Nah, it's not that we believed it, but it's a deep flaw in how "news" is presented - it's "vertical" - Today's Story is Today's Story, with comments, etc.
Then X time later when a followup like this one comes along, it takes a bit of work to find the earlier story we knew felt bogus.
I have no programming skills, so I can't do it, but I've long envisioned to have a "horizontal" news site where some original story goes on the left, in this case the news is specifically the portion of the sale news where the Yahoo execs claimed to leave it all alone, maybe with the addenda of the Colbert story three days ago etc.
Then when the "real result" follows up, it goes on the right side, to directly compare two news stories at a point in time to make extra clear the mis-truths that we apparently have a blind spot for. (Let's put aside layout details where three stories combine etc.)
You can have multi-part followups. This links back to the Snowden stuff too. On the left is the agencies claiming "we only look at directly implicated calls of non-citizens...", and the right side says "NSA admits they do 3-hop deep taps past their initial target."
It hits the national political side too. "I promise not to do X and Y and Z" and the right side of those promises links the direct course-reversals of those promises.
Kinda drifting of topic, but "Nerval's Lobster" is/related to Slashdot BizInt guys, so anytime you see that handle, and it's increasing, it's another effect of the Dice takeover.
Hmm, go a bit easy on the frustrated comments of people who might be looking at a change of major!
I'm right in line of all this. High School science was different. It's hard to say, but it was "fundamental" enough. If you grow up prowling around the pop-sci section of a bookstore, it's not delusional to think "well gee, maybe I'll study science". So I made it through Freshman year in college still kinda enthused.
Then over summer break I got hold of discard-copies of old versions of the textbooks and collapsed. The combination of Calculus and Organic Chem (and then beyond!) sunk me. Plus I suk at anything spatial involving curves. But the un-sung third point is that I didn't want to spend nine months in a lab recording tedious results and then produce one crispy little paper, and then do it all over again.
So I went back as a business major. I'm clever, but most of y'all here are brighter than this ol' humanities bird. But also it felt "Closer to the ground". Pay a bill in AP. Close a Monthly period. Post Stuff to a contract. "Stuff" gets "done" and it sticks.
MS has been the desktop Meta-Game for decades, so if in fact they officially folded, aka the entire Windows empire is officially lame duck, *that* would go all Hurricane Sandy all over the IT world!
Borders lost the "chicken bluff game" and folded "early".
But this site is semi specialized in Int. Prop. issues, yet you know what? Now it seems *both* big chains had all the cash in the world, but couldn't get Print On Demand to work?! That would completely eat Amazon's lunch!
The stuff on the shelves would just be the starter samplers, to get you quick access to the classics in each section. But then make say 70% (non-oversized etc) of the inventory Print On Demand. I'd wait up to an hour - that's easy to burn browing, or dinner, or whatever. With a little work you can get it down to 15 minutes.
But no. If you think IP rights for music is bad, the media houses have successfully blocked POD from happening for reasons known only to them.
The tech is there - *three years ago* I got some sample POD books in Harvard Square bookstore. Yes they didn't have the cover art rights. But the paperbacks were as solid as any tome printed the old way.
So now I'm just grumpy because we're getting tangled into the e-reader device mess that seems to be becoming strip-mined real fast.
Hey gang, we really might be morphing into "Web 3.0" in whichever of many things that means.
We're starting to enter the age of the Law Meta-Game.
Google does their fair share of morally complex things, but they haven't been called "stupid" very often.
So *because it's Google* and not some two-guys-and-a-garage operation, they're not so easy to shove in a corner. Even at the rate that lawyer fees rise, if some "typical" (as the cynics would say) "travesty of justice" occurred, that then becomes a hell of a Meta-Game news article.
"Google: We wanted to report on secret govt data requests. Govt said no."
You/they don't file motions like that "out of boredom on a Tuesday". They have the money to submit the motion and all the bells and whistles. So this might be the first of many kinds of steps it takes to slowly begin to roll back the Big Brother Engine. Not a lot, but they're helping to drag it into the sunlight where such scampery things don't like to be.
We put men on the moon in 1969 and it "almost killed us". Why isn't anyone tapping into Moore's Law for the moon? The MoonBase is the next "leap" in the process. That requires capability - but of a different kind. By now the math should be cake. Materials durability, etc is the next easiest part.
The *really scary* part is how we manage our "Terrorist Meme" when something like a MoonBase has to be protected! And no, don't tell me a MoonBase is "hard" - just haul a big rectangular metal/whatever allow box up there and plunk it down. Voila. Instant Moonbase. Then you can have a staging zone for all kinds of fun stuff.
