Why Hotmail accounts, but not Yahoo Mail, GMail, or AOL accounts?
My uneducated guess is the simplest reason for it: of the pervasive services (MSN Games, XBox Live, etc) that comprise the entire "Windows Live" experience, one has become susceptible to some form of attack. Maybe it's not even full fledged access but some sloppy development that gave someone the ability to set your auto-response on and text to it if they only know your e-mail address? I don't know if Windows Live has a common sort of authentication service that is so familiar with all Google Apps or Yahoo's many applications but I'm guessing that someone: 1) figured how to hack a MSN app or 2) figured how to monitor one or (most likely) 3) made a page that passed as an MSN log in page and figured how to get on Facebook and Myspace and circulate the link. Once you logged in, they redirected you to the real page and just went about logging your log in information. You kind of touched on this later but didn't run with it when you said:
Presumably the Chinese spammers stole large numbers of passwords from Hotmail users either via a huge phishing attack, or through a security hole in Hotmail or some other part of the Windows Live service.
That's my guess. I wouldn't put it past any of these e-mail providers to slip up when trying to link together seventy different applications to one set of credentials. Convenience always comes at a cost.
Accuracy aberrations plague a lot the new free motion input devices. Does anyone know to what degree of accuracy this works? Down to the inch? Centimeter?
My friend was lamenting how in Rainbow Six he could hug up to a corner or object and only expose a small part of his body when he poked out to shoot. The problem being that in Modern Warfare 2, this is not the case. You have to expose your whole body. He was hoping/speculating that with Natal, a first person shooter might be able to lock into a stationary mode (much like when one is shooting through a scope) and be able to move his head, shoulders, arms, etc as he pleases to peak (and/or) shoot around a corner when he's pinned down. He wants these games to get as close to real life as possible and I told him that it's a great idea and would increase the reality of pray and spray suppressive fire tactics... but I was skeptical of the devices ability for this accuracy. So, anyone know any concrete numbers yet?
I read about this almost a month ago in the New York Times blogs and must point out one very important detail (to me at least) about this case that was not present in The Wall Street Journal article: Google applied for a trademark on "NEXUS ONE". Now it's not even assigned to an examining attorney yet but come on. You can 'borrow' something from a novel but if you're going to be making money, hand over fist, with it you should probably get permission. And then on top of that you go after the trademark since Dick never did?
Even Motorola had the wherewithal to kindly ask Lucas before using Droid as a name for their phone because 'droid' is a registered trademark of Lucasfilm Ltd. You would think the least amount of courtesy Google could do is not apply for a trademark out of respect of where they borrowed 'nexus one' from. And if Google's afraid that someone will just use that name to profit off of their device then they should just find another name instead of borrowing from a novel (deflating the argument of "they have no choice, they have to trademark everything they do"). I'm hoping that this is some Google executive not realizing that 'nexus one' is a reference to a Philip K. Dick android but now it looks more like them toeing the line of what they could use and then completely running off with it.
If they were just using the name, I'd consider this a nice homage or nod to the late great Philip K. Dick. But since they're applying for a trademark it's just a dick move.
This will, of course, ultimately be passed on to the customers. Ultimately, this is a way to raise taxes to force a change in private industry. The government keeps the money, and we the people pay the taxes. It won't hurt the companies in this case because there is no choice in electricity providers. You can't switch electric companies like you can cell phone companies.
How, exactly, will this force "cleaner" electricity generation?
What will be done with the money from these tariffs? Will it only be used for environmental concerns, or will it just go into the general budget?
implementing a plan to Americanize our energy sources by generating 25% of the state's electricity from renewable sources by 2025
As a moderate Democrat, I was kind of afraid when he almost got a bid in 2008... because he's actually not that bad of a candidate. He doesn't talk like a moron and he's got his head in a lot of the right places. If he would cut the Christian God talk out of his speeches, I'd probably be on board. Sorry to get offtopic but I'm trying to say that this tariff would probably be a huge in road for him to moderates if he could pull it off. I'm certain he's not the prime motivator behind this but I would bet that they'd take the taxes from this and dump it into wind incentives. They're racing against Iowa in the wind department. California and Texas are too big and too prime locations to take on for Megawatt generation from wind power.
That is where I bet they would take this money: incentives to corporations for wind power.
Those are all certainly good points but it's not nearly cut and dried unconstitutional as people are making it out to be. For example, I believe states can rightfully burden interstate commerce in the name of health and safety. Take an example from 1890 where states had different laws on the quality and inspection of meat that could be sold within their borders for human consumption. In the name of public safety, Minnesota was allowed to burden interstate commerce on foods not inspected within its borders after someone distributed rank meat acquired from Illinois and not certified by a Minnesota inspector.
Now, this requires Minnesota to prove that the coal generated electricity is a threat to health and or safety of its citizens. That's going to be hard to do. But as your other post pointed out, they've been going about this for quite sometime but I'm sure every year they feel closer to being able to prove this is legal on account of public safety.
So basically you tried to shove your own proprietary format (XAML?) down our throats but that didn't work. So you thought you'd wait it out and see who had the biggest cajones in this game of chicken where people had to pick? But then Google and Adobe just made plugins for IE that made SVG work which kind of let the air out of your tires. And now, before you've even implemented the SVG Tiny spec in Internet Explorer you are saying things like 'We recognize that vector graphics are an important component of the next-generation Web platform'? So where would that leave IE since it has not implemented said important component of next-generation web platforms?
So you basically want a say in which direction the spec takes from now on without having proven to anyone that you are truly committed to this?
Or is this some hilarious attempt to sidle in at the last moment and hope everyone forgets about your blatant disregard for SVG and make it seem like SVG had always been in your plans but you're only now just getting around to it?
I mean, you're looking mighty foolish now no matter which route you take.
All that angst and animosity aside, I applaud this action. Get it implemented in IE right now so I can start writing crap that utilizes basic graphics without having to post an unnecessarily large image for a flow chart and we can start to carve down the Flash usage out there.
So the last thing Mr. Ballmer wants to hold up is a me-too device.
Huh, and here I was thinking that was precisely what he wanted to hold up. A "Me-Too" device that is the only authorized Windows Tablet for Windows 7. And it will sync with all your Microsoft crap and even let you carry around your Microsoft DRM'd media. Just like I'm sure Apple's tablet will do the same thing with Apple replaced for Microsoft.
Meanwhile here I'll sit with my eeePC running some flavor of Linux wondering when I'll get a tablet that provides support for open source.
Whether or not this announcement is intended as a direct response to the much-rumored Apple event that may or may not be happening on January 27th, consumers will perceive it as one
Oh no! Then surely consumers will see this as Microsoft entering another market they aren't experts in and not buy the MS Tablet just like how no one bought the original XBox... oh, wait. Well, surely all those consumers will see through this ruse just like they did when Microsoft released the Zune... oh, wait, that's still being shoved down our throats and people are still buying it.
And if Microsoft unveils a traditional tablet then 'they'll be up against the (presumably more expensive) iTablet and the cult of Apple.' But if the device is the dual-screen Courier, that we heard about back in September then it'll be up against the (presumably less expensive) enTourage eDGe
And the fact of the matter is that it doesn't matter if the market is large enough. Take the PS3 Vs XBox360 vs Wii console war. The XBox360 wasn't as powerful or as expensive as the PS3 yet wasn't as cheap as the Wii. And yet people gobbled them up.
