"Through research, advocacy, and public education, the Project on Government Secrecy works to challenge excessive government secrecy and to promote public oversight. The Project supports journalists and fosters enhanced public awareness of secrecy issues through publication of the Secrecy Government Bulletin."
This group has sued the CIA in order to force them to discolse more information about their annual budgets. I think this is a very savy strategy and it appears to be effective. FAS sponsors a lot of very worth projects. Go ahead and/. 'em!
Please tell us more about bill payment in Germany. I'm told checks are not the norm, which is one reason Intuit has no market over there. Most bills are settled directly, in person at the post office, correct?
My guess about EPO is that Canada wants to emulate an on-line version of the Eurpean model [that N.American/.ers are ignorant of]. Sure we have electronic banking over here - and its a near total failure in the market. So bills are still mostly payed via checks and bills presented via snail mail. Hence the market opportunity that Canadian banks + P.O. are making a play for.
If Germans already make use of similar services, perhaps you or some oter reader can post or link information for us check writing N.A. troglodytes?
Sorry, but your car analogy contradicts your airline hypothesis.
The demand for quality and reliability in cars was spearheaded by Japanese imports - Toyota, Honda, Datsun. Economy cars. They got their toe in the door via their price point. They shattered the market by delivering superior quality and reliability too.
The software industry is hooked on obscene margins and untenable R&D costs. Sooner or later the market will correct this transient condition. Let the current rulers of the profit addled heap cling to their status quo (UCITA) at their own risk. All that is needed to shatter the rule of buggy software is an existence proof for affordable, durable value on the desktop or on the net.
Going with the runaway metaphor, I beieve software is in the Stanley Steamer phase of evolution. Not very widely used compared to other mass market consumables (houses, cars, guns,...). Operated by trained specialists that accept the occasional exploding boiler. Where software is thriving in truly mass markets -- it works flawlessly. Witness ATMs.
First,. I'm an advocate for a pluralistic, non-coercive use of PICS. From my perspective this is somewhat like PICS, except the content rating is done by anyone instead of the just the author, and the coverage extends more naturally to areas like USENET.
I prefer to let content authors choose their tags. If you foster the emergence of trusted authorities of any description to judge site content, you open the door to rating based self-censorship far more than the more modest PICS based approach. If the site publisher chooses his or her own tags, they have a choice about which classification schema and which tags they deem are appropriate. The feedback mechanism is controlled by the publisher and can only be abused to the extent that the publisher can be coerced.
In this system ratings are polls. They carry far more weight and are far more useful for censorship purposes. The damning judgment of grandstanding politicians will hold sway over public internet outlets like schools and libraries. The same bombastic crusaders will be given a potent tool to pass judgment on publishers. These judgment will inevitably take on a life of their own and will be used as a weapon against 'offensive' sites. If Gary Bauer's ratings gain a following, that following will be used not just to influence his flock, but to coerce a site's advertisers and associates. They could extend beyond the web and affect the publisher's non-virtual life too.
USENET has died in a cacophony of idiots, may it rest in noisy, unrated peace. At least I can still pull some good MP3s out of the dreck. Moderated newsgroups and interactive, moderated or edited sites like/. are filling the void nicely. I don't really see the value in improving USENET's S/N. If you succeed, do we really gain anything?
The degree of posturing and ideological blindness that swirls around this debate is getting maddening. As a parent and an free speech advocate I think the readership is lost in the woods. The ongoing debate is neither substantive nor useful. Lets start with the emotional hot button of kids & porno.
Parents : Either gets your kids off the net entirely or get a reasonable proxy server. Forget the oafish, futile censorware. Its just not an answer. If they're on the net, they have access to loads of smut, dangerous chat,... You can't monitor your kids all the time. But (until they master proxy administration) you can look over their shoulders and monitor where they've been. You can use this to figure out if they've been actively surfing for smut or not, or if they've tripped over it (its hard not to). This will be helpful in figuring out how and when to broach the subject of porn and on-line sex. Even without a proxy log, the browser history list is useful for this. Check their bookmarks list too. Its an invasion of privacy at some level - but its responsible parenting when done conscientiously.
You must talk with your kids about sex anyway since they watch T.V., listen to radio, read magazines, see billboards around town,... they're exposed to the objectification of sex and sexuality all the time in our society. They have a clue real early these days, so deal with it. And if you feel the need, you can equip your home based net access with tools to help you track their net habits. Perhaps some PICS based scheme might theoretically reduce the risk of accidental exposure to smut someday. Don't hold your breath. Deal with the issue now using available sensible means - and common sense.
