The only way to achieve interoperability at the software interface level is for there to be exactly one implementation - for example Perl or Linux.
Hate to burst your bubble, Tim, but this is the same justification that Microsoft to defend their monopoly on PC operating systems. There wouldn't be any portability issues if everyone used Windows(but there might be stability issues!)
And I agree with the notion that standards are a good thing, however, I have to be realistic at the same time. Any standard sufficiently broad to cover all of the possible bases will be so general as to be useless, or at the least, very inefficient in a large number of cases. The reasons why different standards crop up is because different users have different needs and values. In the UNIX community, portability, stability, and interoperability are highly regarded, where as in the Windows community, flashy GUI's and speed are often more important. Hence, two widely different systems.
The portability of XML is nice. The fact that it can represent just about anything is also nice. But the nature of XML precludes indexing, which means if I'm searching for a particular record in an XML dataset, I might have to read the entire file. Not a problem for small databases, but for mainframe size databases, this is simply unworkable.
No, XML doesn't suck. But then again, it's not a silver bullet either. Need I say the adage about hammers and nails?
The problem with Mainframe systems is that they are so expensive that the needed tools are often skipped because of financial reasons. Granted, I could work just as fast if my company would actually invest in some real development technologies. But they won't, so I'm stuck using an age old paradigm which is prohibitive. And the biggest problem is that upper management sees no problems with my productivity - they are simply unaware that things could be better; they expect projects last 3 to 5 years!
Granted, mainframe hardware can do some really fantastic things. But the problem is that with the mainframe comes the mainframe people - who are often stuck in a 30 or 40 year old procedural programming paradigm. Some of the developers here have never even seen a UNIX system; most can't even use the command line in Windows (one didn't even know it existed!).
Second, the big productivity bottleneck when working with mainframe applications is not the length of time to complete construction or code + test (well, usually not depending on whether or not your shop has invested in maintaining a robust test environment) - it's usually the over-accounting and over-regulation that requires umpteen signoffs and navigation through nineteen panels to request a software install
Which, unfortunately, is exactly the situation here. The problem is that my employer is so cheap that they don't buy the proper security modules, which means that only a priveledged few can make changes. Unlike the UNIX and PC models, there's no granularization of priveledges - I either have full access, or none at all, and this necessitates the assinine security policies which keep me from getting work done.
But even aside from that, the green screen editors on the mainframe are simply horrible. They make vi look like a Cadillac.
And likewise, for security reasons(?) I don't have a very deep toolbox. I'm not even allowed to write my own JCL!
The reason why there are only 10 other competing applicants is because (pick one):
Mainframe programming positions get paid an average of 30% less than those for PC/Unix programmers.
Everything on a mainframe is harder to do than with a UNIX or PC based system. Programmers get sick of wading through hundreds of modules with names like IEXC056H - as opposed to ParseUserInput.java.
Nobody likes COBOL.
Having experience in the Mainframe world, I can tell you that I would much rather put in overtime on a PC or UNIX based system than have to deal with the crappy 20 line editors, or the assinine syntax of no-local-variables-or-functions languages available on the mainframe, or the fact that the documentation is close to worthless, or the fact that it practically takes an act of congress to do something as simple as creating a file. I've spent the last year working on a mainframe project that could have been done in a few weeks using Linux. I'm not kidding, either - my productivity improves tenfold when using non-mainframe based systems. There's a reason why they are hiring mainframe programmers, and it's not because the job is a good one.
By converting the images into a lossy, 256 color format. Yes, the webpage loads faster, but the images are limited to the color depth at which they're displayed. Basically, if you view a web page in 256 color mode, a true color image will be downgraded to 256 color mode. Which means that if you save the image, and later switch to a true color mode, you're still stuck with a pixelated 256 color image.
Also, while compressing html might be a good idea for viewing webpages only, it still won't help when it comes to downloading something like the linux kernel or mp3's - which are already compressed.
I've been to broadband and back to dialup for financial reasons, and 56k is fast enough for loading web pages. The real advantage of broadband is not the speed at which web pages load, but the fact that you can download large files (like ISO's and mp3's) that would otherwise be impractical with dialup. The fact that you can run a server is also a nice plus.
I applaud Earthlink for trying, but quite frankly, I don't think this is going to catch on. For the kinds of files that will be downloaded by the average broadband user, there's simply no replacement for large bandwidth. Nice gimmick, though.
Actually, I don't believe Saddam, either. But then, it doesn't matter.
Regardless of whether or not Saddam has WMD's, it isn't right to invade a country, or start a war, simply because they might threaten you in the future. I guess you could say that I'm ultra-conservative - I believe that just ends must have just means. And surprisingly, the UN, and the largest Christian denomination (the Catholic Church) are with me on this one.
