Slashdot Mirror

and he's been out of school for quite a while... (OK, so he studied liberal arts.) Check out his serial novel Silicon Follies on Salon.com and his home page.

"A mere half-hour's perusal of the Voyeur turned up one sad goof after another:

super modles
sex weied
streaptease
sesamie street
necked asain women
wallsreet journals

and my favorite --

christian boardcasting network"

I suspect that the percentage of sex-related searches is correlated to time of day and day of week. The low percentage I witnessed probably had something to due with the fact that I was checking mid-day Tuesday. I bet it goes up a lot on Fri & Sat, especially at night.

______________________(
// ///#\)

Yeah...but if they did that they might get suid by M&M (or should that be MM :) the official candy of the New Millenium.

(How does one get endorsements from the millenium anyway?... do you have to go to the Vatican for it? They did set the calender after all )
- Reunite Gondwana-land

If you read my post, it said some people need them, but I have this feeling that its an easy way out for some.

The problem is people think you can give a someone some medicine and all the problems go away. There are side afects to all these medications and other social ramifications. Also, how did people survive before all these amazing wonder drugs. An interesting article on this is here

'Sensitivity' is sometimes used as a measurement of perception and not paranoia. You never know...and it cant hurt to try and find out.

Salon also published a skeptical article on Grossman back in May, when Littleton was in the news.

Salon also published a skeptical article on Grossman back in May, when Littleton was in the news.

since the new millionaires wont post it here for fear of losing their millions in a worthless stock... go read this article, its titled Dot Com Dogs about new worthless dot com stocks.

The original article is much better than anything we can say in this discussion. Go and read all five pages of it. Absolutely hilarious, sarcastic and all around well done.

One problem I've got is that the cops seem to be overreacting, and innocent people are getting treated as rioters.

1. The police deliberately allowed a small group of perhaps 40 black-clad punks into the area and allowed them to smash windows and burn dumpsters in order to get an excuse to brand all protesters as "rioters".
2. Once they had their excuse, rioting was deliberately provoked by the police using tear gas, rubber bullets, and pepper spray in an effort to get an excuse to invoke martial law.
3. Once the corporate media had compliantly reported that all of the protesters were "rioters" (rather than the 40 or so black-clad punks who were the only rioters in the area), the mayor and governor declared martial law (or, rather, "a state of emergency"), and dispatched the National Guard to clear the streets. Possession of a gas mask was also declared criminal intent, and you were immediately arrested if you had one. National Guardsmen and police officers blocked all entrances and exits from the area and stopped all who wanted to get in to ask them for identification and about their business in the area (shades of USSR!).

To get leads on the "real scoop", follow Salon's links to various independent news sources from the OTHER (non-corporate press) side.

All in all, I think this may be the sort of turning point for labor activism in America that Mayor Dailey's violent breakup of the '68 protests in Chicago were for anti-war protests. The big difference is the way these were covered. In Chicago, the pre-corporate-media national news covered jack-booted thugs whacking peaceful protestors over the head with jacksticks. In Seatle, the corporate-owned national news media did not show those events, and instead showed the rare events where the forty or fifty black-clad thugs that the police had allowed into the area looted and vandalised things.

-E

Unfortunatly the protest was not about the power of corporations. It was fueled to a great degree by labour unions wishing to protect their industries in advanced countries at the cost of third world workers and the wealth of all countries including the working class in all countries!

Yes, this treaty will help third world countries (they aren't signing it just to give money to america). Sure some sweat shops might spring up but people work in these sweat shops b/c it is better than what they have without the sweat shops in all but a few countries they are not forced to join the sweatshops.

Yes it will help even the working class in the US as we get more goods at cheaper prices. If steel jobs go oversees this is because steel will be produced cheaper there. This means we will get steel cheaper and more jobs will open up here doing what americans are more efficent at doing than foreign workers. Heck worse comes to worse open up the WTO and decrease the tax rate on those who earn less and increase it on those who earn more. The WTO makes the pie bigger for EVERY country so with proper governmental policy no one should be left out to dry.

For more in depth discussion read this informative salon article.

I'm sure the government actually likes us posting to SlashDot, because if we're posting here, we're not actually DOING anything.

Oh: to see what's really happening in Seattle (jack-booted Gestapo thugs tear-gassing and rubber-bulleting peaceful protestors while allowing anarchists to do whatever they want in order to get an excuse to invoke martial law, which they did in a 40 block area of central Seattle), see the links on Salon's "Anti-WTO Activist Web Pages" page. Now THAT is subversive. Slashdot? Get real!

-E

and here it is in clickable form:
http://www.salon.com /media/col/shal/1999/11/30/naming/index.html .

Its pretty entertaining, these people are crazy:
It's this sort of chutzpah that makes the namers at Landor see red. "The Internet is filled with arrogance," says Amy Becker coldly. "You might have a provocative, fun name. But do you have the basis for a lasting brand? We still don't know how compelling a brand Yahoo will be 10 years from now. I sense a real missed opportunity."

"Let's put it this way," says Redhill. "Over the years, we have created and sustained many of the world's most durable brands. We make a lot more hits than companies who think up their own symbols and names. I'm not suggesting that a company couldn't get it right with a stroke of insight or genius or luck. But if it's your own brand, how can you possibly be objective? I mean, would you name your own baby?"

