Fascinating! Then the Russians were the Good Guys too! And to think of all those years of Cold War, brought on us by such a blatant misunderstanding of GoodGuyhood! (Let's nuke the moon: that'll *prove* we're the good guys)
And all was good because the Good Guys won. The Good Guys always win. Remember, they get to write the story. I would call them the Bad and the Worse. We know who were worse, but don't talk about the Good Guys: they never make it into the government.
Perhaps you have no argument against his, even when I doubt you read the article since you post a link that is already there. I fart in your general direction. That said, I think that while RMS's opinions seem a bit extreme to me sometimes, we need him to balance all the people who a) are apathetic about freedom issues in software, or b) are against freedom in software, like you. As for your opinions about him, the first may well be true, the second is not, and both are irrelevant to the discussion.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is my dubious pleasure to announce the emergence of a new life form, unique to./ : The Moderator Troll. An attack by such a creature can cause momentary loss of control and instantaneous flamage in victims otherwise more level-headed, as it comes from a direction that was before thought of as secure. But we know now, don't we? Be Alert! Trust no one! Keep your laser handy! Of course, I might be wrong, the moderator could have actually been a moron, and by declaring the existence of the moderator troll I could be creating it. But I don't think so; I've been seeing really weird things in M2.
All this said, I must take my hat off to the guy who suckered so many into flamage just by clicking on a list and a button, iff it was done on purpose, of course. Goes without saying that you should take moderation scores with a grain of salt under all circumstances: look at this thread and say it isn't true...
How can you people get trolled by a FUNNY POST!?!?!? In my opinion, it's even a bit overdone, but no, you have to go and REBUKE the post!
I'll summarize my claim that it was a sarcastic post: You can't say this, believe it, and be able to spell, all at the same time. This is a collective flame. Those reacting violently to the aforementioned post are hereby sentenced to get a clue or join the Katz Club for People Who Don't Belong But Want to Participate All The Same And Also Change The Place A Bit Because It's Not What They Expected After All.
Remember that whistle-blowers provide an useful service to the community. Anonymity is necessary; if way more people abuse it than actually need it, well, nothing is free my friend. Remember that you can be sued into poverty even if you are right, particularly if your opponent is a corporation that has money to burn.
And Jon: You REALLY don't get it, do you. I think the intemperance shown in the Net comes from the background of its creators: in the technical world, two plus two equals four, even if it hurts your feelings. Just imagine: an objective reality where you are demonstrably(not arguably) either right or wrong. After a while it begins to seep into your character and then we have these holy wars about editors or OSes or whatever you have. I believe that the most important part, though, is that no one is required or asked to be part of these communities: if you want to create a Politically Correct community of geeks, well... good luck.
And what is this 'white' obsession? Do you think people get flamed more if they're not white?
"THE REPORT WEDNESDAY in USA Today, which quoted unnamed sources"...
"However, an official at the Department of Justice told CNBC that"...
Wonderful. No news report has identifiable sources, which means that for all we know both could be making this up. Dave Barry sure is facing serious competition these days!
GB lost the Falklands war...
on
AOL Nation
·
· Score: 2
Because they had to put up with yet more Thatcher government, while Argentina's Junta had to make a hasty retreat on account of losing so bad. And was there a media monopoly! The news in Argentina were that we were winning, yeah, winning, winning, and then lost. All for some stupid rocks. Oh yeah, strategic location and all that crap. Like it makes any difference now, save of course for those who fought it, their families, etc. War sucks.
I wish to exclude whiners from the comments page. They are pointless. What good does it do to anyone to know that someone doesn't want to see an article. Most of these people although sometimes add something to the discussion simply are being annoying. They are saying very little interesting things in their whining and for many of us this just simply means nothing. People skips articles every second people whines every second. Now if someone prominent right now like the president or Linus whined that would be news. Most of these whinings aren't. They are just people who everyone thought would whine anyway.
True communication is only possible among equals. The project managers I encountered played a big role indeed, but more akin to Dilbert's PHB than to anything positive. Whenever I work with competent, the needed communication is minimal. No minutes, no formalities, no political correctness, no BS. When you take that out, only the relevant remains, and it's not that much, really. It is heaven.
Testing is of course fundamental, and QA should be done by other people than the programmers, with the only problem that they become VERY bitter after some time if they do only QA. We solved it doing 'peer review': You tested other programmer's soft, and they tested yours. Then you do both things with more care and forgiveness, assuming of course comparable skills...
The sentence makes a lot more sense if we read it as saying that the company makes $18M a day, not the website. It means: "It is a crime to make fun of people who make money", and it is scary. Very scary.
