Posts by RW 1097 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Apr 2007
Because I've gotten to the point that whenever I read about some new MS initiative (usually playing monkey see, monkey do) my immediate reaction is "how will they get it wrong this time?"
It's like listening to Gordon Brown or any other Labourista yapping about all their wonderful plans for the New Britain and having the instinctive response "more spin and lies."
Sometimes I yearn for the days of Netscape 1.22 when HTML was simple enough to write by hand, Javascript didn't exist, nor frames, nor CSS, nor Java, nor ActiveX. And there were no popups. Admittedly, fancy layout had to be managed by abusing the tables feature, but then is "fancy layout" mission critical?
Yet even in those halcyon, far-off times, online commerce was a reality and honestly, very little we do today couldn't be done then. Or so it seems. A golden age in retrospect.
I'm not at all sure we've really progressed, except for online video via Flash.
Quote: ... the promise that Phorm held - intimate access to individial surfing habits - is too much of a Holy Grail to think big business will let it go. I will guarantee that somewhere out there is a consortium who has watched and learned and is quietly planning the next move.
You may indeed be right, Mr. AC1411, but backing away from this mess and taking a broad view, one has to ask "why on earth would any sensible person want to sniff my web surfing habits?"
Targeted advertising is a red herring from start to finish. Thanks to the Adblock plug-in for Firefox I don't even see most ads, and before I reached the beulah land of ad-free browsing, I can only recall a single ad ever inspiring me to investigate further.
Businesses thinking about targeted advertising would make better use of their money reviewing usability websites (www.useit.com/alertbox/ and www.webpagesthatsuck.com/ for example) and get rid of the stupidties on their websites that discourage visitors from becoming customers.
The whole Phorm affair sounds to me like a bunch of shady, ethically challenged marketers (aka professional liars) exercising their talents at lying on their own behalf, spouting nonsense about some marketing voodoo that every sane person knows WILL NOT WORK. (One has a brief spasm of schadenfreude because the people they conned are also marketers.)
The only people who would benefit from Phorm-tech would be the police state enthusiasts in government, but even they are so far off the track as to be risible. Dear snoopy plods and Home Office consultants: you don't want to examine every online communication. You will drown in an ocean of irrelevant material. What you want is targeted snooping; the only communications you will benefit from snooping on are those you already associate with criminal types. Snoop on everything, and you are looking for a needle in a haystack.
Conclusion: the whole marketing "profession" should go to the wall and be liquidated.
Yes, this comment has ended as a rant. Sorry, folks.
What have you done to our dear friend "boffins"???
Or is this a verb, of which Google is the subject and "dreams" is the object?
As for not trusting Google, I'm with Dave Hands. I use Ixquick for routine searches of the web, though I'm quite ready to be told that it is a manifestation of some particularly dire Ukrainian scam.
Quote #1: At its heart Windows is a business operating system. Microsoft seem to have forgotten that their grassroots users are the business Windows 'n' Office crowd - anyone who thinks corporates will be moving en masse to the cloud any time soon has badly lost touch with day-to-day life on the ground level.
Is that really true? I've always thought of Windows as a consumer-grade OS that was never intended to be used for anything more important than emailing pictures of the kids to Grandma. Hence when it's used in situations where significant money, or human life or welfare is concerned, you are asking for trouble.
Quote #2: Time to take a step back and a deep breath. Time to start concentrating more on bringing genuine innovation to Windows itself - despite the continuing lack of real, revelatory innovation coming from their competitors, including Linux
I'd plump for de-innovation, turning the clock back. MS has "innovated" when there was no need to, thereby messing up aspects of their systems that were perfectly functional. The world needs a great deal less change for change's sake, not more "genuine innovation" that has as its main effect the discounting of experience with existing programs. For example, every time MS fiddles with the names in Control Panel (mentioned in passing in another comment), they throw away perhaps millions of man years of time spent mastering the earlier versions.
I can't say if Linux is guilty of the same nonsense, not having long enough experience with it, but I will say this to all software and OS programmers: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The endless cosmetic changes to Windows remind me of nothing so much as Detroit's dependence on "styling" to sell cars instead of investigating what people really want their cars to do. And we all know where Detroit has ended up as a result of that approach.
