Well, the established parties have always tried to make sure they get to squeeze out minority parties, fake or not.
In the US, we have an institutionalized two-party system that has acted to make it nearly impossible for a third party to gain major influence; the party registration and ballot rules help ensure it. The same kind of thing happens elsewhere.
What I wonder, is if the Pirate Party in Germany has actually fulfilled the regulatory requirements for being recognized as an official political party. If so, then they could've registered the party on the site the same as any other. This is the root of the problem, I suspect.
What's the average cost incurred by a single victim of identity fraud? Last I heard it was over $5k. So for the hospital to save its petty $10k in implementation costs, how many patients are they willing to screw over? (All of 'em, it seems.)
Do you have any figures on how many IDs are stolen from hospital databases?
Let's complete the math here, since you started the problem but never finished it.
IF the average hospital's info insecurity (ha) policy results in an average of 2 stolen identities per year, then it would be worth $10k to protect the data assuming damages of $5k/lost ID. Worthwhile from a societal standpoint, anyway, in terms of absolute costs.
Now let's look at some other factors... that $10,000 needs to be paid for. Let's say the average hospital handles 10k patients per year, just to make the math easy. That's $1 per visit to pay for the coverage. How about adding a $1 "information security fee" to every hospital bill? Or should this be paid by the insurance companies, in which case we can add another $1 to the cost for collection and administration expenses on that $1.
At any rate, before you can even BEGIN to make a societal cost benefit analysis of implementing this, you've got to figure out how much the current hospital systems cost us in terms of escaped IDs.
Sure, $10k doesn't seem like much out of a hospital budget... but then add $10k for this compliance issue, $10k for this other one, and pretty soon you're talking about the need to cut staff in order to pay to meet regulatory requirements. This is how institutional budgets get out of hand... one "small" line item at a time.
The test of a joke actually being funny comes when you can get someone to laugh at it without a half hour of showing them why it makes you laugh.
I disagree. That's the test of a joke being more universally funny, which is not the same as testing whether a joke is actually funny.
Consider the following jokes:
Q: Why did the chicken cross the road? A: To get to the other side
Q: Why did the frog cross the road A: Because it was stapled to the chicken
The second joke is a play on the first joke, and will not make any sense to someone not familiar with the first joke. That does not mean it isn't funny. (It isn't very funny for toher reasons, but I picked that example for space considerations).
This class of humor is called banter, and it is used extensively on slashdot.
The most likely explanation is that the memes and "jokes" aren't actually funny in the comic sense, they just trigger that "us-against-them" reaction so common in cliques. In-jokes are rarely truly funny, they just tickle some shared experience.
The Superiority Theory of humor has its place, but I hope you are not advocating the Strong Superiority theory... very few students of humor philosophy would consider that to hold water. Personally, I find the Incongruity Theory to be more generally applicable. In-jokes tend to have a strong superiority component to them, but the basis of the joke still tends to depend on incongruity. Within a given group of people, there is true humor to be found among the in-jokes when there are modifications, particularly applications of incongruity.
In essence, all written humor is comprised of in-jokes due to dependence on cultural knowledge; this does not make those jokes dependent on perceived superiority of the joker and the audience, thouhgh that may be a component.
That's not to say that bad PR generated from materially inconsequential things shouldn't be avoided, but rather if a company is busy creating fairy-tales about itself (e.g., Enron) it is better for society that that company should fail and fail at the earliest possible date.
I agree with you 100%. However, from the company's perspective, that's a bad thing. And as we all know, actors tend to act in their own self-interest. That's the foundation of our economic system, for good or bad.
For a market to work efficiently, information should be available for all. That's not the case, however, which is one reason why our economy doesn't function as efficiently as it should.
Sorry to reply twice, but your post deserves more attention than I gave it before, mostly because you chose to overlook the majority of the conversation.
More likely, the memes you cherish just aren't that funny.
