Which most certainly was anti-Microsoft tripe of the sort Slashdot loves to post. The headline in the Slashdot article is the lie this guy told, which sadly worked.
Slashdot's credibility absolutely has decreased over the years because of this, and so it may want to read the above quoted sentence and take some lessons from it itself to ensure it avoids ever heading the same way.
Slashdot never had any credibility to lose. Editors are chosen based on some completely random factor I haven't yet determined (in kdawson's case, it was foaming-mouth hatred of Microsoft combined with willingness to spread lies, for example.) It's not like they're coming from the New York Times, or even journalism school for that matter.
The editors don't check crap. In an article I submitted and Slashdot published, they actually made my summary *less* clear by moving link text around. I can only assume they do that with most other articles as well.
The only credibility on this site is in the comments section, and in there you have to pick and choose who you believe is most credible.
Oh and if you haven't been following, the main cause of problems was (partially) that their tool was comparing committed bytes against physical bytes. The problem is that memory is committed against the pagefile, not physical memory... therefore it's quite possible for my computer to have:
4 GB total physical RAM 4 GB committed 3 GB available physical RAM
Via his tool, my computer would show up as memory 100% full, paging like mad. In reality, it's not paging at all. The only reasonable conclusion you can draw from that data is that my pagefile is at least 7 GB large.
Their tool was also measuring Page Ins as a stat, without realizing that memory-mapped files will trigger Page Ins even if they're already in memory. As happens with, for example, every.exe file you run, since Windows memory-maps those first thing.
The guy claims to love Windows NT, but he sure loves to slander it... oh well.
He still refuses to admit his performance tool doesn't take into account Superfetch, and therefore the story about Windows 7 computers unnecessarily swapping was complete trash. You should see the twisting of words required to keep his tool's numbers plausible--
I think in the latest iteration of crap-slinging he's claiming that Superfetch is a bad idea because the best computer will have a tiny cache which contains only what it needs. Which is true I suppose... for your magical mind-reading computer... but here in the real world, a larger cache is better since your computer has no idea which bit of data it will need next.
During this, it's also come out that the analytics data sent by his tool is sent un-encrypted over port 80, and can be linked to the individual computer that sent it.
You are absolutely correct, one cannot comment unless one has traveled the mile in the local shoes. However, two things stand out. First, even the imminent collapse of a bridge does not mean that taxpayer, perhaps federal, can forfeit their right to due diligence. Taxpayers deserve a fully explored plan. If that means studies and whatnot delay it, then so be it.
They already have a fully explored and approved plan. Hell, it's already been explored for a decade. The problem is groups throwing hissyfit at the last minute, which is exactly what's happening in this case.
In the case of MS, there seems to alternatives within 10 miles that can support traffic in the '520' went away.
Wow, so you spent 3 minutes on Google Earth, great.
Now actually get in your car and try driving on I-90 during rush hour. (I-90 being the other bridge you're referring to.) *Both* bridges are needed, and *both* bridges are congested beyond belief already. There's no way that I-90 could take the load of 520 traffic without bringing the entire region to a standstill.
Sure it would be a hassle, but not the end of the world. I myself have to make a 5 mile detour right now due to such issues.
We're not talking about a 5-minute detour, we're talking about rerouting tens of thousands of cars either onto an already above-capacity bridge, or a hours-long detour over roads not designed to take the excess traffic.
Second, I wonder why MS did not enumerate the other people that are dependent on the bridge. For instance, why didn't the ad state that there were 5000 MS employees and x other persons. Is it because only MS needs this bridge?
Microsoft placed the ad because its in their own interest to do so. I'm sorry you disagree with their wording, but, well, they paid for it-- sorry they didn't ask you to approve the copy first!
In any case, the target of the ad (people who live in the Seattle area) already know how much traffic is on the 520 bridge. We're not zooming in on Google Earth, we're living it.