Sorry for being nasty myself, but the comments I was seeing were : People bashing Katz for saying genetics is kicking religion's butts, and people bashing Katz for saying genetics is bad. I must admit there was a lot of 'the lightning is coming' in his post, but I think he meant that we must be very careful with the things we release into the world, lest them bite us bad. I mean, genetics in itself isn't good or bad, but it sure can be powerful, and as such its (mis)use can have very profound consequences. Just remember that pointy haired bosses are everywhere: imagine Microsoft delving in genetics (shudder).
Did you read the article at all?
on
Planet Gattaca
·
· Score: 1
Please read it. You are allowed to bash anybody, but please don't waste everybody's time for that: Jon is contributing to the discussion and you're not. Cheers, Me
Not really. If anything, there is a worldwide shortage of programmers, and most(90%) of the time I spent programming for money (five years) it was not developing something for the open market, but specific applications that no-one else but my employers would want. It wasn't Free Software, but then again, it was too custom for that. Intellectual property in that case is mostly irrelevant(nobody else would have an use for the system), that is the most common case(I believe) and it's OK for me. If your desire is not just eating, but being the Richest Man in America, then yes, you'll need IP. And you have it, so go for it before someone patents writing programs...
Well, there would have to be some percentage of people using it instead of regular TV; then, if iCraveTV can change the original ads for others, or just wipe them, there's lost revenue. The damage doesn't have to occur now: they react now because if they wait it'll be too late.
The whole problem lies on how to get a sample : unless you're getting the whole HTML contents of several random, unrelated Web servers, the less links point to a page, the less likely it is that that page gets sampled; that means the most 'distant' pages don't even get into the sample. If you get your sample with a 'spider", well... what can I say?
Maybe a definition of sociopath is called for here: we might find that an erudite and interesting member of society is already a sociopath, on account of perhaps stopping to think every now and then and *gasp* speaking their mind unto others, thus relieving them of their blissful ignorance...
Clifford Stoll made an amazing application of ingenuity if there was one; the book about how he got the crackers is a must. 'An intrusion? Nah, ours is a secure shop'
Wake up people! The whole point of OS, FS, you name it, is that nobody's got you by the balls, as we know of certain companies too fond of squeezing... Performance is important, but it's not first on my list, as it comes after freedom, robustness, security, and the what-can-I-do-with-it factor, at least. Just my take, JM
1: But now I know better, the truth is pirating is good. Pirating promotes good programming: If I pirate a piece of software thats poorly made, I won't use it. I'll trash it, and not look back. But if the software is good, I'll use it, and probably eventually buy it.
2: Piracy helped put Microsoft where it is today
These are mutually exclusive sentences, if you know what I mean... And, why pirate Photoshop if you can get The Gimp for free? I think the greatest blow to piracy is being dealt by Open Source...
who cares if the drivers aren't open source? at least they're supporting the linux platform.
Look, I'm not tearing my garments: this is an area in which 'closed source' is relaitvely harmless, but Free is Better. If you're interested in hardware drivers, having the source code means you can a) learn something, b) contribute: maybe users can perfect a driver. c) Port it to another platform( say *BSD). That, and good PR, is why they should release the drivers free. That they support the platform is good, but only as a sign of the recognition Linux is getting as a widely used OS. With OS drivers, they would be supporting the concept behind it, which would make me way happier.
They didn't say whether the Linux drivers will be GPLed, or even some Open Source(tm) variant. With all the noise about OS lately, you'd think they could at least TRY to jump in the bandwagon... unless they've already decided not to, which would be a Bad Thing. Maybe they don't know about the/. effect yet...
I see the possible downside to suing a company for selling a faulty product, losing and then being sued back. Sounds both horrible and possible. I was talking about 'blanket suits' like the ones here, in which there isn't even real damage, but only people betting on the legal system. I can almost see it: instead of 'Lucky Striker on the fourth race' it'll be 'Skeksis Instruments in North Carolina'... that should be stopped.
Also, lawyers are bad, even if you need one. Marketroids are bad too even if not as dangerous, but you sometimes need one even if you're not in trouble!
And lastly yes, I should have known about the ridiculous licenses we see for software being only for software. Now, if you compare the software license agreements (the Microsoft EULA for example), produced by lawyers, with the ads for THOSE SAME PRODUCTS, produced by the marketing people, you'd think they could cancel each other. Just now I realize that what you need to make a real explosion is putting any of them in contact with reality. Now all I need is some reality: do you have any?
Slashdot Mirror
Fascinating! Then the Russians were the Good Guys too! And to think of all those years of Cold War, brought on us by such a blatant misunderstanding of GoodGuyhood!
