The problem with Yahoo is not that Yahoo users receive spam, it's that spammers can sign up for as many disposable email addresses at yahoo as they want and send their spam from those addresses (with all sorts of spoofing techniques to mask their real email and IP addresses).
The article says nothing about that being the intent of this move, but it seems to me that charging for email address might help to prevent spammers from signing up for tons of yahoo addresses to send their spam.
In general, I'm no Nader fan, but Ralph Nader and James Love's comment is right on the money.
Their first complaint about the settlement is "there is a need to have broader disclosure of file formats for popular office productivity and multimedia applications. Moreover, where Microsoft appears be given broad discretion to deploy intellectual property claims to avoid opening up its monopoly operating system where it will be needed the most, in terms of new interfaces and technologies. Moreover, the agreement appears to give Microsoft too many opportunities to undermine the free software movement."
Exactly. Most of the other comments that oppose the settlement, including the nine litigating states, think that Microsoft should be forced to continue to develop Office for Mac, and some want to force Microsoft to develop Office for Linux and other unices. What they don't seem to understand is that that will simply move Microsoft's most important monopoly from operating systems to office suites (i.e. applications). In fact, this would do Microsoft a huge favor. It is becoming more and more clear that consumers will not be so dependent upon using the same operating system as everyone else. Instead, what most people care about is the ability to share Word files. If the centerpiece of the remedy is to force Microsoft to develop Office for all competing operating systems, no one will be freed from essentially forced use of Microsoft products; we will simply be freed from forced use of Microsoft operating systems.
What Microsoft needs to do is exactly what Nader proposes: open up their file formats so that competitors can produce software that can read and write Office files as well as Office itself.
Nader is also the only commenter that I saw (I've only looked at four or five of the comments, and haven't read all of any of them, given the length) who recognized the strength that the PFJ gives to Microsoft by allowing them to exclude developers whose "business viability" is not certified by Microsoft, i.e. open source and other not-for-profit developers.
May Nader continue to watch out for consumers' interests (but may he try to effect change in the Democratic party through the primaries and other methods rather than by throwing the presidential election).
No. An iPod is one in a long list of reasons to make your next computer a Mac. Apple doesn't seriously believe that anyone is going to buy an iMac just to get an iPod; they does believe that the ability to buy an iPod adds to the value of a Mac in making a purchasing decision. Mac OS X is another thing that adds to the value of a Mac, as are all the iApps, and the overall quality of the systems. No one element is going to make people run to the nearest Apple Store, but the theory (in Apple's marketing department) is that the whole package, including the iPod compatibility, will.
The trouble is that Microsoft has an effective monopoly on the OS market. Therefore, prohibiting Microsoft from producing anything not for Windows will simply (in the foreseeable future) make the Mac and *nix an inviable alternative to Windows.
The only way any solution can work is if Microsoft is forced to open their file formats. (That most likely won't be sufficient to end Microsoft's monopoly, but it is necessary.)
I will be thrilled if Microsoft can't make the jump to the next era shift, but as long as they have their current stance in the OS market, coupled with their monopoly in the office suite market and the monopoly they are desperately trying to establish in the media player market, it looks like they're pretty well positioned to follow any market trends in the future. As long as all other OSes are incompatible with Microsoft file formats, they won't be able to get their foot in the door.
people would use it, and as a result it would force Microsoft to realize that Linux has desktop potential. Even if they wanted to kill the product later on, they wouldn't be able to do it easily, because the bean counters would say "Hey, this product is selling very well, why stop it?"
Microsoft already realizes that Linux has desktop potential; in fact, they have recognized it as the number one threat to their dominance.
Microsoft publishes Office for Mac in large part because they aren't worried about the Mac's viability as a platform that is a potential threat to their monopoly. In the Mac world, Microsoft does have to play fair (more or less); the result is a superb product, which is a Good Thing. However, Microsoft probably makes as much or close to as much on every Mac sold as on every Windows machine sold because of Office sales. In this sense, Microsoft has a monopoly even on the Mac.
Does forcing them to produce Office for *nix really solve anything? It may harm their monopoly in the OS market, but it will simply extend their dominance in the office suite market, which is where the real money is anyway.
