He is a folk hero in Afghanistan, but if Afghans knew the real truth I think they would change their views.
I'm not so sure if people would change their views. It may be true that bin Laden's actions are actually contrary to the teachings of the Koran, but it's also true that most religions as practiced do not strictly follow their own holy books. (Or, linking back to the main topic, the U.S. Government is not always in strict adherence to the Constitution.) It seems pretty clear that many Moslems- including many of their religious teachers, particularly the ones in Afgahnistan- believe that the attacks are in perfect accord with Islam. As long as those people have learned their Islam that way, they probably won't change their views about the justice of the attacks.
That may be true, but vigorous enforcement can have a deterrent effect. Part of the reason that people try these things is that they think that they can get away with it. If they start reading about people who have been fined thousands of dollars and/or sent to jail for a few years for trying to defraud people on E-bay, they may have some second thoughts about doing so themselves. It's certainly not an ideal solution, but since there are already people out there to use as examples it makes sense to prosecute to the full extent of the law.
Administrators need to pick the best tool for the job whatever the vendor.
Of course that assumes that the people who are in charge of keeping things secure actually have the authority to pick the tools they'll be using to do so. Sadly, that's often not the case. Decisions about things like which operating system to use are made by people higher up in the company, and the poor Admins are stuck trying to do the best they can with the tools they're given.
It's not a window manager issue. Evolution (and any other GNOME app) should run under KDE as long as you have all of the necessary libraries present. Despite all of the trolling between advocates of one desktop over the other, they actually interoperate pretty well. A GNOME app will still look like a GNOME app when run under KDE (and vice versa) which offends some people's aesthetic sense, but they should operate just fine.
Personally I believe that the best way to do it is to allow free recording of every show that an artist puts out. A devout fan is more likely to BUY a studio album if they can already get a taste of what the band is capable of on stage.
Actually, IIRC, Metallica does exactly that; they allow (and I think even encourage) their fans to make and trade concert recordings. They felt (reasonably, IMO) that they had a fan-friendly view of copying and trading songs, and really exploded only when they found out that one of their works in progress was being traded online. That's why they phrased so many of their complaints in terms of protecting their artistic integrity; they felt that the public trading of a song that they hadn't finished yet got in the way of their ability to change it further.
The suit was legitimate, and Kodak sure as hell didn't just give in. Polaroid had patented every little detail of how their cameras worked- not just the film itself but also all of the niggly bits about film handling and the like. Kodak tried very hard to develop non-patented alternatives to everything that Polaroid did, but in some cases they weren't able to find any. They then went ahead and produced their camera even though they knew that it violated some of Polaroid's patents. Polaroid then sued them for about $1 billion in damages, and Kodak fought back tooth an nail. Polaroid won on the merits of the case and got a big judgment, though not as big as they had asked for, and Kodak was forced to stop producing their cameras.
I agree with you about the consumer stuff, but Polaroid plays a much bigger role with professional photographers.
That may be true, but it's also somewhat beside the point. Polaroid may keep some business by continuing to serve professional photographers (though I expect that professional model digital cameras are going to start eating that market, too) but the demise of the consumer market is still a terrible blow. The professional market you describe is obviously only a tiny fraction of the total market. Losing the biggest portion of your market is a terrible blow, and one that the company is going to have a hard time dealing with. Whether or not they continue to exist in some form, you can pretty well guarantee that it won't be anything like the company today. That's going to hurt whether it means completely closing shop or just shrinking by an order of magnitude.
No. You should pick music that's most representative of what you're likely to be compressing. This is supposed to be a test of compression as a practical technique- what sounds best to you- not some kind of theoretical comparison. If you happen to listen to noisey old music and a particular compression approach neatly removes the noise, you're a fool not to use it.
Marketing is not about selling people the things they want. Marketing is about convincing people to buy things that they don't need!
But this is absolutely untrue. Advertizing is frequently about convincing people to buy things that they don't need, but
That's just one part of advertizing. Sometimes advertizing is about convincing people to buy brand A instead of brand B. They're already going to buy good X, and advertizing is one way to convince them to buy it from your company instead of somebody else's. Occasionally it's even as simple as letting people know about a product that they don't already know about but will want once they find out about it.