Oh look, another In Soviet Russia joke. More hot grits. Another set of Profit!!! steps. Hey, there's that same Beowulf cluster joke again.
You're right, the problem is that the humor is all too rich for us.
I see I was correct. There are a lot of humorless twits on slashdot. Now, you may not be humorless, and you may not be a twit, but I think you're way off base, for the following reasons:
1. You chose to lump all humor in with meme humor. If you look at the majority of +5, Funny posts on slashdot, you'll see that fewer than half are meme-related. Yes, there are a lot of meme-joke attempts, but most of those are either un-moderated, or down-moderated. That's the beauty of a moderated system. If you choose to browse at a threshold lower than 3, that's your choice -- but don't bitch when you see a lot of lame joke attempts. 2. It was a poor choice for me to use memes as the first in an incomplete list of things contributing to understanding of cultural humor on slashdot, BUT the other factors are also important. Relating to memes and jkoes that have come before: One of the great things about some of the humor on slashdot is the repartee -- the metajokes that play on memes or previous jokes. Failing to appreciate those jokes, is in my opinion, a sign of humorlessness (or of inability to understand them, which is even worse). Those are the rich jokes that exist on slashdot but nowhere else, IMO. 3. You still miss the point of the entire thread, which is that cultural awareness is important in undertanding humor. Even the non-meme humor requires cultural understanding.
How long will it take corporate overlords until they finally realize that broad level censorship and trying to control the message are far more harmful than just becoming part of the discourse?
Until it's demonstrably true?
There's a reason so many large institutions want to "control the message", and despite our best wishes to the contrary, it's because controlling the message works. Yes, there are downsides, such as the risk of Streisand effect, but quashing off-message discussion is a proven strategy.
Managing public relations, and managing your brand, is a useful tool. You're living in a dream world if you think it isn't. That's not to say it's not important to be aware of, and to learn from, institutional shortcomings... but to allow employees to broadcast them far and wide is doing nothing but hurting your brand.
I am familiar with the memes, the subject matter, and the jokes that have come before, and 4/4 of them still aren't funny.
Well, in that case, the problem seems to be you. Have you considered that possibly you are just a humorless twit? Admitting it would probably be the first step to recovery.
That was the point. We did not know if it had been changed already or not.
As soon as we observed it, it collapsed into a changed state. (Well, half the time. The other half it collapsed into an unchanged state.)
Furthermore, we had an additional problem... we made the mistake of measuring how fast we were moving the bulb. As soon as we did that, we lost track of where the damn thing was.
I'm sorry but "Colbert" and "Comedian" only belong in the sentence if the words between them are "is not a ". Maybe I'm English and I just don't get him....
Colbert is an example of cultural humor. The Colbert character is a parody of American right-wing demagogues.
Unless you are familiar with those demagogues, you'll not understand the comedy.
It's like slashdot humor. Unless you're familiar with the memes, the subject matter, and the jokes that have come before, 3/4 of the jokes just won't be funny to you.
That's the problem with humor... little of it is universal (not even poop jokes are universal, as some cultures don't have the same hang-ups about doody that we do). Slapstick is probably the only truly universal humor.
My choice of words there has nothing to do with my knowledge of child psychology, or teaching methods.
As per the parent to my post (who was quite mistaken), the bad side to taking down the book is that it prevents kids from learning history.
Are you sure I am not correct in saying that learning about 9/11 as history is more appropriate for kids who are older than those kids who typically use coloring books?
I'd like you to think long and hard about this, and perhaps consult some resources on age-appropriateness for teaching history. While you're at it, why not consult some information on typical age-appropriateness of coloring books.
Do you care to reconsider your statement? Or will you continue to wallow in ignorance about the subject I wrote about, and choose instead to attack the words I chose to use?
To the mod who decided to mod the parent post overrated:
Yes, it's not very funny. However, the primary point of the post was to lampoon how ridiculous the catastrophe coloring book idea is. Whether or not you agree with that point is something else, but I hope you considered the idea.
