Slashback: Pong, Economics, Stability 176
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.)
PayPal woes (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't help but wonder how many eBay transactions have ended in negative feedback for both sellers and buyers, how many transactions have simply been lost in the digital void, and what kind of responsibility (if any!) PayPal will take. I know I have had several PayPal payments recently that I'm not sure whether they have been sent, or if they've just been swallowed by the system, and would certainly like some sort of information from PayPal's side. I did receive one just a couple of hours ago, though, which seems to indicate that the PayPal system does indeed function somewhat normally now.
My gues: Nada. (Score:3, Informative)
Read their EULA. I'm expecting them to do their best to avoid any fiscal responsibility unless there's a massive user uprising. Nothing special about PayPal... it's just a side effect of being a corporation [thecorporation.com].
Re:PayPal woes (Score:1)
I had a payment pending with Jinx.com. After PayPal drew the funds from me, they never told Jinx about it (they apprently expect to get some sort of confirmation email or another). Luckily, when I contacted Jinx, they were able to look in to it and discover that I had indeed paid for my wares, so it looks like "no big deal", but is a bit irritating.
Re:PayPal woes (Score:2, Funny)
wang33
Since when.... (Score:1, Funny)
Thanks for bringing back slashback (Score:5, Insightful)
I think I speak for all of us when I say thank you for bringing back slashback.
Re:Thanks for bringing back slashback (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Thanks for bringing back slashback (Score:1)
About the dupe (Score:2, Informative)
Re:About the dupe (Score:2)
ClearType always worked properly, but looking at it for just a few seconds gave me a headache. To this day I'm not sure why, especially since I don't particularly notice a problem with sub-pixel hinting in KDE. (I've only used it for testing though, since regular anti-aliasing actually *works* and I'm not on an LCD so I have no nee
Request to Slashdot editors (Score:4, Funny)
Please allow at least a day between dupes co I hate having to make up my own posts.
Re:Request to Slashdot editors (Score:1)
Sir, may I point you to the Jihad database tool [anti-slash.org]?
Re:Request to Slashdot editors (Score:1)
the economist letter about Kerry (Score:5, Informative)
And who cares. A quick google search turned up a poll [economist.com] conducted by The Economist, where academics gave just the opposite opinion: low marks for Bush and high marks for Kerry.
Re:the economist letter about Kerry (Score:4, Informative)
Re:the economist letter about Kerry (Score:3, Insightful)
Both come across as about equally useless to me.
Re:the economist letter about Kerry (Score:1, Informative)
Re:the economist letter about Kerry (Score:2)
Re:the economist letter about Kerry (Score:5, Informative)
My Slashdot journal contains many additional details, including a recent letter from 160+ business professionals and academics.
The facts are clear: Democrats get a four percent GDP bonus. Therefore Kerry is more likely to be able to balance the budget than either of them, even if they were saying the exact same things.
Re:the economist letter about Kerry (Score:2)
Please provide sources.
Re:the economist letter about Kerry (Score:2)
Do you have any sources to the contrary?
Re:the economist letter about Kerry (Score:2)
People just don't want to know. (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:the economist letter about Kerry (Score:2)
Politicians' promises (Score:4, Interesting)
So you see it isn't just potential presidents who make promises. The main difference is that whereas Kerry might not keep his promises, Bush has definitely broken his.
The moral is to always throw out the incumbent. Once incumbents realize that there is no point in campaigning for a second term, some of the chicanery to buy votes might just be replaced by honest corruption.
Re:the economist letter about Kerry (Score:5, Insightful)
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:the economist letter about Kerry (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:2)
There was clearly bias in the answers. For while a large majority thought Bush's plan was better on social security when asked specifically about it, when asked which was better in an either or, they said Kerry was better on it.
