No. That does not sound fair. Jon is making (or attempting to make) a serious statement here about a serious problem. Whether you agree with him or not (it happens that I do), surely you can see that he's trying to create discussion about an issue that is probably important, but underconsidered.
I am very pleased by what I read here, simply because engaging in open, constructive discussion is the most important thing that could happen. And I agree with your impression that large corporations like Pinkerton simply don't engage in this kind of discussion (at least not with other individuals). If Pinkerton is willing to do so, it is entirely to their credit, and suggests an opportunity for a real coup.
For your part, please respond in kind. Go out of your way to be open, to hear their side, and to try to achieve a real, measurable (even press-releasable) conclusion or compromise of some sort. I (among many others) believe that the opinion your columns have been expressing is a terribly important one, and that you have been expressing it well. On my behalf, as well as that of thousands of others, please go to this discussion with an open mind, but a firm moral foundation. Good luck to you both (you and Pinkerton).
Well, Royal Canadian Bank bought "SFNB", ("Security First Network Bank"), which IS a US bank, and which offers a pretty good online system. They'll do the bill payment online, although you have to log in and type in the amount of the bill for bills that change monthly... you can't arrange for the bills to be sent to them. However, the service is FREE, and in fact they are paying a loss-leader 6% on their checking account right now, so it's practically less than free! Sorry if I sound overly promotional -- it's not really this particular online bank that I like so much, it's the whole process of online banking and bill payment... it's a really great way to work.
What languages/compilers DO support this? It's quite obvious why c/c++ don't allow it... you're practically writing in machine language. Likewise for Java. But something like perl, or smalltalk doesn't permit it either. Neither, so far as I know, do languages such as Eiffel and CLU (academic & experimental languages in most people's eyes). Prolog does, but that seems to be a sort of a special case.
So if these languages don't support hinting on a language level, what does? And why don't they?
> In addition, I simply don't believe it's impossible to > a) Tell the compiler in more detail how to optimise your code
I've always wondered why there aren't programming languages out there that provide direct support for this. There are lots of sorts of optimization hints that we programmers ought to be able to provide to the compiler... knowing that not all compilers will be smart enough to take advantage of all of the hints. But I've never seen a programming language that supported compiler hints in the language level. Am I simply ignorant, or is there a reason why people don't build this into languages?
Did you try discussing this with SJGames? After the problems that THEY have had with rights in the online/computer world, I'd think they'd be a particularly cooperative group. It seems to me that having your computers siezed (and not returned for months) by the FBI based on groundless rumors that you might be involved in hacking would tend to give a company the right attitude to oppose the oppression of the rights of small individuals by powerful large groups.
As an investor in Be, I'd be very disapointed if the company planned to use the money raised in their recent IPO to fund the company for a time then go out of business. (Although a modified business model that allowed them to make money while using free/super-cheap distribution to promote their OS might be a great approach.)
As a human being, I AM very disapointed in your language, and your attitude. I expect better from my 4-year old.
There's a problem with Loser Pays laws (except in egregious cases). The problem is this: You sue me (and let's say, for the sake of argument, that you're actually in the right). I go out and pay $1 million for a team of 23 lawyers who bury you in paperwork, find lots of tricky ways to appeal, and otherwise abuse the system until they win. Believe me, no matter what the case, the $1 million worth of lawers will win against someone with hardly any money/time spent. So now you not only lose, but YOU have to pay my lawyers.
This would lead to an extreme case of attorney arms races, and would NOT benefit the system.
Sounds good, unfortunately, we are NOT simply electrical impulses... electrical signals run the lengths of the neurons, but chemical signals cross the synapses. Sorry... speeding up diffusion is much harder. You could heat things up, but then that would interfere with lots of other vital celular processes (including the generation of new neurochemicals to continue sending signals). You could replace the synaptic fluid with a different material, but nothing other than a water based material could possibly disolve all the chemicals needed. Basically, there's no good way I can come up with to simply speed up the brain.
However... speed isn't everything. Massive parallellism is incredibly powerful.
