Wikipedia is the new Google -- the new jumping off place when trying to gather information about any new topic. In the past Wikipedia deemphasized external links under the premise that Wikipedia should be self-contained and pressable onto a CD. That's gone out the window and now at the end of every article is a list of human-filtered external links. Plus any Wikipedia article is loaded with keywords that provide fodder for further searches on Google.
As more evidence that Wikipedia is the new Google, these days whenever I search on Google, the Wikipedia entry is in the top three hits.
Blocking Wikipedia in 2007 is like blocking Google in 2003 or blocking AltaVista in 1998.
Yeah, forget RAID. Home storage doesn't need that kind of uptime. Instead, buy one NAS drive and two USB drives. The USB drives are backups -- one hidden in your own house and another hidden offsite. This strategy protects against burglary and fire, whereas RAID alone does not. It's also physically smaller and consumes less power.
The Buffalo LinkStation NAS has a USB port for daisy-chaining, but I haven't used it yet. The Buffalo LinkStation NAS is physically kind of large, but it comes in a 750GB capacity. Buffalo recently started selling an even physically larger unit with 1.5TB -- two 750GB's married.
P.S. When making complete backups under Windows, use Robocopy (available from Microsoft Resource Kits) in the/B(ackup) mode.
They didn't review Buffalo (which uses Linux for its firmware on some/all of its drives)
They didn't review any NAS drives, which eliminate the need for another computer and are "always on" for WiFi laptops
They didn't need to open the review with excuses for larger hard drives. Parkinson's Law is sufficient for that. 500+ GB hard drives are great for storing a bunch of ripped CDs and DVDs. But we lived for a decade or two without needing to do that. Now that hard drives of that size are available, we want to do that.
Microsoft has come up with some outstanding products and inventions over the years:
1991: Word for Windows 2.0
1992: Excel 4.0
1993: Visual Basic 3.0
1996: Windows NT 4.0
2001: ClearType
Notice any clustering of the dates? With hundreds of billions in revenue, all they can produce in over a decade is ClearType? Let them have it -- we'll live with seeing our font pixels.
This is so obviously wrong the reasons it is wrong may not be obvious, so here is my attempt at three concise explanations:
Old-fashioned thinking says that Google is the new newspaper. This is wrong. It's the new concierge. If you go to a hotel and ask the concierge for reservations to Morton's and he says, "ah, but here is a better steakhouse that my buddy runs" -- can you imagine that being illegal?
Old-fashioned thinking says that the world is hierarchical. That's just post-Aristotle Western thinking. According to this new Utah law, if you want to find competitors to Jiffy Lube, you must first identify the superclass or super superclass (species and genus, respectively, in Aristotalean terms) and type that into the search engine. Typing in a specimen (i.e. Jiffy Lube) to find siblings is called associative lookup in computer science parlance. I'm wondering when the law is coming that bans content addressable memory.
Old-fashioned thinking says that there is a bright line between paid and unpaid search engine placement. Even if an advertiser is not paying for Google AdWords, you know they're paying for search engine optimization -- just not directly to Google. Will SEO be the next thing made illegal, since it is a form of advertising that has no explicit "this message paid for by..." message? And if not, do we prefer SEO (i.e. Google spam pages) to AdWords?
A lot of comments say something to the effect of "of course if you cash out in US dollars you must pay taxes". It's not that simple because according to the IRS inventory is part of taxable income. Thus, one has to start looking at intent. Past commercial activity would be a clear marker of intent to sell in the future for US dollars what one's virtual character possesses. But what of inventory being built up prior to the first sale? That's where it becomes difficult to distinguish between an avid fan and a business enterprise ramping up.
I posted three years ago that Dragon's Lair and martial arts games killed the arcade, and got modded as flamebait. I guess the era of the classic video arcade is far removed in time now that it is considered a mythical time to most Slashdot readers.