Talk to Tom with restaurant critic Tom Fitzmorris in New Orleans. Food is a big deal in New Orleans. InsideNewOrleans.com has assembled a very active, very local, very focused community around eating.

Backfence with James Lileks, a newspaper columnist with the Star Tribune in Minneapolis. His column is spun out of contributions from his message boards. He's built his own tight community within the newspaper's "Talk" service, which has something on the order of 30,000 registered users.

Cyberspace Cafe & Pub, a meandering discussion that began in 1994 or so on the proprietary Interchange network and migrated to the Web in 1995. Don't be fooled by the message count (around 5800); this has "rolled over" half a dozen times.

Cafe Utne, operated by the Utne Reader, sort of a Reader's Digest of "alternative" publications. If you're wondering where all the '60s liberals went, this is it.

Table Talk,, the message boards of the Web-based Salon magazine.

And what about the character Ranft gives voice to -- Wheezy, the asthmatic penguin? Did Pixar honcho Steve Jobs intend that as a subliminal reference to the penguin mascot of Linux software? "Linux? What's that? Really, I have no idea what that is. We had an idea for a broken squeaky penguin who had asthma way back on the old 'Toy Story.'

And, to go offtopic, I read it using Sitescooper, a funky off-line web formatting thingy written in Perl, aimed at PalmPilot users.

"By now, of course, the tolerance limits of the human body have long ago been worked out, and dummies and computers stand in for corpses and lab animals."

Speaking of Wayne State cadaver's (WSU is my alma mater) I remember a high school basketall game where my coach was ripping on some of my teammates during halftime. I believe his exact quote (minus the 4-letter words) was: "How many rebounds have you gotten? Zero? Son, I could of put a Wayne State cadaver out on the floor and he would of got as many rebounds as you did." I guess to update the insult he could say "Son, I could put a computer simulating a live person out on the floor and it would of got as many rebounds as you did".

-------------------------------------------
"Jo an of Arc was not stuck at the crossroads, either by rejecting all paths like Tolstoy, or by accepting them all like Nietzsche...She beat them both at their antagonistic ideals; she was more gentle than the one, more violent than the other...It was impossible that the thought should not cross my mind that she and her faith had perhaps some secret of unity and utility that has been lost. And with that thought came a larger one, and the colossal figure of her Master had also crossed the theatre of my thoughts." G.K.Chesterton in "Orthodoxy"

The problem I see with hate crimes is best exemplified in this comic.

Ok, first note that I am so far from being a lawyer that it's rather humorous. Oh, and also note that I didn't think of this idea myself; it came from this rather fascinating article in Salon a couple months back. (Yes, it made /. at the time, but only as an update to an article about a new Beowulf for running GP.) And, yes, this is very offtopic.

But basically, the idea is this:

1. A prerequisite for an idea to be patented is that it's not obvious, even to the best experts in the field. That is, there needs to be some flash of creativity involved--some something that no one else can be expected to think of. This is why patents are supposed to be in the public's best interest--better to have the ability to use the idea in a "limited" amount of time (currently 95 years and counting) than to potentially never have anyone else think of it again. In the case of a patent on an algorithm (which covers just about any software patent), it's not enough that the problem the patent solves be novel--indeed, it should be relatively obvious; what needs to contain that unique insight is the algorithm itself. (Yes, this is how it's supposed to work, even though just about all the absurd patents /. links to seem to be precisely the opposite.)

2. A good genetic programming environment--like this one, if it becomes successful--will theoretically be able to come up with an algorithm that implements any "solution" one would feed into it. A great one would even find an *optimized* solution. (Indeed, in the Salon article, it talks about genetic programs which have produced algorithms or schematics identical to 21 existing patents, and one which even lead to the discovery of a new rule in quantum theory!)

3. A computer program, even one that implements genetic programming, is a mechanical process. It is entirely deterministic, and can be simulated by anyone, assuming they have the CPU resources (especially if the program's open source!). Thus, anything this program thinks up cannot possibly be "nonobvious"; a nonintelligent computer just came up with it.

4. Thus, any algorithm this program can duplicate is nonpatentable. It may even be that any old patent this program can duplicate without specific knowledge should be retroactively unpatented, since if it's "obvious" now, it had to have been obvious then; that is, if the machine is not true AI (which of course this isn't), then it's not intelligent always; it's not like it can be "intelligent by 1950's standards but not by today's".

So...an interesting strategy to fight evil software patents. And indeed, perhaps to fight all patents, although of course it's much less obvious how to get a computer to create a non-software process.

Of course, it'll prolly be a ways off before a genetically created algorithm nullifies a patent. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if some time surprisingly soon, the entire idea of patents is very substantially curtailed, if not eliminated, due to this sort of thing...

I still want to slag of ESR for speaking for the community. As an advocate for liberty, he's unmatched. That doesn't mean he speaks for Linux or Open Source idealogy. I objected to him saying "The whole premise of antitrust law is wrong. Governments don't break up monopolies, markets do. Governments create monopolies."

Bull! I know he has a right to his opinion, but when he speaks for the community, he shouldn't make us sound like fools. We believe in freedom, in overcoming the evil empires of the world. We tend to believe that Microsoft is an evil empire, and it didn't get there with the government's help. The classic monopolies all came from unregulated markets, careful regulation prevents monopoly.

