That's easy - don't answer it. Frankly, I've never understood the "have to answer a ringing phone" culture. I certainly don't feel compelled to. I have a cell phone instead of a land line because it's approximately as cost effective for my usage pattern, and having it with me when I get stranded between cities and such is very nice.
At the same time, I've got no problem turning the ringer off most of the time. I don't consider owning a cell phone a contract to answer it just because someone else wants to yap in my ear. I leave it on and silent: I can see who's calling, in case it is someone I want to talk to, it doesn't disturb anyone around me, and I very rarely answer it, anyway.
But would you write off Coventry to protect your intelligence sources (whether or not this actually happened, it's still an interesting question)? Would you firebomb Dresden? How about specifically targeting factories producing war materielfactories run by civilians?
I'm afraid that, as the earlier post said, the only reason we haven't seen the US engage in these tactics is because the US hasn't been at war since WWII. And, by "war," in this context, I mean "fighting for its survival." It's one thing to send troops to stop the "domino effect" in Asia. It's another thing if foreign troops are landing at Long Beach and invading LA. In the former case, no, of course we don't intentionally target noncombatants. In the latter case, I think we do whatever we think might drive the invaders off our soil.
But if the value of its continued existence in the wild is predicated upon its potentially exploitable commercial value (as the argument goes, not as is necessarily the case), then that isn't something that needs to be stopped, except insofar as exterminating bacteria A may cause us to lose our supply of substance B.
That's the problem with the "what about potential medical discoveries" argument: it devalues the organism in question by identifying its value solely with commercial/social gain. This implicitly accepts that, given an adequate commercial/social gain, extinction of a species is a legitimate tactic.
Which is not, actually, what proponents of the argument mean (in my experience, anyway).
And the employee is well within their[sic] right to speak up
That's the point, isn't it? That statement is reflective of a cultural belief; in this case, one held in the US. The whole point of the article is that things like that are not true in other cultures. The employee does not have any such right in some cultures, and it would disrupt and detract from their systems if an employee exercised that "right."
The question is: does the employee's right to speak up actually make an organization better, or is it just "better" because we think it's the "right" way?
I hardly think corporate America is as ideal as the above comment painted
I think you've just made the article's point: the fact that you consider the behavior described "ideal" proves that it is the way the US thinks. Even if it's not necessarily accomplished, it's viewed as the "right" way to do things.
You could get a damn near perfect vacuum with no added equipment. Start with volume zero, and expand the volume eoncompassed by the field from there. Air can't get in from the outside at any point, you're in like Flynn.
In point of fact, that's probably more commercially viable than achieving high altitude: sell devices which can easily draw an all-but-perfect vacuum.
Because geeks are attracted to that which is complex, and have a fundamental desire to understand the "how" of things. As a geek who also works on cars, I am interested in the manufacturing process for cars - but as a poster below noted, that doesn't change anywhere near as fast. Once I learned it, I stopped being as interested in it.
I'm trying to decide if you're trolling or not. If so, good job, 'cause I'm biting.
If you look only at the code the machine actually executes at the CPU level, I suppose one could make an argument that all HLLs are the same, since the code they compile into looks much the same for any given task. The difference, of course, is in what tasks the language lends itself to from the programmer's point of view. People use HLLs because they abstract concepts from implementations; different languages abstract different concepts differently, making some tasks easier to accomplish - from the coder's point of view, of course. The computer doesn't care.
Or, you can look at it another way. There's a vast universe of things a computer can do. At the one operation per instruction level, all those tasks have a probability proportional to their number of operations, given a random program. HLLs, however, group implementation tasks (moving data from memory to a register and back, adding data from one register to another, comparing the contents of two registers, etc.) into logical tasks (square roots, screen repaints, file output), where one instruction means many operations. Hence, a random program will achieve more complex tasks - the probability of any given task occuring will depend upon what sets of operations the HLL generates with one line of code verses multiple lines of code. This means different HLLs will tend to generate programs in different volumes within the total universe of possible programs. This translates into different types of programs being easier to conceive and implement in different languages.