But it's the social aspect that we have to really get a grip on, and I believe it will take some "doing stuff" for the social-political flashpoint to show up in actual conversation.
Submission trolls cost U.S. Slashdot readers 29 billion minutes in 2013 alone. My solution? Make it easier for low quality submissions to be re-examined and rejected by the Slashdot Firehose! : )
"There's nothing to "believe" in when it comes to science (it works either way)"
I *strongly* disagree!
Science "sorta" works. What you have to decide to believe at any particular moment is whether the "sciencey" stuff presented to you in fact is "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth". An immensely important example is the case of two overlapping diagnoses coupled with compound problems, plus "local" hygiene problems at that particular hospital.
So you the patient go in sick, complaining of a stomach ache, a fever, body aches, and a busted leg cut from a game of barbecue-football. You also just happen to have allergies to nuts and shellfish. So in a comedy of mash-science, the doctor gets all confused and scrambles the three separate correct diagnoses needed, gives you a ham sandwich on "12 grain bread" (that happens to contain little bits of nuts" made on the same table as a tuna sandwich for the next patient, and then was too tired to wash his hands properly and you get complication from your already infected leg.
Or you could just sit at home and "pray for a miracle to get better".
What exactly is "maintaining"? I've spent nothing on "Maintaining" my PC for some six years. And you can buy four PC's for that fee. And you can get a techie at $20 an hour for five hours a month every other month, so call it $500 per year. (Skipping currency games.)
Really, for once the court seems to have a backbone. (Only once?)
It of course makes no sense that you can have a pile of papers and "edible looking items" in your car, and those are protected, but then there's your phone over there in the corner, "yay, it's electronic so the consitution doesn't apply!"
I share your skepticism, and I'm waiting for someone with enough clout to bust them at their game.
Maybe it's an honest effort, but with a site specifically designed for juicy info, "selling out the source" is all the rage these days, whether it's in fact the paper or if they F*k it up and Anonymous does it for them.
Because they like the current state of affairs. In a sense it's "sorta not that hard" of a problem, but they benefit from the current weak environment.
I bet any couple of guys in these companies know who does what, but they can carefully keep them separate from "corporate knowledge" and play dumb. For example, using the (I know, imperfect) Ghostery, in twelve seconds it gives you the list of all *seventeen* trackers on a typical page of IT World, but I bet 10 out of 12 PR reps couldn't name the complete list off the top of their heads. (But you know ONE of them can, because that's how they got there at all, see?)
Meanwhile "not responding to emails about privacy"?! Really?! Again They/We don't want to know. All you have to do is call "any company that doesn't disclose all privacy info to be aiding child kidnapping terrorists upon threat of subpoena by perjury subject to independent audit" and Boom! Here comes your info!
Yeah, I admit I use Ghostery as an intermediate step. I got to like their organized layout, and haven't put in the 20 hours to really nail down a pure replacement. For me it's important not just to block junk, but to know *who was there in the first place* (and then block them!) I have learned a lot about which "magazine sites" etc use more or less trackers from Ghostery. It's taught me a lot. So no, not perfect at all, but not bad for a beginner to the topic.
So start by giving us a list of who the top leaders of the Justice Party are.
What is "CT"? Is this a Connecticut State party?
Then since you are working on your "Platform 2.0", give us your latest 1.x series platform so we know how far you got before you decided to ask for opinions! No need for us to rehash old hat if you've already agreed on something!
Good Politics is about information. So let's have it! Lots of it! As in, about 50 pages of it! (Think that's a lot? That's just 5 pages on each of ten hot Tech topics!)
I know, insert prelim apology for sounding "arrogant" etc. Then let's thrash out a theory.
"I've been trying to fix this for 12 years." When something takes 12 years to get better at, there's hidden factors at play.
Suppose you try a thought experiment. Imagine one of your recent projects. So you get to the stage of the "estimate" (really some kind of pre-pre-pre estimate!) and imagine what you were thinking when you worked it out.
Then try to pin down at least a couple of the "oh my gawd" moments when the whole thing exploded. Clarify a little why that particular moment didn't work.
So as part of the thought experiment, the next time you get a project, make THREE estimates. (Feel free to add a couple of bonus ones). The first is private and not told to anyone. *Because you just throw an "insane" chunk of time on top of it*. Go wild! Three month project? Whee! Let's pretend it takes two years! And lo and behold, it came in at 10 months. Yay! You were "under your estimate!" That's your first private estimate - throwing so much time that it's designed to *not go over, with NO penalties*.
So then the second one should perhaps also be private - the one that made you *think* (wish?) it was three months. But that one will be too short, for all the reasons you said you've struggled in 12 years.
