Of course software is designed. But this does not mean that the design is complete, correct, or optimal. And that's where evolution comes in.
All these people who scoff at formal design do have a point: so many times so called formal designs end up being one way paths to the wrong thing.
The formal design advocates repond by saying, "well, you didn't have a correct design." A fat lot of good that does. I've been part of development teams where there is this mantra of design it, check it, double check it, lets not do anything until the design is complete, because failure is uncorrectable. And you end up progressing e v e r s o s l o w l y. This is design by perfection -- the idea is to be so careful about the design that it can't be flawed.
Of course, this never works. Nobody can make anything non-trivial right the first time around. It requires some kind of step-wise refinement. Now, this does not mean the design should be abandoned, but one should design in anticipation of making mistakes. Then, the design permits the local correction of errors, without them becoming a global fiasco.
Design for flexibility then: separate APIs from implementations. Version your APIs so when they're lacking you can produce a new back-compatible version. Don't know all the details about every possible kind of device? Gee, throw in an open-ended IOCTL into the device control API. Refine IOCTLs for similar devices later, when we figure out what they need besides the basics.
The point is that it is possible to design adaptable and refinable systems in order to accomodate the inevitable "opps" with a fix that is local and not global in nature. Now, you can't be flexible in everything and sometimes correcting things hurts: witness the Linux VM. It wasn't really planned to abstract it's API away to allow for interchangable plug-ins, was it. And the VM wars were somewhat painful precisely because one had to chose and couldn't punt.
Nevertheless, experienced software designers try to provide an "out" whenever they can, and think that a particular course might require modification in the future.
There is legal precedent that persons on U.S. soil have all the rights granted in the U.S. Constitution -- illegal immigrants, for example, have the right to due process, and legal representation at a deportation hearing. That's why it's so tough to get in to the U.S.: once you're "in" it's hard to get rid of "undesirables". As an H1-B visa holder, it is very important for me to have all my documents in order when re-entering the U.S. from Canada, for this reason.
What citizens have, is privilege: among other things, they get to vote and change the laws via their elected representatives.
So, by recent logic, the U.S.A. must declare "war" on Spain for harbouring terrorists. If it refuses, it is aiding Spain in this and must bomb the shit out of itself.
In my case, as a non-citizen working legally in the U.S., I can now be held without charge for up to 7 days (would have been indefinitely). A lot of "accidents" can happen in seven days.
The question becomes, "So, do I resist? And how much?"
If you think the answer is "Yes. I've done nothing wrong. They are violating my constitutional rights." then what? Are you willing to kill, or try to kill, the police coming to get you? Because if you aren't, and they are willing to use deadly force if necessary, you will be arrested.
Of course, if you chose to resist, you are acting illegally, a corrupted legal system notwithstanding. Congratulations, you are now a vigilante. Vigilanteism is bad, for it reflects a complete breakdown in objective law and order.
However, when enough resist, they are no longer vigilantees for they are acting according to an unwritten law of their own. And that is the birth of revolution. I've often thought that the "blood of patriots" necessary to refresh the tree of liberty refers not to revolutionaries, but the vigilantees that preceed them, believeing in the same ideals that spark the eventual revolution.
When someone resists, fights, kills police, and most likely dies in the process, in defense of a perceived right to develop, use, and share a system for sending legally-purchased movies from a central media server to display stations in his own home (for example), that should give others pause to think: not "Is it worth dying for?", but rather, "Should have they used such force to try and stop him?" The patriot, of course, will always chose death over a loss of liberty. We (in the U.S.A.) aren't quite at that point, of course, but we certainly seem hell-bent on getting there fast, what with the DMCA as law, and hacking as terrorism.
I am firmy convinced that this latest suspension of civil liberties in the U.S.A will breed anti-government vigilantees that will be harbingers of the next American Revolution, sooner or later, for revolution is the history of all societies.
If there is a free version, and your code is useful (and flac looks like it is), you will get patches. It would be a pain to not be able to include them in the non-free version if only because of the maintenance difficulties that a license-based fork would cause.
Of course, contributers could agree to let their contributions be dual-licensed as well, but it strikes me as unfair that you'd get paid by proprietary licensees for those contributions and the contributors get nothing. This would discourage dual-licensed contributions and lead to a license-based fork soon enough. This would be less of a problem, I suppose, if you received no compensation from proprietary licenses, but that would be unfair for you.