I mean, really: who writes device drivers in VB? Who writes word processors in assembly?
[l1nUxd00d]: NOW UP FTP @ 127.0.0.1:2042 l:p r3d4at:r0x0rz! 0-DAY LINUX DISTROS! 10+ GB of SORTED OSS! 10:1 d/l ratio. LOOKING FOR COURIERS. PERMLEECH for hosting w/20+ GB space.
Open source definitely needs a warezesque distribution system.
I don't know the details of this case; can anyone point me to a link that gives some background? Because I have to admit, given what I've seen on their site, the First Amendment argument seems pretty weak...just like (almost) everyone else here, IANAL, but saying that anonymity is required for true freedom of speech seems a tenuous link at best. As long as you're protected from being censored or censured for your opinions, I fail to see how anonymity is a legitimate requirement for free speech. But, again, IANAL, and there could be loads of legal precedent for this of which I am unaware. Still, I would have thought this sort of thing would fall more under the Fourth Amendment...
Anyhow, the upshot is, I'd appreciate someone pointing me to the background for this story so I can remove the "un"...
Ratifying a treaty that only you're going to follow is really rather foolish.
It's something like God agreeing with Satan to not interfere with the world: this only works to Satan's benefit, since God will abide by his word; Satan won't.
Before anyone says anything about my claiming America is God, I'm using the point illustratively, not as an argument for, or statement of, America's moral superiority. The point is that Congress (perhaps rightly, I don't pretend to be an expert on the geopolitical scene) fears that signing such a treaty will tie the U.S.'s hands (because if we broke it, word would get out, and half the country would be up un arms), but not tie the nations perceived as real threats.
None of this makes the treaty any less or more right; it is simply a possible explanation for Congress' behavior.
That would certainly solve the first problem, but not the second. Although "problem" isn't a fair term, really. It's not a problem so much as a misstatement: there's simply no comparison between this project and distributed computing. The latter is making use of otherwise unused potential; this is making use of the ultimate limited resource in modern society (American society, at least--and, from what I've heard, most so-called "first world" societies as well): time.
*shrug*
Not that it can't work, but it's no more nor less elegant/revolutionary/brilliant/etc. than any other plan that depends on volunteerism.
With this post, you've finally reassured me that you're consciously full of crap in various priorposts--as opposed to massively challenged in some fashion.
If it's going to detect when I'm "less busy." Is this going to pop up a window in my face every time I spend more than a couple minutes mentally composing prose or code? The potential for user annoyance here seems incredibly high to me...
Distributed computing is an elegant and efficient use of otherwise untapped resources--cycles that are literally "going to waste" (in one sense). By hitting up the users, though, you're attempting to use a resource that is anything but untapped: that user's time. It might work, but let's not bill this as anything other than what it is--asking for volunteer work from people.
As watching any politician function over a period of ten minutes will demonstrate, money talks. A legal mandate for DRM in all hardware & software is essentially a method for passing the cost of piracy prevention from the RIAA/MPAA to non-related businesses. In cases such as Microsoft, Intel, and IBM, this cost will most likely be dismissed by the targeted Senator as absorbable, but in the case of small businesses it is disproportionately large. And small business is a huge percentage of commerce in this country--and hence, of tax base. I think it's on the order of 90%, in fact, but I don't have a cite to go with that (if I wasn't at work, I'd hunt something up, sorry).
Passing this bill would be kind of like passing a bill making all shirts required to have airbags installed, so the automobile industry doesn't have to. Even if you buy into this as a "solution" for a "problem" that isn't being addressed (which is not, in fact, the case), it doesn't make sense.
Not necessarily. As a fellow Zelazny fan (Amber in particular, but all his novels are pretty damn good...Lord of Light in particular), I admit to being guardedly hopeful about this. If I heard they were going to make a movie out of it, I'd hope the financing fell through. A miniseries, though, they might manage. I'll gladly trade away the top-notch special effects only available to major-film budgets (I've been seeing Mandor at the Keep without special effects for years now) in order to have more time available with a miniseries format.
