"For girls who have grown up with technology, there is no significant gender gap in internet usage," said eMarketer senior analyst Debra Aho Williamson. "The rise of activities that are particularly appealing to young females, such as social networking, will result in even greater usage."
This reminds me of my 12 year old neice who sites on MSN for hours at a time jibba-jabbin to her friends, whilst her brother would rather watch Hockey on TV.
This is good news for those people who've recently been ranting about there not being enoughwomenin web design, and trying to work out the reasons why. With more women now online than men, the balance will hopefully be redressed (when that generation gets off MSN and wants to do something useful with their lives).
This all shows the wonderful practice of choosing systems based on gut reactions and petty politics.
Petty politics or genuine concern that Microsoft and Novell are preparing to give the FLOSS community a good shafting? It's all in the semantics.
If you switched, or spend appreciable time bashing or advocating a boycott of SuSE because of the Novell/MS deal, you are a moron. I'm sorry. You aren't making any sort of choice based on the merits of the system, just on politics and the fact that you dislike microsoft. The agreement is harmless to "the community." It's an indemnity agreement! That's about the most benign thing two companies could possibly sign.
No. That agreement is tantamount to Novell saying: 'yes, GNU/Linux does infringe upon Microsoft patents.' It gives Ballmer evidence to extort money from GNU/Linux users, will probably be used in future lawsuits by Microsoft and has been the basis of much anti-GNU/Linux FUD.
What is particularly bad for the community is the indemnity stops with the Novell customers, the development community is very much left out in the cold. I'm scared of releasing my code under a FLOSS license because of patent FUD. It might be an indemnity agreement, but it's a thinly veiled threat too.
The bad part is that the reaction (as we saw here, sometimes humorously disinformed) is unfairly hurting a valid (some would say good) choice in the linux market (choice is good!)
You speak of choice, yet the Microsoft/Novell deal has taken customers away from other distros (for all the wrong reasons). The whole point of the deal is to eliminate choice and leave Microsoft with just one competitor to deal with: Novell.
If a company kills babies, I'm not going to buy their products. In fact I'll actively make others aware of their actions, this is not petty, I would consider it my moral duty. As a geek Novell and Microsoft have done something far worse: gone against the spirit (if not the letter) of the GPL. It is therefore my moral duty to boycott their products and advise everyone (who would know what I'm talking about) to do the same.
This takes Microsoft one step closer to becoming the Borg. Just wait until one of these mobile data-centre 'cubes' appears outside a rival software company, the voice of Ballmer comes booming out of a loudspeaker: 'We are Microsoft. Open your doors and surrender your intellectual property. We will take your technological innovation and call it our own. Your culture will adapt to service ours. Resistance is futile.'
In fact, didn't I see one parked-up outside Novell HQ recently?
The problem is as soon as the teacher says anything like: 'Now class, I'd like you to help me do this...' WAAAJAANNAAA!!! Everyone gets a massive fine from Amazon for infringing their 'Humans Assisting Computers' patent.
I wonder if Amazon will use special lawyer avatars to hand out the court summons?
And just who do you think they inconvenienced? How many pennies do you think they cost the record labels?
They informed everyone about DRM, they made many consumers feel they shouldn't bother buying CD's anymore. Nobody has any sympathy for the RIAA/MPAA.
Jobs has just put himself in the right place in order to capitalise on this disillusion. He's done nothing noble, in fact he spearheaded the first use of DRM. We have him to thank for that.
It all may be a bit irrelevant when Mac OS X 10.5 comes out...
If you believe that all GNU/Linux users will leap on Leopard when it comes out then you are sadly mistaken. Some of us demand FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software), this is the reason we choose our software. Spangly, OMGPONIES!!!!1 GUI effects are far down on the list of requirements, that something like this is being developed is a sign that GNU/Linux is maturing.
But just because we insist on running open, Free software does not mean we don't want nice effects. It just means we'll do it our way: Freely (and with flame wars, separations, bad blood, complaining, forks etc).
If you love your Mac, that's great, but don't think that because you love it the rest of the world has to. They have different requirements.
I really hope it is. There's no such thing as Web 2.0, some arse decided to put a label on the natural progression the Web was undertaking anyway. It's annoying when authors write that some entirely new, completely re-written version of the Web is--suprisingly--vulnerable, it's the same old Web, just with some new buzz-words.