When MS finally dies a slow, horrible death, those in control will have no one to blame but themselves. [I have to question if anybody at MS is actually in control, admittedly. Reading the entrails of their endless security and usability pratfalls suggests no one is in control at all.]
There are some tasks in the world that demand technical expertise and can't be automated. It will be amusing when someone comes to trial as a result of automated digital breathalyzation and the stupid, untrained plod who ran the bespoke software is cross-examined in detail. Or will the UK govt get rid of the idea of cross-examining the prosecution witnesses as a medieval holdover not in keeping with our brave new technological world?
"Plod" is exactly the right word for the coppers, in so many different ways it hurts to think about it.
In some ways, Windows 3.1, that ancient piece of crap, offered much more user choice. Take font rendering, for example. You could turn off Truetype entirely, and you had the option of enabling Type 1 and HP's Intellifont rendering if you so wished.
Likewise, no OS dependence on your choice of web browser (though the choice was Netscape, Mosaic, and perhaps Lynx, Mosaic having not yet morphed into IE).
For a while there (later than Win3.1 iirc), there were at least three different office suites comprising a word processor, spreadsheet, and database, though Harvard Graphics was nearly the only presentation manager anyone ever used.
Video and audio players and graphics software abounded, for some values of "abound".
Debundling all the bells and whistles that currently bloat Windows might (not necessarily!) force MS to get rid of the tightly coupled application-OS system they've imposed on the world in favor of proper procedural firewalls between apps and OS. If my experience is any guide, this would lead to a much more robust, more secure, more flexible system made up of modular building blocks, instead of the current everything-in-one-big-lump approach.
Why is there no gray-beard icon for old farts' postings?
Another belch of empty promises from a Labour gasbag. Rather like swamp gas burping up out of the squelch and mire of a very stinky marsh.
Go away and stay away, vile socialists!
footnote: last word in preceding line is used sarcastically
Why is there no I-stick-my-tongue-out-at-you-in-a-rude-fashion icon?
"acts likely to result in serious injury to anus, breasts or genitals, sexual interference with a human corpse"
What's so special about the anus, breasts, and genitals? Why is serious injury to truly important organs like the fingers, eyes, ears, heart, and brain not also verboten? Why are injuries of the "naughty bits" apparently okay if they aren't "serious"? What about acts that may cause such serious injuries, but aren't likely to (i.e. serious injury is by mischance)? Is non-sexual interference with a human corpse okay? Are moobs covered, or are "breasts" only a female phenomenon in the minds of those drafting this crap legislation?
If someone gets the lining of their anal canal tattooed with, say, a fresco of Labour's ladies (Hazel, Jackie, Harriet, et al), some questions: Is that part of the anus, or is it a distinct organ? Is injury likely? If so, is it *serious* injury? And what about the minor detail that it was done with the full consent of the tattooee?
Is the application of lipstick to a human corpse by an mortician *sexual* interference? After all, lipstick is almost entirely intended to send a sexual signal.
A Philadelphia lawyer could run circles around the prosecution in such cases and in the process demonstrate that, as usual, the law is an ass.
Much, much more seriously: Prudish prohibitions like this always make me think that somebody, somewhere, has serious sexual hangups. Is it right that the psycho-sexual maladjustments of the few should be the basis for public policy affecting all?
If you have a truly diverse network with machines running a variety of OSes and a number of versions of each OS, it's also important that they all adhere strictly to standards. Otherwise data exchange becomes a nightmare.
The conflicts and inconsistencies between Wurd for Windows and Wurd for Mac are a legendary example of the evils of proprietary standards - especially when MS doesn't seem know how to write software adhering to their very own! (The truth is probably that even within MS, there is in fact no single, documented standard for the format of a Wurd file. Didn't some MS honcho say within the last couple of years that Windows comprises billions of lines of code, much of it ancient legacy code that no one understands anymore?)
Inconsistencies between web browsers (mainly between IE on the one hand and the rest of the world on the other) are another famous, ongoing failure to honor standards.
Someone tell me: Sun nailed MS in court for "extending" Java; do other organizations that set standards stipulate that "extensions" invalidate any system's claim to adhere to whatever standard is involved?
What is the actual purpose of the different types of spam we receive?
It's clear that the flow can be classified, very easily, into a small number of types of which a very few account for most of it. But which are preludes to phishing, which want to install malware, which are 419 scams, which are trying to sell fake Viagra, which (if any) are trying to sell generic Viagra, and so on?