As for China, the Chinese people and their government have every right to choose to run Linux. If we can show one billion people the power of freedom, good. And the core of that freedom is their opportunity to choose. ESR is off-base, and as an unofficial spokesman, he ought to speak more carefully.

Ah Mahir, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems... or just the real name of Transmeta's new chip... you decide!

Moral context is suprisingly irrelevant in a whole host of areas, including many scientific fields. (Pray tell us what relevence moralism has to quantum field theory.) In fact, moralism is a source of much bias, and a barrier to effective analysis.

More to the point, his "moral context" bears a remarkably close resemblance to "ideological purity" in doctrinaire communist writings. Seriously. I've known some Marxists, real ones who'd actually read Marx and knew their shit (and believed in it too), and they felt the same way as this guy: That the facts need a little ideological helping hand in order to help people "understand" them better. They felt that facts without an ideological slant just aren't fully "true". Creepy.

The noises that right-wingers make these days in the US have an eerie, scary similarity to the noises the Red Guard made during the Cultural Revolution. They especially see eye to eye about enforcing ideological purity among educators. (See Born Red by Gao Yuan [Stanford Univ. Press, 1987], a personal account of the Cultural Revolution; for the right-wing side of the equation, see David Horowitz's column in Salon Magazine online, or any number of other right-wing "commentators" -- though Horowitz has a particular loathing for intellectual freedom).


--------------------------------------------
I found the Gao book in the remainder bin in the basement of the Harvard Bookstore (no connection with the eponymous univ.) in Cambridge, MA; good luck finding a copy, but if you see it, grab it. It's a hell of a read.

the privacy in the cyberpunk world is completely in the hands of the individual. Basically, if you care enough about anonymity and have sufficient skills, you will make yourself anonymous.

Privacy and anonymity are two different things. You can have both, neither, or either without the other.

Your medical records are not anonymous, but they are private.

A /. posting by an AC is anonymous, but not private. In this case, the lack of privacy is voluntary (and desired).

Spam-mail is one example of your privacy being invaded by someone who doesn't know (and doesn't even care) who you are.

Your personal privacy can even be violated publically by someone else while retaining your anonymity intact. An example of this is the growing trade in hidden-camera and upskirt videos. See, for example, this article in Salon Magazine.

Relying on anonymity is a poor second-best to having your privacy respected.

here it is

Since the incident at Columbine High School, Jon Katz has talked about little else but the poor plight of 'oddball' kids who are cruelly singled out for torture not only by their classmates, but by the evil Establishment which controls our public schools.

Nevermind that Salon Magazine published a story refuting the nonsense that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold committed these murders because they had been picked on or that they were 'nerds.' Nevermind that, by posting these 'stories,' Mr. Katz appeals to the narcissistic desire of 'nerds' to hear that their problems in society are not their fault, and that the deficiencies in their anti-social lifestyle can be explained in terms of evil Others who seek to undermine them.

Jon Katz does a disservice to the living he speaks to as well as the dead he speaks of.

But enough of Columbine-- for the moment. Let's take a look at Katz's blatantly sensationalist 'story.'

It begins right away. His front-page blurb for the piece mentions that the boy was accused of making terrorist threats.

I can't help wondering where Mr. Katz gets his information. The copy of the Associated Press report in my local newspaper doesn't have this tidbit. Neither does the Dallas Morning News that he links to. What the Dallas story does say is this:

"I do want people to understand that, just like making a threat at an airport, a threat in a school situation is very serious, even if it was in jest," she said [...]

The correct conclusion to draw from this statement is that free speech is limited. Not censored, but limited. In other words, there are certain things which you may not do: shout "fire" in a crowded movie theatre, "I've planted a bomb on the plane" in an airport, or "I busted out with a 12 guage [sic]" in a high school.

It's true that the boy's story was meant only as a work of fiction. But assigning undue motives to the administration of the school serves only to demonise them. Which, of course, is what Mr. Katz seeks to do.

Mr. Katz goes on for several paragraphs with charged words such as 'Hellmouth' and 'post-Columbine assault.' Since these paragraphs are meant to prey on emotions and contain little in the way of fact, I can't comment on them other than to say that it is shameful 'journalism.'

Then, he surprises us by revealing a 'subliminal' message, carefully hidden in the words of a district attorney. Apparently, star quarterbacks are incapable of being discipline problems. I don't think we can agree with that statement. Had this happened to a star quarterback, there would be an equally loud outcry-- the only difference is that it would not come from the substantial mouth of Mr. Katz.

(Did Mr. Katz consider another possibility? Social activities such as sports have been shown to reduce societal problems such as undirected violence.)

After tying in the doubly malicious 'Mosaic 2000,' Katz brings up the spectre of Columbine again, in case he didn't beat it enough at the beginning of his piece.

He returns to reality-- somewhat-- by asking questions about what rights children have. He uses this as a demonstration that they do not, and are simply at the mercy of the Establishment.

This is not the case. As I pointed out, the rights of all people are necessary limited. This is an exercise of that limit.

If there is a lesson to be learned in this, it is simply that investigations need to be conducted with speed. The boy did not need to be held as long as he was.

Now, what about Mr. Katz? Aside from Columbine, his other favourite topic is the 'Old Media' versus the 'New Media,' the latter being precipitated by the Internet. Katz's rabid adoption, however, of 'Old Media' techniques such as sensationalism and colouring of the facts is an apparent contradiction.