There is a way out, though, that would (I think) let you GPL the code, and still be able to use it in proprietary products, but it is one hell of a kludge, and relies on a fair amount of trampoline code.
The GPL requires all statically, and depending on who you ask, dynamically (RMS, of course, says "yes, dynamically too" [my paraphrase]), linked code to be GPL if the result is distributed (an exception is made for libraries normally provided with the O/S, but what is O/S and what is app gets sticky in an embedded environment). However, non-complex communication with non-GPL code via pipes or sockets is O.K. "Non-complex" here is a matter of interpretation, but a classic server or filter utility is generally fine.
It strikes me that a codec can be interpreted as a filter, or simple server, in a loop-backed TCP/IP networked environment, so this could work. Is this overkill? Sure, but it would avoid the licensing issue completely: embedded systems could just ship with the source. I suppose that even that would not be necessary if the system were ordered on-line -- then an FTP server would suffice.
From a technical standpoint, this does introduce a lot of pressure on the embedded side: you need a whole TCP/IP stack and ROM and RAM tend to be precious in such systems. The overhead of packetizing and unpacketizing will require a bit of a beefier CPU to boot. I tend to think that even the smallest embedded systems today could handle that, but it is a concern. Of course, the network type the sockets use doesn't have to be AF_INET, permitting some short-cuts.
As a bonus, the pipe- or socket-based codec would be useful in a processing stream on non-embedded systems -- if you provided a traditional library instead, someone would quickly write such a filter (in the Unix sense, not the audio sense) app anyway.
Been there, done that, used it, learned it, liked it, but geez the learning curve was high for newbies.
As for Clearcase config files: I suppose it is useful to have the source control equivalent of a gun that can simultaneousely shoot only the deer of the right age, with antlers in excess of the legal minimum length, at the right time of season, during daylight hours, but having to trust that it won't go off when you point it at your own head in order to use it is, er, kind of unnerving. The kiss principle strongly applies here.
It is truely frightening when what is so obvious to someone who need only be moderately technologically savvy, is so non-obvious to the powers that be. Especially when those powers have massive force at their disposal.
We are seeing widespread curtailment of fundemental civil liberties in the name of "fighting terrorism", when there is no evidence that such measures would even be effective for the stated objective.
We've seen the U.S. government insist that
foreign countries turn over suspected terrorists for "millitary trials". What of Spain, which is refusing unless the accused are assured of civil trials, with due U.S. Constitutional protection? Should the U.S. bomb Spain until they comply? Why? Why not?.
Engaging in activities that, under fair use doctrines would be legal, such as ripping and deCSSing a movie for display on one of several computer monitors on a home LAN, streamed from a media server, is now (a) questionable, (b) "hacking", and (c) therefore terrorism. I plan to do just this, with DVDs I may buy in the future.
Not reporting suspected terrorist activity, with full knowledge (even that wasn't required in an early version of the relevant bill) makes one a terrorist. You, gentle reader, having read the previous paragraph, are a terrorist unless you turn me in. Oh, and for good measure, since I am not an American citizen, I can be held indefinately without even being charged.
Now, I've made some pessimistic and extreme interpretations of sections of recent legislation, and perhaps a good lawyer in a civilian court could make minced meat of such extrapolations. If it were one small loophole that could lead to extremism burried in a single piece of legislation, such fears could be discounted as paranoia. But, geez! We seam to have a lot of such power grabs in legislation of late. Whether by malice or stupidity, that can't be a good thing.
Clearly, the U.S. was caught unawares on Sept. 11, 2001, and like a frightned and wounded animal, the government is reacting like one would expect such an animal to react: with purpose, determination, but little in the way of reason, replaced instead by blind rage. So we have a steamroller of constitutionally questionable legislation that essentially lets the government kill who it wants, when it wants, and how it wants. But we're to trust that it won't intentionally harm innocents, except accidentally (collateral damage is, of course, part of war).
I don't know what's more frightening: a significant terrorist attack, or a government, armed to the teeth, with no peer, unable to rationally cope in the wake of such an attack.
I am a Canadian. Unlike most Canadians, I don't "shut up" and I speak my mind. Increasingly disgusted with the trampling of people's rights by my government (really, we have a Constitution that says, "there are your rights unless the government decides otherwise"), and my ever- increasing tax burden that funded such oppression, I did what any decent person would do: I got involved.