This decision bodes poorly for the U.S. in regards to the Big Climate Lawsuit, whereby Boulder is suing two U.S. government agencies over global warming drying up Boulder's water reservoirs. Three California cities have since joined the lawsuit.
The two agencies, the U.S. Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, are a form of corporate welfare to Big Oil. When Big Oil wants to destroy the environment in a third world country, banks shy away due to political instability. In steps the U.S. government to provide taxpayer-guaranteed loans.
The lawsuit is over the narrow issue of that these agencies did not do environmental impact studies in compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Now that the Supreme Court has already ruled that carbon dioxide may be classified as a pollutant, the district court that is deciding the Big Climate Lawsuit must follow precedence.
I would rather have seen OPIC and Ex-Im dismantled over the fundamental reasons they are wrong: unconstitutional, corporate welfare, exploitation of third world countries, and destruction of the environment directly attributable to oil drilling and transport. But as is usually the case, the strongest legal case does not necessarily correlate to the strongest moral/ethical case.
Re:Okay, I'll be the first to ask.
on
Web 2.0 Under Siege
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Cross-site scripting allows a web page browsed by a socially engineered victim to be transmitted to the culprit. JavaScript hijacking is more powerful -- it allows arbitrary data stored on a server (e.g. an entire address book or even all of a user's e-mail on a webmail system) to be transmitted to the culprit.
Too bad Big Media engendered cynicism by withholding online sales during the dot com era, encumbering with DRM when they finally caved, took so long in shutting down Napster, bribed the Sony Bono Copyright Extension Act through, and started suing their customers. Otherwise maybe the boomlets might have had the same positive view of copyright that I, as a Gen X'er had. (I still like copyright, but now I advocate the 1790 version of 14 plus 14 years).
A reprise of a Slashdot comment I made two years ago:
Prior to 1980, it was expected that when you went to a movie you might not be able to ever see it again. And it was expected that your records would get more and more scratchy and skippy with age, and maybe even break.
Not me. My teenage years were in the 1980's, where I was able to purchase -- legally -- "perfect" quality CDs and high quality (for NTSC, anyway) LaserDiscs, both free of copy protection. Both CDs and LaserDiscs were touted to last a lifetime, and even though that's not true, the lack of copy protection enabled lifetime chain copying to preserve the recording for personal use.
I grew up accustomed to, after hearing or seeing something I liked, purchasing it, and playing it back at any time for one of two purposes: a) reflecting upon its content, b) recalling the time and place where I originally heard or saw the recording, for the purposes of sentimentality.
I've said it many times, and almost always get modded down, but I'll say it again. I consider it a form of mind control for a publisher to present something for my consumption, and then be able to at a later date forbid me from reviewing that material in the time, place, and manner of my choosing.
As I said, I believe this attitude of mine is due in part to my Gen X demographic. Baby boomers and older -- those presumably running XXAA -- grew up not expecting reviewing capability. Baby boomlets grew up expecting stuff for free via P2P. Gen X'ers are in the position of expecting lifetime reviewing capability, and expecting to pay a reasonable one-time fee for it.
But demographically, there aren't as many Gen X'ers as baby boomers and baby boomlets. And no one seems to care that books after 1924 are rotting away. So DRM and short memories it will be from now on.
Oops. Didn't make the connection between "armed thugs" and "piracy". I thought you were talking about the story that's been the top of the news for the past week, which, depending on which side you want to take, is either about armed UK thugs boarding ("inspecting") merchant ships or about Iranian thugs taking UK hostages.
Crime is contagious. Or, put another way, "he was doing it first". That's a great excuse.
I'm a strong proponent of copyrights -- just the 1790 version of 14+14 years.
I'm sure a lot of people share your schoolyard mentality, though, and will use the lawlessness of our governments as an excuse to commit all sorts of crime. I look forward to observe the sociological impact of our governments' actions over the next few decades.
I think the headline should have read "Pirate File Sharing to Remain/Become legal in EU". I don't think even the EU would outlaw companies' internal fileservers.