Not to mention "Would you rather work for Bush or Kerry?" 81% Kerry. People, when government acade
Re:the economist letter about Kerry (Score:3, Interesting)
You can't seriously say that the Economist poll is as representative of economists' views of Bush's/Kerry's economic plans as the letter. The Economist
Re:the economist letter about Kerry (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:the economist letter about Kerry (Score:2)
The Economist straw poll was done by randomly selecting the authors from economics journals. You are correct that it may not be representative of econo
Re:the economist letter about Kerry (Score:2)
Um, I never said the letter was more representative than the survey. I said that you can't say that the survey was as representative as the letter (given the small, probably biased sample). Whether the letter is actually statistically representative of economists is a different question. My only point is that whatever the survey and the letter are worth in
Re:the economist letter about Kerry (Score:2)
Re:the economist letter about Kerry (Score:2)
Re:the economist letter about Kerry (Score:2)
Uhhhh... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Uhhhh... (Score:3, Funny)
<easy-shot>George W. Bush</easy-shot>
Re:Uhhhh... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Uhhhh... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Uhhhh... (Score:2)
they don't need help, you insensitive clod.
Those are some heavy thinkers (Score:5, Informative)
That's some pretty heavy artillery. Becker, Buchanan, Mundel, Friedman, Prescott ... if those guys agree on something, there's probably fire behind the smoke.
It's no surprise to hear that from Friedman, but some of the others on that list aren't so consistantly against government involvement in the economy. Here is the statement itself [nationalreview.com], with a list of the folks who signed it. There are a few names I recognize, but the noticable thing is these guys are from all over.
Quote of the letter itself, since it's likely to get /.ed.:
Re:Those are some heavy thinkers (Score:1, Insightful)
Of course, Slashdot readers are so interesting in balance that metioning this bias will be met with negative mod points.
Re:Those are some heavy thinkers (Score:2)
Re:Those are some heavy thinkers (Score:2)
You forgot the signature line (Score:2)
The commision to re-elect the President
Needs a rewrite (Score:2)
The commission of common fucking sense.
Re:Those are some heavy thinkers (Score:2)
"restore the top two [income] tax rates to their levels under President Clinton." He would also, among other things, "restore the capital gains and
dividend rates for families making over $200,000 on income earned above $200,000 to their levels under President Clinton." Kerry's stated desire to
balance the budget and to boost federal spending substantially would almost
Kerry's plan sucks. ...And this is news? (Score:1)
The question is: are his plans better than Bush's. I'd rather vote for a candidate who will cause problems we CAN solve later than for a candidate who'll cause problems so bad we may NEVER be able to solve them!
Statements of absolute worth are useless in discussing policy. You must always compare it to the policy it's REPLACING.
I have a feeling (Score:4, Insightful)
Nothing to see here, move along.
Re:I have a feeling (Score:3, Insightful)
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:I have a feeling (Score:4, Informative)
300 qualified economists that support Bush('s policies)
300 qualified economists that support Kerry('s policies)
300 qualified economists that are against Kerry('s policies)
300 qualified economists that are against Bush('s policies)
ad infinitum
That they found 300 to say something bad about Kerry is no surprise at all.
Re:I have a feeling (Score:1)
Absurd! (Score:1)
Re:Absurd! (Score:3)
Is it really that hard for people to see this? It's not that difficult to find 300 professors in the same field that will sign something supporting one candidate over the other, (or attacking the policies of the other).
In short, I would take this open letter with a g
Re:I have a feeling (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Mod this guy up! (Score:2)
-bZj
Let's Play Ball (Score:3, Interesting)
First is the saying that if you ask all the economists to lay down on the ground and point towards north you would find a pile of people pointing in all different directions.
The second (more serious) statement is regarding the Hawley-Smoot Act [wikipedia.org] which is Wiki'd to say:
Re:I have a feeling (Score:2)
Even the poll mentioned earlier made to be pro-Kerry says Bush has better trade policies than Kerry.
Either way, they are both big government candidates. These guys are just saying which one is presenting a bigger big government "plan".
Re:I have a feeling (Score:2)
Re:I have a feeling (Score:2)
Re:I have a feeling (Score:2)
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=124945&cid=10
Re:I have a feeling (Score:2)
Re:I have a feeling (Score:1)
Why is it so hard for people on
Re:I have a feeling (Score:2)
Oddly enough, since I bothered to read that article you'll notice they only had 2 Nobel laureates sign their article. ("neenerneener, we had more Nobel laureates sign our paper than you!") I don't know how anyone could fail to see that these two "open letters" aren't worth any more than the paper they
Re:I have a feeling (Score:1)
Thank you very much.