Since the incident at Columbine High School, Jon Katz has talked about little else but the poor plight of 'oddball' kids who are cruelly singled out for torture not only by their classmates, but by the evil Establishment which controls our public schools.

Nevermind that Salon Magazine published a story refuting the nonsense that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold committed these murders because they had been picked on or that they were 'nerds.' Nevermind that, by posting these 'stories,' Mr. Katz appeals to the narcissistic desire of 'nerds' to hear that their problems in society are not their fault, and that the deficiencies in their anti-social lifestyle can be explained in terms of evil Others who seek to undermine them.

Jon Katz does a disservice to the living he speaks to as well as the dead he speaks of.

But enough of Columbine-- for the moment. Let's take a look at Katz's blatantly sensationalist 'story.'

It begins right away. His front-page blurb for the piece mentions that the boy was accused of making terrorist threats.

I can't help wondering where Mr. Katz gets his information. The copy of the Associated Press report in my local newspaper doesn't have this tidbit. Neither does the Dallas Morning News that he links to. What the Dallas story does say is this:

"I do want people to understand that, just like making a threat at an airport, a threat in a school situation is very serious, even if it was in jest," she said [...]

The correct conclusion to draw from this statement is that free speech is limited. Not censored, but limited. In other words, there are certain things which you may not do: shout "fire" in a crowded movie theatre, "I've planted a bomb on the plane" in an airport, or "I busted out with a 12 guage [sic]" in a high school.

It's true that the boy's story was meant only as a work of fiction. But assigning undue motives to the administration of the school serves only to demonise them. Which, of course, is what Mr. Katz seeks to do.

Mr. Katz goes on for several paragraphs with charged words such as 'Hellmouth' and 'post-Columbine assault.' Since these paragraphs are meant to prey on emotions and contain little in the way of fact, I can't comment on them other than to say that it is shameful 'journalism.'

Then, he surprises us by revealing a 'subliminal' message, carefully hidden in the words of a district attorney. Apparently, star quarterbacks are incapable of being discipline problems. I don't think we can agree with that statement. Had this happened to a star quarterback, there would be an equally loud outcry-- the only difference is that it would not come from the substantial mouth of Mr. Katz.

(Did Mr. Katz consider another possibility? Social activities such as sports have been shown to reduce societal problems such as undirected violence.)

After tying in the doubly malicious 'Mosaic 2000,' Katz brings up the spectre of Columbine again, in case he didn't beat it enough at the beginning of his piece.

He returns to reality-- somewhat-- by asking questions about what rights children have. He uses this as a demonstration that they do not, and are simply at the mercy of the Establishment.

This is not the case. As I pointed out, the rights of all people are necessary limited. This is an exercise of that limit.

If there is a lesson to be learned in this, it is simply that investigations need to be conducted with speed. The boy did not need to be held as long as he was.

Now, what about Mr. Katz? Aside from Columbine, his other favourite topic is the 'Old Media' versus the 'New Media,' the latter being precipitated by the Internet. Katz's rabid adoption, however, of 'Old Media' techniques such as sensationalism and colouring of the facts is an apparent contradiction.

Check out the current "The K Chronicles" for something very similar - in return for subsidizing the birth of a child, 21th century companies get to brand and raise them the Coke/Pepsi way - addicts to a drink and its included drug.

Look, no disrespect, but how naive are you? This is absolutely about geeks, because they wouldn't DARE use it on the star quarterback; that's not how high school politics works.

Well, the fact is, the high-school quarterbacks arent't the ones coming to school with firearms killing their classmates.

You ought to read this article from Salon that goes into the real reasons for the Columbine shootings. These two boys were not being beat up so they decided to get back at everyone, they were seriously screwed up and this program may have identified that.

Media like THIS is bad for any movement. I never seen a link to a survey here, let alone received a secret handshake and told to *wink* vote early and often.

Maybe Andrew Leonard aleonard@salon.com doesn't think there really is so much open-source support out there, and it must all be propaganda. Feel free to mail his editor at letters@salon.com.

Media like THIS is bad for any movement. I never seen a link to a survey here, let alone received a secret handshake and told to *wink* vote early and often.

Maybe Andrew Leonard aleonard@salon.com doesn't think there really is so much open-source support out there, and it must all be propaganda. Feel free to mail his editor at letters@salon.com.

Maybe Yahoo was refering to this section of Salon.com
Its the closest section about Free Software/Open Source and Linux.
---

It's the developers, stupid!: the real NT-Linux battlefield

The media is nutso for bigness. All you hear about in the tech press these days is that Linux is attracting big partners like IBM, finding big users like Deja.com, and making big IPO money like RedHat. That's all good, and I'm sincerely grateful for anything that helps me make a living without using Visual Interdev -- but to me, small and raw is where it's all at. As a recent Salon story hinted, by the time something gets big enough to have major media outlets and MBAs and marketeers crawling over it, much of the juice of the thing is gone. The masses might find Bill Gates worthwhile because he's on the cover of Forbes magazine; but for a minority, the one interesting thing he ever did was write a little BASIC compiler on a crappy paper tape when he was a teenager. It's all been downhill from there.

The tiny raw startup is the real locus of the Microsoft-Linux showdown. Forget the desktop, forget the enterprise, forget the few big content/commerce sites -- it's unclear whether Linux can win in any of those segments, and in any case it doesn't matter. The important thing about Linux (and Open Source and the Web) is that it shifts the balance of power back to the independent developers, the underfunded experimental coolness-of-the-thing-itself startup-type hackers.

