Page 2, of the timesonline.co.uk article written by Jeremy Clarkson himself, and which was linked to by the blog in question:
Because while Tesla fiddles about with batteries, Honda and Ford are surging onwards with hydrogen cars, which donâ(TM)t need charging, can be fuelled normally and are completely green. The biggest problem, then, with the Tesla is not that it doesnâ(TM)t work. Itâ(TM)s that even if it did, it would be driving down the wrong road.
I really don't see what your problem is. Unless I count failure to read. Or being a jackass.
Somebody mod this guy up. The customer is pissed at you because you represent the company, your boss is pissed at you because his revenue will go down, support is pissed at you because they have to stay late, and R&D is especially pissed at you because everything works in their lab.
Then again, if you do fix it, you get to be the hero. Not sure how many years that kind of stress takes out of your life though.
I found this a while back: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement The variable reward/schedule reinforcement describes WoW to a T. It's part of the reason why I stop playing for extended time periods - occasionally, I do remember that WoW is nothing but a 3D chat interface designed for maximum addiction. Other times, I just give in.:)
Anonymity to preserve the unjustly accused or leaks to out those who are guilty but have escaped justice?
Tough choice. And I mean that honestly. Both extremes have their drawbacks. I hope that wikileaks uses their power responsibly.
As for the BNP example, I don't see how that fits into your hypothetical scenario. How is outing someone's political affiliation death to the democratic process? If anything, it is required so as to preserve transparency - which is one of the fundamental requirements for democracy to work.
.... this is why a decentralized Internet with no intelligence on the switches is important. Because of that, Wikileaks was able to have multiple hosts in multiple countries that are affected by very different sets of laws and busybodies. Even though two major players got together to knock Wikileaks off the Internet, it still is humming along quite nicely.
Folks, fear the day that somebody requests control over who gets to have access to the Internet (Obama, I'm looking at you) and who gets routed where. Yes, QoS is technically going in that direction, but it is still difficult to abuse that for the purpose of knocking random offenders of the Internet. If that somebody happens to be The Government, you can be sure that a) all other governments will want the same control, and b) diplomacy and general government douchbaggery will only leave the blandest, least offensive and best lobbied/bribed sites up and running. Everything else will have moved underground, where again, you'll have to know the right people to get access to the good stuff.
The point is that someone is willing to call the lawyers on anything that sounds like their song. We don't have the resources to hire a lawyer to contest any takedown letter or to modify an app after release for something that stupid. So we just didn't use it.
Ding Ding Ding! I had a situation at work where people used Happy Birthday as a melody for an iPhone music app. They were shocked to find out that it is copyrighted. The problem is that there is so much content out there that you can argue with just enough credibility to get into court that creative work A infringes on random creative work B. Despite all efforts by creators of A to be original. Not sure where I heard it, but this was one advice to future creatives types that stuck with me: "If you want to make a movie, do it in an empty white room with your two closest friends. Everything else opens you up for copyright claims."
The point is that culture thrives on copying, modifying and playing with existing content. The harder corps will try to come down on small infringement, the less people will like the overall idea of copyright itself. One possible outcome is that WarnerBros gets everyone to turn into mindless consumers. Another possible outcome is that people get so pissed off that they manage to convince their congress critters to change copyright law in their favor. And I'm not sure the former is more likely than the latter.
Here's the point you're missing again and again: setting up warrantless wiretapping guarantees government abuse. What you're saying is that we should bend over and ask for more, just because the old way of tapping lines does not guarantee full surveillance anymore. You talk about a well-meaning FBI trail hot on the tails of someone about to detonate a nuclear bomb in Washington, and I'm talking about an asshole cop wiretapping his ex's lines so he can find out where she is hiding from him.
As others pointed out, there are plenty of existing ways to get warrants for information gathering purposes. None of them require the complete abdication of oversight over what some law enforcement officer is doing.
Absolutely agreed. But there's a difference between doing something petty and vindictive (I disagree on the pointless - the humor alone is worth it) and torturing someone.
