Re:Reasons to give *do* matter. Drug money donatio
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Why Do Open Source?
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· Score: 3
Well, let's turn tables a little more.
Say you're a poor, welfare receiving parent of a child in dire need of an expensive operation. Do you care where the money comes from?
I know that it's pretty extreme to compare that situation to open source, but really... Who really cares if code is written and released for 1)building own knowledge and skills, 2)beefing up a resume, 3) greater common good, 4) penance for past piracy, 5) the desire to attain status in the OSS community (Karma whoring).
1) is a respectable reason, since the redistribution of code is voluntary. A skill-polishing coder, if they do not release their product, are not in violation of the GPL, and so do not HAVE to release the source.
2) is a respectable reason, but you must release product and code as proof of posession of skills you put on a resume. Can't just say "I wrote a portal site, so I have these skills. Pay me." You CAN say, "Go to slashdot.org, *I* did that. Here's the code that makes it go, as proof of my qualifications." If you base on GLP, you must release your work - but what of the reason? The source is free, you're deemed qualified, we're all happy.
3) Insert my metaphysics quip here. Doing something for the 'common good' is BS; things are done for the satisfaction of having done them 'for the common good'. I get a rush for thinking in 'Utilitarian' terms, for example; it's an application of the theory.
4) Guilt and conscience suck. Until we learn to ignore them, we will do good to balance the scales.:) This is a very arguable point, but you can't say that you can't fathom it being a real reason. And hey! The source is free, so maybe the motivation of giving others an alternative to piracy isn't such a bad one.
5) ESR, RMS, Perens do this all the time. Witness recent Bruce Perens act of 'making an example' of BeOS. What self-righteousness!! "I am GPL, hear me threaten litigation and steal your thunder!" Grandstanding and self-appeasement by respected people is a pretty good source of temptation - it shows that with enough credibility, you can occasionally shoot your mouth off, and people will still pay attention to you.
Would I take blood-money, knowing it as such, for convenience purposes? NO! For dire need situations? Real tough call...
How about taking it in ignorance, building a life with it, and then finding out it's source? Would I sell my house and car? No. What I would do is skew my life to do Good with the benefits of Bad money.
Oh. Why did Rockefeller, Carnegie, Gates, et al give generously to charity? Do we care? Guilt for their good fortune? Maybe. Realization that past a certain amount, it makes no difference, so others might as well benefit? Maybe. Realization that you can't take it with you, so others might as well benefit? Maybe. Guilt for having exploited others to get the wealth? Maybe. Divine Inspiration? Perhaps.
Who really cares, and must we look the proverbial horse in the mouth? Not really - not in the case of OSS, that's for sure. Leach the code, read the code, tweak the code, share the code. Learn from the code to improve yourself and the code. And if the original author wrote it in the hope that it would help him get a better job... What of it?
Are you suggesting that the intention of contributing to open source development is in any way important?
That's almost like asking WHY give to charity?
Is it more Right to give to charity to lessen human suffering, and more Wrong to give to charity to shave a few hundred bucks off your income to drop down by one tax bracket??
I see no conflict here, since the charity still benefits. Wether one is primarily motivated to do Good for selfish reasons, or for purely philandrophic ones, makes little difference.
The End does not always justify the Means, not by a long shot. But if what you do is Good, then your personal reasons for doing this Good are irrelevant, since the Good is still done.
On a more metaphysical level, I am of the belief that EVERYONE does Good for selfish reasons. Even Mother Teresa heals lepers for the benefit of the warm fuzzies of knowing that "I am a Good person", or "I am making God happy" or whatever. Yes, the lepers benefit, but the personal satisfaction of helping the lepers - and not actually helping the lepers - is the driver for the act. Not the recognition one receives, but the internal, emotional 'dopamine rush' of satisfaction with one's Goodness.. ramble-ramble...
Self-sacrifice can be selfish. Benefit the community as a side-effect of pumping up your resume. We'll all be grateful.
Yeah, I bought a WinCE-based Nino. Pretty impressive unit, for about a week. Slightly larger than a PalmIII.
Slow, crashes, little storage memory (app bloat), slow, cumbersome GUI (scaled down Outlook), slow, "What do you mean I have to close an app to add a new appointment? All that's running is the Calendar and the Address Book!!", oh and did I mention SLOW?
No thanks Microsoft. A PalmVx running at half the speed will do nicely, thank you. So I can't look at a video clip in 16-bit color, so what? Why would I do that on a PDA?
Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. And just because someone else almost did, doesn't mean you must. Then again - seeing ANOTHER MS gimick do a face-plant might be entertaining. Remember Bob?
This story is immediately followed by the one about Miramax planning to distribute movies via the net... Don't hat just beat all?
So a movie house can be 'mindless', 'isolating' and 'arrogant' (we already knew this) but a Federal entity will not?? Ha!
There is hope though. If a wealthy corporation were to amass it's own library of 'all works', and make them available online, in competition to the LoC; such a company would be doing the world a service. (BillG, you reading this? Want to REALLY make a difference?)
