This is rhetoric and deflection. Consider his answer to the "Tulip craze" question (question 2, part 2). He never addresses the issue! He merely says that he thinks that people shouldn't speculate, and that bitcoin is good. There is similar evasion in the other answers (along with some actual information). There are many obvious things wrong with bitcoin, and repeating crypto-anarchic ideology will not solve them. You can't simply say "bitcoin makes everything cheaper, and if you don't agree that means you don't understand and are spreading FUD."
You know, maybe I don't understand bitcoin. Maybe the Slashdot bitcoin evangelists are right, and the vast majority of people are ignorant, stupid slobs who are unable to understand bitcoin and will always fear it. If that is the case, then bitcoin is obviously doomed. But if you can explain -- in a detailed and specific way that both idiots and geniuses can understand -- how bitcoin will replace all worldwide currency, then by all means do it. So far, this has not been done. Now I will go back to reality, in which nobody cares about bitcoins, until such explanation is given.
The first thing I thought when I read this was: "This will probably be true for all games in a few years. It's too bad that the market will never correct this because people do not consider this kind of thing when buying games." Then I realized that this is the first thing I think about when I buy a multiplayer game, and that this is one of the main reasons that I play indie games instead of mainstream games. Unlike most Slashdotters, I do not think that I am smarter than everyone else (though I seem to think that I am more self-aware than most Slashdotters), so market pressure may indeed cause publishers to include dedicated servers. It depends on whether the long-term sales increase from providing a dedicated server will trump the cost savings from administering a huge monolithic server at the publisher's expense. Wait a second, I just realized that running a proprietary server at the publisher's expense will both cost them money AND hurt sales. As I said, I don't think that I am smarter than everyone else, but this one seems pretty simple to me.
"You could take all the gold that's ever been mined, and it would fill a cube 67 feet in each direction. For what that's worth at current gold prices, you could buy all -- not some -- all of the farmland in the United States. Plus, you could buy 10 Exxon Mobils, plus have $1 trillion of walking-around money. Or you could have a big cube of metal. Which would you take? Which is going to produce more value?"
"Over the last 30 years, metaphors have been shown to be pervasive in everyday language and to reveal how people in a culture define and understand the world around them"
"Commonsense has trampled down many a gentle genius whose eyes had delighted in a too early moonbeam of some too early truth; commonsense has back-kicked dirt at the loveliest of queer paintings because a blue tree seemed madness to its well-meaning hoof; commonsense has prompted ugly but strong nations to crush their fair but frail neighbors the moment a gap in history offered a chance that it would have been ridiculous not to exploit." — Vladimir Nabokov
It is with great pleasure that I read the learned words of this amiable scholar, Mr. Vamosi. It is thus prooved that the Gadgette may be more of a threate to the mind of our Republice than the gallopping steamship or railroad loco-motive. Tell me, in what respect may the Gadgette hope to improve upon the brain given us by our creator? Did He make our human brains to be cleverer than himself, and master over Him? If ye say "No," then how can ye say that we are then so wise and skillful as to make a Gadgette to be clever than ourselves and master over us? This is as ridiculous as the old familiar question: "Can our Lord and Creator microwave a Burrito so scaldingly hot that even He Himself cannot taste of it?" Nay, presume not that the creator (whether our Heavenly master or our own intellect) can ever be led by his creation into any realm except that of the Doomed Abyss. Thus, Gentlemen of the Republice, cast ye Gadgettes into the sea -- lest they hang about they neck as a great millstone -- and drag ye down to the depths!!
As a longtime user of typewriters for creative writing (most recently national novel writing month), I am glad that this is just another case of Slashdot being totally incorrect.
I'm 28 years old, and I don't think I know anybody who has cable besides my parents. I've never had cable or TV reception, as it is well-known that TV rots your brain. I never watched sports or TV shows, and neither did any of my friends, so I didn't miss it. However, now that I finally got an internet connection from Clearwire I have been streaming movies via Netflix. My girlfriend and I probably watch one or two movies per week, and have just started watching 30 Rock -- it's really funny!
All games provide a "just world" in the sense that they operate consistently according to rules. This is true from Tic-Tac-Toe to Mario Bros. to Crysis. One of the primary draws of gaming is the chance to experience the fantasy of a just world. In real life, you can do everything right and still lose -- or do everything wrong and still win. In (good) games, there is a direct relationship between following the rules and getting a reward. It doesn't matter what the effort and reward are, and these are often totally (and whimsically) arbitrary. The crucial thing is that you are rewarded for good performance and punished for bad performance consistently, according to the rules, every time. When this consistency breaks down, you end up with a frustratingly bad game.
