No, they have a good point. True, grammar and spelling don't seperate good ideas from bad ideas, but they are valid indicators of how much you actually care about what you've written.
What is an acceptable level of mistakes ? Is one misspelled word reason enough to throw away someones idea ? How about one badly formed sentance ? How about someone who doesn't speak english well, does that invalidate thier ideas ? Who sets these standards ? Who is holding them to this standard ?
Elected officials have a finite amount of time to work with, just like everyone else. It shouldn't be spent parsing badly-written letters and flame mail.
Flame mail is one thing, however discarding an idea, no matter how good it is, based entirely on how it being poorly expressed is elitist, which I consider to be an unacceptable trait in an Elected Official. If an "Elected Official" doesn't have time or the staff to read his mail, then he needs to get more staff, he should not throw away perfectly good ideas, comments and opinions based on obitrary standards.
Technical people in general prize elegance--conciseness, clarity, and efficiency--in the work that they do. Why should we settle for less in our paper communication?
We should accept this because not everyone express themselves well or even the same way. Do you disregard people who don't speak english well ? I hope you don't. I stand by my original statment, just because someone does not express themselves well does not mean the idea is bad, the idea should be judged on its merits, not on so called standards of good grammar.
Absolutely true. I work as an assistant to a senator (hence the anon. post), and stuff like this just gets discarded before any "important" people even read it. Grammar and spelling count almost as much as the ideas presented in the letter.
This is an incredibly elitist attitude. In effect you and the Senater you work for are saying, spelling and grammar are more important than the idea being expressed or even the person who is expressing it. Just because someone does not express themselves well, does not invalidate them as a human being. Being a grammar troll on Slashdot is one thing, but a US Senator and his staff should be interested in what everyone has to say, regardless of how poorly it is expressed. If you really feel this way and the Senator you work for supports this, then both of you need to find a new line of work
Perens will not be arrested and other than Slashdot, little or no media coverage will take place. When asked, the official spokesman for the RIAA and the MPAA, will simply state, it is not their intention to use the DMCA to stifle free speech. It will be very anticlimatic.
The advantage to this is, it could be used as leverage in the future to get people off by proving the DMCA is being applied selectivly. Maybe the DMCA hasn't been proven unconstitutional at this point, but maybe the application of the law is unconstitutional.
Correct. For instance, it would be totally immoral for a person to committ suicide (an act expressly forbidden in the Bible and illegal in most states) to prevent a terrorist act from killing thousands. We'll just have to live with the worse outcome.
This is not suicide, it is heroic sacrifice of ones life to save others, there is a difference.
It would also be wrong to go back and in time to 1937 and shoot Hitler, before he gassed millions of innocent people because savings uncountable lives of children just isn't justified by taking away fewer than 10 lives of a raving lunatic.
Time travel "What If" type scenarios are silly. You have two problems, first, at that time in his life, he had not commited any of those crimes and you would be in effect killing an innocent man. Second, there is no way to insure by removing him things wouldn't be worse, another, dictator could rise up, put Germany on the H-Bomb fast track and use it first against Russia, winning the war. Perhaps because some economic plan was never implemented, Germany and possibly Europe could have remained in a depression for much longer, causing millions to die of starvation and or disease. Or WWII may happened anyway, changing virtually nothing.
There are millions of possibilties and not one of them means anything.
There are plenty of organizations, the problem is clout. Of the three you mentioned, only the ACLU has any real clout in DC and thus far have been unwilling to take up our cause. What really needs to happen is a a true lobby group needs to be formed. One that is staffed by people who know how the system works and isn't afraid to walk into a politicians office with a $100,000 dollar campaign donation and list of demands. Yes its unethical, yes it sickens me to think about it, but it is the way things get done in DC, like it or not.
This is because when it matters, Microsoft's security is tough as nails.
Was it 2000 or 2001 that Microsoft's own internal network was cracked and they were afraid the source code to Windows had been stolen. Do a google search on "windows source code stolen", you will get plenty of links. If they can't protect there own systems, what makes me think they can protect mine.
Yep, my wifes GrandMother is a Linux using Mama. I preinstalled it for her before she got the computer and I spent a couple of hours showing her how to use it. She can't compile from source, but she sure can install an RPM and use RedCarpet and she doesn't mind it asking for the root password, because it keeps Uncle John from screwing things up, like he did with her last computer.