It all depends on how long it's going to be: if they're going to try to squeeze it out in 4 hours, it's a lost cause: they'll no doubt cut and mutate all my favorite scenes. If they get this up to a 10-12 hour effort, they could do a reasonable job. To be honest, I can probably read the whole series in not much more than 10 hours, if I was a mind. I have to think they could present it on-screen in that time.
Before I say anything, let me point out that I do agree with you vis à vis the breakup of the entertainment oligopolies.
However, I do have one question:
There is no risk involved for the movie studios because they hardly ever lose money, even on bad movies.
From where do you get this fact? I've been doing a bit of research lately, and a fairly common statement has seemed to be that a movie has to gross three times its listed "budget" (which is notably non-inclusive of certain major expenditures, such as incentives to actors) worldwide simply to break even.
I don't mean to claim you're wrong, but I'd like to know where you're getting the information, and which of the groups involved in the moviemaking process is guaranteed profit.
Please stay where you are. Any attempt to change locations will be considered an attempt to subvert our encrypted electronic DMCA-violator-location technology, and will be prosecuted as a violation of the DMCA. Any attempt to hire legal representation will be considered an effort to crack our Automated Litigation System, and will be prosecuted as a violation of the DMCA.
According to the license you implicitly signed by turning on your computer, you agree to allow our lawyers into your home for the purposes of investigating and prosecuting violations of the DMCA. Rest assured our staff will be there to roger you shortly.
I've always believed that one should never ascribe to evil what can be explained by stupidity. In my mind, this applies to the House and Senate as much as (or more than) it does to the American public at large.
But we're hitting a point here where I find it literally incredible that anyone capable of getting him/her self elected into the legislative branch can possibly not realize what's going on. Is it just me? Is this issue tougher to understand than I think? Do I just think the injustice is so obvious because most people on/. agree with me?
My one hope has been that if the demands of the entertainment industry got preposterous enough, someone would "catch on," the light bulb would go off, etc. But that hope is rapidly being crushed. I'm beginning to think that we've already lost, and all the valiant, worthy efforts of the EFF won't end up mattering a tinker's damn.
True enough, but the fact that its capacity will be exceeded at some point doesn't make the per-cell limitations any worse than any other ultimately inadequate broadband solution. I'm not saying this will be better than wired broadband (in terms of bandwidth availability), I'm just saying it won't be worse.
Not to mention it's far and away better than the "wireless web" capabilities built into current cell phones, vastly superior to current cell modems, and just kind of neat in general.
I just think it's overly harsh to call the cell-shared nature of its bandwidth the "big lie" of 3G. It's no more nor less true than any other marketing claim; it has to be considered in context.
Slashdot Mirror
That's easy - don't answer it. Frankly, I've never understood the "have to answer a ringing phone" culture. I certainly don't feel compelled to. I have a cell phone instead of a land line because it's approximately as cost effective for my usage pattern, and having it with me when I get stranded between cities and such is very nice.
At the same time, I've got no problem turning the ringer off most of the time. I don't consider owning a cell phone a contract to answer it just because someone else wants to yap in my ear. I leave it on and silent: I can see who's calling, in case it is someone I want to talk to, it doesn't disturb anyone around me, and I very rarely answer it, anyway.
Works for me.
I'm impressed.
I'm afraid that, as the earlier post said, the only reason we haven't seen the US engage in these tactics is because the US hasn't been at war since WWII. And, by "war," in this context, I mean "fighting for its survival." It's one thing to send troops to stop the "domino effect" in Asia. It's another thing if foreign troops are landing at Long Beach and invading LA. In the former case, no, of course we don't intentionally target noncombatants. In the latter case, I think we do whatever we think might drive the invaders off our soil.
That's the problem with the "what about potential medical discoveries" argument: it devalues the organism in question by identifying its value solely with commercial/social gain. This implicitly accepts that, given an adequate commercial/social gain, extinction of a species is a legitimate tactic.
Which is not, actually, what proponents of the argument mean (in my experience, anyway).
