I'm assuming here, and forgive me if this is too obvious, that you went back to every one of those doctors you could remember and told them this story? Write a letter once and mail it to everyone as you remember them? Or visit them personally and look them in the eye as you tell them your story?
Sounds like you're trying to pass the word on, so I assume you already told all the docs who missed it, so they'll be unlikely to miss it again. And maybe they can collect some statistics now that they are aware of the problem?
For the good of all mankind, it wouldn't hurt to contact medical schools, or have the doctor who wrote your prescription finally to contact some people and let them know of this as well?
A person can make connections better than a computer can. Even if you reduce emphasis on memorization, you still have to give people a solid base knowledge. Especially if they work in emergency or live environments like ER or surgery. Since you can't know which ones will end up where, you have to teach everyone to memorize bunches of stuff.
I think what you mean is, teaching medical students to rely on their memories is a horrible idea when the information is available electronically. Memorizing things and depending on those memories - that's the distinction.
Teach them to put together information from their heads, medical journals, reference sources, other people, and any other source.
When you -own- the books, you don't mind marking it up.
This is about high school textbooks, which you don't own. If you mark it up too much or cause other damage, you have to pay to replace that book. I like real books, but we're not talking about all books here. They will still be around as long as there is demand.
Try gardening, and tell me that there's not a part of humanity that isn't connected to the ground. Hunting is the same way, and there's no reason why story telling is any different. This is practical experience, not superstition, and science can back it up; I simply haven't bothered to do my own empirical tests on my own observations. (study the effects of color on the psyche sometime!)
I garden, I don't hunt, and I'm well aware of the influence of color. You're saying humans are somehow attached to books - they have only been around since the invention of the printing press. I find gardening to be completely unconnected with humanity. We had to adapt to the world and developed agrarian society in response to the need for food. We didn't tend plants for decorative purposes. "Connected to the ground" in terms of needing food, sure. Creating a jungle-like oasis by surround our houses with greenery to recreate the natural environment of the undeveloped territory in which we lived for hundreds of thousands of years makes sense, however irrelevant. But "moving away from an old part of the brain" because we're moving text into the digital realm? The same place lots of people get their news and entertainment already? Weren't we moving away from an old part of the brain when we invented books and replaced scrolls? Or when we invented scrolls and stopped writing on walls? Or how about when we started writing on walls? I could make the same arguments against wall-paintings, because it was a disturbance which forever changed the course of human history.
computers can inhibit the brain processes that aid us in mental growth, mostly because it prevents the mind from subconsciously dwelling on a topic for extended periods
Can science really back that up? If so, the people behind this plan need to know, and if you have anything of the sort to share it would benefit all of California's high school science students to do so. I'm fairly certain the "To Kill a Mockingbird" required reading won't use online texts - students will be handed a book. The publishing industry will fight against that like crazed badgers, since we are no longer talking about textbooks. You can't hand out millions of digital copies of an actual meant-to-be-enjoyed book and NOT have some serious problems with that industry, and that's not a part of this plan. Textbooks are, which are meant to be consumed by schools.
If I had to make textbooks obsolete, I'd start at that age, on those subjects, because it's at that age that study habits can be built from the ground up.
We're not making books obsolete. We're replacing high school science texts and being able to accommodate fixing things like typos and other errors that happen. Typically it is 5-10 years before those things get fixed, depending on the state, because of the textbook purchase cycle. The opportunity is here to fix that. Even if all textbooks go electronic we're not making books obsolete.
"What's the difference" is a world of difference for people who care.
There is a difference, of course. Some people like a real book, others don't care. You'll have people on both sides. Based on the discussion at hand, none of your other points are relevant. Notes in the margins don't matter - that's a personal preference of yours, books have nothing to do with wall paintings and story telling, "creativity will plummet" is completely unsubstantiated, "start from a young age" contradicts the idea that older students will be better able to cope with t
Who writes in the margins? Public schools at least try to minimize that, because the books get reused for several years. You don't want next year's kids reading this year's notes. Actually writing the notes is more of a benefit than reading something someone else wrote last year. How does PDF inhibit the ability to think?