The government is used to being competed with in the service sector. The Post Office is being displaced by the likes of FedEx and UPS, not to mention AOL and other ISPs..
If the Fed won't do it, vote for someone else. If that doesn't work, talk to the corporates in charge.
You are then given the option (via touch tone keys)
Wrong approach.
First, as someone else pointed out, they're making money on you from this 'service'. They also charge the telemarketter to be 'unlisted'. At least there's symmetry.:)
Second, they're still wasting your time. You have to listen, and think, and push buttons. You're already off the crapper, out of the shower, away from the table - interrupted.
The effort of dealing with the process of telemarketting should be placed squarely on the shoulders of the telemerketter. They should deduct (pay) from your long-distance bill for the amount of time they cause you to waste.
Telemarketting should be PROFITABLE to the potential customer. Like getting paid to surf, you should be getting paid to listen to the sales-pitch, on a 'by choice only' manner.
Or maybe, the phone company should offer you a FREE (paid for by the 'Telemarketters Federal Fund ' or something) LCD screen, like the stand-alone callerID box, that will scroll the numbers and deals of the telemerketters... You review them at leisure (or cancel cold, your choice) and call back at the push of a button, those companies or charities that you're actually interested in.
US West makes money on both sides; pretty damn sleazy.
[rant] It's just as sleazy as the Federal, State and optionally Local governments, charging you tax on your income, and then again on your spending. And one more time on any substantial property you bought with your (already taxed) money.
This being tax season and all... Something's rotten in the state of Denmark, and it ain't all that cheeze. If 10% was good enough for God, it should be good enough for Uncle Sam! [/rant]
Well, the US Post Office would get an exemption on the grounds that junk mail subsidises other mail (or at least it should; I'm not sure if it's really not the other way around).
It is the other way around, unfortunatelly. Look at your bills. Most are stamped with a lesser amount than the cost of a stamp. This I have no HUGE problem with - except that they always include crap and advertisements in the envelope, along with my bills. They OUGHT to be mailed by weight, at a high rate. Get rid of those ads and credit card 'checks' at 20% APR.:)
But, the junk mail that I get - mostly from Microsoft, since I 'accidentally' registered some of their products years ago - costs pennies to send. If it cost a full $0.32 (Soon to be $0.33 BTW) then there would be less of it. I keep a PO box in addition to my home address. The PO is what is reflected on my registrations and other 'non-personal' correspondence. I get - I shit you not - a pound of junk each week; all nice, high-bond, five color, glossy paper too.
If mass-mailed junk cost $0.50 to send, you can be damned sure that it would be opt-in only, at least in most cases...
The only way to truly regulate businesses is by making it un-profitable to do something that you find un-desirable. They can afford to spend years in court appeals, after all - since that's a tax write-off, not an 'operating expense'. It's about economics, not principles.
I don't know Mr. Poucher, but he sounds like the stereotypical American career academic. I've had the misfortune of studying under a few.
They rise to a certain level of recognition, probably higher then they feel (deep down) they deserve. They resolve this insecurity about their competency by believing that they are actually the 'right hand of God', and look down on the unwashed masses with utter contempt, from their Ivory Tower.
'How DARE this student (spoken through clenched teeth) question MY process and MY organization of MY contest!? Without ME he is nothing.'
Typical case of recto-cranial inversion, easily cured with a clue-stick beating and a few months at a REAL JOB.
Sure, to the un-indoctrinated, it MAY appear that Terraserver is slashdotted, but those of us 'in the know' know better.
Be afraid. Be VERY afraid... (no, wait, wrong movie)
Secretary: "Hey Jabber, there's an Agent Smith here to see you.."
Solutions? They're in suspension.
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Faster
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The only downside (if there is one) is that it's all reflection and no solutions.
The same can be said for Darwin's "Origin of the Species".
"Faster" sounds like a trend observers journal. Do we want proposed solutions to the process of life? I'm not so sure. I think that a keen observation is enough.
This way, those folks who are bothered by their ever-accelerating life-style can take steps to slow down. Others might actually get some useful hints on how to work even faster.
Doing paperwork while having sex?? Who would have thunk? Paper-cuts much be a b!tc# though.
Hey! Hacking while fscking!! The best of both worlds!
Too true. Add to this the fact that LCD screens are just horrible to look at in sun-light (glare) and it's a solution in search of a problem.
Nice idea for Crusoe-powered web-pads for use by students at college campuses, but then again... It's not convenient to sit in direct sunlight to even read a book. A shady spot, under a tree is much better, and, well.. there goes the solar power idea.
Well, a revolutionarily efficient solar-panel could be made into roofing material. That's about as close as they'll get to powering my PC.
Kudos to Jenni, congratulations for sticking to your guns and putting your life on display.
Kudos to CT for seeing JenniCam as worthy of a Slashdot article.
I've seen posts here, mostly commenting how JenniCam is about Jenni 'doing' her boyfriend. Grow up guys. Read the journals and get a clue.