But I don't know how to do this when anything is root without logging out,
If you are in X Windows, open a terminal and type "su -", once you type in the root password, you will be root, when you are done type "exit" to drop back to your regular user account. You can do the same thing if you are not in X Windows or you can press "Ctrl-Alt-F2", which will take you to another login screen, once you are done, type "exit" and press "ctrl-alt-F1" to get back to you original screen.
If you want to include libraries, better hit/lib,/usr/lib and/usr/X11R6/lib as well and while you are at it, look in/usr/X11R6/bin as well. Tell you what, I'll switch to Windows XP after Microsoft has solved its on going stability and security problems, when I can get XP, Visual Studio.NET Professional, Office Professional, BackOffice, Terminal Server, Internet Information Server and unlimited seats for all included software on a 6 CD set for $49.95, heck, I'd even pay $99.99 for it.
You Windows guys are funny. Do me a favor, find a Linux box, drop to a commandline and run ls on/bin,/sbin,/usr/bin and/usr/sbin. Then come back and tell me again how Windows is "complicated enough underneath so that you can do useful stuff (like Unix.)".
They are just as complicated when you get down into the details of their inner workings though. Probably more so.
I thought people used Windows because it wasn't complicated and people are willing to forgive its stability and security problems, only because it is easy to use. So if Windows is just as complicated as Unix and maybe more so, why should I use it ?
What is with all these 'modding' nonsense. Do you see builders modding their trowels to look like glass spaceships? Or plumbers modding their wrenchs to look like Xmas tree decorations?
No I have not seen anything you mentioned, but I have been to car shows and seen some pretty cool car mods. If its alright for car owners, why not computer owners ?
The sad part of users "running as root" is it is easily dealt with by a proper installion and configuration of sudo. How hard would it be to write an X front end for sudo. When the system is first booted up it asks for a root password and a normal user name and password. After that it boots into the normal user account and when the user needs to be root, such as installing software, Linux simply invokes XSudo, asks for the root password, if it correct, it does what it needs to. RedHat does this, so does Mac OS X. It would be simple to implement and solve 99% of the problems associated with running as root.
This could also cause problems with Windows Shareware and Freeware programs. How much is it going to cost to get a binary certified ? How many Shareware programers will be able to afford it ? Why would a Freeware programer pay for certification when he gives the program away for free ? Who will be in charge of certification ? Microsoft ? Wouldn't that be conflict of interest, in that they would have the ablity to deny a competitor, say Eudora, entry into the market, by denying them certification or pricing certification out of reach.
I read an online comic yesterday, I forget the name off hand, but one character basicly tells the other, Attack of the Clones is an Allegory of the 9/11 attack, the subsquent "War on Terrorism" and even goes so far as to imply GW Bush and Osma Bin Laden were/are in on it together. When the other character implies he is crazy, he suggests a bet that Lucas will be dead before Episode 3 can be made.
Aside from Intel, I haven't heard any comments from other computer industry companies.
Besides Apple and possibly Gateway, I think we can expect the continued silence of the PC industry. The reality of this unfortunate situation is that the PC manufacturers have nothing to loose. They will make a ton of money selling Non-DRM systems to those in the know and then after the law comes into effect, they will make more money selling DRM systems to those people who don't understand. The OEM's do very little real R&D beyond testing components for compatibilty, it is the component makers who bear the responsibility and cost developing DRM components. By keeping thier mouths shut, they never have to explain to anyone why they sided with priates and terrorists.
You make freedom sound like a bad thing. Let me ask you this, what freedoms are you willing to give up ? Owning a gun ? Free movement outside your resident State ? Privacy ? Fair Trial ? Are you truly willing to throw the contitution away ? If you want to give up your rights and freedoms, that is fine by me, but don't drag the rest of us down with you. I am personally not willing to give up any rights or liberites, not in the name of "Security" and not "For The Children".
No amount of liberty to give up is ever worth a false sense of security.
Typical knee-jerk conservative response. Did you ever consider the following: No amount of security to give up is ever worth a false sense of liberty. It goes both ways.
Think about it.
