There actually is a market for such devices in the real world....
While you may be correct on that minor point, you skipped over my primary point entirely: If the government had a need for such things, then the tech almost certainly already exists in some form, as the idea has itself existed for decades in fictional representations. And we're not talking about Star Trek futuristic technologies here, either; it wouldn't be terribly difficult to literally pack small amounts of plastic explosives alongside (or even inside) the microchips in those critical technologies that you mentioned. So why did the PARC researchers need to investigate this topic in the first place? Unless they're just trying to build a better mouse trap...
... chips with integrated plastic explosives? As in, standard Mission Impossible/Inspector Gadget type stuff. If there was actually a market for such devices in the real world, wouldn't it have already been fulfilled by now?
Or... are we just now learning about this, because certain "spy-craft" methods have recently been declassified, or something of that nature? Hmmmmmm.....
See, his real problem, in my opinion, is that he put the cart before the horse, and made a crapton of money before properly establishing a family life. I'm married, so I don't have to worry about meeting Miss Right. What's more, we have six kids and are barely able to make ends meet -- so now would be absolutely the perfect time to become suddenly wealthy!
Now, if only I could come up with the next Minecraft...
... So does that mean there were 2583 men for every woman?...
So yeah, 2583:1 -- or some other ways to put it*...
- approximately 0.22% of the "female" accounts were real, (0.03% of the total user base) or
- roughly the same odds as winning $100 in the lottery, on a $5 ticket.
I've occasionally wondered how on earth sites such as these could possibly attract enough females to genuinely support any kind of a userbase, without hiring prostitutes or the like... I guess now we know the answer: They can't.
* That is, not involving football fields, as that's already been nicely covered by Tom.
... as a fat man, if you can come up with a legitimate way for me to lose weight without diet and exercise, I will love you forever
Really? Your requirement is that both means of losing weight be unnecessary? Most people would argue that both are necessary for a truly healthy lifestyle, no matter what you do... but I really think that at an absolute minimum, you need at least one of those...
Yesterday on a radio I heard a DJ saying that there was a study showing that diet drinks didn't help people loose weight....
That snippet is old news, and I'm pretty sure it stems from psychology more then from the actual affect of diet drinks, metabolically. People think to themselves, "Oh, I'm drinking fewer calories anyway... so super-duper-size it!"
The bottom line is pretty simple, actually: people almost universally like sweets. You take away their favorite soft drink or candy, and they're going to find a substitute. I'd imagine this is one of the issues that the Coca-cola study will examine... and they're probably going to come to the very obvious conclusion, that what's actually necessary to be more healthy, is to burn off the calories that you take in.
(Of course, the best advice is and always has been, "everything in moderation"... even exercise. My knees can attest to that.)
A half-hour off from an international standard, that was supposedly "imposed" upon them specifically by the Japanese? Really? And other then yet another baffling head-shaker of a headline, how exactly do the North Korean people benefit from this change?
From his incredible over-the-top reaction to "The Interview" forcing an otherwise crappy movie into an international limelight courtesy of the Streisand Effect, to his perpetual posturing on the international stage... to this. Does Kim Jong-un not comprehend that it's through moves like these that he makes himself (and by proxy, his entire nation) into such exceptionally easy fodder for jokes?
I mean seriously... why on earth would anyone intentionally take actions which cause them to be the butt of jokes, worldwide? Surely there are better things he could be doing with his time and energies...
... say the power supply, ceases to function, the hard drive or flash chip is still technically infected. Rather than making a more accurate statement, what you have done is make a different but also accurate statement that we don't care if it's infected but not in use currently.
I stand by my previous statement: the hard drive (or flash drive) will eventually fail. That said... I agree with your conclusion, even if I'm inclined to nitpick the details: an infection which is contained -- ergo, can no longer spread nor do anything harmful -- is really not worth worrying about.
Nothing lasts forever: The infected computers will eventually cease to function. It would have been more accurate (and less of an inflammatory panic reaction) to suggest that the infected computers might remain infected for the remainder of their active life.
So I have to ask: Did they happen to find the specific bacteria responsible for the common cold yet? (It seems to me that finding it might very well lead directly to curing it, after all...)
... the heaploads of cell phone manufacturers who use Google's code and who may or may not have the ability to distribute the fix...