Advertizing is only one part of marketing. An equally if not more important part of marketing is figuring out what people do want so that you can sell it to them. You may not believe it, but it's actually true. Some companies think that it's a better idea to figure out what people want and how much they're willing to pay for it and sell that rather than coming up with something and then trying to cram it down people's throats.
Believe it or not, I've actually been offered decent money by at least one company in exchange for my opinions about what their future products should be like. I know plenty of people in my profession who are offered free equipment in exchange for their opinions about how it could be made better and more suitable for its intended market. That's marketing, but it certainly doesn't involve shoving unwanted goods down people's throats.
The renaissance, the richest period of exploration and innovation in human history happened when the controls imposed by the Catholic church started to break down and both religous and scientific information began to flow freely.
This is a common (and old-fashioned) view, but recent scholarship suggests that it isn't really true. The Renaissance was a period of increased exploration and scholarship, but it wasn't particularly exciting technologically. In a real sense, it was a response to the great technological strides that were made in the late Middle Ages- widespread use of water power, the introduction of gunpowder weapons, deep-water capable ships and navigating techniques, and printing using movable metal type.
The changes in political, social, and economic situation that was characteristic of the Rennaisance depended heavily on those Medaeval technologies, but it didn't add to them very much. It was gunpowder weapons that allowed kings to consolidate centralized power, and to resist the church. It was printing that encouraged scholarship and free thought. It was water power that overturned the old fashioned industries and led to the great rise in cities. It was developments in navigation that led to over seas exploration. Those things were the cause of the Renaissance, not its effect.
That's not to say that the Renaissance is necessarily a bad model. To a substantial extent, the Renaissance was a social and political response to technological developments that overturned the basis for existing society. There was a strong backlash from entrenched powers who wanted to fight against the new technological developments and keep the existing system that was opposed by others who tried to establish a new system. To a great extent technological progress was slowed simply because the existing technologies hadn't been fully assimilated yet; it took a while to integrate everything into society. I personally wonder if there isn't going to be a similar backlash and slowing of innovation sometime soon for similar reasons.
[Note: I'm also ignoring the exceptionally Eurocentric tone of the above (a number of those technologies were actually imported from China rather than independently developed in Europe, so obviously somebody's innovation wasn't being choked off) because one can reasonably argue that treating Europe separately makes sense. After all, the DRM won't necessarily be world-wide, so looking at how moves to stifle innovation in one place affect that place can be accurate even if they are centered on one culture.]
NLM runs some seriously chunky work, too. The National Center for Biotechnology Information (which is part of NLM) is an example of a truly outstanding dynamic web-site based on a really huge database backend. I like to use it as an example of what it's possible to do with a well designed web site. The people at NLM who I've met at meetings seem to be pretty nice, too, and they're helping to do some really worthwhile things, and ISTR that they're looking for workers, too. It would definitely be a good place to look for a government job involving Unix.
It's even sleazier to jack up the prices on items and offer "discounts" for people who use the cards when the discounted price is what the retail price should be.
So find a store that doesn't do that. I do almost all of my shopping at Trader Joe's. They're admittedly not a fully national chain, but they are moderately widespread now. They also have the advantage of offering more interesting food than most supermarkets, rather than just the offerings of the big companies. Part of the reason that they don't bother with a card program is that they have no strong commitment to keeping a consistent stock on their shelves, instead focusing on finding things that give their customers good value. It's much less useful to track purchasing habits when the nature of the stock in the store tends to minimize habitual buying in the first place.
If you want a conventional supermarket, ISTR that Albertsons doesn't have a card program, and is proud to announce it. They apparently feel that enough people are bothered by the card process that they can help their market position by refusing to be involved. If the whole process of using the cards is offensive to you, stop doing business with the people who use the cards, and start doing business with people who refuse to do so. It's a much stronger and more reliable way of avoiding being tracked than trying to gum up the card system.
Better yet, trade your supermarket cards, frequently. (Perhaps with friends or relatives in the furthest city with the same chain?) Maybe Larry Ellison would like to have a few.
An even better idea is simply to avoid the cards in the first place. Accepting the card is essentially selling the store your profiling information for a discount. It's sleazy to break your half of the bargain by deliberately contaminating their data while expecting them to keep to their side by continuing to provide discounts. If you hate the things so much just refuse to accept one and pay cash (so that they can't track purchases by credit card number). Even better, skip the whole game by shopping at a store like Trader Joe's that refuses to have such a program in the first place.
