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Naww, they're kind of still here, except in Ron Paul form. Last I heard the RP liberty bot was downvoting distractors to -5 from a blacklist of people who have criticized Saint Paul.
My pet theory is that the forces of barbarism (Modern Moguls) exist everywhere and once they overwhelm something that thing is destroyed. In the modern world traditional conservatives are the barbarians and they're always clamoring at the gate. They tore down Digg, have invaded slashdot, and are working on reddit. The second the social conservatives, religious, lassiez-faire, and jingoistic chickenhawks turn the front page into Rush Limbaugh online, its all over. At that point, the real smarties will find a new digital home until the next invasion. Beta smarties like myself will follow them there.
Heck, reddit is like a candy bar to me. Its fun a and stupid waste of time. For smart discussions I visit ycombinators hacker news or the Ars Technica forums, with the occasional dash of Metafilter. I could see myself giving up on this place and just going there for my internet fix pretty soon. |
Facebook and twitter do share content though.. they just aren't setup exactly like digg and reddit were. I don't know exactly how facebook works, but I know that you "like" things to spread them and make them popular. Twitter lets you link things you find interesting, they're just both a bit more personal because you have to follow the specific people. |
Don't know the validity of the evidence of this post I read the original article that discusses the tactics, and while I cannot directly link these tactics to my own experiences as I believe many of these tactics are done by regular users whether they realize it or not.
The most violent or angering comments I have received have been on websites such as DemocracyNow when they had a livestream chat. There were 2 or 3 people (Many believed it was one person) that would troll constantly and destroy any conversation on Progressive issues. They did this for months on a daily basis.
On Reddit I think really the only problems I had were violent comments when I made comments that would question the wars. I posted a comment onto one picture specifically of a fallen soldier not blaming the soldier, but going against the government that sent him there to die, and that people should not just blindly say fallen hero because that term is used to justify the war. In response I had one particular commenter who told me to kill myself more than once, and if I remember correctly that he would kill me. There was no arguing my position, but a clear attempt to trigger a violent or angry response. |
Can someone explain why we're able to focus on an LED pixel that's an inch from our face, but we wouldn't be able to focus on an LCD pixel at the same distance?
Try this: take a pair of sunglasses, and put a dot on it with something. Then focus on the dot. You may be able to comfortably, but now everything behind the dot, i.e. the world through the glasses is blurry. Now reverse the process, and focus on something a meter or more away from you. The dot fades from your vision, and you have an area in your vision that is slightly darker than the rest. |
I found out about him randomly searching the internet back when I was busy not attending classes at University. I totally thought he was awesome and would rave about the guy and then the Prestige came out and I was all like glee its the guy I've been randomly gushing about. I literally got goosebumps when I realized the character was visiting Tesla. |
Yes, we may live in a world like that, but we also live in a world where intuition and genius is awarded. Tesla was wronged, and we're trying to make a right. Please, if you're not going to be nice about it, at least just move on to the hundreds of other Reddits that are on this site. |
Linux needs more commercial grade software, like Photoshop or CAD stuff to make people who need these applications for work switch. I think fragmentation of Linux is really hurting it in the long run. Just for desktop managers you have Gnome 2 (+MATE), Gnome 3 (+Gnome shell +Cinnamon +Unity), KDE from the most popular variants, and you have to support EACH ONE of them, let's not forget about some less popular choices like Xfce or LXDE, which also have to work. Moving on to audio, you have ALSA, you have Pulseaudio, but OSS has to be supported too for backwards compatibility, oh also you have JACK and other stuff. Every possible combination of these toolkits/libraries/drivers gives your applications more opportunities to screw up. Sure, you have ton of abstraction layers so that you can write for only one interface, but still it's just a timebomb waiting to explode once you install KDE 1.666 and add some GTK2.532523 application.
I think Ubuntu really had it going until they forced Unity upon us. Gnome is a joke with their touch based interfaces. For me the best interface at the moment is pure MATE or Linux Mint MATE with the Start menu. Cinnamon would be usable too except it's just slow, MATE reacts almost instantly without any crap animations.
Remember Windows Vista and their funny window switching animations? No one really uses that, but Linux people got butthurt and started showing off what "their OS" can do, with window switching on a cube or whatever. Does anyone use it for normal day-to-day work? No, but a lot of manpower (which is limited on Linux, which is after all very non-commercial and voluntary work) was wasted on showing off what their system can do. Same thing I see now - Windows 8 was announced with their tablet/phone like interface, and all major Linux distros (except Mint, which at least pretends to have some common sense) jumped ship to their new tablet/phone like interfaces just to keep up with Windows8. Unfortunately, I think it's better to stick to your own ideas rather than play forever keepup with your rival. I was showing Gnome Shell to my Windows7 friend, and what he said was "Meh, why would I install that if I can just install Windows 8 and have almost the same interface and be sure that all my apps and hardware works out-of-box?". |
I think that the plot is too subtle. One message I got from the film: It is very easy for (religious) extremists to masquerade as scientists, particularly when they have convinced themselves that they are scientists. This is a great danger for science: extremists are increasingly taking a "if you can't beat them, join them" attitude, and posing as legitimate researchers to further their causes. This is especially dangerous as "scientist" becomes more and more of a job title and less of a vocation, and the bar for "earning" a PhD is lowered further and further. |
Apple does cross licensing as well. The reason the Samsung shit has exploded like it has is because Samsung refused to Apple's cross license offer.
Microsoft and Apple signed a cross license regarding phones, they let Microsoft use all of their patents with the rule "just don't be a iPhone clone" they listened and WP7 is unique and great. Apple also got cross licenses which I think they use in iOS now, such as accessing the camera from the lock screen, think Microsoft holds that patent but the cross license allows them to use each others tech.
ANYWAYS the |
Actual patent attorney here. This is a very common misconception about patents, but isn't the way the system actually works.
The way the patent system actually functions, patents do protect ideas, not actual products. The confusion here is with what the law states versus the actual requirements and outcomes under the law. (Also, with a few limited exceptions, modern patent law has never required that you actually have a working product. This is just [wrong](
There are several doctrines that ostensibly deal with this in patent law: Usefulness, Written Description/Enablement, and (until the latest patent reform act) Best Mode. These get pretty complex, but I will give a very brief overview of why the actual implementation of these rules does not prevent the patenting of ideas:
[Utility]( Basically this requirement just means that the idea has to actually do something. Practically, the bar is extremely low. You generally only worry about utility with drugs or gene sequences - I have to prove that I actually know of a use for the drug/sequence that I am trying to patent.
Enablement/Written Description . The most important point here is that the actual patent can cover an area much broader than the version explained in the patent. You literally just have to explain any possible way that your invention could work.
Best Mode of implementing the idea in their patent while keeping an actually useful way of implementing the idea a secret.
Example: I know very little about aeronautics, and couldn't build an airplane to save my life; however, if I was the first person to think of a swept airplane wing, it would likely only take me a few hours of research to come up with enough detail to write the patent. Furthermore, I would probably be able to meet the Enablement requirement simply by saying something to the effect of: "mount a wing on a pivot perpendicular to the face of the wing actuated by a stepper motor. The stepper motor is controlled by a sensor measuring relative air speed."
Based on this description, I could plausibly patent the (extremely broad) ideas of a "wing on a pivot" and the idea of "sweeping a wing based on air speed." As long as an ordinary aeronautics engineer could get my description to work on any plane in any way, it is sufficient for a patent - even if nobody in their right mind would ever practically design a swept wing this way. Best Mode would not come in to play here, because this is the best way I know of making a swept wing work - it doesn't matter that it is practically useless and there are a million better ways to make it work out.
So what BornAgainNewsTroll says below is basically true - in most cases if you pass novelty and obviousness, you are going to get a patent. |
While I understand the need for patents in other fields, I do not think that it should apply to software. There are many reason for this:
Software is mathematical in nature.
Many of the descriptions for software patents are either vague and can be applied too broadly and applicable where it is not originally intended, or they are overly precise and be applied so narrowly as to be of no use. With software there are many ways of arriving at the same solution, or there are many slight modifications that can have a drastically different end result.
Software patents are rarely used to protect ideas, rather they are used to gain market share or add a competitor as a revenue source. It seems to me the money is shifted pointlessly between companies over claims, and that it would be in the financial best interest of the companies themselves to support getting rid of software patents.
EDIT: I realize that you cannot patent mathematics, the following example is an "if you could" scenario.
Example: Lets say that you could patent mathematical ideas. Person A patents the idea of "2 + 2," person B patents "1 + 3," and person C patents "a process that results in 4." You can see the issue right away with such a situation. There could be legal grounds for each of these ideas to be separate enough so that each of them are valid, but that they conflict with each other. This is very similar to what is happening in the software world.
I am not a lawyer, so I may be mistaken, but I am under the impression that the goal is stated in the Constitution where it says "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." I think that the code of the software falls under Copyright in the way that the code is written, but that patent law should not be applicable because of the reasons above, among others. |
Yeah, it really is. Everyone wants the dot com, but the dot coms are typically all taken if the name is anything good at all. A dot com domain instantly becomes valuable if the owner finds out somebody wants it even if it's a silly name so usually you have to pay at least 4 figures to get the domain you want. New businesses and startups can't afford that kind of money so it results in them getting something like "startupapp.com" or "thestartup.com" or "getstartup.com" instead, or just go with a .org, .net, or a cleverly named country-code level domain like instagr.am did. |
Because, although a free-market works in theory, it usually fails miserably in practice. The very nature of business is to achieve a monopoly. Although in theory other competition can weed its way in with niche offerings, in reality people will go to the big names they are familiar with.
The above leads to a very difficult to enter market, controlled by a monopoly in which prices are set however the company wishes for products that are needed. It ends up being a 'how high can I raise the price before people stop buying' rather then 'how cheaply can I make a product, with it still being acceptably reliable' - exceptions are few; Though I am sure we can name a few. |
The people that run companies will do what they can to maximize their profit. In the case of the music companies, they found people who write laws which give them long-term and oppressive control over copyright and a court system that's willing to give judgements for copyright violations that exceed that of murder.
Without their friends in government, the music companies could complain all they want and the people could tell them to pound sand. |
Is it just a coincidence that the FCC is now pushing for Free Public Wifi? I mean I actually really love the idea of liberating the Internet and data transfer from profit hungry companies, but wouldn't having the Internet on public airwaves give them the right to censor anything the FCC deems unsuitable?