(Let's nuke the moon: that'll *prove* we're the good guys)
And all was good because the Good Guys won. The Good Guys always win. Remember, they get to write the story. I would call them the Bad and the Worse. We know who were worse, but don't talk about the Good Guys: they never make it into the government.
Perhaps you have no argument against his, even when I doubt you read the article since you post a link that is already there. I fart in your general direction.
That said, I think that while RMS's opinions seem a bit extreme to me sometimes, we need him to balance all the people who a) are apathetic about freedom issues in software, or
b) are against freedom in software, like you. As for your opinions about him, the first may well be true, the second is not, and both are irrelevant to the discussion.
Cheers,
IfZicoKnowsWhyDoesHeWriteSuchCrap@coolmail.org
Ladies and gentlemen, it is my dubious pleasure to announce the emergence of a new life form, unique to ./ : The Moderator Troll. An attack by such a creature can cause momentary loss of control and instantaneous flamage in victims otherwise more level-headed, as it comes from a direction that was before thought of as secure. But we know now, don't we?
Be Alert! Trust no one! Keep your laser handy!
Of course, I might be wrong, the moderator could have actually been a moron, and by declaring the existence of the moderator troll I could be creating it. But I don't think so; I've been seeing really weird things in M2.
All this said, I must take my hat off to the guy who suckered so many into flamage just by clicking on a list and a button, iff it was done on purpose, of course. Goes without saying that you should take moderation scores with a grain of salt under all circumstances: look at this thread and say it isn't true...
How can you people get trolled by a FUNNY POST!?!?!? In my opinion, it's even a bit overdone, but no, you have to go and REBUKE the post!
I'll summarize my claim that it was a sarcastic post: You can't say this, believe it, and be able to spell, all at the same time. This is a collective flame. Those reacting violently to the aforementioned post are hereby sentenced to get a clue or join the Katz Club for People Who Don't Belong But Want to Participate All The Same And Also Change The Place A Bit Because It's Not What They Expected After All.
Remember that whistle-blowers provide an useful service to the community. Anonymity is necessary; if way more people abuse it than actually need it, well, nothing is free my friend. Remember that you can be sued into poverty even if you are right, particularly if your opponent is a corporation that has money to burn.
And Jon: You REALLY don't get it, do you. I think the intemperance shown in the Net comes from the background of its creators: in the technical world, two plus two equals four, even if it hurts your feelings. Just imagine: an objective reality where you are demonstrably(not arguably) either right or wrong. After a while it begins to seep into your character and then we have these holy wars about editors or OSes or whatever you have. I believe that the most important part, though, is that no one is required or asked to be part of these communities: if you want to create a Politically Correct community of geeks, well... good luck.
And what is this 'white' obsession? Do you think people get flamed more if they're not white?
"THE REPORT WEDNESDAY in USA Today, which quoted unnamed sources" ...
"However, an official at the Department of Justice told CNBC that"...
Wonderful. No news report has identifiable sources, which means that for all we know both could be making this up. Dave Barry sure is facing serious competition these days!
Because they had to put up with yet more Thatcher government, while Argentina's Junta had to make a hasty retreat on account of losing so bad. And was there a media monopoly! The news in Argentina were that we were winning, yeah, winning, winning, and then lost. All for some stupid rocks. Oh yeah, strategic location and all that crap. Like it makes any difference now, save of course for those who fought it, their families, etc. War sucks.
I wish to exclude whiners from the comments page. They are pointless. What good does it do to anyone to know that someone doesn't want to see an article. Most of these people although sometimes add something to the discussion simply are being annoying. They are saying very little interesting things in their whining and for many of us this just simply means nothing. People skips articles every second people whines every second. Now if someone prominent right now like the president or Linus whined that would be news. Most of these whinings aren't. They are just people who everyone thought would whine anyway.
I hope the comments don't come in Chinese. Particularly in the case of new apps.
True communication is only possible among equals. The project managers I encountered played a big role indeed, but more akin to Dilbert's PHB than to anything positive. Whenever I work with competent, the needed communication is minimal. No minutes, no formalities, no political correctness, no BS. When you take that out, only the relevant remains, and it's not that much, really. It is heaven.
Testing is of course fundamental, and QA should be done by other people than the programmers, with the only problem that they become VERY bitter after some time if they do only QA. We solved it doing 'peer review': You tested other programmer's soft, and they tested yours. Then you do both things with more care and forgiveness, assuming of course comparable skills...
The sentence makes a lot more sense if we read it as saying that the company makes $18M a day, not the website. It means: "It is a crime to make fun of people who make money", and it is scary. Very scary.
