Hogwash.
There are piles of research papers proving that Funny does wonders for your karma. Especially if you combine it with Torgo's Executive Powder.
The reason for this article appears in the first sentence. He was irked that they weren't too happy that he went about using their trademark for personal financial gain, and decided to air it out in public. If this guy really understands the topic that he himself is choosing to write about, he should be able to take a step back and realize what everyone commenting on this thread already knows: trademarks protect your own personal branch of the code. Even the most permissively licensed (BSD/MIT) project can have a trademarked name and logo. They're protecting their "fork" or "branch". This has nothing to do with open-source, it doesn't take away any of your freedoms.
That last part has less to do with trademarks. Ubuntu could "make" Firefox less stable simply by poorly managing underlying infrastructure. It's not in their interest to do so, obviously, but if it were to happen, and they didn't make sure to properly test a new release using enough scenarios, then when Firefox crashes it would make Firefox look bad (unless users figure out that it was fine when it was running on the previous version of Ubuntu).
When it comes to dependencies, whoever is facing the user will usually look bad. If a some library updated their code and didn't make it very clear to their users that either internal or external structures/interfaces would be changing, then it's the the library's fault, but the users won't care, they'll blame whatever software it is that uses the library. (and yes, it's the developer's responsibility to check prior to changing dependencies, but sometimes changes are subtle and the bugs won't reveal themselves until extremely specific scenarios take place)
In absolute science categories, they do depend on experts, and in some areas these camps (or "tribal" mentality) helps, since a few people set the tone, and many others follow and "enforce" it, within a given field.
It's when this happens around subjective categories that this become a problem. There's no real way to judge how "neutral" an article is other than asking other people for their opinion, which is never neutral.
I really don't see Wikipedia as one cohesive blob of information. When it comes to exact sciences, it's excellent, and I rely on it heavily. When it comes to technology, it's almost as good, though there are, as you said, camps that could bias a subject overall.
I never use it for politics, current events, or controversial individuals (or any controversial subject, for that matter). You're better off looking elsewhere, or at the very least only taking their articles as jumping-off points.
By the way -- Jane Q. Public, in regards to that other comment thread -- you're right, my last comment was more in reaction to the rest of the comments, I usually don't jump to conclusions or make these types of assumptions.
You're right, it's not news, but that doesn't mean it should become accepted. Every time this happens there's a responsibility by the publisher to own up, and to reassess their practices. In effect, this is a type of public humiliation, and it serves the consumers of the content (not just in a "haha! Look at those idiots!" sense, but in the long run).
It's not news but it's a very sad state. I'd rather get my news 30 minutes later, and *fact-checked*, rather than "here's the latest from Twitter"...
And how would this network look like if it *remained* a US-only network?
Also, "built" is pretty much meaningless at this point. You could say developed, initialized, put in practice; but "built"? The moment the protocols were proven it was up for grabs, any nation/organization could, and still can, setup their own cloud. Every Intranet *is* its own cloud.
This is a discussion about management, regulation, and to some degree, "sovereignty". But it's sovereignty in the same way the the UK is a Monarchy.
Also, "an extension of what we were already doing here, as a courtesy to other nations"? There's a much broader discussion begged by that statement. It's a statement that implies a certain way of thought, along the lines of "There's the USA, and then there's the rest of 'em". No nation is a bubble. This "courtesy" is far more lucrative to the US than it is to any one particular nation. That's the nature of all markets.
Note that in the end, the cold was ended "cold" -- there was no actual, out-in-the-open conflict. Unless we're redefining war (which I suppose we could, and will, given enough time), the cold war ended *without* a war.
Also, Nazism was ended pretty much as a reaction. The "solution" was not war, it was simply the response to events. What I mean to say is that the alternative to war, in the case of WWII, would have been some sort of pacifist submission. Examples of "war as a solution" should only list occurrences in which, during a state of *peace*, war was decided upon, executed, and *solved* something. Slavery in the US is a valid example. But "reacting to an attack" by foreign forces isn't a "solution", it's a reaction to reality. By that logic, if I defended myself when attacked by a mugger, I could say "my solution was violence", when in fact I simply chose to resist violence.
On the one hand, I'm itching to go over who invented/developed what, invested what, and using who's resources. I'd like to see what this "US-only" internet would look like if it really *were* limited to US residents.
