I was just looking at an Olympus camera the other day, for $500. This particular camera could save to Xd or SmartMedia cards, either in still shots or video. Granted, the videos were rather short, but it's been out for quite a while.
I disagree. What your proposing really skirts the line with fraud, and much of it would illegal in about 85% of the world.
How is responding to their spam and asking for more information fraud? This is actually a decent idea, and I'd like to setup a script to do it. You send me spam, if my bayesian filter marks it as such you get a response from a freshly created mailbox on my mail host asking for more information on your product. If there are web links to be had, to a wget on those to grab some bandwidth.
That'd be kinda fun, actually.
The key is to find a way to make Spam expensive. After all, the problem is that these people can send out 80 million e-mails and the total cost is the price of a list and a few dollars in bandwidth. We need to find a way to fight back and make the cost of transmission higher.
The bandwidth doesn't matter. Bandwidth is cheap. Getting personal intervention is what will do it. Create throw-away email addresses to ask for more information. If there isn't a valid reply to email in the spam, find their webpage and write a script to scour for sales@, contact@, support@ and send them a nice form mail.
This would be hysterical, really. Then, when they respond to the throw-away email address, you can have a human intervention step. If they respond, then start asking much more questions about their product until they give up on you as a piker.
I'm not sure why, but Switch and Epoch didn't stand out and were just supportive characters. Mouse had a lot more involvement in the story. Tank didn't so much, that's why they should have killed Dozer. Really just smash the ships crew... movies that kill heroes are just plain good, because they're realistic. Heroes aren't bullet proof... well, unless you are Neo, but that's the whole point of the movie.
As I recall, they were going to paint an ad on the space shuttle. I don't know if they actually went through with it.
I recall Pizza Hut threatening to do that... but at the time Last Action Hero came out I was busy learning how to program and spent all my time burried in computers...
Incidentally, I liked the movie's concept. The kid ruined it.
I did see it a few years ago, and it wasn't a horrible movie. I did think the kid should have been shot in the face in the beginning of the movie though.
You simply don't make any sense whatsoever. I give up.
Here's a quick and easy way to understand what I'm saying: Go purchase Hooked on Phonics, or go back through High School English, and possibly an English 101 course at your local college.
Won't happen. If the first movie is any indication, we will have little to no character development. And no, Neo and Trinity kissing is not character development. That's called cliche.
Killing Mouse and Dozer is quite a step. It would have been better if Tank got killed, but that's just my feelings. There is slight character development with Neo, but keep in mind, that the characters are established already. They were supposed to be. They'll grow and change as the tides turn in the war, for now, they're just beaten dogs.
There was a time where the same would have been said about George Lucas. Who's saying that today?
Lucas was a screen-writer. Wachowski brothers are comic book artists. Lucas ended his innovation with American Graffiti. Star Wars was just a love tale with flashy effects. I never did like Star Wars much...
Frankly, I'm saddened that the first Matrix wasn't more like X-Men. I mean, who'd shed a tear of any of the characters from the Matrix was killed? Pretty flat.
The thing I loved about the Matrix is they kill heroes. This was so bad-ass, and helped create a sense of reality. People die. Yes! I hope in Reloaded Trinity gets killed. That would make me wet my fucking pants.
Last Action Hero was at the peak of Ahnuld's mainstream popularity. It may have been THE peak considering how much damage that movie did to that popularity.
This is wrong. After Last Action Hero, most his movies have ranked in the top 15 for the year. True Lies, yup. Eraser, yup. Batman & Robin, yup. End of Days even made a lot of money, not sure if it's on the top 15. Arnold has never picked the "major" movies, except the Terminator series. Even Conan was more of a cult favorite, then a classic, than a main stream movie.
Contrast to Keanu Reeves, who continuously tried to do mainstream movies, and finally found a series that fit. Keanu makes a good Neo. Not to bright; like a big, dumb, puppy dog that knows kung fu.
How do you know that? Name 3 movies in the last 20 years that recieved lots of hype before launch, and ended up deserving it. I can name a few *cough*Godzilla*cough*LastActionHero*Coughh*Episod es1&2*cough* that were hyped in much the same way, only to be extremely dumb movies.
I don't remember much hype about Last Action Hero. I didn't even know what it was until TBS showed it a few years later, and thought, "Hmm.. the lows some people will go."
I'm dying to see the Matrix Reloaded. Matrix fills a role as "Damned Awesome Once a Year Movie" that Star Wars 4-6 never did for me. I don't want a Galaxy far, far away. I want people doing crazy shit in my world. The Matrix does this.
Did you even see the trailer for it? Reloaded has the best trailer for any movie to date. It puts the Ep1&2 trailers to shame. The Wachowski (sp?) brothers know what they're doing with the creative license, and they have a team to make it golden.
I've never been this excited over a movie, it must be like you're 11 and actually thought Star Wars was cool, something I never could experience.
All those releases were dated for late 1999. The Children's Protection Act wasn't in place until 2001. Whoever submitted this article sure went to a lot of trouble to make Amazon look hypocritical.
That is because Amazon is an evil company, due to the patents they've filed and (attempted) to enforce. Thus, anything that happens to them that is bad is a good thing. Even when it is groundless and without merit. If Amazon does something good, it will be met with even more scrutiny and cynicism. Just the crowd here, mate.