That's the point, isn't it? That statement is reflective of a cultural belief; in this case, one held in the US. The whole point of the article is that things like that are not true in other cultures. The employee does not have any such right in some cultures, and it would disrupt and detract from their systems if an employee exercised that "right."
The question is: does the employee's right to speak up actually make an organization better, or is it just "better" because we think it's the "right" way?
I think you've just made the article's point: the fact that you consider the behavior described "ideal" proves that it is the way the US thinks. Even if it's not necessarily accomplished, it's viewed as the "right" way to do things.
Or before the candle did.
And maybe this would've kept it that way. Suddenly, I'm in favor.
In point of fact, that's probably more commercially viable than achieving high altitude: sell devices which can easily draw an all-but-perfect vacuum.
(and I thought not being allowed to pump my own gas was bad...)
Besides, photolithography is hella cool.
If you look only at the code the machine actually executes at the CPU level, I suppose one could make an argument that all HLLs are the same, since the code they compile into looks much the same for any given task. The difference, of course, is in what tasks the language lends itself to from the programmer's point of view. People use HLLs because they abstract concepts from implementations; different languages abstract different concepts differently, making some tasks easier to accomplish - from the coder's point of view, of course. The computer doesn't care.
Or, you can look at it another way. There's a vast universe of things a computer can do. At the one operation per instruction level, all those tasks have a probability proportional to their number of operations, given a random program. HLLs, however, group implementation tasks (moving data from memory to a register and back, adding data from one register to another, comparing the contents of two registers, etc.) into logical tasks (square roots, screen repaints, file output), where one instruction means many operations. Hence, a random program will achieve more complex tasks - the probability of any given task occuring will depend upon what sets of operations the HLL generates with one line of code verses multiple lines of code. This means different HLLs will tend to generate programs in different volumes within the total universe of possible programs. This translates into different types of programs being easier to conceive and implement in different languages.
I mean, really: who writes device drivers in VB? Who writes word processors in assembly?
Open source definitely needs a warezesque distribution system.
Now I can call all those long-distance BBS's to download my warez without racking up my phone bill!
I've been waiting for this since 1992!!
I don't know the details of this case; can anyone point me to a link that gives some background? Because I have to admit, given what I've seen on their site, the First Amendment argument seems pretty weak...just like (almost) everyone else here, IANAL, but saying that anonymity is required for true freedom of speech seems a tenuous link at best. As long as you're protected from being censored or censured for your opinions, I fail to see how anonymity is a legitimate requirement for free speech. But, again, IANAL, and there could be loads of legal precedent for this of which I am unaware. Still, I would have thought this sort of thing would fall more under the Fourth Amendment...
Anyhow, the upshot is, I'd appreciate someone pointing me to the background for this story so I can remove the "un"...
Ratifying a treaty that only you're going to follow is really rather foolish.
It's something like God agreeing with Satan to not interfere with the world: this only works to Satan's benefit, since God will abide by his word; Satan won't.
Before anyone says anything about my claiming America is God, I'm using the point illustratively, not as an argument for, or statement of, America's moral superiority. The point is that Congress (perhaps rightly, I don't pretend to be an expert on the geopolitical scene) fears that signing such a treaty will tie the U.S.'s hands (because if we broke it, word would get out, and half the country would be up un arms), but not tie the nations perceived as real threats.
None of this makes the treaty any less or more right; it is simply a possible explanation for Congress' behavior.
That would certainly solve the first problem, but not the second. Although "problem" isn't a fair term, really. It's not a problem so much as a misstatement: there's simply no comparison between this project and distributed computing. The latter is making use of otherwise unused potential; this is making use of the ultimate limited resource in modern society (American society, at least--and, from what I've heard, most so-called "first world" societies as well): time.
*shrug*
Not that it can't work, but it's no more nor less elegant/revolutionary/brilliant/etc. than any other plan that depends on volunteerism.
I agree: Thank God!
With this post, you've finally reassured me that you're consciously full of crap in various prior posts--as opposed to massively challenged in some fashion.
