All very true, and I tend to agree with you. If this case is decided under Mass. law, it will almost certainly be so. I can not speak for anything federal, though, because I am not familiar with the concepts.
The heart of the issue here is whether or not the company promising its customers that such information will remain private is a binding and legal contract.
While IANAL, I do know that in Massachusetts there are provisions to make even oral contracts binding. Oral contracts can be difficult to prove, but can be used as a legal agreement. This is a Massachusetts based company, but it is unclear whether this type of behavior would be handled under state law. If so toysmart's efforts have a really good chance of failing. Otherwise, I can give no opinion.
While there is a question of law at hand, I am more concerned with the question of corporate ethics in web-land, especially when it comes to consumer privacy. When someone gives information to a site and specifically request that the information be kept secret, there is a good faith agreement that in exchange for the business they conduct, their wishes will be adhered to. In this case, there is no more business to be conducted. What happens to good faith when a web company goes belly-up? This could set a veeeery interesting precedent.
Perhaps I should be more specific, but the thing that Judaism and Christianity have in common is the OLD testament. Jesus didn't show up until quite late in the process. I think the symbolisms/ metaphors being referred to here have more to do with the creation story, Adam and Eve, the serpent in the tree, eating the forbidden fruit, etc. Christianity does go beyond all of this, true, but it is still part of the teachings.
Also, I don't know what you mean by saying that if the stories in Greek and Norse mythology aren't true, then there is no religion there. Why can't there be symbolic stories at work here? Religion is a bunch of people worshipping a particular thing. The truth of it doesn't change that. It might affect the usefulness of the worship, but that is all.
Actually, Christianity and Judaism are two great examples of this. Just because the bible tells a story in a particular manner doesn't mean that the story isn't wrought entirely of symbolism. Religions throughout time have used metaphors to get their points across. Look through ancient greek mythology, or norse mythology and you will find tons of it.
Doesn't it seem that these debates alwats center around "God or 'The Gods' is just an explanation of things not understood by a primative people that needed an answer to the question why".
I don't think the concepts of science and God need to be mutually exclusive. The Sentiment that God created everything does not have to mean that he waved his hand and POOF, we had life. All things need a way of working out and a way of developing. The concept of God setting the wheels in motion, defining the rules to it all (science), and guiding the progress is just as likely as life just spontaneously formulating out of a bunch of amino acids hanging out together on the lava rock.
Many things are difficult to explain. Try being a guy and explaining women, or vice versa. Personally, I think only God could do it!
Is M.T. the best example? perhaps not, but the point is the same no matter which person you want to portray as a "good guy". How about good old G.W., or Tommy Jefferson? JFK, everyone's favorite president...Mr. Rodgers...Bert and Ernie (the first "Puppets of alternative lifestyle").
I have nothing un-rant-like to say about this, and I'm sure it is being said by others...but this type of behavior is wrong in my book. I would look at it the same in either case.
If people looked hard enough, they could find something bad that just about anyone has done. Mother Theresa could probably be made out to be lowlife vermin, albeit not as easily as good ol' Mr. Gates. Not to compare the works of a Saint-to-be with a vaunted perpetrator of corporate tyranny, but my point is that dirt exists, and so do shovels.
Seeing as cookies are stored on the local computer, the you are probably right about that information not residing on Federal servers. I think this is more like having your activities recorded onto your driver's license and then having that license scanned before you can enter a government building and every room it contains. Then they record on your license where you are going and what you are doing, but don't ever specifically track the info. I still don't think that makes it right.
Reading this article makes me think a little about commercialism, gaining competitive edge, and the computer industry. The thing I like about open source is, although there are ways to make money in an open source world, the focus is to develop a better computing environment for whoever wants it. Java was focused on this to a certain extent, and MS' creation of windows specific apps completely runs against the grain of it.
Who knows...maybe commercialism will win, but maybe open source will win out and be the start of something bigger. Maybe the concept will catch on in other areas/industries. Maybe its the first step to a Star Trek like "United Federation" where there is no money, but plenty of replicators, and everyone can have what they needed at any time:)
What Amiga really needs is a goose similar to the one received by Nextstep from Apple a few years back. With no viability in the market over the long haul, find a place where your technology fits into a larger scheme and get utilized. Great technology is often underutilized, but I'd hate to see it happen here and have Amiga complete the downward spiral. The pit has been deep, but its never bottomless.
Unfortunately for the company that might consider this prospect, there is one key thing that can't be bought with Amiga. Steve.
Re:If Everybody had a basic discrete math class?
on
Who's Afraid Of C++?