To most everyone out there, a database and a browser aren't that much different, they are both just "computer programs." While a mechanic could probably say a car and truck are vastly different doesn't mean that's how everyone sees it.
The average user knows what a web browser is. The average user doesn't know what a database is. If they do know what a databse is, they will know what Access is. Nobody is going to confuse a web browser and a database. If they do, they shouldn't use a computer, or drive a car, only run in the Special Olympics.
did you even ATTEMPT to find out how to spell that word? it's BAFFLED you freakin muppet
Next time, try some punctuation. That way you will look as if you aren't some 12 year old chimp with a Speak'n'Spell in front of them. Maybe you can even get some capitalization, too! I mean, in the right spots.
So, as you can see, you are misquoting Michael, because by the 713 figure, I am a child, but with the modified figure, I am not. While you are still three times as childy.
Considering at the time I had many more comments, and Michael was being a prick, he isn't misquoting Michael at all. You would have to take into account the duration of the account, and the relevance of the comments posted. FK usually posts on-topic, positively moderated comments. Michael was just being a troll.
You got me, I missed the significance of the word "directly", but who gives a fuck: what's the relevance of your statement? What does it matter whether they had interim positions? You said you worked in an academic area of the public sector, I said that is rather different from the public sector as a whole, and this is your response?
My response is what I just said, and you failed to read. The fact that the majority of our work comes from chartered schools in the public sector. This means that we have to comply with all local, state, and federal laws when dealing with software products.
No, I was making the point that you have difficulty seeing that the truth depends on the details.
Ok, then I'll revise my statement. There are people that think that downloading music, they have not purchased in any form, is illegal. Satisfied? People are idiots, you can't legislate and change that.
No, as it is I choose to consider a balanced cross-section of possible solutions. I don't spend months hunting down every project, I go to reasonable lengths to ensure I'm not missing some gems. I've found gems that way.
I'd worry about any company that puts you in decision making roles, but I'll just satisfy my own fears and say that you don't. My guess is you report to a low level manager, and he does. When you have a project, you look at what will do the job best. If it costs money, than so be it. Public sector behaves the same way. They do what fits the job best, that they know about. My original point is that they need to hire more compotent and educated people, instead of lower wage second-rate IT workers who aren't knowledgable enough to pick something they aren't familiar with.
If you give a bad driver a sports car, they're still a bad driver, they just do more damage.
See, I can't get past your inability to make sense, or to see it. Read what you just wrote.
Those sentences spliced together make perfect sense. You are just an idiot. "The people I work with that come from the public sector, they all came directly from the public sector." This means that people that have come from the public sector, at some point in their career, came directly from the public sector, without interim positions at private companies. This is not complex, and is as clear as I can possibly make it for you.
Aha! Finally you admit that this is about how you don't want to be told what to do. In other words, you like the free expression of your unchecked ego. You are a child.
Uhm, no. "If I have to justify to a charter board why I picked a proprietary system, I think I'll exit this industry. Right now, I like it." Meaning, I like the industry right now. If I don't, or if I have to justify my choices to bean counters than I won't like it as much. Part of the reason why I like it is because of the direct influence in design and architecture. This is what I'm good at, and why I maintain a very well paid position.
I have ripped my entire CD collection to Ogg format (yes I use Ogg, yes I am a free software bigot). I make them available in a protected web site so I can copy them to my PC at work and play them there when I'm working late. This is "copying music over the Internet". No, it's not illegal.
Uh-oh! I don't have an argument anymore so I'm going to counter with a completely irrelevant, yet again taken out of context example. Just admit you don't know what you are talking about and shut the fuck up. You are just making yourself look like a cave-dwelling, illiterate slut of the IT world. You read a book on programming with a horse on it and now you are all l33t.
Only by considering something can one reach a clear understanding of it. Show me how I can understand something by ignoring it.
Right. So you agree that you should be forced to consider all possible solutions then. Sure thing. The next project you have, go spend a couple weeks hunting down every software project (both proprietary and open sourced) and consider each one, make sure you fully understand it, then decide what to get.
This really takes the cake as to the extend of what fucked up ideas you have.
That's odd, your original post says over half of the people I work with used to work in the public sector until they started working here. Granted, all is indeed over half; however, the fact that you didn't say all in the first place shows that you are now talking out of your rusty sheriff's badge, and that I'm not.
Ok, don't take me out of context. When we're talking about "the people I work with that come from the public sector" I can say, "they all came directly from the public sector." Try to work with a 7th grade reading level, here.
Organisations often have a policy of running only "licensed software" because the software industry tells them that "unlicensed software" is "piracy". You and I know that free software is licensed and perfectly legal. Some people do not.
Some people are idiots and can't properly understand ideas presented in their native language, what's your point? Some people don't believe that copying music over the internet is illegal, it doesn't change what a fact is. They are still in the vast minority of people out there, but it doesn't matter. You can't back up and give one concrete example of a municipal system going with proprietary over open source because they thought open source was illegal. Feel free to try to find any information on this.
I speak from experience of seeing these people around me, in all the places I have been - two different schools, defence sector, community education, health service, finance.