The sad fact of the matter is that when you're the top dog in a lucrative industry and you're generating epic revenue, you have this peculiar ability to pay people to assess markets and then simply enter them by mirroring your opponents' every move in those markets. And you know what? With a good enough marketing team and a big enough brand name, you can't fail. Two tired adages: 1) You need money to make money. 2) The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. These apply on all scales.
For how much us tech savvy people will be able to bash Microsoft's tablet, it will turn a profit. Trust me, I don't say that as a fan I say that as a fact.
It is no news that the greatest computer scientists and programmers are/were mathematicians.
I caution you that there are many other science professions which require math to varying degrees. The above statement could also be true of phycisists, chemists and maybe even biologists. The vectors, proof and algorithms that math provides a foundation to (or is) can be compared to the statistics that a biologist relies on or more generally processing empirical data in any science. We teach our kids basic math so they understand home loans and taxation later in life. Similarly, your best x in any science related field will likely have strong math skills to take what gets thrown at them.
I have two choices: 'Discreet structures with graph theory' (discrete math; proofs, sets, algorithms and graphs) on one side, and 'Selected math chapters' (math analysis; vectors, euclidean space, differentials) on the other. I'm scared of the second one because it's said to be harder. But contrary to my own opinion, one assistant told me that it would be more useful for a programmer compared to the first subject. Then again, he's not a programmer.
But he's definitely correct. The second is going to give you practical skills in programming -- a wide array of practical skills. The first is most likely going to give you some automata theory for computers but unless you're going into theoretical research, the second is the obvious answer. Graphics and games are all vectors, the web is becoming even more so with new browser rendering technologies. Rendering is all euclidean space transposed onto a two dimensional plane (screen) using points (pixels). Differentials are huge in the vision and image processing world and again, in graphics. This is your obvious selection although I challenge you to take both. Also, look for courses on classes that blur the lines between stats/math and computer science. Like courses on error correcting codes or computer language design and theory.
I don't know about you but I would rather take a seriously difficult course and learn a lot with a grade of C+ than take a seriously easy course and learn little with a grade of A+.
Unfortunately, math doesn't return my love, and prefers me to struggle with it.
As a brief aside, it's entirely possible you simply were never exposed to fun math or been exposed to a really influential teacher. It will not give you the joy that primary school math league gave me nor will it be a perfect substitute but Martin Gardner has some really fun math. While this won't get you excited about graph theory and linear equations, it might spark something in you to devour math regardless of how dry it is. Talking about quadratic sieves in regards to finding primes is really boring stuff when it's a paper full of symbols. But if you know what kind of power this holds in regards to cryptography, one can get really zealous about it. Remember to help your kids with this should you decide to procreate.
Also if you haven't read Godel, Escher, Bach, it might be time. Copies of those sell for cheap used online.
Say Jobs wants to fire someone but he doesn't want to lose them to another company. So he calls up the manager or whoever and asks him to do a 'controlled leak' for him via cellphone at Devil's Slough near Cupertino and wants to meet him there at 3am but come alone and no e-mails, no mention of this to anyone, no sort of traceability just to cover our asses because, hey, this is a controlled leak, right? But he asks the guy to stop at a random pub and buy Steve a bottle of their finest alcohol.
So the guy shows up and there's Steve walking along the railroad tracks above Devil's Slough. Well, when the guy approaches him, Steve hands him a cell phone and takes the bottle of liquor. Depending on how much Steve likes the bottle of liquor is how Steve proceeds next. If he likes it, he lets the man realize the cellphone is just an iPhone shell and Steve embraces him as Steve injects him with pentobarbital and gently lets him fall to his death in the slough. Now if Steve doesn't like the bottle, he pulls out his chic white iDesert Eagle and puts one in the back of each of the guy's legs gangland style. Then he usually taunts and complains about the bottle the guy brought him before roundhousing him to the head off the railroad tracks. He usually finishes it with a really bad hollywood-esque pun (ex. "consider your employment terminated!") and holds the gun sideways to look badass. Either way the guy just becomes a faceless statistic of people who drank too much at a bar and were mugged on their way home. And since it was a 'controlled leak' no one knows about it.
It's all true. Reiser tried but failed to open source the model. And that time Jobs looked cancer thin? He had actually just gotten back from a two week stint in Devil's Slough after a botched termination turned into a Most Dangerous Game where the hunter became the hunted.
"To create an Internet without so many security breaches, with better trust and built-in identity management."
I see. They want to end the real protection of free speach that anonymity provides.
What I found lacking in the article was an actual discussion of how they were going to make security better. At the end, there was a brief mention of content-centric networking which -- I must admit -- sounds like it doesn't solve any security issues. There's all these generic complaints of security and how horrible it is. In the article, when they talk about reinventing the internet they say things like:
NSF says it won't make the same mistake today as was made when the Internet was invented, with security bolted on to the Internet architecture after-the-fact instead of being designed in from the beginning.
I frankly don't get it. And since they're not giving me examples of how they're going to revolutionize security, all I can do is sit back and ask, "How are you going to do it better than SSL?" How will a security implementation 'from the beginning' change anything? You know what else made my eyes roll?
Another key aspect of GENI is that it will be used to test new security paradigms. Elliott says the GENI program will fund 10 security-related efforts between now and October 2010.
That statement is dripping with bullshit marketing and venture capital garnering rhetoric. Will someone please man up and explain in detail how you are going to revolutionize security on the internet without running into obvious problems that the current solution seeks to avoid (ones like the parent post pointed out)?
We're getting all these nebulous ideas thrown at us without any detailed explanation so you'll have to forgive me for being dubious.
Finally, why do entertainers continue to feel that they have to present their beliefs within a movie.
Because movies are a valid and welcomed medium for getting these messages across. I think you're letting Avatar influence your blanket statement above. I've seen this go horribly wrong two ways. You can belabor a belief or political idea in a movie to a point where nobody will be able to stomach it and you can also use such a tired message that most people are sick of hearing it. I haven't seen Avatar mostly because I feared the Fern Gully message so many other posters have mentioned. While the political message is valid, I'm sick of hearing it. Not because I don't care but because I read enough of it in the news.
This isn't true of all people, some people are going to love Avatar. And for a younger viewer it might be new to them. Fine. In Hollywood, the price for unoriginality is very very small. Too small in my opinion but... okay, I don't have to watch this movie. A shame that Cameron didn't take a more original story and risk it like Star Wars. Or even to tell a similar message about mankind's follies with a more complicated story like District 9 did. But he's James Cameron and the monetary risk was huge so of course we got some Grade F gruel that has been slammed into our gullets fifty times or more. This plot was sure to be labeled 'acceptable' by the public committee on what people will swallow.
If I want to be preached at or listen to political messages, I will go to church or read a newspaper/book. I do not want to see it in movies or hear it at concerts.