In real life, you are told "if you go to college and get a degree, you will get a rewarding job and make a lot of money." However, many people who follow this advice will not receive the reward. By contrast, we know that when we are playing a game we will always progress to the next stage if we collect 5 stars, or open the door if we get the key, or receive 500 gold if we deliver the letter. Can you imagine if you did a quest and simply didn't receive the reward (and didn't get any chance for revenge)? Or if the rules just changed randomly without notice? Nobody would play such a game, except to create a hilariously virulent video review.
The fantasy of a morally just world is an extension of the fact that games create worlds that operate consistently according to rules.
I actually feel betrayed by this article. It's as if you've stopped caring about me and my needs. I really trusted you to have something substantive behind that ridiculous headline. I guess I'm not mad at you, I'm just mad at myself -- for thinking that you were different.
Ignore TFA -- the radiation levels around the Fukushima plant are nowhere near Chernobyl levels. This is now an effective rebuttal to any slashdot post or comment.
People who get content from the internet are not getting it "for free," they are paying a monthly fee for it. The fee does not go to the content providers, but that makes no difference from the user's perspective. The situation is analogous to having to pay a monthly subscription fee to the US Postal Service in order to receive mail. If internet access were free (or much cheaper), I would be happy to pay for the small amount of content that is actually useful to me. As it is, I am not going to pay $50/month for home broadband, $80/month for a smartphone plan, and an additional $35/month for content, for a total of $165/month just to read the news. If I really wanted to get my news "for free," I would buy a $5 radio.
I paid $36/year for Pandora One, which I consider to be well worth the price. Some of this I attribute to psychology: for some reason, a yearly price of $36 seems more reasonable to me than a monthly price of $3.
It seems to me that Apple doesn't make their devices as good as they can be -- only good enough to be a lot better than the competition. If they can be the market leader without X feature, they won't include it. When the competition catches up with the first generation, then they'll release the second generation with X feature, to once again put themselves one step ahead. Why would they make the iPad 1 with dual cameras, when it would sell just as well without them, because it had no real competition?
... a completely inappropriate use of the semicolon...
The only inappropriate thing here is your criticism of a perfectly safe punctuation mark based on extreme examples from outdated and irresponsible sentences. Sure, the semicolon should not be used to separate dependent clauses (for example), but this type of thing is totally preventable with modern, transparent journalism. (There was a case of this exact thing occurring in a major western publication just last year, and it was fixed within hours.) The semicolon is not dangerous, but public ignorance about the semicolon can be very dangerous.
I know I don't have privacy, and I keep that in mind when going about my business. Really I don't need privacy for the vast majority of what I do -- I'm a very boring person. I don't care if Amazon or Google or the FBI knows that I've bought Chopin's Complete Waltzes, Preludes and Nocturnes. If I ever needed privacy, I could acquire it simply by not using any connected gadgets. I am 28 years old (and I don't care if you know that) so I am a bit older than the "next generation" that the original post talks about, but my friends and I all assume that anything we put online is public information. I don't post embarrassing pictures of myself on Facebook, and I don't post anything that I wouldn't want my clients to read (including this).
There are issues with employers being effectively able to censor their employees' speech, but this is mostly due to the increased access to publication (e.g. via Facebook and blogging), and is not really a privacy issue in my opinion. Employers still can't legally break into my Google account and read the chatlogs in which I complain about my company. The fact that they can make access to private communications a condition of employment IS a privacy issue, and that should be dealt with via legislation.
If you want to get an idea of the type of job that is being replaced, look at this blog, and the many others like it: http://temporaryattorney.blogspot.com/
Temp attorney document review work is awful. It is the kind of work that should be done by machines.
Most devices made these days have something called a "hard disk drive," which can store data. Amazingly, the "data" is actually inside your own computer when stored on these "hard disk drives," and will survive even if the Internet turns off. You can even use "removable storage" options to keep your photos on a DVD, but this is only for advanced users since DVDs are really for movies.
I have a question for the learned science boffins of slashdot: Would the part of the head closest to the antenna actually absorb more radiation than the other parts of the head? Doesn't the vast majority of the radiation just pass right through us without being absorbed? If that is the case, then wouldn't all regions of the brain be receiving approximately equal amounts of radiation during this study? Thanks in advance for educating me.