Let me just put you down here. I work for a company that is closely tied to municipal work. In fact, the majority of our revenue comes straight from local governments. The company I work for is based in Oregon. I live in Oregon. All the work I do now, is mostly classified as municipal charter work, hence, public sector. I work in this industry, it doesn't sound like you do. So, in the most blunt way of putting it, you don't know shit about how things work out here.
I can see that I have yet to make you think about anything. I doubt anyone ever could. What are you so worried about? You live on your own planet, where only your rules apply!
No, I live in the real world. With chartered contracts with state governments, following standards and specifications to ensure conformity and support. I live in the world this affects, not you. Nothing you have said could possibly get me to change my mind, because you don't work in my industry. You aren't my co-worker. You aren't my boss. You aren't his boss. You aren't anybody who matters, in other words.
But your logic doesn't follow. Read it yourself. Think about the difference between the concepts "consider" and "implement". I'm sure you'll get there, you seem fairly intelligent, though you're a bit slow.
I'm a bit slow, yet you are the one who is telling me to reconsider my stance when you don't have any grasp as to the actual situation. Keep going.
It's a problem when you it makes you look like a twit:)
Unfortunately in this case, it makes you look like a cock-monger who is out of their depth trying to salvage some dignity defending an unjust bill because it agrees with your ideology. Look past your ideology and do what's right... you expect other people to do the same. If I have to justify to a charter board why I picked a proprietary system, I think I'll exit this industry. Right now, I like it. I get to make decisions, influence the higher ups, and promote open source where it belongs based on it's own merits. Open Source doesn't have a right to be considered any place the people don't have a clear understanding of what it is. If people don't have a clear understanding, I don't want them implementing or considering it.
Well, you know nothing else about me but what I've told you; I've worked in the public sector, many people in my family work in the public sector. I know about the public sector.
You are right, but you are the one who said that the people I work with are different than the public sector. This is bullshit, and incorrect, as they all came directly from the public sector.
Anyway this deviates from my original point which was that many people in positions of making purchasing decisions think that open source is the same as shareware and there is no support, and it's probably illegal.. Public sector, private sector, whatever, this is the case. You may have a "different experience" of it but that's allowed statistically.
Most people don't have a clear grasp of what open source is, but I don't know anybody who thinks that it's illegal. That seems like you are just spreading FUD, pure and simple. Feel free to qualify where you got that information from, though. No one is stopping you from backing your points.
This continues the rather defensive tone of your first paragraph, and adds a hint of insult. Anyway, your doubts, beyond being simply arrogant and incorrect, are neither here nor there and lend nothing to your argument.
They do, because you are parroting the FUD that so many others are. Without actually backing up any of your outlandish statements.
As it happens, my employer spends hundreds of thousands of pounds on software for which there are free software alternatives. You get support for that price, yes. I've investigated third-party support. It's available at a fraction of the cost.
Good, when you start working for a real company that spends millions on software come and talk to me, ok?
I'll ignore the frankly childish comments about thought police. The rest of your comment merely shows deep naivety. People are constantly being told what to think, consider and justify, whether this is explicit or subtle. If you think you are free from such pressures, fly off into the sun, Icarus. When the pressure is encoded into a policy then at least it has to stand up to public inspection.
And you accuse me of arrogance... purely ironic. You think people are some special variety of sheep, while pushing yourself into a savior role saying that these types of measures are justified because people can't be trusted to make decisions on their own. Here's a newflash, sparky, if you make people consider something they don't understand they wont pick it anyway.
In the final analysis, this proposed law is merely asking that something is considered, presumably on it's merits. What the fuck is your problem with this?
It's forcing someone to think about something. That is my problem with it. It's fucking dumb to make anybody think about something. The original bill forced a justification as to purchase of proprietary software. That is just retarded. I would rather have people running a system they are familiar and comfortable with, than an open source solution nobody knows what the fuck to do with it.
Anyway, I looked at your web page and it's clear you just have a general attitude problem.
There's a (fairly obvious) difference between public sector gernerally and the 'academic' sector of which you have experience.
Except for the fact that over half of the people I work with used to work in the public sector until they started working here. So no, there isn't a difference. We have everywhere from Administrators to teachers, so don't talk about things you don't know about, ok?
I am forced to consider Windows solutions when evaluating software. I work in a large company with a range of platforms - mainframe, Unix (AIX), Novell, Windows and now (with resistance) Linux. IBM and Novell rule the roost because 'no-one got ever got sacked' (no-one actually says that, but, well, someimes they do say it) and the freebies are good. The IT organisation actually does quite well in terms of running a stable ship but if they would open their minds to Open Source the cost savings could be absolutely disgusting.
First, I doubt you have the insight or the scope to actually qualify the statement of how much money Open Source would save your organization. Second, you aren't forced. There is a big difference between "forced due to legislation" and "forced due to company policy".
Anyway, other than being 'pissed' when I have to consider Windows, what harm does it do? In fact it encourages a depth of analysis which might otherwise not happen given pressure to meet deadlines. Individual's skills and experience are important, I can't argue with that, but by requiring things from new staff rather than stipulating a requirement in project work, you're just turning an IT procedure policy into a recruitment policy. I'd say the sensible choice is to do both.