The only real solution is to force Microsoft to open their file format, as has been pointed out ad nauseum. However, the most imporant format to open is media formats. Microsoft's current goal is to establish a monopoly in the media player market, which carries the scary possibility that Microsoft will control our access to media outlets, including both entertainment and news. If they are forced to use open protocols and file formats (e.g. MP3), they might be prevented from establishing a monopoly in the one area where they don't already have one.
Look, ignore for a second that the label on the CD reads "10.0 -> 10.1 upgrade" or somesuch. The fact is that you legally purchased a CD that contains the entire 10.1 operating system. It is the fully functional operating system, and the only requirement for having 10.0 is an artificial one that is easily removed. Does Apple wanting it to just be an upgrade CD change the fact that it is the entire OS + 1 package? Not at all.
Wrong.
You bought a $20 upgrade CD. Full install CDs of OS X 10.1 are available for $130.
10.1 is such a major upgrade from 10.0.x that the only practical way to distribute it is as a full install CD. However, Apple is not giving away (or selling for $20, which, compared to $130, is basically free) the OS; they're only giving 10.1 to the early adopters of OS X so that they now have the basically complete OS that 10.1 is instead of the promising-but-not-ready-for-primetime 10.0.x.
Apple was kinder than they had to be to give us a CD that is capable of fully installing OS X. (In fact, if you have 10.0.x installed on the hard drive, it can erase the hard drive and install 10.1, so it had to be a full copy anyway.) That doesn't mean that we're entitled (legally or morally) to convert it into a CD that can install on machines that don't have 10.0.x.
Theoretically, no one who had not purchased 10.0.x is entitled to own the 10.1 update CD at all; people who didn't buy 10.0.x have to buy the $130 10.1 full install. Therefore, one can argue that Apple should have made the 10.1 "update" CD an unrestricted full install CD. However, given the fact that 10.1 CDs were readily obtainable (even at Apple's own retail stores) without proof of purchase of 10.0.x simply because it was logistically hard to check proofs of purchase, it is fair of Apple to put restrictions on the update CDs and to prevent the most popular Mac web sites from distributing the instructions to circumvent Apple's legitimate copy protection.
Mac OS X does not use a separate swap partition by default; the swap files are in/private/var/vm unless the user put them somewhere else.
As others have said, this bug did not erase the disk mounted at / ; it only erased partions mounted in/Volumes. (OS X mounts every partition except / at "/Volumes/Partition Name" (note the space, which is, of course, what caused the problem).
I have long said that MS's only division that's any bit quality oriented is its hardware division.
The Mac Business unit also produces good products. IE for Mac is probably the best browser out there, for either platform. Office 2001 is great, and Office v. X (for OS X) looks better.
Of course, these divisions that produce decent products are the ones that face real competition. Microsoft had to beat Netscape (and now OmniWeb and Opera) on Mac OS by producing a better browser, instead of by having their browser integrated into the system. (Although IE is now the only browser included with OS X, Netscape still ships with OS 9). Office faces at least some competition from AppleWorks, which is bundled on all consumer Macs (iBooks and iMacs).
Mac consumers did lose interest in Microsoft when they released Word 6 in about 1996. Since then, the Mac Business Unit has been a largely separate entity that is well aware that its products will not sell if they're not top quality, and it shows.
Software availability!?!?! Download GPLed source, type "make".
Same goes for Mac OS X. But Linux can't run Mac or Windoze programs (at least not nearly so cleanly as OS X, and certainly not with official support).
Xfree running rootless with both Mac OS X native and Classic programs is a beautiful thing that no other OS (not Windows, not Linux) can do.
(By the way, Microsoft now produces software that runs on a Unix system. Who'd have thunk it?)
All that said, (back on topic) more Linux distros for the Mac can only be a good thing, particularly for older machines (as has been said umpteen times).
Several years ago, my family and I (I was about ten at the time) went into Barney Frank's (my congressman- MA Democrat) office to get some Senate passes. We expected to just pick the passes up from the secretary at the front desk, but she told us that Mr. Frank was in the back, and could come out if we waited a few minutes.
