Treating the legal system as a business opportunity is not new, but to base a business model on it?
Also not new. See, Law Firms
In a non-pedantic way, this business model has existed for a while, but I've usually heard about it on a smaller scale.
You guys should start cutting down on lawyer fees, fast.
It's actually based on the non-lawyer fee side of the equation. That is, taking money that would normally go to the plantiff, not the plantiff's lawyers.
And while it is a lot of money, keep in mind that it is being paid by people breaking the law directly to people who seek out and punish them. It's an idea carried over from Athenian society, and it seems to properly incentivize people to engage in a 5-year battle against a giant corporation to enforce laws to which the government cannot devote sufficent resources.
As for the "one way hash" argument: while it's certainly true that laymen can be duped by impressive credentials..., the whole argument reeks of a peculiar variety of arrogant elitism (really more a kind of paternalism) which has plagued academia in general and philosophy in particular for a very long time
The "one way hash" argument refers to the often true fact that it's difficult to explain something correctly and completely. Therefore, an argument that glosses over, rather than takes advantage of, nuance is easier to understand. Otherwise, so many counter-intuitive things have to be learned that most people give up.
While I suppose it is similar to a strawman argument, it seems to advance by mischaracterizing the background knowledge that drives an argument, rather than the point being made.
It's hardly elitist to note that most people are unwilling to fully educate themselves in a subject, and hence can be convinced of something that superficially seems correct. After all, if you were to tell the average person that there is absolutely no conflict between the scientific and biblical accounts of creation because time is determined by the observer, and hence 24 days can map easily onto the big bang account, for some position and speed of the narrator (which may have to change from day to day), they would get confused.
It's somewhat ironic that your "one way hash" of the argument was modded Informative.
Maybe Ballmer was right? It's all about developers, developers, developers, developers.
Every time a conversation about programming on Linux comes up, I try to follow it. But honestly, it's just easier programming on Windows machines. There are maybe 4 versions to worry about ME/2000/XP/Vista. And you can probably forget about ME/2000. Even if you don't, it's a few lines of difference (between them and XP, they're prerrt to identical to program for). And you can leave them in when you program for XP/Vista.
Meanwhile, if you use the best practices that MS recommended for XP back when they released it, there's no difference between XP/Vista programming (unless you're trying to extend windows explorer.)
If the code base is already cross-platform, then the idiosyncrasies of different Linux distributions are minor; making it run on Debian and Fedora is much easier than making it run on Windows and MacOS
Going from Windows to Windows + MacOS grows the possible market by 6-7%. Going from Windows + MacOS to Windows + MacOS + Fedora + Debian grows by... maybe 1% at what kind of cost increase?
Yes, when distributing binaries one must target not only a specific distribution, but a specific release and a specific CPU architecture as well.
That's why the x86 architecture was standardized upon. No one bothers running anything else.
if you release source packages for Debian and Fedora... the eager beavers behind other distributions will do the rest of the heavy lifting for you
And until that's not a requirement, don't expect much cross-platform development. Make a bed, choose a side... either you want Linux ports of popular programs that otherwise force people to have Windows/OS X boxes in which case there needs to be a closed-source option, or you'll be happy with only F/OSS alternatives.
Both options are valid, they're just mutually exclusive.
Photoshop/Max/Maya/Microsoft Office/Etc.... even Chrome will not regard opening the source in order to get on Linux anywhere near acceptable cost/benefit.
This would be a good opportunity to teach them how they can protect themselves from data theft, trojans, etc.
I had a girlfriend who did that to me. Social engineering works because you trust the wrong person/blanket authority.
That said, teaching people about "social engineering" by being a dick is being a dick. I give my root password to friends/install programs they tell me are interesting. Why? Because they asked, and I know them, and they're not asses.
They can be managed. I'm scared of heights. I can still go up and do work high in the air. Not letting your fears control you is important. "Curing" the fear is a distanct second.
They didn't even kill as many as die in traffic every month. Barely a tenth of the number of Americans who die of the of the flu every year.
Total economic damage was far in excese of that caused by traffic accidents. Also, how did you count long term health damage?
Clearly, because people commit suicide, some things are more frightening than death (for instance, losing all your money... see Window, Stockbrokers and).
Also, I've been in traffic accidents/gotten the flu and survived relatively free of permenant injury. So I'm not terribly worried about it.
If that's the worst some pissant terrorists can do, they're a nuisance, not a threat.
Never said they were a threat. I said they were frightening. In fact, they probably didn't want to do that much.
