>Is this solely an American phenomenon?
Thankfully yes. Never heard of it outside the US although it may exist elsewhere (I haven't been everywhere and asked, just wanted to clarify..)
What about a publicly searchable database of politicians and all donation sources plus business world affiliations and bills proposed by that politician?
We have that in the UK - in fact one politician is about to be investigated by the police for not reporting a GBP100K donation to help him get elected recently. There is also an online db where you can check a politician and see how they voted on everything they voted for in parliament.
I read something recently (online, natch) that put forward the thought that as a species we were in danger of losing the ability to reason/understand because to a large extent, that is a learned skill and if you have a generation or two who are only used to dealing with instant facts, you might not be able to pick up that again easily once that skill is lost.
It discussed if that was actually a problem in itself i.e. as long as you have an answer, does it matter that you don't know how to get it? I'd say yes because understanding helps breed new insights/knowledge more than a collection of facts but perhaps that's just because of the era and way I grew up.
Let he who is innocent cast the first stone.
Almost everyone has broken the law in some way whether it's a parking fine, pinching pens from work or dropping litter as well as more serious crimes. Whilst I don't support having things like this searchable and available, I can't imagine there will be many people not on some database somewhere for some minor crime or other. Most of us probably manage to avoid being caught for the pen pinching etc. but that's between us and our concience and hopefully that would inform the weight we'd put on the value of finding out some potential friend had been caught doing something 'bad' - only individuals can decide what sort of level of offence they can live with.
>The web is being changed in every instant, the search result of Google change every day
Which is in itself a problem. What if everyone starts relying on say Wikipedia and then that site goes? There are many areas of study that has one or two really good web resources and a whole bunch of also-rans. Most books exist in hundreds if not thousands of copies around the world. If a major website goes, it's knowledge is potentially lost forever along (archive.com notwithstanding).
One of the biggest problems of being able to type in a question and have an answer (or sorts) fired back seconds later is that you become very used to dealing facts but are in danger of lacking understanding.
Back when we relied more on books, you'd often go through several books and many pages looking for something and along the way see all manner of peripheral information on the subject which over time builds in to a much broader grasp of the subject and a better basis for joining the dots and developing understanding.
I suspect that in the unlikely event that the web disappeared overnight, we'd have a whole generation or two of apparantly 'smart' people floundering badly.
I'm officially old. I think about finding out about new kit 48 hours later and think 'meh'. Once upon a time I'd have wet my pants in anticipation. Oh, the horror!
I'm surprised to hear people talk about incompatible cable boxes etc. In the UK and AFAIK most/all of Europe, everything has a SCART, HDMI or both as a minimum so any cable, satallite, DVD or VHS deck can be connected together, often daisy chained, as needed. There's no problem plugging your cable box into a DVD recorder, indeed, most DVD recorders can even change channel on your cable/sat box for you via IR transmitters.
I don't know many people with pure DVD recorders though. Most have combi HD/DVD decks, record to the HD first then copy to DVD sans adverts if they want an archive copy.
Do I get any points for having walked past Hotblack Desiato, the London Estate Agents (Real Estate to your foreign types) which Adams pinched the name from?
OK, I'm just yanking your chain. It's just that people always did that for as long back as I remember, certainly early 80's but it was just people enjoying messing with their records, it never got considered dj-ing. Just seemed funny to talk about a bedroom-dj is all- I've seen the phrase plenty of times before and it just sounds like a way to make somehting every day sound special. Sorry if it came over abit rude.
Yawn, I know exactly who developed what thanks - I've been in the industry since 1975. Some things I have a choice over some I don't. I drew a line in the sand and anything new from Sony after that date I avoid if at all possible. Any firm who are so DRM mad and own both the software and hardware side of the equation are liable to abuse that position and Sony have shown this in spades.
>Doesn't Firefox do that by itself since 2.0 ?
Which would be disabled day one in any pre rollout testing in a coporate environment. The last thing you want is apps updating themselves all over the shop without any testing of the changes against your configs and toolsets.
IME medium and upwards sized firms are used to a certain way of working and if anything doesn't fit the model, it has zero chance of being used.
1. Is it secure? TICK
2. Does it work in our environment? TICK
3. Do they have guaranteed response times on support calls? CROSS
OK, forget that one. Next?
>It's a recurring theme that HD-DVD people bring up though as if it mattered.
This speaks someone with more disposable income. I could *just* about justify GBP175 for an HD-DVD player but the cheapest BR option is a PS3 at £350 or so, way out my price range.
Considering how keen America is on exporting democracy to all and sundry, have you any idea how damned wierd your particular version looks to non-Americans? I've just had to spend twenty mins on Google trying to work it all out what with primaries, electroral collages etc. The fact that it seems to require so much money just to get heard doesn't help. Not really a very good advert for democracy in action.
I refuse to buy anything to do with Sony so I'm stuffed. I was really hoping HD-DVD would win out but it really does look like game over despite the clarification press release.
>I was in love with Albus Dumbledore but rowling broke my heart sayinf he is gay. Wish I was a man.
Ah, you need to cast "Genderus Changeus" and shop for a new wardrobe.
I'm not interested in it myself but why is it so frowned upon in the US? 2 years seems extraordinarily OTT for something like that when you could be out in 18months for assault, theft etc.
Slashdot Mirror
This is /. - they probably thought it *would* have closed by the time the story appeared given the less than steller timeliness of most articles here.
>Is this solely an American phenomenon?