Please, I implore you, watch Brazil or Dr. Strangelove. Listen to Bob Dylan or Pete Seeger. Now tell me that those movies and songs wouldn't be the same without those messages. There's an example of people using an artistic medium to get a message across that -- while not always original -- was not tired and was done tastefully. That message actually comprised much of what made them who they are. There's an appropriate way to do it but the artist always risks losing people by baking in a message that is contrary to what some people believe. James Cameron lost very few viewers with his message because it was a safe one. But if it had been more original it would have been brilliant and more timeless.
If I recall my Carl Sagan reading, Broca's Region is very important to our intellectual prowess among the animal kingdom. But from reading this summary it would seem that a blue whale would be the most intelligent thing ever. But it's not and that's because things like the proteins that make up our neurons, the spacing of the synapses, the quality of the electric shielding (white matter), etc are also important to defining our brain functions above that of an animal with comparable brain size.
I'm in now way a biologist but it is odd to me that they would suggest this metric for intelligence unless they can also prove that they are recent enough in our history that the above factors I mentioned have to be close or match our own that we know a lot about. I don't think that's a safe speculation though.
I would also like to point out the nature versus nurture paradigm in how a brain develops which will show you that in our idea of what an IQ test is, parental nurturing can sometimes have just as large if not more important result than our genetic make up.
Let me preface this by just notifying the reader that I am in no way condoning or endorsing BBC's actions. I think they suck and are nothing but evil. However, I find an overlooked argument that Doctorow chooses not to address.
Now, generally speaking, the BBC isn't allowed to encrypt or restrict its broadcasts
Where is it written that the BBC isn't allowed to encrypt or restrict its broadcasts? Is that a law I'm unaware of?
the licence fee payer pays for these broadcasts, and no licence fee payer woke up today wishing that the BBC had added restrictions to its programming.
I think that's a false statement. I would bet there are some of the population wagering that if the BBC could encrypt the signal in some way, then they could better control one of the few revenues they have (aside from the taxpayer). That being DVD sales and sales to a vast amount of the world--namely everyone who is not British.
This might conflict statements about wanting to encourage open source but make no mistake about it, the BBC does not have to support open source. Does it suck? Most certainly. Should you complain about it? Of course. But the logic here isn't just the desire to control the set top boxes or some ultra evil GNU/GPL destruction campaign. No%2
This question seems to be distinctly different from your paragraph. Your $10 here and there is something I've also done many times. And it's great to hear that I'm not alone. From buying Firefox swag to just realizing that FOSS Product A saved me (at least) three days of my time so the least I can do is paypal $20 to those in charge.
So if you'd like to contribute in other ways, pick a project that has something that you know a lot about or are passionate about and try to make small improvements submitted as patches. Good with embedded C? Try to help out the Firefox team in squeezing out cycles. Good with computer vision algorithms? Hit up OpenCV or even write some more script/extensions for the Gimp. What's your passion? The most important thing to remember is to not get discouraged when your patch gets rejected or deferred or sent back. Ask for feedback from the team and keep in mind you're there to support them. Firefox might be too closely knit of a project for you to break into but just perusing sourceforge or github will open up your eyes to who's out there looking for your help. A lot of these projects have wish lists.
But what I'm hearing from you is that you'd like to give FOSS more recognition than contributions. No one wants your management or tax payer to feel obligated to fund open source. That flies directly in the face of what open source wants to do for you.
I had the idea to put up a Web page stating that we 'use the following free software to save tax dollars,' as a way to help spread the word about open source software, but management calls this an 'endorsement.'
Above all, respect your management. Were I in your place, I'd take a page from the DoD and on your page post side by side both the open source products you use and the proprietary products you use with a brief explanation. Get your management to approve this (pending security concerns) and whenever a change is made or an addition of open source product is used, put it up. I think you'll find that your page--if not from the get go--will slowly start to paint a common picture: the coexistence of open source products and proprietary products not only working side by side but also supporting each other.
I would not recommend trying to make a business case out of government funded changes to open source products unless you have someone high up in your pocket and on your side. Doing something like that could really make you look foolish if you have no clout to begin with and could injure your reputability. Just a thought, you're free to proceed as you see fit.
Rather, the burden of change should be placed on the populace (parents especially) and media.
I'm going to make some statements with absolutely no sort of proof, weight or even statistics behind them. Statements which need no proof because if you've gone through the American educational system, you know that what I am saying is the truth.
Football (really sports in general) is more important to teenagers and parents than computer science.
Computer science is far more practical/pragmatic (and really productive for society as a whole) and monetarily rewarding later in life than football.
This isn't pressure from the kids. Kids don't develop these hierarchies of what's more important than other things on their own. They get this from their peers who in turn get it from their parents, teachers and--most importantly--the media. Football is the entertainment industry. There are a small percentage of high school football players that go on to hold all the wealth. All the wealth is controlled or pushed through a single league--the NFL. Kids don't realize that their chances of playing in the NFL are equivalent to winning the lottery. And they pass up much more applicable things like math in order to be better at sports. This is what's wrong with the picture. Don't blame nerds for not being iconic enough or cool enough or social enough.
This has slowly turned as shows and parents have realized that the brilliant nerds they graduated with--the ones that spoke Klingon--actually went on to do really cool things with technology. Not only are they really cool but the whole world is trying to throw cash at them in exchange for their services. Compare that to captain of the football team.
I don't want you to write off sports entirely, a healthy body is necessary to live a long life and moderate exercise is actually good for your intelligence. What I'm asking people to do is when they sit down as a father and spend three hours cheering for their team, they should realize that in order to instill a more pragmatic value in their child (who watches and mimics their every move) they should turn around and spend an equally amount of emphasis on how important math, academics, computer science, etc is to their child.
That's not happening. Our economy is suffering from irresponsible parents breeding a generation of gamblers. And by and large they lose--there's just not enough money in entertainment to go around to every high school football player. There is, however, more than enough money in technology to go around to every high school hobbyist that got out in the real world and applied their knowledge.
I'm not a parent but I'd like to ask all the Slashdotters that are parents that have pushed their children in sports and physical abilities to devote more time to that than reading or studying: why do we do this to our kids? And secondly, do you realize you're creating an ecosystem for other people's kids when your kids reinforce the idea that sports are more important than knowledge and they are the path to success?
Childish approach? He's just mimicking the Republican Standard Operating Procedure. Yeah I can see how that's childish.
I'm not sure if you're trying to say that the Democrats are no less or more childish than the Republicans (if you are, I agree with you) but you do know that he's a Democrat with, of course, a history of controversies, right?
You seem to be confused in thinking it's "Republican Standard Operating Procedure" when in reality it's "Politician Standard Operating Procedure."
I am not a lawyer. From the letter the complaint seems to be divided into two parts (note that "the Committee" refers directly to MyCongressmanIsNuts.com):
As explained below, Ms. Langley and the Committee falsely
represented to the Federal Election Commission that the Committee
"supports or opposes more than one candidate." In fact, however, the
committee name corresponds to a website that attacks me and only me,
while soliciting contributions to be used against only me. Moreover, Ms.
Langley has falsely depicted herself as a constituent, in order to further this
scheme.
Although you may claim it's just another stupid technicality that Florida Rep. Alan Grayson clings to in order to shut down a website that is probably too painfully close to the truth for his comfort, there is another complaint other than the use of the word 'my.' Now, if you visit the about us page on the committee in question's site you can find:
Central Floridians formed My Congressman Is Nuts PAC as a response to the outrage and embarrassment within Central Florida over Alan Grayson's liberal positions and childish approach in Washington, D.C. We could no longer sit by and accept his inappropriate behavior and leftist big government agenda. He does not represent the values of Central Florida.
