'I can't take slow typists seriously as programmers,' wrote Coding Horror's Jeff Atwood last fall. 'When was the last time you saw a hunt-and-peck pianist?'
When was the last time you ran a program where the WPM of the developer affected the quality of the code? Because the frequency of and careful regularity and emotion seriously affects piano performances whereas the symbols per minute inputted by a developer is independent of the speed, quality or maintainability of software. Sure, you might put forth that they can produce much more code or much more comments but let's face it: I'll take quality over quantity in regards to code any day of the week.
A short simple anecdote was my Greek professor in college. Taught me pattern recognition and I went to his office hours where he was pecking away at the keyboard having just been forced onto English QWERTY. The old man still wrote some pretty badass pattern recognition algorithms in Matlab for the course. Might have taken him all week to peck them out while looking at some recently published papers but the stuff was pretty efficient and easy to read for Matlab. I took him pretty seriously.
At my high school, in order to take advanced placement computer science courses, you had to pass some WPM typing course. Rarely have I felt a course to be such a complete waste of time and genuinely a turnoff to people looking to study programming.
You're an American citizen and you have the right to know who these people are that are making these decisions whether it be a judge or special agent. And they shouldn't have any fear of putting their name on these documents if they think it's right. I agree with you though that maybe it's not within their capacity to serve this position should they get something so painfully wrong.
I want countersuits and I want liabilities awarded to the defendants that rival the bullshit astronomical numbers that the court sends out to NASA for computation when the MPAA/RIAA wins. I hate that if the MPAA/RIAA wins it's eighty billion dollars but if the individual is exonerated it's a benjamin tops for having their webserver down. That is bullshit.
The agent also said the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America, the trade groups for the major film studios and record labels, had confirmed that the music and movies on the sites had not been released with the authorization of their copyright holders.
We worked with many different agencies - including CBP, DOJ’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) and the Government of Mexico’s Treasury and Customs – and industry, including the Recording Industry Association of American (RIAA), to target importers and distributors of counterfeit goods. This operation was specifically timed to coincide with U.S. and Mexican consumers’ increased purchasing during the winter holiday season.
Then later:
Representatives from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and RIAA assisted participating customs authorities with focused training, targeting and analyses of certain interdicted parcels. This operation was specifically timed by the IPR Center to coincide with the movie industry’s summer releases, when the biggest blockbusters are illegally recorded, reproduced on DVDs, shipped around the world and sold on street corners and in other markets.
There's plenty of interesting tidbits in this lengthy document about how everybody's getting involved -- even China:
ICE previously worked with China in September 2003 when ICE initiated Operation Spring, a joint IPR investigation by ICE agents and Chinese authorities that resulted in the extradition and conviction of DVD pirate Randolph Guthrie, who was sentenced to 48 months incarceration and ordered to repay $878,793 in restitution to the MPAA.
And the American sports associations:
Earlier this year, the IPR Center partnered with the NFL, NBA, NHL, NCAA, industry and local law enforcement to conduct operations targeting counterfeit sports merchandise sold during the Super Bowl, NBA All-Star Game, Stanley Cup championship, and NCAA Final Four and Frozen Four tournaments. These operations resulted in seizures of over 14,000 counterfeit items valued at more than $760,000.
Personally I hope DHS and ICE get their asses handed to them over the music blogs. Turn that into freedom of speech and take those bastards to the cleaners. They aren't going to learn their lesson if this is just a court case that exonerates the defendant and I hope the defendants have enough cash to to fight back, or seek help from the EFF.
The frequency of these MPAA/RIAA related stings is reallyramping up. I hope ICE and IPR aren't turning out to be directional attack dogs for corporations. The numbers on these things seem a tad bit inflated but haven't they always been?
Well how about that lutefisk? Got any good wild rice hotdish recipes?
Taunton, MN is a cultural epicenter to most of the Western world experiencing several staggering redefinitions of art and industry bringing exactly 75% of their population above the poverty line! Just a quick jaunt down 68 will bring you to the farmer's co-op elevator where I spent my youth hauling pickles for my parents and grandparents. After that, stop by CJ's for some great burgers on vintage folding tables. Did somebody say 'buck euchre'?! Too bad we missed Boxelder Bug Days... but wait! Our very own Minneota Vikings are playing right now! Hey, I heard Johnny Holm (not the porn star) is playing over in Ghent, MN. Maybe you've heard of it, it's the Rolle Bolle capital of the world! After that we'll get some drinks at the Silver Dollar. Maybe get some Schwann's ice cream and support the locals?
Seriously though, I was born in Canby and spent the first 18 years of my life picking rock and bailing hay just East of Camden state park. For a while I worked at Rye's Tree Nursury but that's about as far Northwest as my labor employment got. Good times. Fer sure, donchya know?
I would kill for a Brau Bros or Grain Belt or Surlys right now...
Pro-Troll puts a chip in its fish lures that 'duplicates the electrical nerve discharge of a wounded bait fish,' prompting other fish to bite it.
Hmmm, I seem to remember hearing about this gimmick and also hearing that it varies in effectiveness with the bigger fish being a little bit more responsive (although I wish someone would bust out some statistics so I know this isn't snake oil).
Anyway, my point is that I was unaware this used either an integrated circuit or microprocessor (which is sorta what I expect when someone says "chip"). Took a peek at the patent they reference on their site (which was last updated in 2007) attached to their "Echip." What you got there is closer to a mechanical device that generates an electric field via a piezoelectric crystal inside an electrically conductive sealed rigid container.
Am I missing something? Did they update their product? And if so, what on earth do they need an integrated circuit for on something that is just a tiny voltage generator? To my knowledge, it has no power source other than the crystal inside the container. Did I miss something here or is pickens stretching to sell the Echip as more than it is? I think the marketing name took hold of the submitter and editor here...
You have to consider that the people asked a question and let him respond without shouting or interrupting. On one hand this shows a dialogue with some actual interest in hearing what the other person has to say. On the other hand this is a key capability every politician needs: to be able to talk for a very lengthy amount of time and identify with anyone. What he did was good, he achieved some common ground with some very passionate opponents. But that's what politicians do. He's good but he's not accomplishing some impossible feat -- merely exhibiting good politeness and genuine interest in his constituents (opponents included). Franken had the attention of people that wanted to talk to him and what you saw were two parties genuinely interested in what the others had to say. Franken can lose his cool and act just like other politicians.
I wish my Senator would come around to the county fair and talk to his constituents like that.
Okay, I must correct you here. That was at the state fair which is a very huge thing in Minnesota and still a three to six hour drive from some of the more remote parts of Minnesota (like where I grew up). I don't think Al Franken makes it out to county fairs.
Now, I'm not disagreeing with you here and just to put some more positive spin on Franken, when I last went home my grandfather started rambling about all the times he had called up Franken and spoke with him on the phone. Thinking that my grandfather had finally lost it and was entering some sort of dementia, I asked my grandmother what he was talking about. She said he would wait on hold for thirty minutes and get about ten minutes of the senator's time every now and then (my grandfather is a retired dirt farmer living between Porter and Taunton). I was still skeptical but he showed me follow up letters from Franken's staff, hand signed by Franken explaining why Franken had voted on some bills that my grandfather had phoned him about. I was pretty impressed.
TFA makes some good points and breaks down "Net Neutrality" to the lay person who just wants to use the internet. You should try reading it.