Three or four minutes later, out he came. He introduced himself and then chatted with us for about ten minutes. He was a pleasure to talk to, and listened to what we said, on whatever issue we wanted to talk about. (It was years ago, so I don't remember what exactly we said, but I do remember being struck by his knowledge about whatever random topics we brought up.)
We had no money, no agenda, no power, and didn't even expect to talk to him.
It's nice to know that there is at least one congressman who cares and is accessible. It's no wonder that he's barely even been challenged in his district for years.
Additionally, here are his views on the terrorism bill. One excerpt:
It is entirely legitimate for those of us who are proud of America to reaffirm our patriotism at a time when enemies of freedom attack us. But invoking the word PATRIOT in the context of this bill gives the unfortunate impression that those who disagree with it are not patriots. I voted for the bill, and I am pleased with the work that we did collectively to provide for enhanced law enforcement powers in a way that I believe is consistent with American liberty and privacy. But I fully respect those who disagree with our work, and I wish we had not chosen a title for the bill that in any way reflects on their good faith in expressing that disagreement.
Some say it is vocational; i.e. the purpose of education is to prepare you for your job.
If you believe that, then there is no reason for a well rounded education. As a physics/ math double major, the political theory course for which I'm now reading the Republic is a complete waste of time; it won't help me prepare for whatever job (or grad school) I'll have after I graduate.
However, I believe that the purpose of education is to educate people in a broad range of topics. Yes, we focus on a particular field (a major), but good citizens should know much more about the world than what they need for their job.
Even if I don't remember any of the details of Plato (or whatever non-math/physics course I happen to be taking), it is important for everyone to practice thinking about ideas that have very little direct application to their jobs.
I realize that I'm being idealistic, or even haughty, but the purpose of attending college is not vocational training; it is to learn about a broad range of topics and to think in many different ways.
Okay, so the UK have CCTV cameras all over the country. Net result ? they can squelch pretty thefts in high streets and issue speeding tickets automatically. Yet the IRA still strike. Gee, I wonder why the camera didn't pick them up.
British citizens have "chosen" to give up their freedom for nothing.
That's only one example. In France, there is a law that forbids people to use any kind of encryption. Net result ? Algerian terrorists, the ETA, the FLNC still plant bombs in the country. French people too have given up their freedom for nothing.
How do you know it's for nothing? All you hear about are the successful bombs, the successful IRA strikes, the successful terrorist plots to blow up the World Trade Center.
The fact that face recognition cameras don't stop all violent crimes does not mean that they are not effective. You have no idea how many lives have been saved by the face recognition software (or even by the anti-encryption laws) in the UK and France.
(I agree that it is very unlikely that anti-encryption laws curtail terrorism at all, but the fact that crime still happens is not evidence that the laws don't help.)
I'm all for giving up things that make it possible to catch terrorists, but freedom is not one of them. Watching people is not the solution.
Watching people is certainly a solution: the computer system notices when it sees a wanted criminal, and throws out every other person it sees. If the system is implemented like that, then it will improve security without any sacrifice to personal liberties.
(On the other hand, if the system is set up to track every citizen's every move, it is unacceptably sacrificing personal liberties.)
No solution will rid the world of all evil (no matter what Bush says), but many security devices, including face recognition software, can help to catch wanted terrorists (and other criminals) and lessen the danger the innocent citizens face.
Politicians are elected by us, and we should write letters to politicians to tell them what we think of them. The politicians then write laws (and appoint judges).
Once the judges are appointed, their job is to interpret the established laws, based entirely on the evidence presented in court. If the judge allows letters received outside the courtroom to influence her decision, she is displaying bias worse than that of Judge Jackson.
I sincerely hope that any letters sent to the judge will fall on deaf ears; if not, there is a major flaw in our legal system.
If you want to write a letter that will make a difference, write a letter to your congressman. Tell your congressman what the issue is, not the judge. If she doesn't understand the issues, then the prosecution did a lousy job.
So just because it made the judicial system look bad, and despite the fact that they found no evidence of bias to support Microsoft's claims, they overturned the decision anyways in the interest of maintaining integrity in the judicial process?
