Clear communication is king/queen. My wife is Vietnamese, I'm hard of hearing. Perfect match. If she says something and I don't hear it, I say, "What?" She doesn't mind repeating herself because it's practice in a foreign language.
But she is absolutely clear about what she wants 99% of the time. That one percent requires clarification. To me, that is what makes love worth getting into.
For those of you who are still in the dark, check out an interesting book called "Getting the Love You Want", by Harville Hendrix. It is the best book I've ever read about relationships for the following reasons:
1. Gives the best description of the physiological basis for why men and women do mean things to each other in relationships.
2. Gives a clear path towards the love in a relationship by describing how to change the stimulus/response process between each partner to each other without manipulation.
Many of the other books I've read are really a set of rules for "understanding" the other person so that you can "control" the other person without letting him/her know about it. Maybe I'm not that good at selecting books, but that has been my observation.
And then there are 12-step meetings since for many people, this can be a problem that cannot be solved by the unaided will.
Take what you like from this message and leave the rest.
Women will often flirt with a man just for attention. I've met women who simply didn't even know what they were doing was interpreted as flirting. And when I confronted them with this observation, they gave this crazymaking attitude like "I don't even know what you're talking about. I was just being friendly." Yeah, right.
Philipino women are a great example of behavior that can easily be mistaken for flirting. I've never been more confounded by any other culture. The world "no" just isn't in their immediate vocabulary.
Women from American culture can flirt just out of anger. Anyone remember that song, "I know What Boys Like" by the Waitresses? That song spelled it out loud and clear.Women were tired of feeling as if they were being oppressed by men. So they used their power against the men.
Those are just two of the reasons that I've found for the confusion on the part of the women. I know why I've been confused before: I was single. Now that I'm married, that confusion is pretty much gone. I know where I stand with my wife.
It takes two to tango. It's not just that men have blurry vision. Women have fuzzy behavior, too.
The one point that MS simply DOES NOT GET is that we only need ONE, just ONE standard. The standard for office type documents has already been vetted and produced. And it's being implemented by more than 40 different applications, supported by 600 entities including governments around the world.
MS could have participated in the creation of that format, but they chose not to.
The ONLY reason MS ever woke up to the issue of document formats is because the State of Massachusetts decided to publish requirements for applications that are used by their government to use open standards for document production going forward. Had that never happened, anywhere, MS would have carried on, blissfully unaware of *competition* through government standards. Why? Because they thought they had that already wrapped up with politicians firmly in pocket.
I'm glad to hear that India voted "NO" to the OOXML. They have more than a billion people behind that position. More power to you, India!
They have some interesting information about the defects of the OOXML proposed standard (as well as a good sense of the big picture between (OOXML/ODF). You can find them here:
...is to have just *one* standard that all applications can use to interoperate.
If the point of the standard was to provide interoperability with a single application that is expected to dominate the marketplace, as Office 2007 would be, the standard should have been published, vetted and approved long ago.
It's too late now. We have one standard, ODF, and I plan on using it. MS should just suck it up, get over it (their loss) and adopt the ODF standard without their usual embrace, extend, extinguish plans.
That's enough for me.
So I agree with you that OOXML doesn't do what proponents say it will do. I just disagree with the premise for the standard in the first place.
Okay, so maybe they communicated information and ideas that would compromise careers or hidden agendas on a government network. What blows my mind is why anyone on a government network would have any expectation of privacy. I've worked on a government project. Everything is tracked and no software could be installed.
Why wouldn't these people do their planning outside of the government network, using email with encryption (PGP)? All of them could easily create Yahoo or Google accounts, or they could even create their own little domain name with their own server and run it all with encryption. Then we wouldn't even be having this conversation.
The point is this: religious zealots believe that anything is right when *god* is on their side. Studies have shown that religious wars tend to be more inhumane to the victims of wars that just economic wars just because it's in the name of god. These people act like zealots.
The other point is that we're dealing with an administration bent on religious action. They sincerely believe that they must secure the right outcome according to their notion of prophecy. Being so righteous, they wouldn't be interested in science, and thus have little awareness of how computers actually work.
Of course, if they're so sure of their prophecy, they might consider an alternative course of action. Instead of jumping into the gulf and inflicting war, they could just sit back, have some popcorn and see if the prophecy will really happen. If it's prophecy, no further action is required. All that is needed is a Saint's Patience.