Freedom fighters : Fight to keep the web free. But please be more thoughtful about the nature of that threat. PICS and genuinely voluntary, pluralistic classification schemes are not the enemy. Commercialization and monopolistic control, as well as government interference are the real enemies.
There is a problem with the net that can and should be fixed. Its not porn. Its the complete absence of any means of cataloging and classifying site content. Any library has this and we all rely on this. Commerce and free marketplaces have this too. The net would be a far more valuable compendium of information if there were some means for content publishers to inform the net at large about the purpose, intent, and content of their site. Enter PICS.
PICS could, if adopted thoughtfully, help every single net user that has ever used a search engine. Absent of coersive forces, the classification is only as good as the content publishers make it. But it would make a huge difference. Let Muslim clerics publish a classification schema that can be voluntarily adopted and communicated via PICS. Let the Moral Majority, the PRC,... and ISO, ANSI, and the Library of Congress publish their schemas too. And let web publishers tag their sites with as many classifications as they see fit.
Its all good as long as its voluntary and the commercial forces and governmental agencies stay in their corners.
YRO's nattering nabobs assume that if a rating system exists, and if it is used to rate sites for adult content, that censorship is the inevitably outcome. Ergo PICS=censorship. Bull. I don't accept that web information cannot be better organized, that web publishers will never have an effective tools to help them reach their audience.
I love the chaos of the web. PICS preserves the full free chaos of the web ecology. It does not impose any specific structure, vision, or values on the web. It merely provides a modest feedback mechanism that could help build a more interesting web culture over time. Let idiot politicians and e-commerce fools try and coopt PICS for their hopeless folly. They will fail. But if it helps foster widespread use of a free and plural PICS, we all win in the end.
Many folks, including me, have applauded the way NASA has changed recently. They have fewer massive, expensive complex projects in the pipeline and have opted for faster turnaround on cheaper, more targetted, modest missions. It has been working out really well for them. Witness the Martian rover.
But this/may/ be a case where lightweight processes failed. Keeping measurements coherent is pretty basic stuff, folks. Most domestic industries that use Imperial units also have to cope with metric units if they have any international business. Dual unit systems are utterly mundane, common, accepted complications of engineering in the U.S.A. Looks like somebody -- probably many folks -- were blind on this one.
This disaster is not proof that Imperial units are evil. It may however cast an unfortunate shadow over the leaner, meaner modern NASA. I hope they don't have too much of a cow over it.
I dont know if anyone at CNN is trolling/. for story lines, but I'm dead certain someone there notices when they've been/.'ed. Nothing like 500K extra/. hits on a few tech stories to increase the popularity of future tech stories.
Roblimo, does/. try to consult with anyone at a linked site prior to publishing a link in a story? Some sites are better able, and better prepared, for the/. effect than others. Seems to me/. might be able to help less able sites by hosting mirrors, etc. of some linked pages.
I completely agree -- and I wish I still has some moderation points so I could moderate instead of reply!!
One unexpected benefit of mass moderation is that moderation becomes an alternative to posting. I find myself wanting to moderate more than I want to post. This increases the quality of the communication for everyone. Less posts, less redundancy -- with cogent, consensus views (and welcome humor) emerging from the chatter. The %20 rule would dillute this effect to a vanishing point.
Anyway, what problem is the %20 idea supposed to solve? Moderator advocacy? Is this really a problem? Not in my experience here. The place is lousy with zealots of this or that - but what is the harm in them expressing their zealotry by moderating? Better that than posting nattering, redundant screeds that we all have to read. But if it is a problem, I like HSinclair's idea of fewer moderations points allocated more frequently. If I only have 2 points to cast, I'll cast 'em more carefully.
You hit the nail on the head. They unloaded the Icad turkey in perperation for the acquisition. It was a money drain that had nothing to do with their core business. The icad champions in the orginazation are gone or demoted.
It will be very intereesting to see what happens with ITC. My twitching knee tells me the FTC will have them sell all Icad stuff off, or at least cut the ITC loose. Or complete the burial and cover the corpse with loam.
And remember, ITC is to open source what Sun's community source is to GPL. You pay to belong and they still hold the copyright.
The more interesting piece is the OpenDWG Alliance. Will it have a life of its own? What will MS/Visio's role be going forward. Very, very interesting.
The net will tend to break down the role of the party over time. Just like the web is good at taking out the middle man. Web savvy politicos will use the web to establish direct interactions with constituents, to increase the transparency of government. Anything that decreases the sway of the major parties will be welcome, but will also be resisted and ignored by entrenched players for as long as possible.