Personally, I think Hussein had it coming. He has done evil things. But unfortunately, war is a disproportionately high price to pay for rooting out his evil. He's not going to suffer - no, our bullets will be stopping in the sons and daughters of the people whom he oppresses. If Bush wanted to go man to man with Hussein, I don't think I'd object.
But the big problem is that Bush has singlehandly divided our allies and multiplied our enemies. His "pre-emptive strike" theory gives every third world dictator justification for starting a war with a country that might threaten them. Here we are playing the hippocrit - we supposedly want Saddam to relinquish WMD's that we somehow believe that we, rather than he, have a God-given right to possess.
Bush's intentions might have been noble, but his methods and means are anything but just. Rather than appealing to the UN, and accepting their decision, he seemingly made up his own mind to go to war; regime change has always been the goal, and by hook or by crook, he was going to find some justification for getting it. He cannot fathom that a person could be evil, but manageable. It would seem that in Bush's thinking, once a person has committed a criminal act, they are forever a criminal.
And this is precisely the problem. Bush gives no indication that he's open to reason, or negotiation - disagree with the US, and you'll get bombed. Is it any surprise that North Korea is restarting their nuclear program?
This war can have farther reaching effects than we'd like to admit.
you want is to avaoid the problem, try to solve it by ignroing it & hoping it will go away. Well, 12 years (and how many civilian deaths in Iraq?) later, your strategy sucks.
This is the kind of response I would expect from someone who has never took part in war, aside from watching it on television.
As someone who has stood downrange of communist artillery, I can say with certainty that war is no picnic. Having seen people die, it makes me cringe when I think that Bush & Co. want to go to war.
One of the hardest things to get across to the pro-war crowd is that the anti-war stance has nothing to do with inaction. WMD's are a cause of concern, but until they are being used against us, it makes no sense to kill people today because of what someone might do tomorrow. Rather, we should use diplomatic measures to enforce compliance.
Just like France and Germany in WWII, Hussein thought that if he appeased the US, that he could avoid war. But appeasement never works - in fact, having been tricked into destroying his weapons of mass destruction, he is now in the unfavorable position of having virtually no defenses whatsoever against the invading US armies. Hussein mistakenly believed that the Bush administration wanted him to relinquish his so-called Weapons of Mass Destruction, when in reality, the Bush administration cared not for his weapons, but rather, his oil. There was never any intention of not going to war on the Bush administration's part, but rather, they used the diplomatic measures as a means of buying them the time they needed to strengthen their position and weaken Saddam's.
This is bullying, plain and simple. For the first time in US history, we are attacking a nation that wasn't involved in hostilities against us or our allies. We have become no different from WWII Germany.
That's right, so "peace at any price" is totally justified.
No, what we're saying is that our options for peaceful resolution are still workable. Saddam doesn't have the capable military or the WMD to represent a legitimate threat yet. (Granted, he may have biological and chemical weapons, but he has no means to deliver them.)
The biggest problem that I have with the pro-war crowd is that they seem to lay claim to having a magic crystal ball which predicts that more people will be killed by us not going to war than by using diplomacy. They cite platitudes about Hitler and the World War 2, yet are ignorant of the differences between Hitler and Hussein:
Hitler believed in a pre-emptive strike theory of war, Hussein doesn't.
Hussein has actively tried to avoid a conflict - Hitler didn't.
Hitler's armies were much more potent than Hussein's, and he practiced massive genocide before the war.
Even given that Saddam is an evil person, the US has demonstrated time and again that controlling Hussein is as simple as dropping a few bombs and threatening to go to war. For those who believe Saddam to be a legitimate threat, why is it that the US military has lost more aircraft to training accidents in the last 12 years than to Saddam's hostile fire? How is it that someone who can't even defend his own country is a threat to me, 12,000 miles away? (and don't say WMD - biological agents can be made in the US by terrorists much more easily than importing them from Iraq).
The comparison of Hussein to Hitler, quite frankly, is trollbait. I could draw similar inferences from a comparison of President Bush and Hitler (Hitler believed in pre-emptive strikes, too...)
War is abhorrent. But in this case, the evil we're trying to avoid is not as great as the evil which will be inflicted on the innocent victims of Saddam's rule by US dropped bombs.
I'm asking you, how stressful is it to push the delete button? We have become a nation of crybabies.
Oh, say, no more stressful than pulling the trigger on a high powered rifle...
Some people just don't get it. Spam is an invasion of a personal space - it's the intrusion into our personal lives by a stranger that we resent, not the fact that we have to hit the delete key.
Quite frankly, I'm surprised that these guys are still alive. Spam is something that really angers people, and I can imagine someone unfamiliar with the 'net getting scammed and taking a high powered rifle to some spammer's house. Not everyone believes in the sanctity of life, you know, and if you blanket email the U.S., you're bound to put spam in the inboxes of criminals... But hey, the risk is up to you.