I am not saying that MS should pay for the bridge, but if the taxpayers are paying for a bridge to MS specification, then it seems a lot like the recent wall street bailout.
Microsoft's trying to get the goddamned government to break ground on the bridge. It's not designed to "their specifications" anymore than anybody else's. They're trying to stop the incessant delays, save taxpayer dollars, and mitigate the safety concerns of an overtaxed floating bridge whose replacement is a decade late already!
In any case, it's undoubtedly illegal for Microsoft to build their own bridge and attempt to hook it into the public highway system. I don't know why you'd even suggest that possibility.
Bingo. Basically, the bridge is at the point where it can be sunk by a storm... when that happens, not only will they have *no choice* in replacing it, but it'll cause the entire region to grind to a standstill. There's only one other bridge across the lake, but both bridges are cram-packed during rush hour now, so that other bridge can't take the additional cars.
Like everything in Seattle, getting infrastructure improvements *done* is nearly impossible. I don't know why it's so hard here, but man it really cheeses me off. Even building projects that are required to *preserve human life* are impossible. The damned Alaska Way Viaduct isn't going to get replaced until after it's killed a hundred people in the next earthquake at this rate.
Lomborg doesn't deny ACC. He's not a critic of its existence, he's a critic of policies enacted to combat it. He supports, and heavily relies on, much of the data from the IPCC report.
I really wish people would bother to look into this issue more rather than immediately knee-jerk Lomborg as a "denier" based on the Slashdot summary.
What people don't get is that Lomborg doesn't disagree with the IPCC at all (except for the stuff that's obviously crap, like the 2035 glacier claim.)
His argument isn't that climate change isn't happening, or that it's not caused by humans.
His argument is that spending money combating climate change isn't worthwhile, compared to other things we could be spending money on. See his example in the rebuttal about the farmers living at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro, who would be much better served by a program to buy seed or combat the spread of STDs than any program designed to combat climate change.
I'm not through the rebuttal yet, but Lomborg is doing very, very well so far.
My only issue is with this section:
Friel's problem with context
Friel also has a tendency to take quotes out of context. For example, when he criticizes me for using what he apparently regards as unduly upbeat statistics about illiteracy in the Third World, here's how he presents his case:
Lomborg...wrote that "women still do not have the same access to education, and this is also reflected in the higher illiteracy rate, which at 21 percent is almost double that of men at 12 percent." Lomborg supports this assertion by referencing it to a 1998 UNESCO document--"Gender- Sensitive Education Statistics and Indicators"--that cannot be found using the Lomborg-provided URL or document title. However, a 1997 UNESCO document with a nearly identical title--"Gender Sensitive Education Statistics and Indicators: A Practical Guide"--reports that the illiteracy rate in the developing world in 1995 was 38 percent among women and 21 percent among men, not the 21 percent among women and 12 percent among men that Lomborg reported. [p. 55]
It is, of course, a general problem of the Internet that some web pages eventually become unavailable. But the real problem here is that Friel has plucked the quote he attacks out of context. Here it is along with the sentence that immediately precedes it. (TSE, p. 81, emphasis added):...illiteracy in the developing world has fallen from about 75 percent for the people born in the early part of the 1900s to below 20 percent among the young of today. However, women still do not have the same access to education, and this is also reflected in the higher illiteracy rate, which at 21 percent is almost double that of men at 12 percent.
Clearly, I am talking here about young people, whose illiteracy rate is much lower than the population as a whole, while Friel is quoting estimates for the average population. Of course the figures don't match up.
It wasn't clear to me that he was talking about young people based on the excerpt from the book. I mean, it's clear the preceding sentence was referring to young people, but not the next one.
Every other point in the rebuttal I think is beyond doubt.
For full disclosure: I've read much of The Skeptical Environmentalist, but I didn't get all the way through the book because (frankly) it's so dry and boring. I have no doubt of Lomborg's ability, though, and in this case I think he's clearly in the right.