Off-topic, completely, I know... but it seems there are so many rush-moderators now, maybe you'll consider thinking about it next time.
It happened and it's history. People need to know the truth.
And an appropriate way to teach kids about it is to have them color in pictures of burning buildings and planes aiming for buildings?
Sorry, big bag of fail there. Kids who need coloring books to learn about a terrorist attack do not need to learn the history yet. Wait until they are older, when it can be taught as history and discussed rationally, instead of indoctrinating their very young minds.
This is just the first government agency publication to be pulled. To come:
FEMA's Katrina Snorkel & Search underwater body hunt field kit The SEC's Big Book of Why Daddy Contemplates Suicide guide to financial hardship for kids The FDA's Crush&Snort Mortar and Pestle Set
Look for a complete list to be published by early summer.
In what alternate dimension does the EU exist where the above are illegal? Because AMD isn't large enough to do the same they get to have the EU demand minimum prices on processors?
Not an alternate dimension. This dimension. This plane.
Intel had a market-dominating position, with AMD barely sniffing that their knees in the early 2000s. They also had a big fat cash surplus. So, they decided that by selling at a loss, they could keep AMD from breaking into the market; once AMD was bankrupted, or not able to compete, then they could raise their prices back up and begin raking in the cash.
This is a very, very classic example of anti-competitive behavior. It doesn't get much more textbook than this.
Because AMD isn't large enough to do the same they get to have the EU demand minimum prices on processors?
No. Because Intel was dominant in the market, they couldn't sell at a loss to drive a much smaller competitor out of the market.
Note that this is illegal in the US as well as in the EU. I suggest before you get your panties in a wad about how this possibly couldn't be illegal, you actually bother finding out why it's illegal.
This User did not possess the special knowledge of the Priests of the Cult of Computers.
This User was granted divine Manna from heaven in the form of a shining disc with an outer shell of a transparent horn-like material.
"Lo!" said he, "I have found the Sacred Tablet of AOL!"
And he put the Tablet in the Slot of Curious Whirrings, and nothing happened. And this was Good.
But the User was unhappy, and complained to the Disciples of AOL, that the sacred disc of AOL was defective.
And so the Disciples of AOL conferred with the Disciples of Borg.
Now, the Disciples discipled for a while, and determined that the User could never be trusted grok the mysteries of "Drive D". The Disciples agreed, also it was bothersome and unholy, to be summoned each time a Tablet was delivered by divine provenance to another User. And so Autorun was created.
Verily, the User could place the Sacred Tablet of AOL in the Slot of Curious Whirrings, and without any further discipling by the Disciples, could run AOL.
And thus were the Demons of AOL unleashed upon the world together with the Lord of PC Plague and Pestilence, he-who-should-not-be-named-but-nevertheless-I-will, Autorun.
The only drawback is seeds in the hay sprouting when it's rototilled in.
Use straw instead of hay and you won't have that problem. Also, straw is cheaper. Though it is nastier stuff to work with -- it's stiffer than hay, thus much 'pokier'. I've gotten some nasty cuts from straw, and I'll never forget the 1/2" splinter I got under my fingernail when I was 14.
They will always be undercut by people willing to live like princes, however, so really what would have to happen is to decrease the American's standard of living to that of a pauper.
Please, understand economics before you claim that protectionism is the answer. You're not qualified to discuss the issue.
Over time, wages in the US and in other countries will equilibriate. Currently, the standard of living in India or China is much lower than the US, so it is cheaper to employ Indian or Chinese workers. Over time, they will cost the same, assuming that a free labor market exists. It is not required that the US standard of living decreases (though it is likely). The cost of living in India and China will rise until it is equivalent to the US cost, assuming the standard of living is the same.
The big problem in the long run is relative currency valuations. This requires management of export/import balances, and I feel protectionism is the wrong way to manage them.