And yet, pragmatism forces me to acknowledge that nothing globally beneficial would come of this. It's not in ICANN's interest to *do* anything that would in any way stifle or harm the network as it is now. This is just some form of territory marking on the EU's part. It's what they're "expected to do", if only in the sense that they're pointing it out.
There are enough technical challenges to contend with as it is. Starting to change the labeling on wires to say "starting from this point all along 5km from here belongs to the country of Liechtenstein" doesn't seem like a good investment of resources.
But *this* switching station has been worked on by countless people all over the world. These "other people" didn't invent it or initialize the effort, but that's like saying "dibs on the telephone! It was invented in the US!".
On a more practical note, nothing will change. They'll correspond politely over however long they can draw this out, and every side will come to some "resolution" which they'll file away in their respective drawers.
Nothing prevents the EU, or any other country with sufficient infrastructure, to launch their own IP and either start pushing it as an alternative or attempt to "shadow" the current internet, making it into a subset within that system. If they were really serious about this, then that's the step they'd at least "threaten" to make.
I don't live in the US, but I generally see nothing but trouble coming from this direction if whichever other authority/ies start/s "taking action". Interfacing, bottlenecks, more standards, more bureaucracy.
I hope, for everyone *working* in this field, that this is resolved purely through whatever international legal crap they feel they have the need to settle. Just leave the damn hardware alone, we have enough problems as it is.
VS is "tentacle software", just like Office. Whenever I can avoid installing either of them, I do.
But you're right about the extent of the VS install absurdity. And if you add the WinSDK and a few other gems you're installing more software than the entire OS. Windows with VS installed along with its sibling add-ons is effectively a different version of the windows you initially installed.
The funny thing is, that if the *only* MS software on your computer is the OS, then it's a pretty good OS (I'll get killed for this, I know). It's when you start adding their other miracles-of-software-engineering that it becomes a house of cards.
Normally I'd argue that Firefox *is* more secure, but I'll take a different approach: Who said Firefox was more secure? The question is how to reduce the chances of getting hacked, and by installing additional browsers you're making yourself a moving target. It's a form of security by obscurity. You can take this to the extreme if you want to: Use Opera by default. Once you reach a site that doesn't render properly, switch to Chrome. If that doesn't work, try it in Firefox. If it doesn't work in Firefox, you should avoid that site anyway. Work your way from the least-used browser to the most.
In real life, however, I'd rather go with the browser that gives me the best experience, performance, *and* security, which at the moment (and the foreseeable future), is Firefox.
It's exactly as Chrisq said above. If you want to make it a numbers game, you're welcome to, but you'll still end up with the same result in terms of security: don't use IE.
It's conceivable that it only makes itself the default under certain circumstances. Maybe if you have auto-updates "fully" turned on (where it doesn't even ask, it just installs), it'll make it the default. I don't want to sound troll-ish but it's likely that people who have auto-update set to "download-and-install-automatically" aren't the more savvy set, and therefor MS thought they could get away with it (I almost added "and I don't want to sound like a conspiracy-theorist", but this is MS, it's *expected*).
I can even see MS apologists taking their side here, something like: "look, you probably installed Firefox on your parent's computer to protect them from IE hacks, not because of usability, but IE8 makes very significant improvements and you know that it will be kept patched on a system that automatically installs updates from MS"
How was this modded troll? It's a fact of life, and he even added "This isn't really Microsoft's fault" which most slashdotters wouldn't have bothered with.
IE is the primary target for browser hacking, and will remain so as long as its market share is anywhere in the vicinity that it is now.
The best thing you can do at the moment is install Firefox *and* Chrome *and* Opera and try to dedicate types of sites to each browser. I usually assign Google properties to Chrome, highly compliant sites to Opera, and everything else to Firefox. (This may sound paranoid, or just overkill, but I have to develop/test on multiple browsers anyway so for me it's also a way to get to know them better.)
I'm not suggesting that everyone should install every browser, but at the very least install Firefox and make it the default, because they patch it early and often, and it's very good at maintaining itself (updating when you restart, checking for plugin updates, etc.)
Pocket Ref, third addition, by "Thomas J Glover", pages 460-473...
I had it on my within-hand's-reach shelf. Includes squares, cubes, and roots. Unbelievable, I was just wondering how far back I'd have to search to find printed lookup tables within a published book.
