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Domain: digitalelite.com
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Comments · 219
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Re:From my cold dead hands
The times when a group of civilians could contend with an equally numerous group of soldiers are long gone.
And what gave you the impression that the soldiers would be siding with the government if the government told it to turn on the citizenry? Those that do side with the government will be facing their own weaponry in battle...right next to "grand-daddy's rifle."
Don't worry, though. While you sit at home wishing you had a shot against our new hypothetical governmental overlords, people like me and about 40-65% of the enlisted folk you seem to have written off as government peons will be out there fighting for your right to continue to stay at home frozen in fear. You can thank us afterward.
For general info: Find out your states laws on being a gun collector. You gain legal access to a larger variety of heavy weaponry with the caveat that you don't keep it loaded. Fine enough. Keep the 15 shot handgun loaded. That'll buy you enough time to load your "collector's items". I assure you, while my
I think this is when I'm supposed to yell "Wolverines!" or something.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Is there bias showing the article itself?
Never attribute to intent what can be attributed to incompetence.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Double blind test
Yes there is: These guys are victims of FRAUD.
I'll agree that the $2000 speaker wire example was a bad one because I agree with you that a human isn't likely to be able to distinguish a difference beyond a certain quality point that sits far below the $2000 mark (assuming a shorter cable run). That said, the typical rhetoric against audiophiles extends far below the $2000 mark. I hear people laugh at the higher end Monster cables, which is stupid. Clearly there will exist a quality difference between a radio shack cable and a higher end Monster cable. Does the difference justify the price? That is a subjective question and really depends greatly on how dicerning your hearing is, frankly. That's all I'm getting at. I'm not debating the merits of $2000 speaker wire, rather I was just repeating the example given by the OP. Note my detailed example was about a far more realisticly discernable difference in quality between 128kbps mp3s and 320kbps mp3s. I noted that I can discern up to about that quality-point, though I tend to store losslessly for cross-encoding reasons.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Telephone reliability a thing of the past?
What you are seeing is the first stage of a mass decentralization. Phones were low hanging fruit (given how easy it was to move them to the ubiquitous IP wires flowing everywhere) and so they got decentralized first, but power will not be an exception. Whole house generators are getting cheaper every day. They take multiple inputs. I've been looking at adding a Natural Gas generator to my house next year sometime. It hooks into my natural gas line and my power lines (coming and going) and acts as a sort of UPS for my home. As long as either my natural gas lines keep flowing OR my power lines keep flowing, I will have power. Add solar to the mix (also getting much cheaper day-by-day) and you start to see a new pattern of reliability emerge; one where decentralization and redundancy replaces the monolithic centralized reliability methodologies of yesteryear.
but in the interim, yes, phone have become far less reliable.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Double blind test
You must laugh in the face of 320Kbit mp3s
lol! Yeah. I'm terribly gifted.
Yeah, I meant Kbps not kHz. BIIIG difference as the poster points out! Let this be a lesson in why one should always select "Preview" before "Submit" on
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Double blind test
"Audiophiles" like to make all sorts or ridiculous claims that lead to things like $2000 speaker cables, gold CDs and just a general proliferation of nonsensical technobabble.
Double blind tests have been done to death on Audiophile equipment, and while the general populous loves to joke audiophiles for their taste in equipment, the tests are clear: There exists a subset of people who can distinguish audio from these supposed frivolities. So, yes, the $2000.00 speaker cables will benefit some percentage of the population. That said, the percentage is small so it makes little sense to push it on the majority buyer, but there is no reason to get testy about audiophiles buying equipment that benefits them. Their claims aren't "ridiculous". They are specific to their experience, while your experience/audio-acuity differs and makes such equipment ridiculous for YOU to purchase.
I've always found it funny that people tend so strongly toward universalizing their perceptions. More often than not, it's the non-audiophiles telling the audiophiles they are stupid, but on occasion I also see the audiophiles trying to get non-audiophiles to upgrade for reasons that only make sense to the audiophile.
I record/buy lossless music. I can (in double blind tests) distinguish quality up to around 320kHz (standard MP3 encoding) whereas I have a friend who considers more than 128kHz to be a waste. For him, it is. For me, it's not. How hard is that to get?What you'd really find is that as the bitrate of an mp3 goes up, the number of people who can tell the difference goes down. At some point the number of people who can tell the difference becomes a statistically insignificant sample. This would be a good project for some grad student.
