i had a 32M rio pmp300 MP3 player in 1998, many years before an iPod was a twinkle in steve job's eye. but the mass of western industrial consumers didn't take portable mp3 players that seriously until steve jobs gave them something gleaming and sexy. such is the way of the world
So we had mp3 players before the iPod, just none as popular.
So, who had light bulbs before Edison? Not, who got one filament to glow that one time, but rather who had developed a reproducible process to create what we would consider a light bulb?
Likewise, what products were on the market for the reproduction of sound before the Edison phonograph? Not, who had a process to produce a lasting physical representation of sound waves, but who had a product to record and reproduce sound? What existing market did the Edison phonograph expand?
Are you BadAnalogyGuy in disguise?
The relationship between this recording device and the phonograph enable for playback of audible sound is nothing like the relationship between early mp3 players and the iPod. The comparisons of Edison and Gates/Jobs in this thread are idiotic. I'm not saying there are no parallels, but the comparisons being made here make no sense.
Vlasic, Snapper, Levi's, we've seen this all before. Only this time, the companies Walmart has bent over in the basement with the ball gags deserve to be bent over in the basement with the ball gags.
It seems the best way to make some profit through a partnership with Walmart is to park yourself in front of one of their stores and prey on their customers' sympathies.
Sounds like something out of the Klingon rules of software development.
What is this talk of 'release'? Klingons do not make software 'releases' Our software 'escapes' leaving a bloody trail of designers and quality assurance people in its wake.
If you RTFA (yes, I must be new here) he worked as a night watchman when he first moved to Isreal. He's been working in mathematics for over a decade.
Originally from Yekaterinburg, Russia, Trahtman was an accomplished mathematician when he came to Israel in 1992, at age 48. But like many immigrants in the wave that followed the breakup of the Soviet Union, he struggled to find work in the Jewish state and was forced into stints working maintenance and security before landing a teaching position at Bar Ilan in 1995.
You might as well say the 2002 Nobel prize in economics went to a lieutenant in the army. It's just a minor detail that he was a lieutenant 50 years before winning the prize.
"Framing"...[some explanation of how a lie isn't really a lie if I really, really want you to think it is the truth that manages to avoid the word 'truthiness']...will obviously be resented and viewed as meddling colonialists with suspect motives.
Take the Reagan and Gingrich example. That might work if they really thought you help people by helping them help themselves, and that hand-outs hurt the same way if you inject your body with hormones for an extended period, your body loses the ability to make its own hormones.
Except that example proves my point, not yours. Reagan and Gingrich want you to believe that point about self-sufficiency, but they don't believe that themselves. What they think is, why waste money on poor colored folk? While these noble conservatives are cutting programs that might help the common man, why aren't they also cutting corporate welfare? Where are the cuts in trade subsidies? Why does a bloated defense budget continue to expand?
Ronald Reagan (and subsequently Newt Gingrich) were successful because they were able to distract people from seeing the huge chasm between their words and their actions.
So again, political communications--spin--deals with what the speaker wants you to believe. Not what they believe.
it's not like we're moving into an era dominated by superstition
What's it like in your world? And can you beam me up? Cause down here on Earth, we're not moving into an era dominated by superstition; we're already there.
Matthew Nisbet, a professor of communications who is a proponent of the framing of science, in which communications techniques borrowed from the political realm are applied to promote scientific understanding
I hope the summary is wrong, cause it makes this guy sounds like an idiot. Communications techniques borrowed from the political realm will not help to promote scientific understanding, because those techniques were not designed to promote understanding.
Politicians don't want you to understand them. They want you to feel like they understand you. They want you to feel protected by them, or to feel afraid of the other guy. The last thing any politician wants is to promote understanding.
The feelings politicians target with their communications techniques have no place in science. If you feel the Earth is 6000 years old, science isn't going to try to make you feel understood, because science doesn't understand your feelings. If the science says our climate is warming, it doesn't matter if you're happy all those wacky liberals in California are facing 100 years of drought. Science doesn't care.
