This comment was spectacularly stupid. The only possible response is: "Bill Gates was caught speeding once. People who use Windows are a traffic hazard."
If only the first URL in the conversation is blocked, that'd explain it. The way to reliably test this would be to check a whole bunch of URLs, some (as opposed to just the first) of which are Youtube addresses. But it's possible the test was already conducted like that.
Also, since it appears to have stopped: I don't advocate tinfoil hats normally, but did Yahoo stealth-remove it once people caught on? It sounds unlikely, but still.
With a non-iPod mp3 player. It's played the same song 3-4 times in a row on occasion. (Combined with the unfortunate fact that the "shuffle" only works when actually waiting for the song to end, not when switching through tracks, this can be frustrating.)
But I'm not convinced it wasn't a fluke. Unlikely things do happen, and the song is no more or less likely to come up after the last nine repetitions.
If so, then this subjective problem could still be solved simply by slightly disadvantaging the songs or artists that have played recently, so they're less likely to repeat within a short time. iTunes has a similar option, but that does the opposite (making artists more likely to be played in groups).
This might not have much of an impact. For example, I haven't seen the "Google Deutschland" page at google.de for many months now, because I use google.com exclusively. I've tried looking for some comparative usage stats for Google's country domains to check, but I haven't found any (I'm sure they exist though).
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On another note, what precisely is the Belgian court accomplishing through this? And what is Google losing? It has to be significant somehow, otherwise Google wouldn't have refused and the courts wouldn't have threatened them with billions in fines...
If you read The Lord of the Rings again (the book, not the summary of the movie), it will become apparent that Tolkien's style - long scenical descriptions, drifting off into explanations and even vague biblical motives - is present there too. It is less heavy than in the Silmarillion because Lord of the Rings was a book he published, and I'm rather sure Allen & Unwin wouldn't have published a book written in that dry a style, simply because no one would have read it.
But the style is still there in parts. Take this passage:
So passed the sword of the Barrow-downs, work of Westernesse. But glad would he have been to know its fate who wrought it slowly long ago in the North-kingdom when the Dunedain were young, and chief among their foes was the dread realm of Angmar and its sorcerer king. No other blade, not though mightier hands had wielded it, would have dealt that foe a wound so bitter, cleaving the undead flesh, breaking the spell that knit his unseen sinews to his will.
And then read this:
But Túrin they laid in a high mound where he had fallen, and the shards of Gurthang were set beside him. And when all was done, and the minstrels of Elves and Men had made lament, telling of the valour of Turambar and the beauty of Níniel, a great grey stone was brought and set upon the mound; and the Men of Brethil call it Talbor, the Standing Stone, and thereon the Elves carved in the Runes of Doriath: Túrin Turambar Dagnir Glaurunga.
And then say again that these are not by the same author. If anything, Tolkien's creative genius shines through more strongly in his posthumous work, which didn't need to be heavily edited to appeal to a popular audience.
Yes, by using contrasting colors that convert to the same tone in grayscale. A side effect being that most such technologies also shut out colorblind people...
Can't tell if you were being funny, but RAF in this case refers to the Red Army Fraction, a terrorist group in Germany during the Cold War.
A security guard at our school (in Germany, where we're more used to the latter meaning) introduced himself as having served in the Royal Air Force. We had a few "omg commie terrorist" laughs.
It's news because by some bizarre stupidity of various real media outlets (including BBC), the original Browzar story was pushed far more than it should have been. When it comes to disguised malware, it is among the top contenders for the positive publicity it gained before being busted.
Although anyone who read the first article in depth should have stopped after this section:
Browzar is an "Internet Explorer shell". This is a program that sits on top of Internet Explorer (IE) to change the look of Microsoft's web browser and some of its functions.
Some versions of IE have had security flaws that can leave computers open to attack by viruses and worms. Browzar does not claim to protect against these.
That really tells you everything. So does the fact that people (and not just computer illiterates) took up the story and spread it in spite of that. Looks like a RTFA problem.
The "rule by majority" concept would hold if there were no standard to follow. There is. And as long as there is a correct way to write HTML or XHTML, there is no reason to test web pages by opening it in every browser in existence.
I test my pages against the validator, and for good measure check in Firefox whether it looks the way I wanted it to. This isn't "snubbing IE" either - most of the time, IE still renders the page passably. The problem with IE is not so much that it renders correct mark-up badly, but that it is unpredictable when in "quirks mode" (which is often, since few designers care about valid markup).
But Wikimedia is the foundation that owns Wikipedia. MediaWiki is the name of the software it uses.
A wiki is simply any system that allows free editing and complete archiving of edit histories, and is neither necessarily an encyclopedia, nor run by Wikimedia, nor powered by MediaWiki.
Good example, but vandalism is pretty well covered by the system already. It is easy to detect and easy to repair. The biggest danger to Wikipedia's quality are claims that aren't easy to verify, usually concerned with specialized fields that few people are familiar with. The best argument for account registration is not to keep out deliberate troublemakers, but to make it easier to trace factual statements to the one who made them and ask followup questions for references or credentials.
If a scientific article is amended with a certain statement, it would be useful to have a user name attached to that edit, so the user can be asked to clarify where the information is from and what credibility the source has. An IP address is not so easy to contact.
"how can they be sure that "GnuFlash" can play ALL the flash files the same as how the Macromedia player can."
I tend to be suspicious about closed standards and the "compatibility" reason given for it. If it were in Macromedia's interest for the Open Source community to develop a GNU flash player that "can play ALL Flash files", then they should just hand out the specification and tell them to go ahead.
It's not like OS developers can't be trusted to comply with standards. It's in the developers' own interest to make their player compliant (and keep it updated), because they have no competition to lock out, but plenty of people to convert.
