> Yes, I've actually successfully negotiated such small deals a few times. > Two kids just actually put themselves through college by being paid to wear label clothing.
> Finally, it is quite obvious that stupid people find it easier to program in Windows. This is not true on linux. Linux requires knowing a lot of intricate details and knowledge of unstable APIs written by other people and not maintained in a consistent or even perfectly protable format.
It is quite obvious that stupid people find it easier to program in C. This is not true on Assembly. Assembly requires knowing a lot of intricate details...
> I guarantee that neither Moses, Matthew, Mark, Luke, nor John will sue your ass for publishing it.
Because that would probably go against the 10th commandment, which says: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house [...] nor his ass [...]"
Re:Do you use another?
on
Google Turns 5
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
> What OTHER search engine do you still use, and why?
AllTheWeb, because they have a nice FTP search as well as audio and video searches. AltaVista, because they have better boolean and wildcard features as well as audio and video searches and a Google-like toolbar.
> As to the MC 68000, it was very new at the time of the first PC, and only available from a single vendor.
The important part that you neglected to mention is that the second source for 808x CPUs was IBM itself, as they got the rights to manufacture them in exchange for the rights for their bubble memory.
>> it's not the physical manifestation that's holds the majority of the value of the item, it's the intellectual property. > > The only real IP I know of is Internet Protocol. "intellectual property" is a buzzword used by various anti-piracy groups to scare users. IMHO, it rates right up there with "speed kills" and "this baby is crying because it's dad was killed by a drunk driver".
Those buzzwords are, however, becoming frighteningly effective. See below...
> What I am saying is that piracy is not only a lesser crime (IMHO) than stealing, [...]
Piracy, an act of robbery on the high seas, is a much more serious crime than stealing.
> My first thought would be Diplomacy, since success in that game is based on communication, deal-making and -breaking, and manipulating others for personal gain.
Which AI agents already do.
> There is currently a Diplomacy AI project based on negotiation-free (nopress) play
You're a bit behind the times.
When I did my B.Sc. (85-88), there was a computerized Diplomacy game run by Sarit Kraus that included AI agents as well as human players. All negotiantions were done on-line using a formal language that proved to be surprisingly expressive. One did not know who the other players were (or even whether they were human) until the game ended.
I only participated in one game. At the end, we found out that there were 4 human players and 3 AI agents (playing independently), one of which won the game.
I believe that Sarit and others made some progress in the 15 or so years that passed since then.
If (and it's a large "if") the information is actually correct then it is another example that your whole system is in such a dire need for replacement that you need another revolution.
> Altavista and infoseek and Lycos were search engine kings at one time. Whither this trio?
I agree about infoseek and Lycos but AV, while no longer "king", is still a very useful secondary search engine that nicely complements Google when you run into Google's limitations: - It has a better support of boolean searches (including wildcards). - It does not limit searches to 10 words. - It supports searching for audio or video files.
There are other features which can be of interest to some people: - Incremental refinement of searches using "Prisma". - Shortcuts.
By the way, they also recently added a toolbar (similar to Google's).
So, while not endangering Google's #1 position, AltaVista (and AllTheWeb too) could still be a useful addition to your search toolbox.
> Saddly, our government doesn't seem to be too... enthusiastic about stopping this type of stuff. Don't get me wrong, I'm a libertarian at heart, I think the government should stay out until absolutely necessary, but this is a case where it's gone too far. I don't trust the consumer enough to protect his own rights.
Yep, that's the question. Once the government is out of the way, who will protect you from the corporations?
> This sounds like straight abuse of confidential information. No computers required, no lax security required. A person with legitimate access to data went bad. As such, it's not really a criticism of Axiom's security policies . It is, however, a criticism of their hiring and monitoring policies.
Does not matter. The company top level executives should be held accountable. You'll be amazed how fast security practices improve across corporate america once a couple of CEOs get slapped with jail sentences.
I have a friend who works for NDS. She told me three things about her job:
1) That NDS was (at the time) made the conditional access cards for DirecTV (a fact that was public knowledge).
2) That the security was really tight (read: polygraph tests)
3) That she cannot tell me anything else about her job, her project, her employer or its customers and she'll appreciate it if I did not ask.
The difference between NDS and Axicom was that NDS was commercially liable if any information got out. In fact, later, DirectTV sued them over the P4 fiasco.
As much as I dislike the US-led charade, I would not mind if not properly securing personal data of other people that was collected without an explicit authorization was considered "aiding terrorism".
> The submitter asked about a low-cost, high-quality replacement for a faulty 10-year old TV. You responded by calling him, in so many words, a materialistic, amoral, intellectually bankrupt pig.
Er, no.
He did not respond to the submitter's post but rather to a grandchild (a reply to a reply) of that post.
> I double-dog dare you to try that in the real world.
I double-dog (whatever that means) dare you to try that in the real world. At best, you would be considered a kook.
> A bit of advice for you, kid. Before you hit Submit, [...]
Pot. Kettle. Black.