I'd also like to see the "value based on resources" applied to real estate.
A house built with identical labor, energy, and raw materials at the side of a lake is worth more than one in a valley. I wonder how they rectify this situation, or if they just fall back to the "what people pay for it" explanation.
Lex Luthor is the hero, selflessly fighting a continual battle against a super-powerful alien invader. Heck, he even was elected President once, showing that he has the consent and approval of the people in his battle.
Superman comics are more interesting when read that way.
The thing that bugs me most about comics is their ANCIENT distribution model. The high event in comics blogging is the monthly release of the Diamond catalog.
The only exposure DC and Marvel have outside the local comics shop (if you're lucky enough to even have one) is trade paperbacks that usually end up in bookstores-- of course, they don't bother printing trade paperbacks of most of their material in the first place. Marvel pulls nasty tricks, too, like printing a trade paperback of a popular series, but then *only* offering it for sale in the local comics shop... WTF Marvel!?
Hell, it's 2010, and it's still hard to find comic issues at reputable online retailers-- why!? Amazon was founded on printed material, it offers subscriptions to tons of products, why can't I go on Amazon and buy me a year's worth of Detective Comics? Where's the sense in that?
Marvel has made some in-roads here, and their online viewer is adequate. It's just boggles the mind that it took *this* long for comics to embrace technology, long after every other medium had already done it. It boggles the mind.
The only thing it implies is that there's more to "the American Way" than there is to the combination of "Truth and Justice." Of course they never really spell-out exactly what "the American Way" is... but your criticism here is just weird.
Car analogy: if I say, "cars, motorcycles, and motor vehicles" am I implying that cars are not motor vehicles?
If you watch the original animated shorts, they stick pretty close to the "jumping really high" idea. There are a few scenes that are a little iffy (changing direction in mid-air), and one really iffy incident with a magnetically-attracted asteroid, but-- it's a cartoon, right? You can't expect perfect continuity. The comics writers might have gotten the idea for flight from this, but I very much doubt the animators ever threw up their hands and said, "hell with it! let's just make him fly!!"
(Hell, in Superfriends, sometimes *Batman* could fly due to lazy animators.)
What's really interesting about the original animated series is that Superman: 1) Kills people with some regularity (or, at least, refuses to save them) 2) Is actually pretty defeat-able. I mean, sure he's bulletproof, but there are several shorts where ordinary gangsters almost defeat him in various ways. In one short, they almost suffocate him with gas grenades as he's saving a train. Gas grenades! Even in the late 90s when they toned his power level down to "sane" levels for the Superman animated series, he wouldn't be affected by gas grenades.
The Shoveler: Oh yeah, well, maybe if we had a billionaire benefactor like Lance Hunt, then we could afford some advertising. Mr. Furious: I think that's because Lance Hunt is Captain Amazing. Blue Raja: Oh, here we go. Shoveler: Oh, don't start that again! Lance Hunt wears glasses. Captain Amazing doesn't wear glasses. Mr. Furious: He takes them off when he transforms. Shoveler: That doesn't make any sense. He wouldn't be able to see!
Saying "why concern yourself with Canadian health care when the costs are hidden by taxes" is a completely fallacious argument. Please stop trying to make that anything that it isn't.
I agree it's a fallacious argument.
But Wrath0fb0b never said that. Nor did I.
You're the first person to bring it up. You put words into Wrath0fb0b's mouth, got upset at the words you placed there, then started flaming away. Flaming him based on something you made up.
On the Morse decision: SCOTUS ruled that the school could regulate the students speech because it was an "official school event."
Yah, and it was a bullshit ruling. The poster was on a public sidewalk, it wasn't on school-owned property-- I think by definition, there can not be an "official school event" on property not owned or rented by the school. Unless this particular city had an ordinance against holding up "bong hits 4 Jesus" posters on public land, there was nothing wrong with what the stupid was doing. On the contrary, he should have been celebrated for understanding and exercising his rights.
