Mr Hosein has convinced me that I don't want to pay the University of Washington for the privilege of attending his Digital Media Program, I cannot understand why anyone would hire Dan Safkow as a "video marketing strategist", and that short clip of "Pretty Much It" makes me wish that they would move their show behind the paywall so that I wouldn't run the risk of seeing any more of it by accident.
In principle, yes, a patent should contain all information necessary to reproduce the process, so that anyone could visit the patent office, read the "Stradivarius" patent and then start making Strads.
In practice, patent documents have become lawyer-cant, almost unintelligible to anyone but patent lawyers, practically useless to anyone trying to reproduce the invention, and unrecognizable to the very engineers who invented the thing being patented.
(Also, I doubt that Stradivari himself could have written such instructions, since he was surely not conscious of all the little things he was doing, perhaps not aware of some vital contingencies of his workshop or supply chain, and probably not inclined to perform scientific experiments to see which elements were really needed and which were just tradition. We've been studying his instruments for centuries and we still can't reproduce them.)
Not one word in the secret service announcement about how accurate these counterfeit-sniffing dogs are, or whether anyone has actually tried a controlled test of their abilities.
This sounds an awful lot like the racket some U.S. police forces were running years ago, where they'd seize cash if a drug-sniffing dog "responded" to it -- or if they simply claimed that it had.
It's a little more nuanced than that. When a messed-up teenager sees that shooting up a school gets you instant nationwide attention, and shoots up a school, it's the guns' fault. When a messed-up teenager sets off a bomb at a time and place where there will be lots and lots of video cameras-- we need more cameras.
It's more than that. They chose the finish line of the Marathon because they knew there would be hundreds of cameras there. They wanted a big audience-- why else choose that street on that day? They weren't indifferent to camera coverage, they wanted it. To suggest that more cameras could have deterred them is idiotic, even for surveillance maximalists.
"Anyone leaving their home WI-FI unsecured needs to be thoroughly chastised here."
Why?
"I cannot think of any reason that anyone would want to leave their [wireless] networks open beyond negligence." [oxymoron deleted]
I can think of a few, starting with a wish to help others as others have helped me. Bruce Schneier, one of the world's premier computer security experts, leaves his open.
"Surely, you only want people in your home to access your network?"
Why? As long as my computer is secure enough to use other networks (e.g. at the coffee shop), I really don't mind if other people use my network from time to time.
"[Google] has been fined €145,000 in Germany. Since that's pocket change to Google, insatiable parasites are calling for bigger bites out that enormous cow."
"[E]ngineers at many of these companies... think the CFAA is ridiculous, turning ordinary everyday activity into a possible felony. But some of the execs at these companies see a weapon to be used against people who make off with digital information..."
This shortsightedness supports the theory that the only real talent executives have is the ability to get themselves promoted.
The trouble with keeping a dinosaur on life support is that it becomes a habit, especially when the dinosaur lobby is strong. And feeding money to a failed business so that people can keep working there doesn't solve the problem of unemployment, it just hides it-- and prolongs it.
If the idea is to stagger the bankruptcies, so that they do less damage, then 1) I'd like to see some clear evidence that that can really bring a net benefit, and 2) if there is a net benefit, I'd like to know why those who enjoy that benefit won't chip in voluntarily to keep the company alive for the correct amount of time.
"[W]ere Apple to stick to their "it's illegal" reason for taking the app down, then they need to come out and explain the other examples of takedowns above, since those are not illegal."
To be fair, Apple can have more than one criterion for rejecting an app. They can refuse one because it allows locally illegal subject matter, and another because it allows material Apple considers too strong for children.
Hey, if they want to reduce their own market share arbitrarily, that's their prerogative.
This journalist has a machine that sifts through lots of raw data and writes a story -- using a style tuned to his specifications -- which I then read. I can keep reading his stuff or look elsewhere, but if that feedback reaches him at all, it must reach through several layers.