Thanks for weighing in with a detailed, thoughtful comment on the subject. Like you, I too feel that it would interesting to see specific-language chips and see how well they DO work rather than just speculating on it. -- Michael Chermside
> I hope they redo the test next year and see how much of an improvement team Linux can achieve....
Hey... why hope? Mindcraft (as they took such pains to point out) is a neutral party. That means that we can hire them to re-run the test. In fact, perhaps we should announce that we intend to re-hire them, at some specified date (any suggestions?) to perform a re-test... same rules as the second test, which means Microsoft gets to tune NT however they like, but we do too. This challenge is just the kind of thing that the media might pick up on, and the results of such a contest are certain to be picked up by the media.
The only hard part is that we'd actually have to beat them the second time round. And that's only going to happen if all the hype about the advantages of Open Source are true. It is true, isn't it?
I agree with some other posters: banner ads can only generate a limited amount of revenue; and are certainly not going to be able to support the programming industry. On the other hand, if you were to ask me 50 years ago [don't bother to write in and correct my dates, I'm bad at dates and you get the idea] whether advertisments would be sufficient to support the television industry, I'd have said, of course not -- there's only a limited amount of revenue to be obtained from advertising.
I'd have been wrong. For many, many years the entire television industry was supported entirely from advertising revenues. And the advertising did not become steadily more intrusive, starting out as short segments of video played in breaks between the programs and slowly migrating to endorsement by announcers and then to blatant product placement within the shows and other content. Instead, it did the exact opposite: early television shows very often featured the sponsored products within the show, and only later did they begin to separate the advertising and segregate it to brief (all right, not-so-brief) advertisement breaks.
Now, I'm not saying it's perfect -- there's still a certain amount of intermixing between the content and the advertising, and in recent years the entire system has broken down to be replaced by a consumer-funded arrangement where the fees are collected by cable companies [but I still make do with terrible fuzzy reception and limited selection because I am unwilling to pay for a service that I value so little].
So what does this have to do with software?
Basically, I think that banner-ad-funded software and computer services are a wonderful idea. I salute juno and others who pioneer this. I actually think that banner advertisements are a good idea -- rather like comercials on television, they set an expectation that the advertising will occur only within a narrow strip and should not leak out into the editorial content. Yes, they DO leak out, but when it happens, people get upset, and as long as that expectation is there it may hold things together for a while.
As for the software, I think that "Free" software (as in Linux... free for anyone to use, extend, develop, etc) is a great idea. But not all software will be done that way -- not now, and probably not ever. I also think that "Inexpensive" software (as in Linux, but also as in Netscape and Explorer, and even a lot of shareware out there that charges reasonable prices) is a great idea. Some of the software that is not "Free" may be "Inexpensive", and that would be a good thing. If banner advertisements can help make this possible, by paying the salaries of those who develop and market inexpensive software, that's a great thing.
Most of the time, I will ignore the ads -- it's really not difficult to do, they're certainly not as intrusive as, say, email ads. But sometimes -- particularly if the product being advertised intrigues me -- I will click on that ad, and go check it out. I will do this consciously and intentionally, for two reasons: first, because I'm interested in the product, and secondly because I know that when I do so, I'm also helping to support this nice, cheap, software that I obviously appreciate (else, why would I be using it). This is the same attitude I take with web sites (yes, this means that I check out the banner ads at/. from time to time), and if enough other people have the same attitude, then perhaps my initial instinct is wrong. Perhaps is is possible for (some) of the software industry to be (partially) funded through banner ads. It would be nice.
Unfortunately, this is not true. The defense is only relevent if litigation occurs. Suppose Microsoft called up me and told me to take down my web site because I infringed on their patent. I know that they have literally millions of dollars to spend on legal action. I could afford maybe a couple of thousand dollars on the basis of moral outrage. Realizing that I had no hope of prevailing in a court of law no matter how good my claim, I would probably talk to Microsoft (or whoever held the overly broad patent) and ask if I could get a liscense for (perhaps) a few hundred dollars per year.
