RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) used to (when I was there 1999-2004, I do not know if they changed it) have a policy that unless there was some other contract due to outside funding or some unusual circumstance, work done by the students belonged to the students.
Remember when the Eternal September started on the Internet. Now imagine the same thing starting in the Open Source community. I'd rather the masses stick with Windows or osX.
Try to install Lotus Notes on any Linux distro other than RHEL or SUSE (seriously, who uses those?), and you will learn to hate it all over again.
The situation is not helped by IBM tech support who it seems has been instructed to blatantly lie about how the installer works - refusing to divulge which files the installer looks at and continuing to insist that it should work just fine.
And people need to be trained not to give out information. If he asked me to read him line X to see if it is correct, I would tell him to tell me what he thinks line X should be, and I will tell him if he is right.
It is simple: do not give out information that they should already have, except that which you already know is to be used for the purpose of identifying yourself to them.
Organizations need to deal with this though. I had somebody call me from my bank asking me about charges I had made. I asked for the extension to call back. The bank had outsourced the function, and could not tell me anything other than "somebody will call you claiming to be from us, and ask you for information." I hope they have gotten it straightened out, but I refused to play along.
People need to be trained. If somebody claiming to be your bank calls you, ask at which extension he can be reached from the number you have for your bank, and call back. Simple.
Does anybody make an ergonomic split keyboard (e.g. Microsoft Natural) with either a TrackPoint style pointer or a trackball in the gap between the right and left sets of keys?
I want the IBM SpaceSaver II with an ergonomic design.
And do you really think that whatever percentage is Christian can agree on what to ban? The Baptists want to ban alcohol, the Catholics surely do not. The Anglicans are against homosexuality, the Episcopalians are not. Some are socially liberal, some conservative. Some support big government, some want very little.
The only things there will be agreement on is the ten commandments. But I seriously doubt you will get a majority of Christians to actually vote to ban working on Sundays, divorce, or swearing.
What you can do with a democracy is write a complex bill that nobody will read or understand, give it a nice sounding name, like PATRIOT, and get a majority to agree to it.
I am not asking for regulation and bureaucratic shenanigans. I am simply acknowledging that it is a tricky issue.
I am primarily a utility cyclist. 90+% of my time biking is commuting, and I started commuting by bike because it was cheaper than fixing my car or taking the bus.
I am just saying that drivers should not take it out any any particular cyclist.
You have to take a test and get a license to drive a car. Same goes for a motorcycle; and every biker I have met has taken a safety and training course far beyond what most car drivers take.
Anybody with $100, two legs, and one eye can walk into Walmart, buy a cheap bicycle, and go out on the roads.
Sometimes it is easy to tell real cyclists from people on bicycles. A guy with no helmet riding an old rusty bicycle is probably just a guy on a bicycle, but he may an experienced cyclist short on funds, riding a beater bike, or riding somebody else's bike. A guy with an aerodynamic helmet and full Lycra outfit on a fancy bike is probably a real cyclist, but may simply be a guy on a bike with more money than experience. There is no easy solution to this problem.
In addition, there should be a portion added to driver instruction and testing covering the rights and responsibilities of cyclists.
Also, operating a cell phone while driving should be a felony. A majority of the drivers who have forced me off the road, cut in front of me, and passed me unsafely (and illegally) have been on their phones. They simply do not pay attention.
As it stands in my state, only children are allowed to bike on sidewalks; adults must bike on the roads.
Requiring licenses for bicycling is an interesting idea. A great benefit would be that you could have a mandatory safety course and road test - too many cyclists, as you said, are not aware of and do not follow the traffic laws. Your license would have to be presented if you are pulled over for breaking a traffic law. (Just as the cops cannot pull over a driver for no reason just to check his papers, a cyclist would have to break a law before being pulled over.) However, there would be great protest if you were to demand fixing a plate large enough for motorists to read to many people's sub 20 pound road bikes. Think about how many bikes there are, how long the number would have to be, how big the plate would have to be readable by a driver, and how big that plate is with respect to the bicycle. Too big. And if you call the cops and give them a number, how do you know that the owner was the cyclist? You don't. If you call the cops and give them a license plate number (from a car) and tell them that the driver was speeding, do you really think they will follow up on it?
An easier solution would be a mandatory operation and safety course scheduled upon convicted of breaking a traffic law on a bicycle. I would be all in favor of police enforcing the rules on bicyclists. A cyclist biking the wrong way on the street it more of a danger to other cyclists than to drivers.
Having a BIN (bicycle identification number) on a bike frame would solve absolutely nothing. Nobody is going to call the state and check the BIN before buying a bike, and most higher end bikes are going to be parted anyway. And there would have to be a way to apply the number to imported bicycles, older bicycles, and custom made bicycles. It just is not feasible.
I assume you meant when you do not have a password for an account with some level of administrative access.
The beauty of Linux (and most other operating systems) is that if I have write and exec access to my home directory, I can install and run anything that will fit so long as it does not need to access devices to which I do not have access to.
Many Windows programs require write access all over the place just to function.
