Take the censored Tiananmen pictures and put them on your website. Add a textual description -- not as plain text, but as an image so as not to be indexable. Finally, add lots of real tetx associating the images with something not meant to be censored (such as "wonderful china", "my holiday pictures", whatever). Give it some slashdot signature attention and hope it will be linked elsewhere. At least, then, if it doesn't show up on google.cn at some point, we'll know they're actually putting manpower into censoring.
Consider yourself lucky. There's a bit of a chance that this story here may help you improve your situation -- at least it gives your boss something to think about.
Does anyone know which of the currently leading search engines are available uncensored in China? I'd like to know if I have an alternative I could support, whether Google is the first major search engine to cooperate, or closer to the last...
I like the idea of showing sectional articles on the front page this way, and the customization that goes with it. But I think what was said here in some other comment (can't be bothered to look for the link) was quite right: there should be a somewhat better separation from the regular-size article above an abbreviated one so as not to mistake the abbreviated one as a footnote. One way this could be improved is by slightly enlarging the green horizontal bar on top of the gray bar to three or four pixels height, and giving it a rounded corner on the left side. I think that should separate it enough.
On another note, on my system (Firefox 1.0.7, Gecko/20050922) the configuration box that opens up on the front page when you click the Sections link misbehaves slightly. The Close button jumps around either on mouse-over events or when clicking it. I haven't looked at the code, but I've got a screenshot of it.
Thanks for keeping these weekly/. meta-stories coming!
I started with "The Colour of Magic" and "The Light Fantastic," which were the first two Discworld books he wrote. They do a good job of getting you started. But you could start with (almost) any book. The reading order guides on lspace should give you a decent overview -- try any of the books marked in orange.
Your point is well taken -- probably most people wouldn't really care. But then again I wouldn't really mind about "the target audience." I would be quite content to see posts without mistakes in them -- for me it is a sign of quality and high standards. I also think that it's not a big deal to achieve this kind of quality, and personally I fail to see how the five seconds it takes to check a posting for obvious errors could be a major problem. For me it isn't... maybe proper spelling just comes naturally for me (I think a mistake like "teh" or "rediculous" stands out like a sore thumb and jumps right into my eyes). And even if the "target audience" doesn't care, at least it would shut up those who keep bitching about errors.
By the way... "grammatical" is spelled with two "m". Were you testing me?;)
Oh, and also, in case you care I happen to be German. Maybe I'm just able to deal with proper spelling and grammar because I learned it in a different way?
Apparently I've been modded funny... fair enough, but I was actually quite serious. Maybe I should've left out the smiley at the end of my post, but then I would've been modded (-1, Weird)...
And finally, to reply to the other posts as well -- yes, I can handle "pwned", "pr0n", "lose"/"loose" and "ridiculous" quite well.:)
I offer myself as a voluntary part-time Slashdot story spelling and grammar checker. I don't know how your story queue works technically, but given access to it I would happily correct all spelling and grammar mistakes in the posts before they go live. If you're interested, that is. As a reference you can check my posting history. It should be free of mistakes except for the rare typo -- and I can distinguish to/too/two, their/they're/there, your/you're, its/it's and affect/effect, as well as spell the words "the", "definitely", "grammar" and "independent" correctly.
The error you pointed out would be due to straight copy-and-paste from whatever format the book was in. Using proper typography, the word "file" would be written with a "fi" ligature (U+FB01) which didn't survive the copy-and-paste process.
By the way, would anything speak against allowing Ӓ-type entities in comments?
By linking to his sites, we are allowing him to participate in the ruining of a perfectly good tool. So when people Google for 'Beatles,' they're going to get his site, and all because he's abusing the Slashdot submission system.
If that's a serious problem, who's to stop you from putting a '* * Beatles Beatles' link in your sig that points to a random site of your choice? Google bombs have been successfulbefore.
It's obviously not easy to ensure a verifiable voting process that still guarantees that your vote remains secret. The only solution I've seen so far that seems satisfying in every respect (correct me if I missed something) is this one (PDF) by David Chaum.
I think this is a real issue. [...] this idea has great potential. [...] this will have many problems. What's to stop this from suffering under a heavy load of spam, honest mistakes, and deliberate mischeif?
s/this/the Internet/g;
Yes, sure it will be subject to deliberate mischief. But the same goes for the Internet as a whole—because, well, those pesky humans are using it.
I wouldn't be so pessimistic about it. The problems of spam, mistakes, and deliberate mischief aren't technical ones, they're social ones. That's why I think that technological advances for acquiring information are more of a good thing than a bad thing. Don't hail the information you get as the Ultimate Truth ("I saw it on the Internet, it must be true!")—rather, as always, proceed with caution...
If you're just interested in a pure backup, then it's more of an rsync scenario I would guess. Unison is useful if the same data is used and modified at different locations so that it needs to be synced both ways. If this is what you need, I recommend you to just take a look at Unison -- it's fairly simple. But due to the nature of two-way syncs with potential conflicts (the same file changed differently at both locations), it's usually interactive unless you force it to sync one specific way in case of conflicts (with the -prefer option). I can't really tell you if this will do the job for you, but it's easy to try it out. I haven't done anything with Bacula, so unfortunately I can't compare the two.