Then your third one is to build in contingencies for "nightmares" - "I don't know what it is yet but something awful will go wrong here."
1. Identity Fail. "An anonymous reader writes "I am the Technology Manager of the Justice Party..." Really?! For me you sunk your chances right there. Politics is about promoting yourself and hoping no bad $hit from your past sticks too badly. (Because there IS some, it's only a question of relativity!)
So "Anonymous Reader", for a party I've never heard of? Nope. Go away. I won't even begin to (oh wait, I am) open the can of worms on authenticity security for... wait for it... the *Technology Manager*... of a party?! Sales guys, I get. Tech Manager? Oh dear gawd.
2. Too F#$%$% Sick of "Hidden One Way Flow" data-slurps in politics. You want all our notes, but you won't stand to even log a Slashdot Username to respond to replies? And this for a *political party*? Screw that. I'll dignify you by saying you're not a complete fabrication by site Mgt. Let's assume you are real. Why So Sneaky?
They don't, but chops to you for heading towards a "managed" situation in politics.
It's a weird line they are following - on one hand if they bomb the masses with enough ads, they get their votes. In another way, they have got to be deathly afraid if the masses actually start coordinating votes. I could go on for 3,000 words but I'll stay short in this post. The basic point is, for the first time ever, Social Media can Coordinate votes to counter the advantage politicians have had of close access in the Capitol for a hundred years. Right now there's no platform for it. But so help us when there is, this grand Pres cycle will be a WHOLE NEW game.
However, Non-GAAP is a fishy way to begin anything. Sure, a few things might go unscathed, but those rules got there for a few reasons, so companies going all fancy must have something in mind.
Slashdot Mirror
Nah, it's not that we believed it, but it's a deep flaw in how "news" is presented - it's "vertical" - Today's Story is Today's Story, with comments, etc.
Then X time later when a followup like this one comes along, it takes a bit of work to find the earlier story we knew felt bogus.
I have no programming skills, so I can't do it, but I've long envisioned to have a "horizontal" news site where some original story goes on the left, in this case the news is specifically the portion of the sale news where the Yahoo execs claimed to leave it all alone, maybe with the addenda of the Colbert story three days ago etc.
Then when the "real result" follows up, it goes on the right side, to directly compare two news stories at a point in time to make extra clear the mis-truths that we apparently have a blind spot for. (Let's put aside layout details where three stories combine etc.)
You can have multi-part followups. This links back to the Snowden stuff too. On the left is the agencies claiming "we only look at directly implicated calls of non-citizens ...", and the right side says "NSA admits they do 3-hop deep taps past their initial target."
It hits the national political side too. "I promise not to do X and Y and Z" and the right side of those promises links the direct course-reversals of those promises.
Kinda drifting of topic, but "Nerval's Lobster" is/related to Slashdot BizInt guys, so anytime you see that handle, and it's increasing, it's another effect of the Dice takeover.
Hmm, go a bit easy on the frustrated comments of people who might be looking at a change of major!
I'm right in line of all this. High School science was different. It's hard to say, but it was "fundamental" enough. If you grow up prowling around the pop-sci section of a bookstore, it's not delusional to think "well gee, maybe I'll study science". So I made it through Freshman year in college still kinda enthused.
Then over summer break I got hold of discard-copies of old versions of the textbooks and collapsed. The combination of Calculus and Organic Chem (and then beyond!) sunk me. Plus I suk at anything spatial involving curves. But the un-sung third point is that I didn't want to spend nine months in a lab recording tedious results and then produce one crispy little paper, and then do it all over again.
So I went back as a business major. I'm clever, but most of y'all here are brighter than this ol' humanities bird. But also it felt "Closer to the ground". Pay a bill in AP. Close a Monthly period. Post Stuff to a contract. "Stuff" gets "done" and it sticks.
Actually, I think you are right.
MS has been the desktop Meta-Game for decades, so if in fact they officially folded, aka the entire Windows empire is officially lame duck, *that* would go all Hurricane Sandy all over the IT world!
I did a search of the thread for VGER and got no hits.
Where did all the nerds on this site go?
Okay, let's see...
Borders lost the "chicken bluff game" and folded "early".
But this site is semi specialized in Int. Prop. issues, yet you know what? Now it seems *both* big chains had all the cash in the world, but couldn't get Print On Demand to work?! That would completely eat Amazon's lunch!
The stuff on the shelves would just be the starter samplers, to get you quick access to the classics in each section. But then make say 70% (non-oversized etc) of the inventory Print On Demand. I'd wait up to an hour - that's easy to burn browing, or dinner, or whatever. With a little work you can get it down to 15 minutes.
