The distinction between sex and pornography is an important one. The fact that a book discusses sex does not make it pornography; pornography is defined not by the sexual content, but the manner in which the content is presented. This is what differentiates the Bible, which has a whole book devoted to romantic love and sex, from pornography. Pornography strips sex of all love, caring, intimacy, and dignity, instead focusing on self-seeking carnal desires. It is not so much that Christians are trying to remove from libraries materials to which they object, but that they are trying to protect the innocence of their children. In general, children do not have enough life experience to make good decisions - that's why they are considered children. It is one thing for an individual to use his own money to buy porn, but quite another for a library to use my tax dollars to not only buy it, but offer it to my children against my wishes. An individual's supposed "right" to view pornography does not override my right to protect my children from things that I judge to be harmful. As my children are required by law to attend school, and by the school to use the library, it is not as if I have the option of keeping my children out of the library. While I do believe that parents should take responsibility for raising their children, I also believe that it is wrong for the government to actively undermine the efforts of parents to raise their children in a moral manner. My tax dollars should not be used to harm my children.
100,000 people in the US software industry were fired last year?
Yes, I can believe this; I know of numerous programmers with more experience than I who have been downsized. However, they weren't writing commercial software - like most programmers, they make their living writing custom software for in-house use. Which means, of course, that it was not piracy which lost them their jobs, but rather a downturn in the economy.
Strangely, the BSA seems to believe that any loss of profit by a software company is due to piracy, in spite of the recent recession and the poor quality of commercial software. What the BSA fails to realize is that companies in financial straights tend to utilize the more fiscally responsible alternatives to commercial software, and that this resulted in a loss of revenue for commercial software companies. It wasn't piracy, but that companies woke up to the demands of the shareholders and the reality that free software was a more viable option than the commercial alternatives that the BSA advocates
Actually, you're wrong and you're right. Here in the suburbs of Chicago, we have some communities which plan for the future, and others that don't. The difference? Those suburbs whose governments planned for the future are now some of the most affluent in the Chicago area. However, they're also the most asinine - for example, in Schaumburg, if you place something in the trash that could have been recycled, it's a $100 fine. And yes, I know people who have actually been fined. Also, don't bother moving here if you're black, or some other minority, because some of these suburbs make it practically illegal for minorities to own houses. It is all but illegal to build houses which sell for less than $400,000 - some houses in Schaumburg sell for more than 3/4 of a million dollars - and these are subdivision, prefab houses, not mansions.
So you were both wrong and right. Yes, it is good thing when governments make long term plans - in general, it improves the standard of living. But the problem is that in the process, individual liberties are stripped away. And yes, I don't like this kind of government
That Sun will be accused of anticompetitive behavior because they are giving away Star Office the same way Microsoft gave away Internet Explorer?
But on a lighter note, this can only be good, folks. Hopefully, over the course of time, this will devalue the Microsoft Office suite to the point where Microsoft will either have to give it away for free, or will no longer able to charge such exorbitant licensing fees (a $79 version of Office wouldn't be bad...) Consumers, regardless of which office suite they choose, will benefit.
"They have done a wonderful job going back to find out what was there before them," said Karen Oster, a Lake Oswego patent attorney who began representing Exit Exchange in 1998. "When they came to me, they didn't say, 'Gee we have a great idea.' They said, 'This is what's out there, and this is what's different.' "
Amazing, isn't it?! Before jumping on a land-grab scheme, this company actually researched their idea for prior art. Granted, I don't think that this is worthy of a patent, but at least this company came up with their own idea, rather than trying to steal someone else's.
And no, I'm not going to make the obligatory slashdot comment about how the patent office needs to be reformed; someone else is bound to do that for me...
IBM announced it has created the highest performing nanotubes transistors to date and has proven that carbon nanotubes -- tube-shaped molecules made of carbon atoms that are 50,000 times thinner than a human hair -- can outperform the leading silicon transistor prototypes available today.
From the MSNBC article:
ARMONK, NEW YORK-BASED IBM said it used a carbon nanotube -- a tiny cylindrical structure made up of carbon atoms that is about 100,000 times thinner than a human hair
So which is it - 100,000 or 50,000 times smaller than a human hair? It seems that there is quite a bit of hype on the MSNBC side of things. Doesn't it bother anyone that MSNBC distorted the truth?
From everything I've heard about that Navy ship, the fault had absolutely zero to do with "Windows NT", and everything to do with a proprietary application that didn't wrap a non-deterministic calculation in a try/except : Hardly extraordinary. Unfortunate, yes. Fodder for anti-MSitism, hardly.
Yes, but the operating system (Windows NT) should have caught a divide by zero exception, and terminated/restarted the offending application. The operator should have then been able to restart the application and proceed as normal. This bug should not have brought down the entire system!