It's a good thing that thought police is a good idea for you... I know of several countries where you will fit in just fine. If people are told what to think, consider, and justify, no matter what the realm and breadth, it leads to a world where thoughts are dictated. This is never a good thing.
Look. The point is that many people in positions of making purchasing decisions think that open source is the same as shareware and there is no support, and it's probably illegal.
Uhm, no. This is just FUD and idiocy. I know several people (I work in an academic company) involved in the education system who know very well what open source is.
A bill which enforces consideration is unable to force people to make the wrong decision. It is, however, able to educate people that alternatives exist.
If someone made you consider buying Windows and justifying not purchasing it on your computer, you would be pissed and say it isn't your right. I would prefer to never force anybody to consider anything, just hire people with a clue.
The fucked up thing about working in the public sector is that they usually require experience that isn't going to go work for them. They don't like to hire people without college degrees, regardless of experience, nor do they like to hire people who are "young." These leads to hiring people who have been doing the Microsoft, IBM, Sun way for pretty much their entire career.
Enforce different hiring qualifications, not considerations. Thought police, in any form, is wrong. I find it amazing that the Slashdot crowd actually is hypocritical enough to think that as long as people are forced to think about open source solutions, it's good. What if Open Source had a hold on the civil servant IT personnel and Microsoft demanding considering using their products. You would have the exact opposite sentiment.
Seriously, there are people in IT who have not heard of Apache, and that don't realise RedHat will provide support.
And there are people in IT who think that Linux can do anything Sun and Microsoft can do. The fact is, it can't. People are idiots, you can't leglislate against that, just try to make it easier to hire non-idiots.
If the municipal sector opened up to experienced, younger IT workers, and brought them in at competive wages, you would see more open source work and also lower TCOs for the hardware and the software, but increase in the worker wages. I'd prefer to see money go to people, not companies, but I'll be damned if I ever back a bill that makes people think anything.
We do something that almost parallels this, and we still haven't had the time to complete the Ant setup. The basic gist of it is that Ant has properties files that can contain any number of parameters, along with embedded XSLT functionality. This allows Ant to generate new build.xml files (The Ant build file) and run it, on the fly, given a set of user-entered commands, environment variables, or file parameters. The parameter files are easy to modify and update, and combined with CVS you can even do version control on the different experiments.
What I would end up doing is setup an Ant build file for each experiment, under each algorithm.
And then you can update property files, using a quick shell script, or something along those lines at the end of the data set, as well as having build/run times that Ant can retrieve for you. Good solution, and you aren't reinventing the wheel.
Requires Java, which depending upon your ideology is either a good thing or a curse.:)
Ain't that a bit worrying? You've got to make laws to prevent government to waste your tax dollars by giving them to rich software companies, without even thinking that there are free alternatives. Duh!
I slightly agree with Microsoft on this. Software should be used based on it's merits and it's support. If there were real open source support contracts out there, and it was competitive, people would use it without it being mandated.
I think it's bullshit that this bill is, in effect, forcing people to consider what could be an inferior solution. I would like to see a bill that requires compotent systems architects familiar with both proprietary and open source systems in each district to make recommendations as what the best tool for the job is.
Fuck anybody being forced to think of open source.
That is true, but only if you're trying to get a patent approved by lawyerese instead of true innovation. If you invented something really innovative, it would be approved with or without a lawyer.
Except for the fact companies are more likely to to screw you over if you do invent something innovative and don't have a lawyer. The question isn't about being approved, it's about being approved and represented properly.
Of course, 99% of so-called "inventions" are either not inventions at all or are obvious to any expert in the field, so most people applying for patents will be screwed without hiring a lawyer to write it up in the most confusing language possible.
I'm assuming you are talking about IP patents, and not physical patents. If you are talking about physical patents, not so much. Physical patents don't usually patent the obvious, because everybody is already doing it and there is cost involved in manufacturing. Unlike the case of IP patents.
Aww, so what you're saying is that you believe your invention is only marketable to a small number of people, and you're only planning on profiting a very small amount from each one?
I'm not trying to flame here, but even if you secure the patent you're after, it's meaningless unless you have a market. That usually indicates how "useful" the invention is anyway. And in very niche applications, usually your client base will be willing to pay a premium for a superior, innovative invention. So again, if your product is that good, you should be charging more.
You definitely did say that you thought I was only planning on selling to a small number of people. In my first year of marketing this item, I can't expect to sell a tremendous amount. I could sell more if I had an extra $10K in advertising expenses. This was my point, and what I did was hardly yelling. You should see some of my other posts.
My point didn't need clarifying, as I said, "I have to sell 100 items to break even just with the form filings." I didn't say anything else, and I think that after I sell 100 items, still being in the red sucks because the only reason why I'm still in the red is because of some innane forms.
Now if you want to hire a patent attorney to write your application, well then you're looking at closer to $10,000. But, if you don't have the money, but have the time, I highly recommend Patent It Yourself [nolo.com] by Nolo Press. It'll help you write your patent for a grand total of $40. So, with filing fees, Assignments, and postage, the exercise might cost you $600. That's 12 of your devices at $50 profit. Not too shabby.
I know several people who have gone both ways, and they each say that patenting it yourself is a good way to screw yourself. The old addage, "A lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client." Or something along those lines. I'm going from what I hear from people, from the inventor side of things. These are people I know, and trust.
