As the famous Philosopher Ibid once said, "How did those Hollywood idiots make so much money that they can sue anybody who takes one of their stale peppermints?"
And his dog replied, "Indeed."
>>I'm not sure anything could be less entertaining than some of the junk that Hollywood pushes down our throats.
Well, maybe some of the crap RIAA pushes down our throats. I've stopped buying bad music. I download music now -- but I download legal music from start-ups who are still making music (rather than producing cash cows for RIAA) and distributing their stuff over the internet. Then I buy their stuff if I like it. Too bad there aren't more start-up movie-makers. Maybe we'd get some creativity instead of the endless stream of bad spin-offs, sequels, re-makes and copies.
I LOVED that movie!!! Of course, I'm a EE student (with an emphasis in computers; we don't have Computer Engineering unfortunately). Of course, I never read movie reviews because they tend to hype crap like Titanic, which I never bothered to see (am I the only one in North America?) My wife tells me it was as bad as I suspect.
I'm a EE student, with an emphasis in Computer Engineering and a member of the student chapter of IEEE. My responsibilities at work are almost exclusively writing software (well, LOTS of documents, too, but that's another story). Many of the full engineers here (i.e. with degrees already) also spend most of their time writing software. Of course, a lot of our software has to do with testing/driving/modeling hardware, but you'd probably be surprised at how much code EE's produce.
>>you'd still spend huge amounts of time in design meetings
True Story: Our (USAF) customer gave us some work at the beginning of FY 1999 (Sept. 98) that ended up being just another Y2K fix. After the mandatory 3 months of managerial beating the project got, I started on it in Jan. 99 with one other person. We produced reams of documents, had project reviews, technical meetings, the whole works. All told, I spent a few weeks perusing the source code, and about 2 days in June modifying and debugging code (turned out to be about 20 or so lines needed to be added/changed). We tested the program off-site in July, produced more documents, and delivered the final, upgraded, Y2K compliant software in Sept. 1999 -- just after the final delivery of a fancy new Windows program (produced by another vendor under contract to a totally different unit) that effectively replaced it. That's your government dollars at work:-)
>>Things at this level are all about getting the basics in place
Which is why I would think that the standard should be ANSI C/C++. That way you are guaranteed to have the solid foundation, and if you later move on to fancy IDE's with extensions, it doesn't matter which one you (or your Prof. or boss) choose, because your knowledge will translate into that environment. If that environment has nice extensions and handy non-ANSI classes and such, you'll be ablt to appreciate those better. For instance, I use C++ Builder at work, and it's nice to use AnsiString, which has features like an overloaded "=" operator, but when I recently worked on a demo project that needed cross-platform compatible code, it was good to still know how to use strcpy with char *'s.
By the way, I had a class like this too. We were told that our code had to compile in Borland C++ 4, and to submit our source code and program to the grader. It turned out the grader was running a Solaris box, so he just pulled the source files out, discarded all of the IDE bloatware, and compiled with gcc. My point is, since it was all standard console-type code, it didn't matter how we developed it. Make ANSI your class's standard (that's why it's a standard), have the students submit the ASCII source code, and then let the TA/Prof compile it in whatever combination of environment and OS they please.
The University I attend has some educational deal with M$, so they can distribute the latest Windows and Office distros for the cost of burning the CD's. Hence, I got W2K and all 5 CD's of Office2K (talk about bloatware) for a total of $30.
Before you flame me: I ask this not with animosity, but because it is a concern I think could be brought up by "outsiders" (i.e. non-geeks)--
Why should source code be considered free speech and protected as such? Wouldn't this argument, if upheld, make us powerless to prosecute those who author and deliberately spread malicious code such as viruses? If DeCSS deserves diferrent protections than a virus, what criteria would you use to make such a distinction?
I've kind of been hoping for this, actually. As bad as their underlying code sucks rocks, even I have to admit that M$ is good at making fancy widgets and glossy GUI's. I'd love to see WinDE on top of a Linux or BSD kernel. Office for Linux would be neat too. I'd probably buy it and give it a shake, if only the $5/CD educational version available through the University (but as someone posted earlier, the FIRST thing I would do is turn of that stupid paperclip).
#define LOGICAL_FALLACY \
if((I like anime && I surf) && (you do not like anime)) you should not surf
//I've never had any desire to surf
What has surfing got to do with anything? If I remember correctly, my original point was that anime is not stimulating, and I do not feel it represents me just because I consider trying out a new *Nix distro a good way to spend a friday evening. Would you be a irritated if I made some generalization about the intellectual capacity of surfers? If so, why is anyone who doesn't like anime a "Pseudo-intellectual?"
