I think the point of the original post, and the backlash against GM food in general, is that we don't know the potential for damage. Couple that with the fact we only use them to support a particular lifestyle, not save lives. Put together, it doesn't really make sense to be putting them out in the wild while we are still in the dark about long term goals.
That said, there is probably going to be a lot of good stuff coming out of this branch of science. Stopping the experiments would be silly, but requiring them to spend a little more time focusing on what could go wrong than on what will sell, wouldn't be a bad move. Food is pretty cheap. If they have to make it cost more to cover all our asses, I'm willing to pay for that.
It saved a lot of lives? Those were some nasty lice...
Seriously though, weren't there likely alternatives at the time? DDT was possibly a cheaper and/or better marketed solution, but I doubt it was the only solution.
I graduated HS in '95, but went to University over a 10 year stretch (while working full time because I can't abide classrooms and have to take that kind of instruction in small doses...)
I was taking Computer Science at the time, and I noticed a very significant shift in the quality of students as they passed by me, doing their degrees in the normal 4 years.
In 1995, in my first CS class "intro to OO" or something like that, some idiot kept asking stupid questions. The third time he raised his hand, the prof looked at him and said "stop wasting everybody's time. Look in the textbook, and if you still don't get it, choose a different program!" I thought I was in heaven.
It was probably about 1999, when I was doing 2nd/3rd year CS classes when the changes really began.
It started when they shifted from using SmallTalk to Java, despite the fact SmallTalk was better from an instructional point of view, because kids were complaining classes were too theoretical and (they were concerned) didn't map into the coding jobs they wanted (Why they were in a SCIENCE program, I don't know).
Then assignments started to get counted as "bonus marks" every time a large portion of the class had trouble figuring them out.
Then, in a software engineering course, someone complained that the project (which they knew about all year, and had been the focus of the class) was due during exams (something they did every year to give project teams more time to complete them), and that project was deemed optional about 5 days before it was due...
Finally, in a 4th year AI course, the guy that was always asking stupid questions put up his hand and asked, "in the equation on the board ("x * Y / Z"), do you multiple then divide?" Same prof from intro to OO, more idiotic question, less abusive response...
Of course I don't agree failing students is the answer. I failed both grades 3 and 4, and would have been held back if my parents hadn't fought to push me forward (claiming I was bored, not stupid). That was really the fault of bad teachers, and once I found a teacher I could respect (and gave me a chance, despite being badmouthed in the teachers lounge) my grades improved significantly.
All that said, it's not just the public school systems fault. They are dealing with legions of brain dead parents who feel their kids are entitled to good grades no matter what, legions of politicians (do I have to specify brain dead in this category?) who think being equal is about trying to squeeze the bell curve as tightly as possible, etc... Teaching also doesn't exactly attract the best and brightest. It is, as often as not, a default option for people who aren't really passionate about anything else. It's a unionized position (which is enough to make me avoid it) and isn't perceived to pay particularly well.
That's why I decided to work in eLearning (CBT, whatever...) I think as long as we are, a) unable to fire bad teachers; and b) expect kids to work at some predetermined pace, then we are setting a significant portion of the population up for failure (in grades or in knowledge). Unfortunately, in an area where academia should be leading, it's dragging it's heels and worrying about job security...
His post shows that freedom of speech was limited, and nobody really knew at the time. Just because we now know it happened doesn't make it all better.
It being available does show that someone out there is still fighting for the people. As long as the public can get access to that kind of information in a reliable way, things can't really get too far out of control. The problem is actually the ease with which people can pass information these days. If it was hard to distinguish between lies, truth, and exaggeration before, it's nearly impossible now. It takes almost no effort to cause huge debate about what is actually happening. Compound that with the effect sensational news seems to have on people, and it's easy to redirect their attention away from any real issues.
If it wasn't for the fact there is a fairly large audience for cracks, then some of those games simply wouldn't run anymore.
I've installed and cracked System Shock 2 on every new PC I've built since I first played the game. I probably wouldn't bother installing it if I always had to have the CD with me, since I tend to only fire up a game when I'm away from home and bored. If I were only allowed to install it 5 times, it wouldn't be on my PC now.
