>>...online news (and other) sites are not selling me anything.. they want my "subscription" for vaporous marketing reasons - so that they can target me with ads (which are of absolutely no interest to me and which I will block anyway)...
Newspapers sell advertising, not to you, but to advertisers. (You don't think they actually make a profit on selling subscriptions. They're thrilled if subscription fees cover the cost of printing and delivery.) Whether you, as an invididual, block their web ads or simply ignore the ads in the dead-tree version does not affect the rates they charge their advertisers. Those rates are based on circulation/page views and other demographic data. Newspapers have, in fact, been tailoring the ad content of their dead-tree product for years: large urban papers typically have several regional editions that each carry advertising targetting residents of that area.
So those online newspapers are not providing a "service", as you call it. They are trying to make a buck.
Why does online registration offend, but not offline?
Why so much angst about online newspaper reigstration when we've been providing the same information to the same newspapers for years when we get a paid subsription to the dead-tree version?
The same info gets collected and entered into the paper's databases.
Why is providing a (real) name and address so someone can deliver your subscription not a privacy issue, but everyone gets hysterical about keying the same info into on web form?
Let's see...I don't email photos or play games. I do admit to reading Slashdot.
I do pay bills, manage my accounts, etc., online.
I'm not arguing that people should be afraid to learn about their machines. I am saying that the less a user needs to refer to a manual or a help file to use a program, the better that program is.
Yes, using a PC requires a little knowledge. But, too many people act as if everyone would, and should, be using emacs and troff if they'd just take the time to educate themselves. Blaming the user is an easy scapegoat for lazy developers.
BTW, I don't see anything wrong with building effective firewalls into consumer systems. Close outside access to everything. Make that the default. If people want to run a server, that's when they need to pick up a little education.
And, I don't believe I mentioned anything about MS Word, one way or the other. I've been in a few of those trainig classes, and I've also organized a few. In reality, when they get back to their offices, most people use Word, or any other program, to do the same one of two tasks in the same way, day in and day out. They never, ever, come close to having any reason to apply what they learned in that class, or even begin to use all o Word's capabilities.
Sometimes even keeping your mouth shut isn't enough. I once knew a Retriever who started jumping up and down when he heard car keys rattle. Good thing dogs can't drive.
I think your saying that it takes you too long to write well-constructed assembly. Fair enough. But, a number of the other posts seem to consider that writing in a high-level language, with all kinds of avilablestructure. automatically produces "algorithmic sophistication". It doesn't. The algorithm is in your head;coding is the act of implementing that algorithm. You can do that in 6502 assembly or in Common Lisp. Use the one that's appropriate.
Why does use of assembly preclude thinking in terms of functions and algorithms? Algorithms are the essence of programminmg; registers, syntax, etc, are just tools to implement algorithms.
I'm using KDE right now, but, to be honest, I don't make much use of it except as a program launcher. I don't regularly use any of the applications bundled with KDE. In that regard, I could easily replace it with a simpler window manager. However, none of the window managers I've tried has impressed me in terms of quality of appearance and polish. Some may disparage those as "eye candy", but why spend your time looking at something that looks unfinished and rough around the edges?
>> Do people honestly use file selector windows and drag and drop, and find that more efficient than tab completing in a terminal window?"
Of course, especially if they havn't the foggiest idea what you meant when you said "tab completing in a terminal window".
People want to learn to use a computer to do whatever it is they want to do. Your're a developer, so you were motivated to learn how to manipulate files in a shell. Most computer users are not developers and can get along just find without touching a terminal window.
The elitist charges that sprinkle this thread are based on the ever-present aroma of "I'm Better Because I Know Something You Don't" that always seems to permeate this kind of discussion.
Once your message is deposited on a drive that someone else owns, you've lost the chance to protect your privacy.
You're at the mercy of the people with access to your messages. I learned that when, months after cancelling a broadband IPS account, I discovered that the supposedly-defunct email accounts were left active and that ISP employees had access to the usernames and passwords for those accounts.(It wasn't a mistake; they keep email accounts alive in case an old customer comes back, and employees -- supervisors, in this case -- have access to passwords in case customers forget them.)
When I asked about privacy issues, the ISP told me they'd fire anyone who abused access to those accounts. Of course, that's if they get caught. Since I thought the account was cancelled and stopped looking at it months ago, my chances of catching someone posting email on that account were pretty slim. Text messages are no different.