My ISP's spam detection system seems to be pretty effective: a few false negatives, next to no false positives. But eyeballing the spam almost always makes it clear that it's not legitimate, and one has to wonder how anybody on the planet could be so stupid as to fall for it.
The internet in general, the web in particular, was developed by and for adults. No part of it should be presumed to be safe for children unless specifically designed for them.
Trying to block access to "adult" sites is a waste of time: they're *all* adult sites in some sense, with only a relatively small number of exceptions.
It's time to set up chld-protection software that denies access to sites that do not display some special earmark, instead of trying to earmark sites with "adult" content. The earmark could be put in the META headers of web pages.
In fact, you could then distinguish "children only" from "safe for children" and thereby block adults from some sites. "You cannot enter this site if you are over the age of 10."
I'd be careful with that kind of anti-social invective, citizen. I'm quite sure our friends in the Home Office already have plans afoot for rehabilitation camps where such erroneous thinking will be gently corrected. You will experience joy and happiness as the muddy water of your mind is rendered crystal clear, but beware the bill you receive afterwards for "attitudinal re-adjustment".
And stop this nonsense that employees are expected to "work" when travelling, there wouldn't be so much "need" to download critical data onto laptops.
Nobody should ever have to take a laptop home, either, for the same reason. If it's work, do it in the office.
Not true for all employees, of course, but is for managers - who are mainless feckless, stupid ass-kissers anyway. How else did they claw their way into the management caste?
Fly in the ointment: I suspect carting a laptop around is something of a status symbol among the management castes. "Lookit me, me big honcho, me have laptop, whoop-de-doo"
"the UK consistently undervalues IT skill sets."
More like "brain skill sets". But let me ask: is it "the UK", or is it "Labour"?
Labour has always impressed me as having a hidden hate-on for people with education, experience, and inherent talent, presumably because these are elitist qualifications.
"So... basically Microsoft is unable to program a good slim, no-frills OS for netbooks"
Win98 would do the job quite nicely with updated drivers.
Never mind that it has a version of DOS sitting down underneath. It worked, and worked well, on much less powerful hardware than we have today.
Best of all, it supported 16-bit apps, some of which have never been equalled for simplicity and ease of use.
My reading of the story is that the house was unoccupied, though it still contained mementos of Mother.
As for "hutch", think "china cabinet". Tall cabinet a meter or so wide, typically with glassed-in shelves with doors above, drawers below, used for storage and display of the china, linens, and glassware you only use for special guests.
What surprises me is that, given that demolishing the wrong building is a known hazard of the demolition business, greater care wasn't taken in specifying the target. Even if one accepts that the house demolition business doesn't demand a lot of brains, surely to God it's obvious you check, re-check, and check yet again before firing up the backhoes. Otherwise you and your company end up the subject of sarcastic news articles in distant lands.
OTOH, what's the old saying? "There's no such thing as bad publicity."
Expert icon just to annoy the mentally constipated.
"Cynics might wonder whether a bill to eradicate poverty is nothing more than a political stunt in the run-up to the General Election"
Not cynics. All thoughtful people. And not "wonder whether". Try "know".
The real cynics are Labour, its minions and acolytes. Disgusting people. I feel nauseous and I'm what?, 5000 or 6000 miles from them.
Is Labour so disconnected from reality to think that this sort of posturing persuades anyone at all? Of course, the poor may welcome this bill: they're not stupid and they may see an opportunity to increase their income.
I've long suspected that labor costs aren't the reason. Somewhere I read that if the manufacture of Nike running shoes was repatriated to the US from wherever, the cost to make a pair of shoes would go up by some trivial sum like $1.23. Modern manufacturing is so highly automated that labor costs are hardly important anymore.
It's the absence of anti-pollution laws in much of Asia that makes them cheaper places to manufacture. If you don't have to worry about fouling the environment, the cost of building a factory is greatly reduced.
And isn't it true that semiconductor manufacturing is an especially dirty process?
[Not news to el Reg readers of course]
Even the imminent Ms. Hilton has a doppelganger in the form of a certain hotel in the capital city of a certain French speaking European republic.