Granted, this is a rather crude stereotype. And I've known some rather clever religious people who *did* understand computers well. And they were very nice people, so don't get me wrong about any prejudices here. I'm just saying that if you look at the group of the Bush Administration as a whole, you're going to see a lot more people ignorant of technical processes inside computers and servers than otherwise.
There is one other thing I thought I should mention. I don't know where I heard it, but someone said, "Never assume malice before stupidity." We might have a case of stupidity here. A rather large example, at that.
With any luck, we might get new legislation and oversight that helps prevent things like this from happening.
Sometimes we don't even get news about what's going on *here*. I had a friend who was traveling abroad in 1992. He was watching CNN International and observed a story about the possibility that California might secede from the union over unfunded federal mandates.
He had brought this up in conversation because I had told him about finding legislation in the California legislature that would hold federal taxes in escrow pending a review of federal mandates. If there were too many mandates, California would keep the money and spend it on their own projects.
Not a peep within the states, but you know whole world outside knew about it. So yeah, it's *out there*.
So true. I read the quote myself to confirm it. Is the internet private? I don't consider it to be so, and if I wanted privacy, I'd use encryption.
But I think the point is that the vacuuming of communications data in the manner taken so far has clearly been identified as "illegal". And the telecom companies are clearly worried as to their liabilities. They *know* they did something wrong or the legislation wouldn't be necessary.
So are you suggesting that this extra power will make us any more secure than we already are? Is this a compromise we really want?
It's about time that people remember Bennie. You know, that long haired guy on the $100 bill. Those who are willing to give up their freedom for security deserve neither.
So Bush wants us to give up liberty for security, eh? Never!
Brings to mind a great book by Alan Watts, "The Wisdom of Insecurity". Great read for $7.
I just want to say that I'm really starting to enjoy/. The best part is the good news, the news about people doing things that make the world a better place to live. To me that's a rare find.
Please tell me how to reply to the article instead of a comment so that I bring my comments up a tier.
Check out the links on the bottom of the original article "be up to". I'm just amazed at what Verizon will do to prevent competition. Cutting the copper cable to prevent competition is just "beat the competition at any cost". That's the mantra here in America. I wonder if they do it so blatantly in other countries.
The regulatory agencies will just twiddle their thumbs unless you call them. And when you do, they will be happy to pounce.
Thanks for reminding us about a very useful resource.
Don't forget to check out www.speedmatters,org, too. They've surveyed the competition in the global marketplace and their surveys clearly show how American ISPs have mangled the market.
Enjoy the links. I've been reading groklaw.net for about 5 years now. Worth every minute. I've been watching the OOXML/ODF process since the state of Massachusetts started talking about using some other format than MS Office. Dave Berlind broke the story on ZDNet.com of all places. I really enjoyed watching Microsoft and their allies work themselves up into a lather over the whole thing.
Seems that once governments started to think about lock-in, MS got interested in interoperability. I guess MS is really worried about shareholder lawsuits with claims that they didn't do *everything* they could to maintain share value. MS doesn't seem to get that the question for governments is how to maintain their sovereignty instead of MS shareholder value.
Thanks for the clarification. I'd like to add that this is not "free software", meaning free as in freedom, not free as in beer. If the code from this project could be put to use commercially, as in, could be used for any purpose, then it would be free software.
Until it is compatible with the GPL, I wouldn't consider it to be "free", but it is open source software.
In my mail, I get flyers, and 4-page foldouts with full color advertising of every description (G-rated, of course) for furniture, new this, new that, etc.
NONE of it has my name on it, let alone my address. Bulk-rate sorting? I don't think so. This is not even first class delivery - this is the lowest class.
They cut down trees for this stuff that I never read, will never care to and would just line bird cages with it.
So how does this help us? I can't even stop unless I fill out a form for each advertiser. And all I want to do is save a tree.
Don't forget the malware guys. The malware writers have been evolving quickly because they are sharing their tools and code. They are not exactly open source, but they are more open than Microsoft.
In terms of time given to live, FOSS stands a much better chance of surviving attacks against malware than Windows due to MS's lack of comprehension of the benefits of truly open source development as well as security principles embraced by Unix from the beginning. They like BSD because they can steal from it. They don't like GPL because they can't take something and use it for themselves.
Now, where am I going with this? Everything you have said is exactly the way I would like to say it, and there is no disagreement here. I just wanted to point out that when the I first learned about viruses, I learned that they were written by people who wanted to show the weaknesses in MS code. They did that.