·
· Score: 1
Who is talking about getting a BSCS? We are looking at a book that can teach a layman a computer language. That is VERY useful knowledge, even if you never plan to program in your life beyond Perl....java...HTML...etc.. It can be used to help your kids with their homework. It could be very useful for a business manager to understand a little of what their engineers are doing. I agree with your points, but I don't really see how they apply to using this book to learn a language. I can program (or used to be able to;) in Fortran, C, Pascal, and some Java, as well as HTML, and I don't have a CS degree. I generally don't use this knowledge except to took at code and understand what someone is doing.
Re:If Everybody had a basic discrete math class?
on
Who's Afraid Of C++?
·
· Score: 1
I see your point, but it should be noted that C++ is probably the best jumping off point for learning Java, which isn't quite so math intensive. I am not ra-ra-ing for C++ as the basic language of choice...I was merely boggling at the concept of trying to bring discrete math into the lives of more people that necessary. Seems...ugly...if you know what I mean. Programming progressions I have seen generally go Pascal, C, C++, then Java. C++ is certainly high on the food chain, but I guess if the guy can teach it to beginners, then give the man a cookie!
If Everybody had a basic discrete math class?
on
Who's Afraid Of C++?
·
· Score: 1
Whatever you're drinking, I want some!
Most people have great difficulty with math concepts. Its all in how the brain gets wired as a child. I have a degree in Mechanical Engineering (Yeah, Yeah, I know you do too, that's not my point), and have taken many flavors of math. Discrete structures sucked more than anything I ever added, subtracted, integrated, or derived. The concepts of sets and logically ordered illogical numbers are never basic, and are really second year Math major material.
This is not intended as a rant or a flame, but basically to say that some people aren't good at math, or really anything technical. Something a little bit more technical than "Programming for dummies", but worded in a similar way could very well break down these walls and provide small, chewable bits of programming skill much better than some obscure math class.
No matter who you are, how big your company is, or how talented your staff is, you can always benefit inlearning from the skills of others.
Bungie built one of the most successful games of the past few years in Myth. MS built nothing worth noting. If I wanted to get myself deeper into the games market (especially imy longterm goal was to develop a better relationship with young computer users), I could either take a page out of somone else's book and try to copy their efforts (business models, programming strategies, focus groups, etc.), or I could buy them and put their knowledge to work for me directly. Of course in doing this I would try and get one of the most successful comapnies I could find, while keeping the size of the company to a minimum. This seems to be what MS is doing.
Expanding markets with new products is never easy. This sounds like a decent strategy to me. As far as the Bungie developers being immediately sapped of their motivation by this purchase, I don't think that will happen. Firstly, MS employees have a reputation for being quite zealous in their loyalty to the company. For all we might like to believe, it doesn't sound like a bad place to work. Secondly, who ever did fantastic work on a game by being motivated by something other that it being incredibly cool to get paid to develop a great game? This part certainly won't change, especially if Bungie is staying roughly autonomous withing the management structure.
Well, in some ways that is what Linux and the GPL are all about. We're going to develop software that is free of the tyranny of the corporate strongarm. We are going to develop an OS that has everything we want, how we want to, and when we want to. We are going to develop applications to go with it! We aren't going to let some company tell us what should and shouldn't be included for features, or how we should write the code...
But...
There is one minor problem here. What about "everyone else"? Besides the great hope of being saved by Mac OSX, what does Joe or Jane computer user/putz do to save themselves from these big old corporate meanies? Well...unfortunately they can't.
The nice thing about open source is that we are free of restriction. The bad thing about it is that without restriction and limitation, we have chaos. Is uniformity always good? No. Can it work to our benefit sometimes? Yes. When some company is working with volunteer developers and trying to set rules for the development, that is not always a bad thing. Someone has to set the goals and define the paths to accomplish them. As a group the linux development community could accomplish tons more if they were willing to accept some strictures in project development that allowed them to program a bit more in concert.
I do not mean to downplay the need for freedom to innovate here. Please, innovate your ass off, all you like! But we need to do it with some guidance. Maybe not the guidance of Corel, but we need it from somewhere.
The service providers really need to take some responsibility for these types of situations. The average user doesn't grok the concept that if they hook their computer directly up to a cable modem or DSL connection that they are inviting their computers to be messed with. There are ways to deal with this problem relatively inexpensively, but if people don't understand that there is a problem why would they look for a solution.