Abolish the FCC and it is the industry, not the market, that would regulate itself, meaning, they'd do anything they wanted to do. We'd very likely see an ever-increasing aggregation of production and distribution in a very few, very large corporations. The Clear Channel phenomenon would spread until most profitable TV and radio stations, as well as local newspapers, were owned and programmed by a very few media giants. Content would deteriorate to the lowest common denominator. The remaining, unprofitable stations and newspapers would struggle to stay afloat while facing constantly decreasing revenue.
Eventually, the pendulum would swing back, and the public's dissatisfaction with the industry's behavior would propel the creation of FCC v.2.0.
In case it has escape notice, most countries have all kinds of laws about what you can and cannot do in relation to their currency? Except for a few (con)artists passing off currency reproductions as art, why would anyone care if your hardware won't make an exact dupe of a banknote?
Of course, it isn't going to wipe out counterfeiting. But, why make it any easier than necessary? Arguments that someone could use an old copy of Gimp or Photoshop are irrelevant, It's a pbvious reasonable expectation that, overtime, the number of folks using old software will decrease.
Using RFID's in currency will thwart counterfeiting only if everyone uses RFID readers. Hardly likely, unless your proposing that use of currency without a reader should be illegal.
>> And now it's a political and social movement...
If it is, it's a lame one.
>> I'm sorry, but denial is not the way to free yourself from economics, politics, or living in society.
What, exactly, is that supposed to mean? I'm not denying anything. Linus is software. Open Source is a software development model. Richard Stallman is more than a little strange. If geeks with outside sources of income want to give away what they produce in their spare time, that's OK. But anyone who wants the rest of us to give away whatever it is we make in order to earn a living, forget it.
>>...if you use some "rocket-type-vehicle" instead of 3 passangers (autopilot rulez), it'll take MUCH LESS fuel to go to space from 100 km in comparison to 0 km..
The vehicle in question is rocket powered. It is carried aloft by a more conventional aircraft for an airdrop launch. This means the craft doesn't need to be poweful enough to launch itself from the surface. If an aircraft could take it to 100km, then, yes, it would save even more fuel. But, the basic requirement applies: if you don't achieve orbital velocity, you won't be in orbit, regardless of your altitude.
>>...even only the X-price will make them earn 2-3 M$. And there are ppl spending 20 M$ to go to orbit!
Aren't you discounting the costs entailed in winning the prize? I suspect they are considerably more than the amount of the prize. And, there is a rather limited supply of people willing to pay $20 million for a few days in space . In any case, such a company would still need to make a profit. No matter what the tickets cost, they'd need to sell enough to cover costs and allow for profit.
That's because they aren't being paid to launch people into space (discounting management of Shuttle launches).
The pertinent point of the X-Prize efforts isn't putting people into space. We know how to do that. It's putting people into space at an affordable and profitable price, not for the tens of billions NASA spends to do it.
All good luck to the crew. I certainly hope this leads to something, but let's don't forget that it is a very long way from coasting up to 100k to entering orbit.
First of all, this craft is at least 6 times to slow to achieve orbit. You can coast as high as you want, but without achieving orbital velocity, you'll fall right back.
Second, the craft's unorthodox reentry technique isn't amenable for use coming back from orbit. That means that this particular design probably doesn't lead anyplace useful.
Third,leaving the atmosphere isn't strictly necessary to achieve orbit. It's just a whole lot less messy. You could achieve orbit at one kilometer if you dealt with atmosphereic heating.
We should also remember that the private sector has had the capability of achieving orbit for decades. They built/build/launch the rockets that have been enterng orbit for more than 40 years. Two things have kept them from actually doing it: 1) A clear business case: Can you really make a profit selling tickets to orbit? 2) The fact that any rocket capable of putting a person in orbit is also quite capable of carrying a warhead to the next hemisphere. Governments tend to worry about, and regulate, those sorts of things.
I've encountered a lot of folks -- all without a clue about computing -- who understood that "programming" was what you did to do something useful with the machine. If your Mom said she wanted to learn programming, she might have though she needs to do that in order to use the machine.
If we're worried that the government will lean on ISP's to spy on us, why aren't we worried that the ISP's won't surveil us themselves? It's their employees who have access to your identity, your password, your email, even, perhaps, your credit card or bank account numbers.
Slashdot Mirror
>> ...online news (and other) sites are not selling me anything.. they want my "subscription" for vaporous marketing reasons - so that they can target me with ads (which are of absolutely no interest to me and which I will block anyway)...