This is a vulnerability that appears only when passing Javascript between client and server. An attacker has to get a potential-victim who is logged-in to a site, that uses the JSON format to exchange data using AJAX, to visit a page they've setup. Then the attacker can intercept the data as it travels between client and server, a man in the middle attack. From the article:
In an example attack, a victim who has already authenticated themselves to an Ajax application, and has the login cookie in their browser, is persuaded to visit the attacker's web site. This web site contains JavaScript code that makes calls to the Ajax app. Data received from the app is sent to the attacker.
So it's a known method of attack, but because it's aimed at web sites using AJAX it has to be labelled 'Web 2.0'. Ugh.
That's true, but doesn't Visual Studio have some methods of automatically creating Javascript calls to public server side functions? If so it's likely that Visual Studio is infringing on this patent, in a similar way to Google Web Toolkit mentioned above.
This patent is potentially very broad-reaching.
Really? Did he do a big good thing or did he just make sure he happened to be in the right place at the right time? Remember EMI were talking about doing this before Jobs mentioned it.
EMI starts running out of cash, so decideds to sell unencumbered mp3's
Jobs turns up in a few places: right place, right time. Makes himself look like he invented the whole idea of dropping DRM
???
Profit!
Thank yourself, thank the community, thank DefectiveByDesign and the FSF, don't thank someone who made sure they were around to claim all the glory from other peoples hard campaigning! Did you see Jobs out on the street with those DefectiveByDesign chaps? No! Because they were all at his shops, putting labels on his products!
At this point you're not wrong, however the GIMP developers have just re-written the entire engine behind GIMP. It's called GEGL and is a compositor (allowing those non-destructive layer effects you were talking about), it can also do CMYK. The reason the GIMP is so behind is because they've been waiting for this, version 2.6 will see a re-write of GIMP internals to use GEGL (we're currently on version 2.2).
Alternatively, you can try Krita, which is also not professional-ready yet but is possibly closer than GIMP. Either way I believe thick client FLOSS apps have far more to offer than online thin-clients.
*sigh* to start with the article is about corn, but that BBC article linked to is mostly about grain. Secondly there's nothing wrong with ethanol as the Reuters article points out:
Sell said the future of biofuels is cellulosic ethanol, made from microbes that break down woody bits of non-food crops into sugars that can be fermented into fuel.
The grain required to fill the petrol tank of a Range Rover with ethanol is sufficient to feed one person per year. Assuming the petrol tank is refilled every two weeks, the amount of grain required would feed a hungry African village for a year
Much of the fuel that Europeans use will be imported from Brazil, where the Amazon is being burned to plant more sugar and soybeans, and Southeast Asia, where oil palm plantations are destroying the rainforest habitat of orangutans and many other species.
Using ethanol rather than petrol reduces total emissions of carbon dioxide by only about 13% because of the pollution caused by the production process, and because ethanol gets only about 70% of the mileage of petrol
Food prices are already increasing. With just 10% of the world's sugar harvest being converted to ethanol, the price of sugar has doubled; the price of palm oil has increased 15% over the past year, with a further 25% gain expected next year.
So it seems the right decisions are being made here. I'm quite suprised as I thought lobby groups were already springing up around so-called 'green fuels', I've seen some suspicious adverts for ethanol fuels on Canadian TV recently.
This is just like a mobile library, so isn't a new idea, but kudos to the person who made the link between the two.
The only difference is (if you look at that link) North Yorkshire has pimped out, purple buses. Whilst the wi-fi buses are a little more 'make do and mend'.
In other news a story on Microsoft's Get The FUD campaign mysteriously disappears, the title was: 'TJX Chooses Windows Over Linux for Reliability and Security'.
I'm joking, but you never know. On a more serious note: what mystifies me is why these companies need to store customers credit card details at all?! Having had experience with POS (Point of Sale) I know that the system should keep these details long enough to complete a transaction, then it should delete it.
Security starts with only keeping the information you need. Courts should be questioning why these companies retained this data in the first place!
The Theory of evolution is a materialist explanation of the history of life on earth. Despite being the scientific standard, in the United States, there are a significant number of lay people who do not accept evolution. According to a CBS poll, only 13% of American adults believe humans evolved without divine guidance.
A CBS survey said there's no evolution! If 87% of people say there's no evolution then this article is a sham sir!
Back on-topic, what interests me is:
But the researchers conceded that much more research would be required to explain the delayed rise of present-day mammals.
If it wasn't the dinosaurs stopping the evolution of mammals (i.e. dinosaurs dominating the habitat), then what did? Could it be that the available habitats were just better suited to dinosaurs vs. mammals? That's the first thing that springs to mind (although am no paleontologist). As ever with this sort of thing, the finding raises more questions than it answers!