/Disclaimer: I am NOT a JenniCam subscriber. I just pop in now and again out of curiosity.
Some time ago, Jennifer went through a messy situation with her folks. At that same time, I had a very similar thing happen in my family. I'm a grown adult, but it still shakes you to the core to see your parents at each other's throats. Reading about Jenni's experiences, having a glimpse inside her feelings - which she bravely puts on display - helped me realize, confront and resolve my own issues. Jenni, thanks.
That was a rather singular event, but it made me a fan of Jenni's courage. She's forced me to consider the fact that I'm neither special nor typical - just like her. So she takes her boyfriend to bed on the Internet. So what? She also does yoga, pets her cats, hacks on her PCs, watches South Park...
She's one of us, whatever US means. She just doesn't hide any aspect; doesn't consider things dirty or inappropriate. Such restrictions are ours to place on ourselves.
So, Jen, thanks a bunch for exposing your self (and I do mean SELF, not body). It's nice to know another person. Best of luck in CA.
Right. Setting up the car with a more aggressive chip or rigging it for NOx is not 'approved'. The reasons are safety and pollution (and the implicit "we're in charge" statement from the gov). But it's not due to the fact that you might break your car in the process of modifying it.
Would the auto-maker object? Well, except in an effort to look got for the government? I don't think so. They'd be glad to see you roast your engine - so you could buy another.
By that same token, Intel ought to make overclocking easy, and double the labeled speed rating should be an encouraged Holy Grail.
If you toast it, you'll replace it.:) It's a much more believable policy for a company that wants o make money.
But, software licensing has set a nasty precedent. The DVD (DeCSS) fiasco has called the bluff of hardware 'ownership' , and been slapped down for it. We buy the disc, but we apparently only LICENSE THE RIGHT (or privilege if you ask the RIAA) to use the content.
How long before Intel and AMD ( and other hackable hardware manufacturers (Ford??) ) try to LICENSE USAGE RIGHTS to hardware over which THEY retain OWNERSHIP.
Can you imagine having to SIGN A EULA for your next car??? This seems to be where things are going - unless technically minded, prestigious people fire back at the media, and reduce overclocking to what it is... Putting bigger pipes on your hot-rod.
That's all we're doing after all. We're replacing plugs with Platinum tipped ones, putting in after-market filters and hoses and wires.
I don't hear Ford bitching about people tweaking their cars. In fact, a heavily modified hot-rod is sweet to the manufacturer. It shows that it's owner is PASSIONATE about what it can do; not that it's owner considers the COTS version inadequate.
Here is a general rule of thumb, that someone still has to disprove:
Quality costs money. If something is being done in a way that doesn't make sense, figure out who stands to profit from this, and it will make sense.
Quality parts are more expensive to make than shoddy and unreliable parts.
Workers who make quality parts have to work more slowly/carefully, and CARE about what they make. To care about one's job, one has to enjoy it (at least somewhat). Further, to care about one's job, the job must be worth holding on to.
For a job to be worth holding on to, it must be more qualifiably/quantitatively better (lucrative/interesting/...) than the alternative.
High-tech production facilities can not exist in a vacuum, and so are in competition with other industries for workers (even in the Far East, a chip fab must be close to a dock, and Nike factories).
Conclusion: The cheaper the parts, the less a company pays it's workers, the more poorly treated the company's workers are. We can be reasonably sure that workers in hard-disk plants are paid and treated better than those in Kathie Lee's sweat-shops, but I'm sure that people working for Western Digital are treated better than those in the employ of Maxtor.
This man is probably the single most captivating and interesting person slashdot has ever interviewed... I'm not sure what I was expecting, but that's not what I got.
These excerpts in particular made my jaw drop:
I think we have begun to understand the nature of mediocrity as an attractor in educational systems and how to change the utility functions to avoid collusion, and apply this to human learning (Elizabeth Sklar).
I am on a spiritual quest to understand [God as] the principles of the universe which allow self-organization of life as a chemical process far from equilibrium which dissipates energy and creates structure that exploits emergent properties of physics.
[re: Turing Test] So I propose using the Louis Armstrong Test, his answer to the question "What is jazz?"
Reading is fundamental.
Talk to me about the ethics, when your very own open source movement leads to the inevitability of an Intel instruction set monopoly by providing a useful alternative to Microsoft:)
Jobs in AI are just like software jobs everywhere:... But find a great graduate program in computer science, and you will likely find fun and exciting work for no salary and no equity!
I think a SETI for coherent intentional behavior emerging out of the infrastructure would be a fun project...
If RMS was a radical advocate of anonymity who wrote the GPL so you couldn't put your name on the source code... participating might provide less utility.
When I recently tried to corner the market in pig latin domain names... somebody else had grabbed the URL!
Once secure distribution of programs on a rental basis is established, all content publishing will move inexorably into that mode to maximize profits.
... it is the soft underbelly of "Starship Economics" that Gene Roddenberry died before coming up with the backstory for...