Newspapers sell advertising, not to you, but to advertisers. (You don't think they actually make a profit on selling subscriptions. They're thrilled if subscription fees cover the cost of printing and delivery.) Whether you, as an invididual, block their web ads or simply ignore the ads in the dead-tree version does not affect the rates they charge their advertisers. Those rates are based on circulation/page views and other demographic data. Newspapers have, in fact, been tailoring the ad content of their dead-tree product for years: large urban papers typically have several regional editions that each carry advertising targetting residents of that area.
So those online newspapers are not providing a "service", as you call it. They are trying to make a buck.
Why does online registration offend, but not offline?
Why so much angst about online newspaper reigstration when we've been providing the same information to the same newspapers for years when we get a paid subsription to the dead-tree version?
The same info gets collected and entered into the paper's databases.
Why is providing a (real) name and address so someone can deliver your subscription not a privacy issue, but everyone gets hysterical about keying the same info into on web form?
Cool. A coward, a zealot and a loon, all in one. Keep up the good work.
Let's see...I don't email photos or play games. I do admit to reading Slashdot.
I do pay bills, manage my accounts, etc., online.
I'm not arguing that people should be afraid to learn about their machines. I am saying that the less a user needs to refer to a manual or a help file to use a program, the better that program is.
Yes, using a PC requires a little knowledge. But, too many people act as if everyone would, and should, be using emacs and troff if they'd just take the time to educate themselves. Blaming the user is an easy scapegoat for lazy developers.
BTW, I don't see anything wrong with building effective firewalls into consumer systems. Close outside access to everything. Make that the default. If people want to run a server, that's when they need to pick up a little education.
And, I don't believe I mentioned anything about MS Word, one way or the other. I've been in a few of those trainig classes, and I've also organized a few. In reality, when they get back to their offices, most people use Word, or any other program, to do the same one of two tasks in the same way, day in and day out. They never, ever, come close to having any reason to apply what they learned in that class, or even begin to use all o Word's capabilities.
>> Users need to be educated, there is no alternative.
Nuts. This is just another way to blame users for software that isn't good enough.
Better to write software that doesn't require an education than whine about users.
Sometimes even keeping your mouth shut isn't enough. I once knew a Retriever who started jumping up and down when he heard car keys rattle. Good thing dogs can't drive.
How many of you dog owners have to spell words like "ride", "walk" or "out" lest your canine go flippin' nuts?
Come on, be honest.
We all know a cat would just sit there.
I think your saying that it takes you too long to write well-constructed assembly. Fair enough. But, a number of the other posts seem to consider that writing in a high-level language, with all kinds of avilablestructure. automatically produces "algorithmic sophistication". It doesn't. The algorithm is in your head;coding is the act of implementing that algorithm. You can do that in 6502 assembly or in Common Lisp. Use the one that's appropriate.
Why does use of assembly preclude thinking in terms of functions and algorithms? Algorithms are the essence of programminmg; registers, syntax, etc, are just tools to implement algorithms.
No prob;lem.
I'm using KDE right now, but, to be honest, I don't make much use of it except as a program launcher. I don't regularly use any of the applications bundled with KDE. In that regard, I could easily replace it with a simpler window manager. However, none of the window managers I've tried has impressed me in terms of quality of appearance and polish. Some may disparage those as "eye candy", but why spend your time looking at something that looks unfinished and rough around the edges?
>> Do people honestly use file selector windows and drag and drop, and find that more efficient than tab completing in a terminal window?"
Of course, especially if they havn't the foggiest idea what you meant when you said "tab completing in a terminal window".
People want to learn to use a computer to do whatever it is they want to do. Your're a developer, so you were motivated to learn how to manipulate files in a shell. Most computer users are not developers and can get along just find without touching a terminal window.
The elitist charges that sprinkle this thread are based on the ever-present aroma of "I'm Better Because I Know Something You Don't" that always seems to permeate this kind of discussion.
Once your message is deposited on a drive that someone else owns, you've lost the chance to protect your privacy.
You're at the mercy of the people with access to your messages. I learned that when, months after cancelling a broadband IPS account, I discovered that the supposedly-defunct email accounts were left active and that ISP employees had access to the usernames and passwords for those accounts.(It wasn't a mistake; they keep email accounts alive in case an old customer comes back, and employees -- supervisors, in this case -- have access to passwords in case customers forget them.)
When I asked about privacy issues, the ISP told me they'd fire anyone who abused access to those accounts. Of course, that's if they get caught. Since I thought the account was cancelled and stopped looking at it months ago, my chances of catching someone posting email on that account were pretty slim. Text messages are no different.