A little downside of Unison, which another poster brought up in this thread, is that it insists on having identical Unison versions on both ends of the sync, and in case of version updates it sometimes forgets about the last synchronization state, resulting in a deep check of each and every file and more required manual interaction. On the other hand, if you have a version that works for you, simply stick to that one.
While rsync is very nice for syncing files, I've found another, somewhat related tool much nicer for my purposes. I have a desktop and a laptop computer, and to a great extent I work on the same files on both. Syncing my home directories could be done using rsync to some degree, but it's rather painful if you have modified files on both sides.
This is where unison comes in handy. It keeps two directories synchronized nicely, adjusting changes in both directions automatically and querying the user in case of collisions. One of my favorite tools, and I'm sure I'm far from being the only one with a need for something like it.
Why don't you try to remember v6-tunnel34-uk6x.ipv6.btexact.com instead?
I mean, that's why you have the DNS. You don't have to remember any addresses. Honestly, how many public IP addresses do you know and actually use? Even as a sysadmin, I think you'll manage. Seriously, the "difficult to remember" argument isn't really an argument. 99.9% of the Internet-using population couldn't care less if their address had 32, 128 or 1024 bits or were written using Babylonian numerals. Heck, most don't even know what this "IP Address" thingy is. And sysadmins will for the most part be clever enough to work with any notation.
Re:Is anyone else curious what SSA trees are?
on
GCC 4.0.0 Released
·
· Score: 1
Heh. I'd love to, but the University's server doesn't provide me any access statistics...
Re:Is anyone else curious what SSA trees are?
on
GCC 4.0.0 Released
·
· Score: 1
Yup. It's a great package.:-) I never liked using Powerpoint (or OO.o Impress), especially when I required a lot of math. I did presentations in Latex before (don't remember what I used, slitex? foiltex?), but the beamer package is what convinced me to never touch ppt again. Doing all these overlays in latex is of course a bit of a pain (you don't want to see the tex source;)), but at least I get a nice PDF with (almost) all the benefits of a regular powerpoint-like presentation.
It's now already included as a standard package in tetex-3.0.
Re:Is anyone else curious what SSA trees are?
on
GCC 4.0.0 Released
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Hmm. Funny. Seems like perfect timing, in retrospect. I just held a presentation on SSA (and efficiently transforming code into SSA) today.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmm. Searching for Ubuntu reveals about one Ubuntu-related story every five days for the past three months... which Slashdot have you been reading?
Oh, and also here.
On another note, in my opinion, by their very actions, those radicals now "protesting" against the cartoons are giving these cartoons their validity.
You could also try it another way.
Take the censored Tiananmen pictures and put them on your website. Add a textual description -- not as plain text, but as an image so as not to be indexable. Finally, add lots of real tetx associating the images with something not meant to be censored (such as "wonderful china", "my holiday pictures", whatever). Give it some slashdot signature attention and hope it will be linked elsewhere. At least, then, if it doesn't show up on google.cn at some point, we'll know they're actually putting manpower into censoring.
Consider yourself lucky. There's a bit of a chance that this story here may help you improve your situation -- at least it gives your boss something to think about.
Does anyone know which of the currently leading search engines are available uncensored in China? I'd like to know if I have an alternative I could support, whether Google is the first major search engine to cooperate, or closer to the last...
I like the idea of showing sectional articles on the front page this way, and the customization that goes with it. But I think what was said here in some other comment (can't be bothered to look for the link) was quite right: there should be a somewhat better separation from the regular-size article above an abbreviated one so as not to mistake the abbreviated one as a footnote. One way this could be improved is by slightly enlarging the green horizontal bar on top of the gray bar to three or four pixels height, and giving it a rounded corner on the left side. I think that should separate it enough.
On another note, on my system (Firefox 1.0.7, Gecko/20050922) the configuration box that opens up on the front page when you click the Sections link misbehaves slightly. The Close button jumps around either on mouse-over events or when clicking it. I haven't looked at the code, but I've got a screenshot of it.
Thanks for keeping these weekly /. meta-stories coming!
I started with "The Colour of Magic" and "The Light Fantastic," which were the first two Discworld books he wrote. They do a good job of getting you started. But you could start with (almost) any book. The reading order guides on lspace should give you a decent overview -- try any of the books marked in orange.
Your point is well taken -- probably most people wouldn't really care. But then again I wouldn't really mind about "the target audience." I would be quite content to see posts without mistakes in them -- for me it is a sign of quality and high standards. I also think that it's not a big deal to achieve this kind of quality, and personally I fail to see how the five seconds it takes to check a posting for obvious errors could be a major problem. For me it isn't... maybe proper spelling just comes naturally for me (I think a mistake like "teh" or "rediculous" stands out like a sore thumb and jumps right into my eyes). And even if the "target audience" doesn't care, at least it would shut up those who keep bitching about errors.