Very interesting point. For the most part, I agree, but...
You say that Franklin, Jefferson, et al were the local Ruling Class, and led the revolt of otherwise ignorant peasants.
By that same token, the likes of Torvalds, Cox, Barlow, Perens, Stallman... are the current local Ruling Class, leading us, the ignorant hackers, against the oppressive tyrant of Redmond.
Hmmm... But we follow the GNU/Linux dogma because it offers a choice. We are pretty well aware of the issues, and we CHOOSE to fight the good fight. It's not a matter of following him who shouts loudest. We follow grass-roots leaders, elected on merit not only of their words but of their works. They, the roots of out little revolution here, have done a lot with their own hands already. We simply believe in their work, and contribute - by informed choice.
This is not to say that we are not immune to the mob mentality or the forming of cults of personality. Any article on/., even this one (surprise) is populated with zealots, trolls, troglodytes... Tempers flair, we're just people after all.:)
The government is right to bide it's time, and step cautiously around the punishment for Microsoft. The Conclusions of Law have had a significant effect on the technology stocks. The economy has reacted violently to government muscle flexing. The consequences of the punishment must be considered with even more care than making sure that the punishment fits the crime.
Many of us would like to see M$ broken up into technology sectors: OS, Apps, Services, maybe Dev Tools.. What would be the effect? Is it not a good thing to have some stability of leadership?
I agree with the highly moderated poster who suggests forcing M$ to open it's standards (and APIs). Further I think there would need to be constraints on the changing of these - since M$ has often changed file formats to force mass upgrades to the new version of MS-Whatever.
It's (M$) not an easy problem to solve, and saying it's hard doesn't make it easier. Relating it to Mills or Smith or Charlemagne won't make a lick of difference. I, for one, am glad to finally see tax dollars at work, rather than fueling studies on wether blue marshmallows cause cancer.
My work development box is a PII-266 with 128MB RAM. I'm developing with JDK 1.1.6, 1.2.2 and 1.3 in JBuilder 3 Pro. My backend is Oracle 8i on and RS/6k.
No problems.
Yes, the UI take a while to instantiate all the objects and do all the needed set-up; I thread off an animated splash-screen and no one is the wiser that it's actually working.
Once there, the app is crisp - the slowest part is the network connection to the server. It's not as fast as C or Delphi apps, but then again, it was a piece of cake to develop the UI.
I don't know WHAT you might be doing that's so slow, but that is not my experience. Maybe trying to use Java like it was C? Comparing strings char by char? Creating new objects all the time instead of using available references? I'm not trying to pass judgement in any way - it's just that I've seen people try to use a pipe-wrench as a hammer before, and complain of bad performance.
For the record, 1.3 includes HotSpot. That made a difference. Using Swing rather than AWT, and not mixing the two, made a difference. Understanding the memory settings on the JVM - so the garbage collector isn't invoked too often, made a difference. These things help in programs larger than what you describe, but maybe JBF isn't getting started with enough JVM memory?? Just a thought.
It makes the tagged method a critical section. It's that simple. You say synchronized void foo() and it (JVM) knows it's a CS. No mutexes, no waitfors, no nuttin.
Dyson is proof of that. Under her leadership, ICANN has achieved a great deal - without the benefit of schmoozing, back-patting, playing opponents off each other, or making campaign contributions.
Then again, I'm presuming that THIS is what you mean by 'being able to "politic"'... If you mean "politicing" to be explaining to people the facts and the consequences of choices, then I stand corrected - and Dyson is a great politician.
What you had initially said was half-right. The show DID mutate a bit, but the end of the Shadow War was exactly where it was meant to be from the start.
The reclaiming of Earth from 'Shadow puppets' was supposed to take a bit longer than it did, a little into Season 5, with the openner of S5 being Sheridan's rescue from the Earth prison.. Follow? The end of S5 would be the brink of the telepath war, I think..
The reason for the shake-up was that TNT threatened to kill the show at the end of season 4. JMS took this very seriously, and tried to tie off as many loose ends in S4, to not leave the audience hanging too badly. Then when TNT renewed contract on B5 for the 5th season, the plot was prematurely completed, and so there was need for filler at the beginning of S5.
S5 was supposed to focus more on the troubles of the new 'Republic', with the Byron thread starting much earlier, probably towards the end of S4.
But the Great War ended in the middle of the series for good reason, so the younger races would have to grow up a bit, and we'd get to see it.
You really ought to visit The Lurker's Guide for the back-story, analysis and 'Everything you ever wanted to know about Babylon 5, but were afraid to ask'.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Well, let's turn tables a little more.
:) This is a very arguable point, but you can't say that you can't fathom it being a real reason. And hey! The source is free, so maybe the motivation of giving others an alternative to piracy isn't such a bad one.
Say you're a poor, welfare receiving parent of a child in dire need of an expensive operation. Do you care where the money comes from?