This is relevant because Bioshock is basically System Shock 3, only set in a different universe. I know the guys who made System Shock 2 went out of business due to poor sales (poor marketing...). If they thought piracy had a lot to do with their initial failure, then this DRM might be reactionary on their part. Even so, this puts into jeopardy the almost guaranteed sale they had with me. If know I'm going to have to pirate it in the future (assuming it's as replay-able as SS2) that doesn't inspire me to want to drop money on it now, especially if the legal version comes with a rootkit.
I may still get the 360 version, since I was torn between that and the PC anyway. Maybe I'll split it with a friend, since you I assume you can share the disc between unlimited consoles...
I did the same, and they sent an email a few months back saying they knew I wasn't in the US and they were being pressured to cut off access from certain countries by a set date. Pandora stopped working on that date.
It's really sad for the RIAA, since Pandora was the only way they could bleed any money from me (from Pandora's pocket, of course). I thought about finding a proxy server to bypass their filters, but decided that if the music industry was going to be that obtuse about people giving them money I couldn't even justify sending them additional pennies by proxy...
I don't think he's advocating all children playing GTA here. What he says is true, it is much better to expose kids to real life then shelter them from it, only to release them into a world they know nothing about. Parents should not do this, but nobody's suggesting they should be prevented from doing something stupid (in this case anyway...)
Which century are you referring to? Last I checked, Tom Petty doesn't have any songs on top-40 style stations.
On regular classic rock stations, they don't censor those lyrics. I'm only speaking for the 3 radio stations I know of which play that song mind you, so results may vary.
It's a good analogy. Flash is a tool, like C, and an ad is an application, just like a virus. It's not Flash's fault that it's the best solution for animation on the web right now, and it's not Flash's fault advertisers recognize that fact.
If it was the technology that's the problem then a 15 second 24fps 300x250 animated GIF would solve it.
Well, that's a bit of good news! I HATE the fact XP stores my folder viewing preferences independantly, despite the fact I politely asked it not to in the preferences. The preference would be for the feature to work correctly in XP and to be carried over to Vista still working, but if they are going to leave it broken it I'm glad it's broken the way I like it now.
We had a student card with our student number on it. We had to write it on the top of all our tests, assignments, forms, etc. After the first year, you'll never forget that number. Ours was only 6 digits long when I went to school, but they've since switched to 9 digits. Even at 9 digits, you'll use that number more times in the first 3 months of school than you have your SIN/SSN in the last 5 years.
That said, I think the fact using the student number was the only option made it easier to memorize. If we'd been given the option it might have been easier to just repeat our SIN, since we already knew it. Most people don't really consider sharing of that information as important as they should. Hell, I know it's bad and I just mailed mine out yesterday because I got a rushed request to sign a document and I didn't have time to argue that it wasn't required information.
"In recent months, some universities have been hit by incidents of lost or stolen flash memory and storage devices.
In June, for example, Grand Valley State University was forced to notify 3,000 students of a stolen Zip drive."
The article is all over the map. They are worried about hackers getting into your system and stealing your data in one paragraph, viruses from iPods in the next, and then they have some idiot storing SSN's on an unencrypted flash drive...
I don't know about most universities, but the one I went to didn't give everone admin access. When you logged on it would clear the local temp directories (i.e. everywhere the previous student had write access). Simple, and it makes it very difficult for viruses to propagate or hackers to install a keylogger.
What prof's need your SSN/SIN for is beyond me. We had "student" numbers, which were posted everywhere and didn't hold huge potential for abuse. No doubt the university could translate those to a SIN, but that system was supposedly secure.
Not "much" call right now, but the requests are probably picking up. One of the reasons Macromedia didn't plan outright to support Flash is that they were still pushing Shockwave (AKA Director) as the way to do 3D on the web (e.g. http://www.cowboysandengines.com/ from a few years ago (requires the Shockwave plugin)). The other reason they didn't jump to 3D is they wanted to keep the download size as small as possible.
The plugin size isn't really an issue anymore, and if Microsoft is going to add 3D then I think that might force Adobe's hand.