I run a mixed shop - Windows at work, Windows and Linux at home. I've ported numerous apps from Linux to Windows, and it's usually not a problem. Of course, I wrote them with an awareness that I would want to port them to Windows, so I didn't use UNIX-only APIs. In fact, I'm using Java right now to develop truly cross-platform apps, and it works surprisingly well.
Because of the stability and usability. Windows 2000 and XP appear to be very stable and no one can deny that they are lightyears ahead of anything on linux when it comes to desktop comfort.
This is only your personal preference. I use both KDE and windows daily, and I prefer having the multiple desktops and clean GUI of KDE. Because I know how to use Linux (translate: know what I want to do), I find the KDE interface easier to use. I also find it more aesthetically pleasing - how many Windows boxes have active backgrounds?
I just hate it when I encounter yet another website that doesn't load using Konqueror, mozilla, opera... you fill in the blanks. I just hate it that I can't play movies on my linux machine without five days of intensive configuration battles.
The main problem I've found with Linux is that it is a chore to configure, but once you've got it configured correctly, nothing breaks. Contrast this with Windows, where botched application installation can break pieces throughout the entire system. Correcting a bad install in Linux may involve little more than editing a text file; in Windows, you may have to reinstall the OS, reregister with Microsoft, and reinstall every application that you use. I've spent countless hours doing this, and even though I hate vi and editing text files, I have to admit that I prefer the Linux/UNIX method of editing a few lines to the 8+ hour complete system reinstalls I have to do with Windows.
Someone once said there's no such thing as a free lunch. With Linux, it's reliable, and it's free, but if you want to play movies, you may have to spend a substantial amount of time downloading and configuring the application, and then reading the documentation, fixing bugs, and recompiling. With Windows, you pay for a system which basically takes all of these things out of your way, but at great risk; if the software is buggy, or the install fails, it could break the entire system. There is simply no recourse for a botched install - if you're lucky, you might get away with reinstalling only the application(s) affected. If not, you could end up reinstalling the entire OS.
And I haven't even begun to talk about virus/security issues. If you value your data, Linux might be your only option (either that or a constant backup plan...)
When one thinks about the system as a whole, Windows is only suitable for people who want to use the PC as an entertainment device - people who rely on the integrity of their data and the security of their computer systems should not run Windows. Use Windows for games - use Linux for serious computing.
Seriously, though, the only thing I use my hotmail account for is registering email @'s at various webpages (like the NY Times, which/. seems to love...)
But regardless, what does it matter how much spam I get? It's just taking up disk space on Microsoft servers. You would think that hotmail would want to limit spam, because they (MSN) are paying for the bandwidth and the disk space. So I say, spam away, spammers! As soon as the bandwidth cap is reached, and the servers run out of disk space, hotmail will finally see the true wisdom of selling subscriber addresses...
That it is dangerous to give any personal information to a company, regardless of their privacy policy...
The unfortunate reality of the information age is that information is power - though you may not realize it, giving out personal information, no matter how well-intentioned the recipient is, can have adverse side effects. Systems get hacked; judges can order spyware to track users; businesses can be bought and sold. Worse, we live in a society in which someone's creditworthiness, that is, their ability to get loans, and even find work, is very much dependent on the accuracy of a credit reporting company's data; a simple keystroke error or a bug in a computer program could literally put an otherwise good employee out on the street.
Oh, and one last thing - never give anyone your social security number. Or your mother's maiden name.
I cancelled my account with Verislime because of their deceptive and misleading practices. You should too.
I did have to give up a domain name, but at least I don't have the headaches of dealing with a company that treats their customers like trash.
Real programming
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· Score: 5, Insightful
The problem with the "Learn To Program in (insert language here)" books is that they don't teach people how to program, but just how to write code in a given language.
The hardest thing to get across to a Java/C++/VB zealot is that assembly is the most powerful language available. There is no computing algorithm, or programming paradigm that can't be expressed in assembly. I routinely write classes in assembly, and use runtime polymorphism - in fact, correct multiple inheritance is more easily implemented in asm than C++! (fewer lines, no assinine casting...) However, this doesn't mean that assembly language is the cure all for every programming problem. Some problems lend themselves to assembly (like device drivers, OS code), others to C++ (games, applications), and others to Java (web programs). What's hard is convincing people that if they understood the underlying computer science, they could write the code in the language which best suited the particular application, rather than being stuck writing in Java, or whatever HLL is popular at the time.
Incidentally, I like assembly because of the freedom and power it provides. But I still write in Java or C++ when the needs of the project dictate. Real computer science transcends the language used, as languages come and go. Soon, Java will be outdated, and those who only learned to program in Java will find their knowledge useless.
What matters is not whether you know langauge X, but rather that you know the fundamental algorithms of computer science and can translate them into any language. If you can break down a task into algorithms, then you can pick the language best suited for those algorithms, and translate the algorithms into code in a trivial amount of time, regardless of which language you use. What too many people miss is the fact that if you can't break a problem down into its fundamental algorithms, or translate those algorithms into an arbitrary language, your days as a programmer will be few, irrespective of how well you know a particular language.