Isn't it more likely that the standards remain closed (and the development of a new player prohibited) in order to retain control of the player and the media? I don't blame them since they produce a passable player themselves, and don't spike it with malware or security flaws. But this explanation really sounds more like an excuse.
Slashdot Mirror
This comment was spectacularly stupid. The only possible response is: "Bill Gates was caught speeding once. People who use Windows are a traffic hazard."
Or WTFs.
If only the first URL in the conversation is blocked, that'd explain it. The way to reliably test this would be to check a whole bunch of URLs, some (as opposed to just the first) of which are Youtube addresses. But it's possible the test was already conducted like that.
Also, since it appears to have stopped: I don't advocate tinfoil hats normally, but did Yahoo stealth-remove it once people caught on? It sounds unlikely, but still.
Looking back, I probably should have read the article to its end before posting, seeing as that is exactly the conclusion it ends with.
With a non-iPod mp3 player. It's played the same song 3-4 times in a row on occasion. (Combined with the unfortunate fact that the "shuffle" only works when actually waiting for the song to end, not when switching through tracks, this can be frustrating.)
But I'm not convinced it wasn't a fluke. Unlikely things do happen, and the song is no more or less likely to come up after the last nine repetitions.
If so, then this subjective problem could still be solved simply by slightly disadvantaging the songs or artists that have played recently, so they're less likely to repeat within a short time. iTunes has a similar option, but that does the opposite (making artists more likely to be played in groups).
This might not have much of an impact. For example, I haven't seen the "Google Deutschland" page at google.de for many months now, because I use google.com exclusively. I've tried looking for some comparative usage stats for Google's country domains to check, but I haven't found any (I'm sure they exist though).
---
On another note, what precisely is the Belgian court accomplishing through this? And what is Google losing? It has to be significant somehow, otherwise Google wouldn't have refused and the courts wouldn't have threatened them with billions in fines...
But the style is still there in parts. Take this passage:
And then read this:
And then say again that these are not by the same author. If anything, Tolkien's creative genius shines through more strongly in his posthumous work, which didn't need to be heavily edited to appeal to a popular audience.
"Wizards of OS" isn't a translation blooper, though. That's verbatim from the original text; it's a deliberate pun, awful or not.
We make a lot of those here. >_
But by switchng to Gecko, Microsoft could save a bunch of money on their car insurance.
Sorry.
So if you've got one, here's your cue: "How is C# like Creationism?"
Stingray...
Aren't you mixing up different Steves here?
Amazing use of filler text...
Aptly named, then. Will cause quite a headache for any OS programmers working on it.
Yes, by using contrasting colors that convert to the same tone in grayscale. A side effect being that most such technologies also shut out colorblind people...
Given that Ogg Vorbis is open, I am sure that a lot of good players exist for Linux, and most of them are free.
For Windows and Mac, there is iTunes, which is free and will play Ogg when provided with the right Codec (I use this).
Can't tell if you were being funny, but RAF in this case refers to the Red Army Fraction, a terrorist group in Germany during the Cold War.
A security guard at our school (in Germany, where we're more used to the latter meaning) introduced himself as having served in the Royal Air Force. We had a few "omg commie terrorist" laughs.
Although anyone who read the first article in depth should have stopped after this section:
That really tells you everything. So does the fact that people (and not just computer illiterates) took up the story and spread it in spite of that. Looks like a RTFA problem.
In that case, at least the Linux port might work as advertised.
The "rule by majority" concept would hold if there were no standard to follow. There is. And as long as there is a correct way to write HTML or XHTML, there is no reason to test web pages by opening it in every browser in existence.
I test my pages against the validator, and for good measure check in Firefox whether it looks the way I wanted it to. This isn't "snubbing IE" either - most of the time, IE still renders the page passably. The problem with IE is not so much that it renders correct mark-up badly, but that it is unpredictable when in "quirks mode" (which is often, since few designers care about valid markup).
But Wikimedia is the foundation that owns Wikipedia. MediaWiki is the name of the software it uses.
A wiki is simply any system that allows free editing and complete archiving of edit histories, and is neither necessarily an encyclopedia, nor run by Wikimedia, nor powered by MediaWiki.
End of nitpick.
Clerical as in "clerk" or "clergy"? An unintentional double-entendre, I'm sure, but it was intelligently designed nonetheless.
Yes, it is not [i]always[/i] easy to detect vandalism.
Can't find it - not even its removal in the edit history of the last month or so. ...or do I need to give my sarcasm-meter another kick?
Good example, but vandalism is pretty well covered by the system already. It is easy to detect and easy to repair. The biggest danger to Wikipedia's quality are claims that aren't easy to verify, usually concerned with specialized fields that few people are familiar with. The best argument for account registration is not to keep out deliberate troublemakers, but to make it easier to trace factual statements to the one who made them and ask followup questions for references or credentials.
If a scientific article is amended with a certain statement, it would be useful to have a user name attached to that edit, so the user can be asked to clarify where the information is from and what credibility the source has. An IP address is not so easy to contact.
"how can they be sure that "GnuFlash" can play ALL the flash files the same as how the Macromedia player can."
I tend to be suspicious about closed standards and the "compatibility" reason given for it. If it were in Macromedia's interest for the Open Source community to develop a GNU flash player that "can play ALL Flash files", then they should just hand out the specification and tell them to go ahead.
It's not like OS developers can't be trusted to comply with standards. It's in the developers' own interest to make their player compliant (and keep it updated), because they have no competition to lock out, but plenty of people to convert.
Isn't it more likely that the standards remain closed (and the development of a new player prohibited) in order to retain control of the player and the media? I don't blame them since they produce a passable player themselves, and don't spike it with malware or security flaws. But this explanation really sounds more like an excuse.