I've seen quite a few names thrown around, but in the eLearning industry most people call just call them "simulations." That describes anything from a faked UI with a few working buttons to a sort of "choose your own adventure" game all the way up to the full 3D experience. I'm sure someone's going to coin something to describe this kind of thing soon, and it's going to be cheesy and annoy me until I die...
If this kind of thing is done right, it's not unheard of to see multiple standard deviations of performance measures over more conventional methods (i.e. lecture and test). Thus far though, the biggest advantage businesses have been interested in (in my experience) are reduced training time and consistent exposure to the required material company wide.
Yes, it was a class definition. And yes, I know it's there for a reason. The point is it's a silly little piece of syntax that isn't required in, for instance, Java. Not only that, but the compiler couldn't pick up what the actual issue was, and ended up directing me to the middle of included files I didn't write. This is not an issue for an experienced dev, but this was my first impression of the language and I was fairly new to programming in general. I'm a firm believer that you should be able to pick up a language and write something simple in it without much effort.
C++ has a semicolon at the end of the header file. I'm sure there's a reason for it, but I lost a good two hours trying to get one of my first C++ projects to compile because it was missing. The syntax does suck, but it's not unusable once you learn it.
Now if you want to talk about crappy syntax, I was just forced to write a small app in VB...
When I went to school, Paris Hilton would have been "Preppy". Those were the kids who could afford nice clothing because their parents were well off. If you tried to dress nicely and fit in, they'd make fun of the fact you weren't wearing the correct brands, etc. That's where the kids dressing like bums comes from, simply not wanting to be like the stuck up rich kids.
Yeah, I was one of them. When I was out with friends I was all those things you describe and more. We smoked, drank, did drugs, skipped school, used simple sentence structures, etc...
Of the core group I hung out with, one became a labourer, two are tradespeople, one got a PhD in neuroscience, and I got a BSc and work as a programmer. I don't know what happened to all the biggest preppies, but I do know one became a Chiropractor (the nicest of the group by far) and became a drunk, got in a car accident (while drinking), and lost her baby.
Alright, no one is to flame anyone until I blow this whistle. Even... and I want to make this absolutely clear... even if they do type "God"
Re:Geeks do- everyone else doesn't.
on
The DRM Scorecard
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· Score: 1
I don't believe it's at all right to enjoy someone's work without paying for it. I also won't pour my money into an organization, only to watch it spew forth armies of lawyers. To me, that is the greater evil. For me, the greatest good is to live without new music, which is something I fallibly pursue.
I agree that stealing the music to "stick it" to them is very counter-productive. The most powerful thing that could happen, were it possible, would be for music downloads to dry up at the same time as CD sales took a sharp decline. If we could collectively say "we'd rather go without than accept your terms" then they'd change their terms. I admit I'm part of the problem in that I'm much more active in my "boycott the industry" campaign to friends and family than I am in my "live with what you have" one...
I do think you are making the same mistake the industry made, considering download activity to even correlate with lost profits. Sure, people went crazy with it. I knew guys who had hundreds of CDs worth of MP3s, but they never listened to them and they never would have bought any of that content. It was just neat to download and share it. Those were a few people, not everyone, who accounted for most of the file-sharing, and they really weren't taking anything from anyone. The industry lost money, no argument there, but not a significant amount in the long run. They stood to gain far more than they lost by taking advantage of all the work people had put into the concept of file-sharing, but instead they saw the death of the CD as a bad thing and acted accordingly.
Also, as an aside, I think they artists ultimately stand to gain here. The current generation may hurt, but that may sway future artists away from the big labels. With a strong grassroots distribution network available to them, artists could charge a lot less for their work and still bring home more money per album than they do under the current system. The power to cut out the middle man is becoming available to them. Barring some seriously oppressive laws, I think it's going to be a whole new era for music 50 years from now.
Re:Bad arguments and bad reasoning
on
The DRM Scorecard
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· Score: 1
Your post reminds me of the AD from "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle"
Slashdot Mirror
I think the point of the original post, and the backlash against GM food in general, is that we don't know the potential for damage. Couple that with the fact we only use them to support a particular lifestyle, not save lives. Put together, it doesn't really make sense to be putting them out in the wild while we are still in the dark about long term goals.