I have a nice little cable router that does I.P. packet filtering and also doubles as a 4 port switch. It is made by Linksys and costs about $180. Hawking makes one that is just a router that costs in the $150 range. If the cable companies just told people they needed the hardware up front, people would buy or rent it and not complain...and be safer for it.
Yes folks, now the patented way of wiping after defocating. If you use 6 sheets folded neatly to the size of one, please mail $.02 to Charmin U.S.A. for each passing of the tissue over the soiled area. Back to front or front to back, your choice.
Often times I get unsolicited e-mail with a blurb at the bottom suggesting how the message was sent in accordance with a particular U.S. regulation, such as:
The above statement complies with section 301 requirements relating to transmissions of unsolicited commercial electronic mail. To remove your email address from our mailing list immediately, please send an email to xxx@yyy.com and write "Remove" in the subject line.
So long as I can get off the mailing list, I am annoyed but not ready to take action. It is the mails that I get in which I can't remove myself from the list or prevent future mailings in some way that really get me fired up. This is a type of fraud, and should be criminally punishable by fines, although I am not sure I would be in support of jail time.
Classic case of 2 wrongs don't make a right. This is very closely related to the discussion about crack backs. If it is wrong for someone to crack into your system, then it is wrong for you to crack back into theirs. If it is wrong for Napster to facilitate copyright infringement, then it is wrong for those that are having their copyrights infringed upon to retaliate with the same tactics.
This is old testament justice, and while people might like it (not necessarily excluding myself), it doesn;t change that it is flagrant violation of a law. Great thing about the US...if you don't like something, speak out about it!!! Get the law changed! But breaking the law you are having an issue with is the most ineffective type of rebellion in existence.
It sounds to me like Excite is just selling faster access, not more accessibility. I know it sounds like these things should equate, but I think there is an important distinction between visibility/ accessibility and the speed at which a site can be viewed. It sounds like excite can help provide a competitive advantage to clients that want it, but not necessarily an unfair one. If a site wants faster access, pay excite more money or talk to your service provider.
If it seems unfair that access to one site might be faster than another, I don't agree. Speed of delivery is one thing I look for in sites I access. If 2 sites provided equal content and I could get to one 5 times faster, I would choose that one. I guess if you want my business, you need to try and provide me with the best product.
Slashdot Mirror
All very true, and I tend to agree with you. If this case is decided under Mass. law, it will almost certainly be so. I can not speak for anything federal, though, because I am not familiar with the concepts.
The heart of the issue here is whether or not the company promising its customers that such information will remain private is a binding and legal contract.
While IANAL, I do know that in Massachusetts there are provisions to make even oral contracts binding. Oral contracts can be difficult to prove, but can be used as a legal agreement. This is a Massachusetts based company, but it is unclear whether this type of behavior would be handled under state law. If so toysmart's efforts have a really good chance of failing. Otherwise, I can give no opinion.
While there is a question of law at hand, I am more concerned with the question of corporate ethics in web-land, especially when it comes to consumer privacy. When someone gives information to a site and specifically request that the information be kept secret, there is a good faith agreement that in exchange for the business they conduct, their wishes will be adhered to. In this case, there is no more business to be conducted. What happens to good faith when a web company goes belly-up? This could set a veeeery interesting precedent.
Ung! WhoThmedemaaar! Igmatiupate moana poena!
In other words, " If that's the case, I don't know how to react!"
Perhaps I should be more specific, but the thing that Judaism and Christianity have in common is the OLD testament. Jesus didn't show up until quite late in the process. I think the symbolisms/ metaphors being referred to here have more to do with the creation story, Adam and Eve, the serpent in the tree, eating the forbidden fruit, etc. Christianity does go beyond all of this, true, but it is still part of the teachings.
Also, I don't know what you mean by saying that if the stories in Greek and Norse mythology aren't true, then there is no religion there. Why can't there be symbolic stories at work here? Religion is a bunch of people worshipping a particular thing. The truth of it doesn't change that. It might affect the usefulness of the worship, but that is all.
Actually, Christianity and Judaism are two great examples of this. Just because the bible tells a story in a particular manner doesn't mean that the story isn't wrought entirely of symbolism. Religions throughout time have used metaphors to get their points across. Look through ancient greek mythology, or norse mythology and you will find tons of it.
Doesn't it seem that these debates alwats center around "God or 'The Gods' is just an explanation of things not understood by a primative people that needed an answer to the question why".
I don't think the concepts of science and God need to be mutually exclusive. The Sentiment that God created everything does not have to mean that he waved his hand and POOF, we had life. All things need a way of working out and a way of developing. The concept of God setting the wheels in motion, defining the rules to it all (science), and guiding the progress is just as likely as life just spontaneously formulating out of a bunch of amino acids hanging out together on the lava rock.