I certainly fit in the geek category, but I do not look to anime for representation, and not just because I don't have much time to watch television. Sure, I liked Robotech and Voltron when I was 10, and as a teenager, I played the Robotech RPG in several of its various forms, so maybe I could say that I used to like anime, but once we graduate high school, can't we find something a little more stiumlating to watch?
I read the article and I agree that the WIPO is in bed with whoever has the most cash. For example, if The Digital Divas brought Micro$haft's blatant violation of the DititalDiva domain to the WIPO, guess who would win (that must be where their 16% finding for the defendent comes from).
My question is, how many of the people crying foul on the Slashdot pages have bothered to follow the link to send a message to WIPO where somebody besides our own may actually read it.
I got a copy of Win2k from the University (they were only $5, so I figured why not), and loaded it up at home. Besides the fact that I had to totally reconfigure some of my hardware (including re-installing the POS winmodem that came with my computer that I hadn't used for months since the thing couldn't handle my simple little generic ISA modem), it took all of 24 hours to freeze up to where I had to just cycle the power. At least the world doesn't have root access to my machine by default, though.
On the other hand, my friend loaded the exact same thing and hasn't had any problems on his computer. I guess it's just a hit and miss thing.
Maybe M$ just laid their Windoze GUI on top of the Linux Kernel, then ported IIS as an Apache front end, and -- Voila! We are running Winux 2000! Hey, I'd try it just to see...
I agree with you on all of those points, but unless I'm wrong (I could be, so tell me if I am), the stuff being printed on these T-Shirts is source code that was written by a teenager and released to the public -- hence, no copyright problem. So, I would agree with the free speech issue on this point. While I don't have a right to distrubute somebody else's copyrighted code, I do believe that a person has a right to use his own code as a form of expression and distribute that code as he deems appropriate.
I'm not trying to say that RIAA is correct in what they are doing, only that they have legality on their side as the laws currently stand. I personally think they are a bunch of stubborn morons who can't embrace a new business model that could actually increase their obscene fortunes.
Since my original post was a little off-topic, remember that the original topic of this article was boycotting RIAA. I think that's a wonderful idea. It's a perfectly legal recourse available to people living in a Democratic Republic. If people believe (as I do) that RIAA is raking obnoxious sums of money from the public for second-rate Brittney Spears CD's, then by all means boycott the second-rate music. Many of the people here already boycott Microsoft for about the same reason. If they're willing to be rebellious enough to not use a poor OS just because its popular, why not extend that philosophy to music? Quit listening to Top 40. Most bands start to suck rocks about the time they hit it big anyway. Show your support of music sharing by going to http://www.mp3.com and checking out some startups who have embraced the new business model and are distributing their stuff for free. Then, when you find a band you really like, show your support by buying their CD. That's how I show my support for music sharing. It says a lot more than validating RIAA's perceived value of their trash by telling them it's valuable enough to steal.
>>and I haven't heard a great case from either side yet.
How about the argument that regardless of what you think you're entitled to, copying and distributing the music is strictly illegal. If all of the file sharing masses don't like the law, then they can write their congressmen, or elect their own representative to run for office. In any case, the fact that they believe that they are entitled to give and receive free music does not make it any more legal, just like the fact that some communist nut believes that all property should be strictly communal does not give him the right to steal my car.
In other words we will never be able to sue e.g. Microsoft for selling us a buggy OS, because their license has terms which specifically lift any responsibility from Microsoft if their product causes someone any problems.
Also, you are paying for a finished product, not a service. It's the consumer's responsibility to do reasonable research into the product's suitability before laying down money for it. That's quite a bit different from paying someone a fixed sum of money with the expectation of receiving some defined (contractd) service at some point in the future.
I agree on the Mandrake thing. Although I wasn't terribly impressed with the much-hyped "Graphical Install," (it didn't do anything the old non-graphical install didn't), I could see how it would be a big relief for Windoze crossovers. The install is not any harder than Windoze (assuming you choose all the default workstation class install stuff). Even my wife, who only cares to use the computer for e-mail and word-processing can use Mandrake (unfortunately "can" does not translate to "does"). All the people who believe that M$ is so much easier to install are simply uninformed. I installed Mandrake 7.0 and had a working anonymous FTP server and Apache Web server running without having to do any extra work (a lot of good it does on my 56k phone modem, but that's not the point...). Mandrake is good stuff.