Adobe and Network Security Technologies, Inc., use OpenBSD, although many of them keep their choice private for security reasons.
Kind of like how Microsoft keeps its code private for security reasons too....
If BSD really is as secure as it has been touted, why keep your choice private "for security reasons"? Sorry, I don't mean to flame, but this statement has done more to hurt BSD than help it.
Okay, you caught me. Corporate America is our favorite scapegoat...
But seriously, though, in the US, money is power. Since the current administration is rather business friendly (and this is NOT necessarily a bad thing - I have to eat, too...), the big corporations have a bit more lattitude to "suggest" laws than they did in previous administrations. My point was that someone with the power to change things is finally taking notice of the spam problem.
Once spam makes a substantial dent in corporate america's profits, you can bet there will be a federal law passed banning the practice. Granted, we slashdotters might not like the fact that Corporate America(tm) controls Congress, but in this case, it can actually do us some good...
...we'd all still be programming for IBM/360's in Cobol & Fortran
Some of still are!
I was discussing this with a co-worker recently, and though my company uses a lot of PC's, there are very few jobs for programming them. Because of the fact that Microsoft's operating systems are so unstable and supported for such short lengths of time (5 years?), there aren't many companies willing to give up their mainframes for PC's on their mission critical systems. In fact, the crux of the problem is that many IT managers associate the PC with Microsoft, and Microsoft with instability and immaturity, so this isn't likely to change soon. The unfortunate result is that as much as I hate the mainframe, I have to admit that COBOL will keep many a programmer employed for many years to come. The death of COBOL has been predicted for the past two decades, but unfortunately, I don't see it coming...
Well, I don't mean to flame, but until Linux becomes truly mainstream, PC's will never be viewed as enterprise-class systems. While the multimedia apps that made MS rich have benefitted the desktop user, the instability of their operating systems have effectively removed them from the enterprise-class computing market. Combine this with a short product lifecycle, and you get a corporate world which would rather spend a million dollars on a single machine than buying a thousand servers, simply because they can be assured that the million dollar machine will be supported ten years from now.
Which, of course, is bad news for those of us who like PC programming.
Even though you're a little OT, I agree with you completely. I'm only a year into IS, and I'm already looking for another career. Within my lifetime, programmers will be paid minimum wage...
IIRC, the Americans with Disabilities act requires every "public conveyance" to maintain access to the disabled. This is why you have braille on drive-up ATMs. If this ever became widespread, you can bet that the banks would get slapped with an ADA lawsuit, as blind people would be prevented from using their ATMS.
So, I predict that this will be an optional "feature" while banks will continue to use cards and PINS long into the future.
Consumers said they had been forced to turn to illegal copies because Microsoft had used its virtual monopoly to inflate prices.
So even though a federal court found MS guilty of doing the same thing here, MS got to keep their high prices and predatory practices. Amazing.
It seems as if Taiwan has succeeded in doing what John Ashcroft and Co. (and his predecessors, for that matter) could never do: control Microsoft. Strange, isn't it, that Taiwan can effectively demand concessions from a foreign company when our own DOJ can't even enforce the judgements they do have against a domestic one...
Yeah, the future's bright. I think I'm going to start a monopoly somewhere - then I can tell John Ashcroft and the DOJ where to go...
Pretty soon, I won't be able to make modifications to my PC or my car...
Too Late.
According to the clean air act, it is illegal to modify any part of a vehicle's emission control system. Given that just about every part of a modern engine is some part of the vehicle's emission control system, it is technically illegal to modify your engine to produce more horsepower.
This was a battle lost a long time ago among hotrodders. Hotrodders were buying pre-1975 vehicles in the 90's, simply because they had no emission controls (to speak of), and could be modified for high-performance without breaking any laws. But now that these cars are getting harder to find, less people are hot rodding. Sure, you can find the guys who will put a high-performance exhaust system on a Civic, and get another 10 horsepower, but the days of building 400 and 500 horsepower (legal) hot rods are long gone.
Give it up, folks. The days of white box systems are coming to an end. It won't be long before it will be illegal to buy a computer without TCPA and DRM. Your hobby of programming computers will be lumped into the category of hacking and piracy, and will become implicitly illegal. Sure, programming won't be illegal per se, but buying a machine that can run an unregistered, unsigned executable program will be. And who do you think will hold the keys to registration and signing?