Porn is bad for everybody, not just kids. The reason why society wants to protect children from porn is that they don't want the kids (who are quite impressionable) to get the wrong ideas about what sex is supposed to be about. Sex is supposed to be an expression of mutual love between two people, something that pornographers go to great lengths to destroy.
One of the problems with porn, from a societal standpoint, is that it encourages withdrawal of the individual from beneficial sexual relationships. At no point does porn have any redeeming social qualities - it encourages people to engage in selfishness, to treat the opposite sex as nothing more than a means to an end, and destroys the ability of the viewer to enjoy actual sexual intercourse.
Okay, so now I'll put on the flamesuit to say what I really mean. Don't take this personally, but just consider what I'm saying.
After all, why would you look at pictures of sex, when you can actually have sex? Oh, right, I get it - you spend all your time looking at porn, so you have no wife, and can't get one either, because you've never actually learned to interact with real women. Oh, what's that? You do have a wife? Well she must not be that great if you're looking elsewhere for sexual gratification.
I don't mean this as a personal attack, but rather to wake some people up as to the reality of the self-degradation that pornography really is. It doesn't have any good qualities; though you may consider it your "right" to view porn, consider this: just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.
Oh, right, I forgot that porn sites automatically pop up whenever a parent's back is turned, completely unrequested by the kid at the computer.And porn sites hypnotize kids and force them to look at explicit material whether they want to or not, permanently corrupting them no matter what the parents do.
Obviously, you've never done a search for "free movies" on google. I've watched my 11 year old brother stumble across porn sites while searching for video games on the net. Pornographers explicitly design their pages to be found by children - they include keywords like "free games" and "free movies" which have absolutely nothing to do with the content they display. Furthermore, the pages are loaded with annoying popups that just won't go away. No, the kid isn't technically hypnotized, but curiosity is a strange and powerful thing - especially for children, who often lack both discretion and willpower. Even if a child has enough willpower to hit the back button, 30 seconds later, another site will popup, and this process goes on until the kid shuts down the browser. The notion that parents can control what their children see on the computer while surfing the web is intrinsically naive. Even an innocent interest in cars or video games can inadvertently lead a child to a porn site.
Someone suggests using an MS product, you should kindly remind them of the kind of company that Microsoft is:
Unable to write the code, they bought their first operating system and sold it for a hefty profit
They were convicted by a French court of stealing code from competing companies.
They were convicted in the U.S. of violations of the Sherman act.
Two of their most popular products, Internet Explorer and Outlook, have had security and virus propagation problems with every single release!
When asked what I think of using Microsoft software, I simply reply, "It's against my moral and professional standards to encourage the use of software written by criminals." The events of the past 20 years have shown that Microsoft has little regard for either it's customers, or the law.
Think about this one, folks. I know there are many arguments for/against open source, but the most powerful one may be that of ethics. You can argue up and down about the relative merits of the software, but Microsoft is undeniably a criminal organization - a fact brought to light by the courts of the United States and other countries. The next time someone asks why you don't run a Microsoft OS, simply reply that you don't feel like funding organized crime.
The problem with this bill is that it is a feel-good-for-the-naive type of legislation that does little more than frustrate the efforts of teenagers who want to do something other than vandalize property, commit crimes, do drugs, and the like. Video games have kept kids from getting into real trouble since their inception. The problem is not with violent video games, but violent people!
This legislation does nothing to address the reasons why teens commit crimes - boredom, lust, drug use, child abuse, etc... The root cause of violence is not seeing violence, but the perception of being wronged. Anyone who perceives that they are being wronged is prone to violence, and this bill does nothing to address this. I think that this will only contribute to actual teen violence, as it reduces the incentive to play video games (because so few non-violent games are fun to play), and instead provides the bored teen with another excuse to commit crimes.
Granted, there will be bad video games made. But at some point, we will have to trust the judgement and personal responsibility of those who are now teenagers; we should teach teens responsibility before they start to make life and death decisions (like driving, drinking, etc...) The only way to teach someone responsibility is to give them responsibility, and this bill actively undermines the efforts of parents to get their kids to take responsibility for their choices by removing the possibility of choice in the first place. I cannot see how this bill will reduce violence or promote personal responsibility.
IANAL, but generally speaking, in order for a contract to be valid, it must not be made "under duress." For example, if a criminal broke in and forced you at gunpoint to sign over your house to him, the contract would be unenforceable because one of the parties made the decision under duress. Likewise, someone who is drunk, under age, or mentally ill cannot legally enter into a contract.