Yes. That is a Good Thing. There can be no perception of bias in a court's ruling, especially in a ruling as momentous as this one.
Judge Jackson's comments regarding the case were clearly unprofessional, to the point that a reasonable person could easily perceive bias in him. That is reason enough to give the case to another judge. This is about law, not Judge Jackson's (or my, for that matter) personal vendetta against Microsoft.
I want to see Microsoft hung out to dry as much as the next guy, but Jackson's ruling is suspect because of his comments, whether or not there was any actual evidence of bias.
Integrity, of course, is one of the most important things in any court case. If there is any perception that a judge or a trial might be biased, the ruling should be thrown out and the case retried.
(It is true that there is bias in every human action, but Jackson's bias was way over the line.)
There is no way it would have taken that long to return using high warp, remembering the restriction of high warp speeds was enacted by the federation only after Voyager was deemed lost.
OK, I'm nitpicking, but:
The warp speed restrictions were implemented in season 7 of TNG. The Voyager series started the January after TNG ended. Therefore, the Voyager crew most certainly knew about the warp speed restrictions. However, Voyager was designed with some new warp engines that could legally exceed warp speed limitations, as mentioned by the shuttle pilot who took Paris took to DS9 in the pilot.
If Win98 was the primary impetus that made USB popular, why do most USB devices (even those that are not Mac-compatible) come in iMac-imitation colored plastics, even today?
Verbatim copying is acceptable, as long as it's quoted and clearly cited. Never, under any circumstances, should you pass someone else's work as your own. This is especially true in academia, where people are (and should be) judged on the creativity and originality of their work.
It's certainly true that teamwork is an important skill that needs to be encouraged and taught. However, this article is talking about blatant plagiarism. Papers that are exactly the same are not worked on cooperatively; they are copied. Most likely, the copier didn't even bother to read the original before handing it in.
Teamwork is for things like weekly problem sets, studying for exams, and proofreading (not writing) papers. My school (Oberlin) does a very good job of encouraging teamwork when it is appropriate. I don't cheat and most of my friends don't cheat; I can't honestly say how much cheating there is on the campus. There are certainly people who do cheat, just as there are people who don't. (We have a student-run honor system that sounds very similar to UVA's.)
However, in other fields where it's more text based (like "read these 4 books" instead of "study chapter 3 on partial differentials"), the papers could be excessively similar because they all draw phrases from the same sources.
That's why you don't accuse someone of cheating based exclusively on the computer program. If the program finds 6 words that are the same in the 2 papers, you check the papers. If the repeated 6 word phrase is in quotation marks and properly cited, it's clean. If not, it's likely that it's plagiarism. However, if those 6 words are the only repeated words in each paper, it may well be an honest coincidence.
The computer program is a tool to find potential plagiarism that ought to be checked by the instructor, not a tool to automatically expel students.
Some people release free software because they want to reduce the amount that others have to rely on non-free software. It can be argued that OSX has done nothing for that cause.
OS X is commercial software. Apple is a business. Their goal is to make money. Free software does not make money. If you are opposed to companies making money on software, fine. (I happen to think you're nuts, but that's just my irrelevant opinion.)
Apple has provided the guts of the operating system as open source software. 'The guts' of the OS are the part that Apple won't sell anyway. If you want the Aqua GUI and the ability Mac applications, you've got to buy OS X. If not, Darwin is a free operating system, provided by Apple, based on and modified by the open source community.
Actually, Software Update is a process that runs on the OS X machine, which connects to Apple's servers to check for software updates. It says that it can be set to check for updates automatically, but that doesn't seem to work for me; I have to press the Updage Now button to get it to check. (That said, I've never let it go more than a few days without running the check, so I may just not have waited long enough.)
However, you still have to know to look for the Software Update application; it doesn't run unless you turn it on. Therefore, it doesn't 'pop up,' so people who don't know what they're doing with a computer probably still won't update from the OS installed on the machine by Apple when they bought it. (An alarming number of people don't ever update their machines.)