I look back and see that they were a subset of all malware writers. Once malware writers began to realize that it takes more than controlling PCs to impress potential girlfriends, they decided to start finding ways to make money at it.
The ladder vs. the wall conflict in security will always favor open source due to the attributes you described: release early, release often, use open standards, use clearly described APIs, etc. MS hates to do this. In fact, they go out of their way to hide their APIs. Meanwhile, malware writers are throwing garbage characters at MS APIs to find a buffer overflow.
So the only people outside of MS who take the time to figure out the weaknesses in the Windows product are criminals. The rest of the developer world will be focused on their own product or an open source product. Essentially, MS is on their own for security. And they're competing with open source development projects for mind share, to boot.
Yeah, sure, people will pass bug reports to them once in awhile, but since their code is closed, so are their ears.
Thanks for the great articles, Herm. You're quite vociferous and well stated at the same time.
I think that if everyone were covered, the liabilities would all even out eventually. It would be like playing both sides of a blackjack table. Everyone wins when everyone is covered.
For now, though, there are investors on one side vs. the customers on the other. Americans invest in these insurance companies, either directly or indirectly through their retirement plans. These same Americans want a return on their investment and affordable insurance. The problem is the American ethic of "profit over ehtics" or, "beat the competition at any cost."
Same thing is happening with jobs, too. We invest in companies that ship our jobs to foreign countries.
I would like to say that it's a Bush administration thing, but I can't say the Clinton Administration was any better with NAFTA.
Oh, well.
They serve no purpose and only detract from the facts. Civil discourse tends to foster civilization and...
The expression and diversity of human opinion is essential for human survival.
Done.
I would like to point out that I think there should be at least some reward for people who take good care of themselves. I guess one can only hope that sensible ideas will prevail.
Slashdot Mirror
...missed that one.
Clear communication is king/queen. My wife is Vietnamese, I'm hard of hearing. Perfect match. If she says something and I don't hear it, I say, "What?" She doesn't mind repeating herself because it's practice in a foreign language.
But she is absolutely clear about what she wants 99% of the time. That one percent requires clarification. To me, that is what makes love worth getting into.
For those of you who are still in the dark, check out an interesting book called "Getting the Love You Want", by Harville Hendrix. It is the best book I've ever read about relationships for the following reasons:
1. Gives the best description of the physiological basis for why men and women do mean things to each other in relationships.
2. Gives a clear path towards the love in a relationship by describing how to change the stimulus/response process between each partner to each other without manipulation.
Many of the other books I've read are really a set of rules for "understanding" the other person so that you can "control" the other person without letting him/her know about it. Maybe I'm not that good at selecting books, but that has been my observation.
And then there are 12-step meetings since for many people, this can be a problem that cannot be solved by the unaided will.
Take what you like from this message and leave the rest.
...is a well trained monkey and never does anything on his own initiative.
But consider this:
Women will often flirt with a man just for attention. I've met women who simply didn't even know what they were doing was interpreted as flirting. And when I confronted them with this observation, they gave this crazymaking attitude like "I don't even know what you're talking about. I was just being friendly." Yeah, right.
Philipino women are a great example of behavior that can easily be mistaken for flirting. I've never been more confounded by any other culture. The world "no" just isn't in their immediate vocabulary.
Women from American culture can flirt just out of anger. Anyone remember that song, "I know What Boys Like" by the Waitresses? That song spelled it out loud and clear.Women were tired of feeling as if they were being oppressed by men. So they used their power against the men.
Those are just two of the reasons that I've found for the confusion on the part of the women. I know why I've been confused before: I was single. Now that I'm married, that confusion is pretty much gone. I know where I stand with my wife.
It takes two to tango. It's not just that men have blurry vision. Women have fuzzy behavior, too.
The one point that MS simply DOES NOT GET is that we only need ONE, just ONE standard. The standard for office type documents has already been vetted and produced. And it's being implemented by more than 40 different applications, supported by 600 entities including governments around the world.
MS could have participated in the creation of that format, but they chose not to.
The ONLY reason MS ever woke up to the issue of document formats is because the State of Massachusetts decided to publish requirements for applications that are used by their government to use open standards for document production going forward. Had that never happened, anywhere, MS would have carried on, blissfully unaware of *competition* through government standards. Why? Because they thought they had that already wrapped up with politicians firmly in pocket.