Letter writing, politics (I served as official agent for two candidates for member of parlament, and as an elected member of the Federal Libertarian Party's Ethics Committee (an internal court)), bending the ear of anyone who'd listen, you name it: the kind of peaceful protest that used to be protected speech in the U.S.A. I mean, put up or shut up, right?
I finally decided the best way I could fight was to stop fueling the tax-based oppression by denying the government my tax-dollars: I legally became a Canadian non-resident, for tax purposes, when I accepted a job in the U.S. permitted under NAFTA. It might be a small thing, but I was much happier paying taxes to the American government than the Canadian one. Besides, almost all Americans I met approved of my general distrust of government, and my outspoken attitude, even if not all agreed with my libertarion viewpoints. I paid my taxes, spent my money in support of local business, supported a bunch of charities, and generally paid my own way and minded my own business. I was made to feel like a welcome guest. Here was a place with a strong constitution, and people who believed in it. A strong sense of liberty and freedom!
I look around now, and I wonder where is that general distruct of government, that "Can Do!" attitude when it comes to fighting freedom-robbers and fear-mongerers. Yes, to paraphrase, they surprised and shot your eldest son, and russled your cows, but does that mean you should accept your shady's neighbor's help tracking them down while his brother rapes your daughter?
Could it be that Americans, for the most part, fear their government (/. readers excepted), perhaps as much or more than terrorists, and so have fallen silent? I will say this: the sons and daughters of the Founding Fathers who's principles I admire so had better find a way to reign this governing beast they created so it serves their reasoned interests instead of rabid desires.
Copyright generally forbids you to make other than "fair use" copies of another's artistic work. The GPL provides far more than fair use rights upon acceptance of the license, but those rights exist only when one complies with the license.
If copyright did not exist, you could ignore the GPL, and do what you would with code that came into your hands. While the result might be a world consistent with more of an LGPL or BSD style license, permitting secret (if not proprietary) extentions to free code, it would mean that distributed modifications to GPL code would not have to have accompanying source.
I WOULD have voted Libertarian, but, as a non-citizen working legally in the U.S., I can't vote.
Neither can I legally support a political party with money (Though I don't know if I'm obliged to complain if the USLP charges my credit card and I don't mind. I suppose I could just offer to buy contribution receipts from others, encouraging them to contribute more in the process).
Well, in Texas, you must provide a left and right thumbprint in order to get a state drivers' license.
I can understand the desire for companies to know with whom they are doing business, and the ability to find them. It is however, frustrating, that so many different primary "keys" end up being used: SSN, license, prints, etc.
As much as I hate the notion of a National I.D. Card, the arguments for a universal unique personal key are compelling, so long as you could control what data was accessible via said key. IOW, any credit agency could assign you an ID unique to them (though, in practice, they use an SSN), and track your credit record, but only YOU could control linking your universal ID to that data.
This would have several advantages:
1. a unique key per person;
2. control over data accessable via this key;
3. pressure on companies to abandon use of less desirable keys, like SSN's;
4. no need for physical identification, like fingerprints.
Consider if this universal ID were also the public part of a public key cryptosystem keypair: you could prove identity by decrypting a challenge encrypted with the ID. Data maintained about you could be signed by the originator and encrypted with your private key, so it could only be obtained with your assistance. Spoofing of data (by picking new key pairs for a new identity) would be impossible if the data included your public key (i.e. "alias") as part of what was signed.
Clearly, this has advantages: you can provided third-party signed information about yourself to those you chose. People can do business with you without knowing your name, or where you live, increasing your potential for annonymity (of course, getting something shipped to you defeats a large part of this). The big disadvantage is that, armed with a public key, third party collection and correlation of data can begin -- the police may not know who #2600 is, but they could damn well track where he goes. However, accidental disclosure of this data would be more difficult to overlook: why would anyone maintain non-encrypted records? They are only needed in plain text for the brief interval during which you encrypt and return them. And, the undesirable collection of such data happens anyway today, with multiple keys being one more thing to correlate.
Still, the potential for anonymous transactions with identification provided by half a PKS key pair that is one's national ID, not bound to an individual, or address, is desirable.
This is one of the things that FHS tries to address. I used FHS 2.1 in Teradyne to manage a custom GNU/Linux distro for one of their products [If you purchased NetFlare from them, you should have all the updated GPL goodies and additions I put there on a source companion CD].
While not perfect, it addressed the following issues:
1) separating O/S from "other" packages;
2) maintain a sane place to put different packages;
3) support the notion of linking to specific package directories from a common place to keep PATH small;
4) was compatible with a number of "traditional" conventions.