I know that it's pretty extreme to compare that situation to open source, but really... Who really cares if code is written and released for 1)building own knowledge and skills, 2)beefing up a resume, 3) greater common good, 4) penance for past piracy, 5) the desire to attain status in the OSS community (Karma whoring).
1) is a respectable reason, since the redistribution of code is voluntary. A skill-polishing coder, if they do not release their product, are not in violation of the GPL, and so do not HAVE to release the source.
2) is a respectable reason, but you must release product and code as proof of posession of skills you put on a resume. Can't just say "I wrote a portal site, so I have these skills. Pay me." You CAN say, "Go to slashdot.org, *I* did that. Here's the code that makes it go, as proof of my qualifications." If you base on GLP, you must release your work - but what of the reason? The source is free, you're deemed qualified, we're all happy.
3) Insert my metaphysics quip here. Doing something for the 'common good' is BS; things are done for the satisfaction of having done them 'for the common good'. I get a rush for thinking in 'Utilitarian' terms, for example; it's an application of the theory.
4) Guilt and conscience suck. Until we learn to ignore them, we will do good to balance the scales.
5) ESR, RMS, Perens do this all the time. Witness recent Bruce Perens act of 'making an example' of BeOS. What self-righteousness!! "I am GPL, hear me threaten litigation and steal your thunder!" Grandstanding and self-appeasement by respected people is a pretty good source of temptation - it shows that with enough credibility, you can occasionally shoot your mouth off, and people will still pay attention to you.
Would I take blood-money, knowing it as such, for convenience purposes? NO! For dire need situations? Real tough call...
How about taking it in ignorance, building a life with it, and then finding out it's source? Would I sell my house and car? No. What I would do is skew my life to do Good with the benefits of Bad money.
Oh. Why did Rockefeller, Carnegie, Gates, et al give generously to charity? Do we care? Guilt for their good fortune? Maybe. Realization that past a certain amount, it makes no difference, so others might as well benefit? Maybe. Realization that you can't take it with you, so others might as well benefit? Maybe. Guilt for having exploited others to get the wealth? Maybe. Divine Inspiration? Perhaps.
Who really cares, and must we look the proverbial horse in the mouth? Not really - not in the case of OSS, that's for sure. Leach the code, read the code, tweak the code, share the code. Learn from the code to improve yourself and the code. And if the original author wrote it in the hope that it would help him get a better job... What of it?
Semantics, really, but I should have said 'helping' and not 'healing'.
Healing is not curing. IMHO, Hospice is a form of healing. YMMV.
Who's the 'ruthless, bloodthirsty dictator'?? The Pope?
As for birth control, and MT's stance on it: Would you breed with a leper? I think they have bigger problems.
But then again, MT is not the point of the discussion, and neither is "My God can beat up your God."
Are you suggesting that the intention of contributing to open source development is in any way important?
That's almost like asking WHY give to charity?
Is it more Right to give to charity to lessen human suffering, and more Wrong to give to charity to shave a few hundred bucks off your income to drop down by one tax bracket??
I see no conflict here, since the charity still benefits. Wether one is primarily motivated to do Good for selfish reasons, or for purely philandrophic ones, makes little difference.
The End does not always justify the Means, not by a long shot. But if what you do is Good, then your personal reasons for doing this Good are irrelevant, since the Good is still done.
On a more metaphysical level, I am of the belief that EVERYONE does Good for selfish reasons. Even Mother Teresa heals lepers for the benefit of the warm fuzzies of knowing that "I am a Good person", or "I am making God happy" or whatever. Yes, the lepers benefit, but the personal satisfaction of helping the lepers - and not actually helping the lepers - is the driver for the act. Not the recognition one receives, but the internal, emotional 'dopamine rush' of satisfaction with one's Goodness.. ramble-ramble...
Self-sacrifice can be selfish. Benefit the community as a side-effect of pumping up your resume. We'll all be grateful.
Yeah, I bought a WinCE-based Nino. Pretty impressive unit, for about a week. Slightly larger than a PalmIII.
Slow, crashes, little storage memory (app bloat), slow, cumbersome GUI (scaled down Outlook), slow, "What do you mean I have to close an app to add a new appointment? All that's running is the Calendar and the Address Book!!", oh and did I mention SLOW?
No thanks Microsoft. A PalmVx running at half the speed will do nicely, thank you. So I can't look at a video clip in 16-bit color, so what? Why would I do that on a PDA?
Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. And just because someone else almost did, doesn't mean you must. Then again - seeing ANOTHER MS gimick do a face-plant might be entertaining. Remember Bob?
This story is immediately followed by the one about Miramax planning to distribute movies via the net... Don't hat just beat all?
So a movie house can be 'mindless', 'isolating' and 'arrogant' (we already knew this) but a Federal entity will not?? Ha!
There is hope though. If a wealthy corporation were to amass it's own library of 'all works', and make them available online, in competition to the LoC; such a company would be doing the world a service. (BillG, you reading this? Want to REALLY make a difference?)