Not quite true. The government is allowed to patent some things secretly (for security reasons) and they don't have to reveal the patent until somebody else tries to patent the same thing. And, of course, the patent process is apparently not so open that scum like Rambus get caught when they try to patent things that are under discussion as standards.
I don't think that it's really a troll, just somebody with an axe to grind. Mr. Poag is the creator of the wonderful PROPAGANDA desktop backgrounds, and apparently feels that he's been screwed out of credit or reward for his work. I'm not sure exactly what his complaint is, but I've definitely heard him complaining about mistreatment (especially by Sourceforge, IIRC) in the past.
I wonder if they still do it - I've always suspected that Montana doesn't really exist...
I can assure you that it does exist; I've actually visited. Now why someone would want to visit is an interesting question, but there's insufficient space to explain that here...
The idea that X is huge is greatly exaggerated. X itself isn't that large, but the total package looks much bigger than what you actually use because of the need for a zillion drivers. Yes, X could have a greatly simplified system that took much less code, but it would come at the expense of not being able to take advantage of the features in advanced graphics cards.
I do see some merit to this argument, even though it smacks of elitism. I'm a bit of an elitist myself.
I don't mean that in an elitist sense of "some people aren't worth educating". If anything I'm trying to say the exact opposite- that everyone is worth educating. Some people observably do a poor job of learning under our current mainstream education system. The current system is designed to suit people at about the 5th percentile and above, and a lot of people below that level have trouble picking up the material. Some other people simply have trouble working in a traditional academic setting, get bored with classes that are "dumbed down" so that the 5th percentile people can get them, have different styles of learning, or the like. Rather than abandon those people as unteachable, we need to have alternative educations available for them to try to teach them in a way that will help them to become as productive in society as the people who are well served by the current mainstream system.
You don't have to be terribly bright to get a lot out of a comparative religion or Western history class, if you're interested in the material.
But that last bit is really the kicker. Not everyone is interested in that material, and trying to shove it down those people's throats is doomed to failure. There are none so unteachable as those who will not learn. Now some of that can be cured through good teaching- good teachers can find a way to make material relevant to their audience- but not everyone is going to be persuaded to care. It's sad but observably true.
I'd be interested in some clarification on the last comment. It's plausible, but I think that there are some fundamental differences.
Perhaps I should clarify that my thoughts were focused primarily on PhD programs, where I'm more confident that the comment is correct. Most PhD programs have comparatively light academic requirements; after their first couple of years most PhD students aren't even required to take any classes. Instead (and much like an apprenticeship program) the emphasis is on gaining experience in job skills. For PhDs these include performing research, writing papers, teaching undergraduates, and the like, but they're learned informally through hands-on practice and personal instruction by more experienced people in the field. They're not taught in an academic instructional setting. This shouldn't be terribly surprising, as our college system grew directly out of the Guild system.
One that prepares the student for a job....we used to have that type of school. It was called the guild system and was eventually replaced by the better, more adaptive school system we have now.
I think that you miss two important points. First, as valuable as a modern education is to somebody who learns from it, not everyone has the intelligence or personality to benefit from it. Having an alternative system so that people who don't fit in to the modern educational system are able to learn something and become productive members of society is very valuable. Second, that system still does exist and is actually quite strong still. Vocational education and even straight apprenticeship programs still exist; many union jobs, for instance, follow more that approach more or less closely. Also, much as it pains me to point it out, graduate school is much, much closer to a traditional apprenticeship program than most academics are willing to admit.
Part of the problem is what exactly is supposed to be meant by well rounded. There's a lot to be said for forcing highly focused students to take courses outside of their primary interests just so that they don't become excessively one-dimensional. I certainly feel that having been required to do so as a student was ultimately beneficial. OTOH, most of the people I know think that I'm interested in too many things already, so I'm not sure if I'm strong evidence or not.
But getting good results also depends on the requirements being reasonable and well thought out. Forcing people to take classes for which they have no preparation is pointless even if you do accept the idea of being well-rounded. You're not going to learn much if you don't have the background to get the most out of a class. But that's a potential weakness in any curriculum. I've certainly heard of a lot of tightly focused programs that tend to push students into classes for which they have inadequate grounding, so it's not unique to this kind of program. Blame it on stupidity in choosing the wrong courses within the topic, not on the general idea of requiring students to be well-rounded.