True, assumed names used in the entertainment business are registered so as to prevent duplication, but that's strictly a private arrangement There's nothing stopping anyone from taking the name ... ah... "Sarah Bee". Or, for that matter, "Gordon Brown".
Indeed, I imagine that while the eminent Ms. Bee has few doppelgangers due to her uncommon surname, Mr. Brown probably has lots and lots and lots.
Besides, it's way too much fun to pretend to be someone (self-)important and thereby mock their pretensions; where there's a will, there's a way. Twitter vs. the hackers. Stay tuned for fireworks and feathers flying.
If it's a CD of Windows software included with a Linux machine, does that satisfy this rule?
Or are Chinese citizens even allowed to use Linux?
China is really a very interesting country, full of startling contrasts. They're a very sexy people - why else would their population be so large? But historically and even now, they're also very prudish.
In his famous book "Plant Hunting on the Eaves of the World", Reginald Farrer remarked in passing on the difficulty he and his companion William Purdom had finding a sufficiently secluded place along a river bank to go bathing, where they couldn't be seen naked by the locals and thereby offend them.
Urban legend has it that Richard Nixon's government once posed this question: what's the simplest way to _really_ keep tabs on everyone in the country.
The answer? Require the use of a credit card to buy food.
Thus your Cousin Jimmy who's on the run can't stay with you because your food purchases will suddenly increase. You can't hide that new-born with six eyes you are planning to sell to a Chinese circus for the same reason.
Legend or truth? I really don't know, but it sounds fairly typical of Nixon.
It is remarkable how often business does something so incredibly wrong.
I begin to think that anyone in business - especially in professional lying and snooping, aka marketing - should be subjected to careful psychological testing to ensure that they understand the difference between right and wrong. This particularly applies to directors, executives, and senior managers.
It seems like business ethics these days have devolved to "if we think we might make a buck out of it, it's all okay."
Disgusting. You may color me "hopelessly old-fashioned."
The Google search is pretty good, but nothing's perfect and there's always room for another kick at the cat. Google's chief drawbacks are, as Lee Jackson put it, "the millions of results that take me to fake blogs, ebay pages, expired pages and or Chinese pages" and the simple fact that it's part of the privacy-invasive Googleplex. For the latter reason, I avoid the use of Google search these days, and use Google almost exclusively for Maps (which I do not enter search terms into) and Images, which I use to track down pictures of certain plants. Indeed, when Google took over one of the main blogging sites, I deleted my blogs and my account.
These days I use Ixquick for most searches. It claims not to retain your IP address (but that may be a meaningless claim), and is something of a meta-search engine. Good old Altavista is still out there, too, and I don't know how many others.
It seems to me that diversity is the key element to having a perfect world as far as search engines are concerned. There's more than one way to spider the web and more than one way to analyze and organize what you find, so the more the merrier.
PS: Re Google and privacy. It strikes me that the time is coming when the whole concept of "targeted ads" will have to be thrown into the trash barrel, along with Google's own propensity to spy on you, Phorm, Nebuad, and God only knows what other snooping systems. The simple fact is that "targeted ads" are INHERENTLY at odds with online privacy and it's time for everyone to realize this.
It's just another system of government. You'd discover some monarchs were good, and interested in their people, others were interested only in feathering their own nests. Historical examples are plentiful, including the tragic state of North Korea today. The Chinese Emperors are a good group to study, as some were very good, others notoriously poor, the Dowager Empress being one of the more notorious examples of what can go wrong.
There's a halfway house: restore genuine authority to the Crown, including the prerogative of appointing ministers, but leave Parliament its long-standing control over taxation. Historically, English history is the story of an ongoing struggle between the monarch and Parliament, sometimes one getting the upper hand, sometimes the other.
But that halfway house differs from an elected presidential system only in that the monarchy is hereditary and for life instead of elective for a fixed term. In the USA, the separation of powers between the executive and the legislature gives rise to considerable creative tension, even when the same party controls both.
Then there's the halfway halfway house where the monarchy is elective, but is for life (being a monarchy) instead of a fixed term. Better look at the history of Poland and its elective monarchy for some clue to the pitfalls involved in such an approach.
While the current political uproar is ostensibly about expenses, isn't it *really* about the erosion of civil liberties, the evolution of the cops into gangs of armed thugs, and so on? Or is that a misapprehension on my part?