OSS (including Linux) has radically reduced the costs of development and vastly increased opportunities for collaboration. The Web has opened up new vistas of demand, and nullified most distribution problems. Funding and business services are far more available now; while the potential for personal peculation (or the opportunity costs of developing within a corporate framework) tend to make startups seem relatively attractive. The most innovative and productive segment of the tech industry has famously been the two geeks in a garage, and now they can compete strictly on the basis of ideas and skills rather than corporate resources. Somewhere in this segment are the Yahoos and Inktomis and Netscapes and ids and ebays and even slashdots -- basically all the things that make people buy computers in the first place -- of the future. It's all about the applications, baby -- because without a continuing stream of gotta-have-it apps (and the sites on which they're implemented, often transparently to the user), computers are just typewriters and the Internet is just a color fax machine.

Microsoft cares about developers, or they say they do -- and they should, because that's how they got to be the giant iguana of the software industry in the first place. DOS/Windows/NT has always been about as sexy as a Depends adult undergarment; but even if an OS ain't cool, it can still win by being super-dependable, ultra easy to use, or overwhelmingly popular with application developers. The last rationale has traditionally been Microsoft's trump card, the reason that developers grumbled and cursed at Visual Basic but kept buying. I'm one of many people who basically keeps a Windows machine around just to read PowerPoint documents (and, I confess, I'm gonna keep using IE until something better comes along) -- which suggests that one or two killer apps make the OS decisions for you.

But in August 1999, the Gartner Group released a study claiming that the number of Windows-first developers is in the middle of a sharp decline from 65% in 1998 to 40% in the year 2000. A quick flip through the job ads in bellwether Silicon Valley shows more *nix than Windows development jobs, especially in the hot new sectors. For the first time in a long time, the road to software nirvana does not go directly through Redmond.

Thus, for the first time in a long time the question of how the startups developing the apps of the future choose their platforms is an interesting one. As I hinted in my previous essay, I will argue that Microsoft may now be putting out halfway-decent small business software, but their marketing strategy utterly fails to reach the more innovative part of the developer community. Linux, in contrast, seems to effortlessly meet the needs and philosophical convictions of the raw tech startup. This seemingly insignificant difference, almost impossible to account for in traditional marketing terms, could have startling consequences down the line.

How startups choose their platforms

Let's say my partner and I are developing something: a product recommendation system that makes sense to humans, unlike the bad jokes heretofore palmed off on the public under the rubric of "collaborative filtering". We've written a bizplan, learned a few stupid PowerPoint tricks, given slide presentations, schmoozed with suits -- and for those of you who've never done it, let me tell you what a thrill it is to sit through dozens of "where the software industry is going" sermons (summary: technical innovation is dead/pointless/the problem and big corporate power is good/inevitable/the solution) by a bunch of people who don't know Hello World from Hello Kitty -- but that's a different essay topic.

But for us, the crucial thing is the implementation. We just think it's lame to go after funding with nothing but a pile of paper, a slideshow, and a song in our hearts. We've also discovered that finance types, many of whom are refried bankers or accountants or real-estate moguls, don't really like to invest in software. Startups that are basically about tweaking a business model tend to get more dates than the ones that depend on complex new systems working as designed, which give VCs bad dreams about all the things that can go wrong. (Caveat: this may not apply to Silicon Valley, where all the VCs are hackers and the streets are paved with gold.) So for a software venture to compete with the mass of SellOnTheWeb.coms hatched up by MBAs who speak the same language as the funders, the idea needs to be fully implemented or as near as dammit. Realizing this, we're going to put up an extensive alpha on the Web, complete down to the last font style and hyperlink. It's gotta rock -- this is our whole business at stake here. So how will we choose a development platform?

Cash-poor

The very first variable is that we're knowledge-rich and cash-poor. Really, really poor. We keep hearing how people in Silicon Valley can get millions of dollars just for the right concept, but that ain't how it works here in the Midwest. In Palo Alto, "startup" connotes the thrill of entrepeneurship, the adventure of high growth, the possibility of massive stock options. Saying you work for a startup can get you some play with that cute girl/guy at the espresso bar. Here in Chicago, "startup" means you and your buddies gotta look under the sofa cushions for enough change to buy a CheapBytes CD-ROM. Plus, your mom calls you up every other day to beg you to get a real job so she can hold her head up at your cousin's upcoming wedding reception -- you're good with technology, have you ever considered becoming a Xerox machine repairperson? So the idea of spending thousands of dollars putting together a little network so you can put out a demo that may never come to anything is a laugher.

Programming tools

We certainly can't claim to be visionaries here: my partner actually wrote our first web application (the recommendation engine currently used on www.mysteryguide.com) in Macintosh Common Lisp. As the probability of Lisp world domination dwindled, we did finally decide to move over to Java. Of course, that's a tiny bit awkward in Microsoft world due to the long-running Scott-hates-Bill soap opera (J me no plus-pluses and I'll violate you no licenses).

