"(Update: 04/04 11:03 AM by michael: A couple of people have pointed out that this write-up is inaccurate; I'm not going to try to correct it, but read the comments for more information"
Apparently the only thing really expanding forever is Slashdot's ambivalence toward accuracy.
It is the traditional media, such as newspapers and television which have a relatively monolithic, inbred viewpoint.
Take something like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Before the net, for the most part you'd have to rely on the relatively bland reporting from traditional newspapers and maybe a quick 2 minute clip on the news if something big happens.
On the Internet it takes just a few minutes to get not only very detailed coverage, but coverage from any number of political points of view, from far right Israeli supporters to far left Palestinian supporters.
If some people still choose only to get one narrow view, it's because they've been trained so well by traditional media outlets.
In fact the author of this current study about the satellite data has been quoted in news reports as saying that it is impossible to know at this point if this discovery means the plant will continue to warm, and that in fact it could lead to a global cooling over the long term -- nobody knows.
The real problem is cloud cover which Harris admits we just don't know enough about to give accurate long term predictions of temperature.
So we're back to square one. We know that the level of greenhouse gases is increasing, but we still have no idea what the real long term effect will be.
Warren Buffet's a moron. He can afford the lawyers to do fancy tricks with his money, meanwhile one of the oldest and most prestigious black newspapers, the Chicago Defender, is about to be sold -- probably to a large corporation -- because of the stupid estate tax.
As for space, the obvious solution would be to eliminate the stupid space shuttle program and reallocate that money toward a space program that actually made sense. Ditch the ISS too which is incredibly wasteful and will accomplish almost nothing. We need to wean NASA completely from these maxi-cost, mini-results programs and get on with the job of exploring space.
Doesn't Slashdot Care At All About Accuracy?
on
VeriSign Usurps .com
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· Score: 5
The post by michael says, "There are also apparently plans to reinstate the old limits on.org domains - if you aren't a non-profit corporation, you won't be permitted to register or keep a.org domain."
But the WSJ article you're referencing says something completely different, "Icann indicated that it wants "org" Web addresses reserved only for nonprofit organizations "after some appropriate transition period," a restriction that hasn't been enforced in recent years. Details haven't been worked out, though one Icann official suggested that current "org" Web sites may be allowed to continue regardless of their affiliation with nonprofits."
Don't you folks even care about accuracy anymore, or have you been reading Microsoft FUD for so long that you've decided on a "if you can't beat them, join them" policy?
There is a relatively simple solution to this problem. Require people to buy insurance policies specifically insuring them against genetically related health tests before they have such tests. I won't go through the economics here, but a) this solution ends up being relatively cheap since the cost of genetic disease is already included within the larger cost of insuring for health and b) completely solves the information problem where health insurance breaks down if either the insurance company or the patient has access to information related to genetic disease that the other does not -- unlike today where there is a hesitancy to get genetic tests because it might be disclosed to insurance companies, coupling the cost of the test with insurance would remove that problem.
It is not a *perfect* solution but there really aren't perfect solutions since health insurance is based on the notion that the risk of a given disease occurring in a specific individual compared to any other individual is relatively unkown, while genetic testing produces enough information to theoretically say person X has a 1 in 10000 chance of having testicular cancer while person Y only has a 1 in 100000 chance.
Many members in my family are carriers of a deadly genetic disease and I've spent a lot of time looking at these issues and insurance that covers the additional risk seems to me the best option.
Nobody got killed at a midwestern college playing D&D. Some student who happened to play D&D once in awhile disappeared from the University of Michigan's campus but he later turned up and his disappearance had nothing to do with D&D (the kid had serious issues with his parents, his sexuality, and a whole lot of other things).
If the XFL drops 25% in ratings it will be a smash. All it needs to really succeed for the long term is a 4-5 rating on Saturday night. The USFL had extremely high labor costs and need far more media success than does the XFL.
For the most part I enjoyed the first XFL broadcast.
