "do things" we find useful and make a profit when we buy many. Evil companies decide what they 'can do' based on possible profit, and to hell with usefulness.
I've been using mac whenever possible (always at home, sometimes at work) since 1986, and have a very definite reason for needing Parallels - I'm a web-designer who needs to make sure his work is displaying correctly in MS's buggy products. I can imagine there are other trades who need parallels too - gamers and developers, for example - and frankly I don't see how anyone could think that Parallels could exist were everyone disinterested. Not the most insightful of comments, sir.
To slightly change the topic: am I alone in being dismayed at Apple's BootCamp? Even in its first days, I stuck with oh-so-slow VirtualPC until Parallels became a finalised product. I really wonder why Apple thought it normal to oblige a reboot (meaining closing all your work and applications) when one "schwing" could do the trick.
Although based on advice that would seem rather obvious (one should think) to a more experienced coder, in all it is a good article that will provide food for thought for anyone still learning or tired of wrangling through code. I don't see what microsoft has to do with anything contained in the article.
I have the misfortune of having two trades - photography and graphic/web design/development - and I can say that when I return from a location to pick up coding where I left it three days before, it sometimes takes me several hours to fully comprehend/remember and reconstruct all the already completed processes in my head so I can move forward. Much of the article's seemingly obvious lessons I only learned through time, so perhaps it will save some of the same (and a few headaches) for another just getting into the trade. The coding one.
The above is rather off-topic. All the same, I severely doubt that Google's failure to come up with a 'light-hearted' memorial day design was anything planned or intentional - unlike the above poster's (obviously an owner or administrator of the extremely right-wing-delusional "little green footballs" website) very obvious intention to paint Google as something "bad". Also, the arguments presented are as ineffective as they are non sequitur - the rather 'light-hearted' poppy is not the symbol of American Memorial Day.
The above post was rather despicable even in its blatant, off-topic slanderous intention. What was its goal, exactly? Why slashdot? Keep the delusional hysteria to your own website, please.
Hear hear, I was also surprised to hear that this technology did not exist already in the US. Bedonnant cites "free.fr", one of the most popular 'media operators' in France at present. Mind you, the other telephone companies (including the former monopoly-owning national telephone giant, France Télécom) were until months ago far behind, but today offer the same deal. By the way, 30 is around $40 a month.
To think that until only recently every French consumer was stuck with paying France Telecom by the second (in addition to a monthly abonnement for their even local communications. It seems that period is coming to an end... and giving way to another "minitel era" advance? There must be other countries using a similar technology already!
To claim that someone's logic is flawed doesn't mean that it is so. What's more, you are answering his points with others of your own, which in itself does not constitute an argument against that made. Spin is not logic.
All the same, taking your post at face value: Why should I have to 'prove' who I am if the information I am viewing is of no value to me (no sale?) Are we to assume that it should be 'normal' that, in order to remain anonymous, we must act (browse and buy) like everyone else? Shall we speak of Orwell?
Right, and just why does Microsoft thinks it has a 'right' to glean our page-viewing habits (an act akin to rummaging our underwear and sock drawers) - perhaps because that those using their software gave it to them? They assume much, but no doubt, once again, the ignorant will fall for it. MS owes its fortune to the latter aspect of their user base, so I don't see how this move is anything new.
"And maybe here's a consistent definition of sane for you to consider: Able to cope and function effectively in the society in which you find yourself."
I don't really understand the point of your post, because your above conclusion is exactly what I said in mine.
Some other cultures may find some of your everyday "normal" habits to be odd or even insane. Are you talking on behaviour engendering physical or mental harm to others? There are laws for that, but again these are not always the same betwen cultures. Look how some cultures treat their women!
Do you "need" to find out? Not if you don't intend to immerse yourself in that culture. On that note, I would hesitate to declare publicly what I think everyone "needs" to do (or know) and expect everyone to take me unquestioningly for my word. See: "calls to authority."
Even before it began, the 'psychiatry is evil' story is f*cked from all angles. What is 'normal' and 'sane'? 'Sane' in our society has not the same definition in other societies, cultures and social networks. So the goal of a psychiatrist is to guide his patient towards behaviour considered nomal by the society he lives in... yet who in our society can define "optimal normal", especially when we worship the most eccentric amongst us?