The web is intrinsically internationalist and tends to diminish or question the role of states. Look for the web to lessen the impact of governments on our lives. I maybe an optimist in this regard. More likely free trading, web savvy corporations will marginalize elected governments at their citizens' peril. But the web does marginalize Washington in either view. So how or why would this motivate a politician to "embrace the web"?
The web could possibly overtake the '00 presidential campaign in the blink of an eye. What if a Bullworth does emerge and read Jesse's script all the way to the White House? I hope its more likely than the pundits believe. And I suspect a lot of web citizens share this hope. If it happens, that person would use the web to organize a non-party campaign "in web time".
The web is lousy with poseur libertarians, as we all know. Never mind that they are not really libertarian. [Flame on, posers.] Some politician is bound to notice the currency of net libertarianism and ride it into office. Not by putting all their apples in some web site or net centered campaign, but by feeling the nations pulse via the web and reacting accordingly. No party hack is going to rise through the ranks championing individual rights and net libertarianism. It will only happen with the help of the web and because of the voices raised on the web.
The failure of the war on drugs would be a good issue for such a web-savvy politician. Again, look at Jesse. There is a strong, cross party consensus among net citizens that the WOD (or WOSD, War Against Some Drugs) is a bankrupt dead-end. Whomever emerges to ride this horse is bound to learn their chops on the net.
The lack of effective regionalism in the web, the fact that it is intrinsically global, is an impediment to using the web in elections. As another post mentions, retail politics can already reach constituents far more effectively using conventional means than they can using the web. Never mind that web surfers are still a minority. Even if every voter is on-line, the web will remain best at forming communities that are geographically dispersed. Not the sort of demographics a politician is interested in.
I agree that for tasks that impact the long term viability of the business, deliverables that are expected to be part of the core business, you need the continuity and commitment of permanent staff.
But if the quick ramp-up is based on a glut of simple webification or e-commerce consulting contracts, or if there is little continuity or carry over from on On-Que.com contract to the next, temps rule. Another consideration for On-Que.com would be geography. Temps can be hired where the client lives.
I'm amazed that no one seems to be addressing this issue from a financial planning perspective. Everyone is carrying on about the relative contributions of permanent staff versus temps -- probably because you fanned the flames with the "best ones are contractors" bait.
The decision should be based on financial planning and business plan considerations. You are a consulting firm -- which probably means you live and breath contracts. Flexibility is paramount. Business is most likely very volatile. Your payroll is probably far and away your biggest cost center. Permanent staff can swamp your boat in no time if conditions change. Temps can come and go depending on conditions. Temps coming and going is no big deal. Layoffs of permanent staff are poisonous.
Others make excellent points about what contractors are good for and what tasks are best done by permanent staff. From my experience at a consulting engineering firm, I'd say build a core of permanents that know how to schedule and manage your firm's contracts. They should have the knowledge and judgment on how and when to deploy and manage temps. Keep your principals on salary in order to build continuity and help with business development. Use profit sharing on a contract by contract basis and you'll probably find your staff eager to use temps to control costs. (All the blather about equity and IPO's are unlikely to be meaningful for a consulting biz.)
From the perspective of a job seeker, Java is the skill to have right now. To me this is proof that Java is not failing. Au contraire.
Industry chatterboxes, including the media, are fixated on the idea of a winner take all, head to head battle between M$ and some imagined direct competitor. These folks are without a clue. These folks are actively failing to see the internet -- failing to see how significant it is that M$ is a marginal force in the web.
Java may not be fulfilling its promise as a Windows killer. It may not have augured in the anticipated network computer. But Java is playing an integral, pivotal role in the maturation of the web. It is healthy and it is maturing nicely. Pity the fools that can't see or understand this.
Actually its not so much like Xanadu, but it is exactly like Nelson, Steegler, & Walker's Amex (AMIX?) market that was attempted some 6-8 years ago -- around the dawn of the web. That effort was simultaneously way, way ahead of its time and too lacking in imagination to realize how revolutionary the web was to be.
Its nice to see the idea reborn. I hope they find a niche with the right mix of traffic and authors to create a viable market. Eventually someone will have to work this out.
For anyone with any real interest in Titan, there are plenty of good, primary sources of information on the net.
First, the Keck observations are on the net at Titan, with plenty of info on the adaptive optics technology they used to get a better view than Hubble or Voyager I.
Next, visit "The Nine Planets" and their page on Saturn or Titan to get a broad view of what is being researched and who is doing it.