I will probably grab that book at some point, to learn more about the process. I'm still scared to death to do it myself because I don't want to fuck up, and ruin it. It's like people who file their immigration forms with an error and have to leave the country till it's fixed. I just don't want to go down that road.
Slashdot Mirror
I was just looking at an Olympus camera the other day, for $500. This particular camera could save to Xd or SmartMedia cards, either in still shots or video. Granted, the videos were rather short, but it's been out for quite a while.
I disagree. What your proposing really skirts the line with fraud, and much of it would illegal in about 85% of the world.
How is responding to their spam and asking for more information fraud? This is actually a decent idea, and I'd like to setup a script to do it. You send me spam, if my bayesian filter marks it as such you get a response from a freshly created mailbox on my mail host asking for more information on your product. If there are web links to be had, to a wget on those to grab some bandwidth.
That'd be kinda fun, actually.
The key is to find a way to make Spam expensive. After all, the problem is that these people can send out 80 million e-mails and the total cost is the price of a list and a few dollars in bandwidth. We need to find a way to fight back and make the cost of transmission higher.
The bandwidth doesn't matter. Bandwidth is cheap. Getting personal intervention is what will do it. Create throw-away email addresses to ask for more information. If there isn't a valid reply to email in the spam, find their webpage and write a script to scour for sales@, contact@, support@ and send them a nice form mail.
This would be hysterical, really. Then, when they respond to the throw-away email address, you can have a human intervention step. If they respond, then start asking much more questions about their product until they give up on you as a piker.
They killed switch and Apoc too, didn't they?
I'm not sure why, but Switch and Epoch didn't stand out and were just supportive characters. Mouse had a lot more involvement in the story. Tank didn't so much, that's why they should have killed Dozer. Really just smash the ships crew... movies that kill heroes are just plain good, because they're realistic. Heroes aren't bullet proof... well, unless you are Neo, but that's the whole point of the movie.
As I recall, they were going to paint an ad on the space shuttle. I don't know if they actually went through with it.
I recall Pizza Hut threatening to do that... but at the time Last Action Hero came out I was busy learning how to program and spent all my time burried in computers...
Incidentally, I liked the movie's concept. The kid ruined it.
I did see it a few years ago, and it wasn't a horrible movie. I did think the kid should have been shot in the face in the beginning of the movie though.
You simply don't make any sense whatsoever. I give up.
Here's a quick and easy way to understand what I'm saying: Go purchase Hooked on Phonics, or go back through High School English, and possibly an English 101 course at your local college.
Then you won't have to feel like such an idiot!
Won't happen. If the first movie is any indication, we will have little to no character development. And no, Neo and Trinity kissing is not character development. That's called cliche.
Killing Mouse and Dozer is quite a step. It would have been better if Tank got killed, but that's just my feelings. There is slight character development with Neo, but keep in mind, that the characters are established already. They were supposed to be. They'll grow and change as the tides turn in the war, for now, they're just beaten dogs.
There was a time where the same would have been said about George Lucas. Who's saying that today?
Lucas was a screen-writer. Wachowski brothers are comic book artists. Lucas ended his innovation with American Graffiti. Star Wars was just a love tale with flashy effects. I never did like Star Wars much...
Frankly, I'm saddened that the first Matrix wasn't more like X-Men. I mean, who'd shed a tear of any of the characters from the Matrix was killed? Pretty flat.
The thing I loved about the Matrix is they kill heroes. This was so bad-ass, and helped create a sense of reality. People die. Yes! I hope in Reloaded Trinity gets killed. That would make me wet my fucking pants.
Last Action Hero was at the peak of Ahnuld's mainstream popularity. It may have been THE peak considering how much damage that movie did to that popularity.
This is wrong. After Last Action Hero, most his movies have ranked in the top 15 for the year. True Lies, yup. Eraser, yup. Batman & Robin, yup. End of Days even made a lot of money, not sure if it's on the top 15. Arnold has never picked the "major" movies, except the Terminator series. Even Conan was more of a cult favorite, then a classic, than a main stream movie.
Contrast to Keanu Reeves, who continuously tried to do mainstream movies, and finally found a series that fit. Keanu makes a good Neo. Not to bright; like a big, dumb, puppy dog that knows kung fu.
How do you know that? Name 3 movies in the last 20 years that recieved lots of hype before launch, and ended up deserving it. I can name a few *cough*Godzilla*cough*LastActionHero*Coughh*Episod es1&2*cough* that were hyped in much the same way, only to be extremely dumb movies.
I don't remember much hype about Last Action Hero. I didn't even know what it was until TBS showed it a few years later, and thought, "Hmm.. the lows some people will go."
I'm dying to see the Matrix Reloaded. Matrix fills a role as "Damned Awesome Once a Year Movie" that Star Wars 4-6 never did for me. I don't want a Galaxy far, far away. I want people doing crazy shit in my world. The Matrix does this.
Did you even see the trailer for it? Reloaded has the best trailer for any movie to date. It puts the Ep1&2 trailers to shame. The Wachowski (sp?) brothers know what they're doing with the creative license, and they have a team to make it golden.
I've never been this excited over a movie, it must be like you're 11 and actually thought Star Wars was cool, something I never could experience.