AC Posted Tuesday 2nd June 2009 14:33 GMT: "Never forget - the ineptitude of this governement - the rot - goes all the way to the core. 1 down, 600 odd left to go."
Jimmy Posted Tuesday 2nd June 2009 15:41 GMT: "As Jacqui drags her sorry ass out of the Home Office she leaves behind the team of 'special advisers' that Nulab installed to override and manage the objective advice offered by the civil servants. The unelected control freaks stay in post (at our cost) so don't look for any change of policy."
I'm afraid Jimmy has it right. Twelve years of ZanuLabour have resulted in the installation of their minions throughout the civil service. (This is called "politicization of the civil service.") The rot in British government is not limited to the 600-some MPs. It is now pervasive no matter where you look. Why else would the police, once famed worldwide for their civility and given the trust of the population, act like so many thugs? Why else would you have the innumerable insane health and safety orders because something _might_ happen? (Never mind that most of these potential incidents don't in fact happen, and those that do are straightforward occupational hazards.) Why else would you have social workers kidnapping children from their parents and adopting them away, never to be seen again? Why else would Phorm be given a tacit green light? Why else would decisions of the ECHR be ignored? Why else would putting your trash out on the wrong day be viewed as a serious offense?
Regrettably, I see no party on the horizon that will (a) undo at the stroke of a pen all the horrible laws and regulations of the Blair-Brown era and (b) conduct a thorough-going purge of their moles throughout the public sector.
The damage is done and cannot be repaired. Humpty-Dumpty has falled off his wall, and all that's left is to make omelets. (But beware H&S regulations regarding the handling of hot fat.)
A comment on the Guardian re the same news this morning remarked that the real source of all the police state nonsense is a clutch of right-wing civil servants in the Home Office. Poor old Jacqui has simply been conned by them, because she's too stupid (former cooking teacher, remember) to understand the implications of their sinister plans.
A good Home Secretary would give those plans to Stasify the UK one look and order them trashed. And then shunt the originators off to dead end jobs where they can no longer influence policy.
Jacqui leaving doesn't clean out the fascists in the Home Office at all.
I'm of the opinion that opt-ins should be in writing, not electronic. Require the bastards to keep on file a piece of paper bearing a real signature.
Since I'm a nice guy, I'll allow them to be faxed in.
There's a related scenario that's actually pretty funny: the gee-whiz, lets-make-a-lotta-money-by-underhanded-means crowd thinks written documents are too retro for words in this online age. But in the USA, some people threatened with foreclosure have asked the court "where is the piece of paper with my signature on it agreeing to this?" In the hustle to securitize mortgages, in more than a few cases, the actual documents have been lost, mislaid, or destroyed, which leaves whoever holds the mortgage up a creek sans paddle.
IOW, if there are important legal consequences, don't depend on some airy-fairy electronic record: get it in writing!
If the Home Office had merely published a list of names "Under the authority given to the Home Secretary by the Doofus and George Act 2008, Sec. 413(a)(iii)(alpha), the following individuals are prohibited from entering the United Kingdom:" all would have been well. Sovereign nations have every right to say who's allowed in and who isn't.
But, no, dear Jacqui had to state a reason and *that* is challengeable.
It's somewhat like disinheriting someone in your will. Many lawyers (not all) are of the opinion that it's better not to give a reason for disinheriting someone because then there's no basis for a challenge. "To my daughter, Felitzia, I leave nothing."
(Of course, if the person being disinherited has a statutory right to part of the estate, you're on entirely different territory.)
Peeve #1: El Reg spake "the Rochester Uni in New York state". Dear writers and editors, it's correctly called "the University of Rochester". Yes, it's in New York state and incredible as it may seem, it's in a city named Rochester, but it's not "Rochester University".
Nomenclatural precision re American institutions of higher education is difficult to attain, but if you just wing it, you can confuse your readers. In this case, Rochester (the city) is also home to the Rochester Institute of Technology, and your ever so kewl "Rochester Uni" is ambiguous enough to leave readers wondering just which institution is actually meant.
So dear beloved El Reg writers and editors, please take the time to ascertain the exact and correct name. You _will_ have to look these things up as they follow no particular pattern. Most decent American dictionaries have an appendix devoted to just this detail.