But, you will say, we destroy the most hallowed of relations, when we replace home education by social.
But Horace Mann makes Marx look like a Johnny-come-lately by writing in 1841:
Let the common school be expanded to its capabilities, let it be worked with the efficiency of which it is susceptible, and nine-tenths of the crimes in the penal code would become obsolete; the long catalogue of human ills would be abridged
And let's not forget John Dewey who in 1907 wrote in his School and Society:
Whenever we have in mind the discussion of a new movement in education, it is especially necessary to take the broader, or social view.
When you buy a laptop now, it usually comes with three free months of Microsoft Office. If Microsoft were smart, it would extend that to a year to really get people hooked on it.
Here I was about to lambast the submitter for using "First Mile" instead of "Last Mile", only to discover after Googling that "First Mile" was coined in 1997:
The term "First Mile" was coined by Titus Moetsabi, a poet/ developmental communications specialist, at a Southern African Rural Connectivity Workshop in Harare in February, 1997. He was the first to turn the "last mile" concept on its head and help us think instead of rural communities from the user perspective -- the first mile, not the last. This term expresses a more equitable and far less top-down approach to the challenge of providing universal connectivity, regardless of location and income.
The UN has a more detailed account of the coining of the phrase.
I knew from the headline that the story summary would include the deaded M word from 2006 -- mashup. The word that conveys the work and technical details involved is "integration". Yes, it's four syllables. Can you say it? I knew you could.
When I go to work, I don't make something meant to absorb butter and gravy.
My XP laptop dutifully adjusted this morning, but I wasn't really expecting it to. I checked time.gov at about 8am Eastern to find out the time, and it disagreed with the laptop so I set the laptop back an hour. It wasn't until I read the good old-fashioned clock on the microwave that I realized time.gov was wrong. By that time, time.gov had been corrected.
What's more, the local TV station's website was two hours off, so that really convinced me that time.gov was correct at the time:-)
Did anyone else notice that time.gov was off this morning?
Slashdot Mirror
As more evidence that Wikipedia is the new Google, these days whenever I search on Google, the Wikipedia entry is in the top three hits.
Blocking Wikipedia in 2007 is like blocking Google in 2003 or blocking AltaVista in 1998.
The Buffalo LinkStation NAS has a USB port for daisy-chaining, but I haven't used it yet. The Buffalo LinkStation NAS is physically kind of large, but it comes in a 750GB capacity. Buffalo recently started selling an even physically larger unit with 1.5TB -- two 750GB's married.
P.S. When making complete backups under Windows, use Robocopy (available from Microsoft Resource Kits) in the /B(ackup) mode.
Can Fermilab next restore Newton's model? That speed of light thing is hampering processor speed and space travel.
- 1991: Word for Windows 2.0
- 1992: Excel 4.0
- 1993: Visual Basic 3.0
- 1996: Windows NT 4.0
- 2001: ClearType
Notice any clustering of the dates? With hundreds of billions in revenue, all they can produce in over a decade is ClearType? Let them have it -- we'll live with seeing our font pixels.A lot of comments say something to the effect of "of course if you cash out in US dollars you must pay taxes". It's not that simple because according to the IRS inventory is part of taxable income. Thus, one has to start looking at intent. Past commercial activity would be a clear marker of intent to sell in the future for US dollars what one's virtual character possesses. But what of inventory being built up prior to the first sale? That's where it becomes difficult to distinguish between an avid fan and a business enterprise ramping up.
I posted three years ago that Dragon's Lair and martial arts games killed the arcade, and got modded as flamebait. I guess the era of the classic video arcade is far removed in time now that it is considered a mythical time to most Slashdot readers.
Why the LaserJet 4L instead of the original LaserJet?
Why Lotus 1-2-3 instead of Visicalc? I this is a slight to Dan Bricklin (but he's probably used to it by now).
The two agencies, the U.S. Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, are a form of corporate welfare to Big Oil. When Big Oil wants to destroy the environment in a third world country, banks shy away due to political instability. In steps the U.S. government to provide taxpayer-guaranteed loans.