Faulty premise: The issue isn't that they do not have the ability to distribute fixes; it's that they each have different levels of corporate red tape, preventing the expeditious distribution of these fixes. That's been an ongoing problem in the Android market for years, now. Thus, the benefit of this reveal is that, when an exploit hits the wild (and it would have with or without this announcement) these researchers (and Google) can all respond to outraged customers by saying, "Don't blame me! I did my part!" and point their fingers out to the carriers.
I'm pretty sure I had one of these offending apps, at one time -- though, in my case it may have been a legitimate error on the part of the developer, rather then malicious: It was an alarm clock app for iOS, which displayed a banner ad when you had it in portrait mode but not when you had it in landscape mode. Funny thing is, I learned in the course of time that it was still downloading those ads regardless of orientation, because there's an odd quirk in the way some (or all?) iOS apps download ads; they retain the ad on the device for some indeterminate period of time. Since I just left the iPad charging and sitting on that alarm clock app whenever I wasn't actively using the iPad, this caused that one app to bloat to ridiculous proportions over time, eventually filling up multiple gigabytes of space -- that is to say, all of the remaining space on the iPad.
(Naturally, I eventually ditched that app and sought out one which was entirely ad-free.)
With the size of some recent phones, I think assuming use of a backpack might be just as realistic.
With the ever increasing ubiquity of internet addiction, I think assuming that some phones almost never leave the owners hand might also be realistic. (And yeah... I'll confess that I'm speaking for myself, to some degree.)
Okay... but then again, why waste so many years in college in the first place, for that matter? If you're actually talented at coding, then you can probably learn more on-the-job then you ever will in a classroom.
I know this is practically blasphemy on the internet... but I actually read the original article. I so doing, I found something particularly confusing about it: While it leads off with that "Internet Customers Surpass Cable Subscribers at Comcast" headline, it then proceeds to say the following further in...
"... At the end of the first quarter, Comcast counted 22.375 million video customers and 22.369 million high-speed Internet customers...."
I mean, sure... It's been quite a few years since I took a math class -- but I'm pretty sure that 22.375 > 22.369, if only by a very small margin. Was the author too impatient to wait for his headline to actually come true, (likely next quarter) and playing loose with their numbers, or is that simply a typo?
Others seem intent on commenting on the questions of slander/libel/censorship... but I think a far more important question to pose is that of jurisdiction. I think that Google should simply permit Japan to have their way -- within Japan's sovereign territory -- but Google should not allow this ruling to have any impact whatsoever on what they display to users outside of that jurisdiction.
This reminds me of when the US was attempting to obtain e-mails from Microsoft, when those e-mails were hosted on a Dublin server; I didn't agree with the United States' argument for jurisdiction then, and I don't agree with Japan's argument for jurisdiction now.
Show me the quote were he says "not us", or are you making shit up?
Seriously? Of course I'm making that all up, dude; it's called satirical commentary, and it's meant to be empirically obvious. You didn't really think that the CEO of a Dutch drug company had used American slang, and paraphrased Star Wars in his statements to the media, did you?
The whole point is that this guy is waving his hands about and making all kinds of accusations against companies in other countries which are undeniably his competitors, and then pointing to all of the region-specific problems being caused by those competitors... and even if he never once claimed that his own company might also be at fault for similar issues, he certainly didn't come right out and say, "Yeah... we need to get our own shit together, too." So he's basically claiming innocence by omission.
News flash! Drug company CEO blames the other manufacturers of drugs for problems adversely affecting their supply and demand ratios; stock holders and the media swallow it, hook, line and sinker. CEO is quoted as saying, "But don't worry... that's totally not us. You need to regulate our competitors -- err... ummmm... I mean, those other drug companies, over there... we're totally fine here. These aren't the drugs you're looking for. Move along."
Slashdot Mirror
Goes to comments... sees references to masturbation and PeeWee's Playhouse -- but inexplicably, not one single reference to Luke Skywalker's hand.
Alright people: turn over your geek cards, this instant!
Plausible deniability.
Touche'.
There actually is a market for such devices in the real world. ...