Peeve #1a: I'm surprised NuLab hasn't passed a flurry of regulations on this topic, it being just the kind of piss-ant triviality that engages their tiny minds to the utmost and gives them the thrill of being able to say "lookee us, we is governing the masses, wheee!"
Peeve #2: CFLs. Tried a pack. They wouldn't fit into my light fixtures, they aren't compatible with the wired-in touch dimmers I have in some rooms, the light quality was abysmal, and they impressed me as extremely fragile. Since I knock over a floor or table light a couple of times a year and break the bulb, considering the mercury in these things, no way I'm using them. Seeing conventional incandescents moving into the sights of the earth mother brigade as something to outlaw for environmental sinfulness, I went out and bought a big stash of the 100w bulbs I prefer: a lifetime supply, almost certainly, at my advanced age. As another comment pointed out, who cares if they convert a lot of their energy consumption into heat? In northern climes, that's perfectly okay.
Took the CFLs back to Home Depot and got a refund.
Peeve #2a: the earth mother brigade, aided and abetted by equally thoughtless pols, who have never seen an environmental bandwagon they didn't want to hop on. Another comment lamented quangoistic failure to distinguish objectives from methodsL: a common failure of the e.m.b.
Footnote #1: I have nightmares of a horde of silly, ill-educated earth mothers, all vast women clad in muu-muus, clutching me to their ample bosoms and nurturing me until I give up my sinful p.o.v.
Footnote #2: I mentioned my lifetime stash of conventional incandescents elsewhere on the web and was promptly accused by an earth mother of being selfish. But why oh why is that particular e.m. not out picketing her nearest car dealer? At least in North America, car dealerships are invariably lit up brighter than day all night long.
A. Medical students are taught that something like 90% or 95% of ailments will resolve without intervention. Hence, if you take a harmless pseudo-medication, for example a homeopathic remedy that is so highly dilute that it is unlikely to contain a single atom of the active principle, most of the time you will get better. Not because, but in spite of.
B. There's a strange meme that's gotten loose. Ignorant people come to believe that they have special knowledge that is being suppressed by Big Pharma or some equivalent shadowy conspiracy. One variant of this meme is what I call "the silver bullet syndrome", wherein the victims are persuaded that if they just (do, take, consume, refrain from) some particular medicine or deed or food, all their troubles will be resolved. An example is someone persuaded that their sad life is due to a misshapen face, so they undergo plastic surgery and discover (alas!) that post-recovery they are no more successful in getting laid than before. In the most advanced cases, not only do they have the same old personality defects that repel others, but now they can't stop talking about their plastic surgery.
And they still have to put out the garbage on collection day and clean the cat's litter box.
C. As for herbal remedies, it appears that *some* herbal remedies help *some* disorders in *some* people, but the effects are so inconsistent and the failures so predominant that it's not possible to make a case for marketing the stuff as a safe and effective medication. Marijuana presents an interesting example in that the synthetic stuff, Marinol, just doesn't work as well as the real thing. Marijuana's efficacy in relieving many distressing symptoms (without touching their causes) seems to depend in a very delicate way on the exact combination of cannabinoids it contains. Hence the Compassion Club in Vancouver BC offers its clients a range of different strains of marijuana that have each been found reasonably effective for one or another of those symptoms: pain, nausea, muscle spasm, general malaise, etc.
No point making the point every other commentator already has.
But remembering the old saw "don't get mad, get even", I have to wonder if there's a legal counterattack possible. Given its historical antecedents, the government of the UK is a very high-handed outfit, but reading the news carefully, it appears that various actions of the nomenklatura nonetheless can be subjected to judicial review.
Who's got the deep pockets necessary to hire a good lawyer and go before a learned judge demanding that this shabby bunch of cooked statistics be condemned, disowned, and withdrawn?
It might also be fun to solicit the attentions of would-be moles and find out just who actually wrote this steaming pile of bullshit, then name and shame them.
Or perhaps they've simply plagiarized from propaganda emitted by the RIAA and/or MPAA. A revelation along those lines in one of the fiestier dailies might be good for a few laughs.
Special memo to Jacqui Smith and her subordinates: this kind of bullshit no longer works. No right-thinking person believes a word you say anyway, but when you issue lengthy reports that are so obviously biased in favor of pre-determined positions, you simply throw more shit at your own tattered reputation. Resign now, you horrible little ex-cooking teacher, you.