For serious rock 'n roll, there are numerous accounts of bands being at their best when they were out of their heads on drugs or booze. Aerosmith is probably the best example there is though. When they sobered up and started working with songwriters instead of writing stuff solely on their own, they went way downhill. Their best stuff (imo) was at the height of their drug insanity, Toys in the Attic.
I'll argue on two counts. First, was Aerosmith really ever that insane with drugs? I'm not saying they never used, but the whole "it's a miracle we're still alive and now we're back, clean and sober" came off to me as more marketing ploy than reality.
Second, was Aerosmith ever that good? (I keed. But I never got more than 'meh, they're ok' from Aerosmith.)
But seriously, I think it's less a case of, drugs helped us opened our minds and be more creative, and more a case of, we forgot how to play our instruments sober.
Think about it. If you learn your instrument sober and practice sober and write sober, you're probably not going to give a good show getting drunk right before going on stage.
If you've been practicing, writing, and playing mostly drunk for years, at the very least your style will change when sober. I'll put up Eric Clapton as an example. You can't seriously say he was a better guitar player as an active drug user. But I can see how fans of the music from that period of his life might not be an enthusiastic about his later stuff.
For most long-time fans, changing style==teh suck
To get on the original topic, comments seem to be suggesting the correlation is more beer=less science. (Of course I didn't read TFA.) I would have thought the opposite. Most of what we now think of as modern physics came out of the beer halls and taverns of early-20th century Germany and Austria. The design breakthrough that lead to the first atomic weapons started with a vodka-infused watermelon. Work that led to the 2002 Nobel prize in economics sprang from a discussion over whether to purchase premium-brand beer or the cheap stuff, because "after the first few it all tastes the same."
Having watched the BBC documentary, the bigger issue is that of the use of diseased or otherwise unsuitable bodies. For instance one guy they spoke to contracted Hepatitis from an illegally supplied transplant.
Spot on. Consent isn't really an issue in my mind. If the body didn't sign an organ donor card while alive, you can always get consent post-mortem. "If you have any reservations about me taking your organs, please let me know. What? No objections? Alright then." [Sound of chainsaw starting.]
The real issues are quality control. Did the donor have any diseases or parisites that could be passed through donation? If there are requirements such as matching blood type, is the donation properly labeled? Is the thing even from a human?
And perhaps the most startling question, was the donor dead (other than being killed by the act of donation)? There are enough ethical questions regarding the line between life and death before the added temptation to help folks cross that line.
I'll bet your Series 2 TiVos have added hard drives, right?
You'd lose that bet (sorta). My main unit has been bumped up to a single 500 GB drive. I knew doing that upgrade the bigger drive might lead to slower response, even before the Now Playing list exploded to fill the new space.
But my 2 other TiVos are 100% stock unmodified 80-hr Series 2, and even working between those two navigating shows for multi-room viewing is awful. Transfer of the shows are fine, speedy as ever. But going through the menus to start a transfer takes 10 times as long as it should.
'Time claims that "nobody cares" about the Government's increased spying powers and that "polling consistently supports that conclusion." They don't cite a single poll because that assertion is blatantly false. Just this weekend, a new poll released by Scripps Howard News Service and Ohio University proves that exactly the opposite is true. That poll shows that the percentage of Americans who believe the Federal Government is "very secretive" has doubled in the last two years alone (to 44%)'"
I have no idea what the truth is on this matter, but the fact that "nobody cares" is not refuted by "the percentage of Americans who believe the Federal Government is 'very secretive' has doubled... to 44%." Simply put, it's entirely possible more people believe the government is more secretive--but they simply don't care.
I'm glad I'm not the only one to pick that up. Would that qualify as a strawman argument?