We've also started to use Java servlets and Java Server Pages. I had sort of thought Microsoft might buy Live Software, makers of leading commercial servlet engine JRun -- all together now: embrace, extend, exterminate -- but those clever Allaire boys scooped it up instead. We've used both the JavaSoft Win32 JDK with JRun, and the Blackdown Linux JDK with JServ (the Apache Project's first servlet engine). The latter combo has the definite edge because it's free (speech and beer). (And before you flame me for hypocrisy: we are seriously considering GPLing our e-commerce software tool but nothing's final yet.)

There are still people who have a specific reason to develop native, like game makers. But I think we can all feel the momentum toward cross-platform and especially web-based apps, once those bandwidth and privacy issues get worked out. And this is where what went around is coming around for Microsoft. They've done tons of things over the years to make developers -- especially those in small shops -- fear and distrust them. Like a straying spouse who's just been served with the divorce papers, Microsoft wants the love back now -- but is a free subscription to Microsoft Certified Professional Magazine gonna do the job?

Client-server versus server-server

Everyone in our shop develops on a server. Clients are just bimbo-boxes for reading mail and data entry and goof-off web surfing. I can't even look at most of my work without having it processed by a web server, and I'm always needing to connect to local and remote databases (it's possible I could work around this issue if MS Proxy Server didn't choke on telnet, but that's already in the subjunctive tense). Because we run separate NT and Linux networks, we need to move things back and forth between machines (remember, BackOffice Small Business Server doesn't form trust relationships with other servers, and the ftp on my SBS installation doesn't work). We need to run big processes that tie up tons of cycles. Finally, we're a virtual organization with people doing parts of projects in disparate locations. So client-server computing in the SBS sense is already a paws-up model for us.

Here's a chart of the stuff we use on a daily basis in our business. It clearly shows the awkwardness which NT imposes on the tech startup, versus the "instant tech startup in a box, just add connectivity and stir" flexibility of the Open Source model.

Choice of products (we use Jserv) Java Yes (we use the JDK) Yes (Blackdown JDK) JDBC driver Sold separately Yes (we use MM.MySql)

Note: it's not clear under what circumstances, if any, SBS allows you to deploy SQL Server on the backend of a public website, as opposed to in a development/intranet environment. There's no technical barrier to doing so. The enterprise version of SQL Server requires a $3000 per processor Internet Connector License, but there's no mention of the topic one way or the other in SBS materials. Thanks to Jiva DeVoe for this info.

Software licenses

When people talk about "scaling", the implied modifier is always "up" -- presumably from a big server farm to a humongous one. But let's get real: a relatively small number of businesses require more than 16 processors, more than a thousand simultaneous connections, databases stable over hundreds of GBs, and instantaneous mass-customization for millions of users. Why don't we ever talk about scaling down -- in other words, that part of the spectrum from a big server farm down to one box? The vast majority of businesses, and an awful lot of the most interesting ones, live here.

In the real world, Linux grows seamlessly from the first workstation to the quite large office. You can churn out all the custom boxen you need whenever you need them without worrying about a thing. Microsoft, on the other hand, requires a software startup to endure what we might call "punctuated equilibrium" in order to stay within the bounds of restrictive licenses and technologies. At any given point, a MS solution will require you to pay for something you don't need, or go without something you really do need but not quite enough to justify the cost, or violate the license. Wasn't it de Toqueville who said bad licenses force good customers to cheat?

I certainly don't claim to be an expert on Microsoft licensing; in fact, the whole subject confuses and bewilders me. I tried to learn about it on the MS website, but didn't get too far into the arcana: the licensing glossary was a dead link so I still don't know a PUP from an UPG, and it's not easy to get info on volume discounts and Open License deals. But this is my first crude whack at trying to figure out a typical software upgrade path from the needs of a small development-only environment to those of a 51-person software company running both a production website and a development-oriented intranet:

I realize that this chart is completely artificial. On the one hand, if you had a 51-person development team, the price of Visual Studio would be the least of your concerns. On the other hand, I can't imagine 51 programmers being willing to share one intranet server for everything. Also, while it's true that many smaller organizations aren't going to run their own web servers, application developers find it harder and just as expensive to be hosted elsewhere. My main point, however, is still valid: that the Microsoft licensing maze hinders the tech startup that chooses it.

Business rationales

Here I must venture into a sensitive topic: who makes the IT decisions, and on what grounds? Leaving aside the edgy cracks about nerds and PHBs, I think we all know there is a gap as wide as the Grand Canyon between the thinking of the two sides. The party of the first part makes decisions based on their own training and experience plus discussions with other techies they respect; their motto is either "Once you go *nix, you never go back", or "Mo' bugs, mo' money.". The party of the second part gives priority to non-technical rationales, including customer preference, the difficulty of hiring skilled workers (meaning those you can't treat like fry cooks at McDonald's), and the ability to sue vendors when things go wrong. Both sides have their prejudices: semi-rational hatred of all Microsoft products on the one hand and unquestioning reliance on Microsoft marketing materials on the other.

Until recently, there was an uneasy balance of power between the two which varied by location and industry but basically resulted in the suits getting their way. In business circles, the statement "[Authority figure] says NT is the industry standard; besides, Microsoft's stock is soaring while [competitor]'s stock is sinking" was the unanswerable trump card which ended all discussion. However, this smug acceptance of the Microsoft party line is being challenged more frequently of late, particularly by the Silicon Valley types who make money by spotting the waves of the future.