I'm not saying I'm letting the fear overwhlem my judgement. I'm just saying that it does scare me. You can think that the proposed countermeasures are both ineffectual and too costly (to freedom) to be implemented if they were effectual, without claiming that you're not afraid.
There's plenty of other religions with methods to get people into a state of altered consciousness
Not before people join. Groups that try to force people to join via manipulation on this level are properly called cults.
Who don't? Google '[religion] scientifically true' for any value of 'religion'.
Judism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc. claim to be given en mass from a divine source. Some people attempt to use the texts to claim that scientific principles were alluded to, or otherwise there is historical evidence for, the validity of some part of the text (usually using fairly modern discoveries that would not have been known by humans when the text was generated), and by extention the validity of the entire text.
I know many religious leaders who believe some aspect of that. However, that is not the cornerstone of their faith. They have a belief in the supernatural.
Scientology claims that it was researched, and discovered as a scientific truth.
Or, to put it another way, Scientology (unlike major religions) makes falisifiable claims.
Try to convert from Islam to Baha'i in Saudi-Arabia.
Somewhat valid point. That's political, attempting to use a religion as a cult to gather support for its policies. However, every religion has a group that attempts to produce an idenitically named cult or twenty inside. Why start a cult around a new set of philosophies/tenets when you can steal some and confuse people at the same time.
If you look at the major religions, while they may disapprove of converts (especially at the familial level), they don't tend to maintain a penalty for maintaining contact with such a person, or sue them for talking about the religion.
As much as I despise Scientology, I don't see why their cult should be singled out... other cults (oh ok "religions", whats the difference) that do the same thing are being described in completely different way
Well, Scientology (and other cults) do things I've never heard of religions doing (since the Middle Ages):
Restrict who is allowed to have access to holy texts so they can make enlightenment contingent on payment
Record confessions/counciling sessions to blackmail members.
The use of hypnosis and other techniquies aimed at the un/subconcious.
Claims a scientific validity (and basis... even so far as claiming to be based on earlier, real, scientists work)
An attempt to vilify, ostrecize, and isolate people who leave.
Also, Scientology seems to ignore many things real religions do: organize food drives and other charitable events, provide aid to members in need (emotional or economic), and other beneficent acts.
If you think being afraid of terrorism is justifiable, you haven't done the numbers and you're just reacting with your gut.
Fear is not directly, or even indirectly, related to likelihood of death. Hell, every know someone to be scared of a creaking door after watching a scary movie? It's an emotional response based on imperfect extrapolation.
What you are talking about, and what you rightly condemn later in your post, is doing stupid things because you are afraid.
Understanding the distinction is important, because otherwise you end up yelling at people not to be afraid, which they cannot control. And they get pissed and ignore you. Or yell back and it devolves into a shouting match. Whereas, if you addressed it correctly to their reaction, you'd pass less like a ship in the night, and get further along.
I have one or two orders of magnitude greater chance of dying from heart disease
Fear isn't perfectly rational like that. It's an emotion.
Also, you neglect to take into account the distance of the death of heart disease, with the associated discount of consequences.
Heart disease is a threat easily mitigated by advances in technology you can assume will occur.
Also, fear is usally not of death. More people are frightened of public speaking than death. Fear of violence, uncontrolled violence, is scarier than dynig at an old age in a medical bed. Hell, dying in a medical bed is what is taken away by sudden violence now.
You're telling me I should fear fucking terrorism enough to inconvenience me to take my shoes off at an airport?
No. Fear isn't all or nothing. It's stupid not to fear terrorism at all. 19 guys were able to do significant damage to the US. They since have successfully operated in Britain and Spain.
Isn't that frightening on some level?
Now, what the proper proactive measures are to combat terrorism, that's a different question.
But that's a point you've failed to recognize, that was pretty explicit.
Bottom line is that sometimes fear leads to irrational responses. You can condemn the irrational response, but it's hard to condemn the fear. It's an emotion (and a justifiable one).
Really? Most of us are justifiably afraid of terrorism?
Sure. Terrorism is scary. It's false bravado to claim you aren't worried about it to some degree. YOur stat of 0.001% of the US population dying in a single day is quite a bit. I'm frightened of street crime. It's a rational fear.
You have a better chance of dying in the bath.
Not me. I don't take baths.
Don't call for killing American freedom this way and don't support it when it happens.
You seem to have misunderstood GP's post. He said that was also bad, and he thought this was on the wrong side (I also think this action is too extreme).