Re:I have a feeling (Score:2)
Well one of those heavy hitters seems to be Friedman. Who not only won the Nobel prize but had the opeertunity to test his theoreys in practice -- twice.
The first time was as economic advisor to Pinochet in Chile. This was moderatetly succesful in economic terms -- if you were not one of the n thousand Chileans who were tortured, imprisioned killed or just plain diappeared.
The second time as "Reagonomics" mark 1. ('trickle-down' anyone?) which on the whole was a miserable failure (even the rich got poorer
Kerry's policies suck.. (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Private system? WHAT private system? (Score:2, Interesting)
The current state of the health care industry is the inevitable result of our movement toward Socialism. Saying we need to Socialize the industry is exactly t
Re:Private system? WHAT private system? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Private system? WHAT private system? (Score:2)
For that matter whenever anyone proposes any sort of insurance reform or subsidies in this country why does every single critic automaticly assume it means a system like the NHS in the UK?
First of all there are any number of ways of doing health care reform from having everything private including insurance companies but with subsidies for lower income folks (Australia), to a mix o
Re:Private system? WHAT private system? (Score:2)
The problem is your condition has to be life threatening before you can get treatment. Also many hospitals will refuse even emergency patients without insurance coverage, only treating them to the point they can be safely transfered to another hospital.
In addition I don't know if you've ever used the emergency room when you've not had health insuranc
Re:Private system? WHAT private system? (Score:2)
Re:Private system? WHAT private system? (Score:5, Interesting)
What you may be referring to is Medicare where the goverment says "we pay x for y treatment" and the hospital has to accept that. This is no different from what health insurance companies do.
Re:Private system? WHAT private system? (Score:2)
And they can get away with alot, like treatment refusals and having english majors decide the best treatment option.
And then promptly get sued for malpractice.
The healthcare industry is still beholdent to private stockholders
No, they're beholdent to themselves. Believe it or not, the healthcare industry is not an oligarchy, ruled only by big business and profit. To claim that the entire industry is owned by stockholders is just ignorant.
they just have to work within the confines of goverment
Re:Private system? WHAT private system? (Score:2)
No there is an MD who rubber stamps everything... err reviews. Sometimes it's decisions as to course of action other times it's decisions as to treat or don't treat, at least in the insurance company "doctor's" opinion.
Believe it or not, the healthcare industry is not an oligarchy, ruled only by big business and profit.
And to claim there is no profit motive is also ignorant. I'm talking about the industry as a whole, health insurance, hospitals, medical supp
Pong Mechanik (Score:4, Interesting)
Whoa, open source! ;) (Score:3, Interesting)
No, probably not.
Um... hello? (Score:4, Insightful)
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:Suggestions please? (Score:2)
I think part of it is that we're all a little too used to both the White House and Congress both getting pretty much exactly what they want, and we're coming up to the end of a presidential term where ther president hasn't vetoed anything.
No matter what happens, no matter how much of a crackpot a new president may be, they will still have to contend with a gerrymandered Republocrat Congress. Even if Hell froze over and every single national election in th
Bushitonomics (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Bushitonomics (Score:2)
-bZj
Re:Bushitonomics (Score:2)
-bZj
TWO WEEKS (Score:2)
Pong interview translation (Score:4, Interesting)
"Table tennis from the computer Stone-age"
A Berlin art student has reverse-engineered the classic videogame 'Pong' as an electro-mechanical device. He spent hundreds of hours assembling the monstrosity, that realistically pings and pongs via two wood blocks. In an interview with Spiegel Online the builder, Niklas Roy, explains was motivated him to do it.
Spiegel Online: How did you come up with the idea to build such a curious toy?
Roy: I wanted to react against what's happening these days in the games and film special effects industries. There virtual realities are made which copy the real world. My goal was to turn the tables and transport a virtual world into reality.
Spiegel Online: How much work is inside this big box?
Roy: A whole lot. From the idea to the finished machine took about a year. In total the project took about 900 hours of work.
Spiegel Online: Why of all things did you pick this Ping-Pong game?