Emphasis mine. Now a key part to the argument is that since it is a PAC with pac registration, it receives taxation status benefits from the government making it subject to the law of United States Code Title 18 Section 1001.
I mean, he might have a case here if that US code applies to PACs. I'm not sure. Were I in his shoes, I would have instead taken the angle of attack related to the title line of the site which is "Alan Grayson is Nuts" and proven that I am not legally insane. Actually, I wouldn't have done anything. As Barbara Streisand might have pointed out that before this news I had never heard of nor visited My Congressman Is Nuts but now I have scanned the entire site out of curiosity.
So that takes care of wikipedia.org or are they censoring en.wikipedia.org differently than zh.wikipedia.org? Because while an English versus Chinese article may be more "culturally sensitive," there's still some unavoidable images no matter how different they are from the original. If they've never had to deal with the artwork versus pornography issue, they're soon going to discover that banning National Geographic for images of unclothed peoples is just not educationally sound.
Looks like we've got a new amusingly painful chapter ahead of us for Chinese internet users.
A long time ago when I was learning lisp, I worked through an interesting book by Heinrich Taube called Notes from the Metalevel. A very enlightening and interesting work for people interested in both music theory and computer science.
How about you watch the whole thing and then start your diatribe?
I thought I made it pretty clear that if you want me to watch an hour and ten minute critique of a two hour and thirteen minute movie, you had better do a better job than what I saw in the first ten minutes. Nothing groundbreaking was presented to me in the first ten minutes and on top of that I was getting pretty annoyed with the guy's intonation. All I'm saying is that it's not my cup of tea. If you found something worthy of note in part whatever that you think is brilliant, let's hear it.
But who is he and what has he done to contribute to modern cinema? He sure speaks like everyone's a fucking moron for not seeing all the problems with The Phantom Menace. Yet I could have presented films where the exact techniques he criticizes actually work. He himself shows some of these movies, why did it work in the Usual Suspects but not The Phantom Menace to leave the enemy confusingly hidden the whole time? "Because TPM is for kids" does not suffice. If I give you seventy minutes of my life, I expect a comprehensive analysis. I stand by my statements and will not devote any more time to this review.
We all know Lucas is no stranger to screwing with his old work. Maybe now, a decade later, he'll hack apart something that should be hacked apart and rework TPM to have a five minute pod racing scene, no Jar Jar Binks and a whole lot more interesting development? I think there are some good things in TPM but the bad things just overshadow anything worth watching.
So from watching the first part, the guy raises some good points. And we've all ripped apart Episode One because it's so easy. Some of the points he raises are the fact that we can't identify with anyone and therefore any character that's supposed to be the protagonist fails at being a protagonist. He also points out that George Lucas doesn't have big enough genitals and intelligence as a director to be straying from this standard model. On top of that, it's George Lucas which we can all safely assume there was no second guessing King Midas on set or off set. These are problems. The other thing addressed in part one of this series is that the characters are by and large featureless in the prequel while anyone can talk for two hours about Han Solo's character. Good luck describing Qui Gon.
Now that said, I wish the voice acting for this review had been better. Or at least normal. The guy intentionally mispronounces everything. It was funny the first time but after a bit he just comes off as a one trick pony looking for a half million views on YouTube (well done, by the way). The pitch inflections actually recall me to a sort of idiot valley girl a la Alicia Silverstone. I think if the effort had been more serious he might have gotten a message out to Lucas and maybe even Hollywood but he needs to put his own humor on it so that's his choice. Now, this isn't the MST3K style of ripping apart a movie, it's deeper than that and I just wish it had been presented in a serious manner. Yes, you can still be funny when you're being serious, that's what makes great teachers, speakers and orators.
One important caveat that this review overlooks is that many of his criticisms center on complexities and different approaches that Lucas took (before that he wanted to take different approaches when he asked Lynch to direct RotJ). Just because Lucas screwed it up doesn't make these things bad. Lucas gambled and he lost. He lost everything. He made something different but he wasn't good enough at what he did to ensure that it was still great. In software development, you generally start with the basics and master them before you begin an epic endeavor into parts unknown.
Lucas made bad choices and failed. If you need to relinquish another seventy minutes of your life to this failure. Watch this series. The odds are you already know all of this.
Worse, ifeffortsto enable Android apps to run on distros like Ubuntu succeed, then we may see closed-source software being used on the free software stack there, too. Ironically, Android's success could harm not just open source's chances in the world of mobile phones, but even on the desktop.
Huh, that's a really funny statement. I thought one of the biggest barriers to Linux on the desktop was the fact that we couldn't entice proprietary manufacturers (from device drivers to bulky enterprise solutions) to also release and thoroughly support a Linux distribution of their software. Hell, every other week we're bitching about the sad state of gaming on Linux or sound on Linux and let's just face it: you need to improve that before people will buy Linux for that purpose. And now we're concerned that proprietary will be released on Android? And it might challenge Linux? Good. If it can manage that, good for it. I assure you that if proprietary manufacturers see Android as a viable release alternative to Windows CE, Symbian, etc, that is when you're going to see everyone embrace an open source product.
And really, what's wrong with that? The people who wanted to release their open source software still are but now the people that want to release their closed source software still are and can. And the best part about it is everyone's using an open source stack to support their application.
I don't know about you but if you could replace Windows with Linux on the desktop even though 99% of the apps running on it were proprietary, I would be much more happy with the state of things.
We need both FOSS and proprietary software. Give both of them what they want like options to achieve their goals and then you will have a truly great product that helps the community and humanity as a whole in utilizing computers.
Verizon will go any lengths to protect their customers, even if it means killing them.
"This is an automated message notifying you that on the... two five of... November of... 2009 your husband did conspire to change carriers with willful and malicious intent. Regarding this matter, he has been terminated in order to assure you continuous service. We apologize if you experienced any problems with your service during this technical adjustment. You will receive an invoice shortly for the professional handling of your husband and his disposal. Please remit payment by the end of... December of... 2009 to avoid further late charges and fees. To return to the main menu please press star, to talk to a Verizon funeral representative please stay on the line... "
AT&T CEO: So, basically when the new iPhone 3GS++ comes out, people will be leaving other carriers in droves. Verizon CEO: No matter, every customer signed a contract with more words than the US Constitution which means they either didn't or are unable read it. In that contract, we reserve the right to increase our crippling early termination fee. So we'll juice that up to lock in size and by the time most customers can leave, we'll have an answer to your latest model. Verizon Shareholder: I approve. Verizon Customer: Why does my ass hurt?
One calm, level headed discussion about the disparity of genders in the world of computer science where everyone agrees on the solution with no emotions, personal anecdotes, gender studies, centuries of suffrage, accusations, cherry picked statistics, flamebait quotes from message boards, reverse sexism or chauvinistic undertones trumpeted.
Yep, this one sounds like it might be even as tame as your average climategate discussion.
Slashdot Mirror
Why Hotmail accounts, but not Yahoo Mail, GMail, or AOL accounts?