While you may be correct on that minor point, you skipped over my primary point entirely: If the government had a need for such things, then the tech almost certainly already exists in some form, as the idea has itself existed for decades in fictional representations. And we're not talking about Star Trek futuristic technologies here, either; it wouldn't be terribly difficult to literally pack small amounts of plastic explosives alongside (or even inside) the microchips in those critical technologies that you mentioned. So why did the PARC researchers need to investigate this topic in the first place? Unless they're just trying to build a better mouse trap...
... chips with integrated plastic explosives? As in, standard Mission Impossible/Inspector Gadget type stuff. If there was actually a market for such devices in the real world, wouldn't it have already been fulfilled by now?
Or... are we just now learning about this, because certain "spy-craft" methods have recently been declassified, or something of that nature? Hmmmmmm.....
See, his real problem, in my opinion, is that he put the cart before the horse, and made a crapton of money before properly establishing a family life. I'm married, so I don't have to worry about meeting Miss Right. What's more, we have six kids and are barely able to make ends meet -- so now would be absolutely the perfect time to become suddenly wealthy!
Now, if only I could come up with the next Minecraft...
... So does that mean there were 2583 men for every woman? ...
So yeah, 2583:1 -- or some other ways to put it*...
- approximately 0.22% of the "female" accounts were real, (0.03% of the total user base) or
- roughly the same odds as winning $100 in the lottery, on a $5 ticket.
I've occasionally wondered how on earth sites such as these could possibly attract enough females to genuinely support any kind of a userbase, without hiring prostitutes or the like... I guess now we know the answer: They can't.
* That is, not involving football fields, as that's already been nicely covered by Tom.
... as a fat man, if you can come up with a legitimate way for me to lose weight without diet and exercise, I will love you forever
Really? Your requirement is that both means of losing weight be unnecessary? Most people would argue that both are necessary for a truly healthy lifestyle, no matter what you do... but I really think that at an absolute minimum, you need at least one of those...
Yesterday on a radio I heard a DJ saying that there was a study showing that diet drinks didn't help people loose weight. ...
That snippet is old news, and I'm pretty sure it stems from psychology more then from the actual affect of diet drinks, metabolically. People think to themselves, "Oh, I'm drinking fewer calories anyway... so super-duper-size it!"
The bottom line is pretty simple, actually: people almost universally like sweets. You take away their favorite soft drink or candy, and they're going to find a substitute. I'd imagine this is one of the issues that the Coca-cola study will examine... and they're probably going to come to the very obvious conclusion, that what's actually necessary to be more healthy, is to burn off the calories that you take in.
(Of course, the best advice is and always has been, "everything in moderation" ... even exercise. My knees can attest to that.)
A half-hour off from an international standard, that was supposedly "imposed" upon them specifically by the Japanese? Really? And other then yet another baffling head-shaker of a headline, how exactly do the North Korean people benefit from this change?
From his incredible over-the-top reaction to "The Interview" forcing an otherwise crappy movie into an international limelight courtesy of the Streisand Effect, to his perpetual posturing on the international stage... to this. Does Kim Jong-un not comprehend that it's through moves like these that he makes himself (and by proxy, his entire nation) into such exceptionally easy fodder for jokes?
I mean seriously... why on earth would anyone intentionally take actions which cause them to be the butt of jokes, worldwide? Surely there are better things he could be doing with his time and energies...
... say the power supply, ceases to function, the hard drive or flash chip is still technically infected. Rather than making a more accurate statement, what you have done is make a different but also accurate statement that we don't care if it's infected but not in use currently.
I stand by my previous statement: the hard drive (or flash drive) will eventually fail. That said... I agree with your conclusion, even if I'm inclined to nitpick the details: an infection which is contained -- ergo, can no longer spread nor do anything harmful -- is really not worth worrying about.
... they might remain infected forever ...
Nothing lasts forever: The infected computers will eventually cease to function. It would have been more accurate (and less of an inflammatory panic reaction) to suggest that the infected computers might remain infected for the remainder of their active life.
Two-for-two. Clearly, my form of humor is much too dry for Slashdot.
Dafuq?
(And if you're referring to the common cold being caused by a virus, then you clearly missed the joke.)
So I have to ask: Did they happen to find the specific bacteria responsible for the common cold yet? (It seems to me that finding it might very well lead directly to curing it, after all...)
... the heaploads of cell phone manufacturers who use Google's code and who may or may not have the ability to distribute the fix...