What's the difference to the brain in reading computer text vs. book text? Are you thinking that students won't be tempted to visit iTunes or chat while reading a book? Think twice - that notebook next to them is always on, they'll do it regardless. Plus kids are getting used to doing things online - it makes sense to move away from textbooks as long as there is some sort of "appreciating of dead tree reading" being taught somewhere. Maybe moving away from that old part of the brain (if that's not something you just pulled out of your butt) is a good thing and will benefit us. Go make a study and let us know what you think with science behind you, not superstition.
For people to adapt best to this change in learning mediums, they should start from a young age. You can expect old dogs to learn new tricks works, but does it work well enough?
What? This is public school, starting from a young age. You are probably thinking this is college. Not the case.
You are correct about one thing - some will benefit from this change, some won't. Public education is like that, since you can't serve everyone's needs completely within a reasonable budget.
Your entire rant seems like a knee-jerk reaction to new technology. Would you kindly read it again and tell me if I'm really all that wrong?
Error: Ego is too big. Please shrink and try your search again.
There is a code search option for google. Use it instead of the general purpose search engine meant to sifting through unorganized (indexed, yes) data. Google is collecting your clicks, but they aren't looking at YOUR clicks, they are looking for patterns in the general populace. Quit thinking your data is important, and use the facilities provided.
If you put "code search" into Google, you might find that. I did.
Also, Google can't do anything if the manufacturer doesn't provide links to support documentation. In most cases, I've found most of the docs available on the reseller's site. The MFR usually requires that you sign in or do some other foolish thing before providing you with options. Or maybe they have their data sheets hidden under a robots.txt file because they don't want Google siphoning gigs of data each dime it spiders. Not google's fault. If you know the manufacture, why not go to their website directly? Why do you expect google to 1) spider everything 2) figure out which is the MFR and which is the reseller 3) figure out from a bunch of numbers you're looking for a manufactured part number? Again, the facilities provided allow you to search a part on a particular site, just add " site:google.com" or whichever the mfr's domain is.
Also, what's your beef about auto-correct again? Did Google turn that option on in all of your apps and you can't turn it off? spend some time customizing the dictionary in Word (if you enjoy self flagellation) or whatever you're whining about. Are you expecting software to be contextually aware, when it can barely figure out what you want it to do RIGHT NOW?
Also, how is software supposed to learn that you don't like something it does? That's a lot of learning - the current iteration of software simply needs well-organized, easily accessible options concerning the stuff users have complained about during testing and development. What I think you need is the "Any time I delete your auto-correction, put the original content you replaced in the dictionary and don't ask me again" option. Most people won't want that option, but this way it doesn't have to try to interpret what you like or don't like - because if you're already irritated by the way it works, you're not going to like it when it adds additional logic to do things on your behalf.
You see, back in the day, we had to learn assembler to write programs. Then they made C and other higher-level languages. And then interpreted languages. but even when writing VB.NET or C#, in my head I'm doing the equivalent of the original C++ to C translator, adding C to ASM on one side and OOP to C++ on the other side.
I sometimes wonder that, back when search sucked (right around the time of Northern lights / AltaVista) I could find anything. It wasn't persistence - it was putting the right terms in. Think of what you want to see on the page, and let it do a simple look-up.
google is not processing data that way any more. We have to re-learn how to do our specific searches. I don't have an answer for you tho, still figuring it out. Meantime, try just asking a question like the idiot users do. It works more often than I expect.
Pretty sneaky. If they want to use DRM, they have to basically say they believe people won't be able to break it. Because giving up copyright protection means the only protection is DRM.
Then they'll say we can't do that because DRM is broken... so then we ask why have DRM at all?
The answer of course has nothing to do with protecting content, and has more to do with making you re-buy things in various formats instead of letting you format-shift.
Back them into a corner. Of course it'll never happen, just nice to think about.
It's the difference between Radio and buying a CD. I like finding new stuff on the radio (or at least I used to, when they played new stuff). Then buy on CD if I like it. Streaming *should* be higher usage as people look for new sounds, then download the little bit of it they like.