I would hesitate to ever use the word "cannot" in such a sweeping context. You can say that (in your opinion, anyway) Big Business tends towards unethical behavior, but to say that a company is inherently evil simply because it is large is inherently ludicrous. The truth is, most companies, large or small, are in business to make money, including those that distribute free stuff (like Linux distros). And there is plenty of unethical behavior among small businesses, because so many of them are so broke, they'll do anything to save money (such as pirating software). In the long run, big business has a lot more to lose from unethical behavior than it has to gain. I know you'll want to bring up M$ and all the money they've made with their lack of ethics, but I would point out that they're a relatively young company, and they're already in an ugly court battle with the government threatening to break them up. I work for a fairly large corporation, and I'll be the first to admit that it introduces a lot of (often unnecessary) overhead when trying to get little things done. However, we also have the infrastructure that has allowed us to handle the USAF's ICBM program for over 40 years (side note: the AF has continued to do business with us for so long because they can trust us to do good work). A tiny start-up simply does not have the resources to do such a thing. We also have an entire Legal and Ethical Compliance department and very strict policies about ethical business conduct, and what we must do to avoid even the appearance of underhanded business dealings. As far as decisions go, the office I work for is very open about such things. Most decisions about what contracts to bid on and how to accomplish them are made locally. The management (all of whom have engineering-related degrees)are willing to listen even when little peons like me have ideas about targets we might pursue. And when a contract is landed, the key performers have a lot of influence over how things are accomplished. The bottom line is, I work for a big company, it's well-managed and ethical, the work I do is very interesting, and I get a decent pay check every two weeks. You couldn't pay me enough to work for MyLittleWebSiteOfTheDay.com.
We don't have any 100 megaton bombs. The largest we ever made was about 15, and that was an accident. We barely make 1 megaton bombs anymore. Who's going to pay for this beast? Not our "cut the military spending" tree-hugging government.
Slashdot Mirror
If I had mod points, I'd mod you up :-)
As the famous Philosopher Ibid once said, "How did those Hollywood idiots make so much money that they can sue anybody who takes one of their stale peppermints?"
And his dog replied, "Indeed."
Do not teach Confucius to write Characters
>>I'm not sure anything could be less entertaining than some of the junk that Hollywood pushes down our throats.
Well, maybe some of the crap RIAA pushes down our throats. I've stopped buying bad music. I download music now -- but I download legal music from start-ups who are still making music (rather than producing cash cows for RIAA) and distributing their stuff over the internet. Then I buy their stuff if I like it. Too bad there aren't more start-up movie-makers. Maybe we'd get some creativity instead of the endless stream of bad spin-offs, sequels, re-makes and copies.
Do not teach Confucius to write Characters
I LOVED that movie!!! Of course, I'm a EE student (with an emphasis in computers; we don't have Computer Engineering unfortunately). Of course, I never read movie reviews because they tend to hype crap like Titanic, which I never bothered to see (am I the only one in North America?) My wife tells me it was as bad as I suspect.
Do not teach Confucius to write Characters
I'm a EE student, with an emphasis in Computer Engineering and a member of the student chapter of IEEE. My responsibilities at work are almost exclusively writing software (well, LOTS of documents, too, but that's another story). Many of the full engineers here (i.e. with degrees already) also spend most of their time writing software. Of course, a lot of our software has to do with testing/driving/modeling hardware, but you'd probably be surprised at how much code EE's produce.
Do not teach Confucius to write Characters
>>you'd still spend huge amounts of time in design meetings
:-)
True Story: Our (USAF) customer gave us some work at the beginning of FY 1999 (Sept. 98) that ended up being just another Y2K fix. After the mandatory 3 months of managerial beating the project got, I started on it in Jan. 99 with one other person. We produced reams of documents, had project reviews, technical meetings, the whole works. All told, I spent a few weeks perusing the source code, and about 2 days in June modifying and debugging code (turned out to be about 20 or so lines needed to be added/changed). We tested the program off-site in July, produced more documents, and delivered the final, upgraded, Y2K compliant software in Sept. 1999 -- just after the final delivery of a fancy new Windows program (produced by another vendor under contract to a totally different unit) that effectively replaced it. That's your government dollars at work
Do not teach Confucius to write Characters
>>Things at this level are all about getting the basics in place
Which is why I would think that the standard should be ANSI C/C++. That way you are guaranteed to have the solid foundation, and if you later move on to fancy IDE's with extensions, it doesn't matter which one you (or your Prof. or boss) choose, because your knowledge will translate into that environment. If that environment has nice extensions and handy non-ANSI classes and such, you'll be ablt to appreciate those better. For instance, I use C++ Builder at work, and it's nice to use AnsiString, which has features like an overloaded "=" operator, but when I recently worked on a demo project that needed cross-platform compatible code, it was good to still know how to use strcpy with char *'s.
