I personally think that the high fuel prices are a sign of a responsible government, and I think that it is infuriating that the American government does not have the courage to raise the prices of fossil fuels in America, making them more accurately reflect the damage to the environment that they cause. If you associate freedom with low fuel prices, then it is only the freedom to ruin the world's environment and squander the last remaining fuel reserves.
Looking through the FAQ they expect it to cost $1000-$2500 to resolve a cyber-squatting issue, that must be, ooh, 90% profit for Network Solutions (how hard can it be to demonstrate that a domain is being held by a cybersquatter). Further, surely those costs should be borne by the cybersquatter, not the organisation whose domain was pirated!
...the patent's existence ensures that down the road, we'll all be treated to a good description of it that we can use.
Er, yeah, about 20 years down the road. This is the problem with all software patents, not just the obvious ones, in 20 years this information will probably be useless as computing will have moved on, Google basically have this patent for the entire duration (and then some) of its useful life. If you must have patents on non-obvious algorithms, I think they should last at most 2-3 years, that would give the owner of the patent enough time to make some profit, but would also allow the public to benefit from the patent while it is still relevant.
I think the point here is the question "what exactly does it mean to have a mental illness?". Surely someone is mentally ill if their mental processes (or chemical balance or whatever) differ significantly from those of the general population, ie. they are abnormal. The thing is that 1/5th of the population can't be abnormal, purely because they are 1/5th of the population! If that were true then left-handed people who make up even less of a proportion of the population could also be considered abnormal, blue-eyed people would be abnormal - you get the picture.
Not only does this story title help reinforce the sterotype that mentally ill people are somehow different to other ill people...
But they are! Mental illness is different in terms of the symptoms, and the methods of treatment. Also, mental illness is different in the way that can change your way of viewing the world and life. Also, even if that were a false stereotype, I don't see how that article re-enforces it.
I know several people who suffer from Manic Depression and who are quite happy to refer to themselves as being nuts despite what the newspeak brigade think. I think the point here is the question "what exactly does it mean to have a mental illness?". Surely someone is mentally ill if their mental processes (or chemical balance or whatever) differ significantly from those of the general population, ie. they are abnormal. The thing is that 1/5th of the population can't be abnormal, purely because they are 1/5th of the population! If that were true then left-handed people who make up even less of a proportion of the population could also be considered abnormal, blue-eyed people would be abnormal - you get the picture.
I could hardly believe the way the police acted. By dressing up like every bad-guy minion there ever was (black with darth-vader style mask) they are just asking to be painted as the servants of the evil WTO. The British police had some problems near where I work, they seem to understand more that the best way to diffuse a situation is to stand back, pick out the trouble-makers, and keep a low profile.
Perhaps someone should buy you a dictionary. I said that he *implied* that Linux was immune to viri, not that he *stated* anything. Here was an example where some computers were hit by viri, he suggested they use Linux instead, obviously he was implying that Linux was better when it came to viri! This line of conversation is rapidly beginning to bore me.
No, you have missed the point. The point is that this has very little todo with the operating system, and everything to do with the software running on the operating system.
Unfortunately it seems that one of the moderators doesn't like any comments that are critical of Linux, even when written in a reasonable and informed fashion (this comment was moderated down as flamebait shortly after being posted). I have drawn this abuse to Rob's attention, hopefully he will take appropriate action.
The point is that an operating system is only as secure as the software you run on them (as was demonstrated by a well publicised failure of Linux in recent security tests). Unfortunately many people choose to write and use stupidly insecure email software, if the same software was available for Linux it would probably be used just as widely, and make Linux just as susceptible to this type of attack.
I am getting tired about hearing how Linux is immune to computer viri, it simply isn't. The main thing preventing people from writing a Linux virus is good-will towards the operating system. People's main argument about why Windoze is insecure is because a user, or user process, has access to the entire file-system. The thing is that any installation script running as root (as most require) also has access to an entire Linux box. If I were so inclined, I could probably go out tomorrow and write a very simple Linux virus (note I said "could" not "would") that could cause serious damage - for example I could create a Perl script which searched for other perl scripts on the local hard disk and discretely merged itself with them. I could then make this script run as part of a "make install" on a simple utility I could distribute. It would be easy.
I have often wondered whether a machine could be built that could build a copy of itself. The issue here is the component parts that the machine must construct itself from... in the case of biological life these component parts are rather complex molecules, these are fortunately in abundence on our planet. The question is whether a machine could be constructed which could use simple elements to construct a copy of itself (or something more complex than itself).
Freenet is a system currently in development which will allow the distribution of information while providing anonymity to both information providers and consumers. It is designed in such a way that it is virtually impossible to remove a piece of information from the system provided anyone is actually interested in it (information that nobody cares about will be discarded by the system automatically). Further, the system operates in an anarchistic manner, there is no centralized control of any form capable of influencing how the system operates. Follow the link above to find out more, and if you can code in Java, your help would be appreciated.
That whole thing about "the Internet routing around censorship" is not true. The Internet is probably more susceptable to censorship than any other communications medium in history. Email can be scanned automatically for words and phrases by even the poorest of governments, networks can be monitored to build up pictures of people's WWW surfing habits and thus make highly educated guesses about their politics and even their sexuality.
