This is the original FUD technique. Announce that you're releasing your product a month before your major competitor, and with better features. Then, a week before the scheduled release date, when everyone has committed to buying your software, you postpone it a month and slash the feature list. Sure, fewer people buy your software... But, strangely enough, even fewer buy your competitor's.
Not use context-sensitive menus. This is a loss of functionality.
Is it? Why is the function only available from an invisible menu that varies in appearance depending on where, exactly, you clicked? If it is available elsewhere, how is this a loss of functionality?
There's another problem with this. You assume that the consistent growth continues to take place in County A after the outsourcing moves on. That's not necessarily true... Especially not if, responding to pressure from big corporations and the Republican government in Washington, the country's economy has become almost entirely dependent on outsourcing.
The last thing free software proponents need is to associate themselves with a failed economic ideology that has resulted in tens of millions of unnecessary deaths worldwide.
Wow. What an insightful comment. I've got news for you - "liberal, secular humanist" is another word for... Wait for it... Scientist.
I really don't see where you're getting your stuff from. I've found that their articles on religion, philosophy, and science are excellent and relatively bias-free. So what exactly is your problem? That they didn't enthusiastically scream "Bush is the greatest President EVAR!" during the campaign?
Four possibilities: 1) The chance of impact rose so high that they're not willing to publically admit it for fear of the ensuing panic. 2) Further observations completely eliminated any chance of impact. (In order for this to happen, it would, I believe, have to be an observation of the "Doh, we forgot to convert from feet to meters in step 3" variety) 3) Further observations increased the uncertainty to the point where any estimate became meaningless. 4) They got tired of all the apocalypse-watchers refreshing the page every 30 seconds and removed the results, and are now engaging in a psychology experiment to see how long it takes them to notice.
So if I'm reading this right, all this means is that NASA's physicists eliminated about 190 predicted orbits that didn't intersect with the Earth and are working on the last 44, one of which does?
Of course, the thing is that this is an N-body problem, so it's impossible to predict the orbit exactly. Thus, even if all their numbers say it will be on an orbit that causes it to strike Earth in 2029, there's still a possibility that it will change as time progresses and more observations are made? (IE, the actual probability of impact is not 1/44, rather, that's the chance of it being on a potentially Earth-intersecting orbit, as opposed to a 100% safe orbit, based on current models?)
It's worth pointing out that software authors are not required to include that clause in the licensing for their software to use the GPL. I believe Linus, for example, explicitly removed it from the licensing blurbs for the Linux kernel.
So tell me, is this agreement displayed prominently and in plain language (language whose complete and entire implications can be understood without employing a lawyer) on the exterior of the packaging? Is it open to changes by both parties, and is it only considered to be valid with both parties sign it?
Because otherwise, not only have you not bought shit, but you've got a really good case for suing the game publisher, developer, and store's asses off in court for false advertising and improper use of contracts. And any sensible court (not that there's any of THOSE left in the US under the Bush administration - heck, the new AG believes the President can order torture of American citizens at will!) would find such a one-sided contract to be utter and complete bullshit.
I knew people on the yearbook/graduation committees and working for the school newspaper that would've killed for the kind of software Macs just come with now back when I was in high school.
Actually, from what she's said on her official mailing list, she can get more money from doing another Vorkosigan book. Yes, folks, not all fantasy writers are shills in it for the money. However, she can't see any direction to take it in that she wants to write, Miles and kids novels being very much out. She thinks Miles' story came to a natural end in Diplomatic Immunity, with the birth of his children, which is good. Then she got some ideas for the Five Gods universe and it wound up capturing her interest more.
And his VP candidate, Edwards, is very anti-offshoring. One of the planks in his primary platform, which has become one of the planks in the Dem platform, is terminating all tax breaks for corporations that offshore jobs.
This translates to: anyone who offshores jobs gets annihilated by the IRS. Better think twice before trying to destroy the American economy, Mr. CEO!
Thanks to the policies pushed over the last thirty years by the Republican party, there's now a hell of a lot fewer employers looking for workers than workers looking for jobs. This means employers get to pick and choose... And can afford to simply not hire anyone until labour gets desperate enough to come begging for a job.
This is what unions were originally formed to prevent. They did a good job, until people forgot why they needed unions.