If the government used taxes, or tariffs, or some kind of penalty structure to protect American jobs, the whole world would suffer. The US would suffer, because we'd still be unable to find export markets for our super-expensive goods, and our domestic market is insufficient. The rest of the world would suffer, because they'd have fewer opportunities to better their situation. And never mind retaliatory protectionism, which would hurt us even worse.
Protectionism DOESN'T work unless it's monodirectional, and then it only benefits one trade partner -- so what ends up happening is a tariff war that stunts growth everywhere. It's exactly what happened to deepen the Great Depression in the early 30s.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, the established parties have always tried to make sure they get to squeeze out minority parties, fake or not.
In the US, we have an institutionalized two-party system that has acted to make it nearly impossible for a third party to gain major influence; the party registration and ballot rules help ensure it. The same kind of thing happens elsewhere.
What I wonder, is if the Pirate Party in Germany has actually fulfilled the regulatory requirements for being recognized as an official political party. If so, then they could've registered the party on the site the same as any other. This is the root of the problem, I suspect.
Do you have any figures on how many IDs are stolen from hospital databases?
Let's complete the math here, since you started the problem but never finished it.
IF the average hospital's info insecurity (ha) policy results in an average of 2 stolen identities per year, then it would be worth $10k to protect the data assuming damages of $5k/lost ID. Worthwhile from a societal standpoint, anyway, in terms of absolute costs.
Now let's look at some other factors... that $10,000 needs to be paid for. Let's say the average hospital handles 10k patients per year, just to make the math easy. That's $1 per visit to pay for the coverage. How about adding a $1 "information security fee" to every hospital bill? Or should this be paid by the insurance companies, in which case we can add another $1 to the cost for collection and administration expenses on that $1.
At any rate, before you can even BEGIN to make a societal cost benefit analysis of implementing this, you've got to figure out how much the current hospital systems cost us in terms of escaped IDs.
Sure, $10k doesn't seem like much out of a hospital budget... but then add $10k for this compliance issue, $10k for this other one, and pretty soon you're talking about the need to cut staff in order to pay to meet regulatory requirements. This is how institutional budgets get out of hand... one "small" line item at a time.
No worries, Nick. That post of mine was a bit caustic, not surprised it got a flamebait mod :)
I disagree. That's the test of a joke being more universally funny, which is not the same as testing whether a joke is actually funny.
Consider the following jokes:
The second joke is a play on the first joke, and will not make any sense to someone not familiar with the first joke. That does not mean it isn't funny. (It isn't very funny for toher reasons, but I picked that example for space considerations).
This class of humor is called banter, and it is used extensively on slashdot.
The Superiority Theory of humor has its place, but I hope you are not advocating the Strong Superiority theory... very few students of humor philosophy would consider that to hold water. Personally, I find the Incongruity Theory to be more generally applicable. In-jokes tend to have a strong superiority component to them, but the basis of the joke still tends to depend on incongruity. Within a given group of people, there is true humor to be found among the in-jokes when there are modifications, particularly applications of incongruity.
In essence, all written humor is comprised of in-jokes due to dependence on cultural knowledge; this does not make those jokes dependent on perceived superiority of the joker and the audience, thouhgh that may be a component.
I agree with you 100%. However, from the company's perspective, that's a bad thing. And as we all know, actors tend to act in their own self-interest. That's the foundation of our economic system, for good or bad.
For a market to work efficiently, information should be available for all. That's not the case, however, which is one reason why our economy doesn't function as efficiently as it should.
I see I was correct. There are a lot of humorless twits on slashdot. Now, you may not be humorless, and you may not be a twit, but I think you're way off base, for the following reasons:
1. You chose to lump all humor in with meme humor. If you look at the majority of +5, Funny posts on slashdot, you'll see that fewer than half are meme-related. Yes, there are a lot of meme-joke attempts, but most of those are either un-moderated, or down-moderated. That's the beauty of a moderated system. If you choose to browse at a threshold lower than 3, that's your choice -- but don't bitch when you see a lot of lame joke attempts.