If you only want to download things, and delete the stuff you don't like, that's fine. but I'd rather not use my hdd to store and delete crap - that's what RAM is for.
It's not about supporting the FORMATS, it's about the CODECS which deal with the formats.
... decision by Microsoft to block third party filter support in future versions of Windows media player
There is literally no additional testing MS has to do if they write codecs according to the published spec and then allow WMP to use whatever codecs are installed. That's the way it's worked since MS had the idea of VFW plugins. If their code works from the spec, other peoples' code should too.
It is up to the codec developers to test and always has been, and to update the API calls if needed. This is about just not loading third-party codecs.
I'm sure it's just a reaction to crappy codecs making it look like WMP is crashing. Normal users will be able to play their normal mainstream media files, and even have DRM operate silently in the background with very little notice paid.
Users who require anything outside of mainstream codec support are not the typical use case, nor are they the targeted user base. They aren't trying to prevent people using certain codecs, just making the typical path easier.
People panned Vista for crashes and unexpected things, and I'm sure they are trying to eliminate as much potential for crashes since a crash can usually be turned into a vulnerability as well. Media players, especially ones which embed into browsers, are an easy target for hacking.
Yes, solve the problem for everyone's child at the same time. Ask them what their current system is, and how they intend to fix it. Bring several of these suggestions to the table, including the low-tech ones, and let them know that it is not acceptable to lose children.
You can fix your problem, but in 5 years when your kid is safe and someone else's kid gets raped and murdered, won't you feel bad for solving it for yourself?
you're oversimplifying, which is why these arguments go off the tracks so often.
Lots of people write software for personal use (even if it's just a patch submitted), and then decide to release the source. These are people who made a product and don't want to lose their rights or controlling stake. It's available, you can use it, but don't go about claiming it's yours. If you fix something let me know.
Other people see a need for software and write it, with the intent that others will use it. These are the altruists, but they are far more rare. Most of them still want to be recognized for what they did. They would be happy with patches, but mostly want to produce software.
Still others don't really care about their contribution. If I wrote a web server, it would be in the vein of "yet another web server" and I wouldn't feel particularly like getting credit for it. If I wrote something particularly innovative, I certainly would want credit and adoration. Reverse engineering a proprietary format, I'd want some recognition if someone used my documentation to make the next killer app, because it represents lots of hours of work which aren't contained within the source - the source is just the result of lots of testing and research.
If I made a popular web server like Apache, I would expect people to test, file bug reports, give feedback, request features - and if these were lacking I'd figure either it's either perfect and complete or unused. Feedback of any sort lets you know people use your product. If I were writing my own web server to do something specialized, based on Apache, I wouldn't feel much like contributing changes back, nor would I feel that Apache could make use of my customizations. Maybe a few of its users would be interested, but I wouldn't submit patches upstream - just make my source available for those people looking for similar customizations.
There are piles of different use cases, and reasons for hacking on some source or another, and many different reasons for producing and making the source available. so you can't just paint it black and white and say everyone giving away source code should feel the same. There are piles of different OSI-approved licenses just because you can't put everything into a single bucket, or 5 buckets, or 10.
Different motivations, different purposes, different people. that's why open source thrives, and it's also why it's so fragmented with forks coming and going all the time and multiple distros. you can't give one rule which applies to everyone.
Quit going for ratings and produce real journalism, and it will be worth paying for. The crap will get sifted out. But there's very few sources left for that.
Any "newspaper" with cover stories or front-page news on entertainment or celebrity should be disqualified. I hope they all die and have to start over, because I can't get real news from news outlets. I know who won American Idol, but I don't want to know it. I intentionally tried to avoid learning this, but I had no choice.
It's called a "newspaper". Put news in it. Another celebrity blah blah blah something, that isn't new, that's old news with a different famous person.
This is not funny. I work at a fortune 11x company and I know several things are true.