But no. If you think IP rights for music is bad, the media houses have successfully blocked POD from happening for reasons known only to them.
The tech is there - *three years ago* I got some sample POD books in Harvard Square bookstore. Yes they didn't have the cover art rights. But the paperbacks were as solid as any tome printed the old way.
So now I'm just grumpy because we're getting tangled into the e-reader device mess that seems to be becoming strip-mined real fast.
Hey gang, we really might be morphing into "Web 3.0" in whichever of many things that means.
We're starting to enter the age of the Law Meta-Game.
Google does their fair share of morally complex things, but they haven't been called "stupid" very often.
So *because it's Google* and not some two-guys-and-a-garage operation, they're not so easy to shove in a corner. Even at the rate that lawyer fees rise, if some "typical" (as the cynics would say) "travesty of justice" occurred, that then becomes a hell of a Meta-Game news article.
"Google: We wanted to report on secret govt data requests. Govt said no."
You/they don't file motions like that "out of boredom on a Tuesday". They have the money to submit the motion and all the bells and whistles. So this might be the first of many kinds of steps it takes to slowly begin to roll back the Big Brother Engine. Not a lot, but they're helping to drag it into the sunlight where such scampery things don't like to be.
Yes it does.
We put men on the moon in 1969 and it "almost killed us". Why isn't anyone tapping into Moore's Law for the moon? The MoonBase is the next "leap" in the process. That requires capability - but of a different kind. By now the math should be cake. Materials durability, etc is the next easiest part.
The *really scary* part is how we manage our "Terrorist Meme" when something like a MoonBase has to be protected! And no, don't tell me a MoonBase is "hard" - just haul a big rectangular metal/whatever allow box up there and plunk it down. Voila. Instant Moonbase. Then you can have a staging zone for all kinds of fun stuff.
But it's the social aspect that we have to really get a grip on, and I believe it will take some "doing stuff" for the social-political flashpoint to show up in actual conversation.
A little three person project?!
I'll wait until someone with real money decides to properly fund something.
Submission trolls cost U.S. Slashdot readers 29 billion minutes in 2013 alone. My solution? Make it easier for low quality submissions to be re-examined and rejected by the Slashdot Firehose! : )
"There's nothing to "believe" in when it comes to science (it works either way)"
I *strongly* disagree!
Science "sorta" works. What you have to decide to believe at any particular moment is whether the "sciencey" stuff presented to you in fact is "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth". An immensely important example is the case of two overlapping diagnoses coupled with compound problems, plus "local" hygiene problems at that particular hospital.
So you the patient go in sick, complaining of a stomach ache, a fever, body aches, and a busted leg cut from a game of barbecue-football. You also just happen to have allergies to nuts and shellfish. So in a comedy of mash-science, the doctor gets all confused and scrambles the three separate correct diagnoses needed, gives you a ham sandwich on "12 grain bread" (that happens to contain little bits of nuts" made on the same table as a tuna sandwich for the next patient, and then was too tired to wash his hands properly and you get complication from your already infected leg.
Or you could just sit at home and "pray for a miracle to get better".
What exactly is "maintaining"? I've spent nothing on "Maintaining" my PC for some six years. And you can buy four PC's for that fee. And you can get a techie at $20 an hour for five hours a month every other month, so call it $500 per year. (Skipping currency games.)
So can we all have a piece of that slush fund?
Really, for once the court seems to have a backbone. (Only once?)
It of course makes no sense that you can have a pile of papers and "edible looking items" in your car, and those are protected, but then there's your phone over there in the corner, "yay, it's electronic so the consitution doesn't apply!"
I share your skepticism, and I'm waiting for someone with enough clout to bust them at their game.
Maybe it's an honest effort, but with a site specifically designed for juicy info, "selling out the source" is all the rage these days, whether it's in fact the paper or if they F*k it up and Anonymous does it for them.
Sorry, the Buy More was a fictional store in the TV Series Chuck.
So you can't do that either. But you can Purchase More if you like!
Because they like the current state of affairs. In a sense it's "sorta not that hard" of a problem, but they benefit from the current weak environment.
I bet any couple of guys in these companies know who does what, but they can carefully keep them separate from "corporate knowledge" and play dumb. For example, using the (I know, imperfect) Ghostery, in twelve seconds it gives you the list of all *seventeen* trackers on a typical page of IT World, but I bet 10 out of 12 PR reps couldn't name the complete list off the top of their heads. (But you know ONE of them can, because that's how they got there at all, see?)