The problem with IIS isn't that it needs a rewrite, because a rewritten version will probably still have bugs since it will be a non-trivial piece of software and all software has bugs,
While there's some truth to this point, Gartner has a point, too. If a piece of software requires regular patches for serious security problems, that's probably a sign that its basic approach to security is flawed. There's every reason to think that this is actually part of the problem with IIS; it looks very much as though security was not a priority in the minds of the writers, and they attempted to bolt it on after the fact. Experience shows that this approach is generally doomed to failure- see BIND and Sendmail as examples of UNIX programs that have repeated serious security problems because their security features weren't included into the basic design. A ground-up rewrite that included a reasonable security model into its basic architecture would almost certainly have fewer problems that need patching in the first place.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, they added asf support in the recent 0.9.2 release. You can see it in their release notes here.
I'm not so sure if people would change their views. It may be true that bin Laden's actions are actually contrary to the teachings of the Koran, but it's also true that most religions as practiced do not strictly follow their own holy books. (Or, linking back to the main topic, the U.S. Government is not always in strict adherence to the Constitution.) It seems pretty clear that many Moslems- including many of their religious teachers, particularly the ones in Afgahnistan- believe that the attacks are in perfect accord with Islam. As long as those people have learned their Islam that way, they probably won't change their views about the justice of the attacks.
That may be true, but vigorous enforcement can have a deterrent effect. Part of the reason that people try these things is that they think that they can get away with it. If they start reading about people who have been fined thousands of dollars and/or sent to jail for a few years for trying to defraud people on E-bay, they may have some second thoughts about doing so themselves. It's certainly not an ideal solution, but since there are already people out there to use as examples it makes sense to prosecute to the full extent of the law.
Of course that assumes that the people who are in charge of keeping things secure actually have the authority to pick the tools they'll be using to do so. Sadly, that's often not the case. Decisions about things like which operating system to use are made by people higher up in the company, and the poor Admins are stuck trying to do the best they can with the tools they're given.
It's not a window manager issue. Evolution (and any other GNOME app) should run under KDE as long as you have all of the necessary libraries present. Despite all of the trolling between advocates of one desktop over the other, they actually interoperate pretty well. A GNOME app will still look like a GNOME app when run under KDE (and vice versa) which offends some people's aesthetic sense, but they should operate just fine.
Actually, IIRC, Metallica does exactly that; they allow (and I think even encourage) their fans to make and trade concert recordings. They felt (reasonably, IMO) that they had a fan-friendly view of copying and trading songs, and really exploded only when they found out that one of their works in progress was being traded online. That's why they phrased so many of their complaints in terms of protecting their artistic integrity; they felt that the public trading of a song that they hadn't finished yet got in the way of their ability to change it further.
The suit was legitimate, and Kodak sure as hell didn't just give in. Polaroid had patented every little detail of how their cameras worked- not just the film itself but also all of the niggly bits about film handling and the like. Kodak tried very hard to develop non-patented alternatives to everything that Polaroid did, but in some cases they weren't able to find any. They then went ahead and produced their camera even though they knew that it violated some of Polaroid's patents. Polaroid then sued them for about $1 billion in damages, and Kodak fought back tooth an nail. Polaroid won on the merits of the case and got a big judgment, though not as big as they had asked for, and Kodak was forced to stop producing their cameras.
That may be true, but it's also somewhat beside the point. Polaroid may keep some business by continuing to serve professional photographers (though I expect that professional model digital cameras are going to start eating that market, too) but the demise of the consumer market is still a terrible blow. The professional market you describe is obviously only a tiny fraction of the total market. Losing the biggest portion of your market is a terrible blow, and one that the company is going to have a hard time dealing with. Whether or not they continue to exist in some form, you can pretty well guarantee that it won't be anything like the company today. That's going to hurt whether it means completely closing shop or just shrinking by an order of magnitude.
No. You should pick music that's most representative of what you're likely to be compressing. This is supposed to be a test of compression as a practical technique- what sounds best to you- not some kind of theoretical comparison. If you happen to listen to noisey old music and a particular compression approach neatly removes the noise, you're a fool not to use it.