Actually, that works surprisingly well. Sure, sometimes you have to do some digging to find a package that does what you want, but I can't count the number of times I've thought "I really wish I had software to do X" and did some quick digging and had it installed within minutes. And unlike source-based systems, installing packages is fast - you can generally install one and give it a spin in under 5 minutes, which makes it much easier to test-drive software.
Also, if you use even any reasonably advanced featuers (like look in your bookmark menu, or look at your search engines bar, or even have the quicklinks bar turned on) you'll notice immediately that something's very wrong. Even if you haven't reconfigured your tooblar.
In short, it's temporarily convincing, and is a serious problem that the Mozilla developers need to fix and not mark "confidential" and ignore for years on end. But it's not anywhere in the same league as IE, which allows spyware viruses and such to infest your computer just by visiting a page.
I think that if a security patch isn't issued for this in about a week, multiple bugzilla bugs need to be opened continuously until one is.
I know this has been ranted about on slashdot, but why are patently obvious procedures patentable?
Want to know why? Check out this comment upthread, purportedly from a patent examiner. (But probably from a Microsoft or BSA employee) Patent examiners refuse to admit that anything's wrong, and big companies throw a lot of cash at them to make them continue to refuse.
And I know this stuff because yeah, I work at the USPTO.
Then if you know the regulations that actually govern the job you claim to be qualified to hold, you should know that the grandparent post was claiming that current Patent office policy regarding software violates the existing laws about patenting natural processes and mathematical formulae.
The fact that you don't know the regulations that govern your job gives weight to your assertion that you're a USPTO employee. Maybe, instead of claiming that there's nothing wrong with the system, you should be trying to fix it from the inside? Unless, of course, you're just astroturfing.
Yes, because not wanting Microsoft to unethically exploit foreign contractors, who would be charging more money for their services if their countries didn't lack labour-protection laws, is so racist. As is demanding investment in foreign countries that helps them build their own economies, instead of just stripping them of their resources.
Slashdot Mirror
IT is an incredibly boring profession.
If they want to do something interesting and worthwhile, they should become scientists.
Yes, because the very definition of "good writing" is "blatantly stealing everything from Babylon-5".
If you think DS-9 is well-written, you need serious help.
Probably done a billion times by now, but hey.
"Netscape engineers are weenies"
This is the original FUD technique. Announce that you're releasing your product a month before your major competitor, and with better features. Then, a week before the scheduled release date, when everyone has committed to buying your software, you postpone it a month and slash the feature list. Sure, fewer people buy your software... But, strangely enough, even fewer buy your competitor's.
Guess Microsoft's back to basics, eh?
Not use context-sensitive menus. This is a loss of functionality.
Is it? Why is the function only available from an invisible menu that varies in appearance depending on where, exactly, you clicked? If it is available elsewhere, how is this a loss of functionality?
There's another problem with this. You assume that the consistent growth continues to take place in County A after the outsourcing moves on. That's not necessarily true... Especially not if, responding to pressure from big corporations and the Republican government in Washington, the country's economy has become almost entirely dependent on outsourcing.
Globalization's a scam.
The last thing free software proponents need is to associate themselves with a failed economic ideology that has resulted in tens of millions of unnecessary deaths worldwide.
Right, so... We denounce capitalism, then?
Wow. What an insightful comment. I've got news for you - "liberal, secular humanist" is another word for... Wait for it... Scientist.
I really don't see where you're getting your stuff from. I've found that their articles on religion, philosophy, and science are excellent and relatively bias-free. So what exactly is your problem? That they didn't enthusiastically scream "Bush is the greatest President EVAR!" during the campaign?
Four possibilities: 1) The chance of impact rose so high that they're not willing to publically admit it for fear of the ensuing panic. 2) Further observations completely eliminated any chance of impact. (In order for this to happen, it would, I believe, have to be an observation of the "Doh, we forgot to convert from feet to meters in step 3" variety) 3) Further observations increased the uncertainty to the point where any estimate became meaningless. 4) They got tired of all the apocalypse-watchers refreshing the page every 30 seconds and removed the results, and are now engaging in a psychology experiment to see how long it takes them to notice.
So if I'm reading this right, all this means is that NASA's physicists eliminated about 190 predicted orbits that didn't intersect with the Earth and are working on the last 44, one of which does?