1) We use SAP because they made a pitch and hooked a sucker in a suit. 2) You buy SAP, then a plan to "customize" it. 3) Customize means "finish the code" 4) It also means you pay high-ranking aka high-earning business types piles of money to give requirements to SAP when a junior coder could just do the obvious and have something that works 5) The requirements you give to SAP are exactly the same as what the sales pitch said it already did
I'm sure I could go on. This is not a funny comment, it is how SAP works. Mod me scary or obvious if you want, but not funny.
A successful salesman once he told me, if that first woman says "I don't know..." he pretty much knew he wouldn't sell anything. but if the first one said "Oh, I want one" everyone was going to get one.
A true libertarian (lower case), he had no reason to lie to me about that.
Other comments aside, if you said "hard drive" and he didn't go to the store and ask for a "hard drive" or look for a box that says "hard drive" then I don't see a problem here. Language is language, and hopefully the ignorant fool learned something from this.
Also, if you are diagnosing your friend's hard drive and you fail to explain what hard drive broken means, you're the retard. And unless you're making money off this, you've also opened the door to being his free personal tech support. If you're already fixing the computer you should be the one to get the hard drive fixed, or give him specific enough information he can fend for himself. And if you made a remote diagnosis based on his description alone, you're the double retard. He probably only needed to press the 'any' key' and you told him the drive was broke.
What's the difference between someone downloading your book for free and not reading it, and someone cracking it open in a bookstore and deciding not to buy it?
You're fooling yourself if you think that everyone who downloads a copy even looks at it. In reality, many if not most of the downloads never get read. Of those, few go beyond evaluating a few pages and deciding not to keep it. Of those, most will simply keyword search for a particular idea and get their fill just as thy might sitting in a bookstore or library. So how much money are you losing when people copy something and then don't read it?
Others have already noted 1) It's a textbook so sod off 2) it's 10 years old so sod off 3) you expect to be paid for something you did 10 years ago so sod off 4) you think it's good enough to command $51 without being able to evaluate its utility so sod off.
Also, according to Amazon you made a Kindle version that's $10 cheaper. In 1999. Before the actual book was out (July 31 vs. August for the print copy). So the content is worth $41, and the paper/ink $10? Do you really think other people value your book at $41, or are most of them buying it because they have to?
Finally, there are piles of places to learn about compression directly from the source code, so I would expect anyone serious enough to pay $50 to actually go download open-source tools and study those a bit instead. Data compression is one of those topics all over the intertubes and covered at length.
O wait there's more, from the back cover (according to Amazon):
Shows how to extend the algorithms and use them for copyright protection
We need to stand up more against this shit while it's doable, I mean, getting cuffed and losing half your day. A hassle.
If we don't, things might come to a point where we can't stand up anymore because we're just taken outside and shot. And nobody is allowed to say your name again under the same penalty.
Allow me to rephrase and extend. If this person doesn't fight back, they are ruining it for the rest of us. You have to fight back, or you effectively make it legal for people to do this.
I know people who have gotten arrested and jailed for things that the US supreme court has ruled would be unconstitutional to enforce. But if your lawyer doesn't point this out and that first judge isn't aware of the ruling, you're going to jail. By not enforcing your rights, you're letting the executive branch of government have power they should not have.
Blog posts are one thing, and the number of e-mail inquiries and phone calls seems to be impressive for such a story, but my point is we have to make sure we make enough noise that this won't happen again. Maybe this has been enough, maybe it hasn't. Let it be a reminder either way: Know your rights and exercise them, or you're ruining it for everyone.
Google set up this nice search engine, then put adverts on it, and allowed others to have adverts.
Now, for every search I do there are 3-4 relevant sites, 5-6 exact copies of those same sites on a different server adding adsense advertising, and 2-3 other sites with ridiculous amounts of advertising and half-assed content.
This advertising-supported revenue model is really cluttering up the net, and I blame google 100%. Every halfwit wants a webpage with advertising on it, creating piles of redundant sites. Tech support website - there's a million of them, and they have different "guru" users, and people as the same questions on every site. Too much information, most of it wrong.
I've given up searching for error messages... half the hits are someone asking the question and no replies. Multitasking while the pages load, I usually resolve it myself before I find something relevant and/or useful.