Ever notice how stories about more than one failed drive in a RAID 5 array always start with "back at my old job...."
Yeah. Back at my old job, my boss refused to spend the extra money to get a hot spare, refused to let me shut down a system after one drive failed, and refused to spend the extra money to get a new drive overnighted. A second drive failed. "Refused to listen to employees" was pretty high on the list of reasons why I quit.
If bicycling is going to work for more people, drivers need to learn traffic laws and pay attention.
I bike to work - 8 miles each way. Many drivers do not know that cyclists follow the same laws that drivers do (with a few minor additions), and have the same rights of way. Drivers see a bicycle and think "slow". They then pass me at 30mph while I am doing 25, and proceed to begin to turn into me because they assume that I am far behind. Despite the fact that I wear bright clothing and have bright blinking lights, many drivers simply do not see me. They do not pay attention to their surroundings; only keep a low-level awareness of large objects.
Every day somebody gets next to me and honks. Every week somebody rolls down his window and yells at me. Ever couple of months, somebody rolls down his windows and throws something at me. I have no doubts about why more people do not subject themselves to this.
I usually find somewhere to lock it. At the local hardware store, I lock it to the water meter. At the grocery store, I lock it to the bike racks. At the pharmacy, I bring it in with me because there is no place to lock it; nobody has ever complained.
"Most people tend to learn high-level concepts first and only later dive into the nitty gritty details."
That is because the nitty gritty is the hard part. If you can write simple applications without understanding the nitty gritty, fine. That is not what Computer Science is for.
You go through the transistors, logic gates, CMOS stuff quickly. Where it starts to get hard, where I assume students struggle (I did not take a class using the book.), is where you get into the fundamental design of computer and start programming for a simple computer in binary. What is wrong with struggling? If you cannot get through it, you should not be in CS/SE.
The habit (of wanting what everybody else wants) is not waning as selection and availability increase. The habit is reinforced by the increasing channels by which we can see what everybody else wants and adjust our own wants to that.
The Internet, while logistically making the long tail feasible, is socially making blockbusters bigger.
Is there any legitimate technical reason whatsoever to even assemble all of the packets for a file at any router that is not the destination? Or even to look at the packets enough to know that there is a file?
Slashdot Mirror
RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) used to (when I was there 1999-2004, I do not know if they changed it) have a policy that unless there was some other contract due to outside funding or some unusual circumstance, work done by the students belonged to the students.
Remember when the Eternal September started on the Internet. Now imagine the same thing starting in the Open Source community. I'd rather the masses stick with Windows or osX.
Try to install Lotus Notes on any Linux distro other than RHEL or SUSE (seriously, who uses those?), and you will learn to hate it all over again.
The situation is not helped by IBM tech support who it seems has been instructed to blatantly lie about how the installer works - refusing to divulge which files the installer looks at and continuing to insist that it should work just fine.
And people need to be trained not to give out information. If he asked me to read him line X to see if it is correct, I would tell him to tell me what he thinks line X should be, and I will tell him if he is right.
It is simple: do not give out information that they should already have, except that which you already know is to be used for the purpose of identifying yourself to them.
Organizations need to deal with this though. I had somebody call me from my bank asking me about charges I had made. I asked for the extension to call back. The bank had outsourced the function, and could not tell me anything other than "somebody will call you claiming to be from us, and ask you for information." I hope they have gotten it straightened out, but I refused to play along.
People need to be trained. If somebody claiming to be your bank calls you, ask at which extension he can be reached from the number you have for your bank, and call back. Simple.
Why does your bank not give you a compact disc with their public key on it when you sign up for an account?
Does anybody make an ergonomic split keyboard (e.g. Microsoft Natural) with either a TrackPoint style pointer or a trackball in the gap between the right and left sets of keys?
I want the IBM SpaceSaver II with an ergonomic design.
Does anybody really write applications using XUL?
And do you really think that whatever percentage is Christian can agree on what to ban? The Baptists want to ban alcohol, the Catholics surely do not. The Anglicans are against homosexuality, the Episcopalians are not. Some are socially liberal, some conservative. Some support big government, some want very little.
The only things there will be agreement on is the ten commandments. But I seriously doubt you will get a majority of Christians to actually vote to ban working on Sundays, divorce, or swearing.
What you can do with a democracy is write a complex bill that nobody will read or understand, give it a nice sounding name, like PATRIOT, and get a majority to agree to it.
That just will not happen in a republic.
I rarely compile (other people's code) from source. But I have done so to get software on machines that I did not have administrative access to.
I am not asking for regulation and bureaucratic shenanigans. I am simply acknowledging that it is a tricky issue.
I am primarily a utility cyclist. 90+% of my time biking is commuting, and I started commuting by bike because it was cheaper than fixing my car or taking the bus.
I am just saying that drivers should not take it out any any particular cyclist.
You have to take a test and get a license to drive a car. Same goes for a motorcycle; and every biker I have met has taken a safety and training course far beyond what most car drivers take.
Anybody with $100, two legs, and one eye can walk into Walmart, buy a cheap bicycle, and go out on the roads.