The XFL's competition, however, is not the NFL but rather "Survivor" and other reality shows. Katz says people don't want that sort of invasiveness. Fine, then explain the popularity of the reality shows.
Hmmm..once N2H2 markets a sample of data obtained from students, it is engaged in research. There are very strict guidelines about the rights of human test subjects in research including the ability to opt out of studies such as those being conductec by N2H2. The rights of human subjects to opt out of such studies are especially enhanced when the subjects are captive audiences such as students in school.
Unless N2H2 is offering students a way to have their data excluded from the aggregation, this would seem to be a straightforward violation of numerous laws governing human test subjects.
I notice Brin deigned to recognize those of us whoa are libertarians in a footnote writing,
"When you think about how many interesting things Cheney & co. could be talking about - like ending the Drug War - you'll wind up holding your nose and voting for Gore. "
Ummm...when did Al Gore endorse ending the drug war?
The only difference between Al Gore and George Bush is they put different faces on their brand of drug war fascism to appeal to constituents who can be made to believe they represent very different viewpoints. Brin falls for this political act hook, line, and sinker.
I don't plan on voting for Bush (or Gore for that matter), but was curious about this whole 1% thing. My household is three people (two adults, one child) with an income around $30k annual. Found a site that let me figure out my taxes under both plans -- Bush's cuts my taxes by almost $1200 while Gore's cuts it by a grand total of $500.
Any tax decrease is fine by me, but I guess I'm one of these evil 1 percenters that Gore's worried about since he's apparently going to take my tax dollars and give it to the truly needy. Whew -- I can feel less guilty at my largesse.
Academics in Hong Kong are resigning right and left after it's been learned that the government has been pressuring and threatening political scientists and others not to conduct polls which show that the government has become very unpopular since the Chinese takeover.
In China, meanwhile, in some cities there's a big crackdown on videogame arcades as well as on the ongoing assault on web sites that offer anything but the private line (this is a country where people were fired when a newsbroadcast ran historical footage of an old news event without realizing that in the distant background you could see the Tiananmen Square massacre going on.).
When some Christian fundamentalist says "Lets ban Quake because it goes against family values" the Leftists shudder at right wing fanatacism. When Nader says "Lets ban Quake because it's an evil corporation marketing violence to our kids," Leftists cheer.
I guess all the cops in Oklahoma needed to do when they confiscated copies of "The Tin Drum" was to say they were doing it to fight multinationals and the Green Party would have been behind them 100 percent!
What's Nader out ranting about -- he's out there complaining that Hollywood is marketing violent video games and movies to kids, and should be punished. Oh yeah, that's something we've never heard from the Republicans and Democrats.
Only real alternative is Harry Browne, and what's he at, 15 voters?
Wal-Mart has decided to forego profits to help its community by refusing to sell evil computer games to minors. Don't you wish more companies decided to act for reasons other than profit?
your university ultimately owns the intellectual property for you dissertation (why are they giving PhDs to idiots who can't read the fine print). Universities contract with other businesses to make dissertations widely available (UMI is the biggest).
Leave it to idiots at slashdot to think this is some big deal.
I take it then that Katz doesn't make any money from his writing? If he does it's very strange that he is able to make the sort of comments he does since it directly contradicts his central thesis about money's influence.
Yeah, you're right. This is why governments and corporations suppressed the polio and measles vaccines -- because it would have dramatically lowered cases and taken away something for them to treat. How could we have missed such a vast conspiracy.
(The truth is that curing a disease is a much bigger and more complicated problem to tackle than is treating symptoms).
Really...You'd like it if everyone got to vote on whether or not Slashdot gets to remain online (which is exactly what the Green Party platform calls for).
Slashdot Mirror
So if a gay site writes about Fred Phelps they have to link to GodHatesFags.Com?