If anything, it appears the Internet may very well force us to revisit our common concepts of Mind and Body, the nature of Reality, and how we govern in an age where the division between real and virtual is all but disappearing. Thus, also revisiting the basic philosophical foundation of our society: Our Universal Rights. If we are to, as a society, determine cyberspace to be an extension of reality itself, it must be universally available to all, and more importantly, our individual rights must be acknowledged and protected by the highest laws of our land. |
This. Just because they are "small" business doesn't mean they aren't as susceptible to corruption as the "big" business. I'd even hazard a guess that's honestly the primary reason why so many small businesses go bankrupt: not so much the interaction of the big business, so much as it's a compilation of shitty business practices. Last "small business" I worked for, the boss would always stress how "close" we are at weekly meetings of not being able to pay the bills and kept reducing commission (the shop sold guitars and whatnot), yet during the time I worked there he went to Florida once a month (he has family there) and occasionally drove a Winnebago to work. Dude was also a raging alcoholic and had all kinds of unsafe business practices....reusing old florescent bulbs, and ordering folks to break dead ones down in garbage bags so they could be stuffed in guitar boxes and thrown out with the regular trash. That was the last straw for me. |
You clearly have more faith in the efficacy of our law enforcement and judicial systems than I do. Implicit in the idea of being above the law is the ability to evade the law, so it's clearly a part of this conversation. You are correct though, in a very specific fashion, that based on the precise wording used at the start of this comment thread, that we're only discussing whether or not laws apply to the rich, and you're right, they do apply to them. I, however, was replying specifically to what you said, and expressing the opinion that your example is meaningless because the usage of those same defining characteristics, wealth and power, would prevent you from being privy to the same knowledge. I was also pointing out the false equivalency you used between murder and civil rights violations. |
The CFAA is primarily a criminal statute, but it can be used in a civil action for damages under a certain provision.
The original Computer Fraud and Abuses act was passed in 1984 as a "anti-hacking" statute in a very bare bones manner without much substance. In 1986, it was amended for the purpose of including "computer-crimes" which would be defined as "any crime done behind a keyboard." With this amendment, Congress made it punishable to access certain information in the following manners; "Without authorized access", or "exceeding authorized access."
It is presumed that "without authorized access" would cover any person that accesses information in the manner that the statute was originally designed to cover, by "hacking" into a system. "Exceeding authorized access," however, has had a little bit more controversy as far as interpretation goes. "Exceeds authorized access" as defined in the statute means "to access a computer with authorization and to use such access to obtain or alter information in the computer that the accesser is not entitled so to obtain or alter." Right now there has been a split within the courts as to what this means.
The good rulings by the fourth and ninth circuit referenced to in the article take on the interpretation that "exceeding authorized access" means that an employee of a company with a username and password already has authorized access, and in order to exceed that authorized access they must physically "hack" into a portion of the database they are not allowed into. The majority of circuits, about five if I remember correctly, have interpreted "exceeds authorized access" to mean that an employee with a username and password that signs an agreement with the company disallowing them from a certain portion of the database (for instance client information that the employee has no business looking at, or let's say an employee of the IRS decides to look at your tax information) could be punished under the statute. The article makes it seem like this statute is being greatly expanded, however it seems like Congress intends to clarify the meaning of the statute by amending the definition of "exceeds authorized access."
I might not have explained it the best and if you still have any questions about the interpretations of the statute or what this new amendment really means, let me know.
EDIT: |
1) GhostRank is opt-out, not opt-in.
2) The default Ghostery settings are to NOT block anything. All known trackers are whitelisted, the user must notice that and choose to block all.
3) The plugin was originally called "Better Advertising"
I'm a bit shifty about Ghostery for obvious reasons, but I use it anyway since it says it blocks stuff, and it's more convenient than individually whitelisting/blacklisting with NoScript.
BUT I also use (and recommend) [DoNotTrackMe]( another plugin made by MIT engineers that I trust more with being respectful of privacy. Just in case something slips by one but can be caught by the other.
EDIT: I've found that a lot of (2nd party) cookies still get stored while using these plugins, but Firefox allows blocking those too. This can be better than blocking all cookies since so many sites refuse to load until cookies are allowed.
Privacy preferences-->use custom settings for history-->Keep until: (ask me every time)
This way nytimes.com cookies can be allowed (article won't display otherwise), but metrics.nytimes.com can be blocked. |
The primary concern is the business of the ISPs and major companies with whom you interact while you browse or communicate. You can't separate yourself from these things without straight-up changing what you do.
Adding in the shady history of Ghostery (including current monetary incentive) and the fact that the internet has not lacked privacy-enhancing tools for a long time, I must downgrade my initial opinion of the post from "tragically misinformed" to "deliberately misinforming". |
Hey guys, web developer for a small startup and user of one of these user tracking services (mixpanel) here!
We use analytics to track user behaviour inside the app; we know when a user is struggling to complete certain actions and we make adjustments to the development schedule based on the data we get back. It helps us build a more useful app.
Using something like Ghostery is awesome, and in the past I've used similar extensions, but you limit the developers' ability to learn from mistakes and to build something more suited to your needs. Luckily Ghostery has the ability to "switch off" for certain sites, but that still requires some blind trust.
Of note: tracking services that record stuff in javascript are easy to block with things like Ghostery, NoScript, AdblockPlus. However, anybody with enough resources (small startups are not included, by the way) will just pass any user data they can to the server so it can be processed / sent to a tracker without having to go through your browser. |
I wish people would stop using adbock plus. The internet is largely funded by ad revenue. I only half of my total video views on youtube are counted as ad views because people use adblock and mobile devices. I could make twice as much money from my videos. For me this isn't a very big deal, but some people need money from the ads on their websites or youtube videos to pay bills and buy food. |
That only applies in a court which itself is bound by the Rules of Evidence, which the courts in places like Guantanamo are not (not fully--they have abrogated rules in ways not disclosed to the public).
PRISM operates on secret warrants by the FISA court. Data gathered by it may very well be secretly authorized by the FISA court. My point was the Supreme Court could eliminate this loophole in the 4th Amendment and require a publicly acknowledged warrant after a legitimate showing of probable cause -- not what I suspect is passing for probable cause at this stage. |
Sigh*
Fine, I'll calculate the blindingly obvious for you. Let's start with SMS.
160 characters per SMS, tops. About 160 bytes. An off-the-shelf $70 terabyte drive stores 1099511627776 bytes. That's 6,871,947,673 SMS messages. (6.8bn.)
That's 98,170,681 SMS messages per dollar (about 98 million), or to put it another way, it's 1.0 x 10^-8 dollars per SMS.
Let's say an average American sends 1000 SMS per month, or 12000 per year.
That would cost $0.00012 to store.
Let's assume there are 330m Americans. The cost to store all their SMS for a year, at 12000 messages per year per person, is about $40,338.
In Python:
(160 * 12000 * 330000000.0) * (70.0 / (1024*1024*1024*1024.0))
It would probably be considerably cheaper than that (in terms of hard-drives), as
I've given generous estimates
In reality, compression would be highly effective
Many SMS messages are much shorter than 160 characters
I've also assumed
Perfect hard-disk space utilisation in the database using the hard-disks
No redundancy
That a character in an SMS fits exactly into a byte
but even if we octuple the number, it's still spare-change.
NSA budget: at least $10b per year.
Email would be a good deal more data, but a huge number of emails are circulars (i.e. are sent with little modification to many recipients), or include the same boilerplate each time (e.g. Facebook alert emails), so the potential for compression is even greater than with SMS. I imagine storing all attachments would be rather more demanding.
You can get also a good few minutes of phone-calls into a megabyte. |
From a development standpoint, their database is inferior to the competitors and they charge more.
Expensive, yes, but inferior? Not especially. There's a reason at least two thirds of web companies have Oracle deployed somewhere in their organization. As a DBA who's worked with Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL and Postgres (plus some exposure to Hadoop/HBase and Cassandra, which are not traditional RDBMSs), it's pretty rare for Oracle to be the platform missing a useful feature that I want to use to solve a problem. In particular I personally find MySQL to be kind of feature-light, it's missing convenient stuff I use all the time (CHECK constraints, INTERSECT, windowing functions). Nothing show-stopping, but it does mean extra work to do what I need to do.
> From a helpdesk standpoint, supporting Oracle is a nightmare - nothing ever uninstalls fully and there is no easy way to upgrade.
If you have general helpdesk staff doing DBA work, that's the root of your problem right there. I'd say that's true for any of the DB platforms I've worked on. For most people "the database" is a black box. If your application breaks such that non-database people have to go inside the black box, you're gonna have a bad time. I work inside the black box all day (and sometimes on evenings or weekends), it can get messy in here.
Don't get me wrong, there are lots of valid criticisms you can level at Oracle as a company. They are absolutely anticompetitive cockbags, and Larry Ellison is definitely just as crazy as a shithouse rat. Beyond that, I find most companies that pay the Oracle premium don't actually get anywhere close to their money's worth. The Oracle feature set is one of the largest out there, and if you're not using the extra features you might as well be using something else. Many Oracle users would be much better off implementing an open source DB and using the savings on licensing costs to pay for in-house DBAs well-versed in their chosen platform.
Oracle support has become steadily worse over the past decade. I can't remember the last time I actually got useful support from them. Generally if I have to put in a ticket, what happens is I get unhelpful responses from someone who clearly knows a lot less than I do at this point, then I figure out a fix or workaround on my own.
Also from what I've been hearing, Oracle's license negotiation teams are getting increasingly aggressive with most clients. It's clear they're looking to boost license revenues, and they're pissing off a lot of customers in order to do it. I've heard that they've recently switched their licensing from per-CPU to per-core, which could be understandable given CPU trends, except the per-core rates they want add up to a big jump in licensing costs for most customers.
The company I'm working for right now is actively investigating switching from Oracle to EnterpriseDB, which is Postgres with a proprietary Oracle compatibility layer. The up-front cost of such a transition is quite large, but their Oracle licensing fees are large enough that switching would pay for itself within a couple years. If Oracle stays on their current path I think they'll eventually dig their own grave. It'll take a while though, because we're talking about companies transitioning large mission-critical always-on applications between platforms. Any such project entails serious risks, so you won't see companies embarking lightly on such ventures.
Edit: |
Of course such a system is possible. For the most part all of the individual pieces of this system they want have been done before, but separately. For example, detecting that the system is under attack is something that most antivirus software can do, particularly corporate scale and above.
Responding to an attack is somewhat vague. It could mean to inform an IT guy to get on it, or it could mean autonomous retaliation. Both of these are easily done. There is a corporation that sells licenses to the NSA and others for a program it has that basically is a list of 'interesting' computers that the customer may want to hack, and a list of tools known to work on it. You just click the options, load up the data package you want input into the system, then hit go. You would just have to create some logic system for the computer to determine which attack it wanted to do and where to send it.