You need to be an administrator to run the update on the local machine. I don't know if there's any authentication with Apple's servers, but I doubt it. (As others have mentioned, the security risk is minimal because it is the machine that initiates the contact with the server, so a hacker can't just tell the machine to run an update.)
By default, every remote access mechanism is off in OS X. No SSH, no telnet, no file sharing, no web sharing, no FTP, no sendmail, no nothing. Of course, all of those things are available on the default install of OS X, but they're off by default. You can turn SSH, FTP, web sharing (Apache) and Apple's File Sharing on via the GUI; telnet cannot be turned on without going to the shell (so end users who don't understand the risks of turning telnet on are unlikely to do so by accident).
I wish that Apple attached a more stringent warning to the SSH checkbox. In the System Preferences application (Sharing pane), there is a checkbox that says "Allow remote login: Allow other users to access your computer using terminal applications." What does that mean? It's not at all clear. I know that it means turning on SSH in Mac OS 10.0.1; in 10.0, it means turning on Telnet. No indication that that's changed.
Also, I wish that Apple would include a warning whenever someone turns on remote login or FTP access something like this: "Doing this can open your computer to malicious activity if your password is not secure. Secure passwords should be at least 6 characters, should not contain any words that are in any dictionary, and should contain both letters and numbers."
(Of course, Apple should not overplay the risks and scare people away from what really is a quite secure OS, especially when compared to Win98. It's a tricky balance for them to play.)
Re:Space for the rest of us!
on
Tito In Space
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· Score: 2
Space for the rest of us, for $20M a trip.
However, it's not NASA's duty to provide space tourism; that's what the private sector is for. NASA's programs should all be primarily for some sort of scientific (or perhaps diplomatic) purpose. (IMHO)
HFS+ (the Mac default file sytem) is case insensitive but case preserving.
If you format your drive in UFS, OS X is case preserving and case sensitive.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem with Yahoo is not that Yahoo users receive spam, it's that spammers can sign up for as many disposable email addresses at yahoo as they want and send their spam from those addresses (with all sorts of spoofing techniques to mask their real email and IP addresses).
The article says nothing about that being the intent of this move, but it seems to me that charging for email address might help to prevent spammers from signing up for tons of yahoo addresses to send their spam.
Their first complaint about the settlement is "there is a need to have broader disclosure of file formats for popular office productivity and multimedia applications. Moreover, where Microsoft appears be given broad discretion to deploy intellectual property claims to avoid opening up its monopoly operating system where it will be needed the most, in terms of new interfaces and technologies. Moreover, the agreement appears to give Microsoft too many opportunities to undermine the free software movement."
Exactly. Most of the other comments that oppose the settlement, including the nine litigating states, think that Microsoft should be forced to continue to develop Office for Mac, and some want to force Microsoft to develop Office for Linux and other unices. What they don't seem to understand is that that will simply move Microsoft's most important monopoly from operating systems to office suites (i.e. applications). In fact, this would do Microsoft a huge favor. It is becoming more and more clear that consumers will not be so dependent upon using the same operating system as everyone else. Instead, what most people care about is the ability to share Word files. If the centerpiece of the remedy is to force Microsoft to develop Office for all competing operating systems, no one will be freed from essentially forced use of Microsoft products; we will simply be freed from forced use of Microsoft operating systems.
What Microsoft needs to do is exactly what Nader proposes: open up their file formats so that competitors can produce software that can read and write Office files as well as Office itself.
Nader is also the only commenter that I saw (I've only looked at four or five of the comments, and haven't read all of any of them, given the length) who recognized the strength that the PFJ gives to Microsoft by allowing them to exclude developers whose "business viability" is not certified by Microsoft, i.e. open source and other not-for-profit developers.
May Nader continue to watch out for consumers' interests (but may he try to effect change in the Democratic party through the primaries and other methods rather than by throwing the presidential election).
No. An iPod is one in a long list of reasons to make your next computer a Mac. Apple doesn't seriously believe that anyone is going to buy an iMac just to get an iPod; they does believe that the ability to buy an iPod adds to the value of a Mac in making a purchasing decision. Mac OS X is another thing that adds to the value of a Mac, as are all the iApps, and the overall quality of the systems. No one element is going to make people run to the nearest Apple Store, but the theory (in Apple's marketing department) is that the whole package, including the iPod compatibility, will.