Michael wrote:
"(Update: 04/04 11:03 AM by michael: A couple of people have pointed out that this write-up is inaccurate; I'm not going to try to correct it, but read the comments for more information"
Apparently the only thing really expanding forever is Slashdot's ambivalence toward accuracy.
It is the traditional media, such as newspapers and television which have a relatively monolithic, inbred viewpoint.
Take something like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Before the net, for the most part you'd have to rely on the relatively bland reporting from traditional newspapers and maybe a quick 2 minute clip on the news if something big happens.
On the Internet it takes just a few minutes to get not only very detailed coverage, but coverage from any number of political points of view, from far right Israeli supporters to far left Palestinian supporters.
If some people still choose only to get one narrow view, it's because they've been trained so well by traditional media outlets.
In fact the author of this current study about the satellite data has been quoted in news reports as saying that it is impossible to know at this point if this discovery means the plant will continue to warm, and that in fact it could lead to a global cooling over the long term -- nobody knows.
The real problem is cloud cover which Harris admits we just don't know enough about to give accurate long term predictions of temperature.
So we're back to square one. We know that the level of greenhouse gases is increasing, but we still have no idea what the real long term effect will be.
Warren Buffet's a moron. He can afford the lawyers to do fancy tricks with his money, meanwhile one of the oldest and most prestigious black newspapers, the Chicago Defender, is about to be sold -- probably to a large corporation -- because of the stupid estate tax.
As for space, the obvious solution would be to eliminate the stupid space shuttle program and reallocate that money toward a space program that actually made sense. Ditch the ISS too which is incredibly wasteful and will accomplish almost nothing. We need to wean NASA completely from these maxi-cost, mini-results programs and get on with the job of exploring space.
The post by michael says, "There are also apparently plans to reinstate the old limits on .org domains - if you aren't a non-profit corporation, you won't be permitted to register or keep a .org domain."
But the WSJ article you're referencing says something completely different, "Icann indicated that it wants "org" Web addresses reserved only for nonprofit organizations "after some appropriate transition period," a restriction that hasn't been enforced in recent years. Details haven't been worked out, though one Icann official suggested that current "org" Web sites may be allowed to continue regardless of their affiliation with nonprofits."
Don't you folks even care about accuracy anymore, or have you been reading Microsoft FUD for so long that you've decided on a "if you can't beat them, join them" policy?
There is a relatively simple solution to this problem. Require people to buy insurance policies specifically insuring them against genetically related health tests before they have such tests. I won't go through the economics here, but a) this solution ends up being relatively cheap since the cost of genetic disease is already included within the larger cost of insuring for health and b) completely solves the information problem where health insurance breaks down if either the insurance company or the patient has access to information related to genetic disease that the other does not -- unlike today where there is a hesitancy to get genetic tests because it might be disclosed to insurance companies, coupling the cost of the test with insurance would remove that problem.
It is not a *perfect* solution but there really aren't perfect solutions since health insurance is based on the notion that the risk of a given disease occurring in a specific individual compared to any other individual is relatively unkown, while genetic testing produces enough information to theoretically say person X has a 1 in 10000 chance of having testicular cancer while person Y only has a 1 in 100000 chance.
Many members in my family are carriers of a deadly genetic disease and I've spent a lot of time looking at these issues and insurance that covers the additional risk seems to me the best option.
Nobody got killed at a midwestern college playing D&D. Some student who happened to play D&D once in awhile disappeared from the University of Michigan's campus but he later turned up and his disappearance had nothing to do with D&D (the kid had serious issues with his parents, his sexuality, and a whole lot of other things).
If the XFL drops 25% in ratings it will be a smash. All it needs to really succeed for the long term is a 4-5 rating on Saturday night. The USFL had extremely high labor costs and need far more media success than does the XFL.
For the most part I enjoyed the first XFL broadcast.
The XFL's competition, however, is not the NFL but rather "Survivor" and other reality shows. Katz says people don't want that sort of invasiveness. Fine, then explain the popularity of the reality shows.