In the current instance, clearly, one party is under duress because they cannot return the software to the store for a refund - the vendor won't take it back - a stipulation often made by software companies. Thus, the end user's only option is to not install the software (thereby losing the purchase price), or click the "I agree" button. Since the contract is made under the threat of losing the purchase price, the user is not legally able to enter into the contract relationship - the option to back out of the contract is not really an option at all. Thus, most EULA's are unenforceable without this software.
About a year or so ago, slashdot featured an article on the then new CSS encryption. Basically, the scheme rendered obsolete keys unusable when they were cracked. The media was encrypted with several keys, and when one was cracked, the player would use another key, and all subsequent releases would use the uncracked/new keys. This way, a hacker who cracked the keys could view only old content; once it was discovered that the key had been compromised, the industry would simply stop using that key. Gradually, as time passed, all the keys in a given DVD player would be cracked, at which point the industry would stop using those keys and the user would have to buy a new DVD player to view new movies.
What's interesting is the genius of this approach - instead of hackers ripping off the movie industry, they would then be ripping off consumers - with every key cracked, more and more DVD players would become obsolete. Hence, both the tech factions and content factions stood to benefit from this arrangement.
The really interesting thing about this arrangement is that it is practical, though of limited effectiveness, and it requires no special legislation. If all copyrighted works were protected with such an encryption scheme, piracy would truly dwindle because the content providers could simply switch keys and render all of a hacker's previous efforts worthless. What really surprises me is that the content faction hasn't caught on. Here is a scheme which would allow them to literally make movies or songs unplayable after a certain length of time (say video rental...) and profit multiple times, and they are sleeping on it!
Instead, the content faction is fighting a losing battle against the tech faction. Computers, by their very nature need to make perfect copies to function, and any specialized hardware required for copy protection could simply be co-opted by a virtual machine.
What is needed is a movie/music/book format which requires a licensed piece of hardware (say, a media board) to decrypt. Thus, those users who want to enjoy MPAA or RIAA licensed content would have to purchase a media board for their PC's, where as those who don't won't have their rights to create content taken away from them. Basically, there would be two types of content: unlicensed and licensed. Licensed content would require hardware decryption, whereas unlicenced content wouldn't.
This solution works for both the content faction and the tech faction, without taking rights away from the individual to use their computers as they see fit.
I have a few Linksys ethernet cards which came with Linux drivers - in binary form, though. I have started to see Linux mentioned on more and more hardware boxes, and this is a great improvement from printing out RedHat's hardware compatibility list and then going shopping. Plus, my mom can now by hardware that will work with our Linux systems, and I don't have worry so much about her buying junk that will only work with windows....
As I understand it, this site "offers instructions on how to sabotage railway systems," which is illegal information in Germany.
Isn't it ironic now that the U.S. is starting to enforce it's laws outside its borders (Dimitry Skylarov, anyone?) that other countries expect to do the same? Did we really expect an international medium (the Internet) to comply with the laws of just one country?
What is needed is for all of the countries which use the Internet to agree on a set of standards/rules which govern the Internet, and a way for those who want to post material which violates those rules to restrict their sites to countries where such material is legal. Currently, the web knows no borders and has no means of keeping information from traversing state and national boundaries into areas where it may be illegal (China excepted...) While this might seem draconian, it could easily keep citizens of other countries from being prosecuted should they choose to visit countries in which their viewpoints are illegal (such as the U.S. and China), since such illegal content would not be available to the prosecutors in the offended country.
The important part is that by selling Amazon their used books, buyers can afford to buy more new ones, effectively lowering the buyer's economic cost of new books without reducing the profits for the publishers or Amazon.
A buyer who knows that he can recoup a bad book investment is more likely to buy books that he is uncertain he'll like - and hence, more willing to buy new books.
Being an evangelical Christian, I've learned the hard way (unfortunately) how easily people become uncomfortable when asked about their own spiritual lives. What these folks need, plain and simple, is for you to tell them about Jesus Christ.
It doesn't matter whether or not you succeed in converting them or not - if they convert, they'll stop being jerks, and if they don't, they'll probably get so offended at what you are saying that they'll leave you alone. The notion that an all-powerful, all-knowing God will judge the world is quite scary to many people - especially control freaks.
Granted, had I been in your situation, I might have done the same thing you did. But I believe that threatening them only reinforced their own misguided beliefs ("We will be persecuted... etc..") The knowledge of Jesus Christ is a real danger to the organization, and I believe that you could have done them far more harm by sending back a Bible than a cinder block. When people discover that God loves them, they are emboldened to break out of abusive relationships, and it is these abusive relationships on which Scientology depends for support.
"Microsoft would be free to shut down emerging Internet services and use its technology to take customers away from e-commerce companies."
I think this says it all. We shouldn't fear that Microsoft is a monopoly - we should be afraid that Microsoft is looking to extend that monopoly into areas other than just software - they want to control everything digital.