Roy: Because it's a symbol. It's one of the first computergames, and definitely the first commercially successful one. And it's a virtual world that's calculated by a computer in real time. Although it's an imitation tennis game, it's nevertheless immediately recognizable as a video game. At the same time it's simplicity was well suited to my purposes.
Spiegel Online: Did you buy (new) all the parts from which you built it?
Roy: Yes, everything but the telephone relays. Those are from an Internet auction. I got them from an auction of a 50s telephone system. The parts together cost about 2500 Euros.
Spiegel Online: Where is the game now?
Roy: At the moment at my house. But it was exhibited at the 'Garage' festival in Stralsund this summer. Pongmechanick will probably be shown at the 'Viper' art festival in Basel and definitely at the hacker congress of the Chaos Computer Club in December in Berlin.
Spiegel Online: Was were the greatest technical challenges?
Roy: Without a doubt the mechanical parts. The whole thing consists of two parts: the relay controls and the mechanical display with collision detection. The mechanical part was the most complicated because it's naturally the most error-prone.
Spiegel Online: You tried several approaches for the mechanics before it worked...
Roy: In the beginning I wanted to set the moving parts on coasters and move them on carts. DC motors would've pulled the carts back and forth with strings. But it didn't work like I'd imagined. So I used chains instead of strings, and they move gliders instead of carts. The gliders simply slide along rails.
Spiegel Online: You hear it when the ball hits the flipper. How was that solved technically?
Roy: The original Pong had just two sounds: one high and one low beep. I wanted a one-to-one translation as much as possible. So I bought two wood blocks from a percussion store, one high and one low sounding. These are hit by electromagnets that came from door bells.
Spiegel Online: Where did your affinity for computer games and tinkering with relays come from?
Roy: Wenn you're 30 years old, like I am, then Pong is almost certainly the first video game that you played. And as a child I always tinkered a lot. I built an alarm system for my room and experimented with electricity. I always had a knack for it.
Spiegel Online: Do you believe that mechanical games in general have a future?
Roy: I can imagine that (note: I'm not a native speaker, but this is probably better than the fish would do.)
"Table tennis from the computer Stone-age"
A Berlin art student has reverse-engineered the classic videogame 'Pong' as an electro-mechanical device. He spent hundreds of hours assembling the monstrosity, that realistically pings and pongs via two wood blocks. In an interview with Spiegel Online the builder, Niklas Roy, explains was motivated hi
Re:Pong interview translation (Score:2, Informative)
ASP.NET patch (Score:3, Insightful)
If we criticize them for their flaws, we should praise them when they assume responsibility. Its only fair to be fair.
Cheers,
Adolfo
not fast enough (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't they test this crap before they kick it out the door in Redmond? They've lowered expectations of their shabby, expensive (especially TCO) products so low that some of us are glad when a serious compromise takes Microsoft only weeks after public disclosure/pressure forces them to spend the time and money to debug. Can't they spend some of their tens of billions of dollars in profit on some of the unemployed
Re:1 point for bashing microsoft... a /. guarantee (Score:2)
Economist Jokes (Score:4, Funny)
Just remember:
The First Law of Economists: For every economist, there exists an equal and opposite economist.
The Second Law of Economists: They're both wrong.
What is the point of mechanical pong? (Score:2)
Good Economics (Score:2)
Well I do not doubt they have good economics: a swift kick of $50k into thier bank account will make most good economists see the value in saying anything.
I was unable to compile the story as it was missing a required library: Pinch of salt.
Hoover's Fine Economic Policies (Score:3, Funny)
Lower employment/wage growth (Score:2)
M
PHB invasion! (Score:1, Redundant)
That brings up a new phenomena (Score:1, Offtopic)
God spoke to me:
www.geocities.com/James_Sager_PA/love3.html
Re:Dupe? (Score:1)
Re:Ahhh... beta test.... (Score:1)
Re:wtf? (Score:2, Funny)
Its just you. Now shut the fuck up.
- Timothy
When I first wrote the above.. (Score:2)
When I first wrote the above, I was getting three copies of this story on the front page. Don't know why...
The comment is far less funy now that the error is gone...
8-)
Re:When I first wrote the above.. (Score:2)
Must be windows fault... 8-)