Now that is a useful reply, thanks. Your quote is more interesting as it points to how Microsoft seek to control everyone who comments on their product. This is not too suprising and I believe it's becoming less important: since the Web is becoming more and more popular I can't help but think the horrible sales figures for Vista have been caused by their inability to control all the reporters. There are so many of them! Including the ad-hoc reporters all over forums and blogs talking about what a dog Vista is (from the first beta onwards), not even paid shills can keep up with decentralised nature of the Web.
This might have been a suprise to Microsoft as it seems all their releases are awful until the first service pack. However, people would have only had Microsoft-friendly reporters covering their previous releases to rely upon. This is not the case today.
About all I can say about Digg is that I tried it and didn't like it very much.
Agreed, incidentally it was as a direct consequence of Digg that I found/. Digg users can be somewhat rabidly single-minded in their approach to news items, that--amongst other things--made me leave. Still needed a reliably anti-Microsoft news source, so I found/. (and there was much rejoicing).
I'll take this opportunity to welcome you here, as well as mention that we're not all crazy, there are a few pools of sanity in the great ocean that is Slashdot.
Phew, glad to hear that. Thanks for the warm welcome!:)
But nowadays it's fallen so fast, it's not worth Microsoft's time.
/offtopic (sorry)
What exactly is this whole: 'Slashdot's dead' stuff all about? I'm really interested to hear what's so wrong with this place that you still grace it with your presence. As can be guessed by my userid I am new here, and really like this site.
/ontopic (sort of)
Although that doesn't detract from the fact that CmdrTaco probably isn't the subject of a Microsoft dossier. That's particularly evident if you read the pdf linked in the article. It's all about how to best manipulate the journalist into writing stories that are pro-Microsoft, how to avoid talking about sticky issues (is Ballmer really the missing link between humans and apes?), and notes on the journalists interviewing techniques. I'd wager CmdrTaco has never had an opportunity or need to interview a Microsoft representative.
The dossier itself is tame and probably a standard practice for large company PR firms:
Fred can be a little tricky in interviews. He looks deeply for any dirt around whatever topic he
is focused on and generally is tight lipped about the direction he will take for his stories,
sometimes even misleading you to throw you off. It takes him a bit to get his thoughts across,
so try to be patient. Be careful not to lead him down a path you would prefer to avoid. He is
generally friendly, knows Microsoft quite well, and tends to start off his discussions with
softball questions, but they progressively get deeper and deeper until he unearths something
he finds interesting. Be careful of his approach.
Interesting, but hardly inflammatory. A dossier on CmdrTaco would be pointless and would probably consist of just one sentence: 'Hates Microsoft, avoid at all costs'.
Exactly what I was thinking! Moreover, E17's bling bling look would suit that laptop really well. Perhaps Novell will use it in their next ad campaign?
Their thinking: If sugar can jack up the human body, why not electronics?
Generally, when people in Britain talk about 'jacking up', they mean injecting Heroin. So is the next news story going to be:
Scientists Powering Batteries with Heroin, Cocaine
Their thinking: If class-a drugs can jack up the human body, why not electronics?
When first reading that summary I seemed to be trapped in the movie Trainspotting. Meanwhile in other news: Pete Doherty's been spotted outside a local shop after buying all their batteries.
All the directors of Novell sat around after the Microsoft deal. Twiddling their thumbs, wondering what to do with the cheque for $308 million they'd just recieved. 'I've got it! Let's make some satirical ads,' one of them probably suggested.
'Then we'll all give ourselves massive bonuses, go on holiday and think up of more ways to sell Free software to Microsoft.' Another may have mentioned.
'Ooook!' Ballmer might have remarked from a corner of the room: indicated he'd like another banana, please.
I'm not saying it's a good or bad use of the money, but we can all see where some of it is going. My only question is: does she run GNU/Linux?
Slashdot Mirror
This reminds me of my 12 year old neice who sites on MSN for hours at a time jibba-jabbin to her friends, whilst her brother would rather watch Hockey on TV.
This is good news for those people who've recently been ranting about there not being enough women in web design, and trying to work out the reasons why. With more women now online than men, the balance will hopefully be redressed (when that generation gets off MSN and wants to do something useful with their lives).
Goebbelclick Popup ads for keywords such as 'Panzer' or 'u-boat'.
Petty politics or genuine concern that Microsoft and Novell are preparing to give the FLOSS community a good shafting? It's all in the semantics.