Don't get me started on porn - seen her, seen her, yeah this is a copy of that other site, yeah these are all copyrighted images with the logos removed.
Slashdot Mirror
Easy - the Microsoft way usually gives you a virus. So I'll stick to Google :)
I'm assuming here, and forgive me if this is too obvious, that you went back to every one of those doctors you could remember and told them this story? Write a letter once and mail it to everyone as you remember them? Or visit them personally and look them in the eye as you tell them your story?
Sounds like you're trying to pass the word on, so I assume you already told all the docs who missed it, so they'll be unlikely to miss it again. And maybe they can collect some statistics now that they are aware of the problem?
For the good of all mankind, it wouldn't hurt to contact medical schools, or have the doctor who wrote your prescription finally to contact some people and let them know of this as well?
A person can make connections better than a computer can. Even if you reduce emphasis on memorization, you still have to give people a solid base knowledge. Especially if they work in emergency or live environments like ER or surgery. Since you can't know which ones will end up where, you have to teach everyone to memorize bunches of stuff.
I think what you mean is, teaching medical students to rely on their memories is a horrible idea when the information is available electronically. Memorizing things and depending on those memories - that's the distinction.
Teach them to put together information from their heads, medical journals, reference sources, other people, and any other source.
In that case, the money goes to people who didn't contribute to his campaign. So it's bad.
Except for the broadband companies - I guess there is some middle ground after all.
This is about high school textbooks, which you don't own. If you mark it up too much or cause other damage, you have to pay to replace that book. I like real books, but we're not talking about all books here. They will still be around as long as there is demand.
I garden, I don't hunt, and I'm well aware of the influence of color. You're saying humans are somehow attached to books - they have only been around since the invention of the printing press. I find gardening to be completely unconnected with humanity. We had to adapt to the world and developed agrarian society in response to the need for food. We didn't tend plants for decorative purposes. "Connected to the ground" in terms of needing food, sure. Creating a jungle-like oasis by surround our houses with greenery to recreate the natural environment of the undeveloped territory in which we lived for hundreds of thousands of years makes sense, however irrelevant. But "moving away from an old part of the brain" because we're moving text into the digital realm? The same place lots of people get their news and entertainment already? Weren't we moving away from an old part of the brain when we invented books and replaced scrolls? Or when we invented scrolls and stopped writing on walls? Or how about when we started writing on walls? I could make the same arguments against wall-paintings, because it was a disturbance which forever changed the course of human history.
Can science really back that up? If so, the people behind this plan need to know, and if you have anything of the sort to share it would benefit all of California's high school science students to do so. I'm fairly certain the "To Kill a Mockingbird" required reading won't use online texts - students will be handed a book. The publishing industry will fight against that like crazed badgers, since we are no longer talking about textbooks. You can't hand out millions of digital copies of an actual meant-to-be-enjoyed book and NOT have some serious problems with that industry, and that's not a part of this plan. Textbooks are, which are meant to be consumed by schools.
We're not making books obsolete. We're replacing high school science texts and being able to accommodate fixing things like typos and other errors that happen. Typically it is 5-10 years before those things get fixed, depending on the state, because of the textbook purchase cycle. The opportunity is here to fix that. Even if all textbooks go electronic we're not making books obsolete.
There is a difference, of course. Some people like a real book, others don't care. You'll have people on both sides. Based on the discussion at hand, none of your other points are relevant. Notes in the margins don't matter - that's a personal preference of yours, books have nothing to do with wall paintings and story telling, "creativity will plummet" is completely unsubstantiated, "start from a young age" contradicts the idea that older students will be better able to cope with t
Are you a troll? Or just confused?
Who writes in the margins? Public schools at least try to minimize that, because the books get reused for several years. You don't want next year's kids reading this year's notes. Actually writing the notes is more of a benefit than reading something someone else wrote last year. How does PDF inhibit the ability to think?