On this point, I agree. I think Franken's on the right track here although I think he could have added another two sentence paragraph about limiting what specifically the FCC would be doing to address the obvious government control rebuttal a little more thoroughly. I am glad to see Franken writing this letter, though a little sad to see it in the Huffington Post and not a more mainstream publication.
I read the article and the issue the author seems to take with this is that the approach to upping the ratio of females in computer science was to herd them into "computer science" courses at the earliest age (high school). This might have the negative effect if that's your strategy. The summary used a really unfortunate clip of the logic that seems to imply that the girls aren't being treated any differently than the boys so they must be deficient at seeing through these classes. But the girls are being treated differently in an effort to balance genders in computer science. The big problem is that these courses designed to "turn on" the thirst for computer science in young women have little if anything to do with computer science.
My own anecdote, I went to a high school in middle of nowhere Minnesota and we had Computer Science AB advanced placement. It was about twenty guys, I don't remember a single girl. We learned C++ in very simple forms and when I was forced to take the typing courses I wanted to kill myself. Did you know that typing courses are often a requirement to computer science courses? I was dumbfounded. As if the fact that I wasn't hitting 60 words a minute was reason to prevent me from learning about pass by value versus pass by reference (one of the basic concepts we covered). Still, even that wasn't much computer science and seemed closer to "C++ in a semester" style of teaching. You knew a language but you didn't quite get the really generalized concepts.
"How can you connect the whole world if you leave out a billion people?"
China's response will probably be something along the lines of "How can you modify Facebook so that we are not only able to censor it but violators are automatically reported to a government agency?" Time and time again it's been demonstrated in China: if you can play ball, you're in.
The quote following the above is pretty indicative of what Zuckerberg fails to understand:
"Our theory is that if we can show that we as a western company can succeed in a place where no other country has, then we can start to figure out the right partnerships we would need to succeed in China on our terms."
So naive. It's that simple, huh? You weren't paying attention when Google went in, made friends with scholars and scientists and was promptly put in their place when the government tired of their novelty?
You're the copycat now, Mark. You are going to go into China thinking that you're are going to turn the tide and you're going to be met with the same immovable wall anyone who has sought to change the PRC has faced. But what you are going to have to do is look at how the Facebook copycats have served up private data and fingering individuals for putting the wrong number in their status update. And you're pretty much going to be told what to do and either you're going to do it or you're going to be back at square one. You're an outsider coming into China so you might as well drop the whole "This is how it's going to change" attitude. You're just going to be embarrassed when you find out that any deviation to their laws and customs puts your right to host a website at risk in their country.
"A western company can succeed in a place where no other country has?" So what are you going to do different? Congratulations, you made friends with Baidu. All that means is now someone can tell you the optimal way to achieve vertical height when the CCP screams "JUMP!"
My money is on you going in there thinking you're going to relax censorship only to find out that you're going to be one of their ultimate tools to enforce it. And then there's going to be this massive pile of money on the table and you can either take that and expand in China by wiping your ass with morals and ethics or you can walk away. I bet you get on your knees and bark like a dog while spinning it as a 'Western company succeeding!' And if you want the most money, that's exactly what you should do!
Obviously there's some real projects out there using Ruby, is it mainly internal stuff? There's some big contenders for things like PHP (wikipedia probably being the biggest). Does Ruby factor in to any public-facing websites of note? Or is it mainly used in the corporate space in the area where you often find tomcat?
What we use it for at my company is quick prototyping. Especially with Rails. But it's important to note that Ruby is the language and Rails is the framework. These modules could just be a niche field like academia finding it easy to write and share these modules through this site. I'd say that's unlikely given the number and you're most certainly seeing businesses promote some of this. I will say that we actively use hundreds of gems and I'm not sure what the average module:gem ratio would be in these projects -- as far as I can tell, I think it's 1:1 on a lot of the major ones we depend on.
Here's a list of some websites you might know using Ruby. The most notable is Twitter who I think is starting to componentize its pieces and move the high load intensive pieces to Scala. That's not to say they're completely off of Ruby but I think it's a sign that Rails needs a little more maturity before it is going to be seen on a website the size of Facebook. You'll see small to medium efforts excel at Ruby on Rails but the very very giant beasts are still too big for it at the moment. That means that you have a high number of websites using it but the representation is skewed against it since your big sites that everyone use aren't going to trust its maturity yet.
great language. It's simple, elegant, clean and it is versatile. Rails muddies that up a bit but Rails is great for prototyping web applications. In my opinion, the increase in the number of modules shows how versatile the language is and how wildly people want to extend it. It really does have a lot of metaprogramming facets that I've been impressed with and I think that we're going to see a rise of languages like Ruby and Clojure that allow you to do interesting things like write a domain specific language (DST). But will they ever usurp the big old giant languages that command a presence? I guess only time will tell. For web programming, I prefer Ruby to Java when prototyping or writing anything for less than thousands of users. That's where it stands right now but Ruby usage has grown by leaps and bounds and I don't think this module tracking story is a fluke. I think we'll see a steady rise in Ruby modules as people explore its potential. The quality, the performance, the diversity, the revenue can all be questioned but the number of modules is most likely there.
How can we be sure that the black holes were not created?
As one might suspect, the very opening to the paper in the arxiv explains this. After lengthy explanation of several peer reviewed papers that have been widely accepted on detection of black holes, they state:
The microscopic black holes produced at the LHC would be distinguished by high multiplicity, democratic, and highly isotropic decays with the final-state particles carrying hundreds of GeV of energy. Most of these particles would be reconstructed as jets of hadrons. Observation of such spectacular signatures would provide direct information on the nature of black holes as well as the structure and dimensionality of space-time [1]. Microscopic black hole properties are reviewed in more detail in [15, 16].
Now, as you can see by the [1], [15] and [16] references, each of these claims will lead you to a further longer paper on the concept of black holes themselves. Is it possible this method is flawed? I'm not a particle physicist so I'm not authorized to answer that. But I will say that this experiment has been a long time coming and I'm certain the authors of this paper were very careful in all their statements about String Theory.
String theory posits that there exist physical dimensions outside of our 4 dimensional universe, in fact that these are part and parcel of our universe. However, given our tools are all limited to 4 dimensions, it makes sense that there could be phenomena that is unobservable in our universe yet occurring in those other unexperienceable dimensions.
I know what you're saying but String Theory turns a lot of people off when its nature seems to be "unobservable" as you so put it. You'd have just as easy a time proving God exists as you would proving String Theory. The joke about String Theory is that it is conceived to make it untestable so it can never be wrong. This is dangerous ground and whenever a prediction is made by the theory that can be tested, it must be taken seriously. "Unexperienceable dimension?" Ahhh, I wouldn't go around talking to scientists about 'unexperienceable' things. I do not believe the scientific process looks kindly on such things.
I agree with the summary, this isn't the defeat of String Theory. It is a chance to refine and improve it.
I am the submitter, I don't think I said anything too far one way or the other. Usually Not Even Wrong points me in the correct direction but they gave this paper an unusually short nod with little correspondence or refutation. I think this is a good indication that everyone is waiting for the real scientists (not my lame armchair ass) to look this over and weigh in. You know, if you make predictions and they're wrong and you stretch your model to always avoid any sort of direct contradiction but you never get anything correct, then you look more like a fortune teller than a theoretical physicist. They should have the option to revise but my prediction is that this result will lose them a large amount of support in the community. It doesn't outright disqualify them but it sure is a vote of no confidence in a lot of the popular String Theory models.