It's been done and you are correct that the number grows exceedingly low fairly quickly as the bitrate rises. The beauty of our Brave New World, however, is that the idea of a "statistically insignificant sample" is moving toward obsolescence. It's all about personalization. This was epitomized by the AllofMP3 model, which allowed the purchaser to buy music at the quality that mattered to them. There is no reason why we can't continue that trend. There is no reason to marginalize the purchaser of an intangible good or service anymore with our increased ability to serve ever more specialized products that micro-target ever smaller demographics.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Poor Americans, .. again
how dare you call yourself the "best country in the world"
What are you talking about? No one in the article said that. Very few I know would make such a sweeping statement. What, are you just looking to extend some debate you had in your mind against a strawman American "sympathizer"?if you don't even have nationally implemented healthcare?
We do. It's called Medicaid and Medicare. It is a safety net for America's poor and elderly. It gives care to those who need it most and cannot afford to pay for a premium service. Frankly, it's quite good. I have experience with the system. It's a beauracratic mess, but in the end it works. Recent changes to Medicare have caused some problems, but it's too early to see what if any concrete problems those changes might create.Europe, glorious old lady that she is has long ago implemented the National healthcare
Glorious Old Lady? Glad to see you are approaching your America-bashing without bias.Everyone has access to proper healthcare.
"Proper" is a qualitative term that is meaningless in this context. That said, I know for a fact that many Europeans would disagree with your use of the word here.Everyone automatically pays into the healthcare fund so it can be maintained
So I (who eats healthy, doesn't smoke, doesn't drink, don't take stupid risks) get to pay the same as the guy who smokes 2 packs a day, drinks like a fish, and is going to cost the system easily 8 times what I will cost it. That's a great system you got there. Count me in.but look what trusting in those has brought you?
The only trust issue here is your trust of what you are fed anecdotally by the media and slashodot posters instead of the facts. do some research (it's clear you haven't) and then post something intelligent.if it's run by others then the idiots running the American state
More random insults? I'm surprised you aren't marked as more of a troll than you have been.The state however [...] should be more interested in keeping it's taxpayers ALIVE and healthy so they can work and pay taxes next year.
So do companies. Companies who run healthcare plans have a vested interest in seeing you healthy. Historically, I've not been a fan of HMO's, for instance. but sometimes the facts contradict anecdote. People who are provided care by HMO's are measurably healthier on average than those provided for by other plans. Why? HMO's, for instance, will call you if you miss a check up or scheduled appointment. They want you to stay healthy. It keeps their long term costs down. They have fairly sophisticated software micromanaging your health care. The government---your european government---doesn't. If you get sick, it actually matters to them. Not so with your government's health plan management. I agree that the free market can only carry us so far, but this is one of those cases where it has carried us farther than a governmental system can or will. Governmental oversight of these companies is good, but government control? Not so good.
You shouldn't attack things you don't understand.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Does any major site use pure CSS?
It's my personal opinion that some things are just way easier to do with tables than CSS, and that's why people keep doing it. Am I right?
In part, yes. It is easier to design sites that are formatted as we have grown accustomed to them in the old table layout manner.
CSS, however, frees the designer from the constraints that table layout imposes. They allow for a great deal more layout freedom and moreover they make it about twice as easy to design sites that are A11y compliant (at least as per the parameters imposed by section 508).
CSS doesn't do everything well (FFS, why is centering a block element so retarded?!) but overall, it's easier to do many things with CSS than it is to do so with tables---as long as you aren't just trying to reproduce a screwed up table format layout.
Essentially, it boils down to familiarity. Developers (who are not designers) are far more accustomed to table layout processes than they are CSS layout processes, so they use tables.
Spend some time getting to know CSS. In the end, it's going to be far more beneficial to your web-dev career than a lot fo other technologies you could be picking up. Especially as A11y and 508 compliance become more important.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:M$ jokes aside...
Would it really be so bad to have the government run with a more business like model?
I don't think so.
The government's primary responsibility is not to be efficient but to be helpful. Helping people (often taking the form of protecting us from each other, sadly) is not an efficient business. People are messy and disorganized and cannot be approached in a business-like manner. Churches don't run themselves like businesses. Believe it or not, even 'corporate' churches like CBN are striken with incredible inefficiency. Secular charities are much the same.
While I'd welcome some of the business methodologies (you mentioned a balanced budget, and I think that's a good idea) overall, the government's job isn't business-like and wouldn't be well served by someone who couldn't step outside that role.
Rumsfeld tried to run our military like a business. Look where that got us. While I appreciate his desire to see reform in military aquisition procedure (yes, I actually said something nice about him!) it only underscores the problem of treating human affairs in a business-like manner. Equipment never arrived. Soldiers were spread thin. The war is being lost. You can't apply a JIT supply chain to military affairs in that way. You can't do it with the welfare system, the police and fire departments, our public conservation works, or any of a hundred other inefficient processes that are mucked up by the irregular rhythms of humankind.