What's the difference to the brain in reading computer text vs. book text? Are you thinking that students won't be tempted to visit iTunes or chat while reading a book? Think twice - that notebook next to them is always on, they'll do it regardless. Plus kids are getting used to doing things online - it makes sense to move away from textbooks as long as there is some sort of "appreciating of dead tree reading" being taught somewhere. Maybe moving away from that old part of the brain (if that's not something you just pulled out of your butt) is a good thing and will benefit us. Go make a study and let us know what you think with science behind you, not superstition.
What? This is public school, starting from a young age. You are probably thinking this is college. Not the case.
You are correct about one thing - some will benefit from this change, some won't. Public education is like that, since you can't serve everyone's needs completely within a reasonable budget.
Your entire rant seems like a knee-jerk reaction to new technology. Would you kindly read it again and tell me if I'm really all that wrong?
Error: Ego is too big. Please shrink and try your search again.
There is a code search option for google. Use it instead of the general purpose search engine meant to sifting through unorganized (indexed, yes) data. Google is collecting your clicks, but they aren't looking at YOUR clicks, they are looking for patterns in the general populace. Quit thinking your data is important, and use the facilities provided.
http://www.google.com/codesearch
If you put "code search" into Google, you might find that. I did.
Also, Google can't do anything if the manufacturer doesn't provide links to support documentation. In most cases, I've found most of the docs available on the reseller's site. The MFR usually requires that you sign in or do some other foolish thing before providing you with options. Or maybe they have their data sheets hidden under a robots.txt file because they don't want Google siphoning gigs of data each dime it spiders. Not google's fault. If you know the manufacture, why not go to their website directly? Why do you expect google to 1) spider everything 2) figure out which is the MFR and which is the reseller 3) figure out from a bunch of numbers you're looking for a manufactured part number? Again, the facilities provided allow you to search a part on a particular site, just add " site:google.com" or whichever the mfr's domain is.
Also, what's your beef about auto-correct again? Did Google turn that option on in all of your apps and you can't turn it off? spend some time customizing the dictionary in Word (if you enjoy self flagellation) or whatever you're whining about. Are you expecting software to be contextually aware, when it can barely figure out what you want it to do RIGHT NOW?
Also, how is software supposed to learn that you don't like something it does? That's a lot of learning - the current iteration of software simply needs well-organized, easily accessible options concerning the stuff users have complained about during testing and development. What I think you need is the "Any time I delete your auto-correction, put the original content you replaced in the dictionary and don't ask me again" option. Most people won't want that option, but this way it doesn't have to try to interpret what you like or don't like - because if you're already irritated by the way it works, you're not going to like it when it adds additional logic to do things on your behalf.
I wonder if we're just getting older.
You see, back in the day, we had to learn assembler to write programs. Then they made C and other higher-level languages. And then interpreted languages. but even when writing VB.NET or C#, in my head I'm doing the equivalent of the original C++ to C translator, adding C to ASM on one side and OOP to C++ on the other side.
I sometimes wonder that, back when search sucked (right around the time of Northern lights / AltaVista) I could find anything. It wasn't persistence - it was putting the right terms in. Think of what you want to see on the page, and let it do a simple look-up.
google is not processing data that way any more. We have to re-learn how to do our specific searches. I don't have an answer for you tho, still figuring it out. Meantime, try just asking a question like the idiot users do. It works more often than I expect.
Pretty sneaky. If they want to use DRM, they have to basically say they believe people won't be able to break it. Because giving up copyright protection means the only protection is DRM.
Then they'll say we can't do that because DRM is broken... so then we ask why have DRM at all?
The answer of course has nothing to do with protecting content, and has more to do with making you re-buy things in various formats instead of letting you format-shift.
Back them into a corner. Of course it'll never happen, just nice to think about.
Captcha: retail
It's the difference between Radio and buying a CD. I like finding new stuff on the radio (or at least I used to, when they played new stuff). Then buy on CD if I like it. Streaming *should* be higher usage as people look for new sounds, then download the little bit of it they like.
If you only want to download things, and delete the stuff you don't like, that's fine. but I'd rather not use my hdd to store and delete crap - that's what RAM is for.
It's not about supporting the FORMATS, it's about the CODECS which deal with the formats.