The lawsuit is over the narrow issue of that these agencies did not do environmental impact studies in compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Now that the Supreme Court has already ruled that carbon dioxide may be classified as a pollutant, the district court that is deciding the Big Climate Lawsuit must follow precedence.
I would rather have seen OPIC and Ex-Im dismantled over the fundamental reasons they are wrong: unconstitutional, corporate welfare, exploitation of third world countries, and destruction of the environment directly attributable to oil drilling and transport. But as is usually the case, the strongest legal case does not necessarily correlate to the strongest moral/ethical case.
Cross-site scripting allows a web page browsed by a socially engineered victim to be transmitted to the culprit. JavaScript hijacking is more powerful -- it allows arbitrary data stored on a server (e.g. an entire address book or even all of a user's e-mail on a webmail system) to be transmitted to the culprit.
A reprise of a Slashdot comment I made two years ago:
Prior to 1980, it was expected that when you went to a movie you might not be able to ever see it again. And it was expected that your records would get more and more scratchy and skippy with age, and maybe even break.
Not me. My teenage years were in the 1980's, where I was able to purchase -- legally -- "perfect" quality CDs and high quality (for NTSC, anyway) LaserDiscs, both free of copy protection. Both CDs and LaserDiscs were touted to last a lifetime, and even though that's not true, the lack of copy protection enabled lifetime chain copying to preserve the recording for personal use.
I grew up accustomed to, after hearing or seeing something I liked, purchasing it, and playing it back at any time for one of two purposes: a) reflecting upon its content, b) recalling the time and place where I originally heard or saw the recording, for the purposes of sentimentality.
I've said it many times, and almost always get modded down, but I'll say it again. I consider it a form of mind control for a publisher to present something for my consumption, and then be able to at a later date forbid me from reviewing that material in the time, place, and manner of my choosing.
As I said, I believe this attitude of mine is due in part to my Gen X demographic. Baby boomers and older -- those presumably running XXAA -- grew up not expecting reviewing capability. Baby boomlets grew up expecting stuff for free via P2P. Gen X'ers are in the position of expecting lifetime reviewing capability, and expecting to pay a reasonable one-time fee for it.
But demographically, there aren't as many Gen X'ers as baby boomers and baby boomlets. And no one seems to care that books after 1924 are rotting away. So DRM and short memories it will be from now on.
Oops. Didn't make the connection between "armed thugs" and "piracy". I thought you were talking about the story that's been the top of the news for the past week, which, depending on which side you want to take, is either about armed UK thugs boarding ("inspecting") merchant ships or about Iranian thugs taking UK hostages.
I'm a strong proponent of copyrights -- just the 1790 version of 14+14 years.
I'm sure a lot of people share your schoolyard mentality, though, and will use the lawlessness of our governments as an excuse to commit all sorts of crime. I look forward to observe the sociological impact of our governments' actions over the next few decades.
I think the headline should have read "Pirate File Sharing to Remain/Become legal in EU". I don't think even the EU would outlaw companies' internal fileservers.
According to this blog, Azerbaijan is actually a good place to get an iPod, compared to the surrounding countries.
I think it was called OS/2. Or maybe 68000. Or was it Itanium?
There's not much else to do with a PS3.
A telescreen in every home.
---
Karl Marx famously wrote in his Communist Manifesto in 1888:
But Horace Mann makes Marx look like a Johnny-come-lately by writing in 1841:And let's not forget John Dewey who in 1907 wrote in his School and Society:Today, I read a short stinging rebuttal in a Slashdot comment:When you buy a laptop now, it usually comes with three free months of Microsoft Office. If Microsoft were smart, it would extend that to a year to really get people hooked on it.
When I go to work, I don't make something meant to absorb butter and gravy.
What's more, the local TV station's website was two hours off, so that really convinced me that time.gov was correct at the time :-)
Did anyone else notice that time.gov was off this morning?