This doesn't bear on whether Bill Gates should or should not be president (though he should most certainly not!) since we have no idea how he'd approach he job. Plenty of good business men would make fine presidents becuase they recognize what I'd said. Ross Perot (that crazy little ferengi) would have been a great president, I believe. Despite his corporate background, I think he would have done well in the position.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
What about OIN and the Patent Commons?
What effect will the Patent Commons project have on a patent assault by Microsoft? Also, will the newly formed Open Inventions Network also affect the way Microsoft approaches this issue?
I mean, both of those organizations essentially grant rights to their patents royalty free only to companies that don't sue F/OSS projects. If MS starts a suit, wouldn't they have to contend with both of these patent holding portfolios as well as the enormous portfolio of companies like IBM who have a vested interest in seeing Linux succeed?
I get the feeling (though I could be dead wrong) that MS gets far more benefit from the current ambiguity and the occasional stirring, scary statement than from actually pursuing a legal remedy.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
I never tire of pointing out...
...that between the Linux kernel project and Microsoft Corporation, only one of those entities has been convicted (repeatedly!) of patent and copyright violation. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to guess which it is.
It suffices to say, I think the kettle just called someone black.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:This is cronyism at its finest
Let's say each school is completely independent. You can open as many schools as possible but each school must accept all applicants up to its capacity in its region. In cases where capacity is full, applicants are accepted based on proximity or a lottery
With a few adjustments this is quite similar to the charter schools idea (see the NEA's view on them). In fact, I'm not against charter schools in general, nor against the voucher systems that tend to come with them---though I'm more than a bit upset at the way our President used the No Child Left Behind Act to essentially "backdoor" a voucher system into place when it wasn't a popular choice. While I happened to agree with him on this issue (a rarity), I don't like watching the Will of the People sidestepped like that. It essentially creates a scenario where every school in the nation can arbitrarily receive a failing grade (due to legal conflicts between No Child Left Behind and the IDEA laws) and thus every child in every school becomes eligible for a voucher alternative immediately. Kinda lame, even if the end result is something I think is utlimately a good thing.
The charter school idea has promise, but it'll be a few years before we see the full effects and side-effects of this system.Thanks again for your reply.
No problem. Sorry for the initially less friendly reply. I think my hands were typing long before my brain had moved into the "ON" position.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:This is cronyism at its finest
Schools earn x-y dollars per student where the actual value is determined by an objective performance measurement
Excellent. Schools that suffer the poorest performance, hence need the most help, get the least funding. Bravo. You've managed to reverse engineer the existing problem to perfection while maintaining that your new and fresh 'solution' is a bright alternative. You have a strong future in School Board politics.
Seriously, the vast vast vast majority of people who complain about and make decisions about our educational system know little to nothing about how it works under the hood. If you are serious about offering a solution, study the problem properly and in full, then come up with some ideas. Bounce those ideas off of others who've done the same. If you are not serious about offering a solution, then quit spouting off on chat boards about how 'simple' that solution assuredly is.
Society's toughest problems are not simple. They can't be solved by the average
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:A framework of our own?
I don't disagree that Python is a good language, that makes development easy, but I'm not talking about languages. I'm talking frameworks---one totally divorced from the languages used to code against it. Python is great, but it's not even in the ballpark of
Python is to Linux as VB is to Windows. That has its place, and I'm glad it's there, but I mean a framework that would have compile to a VM that sits above the OS (perhaps even in userspace!) and that has bindings for c#, python, ruby, smalltalk, etc...).
I haven't thought through the details fully, and I could be totally wrong (wouldn't be the first time) but I don't know of anything that makes coding on Linux as easy as coding against
Consider this the feedback of a Windows developer by trade who uses Linux exclusively at home. Anecdotal, but it's the opinion of many/most Windows developers. And they often won't go with mono becuase mono is consistently about 15 months behind MS in its API.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
A framework of our own?
I'm a developer. I've made considerable money as a
Seriously, we spend endless hours debating which is less evil---java or mono---and we complain that both don't offer us the flexibility we have grown accustomed to in the F/OSS world, so why haven't we just started from scratch and done our own linux-centric framework to ease RAD work and simplify the task of getting started in Linux development.
I'm not suggesting it has a place everywhere. Certainly most kernel work and most driver work would need to stay C-based, but if we had a framework designed from the ground up to open Gnome and KDE devlopment (well, userspace development in general, really) it would get used. There's obviously a market for it. Developers argue over Java and
I dunno. There may be good reasons, but I don't see them from my vantage point.
Til I see a solid and Free alternative, I'm gonna stick with Mono (which I'm impressed with so far), but I'll keep my eye out.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Wow.
That's over 350 gallons per minute.
And over a full Library of Congress every three days! Wow! That's a whole lotta got-dang water!
