Well the blog in question is Bruce Schniers and it is certainly a more authroitive and balanced source than say USA Today or FOX news in matters related to security in all its forms.
This was where I came accross the this ludicrus bit of reality, however Bruce's original source was an New York Times article so it was also reported as a fact in Dead Tree Space by "A Newspaper of Record".
Maybe I should have just gone for the bland and overused (but true) " over 1,000,000 Iraqi civilians dead due to US (and UK) intervention ".
The basic point is the the sheer lack of logic of someone who lives in a country which is currently engaged in a war which has resulted in the death of 1,000,000 civilians, and, has an appalling record of supporting represive regimes (Saudi Arabia is current favourite) not buying a product because it comes from a country which half heartedly supports a represive nieghbouring regime ( and has consitently encourgedged the uniformed dickheads to "lighten up" ).
I certainly wouldnt want to by anything from the USA while children are dying of cholera in Iraq because the USA backed regime has blocked imports of Chlorene.
I think we should use the time it took to migrate from IPV4 to IPV6 as the unit of internet time. The basic unit is calculated as:-
now - 1994 + 2 earth years and known as an RSN.
This unit is unfeasibly large for normal usage so I would propose the perhapsSec (1/100000th of an RSN) being approximately the time taken to read a Slashdot article when you are supposed to be doing something else.
Seriously you can reduce google's market share by using another search engine occasionally. As Market Share equates directly to income in the search business you deprive google of money and power by using another search engine.
It would obviously be sinful to use MSN search, but Yahoo! is merely bad taste.
"www.ask.com" is nearly as good as google and has a nice clean interface.
Plus there are some Open Source "SETI at home" type search engines under development that are worth supporting "grub" and "Majestic-12" are two.
Although as Majestic-12 is based in the UK, and the UK government is currently under the direct control of the US executive it would be easy to give the NSA direct access to everything.
This seems like pure FUD and sour grapes from the BSD fans.
While manufacturers like Apple would have problems "closing" thier platforms, this is already an issue with GPL2 and most appliances manufacturers with such issues use BSD already like Apple.
Wasn't there a big thread on Slashdot last week on how to hack your iPhone? It seems to me that the majority of slashdotters are very much in favour of "user serviceable parts" in thier appliances.
I have actually some experience with certification issues and GPL licences having used the very wonderful JPOS point of sale application (for processing credit card payments). A Danish group went to the trouble of getting it officially certified to connect directly to the Danish banking/credit card network, the only problem being the certification program is for binaries (or JAR file in this case). So as its GPLed you get the source and are free to change the source to your hearts content. But if you want to abide by the terms and conditions of your contract with the payments system you must connect using only the certified JAR file as supplied.
In practise there was no problem really. I used the source as the basis for a high volume test tool and my version never connected to the outside world. Anyone actually connecting to a card payments system would be well advised to cover thier arse and use only certified software as you could be liable for mega penalties if you break the network.
There was no conflict with the GPL2 license and I dont think there would be any confict with the GPL3 license you have the source and are free to change it, a separate contract with you bank requires you to use only the certified binary version, or, submit a binary of your modded version to thier extensive and expensive testing program.
Traditional projects using so called "best practices" fail with atonishing regularity.
Most project failures are covered up by tha management but in environments such as UK government projects where public scrutiny makes it imposible to spin failure into success the failure rate is about 60%.
In my experience the private sector is just as bad they are just better at redfining success to be whateever crud was delivered, or, quietly cancelling projects and pretending they never happened.
I would also posit that "traditional" best practices are a big contributer to these failures. Among the many problems:-
1. Analysts paying lip service to user requirements but actually ramming thier own pet vision down the customers throats.
2. Equating expensive with good. Which leads to chosing ludicrously expensive and inappropriate software where something cheap and free would have worked just as well.
3. Dumping existing working software because it is not "re-usable" for a "re-usable" design which doesnt work.
4. Spending eons of time perfecting design documents and diagrams as if they were the end product not just a tool for getting there.