Slashdot Mirror
It seems to encourage comma splices, too!
/ grammar nazi, sorry
This whole affair started with this article: http://tech.slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&type=story&sid=10/02/18/0429258
Which most certainly was anti-Microsoft tripe of the sort Slashdot loves to post. The headline in the Slashdot article is the lie this guy told, which sadly worked.
Slashdot's credibility absolutely has decreased over the years because of this, and so it may want to read the above quoted sentence and take some lessons from it itself to ensure it avoids ever heading the same way.
Slashdot never had any credibility to lose. Editors are chosen based on some completely random factor I haven't yet determined (in kdawson's case, it was foaming-mouth hatred of Microsoft combined with willingness to spread lies, for example.) It's not like they're coming from the New York Times, or even journalism school for that matter.
The editors don't check crap. In an article I submitted and Slashdot published, they actually made my summary *less* clear by moving link text around. I can only assume they do that with most other articles as well.
The only credibility on this site is in the comments section, and in there you have to pick and choose who you believe is most credible.
Oh and if you haven't been following, the main cause of problems was (partially) that their tool was comparing committed bytes against physical bytes. The problem is that memory is committed against the pagefile, not physical memory... therefore it's quite possible for my computer to have:
4 GB total physical RAM
4 GB committed
3 GB available physical RAM
Via his tool, my computer would show up as memory 100% full, paging like mad. In reality, it's not paging at all. The only reasonable conclusion you can draw from that data is that my pagefile is at least 7 GB large.
Their tool was also measuring Page Ins as a stat, without realizing that memory-mapped files will trigger Page Ins even if they're already in memory. As happens with, for example, every .exe file you run, since Windows memory-maps those first thing.
The guy claims to love Windows NT, but he sure loves to slander it... oh well.
He still refuses to admit his performance tool doesn't take into account Superfetch, and therefore the story about Windows 7 computers unnecessarily swapping was complete trash. You should see the twisting of words required to keep his tool's numbers plausible--
I think in the latest iteration of crap-slinging he's claiming that Superfetch is a bad idea because the best computer will have a tiny cache which contains only what it needs. Which is true I suppose... for your magical mind-reading computer... but here in the real world, a larger cache is better since your computer has no idea which bit of data it will need next.
During this, it's also come out that the analytics data sent by his tool is sent un-encrypted over port 80, and can be linked to the individual computer that sent it.
Total scumbag.
You never realized that you can learn a lot from a dummy?
(Actually, I'm not sure if the NHTSA put on those PSAs or someone else did. Still, until recently they had a daily presence on TV.)
I think you're a word.
You are absolutely correct, one cannot comment unless one has traveled the mile in the local shoes. However, two things stand out. First, even the imminent collapse of a bridge does not mean that taxpayer, perhaps federal, can forfeit their right to due diligence. Taxpayers deserve a fully explored plan. If that means studies and whatnot delay it, then so be it.
They already have a fully explored and approved plan. Hell, it's already been explored for a decade. The problem is groups throwing hissyfit at the last minute, which is exactly what's happening in this case.
In the case of MS, there seems to alternatives within 10 miles that can support traffic in the '520' went away.
Wow, so you spent 3 minutes on Google Earth, great.
Now actually get in your car and try driving on I-90 during rush hour. (I-90 being the other bridge you're referring to.) *Both* bridges are needed, and *both* bridges are congested beyond belief already. There's no way that I-90 could take the load of 520 traffic without bringing the entire region to a standstill.
Sure it would be a hassle, but not the end of the world. I myself have to make a 5 mile detour right now due to such issues.
We're not talking about a 5-minute detour, we're talking about rerouting tens of thousands of cars either onto an already above-capacity bridge, or a hours-long detour over roads not designed to take the excess traffic.