In fact, if the patent holder had any smarts, they'd prosecute individuals and small, underfunded companies first, because then they could build up a case law upholding their patent, before taking on those who had the money needed to really contest it. I wish that our system worked better than this, but in reality I know that it doesn't. In my opinion, this can only be fixed by LEGISLATION, not LITIGATION -- although unfortunately that seems unlikely as well, at least in the near future.
Well, I've tried to hire qualified programmers, and it's a difficult thing to do. And it's not because they're being paid such poor wages -- I'm a programmer and I'm making a very good amount of money. But maybe it's just that I came here from the education profession. Maybe I just don't realize how much more deserving programmers are, but as a schoolteacher, I worked harder and was paid half as much.
Actually, it seems to me that having to accept the denegrating title of "Anonymous Coward" is a subtle, non-harmful way to push those who post towards doing so under their own name. No one who feels a real need to be shielded by the cloak of anonyminity will be disuaded from posting, but some who feel that they have something important to say and that their opinions ought to be heard will be impelled to take a step forward and post them under a name.
Now all we need is an Anonymous Coward filter. I wouldn't use it myself, but its very existance would strengthen the drive towards accepting responsibility for ones opinions, without prohibiting anyone from posting anonymously.
Slashdot Mirror
-- Michael Chermside
I am very pleased by what I read here, simply because engaging in open, constructive discussion is the most important thing that could happen. And I agree with your impression that large corporations like Pinkerton simply don't engage in this kind of discussion (at least not with other individuals). If Pinkerton is willing to do so, it is entirely to their credit, and suggests an opportunity for a real coup.
For your part, please respond in kind. Go out of your way to be open, to hear their side, and to try to achieve a real, measurable (even press-releasable) conclusion or compromise of some sort. I (among many others) believe that the opinion your columns have been expressing is a terribly important one, and that you have been expressing it well. On my behalf, as well as that of thousands of others, please go to this discussion with an open mind, but a firm moral foundation. Good luck to you both (you and Pinkerton).
Michael Chermside
mcherm@destiny.com
Well, Royal Canadian Bank bought "SFNB", ("Security First Network Bank"), which IS a US bank, and which offers a pretty good online system. They'll do the bill payment online, although you have to log in and type in the amount of the bill for bills that change monthly... you can't arrange for the bills to be sent to them. However, the service is FREE, and in fact they are paying a loss-leader 6% on their checking account right now, so it's practically less than free! Sorry if I sound overly promotional -- it's not really this particular online bank that I like so much, it's the whole process of online banking and bill payment... it's a really great way to work.
So if these languages don't support hinting on a language level, what does? And why don't they?
> In addition, I simply don't believe it's impossible to
> a) Tell the compiler in more detail how to optimise your code
I've always wondered why there aren't programming languages out there that provide direct support for this. There are lots of sorts of optimization hints that we programmers ought to be able to provide to the compiler... knowing that not all compilers will be smart enough to take advantage of all of the hints. But I've never seen a programming language that supported compiler hints in the language level. Am I simply ignorant, or is there a reason why people don't build this into languages?
-- Michael Chermside
Did you try discussing this with SJGames? After the problems that THEY have had with rights in the online/computer world, I'd think they'd be a particularly cooperative group. It seems to me that having your computers siezed (and not returned for months) by the FBI based on groundless rumors that you might be involved in hacking would tend to give a company the right attitude to oppose the oppression of the rights of small individuals by powerful large groups.
As a human being, I AM very disapointed in your language, and your attitude. I expect better from my 4-year old.
This would lead to an extreme case of attorney arms races, and would NOT benefit the system.
However... speed isn't everything. Massive parallellism is incredibly powerful.
Michael Chermside
Thanks for weighing in with a detailed, thoughtful comment on the subject. Like you, I too feel that it would interesting to see specific-language chips and see how well they DO work rather than just speculating on it. -- Michael Chermside
Hey... why hope? Mindcraft (as they took such pains to point out) is a neutral party. That means that we can hire them to re-run the test. In fact, perhaps we should announce that we intend to re-hire them, at some specified date (any suggestions?) to perform a re-test... same rules as the second test, which means Microsoft gets to tune NT however they like, but we do too. This challenge is just the kind of thing that the media might pick up on, and the results of such a contest are certain to be picked up by the media.