Modifying its code in real time is not impossible, though it can be difficult. There are programming languages where you can write a program, and part of this program is writing code off to the side, which then compiles and runs before shutting down the current program. However, this doesn't technically fall into the category of real time, but that is largely just a matter of writing the right tools.
They basically want someone to assemble the pieces. |
Quick question, I formated my pc 2 days ago and after installing firefox and shit, cracked was one of the first websites I went to. I didn't even have an antivirus at the moment because I thought the websites I was visiting were trustworthy. It turns out they weren't so, how sould I proceede now? (apart from getting and antivirus, which I am right now) |
Think of it like a drive-by shooting. Something malicious happens in your vicinity that may harm your computer if it's in the path of the bullet. In this case, the vicinity is cracked.com and being in the path of the bullet means running the java plugin while visiting there (prior to them fixing it). Should you have been shot, you need to get an antivirus that can detect and remove the infection. |
Yesterday Chrome warned me after hitting my Reddbit bookmark that "this site has tried to route you to another domain; and basically threw up huge red flags all over the place, saying Reddit was trying to put malicious software on my computer because it was re-directing me to Reddit.
Chrome isnt that trustworthy. |
Windows metro IE, Google Chrome, Firefox, iOS, Android, OSX and Linux users not affected.
The exploit depends on a particular zero-day vulnerability of IE, java and pdf plugins, and is a windows executable. Java and PDF plugins are disabled in metro IE. Chrome and Firefox don't have the vulnerability. And the malware won't execute on iOS, Android, OSX or Linux. |
Thank you for answering those questions.
I've got no clue why Barracuda would try to contact an e-mail address that does not exist. Perhaps it is a 'standard' e-mail address in the industry, or 'support' tends to be the wrong one?? Or it might be human error, I suppose. As a test, I tried to quickly figure out what e-mail address I should e-mail to reach you, and I couldn't find it either. Your front page has an unlimited length, so first I had to find a non-existing page or page that actually ends, then find the 'Contact Us' link.. only to find there's no actual support e-mail listed there. Just a plain dime-a-dozen form. Barracuda should probably have tried using that, but I can't say I'd have had much faith in one of those; they tend to end up as black holes. (That said: I would have used it in this situation, given the lack of other working alternatives.)
I don't think Barracuda is amiss in expecting a simple reply if you have indeed received and read their report. They made a pretty detailed report in their article, so assuming they contacted you with the same information that would have at least been worthy of a thank-you because it helps you find the location of the compromised code really easily. Cuts initial investigation time significantly, imho.
There is a difference between hacking attempts, and successful breaches. All websites, even small ones, get hundreds of scoundrels trying to get in. Most often, these are automated processes trying to use known security flaws in software (public facing management software, a security hole in the CMS, buffer overrun in the webserver, etc) but in your case I have no doubt there's a couple of script kiddies and more seasoned hackers trying your security specifically as well. The actually successful breaches are never something that should go ignored. Serving malware means your enemy was successful. Security is obviously an arms race where your maintenance staff tries to close holes before baddies get to use them, but in the end your security should not depend on 'catching' the baddies. It should depend on preventing future breaches. If you have a known hole in your security that you cannot figure out (based on the 'again' comments), then I completely understand a mindset where you temporarily focus on catching them again and trying to get more information... but that is not a situation that should last any serious amount of time. In the end, you'd want to get a complete audit done, and find out for yourself how the fuck those bastards are getting in.
Informing users is obviously a PR-disaster, but it is also your responsibility. One half will be happy to hear you reach out, another quarter will panic the crap out of themselves with their lack of ability to understand the real threat and the remaining bunch are going to make a huge fuss. Roughly, anyhow. :-) I'd personally approach such a method in two ways: first, an informative e-mail sent out to all users who accept your newsletter, and second, your old regular explaining news article on a relevant section of your site, and third, a small notice bubble (some sort of unique 'You've got mail!' indicator) in the top of the page that is non-intrusive yet noticeable for those who frequent your site on a regular basis. That way, you cover all the bases you can be expected to reach: regular visitors who want to be kept up-to-date, people who actively try to keep track of Cracked information, and hopefully random visitors that notice you are trying to get their attention. Popups are imho not going to get you very far except to piss off users who likely already got the bad information anyway.
Okay, it is good to see those comments put into context. (I'm assuming you speak truth here, so if your words aren't as they appear, I'm sure someone on reddit will shout to correct both of us.) Still, it does worry me, because the way it is phrased implies a certain powerlessness regarding a fix, as if you don't know how to fix it but you think you may have. Most people won't pay attention to the difference between content people and technical support staff, so I personally feel I can't fault Barracuda's kneejerk reaction on this subject. In the future, I'd definitely approach such handson posts from your content staff in a different way: 'Thanks for letting us know and our techies took care of it. If you spot anything in the future, please don't hesitate to shout angrily at us!' would be a form of communication that leaves me a lot more certain as an end-user about your capability to deal with this threat. In the end, when dealing with the public, it is all about communication. |
lol, it's 2013 and it's apparently still socially acceptable for agents to threaten in public that they want to initiate force onto others.
For the ELI5 (Explain Like I'm 5) crowd:
Maybe my company produces a healthier vegan cheese substitute and I can prove how the cheese at a current pizza joint causes obesity. Despite my perhaps good intentions, I am unable to force the private pizza property owner to include my ingredients. You see, in a world free of coercion, you are free to offer potential customers a certain product or service, and they are free to decide whether or not they want to transact with you. If the pizza owner is a wholesaler and wants to distribute his pizzas to a retailer, but a particular retailer says we will not agree to sell your pizza unless you use the vegan cheese, the pizza owner is able to accept or deny the proposed terms, but NOT hire agents on his behalf to threaten force on the retailer. This is called initiation of force. |
At the start I don't think Samsung did anything out of the ordinary, if you contact a manufacturer and say "Hey your device caught on fire, give me a new one" I think its reasonable that they ask for proof that you didn't tamper with the device, I've always been asked for this kind of proof when filing RMA requests.
Additionally, Samsung aren't the only douche bags here, from the story it sounds like this guys response to not being immediately given what he wanted from Samsung was to post an extremely negative and aggressive video of the incident on his youtube channel with a few thousand subscribers. It escalated from there.
I don't think he's wrong to bring up a legitimate safety concern, but I do think he took an overly aggressive stance on situation, and acted somewhat childishly. |
do not worry fellow #nexuswarrior, I am simply redirecting him to the right subreddit to get #rekt for being a samshit. |
I'm tired of seeing this damn story.
I have an S4 as well and when I got it my battery sometimes felt hot (though it may have been because I was outside in 100+ degree summer most of the time) and it didn't hold a charge well. Went back to where I got the phone, they just handed me a new battery and everything has been fine since. The guy even showed me how to "advanced information" in the phone like battery temperature and stuff.
Can we please stop to notice that this kid has had a similar problem with two phones? I think he's doing something wrong or has a bad outlet. Of course the lawyers are going to want to keep this from being a big public thing, but maybe they didn't want people to be misinformed and think that this is common with their phones when it might just be some kid screwing up.
Speaking from an engineering standpoint now, people underestimate how much work goes into electronics. I doubt they would release a phone if they thought this problem could exist (but of course money always wins so it could happen). |
Okay this got down voted in another thread about this subject. And really I don't know why it was down voted because it was a legit concern/question.
From what I hear from this person is that he is using a wall charger. This would have an effect on it because wall chargers routinely charge your phone faster (it's part of there gimmick). Could it be that the wall charger is actually over rated for the phones? Where on paper it makes sense but due to manufacturing of the equipment it comes out of tolerance. Where one piece of equipment is on the higher end of the tolerance and the other is on the lower end... I don't know it's just a theory. But it would be true if was a constant in all of these problem.
Also it could just be from over heating. My phone (SG3) gets pretty hot sometimes. |
False so false. No lawyer worth his salt would consider that move. Lawyers settle it. If the lawyers took over you would never have heard of it.
You settle out of court for replacement cost and burn medical costs make him sign a non-disclosure form (he cant say what they gave him) and stipulate he take the video down. |
A diplomatic and safe option for Samsung would have been something like:
> Hello, we have recently been notified through appropriate channels that you have had problems with the battery in your Galaxy S4 device. Please know that at Samsung, we strive to deliver high quality, high performance, and easily usable products with durability, efficiency, and effectiveness in mind.
>The recent incident with your battery does raise some concerns to us, and we would appreciate that you send us as detailed a log of the events, devices used for charging, and the phone as well. By doing so, we can ascertain the cause of the issue, and apply any appropriate preventative measures if this was indeed a problem on our end.
> Please understand that this incident is, to our knowledge, is an anomaly and therefore this should not be any grounds for worry. As such, we have noticed that you have recently made a video on Youtube detailing your concerns about this video. We would appreciate any updates on your part on the situation, and to notify your viewers that we at Samsung are doing what we can to get to the bottom of the issue. Though this is not mandatory, this would be highly appreciated.
> In the meantime, understanding the importance of your device and the urgency for repair, we are providing another unit free of charge. We urge you that if this problem persists, please do not hesitate to provide us with a log of the events that occurred. We hope that this experience did not dismay you or any of your viewers from considering Samsung for a complete, high-quality, and innovative smartphone experience. We value your input, and thank you for your time.
> Insert important guy's signature here
Not-simple, drenched in semi-legalese, and not a single apology in sight. That's what Samsung should have sent (minus the grammatical and stylistic errors).
The first paragraph opens up a pretty clear advertisement, stating mission statement and focus. The words 'battery in your Galaxy S4' implies the potential for a faulty battery, in case that route occurs, so Samsung could say 'oh it was a faulty battery this is not normal guys'.
The second paragraph gets to the meaty 'we are aware of the situation', but it doesn't utter a single apology. There's no 'we understand' or 'we're sorry', cause that puts the ball in the Youtuber's court. If they said 'we understand', then they're in a worse off bargaining position. If they said 'we're sorry', then it's admitting fault without the process. Throw in all these ifs to save your butt.
Always add the 'to our knowledge', in case if there was someone in the chain who decides to whistle blow or you've got someone snooping around. Hide behind that delicious wall of bureaucracy. On the same end, note the Youtube video, and express concerns, but don't say you're concerned. If you're concerned, it can imply knowledge or implication of failure. By requesting - politely - that you'd like an update, you put the responsibility in the Youtuber's court. If he doesn't update, he looks either lazy or willfully misleading. If he updates, then it fixes whatever problems that might have occurred. Also, it makes it look like you care about his viewers, who may or may not be S4 enthusiasts as well.
The last paragraph should always parrot whatever mission statement there is. Always save your butt on the user's end by asking for detailed logs of what happens, that way if there is no understanding on the source of the issue, you can chalk it up to incomplete logs and do testing without worrying about being hammered for being lazy or malicious. Always thank them for their time. Always, always, always.