But this is absolutely untrue. Advertizing is frequently about convincing people to buy things that they don't need, but
Believe it or not, I've actually been offered decent money by at least one company in exchange for my opinions about what their future products should be like. I know plenty of people in my profession who are offered free equipment in exchange for their opinions about how it could be made better and more suitable for its intended market. That's marketing, but it certainly doesn't involve shoving unwanted goods down people's throats.
I can think of at least one other program that does: the Sawfish window manager that's now the default WM for GNOME.
This is a common (and old-fashioned) view, but recent scholarship suggests that it isn't really true. The Renaissance was a period of increased exploration and scholarship, but it wasn't particularly exciting technologically. In a real sense, it was a response to the great technological strides that were made in the late Middle Ages- widespread use of water power, the introduction of gunpowder weapons, deep-water capable ships and navigating techniques, and printing using movable metal type.
The changes in political, social, and economic situation that was characteristic of the Rennaisance depended heavily on those Medaeval technologies, but it didn't add to them very much. It was gunpowder weapons that allowed kings to consolidate centralized power, and to resist the church. It was printing that encouraged scholarship and free thought. It was water power that overturned the old fashioned industries and led to the great rise in cities. It was developments in navigation that led to over seas exploration. Those things were the cause of the Renaissance, not its effect.
That's not to say that the Renaissance is necessarily a bad model. To a substantial extent, the Renaissance was a social and political response to technological developments that overturned the basis for existing society. There was a strong backlash from entrenched powers who wanted to fight against the new technological developments and keep the existing system that was opposed by others who tried to establish a new system. To a great extent technological progress was slowed simply because the existing technologies hadn't been fully assimilated yet; it took a while to integrate everything into society. I personally wonder if there isn't going to be a similar backlash and slowing of innovation sometime soon for similar reasons.
[Note: I'm also ignoring the exceptionally Eurocentric tone of the above (a number of those technologies were actually imported from China rather than independently developed in Europe, so obviously somebody's innovation wasn't being choked off) because one can reasonably argue that treating Europe separately makes sense. After all, the DRM won't necessarily be world-wide, so looking at how moves to stifle innovation in one place affect that place can be accurate even if they are centered on one culture.]
NLM runs some seriously chunky work, too. The National Center for Biotechnology Information (which is part of NLM) is an example of a truly outstanding dynamic web-site based on a really huge database backend. I like to use it as an example of what it's possible to do with a well designed web site. The people at NLM who I've met at meetings seem to be pretty nice, too, and they're helping to do some really worthwhile things, and ISTR that they're looking for workers, too. It would definitely be a good place to look for a government job involving Unix.
So find a store that doesn't do that. I do almost all of my shopping at Trader Joe's. They're admittedly not a fully national chain, but they are moderately widespread now. They also have the advantage of offering more interesting food than most supermarkets, rather than just the offerings of the big companies. Part of the reason that they don't bother with a card program is that they have no strong commitment to keeping a consistent stock on their shelves, instead focusing on finding things that give their customers good value. It's much less useful to track purchasing habits when the nature of the stock in the store tends to minimize habitual buying in the first place.
If you want a conventional supermarket, ISTR that Albertsons doesn't have a card program, and is proud to announce it. They apparently feel that enough people are bothered by the card process that they can help their market position by refusing to be involved. If the whole process of using the cards is offensive to you, stop doing business with the people who use the cards, and start doing business with people who refuse to do so. It's a much stronger and more reliable way of avoiding being tracked than trying to gum up the card system.
An even better idea is simply to avoid the cards in the first place. Accepting the card is essentially selling the store your profiling information for a discount. It's sleazy to break your half of the bargain by deliberately contaminating their data while expecting them to keep to their side by continuing to provide discounts. If you hate the things so much just refuse to accept one and pay cash (so that they can't track purchases by credit card number). Even better, skip the whole game by shopping at a store like Trader Joe's that refuses to have such a program in the first place.
Not quite true. The government is allowed to patent some things secretly (for security reasons) and they don't have to reveal the patent until somebody else tries to patent the same thing. And, of course, the patent process is apparently not so open that scum like Rambus get caught when they try to patent things that are under discussion as standards.
