Slashback: Pong, Economics, Stability

Slashback with updates and clarifications from several previous stories -- read on below for updates on connecting continents, mechanical pong, Microsoft's ASP fix, and more.

That was fast. jsin writes "Microsoft has provided a patch for the ASP.NET exploit mentioned [on October 7th] on Slashdot, among other outlets. From the article: "To aid customers in protecting their ASP.NET applications, an HTTP module has been developed that implements canonicalization best practices. By applying this module to your web server, all ASP.NET applications on the server are protected against canoncalization problems known to Microsoft as of the publication date.""

Warring academics , never pretty. DAldredge writes with news of another side to the economic debate in academia over the plans of this year's two leading presidential candidates, pointing to this "statement Wednesday by 368 economists, including six Nobel laureates: Gary Becker, James Buchanan, Milton Friedman, Robert Lucas, Robert Mundell, and -- the winner of this year's Nobel Prize in Economics -- Edward C. Prescott. The economists warned that Sen. Kerry's policies 'would, over time, inhibit capital formation, depress productivity growth, and make the United States less competitive internationally. The end result would be lower U.S. employment and real wage growth.'"

The steel cage match with the members of the Harvard Business School opposed to Bush's economic policies has yet to be announced.

Hey Pal, would you please Pay? Daemon writes "eBay made an official announcement stating that they are stabilizing their Paypal services after a few days of problems: 'Most members are now able to log in to the PayPal site to access account information, use shipping functions, use PayPal debit cards, and pay for items online with no difficulty.'

Again, it seems there are still problems on the horizon (or hidden under?) since they say: 'Should you encounter any errors when attempting to log in or use different PayPal functions, please try again.' The full announcement can be viewed on their System Status Announcement Board."

Do please try this at home. adelayde writes "Here we have an article on a wireless IP link between Europe and Africa. It documents the full details about the 802.11b link between the two continents, traversing the Gibraltar Strait, as part of the Transacciones / Fadaiat project and with it placed within the geo-political context of immigration and freedom of movement. The announcement was originally posted to Slashdot in June 2004."

What I want to see is a mechanical Ping-Pong! yathosho writes "German magazine Spiegel Online has posted an interview with art-student Niklas Roy, creator of Pongmechanik, an electromechanical conversion of the classical game Pong."

(We mentioned this amazing looking device last month.)

Thanks for bringing back slashback

[aardwolf204]

I for one would like to welcome our full page slashback overlords.

I think I speak for all of us when I say thank you for bringing back slashback.

Re:the economist letter about Kerry

[Martin Blank]

I found both the letter and the Economist article disturbingly lacking in information, but they were opposites. I saw lots of names, but few specific details in the letter, as it mostly used vague assertions and tried to back them with a few numbers. The Economist article had lots of details, but no names, relying on the source of the names to provide it with backing.

Both come across as about equally useless to me.

I have a feeling

[Peyna]

that you could probably also find just as many economists willing to sign something in favor of Kerry's policies, and that several of them would be high profile influential people in the field.

Nothing to see here, move along.

Re:the economist letter about Kerry

[mc6809e]

And who cares. A quick google search turned up a poll conducted by The Economist, where academics gave just the opposite opinion: low marks for Bush and high marks for Kerry.

It's important to point out two things about the results:

1) They only polled academic economists. There are plenty of economists working in the private sector that weren't polled.

2) Many economists didn't even bother to respond. Why? It's entirely possible that economists with political hostilities towards Bush were more likely to respond to the poll than other economists thus skewing the results.

Re:Those are some heavy thinkers

[mc6809e]

Interesting, isn't it, that the slashdot editors only granted to give this letter brief mention in a slashback, while the letter critical of Bush gets it's own article.

Of course, Slashdot readers are so interesting in balance that metioning this bias will be met with negative mod points.

Kerry's policies suck..

[Anonymous Coward]

..but I can't vote for Bush after the Iraq war. I'd rather live in poverty than give Bush another term.

Though when it comes to health care I'm almost ready to hand it over to some big socialist system because the private system sure isn't working for the average Joe (malpractice suits, big powerful drug companies that are more interested in expensive *treatments* rather than *cures*, and more interested in money-makers like Viagra, and more interested in paying money for TV ads than research and development.. if a person is sick, they'll need medicine, why on earth *advertise*, it's not like people choose on their own.. yada yada)

It's not like Bush is going to take government out of our lives, he'll just put it in a different place.