What Microsoft would like to do is make it impossible for companies who don't purchase their software to do e-commerce. By retaining control of the browser market, they can effectively do this. It is a very simple matter for a browser to detect which server software is running on a server, and Microsoft could easily put hooks in IE which prevented from loading pages from a non-IIS server. Companies that had previously been UNIX-based would then be required to buy PC servers (running IIS, of course) in order to sell to PC users. Or worse, Microsoft could start up its own web-services division, and require that all IE-enabled e-commerce come through them.
What I find most interesting is that they have been able to extend their monopoly position because their earnings enable them to effectively thwart the judicial process. They can drag the antitrust trial out for so long that any remedy taken would be ineffective.
A more effective remedy against Microsoft would be for the government to fund OS development, and place the software produced in the public domain. If there was a free alternative to Windows (which didn't require learning UNIX), Microsoft would have a very difficult time retaining its monopoly position.
They don't get sued... Honestly speaking, what they are doing is very close to being illegal (Unauthorized alteration of a computer system is a federal crime).
What we should be doing is labelling Gator and auto-download software as hackerware - which is what it is. The only difference between Gator and white hat hacking is that Gator is produced by a commercial entity. The only thing saving Gator from legal prosecution is the dialog box - if the next version of IE does away with the automatic dialog boxes, then Gator would meet the definition of a virus, and the company that makes Gator could find itself liable to criminal prosecution.
For once, I'm actually glad that we have anti-hacking laws, because in this case, they are actually protecting us from corporate greed....
And yes, Gator installed itself on my system when my kid brother was surfing the web, and yes, it was a pain to remove. Fortunately, I have profiling software which enables me to undo filesystem and registry changes when an uninstall is unsuccessful.
This is closer to reality than you think. It started with the radar guns and cameras at stoplights in Arizona. In the not too distant future, it will be illegal to drive a car without a functional GPS installed, and the Feds will be able to track your driving habits without a warrant, and or sell them to mass marketers...
Slashdot Mirror
The distinction between sex and pornography is an important one. The fact that a book discusses sex does not make it pornography; pornography is defined not by the sexual content, but the manner in which the content is presented. This is what differentiates the Bible, which has a whole book devoted to romantic love and sex, from pornography. Pornography strips sex of all love, caring, intimacy, and dignity, instead focusing on self-seeking carnal desires. It is not so much that Christians are trying to remove from libraries materials to which they object, but that they are trying to protect the innocence of their children. In general, children do not have enough life experience to make good decisions - that's why they are considered children. It is one thing for an individual to use his own money to buy porn, but quite another for a library to use my tax dollars to not only buy it, but offer it to my children against my wishes. An individual's supposed "right" to view pornography does not override my right to protect my children from things that I judge to be harmful. As my children are required by law to attend school, and by the school to use the library, it is not as if I have the option of keeping my children out of the library. While I do believe that parents should take responsibility for raising their children, I also believe that it is wrong for the government to actively undermine the efforts of parents to raise their children in a moral manner. My tax dollars should not be used to harm my children.
Yes, I can believe this; I know of numerous programmers with more experience than I who have been downsized. However, they weren't writing commercial software - like most programmers, they make their living writing custom software for in-house use. Which means, of course, that it was not piracy which lost them their jobs, but rather a downturn in the economy.
Strangely, the BSA seems to believe that any loss of profit by a software company is due to piracy, in spite of the recent recession and the poor quality of commercial software. What the BSA fails to realize is that companies in financial straights tend to utilize the more fiscally responsible alternatives to commercial software, and that this resulted in a loss of revenue for commercial software companies. It wasn't piracy, but that companies woke up to the demands of the shareholders and the reality that free software was a more viable option than the commercial alternatives that the BSA advocates
Actually, you're wrong and you're right. Here in the suburbs of Chicago, we have some communities which plan for the future, and others that don't. The difference? Those suburbs whose governments planned for the future are now some of the most affluent in the Chicago area. However, they're also the most asinine - for example, in Schaumburg, if you place something in the trash that could have been recycled, it's a $100 fine. And yes, I know people who have actually been fined. Also, don't bother moving here if you're black, or some other minority, because some of these suburbs make it practically illegal for minorities to own houses. It is all but illegal to build houses which sell for less than $400,000 - some houses in Schaumburg sell for more than 3/4 of a million dollars - and these are subdivision, prefab houses, not mansions.
So you were both wrong and right. Yes, it is good thing when governments make long term plans - in general, it improves the standard of living. But the problem is that in the process, individual liberties are stripped away. And yes, I don't like this kind of government
But on a lighter note, this can only be good, folks. Hopefully, over the course of time, this will devalue the Microsoft Office suite to the point where Microsoft will either have to give it away for free, or will no longer able to charge such exorbitant licensing fees (a $79 version of Office wouldn't be bad...) Consumers, regardless of which office suite they choose, will benefit.
Amazing, isn't it?! Before jumping on a land-grab scheme, this company actually researched their idea for prior art. Granted, I don't think that this is worthy of a patent, but at least this company came up with their own idea, rather than trying to steal someone else's.