No. That agreement is tantamount to Novell saying: 'yes, GNU/Linux does infringe upon Microsoft patents.' It gives Ballmer evidence to extort money from GNU/Linux users, will probably be used in future lawsuits by Microsoft and has been the basis of much anti-GNU/Linux FUD.
What is particularly bad for the community is the indemnity stops with the Novell customers, the development community is very much left out in the cold. I'm scared of releasing my code under a FLOSS license because of patent FUD. It might be an indemnity agreement, but it's a thinly veiled threat too.
You speak of choice, yet the Microsoft/Novell deal has taken customers away from other distros (for all the wrong reasons). The whole point of the deal is to eliminate choice and leave Microsoft with just one competitor to deal with: Novell.
If a company kills babies, I'm not going to buy their products. In fact I'll actively make others aware of their actions, this is not petty, I would consider it my moral duty. As a geek Novell and Microsoft have done something far worse: gone against the spirit (if not the letter) of the GPL. It is therefore my moral duty to boycott their products and advise everyone (who would know what I'm talking about) to do the same.
This takes Microsoft one step closer to becoming the Borg. Just wait until one of these mobile data-centre 'cubes' appears outside a rival software company, the voice of Ballmer comes booming out of a loudspeaker: 'We are Microsoft. Open your doors and surrender your intellectual property. We will take your technological innovation and call it our own. Your culture will adapt to service ours. Resistance is futile.'
In fact, didn't I see one parked-up outside Novell HQ recently?
The problem is as soon as the teacher says anything like: 'Now class, I'd like you to help me do this...' WAAAJAANNAAA!!! Everyone gets a massive fine from Amazon for infringing their 'Humans Assisting Computers' patent.
I wonder if Amazon will use special lawyer avatars to hand out the court summons?
Just getting the obligatory stuff over with ...
I for one welcome our new chemical-robotic, payload-carrying overlords.
In UK you watch 'Robot Wars',
In Soviet US robot watches YOU!
They informed everyone about DRM, they made many consumers feel they shouldn't bother buying CD's anymore. Nobody has any sympathy for the RIAA/MPAA.
Jobs has just put himself in the right place in order to capitalise on this disillusion. He's done nothing noble, in fact he spearheaded the first use of DRM. We have him to thank for that.
If you believe that all GNU/Linux users will leap on Leopard when it comes out then you are sadly mistaken. Some of us demand FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software), this is the reason we choose our software. Spangly, OMGPONIES!!!!1 GUI effects are far down on the list of requirements, that something like this is being developed is a sign that GNU/Linux is maturing.
But just because we insist on running open, Free software does not mean we don't want nice effects. It just means we'll do it our way: Freely (and with flame wars, separations, bad blood, complaining, forks etc).
If you love your Mac, that's great, but don't think that because you love it the rest of the world has to. They have different requirements.
This is a vulnerability that appears only when passing Javascript between client and server. An attacker has to get a potential-victim who is logged-in to a site, that uses the JSON format to exchange data using AJAX, to visit a page they've setup. Then the attacker can intercept the data as it travels between client and server, a man in the middle attack. From the article:
So it's a known method of attack, but because it's aimed at web sites using AJAX it has to be labelled 'Web 2.0'. Ugh.
That's true, but doesn't Visual Studio have some methods of automatically creating Javascript calls to public server side functions? If so it's likely that Visual Studio is infringing on this patent, in a similar way to Google Web Toolkit mentioned above. This patent is potentially very broad-reaching.
Really? Did he do a big good thing or did he just make sure he happened to be in the right place at the right time? Remember EMI were talking about doing this before Jobs mentioned it.
Trusty Slashdot economic model(tm):
Thank yourself, thank the community, thank DefectiveByDesign and the FSF, don't thank someone who made sure they were around to claim all the glory from other peoples hard campaigning! Did you see Jobs out on the street with those DefectiveByDesign chaps? No! Because they were all at his shops, putting labels on his products!
At this point you're not wrong, however the GIMP developers have just re-written the entire engine behind GIMP. It's called GEGL and is a compositor (allowing those non-destructive layer effects you were talking about), it can also do CMYK. The reason the GIMP is so behind is because they've been waiting for this, version 2.6 will see a re-write of GIMP internals to use GEGL (we're currently on version 2.2).
Alternatively, you can try Krita, which is also not professional-ready yet but is possibly closer than GIMP. Either way I believe thick client FLOSS apps have far more to offer than online thin-clients.