The trouble is that Microsoft has an effective monopoly on the OS market. Therefore, prohibiting Microsoft from producing anything not for Windows will simply (in the foreseeable future) make the Mac and *nix an inviable alternative to Windows.
The only way any solution can work is if Microsoft is forced to open their file formats. (That most likely won't be sufficient to end Microsoft's monopoly, but it is necessary.)
I will be thrilled if Microsoft can't make the jump to the next era shift, but as long as they have their current stance in the OS market, coupled with their monopoly in the office suite market and the monopoly they are desperately trying to establish in the media player market, it looks like they're pretty well positioned to follow any market trends in the future. As long as all other OSes are incompatible with Microsoft file formats, they won't be able to get their foot in the door.
Microsoft already realizes that Linux has desktop potential; in fact, they have recognized it as the number one threat to their dominance.
Microsoft publishes Office for Mac in large part because they aren't worried about the Mac's viability as a platform that is a potential threat to their monopoly. In the Mac world, Microsoft does have to play fair (more or less); the result is a superb product, which is a Good Thing. However, Microsoft probably makes as much or close to as much on every Mac sold as on every Windows machine sold because of Office sales. In this sense, Microsoft has a monopoly even on the Mac.
Does forcing them to produce Office for *nix really solve anything? It may harm their monopoly in the OS market, but it will simply extend their dominance in the office suite market, which is where the real money is anyway.
The only real solution is to force Microsoft to open their file format, as has been pointed out ad nauseum. However, the most imporant format to open is media formats. Microsoft's current goal is to establish a monopoly in the media player market, which carries the scary possibility that Microsoft will control our access to media outlets, including both entertainment and news. If they are forced to use open protocols and file formats (e.g. MP3), they might be prevented from establishing a monopoly in the one area where they don't already have one.
Apple was kinder than they had to be to give us a CD that is capable of fully installing OS X. (In fact, if you have 10.0.x installed on the hard drive, it can erase the hard drive and install 10.1, so it had to be a full copy anyway.) That doesn't mean that we're entitled (legally or morally) to convert it into a CD that can install on machines that don't have 10.0.x.
Theoretically, no one who had not purchased 10.0.x is entitled to own the 10.1 update CD at all; people who didn't buy 10.0.x have to buy the $130 10.1 full install. Therefore, one can argue that Apple should have made the 10.1 "update" CD an unrestricted full install CD. However, given the fact that 10.1 CDs were readily obtainable (even at Apple's own retail stores) without proof of purchase of 10.0.x simply because it was logistically hard to check proofs of purchase, it is fair of Apple to put restrictions on the update CDs and to prevent the most popular Mac web sites from distributing the instructions to circumvent Apple's legitimate copy protection.
Mac OS X does not use a separate swap partition by default; the swap files are in /private/var/vm unless the user put them somewhere else.
/Volumes. (OS X mounts every partition except / at "/Volumes/Partition Name" (note the space, which is, of course, what caused the problem).
As others have said, this bug did not erase the disk mounted at / ; it only erased partions mounted in
apple.com/trailers/. You still need the QuickTime plugin.
Of course, these divisions that produce decent products are the ones that face real competition. Microsoft had to beat Netscape (and now OmniWeb and Opera) on Mac OS by producing a better browser, instead of by having their browser integrated into the system. (Although IE is now the only browser included with OS X, Netscape still ships with OS 9). Office faces at least some competition from AppleWorks, which is bundled on all consumer Macs (iBooks and iMacs).
Mac consumers did lose interest in Microsoft when they released Word 6 in about 1996. Since then, the Mac Business Unit has been a largely separate entity that is well aware that its products will not sell if they're not top quality, and it shows.
Xfree running rootless with both Mac OS X native and Classic programs is a beautiful thing that no other OS (not Windows, not Linux) can do.
(By the way, Microsoft now produces software that runs on a Unix system. Who'd have thunk it?)