And no, I'm not going to make the obligatory slashdot comment about how the patent office needs to be reformed; someone else is bound to do that for me...
IBM announced it has created the highest performing nanotubes transistors to date and has proven that carbon nanotubes -- tube-shaped molecules made of carbon atoms that are 50,000 times thinner than a human hair -- can outperform the leading silicon transistor prototypes available today.
From the MSNBC article:
ARMONK, NEW YORK-BASED IBM said it used a carbon nanotube -- a tiny cylindrical structure made up of carbon atoms that is about 100,000 times thinner than a human hair
So which is it - 100,000 or 50,000 times smaller than a human hair? It seems that there is quite a bit of hype on the MSNBC side of things. Doesn't it bother anyone that MSNBC distorted the truth?
Yes, but the operating system (Windows NT) should have caught a divide by zero exception, and terminated/restarted the offending application. The operator should have then been able to restart the application and proceed as normal. This bug should not have brought down the entire system!
Because of the stability and usability. Windows 2000 and XP appear to be very stable and no one can deny that they are lightyears ahead of anything on linux when it comes to desktop comfort.
This is only your personal preference. I use both KDE and windows daily, and I prefer having the multiple desktops and clean GUI of KDE. Because I know how to use Linux (translate: know what I want to do), I find the KDE interface easier to use. I also find it more aesthetically pleasing - how many Windows boxes have active backgrounds?
I just hate it when I encounter yet another website that doesn't load using Konqueror, mozilla, opera... you fill in the blanks. I just hate it that I can't play movies on my linux machine without five days of intensive configuration battles.The main problem I've found with Linux is that it is a chore to configure, but once you've got it configured correctly, nothing breaks. Contrast this with Windows, where botched application installation can break pieces throughout the entire system. Correcting a bad install in Linux may involve little more than editing a text file; in Windows, you may have to reinstall the OS, reregister with Microsoft, and reinstall every application that you use. I've spent countless hours doing this, and even though I hate vi and editing text files, I have to admit that I prefer the Linux/UNIX method of editing a few lines to the 8+ hour complete system reinstalls I have to do with Windows.
Someone once said there's no such thing as a free lunch. With Linux, it's reliable, and it's free, but if you want to play movies, you may have to spend a substantial amount of time downloading and configuring the application, and then reading the documentation, fixing bugs, and recompiling. With Windows, you pay for a system which basically takes all of these things out of your way, but at great risk; if the software is buggy, or the install fails, it could break the entire system. There is simply no recourse for a botched install - if you're lucky, you might get away with reinstalling only the application(s) affected. If not, you could end up reinstalling the entire OS.
And I haven't even begun to talk about virus/security issues. If you value your data, Linux might be your only option (either that or a constant backup plan...)
When one thinks about the system as a whole, Windows is only suitable for people who want to use the PC as an entertainment device - people who rely on the integrity of their data and the security of their computer systems should not run Windows. Use Windows for games - use Linux for serious computing.
Seriously, though, the only thing I use my hotmail account for is registering email @'s at various webpages (like the NY Times, which /. seems to love...)
But regardless, what does it matter how much spam I get? It's just taking up disk space on Microsoft servers. You would think that hotmail would want to limit spam, because they (MSN) are paying for the bandwidth and the disk space. So I say, spam away, spammers! As soon as the bandwidth cap is reached, and the servers run out of disk space, hotmail will finally see the true wisdom of selling subscriber addresses...
The unfortunate reality of the information age is that information is power - though you may not realize it, giving out personal information, no matter how well-intentioned the recipient is, can have adverse side effects. Systems get hacked; judges can order spyware to track users; businesses can be bought and sold. Worse, we live in a society in which someone's creditworthiness, that is, their ability to get loans, and even find work, is very much dependent on the accuracy of a credit reporting company's data; a simple keystroke error or a bug in a computer program could literally put an otherwise good employee out on the street.
Oh, and one last thing - never give anyone your social security number. Or your mother's maiden name.
I did have to give up a domain name, but at least I don't have the headaches of dealing with a company that treats their customers like trash.
The hardest thing to get across to a Java/C++/VB zealot is that assembly is the most powerful language available. There is no computing algorithm, or programming paradigm that can't be expressed in assembly. I routinely write classes in assembly, and use runtime polymorphism - in fact, correct multiple inheritance is more easily implemented in asm than C++! (fewer lines, no assinine casting...) However, this doesn't mean that assembly language is the cure all for every programming problem. Some problems lend themselves to assembly (like device drivers, OS code), others to C++ (games, applications), and others to Java (web programs). What's hard is convincing people that if they understood the underlying computer science, they could write the code in the language which best suited the particular application, rather than being stuck writing in Java, or whatever HLL is popular at the time.