All those releases were dated for late 1999. The Children's Protection Act wasn't in place until 2001. Whoever submitted this article sure went to a lot of trouble to make Amazon look hypocritical.
That is because Amazon is an evil company, due to the patents they've filed and (attempted) to enforce. Thus, anything that happens to them that is bad is a good thing. Even when it is groundless and without merit. If Amazon does something good, it will be met with even more scrutiny and cynicism. Just the crowd here, mate.
To most everyone out there, a database and a browser aren't that much different, they are both just "computer programs." While a mechanic could probably say a car and truck are vastly different doesn't mean that's how everyone sees it.
The average user knows what a web browser is. The average user doesn't know what a database is. If they do know what a databse is, they will know what Access is. Nobody is going to confuse a web browser and a database. If they do, they shouldn't use a computer, or drive a car, only run in the Special Olympics.
did you even ATTEMPT to find out how to spell that word?
it's BAFFLED you freakin muppet
Next time, try some punctuation. That way you will look as if you aren't some 12 year old chimp with a Speak'n'Spell in front of them. Maybe you can even get some capitalization, too! I mean, in the right spots.
So, as you can see, you are misquoting Michael, because by the 713 figure, I am a child, but with the modified figure, I am not. While you are still three times as childy.
Considering at the time I had many more comments, and Michael was being a prick, he isn't misquoting Michael at all. You would have to take into account the duration of the account, and the relevance of the comments posted. FK usually posts on-topic, positively moderated comments. Michael was just being a troll.
Who would have guessed that so much would change in a decade?
No kidding, I just saw a blink tag yesterday...
You got me, I missed the significance of the word "directly", but who gives a fuck: what's the relevance of your statement? What does it matter whether they had interim positions? You said you worked in an academic area of the public sector, I said that is rather different from the public sector as a whole, and this is your response?
My response is what I just said, and you failed to read. The fact that the majority of our work comes from chartered schools in the public sector. This means that we have to comply with all local, state, and federal laws when dealing with software products.
No, I was making the point that you have difficulty seeing that the truth depends on the details.
Ok, then I'll revise my statement. There are people that think that downloading music, they have not purchased in any form, is illegal. Satisfied? People are idiots, you can't legislate and change that.
No, as it is I choose to consider a balanced cross-section of possible solutions. I don't spend months hunting down every project, I go to reasonable lengths to ensure I'm not missing some gems. I've found gems that way.
I'd worry about any company that puts you in decision making roles, but I'll just satisfy my own fears and say that you don't. My guess is you report to a low level manager, and he does. When you have a project, you look at what will do the job best. If it costs money, than so be it. Public sector behaves the same way. They do what fits the job best, that they know about. My original point is that they need to hire more compotent and educated people, instead of lower wage second-rate IT workers who aren't knowledgable enough to pick something they aren't familiar with.
If you give a bad driver a sports car, they're still a bad driver, they just do more damage.
See, I can't get past your inability to make sense, or to see it. Read what you just wrote.
Those sentences spliced together make perfect sense. You are just an idiot. "The people I work with that come from the public sector, they all came directly from the public sector." This means that people that have come from the public sector, at some point in their career, came directly from the public sector, without interim positions at private companies. This is not complex, and is as clear as I can possibly make it for you.
Aha! Finally you admit that this is about how you don't want to be told what to do. In other words, you like the free expression of your unchecked ego. You are a child.
Uhm, no. "If I have to justify to a charter board why I picked a proprietary system, I think I'll exit this industry. Right now, I like it." Meaning, I like the industry right now. If I don't, or if I have to justify my choices to bean counters than I won't like it as much. Part of the reason why I like it is because of the direct influence in design and architecture. This is what I'm good at, and why I maintain a very well paid position.
I have ripped my entire CD collection to Ogg format (yes I use Ogg, yes I am a free software bigot). I make them available in a protected web site so I can copy them to my PC at work and play them there when I'm working late. This is "copying music over the Internet". No, it's not illegal.
Uh-oh! I don't have an argument anymore so I'm going to counter with a completely irrelevant, yet again taken out of context example. Just admit you don't know what you are talking about and shut the fuck up. You are just making yourself look like a cave-dwelling, illiterate slut of the IT world. You read a book on programming with a horse on it and now you are all l33t.
Only by considering something can one reach a clear understanding of it. Show me how I can understand something by ignoring it.
Right. So you agree that you should be forced to consider all possible solutions then. Sure thing. The next project you have, go spend a couple weeks hunting down every software project (both proprietary and open sourced) and consider each one, make sure you fully understand it, then decide what to get.
This really takes the cake as to the extend of what fucked up ideas you have.
That's odd, your original post says over half of the people I work with used to work in the public sector until they started working here. Granted, all is indeed over half; however, the fact that you didn't say all in the first place shows that you are now talking out of your rusty sheriff's badge, and that I'm not.
:)
Ok, don't take me out of context. When we're talking about "the people I work with that come from the public sector" I can say, "they all came directly from the public sector." Try to work with a 7th grade reading level, here.
Organisations often have a policy of running only "licensed software" because the software industry tells them that "unlicensed software" is "piracy". You and I know that free software is licensed and perfectly legal. Some people do not.