Note: Congress creates the budget, the President merely approves it or vetoes it. Not to mention that if you really want funds, you'll find them by moving money around or digging into slush funds.
Rendition has to stop as well. There's no point in obeying the letter of the law while violating its spirit. That said, I believe in giving credit where credit is due: closing the detainment center in Gitmo is an important step. It shouldn't be the last, but it would be obnoxious and counter-productive to not acknowledge that the closing of Gitmo IS an important first step.
Goes to show how much people were relieved that Bush was out. I'm pretty sure that a good chunk of Obama's approval-rating was due to the utter loathing Bush generated. As for Bush being relentlessly attacked by everybody for 8 years.... revisionism is nice.
The article about Jupiter mentions nothing about a planet-wide increase in temperature. The Mars article mentions an increase in dust storm reducing albedo and therefore increasing light absorption. Still a far cry from the ggp's claim that 5 planets are all experiencing the same increase in temperature.
As much as I despise some of the tactics the French employ for keeping their government under control, I can't argue with the results: the government is terrified of upsetting the population, and will pretty much cave on any issue that generates enough street protests. The downside is that there are some truly idiotic laws still on the books, but at that point, no one can argue that this was done against their will.
In the end though, I'm not disappointed with government, I'm pretty disappointed with people. Obama's ability to get away with putting a section of government outside of the law is only possible because the majority of Americans don't care enough to change it.
This is pretty much it. This was the only part that really worried me about Obama - the fact that on wiretapping, he was pretty much in-line with Bush. I gave him the benefit of the doubt because the alternative really didn't leave me much choice. Sad to see that he really is supporting this piece of crap legislation. Time to donate to the EFF again.
Uh.... as much as I get up in arms about due process and rule of law, this is really a tempest in a teapot. Psychological torture is real, but making someone watch a rather silly cartoon is not torture. Unless they set him up like in A Clockwork Orange, calling this torture is stretching the definition to the point of breaking.
There were a ton of other things wrong with his trial, but this wasn't one of them.
On a different topic - your blog seems to illustrate the fact that people tend to view the world through the lens of their existing specializations. It wouldn't be unexpected for an avid historian to bring Ancient Greece into a discussion about sonars.
That right there is where the biggest bidding wars will be. There is no reason to bid large sums of money for a custom TLD, because not a single one will be special anymore. There is no branding possibility anymore, because if you get.philly for your your liberty bell page, someone else will get.philadelphia,.liberty,.bell, etc., etc., etc. Why pay 200k for one year when you can just get some random.com site for 10 bucks?
And yes, this is nothing but an ICANN get rich quick scheme. We'll see if people will actually pay as much as ICANN thinks they will.
You're only partially right. The discussion was over when you brought Ancient Greeks into a discussion about whether sonar can deafen dolphins and whales.
What.The.Fuck. There can only be one cause for a particular behavior? So you're telling me that because people died years ago from stab wounds, they can't possibly die from bullet wounds? Let me guess - you also think that anthropogenic Climate Change is a hoax because the weather changed before humans were around?
Yes, it could well be a parasitic disease that causes SOME dolphins to beach themselves. Doesn't mean it's the ONLY reason ALL dolphins beach themselves.
To some extent though, his guilty verdict was a political death sentence. I just hope that he considers himself too old to run again or become a political commentator. I'm glad that prosecutorial misconduct is not tolerated, even if it means that something that is quite patently fishy (non-disclosure is a matter of fact, not law) is not prosecuted.
In the end, this could be a win-win situation: a senator with some fishy payment issues is removed, and bad prosecutors get smacked down. Not how I would like to see it happen, but I can live with it.
There's also CNN Presents, which are very well researched stories on a significant topic. The last one I remember was "Black in America". I don't think I've seen a better piece by any blogger. CNN.com works well as a site to give you a general overview of news.