Faulty premise: The issue isn't that they do not have the ability to distribute fixes; it's that they each have different levels of corporate red tape, preventing the expeditious distribution of these fixes. That's been an ongoing problem in the Android market for years, now. Thus, the benefit of this reveal is that, when an exploit hits the wild (and it would have with or without this announcement) these researchers (and Google) can all respond to outraged customers by saying, "Don't blame me! I did my part!" and point their fingers out to the carriers.
I'm pretty sure I had one of these offending apps, at one time -- though, in my case it may have been a legitimate error on the part of the developer, rather then malicious: It was an alarm clock app for iOS, which displayed a banner ad when you had it in portrait mode but not when you had it in landscape mode. Funny thing is, I learned in the course of time that it was still downloading those ads regardless of orientation, because there's an odd quirk in the way some (or all?) iOS apps download ads; they retain the ad on the device for some indeterminate period of time. Since I just left the iPad charging and sitting on that alarm clock app whenever I wasn't actively using the iPad, this caused that one app to bloat to ridiculous proportions over time, eventually filling up multiple gigabytes of space -- that is to say, all of the remaining space on the iPad.
(Naturally, I eventually ditched that app and sought out one which was entirely ad-free.)
With the size of some recent phones, I think assuming use of a backpack might be just as realistic.
With the ever increasing ubiquity of internet addiction, I think assuming that some phones almost never leave the owners hand might also be realistic. (And yeah... I'll confess that I'm speaking for myself, to some degree.)
"Why waste so many years learning how to code?"
Okay... but then again, why waste so many years in college in the first place, for that matter? If you're actually talented at coding, then you can probably learn more on-the-job then you ever will in a classroom.
(And yes... I speak from experience.)
I know this is practically blasphemy on the internet... but I actually read the original article. I so doing, I found something particularly confusing about it: While it leads off with that "Internet Customers Surpass Cable Subscribers at Comcast" headline, it then proceeds to say the following further in...
"... At the end of the first quarter, Comcast counted 22.375 million video customers and 22.369 million high-speed Internet customers. ..."
I mean, sure... It's been quite a few years since I took a math class -- but I'm pretty sure that 22.375 > 22.369, if only by a very small margin. Was the author too impatient to wait for his headline to actually come true, (likely next quarter) and playing loose with their numbers, or is that simply a typo?
Others seem intent on commenting on the questions of slander/libel/censorship... but I think a far more important question to pose is that of jurisdiction. I think that Google should simply permit Japan to have their way -- within Japan's sovereign territory -- but Google should not allow this ruling to have any impact whatsoever on what they display to users outside of that jurisdiction.
This reminds me of when the US was attempting to obtain e-mails from Microsoft, when those e-mails were hosted on a Dublin server; I didn't agree with the United States' argument for jurisdiction then, and I don't agree with Japan's argument for jurisdiction now.
Oh yeah? Fine! I'll just have to boycott this year's RSA conference, for taking away my eye candy! Boooooycott! Boooooycott! Boooooycott!
What's that? Have I ever attended one before? Well... no, but what's that got to do with anything?
</snark>
Show me the quote were he says "not us", or are you making shit up?
Seriously? Of course I'm making that all up, dude; it's called satirical commentary, and it's meant to be empirically obvious. You didn't really think that the CEO of a Dutch drug company had used American slang, and paraphrased Star Wars in his statements to the media, did you?
The whole point is that this guy is waving his hands about and making all kinds of accusations against companies in other countries which are undeniably his competitors, and then pointing to all of the region-specific problems being caused by those competitors... and even if he never once claimed that his own company might also be at fault for similar issues, he certainly didn't come right out and say, "Yeah... we need to get our own shit together, too." So he's basically claiming innocence by omission.
News flash! Drug company CEO blames the other manufacturers of drugs for problems adversely affecting their supply and demand ratios; stock holders and the media swallow it, hook, line and sinker. CEO is quoted as saying, "But don't worry... that's totally not us. You need to regulate our competitors -- err... ummmm... I mean, those other drug companies, over there... we're totally fine here. These aren't the drugs you're looking for. Move along."
So... much... precedence...
And in other news, the US FAA was heard bellowing, "Get off of my lawn!" to a bunch of kids playing with their remote controlled drones...