But noooooo, Samsung decides that lawyers = marketers. ffs guys |
Well. Lets say you have a mod of a tech subreddit that is seen by over 100 million unique users every month. And lets also say you owned a website dedicated to tech news.
If you could somehow get your website to the front page on that subreddit, say, by being a mod? Then that would be quite beneficial to your ad revenue. |
What about setting up a voting system for Mods? The worlds largest internet democracy!
Reddit admins set up a system where candidates apply to be the mod of a certain sub. On a specific day(or two-three) subscribers of that sub are allowed to vote for the candidate of their choice. To prevent throw-away account voting, only accounts who have completed a certain amount of time or accumulated certain amount of karma are allowed to cast their vote. Sort of like turning of legal voting age in non-internet democracy. |
You make a good point. The question is whether the subreddit content should be directed by the original creator(s) or the user base.
It is very unlikely that the creators of the subreddit will be making all of the submissions.
The subreddit is only successful if the user base is behind it.
This is kind of why subreddits have [meta] threads, so they can discuss the direction of a subreddit. If a prevailing view in such a thread exists, but is ignored as the moderator disagrees then it could lead to problems for that community.
I would argue that whilst communities require founders, once it is established the right to exert control should be with the community. I say this under the belief that the community stands to lose more (worst case scenario - disintegration of the community) if their needs are not met.
The foreseeable problem would be 'what is to stop a subreddit from turning into an undirected mess?' I reckon that the community self-polices. If a user no longer likes the content of the sub-reddit (which the majority favours), they will leave - and thus the community diminishes. In a situation where a moderator has exclusive control over the content and disagrees with the majority of the community (assuming the objecting members then leave) then the community is destroyed. Flipping the situation back round, if the users of /r/peoplecarryingdogs want to see people carrying hot dogs too and elect an appropriate moderator - the community persists and the only previous moderator (that disagreed with the new direction) loses out. |
I'm a bit retarded when it comes to reading articles so, is this good or bad? Can anyone |
I work in the federal government and my area has access to the purse strings. After years of stinginess, we are now flushed with money. The IT system admins and system engineers, after years of working on shoestring budgets, don't seem to understand that we want them to succeed. We ask them: what do you need to make a great system? We can buy hardware and - more importantly - we can now afford boots on the ground (feds and contractor help). But, for the most part, they seem to look into the middle distance and worry about the system being designed currently, without listening to us. WE HAVE MONEY! WE CAN GET RESOURCES! WTF DO YOU NEED?!?! SNAP OUT OF IT. |
Because no net neutrality will make Netflix useless in the US. Netflix loses most of their customer base because no one pays for something they can't use. Netflix goes bankrupt. Now you have to pay Hulu or HBO. |
Yes. If a business which is seen as foreign, against the traditional French economy, or otherwise violating the French status quo starts to get noticed in France, something will be done to stop or hinder it even to the point of propping otherwise failing French firms that might not be modernized, competitive, or viable. France also frequently maneuvers around EU/World trade regulations when their practices are ruled illegal by technically complying, but doing things like assigning only one official to oversee imports of a specific product (which is already regulated to being imported at one port) and thereby creating a massive backlog of products that cannot escape the port, even though they are technically allowing the 'import' of said products. |
You're correct but having the discussion on reddit will just inevitably get the people whining about apps and completely ignoring your point which has nothing to do with them. |
I'd argue MOST power users customize their environment, and if a default hotkey setup steps on that, it can indeed seriously fuckup work flow.
Arguing that new hotkey setups to get at options that were previously easier to get at is a shoddy argument as to say that workflow hasn't changed.
Less customization is good for A LOT of things - there's a lot of things that it is NOT good for though. On that same level, I feel metro UI is GREAT for a lot of things. There's ERP systems now that are using a very similar design, even for windows 7 systems!
I personally have nothing against windows 8, it's awkward when you are set in your ways after working on essentially the same design principle for 15 years. Will it increase work flow in the long run? Probably. For some people though, having their work flow for a month or 2 to adapt can out them a job in competitive sales environments. |
If they made it optional, users wouldn't have had to "get used to it". Now they are still complaining and w want the old OS back, but they can semi operate a metro interface. Which is what Microsoft wanted. Microsoft can now make a metro style desktop system that everyone loves, but still be capable in a tablet and mobile environment. |
Inform the people. Information is key for change, if you do not know something is wrong, you can't fix the underlying problem except by dumb luck.
By releasing the information in the way it has, it has been kept at the very least sitting under the surface. Other countries have actively started to make changes as to prevent foreign spying.
More people are aware of the violation of privacy. Having the conversation about WHY they should be the ones to control who knows what about them, can actually happen, and it can happen with a backdrop of YES someone is spying on you, instead of purely theoretical.
Education, Privacy, Freedom of Speech, Unrestricted communication - 4 fundementals of a successful democracy. And which of the above have been destroyed or whittled away in the past while? 1 - Privacy. 2 - Freedom of Speech (various anti-terror laws), 3 - Unrestricted communication (Network neutrality, more or less open spying on communications of all people and so forth).
How can we say we live in a democracy, and a society that stipulates you are innocent until proven guilty, when every action the government is taking inherently implies that you are suspect of being a criminal.
And the sad truth - I'll bet that you have broken a law without even realizing it was a crime to take an action you did (for example, it is technically illegal in Canada to transport anything other then wine across provincial borders without consent of the provinces liquor control bored... like what, that is a law?). And if you think that is screwed up, that is one of the more sane ones. |
I can perhaps give a tiny bit of context for the textbook rental company, although I still believe these bully tactics around negative reviews are ridiculous.
I work for a company that rents textbooks. We all know what "rent" means, right? You pay a fee, lower than the cost of purchase, to use an item for a specified amount of time. If you don't return said item, you are charged for it.
Every semester I get students arguing that they shouldn't have been charged for not returning a book. 99% of the time I refund that charge, but for those that lost the book I can't. This results in credit card chargebacks and negative reviews when really, people should just take responsibility for their actions. |
Some types of Gen-IV reactors remedy the issue of waste product. They are highly efficient, in that they are able to continually reuse the material until 99% of its energy content has been utilized. The only issue here is that there is nowhere near enough money being allocated for R&D of these reactors, because A) coal and other hydrocarbon energy sources are still cheaper options, and B) there exists an irrational and pervasive public stigma against nuclear energy production.
The irony is that partially because of this fear, existing Gen-II and Gen-III plants are not replaced and do not receive proper upgrades/retrofits. Some of these plants were literally designed in the 1950s and built in the 1960s. For instance, the Fukashima disaster happened because the plant's backup generators were old, decrepit diesel units; which should have been replaced long ago. |
Sure, but given the amount of fuel a plant needs relative to the power output its far greener than most. I mean if you go back to the manufacturing of equipment etc then really nothings green because a large chunk of our grid still runs on non green energy.
>facilities powered by coal
Also no reason they have to be powered by coal. |
Slate: [How to fight back against the lying, infuriating, evil ink-and-toner cabal](
( |
It would seem that, at least for the time being, the devices most of us think of as robots will be relegated to the role of expensive toys. However, there will continue to be a need for automated labor in those fields that are too dangerous for humans or require inhuman levels of strength and precision. There are several fields in which machines excel over organics. Unfortunately the mainstream populace isn't interested in considering these things that robots and other automata already do without that mechanical face that we can partly identify as humanoid.
We've been sold on the idea of humanoid robot servants and the like in both fact . The [recently announced results]( from an '08 poll seem to indicate this was true at the time, and is very likely to still be so.
The robots of the future won't be recognizable as such because they will be so integrated into our technology (and perhaps even ourselves) that they will simply be a part of the way we do things. Printers and mechanical hard drives aren't typically considered robots, but they possess many of the requisite technologies to be considered so by liberal definitions.
Ultimately none of these arguments alludes to a dip in the technological development of the field. Rather the associated technologies will continue to be developed and be most vigorously utilized elsewhere with markedly less visibility than we were hoping to see. |
Promote libertarianism. People need to remove their support of the state and stop legitimizing it with voting and claims that one must involve oneself in the one-sided political process. Be a social activist, not a political one. Recognize their rigged game, where they convince you that their oppression is OK because of "the process" or "democracy," for what it is; show others; and enjoy eroding state power.
Insofar as it is economically sensible for yourself, do as you please whatever "the law" says. Do what you can to support others in doing so and to protect them from state goons. Politics is a game of eternal frustration and grants the state power. Get out of it, and enjoy life knowing that there are some assholes out there who would like to do hurtful things to you and who wear funny uniforms and shout about God and social contracts, but that you're not somehow a part of them and that they have no legitimacy. |
this is a common complaint among many people regarding blind or unguided innovation.
they tend to argue that the proliferation of something without standards makes it worse overall.
in fact the opposite is true. by diversifying the android OS is filling all available niches. do you have customers who want cheap tossers that you spend 1 developer and 3 months on? do they want high priced and fancy graphics? with apple you get neither, you only get one OS, which is higher priced and may have more polish.
This is the reason why apple will be unable to capture a significant portion of the market. they cannot specialize because they are suffering from premature optimization. they have already targeted a market.
these android devices however are able to benefit from more minds and work, which will rapidly drive the level of quality to equal and surpass the apple phone OS (if in some cases they havn't already). the drive is to adopt innovative and ground up innovations driven by actual user needs when developing for android. For apple everything is dictated top down.
this isn't a bad thing when you have a mildly precient CEO (jobs), but he will not be right 100% of the time, and for now marketing clout and momentum have carried them far on this basis. A singular product mistake will cause the devestation of the apple brand (any terrible apple product reflects poorly on all other apple products). with android, most people don't even know that it is what their phone runs! one poor application or OS doesn't reflect on the others.
the lack of change is essentially bad as it leaves apple unable to cope with a market that will move in a different motion compared with its marketing material. no company is greater than the market. |
Person one presses 6.
Person two presses 22.
Person three presses 34.
Elevator opens on floor 6.
Person four enters and presses 22.
Elevator skips floor 22 and goes up to 34.
Person 3 and 4 are pissed. |
Spam, malicious software, link farms, content mills, etc. is what happened. There's so much trash and noise on the internet that Google needs a better way of ranking content. Using your social graph is a very effective way for them to crowd source content curation that is, theoretically, tailored to each user.
I say theoretically because I think the effort is (partially) misguided. People use search to find new content. If they wanted to see what their friends are posting on facebook or twitter, why wouldn't they just visit those sites? It's only useful once you start to include friends of friends of friends and there's still no guarantee that's going to improve search results IMO.