Of course, FHS 2.1 has this concept of the "operating system" files and "other files". Presumably the "operating system" is that which the distro bundler provides... so Red Hat would be free to put as much as it wants under/usr. But this causes a problem if you looks at a common standard base for several distros, like the LSB.
Do you have a "standard base" part, and a "distro part", and then a "local part"? Clearly what's needed is a hierarchical way of taking an existing "operating system" and customizing it to a "custom operating system". Right now, FHS allows this for distro bundler and end user, but there is no support for the process iterating.
Of course, my experience has been with FHS 2.1 and have since moved on to employment elsewhere, so perhaps the FHS addresses these issues.
This only works when you are in a group of relative equals.
However, when faced with coworkers who "need" you to help them find a problem, then take off for some social event while you spend the night correcting their code; or a boss that requires you to fix other people's buggy code because "you can and they can't"; or coworkers that resent you because your technical prowess shines a bright light on their incompetence; it is easy to understand why one would not want to work in such an environment:
You end up covering up after everyone else; getting shit on for it; and because you don't party with "the team" (spending your time fixing their bugs), get poor "non-team player" reviews.
Of course that's an environment where the game isn't to get a viable product out the door, but rather "let's see how much we can bleed the share-holders/customers". Sometimes it is by design (in a startup corrupt from the top). Sometimes it is due to management not having it's priorities straight.
But, whatever the reason, such shops are best avoided.
Why would you be against a law prohibiting theft -- which is what spam is
Because the proposal is for a law banning spam, i.e. yet another law. Laws against theft should be sufficient to use against spammers if precedent is established that spam is theft of service.
There are just too many laws which (a) are redundant, (b) used to restrict otherwise acceptable activity in the name of the crime they seek to deter. So, It should not surprise that libertarians (myself included) are wary of more laws when existing ones might suffice.
Personally, though, I don't think that the "spam as theft" argument would stick. I think a stronger case could be made under the fraud statutes with regard to originator mis-representation.
so, you mean that instead of using the directional arrows on your remote to move a cursor on the screen, and using the select button on the remote to make choices, you want to use the directional arrows on your XBox controller to move a cursor on your screen, and use the fire button to make choices. oh, and you want the choices to be presented in a box with a frame that says "Internet Explorer" on top.
Geez, no!
First of all, I wouldn't want to use an XBox controller -- I'd use a standard remote or airmouse to navigate throught a browser-like interface on the TV or monitor screen.
Second, the problem is that I have a number of devices (well, just three, right now, but it will grow) that all want to provide a menu system on the TV screen: i.e. the TV itself, the Satellite receiver, and the VCR. The TV will pop up it's menu over whatever program is displayed, and the other equipment displays it on a chained RF output and individual component and svideo outputs going to different inputs on the TV.
The implication of all this mess is that I can't control one device while watching another (i.e. program the VCR while watching a movie); the TV menu and other menus can pop up tother (what a mess), and I have no control over how the satellite receiver program guide is displayed).
It strikes me that it would be far more convenient if I had a multi-window browser displayed on the TV where I could select and control sources. Naturally, the current streamed video would usually take up the background and there would not be a foreground browser displayed.
IOW, if I wanted to receive a satellite program, I'd click on the satellite hyperlink and get a window of satellite video and a control panel for the satellite. Same for VCR. Same for sreamed video from some web site... Browsing slashdot would be trivial. Now, there might be a limit to the number of video feeds I could select simultaneously (because of overlay window hardware limits), but a background and a movable foreground window should be adequate.
When hubbing in new equipment, it could "register" with the "master" display contoller, and could update it's top level menu accordingly. Other hyperlinks could be added manually via keyboard and a bit of cgi. If you're gonna have a keyboard, you could use it for email, and interactive forms, but I see the use of a keyboard more for configuration than anything else.
Basically, think of the TV/receiver as a computer with browser, and all other equipment as web servers.
The Web-based UI works for so many disparate sites, that I can't see it failing here. The only enhancement I could conceive is a "universal" remote which causes certain "hot" buttons to match similarly tagged hyperlinks on the page displayed, so FWD, REV, VOL+, VOL-, CH+, CH-, etc. do what you'd expect. Anything "fancy" would require manually mousing and clicking on the appropriate link.