Re:Consumer Reports - frustrated with reviews
on
Buying a New TV?
·
· Score: 1
> Consumer Reports vs. C-Net/Amazon/Epinions/etc aren't really comparable in any meaningful sense.
The best review site I can recommend is Consumer search. The check individual review sites and publications then aggregate the results, while also providing links to the original reviews ranked by "credibility ratings".
They do tend to rank CR at the top almost all the time but often the other publications provide additional insight.
Amazon and Epinions reviews are consistenly ranked at the bottom of the pack. My own experience is that those sites are pretty good at weeding out the lemons but close to useless when deciding among decent to good alternatives.
For example, their TV review, they ranked the CR (3/2003) and CNet (24/3/2003) reviews as the best followed by a Home Theater (1/2003) review, then a bunch of lower-ranked ones. Amazon and Epinions close the list.
> Therefore the economics are: > 1) Bring four cases at a cost of $10,000,000 each. > 2) Lose three. > 3) Win one to the tune of $48,000,000. > 4) Profit $8,000,000 on a $40,000,000 outlay. > A %20 profit doesn't seem nearly as unresonable.
As far as I know, the lawters usually get paid regardless of the outcome.
> The US is fourth in absolute terms of overseas aid given (behind Japan Germany and France). In terms of percentage national income, the US at 0.12 per cent, ranks below Uganda.
> What if a compant decides it does not want to sell to people of certain ethnic backgrounds (French and Arabs, for instance), and raises its prices for those people to a million dollars?
I believe that some French and Arabs will not be bothered by such a minor markup.
> So now they have to inform you. So you'll get a dialog saying "We are installing spyware. Click here to install it or here to abort this installation". Do you seriously think they'll give you the option of installing the program without the spyware?
The real benefit from such law is that it will help rid us of "spyware for the sake of spyware" programs like Gator, etc.
You know, all those ActiveX thingies that pop up and ask permission to be installed on your machine in order to synch your clock or "enhance your browsing experience".
I wonder whether tracking cookies will be included.
Slashdot Mirror
> Yes, I've actually successfully negotiated such small deals a few times.
> Two kids just actually put themselves through college by being paid to wear label clothing.
Care to share?
> Finally, it is quite obvious that stupid people find it easier to program in Windows. This is not true on linux. Linux requires knowing a lot of intricate details and knowledge of unstable APIs written by other people and not maintained in a consistent or even perfectly protable format.
It is quite obvious that stupid people find it easier to program in C. This is not true on Assembly. Assembly requires knowing a lot of intricate details...
> I guarantee that neither Moses, Matthew, Mark, Luke, nor John will sue your ass for publishing it.
Because that would probably go against the 10th commandment, which says:
"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house [...] nor his ass [...]"
> What OTHER search engine do you still use, and why?
AllTheWeb, because they have a nice FTP search as well as audio and video searches.
AltaVista, because they have better boolean and wildcard features as well as audio and video searches and a Google-like toolbar.
> As to the MC 68000, it was very new at the time of the first PC, and only available from a single vendor.
The important part that you neglected to mention is that the second source for 808x CPUs was IBM itself, as they got the rights to manufacture them in exchange for the rights for their bubble memory.
> Well thats all fine, but whats wrong with typing your search into the address bar and clicking "search"?
Um, highlighting?
Burn, Karma, burn...
Only persons have rights.
You are not a person, you are a consumer.
The distinction is simple: to be a person you have to be able to buy legistlation.
Corollary: Wealthy corporations are persons.
> This is defining the concept of speech down rather than putting trade secret law over free speech.
Translation: If we cannot override the constitution, we'll find a way around it.
> Microsoft's own lax security is a plan to pave the way to their heavy handed takeover of your computer.
Two words: Hanlon's Razor.
> INI files in the program directory NEVER worked under NT.
Funny how the developers of Forte Agent managed to miss that fact.
> They rank the students based on high school averages, contest scores, extracurricular involvement and such [...]
Can you please elaborate?
Links, sources, anything...
>> it's not the physical manifestation that's holds the majority of the value of the item, it's the intellectual property.
>
> The only real IP I know of is Internet Protocol. "intellectual property" is a buzzword used by various anti-piracy groups to scare users. IMHO, it rates right up there with "speed kills" and "this baby is crying because it's dad was killed by a drunk driver".
Those buzzwords are, however, becoming frighteningly effective. See below...
> What I am saying is that piracy is not only a lesser crime (IMHO) than stealing, [...]
Piracy, an act of robbery on the high seas, is a much more serious crime than stealing.
You were saying something about scary buzzwords?
> My first thought would be Diplomacy, since success in that game is based on communication, deal-making and -breaking, and manipulating others for personal gain.
Which AI agents already do.
> There is currently a Diplomacy AI project based on negotiation-free (nopress) play
You're a bit behind the times.
When I did my B.Sc. (85-88), there was a computerized Diplomacy game run by Sarit Kraus that included AI agents as well as human players. All negotiantions were done on-line using a formal language that proved to be surprisingly expressive. One did not know who the other players were (or even whether they were human) until the game ended.