For example, I spend most of my search time looking for programming related content. Guess how many friends or friends of friends or friends of friends of friends are going to be sharing content that's going to improve search results for me? I don't know, but, if I had to guess, I'd say it's close to zero. My social graph won't improve my search experience (if I had a social graph).
Social search sounds nice in theory, but do we really want the cesspool of recycled, trash content that gets liked on facebook to get (search) ranked above everything else? As I see it, I'd have to create a separate online identity and (carefully) recruit the right types of friends (that I don't even know) before social search is going to improve my daily search experience. Even if I do that, most of my 'friends' are probably going to have a stackoverflow account, so why not just skip the web search altogether and go straight to stackoverflow?
I really wish I could create a 'work' profile with Google where I could flag good content I find and be assigned 'friends' based on the number of collisions there are in our flagged content. The 'friend' pairing would have to be automatic and anonymous. I don't want to see these 'friends'. I don't even want to know they exist. I just want to leech their successful searches and I'd be willing to contribute my own successful searches back to the system to make it work. |
The irony of the US government inducing cancer in its citizens even as it spreads propaganda about such machines being necessary to keep everyone safe. If the government really wanted to save lives, then they would use the $$$ for programs known to have a significant public health impact (eg, blood pressure and cancer screening, smoke cessation, etc.) instead of creating a TSA infrastructure which treats the entire population as if it were criminal until proven otherwise. |
That said, unless you’re playing a graphics intensive game or a heavy multimedia application, all four cores likely won’t be active, as they turn on and off depending on the workload. If only one of the main cores is needed, single-core clock speeds can be bumped up to 1.4GHz.
Exactly. Most of the time only a single core is active. Even when you're playing a graphics heavy game, if the game has been coded properly, it'll be using the GPU more--not the CPU. So even then only one core will be active. For multimedia, CPU is barely even used. Most recent chipsets tend to have a dedicated decoding module that does all the work.
I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that if you have a single core CPU with an awesome GPU the results will be almost on par with a quad-core and same GPU (obviously more cores mean something, but results won't be noticeable to user).
Finally, the big thing about this is the shitty 2nd CPU that runs in low power mode. AFAIK, most other chips just lower the clock rate of the main CPU. This might result in better power savings, not sure. |
I'm currently working on a law review article regarding copyright fair use and, while it's not directly about this topic, part of the argument I'm developing seems really relevant here, so I'll just give my quick two cents on that point.
Traditionally, copyright laws are intended to encourage creation by providing incentives to artists, including preventing others from unfairly enriching themselves on the artist's labor. Overly restrictive laws like the ones proposed by the RIAA use this as an excuse but fail to recognize the point entirely. Encouraging creation is a good thing, but not because it allows individuals or private companies to profit. Encouraging creation is good because it is what builds our culture. We want artists to create new and diverse works to grow as a society. Once works are out in public, once they become a part of the shared public experience, they become more than the sum of their parts.
The RIAA fails to see that their arguments are defending only an outdated system. In that interview, Sherman talks about his organization working for the benefit of everyone by doing the work of a talent scout, determining who is worthy of being heard and who isn't. The problem is that he's years too late for that argument to make any sense. Back when audio media was expensive to produce and distribute, that was necessary. Only the people with the most commercial potential got heard because record companies needed to recoup their investment. Now, media has developed eliminating this problem. It's not musicians that are suffering, it's the record companies who, quite frankly, have managed to render themselves obsolete with their unwillingness to change.
We don't need the RIAA as a facilitator of culture creation anymore. Creation is desirable in and of itself; people value the work both for its intrinsic value and what it contributes to our experience. Profitability and commercial appeal simply pale in comparison when it comes to what needs protecting. At this point, the internet is leaps and bounds ahead of the record industry in terms of cultural and societal development. |
I installed it on my primary computer like a moron. Saw a link about it and thought it would be fun to play around with. Then, after I'd had my fun, I went to the FAQ's to figure out how to get Windows 7 back, and lo and behold I couldn't uninstall it. While I'm sure they told me something about not installing it on my primary computer, I can't remember seeing any (that was my mistake)
What I didn't understand was why they made it so impossible to go back to Windows 7 after installing this "Consumer Preview." Even if I shouldn't have done it in the first place, I couldn't believe I would have to wipe my entire computer and re-install Windows 7 to get rid of it. I also had a final in my legal research class the day after I fixed it, but having to cut it that close was such a pain in the ass that I couldn't even study for it. |
Windows isn't Linux. Windows isn't just competing for power users, they're competing with everyday Joes like the dad in this article. A tutorial is appropriate if you're talking about someone who's never used a computer in their life, but if you're talking about an everyday user who knows basically how to get around in a graphical OS, the product should be intuitive enough that they know how to work with it without having to sit through a tutorial teaching them how.
If nothing else, from an "first install" experience standpoint, if you make it seem like work to learn to use the OS, people are just going to uninstall it and go back to what they know. If Microsoft can't figure out how to implement these changes while making their use immediately obvious to the mothers-in-law and granddads of the computer world, it's going to fail miserably. |
Yeah, it's obviously a fucking disaster. I realised in a couple of seconds that they were trying to stuff the phone/tablet UI into a desktop machine, but it's clearly an impediment.
However...
I found out how to turn it all off in a few seconds using google. it's not difficult to do. Once you've got rid of that grid-based menu system it is pretty much just Windows 7 with some tweaks.
Given this, anyone suggesting that this is a dealbreaker or makes Win8 'unusable' is a fucking hopeless crybaby.
This is a very early beta release, so we can't draw any conclusions about the final product just from this.
I would be prepared to bet money that the retail Windows 8 will not have this grid UI as the default, unless it's on a phone or tablet device.
And one last thought
Someone like my mother who has learned to use the internet from her phone, and then her iPad, would find the familiar Windows UI quite intimidating. This grid UI would actually be the fastest way for her to become productive on a Windows PC if she had to. |
So, I've been supporting/selling Windows-based Tablets for almost 10 years. I drank the tablet kool-aid a long time ago and I keep coming back for refills.
I mostly deal with healthcare (nurses, clinicians), inspectors, retail and field sales, building contractors, etc,...
So, on a daily basis, the people I deal with have a specific business-need for a full Windows computer with laptop-grade hardware in a form factor that gives them the option to use it like a laptop, a desktop, in a vehicle or while standing.
Personally, I use some of mine in my tabletop RPG gaming (D&D-type games), some amateur recording, to access my wife's Kindle library and occasionally some TF2 (not great on a 10" screen, but I'll take what I can get). My wife and kids use them to play Facebook games and do homework.
What I tell my friends is if they can do everything they need or want to do with a laptop, then don't bother with a tablet.
I am really glad that the new class of less expensive tablets is attracting more developers. In the long run, it's going to give my business customers access to more software designed for pen and finger input. |
In Activision's case, there was an evolution from MW2 to MW3 with significant improvements while keeping the essence of the experience the same.
(I'm just pointing out the similarities in the structure of logic between the two circumstances)
Please follow me below as I take you through the logic.^ .^.
PREMISE 1 Both MW3 and Windows 7 were reinterpreted versions of an existing object.
PREMISE 2 Reinterpreted versions display characteristics and properties widely agreeable to be unalike to an existing object, yet based upon it.
PREMISE 3 The favorability of the changed characteristics and properties from the derivation of the existing object are a matter of assessment, who's task is taken upon by a figure of intellectual authority on the subject, public consensus, or an individual by matter of personal opinion.
>>>>*CITATION OF LOGICAL FALLACY* There exists no cited poll for which public consensus has been measured on the issue of the favorability of the changed characteristics and properties of the reinterpreted version of an existing object in this case of the two objects (MW3 and Windows 7), nor figure of intellectual authority on the subject as determined by popular opinion.
CONCLUSION The remaining option- the assessment of the favorability of changed characteristics and properties of the the reinterpreted version of an existing object being taken on by an individual by matter of personal opinion- is logically sound.
Do you take issue with any of the premises listed? I feel as though this proves that we are both allowed to assess the favorability of the change ( etc. ). I feel as if both MW3 and Windows 7 showed favorable improvements overall over their predecessors. If you do not agree, then you simply don't have the same assessment as I do, then that will be as it is. |
Because there are many many more computer illiterate users on windows than other OS. That is part of why it's still so popular is that all those computer illiterate people are so used to it. Sit someone who's computer illiterate in front of a Linux, or Apple, operating system and they will likely be confused for some time. Take that same person, and put them in front of a Windows operating system, they will more than likely be able to perform simple things like checking email, composing a document, browsing for files, etc. |
When I bought my first laptop, I was NOT a technical user. I bought a shitty refurbed Gateway on a "knowledgeable" person's recommendation (Comp Engineer major, what a joke). It came with Vista. I grew up mostly on XP, though I can remember back as far as Windows 95 (which I learned to read on).
Vista was a piece of shit. Even I, as a non-technical user, realized it. It was constantly crashing, shit didn't work, one problem after another. My now-fiance, then-boyfriend, installed Win7 Beta on my laptop, dual-boot, to see if I liked it. I used the beta from day 1 and never looked back at Vista. Shortly after I switched to a computing major, and started becoming a technical user.
Fast forward a couple of years. My mom, the most non-technical user in the world ("What the fuck is the start button? What is Windows? How do I email?" etc etc), calls me up one day. Says "I can't connect to the Internet". I'm 1500 miles away at the time, not coming home anytime soon, but I'm a networking major, so I mute the phone, sigh loudly, unmute the phone and start troubleshooting. Eventually I give up on my mom, force her to hand the phone to my younger (but much more computer literate) brother. Continue. Nothing. For the life of me I cannot figure out WHY she can't connect. Everyone else in the house is golden. Router was reset, so can't be someone fucking with the rules I set on it.
A month or so later, I make a trip home for my birthday. My fiance and I (both being networking majors) sit down and start working. The final solution? Popped in a Linux live CD, worked fine. It was fucking Vista, with some bug that was screwing up the computer's ability to connect. We upgraded her to Win7 and she's been fine since. |
OK I'll paint a picture for you:
You're sitting in your office looking at your tablet, perhaps a lolcat or somesuch.
knock knock
"Come!" You call out, and one of your employees enters the office. You lay down the tablet, sit back in your chair and steeple your fingers. "Ah, number one." |
Sounds a bit dubious.
I understand that the mask is supposed to help a person perceive "reality checks" during dreams which occur during REM sleep.
But I don't understand how the mask proposes to sync up with an individual person's REM phase of sleep. The REM phase consists of about a quarter of a person's sleep, and that phase is broken up into smaller amounts, non-uniformly distributed during a sleep cycle. So, for an average 8 hr sleep, about 2 hours are REM sleep and those 2 hours are not a single chunk of time -- they are broken up a bit into 4-5 "peaks" of different times, say, 10 mins for one phase and 45 mins for another phase.