2. It was a poor choice for me to use memes as the first in an incomplete list of things contributing to understanding of cultural humor on slashdot, BUT the other factors are also important. Relating to memes and jkoes that have come before: One of the great things about some of the humor on slashdot is the repartee -- the metajokes that play on memes or previous jokes. Failing to appreciate those jokes, is in my opinion, a sign of humorlessness (or of inability to understand them, which is even worse). Those are the rich jokes that exist on slashdot but nowhere else, IMO.
3. You still miss the point of the entire thread, which is that cultural awareness is important in undertanding humor. Even the non-meme humor requires cultural understanding.
Until it's demonstrably true?
There's a reason so many large institutions want to "control the message", and despite our best wishes to the contrary, it's because controlling the message works. Yes, there are downsides, such as the risk of Streisand effect, but quashing off-message discussion is a proven strategy.
Managing public relations, and managing your brand, is a useful tool. You're living in a dream world if you think it isn't. That's not to say it's not important to be aware of, and to learn from, institutional shortcomings... but to allow employees to broadcast them far and wide is doing nothing but hurting your brand.
I stoop to meme jokes sometimes, but it's the non-meme jokes that I like best.
Even the non-meme jokes required cultural awareness, which was the point of my OP in this thread.
Well, in that case, the problem seems to be you. Have you considered that possibly you are just a humorless twit? Admitting it would probably be the first step to recovery.
That was the point. We did not know if it had been changed already or not.
As soon as we observed it, it collapsed into a changed state. (Well, half the time. The other half it collapsed into an unchanged state.)
Furthermore, we had an additional problem... we made the mistake of measuring how fast we were moving the bulb. As soon as we did that, we lost track of where the damn thing was.
Colbert is an example of cultural humor. The Colbert character is a parody of American right-wing demagogues.
Unless you are familiar with those demagogues, you'll not understand the comedy.
It's like slashdot humor. Unless you're familiar with the memes, the subject matter, and the jokes that have come before, 3/4 of the jokes just won't be funny to you.
That's the problem with humor... little of it is universal (not even poop jokes are universal, as some cultures don't have the same hang-ups about doody that we do). Slapstick is probably the only truly universal humor.
How many quantum physicists does it take to change a light bulb?
One. Two to do it, and one to renormalise the wave function.
My choice of words there has nothing to do with my knowledge of child psychology, or teaching methods.
As per the parent to my post (who was quite mistaken), the bad side to taking down the book is that it prevents kids from learning history.
Are you sure I am not correct in saying that learning about 9/11 as history is more appropriate for kids who are older than those kids who typically use coloring books?
I'd like you to think long and hard about this, and perhaps consult some resources on age-appropriateness for teaching history. While you're at it, why not consult some information on typical age-appropriateness of coloring books.
Do you care to reconsider your statement? Or will you continue to wallow in ignorance about the subject I wrote about, and choose instead to attack the words I chose to use?
What, you think a script call for the Junior X-Men hasn't been made already?
To the mod who decided to mod the parent post overrated:
Yes, it's not very funny. However, the primary point of the post was to lampoon how ridiculous the catastrophe coloring book idea is. Whether or not you agree with that point is something else, but I hope you considered the idea.
Off-topic, completely, I know... but it seems there are so many rush-moderators now, maybe you'll consider thinking about it next time.
And an appropriate way to teach kids about it is to have them color in pictures of burning buildings and planes aiming for buildings?
Sorry, big bag of fail there. Kids who need coloring books to learn about a terrorist attack do not need to learn the history yet. Wait until they are older, when it can be taught as history and discussed rationally, instead of indoctrinating their very young minds.
This is just the first government agency publication to be pulled. To come:
FEMA's Katrina Snorkel & Search underwater body hunt field kit
The SEC's Big Book of Why Daddy Contemplates Suicide guide to financial hardship for kids
The FDA's Crush&Snort Mortar and Pestle Set
Look for a complete list to be published by early summer.