My uneducated guess is the simplest reason for it: of the pervasive services (MSN Games, XBox Live, etc) that comprise the entire "Windows Live" experience, one has become susceptible to some form of attack. Maybe it's not even full fledged access but some sloppy development that gave someone the ability to set your auto-response on and text to it if they only know your e-mail address? I don't know if Windows Live has a common sort of authentication service that is so familiar with all Google Apps or Yahoo's many applications but I'm guessing that someone: 1) figured how to hack a MSN app or 2) figured how to monitor one or (most likely) 3) made a page that passed as an MSN log in page and figured how to get on Facebook and Myspace and circulate the link. Once you logged in, they redirected you to the real page and just went about logging your log in information. You kind of touched on this later but didn't run with it when you said:
Presumably the Chinese spammers stole large numbers of passwords from Hotmail users either via a huge phishing attack, or through a security hole in Hotmail or some other part of the Windows Live service.
That's my guess. I wouldn't put it past any of these e-mail providers to slip up when trying to link together seventy different applications to one set of credentials. Convenience always comes at a cost.
Accuracy aberrations plague a lot the new free motion input devices. Does anyone know to what degree of accuracy this works? Down to the inch? Centimeter?
... but I was skeptical of the devices ability for this accuracy. So, anyone know any concrete numbers yet?
My friend was lamenting how in Rainbow Six he could hug up to a corner or object and only expose a small part of his body when he poked out to shoot. The problem being that in Modern Warfare 2, this is not the case. You have to expose your whole body. He was hoping/speculating that with Natal, a first person shooter might be able to lock into a stationary mode (much like when one is shooting through a scope) and be able to move his head, shoulders, arms, etc as he pleases to peak (and/or) shoot around a corner when he's pinned down. He wants these games to get as close to real life as possible and I told him that it's a great idea and would increase the reality of pray and spray suppressive fire tactics
I read about this almost a month ago in the New York Times blogs and must point out one very important detail (to me at least) about this case that was not present in The Wall Street Journal article: Google applied for a trademark on "NEXUS ONE". Now it's not even assigned to an examining attorney yet but come on. You can 'borrow' something from a novel but if you're going to be making money, hand over fist, with it you should probably get permission. And then on top of that you go after the trademark since Dick never did?
Even Motorola had the wherewithal to kindly ask Lucas before using Droid as a name for their phone because 'droid' is a registered trademark of Lucasfilm Ltd. You would think the least amount of courtesy Google could do is not apply for a trademark out of respect of where they borrowed 'nexus one' from. And if Google's afraid that someone will just use that name to profit off of their device then they should just find another name instead of borrowing from a novel (deflating the argument of "they have no choice, they have to trademark everything they do"). I'm hoping that this is some Google executive not realizing that 'nexus one' is a reference to a Philip K. Dick android but now it looks more like them toeing the line of what they could use and then completely running off with it.
If they were just using the name, I'd consider this a nice homage or nod to the late great Philip K. Dick. But since they're applying for a trademark it's just a dick move.
This will, of course, ultimately be passed on to the customers. Ultimately, this is a way to raise taxes to force a change in private industry. The government keeps the money, and we the people pay the taxes. It won't hurt the companies in this case because there is no choice in electricity providers. You can't switch electric companies like you can cell phone companies. How, exactly, will this force "cleaner" electricity generation? What will be done with the money from these tariffs? Will it only be used for environmental concerns, or will it just go into the general budget?
Minnesota has grown to be fourth in Wind Power generation. And if you look at time lapse growth they're really pushing that. The weird thing about it is that they're not even one of the prime wind resource states although I will testify that the wind gets ridiculous out there. Now, you probably already know this but Tim Pawlenty (Republican) is the governor of Minnesota and of course is going to try to get a bid for the presidential run in 2012. On his about page:
implementing a plan to Americanize our energy sources by generating 25% of the state's electricity from renewable sources by 2025
As a moderate Democrat, I was kind of afraid when he almost got a bid in 2008 ... because he's actually not that bad of a candidate. He doesn't talk like a moron and he's got his head in a lot of the right places. If he would cut the Christian God talk out of his speeches, I'd probably be on board. Sorry to get offtopic but I'm trying to say that this tariff would probably be a huge in road for him to moderates if he could pull it off. I'm certain he's not the prime motivator behind this but I would bet that they'd take the taxes from this and dump it into wind incentives. They're racing against Iowa in the wind department. California and Texas are too big and too prime locations to take on for Megawatt generation from wind power.
That is where I bet they would take this money: incentives to corporations for wind power.
Those are all certainly good points but it's not nearly cut and dried unconstitutional as people are making it out to be. For example, I believe states can rightfully burden interstate commerce in the name of health and safety. Take an example from 1890 where states had different laws on the quality and inspection of meat that could be sold within their borders for human consumption. In the name of public safety, Minnesota was allowed to burden interstate commerce on foods not inspected within its borders after someone distributed rank meat acquired from Illinois and not certified by a Minnesota inspector.
Now, this requires Minnesota to prove that the coal generated electricity is a threat to health and or safety of its citizens. That's going to be hard to do. But as your other post pointed out, they've been going about this for quite sometime but I'm sure every year they feel closer to being able to prove this is legal on account of public safety.
So basically you tried to shove your own proprietary format (XAML?) down our throats but that didn't work. So you thought you'd wait it out and see who had the biggest cajones in this game of chicken where people had to pick? But then Google and Adobe just made plugins for IE that made SVG work which kind of let the air out of your tires. And now, before you've even implemented the SVG Tiny spec in Internet Explorer you are saying things like 'We recognize that vector graphics are an important component of the next-generation Web platform'? So where would that leave IE since it has not implemented said important component of next-generation web platforms?
So you basically want a say in which direction the spec takes from now on without having proven to anyone that you are truly committed to this?
Or is this some hilarious attempt to sidle in at the last moment and hope everyone forgets about your blatant disregard for SVG and make it seem like SVG had always been in your plans but you're only now just getting around to it?
I mean, you're looking mighty foolish now no matter which route you take.
All that angst and animosity aside, I applaud this action. Get it implemented in IE right now so I can start writing crap that utilizes basic graphics without having to post an unnecessarily large image for a flow chart and we can start to carve down the Flash usage out there.
So the last thing Mr. Ballmer wants to hold up is a me-too device.
Huh, and here I was thinking that was precisely what he wanted to hold up. A "Me-Too" device that is the only authorized Windows Tablet for Windows 7. And it will sync with all your Microsoft crap and even let you carry around your Microsoft DRM'd media. Just like I'm sure Apple's tablet will do the same thing with Apple replaced for Microsoft.
Meanwhile here I'll sit with my eeePC running some flavor of Linux wondering when I'll get a tablet that provides support for open source.
Whether or not this announcement is intended as a direct response to the much-rumored Apple event that may or may not be happening on January 27th, consumers will perceive it as one
Oh no! Then surely consumers will see this as Microsoft entering another market they aren't experts in and not buy the MS Tablet just like how no one bought the original XBox ... oh, wait. Well, surely all those consumers will see through this ruse just like they did when Microsoft released the Zune ... oh, wait, that's still being shoved down our throats and people are still buying it.