Hmmm..once N2H2 markets a sample of data obtained from students, it is engaged in research. There are very strict guidelines about the rights of human test subjects in research including the ability to opt out of studies such as those being conductec by N2H2. The rights of human subjects to opt out of such studies are especially enhanced when the subjects are captive audiences such as students in school.
Unless N2H2 is offering students a way to have their data excluded from the aggregation, this would seem to be a straightforward violation of numerous laws governing human test subjects.
If that were true, Microsoft wouldn't be opposing this standard.
Can't you at least read a little of the discussion before making such an inane comment?
Yeah, tell that to the DKs he screwed out of royalties. Biafra's another free speech for me, but not for thee big government nutbag.
I notice Brin deigned to recognize those of us whoa are libertarians in a footnote writing,
"When you think about how many interesting things Cheney & co. could be talking about - like ending the Drug War - you'll wind up holding your nose and voting for Gore. "
Ummm...when did Al Gore endorse ending the drug war?
The only difference between Al Gore and George Bush is they put different faces on their brand of drug war fascism to appeal to constituents who can be made to believe they represent very different viewpoints. Brin falls for this political act hook, line, and sinker.
I don't plan on voting for Bush (or Gore for that matter), but was curious about this whole 1% thing. My household is three people (two adults, one child) with an income around $30k annual. Found a site that let me figure out my taxes under both plans -- Bush's cuts my taxes by almost $1200 while Gore's cuts it by a grand total of $500.
Any tax decrease is fine by me, but I guess I'm one of these evil 1 percenters that Gore's worried about since he's apparently going to take my tax dollars and give it to the truly needy. Whew -- I can feel less guilty at my largesse.
Academics in Hong Kong are resigning right and left after it's been learned that the government has been pressuring and threatening political scientists and others not to conduct polls which show that the government has become very unpopular since the Chinese takeover. In China, meanwhile, in some cities there's a big crackdown on videogame arcades as well as on the ongoing assault on web sites that offer anything but the private line (this is a country where people were fired when a newsbroadcast ran historical footage of an old news event without realizing that in the distant background you could see the Tiananmen Square massacre going on.).
When some Christian fundamentalist says "Lets ban Quake because it goes against family values" the Leftists shudder at right wing fanatacism. When Nader says "Lets ban Quake because it's an evil corporation marketing violence to our kids," Leftists cheer.
I guess all the cops in Oklahoma needed to do when they confiscated copies of "The Tin Drum" was to say they were doing it to fight multinationals and the Green Party would have been behind them 100 percent!
What's Nader out ranting about -- he's out there complaining that Hollywood is marketing violent video games and movies to kids, and should be punished. Oh yeah, that's something we've never heard from the Republicans and Democrats.
Only real alternative is Harry Browne, and what's he at, 15 voters?
Wal-Mart has decided to forego profits to help its community by refusing to sell evil computer games to minors. Don't you wish more companies decided to act for reasons other than profit?
your university ultimately owns the intellectual property for you dissertation (why are they giving PhDs to idiots who can't read the fine print). Universities contract with other businesses to make dissertations widely available (UMI is the biggest).
Leave it to idiots at slashdot to think this is some big deal.
I take it then that Katz doesn't make any money from his writing? If he does it's very strange that he is able to make the sort of comments he does since it directly contradicts his central thesis about money's influence.
Yeah, you're right. This is why governments and corporations suppressed the polio and measles vaccines -- because it would have dramatically lowered cases and taken away something for them to treat. How could we have missed such a vast conspiracy.
(The truth is that curing a disease is a much bigger and more complicated problem to tackle than is treating symptoms).
Really...You'd like it if everyone got to vote on whether or not Slashdot gets to remain online (which is exactly what the Green Party platform calls for).
What are you talking about? Music is dirt cheap in this country.
Absolutely. I remember when media outlets like the NYT were raving about Minitel and wondering why the U.S. was getting left behind by France.