There is literally no additional testing MS has to do if they write codecs according to the published spec and then allow WMP to use whatever codecs are installed. That's the way it's worked since MS had the idea of VFW plugins. If their code works from the spec, other peoples' code should too.
It is up to the codec developers to test and always has been, and to update the API calls if needed. This is about just not loading third-party codecs.
I'm sure it's just a reaction to crappy codecs making it look like WMP is crashing. Normal users will be able to play their normal mainstream media files, and even have DRM operate silently in the background with very little notice paid.
Users who require anything outside of mainstream codec support are not the typical use case, nor are they the targeted user base. They aren't trying to prevent people using certain codecs, just making the typical path easier.
People panned Vista for crashes and unexpected things, and I'm sure they are trying to eliminate as much potential for crashes since a crash can usually be turned into a vulnerability as well. Media players, especially ones which embed into browsers, are an easy target for hacking.
I'm sorry, I TIVO'd the previous discussion and just now got around to playing it back.
But... with LEDs you don't get to shoot a powerful laser at a tungsten filament!
Yes, solve the problem for everyone's child at the same time. Ask them what their current system is, and how they intend to fix it. Bring several of these suggestions to the table, including the low-tech ones, and let them know that it is not acceptable to lose children.
You can fix your problem, but in 5 years when your kid is safe and someone else's kid gets raped and murdered, won't you feel bad for solving it for yourself?
you're oversimplifying, which is why these arguments go off the tracks so often.
Lots of people write software for personal use (even if it's just a patch submitted), and then decide to release the source. These are people who made a product and don't want to lose their rights or controlling stake. It's available, you can use it, but don't go about claiming it's yours. If you fix something let me know.
Other people see a need for software and write it, with the intent that others will use it. These are the altruists, but they are far more rare. Most of them still want to be recognized for what they did. They would be happy with patches, but mostly want to produce software.
Still others don't really care about their contribution. If I wrote a web server, it would be in the vein of "yet another web server" and I wouldn't feel particularly like getting credit for it. If I wrote something particularly innovative, I certainly would want credit and adoration. Reverse engineering a proprietary format, I'd want some recognition if someone used my documentation to make the next killer app, because it represents lots of hours of work which aren't contained within the source - the source is just the result of lots of testing and research.
If I made a popular web server like Apache, I would expect people to test, file bug reports, give feedback, request features - and if these were lacking I'd figure either it's either perfect and complete or unused. Feedback of any sort lets you know people use your product. If I were writing my own web server to do something specialized, based on Apache, I wouldn't feel much like contributing changes back, nor would I feel that Apache could make use of my customizations. Maybe a few of its users would be interested, but I wouldn't submit patches upstream - just make my source available for those people looking for similar customizations.
There are piles of different use cases, and reasons for hacking on some source or another, and many different reasons for producing and making the source available. so you can't just paint it black and white and say everyone giving away source code should feel the same. There are piles of different OSI-approved licenses just because you can't put everything into a single bucket, or 5 buckets, or 10.
Different motivations, different purposes, different people. that's why open source thrives, and it's also why it's so fragmented with forks coming and going all the time and multiple distros. you can't give one rule which applies to everyone.
Quit going for ratings and produce real journalism, and it will be worth paying for. The crap will get sifted out. But there's very few sources left for that.
Any "newspaper" with cover stories or front-page news on entertainment or celebrity should be disqualified. I hope they all die and have to start over, because I can't get real news from news outlets. I know who won American Idol, but I don't want to know it. I intentionally tried to avoid learning this, but I had no choice.
It's called a "newspaper". Put news in it. Another celebrity blah blah blah something, that isn't new, that's old news with a different famous person.
Captcha: circus. How appropriate.
This is not funny. I work at a fortune 11x company and I know several things are true.
1) We use SAP because they made a pitch and hooked a sucker in a suit.
2) You buy SAP, then a plan to "customize" it.