This leads us ot Cassini and the expected observations of Titan. Thanks to the Keck observations, there should be a lot of interest in Cassini's Titan probe. As noted on the Huygens Titan Probe site, on their Why Titan page, the peculiar nature of Titan, with its plentiful organics and opaque atmosphere, have been well known and of great interest since Voyager.
But anyone who wanted to know already knew. So why are we makig a slashdot fuss over mass media coverage of anything scientific?
Actually the BBC article was poorly written and researched. I'm not sure which is better, CNN's scrawny disinterested sciece reporting, or the BBC's sensationalism.
Is either relevant? Anyone with a trained interest in science will go to other sources for their news . ( like from Science Daily's Space & Time News Headlines.) The reporting aimed at the general public is usually tied to someone's pursuit of funding, or its tained by some other finincial / investment interest. True science news is just not relevant to most readers.
You wonder if this would be held up in court? It already is. Have you ready any click-wrapped EULA's recently? They claim you do not own the software, that you only have a license, that the manufacturer is not responsible for f___-all.
UTICA merely attempts to clarify the law in the favor of the vendors. Since this is a relatively unsettled body of law, it will have a huge impact. At our expense.
Repossesion is just another means of protecting a license. Time limited authorization codes are already common. With net gear some sort of periodic authorization or real-time authentication of licenses will become much more common and much more effective since lots of web gear will require web connectivity to be worth anything.
Make no mistake. UTICA will shaft end users. Its worth fighting by any means.
Note the wording in the article, "and ultimately private-sector information". Seems to me that the major revision between today and yesterday is that the plan will not include intrusive monitoring of financial or other private network activity. Yet. This is OK -- better than yesterday. But it does show who has clout, who can pull whose chain.
As reported on some business news show yesterday, the private sector and the feds have very different goals and M.O.s when it comes to security efforts. Corporations just want to know how a breach occurs so they can fix the problem and prevent related losses and copycats. They abhor publicity. The feds are fixated on the act and catching and prosecuting the perps. As others have noted, they don't have a very good record of defending against their already known vulnerabilities. So they are fundamentally at odds.
A day later, the feds are saying, "aw never mind. We'll set up shop on our block and talk to you later."
I'm dating my fossil self, but I couldn't help but notice that if you substituted "Co-evultion Quarterly" for "Wired", much of Katz piece still makes sense. I still have a box of dusty Stuart Brand magazines in my basement. Better yet I have an un-cut son and a pagan-free believe in gaia!
May Wired rest in peace. I'll keep my bookmark to Wired News. But its definitely time to bury my HotWired link. It was fun while it lasted, but now we'll have to find others map for other frontiers.
"'I have not had the time to make it shorter'"
on
All Hail Bloatware
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· Score: 1
The aging, ever expanding behemouth software product I make my living on suffers from bloat big time. Many of the reasons for this have been correctly identified already by Shuman, Kaa, and others here: featureitis, swiss army knife disease, designer drivel, acres of templates and sample datas, etc.
But the probllem is compounded -- and the customer is screwed -- by process, schedule, and market imperatives.
There is no time to do it right and meet the schedules. There is often no chance to coordinate and integrate with concurrent development efforts. Identifying opportunities for code sharing and consolidation requires dedicated time and energy that is usually allocated elsewhere.
And once its been slapped together with spit and glue, there is no chance to backtrack and revisit the implementation due to fears of destabilization -- especially if the feature was adopted by the customer base. If you do get a chance to fix it, it has to be timed carefully at the benginning of a development cycle. And even then you get the attitude that "It works (sort of) goddamit and if you redo it, what'll we get besides bugs?" Management has learned the hard way to adopt a very dim view of "elegance".
The problem is compounded again by consumer loyalty to market dominating products. New, better products cannot compete with industry standard gear on merit alone. Everyone knows M$Word, all documents are in Word format, all the corporate standards are built atop it,... The fact that product X can blow the doors off Word for this or that use means nothing. So everyone continues to buy Word and M$ continues to jam more stuff in the box.
PS: Everyone needs a clue about the 'backward compatability' issue. Typcial developer mindset. Its not the user being stupid and using older, out of date gear and expecting the software to save their asses. The fact is that the end result of using software tends to be data: documents, databases, etc. The wealth accrued to the customer is the data. The software, installing it, living with it, upgrading it,... is just an ephemeral nuisance.