Yes it does go both ways, in one version you have freedom and minimal security and in the other you have no freedom and minimal security. The problem is, when our liberty goes away, Osama Bin Laden will not be the biggest threat to our well being, it will be our own government. If you think the US government is above oppression of its people, I suggest you read some history, check out some books on how the government, in the name of security, treated the American Indians in the late 19th and early 20th century. While you are at it, read up on the fate of Japanese Americans during WWII and lets not forget the actions J. Edgar Hoover and Joseph MaCarthy. In all of these cases, freedom and liberty were taken away from American Citizens for a net gain of ZERO in security.
The Founding Fathers did not trust the government and neither should you.
Microsoft would deliver a base set of Windows with such marginal functionality, then have a nice expensive upgrade you'd have to buy to get anything done
I can hear the conversation now...
Joe: I can't format this floppy.
MS Rep: Oh, no problem, you need to purchase the Format:Floppy Extension, but before you can do that you will need Read:Floppy and Write:Floppy as well. Normally they are $9.95 each, but if you buy all three, it will only cost $24.95.
Joe: Well...I guess I don't have a choice.
MS Rep: Great, we are also having a special on Copy:File this week...
If you really know where you can get a 1.x GHz Celeron system with digital flat panel display and DVD-R burner for $800, please let us all in on the secret
You entirly missed the point of my post, which was an answer to the question of why we will never see Aqua ported to the x86 platform. Right now no Celeron systems w/DvD burner is available for $800, but that does not mean we will never see one. The way prices fall in the x86 world, I wouldn't be suprised to see such a system next year some time.
In the previous article on this, many suggestions were put forth to skew the results of the information gathered. Don't do any sharing outside your own personally owned devices. Record shows, then fast forward through them and watch the commercials only, and be sure to backup and watch the same 3 seconds of a paticular commercial several times. Fast forward through the whole show, then do it again, to the same show. Record shows you hate then delete them without watching at all. For shows you paticularly like, run them two or three times, don't fast forward or mute the commercials. If even 10% of the people who own one of these, does at least one of these actions, SonicBlue can probably get the data thrown out as unreliable, because the lab animals knew they were being watched and changed thier habits or at the very least, you can make shows you like appear more appealing, because they are being watched several times before being deleted.
Slashdot Mirror
No, they have a good point. True, grammar and spelling don't seperate good ideas from bad ideas, but they are valid indicators of how much you actually care about what you've written.
What is an acceptable level of mistakes ? Is one misspelled word reason enough to throw away someones idea ? How about one badly formed sentance ? How about someone who doesn't speak english well, does that invalidate thier ideas ? Who sets these standards ? Who is holding them to this standard ?
To me this is just an EXCUSE and nothing more.
Elected officials have a finite amount of time to work with, just like everyone else. It shouldn't be spent parsing badly-written letters and flame mail.
Flame mail is one thing, however discarding an idea, no matter how good it is, based entirely on how it being poorly expressed is elitist, which I consider to be an unacceptable trait in an Elected Official. If an "Elected Official" doesn't have time or the staff to read his mail, then he needs to get more staff, he should not throw away perfectly good ideas, comments and opinions based on obitrary standards.
Technical people in general prize elegance--conciseness, clarity, and efficiency--in the work that they do. Why should we settle for less in our paper communication?
We should accept this because not everyone express themselves well or even the same way. Do you disregard people who don't speak english well ? I hope you don't. I stand by my original statment, just because someone does not express themselves well does not mean the idea is bad, the idea should be judged on its merits, not on so called standards of good grammar.
Absolutely true. I work as an assistant to a senator (hence the anon. post), and stuff like this just gets discarded before any "important" people even read it. Grammar and spelling count almost as much as the ideas presented in the letter.
This is an incredibly elitist attitude. In effect you and the Senater you work for are saying, spelling and grammar are more important than the idea being expressed or even the person who is expressing it. Just because someone does not express themselves well, does not invalidate them as a human being. Being a grammar troll on Slashdot is one thing, but a US Senator and his staff should be interested in what everyone has to say, regardless of how poorly it is expressed. If you really feel this way and the Senator you work for supports this, then both of you need to find a new line of work
So expect the mpaa to ignore it rather than make such a statement.
I agree, whatever they do, it will be low key and not much more than a shoulder shrug.
Perens will not be arrested and other than Slashdot, little or no media coverage will take place. When asked, the official spokesman for the RIAA and the MPAA, will simply state, it is not their intention to use the DMCA to stifle free speech. It will be very anticlimatic.