We're all screwed, that's all it comes down to. If it wasn't for the war I would just stay home on election day. Or maybe vote for the Libertarian guy. Same difference either way.

Re:I have a feeling

[TheSync]

I wouldn't say that...

I'd say that you could also find 300 qualified economists who are against both Bush's and Kerry's policies.

For example, Bush has torpedoed his own free trade plans with hikes on imported steel, shrimp, and bras.

Plus economists know that Bush did not do a tax cut. By raising the deficit through higher spending, he actually raised taxes, but just not in this year.

Re:Uhhhh...

[drinkypoo]

Making a mistake is one thing, making the same mistake over and over again is something typically saved for those with a learning disability. Which doesn't make you a bad person, but, you know, get help.

Re:the economist letter about Kerry

[fireduck]

I absolutely agree that the Economist letter isn't the be all and end all of the discussion (I did notice it was informal and had a fairly low response rate). But the idea that Bush has 360 economists on his side is laughable. No where in the letter does it say the 360 endorse Bush's plan. Chances are many would be against it as well. (or you could easily turn up just as many different economists who are against it)

My point was that no matter what one side says, within 30 seconds one can find a somewhat credible opposing view using google.

Re:the economist letter about Kerry

[Cryogenes]

On the other hand, the Economist at least did a poll. The letter presented here was probably written by someone in the White House, and then the White House tried to get as many economists as possible to sign it. There is no indication how many economists were asked to sign and refused.

Um... hello?

[Guppy06]

"The steel cage match with the members of the Harvard Business School opposed to Bush's economic policies has yet to be announced."

You know, they could both be right. Neither group seems to say X is better than Y, just that X sucks.

Justification to vote third-party if I ever saw it...

Re:I have a feeling

[DAldredge]

You can. It is in the politics section of /.

See they gave the pro kerry article its own story yet the bush one gets put into a slashback. I may be just that the editors don't like me (random IP bans, total removal of my ability to mod) but it doesn't look like the politics section of /. is as fair as they said it would be.

Re:Private system? WHAT private system?

[ender81b]

obviously coming from somebody who has never lived in, or been to, a country with a socialized health care system. I was in england for 6 months last year and the US' helath care system is *night and day* compared to what they have over there - socialized health care. We don't have a "facist" health care system - ours is private with strict regulations.

Bushitonomics

[Doc Ruby]

"The end result would be lower U.S. employment and real wage growth."

Gee, that sounds like what we have had under Bush, with no signs of letup (except for Halliburton). Bush was blessed with the shortest, shallowest "recession" in history, ending in November 2001 *after 9/11/2001*. The economy that Clinton managed into unprecedented wealth generation was also benefited from the Clinton/Rubin/Reich "soft landing", despite the enthusaistic pessimism of the Milton Friedman school of economic bandits signing this attack on Kerry. Bush got a ripe economy for robbing, and a mediagenic excuse for his failure.

There is more than one economy in America. Most of us have been stuck in the longest "recovery" malaise in our memory, possibly ever - it's not over yet. Some lucky few, many of them rich enough to employ economists like Friedman and his Chicago ilk, have feasted on record corporate profits that keep the contrived Wall Street Dow Jones Industrial Average barely stable to avoid discrediting the entire system. The economists signing this propaganda know on which side their bread is buttered. And they know Kerry represents real changes in the management of their corporate welfare system. So they're manufacturing FUD as fast as they can: their only saleable product.

ASP.NET patch

[adolfojp]

I'll be the first one to congratulate MS for promptly releasing the ASP.NET fix. I'll also congratulate them for admiting that: "Microsoft is working on a security update for this reported vulnerability". So, Its not a patch, nevertheless, it is a working temporary solution.

If we criticize them for their flaws, we should praise them when they assume responsibility. Its only fair to be fair.

Cheers,

Adolfo

People just don't want to know.

[Futurepower(R)]

I've found that often people just don't want to know how corrupt the U.S. government has become. Instead of reading the links in the grandparent comment, and making a remark about the subject of corruption, you have changed the subject to talking about the manner of expression of my comment.

Even though the grandparent comment is supported by data from an official U.S. government web site, the comment is now marked "-1 Flamebait". That's willful denial of reality.