The fact that until very recently the industry standard was to orphan old data had more to do with softweare vendor arrogance than anything else. One of the primary reasons our product has dominated its market is because of our consistent comittment to protecting the customer investment in their data. And document written by any version of our software on any platform can be read by any latter version of our product -- and no funky translation steps either. Just open the damn document. So blame my employer, among others, for the fact that customer are now saavy enough to demand backward compatibility -- and just deal with it.
Here is the Edupage summary for the California case:
COURT LIMITS STATE JURISDICTION ON WEB In a decision with global implications, a three-judge appellate panel from the California Court of Appeal for the Second District has ruled that the state of California has no jurisdiction over a Web site whose hosting servers are located in the state. The ruling clarifies the issue of jurisdiction in lawsuits involving Web sites and out-of-state companies. The court's decision addresses a defamation suit filed by plaintiff Steven Rambam against the Jewish Defense Organization (JDO). The JDO had posted information on its Web site claiming that Rambam was a racist Nazi sympathizer and a potential murderer. In his lawsuit, Rambam claimed that the JDO's contracts with California-based Web hosts GeoCities and Xoom.com provided the state with jurisdiction in the case. The judges disagreed. "Defendants' conduct of contracting, via computer, with Internet service providers, which may be California corporations or which may maintain offices or databases in California, is insufficient to constitute 'purposeful availment,'" wrote judge Mildred Lillie. (C|Net 06/09/99)
The C|net article is here. Seems to me that the case law is very unsettled. (Not that I have a clue about law!) Which makes the pending battles over UCI TA legislation all the more important and dangerous.http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/display Story.pl?/features/990531ucita_home.htm
Kelvin's 10 Year Old SETI Prediction
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DNA Encryption
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· Score: 1
Reminds me of a short story by Kelvin (John Walker) "We'll Return, After This Message" Not great fiction, but it is interesting to read it ten years later in light of this story and the SETI at Home news.
This report is a Good Thing for a number of reasons. It documents how the NSA and our "national security state" have been joined at the hip to U.S. economic interests. It corroborates various reports over the years of state sponsored economic surveillance. It debunks that argument that key-recovery is needed for law enforcement. Lots of good stuff with the authoratative imprimateur of the EU.
But the real good news is found in both " Comint capabilities after 2000" and in " Policy issues for the European Parliament". The cost of ComInt surveillance has proven to be prohibitive - a waste of time and money. And the rise of optical fibre networks has rendered snooping methods obsolete. But best of all, "Communications intelligence organisations recognise that the long war against civil and commercial cryptography has been lost."
Finally, check out this recommendation:
Consideration could be given to a countermeasure whereby, if systems with disabled cryptographic systems are sold outside the United States, they should be required to conform to an "open standard" such that third parties and other nations may provide additional applications which restore the level of security to at least enjoyed by domestic US customers.
The bad news is this is a report by the Chief Geek at EU to the parliament. What are the chances that anyone other than geeks will pay any attention?
The requirement to publish complete and correct HLSD-like documentation along with all software deliverables would be a recipe for all kinds of problems. Who has ever worked off a detailed spec that was maintained all the way through project completion? I know I often invoke the old saw, "are we building a perfect spec, or are we building software?" all the time.
If RMS or others want complete and correct docs, they'll need the code. Its complete and correct by definition.
Slashdot Mirror
My guess about EPO is that Canada wants to emulate an on-line version of the Eurpean model [that N.American /.ers are ignorant of]. Sure we have electronic banking over here - and its a near total failure in the market. So bills are still mostly payed via checks and bills presented via snail mail. Hence the market opportunity that Canadian banks + P.O. are making a play for.
If Germans already make use of similar services, perhaps you or some oter reader can post or link information for us check writing N.A. troglodytes?
The demand for quality and reliability in cars was spearheaded by Japanese imports - Toyota, Honda, Datsun. Economy cars. They got their toe in the door via their price point. They shattered the market by delivering superior quality and reliability too.
The software industry is hooked on obscene margins and untenable R&D costs. Sooner or later the market will correct this transient condition. Let the current rulers of the profit addled heap cling to their status quo (UCITA) at their own risk. All that is needed to shatter the rule of buggy software is an existence proof for affordable, durable value on the desktop or on the net.
Going with the runaway metaphor, I beieve software is in the Stanley Steamer phase of evolution. Not very widely used compared to other mass market consumables (houses, cars, guns,...). Operated by trained specialists that accept the occasional exploding boiler. Where software is thriving in truly mass markets -- it works flawlessly. Witness ATMs.