Apparently this one's still going strong.
trig function lookup tables - You would be surprised that they are still being used (both in paper and in code)
Well in code, it's generally done in hardware to interpolate between two values. In software you can find lookup tables for programs meant for MCUs and really small architectures.
But paper?... I'd need to see photographic evidence. I mean these days I really can't think of a situation where you'd find paper lookup tables for trig functions.
film - you mean like 35mm? There are filters in most semi-advanced photo programs that will emulate this.
I didn't consider that, though it's usually the emulation of what happens to the film under/in different environments. But technically it does emulate (simulate?) the effect of chemical reactions. I googled around a bit and found (not to my surprise) that video editing software suites offer quite a few filters to reproduce what are effectively "defects" in motion film (and of course the cigarette burns in corners, but that's just posing).
Awesome! That's something that someone may actually *manufacture* and I'd bet there are plenty of people out there that would pay for a keyboard that gives them the mechanical typewriter feel.
I don't think he was insinuating that no one should use any computer they don't personally own. You could make the argument that software isn't free at all since you need a computer which can never fail or become obsolete. You're always going to be dependent on *some* type of infrastructure, including electricity (which would mean that software that runs on a computer which doesn't have its own generator/crankshaft attached to it isn't free either).
He's pointing out (something that is somewhat obvious, IMO), that it's even easier for the software provider to disconnect you from functionality whenever he or she chooses, if this software isn't on your machine.
It could have played against pretty much any chess player (apart, obviously, from kasperov). And it could have done it and determined who won for itself.
You need a *human* to determine if the answer is correct in this case.
Slashdot Mirror
You're way ahead of me. I'm stuck at figuring out what "wrong side of the fork" means
It's the business end. Whenever it's pointing at you.
Funny does nothing for your karma, though.
Hogwash.
There are piles of research papers proving that Funny does wonders for your karma. Especially if you combine it with Torgo's Executive Powder.
The reason for this article appears in the first sentence. He was irked that they weren't too happy that he went about using their trademark for personal financial gain, and decided to air it out in public.
If this guy really understands the topic that he himself is choosing to write about, he should be able to take a step back and realize what everyone commenting on this thread already knows: trademarks protect your own personal branch of the code. Even the most permissively licensed (BSD/MIT) project can have a trademarked name and logo. They're protecting their "fork" or "branch". This has nothing to do with open-source, it doesn't take away any of your freedoms.
Windows does it with everything...
*ducks*
That last part has less to do with trademarks. Ubuntu could "make" Firefox less stable simply by poorly managing underlying infrastructure. It's not in their interest to do so, obviously, but if it were to happen, and they didn't make sure to properly test a new release using enough scenarios, then when Firefox crashes it would make Firefox look bad (unless users figure out that it was fine when it was running on the previous version of Ubuntu).
When it comes to dependencies, whoever is facing the user will usually look bad. If a some library updated their code and didn't make it very clear to their users that either internal or external structures/interfaces would be changing, then it's the the library's fault, but the users won't care, they'll blame whatever software it is that uses the library.
(and yes, it's the developer's responsibility to check prior to changing dependencies, but sometimes changes are subtle and the bugs won't reveal themselves until extremely specific scenarios take place)
In absolute science categories, they do depend on experts, and in some areas these camps (or "tribal" mentality) helps, since a few people set the tone, and many others follow and "enforce" it, within a given field.
It's when this happens around subjective categories that this become a problem. There's no real way to judge how "neutral" an article is other than asking other people for their opinion, which is never neutral.
I really don't see Wikipedia as one cohesive blob of information. When it comes to exact sciences, it's excellent, and I rely on it heavily. When it comes to technology, it's almost as good, though there are, as you said, camps that could bias a subject overall.
I never use it for politics, current events, or controversial individuals (or any controversial subject, for that matter). You're better off looking elsewhere, or at the very least only taking their articles as jumping-off points.
By the way -- Jane Q. Public, in regards to that other comment thread -- you're right, my last comment was more in reaction to the rest of the comments, I usually don't jump to conclusions or make these types of assumptions.
You're right, it's not news, but that doesn't mean it should become accepted. Every time this happens there's a responsibility by the publisher to own up, and to reassess their practices. In effect, this is a type of public humiliation, and it serves the consumers of the content (not just in a "haha! Look at those idiots!" sense, but in the long run).