I know this isn't in the spirit of the other posts on this topic today, but I applaud MS for concentrating on security and the best interests of their end users. It's good to see they are taking these matters seriously as part of the product development process.
Don't get me wrong, I'm always happy when security is improved -- even in the most hated of products by the most hated of companies. The problem I have is when marketing gets a hold of this and spins it to attack competitors, thereby improving the public perception of their own product. This could have all been avoided had Microsoft just kept the report internal like most of NSS Labs' customers. And doing so while comparing the latest IE9 to Chrome 6 and releasing that to the public as a 'current' report now... well, that's what I have a problem with. If a Chrome user read that report as today's news they're going to think that it's been done with today's Chrome.
The real warning flag is that it doesn't say that on NSS Lab's site nor does it say it anywhere in the report. So if I was being paid to do this, I would have that in big bold letters as a disclaimer on the front page of the report if I wanted to maintain credibility. So either the Google response article is wrong (which the same IE8 report from last year was funded) or you're just being flat out disingenuous when you say "independent." We just happen to receive funding from one of the participants and they decide when and if the report is released.
One more thing, if you dig into this report, the parts where they reference Microsoft read like an advertisement:
It became obvious from this test and comparisons to the earlier test that Microsoft continues to improve their IE malware protection in Internet Explorer 8 (through its SmartScreen® Filter technology) and in Internet Explorer 9 (with the addition of SmartScreen application reputation technology). With a unique URL blocking score of 94% and over-time protection rating of 99%, Internet Explorer 9 was by far the best at protecting against socially-engineered malware. The 89% zero-hour block rate suggests a far superior malware identification, collection, and classification method.
"What kind of registered application reputation technology did you say they used? Simply revolutionary progress!" Compare that section to that same section on Chrome:
With a protection rating of just 3%, Chrome 6 dropped more than 14% from our last test. And, Chrome’s unique URL score of 4% was also a major decline. Chrome’s overall poor protection makes it difficult to compare it to other Safe Browsing API-related products.
"Boo, Chrome sucks!" Hahaha oh my this is too funny. Google shouldn't have to explain themselves. Just take what you can to improve from this report, become aware of your opponent's tactics and move forward.
Furthermore, Moy said, the study started as a private test for Microsoft's engineering team, which was seeking to make internal improvements. "They decided to release it based on the positive results. Many of the test reports we write do not get released by vendors, but they do get used to improve products. So what does 'sponsored' mean in this case?"
So you (internally) strike a deal to test your browser (but also your competitors') with an "independent company" that you pay to perform this service. You get to define the "success parameters" of the test. Then you get the results back and you fix everything. After that time spent fixing has passed, you release the report and add that you have fixed all the problems with your product. Unsurprisingly, you look really really good when this news hits. Since your competitor is not also paying NSS Labs, NSS has no reason to update the report to meet the latest and greatest version of browsers. Meanwhile you can decide if your competitor's browser performed inadequately enough or not for the report -- maybe you even select the success parameters afterward? Heck, you already waited to see if you could release the report.
Thank you for the further explanation. I did read the article (the original SCOTUS blog) and it said:
Under other provisions of copyright law, importing a copy of a protected work amounts to an infringement of the copyright if the copy was made abroad and brought back into the U.S. without permission.
Emphasis mine. What is "permission?"
So what I'm asking is whether or not Wal-Mart signs agreements with Vietnamese companies that say they can bring them into the United States and did CostCo, like, drop the ball on that one? Did they smuggle them in their coat over to the US? I assume they passed customs from both countries, what level is this illegal on?
How on Earth would this deal go down any differently for Timex watches made in China sold in CostCo? Are you telling me that CostCo was making money by purchasing Omega watches at MSRP in Switzerland and then reselling them below MSRP in the United States? I'm not an economist but something sounds really strange in that case. This is what the SCOTUS Blog said:
The case involved a company, Omega S.A., that makes watches in Switzerland and sells them around the world through authorized distributors and retailers. Costco, a membership warehouse club that sells brand-name merchandise to members at prices lower than its competitors, had bought Omega's Seamaster watch abroad and re-sold it in the U.S. Costco's price was $1,299, about a third less than Omega's suggested retail price of $1,999.
Does anyone else think this sounds like Omega struck a deal selling thousands of watches to CostCo only to find out that when people saw them for $1300 they perceived a devaluation of the one they bought at the mall for two large? I mean, it sounds like Omega is trying to force CostCo to maintain a minimum profit margin. That's not capitalism. It's becoming more and more clear that copyright and capitalism are mutually exclusive concepts. And I'm guessing that this is some bizarre abuse of copyright that any foreign manufacturer could hold over the largest retailer/reseller's head. Evidently it happens on a smaller basis with Omega.
So nothing then? Why pick a Swiss watch? Why not go with something like a Nike football. Good ole' American Nike making American football, right? Wrong. I bet all the clothes on me right now came from Vietnam or Cambodia or Thailand or some other Asian fabric powerhouse. Donating them to a Goodwill store to be resold would be... illegal?
Furthermore the article notes CostCo but what about Wal-Mart and Target. They resell these same articles of clothing as a middleman. Do they have some special contract protecting them from the largest copyright lawsuit to ever hit the retail industry?
This is so bizarre and just another indication of how copyright is seriously broken. If I understand the article, it's just because there's an Omega emblem on the watch? So since CostCo now owns that watch, they can chip the logo off and sell it for whatever price they want? This makes about as much logical sense as smearing my face with my own feces before a job interview.
Is there any lawyer out there with some background in this that might tell me what implications this holds for something like clothing being sold at Wal-Mart on the cheap? Or does it need to have an MSRP on it? How does this apply to software developed here but pressed overseas? So many questions I could dream up to ask about this new court decision.
This time with more than just the pirate parties involved.
but still-- "Police oppose a planned demonstration?" I will have to read the linked article, because that is some fishy sounding shit.
Let me help you:
The assistant commissioner added that without a court notice authorising the rally, protesters and organisers would not have the support of the NSW Police Service.
I don't know about Australia but in America you need a permit after your party gets to be a certain size on public property. The assistant commissioner stated:
"Under Section 26 of the Summary Offences Act, I am advising you that I oppose the holding of your public assembly,"
Doesn't that just sound like some fishy shit? Not supported by the NSW Police Service because you don't have a permit? Or massive government conspiracy?
It's opposed because they didn't properly prepare for it and the police are not obligated to support it so if things get ugly for whatever reason, people may get out of control and hurt. And if you march on streets that are normally occupied by vehicles without police support, you're going to get hit with obstruction offenses. The police don't oppose it, the assistant commissioner said that they oppose it because they didn't follow the law to get authorization to assembly. All this is going down immediately (this evening). The complaint from the commissioner is that the paperwork wasn't submitted in a timely manner.
When I was in Boyscout Troop 238, we would apply for the right to assembly when we had larger functions in the town's parks weeks or months ahead of time. And it's not because Big Oil wanted us stopped...
My lord, a handful of comments and already I've seen two comparisons to Hitler. That is pathetic, even by Slashdot standards. Why the vitriol?
Seriously...comparisons to Hitler and Stalin? You really need to get some perspective, mate.
Every single person on Time's list of Man/Person of the Year should be mentioned as doing something "for worse" with the exception of Gandhi & MLK.