5. Treating all developers as equals. They arent. If you dont recognise and cherish your start programmers you will lose them.
6. Failing to reconise the simple fact that if you dont deliver something by the second year the prohject will get canned.
Another intersting point coming out of all this the role of ECMA International formerly European Computer Manufactureres Association - dont see many of them around these days).
ECMA is fully accredited by ISO and in ists search for a new role as a standards body did a nice job producing a standard for the orphaned Javascript ( except for changing the name to the disease like ECMAscript).
However since then other "standards" developed by ECMA have been:- -- the programming language C# ( C "sharp") -- a Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) -- a CLI binding for C++ -- Office Open XMLOffice
Anyone spot a pattern here? The other problem is that ECMAInternational is essentialy a club of computer software and hardware manufacturers and unlike national standards organisations (ASA, BS, DN etc.) does not have any public interest mandate; it exists only to serve its members and to join you need to be a large software or hardware manufacturer.
I have no problem with any industry forming a club to standardise things among themselves but for an industry association to be the main sponser of an ISO standard seems plain wrong.
Microsoft for one seems to have spotted an ideal vehicle for turning proprietary products into standards.
The main gripe the Free Software Foundation is that its practically impossable to violate. Witness Microsofts hijacking of the BSD Sockets library and Kerebros security library and protocol.
So its a little bit rich to complain about replacing a license which states "you can do anything you want " with a license which state "you can do anything you want except steal the copyright".
Besides all that is really GPL2ed is the very few mods in this particular distribution. The original BSD vaersion is still out there.
IBM seem to be the only company capable of actually selling java based product. But then again they persuaded people to part with ready cash for Lotus Notes so it doesnt really say much about Java.
I think SUN is desperate not to be seen a a hardware manufacturer becuase of its associantion with commodity products and declining profitability.
However the only way to become a succesful software business is to SELL software to customers, which, SUN does not do at all well.
How would this work in practice. Have the pump adjaust the volume metered depending on the storage tank temprature? Or move the price per gallon up and down depending on the tank temprature?
Either way its not in the Gas stations interest to get an accurate temprature reading, whats to stop the owner resting the probe in the freezer cabinet before taking the temprature?
As a non-USian I have never understood how you can have this micro-cent obsession with gas prices and then go out and buy the biggest most fuel inefficient trucks you can get.
I cant help being reminded of those wonderful 1950s popular mechanics articles which predicted we would all be flying home in our flying cars to watch our 3D Tv while eating a robot cooked meal.
The present is never the future you thought it would be.
Everybody predicted talking computers able to predict the future, but nobody predicted YouTube or predictive texting.
Slaves are people owned by other people or maybe the state.
Is thier a single written document say a will "and joe-bob gets my best spear, two sheep and a couple of slaves" or a list of things confiscated from a criminal ".. fined two camels and a female slave ".
I have never heard of any such document among the vast collection of hieroglyphic writing.
It is true that later dynasties took military captives as slaves but the egytians seem to be one of the last ancient societies to adopt this practice.
Slashdot Mirror
Just follow the lead of these guys:Rubber Ducks.
You wont need any processors etc. and the whole kit can be bought complete from Toys'R'Us for less than a dollar.
A better analogy might be screwdrivers.
Just one manufacturer has 200 to choose from and there are hundreds of manufactures.
Would life be easier if there were just two manufacturers who produced one screwdriver each?
Lots of choice allows you to choose the right tool for the job.
Have a big java application thats needs a little multiprocessing -- then use java threads.
Want to find all the common sequences in hte primate genomes -- get yourself a specialist parallel programing language (say Fortress).
Want to simulate a Hurricane, but all the basic physics is encapsulated in a dozen Fortran libraries get yourself a Fortran PP library.
Life is simpler when you think.
Jings ye cannea expect a cannaile o sasanachts an aw they slugard foriengers to get onything right
Well the blog in question is Bruce Schniers and it is certainly a more authroitive and balanced source than say USA Today or FOX news in matters related to security in all its forms.