3) Customize means "finish the code"
4) It also means you pay high-ranking aka high-earning business types piles of money to give requirements to SAP when a junior coder could just do the obvious and have something that works
5) The requirements you give to SAP are exactly the same as what the sales pitch said it already did
I'm sure I could go on. This is not a funny comment, it is how SAP works. Mod me scary or obvious if you want, but not funny.
Anyone he nominates for that position would be in direct conflict of the directives of the locally-elected Czar of Toilet Paper, my wife.
A successful salesman once he told me, if that first woman says "I don't know..." he pretty much knew he wouldn't sell anything. but if the first one said "Oh, I want one" everyone was going to get one.
A true libertarian (lower case), he had no reason to lie to me about that.
Other comments aside, if you said "hard drive" and he didn't go to the store and ask for a "hard drive" or look for a box that says "hard drive" then I don't see a problem here. Language is language, and hopefully the ignorant fool learned something from this.
Also, if you are diagnosing your friend's hard drive and you fail to explain what hard drive broken means, you're the retard. And unless you're making money off this, you've also opened the door to being his free personal tech support. If you're already fixing the computer you should be the one to get the hard drive fixed, or give him specific enough information he can fend for himself. And if you made a remote diagnosis based on his description alone, you're the double retard. He probably only needed to press the 'any' key' and you told him the drive was broke.
What's the difference between someone downloading your book for free and not reading it, and someone cracking it open in a bookstore and deciding not to buy it?
You're fooling yourself if you think that everyone who downloads a copy even looks at it. In reality, many if not most of the downloads never get read. Of those, few go beyond evaluating a few pages and deciding not to keep it. Of those, most will simply keyword search for a particular idea and get their fill just as thy might sitting in a bookstore or library. So how much money are you losing when people copy something and then don't read it?
Others have already noted 1) It's a textbook so sod off 2) it's 10 years old so sod off 3) you expect to be paid for something you did 10 years ago so sod off 4) you think it's good enough to command $51 without being able to evaluate its utility so sod off.
Also, according to Amazon you made a Kindle version that's $10 cheaper. In 1999. Before the actual book was out (July 31 vs. August for the print copy). So the content is worth $41, and the paper/ink $10? Do you really think other people value your book at $41, or are most of them buying it because they have to?
Finally, there are piles of places to learn about compression directly from the source code, so I would expect anyone serious enough to pay $50 to actually go download open-source tools and study those a bit instead. Data compression is one of those topics all over the intertubes and covered at length.
O wait there's more, from the back cover (according to Amazon):
How's that working out for you?
Allow me to rephrase and extend. If this person doesn't fight back, they are ruining it for the rest of us. You have to fight back, or you effectively make it legal for people to do this.
I know people who have gotten arrested and jailed for things that the US supreme court has ruled would be unconstitutional to enforce. But if your lawyer doesn't point this out and that first judge isn't aware of the ruling, you're going to jail. By not enforcing your rights, you're letting the executive branch of government have power they should not have.
Blog posts are one thing, and the number of e-mail inquiries and phone calls seems to be impressive for such a story, but my point is we have to make sure we make enough noise that this won't happen again. Maybe this has been enough, maybe it hasn't. Let it be a reminder either way: Know your rights and exercise them, or you're ruining it for everyone.
Google set up this nice search engine, then put adverts on it, and allowed others to have adverts.
Now, for every search I do there are 3-4 relevant sites, 5-6 exact copies of those same sites on a different server adding adsense advertising, and 2-3 other sites with ridiculous amounts of advertising and half-assed content.
This advertising-supported revenue model is really cluttering up the net, and I blame google 100%. Every halfwit wants a webpage with advertising on it, creating piles of redundant sites. Tech support website - there's a million of them, and they have different "guru" users, and people as the same questions on every site. Too much information, most of it wrong.
I've given up searching for error messages... half the hits are someone asking the question and no replies. Multitasking while the pages load, I usually resolve it myself before I find something relevant and/or useful.
Don't get me started on porn - seen her, seen her, yeah this is a copy of that other site, yeah these are all copyrighted images with the logos removed.
Fuck you internet, and fuck you google.
It's also good to remember that StarTeam is a Borland product, not a Sun product.