Re:Just got it! Sony WEGA question
on
XBox Released
·
· Score: 2
Re:you could do everything you describe
on
XBox Released
·
· Score: 2
You can keep the TV-out enabled under Linux, if you let the BIOS set an appropriate mode (640x480i at 60 Hz), and use the framebuffer console and FBDev X Server. Dunno how well that would work with DRI, OpenGL, and XFree86 4.0.1, though.
I used to have a jpeg with a capture of my old Sony XBR displaying such a desktop and an xatitv window showing the live image capturing the TV in the frame (displaying such a desktop and... ad infinitum). I should dig it up.
Slashdot Mirror
Sounds like a couple of harsh extremes to me.
Of course software is designed. But this does not mean that the design is complete, correct, or optimal. And that's where evolution comes in.
All these people who scoff at formal design do have a point: so many times so called formal designs end up being one way paths to the wrong thing.
The formal design advocates repond by saying, "well, you didn't have a correct design." A fat lot of good that does. I've been part of development teams where there is this mantra of design it, check it, double check it, lets not do anything until the design is complete, because failure is uncorrectable. And you end up progressing e v e r s o s l o w l y. This is design by perfection -- the idea is to be so careful about the design that it can't be flawed.
Of course, this never works. Nobody can make anything non-trivial right the first time around. It requires some kind of step-wise refinement. Now, this does not mean the design should be abandoned, but one should design in anticipation of making mistakes. Then, the design permits the local correction of errors, without them becoming a global fiasco.
Design for flexibility then: separate APIs from implementations. Version your APIs so when they're lacking you can produce a new back-compatible version. Don't know all the details about every possible kind of device? Gee, throw in an open-ended IOCTL into the device control API. Refine IOCTLs for similar devices later, when we figure out what they need besides the basics.
The point is that it is possible to design adaptable and refinable systems in order to accomodate the inevitable "opps" with a fix that is local and not global in nature. Now, you can't be flexible in everything and sometimes correcting things hurts: witness the Linux VM. It wasn't really planned to abstract it's API away to allow for interchangable plug-ins, was it. And the VM wars were somewhat painful precisely because one had to chose and couldn't punt.
Nevertheless, experienced software designers try to provide an "out" whenever they can, and think that a particular course might require modification in the future.
What citizens have, is privilege: among other things, they get to vote and change the laws via their elected representatives.
I can think of a few places to start...
A fitting and thoughtful sig.
Proof: history of human civilization.
More simply, any organization strong enough to defeat your enemies is strong enough to enslave you.
The question becomes, "So, do I resist? And how much?"
If you think the answer is "Yes. I've done nothing wrong. They are violating my constitutional rights." then what? Are you willing to kill, or try to kill, the police coming to get you? Because if you aren't, and they are willing to use deadly force if necessary, you will be arrested.
Of course, if you chose to resist, you are acting illegally, a corrupted legal system notwithstanding. Congratulations, you are now a vigilante. Vigilanteism is bad, for it reflects a complete breakdown in objective law and order.
However, when enough resist, they are no longer vigilantees for they are acting according to an unwritten law of their own. And that is the birth of revolution. I've often thought that the "blood of patriots" necessary to refresh the tree of liberty refers not to revolutionaries, but the vigilantees that preceed them, believeing in the same ideals that spark the eventual revolution.
When someone resists, fights, kills police, and most likely dies in the process, in defense of a perceived right to develop, use, and share a system for sending legally-purchased movies from a central media server to display stations in his own home (for example), that should give others pause to think: not "Is it worth dying for?", but rather, "Should have they used such force to try and stop him?" The patriot, of course, will always chose death over a loss of liberty. We (in the U.S.A.) aren't quite at that point, of course, but we certainly seem hell-bent on getting there fast, what with the DMCA as law, and hacking as terrorism.
I am firmy convinced that this latest suspension of civil liberties in the U.S.A will breed anti-government vigilantees that will be harbingers of the next American Revolution, sooner or later, for revolution is the history of all societies.
I do have some code in the same environment that hasn't seen much change since the mid to late 80s. (680x0 assembler, to boot).
Of course, contributers could agree to let their contributions be dual-licensed as well, but it strikes me as unfair that you'd get paid by proprietary licensees for those contributions and the contributors get nothing. This would discourage dual-licensed contributions and lead to a license-based fork soon enough. This would be less of a problem, I suppose, if you received no compensation from proprietary licenses, but that would be unfair for you.