But it's as stupid to stand up and shout at the wind that no safety conditions are worth any amount of safety as it is to stand up and shout that we all must be enslaved to get safety increased a bit. All of life is a balancing act. Name one public policy where one extreme is always right?
Hell if I can guess whats going on, because changing the.co.uk to look for other models (eee 901a, etc) give nothing, but killing it down to.co.uk/ redirects to the asus.com site...
Another indicator it's a joke site. Rather than have the whole domain redirect (which would kill the joke), there's a webpage in the root that redirects people (and has a google-analytics js on it). Shut off automatic-redirection and you get a page with the title:
Welcome to ASUSTeK Computer Inc. - a leading company in the new digital era Please wait whilst we redirect you...
"Whilst" is another indication it's a joke, as is ASUS in all caps.
www.asus.co.uk redirects directly to uk.asus.com, but if you go to for example http://www.asus.co.uk/eeepc/1000HE/, you will arrive at a marketing page designed to cater to British buyers
A scam/phishing/joke site often redirects to the proper site. Every other URL redirecting, and http://www.asus.co.uk/eeepc/1000HE/ not (a website not found at www.asus.com), is a trademark of a site emulating a proper one. Either all or no traffic would be redirected.
Because GP said "Why use WINE to run a Windows only program, when you can simply recreate it as a Linux app
If your REALLY gonna challenge yourself to create new, then start with new API's, etc.
I don't want to recreate the wheel. That's exactly my point... which you seem to be missing.
The whole point of WINE is to link into the API's that Microsoft developed
Yes. So developers build new and interesting things instead of Text Editor v.1241231 now with purple-on-purple polka-dotted text.
instead of inventing something you'll just steal their code set if you can figure out how to link into it and make it run something someone else already created
I'll try to parse your sentnce. I think it's not only proper to use existing APIs, but it is egomanical, arrogant, and even immoral to recreate them willy-nilly. In general, problems should be solved exactly once. Defining an API is a problem. Obviously, some iteration is necessarily, but that should be directed and not random.
So your really creating...Nothing except a minor bridge between API and EXE.
Did you read this before submitting it? It's somewhat incomprehensible.
What was your argument again? What were you CREATING?
Something not previously created. Anything not previously created. It was deliberately left vauge.
Besides, If someone didn't ever want to one up CALC then we wouldn't have Excel. Or WordStar -> Word, DB -> Access. What do they all have in common?
They're all sloved problems? Really, where's the room for improvement left in those apps?
Excel, Word, Access are all common tests for WINE. When people forget we have OPENOFFICE with NATIVE LINUX APPS. Get out of the Stone Age, and start firing up your rocket!
What's your point? I'm pretty confused. There's a subset of the Office features available for Linux? Yay?!?
if you donate to the site and are unhappy about the rolls, let me know and I will pull a die out of the machine, melt it flat and mail it to you, as an object lesson to the other dice.
Then CODE "xxxx" for your own use! Or Pay someone! If it is REALLY good, turn it back into the community under the GPL and let everyone benifit.
Wow, you're right. I should devote my scarce resources to recreating an exsiting program, as opposed to buying a version that works and creating something new. And then I should release it under the GPL, making it a total loss for me.
If I have to pay someone to do it, I should expect to be able to have that cost split up among people who also benefit.
Slashdot Mirror
Unlike Google, when Opera says something is a beta, they mean it. I'd check it out when it comes out of beta.
BeOS was supposed to be the 12th on the list of supported OSes. Somehow I dropped it to the bottom of the page. My bad.
I'd promise to preview next time, but I won't.
The list of supported OSes (so sayth Opera):
Sorry, no AmigaOS
BeOS
Also not new. See, Law Firms
In a non-pedantic way, this business model has existed for a while, but I've usually heard about it on a smaller scale.
It's actually based on the non-lawyer fee side of the equation. That is, taking money that would normally go to the plantiff, not the plantiff's lawyers.
And while it is a lot of money, keep in mind that it is being paid by people breaking the law directly to people who seek out and punish them. It's an idea carried over from Athenian society, and it seems to properly incentivize people to engage in a 5-year battle against a giant corporation to enforce laws to which the government cannot devote sufficent resources.
The "one way hash" argument refers to the often true fact that it's difficult to explain something correctly and completely. Therefore, an argument that glosses over, rather than takes advantage of, nuance is easier to understand. Otherwise, so many counter-intuitive things have to be learned that most people give up.