I'll go one better. I have a poll--perhaps unscientific in that its participants were self-selected, but the sample size is orders of magnitude larger than all the other polls put together--that says Americans indeed do not give a rats patootie about domestic spying and if they do care, it's in support of it for the sake of security.
I have 3 TiVos (series 2) and a new TiVo HD is in mail, but it's to the point where I'm embarrased by the time it takes to navigate the 'Now Playing' list. I used to demo TiVo for guests all the time, but I can't do that anymore. Since I have lifetime service, it's in my interest to use word of mouth to help sell units and keep TiVo in business, but I don't think anyone would buy a TiVo after seeing how long it takes to trudge though menus. I hope the HD unit is better.
It started with the most recent software update, and it's killing my favorite feature--multi-room viewing. My transfer speeds are real-time or better for all but the highest quality recordings, but it involves bringing up the listing for the remote unit, paging through the listings to the target show, opening the episode folder, opening up the show description, selecting the transfer option, confirming the transfer option, and waiting to return to the show description.
When each step took a couple seconds, that process was a breeze. Now that each step takes 30+ seconds, it's torture. If the software on the TiVo HD isn't any better, I'll box it up and ship it right back to TiVo and get the Comcast DVR.
My theory: in a case where two people have to agree on something and don't, the option that is the least harmful should win. Which is more likely to be harmful: no cursing, or tons of it?
I agree. Government-imposed censorship is more harmful than some 'dirty' words and not the 'gentler option.' It is likely to be less harmful to allow broadcasters to decide for themselves what they will broadcast.
sometimes one has to depend on others' passwords(with the other's consent, of course) to get stuff done
Oh no no no. I can't image a situation where someone else would have some legitimate business reason for knowing my password. Further more, I cannot imagine a situation where I'd want to know someone else's password. That's all I need, "Did ya hear? Bob got called in to the big boss's office this morning--something about 'questionable content' on one of the servers. Rumor is Bob claims someone else had access to his account."
I have some unauthorized software on my computer. Some I really can't do my job without--Oracle client and SQL-Plus. Some are just nice to have--EditPadPro, for example. (Corporate policy was obviously written for business users, not IT or IS.)
But passwords and access are entirely different story. If you don't have the credentials needed to do the job and someone is suggesting by-passing network security, it's time to suggest a meeting with that person, yourself, and that person's boss to get a clear understanding of why the situation requires a disregard for the company's security policy and all the common sense rules of network security.
Now if you don't have the required access because you didn't contact the system/application owner or follow whatever procedure is in place to request access, I suggest you bite the bullet and take the blame. I'm sure whatever consequences follow will not be as bad as if you get caught breaking into someone else's account. (An account on a company system belongs to the company. If anyone in your IT department has any sense, there's a policy against sharing accounts and passwords such that an individual employee is not at liberty to share account information. Just because someone gives you their password does not mean you are authorized by the company to use their account.)
How many people would really go to a bookstore, pick up one of those and think, "Wow, this looks like a really interesting, enjoyable read. I think I'll buy it"? I doubt not nearly enough for them to be considered "classics."
*raises hand*
Moby Dick, Tale of Two Cities, Juneteenth, Bridge over San Luis Rey,... Some people like to read. More over some of those books you were forced to read in school are (*shock and awe*) actually good books.
Has it ever occurred to anyone that some books are assigned year after after because they are classics, not the way 'round?
How many people would really go to a bookstore, pick up one of those and think, "Wow, this looks like a really interesting, enjoyable read. I think I'll buy it"? I doubt not nearly enough for them to be considered "classics."
Would you consider Britney's works to be "classics"? Certainly a large number of people walk into a Walmart or Piggly Wiggly and think, "I think I'll buy it"?
Not to mention "the ravages" speech is for the press and legislators, the "zomg we did well this year" is for shareholders and equity firms:)
Just like how when you meet with your boss to discuss your year end bonus, "we've had a tough year, changing marketplace, etc." But when the CEO addresses shareholders, "pie in the sky!"