Slashdot Mirror
Page 2, of the timesonline.co.uk article written by Jeremy Clarkson himself, and which was linked to by the blog in question:
Because while Tesla fiddles about with batteries, Honda and Ford are surging onwards with hydrogen cars, which donâ(TM)t need charging, can be fuelled normally and are completely green. The biggest problem, then, with the Tesla is not that it doesnâ(TM)t work. Itâ(TM)s that even if it did, it would be driving down the wrong road.
I really don't see what your problem is. Unless I count failure to read. Or being a jackass.
Somebody mod this guy up. The customer is pissed at you because you represent the company, your boss is pissed at you because his revenue will go down, support is pissed at you because they have to stay late, and R&D is especially pissed at you because everything works in their lab.
Then again, if you do fix it, you get to be the hero. Not sure how many years that kind of stress takes out of your life though.
How about incest? Close enough?
I found this a while back: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement :)
The variable reward/schedule reinforcement describes WoW to a T. It's part of the reason why I stop playing for extended time periods - occasionally, I do remember that WoW is nothing but a 3D chat interface designed for maximum addiction. Other times, I just give in.
Anonymity to preserve the unjustly accused or leaks to out those who are guilty but have escaped justice?
Tough choice. And I mean that honestly. Both extremes have their drawbacks. I hope that wikileaks uses their power responsibly.
As for the BNP example, I don't see how that fits into your hypothetical scenario. How is outing someone's political affiliation death to the democratic process? If anything, it is required so as to preserve transparency - which is one of the fundamental requirements for democracy to work.
.... this is why a decentralized Internet with no intelligence on the switches is important. Because of that, Wikileaks was able to have multiple hosts in multiple countries that are affected by very different sets of laws and busybodies. Even though two major players got together to knock Wikileaks off the Internet, it still is humming along quite nicely.
Folks, fear the day that somebody requests control over who gets to have access to the Internet (Obama, I'm looking at you) and who gets routed where. Yes, QoS is technically going in that direction, but it is still difficult to abuse that for the purpose of knocking random offenders of the Internet. If that somebody happens to be The Government, you can be sure that a) all other governments will want the same control, and b) diplomacy and general government douchbaggery will only leave the blandest, least offensive and best lobbied/bribed sites up and running. Everything else will have moved underground, where again, you'll have to know the right people to get access to the good stuff.
The point is that someone is willing to call the lawyers on anything that sounds like their song. We don't have the resources to hire a lawyer to contest any takedown letter or to modify an app after release for something that stupid. So we just didn't use it.
Ding Ding Ding! I had a situation at work where people used Happy Birthday as a melody for an iPhone music app. They were shocked to find out that it is copyrighted. The problem is that there is so much content out there that you can argue with just enough credibility to get into court that creative work A infringes on random creative work B. Despite all efforts by creators of A to be original. Not sure where I heard it, but this was one advice to future creatives types that stuck with me: "If you want to make a movie, do it in an empty white room with your two closest friends. Everything else opens you up for copyright claims."
The point is that culture thrives on copying, modifying and playing with existing content. The harder corps will try to come down on small infringement, the less people will like the overall idea of copyright itself. One possible outcome is that WarnerBros gets everyone to turn into mindless consumers. Another possible outcome is that people get so pissed off that they manage to convince their congress critters to change copyright law in their favor. And I'm not sure the former is more likely than the latter.
Here's the point you're missing again and again: setting up warrantless wiretapping guarantees government abuse. What you're saying is that we should bend over and ask for more, just because the old way of tapping lines does not guarantee full surveillance anymore. You talk about a well-meaning FBI trail hot on the tails of someone about to detonate a nuclear bomb in Washington, and I'm talking about an asshole cop wiretapping his ex's lines so he can find out where she is hiding from him.
As others pointed out, there are plenty of existing ways to get warrants for information gathering purposes. None of them require the complete abdication of oversight over what some law enforcement officer is doing.
Absolutely agreed. But there's a difference between doing something petty and vindictive (I disagree on the pointless - the humor alone is worth it) and torturing someone.