So how would the mask sync up with those staggered bits of REM sleep? What's to stop the mask from turning on those lights during N2 or N3 sleep, and completely missing my REM window?
As I understand the mask, it just works with a timer -- a process which seems to be a bit ... inexact. (Especially given that one night's sleep cycle could be different from another night's.) |
This is the first question we asked when we started working on Remee, and being fact based people we looked for hard data on light based dream signs. Luckily we found it here [LaBerge Study](
The |
Very interesting. I've read up on some stuff, and been practicing for years, but my lucidity tends to come and go (though the difference in the amount of lucid dreams i have now compared to a few years ago is astounding) I read Stephen Larberge's book on lucid dreaming and found it quite informative. Becoming lucid is difficult but there are ways to get there. If something odd happens, i've trained myself to do two "checks" One, i pinch my nose shut and try to breathe. If i can still breathe (with my mouth closed) i'm dreaming. Also, if you wear a digital watch, the face will never stay the same in a dream, so i use those in combination if i'm ever not entirely sure. That being said, i'd love this mask but it won't do anything if you haven't built up your recall. You could be having lucid dreams all night with the mask but if you don't have the discipline to remember them it won't really matter. |
too late, they got $60k out of $35k goal - double what they asked for.
so you can stick your scientific validation. There will be 500 people in the first wave validating if this works or not. |
I didn't comment on the large thread last night, I didn't want to drown on with Verizon hate post. Seeing as there are 3 threads open about this, I really feel the need to basically bitch about Verizon.
I am not going to start out by saying "fuck Verizon" they suck, on the contrary they are the best. That's why their little middle fingers to the costumer base over the years have left me with such distaste for the company. I live in Northern NJ, and have been a Verizon customer for going on 10 plus years. In the tri-state I feel that there is no better network then Verizon's.
However even back in the golden olden days before we carried computers in our pockets and worried about our data. When a lot of us where on the blackberry platform, Verizon's attitude seemed to be "look at all this cutting edge technology, now let me pick and chose what the user can use, so I can nickle and dime them in the most effective way." I am talking about the wifi that was built into devices, that Verizon cut out when they dropped their shit OS on every device. Their EDGE protocol was complete trash. I could not get it in my house, and when I did get it out, it was at a snails pace making my data plan all but useless. Obviously not enough to lose me, but still, bit of a sour taste.
Next was a few months ago... New for every two, an incentive, a thank you for loyalty, remember that, fuck loyalty that's profits being given away. Verizon knew we would bitch, but not leave, we were still getting a discounted price with new contracts and unlimited data, right?!? Well about that unlimited data new customers, can't have that anymore, you guys who have been here, you're good... for now.
And we arrive to where I am today. A droid razr with the lowest talk and sms/mms plan and unlimited data, around $80 a month. All the bullshit Verizon has put me through and all my actionless whining I am still here, on the best network in the area. I never go over on anything, and realistically I use around a gig of data a month, so the current limits would not be a burden me. What is a burden is as a single user with a single device my bill is going up, and I am getting way less. For $20 more a month plus undisclosed fees I get unlimited texts, pics, and calls. Mind you I have never in my 10 years as a customer have gone over, and 1gb of data, let me repeat that 1gb of data. For more money! Sure I could just buy phones at full price, or get a slightly used one on-line, and I may do that, but now, now is the first time i am actually going to shop around in my area. I don't care if I am getting tiered data, I'm okay with that, just give me something as a single use single device user that doesn't feel like I am being shit on for my money, nicked and dimed.
It's great that Verizon can no longer charge you for a feature they once again cut out, like they did years ago with wifi. But in the past regardless of their wireless tethering limitations. With android, at least you could always tether via usb or bluetooth free of charge. Not as convenient as having a mobile wifi hot spot, but a viable work around.
With all that being said I hope user backlash or FCC regulation forces Verizon to develop more reasonable pricing plans for all their consumables to their customers. In a year and a half when my contract is up, I have serious reservations on whether I will continue to be a Verizon customer.
Sorry for the |
I think that it's because so many people have been using it for years. For a long time there wasn't a competitor in that space with the convenience and power of BBM (that I'm aware of). There was just SMS and BBM.
On top of that, we had the 10 digit traditional "phone keyboards" which took an obnoxious amount of time to use (some of us got really good with them though) versus the Blackberry's QWERTY keyboard. The latter obviously being insanely superior to the former.
Today, there's still lots of BBM fans arguably because of the physical keyboard. It's simply far more intuitive to use than a touch screen keyboard. I often lament my Android phones' lack of a physical keyboard. I'm pretty damn fast with the touch screen, but it would sure feel nice to have real buttons. |
Can someone |
Except most lawyers never break $100k, and if they do, not until they're quite senior.
Biglawyers are major exceptions to this. They're probably 5% of lawyers. And the people who end up in shit-pay shit-law are ones from third and fourth tier schools, paying just as much as people at the T14 but with significantly worse prospects. |
Thats what I am assuming the issue is. The VPN should be able to trick the location. I am signed onto my personal account which is for the U.S of A so perhaps that is what is throwing it and not letting me see the foreign pricing.
The billing is my biggest hurdle with my vpn game purchasing. I have been trying to figure out what steam has been doing differently that it doesnt let me purchase via VPN any more. even if I try and pick up something in Ukraine with the USD it will not let me process the transaction. |
Even at a state school, you're still paying at least $34-35k/year. Better than $45-55k/year, but any law school worth a damn (highly ranked) is going to charge the higher prices, and degrees from average law schools aren't worth much these days. The legal market is totally saturated with recent JDs who went to law school in the past 5 years because either 1) they finished undergrad and then had no idea what else to do, and/or 2) the economy was terrible and they couldn't find a decent job, so they said to themselves "Well, I have to be doing something with my time...how about law school?"
The real facts are unless you graduate in the top couple percent of your class from a very good institution, and pass the bar, you're going to find yourself exiting law school with $150,000 in debt without being able to find a good job. No firm cares you graduated from, say, the #80 ranked law school in the USA. There are a load of graduates from more prestigious institutions for them to pick from. Even if you did go to a top 20 or so school, and did really well, there aren't that many 6 figure jobs around- the odds of you getting one aren't very good. $100,000/year sound like a lot of money, until you consider you'll be required to bill 1800-2100 hours a year at that big firm (billing means you are doing work for a client; firms are very strict about this stuff- there will be many hours you are at the office but will not be doing something billable). This is the equivalent of almost 7.5 hours of work per day, 365 days a year. Now consider the social pressures of being an attorney- you're going to feel the need (or be required) to have a very nice expensive looking car (think a new BMW, Audi, etc.), expensive suits, etc. That stuff adds up quickly, and remember that you are also paying $1000+/month in law school debt and possibly more in undergrad debt. Since you'll be working 70-80 hours a week, you're not going to have time to enjoy any of that income anyway. |
Depends A LOT on what school. A degree at a top 14 ranked law school, excellent grades and a BAR admittance and you're practically guaranteed a junior associate job at any big city firm. They'll work you like a dog, but you'll make six figures right out of school and the sky is the limit.
Unfortunately, you have to be a top student and top mind to get into a top tier school, let alone graduate with excellent marks. Not all law degrees are the same and they don't open the same doors. Degrees from a third or fourth tier school are not NEARLY as useful in this economy. There's a glut of lawyers. Why accept a student who went to an unranked school, a school that accepts students with LSAT in the 140's, when you can get a fresh out of college lawyer from a top school with a top faculty that won't even read the application of a 140 LSAT student? A student out of a top tier 1 school will know what it's like to work at the highest level. A student who graduates from one of these top schools is a sure thing. A student out of a bottom of the barrel, "third and fourth tier school", a school that isn't even RANKED? It's just hard to get your foot in the door when you've got lawyers coming out every day of schools that ARE ranked with straight A's.
No matter what school you're in, keep your grades VERY HIGH. Law school is not a C's get Degrees , lazy college senior place. Maintain a lot of extracurriculars; get published in journals. These things are a MUST. |
Do you know that most of the college text books cost not more than $15 per book in American value? (Assuming you are an Engineering graduate)
That you could heartily eat 3 times a day for less than $10 in value outside?
That highest cost movie ticket in a private cinema theater costs $2.50, (pop corn costs like 50 cents)
Average Groceries for a family of 4 a month costs $51.12? (That is for making Indian food of course)
That you would be considered upper middle class(comfortable life if not luxurious) for the minimum pay(I am guessing $20,000 PA) you get in America? |
Cuz they can. It's a take it or leave it . Technically, they'd be making a profit even if they sold it for $1 probably (hypothetically excluding the costs such as hosting). But unless, it meant that they made 1299X more sales ($1 vs $12.99), it wouldn't mean the same thing. If they could sell 1300X if the price was $1, it's only wise they would sell it at $1. It's $12.99 cuz they can't sell 1300X. |
The good news is that Twitter implements industry-current security standards reasonably well, especially in terms of password storage. If your account was compromised, then Twitter may have leaked a "salted hash" of your password.
Some background: a hash is a one way function: you can manipulate a plaintext password into a hash, but you can't reverse the process and go from hash to password. Thus if a bad guy has a table of hashes, the only way he can get the passwords is to hash a dictionary of possible passwords and compare his hashes with the stolen hashes.
Twitter uses bcrypt to hash passwords, which is secure in its slowness -- it will take the attacker a long time to crack a single salted hash. The fastest hardware on the market will crack a password salted/hashed with bcrypt once every 12 years. For a site with millions of passwords, a meaningful attack is utterly impractical unless some theoretical flaw is found in bcrypt itself.
So your passwords are actually reasonably safe if the attacker only has the hash they stole from Twitter. But there's significant portion of the internet that does not have a modern security policy. This includes sites that store your password in plaintext -- the attacker doesn't have to do any cracking at all. This is why you need to use different passwords for the various sites you use. If one site with a weak password policy gets owned, you risk your entire digital identity. (This is especially true for email. If you register with a website using your email and the same password you use for that email, then you are taking a huge risk. If I get your email account then it's game over -- every other account is a "reset password" away from being mine.) |
I'm betting on a ground breaking "controller" from Valve together with the steam box.