All that said, (back on topic) more Linux distros for the Mac can only be a good thing, particularly for older machines (as has been said umpteen times).
Several years ago, my family and I (I was about ten at the time) went into Barney Frank's (my congressman- MA Democrat) office to get some Senate passes. We expected to just pick the passes up from the secretary at the front desk, but she told us that Mr. Frank was in the back, and could come out if we waited a few minutes.
Three or four minutes later, out he came. He introduced himself and then chatted with us for about ten minutes. He was a pleasure to talk to, and listened to what we said, on whatever issue we wanted to talk about. (It was years ago, so I don't remember what exactly we said, but I do remember being struck by his knowledge about whatever random topics we brought up.)
We had no money, no agenda, no power, and didn't even expect to talk to him.
It's nice to know that there is at least one congressman who cares and is accessible. It's no wonder that he's barely even been challenged in his district for years.
Additionally, here are his views on the terrorism bill. One excerpt:
What is the purpose of education?
Some say it is vocational; i.e. the purpose of education is to prepare you for your job.
If you believe that, then there is no reason for a well rounded education. As a physics/ math double major, the political theory course for which I'm now reading the Republic is a complete waste of time; it won't help me prepare for whatever job (or grad school) I'll have after I graduate.
However, I believe that the purpose of education is to educate people in a broad range of topics. Yes, we focus on a particular field (a major), but good citizens should know much more about the world than what they need for their job.
Even if I don't remember any of the details of Plato (or whatever non-math/physics course I happen to be taking), it is important for everyone to practice thinking about ideas that have very little direct application to their jobs.
I realize that I'm being idealistic, or even haughty, but the purpose of attending college is not vocational training; it is to learn about a broad range of topics and to think in many different ways.
The fact that face recognition cameras don't stop all violent crimes does not mean that they are not effective. You have no idea how many lives have been saved by the face recognition software (or even by the anti-encryption laws) in the UK and France.
(I agree that it is very unlikely that anti-encryption laws curtail terrorism at all, but the fact that crime still happens is not evidence that the laws don't help.)
Watching people is certainly a solution: the computer system notices when it sees a wanted criminal, and throws out every other person it sees. If the system is implemented like that, then it will improve security without any sacrifice to personal liberties.
(On the other hand, if the system is set up to track every citizen's every move, it is unacceptably sacrificing personal liberties.)
No solution will rid the world of all evil (no matter what Bush says), but many security devices, including face recognition software, can help to catch wanted terrorists (and other criminals) and lessen the danger the innocent citizens face.
Once the judges are appointed, their job is to interpret the established laws, based entirely on the evidence presented in court. If the judge allows letters received outside the courtroom to influence her decision, she is displaying bias worse than that of Judge Jackson.
I sincerely hope that any letters sent to the judge will fall on deaf ears; if not, there is a major flaw in our legal system.
If you want to write a letter that will make a difference, write a letter to your congressman. Tell your congressman what the issue is, not the judge. If she doesn't understand the issues, then the prosecution did a lousy job.
Judge Jackson's comments regarding the case were clearly unprofessional, to the point that a reasonable person could easily perceive bias in him. That is reason enough to give the case to another judge. This is about law, not Judge Jackson's (or my, for that matter) personal vendetta against Microsoft.
I want to see Microsoft hung out to dry as much as the next guy, but Jackson's ruling is suspect because of his comments, whether or not there was any actual evidence of bias.
Integrity, of course, is one of the most important things in any court case. If there is any perception that a judge or a trial might be biased, the ruling should be thrown out and the case retried.
(It is true that there is bias in every human action, but Jackson's bias was way over the line.)
The warp speed restrictions were implemented in season 7 of TNG. The Voyager series started the January after TNG ended. Therefore, the Voyager crew most certainly knew about the warp speed restrictions. However, Voyager was designed with some new warp engines that could legally exceed warp speed limitations, as mentioned by the shuttle pilot who took Paris took to DS9 in the pilot.
If Win98 was the primary impetus that made USB popular, why do most USB devices (even those that are not Mac-compatible) come in iMac-imitation colored plastics, even today?