This was where I came accross the this ludicrus bit of reality, however Bruce's original source was an New York Times article so it was also reported as a fact in Dead Tree Space by "A Newspaper of Record".
Maybe I should have just gone for the bland and overused (but true) " over 1,000,000 Iraqi civilians dead due to US (and UK) intervention ".
The basic point is the the sheer lack of logic of someone who lives in a country which is currently engaged in a war which has resulted in the death of 1,000,000 civilians, and, has an appalling record of supporting represive regimes (Saudi Arabia is current favourite) not buying a product because it comes from a country which half heartedly supports a represive nieghbouring regime ( and has consitently encourgedged the uniformed dickheads to "lighten up" ).
I certainly wouldnt want to by anything from the USA while children are dying of cholera in Iraq because the USA backed regime has blocked imports of Chlorene.
I think we should use the time it took to migrate from IPV4 to IPV6 as the unit of internet time.
The basic unit is calculated as:-
now - 1994 + 2 earth years
and known as an RSN.
This unit is unfeasibly large for normal usage so I would propose the
perhapsSec (1/100000th of an RSN) being approximately the time taken
to read a Slashdot article when you are supposed to be doing something else.
Think Drag Queen construction worker.
outa do the trick.
Seriously you can reduce google's market share by using another search engine occasionally.
As Market Share equates directly to income in the search business you deprive google of money and power by using another search engine.
It would obviously be sinful to use MSN search, but Yahoo! is merely bad taste.
"www.ask.com" is nearly as good as google and has a nice clean interface.
Plus there are some Open Source "SETI at home" type search engines under development that are worth
supporting "grub" and "Majestic-12" are two.
Although as Majestic-12 is based in the UK, and the UK government is currently under the direct control of the US executive it would be easy to give the NSA direct access to everything.
This seems like pure FUD and sour grapes from the BSD fans.
While manufacturers like Apple would have problems "closing" thier platforms, this is already an issue with GPL2 and most appliances manufacturers with such issues use BSD already like Apple.
Wasn't there a big thread on Slashdot last week on how to hack your iPhone? It seems to me that the majority of slashdotters are very much in favour of "user serviceable parts" in thier appliances.
I have actually some experience with certification issues and GPL licences having used the very wonderful JPOS point of sale application (for processing credit card payments). A Danish group went to the trouble of getting it officially certified to connect directly to the Danish banking/credit card network, the only problem being the certification program is for binaries (or JAR file in this case). So as its GPLed you get the source and are free to change the source to your hearts content. But if you want to abide by the terms and conditions of your contract with the payments system you must connect using only the certified JAR file as supplied.
In practise there was no problem really.
I used the source as the basis for a high volume test tool and my version never connected to the outside world.
Anyone actually connecting to a card payments system would be well advised to cover thier arse and use only
certified software as you could be liable for mega penalties if you break the network.
There was no conflict with the GPL2 license and I dont think there would be any confict with the GPL3 license
you have the source and are free to change it, a separate contract with you bank requires you to use only the certified
binary version, or, submit a binary of your modded version to thier extensive and expensive testing program.
... watch broadcast TV. The voters that matter have all got cable.
Of course this will go through.
Traditional projects using so called "best practices" fail with atonishing regularity.
Most project failures are covered up by tha management but in environments such as UK government projects where public scrutiny makes it imposible to spin failure into success the failure rate is about 60%.
In my experience the private sector is just as bad they are just better at redfining success to be whateever crud was delivered, or, quietly cancelling projects and pretending they never happened.
I would also posit that "traditional" best practices are a big contributer to these failures.
Among the many problems:-
1. Analysts paying lip service to user requirements but actually ramming thier own pet vision down the customers throats.
2. Equating expensive with good. Which leads to chosing ludicrously expensive and inappropriate software where something cheap and free would have worked just as well.
3. Dumping existing working software because it is not "re-usable" for a "re-usable" design which doesnt work.
4. Spending eons of time perfecting design documents and diagrams as if they were the end product not just a tool for getting there.
5. Treating all developers as equals. They arent. If you dont recognise and cherish your start programmers you will lose them.