There is a way out, though, that would (I think) let you GPL the code, and still be able to use it in proprietary products, but it is one hell of a kludge, and relies on a fair amount of trampoline code.
The GPL requires all statically, and depending on who you ask, dynamically (RMS, of course, says "yes, dynamically too" [my paraphrase]), linked code to be GPL if the result is distributed (an exception is made for libraries normally provided with the O/S, but what is O/S and what is app gets sticky in an embedded environment). However, non-complex communication with non-GPL code via pipes or sockets is O.K. "Non-complex" here is a matter of interpretation, but a classic server or filter utility is generally fine.
It strikes me that a codec can be interpreted as a filter, or simple server, in a loop-backed TCP/IP networked environment, so this could work. Is this overkill? Sure, but it would avoid the licensing issue completely: embedded systems could just ship with the source. I suppose that even that would not be necessary if the system were ordered on-line -- then an FTP server would suffice.
From a technical standpoint, this does introduce a lot of pressure on the embedded side: you need a whole TCP/IP stack and ROM and RAM tend to be precious in such systems. The overhead of packetizing and unpacketizing will require a bit of a beefier CPU to boot. I tend to think that even the smallest embedded systems today could handle that, but it is a concern. Of course, the network type the sockets use doesn't have to be AF_INET, permitting some short-cuts.
As a bonus, the pipe- or socket-based codec would be useful in a processing stream on non-embedded systems -- if you provided a traditional library instead, someone would quickly write such a filter (in the Unix sense, not the audio sense) app anyway.
Been there, done that, used it, learned it, liked it, but geez the learning curve was high for newbies.
As for Clearcase config files: I suppose it is useful to have the source control equivalent of a gun that can simultaneousely shoot only the deer of the right age, with antlers in excess of the legal minimum length, at the right time of season, during daylight hours, but having to trust that it won't go off when you point it at your own head in order to use it is, er, kind of unnerving. The kiss principle strongly applies here.
Yup, yup! Linksys advertises this as a feature.
translates to BANDWIDTH to me. There's a reason a lot of hosting services won't carry porn, and not necessarily the obvious one.
I'd think that future employer that deals with high-bandwidth, load-balancing applications, would want someone with technical experience in that area.
Then again, I wouldn't put PORN in large print on my resume -- stress the tech.
It is truely frightening when what is so obvious to someone who need only be moderately technologically savvy, is so non-obvious to the powers that be. Especially when those powers have massive force at their disposal.
We are seeing widespread curtailment of fundemental civil liberties in the name of "fighting terrorism", when there is no evidence that such measures would even be effective for the stated objective.
We've seen the U.S. government insist that foreign countries turn over suspected terrorists for "millitary trials". What of Spain, which is refusing unless the accused are assured of civil trials, with due U.S. Constitutional protection? Should the U.S. bomb Spain until they comply? Why? Why not?.
Engaging in activities that, under fair use doctrines would be legal, such as ripping and deCSSing a movie for display on one of several computer monitors on a home LAN, streamed from a media server, is now (a) questionable, (b) "hacking", and (c) therefore terrorism. I plan to do just this, with DVDs I may buy in the future.
Not reporting suspected terrorist activity, with full knowledge (even that wasn't required in an early version of the relevant bill) makes one a terrorist. You, gentle reader, having read the previous paragraph, are a terrorist unless you turn me in. Oh, and for good measure, since I am not an American citizen, I can be held indefinately without even being charged.
Now, I've made some pessimistic and extreme interpretations of sections of recent legislation, and perhaps a good lawyer in a civilian court could make minced meat of such extrapolations. If it were one small loophole that could lead to extremism burried in a single piece of legislation, such fears could be discounted as paranoia. But, geez! We seam to have a lot of such power grabs in legislation of late. Whether by malice or stupidity, that can't be a good thing.
Clearly, the U.S. was caught unawares on Sept. 11, 2001, and like a frightned and wounded animal, the government is reacting like one would expect such an animal to react: with purpose, determination, but little in the way of reason, replaced instead by blind rage. So we have a steamroller of constitutionally questionable legislation that essentially lets the government kill who it wants, when it wants, and how it wants. But we're to trust that it won't intentionally harm innocents, except accidentally (collateral damage is, of course, part of war).
I don't know what's more frightening: a significant terrorist attack, or a government, armed to the teeth, with no peer, unable to rationally cope in the wake of such an attack.