And if Microsoft unveils a traditional tablet then 'they'll be up against the (presumably more expensive) iTablet and the cult of Apple.' But if the device is the dual-screen Courier, that we heard about back in September then it'll be up against the (presumably less expensive) enTourage eDGe
And the fact of the matter is that it doesn't matter if the market is large enough. Take the PS3 Vs XBox360 vs Wii console war. The XBox360 wasn't as powerful or as expensive as the PS3 yet wasn't as cheap as the Wii. And yet people gobbled them up.
The sad fact of the matter is that when you're the top dog in a lucrative industry and you're generating epic revenue, you have this peculiar ability to pay people to assess markets and then simply enter them by mirroring your opponents' every move in those markets. And you know what? With a good enough marketing team and a big enough brand name, you can't fail. Two tired adages: 1) You need money to make money. 2) The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. These apply on all scales.
For how much us tech savvy people will be able to bash Microsoft's tablet, it will turn a profit. Trust me, I don't say that as a fan I say that as a fact.
It is no news that the greatest computer scientists and programmers are/were mathematicians.
I caution you that there are many other science professions which require math to varying degrees. The above statement could also be true of phycisists, chemists and maybe even biologists. The vectors, proof and algorithms that math provides a foundation to (or is) can be compared to the statistics that a biologist relies on or more generally processing empirical data in any science. We teach our kids basic math so they understand home loans and taxation later in life. Similarly, your best x in any science related field will likely have strong math skills to take what gets thrown at them.
I have two choices: 'Discreet structures with graph theory' (discrete math; proofs, sets, algorithms and graphs) on one side, and 'Selected math chapters' (math analysis; vectors, euclidean space, differentials) on the other. I'm scared of the second one because it's said to be harder. But contrary to my own opinion, one assistant told me that it would be more useful for a programmer compared to the first subject. Then again, he's not a programmer.
But he's definitely correct. The second is going to give you practical skills in programming -- a wide array of practical skills. The first is most likely going to give you some automata theory for computers but unless you're going into theoretical research, the second is the obvious answer. Graphics and games are all vectors, the web is becoming even more so with new browser rendering technologies. Rendering is all euclidean space transposed onto a two dimensional plane (screen) using points (pixels). Differentials are huge in the vision and image processing world and again, in graphics. This is your obvious selection although I challenge you to take both. Also, look for courses on classes that blur the lines between stats/math and computer science. Like courses on error correcting codes or computer language design and theory.
I don't know about you but I would rather take a seriously difficult course and learn a lot with a grade of C+ than take a seriously easy course and learn little with a grade of A+.
Unfortunately, math doesn't return my love, and prefers me to struggle with it.
As a brief aside, it's entirely possible you simply were never exposed to fun math or been exposed to a really influential teacher. It will not give you the joy that primary school math league gave me nor will it be a perfect substitute but Martin Gardner has some really fun math. While this won't get you excited about graph theory and linear equations, it might spark something in you to devour math regardless of how dry it is. Talking about quadratic sieves in regards to finding primes is really boring stuff when it's a paper full of symbols. But if you know what kind of power this holds in regards to cryptography, one can get really zealous about it. Remember to help your kids with this should you decide to procreate.
Also if you haven't read Godel, Escher, Bach, it might be time. Copies of those sell for cheap used online.
Say Jobs wants to fire someone but he doesn't want to lose them to another company. So he calls up the manager or whoever and asks him to do a 'controlled leak' for him via cellphone at Devil's Slough near Cupertino and wants to meet him there at 3am but come alone and no e-mails, no mention of this to anyone, no sort of traceability just to cover our asses because, hey, this is a controlled leak, right? But he asks the guy to stop at a random pub and buy Steve a bottle of their finest alcohol.
So the guy shows up and there's Steve walking along the railroad tracks above Devil's Slough. Well, when the guy approaches him, Steve hands him a cell phone and takes the bottle of liquor. Depending on how much Steve likes the bottle of liquor is how Steve proceeds next. If he likes it, he lets the man realize the cellphone is just an iPhone shell and Steve embraces him as Steve injects him with pentobarbital and gently lets him fall to his death in the slough. Now if Steve doesn't like the bottle, he pulls out his chic white iDesert Eagle and puts one in the back of each of the guy's legs gangland style. Then he usually taunts and complains about the bottle the guy brought him before roundhousing him to the head off the railroad tracks. He usually finishes it with a really bad hollywood-esque pun (ex. "consider your employment terminated!") and holds the gun sideways to look badass. Either way the guy just becomes a faceless statistic of people who drank too much at a bar and were mugged on their way home. And since it was a 'controlled leak' no one knows about it.
It's all true. Reiser tried but failed to open source the model. And that time Jobs looked cancer thin? He had actually just gotten back from a two week stint in Devil's Slough after a botched termination turned into a Most Dangerous Game where the hunter became the hunted.
"To create an Internet without so many security breaches, with better trust and built-in identity management."
I see. They want to end the real protection of free speach that anonymity provides.
What I found lacking in the article was an actual discussion of how they were going to make security better. At the end, there was a brief mention of content-centric networking which -- I must admit -- sounds like it doesn't solve any security issues. There's all these generic complaints of security and how horrible it is. In the article, when they talk about reinventing the internet they say things like:
NSF says it won't make the same mistake today as was made when the Internet was invented, with security bolted on to the Internet architecture after-the-fact instead of being designed in from the beginning.
I frankly don't get it. And since they're not giving me examples of how they're going to revolutionize security, all I can do is sit back and ask, "How are you going to do it better than SSL?" How will a security implementation 'from the beginning' change anything? You know what else made my eyes roll?
Another key aspect of GENI is that it will be used to test new security paradigms. Elliott says the GENI program will fund 10 security-related efforts between now and October 2010.
That statement is dripping with bullshit marketing and venture capital garnering rhetoric. Will someone please man up and explain in detail how you are going to revolutionize security on the internet without running into obvious problems that the current solution seeks to avoid (ones like the parent post pointed out)?
We're getting all these nebulous ideas thrown at us without any detailed explanation so you'll have to forgive me for being dubious.
Finally, why do entertainers continue to feel that they have to present their beliefs within a movie.
Because movies are a valid and welcomed medium for getting these messages across. I think you're letting Avatar influence your blanket statement above. I've seen this go horribly wrong two ways. You can belabor a belief or political idea in a movie to a point where nobody will be able to stomach it and you can also use such a tired message that most people are sick of hearing it. I haven't seen Avatar mostly because I feared the Fern Gully message so many other posters have mentioned. While the political message is valid, I'm sick of hearing it. Not because I don't care but because I read enough of it in the news.
... okay, I don't have to watch this movie. A shame that Cameron didn't take a more original story and risk it like Star Wars. Or even to tell a similar message about mankind's follies with a more complicated story like District 9 did. But he's James Cameron and the monetary risk was huge so of course we got some Grade F gruel that has been slammed into our gullets fifty times or more. This plot was sure to be labeled 'acceptable' by the public committee on what people will swallow.
This isn't true of all people, some people are going to love Avatar. And for a younger viewer it might be new to them. Fine. In Hollywood, the price for unoriginality is very very small. Too small in my opinion but
If I want to be preached at or listen to political messages, I will go to church or read a newspaper/book. I do not want to see it in movies or hear it at concerts.