The advantage to this is, it could be used as leverage in the future to get people off by proving the DMCA is being applied selectivly. Maybe the DMCA hasn't been proven unconstitutional at this point, but maybe the application of the law is unconstitutional.
Correct. For instance, it would be totally immoral for a person to committ suicide (an act expressly forbidden in the Bible and illegal in most states) to prevent a terrorist act from killing thousands. We'll just have to live with the worse outcome.
This is not suicide, it is heroic sacrifice of ones life to save others, there is a difference.
It would also be wrong to go back and in time to 1937 and shoot Hitler, before he gassed millions of innocent people because savings uncountable lives of children just isn't justified by taking away fewer than 10 lives of a raving lunatic.
Time travel "What If" type scenarios are silly. You have two problems, first, at that time in his life, he had not commited any of those crimes and you would be in effect killing an innocent man. Second, there is no way to insure by removing him things wouldn't be worse, another, dictator could rise up, put Germany on the H-Bomb fast track and use it first against Russia, winning the war. Perhaps because some economic plan was never implemented, Germany and possibly Europe could have remained in a depression for much longer, causing millions to die of starvation and or disease. Or WWII may happened anyway, changing virtually nothing.
There are millions of possibilties and not one of them means anything.
There are plenty of organizations, the problem is clout. Of the three you mentioned, only the ACLU has any real clout in DC and thus far have been unwilling to take up our cause. What really needs to happen is a a true lobby group needs to be formed. One that is staffed by people who know how the system works and isn't afraid to walk into a politicians office with a $100,000 dollar campaign donation and list of demands. Yes its unethical, yes it sickens me to think about it, but it is the way things get done in DC, like it or not.
This is because when it matters, Microsoft's security is tough as nails.
Was it 2000 or 2001 that Microsoft's own internal network was cracked and they were afraid the source code to Windows had been stolen. Do a google search on "windows source code stolen", you will get plenty of links. If they can't protect there own systems, what makes me think they can protect mine.
Yep, my wifes GrandMother is a Linux using Mama. I preinstalled it for her before she got the computer and I spent a couple of hours showing her how to use it. She can't compile from source, but she sure can install an RPM and use RedCarpet and she doesn't mind it asking for the root password, because it keeps Uncle John from screwing things up, like he did with her last computer.
But I don't know how to do this when anything is root without logging out,
If you are in X Windows, open a terminal and type "su -", once you type in the root password, you will be root, when you are done type "exit" to drop back to your regular user account. You can do the same thing if you are not in X Windows or you can press "Ctrl-Alt-F2", which will take you to another login screen, once you are done, type "exit" and press "ctrl-alt-F1" to get back to you original screen.
If you want to include libraries, better hit /lib, /usr/lib and /usr/X11R6/lib as well and while you are at it, look in /usr/X11R6/bin as well. Tell you what, I'll switch to Windows XP after Microsoft has solved its on going stability and security problems, when I can get XP, Visual Studio .NET Professional, Office Professional, BackOffice, Terminal Server, Internet Information Server and unlimited seats for all included software on a 6 CD set for $49.95, heck, I'd even pay $99.99 for it.
You Windows guys are funny. Do me a favor, find a Linux box, drop to a commandline and run ls on /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin and /usr/sbin. Then come back and tell me again how Windows is "complicated enough underneath so that you can do useful stuff (like Unix.)".
They are just as complicated when you get down into the details of their inner workings though. Probably more so.
I thought people used Windows because it wasn't complicated and people are willing to forgive its stability and security problems, only because it is easy to use. So if Windows is just as complicated as Unix and maybe more so, why should I use it ?
What is with all these 'modding' nonsense. Do you see builders modding their trowels to look like glass spaceships? Or plumbers modding their wrenchs to look like Xmas tree decorations?
No I have not seen anything you mentioned, but I have been to car shows and seen some pretty cool car mods. If its alright for car owners, why not computer owners ?
The sad part of users "running as root" is it is easily dealt with by a proper installion and configuration of sudo. How hard would it be to write an X front end for sudo. When the system is first booted up it asks for a root password and a normal user name and password. After that it boots into the normal user account and when the user needs to be root, such as installing software, Linux simply invokes XSudo, asks for the root password, if it correct, it does what it needs to. RedHat does this, so does Mac OS X. It would be simple to implement and solve 99% of the problems associated with running as root.
I have both the long and short version on my TiVo, they cut out 8 of the 10 minutes of real dialog.