I prefer to let content authors choose their tags. If you foster the emergence of trusted authorities of any description to judge site content, you open the door to rating based self-censorship far more than the more modest PICS based approach. If the site publisher chooses his or her own tags, they have a choice about which classification schema and which tags they deem are appropriate. The feedback mechanism is controlled by the publisher and can only be abused to the extent that the publisher can be coerced.
In this system ratings are polls. They carry far more weight and are far more useful for censorship purposes. The damning judgment of grandstanding politicians will hold sway over public internet outlets like schools and libraries. The same bombastic crusaders will be given a potent tool to pass judgment on publishers. These judgment will inevitably take on a life of their own and will be used as a weapon against 'offensive' sites. If Gary Bauer's ratings gain a following, that following will be used not just to influence his flock, but to coerce a site's advertisers and associates. They could extend beyond the web and affect the publisher's non-virtual life too.
USENET has died in a cacophony of idiots, may it rest in noisy, unrated peace. At least I can still pull some good MP3s out of the dreck. Moderated newsgroups and interactive, moderated or edited sites like /. are filling the void nicely. I don't really see the value in improving USENET's S/N. If you succeed, do we really gain anything?
Parents : Either gets your kids off the net entirely or get a reasonable proxy server. Forget the oafish, futile censorware. Its just not an answer. If they're on the net, they have access to loads of smut, dangerous chat,... You can't monitor your kids all the time. But (until they master proxy administration) you can look over their shoulders and monitor where they've been. You can use this to figure out if they've been actively surfing for smut or not, or if they've tripped over it (its hard not to). This will be helpful in figuring out how and when to broach the subject of porn and on-line sex. Even without a proxy log, the browser history list is useful for this. Check their bookmarks list too. Its an invasion of privacy at some level - but its responsible parenting when done conscientiously.
You must talk with your kids about sex anyway since they watch T.V., listen to radio, read magazines, see billboards around town,... they're exposed to the objectification of sex and sexuality all the time in our society. They have a clue real early these days, so deal with it. And if you feel the need, you can equip your home based net access with tools to help you track their net habits. Perhaps some PICS based scheme might theoretically reduce the risk of accidental exposure to smut someday. Don't hold your breath. Deal with the issue now using available sensible means - and common sense.
Freedom fighters : Fight to keep the web free. But please be more thoughtful about the nature of that threat. PICS and genuinely voluntary, pluralistic classification schemes are not the enemy. Commercialization and monopolistic control, as well as government interference are the real enemies.
There is a problem with the net that can and should be fixed. Its not porn. Its the complete absence of any means of cataloging and classifying site content. Any library has this and we all rely on this. Commerce and free marketplaces have this too. The net would be a far more valuable compendium of information if there were some means for content publishers to inform the net at large about the purpose, intent, and content of their site. Enter PICS.
PICS could, if adopted thoughtfully, help every single net user that has ever used a search engine. Absent of coersive forces, the classification is only as good as the content publishers make it. But it would make a huge difference. Let Muslim clerics publish a classification schema that can be voluntarily adopted and communicated via PICS. Let the Moral Majority, the PRC,... and ISO, ANSI, and the Library of Congress publish their schemas too. And let web publishers tag their sites with as many classifications as they see fit.
Its all good as long as its voluntary and the commercial forces and governmental agencies stay in their corners.
YRO's nattering nabobs assume that if a rating system exists, and if it is used to rate sites for adult content, that censorship is the inevitably outcome. Ergo PICS=censorship. Bull. I don't accept that web information cannot be better organized, that web publishers will never have an effective tools to help them reach their audience.
I love the chaos of the web. PICS preserves the full free chaos of the web ecology. It does not impose any specific structure, vision, or values on the web. It merely provides a modest feedback mechanism that could help build a more interesting web culture over time. Let idiot politicians and e-commerce fools try and coopt PICS for their hopeless folly. They will fail. But if it helps foster widespread use of a free and plural PICS, we all win in the end.
But this /may/ be a case where lightweight processes failed. Keeping measurements coherent is pretty basic stuff, folks. Most domestic industries that use Imperial units also have to cope with metric units if they have any international business. Dual unit systems are utterly mundane, common, accepted complications of engineering in the U.S.A. Looks like somebody -- probably many folks -- were blind on this one.
This disaster is not proof that Imperial units are evil. It may however cast an unfortunate shadow over the leaner, meaner modern NASA. I hope they don't have too much of a cow over it.
Roblimo, does /. try to consult with anyone at a linked site prior to publishing a link in a story? Some sites are better able, and better prepared, for the /. effect than others. Seems to me /. might be able to help less able sites by hosting mirrors, etc. of some linked pages.