The goal of Scientology is the very opposite of psychiatry - it wants to split you from society (to better 'form' you), not help you work better with it. The things most 'evil' to any religion are things a threat to the religion itself.
I wouldn't bother to speculate on the sexuality of those unknownst to me, but I can assure you that I see 'scientology' as one sinister (expletive) organisation. By what I see, it takes the basic principle of every 'addictive' in most every religion - namely, the prize of being 'chosen' over others, our reluctance to actually think, and our weakness to calls to authority (most will obey the orders of a cell phone for lord's sake) - and use it as a means to the common goal of most all, save the most primitive, religions - your money.
Remember: If they want to succeed in engendering an 'elite appeal', they depend on you to see them as the elite.
Off-topic perhaps, but now-president Sarkozy rigged a publicity stunt around a year ago where he met (Tom) Cruise - just by coincidence, of course - in front of the Press. Perhaps it's all part of some secret "Tom Missle" anti-spam plan?
Slashdot Mirror
...the reasoning is... incomplete because it is based on an undefined variable ("knows twice as much as" (that itself is no easy task to measure)), and excludes the reasoning that, if a test is on the single subject the testee's 'level of knowlege' is "calculated" on, he with more knowledge/experience in that subject and its workings as a whole would have a greater chance of "guesstimating" correctly on the questions he was unable to answer with 100% certainty. Even more so if the test isn't a fixed set of true/false questions.
I'm sure it is possible to reduce such questions to mathamatical formulae, but the algorithm would be m~u~c~h more complicated, and even then I think we could only be hitting at "closest averages".
...where are our driverless single-family transports, powered by an electrified highway? We have the technology, don't we?
My first reaction to anything they covertly include in my recording is to find a way to detect/get rid of it. I would also be inclined to stop recording in that way altogether, should there be another "meddle-free" means of recording the same media.
Might I add here that I don't see any reason to have high-quality content for free... shows such as "Lost" must pay for themselves somehow, and I (for one) am only all to willing to contribute in order to make sure that such content continue. Need we rely on ad revenue for this?
Yes, I know, RTFA. No, I don't think that DVR will do the same that streaming will... It's just your old VCR all over again: If advertisers could never find a way to "get at you" with that machine, nor will they with this one.
I can only imagine shows "coded" to let a server know which ads should go where at playback... but that would mean having a (very turn-offable) connection to the show's server. Would they try to scramble show content (with a 'playback' key) to make you have to connect to their server? I don't see that flying either.
The future will be (albeit maybe DVR-recorded) "à la carte" streaming. It's the only way advertisers can get at you when you watch what you want.
No, Really. I just posted to a thread on "à la carte" cable television on this subject - it's good news for everyone, as monopolies over "viewing slots" will be no more. To a user with a remote control, a stream or a channel is exactly the same thing, but the beauty is that he can watch what he wants, when he wants.
This will also throw the TV advertising market into chaos... will ad spots become something like Google's adSense, but in visual?
Hooray for the web!
Ditto for the "indecency" reservations. Who decides what is "Indecent"?
... the www as it is today. If it's free and I find it offensive, I won't look at it - but if I have to pay for it, even less.
"Indecent" has a different meaning for practically every individual. If we were to go about defining indecency in an honest and democratic way in a way applicable to a whole group (let's say, oh, the entire U.S.), we would have to sound out what "a majority of people find indecent" and draw the lines somewhere around there.
Yet those who decide what is "indecent" 'for us' (groups such as the MPAA) rarely follow the above process, rarely represent a cross-section of us everyday working joes (who have no time to deal with the above process), and as an empowered group open themselves to targeted meddling by those who DO have the capital and time for shenanigans aimed to manipulate the working majority to their own ends - lobbyists and the religious right for example - so I would mistrust ANY "indecency-deciding" body whose member list is not open to the democratic process, and even less if that body has the right to draw up laws.