I only participated in one game. At the end, we found out that there were 4 human players and 3 AI agents (playing independently), one of which won the game.
I believe that Sarit and others made some progress in the 15 or so years that passed since then.
If (and it's a large "if") the information is actually correct
then it is another example that your whole system is in such a dire need for replacement that you need another revolution.
Why oh why is there no way to play Shenmue on a PC?
> Altavista and infoseek and Lycos were search engine kings at one time. Whither this trio?
I agree about infoseek and Lycos but AV, while no longer "king", is still a very useful secondary search engine that nicely complements Google when you run into Google's limitations:
- It has a better support of boolean searches (including wildcards).
- It does not limit searches to 10 words.
- It supports searching for audio or video files.
There are other features which can be of interest to some people:
- Incremental refinement of searches using "Prisma".
- Shortcuts.
By the way, they also recently added a toolbar (similar to Google's).
So, while not endangering Google's #1 position, AltaVista (and AllTheWeb too) could still be a useful addition to your search toolbox.
> Sorry, got aircraft on the brain today (I program simulators at work)
Sounds like fun.
A law that criminalizes simple possession of anything has no right to exist. No exceptions.
This generation is hopeless. Educate your children.
> Saddly, our government doesn't seem to be too... enthusiastic about stopping this type of stuff. Don't get me wrong, I'm a libertarian at heart, I think the government should stay out until absolutely necessary, but this is a case where it's gone too far. I don't trust the consumer enough to protect his own rights.
Yep, that's the question.
Once the government is out of the way, who will protect you from the corporations?
> This sounds like straight abuse of confidential information. No computers required, no lax security required. A person with legitimate access to data went bad. As such, it's not really a criticism of Axiom's security policies . It is, however, a criticism of their hiring and monitoring policies.
Does not matter. The company top level executives should be held accountable. You'll be amazed how fast security practices improve across corporate america once a couple of CEOs get slapped with jail sentences.
I have a friend who works for NDS. She told me three things about her job:
1) That NDS was (at the time) made the conditional access cards for DirecTV (a fact that was public knowledge).
2) That the security was really tight (read: polygraph tests)
3) That she cannot tell me anything else about her job, her project, her employer or its customers and she'll appreciate it if I did not ask.
The difference between NDS and Axicom was that NDS was commercially liable if any information got out. In fact, later, DirectTV sued them over the P4 fiasco.
As much as I dislike the US-led charade, I would not mind if not properly securing personal data of other people that was collected without an explicit authorization was considered "aiding terrorism".
> The submitter asked about a low-cost, high-quality replacement for a faulty 10-year old TV. You responded by calling him, in so many words, a materialistic, amoral, intellectually bankrupt pig.
Er, no.
He did not respond to the submitter's post but rather to a grandchild (a reply to a reply) of that post.
> I double-dog dare you to try that in the real world.
I double-dog (whatever that means) dare you to try that in the real world. At best, you would be considered a kook.
> A bit of advice for you, kid. Before you hit Submit, [...]
Pot. Kettle. Black.
> Consumer Reports vs. C-Net/Amazon/Epinions/etc aren't really comparable in any meaningful sense.
The best review site I can recommend is Consumer search. The check individual review sites and publications then aggregate the results, while also providing links to the original reviews ranked by "credibility ratings".
They do tend to rank CR at the top almost all the time but often the other publications provide additional insight.
Amazon and Epinions reviews are consistenly ranked at the bottom of the pack.
My own experience is that those sites are pretty good at weeding out the lemons but close to useless when deciding among decent to good alternatives.
For example, their TV review, they ranked the CR (3/2003) and CNet (24/3/2003) reviews as the best followed by a Home Theater (1/2003) review, then a bunch of lower-ranked ones. Amazon and Epinions close the list.
> Therefore the economics are:
> 1) Bring four cases at a cost of $10,000,000 each.
> 2) Lose three.
> 3) Win one to the tune of $48,000,000.
> 4) Profit $8,000,000 on a $40,000,000 outlay.
> A %20 profit doesn't seem nearly as unresonable.
As far as I know, the lawters usually get paid regardless of the outcome.
> The US is fourth in absolute terms of overseas aid given (behind Japan Germany and France). In terms of percentage national income, the US at 0.12 per cent, ranks below Uganda.
Source please.
> What if a compant decides it does not want to sell to people of certain ethnic backgrounds (French and Arabs, for instance), and raises its prices for those people to a million dollars?
I believe that some French and Arabs will not be bothered by such a minor markup.
> So now they have to inform you. So you'll get a dialog saying "We are installing spyware. Click here to install it or here to abort this installation". Do you seriously think they'll give you the option of installing the program without the spyware?
The real benefit from such law is that it will help rid us of "spyware for the sake of spyware" programs like Gator, etc.
You know, all those ActiveX thingies that pop up and ask permission to be installed on your machine in order to synch your clock or "enhance your browsing experience".
I wonder whether tracking cookies will be included.