It's not news but it's a very sad state. I'd rather get my news 30 minutes later, and *fact-checked*, rather than "here's the latest from Twitter"...
"PWNED" is more current and will yield better SEO.
(*some restrictions apply, see site for details)
And how would this network look like if it *remained* a US-only network?
Also, "built" is pretty much meaningless at this point. You could say developed, initialized, put in practice; but "built"? The moment the protocols were proven it was up for grabs, any nation/organization could, and still can, setup their own cloud. Every Intranet *is* its own cloud.
This is a discussion about management, regulation, and to some degree, "sovereignty". But it's sovereignty in the same way the the UK is a Monarchy.
Also, "an extension of what we were already doing here, as a courtesy to other nations"? There's a much broader discussion begged by that statement. It's a statement that implies a certain way of thought, along the lines of "There's the USA, and then there's the rest of 'em". No nation is a bubble. This "courtesy" is far more lucrative to the US than it is to any one particular nation. That's the nature of all markets.
Note that in the end, the cold was ended "cold" -- there was no actual, out-in-the-open conflict. Unless we're redefining war (which I suppose we could, and will, given enough time), the cold war ended *without* a war.
Also, Nazism was ended pretty much as a reaction. The "solution" was not war, it was simply the response to events. What I mean to say is that the alternative to war, in the case of WWII, would have been some sort of pacifist submission. Examples of "war as a solution" should only list occurrences in which, during a state of *peace*, war was decided upon, executed, and *solved* something. Slavery in the US is a valid example. But "reacting to an attack" by foreign forces isn't a "solution", it's a reaction to reality. By that logic, if I defended myself when attacked by a mugger, I could say "my solution was violence", when in fact I simply chose to resist violence.
On the one hand, I'm itching to go over who invented/developed what, invested what, and using who's resources. I'd like to see what this "US-only" internet would look like if it really *were* limited to US residents.
And yet, pragmatism forces me to acknowledge that nothing globally beneficial would come of this. It's not in ICANN's interest to *do* anything that would in any way stifle or harm the network as it is now. This is just some form of territory marking on the EU's part. It's what they're "expected to do", if only in the sense that they're pointing it out.
There are enough technical challenges to contend with as it is. Starting to change the labeling on wires to say "starting from this point all along 5km from here belongs to the country of Liechtenstein" doesn't seem like a good investment of resources.
But *this* switching station has been worked on by countless people all over the world. These "other people" didn't invent it or initialize the effort, but that's like saying "dibs on the telephone! It was invented in the US!".
On a more practical note, nothing will change. They'll correspond politely over however long they can draw this out, and every side will come to some "resolution" which they'll file away in their respective drawers.
Nothing prevents the EU, or any other country with sufficient infrastructure, to launch their own IP and either start pushing it as an alternative or attempt to "shadow" the current internet, making it into a subset within that system. If they were really serious about this, then that's the step they'd at least "threaten" to make.
I don't live in the US, but I generally see nothing but trouble coming from this direction if whichever other authority/ies start/s "taking action". Interfacing, bottlenecks, more standards, more bureaucracy.
I hope, for everyone *working* in this field, that this is resolved purely through whatever international legal crap they feel they have the need to settle. Just leave the damn hardware alone, we have enough problems as it is.
VS is "tentacle software", just like Office. Whenever I can avoid installing either of them, I do.
But you're right about the extent of the VS install absurdity. And if you add the WinSDK and a few other gems you're installing more software than the entire OS. Windows with VS installed along with its sibling add-ons is effectively a different version of the windows you initially installed.
The funny thing is, that if the *only* MS software on your computer is the OS, then it's a pretty good OS (I'll get killed for this, I know). It's when you start adding their other miracles-of-software-engineering that it becomes a house of cards.
Normally I'd argue that Firefox *is* more secure, but I'll take a different approach:
Who said Firefox was more secure? The question is how to reduce the chances of getting hacked, and by installing additional browsers you're making yourself a moving target. It's a form of security by obscurity. You can take this to the extreme if you want to: Use Opera by default. Once you reach a site that doesn't render properly, switch to Chrome. If that doesn't work, try it in Firefox. If it doesn't work in Firefox, you should avoid that site anyway. Work your way from the least-used browser to the most.
