With the exception of the period immediately following 9/11, which saw the best characteristics of television journalism shocked back into focus and the passion of even the most jaded and cynical of its practitioners return like a shot of adrenaline to the heart, the profession I once loved and felt honored to be a part of has lost its way.
That's pretty much how I feel about journalism these days. I'm not sure what brought it about, whether it is who owns the mass media or government, but no longer are there worthwhile reports about what is important. It's about what sells. The days of muckracking seem to be over (for the mass media, wikileaks comes to mind most currently as non-mass media) and it is more about this celebrity did this or propaganda sent down the channels, and shy away from stories that really expose stories with an unbiased presentation.
I was asked to complete self-evaluations which pressed me to describe the ways in which I'd "increased shareholder value." (For the record, if you're a rank-and-file member of a newsroom, you should never under any circumstances even hear the word "shareholders," let alone be reminded that you're beholden to them.) I watched the media in general do anything within reason to scare the hell out of the American public -- to convince people that they were about to be infected by the bird flu, poisoned by the food supply, or eaten by sharks.
To think that someone who works in the business of providing an unbiased view of what exactly is occurring in the world should in no way have any connection to whether or not their employer makes money off of it. This goes back to making money. If I had watched CNN before now I would stop, but I guess since I never do it's moot.
From newegg.com:
HD-DVD drive: US$149.99
Blu-ray DVD burner: US$259.99
Blu-ray DVD: 1xUS$13.99
To a grand total of US$423.97
unless you want to burn more than one DVD. Seems a bit much.
This may be due to the fact that the time scale in which it happens is outside of our lifespans, at least for macroevolution. While it is more of a soft science in that regard, the populace seems to regard it as fiction but still think of certain theoretical maths in a different light. The difference being that religion doesn't have much to say about math, at least to my knowledge, but does in the matter of how life came to be.
I'm pretty sure you're right about that one, but the sad fact is that big media should have such of an impression on people and where they get educated. There are a lot of drones out there that learn from the boob tube, and then there are others who try to inform themselves either through actual education or DIY. It won't really affect those who aren't going into a scientific field, but those who are will at least have a better understanding of the consensus.
Apparently you've never taken engineering ethics. The first class I had to take as a general engineering major. Needless to say, I changed majors but still got a hell of a lot out of that ethics class. The parent was right. These were all cases of cutting corners, either in terms of cost or time. Managers wanted it done quickly and cheaply, whether that meant mixing concrete improperly, or buying sub-par materials, or just ignoring what the engineers are telling them. It always came down to about 95% managerial and the rest engineering error.
I'm not sure if he is stating that a bottom up testing method is readily available in all situations, but it sure is a hell of a lot easier with data rather than with physical designs. Scanning and testing code is much easier than building a CPU and testing it from the bottom up (not that I ever have). He does make the distinction that it is less costly in the long run, and I'd probably agree with him, not from experience with this particular application, but experience in general with preventative maintenance. I would rather design something that is tested to withstand its rigors rather than cut corners because it is cheaper now, but potentially more costly in the long run in terms of upkeep and repairs. But what do I know, I'm no computer scientist/software engineer.
Just scanning their "favorite foods" made me wonder.
First is "Virtual Labs Guy"
What do you think someone with wheels for feet would eat? That's right. Give Virtual Labs Guy a drive-through window over a seven-course meal any day. Oh sure, it wasn't easy at first, juggling the fries and the burgers and the shakes and still trying to keep his eyes on the road. But then he got smart and rigged a cup holder to his belt. This was actually the first of several "mods" he had done, the most recent being what he playfully calls a "glove box." In the interest of sparing our more delicate readers, we won't go into the details of where that might be.
Thank you for sparing me. No really.
But he bounced back, and soon enough was shaking his "glove box" all over the office.
Oh god, my eyes.
And "Visual Studios Guy" is just plain weird:
Visual Studio Guy likes his food like he likes his code: raw. What is it with these straight-edge neopunks these days? Sure, they look all hard core, but they care about their health! It's a strict macrobiotic diet for this code poet, and if you have him over for dinner, don't be offended if he brings his own meal. Why? Simple: You can't be trusted. You are unclean.
Is this some attempt at getting in good with those hip kids now-days. Referencing straight edge makes this guy some sort of hardcore Ian Mckay wannabe, in the form of a lame lego? I'm just in a state of confusion as I read this.
That's total bullshit. Cable and DSL companies in the rest of the world have high peak bandwidths, restrictions on P2P and servers, volume limits, and traffic filtering. Nobody can give you peak cable bandwidths at sustained rates and home pricing, anywhere in the world, because it just doesn't work out economically.