I hear now arguments for 'protecting' those "young minds" out there - yes, a proper education is important, but only parents should be responsible for what their children see at home, and make their own rules and blocking ("à la carte 'indecency list', anyone?). I see problems in "over-sheltering", as it makes mystery out of all the often quite banal words or acts deemed offensive (by others), and can create an ignorance that can be exploited by not-so-well-intentioned parties (such as lobbyists and the religious right). Anything outside of the home should be subject to (the above) democratic process.
"A la carte" should actually eliminate the "need" (careful defining that word too) for an "indecency-deciding" body, and will open cable to the "level playing field" laws of commerce - if the public finds a certain content to be bad or offensive (*cough* - 'indecent'), then no-one will order it and the show won't survive. The à la carte system can actually be compared to
Thanks, but there's not a shred of fact in anything you write - neither opinion nor taste is a replacement for this.
I use mac because it works in a simple, ergonomic way that doesn't try to take centre stage in the work/creative process. If windows did this I would say the same. Mac's entire existence is this, not "being better than Windows", and it is exactly for this that Microsoft copies them.
Microsoft is "quality"? No security issues? No bloat? No crashing? No vulnerabilities? Easy to manage? Most innovative? Your affirmation sounds like flamebait more than anything.
I really don't see how it is possible to argue about which OS is "better", especially when the goals/specialities of their respective companies are different in so many ways. Windows and Linux, although in the same "software-only" field, are exact opposites: Linux's foremost goal is making a system that works based on its own trials and experience; Microsoft's goal is exploiting the naivité of first-time computer users to make a profit based on an OS based on the re-engineered ideas of others, and this often to a sloppy end. Mac - although in another league, 'ratio ex machina' - has been guilty of idea-lifting as well, but at least they bring it all together to a high-quality end that the end user can both understand easily and appreciate - Mac's speciality, if I may, is ergonomics more than anything.
Because of the above, the user experience is different as well: Mac users are Mac users because they choose to be; Windows users have been led by the nose since the very first time they bought and turned on their first 'anything but mac' PC. Linux/Unix users are, granted, the "ÜberGeek", almost a race of their own... network workhorses, their work is often their trade. To the other end of the user spectrum, Mac users use their computer to do their 'own' thing - photo retouching, whatever - and don't see the OS as something central to everything they do - rather the opposite. Windows users, on the other hand, are 'trained' by the very OS they use, and for this hesitate to drop it for another OS for fear of returning to the bottom of another (not) shallow learning curve.
But to the money made out of all this? I agree with the above: Mac at least is putting its profits to building a better OS/computer. Microsoft isn't. Linux is in another league!
Mod parent up - this should be the central question in this issue. Can we hope for more educated replies?
Friendly companies "do things" we find useful and make a profit when we buy many. Evil companies decide what they 'can do' based on possible profit, and to hell with usefulness.
I've been using mac whenever possible (always at home, sometimes at work) since 1986, and have a very definite reason for needing Parallels - I'm a web-designer who needs to make sure his work is displaying correctly in MS's buggy products. I can imagine there are other trades who need parallels too - gamers and developers, for example - and frankly I don't see how anyone could think that Parallels could exist were everyone disinterested. Not the most insightful of comments, sir.
To slightly change the topic: am I alone in being dismayed at Apple's BootCamp? Even in its first days, I stuck with oh-so-slow VirtualPC until Parallels became a finalised product. I really wonder why Apple thought it normal to oblige a reboot (meaining closing all your work and applications) when one "schwing" could do the trick.
Although based on advice that would seem rather obvious (one should think) to a more experienced coder, in all it is a good article that will provide food for thought for anyone still learning or tired of wrangling through code. I don't see what microsoft has to do with anything contained in the article.
I have the misfortune of having two trades - photography and graphic/web design/development - and I can say that when I return from a location to pick up coding where I left it three days before, it sometimes takes me several hours to fully comprehend/remember and reconstruct all the already completed processes in my head so I can move forward. Much of the article's seemingly obvious lessons I only learned through time, so perhaps it will save some of the same (and a few headaches) for another just getting into the trade. The coding one.