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
a small request
The comparison to media control to control of The Pipes is an apt comparison.
Running Fedora here. Could you post a yum comparison as well? Sorry to be so much trouble. Thanks!
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
which is precisely what we DON'T want
If you can show how you specifically voted outside the voting booth, then you can sell your vote or (arguably) worse can have your vote coerced away from you.
You want to see how you voted, then print a paper ballot from the machine that shows---IN PLAIN TEXT---what your vote was. Place that paper in the ballot box. The paper is anonymous. You don't carry home a receipt. If the vote needs to be recounted by hand any volunteer with an 85 or higher I.Q. can be employed to do a manual recount based on the plain text version to compare against to ballot box's count of bar codes. If they don't agree, something went awry.
This is simple stuff. We don't need encryption, web 2.0 interfaces, juggling monkeys, or moon rock sculptures! We need 3 things:
1) a way for the computer to count fast (barcode or some such)
2) a way for the voter to see what he's voted for (plain text on the same bar coded ballot)
3) a way to do a manual recount for verification (see "plain text" comment above
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Hardware support? You have the wrong suspect.
I agree, and I think most Linux folks would agree as well, that hardware support is important and is a priority, but blaming Linux for its lack of hardware support is just retarded.
Linux, unlike Microsoft, doesn't always have access to specs. They can't support hardware that they can't reverse engineer. They will always be behind the curve. But to blame Linux because hardware manufacturers don't write drivers for the platform and don't' release specs for Linux developers to write drivers for them is to misplace the blame.
Could Linux make it easier to write drivers? Sure, in some ways. But in the end, the blame falls squarely on the hardware manufacturers. This is why you should thank those few manufacturers who take the time and effort to offer support to our platform of choice.
But don't take potshots at Linux for something totally out of its control. It's either ignorant or disingenuous---and either way has no place in real journalism.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Senator Allen (R-VA)
I'd say that's a fair assessment of my post. Actually, I do have some problems with him as a Senator (and I also liked him as Governor) that aren't just related to him strong allegiance to the current president, but I didn't want to get too far into Va politics in this thread.
He's made some decisions as senator that I vehemently disagree with. I'm not exactly excited about Webb (who is?) but I think he'll be marginally better than what we have now. I wish I could be more positive about our senatorial choices this year.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Senator Allen (R-VA)
Also unsurprising was George Allen, a first-term Virginia Republican who won the top score in the Senate, at 78 percent, after becoming chairman of the Senate High Tech Task Force five years ago.
Those of us from Virginia aren't surprised either. Senator Allen used to be our Governor where he spent consider energy and resources courting high tech companies and trying to bring legislation to the table that made us an attractive option for technology companies in search of a headquarters. As Governor, his approval rating was pretty damn high.
That said, as a Senator, he has not fared so well in the polls. He may be friendly to technology interests (apparently 78% friendly?) which is expected given his history on the subject, but he's even friendly to President Bush (apparently 96% friendly?) and that doesn't sit well with a nation or a state that isn't interested in more of the same right now.
I guess what I'm driving at here is that while our pet interest might be in technology, we can't let that drive our vote. It's an important issue category, but it's only one of many and on many other counts these people may be doing quite a poor job. I'd argue that voting so closely with President Bush's interests (seriously 96% is A LOT!) shows me that a great governor does not necessarily make a good senator. I suspect he is just courting the RNC because there has been talk of him being a serious presidential contender in the near future. I know you have to sell a little of your soul to get anywhere in politics nowadays, but I can't in good conscience vote for someone who does it so thoroughly and so blatantly...even if he is good on technology.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:The whole thing failed for very sound reasons..
I think of a dozen things that would benefit the poor way before we start thinking about fucking PCs.
And yet here you are wasting your time ranting on
Seriously, get over it. People give what they are able to give. The people who started this project don't know how to get potable water to the middle of a desert or properly distribute condoms and sex education to AIDs-ravaged Africa. Nope. They know how to make computers. That's how they can help.
So quit bitching about other people not offering the right kind of help to the poor. You are not the arbiter of what sort of help is best to offer. Spend your time examining your own charitable works. Make improvements there and, for God's sake, stop criticising others who are actually doing some good in the fucking world. You aren't helping things.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
and the word 'conservative' is further degraded...
Hatch is among the more conservative politicians on the issues of 'digital privacy' and 'fair use,'
Hatch is most certainly not conservative on the issues of digital privacy and fair use. He is strongly in the camp of the Republicans, a political party that has co-opted the use of the term 'conservative' in an attempt to make it mean something that it doesn't!