*sigh* to start with the article is about corn, but that BBC article linked to is mostly about grain. Secondly there's nothing wrong with ethanol as the Reuters article points out:
I am, in fact, a noob. Sorry.
Ethanol is not the way forward, the BBC has an interesting article on this, some excerpts:
So it seems the right decisions are being made here. I'm quite suprised as I thought lobby groups were already springing up around so-called 'green fuels', I've seen some suspicious adverts for ethanol fuels on Canadian TV recently.
This is just like a mobile library, so isn't a new idea, but kudos to the person who made the link between the two.
The only difference is (if you look at that link) North Yorkshire has pimped out, purple buses. Whilst the wi-fi buses are a little more 'make do and mend'.
In other news a story on Microsoft's Get The FUD campaign mysteriously disappears, the title was: 'TJX Chooses Windows Over Linux for Reliability and Security'.
I'm joking, but you never know. On a more serious note: what mystifies me is why these companies need to store customers credit card details at all?! Having had experience with POS (Point of Sale) I know that the system should keep these details long enough to complete a transaction, then it should delete it.
Security starts with only keeping the information you need. Courts should be questioning why these companies retained this data in the first place!
From Conservapedia:
A CBS survey said there's no evolution! If 87% of people say there's no evolution then this article is a sham sir!
Back on-topic, what interests me is:
If it wasn't the dinosaurs stopping the evolution of mammals (i.e. dinosaurs dominating the habitat), then what did? Could it be that the available habitats were just better suited to dinosaurs vs. mammals? That's the first thing that springs to mind (although am no paleontologist). As ever with this sort of thing, the finding raises more questions than it answers!
Now that is a useful reply, thanks. Your quote is more interesting as it points to how Microsoft seek to control everyone who comments on their product. This is not too suprising and I believe it's becoming less important: since the Web is becoming more and more popular I can't help but think the horrible sales figures for Vista have been caused by their inability to control all the reporters. There are so many of them! Including the ad-hoc reporters all over forums and blogs talking about what a dog Vista is (from the first beta onwards), not even paid shills can keep up with decentralised nature of the Web.
This might have been a suprise to Microsoft as it seems all their releases are awful until the first service pack. However, people would have only had Microsoft-friendly reporters covering their previous releases to rely upon. This is not the case today.
Agreed, incidentally it was as a direct consequence of Digg that I found /. Digg users can be somewhat rabidly single-minded in their approach to news items, that--amongst other things--made me leave. Still needed a reliably anti-Microsoft news source, so I found /. (and there was much rejoicing).
/offtopic (sorry)
What exactly is this whole: 'Slashdot's dead' stuff all about? I'm really interested to hear what's so wrong with this place that you still grace it with your presence. As can be guessed by my userid I am new here, and really like this site.
/ontopic (sort of)
Although that doesn't detract from the fact that CmdrTaco probably isn't the subject of a Microsoft dossier. That's particularly evident if you read the pdf linked in the article. It's all about how to best manipulate the journalist into writing stories that are pro-Microsoft, how to avoid talking about sticky issues (is Ballmer really the missing link between humans and apes?), and notes on the journalists interviewing techniques. I'd wager CmdrTaco has never had an opportunity or need to interview a Microsoft representative.
The dossier itself is tame and probably a standard practice for large company PR firms:
Interesting, but hardly inflammatory. A dossier on CmdrTaco would be pointless and would probably consist of just one sentence: 'Hates Microsoft, avoid at all costs'.
Exactly what I was thinking! Moreover, E17's bling bling look would suit that laptop really well. Perhaps Novell will use it in their next ad campaign?
' [...] And I'm Linux, yo'
Generally, when people in Britain talk about 'jacking up', they mean injecting Heroin. So is the next news story going to be:
When first reading that summary I seemed to be trapped in the movie Trainspotting. Meanwhile in other news: Pete Doherty's been spotted outside a local shop after buying all their batteries.
All the directors of Novell sat around after the Microsoft deal. Twiddling their thumbs, wondering what to do with the cheque for $308 million they'd just recieved. 'I've got it! Let's make some satirical ads,' one of them probably suggested.
'Then we'll all give ourselves massive bonuses, go on holiday and think up of more ways to sell Free software to Microsoft.' Another may have mentioned.
'Ooook!' Ballmer might have remarked from a corner of the room: indicated he'd like another banana, please.
I'm not saying it's a good or bad use of the money, but we can all see where some of it is going. My only question is: does she run GNU/Linux?