Second, I wonder why MS did not enumerate the other people that are dependent on the bridge. For instance, why didn't the ad state that there were 5000 MS employees and x other persons. Is it because only MS needs this bridge?
Microsoft placed the ad because its in their own interest to do so. I'm sorry you disagree with their wording, but, well, they paid for it-- sorry they didn't ask you to approve the copy first!
In any case, the target of the ad (people who live in the Seattle area) already know how much traffic is on the 520 bridge. We're not zooming in on Google Earth, we're living it.
I am not saying that MS should pay for the bridge, but if the taxpayers are paying for a bridge to MS specification, then it seems a lot like the recent wall street bailout.
Microsoft's trying to get the goddamned government to break ground on the bridge. It's not designed to "their specifications" anymore than anybody else's. They're trying to stop the incessant delays, save taxpayer dollars, and mitigate the safety concerns of an overtaxed floating bridge whose replacement is a decade late already!
In any case, it's undoubtedly illegal for Microsoft to build their own bridge and attempt to hook it into the public highway system. I don't know why you'd even suggest that possibility.
Bingo. Basically, the bridge is at the point where it can be sunk by a storm... when that happens, not only will they have *no choice* in replacing it, but it'll cause the entire region to grind to a standstill. There's only one other bridge across the lake, but both bridges are cram-packed during rush hour now, so that other bridge can't take the additional cars.
Like everything in Seattle, getting infrastructure improvements *done* is nearly impossible. I don't know why it's so hard here, but man it really cheeses me off. Even building projects that are required to *preserve human life* are impossible. The damned Alaska Way Viaduct isn't going to get replaced until after it's killed a hundred people in the next earthquake at this rate.
It comes with all the software you would ever want and you don't even have to pay for it.
I want to make Gantt charts, you insensitive bastard.
Eat Smeat!
http://smeat.net/sightings/waterworld3.jpg
Lomborg doesn't deny ACC. He's not a critic of its existence, he's a critic of policies enacted to combat it. He supports, and heavily relies on, much of the data from the IPCC report.
I really wish people would bother to look into this issue more rather than immediately knee-jerk Lomborg as a "denier" based on the Slashdot summary.
What people don't get is that Lomborg doesn't disagree with the IPCC at all (except for the stuff that's obviously crap, like the 2035 glacier claim.)
His argument isn't that climate change isn't happening, or that it's not caused by humans.
His argument is that spending money combating climate change isn't worthwhile, compared to other things we could be spending money on. See his example in the rebuttal about the farmers living at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro, who would be much better served by a program to buy seed or combat the spread of STDs than any program designed to combat climate change.
I'm not through the rebuttal yet, but Lomborg is doing very, very well so far.
My only issue is with this section:
It wasn't clear to me that he was talking about young people based on the excerpt from the book. I mean, it's clear the preceding sentence was referring to young people, but not the next one.
Every other point in the rebuttal I think is beyond doubt.
For full disclosure: I've read much of The Skeptical Environmentalist, but I didn't get all the way through the book because (frankly) it's so dry and boring. I have no doubt of Lomborg's ability, though, and in this case I think he's clearly in the right.
Halo 2 is one of my favorite games ever.
True, I didn't care much for Halo 3... but I think it's a long stretch to say Halo 2 sucked.
I'd also like to see the "value based on resources" applied to real estate.
A house built with identical labor, energy, and raw materials at the side of a lake is worth more than one in a valley. I wonder how they rectify this situation, or if they just fall back to the "what people pay for it" explanation.
You misunderstand.
Lex Luthor is the hero, selflessly fighting a continual battle against a super-powerful alien invader. Heck, he even was elected President once, showing that he has the consent and approval of the people in his battle.
Superman comics are more interesting when read that way.
The thing that bugs me most about comics is their ANCIENT distribution model. The high event in comics blogging is the monthly release of the Diamond catalog.