That said, there is probably going to be a lot of good stuff coming out of this branch of science. Stopping the experiments would be silly, but requiring them to spend a little more time focusing on what could go wrong than on what will sell, wouldn't be a bad move. Food is pretty cheap. If they have to make it cost more to cover all our asses, I'm willing to pay for that.
It saved a lot of lives? Those were some nasty lice...
Seriously though, weren't there likely alternatives at the time? DDT was possibly a cheaper and/or better marketed solution, but I doubt it was the only solution.
I graduated HS in '95, but went to University over a 10 year stretch (while working full time because I can't abide classrooms and have to take that kind of instruction in small doses...)
I was taking Computer Science at the time, and I noticed a very significant shift in the quality of students as they passed by me, doing their degrees in the normal 4 years.
In 1995, in my first CS class "intro to OO" or something like that, some idiot kept asking stupid questions. The third time he raised his hand, the prof looked at him and said "stop wasting everybody's time. Look in the textbook, and if you still don't get it, choose a different program!" I thought I was in heaven.
It was probably about 1999, when I was doing 2nd/3rd year CS classes when the changes really began.
It started when they shifted from using SmallTalk to Java, despite the fact SmallTalk was better from an instructional point of view, because kids were complaining classes were too theoretical and (they were concerned) didn't map into the coding jobs they wanted (Why they were in a SCIENCE program, I don't know).
Then assignments started to get counted as "bonus marks" every time a large portion of the class had trouble figuring them out.
Then, in a software engineering course, someone complained that the project (which they knew about all year, and had been the focus of the class) was due during exams (something they did every year to give project teams more time to complete them), and that project was deemed optional about 5 days before it was due...
Finally, in a 4th year AI course, the guy that was always asking stupid questions put up his hand and asked, "in the equation on the board ("x * Y / Z"), do you multiple then divide?" Same prof from intro to OO, more idiotic question, less abusive response...
Of course I don't agree failing students is the answer. I failed both grades 3 and 4, and would have been held back if my parents hadn't fought to push me forward (claiming I was bored, not stupid). That was really the fault of bad teachers, and once I found a teacher I could respect (and gave me a chance, despite being badmouthed in the teachers lounge) my grades improved significantly.
All that said, it's not just the public school systems fault. They are dealing with legions of brain dead parents who feel their kids are entitled to good grades no matter what, legions of politicians (do I have to specify brain dead in this category?) who think being equal is about trying to squeeze the bell curve as tightly as possible, etc... Teaching also doesn't exactly attract the best and brightest. It is, as often as not, a default option for people who aren't really passionate about anything else. It's a unionized position (which is enough to make me avoid it) and isn't perceived to pay particularly well.
That's why I decided to work in eLearning (CBT, whatever...) I think as long as we are, a) unable to fire bad teachers; and b) expect kids to work at some predetermined pace, then we are setting a significant portion of the population up for failure (in grades or in knowledge). Unfortunately, in an area where academia should be leading, it's dragging it's heels and worrying about job security...
His post shows that freedom of speech was limited, and nobody really knew at the time. Just because we now know it happened doesn't make it all better.
It being available does show that someone out there is still fighting for the people. As long as the public can get access to that kind of information in a reliable way, things can't really get too far out of control. The problem is actually the ease with which people can pass information these days. If it was hard to distinguish between lies, truth, and exaggeration before, it's nearly impossible now. It takes almost no effort to cause huge debate about what is actually happening. Compound that with the effect sensational news seems to have on people, and it's easy to redirect their attention away from any real issues.
If it wasn't for the fact there is a fairly large audience for cracks, then some of those games simply wouldn't run anymore.
I've installed and cracked System Shock 2 on every new PC I've built since I first played the game. I probably wouldn't bother installing it if I always had to have the CD with me, since I tend to only fire up a game when I'm away from home and bored. If I were only allowed to install it 5 times, it wouldn't be on my PC now.