Many things are difficult to explain. Try being a guy and explaining women, or vice versa. Personally, I think only God could do it!
Kinda...:)
Is M.T. the best example? perhaps not, but the point is the same no matter which person you want to portray as a "good guy". How about good old G.W., or Tommy Jefferson? JFK, everyone's favorite president...Mr. Rodgers...Bert and Ernie (the first "Puppets of alternative lifestyle").
I have nothing un-rant-like to say about this, and I'm sure it is being said by others...but this type of behavior is wrong in my book. I would look at it the same in either case.
If people looked hard enough, they could find something bad that just about anyone has done. Mother Theresa could probably be made out to be lowlife vermin, albeit not as easily as good ol' Mr. Gates. Not to compare the works of a Saint-to-be with a vaunted perpetrator of corporate tyranny, but my point is that dirt exists, and so do shovels.
Seeing as cookies are stored on the local computer, the you are probably right about that information not residing on Federal servers. I think this is more like having your activities recorded onto your driver's license and then having that license scanned before you can enter a government building and every room it contains. Then they record on your license where you are going and what you are doing, but don't ever specifically track the info. I still don't think that makes it right.
Reading this article makes me think a little about commercialism, gaining competitive edge, and the computer industry. The thing I like about open source is, although there are ways to make money in an open source world, the focus is to develop a better computing environment for whoever wants it. Java was focused on this to a certain extent, and MS' creation of windows specific apps completely runs against the grain of it.
:)
Who knows...maybe commercialism will win, but maybe open source will win out and be the start of something bigger. Maybe the concept will catch on in other areas/industries. Maybe its the first step to a Star Trek like "United Federation" where there is no money, but plenty of replicators, and everyone can have what they needed at any time
I might have thought that ;)
What Amiga really needs is a goose similar to the one received by Nextstep from Apple a few years back. With no viability in the market over the long haul, find a place where your technology fits into a larger scheme and get utilized. Great technology is often underutilized, but I'd hate to see it happen here and have Amiga complete the downward spiral. The pit has been deep, but its never bottomless.
Unfortunately for the company that might consider this prospect, there is one key thing that can't be bought with Amiga. Steve.
Who is talking about getting a BSCS? We are looking at a book that can teach a layman a computer language. That is VERY useful knowledge, even if you never plan to program in your life beyond Perl....java...HTML...etc.. It can be used to help your kids with their homework. It could be very useful for a business manager to understand a little of what their engineers are doing. I agree with your points, but I don't really see how they apply to using this book to learn a language. I can program (or used to be able to ;) in Fortran, C, Pascal, and some Java, as well as HTML, and I don't have a CS degree. I generally don't use this knowledge except to took at code and understand what someone is doing.
I see your point, but it should be noted that C++ is probably the best jumping off point for learning Java, which isn't quite so math intensive. I am not ra-ra-ing for C++ as the basic language of choice...I was merely boggling at the concept of trying to bring discrete math into the lives of more people that necessary. Seems...ugly...if you know what I mean. Programming progressions I have seen generally go Pascal, C, C++, then Java. C++ is certainly high on the food chain, but I guess if the guy can teach it to beginners, then give the man a cookie!
Whatever you're drinking, I want some!
Most people have great difficulty with math concepts. Its all in how the brain gets wired as a child. I have a degree in Mechanical Engineering (Yeah, Yeah, I know you do too, that's not my point), and have taken many flavors of math. Discrete structures sucked more than anything I ever added, subtracted, integrated, or derived. The concepts of sets and logically ordered illogical numbers are never basic, and are really second year Math major material.
This is not intended as a rant or a flame, but basically to say that some people aren't good at math, or really anything technical. Something a little bit more technical than "Programming for dummies", but worded in a similar way could very well break down these walls and provide small, chewable bits of programming skill much better than some obscure math class.
Excessive amount of flesh tone cause this filter to check in. Sounds like a chubby people filter to me ;)
No matter who you are, how big your company is, or how talented your staff is, you can always benefit inlearning from the skills of others.
Bungie built one of the most successful games of the past few years in Myth. MS built nothing worth noting. If I wanted to get myself deeper into the games market (especially imy longterm goal was to develop a better relationship with young computer users), I could either take a page out of somone else's book and try to copy their efforts (business models, programming strategies, focus groups, etc.), or I could buy them and put their knowledge to work for me directly. Of course in doing this I would try and get one of the most successful comapnies I could find, while keeping the size of the company to a minimum. This seems to be what MS is doing.
