The stepwise refinement, collaboration, and remixing we see today is the way it has always been. Everything you ever learned about "Person X invented thing Y" is wrong. Such statements are made by history books to make a good story, and have no connection to reality. Edison was a smart and hard-working guy, but he didn't invent the light bulb or the phonograph out of thin air, nor did Bell the telephone, or Marconi the radio. They all played a role, but hardly a unique one.
You'd be called an asshole. You'd probably get a lot of threats. The Police might even come question you. But when they discover you're just a harmless jerk, they'd leave, and they'd even go investigate the people who made threats against you to see which of them might actually be dangerous. If you actually provided material aid to them in some way, we might have a different story.
As one of the first Wikipedia editors, I have to agree. The current state of Wikipedia is unusable. 5 million articles is a pathetically small number: every town, every park, every building, every movie, every TV show, every book, every law, every government official of every country throughout history: all of these should be articles, and would be if it were easier to make them.
Couldn't agree more. Legitimizing the concept gets in the way of what should be the real goal of complete abolition. Software patents can and should be eliminated entirely, not "reformed"
As usual with coverage of complex legal decisions, the headlines and soundbites don't resemble the decision at all. The case hasn't even begun; the judge did not "allow" the webcams at all. He's just ruling on a preliminary injunction before the case begins: the plaintiff is asking for the judge to issue an order stopping Aaron's from further use of the cameras while the case is going on. The judge is saying here that the injunction is moot because the plaintiff doesn't have the laptop, and hasn't presented any evidence that anyone else is being recorded. The judge is just saying (1) he can't order Aaron's to stop doing something when there's no evidence that they're actually doing it, and (2) the case is weak because the law under which they are suing may not apply (which is true; the plaintiffs ought to be suing under more general privacy torts). Under no stretch of reality does this mean he's "allowing" the use of the webcams.
My 70-year-old mom is on stock Ubuntu with no problems. She's happy that her old laptop runs faster now, and she can do everything she needs pretty simply.
Just the opposite of your heat story...I was writing code in an unheated timer's shack on a ski slope in Mt, Abrams in Maine, in February, at about 4 below. Condensation on the inside of our CRTs caused problems, but our Compaqs were pretty though.
Just ask Ken or Dennis, for God's sake.
on
Define - /etc?
·
· Score: 1
Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie are both still alive and kicking last time I looked, so why bother quoting all these silly third-hand sources? At any rate, there's really no question that "/etc" was just a shortening of "et cetera" -- no one who progammed on or for Unix in the 70s and early 80s (myslef included) has the slightest doubt about that -- it didn't just have config files, it basically had all the junk that didn't fit anywhere else.
Last week Slashdot declined to post an announcement about Penn & Teller's new show "Bullshit!" in which they debunk psychics and quacks and other such nonsense. Yet they seem to think it's OK to post claims of unbreakable encryption or repeatable compression or other things that don't even pass the laugh test. Isn't this supposed to be "news for nerds", who presumably have working brains? I'd expect these kinds of stories on AOL, not here.
Just to correct your misinformation about the Wikipedia software: We haven't used Usemod for well over a year. It simply didn't scale, so Magnus Manske wrote new software using MySql/PHP which helped, but it too bogged down, so I rewrote it again from scratch, also using MySql and PHP, but with more attention paid to performance. This third-generation software is what we're running now.
/Every/ human being has biases; there's no such thing as a totally objective report on anything short of a mathematics textbook. The trick is to read all of the reports you can from all angles, and evaluate them based on the most objective criteria you can: which reports are most honest/ least deceptive? Which use the least selective data, least emotional rhetoric? And can you make those evaluations honestly despite your own bias? This is a basic skill everyone should learn.
That's only been true since 1988, when the US signed the Berne Convention. Before that, works published without an explicit copyright notice were not copyrighted.
...and now we know how to power the computer
that runs that random-data compression program.
Oh, wait, an outlet like Slashdot would never
be taken in by anything that obviously fake.
Why is slashdot giving free publicity to these frauds? It's not like there's any chance in hell they've done something useful. How much brain power does it take to realize that you can't beat elementary math? We've seen this same scam a dozen times before, and it's always a fraud just like all the reasoning people point out.