6. Failing to reconise the simple fact that if you dont deliver something by the second year the prohject will get canned.
Another intersting point coming out of all this the role of ECMA International
formerly European Computer Manufactureres Association - dont see many of them around these days).
ECMA is fully accredited by ISO and in ists search for a new role as a standards body did
a nice job producing a standard for the orphaned Javascript ( except for changing the name
to the disease like ECMAscript).
However since then other "standards" developed by ECMA have been:-
-- the programming language C# ( C "sharp")
-- a Common Language Infrastructure (CLI)
-- a CLI binding for C++
-- Office Open XMLOffice
Anyone spot a pattern here?
The other problem is that ECMAInternational is essentialy a club of computer software and
hardware manufacturers and unlike national standards organisations (ASA, BS, DN etc.)
does not have any public interest mandate; it exists only to serve its members and
to join you need to be a large software or hardware manufacturer.
I have no problem with any industry forming a club to standardise things among themselves
but for an industry association to be the main sponser of an ISO standard seems plain
wrong.
Microsoft for one seems to have spotted an ideal vehicle for turning proprietary products into standards.
At the moment but there is a technicaly superior and easier to use and more reliable platform available:- .NET
And big business is taking it seriously. Lots of feasibility studies and pilot projects at the
moment but thats how java started off.
Plus java on the mainframe has been tried and found wanting, big iron developers are returning to COBOL
and good old C.
Java is tomorows legacy language.
No its the Peoples Front for Judea
The main gripe the Free Software Foundation is that its practically impossable to violate.
Witness Microsofts hijacking of the BSD Sockets library and Kerebros security library and protocol.
So its a little bit rich to complain about replacing a license which states "you can do anything you want " with a license which state "you can do anything you want except steal the copyright".
Besides all that is really GPL2ed is the very few mods in this particular distribution.
The original BSD vaersion is still out there.
IBM seem to be the only company capable of actually selling java based product.
But then again they persuaded people to part with ready cash for Lotus Notes
so it doesnt really say much about Java.
I think SUN is desperate not to be seen a a hardware manufacturer becuase
of its associantion with commodity products and declining profitability.
However the only way to become a succesful software business is to SELL
software to customers, which, SUN does not do at all well.
Get real.
How would this work in practice. Have the pump adjaust the volume metered depending on the storage tank temprature?
Or move the price per gallon up and down depending on the tank temprature?
Either way its not in the Gas stations interest to get an accurate temprature reading, whats to stop the owner
resting the probe in the freezer cabinet before taking the temprature?
As a non-USian I have never understood how you can have this micro-cent obsession with gas prices and then go out and buy the biggest most fuel inefficient trucks you can get.
I would be surpised if Ellison was loved by anyone
Fine for all you USians but the rest of the world doesnt have the option of unticking the "Windows" box;
COme on Dell give us either Ubuntu or even better "none" as an option!
I did this by accident once -- cost me a fortune in child support.
I cant help being reminded of those wonderful 1950s popular mechanics articles which predicted we would all be flying home in our flying cars to watch our 3D Tv while eating a robot cooked meal.
The present is never the future you thought it would be.
Everybody predicted talking computers able to predict the future, but nobody predicted YouTube or predictive texting.
Except it seems that intel have just arbiteraly changed the way MMU instructions work.
Intel seems to regard these as unpublished improvements rather than bugs.
.. not intel compatable.
Ask for your money back folks!
Slaves are people owned by other people or maybe the state.
.. fined two camels and a female slave ".
Is thier a single written document say a will "and joe-bob gets my best spear, two sheep and a couple of slaves"
or a list of things confiscated from a criminal "
I have never heard of any such document among the vast collection of hieroglyphic writing.
It is true that later dynasties took military captives as slaves but the egytians seem to be one of the last ancient societies to adopt this practice.
Shouldnt that be :
" signed long long int catchpahrase_rating;"
afterall we would need a very large negative number to rate "money^H^H^H^H^Hpeople ready busines"