I could have put every US president including Clinton and both Bushes. But I didn't. Do you know why? Because people would contest it. I simply chose some of the names that are most commonly accepted as "evil." And that's localized largely to my country. And I put Zuckerberg after them because he's now on the same list and I don't think he's done a whole lot of good. I find it "pathetic" (which you so indiscriminately called me) that you take issue with me "comparing" (which I did not) Zuckerberg to Hitler but you have no problem with me comparing Hitler with Stalin with Ayatollah Khomeini. Surely they were not all "equally" evil and, at least in my opinion, were in succession less and less worse.
I use Facebook regularly. It's open right now in a tab with my profile up. But I think it promotes people to give up their right to privacy and I think that's really bad. Not slaughter people bad but as bad as it gets by today's more civilized standards. And it's as bad as Time is willing to get aside from presidents. Why wasn't Osama Bin Laden on the list? Surely *for worse* he affect the world's economy in 2001 more than any *for better* person could have?
"Some perspective?" "Comparing?" I don't thing you read my first sentence which said I would list some of the people on the list that Zuckerberg is now company to since people don't understand what the list represents. But, here, let me satiate your hatred:
1938 Nazi Germany Adolf Hitler
1939 Soviet Union Joseph Stalin
1942 Soviet Union Joseph Stalin
1950 United States The American Fighting-Man
1959 United States Dwight D. Eisenhower
1960 United States US Scientists
1971 United States Richard Nixon
1972 United States Richard Nixon
1979 Iran Ayatollah Khomeini
1980 United States Ronald Reagan
1983 United States Ronald Reagan
1990 United States George H. W. Bush
2000 United States George W. Bush
2003 United States The American Soldier
2004 United States George W. Bush
I'm sure you're okay with that partial list and "comparing" all those people as equivalents of each other!
Just to underscore the "for worse" part of what the Time person is defined as: "for better or for worse,...has done the most to influence the events of the year."
Examples:
1938 Nazi Germany Adolf Hitler
1939 Soviet Union Joseph Stalin
1979 Iran Ayatollah Khomeini
2010 United States Mark Zuckerberg
"Where we once sat through Terminator 2 and gasped when Robert Patrick turned into a slippery blob of mercury, we now watch, say, Inception and simply acknowledge that, yes, the folding city looks quite realistic."
Right and we also used to sit and stare in awe as a person used a phone from their car to make a phonecall. Now if a call is dropped we curse whatever carrier we have even though the sheer concept of what that signal is going through is borderline witchcraft. And so help me god if that signal drops to one bar. I act as if that communication capability is some inalienable right.
Any technology developed for one generation can now be taken for granted almost instantly instead of taking several generations for gratitude to ebb. Seriously, you could build a machine that extends life indefinitely through five minutes of use each day and people will complain that one model tingles more than another. And if it stops working, they'll flock to the internet to complain that their life was shortened. And if their internet isn't working, some company just violated the Geneva Conventions.
As computers (both general and special) become more powerful, you'll see this is in movies more and more. It's going to be like sound recording. Decent recording equipment is so cheap you can record a passable album in your basement. We expect decent CGI now that it's relatively cheap. Terminator 2 was the most expensive movie to make when it came out. Wouldn't be the same price today. I could sit here thinking of comparisons all day.
I guess I would question the author with simply: "Where did you draw the line and why?" He talks about 30 years of special effects but, yeah, 30 years in any lucrative field or market would see some drastic progressive changes like this.
...our growth is almost entirely based on the use of oil for transportation, new materials, pesticides, fertilizers, construction equipment, etc, etc, etc. It's going to be messy when it starts to run dry.
Huh, well, from my point of view, the growth is based more so on just pure unadulterated knowledge. Knowledge of how to make all the above work for us despite its evils. As we increase knowledge this only gets better. As time progresses, we get better at exchanging and persisting knowledge (we're doing it right now on glowing squares in front of us but we could be across the world). It will only get messy if we stop promoting science, medicine, learning, education, research, understanding, translation, tolerance, etc.
Just another optimistic spin to put back on the already staggering performance we've exhibited relatively recently.
I started using personal computers back in 1981 because I wanted to be able to run my software whenever I wanted, and not be dependent on the (university's) mainframe system being up. Today, I can't imagine using the cloud for anything other than as a backup, and then only with strong encryption.
Yeah, I was sort of surprised that the most popular suggestion when I asked what to use after OpenOffice.org went to Oracle was Google Docs (most of the other highly rated comments were personal attacks or LibreOffice which I now use and am very happy with).
Oh well, if people want their most personal stuff up on Google Docs, I say they'll learn their lesson sooner or later. I find a use for Google Docs, putting up things that I do not care to be public. I consider anything I put up there to be something that might as well be public. From a list of songs that I hear on MPR that I like to links to strategy guides for certain games, I only collect things I want to share with people and am not afraid of. Resume? Finances? Software key codes from boxes I have discarded? You have to be kidding me!
Your "backup + strong encryption" is interesting to me. Tell me, what if I copied your data off the cloud through some lax security policy and fifteen years later we finally have the tools to crack whatever encryption you were using? Is the data you put on there timelessly sensitive? Just a thought I'd like to offer if you put stuff like SSNs out there.
I think the reality is that people are willing to put everything out on the cloud -- maybe even passwords. The real question is how do you even start to educate some normal about this?
I don't know about the graphs and statistics they generated from this. First of all, you don't know how many out of the total set of users were stolen and the ones that were decrypted were probably the obvious ones (via rainbow tables? was Gawker using salt?). Perhaps this adds a bit of slant to any statistics generated? Anyway:
A plurality of Gawker Media passwords are six characters long, but we wondered whether that and other results might differ based on the user’s email provider. Indeed, users of Google and Yahoo’s email services are more likely than Microsoft email users to have passwords of eight or more characters.
Well, Hotmail and Yahoo! require six characters or more and Google requires eight characters or more. Explains the Google/Microsoft difference anyway: People are lazy. While you're statements aren't false, I fail to see their confidence or usefulness. Or are we just trying to pat ourselves on the back for using Google and being part of the "elite?" The funny thing is that if your password is showing up here, it's just as "strong" as the other ones that fell victim to this kind of attack! Regardless of length! Take your pick, "unicorns" or "$r-P_5"?
Popular passwords vary, as well: Gmail users are bigger X-Files fans ("trustno1") and more likely to opt for the slightly clever variant "passw0rd."
Or you're just staring at random data trying to make something out of it. "Slightly clever variant"? Ha, well, whoever decrypted this passwords had that one in mind, you know that for sure. Anything even remotely clever would not show up in here.
Yahoo and Microsoft email users, meanwhile, are much more likely to get sappy with their passwords: "iloveyou."
Come on, one example leads to that kind of generalization?
A computer will be much better at facts. So it's mostly a question of grammar. And the hardest problem is likely figuring out wordplay, which occasionally comes up in jeopardy.
If you think this is true, you can play against Watson online. About seven years ago, I saw some pretty impressive crossword solvers that were decent at wordplay and I've imagined they've gotten much better at developing novel links between words to exploit puns and the like. Never perfect but slowly getting better in odd ways -- like most of AI.
We've discussed this somany times it hurts. I've wanted to watch this for almost a year, I was hoping Jeopardy! wouldn't need to milk this hype for all it's worth to stay relevant.
Slashdot Mirror
'I can't take slow typists seriously as programmers,' wrote Coding Horror's Jeff Atwood last fall. 'When was the last time you saw a hunt-and-peck pianist?'
When was the last time you ran a program where the WPM of the developer affected the quality of the code? Because the frequency of and careful regularity and emotion seriously affects piano performances whereas the symbols per minute inputted by a developer is independent of the speed, quality or maintainability of software. Sure, you might put forth that they can produce much more code or much more comments but let's face it: I'll take quality over quantity in regards to code any day of the week.