Here's an object lesson: I know a startup full of genius hackers that decided to develop their application on a 100% Microsoft platform -- NT, Visual Basic, the whole nine yards. They did this despite the fact that all their programmers were true artistes on *nix and Mac who had previously scorned Windows, and furthermore that all of them had been early users of the Web. They were definitely following a strict client-server model as late as the end of 1998, when their CEO told me "the Web isn't a legitimate business tool, therefore our customers won't use it". Within weeks of this conversation, every enterprise software vendor -- including the leader in this startup's market -- announced the death of client-server and a mass rush to get their apps on the Web. So much for MBA herdthink.

I can't believe this attitude wasn't partly engendered or reinforced by the fact that Microsoft has been (for understandable reasons) so dependent on its market share and so reluctant to see the Web as a legitimate tool. Their brand of Follow the Leader works because of the huge anxiety engendered by technical change. Everyone's looking for something solid to hold onto, one thing that will continue to be true no matter what. For some, it's good technology. For others, it's market dominance. But what does that phrase even mean today? Maybe it designates the OS with the most desktops; but maybe it means that the most successful and innovative companies in every category are running some flavor of Unix. Small startups in particular need to think hard about the growing risks of hitching a ride on the Redmond express. If Ballmer and company guess wrong about something, they've still got billions of bucks in the bank. If you go along with their wrong guess, game over.

Consequences

For all these reasons, we decided to do our alpha on Linux instead of NT. Now Linux is part of our global business strategy -- not because of any ideological issues we might have, but because it works. From a Linux/Java base, it's easy to port to other platforms like the other Unices that dominate the server market, if necessary. NT is on the way out and W2K seems to be stuck in the birth canal, but developers can be comforted by the thought that *nix has endured a lot already and will probably be around for a while longer.

Now I don't know whether my particular startup will get off the ground or not -- that was just a convenient illustration. My point is to suggest that every "two geeks in a garage" team now must discuss whether Linux (or some other *nix, and/or other Open Source solutions) are right for them. The arguments in favor are too overwhelming, the cost of choosing wrong too great.

A modest proposal

If Microsoft truly wants to focus on customer service, developers, and the Internet, they've gotta come up with some new marketing ideas which take cognizance of the unusual value of the small developer market. This entails reversing one of the fundamental tenets on which the company was built, which is that mass beats class every time. In years past, it made sense to cater to the lowest common denominator while alienating the few pesky independent-minded developers -- because of the desktop monopoly, which was the city hall no one could fight -- but now developers have to be convinced it's in their interest to work native rather than go web-delivered.

So here's my humble proposal: maybe Microsoft should try to appeal to the raw startup, so more of the cool apps of the future might run on some version of Windows. If I were Steve Ballmer, I would form a small team to bring out another version of Small Business Server deliberately oriented toward the raw Internet startup. It must be built on top of a rock-solid TCP/IP layer, because everything will employ that protocol -- so fix my Proxy Server problems or forget it! Get some development tools in there -- I don't need to share a fax machine, I need to use servlets and make database queries. Move faster to figure out what new stuff independent developers want, and give it to them tout de suite. Carve out a logical upgrade path through the thicket of licenses. Microsoft shouldn't think of this SBS as a moneymaker at all, they should think of it as developer relations -- meaning it should be cheap (free for CS students -- an awful lot of the innovation is coming out of a really small number of these folks), update frequently, and go very lightly on the more annoying usage restrictions. The goal is to match most Linux distros' "instant tech startup in a box, just add connectivity and stir, appeal.

But I guess no one wants marketing advice from me, the most successful software company in the world least of all. Little software startups like us will be attracted to Linux in larger and larger numbers, while the Colossus of Redmond spends its time trying to squeeze the last drops of blood from its desktop dominance.

Get a good laugh out of this.

--
It's October 6th. Where's W2K? Over the horizon again, eh?

It sure would be nice if these links worked. Salon.com is found here.
Brad Johnson
Advisory Editor

Salon just ran an article about how a caffeine & ethonal cocktail protected rat's brains during strokes.

Interesting stuff.

Re: The Brooklyn Museum art exhibit

Since when does freedom = taxpayer financing to allow wider distribution of your free speech?

The artist is free to create the work, David Bowie is free to display it on his Web site. That's all freedom is. Freedom != funding.

For a good argument against the exhibit, read this Salon article.

Check any Mac newsgroup and you're sure to find a couple hundred posts from people absolutely incensed about this. To a non Mac person like me, it's actually kind of funny how much the community is freaking out over - egads! - a new interface. Then again I'm from the Enlightenment school of thought, so... Anyways my point is is that this is the first time in memory that Apple has violated their hallowed interface guidelines in the fifteen years since that they have existed, to my knowledge, and trust me, every product they've ever released has followed the religiously. It's highly unlikey that they'll do it again based on the respsonce they've gotten. There's a piece on Salon all about this if you want to read more.

-

Check out the Jane-Slashdot interaction on salon. It says:
Cringely made his comments before Jane's announced it was killing the original story. One can only imagine his dismay now. News flash! Raging nerds silence journalist!

Cringely's reaction would now be quite different: after Jane not only subjected itself for "censorship" but also decided to use it!

Also, somebody here mentioned this is like peer review. Well, is it? When was the last time one sent a paper to a journal and the editor decided to publish the referee report instead!!

The Jane-Slashdot story is a unique first...

Andrew Leonard in Salon has a piece ('Open Source Journalism') too. He is more positive to the /. comment process and says "sites like Slashdot are pioneering new territory as they facilitate access to that knowledge, to the great and lasting benefit of us all".