Abolish the FCC and it is the industry, not the market, that would regulate itself, meaning, they'd do anything they wanted to do. We'd very likely see an ever-increasing aggregation of production and distribution in a very few, very large corporations. The Clear Channel phenomenon would spread until most profitable TV and radio stations, as well as local newspapers, were owned and programmed by a very few media giants. Content would deteriorate to the lowest common denominator. The remaining, unprofitable stations and newspapers would struggle to stay afloat while facing constantly decreasing revenue.
Eventually, the pendulum would swing back, and the public's dissatisfaction with the industry's behavior would propel the creation of FCC v.2.0.
In case it has escape notice, most countries have all kinds of laws about what you can and cannot do in relation to their currency? Except for a few (con)artists passing off currency reproductions as art, why would anyone care if your hardware won't make an exact dupe of a banknote?
Of course, it isn't going to wipe out counterfeiting. But, why make it any easier than necessary? Arguments that someone could use an old copy of Gimp or Photoshop are irrelevant, It's a pbvious reasonable expectation that, overtime, the number of folks using old software will decrease.
Using RFID's in currency will thwart counterfeiting only if everyone uses RFID readers. Hardly likely, unless your proposing that use of currency without a reader should be illegal.
>> Even eschewing politics, choosing to be apolitical, is political.
Nuts.
>> And now it's a political and social movement...
If it is, it's a lame one.
>> I'm sorry, but denial is not the way to free yourself from economics, politics, or living in society.
What, exactly, is that supposed to mean? I'm not denying anything. Linus is software. Open Source is a software development model. Richard Stallman is more than a little strange. If geeks with outside sources of income want to give away what they produce in their spare time, that's OK. But anyone who wants the rest of us to give away whatever it is we make in order to earn a living, forget it.
Silly stuff, this. Linux is an operating system, not a political or social movement.
If he wants to run a publication by turning away legitimate ad revenue, let him.
If he does that, he probably makes sure every article has its quota of bombast and pseduo-ethical open source mish mash.
>> ...if you use some "rocket-type-vehicle" instead of 3 passangers (autopilot rulez), it'll take MUCH LESS fuel to go to space from 100 km in comparison to 0 km..
...even only the X-price will make them earn 2-3 M$. And there are ppl spending 20 M$ to go to orbit!
The vehicle in question is rocket powered. It is carried aloft by a more conventional aircraft for an airdrop launch. This means the craft doesn't need to be poweful enough to launch itself from the surface. If an aircraft could take it to 100km, then, yes, it would save even more fuel. But, the basic requirement applies: if you don't achieve orbital velocity, you won't be in orbit, regardless of your altitude.
>>
Aren't you discounting the costs entailed in winning the prize? I suspect they are considerably more than the amount of the prize. And, there is a rather limited supply of people willing to pay $20 million for a few days in space . In any case, such a company would still need to make a profit. No matter what the tickets cost, they'd need to sell enough to cover costs and allow for profit.
That's because they aren't being paid to launch people into space (discounting management of Shuttle launches).
The pertinent point of the X-Prize efforts isn't putting people into space. We know how to do that. It's putting people into space at an affordable and profitable price, not for the tens of billions NASA spends to do it.
All good luck to the crew. I certainly hope this leads to something, but let's don't forget that it is a very long way from coasting up to 100k to entering orbit.
First of all, this craft is at least 6 times to slow to achieve orbit. You can coast as high as you want, but without achieving orbital velocity, you'll fall right back.
Second, the craft's unorthodox reentry technique isn't amenable for use coming back from orbit. That means that this particular design probably doesn't lead anyplace useful.
Third,leaving the atmosphere isn't strictly necessary to achieve orbit. It's just a whole lot less messy. You could achieve orbit at one kilometer if you dealt with atmosphereic heating.
We should also remember that the private sector has had the capability of achieving orbit for decades. They built/build/launch the rockets that have been enterng orbit for more than 40 years. Two things have kept them from actually doing it: 1) A clear business case: Can you really make a profit selling tickets to orbit? 2) The fact that any rocket capable of putting a person in orbit is also quite capable of carrying a warhead to the next hemisphere. Governments tend to worry about, and regulate, those sorts of things.
I've encountered a lot of folks -- all without a clue about computing -- who understood that "programming" was what you did to do something useful with the machine. If your Mom said she wanted to learn programming, she might have though she needs to do that in order to use the machine.
If we're worried that the government will lean on ISP's to spy on us, why aren't we worried that the ISP's won't surveil us themselves? It's their employees who have access to your identity, your password, your email, even, perhaps, your credit card or bank account numbers.
Bad passwords seem to be the least of their security problems.