I'm glad to hear that India voted "NO" to the OOXML. They have more than a billion people behind that position. More power to you, India!
They have some interesting information about the defects of the OOXML proposed standard (as well as a good sense of the big picture between (OOXML/ODF). You can find them here:
http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=20051216153153504
Enjoy.
...is to have just *one* standard that all applications can use to interoperate.
If the point of the standard was to provide interoperability with a single application that is expected to dominate the marketplace, as Office 2007 would be, the standard should have been published, vetted and approved long ago.
It's too late now. We have one standard, ODF, and I plan on using it. MS should just suck it up, get over it (their loss) and adopt the ODF standard without their usual embrace, extend, extinguish plans.
That's enough for me.
So I agree with you that OOXML doesn't do what proponents say it will do. I just disagree with the premise for the standard in the first place.
Hey, thanks for the links. That really clarifies matters a great deal for me.
As to the punishment, there is always karma. They may get away with it as far as we are concerned, but they may have trouble sleeping at night.
Okay, so maybe they communicated information and ideas that would compromise careers or hidden agendas on a government network. What blows my mind is why anyone on a government network would have any expectation of privacy. I've worked on a government project. Everything is tracked and no software could be installed.
Why wouldn't these people do their planning outside of the government network, using email with encryption (PGP)? All of them could easily create Yahoo or Google accounts, or they could even create their own little domain name with their own server and run it all with encryption. Then we wouldn't even be having this conversation.
The point is this: religious zealots believe that anything is right when *god* is on their side. Studies have shown that religious wars tend to be more inhumane to the victims of wars that just economic wars just because it's in the name of god. These people act like zealots.
The other point is that we're dealing with an administration bent on religious action. They sincerely believe that they must secure the right outcome according to their notion of prophecy. Being so righteous, they wouldn't be interested in science, and thus have little awareness of how computers actually work.
Of course, if they're so sure of their prophecy, they might consider an alternative course of action. Instead of jumping into the gulf and inflicting war, they could just sit back, have some popcorn and see if the prophecy will really happen. If it's prophecy, no further action is required. All that is needed is a Saint's Patience.
Granted, this is a rather crude stereotype. And I've known some rather clever religious people who *did* understand computers well. And they were very nice people, so don't get me wrong about any prejudices here. I'm just saying that if you look at the group of the Bush Administration as a whole, you're going to see a lot more people ignorant of technical processes inside computers and servers than otherwise.
There is one other thing I thought I should mention. I don't know where I heard it, but someone said, "Never assume malice before stupidity." We might have a case of stupidity here. A rather large example, at that.
With any luck, we might get new legislation and oversight that helps prevent things like this from happening.
Sometimes we don't even get news about what's going on *here*. I had a friend who was traveling abroad in 1992. He was watching CNN International and observed a story about the possibility that California might secede from the union over unfunded federal mandates.
He had brought this up in conversation because I had told him about finding legislation in the California legislature that would hold federal taxes in escrow pending a review of federal mandates. If there were too many mandates, California would keep the money and spend it on their own projects.
Not a peep within the states, but you know whole world outside knew about it. So yeah, it's *out there*.
So true. I read the quote myself to confirm it. Is the internet private? I don't consider it to be so, and if I wanted privacy, I'd use encryption.
But I think the point is that the vacuuming of communications data in the manner taken so far has clearly been identified as "illegal". And the telecom companies are clearly worried as to their liabilities. They *know* they did something wrong or the legislation wouldn't be necessary.
So are you suggesting that this extra power will make us any more secure than we already are? Is this a compromise we really want?
Just wondering.
Nice book by Michael Chrichton.
I read that book in 3 days and just couldn't put it down until the end.
It's about time that people remember Bennie. You know, that long haired guy on the $100 bill. Those who are willing to give up their freedom for security deserve neither.
So Bush wants us to give up liberty for security, eh? Never!
Brings to mind a great book by Alan Watts, "The Wisdom of Insecurity". Great read for $7.
Enjoy.
Hi,
/. The best part is the good news, the news about people doing things that make the world a better place to live. To me that's a rare find.
I just want to say that I'm really starting to enjoy
Please tell me how to reply to the article instead of a comment so that I bring my comments up a tier.
Thanks.