Please, I implore you, watch Brazil or Dr. Strangelove. Listen to Bob Dylan or Pete Seeger. Now tell me that those movies and songs wouldn't be the same without those messages. There's an example of people using an artistic medium to get a message across that -- while not always original -- was not tired and was done tastefully. That message actually comprised much of what made them who they are. There's an appropriate way to do it but the artist always risks losing people by baking in a message that is contrary to what some people believe. James Cameron lost very few viewers with his message because it was a safe one. But if it had been more original it would have been brilliant and more timeless.
If I recall my Carl Sagan reading, Broca's Region is very important to our intellectual prowess among the animal kingdom. But from reading this summary it would seem that a blue whale would be the most intelligent thing ever. But it's not and that's because things like the proteins that make up our neurons, the spacing of the synapses, the quality of the electric shielding (white matter), etc are also important to defining our brain functions above that of an animal with comparable brain size.
I'm in now way a biologist but it is odd to me that they would suggest this metric for intelligence unless they can also prove that they are recent enough in our history that the above factors I mentioned have to be close or match our own that we know a lot about. I don't think that's a safe speculation though.
I would also like to point out the nature versus nurture paradigm in how a brain develops which will show you that in our idea of what an IQ test is, parental nurturing can sometimes have just as large if not more important result than our genetic make up.
Now, generally speaking, the BBC isn't allowed to encrypt or restrict its broadcasts
Where is it written that the BBC isn't allowed to encrypt or restrict its broadcasts? Is that a law I'm unaware of?
the licence fee payer pays for these broadcasts, and no licence fee payer woke up today wishing that the BBC had added restrictions to its programming.
I think that's a false statement. I would bet there are some of the population wagering that if the BBC could encrypt the signal in some way, then they could better control one of the few revenues they have (aside from the taxpayer). That being DVD sales and sales to a vast amount of the world--namely everyone who is not British.
This might conflict statements about wanting to encourage open source but make no mistake about it, the BBC does not have to support open source. Does it suck? Most certainly. Should you complain about it? Of course. But the logic here isn't just the desire to control the set top boxes or some ultra evil GNU/GPL destruction campaign. No%2
How Can I Contribute To Open Source?
This question seems to be distinctly different from your paragraph. Your $10 here and there is something I've also done many times. And it's great to hear that I'm not alone. From buying Firefox swag to just realizing that FOSS Product A saved me (at least) three days of my time so the least I can do is paypal $20 to those in charge.
So if you'd like to contribute in other ways, pick a project that has something that you know a lot about or are passionate about and try to make small improvements submitted as patches. Good with embedded C? Try to help out the Firefox team in squeezing out cycles. Good with computer vision algorithms? Hit up OpenCV or even write some more script/extensions for the Gimp. What's your passion? The most important thing to remember is to not get discouraged when your patch gets rejected or deferred or sent back. Ask for feedback from the team and keep in mind you're there to support them. Firefox might be too closely knit of a project for you to break into but just perusing sourceforge or github will open up your eyes to who's out there looking for your help. A lot of these projects have wish lists.
But what I'm hearing from you is that you'd like to give FOSS more recognition than contributions. No one wants your management or tax payer to feel obligated to fund open source. That flies directly in the face of what open source wants to do for you.
I had the idea to put up a Web page stating that we 'use the following free software to save tax dollars,' as a way to help spread the word about open source software, but management calls this an 'endorsement.'
Above all, respect your management. Were I in your place, I'd take a page from the DoD and on your page post side by side both the open source products you use and the proprietary products you use with a brief explanation. Get your management to approve this (pending security concerns) and whenever a change is made or an addition of open source product is used, put it up. I think you'll find that your page--if not from the get go--will slowly start to paint a common picture: the coexistence of open source products and proprietary products not only working side by side but also supporting each other.
I would not recommend trying to make a business case out of government funded changes to open source products unless you have someone high up in your pocket and on your side. Doing something like that could really make you look foolish if you have no clout to begin with and could injure your reputability. Just a thought, you're free to proceed as you see fit.
Rather, the burden of change should be placed on the populace (parents especially) and media.
I'm going to make some statements with absolutely no sort of proof, weight or even statistics behind them. Statements which need no proof because if you've gone through the American educational system, you know that what I am saying is the truth.
Football (really sports in general) is more important to teenagers and parents than computer science.
Computer science is far more practical/pragmatic (and really productive for society as a whole) and monetarily rewarding later in life than football.
This isn't pressure from the kids. Kids don't develop these hierarchies of what's more important than other things on their own. They get this from their peers who in turn get it from their parents, teachers and--most importantly--the media. Football is the entertainment industry. There are a small percentage of high school football players that go on to hold all the wealth. All the wealth is controlled or pushed through a single league--the NFL. Kids don't realize that their chances of playing in the NFL are equivalent to winning the lottery. And they pass up much more applicable things like math in order to be better at sports. This is what's wrong with the picture. Don't blame nerds for not being iconic enough or cool enough or social enough.
This has slowly turned as shows and parents have realized that the brilliant nerds they graduated with--the ones that spoke Klingon--actually went on to do really cool things with technology. Not only are they really cool but the whole world is trying to throw cash at them in exchange for their services. Compare that to captain of the football team.
I don't want you to write off sports entirely, a healthy body is necessary to live a long life and moderate exercise is actually good for your intelligence. What I'm asking people to do is when they sit down as a father and spend three hours cheering for their team, they should realize that in order to instill a more pragmatic value in their child (who watches and mimics their every move) they should turn around and spend an equally amount of emphasis on how important math, academics, computer science, etc is to their child.
That's not happening. Our economy is suffering from irresponsible parents breeding a generation of gamblers. And by and large they lose--there's just not enough money in entertainment to go around to every high school football player. There is, however, more than enough money in technology to go around to every high school hobbyist that got out in the real world and applied their knowledge.
I'm not a parent but I'd like to ask all the Slashdotters that are parents that have pushed their children in sports and physical abilities to devote more time to that than reading or studying: why do we do this to our kids? And secondly, do you realize you're creating an ecosystem for other people's kids when your kids reinforce the idea that sports are more important than knowledge and they are the path to success?
Childish approach? He's just mimicking the Republican Standard Operating Procedure. Yeah I can see how that's childish.
I'm not sure if you're trying to say that the Democrats are no less or more childish than the Republicans (if you are, I agree with you) but you do know that he's a Democrat with, of course, a history of controversies, right?
You seem to be confused in thinking it's "Republican Standard Operating Procedure" when in reality it's "Politician Standard Operating Procedure."
As explained below, Ms. Langley and the Committee falsely represented to the Federal Election Commission that the Committee "supports or opposes more than one candidate." In fact, however, the committee name corresponds to a website that attacks me and only me, while soliciting contributions to be used against only me. Moreover, Ms. Langley has falsely depicted herself as a constituent, in order to further this scheme.
Although you may claim it's just another stupid technicality that Florida Rep. Alan Grayson clings to in order to shut down a website that is probably too painfully close to the truth for his comfort, there is another complaint other than the use of the word 'my.' Now, if you visit the about us page on the committee in question's site you can find:
Central Floridians formed My Congressman Is Nuts PAC as a response to the outrage and embarrassment within Central Florida over Alan Grayson's liberal positions and childish approach in Washington, D.C. We could no longer sit by and accept his inappropriate behavior and leftist big government agenda. He does not represent the values of Central Florida.