This is the software equivalent of perpetual motion machines, or snake-oil elixirs. Giving them coverage will only encourage more people to ry the same scam. These folks need to be reported to the justice department, not slashdot.
One nice thing about claiming immortality is that it takes a lifetime for anyone to prove you wrong. But legitimate scientists in life extension research have a simple alternative: mice, which only live about 2 years, have very similar metabolisms to humans and other mammals. Honest, repeatable experiments with life extension techniques like calorie restriction can routinely produce mice that live 3-4 years. So surely any immortality device can easily produce a 5-year-old mouse. So where is it? And if you can't produce one, why should anyone take you seriously?
Well, saying that DARPA "invented the Internet" is a bit like saying that Thomas Edison invented the Las Vegas strip. Sure, they funded the
techies who built the first part of the network
that was to become the Internet, but that's now
a miniscule fraction of what people today call
"The Net". They had nothing at all to do with
the web, for example.
I'm a full-time programmer, and neither I nor my company has any use for IP. My company sells the service of using its big factory equipment, and I write software that controls it, and that never leaves the building.
New terms for new ideas is a good thing. New words for very old ideas just makes you hard to understand. If you intend to communicate with other people clearly about things they already know, you should use words they are familiar with. Everybody understands "viruses" without problem, and even if they don't they can look it up and will find it. "Virii" is only used by a few illiterate computer geeks. It's use is an arrogant attempt to sound kewl, not clear.
That's not true: it's NOT in "common usage". You will not find the word in any medical journal, any major magazine or newspaper, or any other publication with reasonably well- educated editors. It was originally created as a joke--a humorous faux Latin plural intended to be silly like "Vaxen". There are no language cops for English, so you're certainly free to use it, but people who see you use it will think you're an illiterate geek.
Slashdot Mirror
I work with Angstrom Linux. I guess that makes me a Quaker. Lots of little do-it-yourself communities.
The stepwise refinement, collaboration, and remixing we see today is the way it has always been. Everything you ever learned about "Person X invented thing Y" is wrong. Such statements are made by history books to make a good story, and have no connection to reality. Edison was a smart and hard-working guy, but he didn't invent the light bulb or the phonograph out of thin air, nor did Bell the telephone, or Marconi the radio. They all played a role, but hardly a unique one.
You'd be called an asshole. You'd probably get a lot of threats. The Police might even come question you. But when they discover you're just a harmless jerk, they'd leave, and they'd even go investigate the people who made threats against you to see which of them might actually be dangerous. If you actually provided material aid to them in some way, we might have a different story.
As one of the first Wikipedia editors, I have to agree. The current state of Wikipedia is unusable. 5 million articles is a pathetically small number: every town, every park, every building, every movie, every TV show, every book, every law, every government official of every country throughout history: all of these should be articles, and would be if it were easier to make them.
--Wikipedia user #43
Maybe this will make it illegal to read the Koran.
Couldn't agree more. Legitimizing the concept gets in the way of what should be the real goal of complete abolition. Software patents can and should be eliminated entirely, not "reformed"
As usual with coverage of complex legal decisions, the headlines and soundbites don't resemble the decision at all. The case hasn't even begun; the judge did not "allow" the webcams at all. He's just ruling on a preliminary injunction before the case begins: the plaintiff is asking for the judge to issue an order stopping Aaron's from further use of the cameras while the case is going on. The judge is saying here that the injunction is moot because the plaintiff doesn't have the laptop, and hasn't presented any evidence that anyone else is being recorded. The judge is just saying (1) he can't order Aaron's to stop doing something when there's no evidence that they're actually doing it, and (2) the case is weak because the law under which they are suing may not apply (which is true; the plaintiffs ought to be suing under more general privacy torts). Under no stretch of reality does this mean he's "allowing" the use of the webcams.
My 70-year-old mom is on stock Ubuntu with no problems. She's happy that her old laptop runs faster now, and she can do everything she needs pretty simply.
Seems "reasonable and non-discriminatory" to me.
Yeah, clearly this guy knows more about how to make money in the publishing business than Tim O'Reilly.