Allah is a Ballish moon god
I dare you to back this up with historical data, no Christian propaganda sites, please.
This could also cause problems with Windows Shareware and Freeware programs. How much is it going to cost to get a binary certified ? How many Shareware programers will be able to afford it ? Why would a Freeware programer pay for certification when he gives the program away for free ? Who will be in charge of certification ? Microsoft ? Wouldn't that be conflict of interest, in that they would have the ablity to deny a competitor, say Eudora, entry into the market, by denying them certification or pricing certification out of reach.
I read an online comic yesterday, I forget the name off hand, but one character basicly tells the other, Attack of the Clones is an Allegory of the 9/11 attack, the subsquent "War on Terrorism" and even goes so far as to imply GW Bush and Osma Bin Laden were/are in on it together. When the other character implies he is crazy, he suggests a bet that Lucas will be dead before Episode 3 can be made.
Aside from Intel, I haven't heard any comments from other computer industry companies.
Besides Apple and possibly Gateway, I think we can expect the continued silence of the PC industry. The reality of this unfortunate situation is that the PC manufacturers have nothing to loose. They will make a ton of money selling Non-DRM systems to those in the know and then after the law comes into effect, they will make more money selling DRM systems to those people who don't understand. The OEM's do very little real R&D beyond testing components for compatibilty, it is the component makers who bear the responsibility and cost developing DRM components. By keeping thier mouths shut, they never have to explain to anyone why they sided with priates and terrorists.
You make freedom sound like a bad thing. Let me ask you this, what freedoms are you willing to give up ? Owning a gun ? Free movement outside your resident State ? Privacy ? Fair Trial ? Are you truly willing to throw the contitution away ? If you want to give up your rights and freedoms, that is fine by me, but don't drag the rest of us down with you. I am personally not willing to give up any rights or liberites, not in the name of "Security" and not "For The Children".
No amount of liberty to give up is ever worth a false sense of security.
Typical knee-jerk conservative response. Did you ever consider the following: No amount of security to give up is ever worth a false sense of liberty. It goes both ways.
Think about it.
Yes it does go both ways, in one version you have freedom and minimal security and in the other you have no freedom and minimal security. The problem is, when our liberty goes away, Osama Bin Laden will not be the biggest threat to our well being, it will be our own government. If you think the US government is above oppression of its people, I suggest you read some history, check out some books on how the government, in the name of security, treated the American Indians in the late 19th and early 20th century. While you are at it, read up on the fate of Japanese Americans during WWII and lets not forget the actions J. Edgar Hoover and Joseph MaCarthy. In all of these cases, freedom and liberty were taken away from American Citizens for a net gain of ZERO in security.
The Founding Fathers did not trust the government and neither should you.
Microsoft would deliver a base set of Windows with such marginal functionality, then have a nice expensive upgrade you'd have to buy to get anything done
I can hear the conversation now...
Joe: I can't format this floppy.
MS Rep: Oh, no problem, you need to purchase the Format:Floppy Extension, but before you can do that you will need Read:Floppy and Write:Floppy as well. Normally they are $9.95 each, but if you buy all three, it will only cost $24.95.
Joe: Well...I guess I don't have a choice.
MS Rep: Great, we are also having a special on Copy:File this week...
If you really know where you can get a 1.x GHz Celeron system with digital flat panel display and DVD-R burner for $800, please let us all in on the secret
You entirly missed the point of my post, which was an answer to the question of why we will never see Aqua ported to the x86 platform. Right now no Celeron systems w/DvD burner is available for $800, but that does not mean we will never see one. The way prices fall in the x86 world, I wouldn't be suprised to see such a system next year some time.
In the previous article on this, many suggestions were put forth to skew the results of the information gathered. Don't do any sharing outside your own personally owned devices. Record shows, then fast forward through them and watch the commercials only, and be sure to backup and watch the same 3 seconds of a paticular commercial several times. Fast forward through the whole show, then do it again, to the same show. Record shows you hate then delete them without watching at all. For shows you paticularly like, run them two or three times, don't fast forward or mute the commercials. If even 10% of the people who own one of these, does at least one of these actions, SonicBlue can probably get the data thrown out as unreliable, because the lab animals knew they were being watched and changed thier habits or at the very least, you can make shows you like appear more appealing, because they are being watched several times before being deleted.