Some people are idiots and can't properly understand ideas presented in their native language, what's your point? Some people don't believe that copying music over the internet is illegal, it doesn't change what a fact is. They are still in the vast minority of people out there, but it doesn't matter. You can't back up and give one concrete example of a municipal system going with proprietary over open source because they thought open source was illegal. Feel free to try to find any information on this.
I speak from experience of seeing these people around me, in all the places I have been - two different schools, defence sector, community education, health service, finance.
Let me just put you down here. I work for a company that is closely tied to municipal work. In fact, the majority of our revenue comes straight from local governments. The company I work for is based in Oregon. I live in Oregon. All the work I do now, is mostly classified as municipal charter work, hence, public sector. I work in this industry, it doesn't sound like you do. So, in the most blunt way of putting it, you don't know shit about how things work out here.
I can see that I have yet to make you think about anything. I doubt anyone ever could. What are you so worried about? You live on your own planet, where only your rules apply!
No, I live in the real world. With chartered contracts with state governments, following standards and specifications to ensure conformity and support. I live in the world this affects, not you. Nothing you have said could possibly get me to change my mind, because you don't work in my industry. You aren't my co-worker. You aren't my boss. You aren't his boss. You aren't anybody who matters, in other words.
But your logic doesn't follow. Read it yourself. Think about the difference between the concepts "consider" and "implement". I'm sure you'll get there, you seem fairly intelligent, though you're a bit slow.
I'm a bit slow, yet you are the one who is telling me to reconsider my stance when you don't have any grasp as to the actual situation. Keep going.
It's a problem when you it makes you look like a twit
Unfortunately in this case, it makes you look like a cock-monger who is out of their depth trying to salvage some dignity defending an unjust bill because it agrees with your ideology. Look past your ideology and do what's right... you expect other people to do the same. If I have to justify to a charter board why I picked a proprietary system, I think I'll exit this industry. Right now, I like it. I get to make decisions, influence the higher ups, and promote open source where it belongs based on it's own merits. Open Source doesn't have a right to be considered any place the people don't have a clear understanding of what it is. If people don't have a clear understanding, I don't want them implementing or considering it.
Well, you know nothing else about me but what I've told you; I've worked in the public sector, many people in my family work in the public sector. I know about the public sector.
You are right, but you are the one who said that the people I work with are different than the public sector. This is bullshit, and incorrect, as they all came directly from the public sector.
Anyway this deviates from my original point which was that many people in positions of making purchasing decisions think that open source is the same as shareware and there is no support, and it's probably illegal.. Public sector, private sector, whatever, this is the case. You may have a "different experience" of it but that's allowed statistically.
Most people don't have a clear grasp of what open source is, but I don't know anybody who thinks that it's illegal. That seems like you are just spreading FUD, pure and simple. Feel free to qualify where you got that information from, though. No one is stopping you from backing your points.
This continues the rather defensive tone of your first paragraph, and adds a hint of insult. Anyway, your doubts, beyond being simply arrogant and incorrect, are neither here nor there and lend nothing to your argument.
They do, because you are parroting the FUD that so many others are. Without actually backing up any of your outlandish statements.
As it happens, my employer spends hundreds of thousands of pounds on software for which there are free software alternatives. You get support for that price, yes. I've investigated third-party support. It's available at a fraction of the cost.
Good, when you start working for a real company that spends millions on software come and talk to me, ok?
I'll ignore the frankly childish comments about thought police. The rest of your comment merely shows deep naivety. People are constantly being told what to think, consider and justify, whether this is explicit or subtle. If you think you are free from such pressures, fly off into the sun, Icarus. When the pressure is encoded into a policy then at least it has to stand up to public inspection.
And you accuse me of arrogance... purely ironic. You think people are some special variety of sheep, while pushing yourself into a savior role saying that these types of measures are justified because people can't be trusted to make decisions on their own. Here's a newflash, sparky, if you make people consider something they don't understand they wont pick it anyway.
In the final analysis, this proposed law is merely asking that something is considered, presumably on it's merits. What the fuck is your problem with this?
It's forcing someone to think about something. That is my problem with it. It's fucking dumb to make anybody think about something. The original bill forced a justification as to purchase of proprietary software. That is just retarded. I would rather have people running a system they are familiar and comfortable with, than an open source solution nobody knows what the fuck to do with it.
Anyway, I looked at your web page and it's clear you just have a general attitude problem.
It's not a problem.
There's a (fairly obvious) difference between public sector gernerally and the 'academic' sector of which you have experience.
Except for the fact that over half of the people I work with used to work in the public sector until they started working here. So no, there isn't a difference. We have everywhere from Administrators to teachers, so don't talk about things you don't know about, ok?
I am forced to consider Windows solutions when evaluating software. I work in a large company with a range of platforms - mainframe, Unix (AIX), Novell, Windows and now (with resistance) Linux. IBM and Novell rule the roost because 'no-one got ever got sacked' (no-one actually says that, but, well, someimes they do say it) and the freebies are good. The IT organisation actually does quite well in terms of running a stable ship but if they would open their minds to Open Source the cost savings could be absolutely disgusting.
First, I doubt you have the insight or the scope to actually qualify the statement of how much money Open Source would save your organization. Second, you aren't forced. There is a big difference between "forced due to legislation" and "forced due to company policy".