Traditionally, the conservative view on privacy and personal rights is almost precisely the opposite of its use in the above context. Conservatives have a history of fighting government intrusion into their personal and private lives. I wish I knew where those conservatives were now. I'd probably vote for one if I met him. All I can choose between now are these 'neo-conservatives' whose only interest is in conserving the power elite's status quo and these 'progressives' whose only interest seems to be progressing 50 or so incompatible agendii from their various special interest groups.
I know I'm fighting a losing battle in the War of Semantics here, but damn, it's just disheartening.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/
P.S. And don't get me started about the Libertarians and the Green Party! -
It's probably a dumb point, but...
I have to admit that the number of emails surprised me. 74 million just doesn't seem like that much for a 2 year period. I'm not a spammer, but it just seems like they couldn't have been maxing out their pipe. I dunno. The spam business model confuses me a bit, anyway, but really, if I have a list of addresses that is, say, 1 million large (seems reasonable from what I've heard) that means they only send out 74 iterations over the span of 730 days. That's like less than one iteration a week. Does it take a week to push out a million simple text messages? What do they do for the other 9 days?
I'm not trying to learn the craft of "spammery" or whatever, it's just that the numbers seemed low. I guess I just had this impression that they sent out like a million a day or something.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Have they released a SenderID SDK?
Although I may not be a fan of M$, I am a fan of anything anti-spam
Here's my shocking intro: I'm not for just "anything" anti-spam.
I've said all this before on
The Sender Policy Framework (SPF) so-called spam solution is being adopted all over the place without nary a complaint. But think about it. Tim Berners-Lee didn't just envision a web of equitable bandwidth, he envisioned a web of peers---a web of end points, all equally valid. What happens when my system is no longer considered a valid end point? Suddenly, we have a network of clients and servers rather than peers. When the SPF process looks to verify that the sender is the one valid smtp server for the mail address' domain (based on either MX or A records), it devalues all non-domain level systems on the web. Peers on the network become clients, fed valid packets from those servers that are approved to pass said packets. The SMTP semantic paradigm moves from Sender>Receiver to Server>Client.
But no one really cares because there is some belief that this will help reduce spam. It will, but so will turning off our mail clients. Neither is the right solution. The solution is a newer, better mail protocol, many of which have been proposed that DO NOT devalue the peers of the network. Probably one of the better known of the examples is the IM2000 protocol.
But we'd rather have a network of tiered rights, I suppose, than deal with the mess of changing a protocol for real.
In programming cicrles, this is called cruft. "What, the exosting app doesn't do all that's needed becuase we didn't think we'd need this functionality? Then just tack that functionality on it." Sometimes it makes sense to add small functional differences to an extant app. Sometimes it makes more sense to just move to an app that does what you want out of the box instead. This is an example of the second, but as a community, the Internet seems to have decided to do the first. the ISP's love it. It further adds control in their own hands (server-client models make them more powerful online) but why in God's name should we agree to use it?
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:"Heals" ~ "heels"?
the ironing is delicious
Indubiously and for surely.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/
P.S. The "heals" thing was *SO* bugging the crap outta me, too. -
Re:"Heals" ~ "heels"?
My inner grammar Nazi is
You can laugh now. It's a joke.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Who are these people...
Experienced and conscientious Web developers, in their efforts to learn from the mistakes of others and to avoid repeating them on their own projects
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
1/3 from the sun...
...the rest harvested from human energy siphoned off of the blissfully ignorant Matrix-dwellers. Hurray for alternative energy!
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Symptoms and Causes
Like what? I haven't heard of anything fundamentally new from them.
When I wrote that I was thinking specifically of the new init stuff they are rolling out with Edgy Eft. Pretty neat stuff, and to the best of my knowledge not found elsewhere. They've done a few things like that, though overall I agree that most of their work is done standing on the shoulders of Debian.Ask Google, who gets the best engineers in the world partly because the impression that "they are cool".
I stand corrected. That's a good counterexample. I still argue that it's the exception and not the norm, whereas in Free software it's the norm, but my original claim was perhaps too broad a statement. I should remember to avoid "always", "never", and similar boundless terms. They are difficult to defend.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Symptoms and Causes
WTF? The only "cool kids" buying plastic consumer goods advertised by the likes of Bono are younger teens. Bono and cool just don't sit together but there's another word beginning with 'c' that is quite appropriate.
Not sure I follow your logic here, but I'm sure you understand that the iPod isn't the top of the heap for technical, objective reasons but rather because it's just popular with the right crowd. Either way, the iPod is used in this context as an analogy. Be careful not to overthink anyone's analogies. They tend to break when under too much pressure.I've seen posts by you before, you take your narrow world view and provide a high level commentry based on this flawed or limited understanding. Are you trying to come over like an arrogant asshole?