In real life, however, I'd rather go with the browser that gives me the best experience, performance, *and* security, which at the moment (and the foreseeable future), is Firefox.
It's exactly as Chrisq said above. If you want to make it a numbers game, you're welcome to, but you'll still end up with the same result in terms of security: don't use IE.
It's conceivable that it only makes itself the default under certain circumstances. Maybe if you have auto-updates "fully" turned on (where it doesn't even ask, it just installs), it'll make it the default.
I don't want to sound troll-ish but it's likely that people who have auto-update set to "download-and-install-automatically" aren't the more savvy set, and therefor MS thought they could get away with it (I almost added "and I don't want to sound like a conspiracy-theorist", but this is MS, it's *expected*).
I can even see MS apologists taking their side here, something like: "look, you probably installed Firefox on your parent's computer to protect them from IE hacks, not because of usability, but IE8 makes very significant improvements and you know that it will be kept patched on a system that automatically installs updates from MS"
To me this seems to be a designed tactic.
How was this modded troll? It's a fact of life, and he even added "This isn't really Microsoft's fault" which most slashdotters wouldn't have bothered with.
IE is the primary target for browser hacking, and will remain so as long as its market share is anywhere in the vicinity that it is now.
The best thing you can do at the moment is install Firefox *and* Chrome *and* Opera and try to dedicate types of sites to each browser.
I usually assign Google properties to Chrome, highly compliant sites to Opera, and everything else to Firefox.
(This may sound paranoid, or just overkill, but I have to develop/test on multiple browsers anyway so for me it's also a way to get to know them better.)
I'm not suggesting that everyone should install every browser, but at the very least install Firefox and make it the default, because they patch it early and often, and it's very good at maintaining itself (updating when you restart, checking for plugin updates, etc.)
Pocket Ref, third addition, by "Thomas J Glover", pages 460-473...
I had it on my within-hand's-reach shelf. Includes squares, cubes, and roots. Unbelievable, I was just wondering how far back I'd have to search to find printed lookup tables within a published book.
Apparently this one's still going strong.
trig function lookup tables - You would be surprised that they are still being used (both in paper and in code)
Well in code, it's generally done in hardware to interpolate between two values. In software you can find lookup tables for programs meant for MCUs and really small architectures.
But paper?... I'd need to see photographic evidence. I mean these days I really can't think of a situation where you'd find paper lookup tables for trig functions.
film - you mean like 35mm? There are filters in most semi-advanced photo programs that will emulate this.
I didn't consider that, though it's usually the emulation of what happens to the film under/in different environments. But technically it does emulate (simulate?) the effect of chemical reactions. I googled around a bit and found (not to my surprise) that video editing software suites offer quite a few filters to reproduce what are effectively "defects" in motion film (and of course the cigarette burns in corners, but that's just posing).
typewriters - http://www.instructables.com/id/Typewriter-Computer-Keyboard/
Awesome! That's something that someone may actually *manufacture* and I'd bet there are plenty of people out there that would pay for a keyboard that gives them the mechanical typewriter feel.
Here's a list of stuff I'd like to emulate, for the sake of nostalgia:
286 without math co-processor
trig function lookup tables
film
typewriters
horse dung smell in the streets
Morse code
the black plague
Get on it!
You don't need a computer:
Twitter - post-it notes
Facebook - postcards
Google - binoculars
WoW - LARPing
StumbleUpon - a banana peal
Wikipedia - encyclopedia
Slashdot - psyche ward?...
You don't need a human to determine who won a chess match. Winning is absolute.
You need a human to judge if the answer to a question, its phrasing, and its context were correct.
I don't think he was insinuating that no one should use any computer they don't personally own. You could make the argument that software isn't free at all since you need a computer which can never fail or become obsolete. You're always going to be dependent on *some* type of infrastructure, including electricity (which would mean that software that runs on a computer which doesn't have its own generator/crankshaft attached to it isn't free either).
He's pointing out (something that is somewhat obvious, IMO), that it's even easier for the software provider to disconnect you from functionality whenever he or she chooses, if this software isn't on your machine.
It may be a bit "well duh", but it's not wrong.
It could have played against pretty much any chess player (apart, obviously, from kasperov). And it could have done it and determined who won for itself.
You need a *human* to determine if the answer is correct in this case.
As pointed above, the project's code name is "Connery". Coincidence?...
He's BACK!