Check out the links on the bottom of the original article "be up to". I'm just amazed at what Verizon will do to prevent competition. Cutting the copper cable to prevent competition is just "beat the competition at any cost". That's the mantra here in America. I wonder if they do it so blatantly in other countries.
The regulatory agencies will just twiddle their thumbs unless you call them. And when you do, they will be happy to pounce.
Thanks for reminding us about a very useful resource.
Don't forget to check out www.speedmatters,org, too. They've surveyed the competition in the global marketplace and their surveys clearly show how American ISPs have mangled the market.
Thanks. I thought it might have that meaning, I just didn't know the exact words.
Here:
http://consortiuminfo.org/
And Here:
http://www.groklaw.net/
Enjoy the links. I've been reading groklaw.net for about 5 years now. Worth every minute. I've been watching the OOXML/ODF process since the state of Massachusetts started talking about using some other format than MS Office. Dave Berlind broke the story on ZDNet.com of all places. I really enjoyed watching Microsoft and their allies work themselves up into a lather over the whole thing.
Seems that once governments started to think about lock-in, MS got interested in interoperability. I guess MS is really worried about shareholder lawsuits with claims that they didn't do *everything* they could to maintain share value. MS doesn't seem to get that the question for governments is how to maintain their sovereignty instead of MS shareholder value.
Sorry about my ignorance. I see it a lot and never knew where to ask.
Thanks!
Thanks for the clarification. I'd like to add that this is not "free software", meaning free as in freedom, not free as in beer. If the code from this project could be put to use commercially, as in, could be used for any purpose, then it would be free software.
Until it is compatible with the GPL, I wouldn't consider it to be "free", but it is open source software.
In my mail, I get flyers, and 4-page foldouts with full color advertising of every description (G-rated, of course) for furniture, new this, new that, etc.
NONE of it has my name on it, let alone my address. Bulk-rate sorting? I don't think so. This is not even first class delivery - this is the lowest class.
They cut down trees for this stuff that I never read, will never care to and would just line bird cages with it.
So how does this help us? I can't even stop unless I fill out a form for each advertiser. And all I want to do is save a tree.
Don't forget the malware guys. The malware writers have been evolving quickly because they are sharing their tools and code. They are not exactly open source, but they are more open than Microsoft.
In terms of time given to live, FOSS stands a much better chance of surviving attacks against malware than Windows due to MS's lack of comprehension of the benefits of truly open source development as well as security principles embraced by Unix from the beginning. They like BSD because they can steal from it. They don't like GPL because they can't take something and use it for themselves.
Now, where am I going with this? Everything you have said is exactly the way I would like to say it, and there is no disagreement here. I just wanted to point out that when the I first learned about viruses, I learned that they were written by people who wanted to show the weaknesses in MS code. They did that.
I look back and see that they were a subset of all malware writers. Once malware writers began to realize that it takes more than controlling PCs to impress potential girlfriends, they decided to start finding ways to make money at it.
The ladder vs. the wall conflict in security will always favor open source due to the attributes you described: release early, release often, use open standards, use clearly described APIs, etc. MS hates to do this. In fact, they go out of their way to hide their APIs. Meanwhile, malware writers are throwing garbage characters at MS APIs to find a buffer overflow.
So the only people outside of MS who take the time to figure out the weaknesses in the Windows product are criminals. The rest of the developer world will be focused on their own product or an open source product. Essentially, MS is on their own for security. And they're competing with open source development projects for mind share, to boot.
Yeah, sure, people will pass bug reports to them once in awhile, but since their code is closed, so are their ears.
Thanks for the great articles, Herm. You're quite vociferous and well stated at the same time.
I think that if everyone were covered, the liabilities would all even out eventually. It would be like playing both sides of a blackjack table. Everyone wins when everyone is covered. For now, though, there are investors on one side vs. the customers on the other. Americans invest in these insurance companies, either directly or indirectly through their retirement plans. These same Americans want a return on their investment and affordable insurance. The problem is the American ethic of "profit over ehtics" or, "beat the competition at any cost." Same thing is happening with jobs, too. We invest in companies that ship our jobs to foreign countries. I would like to say that it's a Bush administration thing, but I can't say the Clinton Administration was any better with NAFTA. Oh, well.
They serve no purpose and only detract from the facts. Civil discourse tends to foster civilization and... The expression and diversity of human opinion is essential for human survival. Done.
I would like to point out that I think there should be at least some reward for people who take good care of themselves. I guess one can only hope that sensible ideas will prevail.