Incidentally, I like assembly because of the freedom and power it provides. But I still write in Java or C++ when the needs of the project dictate. Real computer science transcends the language used, as languages come and go. Soon, Java will be outdated, and those who only learned to program in Java will find their knowledge useless.
What matters is not whether you know langauge X, but rather that you know the fundamental algorithms of computer science and can translate them into any language. If you can break down a task into algorithms, then you can pick the language best suited for those algorithms, and translate the algorithms into code in a trivial amount of time, regardless of which language you use. What too many people miss is the fact that if you can't break a problem down into its fundamental algorithms, or translate those algorithms into an arbitrary language, your days as a programmer will be few, irrespective of how well you know a particular language.
One of the problems with porn, from a societal standpoint, is that it encourages withdrawal of the individual from beneficial sexual relationships. At no point does porn have any redeeming social qualities - it encourages people to engage in selfishness, to treat the opposite sex as nothing more than a means to an end, and destroys the ability of the viewer to enjoy actual sexual intercourse.
Okay, so now I'll put on the flamesuit to say what I really mean. Don't take this personally, but just consider what I'm saying.
After all, why would you look at pictures of sex, when you can actually have sex? Oh, right, I get it - you spend all your time looking at porn, so you have no wife, and can't get one either, because you've never actually learned to interact with real women. Oh, what's that? You do have a wife? Well she must not be that great if you're looking elsewhere for sexual gratification.
I don't mean this as a personal attack, but rather to wake some people up as to the reality of the self-degradation that pornography really is. It doesn't have any good qualities; though you may consider it your "right" to view porn, consider this: just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.
Obviously, you've never done a search for "free movies" on google. I've watched my 11 year old brother stumble across porn sites while searching for video games on the net. Pornographers explicitly design their pages to be found by children - they include keywords like "free games" and "free movies" which have absolutely nothing to do with the content they display. Furthermore, the pages are loaded with annoying popups that just won't go away. No, the kid isn't technically hypnotized, but curiosity is a strange and powerful thing - especially for children, who often lack both discretion and willpower. Even if a child has enough willpower to hit the back button, 30 seconds later, another site will popup, and this process goes on until the kid shuts down the browser. The notion that parents can control what their children see on the computer while surfing the web is intrinsically naive. Even an innocent interest in cars or video games can inadvertently lead a child to a porn site.
When asked what I think of using Microsoft software, I simply reply, "It's against my moral and professional standards to encourage the use of software written by criminals." The events of the past 20 years have shown that Microsoft has little regard for either it's customers, or the law.
Think about this one, folks. I know there are many arguments for/against open source, but the most powerful one may be that of ethics. You can argue up and down about the relative merits of the software, but Microsoft is undeniably a criminal organization - a fact brought to light by the courts of the United States and other countries. The next time someone asks why you don't run a Microsoft OS, simply reply that you don't feel like funding organized crime.
This legislation does nothing to address the reasons why teens commit crimes - boredom, lust, drug use, child abuse, etc... The root cause of violence is not seeing violence, but the perception of being wronged. Anyone who perceives that they are being wronged is prone to violence, and this bill does nothing to address this. I think that this will only contribute to actual teen violence, as it reduces the incentive to play video games (because so few non-violent games are fun to play), and instead provides the bored teen with another excuse to commit crimes.
Granted, there will be bad video games made. But at some point, we will have to trust the judgement and personal responsibility of those who are now teenagers; we should teach teens responsibility before they start to make life and death decisions (like driving, drinking, etc...) The only way to teach someone responsibility is to give them responsibility, and this bill actively undermines the efforts of parents to get their kids to take responsibility for their choices by removing the possibility of choice in the first place. I cannot see how this bill will reduce violence or promote personal responsibility.
In the current instance, clearly, one party is under duress because they cannot return the software to the store for a refund - the vendor won't take it back - a stipulation often made by software companies. Thus, the end user's only option is to not install the software (thereby losing the purchase price), or click the "I agree" button. Since the contract is made under the threat of losing the purchase price, the user is not legally able to enter into the contract relationship - the option to back out of the contract is not really an option at all. Thus, most EULA's are unenforceable without this software.
What's interesting is the genius of this approach - instead of hackers ripping off the movie industry, they would then be ripping off consumers - with every key cracked, more and more DVD players would become obsolete. Hence, both the tech factions and content factions stood to benefit from this arrangement.
The really interesting thing about this arrangement is that it is practical, though of limited effectiveness, and it requires no special legislation. If all copyrighted works were protected with such an encryption scheme, piracy would truly dwindle because the content providers could simply switch keys and render all of a hacker's previous efforts worthless. What really surprises me is that the content faction hasn't caught on. Here is a scheme which would allow them to literally make movies or songs unplayable after a certain length of time (say video rental...) and profit multiple times, and they are sleeping on it!