While I suppose it is similar to a strawman argument, it seems to advance by mischaracterizing the background knowledge that drives an argument, rather than the point being made.
It's hardly elitist to note that most people are unwilling to fully educate themselves in a subject, and hence can be convinced of something that superficially seems correct. After all, if you were to tell the average person that there is absolutely no conflict between the scientific and biblical accounts of creation because time is determined by the observer, and hence 24 days can map easily onto the big bang account, for some position and speed of the narrator (which may have to change from day to day), they would get confused.
It's somewhat ironic that your "one way hash" of the argument was modded Informative.
Probably. If MS had seeded Bing, it's unlikely that the first site from "Linux Vista" would produce a pro-Linux site.
x64 is backwards compatible with x86. And there's only one x64 architecture. So, while your point is true, my overarching point still stands.
Maybe Ballmer was right? It's all about developers, developers, developers, developers.
Every time a conversation about programming on Linux comes up, I try to follow it. But honestly, it's just easier programming on Windows machines. There are maybe 4 versions to worry about ME/2000/XP/Vista. And you can probably forget about ME/2000. Even if you don't, it's a few lines of difference (between them and XP, they're prerrt to identical to program for). And you can leave them in when you program for XP/Vista.
Meanwhile, if you use the best practices that MS recommended for XP back when they released it, there's no difference between XP/Vista programming (unless you're trying to extend windows explorer.)
It just works, and it's easy.
Going from Windows to Windows + MacOS grows the possible market by 6-7%. Going from Windows + MacOS to Windows + MacOS + Fedora + Debian grows by... maybe 1% at what kind of cost increase?
That's why the x86 architecture was standardized upon. No one bothers running anything else.
And until that's not a requirement, don't expect much cross-platform development. Make a bed, choose a side... either you want Linux ports of popular programs that otherwise force people to have Windows/OS X boxes in which case there needs to be a closed-source option, or you'll be happy with only F/OSS alternatives.
Both options are valid, they're just mutually exclusive.
Photoshop/Max/Maya/Microsoft Office/Etc. ... even Chrome will not regard opening the source in order to get on Linux anywhere near acceptable cost/benefit.
I had a girlfriend who did that to me. Social engineering works because you trust the wrong person/blanket authority.
That said, teaching people about "social engineering" by being a dick is being a dick. I give my root password to friends/install programs they tell me are interesting. Why? Because they asked, and I know them, and they're not asses.
Obviously, your milage is different.
They can be managed. I'm scared of heights. I can still go up and do work high in the air. Not letting your fears control you is important. "Curing" the fear is a distanct second.
Total economic damage was far in excese of that caused by traffic accidents. Also, how did you count long term health damage?
Clearly, because people commit suicide, some things are more frightening than death (for instance, losing all your money... see Window, Stockbrokers and).
Also, I've been in traffic accidents/gotten the flu and survived relatively free of permenant injury. So I'm not terribly worried about it.
Never said they were a threat. I said they were frightening. In fact, they probably didn't want to do that much.
I'm not saying I'm letting the fear overwhlem my judgement. I'm just saying that it does scare me. You can think that the proposed countermeasures are both ineffectual and too costly (to freedom) to be implemented if they were effectual, without claiming that you're not afraid.
Not before people join. Groups that try to force people to join via manipulation on this level are properly called cults.
Judism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc. claim to be given en mass from a divine source. Some people attempt to use the texts to claim that scientific principles were alluded to, or otherwise there is historical evidence for, the validity of some part of the text (usually using fairly modern discoveries that would not have been known by humans when the text was generated), and by extention the validity of the entire text.
I know many religious leaders who believe some aspect of that. However, that is not the cornerstone of their faith. They have a belief in the supernatural.
Scientology claims that it was researched, and discovered as a scientific truth.
Or, to put it another way, Scientology (unlike major religions) makes falisifiable claims.
Somewhat valid point. That's political, attempting to use a religion as a cult to gather support for its policies. However, every religion has a group that attempts to produce an idenitically named cult or twenty inside. Why start a cult around a new set of philosophies/tenets when you can steal some and confuse people at the same time.
If you look at the major religions, while they may disapprove of converts (especially at the familial level), they don't tend to maintain a penalty for maintaining contact with such a person, or sue them for talking about the religion.
Well, Scientology (and other cults) do things I've never heard of religions doing (since the Middle Ages):
Also, Scientology seems to ignore many things real religions do: organize food drives and other charitable events, provide aid to members in need (emotional or economic), and other beneficent acts.