What if I had a machine like that, which sifted through the same data and wrote stories suited to my taste. I could make minute adjustments whenever I pleased, or read articles by multiple "journalists" on the same subject, give my scores and let them fight it out and evolve. The human journalists could still do the research, but I'd be subscribing to the pool of their findings, not to the condensate articles. And I could gin up as much of this bespoke news as I wanted, on any topic I wanted...
What if there were a complementary engine that could read a story (with a certain date), extract the constituent facts, and deduce the settings the robo-journalist should have in order to produce something similar given the facts known at the time. Then one could reverse the editorial bias settings and read an opposing view. Or study a large body of articles to make a robo-journalist mimic of any human journalist, living or dead. (Maybe not a very convincing one, but the technology can only improve.) Ah, to read Hitchens again...
Such robo-journalists could have blogs, singly or in groups, and evolve to...
I wonder if they'd agree to a proviso that all chocolate manufactured in Belgium must be clearly marked "Belgian chocolate". After all, if their standard is high enough to shut out the rest of the world, surely they won't mind standing behind it.
Suddenly I feel a desire to become a Wikipedia editor. I feel a particularly strong urge to contribute to the articles concerning ICD and Mark Donfried. Maybe I should get out my German-English dictionary and tackle de.wikipedia.org at the same time.
tiny flaws in the plan
"Our brilliant American programmers, they assert, will find ways to enable wiretapping without creating new vulnerabilities."
1: China has some brilliant programmers too.
2: where excellent security is possible and has not yet been implemented, half of the time it's because no one wants to pay for it.
3: ...and the other half of the time, it's because it's slightly inconvenient to use.
4: this is supposed to be a free society, so when you try to install secret police, you're going to run into some problems. That's as it should be.
update
...And now the videos have been removed from YouTube.
conclusions
Mr Hosein has convinced me that I don't want to pay the University of Washington for the privilege of attending his Digital Media Program, I cannot understand why anyone would hire Dan Safkow as a "video marketing strategist", and that short clip of "Pretty Much It" makes me wish that they would move their show behind the paywall so that I wouldn't run the risk of seeing any more of it by accident.
Re: Re: Re: yet another bad idea
In principle, yes, a patent should contain all information necessary to reproduce the process, so that anyone could visit the patent office, read the "Stradivarius" patent and then start making Strads.
In practice, patent documents have become lawyer-cant, almost unintelligible to anyone but patent lawyers, practically useless to anyone trying to reproduce the invention, and unrecognizable to the very engineers who invented the thing being patented.
(Also, I doubt that Stradivari himself could have written such instructions, since he was surely not conscious of all the little things he was doing, perhaps not aware of some vital contingencies of his workshop or supply chain, and probably not inclined to perform scientific experiments to see which elements were really needed and which were just tradition. We've been studying his instruments for centuries and we still can't reproduce them.)
sounds familiar
Not one word in the secret service announcement about how accurate these counterfeit-sniffing dogs are, or whether anyone has actually tried a controlled test of their abilities.
This sounds an awful lot like the racket some U.S. police forces were running years ago, where they'd seize cash if a drug-sniffing dog "responded" to it -- or if they simply claimed that it had.
remarks
Does Mr. Valvis have an address for fan mail?
Re: Re: Think of the children!
It's a little more nuanced than that. When a messed-up teenager sees that shooting up a school gets you instant nationwide attention, and shoots up a school, it's the guns' fault. When a messed-up teenager sets off a bomb at a time and place where there will be lots and lots of video cameras-- we need more cameras.
Re: Re: smile
It's more than that. They chose the finish line of the Marathon because they knew there would be hundreds of cameras there. They wanted a big audience-- why else choose that street on that day? They weren't indifferent to camera coverage, they wanted it. To suggest that more cameras could have deterred them is idiotic, even for surveillance maximalists.
Re:
"Anyone leaving their home WI-FI unsecured needs to be thoroughly chastised here."
Why?