One unexpected benefit of mass moderation is that moderation becomes an alternative to posting. I find myself wanting to moderate more than I want to post. This increases the quality of the communication for everyone. Less posts, less redundancy -- with cogent, consensus views (and welcome humor) emerging from the chatter. The %20 rule would dillute this effect to a vanishing point.
Anyway, what problem is the %20 idea supposed to solve? Moderator advocacy? Is this really a problem? Not in my experience here. The place is lousy with zealots of this or that - but what is the harm in them expressing their zealotry by moderating? Better that than posting nattering, redundant screeds that we all have to read. But if it is a problem, I like HSinclair's idea of fewer moderations points allocated more frequently. If I only have 2 points to cast, I'll cast 'em more carefully.
It will be very intereesting to see what happens with ITC. My twitching knee tells me the FTC will have them sell all Icad stuff off, or at least cut the ITC loose. Or complete the burial and cover the corpse with loam.
And remember, ITC is to open source what Sun's community source is to GPL. You pay to belong and they still hold the copyright.
The more interesting piece is the OpenDWG Alliance. Will it have a life of its own? What will MS/Visio's role be going forward. Very, very interesting.
But if the quick ramp-up is based on a glut of simple webification or e-commerce consulting contracts, or if there is little continuity or carry over from on On-Que.com contract to the next, temps rule. Another consideration for On-Que.com would be geography. Temps can be hired where the client lives.
The decision should be based on financial planning and business plan considerations. You are a consulting firm -- which probably means you live and breath contracts. Flexibility is paramount. Business is most likely very volatile. Your payroll is probably far and away your biggest cost center. Permanent staff can swamp your boat in no time if conditions change. Temps can come and go depending on conditions. Temps coming and going is no big deal. Layoffs of permanent staff are poisonous.
Others make excellent points about what contractors are good for and what tasks are best done by permanent staff. From my experience at a consulting engineering firm, I'd say build a core of permanents that know how to schedule and manage your firm's contracts. They should have the knowledge and judgment on how and when to deploy and manage temps. Keep your principals on salary in order to build continuity and help with business development. Use profit sharing on a contract by contract basis and you'll probably find your staff eager to use temps to control costs. (All the blather about equity and IPO's are unlikely to be meaningful for a consulting biz.)
Industry chatterboxes, including the media, are fixated on the idea of a winner take all, head to head battle between M$ and some imagined direct competitor. These folks are without a clue. These folks are actively failing to see the internet -- failing to see how significant it is that M$ is a marginal force in the web.
Java may not be fulfilling its promise as a Windows killer. It may not have augured in the anticipated network computer. But Java is playing an integral, pivotal role in the maturation of the web. It is healthy and it is maturing nicely. Pity the fools that can't see or understand this.
Its nice to see the idea reborn. I hope they find a niche with the right mix of traffic and authors to create a viable market. Eventually someone will have to work this out.
First, the Keck observations are on the net at Titan, with plenty of info on the adaptive optics technology they used to get a better view than Hubble or Voyager I.
Next, visit "The Nine Planets" and their page on Saturn or Titan to get a broad view of what is being researched and who is doing it.
This leads us ot Cassini and the expected observations of Titan. Thanks to the Keck observations, there should be a lot of interest in Cassini's Titan probe. As noted on the Huygens Titan Probe site, on their Why Titan page, the peculiar nature of Titan, with its plentiful organics and opaque atmosphere, have been well known and of great interest since Voyager.
But anyone who wanted to know already knew. So why are we makig a slashdot fuss over mass media coverage of anything scientific?
Is either relevant? Anyone with a trained interest in science will go to other sources for their news . ( like from Science Daily's Space & Time News Headlines.) The reporting aimed at the general public is usually tied to someone's pursuit of funding, or its tained by some other finincial / investment interest. True science news is just not relevant to most readers.
UTICA merely attempts to clarify the law in the favor of the vendors. Since this is a relatively unsettled body of law, it will have a huge impact. At our expense.
Repossesion is just another means of protecting a license. Time limited authorization codes are already common. With net gear some sort of periodic authorization or real-time authentication of licenses will become much more common and much more effective since lots of web gear will require web connectivity to be worth anything.
Make no mistake. UTICA will shaft end users. Its worth fighting by any means.
As reported on some business news show yesterday, the private sector and the feds have very different goals and M.O.s when it comes to security efforts. Corporations just want to know how a breach occurs so they can fix the problem and prevent related losses and copycats. They abhor publicity. The feds are fixated on the act and catching and prosecuting the perps. As others have noted, they don't have a very good record of defending against their already known vulnerabilities. So they are fundamentally at odds.