I do sometimes come across that way, yes. It's not my intent. Of course, though you ended with a question mark, you weren't really asking a question, but rather just trying to insult me. Not sure what place that has in reasonable discussion. I understand that on the Internet you feel freer to insult people, but it won't win you any real friends or influence the audience to whom you seem to be playing. Rational discourse has no place for the Ad Hominim arguments you are using here.
Sorry you don't like my comments. You can add be as a Foe or whatever and them set an automatic downmod for all foes. I think that'll keep me off your
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Symptoms and Causes
What implications will this have for SuSE users, and ReiserFS's future as a whole?
Assuming this wasn't a rhetorical question, I'd say the answer is that the ReiserFS will be impacted only slightly by Novell's decision. The far bigger impact will be from a criminal conviction. Free Software is about community and community is all about those subjective intangibles like reputation, "coolness", and mob effects.
Whether we like it or not, this highlights a serious problem with the development model. Likewise, it indirectly highlights one of its strengths. Free software programmers are very much pack animals, like the rest of us. We tend to folllow the herd (I don't mean that in the modern "bad" sense of the phrase. We stick with those we know and enjoy hanging with. We do things we perceive subjectively as fun or cool. We join projects that interest us, we leave projects that offend or dissappoint or bore us. With the GPL, a company that relies on a no-longer-cool project can always pick up the banner and try to reinvigorate interest, but in the end the projects that have momentum have it because they have that special unnamable something that brings people to the fold.
Ubuntu got the right press from the right people at the right time. Is it better than Fedora or Mandriva or whatever? Of course not. But it's market mindshare is through the roof from a perfect storm of developers that got interested in the things Mark Shuttleworth was preaching. They were NOT tempted by technology. The followed the herd, and lo and behold, now Ubuntu Is doing technically cool things. Now, with all this backing and interest, they ARE moving ahead of Fedora and Mandriva in some core ways. That happens in Free software. It does not ever happen in proprietary software, which is purely driven by corporate interest.
If the ReiserFS falls it will be for the same reason we will eventually have an iPod Killer---because eventually the cool kids that tend to lead the pack will decide there are better things to do. A murder conviction might just cause that. Novell's decision is a symptom of that, not a cause of it.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Enjoy single-purposeness when you can.
at least do something cool while you have the opportunity and lack of responsibilities.
Seriously? You're not kidding? Wake up dude. I'm not trying to be mean or anything, but if you can't make your life "cool" without an employer's direction, you have large problems.
Screw that. Work is about one thing: Trading time for money. You want that ratio to be as far in your favor as possible. Period. Let them keep their benefits and culture and intangibles, roll them in a tight ball, and shove them squarely up their corporate tax return.
I'll give a company free time when I see them start giving me free time. They will never. Neither will I.
Tom "Cynical-With-Age" Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/work.html -
I know what it was
Lamest...railgun....EVER!
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:... spread out over Billions of Years!
SETI's odds are very poor on this score.
Without commenting on SETI's chances of success (because that's just idle speculation for both of us) it's worth noting that your claim implicitly assumes a natural denoument in technologically advanced species. You seem to be advocating that there is naturally both a start and a stop to advanced species.
Not to sound too "Law and Order" about it, but I object. Facts not in evidence. We have no idea what happens when a species advances beyond the point at which we are currently advances, let alone do we know what happens statistically to those civilizations over the course of dozens, hundreds, or thousands of iteratons of the pattern.
That a civilization started millenia before us in no way indicates that they aren't still around to interact with.
I'm not saying you're wrong, just that you can't know that you're right.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
one thing to consider
The biggest diff between the two, in my opinion, is the drastically different methodolgy they took to acheive 4-core status.
Intel took two dual cores and packaged them in one unit (but inside that unit they are actually just two separate dual core CPUs) whereas AMD has made an actual quad core single die CPU.
I'm not saying Intel's method is wrong or even disadvantaged, just that it's quite different. Intel will therefore get to market much quicker than AMD, I beleive, but once bother are on the shelves (sans benchmarks, which we don't have yet) my money is on AMD's solution being the performance winner. Still, getting the market first is a huge bonus and will give Intel the breating room to go back and make a true quad core single die CPU. Who knows how this will end? All I know is we win!
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:You volunteer this information.
I'm calling bullshit on this one.
I want to agree. I really do, but this isn't the 1800's. You can't just go off into the mountains to stay out of society's way. To live in this Brave New World you must---not can or ought, but must---participate in the global information infrastructure. In doing so, you will leave a trail. In other words, we've crafted a world wherein a person, to live as normal, must give up that privacy that was expectable in generations past. You must do these things to compete with others in the same community. In that regard, it is absolutely incumbent upon us all to both recognize that loss of privacy and do what we can to abate it.