The government is used to being competed with in the service sector. The Post Office is being displaced by the likes of FedEx and UPS, not to mention AOL and other ISPs..
If the Fed won't do it, vote for someone else. If that doesn't work, talk to the corporates in charge.
You are then given the option (via touch tone keys)
:)
Wrong approach.
First, as someone else pointed out, they're making money on you from this 'service'. They also charge the telemarketter to be 'unlisted'. At least there's symmetry.
Second, they're still wasting your time. You have to listen, and think, and push buttons. You're already off the crapper, out of the shower, away from the table - interrupted.
The effort of dealing with the process of telemarketting should be placed squarely on the shoulders of the telemerketter. They should deduct (pay) from your long-distance bill for the amount of time they cause you to waste.
Telemarketting should be PROFITABLE to the potential customer. Like getting paid to surf, you should be getting paid to listen to the sales-pitch, on a 'by choice only' manner.
Or maybe, the phone company should offer you a FREE (paid for by the 'Telemarketters Federal Fund ' or something) LCD screen, like the stand-alone callerID box, that will scroll the numbers and deals of the telemerketters... You review them at leisure (or cancel cold, your choice) and call back at the push of a button, those companies or charities that you're actually interested in.
US West makes money on both sides; pretty damn sleazy.
[rant]
It's just as sleazy as the Federal, State and optionally Local governments, charging you tax on your income, and then again on your spending. And one more time on any substantial property you bought with your (already taxed) money.
This being tax season and all... Something's rotten in the state of Denmark, and it ain't all that cheeze. If 10% was good enough for God, it should be good enough for Uncle Sam!
[/rant]
Well, the US Post Office would get an exemption on the grounds that junk mail subsidises other mail (or at least it should; I'm not sure if it's really not the other way around).
:)
It is the other way around, unfortunatelly. Look at your bills. Most are stamped with a lesser amount than the cost of a stamp. This I have no HUGE problem with - except that they always include crap and advertisements in the envelope, along with my bills. They OUGHT to be mailed by weight, at a high rate. Get rid of those ads and credit card 'checks' at 20% APR.
But, the junk mail that I get - mostly from Microsoft, since I 'accidentally' registered some of their products years ago - costs pennies to send. If it cost a full $0.32 (Soon to be $0.33 BTW) then there would be less of it. I keep a PO box in addition to my home address. The PO is what is reflected on my registrations and other 'non-personal' correspondence. I get - I shit you not - a pound of junk each week; all nice, high-bond, five color, glossy paper too.
If mass-mailed junk cost $0.50 to send, you can be damned sure that it would be opt-in only, at least in most cases...
The only way to truly regulate businesses is by making it un-profitable to do something that you find un-desirable. They can afford to spend years in court appeals, after all - since that's a tax write-off, not an 'operating expense'. It's about economics, not principles.
I sure is easy to tell who the flunkouts are on Slashdot...
;)
Ya. I is almust ase eezee to till hoo hus a moostirs tu...
I don't know Mr. Poucher, but he sounds like the stereotypical American career academic. I've had the misfortune of studying under a few.
They rise to a certain level of recognition, probably higher then they feel (deep down) they deserve. They resolve this insecurity about their competency by believing that they are actually the 'right hand of God', and look down on the unwashed masses with utter contempt, from their Ivory Tower.
'How DARE this student (spoken through clenched teeth) question MY process and MY organization of MY contest!? Without ME he is nothing.'
Typical case of recto-cranial inversion, easily cured with a clue-stick beating and a few months at a REAL JOB.
Well, that confirms it.
There is no "Area 51".
Sure, to the un-indoctrinated, it MAY appear that Terraserver is slashdotted, but those of us 'in the know' know better.
Be afraid. Be VERY afraid...
(no, wait, wrong movie)
Secretary: "Hey Jabber, there's an Agent Smith here to see you.."
The only downside (if there is one) is that it's all reflection and no solutions.
The same can be said for Darwin's "Origin of the Species".
"Faster" sounds like a trend observers journal. Do we want proposed solutions to the process of life? I'm not so sure. I think that a keen observation is enough.
This way, those folks who are bothered by their ever-accelerating life-style can take steps to slow down. Others might actually get some useful hints on how to work even faster.
Doing paperwork while having sex?? Who would have thunk? Paper-cuts much be a b!tc# though.
Hey! Hacking while fscking!! The best of both worlds!
Too true. Add to this the fact that LCD screens are just horrible to look at in sun-light (glare) and it's a solution in search of a problem.
Nice idea for Crusoe-powered web-pads for use by students at college campuses, but then again... It's not convenient to sit in direct sunlight to even read a book. A shady spot, under a tree is much better, and, well.. there goes the solar power idea.
Well, a revolutionarily efficient solar-panel could be made into roofing material. That's about as close as they'll get to powering my PC.
Feel better now?
Kudos to Jenni, congratulations for sticking to your guns and putting your life on display.
Kudos to CT for seeing JenniCam as worthy of a Slashdot article.