They've been working on wearable computing for time now ([some context]( I'm guessing it's the main lure of the steam box platform. |
I came to the comments section to say how much I would love to have something that could warn me of an aggressive driver as I'm bicycling. I'm not a hipster, I just love bicycling. people who don't bicycle will never understand the constant threat of cars passing way too close. you never get used to it. cyclists die every day because of crap like this. I'm all for helping the blind, but I'd also love to protect myself and my parents who also ride. |
Sort of, it's called [The Russian Internet Blacklist]( It claims to protect people from child porn, the truth is they block anything they want, including popular websites. Here's a short list of blocked websites off the top of my head:
websites with criticism of the Federal Drug Control Service of Russia (google "heroin in russia" and you will understand why);
one of russias largest internet libraries;
torrent trackers;
some youtube videos were blocked, google actually sued Rospotrebnadzor because of that;
sites related to open source hardware (reverse engineered hardware), and sites related to cracking software;
russias version of uncyclopedia;
websites related to video games that contain drugs (skyrim, e.v.e online);
porn sites (lots of porn sites);
sites with "black" humour are blocked, i.e. containing jokes about suicide or death;
several Russian and English Wikipedia articles;
several wikia sites;
sites related to forensic data analysis.
It pisses me off because unlike the U.S. where you guys can vote against CISPA and similar acts, russians didn't get a choice, they just implemented the blocklist without caring about the consequences. What's worse is, if you oppose the blacklist the only argument you hear is "think of the children". |
What a load of bullshit this article is.
Russian officials never claimed to dislike wikipedia, they also have never tried to seize control over wikipedia or censure it (or any such attempts are kept secret from public).
Now, you may have heard that some articles from wikipedia (namely, about cannabis smoking) have been blocked. This is in no way a war between Kremlin and wikipedia. See, there is a law, that enforces ISPs to block any content "that promotes suicide or drug use" with no court order. This is, admittedly, an absolutely retarded law, created with little thought about consequences. Multiple pages have been blocked due to this law, including an article on russian EVE Online wiki, that describes in-game drugs effect on player.
But I digress. Basically, russian government has shown zero hostility towards wikipedia.
Also what's with the "internet censorship" bullshit? There is no censorship in Russian internet. There is the law I described above, but so far it has not served as a tool to shut down any inconvenient resources, but rather a source of random tool of questionable blocking of internet pages. I am quite sure it was created with genuine intent to make internet more friendly for children, but it failed due to general unwillingness of russian officials to do their damn jobs. There are rumors of laws that could lead to censorship in russian internet, but they are still only rumors. |
The article has one shitty paragraph:
>After a slight political thaw during the Medvedev presidency, the Russian political order is at its most rigid in years . Putin returned to the Kremlin on 7 May 2012, and the year that has passed has not been a good one for political freedoms in Russia . Most telling is the return of the Soviet-style show trial , which was dusted down a few years ago during the political annihilation of oligarch Khodorkovsky, and in the last year has been used with Kafkaesque gusto against blaspheming punks, a dead lawyer, and an anti-corruption blogger. The state has also clamped down hard on NGOs, co-opted the Orthodox Church into an increasingly political role , and steadily chiselled away at Internet freedoms.
In reality, 2012 has seen some liberalization in Russian politics, ostensibly as a response to the Moscow demonstrations. The threshold for parties entering the Parliament was lowered from 7 to 5%, and registering new parties has been made easier. Regional governors are now elected directly by the people again. Other minor concessions include needing fewer signatures to run for some public offices.
However, it is true that (particularly foreign) NGOs, foreign media channels, and those wishing to demonstrate on the streets have faced increasingly greater restrictions.
I wouldn't agree that "the show trial has returned". Two things are true: the courts are corrupt, and they're highly influenced by the ruling administration. So the bad justice system never left, but comparing the recent court cases to Stalinist show trials is wrong - these aren't innocents executed by the state on made-up charges. These are political opponents who are attacked through the justice system. The abuse of power here is subtle (compare the abuse of whistleblowers - Khodorkovsky did really commit tax fraud etc., except that everyone in big business at the time committed such fraud. Pussy Riot purposefully caused a minor public disturbance at a church, and got charged with spreading anti-Christian hatred. Aleksey Navalny's case isn't over yet - but it's disingenuous to call him an "anti-corruption blogger"; he is honestly and earnestly against corruption, but he's got the largest online political following in the country and is involved in other political issues, making highly nationalist statements, for example... Most importantly, unfair trials and opposition intimidation have been going on continuously.
I'm ignorant whether the Orthodox Church has become more political of late, but it's always been on the side of power (Lenin tried to destroy it briefly, but then Stalin brought it back into the fold). The current church leadership used to be at least allies of the Communist Party and are rumored to have been KGB recruits entirely. |
Try being a musician... When you comment on anything at all, they say "oh hurr durr its subjective."
Like, the hundreds of hours of theory class I took obviously meant nothing. The half-hour you spent listening to Ke$ha definitely gives you more experience with the medium, I apologize and bow to your wisdom.
EDIT : There are specific sounds and chord-structures that are more pleasant to the ear, and combinations that mathematically produce different effects, which lead to a different effect on the mood of the listener.
The twenty or so people telling me I am an elitist can continue to think that they are morally superior because they forgo learned knowledge, but there is a silly amount of research, evidence, and history that support music theory.
How much you enjoy a song is =/= to the quality of the song. This distinction is why many musicians are thought of as elitists; its impossible to explain something to somebody when they are using different semantics. I'm not saying Beethoven's fifth is better than Hungry Eyes. Not only would "better than" be subjective (and also inapplicable, "more enjoyable" would be more fair"), but its not relevant to what I am saying. A minor chord creates anxiety, a suspension builds tension, and a cadence gives wonderful conclusion and satisfaction. These are all empirical facts, they cannot be disputed by reason or logic. |
There are specific sounds and chord-structures that are more pleasant to the ear
I find the minor 2nd exhilarating exhilarating in generous amounts. That you find certain sounds pleasant but not others, does not mean that such same sounds are similarly pleasant to others, even though it might often be so. Therefore, it is subjective.
> and combinations that mathematically produce different effects
They definitely do not interact mathematically, for mathematics is a study of abstractions, not observable physical phenomena like waves. And your use of "effects" is telling in its non-meaning.
> which lead to a different effect on the mood of the listener.
As above, it is subjective. Further, this has nothing to do with your (apparent) argument that quality is not subjective. That a piece of music that repeatedly employs a "sad" chord, hence making one sad, has no relevance to its artistic merits or otherwise; it is simply a property that it possesses.
> but there is a silly amount of research, evidence, and history that support music theory.
What are you talking about? That is like saying, "but there is a silly amount of research that support Physics". Music theory isn't itself a proponent of any ideas, it is the field of study, wherein there are numerous individual concepts, oft differing subtly, each having its individual basis of research.
> How much you enjoy a song is =/= to the quality of the song.
What else determines the "quality" of a song? Professional critics? But they themselves have such differing views. The term "quality" itself is incredibly imprecise: should it mean how much I like a song, or should it mean how much most people like a song? Either way it would be subjective. Or perhaps it should mean how historically significant a song is? Or complex a song is?
> This distinction is why many musicians are thought of as elitists
1) There are many kinds of musicians. 2) Most are not often thought of as elitists. 3) If you're thought of as elitist, you probably are.
> when they are using different semantics
That doesn't make sense. Semantics is not something in which you choose one of many to subscribe to. Besides that, what you mean with your words are irrelevant; the only thing that matters when using language to communicate with society is what the society interprets your words as. If you don't like what it is, you should probably find another way to say it.
> A minor chord creates anxiety, a suspension builds tension, and a cadence gives wonderful conclusion and satisfaction.
These are absolutely subjective, as I have already explained. Let me bring in another point here: the entire world does not listen to European art music, nor are they familiar with your ideas of major or minor chords. Ever listened to traditional Indian music? Take a listen at their scales. How do you think someone from such a cultural background would react to a minor chord? Necessarily sad?
Oh and also there are many different cadences. I don't know about you, but I for one find the interrupted cadence to be deeply dissatisfying.
> These are all empirical facts, they cannot be disputed by reason or logic.
And how do these "empirical effects" have anything to do with the idea of "quality" that you have been harping about, that you claim not to be subjective? |
Gotta say I love bloggers who notice redditers and say hi through their work. The |
Just as a sidenote: I own an iPhone 5. I only wrote this comment because that is what major apple fanboys and kids that don't know too much about either platforms.
The only problem with Android devices is that a lot of them aren't updated to the latest version unlike iOS.
For example, there was some kind of hack or something with the charging cables and that could inject some kind of malicious code, however it was fixed with an update from what I read. (iOS)
Most of the Android malware could be fixed with swift software updates, and is fixed, however some phones just aren't compatible because there are so many damn phones. |
Here's the thing: the DRM wasn't actually bypassed. The DRM was active, everything checked out, and it displayed the content. The DRM simply does not protect against this in the first place.
The DRM is still functioning on the device and data exactly as it was originally created to do, it is still doing the exact things it was designed to do, and is protected the e-book exactly to the extent it's designed. He did NOT bypass this in any way. If you handed him an Jeff Bezos's laptop with an arbitrary file loaded on the kindle reader, the functionality is equivalent, from a DRM perspective.
Pushing enter does not violate the DRM. Having a non-standard input device doesn't bypass the DRM (imagine the ADA violations if nonstandard input devices weren't allowed). Having a camera pointed at the screen doesn't break the DRM - the DRM doesn't know or care about viewers, and it doesn't restrict them [1]
It is a limitation with DRM for media meant for human consumption. At some point, you have to make it available for humans to consume, at which point it's light. It's sound. Neither of things have DRM to bypass.
Look up HDCP. It's what they realized was necessary for device-to-device protection - because they realized that if you transmit data to something else, your DRM is fulfilled. You can't dictate what other things do, unless there is agreement. If you plug the output of a DVD player into a VCR, and record, you have't broken the DRM. And they don't care. It would be horrible quality.
What if you plug the HD output of a DVD player into a DVD burner? Crap. That's a problem. We need to make sure the DVD burner follows our restrictions before we allow it access to the data, otherwise, without bypassing our DRM, they are able to make copies. That's how the DRM chain works. It's why HDMI basically requires licensees to support HDCP. The only way DRM could work between devices is if they both support the same scheme, and they negotiate it up front.
And that's where DRM falls down here. That last device is a screen, and it's transmitting to your eye. There is no DRM here. You have obeyed all the DRM restrictions, and you are still able to make a copy. You are not bypassing the DRM, you went right on through it, and it didn't stop you.
Is he doing something with it that the creator doesn't want? Damn right. If he distributes it, will he run afoul of copyright law? Hell yes. Did he break the DMCA to do it? I would say no. |
I actually would not invest in google right now. I think they are a fantastic company who do important great things but I worry about them financially in the long term.
Their main source of revenue desktop search ad's actually is basically in a free fall and is NOT being supplemented by mobile clicks. They have failed time and time again to prove that they can come up with new revenue streams. Almost all of their successful products outside of desktop search and gmail they have purchased. (Youtube, Android). Although even those are for the most part not profitable.
