Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Buddhism - the less abhorrent religion. (Score 2) 348

What I'd really like to see is some good scientific research put in to this sort of thing, stripping away the associated mysticism and getting right to the core of it. Based on the rather limited article, it appears this might not be too difficult as he may already be keeping the mysticism to a minimum.

That's probably what these neuroscientists were likely doing. There has been a bunch of psychology research into the benefits of mindfulness meditation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness_(psychology)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110121144007.htm
http://nccam.nih.gov/research/results/spotlight/012311.htm

Comment Re:Interesting, yet scary. (Score 1) 440

I think we are actually getting off topic here a little.

This has nothing to do with Free Speech. All Free Speech grants us is the right to the *opportunity* to speak freely to whomever can hear us. It says nothing that we shall be provided with communication capabilities to do so. Even, all the way back then, I don't think the Founding Fathers intended that every man shall have free and reasonable access to pen, ink, paper, a horse, and another man to effectively transmit your speech farther than the sound of your voice.

Except of course they did consider this notion by including in the same amendment the freedom of press. There is a big difference between free Wi-Fi at McDonalds and shutting off a utility. Yes, it is true that Verizon's networks are privately owned, but they also form a considerable portion of this nation's communication infrastructure, and it is reasonable to expect in a free society that something like this remains intact.

Comment Re:No compiler? (Score 2) 255

cs101 without even seeing a compiler? Tragic :)

MIT's CS 101 course used to use a book called "Structures and Interpretation of Compter Programming" and was based on a LISP-variant called MIT Scheme. No compiler. Now, I think they use Python. Still no compiler.

Javascript isn't half bad of a language to use for an intro course, although I think it is far from ideal. Javascript as implemented in a browser, with the DOM and all is kind of a mess. Having examples to run in a browser is a nice perk though. You get to mess with a GUI without knowing much more than HTML.

Comment Re:Think of it as 4.0.2 (Score 4, Insightful) 599

Right, as the article points out, the changelist for Firefox 5 is not much more expansive than the changelist for Firefox 3.6.

This may be true for this particular instance, but Firefox certainly isn't guaranteeing that going forward. What happens with Firefox 9 is released with a feature that breaks their enterprise, and Firefox 8 is suddenly no longer supported?

This whole attitude I hear parroted that "release numbers are irrelevant because they are just numbers" ignores a whole bunch of realities regarding how new features are introduced and developed to different classes of users. And in the case of Firefox, this new strategy sends a disturbing message to enterprise customers that new and potentially disruptive features will be introduced "when they are ready" and support for previous versions will be immediately dropped.

Comment Re:Think of it as 4.0.2 (Score 1) 599

If the version number were 4.0.2 instead of 5.0 Enterprises wouldn't be getting their panties in a bunch over this.

You are right, they wouldn't. And for a good reason. The problem with the model Firefox is adopting is that they are no longer guaranteeing support for a browser that is a few months old. It might be fine in this particular instance where they've made "minor" changes from 4 to 5, but there is no guarantee of this going forward. The versioning numbers are used as a signal to management to indicate feature stability and adoption risk, and Firefox has gotten rid of that. Now the enterprise is left with an unsettling possibility that Firefox 6, or Firefox 9, will suddenly introduce a feature which breaks compatibility with their stuff, without little or no warning or support from Firefox.

Comment Wrong Message (Score 1) 236

This is the wrong message to take from Challenger. While it is true that there are risks that were taken with the space program, lets not forget there was a civilian teacher on board that shuttle, and at the time the flight was considered to be reasonably safe. The major contributing factors to Challenger were due to management taking priority over good engineering. That is a lesson we can't afford to forget.

Comment Re:What a joke (Score 1) 386

The full 576 page investigation, out this afternoon, was the product of extensive research and interviews with over seven hundred witnesses. But only six of the 10 commission members, all of them Democrats, have backed the final report.

Yeah, "extensive" research and interviews. Only of the very people who didn't see it coming of course, because the legion of people who predicted it in advance wouldn't have any idea as to the causes.

You can guarantee the answer will be "there was enough regulation" by the gazillion regulations that did exist at the time and we need a gazillion more. Rather than "maybe the Fed settings rates at almost 0% for so long wasn't such a wise idea, oh and maybe when banks are making million dollar loans to people with no income and no assets the regulators and ratings agencies should take a look-see (you know doing their jobs)".

And yes some things that weren't regulated should have been (if it looks like insurance and quacks like insurance then maybe is is insurance even if they call it a credit default swap).

High speed trading is completely irrelevant since this wasn't triggered by a sudden drop in the prices of things involved in high speed trading in the first damn place.

It is really sad that you all aren't reading this report. Not even the executive summary.

But since you can't be bothered to read, the report does in fact attribute a major cause of the financial crisis in 2008 to the Fed keeping rates low. and it also blames the regulators for ignoring warning signs, and the ratings agencies for not fixing problems with their risk models and continuing to rate crap as triple-A. It also discusses in great detail such as AIG being able to issue insurance (in the form of CDSs) without having collateral.

So yes, all of your points were covered in your report. But go ahead and shit all over the thing that actually is trying to explain and justify precisely the things you see an being primal causes to the crisis, because government sucks right?

Comment Re:another gov't commission bs (Score 2) 386

You know, results of a government commission that was established to figure out the causes for the financial crisis of 2008 came out, and that commission was a charade, just like this one.

That commission "found" that the crisis was caused by lack of regulations, that low interest rates and Freddie/Fannie had nothing to do with the housing bubble, they "found" that the only thing that government did "wrong" was let the Lehman brothers fail and that the future crisis can only be avoided if there is more government regulations.

Lets start with this: I despise the governments.

The results of that commission were just as well known in advance as the results of the one from this story. Of-course a government commission will find that what is needed is more government and that whatever structural problems that are caused by government are not the real problems.

THIS IS THE SAME BULLSHIT.
IT IS BULLSHIT, DO NOT BELIEVE A SINGLE WORD THAT YOU ARE READING IN THE FABRICATED CONCLUSIONS OF THESE COMMISSIONS.

They are finding one thing: there is need for more government.

They are finding this other thing: whoever is in power cannot be blamed.

That's all.

Maybe you should try to read the report. It doesn't say what you are saying it does. The fact you were modded up is kinda sad.

If you "despise the governments" maybe you would prefer an independent journalist, Matt Taibbi, who corroborates most of the conclusions of his report in the independent analysis he provides in his book, "Griftopia."

They do not find that more government is needed. They did find that regulators both failed to act when it was within their power and failed to request more power when they needed it. There is a long list of examples just in the executive summary of both of these.

They do not find that the people in power are not to be blamed. Quite the opposite. They find that people in power were very much to blame.

I am so sick of the prevalent simple-minded "explanations" of this crisis. Read the report. What happened in 2008 is complicated and it is worth understanding. Blame is very widespread, but can also be pinpointed. There are actions which can be taken to prevent this from happening again. But first, it is necessay to understand what happened. This report does an extremely thorough job of explaining it.

Slashdot Top Deals

Intel CPUs are not defective, they just act that way. -- Henry Spencer

Working...