A short simple anecdote was my Greek professor in college. Taught me pattern recognition and I went to his office hours where he was pecking away at the keyboard having just been forced onto English QWERTY. The old man still wrote some pretty badass pattern recognition algorithms in Matlab for the course. Might have taken him all week to peck them out while looking at some recently published papers but the stuff was pretty efficient and easy to read for Matlab. I took him pretty seriously.
At my high school, in order to take advanced placement computer science courses, you had to pass some WPM typing course. Rarely have I felt a course to be such a complete waste of time and genuinely a turnoff to people looking to study programming.
Seriously, it's right there on the affidavit. On top of that you can let the court know in a (circa 1993) web form what you think or contact Nagle's Deputy Courtroom Clerk yourself. Case number 10-2822M for your reference since the affidavit seems to be unable to be viewed by some.
You're an American citizen and you have the right to know who these people are that are making these decisions whether it be a judge or special agent. And they shouldn't have any fear of putting their name on these documents if they think it's right. I agree with you though that maybe it's not within their capacity to serve this position should they get something so painfully wrong.
I want countersuits and I want liabilities awarded to the defendants that rival the bullshit astronomical numbers that the court sends out to NASA for computation when the MPAA/RIAA wins. I hate that if the MPAA/RIAA wins it's eighty billion dollars but if the individual is exonerated it's a benjamin tops for having their webserver down. That is bullshit.
What are you blind? It's all over the affidavit document. Andrew T. Reynolds swears that it's all true. First line of the document.
The agent also said the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America, the trade groups for the major film studios and record labels, had confirmed that the music and movies on the sites had not been released with the authorization of their copyright holders.
Yeah, after some poking around I found PROTECTING U.S. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OVERSEAS: THE JOINT STRATEGIC PLAN AND BEYOND presented to a House of Representatives committee. In it they talk about the sting and the lengthy history of their actions:
We worked with many different agencies - including CBP, DOJ’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) and the Government of Mexico’s Treasury and Customs – and industry, including the Recording Industry Association of American (RIAA), to target importers and distributors of counterfeit goods. This operation was specifically timed to coincide with U.S. and Mexican consumers’ increased purchasing during the winter holiday season.
Then later:
Representatives from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and RIAA assisted participating customs authorities with focused training, targeting and analyses of certain interdicted parcels. This operation was specifically timed by the IPR Center to coincide with the movie industry’s summer releases, when the biggest blockbusters are illegally recorded, reproduced on DVDs, shipped around the world and sold on street corners and in other markets.
There's plenty of interesting tidbits in this lengthy document about how everybody's getting involved -- even China:
ICE previously worked with China in September 2003 when ICE initiated Operation Spring, a joint IPR investigation by ICE agents and Chinese authorities that resulted in the extradition and conviction of DVD pirate Randolph Guthrie, who was sentenced to 48 months incarceration and ordered to repay $878,793 in restitution to the MPAA.
And the American sports associations:
Earlier this year, the IPR Center partnered with the NFL, NBA, NHL, NCAA, industry and local law enforcement to conduct operations targeting counterfeit sports merchandise sold during the Super Bowl, NBA All-Star Game, Stanley Cup championship, and NCAA Final Four and Frozen Four tournaments. These operations resulted in seizures of over 14,000 counterfeit items valued at more than $760,000.
Personally I hope DHS and ICE get their asses handed to them over the music blogs. Turn that into freedom of speech and take those bastards to the cleaners. They aren't going to learn their lesson if this is just a court case that exonerates the defendant and I hope the defendants have enough cash to to fight back, or seek help from the EFF.
The frequency of these MPAA/RIAA related stings is really ramping up. I hope ICE and IPR aren't turning out to be directional attack dogs for corporations. The numbers on these things seem a tad bit inflated but haven't they always been?
Well how about that lutefisk? Got any good wild rice hotdish recipes?
... but wait! Our very own Minneota Vikings are playing right now! Hey, I heard Johnny Holm (not the porn star) is playing over in Ghent, MN. Maybe you've heard of it, it's the Rolle Bolle capital of the world! After that we'll get some drinks at the Silver Dollar. Maybe get some Schwann's ice cream and support the locals?
...
Taunton, MN is a cultural epicenter to most of the Western world experiencing several staggering redefinitions of art and industry bringing exactly 75% of their population above the poverty line! Just a quick jaunt down 68 will bring you to the farmer's co-op elevator where I spent my youth hauling pickles for my parents and grandparents. After that, stop by CJ's for some great burgers on vintage folding tables. Did somebody say 'buck euchre'?! Too bad we missed Boxelder Bug Days
Seriously though, I was born in Canby and spent the first 18 years of my life picking rock and bailing hay just East of Camden state park. For a while I worked at Rye's Tree Nursury but that's about as far Northwest as my labor employment got. Good times. Fer sure, donchya know?
I would kill for a Brau Bros or Grain Belt or Surlys right now
Pro-Troll puts a chip in its fish lures that 'duplicates the electrical nerve discharge of a wounded bait fish,' prompting other fish to bite it.
Hmmm, I seem to remember hearing about this gimmick and also hearing that it varies in effectiveness with the bigger fish being a little bit more responsive (although I wish someone would bust out some statistics so I know this isn't snake oil).
...
Anyway, my point is that I was unaware this used either an integrated circuit or microprocessor (which is sorta what I expect when someone says "chip"). Took a peek at the patent they reference on their site (which was last updated in 2007) attached to their "Echip." What you got there is closer to a mechanical device that generates an electric field via a piezoelectric crystal inside an electrically conductive sealed rigid container.
Am I missing something? Did they update their product? And if so, what on earth do they need an integrated circuit for on something that is just a tiny voltage generator? To my knowledge, it has no power source other than the crystal inside the container. Did I miss something here or is pickens stretching to sell the Echip as more than it is? I think the marketing name took hold of the submitter and editor here
The guy can make a good arguments without resorting to shouting or out right ignoring the public.
You have to consider that the people asked a question and let him respond without shouting or interrupting. On one hand this shows a dialogue with some actual interest in hearing what the other person has to say. On the other hand this is a key capability every politician needs: to be able to talk for a very lengthy amount of time and identify with anyone. What he did was good, he achieved some common ground with some very passionate opponents. But that's what politicians do. He's good but he's not accomplishing some impossible feat -- merely exhibiting good politeness and genuine interest in his constituents (opponents included). Franken had the attention of people that wanted to talk to him and what you saw were two parties genuinely interested in what the others had to say. Franken can lose his cool and act just like other politicians.
I wish my Senator would come around to the county fair and talk to his constituents like that.
Okay, I must correct you here. That was at the state fair which is a very huge thing in Minnesota and still a three to six hour drive from some of the more remote parts of Minnesota (like where I grew up). I don't think Al Franken makes it out to county fairs.
Now, I'm not disagreeing with you here and just to put some more positive spin on Franken, when I last went home my grandfather started rambling about all the times he had called up Franken and spoke with him on the phone. Thinking that my grandfather had finally lost it and was entering some sort of dementia, I asked my grandmother what he was talking about. She said he would wait on hold for thirty minutes and get about ten minutes of the senator's time every now and then (my grandfather is a retired dirt farmer living between Porter and Taunton). I was still skeptical but he showed me follow up letters from Franken's staff, hand signed by Franken explaining why Franken had voted on some bills that my grandfather had phoned him about. I was pretty impressed.