Lars
Lars

--

Slashdot's such a great place for news because the best minds in the world (programmers, of course) get together and add their two cents to not only answer a simple question, but also to provoke thought and further questions...and also answers. The world is becoming like a Beowulf cluser, where each little part can add their two cents, and when you have 500,000 people adding $0.02, you end up with around $10k (just from a few pennies from a few people). It's a great step in the world of journalism, and I think this trend should continue in all fields of news. There are people out there who know anything and everything about something as obscure as....child psychology, and these people could culminate in a Slashdot-type forum to come up with a lot better answers about Columbine than CNN can give us (Props to Salon.com for their great piece!). Just a thought.... but IMHO this is a very positive turn for us "want-to-be" journalists who stare in frustration at their monitors, reading all the FUD on major news sites.

Here's the low-graphics version, if anyone prefers that.

Allman, who is gay himself, places weight on the importance of protecting people's privacy while at the same time facilitating their ability to communicate. (He also told the Advocate earlier this year that he takes a "sort of perverse pleasure in knowing that it's basically impossible to send a piece of hate mail through the Internet without its being touched by a gay program.")

I'd hate to rain on anyone's parade but wouldn't this military wet dream be superfluous? Let's suppose I'm one of these countries with tac-nukes. Why would I bother announcing the launch site and invite retaliation by using balistic missiles? Better still, just to ship it into a anonymous cargo hauler and detonate it within some strategic harbor or even Panama canal. That way the source (assuming you can disguise the origin of the manufactured weapon) can be anonymous. Given the gung-ho way the US been acting around the world in the last few decades, I'm sure there's no shortage of splinter or fanatic groups to spread the net of suspicion. If people are interested in the military mindset, take a look at their parameters magazine, in particular the article by Peters on "Our New Old Enemies". Very interesting.

People don't go to war for no good reason. If you create a threat, then people will respond in kind. Defining enemies through an arms race might be good for the military-industrial complex (correct me if I'm wrong ... I believe US and Britain are still the largest exporters of arms) but does little to create long-term goodwill. Exporting organised violence seems to be a self-fufilling prophency as it propagates a climate of fear. Afterall, if you think someone is an enemy. then what are the chances that every action you perceive is hostile? Psychopaths are not the only people with a warped mind-view, a entire culture can be infected in rather subtle but destructive ways (Andy Grove "Only the Paranoid Surive", Bill Gates "Technogy is great, but 90% market share is better"). Very successful but at what cost?

This century has seen 2 world wars, numerous regional conflicts and ongoing bushfires. I would hope the next century has a better record.

LL

Besides this article, Salon also has excerpts from Eric Harris' "diary." Among his writings: "You know what I hate? Star Wars fans: get a friggin life, you boring geeks." I thought this was interesting, given some of the the comments and speculation on Slashdot. While many of us (myself included) felt that we could identify w/ Eric and Dylan, they may have not been able to identify w/ us. Just food for thought.

Has some stuff about andover.net buying Slashdot and how much it cost, how the IPO works, etc. Thought it might be interesting to some here.

A counterexample to the Monica Lewinsky scandal is Salon's coverage of far-right politicians "conspiring" against President Clinton. In this case, the President publically acknowledged the e-zine for news that may never have been seen outside of your local free alternative newspaper.

The media has long been considered to be the fourth branch of the the US government. They cover the bully pulpits of President and the Legistature and keep the public abreast of political happenings. With the arrival of the Net and CNN, the media has become reporting on a 24 hour cycle which meant more invasion of politician's lives and their motives. The consant need for new news forces the media and the media pundits to continue talking, trying to find new scandals, trying to finds new angles on old scandals, trying to tittlate, and letting finding solutions fall onto others.

Katz tries to convince us that the new political "Max Headroom" will change American politics via the Net. But there is no Max Headroom, no entity that exists only on the Net who can show as much charisma as a live/taped politician with party support. It's hard to convey that sense of charisma over the Net and no reason to do so. I can think of few people who get their primary political information off of the Net. Increasing interactability doesn't necessarily mean a net chat when doing a radio talk show will reach so many more people (something politicans are loath to do). I don't expect to vote for someone because of their website anymore than I would vote for them because I got their junk mail. However I can be influenced by a variety of news websites.

The Net has already changed politics, but not in the way that Katz thinks it has or will. It has become another media filter, but one that is improved by not just being another corporate newsmill. It allows disperate views to have their say on a more level playing ground than any other form of media. It's more alternative than your local alternative rag and has more POVs than a cocktail party. As it expands, there will be even more opinions and ideas. The question is if people will listen to them.

-S. Louie

Someone needs to tell all those lonely woman looking for men to go to a Linux con, instead of the Valley.

Or, if you prefer, the Slashdot link.

George

If you were to start your own country, would you really be free?

Would you have everything you need to be self sufficient or will you be depending on world trade? Will all your members be judged non-threatening to countries such as the USA? What happens when you decide to create a little military defense or a few members trade weapons as a hobby, such as a certain group did in Waco, TX? Sooner or later, your group is going to get the attention of a restless NSA and CIA and every other three letter acronym of every major capitolistic and communistic country out there. Your little country will get noticed and be subject to much debate, much of it in the "free press."

Can there ever be such a thing as freedom or world peace?