Their motorola aquisition has been a financial failure and has consistently lost money.
Automakers have basically at this point turned a blind eye to their driverless cars. They literally cannot find a partner even though they have tried. The automakers are instead going about this alone. Although this may end up being a mistake on their part.
Android may be the future but they need to figure out a way to truly monetize it because as it is the only people making any money off of it are Samsung and Microsoft (Microsoft makes about 8 dollars for every android device sold due to patents). |
Not everyone is onboard with the reforms. For one, becoming "digital by default" means those who prefer a more analog relationship with government services are forced to adapt.
Boo hoo. Get over it. This whole half digital, half paper (lets not even call it analog that's fucking dumb) system is nothing but a load of shit. I don't live in the US, but I recently had a run in with a combined system that took months to sort out:
I filled out my student loan application online. A few months later I found out someone made a typo forwarding the provincial loan application to the federal loan office. While going through the process of sorting this out, I discovered that electronic loan applications are PRINTED OUT and FAXED or MAILED to the federal loans office, where they are (this is just too insane) DIGITIZED again, before being PRINTED AGAIN and sent to loan processing. Somewhere in that fucked up system, someone also processed my electronic loan, typed up a report on it and made a typo before sending this information to federal loans (by printing, mailing/faxing, scanning, printing, mailing/faxing again). It took almost two months for them to verify that a "30" on my processed forms should have been a 60. Forms had to be rescanned, reprinted, remailed/faxed over and over to fix the problem.
On the flip side, my initial application could have been made available to everyone in the process electronically, along with the processed and OK'd loan application and this whole process would have taken a single phone call to resolve. |
The problems seem to go deeper than those issues. Merely having a single deadline for one huge software release indicates that a waterfall development process was used, which is well-known to greatly increase the risk of project failure. This system should have been released in many incremental steps to deliver the low hanging fruit early to get feedback from consumers and flush out any design or implementation problems that result is downtime or poor performance. Instead, the contractors relied on ineffective "testing" by the most technically inept stakeholders - the HHS administration. This also shows that the contractors gave priority to the people who cut their checks instead of the people who really pay those bills - the taxpayers. Healthcare plan information that's inherently read-only from the end-user role could have been delivered with a tiny fraction of the scope required for site registration and plan enrollment.
Having late or changing requirements is a major problem for a waterfall development process. An agile development process not only handles late or changing requirements better, the whole perspective of requirements is different between these kinds of development processes. Changing requirements in a waterfall are considered to be a bad thing. Changing requirements in an agile process is a normal and expected thing that should be encouraged but managed (avoiding gold-plating, prioritizing them, adjusting scope and resources, etc.), particularly when dealing with government agencies that must be assumed to have no idea what they're doing. Of course requirements will change from the government stakeholders. The problem is when the contractors don't have the authority to manage those requirements by telling the HHS NO or LATER. |
Or perhaps they don't have access to a computer and while libraries are still a thing, there are 1) a limited number of computers and 2) a limited amount of time you can use them for? Furthermore, exactly how is said poor student supposed to find out about Khan Academy's program if no one has ever told them about it. If no one has ever taught them the resources that they have available?
Wealthy children aren't any better than poor children, they just have better resources, better schools, and better teachers. Not to mention 3 (generally healthy) meals a day and their parents are more likely to have leisure time to spend with them. On top of the fact that they have far more access to tutors and counselors.
There are high schools in this country that literally cannot afford toilet paper, and if you don't believe me, read Savage Inequalities and then research how despite the fact that the book is 20 years old, the situation hasn't changed for almost all the schools it mentions. There are public schools in California whose per student expenditures (how much they spend per student) are ~$7000/year. Then there are schools whose expenditures are ~$19,000/year. It's not lack of work ethic, it's resources.
Over 20% of children live in poverty today, higher than it's been in a very, very long time. These children are far more likely to drop out of high school, and far more likely to go to prison. A high school drop out is 11 times more likely to go to prison than a college graduate. So with our poverty rate so high, and our education system continuing to fail the poorest in society, that means that the percentage of uneducated will increase. Furthermore, (unless the drug war ends) based on historical trends, the percentage of people in prison will continue to increase, despite the fact that the US already has the highest per capita rate of incarceration in the world . |
Yeah, I don't agree even a little tiny bit.
Having grown up in the ghetto, being very well familiar with the attitudes, and then "moving up" to a upper middle class life where I rub shoulders with upper class individuals...
The difference is the poor folks don't give a fuck about this sort of thing. They'd rather get high and go party - or alternatively they are more worried about how to pick up extra hours at work to pay their rent that month. There are many exceptions, and many reasons for this. But as a whole - the ghetto folks I grew up with could have given less than zero fucks about a free on-line college course. They would laugh at you and call you names if you told them about it.
The upper class folks I meet, this is some dude's Saturday. Just because. No reason other than personal enrichment. Is he privileged to be able to burn a Saturday on it and not have to go work his menial job? Of course. But it is what it is. My ghetto high school friends would laugh at that sucker.
I think you could offer every single on-line course to poor folks for free, and charge a nominal fee for everyone else, and still have a huge number of paying folks vs. free. |
read Savage Inequalities and then research how despite the fact that the book is 20 years old
First of all, there is no 'despite'. 20 years means this book is outdated, period.
>Wealthy children aren't any better than poor children
Let me tell you otherwise:
Disclaimer: when I am talking with regards to economic, ethnic, racial, or social groups, I am usually referring to general trends and average members of those populations; there will obviously always be outliers on either side of an average.
First of all, how do people become wealthy? Well, according to [this study]( from Cornell University, "It is well documented that those who drop out of high school tend to score lower on intelligence tests than do those who graduate, and it is also known that they earn less income" later in their lives. This suggests that those people who do graduate are generally the more intelligent members of the collective group of high school attendees.
This is an indicator that the majority of high-school dropouts on average simply do not have the earning potential that their peers who graduate school do, and do not really have an equal capability to achieve strong socioeconomic status later in their lives, a notion that is further supported by the first graph on this page
That chart indicates a positive correlation between income and intelligence. While the association between the two factors is not as prevalent as I would have personally anticipated, it is noticeable. The average person with an IQ of 80 has an income of what appears to be approximately $15,000-$20,000 per year, which is roughly the amount that someone would earn as a full-time employee working for minimum wage. The average person with an IQ of 120 (100 is average intelligence) earns what appears to be approximately $50,000 a year. This is a strong indicator that IQ does play a noticeable effect on someone's ability to earn.
The association between IQ, high-school graduation rates, and annual income appear to be closely intertwined, and the reality is that they are: "[High school graduates will earn $212,000 more than non-graduates over their lifetimes, and each additional year of school attainment is associated with increasing income. For example, college graduates will earn $812,000 more than high school dropouts, and graduate students with professional degrees will earn nearly $1,600,000 more than college graduates](
The constatation that higher education corresponds with better earning potential is obvious, but the fact is that education is an indication of intelligence, and the fact that students drop out is just as much an indictment of their ability as a lack of an equal opportunity; education does not translate to success for someone who does not have the ability to absorb/apply it.
Now, this is all well and good; smart people go to better schools and earn more money, while less-intelligent people cannot keep up. This seems like a self-evident statement, but what does this have to do with whether rich kids are smarter, instead of just suggesting that rich kids have parents of above-average intelligence themselves, as suggested by their higher incomes?
Well, there is the rub: IQ is primarily a hereditary trait. If a wealthy and intelligent set of parents go on to have children, chances are that those children will have similarly above-average intelligence. Thus a cycle begins: smart kids go on to have better educations, have a high income, and have smart children themselves. The reason that there is such a correlation between socioeconomic status and intellectual success is a combination of a stronger overall gene pool because of the superior intelligence of high-earners (as well as the presence of other desirable traits; [studies suggest a positive association between aesthetic appearance and income]( and the accessibility of better learning resources. These better resources only serve to further amplify natural abilities; they can help to compensate for lesser capabilities in an academic context, but will ultimately not be sufficient to improve native intellectual capabilities.
[This last statement is supported by a 30+-year study done by the Institute for Behavioral Genetics, which conducted what is called the "Colorado Adoption Project", which followed 250 adoptive families and their adoptees over the course of multiple decades in order to attempt to determine whether native intellectual capabilities are a product of nature or nurture]( Adoptive children were found to have IQ's that were highly related to those of their biological parents, as one would expect, and showed almost zero correlation with the intelligence of their adoptive parents. This finding indicates that traits such as inherent cognitive ability are a result of nature, not nurture, and cannot be compensated for. When high-IQ children were placed with low-IQ families, the adopted child's intelligence was effectively identical to that of its parents, displaying no correlation with the adoptive parents' IQ. This would suggest that biology trumps environmental/situational factors.
Here's the real killer, though: when the children of low-IQ parents were placed with families of high intelligence and monitored throughout intellectual development, they ended up with- you guessed it- similarly low-IQ's to their biological parents. Now, if these intelligent families successfully corresponded with the chart I linked previously, they had somewhat more secure socioeconomic statuses than the average person; with 250 families being studied, chances are that they corresponded with established trends for the most part. This shows the biggest indictment of the whole, "rich buy SAT scores" argument: individuals from less-intelligent families but raised with improved access to educational resources and smarter family members retained similar cognitive abilities to their parents, and displayed essentially no increase in intellectual ability or performance that people seem to believe education provides.
Thus, the claim that, if all poor people were all granted similar educational resources to wealthy people, their intellectual performance would rise to the same level is simply baseless and is complete conjecture.
[This excellent video sums up the findings of the "Colorado Adoption Project" quite nicely](
Even if you ignore everything else I say, I want you to watch this video for several minutes while it explains the study
Finally, one last source that indicates that the argument that access to educational resources is to blame for gaps in scholastic performance is fallacious can be found here This study reveals that black students are far more likely to utilize tutors and test preparation resources than white students, contrary to popular belief. On average, black families tend to be somewhat worse off fiscally than white families, so the fact that they utilize tutors and test preparation resources more often indicates that economic status is not as much of a barrier in regards to availability and utilization of educational resources as one might think.
This site sums up some of the popular misconceptions pretty well .
The reality is that wealthy people simply don't utilize extra resources as much as is commonly believed, because they need it less than most other members of the population |
my test prep was reading an article that told me how the questions worked. i scored in the top 5% on it. I think the "wealth gap" has more to do with wealthy kids putting more emphasis on school and poor kids putting more emphasis on work. When i was young that was all that mattered; get good grades in school and go to a good college. So that was what i worked for. My poor friends on the other hand were just constantly trying to work doing something because they had no ambition for college and realistically couldn't afford it/didnt have any knolwedge of programs or scholarships that would pay for it for them. |
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