Note: Congress creates the budget, the President merely approves it or vetoes it. Not to mention that if you really want funds, you'll find them by moving money around or digging into slush funds.
Rendition has to stop as well. There's no point in obeying the letter of the law while violating its spirit. That said, I believe in giving credit where credit is due: closing the detainment center in Gitmo is an important step. It shouldn't be the last, but it would be obnoxious and counter-productive to not acknowledge that the closing of Gitmo IS an important first step.
Goes to show how much people were relieved that Bush was out. I'm pretty sure that a good chunk of Obama's approval-rating was due to the utter loathing Bush generated. As for Bush being relentlessly attacked by everybody for 8 years.... revisionism is nice.
The article about Jupiter mentions nothing about a planet-wide increase in temperature. The Mars article mentions an increase in dust storm reducing albedo and therefore increasing light absorption. Still a far cry from the ggp's claim that 5 planets are all experiencing the same increase in temperature.
As much as I despise some of the tactics the French employ for keeping their government under control, I can't argue with the results: the government is terrified of upsetting the population, and will pretty much cave on any issue that generates enough street protests. The downside is that there are some truly idiotic laws still on the books, but at that point, no one can argue that this was done against their will.
In the end though, I'm not disappointed with government, I'm pretty disappointed with people. Obama's ability to get away with putting a section of government outside of the law is only possible because the majority of Americans don't care enough to change it.
This is pretty much it. This was the only part that really worried me about Obama - the fact that on wiretapping, he was pretty much in-line with Bush. I gave him the benefit of the doubt because the alternative really didn't leave me much choice. Sad to see that he really is supporting this piece of crap legislation. Time to donate to the EFF again.
Uh.... as much as I get up in arms about due process and rule of law, this is really a tempest in a teapot. Psychological torture is real, but making someone watch a rather silly cartoon is not torture. Unless they set him up like in A Clockwork Orange, calling this torture is stretching the definition to the point of breaking.
There were a ton of other things wrong with his trial, but this wasn't one of them.
And eye witnesses never lie, exaggerate or just don't remember what they actually saw.
Fag. Better?
On a different topic - your blog seems to illustrate the fact that people tend to view the world through the lens of their existing specializations. It wouldn't be unexpected for an avid historian to bring Ancient Greece into a discussion about sonars.
www.google.cmo, www.google.ocm, www.google.moc
That right there is where the biggest bidding wars will be. There is no reason to bid large sums of money for a custom TLD, because not a single one will be special anymore. There is no branding possibility anymore, because if you get .philly for your your liberty bell page, someone else will get .philadelphia, .liberty, .bell, etc., etc., etc. Why pay 200k for one year when you can just get some random .com site for 10 bucks?
And yes, this is nothing but an ICANN get rich quick scheme. We'll see if people will actually pay as much as ICANN thinks they will.
You're only partially right. The discussion was over when you brought Ancient Greeks into a discussion about whether sonar can deafen dolphins and whales.
What.The.Fuck. There can only be one cause for a particular behavior? So you're telling me that because people died years ago from stab wounds, they can't possibly die from bullet wounds? Let me guess - you also think that anthropogenic Climate Change is a hoax because the weather changed before humans were around?
Yes, it could well be a parasitic disease that causes SOME dolphins to beach themselves. Doesn't mean it's the ONLY reason ALL dolphins beach themselves.
SyFy.... Sorry, I stopped reading there, and forgot what I had read so far.
To some extent though, his guilty verdict was a political death sentence. I just hope that he considers himself too old to run again or become a political commentator. I'm glad that prosecutorial misconduct is not tolerated, even if it means that something that is quite patently fishy (non-disclosure is a matter of fact, not law) is not prosecuted.
In the end, this could be a win-win situation: a senator with some fishy payment issues is removed, and bad prosecutors get smacked down. Not how I would like to see it happen, but I can live with it.
There's also CNN Presents, which are very well researched stories on a significant topic. The last one I remember was "Black in America". I don't think I've seen a better piece by any blogger. CNN.com works well as a site to give you a general overview of news.