Not an alternate dimension. This dimension. This plane.
Intel had a market-dominating position, with AMD barely sniffing that their knees in the early 2000s. They also had a big fat cash surplus. So, they decided that by selling at a loss, they could keep AMD from breaking into the market; once AMD was bankrupted, or not able to compete, then they could raise their prices back up and begin raking in the cash.
This is a very, very classic example of anti-competitive behavior. It doesn't get much more textbook than this.
No. Because Intel was dominant in the market, they couldn't sell at a loss to drive a much smaller competitor out of the market.
Note that this is illegal in the US as well as in the EU. I suggest before you get your panties in a wad about how this possibly couldn't be illegal, you actually bother finding out why it's illegal.
That's blatantly false.
The reason the browsers have so much trouble with #69 is that they have to stop and turn around.
In the beginning, there was a User.
This User did not possess the special knowledge of the Priests of the Cult of Computers.
This User was granted divine Manna from heaven in the form of a shining disc with an outer shell of a transparent horn-like material.
"Lo!" said he, "I have found the Sacred Tablet of AOL!"
And he put the Tablet in the Slot of Curious Whirrings, and nothing happened. And this was Good.
But the User was unhappy, and complained to the Disciples of AOL, that the sacred disc of AOL was defective.
And so the Disciples of AOL conferred with the Disciples of Borg.
Now, the Disciples discipled for a while, and determined that the User could never be trusted grok the mysteries of "Drive D". The Disciples agreed, also it was bothersome and unholy, to be summoned each time a Tablet was delivered by divine provenance to another User. And so Autorun was created.
Verily, the User could place the Sacred Tablet of AOL in the Slot of Curious Whirrings, and without any further discipling by the Disciples, could run AOL.
And thus were the Demons of AOL unleashed upon the world together with the Lord of PC Plague and Pestilence, he-who-should-not-be-named-but-nevertheless-I-will, Autorun.
Go check the articles posted from 3 years ago. Go back 5 years. Go back 8 years.
These kind of articles have always been part of slashdot. Users like you have always been complaining about them.
Get used to it. If you don't like them, don't bother reading them, or the comments to them.
Use straw instead of hay and you won't have that problem. Also, straw is cheaper. Though it is nastier stuff to work with -- it's stiffer than hay, thus much 'pokier'. I've gotten some nasty cuts from straw, and I'll never forget the 1/2" splinter I got under my fingernail when I was 14.
What does that have to do with the quality of their musicianship? That's where I feel they were most overrated.
Please, understand economics before you claim that protectionism is the answer. You're not qualified to discuss the issue.
Over time, wages in the US and in other countries will equilibriate. Currently, the standard of living in India or China is much lower than the US, so it is cheaper to employ Indian or Chinese workers. Over time, they will cost the same, assuming that a free labor market exists. It is not required that the US standard of living decreases (though it is likely). The cost of living in India and China will rise until it is equivalent to the US cost, assuming the standard of living is the same.
The big problem in the long run is relative currency valuations. This requires management of export/import balances, and I feel protectionism is the wrong way to manage them.
If the government used taxes, or tariffs, or some kind of penalty structure to protect American jobs, the whole world would suffer. The US would suffer, because we'd still be unable to find export markets for our super-expensive goods, and our domestic market is insufficient. The rest of the world would suffer, because they'd have fewer opportunities to better their situation. And never mind retaliatory protectionism, which would hurt us even worse.
Protectionism DOESN'T work unless it's monodirectional, and then it only benefits one trade partner -- so what ends up happening is a tariff war that stunts growth everywhere. It's exactly what happened to deepen the Great Depression in the early 30s.
Perhaps you are confused as to what a zero-day exploit is. It means there were exploits in the wild prior to Adobe being aware of the vulnerability.