Expanding markets with new products is never easy. This sounds like a decent strategy to me. As far as the Bungie developers being immediately sapped of their motivation by this purchase, I don't think that will happen. Firstly, MS employees have a reputation for being quite zealous in their loyalty to the company. For all we might like to believe, it doesn't sound like a bad place to work. Secondly, who ever did fantastic work on a game by being motivated by something other that it being incredibly cool to get paid to develop a great game? This part certainly won't change, especially if Bungie is staying roughly autonomous withing the management structure.
A little more than $.02. Inflation happens.
Well, in some ways that is what Linux and the GPL are all about. We're going to develop software that is free of the tyranny of the corporate strongarm. We are going to develop an OS that has everything we want, how we want to, and when we want to. We are going to develop applications to go with it! We aren't going to let some company tell us what should and shouldn't be included for features, or how we should write the code...
But...
There is one minor problem here. What about "everyone else"? Besides the great hope of being saved by Mac OSX, what does Joe or Jane computer user/putz do to save themselves from these big old corporate meanies? Well...unfortunately they can't.
The nice thing about open source is that we are free of restriction. The bad thing about it is that without restriction and limitation, we have chaos. Is uniformity always good? No. Can it work to our benefit sometimes? Yes. When some company is working with volunteer developers and trying to set rules for the development, that is not always a bad thing. Someone has to set the goals and define the paths to accomplish them. As a group the linux development community could accomplish tons more if they were willing to accept some strictures in project development that allowed them to program a bit more in concert.
I do not mean to downplay the need for freedom to innovate here. Please, innovate your ass off, all you like! But we need to do it with some guidance. Maybe not the guidance of Corel, but we need it from somewhere.
The service providers really need to take some responsibility for these types of situations. The average user doesn't grok the concept that if they hook their computer directly up to a cable modem or DSL connection that they are inviting their computers to be messed with. There are ways to deal with this problem relatively inexpensively, but if people don't understand that there is a problem why would they look for a solution.
I have a nice little cable router that does I.P. packet filtering and also doubles as a 4 port switch. It is made by Linksys and costs about $180. Hawking makes one that is just a router that costs in the $150 range. If the cable companies just told people they needed the hardware up front, people would buy or rent it and not complain...and be safer for it.
Yes, well I'm glad Slashdot is in a US domain, then. Charmin is to .org as left hand is to .sa.
Why Yes...that's why I included it. Men go back to front.
Yes folks, now the patented way of wiping after defocating. If you use 6 sheets folded neatly to the size of one, please mail $.02 to Charmin U.S.A. for each passing of the tissue over the soiled area. Back to front or front to back, your choice.
Often times I get unsolicited e-mail with a blurb at the bottom suggesting how the message was sent in accordance with a particular U.S. regulation, such as:
The above statement complies with section 301 requirements relating to
transmissions of unsolicited commercial electronic mail. To remove your
email address from our mailing list immediately, please send an email to
xxx@yyy.com and write "Remove" in the subject line.
So long as I can get off the mailing list, I am annoyed but not ready to take action. It is the mails that I get in which I can't remove myself from the list or prevent future mailings in some way that really get me fired up. This is a type of fraud, and should be criminally punishable by fines, although I am not sure I would be in support of jail time.
Classic case of 2 wrongs don't make a right. This is very closely related to the discussion about crack backs. If it is wrong for someone to crack into your system, then it is wrong for you to crack back into theirs. If it is wrong for Napster to facilitate copyright infringement, then it is wrong for those that are having their copyrights infringed upon to retaliate with the same tactics.
This is old testament justice, and while people might like it (not necessarily excluding myself), it doesn;t change that it is flagrant violation of a law. Great thing about the US...if you don't like something, speak out about it!!! Get the law changed! But breaking the law you are having an issue with is the most ineffective type of rebellion in existence.
It sounds to me like Excite is just selling faster access, not more accessibility. I know it sounds like these things should equate, but I think there is an important distinction between visibility/ accessibility and the speed at which a site can be viewed. It sounds like excite can help provide a competitive advantage to clients that want it, but not necessarily an unfair one. If a site wants faster access, pay excite more money or talk to your service provider.
If it seems unfair that access to one site might be faster than another, I don't agree. Speed of delivery is one thing I look for in sites I access. If 2 sites provided equal content and I could get to one 5 times faster, I would choose that one. I guess if you want my business, you need to try and provide me with the best product.