Emphasis mine. Now a key part to the argument is that since it is a PAC with pac registration, it receives taxation status benefits from the government making it subject to the law of United States Code Title 18 Section 1001.
I mean, he might have a case here if that US code applies to PACs. I'm not sure. Were I in his shoes, I would have instead taken the angle of attack related to the title line of the site which is "Alan Grayson is Nuts" and proven that I am not legally insane. Actually, I wouldn't have done anything. As Barbara Streisand might have pointed out that before this news I had never heard of nor visited My Congressman Is Nuts but now I have scanned the entire site out of curiosity.
NSFW warning on all following links!
So that takes care of wikipedia.org or are they censoring en.wikipedia.org differently than zh.wikipedia.org? Because while an English versus Chinese article may be more "culturally sensitive," there's still some unavoidable images no matter how different they are from the original. If they've never had to deal with the artwork versus pornography issue, they're soon going to discover that banning National Geographic for images of unclothed peoples is just not educationally sound.
Looks like we've got a new amusingly painful chapter ahead of us for Chinese internet users.
As a side note, I don't know if we ended up covering this story but citizens apparently can't register domains anymore either.
A long time ago when I was learning lisp, I worked through an interesting book by Heinrich Taube called Notes from the Metalevel. A very enlightening and interesting work for people interested in both music theory and computer science.
How about you watch the whole thing and then start your diatribe?
I thought I made it pretty clear that if you want me to watch an hour and ten minute critique of a two hour and thirteen minute movie, you had better do a better job than what I saw in the first ten minutes. Nothing groundbreaking was presented to me in the first ten minutes and on top of that I was getting pretty annoyed with the guy's intonation. All I'm saying is that it's not my cup of tea. If you found something worthy of note in part whatever that you think is brilliant, let's hear it.
But who is he and what has he done to contribute to modern cinema? He sure speaks like everyone's a fucking moron for not seeing all the problems with The Phantom Menace. Yet I could have presented films where the exact techniques he criticizes actually work. He himself shows some of these movies, why did it work in the Usual Suspects but not The Phantom Menace to leave the enemy confusingly hidden the whole time? "Because TPM is for kids" does not suffice. If I give you seventy minutes of my life, I expect a comprehensive analysis. I stand by my statements and will not devote any more time to this review.
We all know Lucas is no stranger to screwing with his old work. Maybe now, a decade later, he'll hack apart something that should be hacked apart and rework TPM to have a five minute pod racing scene, no Jar Jar Binks and a whole lot more interesting development? I think there are some good things in TPM but the bad things just overshadow anything worth watching.
So from watching the first part, the guy raises some good points. And we've all ripped apart Episode One because it's so easy. Some of the points he raises are the fact that we can't identify with anyone and therefore any character that's supposed to be the protagonist fails at being a protagonist. He also points out that George Lucas doesn't have big enough genitals and intelligence as a director to be straying from this standard model. On top of that, it's George Lucas which we can all safely assume there was no second guessing King Midas on set or off set. These are problems. The other thing addressed in part one of this series is that the characters are by and large featureless in the prequel while anyone can talk for two hours about Han Solo's character. Good luck describing Qui Gon.
Now that said, I wish the voice acting for this review had been better. Or at least normal. The guy intentionally mispronounces everything. It was funny the first time but after a bit he just comes off as a one trick pony looking for a half million views on YouTube (well done, by the way). The pitch inflections actually recall me to a sort of idiot valley girl a la Alicia Silverstone. I think if the effort had been more serious he might have gotten a message out to Lucas and maybe even Hollywood but he needs to put his own humor on it so that's his choice. Now, this isn't the MST3K style of ripping apart a movie, it's deeper than that and I just wish it had been presented in a serious manner. Yes, you can still be funny when you're being serious, that's what makes great teachers, speakers and orators.
One important caveat that this review overlooks is that many of his criticisms center on complexities and different approaches that Lucas took (before that he wanted to take different approaches when he asked Lynch to direct RotJ). Just because Lucas screwed it up doesn't make these things bad. Lucas gambled and he lost. He lost everything. He made something different but he wasn't good enough at what he did to ensure that it was still great. In software development, you generally start with the basics and master them before you begin an epic endeavor into parts unknown.
Lucas made bad choices and failed. If you need to relinquish another seventy minutes of your life to this failure. Watch this series. The odds are you already know all of this.
Worse, ifeffortsto enable Android apps to run on distros like Ubuntu succeed, then we may see closed-source software being used on the free software stack there, too. Ironically, Android's success could harm not just open source's chances in the world of mobile phones, but even on the desktop.
Huh, that's a really funny statement. I thought one of the biggest barriers to Linux on the desktop was the fact that we couldn't entice proprietary manufacturers (from device drivers to bulky enterprise solutions) to also release and thoroughly support a Linux distribution of their software. Hell, every other week we're bitching about the sad state of gaming on Linux or sound on Linux and let's just face it: you need to improve that before people will buy Linux for that purpose. And now we're concerned that proprietary will be released on Android? And it might challenge Linux? Good. If it can manage that, good for it. I assure you that if proprietary manufacturers see Android as a viable release alternative to Windows CE, Symbian, etc, that is when you're going to see everyone embrace an open source product.
And really, what's wrong with that? The people who wanted to release their open source software still are but now the people that want to release their closed source software still are and can. And the best part about it is everyone's using an open source stack to support their application.
I don't know about you but if you could replace Windows with Linux on the desktop even though 99% of the apps running on it were proprietary, I would be much more happy with the state of things.
We need both FOSS and proprietary software. Give both of them what they want like options to achieve their goals and then you will have a truly great product that helps the community and humanity as a whole in utilizing computers.
Verizon will go any lengths to protect their customers, even if it means killing them.
"This is an automated message notifying you that on the ... two five of ... November of ... 2009 your husband did conspire to change carriers with willful and malicious intent. Regarding this matter, he has been terminated in order to assure you continuous service. We apologize if you experienced any problems with your service during this technical adjustment. You will receive an invoice shortly for the professional handling of your husband and his disposal. Please remit payment by the end of ... December of ... 2009 to avoid further late charges and fees. To return to the main menu please press star, to talk to a Verizon funeral representative please stay on the line ... "
AT&T CEO: So, basically when the new iPhone 3GS++ comes out, people will be leaving other carriers in droves.
Verizon CEO: No matter, every customer signed a contract with more words than the US Constitution which means they either didn't or are unable read it. In that contract, we reserve the right to increase our crippling early termination fee. So we'll juice that up to lock in size and by the time most customers can leave, we'll have an answer to your latest model.
Verizon Shareholder: I approve.
Verizon Customer: Why does my ass hurt?
One calm, level headed discussion about the disparity of genders in the world of computer science where everyone agrees on the solution with no emotions, personal anecdotes, gender studies, centuries of suffrage, accusations, cherry picked statistics, flamebait quotes from message boards, reverse sexism or chauvinistic undertones trumpeted.
Yep, this one sounds like it might be even as tame as your average climategate discussion.