By the way, I had a class like this too. We were told that our code had to compile in Borland C++ 4, and to submit our source code and program to the grader. It turned out the grader was running a Solaris box, so he just pulled the source files out, discarded all of the IDE bloatware, and compiled with gcc. My point is, since it was all standard console-type code, it didn't matter how we developed it. Make ANSI your class's standard (that's why it's a standard), have the students submit the ASCII source code, and then let the TA/Prof compile it in whatever combination of environment and OS they please.
Do not teach Confucius to write Characters
The University I attend has some educational deal with M$, so they can distribute the latest Windows and Office distros for the cost of burning the CD's. Hence, I got W2K and all 5 CD's of Office2K (talk about bloatware) for a total of $30.
Do not teach Confucius to write Characters
Before you flame me: I ask this not with animosity, but because it is a concern I think could be brought up by "outsiders" (i.e. non-geeks)--
Why should source code be considered free speech and protected as such? Wouldn't this argument, if upheld, make us powerless to prosecute those who author and deliberately spread malicious code such as viruses? If DeCSS deserves diferrent protections than a virus, what criteria would you use to make such a distinction?
Do not teach Confucius to write Characters
>>Microsoft Linux 2005?
I've kind of been hoping for this, actually. As bad as their underlying code sucks rocks, even I have to admit that M$ is good at making fancy widgets and glossy GUI's. I'd love to see WinDE on top of a Linux or BSD kernel. Office for Linux would be neat too. I'd probably buy it and give it a shake, if only the $5/CD educational version available through the University (but as someone posted earlier, the FIRST thing I would do is turn of that stupid paperclip).
Do not teach Confucius to write Characters
#define LOGICAL_FALLACY \
//I've never had any desire to surf
if((I like anime && I surf) && (you do not like anime)) you should not surf
What has surfing got to do with anything? If I remember correctly, my original point was that anime is not stimulating, and I do not feel it represents me just because I consider trying out a new *Nix distro a good way to spend a friday evening. Would you be a irritated if I made some generalization about the intellectual capacity of surfers? If so, why is anyone who doesn't like anime a "Pseudo-intellectual?"
Do not teach Confucius to write Characters
I certainly fit in the geek category, but I do not look to anime for representation, and not just because I don't have much time to watch television. Sure, I liked Robotech and Voltron when I was 10, and as a teenager, I played the Robotech RPG in several of its various forms, so maybe I could say that I used to like anime, but once we graduate high school, can't we find something a little more stiumlating to watch?
Do not teach Confucius to write Characters
I read the article and I agree that the WIPO is in bed with whoever has the most cash. For example, if The Digital Divas brought Micro$haft's blatant violation of the DititalDiva domain to the WIPO, guess who would win (that must be where their 16% finding for the defendent comes from).
My question is, how many of the people crying foul on the Slashdot pages have bothered to follow the link to send a message to WIPO where somebody besides our own may actually read it.
Do not teach Confucius to write Characters
Try CYGWIN. I use it at work and love it.
Do not teach Confucius to write Characters
I got a copy of Win2k from the University (they were only $5, so I figured why not), and loaded it up at home. Besides the fact that I had to totally reconfigure some of my hardware (including re-installing the POS winmodem that came with my computer that I hadn't used for months since the thing couldn't handle my simple little generic ISA modem), it took all of 24 hours to freeze up to where I had to just cycle the power. At least the world doesn't have root access to my machine by default, though.
On the other hand, my friend loaded the exact same thing and hasn't had any problems on his computer. I guess it's just a hit and miss thing.
Just my $.02
Do not teach Confucius to write Characters
Maybe M$ just laid their Windoze GUI on top of the Linux Kernel, then ported IIS as an Apache front end, and -- Voila! We are running Winux 2000! Hey, I'd try it just to see...
Do not teach Confucius to write Characters
I agree with you on all of those points, but unless I'm wrong (I could be, so tell me if I am), the stuff being printed on these T-Shirts is source code that was written by a teenager and released to the public -- hence, no copyright problem. So, I would agree with the free speech issue on this point. While I don't have a right to distrubute somebody else's copyrighted code, I do believe that a person has a right to use his own code as a form of expression and distribute that code as he deems appropriate.
Do not teach Confucius to write Characters
I'm not trying to say that RIAA is correct in what they are doing, only that they have legality on their side as the laws currently stand. I personally think they are a bunch of stubborn morons who can't embrace a new business model that could actually increase their obscene fortunes.