Yes, we can whine about how our liberties are being taken away from us, but we're the minority in a democracy. As it's been said before, democracy is three wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner. And so in the same manner, as computers become more commonplace, the majority of computer users will be using the machine not as a general computing plaform, but as a multimedia appliance. The problem with making the PC a multimedia appliance is that in doing so, it becomes a "circumvention device" in regards to the DMCA; it won't be long before selling an "unsecured" (read non-DRM, no TCPA) PC will be regarded in the same light as selling mod chips for the XBOX. Obviously, the average person would never want a non-copy restricted PC for anything but piracy. It is inconceivable to the DOJ that mod chips would ever be used for something legal, such as actually running a different OS on the XBOX, or playing imported games. And so, in the same manner, TCPA and DRM will become part of the PC, and what was once an innocent hobby will become a federal crime.
It will be common sense that if you go to a meeting that's recorded digitally... you can go back and get that information."
Um, excuse me Bill, but isn't this what Palladium and Trusted Computing(TM) are supposed to eliminate? You can no longer go back and get that information unless your DRM module allows you to. Which means that basically the author, your employer, or Microsoft, can lock you out of your own data.
Something just occurred to me regarding DRM. Once Microsoft has succeeded in entrenching DRM in the PC marketplace, what is to keep them from charging their customers royalties for every Office document they view? The technology is there - Microsoft Office could encrypt your documents, and refuse to read them after a specified period of time, unless you bought an upgrade. I can see it now - it would be sold as "Legacy Support Services - with a simple upgrade, you'll be able to view documents created 2 or more years ago!..."
With the advent of MSDOS, people began paying for what they used to get for free. How long will it be before people expect to send Microsoft money every time they view documents created with Microsoft software? How long will it be before Microsoft charges developers royalties for every copy of a program that runs on Windows? Think it can't happen? Think Palladium and Trusted Computing.
Attorney Nimrod Kozlovski, author of "The Computer and the Legal Process" (in Hebrew), heard the lecture, and could not believe his ears. "The consent given in the user contract should be seen as `coerced consent,' in the absence of any opportunity to exercise free choice, with no real alternative but to agree. This is most certainly not conscious consent."
I think this says it all. We are rapidly becoming a society in which corporations can strip individuals of their liberties not by virtue of law, but by using onerous contracts.
Imagine if the utility companies forced a person to hand over keys to their residence when they signed up for service, so that the company could "inspect the premises in the interests of public safety". It wouldn't be long before the utility company would realize that they can make additional income by "renting" your key to law enforcement agencies on demand. But you, the resident would effectively have no say in this - you either agree to their terms, or you do without gas/electric/phone service.
You see, the danger of this is that by "renting" the key, law enforcement no longer needs a warrant to search your house; you implicitly gave consent for entry to the utility company, who then resold that consent to law enforcement. It is these kinds of agreements which allow law enforcement to circumvent the checks and balances gauranteed by the constitution, and this is what makes them so dangerous.
How long will it be before our lives and liberties are entirely beholden to corporate interests?
I agree. But it's interesting to note that if this software had been written by an individual, rather than a corporation, the FBI would already be looking for the culprit. For some reason, corporate misbehavior is below the FBI's radar.
From the article:
It's a browser toolbar that some swear is doing "drive-by downloads" -- installing itself without users' permission -- then taking over their systems and making it impossible to uninstall.
Technically, this is a virus. And IIRC, "unauthorized alteration of a computer system" is punishable by 5 years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine.
However, it is completely unreasonable to believe that the pacification is sufficient to exclude the entire populace from generating political force.
I agree, but with a caveat. In democracies, there are generally large groups of voters who are indifferent to specific issues. As such, the true political power rests with those who can best persuade a fickle crowd. Say, for example, that you don't like the DMCA, and of those voters who have an opinion, 95% don't approve of it. But say only 5% of the voters have an opinion on the DMCA; this leaves us with 95% of the voting populace generally indifferent. The problem is that these voters make the decision about who gets elected. This is where money comes in - if an entity (person, corporation, or minority group), buys enough positive publicity for the candidate of their choice, the result is a situation in which the rich minority can effectively set policy for the poor majority.
This is how "bad" laws get passed - corporations buy elected representatives by financing their campaigns. Because airtime is expensive, this leaves only the rich with the option of persuading the fickle masses. Hence, money is power, regardless of how "free" your speech may be. It's been said before - freedom of speech isn't the same as the right to buy newsprint.
You've just discovered one of the most effective means of controlling a large group of people: Listen to them, but do as you please.
Freedom of speech isn't defended because our government believes in the rights of the individual, but rather because it's an effective technique for diffusing the anger of the political minority. Remember the WTC protests? What about the peace protests? Did they change our foreign policy? Were they even considered?
Has political protest ever made a difference in American policy? The short answer is no.
Rather, allowing political speech is the means by which politicians keep us busy while they conduct business as usual.
Historically, democracies have been ruled by the rich and popular. Historically, monarchies also have been ruled by the rich and popular. The difference? In democracies, the people believe that they are free; in monarchies, they know better...