This is relevant because Bioshock is basically System Shock 3, only set in a different universe. I know the guys who made System Shock 2 went out of business due to poor sales (poor marketing...). If they thought piracy had a lot to do with their initial failure, then this DRM might be reactionary on their part. Even so, this puts into jeopardy the almost guaranteed sale they had with me. If know I'm going to have to pirate it in the future (assuming it's as replay-able as SS2) that doesn't inspire me to want to drop money on it now, especially if the legal version comes with a rootkit.
I may still get the 360 version, since I was torn between that and the PC anyway. Maybe I'll split it with a friend, since you I assume you can share the disc between unlimited consoles...
I did the same, and they sent an email a few months back saying they knew I wasn't in the US and they were being pressured to cut off access from certain countries by a set date. Pandora stopped working on that date.
It's really sad for the RIAA, since Pandora was the only way they could bleed any money from me (from Pandora's pocket, of course). I thought about finding a proxy server to bypass their filters, but decided that if the music industry was going to be that obtuse about people giving them money I couldn't even justify sending them additional pennies by proxy...
I don't think he's advocating all children playing GTA here. What he says is true, it is much better to expose kids to real life then shelter them from it, only to release them into a world they know nothing about. Parents should not do this, but nobody's suggesting they should be prevented from doing something stupid (in this case anyway...)
Which century are you referring to? Last I checked, Tom Petty doesn't have any songs on top-40 style stations.
On regular classic rock stations, they don't censor those lyrics. I'm only speaking for the 3 radio stations I know of which play that song mind you, so results may vary.
It's a good analogy. Flash is a tool, like C, and an ad is an application, just like a virus. It's not Flash's fault that it's the best solution for animation on the web right now, and it's not Flash's fault advertisers recognize that fact.
If it was the technology that's the problem then a 15 second 24fps 300x250 animated GIF would solve it.
Well, that's a bit of good news! I HATE the fact XP stores my folder viewing preferences independantly, despite the fact I politely asked it not to in the preferences. The preference would be for the feature to work correctly in XP and to be carried over to Vista still working, but if they are going to leave it broken it I'm glad it's broken the way I like it now.
We had a student card with our student number on it. We had to write it on the top of all our tests, assignments, forms, etc. After the first year, you'll never forget that number. Ours was only 6 digits long when I went to school, but they've since switched to 9 digits. Even at 9 digits, you'll use that number more times in the first 3 months of school than you have your SIN/SSN in the last 5 years.
That said, I think the fact using the student number was the only option made it easier to memorize. If we'd been given the option it might have been easier to just repeat our SIN, since we already knew it. Most people don't really consider sharing of that information as important as they should. Hell, I know it's bad and I just mailed mine out yesterday because I got a rushed request to sign a document and I didn't have time to argue that it wasn't required information.
"In recent months, some universities have been hit by incidents of lost or stolen flash memory and storage devices.
In June, for example, Grand Valley State University was forced to notify 3,000 students of a stolen Zip drive."
The article is all over the map. They are worried about hackers getting into your system and stealing your data in one paragraph, viruses from iPods in the next, and then they have some idiot storing SSN's on an unencrypted flash drive...
I don't know about most universities, but the one I went to didn't give everone admin access. When you logged on it would clear the local temp directories (i.e. everywhere the previous student had write access). Simple, and it makes it very difficult for viruses to propagate or hackers to install a keylogger.
What prof's need your SSN/SIN for is beyond me. We had "student" numbers, which were posted everywhere and didn't hold huge potential for abuse. No doubt the university could translate those to a SIN, but that system was supposedly secure.
Not "much" call right now, but the requests are probably picking up. One of the reasons Macromedia didn't plan outright to support Flash is that they were still pushing Shockwave (AKA Director) as the way to do 3D on the web (e.g. http://www.cowboysandengines.com/ from a few years ago (requires the Shockwave plugin)). The other reason they didn't jump to 3D is they wanted to keep the download size as small as possible.
The plugin size isn't really an issue anymore, and if Microsoft is going to add 3D then I think that might force Adobe's hand.
They still have to send the delivery receipt. My email client doesn't automatically send a receipt, although it gives you the option if you want to.