Then fucking advertise it as what it is for god's sake. Don't claim that you have "Unlimited bandwidth" and "lightning fast speeds" when you in fact have to limit your customers to what you have available at said time. You claim to have these certain unrestricted availabilities that lock in your new customers when in fact you are straight up lying to them to hook them as such. Nobody is disregarding the fact that there are limits to technologies, yet these ISPs offer certain things that they can't level with, for anyone, yet they still get business. It is a question of don't limit your customers to what you said you can offer, but in reality can't, then in response use an unethical technique of throttling/terminating protocols that use "too much bandwidth" in your eyes. It's that plain and simple. Stop fucking over your base of consumers!!! Sorry if my language is abrasive but I'm getting too enraged that this type of thing happens in this "free market" that we have. Fucking FCC needs to do something to appease the people they serve, not the people who pay them and lobby them to look out for their interests.
So capacity upgrades are 'expensive and needless', eh? Is that why we're among the worst in the developed world for broadband speed and penetration? I don't know about anyone else, but I heard, "If our customers would only stop using our services, we wouldn't have to throttle them!"
I'm pretty sure subsidies aren't included in the free market model. That's what makes this a "free market." It isn't decided by competition. The FCC is another nail in the coffin in that "free market."
Time-Warner Cable's comment all but condemns P2P applications as "designed to consume all available bandwidth and, if left unchecked, will prevent consumers from continuing to access the wealth of content available over the Internet."
So their solution is to hinder or completely block a technology or protocol because they aren't up with the times? So let me use another car analogy, since Comcast is fond of that one. They are saying that since everyone just got sportscars, we shouldn't pave the dirt roads but force most people to keep riding horses and allow only 30% of people to share these sportscars on the available paved roads at peak traffic hours.
It's outrageous that they can say that with a straight face! This seems like a perfectly obvious sign that their infrastructure is in a serious need of an upgrade in order to maintain competition with the up-and-coming technologies that are being, or are already, released. This has me fuming.
Of the 700 or sites that have been tested, only two are known to contain inappropriate images of children, said Tapani Tarvainen chairman of the Electronic Frontier Finland (EFFI). The remainder tend to be sites with adult-oriented themes, such as those offering legal porn, and forums for gay sex. In some cases, the sites - which include an online doll store, a Thai Windows advice forum and a computer repair service - have no visible link to porn or sex at all.
So instead of actually investigating themselves they blanket censor a list of 1700 websites that of the 700 tested, only 2 are child porn.
That seems like unwarranted censorship, and/or even possibly some sort of ulterior motives behind this move.
Nikki has been one of the most vocal critics of the government's net censorship project.
I see this, if nothing changes and it is maintained, as providing that slippery slope necessary to propose a growing blacklist of sites to block that are perfectly legal with the guise of protecting the children, and doing absolutely nothing of the sort (minus those 2 sites).
A friend of mine did something along the lines of this in high school to our teacher. He hid all the shortcuts offscreen, but took a screenshot beforehand and made it the desktop background, and hid the taskbar too. She was furious that nothing worked and claimed we had broken her computer. It was funny for about 10 minutes until she got the vice principal in to lecture us. No wait, it was still funny.
"If you exceed that threshold we will drop your speed for five hours from when the excess is recorded,"
This is what happened at the university I went to. It only applied to your upload bandwidth but if you exceeded whatever imaginary number they didn't disclose to you, you would get an email and your bandwidth slashed for a day or two. I'm sure a percentage of this was due to people's computers getting hijacked by trojans/viruses because they insisted that you not connect to the network without having some sort of AV (if you ran windows) and would target specific IPs in the dorms that were either hijacked or simply uploading via p2p.
I'm not quite sure what would happen if any ISPs did that here since no one yet has any pay per usage service, although Time Warner is proposing something like that. It'll be interesting to see what effect, if any, the situation in the UK will have over in the US.
A spokesman for the Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) said the 2002 E-Commerce Regulations defined net firms as "mere conduits" and not responsible for the contents of the traffic flowing across their networks.
Maybe I was a bit hasty. But I'm with you there on the competition aspect, which seems to be hampering the innovation/upgrading of these services. Competition, or lack thereof, was the reason I was forced to sign up with the ISP who had a contract with the apartment complex I lived in, which I believe has been deemed illegal and now I'm still unable to get a competitive service since the only other ISP in the area, Adelphia, was bought by Comcast. I just hope wherever I move next has something other than Comcast.
I can vouch for that. I have had my VPN dropped every time I've used it since being with Comcast. It isn't automatic but it will eventually time out and disconnect itself.
It's even worse when they have a contract with the city I live in and no one else can even lay down lines. That shouldn't be legal.
It was launched in December 2006 but almost immediately lost power and cannot be controlled. It carried a sophisticated and secret imaging sensor but the satellite's central computer failed shortly after launch.