TFA makes some good points and breaks down "Net Neutrality" to the lay person who just wants to use the internet. You should try reading it.
On this point, I agree. I think Franken's on the right track here although I think he could have added another two sentence paragraph about limiting what specifically the FCC would be doing to address the obvious government control rebuttal a little more thoroughly. I am glad to see Franken writing this letter, though a little sad to see it in the Huffington Post and not a more mainstream publication.
It's odd but my favorite moments of Franken are often very different than most people's.
I read the article and the issue the author seems to take with this is that the approach to upping the ratio of females in computer science was to herd them into "computer science" courses at the earliest age (high school). This might have the negative effect if that's your strategy. The summary used a really unfortunate clip of the logic that seems to imply that the girls aren't being treated any differently than the boys so they must be deficient at seeing through these classes. But the girls are being treated differently in an effort to balance genders in computer science. The big problem is that these courses designed to "turn on" the thirst for computer science in young women have little if anything to do with computer science.
My own anecdote, I went to a high school in middle of nowhere Minnesota and we had Computer Science AB advanced placement. It was about twenty guys, I don't remember a single girl. We learned C++ in very simple forms and when I was forced to take the typing courses I wanted to kill myself. Did you know that typing courses are often a requirement to computer science courses? I was dumbfounded. As if the fact that I wasn't hitting 60 words a minute was reason to prevent me from learning about pass by value versus pass by reference (one of the basic concepts we covered). Still, even that wasn't much computer science and seemed closer to "C++ in a semester" style of teaching. You knew a language but you didn't quite get the really generalized concepts.
"How can you connect the whole world if you leave out a billion people?"
China's response will probably be something along the lines of "How can you modify Facebook so that we are not only able to censor it but violators are automatically reported to a government agency?" Time and time again it's been demonstrated in China: if you can play ball, you're in.
The quote following the above is pretty indicative of what Zuckerberg fails to understand:
"Our theory is that if we can show that we as a western company can succeed in a place where no other country has, then we can start to figure out the right partnerships we would need to succeed in China on our terms."
So naive. It's that simple, huh? You weren't paying attention when Google went in, made friends with scholars and scientists and was promptly put in their place when the government tired of their novelty?
You're the copycat now, Mark. You are going to go into China thinking that you're are going to turn the tide and you're going to be met with the same immovable wall anyone who has sought to change the PRC has faced. But what you are going to have to do is look at how the Facebook copycats have served up private data and fingering individuals for putting the wrong number in their status update. And you're pretty much going to be told what to do and either you're going to do it or you're going to be back at square one. You're an outsider coming into China so you might as well drop the whole "This is how it's going to change" attitude. You're just going to be embarrassed when you find out that any deviation to their laws and customs puts your right to host a website at risk in their country.
"A western company can succeed in a place where no other country has?" So what are you going to do different? Congratulations, you made friends with Baidu. All that means is now someone can tell you the optimal way to achieve vertical height when the CCP screams "JUMP!"
My money is on you going in there thinking you're going to relax censorship only to find out that you're going to be one of their ultimate tools to enforce it. And then there's going to be this massive pile of money on the table and you can either take that and expand in China by wiping your ass with morals and ethics or you can walk away. I bet you get on your knees and bark like a dog while spinning it as a 'Western company succeeding!' And if you want the most money, that's exactly what you should do!
Obviously there's some real projects out there using Ruby, is it mainly internal stuff? There's some big contenders for things like PHP (wikipedia probably being the biggest). Does Ruby factor in to any public-facing websites of note? Or is it mainly used in the corporate space in the area where you often find tomcat?
What we use it for at my company is quick prototyping. Especially with Rails. But it's important to note that Ruby is the language and Rails is the framework. These modules could just be a niche field like academia finding it easy to write and share these modules through this site. I'd say that's unlikely given the number and you're most certainly seeing businesses promote some of this. I will say that we actively use hundreds of gems and I'm not sure what the average module:gem ratio would be in these projects -- as far as I can tell, I think it's 1:1 on a lot of the major ones we depend on.
Here's a list of some websites you might know using Ruby. The most notable is Twitter who I think is starting to componentize its pieces and move the high load intensive pieces to Scala. That's not to say they're completely off of Ruby but I think it's a sign that Rails needs a little more maturity before it is going to be seen on a website the size of Facebook. You'll see small to medium efforts excel at Ruby on Rails but the very very giant beasts are still too big for it at the moment. That means that you have a high number of websites using it but the representation is skewed against it since your big sites that everyone use aren't going to trust its maturity yet.
great language. It's simple, elegant, clean and it is versatile. Rails muddies that up a bit but Rails is great for prototyping web applications. In my opinion, the increase in the number of modules shows how versatile the language is and how wildly people want to extend it. It really does have a lot of metaprogramming facets that I've been impressed with and I think that we're going to see a rise of languages like Ruby and Clojure that allow you to do interesting things like write a domain specific language (DST). But will they ever usurp the big old giant languages that command a presence? I guess only time will tell. For web programming, I prefer Ruby to Java when prototyping or writing anything for less than thousands of users. That's where it stands right now but Ruby usage has grown by leaps and bounds and I don't think this module tracking story is a fluke. I think we'll see a steady rise in Ruby modules as people explore its potential. The quality, the performance, the diversity, the revenue can all be questioned but the number of modules is most likely there.
You are right, of course. It's not that Fox News makes people stupid, it's that stupid people watch Fox News.
Reminds me of a recent Simpsons episode news helicopter for Fox.
How can we be sure that the black holes were not created?
As one might suspect, the very opening to the paper in the arxiv explains this. After lengthy explanation of several peer reviewed papers that have been widely accepted on detection of black holes, they state:
The microscopic black holes produced at the LHC would be distinguished by high multiplicity, democratic, and highly isotropic decays with the final-state particles carrying hundreds of GeV of energy. Most of these particles would be reconstructed as jets of hadrons. Observation of such spectacular signatures would provide direct information on the nature of black holes as well as the structure and dimensionality of space-time [1]. Microscopic black hole properties are reviewed in more detail in [15, 16].
Now, as you can see by the [1], [15] and [16] references, each of these claims will lead you to a further longer paper on the concept of black holes themselves. Is it possible this method is flawed? I'm not a particle physicist so I'm not authorized to answer that. But I will say that this experiment has been a long time coming and I'm certain the authors of this paper were very careful in all their statements about String Theory.
String theory posits that there exist physical dimensions outside of our 4 dimensional universe, in fact that these are part and parcel of our universe. However, given our tools are all limited to 4 dimensions, it makes sense that there could be phenomena that is unobservable in our universe yet occurring in those other unexperienceable dimensions.
I know what you're saying but String Theory turns a lot of people off when its nature seems to be "unobservable" as you so put it. You'd have just as easy a time proving God exists as you would proving String Theory. The joke about String Theory is that it is conceived to make it untestable so it can never be wrong. This is dangerous ground and whenever a prediction is made by the theory that can be tested, it must be taken seriously. "Unexperienceable dimension?" Ahhh, I wouldn't go around talking to scientists about 'unexperienceable' things. I do not believe the scientific process looks kindly on such things.
I agree with the summary, this isn't the defeat of String Theory. It is a chance to refine and improve it.