The parent comment has an 'off topic' mod, yet on reading the headline, my thoughts turned immediately to The Ocho. BattleBots fits right in with poker, Nascar, women's basketball, and the other stuff ESPN airs which aren't real sports.
However ESPN is the 'Entertainment and Sports Programming Network' and if fighting robots isn't a sport, it certainly is entertainment.
(Now if only all the commentators were Bob Costas in dominatrix gear...)
Slashdot Mirror
No, I can't RTFA. After all, this is /.
i had a 32M rio pmp300 MP3 player in 1998, many years before an iPod was a twinkle in steve job's eye. but the mass of western industrial consumers didn't take portable mp3 players that seriously until steve jobs gave them something gleaming and sexy. such is the way of the world
So we had mp3 players before the iPod, just none as popular.
So, who had light bulbs before Edison? Not, who got one filament to glow that one time, but rather who had developed a reproducible process to create what we would consider a light bulb?
Likewise, what products were on the market for the reproduction of sound before the Edison phonograph? Not, who had a process to produce a lasting physical representation of sound waves, but who had a product to record and reproduce sound? What existing market did the Edison phonograph expand?
Are you BadAnalogyGuy in disguise?
The relationship between this recording device and the phonograph enable for playback of audible sound is nothing like the relationship between early mp3 players and the iPod. The comparisons of Edison and Gates/Jobs in this thread are idiotic. I'm not saying there are no parallels, but the comparisons being made here make no sense.
Vlasic, Snapper, Levi's, we've seen this all before. Only this time, the companies Walmart has bent over in the basement with the ball gags deserve to be bent over in the basement with the ball gags.
It seems the best way to make some profit through a partnership with Walmart is to park yourself in front of one of their stores and prey on their customers' sympathies.
My code is not ugly. It's battle-scarred
Sounds like something out of the Klingon rules of software development.
What is this talk of 'release'? Klingons do not make software 'releases' Our software 'escapes' leaving a bloody trail of designers and quality assurance people in its wake.
If you RTFA (yes, I must be new here) he worked as a night watchman when he first moved to Isreal. He's been working in mathematics for over a decade.
Originally from Yekaterinburg, Russia, Trahtman was an accomplished mathematician when he came to Israel in 1992, at age 48. But like many immigrants in the wave that followed the breakup of the Soviet Union, he struggled to find work in the Jewish state and was forced into stints working maintenance and security before landing a teaching position at Bar Ilan in 1995.
You might as well say the 2002 Nobel prize in economics went to a lieutenant in the army. It's just a minor detail that he was a lieutenant 50 years before winning the prize.
Take the Reagan and Gingrich example. That might work if they really thought you help people by helping them help themselves, and that hand-outs hurt the same way if you inject your body with hormones for an extended period, your body loses the ability to make its own hormones.
Except that example proves my point, not yours. Reagan and Gingrich want you to believe that point about self-sufficiency, but they don't believe that themselves. What they think is, why waste money on poor colored folk? While these noble conservatives are cutting programs that might help the common man, why aren't they also cutting corporate welfare? Where are the cuts in trade subsidies? Why does a bloated defense budget continue to expand?
Ronald Reagan (and subsequently Newt Gingrich) were successful because they were able to distract people from seeing the huge chasm between their words and their actions.
So again, political communications--spin--deals with what the speaker wants you to believe. Not what they believe.
it's not like we're moving into an era dominated by superstition
What's it like in your world? And can you beam me up? Cause down here on Earth, we're not moving into an era dominated by superstition; we're already there.
I hope the summary is wrong, cause it makes this guy sounds like an idiot. Communications techniques borrowed from the political realm will not help to promote scientific understanding, because those techniques were not designed to promote understanding.
Politicians don't want you to understand them. They want you to feel like they understand you. They want you to feel protected by them, or to feel afraid of the other guy. The last thing any politician wants is to promote understanding.