I am a Canadian. Unlike most Canadians, I don't "shut up" and I speak my mind. Increasingly disgusted with the trampling of people's rights by my government (really, we have a Constitution that says, "there are your rights unless the government decides otherwise"), and my ever- increasing tax burden that funded such oppression, I did what any decent person would do: I got involved.
Letter writing, politics (I served as official agent for two candidates for member of parlament, and as an elected member of the Federal Libertarian Party's Ethics Committee (an internal court)), bending the ear of anyone who'd listen, you name it: the kind of peaceful protest that used to be protected speech in the U.S.A. I mean, put up or shut up, right?
I finally decided the best way I could fight was to stop fueling the tax-based oppression by denying the government my tax-dollars: I legally became a Canadian non-resident, for tax purposes, when I accepted a job in the U.S. permitted under NAFTA. It might be a small thing, but I was much happier paying taxes to the American government than the Canadian one. Besides, almost all Americans I met approved of my general distrust of government, and my outspoken attitude, even if not all agreed with my libertarion viewpoints. I paid my taxes, spent my money in support of local business, supported a bunch of charities, and generally paid my own way and minded my own business. I was made to feel like a welcome guest. Here was a place with a strong constitution, and people who believed in it. A strong sense of liberty and freedom!
I look around now, and I wonder where is that general distruct of government, that "Can Do!" attitude when it comes to fighting freedom-robbers and fear-mongerers. Yes, to paraphrase, they surprised and shot your eldest son, and russled your cows, but does that mean you should accept your shady's neighbor's help tracking them down while his brother rapes your daughter?
Could it be that Americans, for the most part, fear their government (/. readers excepted), perhaps as much or more than terrorists, and so have fallen silent? I will say this: the sons and daughters of the Founding Fathers who's principles I admire so had better find a way to reign this governing beast they created so it serves their reasoned interests instead of rabid desires.
Copyright generally forbids you to make other than "fair use" copies of another's artistic work. The GPL provides far more than fair use rights upon acceptance of the license, but those rights exist only when one complies with the license.
If copyright did not exist, you could ignore the GPL, and do what you would with code that came into your hands. While the result might be a world consistent with more of an LGPL or BSD style license, permitting secret (if not proprietary) extentions to free code, it would mean that distributed modifications to GPL code would not have to have accompanying source.
I don't think that would please RMS.
So, AMD really stands for "Dusky Maiden Association", backwards?
Neither can I legally support a political party with money (Though I don't know if I'm obliged to complain if the USLP charges my credit card and I don't mind. I suppose I could just offer to buy contribution receipts from others, encouraging them to contribute more in the process).
I can understand the desire for companies to know with whom they are doing business, and the ability to find them. It is however, frustrating, that so many different primary "keys" end up being used: SSN, license, prints, etc.
As much as I hate the notion of a National I.D. Card, the arguments for a universal unique personal key are compelling, so long as you could control what data was accessible via said key. IOW, any credit agency could assign you an ID unique to them (though, in practice, they use an SSN), and track your credit record, but only YOU could control linking your universal ID to that data.
This would have several advantages:
1. a unique key per person;
2. control over data accessable via this key;
3. pressure on companies to abandon use of less desirable keys, like SSN's;
4. no need for physical identification, like fingerprints.
Consider if this universal ID were also the public part of a public key cryptosystem keypair: you could prove identity by decrypting a challenge encrypted with the ID. Data maintained about you could be signed by the originator and encrypted with your private key, so it could only be obtained with your assistance. Spoofing of data (by picking new key pairs for a new identity) would be impossible if the data included your public key (i.e. "alias") as part of what was signed.
Clearly, this has advantages: you can provided third-party signed information about yourself to those you chose. People can do business with you without knowing your name, or where you live, increasing your potential for annonymity (of course, getting something shipped to you defeats a large part of this). The big disadvantage is that, armed with a public key, third party collection and correlation of data can begin -- the police may not know who #2600 is, but they could damn well track where he goes. However, accidental disclosure of this data would be more difficult to overlook: why would anyone maintain non-encrypted records? They are only needed in plain text for the brief interval during which you encrypt and return them. And, the undesirable collection of such data happens anyway today, with multiple keys being one more thing to correlate.
Still, the potential for anonymous transactions with identification provided by half a PKS key pair that is one's national ID, not bound to an individual, or address, is desirable.
While not perfect, it addressed the following issues:
1) separating O/S from "other" packages;
2) maintain a sane place to put different packages;
3) support the notion of linking to specific package directories from a common place to keep PATH small;
4) was compatible with a number of "traditional" conventions.