I am the submitter, I don't think I said anything too far one way or the other. Usually Not Even Wrong points me in the correct direction but they gave this paper an unusually short nod with little correspondence or refutation. I think this is a good indication that everyone is waiting for the real scientists (not my lame armchair ass) to look this over and weigh in. You know, if you make predictions and they're wrong and you stretch your model to always avoid any sort of direct contradiction but you never get anything correct, then you look more like a fortune teller than a theoretical physicist. They should have the option to revise but my prediction is that this result will lose them a large amount of support in the community. It doesn't outright disqualify them but it sure is a vote of no confidence in a lot of the popular String Theory models.
I know this isn't in the spirit of the other posts on this topic today, but I applaud MS for concentrating on security and the best interests of their end users. It's good to see they are taking these matters seriously as part of the product development process.
Don't get me wrong, I'm always happy when security is improved -- even in the most hated of products by the most hated of companies. The problem I have is when marketing gets a hold of this and spins it to attack competitors, thereby improving the public perception of their own product. This could have all been avoided had Microsoft just kept the report internal like most of NSS Labs' customers. And doing so while comparing the latest IE9 to Chrome 6 and releasing that to the public as a 'current' report now ... well, that's what I have a problem with. If a Chrome user read that report as today's news they're going to think that it's been done with today's Chrome.
This: "The test, funded by Microsoft"
The real warning flag is that it doesn't say that on NSS Lab's site nor does it say it anywhere in the report. So if I was being paid to do this, I would have that in big bold letters as a disclaimer on the front page of the report if I wanted to maintain credibility. So either the Google response article is wrong (which the same IE8 report from last year was funded) or you're just being flat out disingenuous when you say "independent." We just happen to receive funding from one of the participants and they decide when and if the report is released.
One more thing, if you dig into this report, the parts where they reference Microsoft read like an advertisement:
It became obvious from this test and comparisons to the earlier test that Microsoft continues to improve their IE malware protection in Internet Explorer 8 (through its SmartScreen® Filter technology) and in Internet Explorer 9 (with the addition of SmartScreen application reputation technology). With a unique URL blocking score of 94% and over-time protection rating of 99%, Internet Explorer 9 was by far the best at protecting against socially-engineered malware. The 89% zero-hour block rate suggests a far superior malware identification, collection, and classification method.
"What kind of registered application reputation technology did you say they used? Simply revolutionary progress!" Compare that section to that same section on Chrome:
With a protection rating of just 3%, Chrome 6 dropped more than 14% from our last test. And, Chrome’s unique URL score of 4% was also a major decline. Chrome’s overall poor protection makes it difficult to compare it to other Safe Browsing API-related products.
"Boo, Chrome sucks!" Hahaha oh my this is too funny. Google shouldn't have to explain themselves. Just take what you can to improve from this report, become aware of your opponent's tactics and move forward.
It's not clear why Microsoft and NSS Labs waited until December to release the results.
Maybe it's like the last time this happened?
Furthermore, Moy said, the study started as a private test for Microsoft's engineering team, which was seeking to make internal improvements. "They decided to release it based on the positive results. Many of the test reports we write do not get released by vendors, but they do get used to improve products. So what does 'sponsored' mean in this case?"
So you (internally) strike a deal to test your browser (but also your competitors') with an "independent company" that you pay to perform this service. You get to define the "success parameters" of the test. Then you get the results back and you fix everything. After that time spent fixing has passed, you release the report and add that you have fixed all the problems with your product. Unsurprisingly, you look really really good when this news hits. Since your competitor is not also paying NSS Labs, NSS has no reason to update the report to meet the latest and greatest version of browsers. Meanwhile you can decide if your competitor's browser performed inadequately enough or not for the report -- maybe you even select the success parameters afterward? Heck, you already waited to see if you could release the report.
Independent? HA!
Under other provisions of copyright law, importing a copy of a protected work amounts to an infringement of the copyright if the copy was made abroad and brought back into the U.S. without permission.
Emphasis mine. What is "permission?"
So what I'm asking is whether or not Wal-Mart signs agreements with Vietnamese companies that say they can bring them into the United States and did CostCo, like, drop the ball on that one? Did they smuggle them in their coat over to the US? I assume they passed customs from both countries, what level is this illegal on?
How on Earth would this deal go down any differently for Timex watches made in China sold in CostCo? Are you telling me that CostCo was making money by purchasing Omega watches at MSRP in Switzerland and then reselling them below MSRP in the United States? I'm not an economist but something sounds really strange in that case. This is what the SCOTUS Blog said:
The case involved a company, Omega S.A., that makes watches in Switzerland and sells them around the world through authorized distributors and retailers. Costco, a membership warehouse club that sells brand-name merchandise to members at prices lower than its competitors, had bought Omega's Seamaster watch abroad and re-sold it in the U.S. Costco's price was $1,299, about a third less than Omega's suggested retail price of $1,999.
Does anyone else think this sounds like Omega struck a deal selling thousands of watches to CostCo only to find out that when people saw them for $1300 they perceived a devaluation of the one they bought at the mall for two large? I mean, it sounds like Omega is trying to force CostCo to maintain a minimum profit margin. That's not capitalism. It's becoming more and more clear that copyright and capitalism are mutually exclusive concepts. And I'm guessing that this is some bizarre abuse of copyright that any foreign manufacturer could hold over the largest retailer/reseller's head. Evidently it happens on a smaller basis with Omega.
only applies to goods made in the US.
So nothing then? Why pick a Swiss watch? Why not go with something like a Nike football. Good ole' American Nike making American football, right? Wrong. I bet all the clothes on me right now came from Vietnam or Cambodia or Thailand or some other Asian fabric powerhouse. Donating them to a Goodwill store to be resold would be ... illegal?
Furthermore the article notes CostCo but what about Wal-Mart and Target. They resell these same articles of clothing as a middleman. Do they have some special contract protecting them from the largest copyright lawsuit to ever hit the retail industry?
This is so bizarre and just another indication of how copyright is seriously broken. If I understand the article, it's just because there's an Omega emblem on the watch? So since CostCo now owns that watch, they can chip the logo off and sell it for whatever price they want? This makes about as much logical sense as smearing my face with my own feces before a job interview.
Is there any lawyer out there with some background in this that might tell me what implications this holds for something like clothing being sold at Wal-Mart on the cheap? Or does it need to have an MSRP on it? How does this apply to software developed here but pressed overseas? So many questions I could dream up to ask about this new court decision.
This time with more than just the pirate parties involved.
but still-- "Police oppose a planned demonstration?" I will have to read the linked article, because that is some fishy sounding shit.
Let me help you:
The assistant commissioner added that without a court notice authorising the rally, protesters and organisers would not have the support of the NSW Police Service.
I don't know about Australia but in America you need a permit after your party gets to be a certain size on public property. The assistant commissioner stated:
"Under Section 26 of the Summary Offences Act, I am advising you that I oppose the holding of your public assembly,"
Doesn't that just sound like some fishy shit? Not supported by the NSW Police Service because you don't have a permit? Or massive government conspiracy?
...
It's opposed because they didn't properly prepare for it and the police are not obligated to support it so if things get ugly for whatever reason, people may get out of control and hurt. And if you march on streets that are normally occupied by vehicles without police support, you're going to get hit with obstruction offenses. The police don't oppose it, the assistant commissioner said that they oppose it because they didn't follow the law to get authorization to assembly. All this is going down immediately (this evening). The complaint from the commissioner is that the paperwork wasn't submitted in a timely manner.