Slashdot Mirror
This is rhetoric and deflection. Consider his answer to the "Tulip craze" question (question 2, part 2). He never addresses the issue! He merely says that he thinks that people shouldn't speculate, and that bitcoin is good. There is similar evasion in the other answers (along with some actual information). There are many obvious things wrong with bitcoin, and repeating crypto-anarchic ideology will not solve them. You can't simply say "bitcoin makes everything cheaper, and if you don't agree that means you don't understand and are spreading FUD."
You know, maybe I don't understand bitcoin. Maybe the Slashdot bitcoin evangelists are right, and the vast majority of people are ignorant, stupid slobs who are unable to understand bitcoin and will always fear it. If that is the case, then bitcoin is obviously doomed. But if you can explain -- in a detailed and specific way that both idiots and geniuses can understand -- how bitcoin will replace all worldwide currency, then by all means do it. So far, this has not been done. Now I will go back to reality, in which nobody cares about bitcoins, until such explanation is given.
The first thing I thought when I read this was: "This will probably be true for all games in a few years. It's too bad that the market will never correct this because people do not consider this kind of thing when buying games." Then I realized that this is the first thing I think about when I buy a multiplayer game, and that this is one of the main reasons that I play indie games instead of mainstream games. Unlike most Slashdotters, I do not think that I am smarter than everyone else (though I seem to think that I am more self-aware than most Slashdotters), so market pressure may indeed cause publishers to include dedicated servers. It depends on whether the long-term sales increase from providing a dedicated server will trump the cost savings from administering a huge monolithic server at the publisher's expense. Wait a second, I just realized that running a proprietary server at the publisher's expense will both cost them money AND hurt sales. As I said, I don't think that I am smarter than everyone else, but this one seems pretty simple to me.
What will happen to all the bitcoin miners? They are so smart that they are unemployable!
"You could take all the gold that's ever been mined, and it would fill a cube 67 feet in each direction. For what that's worth at current gold prices, you could buy all -- not some -- all of the farmland in the United States. Plus, you could buy 10 Exxon Mobils, plus have $1 trillion of walking-around money. Or you could have a big cube of metal. Which would you take? Which is going to produce more value?"
--Warren Buffet
Didn't we all learn about Malthus in school? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Robert_Malthus
"Over the last 30 years, metaphors have been shown to be pervasive in everyday language and to reveal how people in a culture define and understand the world around them"
Shouldn't that read "Over the last 30,000 years"?
I know what you mean: I have an irrational fear of 1600x1200.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination
"Commonsense has trampled down many a gentle genius whose eyes had delighted in a too early moonbeam of some too early truth; commonsense has back-kicked dirt at the loveliest of queer paintings because a blue tree seemed madness to its well-meaning hoof; commonsense has prompted ugly but strong nations to crush their fair but frail neighbors the moment a gap in history offered a chance that it would have been ridiculous not to exploit."
— Vladimir Nabokov
It is with great pleasure that I read the learned words of this amiable scholar, Mr. Vamosi. It is thus prooved that the Gadgette may be more of a threate to the mind of our Republice than the gallopping steamship or railroad loco-motive. Tell me, in what respect may the Gadgette hope to improve upon the brain given us by our creator? Did He make our human brains to be cleverer than himself, and master over Him? If ye say "No," then how can ye say that we are then so wise and skillful as to make a Gadgette to be clever than ourselves and master over us? This is as ridiculous as the old familiar question: "Can our Lord and Creator microwave a Burrito so scaldingly hot that even He Himself cannot taste of it?" Nay, presume not that the creator (whether our Heavenly master or our own intellect) can ever be led by his creation into any realm except that of the Doomed Abyss. Thus, Gentlemen of the Republice, cast ye Gadgettes into the sea -- lest they hang about they neck as a great millstone -- and drag ye down to the depths!!
As a longtime user of typewriters for creative writing (most recently national novel writing month), I am glad that this is just another case of Slashdot being totally incorrect.
I'm 28 years old, and I don't think I know anybody who has cable besides my parents. I've never had cable or TV reception, as it is well-known that TV rots your brain. I never watched sports or TV shows, and neither did any of my friends, so I didn't miss it. However, now that I finally got an internet connection from Clearwire I have been streaming movies via Netflix. My girlfriend and I probably watch one or two movies per week, and have just started watching 30 Rock -- it's really funny!
All games provide a "just world" in the sense that they operate consistently according to rules. This is true from Tic-Tac-Toe to Mario Bros. to Crysis. One of the primary draws of gaming is the chance to experience the fantasy of a just world. In real life, you can do everything right and still lose -- or do everything wrong and still win. In (good) games, there is a direct relationship between following the rules and getting a reward. It doesn't matter what the effort and reward are, and these are often totally (and whimsically) arbitrary. The crucial thing is that you are rewarded for good performance and punished for bad performance consistently, according to the rules, every time. When this consistency breaks down, you end up with a frustratingly bad game.