If it's going to detect when I'm "less busy." Is this going to pop up a window in my face every time I spend more than a couple minutes mentally composing prose or code? The potential for user annoyance here seems incredibly high to me...
Distributed computing is an elegant and efficient use of otherwise untapped resources--cycles that are literally "going to waste" (in one sense). By hitting up the users, though, you're attempting to use a resource that is anything but untapped: that user's time. It might work, but let's not bill this as anything other than what it is--asking for volunteer work from people.
Which isn't really that new an idea.
As watching any politician function over a period of ten minutes will demonstrate, money talks. A legal mandate for DRM in all hardware & software is essentially a method for passing the cost of piracy prevention from the RIAA/MPAA to non-related businesses. In cases such as Microsoft, Intel, and IBM, this cost will most likely be dismissed by the targeted Senator as absorbable, but in the case of small businesses it is disproportionately large. And small business is a huge percentage of commerce in this country--and hence, of tax base. I think it's on the order of 90%, in fact, but I don't have a cite to go with that (if I wasn't at work, I'd hunt something up, sorry).
Passing this bill would be kind of like passing a bill making all shirts required to have airbags installed, so the automobile industry doesn't have to. Even if you buy into this as a "solution" for a "problem" that isn't being addressed (which is not, in fact, the case), it doesn't make sense.
Not necessarily. As a fellow Zelazny fan (Amber in particular, but all his novels are pretty damn good...Lord of Light in particular), I admit to being guardedly hopeful about this. If I heard they were going to make a movie out of it, I'd hope the financing fell through. A miniseries, though, they might manage. I'll gladly trade away the top-notch special effects only available to major-film budgets (I've been seeing Mandor at the Keep without special effects for years now) in order to have more time available with a miniseries format.
It all depends on how long it's going to be: if they're going to try to squeeze it out in 4 hours, it's a lost cause: they'll no doubt cut and mutate all my favorite scenes. If they get this up to a 10-12 hour effort, they could do a reasonable job. To be honest, I can probably read the whole series in not much more than 10 hours, if I was a mind. I have to think they could present it on-screen in that time.
Before I say anything, let me point out that I do agree with you vis à vis the breakup of the entertainment oligopolies.
However, I do have one question:
There is no risk involved for the movie studios because they hardly ever lose money, even on bad movies.
From where do you get this fact? I've been doing a bit of research lately, and a fairly common statement has seemed to be that a movie has to gross three times its listed "budget" (which is notably non-inclusive of certain major expenditures, such as incentives to actors) worldwide simply to break even.
I don't mean to claim you're wrong, but I'd like to know where you're getting the information, and which of the groups involved in the moviemaking process is guaranteed profit.
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According to the license you implicitly signed by turning on your computer, you agree to allow our lawyers into your home for the purposes of investigating and prosecuting violations of the DMCA. Rest assured our staff will be there to roger you shortly.
Thank you for your business.
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I've always believed that one should never ascribe to evil what can be explained by stupidity. In my mind, this applies to the House and Senate as much as (or more than) it does to the American public at large.
/. agree with me?
But we're hitting a point here where I find it literally incredible that anyone capable of getting him/her self elected into the legislative branch can possibly not realize what's going on. Is it just me? Is this issue tougher to understand than I think? Do I just think the injustice is so obvious because most people on
My one hope has been that if the demands of the entertainment industry got preposterous enough, someone would "catch on," the light bulb would go off, etc. But that hope is rapidly being crushed. I'm beginning to think that we've already lost, and all the valiant, worthy efforts of the EFF won't end up mattering a tinker's damn.
True enough, but the fact that its capacity will be exceeded at some point doesn't make the per-cell limitations any worse than any other ultimately inadequate broadband solution. I'm not saying this will be better than wired broadband (in terms of bandwidth availability), I'm just saying it won't be worse.
Not to mention it's far and away better than the "wireless web" capabilities built into current cell phones, vastly superior to current cell modems, and just kind of neat in general.
I just think it's overly harsh to call the cell-shared nature of its bandwidth the "big lie" of 3G. It's no more nor less true than any other marketing claim; it has to be considered in context.