Meanwhile "not responding to emails about privacy"?! Really?! Again They/We don't want to know. All you have to do is call "any company that doesn't disclose all privacy info to be aiding child kidnapping terrorists upon threat of subpoena by perjury subject to independent audit" and Boom! Here comes your info!
Yeah, I admit I use Ghostery as an intermediate step. I got to like their organized layout, and haven't put in the 20 hours to really nail down a pure replacement. For me it's important not just to block junk, but to know *who was there in the first place* (and then block them!) I have learned a lot about which "magazine sites" etc use more or less trackers from Ghostery. It's taught me a lot. So no, not perfect at all, but not bad for a beginner to the topic.
So start by giving us a list of who the top leaders of the Justice Party are.
What is "CT"? Is this a Connecticut State party?
Then since you are working on your "Platform 2.0", give us your latest 1.x series platform so we know how far you got before you decided to ask for opinions! No need for us to rehash old hat if you've already agreed on something!
Good Politics is about information. So let's have it! Lots of it! As in, about 50 pages of it!
(Think that's a lot? That's just 5 pages on each of ten hot Tech topics!)
I know, insert prelim apology for sounding "arrogant" etc. Then let's thrash out a theory.
"I've been trying to fix this for 12 years." When something takes 12 years to get better at, there's hidden factors at play.
Suppose you try a thought experiment. Imagine one of your recent projects. So you get to the stage of the "estimate" (really some kind of pre-pre-pre estimate!) and imagine what you were thinking when you worked it out.
Then try to pin down at least a couple of the "oh my gawd" moments when the whole thing exploded. Clarify a little why that particular moment didn't work.
So as part of the thought experiment, the next time you get a project, make THREE estimates. (Feel free to add a couple of bonus ones). The first is private and not told to anyone. *Because you just throw an "insane" chunk of time on top of it*. Go wild! Three month project? Whee! Let's pretend it takes two years! And lo and behold, it came in at 10 months. Yay! You were "under your estimate!" That's your first private estimate - throwing so much time that it's designed to *not go over, with NO penalties*.
So then the second one should perhaps also be private - the one that made you *think* (wish?) it was three months. But that one will be too short, for all the reasons you said you've struggled in 12 years.
Then your third one is to build in contingencies for "nightmares" - "I don't know what it is yet but something awful will go wrong here."
I know I am a little too far down, but here goes.
1. Identity Fail.
"An anonymous reader writes "I am the Technology Manager of the Justice Party..."
Really?! For me you sunk your chances right there. Politics is about promoting yourself and hoping no bad $hit from your past sticks too badly. (Because there IS some, it's only a question of relativity!)
So "Anonymous Reader", for a party I've never heard of? Nope. Go away. I won't even begin to (oh wait, I am) open the can of worms on authenticity security for ... wait for it ... the *Technology Manager*... of a party?! Sales guys, I get. Tech Manager? Oh dear gawd.
2. Too F#$%$% Sick of "Hidden One Way Flow" data-slurps in politics. You want all our notes, but you won't stand to even log a Slashdot Username to respond to replies? And this for a *political party*? Screw that. I'll dignify you by saying you're not a complete fabrication by site Mgt. Let's assume you are real. Why So Sneaky?
Bye Bye.
It's not just you, but I wouldn't slander the Kids!
(Have we forgotten that meme that fast, that all the cyber bills are For The Kids?!)
They are mouthing off, but not kids - some kind of weird way they think the "mood is right" and they can get away with it.
Any 3 of these 10 stories would have been career enders Back In The Day.
But there's some kind of magic going on - they can say *absolutely anything* and still keep their elected posts.
They don't, but chops to you for heading towards a "managed" situation in politics.
It's a weird line they are following - on one hand if they bomb the masses with enough ads, they get their votes. In another way, they have got to be deathly afraid if the masses actually start coordinating votes. I could go on for 3,000 words but I'll stay short in this post. The basic point is, for the first time ever, Social Media can Coordinate votes to counter the advantage politicians have had of close access in the Capitol for a hundred years. Right now there's no platform for it. But so help us when there is, this grand Pres cycle will be a WHOLE NEW game.
Heh I'll reply to you. Yeah, this one is a pretty bad mis-step.
I won't even use logic because that's too hard for this person. Let's stay at the Pre-logic level that the dev. psychologists say works for children.
Age 14. Really?! SO many things wrong with that age metaphor. Let's try to keep it obvious.
14 year olds can't vote.
So what are they doing, brainwashing their older brothers and sisters?!
However, Non-GAAP is a fishy way to begin anything. Sure, a few things might go unscathed, but those rules got there for a few reasons, so companies going all fancy must have something in mind.
But also amazing Slashdot rarely gets Insiders to set records straight.