Instead, the content faction is fighting a losing battle against the tech faction. Computers, by their very nature need to make perfect copies to function, and any specialized hardware required for copy protection could simply be co-opted by a virtual machine. What is needed is a movie/music/book format which requires a licensed piece of hardware (say, a media board) to decrypt. Thus, those users who want to enjoy MPAA or RIAA licensed content would have to purchase a media board for their PC's, where as those who don't won't have their rights to create content taken away from them. Basically, there would be two types of content: unlicensed and licensed. Licensed content would require hardware decryption, whereas unlicenced content wouldn't. This solution works for both the content faction and the tech faction, without taking rights away from the individual to use their computers as they see fit.
I have a few Linksys ethernet cards which came with Linux drivers - in binary form, though. I have started to see Linux mentioned on more and more hardware boxes, and this is a great improvement from printing out RedHat's hardware compatibility list and then going shopping. Plus, my mom can now by hardware that will work with our Linux systems, and I don't have worry so much about her buying junk that will only work with windows....
Isn't it ironic now that the U.S. is starting to enforce it's laws outside its borders (Dimitry Skylarov, anyone?) that other countries expect to do the same? Did we really expect an international medium (the Internet) to comply with the laws of just one country?
What is needed is for all of the countries which use the Internet to agree on a set of standards/rules which govern the Internet, and a way for those who want to post material which violates those rules to restrict their sites to countries where such material is legal. Currently, the web knows no borders and has no means of keeping information from traversing state and national boundaries into areas where it may be illegal (China excepted...) While this might seem draconian, it could easily keep citizens of other countries from being prosecuted should they choose to visit countries in which their viewpoints are illegal (such as the U.S. and China), since such illegal content would not be available to the prosecutors in the offended country.
The important part is that by selling Amazon their used books, buyers can afford to buy more new ones, effectively lowering the buyer's economic cost of new books without reducing the profits for the publishers or Amazon. A buyer who knows that he can recoup a bad book investment is more likely to buy books that he is uncertain he'll like - and hence, more willing to buy new books.
Try this: send them evangelical Christian tracts.
Being an evangelical Christian, I've learned the hard way (unfortunately) how easily people become uncomfortable when asked about their own spiritual lives. What these folks need, plain and simple, is for you to tell them about Jesus Christ.
It doesn't matter whether or not you succeed in converting them or not - if they convert, they'll stop being jerks, and if they don't, they'll probably get so offended at what you are saying that they'll leave you alone. The notion that an all-powerful, all-knowing God will judge the world is quite scary to many people - especially control freaks.
Granted, had I been in your situation, I might have done the same thing you did. But I believe that threatening them only reinforced their own misguided beliefs ("We will be persecuted... etc..") The knowledge of Jesus Christ is a real danger to the organization, and I believe that you could have done them far more harm by sending back a Bible than a cinder block. When people discover that God loves them, they are emboldened to break out of abusive relationships, and it is these abusive relationships on which Scientology depends for support.I think this says it all. We shouldn't fear that Microsoft is a monopoly - we should be afraid that Microsoft is looking to extend that monopoly into areas other than just software - they want to control everything digital.
What Microsoft would like to do is make it impossible for companies who don't purchase their software to do e-commerce. By retaining control of the browser market, they can effectively do this. It is a very simple matter for a browser to detect which server software is running on a server, and Microsoft could easily put hooks in IE which prevented from loading pages from a non-IIS server. Companies that had previously been UNIX-based would then be required to buy PC servers (running IIS, of course) in order to sell to PC users. Or worse, Microsoft could start up its own web-services division, and require that all IE-enabled e-commerce come through them.
What I find most interesting is that they have been able to extend their monopoly position because their earnings enable them to effectively thwart the judicial process. They can drag the antitrust trial out for so long that any remedy taken would be ineffective.
A more effective remedy against Microsoft would be for the government to fund OS development, and place the software produced in the public domain. If there was a free alternative to Windows (which didn't require learning UNIX), Microsoft would have a very difficult time retaining its monopoly position.
What we should be doing is labelling Gator and auto-download software as hackerware - which is what it is. The only difference between Gator and white hat hacking is that Gator is produced by a commercial entity. The only thing saving Gator from legal prosecution is the dialog box - if the next version of IE does away with the automatic dialog boxes, then Gator would meet the definition of a virus, and the company that makes Gator could find itself liable to criminal prosecution.
For once, I'm actually glad that we have anti-hacking laws, because in this case, they are actually protecting us from corporate greed....
And yes, Gator installed itself on my system when my kid brother was surfing the web, and yes, it was a pain to remove. Fortunately, I have profiling software which enables me to undo filesystem and registry changes when an uninstall is unsuccessful.
This is closer to reality than you think. It started with the radar guns and cameras at stoplights in Arizona. In the not too distant future, it will be illegal to drive a car without a functional GPS installed, and the Feds will be able to track your driving habits without a warrant, and or sell them to mass marketers...