When I was in Boyscout Troop 238, we would apply for the right to assembly when we had larger functions in the town's parks weeks or months ahead of time. And it's not because Big Oil wanted us stopped
My lord, a handful of comments and already I've seen two comparisons to Hitler. That is pathetic, even by Slashdot standards. Why the vitriol?
Seriously...comparisons to Hitler and Stalin? You really need to get some perspective, mate.
Every single person on Time's list of Man/Person of the Year should be mentioned as doing something "for worse" with the exception of Gandhi & MLK.
I could have put every US president including Clinton and both Bushes. But I didn't. Do you know why? Because people would contest it. I simply chose some of the names that are most commonly accepted as "evil." And that's localized largely to my country. And I put Zuckerberg after them because he's now on the same list and I don't think he's done a whole lot of good. I find it "pathetic" (which you so indiscriminately called me) that you take issue with me "comparing" (which I did not) Zuckerberg to Hitler but you have no problem with me comparing Hitler with Stalin with Ayatollah Khomeini. Surely they were not all "equally" evil and, at least in my opinion, were in succession less and less worse.
I use Facebook regularly. It's open right now in a tab with my profile up. But I think it promotes people to give up their right to privacy and I think that's really bad. Not slaughter people bad but as bad as it gets by today's more civilized standards. And it's as bad as Time is willing to get aside from presidents. Why wasn't Osama Bin Laden on the list? Surely *for worse* he affect the world's economy in 2001 more than any *for better* person could have?
"Some perspective?" "Comparing?" I don't thing you read my first sentence which said I would list some of the people on the list that Zuckerberg is now company to since people don't understand what the list represents. But, here, let me satiate your hatred:
1938 Nazi Germany Adolf Hitler
1939 Soviet Union Joseph Stalin
1942 Soviet Union Joseph Stalin
1950 United States The American Fighting-Man
1959 United States Dwight D. Eisenhower
1960 United States US Scientists
1971 United States Richard Nixon
1972 United States Richard Nixon
1979 Iran Ayatollah Khomeini
1980 United States Ronald Reagan
1983 United States Ronald Reagan
1990 United States George H. W. Bush
2000 United States George W. Bush
2003 United States The American Soldier
2004 United States George W. Bush
I'm sure you're okay with that partial list and "comparing" all those people as equivalents of each other!
more like douche-bag of the year.
Just to underscore the "for worse" part of what the Time person is defined as: "for better or for worse, ...has done the most to influence the events of the year."
Examples:
1938 Nazi Germany Adolf Hitler
1939 Soviet Union Joseph Stalin
1979 Iran Ayatollah Khomeini
2010 United States Mark Zuckerberg
"Where we once sat through Terminator 2 and gasped when Robert Patrick turned into a slippery blob of mercury, we now watch, say, Inception and simply acknowledge that, yes, the folding city looks quite realistic."
Right and we also used to sit and stare in awe as a person used a phone from their car to make a phonecall. Now if a call is dropped we curse whatever carrier we have even though the sheer concept of what that signal is going through is borderline witchcraft. And so help me god if that signal drops to one bar. I act as if that communication capability is some inalienable right.
Any technology developed for one generation can now be taken for granted almost instantly instead of taking several generations for gratitude to ebb. Seriously, you could build a machine that extends life indefinitely through five minutes of use each day and people will complain that one model tingles more than another. And if it stops working, they'll flock to the internet to complain that their life was shortened. And if their internet isn't working, some company just violated the Geneva Conventions.
As computers (both general and special) become more powerful, you'll see this is in movies more and more. It's going to be like sound recording. Decent recording equipment is so cheap you can record a passable album in your basement. We expect decent CGI now that it's relatively cheap. Terminator 2 was the most expensive movie to make when it came out. Wouldn't be the same price today. I could sit here thinking of comparisons all day.
I guess I would question the author with simply: "Where did you draw the line and why?" He talks about 30 years of special effects but, yeah, 30 years in any lucrative field or market would see some drastic progressive changes like this.
...our growth is almost entirely based on the use of oil for transportation, new materials, pesticides, fertilizers, construction equipment, etc, etc, etc. It's going to be messy when it starts to run dry.
Huh, well, from my point of view, the growth is based more so on just pure unadulterated knowledge. Knowledge of how to make all the above work for us despite its evils. As we increase knowledge this only gets better. As time progresses, we get better at exchanging and persisting knowledge (we're doing it right now on glowing squares in front of us but we could be across the world). It will only get messy if we stop promoting science, medicine, learning, education, research, understanding, translation, tolerance, etc.
Just another optimistic spin to put back on the already staggering performance we've exhibited relatively recently.
I started using personal computers back in 1981 because I wanted to be able to run my software whenever I wanted, and not be dependent on the (university's) mainframe system being up. Today, I can't imagine using the cloud for anything other than as a backup, and then only with strong encryption.
Yeah, I was sort of surprised that the most popular suggestion when I asked what to use after OpenOffice.org went to Oracle was Google Docs (most of the other highly rated comments were personal attacks or LibreOffice which I now use and am very happy with).
Oh well, if people want their most personal stuff up on Google Docs, I say they'll learn their lesson sooner or later. I find a use for Google Docs, putting up things that I do not care to be public. I consider anything I put up there to be something that might as well be public. From a list of songs that I hear on MPR that I like to links to strategy guides for certain games, I only collect things I want to share with people and am not afraid of. Resume? Finances? Software key codes from boxes I have discarded? You have to be kidding me!
Your "backup + strong encryption" is interesting to me. Tell me, what if I copied your data off the cloud through some lax security policy and fifteen years later we finally have the tools to crack whatever encryption you were using? Is the data you put on there timelessly sensitive? Just a thought I'd like to offer if you put stuff like SSNs out there.
I think the reality is that people are willing to put everything out on the cloud -- maybe even passwords. The real question is how do you even start to educate some normal about this?
A plurality of Gawker Media passwords are six characters long, but we wondered whether that and other results might differ based on the user’s email provider. Indeed, users of Google and Yahoo’s email services are more likely than Microsoft email users to have passwords of eight or more characters.
Well, Hotmail and Yahoo! require six characters or more and Google requires eight characters or more. Explains the Google/Microsoft difference anyway: People are lazy. While you're statements aren't false, I fail to see their confidence or usefulness. Or are we just trying to pat ourselves on the back for using Google and being part of the "elite?" The funny thing is that if your password is showing up here, it's just as "strong" as the other ones that fell victim to this kind of attack! Regardless of length! Take your pick, "unicorns" or "$r-P_5"?
Popular passwords vary, as well: Gmail users are bigger X-Files fans ("trustno1") and more likely to opt for the slightly clever variant "passw0rd."
Or you're just staring at random data trying to make something out of it. "Slightly clever variant"? Ha, well, whoever decrypted this passwords had that one in mind, you know that for sure. Anything even remotely clever would not show up in here.
Yahoo and Microsoft email users, meanwhile, are much more likely to get sappy with their passwords: "iloveyou."
Come on, one example leads to that kind of generalization?
A computer will be much better at facts. So it's mostly a question of grammar. And the hardest problem is likely figuring out wordplay, which occasionally comes up in jeopardy.
If you think this is true, you can play against Watson online. About seven years ago, I saw some pretty impressive crossword solvers that were decent at wordplay and I've imagined they've gotten much better at developing novel links between words to exploit puns and the like. Never perfect but slowly getting better in odd ways -- like most of AI.
We've discussed this so many times it hurts. I've wanted to watch this for almost a year, I was hoping Jeopardy! wouldn't need to milk this hype for all it's worth to stay relevant.