The reason why most people buy online is convenience. When shipping charges are added in, the total cost of most online products is around the same that a person would pay by visiting a brick and mortar store. But with online buying, a person doesn't have to deal with the inconvience and time involved with actually going to the store to make a purchase.
So now the state governments want to start taxing internet sales. Problem is, in doing so, they are negating the price advantage for online retailers - consumers would pay both shipping charges and taxes, and online goods would cost substantially more than their brick and mortar counterparts. In tight economies, consumers are willing to forego convenience for the sake of getting a better deal.
IMHO, the states aren't going to generate any substantial revenue from online taxation. In fact, what this will do is shake out the less profitable online companies from the business altogether, leaving a few powerful conglomerates with all control of online sales. And I think that the states will make much less money on this than they envision - online sales will shift back to the brick and mortar stores. The desired effect of this tax is to help brick and mortar stores by killing off online competition.
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Hate to burst your bubble, Tim, but this is the same justification that Microsoft to defend their monopoly on PC operating systems. There wouldn't be any portability issues if everyone used Windows(but there might be stability issues!)
And I agree with the notion that standards are a good thing, however, I have to be realistic at the same time. Any standard sufficiently broad to cover all of the possible bases will be so general as to be useless, or at the least, very inefficient in a large number of cases. The reasons why different standards crop up is because different users have different needs and values. In the UNIX community, portability, stability, and interoperability are highly regarded, where as in the Windows community, flashy GUI's and speed are often more important. Hence, two widely different systems.
The portability of XML is nice. The fact that it can represent just about anything is also nice. But the nature of XML precludes indexing, which means if I'm searching for a particular record in an XML dataset, I might have to read the entire file. Not a problem for small databases, but for mainframe size databases, this is simply unworkable.
No, XML doesn't suck. But then again, it's not a silver bullet either. Need I say the adage about hammers and nails?
Granted, mainframe hardware can do some really fantastic things. But the problem is that with the mainframe comes the mainframe people - who are often stuck in a 30 or 40 year old procedural programming paradigm. Some of the developers here have never even seen a UNIX system; most can't even use the command line in Windows (one didn't even know it existed!).
Which, unfortunately, is exactly the situation here. The problem is that my employer is so cheap that they don't buy the proper security modules, which means that only a priveledged few can make changes. Unlike the UNIX and PC models, there's no granularization of priveledges - I either have full access, or none at all, and this necessitates the assinine security policies which keep me from getting work done.
But even aside from that, the green screen editors on the mainframe are simply horrible. They make vi look like a Cadillac.
And likewise, for security reasons(?) I don't have a very deep toolbox. I'm not even allowed to write my own JCL!
The C++/Java/C# programmer, easy.
The reason why there are only 10 other competing applicants is because (pick one):
Having experience in the Mainframe world, I can tell you that I would much rather put in overtime on a PC or UNIX based system than have to deal with the crappy 20 line editors, or the assinine syntax of no-local-variables-or-functions languages available on the mainframe, or the fact that the documentation is close to worthless, or the fact that it practically takes an act of congress to do something as simple as creating a file. I've spent the last year working on a mainframe project that could have been done in a few weeks using Linux. I'm not kidding, either - my productivity improves tenfold when using non-mainframe based systems. There's a reason why they are hiring mainframe programmers, and it's not because the job is a good one.
By converting the images into a lossy, 256 color format. Yes, the webpage loads faster, but the images are limited to the color depth at which they're displayed. Basically, if you view a web page in 256 color mode, a true color image will be downgraded to 256 color mode. Which means that if you save the image, and later switch to a true color mode, you're still stuck with a pixelated 256 color image.
Also, while compressing html might be a good idea for viewing webpages only, it still won't help when it comes to downloading something like the linux kernel or mp3's - which are already compressed.
I've been to broadband and back to dialup for financial reasons, and 56k is fast enough for loading web pages. The real advantage of broadband is not the speed at which web pages load, but the fact that you can download large files (like ISO's and mp3's) that would otherwise be impractical with dialup. The fact that you can run a server is also a nice plus.
I applaud Earthlink for trying, but quite frankly, I don't think this is going to catch on. For the kinds of files that will be downloaded by the average broadband user, there's simply no replacement for large bandwidth. Nice gimmick, though.
Actually, I don't believe Saddam, either. But then, it doesn't matter.
Regardless of whether or not Saddam has WMD's, it isn't right to invade a country, or start a war, simply because they might threaten you in the future. I guess you could say that I'm ultra-conservative - I believe that just ends must have just means. And surprisingly, the UN, and the largest Christian denomination (the Catholic Church) are with me on this one.