Privacy is paramount. It is a needed precursor to the freedom of speech and the press, against illegal search and seizure, or the right to think as we please without persecution.
I want to beleive you when you say we can just opt out of such things---that they are optional---but the reality is that we can't and they aren't. Want to turn in a paper for homework? Some school insist that you do so electronically in MS Word. Want to call your mom? Every call is now tracked and stored. Want to protest City Hall? Your face is captured forever on digital film by the block cameras. I want to beleive you, but I can't.
In the face of these threats to our freedoms and rights, we must stand resolute and unwavering. We must always do all we can to err on the side of freedom. The battle for privacy is part of that fight.
I, for one, do NOT welcome my new privacy invading, click tracking, camera-watching overlords.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Give me a printout!
Your premise doesn't validate your conclusion. It's true that voting records that leave the polls are a bad idea, but that does not mean paper ballots don't solve anything.
How about a paper ballot that is printed and then fed into a machine---the ballot having a bar code and a human readable record. The machine counts the bar code results. In cases of a recount, the humans read the other. The human who voted can verify the human readable portion is valid and thus in a recount (even if the bar code count is hacked) the correct vote will be tallied. This raises the bar on the effort required to cheat in an election.
It's not hard. This isn't rocket science, for God's sake. I could write the damned softare in a weekend. That's what's so shameful about this whole situation.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
OK, but...
...now that you've explained how many gallons of electricity it is, could also please give us the equivalent Libraries of Congress of electricity? It seems useful somehow.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Why? It's not because they are too old....
It's because the F14 was designed for intercept missions. The F18 for bombing. The F18 fits our model of modern warfare better, not to mention that with recent improvements in surface-to-air and air-to-air missile tech, having a plane specializing in intercept missions was just unneeded.
I just figured some in the
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Better idea
how about funding research into diseases that affect people at a young age - heart disease, obesity, depression - instead of keeping people alive longer than nature intends?
How about not criticizing people for failing to offer their charity in a way not approved by Your Holiness? I for one, would like the option of living for as long as I please to, thank you very much. Are the needs of the elderly less worthy than the needs of the young?
And while we're at it, how about not suggesting that nature "intends" anything. That's just weird and lame.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
They can do better
Bah! I won't upgrade again until they can give me a screen with Planck density resolution. Anything between my current 9 foot High Def TV and that is a waste of my time.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
They can do better
Bah! I won't upgrade again until they can give me a screen with Planck density resolution. Anything between my current 9 foot High Def TV and that is a waste of my time.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Key scary bits...
And I think I'm actually being kind here, calling the average American biased.
You're not. You're being mildly passive-aggressive, insulting, and blinding yourself to reality in the process. Let me help (see, that's real passive-aggressive behavior!):Now, which part of the above is horribly bad and oppressive?
The part you chose to drop where it says "undermine social ethics or the fine cultural traditions of the Chinese nation [and] include other content banned by Chinese laws and administrative regulations." Those are broad and intentionally subjective criteria that will allow them to censor at will.
Look, I am American. I have a great personal affection for China for reasons made clear here. I've been there. The people are wonderful. The land is beautiful. Even most people in the government are helpful and kind. But I'm not stupid or blind. They have a small core in their government that are strongly opposed to the basics of freedom and the national laws are written such that those people have essentially free reign to suppress said freedom without breaking any rules. I have confidence that they will come out in the end as a strong and healthy country, but right now they have serious problems. Pretending the U.S.'s problems are anything but minor in comparison is disgenious at best. In china, a cab driver stopped speaking to me when he thought he'd "crossed a line" and might get in trouble with the government about it. A chinese man with in the cab with us and the driver couldn't be certain he wouldn't get turned in. We were talking about chinese religions. I can't stress enough, you will not see that happen in a cab in the U.S., for instance. The scope and nature of our problems are worlds apart.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Key scary bits...
And I think I'm actually being kind here, calling the average American biased.
You're not. You're being mildly passive-aggressive, insulting, and blinding yourself to reality in the process. Let me help (see, that's real passive-aggressive behavior!):Now, which part of the above is horribly bad and oppressive?
The part you chose to drop where it says "undermine social ethics or the fine cultural traditions of the Chinese nation [and] include other content banned by Chinese laws and administrative regulations." Those are broad and intentionally subjective criteria that will allow them to censor at will.