The feelings politicians target with their communications techniques have no place in science. If you feel the Earth is 6000 years old, science isn't going to try to make you feel understood, because science doesn't understand your feelings. If the science says our climate is warming, it doesn't matter if you're happy all those wacky liberals in California are facing 100 years of drought. Science doesn't care.
And my english teacher said my misspellings would never amount to anything.
For serious rock 'n roll, there are numerous accounts of bands being at their best when they were out of their heads on drugs or booze. Aerosmith is probably the best example there is though. When they sobered up and started working with songwriters instead of writing stuff solely on their own, they went way downhill. Their best stuff (imo) was at the height of their drug insanity, Toys in the Attic.
I'll argue on two counts. First, was Aerosmith really ever that insane with drugs? I'm not saying they never used, but the whole "it's a miracle we're still alive and now we're back, clean and sober" came off to me as more marketing ploy than reality.
Second, was Aerosmith ever that good? (I keed. But I never got more than 'meh, they're ok' from Aerosmith.)
But seriously, I think it's less a case of, drugs helped us opened our minds and be more creative, and more a case of, we forgot how to play our instruments sober.
Think about it. If you learn your instrument sober and practice sober and write sober, you're probably not going to give a good show getting drunk right before going on stage.
If you've been practicing, writing, and playing mostly drunk for years, at the very least your style will change when sober. I'll put up Eric Clapton as an example. You can't seriously say he was a better guitar player as an active drug user. But I can see how fans of the music from that period of his life might not be an enthusiastic about his later stuff.
For most long-time fans, changing style==teh suck
To get on the original topic, comments seem to be suggesting the correlation is more beer=less science. (Of course I didn't read TFA.) I would have thought the opposite. Most of what we now think of as modern physics came out of the beer halls and taverns of early-20th century Germany and Austria. The design breakthrough that lead to the first atomic weapons started with a vodka-infused watermelon. Work that led to the 2002 Nobel prize in economics sprang from a discussion over whether to purchase premium-brand beer or the cheap stuff, because "after the first few it all tastes the same."
Having watched the BBC documentary, the bigger issue is that of the use of diseased or otherwise unsuitable bodies. For instance one guy they spoke to contracted Hepatitis from an illegally supplied transplant.
Spot on. Consent isn't really an issue in my mind. If the body didn't sign an organ donor card while alive, you can always get consent post-mortem. "If you have any reservations about me taking your organs, please let me know. What? No objections? Alright then." [Sound of chainsaw starting.]
The real issues are quality control. Did the donor have any diseases or parisites that could be passed through donation? If there are requirements such as matching blood type, is the donation properly labeled? Is the thing even from a human?
And perhaps the most startling question, was the donor dead (other than being killed by the act of donation)? There are enough ethical questions regarding the line between life and death before the added temptation to help folks cross that line.
You'd lose that bet (sorta). My main unit has been bumped up to a single 500 GB drive. I knew doing that upgrade the bigger drive might lead to slower response, even before the Now Playing list exploded to fill the new space.
But my 2 other TiVos are 100% stock unmodified 80-hr Series 2, and even working between those two navigating shows for multi-room viewing is awful. Transfer of the shows are fine, speedy as ever. But going through the menus to start a transfer takes 10 times as long as it should.
That settles it. My next language will be lolcode.
KTHXBYE
I'll go one better. I have a poll--perhaps unscientific in that its participants were self-selected, but the sample size is orders of magnitude larger than all the other polls put together--that says Americans indeed do not give a rats patootie about domestic spying and if they do care, it's in support of it for the sake of security.
It's the 2004 election.
I have 3 TiVos (series 2) and a new TiVo HD is in mail, but it's to the point where I'm embarrased by the time it takes to navigate the 'Now Playing' list. I used to demo TiVo for guests all the time, but I can't do that anymore. Since I have lifetime service, it's in my interest to use word of mouth to help sell units and keep TiVo in business, but I don't think anyone would buy a TiVo after seeing how long it takes to trudge though menus. I hope the HD unit is better.