A day later, the feds are saying, "aw never mind. We'll set up shop on our block and talk to you later."
If only net libertarians had such access.
May Wired rest in peace. I'll keep my bookmark to Wired News. But its definitely time to bury my HotWired link. It was fun while it lasted, but now we'll have to find others map for other frontiers.
But the probllem is compounded -- and the customer is screwed -- by process, schedule, and market imperatives.
There is no time to do it right and meet the schedules. There is often no chance to coordinate and integrate with concurrent development efforts. Identifying opportunities for code sharing and consolidation requires dedicated time and energy that is usually allocated elsewhere.
And once its been slapped together with spit and glue, there is no chance to backtrack and revisit the implementation due to fears of destabilization -- especially if the feature was adopted by the customer base. If you do get a chance to fix it, it has to be timed carefully at the benginning of a development cycle. And even then you get the attitude that "It works (sort of) goddamit and if you redo it, what'll we get besides bugs?" Management has learned the hard way to adopt a very dim view of "elegance".
The problem is compounded again by consumer loyalty to market dominating products. New, better products cannot compete with industry standard gear on merit alone. Everyone knows M$Word, all documents are in Word format, all the corporate standards are built atop it,... The fact that product X can blow the doors off Word for this or that use means nothing. So everyone continues to buy Word and M$ continues to jam more stuff in the box.
PS: Everyone needs a clue about the 'backward compatability' issue. Typcial developer mindset. Its not the user being stupid and using older, out of date gear and expecting the software to save their asses. The fact is that the end result of using software tends to be data: documents, databases, etc. The wealth accrued to the customer is the data. The software, installing it, living with it, upgrading it,... is just an ephemeral nuisance.
The fact that until very recently the industry standard was to orphan old data had more to do with softweare vendor arrogance than anything else. One of the primary reasons our product has dominated its market is because of our consistent comittment to protecting the customer investment in their data. And document written by any version of our software on any platform can be read by any latter version of our product -- and no funky translation steps either. Just open the damn document. So blame my employer, among others, for the fact that customer are now saavy enough to demand backward compatibility -- and just deal with it.
COURT LIMITS STATE JURISDICTION ON WEB
In a decision with global implications, a three-judge appellate
panel from the California Court of Appeal for the Second District
has ruled that the state of California has no jurisdiction over a
Web site whose hosting servers are located in the state. The
ruling clarifies the issue of jurisdiction in lawsuits involving
Web sites and out-of-state companies. The court's decision
addresses a defamation suit filed by plaintiff Steven Rambam
against the Jewish Defense Organization (JDO). The JDO had
posted information on its Web site claiming that Rambam was a
racist Nazi sympathizer and a potential murderer. In his
lawsuit, Rambam claimed that the JDO's contracts with
California-based Web hosts GeoCities and Xoom.com provided the
state with jurisdiction in the case. The judges disagreed.
"Defendants' conduct of contracting, via computer, with Internet
service providers, which may be California corporations or which
may maintain offices or databases in California, is insufficient
to constitute 'purposeful availment,'" wrote judge Mildred
Lillie. (C|Net 06/09/99)
The C|net article is here. Seems to me that the case law is very unsettled. (Not that I have a clue about law!) Which makes the pending battles over UCI TA legislation all the more important and dangerous.http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/display Story.pl?/features/990531ucita_home.htm
Reminds me of a short story by Kelvin (John Walker) "We'll Return, After This Message"
Not great fiction, but it is interesting to read it ten years later in light of this story and the SETI at Home news.
This report is a Good Thing for a number of reasons. It documents how the NSA and our "national security state" have been joined at the hip to U.S. economic interests. It corroborates various reports over the years of state sponsored economic surveillance. It debunks that argument that key-recovery is needed for law enforcement. Lots of good stuff with the authoratative imprimateur of the EU.
But the real good news is found in both " Comint capabilities after 2000" and in " Policy issues for the European Parliament". The cost of ComInt surveillance has proven to be prohibitive - a waste of time and money. And the rise of optical fibre networks has rendered snooping methods obsolete. But best of all, "Communications intelligence organisations recognise that the long war against civil and commercial cryptography has been lost."
Finally, check out this recommendation:
The bad news is this is a report by the Chief Geek at EU to the parliament. What are the chances that anyone other than geeks will pay any attention?As Cuba Goodings might say, "Show me the source code!" 'Til then, its just talk.
If RMS or others want complete and correct docs, they'll need the code. Its complete and correct by definition.