I've seen quite a few names thrown around, but in the eLearning industry most people call just call them "simulations." That describes anything from a faked UI with a few working buttons to a sort of "choose your own adventure" game all the way up to the full 3D experience. I'm sure someone's going to coin something to describe this kind of thing soon, and it's going to be cheesy and annoy me until I die...
If this kind of thing is done right, it's not unheard of to see multiple standard deviations of performance measures over more conventional methods (i.e. lecture and test). Thus far though, the biggest advantage businesses have been interested in (in my experience) are reduced training time and consistent exposure to the required material company wide.
Did you just support Bush and the French in the same post? Is that even legal?
Yes, it was a class definition. And yes, I know it's there for a reason. The point is it's a silly little piece of syntax that isn't required in, for instance, Java. Not only that, but the compiler couldn't pick up what the actual issue was, and ended up directing me to the middle of included files I didn't write. This is not an issue for an experienced dev, but this was my first impression of the language and I was fairly new to programming in general. I'm a firm believer that you should be able to pick up a language and write something simple in it without much effort.
That's C code.
C++ has a semicolon at the end of the header file. I'm sure there's a reason for it, but I lost a good two hours trying to get one of my first C++ projects to compile because it was missing. The syntax does suck, but it's not unusable once you learn it.
Now if you want to talk about crappy syntax, I was just forced to write a small app in VB...
But the kind of life that could live on it would absolutely be affected by mass (i.e. gravity)
That should have been one became a Chiropractor and ANOTHER became a drunk...
When I went to school, Paris Hilton would have been "Preppy". Those were the kids who could afford nice clothing because their parents were well off. If you tried to dress nicely and fit in, they'd make fun of the fact you weren't wearing the correct brands, etc. That's where the kids dressing like bums comes from, simply not wanting to be like the stuck up rich kids.
Yeah, I was one of them. When I was out with friends I was all those things you describe and more. We smoked, drank, did drugs, skipped school, used simple sentence structures, etc...
Of the core group I hung out with, one became a labourer, two are tradespeople, one got a PhD in neuroscience, and I got a BSc and work as a programmer. I don't know what happened to all the biggest preppies, but I do know one became a Chiropractor (the nicest of the group by far) and became a drunk, got in a car accident (while drinking), and lost her baby.
High school is not destiny.
Alright, no one is to flame anyone until I blow this whistle. Even... and I want to make this absolutely clear... even if they do type "God"
I don't believe it's at all right to enjoy someone's work without paying for it. I also won't pour my money into an organization, only to watch it spew forth armies of lawyers. To me, that is the greater evil. For me, the greatest good is to live without new music, which is something I fallibly pursue.
I agree that stealing the music to "stick it" to them is very counter-productive. The most powerful thing that could happen, were it possible, would be for music downloads to dry up at the same time as CD sales took a sharp decline. If we could collectively say "we'd rather go without than accept your terms" then they'd change their terms. I admit I'm part of the problem in that I'm much more active in my "boycott the industry" campaign to friends and family than I am in my "live with what you have" one...
I do think you are making the same mistake the industry made, considering download activity to even correlate with lost profits. Sure, people went crazy with it. I knew guys who had hundreds of CDs worth of MP3s, but they never listened to them and they never would have bought any of that content. It was just neat to download and share it. Those were a few people, not everyone, who accounted for most of the file-sharing, and they really weren't taking anything from anyone. The industry lost money, no argument there, but not a significant amount in the long run. They stood to gain far more than they lost by taking advantage of all the work people had put into the concept of file-sharing, but instead they saw the death of the CD as a bad thing and acted accordingly.
Also, as an aside, I think they artists ultimately stand to gain here. The current generation may hurt, but that may sway future artists away from the big labels. With a strong grassroots distribution network available to them, artists could charge a lot less for their work and still bring home more money per album than they do under the current system. The power to cut out the middle man is becoming available to them. Barring some seriously oppressive laws, I think it's going to be a whole new era for music 50 years from now.
Your post reminds me of the AD from "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle"
:-)
That is, to say, I disagree with you