Personally, I think Hussein had it coming. He has done evil things. But unfortunately, war is a disproportionately high price to pay for rooting out his evil. He's not going to suffer - no, our bullets will be stopping in the sons and daughters of the people whom he oppresses. If Bush wanted to go man to man with Hussein, I don't think I'd object.
But the big problem is that Bush has singlehandly divided our allies and multiplied our enemies. His "pre-emptive strike" theory gives every third world dictator justification for starting a war with a country that might threaten them. Here we are playing the hippocrit - we supposedly want Saddam to relinquish WMD's that we somehow believe that we, rather than he, have a God-given right to possess.
Bush's intentions might have been noble, but his methods and means are anything but just. Rather than appealing to the UN, and accepting their decision, he seemingly made up his own mind to go to war; regime change has always been the goal, and by hook or by crook, he was going to find some justification for getting it. He cannot fathom that a person could be evil, but manageable. It would seem that in Bush's thinking, once a person has committed a criminal act, they are forever a criminal.
And this is precisely the problem. Bush gives no indication that he's open to reason, or negotiation - disagree with the US, and you'll get bombed. Is it any surprise that North Korea is restarting their nuclear program?
This war can have farther reaching effects than we'd like to admit.Or did anyone else expect to see COBOL on the list?
Oh, wait. Human languages...sorry.
This is the kind of response I would expect from someone who has never took part in war, aside from watching it on television.
As someone who has stood downrange of communist artillery, I can say with certainty that war is no picnic. Having seen people die, it makes me cringe when I think that Bush & Co. want to go to war.
One of the hardest things to get across to the pro-war crowd is that the anti-war stance has nothing to do with inaction. WMD's are a cause of concern, but until they are being used against us, it makes no sense to kill people today because of what someone might do tomorrow. Rather, we should use diplomatic measures to enforce compliance.
Just like France and Germany in WWII, Hussein thought that if he appeased the US, that he could avoid war. But appeasement never works - in fact, having been tricked into destroying his weapons of mass destruction, he is now in the unfavorable position of having virtually no defenses whatsoever against the invading US armies. Hussein mistakenly believed that the Bush administration wanted him to relinquish his so-called Weapons of Mass Destruction, when in reality, the Bush administration cared not for his weapons, but rather, his oil. There was never any intention of not going to war on the Bush administration's part, but rather, they used the diplomatic measures as a means of buying them the time they needed to strengthen their position and weaken Saddam's.
This is bullying, plain and simple. For the first time in US history, we are attacking a nation that wasn't involved in hostilities against us or our allies. We have become no different from WWII Germany.
No, what we're saying is that our options for peaceful resolution are still workable. Saddam doesn't have the capable military or the WMD to represent a legitimate threat yet. (Granted, he may have biological and chemical weapons, but he has no means to deliver them.)
The biggest problem that I have with the pro-war crowd is that they seem to lay claim to having a magic crystal ball which predicts that more people will be killed by us not going to war than by using diplomacy. They cite platitudes about Hitler and the World War 2, yet are ignorant of the differences between Hitler and Hussein:
- Hitler believed in a pre-emptive strike theory of war, Hussein doesn't.
- Hussein has actively tried to avoid a conflict - Hitler didn't.
- Hitler's armies were much more potent than Hussein's, and he practiced massive genocide before the war.
Even given that Saddam is an evil person, the US has demonstrated time and again that controlling Hussein is as simple as dropping a few bombs and threatening to go to war. For those who believe Saddam to be a legitimate threat, why is it that the US military has lost more aircraft to training accidents in the last 12 years than to Saddam's hostile fire? How is it that someone who can't even defend his own country is a threat to me, 12,000 miles away? (and don't say WMD - biological agents can be made in the US by terrorists much more easily than importing them from Iraq).The comparison of Hussein to Hitler, quite frankly, is trollbait. I could draw similar inferences from a comparison of President Bush and Hitler (Hitler believed in pre-emptive strikes, too...)
War is abhorrent. But in this case, the evil we're trying to avoid is not as great as the evil which will be inflicted on the innocent victims of Saddam's rule by US dropped bombs.
Oh, say, no more stressful than pulling the trigger on a high powered rifle...
Some people just don't get it. Spam is an invasion of a personal space - it's the intrusion into our personal lives by a stranger that we resent, not the fact that we have to hit the delete key.
Quite frankly, I'm surprised that these guys are still alive. Spam is something that really angers people, and I can imagine someone unfamiliar with the 'net getting scammed and taking a high powered rifle to some spammer's house. Not everyone believes in the sanctity of life, you know, and if you blanket email the U.S., you're bound to put spam in the inboxes of criminals... But hey, the risk is up to you.
Kind of like how Microsoft keeps its code private for security reasons too....
If BSD really is as secure as it has been touted, why keep your choice private "for security reasons"? Sorry, I don't mean to flame, but this statement has done more to hurt BSD than help it.