Of course, the thing is that this is an N-body problem, so it's impossible to predict the orbit exactly. Thus, even if all their numbers say it will be on an orbit that causes it to strike Earth in 2029, there's still a possibility that it will change as time progresses and more observations are made? (IE, the actual probability of impact is not 1/44, rather, that's the chance of it being on a potentially Earth-intersecting orbit, as opposed to a 100% safe orbit, based on current models?)
It's worth pointing out that software authors are not required to include that clause in the licensing for their software to use the GPL. I believe Linus, for example, explicitly removed it from the licensing blurbs for the Linux kernel.
I've got news for you. Jesusland already did - on November 2nd.
So tell me, is this agreement displayed prominently and in plain language (language whose complete and entire implications can be understood without employing a lawyer) on the exterior of the packaging? Is it open to changes by both parties, and is it only considered to be valid with both parties sign it?
Because otherwise, not only have you not bought shit, but you've got a really good case for suing the game publisher, developer, and store's asses off in court for false advertising and improper use of contracts. And any sensible court (not that there's any of THOSE left in the US under the Bush administration - heck, the new AG believes the President can order torture of American citizens at will!) would find such a one-sided contract to be utter and complete bullshit.
Rather like your post.
I knew people on the yearbook/graduation committees and working for the school newspaper that would've killed for the kind of software Macs just come with now back when I was in high school.
Actually, from what she's said on her official mailing list, she can get more money from doing another Vorkosigan book. Yes, folks, not all fantasy writers are shills in it for the money. However, she can't see any direction to take it in that she wants to write, Miles and kids novels being very much out. She thinks Miles' story came to a natural end in Diplomatic Immunity, with the birth of his children, which is good. Then she got some ideas for the Five Gods universe and it wound up capturing her interest more.
And his VP candidate, Edwards, is very anti-offshoring. One of the planks in his primary platform, which has become one of the planks in the Dem platform, is terminating all tax breaks for corporations that offshore jobs.
This translates to: anyone who offshores jobs gets annihilated by the IRS. Better think twice before trying to destroy the American economy, Mr. CEO!
+5, Sad, maybe... You'd think security anywhere that takes a CC# would be a little better than this.
One tiny problem with that.
Thanks to the policies pushed over the last thirty years by the Republican party, there's now a hell of a lot fewer employers looking for workers than workers looking for jobs. This means employers get to pick and choose... And can afford to simply not hire anyone until labour gets desperate enough to come begging for a job.
This is what unions were originally formed to prevent. They did a good job, until people forgot why they needed unions.
Actually, that works surprisingly well. Sure, sometimes you have to do some digging to find a package that does what you want, but I can't count the number of times I've thought "I really wish I had software to do X" and did some quick digging and had it installed within minutes. And unlike source-based systems, installing packages is fast - you can generally install one and give it a spin in under 5 minutes, which makes it much easier to test-drive software.
Would something like this get modded up to +5, Interesting.
Also, if you use even any reasonably advanced featuers (like look in your bookmark menu, or look at your search engines bar, or even have the quicklinks bar turned on) you'll notice immediately that something's very wrong. Even if you haven't reconfigured your tooblar.
In short, it's temporarily convincing, and is a serious problem that the Mozilla developers need to fix and not mark "confidential" and ignore for years on end. But it's not anywhere in the same league as IE, which allows spyware viruses and such to infest your computer just by visiting a page.
I think that if a security patch isn't issued for this in about a week, multiple bugzilla bugs need to be opened continuously until one is.
I know this has been ranted about on slashdot, but why are patently obvious procedures patentable?
Want to know why? Check out this comment upthread, purportedly from a patent examiner. (But probably from a Microsoft or BSA employee) Patent examiners refuse to admit that anything's wrong, and big companies throw a lot of cash at them to make them continue to refuse.
And I know this stuff because yeah, I work at the USPTO.
Then if you know the regulations that actually govern the job you claim to be qualified to hold, you should know that the grandparent post was claiming that current Patent office policy regarding software violates the existing laws about patenting natural processes and mathematical formulae.
The fact that you don't know the regulations that govern your job gives weight to your assertion that you're a USPTO employee. Maybe, instead of claiming that there's nothing wrong with the system, you should be trying to fix it from the inside? Unless, of course, you're just astroturfing.
Yes, because not wanting Microsoft to unethically exploit foreign contractors, who would be charging more money for their services if their countries didn't lack labour-protection laws, is so racist. As is demanding investment in foreign countries that helps them build their own economies, instead of just stripping them of their resources.
Good thing I'm against free trade and for fair trade.