Since my original post was a little off-topic, remember that the original topic of this article was boycotting RIAA. I think that's a wonderful idea. It's a perfectly legal recourse available to people living in a Democratic Republic. If people believe (as I do) that RIAA is raking obnoxious sums of money from the public for second-rate Brittney Spears CD's, then by all means boycott the second-rate music. Many of the people here already boycott Microsoft for about the same reason. If they're willing to be rebellious enough to not use a poor OS just because its popular, why not extend that philosophy to music? Quit listening to Top 40. Most bands start to suck rocks about the time they hit it big anyway. Show your support of music sharing by going to http://www.mp3.com and checking out some startups who have embraced the new business model and are distributing their stuff for free. Then, when you find a band you really like, show your support by buying their CD. That's how I show my support for music sharing. It says a lot more than validating RIAA's perceived value of their trash by telling them it's valuable enough to steal.
Do not teach Confucius to write Characters
>>and I haven't heard a great case from either side yet.
How about the argument that regardless of what you think you're entitled to, copying and distributing the music is strictly illegal. If all of the file sharing masses don't like the law, then they can write their congressmen, or elect their own representative to run for office. In any case, the fact that they believe that they are entitled to give and receive free music does not make it any more legal, just like the fact that some communist nut believes that all property should be strictly communal does not give him the right to steal my car.
Do not teach Confucius to write Characters
In other words we will never be able to sue e.g. Microsoft for selling us a buggy OS, because their license has terms which specifically lift any responsibility from Microsoft if their product causes someone any problems. Also, you are paying for a finished product, not a service. It's the consumer's responsibility to do reasonable research into the product's suitability before laying down money for it. That's quite a bit different from paying someone a fixed sum of money with the expectation of receiving some defined (contractd) service at some point in the future.
I agree on the Mandrake thing. Although I wasn't terribly impressed with the much-hyped "Graphical Install," (it didn't do anything the old non-graphical install didn't), I could see how it would be a big relief for Windoze crossovers. The install is not any harder than Windoze (assuming you choose all the default workstation class install stuff). Even my wife, who only cares to use the computer for e-mail and word-processing can use Mandrake (unfortunately "can" does not translate to "does"). All the people who believe that M$ is so much easier to install are simply uninformed. I installed Mandrake 7.0 and had a working anonymous FTP server and Apache Web server running without having to do any extra work (a lot of good it does on my 56k phone modem, but that's not the point...). Mandrake is good stuff.
The best part is, the crashing would be so reliable. It's the one thing we can consistently count on from Micro$haft.
In Texas, we call our stupidity tax "The Lottery." But then, maybe we could call it fraud (they say "All Lottery revenues go to education." Sure....)
I would hesitate to ever use the word "cannot" in such a sweeping context. You can say that (in your opinion, anyway) Big Business tends towards unethical behavior, but to say that a company is inherently evil simply because it is large is inherently ludicrous. The truth is, most companies, large or small, are in business to make money, including those that distribute free stuff (like Linux distros). And there is plenty of unethical behavior among small businesses, because so many of them are so broke, they'll do anything to save money (such as pirating software). In the long run, big business has a lot more to lose from unethical behavior than it has to gain. I know you'll want to bring up M$ and all the money they've made with their lack of ethics, but I would point out that they're a relatively young company, and they're already in an ugly court battle with the government threatening to break them up. I work for a fairly large corporation, and I'll be the first to admit that it introduces a lot of (often unnecessary) overhead when trying to get little things done. However, we also have the infrastructure that has allowed us to handle the USAF's ICBM program for over 40 years (side note: the AF has continued to do business with us for so long because they can trust us to do good work). A tiny start-up simply does not have the resources to do such a thing. We also have an entire Legal and Ethical Compliance department and very strict policies about ethical business conduct, and what we must do to avoid even the appearance of underhanded business dealings. As far as decisions go, the office I work for is very open about such things. Most decisions about what contracts to bid on and how to accomplish them are made locally. The management (all of whom have engineering-related degrees)are willing to listen even when little peons like me have ideas about targets we might pursue. And when a contract is landed, the key performers have a lot of influence over how things are accomplished. The bottom line is, I work for a big company, it's well-managed and ethical, the work I do is very interesting, and I get a decent pay check every two weeks. You couldn't pay me enough to work for MyLittleWebSiteOfTheDay.com.
We don't have any 100 megaton bombs. The largest we ever made was about 15, and that was an accident. We barely make 1 megaton bombs anymore. Who's going to pay for this beast? Not our "cut the military spending" tree-hugging government.
I thought this was a British patent they're trying to enforce in the US.