Just the opposite of your heat story...I was writing code in an unheated timer's shack on a ski slope in Mt, Abrams in Maine, in February, at about 4 below. Condensation on the inside of our CRTs caused problems, but our Compaqs were pretty though.
Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie are both still alive and kicking last time I looked, so why bother quoting all these silly third-hand sources? At any rate, there's really no question that "/etc" was just a shortening of "et cetera" -- no one who progammed on or for Unix in the 70s and early 80s (myslef included) has the slightest doubt about that -- it didn't just have config files, it basically had all the junk that didn't fit anywhere else.
Just to set the record straight, the first
graphical browser was Viola, not Mosaic.
Last week Slashdot declined to post an announcement
about Penn & Teller's new show "Bullshit!" in which
they debunk psychics and quacks and other such
nonsense. Yet they seem to think it's OK to post
claims of unbreakable encryption or repeatable
compression or other things that don't even pass
the laugh test. Isn't this supposed to be "news
for nerds", who presumably have working brains?
I'd expect these kinds of stories on AOL, not here.
Just to correct your misinformation about the
Wikipedia software: We haven't used Usemod for
well over a year. It simply didn't scale, so
Magnus Manske wrote new software using MySql/PHP
which helped, but it too bogged down, so I
rewrote it again from scratch, also using MySql
and PHP, but with more attention paid to
performance. This third-generation software is
what we're running now.
/Every/ human being has biases; there's no such
thing as a totally objective report on anything
short of a mathematics textbook. The trick is to
read all of the reports you can from all angles,
and evaluate them based on the most objective
criteria you can: which reports are most honest/
least deceptive? Which use the least selective
data, least emotional rhetoric? And can you make
those evaluations honestly despite your own bias?
This is a basic skill everyone should learn.
That's only been true since 1988, when the US
signed the Berne Convention. Before that, works
published without an explicit copyright notice
were not copyrighted.
...and now we know how to power the computer
that runs that random-data compression program.
Oh, wait, an outlet like Slashdot would never
be taken in by anything that obviously fake.
Why is slashdot giving free publicity to these frauds? It's not like there's any chance in hell they've done something useful. How much brain power does it take to realize that you can't beat elementary math? We've seen this same scam a dozen times before, and it's always a fraud just like all the reasoning people point out.
This is the software equivalent of perpetual motion machines, or snake-oil elixirs. Giving them coverage will only encourage more people to ry the same scam. These folks need to be reported to the justice department, not slashdot.
...and what the hell is a tagged union if not a class? That's just good old non-parametric polymorphism, which all OO language have.
One nice thing about claiming immortality is that it takes a lifetime for anyone to prove you wrong. But legitimate scientists in life extension research have a simple alternative: mice, which only live about 2 years, have very similar metabolisms to humans and other mammals. Honest, repeatable experiments with life extension techniques like calorie restriction can routinely produce mice that live 3-4 years. So surely any immortality device can easily produce a 5-year-old mouse. So where is it? And if you can't produce one, why should anyone take you seriously?
Well, saying that DARPA "invented the Internet" is a bit like saying that Thomas Edison invented the Las Vegas strip. Sure, they funded the techies who built the first part of the network that was to become the Internet, but that's now a miniscule fraction of what people today call "The Net". They had nothing at all to do with the web, for example.
I'm a full-time programmer, and neither I nor my company has any use for IP. My company sells the service of using its big factory equipment, and I write software that controls it, and that never leaves the building.
New terms for new ideas is a good thing. New words for very old ideas just makes you hard to understand. If you intend to communicate with other people clearly about things they already know, you should use words they are familiar with. Everybody understands "viruses" without problem, and even if they don't they can look it up and will find it. "Virii" is only used by a few illiterate computer geeks. It's use is an arrogant attempt to sound kewl, not clear.
That's not true: it's NOT in "common usage". You will not find the word in any medical journal, any major magazine or newspaper, or any other publication with reasonably well- educated editors. It was originally created as a joke--a humorous faux Latin plural intended to be silly like "Vaxen". There are no language cops for English, so you're certainly free to use it, but people who see you use it will think you're an illiterate geek.