Verbatim copying is acceptable, as long as it's quoted and clearly cited. Never, under any circumstances, should you pass someone else's work as your own. This is especially true in academia, where people are (and should be) judged on the creativity and originality of their work.
It's certainly true that teamwork is an important skill that needs to be encouraged and taught. However, this article is talking about blatant plagiarism. Papers that are exactly the same are not worked on cooperatively; they are copied. Most likely, the copier didn't even bother to read the original before handing it in.
Teamwork is for things like weekly problem sets, studying for exams, and proofreading (not writing) papers. My school (Oberlin) does a very good job of encouraging teamwork when it is appropriate. I don't cheat and most of my friends don't cheat; I can't honestly say how much cheating there is on the campus. There are certainly people who do cheat, just as there are people who don't. (We have a student-run honor system that sounds very similar to UVA's.)
That's why you don't accuse someone of cheating based exclusively on the computer program. If the program finds 6 words that are the same in the 2 papers, you check the papers. If the repeated 6 word phrase is in quotation marks and properly cited, it's clean. If not, it's likely that it's plagiarism. However, if those 6 words are the only repeated words in each paper, it may well be an honest coincidence.
The computer program is a tool to find potential plagiarism that ought to be checked by the instructor, not a tool to automatically expel students.
OS X is commercial software. Apple is a business. Their goal is to make money. Free software does not make money. If you are opposed to companies making money on software, fine. (I happen to think you're nuts, but that's just my irrelevant opinion.)
Apple has provided the guts of the operating system as open source software. 'The guts' of the OS are the part that Apple won't sell anyway. If you want the Aqua GUI and the ability Mac applications, you've got to buy OS X. If not, Darwin is a free operating system, provided by Apple, based on and modified by the open source community.
Actually, Software Update is a process that runs on the OS X machine, which connects to Apple's servers to check for software updates. It says that it can be set to check for updates automatically, but that doesn't seem to work for me; I have to press the Updage Now button to get it to check. (That said, I've never let it go more than a few days without running the check, so I may just not have waited long enough.)
However, you still have to know to look for the Software Update application; it doesn't run unless you turn it on. Therefore, it doesn't 'pop up,' so people who don't know what they're doing with a computer probably still won't update from the OS installed on the machine by Apple when they bought it. (An alarming number of people don't ever update their machines.)
You need to be an administrator to run the update on the local machine. I don't know if there's any authentication with Apple's servers, but I doubt it. (As others have mentioned, the security risk is minimal because it is the machine that initiates the contact with the server, so a hacker can't just tell the machine to run an update.)
By default, every remote access mechanism is off in OS X. No SSH, no telnet, no file sharing, no web sharing, no FTP, no sendmail, no nothing. Of course, all of those things are available on the default install of OS X, but they're off by default. You can turn SSH, FTP, web sharing (Apache) and Apple's File Sharing on via the GUI; telnet cannot be turned on without going to the shell (so end users who don't understand the risks of turning telnet on are unlikely to do so by accident).
I wish that Apple attached a more stringent warning to the SSH checkbox. In the System Preferences application (Sharing pane), there is a checkbox that says "Allow remote login: Allow other users to access your computer using terminal applications." What does that mean? It's not at all clear. I know that it means turning on SSH in Mac OS 10.0.1; in 10.0, it means turning on Telnet. No indication that that's changed.
Also, I wish that Apple would include a warning whenever someone turns on remote login or FTP access something like this: "Doing this can open your computer to malicious activity if your password is not secure. Secure passwords should be at least 6 characters, should not contain any words that are in any dictionary, and should contain both letters and numbers."
(Of course, Apple should not overplay the risks and scare people away from what really is a quite secure OS, especially when compared to Win98. It's a tricky balance for them to play.)
Space for the rest of us, for $20M a trip. However, it's not NASA's duty to provide space tourism; that's what the private sector is for. NASA's programs should all be primarily for some sort of scientific (or perhaps diplomatic) purpose. (IMHO)
HFS+ (the Mac default file sytem) is case insensitive but case preserving. If you format your drive in UFS, OS X is case preserving and case sensitive.