Okay, you caught me. Corporate America is our favorite scapegoat...
But seriously, though, in the US, money is power. Since the current administration is rather business friendly (and this is NOT necessarily a bad thing - I have to eat, too...), the big corporations have a bit more lattitude to "suggest" laws than they did in previous administrations. My point was that someone with the power to change things is finally taking notice of the spam problem.
Once spam makes a substantial dent in corporate america's profits, you can bet there will be a federal law passed banning the practice. Granted, we slashdotters might not like the fact that Corporate America(tm) controls Congress, but in this case, it can actually do us some good...
Some of still are!
I was discussing this with a co-worker recently, and though my company uses a lot of PC's, there are very few jobs for programming them. Because of the fact that Microsoft's operating systems are so unstable and supported for such short lengths of time (5 years?), there aren't many companies willing to give up their mainframes for PC's on their mission critical systems. In fact, the crux of the problem is that many IT managers associate the PC with Microsoft, and Microsoft with instability and immaturity, so this isn't likely to change soon. The unfortunate result is that as much as I hate the mainframe, I have to admit that COBOL will keep many a programmer employed for many years to come. The death of COBOL has been predicted for the past two decades, but unfortunately, I don't see it coming...
Well, I don't mean to flame, but until Linux becomes truly mainstream, PC's will never be viewed as enterprise-class systems. While the multimedia apps that made MS rich have benefitted the desktop user, the instability of their operating systems have effectively removed them from the enterprise-class computing market. Combine this with a short product lifecycle, and you get a corporate world which would rather spend a million dollars on a single machine than buying a thousand servers, simply because they can be assured that the million dollar machine will be supported ten years from now.
Which, of course, is bad news for those of us who like PC programming.
Even though you're a little OT, I agree with you completely. I'm only a year into IS, and I'm already looking for another career. Within my lifetime, programmers will be paid minimum wage...
So, I predict that this will be an optional "feature" while banks will continue to use cards and PINS long into the future.
So even though a federal court found MS guilty of doing the same thing here, MS got to keep their high prices and predatory practices. Amazing.
It seems as if Taiwan has succeeded in doing what John Ashcroft and Co. (and his predecessors, for that matter) could never do: control Microsoft. Strange, isn't it, that Taiwan can effectively demand concessions from a foreign company when our own DOJ can't even enforce the judgements they do have against a domestic one...
Yeah, the future's bright. I think I'm going to start a monopoly somewhere - then I can tell John Ashcroft and the DOJ where to go...
Pretty soon, I won't be able to make modifications to my PC or my car...
Too Late.
According to the clean air act, it is illegal to modify any part of a vehicle's emission control system. Given that just about every part of a modern engine is some part of the vehicle's emission control system, it is technically illegal to modify your engine to produce more horsepower.
This was a battle lost a long time ago among hotrodders. Hotrodders were buying pre-1975 vehicles in the 90's, simply because they had no emission controls (to speak of), and could be modified for high-performance without breaking any laws. But now that these cars are getting harder to find, less people are hot rodding. Sure, you can find the guys who will put a high-performance exhaust system on a Civic, and get another 10 horsepower, but the days of building 400 and 500 horsepower (legal) hot rods are long gone.
Give it up, folks. The days of white box systems are coming to an end. It won't be long before it will be illegal to buy a computer without TCPA and DRM. Your hobby of programming computers will be lumped into the category of hacking and piracy, and will become implicitly illegal. Sure, programming won't be illegal per se, but buying a machine that can run an unregistered, unsigned executable program will be. And who do you think will hold the keys to registration and signing?
Yes, we can whine about how our liberties are being taken away from us, but we're the minority in a democracy. As it's been said before, democracy is three wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner. And so in the same manner, as computers become more commonplace, the majority of computer users will be using the machine not as a general computing plaform, but as a multimedia appliance. The problem with making the PC a multimedia appliance is that in doing so, it becomes a "circumvention device" in regards to the DMCA; it won't be long before selling an "unsecured" (read non-DRM, no TCPA) PC will be regarded in the same light as selling mod chips for the XBOX. Obviously, the average person would never want a non-copy restricted PC for anything but piracy. It is inconceivable to the DOJ that mod chips would ever be used for something legal, such as actually running a different OS on the XBOX, or playing imported games. And so, in the same manner, TCPA and DRM will become part of the PC, and what was once an innocent hobby will become a federal crime.
It will be common sense that if you go to a meeting that's recorded digitally ... you can go back and get that information."
Um, excuse me Bill, but isn't this what Palladium and Trusted Computing(TM) are supposed to eliminate? You can no longer go back and get that information unless your DRM module allows you to. Which means that basically the author, your employer, or Microsoft, can lock you out of your own data.