The above is rather off-topic. All the same, I severely doubt that Google's failure to come up with a 'light-hearted' memorial day design was anything planned or intentional - unlike the above poster's (obviously an owner or administrator of the extremely right-wing-delusional "little green footballs" website) very obvious intention to paint Google as something "bad". Also, the arguments presented are as ineffective as they are non sequitur - the rather 'light-hearted' poppy is not the symbol of American Memorial Day.
The above post was rather despicable even in its blatant, off-topic slanderous intention. What was its goal, exactly? Why slashdot? Keep the delusional hysteria to your own website, please.
Good! (waving) Goodbye!
Hear hear, I was also surprised to hear that this technology did not exist already in the US. Bedonnant cites "free.fr", one of the most popular 'media operators' in France at present. Mind you, the other telephone companies (including the former monopoly-owning national telephone giant, France Télécom) were until months ago far behind, but today offer the same deal. By the way, 30 is around $40 a month.
To think that until only recently every French consumer was stuck with paying France Telecom by the second (in addition to a monthly abonnement for their even local communications. It seems that period is coming to an end... and giving way to another "minitel era" advance? There must be other countries using a similar technology already!
To claim that someone's logic is flawed doesn't mean that it is so. What's more, you are answering his points with others of your own, which in itself does not constitute an argument against that made. Spin is not logic.
All the same, taking your post at face value: Why should I have to 'prove' who I am if the information I am viewing is of no value to me (no sale?) Are we to assume that it should be 'normal' that, in order to remain anonymous, we must act (browse and buy) like everyone else? Shall we speak of Orwell?
Right, and just why does Microsoft thinks it has a 'right' to glean our page-viewing habits (an act akin to rummaging our underwear and sock drawers) - perhaps because that those using their software gave it to them? They assume much, but no doubt, once again, the ignorant will fall for it. MS owes its fortune to the latter aspect of their user base, so I don't see how this move is anything new.
"Zango is trying to clean up its tarnished reputation"/><br />
rather... isn't tarnish Zango's very trade?
"Zango is trying to clean up its tarnished reputation"
...but isn't Zango's reputation based on tarnish?
You know, you're 100% right. What's more, yesterday's right is today's wrong. Whoops, argument rear-ender!
"And maybe here's a consistent definition of sane for you to consider: Able to cope and function effectively in the society in which you find yourself."
I don't really understand the point of your post, because your above conclusion is exactly what I said in mine.
Some other cultures may find some of your everyday "normal" habits to be odd or even insane. Are you talking on behaviour engendering physical or mental harm to others? There are laws for that, but again these are not always the same betwen cultures. Look how some cultures treat their women!
Do you "need" to find out? Not if you don't intend to immerse yourself in that culture. On that note, I would hesitate to declare publicly what I think everyone "needs" to do (or know) and expect everyone to take me unquestioningly for my word. See: "calls to authority."
Even before it began, the 'psychiatry is evil' story is f*cked from all angles. What is 'normal' and 'sane'? 'Sane' in our society has not the same definition in other societies, cultures and social networks. So the goal of a psychiatrist is to guide his patient towards behaviour considered nomal by the society he lives in... yet who in our society can define "optimal normal", especially when we worship the most eccentric amongst us?
The goal of Scientology is the very opposite of psychiatry - it wants to split you from society (to better 'form' you), not help you work better with it. The things most 'evil' to any religion are things a threat to the religion itself.
I wouldn't bother to speculate on the sexuality of those unknownst to me, but I can assure you that I see 'scientology' as one sinister (expletive) organisation. By what I see, it takes the basic principle of every 'addictive' in most every religion - namely, the prize of being 'chosen' over others, our reluctance to actually think, and our weakness to calls to authority (most will obey the orders of a cell phone for lord's sake) - and use it as a means to the common goal of most all, save the most primitive, religions - your money.
Remember: If they want to succeed in engendering an 'elite appeal', they depend on you to see them as the elite.
Off-topic perhaps, but now-president Sarkozy rigged a publicity stunt around a year ago where he met (Tom) Cruise - just by coincidence, of course - in front of the Press. Perhaps it's all part of some secret "Tom Missle" anti-spam plan?