By the way... "grammatical" is spelled with two "m". Were you testing me? ;)
Oh, and also, in case you care I happen to be German. Maybe I'm just able to deal with proper spelling and grammar because I learned it in a different way?
Apparently I've been modded funny... fair enough, but I was actually quite serious. Maybe I should've left out the smiley at the end of my post, but then I would've been modded (-1, Weird)...
And finally, to reply to the other posts as well -- yes, I can handle "pwned", "pr0n", "lose"/"loose" and "ridiculous" quite well. :)
I offer myself as a voluntary part-time Slashdot story spelling and grammar checker. I don't know how your story queue works technically, but given access to it I would happily correct all spelling and grammar mistakes in the posts before they go live. If you're interested, that is. As a reference you can check my posting history. It should be free of mistakes except for the rare typo -- and I can distinguish to/too/two, their/they're/there, your/you're, its/it's and affect/effect, as well as spell the words "the", "definitely", "grammar" and "independent" correctly.
Especially since, for some reason, the book's title page shows a penguin...
The error you pointed out would be due to straight copy-and-paste from whatever format the book was in. Using proper typography, the word "file" would be written with a "fi" ligature (U+FB01) which didn't survive the copy-and-paste process.
By the way, would anything speak against allowing Ӓ-type entities in comments?
If that's a serious problem, who's to stop you from putting a '* * Beatles Beatles' link in your sig that points to a random site of your choice? Google bombs have been successful before.
It's obviously not easy to ensure a verifiable voting process that still guarantees that your vote remains secret. The only solution I've seen so far that seems satisfying in every respect (correct me if I missed something) is this one (PDF) by David Chaum.
s/this/the Internet/g;
Yes, sure it will be subject to deliberate mischief. But the same goes for the Internet as a whole—because, well, those pesky humans are using it.
I wouldn't be so pessimistic about it. The problems of spam, mistakes, and deliberate mischief aren't technical ones, they're social ones. That's why I think that technological advances for acquiring information are more of a good thing than a bad thing. Don't hail the information you get as the Ultimate Truth ("I saw it on the Internet, it must be true!")—rather, as always, proceed with caution...
You should be happy about that! After all, if that's all they find to complain about, it's got to be a damn good release...
If you're just interested in a pure backup, then it's more of an rsync scenario I would guess. Unison is useful if the same data is used and modified at different locations so that it needs to be synced both ways. If this is what you need, I recommend you to just take a look at Unison -- it's fairly simple. But due to the nature of two-way syncs with potential conflicts (the same file changed differently at both locations), it's usually interactive unless you force it to sync one specific way in case of conflicts (with the -prefer option). I can't really tell you if this will do the job for you, but it's easy to try it out. I haven't done anything with Bacula, so unfortunately I can't compare the two.
A little downside of Unison, which another poster brought up in this thread, is that it insists on having identical Unison versions on both ends of the sync, and in case of version updates it sometimes forgets about the last synchronization state, resulting in a deep check of each and every file and more required manual interaction. On the other hand, if you have a version that works for you, simply stick to that one.
While rsync is very nice for syncing files, I've found another, somewhat related tool much nicer for my purposes. I have a desktop and a laptop computer, and to a great extent I work on the same files on both. Syncing my home directories could be done using rsync to some degree, but it's rather painful if you have modified files on both sides.
This is where unison comes in handy. It keeps two directories synchronized nicely, adjusting changes in both directions automatically and querying the user in case of collisions. One of my favorite tools, and I'm sure I'm far from being the only one with a need for something like it.
No no no.
It's YÅMV, of course. Your Ångströmage may vary.
Why don't you try to remember v6-tunnel34-uk6x.ipv6.btexact.com instead?
I mean, that's why you have the DNS. You don't have to remember any addresses. Honestly, how many public IP addresses do you know and actually use? Even as a sysadmin, I think you'll manage. Seriously, the "difficult to remember" argument isn't really an argument. 99.9% of the Internet-using population couldn't care less if their address had 32, 128 or 1024 bits or were written using Babylonian numerals. Heck, most don't even know what this "IP Address" thingy is. And sysadmins will for the most part be clever enough to work with any notation.
That's a good idea actually. Someone with too much money and time on their hands should try playing Doom 3 on that printer...
Heh, it's quite a funny link though.
Excuse me while I go eat my screwdrivers... hmm, think I'll order dinner from the hardware store tonight
It's not a dupe. It's a self-replicating story.
Heh. I'd love to, but the University's server doesn't provide me any access statistics...
Yup. It's a great package. :-) I never liked using Powerpoint (or OO.o Impress), especially when I required a lot of math. I did presentations in Latex before (don't remember what I used, slitex? foiltex?), but the beamer package is what convinced me to never touch ppt again. Doing all these overlays in latex is of course a bit of a pain (you don't want to see the tex source ;)), but at least I get a nice PDF with (almost) all the benefits of a regular powerpoint-like presentation.
It's now already included as a standard package in tetex-3.0.
Hmm. Funny. Seems like perfect timing, in retrospect. I just held a presentation on SSA (and efficiently transforming code into SSA) today.
Get the slides here.
HTH