Something just occurred to me regarding DRM. Once Microsoft has succeeded in entrenching DRM in the PC marketplace, what is to keep them from charging their customers royalties for every Office document they view? The technology is there - Microsoft Office could encrypt your documents, and refuse to read them after a specified period of time, unless you bought an upgrade. I can see it now - it would be sold as "Legacy Support Services - with a simple upgrade, you'll be able to view documents created 2 or more years ago!..."
With the advent of MSDOS, people began paying for what they used to get for free. How long will it be before people expect to send Microsoft money every time they view documents created with Microsoft software? How long will it be before Microsoft charges developers royalties for every copy of a program that runs on Windows? Think it can't happen? Think Palladium and Trusted Computing.
From the article:
Attorney Nimrod Kozlovski, author of "The Computer and the Legal Process" (in Hebrew), heard the lecture, and could not believe his ears. "The consent given in the user contract should be seen as `coerced consent,' in the absence of any opportunity to exercise free choice, with no real alternative but to agree. This is most certainly not conscious consent."
I think this says it all. We are rapidly becoming a society in which corporations can strip individuals of their liberties not by virtue of law, but by using onerous contracts.
Imagine if the utility companies forced a person to hand over keys to their residence when they signed up for service, so that the company could "inspect the premises in the interests of public safety". It wouldn't be long before the utility company would realize that they can make additional income by "renting" your key to law enforcement agencies on demand. But you, the resident would effectively have no say in this - you either agree to their terms, or you do without gas/electric/phone service.
You see, the danger of this is that by "renting" the key, law enforcement no longer needs a warrant to search your house; you implicitly gave consent for entry to the utility company, who then resold that consent to law enforcement. It is these kinds of agreements which allow law enforcement to circumvent the checks and balances gauranteed by the constitution, and this is what makes them so dangerous.
How long will it be before our lives and liberties are entirely beholden to corporate interests?
I agree. But it's interesting to note that if this software had been written by an individual, rather than a corporation, the FBI would already be looking for the culprit. For some reason, corporate misbehavior is below the FBI's radar.
From the article:
It's a browser toolbar that some swear is doing "drive-by downloads" -- installing itself without users' permission -- then taking over their systems and making it impossible to uninstall.
Technically, this is a virus. And IIRC, "unauthorized alteration of a computer system" is punishable by 5 years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine.
Yes, but business is also governed by the Golden Rule - he who has the gold gets to make the rules.
I agree, but with a caveat. In democracies, there are generally large groups of voters who are indifferent to specific issues. As such, the true political power rests with those who can best persuade a fickle crowd. Say, for example, that you don't like the DMCA, and of those voters who have an opinion, 95% don't approve of it. But say only 5% of the voters have an opinion on the DMCA; this leaves us with 95% of the voting populace generally indifferent. The problem is that these voters make the decision about who gets elected. This is where money comes in - if an entity (person, corporation, or minority group), buys enough positive publicity for the candidate of their choice, the result is a situation in which the rich minority can effectively set policy for the poor majority.
This is how "bad" laws get passed - corporations buy elected representatives by financing their campaigns. Because airtime is expensive, this leaves only the rich with the option of persuading the fickle masses. Hence, money is power, regardless of how "free" your speech may be. It's been said before - freedom of speech isn't the same as the right to buy newsprint.
You've just discovered one of the most effective means of controlling a large group of people: Listen to them, but do as you please.
Freedom of speech isn't defended because our government believes in the rights of the individual, but rather because it's an effective technique for diffusing the anger of the political minority. Remember the WTC protests? What about the peace protests? Did they change our foreign policy? Were they even considered?
Has political protest ever made a difference in American policy? The short answer is no. Rather, allowing political speech is the means by which politicians keep us busy while they conduct business as usual.
Historically, democracies have been ruled by the rich and popular. Historically, monarchies also have been ruled by the rich and popular. The difference? In democracies, the people believe that they are free; in monarchies, they know better...
The reason why most people buy online is convenience. When shipping charges are added in, the total cost of most online products is around the same that a person would pay by visiting a brick and mortar store. But with online buying, a person doesn't have to deal with the inconvience and time involved with actually going to the store to make a purchase.
So now the state governments want to start taxing internet sales. Problem is, in doing so, they are negating the price advantage for online retailers - consumers would pay both shipping charges and taxes, and online goods would cost substantially more than their brick and mortar counterparts. In tight economies, consumers are willing to forego convenience for the sake of getting a better deal.
IMHO, the states aren't going to generate any substantial revenue from online taxation. In fact, what this will do is shake out the less profitable online companies from the business altogether, leaving a few powerful conglomerates with all control of online sales. And I think that the states will make much less money on this than they envision - online sales will shift back to the brick and mortar stores. The desired effect of this tax is to help brick and mortar stores by killing off online competition.