Sometimes it is easy to tell real cyclists from people on bicycles. A guy with no helmet riding an old rusty bicycle is probably just a guy on a bicycle, but he may an experienced cyclist short on funds, riding a beater bike, or riding somebody else's bike. A guy with an aerodynamic helmet and full Lycra outfit on a fancy bike is probably a real cyclist, but may simply be a guy on a bike with more money than experience. There is no easy solution to this problem.
Do not take it out on me.
Most bicyclists do not pay attention and do not follow the laws.
Most drivers do not pay attention and do not follow the laws.
Neither of those excuse any further poor behavior, especially that which would endanger somebody.
In addition, there should be a portion added to driver instruction and testing covering the rights and responsibilities of cyclists.
Also, operating a cell phone while driving should be a felony. A majority of the drivers who have forced me off the road, cut in front of me, and passed me unsafely (and illegally) have been on their phones. They simply do not pay attention.
As it stands in my state, only children are allowed to bike on sidewalks; adults must bike on the roads.
Requiring licenses for bicycling is an interesting idea. A great benefit would be that you could have a mandatory safety course and road test - too many cyclists, as you said, are not aware of and do not follow the traffic laws. Your license would have to be presented if you are pulled over for breaking a traffic law. (Just as the cops cannot pull over a driver for no reason just to check his papers, a cyclist would have to break a law before being pulled over.) However, there would be great protest if you were to demand fixing a plate large enough for motorists to read to many people's sub 20 pound road bikes. Think about how many bikes there are, how long the number would have to be, how big the plate would have to be readable by a driver, and how big that plate is with respect to the bicycle. Too big. And if you call the cops and give them a number, how do you know that the owner was the cyclist? You don't. If you call the cops and give them a license plate number (from a car) and tell them that the driver was speeding, do you really think they will follow up on it?
An easier solution would be a mandatory operation and safety course scheduled upon convicted of breaking a traffic law on a bicycle. I would be all in favor of police enforcing the rules on bicyclists. A cyclist biking the wrong way on the street it more of a danger to other cyclists than to drivers.
Having a BIN (bicycle identification number) on a bike frame would solve absolutely nothing. Nobody is going to call the state and check the BIN before buying a bike, and most higher end bikes are going to be parted anyway. And there would have to be a way to apply the number to imported bicycles, older bicycles, and custom made bicycles. It just is not feasible.
I assume you meant when you do not have a password for an account with some level of administrative access.
The beauty of Linux (and most other operating systems) is that if I have write and exec access to my home directory, I can install and run anything that will fit so long as it does not need to access devices to which I do not have access to.
Many Windows programs require write access all over the place just to function.
Yeah. Back at my old job, my boss refused to spend the extra money to get a hot spare, refused to let me shut down a system after one drive failed, and refused to spend the extra money to get a new drive overnighted. A second drive failed. "Refused to listen to employees" was pretty high on the list of reasons why I quit.
If bicycling is going to work for more people, drivers need to learn traffic laws and pay attention.
I bike to work - 8 miles each way. Many drivers do not know that cyclists follow the same laws that drivers do (with a few minor additions), and have the same rights of way. Drivers see a bicycle and think "slow". They then pass me at 30mph while I am doing 25, and proceed to begin to turn into me because they assume that I am far behind. Despite the fact that I wear bright clothing and have bright blinking lights, many drivers simply do not see me. They do not pay attention to their surroundings; only keep a low-level awareness of large objects.
Every day somebody gets next to me and honks. Every week somebody rolls down his window and yells at me. Ever couple of months, somebody rolls down his windows and throws something at me. I have no doubts about why more people do not subject themselves to this.
I usually find somewhere to lock it. At the local hardware store, I lock it to the water meter. At the grocery store, I lock it to the bike racks. At the pharmacy, I bring it in with me because there is no place to lock it; nobody has ever complained.
"Most people tend to learn high-level concepts first and only later dive into the nitty gritty details."
That is because the nitty gritty is the hard part. If you can write simple applications without understanding the nitty gritty, fine. That is not what Computer Science is for.
You go through the transistors, logic gates, CMOS stuff quickly. Where it starts to get hard, where I assume students struggle (I did not take a class using the book.), is where you get into the fundamental design of computer and start programming for a simple computer in binary. What is wrong with struggling? If you cannot get through it, you should not be in CS/SE.
The habit (of wanting what everybody else wants) is not waning as selection and availability increase. The habit is reinforced by the increasing channels by which we can see what everybody else wants and adjust our own wants to that.
The Internet, while logistically making the long tail feasible, is socially making blockbusters bigger.
"Introduction to Computing Systems: From Bits and Gates to C and Beyond"
http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072467509/
This is where every programmer should start.
The problem with that is IE.
Suppose Mozilla, Google, Apple, Gnome, The KDE Team, and Opera all remove untrustworthy CAs from their browsers.
Microsoft can leave the untrustworthy CAs in IE, and there are automatically a bunch of sites that are, for most users, IE only.
Is there any legitimate technical reason whatsoever to even assemble all of the packets for a file at any router that is not the destination? Or even to look at the packets enough to know that there is a file?