I've seen posts here, mostly commenting how JenniCam is about Jenni 'doing' her boyfriend. Grow up guys. Read the journals and get a clue.
/Disclaimer: I am NOT a JenniCam subscriber. I just pop in now and again out of curiosity.
Some time ago, Jennifer went through a messy situation with her folks. At that same time, I had a very similar thing happen in my family. I'm a grown adult, but it still shakes you to the core to see your parents at each other's throats. Reading about Jenni's experiences, having a glimpse inside her feelings - which she bravely puts on display - helped me realize, confront and resolve my own issues. Jenni, thanks.
That was a rather singular event, but it made me a fan of Jenni's courage. She's forced me to consider the fact that I'm neither special nor typical - just like her. So she takes her boyfriend to bed on the Internet. So what? She also does yoga, pets her cats, hacks on her PCs, watches South Park...
She's one of us, whatever US means. She just doesn't hide any aspect; doesn't consider things dirty or inappropriate. Such restrictions are ours to place on ourselves.
So, Jen, thanks a bunch for exposing your self (and I do mean SELF, not body). It's nice to know another person. Best of luck in CA.
Right. Setting up the car with a more aggressive chip or rigging it for NOx is not 'approved'. The reasons are safety and pollution (and the implicit "we're in charge" statement from the gov). But it's not due to the fact that you might break your car in the process of modifying it.
:) It's a much more believable policy for a company that wants o make money.
Would the auto-maker object? Well, except in an effort to look got for the government? I don't think so. They'd be glad to see you roast your engine - so you could buy another.
By that same token, Intel ought to make overclocking easy, and double the labeled speed rating should be an encouraged Holy Grail.
If you toast it, you'll replace it.
This is such OLD NEWS...
/. regularly run articles about news items that are inspired by things already mentioned in /. articles a year before??
ArsTechnica covered this in May, 28, 1999...
The actual Mineral Oil cooling rig page.
What I want to know is: Will
Completely agreed.
But, software licensing has set a nasty precedent. The DVD (DeCSS) fiasco has called the bluff of hardware 'ownership' , and been slapped down for it. We buy the disc, but we apparently only LICENSE THE RIGHT (or privilege if you ask the RIAA) to use the content.
How long before Intel and AMD ( and other hackable hardware manufacturers (Ford??) ) try to LICENSE USAGE RIGHTS to hardware over which THEY retain OWNERSHIP.
Can you imagine having to SIGN A EULA for your next car??? This seems to be where things are going - unless technically minded, prestigious people fire back at the media, and reduce overclocking to what it is... Putting bigger pipes on your hot-rod.
That's all we're doing after all. We're replacing plugs with Platinum tipped ones, putting in after-market filters and hoses and wires.
I don't hear Ford bitching about people tweaking their cars. In fact, a heavily modified hot-rod is sweet to the manufacturer. It shows that it's owner is PASSIONATE about what it can do; not that it's owner considers the COTS version inadequate.
Cripes! Why don't people understand this??
Here is a general rule of thumb, that someone still has to disprove:
Quality costs money. If something is being done in a way that doesn't make sense, figure out who stands to profit from this, and it will make sense.
Quality parts are more expensive to make than shoddy and unreliable parts.
Workers who make quality parts have to work more slowly/carefully, and CARE about what they make. To care about one's job, one has to enjoy it (at least somewhat). Further, to care about one's job, the job must be worth holding on to.
For a job to be worth holding on to, it must be more qualifiably/quantitatively better (lucrative/interesting/...) than the alternative.
High-tech production facilities can not exist in a vacuum, and so are in competition with other industries for workers (even in the Far East, a chip fab must be close to a dock, and Nike factories).
Conclusion: The cheaper the parts, the less a company pays it's workers, the more poorly treated the company's workers are. We can be reasonably sure that workers in hard-disk plants are paid and treated better than those in Kathie Lee's sweat-shops, but I'm sure that people working for Western Digital are treated better than those in the employ of Maxtor.
This man is probably the single most captivating and interesting person slashdot has ever interviewed... I'm not sure what I was expecting, but that's not what I got.
:)
... But find a great graduate program in computer science, and you will likely find fun and exciting work for no salary and no equity!
... participating might provide less utility.
... somebody else had grabbed the URL!
These excerpts in particular made my jaw drop:
I think we have begun to understand the nature of mediocrity as an attractor in educational systems and how to change the utility functions to avoid collusion, and apply this to human learning (Elizabeth Sklar).
I am on a spiritual quest to understand [God as] the principles of the universe which allow self-organization of life as a chemical process far from equilibrium which dissipates energy and creates structure that exploits emergent properties of physics.
[re: Turing Test] So I propose using the Louis Armstrong Test, his answer to the question "What is jazz?"
Reading is fundamental.
Talk to me about the ethics, when your very own open source movement leads to the inevitability of an Intel instruction set monopoly by providing a useful alternative to Microsoft
Jobs in AI are just like software jobs everywhere:
I think a SETI for coherent intentional behavior emerging out of the infrastructure would be a fun project...