Something does not compute. If the rights holders cannot be traced, then how can anyone make any agreement of any kind about the orphaned works?
Note that there is a difference between an orphan work (still in copyright, rights holder untraceable) and a public domain work (no longer in copyright). Project Gutenberg digitizes the latter.
The books that really ought to be digitized (and carefully!) are mass market paperbacks of the twentieth century. These invaluable historic documents casting an oblique light on the century of technology (for so they will be called in 500 years) were printed on the cheapest wood pulp paper and simply won't last. They are the despair of librarians and last time I saw any news on the subject, no one had yet figured out an effective way to de-acidify the paper to preserve it.
The same problem affects preservation of newspapers and "pulp" magazines. Back in the 1960s, I owned one or two of the science fiction original pulps from ca. 1930, printed on something resembling blotting paper, and already at that time badly browned and crumbling around the edges.
Of course, no one is interested in crap fiction and magazines, yet in the long run they are just as deserving as best sellers, if not moreso. For those el Reg readers who don't read much, a little tip: nothing is so sad, so outdated, so unloved, as a best seller past its moment of fame and glory. They can actually be hard to find second hand because most booksellers won't touch them with a ten-foot pole.
Tux because I am a happy Linux user these days and no longer feel the oppressive thumb on Microsoft on me.
"The biggest failing for open source at the moment is it's lack of marketing to Joe Public."
Yet Linux is, based on my experience, ideal for Joe & Josie Sixpack and their darling rug rats, to say nothing of the yard apes. Your usual schmoe wants to surf the net for porn, do email, watch dirty videos, suck pictures off his camera and send them to granny, and very little else. (His wife wants a recipe for sour cream-pecan pie, however.)
Linux does all this very well. And because it has the user access thing Done Right, Junior can't mess the machine up visiting dubious sites.
These days, every time a friend starts grousing about his computer, I say "try Linux."
I tried it a couple of years ago on an antiquated clunker and liked it well enough to buy a new machine last summer. Hardly use my other machines these days.
He's just a brain-dead Mormon from Utah, posturing for some incomprehensible reason. Preaching to some nonexistent choir, you might say.
Perhaps it's merely that the RIAA and MPAA have paid him to posture meaninglessly, a tactic that somehow seems typical of those two brain-dead organizations.
A quote from The Bard seems appropriate: "Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
I imagine Orrin Hatch wouldn't understand that little line.
"The law is a computer program and the legal system is the computer."
Absolutely not.
One of our secretaries went off to law school, figuring it offered better career potential than running a reception desk. Back for a visit some months after starting, I asked her what was the most surprising thing she'd learned so far; what was most at odds with her preconceptions of the law?
Her response? That she'd thought of the law just as you do, a mechanism with a hopper into which you drop facts and which then, after a few turns of the crank, disgorges a verdict. But what she'd learned was that the law was almost entirely a matter of shades of gray, that absolutes were extremely rare.
"...a kitten walking across the keyboard."
Doesn't work. When I acquired my fluffy white cat, Lily, 12 years ago, she was so thrilled to be part of a real household in which she had tenure that she loved to jump up on the computer desk and march back and forth on the keyboard, blissfully unaware (and uncaring - she *is* a cat!) that I was trying to write an email. My friends got used to strings of random keystrokes embedded in the middle of my e-missives.
Meow.
Title says it all.
Wakki Jakki is being conned by her cop shop advisers, stupid woman that she is. After all, she is a former teacher of .... political science? no.... theory and practice of state surveillance of innocent citizens? no.... history? no .... database design and security? no. She taught _cooking_. She needs to go back to teaching children how to make omelets.
It's clear that once Parliament is purged of dross, the next group to be dealt with should be the police.
[Apologies to Our Divine Moderatrix for using "woman" in a pejorative sense.]
ITYM "If we can't keep these data forever, we will bite the head off this kitten."
Even if this Google-BS is true, tracking an epidemic doesn't necessarily lead to effective control of it.
I wonder if Google realize just how silly they look? Why is it that large corporations (just like political parties) won't tell the simple truth? Why do they let the marketing departments con them into spewing out lies and spin instead of truth?
What somebody in Google needs to do is take a hard look at the cost of running their lies and spin .... ooops, make that "marketing" .... department and ask difficult questions about the benefits that ensue.
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