It started with the most recent software update, and it's killing my favorite feature--multi-room viewing. My transfer speeds are real-time or better for all but the highest quality recordings, but it involves bringing up the listing for the remote unit, paging through the listings to the target show, opening the episode folder, opening up the show description, selecting the transfer option, confirming the transfer option, and waiting to return to the show description.
When each step took a couple seconds, that process was a breeze. Now that each step takes 30+ seconds, it's torture. If the software on the TiVo HD isn't any better, I'll box it up and ship it right back to TiVo and get the Comcast DVR.
My theory: in a case where two people have to agree on something and don't, the option that is the least harmful should win. Which is more likely to be harmful: no cursing, or tons of it?
I agree. Government-imposed censorship is more harmful than some 'dirty' words and not the 'gentler option.' It is likely to be less harmful to allow broadcasters to decide for themselves what they will broadcast.
sometimes one has to depend on others' passwords(with the other's consent, of course) to get stuff done
Oh no no no. I can't image a situation where someone else would have some legitimate business reason for knowing my password. Further more, I cannot imagine a situation where I'd want to know someone else's password. That's all I need, "Did ya hear? Bob got called in to the big boss's office this morning--something about 'questionable content' on one of the servers. Rumor is Bob claims someone else had access to his account."
I have some unauthorized software on my computer. Some I really can't do my job without--Oracle client and SQL-Plus. Some are just nice to have--EditPadPro, for example. (Corporate policy was obviously written for business users, not IT or IS.)
But passwords and access are entirely different story. If you don't have the credentials needed to do the job and someone is suggesting by-passing network security, it's time to suggest a meeting with that person, yourself, and that person's boss to get a clear understanding of why the situation requires a disregard for the company's security policy and all the common sense rules of network security.
Now if you don't have the required access because you didn't contact the system/application owner or follow whatever procedure is in place to request access, I suggest you bite the bullet and take the blame. I'm sure whatever consequences follow will not be as bad as if you get caught breaking into someone else's account. (An account on a company system belongs to the company. If anyone in your IT department has any sense, there's a policy against sharing accounts and passwords such that an individual employee is not at liberty to share account information. Just because someone gives you their password does not mean you are authorized by the company to use their account.)
Go ring their bell and run away!
That'll show 'em.
Yeah, but then it wouldn't be kosher.
*raises hand*
Moby Dick, Tale of Two Cities, Juneteenth, Bridge over San Luis Rey,... Some people like to read. More over some of those books you were forced to read in school are (*shock and awe*) actually good books.
Has it ever occurred to anyone that some books are assigned year after after because they are classics, not the way 'round?
Would you consider Britney's works to be "classics"? Certainly a large number of people walk into a Walmart or Piggly Wiggly and think, "I think I'll buy it"?
Not to mention "the ravages" speech is for the press and legislators, the "zomg we did well this year" is for shareholders and equity firms :)
Just like how when you meet with your boss to discuss your year end bonus, "we've had a tough year, changing marketplace, etc." But when the CEO addresses shareholders, "pie in the sky!"
Black cat is bad luck. Bad guys wear black. Must have been a white guy who started all that.
The parent comment has an 'off topic' mod, yet on reading the headline, my thoughts turned immediately to The Ocho. BattleBots fits right in with poker, Nascar, women's basketball, and the other stuff ESPN airs which aren't real sports.
However ESPN is the 'Entertainment and Sports Programming Network' and if fighting robots isn't a sport, it certainly is entertainment.
(Now if only all the commentators were Bob Costas in dominatrix gear...)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ocho
However, the post you are replying to was really talking about ESPN8. If you had any sense of humor at all you wouldn't have made that post.
Throw a bash prompt in front of an MCSE and watch them look at you like your dog does when you tell him a joke.
Maybe your jokes just aren't that funny.