Anyway, other than being 'pissed' when I have to consider Windows, what harm does it do? In fact it encourages a depth of analysis which might otherwise not happen given pressure to meet deadlines. Individual's skills and experience are important, I can't argue with that, but by requiring things from new staff rather than stipulating a requirement in project work, you're just turning an IT procedure policy into a recruitment policy. I'd say the sensible choice is to do both.
It's a good thing that thought police is a good idea for you... I know of several countries where you will fit in just fine. If people are told what to think, consider, and justify, no matter what the realm and breadth, it leads to a world where thoughts are dictated. This is never a good thing.
Look. The point is that many people in positions of making purchasing decisions think that open source is the same as shareware and there is no support, and it's probably illegal.
Uhm, no. This is just FUD and idiocy. I know several people (I work in an academic company) involved in the education system who know very well what open source is.
A bill which enforces consideration is unable to force people to make the wrong decision. It is, however, able to educate people that alternatives exist.
If someone made you consider buying Windows and justifying not purchasing it on your computer, you would be pissed and say it isn't your right. I would prefer to never force anybody to consider anything, just hire people with a clue.
The fucked up thing about working in the public sector is that they usually require experience that isn't going to go work for them. They don't like to hire people without college degrees, regardless of experience, nor do they like to hire people who are "young." These leads to hiring people who have been doing the Microsoft, IBM, Sun way for pretty much their entire career.
Enforce different hiring qualifications, not considerations. Thought police, in any form, is wrong. I find it amazing that the Slashdot crowd actually is hypocritical enough to think that as long as people are forced to think about open source solutions, it's good. What if Open Source had a hold on the civil servant IT personnel and Microsoft demanding considering using their products. You would have the exact opposite sentiment.
Seriously, there are people in IT who have not heard of Apache, and that don't realise RedHat will provide support.
And there are people in IT who think that Linux can do anything Sun and Microsoft can do. The fact is, it can't. People are idiots, you can't leglislate against that, just try to make it easier to hire non-idiots.
If the municipal sector opened up to experienced, younger IT workers, and brought them in at competive wages, you would see more open source work and also lower TCOs for the hardware and the software, but increase in the worker wages. I'd prefer to see money go to people, not companies, but I'll be damned if I ever back a bill that makes people think anything.
What I would end up doing is setup an Ant build file for each experiment, under each algorithm.
And then you can update property files, using a quick shell script, or something along those lines at the end of the data set, as well as having build/run times that Ant can retrieve for you. Good solution, and you aren't reinventing the wheel.
Requires Java, which depending upon your ideology is either a good thing or a curse.
Ain't that a bit worrying? You've got to make laws to prevent government to waste your tax dollars by giving them to rich software companies, without even thinking that there are free alternatives. Duh!
I slightly agree with Microsoft on this. Software should be used based on it's merits and it's support. If there were real open source support contracts out there, and it was competitive, people would use it without it being mandated.
I think it's bullshit that this bill is, in effect, forcing people to consider what could be an inferior solution. I would like to see a bill that requires compotent systems architects familiar with both proprietary and open source systems in each district to make recommendations as what the best tool for the job is.
Fuck anybody being forced to think of open source.
That is true, but only if you're trying to get a patent approved by lawyerese instead of true innovation. If you invented something really innovative, it would be approved with or without a lawyer.
Except for the fact companies are more likely to to screw you over if you do invent something innovative and don't have a lawyer. The question isn't about being approved, it's about being approved and represented properly.
Of course, 99% of so-called "inventions" are either not inventions at all or are obvious to any expert in the field, so most people applying for patents will be screwed without hiring a lawyer to write it up in the most confusing language possible.
I'm assuming you are talking about IP patents, and not physical patents. If you are talking about physical patents, not so much. Physical patents don't usually patent the obvious, because everybody is already doing it and there is cost involved in manufacturing. Unlike the case of IP patents.
You definitely did say that you thought I was only planning on selling to a small number of people. In my first year of marketing this item, I can't expect to sell a tremendous amount. I could sell more if I had an extra $10K in advertising expenses. This was my point, and what I did was hardly yelling. You should see some of my other posts.
My point didn't need clarifying, as I said, "I have to sell 100 items to break even just with the form filings." I didn't say anything else, and I think that after I sell 100 items, still being in the red sucks because the only reason why I'm still in the red is because of some innane forms.
Now if you want to hire a patent attorney to write your application, well then you're looking at closer to $10,000. But, if you don't have the money, but have the time, I highly recommend Patent It Yourself [nolo.com] by Nolo Press. It'll help you write your patent for a grand total of $40. So, with filing fees, Assignments, and postage, the exercise might cost you $600. That's 12 of your devices at $50 profit. Not too shabby.
I know several people who have gone both ways, and they each say that patenting it yourself is a good way to screw yourself. The old addage, "A lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client." Or something along those lines. I'm going from what I hear from people, from the inventor side of things. These are people I know, and trust.
I will probably grab that book at some point, to learn more about the process. I'm still scared to death to do it myself because I don't want to fuck up, and ruin it. It's like people who file their immigration forms with an error and have to leave the country till it's fixed. I just don't want to go down that road.