The only exposure DC and Marvel have outside the local comics shop (if you're lucky enough to even have one) is trade paperbacks that usually end up in bookstores-- of course, they don't bother printing trade paperbacks of most of their material in the first place. Marvel pulls nasty tricks, too, like printing a trade paperback of a popular series, but then *only* offering it for sale in the local comics shop... WTF Marvel!?
Hell, it's 2010, and it's still hard to find comic issues at reputable online retailers-- why!? Amazon was founded on printed material, it offers subscriptions to tons of products, why can't I go on Amazon and buy me a year's worth of Detective Comics? Where's the sense in that?
Marvel has made some in-roads here, and their online viewer is adequate. It's just boggles the mind that it took *this* long for comics to embrace technology, long after every other medium had already done it. It boggles the mind.
The only thing it implies is that there's more to "the American Way" than there is to the combination of "Truth and Justice." Of course they never really spell-out exactly what "the American Way" is... but your criticism here is just weird.
Car analogy: if I say, "cars, motorcycles, and motor vehicles" am I implying that cars are not motor vehicles?
If you watch the original animated shorts, they stick pretty close to the "jumping really high" idea. There are a few scenes that are a little iffy (changing direction in mid-air), and one really iffy incident with a magnetically-attracted asteroid, but-- it's a cartoon, right? You can't expect perfect continuity. The comics writers might have gotten the idea for flight from this, but I very much doubt the animators ever threw up their hands and said, "hell with it! let's just make him fly!!"
(Hell, in Superfriends, sometimes *Batman* could fly due to lazy animators.)
What's really interesting about the original animated series is that Superman:
1) Kills people with some regularity (or, at least, refuses to save them)
2) Is actually pretty defeat-able. I mean, sure he's bulletproof, but there are several shorts where ordinary gangsters almost defeat him in various ways. In one short, they almost suffocate him with gas grenades as he's saving a train. Gas grenades! Even in the late 90s when they toned his power level down to "sane" levels for the Superman animated series, he wouldn't be affected by gas grenades.
The Shoveler: Oh yeah, well, maybe if we had a billionaire benefactor like Lance Hunt, then we could afford some advertising.
Mr. Furious: I think that's because Lance Hunt is Captain Amazing.
Blue Raja: Oh, here we go.
Shoveler: Oh, don't start that again! Lance Hunt wears glasses. Captain Amazing doesn't wear glasses.
Mr. Furious: He takes them off when he transforms.
Shoveler: That doesn't make any sense. He wouldn't be able to see!
So Activision is being sued because they put "patent pending" on a product that doesn't actually have a patent pending. Ok, with you so far.
But then the summary adds this:
The patents in question seem to be legitimately Guitar Hero-oriented, and little is to be found about the mysterious group.
If there are patents in question, then ... why are they being sued? Either they have pending patents or they don't, right?
Saying "why concern yourself with Canadian health care when the costs are hidden by taxes" is a completely fallacious argument. Please stop trying to make that anything that it isn't.
I agree it's a fallacious argument.
But Wrath0fb0b never said that. Nor did I.
You're the first person to bring it up. You put words into Wrath0fb0b's mouth, got upset at the words you placed there, then started flaming away. Flaming him based on something you made up.
So please die in a fire. Thank you.
He created a straw man thusly: "People who say health care in canada costs $100 a month are wrong,
That part he said.
therefore there is no point in saying that Canada has a less expensive health care system."
That part was pulled out of your ass. He never said or implied that, you made it up.
On the Morse decision: SCOTUS ruled that the school could regulate the students speech because it was an "official school event."
Yah, and it was a bullshit ruling. The poster was on a public sidewalk, it wasn't on school-owned property-- I think by definition, there can not be an "official school event" on property not owned or rented by the school. Unless this particular city had an ordinance against holding up "bong hits 4 Jesus" posters on public land, there was nothing wrong with what the stupid was doing. On the contrary, he should have been celebrated for understanding and exercising his rights.