JM
Sorry for being nasty myself, but the comments I was seeing were : People bashing Katz for saying genetics is kicking religion's butts, and people bashing Katz for saying genetics is bad. I must admit there was a lot of 'the lightning is coming' in his post, but I think he meant that we must be very careful with the things we release into the world, lest them bite us bad. I mean, genetics in itself isn't good or bad, but it sure can be powerful, and as such its (mis)use can have very profound consequences. Just remember that pointy haired bosses are everywhere: imagine Microsoft delving in genetics (shudder).
Please read it. You are allowed to bash anybody, but please don't waste everybody's time for that:
Jon is contributing to the discussion and you're not.
Cheers,
Me
Programmers need IP to be able to eat.
Not really. If anything, there is a worldwide shortage of programmers, and most(90%) of the time I spent programming for money (five years) it was not developing something for the open market, but specific applications that no-one else but my employers would want. It wasn't Free Software, but then again, it was too custom for that. Intellectual property in that case is mostly irrelevant(nobody else would have an use for the system), that is the most common case(I believe) and it's OK for me. If your desire is not just eating, but being the Richest Man in America, then yes, you'll need IP. And you have it, so go for it before someone patents writing programs...
How is it hurting the stations anyway?
Well, there would have to be some percentage of people using it instead of regular TV; then, if iCraveTV can change the original ads for others, or just wipe them, there's lost revenue. The damage doesn't have to occur now: they react now because if they wait it'll be too late.
The whole problem lies on how to get a sample : unless you're getting the whole HTML contents of several random, unrelated Web servers, the less links point to a page, the less likely it is that that page gets sampled; that means the most 'distant' pages don't even get into the sample. If you get your sample with a 'spider", well... what can I say?
Maybe a definition of sociopath is called for here: we might find that an erudite and interesting member of society is already a sociopath, on account of perhaps stopping to think every now and then and *gasp* speaking their mind unto others, thus relieving them of their blissful ignorance...
Cheers,
JM
Clifford Stoll made an amazing application of ingenuity if there was one; the book about how he got the crackers is a must.
'An intrusion? Nah, ours is a secure shop'
Wake up people! The whole point of OS, FS, you name it, is that nobody's got you by the balls, as we know of certain companies too fond of squeezing... Performance is important, but it's not first on my list, as it comes after freedom, robustness, security, and the what-can-I-do-with-it factor, at least.
Just my take,
JM
1: But now I know better, the truth is pirating is good. Pirating promotes good programming: If I pirate a piece of software thats poorly made, I won't use it. I'll trash it, and not look back. But if the software is good, I'll use it, and probably eventually buy it.
2: Piracy helped put Microsoft where it is today
These are mutually exclusive sentences, if you know what I mean... And, why pirate Photoshop if you can get The Gimp for free? I think the greatest blow to piracy is being dealt by Open Source...
JM
That is an interesting concept. I don't want anybody that is 'not free' for a wife. Did you buy yours?
JM
who cares if the drivers aren't open source? at least they're supporting the linux platform.
Look, I'm not tearing my garments: this is an area in which 'closed source' is relaitvely harmless, but Free is Better. If you're interested in hardware drivers, having the source code means you can
a) learn something,
b) contribute: maybe users can perfect a driver.
c) Port it to another platform( say *BSD).
That, and good PR, is why they should release the drivers free.
That they support the platform is good, but only as a sign of the recognition Linux is getting as a widely used OS. With OS drivers, they would be supporting the concept behind it, which would make me way happier.
They didn't say whether the Linux drivers will be GPLed, or even some Open Source(tm) variant. With all the noise about OS lately, you'd think they could at least TRY to jump in the bandwagon... unless they've already decided not to, which would be a Bad Thing. Maybe they don't know about the /. effect yet...
I see the possible downside to suing a company for selling a faulty product, losing and then being sued back. Sounds both horrible and possible. I was talking about 'blanket suits' like the ones here, in which there isn't even real damage, but only people betting on the legal system. I can almost see it: instead of 'Lucky Striker on the fourth race' it'll be 'Skeksis Instruments in North Carolina'... that should be stopped.
Also, lawyers are bad, even if you need one. Marketroids are bad too even if not as dangerous, but you sometimes need one even if you're not in trouble!
And lastly yes, I should have known about the ridiculous licenses we see for software being only for software. Now, if you compare the software license agreements (the Microsoft EULA for example), produced by lawyers, with the ads for THOSE SAME PRODUCTS, produced by the marketing people, you'd think they could cancel each other. Just now I realize that what you need to make a real explosion is putting any of them in contact with reality. Now all I need is some reality: do you have any?