I guess that's why they can't use the thrusters. I wonder how much this piece of junk cost, and how much money was taken from health care and education just to fund it. Why repair it when we can show other people how we blow stuff up?
The military will have to choose a time and a location that will avoid to the greatest degree any damage to other satellites in the sky.
Come again? They're just going to blow this thing to hell and hope that it doesn't break anything else up there? Nice planning.
The satellite is outfitted with thrusters -- small engines used to position it in space. They contain the toxic rocket fuel hydrazine, which can cause harm to anyone who contacts it.
Need I ask if this is going to rain into our atmosphere? Why not use those thrusters to drop it into the ocean at a planned location with the Navy there to pick it up on splashdown. The incompetency of the government never ceases to amaze me.
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From newegg.com:
HD-DVD drive: US$149.99
Blu-ray DVD burner: US$259.99
Blu-ray DVD: 1xUS$13.99
To a grand total of US$423.97
unless you want to burn more than one DVD. Seems a bit much.
I kid, I kid.
I'm pretty sure you're right about that one, but the sad fact is that big media should have such of an impression on people and where they get educated. There are a lot of drones out there that learn from the boob tube, and then there are others who try to inform themselves either through actual education or DIY. It won't really affect those who aren't going into a scientific field, but those who are will at least have a better understanding of the consensus.
Apparently you've never taken engineering ethics. The first class I had to take as a general engineering major. Needless to say, I changed majors but still got a hell of a lot out of that ethics class. The parent was right. These were all cases of cutting corners, either in terms of cost or time. Managers wanted it done quickly and cheaply, whether that meant mixing concrete improperly, or buying sub-par materials, or just ignoring what the engineers are telling them. It always came down to about 95% managerial and the rest engineering error.
I'm not sure if he is stating that a bottom up testing method is readily available in all situations, but it sure is a hell of a lot easier with data rather than with physical designs. Scanning and testing code is much easier than building a CPU and testing it from the bottom up (not that I ever have). He does make the distinction that it is less costly in the long run, and I'd probably agree with him, not from experience with this particular application, but experience in general with preventative maintenance. I would rather design something that is tested to withstand its rigors rather than cut corners because it is cheaper now, but potentially more costly in the long run in terms of upkeep and repairs. But what do I know, I'm no computer scientist/software engineer.
already?
First is "Virtual Labs Guy" Thank you for sparing me. No really. Oh god, my eyes.
And "Visual Studios Guy" is just plain weird: Is this some attempt at getting in good with those hip kids now-days. Referencing straight edge makes this guy some sort of hardcore Ian Mckay wannabe, in the form of a lame lego? I'm just in a state of confusion as I read this.
They do. I think I saw a penguin on there.
I'm pretty sure subsidies aren't included in the free market model. That's what makes this a "free market." It isn't decided by competition. The FCC is another nail in the coffin in that "free market."
It's outrageous that they can say that with a straight face! This seems like a perfectly obvious sign that their infrastructure is in a serious need of an upgrade in order to maintain competition with the up-and-coming technologies that are being, or are already, released. This has me fuming.
refer to my earlier post. just kidding. but seriously i'm not.
Would rather meet 0% of you. No offense.
That seems like unwarranted censorship, and/or even possibly some sort of ulterior motives behind this move.
I see this, if nothing changes and it is maintained, as providing that slippery slope necessary to propose a growing blacklist of sites to block that are perfectly legal with the guise of protecting the children, and doing absolutely nothing of the sort (minus those 2 sites).
A friend of mine did something along the lines of this in high school to our teacher. He hid all the shortcuts offscreen, but took a screenshot beforehand and made it the desktop background, and hid the taskbar too. She was furious that nothing worked and claimed we had broken her computer. It was funny for about 10 minutes until she got the vice principal in to lecture us. No wait, it was still funny.
I'm not quite sure what would happen if any ISPs did that here since no one yet has any pay per usage service, although Time Warner is proposing something like that. It'll be interesting to see what effect, if any, the situation in the UK will have over in the US.
Maybe I was a bit hasty. But I'm with you there on the competition aspect, which seems to be hampering the innovation/upgrading of these services. Competition, or lack thereof, was the reason I was forced to sign up with the ISP who had a contract with the apartment complex I lived in, which I believe has been deemed illegal and now I'm still unable to get a competitive service since the only other ISP in the area, Adelphia, was bought by Comcast. I just hope wherever I move next has something other than Comcast.
I can vouch for that. I have had my VPN dropped every time I've used it since being with Comcast. It isn't automatic but it will eventually time out and disconnect itself.
It's even worse when they have a contract with the city I live in and no one else can even lay down lines. That shouldn't be legal.