However, with the right technology, the Internet could route around censorship. Any interested should take a look at The Freenet Project.
I would direct anyone interested in how censorship of the Internet can be prevented through technology to visit the Freenet homepage. Freenet is a system to allow the anonymous access and retrieval of information. It is being written in Java and will be released under the GPL. Java developers are currently needed to help with the project.
If there were several opposing opinions then this system could allow those with each of those opinions to create an email/document of their own. What you are missing is that documents are created on behalf of the SlashDot, or Open Source, community all the time. Opinions expressed by people like RMS and ESR are taken as the opinions of a large group of people who have no say in how those opinions are formulated. You may not like a "Tyranny of the Majority", but I would prefer it to a tyranny of a vocal minority as we have at present.
I have been thinking about how a group of people (such as the SlashDot readership) could collectively write a document which could be considered to be from the group as a whole (this would be useful for sending a single email on behalf of Slashdot rather than bombarding people with hundreds of emails). Having though about it a little I decided that the best model would be if someone wrote a "draft" version, and then other people could "lock" segments of the text for modification (users with higher karma would be able to lock more text for longer) in much the same way that files can be locked in a revision control system such as RCS. Now I know many people think that this would end up in incoherent rubbish, but I am not so sure. I think that where there is a clear unified opinion to be expressed (such as in response to FUD) it could work - and if it doesn't work, it would certainly be a cool experiment. Anyone else think this is a worthwhile idea?
"In real life, if you break into a building, you break the law, the fact that it might have been easy is no defense, and the argument that you were trying to demonstrate how easy it would probably result in the jury laughing you all the way to a guilty verdict. What makes the virtual world different? Is the money people lose when their network is brought down any less real than the money that is lost when a thief breaks into your apartment and steals it? How do you justify making such violations of someones privacy and security easier?"
I should note that I am not personally of the opinion that you might think from reading the above, but I would be interested in the response.
I am not so sure that UK companies are banned from negative campaigning - although it is rare. I saw an AOL advert the other night on TV which specifically mentioned one of its competitors (I can't recall which one).
...about Gattaca is that unless some kind of draconian measures are introduced world-wide, the scenario portrayed in the film is inevitable. I read in an article recently that almost all of the sci-fi writers this century who wrote about a "utopian" future almost always had some form of genetic selection mechanism to decide who was born and who wasn't. It sounds disgusting now with the advent of political correctness, but are we really any different? Look closely at how western governments behave when there is a war. Genocide in Africa - oh well, there are too many Africans anyway, genocide in Europe - send in the tanks!
Believe me, the world protrayed in Gattaca is a whole lot nicer to those with "inferior" DNA than the world we live in now.
...what is Paxman (a wizard with political issues, but probably not too confident when it comes to techie stuff) going to ask Bill? Is he going to start challenging him on technical issues? Of course not. Paxman doesn't like to be made look a fool - Bill used to be a hacker. He will stick to more general political issues, probably talking quite a bit about Bill's wealth (for example, challenging him on why he doesn't give more to charity). If we are going to persuade the BBC to ask anything about Open Source or Monopolies, it must be phrased in a sufficiently non-technical way that Paxman will go for it.
Paxman is a political interviewer, he won't be comfortable getting into anything which even smells technical. Clever questions about the M$ monopoly, and (if we are really lucky) free software, might make it in if they are phrased in a political way. I suspect though that the interview will probably focus more on Bill's wealth than how he obtained it.
What really made me laugh was claiming that Linux was based on 30 year old technology. I remember someone saying that only Microsoft users think that technology actually gets worse with time. Windows is based on MS Dos, which used to be QDOS, which stood for "Quick and Dirty Operating System" - I sh1t you not!
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Er, yeah, about 20 years down the road. This is the problem with all software patents, not just the obvious ones, in 20 years this information will probably be useless as computing will have moved on, Google basically have this patent for the entire duration (and then some) of its useful life. If you must have patents on non-obvious algorithms, I think they should last at most 2-3 years, that would give the owner of the patent enough time to make some profit, but would also allow the public to benefit from the patent while it is still relevant.
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I think the point here is the question "what exactly does it mean to have a mental illness?". Surely someone is mentally ill if their mental processes (or chemical balance or whatever) differ significantly from those of the general population, ie. they are abnormal. The thing is that 1/5th of the population can't be abnormal, purely because they are 1/5th of the population! If that were true then left-handed people who make up even less of a proportion of the population could also be considered abnormal, blue-eyed people would be abnormal - you get the picture.
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This line of conversation is rapidly beginning to bore me.
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I have drawn this abuse to Rob's attention, hopefully he will take appropriate action.
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However, with the right technology, the Internet could route around censorship. Any interested should take a look at The Freenet Project.
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I should note that I am not personally of the opinion that you might think from reading the above, but I would be interested in the response.
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Believe me, the world protrayed in Gattaca is a whole lot nicer to those with "inferior" DNA than the world we live in now.
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Windows is based on MS Dos, which used to be QDOS, which stood for "Quick and Dirty Operating System" - I sh1t you not!
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