In real life, you are told "if you go to college and get a degree, you will get a rewarding job and make a lot of money." However, many people who follow this advice will not receive the reward. By contrast, we know that when we are playing a game we will always progress to the next stage if we collect 5 stars, or open the door if we get the key, or receive 500 gold if we deliver the letter. Can you imagine if you did a quest and simply didn't receive the reward (and didn't get any chance for revenge)? Or if the rules just changed randomly without notice? Nobody would play such a game, except to create a hilariously virulent video review.
The fantasy of a morally just world is an extension of the fact that games create worlds that operate consistently according to rules.
I actually feel betrayed by this article. It's as if you've stopped caring about me and my needs. I really trusted you to have something substantive behind that ridiculous headline. I guess I'm not mad at you, I'm just mad at myself -- for thinking that you were different.
http://xkcd.com/808/
Ignore TFA -- the radiation levels around the Fukushima plant are nowhere near Chernobyl levels. This is now an effective rebuttal to any slashdot post or comment.
People who get content from the internet are not getting it "for free," they are paying a monthly fee for it. The fee does not go to the content providers, but that makes no difference from the user's perspective. The situation is analogous to having to pay a monthly subscription fee to the US Postal Service in order to receive mail. If internet access were free (or much cheaper), I would be happy to pay for the small amount of content that is actually useful to me. As it is, I am not going to pay $50/month for home broadband, $80/month for a smartphone plan, and an additional $35/month for content, for a total of $165/month just to read the news. If I really wanted to get my news "for free," I would buy a $5 radio.
I paid $36/year for Pandora One, which I consider to be well worth the price. Some of this I attribute to psychology: for some reason, a yearly price of $36 seems more reasonable to me than a monthly price of $3.
This is a great way to get me to stop reading the NYT at work. Now, if only Slashdot would do the same thing I might actually get some work done.
It seems to me that Apple doesn't make their devices as good as they can be -- only good enough to be a lot better than the competition. If they can be the market leader without X feature, they won't include it. When the competition catches up with the first generation, then they'll release the second generation with X feature, to once again put themselves one step ahead. Why would they make the iPad 1 with dual cameras, when it would sell just as well without them, because it had no real competition?
... a completely inappropriate use of the semicolon...
The only inappropriate thing here is your criticism of a perfectly safe punctuation mark based on extreme examples from outdated and irresponsible sentences. Sure, the semicolon should not be used to separate dependent clauses (for example), but this type of thing is totally preventable with modern, transparent journalism. (There was a case of this exact thing occurring in a major western publication just last year, and it was fixed within hours.) The semicolon is not dangerous, but public ignorance about the semicolon can be very dangerous.
I know I don't have privacy, and I keep that in mind when going about my business. Really I don't need privacy for the vast majority of what I do -- I'm a very boring person. I don't care if Amazon or Google or the FBI knows that I've bought Chopin's Complete Waltzes, Preludes and Nocturnes. If I ever needed privacy, I could acquire it simply by not using any connected gadgets. I am 28 years old (and I don't care if you know that) so I am a bit older than the "next generation" that the original post talks about, but my friends and I all assume that anything we put online is public information. I don't post embarrassing pictures of myself on Facebook, and I don't post anything that I wouldn't want my clients to read (including this).
There are issues with employers being effectively able to censor their employees' speech, but this is mostly due to the increased access to publication (e.g. via Facebook and blogging), and is not really a privacy issue in my opinion. Employers still can't legally break into my Google account and read the chatlogs in which I complain about my company. The fact that they can make access to private communications a condition of employment IS a privacy issue, and that should be dealt with via legislation.
If you want to get an idea of the type of job that is being replaced, look at this blog, and the many others like it: http://temporaryattorney.blogspot.com/
Temp attorney document review work is awful. It is the kind of work that should be done by machines.
Most devices made these days have something called a "hard disk drive," which can store data. Amazingly, the "data" is actually inside your own computer when stored on these "hard disk drives," and will survive even if the Internet turns off. You can even use "removable storage" options to keep your photos on a DVD, but this is only for advanced users since DVDs are really for movies.
I have a question for the learned science boffins of slashdot: Would the part of the head closest to the antenna actually absorb more radiation than the other parts of the head? Doesn't the vast majority of the radiation just pass right through us without being absorbed? If that is the case, then wouldn't all regions of the brain be receiving approximately equal amounts of radiation during this study? Thanks in advance for educating me.