If RMS was a radical advocate of anonymity who wrote the GPL so you couldn't put your name on the source code
When I recently tried to corner the market in pig latin domain names
Once secure distribution of programs on a rental basis is established, all content publishing will move inexorably into that mode to maximize profits.
... it is the soft underbelly of "Starship Economics" that Gene Roddenberry died before coming up with the backstory for...
Very interesting point. For the most part, I agree, but...
/., even this one (surprise) is populated with zealots, trolls, troglodytes... Tempers flair, we're just people after all. :)
You say that Franklin, Jefferson, et al were the local Ruling Class, and led the revolt of otherwise ignorant peasants.
By that same token, the likes of Torvalds, Cox, Barlow, Perens, Stallman... are the current local Ruling Class, leading us, the ignorant hackers, against the oppressive tyrant of Redmond.
Hmmm... But we follow the GNU/Linux dogma because it offers a choice. We are pretty well aware of the issues, and we CHOOSE to fight the good fight. It's not a matter of following him who shouts loudest. We follow grass-roots leaders, elected on merit not only of their words but of their works. They, the roots of out little revolution here, have done a lot with their own hands already. We simply believe in their work, and contribute - by informed choice.
This is not to say that we are not immune to the mob mentality or the forming of cults of personality. Any article on
The government is right to bide it's time, and step cautiously around the punishment for Microsoft. The Conclusions of Law have had a significant effect on the technology stocks. The economy has reacted violently to government muscle flexing. The consequences of the punishment must be considered with even more care than making sure that the punishment fits the crime.
Many of us would like to see M$ broken up into technology sectors: OS, Apps, Services, maybe Dev Tools.. What would be the effect? Is it not a good thing to have some stability of leadership?
I agree with the highly moderated poster who suggests forcing M$ to open it's standards (and APIs). Further I think there would need to be constraints on the changing of these - since M$ has often changed file formats to force mass upgrades to the new version of MS-Whatever.
It's (M$) not an easy problem to solve, and saying it's hard doesn't make it easier. Relating it to Mills or Smith or Charlemagne won't make a lick of difference. I, for one, am glad to finally see tax dollars at work, rather than fueling studies on wether blue marshmallows cause cancer.
My work development box is a PII-266 with 128MB RAM. I'm developing with JDK 1.1.6, 1.2.2 and 1.3 in JBuilder 3 Pro. My backend is Oracle 8i on and RS/6k.
No problems.
Yes, the UI take a while to instantiate all the objects and do all the needed set-up; I thread off an animated splash-screen and no one is the wiser that it's actually working.
Once there, the app is crisp - the slowest part is the network connection to the server. It's not as fast as C or Delphi apps, but then again, it was a piece of cake to develop the UI.
I don't know WHAT you might be doing that's so slow, but that is not my experience. Maybe trying to use Java like it was C? Comparing strings char by char? Creating new objects all the time instead of using available references? I'm not trying to pass judgement in any way - it's just that I've seen people try to use a pipe-wrench as a hammer before, and complain of bad performance.
For the record, 1.3 includes HotSpot. That made a difference. Using Swing rather than AWT, and not mixing the two, made a difference. Understanding the memory settings on the JVM - so the garbage collector isn't invoked too often, made a difference. These things help in programs larger than what you describe, but maybe JBF isn't getting started with enough JVM memory?? Just a thought.
It makes the tagged method a critical section. It's that simple. You say synchronized void foo() and it (JVM) knows it's a CS. No mutexes, no waitfors, no nuttin.
Dyson is proof of that. Under her leadership, ICANN has achieved a great deal - without the benefit of schmoozing, back-patting, playing opponents off each other, or making campaign contributions.
Then again, I'm presuming that THIS is what you mean by 'being able to "politic"'... If you mean "politicing" to be explaining to people the facts and the consequences of choices, then I stand corrected - and Dyson is a great politician.
What you had initially said was half-right. The show DID mutate a bit, but the end of the Shadow War was exactly where it was meant to be from the start.
:)
The reclaiming of Earth from 'Shadow puppets' was supposed to take a bit longer than it did, a little into Season 5, with the openner of S5 being Sheridan's rescue from the Earth prison.. Follow?
The end of S5 would be the brink of the telepath war, I think..
The reason for the shake-up was that TNT threatened to kill the show at the end of season 4. JMS took this very seriously, and tried to tie off as many loose ends in S4, to not leave the audience hanging too badly. Then when TNT renewed contract on B5 for the 5th season, the plot was prematurely completed, and so there was need for filler at the beginning of S5.
S5 was supposed to focus more on the troubles of the new 'Republic', with the Byron thread starting much earlier, probably towards the end of S4.
But the Great War ended in the middle of the series for good reason, so the younger races would have to grow up a bit, and we'd get to see it.
You really ought to visit The Lurker's Guide for the back-story, analysis and 'Everything you ever wanted to know about Babylon 5, but were afraid to ask'.