Of course, FHS 2.1 has this concept of the "operating system" files and "other files". Presumably the "operating system" is that which the distro bundler provides... so Red Hat would be free to put as much as it wants under /usr. But this causes a problem if you looks at a common standard base for several distros, like the LSB.
Do you have a "standard base" part, and a "distro part", and then a "local part"? Clearly what's needed is a hierarchical way of taking an existing "operating system" and customizing it to a "custom operating system". Right now, FHS allows this for distro bundler and end user, but there is no support for the process iterating.
Of course, my experience has been with FHS 2.1 and have since moved on to employment elsewhere, so perhaps the FHS addresses these issues.
Yup, but it is typical.
However, when faced with coworkers who "need" you to help them find a problem, then take off for some social event while you spend the night correcting their code; or a boss that requires you to fix other people's buggy code because "you can and they can't"; or coworkers that resent you because your technical prowess shines a bright light on their incompetence; it is easy to understand why one would not want to work in such an environment:
You end up covering up after everyone else; getting shit on for it; and because you don't party with "the team" (spending your time fixing their bugs), get poor "non-team player" reviews.
Of course that's an environment where the game isn't to get a viable product out the door, but rather "let's see how much we can bleed the share-holders/customers". Sometimes it is by design (in a startup corrupt from the top). Sometimes it is due to management not having it's priorities straight.
But, whatever the reason, such shops are best avoided.
No longer can we redicule the Russian people for "letting" Communism happen, or citizens of 1930s Gernany for accepting Nazi rule.
We are as blind and "foolish" as they were.
Rather humbling, I think.
Because the proposal is for a law banning spam, i.e. yet another law. Laws against theft should be sufficient to use against spammers if precedent is established that spam is theft of service.
There are just too many laws which (a) are redundant, (b) used to restrict otherwise acceptable activity in the name of the crime they seek to deter. So, It should not surprise that libertarians (myself included) are wary of more laws when existing ones might suffice.
Personally, though, I don't think that the "spam as theft" argument would stick. I think a stronger case could be made under the fraud statutes with regard to originator mis-representation.
Geez, no!
First of all, I wouldn't want to use an XBox controller -- I'd use a standard remote or airmouse to navigate throught a browser-like interface on the TV or monitor screen.
Second, the problem is that I have a number of devices (well, just three, right now, but it will grow) that all want to provide a menu system on the TV screen: i.e. the TV itself, the Satellite receiver, and the VCR. The TV will pop up it's menu over whatever program is displayed, and the other equipment displays it on a chained RF output and individual component and svideo outputs going to different inputs on the TV.
The implication of all this mess is that I can't control one device while watching another (i.e. program the VCR while watching a movie); the TV menu and other menus can pop up tother (what a mess), and I have no control over how the satellite receiver program guide is displayed).
It strikes me that it would be far more convenient if I had a multi-window browser displayed on the TV where I could select and control sources. Naturally, the current streamed video would usually take up the background and there would not be a foreground browser displayed.
IOW, if I wanted to receive a satellite program, I'd click on the satellite hyperlink and get a window of satellite video and a control panel for the satellite. Same for VCR. Same for sreamed video from some web site... Browsing slashdot would be trivial. Now, there might be a limit to the number of video feeds I could select simultaneously (because of overlay window hardware limits), but a background and a movable foreground window should be adequate.
When hubbing in new equipment, it could "register" with the "master" display contoller, and could update it's top level menu accordingly. Other hyperlinks could be added manually via keyboard and a bit of cgi. If you're gonna have a keyboard, you could use it for email, and interactive forms, but I see the use of a keyboard more for configuration than anything else.
Basically, think of the TV/receiver as a computer with browser, and all other equipment as web servers.
The Web-based UI works for so many disparate sites, that I can't see it failing here. The only enhancement I could conceive is a "universal" remote which causes certain "hot" buttons to match similarly tagged hyperlinks on the page displayed, so FWD, REV, VOL+, VOL-, CH+, CH-, etc. do what you'd expect. Anything "fancy" would require manually mousing and clicking on the appropriate link.
er, mine does... and 1080i too!
here
I used to have a jpeg with a capture of my old Sony XBR displaying such a desktop and an xatitv window showing the live image capturing the TV in the frame (displaying such a desktop and... ad infinitum). I should dig it up.