I don't think that it's really a troll, just somebody with an axe to grind. Mr. Poag is the creator of the wonderful PROPAGANDA desktop backgrounds, and apparently feels that he's been screwed out of credit or reward for his work. I'm not sure exactly what his complaint is, but I've definitely heard him complaining about mistreatment (especially by Sourceforge, IIRC) in the past.
Isn't that supposed to be hot grits and Natalie Portman naked and petrified?
I can assure you that it does exist; I've actually visited. Now why someone would want to visit is an interesting question, but there's insufficient space to explain that here...
The idea that X is huge is greatly exaggerated. X itself isn't that large, but the total package looks much bigger than what you actually use because of the need for a zillion drivers. Yes, X could have a greatly simplified system that took much less code, but it would come at the expense of not being able to take advantage of the features in advanced graphics cards.
But why do you have to study to get a diploma? Don't you know that you can get a degree for your life experience?
I don't mean that in an elitist sense of "some people aren't worth educating". If anything I'm trying to say the exact opposite- that everyone is worth educating. Some people observably do a poor job of learning under our current mainstream education system. The current system is designed to suit people at about the 5th percentile and above, and a lot of people below that level have trouble picking up the material. Some other people simply have trouble working in a traditional academic setting, get bored with classes that are "dumbed down" so that the 5th percentile people can get them, have different styles of learning, or the like. Rather than abandon those people as unteachable, we need to have alternative educations available for them to try to teach them in a way that will help them to become as productive in society as the people who are well served by the current mainstream system.
But that last bit is really the kicker. Not everyone is interested in that material, and trying to shove it down those people's throats is doomed to failure. There are none so unteachable as those who will not learn. Now some of that can be cured through good teaching- good teachers can find a way to make material relevant to their audience- but not everyone is going to be persuaded to care. It's sad but observably true.
Perhaps I should clarify that my thoughts were focused primarily on PhD programs, where I'm more confident that the comment is correct. Most PhD programs have comparatively light academic requirements; after their first couple of years most PhD students aren't even required to take any classes. Instead (and much like an apprenticeship program) the emphasis is on gaining experience in job skills. For PhDs these include performing research, writing papers, teaching undergraduates, and the like, but they're learned informally through hands-on practice and personal instruction by more experienced people in the field. They're not taught in an academic instructional setting. This shouldn't be terribly surprising, as our college system grew directly out of the Guild system.
I think that you miss two important points. First, as valuable as a modern education is to somebody who learns from it, not everyone has the intelligence or personality to benefit from it. Having an alternative system so that people who don't fit in to the modern educational system are able to learn something and become productive members of society is very valuable. Second, that system still does exist and is actually quite strong still. Vocational education and even straight apprenticeship programs still exist; many union jobs, for instance, follow more that approach more or less closely. Also, much as it pains me to point it out, graduate school is much, much closer to a traditional apprenticeship program than most academics are willing to admit.
Part of the problem is what exactly is supposed to be meant by well rounded. There's a lot to be said for forcing highly focused students to take courses outside of their primary interests just so that they don't become excessively one-dimensional. I certainly feel that having been required to do so as a student was ultimately beneficial. OTOH, most of the people I know think that I'm interested in too many things already, so I'm not sure if I'm strong evidence or not.
But getting good results also depends on the requirements being reasonable and well thought out. Forcing people to take classes for which they have no preparation is pointless even if you do accept the idea of being well-rounded. You're not going to learn much if you don't have the background to get the most out of a class. But that's a potential weakness in any curriculum. I've certainly heard of a lot of tightly focused programs that tend to push students into classes for which they have inadequate grounding, so it's not unique to this kind of program. Blame it on stupidity in choosing the wrong courses within the topic, not on the general idea of requiring students to be well-rounded.
While there's some truth to this point, Gartner has a point, too. If a piece of software requires regular patches for serious security problems, that's probably a sign that its basic approach to security is flawed. There's every reason to think that this is actually part of the problem with IIS; it looks very much as though security was not a priority in the minds of the writers, and they attempted to bolt it on after the fact. Experience shows that this approach is generally doomed to failure- see BIND and Sendmail as examples of UNIX programs that have repeated serious security problems because their security features weren't included into the basic design. A ground-up rewrite that included a reasonable security model into its basic architecture would almost certainly have fewer problems that need patching in the first place.