Thankfully yes. Never heard of it outside the US although it may exist elsewhere (I haven't been everywhere and asked, just wanted to clarify..)
I read something recently (online, natch) that put forward the thought that as a species we were in danger of losing the ability to reason/understand because to a large extent, that is a learned skill and if you have a generation or two who are only used to dealing with instant facts, you might not be able to pick up that again easily once that skill is lost.
It discussed if that was actually a problem in itself i.e. as long as you have an answer, does it matter that you don't know how to get it? I'd say yes because understanding helps breed new insights/knowledge more than a collection of facts but perhaps that's just because of the era and way I grew up.
Let he who is innocent cast the first stone.
Almost everyone has broken the law in some way whether it's a parking fine, pinching pens from work or dropping litter as well as more serious crimes. Whilst I don't support having things like this searchable and available, I can't imagine there will be many people not on some database somewhere for some minor crime or other. Most of us probably manage to avoid being caught for the pen pinching etc. but that's between us and our concience and hopefully that would inform the weight we'd put on the value of finding out some potential friend had been caught doing something 'bad' - only individuals can decide what sort of level of offence they can live with.
>The web is being changed in every instant, the search result of Google change every day
Which is in itself a problem. What if everyone starts relying on say Wikipedia and then that site goes? There are many areas of study that has one or two really good web resources and a whole bunch of also-rans. Most books exist in hundreds if not thousands of copies around the world. If a major website goes, it's knowledge is potentially lost forever along (archive.com notwithstanding).
One of the biggest problems of being able to type in a question and have an answer (or sorts) fired back seconds later is that you become very used to dealing facts but are in danger of lacking understanding.
Back when we relied more on books, you'd often go through several books and many pages looking for something and along the way see all manner of peripheral information on the subject which over time builds in to a much broader grasp of the subject and a better basis for joining the dots and developing understanding.
I suspect that in the unlikely event that the web disappeared overnight, we'd have a whole generation or two of apparantly 'smart' people floundering badly.
I'm officially old. I think about finding out about new kit 48 hours later and think 'meh'. Once upon a time I'd have wet my pants in anticipation. Oh, the horror!
I'm surprised to hear people talk about incompatible cable boxes etc. In the UK and AFAIK most/all of Europe, everything has a SCART, HDMI or both as a minimum so any cable, satallite, DVD or VHS deck can be connected together, often daisy chained, as needed. There's no problem plugging your cable box into a DVD recorder, indeed, most DVD recorders can even change channel on your cable/sat box for you via IR transmitters.
I don't know many people with pure DVD recorders though. Most have combi HD/DVD decks, record to the HD first then copy to DVD sans adverts if they want an archive copy.
Hey, this alien book says "how to serve man" - they must really like us!
Do I get any points for having walked past Hotblack Desiato, the London Estate Agents (Real Estate to your foreign types) which Adams pinched the name from?
OK, I'm just yanking your chain. It's just that people always did that for as long back as I remember, certainly early 80's but it was just people enjoying messing with their records, it never got considered dj-ing. Just seemed funny to talk about a bedroom-dj is all- I've seen the phrase plenty of times before and it just sounds like a way to make somehting every day sound special. Sorry if it came over abit rude.
>As a bedroom dj
WTF? Is that what you tell girls to impress them or something?
Yawn, I know exactly who developed what thanks - I've been in the industry since 1975. Some things I have a choice over some I don't. I drew a line in the sand and anything new from Sony after that date I avoid if at all possible. Any firm who are so DRM mad and own both the software and hardware side of the equation are liable to abuse that position and Sony have shown this in spades.
Damn, beat me to it. I had exactly the same thought re the Falcon. Nice for audio processing if nothing else :-)
>Doesn't Firefox do that by itself since 2.0 ?
Which would be disabled day one in any pre rollout testing in a coporate environment. The last thing you want is apps updating themselves all over the shop without any testing of the changes against your configs and toolsets.
IME medium and upwards sized firms are used to a certain way of working and if anything doesn't fit the model, it has zero chance of being used.
1. Is it secure? TICK
2. Does it work in our environment? TICK
3. Do they have guaranteed response times on support calls? CROSS
OK, forget that one. Next?
It uses a tree search algorithm to find it's data files?
>It's a recurring theme that HD-DVD people bring up though as if it mattered. This speaks someone with more disposable income. I could *just* about justify GBP175 for an HD-DVD player but the cheapest BR option is a PS3 at £350 or so, way out my price range.
>Fox News look like total idiots
I don't really think they need much help TBH
Considering how keen America is on exporting democracy to all and sundry, have you any idea how damned wierd your particular version looks to non-Americans? I've just had to spend twenty mins on Google trying to work it all out what with primaries, electroral collages etc. The fact that it seems to require so much money just to get heard doesn't help. Not really a very good advert for democracy in action.
>I'll be satisfied as long as some Bible (or other religious book of choice) Thumping lunatic doesn't win
Amen to that!
I refuse to buy anything to do with Sony so I'm stuffed. I was really hoping HD-DVD would win out but it really does look like game over despite the clarification press release.
>I was in love with Albus Dumbledore but rowling broke my heart sayinf he is gay. Wish I was a man.
Ah, you need to cast "Genderus Changeus" and shop for a new wardrobe.
I'm not interested in it myself but why is it so frowned upon in the US? 2 years seems extraordinarily OTT for something like that when you could be out in 18months for assault, theft etc.