Fear is not directly, or even indirectly, related to likelihood of death. Hell, every know someone to be scared of a creaking door after watching a scary movie? It's an emotional response based on imperfect extrapolation.
What you are talking about, and what you rightly condemn later in your post, is doing stupid things because you are afraid.
Understanding the distinction is important, because otherwise you end up yelling at people not to be afraid, which they cannot control. And they get pissed and ignore you. Or yell back and it devolves into a shouting match. Whereas, if you addressed it correctly to their reaction, you'd pass less like a ship in the night, and get further along.
Fear isn't perfectly rational like that. It's an emotion.
Also, you neglect to take into account the distance of the death of heart disease, with the associated discount of consequences.
Heart disease is a threat easily mitigated by advances in technology you can assume will occur.
Also, fear is usally not of death. More people are frightened of public speaking than death. Fear of violence, uncontrolled violence, is scarier than dynig at an old age in a medical bed. Hell, dying in a medical bed is what is taken away by sudden violence now.
No. Fear isn't all or nothing. It's stupid not to fear terrorism at all. 19 guys were able to do significant damage to the US. They since have successfully operated in Britain and Spain.
Isn't that frightening on some level?
Now, what the proper proactive measures are to combat terrorism, that's a different question.
But that's a point you've failed to recognize, that was pretty explicit.
Bottom line is that sometimes fear leads to irrational responses. You can condemn the irrational response, but it's hard to condemn the fear. It's an emotion (and a justifiable one).
Stop trying to be an amateur thought police.
Sure. Terrorism is scary. It's false bravado to claim you aren't worried about it to some degree. YOur stat of 0.001% of the US population dying in a single day is quite a bit. I'm frightened of street crime. It's a rational fear.
Not me. I don't take baths.
You seem to have misunderstood GP's post. He said that was also bad, and he thought this was on the wrong side (I also think this action is too extreme).
But it's as stupid to stand up and shout at the wind that no safety conditions are worth any amount of safety as it is to stand up and shout that we all must be enslaved to get safety increased a bit. All of life is a balancing act. Name one public policy where one extreme is always right?
Another indicator it's a joke site. Rather than have the whole domain redirect (which would kill the joke), there's a webpage in the root that redirects people (and has a google-analytics js on it). Shut off automatic-redirection and you get a page with the title:
Welcome to ASUSTeK Computer Inc. - a leading company in the new digital era Please wait whilst we redirect you...
"Whilst" is another indication it's a joke, as is ASUS in all caps.
He can take a real Asus page and add a fake link in the same style, but he had to build the other page from scratch.
A scam/phishing/joke site often redirects to the proper site. Every other URL redirecting, and http://www.asus.co.uk/eeepc/1000HE/ not (a website not found at www.asus.com), is a trademark of a site emulating a proper one. Either all or no traffic would be redirected.
Wait, what? Did I miss the irony?
You think Jobs contributed in any technical way to any Apple product? Heritic! May the Woz have mercy on your soul.
And a patent that references 47 other patents is far less impressive than vice-versa.
Except that site links to www.asus.co.uk Asus's real UK website is uk.asus.com
WTF? iPods were no where near the first MP3 player. I think I had my first one 4-5 years before the iPod came out (a lovely 64meg one).
A proud member of the "always bought offbrand MP3-players" club.
Because GP said "Why use WINE to run a Windows only program, when you can simply recreate it as a Linux app
I don't want to recreate the wheel. That's exactly my point... which you seem to be missing.
Yes. So developers build new and interesting things instead of Text Editor v.1241231 now with purple-on-purple polka-dotted text.
I'll try to parse your sentnce. I think it's not only proper to use existing APIs, but it is egomanical, arrogant, and even immoral to recreate them willy-nilly. In general, problems should be solved exactly once. Defining an API is a problem. Obviously, some iteration is necessarily, but that should be directed and not random.
Did you read this before submitting it? It's somewhat incomprehensible.
Something not previously created. Anything not previously created. It was deliberately left vauge.
They're all sloved problems? Really, where's the room for improvement left in those apps?
What's your point? I'm pretty confused. There's a subset of the Office features available for Linux? Yay?!?
'nuff said
Wow, you're right. I should devote my scarce resources to recreating an exsiting program, as opposed to buying a version that works and creating something new. And then I should release it under the GPL, making it a total loss for me.
If I have to pay someone to do it, I should expect to be able to have that cost split up among people who also benefit.