The only hard part is that we'd actually have to beat them the second time round. And that's only going to happen if all the hype about the advantages of Open Source are true. It is true, isn't it?
If anyone likes this idea, let me know.
-- Michael Chermside, mcherm@destinysoftware.com
I certainly hope you are right. If so, well... that's what Open Source is all about.
--- Michael Chermside
I'd have been wrong. For many, many years the entire television industry was supported entirely from advertising revenues. And the advertising did not become steadily more intrusive, starting out as short segments of video played in breaks between the programs and slowly migrating to endorsement by announcers and then to blatant product placement within the shows and other content. Instead, it did the exact opposite: early television shows very often featured the sponsored products within the show, and only later did they begin to separate the advertising and segregate it to brief (all right, not-so-brief) advertisement breaks.
Now, I'm not saying it's perfect -- there's still a certain amount of intermixing between the content and the advertising, and in recent years the entire system has broken down to be replaced by a consumer-funded arrangement where the fees are collected by cable companies [but I still make do with terrible fuzzy reception and limited selection because I am unwilling to pay for a service that I value so little].
So what does this have to do with software?
Basically, I think that banner-ad-funded software and computer services are a wonderful idea. I salute juno and others who pioneer this. I actually think that banner advertisements are a good idea -- rather like comercials on television, they set an expectation that the advertising will occur only within a narrow strip and should not leak out into the editorial content. Yes, they DO leak out, but when it happens, people get upset, and as long as that expectation is there it may hold things together for a while.
As for the software, I think that "Free" software (as in Linux... free for anyone to use, extend, develop, etc) is a great idea. But not all software will be done that way -- not now, and probably not ever. I also think that "Inexpensive" software (as in Linux, but also as in Netscape and Explorer, and even a lot of shareware out there that charges reasonable prices) is a great idea. Some of the software that is not "Free" may be "Inexpensive", and that would be a good thing. If banner advertisements can help make this possible, by paying the salaries of those who develop and market inexpensive software, that's a great thing.
Most of the time, I will ignore the ads -- it's really not difficult to do, they're certainly not as intrusive as, say, email ads. But sometimes -- particularly if the product being advertised intrigues me -- I will click on that ad, and go check it out. I will do this consciously and intentionally, for two reasons: first, because I'm interested in the product, and secondly because I know that when I do so, I'm also helping to support this nice, cheap, software that I obviously appreciate (else, why would I be using it). This is the same attitude I take with web sites (yes, this means that I check out the banner ads at /. from time to time), and if enough other people have the same attitude, then perhaps my initial instinct is wrong. Perhaps is is possible for (some) of the software industry to be (partially) funded through banner ads. It would be nice.
In fact, if the patent holder had any smarts, they'd prosecute individuals and small, underfunded companies first, because then they could build up a case law upholding their patent, before taking on those who had the money needed to really contest it. I wish that our system worked better than this, but in reality I know that it doesn't. In my opinion, this can only be fixed by LEGISLATION, not LITIGATION -- although unfortunately that seems unlikely as well, at least in the near future.
-- Frustrated Individual
Well, I've tried to hire qualified programmers, and it's a difficult thing to do. And it's not because they're being paid such poor wages -- I'm a programmer and I'm making a very good amount of money. But maybe it's just that I came here from the education profession. Maybe I just don't realize how much more deserving programmers are, but as a schoolteacher, I worked harder and was paid half as much.
Now all we need is an Anonymous Coward filter. I wouldn't use it myself, but its very existance would strengthen the drive towards accepting responsibility for ones opinions, without prohibiting anyone from posting anonymously.
So answer me this... if there is no way to reject
the terms of the liscense, is it then invalid?
Could you then violate the terms of this agreement
that you never accepted... say, by distributing
copies of the software to others?