Look, I am American. I have a great personal affection for China for reasons made clear here. I've been there. The people are wonderful. The land is beautiful. Even most people in the government are helpful and kind. But I'm not stupid or blind. They have a small core in their government that are strongly opposed to the basics of freedom and the national laws are written such that those people have essentially free reign to suppress said freedom without breaking any rules. I have confidence that they will come out in the end as a strong and healthy country, but right now they have serious problems. Pretending the U.S.'s problems are anything but minor in comparison is disgenious at best. In china, a cab driver stopped speaking to me when he thought he'd "crossed a line" and might get in trouble with the government about it. A chinese man with in the cab with us and the driver couldn't be certain he wouldn't get turned in. We were talking about chinese religions. I can't stress enough, you will not see that happen in a cab in the U.S., for instance. The scope and nature of our problems are worlds apart.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Key scary bits...
And I think I'm actually being kind here, calling the average American biased.
You're not. You're being mildly passive-aggressive, insulting, and blinding yourself to reality in the process. Let me help (see, that's real passive-aggressive behavior!):Now, which part of the above is horribly bad and oppressive?
The part you chose to drop where it says "undermine social ethics or the fine cultural traditions of the Chinese nation [and] include other content banned by Chinese laws and administrative regulations." Those are broad and intentionally subjective criteria that will allow them to censor at will.
Look, I am American. I have a great personal affection for China for reasons made clear here. I've been there. The people are wonderful. The land is beautiful. Even most people in the government are helpful and kind. But I'm not stupid or blind. They have a small core in their government that are strongly opposed to the basics of freedom and the national laws are written such that those people have essentially free reign to suppress said freedom without breaking any rules. I have confidence that they will come out in the end as a strong and healthy country, but right now they have serious problems. Pretending the U.S.'s problems are anything but minor in comparison is disgenious at best. In china, a cab driver stopped speaking to me when he thought he'd "crossed a line" and might get in trouble with the government about it. A chinese man with in the cab with us and the driver couldn't be certain he wouldn't get turned in. We were talking about chinese religions. I can't stress enough, you will not see that happen in a cab in the U.S., for instance. The scope and nature of our problems are worlds apart.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Today's Karma Burn
they want you to be bonded for $5,000,000 dollars, to cover any legal costs in case the site you create isn't 508 compliant (this is not outlanding at all, this is common practice for building contracters).... Why don't you check out the costs that building contractors have to pay to be bonded, and tell me if you have a problem paying for that kind of thing out of your pocket? Let me save you the trouble of looking it up... most likely, you aren't going to be able to afford to be bonded, and you won't be able to do freelance or independant contracting working building websites.
That's the trouble with talking about stuff you have no experience with. I am an independant consultant. I am insurance for $2 million. If I need to upgrade to $5 million, I can. It's not as expensive as building contractor insurance because poeple don't die if I fail to do my job right. In fact, it's quite cheap.
You really should do some basic research before you talk about these things. I have done my homework. I have a lawyer and an accountant on retainer. I have guys in the field under me. I've been in business for a while. I've done HIPPA healthcare work, work on the new nuclear attack sub, work on call centers, and dozens of other industry-specific areas. I'm perfectly aware of what is expected on me legally and professionally.
Yes, you can have a 508 compliant site. It's not hard. As for the government expecting it, well, they have been for physical stores for a while now, so why not requirte them for online stores? Beleive it or not, there is a benefit and a net community good in making sure the handicapped can participate in our society as equals. No one is asking us to make music deaf-accessible or any of the other assinine examples people have thrown around in this thread. We're just saying do the minimal work needed to make sure as many people as possible can use your site.
Finally, let me add that your example is invalid. If you aren't 508 compliant and are supposed to be and if someone reports you, the gov will ping you to fix it first. They don't jump right to lawsuit unless you say "no". Scaremongering is bad practice. You shouldn't do it.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Today's Karma Burn
Micro$oft Internet Explorer doesn't support XHTML 1.1
Yes. It craps the bed trying to parse the XHTML 1.1 dtd. There are ways around that, however. It isn't that IE doesn't support XHTML 1.1, it's that IE doesn't support validating XHTML 1.1. Those are very different problems. You can push XHTML 1.1 to an IE browser without trouble with some simple XSL to tell it to validate as XHTML 1.0 Strict for just IE. Leaves all the XHTML intact, allows all
I've done it. It works. I should post some details on my (non-XHTML 1.1 compliant ) blog or something.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Today's Karma Burn
I find it absolutely hilarious that your site doesn't validate as XHTML 1.0 compliant with all of your evangelical enthusiasm for it in your post.
What developers do for themselves rarely matches what they consider best practices for their job. You'll wanna get used to that. I can and do write complain sites professionally, and at the same time couldn't muster less concern for going back to redo my site that way now.
But also notice that my site plays nice with screen readers anyway, so the reasons to redo the site are minimal right now.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ -
Re:Today's Karma Burn
I find it absolutely hilarious that your site doesn't validate as XHTML 1.0 compliant with all of your evangelical enthusiasm for it in your post.