"I cannot think of any reason that anyone would want to leave their [wireless] networks open beyond negligence." [oxymoron deleted]
I can think of a few, starting with a wish to help others as others have helped me. Bruce Schneier, one of the world's premier computer security experts, leaves his open.
"Surely, you only want people in your home to access your network?"
Why? As long as my computer is secure enough to use other networks (e.g. at the coffee shop), I really don't mind if other people use my network from time to time.
imperfect translation
"[Google] has been fined €145,000 in Germany. Since that's pocket change to Google, insatiable parasites are calling for bigger bites out that enormous cow."
smile
"The Boston bombing is a terrible reminder of why we've made these investments—including camera technology that could help us deter an attack..."
Bloomberg thinks that these guys wouldn't have planted a bomb at the finish line of the Boston Marathon if they'd known there might be cameras around?
Re: Clicked submit too soon
Yes, I would still want that person to have Miranda rights, and a fair trial too.
Now what if someone kills dozens of people with, say, a battle axe, and you were accused. Would you want due process?
basic economics, again
"[E]ngineers at many of these companies... think the CFAA is ridiculous, turning ordinary everyday activity into a possible felony. But some of the execs at these companies see a weapon to be used against people who make off with digital information..."
This shortsightedness supports the theory that the only real talent executives have is the ability to get themselves promoted.
Re: Re:
The trouble with keeping a dinosaur on life support is that it becomes a habit, especially when the dinosaur lobby is strong. And feeding money to a failed business so that people can keep working there doesn't solve the problem of unemployment, it just hides it-- and prolongs it.
If the idea is to stagger the bankruptcies, so that they do less damage, then 1) I'd like to see some clear evidence that that can really bring a net benefit, and 2) if there is a net benefit, I'd like to know why those who enjoy that benefit won't chip in voluntarily to keep the company alive for the correct amount of time.
monotony
Funny how these politicians never suggest cutting taxes on the traditional stores.
fair's fair
"[W]ere Apple to stick to their "it's illegal" reason for taking the app down, then they need to come out and explain the other examples of takedowns above, since those are not illegal."
To be fair, Apple can have more than one criterion for rejecting an app. They can refuse one because it allows locally illegal subject matter, and another because it allows material Apple considers too strong for children.
Hey, if they want to reduce their own market share arbitrarily, that's their prerogative.
graph theory
I think I just had a wonderful idea.
This journalist has a machine that sifts through lots of raw data and writes a story -- using a style tuned to his specifications -- which I then read. I can keep reading his stuff or look elsewhere, but if that feedback reaches him at all, it must reach through several layers.
What if I had a machine like that, which sifted through the same data and wrote stories suited to my taste. I could make minute adjustments whenever I pleased, or read articles by multiple "journalists" on the same subject, give my scores and let them fight it out and evolve. The human journalists could still do the research, but I'd be subscribing to the pool of their findings, not to the condensate articles. And I could gin up as much of this bespoke news as I wanted, on any topic I wanted...
What if there were a complementary engine that could read a story (with a certain date), extract the constituent facts, and deduce the settings the robo-journalist should have in order to produce something similar given the facts known at the time. Then one could reverse the editorial bias settings and read an opposing view. Or study a large body of articles to make a robo-journalist mimic of any human journalist, living or dead. (Maybe not a very convincing one, but the technology can only improve.) Ah, to read Hitchens again...
Such robo-journalists could have blogs, singly or in groups, and evolve to...
Yeah, this has potential.
nail their colors to the mast
I wonder if they'd agree to a proviso that all chocolate manufactured in Belgium must be clearly marked "Belgian chocolate". After all, if their standard is high enough to shut out the rest of the world, surely they won't mind standing behind it.
die Streisandeffekt
Suddenly I feel a desire to become a Wikipedia editor. I feel a particularly strong urge to contribute to the articles concerning ICD and Mark Donfried. Maybe I should get out my German-English dictionary and tackle de.wikipedia.org at the same time.
Re: Raises a number of privacy issues
Two words: opt out.